"But even the small share of power thus | Commons, in the reign of Edward III., declined granted in theory to the commons, was in to interfere in questions of peace and war, as practice withheld from them. Whether from being too high for them to compass; but they the influence of the patricians in the centuries, would not allow the crown to take their money or by religious pretences urged by the augurs, without their own consent; and so the nation or by the enormous and arbitrary power of grew, and the influence of the House of Comrefusing votes which the officer presiding at mons grew along with it, till that house has the comitia was wont to exercise, the college become the great and predominant power in of the tribunes was for many years filled by the British constitution. the patricians alone. And, while the censorship was to be a fixed institution, the tribunes of the soldiers were to be replaced whenever it might appear needful by two consuls; and to the consulship no plebeian was so much as legally eligible. Thus the victory of the aristocracy may seem to have been complete, and we may wonder how the commons, after having carried so triumphantly the law of Canuleius, should have allowed the political rights asserted for them by his colleagues, to have been so partially conceded in theory, and in practice to be so totally withheld. "If this view be correct, Trebonius judged far more wisely than M. Duilius; and the abandonment of half the plebeian tribuneship to the patricians, in order to obtain for the plebeians an equal share in the higher magistracies, would have been as really injurious to the commons as it was unwelcome to the pride of the aristocracy. It was resigning a weapon with which they were familiar, for one which they knew not how to wield. The tribuneship was the foster-nurse of Roman liberty, and without its care that liberty never would have grown to maturity, What evils it afterwards wrought, when the public freedom was fully ripened, arose from that great defect of the Roman constitution, its conferring such extravagant powers on all its officers. It proposed to check one tyranny by another; instead of so limiting the prerogatives of every magistrate and order in the state, whether aristocratical or popular, as to exclude tyranny from all." - Our limits will not admit of any other extracts, how interesting soever they may be. Those already made will sufficiently indicate the character of the work. It is clear that Dr. Arnold, in addition to his well-known classical and critical acquirements, possesses a discriminating judgment, a reflecting philosophic turn of mind, and the power of graphic inte ties to any historian: they are indispensable to the annalist of Rome, and promise to render his work, if continued in the same spirit, the best history of that wonderful state in the English, perhaps in any modern, language. We congratulate him upon the auspicious commencement of his labours; we cordially wish him success, and shall follow him, with no ordinary interest, through the remainder of his vast subject, interesting to the student of ancient events, and the observer of contemporary transactions. "The explanation is simple, and it is one of the most valuable lessons of history. The commons obtained those reforms which they desired, and they desired such only as their state was ripe for. They had withdrawn in times past to the Sacred Hill, but it was to escape from intolerable personal oppression; they had recently occupied the Aventine in arms, but it was to get rid of a tyranny which endangered the honour of their wives and daughters, and to recover the protection of their tribunes; they had more lately still retired to the Janiculum, but it was to remove an insulting distinction which embittered the relations of private life, and imposed on their grandchildren, in many instances, the inconveniences, if not the reproach of illegitimacy. These were all objects of universal and per-resting description. These are valuable qualisonal interest; and these the commons were resolved not to relinquish. But the possible admission of a few distinguished members of their body to the highest offices of state concerned the mass of the commons but little. They had their own tribunes for their personal protection; but curule magistracies, and the government of the commonwealth, seemed to belong to the patricians, or at least might be left in their hands without any great sacrifice. So it is that all things come best in their season; that political power is then most happily exercised by a people, when it has not been given to them prematurely, that is, before, in the natural progress of things, they feel the want of it. Security for person and property enables a nation to grow without interruption; in contending for this a people's sense of law and right is wholesomely exercised; meantime national prosperity increases, and brings with it an increase of intelligence, till other and more necessary wants being satisfied, men awaken to the highest earthly desire of the ripened mind, the desire of taking an active share in the great work of government. The Roman commons abandoned the highest magistracies to the patricians for a period of many years; but they continued to increase in prosperity and in influence; and what the fathers had wisely yielded, their sons in the fulness of time acquired. So the English House of There are two points which we would earnestly recommend to the consideration of this learned author, as essential to the success of his work as a popular or durable history. The first is, to avoid, as much as possible, in the text, all discussions concerning