in itself all the powers of the state, but too little to wield them with advantage. This class forms the link between the upper ranks of the Tiers Etat and the decided anarchists; and it is actuated by passion, the reverse of those of both the regions on which it borders. Sufficiently near to the latter to be not more disturbed than it at the work of destruction, it is sufficiently close to the former to be filled with animosity at its prosperity: it participates in the envy of the one, and the pride of the other in fatal union, which corrupts the mediocrity of their intelligence, their ignorance of the affairs of state, the narrow and partial view they take of every subject. Thence, has sprung that jealous and turbulent spirit which can do nothing but destroy: which assails with its wrath every thing which society respects, the throne equally with the altar, power equally with distinction: a spirit equally fatal to all above and all below itself, which dries up all the sources of prosperity, by overturning the principles, the feelings, which form the counterpoise of society; and which a divine legislator has implanted on the most ancient tables of the law, the human conscience.

"At the spectacle of the press of France, I experienced the grief of an old soldier, who sees his arms profaned. The press is no longer that sure ally of freedom, which follows, step by step, the depositories of power, but without contesting with them their necessary prerogatives, or striving to sap the foundations of the state. It is an Eumenides, a Bacchante, which agitates a torch, a hatchet, or a poniard; which insults and strikes without intermission; which applies itself incessantly, in its lucid intervals, to demolish, stone by stone, the whole social edifice; which seems tormented by a devouring fever; which requires to revenge itself for the sufferings of a consuming pride, by the unceasing work of destruction. In other states, it has been found that calumny penetrates into the field of polemical contest. But France has gone a step farther; it possesses whole workshops of calumny. Insult possesses its seats of manufacture. We have numerous journals, which live by attacking every reputation, every talent, every species of superiority. It is an artillery incessantly directed to level every thing which is elevated, or serves or honours its country. It is no wonder that the observation should be so common, "Thus have we gone on for eighteen months, that society is undergoing an incessant degra- accumulating the principles of destruction: dation. A society in the midst of which a the more that we have need of public wisdom disorder so frightful is daily appearing, with- for support, the more have we receded from out exciting either attention or animadversion, it. The evil will become irreparable, if the is on the high road to ruin. It is condemned spirit of disorder, which has overthrown our to the chastisement of heaven."-Pp. 394-399. authorities, and passed from the authorities One would imagine that the following pas-into the laws, should find a general entrance sage was written expressly for the state of the into the minds of the people.-There lies the British revolutionary press, during the discus- incurable wound of France."-P. 405. sion of the Reform Bill.

"The more that the progress of the Revolution produced of inevitable concessions to the passion for democracy, the more indispensable it was, that the press should have taken an elevated ground, to withstand the torrent. The reverse has been the case. Thence have flowed that perpetual degradation of its tendency, that emulation in calumny and detraction, that obstinate support of doctrines subversive of society, those appeals to the passions of the multitude, that ostentatious display of the logic of brickbats, that indignation at every historic name, those assaults on every thing that is dignified or hereditary, on the throne, the peerage, property itself. Deplorable corruption! permanent corruption of talent, virtue, and genius! total abandonment of its glorious mission to enlighten, glorify, and defend its country."-P. 402.

The radical vice in the social system of France, our author considers as consisting in the overwhelming influence given to that class a little above the lowest, in other words, the 10/. householders, in whom, with unerring accuracy, the Revolutionists of England persuaded an ignorant and reckless administration to centre all the political power of this country. Listen to its practical working in France, as detailed by this liberal constitutional writer:

It was in the face of such testimony to the tremendous effect of rousing democratic ambition in the lowest of the middling class of society; it was within sight of an empire wasting away under their withering influence, that the Reformers roused them to a state of perfect fury, by the prospect of acquiring, through the 101. clause, an irresistible preponderance in the state. We doubt if the history of the world exhibits another instance of such complete infatuation.

