. ■ '■ i- : ■ '. ■■ '■ , , . imi ■ t ' 3f{4i.^^ r FCFllisi-i 1 : > k UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE POLICY OF PRINCEvS; AN ESSAY, .■ COT'ITAINING, TOGETHER WITH MUCH USEFUL ADVICE TO LEGITIMATE MONARCHS, A FAITHFUL PICTURE OK THE PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE, Bt A MEMBER OF THE AUSTR[AN LEGATt-ON. " The Lord hath made all things for his own sake." — Ephesians 1. 7. aTTavTwv £a)T0vvT6J ^^oyov dvaqovTi Koyov.—r- Theophrast. in Metaph. LONDON: HORATIO PHILLIPS, 3, CHARING-CROSS. 1828. Prirc Ss. -the French translation, Avhich was published a few ^davs affo at Paris, gives it to a member of the Austrian ^ Legation, meaning, I presume, of the Legation at Paris. The writer, however, has evidently been very lately in England, and I could not help thinking he might belong to the household of Prince Esterhazy ; on inquirv, however, I find that no one attached to his Excellency is suspected of authorship. It matters oo little, however, to whom the essay ought to be ascribed ; "~ the value of the sentiments cannot be affected by the cvi name of the author, who, at all events, seems to have °^ travelled far, to have seen much, and read more. How "^ far his sentiments may accord with those now prevalent amongst us, remains to be proved. Like all other writers on controverted points, he pushes his argu- ments as far as they can well go, perhaps farther ; but he is evidently sincere, and his extravagance, if any, is far less pernicious than the ravings of liberalism. Nothing more remains to be said, except that I have endeavoured to give to him an entirely English air C3 and manner, and, following the best rule for transla- g tion, to make him speak our language as if it had ^ been originally his own. THE POLICY OF PRINCES. DEDICA TIGN TO HIS HIGHNESS PRINCE METTERNICH. &c. &c. Highness, J HE following treatise, the fruit of much meditation, would probably have never seen the light, had not certain circumstances occurred, which seem to require that some efforts should be made in behalf of that great cause which it has been the object and glory of your life to promote. The desperate anarchists of the Peninsula have organized what they are pleased to call a government, and have spread so far the contagion of their principles as to find support, not only from the half-jacobin ministers of England, but also from the more sober politicians of the French cabinet. If your Highness does not interpose, it is impossible to say to what lengths these hideous principles may be pushed. That constitution, of which an English envoy was acciden- tally the bearer from the Brazils to Lisbon, will soon find another messenger of the same nation, who will acciden- tally convey the same precious gift across the frontiers of Portugal to the heart of Spain. You will then have to do B 2 over again the glorious work of 1823, or the thrones of legitimacy will be shaken to their foundations. The ter- ror which the contemplation of these fatal consequences is calculated to inspire, has induced me to hasten the publi- cation of this Essay, in order that posterity may know there was one hand, at least, willing, if not able, to stay the plague. Your Highness must not expect to find anything like a complete code of political law in the ensuing pages : both time and ability are wanting for so great a task. But you will see, arranged without much method, and perhaps too slovenly thrown together, a few thoughts on those topics which must force themselves upon your daily notice, particularly at this awful period, when the embers of re- volution, hitherto thought to be dying, have been raked into a flame. The principles which are herein maintained, are deduced chiefly from your practice. It was said of a very powerful Roman, that there never was a better servant nor a worse master; your Highness has observed the eulogy without being open to the censure. Those lessons of obedience to sovereign sway, which you learnt in a very persuasive school, under a master well fitted for instruction, you have resolved to teach to all the subjects of the great monarchy over whose destinies you have been called to preside : nay more, you have endeavoured, and for a long time with prodigious suc- cess, to extend your maxims of government over the fairest portion of civilized Europe ; and but for two or three fatal events uncontrollable by human foresight, you would have triumphed over all the machinations of the mischievous. Death has been busy amongst your best friends. It re- cjuircd all your perseverance and skill to bear up against the loss of that minister, who for so many years ruled over England, and made her, as it were, the handmaid of your great and good designs : you have delayed, if you have not been able, altogether, to prevent the evils which all think- ing men were afraid must inevitably ensue upon the decease of your powerful coadjutor; but the Congress of Verona, and the conquest of Spain, will for ever show what can be done by statesmen of real courage and sagacity, under cir- cumstances the most embarrassing and discouraging. You have lost some of those friends whose congenial aid has encouraged and assisted your former efforts. The Harden- bergs and the Castlereaghs are no more. The great Alexander, for a long time your unwilling pupil, but at last your most potent ally, he also has disappeared from the scene. But there is not a cabinet in Europe where you have not efficient friends; and, notwithstanding present ap- pearances cannot be regarded with satisfaction, there is no reason for distrust, far less for despair : the danger ought not to be disguised, but it need not be magnified: Your enemies are loud talkers, but they are little doers; a sudden success transports them to ecstacies, which exhaust their spirit and lull them to inactivity: your coadjutors, on the contrary are silent, but persevering. Their own interest, which never sleeps, binds them to you and to your holy cause. It does not call forth their clamour, but it secures their services. It does not contend with, but it survives the pas- sions roused by idle declamation. With such an ally in the bosom of every experienced man in Christendom, you may laugh at all figures of rhetoric, and confide in the slow but certain progress of those feelings which, must persuade us that, in order to partake of the benefits, it is necessary to strengthen the safeguards of power. The love of wealth and of distinction is natural to man — that wealth and that dis- tinction, as the world is now constituted, can be derived only from the sources of sovereign authoritv. This truth is felt B2 and acted upon by the great majority of mankind. The number is comparatively small of those who would break down the banks and drain off the fountain of honour. Such madmen, however, will always be found; and it is to pre- vent the increase of their disciples, that the following pages have been composed. They can be dedicated to no one so properly as to your Highness, by your most devoted admirer and attached servant, The Author. CHAPTER I. Fundamental Principles. I Havb read every thing written on government, — in- cluding those romances, the Republic of Plato, the Utopia of More, Campanella"'s Commonwealth of the Sun, and Mr. Harrington's Oceana, — from Aristotle down to the Essays of M. Montlosier. I confess that, when young, there was something in the turbulent little states of anti- quity which attracted me. I thought it a fine thing to pull together a whole population by a painted rope, and keep them in a market-place, like the ring of an English boxing match, whilst they listened to harangues on state affairs. I thought it a still finer thing that the people, so assembled, should, when wellheated by the said harangues, decide sometimes upon putting some rich citizen to death ; some- times upon making war on a neighbouring prince ; and at other times upon banishing the very orator who was attempting to excite their passions against others. I was charmed with the Romans cutting off their sons' heads — stabbing their daughters — putting to death their best friends — all for the point of honour ; and when I found in modern history some incidents worthy of older times, such as trying, or turning off a king, I could not help thinking that, if it pleased heaven to give me an opportunity, 1 might show myself imbued with an equal love of liberty, and de- sire of glory : — but I have lived to be wiser — Mr. Mudford's* (the editor of the English Courier) history of Greece, has shown me what good-for-nothing noxious little communities I was deluded to admire ; and my own experience has con- * A mistake, apparently for Mr. Mitford. —Translator. 6 \ inced me that if there was any period of Roman dominion under which a man of common sense would wish to have lived, it is that when no one but the prince was allowed to trouble himself with state-afFairs. Aristotle, and Livy after him, defined government to be an empire of laws and not of men ; but this is a quibble; and a more practical legislator than either, I mean Justinian, has spoken much more sensibly by saying, " Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem" adding, however, a silly reason and notoriously unfounded *' quum lege regia quae de ejus imperio lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potes- tatem concedat." The Romans did not give their authority to the emperors, the emperors took it. I lay it down for an incontrovertible maxim that any scheme by which sovereign authority is communicated to any other than the sovereign himself, tends to disturb individual and national tranquillity t. The whole object of modern makers of constitutions is to do this ; they profess it ; they say that power emanates from, and should be divided amongst the people. My views are in exactly the contrary direction ; I say there should be no division of power ; and I add that what is called a mixed government is an absurdity ; between an absolute king and an absolute democracy there is no point of real and lasting repose: the moment a sovereign parts with a portion of his power, he has given the signal to those who will sooner or later force him to part with all. My fust maxim, therefore, is, hold no parley, consent to no terms with the opposers of power, call them liberals, con- stitutionalists, or what you will: such a compromise ends in ruin. t Tliisiraniiiiilliiy islliccnd of all national scliemes of government; and I conclude «illi llulihos, "sine pace imposbib leiii esse incoluniitalem, sine impcr.o pacpm, sine ormis imperium, sine opibus in imam manum collatic nihil valcro arma.'— Sec llic epitome of ilu- Uvialiian in Vita llobbcsii. CHAPTER II. Of Patriot Kings. Read Machiavelli ; mind not with what motive he wrote his Prince; but examine hisprecepts, and pronounce whether or not they are well founded and safe to be acted upon. Read Lord Bolingbroke's essay ; tell me which of these two works is most likely to confirm a king upon his throne : I apprehend the latter to be a mere childish declamation in comparison with the former. The French wits of the last age instilled as much of their philosophy as they could spare into two or three of the sovereigns whose verses they corrected, or whose children they educated. There was the liberal Frederic of Prussia, and the liberal Empress Catherine, and the liberal Emperor Joseph, and the still more liberal Leopold of Tuscany ; not one of these sove- reigns but lived to repent their liberality, of which more than one was the victim. They wanted to have a reputation for reforming abuses, encouraging letters, and making their subjects happy ; they did not want abilities, nor virtues, nor opportunities; but their liberality, like Scipio's clemency,* tarnished their other qualities, and those two of them, in particular, who were the most anxious to make themselves beloved, ended by being despised. What Horace says of poetry is true of politics, " decipimur specie recti," and no men more than kings. They think it magnanimous to part with their power, just as a rich man thinks it generous to part with his wealth. They are charmed by the flatteries of those who tell them that a throne is well • Such is Machiavelli's opinion of Scipio's clemency. exchanged for a niche in the temple of Fame. They forget that power is not like that miraculous virtue of our Saviour which, though he felt it to go forth, might still be repaired ; they forget that nothing is so difficult, nothing so ungra- cious as the attempt to recover authority ; they find, when too late, that the mantle of empire cannot be worn loosely, and partly cast off, but must be either ample and entire, or altogether abandoned. CHAPTER III. Of Co7istitutions . The same age will witness the birth and death of these mishapen productions, unless injudicious treatment should prolong their existence. From some internal ferment, the physical world sometimes teems with plagues and earth- quakes ; also there is a condition of the moral world which is fruitful of evil. We have been born in these unhappy periods. The first French republicans registered their con- stitutions as easily and as often as the Bourbon princes had registered edicts. At first, they were formidable instruments of anarchy, but, being multiplied they became ridiculous and were despised. The pigeon-holes of the Abbe Sieyes contained more codes than there were communities in Christendom ; but they were all burnt in the Orangery at St. Cloud, on or about the eighteenth Brumaire, and have never been heard of since. For many years the term constitution was a bye-word of reproach ; but Napoleon was fated first to recall the Cortes of Spain into existence, and afterwards to oblige the sove- reigns of Europe to have recourse to their people, as the only counterpoise, and the last remaining resource against his power. Hence the rage for popular representation. France had her charter ; Belgium and Holland two houses of parliament ; every little German principality its consti- tution : — nothing was heard of but deputies, and peers, and chambers, the liberty of the press, the responsibility of ministers, from the Elbe to the Danube. The same sounds would soon have been echoed throughout the Italian pen- insula. Even the most prudent statesmen were surprised 10 into a momentary acquiescence in these new attempts at revolution ; but Prince Metternich and his colleagues were awakened before it was too late. The Diet of Frankfort neutralized the mischief in the German states ; the alter- ations in the Charter produced the same salutary effect in France. The great union of sovereigns, so aptly called the Holy Alliance, crushed the anarchists of Italy and of Spain, and the word constitution again was a term of scorn and ridicule. The different modes adopted to attain the same end in different states are worthy of the sage politicians who have so successfully struggled with the hydra of anarchy; but their success has not been uniform, nor equally decisive in all instances. Open force has completely succeeded in Italy, and would have succeeded in Spain, had there not been some temporising with the revolutionists. The con- stitutions of Germany have been rendered very nearly harmless, by the interference of the ministers of the great powers at Carlsbad and Troppau, and at the Diet of Frankfort. In France, the ultra liberals, who a few years ago divided the chamber, have by resolute changes in the charter dwindled to a dozen, but there is still some inju- dicious forbearance towards that party, which renders the tribune the organ of faction. Whichever way I look, I find that uncompromising measures, either directly putting down the enemies of good government, or working to that end, ultimately, without any real concession, have invariably succeeded; whilst the wish to conciliate and to come to terms has always ended to the disadvantage of monarchy. In the precepts which I shall lay down for the conduct of statesmen, I shall shape my arguments so as to show my thorough conviction of this striking and uncontradicted fact. II CHAPTER IV. On Abstract Principles of Government. — On Promulga- tion of Laws, and on Obediejice. It has given me much regret to see, in a late decree of the Austrian government, bearing date the 14th of Sep- tember, 1826, and signed by that excellent person, the Count Strasoldo, governor of Milan, a decree against the slave trade, in which T find it laid down that '* man instinc- tively feels he is not the property of another. '"* It is dan- gerous to state from authority abstract principles, which mischief-makers may apply to their own bad purposes: besides it is not, to my mind, altogether clear, that the above proposition is tenable. Spoken physically, man is indeed an individual, and the matter that composes him is his own, and not another's ; but spoken politically, the very reverse of the proposition is the fact: for not only man has no such feeling of independence, but he has a conviction of either wholly or in part belonging to another; of being subordinate ; of having very little the use of his mind or body according to his own propensities, of, in short, not beinghis own property. This is coming back to the ridiculous and pernicious doctrines of the Rights of Man ; and the next step leads to proclaiming liberty and equality, and raising the standard of revolution. In one point of view these propositions are harmless. They are understood by men of sense to mean nothing; and the greater part of mankind receive them, instead of actual concessions, like so many loans or recompenses for their other sufferings and patience : but, I repeat, it is better not to lay down such propositions. The ministers of a great 12 monarch are not called upon to imitate miserable consti- tution-mongers, and to give reasons for tiieir conduct. Their's is afar higher province ; they have to promulgate laws, not arguments. What they require is to be done, not because it is thought to be reasonable, but because it is known to emanate from them. It is a weak compliance with revolutionary faction that prompts these idle reasonings. Look in the codes of the ancient masters of Christendom, and admire and follow their simplicity. If the enactment be penal , they statethe sovereign displeasure at thecrime ; define it clearly or loosely, as may suit the purpose intended, and then declare the punishment, " bestiis objiciantur in insulas relpgantur" — death or banishment, or what you will. Even the ancient republics were in general too wise to do more than this, and when they did, they only did harm : witness the incredible disorders which have afflicted the world, merely in consequence of the short sentence in the Twelve Tables, " SALus popuLi suPREMA LEX BSTo." The first Operation of the wily commentators thereon, was to change the im- perative into the affirmative mood, and to make that which was only a remark or deduction from some law, an abstract proposition or pretended basis of legislation : we all know that the insurgents of every age and nation, afterwards had this absurd maxim in their mouths, and made it the watchword of rebellion, which was as far from the con- templation of theframer of the Twelve Tables, as from that of his Excellency the Count Strasoldo when he signed the sentence against slavery. The only cause of obedience ought to be the certainty of the law coming from him who has power to make laws ; the sovereign speaks, the sovereign commands ; the subject hears, the subject obeys; — why need he throw away his faculties upon considering what prompted, or what justifies 13 the decree, when, after all his cogitations, he has only one practical conclusion, obedience ? This is called blind obe- dience. I cannot help being obliged to use an obnoxious term, when no other will serve my purpose. I say, therefore, that blind obedience is what a real monarch will exact ; short of it there is none. If I begin to debate with myself whether I ought to obey, I shall soon ask myself whether I will obey. If by not opening my eyes I walk or am led safely; if by opening my eyes, I see "men like trees walking", that is,if I magnifyandmistakeobjects, and, throwing off my guide, run my head against obstacles which I before neither saw nor felt ; if also it is evident that, although I had a thousand eyes and saw a thousand different tracks, there is only one path which I can at last pursue with safety, then I ask what do I gain by opening my eyes? Nothing. — I loose my composure and contentment, I am irritated by the prospect of forbidden fields, whilst I am forced inevitably to pursue the high road of implicit obedience. Our first parents were blind ; they opened their eyes; they saw that they were naked, and were ashamed; not that they were more naked than they were before they began to reason and reflect about their condition, but they had knowledge of good and evil : hence shame, in other words discontent, and after discontent, rebellion, murder, and all those abominable transgressions which made it necessary to drown, save only the inmates of the Ark, not only all mankind, the aggressors, but also all the brute creation: such was the dreadful consequence of departing from that blind obedience in which consisted, in fact, the blissful inno- cence of Paradise. Well said Montaigne, "humility, fear, obedience, and affability, which are the chief props of human society, require no capacity, provided the mind is docile and free from presumption." I might enlarge much on this topic; 14 but it is not my task to reconcile subjects to their duty. My address is directed to the Sovereign, not to the people of a state. My efforts have for their object the maintenance of authority in undiminished vigour ; and, in pursuance of this object, I have ventured to canvass the propriety of such a mode of promulgating decrees as Count Strasoldo has unwarily adopted. I might add that this proposition, coming from a government whose acts are happily of the directly opposite nature, may throw an air of ridicule upon the state. Here you have Count Gonfaloniere shivering in the dungeons of Spielberg ; Porro, and others of the first families in Lombardy, starving in hopeless exile. And why? Because these thoughtless traitors wished to bring Count Strasoldo's principles into practice ; because they resolved to show that " man instinctively feels he is not the property of another;" because they objected to the inhabitants of Lombardy being part of the moveables of the king of Hungary. Assuredly the giving occasion to such a contrast between the wise acts and the heedless words of statesmen, is much to be avoided ; and those who know the truth of Mirabeau's axiom that, " words are things," will take care to utter none but such as entirely correspond, and are of a piece, with their conduct; and in this place I am happy to be able to cite a saying of Count Strasoldo's master, the Cffisar himself. That intelligent and experienced monarch, in a very few words, stated his views of the only use of power. When a deputation from some of the learned bodies in Italy, waited upon him at Laybach, with an address, in which he was styled the patron of letters and arts, and much was said also of the advantages arising from the encouragement of literature. His Imperial Majesty quickly answered, that " he did not want learned men, he wanted obedient subjects." This is the true, the only sensible end ^ 15 of all state policy — to make obedient subjects. If learning and science increase revenue, if like the bells and trappings on well-managed steeds, they continue to keep the subject in a measured pace, and to please him with their jingling, then they are worthy of encouragement : but the Emperor was right, they are not articles of the first necessity, they are not to be mentioned even, except after securing the great essential commodity, blind obedience. 