new and important truths. A philosophical treatise was wanted, rather than a spirited harangue; and it was only at the fall of the Girondists, when principles were forgotten and persons were contending less indeed to obtain the honours of the state than to escape the revolutionary scaffold, that we find frequent specimens of another eloquence in those beautiful and impassioned bursts- one of which escaped from Madame de Roland's unfortunate lover, who vainly hoped and declared that his voice-" qui plus d'une fois avait porté la terreur dans ce palais d'où elle avait précipité la tyrannie, la porterait aussi dans F'âme des scélérats qui voulaient substiteur leur tyrannie à celle de la royauté." -

The constitution of the Restoration, not the imperceptible growth of time and the patchwork of successive ages, but founded like that of the Revolution on general principles, has given rise to the same kind of discussions. There is another circumstance, less likely to be observed and more likely to be disputed, but which we think has contributed rather than any thing we have named to give a lofty and meditative style to the orations of the French tribune. It is singular enough that one of the arguments most frequently used against the Reform Bill by those who disinterestedly concern themselves in the fate of men of talent, has been the difficulty that persons of literary attainments would find in being chosen as the representatives of populous places. There is only one thing to say against this argument, that it is most completely contradicted by common sense and general experience. The popular bias indeed lies so much the other way that the more rational fear is that too great a preponderance would be given in a popularly elected chamber to persons of this description. In France there was hardly a man of literary reputation from the Abbé Siéyes to the author of Faublas who did not find his way into the National or Legislative Assemblies.

At the present time in France many of the most distinguished deputies are also distinguished as literary men. M. Guizot, M. Royer Collard, M. Bignon, M. Thiers, M. Daunou, M. Passy, M. de Tracy, M. de Ramusat, M. Keratry, M. Etienne, M. Dupin, &c. So many persons, remarkable for their ability, would give the tone of their own minds to almost any assembly in which they found themselves. But in every department, the possessor of landed property, excluded by the ballot from any influence proceeding from fear, simply enjoys that which is due to his personal merits and attainments. This almost universally ensures the return of a man of good education and enlarged mind. He understands, takes an interest in, and can listen with pleasure, to a philosophic essay on legislation, provided its principles are great and true. For the edification of the public to be improved, for the sake of the conclusion to be arrived at, there can be no doubt that such a composition is far more useful, and may embrace a far higher order of eloquence, than a flippant, entertaining, personal, or, as it is called in England, parliamentary debate, in which all the weakest parts on either side are drawn out and dilated upon; in which every kind of ridicule is endeavoured to be thrown on the character and arguments of your opponents, but very little said in serious and sober defence of your own.

This latter style of speaking is, however, the only one adapted to our House of Commons, or even to our House of

Lords as at present constituted. The great majority of members chosen by aristocratic influence are country gentlemen of large property, who sit as members of counties; or the sons of noblemen, elected where there is no election; or men who have amassed fortunes by commerce or trade, who get themselves made Members of Parliament by bribery and beer, for the same reason that their wives take a box at the opera-the taste for eloquence in the one, the taste for music in the other, admitting of a fair comparison. Any thing above their comprehension is metaphysical, and since they really seek the House as an object of pleasure, they do not require to be instructed but to be amused. In short, the House of Commons is a mob of gentlemen: the very fact that the assembly is not popularly chosen causes the popular tone of its discussions.

We shall say but little of the speech of the President of the Council, since it has been translated in all our daily papers, and obtained, as far as the eloquence and ability displayed in it were concerned, an almost universal triumph. Our readers will remember that he brought forward his proposition as a kind of compromise between the moral value of particular doctrines and the peculiar disposition of the public mind. The subject for the chamber to reconsider was the art. 23 of the Constitution conceived in these terms.-"The nomination of the Peers of France belongs to the King;-their number is unlimited. They may vary in dignities, be named for life, or be hereditary, according to his will." On this article three questions presented themselves. By whom and on what conditions should the Peers be named? Should their number be limited or unlimited? Should the Peerage be hereditary or for life? M. Casimir Perier proposes "the nomination to belong to the King; the number to be unlimited; the dignity of Peer to be for life."-Professing this last article to be a concession to the reigning opinion, against the sober conviction of his own judgment, the Minister adds another article, stating that the one we have just mentioned, (the tenure of the dignity of Peer,) should be subject to future modification, only, however, on this measure being voted in one chamber, antecedent to that which should be called to make it. The question that came immediately under discussion was-" Shall the Peerage be hereditary ?”

In the first ranks of the party attached to the opinions-not to the proposition of the Minister, the advocate of an hereditary peeragewe find M. Thiers, known as the author of "The French Revolution," to which he pretty frequently alludes, and the former editor of "The National." M. Thiers was considered, at the Revolution of July, as the promising genius of the French youth. He entered the Chamber under the weight of this reputation. Insolent, abrupt, with a little, insignificant person, and a weak and screeching voice, entrusted, too, with the fate of the Budget, as Under-secretary for the financial department, an office the most burthensome and the least brilliant at any time, Monsieur Thiers was considered not to have realized the expectations that had been formed of him in the late Chamber-in the language of the French salons, "il avait fait Fiasco." Nothing daunted, however, (the strong proof of his superiority) he re-appears again upon the scene, accused as the deserter of his old friends, Messrs. Lafayette and Lafitte, but asserting boldly that he is only acting in accordance with his long-expressed opinions.

