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country, however, we still speak and feel as if they existed; and the champions of aristocracy in particular, continue, with very few exceptions, both to maintain pretensions that their principals have long ago abandoned, and to impute to their adversaries, crimes and absurdities with which they have long ceased to be chargeable. To them, therefore, no other alternative has yet presented itself but the absolute triumph of one or other of two opposite and irreconcileable extremes. Whatever is taken from the sovereign, they consider as being necessarily given to crazy republicians; and very naturally dislike all limitations of the royal power, because they are unable to distinguish them from usurpations by the avowed enemies of all subordination. That the real state of things has long been extremely different, men of reflection might have concluded from the known principles of human nature, and men of information must have learned from sources of undoubted authority: But no small proportion of our zealous politicians belong to neither of those classes; and we ought not, perhaps, to wonder, if they are slow in admitting truths which a predominating party has so long thought it for its interest to misrepresent or disguise. The time, however, seems almost come, when conviction must be forced even upon their reluctant understandings, and by the sort of evidence best suited to their capacity. They would probably be little moved by the best arguments that could be addressed to them, and might distrust the testimony of ordinary observers; but they cannot well refuse to yield to the opinions of the great Sovereigns of the Continent, and must even give faith to their professions, when they find them confirmed at all points by their actions. If the establishment of a limited monarchy in France would be dangerous to sovereign authority in all the adjoining regions, it is not easy to conceive that it should have met with the cordial approbation of the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, in the day of their most brilliant success; or that that moment of triumph on the part of the old

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period when the thrones of France, and Spain, and Holland were to be surrounded with permanent limitations, -imposed with their cordial assent, and we might almost say, by their hands. Compared with acts so unequivocal, all declarations may justly be regarded as insignificant: but there are declarations also to the same purpose,-made freely and deliberately on occasions of unparalleled importance,-and for no other intelligible purpose but solemnly to announce to mankind the generous principle on which those mighty actions had been performed.

But while these authorities and these considerations may be expected, in due time, to overcome that pardonable dislike to continental liberty which arises from ignorance or natural prejudices, we will confess that we by no means reckon on the total disappearance of this illiberal jealousy. There is, and we fear there will always be, among us, a set of persons who conceive it to be for their interest to decry every thing that is favourable to liberty,—and who are guided only by a regard to their interest. In a government constituted like ours, the Court must almost always be more or less jealous, and perhaps justly, of the encroachment of popular principles, and disposed to show favour to those who would diminish the influence and authority of such principles. Without intending or wishing to render the British crown altogether arbitrary, it still seems to them to be in favour of its constitutional privileges, that arbitrary monarchies should, to a certain extent, be defended; and an artful apology for tyranny is gratefully received as an argument à fortiori in support of a vigorous prerogative. The leaders of the party, therefore, lean that way; and their baser followers rush clamorously along it-to the very brink of servile sedition, and treason against the constitution.

Such men no arguments will silence, and no authorities convert. It is their profession to discredit and oppose all that tends to promote the freedom of mankind; and in that vocation they will infallibly labour, so long as it yields them a profit. At the present moment,

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too, we have no doubt that their zeal is quickened by their alarm; since, independent of the general damage which the cause of arbitrary government must sustain from the events of which we have been speaking, their immediate consequences in this country are likely to be eminently favourable to the interests of regulated liberty and temperate reform. Next to the actual cessation of bloodshed and suffering, indeed, we consider this to be the greatest domestic benefit that we are likely to reap from the peace, and the circumstance, in our new situation, which calls the loudest for our congratulation. We are perfectly aware, that it is a subject of regret to many patriotic individuals, that the brilliant successes at which we all rejoice, should have occurred under an administration which has not manifested any extraordinary dislike to abuses, nor any very cordial attachment to the rights and liberties of the people; and we know, that it has been an opinion pretty current, both with them and their antagonists, that those successes will fix them so firmly in power, that they will be enabled, if they should be so inclined, to deal more largely in abuses, and to press more closely on our liberties, than any of their predecessors. For our own part, however, we have never been able to see things in this inauspicious light;-and having no personal or factious quarrel with our present ministers, are easily comforted for the increased chance of their continuance in office, by a consideration of those circumstances that must infallibly, and under any ministry, operate to facilitate reform, to diminish the power of the Crown, and to consolidate the liberties of the nation. If our readers agree with us in our estimate of the importance of these circumstances, we can scarcely doubt that they will concur in our general conclusion.

