informed nation, honours the high thofe who are often the beginners of magifirates of its church; that it will their own fortune, and not a love of not fuffer the infolence of wealth and the felf-denial and mortification of tides, or any other fpecies of proud the antient church, that makes fome pretenfion, to look down with fcorn look afkance at the diftinctions, and upoo what they look up to with reve. honours, and revenues, which, taken rence; nor prefume to trample on from no perfon, are fet apart for virthat acquired perfonal ability, which tue. This ears of the people of Engthey intend always to be, and which land are diftinguithing. They hear often is the fruit, not the reward, these men speak abroad. Their ton(for what can be the reward?) cf gue betrays them. Their language is learning, piety, and virtue. They can in the patsis of fraud; in the cant fee, without pain or grudging, an, and gibberish of hypocrify. The peoArchbishop precede a Duke. They ple of England muft think fo, when can fee a Bishop of Durham, or a thefe praters affect to carry back the Bishop of Winchester, in poffeffion of clergy to that primitive evangelic poten thousand pounds a year: and can- verty which, in the fpirit, ought alnot conceive why it is in worfe hands ways to exift in them, (and in us too. than eftates to the like amount in the however we may like it) but in the hands of this Earl, or that Squire; thing must be varied, when the relaalthough it may be true, that fo many tion of that body to the state is alterdogs and horfes are not kept by the ed; when manners, when modes of former, and fed with victuals which life, when indeed the whole order of ought to nourish the children of the human affairs has undergone a total people. It is true, the whole church revolution. We fhall believe thofe revenue is not always employed, and reformers to be then honeft enthuto every fhilling, in charity; nor per- hafts, not as now we think them, haps ought it; but fomething is gene- cheats and deceivers. when we fee rally fo employed. It is better to them throwing their own goods into cherish virtue and humanity, by leav- common, and fubmitting their own ing much to free will, even with fome perfons to the auftere difcipline of the ols to the object, than to attempt to early church. make men mere machines and inftruments of a political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exift. When once the commonwealth has established the eftates of the church. as property, it can, confiftently, hear nothing of the more or the lefs. Too much and too little are treafon against property. What evil can arife from the quantity in any hand, whilft the fupreme authority has the ful', fovoreign fuperintendance over this, as over all property, to prevent every fpecies of abule; and, whenever it notably de-, viates, to give to it a direction agree able to the purpofes of its inftitution. In England most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity towards With thefe ideas rooted in their own minds, the commons of "Great Britain, in the national emergencies, will never feek their refource from the confifcation of the èftates of the church and poor. Sacrilege and profcription are not among the ways and means of our committee of fupply. The Jews in Change Alley have not yet dared to hint their hopes of a mortgage on the revenues belonging to the fee of Canterbury. I am not afraid that I thall be difavowed, when I affure you that there is not a public man in the kingdom, whom you would wish to quote ; no not one of any party or defcription, who does not reprobate the difhoneft, prefidious," and cruel confifcation which the na❤ tional affembly has been compelled to make of that property which it was their firft duty to protect. It is with the exultation of a little natural pride I tell you, that thofe among us who have withed to pledge the focieties of Paris in the cup of their abominations, have been difappointed. The robbery of your church has proved a fecurity to the poffe lions of ours. It has routed the people. They fee with horror and alarm the enormous and fhamclefs act of profcription. It has opened, and will more and more open their eyes upon the felfifh enlargement of mind, and the narrow liberality of fentimeat of infidious men, which commencing in clofe hypocrify and fraud have ended in open violence and rapine. At home we behold fimilar beginnings. We are on our guard againit fimilar conclufions. Letter II. from Brutus to the Right Hon. E. B*** *. HEN I fome time ago took occafion to addrefs you, I recommended, with an honest wish for your fame, the application of your talents to nobler objects than the contentions of party politics, "the ftruggle for place, or the