*

are occafionally introduced, and judiciously attempered.—They know that reverencing even the wilder excentricities of a paffion for liberty, I never would break down the fences of fubordination, and that, de- ! tefting prieftcraft and kingcraft, under all difguifes whatsoever, and for all purpofes whatfoever, I would fooner perish than lend my affiftance to the abolition of priefts and kings Qualify, fay I, and improve; and, if there be real occafion, reftrain; bur, destroy not. Anticipate danger by well-timed and well proportioned regulation; but provoke it not by fuperfluous and precarious experiment t. Drive not away with a frown even the vifionary reformer, pay the tribute of a hearing to the fpeculative reclufe, but act not, till your plan of action has received its laft and beft ftamp of merit from the approbation of men, whom practice in public affairs has not made callous to the public weal. Do not give either good men the inclination to fubvert tumultuoufly, or bad men the power to undermine infidiously, what may be fafely and adventageously preferved. Do not let loofe the multi

*"Grand fwelling fentiments of liberty, I am fure I do not de"fpife. They warm the heart, enlarge and liberalise our minds, they animate our courage in a time of conflict." Burke's Reflections, p. 360-See alfo p. 16 of his Appeal.

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t "It is good alfo," fays Bacon, “ not to try experiments in itates, except the neceffity be urgent, or the utility be evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the "change, and not the defire of change that pretendeth the reforma"tion."

They who complain of wife laws, and of what Cicero calls, ignava rationes, in Bacon's Effay upon Innovation, would do well to look for a clearer and steadier light in Sir Matthew Hales's Confiderations, "touching the Amendments or Alteration of Laws." Upon all great fubjects of policy and law, this great man, as was juftly faid of him in the Houfe of Lords by another great man now living, " is no barren "authority."

"I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I "changed, it fhould be to preferve, &c." p. 363 of Reflections. And again, "A difpofition to preferve, and an ability to improve, "taken together, would be my ftandard of a statesman. Every thing "elfe is vulgar in the conception, and perilous in the execution." Page 233.

E 4

tude

tude to put forth their own enormous and irresistible ftrength, in vindication both of their own ideal and actu. al rights. Let governors be parties, and indeed leaders, in the improvement of government-let parliamentary wisdom and parliamentary authority be employed in parliamentary reform, not merely for the honour of parliament, but in conformity to the fober judgment and the folid interests of the people, for whom, and by whom, parliament fubfifts, Sooner or later this must be done, and this being done well, few things will remain undone, which ought to be done at all *.

Nam fic habetote, magiftratibus, iisq. qui præfunt, contineri rempublicam, et ex eorum compofitione quod cujufque reipublicæ genus fit, intelligi. Quæ res, quum fapienter moderatèque conftituta fit a majoribus noftris, etfi magna quædam et præclara, at non multa tamen, habeo, quæ putem novanda in legibus.

Vid. Cic. Fragm. p. 590. vol. 2 Edit. Gruter.

But why should I fhroud my meaning in dark and daftardly generalities? Some well-confidered plan for a reform in Parliament, with a juft regard to every species of property, perfonal and real, and with

little

"Were both the progreffive reward of well-directed induftry, and that which is obtained at the termination of its endeavours, much inferior to their ufual amount, one powerful reafon would ftill remain to impel mankind to the pursuit of every attainable ob ject, and to make them afpire after every apparent improvement of their actual condition, whatever it may be ;

Omnia fatis

In pejus ruere, ac retrò fublapfa referri,
Ni vis humana.

The filent courfe of time is continually taking away from that which we poffefs, and from the high perfection of whatever we have cultivated and refined. Nothing ever ftands ftill. If progress is not made, we muft decline from the good state already attained, and as it is fcarcely ever in our power to replace the wafte of time and of chance, in thofe very respects in which they have impaired our condition, we ought to endeavour to compenfate those inevitable loffes

little or no change in the circumftance of durationthe removal of every enfnaring ambiguity, and every oppreffive partiality, on the fubject of libels-the revifion of the poor laws, the ty the laws, and the excife lawsthe mitigation of the penal code the steady infliction of punishments proportioned to the real malignity of of fences, the establishment of a more vigorous policethe regulation, but not the fuppreffion, of the ecclefiaftical courts-the regulation, or the fuppreffion, of every corrupt and imperious corporation-and, far above all, a more ferious attention of the legislature to the cause of education, both for the prevention of crimes, and the encouragement of virtue-thefe are the objects which I have moft at heart. Afhamed I am not of avowing them, be-` caufe they loosen no one ancient bulwark, because they leave the crown, the peerage, and the church, nothing to fear, and because they give to the nation at large much indeed to hope. In the progrefs of political knowledge, the Tories, as well as the Whigs, of this country, may claim their fhare of improvement, and the refult is, that each party has gradually retreated from those violent extremes, to which their respective principles may be fuppofed to tend, directly or indirectly. Indeed, I have myself the pleasure of knowing fome enlightened Tories who concur with me in thinking, that by the temporary union, or even by the generous emulation, of statesmen, in giving effect to the measures juft now mentioned, our conftitution would be preserved and invigorated. But they, who comprehend all the reafons which occur to men of reflection for going thus far, are not entirely ignorant of first principles, and, by not venturing to go farther, they fhew, that their prudence is not oppreffed by theory, nor their loyalty warped by patriotifm.

