for talents or knowledge, but honest | ashamed to do. Through the whole even in his errors, respectable in every transaction no commanding talents relation of life, rationally pious, steadily were displayed by any Englishman; and placidly brave. no extraordinary risks were run; no sacrifices were made for the deliverance of the nation, except the sacrifice which Churchill made of honour, and Anne of natural affection.

would produce an equally violent reaction, than that too little would be done in the way of change. But narrowness of intellect, and flexibility of principle, though they may be serviceable, can never be respectable.

The great improvement which took place in our breed of public men is principally to be ascribed to the Revolution. Yet that memorable event, in a great measure, took its character It was in some sense fortunate, as from the very vices which it was the we have already said, for the Church means of reforming. It was assuredly of England, that the Reformation in a happy revolution, and a useful revo- this country was effected by men who lution; but it was not, what it has cared little about religion. And, in often been called, a glorious revolution. the same manner, it was fortunate for William, and William alone, derived our civil government that the Revoluglory from it. The transaction was, tion was in a great measure effected in almost every part, discreditable to by men who cared little about their England. That a tyrant who had vio-political principles. At such a crisis, lated the fundamental laws of the splendid talents and strong passions country, who had attacked the rights might have done more harm than of its greatest corporations, who had good. There was far greater reason begun to persecute the established to fear that too much would be atreligion of the state, who had never tempted, and that violent movements respected the law either in his superstition or in his revenge, could not be pulled down without the aid of a foreign army, is a circumstance not very grateful to our national pride. Yet this is the least degrading part of the story. The shameless insincerity If in the Revolution itself, there was of the great and noble, the warm assur- little that can properly be called gloances of general support which James rious, there was still less in the events received, down to the moment of ge- which followed. In a church which neral desertion, indicate a meanness of had as one man declared the doctrine spirit and a looseness of morality most of resistance unchristian, only four disgraceful to the age. That the enter-hundred persons refused to take the prise succeeded, at least that it suc- oath of allegiance to a government ceeded without bloodshed or commo-founded on resistance. In the pretion, was principally owing to an act of ungrateful perfidy, such as no soldier had ever before committed, and to those monstrous fictions respecting the birth of the Prince of Wales which persons of the highest rank were not The churchmen, at the time of the ashamed to circulate. In all the pro- Revolution, justified their conduct by ceedings of the convention, in the con- all those profligate sophisms which are ference particularly, we see that little- called Jesuitical, and which are comness of mind which is the chief charac-monly reckoned among the peculiar teristic of the times. The resolutions sins of Popery, but which, in fact, are on which the two Houses at last every where the anodynes employed agreed were as bad as any resolutions by minds rather subtle than strong, for so excellent a purpose could be. to quiet those internal twinges which Their feeble and contradictory lan-they cannot but feel and which they guage was evidently intended to save will not obey. As the oath taken by the credit of the Tories, who were the clergy was in the teeth of their ashamed to name what they were not principles, so was their conduct in the

ceding generation, both the Episcopal and the Presbyterian clergy, rather than concede points of conscience not more important, had resigned their livings by thousands.

teeth of their oath. Their constant | harvest of vices sown during thirty machinations against the Government years of licentiousness and confusion to which they had sworn fidelity was gathered in; but it was also the brought a reproach on their order and seed-time of great virtues. on Christianity itself. A distinguished prelate has not scrupled to say that the rapid increase of infidelity at that time was principally produced by the disgust which the faithless conduct of his brethren excited in men not sufficiently candid or judicious to discern the beauties of the system amidst the vices of its ministers.

The press was emancipated from the censorship soon after the Revolution; and the Government immediately fell under the censorship of the press. Statesmen had a scrutiny to endure which was every day becoming more and more severe. The extreme violence of opinions abated. The Whigs learned moderation in office; the Tories learned But the reproach was not confined the principles of liberty in opposition. to the Church. In every political The parties almost constantly approxparty in the Cabinet itself, duplicity imated, often met, sometimes crossed and perfidy abounded. The very men each other. There were occasional whom William loaded with benefits bursts of violence; but, from the time and in whom he reposed most confi- of the Revolution, those bursts were dence, with his seals of office in their constantly becoming less and less terhands, kept up a correspondence with rible. The severity with which the the exiled family. Orford, Leeds, and Tories, at the close of the reign of Shrewsbury were guilty of this odious Anne, treated some of those who had treachery. Even Devonshire is not directed the public affairs during altogether free from suspicion. It may the war of the Grand Alliance, and well be conceived that, at such a time, the retaliatory measures of the Whigs, such a nature as that of Marlborough after the accession of the House of would riot in the very luxury of base- Hanover, cannot be justified; but they ness. His former treason, thoroughly were by no means in the style of the furnished with all that makes infamy infuriated parties, whose alternate murexquisite, placed him under the dis- ders had disgraced our history toadvantage which attends every artist wards the close of the reign of Charles from the time that he produces a mas- the Second. At the fall of Walpole terpiece. Yet his second great stroke far greater moderation was displayed. may excite wonder, even in those who And from that time it has been the appreciate all the merit of the first. practice, a practice not strictly accordLest his admirers should be able to ing to the theory of our Constitution, say that at the time of the Revo- but still most salutary, to consider the lution he had betrayed his King from loss of office, and the public disapproany other than selfish motives, he pro-bation, as punishments sufficient for ceeded to betray his country. He errors in the administration not impusent intelligence to the French court of a secret expedition intended to attack Brest. The consequence was that the expedition failed, and that eight hundred British soldiers lost their lives from the abandoned villany of a British general: Yet this man has been canonized by so many eminent writers that to speak of him as he deserves may seem scarcely decent.

