chance returned, at any rate there is the favourite, safe and sound, and, in a moment,

"Forth to the gentle ass he springs,
And up about his neck he climbs;
In loving words he talks to him,
He kisses, kisses face and limb,
He kisses him a thousand times?"

There! We used to think Titania was reasonably enamoured of Bottom, when she "kissed his fair large ears," and called him " her gentle joy," and rounded his hairy temples " with coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers." We once were wont to look upon Sancho's recovery of his purloined Dapple-his affectionate greeting of, "How hast thou done, my dearest donkey! delight of my eyes! my sweet companion!" and the ass, "holding his peace, and suffering himself to be kissed and caressed by Sancho, without answering one word," as something inimitably tender. - We did think that the love of donkeys could no farther go, but we were wrong, and we are not ashamed to own it; it is but confessing, as somebody says, that we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday.

Language asinine appears to be as familiar to Wordsworth as it was to Sterne before him-the mantle of Tristram Shandy has fallen upon Peter Bell; but the elder wearer was, to our thinking, the better interpreter. Somebody has said, severely enough, of Sterne, alluding to a passage in the Sentimental Journey, that he preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving the wants of a living mother. We will not believe it. If ever a kind heart shone out in a man's writings, it does in those of Sterne. We never read that two hundred and thirty-third

chapter without feeling that he who wrote it must have felt it also. Much as he may have elsewhere said in jest, he is here, at any rate, in earnest ;we feel that he could never have written it, had he not either witnessed, or been himself an actor in, some such incident as that which he describes ; and when we come to the oath at the end, sorry as we may be to find it there, we can hardly help thinking that, as he himself beautifully expresses it in another place, "the accusing spirit, as he flew up to Heaven's Chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in, and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever!"

How much longer could we gossip on upon asses? A great deal longer than we intend to do; for, so inveterate is prejudice, that we doubt if we should ever convince the multitude of their merits, or save them so much as a single "walloping" by our intercession. No, they are a doomed and devoted race: a mark " for scorn to point his slow unmoving finger at." "The ass," said the prophet of old, "knoweth his master's crib," but the donkey of our own times is not so fortunate; he is utterly unacquainted with the nature of a rack, and knoweth not even of the existence of a manger. He is a houseless vagrant, over commons and along lane sides; he is a beast among gypsies, and a gypsy amongbeasts; αφρήτωρ, αθέμιστιος ανέστιος. He is unfed, untended, unpitied ;-he is rated, kicked, spurred, thumped, lashed, tormented, troubled, and thrashed in every possible and devisable fashion-and for why?-Your" most exquisite reason," good public?-Alas! he is an ass!

We would here premise a few gene. ral observations upon history-1st, as to the claim it puts forth of teaching the future by the past, whether for the guidance of the practical statesman, or for the enlightenment of those speculations upon human society that regard distant generations, for which we can only speculate; and 2d, as to the proper method and spirit of studying its annals, considered merely as a record of the past, and with the desire only of obtaining an intelligible retrospect. The subject is surely not uninviting. It is allied on every side to great topics of reflection; and though it will not engage us in any keen controversy, for there is no grave difference of opinion to combat, yet there is sufficient shade of obscurity hanging over it, we suspect, in the minds of most men, to rouse attention, and to justify this recurrence to the theme.

I. It is a notorious evil attendant upon mistaken and extravagant encomium, that it calls forth, as if by a law of reaction, a depreciation equally unjust; and if the subservience of history to political wisdom, its ability to guide and direct us in measures of government, has ever been seriously disputed, the scepticism, we apprehend, has arisen from a reaction of this kind. A misplaced reverence, a hasty, injudicious application of the authority of history, seem to have tempted some minds to a rejection altogether of that authority, or at least to a great disparagement of it. To prove the political value of history, it is only necessary to place its claims in this respect on their right grounds.

