chateaux of the landlords, and massacred or expelled the pos'sessors. The horrors of the insurrection of the Jacquerie, in the 'time of Edward III., were revived on a greater scale, and with 'deeper circumstances of atrocity. In their blind fury they did 'not even spare those seigneurs who were known to be inclined 'to the popular side, or had done the most to mitigate their sufferings, or support their rights. The most cruel tortures were inflicted on the victims who fell into their hands.'-(i. 228.) We gladly spare ourselves and our readers the revolting details which follow. Now, what parallel has Mr Alison to produce from English history ten years ago? 'The flames of Bristol and Nottingham Two isolated riots, occurring at an interval of several years-each confined to a single town, and each effectually put down and signally punished by the power of the law. The disturbances of Bristol undoubtedly originated in a political cause; but it is clear that those who were guilty of the chief excesses committed there, acted merely from thirst of plunder. No vindictive feeling was displayed by the mob; no certain plan, no submission to command, was observable in their excesses, -all was indiscriminate thirst for spoil. The fact is, that the civil authorities failed to do their duty in repressing the first symptoms of tumult, and a rabble of thieves and desperadoes seized the opportunity of license and robbery. But in every large community there are numbers of indigent and depraved men, who gladly plunder their neighbours whenever they can do so with impunity. What happened in Bristol would most certainly happen to-morrow in every large city in Europe, if there were reason to suppose that the attempt would not be properly repressed. But how were the British aristocracy peculiarly menaced by a destructive riot in a great commercial town? Had Clumber or Strathfieldsay been burnt to the ground, instead of half-a-dozen streets in Bristol, the case would have been somewhat different. It was not by disturbances at Lyons or Bordeaux that the French noblesse were driven to Coblenz.

We do not know how we can better expose the injustice of Mr Alison's comparison, than by requesting our readers to imagine what their feelings of astonishment would have been, on finding by the papers, the day after the Reform Bill passed the House of Lords, that the Conservative gentry of England had emigrated in a body! Let them imagine an English emigrant peer landing, in 1832, at Calais or New York. He is eagerly pressed to describe the horrors he has witnessed-to communicate the names of the most illustrious victims-to give the particulars of the new British republic. What is his reply? England is in an awful 'state. At Bristol, only two hundred miles from my family seat,

"there has been a dangerous riot and great destruction of property. I have been abused in the county newspapers. The Times has threatened the aristocracy with brickbats and bludgeons. The Duke of Wellington's windows have been broken.' And all this would have been addressed to men who could remember the Reign of Terror, or the forays of Brandt and Butler. The French emigration is a subject for serious blame; but that of the English aristocracy would have defied the gravity of all Europe. We pity and despise the selfish cowardice of a man who flies from a dangerous conflagration, instead of staying to rescue his family and protect his property. But our pity and contempt give way to a sense of the ludicrous, when we hear of his jumping headlong from a garret window, because a few idlers in the street have raised the cry of fire.

Not only, it seems, are the liberal party in England prepared to imitate the crimes of the French Revolution, but they are, or were, on the point of betraying their country to the actual perpetrators of those enormities. After noticing that Napoleon had intended to follow his descent upon Great Britain by a proclamation, promising all the objects which the revolutionary party in this country have ever had at heart,' Mr Alison proceeds as follows: That the French emperor would have been defeated in his attempt, if England had remained true to herself, can be doubtful to no one. But would she have remained 'true to herself under the temptation to swerve produced by such 'means? This is a point upon which there is no Briton who would have entertained a doubt, till within these few years; but the manner in which the public mind has reeled from the appli'cation of inferior stimulants since 1830, and the strong partiality to French alliance which has grown up with the spread of democratic principles, has now suggested the painful doubt, whether Napoleon did not know us better than we knew ourselves, and whether we could have resisted those methods of seduction which had proved fatal to the patriotism of so many • other people. The warmest friend to his country will probably hesitate before he pronounces upon the stability of the English mind under the influence of the prodigious 'excitement likely to have arisen from the promulgation of the 'political innovations which Napoleon had prepared for her seduction. If he is wise, he will rejoice that in the providence of God his country was saved the trial, and acknowledge with gratitude the inestimable obligations which she owes to the illustrious men whose valour averted a danger under which her courage, indeed, would never have sunk, but to which her wisdom might possibly have proved unequal.'— (v. 379.)

We have frequently found occasion to differ from Mr Alison, but this is one of the few passages of his work which we have read with serious regret and deep displeasure. Its meaning is simply this that had Napoleon landed in England, those Englishmen who approved of the reforms he intended to promise, would have deserted their countrymen and joined his army. The calumny is most disingenuously enveloped in the language of pretended self-abasement; but this disguise is too slight to conceal its real nature for a moment. The suspicion expressed by Mr Alison is obviously applicable only to his political opponents. It is therefore of their honour alone that he feels all this timid distrust. The temptation of which he expresses so much anxious dread, is one which could not have attracted him; the merit which he is so modestly reluctant to vaunt, is one in which he could have had no share. This candid renunciation of other people's credit has a twofold advantage; for it combines the grace of humility, with the pleasure

of slander.