questiones vexatas, or disputed points, and give the conclusions at which he arrives in distinct propositions, without any of the critical or antiquarian reasoning on which they are founded. These last, indeed, are of inestimable importance to the learned or the thoughtful. But how few are they, compared to the mass of readers! and how incapable of giving to any historical work any extensive celebrity! They should be given, but in notes, so as not, to ordinary readers, to interrupt the interest of the narrative, or break the continuity of thought. The second is, to exert himself to the utmost, ment to that form of government, and that balance of power, which alone can render these blessings permanent,-which render property the ruling, and numbers only the controlling power,-which give to weight of pos and, on every occasion which presents itself, | attachment to the latter. We mean an attachto paint, with graphic fire, the events, or people, or scenes which occur in the course of his narrative, and to give all the interest in his power to the description of battles, sieges, incidents, episodes, or speeches, which present themselves. More even than accuracy of de-session and intellect the direction of affairs, tail, or any other more solid qualities, these fascinating graces determine, with future ages, the celebrity and permanent interest of an historical work. What is the charm which attracts all ages, and will do so to the end of the world, to the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the youth of Cyrus, the early annals of Rome, the Catiline conspiracy, the reign of Tiberius, the exploits of Alexander, the Latin conquest of Constantinople, the misfortunes of Mary, the death of Charles I. The eloquent fictions and graphic powers of Xenophon and Livy, of Sallust and Tacitus, of Quintus Curtius and Gibbon, of Robertson and Hume. In vain does criticism assail, and superior learning disprove, and subsequent discoveries overturn their enchanting narratives; in vain does the intellect of the learned few become skeptical as to the facts they relate, and which have sunk in the hearts of the many. The imagination is kindled, the heart is overcome, and the works remain, not only immortal in celebrity, but undecaying in influence through every succeeding age. Why should not history, in modern as in ancient times, unite the interest of the romance to the accuracy of the annalist? Why should not real events enchain the mind with the graces and the colours of poetry? That Dr. Arnold is learned, all who have studied his admirable edition of Thucydides know; that he can paint with force and interest, none who read the volume before us can doubt. Why, then, should not the latter qualities throw their brilliant hues over the accurate drawing of the former? and intrust to the ardent feelings of the multitude the duty only of preventing their excesses, or exposing their corruption. Without the former, the rule of the people degenerates, in a few years, in every instance recorded in history, into licentious excess, and absolute tyranny; without the latter, the ambition or selfishness of the aristocracy perverts to their own private purposes the domain of the state. Paradoxical as it may appear, it is strictly and literally true, that the general inclination of abstract students, remote from a practical intercourse with mankind, to republican principles, is a decisive proof of the experienced necessity for Conservative policy that has always been felt in the actual administration of affairs. Recluse or speculative men become attached to liberal ideas, because they see them constantly put forth, in glowing and generous language, by the popular orators and writers in every age: they associate oppression with the government of a single ruler, or a comparatively small number of persons of great possessions, because they see, in general, that government is established, on one or other of these bases; and, consequently, most of the oppressive acts recorded in history have émanated from such authority. They forget that the opportunity of abusing power has been so generally afforded to these classes by the experienced impossibility of intrusting it to any other; that if the theory of popular government had been practicable, Democracy, instead of exhibiting only a few blood-stained specks in history, would have occupied the largest We have already said that we find no fault space in its annals; that if the people had been with Dr. Arnold on account of his politics; really capable of directing affairs, they would, nay, that we value his work the more, because, in every age, have been the supreme authority, giving, as it promises to do, in the main, a and the holders of property the declaimers faithful account of the facts of Roman history, against their abuses; and that no proof can be it cannot fail to furnish, from a source the least so decisive against the practicability of any suspicious, a host of facts decisive in favour form of government, as the fact, that it has of Conservative principles. By Conservative been found, during six thousand years, of such principles we do not mean attachment to rare occurrence, as to make even learned despotic power, or aversion to genuine free-persons, till taught by experience, blind to its dom: on the contrary, we mean the utmost tendency. abhorrence of the former, and the strongest CALTE MIRABEAU.