free people; and accordingly it is among the advocates of arbitrary power that such persons, after they have served their purpose by a pretence of patriotic zeal, are ultimately found to range themselves.

an enumeration of the advantages of absolute monarchy;-and we are tempted to follow his example, by concluding with a dry catalogue of the advantages of free government-d of which would require a chapter at least a We positively deny, then, that the interests long as that which we have now bestowed of the country have ever been sacrificed to a upon one of them. Next, then, to that of s vindictive desire to mortify or humble a rival superior security from great reverses and at party-though we freely admit that a great cities, of which we have already spoken at deal of the time and the talent that might be sufficient length, we should be disposed devoted more directly to her service, is wasted rank that pretty decisive feature, of the se in such an endeavour. This, however, is un-perior Happiness which it confers upon ali avoidable-nor is it possible to separate those the individuals who live under it. The com discussions, which are really necessary to ex-sciousness of liberty is a great blessing and en pose the dangers or absurdity of the practical joyment in itself.-The occupation it affords measures proposed by a party, from those the importance it confers the excitement which have really no other end but to expose of intellect, and the elevation of spirit which it to general ridicule or odium. This too, it implies, are all elements of happiness pe however, it should be remembered, is a point culiar to this condition of society, and quite in which the country has a still deeper, though separate and independent of the external ad a more indirect interest than in the former; vantages with which it may be attended. since it is only by such means that a system In the second place, however, liberty makes that is radically vicious can be exploded, or a men more Industrious, and consequently more set of men fundamentally corrupt and incapa- generally prosperous and Wealthy; the result pable removed. If the time be well spent, of which is, both that they have among them therefore, which is occupied in preventing or more of the good things that wealth can pro palliating some particular act of impolicy or cure, and that the resources of the State are oppression, it is impossible to grudge that by greater for all public purposes. In the third which the spring and the fountain of all such place, it renders men more Valiant and Highacts may be cut off. minded, and also promotes the development With regard to the tumult-the disorder of Genius and Talents, both by the unbounded the danger to public peace-the vexation and career it opens up to the emulation of every discomfort which certain sensitive persons individual in the land, and by the natural eš and great lovers of tranquillity represent as fect of all sorts of intellectual or moral ex the fruits of our political dissensions, we can-citement to awaken all sorts of intellectual not help saying that we have no sympathy and moral capabilities. In the fourth place, with their delicacy or their timidity. What it renders men more Patient, and Docile, and they look upon as a frightful commotion of the Resolute in the pursuit of any public object elements, we consider as no more than a whole- and consequently both makes their chance of some agitation; and cannot help regarding success greater, and enables them to make the contentions in which freemen are engaged much greater efforts in every way, in propor by a conscientious zeal for their opinions, as tion to the extent of their population. No an invigorating and not ungenerous exercise. slaves could ever have undergone the toils to What serious breach of the public peace has which the Spartans or the Romans tasked it occasioned?-to what insurrections, or con- themselves for the good or the glory of their spiracies, or proscriptions has it ever given country-and no tyrant could ever have ex rise?-what mob even, or tumult, has been torted the sums in which the Commons of excited by the contention of the two great England have voluntarily assessed themselves parties of the state, since their contention has for the exigencies of the state. These are been open, and their weapons appointed, and among the positive advantages of freedom; their career marked out in the free lists of the and, in our opinion, are its chief advantages. constitution?-Suppress these contentions, in--But we must not forget, in the fifth and last deed-forbid these weapons, and shut up these lists, and you will have conspiracies and insurrections enough.-These are the short-sighted fears of tyrants.-The dissensions of a free people are the preventives and not the indications of radical disorderand the noises which make the weak-hearted tremble, are but the natural murmurs of those mighty and mingling currents of public opinion, which are destined to fertilize and unite the country, and can never become dangerous till an attempt is made to obstruct their course, or to disturb their level.

Mr. Leckie has favoured his readers with

place, that there is nothing else but a free government by which men can be secured from those arbitrary invasions of their Persons and Properties-those cruel persecutions, op pressive imprisonments, and lawless exeertions, which no formal code can prevent an absolute monarch from regarding as a part of his prerogative; and, above all, from those provincial exactions and oppressions, and those universal Insults, and Contumelies, and Indignities, by which the inferior minions of power spread misery and degradation among the whole mass of every people which has no political independence.

(April, 1814.)

A Song of Triumph. By W. SOTHEBY, Esq. 8vo. London: 1814.

L'Acte Constitutionnel, en la Séance du 9 Avril, 1814. 8vo. Londres: 1814.

