He

Neckar retired from the ministry, and there the author of this pamphlet leaves him. Was it that which occasioned the Revolution? Quite the reverse. He resigned in 1780, and the Revolution did not break out for nine years after. What then brought it on? We will follow this St Lawrence to its Niagara. returned to office in 1789, instantly set on foot his projects of reform, and strained the royal prerogative to overcome the opposition of the Noblesse. He doubled, by royal ordinance, the number of the members of the Commons, set the populace on fire by the prodigal gift of political power, convoked the States-General, put the King at the head of the movement, made him for a little brief space the most popular man in France. And what was the consequence? The monarch beheaded, the nobles abolished; their estates divided, themselves guillotined, the public debt abolished, the reign of terror and the rule of Robespierre. "Will the Peers profit by the example?" We hope they may.

"Past events," says the author, "may be regretted, but they cannot be changed; and those who mourn over their effects, will not strongly evince the purity of their hatred of all excitement, by pursuing measures tending directly to increase it." Historic truth is already beginning to assert its eternal ascendancy over temporary error. "Past events" the prodigal offer of political power to the people, the excitements of the dissolution, are even now spoken of by its authors as a subject of " regret.' And how are its effects proposed to be remedied? By a continuance of the same fatal system which has brought us to this last and perilous pass. Finding that yielding has quadrupled the power of the enemy of order-that past error has become the subject of regret even to its own authors, they propose an extension of the same concession, a continuance of these errors, as the only means of averting its disastrous effects.

The Peers in England yielded to all the demands of the Long Parliament and the populace; they sent Strafford to the block-passed all the revolutionary bills sent up to them, and remained passive spectators of the Civil War. What did they get by

it? The abolition of their order, the death of their sovereign, the ty ranny of Cromwell.

The Peers in France not only concurred in, but voluntarily set themselves at the head of all the Reform projects with which Neckar, the "French Lord Grey," inflamed the country. They surrendered their right of sitting in a separate cham◄ ber; gave up their titles, dignities, and privileges, abandoned the church property to the people; concurred in a highly democratic constitution ; and what did they obtain in return for so many concessions? Exile, contempt, confiscation, and death.

Again, in 1830, they set themselves to head the movement. They made no stand in defence of the crown. They adopted the revolutionary sovereign. They yielded, without a struggle, to the current. Where are they now? Despised, insulted, and beat down; abolished as hereditary legislators; reduced to the rank of mayors and aldermen.

The Peers in England, in 1793, boldly fronted the danger. They refused to yield to popular violence, despised the threats of Revolution, put themselves at the head of the conservative party, and nailed the colours of the constitution to the mast. What was the consequence? Returning confidence, renewed prosperity, unheard-of public welfare, unprecedented glory, the conquest of Trafalgar, the field of Waterloo.

The country, they may be assured, will be true to them, if they will be true to themselves. The rabble, the radicals, the populace, will rave and thunder and despair; but all who have a thought to bestow, a shilling to lose, will rally round the constitution, the moment that they see leaders on whom they can rely. This is what is wanted; it is not bold and determined soldiers for the army of order, it is firm and uncompromising chiefs.

They have fallen in public estimation, but it was the fatal weakness about the Catholics that lowered them. Another repetition of the same mistake, in opposition to their known opinions, will for ever sink them into contempt. One glorious stand will make them stronger than ever, and bury the recollection of one act of weakness, the source of

all our disasters, in the remembrance of one act of firmness, the beginning of a new era of glory. "Quid in rebus civilibus," says Bacon, "maxime prodest, Audacia; quid secundum, audacia, quid tertium, audacia. Fascinat et captivos ducit omnes qui vel sunt animo timidiores vel judicio infirmiores: tales autem sunt hominum pars maxima."

If the Peers desert their duty now: if they refuse to take that lead in defence of the country which their high descent, their noble birth, their historic names, their vast possessions, their acknowledged and unrivalled abilities, entitle them to assume, they will never recover their fall, and they never ought. The Conservative party will break up in despair. They will emigrate, bury themselves in retirement, leave the field in which their generals signed a capitulation, when victory was within their grasp, and await in silent despair till suffering and wretchedness has calmed the fever of passion among their countrymen. Never need they hope to rouse the people, if they now abandon them. Vain will be their exclamations, hopeless their appeals, contemptible their cries, when the tide of conquest approaches their own doors; when their honours are abolished, their estates divided, their children exiled.

The people will exclaim: - You abandoned us when we were in danger: Can you expect us to support you, who have delivered us over to the enemy?

We venture on no prophecies; but we trust in a very different result. We trust in it from the evident peril of the proposed measure; the consternation which, from Cornwall to Caithness, it has excited among all who are either respectable by their thoughts, or influential by their possessions; from the proof which the Cambridge election gave of the sense of the most educated, and that which the recent defeats of the Reformers has given of the returning sense of the humblest among the people; from the vast services which in times past the aristocracy have rendered to the country, the tried firmness of the present leaders of the Conservative party in the Upper House, and the great abilities and individual weight of a large proportion of their numbers. If they are true to themselves, we have no fears of the result; in times of danger, the boldest course is in the end the most prudent. We trust that the glorious example of their predecessors will not be lost on them, and that in this last crisis they will be as true to their country as they were on the field of RUNNY

MEDE.

SIR, London, October 8th, 1831. A CORONATION in times like these inspires melancholy, as well as pleasing, reflections. It tells not alone of joy, and hope, and concord, and loyalty; but, alas! it speaks also of disaffection and peril. That which was so lately witnessed in this country, shewed, even in its festivities and acclamations, that the monarchy was in jeopardy, and commanded us to calculate how far the chances were against its repetition. The dinner, illumination, and shouts, were intended to celebrate, rather the triumph of a party over the crown, than the renewal of a people's allegiance on its solemn bestowal;-to offer fidelity and obedience to the constitutional sovereign, was less their object, than to honour and dictate to a reforming King. Those were the most enthusiastic sharers in them who are the most steady enemies of kingly power, prerogative, and being.

I know of nothing that calls more loudly on the friends of mankind for serious consideration, than the altered and fallen condition of royalty. For the private benefit of kings I speak not; on the contrary, hostility to it in some measure prompts me; the things which threaten it with momentary destruction in the present race of them, also promise to sacrifice all other benefit to it in a new race. The warfare which prevails so mightily against them, prevails in a greater degree against their subjects; in them, government, law, and order are smitten, and their loss is general calamity.

VOL. XXX. NO. CLXXXVII.

That spirit, which some time since sought nothing less than the utter extinction of royalty, has been compelled, by multiplied defeats and hopeless prospects, to change or disguise its object. It cannot get rid of kings in name and person, therefore they are only to be destroyed in substance and power-they are merely to be cut down into " Citizen Kings,' in the way of adaptation to "republican institutions." The novelty has had boundless success; revolution without bloodshed, deposition without dethronement, are triumphant in this country; and we are transforming our King into a citizen one with all possible expedition.

Your "Citizen King" is not to be a ruler, or even the equal of the citizens; he is to be the executory slave of the latter, destitute of discretion, and without the power to throw up his servitude when commanded to perform unholy and criminal toil. Stripped of the general rights of man, bound from all adherence of principle, and divested of conscience, he is to oppress, rob, and destroy, at home and abroad-to overturn the institutions of his country-to violate treaties, and trample on the rights of nations-in a word, to do any thing, without regard to divine or human law, at the bidding of his citizentyrants. If, in opposition to the latter, he follow wisdom, observe justice, obey the commands of his Maker, or hold property and life sacred, he must do it through corruption, fraud, and falsehood.

To keep his bondage wound up to

2 z