Is the literature of France in such a state as to justify a hope, that a better day is likely to dawn on its democratic society? Let us hear what the friend of constitutional freedom says on that vital subject

"There is a moral anarchy far worse than that of society, which saps even the foundation of order, which renders it hardly consistent even with despotism: utterly inconsistent with freedom. We have seen political principles and belief often sustain the state, in de fault of laws and institutions; but to what are we to look for a remedy to the disorder which has its seat in the heart?

"Were literature to be regarded as the expression of thought, there is not a hope left for France. Literary talent now shows itself stained with every kind of corruption. It makes it a rule and a sport to attack every sentiment and interest of which society is composed. One would imagine that its object is to restore to French literature all the vices with which it was disgraced in the last century. If, on the faith of daily eulogiums, you

"Possibly the revolutionary worship has come in place of the service of the altar, which has been destroyed. Every religious tie has long been extinguished amongst us. But now, even its semblance has been abandoned.

A Cham

go into a theatre, you see scenes represented | lic thought in the revolutionary crucible, the where the dignity of our sex is as much out- sway of religion, of private morality, and paraged as the modesty of the other. Everywhere rental authority, could not long be expected to the same spectacles await you. Obscene ro- survive. They have all accordingly given mances are the model on which they are all way. formed. The muse now labours at what is indecent, as formerly it did at what would melt the heart. How unhappy the young men, who think they ape the elegance of riches by adopting its vices,-who deem themselves original, merely because they are re-ber which boasts of having established freetrograding, and who mistake the novels of Crebillon and Voltaire for original genius! It would seem that these shameful excesses are the inevitable attendant of ancient civilization. How often have I myself written, that that degrading literature of the last cen-vation. tury flowed from the corruptions of an absolute monarchy! And now Liberty, as if to turn into derision my worship at its altars, has taken for its model the school of Louis XV., and improved upon its infamous inspirations." -Pp. 408, 409.

This revolutionary torrent has broken into every department; it has invaded the opinions of the thoughtful, the manners of the active, the morals of the young, and the sanctity of families. The fatal doctrine of a general division of property, is spreading to an extent hardly conceivable in a state possessing much property, and great individual ability..

"When the spirit of disorder has thus taken possession of all imaginations, when the revolutionary herald knocks with redoubled strokes, not only at all the institutions, but at all the doctrines and opinions which hold together the fabric of society, can property, the cornerstone of the edifice, be respected? Let us not flatter ourselves with the hope that it can.

"Property has already ceased to be the main pillar of the social constitution. It is treated as conquered by the laws, as an enemy by the póliticians. Should the present system continue, it will soon become a slave."-P. 416.

dom, has seriously entertained a project for the abolition of the Sunday, and all religious festivals. That would be the most complete of all reactions, for it would at once confound all ages, and exterminate every chance of sal"Such is the estimation in which religion is now held, that every one hastens to clear himself from the odious aspersion of being in the least degree attached to it. The representatives in parliament, if by any chance an allusion is made to the clergy, burst out into laughter or sneer; they think they can govern a people, while they are incessantly outraging their worship-that cradle of modern civilization. If a journal accidentally mentions that a regi ment has attended mass, all the generals in the kingdom hasten to repel the calumny, to protest by all that is sacred their entire innocence, to swear that the barricades have taught them to forget the lessons of Napoleon, to bow the knee at the name of God."-P. 420.

"In this universal struggle for disorganization, the fatal ardour gains every character. The contest is, who shall demolish most effectually, and give the most vehement strokes to society. M. de Schonen sees well that less good was done by his courage in resisting the attacks on the temples of religion, than evil by the weight lent by the proposition for divorce, to the last establishment which was yet untouched, the sanctity of private life. To defend our public monuments, and overturn marriage, is a proceeding wholly for the benefit of anarchy; I say overturn it; for in the corrupted state of society where we live, to dissolve its indissolubility, is to strike it in its very essence."-Pp. 412, 413.

