THE EDINBURGH MONTHLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1821. ART. I.-The Oppositionist; or, Reflections on the Present State of Parties. London, Hatchard & Son. 1820. Pp. 54. WE avail ourselves of the occasion which the perusal of this sensible and well-written pamphlet presents, to lay before our readers some of the reflections which have occurred to us upon the present state of the country. It is but too certain, that a change has of late years been rapidly working in the political temperament of the mass of the people, which it would be folly alike for those who hail it as the precursor of human improvement, and those who denounce it as the omen of approaching convulsions, to dispute. The symptoms of this great change meet us every where in our progress through ordinary life, and appal us in every transaction that bears the stamp of publicity. They are audible in the impatient murmurs of discontent,-in the bold but shallow contempt of all authority and institution,-in the universal impetuosity with which the crowd rushes to every assemblage which displays the banners and avows the designs of anarchy,and, not least of all, in the almost incredible consumption throughout the land of the pestilent product of that profane and abandoned press which has so greatly disgraced the cause of freedom, and furnished to future tyrants arguments that are all but triumphant for extinguishing it. The almost universal spread of the principles of sedition and impiety, is not more a proof of the wicked zeal of the workers of rebellion, than of the large preparation which has already been made in the hearts and habits of the people for their reception. We know, that we shall by some persons be condemned as alarmists for making these statements; but we can without difficulty encounter or contemn that charge. We can anticipate the quarter from which such an imputation will proceed, and while we speak not at present of party, and disclaim every allusion to any constitutional body in the state, we must frankly declare, that the only thing, with reference to this matter, which we should dread, would be a sympathy in sentiment with persons who can overlook or despise the actual dangers of the country. We know what these persons have done, and are now doing; their past exploits are on record, and their present occupations shall in due time find their historian. Who, we would ask, are the men who venture to bring this charge against all who read differently from themselves the signs of the times? Are they persons who endeavour to realize, by their healing and patriotic exertions, that tranquillity of which they are so forward to offer their own unavailing guarantee? While to our rulers they inculcate confidence, do they also read lessons of conciliation and of peace to the people? Do they follow up their pledge of internal security, by making any reasonable efforts to redeem it, or justify their mockery of alarm by soothing the spirit of disorder? For an answer to these questions, we have only to refer to all that has been spoken and written by our intrepid quietists for the last thirty years, and to pray the reader to observe, with what admirable consistency of aim the men who endeavoured to quell the spirit of patriotism in time of war, are,now employed in relaxing the duty of constitutional obedience in time of peace,-how those who strenuously persuaded the people of this renowned empire, that they might find a foreign and a military yoke tolerable, now dare to preach to them that a British constitution passes all endurance? Is there, indeed, no cause for rational alarm and considerate preparation in the present crisis of our public affairs?—It is something even that the general mind has become more enlightened,; because knowledge is power-and power being susceptible of a malignant as well as a salutary direction,-requires to be watched, of course. If the people be truly more knowing, and by consequence more powerful, may they not be tempted to abuse this power, and to aim, in the audacity produced by their new acquirements, at the destruction of a system of government which it is alike their interest and their duty to uphold? Unbridled power is the great corrupter of the heart, and the same possession which has ever been deprecated in the hands of princes and of states, may perhaps demand some little circumspection, even when entrusted to the boasted virtue of the populace. Not only, however, is all knowledge power, but there is a knowledge of which the power is pure malignity and unadulterated evil. There are lessons which detach from all duty -which sap the foundations of all principle. And what is that knowledge which, generally speaking, has of late years been diffused among the people of this land? Has it been calculated to confirm their characteristic piety,-to strengthen their obedience to the laws, and their almost instinctive veneration for the constitution established by their fathers-to exalt or to depress them in the scale of morality? Reflect on the efforts that have been made for the last thirty years, to detach the people from their habitual reverence of institutions, sacred and civil-to seduce them from the love of their own country, in which happily the momentous heresies of their betrayers were firmly repressed, and to link their hopes and fears by some traitorous tie to the destiny of foreign nations, in which they were cherished, -to annihilate the morality of genuine patriotism, with the extinction of which it was hoped that every other moral feeling would quickly perish. Reflect on the falsehood and imposture which signalized the long career of English jacobinism, domi nant as it was through the press, and in the mischievous activity of its abettors, even when it was frowned upon by the law of the land. And this wicked system, after it was thought to have run its full career in every species of covert and open resistance to lawful authority-after having expended itself in libels upon the monarchy, the laws, the constitution, the religion of England-in the treasons that were punished, and those that escaped-even after it had exhausted whatever was buoyant in its spirit, in rejoicings over the long successes of England's foes, and breathed apparently its last sigh on the day when victory