of a high military reputation, which always gives a better grace to the exercise of absolute power. M. Necker enjoyed the greatest popularity ever known in France; the Earl of Strafford was always the object of popular animosity; yet each was the victim of a revolution, and each was sacrificed by

his master the former because he was de

nounced by the Commons, the latter because

the courtiers demanded his dismissal.

Lastly (and this is the most striking point of contrast), Louis XVI. has been always 'blamed for not having taken the field, for not having repelled force by force, and for his insuperable dread of civil war. Charles I. began the civil war with motives doubtless very plausible, but still he began it. He quitted London, repaired to the country, and put himself at the head of an army, which defended the royal authority to the last extremity. Charles I. refused to recognise the competency of the tribunal which condemned him; Louis XVI. never made a single objection to the authority of his judges. Charles was infinitely superior to Louis in capacity, in address, and in military talents;-every thing, in short, formed a contrast between these two monarchs, except their unhappy catastrophe.'

We suspect that the mere temper of either monarch, and it was in temper chiefly that they differed, was not a matter of so very great importance as many reasoners have appeared inclined to imagine. They were both placed in a situation which implies difficulties, such as most probably not even the iron decision of a Bonaparte could have overcome. Each had to oppose to the stream of an age the feeble barrier of a simple will; and we suspect that we should be over-rating the power of human nature, were we to suppose that the inherent inefficacy of such resistance could be much mended by any infusion of vigour such as one individual above another might

command. The hard and the soft ma

terial were found equally unavailing against the weight of waters: it is well, that in either instance, after the fury of the flood had gone by, it has been found possible to rebuild a new barrier out of the best and most enduring fragments of the venerable pile in whose ruin they had been disunited.

It is not our purpose to trace the progress of Madame de Stael in her animated and terrible description of the subsequent workings of "The exasperated spirit of that land

Which turned an angry beak against the

down

Of its own breast, as if it hoped thereby To disencumber its impatient wings

-Till all was quieted by iron bonds Of military sway. The shifting aims, The moral interests, the creative might, The varied functions, and high attributes, Of civil action, yielded to a power Formal, and odious, and contemptible."* The character of Napoleon is represented by our author as it must be conceived of by every one who is capable of comprehending the power without being dazzled by the success of evil genius. The enmity which he felt and expressed towards her as an individual, has not been allowed to tinge the colours under which she has wished to paint him to posterity. She has done justice to his nature, and condemned his wickedness. Comparing, calmly and deliberately, what he might have done with what he did, it is no wonder that she has at last closed her eyes upon him more in sorrow than in anger.

the last

The closing part of the work is devoted to a description of the events of years of the life of the author, -the causes, circumstances, and effects, of those almost momentary and miraculous revolutions by which the

exiled heir of the Bourbons has been

recalled, expelled, and once again recalled, to take possession of the throne which for nearly a thousand years had been filled by his fathers. Equally free from the haughty and ignorant prejudices of the long expatriated courtiers, and the meaner bigotries of the military aristocracy created by Bonaparte, Madame de Stael was not ashamed to contemplate the return of the son of St Lewis as the best omen of a quiet and happy termination to all the troubles of her country. She is in no danger of being suspected to

wish the restoration of discarded fol

lies, vices, tyrannies; but she was wise enough to separate these things from much of good, noble, and generous, which had originally been swept away along with them, but which were well worthy of being gathered and brought back from the common shipwreck. The period which elapsed between the death of Louis XVI. and the restoration of Louis XVIII. and the studies and experience of her own life, were sufficient to convince Madame de Stael, that without some return to what the first Revolutionists derided and despised, without some

* Excursion.

reclaiming of the old recollections, and feelings, and pride, of the ages that had gone by, her countrymen might indeed become a skilful, powerful, and formidable association of human beings, but they could never gain possession of that generous consciousness of old ancestral growth and greatness, which constitutes the true nobility, loftiness, and essence of a nation. In her mature view, it was a thing not to be thought of, that Christianity should be banished because it had been linked with superstition, or that France should blot out her heroic history, and consent to be a bare naked mother of mushrooms, merely because the prerogatives of her hereditary kings, and the privilege of her time-hallowed nobility had been unjustly and unwisely extended and abused. To one who felt and understood the value of the nobler part of man, it could not appear less than sacrilege to tear down from the halls of her country,

"The armoury of the invincible knights of old;"

or to pluck from the soil in which they had thriven for centuries, the stems of that venerable faith without which human nature is undignified, and human hopes are barren.