16 CHAPTER V. Literature. — How far to be Encouraged. The concluding remark of the last chapter leads me (o consider how far a monarch should encourage literature and science. When his Majesty the Emperor Francis said he did not want learned men, I presume he meant he did not want them in the same proportion or sense as he wanted obedient subjects; for if he meant that he did not desire to have any learned men in his states, I should almost venture, though with the greatest deference to my sovereign, and to a personage of such tried experience, to put some limit at least to that assertion ; for the most absolute monarch may turn the learning of his subjects to very good account. It is very true that the indiscriminate study of ancient authors, has a tendency to inculcate wild notions respecting government; and Bayle mentions, that he knew men of sense who wondered that in kingdoms where the authority of the prince is almost boundless, the instructors of youth are suffered to read Greek and Latin authors*. Even the courtly Livy now and then suffers it to be seen that he preferred Pompey to Caesar; and Paterculus a most subservient writer in general has a long euloguim on Cicero, connected with some very free remarks on the character of Anthony and the conduct of the triumvirs : — Florus also, in the prologue to his history, written under a Ccesar, calls the empire the dotage of Rome. Indeed I scarcely know a single ancient author who is quite fit to be put into the hands of a young reader. Excellent was the project of Napolean Bonaparte to publish a correct edition of the classical writers, purged from al * Article Hobbes. note c. 17 those precepts and declamations which now render the greater part of them too inflammatory for the sons of a good subject. With this precaution I think that a competent knowledge of Latin and Greek is not inconsistent with the true spirit of obedience ; and I add, as before, that it may be turned to account. I do not think I have observed learned men, especially authors, of a very rebellious disposition ; on the contrary, they are usually of rather a plastic nature, and moulded without much difficulty to the purposes of power. The professors of universities for example, with the exception of those silly declaimers whose themes have brought them to the cells of Magdeburg, and their pupils to the scaffold, are for the most part very well inclined to uphold authority ; and so far from making a mischievous use of their classical attainments, employ them laudably enough, and enlist the ancients into the service of their modern masters. It is very agreeable to find our emperors and kings adorned with the virtues and titles of Antoninus and Trajan, and to read in good Latin praises of our sovereigns, which might appear exaggerated if recorded in the vernacular language. There is scarcely a town in Italy but contains memorials to the piety, munificence, and paternal rule of Francis, the august Caesar which we owe to the academical acquirements of his Italian subjects; so that even in this respect, the cultivation of letters, under proper regulations, may be permitted to good subjects. Besides this it is clear that historiographers and gazette- writers, and even state pamphleteers are of service to a monarch; and that to them some studies must be permitted in order to sharpen their wits, and enable them to wield the pen of power with dexterity and effect. If European society were to be altogether remodelled, and all writing, or publishing, at least, were prevented, of course a monarch, C 18 would scorn to employ any other weapon than the sword ; but at present there is a skirmishing with the pen as well as a battling with bayonets; and the sovereigns do well, with the limitation I shall hereafter make, to employ a Genz, and a Schlegel, a Kotzebue, and a Southey, just as they use a Blucher or a Wellington to fight their battles. It is, I confess, to be deplored, that an emperor or a great king must condescend to such a contest ; but as the case stands there is no choice, and as there will be writers in every country, the only thing to be done is to make them servants of the state, and to employ them in propagating the proper doctrines, and answering such foreign libels as are beyond the reach of power, and are thought worthy of notice. However, the utmost discretion is requisite in this respect. The praise should not be so ill timed or exaggerated, as to look like censure in disguise, and none but men of some skill, should be allowed to write at all for the courts. Augustus Ca;sar saw the ridicule of clumsy commendation, and made it penal for dunces even to mention him. The art of printing, an invention which, after all that has been said, has perhaps done more harm than good in the world, has made the art of government much more difficult than it was in ancient times. Could we break all the types, as Omar burnt all the books in his way, and could we erase from the memory of man, the discovery of Dr. Faust, ])erhaps we might arrange matters more to our mind; but as that is impossible, our efforts should be directed to tiic next resource of power, the complete prevention, or the im- mediate suppression of such writings as impede the opera- tions of sovereign authority. Encourage if you will, that species of composition which is harmless in this respect, and turn each mode and style of writing, into that channel, whore it may (low peacably and innocently, without break- 19 ing down the boundaries, and overtiowinc^ the domains of monarchy. For example, if an author receive from nature and education, a bent towards historical discussion, let care be taken that he employ his talents in the illustration of questions which tend to no reflections relative to cotempo- rary events. I was delighted to remark, on a late occasion, that a principal professor of Pavia, had published more than one volume on the exact site of the battle, on the Ticino, between Hannibal and Scipio. I would by all means encourage such treatises, although some one has called them ingenious trifles, for if they do no good, they do no harm, and that is more than can be said of half the books now ushered into the world. If the professors of Pavia and of Padua, can but instil into their pupils a taste for this species of learning, they will save their necks, at least, whatever they may do towards the formation of their brains. How difl^erent such studies from those recom- mended by notorious revolutionists ! I will mention one who, preaching from the same chair as the above mentioned worthy professor, directed the attention of his youthful audience to the study and to the composition of history, as the means of doing what he called, restoring the Italians to their former political and literary renown*. Certainly Ugo Foscolo is right in his sense of government and national glory ; but to make good humble subjects, the sole end of all arts and institutions, no scheme can be devised, so totally opposed to the purpose required. I attribute a great deal of the tranquillity and obedience of Italy for ages, to the modes of composition of, and to the taste infused by her learned men. Her mortal poets formed themselves into academies, where they sung their own verses to their own lutes, where they crowned each other with wreaths, and * See his discourse on the study and duties of literature. C2 20 addresBed each other by Arcadian names expressive of sim- plicity and innocence. Their grave writers compiled the antiquities of illustrious reigning houses, or investigated the topography and the architectural remains of the ancient world ; their controversialists confined their differences to these subjects, or to others equally unconnected with the concerns of the world in which they were living ; and if they ever displayed the bad passions of authorship, it was only towards their literary foes, not against their political masters, so that at last wit and learning became, what they ought to he, the handmaids of power. The transfer of terri- tory from one prince to another, the marching of armies from the Alps to the straits of Messina, affected not them. Spain, Austria, Savoy, France, might triumph and might retreat in turn; each conqueror was in turn received with a smile and a song, and, excepting one little plaintive sonnet, more celebrated because more singular, I know of no Italian for ages who indulged in the foolish hope of making his pen, as it were, one of the lawful weapons of the wars of princes. I can understand therefore, why, at the several courts of the Italian peninsula, the literature which was there to be found, received proper encouragement, just as the second master of the Roman world, '^ imn principatus dbi firmayis,'" says Tacitu-s, permitted his senators, indeed directed them to inquire into the antiquities, and former religious usages of the Greek cities, an employment which, though it much delighted those whom it was meant to please, the wise emperor knew very well could cause no infringement of his own power*. But too much caution, cannot be used in supervising and controlling the literature and the learned men of real monarchies, it is impossible to make any mistake in this particular. Democratic govern- • Si'f Aniwl lil). iii. clitip. Ix. 21 merits, if governments they can be called, have their great writers as they have their great talkers, they are a part of the turbulence, they are the turbulence of the time ; but w^ith peace and monarchy they go out, their disastrous light expires and is seen no more. When, for the sake of tranquillity, the v^rriter above quoted confesses it, the whole power is conferred to one, then those great geniuses cease to exist, "magna ilia ingenia cessere.*" Beccaria tells us that his philosophy was inflamed by a love of literary repu- tation, a love of liberty, and a compassion for miserable men, the slaves of so many errors *, a true portrait of your true political sage, an — ambitious philanthropic republican. Those who prefer a well-poised period, or an ingenious turn of thought, to established order, and quiet, and security, will certainly find more to tickle their ears, and inflame their imaginations amongst republicans; for I repeat it the cultivation of the so-called higher branches of lite- rature, history and tragic drama, as now written, is incompatible with monarchy. A celebrated English writer, Pope, justly calls "wit" '^rebellions' He is, indeed, the most desperate and troublesome of all rebels, and I am convinced, the time will come, when experienced statesmen will take more pains than they now do to fetter him. If he will dance, it should be as he did in the Augustan age, and in the days of Louis XIV., in chains. Though even at those periods, as I have before hinted, sufficient care was not taken to prevent the evil genius of authorship from occasionally breaking out. — Else why was Virgil allowed to compliment Caio .'* Or why did the dramatic writers under the Louises do, what Voltaire, with much truth and naivete, calls " speak worthily of liberty itself, in some of * Hist. lib. i. chap. i. + See his letter to the Abbe Morellet, Paris, 1797. 22 their pieces, written as they were in the bosom of a monarchy." Parley- dignement dc la liberie meme, dans quel_ ques-unes de nos pieces, tout ecrites quelles sont done le sein d'une monarchie. If he alluded a little to himself, the case is still more apposite ; for I beg to ask, in what all this worthy writing ended ? Indeed, your poets are as bad as the stately historian, particularly dramatic poets ; and in my conscience, I believe that the first French revolu- tionists took their hints from the theatre, as much as from the journals, and essayists, and encyclopedists. Who that remembers those times, can forget the thunders of ap- plause, that followed the declamation. Le 'premier qui fut roi.'" Sj-c. The pathos of this very Voltaire, to say nothing of the pleasantry of Beaumarchais ; prepared the Parisians for any doctrines of disaffection, whilst the thoughtless courtiers, delighted with themselves and their proteges, attributed all these brilliant sallies to their own liberality, and their patronage of merit. The English themselves, who, it must be confessed, do every thing by halves, have a licenser for their dramatic writers, and the only set of men amongst them, who, by their very title, are servants of the King, are the actors. On the whole, then, I would rather dissuade all encouragement of literature, than relax for an instant one of those restraints, which cautious governments have devised, to prevent the im- proper employment of the pen. This policy, makes me look with much misgiving, upon the present establishment of schools for the instruction of the lower classes in the elements, at least, of learning. I see this in France, in Germany, in Italy, and every where, I believe, but in Spain. These schools, were produced at the same birth with the revolution ; they are a part and parcel of the new system, and show, or will one day show, their parentage; just as Fame, the sister of the giants, who attempted to take heaven by storm, is described by the poet, as not betraying her origin in her younger days. They will make more writers, and more readers : Will they make more obedient subjects ? I doubt. True it is, that the more pru- dent monarchs, take as much care as possible to confine that writing and reading within the proper limits. In the Austrian States, it is very satisfactory to see, that the instruction is such, as would make one suppose the whole population were intended for the sacred profession. Selec" tions from the scriptures, and the lives of the saints, and the rules by which the blessings of the holy year may be obtained ; these form the sole course of study, of all the lower, and many of the higher, classes in that great monarchy. In England, this restricted reading is to be found only in the penitentiaries, and gaols, and forms part of the punishment of the convicts. But I am afraid that in France, and in protestant Germany, the course of education is not so strictly watched, and that the popula- tion, will, at last, become too wise to pay their taxes, and listen to their priests. Let the English do what they will they are past cure ; all that the continental sovereigns can do, is to prevent the infection. 24 CHAPTER VI. The Sciences. I THINK the sciences may be safely encouraged. It is an old observation, that they naturally flourish under a monarchy, whilst literature rejoices in a democratic form of government, ' The Philosophical Transactions of the English Royal Society, are quite as harmless as those which issue from the Austro-Lombard universities, and my experience has taught me, that the contributors to the said London Transactions, are as docile, humble, and innocent, in short, as good subjects as Mr. Cuvier, or as the profes- sors of astronomy at Padua. If all the English writers were as little dangerous as Sir Everard Home, and Sir Humphry Davy, and Mr. Davies, and Mr. Hatchet, and other estimable fellows of the English society royal ; that country might look forward to years of happiness, equal to that enjoyed by ourown paternally-governed Austrian States. The man of science is everywhere the same, a quiet, timid, supple subject, '■'■ ortus e salice non ex quercu.'" His inven- tions generally tend to strengthen the hand of power, or to add to the luxuries, therefore, to the laziness of life: his speculations concern matters which have no connexion, with any one form of government, more than another. The discoveries of Franklin partake in no degree of his republican character, and he might have drawn down the lightning from heaven, equally well, without being an accomplice in snatching the sceptre from his lawful master. Indeed, I just now learn, that both of his exploits, so much vaunted, have turned out equally dangerous and destructive to others. It now seems that his conductors 25 only bring down the fire from the clouds, on what would otherwise escape from danger ; just as his revolutionary principles awaken the slumbering energies of man to the destruction of civil society. But, generally speaking, the tendency of scientific pur- suits is to tranquillize and content the mind, and to hold out no other object of ambition, than the invention of some new mechanical process, or the discernment of some unseen star, or the composition of a gas, or the solving of a problem ; discoveries which, as far as the question of government is concerned, would leave mankind just where they found them, and which need not disturb the slumbers of the most absolute or the most suspicious sovereign. Napoleon Bonaparte was well acquainted with this truth. He honoured and he previously encouraged the Hauys, the Gay-Lussacs, and the Cuviers ; but he took especial care that his third class of the Institute should produce no more formidable historians and poets than Lacretelle and his brother Lucien. It was to punish and to weaken the Austrian monarchy that the same conqueror, in 1809, caused the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and the other revolutionists of the eighteenth century, to be printed and circulated in the city of Vienna ; where Montesquieu was, and happily is now again, a proscribed and forbidden author. On the whole, then, I see no harm in the encouragement of science; for if the longitude were exactly ascertained, or the circle squared, what mischief would it do at Vienna, any more than at London ? 26 CHAPTER VII. The Arts. The arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture, and others which tend to add to the luxuries, and, if I may say so, the embellishments of life, are, in my opinion, rather service- able than otherwise to the good cause. It was a sensible speech of Madame de Stael, when in England, " you will have no revolution here, your carpets are too fine." I do not disguise from myself, that in the previous study re- quisite for the qualification of artists, there is something dangerous : for a perpetual contemplation of the remains of antiquity is liable to direct youthful minds to the circumstances which gave birth to many of these noble monuments, and to the character and condition of the people, whose triumphs and whose virtues they were meant to commemorate. Thus I have known several of those who have repaired to Athens or to Rome, for the purposes of instruction, return unhappily imbued with republican principles. Nevertheless, the painter, the sculptor, and the architect, fall naturally into the train of courtiers, and flourish in the sunshine of uncontrolled power. Royal academies for the encouragement of the fine arts, galleries, museums, and exhibitions, are to be met with in every court in Europe. But it is notorious that until very lately, England was wofully behindhand in this particular; and that having the largest, she had also the ugliest, capital in the world. The Medici were great encouragers of the fine arts ; so were the Bourbon princes on every throne. The same may be said of the Stuarts: Napoleon, Louis XIV, 27 and Augustus, were all equally aware how useful it is to set their subjects gazing at new streets, and palaces, and picture galleries. Much of the long tranquillity of the Italians is to be attributed to the taste which made them prefer a dead to a living hero ; and which put them to work upon the marble and canvass, rather than upon the mind of man. It was a wise policy which dictated sending back the statues and pictures from France, to their native home. They are the serious play-things of the Italians ; and I heard some revolutionists of that country regret that they had not been kept for ever on the other side of the Alps, so that their countrymen might turn their attention to more substantial pursuits. If any one would contemplate the effects naturally produced by this exclusive attention to the fine arts, it will be sufficient for him to think of the tears which were shed, and the flowers and the crowns which were strewn upon the tomb of Canova. All Italy was a house of mourning; the light of the age, the glory of his country was no more. The Solon of Greece, the Numa of Rome, were not more revered ; and in this tumult of grief and passion, no one paused to inquire whether the modern Praxiteles had, in the slightest degree, effected in any way the moral or political condition of that Italy, by which he had been adored in his life, and deified at his death. He was a great sculptor, and a generous man, and what he spared from charity, he left to build a church. But had there been a Canova in every town in Italy, Italy would still have been as she now is : — they would all have been as he was, the friends, the pensioners of princes. Every sovereign in Europe, except George IV., has subscribed to the monument of Canova. If it were proposed to erect a monument to the poet Byron, how many kings would, or indeed ought to, contribute to that object? 28 Every school-boy is acquainted with the opinion of the ancient writers, as to the necessity of so regulating the encouragement even of the common arts, as not to suffer them to interfere with the political duties of the citizens. These citizens were all members, they cannot be called subjects, of little turbulent democracies; and their teachers were afraid it would make them less busy and active politicians, if they were employed in contributing to the comforts or the luxuries of life. Xenophon, in the fifth book of his Memorabilia, says, *'Most arts corrupt and enervate the bodies of those that exercise them ; they oblige them to sit under a shade, or near the fire. They can find no leisure either for their friends, or the republic." Hence it was a common maxim that artisans were unfit to be freemen ; and in the old republics they seldom were: even the actors and musicians were, for the most part, slaves. These considerations are sufficient to shew with what safety, nay, with what pro- priety and advantage, the arts, and especially the fine arts, may be encouraged in an absolute monarchy. Of course these arts must be under a censorship, no less than the press. When Michael Angelo was at work upon the bust of Brutus, he was obliged to recollect how disagreable the subject might be to the Cajsars of Tuscany and Rome ; and the unfinished head now bears the following inscription, extremely fit for a princely museum : — Dum Bruti effigiem sculptor de marmore ducit. In memtein sceleris vcnit, et abstinuit. The painters and sculptors of revolutionized France, chose all sorts of horrid subjects, and became libellers on canvas and marble : but no cautious statesmen will allow any symbols of sedition ; and directors of all well regulated academics and museums take care to admit no 29 inflammatory subjects in their public exhibitions. 