brates the 'small hat of beaver' which became Edward III. so marvellously at the battle of Sluys. In reading such passages as these, we feel the same admiration as in seeing an athlete perform some feat of surpassing strength, without the distortion of a feature or a muscle. They are, in comparison with the florid and highly wrought style on which we have been remarking, what the Belvedere Apollo is in comparison with the beautiful statue of the Attacking Gladiator. Both figures are admirable works of art, and both are represented in the act of vehement and victorious exertion. But how striking is the contrast between the desperate energy of the mortal, and the serene indifference of the divinity!

During the twenty-five years included in Mr Alison's History, Europe was so perpetually involved in war, that in giving our opinion of his merits as a military historian, we may be said to have pronounced upon those of the whole narrative part of his work. But he has taken great pains to give his readers the most complete information of all the internal transactions of the chief European nations, during that period. He has, as he informs us, made it his rule 'to give the arguments for and against 'any public measures in the words of those who originally brought them forward, without any attempt at paraphrase or abridgement. 'This is more particularly the case in the debates of the National 'Assembly of France, the Parliament of England, and the Council of State under Napoleon. It is', as he justly remarks, the only mode by which the spirit and feelings of the 'moment could be faithfully transmitted to posterity, or justice 'done to the motives, on either side, which influenced mankind.'(Pref. xliv.) Providence,' says Mr Alison, has so interwoven human affairs, that when we wish to retrace the revolutions of a people, and to investigate the causes of their grandeur or misfortune, we are insensibly conducted step by step to their cradle.'(ii. 536.) The historian has accordingly interwoven with his narrative several very interesting and comprehensive sketches of the previous history and political state of those nations who took the most prominent share in events. We may particularize those of France, England, Russia, Turkey, and Poland, as the most complete and elaborate. They include a general description of the population, of the nature and capabilities of the countries in question, and contain much valuable statistical information. We think Mr Alison mistaken in some of the maxims and theories which he draws from these views of European history; but it is impossible to refuse him the merit of much accurate knowledge, and much patient and ingenious reflection.

Mr Alison's principal and fatal error is one which we can only

lament; for we can neither blame him for its existence, nor wonder at its effects-he is a rigid, a sincere, and an intolerant Tory. This is the whole extent of his offence. His opinions are displayed with sufficient fairness, if not always with perfect taste and modesty ;-he does not permit them to pervert his statements of facts, though he seldom loses an opportunity of asserting them in all their uncharitable austerity. To this practice every liberal-minded reader, of however opposite principles, will easily reconcile himself. He will, it is true, have to travel through an interesting tract of history, in company with an honourable opponent, instead of a sympathizing friend. He will necessarily lose much pleasure, and some instruction; but a few precautions will ensure him against injury or annoyance.

In common with nearly all political writers of the present day, we have had repeated occasion to pronounce our opinion both upon revolutions in general, and in particular upon that which forms the main subject of Mr Alison's history. We shall not, of course, repeat our arguments in detail; as we see no occasion to correct the conclusions which we drew from them. shall merely allude to them so far as may be necessary for the purpose of comparing them with the opinions of Mr Alison respecting the causes, the character, and the consequences of the French Revolution.

We

We must, however, preface our observations by declaring, that we have found considerable difficulty in extracting any consistent and definite opinion, from the present work, upon the general tendency of that event. We have been wholly unable to reconcile the author's calm and just remarks upon the nature of the French government under the ancient régime, with his vague and incoherent bursts of invective against the spirit by which it was subverted. He speaks of violent revolutions, sometimes as the stern but beneficial punishments of tyranny and corruption-sometimes as national fits of insanity, the judgment of Providence upon moral profligacy and religious scepticism. His logic convinces us that what he is pleased to call the revolutionary mania is in itself a very natural feeling-the instinctive desire of the oppressed for peace and security. His rhetoric would persuade us that it is a mysterious epidemic, displaying itself merely by a morbid thirst for innovation, and an insane delight in crime. In his second chapter, he details nearly a dozen intolerable grievances which existed in France down to the first outbreak of popular violence; almost any one of which would appear, to a freeborn Englishman, sufficient to cause a civil war. He then proceeds to notice several circumstances which were likely to render the French nation, at that moment, peculiarly impatient of

the hardships they had to endure. So far, nothing can be more satisfactory. He has clearly shown that a sudden and violent change was inevitable; and that, without the utmost skill and firmness in the government, that change was likely to be followed by fatal excesses. But he goes on to declare, in all the emphasis of capital type, that the circumstances which have now been mentioned, without doubt contributed to the formation of that dis'content which formed the predisposing cause of the Revolution. 'But the exciting cause, as physicians would say—the imme'diate source of the convulsion-was the SPIRIT OF INNOVATION, which, like a malady, overspread France at that crisis, precipi'tated all classes into a passion for changes, of which they were 'far from perceiving the ultimate effects, and in the end produced 'evils far greater than those they were intended to remove.