The reign of William the Third, as Mr. Hallam happily says, was the Nadir of the national prosperity. It was also the Nadir of the national character. It was the time when the rank

table to personal corruption. Nothing, we believe, has contributed more than this lenity to raise the character of public men. Ambition is of itself a game sufficiently hazardous and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions without adding property, life, and liberty to the stake. Where the play runs so desperately high as in the seventeenth century, honour is at an end. Statesmen instead of being, as they should be, at once mild and steady, are at once ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is for ever before their eyes. A popular outcry sometimes unnerves them, and some

with the reign of Henry the Seventh, as the period at which what is called modern history, in contradistinction to the history of the middle ages, is generally supposed to commence. He has stopped at the accession of George the Third, "from unwillingness," as he says, "to excite the prejudices of

times makes them desperate; it drives | administration as it has always been them to unworthy compliances, or to in theory to taxes and to laws. measures of vengeance as cruel as those Mr. Hallam appears to have begun which they have reason to expect. A Minister in our times need not fear either to be firm or to be merciful. Our old policy in this respect was as absurd as that of the king in the Eastern tale who proclaimed that any physician who pleased might come to court and prescribe for his diseases, but that if the remedies failed the ad-modern politics, especially those conventurer should lose his head. It is nected with personal character." These easy to conceive how many able men would refuse to undertake the cure on such conditions; how much the sense of extreme danger would confuse the perceptions, and cloud the intellect of the practitioner, at the very crisis which most called for self-possession, and how strong his temptation would be, if he found that he had committed a blunder, to escape the consequences of it by poisoning his patient.

two eras, we think, deserved the distinction on other grounds. Our remote posterity, when looking back on our history in that comprehensive manner in which remote posterity alone can, without much danger of error, look back on it, will probably observe those points with peculiar interest. They are, if we mistake not, the beginning and the end of an entire and separate chapter in our annals. The period which lies between them is a perfect cycle, a great year of the public mind.

But in fact it would have been impossible, since the Revolution, to punish any Minister for the general course of In the reign of Henry the Seventh, his policy, with the slightest semblance all the political differences which had of justice; for since that time no Mi- agitated England since the Norman nister has been able to pursue any conquest seemed to be set at rest. general course of policy without the The long and fierce struggle between approbation of the Parliament. The the Crown and the Barons had termimost important effects of that great nated. The grievances which had prochange were, as Mr. Hallam has most duced the rebellions of Tyler and truly said, and most ably shown, Cade had disappeared. Villanage was those which it indirectly produced. scarcely known. The two royal houses, Thenceforward it became the interest whose conflicting claims had long conof the executive government to protect vulsed the kingdom, were at length those very doctrines which an execu- united. The claimants whose pretentive government is in general inclined sions, just or unjust, had disturbed the to persecute. The sovereign, the minis- new settlement, were overthrown. In ters, the courtiers, at last even the uni-religion there was no open dissent, and versities and the clergy, were changed probably very little secret heresy. The into advocates of the right of resist-old subjects of contention, in short, In the theory of the Whigs, in the situation of the Tories, in the common interest of all public men, the Parliamentary constitution of the country found perfect security. The power of the House of Commons, in particular, has been steadily on the increase. Since supplies have been people into two great parties. The granted for short terms and appropri- Protestants were victorious. ated to particular services, the appro-again subdivided themselves. bation of that House has been as ne-tical factions were engrafted on theolocessary in practice to the executive [gical sects. The mutual animosities

ance.

had vanished; those which were to succeed had not yet appeared.

Soon, however, new principles were announced; principles which were destined to keep England during two centuries and a half in a state of commotion. The Reformation divided the

They

Poli

rest.