1 was sorry and surprised to see the exploits of William Tell in the Brera gallery, at Milan, last year. Such deeds are fit to adorn a Swiss pot-house ; but are unworthy, not to say unsafe, in the capital of an Austrian province. The old artists of Italy knew better : the portraits of their princes or mistresses, the martyrdom of saints, the miracles of scripture, and the metamorphoses of Ovid ; these w^ere suffi • cient for their immortal pencils, and I would not give a greater latitude to their inferior successors. Painters of history, like writers of history, require to be watched : luckily there is little encouragement in this department. Sir Thomas Lawrence, who has been employed to portray all the sovereigns of Europe, has never been engaged, as I have heard, to illustrate a single trait of ancient or modern patriotism. This is not the place to speak of poetry, which is naturally treated of with the literature of a country. I have before given my opinion as to the encouragement of versifiers; a race which is more frequently arrayed against, than in behalf of sovereign power. But a few words must be said of the other imitative art, which, in its ancient alliance with poetry, exercised a most potent influence on national manners. It was a famous saying of Plato, that he would not admit the music of a people could be changed, without a change in the constitution of their government. The wonderful effect produced by the Mar- seillois hymn in France, and the Traga-la in Spain, and the German Liberty Song, " one, two, three," would make a statesmen exceedingly cautious in permitting the publi- cation of any music not sanctioned by the royal imprimatur. I would have a police and a censorship in this department, as well as in that of the press ; and yet with this proper precaution, I look upon the encouragement of the musical 30 art as exceedingly useful. Whilst the Austrian fine ladies and gentlemen, and the middling classes indiscriminately, were worshipping the symphonies and the very person of Haydn, they had no time nor inclination to think of the politics of Paris, or of London. The love of music has distinguished Italy from the moment she settled into stable governments. The national passions which had before burst forth in a thousand extravagances, and involved their ridiculous little republics in absurd squabbles, when turned to the cultivation of this taste, became perfectly harmless ; and the heroes of Rome and of Florence, presided at the piano-forte instead of the senate, and led the orchestra instead of the councils of the state. To this happy change we owe the most delightful of modern discoveries, the Opera ; child of peace and of good government. Napoleon, with all his sagacity, was wrong in this respect, and forbad, throughout his Italian dominions, the practice by which the church and the theatre had for ages been supplied by a perpetual succession of incomparable performers. He said that he wanted soldiers, and not singers ; but, in this instance, he forgot that the great object of the conqueror is to disarm the citizen ; and that to soften and to subdue him, the usage which he abolished had been found most efficacious. With the restored reign of the popes the art of Semiramis has revived ; the school of Sienna is again open, and the chapel of his holiness is no longer in danger of listening to a female voice. I have been often a witness to the useful influence of music in Italy; particularly in that part of it where good government is most required; I mean the Lombard- Vene- tian kingdom. The Venetians instead of devoting them- selves to traitorous intrigues, or vain speculations on their political condition, direct their anxieties and their energies 31 to the annual exhibitions on their theatre ; the opening of the "Fenice,"is their state-afFair ; it is the opening of their musical session : and I have been told that a treble number of clerks are employed at the post-office on the day subsequent to that great ceremony, in order to sort the thousands of letters which convey > to all the regions of Italy, the issue of the performance. I saw Rossini on his first visit to Venice, The enthusiasm which he excited in all companies, and at every time and place, was incredi- ble ; and I beheld a very beautiful lady surreptitiously cut off a piece from the flap of his coat, in order to possess a relic of the great composer. It was my fate to witness the reception of the same eminent person in London ; and after the first novelty at the opera-house was over, he attracted much less novelty in the streets than punch or a dancing bear. The Cossack of 1812, had been followed by multi- tudes for a month, and had been kissed by half the hand- some women in London. My honoured friend, the governor of Venice, does well to encourage the Fenice. It is no less useful than Count Cicognara and his academy, in obliterat- ing recollections which the horses of St. Mark's place, and other republican trophies, might awaken in the city of the Dandolos. CHAPTER VIII. Libels. As for libels, or works written against persons in authority, no wise statesman will suffer such practices for a moment. The Roman Emperors, especially such as were most esteemed for their knowledge of mankind, punished this crime with peculiar severity. I would request the reader to consult the reign of Tiberius : that wise prince, before old age made him still more particular, and when he pardoned many minor offences, pursued those who ventured to write indiscreetly on forbidden topics, with unrelenting severity. A poet, one C. Lutorius Priscus, a Roman knight, who had gained much praise, even from the emperor, and some reward for verses written on the death of Germanicus, bethought him of another taking topic, and composed another elegy on Drusus, then sick and expected to die. This poem, though Drusus recovered, the author thought fit to read to some ladies, all of whom, when the accusation was made against him, were dead, except Vitellia, his mother-in- law; Vitellia denied she had heard the composition, but Tiberius referred the case to his senate, and, on the sentence of Haterius Agrippa, Lutorius was capitally condemned, and executed ; only two senators venturing to say a word in his favour ; and even they declared that he ought to be excom- municated and banished from Rome. Tiberius took no pains to save him, although no long time before he had withheld proofs against Lepida, that she had laid a scheme for poisoning him ; and although when Plautius Silvanus threw his wife out of window, the same sovereign would not proceed to condemnation, without examining, himself, the and the marks of the violence used in committing the murder. I mention these, and might mention many other instances, to shew that this politic prince thought evil speaking, reduced to writing, the most unpardonable of all offences. The adventure of Cremutius Cordus is well known; he lost his life for praising Marcus Brutus. When I come to the imperial codes of Rome, I find the same sage abhorrence of seditious composition ; and such has been the instinctive dislike of all monarchs to the free publication of opinions, that in no decently-governed state has such a liberty been permitted ; indeed it is incom- patible with authority, and I defy any one to shew me an instance where the experiment has been tried without the extinction either of the one or the other. The restriction of publication should not be confined to original compositions ; for no work whatever, however old, or in whatever language, should be allowed to be printed, without the imprimatur of the sovereign; nor should any work be allowed to be circulated, or read, without royal license. The scarcity of books may affect the diffusion of what is called knowledge ; but reading is no more knowledge, than ploughing is knowledge; and unless the produce is sure to be good, there is danger in cultivating soil. In our monarchy, the index of forbidden books is as bulky as that of Rome; and we calculate that we have about twelve millions of fellow subjects who can neither write nor read; the consequence is, that a greedi- ness for news and nonsense is unknown at Vienna, and the Austrian Observer satisfies our moderate appetites for political intelligence. I lay it down for a truth, which no one can contest, that an unconstrained permission to censure the proceedings of D 34 government, is inconsistent with government. Even the practice of England confirms this axiom, for in her colonies she admits no free discussion. Witness the punishment of certain newspaper writers in India, and at the Cape of Good Hope i they have been not only arrested in their wicked career, but have been actually ruined : and even in her own islands, when respectably governed, libellers have been pursued with a vigour worthy of the best systems. But of this I shall speak when I come to say something more particularly of England : her anomalous condition demands a chapter by itself. A sovereign, in order to be quite secure, should allow no discussion on state-affairs, by the means of periodical publications. His measures want no praise; and what St. Augustine said of the Deity may be applied to his representative on earth, " ?nelius scitur nesciendo.'' When once it is allowed to say any thing, except in those common places of eulogy which apply equally well to all kings and all ministers, depend upon it that something will be said which must tend to mischief; and there is but one mode of dealing with periodical publications — silence them — it is more wise, and it is more humane, to prevent, than to punish their crime. I have before stated my opinion as to the encouragement of literature; but that topic is in some degree distinct from the present consideration, which regards literature in its most pernicious form; in other words, when the art of reading and writing is brought into contest with the art of government. The ancients, with all their horror of libellers, had not a thousandth part so much cause for apprehension as modern statesmen, who, if they relax the reins of government in this respect, and are run away with by false 35 notions of candour and liberality, and magnanimity, will eventually be overturned. For where a libel formerly was unrolled in a corner, it now meets a million of eyes at once ; and, thanks to printing, and to some other precious inventions, which shall be adverted to presently, becomes the pest and the poison of a whole nation. I do entreat, therefore, all the rulers of the earth to dry up, without delay, the most abundant source of sedi- tious writing. The political newspaper is the pestilence that walketh by noon-day. It is the chosen organ of the Constants, and the Broughams ! it is the lever with which they have moved, and with which they hope to unhinge the universe. Nothing but the most fatal infatuation will leave such an engine in the hands of revolutionists, Monarchs of the earth ! it is my creed, and it ought to be yours ; one God, one king, one court gazette. One news- paper is quite enough for one people ; and that should be in the hands of the sovereign no less than the sceptre and the sword. When Weimar received a constitution, she soon gave birth to six newspapers, which in a short time became so active as to require the interference of the holy alliance. The chief act of the congress of Troppau, established a censorship at Wiemar, after which no more disturbances at Wiemar. Selim being a liberal sultan, thought he would import a printing press into Constanti- nople, and wiien the press came he would needs try a newspaper. He at the same time entertained a project of putting down the Janissaries, by means of this superior illumination, which was to shew his subjects the necessity of reform. In less than a year he was off the throne, and in less than another year he was strangled. The present sultan, who hates literature as much as Valentinian or D 2 36 Licinius, having a similar aversion to the Janissaries, accomplished his object without a printing press or a nevi'spaper. He abolished the order by an edict, and beheaded about ten thousand refractory mutineers of the disbanded corps. Mahmoud is a wise, though an infidel prince ; luckily for mankind he has not wanted christian imitations. CHAPTER IX. Of the Armed Force. I HAVE told how I would deal with revolutionists whose weapon is the pen ; and the same measures will apply to the mutineers who would wield the sword. The wild theorists of England lay it down that every citizen should carry arms ; add torches, and you have a pleasing picture of the country where such maxims are carried into effect. The soldier-citizen is another monster sprung from the slime of revolution. Princes who would retain their crowns, must allow no such anomaly in their dominions ; There is no safety for the sovereign where there is more than one species of soldier, the regular standing army, dependant on the executive alone, of habits purely military, cut off from the unarmed part of the people by every precaution, well fed, well clothed, indulged, as far as dis- cipline will allow, and so moulded and managed as to consider themselves a portion of authority, interested in the preservation of the system. I have looked into this important point very deeply, for on it so many of the wheels of state must be allowed to turn. I think that the weakest of all the chapters, in the Prince, is the 12th, in which Machiavelli treats of this subject. At any rate, his precepts are inapplicable to modern exigencies ; he decides positively against the employment of mercenaries and auxiliaries, and gives, as a reason, that they are " disunited, ambitious, and without discipline; faithless, bullying towards their friends, worthless against the enemy ; having no fear of God, keeping no faith with man." Now all this, and much more, which the author puts forth on the same head, applies to the defence of states against 38 foreign aggression ; whereas my arguments look another way, my precepts are to teach how a prince is to defend himself, and make head against his own subjects. These are his real, and indeed his only formidable, enemies ; there is no fear of foreign monarchs, nor of individual rivals. The question now is altogether different from what it was when treated of by former political writers. Kings should ever bear in mind, that it is childish to look abroad for that enemy, who is, in fact, at home. I repeat, their natural enemies are their own subjects, and unless they consider them as such, they are fools. Their antago- nists, wise enough in their generation, act upon this principle ; they acknowledge, they glory in, they never cease from, the struggle. The revolutionary declaimer, the foreign secretary of England, has declared the fact in the face of Europe. It is then more than drivelling for one of the contending parties to relax exertions, and more fatal still to mistake the real quarter from whence the attack must proceed ; whilst the other never slumbers nor sleeps, but either slowly or rapidly, either cautiously or vigorously, either secretly or openly, as the occasion requires, pursues the same course, and looks to the same object. This being the real undisguised state of the case, all for- mer maxims respecting the defence of thrones become nugatory ; and if we try Machiavelli's description of the mercenary auxiliary soldier, by contrasting it with the examples which we have ourselves witnessed, we shall discard his lessons and reject his authority. Every one will understand that I am tliinking of the Swiss, whose virtues form a notable opposition to the vices attached by the Florentine to a foreign soldiery. Where was more union — where less ambition — where was discipline carried to H higiier pitch— who ever displayed more fidelity — whose 39 friendship was more useful— whose courage was more for- midable — who ever were more true to the altar and to the throne ? So far from objectinj? to the employment of a foreign force for the purposes of domestic dominion, my only difficulty regards the proportion of strangers by which it may be found expedient to guard a throne. And I will add, that if I cannot use none but foreigners in this capacity, I will take care so to model my native troops as to make them foreigners in habits and feeling, and to give them an interest totally distinct from that of the unarmed subject, and in all things, identified with the power and the preservation of the prince*. What has been said a thousand times of the danger of standing armies, to the liberties as they are called of a people, is an eulogy which should recommend them to a statesman ; but when we read an equal number of warn- ings against placing too implicit a confidence in their assistance, it becomes us to consider whether the catas- trophes of the Roman empire, and other examples inces- santly put forth for their purpose, have any real bearing upon modern practice. It seems to me they have not. I would maintain as large a standing army as I could regu- larly pay, and that army should not be a national army in any sense of the word ; it should be a royal army in all respects. Harrington, in his Oceana, justly remarks that he would have his prince " look well to his file of muske- teers," for this, amongst divers weighty reasons, that he will be able never to give law without them. See the Prerogative of Popular Governments, chap. vi. I am not sure that I would distinguish any portion of these troops as a body * See the way in which Cyrus the Great disunited his Persian soldiery, and mixed them with Medians — a wise lesson, as is all the CyropEedia when well understood. 40 guard ; I would have the whole army a body guard. Moreover, I would allow of no mixed soldiery, such as an armed police, I would have the regular troops carry into effect all the functions of the state, and accustom the peo- ple to regard them as the preservers of peace, no less than as the props of authority. As to foreigners, I cannot see the danger of having a very considerable number in pay. The French Bourbons have wisely had recourse to their old policy in this respect. They have more Swiss regiments than before the revolution. The Bourbons of Naples depend also, wholly on a foreign guard of the same nation. Military revolutions seldom if ever occur except from a native army, ill paid or injudiciously composed. The army should be numerous enough to keep the people in subjection, not more so. By being perpetually employed in enforcing the sovereign will, they loose all sympathy with the subject ; but if collected in large masses for pomp and pageantry, there is some danger that idleness may beget discontent. Besides, the enrolment of a very large number of troops, makes an army in some respect national! the great evil to be avoided by all princes. It was a national army that expelled the Bourbons from France; it was a national army that very nearly expelled the Guelfs from Ireland ; yet the pretext for raising both the Parisian guard and the Irish volunteers, was the apprehension of foreign invasion. How soon was it seen that the people know no other enemy than their prince — how long will it be before the prince discovers that he has no enemy but his people? The wisest practice approaches very nearly to the employment of foreign troops for domestic control. I have mentioned the Swiss of the restored Bourbons, and I may add those in the vast Austrian monarchy. Composed as it is of so many nations, it is easy so to dispose of tl)C troops, 41 as to control each province by soldiers speaking a strange tongue. The Hungarians, a turbulent people at home, are very well for a police in Lombardy, and the Poles of Galicia are an excellent force for the garrison duties of Pest. Even the English discern this truth, and at the first alarm, take care that no Irish regiments shall be quartered upon their native soil. There are occasions in which it may be necessary to arm the population of a country: a grievous and most danger- ous necessity, almost worse than any alternative. We have had a recent example that, where these armed citizens save a throne from foreigners, they generally prefer keep- ing it afterwards for their own use. The German Land- wher undoubtedly drove the French within the Rhine ; but they thought their services required no less than a share of sovereign authority, and they would kindly have uncrowned the monarchs whom they boasted to have saved. It was certainly an unpleasant position for the house of Branden- burg to be reduced to four towns, and it is not much to be wondered at that her students were excited to unite, and her peasantry to rise against the dominion of France. Yet let me ask, what would Frederick of Prussia have benefited by the change, if, after his victory, he had not silenced his university patriots and disarmed his triumphant militia? If he had listened to the songs of the Burschernschaft, in- stead of the dictates of sound policy, he would at this time have been about as magnificent a sovereign as his brother of Darmstadt, squeezed into insignificance between a par- liament and a national guard ; permitted to preside at the council of his ministers and at the rehearsal of his opera. Machiavelli was quite right, when, talking of the moun- tain republicans of Switzerland, he coupled the two epi- thets '•' Armatissimi e libemsimi'^ (cap. xvi.) ; and if any 42 prince has resolved upon dethroning, not only himself but his dynasty, I would recommend him to allow each of his subjects to carry a gun, and to sell gunpowder without a license. In a few months he would have a most splendid national guard ; and in a few months afterwards would think himself fortunate in being allowed to serve as a cor- poral in this army of freemen. For the extension of dominion abroad, there may be some excuse in attempting to give to a whole nation a mili- tary turn; but it is a most dangerous experiment, and un- less accompanied by a very watchful system of coercion, in every respect, may be fatal to the contriver. The conscrip- tion enabled Napoleon to march his victorious armies to the last confines of civilization ; but it did not make him more absolute at home. On the contrary, it made him more hated than dreaded ; and when France was overrun by foreigners, the people did not arm for the government. In Upper Italy the French viceroy Eugene had infused into the natives true military ardour. But this spirit, so far from reconciling the Lombards to the sway of Napoleon, by creating a national army created a national spirit, and the Emperor of the French, even before his disasters, is said to have confessed, that he could not long retain the iron crown. The Austrian monarch wisely profits by the faults of his predecessor. He will not allow even the shadow of a native army to call up the dreams of Italian independence. It surprises me that the Bourbons of France do not per- ceive that their restoration is not complete, so long as they permit the existence of the national guard. Their conduct, indeed, is to me incomprehensible in other respects, and I sliall say a few words in a separate Chapter on the state of France. 43 CHAPTER X. Of the Police. No greater proof can be afforded of the vast superiority of the moderns over those much admired, little understood ancients, than that the word which originally meant a state, a polity, and the mode of governing it, should now signify the organization of municipal dominion. The police, indeed, of a monarchy is an invention superior to all that was ever laid down by Aristotle and all the writers on go- vernment put together. It is a very modern invention. Even in our Austrian government, where we had a form of police for the prevention of ordinary crimes, I cannot learn that it was made an engine of slate for the advantage and tranquillity of the throne. The same may be said of the " lieutenant criminel" and his coadjutors in France. The Venetians, indeed, had a state police, which, doubtless, con- tributed very much to the long preservation of that power; and the Holy Inquisition established a most excellent po- lice, which is said to have completely altered the character of the Spaniards and to have dumb-founded them. But I rather think that, to give the devil his due, we owe the present police of the great monarchies to some of those who figured in the French Revolution. They invented the passport system as now established, the most useful means ever devised for preventing the dissemination of dangerous opinions, and which must very much tend to keep good subjects, where they ought to be, at home, instead of lead- ing a vagabond life to learn or teach revolutionary doc- trines. This enables the sovereign power to exercise a salutary control over strangers, and was one of the effici- 44. ent means by which the holy league of kings counteracted the machinations, and proscribed the persons of anarchists all over the world ; so that, as was the case in the days of the Roman empire, no man was beyond the arm of power, but was as much under the superintendence of a strict police in the mountains of Switzerland as in the Prater at Vienna. The English Alien Bill, now unhappily repealed, was the link that connected that country with the alliance. Indeed a wise government will, under present circumstances, not much encourage strangers at liome nor foreign travel in its own subjects. The Austrians feel this truth : it is with extreme difficulty that they grant to one of their Italian subjects permission to travel even from Milan to Rome. This permission is accompanied with a promise not to frequent the company of foreign diploma- tists, which was an old Venetian regulation, and the reason for it is too obvious to be stated. Nor are many strangers to be found in the dominions of Austria : a vigilant and rigorous custom-house, and passport, and police establish- ment; the apprehension that their letters may be opened, and a certainty that indiscreet expressions, even in private company, will some how or the other reach the ears of autho- rity, deter the curious, talking, turbulent crowd of English travellers from settling in the Austrian states. They stare about them for a few days, and retire to spots where they are less strictly watched. I regret to say that the passport system is not so cau- tiously attended to in the upper part and smaller states of (Jermany as it ought to be. I have travelled for many days in these countries without being asked for my passport once. The diet of Frankfort should look to this, especially since the head-quarters of so many revolutionists has been removed from London to Brussels. 