In refpect to France, I diftinguifh with the acute, the humane, and the elegant Mr. Dupont, between

by acquifition of other advantages, and augmentations of good; efpecially of thofe which the fame courfe of things brings forward to our view, and feems to prefent to us, as the object of reasonable defire," Dunbar's Effay on the Criterion of Civilized Manners. the

the neceffity of the French Revolution, and the proceedings of the National Affembly. Upon many of thofe proceedings I am at a lofs to decide, because I I hear fuch violent and contradictory reports about the characters of the agents, and the motives of their actions. In reality, the opportunities for information in this country are too fcanty, and its channels are too impure, for the wifeft men to determine on the justice of many detached measures; and in France the time has been far too fhort to afcertain their utility. But upon the more prominent features of the new government, an Englishman may now be permitted to fpeak with lefs hazard of error, and lefs offence to decurum. Ξεῖνός εἶμε, σκότεινον ἀπέχων

1. Pind. Nem. 7.

Yoyov. For my part, then, I fee much to lament, and much to condemn, in the ungracious act of wrenching from the crown the fplendid prerogative of making war and peace, in the helpless wreck of nobility, in

*

Recollecting the heroes and patriots, whofe names adorned the Hiftory of France, I was fhocked to find their defcendants involved in the fame fentence with thofe upftarts, by whom peerage itself was difgraced in proportion as peers were multiplied. I muft, however, confefs, that a calm and well-informed obferver convinced me, after much difcuffion, that upon the clofe of the late government, and even after the introduction of the prefent, no diftinction could be immediately made with fafety. Yet I moft anxiously hope, that upon the first return of tranquillity, and even among the first conditions of reconciliation, it may be propofed, that the old peers be reftored to a part of their ancient dignity, that, like the old Cortes of Caftile, they may appear perfonally, or, like the Scotch peers, they may fit by reprefentation, in the National Affembly, and, above all, that they may collectively conftitute a fupreme court of judicature fimilar to that of the Lords in this country. Hiftory, I am fure, does not record, nor can imagination cafily conceive, a tribunal with rules of decifion fo equitable and comprehenfive, with fources of information fo pure and fo ample, or with fuch a spirit of impartiality, and such dignity of character, as have long diftinguished our Houfe of Peers. This momentous circumftance deferves to be well confidered by those, who, without offering any substitute for peers in their judicial capacity, contend for the extinction of the order. But, when the ho nour of Nobles is treated as a vifionary principle in political theories, a plain and direct appeal to the events of every feffion will crush the charge, and convince us, that in decifions upon the property of all citizens of all claffes whatsoever, the honour of the highest class is a real and most efficient principle.

a

the

the withered honours of the dignified ecclefiaftics, in the tumultuous election of prelates by their clergy, in the shattered fortunes of the exiles, and in that decree, which ravifhed from primogeniture all its falutary, as well as all its poxious privileges, inftantaneously and indifcriminately. At the fame time, more and greater fubjects, not of blame, but of commendation, rise to my view, in fome of the attempts that have been made to fimplify that intricate, uncouth, and ponderous, fyftem of jurifprudence, which clogged the decifions of property, in the abolition of Lettres de Cachet, in the inftitution of trial by jury, in the mitigation of punishments, in; the temporary power of controlment wifely referved to royalty, in the inviolability, no lefs wifely afcribed to the perfon of the king, in the plenary toleration granted to religicus fects, in the refpect paid to the doctrines and the ceremonies of the national church, in the provifions eftablifhed for the more laborious orders of the clergy, in the principles, though, perhaps, not the immediate tendencies, of the measures which have been adopted for lightening the preffure of the public. debt, and, above all, in the fpirit, though not the entire detail, of thofe regulations, which give real energy to the fuffrages of the people in the uncor

rupt

My opinion is, that the French people never were completely free. They obtained, it is true, an occafional and temporary mitigation of flavery through the contentions for power, which at various times arose between the monarchs of France on the one hand, and the old Nobleffe and the Clergy on the other. Such, too, in other feudal ftates have been the dawnings of liberty, where, as in France, its pure and aufpicious light was foon involved in the gloom of defpotifm. They who attend to the Hiftory of France, mut know that the Commons in that country never poffeffed that effective fhare in legiflation, which the Commons in England have gradually acquired. The reader will fee more on this fubject in Bolingbroke's 15th Letter upon Parties. But, while I agree with Bolingbroke, that the Commons of France, affembled under the name of Les Etats, never had any great weight in legislation, I maintain that the very act of affembling them, fupplied a principle upon which they, in happier times, have founded a right to extend their powers. It is to be lamented, indeed, that after the adminiftrations of Richlieu and Mazarine no

traces