We not unfrequently hear the attempt made, and with the utmost confidence, to solve the political problem of the passing day by a simple appeal to a supposed analogous case in the history of past times. With some politicians, the French Revolution is ever at hand to explain all, and determine the character of every event. Now, nothing can be more weak than this method of applying history.

NO. CCXCI, VOL, XLVII,

History never exhibited any two cases exactly alike-never any two that had not in fact material differences. It is, therefore, at the utmost hazard that we make this use of its examples. But what at once decides against this manner of judging by a historical precedent is, that the precedent itself, if really applicable to the problem to be resolved to the dispute in hand-is invariably found to lie open to a diversity of interpretation exactly corresponding to that diversity of opinion it was introduced to overrule-to lie open, in fact, to the very same conflict of argument it was brought forward to determine. To understand the precedent becomes just as difficult a task as to pronounce judgment at once upon those circumstances it was applied to decipher. The discussion is only transferred from the present to the past. Both parties in the dispute invariably read the historical precedent after their own interpretation, and find in the same example a confirmation of the most opposite views.

Does history, then, afford no help to the statesman-none in framing measures, or pronouncing on forms of government? Most assuredly it does: but not by furnishing individual precedents, to be applied as occasion requires a perilous mode of decision, if indeed it can do no more than add fuel to the controversy. History is subservient is indispensable to political knowledge; inasmuch as it affords the very field of observation where human nature is to be studied as it unfolds itself, not in the solitary bosom, but in the actions of congregated numbersof citizens and of nations. Here alone can the social body be watched, and scanned, and criticised; here alone can the wants, and passions, and fevers of great societies be known and contemplated. The metaphysic philosopher who would investigate the individual mind, turns his scrutiny upon himself; he bears within the subject of his fine analysis; and the observer and his object of observation are one and the same. But if he would further learn how a multitude of such individual beings as he has been scrutinizing, deport themselves when united together as a common. wealth or nation-how they act in war, or co-operate in commerce, or demean themselves in the civil strife of faction and of party-how they may be driven like sheep, terror-stricken, by no very gentle shepherds; or how, in their love of independence, they may refuse all law and subordination-how they may be banded into sects or pro.. pelled against each other, nation against nation, by hostile religions; if he would learn these things, he has no longer the subject-matter of observation immediately within reach; he must look out for himself-must look abroad on his fellow-citizens-must watch the community, not the man. Nor would one example of a state suffice. The spectacle of one government, or one people, and that seen but for a single age, would not only be inadequate for his purpose, but would of a certainty betray him into erroneous conclusions. In the page of history alone can he find his materials, his facts, his scope of observation. It is here only that, by carrying forward his knowledge of individual man into the transactions of states and communities, he becomes acquainted with human nature in its social and political capacity. Here is the great repertory of events, by the study of which he may arrive at certain general conclusions on the lives and fortunes of nations and communities. The knowledge of the past will teach him the future, because it will teach him the knowledge of mankind.

But general conclusions, it may be said, are uncertain and disputable. Be it so. We cannot mend the matter by seizing upon some one historical precedent, and so judging, as some might express it, by experience. If the principle, as extracted from, and modified by, a review of all the cases, still requires to be applied with much care and discrimination, shall we think to snatch at certainty by laying hold of any one of those cases, and making that the sole authority for our judgment?

Not only is the separate example of history employed and appealed to in this empirical manner, but a similar error is sometimes committed by those who take a survey of the whole tenor

of the past, in order to determine what will be the whole tenor of man's future existence. History is no science of itself, but is resolved into the science of man; yet its events are not unfrequently treated as if they were of an ultimate character; and therefore, because they have been, must necessarily be repeated. Thus we find some persons pronouncing an opinion that states, like individuals, have a period allotted to them in which to flourish and attain their highest prosperity, after which they are to sink into de. crepitude, or to be cut off by sudden overthrow-we find such persons, and they used to be met with more frequently than now, who had manifestly been led to this opinion merely by the number of instances which history exhibits of the elevation and downfal of states. But it is not because nations have risen and fallen, that they therefore will continue invariably to rise and fall. If these prognosticators have discovered the causes of their progress and decay, and have satisfied themselves that these causes are permanent and universal, then, and then only are they justified in their conclusion. But if all communities of men had hitherto been known to suffer in their turn decline or overthrow, and there were yet one community in existence not exposed to the destructive influences hitherto in operation, or where these were counteracted by other and better tendencies, no conclusion derivable from the fate of all the rest could, of course, be applicable to this one.

