which was exerted, to expose and decry it. Walpole tells us enough of the corrupt means by which Lord Bute's authority was maintained, and of the discreditable intrigues by which succeeding Administrations were raised up and cast down. Wilkes and Junius exposed, in cutting libels, and with caustic severity, their real or supposed continuance in a subsequent part of the reign of George III.; Burke and Fox declaimed in a voice of thunder against the vices of Lord North's administration; and the disasters of that untoward period demonstrate but too clearly, that the radical vice of parliamentary influence had almost banished talent and ability from the public service. Every one knows that commissions in the army and navy were bestowed on children, as the mere price of support to Government; and that, when the little hirelings of corruption were sent forth into the public service, they were utterly ignorant, for the most part, of even the most elementary parts of their duty. The same system continued during the early years of the Revolutionary war; and we all know with what disastrous effects it was then attended. But the Whig orators and patriots, with all their acuteness and zeal, forgot to tell us one thing, which, however, it most behoved them to have told-and that is, that it was themselves who had formed and habituated the nation to this degrading system. They have forgot to tell us that they had the framing of the constitution in church and state, after the Revolution of 1688; that their power was, for nearly a century, entirely paramount; and that, if the system of government had come, during that time, to rest on corrupt influences, it was they, and they alone, who are responsible for the practical moulding of the constitution into such a form.

No man who knows the human heart, or has had any experience, either of public characters in his own, or historic shades in any former age, will suppose that the Conservative party are more inclined in their hearts to pure and virtuous administration than their popular opponents; but, nevertheless, there can be no question that their government, generally speaking, is much more pure, and its effects far more beneficial. Decisive proof of this exists in English history during the nineteenth century. It took nearly forty years of incessant effort on the part of the Tories to eradi

cate the harvest of corruption which sprang up since 1761, from the seeds so profusely sown by their predecessors during the seventy years before that period; and, unless they had been aided by the disasters of the American, and the perilous chances of the Revolutionary contest, it is probable all their efforts would have been unsuccessful. But when, by the firmness of George III., and the talent of Mr Pitt, the contest for political supremacy was at an end, and government was rested on its true basis-that of property being the ruling, and numbers the controlling power-when the Tory party, freed from the influence of their old Jacobite recollections, had rallied with sincere loyalty round the throne, and the Whigs, having lost the glittering prospect of a return to power and corruption, had been driven to seek for support in the passions of the people, what a marvellous display of public virtue and strength did the empire afford ! Search the annals of the world, you will find nothing superior, few things equal, to the patriotism, public spirit, and generous devotion of the latter period of the Revolutionary war. Its unequalled triumphs prove this; the biographies of its great men, which are daily issuing from the press, show from what a noble and elevated spirit these triumphs had sprung. They conquered because they were worthy to conquer. The burning patriotism of Nelson; the prophetic courage of Pitt; the spotless heart of Collingwood; the stern resolve of St Vincent; the steady judgment of Eldon; the moral firmness of Castlereagh; the unconquerable resolution of Wellington, shine forth as the most conspicuous ornaments of this brilliant period. But these men, great as they were, did not stand alone. They were in prominent situations, and have thence acquired immortal fame; but they were followed and supported by hundreds and thousands, animated with the same spirit, and possessing, if called forth, the same abilities. England, at that period, seemed to have reached that epoch in national life, brief and speedily to perish," as Tacitus says, when the firmness of aristocracy had given invincible resolution, and the energy of democracy inexhaustible vigour to the state; when we had the tenacity of nobles without their pride, and the vehemence of the people without their licentiousness.

VOL. III.