"The ideas which I am about to pronounce," says M. Thiers, "are those of my whole life. The first interest of society is its progress. All societies advance, or ought to advance. But how? Every change ought not only to be good—it ought also not to be violent. There are two interests to be represented -progression and stability. These are to be represented in the two Chambers. But you will say society knows its own interests; let it compose these two Chambers then according to the double interests of stability and progression.

M. Thiers then enumerates the variety of systems which have in their turn been popular since 98.

"Was the country deceived on all these occasions?-No; but it erred by being exclusive in its demands. When it demanded equality and liberty, it did not demand order and peace; when it demanded order and peace, it did not demand grandeur and equality. Gentlemen, I love my country; none is better endowed. When it has wished to excel in industry and mechanics, no country has surpassed it. One quality alone is wanting to it-c'est la tenue et la suite. What it requires above all things, therefore, is discipline-a constancy, and a spirit of continuance."

The speech of M. Royer Collard, formerly professor of philosophy, was one of the most admired, perhaps for the very reason that we should have listened to it with impatience. It is an essay, profoundly meditated; in parts passionate and eloquent, but based, altogether, on a system which requires a continuity of argument and attention that our young gentlemen with smart waistcoats, or old gentlemen in top-boots, would hardly be disposed to lend to it. We regret that we have no space for long extracts of this speech, and it would be useless to quote short ones.

M. Odillon Barrot, formerly Préfet de la Seine-removed from that situation for his opposition to the existing Government, but still feared and courted by them - one of the most talented and popular men in France; M. Bignon, known for his political and diplomatic writings, and much respected in the salons of Paris; and Gen. Lafayette, are the three most remarkable orators who opposed the hereditary peerage, without supporting the Ministerial project. We quote a passage from the speech of the wise and argumentative M. Bignon.

An hereditary Peerage is not only impossible because it is repulsed by public opinion, but because it is contrary to sound reason. The independence of the Peers, the principle of continuity, the spirit of stability, the necessity of an hereditary Peerage in order to support an hereditary Throne, are all idle and delusive fictions.

"Not only does hereditary right fail in constituting independence of opinion, but since it cannot exist without hereditary fortunes, it places the Peers on the dependance of Government in order to regain by its favour a compensation for that loss which the law inflicts on the younger branches of their families.

"On account of its hereditary nature, the Peerage becomes a body which has separate interests from those of the community; these interests are based on landed property, and thereby exercise a fatal influence on different branches of legislation, particularly in the distribution of taxes.

"An hereditary body contains no doubt the spirit of conservation, especially in those things the perpetuity of which are contrary to the general interests of the people that spirit of conservation which opposes itself to the destruction of abuses. Witness the resistance which the emancipation of the Catholics met with in England-which the alteration of the Corn Laws has always encountered--and, in short, that which is now made to the Bill of Reform.

"Thus I do not deny that in hereditary power there is a spirit of duration; but in this sense, that it naturally tends to maintain every thing which is most fatal to good Government; but in this sense, that it establishes the interests of the few in a state of warfare to the interests of the many. Thanks to it, the minority intrenched in the fortresses of power governs not according to a view of the general happiness, but according to the calculations of private interests.

"In fine, an hereditary Peerage is only a support to the Crown when it dominates and overrules it. In this manner, an hereditary Aristocracy certainly surrounds the throne, it envelopes-it besieges it: it renders it the instrument of its will: it is, as we have said, the Aristocracy which reigns, and France will never consent to the arbitrary sway of an Aristocracy."

We regret that we cannot find space for farther extracts from this speech; but we earnestly invite the attention of our countrymen to the whole of this grand and memorable discussion.

It can hardly be expected on a question which has divided men the most remarkable for their liberal feelings and enlightenment -a question which embraces the consideration not only of general principles of policy, but of local facts of social organization, that we should give a decided-which would be a presumptuous-opinion. This, however, we may gather from the hoarded wisdom, the practical experience, the concurrent testimony of all-that a chamber of Peers, hereditary or otherwise, cannot exist as a certain number of isolated individuals representing their own feelings, their own interests only. In order to have power, they must represent power: in order to fill their post in the state, they must be the collection and the representation of popular superiority. Nor is this all; to prevent a division between them and the nation at large, there must be somewhere or other a connecting power; a power which shall keep the nobility and the people together by making, as occasion shall require, patricians of those who have the people's feelings. We are not against an Aristocracy; but we say that popularity is the condition of its existence. We are not against an aristocratic chamber, but we say it must represent the national sense of the people. We can appeal to our own ancient Aristocracy-warlike, when the genius of this country was for war. To the Aristocracy of Rometo the Aristocracy of Venice-to every great Aristocracy that ever existed. While these words escape us, History is chronicling their illustration while we are referring to the past, the present is an example, and offers-may God so grant it! a warning for the future. The existing hatred to the French nobility, what is its cause but their former crimes? The destruction of the hereditary Peerage in France, by what was it fixed and decided? an unpopular act of the hereditary Peerage of England! SILON.