Nor is the logical blunder confined to one only of those parties which divide this shadowy region of speculative politics. Those who reason from history in a more sanguine spirit, and dwell with ardour on the unlimited progress of human affairs, lapse frequently into an error of the same description. Because, according to their observation, society has hitherto, through all obstacles, and in spite of some retrograde movements, continued on the whole to advance, they conclude that it will therefore still persist in an onwardcareer. Now, the mere fact that society has improved, is in itself no argument whatever that it will still further improve. These consolers of the race of man must show what have been the causes of this improvement, and then proceed

Who

to point out the continued operation of these beneficent influences. When this is done, some foundation may be laid in history for their pleasant hope. History may be regarded as the record of a series of experiments elicit ing the social nature of man. can venture to say that these experiments have been so numerous and complete as to have exhausted their subject, and displayed the utmost capabilities of the human being? Who, on the other hand, can rely with confidence on the untried capacities of our nature? The light of history is as a lamp to our feet; but the light shines steadily only for a little way on the path before us. It is enough for conduct, not for speculation. Those who will discuss, not what is likely to happen in the next generation, or the next to that, but what are to be the ultimate destinies of man as an inhabitant of this globe, proceed beyond where the light of history can penetrate. They must build their hope on new inventions in the arts, or new discoveries in science; or, after having gathered all they can from the annals of states and empires, they may, if they will, revert to the study of the individual man, and, pondering on the human heart, may consider what revolution of circumstances, or remodelling of society, will bring to it a continuous happiness. The truth is, they agitate a topic beyond the rigid test of experience. We are apt to smile at men of Utopian complexion, who in that distant futurity, which is almost as much open to imagination as our mode of existence in another world, see before them a golden age, when wars shall cease, and the suffer

ings of poverty be heard no more, and the plague of ignorance be banished from the earth. We do not share their faith, or rather their hope; but the same caution that leads us to refuse the golden anticipation of these happier reasoners, should prevent us from dogmatically pronouncing with others, that human society has again and again attained substantially its perfect form, and that in no age, and under no circumstances whatever, could a happier, or altogether different scheme be possibly devised than such as the world has already exemplified. What man is capable of for evil how low he may sink in ignorance and brute passion-has certainly been

tested; how high he is capable of rising-how truly social a being he may become how far, under propitious circumstances, reason, and the good of all, may indeed give laws to society, may hitherto be unresolved.

History, then, reveals the future by the past, inasmuch, and to the same extent, as it reveals the knowledge of man. It supplies us with that repertory of facts, without which we should have very faint and most imperfect ideas of human beings as they exist in national and political combinations. But we must add, that if the ardour of our historical reading were to be regulated by this its practical utility, we should find it signally abate. An enlightened curiosity meets its liberal gratification in perusing the transac tions of the past; it is the charm of the retrospect which gives this endless interest we feel in history. Were it read only for the sake of those general truths which are to be extracted from, or confirmed by it, we should not find it necessary to peruse so many volumes, and we should close our books when we had settled our principles, It happens, however, that our love of history increases the more we read, and that we often take especial interest in those very times, which, being most remote and dissimilar to our own, afford us the fewest lessons of political wisdom. Nor is this surprising; for, laying aside all thought of governing or divining the future by the past, what a thing it is merely to look back! The recorded transactions of the human race viewed simply for themselves with a wish only to comprehend them with a mere curiosity to know through what straits, and difficulties, and strange predicaments, humanity has proceeded are equalled in interest by no department of science, by no province of nature. How curious and complicated has been the progress of human affairs! how tortuous, errant, and convulsive, have been the movements of so grave a thing as society! how grotesque has been the grandeur of our world! how wild and improbable its history, had it not been real! Who could have expected to find in war the principle of union within a society, and the means of extending its civilisation outwardly to others? Who would have dreamed that absurd, and fearful, and cruel superstitions would have acted as a salutary discipline to enforce peaceful conduct, and induce amenity of manners? Yet so it is. At one time we see men so savage that their most intimate bond of union is that of war

