ftanding the licentious and horrible language to which multitudes were already accustomed, repeated inftances of unpunished murder must occur, before men will be found to undertake it without anger, familiarly, and for the trifling motive of a fum of money. The earlier fummary executions of the French evidently refulted from the furious effervefcence of an ignorant rabble: they were serviceable to no particular caufe: they coincided with the views of no fpecific party years of anarchy were neceflary to form and train the execrable men of the ga of September. Had the corporation of Paris, or the affembly, refolutely dragged to punishment the first murderers, affaffination could never have grown into a fyllem.

The Vth book contains a very circumftantial account of the confufion, mischief, and civil warfare, which fignalized the 13th and 14th of July; and which (applauded as this revolt has been,) must have exceeded that of the 10th of Auguft. De la Salle is on this occafion mentioned with high encomium, p. 161. Parallels occur between Necker and Cicero, La Fayette and Cato, neither of which is very fortunate.

Section VI contains many conflitutional difcuffions, and very properly blames the rafhnefs of the affembly on the 4th of Auguft in its mode of abolifhing the feudal fyftem. Dr. GIRTANNER inclines to the opinion that the declaration of rights ought wholly to have been avoided, or at leaft poftponed, until after the completion of the conftitution. In p. 249, he notices the folitary vote of Syeyes against the fuppreffion of tythes without indemnity. It was, it feems, a point of honour with the clergy not to vote in their own caufe; and, by this idle affectation of difintereftedness, they conferred on injuftice the honours of almoft unanimous approbation. A like vanity defrauded the people of the liberty of re-choofing the members of the conflituting affembly into the enfuing legiflature.

At the clofe of this fection, we have an analyfis of the reprefentative body, which the author diftributes into five parties, diftinct in aim and opinion: 1. the royalists; 2. the ariftocrates or Feuillans; 3. the democrates or Jacobins; 4. the Orleans faction; and 5. the alarmed (die furchtfamen,) who were conftantly fhifting to that fide, which had the popular cry in its favour on the depending queftion, and thus gave an habitual majority to out-door opinion. Dr. GIRTANNER afcribes to the fecond party, which comprehended Mounier, Malouet, Lally-Tolendal, La Fayette, Clermont-Tonnerre, Bergasse, &c. the exclufive praile of being the true friends of the people, the pure patriots. In what fenfe does he ufe thefe equivocal phrafes? If he means to fay that honefly of intention exifted only among these gentlemen, will he deny the fame quality to Rabaud, to

Dupont,

Dupont, to Noailles, to Syeyes, and to others of the democrates? Can he believe any large party to confift principally of men of difinterested virtue, or that the proportion of virtuous men can materially vary in different large parties? If he means to fay that wisdom of purfuit exifted only among thofe whom he has named, will he deny that they often differed from each other, and that the votes of each are on feveral occafions open to found objections? Befides, as it belongs to the statesman to eftimate justly the public mind, and not to purfue the impracticable, but the best practicable, an ultimate want of fuccefs is fome proof of want of prudence. Neither ought it to furprize us that these perfons, by attempting to fubject both king and people to their peculiar will, and by alternately weakening and ftrengthening both, in order to balance the one against the other, should have finally loft all useful influence over both.

The VIth book alfo elucidates the ftate of Paris preliminary to the 5th and 6th of October, and the Vilth continues the defcription of that riotous proceffion, when the royal captives, who followed in the train, were flowly moved along amid the horrid yells, and thrilling fcreams, frantic dances, infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations, of the furies of hell in the abufed fhape of the vileft of women.' Of this enterprize, the author, we fufpe&t, attributes too much to the confpiracy of his Orleans faction. It is probable that very temperate friends to liberty were about this period apprehenfive that the king, become fenfible of the progreffive and fyftematic diminution of his power, wifhed to throw himself into the arms of the royalifts, to diffolve the affembly, and to withdraw from Verfailles. It is probable that they confidered the confinement of the royal family as the only adequate preventive, and that they believed this imprifonment could be accomplished moft decently and most effectually by compelling their removal to Paris. La Fayette's letter to d'Estaing is a plain proof that the various means of fecuring the king's perfon had long been agitated in the metropolis. Maillard's connection with the Hotel de Ville, and the order given by the municipality to La Fayette at the head of the national guards to protect the king's journey, are all evidences that not the murder of the monarch, (as Dr. GIRTANNER would have us believe,) but the fecure poffeffion of the living king was the object of those who planned thefe difgufting orgies of liberty.'

