people is recognised in the speeches of the statesman, the sermons of the divine, the lucubrations of the author, and the criticisms of the reviewer. All seem impressed with the rise of a new power, and, blessing or cursing, they pay to it a certain degree of homage.

It could not be expected that political power should remain the exclusive and undisputed possession of the few, after the many had once begun to feel, and make felt, their importance. Nations and governments are just in the middle of a warm controversy on this point. The question is increasingly interesting to all rulers and all subjects, and the combined power of the former is marshalled against the combined intelligence of the latter. The theory of despotism is more offensively stated, and more broadly asserted than ever. Despots have more than ever made a common cause of it. These facts are not so alarming as they have appeared to some friends of liberty. The principle of legitimacy was never so asserted before, because never before so controverted. The combination of despots was never before so complete, because their monstrous usurpations were never before in such peril. Their sole reliance is on the ignorant and the mercenary; and with such agents they may oppress and execute for a time, but can scarcely hope for ultimate success. The people are becoming aware that they too have a common cause. The world is dividing into two great classes, the oppressors and the oppressed; and the members of both classes have their Holy Alliances. Any stretch of prerogative, in any country, is felt as a victory gained by every member of the great monarchical conspiracy. Any popular advantage is a triumph for all nations. There is less of that narrow and selfish patriotism which used to exult in the slavish condition of other countries. It has given way to a nobler feeling-to sympathy with all who are struggling to be free. It begins to be reckoned as good a thing for the Greeks to win a battle, as for the Opposition to carry a motion. In either case, the common enemy is beaten. Foreign politics and home politics lose their distinction. At home or abroad, there is but one subject in them. The science is reduced to the solution of a single question—are kings to be every thing, or shall the people have a voice in the direction of their own affairs? Different answers make a division paramount to that of party or country. The cause of liberty is one and indivisible. The sympathy of its friends is characteristic of the present age. The consolidation of their union may emancipate a future generation.

An impartial portraiture of the spirit of the times is our object, and we are compelled here to notice one feature on which we cannot dwell with complacency. We are a trading nation, and

treat freedom too much as a matter of mere calculation. Its pecuniary advantages are rated above its intellectual and moral influence. A reform in parliament is often petitioned for on the ground of its diminishing the public burdens. So it undoubtedly would; but that is not the only, nor the best reason, for desiring it. An oligarchy has worse evils in its train than pensions, sinecures, and wasteful expenditure. A degraded character is more to be deprecated than an empty pocket. The great advantage of liberty is, that it makes man manly. He ceases to be either a machine, or a beast of burden. He learns to venerate himself," and that is the first lesson of public and of private virtue. His portion of the public sovereignty is a wreath of glory round his brows. He knows himself an equal member of a free community, and that knowledge qualifies him to discharge his duties and adorn his country. The consciousness of his rights is never out of his mind, and it dignifies every thought that inhabits with it. He acquires an erect attitude, a bold tone, and an unquailing eye. There is no servility in his manners, nor in his thoughts. The "brave New World, that hath such creatures in it," should not be prized solely because it is cheap living there. That recommendation is strong enough, heaven knows. Very numerous are the unwelcome visitors, with pens behind their ears, and little books under their arms, whose calls one wishes less frequent; and which would be so, were the nation to regain its proper control over its own purse-strings. Although it be undoubtedly a very important principle that two and two make four, a principle so strenuously insisted upon by Mr. Hume, who has traced its bearings on the whole system of our government, and made it the basis of a very effective and popular opposition to His Majesty's ministers, we submit that there are other public principles as important, and that man and his purse are not altogether co-equal. Mental independence, and full liberty of speech and action, so far as they infringe not on others' rights, are what constitute a freeman; and he who desires not these loves not liberty, though he may hate taxation. If he wishes to wed her, it is only for her dowry, and a despotism that well feeds its slaves would soon induce him to transfer his affections. This empty-stomach or empty-pocket patriotism is not of a kind to endure through "the times that try men's souls." It Aluctuates with the state of the markets; it goes off on the winds that waft away large exports, and is reduced by the chancellor of the exchequer, every time that he takes off a tax. That men's rights are seldom, perhaps never, infringed without their condition being deteriorated, is a fact that ought not to be lost sight of. Let it be by all means deeply impressed upon the public mind; but it is