It is from the powerful impression of such thoughts as these, that our authoress turns on every occasion to our happy island, and points it out to her own countrymen as the model of their emulation, the mistress of their wisdom. She regards England as have ing been, during the whole of the revolutionary tempest, the single solitary planet, which sent a blessed beam of light and hope

"To all that on the wide deep wandering

were."

interests of Europe, made a part of this universal coalition. During several years the respectable monarch of Great Britain was no longer in possession of his intellectual faculties. The great men in the civil career, Pitt and Fox, were now no more, and no one had yet succeeded to their reputation. No historical name could be cited at the head of affairs, and Wellington alone attracted the attention of Europe. Some ministers, several members of the Opposition, lawyers, men of science and literature, enjoyed a great share of the public esteem; and if, on the one hand, France, in bending beneath the yoke of one man, had seen the reputathere was so much ability, information, and tion of individuals disappear; on the other, merit, among the English, that it had be come very difficult to take the first rank a midst this illustrious crowd.

"On my arrival in England, no particular person was present to my thoughts: I knew scarcely any one in that country; but I went with confidence. I was persecu believed myself sure of an honourable symted by an enemy of liberty, and therefore pathy in a country where every institution was in harmouy with my political sentiments. I reckoned also greatly on my father's memory as a protection, and I was not deceived. The billows of the North

Sea, which I crossed in going from Sweden, still filled me with dread, when I perceived at a distance the verdant isle that had alone resisted the subjugation of Europe. Yet it contained only a population of twelve millions; for the five or six additional millions which compose the population of Ireland, had often, during the course of the last war, been a prey to intestine divisions. Those who will not acknowledge the ascendency of liberty in the power of England are perpetually repeating that the English would have been vanquished by Bonaparte, like every continental nation, if they had not been protected by the sea. This opinion cannot be refuted by experience; but I have no doubt that if, by a stroke of the Leviathan, Great Britain had been joined to the European continent, she would indeed have suffered more; her wealth would, no doubt, have been diminished; but the public spirit of a free nation is such, that it would never have submitted to the yoke of foreigners.

of June 1813, intelligence had just arrived "When I landed in England, in the month of the armistice concluded between the Allied Powers and Napoleon. He was at Dresden, and it was still in his power to reduce himself to the miserable lot of being Emperor of France as far as the Rhine, and King of Italy. It is probable that England would not subscribe to this treaty; her position was therefore far from being favour. able. A long war menaced her anew; her finances appeared exhausted; at least if we were to judge of her resources according to those of every other country of the world. The bank-note, serving instead of coin, had

fallen one-fourth on the Continent; and if this paper had not been supported by the patriotic spirit of the nation, it would have involved the ruin of public and private affairs. The French newspapers, comparing the state of the finances of the two countries, always represented England as overwhelmed with debt, and France as mistress of considerable treasure. The comparison was true; but it was necessary to add, that England had the disposal of unbounded resources by her credit, while the French Government possessed only the gold which it held in its hands. France could levy millions in contributions on oppressed Europe; but her despotic Sovereign could not have succeeded in a voluntary loan.

"From Harwich to London you travel by a high road of nearly seventy miles, which is bordered, almost without interruption, by country houses on both sides; it is a succession of habitations with gardens, interrupted by towns; almost all the people are well clad; scarcely a cottage is in decay, and even the animals have something peaceful and comfortable about them, as if there were rights for them also in this great edifice of social order. The price of every thing is necessarily very high; but these prices are for the most part fixed: there is such an aversion in that country to what is arbitrary, that when there is no positive law, there is first a rule, and next a custom, to secure, as far as possible, something positive and fixed, even in the smallest details. The dearness of provisions, occasioned by enormous taxes, is, no doubt, a great evil; but if the war was indispensable, what other than this nation, that is this constitution, could have sufficed for its expenses? Montesquieu is right in remarking, that free countries pay far more taxes than those who are governed despotically: but we have not yet ascertained, though the example of England might have taught us, the extent of the riches of a people who consent to what they give, and consider public affairs as their own. Thus the English nation, far from having lost by twenty years of war, gained in every respect, even in the midst of the Continental blockade. Industry, become more active and ingenious, made up in an astonishing manner for the want of those productions which could no longer be drawn from the Continent. Capitals, exeluded from commerce, were employed in the cultivation of waste lands, and in agricultural improvements in various counties. The number of houses was every where increased, and the extension of London, within a few years, is scarcely credible. If one branch of commerce fell, another rose forthwith. Men whose property was increased by the rise of land, appropriated a large portion of their revenue to establishments of public charity. When the Emperor Alexander arrived in England, surrounded by the multitude, who felt so natural an eagerhess to see him, he inquired where the lower

orders were, because he found himself surrounded only by men, dressed like the better class in other countries. The extent of what is done in England by private subscription is enormous: hospitals, houses of education, missions, Christian societies, were not only supported but multiplied during the war; and foreign countries who felt its disasters, the Swiss, the Germans, and the Dutch, were perpetually receiving from England private aid, the produce of voluntary gifts. When the town of Leyden was almost half destroyed by the explosion of a vessel laden with gunpowder, the English flag was soon after seen to appear on the coast of Holland; and as the Continental blockade existed at that time in all its rigour, the people on the coast thought themselves obliged to fire on this perfidious vessel: she then hoisted a flag of truce, and made known that she brought a considerable sum for the people of Leyden, ruined by their recent misfortune.

