But in the character of the French are many things which soften animosity, and make it less bitter, though not less insolent, than when goaded on by envy. To us a Frenchman brings the honourable homage of his worst hatred unalloyed; while we find many a mitigating quality betwixt him and the most envenomed feelings we can bear him. With the best will to do so he cannot despise us, and therefore is his hatred the more acrimonious.

Another thing which makes it much more difficult for a Frenchman to form just ideas of England, than for an Englishman to judge of France, is the great development of all the intellectual powers in this country; and which, to be appreciated, should be scrutinized by minds capable at least of comprehending, though they may not practise, what they contemplate. France, reduced' to its intrinsic value, is one of the countries in Europe the most easy to appreciate the only difficulty is so to reduce it, amid the illusions which court our favour, and the speciousness which misleads our judgment. All the real good which it contains more than England, consists mainly in such things as are perceived by the eye, and are the objects of our grosser senses; in the beauty of a clearer sky, and the charms of a more exhilarating climate; in a greater proportion of luxury, and a more studious attention to physical refinement, to all that can afford enjoyment, instead of happiness, and flatter sensuality, without awakening a thought. But for any thing more solid we must not look. From their political institutions, their industry, their literature, we could not learn the twentieth part of what we could teach; and the instruction we might reap, is, in most cases, surrounded by so much harm, as to make it often a dangerous acquisition. The most useful lesson that is to be learned among them is, that the first moments we spend with a Frenchman are, in general, the most pleasing we ever shall have in his society; and the first glance of France,before the few brilliant specks upon its surface have shown the darkness visible throughout the mass,-is the most favourable view in which a rational mind can contemplate the country and its inhabitants. Every day lays bare some new defect; and--we speak it from having repeatedly watched the progress of opinion among some of our own infatuated countrymen, in whom time and observation have accomplished a cure,—the last and true conclusion to which their admirers must come is, that they are a nation without feeling and without principle.

The country of Europe, the good of which it is the most difficult to appreciate, in its full extent, is Britain. It requires a longer acquaintance with us, and a deeper study, to know us thoroughly, than to know any other nation; not merely because we

are

are less demonstrative, but because a greater share of wisdom and combination has concurred to form our institutions, and still maintains them, than is to be found in the institutions of any other country. They who consider us by the eye alone, who see nothing but the means employed, and distinguish no end, no result, may indeed be a little bewildered; because it is a principle with us, that the means employed should be left open to inspection: for we expect more profit from discussing their imperfections, than from extolling their deserts. Some intelligent foreigners, and, among the number, we may reckon M. Simon, have, at first, seen nothing in the publicity with which matters, held secret in other countries, are treated in England, but the disgusting play of every passion, openly avowed in the broad face of day, without a blush; and, from the spectacle before their eyes, they have generally concluded how much worse must be that which is concealed. M. Simon, indeed, with his usual candour, expressed his admiration at the ends obtained; but he is puzzled to trace the connection which leads to so much real beauty, through so much apparent deformity. But we are not to be studied by partial contemplation, and piecemeal prying into every petty detail, which men expect to find as perfect in the means as in the end; as if the Augean labour of cleansing human society could be accomplished without some disgusting particulars. They take a vast machine to pieces, and expect to find it as efficient when separate as when combined; that every wheel should move, and every pinion be actively impelled.

The practical difficulty of judging England is strikingly exemplified in the instance of one of the greatest foreigners that ever wrote upon this country. Montesquieu, in his Notes sur l'Angleterre,' relates a number of observations which he made there about the year 1730, and we cannot help bringing a few of them together on this occasion, as they appear to us particularly well calculated to elucidate what we advance; so strangely are they at variance among themselves, and so powerfully do they contrast with the immutable principles which he had laid down in the calmness of study and meditation, when his judgment was not disturbed by the contemplation of objects which his mind was wholly unaccustomed to behold in action.

Strangers, he says, complain that the English do not love them. How can the English, who do not love each other, love strangers? Corruption is gaining ground in every rank-Money is the summum bonum. Honour and virtue are held as nothing. -Scotch members of parliament sell their votes for 2007. because they can get no more for them.-The English are no longer

worthy

worthy their liberty. They sell it to the king, and if the king were to give it back again to them, they would sell it again.—Ă minister thinks of nothing but triumphing over his adversary; and in order to do so, he would sell his country and all the potentates in the world.-Every day respect for the crown diminishes. There is no religion in England. A person having said that he believed something that he had heard, as he believed an article of his faith, every person present burst out a-laughing in his face. Finally,-who would expect it? He says-England is at this moment the freest country in the world, without excepting any republic upon earth, because the sovereign has not the power of injuring any one ;—and again, the liberty which one enjoys in London is the liberty of honest men, different from that which exists in Venice, which is to live with strumpets and to marry them. The equality one enjoys in London is the equality of honest men, different from the Dutch liberty, which is the liberty of the mob.'-Now surely, no person who reflects upon these few sentences would suppose them to have been written by the man who says, and truly says, that virtue is the basis of all public liberty. They may however afford some consolation to those who might otherwise be alarmed at the sad prognostication with which many good or evil-minded persons threaten British freedom. Most unquestionably the nation which, ninety years ago, was no longer worthy of liberty, could not now, unless by some miraculous regeneration, be free. If we mistake not, it was Montesquieu who, after long studying the English language in his closet, hazarded articulating a few words of it, to which, when he had frequently repeated them to some indulgent native, he received for answer, Beg pardon, Sir, but I don't understand French. Nor could Montesquieu better comprehend the language and the signs of practical liberty; and all the frailties which it lays bare to the world, and which, in despotism, are swept away in silence, he took for the marks of unworthiness, even though he saw, beyond dispute, that freedom, such as, by his own confession, none else on earth enjoyed, was the result.