* ple: the monarch placed himself at the head of the movement, the nobles joined the commons, the clergy united in the work of reform: all classes, by common consent, conspired in the demolition and reconstruction of the constitution. A new era was thought to have dawned on human affairs; the age of gold to be about to return from the regeneration of mankind. "It is a melancholy fact," says Madame de | destroyed: a new constitution introduced Staël,"that while the human race is conti- amidst the unanimous applause of the peonually advancing by the acquisitions of intellect, it is doomed to move perpetually in the same circle of error, from the influence of the passions." If this observation was just, even when this great author wrote, how much more is it now applicable, when a new generation has arisen, blind to the lessons of experience, and we in this free and prosperous land, have yielded to the same passions, and been seduced by the same delusions, which, three-and-forty The consequence, as all the world knows, years ago, actuated the French people, and was ruin, devastation, and misery, unparalleled have been deemed inexcusable by all subse-in modern times: the king, the queen, the royal quent historians, even in its enslaved population ! family were beheaded, the nobles exiled or guillotined, the clergy confiscated and banishIt would appear inconceivable, that the same ed, the fundholders starved and ruined, the errors should thus be repeated by successive merchants exterminated, the landholders begnations, without the least regard to the les-gared, the people decimated. The wrath of sons of history; that all the dictates of expe- Heaven needed no destroying angel to be the rience, all the conclusions of wisdom, all the minister of its vengeance: the guilty passions penalties of weakness, should be forgotten, of men worked out their own and well-debefore the generation which has suffered under served punishment. The fierce passion of detheir neglect is cold in their graves; that the mocracy was extinguished in blood: the Reign same vices should be repeated, the same crimi- of Terror froze every heart with horror: the nal ambition indulged, to the end of the world; | tyranny of the Directory destroyed the very if we did not recollect that it is the very essence name of freedom: the ambition of Napoleon of passion, whether in nations or individuals, visited every cottage with mourning, and to be insensible to the sufferings of others, and doomed to tears every mother in France; and to pursue its own headstrong inclinations, re- the sycophancy of all classes, the natural regardless alike of the admonitions of reason, sult of former license, so paved the way for and the experience of the world. It would military despotism, that the haughty emperor seem that the vehemence of desire in nations could only exclaim with Tiberius-"O hois as little liable to be influenced by considera- mines ad servitutem parati!" tions of prudence, or the slightest regard to the consequences, as the career of intemperance in individuals; and that, in like manner, as every successive age beholds multitudes who, in the pursuit of desire, rush headlong down the gulf of perdition, so every successive generation is doomed to witness the sacrifice of national prosperity, or the extinction of national existence, in the insane pursuit of democratic am-ing to the torrent, they could regulate its dibition. Providence has appointed certain rection: the ministers of the crown put themtrials for nations as well as individuals; and selves at the head of the movement, and for those who, disregarding the admonitions wielded the royal prerogative to give force of virtue, and slighting the dictates of duty, and consistence to the ambition of the mulyield to the tempter, certain destruction is aptitude: political fanaticism again reared its pointed in the inevitable consequences of their criminal desires, not less in the government of empires, than the paths of private life. Forty years ago, the passion for innovation seized a great and powerful nation in Europe, illustrious in the paths of honour, grown gray in years of renown: the voice of religion was discarded, the lessons of experience rejected visionary projects were entertained, chimerical anticipations indulged: the ancient institutions of the country were not amended, but * Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, et sur les Premières Assemblées Législatives. Par Etienne Dumont, de Geneve. 8vo. London: E. Bull. 1832.--We have translated the quotations ourselves, not having seen the English version. Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1832. Written when the Reform Bill was before the House of Peers. Forty years after, the same unruly and reckless spirit seized the very nation who had witnessed these horrors, and bravely struggled for twenty years to avert them from her own shores. The passion of democracy became general in all the manufacturing and trading classes: a large portion of the nobility were deluded by the infatuated idea, that by yield hydra head: the ministers of religion became the objects of odium; every thing sacred, every thing venerable, the subject of opprobrium, and, by yielding to this tempest of passion and terror, enlightened men seriously anticipated, not a repetition of the horrors of the French Revolution, but the staying of the fury of democracy, the stilling of the waves of faction, the calming the ambition of the people. That a delusion so extraordinary, a blindness so infatuated, should have existed so soon after the great and bloody drama had been acted on the theatre of Europe, will appear altogether incredible to future ages. It is certain, however, that it exists, not only among the unthinking millions, who, being incapable of hardly possible to discern any mode in which, with a daily press extensively read, and political excitement kept up, as it always will