Of Bonaparte, the Bourbons, and the Necessity of rallying round our legitimate Princes, for the Happiness of France and of Europe. By F. A. CHATEAUBRIAND. 8vo. London: 1814.*

Ir would be strange indeed, we think, if | many high and anxious speculations. The feelpages dedicated like ours to topics of presentings, we are sure, are in unison with all that interest, and the discussions of the passing exists around us; and we reckon therefore on hour, should be ushered into the world at such more than usual indulgence for the speculaa moment as this, without some stamp of that tions into which they may expand. common joy and anxious emotion with which The first and predominant feeling which the wonderful events of the last three months rises on contemplating the scenes that have are still filling all the regions of the earth. In just burst on our view, is that of deep-felt such a situation, it must be difficult for any gratitude and delight,-for the liberation of one who has the means of being heard, to re- so many oppressed nations,-for the cessation frain from giving utterance to his sentiments: of bloodshed and fear and misery over the But to us, whom it has assured, for the first fairest portions of the civilised world, and time, of the entire sympathy of all our coun- for the enchanting, though still dim and un trymen, the temptation, we own, is irresisti- certain prospect of long peace and measureless ble; and the good-natured part of our readers, improvement, which seems at last to be openwe are persuaded, will rather smile at our ing on the suffering kingdoms of Europe. The simplicity, than fret at our presumption, when very novelty of such a state of things, which we add, that we have sometimes permitted could be known only by description to the ourselves to fancy that, if any copy of these greater part of the existing generation-the our lucubrations should go down to another suddenness of its arrival, and the contrast generation, it may be thought curious to trace which it forms with the anxieties and alarms in them the first effects of events that are pro- to which it has so immediately succeeded, all bably destined to fix the fortune of succeed- concur most powerfully to enhance its vast ing centuries, and to observe the impressions intrinsic attractions. It has come upon the which were made on the minds of contempo- world like the balmy air and flushing verdure raries, by those mighty transactions, which of a late spring, after the dreary chills of a will appear of yet greater moment in the eyes of a distant posterity. We are still too near that great image of Deliverance and Reform which the Genius of Europe has just set up before us, to discern with certainty its just lineaments, or construe the true character of the Aspect with which it looks onward to futurity! We see enough, however, to fill us with innumerable feelings, and the germs of

*This, I am afraid, will now be thought to be too much of a mere "Song of Triumph;" or, at least, to be conceived throughout in a far more sanguine tion of passing events, or a philosophical estimate of the frailties of human nature: And, having certainly been written under that prevailing excitement, of which I chiefly wish to preserve it as a memorial, I have no doubt that, to some extent, it is so. At the same time it should be recollected, that it was written immediately after the first restoration of the Bourbons; and before the startling drama of the Hundred Days, and its grand catastrophe at Waterloo, had dispelled the first wholesome fears of the Allies, or sown the seeds of more bitter ranklings and resentments in the body of the French people and, above all, that it was so written, before the many lawless invasions of national independence, and broken promises of Sovereigns to their subjects, which have since revived that distrust, which both nations and philosophers were then, perhaps, too ready to renounce. And after all, I must say, that an attentive reader may find, even in this strain of good auguries, both such traces of misgivings, and such iteration of anxious warnings, as to save me from the imputation of having merely predicted a Millennium.

spirit than is consistent either with a wise observa

long and interminable winter; and the refreshing sweetness with which it has visited the earth, feels like Elysium to those who have just escaped from the driving tempests it has banished.

We have reason to hope, too, that the riches of the harvest will correspond with the splendour of this early promise. All the periods in which human society and human intellect have been known to make great and memor. able advances, have followed close upon periods of general agitation and disorder. Men's minds, it would appear, must be deeply and roughly stirred, before they become prolific of great conceptions, or vigorous resolves; and a vast and alarming fermentation must pervade and agitate the mass of society, to inform it with that kindly warmth, by which alone the seeds of genius and improvement can be expanded. The fact, at all events, is abundantly certain; and may be accounted for, we conceive, without mystery, and without metaphors.