"The proof that the revolutionary torrent has overwhelmed us, and that we are about to retrograde for several centuries, is, that the principle of confiscation is maintained without intermission, without exciting any horror. An able young man, M. Lherminier, has lately ad- The recent Revolution has exhibited a vanced the doctrine, that society is entitled to spectacle which was wanting in that of 1789. dispossess the minority, to make way for the Robespierre, in the Constituent Assembly, promajority. Well, a learned professor of the posed the abolition of the punishment of death: law has advanced this doctrine, and France no one then thought of death, none dreamed hears it without surprise. Nay, farther, we of bathing themselves in blood. Now, the have a public worship, an hierarchy, mission-case is widely different-we have arrived at aries-in fine, a whole corps of militia, who terror at one leap. It is while knowing it, go from town to town, incessantly preaching while viewing it full in the face, that it is seto the people the necessity of overturning the riously recommended. We have, or we affect, hereditary descent of property; and that scan- the unhappy passion for blood. The speeches dalous offence is openly tolerated. The state of Robespierre and St. Just are printed and permits a furious association to be formed in sold for a few sous, leaving out only his speech in its very bosom, to divide the property of favour of the Supreme Being. All this goes on others! Yet more-the French society as in peaceable times, when we are all as yet in sists at that systematic destruction of its last cold blood, without the double excuse of terror pillar, as it would at a public game. Lyons and passion which palliated their enormities. even cannot rouse them to their danger,-the-Poetry has taken the same line. The Consticonflagration of the second city in the empire tutionel, while publishing their revolting panefails to illuminate the public thought."-gyrics on blood, expresses no horror at this Pp. 419, 419. tendency. Incessantly we are told the reign

In the midst of this universal fusion of pub- of blood cannot be renewed; but our days

have done more, they have removed all horror at it."-P. 421.

On the dissolution of the hereditary peerage, the great conquest of the Revolution, the following striking observations are made.

it takes a pleasure in violating those august principles which constitute the soul of society, we see an abyss begin to open; the earth quakes beneath our feet-the community is shaken to its very entrails. Then begins a profound and universal sense of suffering. Capital disappears: talents retreat-become irritated or corrupted. The national genius becomes intoxicated-precipitates itself into every species of disorder, and bears aloft, not as a light, but a torch of conflagration, its useless flame. The whole nation is seized with disquietude and sickness, as on the eve of those convulsions which shake the earth, and trouble at once the air, the earth, and the sea. Every one seeks the causes of this extraordinary state; it is to be found in one alone-the social state is trembling to its foundations.

"The democrats, in speaking of the destruction of the hereditary peerage, imagine that they have only sacrificed an institution. There never was a more grievous mistake; they have destroyed a principle. They have thrown into the gulf the sole conservative principle that the Revolution had left; the sole stone in the edifice which recalls the past; the sole force in the constitution which subsists of itself. By that great stroke, France has violently detached itself from the European continent, violently thrown itself beyond the Atlantic, violently married itself to the virgin soil of Pennsylvania, whither we bring This is precisely the state we have been in an ancient, discontented, and divided society; for sixteen months. To conceal it is impossia population overflowing, which, having no ble. What is required is to endeavour to deserts to expand over, must recoil upon it- remedy its disorders. France is well aware self, and tear out its own entrails; in fine, the that it would be happy if it had only lost a fifth tastes of servitude, the appetite for domina-of its immense capital during that period. Every tion and anarchy, anti-religious doctrines, anti-individual in the kingdom has lost a large portion social passions, at which that young state, of his income. And yet the Revolution of 1830 which bore Washington, nourished freedom, and believes in God, would stand aghast. "The middling rank has this evil inherent in its composition; placed on the confines of physical struggle, the intervention of force does not surprise it; it submits to its tyranny without revolt. Has it defended France, for the last sixteen months, from the leaden scep-insecurity is to be found the source of the unitre which has so cruelly weighed upon her destinies? What a spectacle was exhibited when the Chamber of Peers, resplendent with talent, with virtues, with recollections dear to France, by its conscientious votes for so many years, was forced to vote against its conviction; forced, I say, to bend its powerful head before a brutal, jealous, and ignorant multitude. The class which could command such a sacrifice, enforce such a national humiliation, is incapable of governing France; and will never preserve the empire, but suffer it to fall into the jaws of the pitiless enemy, who is ever ready to devour it."-P. 487.