Section VIII opens with a biography of La Fayette; in which the author fays that, in 1781, when in America, Lord Cornwallis wrote home concerning him that the boy could not escape him. It terminates with the appearance of the king in the delighted affembly on the 4th of February, and the incompre

henfible

henfible execution of Favras, the Fenwick of the French revolution.

The IXth book includes an account of the preparations for the auguft ceremony of the federation, at which the author was prefent. Thus far his work has gone through a fecond edition, and appears to have derived great improvement from a deliberate revifal.

The fourth volume opens with a fecond VIIIth fection or chapter; there having been an addition of two chapters to the new edition of the preceding volumes. It paints the magnificent fpectacle of this national feftival, with a glow worthy of its fingular fublimity. The IXth and Xth chapters proceed to the disturbances at Nancy and the refignation of minifters.

From the beginning of the fifth vol. chap. XI, we fhall extract a rhetorical paffage, for the animadverfion of those who are purfuing conftitutional reforms:

Of this threefold power (legislative, judicial, and executive,) into which fovereignty branches, one is by its very nature always tending to domineer, always ftruggling for independence. This is the legislative power. This alone is to be feared. This alone can become defpotic, or dangerous to liberty. Even the executive power can never degenerate into defpotifm, without incroaching on the legiflative. The legiflative power muft confequently be carefully feparated from the executive power; and it must be more feverely Timited than the executive power, because it is the most dangerous of

any.

Now there are no other means of limiting the legislative power, thau by partitioning it. Hence the effential inftitution of an upper and a lower houfe; without which, or fomething equivalent, no great ftate can remain free. If the legiflative power be not divided, if it confift as in France only of one houfe, one body, one affembly,-all the laws, which it may affect to make for its own controui and limitation, will prove mere refolutions, which a breath has formed and can difpel, and by which it will never fubmit to be bound. As the Itaple of the fetters, which it may affect to put on, remains in its own hand, they can in no refpect reftrain its movements. The legislative power, not partitioned, can no more keep within bounds, than Archimedes could move the earth; and for the fame realon,-it wants the statio nary point.'

Dr. GIRTANNER then goes on to approve of making this upper house a court of judgment for ftate-prifoners: an opinion which, we should fuppofe, can only arife from his inattention to the hiftory of English ftate-trials, fo very few of which can be admired for the equity of their termination. It is rather defirable that the practice of impeachment (if we may use this word for attempting the punishment of crimes not previously defined by law,) fhould expire; and that all culprits, even when accused by a committee of the reprefentative body, fhould

take

take their trial in the regular courts of juftice, and before juries of the people. It is true that, in periods of ferment, the verdicts of juries will lean prejudicially towards the popular with: but for this evil the remedy feems to be, at the petition of the prifoner and with the advice of the judge, to grant a new trial at fome moderate diftance of time.

