On the whole, if it were possible to keep an absolute monarchy elective, we should hold that form of government, bad as it is, to be more conducive to the welfare of the people than an absolute hereditary monarchy. It secures the object of monarchythe management of public affairs by one strong will and one sagacious intellect. No English monarch equalled Cromwell or William III.—no French monarch Napoleon or Louis Philippe. Absolute hereditary monarchy secures nothing-not even, as we have seen, undisputed succession. But, excepting in one peculiar case, no absolute monarchy can remain elective. The monarch has, by supposition, the power to render his throne hereditary; tor, if he have not that power, he is not absolute. If he have it he will exercise it. Even Marcus Antoninus delivered the whole civilized world to Commodus. The difficulty was long ago stated by Aristotle- It has been supposed," he says, "that a King having the power to make his son his successor, may not exereise it. But this cannot be believed. It would be an act of * virtue of which human nature is incapable.-( Pul..., lib. iii. Cap. IV.)

The exception to which we have referred. is that of the Roman Cathole Ecclesiastical monarchies. Of these monarchies. so numerous until the end of the last century, we believe that the Papacy alone remains. It is the only one which Lord Brougham has thought worthy of his attention; and yes the echers deserve to be mentioned. on account at least of their num ber and their durability. In Germany alone there were sever ap so the close of the last century. Many were consaterTIE three were Electrices. In many of them the succession n Ka bishops er bishops, er alders, or aloesses—fur ʼn severn of dem the rider was & Tu-dusted jar more an one thousand cars. We interrupted by furer vence & recom. A DICHNE cutat de mure Lost that the system of eco À TREüfet inset fur the exerase at the Liriest ersive IL TE entire functus by seneng de vici. Ir sauces wincI NE

somereift must in genera have heel & mut of some distinctiOL. Be hac nu beer spoil by the early possession to the ear T 700 speak of power, and he was oben anxious to dignity, by some acts of permanent utility, a cynasty which herat and ended with himse.L

Omitting, for the reasons already given, the remainder of the first volume as historical, we proceed to the second, which treats of Aristocracy.

Lord Brougham defines aristocracy to be the form of government in which the supreme power is in the hands of a portion ' of the community, and that portion is so constituted, that the ' rest of the people cannot gain admittance, or can gain admit'tance only with the consent of the select body.'-(Vol. ii. p. 1.) He does not lay down any ratio of the governing, to the excluded portion of the community, as essential; and as he admits that the exclusion of the Roman Catholics, by the penal laws, did not render the government of Ireland an aristocracy, and that the exclusion of slaves did not render Athens, and does not render Virginia aristocratic, it follows, that he does not consider a government an aristocracy, although the supreme power is in the hands of a minority relatively small, if the number of persons con stituting that minority be positively great. But it must be admitted that the words of Lord Brougham's definition are more extensive; and so are the words of every definition of aristocracy that we have seen. We believe that the best corrective of the established nomenclature would be, to introduce a cross division, and to divide governments not only into monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic, with reference to the possession of power by one, by few, or by many; but also into exclusive and non-exclusive, with reference to the admission to power, or exclusion from it, of particular classes. Pure monarchies are, in one sense, the most exclusive, since all power is concentrated in the prince. In another sense they are the least so, since he can delegate, or even transfer it, as he pleases. All other forms are more or less exclusive. Wherever slavery prevails, slaves are excluded. With a very few exceptions, one of which occurs in an Anglo-American state, women are always excluded. In most governments, persons bound by a foreign allegiance are excluded, though there is now an example in Europe of a person who is a King in one country and a Peer in another-who exercises in one, supreme legislative and executive authority, and in the other, can merely vote and protest. In many countries, all who do not profess a particular form of religion are excluded; in many, all who do not belong to a certain race; in still more, all who do not possess a certain amount of property or income. The representative institutions of France are democratic, but highly exclusive. They are democratic, because they give political power to a very large number of persons. They are exclusive, because they deny that power to a much larger number. The English House of Lords is an aristocratic institution-it gives power to a small

number of persons. It is very slightly exclusive, since it is open to all males professing Christianity, and born in the British allegiance.

The most convenient definition of a pure aristocracy then is, the form of government in which the whole legislative power is vested in a small number of persons, without any legal control by the people at large, or by any individual. Such aristocracies are, as Lord Brougham remarks, rare; but as the aristocratic element is widely diffused, it is an important subject of investigation; and the best mode is that which he has adopted, namely, to ascertain the qualities of a pure aristocracy, and thence to infer the influence of the aristocratic element in mixed governments. The vices ascribed by Lord Brougham to aristocracy are, that it places the government in the hands of persons, 1. irresponsible; 2. uninfluenced by public opinion; 3. affected by interests differing from those of the community at large; and, 4. peculiarly unfitted by education for exercising the high functions of their station.

The training,' he says, of patricians, next to that of princes, is peculiarly adapted to spoil them. They are born to power and pre-eminence, and they know that, do what they will, they must ever continue to retain it. They see no superiors; their only intercourse is with rivals, or associates, or adherents, and other inferiors. They are pampered by the gifts of fortune in various other shapes. Their industry is confined to the occupations which give play to the bad passions. Intrigue, violence, malignity, revenge, are engendered in the wealthier members of the body and the chiefs of parties. Insolence towards the people, with subserviency to their wealthier brethren, are engendered in the needytoo proud to work, not too proud to beg; mean enough to be the instruments of other men's misdeeds, base enough to add their own.'(Vol. ii. p. 55.)