A popular revolution in government or religion or any thing else that gives rise to general and long-continued contention, naturally produces a prevailing disdain of authority, and boldness of thinking in the leaders of the fray,-together with a kindling of the imagination and development of intellect in a great multitude of persons, who, in ordinary times, would have vegetated stupidly in the places where fortune had fixed them. Power

folly. History, we think, will not class him quite so low as the English newspapers of the present day. He is a creature to be dreaded and condemned, but not, assuredly, to be despised by men of ordinary dimensions. His catastrophe, so far as it is yet visible, seems unsuitable indeed, and incongruous with the part he has hitherto sustained; but we have perceived nothing in it materially to alter the estimate which we formed long ago of his character. He still seems to us a man of consummate conduct, valour, and decision in war, but without the virtues, or even the generous or social vices of a soldier of fortune;

and distinction, and all the higher prizes in the lottery of life, are then brought within the reach of a larger proportion of the community; and that vivifying spirit of ambition, which is the true source of all improvement, instead of burning at a few detached points on the summit of society, now pervades every portion of its frame. Much extravagance, and, in all probability, much guilt and much misery, result, in the first instance, from this sudden extrication of talent and enterprise, in places where they can as yet have no legitimate issue, or points of application. But the contending elements at last find their spheres, and their balance. The disorder ceases; but-of matchless activity indeed, and boundless the activity remains. The multitudes that ambition, but entirely without principle, feelhad been raised into intellectual existence by ing, or affection ;-suspicious, vindictive, and dangerous passions and crazy illusions, do not overbearing;-selfish and solitary in all his all relapse into their original torpor, when pursuits and gratifications;-proud and overtheir passions are allayed and their illusions weening, to the very borders of insanity;— dispelled. There is a great permanent addi- and considering at last the laws of honour and tion to the power and the enterprise of the the principles of morality, equally beneath his community; and the talent and the activity notice with the interests and feelings of other which at first convulsed the state by their men.-Despising those who submitted to his unmeasured and misdirected exertions, ulti-pretensions, and pursuing, with implacable mately bless and adorn it, under a more en-hatred, all who presumed to resist them, he lightened and less intemperate guidance. If seems to have gone on in a growing confi we may estimate the amount of this ultimate good by that of the disorder which preceded it, we cannot be too sanguine in our calculations of the happiness that awaits the rising generation. The fermentation, it will readily be admitted, has been long and violent enough to extract all the virtue of all the ingredients that have been submitted to its action; and enough of scum has boiled over, and enough of pestilent vapour been exhaled, to afford a reasonable assurance that the residuum will be both ample and pure.

dence in his own fortune, and contempt for mankind,-till a serious check from without showed him the error of his calculation, and betrayed the fatal insecurity of a career which reckoned only on prosperity.

Over the downfal of such a man, it is fitting that the world should rejoice; and his downfal, and the circumstances with which it has been attended, seem to us to hold out three several grounds of rejoicing.

In the first place, we think it has established for ever the impracticability of any scheme If this delight in the spectacle and the of universal dominion; and proved, that Euprospect of boundless good, be the first feeling rope possesses sufficient means to maintain that is excited by the scene before us, the and assert the independence of her several second, we do not hesitate to say, is a stern states, in despite of any power that can be and vindictive joy at the downfal of the Tyrant brought against them. It might formerly have and the tyranny by whom that good had been been doubted,-and many minds of no abject so long intercepted. We feel no compassion cast were depressed with more than doubts for that man's reverses of fortune, whose on the subject,-whether the undivided sway heart, in the days of his prosperity, was which Rome exercised of old, by means of steeled against that, or any other humanising superior skill and discipline, might not be reemotion. He has fallen, substantially, with-vived in modern times by arrangement, ac out the pity, as he rose without the love, of tivity, and intimidation, and whether, in any portion of mankind; and the admiration spite of the boasted intelligence of Europe at which was excited by his talents and activity the present day, the ready communication and success, having no solid stay in the mag-between all its parts, and the supposed weight nanimity or generosity of his character, has of its publ e opinion, the sovereign of one or been turned, perhaps rather too eagerly, into scorn and derision, now that he is deserted by fortune, and appears without extraordinary resources in the day of his calamity. We do not think that an ambitious despot and sanguinary conqueror can be too much execrated, or too little respected by mankind; but the popular clamour, at this moment, seems to us to be carried too far, even against this very dangerous individual. It is now discovered, it seems, that he has neither genius nor common sense; and he is accused of cowardice for not killing himself, by the very persons who would infallibly have exclaimed against his suicide, as a clens proof of weakness and

two great kingdoms might not subdue all the rest, by rapidity of movement and decision of conduct, and retain them in subjection by a strict system of disarming and espionageby a constant interchange of armies and sta tions-and, in short, by a dexterous and alert use of those very means, of extensive intelligence and communication, which their civilisation seemed at first to hold out as their surest protection. The experiment, however, has now been tried; and the result is, that the nations of Europe can never be brought under the rule of one conquering sovereign. No individual, it may be fairly presumed, will ever try that fatal experiment again, with se