At page 174 begins a fketch of the life and death of Mirabeau. In confequence of his deceafe, a deputation from the magiftracy of Paris waited on the affembly; when Paftoret, in its name, folicited that a temple fhould be fet apart for the burial-place of the great men of France; that it fhould appertain to the legislature to allot this fepulchre; that to the remains of Mirabeau the honor be conceded; and that the building, formerly the church of Saint Genevieve, be hallowed to this ufe, and infcribed "To patriots, by their grateful country." The legiflature acceded to the propofal, and thus laid the firft ftone of a fpecies of canonization, which, if cautiously awarded, would probably have degenerated,- during the age of anti-chriftian barbarifm and ignorance, fo likely to revifit France, into a new idolatrous dæmonifm, into the worship of the manes of their great men. The funeral proceffion of Mirábeau was fplendid, but lefs claffically beautiful than that planned by David for the apotheotis of Voltaire. The conftituted authorities voluntarily adopted a mourning of eight days. When it is confidered that the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and other most refpectable Feuillans, were foremost to recommend and to concur in these pofthumous celebrations, Mirabeau, and confequently the Orleans party, of which he was the soul, must furely be acquitted of thofe dark regicidical projects, which Dr. GIRTANNER afcribes to them on the 24th of June and 6th of October.

Book XII continues the narrative to the period of the king's efcape. Dr. GIRTANNER notices the remarkable fact that, in the year 1789, the original forms of convocation recognized in Paris more than 300,000 citizens, having fuffrage and elegibility both for municipal and legiflative functions; whereas, in the reprefentative conftitution imagined by the affembly, only 77,371 had preferved this privilege; fo that no less than threefourths of the people were deprived of their political liberties, and were degraded in their civil condition, by this conftituting affembly. Yet, notwithstanding its aristocratic precautions, difobedience and anarchy feem to have been regularly progref five during the whole continuance of its sway.

The XIIIth fection relates to the flight and re-capture of the king, and of the royal family. It concludes with an account of the riots at Birmingham, accompanied by a remark which we fhall tranfcribe, but not in the popular dialect: p. 147.

• Es

Es ift fchändlich, dafs, in dem achtzehnten Jahrhunderte, England das Beispiel einer folchen Intoleranz und einer Religionfverfolgung giebt. Indeffen erhellt doch auch hieraus, was alle Diejenigen einftimmig geftehen, die fich lange genug in England aufgehalten, und nicht blofs Hüchtig beobachtet haben, was ich aus meiner eigenen langen Erfahrung beftätigen kann: dafs nehmlich England eines der allerabergläubigften und unaufgeklärteften Länder in Europa ift.'

The XIVth book begins to evolve the progrefs of the now avowed with of the Parifians to abolish royalty in France. Dr. GIRTANNER fpeaks with great bitterness and contempt both of Cand reet and of Thomas Payne, whofe writings, as well as thofe of Briffot, about this period came into great request. Gregoire, Robefpurre, Pethion, proclaimed in the affembly their with that a national convention might be fummoned in order to try the king. Thele feditious propofals, feconded by the petitions and correspondence of the clubs, neceffitated a formal separation of those friends of liberty who had hitherto acted in concert: The conftitutional party, known by the name of Feuillans, at this time feceded from the Jacobin club, which retained almost all its private but only fix of its fenatorial members-Pethion, Buzot, Robespierre, Roederer, Antoine, and Coroller. An addrefs was publifhed by the Feuillans, foliciting the provincial affiliated focieties to feparate from the republicans, and offering itself as a centre of union: but in vain. The Jacobins retained almoft univerfally the adhesion of their brethren, and from this time every obferver forefaw the downfall of the conftitutional royalty. The conqueft of Avignon by fraternization is juftly reprobated :-A copy of the conftitution, as finally accepted by the king, is inferted; and the feparation of the conftituting allembly is related.

The XVth fection, which occupies the whole seventh volume, comprehends the period intervening between the meeting of the legislative affembly and the declaration of war against Auftria. It notices the inefficacy of the law against clubs, fo impertinently voted on the death-bed of the preceding legislature:-it traces the progrefs of the Jacobins in their great plan, the fuccefs of which the author attributes to their confiftency and industry-and it concludes with an invective against democracy, inferior in eloquence, but not in bitterness, to thofe of Mr. Burke.

As we shall have occafion to refume the confideration of this work, whenever the remaining volumes fhall reach us, any farther opinion of its general merits may be deferred to that period. Indeed, from the analyfis which we have given, each reader may form a judgment for himself.

Art.