bickerings of faction." I called upon you to exert the powers you are acknowledged to poffefs, "the force of a fcholar's ftile, the richnefs of a poet's imagination, to correct the errors or expofe the abuses of public meafures." It flatters me to fee that you have fulfilled the wifh I then formed on your behalf: your treatife on the French Revolution has evinced the fulleft poffeffion of your abilities, and fhewed them pointed to an object of fuch magnitude in the hiftory of mankind, as fully deferved to call them forth. In this performance you have preferved all the fenfibility, bordering on enthufiafm, which has been always characteristic of your happieft political appearances. Feeling as a Chriftian for religion, as a Gentleman for honourable distinction, as a Man for the diftreffes of the unfortunate, you will be pardoned for painting in ftrong, and perhaps exaggerated colours, the injuftice, which, in your opinion, all of them have fuffered from the prefent Democracy of France. Many of your readers will coincide with your VOL. XII. No 72. 3 D your opinióps; all of them will relish Nothing feems to me more just than your developement of the great leading truths of our conftitution, and of that renewal or reftoration of its principles which took place at the revolu tion in 1688. I have heard that this part of your work has furprised and hurt fome of your Whig friends and admirers. But I confefs that I have not been able to find in it any offence against the principles of reafonable Whiggifm; if, as a party-man you have fometimes been confidered as profeffing a zeal in that refpect, beyond the moderation of your prefent performance, it will remain to be determined on which fide truth and reafon lies; and whether the fober con. feffion of your Faith, in this publication, be an apoftacy or a converfion. In treating of the proceedings of the National Affembly of France, and of the the difmiffion of M. Neckar; the ma nifefto from Vertailles; the army of Matthal Broghoe Thofe measures of strong coercion were neceffarily op pofed by exertions of equal force; and in fuch conflicts, in the fnock of heated and contended parties, not only delicacy and decorum, but even juftice and humanity are fometimes forgotten. Even after the contcft is at an end, the principle of violence will continue to operate; the form may have ceafed, but the fwell of the ocean will remain. ה With the people, especially, that violence will continue, and new authority will not easily be able to repress it. The national quickness and vira.” city of France runs out eafily into extremes; the fentiment of the moment catches with rapidity, and hurries into excefs. There is a fentiment, even of cruelty, among the French, which has often been remark."" ed with astonishment in fo civilized a people. It was this fentiment which prompted their inhuman applaufe, when Damien's first shriek attested the fkill of the executioner. They lock the new conftitution which they wish lo eftablish, you do not feen quite fo moderate and impartial. The Government of a great nation is a machine of fo much complexity, that objections, and thofe too of magnitude, will eafi ly occur to a mind lefs acute, and lefs inventive than yours. Objections will arife much more eafily against the operations of a republican, or any thing near a republican government, than against thofe of a monarchy.Abfolute power is that pervading energy which fimplifies every thing. Give it but the adjuncts of wisdom, juftice, and benevolence, and nothing is fo delightful to imagination. You know, Sir, that mythology and poctry have always adopted it, becaufe in their hands it is fimple, beautiful, and fublime. The difficulty of modelling a new government of this fort is one great reason why reformers have, as you obferve, generally contented themfelves with only improving on the old fyftem, and have kept as much of that remaining as the immediate feeling of opprettion or inconvenience would allow. But the change must always be greater in proportion to the depra-ed on the affaflin of their king, and ut- i vity of the former government. The constitution of England, when our anceltors re-established it at the Revolution, had fuftained fome injuries, from the weakne's or bigotry of the Monarch, which could be removed without much violence; that of France had abuses inherent in its principle, which could not so eafily be done a way. To use your own favourite allufion, the English conftitution had only fuffered fome dilapidations which it was not difficult to repair: The French was rotten at the foundation, and it required a great deal of pulling down to remedy the mifchief. tered this barbarous plaudit at his tertures, 'Twas a Vive le roin a favage