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unworthy of being made the very head and front of our plea for the introduction of a better state of society. Some of the freest communities that the world has ever seen, have also been the poorest. However incomprehensible the proposition to many of our countrymen, we also believe that they have been the happiest. That an admission of popular claims would bring speedy relief from the crushing impositions of an almost unrestrained aristocracy, is an argument which ought to be resistless, and may become so; but for a change produced on this principle to be of real and lasting benefit to the country, it should be desired and demanded even though no such result could be anticipated. Liberty, for herself, is the cry we would hear raised; or, at least, should rejoice at observing a greater disposition to adopt. But this is altogether a calculating age, and every thing is thrown out of the question which cannot be reduced to pounds, shillings, and pence. There has been a corresponding change in servile loyalty, which, from being enthusiastic, has become mercenary. Burke described no imaginary change when he lamented that the age of chivalry was gone. Sovereigns have no more service now than they can purchase. The power of private interest is behind the throne, and greater than the throne. Kings possess attachment and allegiance only ex officio. All goes with the throne, and nothing with the person, or family, any longer than they sit thereon. The principle of servility is, that a larger dividend comes to the individual by supporting the measures of a governing and plundering faction, than by promoting the public good. This state of things is partly owing to our having become so completely a manufacturing and commercial people. The one great thing on which we are intent, is getting money; and our politics, religion, literature, are only branches of that pursuit, and considered as subordinate operations to be conducted with constant reference to the main object. The peculiar character of the power which is possessed by our House of Commons has also contributed to this result. All the influence which that body has in the government, arises from the single privilege of granting supplies. By this has its authority been preserved and extended; probably its very existence been secured. Its members legislate in virtue of their being the only constitutional leviers of taxes. The laws which they enact, at least so far as those laws are extensive of the people's privileges, are so many bargains with the crown, in which prerogative gives them a right, provided they will vote prerogative a subsidy. Hence there is scarcely ever a great debate in which financial considerations are not prominent. We seem to be listening to a counting-house discussion amongst the directors of a great trad

ing company. A considerable change has also been going on in the class of persons who sit in that house. Formerly it was land chiefly that was represented; but now, money. The agricultural interest is rapidly waning. Hereditary estates, and hereditary influence, and hereditary prejudices, are all marching off the stage together. The aristocracy of wealth swallows up all. The public mind is taught by its leaders to be intent on nothing but calculation. The worst of it is that public principle is rapidly withering under this system. A young man chooses his political party as he chooses his trade or profession; and changes it with as little hesitation or shame whenever circumstances make it convenient for him to do so. He finds that every thing is considered merely as matter of profit or loss to the nation, and cannot see why he should not so consider it in relation to his own affairs. He studies ethics in Cocker, and estimates honour by the rule of three. The politics of the present day have brought forth a plentiful crop of this unvarnished profligacy.

This evil is happily limited by the fact, that, with the great mass of the community it is impossible to create a private interest at variance with the public good. Corruption has done as much as could be done towards effecting this, and one class has been continually played off against another. Still it is only a comparatively small minority, or an ignorant majority, that can be thus bribed or deceived. While the growing intelligence of the people has been indicated by the appeals continually made to them on the parts of those who are, or aspire to be, of some personal consequence in the state, it has also been very powerfully aided in its advance by that very circumstance, which has thus been at once cause and effect. Orators and writers endeavour to make the people understand a subject in order to gain their suffrages. Their opinions are wanted; not as in days of old their thewes and sinews. To gain the permanent aid of that opinion, they must be informed and convinced. The very highest talent has been applied to this purpose. At public meetings it is evident that most of our great speakers now do their best. They no longer come in that careless and unprepared way, which seemed to say, and did mean, any nonsense may be talked to a multitude. They have become conscious, some of them rather late, that the cause they advocate, and their own reputation, were at stake; and in supporting both they have cultivated the minds of their auditory. Our newspapers bear abundant marks of a similar improvement. The talent regularly engaged in them is

superior order to what was formerly employed, and they are the not unfrequent vehicle of communication between the very noblest minds, and the common sense and heart of the

many. True, they are party engines; they vituperate and misrepresent for party purposes: they may often mislead, often inflame, but to be effective engines they must be conducted with ability; they must meet the demand for fact and argument, a demand which "grows by what it feeds upon;" they must have a character which, after the amplest deductions, is generally favourable to the intellectual improvement of that immense population amongst which they circulate. Every theory of government, every question of political science, every measure of the administration of the day, becomes in turn the subject of controversy, and all classes are familiarised with whatever superior talent or extensive knowledge can bring to its illustration. The well-meaning patrons of the poor, who think they should know something of their duty but nothing else, and who favour them. with edifying tracts in a laboured simplicity of style "made level to the meanest capacities," are sadly thrown out. Their occupation's gone. Their milk for babes is superseded by a stronger nutriment. No sooner were the poor taught to read, than, somehow or other, they took to reading Cobbett. Of that man, who, had he added consistency to his other qualities, would have been by this time the most powerful man in the country, none have so much reason to complain as the friends of liberty; for he has so managed as to render his opposition and his support alike injurious to their cause. There is something else, we will not turn aside to discuss what, to which he has always sacrificed that cause, and sometimes at very critical moments. But one good service he has rendered, and must continue to render as long as he continues to write; and long may that be. His shrewd and manly intellect; his inexhaustible stock of facts on all subjects of political economy; his eternal freshness, for " age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety;" his clear, unaffected, vigorous, English style; and his bloodhound chace of a favourite topic, neither wearied by the length, nor foiled by the intricacy of the pursuit;-if they have not accomplished the glorious results at which a man so gifted should have aimed, and of which we can scarcely believe he would have failed, have yet done what was next to be wished; they have roused into action the dormant sense of the poorer classes, and provided materials for thought, and induced habits of investigation which will correct all the evils that can be inflicted by all the writers whom party spirit or personal ambition may bring into the arena. "It is certain," said he, on one occasion, "that I have been the great enlightener of the people of England." It was impossible to avoid laughing at him, and yet at the same time feeling, in our hearts, that the impudent fellow had some