was the most rapid and the least bloody recorded in history. If we look nearer, we shall discover that every one of us is less secure of his property than he was before that moral earthquake. Every one is less secure of his head, though the reign of death has not yet commenced; and in that universal feeling of

versal suffering."-II. 491.

But we must conclude, however reluctantly, these copious extracts. Were we to translate every passage which is striking in itself, which bears in the most extraordinary way on the present crisis in this country, we should transcribe the whole of this eloquent and profound disquisition. If it had been written in this country, it would have been set down as the work of some furious anti-reformer; of some violent Tory, blind to the progress of events, insensible to the change of society. It is the work, however, of no anti-reformer, but of a liberal Parisian historian, a decided sup"No government is possible, where the mor- porter at the time of the Revolution of July; a tal antipathy exists, which in France alienates powerful opponent of the Bourbons for fifteen the lower classes in possession of power from years in the Chamber of Deputies. He is the ascendant of education or fortune. Can commended in the highest terms by Lady any one believe that power will ultimately re- Morgan, as one of the rising lights of the main in the hands of that intermediate class age; and that stamps his character as a which is detached from the interests of pro-leader of the liberal party. But he has become perty, without being allied to the multitude? enlightened, as all the world will be, to the Is it not evident, that its natural tendency is to real tendency of the revolutionary spirit, by separate itself daily more and more from the that most certain of all preceptors, the sufferfirst class, to unite itself to the second? Com-ing it has occasioned. munity of hatred will occasion unity of exer- Salvandy, like all the liberal party in France, tion; and the more that the abyss is enlarged which separates the present depositaries of power from its natural possessors, the more will the masses enter into a share, and finally the exclusive possession, of power. Thence it will proceed from demolition to demolition, from disorder to disorder, by an inevitable progress, and must at length end in the anti-social state, the rule of the multitude.

"The moment that the opinion of the dominant classes disregards established interests, that

while he clearly perceives the deplorable state to which their Revolution has brought them, and the fatal tendency of the democratic spirit which the triumph of July has so strongly developed, is unable to discover the remote cause of the disasters which overwhelm them. At this distance from the scene of action, we can clearly discern it. "Ephraim," says the Scripture, "has gone to his idols; let him

*France, ii. 342

alone." In these words is to be found the Wellington, in coming forward at the eleventh secret of the universal suffering, the deplora- hour, to extricate the crown from the perilous ble condition, the merciless tyranny, which situation in which it was placed, and the deprevails in France. It is labouring under the grading thraldom to which it was subjected, chastisement of Heaven. An offended Deity we rejoice, from the bottom of our hearts, that has rained down upon it a worse scourge than the attempt was frustrated. Had he gone on the brimstone which destroyed the cities of the with the bill as it stood, from a sense of Jordan-the scourge of its own passions and overwhelming necessity, all its consequences vices. The terrible cruelty of the Reign of Ter- would have been laid on its opponents. The ror-the enormous injustice of the revolution- Whigs brought in the Reform Bill-let them ary rule, is registered in the book of fate; the have the dreadful celebrity of carrying it universal abandonment of religion by all the through. Let them inscribe on their banners influential classes, has led to the extirpation the overthrow of the constitution; let them go of all the barriers against anarchy which are down to posterity as the destroyers of a cenfitted to secure the well-being of society. Its tury and a half of glory; let them be stigmafate is sealed; its glories are gone; the un-tized in the page of history as the men who fettered march of passion will overthrow overthrew the liberties of England. Never every public and private virtue; and national despairing of their country, let the great and ruin will be the consequence. We are follow-noble Conservative party stand aloof from the ing in the same course, and will most certainly fatal career of revolution; let them remain for share in the same punishment. ever excluded from power, rather than gain it In this melancholy prospect let us be thank- by the sacrifice of one iota of principle; and ful that the conservative party have nothing steadily resisting the march of wickedness, and with which to reproach themselves; that all the allurements of ambition, take for their though doomed to share in the punishment, motto the words of ancient duty, “Fais ce que they are entirely guiltless of the crime. Noble [dois: advienne ce que pourra." indeed as was the conduct of the Duke of

