smattering of physic, and they become hypochondriacs or quacks, disordering themselves by the strength of imagination, or poisoning others in the presumptuousness of conceited ignorance. But of all men, the smatterer in philosophy is the most intolerable and the most dangerous; he begins by unlearning his Creed and his Commandments, and in the process of eradicating what it is the business of all sound education to implant, his duty to God is discarded first, and his duty to his neighbour presently afterwards. As long as he confines himself to private practice the mischief does not extend beyond his private circle, his neighbour's wife may be in some danger, and his neighbour's property also, if the distinctions between meum and tuum should be practically inconvenient to the man of free opinions. But when he commences professor of moral and political philosophy for the benefit of the public, the fables of old credulity are then verified-his very breath becomes venomous, and every page which he sends abroad carries with it poison to the unsuspicious reader.

We have shown, on a former occasion,* how men of this description are acting upon the public, and have explained in what manner a large part of the people have been prepared for the virus with which they inoculate them. The dangers arising from such a state of things are now fully apparent, and the designs of the incendiaries, which have for some years been proclaimed so plainly, that they ought, long ere this, to have been prevented, are now manifested by overt acts. On this point, therefore, it cannot be necessary to enlarge. But there is a class of political reformers who profess, according to Horne Tooke's expression, that they mean to stop at Brentford; and as these gentlemen, as far as they go, use the same arguments by which their more eager allies are stimulated to go the whole way and push forward for the Bank and the Tower, it may not be a useless task to detect their fallacies and expose their falsehood.

It is boldly asserted, that the late war was undertaken and car. ried on against the wishes of the people, and in support of des potic governments against the liberties of mankind; that it is the cause of the existing distress, being itself a consequence of the corrupt state of the representation; and that the remedy for all our evils is a Reform in Parliament. The first of these assertions is in direct opposition to the truth. The second imputes the evil to a cause in itself inevitable, and which has only incidentally and partially operated in producing it. The third recommends a re medy which could no more mitigate the disease, than the demolition of Tenterden Steeple could remove Goodwin Sands.

* No. XVI. Inquiry into the Poor Laws.

If ever there was a war begun and carried to its close with the hearty concurrence of the nation, it was the late war with France. We appeal to every person who remembers the beginning of the French Revolution, whether, if the question of peace or war had been referred to the people of England and decided by universal suffrage, Mr. Pitt would have found one dissentient voice in a thousand? The question completely broke up an opposition, which, till then, had nearly equipoised the weight of the ministry; the few who remained with Mr. Fox sunk at once from the rank and character of a party to that of a faction as feeble as they were unpopular, so feeble, indeed, and so utterly insignificant in the scale, that they took the memorable step of seceding from Parlia ment. The principle of loyalty was triumphant even to intolerance in most parts of England the appellations of republican and jacobin were sufficient to mark a man for public odium, perhaps for personal danger, persecution and ruin: government was supported and even impelled by public opinion; and there is perhaps no instance in history wherein a nation has been more unanimous than the British nation in the great and decisive measure of declaring war against the French republic. The records of par liament, the addresses and associations are unanswerable proofs of this. None but they who are entirely unacquainted with the transactions of those times can believe that the war was undertaken against the opinion of the people; and the writers and orators who assert it, make the impudent assertion either in utter ignorance or in utter contempt of truth.

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Thus much concerning the commencement of hostilities, at which time, if the government of England had been a pure democracy, and the people had given their votes by themselves instead of their representatives, the majority in favour of that measure would have been even more apparent than it was. As for the justice of the war, had it been undertaken for no other purpose than that of weakening France, by dismembering it, England would have been justified by the conduct of France in the struggle with America. But it rests upon better ground. It has been asserted, with reference to this subject, that one nation has no right to interfere with the internal arrangements of another; and this assertion is to this day repeated, as if it were an axiom in political morality. But as M. de Puisaye, who demolishes the arguments built upon this sandy foundation, has well observed-it is with the independence of nations as with the liberty of individuals-they have a right to do every thing which involves no wrong to others. So long as my neighbour demeans himself conformably to the laws, his conduct is no concern of mine: but if he convert his house into a brothel, or commence a manufactory there which should poison my family

with its unwholesome stench, I prosecute him for a nuisance. If he should think proper to take an air bath in the street before my windows, his natural liberty would be restrained by the wholesome discipline of Bedlam or of the beadle; and if he were to set his house on fire, the services of the finisher of the law would be required. Just such are the relations of one country to another. With the internal arrangements of any neighbouring people we have nothing to do, as long as their arrangements have nothing to do with us. Should they be seized with madness, bite one another, and turn the whole land into one miserable Bedlam, God restore them to their senses, we cannot. But if this Bedlam breaks loose, and its inhabitants insist upon biting us, there is no alternative but that of resorting to those measures which unhappily are the only substitute for law between nations when they differ; wars, as Lord Bacon says, being suits of appeal to the tribunal of God's justice, when there is none on earth to decide the cause.' That the French were in a state of madness, is what all Frenchmen of every party have confessed since they came to their senses after the reign of terror, or of cowardice, as one of their own countrymen has more properly called it: and that they invited other nations to follow their example by a decree, promising assistance to any people who should rise to vindicate the rights of men, can be no matter of dispute, for the fact is recorded in history.

