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to use his animated language," never may the sun be seen to shine on the broken and dishonoured fragments of a once glorious union" of king, lords, and commons; on powers dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent," as it once was, "with civil feuds, or drenched," as it once was, "in fraternal blood!"

"Other misfortunes," says Mr. Webster in his eulogy on Washington (the parent and protector of the American union), "other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome." And we too, in England, may echo back the patriotic strain of Mr. Webster, for we too have had our misfortunes, and we too have a constitution that I trust we admire and love, as the Americans may, their republic. "Other misfortunes," says Mr. Webster, " may be borne, or their effects overcome." Let us make his sentiments our own. "If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean," says he, "another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow again and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, even if the walls of our Capitol were to crumble (and the walls of our Capitol, of our House of Parliament have so crumbled), if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt; but who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government?" And well may we too say, "but who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government?" and with even more propriety than Mr. Webster, for his democratic government, " a breath may make it, as a breath has made." "Arbitrio popularis auræ." "Who shall rear again," continued Mr. Webster, "the well proportioned columns of constitutional liberty?" "Who shall frame together," said Mr. Webster, and what English patriot may not say the same? "the skilful architecture, which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, gentlemen, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Pantheon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian

art, for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw,-the edifice of constitutional American liberty."

"Constitutional American liberty," said Mr. Webster; and constitutional English liberty shall, in like manner, be said by me. Let each country be enamoured of its own; to each country may its own be best adapted. To me there may appear a far more refined and higher specimen of civilization in this favoured island than is or can be seen in America; but I contend only for candid estimates, for reasonable allowances in each country for the appropriate and inevitable evils of the other. I wage war only with exclusive systems, with this democratic doctrine, which first appeared in the arrogant pages of Paine, that no government can be lawful which rests not on the will of the majority, told by the head, that aristocracies of every kind, of birth, of rank, and of property, are mere usurpation and tyranny, and with the gradual civilization of the world must necessarily disappear. I look to no such revolutions in the world, or rather, in human nature; I consider such aristocracies as the great elements, materials, and results of the civilization of mankind; as the best hope, foundation, and support of that civilization; as the best protection against selfishness, vulgarity, the coarser vices, and the fierce and ruder passions of mankind; as the best promoters of every higher sentiment of benevolence, honour, and virtue, of taste, of literature, of learning, and of knowledge; of the aspirations of genius in every direction. Such aristocracies have ever existed in our island, and never may they decline or fall! They form the constitution of England, a constitution, to which, by birth, as an Englishman, by study, by gratitude, by reason, by every principle of duty and of feeling, I am, for one, deliberately but ardently attached, and I shall never cease to be attached, be the changes, and whims, and whirlwinds of opinion in this restless world, be they what they may; "non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum." Our country has had its misfortunes, the misfortunes of Europe. They were nigh fatal; they lie still heavy upon us. We may have committed our mistakes; we may have our faults. An old country cannot be without its difficulties; difficulties hard to wrestle with. In the midst of great exhi

bitions of affluence and prosperity, great extremes of poverty and misery cannot but arise. Different classes of men may have their appropriate temptations and be found too ready to submit to them; but the constitution itself, the ancient constitution of our honoured land, the constitution of king, lords, and commons, each and all with their appropriate privileges and prerogatives, "Esto perpetua" be the cry, now and for ever; "esto perpetua;" for, whatever be our political differences, this at least should be the cry of every Englishman that deserves the name.

And I now, as my concluding effort, deliver this aspiration to you, to be the treasure of your hearts, and the maxim of your public conduct; and as far as your own country is concerned, to be considered by you, as the sum and substance of all political wisdom and all genuine patriotism.

MY

LECTURE VI.

GENERAL SUMMARY.

DEC. 1837. Y last lecture concluded with the termination of the American war,-the war with the colonies; and this is a period in the modern history of Europe. New scenes were afterwards preparing. It was a great event, the establishment of an immense republic; and, combined with other circumstances, produced a series of the most memorable scenes, that have occurred since the overthrow of the Roman empire. History seems to begin anew, so extraordinary are the events and so strange the opinions, which, no longer confined to the closet of the speculating philosopher, are seen on a sudden to influence the practical conduct of mankind.

To this great subject I have dedicated two courses of lectures, which I call Lectures on the French Revolution; little worthy indeed of the name, but which may serve to direct the curiosity of my hearers, and give them some general notion, at least, of this most important crisis in human affairs. These lectures I cannot now deliver-and I say this with some concern-for if I can hope to be useful to those, who hear me, it is chiefly, I think, by calling their attention to the characters and events of the French Revolution. The whole history from first to last is full of instruction, and I often observe, in society, with equal surprise and disquietude, how little it is known or how little remembered; on the whole, how little effect it seems to me to produce on the reasonings and conduct of those around me.

England, it is said, is not France, the English people not the French; totally unlike in their character and prior history. These are thought answers quite sufficient, if any allusion be made to these memorable scenes; and no doubt it is a consolation and support to a reflecting mind, that these are truths,

that may be acknowledged. But it is quite forgotten, at the same time, in how many important points human nature must ever be the same; how many valuable lessons may be drawn from remarking the tendencies of things to produce effects, whether the same exact effects and to the same extent may or may not be expected; how important in the philosophy of human affairs it is to provide against these tendencies in time, for when they have further ripened, any attempt of the kind may be too late; how much of human wisdom consists in prophetic discernment; how possible it is, to protect society from evil, if on its first appearance it be discountenanced; how rapid is often the growth of evil, when nourished and assisted by the carelessness or apathy of those, who, although in reality opposed to it, resist it not, and commit the great military fault, so often fatal, of despising their enemy. It is for reasons such as these, that I could have wished to have now proceeded to the consideration of the French Revolution; and in a Scotch or foreign university, this would have been very practicable; but public lectures are not the system of instruction adopted in our university; and of late years the examinations in the studies of the place have been so multiplied, as to leave no encouragement and no opportunity for the delivery of lectures on any other subjects; and the professors must make the best of the little time that is left to each of them, a few weeks in every year, and not interfere with each other.

I must now therefore endeavour in some single lecture to put my hearers in possession of the general state of the European world, such as it has now become by the united effect of past events. And this I shall do by alluding briefly to those, that I conceive to be the main events; neglecting others, and leaving, I hope, a general impression on your minds of the whole of the case, down to the present moment.

This is a species of writing, which I have not before ventured upon. I mean not now to engage in it, to any great extent; though it is a very favourite sort of composition among foreign writers. They delight in displaying the sweeping opinions of their daring minds, and in dazzling their audience by the wonders of their speculations and their brilliant discoveries of great principles; principles, that, however unknown to