be by its authors, either truth is to become generally known, or error sufficiently combated. Every one, how slender soever his intellect, how slight his information, how limited his time for study, can understand and feel gratified by abuse of his superiors. The com judging of the consequences of political changes, are of no weight in a philosophical view of the subject, but among thinking thousands who are capable of forming a correct judgment, and whose opinions on other subjects are highly worthy of consideration. This is the circumstance which furnishes the real phenomenon, and into the causes of which future ages will anxiously inquire. It is no more surprising that a new generation of shop-mon slang declamation against the aristocrats, keepers, manufacturers, and artisans, should be devoured by the passion for political power, without any regard to its recent consequences in the neighbouring kingdom, than that youth, in every successive generation, should yield to the seductions of pleasure, or the allurements of vice, without ever thinking of the miseries it has brought upon their fathers, and the old time before them. But how men of sense, talent, and information; men who really have a stake in the country, and would themselves be the first victims of revolution, should be carried away by the same infatuation, cannot be so easily explained; and, if it cannot be accounted for from some accidental circumstances, offers the most gloomy prospects for the cause of truth, and the future destinies of mankind. the clergy, and the throne, in France, and not given the one, education can never give the other, to above one in a hundred. Hence the poison circulates universally, while the antidote is confined to a few; and therefore, in such periods, the most extravagant measures are forced upon government, and a total disregard of experience characterizes the national councils. "The direction of literature and philosophy in France, during the last half of the 18th century," says Madame de Staël, "was extremely bad; but, if I may be allowed the expression, the direction of ignorance has been still worse; for no one book can do much mischief to those who read all. If the idlers in the world, on the other hand, occupy them-ledge of more than ordinary extent. Nature has selves by reading a few moments, the work which they read makes as great an impression on them as the arrival of a stranger in the desert; and if that work abounds in sophisms, they have no opposite arguments to oppose to it. The discovery of printing is truly fatal to those who read only by halves or chance; for knowledge, like the Lance of Argail, inflicts wounds which nothing but itself can heal."* In this observation is to be found the true solution of the extraordinary political delusions which now overspread the world; and it is much easier to discern the causes of the calamity, than perceive what remedy can be devised for it. If you could give to all who can read the newspapers, either intellect to understand, or taste to relish, or money to buy, or time to read, works of historical information, or philosophical wisdom, there might be a reasonable hope that error in the end would be banished from thought, and that political knowledge, like the Thames water in the course of a long voyage, would work itself pure. But as it is obvious to every one practically acquainted with the condition of mankind, that ninetynine out of the hundred who peruse the daily press, are either totally incapable of forming a sound opinion from their own reflections on any subject of thought, or so influenced by prejudice as to be inaccessible to the force of reason, or so much swayed by passion as to be deaf to argument, or so destitute of information as to be insensible to its force, it is * De l'Allemagne, iii. 247. It is to this cause that the extremely short duration of any institutions, which have been framed under the pressure of democratic influence, is to be ascribed, and the rapidity with which they are terminated by the tranquil despotism of the sword. Rome, in two generations, ran through the horrors of democratic convulsions, until they were stopped by the sword of the Dictator. France, since the reform transports of 1789 began, has had thirteen different constitutions; none of which subsisted two years, except such as were supported by the power of Napoleon and the bayonets of the allies. England, in five years after the people ran mad in 1642, was quietly sheltered under the despotism of Cromwell; and the convulsions of the republics of South America have been so numerous since their struggles began, that civilized nations have ceased to count them. Historians recording events at a distance from the period of their occurrence, and ignorant of the experienced evils which led to their adoption, have often indulged in eloquent declamation against the corruption and debasement of those nations, such as Florence, Milan, Sienna, and Denmark, which have by common consent, and a solemn act, surrendered their and the good, into a united phalanx, which, if it cannot singly resist the torrent, may, at least, arrest its fury, till the powers of nature come to its aid. These powers do come at last with desperate and resistless effect, in the universal suffering, the far-spread agony, the hopeless depression of the poor; but the danger is imminent, that before the change takes place the work of destruction may be completed, and the national liberties, deprived of the ark of the constitution, be doomed to perish under the futile attempts to reconstruct it. liberties to a sovereign prince. There is no-ster which has started into political