'Him polish'd France had taught with subtlest art How chang'd, how lost that eloquence, whose sway And dar'd a vigor far beyond the laws." The justness of the opinions we shall not comment on, but leave our readers to judge according to their political bias. In the second canto we are transported to the camp of the adverse army. This metaphor is frequently introduced, and we think very absurdly; it creates a strange mixture of fact and allegory, without being in the least necessary or serviceable. The characters of the leaders are ably drawn. Under the mask of Drances we think we can discern the features of a military secretary. Full in the midst the troops of Drances lay, For ever changing; to no creed confin'd, For him let Genius, stretch'd on Misery's bed, Proud wretch to thwart the current of his fate, The methodists have their share of ridicule, from which however we were glad to see the benevolent adversary of the slave trade exempted. The reader is then hurried to the couch of the premier, and presented with a description of a dream, in which he sees the phantom of the accused peer, who delivers rather a long admonitory, and in some degree irrelevant, speech. The third canto contains the first battle between the two parties,and concludes with an episode, for which we suspect the author is indebted rather to his imagination than his memory: the tories are defeated, and send an herald to the mansion of Sirius (a certain northern duke) in Piccadilly to ask assistance. This is not very likely, though it is not impossible that his grace may have been entreated to instruct some of his representatives to support them on a future occasion. The author seems conversant with anecdotes of political characters, and this, though not generally known, may have been the case. But we have other reasons to disapprove of the passage; it is rather too voluptuous, the interior of the seraglio is depicted in colours a little too vivid. The same objection is applicable to the character of a certain ex-secretary in the beginning of the next canto, who is said to have been educated in the shop of his uncle, an apothecary at Paris, and to have received the rudiments of political knowledge in a Jacobin club, among M. Bourienne and his associates. Notwithstanding this censure, the passages alluded to contain nothing immoral vice is described in a manner that will render it rather disgusting and odious than captivating; and we think the writings of Pope contain passages much more exceptionable. The fourth canto opens with a description of Boodle's, at which some of the whiggish leaders are assembled. The pleasures of a gaming-house are pointedly described in the following lines: 'O fane of Pleasure! whose beloved recess Thy walls the light of genius has adorn'd.' We shall indulge our readers with one more short extract, in which, as in many other passages, we discern,a manifest imitation of Pope : 'Far on the Southern Americ's fruitful plains, Queen of the nines, Potosi's goddess reigns; With pow'r Protean gifted to assume Or gem with diamond ray the meek Divine.' The goddess makes an ineffectual attempt to seduce Drances. The accused peer then makes a defence, which is nothing to the purpose; the tories are again defeated, and the poem concludes with (what of all things one would have least expected) a tribute to the memory of Lord Nelson. What possible connection this bas with the subject we leave to the sagacity of the reader to discover; it has completely eluded our own. On the whole, we have derived much pleasure from the perusal of this publication. It displays considerable poetical nerit. The versification is harmonious and well-constructed; the satire is in general keen without being abusive; but we meet with many weak passages, more especially in the speeches, and some faults of expression which our limits will not allow us to enumerate. It bears evident marks of having been finished in haste, that it might catch the public attention while directed so universally to the late impeachment. But the plan is executed in such a manner that the poem is not entirely of a temporary nature, and will, we think, continue to be read with interest, independently of the events to which it relates, as a satire and a panegyric (for it contains both) on the leading political characters of the age. ART. VII.-An Essay on the Principle and Origin of Sovereign Power. By a Dignitary of the Church. Translated from the French, with a Preface and Appendix. 8vo. 7s. Hatchard. 1805. ་ TO adjust the interfering claims of kings and their subjects, to temper authority and inculcate obedience, must bave formed a principal object of attention from the earliest periods of civilized society. The nature of government must necessarily partake of the nature of muu, who constitutes at once the material out of which it is formed, the object of its institution, and the agent by whose inCRIT. REV. Vol. 9. September, 1906. E strumentality it is exercised. In corrupt hands it has been oppressively administered, by violent men it has been perversely resisted. Experience of the evils of tyranny and insubordination has alarmed men of reflecting minds for the welfare of society, and stimulated the combined exertions of integrity and intelligence in devising an effectual remedy. But it is perhaps a defect very generally to be attributed to those who have investigated this subject, that their views of it have been too confined, and the principles which they assumed too particular in their nature, and too limited in their operation. Those who have actually engaged in the task of legislation, have necessarily directed the exertion of their talents to the removal of difficulties actually existing, and have neglected the consideration of general rules in the obligation of meeting local and particular inconveniences. Even the writers on government, who had leisure and opportunity to expatiate in the field of speculation, have not always embraced the advantages of more extensive research for the establishment of more general positions. They have often laid down as fundamental truths, notions arbitrarily and fancifully adopted, and have attempted to account for existing realities on principles utterly inadequate to their production. But this is not the only ground on which exception may be taken to their authority; not only are their theories of visionary origin, disproportioned to the phenomena of actual facts, but they have led to practical consequences of a most destructive tendency. While they pretended to give instruction upon the nature of government, they have undermined the foundations of social order and endangered the happiness of the whole civilized world. In the hope of counteracting the effects of a mischief so extensive in its influence, the author of the present work has been induced to communicate his sentiments to the public; to take a view of the opinions of those who have preceded him, to notice their errors and to detect their sophistry. Their systems have supposed man to exist at first in a state of degradation far below what can be natural to him, and in order to produce society out of that state, have expected from him powers of reflexion which could only be the result of cultivated minds, and rational experience. This writer endeavours to discover the origin and principle of government in causes more general and durable, and more inherent in the nature of man; causes that shall at once account for the establishment of authority among mankind from the beginning, and provide for its continuance as long as the human race shall exist. His primary assertion is that all power is derived from the Deity, and that consequently resistance to lawful authority is rebellion against God. In discussing this proposition he successively states and confutes the principles on which Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, have accounted for the first introduction of society. He proves satisfactorily that man does not pass from a state of savage independence like that of wild beasts, where every individual is influenced by a separate and selfish inclination, into a dawning resemblance of the present state of society; but that from the time that men began to exist they existed in social relation to each other. Indeed the publicists must have recourse to some novel and unheard of cause for the production of the human species in order to account for the appearance of a multitude of unconnected beings, of which their imaginary social compact is to be formed. They must have sprung like the men of Cadmus out of the ground, and according to some of their systems with much of the same disposition towards each other; if they had received existence agreeably to those laws which the Creator has ordained for the support of the human race, they must necessarily have exhibited the mutual relations of the parental, frater nal, and conjugal ties. But supposing such men to exist, it seems probable that they should be influenced by those affections and passions that now act upon mankind. It is not likely that each individual would be content with the supply of his own personal wants, but would be animated by sentiments of kindness or hostility towards those around him. We can scarcely imagine a day passing over the heads of these singular creatures, unless they were placed by very nice calculation at such distances as to preclude aggregation without furnishing a variety of occasions of interfering interests. In this case we should have a certain number of them agreeing in a scheme of aggression, and others united for purposes of defence. Here then is society at once introduced by the operation of the affections alone, without any exertion of the understanding in the formation of a social compact. But if we believe the scriptural account of the creation of man and the world he inhabits, we are at once in possession of a consistent history of the origin of society as well as of the individuals composing it. The parental and patriarchal authority, which was sufficient to meet the exigencies of primitive simplicity, afforded a model on which political sovereignty was framed when circumstances required a government of a more complex form and of wider extent, |