The amendment of M. de Mosbourg recognizes and adopts our principle by confining the exercise of King's prerogative to those who shall have obtained the honours, and deserved the approbation of their fellow-citizens.

CHOLERA MORBUS DISARMED.

Observations on the Cholera Morbus, in a letter to Dr. Alessandro Uccelli, Physician and Surgeon of the Russian Ship of War Mercury, addressed to his Father, Professor Philippo Uccelli, of Florence, and dated Sevastopol, (capital of the Crimea) 5th May 1831; translated from the Italian by John Robert Steuart, F.R.S. Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of London and Literary Society of Bombay.

HAVING been lately a resident in the Italian States, where a lively apprehension of the invasion of the Cholera Morbus very generally prevails, and my friends there being aware that I had lived many years in India, and was familiar with the symptoms of that disease and the mode of its treatment, having myself suffered under it, and having occasionally seen cases of it in my own house, besides constantly hearing of it on all sides, I was frequently requested to communicate such information as I was able afford, respecting a disease, until now, totally unknown in the South of Europe.

The subject came thus to engage a considerable share of my thoughts, and having

been one day accidentally detained in Pisa, I happened, in strolling about, to see advertised in a bookseller's shop, a small tract entitled "Observations on the Cholera Morbus," which had just then been published in Florence. Anxious to know what could be said on this subject by an Italian physician, I purchased the tract and carried it home for perusal.

Great was my surprise and pleasure to find that it contained an easy, simple, and approved method of cure for this invidious malady, the principle of the cure being at the same time in perfect accordance with the practice and aim of many of the most experienced physicians in India. Besides its own advantages, it has the peculiar one of not precluding the employment of other remedies, should medical professors, with a laudable precaution, still adhere to the system which their experience and study may have taught them to regard as the most efficacious in the cure of this malignant distemper.

Should the practice, so happily introduced into Russia by Dr. Uccelli, prove equally successful in this country, as there is every reason to expect it will, I shall consider myself fortunate in having been the humble instrument of imparting to my own countrymen so invaluable a benefit.

The Epidemical influence of the Cholera Morbus may be said to have been entirely subdued throughout the whole of the Southern Provinces of Russia. This destructive malady, proceeding from India, through Persia, along the shores of the Caspian, appears to be mitigated in acrimony as it approaches the North. In Teflis, during the last autumn, 20,000 persons were carried off in fifteen days. In Astrachan, near the mouths of the Volga, 17,000 persons died in half that time: but at Taganrok, as well as in the Crimea, and in New Russia, the epidemic exhibited a less virulent character.

The terror produced by the first appearance of the disease was incredible, and great blame attaches to the physicians, by whose suggestions it is usual for Government to be guided in similar emergencies. Their mode of cure was uncertain, and founded upon no thorough knowledge of the nature of the maladynay, even quarantine regulations were enforced, such as are usually had recourse to in cases of Bubonic plague.*

Subsequent observations and facts, have, however, demonstrated (although on this point there are still some sceptics,) that the Cholera Morbus is not, in our latitudes at least, to be communicated by contact, so that less rigor was afterwards observed in the precautionary measures, these being reduced to a few ablutions, by means of a solution of chlorate of lime. Here, at Sevastopol, the chief physician required those who accompanied cholera-patients to the hospitals to employ friction of the above solution; the same precaution he exacted from those who attended on the sick, and from the physicians themselves. I, amongst others, having had occasion to attend in the city more than 2000 patients, can affirm, on my own experience, that this disease does not communicate by contact; I know, moreover, that, in various parts of this empire, where the disease was, and is still, raging, several medical practitioners have had the courage to inoculate themselves, in various forms, with the morbific virus, with the blood drawn from the patients who were most affected, or with the matter vo

This passage being important, and seeming almost to reflect upon the recent proceedings of the Board of Health in this country, I here give the terms in the original. “Indicibile fù il terrore prodotto nel primo apparire della malattia, e di ciò la colpa principale deve attribuirsi ai medici, al parere dei quali il Governo in simili casi deferisce, si par la medicatura incerta e sragionata che ne fecero, non conoscendo il fondo della malattia, corre anche perchè nel suo apparire furon prescritte le stesse misure di Quarantine come per la Peste bubbonica."

To say nothing of the obstruction to all social and commercial intercourse which must ensue from the enforcement of Quarantine regulations, and the expense which of course must devolve on Government in supporting all the poor people thus prevented from earning their bread, it appears to me that the rigid measures contemplated are more likely to propagate than diminish a disease on which the mind exercises so direct an influence. A cheerful state of mind, regular occupation, and healthful recreations will go far to resist the encroachments of this malady; but the gloom of confinement, the privations of seclusion, can only generate distrust, alarm, and despondency, the very handmaids, as it were, of the Cholera Morbus.