many extraordinary advantages, and chances of success, as he in whose hands it has now finally miscarried. The different states, it is to be hoped, will never again be found so shamefully unprovided for defence-so long insensible to their danger-and, let us not scruple at last to speak the truth, so little worthy of being saved-as most of them were at the beginning of that awful period; while there is still less chance of any military sovereign again finding himself invested with the absolute disposal of so vast a population, at once habituated to war and victory by the energies of a popular revolution, and disposed to submit to any hardships and privations for a ruler who would protect them from a recurrence of revolutionary horrors. That ruler, however, and that population, reinforced by immense drafts from the countries he had already overrun, has now been fairly beaten down by the other nations of Europe- at length cordially united by a sense of their common danger. Henceforward, therefore, they show their strength, and the means and occasions of bringing it into action; and the very notoriety of that strength, and of the scenes on which it has been proved, will in all probability prevent the recurrence of any necessity for proving it again.

and by new aggressions, and the menace of more intolerable evils, drove them into that league which rolled back the tide of ruin on himself, and ultimately hurled him into the insignificance from which he originally sprung. It is for this reason, chiefly, that we join in the feeling, which we think universal in this country, of joy and satisfaction at the utter destruction of this victim of Ambition,-and at the failure of those negotiations, which would have left him, though humbled, in possession of a sovereign state, and of great actual power and authority. We say nothing at present of the policy or the necessity, that may have dictated those propositions; but the actual result is far more satisfactory, than any condition of their acceptance. Without this, the lesson to Ambition would have been im perfect, and the retribution of Eternal Justice apparently incomplete. It was fitting, that the world should see it again demonstrated, by this great example, that the appetite of conquest is in its own nature insatiable ;— and that a being, once abandoned to that bloody career, is fated to pursue it to the end; and must persist in the work of desolation and murder, till the accumulated wrongs and resentments of the harassed world sweep him from its face. The knowledge of this may deter some dangerous spirits from entering on a course, which will infallibly bear them on to destruction;-and at all events should in

of its errors and miseries, by accomplishing their doom at the beginning. Sanguinary conquerors, we do not hesitate to say, should be devoted by a perpetual proscription, in mercy to the rest of the world.

The second ground of rejoicing in the downfal of Bonaparte is on account of the impressive lesson it has read to Ambition, and the striking illustration it has afforded, of the in-duce the sufferers to cut short the measure evitable tendency of that passion to bring to ruin the power and the greatness which it seeks so madly to increase. No human being, perhaps, ever stood on so proud a pinnacle of worldly grandeur, as this insatiable conqueror, at the beginning of his Russian campaign.He had done more-he had acquired moreand he possessed more, as to actual power, influence, and authority, than any individual that ever figured on the scene of European story. He had visited, with a victorious army, almost every capital of the Continent; and dictated the terms of peace to their astonished princes. He had consolidated under his immediate dominion, a territory and population apparently sufficient to meet the combination of all that it did not include; and interwoven himself with the government of almost all that was left. He had cast down and erected thrones at his pleasure; and surrounded himself with tributary kings, and principalities of his own creation. He had connected himself by marriage with the proudest of the ancient sovereigns; and was at the head of the largest and the finest army that was ever assembled to desolate or dispose of the world. Had he known where to stop in his aggressions upon the peace and independence of mankind, it seems as if this terrific sovereignty might have been permanently established in his person. But the demon by whom he was possessed urged him on to his fate. He could not bear that any power should exist which did not confess its dependence on him. Without a pretext for quarrel, he attacked Russia-insulted Austria-trod contemptuously on the fallen fortunes of Prussia

Our last cause of rejoicing over this grand catastrophe, arises from the discredit, and even the derision, which it has so opportunely thrown upon the character of conquerors in general. The thinking part of mankind did not perhaps need to be disabused upon this subject ;-but no illusion was ever so strong, or so pernicious with the multitude, as that which invested heroes of this description with a sort of supernatural grandeur and dignity, and bent the spirits of men before them, as beings intrinsically entitled to the homage and submission of inferior natures. It is above all things fortunate, therefore, when this spell can be broken, by merely reversing the operation by which it had been imposed; when the idols that success had tricked out in the mock attributes of divinity, are stripped of their disguise by the rough hand of misfortune, and exhibited before the indignant and wondering eyes of their admirers, in the naked littleness of humbled and helpless men,-depending, for life and subsistence, on the pity of their human conquerors,and spared with safety, in consequence of their insignificance.-Such an exhibition, we would fain hope, will rescue men for ever from that most humiliating devotion, which has hitherto so often tempted the ambition, and facilitated the progress of conquerors.-It is not in our days, at least. that it will be forgotten, that Bonaparte turned out a mere mortal in the end;-and ne her in our