In the first place, then, it is obvious, that the direct patronage and indirect influence of the Crown must be most seriously and effectually abridged by the reduction of our army and navy, the diminution of our taxes, and, generally speaking, of all our establishments, upon the ratification of peace. We have thought it a great deal

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gained for the constitution of late years, when we could strike off a few hundred thousand pounds of offices in the gift of the Crown, that had become useless or might be consolidated; and now the peace will, at one blow, strike off probably thirty or forty millions of government expenditure, ordinary or extraordinary. This alone might restore the balance of the constitution.

In the next place, a continuance of peace and prosperity will naturally produce a greater diffusion of wealth, and consequently a greater spirit of independence in the body of the people; which, co-operating with the diminished power of the government to provide for its baser adherents, must speedily thin the ranks of its regular supporters, and expose it far more effectually to the control of a weightier and more impartial public opinion.

In the third place, the events to which we have alluded, and the situation in which they will leave us, will take away almost all those pretexts for resisting inquiry into abuses, and proposals for reform, by the help of which, rather than of any serious dispute on the principle, these important discussions have been waved for these last twenty years. We shall no longer be stopped with the plea of its being no fit time to quarrel about the little faults of our constitution, when we are struggling with a ferocious enemy for its very existence. It will not now do to tell us, that it is both dangerous and disgraceful to show ourselves disunited in a season of such imminent peril—or that all great and patriotic minds should be entirely engrossed with the care of our safety, and can have neither leisure nor energy to bestow upon concerns less urgent or vital. The restoration of peace, on the contrary, will soon leave us little else to do:-and when we have no invasions nor expeditions nor coalitions nor campaigns - nor even any loans and budgets to fill the minds of our statesmen, and the ears of our idle politicians, we think it almost certain that questions of reform will rise into paramount importance, and the redress of abuses become the most interesting of public pursuits. We shall be once more entitled, too, to make a fair and natural appeal to the analogous acts

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or institutions of other nations, without being met with the cry of revolution and democracy, or the imputation of abetting the proceedings of a sanguinary despot. We shall again see the abuses of old hereditary power, and the evils of maladministration in legitimate hands and be permitted to argue from them, without the reproach of disaffection to the general cause of mankind. Men and things, in short, we trust, will again receive their true names on a fair consideration of their merits; and our notions of political desert be no longer confounded by indiscriminate praise of all who are with us, and intolerant abuse of all who are against us, in a struggle that touches the sources of so many passions. When we plead for the emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland, we shall no longer be told that the Pope is a mere puppet in the hands of an inveterate foe,-nor be deterred from protesting against the conflagration of a friendly capital, by the suggestion, that no other means were left to prevent that same foe from possessing himself of its fleet. Exceptions and extreme cases, in short, will no longer furnish the ordinary rules of our conduct; and it will be impossible, by extraneous arguments, to baffle every attempt at a fair estimate of our public principles and proceedings.

These, we think, are among the necessary consequences of a peace concluded in such circumstances as we have now been considering; and they are but a specimen of the kindred consequences to which it must infallibly lead. If these ensue, however, and are allowed to produce their natural effects, it is a matter of indifference to us whether Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool, or Lord Grey and Lord Grenville, are at the head of the government. The former, indeed, may probably be a little uneasy in so new a posture of affairs; but they will either conform to it, or abandon their posts in despair. To control or alter it, will assuredly be beyond their power.

With these pleasing anticipations, we would willingly close this long review of the State and Prospects of the European Commonwealth, in its present great crisis, of restoration, or of new revolutions. But, cheering and