45 In all that regards police, I think our Austria affords almost a perfect model. There, to be sure, we have fa- cilities, in this respect, not to be found elsewhere. We have 300,000 employes, all of whom, of course, are so many satellites of the government, and, in some respects, agents of the police ; so that our government may say, as Jesus Christ did to his disciples, " where two or three are gathered together, I am amongst you ;" a beautiful picture of a truly Christian society. Well is our emperor called, on all our turnpike-tickets, " the all-high." A good police is, as it were, the intellect of the government, and enables it to know what is doing and contemplated by others, and what must be done by itself. It gives omniscience and ubiquity to power, and makes every individual feel that he is under the eye, and in the hand, of a master ; a feeling of itself quite sufficient to ensure passive obedience and non-resistance. Bonaparte, in his first reign, was a truly great man in this respect ; he contrived to know the most private transactions, not only amongst his own subjects, but even in foreign states to which his police extended, or was thought to extend ; so much so, that, during his domi- nion, I recollect it was not usual to discuss him or his ex- ploits, even at Vienna or Berlin, except in a whisper. His police in Germany, where he had French post-office keepers and passport officers, contributed, almost as much as his battles, to inspire us with the notion that he was a sort of superior being, either for good or evil, whom it was im- pious and useless to resist. Some have thought that Napoleon owed his first downfall to the early frost at Mos- cow ; others to a joke of M. de Talleyrand's ; but no one computes it to any ignorance of the police system. In England, and other half-governed countries, there is no police ; but even there, recourse is had, not unfre- 46 qiiently, to the agency of spies and informers, a branch of police, and a class much abused, but which must be em- ployed, as was shown, during the troubles of 1819, by a very profound politician, in the face of the English House of Commons, the respected Mr. H B ; so that, in fact, we, in our well-regulated monarchies, only do that completely and perpetually, which is imperfectly and occa- sionally resorted to in less tranquil communities. When Napoleon returned to Paris, in 1815, he was persuaded to try a mode of government different from his former prac- tice ; he gave a free parliament ; the press was totally un- controlled ; and there was so little police, that I recollect hearing the chances of his defeat discussed in the very police office of Paris itself; and how was he repaid? On the first defeat he was overset, a fate which he deserved, if not for his usurpation, at least for his folly of thinking that he and the people of France could sit on one throne. If then a sovereign would reign securely, he should adopt the most approved modes of preventing state-crimes, instead of reserving all his rigour for punishing them. It has been found expedient in some countries, particularly in France, during the empire, to create a police to watch the police. The Corsican emperor composed this high police of only two or three of his chief officers, with whom alone he held frequent communications. The redoubtable Savory was one ; and, perhaps, there is some sense in this provision, as it throws the odium inevitable from a good police on two or three obnoxious ministers, and saves the sovereign from an unpopularity, which it is as well not to incur, except for some substantial equivalent. Some of the social inventions of modern times may be turned to the account either of traitors or of government, according to the skill of the ruler, siich is the speedy trans- 47 mission of familiaf letters from one end of the world to ther other. If these letters are to be strictly private, there is a great facility for wicked combinations; no wonder then that the democrats and liberals should contend for the entire secrecy of correspondence ; and no wonder that the friends of legitimacy should take care that there should be a confidential police agent attached to every consider- able post-office. It is a sad pity, truly, that the pretty Misses should have their love-letters opened, and, of course, it would be better that a monarchy should be over- thrown than that such an enormity should be allowed. Nevertheless, I fear the post-office must be made an engine of state, in order that it may not be an engine of conspi- racy. Breaking open letters has an ill sound, I confess, and yet more than one great event has been owing to this salutary precaution. If General Monk had not broken open the letter, directed to his second in command, it is probable that the restoration of Charles II. would not have taken place. At Milan we have a clerk, who knows the English language, expressly employed in reading the English letters, and as the travellers of that nation inva- riably tell all they know and hear, our government has de- rived much benefit from their correspondence. How would the French police have been acquainted with the real con- trivers of Lavallette's escape, if they had not read the letter so sagely written by Sir R. Wilson to his brother conspirator Lord Grey. In short, no seal should give secu- rity to treason, and better that a million of innocent letters should be opened, than that one guilty line should escape unnoticed. It is ridiculous that a government should furnish horses and postilions, and expend enormous sums on high roads, merely to open a speedy communication between all the traitors in its dominions; yet that would 48 be the effect of keeping correspondence sacred : there is nothing sacred in a monarchy but that which preserves the monarchy. The inspection of private letters is quite ne- cessary; it need not be taliced about, but it must be done; and there are some things which, as Caesar said of break- ing open the treasury at Rome, it is easier to do than to talk about. I do not know that I need say anything more on the head of police, except that it cannot be too strict, and that a wise government will despise all apprehensions of being odious on this account : first, because, as being essential, it must be adopted at all risks ; and, secondly, because a go- vernment should look to being feared. This alone can secure obedience ; where love is not to be won, hatred is not to be dreaded. 49 CHAPTER XI. Of the Government of Colonies, or of acquired Provinces; — also of Italij. If a great power acquires new states which were before accustomed to be governed by their own laws and to be independent, there are three modes of keeping those states. The first, says Machiavelli, is to ruin them, il primo c a rovinargli; and at the conclusion of his chapter on this head, he rather inclines to this plan, although he thinks there is another good alternative, namely, for the conqueror to take up his abode there, as the Turks did in Greece. To the third plan, that of leaving to them their laws, and drawing a good revenue from them, and governing by an oligarchy, he makes many sensible objections. The recent acquirement of much new territory by the great monarchies, makes this fourth chapter of Machi- avelli well worthy consideration, and I have looked at it a great many times with a reference to passing events. The Florentine talks exclusively of republican and inde- pendent states, which was not the case with the annexed dominions of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the House of Orange. Nevertheless, I say with the secretary, " the first is to ruin them," that is, totally to destroy their impor- tance, and every institution at all savouring of their former condition. The House of Austria affords a most striking proof of the wisdom of this policy. Had she suffered the seventy- two Hanseatic towns to exist, — had she allowed the Bo- hemians to retain their usages and their language, — had she permitted Hungary to keep her privileges or even her E 50 crown of St. Stephen, — had she encouraged, instead of stifling, the republican prejudices of the Italians, — had she, in older times, not put down the states of Belgium, and the Cortez of Spain, does any one imagine that the successor af Rodolph of Hapsburgh would now rule uncontrolled over twenty-nine millions of men, the natives of twenty kingdoms, and of the finest portion of Europe ? We are, indeed, now enabled in our administration of Italy to take something from each of the modes, and at the same time that we extinguish all memorials of former existence, to draw a great revenue from our Lombard- Vene- tian dominions, and to watch over them in the person of our Archduke and a noble establishment, both civil and military. We are said to draw four millions of louis-d'ors from Italy, though we do not allow a soldier's shoe to be made, or even mended, any where but in the hereditary states — a truly paternal preference. It does not escape the penetration of our true statesmen, that, of all the provincial dominions of our Caesar, Italy requires the most watchfulness and the unrelaxed applica- tion of the best principles of government. In some coun- tries it is wise to playoff the nobility against the lower orders ; in others a directly contrary policy is advisable. Before the French revolution, the Lombards were so ma- naged, that the higher classes of Milan were as true to our Emperor as those of Vienna; but the times have wofully changed : and it is now much safer to trust the populace than the princes of that superb city. The conspiracy of 1821, which a mere trifle prevented from succeeding, in- volved almost all the noble houses of the capital : a vigor- o»is example was wisely made of the most culpable, the others were duly watched, and, generally speaking, neither the higher nobility nor clergy were befriended by the 51 government. The people, however, are employed in public works, and whether their paymasters speak Italian or Ger- man, they are pleased with their pay. Nevertheless, the real first principle of provincial admi- nistration isadmirablyattended to throughout all our Italian dominions, which are rapidly settling down into the condi- tion which alonecan give perfectsecurity to the ruling power, that is, they are becoming poor and powerless. Venice is daily disappearing ; she is sinking into her own slime ; her palaces are carried away piecemeal to the main land, or are burnt, or are turned into hotels for public entertainment. Our monarchy has no need of this city; Trieste is our natural emporium for foreign trade ; and if I might be permitted to recommend a more decisive application of our own policy, I should say it would be right to hasten the process of decay by an immediate abandonment of Venice. Destroy the long wall at Malamocco, and the work is accomplished in a month. The remaining moveables, and the garrison, and the government officers, might be removed to a place of safety, and our Italian empire be rendered much less acces- sible than it now is to the insults of some future British squadron. I see nothing but embarrassment in the pos- session of this amphibious metropolis; our Aulic council scarcely know how to shape a decree to suit such an ano- maly. Not long ago, in a programma for the instalment of the patriarch, it was ordered that his right reverence should move in procession through the city to St. Mark's church, in a coach and six. These mistakes will recur so long as our Viennese secretaries have to draw up regulations for so strange and unnatural a community. If Venice be suffered to prosper, she has a position which will enable her to shake off the Austrian yoke : our great Metternich knows this; and he, who would not permit a constitutional E2 52 government in the contiguous territory of Naples, but ha- zarded foreign war for the sake of internal peace, adopts, in his policy towards our own Italian provinces, the only course which is worthy of his experience and good sense : at the same time, I repeat, that I would do more quickly what is now in sure but slow progress. Venice is of no use to us, she may be of harm ; she has lost her voice, but not her memory. I would say the same of Genoa ; the same sound policy which laid the phantom of her independence, must continue to crush her. Her proud palaces, too, are tenantless, her nobles are in voluntary exile, her trade is at a stand: these are the natural, the inevitable consequences of subjugation ; and those who exercise lordship, should not regret, on the contrary, they should hasten them. Unless the city of Doria could change her entire popula- tion, by an edict, at once, her prosperity must at all times be dangerous to her foreign master ; her riches made her proud in former ages, they would now make her rebellious. Besides, if, for their own objects, the English should again hoist the standard of her republic, they may not again find their account in delivering it over to a Sardinian serjeant- We must not always reckon upon having the councils of Great Britain directed by a Castlereagh. I should rejoice to hear that the harbour of Genoa were filled up ; it is already almost empty — at this moment it has been found necessary to shut the port against the English news- papers ; much better would it be to shut the port alto- gether: then might his Sardinian majesty laugh at the editors of the Times, and the Chronicle, and the Constitu- lionelle. No maxim is more readily acknowledged than that, when a colony becomes great and flourishing, it must soon 53 separate itself from the parent state. The reverse of this proposition is equally clear, and applies more to acquired provinces than to colonies, properly so called : poverty and dependence go hand in hand. The Anglo-American states furnished an example of this fact which sovereigns should never forget ; they prospered, and they threw off their allegiance. How have the Turks managed to retain their mastery over some of the fairest portions of Christian Europe, for more than four centuries? Not only, as Machia- velli says, by occupying the country, but by adopting an unvarying policy towards the subjugated inhabitants ; by keeping them poor and despised, and rejecting the momen- tary advantages to be derived from encouraging their trade, and active energies, for the sake of permanent dominion. They did, indeed, relax a little as regarded the islands of the Archipelago, particularly with respect to Hydra and Spezzia; and there it was that the insurrec- tion first declared itself ; and there has been, and will be, the real strength and bulwark of the rebel Greeks. But even these pirates would have been unable to resist their legitimate masters, had they not been assisted by the conspirators of other countries, the crusaders of freedom and philanthropy, who, being happily shut out from Chris- tian Europe, found scope for their pernicious zeal in the dominions of the Musselmans. 54 CHAPTER XII. Of Greece. It was my intention to say something of this country, and of the rebellion now unhappily raging there, when I saw the manifesto of the Sultan, in reply to the interposition of the Three Powers in behalf of the Greeks. That state paper is so admirably drawn up, and is so conclusive, that I cannot help thinking our respectable Austrian Internuncio must have assisted the Reis Effendi in the composition of it. I do not hesitate to say, that, of all the wild, dangerous, and unjust interferences with the internal policy of a great monarchy, this project, which is evidently the child of the English minister, is the most indefensible that ever ap- peared. The sagacity of our own statesmen shines here pre-eminent and alone. Austria has the merit of perse- vering in that policy which the allied sovereigns proclaimed at Laybach was to be the rule for their conduct respecting Greece. The Holy Allies, although bound together, as they piously declared, by the name and for the sake of Christ, told the world, in 1822, that they would not propagate Christianity at the expense of rebellion: even his holi- ness the Pope discountenanced the Greeks, and the very English themselves disclaimed all approval of their mad enterprise. Now, however, it seems that some new light has broken in upon the cabinets of France, Russia, and England, and the Sultan is to be compelled to resign his absolute sway over a country to which he has as fair a claim as any Christian monarch to his own throne. Let us pause for a moment, and look at the danger of this precedent. Is religion the pretext ? Then let Mah- 55 moud tell George IV. that his Irish subjects shall be, what they call, emancipated. Is the right of the soil to be traced to the descendants of the old possessors ? Let, then, every sovereign in Europe prepare for the dismemberment of his empire. Have not the Turks as much right to Greece as the Austrians to Italy — or the Russians to Poland — or the British to India — or the French to Corsica — or the Dutch to Belgium — or the Swedes to Norway ? Is the form of government the cause of complaint? This can never be, without a complete compromise of all the rights of legitimacy. What right has Mr. the Colonel Stanhope to make constitutions for the Morea, any more than for Lithuania or for the Crimea ? And yet the three cabinets are, in fact, now seconding the projects of all the democrats who have conspired to revolutionize Turkey, for want of a similar employment at home. I could enlarge on the extreme folly, as well as injustice of this new Christian policy ; but the Turkish manifesto has anticipated me, and I shall content myself with saying, that if our Prince Metternich continues firm to his pur- pose, which undoubtedly he will, the unnatural coalition of lawful kings in favour of irreclaimable rebels must dissolve of itself. France and Russia, led astray for the moment, will repent; as for England, we must trust to that chance which seems to be the chief arbitress of her cabinet, for her return to the sound doctrines of legiti- macy*. * What would our author have said to the battle of Navarin ? — Trantlator. 56 CHAPTER XIII. Religion. Persius says that it is the most trifling of all questions^ to inquire what a man thinks of Jupiter* ; but perhaps Persius is joking. If the Turks have made any mistake in their government of Greece, it has been that they have tolerated another religion besides that of the state ; but it is not so dangerous to allow of a totally diff'erent wor- ship, as to permit the existence of various sects of the same religion. There may be some doubt, perhaps, whether the sovereign authority requires the aid of a state religion. Harrington thinks the clergy have a greater hatred of a popular government, and are a more steady pillar of the throne than even the nobility t. But of this I am sure, that where there is an established church, there ought to be no other church. Liberty of conscience is one of the watch-words of revolution. The French Bourbons were masters only of a part of France, until Richelieu had put down the Hugonots. Their reign dates from the taking of La Rochelle ; but some more was wanting, and the chancellor le Tellier might well sing the song of Simeon, when he had prevailed on Louis XIV. to revoke the edict of Nantes. A dissenter from the religion of the prince, is a dissenter from his modes of government. Those who are allowed to think for themselves on one im- portai subject will soon have a free will on all. It was a very wise determination on the part of Henry VIII. to * " Minimum est quod scire laboro De Jove quid semis.'' — Sat. 1 1. t See The Prerogative of a popular Government, chap. v. 57 declare himself the head of the church ; a declaration which could not but increase the veneration for the mo- narch. This is the case in Mahometan monarchies; and, doubtless, the apostolic predecessors of the Popes intended their temporal to be coextensive with their spiritual domi- nion ; for, with their proper notions on government, they could not have wished to see two jurisdictions established in one state, which is the inevitable consequence of their influence being recognised where they have no actual sway. A clergy not quite dependent upon the sovereign, and possessed of lands, is a dangerous body in the state : even the republican writers confess this*. A clergy altogether connected with the throne is the most powerful safeguard of the throne. This is strongly exemplifled in England, where the priesthood is a sort of standing army for the government of the day. It is rumoured that our august Caesar, struck with the great utility of the English hierar- chy, in this respect, has some designs in contemplation with reference to the see of Rome : but this is a secret of state — I do not venture to proceed farther on so delicate a topic ; my Ghibelline prejudices might sway my opinions — but to proceed : — What is called toleration is intolerable. The subjects of a well-regulated monarchy never require it, nor think of it ; on the contrary, in some of our provinces — the arch- bishoprick of Saltzburgh, for example — it is regarded as a sort of privilege that no protestant should be allowed to live in the whole territory. The Flemish rebelled against Joseph II. for endeavouring to afflict them with toleration: and yet no princes have had harder struggles than ours have had with heretics : witness Bohemia. Perseverance has made us all of one mind, with some few exceptions too * See Oceana, and Supplement to chap. vi. p. 506. 58 trilling to be worthy of notice. I heard, when in England, a very good saying, that every one should believe according to law ; and as my law is the will of the sovereign, I say that every one should believe as the sovereign believes. Nonconformity is disobedience, and is preached by exactly the same doctors as the lessons of rebellion. It is not my business to examine which religion is best adapted to aid the purposes of power; enough for me to state the incon- trovertible fact, that no sensible sovereign can admit of a public dissent from the established forms of worship. The Irish catholics have fallen into the folly of thinking that they shall find partisans amongst the catholic kings ; but, with all respect for their faith, I say that their cause is not the cause of kings, it is the cause of disobedience. If his majesty king George IV. chooses to grant what they ask — well and good. I see no great danger in such a con- cession, except that it is a concession, and that I disap- prove of such a precedent : in that case, however, it would be advisable to contrive that all Ireland should be catholic, and that all the ecclesiastical benefices should be in the gift of the king, as defender of the Roman as well as of the English faith. The Irish then would be as well and easily governed as the Hindoos. But, in this case, Ireland should be catholic, as Scotland is presbyterian and Eng- land protestant, according to the plan recommended by that enlightened young statesman, Mr. Robert Peel. Some scheme should be devised to convert or to silence the pro- testant part of the community ; for, I repeat, dissent is not to be encouraged or allowed under a legitimate king. A sovereign should take care, when he countenances piety, that it is piety of the true sort. Doubtless, there should seem to be a near connexion between the feelings of fear, reverence, and obedience, when directed towards the 59 throne, and when inspired by the guardians of the altar. But religious enthusiasm may take a wrong direction, as in the great English rebellion, and in many other instances ; so that I -would rather command formal conformity, than attempt to diffuse a spirit of contemplative devotion. This preference induced Louis XIV. wisely to prefer the Jesuits to the Jansenists of his time ; and I am pleased to perceive the same policy adopted by his worthy successor. There is, indeed, no inevitable connexion between loyalty to the sovereign, and love of the deity. The miscreants of the French revolution accustomed us to look at atheist and republican as synonymous terms — but in the court of Charles II., the best preachers and practisers of passive obedience were, by the opposite faction, designated by all the epithets attached to impiety ; and I cannot say that what we know of their private lives bespeaks any respect for the mysteries of our holy religion. In ancient times, the best subjects were not at all distinguished for piety in the fanatical sense of the word ; on the contrary, we learn that it was not until the sovereignty of the CaBsars was firmly established that the epicurean became the fashionable school of Roman philosophy. The four great teachers of scepticism in England, Hobbes, Bolinbroke, Hume, and Gibbon, were notoriously attached to sound political prin- ciples. The first recommended absolute monarchy, and translated Thucydides to expose the disorders of democracy^ One tried to restore the Stuarts ; the other wrote an apology for them ; and the last left all his early connexions, to become a supporter of the minister, and a servant of the king. I trust I shall not be misunderstood ; heaven forbid that I should defend the unhappy systems of these cele- brated men ; I adduce their example only to show, that what a monarch should exact from his subjects, is external con- 00 formity to the established church. This was the opinion of Hobbes, in his treatise De Cive ; a.nd I may add, that all the above-mentioned writers had as much hatred for religious dissent as contempt for religious zeal. The first teachers of Christianity reconciled themselves with the patrons of authority, by repeatedly promulgating the text, *' Render unto Csesar the things which are CsEsar's" ; but then follows the comment of after ages, and the attempt to show that, according to the text itself, the gospel declares that there are some things which are not Casar's :^so said the Englishman, Selden ; but the opinion had been acted upon centuries before his time, and enthu- siasm had decided so many things to belong to God, that nothing was left for the king. Where religion can in any possible way be brought into collision with authority, it then, to my eyes, ceases to be religion; this must be the case where the scriptures are left to individual interpretation or even to general perusal. Algernon Sydney's ponderous folio against monarchy is stuffed with citations from the bible ; and even Peter and Paul are made, by this republican, apostles of democracy *. The only safe course has been adopted by the Roman catholics ; and, with the precaution of adding a state cate- chism to the exercises of the church, and of providing that the chief article of faith shall be, that those who do not honour the king cannot fear God, it seems to me that a wise king will do all in his power to make his subjects good christians. Buonaparte had the most correct notions on this important subject, and, in return for re-establishing their religion, the most eminent pastors raised him almost to an apotheosis. Cardinal Maury would have dethroned St. Genevieve, to make room for St. Napoleon. The same • See chap. iii. ten ' 61 clergy have been equally good subjects to their present sovereign ; but, in an absolute monarchy, it is not safe to give a separate jurisdiction, or what are called privileges, to the ecclesiastical order. When the kings of Spain and Portugal had become masters of the laity, the clergy still formed a barrier against the uncontrolled will of the sovereign, and, to use the language of republicanism, miti- gated the despotism. In barbarous states, and in early ages, the priesthood have enjoyed great power, or rather, usurped all power. The Germans, described by Tacitus, were in this predicament ; and the same may be said of the French under some of the kings of the first race. But the civilized prince of modern times will use the clergy only as partisans, not as partakers of authority. This is their condition in Austria and in England. 