He adds, that it is the tendency of aristocracy to produce among the people a general dissoluteness of manners, eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, and extravagance in its employment; and not only to vex and harass, but to enslave men's minds. They become possessed with exaggerated notions of the importance of the upper classes; they bow to their authority as individuals, not merely as members of the ruling body-transferring the allegiance which the order justly claims, as ruler, to the indi'viduals of whom it is composed; they ape their manners, and affect their society. Hence an end to all independent, manly ' conduct.'-(Vol. ii. p. 57.)

We regret that the necessity of curtailment has prevented our inserting more of this passage. Much of the great vigour and vividness of the original depends on its developments and illus

*

trations. But we have extracted enough to show its great merit rhetorically as well as philosophically; and it has the additional value of being testimony. The author belongs to the class which he describes he paints those with whom he lives. But if we examine the picture in detail, it will be found that many of its features belong not to the institution itself, but to the forms which it has most usually assumed, particularly in modern times; or to other institutions with which it is only occasionally and accidentally connected. Thus the distinctness of the interests of the ruling body from those of the community at large, belongs to all governments in proportion, not as they are aristocratic or democratic, but as they are exclusive. It was its exclusive, not its aristocratic character, which occasioned the Protestant government of Ireland to be mischievous. So the slave legislation of the southern Anglo-American states-perhaps the legislation by which the interests of the great majority of the inhabitants of any country have been most cruelly and most shamelessly sacrificed-is the legislation of a government eminently democratic. So Lord Brougham treats as aristocratic the unjust advantages given by British legislation to landowners; but they arise from the exclusive, not from the aristocratic elements in the British constitution-not from power being in the hands of a few, but from almost all who do not possess land being excluded from it.

If we suppose the supreme power to reside in a senate sitting only for life, but itself, as was the case with most of the ancient senates, filling up its vacancies such an institution would be aristocratic; but, as it would not be necessarily exclusive, it would not necessarily be governed by interests distinct from those of the community at large. Nor would the education of the rulers be 'such as peculiarly to unfit them for worthily exercising the high 'functions of their station.' This was not true of the Roman senate. It is not true of any aristocracy which is not hereditary. Nor would the tendency of such an aristocracy necessarily be to promote general dissoluteness of manners, self-indulgence, and extravagance; or, on the other hand, rapacity. Indeed, the opposed, but not inconsistent, vices of prodigality and rapacity, seem to belong more to democratic governments, in which wealth is the great source of distinction. No community is so stained by them as Anglo-America. And lastly, as it appears that 'insolence, selfishness, and luxurious indulgence' do not necessarily belong to, an aristocracy, it is not necessarily subject to the odium which, according to Lord Brougham, (p. 56,) these vices inflict on it.

In fact, nearly all these censures affect not aristocracy but a

privileged order-an institution which may exist under any form of government except a pure democracy, and need not possess power legislative or even executive. The noblesse of France, while her monarchs were absolute, had all the qualities which Lord Brougham has described as patrician. It was illeducated, selfish, and luxurious, born to pre-eminence, insolent to its inferiors and submissive to its master, and became to its fellow-countrymen an object of admiration and of imitation; but at the same time, of hatred so intense, that the main purpose of French legislation for the last fifty years has been to prevent its re-establishment. But though such an order could not have existed unless it had once possessed political power, yet at the time of which we are speaking that power was gone. All that remained were some traditionary rights, which as soon as they were attempted to be employed melted away. Its immunity from taxation, its social distinctions, its monopoly of the higher military, diplomatic, and household offices, its pensions and its ribands, it owed merely to custom, and to the will of an absolute master that the custom should continue. It was not an aristocracy, or even an aristocratic institution. On the other hand, the French Chamber of Peers is an aristocratic institution. It is a small body of persons possessing a portion of the supreme legislative power. But of the six aristocratic defects enumerated by Lord Brougham, only the first, the absence of individual responsibility, belongs to it.

Lord Brougham now proceeds to enquire whether the aristocratic institution possesses any virtues to be set in opposition to so many imperfections.

There cannot,' he says, ' be any doubt that the quality of firmness and steadiness of purpose belongs peculiarly to an aristocracy. The very vices which we have been considering lead naturally to this virtue, and it is a very great merit in any system of government. A system of administration, a plan of finance, a measure of commercial or agricultural legislation, a project of criminal or other judicial administration, may seem to have failed, yet the patrician body will give it a further trial. They adopted it on mature deliberation, and not on the spur of a passing occasion; they will not be hastily driven from it. Akin to this merit is the slowness with which such a government is induced to adopt any great change. Indeed, resistance to change is peculiarly the characteristic of an aristocracy; and the members of the ruling body and their adherents obtain at all periods, in a greater or less degree, the power of stemming the revolutionary tide. This makes them equally resist improvements; but it tends to steady and poise the political machine. The history of our own House of Lords abounds in examples of these truths. But for their determination to resist measures which they deemed detrimental to the state, or to which they had objections from a regard for the interests