war which combines them, indeed, for enterprises of violence, bloodshed, pillage, and conquest, but still com. bines, in greater number, and in firmer bond of union, than any other known cause could have associated them. At another time we may observe this throng of men, thus gathered together at the voice of battle, and disciplined for deeds of outrage and enmity, still further tamed and subjugated by the authority of superstition; and long before the gross and giddy multitude could love peace for its own sake, or value the benefits of civil government, an Indian or Egyptian priesthood has compelled them, by the terrors of ignorance and folly, to the restraint of wholesome laws and the preservation of civic tranquillity. And thus the nation has proceeded, tortured into activity by war, and religion, and foreign hostility, till it has stood before us in that singularly complex condition-a termination little less curious than any stage of the progress which is expressed in the terms of a civilized state. We may figure to ourselves the spirit of humanity set down upon this earth, full of vital but undirected energies, to work out its way, as amidst the bewildering scene of external nature, into systematic knowledge, so amidst the urgent wants and passions of life, into some rational mode of existence. Good and evil, truth and falsehood, are thrown before the thinking faculty, mixed and involved in grotesque proportions, and in stubborn complication. What is thus, as if in chance-medley, thrown upon its path, it takes in the lump, and seeing truth or a good purpose somewhere in the mass, stops not to enquire or to sift. Stops not! it cannot stop-life has no pause. Humanity must think as it works, must ponder as it suffers, must separate the mischief from the benefit, and disengage itself from the former, while it travels on beneath the combined influence of both. Thus ages may pass over a country before it is aware that the blessings of government are not necessarily connected with subjection to a despot. The general reason advances slowly, and takes long years to learn a lesson,

which, when learned, appears so simple. Centuries are the hours of a nation's life. Strange life! so busy and so slow!

It must be owned that the spectacle presented by our nature in this its public eareer, is not such as always to fill the mind with very exalted sentiments towards humanity. Far otherwise: solittle dignity, so little reason, so little sense or justice does there ofttimes appear in the conduct of nations, and so fantastic, wild, or reckless is the deportment of those who have been most conspicuous on the scene, that it is curious to remark how each individual of us, however obscure he may be-who lifts his head above that stream which is carrying us all forward, to observe how winding and heady a current it has been grows great in his own estimation, as he looks with pity and derision on the folly of the species. Yes, the humblest individual who makes but one of the common mass thus wildly conducted-who is devoid perhaps of the talents necessary to raise him to those giddy elevations which humanity supports so ill-even this man feels himself elated, and rises into a moral dignity, when he descants on the deeds of commonwealths, and the character of the great! But if the scene be not always of the most exalted description if the drama perpetually violate the rules of decorum-if, unlike the spectacle presented by the physical world, disorder and confusion prevail, and scarce a clue can be found by which the maze may be unravelled; yet, nevertheless, it is our world_it is a creation we may in some measure call our own-it is the planet such as we have made itthe rude workmanship of human reason of a reason, moreover, which is still, at this very day, at work, and cannot therefore fail, through all its faults, and blunders, and enormities, to be invested to us with a perpetual interest.

II. But we proposed, in the second place, to make some observations on the method of conducting this retrospect, and arranging the materials it presents to us. It is worthy of notice, that the successful prosecution throughout Europe of physical science-whose brilliant discoveries attract to them the gaze of all men-has produced an intellectual habit, a mental discipline, which is brought to all subjects of en.