62 CHAPTER XIV. Of the Nobiliti/. Almost every thing before said of the clergy will apply to the nobility. They are good servants, but bad companions of power. If the nobility of a country be few, the chance is, they will be of great consideration ; and Lord Bacon has remarked*, that the commons also are of a better condition where there are few gentlemen, than where there are many. If that be the case, it need hardly be insisted upon that a king should at one blow disarm both his nobles and his commons, by creating a great many of the former order. This scheme has been tried with great success in many countries, and has had the natural tendency of depriving the gentry of their best members by promotion, and of diminishing the importance, by adding to the number of the nobility. Madame de Stael has well remarked, that it was the second class of the noblesse, more than the first, who were the opponents of the popular party in Francef. But, whether few or many, the nobility should never be allowed to share with the monarch the authority of the state : every one confesses that Louis XI. and Henry VII. were right in crushing their nobles ; but every one does not see that, if the nobles are allowed to legislate, the monarch is no longer the mastor of his subjects. If a country is to be governed democratically, it is right to have a chamber of peers as a j)alIiativo, to half-neutralize the chamber of the commons. But the most obsequious deliberative assembly, enjoying only formal privileges, is dangerous to sovereign power. * Ewoy 29. t R^vol. Franijaiso, chap. 20. 63 Neither the army, nor the people, nor his reverses, de- throned Napoleon : the council of five hundred w^as the first to murmur, but it vras the Senate that decreed his abdication. Those statesmen who insisted upon the Spanish nation creating an upper chamber, did well ; but those who resolved they should have neither an upper nor a lower chamber, did much better. When prince Cimitile assured M. de Metternich, that the Neapolitans would take any suggestions which he might deign to oflfer respecting a change in their constitution, our illustrious minister replied, that the Austrian emperor could not, and would not, hear of a constitution at all upon the confines of Lombardy. A chamber of peers, unless where, like the Roman senate, it is conviva Casaris, and nothing more, is equally absurd with a chamber of deputies, in the eyes of one who would govern by prerogative only : neither collective nor individual power should be allowed to any body in the state. It has been the constant policy of the Austrian monarchy to deprive the nobles of any privileges that could give them a real control ; yet these nobles, as Montesquieu has remarked, have been found faithful to the sovereign, when deserted by meaner subjects : such was the case when the gentlemen of Hungary recovered the empire for Maria Theresa*. But if kings, like other individuals, were to be swayed by feelings of gratitude, instead of following one undeviating line of state-policy, there would be an end of monarchy. The partisans of popular government think a real aristocracy of nobles and gentry, or, to use the words of Harrington, of those who live at their ease, ihebest frops of a commonwealth^^ . This I believe; and I also believe that, if a monarch wishes to govern alone, he should make his nominal or titular nobility * Spirit of Laws, book viii. chap 9. + See Oceana, p. 135. 64 as numerous as possible; but should reduce as much as possible the class of those who enjoy in abundance the superfluities of life. It is amongst that proud, lazy class, that notions of independence are encouraged, which, if called into action, are obstacles to royal prerogative. They are the natural enemies of the king ; but a nobility deriving all its honours, and a gentry all its superfluities, from the throne, are the natural enemies of the people. This observation, applied to the different conditions of England and France, will account for the facility with which the latter nation is taught lessons of obedience, and the great difficulty, not to say impossibility, of establishing a true monarchical government in the British Islands; at the same time, it must be confessed, that the same rule will not apply to all nations. The noble should always be an appendage of the court. Cardinal Richelieu, and Louis XIV. completed the work of Louis XL, when they brought the great vassals of the crown from their castles to the metropolis : as provincial potentates they were dangerous, as Parisian courtiers they were useful to the throne. The conspiracy against James II. was planned at the country seats of the great nobility. Napoleon for some time was indifferent to the habits of the nobility who had returned from emigration, until a legitimate sovereign, the late king of Wirtemberg, asked him why the old nobles of France were not seen at the Tuilleries : " Apparently," said the other, " because they had rather stay away." " If that is all," replied his majesty, "send for them, and if they will not come, send for their heads*." Napoleon followed his advice, and the Montmorencies were seen in his ante- chamber. During the whole of his reign, with the excep- Sai.l, probably, wlien the wind was at north-east; at which period it wasnot quite safe for the ministers at Stutgard to enter his majesty's closet. — Tram. 65 tioii of the Polignacs, none of the old royalist nobility attempted a revolution. They recollected the injunction of Frederick II. to Mr. Miiller, and for the service of their master forgot that they had families and relations and friends *. Some liberal writers, amongst them Madame de Stael, pretend that the French revolution was commenced by the higher nobilityf, but they soon discovered their error, though not soon enough to prevent them becoming the victims of their own folly. The same may be said of the old parliaments, and other privileged classes of France. They were willing enough to resist the king, but they were more willing to resist the people ; foolishly thinking, like some of the present day, that they had a middle path to choose ; when, in fact, there was no choice, except between pure monarchy, and pure republicanism. I would have the nobility of a country always carry in mind this truth : if they lend themselves to the destruction or diminution of absolute authority, they must end by making the people too strong both for the throne and the aristocracy; whatever were the notions of ancient repub- licans, those of our modern liberals will not tolerate a privileged class any more than a privileged individual : if the nobility exist at all, it must be by the sufferance of the monarch, for, in our days, it cannot be by the good will of the people, who recollect the ancient enmity subsisting be- tween the rich and poor, an enmity which, according to Cicero, gave rise to kingship +. When I first read Polybius, I was much struck with his encomium upon a mixed govern- ment, and with his fine description of the three powers which, * Vous n'oublierez pas, en un mot, que pour mon service, il faut n'avoir ni famille, ni parens, ni amis. — Thiebaut, torn. i. p. 186. t Considerations, &c. chap. iii. t De Officiis, lib. ii. F m according to him, composed the Roman commonwealth*. All that has been said by modern writers of the pretended balance in the English constitution is but a poor copy of this historian, and is not a bit more true : indeed, maturer years have convinced me that, supposing the condition of the old world admitted of such an anomaly (which I do not believe), there can be no such government now. The English maVca/s, wise in their generation, have found out thisf, as well as our M. de Metternich ; and modern society will no more bear king, lords, and commons, really opposing and con- trolling one another, than it would adopt the consuls, senate, and popular assemblies of Rome. No, the nobility of our times, not being strong enough to set up for themselves, have only to choose between the king and the people. It may be said that they then have only to choose between insignifi- cance and annihilation. It may be so ; I cannot help it. I tell the truth. They may laugh at our stars and ribbons, if they will ; but I would rather have a string over my shoulder than round my neck. If the people acquire the real power, they will never admit of privileged classes again. The early French revolutionists would have taken the English constitution for their model, with its state and its church; and poor Marie Antoinette told the Due de Coigny, in 1792, ♦* she would give an arm for the English constitution ;" but it was soon discovered, that the French would do without a house of lords, and, then, that there was no need of a house of God. The rebels of Spain and of Italy scorned to adopt an upper chamber ; and yet there are silly folks, good friends to legitimacy, who still think, that if the people are allowed some portion of sovereign authority by means of representa- * Soe book vi. of his history. t S«'e an nnicle on governmeni, in tlir Now F.ncyclopedia, hy the famous radical Mill. 67 live assemblies and other contrivances, such as juries and a free press, they will be satisfied, without aspiring to entire self-government ; in other words, without establishing a pure democracy. All those who, like the poet Martial, may thank heaven that they possess the *' res non parta sed relicta," and who find honor and ease ready made for them, v/ould do well to read the foregoing chapter twice over, before they put themselves at the head of societies for propagating knowledge amongst the lower classes. This is making a peaceable man your enemy first, and afterwards putting a weapon into his hand. Whenever a monarch detects his nobles in such practices, he should consider them as having abandoned the cause of the throne, and act accordingly. F2 OS CHAPTER XV. Of Germany. I DO not know whether it would be respectful for me to say all I think of the state of Germany. I was quite satis- fied with it a few years ago, when the triumph of our principles was complete, and seemed likely to be eternal. The diet of Frankfort, when backed by the Holy Alliance, had then neutralized the pernicious effects of the constitu- tional system established in the smaller states ; and I am happy to say that, even now, the mischief which those states might produce by their representative chambers, and free press, and other emanations of republicanism, is still severely checked by the ministers of the great powers resident at Frankfort. The system so admirably recom- mended by my friend, M. Genz, in his treatise against the liberty of the press and on the suppression of libels*, is still in activity, even in the free towns and the smaller duchies, where no strictures on the measures of govern- ment are tolerated for an instant. A happy change has also occurred in the considerable state of Baaden, whose sovereign has reduced his representative assemblies to their merited insignificance. But Wirtemberg and Bavaria and Hesse (Darmstadt) are rather too much pleased with their parliamentary plaything, to attend with due promptitude to the admonitions of our august court. Saxe Wiemar, though it has a constitution, can never be very terrific, so long as it has an army only of fifty soldiers, and a poet, Goethe, for a minister of state. In Hanover the sound • See Wiener JaliiUiJcher der Lilteratm. N.>. I. Ait. " iil>er Pre-ssfieiheit." f)9 principles of legitimacy are daily recovering ground ; but I am not quite pleased with the encouragement given to such men as Heerem, professor of history at Gottingen, who, in his work on the political states of Europe, has affected what his admirers are pleased to call an impartiality, which, to my mind, is not over friendly to good government *. The same may be said of M. Feuerbach's work on the trial by jury t, which certainly leans to that troublesome institution. I would have that writer to know, as the duke of Rovigo said to Madame de Stael J, that we are not reduced so low as to be obliged to borrow from the English. Let me add, that the " Hermes," which is published at Leipsig, although it has somewhat lowered its tone since the twentieth num- ber, openly affects liberalism, and would fain be consi- dered as a sort of Edinburgh Review, the professed antago- nist of the "Wiener Jahrbiicher." This *' Hermes" should ,be stopped, or professor Jahn was imprisoned in vain ; our young men of the north are mercurial enough without such incitements to restlessness §. In 1815, his Prussian majesty wisely yielded to the clamour .of the day, and promised a constitution to his subjects; which he, as wisely, has never given to them, preferring the throne of his ancestors to the shouts of those who would have treated him just as the Russian patriots treated Peter III., when he declared, by an edict, that they had the * See his work, " iiber des Staalssystem von Europaj" also, "uberdie Politik, den Verskehr und den Handel des alten Volker," forming the 11th, 12lh, 13th, and 14th volumes of his " Historische Werke." Gottingen, 1823- 1827. t Uber das Geschwornengericht. t See Preface to her work on Germany. § This pun is better in the original than in the translation. — Note by Tran»- lator. 70 rights of freemen ; that is to say, they would have voted a statue of gold to him on one day, and cut his throat the next. Frederick-William has more sensibly imitated the con- duct of the immortal Catherine II., who made use of these friends of freedom in order to ascend the throne, and then got rid of the faction for ever*. Such has been the con- duct of all truly great sovereigns in all ages and nations. In Prussia there is a standing army of about two hundred and fifty thousand men, and the number of government agents in all departments is so great as to give the greatest encouragement to the friends of the monarchy. There is a curator, an inspector, and two clerks, only to superintend the Herbarium, bequeathed to the Berlin Museum by pro- fessor Wildenow. This is as it should be. The king of Prussia, however, has taken a step which, I know, keeps alive the hopes of the revolutionists. He has assembled the nine provincial states, each composed of eighty members ; and though their deliberations are secret, and though they meet only once in two years, yet deli- berate they do, and meet they do ; and it is in vain to deny that their existence impairs sovereign authority, and, if continued, will give birth to the representative system. It is time to stop : already do the jacobin writers of Eng- land chuckle over the innovations which have granted cer- tain municipal privileges, and what not, to the principal towns ; and, under pretext of ameliorating the condition of the lower classes, have broken down distinctions so much connected with the social order of things in that country, that they ought not to have been removed. I again say, that this is unweaving with one hand the web you are spinning with the other. You prohibit Manso's History of the Prussian States from being read; you expel professor • S«C Rl LHIERE. 71 Arndt, in other respects the most distinguished writer in Germany, from his chair, for preaching the new doctrines ; and you carry some of those very doctrines into effect, by your own edicts. In order to be consistent, restore Arndt, release Jahn from his ten years' imprisonment, again give to the turbulent " Burschen" their gymnastic exercises*; in short, be a liberal sovereign, and descend from the throne ; or push the contrary principles to their true and extreme extent, and preserve for your royal posterity the unimpaired sceptre of the great Frederick. I address this exhortation most respectfully to his Prussian majesty. He has a neighbour, the Elector of Hesse, who, in this, may serve as an example. That sensible old gentleman will not perplex himself with any change ; and has lately im- prisoned one of his own ministers on suspicion of being attached to the pernicious theories of the day. In our own Austria, I see nothing but what is admirable, as far as the governing power is concerned. Kingship is there in its original purity, as defined by the old writers, a father ruling a family by his absolute will f. But it does not, perhaps, exercise a sufficiently vigorous control over the retainers of the public offices. It is with much grief and more indignation that I learn, that some of the clerks, in the very department which ought to watch over the press and the importation of books, carry on an infamous and lucrative traffic by selling prohibited works. I will give an example ; the eighth volume of the " New Encyclopedia" has * Indeed, the students of Halle have shown signs of insubordination very lately, and have broken the windows of the excellent professor Weinhold only for publishing a treatise on population, in which he recommends that all the genitalia virilia of the monarchy shall be stamped, and the seal never broken except by allowance of the state authorities. t See Aristotle, Polite, lib. i. cap. S; and Plato, in lib. iii. de legibus. 72 been very properly prohibited, in consequence of the biogra- phy therein given of Sandt, the assassin ; but this volume is more frequently met with in Vienna, than any of the other portions of the work. Again; a small book, called " Spiritual Devotions," savouring of a sort of mysticism and abstract piety, not at all favourable to our established church, is put into the Vienna index; but it has been dispersed in so shameful a manner, that no less than a million and a half of copies are said to have been disposed of; and this is the abominable deed of persons paid for the maintenance of good order and real government in all its integrity, and that too in a country whose sovereign is addressed by the endearing title of Father Francis*. I leave all sensible men to draw their own conclusions from this surprising fact. • See the numerous pamphlets written on the emperor's recent recovery, all beginning " Father Francis." 73 CHAPTER XVI. Russia. The discovery of the plot in Russia has shown how con- tagious are the wicked principles of revolutionists ; for, doubtless, all the schemes of the conspirators originated from the infection caught during the long campaigns of Germany and France, where the very air was tainted with the aspirations of the restless, for liberty and constitu- tions, &c. The Muscovite soldiers at Paris heard so much of the horrors of slavery, and of the charms of just govern- ment, that some of them thought of making these words the order of the day at home ; and having been told, in a thousand proclamations, that they had been brought from the wall of China to overthrow despotism and restore the rights of nations, the infatuated simpletons applied to their own case what could never be fairly referred to any other than the autocracy of Napoleon : but the danger is over, and the happiness of that vast empire is undisturbed, and all is obedience and tranquillity*. How, indeed, can the • The three regiments of guards formed by Peter the Great, chiefly of foreigners, had three times disposed of the throne before the revolution of 1762, which raised Catliarine II. to the empire: but the soldiers of those days were only for a change of masters, they were not so absurd as to wish to have no master at all. On the contrary, Peter III. owed his downfall partly to a silly attempt to liberalize Russia : having been educated for the chance of filling the half-republican throne of Sweden, he had imbibed certain notions of liberty and equality, which seduced him into many excesses when called to the absolute dominion of the Czars. So catching was the example, that some of the conspirators who assisted to dethrone him, had a scheme for introducing free institutions into Russia ; but Catherine, like a true sovereign, played one set of innovators against the other, and slipt between the two into the entire possession of the monarchy. This great princess appeared, for a short time, to be caught in the snares of the French encyclopaedists ; but she speedily recovered her senses, and the latter acts of her life displayed her 74 Russian subject fail to be submissive when he sees the reputed heir of the empire bow before the will of his sovereign, when that sovereign is no more. Nothing can be more edifying than the resignation of the grand duke Constantine to the commands of his late master. I saw him at one of the ceremonies during the coronation of his brother at Moscow ; he was following the emperor at a humble distance, and, when called, approached with mili- tary promptitude, and raised his two fingers to his hat ; a salute which he continued till he withdrew. A simple grenadier could not have received the orders of his com- manding officer with more respectful submission. It was a touching scene — I was sensibly affected, and contrived to be introduced to this amiable prince. I found him sitting on a camp-bed in a garret, in a quarter which he had chosen, apparently, that he might not be distinguished from the other servants of his imperial brother. Can the much-boasted annals of Greece or Rome show any thing like this ? I think not : happy the sovereign that has such a brother ; happy the country that has such a sovereign. The grand duke Constantine gave an early specimen of his truly princely notions ; for, agreeing with Hobbes that reading makes men blockheads, he told Van Sachen, his governor, that he would not read, " For," said he, " I see you always with a book, and you prove only the greater dunce for it*."" Let us hope that the accidents which have occasionally disquieted the palace of the Czars, may no more recur to give pain or scandal to the lovers of legiti- true and original character. She discarded her favourite, the princess D' Ashe- koff, who had helped her to her throne, for sufl'ering the publication of the Vadime of Kniac;renin ; and the work called the " Journey lo Moscow" cost the author, Kebkichef, a journey lo Siberia. Sooner or later all nionarchsmust und will have tecourae to these measures. • See Rulhiere's " Revolution of 1762."' 