"But to what are we to attribute all these wonders of a generous prosperity ? to liberty; that is to the confidence of the nation in a government which makes the first principle of its finances consist in publicity; in a government enlightened by discussion, and by the liberty of the press. The nation, which cannot be deceived under such a state of things, knows the use of the taxes which it pays, and public credit supports the amazing weight of the English debt. If, without departing from proportions, any thing similar were tried in the governments of the European Continent that are not representative, not a second step could be made in such an enterprise. Five hundred thousand proprietors of public stock form a great guarantee for the payment of the debt, in a country where the opinion and interest of every man possess influence. Justice, which in matters of credit is synonymous with ability, is carried so far in England, that the dividends due to French proprietors were not confiscated there, even when all English property was seized in France. The foreign stockholder was not even made to pay an income tax on his dividends, though that tax was paid by the English themselves. This complete good faith, the perfection of policy, is the basis of the finances of England; and the confidence in the duration of this good faith is connected with political institutions. A change in the ministry, whatever it may be, occasions no prejudice to credit, since the national representation and publicity render all dissimulation impracticable. Capitalists who lend their money are of all people in the world the most difficult to deceive.

a grateful imagination cannot refuse the tribute; but the titles remaining the same, though passing from one family to another, there results from this a salutary ignorance in the minds of the people, which leads them to pay the same respect to the same titles, whatever may be the family name to which they are attached. The great Marlborough was called Churchill, and was certainly not of so noble an origin as the ancient house of Spencer, to which the present Duke of Marlborough belongs; but, without speaking of the memory of a great man, which would have sufficed to honour his descendants, the people of the better classes only know that the Duke of Marlborough of our days is of more illustrious descent than the famous General, and the respect in which he is held by the mass of the nation neither gains nor loses from that circumstance. The Duke of Northumberland, on the contrary, descends, by the female branch only, from the famous Percy Hotspur; and, nevertheless, he is considered by every body as the true heir of that house. People exclaim against the regularity of ceremonials in England; the seniority of a single day, in point of nomination to the peerage, gives one peer precedence of another named some hours later. The wife and daughter share the advantages of the husband or father; but it is precisely this regularity of ranks which prevents mortification to vanity; for it may happen that the last created peer is of a nobler birth than he by whom he is preceded; he may at least think so: and every one takes his share of self-love without injuring the public.

"In England they have made respect for ancestry serve to form a class which gives the power of flattering men of talents, by associating them with it. In fact, we cannot too often ask, what folly can be greater than that of arranging political associations in such a way as may lead a celebrated man to regret that he is not his own grandson; for, once ennobled, his descendants of the third generation obtained by his merit privileges that could not be granted to himself. Thus, in France, all persons were eager to quit trade, and even the law, whenever they had money enough to purchase a title. Hence it happened that no career, except that of arms, was ever carried as far as it might have been; and it has thus been impossible to judge how far the prosperity of France would extend, if it enjoyed in peace the advantages of a free constitution.

All classes of respectable individuals are accustomed to meet in England in different committees, when engaged in any public undertaking, in any act of charity, supported by voluntary subscriptions. Publicity in business is a principle so generally admitted, that though the English are by nature the most reserved of men, and the most averse to speak in company, there are always seats for spectators in the halls where

the committees meet, and an elevation from which the speakers address the assembly.

"I was present at one of these discussions, in which motives calculated to excite the generosity of the hearers were urged with much energy. The question was, sending of relief to the inhabitants of Leipsic after the battle fought under the walls of that town. The first who spoke was the Duke of York, the King's second son, and the first person in the kingdom after the Prince Regent, a man of ability, and much esteemed in the direction of his department; but who has neither the habit of, nor a taste for, speaking in public. He, however, conquered his natural timidity, because he was thus hopeful of giving useful encouragement. Courtiers in an absolute monarchy would not have failed to insinuate to a king's son, first, that he ought not to do any thing which cost him trouble; and, secondly, that he was wrong to commit himself by haranguing the public in the midst of merchants, his colleagues in speaking. This idea never entered the Duke of York's mind, nor that of any Englishman, whatever might be his opinion. After the Duke of York, the Duke of Sussex, the King's fifth son, who expresses himself with great ease and elegance, spoke in his turn; and the man the most respected and esteemed in all England, Mr Wilberforce, could scarcely make himself heard, so much was his voice drowned in acclamations. Obscure citizens, holding no other rank in society than their fortune, or their zeal for humanity, succeeded these illustrious names; every one, according to his powers, insisted on the honourable necessity in which England was placed, of succouring those of her allies who had suffered more than herself in the common contest. The auditors subscribed before their departure, and considerable sums were the result of this meeting. It is thus that are formed the ties which strengthen the unity of the nation; and it is thus that social order is founded on reason and humanity.