It would seem,' he adds, as if, at particular periods, from 'causes inscrutable to human wisdom, an universal frenzy seizes 'mankind; reason, experience, prudence, are alike blinded, and 'the very persons who are to perish in the storm are the first to raise its fury.'-(i. 149.) This is a good specimen of the superficial verbiage which formed the chorus of the English Tory press fifty years ago. We confess that we always considered it strange language to come from shrewd, sensible men of the worldfrom men who, when reasoning on the crimes and follies of social life, would have been the first to laugh such vague jargon to scorn. Still these men had at least an excuse which Mr Alison has not. The explanation, bad as it was, was the best they had to give. They did not possess the information which we now have, respecting the system which had brutalized and enraged the French people; and if they had, they might be excused, at such a crisis, for failing to reason justly upon it. But we are at a loss to conceive how Mr Alison can think it necessary to aid the effect of his able and conclusive details, by a solution so feeble and unmeaning as the above. We forgive the schoolmen of the middle ages for saying that the water rises in the pump because nature abhors a vacuum; for the answer was merely a pompous confession of ignorance. But what should we think of a modern philosopher who should solve the same problem by telling usThe pressure of the external atmosphere overcomes that of the 'rarefied air in the cylinder; this circumstance, without doubt, 'contributes to the phenomenon; but its immediate cause is, 'that nature abhors a vacuum!' If Mr Alison means, by the 'spirit of innovation,' that natural wish for redress which is the consequence of intolerable suffering, then the sentence we have quoted, besides being a truism in itself, is incorrect in

its application; for that spirit must have been an intermediate, not a collateral cause of the Revolution. But this he does not mean; for it would be absurd to call so rational a desire an inscrutable frenzy. It is therefore clear that he speaks of a spirit of innovation,' wholly unconnected with existing inconveniences a spirit against which the wisest institutions cannot guard, and which is almost as likely to break forth in a free, as in an oppressed nation. We shall permit ourselves a few observations upon this theory; because, briefly as it is here expressed, it appears to be the text of most of his mournful and discouraging speculations both upon the future destiny of France, and the progress of Reform throughout the world.

In the first place, the remark naturally occurs, that admitting the possibility of the explanation, we do not want its assistance. Mr Alison has ably shown that the worst follies and excesses of the Revolution may be fully accounted for by the ordinary motives of human conduct. Why then have recourse to causes 'inscrutable to human wisdom? Why call down a divinity, when the knot can be disentangled by mortal skill? Assume, if you will, that nations, like elephants, are subject to periodical accesses of frenzy; but why apply your theory to such a case where every provocation existed to justify an outbreak of natural resentment? Nothing can, by Mr Alison's account, be more evident, than that the political privileges of the noblesse, the oppressions of the feudal law, and the ruinous state of the finances, must have been in 1789 sources of daily and hourly annoyance to the great majority of the French nation. Most of them, even in the plebeian class, must, in the existing state of intelligence, have felt that their property had been injured, and their prospects in life disappointed, by the accident of their birth. And surely they must have been the meekest race in existence, if the severity of their sufferings, and the consciousness of their strength, and the knowledge of the impotence of their oppressors, would all have been insufficient to urge them to violence, without the assistance of this casual fit of unaccountable insanity.

In speaking thus, we fully bear in mind the wild and visionary speculations which were so common in France at the time of the Revolution. But we cannot see the necessity of referring these delusions to inscrutable causes. No one will deny that a frantic spirit of innovation did exist in France at that period ;-the question is, whether it originated in natural resentment or spontaneous frenzy whether, in short, the nation was driven mad, or went mad of its own accord. The latter, as we have seen, is Mr Alison's opinion; and this opinion induces him, as well it may,

to fear that the feelings which convulsed France half a century since, may be awakened in free and well-governed countries by the progress of constitutional reform. To us nothing can seem more natural than that men, who knew no more of political liberty than a blind man knows of light, should form an extravagant notion of its blessings. All our ideas of human nature would have been confounded, if we had found the French Jacobins recommending the constitution of 1789 in the calm and rational language in which Hampden might have spoken for the abolition of the Star-Chamber, or Lord Somers for the Bill of Rights. It is certain that nations, like individuals, are sometimes captivated by delusive theories. But we appeal to the common sense of our readers whether any reasonable being ever abandoned substantial comforts, or confronted real dangers, with no better motives. Can it be conceived that empty dreams about universal equality, and an age of innocence, would have nerved peaceable men to defy the cannon of the Bastile? Would the mob have massacred good and popular rulers for the sake of resembling Brutus and Timoleon ? When an homme-de-lettres risked his life as a demagogue, was it to realize his fancies of republics and democracies, or to escape from hopeless poverty and obscurity? When a peasant set fire to the chateau of Monseigneur, was it because he admired the eloquence of Danton or Desmoulins, or because he found it easier to revolt at once, than to stay at home and be ruined by corvées and feudal services?

At the conclusion of his first chapter, Mr Alison has explained, with admirable sense and moderation, the causes of the sanguinary violence which distinguished the French Revolution. We are not sure that his remarks upon the various crimes which he has to relate, are always characterized by the same rational calmness; but he has here at least recorded his deliberate opinion, that the atrocities of the French populace were the natural and inevitable fruit of the oppression which they had suffered. We have long ago expressed our belief, that the excesses of every popular convulsion will generally be proportioned to the misgovernment which occasioned it. We are aware that this has been eagerly disputed; but, without pausing to discuss particular examples, we submit that the general rule approaches very nearly to a truism. Will not the violence of the popular party in a revolution be in proportion to their exasperation and their political ignorance? And will not their exasperation be in proportion to their sufferings, and their political ignorance to their inexperience in the use of political power?

Of course, no one will deny that the exactness of the propor