DESERTION OF PORTUGAL.*

LIGHTLY as in a moment of political frenzy, France has never been effectually checked but and under the influence of the passion for when assailed in Spain and Flanders. Fiveinnovation, we may speak of the wisdom of and-twenty years' peace followed the treaty of our ancestors, their measures were founded on Utrecht, and sixteen have already followed the considerations which will survive the tempest peace of Paris. All other treaties for the last of the present times. They arose not from any hundred and fifty years can only be considered sagacity in them superior to what we possess, as truces in comparison. Such is the importbut from experience having forced upon them ance of the Peninsula, that a considerable prudent measures from the pressure of ne- success there is almost sufficient to neutralize cessity. As France is the power which had the greatest advantages in the central parts of been found by experience to be most formida-Europe; the victory of Almanza had well nigh ble to the liberties of Europe, and in an espe-neutralized the triumphs of Oudenarde, Racial manner perilous to the independence of millies, and Malplaquet, and the cannon of England, our policy for two hundred years has Salamanca startled Napoleon even on the eve been founded upon the principle, that Holland of the carnage of Borodino, and when almost on the one side, and Portugal on the other, within sight of the Kremlin. should be supported against it. By a close The sea," says General Jomini," which is alliance with these two powers, we extended the worst possible base to every power, is our arms, as it were, around our powerful the best to England. That which is but a neighbour; she could not go far in any direc- sterile and inhospitable desert to a military tion without encountering either the one or the power, conveys to the menaced point the other. So strongly was the necessity of this fleets and the forces of Albion." It is on this felt, that so far back as 1663, in the treaty principle, that the strict alliance and close concluded with Portugal, it was stipulated connection with Portugal was formed. Its ex"that England should resent any insult or ag-tensive sea-coast, mountainous ridges, and gression offered to Portugal in the same way, numerous harbours, afforded the utmost faciand with the same power as if its own domi-lities for pouring into its bosom the resources nions were invaded." and armies of England, while its own force

The result has proved the wisdom of their was not so considerable as to render its people stipulations. In the two greatest wars which jealous of the protection, or averse to the have distracted Europe for the last two centu-generals, of England. The result proved the ries, the Netherlands and the Peninsula have been the theatre where the armies of France and England have encountered each other.

* Blackwood's Magazine, December, 1831.

wisdom of the choice made of Portugal as the fulcrum on which the military power of England, when engaged in continental war, should be rested. It is there alone that an unconquerable stand was made against the forces of

Napoleon. That which neither the firmness | both the frontier barrier of Marlborough in Flanders, and the interior barrier of Wellington in Portugal; with one hand we have abandoned the safeguard of northern, with the other the citadel of southern Europe.

of Austria, nor the valour of Prussia, nor the power of Russia could accomplish, has been achieved by this little state, backed by the might and the energy of England. Austria has to lament the defects of Ulm and Wagram; Deviating for the first time from the policy Prussia the overthrow of Jena; Russia the of two hundred years, we have not only loaded catastrophes of Austerlitz and Friedland; Portugal with injuries and indignities ourbut the career of Portugal, in the same terrible selves, but we have permitted her to be the strife, was one of uninterrupted success; be- victim of revolutionary violence and rapine fore the rocks of Torres Vedras, the waves of on the part of France. The Portuguese Gallic aggression first permanently receded; wines, long the favoured object of British and from the strongholds of the Tagus, the protection, have been abandoned; the duties British standards advanced to a career of glory of French and Oporto wines have been equalgreater than ever graced the days of her Hen-ized, and our ancient and irreconcilable enerys and her Edwards. my placed on the footing of the most favoured nation!