Y

The Emperor Nicholas, therefore, judged too hastily when he condemned all free countries and constitutional monarchies as necessarily the seats of corruption. It is no wonder he thought so from the experience he had of them, and that which the greater part of such governments, in his time, had afforded. If we had judged of constitutional monarchy and the cause of freedom from the history of England from 1688 to 1763, we should have said the same. But the subsequent history of the British empire has revealed the real cause of these general and widespread abuses. It has shown that they arose not necessarily from the triumph of freedom, but accidentally from government, in consequence of that triumph, having for a long period been established on a wrong basis. The contending powers, whose opposition produces equilibrium, had been brought to draw in the same direction, and thence the spring-tide of corruption. A constitutional monarchy is not necessarily based on patronage; it is so only when the popular party are in power. That party, having, as a whole, little or no interest in the property of the state, can be retained in obedience, and hindered from urging on the revolutionary movement, only by being well supplied with offices. It is like a beast of prey, which must be constantly gorged to be kept quiet. But the holders of property need no such degrading motive to keep them steady to the cause of order. They are retained there by their own private interest; by their deep stake in the maintenance of tranquillity; by their desire to transmit their estates unimpaired to their descendants. They are as certain, in the general case, of supporting the cause of order, and its guardians at the helm of a state, as the passengers in a ship are of standing by the pilot and crew who are to save them from the waves. The true, the legitimate, the honourable support of a Conservative government, is to be found in that numerous class of men who have no favours to ask, who would disdain to accept any gratification, who adhere to the cause of order because it is that of peace, of religion, of themselves, and of their children. It is a sense of the strength of these bonds, a knowledge of the independent and disinterested support which they are certain of receiving, which enables a Conservative Administration so often to neglect its supporters in the dis

tribution of the public patronage, and seek for merit and worth in the ranks of its opponents. A democratic government can never do this, because the passions and interests of the great bulk of its supporters are adverse to the preservation of property; and therefore they can be kept to their colours, and hindered from clamouring for those measures which its leaders feel to be destructive, only by the exclusive enjoyment and entire monopoly of all the patronage of the state.

Without undervaluing, then, the effects of the Revolution of 1688; without discrediting the motives of many of the patriots who combined to shake off the oppressive tyranny and Romish bigotry of James II., it may safely by affirmed, that it was George III., Lord Bute, and Mr Pitt, who put the British constitution upon its right, and the only durable and beneficial basis, and worked out the Revolution itself to its appropriate and beneficent effects. This is the great and important moral of English history during the eighteenth century; this is the conclusion forced on the mind by the perusal of Walpole's Memoirs, and his vehement abuse of Lord Bute and George III. for their dismissal of the

Whigs from power. Doubtless, they acted from selfish motives in doing so. The king wanted to regain his prerogative, the minister to secure his power; but still it was, on the part of both, a step in the right direction. But for the resolute stand which they made against the Whig oligarchy -but for their wisdom in throwing themselves on the property of the nation to withstand its debasement, a domineering party would have become omnipotent, the people would have been irrecoverably plunged in the slough of corruption, and the liberties of England lost for ever, according to all former experience, in the firmly established despotism consequent on a successful revolution. George III. said, on the first decisive parliamentary division which gave a majority to the Tories in 1761-" At length, then, we have a king on the throne in England." Posterity will add-At length the foundations of a free constitution were laid on a durable and practicable basis.

MADAME DE STAEL

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1837]

AMIDST the deluge of new and ephemeral publications under which the press both in France and England is groaning, and the woful depravity of public taste, in all branches of literature, which in the former country has followed the Revolution of the Three Glorious Days, it is not the least important part of the duty of all those who have any share, however inconsiderable, in the direction of the objects to which public thought is to be applied, to recur from time to time to the great and standard works of a former age; and from amidst the dazzling light of passing meteors in the lower regions of the atmosphere, to endeavour to direct the public gaze to those fixed luminaries whose radiance in the higher heavens shines, and ever will shine, in imperishable lustre. From our sense of the importance and utility of this attempt, we are not to be deterred by the common remark, that these authors are in everybody's hands; that their works are read at school, and their names have become as household sounds. We know that many things are read at school which are forgotten at college; and many things learned at college which are unhappily and permanently discarded in later years; and that there are many authors whose names are as household sounds, whose works for that very reason are as a strange and unknown tongue. Every one has heard of Racine and Molière, of Bossuet and Fénélon, of Voltaire and Rousseau, of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, of Pascal and Rabelais. We would beg to ask even our best informed and most learned readers, with how many of their works they are really familiar; how many of their felicitous expressions have sunk into their