75 macy. His present imperial majesty has already given proofs of the policy which may be expected from his sway ; and it is with infinite satisfaction that I learn he has taken no pains to conceal his displeasure at the revolutionary propensities of his English allies. The ambassador who carried the garter from George IV. to the emperor, waited a fortnight at St. Petersburgh, without the slightest notice being taken of his arrival ; a disrespect which could never be levelled at the king of Great Britain, nor his worthy envoy the Marquis of Hertford, but was doubtless directed against the minister then presiding over the British cabinet*. * Written when Mr. Canning was first lord of the treasury. — Note by Trans- lator, 76 CHAPf JER XVII. Of England. Having read almost every thing that has been written i-especting this singular country, and finding myself unable to come to any satisfactory conclusion, I resolved to visit it, and see, with my own eyes, whether the form and practice of her government must be considered so totally different from those of all well-regulated states, as they have been represented by the enthusiasts of democracy. I shall state what I saw, and the conclusions to which I came, during my stay in the British islands. A supevficial observer would imagine it impossible, that, in England, the government should stand a single day against the regularly organized force which perpetually is brought to bear against it. For my own part, when I first read a single sheet of the Times newspaper, I thought the columns of that journal more than a match for the royal family and all the privileged classes, and I almost resolved upon an immediate escape from the scenes of anarchy, which I con- sidered must ensue the next day or the day after. The 8ame impression was made upon me by attending a great public meeting in the city of Westminster, where several orators harangued the multitude upon the abuses of the state, and decried the conduct of the royal family and the ministry, and both houses of parliament, and every soul in authority, from the king down to the constable. The most violent menaces, the most audacious prophecies of the downfall of all these offenders, were loudly proclaimed and rapturously received ; and one very vehement young gen- tleman, a member of parliament too, said that he hoped to 77 see the time when the people would be too much both for the red guards and the black guards of the court, meaning, thereby, the soldiery and the crown lawyers. At this mo- ment I expected to hear the tocsin and the Tower guns. In the House of Commons I heard the too-celebrated Henry Brougham denounce all the sovereigns of Christen- dom, in language which left nothing to the imagination. He condemned their public acts, he ridiculed their private pursuits ; one of them, he said, had strangled his own father, another employed his time in papering rooms and compound- ing sealing-wax ; and, whilst I was breathless with horror at these mad sallies, an ambassador, under the gallery, sitting next to me, seeing my alarm, said all this was trifling in comparison to what he had once heard the same orator say against his own sovereign, whom he had compared to Mil- ton's Death in labour with Sin ; and his excellency added that a gentleman, then sitting behind Mr. Brougham, had, before the assembled peers of England, likened his gracious majesty George IV. to Nero, the murderer of his own mother. This information, so far from quieting my alarm, made me more terrified, and, as the orator thundered out his impieties amidst the shouts and cheers of all around him, I became dizzy and bewildered, the candles seemed to burn blue, the robes and curls of the president looked on fire, and I almost expected to see Satan, in his own person, in possession of the speaker's chair. This was sufficiently appalling ; but I was still more uncomfortable, when I saw the same dreadful leveller, an evening afterwards, at a gay assembly, surrounded by the most fascinating ladies of the court, and in close confabulation with knightsof the garter and ministers of state. This was a sort of devil-worship, to be found, I thought, only in savage countries. I could not but imagine that every thing was about to be over- 78 turned, and that the great ones of to-day were bespeaking the favour, or the mercy, perhaps, of the powerful of to- morrow. Besides these indications, I witnessed other symptoms, conclusive, to my apprehension, of approaching anarchy. I visited some twenty or thirty places of worship, in which the forms and the belief of the established church were set at nought, and publicly decried. In one chapel, indeed, I heard a favourite preacher, amongst whose audience I recognised some of the nobles of the land, deliver a politi- cal lecture, in which royalty itself came in for a due share of contumely. With the press, and the parliament, and the pulpit, opposed to authority, I saw no chance for the privi- leged classes ; and, in addition to these open assaults, I also witnessed the other modes, more silent, but equally sure, by which the liberals of England undermine the foundations of power. There is scarcely a great town in the country, in which the lower classes have not founded establishments for mutual instruction. Mechanics' institu- tions, cheap libraries, lecture rooms, Lancaster schools, and, lastly, a metropolitan university, where every thing but religion is to be taught for nothing, are not only tolerated by the government, but actually patronised by some of the most influential men in the state *. I discovered that Mr. secretary Peel, himself, had persuaded king George IV. to be the patron of one of these detestable schemes for en- lightening, that is, revolutionising, the apprentices of the city of Westminster ; the secretary himself condescending to be a vice-patron of this precious society. Of this body, one Drummond, a fanatic, or an atheist, as I have been * An admirable treatise against this establishment has lately appeared in our own Austrian Observer, evidently the production of some master-hand. 79 told, is the standing president and founder, and I myself heard his majesty's gracious intentions signified to the meeting of the members, by one of the most notorious republicans in England, I mean the member of parliament for the city of Westminster. In pursuance of my inquiry, I found that the rage for instruction had reached the upper classes, and that the pro- cess of political education was going on amongst the young, and, indeed, the old nobility and gentry. One Mac Culloch, a Scotch democrat, and chief contributor to the impious journal, called the Edinburgh Review, delivers lectures annually to young members of parliament and old ministers of state, [I have seen Mr. Huskisson amongst his audi- ence,] to elucidate and propagate the doctrines of the de- ceased Ricardo, a converted Jew, who, it seems, rejected the Old Testament without adopting the New ; for this man declared, in parliament, that a witness in a court of justice, who declared his disbelief in Christianity, was just as cre- dible as a bishop. The same person, more than once, affirmed in the same place, that no man ought to be 'punished for blasphemy. So, when he dies, it is natural that his memory should be cherished, and a Ricardo lecture founded, and a Ricardo lecturer brought five hundred miles to preach the Ricardo creed*. I have scarcely said enough of the mad extravagance * There is just published a liuge essay on the English constitution^ dedi- cated to a minister of state, by one Henry Hallam ; half of his conclusions I know to be unfounded, but there is still enough of mischievous truth in the other half to make him dear to a revolutionary minister j accordingly, I learn that Henry Hallam has had a pension settled upon him for this genial per- formance. There is some nustake here j the author does not know that Mr. Hallam's pension was given him in consequence of his quitting the stamp-office. — Note by the Translator. 80 with which the periodical press assails all that ought to be held sacred by man. One newspaper devotes its columns to the ridicule of the royal person ; another takes the clergy under its especial correction ; a third holds the magistracy up to scorn ; others denounce the landowners as the ene- mies of the nation ; and it is sufficient to be the minister of the crown, or the favourite of the minister, to be ac- cused of every crime that can disgrace human nature. The same libelling spirit pervades other publications, and a thousand pamphlets, each of which would set the Austrian empire in a flame, are the annual offspring of the London press. Add to this, that speech-making and paragraph-writing are going on from one end of the kingdom to the other, and that patriotism, or, to use the true word, discontent, seems the ruling passion of the village politician, as well as of the heroes of the London Common Council, and the declaimers of parliament. How the throne of England, in the midst of these flames, remains unburnt, is a riddle and a wonder ; more prodi- gious still, that it should, for many years, have been the last retreat of legitimacy in misfortune. How, then, ac- count for this phenomenon.'' I utterly despise the theories of the De Lolmes, and the Blackstones, and the Montesquieus. I think just as little of the late productions of Madame de Stael*, and M. • A person well acquainted with England can scarcely foibear laughing aloud, whilst reading Madame de Stael's account of that country, in the third volume of the "Considerations on the French Revolution." I had, at one time, the intention of giving a formal answer to that part of her work, and showing tiie other side of the portrait in all its true features ; but a little con- sideration convinced me the good lady must have been juking, and thai, to believe her serious, would be to fall into the trap. 81 Cottin, who seem to have written their encomiums on England, as Tacitus did his treatise on German manners, for the sake of satirizing their own country. I laugh at the fine sayings of some royal persons, who, doubtless, were laughing at others, when they declared, that the love of their subjects was their first aim, and the liberty of their subjects their best security. There is nothing more reasonable and true in the ''safety-valve" of Mr. Burke than is usually to be found in comparisons. Heaven knows that, in England, the machine of state pours forth this heat and vapour through a thousand apertures. How can it be propelled a single inch? — why, to use the expression of an English poet, does not " frenzy fire the wheels ?" I look for the complete antidote to this feverish disease in vain ; but, in the course of my observations, I think I have reason to hope that the day of dissolution may not be so near afc hand as my first alarms induced me to believe. In the first place, I premise that what I say of England, I say of England only ; and that, if I pronounce her con- dition to be not altogether desperate, God forbid that I should say a single word to recommend such a dangerous experiment to other nations. But I do think she has a chance of salvation, and I will say why and how. There is a mass of revolutionary feeling afloat : granted ; but still there is a very considerable body in the commu- nity strenuously opposed to all innovation. They are to She is particularly struck with z\\ the institutions of England, except that of not talking at dinnertime. The lady mayoress is a phenomenon worthy only of a free country. " Lady Mayoress, c'est ainsi qu'on appelle la femme du maire, jouit pendant un an de tous les honneurs dues aux rangs les plus distingues de T^tat." — Consid'erations siir la Rev. Franfoise, tom. iii. chap. iii. Another wonder is also particularly striking : — " The king's favour is not sufficient to keep a minister in office ; he must have the esteem of the national representatives, and that is to be obtained only by real talent."' Jb. p. 27S. G 82 be found in the highest quarters, and in all quarters. His majesty, whom heaven preserve, nor affects nor feels affec- tion for the new doctrines. I am assured, from the best authority, that he is fully sensible of the fatal fault com- mitted by some of his crowned brothers, in becoming the accomplices of their own ruin. He follows one half, at least, of the scriptural advice, to stand upon the ancient ways; but he is quite contented with those ways, without looking out for others. His opinions are those of his father, because they were his father's ; can piety or policy discover a better reason ? No one can mistake his majesty's opinions on all that relates to government; like his great ancestor, Henry V., he has abjured the companions and the principles of his early youth, and, since he has been called to empire, has not suffered himself to be approached by a single suspected person. His ministry — his household, all belong to the same class ; — no lovers of innovation — no patrons of so- called improvements — no ambitious overtopping spirits — none whose wit or whose manners might give a charm to dangerous doctrines — no self-respecting pretender to patri- otism — no uncouth monitors, nor teachers of disagreeable truths, find entrance to this polite and easy court. But modest acquiescing merit — good-humoured compliance — unassuming respectful vigilance — these are the Windsor graces, these the virtues and the favourites of the cottage. His majesty has very wisely discovered, that although, in the country which he governs, it is not easy to be the first man in his own dominions, he may contrive to be the first man in his own room. No man can see him in the circle, without recognising the true king of the company — the sovereign of the saloon. If England is doomed to fall a prey to revolutionary principles, his majesty will not have 83 contributed to the catastrophe, by fostering that genius which has so often proved fatal to royal patrons. He refuses himself the pleasure which he might perhaps derive, from selecting his companions amongst the most ingenious of his subjects, and, consulting only his own dignity and the true interests of the throne, contents him- self with mediocrity ; an abstinence the more praiseworthy, when it is considered with what high-seasoned dishes his youth was pampered. Nor has the prudent example been lost ; for I think I discern that, in England, the higher classes have, generally speaking, no less than the monarch, a proper suspicion of the new-fangled notions of equality, which would reduce them to a level with any successful candidate for public distinction. This, next to the character of the sovereign, is the surest guarantee against revolution. Indeed, I have never seen, in any country, a pride so strong, so unrelaxed, so uncompromising, as pervades the English aristrocracy. We flatter ourselves that we, in Germany, are tolerably hedged in by our well-quartered coats of arms; but with us, there is an habitual equality of manner between all ranks, and the prince, and even the sovereign, will mix in familiar intercourse with the lowest of the people, so that there is not a lofty condescension on the one part, nor an awkward bash- ful gratitude on the other. In England no such anomaly exists ; the higher and lower classes are separated by eternal barriers ; the nobility and gentry, as far as social intercourse is concerned, do not seem to consider them- selves of the same species as their inferior fellow sub- jects. It is not hate, it is not scorn, it is rather indif- ference which they feel for the humble ranks; and if a great man descends to converse with a tradesman, he is like a statue stept from a pedestal, cold, formal, and G 2 84. unmoved. I have sometimes thought that it is in this way that the English gentlemen repay themselves for the poli- tical equality to which, in theory, and, in some degree, in practice, they are reduced when brought into collision with the multitude. But this is not the case; their feeling of superiority is not the result of reflection ; it is born with them, and it dies with them. Those who by birth have not inherited this feeling, but have raised themselves in the scale of society, adopt it very easily ; and when they are of that class called, in England, gentlemen, a class not easily defined, but easily recognised, they seem, like the followers of Eutrapelus, with their new clothes, to have put on new modes of thinking, and more aspiring hopes*. This pride and distinction of station is a great obstacle to revolution. England is, perhaps, more governed by fashion than any other country in the world. The court, or the society about the court, gives the tone, not only to manners, but also to opinions : if it be found that the lower classes, and those who flatter and favour them, adopt one set of notions, it generally is an inevitable consequence that the court circle, and all the circles concentric with it, decry and ridicule those notions; and, in proportion as any one wishes to appear to belong to the highest and best com- pany, he takes care to proclaim his abhorrence of the popular heresy. There is a great struggle going on in the metropolis, and particularly in the great cities. A love of rising in the world, and belonging to what is ♦ 1 beg to contrast this with the pages written by Madame de Stael on the state of English society, particularly with what she says of Lord Grey's paleface, (p. 310,) and Lord Lansdowne's profound study of the administration of the finances, (p. 312,) and Lord Harrowby's " brilliant irony," (p. 314.) Madame de Siai'l knew no more about English society, than M. Cottin knows of the actual state of English jurisprudence. 85. technically called "the best set," seems to pervade all families, especially the female part of them, down to the lowest ranks of those called, by courtesy, the gentry. Of course, one of the modes adopted to answer this object, is to fall in with the opinions that are thought to prevail in the highest quarters. This is as indispensable as being presented at court ; and although it is permitted to have a tinge of opposition politics, yet no quarter or courtesy is shown to any one supposed to be infected with the preju- dices of the people. Now, when it is considered that the owners of the greater part of the wealth of England are exactly in this predicament, I own that I see something like a counterpoise to the improving, innovating revolutionary spirit, which I have before alluded to as spreading over the whole lower community, and making, alas ! too many en- croachments amongst the superior orders. I ought not to omit to notice, that in latter times a bold statesman has adopted one of the sage resources of the continental monarchies, and has created a sort of court- noblesse, by greatly augmenting the honours of knight- hood ; so that almost as many ribbons and stars are seen at the English court as at Berlin or Vienna. Mr. Pitt, as I have been told, imagined this scheme, but did not dare to carry it into effect. Lord Bathurst had the courage to hazard this salutary change; and there is no doubt but that it has added, not only to the brilliancy, but to the influence of the court, and has contributed to give to society that harmless spirit of ambition, or rather of imitation, which, as I have before said, induces the great mass of the English gentry to strive to be considered a part and parcel of the high privileged orders, in contradistinction to the popular portion of the community. There is no country in the 86 world so abounding with professed imitators as England ; and this turn of mind is no where more manifest than at the king's court. I was once at St. James's, and shall never forget the innumerable crowd which, although com- posed of the most strange and heterogeneous materials, endeavoured, all of them, to assume the very tone and air of the highest orders. A more uncouth assemblage was never brought together; and yet, as far as the dress- makers and mantua-makers had been concerned, there was little difference to be discerned between the highest and the lowest of the whole company: and I dare say that every one present, when returned to his own society, endeavoured to impress them with the notion that he was, in every thing — manners, address, and opinions, one of the court, and wearing the badge of royalty. Indeed, I have sometimes been amused with the zealous loyalty, or the respectful caution which characterizes the language of by far the greater part of the best company, when talking of the king, or of his ministry. Sometimes I have remarked, that the fashion of the day excluded politics altogether from conversation, and, con- trasting this reserve with what I had seen and read of this country, I scarcely could believe myself in England. But the real cause of this apparent inconsistency is to be sought for in what 1 have before described, namely, the passion of all the rising orders to affect the manners and partake the privileges of the great. Any one will perceive that, whilst this- feeling prevails, politics will not be studied, except as a mode of promotion ; and accordingly we see, in England, that a downright democratic, or as he is now called a radical, that is, popular politician is scarcely ever, if ever, to be found within the pale of good society. I 87 never saw Mr. Joseph Hume at a single assembly in Lon- don ; not even at the w^orthy Marchioness of , where the company is otherwise miscellaneous enough. They tell me he dines at home with his wife, every day, at three o'clock. The leaders of the opposition party are cautious enough not to keep such company as may com- promise their taste or reception at court ; and I have seen one of them, a great lady, look very cool upon a parliamen- tary friend, whose recent speech had made too free with the privileges and person of royalty. In short, the tone of society in London is decidedly anti-democratic ; and not- withstanding all the mad sallies which I have heard in public- speaking, I scarcely ever witnessed any private conversa- tion which, when it did take a political turn, did not savour of a strong attachment to the existing order of things, and of an abhorrence of all revolutionary principles. This is a great security against any change. It seems to me, also, that even the people in England are fond of monarchy. Montesquieu says, " that, were the English to lose their liberty, they would be the most servile nation upon earth.""* When they see their king, which is very seldom, they generally gaze upon him with much more eagerness and respect than is usual with the subjects of more absolute monarchs. I have seen two emperors and half-a-dozen sovereigns walking about Vienna and Paris, without exciting the slightest sensation. In London, a king's messenger receives no little notice. I read in the journals, that, even at the time of Queen Caroline's trial, his majesty had but to show himself at the theatre, and was hailed with the greatest enthusiasm. It was enough he was a king — and the king. A very little policy would turn this feeling to a very good account. ♦ Spirit of Laws, cap. i\ . book 2, 88 1 remark, also, that the most furious orators, when addressing parliament or the people, seldom speak of his Majesty, except in terms of the most profound respect, and even tender affection. I have noted one or two lamentable exceptions to this practice; but, generally speaking, the king escapes at the expense of his ministers ; and the ordi- nary notices of his Majesty's movements, in the daily jour- nals, ascribe to him every virtue under heaven. The jury, an institution so rebellious in other respects, is loyal here; for, not long ago, a writer was found guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, for hinting that the king, then regent, tried to look younger than he really was ; so that even the people themselves, the natural enemies of autho- rity, are not such very unconpromising antagonists, but that they occasionally second the intentions of power. At any rate, the privileged orders are, for the most part, sound. Look at the church*; a compact, well-organized body, such as is seen in no country ; always at the back of authority, and connected with the aristocracy by the closest ties. Look, also, at a large standing army, and a naval force ; of which the principal officers belong to the higher classes, and make common cause with them. Add to these, a magistracy, not paid indeed, but so connected with the government, as to derive no small degree of their impor- tance from being considered a portion of the ruling power. This magistracy is selected out of the great mass of landed proprietors, with a judicious mixture from the higher * Asa specimen of the powerful aid afforded by the English church to the cause which I fully espouse, I beg to transcribe, inan Appendix, a sheet, sold for the small sum of one penny, or rather distributed gratis, to the amount of many thousand copies, by a powerful society, called "The Church of England Tract Society." The precepts hereby instilled, are such as the most absolute monarch on earth would endeavour to propagate; and religion is shown under the endearing aspect which recommends it so much to the lovers of tranquillitj and submission.