The passions of the human heart can no more be eradicated, than the properties of matter; and when repressed by force upon the one side, they burst out with greater violence upon the other. The governments which have established themselves upon the hypothesis of their total suppression, are, indeed, most awful models of simplicity; for they know but one principle of action, but one single rule of right and wrong; and that, as the great man just quoted, and who was himself a subject of a government not much unlike to one of these, first dared to say, is

terror

terror-the dread of punishment according to the will of one man, without law or judgment. But the government of Britain allows the heart to find its own corrective within itself; and has not attempted to attain a pernicious simplicity, which cannot coexist with liberty. Natura suis armis victa,' is the faithful legend of all our institutions; and we look for rest in the just balance and equilibrium of contending forces, not in their destruction. We conceive the whole science of liberty and legislation to consist in applying the laws, by which the human creature may remain quiescent in the midst of conflicting impulses, as the great centre of our solar system, amid the attractions which solicit him in every direction.

The vivifying principle and the soul of our whole system is publicity; and this alone is a strong presumption in its favour. The only motives which a nation can have for laying bare its imperfections, unless we suppose it sunk below all earthly degrada tion, and then it could not be free, are sincerity, a love of truth and horror of deceit, a consciousness of imperfection, a wish and a power to become better, a decided will to meet the coming evil, and not to shrink from the painful operation of inquiry. Let those who censure us, then, for having exposed to public view the least attractive parts of the human character, look to the consequences with an unprejudiced eye; and they will learn to appreciate a pecple disgraced by fewer historical crimes and less general immorality than could be found at this moment in Europe, or perhaps in history. They will see the nation that has resolved the grandest political problem, which He, whose will it is that human creatures should be happiest in society, could leave possible to the ingenuity of finite beings-with the smallest original means to compass the greatest ends of wealth, power, knowledge, liberty, virtue and happiness.

A reasonable hope might have been formed, during the last twenty-five years, that the country in which so much rational prosperity exists, would become better known to foreigners, and, above all, to Frenchmen. More than one hundred thousand of the latter visited us. Among them some were birds of passage; others remained with us. They who were our friends and free, enjoyed the amplest opportunities of learning what they pleased But they were exiles and unfortunate. Their minds upon their dulces Argos.' Our successes were painful to them, our reverses brought them despair. Even our beneficence, though bestowed without ostentation, was galling to them; and when the last band of the emigrants came to us, they who had lingered in every other part of Europe, until impending death had

among us.

were bent

driven them to this hospitable shore, where the cries of the wretched are never heard in vain, they received, with reluctance, a bounty, in which they at last felt they should not have so long delayed to trust. Yet, in the great number who came here late or early, it might have been expected that at least one or two would have taken advantage of their residence, to study a country which had so long been, at least, the rival of their own, and the object of their envy and aversion. But they remained attached to their own habits, regretting their delicious Paris-ludum Paridemque-and the Opera which made it dear to them—and returned home without carrying back a single idea that might be useful. The list of those who studied our laws, institutions and government; who even deigned to learn our language, or thought that, in any point of worthiness, we deserved their attention, would be small indeed. Yet, the emigrants, beyond any comparison, were, if not the most philosophical, the most honourable portion of the French population.

The author of the volumes before us was eminently distinguished for his attachment to the cause of the Bourbons: and his loyalty is the more meritorious, as he does not belong to the class in which royalism is a duty. In his rambles he visited many countries, and was alternately busied in diplomatic negociations and commercial speculations. His success in the latter has been, at least, equivocal; and thence it is most probable that the voice of rumour pointed him out as likely to be named minister of the French finances. But France, not finding any person among her own children worthy to be placed at the head of her treasury, at last had recourse to her old method of calling in a foreigner, M. Corvetto, once a pettyfogging lawyer in his native Genoa; then its betrayer; then a director of the Ligurian Republic; then count of the imperial manufactory, and counsellor of state to Buonaparte; and, finally, by a natural progression, minister of finance to Lewis XVIII.

M. Rubichon, however, is not without talent. He has the complete mind of a Frenchman; quickness of perception, incapacity of induction, vanity, inerrability, and the presumption common to his countrymen, that, because France is France, and he is a Frenchman, every thing there must be right, and all the rest of the world wrong. He is one of those, who, the more they advance, go the more astray. The work he has published is worthy of such a mind; for in 583 pages of his first, and 425 of his second volume, we do not believe there is a single combination of ideas which is just, or one conclusion which facts or principles would authorize.

We