and vengeance consumed their malignant might-after having, in every form, insulted the majesty, and conspired against the repose of the empire, and after appearing, for a moment, to be fairly extinguished in the rage of disappointment-has again risen as it were from its sepulchre, and, in the midst of a generous and triumphant people, lifted its arm of hate and defiance. The multitude are now instructed, with more audacity than that which signalized the worst periods of our past history, that all the laws framed to curb licentiousness are insolent oppression-that their rights are systematically invaded -that the constitution is a cheat-and religion itself an imposture. They are told, that their superiors in rank and fortune are their insatiate oppressors; and the inference is not indistinctly pointed out that it is a duty to destroy them along with the system by which such unspeakable wrongs are upheld. The tendency to change and to violence has, therefore, become too palpable to be longer misunderstood, and the arts of bloodthirsty impostors, working on popular credulity, have recently disgraced this once happy nation with the disorders of infant rebellion, and made the scaffold to stream with the blood of her deluded children. The object of the disaffected is, to enjoy without labour; to plunder without punishment; and to indulge an atrocious revenge against the actual possessors of wealth and power, merely because they are in possession. They have been taught that the world is badly arranged-that they have a right to apply the corrective and that the universal pollution of the higher classes can be expiated only by suffering and blood. Let us not deceive ourselves. Let not those who occupy the pinnacles of society, and who, by their elevation, may be better secured against the incipient din, or entrenched against the first assaults of this levelling spirit, imagine that they are safe, because they are for the present inaccessible. The destroyers are working at the base of the column which supports the order and the majesty of social existence; and those who occupy its summits ought to remember, that the ultimate crash of their ruin will be in proportion to the height which now raises them above the first murmurs of disorder. The present purpose of disaffection is far indeed from being a new or unnatural one. It is the contest of poverty with wealth, of indolence with industry, of profligacy with moral feeling. The latent disease of the popular mind has been essentially the same in all ages; but particular occurrences have brought it into more active play at those moments when it seems to have been the design of Providence to chastise the offences and abate the pride of nations. The radical creed is the best of all adapted to the indolence and profligacy of human nature. There is no merit in being a successful demagogue under its auspices; for the chord of disaffection and revolt requires only to be touched by the most vulgar hand, that it may discourse eloquent music to the daring and rapacity of man. We are not to be surprised, therefore, if the most ordinary persons should have succeeded to admiration upon this abject arena of insolence and ferocity; for it is only the meanest intellects that would deign to occupy it. The actual candidates, whoever they may be, are sure of success, not only because of the essential popularity of their endeavours, but because the course which they pursue is so stamped with infamy, as to repel every noble minded and generous competitor from the field. Hence it is that a clear stage is too often left for their malignant efforts, and that the worth and real talent of the land slumber till they are called into action by the horrors of the abyss into which they are about to fall, and awaken to vigour and precaution only upon the threshold of ruin. It is true, indeed, that if the purpose of the agitators could be accomplished, their followers would be left in a far more deplorable condition than that in which they now exist, even in the vilest of the European states. There is nothing prosperous, nothing soothing, nothing remedial of the wants and sufferings of the lower orders, in the crisis of anarchy. The dregs of the people may indeed be fantastically whirled to power and authority; but even after this shameful change has been accomplished, it is but the dregs, and not the mass of the people, who are exalted. The great majority of those who have panted for change, and who, either by active co-operation or criminal neutrality, have hastened the catastrophe of the state, will remain just where they were, or rather will be in a worse condition, toiling, and most probably toiling in vain-for subsistence. There is no period, in fact, more unpropitious to the welfare of the mass of the people, than that of revolution. The bulk of mankind must depend for subsistence upon industry, and, of course, upon the commercial and agricultural prosperity of the state. They are but a small and select number who can expect to make any thing of the game of ambition, which is the strict and exclusive monopoly of a few audacious spirits. But there is no period in which the ordinary sources of industry are so thoroughly dried up, and its best exertions so much contemned, as that of civil confusion; and revolutions, therefore, are the gain of the leaders alone, and the despair and ruin of their followers. Were England unhappily plunged into a state of anarchy, it is certain that, with the ruin of her commerce and agriculture, her deluded children would either perish in the overthrow of her resources, or continue to exist only for the purposes of mutual extermination-leaving it to some paltry gang of predominating ruffianism to vent its mimic wailings over the ruin which it had created, and to monopolize the entire pro fit of so much suffering and shame. We have not yet discovered, we confess, that there is any thing in the condition of this country to justify the indignant and despairing tone which has become so general in speaking of its affairs -or to warrant the people, as they have been fantastically called, in seeking to avenge their wrongs by rebellion. The country is still a fairer and more glorious country than any of its neighbours or rivals-more abundantly graced with all that ennobles |