— See Appendix A. 89" ranks of the trading community. Persons obnoxious to the ministry are not permitted to belong to this body, and, in more than one instance, great noblemen have been removed from their provincial dignities, as lord-lieutenants of counties, for the inconsiderate expression of their poli- tical feelings ; such was the case with the late duke of Norfolk, and the present earl Fitzwilliam. I ought not to forget to mention that the direct influence of the crown is so great as to be diffused and felt over the whole portion of the empire ; so that, what between posses- sion and expectancy, there is scarcely a considerable family in the country which is not, to a certain degree, dependent on the court. The events of the last thirty-five years have made some rich men in England ; but they have made also many poor men. Increased luxuries, the ambition of pri- vate life, the government taxation, render the majority of the upper classes needy, and send them to the state poor- rates for a provision, just as the lower classes are quar- tered upon the parish fund. The army, the navy, the church, the enormous civil establishment at home, the more than imperial possessions in both hemispheres, furnish a source of influence, such as was never possessed by the masters of the Roman world. Looking at England in this point of view, I am almost inclined to wonder that she retains a single popular institution which any one of her masters might have thought it worth his while to suppress. And then, this question has suggested itself to me; is it worth while for any English sovereign to suppress any of these institutions ? The parliament is noisy and dilatory ; but does it throw any real final obstacle in the way of the sovereign will ? Many of the best English authorities, in former and present 90 times, say that it does not; but that, on the contrary, it is the most happily contrived engine that can be possibly ima- gined for strengthening the arm of power, and for reducing the people to insignificance and impotency. That the great majority of both houses of parliament always vote from views of self-interest, and that the house of commons is even more open to court influence than the upper house, no Englishman denies. The only defence of the system is, that it works well. Whether it works well or works ill, it cannot be denied but that it is doubtful whether any nation, however docile, would submit to forego so large a share of their private property, as is drawn from Englishmen, if it were demanded of them by royal edicts, and collected by troops of dragoons*. By this contrivance of a pretended representation, a great and influential class are interested in the collection of a large revenue ; and even the people themselves are taught to believe that they have a voice in the imposing of contributions upon themselves, because a certain formal process is observed, and because a pertina- cious, though hopeless resistance is made sometimes by the members of the minority. Another advantage derived from the house of commons, is, that although some of the members are undoubtedly chosen, by courting and compliance with popular feeling, yet the parliamentary body, almost without individual ex- ception, is a part of the influential and privileged order of society ; and it has not been unfrequently seen, that the wildest out-of-doors demagogue no sooner breathes the air, than he feels the influence, and insensibly adopts the habits of that aristocracy, from which are selected the great majority even of the lower chamber. In the division of the community, so distinct and observable in England, * Well might M. deCalonne call tlie English a feon/jeuyj/e. 91 the member of parliament must be decidedly ranked with the privileged class; not with the people. His M.P. is a passport to fashionable clubs and fine company ; he feels it to be such — his self-love is assailed in the least defensible quarter — once admitted to the fellowship of rank, he can- not make up his mind to forfeit what he has acquired ; and the same man, who would, perhaps, have withstood the frowns of power, shrinks from the sneers of fashion and the horrors of social prescription. Let the struggle between the two classes in England be ever so serious, I feel satisfied that the parliament, almost to a man, will side with their associates of the court and the company at the court end of the town against the common enemy. If any exceptions are found, they will be amongst the aldermen, members for the city of London, who, like Mr. J. Hume, always dine at home, and never catch a sight of the fine world, except at a subscription concert, or at a charity ball. Having ventured to hint that I think the English parlia- ment need not inspire the supporters of authority, in that country, at least, with any serious alarms, I would hazard the opinion, that even the extraordinary language which terrified me, and is indeed the terror of Europe, is but an indispensable part of the system ; and that it contributes mainly to that useful delusion, which, I would fain hope, persuades the people of England that they have a real con- trol over the measures of government. The Londoners think that they have as much right to this noisy eloquence, as they have to their lord-mayor's shows ; and if they missed the usual portion of opposition, if they heard nothing of Mr. Hume and the London alder- men for a session or two, would think all was not right, and would complain as loudly as the Turks of Constanti- 92 nople, when they do not see the grand signior paraded to his Friday prayers. All this talk is a sort of popular play- thing: it tends to nothing serious. The members of the houses themselves regard a debate as part of their amuse- ment ; superior to an opera, or a play, because it costs more, and is more fashionable to be one of the assistant audience. But no man thinks that any speech, however vio- lent, would be productive of any consequences, either in or out of the house : it is so common, that the passions of the lower classes are no more inflamed by it, than by the indecent writings which disfigure the walls: and yet, so accustomed are they to this treat, which is all they get for their money, that it might not be quite safe, and I think it would not be judicious, to deprive them of it. For, strange as it may seem, though all experience tends to the contrary conviction, yet there are a great many of the English people who would fain persuade themselves that something substantial is gained for the people, by the eter- nal talking against the measures of ministry ; accordingly, they feel an extreme interest in knowing what that talk is, and they crowd the galleries, and pore over the debates of parliament, with as much eagerness as if they were not aware of their inevitable result. They have a satisfaction in thinking, that some parliament men take what is called their part, and, whilst charmed with a courage where there is no danger, and a contest which seems to them their own, they forget that the resistance is seldom sincere, and cannot possibly be efficacious. Were I king of England, then, I would not shut the doors of the two Houses. If I did not dare, or did not think it worth while to dispense with the parliament altogether, I would leave the rattle as I found it, with all its bells. The jury is one of those institutions which, at first sight. 93 appears an insuperable obstacle to the designs of power ; and, if the juries were drawn indiscriminately from the mass of the people, I think they must be so. In trials be- tween man and man, and even in common criminal cases, I do not see that there is any more value in the judgment of twelve men, than in that of an intelligent individual. It is only where the crown is prosecutor against defrauders of the revenue, or against those accused of sedition, such as libellers and traitors, that the jury trial might be found a most inconvenient practice. Yet, I have found, upon inquiry, that it is very seldom that juries have not been found sufficiently complaisant. I have also learnt, that the selection of the juries is by no means fortuitous, and that they are not indifferently taken from the body of the people. In all crown cases, the executive has a right to what is called a special jury ; a contrivance, by which, in the first instance, it was intended to secure, upon commer- cial causes, a certain number of jurors more qualified than ordinary individuals. The qualification now requisite is, that the special juror shall belong to a higher rank; a scheme which must always give a better chance to the government and the privileged classes, than to the people : and, even in the selection of these special juries, it is no very difficult matter to secure those who, from their known inclination or dependence, have a bent towards the govern- ment. In revenue trials, it is notorious that the juries, for the most part, consist of the same men or the same sets of men, from one year's end to the other; and as the jurors receive a guinea for each trial, the sitting on such juries has become a trade, and the dealers thereof are called guinea-men. I need not add, that their decisions are very seldom against the crown. In the more important trials for sedition or treason, the greatest possible care is 94 requisite, and, as I before said, does not always succeed— for, in the great trials of 1794, the coadjutors of the French jacobins, Tooke, Hardy, and others, were acquitted in spite of every effort ; and their principal advocate, to cele- brate so rare an event, when he set up his coach, and was made a lord, wrote Trial by Jury on the pannels of his carriage. The friends of the government were much disgusted at so unusual a defeat, and called the popular heroes " acquitted felons;" and the parliament also, on this occasion, showed how much more nearly allied it is to the cause of government than can be expected from any body of men connected with the people ; for the traitors who were acquitted by this jury, were loudly condemned by the house of commons, both before and after their trials. In 1817, some other traitors were also tried and acquitted, owing to some negligence in selecting the jury ; but such instances are rare, and the great proportion of those who are tried for libels or other seditions, are, particularly if tried in the country, and not in London, pretty sure of being found guilty. A London jury is not so tractable as a provincial one; but the court lawyers have a scheme by which they can remove a trial to a convenient jury ; and when the celebrated Burdett published a libel in London, a way was found of showing that the crime had been com- mitted a hundred miles otF, and ought to be tried there. Burdett contested the point, for which obstinacy he paid, as I have been told, six or seven thousand pounds, and was then sentenced to three months of jail, and to a fine of two thousand pounds. I am sure no more than this could be expected from an Austrian tribunal. Even were the juries much more refractory than they are, the judges of England are so carefully selected, as to secure sentences very nearly as favourable to authority as any one 95 can desire. The chief justices are very seldom promoted to their high stations, without having given earnest of their attachment to sound court politics. The present chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, particularly the latter, are striking instances of this prudence. The great dignitaries of the law, indeed, generally commence their career in parliament : showing their talents there, and their willingness to be employed, they are immedi- ately put into office, and set up to defend the measures of government, let them be what they may. As solicitor and attorney-general, they are prosecutors for the crown ; their next step makes them judges for the crown. Want of gra- titude is no common vice, and accordingly, I am told that, in the whole list of English judges, for ages, there has scarcely appeared a single instance of a man notorious for inclination towards popular principles and popular preten- sions. All the honours of the law are in the hands of the government ; and as there are not endowments enough for all aspirants, a mode has been devised for creating a higher class, or aristocracy, at the bar, by giving to those whom it is meant to favour, robes of silk, and placing them in pro- minent seats and allowing them the advantages of precedence. The silk gown, as it is termed, is very seldom conferred on those lawyers who, in parliament or elsewhere, have shown a disinclination to the measures of the court ; indeed, as they are called the king's counsel, it would be very inde- corous, as well as imprudent, to do so. These contrivances, then, added to the dispensing of innumerable favours at home and in the Indies and other colonies, and the hopes of rising to the very highest honours of the state, diminish very much the obstacles which the lawyers might otherwise throw in the way of government ; and though they are the most talkative, they are far from being the most formidable 96 opponents of the court. Instances of stubborn adherence to wild notions must, of course, be found ; but these gen- tlemen are generally exceedingly open to conviction, and two or three legal functionaries have been pointed out to me, as having been distinguished in former times for principles almost revolutionary. With judges thus chosen, it seems natural that the danger of the jury trial must be very much mitigated. The judge explains the law; the judge sums up the case ; the judge regulates the examination of witnesses ; the judge even amends the decision. Several very distinguished judicious characters have been famous for their management of juries. Mansfield, Kenyon, Duller, Ellenborough, these illustrious men, either by skil- ful persuasion or salutary menace, showed what may be done, even with the most unpromising materials ; and I was told, that a learned successor of theirs owed his pro- motion to a new mode of proceeding, which I did not rightly understand, but which is called " snapping a ver- dict." Under these circumstances, it will be seen, that the separation of the executive from the judicial function- aries, (the chief justice, a few years ago, was a cabinet minister,) is just one of those democratic schemes, which writers, like M. Cottin, may pretend to find carried into effect in England, and which is talked about by parliament orators in that country, but has very little or no existence. Notwithstanding, however, all I have said of the jury trial, I confess it is not, however modified or modelled, a scheme suited to quiet government ; and 1 must express my astonishment that Mr. Peel, a most loyal man and staunch anti-jacobin, should lend his aid \o popularize the old convenient mode of selecting the juries for court causes. Perhaps, however, I am wrong in condemning this most deserving young minister ; for it is possible his plan will 97 produce no such pernicious innovation, and that, as is often the case, I think, in England, a great deal has been said and a very little done. There can be no objection to simplifying or mitigating the criminal code. It is all the same to the government, whether a sheep-stealer is hanged for the first or second offence, or whether he is hanged at all ; but, were I king of England, I would allow no minister of mine to dabble with the jury system. No reform there — it is part of the *' arcana imperii," and if we are to have juries at all, pray let them remain as they are. Mr. Peel cannot mean otherwise than well. It is impossible that he should intend to add to the safeguards of sedition; yet, if juries are indifferently chosen, I should wish to know how the court can possibly be sure of a conviction in the day of need. I warn him, therefore, to beware; and if the voice of a stranger does not reach him, surely he must know, from the praises which he has received from some of the bitterest enemies of power, that he has deviated into the paths of democracy. It is more necessary for him to show his loyalty, seeing that his colleague, the foreign secretary, the successor of the lamented Castlereagh, has decidedly apostatized, and drawn down more than the third part of the ministerial heaven with them ; so that the English cabinet, like England herself, as I have described her, presents a picture of the strongest and most unblending contrasts and contradictions, where the lovers of lawful sway may be cherished by the lights of hope, or lost in the shades of despair. But the majority of the ministers are firm in the faith. The premier Liverpool is true to his trust; the venerable Eldon, the uncompromising opponent of all reform ; the unbending Bathurst ; the great Welling- ton ; these will hold no parley with revolutionists at home, though in an evil hour they have lent their aid to the con- H 98 stitutional traitors in Portugal. Let us hope, however, that some event, now unforeseen, may reconcile the British cabinet to the cause of kings, which, much more than the vanished French republic, is *' one and indivisible ;" and in that case, what I have remarked of the real working of the mixed system in England, may quiet the apprehensions of those who think that the English nation and her institu- tions, independent of the English government, must sooner or later revolutionize the whole world. What are the hopes of man ? At this moment I hear of the disastrous blow which has levelled lord Liverpool to the earth. If Canning succeeds to him, what becomes of the cause of legitimacy ? Let the monarchs of Christendom be true to themselves, and let them, without relaxation, hold fast by those principles of government which I have en- deavoured to develop in this litlle treatise, and which alone can secure their thrones for themselves and for their pos- terity*. * The materials for some part of this Chapter seem to have been furnished to the Author by some Englishman. — Note by Translator. 99 CHAPTER XVIII. Of France. I SEE much to blame, and yet a great deal to praise, in the conduct of those to whom the excellent Charles X. has intrusted the government of his -beautiful France. A restored dynasty has always a very difficult game to play, and in some respects the progress made by the Bourbons, since 1815, towards the recovery of their lawful authority, has been truly admirable. When they came into France, for the first time, they were obliged to go through the formality of promising to observe many conditions, by which the first half-year of government convinced them it was impossible to abide. Louis XVIII. had lived so long in England, that he thought a charter of liberties must be a very taking stipulation, and he granted one before he entered Paris in 1814. His subjects soon showed him what a sovereign must expect, when he is any thing but a sovereign, or tries to reconcile the two incompatible feel- ings, reverence and love — majestas et amor. Instead of thanking their Desired Prince for his charter, they quar- relled with him about the title of it, and would rather not have it at all than have it as a gift. The king, wisely leaving them to squabble about these trifles, set himself to work upon the more serious contents of the charter, and was employed in remoulding some articles into a more con- venient form, when the usurper re-appeared, and treated his people with his charter. The French again quarrelled with the title of the " acte additionel," and the new cham- ber of deputies began to be so exceedingly troublesome to H2 100 the framer thereof, that, had he not lost the battle of Waterloo, they would have some of them lost their seats, perhaps their heads. But, as it was, these gentlemen forced their maker to abdicate, and, for a few days, seemed so pleased with their independent position, that they would not make up their mind to have any master at all. As the foreign army and Louis approached, they assumed a most determined tone and aspect, and talked of dyings at their posts. His majesty intended no such extremities. He only shut the door of the parliament house, put the key in his pocket, and announced, the "chamber of representatives is dissolved." But Louis, though on the throne of the Tuilleries, had many obstacles to contend with before he could become really king of France. There was his old charter which must be reproduced ; and with it came all the consequences — a parliament — a national guard — freedom of the press — religious toleration — the jury system, and all the other shackles of authority. A desperate struggle, as might be expected, ensued between the friends of good government and the liberals ; sometimes one party was triumphant, sometimes the other ; but, thank Heaven, his majesty was nobly seconded, and at last, when his enemies anticipated his approaching downfall, obtained a decisive triumph against the constitutional anarchists, both at home and abroad, by the immortal march into Spain. But I do not think a very decisive use was n:ade cf the victory. Had I been king of France, I would have dissolved the chambers on the news of the taking of Cadiz. I would, by a royal edict, have caused the remaining shreds and patches of the charter to be burnt before the legislative palace. I would have suppressed all the journals except one, re-established 101 a censorship, and dismissed the national guard. I would date that day as the first of my reign; all this might have been done without a riot*. King Louis, however, proceeded with a caution which I tiiink unnecessary, and left part of the great work which he had so happily commenced, to be accomplished by his successor. But a great deal had been done to restore the ancient regime when Louis died, and Charles has not been wanting to himself. * I would most respectfully suggest to the present Bourbons, that they have the wisest of all maxims from the mouth of Lewis XIII , who was so properly surnamed the Just, although reasons of state had made him sit in judgment on so many nobles and members of his own family, and force his reluctant col- leagues to pass sentence on the delinquents without the usual forms of trial. Thai monarch, in his bed of justice, Feb. 13th, 1641, truly declared, les mo- narchies itant fondles sur le pouvoir d\m seul, eel ordre est comme Vame qui les anime, et il leur inspire aidant deforce el de rir/ueur qu'il a de perfection. Mais comme V autorili absolue ports les ilats au plus haut point de leur g loir e, aussi forsqii'elle le trouve ajfoiblie on les voitenpeu de temps d^choir de leur d'f/nitS." The same speech forbad the parliaments the use of the embarrassing and rebel- lious words, " notis ne devons nine pout ons." Anne of Austria, after hearing such lessons, might v.ell be surprised, that, after the death of Richelieu and her husband, these same parliaments should dispute her authority, or, to use the words of Mme. de Motteville, " que cette canaille s'ing^rdt de reformer rilat." Yet so it was, each shopkeeper, as the same memorialist says, "was infected with the love of the public welfare ;" and, according to the expression of De Retz, " the people entered the sanctuary.'' Talon, advocate-general, was hardy enough to say to Louis XIV., then only seven years old, at a bed of justice, " un tel gouvernement despotiqiie et souverain serait bon parmi les Scythes el les barbares seplenlrionaux qui n'ont que le visage d'homme — mais en la France, Sire, le pays le plus police du monde, les peuples ont toujours fait itat d'eti'e nh libres el de vivre comme vrais Francais." One might fancy oneself listening to the rhodomontade of a modern liberal ; but decision and good management soon silenced these ridiculous pretensions of the parliamentarians; and a government, " good only for Scythians and north- ern savages," was found to be quite good enough for the polished gentlemen and fine geniuses of the court of the same sovereign who had been obliged to listen to this republican homily. Louis XI V. gave early proofs of his talents for command; above all, he showed he knew who were his real enemies — when, hearing of the victory of Lens, gained by Cond^, he said, " ah que le parlement va etre fach^." — This king had sworn to the reforms of the chamber of St. Louis, as much as Louis X VIII. to his chatter. We know how he dis- posed of these reforms and made himself the greatest of monarchs. 