We might easily show that the political opinions of what Mr Alison is pleased to call the revolutionary party, are perfectly consistent with the national virtues, and even with the wholesome prejudices, of true-born Britons. We might plead, that an honest Englishman may consider the British constitution as the best in the world, without thinking it absolutely perfect; that he may religiously believe himself able to beat three Frenchmen, without longing to be perpetually employed in doing it. We might plead that it is one thing to desire the support of France abroad, and another to invoke her interference at home; one thing to wish for reform by act of parliament, and another to attempt it by high treason. But we prefer giving Mr Alison a practical proof of the dangerous nature of such rash and odious imputations. We gather two maxims from the elaborate and insidious passage we have just quoted. Every man who wishes for any alterations in the British_constitution, is willing to become a traitor to obtain them. Every man who wishes for the alliance of a foreign power, is willing to be its slave. Let us see whether these rules will not cut both ways. Mr Alison is a conscientious opponent of Parliamentary reform, and a warm admirer of Russia. Suppose a Russian army to land at Leith, and to proclaim their intention of repealing the Act of 1832. Is Mr Alison conscious of the slightest inward misgiving lest he should be tempted to assist the invaders? Does he not feel the same instinctive scorn of such treachery, as of theft, or forgery, or any other infamous crime? And what would be his sensations if such a suspicion were publicly expressed, and if some Whig friend of his own were to

answer it by moralizing upon the frailty of human resolution, and expressing thankfulness that the test is not likely to be applied? We know and feel that in such a case we could depend upon the loyalty of every respectable Conservative as upon our own; and we are heartily sorry, for Mr Alison's own sake, that he cannot bring himself to feel the same honest confidence in the opposite party.

British loyalty has not, in Mr Alison's opinion, survived British honour and patriotism. The more advanced of the present 'generation' he says, still look back to the manly and disinterested loyalty with which, in their youth, the 4th of June was celebrated by all classes, with a feeling of interest increased by the mournful reflection, that amidst the selfish ambition and democratic infatuation of subsequent times, such feelings, in this country at least, must be numbered among the things that have been.'-(viii. 22.) We certainly shail not attempt to maintain that the same feverish and thoughtless loyalty now prevails in England, which was so common thirty or forty years ago. We acknowledge our belief that the men of the present generation would scarcely abandon an important political measure, because it was understood to be repugnant to the private opinion of a good old King,' or even of a good young Queen. But we do sincerely believe that there never was a period when Englishmen felt more solid, sober, trustworthy attachment to the throne than at present. No man having the slightest pretension to political importance, has, of late years, expressed dislike of the monarchical form of government. No man having the least regard for his character, has with impunity offered any public insult to the reigning monarch. We do not say this without warrant, for the attempt has been made. It was thought that a young and inexperienced Princess might possibly be intimidated by slander and invective. We will not remind Mr Alison with what party the design originated; but we are sure that he remembers, with as much pride and pleasure as ourselves, the signal defeat which it encountered from the generous indignation of the British people. We might go much further than this. We might speak of the general respect, we might almost say the general affection, which is felt for the present occupant of the throne. We might refer to the kindly warmth with which the name of that august lady is almost invariably mentioned in society-to the universal grief and alarm excited by the late supposed attempts upon her life-to the personal unpopularity which certain zealous Conservatives have incurred by a disrespectful mention of her name. Was the return of the fourth of June, we would ask, hailed with a more exuberant loyalty than that the expression of which made the

farthest hills and mountains of Scotland echo back its heart-stirring sounds, on the late royal visit to this quarter of the Island? We have now given a few sketches of Mr Alison's opinions respecting his liberal countrymen. The person holding these sentiments is, we believe, a well-educated gentleman, of respectable talents, of extensive historical information, of a benevolent temper, of strong religious feelings, and of a calm and contemplative turn of mind. With all these means and capacities for forming a candid judgment, he has, as we have seen, made up his mind that in 1803 the reforming party in England were prepared to betray their country to Napoleon-that in 1831 they were bent upon imitating the worst excesses of the French Revolution-and that at the present moment they would rather see the British empire perish than contribute to its aid at the risk of personal inconvenience. And yet with what contempt and indignation would the author of these imputations listen to the ravings of some poor, angry, ignorant, thick-headed Chartist, about the depraved morals and evil designs of the British aristocracy!

Mr Alison has shown much good sense and impartiality in his remarks upon the policy of the principal European powers towards France. He speaks with just admiration of the persevering courage displayed by England and Austria; but he notices, with equally just severity, the procrastination, the timidity, the obstinate prejudices, and the unreflecting ignorance of military affairs, which deprived both nations of so many opportunities of victory, and placed such fearful advantages in the hands of their keen and wary antagonist. The errors of Prussia were of a more serious nature; and Mr Alison has too much sense of moral rectitude not to visit them with deserved indignation. We need not retrace his account of the truly degrading policy in which, for ten years, the rulers of that state persisted. The guilty parties have been punished by the scorn of every European nation, and of none more signally than their own injured countrymen. We think, however, that Mr Alison shows far too much lenity in his remarks, upon the personal share of Frederick- William, in the disgrace of this period. It is clear, from his own statements, that the treaty by which Prussia accepted Hanover from France, as the price of her treason to the cause of Germany, originated in the unprincipled cupidity of the King himself. Such an instance of political depravity deserved far stronger censure than any which Mr Alison has applied to its author.

The unhappy situation of Prussia from 1795 to 1806 is, in our opinion, a most striking example of what Mr Alison denies, -the close connexion between political impotence and social insecurity. The Prussians are generally considered admirable

VOL. LXXVI. NO. CLIII.

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