activity; thing, however, either extraordinary or de- but they combine the brave, the enlightened, basing about it; they surrendered their privileges, because they had never known what real freedom was; they invoked the tranquillity of despotism, to avoid the experienced ills of anarchy; they chose the lesser, to avoid the greater evil. Democracy, admirable as a spring, and when duly tempered by the other elements of society, is utterly destructive where it becomes predominant, or is deprived of its regulating weight. The evils it produces are so excessive, the suffering it occasions so dreadful, that society cannot exist under them, and the people take refuge in despair, in the surrender of all they have been contending for, to obtain that peace which they have sought for in vain amidst its stormy convulsions. The horrors of democratic tyranny greatly exceed those either of regal or aristocratic oppression. History contains numerous examples of nations, who have lingered on for centuries, under the bowstring of the sultan, or the fetters of the feudal nobility; but none in which democratic violence, when once fairly let loose, has not speedily brought about its own extirpation. There never was a mistake so deplorable, as to imagine that it is possible, to give to any nation at once a new constitution; or to preserve the slightest guarantee for freedom, under institutions created at once by the utmost efforts of human wisdom. It is as impossible at once to give a durable constitution to a nation as it is to give a healthful frame to an individual, without going through the previous changes of childhood and youth. "Governments," says Sir James Mackintosh, "are not framed after a model, but all their parts grow out of occasional acts, prompted by some urgent expedience, or some private interest, which in the course of time coalesce and harden into usage; and this bundle of usages is the object of respect, and the guide of conduct, long before it is imbodied, defined, or enforced in written laws. Government may be, in some degree, reduced to system, but it cannot flow from it. It is not like a machine, or a building, which may be constructed entirely, and according to a previous plan, by the art and labour of man. It is better illustrated by comparison with vegetables, or even animals, which may be, in a very high degree, improved by skill and care But although there is little hope that the multitude, when once infected by the deadly contagion of democracy, can right themselves, or be righted by others, by the utmost efforts of reason, argument, or eloquence, nature has in reserve one remedy of sovereign and universal efficacy, which is as universally understood, and as quick in its operation, as the poison which rendered its application necessary. This Remedy is SUFFERING. Every man cannot, indeed, understand political reasoning; but every man can feel the want of a meal. The multitude may be insensible to the efforts of reason and eloquence; but they cannot remain deaf to the dangers of murder which may be grievously injured by neglect, and conflagration. These, the natural and or destroyed by violence, but which cannot be unvarying attendants on democratic ascend-produced by human contrivance. A governency, will as certainly in the end tame the fierce spirits of the people, as winter will succeed summer; but whether they will do so in time to preserve the national freedom, or uphold the national fortunes, is a very different, and far more doubtful question. It is seldom that the illumination of suffering comes in time to save the people from the despotism of the sword. ment can, indeed, be no more than a mere draught or scheme of rule, when it is not composed of habits of obedience on the part of the people, and of an habitual exercise of certain portions of authority by the individuals or bodies who constitute the sovereign power. These habits, like all others, can only be formed by repeated acts; they cannot be suddenly infused by the lawgiver, nor can they It is in this particular that the superior immediately follow the most perfect convicstrength and efficiency of free constitutions, tion of their propriety. Many causes having such as Britain, in resisting the fatal encroach- more power over the human mind than writments of democracy, to any possessed by a ten law, it is extremely difficult, from the mere despotic government, is to be found. The perusal of a written scheme of government, to habits of union, intelligence, and political ex-foretell what it will prove in action. There ertion, which they have developed, have given may be governments so bad that it is justifito the higher and more influential classes such able to destroy them, and to trust to the probaa power of combining to resist the danger, that bility that, a better government will grow in obstacles are thrown in the way of change, their stead. But as the rise of a worse is also which retard the fatal rapidity of its course. possible, so terrible a peril is never to be incurred Discussion goes on in the legislature; talent is except in the case of tyranny which it is impossible to enlisted on the side of truth; honour and reform. It may be necessary to burn a forest patriotism are found in the post of danger; containing much useful timber, but giving virtue receives its noblest attribute in the shelter to beasts of prey, who are formidable universal calumnies of wickedness. These to an infant colony in its neighbourhood, and generous efforts, indeed, are totally unavailing of too vast an extent to be gradually and safely to alter the opinion of the many-headed mon-thinned by their inadequate labour. It is fit, |