102 ~ When I was in France, a few months ago, 1 found that a wonderful change had taken place since the doubtful days of 1822. The charter was not half so formidable as before ; the teeth of that dragon had been drawn. It was become a bye-word and reproach ; and it was the fashion to declare it a tyranny, worse than that of Algiers, to be subjected to a paper power. Laws, which had been idly thought fundamental, had been so modified as to answer the great ends of government. The elections for the chamber of deputies had been new modelled, so that, out of a population of twenty-nine millions, the number of electors had been reduced to eighty-six thousand, and the qualification had been so raised, as to leave not more than eighteen thousand eligible for representation. The conse- quence of these judicious changes had been, that, the influ- ence of the crown having to work upon a surface so much narrower than formerly, the provincial prefects and other court functionaries, without much struggle, had secured the return of the desirable candidates in all but two or three factious departments, and the opposition had dwin- dled down to some eleven or twelve malcontents, who had also the greatest difficulty in making themselves heard. Benjamin Constant, in fact, was almost the onlyremaining orator who, by wily management, was able to say a word against the proposition of ministers. Having found out the way to procure a compliant parliament, the friends of good order resolved to keep it as long as possible ; and a most excellent and important amendment made it sep- tennial. The Bourbons, in this, showed they had not lived in England so many years without learning what part of its strange history might be imitated with advantage. This is turning calamity to account. In their management of the elections also they displayed an address worthy of 103 the most experienced secretary of the English treasury, and out of materials apparently hopeless fashioned a chamber which, it might have been thought, nothing but the long- matured system of the British rotten boroughs could pro- duce. It would be exceedingly easy to persuade this cham- ber to vote itself out of existence, as the Irish parliament did ; but it is not thought worth while to do this. I would, however, prevent the indiscriminate publication of the speeches and proceedings, and I would transfer the sittings to the Luxembourg. This would totally annihilate the little interest which the French now take in the proceed- ings of the chamber of deputies. I hear that some such change as this is in meditation. Nothing would be easier ; the members themselves are so little anxious about their own utility, that, from what I have witnessed, I am sure the salvation of the country would not induce them to pro- long a sitting beyond the usual hour of dinner time. The bloody members of the Convention were never hungry, they went to their sittings with a crust of bread and an onion in their pockets. I do not quite understand how so much difficulty has been experienced in moulding the chamber of peers to the court fashion ; for, upon inquiry, I find that, out of three hundred and fifty members, there are not sixty who are quite independent of the crown. The senators of the imperial regime had a regular allowance of thirty-six thousand francs a year. Louis XVIII. very prudently took twelve thousand from each peer, and made a fund, out of which he paid those most whom he liked best. A majority of the peers receive so much monthly ; but this depends on their votes. It seems impossible to adopt a more simple or efficacious contrivance; and yet, in two or three notorious instances, the projects of ministers, after being triumphant in the chamber of deputies, have failed of success in the 104 peers. This, however, I attribute more to the indiscretion of ministers in attacking powerful personal interests, rather than to any dangerous spirit of independence in the upper chamber. If M. de Villele will make enemies of the clergy, or of the holders of stock, he must expect a defeat, so long as those bodies are in great numerical force in either chamber; if he will disband and discard the whole body, and do away with the whole system, that, indeed, would be another thing. That it should be reserved for a planter from the Isle of France to give the coup de grace to the poor, shattered, convulsed, dying charter, is almost too charming a prospect. Were that to occur, the wretched constitution would expire, as it ought, without dignity, and therefore without pity ; as was said of the disgraceful, dirty end of Vitellius, " deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulit." But M. de Villele is not quite the man for such an exploit, though adroit in some respects, and afraid of few expedients. He prides himself, perhaps, a little too much upon a capacity which his enemies allow him to possess, that of being a neat speaker ; and I doubt whether he v/ould shut up a tribune which enables him to dis- play this school-boy faculty. Then, he has not that personal devotion to royalty which a king should require in a ser- vant ; he is the " ministre du regne" rather than " du roi," and, notwithstanding his well-known attachment to sound principles, he has been persuaded by some foolish people that he ought not to try hazardous experiments, but content himself with as much despotism as the people will boar. Ridiculous ! the people of France, like all other people, will bear despotism, as it is called, that is, the will of a master, either little or much, if established according to the rules of common sense and experience. Let M. de Villele second the inclinations of Charles X., and 105 of the worthy archbishop of Rheims and the bishop of Clermont Tonnerre, whom his majesty has had the courage to place in his cabinet, and he will soon discover what he may do, and what the people will suffer. Nothing can be more judicious than the ministerial con- duct of those exalted clergymen ; they show they know their countrymen well — and without making use of any of the stronger engines of power, they have so distributed the vast patronage of the crown, as almost to change the cha- racter, certainly the outward character of the whole nation. Who would have thought it ? but so it is, that in France, it being once made known to all the world that the august sovereign thereof is afraid equally of revolution and of the devil, piety and peace have become the order of the day. An attachment to religion, that is, the religion of the Jesuits, is now indispensable to every man who would better his condition. Does a man want to be a notary, and has given one hundred thousand crowns for the place, the keeper of the seals will not confirm the license, unless the applicant is regular at church. No advancement in the army without going to church, — none in the public offices, — none at court ; the consequence is, that, after the first follies of youth have evaporated, and a man has soberly set down to the great object of life, the amelioration of his fortune, he sees the high road to preferment lies through his parish church, and he takes it at once. Thus every Frenchman of twenty-five years old is a devotee, and, the liberals add, a hypocrite. How is that to be known? I do not believe it ; but, hypocritical or not, they are better subjects than the impious liberals, who, after their fashion, are endeavouring to do all in their power to counteract these good propensities and to taint their fellow-subjects with hypocrisy, by corrupting their education. 106 The booksellers of Paris have assured me that the works of Voltaire and Rousseau are in great request, and that in a very few years they have sold no less than four editions, of seventeen thousand copies, of that horrid work the " Ruins." Strange reading this, for a nation upon their knees once a day at least, and where no man can be a gensd'arme without producing his " billet de confession."" M. de Villele surely slumbers on his post, when he allows Impiety to circulate freely, within sound of the Tuilleries' chapel bell. It is but a poor excuse for him, that he has managed to condemn, to seven years' imprisonment, a wretch who published an edition of the New Testament, leaving out the miracles. It is worse than absurd, when the people themselves show such happy propensities to observe all the formalities of religion, that their faith should be left exposed to the deceivers who have been dead and damned for more than half a century. If those, who undermined the ancient regime, are suffered again to be brought into play, how is the ancient regime to be restored ? Were I minister of France, there should not be a book-stall in Paris. The Viennese do very well without them ; and, now I am on this part of the subject, I must venture to tell M. de Villele, that he cannot complete the restoration without re-establishing the censorship. The eighteen thousand traitors which daily issue from the Rue Montmartre*, and disperse themselves over all France, will be too much for the ancient regime. In vain all the quiet, good, indifferent dispositions of the great mass of French- men ; in vain the meritorious missions which have setup a cross in every village, and almost in every family in France. The Constitulionel alone will be more than a match for all the efforts of piety ; and even now I see some negative * Where the ConstUutionel is pubhshed. 107 signs, at least, of the progress of disaffection. Why was general Foy's tomb smothered in garlands ? why Talma followed to the grave by eighty thousand Parisians ? was it love for them i No ; it was not — it was a mode of showing disrespect to the established order of things. I do not think that the French, as yet, care much about their griev- ances, as they are called, or for their patriots : so little, that, if M. de Constant was led out to be hanged, not one of his Parisian constituents would interfere ; but, by force of reading every day in their newspapers that they do care, they will think they ought to care ; and the consequences may easily be anticipated. I conjure M. de Villele to inter- fere before it may be too late. The press once silenced,he may carry his " droit d'ainesse," or any other project, whether with the chambers or without them ; if it is not silenced, and that speedily, he will be able to carry nothing — except, perhaps, himself back to the Isle of France. Let him take warning from M. de Cha- teaubriand. That gentleman was so fond of talking and writing, that, although he was decidedly for invading Spain, he wished some sort of a constitution, and of course, a chamber or two, to be set up at Madrid. He supported the famous foolish proclamation of Andujar. In short, he thought himself clever enough to be half-liberal, half-loyal- ist ; but he was not— the king, very properly, turned him out, and he has now no other consolation than that of living upon his romances and proclaiming himself the apostle of literary liberty ; a romance on which, I trust, he will find it very hard to live. Amongst the pernicious effects of this newspaper opposi- tion to good government, M. de Villele must see the surly, obstinate perverseness of some of the higher tribunals, whose judges, being flattered and spirited up by their jour- 108 nalist coadjutors, have shown that they are not at all to be depended upon. Witness the decision given lately in the issue between the ConsLitutionel and the order of Jesuits. The audacity of these modern Montesquieus was carried so far as to declare the Jesuits, the friends of the monarch, an illegal association. Luckily the Jesuits derided this brutum fulmen, which, I say, was launched, no doubt, as much from the conspirators of the press as from the liberals on the bench. The juries of France are more manageable. It is con- trived that there shall be no more than about three thou- sand for the whole of Paris ; and as the same individuals must necessarily be repeatedly selected for this function, they are, for the most part, tolerably well known to the crown prosecutors, and means are found to make them very respectable partisans of power. This being the case, it is the more inexcusable that judges, owing their appointment to court favour, should not be more tractable. But I trust that the French minister will strike at the root of the whole evil — a rebellious, revolutionary press. The people of France care nothing about this liberty of the press, nor about abstract liberty at all ; they are fond of monarchy, because they are fond of distinction. They do, indeed, desire to be equal amongst themselves ; but to an absolute master above them all they do not object. If a nobleman were to intrigue with the wife of a tradesman and presume upon his rank for protection, all Paris would be in an up- roar, and the affair would create more sensation throughout France, than the total revision or extinction of the charter. This feeling of equality is the child of the revolution, but I do not think it of much importance to the government. It was this that created the strong opposition to the law on the " droit d'ainesse," a plan for making one man better 109 than another; plausible at first sight, but of which the real tendency must have been to augment, rather than diminish, the obstacles to authority. For, so long as there are no large proprietors, no heads of families, no persons in possession of superfluities, there can be no serious and lasting opposition to a well-directed government, especi- ally to a government possessed of such enormous revenues as that of France. Ail opposition must be gradually bought off. In a country where the great mass of the influ- ential classes have only just enough to live upon, each individual must naturally look to the court for the means of obtaining the smallest luxury. In fact, the desire of a Frenchman is to be placed : without that he cannot pre- sent his mistress with a shawl, nor daily adjourn from the *' restaurateur's" to the opera or play. I was not therefore sorry that M. de Villele failed in his project, except that I always dislike for any government to show itself too weak for its opponents. Upon any occasion, I should not wish to see a rich and powerful nobility esta- blished in France ; because I should consider such an insti- tution incompatible with absolute power: for this reason I am glad that the Bourbons have not attempted to restore the corvces^ or any exemption from taxation to the higher noblesse. There are other and safer modes of attaching the upper classes to the crown, and of restoring all the useful portions of the ancient regime. As for the chamber of peers, something more effectual must be done to make them more like Napoleon's senate, for at present they are too troublesome ; but silence the press, and M. de Chateau- briand and the Due de Broglie will make no more pam- phlet speeches; let that scheme be tried first. Another important state measure is absolutely indispens- able for the security of the restored dynasty. The national no guard must be extinguished. Like the liberty of the press, it is revolutionary ; and, as I have urged elsewhere, the arming of the citizen is the disarming of the king. True it is, that the French national guard have done some ser- vices to legitimacy — so did Fouche the regicide. He was the contriver of the second restoration, and kept quiet the chamber of peers, whilst the same guard preserved the peace of the streets. But did this service prevent him from dying in disgrace and banishment ? Gratitude is a private, not a public virtue *; and I trust that no such foolish feeling will prevent M. de Villele from seizing the first convenient occasion for striking this decisive blow. Now is the time. The French regular army seem royalist to the core. There is a faithful Swiss cohort to encircle and protect the throne — a profound peace leaves leisure for such an operation ; nothing can endanger the dynasty except an unsuccessful war, which might awaken French vanity, and give rise to unhappy comparisons. In such an emergency it might not be quite expedient to order so large a body of armed subjects to ground their muskets. I repeat, then, this is the time for dissolving the national guard, as well as for re-esta- blishing the censorship. I would do both by a single edict. ♦ No mistake is more fatal than for monarchs to suppose the exercise of private virtues can assist them in public emergencies. Louis XVI., who occa- sionally gave way to this weakness, was, however, well aware how unbecom- ing a part he had, on such occasions, condescended to play ; and, to give one instance, how incompatible sincerity must ever be found with the character of a king. Talking of one of his interviews with his rebel patriots, he says, *•' Tai fait parler lecoeur H la place tie Veaprit: fat oublie que f^lois rot, et je me suit exprime avec franchise.'^ — [Lettre 6S, au moisde Juill. 1792.] On other, and those very great occasions, he did not forget that he was a king ; for notwith- standing his oalh and repealed protestations, forced from him, it is certain that he never intended to preserve the constitution. See his letters to the Baron de BretueiljNov. 1790, and to the King of Prussia, Dec. 3, 1791. Ill CONCLUSION. The preceding pages were communicated by me some time ago to a friend attached to the French embassy at our capital. I have some reason to think that he made known their contents in some very high quarters at Paris ; let that be as it may, I have now the infinite satisfaction of hearing that the French ministry have adopted the very measures, the great, the saving measures which I recom- mended. There is an end of the liberty of the press — there is no longer a national guard. The pen and the sword have both been snatched from the traitors at once. This is the way to reconcile this great monarchy to the European family ; this is the way to settle the question of the restoration. Glorious prospects open upon me — a guardian angel, long scared from us by crimes and con- fusion, seems now to overshadow the whole Christian con- tinent, and hover over us with healing under his wings. Let the liberals amuse themselves with Greek committees, and subscriptions for officers' widows. They are now, what I always thought them, nobody— M. de Villele (alas I how have I wronged him in my previous pages,) has shown them that he knows their insignificance, and, in answer to all their harangues, has written three words in the Moni- teur, and has saved France. This news affords some consolation for the dreadful intelligence received from England: and now, Mr. Canning, though you have let shp the dogs of war; though the Burdetts, and the Broughams, and the Wilsons, and the Dudleys, and the Landsdownes, are in fully cry, their horrid notes will not be heard beyond the English seas ; 112 Paris will no longer re-echo their revolutionary clamours, nor break the repose of contiguous empires. Events run too fast for writers to follow. Mr. Canning is no more; but I do not learn that the English ministry has improved since his death. On the other hand, M. de Villele, by dissolviJig the chamber and creating seventy-six new peers, has shown his determination to persevere in the only policy that can serve the cause of legitimacy*. The disturbances at Paris are more valuable to that cause, than the elections to the liberals ; parliaments may be managed or dissolved ; but a good wholesome panic maintains its influence for ages, and reconciles all quiet subjects to any government that saves them from the horrors of anarchy. It was originally my intention to have pointed out some of the details of true policy ; and the opportune excitement of terror by rumours of plots, and by disturbances just important enough to furnish an excuse for strong mea- sures, would naturally have entered into my consideration. But, upon reflection, it seemed to me somewhat perilous to show to the whole world the strings and contrivances of the state machine ; and I have contented myself with laying down a few general principles, by a steady adherence to which, I feel sure that any sovereign would very much simplify the concerns of government, if not altogether be relieved from the cares of empire. ♦ What will the author say when he hears of the fall of the Whigs in England, and of M. de Villele in France? It seems liberalism is up and down alternately in the two countries. The event, however, justifies all the writer has said of the state of feeling prevalent amongst the influential classes in England.— Translator. APPENDIX, " Church of England Tract Society, instituted in Bristol^ 1811. ' Fear God, honour the King.' The Loyal Englishman's Appeal to the Scriptures PRECEPTS. Old Testament. — " THOU shalt not — curse the Ruler of thy People." Exodus xxii. 28. " Pray for the life of the King, and of his Sons." Ezra vi. 10. " Set Magistrates and Judges, which may judge all the people, — And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the King, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment." Ezra vii. 25, 26. " Is it fit to say to a King, thou art wicked ? and to Princes, ye are ungodly?" Job xxxiv. IS. " My son, fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change." Prov. xxiv. 21. " Where the word of a King is, there is power ; and who may say unto him, What doest thou ?" Eccles. viii. 4. " Curse not the King, no not in thy thought ; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber." Eccles. x. 20. '* Seek the peace of the ciiy whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." Jeremiah xxix. 7. New Testament. — " Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." See Matt, xxii. 15 to 22. " Then said Paul, it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people." Acts xxiii. 5. *' Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God ; and the powers'that be are ordained of God : whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordi- nance of God : and they that resist shall receive to themselves F 114 damnation. For Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power ? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the Minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain : for he is the Minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. And for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's Ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honour to whom honour." Rom. xiii. 1 to 8. " Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands." 1 Thes. iv. 11. " I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men ; for Kings, and for all that are in authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty : for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour." 1 Timothy, ii. 1, 2, and 3. " Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men." Titus iii. 1 and 2. " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be unto the King as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men : As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of malicious- ness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the King." 1 Peter ii. 13 to 18. " The Lord knoweth how — to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh, in the lusts of uncleanness, and despise government: pre- sumptuous are they, selfwilled ; they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities : whereas, angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption : — spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own doceivings, — beguiling unstable souls, — while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption." 2 Peter ii. 10 to 12, 14 and 19. " Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. These are murmurers. 115 complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words." Jude 8 and 16. EXAMPLES. . " Compare Jude, part of verse 11, ' the gainsaying ofKorah,' with 16th chapter of Numbers. " The case of David, 1st Samuel, 24th and 26th chapter. " Example of Christ paying Tribute, Matthew 17th chapter, 24th to 27th verses." Printed by W. 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