There may be some who question the policy of the war, however just the motives for which it was commenced, and there may be some ground for criticising the manner in which it was conducted, with a view to what was, or ought to have been its main, or rather exclusive object; but only those persons who set truth at defiance and are incapable of shame will assert that it was unpopular. It was a war by acclamation in which the people went with the government heart and hand. In its progress many errors were committed; so that if men had looked to the conduct of the allies, their discordant views and their deplorable counsels, they might,without hesitation, have pronounced the contest hopeless, had they not perceived on the other hand a constant and reasonable cause for hope in the condition of France itself. For in the course of the French revolution one excess succeeded another, each more extravagant than that which went before it; follies were generated by follies, crimes begot crimes, and horrors were produced by the monstrous intermixture of both, such as former times had never seen, not in the most barbarous countries, not in the fiercest ages of superstition, not under the most execrable tyrannies. If deple tion be a remedy for raging madness, it might have been thought that blood enough was let by their own executioners to restore this frantic nation to its senses. It was impossible that so unnatural a

state should be permanent, certain that the great body of the people must desire rest and security above all other things, more than probable that when they were wearied with sufferings and with changes, they would look to a restoration of the exiled family as the easiest and surest means of putting an end to them. Many occasions offered in which this object might have been effected had there been less treachery and less imbecility in the counsels of the emigrant princes, and more wisdom and more decision in the allied cabinets. These opportunities were lost; and when in the tenth year of the war, the spirit of jacobinism was burnt out in France, and in the regular progress of revolutions a military government had been established upon the wreck of principles and institutions, the peace of Amiens was made.

As the war had been eminently popular at its commencement, so was the peace of Amiens made in entire concurrence with the general wishes of the people. Not that the great majority be lieved it would be permanent, but because they thought it on every account proper that the experiment should be made. The minority which followed Lord Grenville and Mr. Windham in condemning it, was even smaller than that which had sided with Mr. Fox in reprobating the war: but the weight of their arguments was felt, and they manifested a sensibility for the honour of the country, and a warmth for its interests, which sunk deep in the pub lic mind. The danger from jacobinism seemed to be gone by; there remained no other vestige of it in France than the wreck which it had brought about: the French nation was returning to its old fondness for tinsel and gold chains; the Eternal Republic had already past from the despotism of many to the despotism of one; it was evident that the First Consul might exchange his mongrel title whenever he thought fit for that of Grand Monarque, Emperor, or Arch-emperor, if it liked him better; and there was good reason for supposing, or rather no reason to doubt, that his inclinations were taking that course. There was therefore nothing to apprehend from France on the score of political contagion; the practical lectures which had been read upon jacobinism in that country might have been thought sufficient to undeceive mankind till the very end of time. But a new danger had grown out of the war to which that principle had given rise. What was the position in which France was left at its termination? What were the views of the French government, and what was the personal character of the individual by whose sole will it was directed?

The political system of Europe had been fearfully dislocated by the war. France had accomplished that which for a century and a half it had been the great object of English policy to prevent. She had obtained possession of the Netherlands, extended her fron

tier to the Rhine, and held Holland on one side and Italy on the other, in actual dependance. Switzerland also-unoffending and happy Switzerland, the asylum of literature, liberty, and peace, which during three centuries of contention had been respected as the sacred territory of Christendom-Switzerland also had been added, by an act of atrocious aggression, to the dependencies of France. All or more than all that Louis XIV. attempted had been effected. Was it likely, was it in the nature of things, that France should stop here? Ambition is one of those passions which are stimulated, not satiated by indulgence. And this nation was habitually ambitious, habitually fond of war, politic in council, acting fervently and perseveringly amid all internal changes upon one system of aggrandizement, and pursuing its purposes, even in the best ages of its history, equally without faith and without remorse. The French were now surrounded with their trophies and intoxicated with their triumphs; had there been no other cause, their national character and the known policy which had so long actuated all their governments, must have made reflecting persons doubt the continuance of a peace concluded under such circumstances with such a people. But to increase these apprehensions France possessed a portentous military force, the greatest which had ever been seen in the civilized world, perfectly organized, in the highest state of discipline, and under generals whose talents were believed to be incomparable, and who were at the very height of military renown. If the clouds be full of rain,' says Solomon, they empty themselves upon the earth.' War, to which the French, more than any other people, had always been inclined, had become the national passion, the preferable-or rather the only road to wealth, honour, and distinction and there no longer existed upon the continent any counterpoise to the power of this restless, politic and elated people. Austria had come out of the struggle with loss of territory, diminished reputation, and exhausted resources. But the contest which had impoverished Austria and loaded England with an enormous debt, had been to France a source of revenue as well as power; for the French, beginning with bankruptcy at home, had proceeded abroad upon the maxim of Machiavelli, that men and arms will find money and provide for themselves. And as the officers and soldiers had been trained in the revolution, the principles which they had learnt in that ferocious school might render them as dangerous at home to the adventurer for monarchy as they would be powerful instruments for carrying into effect his wider plans of foreign usurpation. It was to be apprehended then, that both from motives of political and personal prudence the First Consul would employ these turbulent spirits in their vocation. he mo XVI. the most benevolent, the most truly religious, tt ssuioL