It is a point on which military men are at variance, whether fortresses are of more value on the frontier or in the centre of a menaced state. Perhaps the question may be solved by a distinction-where the state assailed is one of firstrate importance, as France or Austria, fortified towns on its frontier are of incalculable importance, because, if the invading army stops to invest them, it gives time for great armaments in the interior; if it pushes on and neglects them, it necessarily becomes so weakened by the detachments made for the purpose of maintaining their blockade, that it is incapable of achieving any considerable success. Two memorable examples of this occurred in French Flanders in 1793, when the invading army, an hundred and twenty thousand strong, was so long delayed by besieging the frontier fortresses of Valenciennes, Conde, Maubeuge, and Landrecy, that time was given for the Convention to organize and equip the great armaments in the interior, which finally repelled the invasion; and in Lombardy, in 1796, when the single fortress of Mantua arrested the career of Napoleon for six months, and gave time for Austria to assemble no less than four successive and powerful armies for its relief. On the other hand, the extraordinary advantage attending the great central fortifications of Wellington at Torres Vedras, and the corresponding successes gained by Skrzynecki, from the possession of Warsaw, Zamosc, and Modlin, during the late Polish war, and by Napoleon, from the fortresses of Dresden, Torgau, and Wittemberg, on the Elbe, in 1813, demonstrate, that where the state assailed is more inconsiderable when compared to the attacking force, fortifications are of more avail when placed in the centre of the threatened state, and when its armies, retiring upon their central strongholds, find both a point d'appui in case of disaster, and an interior line of communication, which compensates inferiority of forces, and affords an opportunity for accumulating masses on detached bodies of the

The consequence of this must in time be the destruction or serious injury of the immense capital invested in the raising of port wine on the banks of the Douro. The cultivation of wine there has been nursed up by a century's protection, and brought to its present flourishing state by the fostering influence of the British market. But how is that excessive and exotic state of cultivation to continue, when the duties on Portuguese and French wines are equalized, and the merchants of Bordeaux can, from a shorter distance, send wines adapted to the English taste from the mouth of the Garonne? Two shillings a gallon has been taken off French, and as much laid on Portuguese wines; the Portuguese grower, therefore, in competition with the French, finds himself saddled with a difference of duty amounting to four shillings a gallon. It requires no argument to show that such a difference of taxation deprives the Portuguese of all their former advantages, and must in the end extinguish the extraordinary growth of vines in the province of Entre Douro Minho.

What are the advantages which ministers propose to themselves from this abandonment of their ancient ally? Is it that the English commerce with France is so much more considerable than that of Portugal, that it is worth while to lose the one in order to gain the other? The reverse is the fact-the British exports to France are only 700,000l. a year, while those to Portugal amount to 2,000,0002. Is it that France has done so much more for British commerce than Portugal? The reverse is the fact-France has, by the most rigid system of próhibitions, excluded all British manufactures from its shores; while Portugal has, by a series of the most favourable treaties, given them the greatest possible encouragement. Is it because a more extended commerce with France may in future be anticipated from the friendly intercourse between the two countries, and a spirit of rising But his majesty's present government have liberality has manifested itself on the part of solved the question in a totally different man- its manufacturers and merchants? The rener. They have relinquished both the frontier verse is the fact. France, so nearly in its and the central fortresses which bridled northern parts in the same latitude with EngFrance; both those which checked its irrup-land, has the same coal, the same steam-ention into the centre of Europe, and those which afforded a secure and central position on which the armies of England could combat when matters became more serious. We have lost

enemy.

gines, the same manufactures, whereas Portugal, exposed to the influence of a vertical sun, without coal or manufacturing capital, is unable to compete with any of the produc