of the two parties gradually emerged of favouritism which George the Third into the light of public life. First introduced, to the influence of Bute, or came conflicts in Parliament; then to the profligacy of those who called civil war; then revolutions upon revo- themselves the King's friends. With lutions, each attended by its appurten- all deference to the eminent writers to ance of proscriptions, and persecutions, whom we have referred, we may venand tests; each followed by severe ture to say that they lived too near the measures on the part of the conquerors; events of which they treated to judge each exciting a deadly and festering correctly. The schism which was then hatred in the conquered. During the appearing in the nation, and which has reign of George the Second, things been from that time almost constantly were evidently tending to repose. At widening, had little in common with the close of that reign, the nation had those schisms which had divided it completed the great revolution which during the reigns of the Tudors and commenced in the carly part of the the Stuarts. The symptoms of popular sixteenth century, and was again at feeling, indeed, will always be in a The fury of sects had died away. great measure the same; but the prinThe Catholics themselves practically ciple which excited that feeling was enjoyed toleration; and more than here new. The support which was toleration they did not yet venture given to Wilkes, the clamour for reform even to desire. Jacobitism was a during the American war, the dismere name. Nobody was left to fight affected conduct of large classes of for that wretched cause, and very few people at the time of the French Revoto drink for it. The Constitution, pur-lution, no more resembled the opposition chased so dearly, was on every side which had been offered to the governextolled and worshipped. Even those ment of Charles the Second, than that distinctions of party which must almost opposition resembled the contest bealways be found in a free state could tween the Roses. scarcely be traced. The two great bodies which, from the time of the Revolution, had been gradually tending to approximation, were now united in emulous support of that splendid Administration which smote to the dust both the branches of the House of Bourbon. The great battle for our ecclesiastical and civil polity had been fought and won. The wounds had been healed. The victors and the vanquished were rejoicing together. Every person acquainted with the political writers of the last generation will recollect the terms in which they generally speak of that time. It was a glimpse of a golden age of union and glory, a short interval of rest, which had been preceded by centuries of agitation, and which centuries of agitation were destined to follow.

How soon faction again began to ferment is well known. In the Letters of Junius, in Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Discontents, and in many other writings of less merit, the violent dissensions which speedily convulsed the country are imputed to the system

In the political as in the natural body, a sensation is often referred to a part widely different from that in which it really resides. A man whose leg is cut off fancies that he feels a pain in his toe. And in the same manner the people, in the earlier part of the late reign, sincerely attributed their discontent to grievances which had been effectually lopped off. They imagined that the prerogative was too strong for the Constitution, that the principles of the Revolution were abandoned, that the system of the Stuarts was restored. Every impartial man must now acknowledge that these charges were groundless. The conduct of the Government with respect to the Middlesex election would have been contemplated with delight by the first generation of Whigs. They would have thought it a splendid triumph of the cause of liberty that the King and the Lords should resign to the lower House a portion of the legislative power, and allow it to incapacitate without their consent. This, indeed, Mr. Burke clearly perceived.

When the House of Commons," says

statesmen of the old school full of danger to the great safeguards of public liberty, is now regarded by many persons as a safeguard tantamount, and more than tantamount, to all the rest together.

he, in an endeavour to obtain new ad- | become a fourth estate of the realm. vantages at the expense of the other The publication of the debates, a pracorders of the state, for the benefit of tice which seemed to the most liberal the commons at large, have pursued strong measures, if it were not just, it was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings; because we ourselves were ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us in a contest Burke, in a speech on parliamentary between the representatives and our-reform which is the more remarkable selves, and where nothing can be put because it was delivered long before into their scale which is not taken from the French Revolution, has described, ours, they fancy us to be children when in striking language, the change in they tell us that they are our repre- public feeling of which we speak. "It sentatives, our own flesh and blood, suggests melancholy reflections," says and that all the stripes they give us he, "in consequence of the strange are for our good." These sentences course we have long held, that we are contain, in fact, the whole explanation now no longer quarrelling about the chaof the mystery. The conflict of the racter, or about the conduct of men, or seventeenth century was maintained by the tenor of measures; but we are the Parliament against the Crown. grown out of humour with the English The conflict which commenced in the Constitution itself; this is become the middle of the eighteenth century, which object of the animosity of Englishmen. still remains undecided, and in which This constitution in former days used our children and grandchildren will to be the envy of the world; it was probably be called to act or to suffer, the pattern for politicians; the theme is between a large portion of the peo- of the eloquent; the meditation of the ple on the one side, and the Crown philosopher in every part of the world. and the Parliament united on the other. As to Englishmen, it was their pride, The privileges of the House of Com-their consolation. By it they lived, mons, those privileges which, in 1642, and for it they were ready to die. Its all London rose in arms to defend, defects, if it had any, were partly cowhich the people considered as synony-vered by partiality, and partly borne mous with their own liberties, and in comparison of which they took no account of the most precious and sacred principles of English jurisprudence, have now become nearly as odious as the rigours of martial law. That power of committing which the people an-is set up in opposition, or in preference ciently loved to see the House of Commons exercise, is now, at least when employed against libellers, the most unpopular power in the Constitution. If the Commons were to suffer the Lords to amend money-bills, we do not believe that the people would care one straw about the matter. If they were to suffer the Lords even to originate money-bills, we doubt whether such a surrender of their constitutional rights would excite half so much dissatisfaction as the exclusion of strangers from a single important discussion. The gallery in which the reporters sit has

by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgot, its faults are forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every artifice of misrepresentation. It is despised and rejected of men; and every device and invention of ingenuity or idleness

to it." We neither adopt nor condemn the language of reprobation which the great orator here employs. We call him only as a witness to the fact. That the revolution of public feeling which he described was then in progress is indisputable; and it is equally indisputable, we think, that it is in progress still.

To investigate and classify the causes of so great a change would require far more thought, and far more space, than we at present have to bestow. But some of them are obvious. During the contest which the Parliament car