"These respectable assemblies do not merely aim at encouraging acts of humanity; some of them serve particularly to consolidate the union between the great nobility and the commercial class, between the nation and the government; and these are the most solemn."

Nothing, we think, can be more delightful than such praise from such lips, we shall make room for another passage.

"That which is particularly characteristic of England is a mixture of chivalrous spirit with an enthusiasm for liberty, the two most noble sentiments of which the human heart is susceptible. Circumstances have brought about this fortunate result, and we ought to admit that new institutions would not suffice to produce it: the recollection of the past is necessary to consecrate

aristocratic ranks; for if they were all of the creation of power, they would be subject, in part, to the inconveniences experienced in France under Bonaparte. But what can be done in a country where the nobility should be inimicable to liberty of every kind? The Tiers Etat could not form a union with them; and, as it would be the stronger of the two, it would incessantly threaten the nobility until the latter had submitted to the progress of reason.

:

"The English aristocracy is of a more mixed kind in the eyes of a genealogist than that of France; but the English nation seems, if we may say so, one entire body of gentlemen. You may see in every English citizen what he may one day become, since no rank lies beyond the reach of talent, and since high ranks have always kept up their ancient splendour. It is true that that which, above all, constitutes nobility, in the view of an enlightened mind, is the being free. An English nobleman or gentleman (taking the word gentleman in the sense of a man of independent property) exercises, in his part of the country some useful employment to which no salary is attached as a justice of the peace, sheriff, or lord lieutenant in the county, where his property is situated; he influences elections in a manner that is suitable, and that increases his credit with the people; as a peer or member of the House of Commons, he discharges a political function, and possesses a real importance. This is not the idle aristocracy of a French nobleman, who was of no consideration in the state whenever the king refused him his favour; it is a distinction founded on all the interests of the nation: and we cannot avoid being surprised, that French gentlemen should have preferred the life of a courtier, moving on the road from Versailles to Paris, to the majestic stability of an English Peer on his estate, surrounded by men to whom he can do a thousand acts of kindness, but over whom he can exercise no arbitrary power. The authority of law is in England predominant over all the powers of the state, as Fate in ancient mythology was superior to the authority of the gods themselves.

"To the political miracle of a respect for the rights of every one founded on a sentiment of justice, we must add the equally skilful and fortunate union of equality, in the eye of the law, to the advantages arising from the separation of ranks. Every one in that country stands in need of others for his comfort, yet every one is there independent of all by his rights. This Tiers Etat, which has become so prodigiously aggrandized in France, and in the rest of Europe, this Tiers Etat, the increase of which necessitates successive changes in all old institutions, is united in England to the nobility, because the nobility itself is identified with the nation. A great number of Peers owe the origin of their dignity to the law, some to commerce, others to a military

career, others to political eloquence; there is not one virtue, nor one kind of talent, which has not its place, or which may not flatter itself with attaining it; and every thing in the social edifice conduces to the glory of that constitution, which is as dear to the Duke of Norfolk as to the meanest porter in England, because it protects both with the same equity,

"Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free, My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, and disposes much All hearts to sorrow, and none more than mine:

Yet, being free, I love thee.

"These verses are by a poet of admirable talents, but whose happiness was destroyed by his extreme sensibility. He was labouring under a mortal disease of melancholy; and when love, friendship, philosophy, every thing, added to his sufferings, a free country yet awakened in his soul an enthusiasm which nothing could extinguish.

"All men are more or less attached to their country; the recollections of infancy, the habits of youth, form that inexpressible love of the native soil which we must acknowledge as a virtue, for all true feeling constitutes its source. But in a great state, liberty, and the happiness arising from that liberty, can alone inspire true patriotism: nothing accordingly is comparable to public spirit in England. The English are accused of selfishness, and it is true that their mode of life is so well regulated that they generally confine themselves within the circle of their habits and domestic affections; but what sacrifice is too great for them when the interest of their country is at stake? And among what people in the world are services rendered, felt, and rewarded, with more enthusiasm. When we enter Westminster Abbey, all those tombs, sacred to the men who have been illustrious for centuries past, seem to reproduce the spectacle of the greatness of England among the dead. Kings and philosophers repose under the same roof: it is there that quarrels are appeased, as has been well observed by the celebrated Walter Scott.+ You behold the tombs of Pitt and Fox beside each other, and the same tears bedew both; for they both deserve the profound regret which generous minds ought to bestow on that noble portion of our species, who serve to support our confidence in the immortality of the soul.

"Let us recollect the funeral of Nelson, when nearly a million of persons, scattered