ftile; that Vive le roi "which made them of old forget their country; you need not wonder that, at prefent, the Vive la nation makes them forget their king. Yet thofe outrages, which every good man like you must regret, to which feeling and eloquence like yours can give fo much dramatic effect) have not, perhaps, been so frequem, or fo great as might have been expected in x--period of fuch commotion and tumul:. ' The force that could wrench its seeptre from defpotifin could not be exertYou allow nothing to the violence ed with the ease and f'moothness of infeparable from the application of regular and ordinary power. If it this remedy. You forget the refift- fometimes fhook the pillars of juftice, ance of the king to the firft proceed-if it fometimes loofened the bonds of ings of the National Affembly, which humanity, the tranfient evil must be unavoidably produced this violence; endured for the fake of the future per-" manent good. If France fhall ultimately obtain freedom at no greater expence than the blood which has al. ready been fpilt, tho' individuals may have to mourn their private loffes, the public cannot repent of the purchase. But does humanity never fpeak on the other fide of the question, nor think of what those wretches fuffered, on whom the former government wrecked its vengeance uncontroaled? Their fufferings, indeed, were not seen in the streets, nor related in Journals; for the dungeons of the Baftile and of the Caftle of Vincennes, were closed upon their miferies., But have you, Sir, whofe refearches have travelled fo far into Afia, for stories of oppreffion, never heard of those at your door? You will tell us, as the other defenders of the French Monarchy have done, of the infrequency of fuch inftances. But in the fyitem of government, it is not what is done, but what may be done, that, wifdom and forefight look to You talk of the mildness of Louis XVI. you fpeak with a bombaític rapture of the charms of his Queen; the poets of Auguftus, with a taite as elegant, and a file fomewhat chafter than yours, could tell us of the mildness and munificence of his reign; but that power which in him was mildness and munificence, in his fucceffors was tyranny and murder. The circle that fees and can beft talk of Kings, is a narrow and a partial one; and the delegated power of the Sovereign is often mifchievous in the extreme, while he, from whom it flows, is amiable and beneficent. Kings may be praised by poets, and idolized by courtiers, even without the aid of much imagination or flattery, while their people are groaning under the oppreflions of their government. On fuch teftimony Lewis XIV. has been celebrated as the moft liberal, the moft magnificent, the greatest of Monarchs; the miferies of millions of his fubjects make no figure in his hiftory, or at least in the common and current ideas 3 D 2 of his hiftory. To them, no painter' has given colour, no poct description;. they make no part of the pedestal in the ftatue of the Place des Victoirera a The diftreffes of the lower orders of the people, the want of food, of i cloathing, of fuel, are not calculated to figure in painting and sculpture, to melt in poetry, or to roule in elo quence. Thefe orders, however, are what political and philofophical truth! must own to be the nation. It was the misfortune in France, that the man-i ners, modelied by the form of govern ment, established a fort of contempt for every individual, who had not rank and fathion to recommend him, « This mode of thinking was not the lefs fatal, and was much iefs easy to be corrected, for its really not being highly cenfurable in thofe who indulged it. It was not the effect of felfishness and inhumanity; it arofe from habit mere ly; it was worn by a man of the Court i like his new fuit, without any other confideration than that his companions i had the fame. His fphere of connec tion with mankind reached no farther; than a few parties of rank and fashion, i whom he called the world. The twenty millions of Frenchmen, who' were not of thofe parties, went for nothing in the account. The men of fu- ́s perior rank who thought thus, were ingeneral polite, obliging, honourable and brave. Some of them, whom itrangers were most likely to fee, were poffched allo of the more felid and efti mable qualities of tafte, of fentiment, of information. But they ftill retain ed the ariftocrat c prejudices of their order. These are, indeed, not unnatural to minds of a certain refinement. The heroifa of knight errantry, the gallantry of a Cavalier, the spirit of he reditary Nobility, all thefe intereit the feelings and captivate the imagination. We are, therefore, not furprifed, that you, Sir, fhould be feduced by them. 1 It is not, perhaps, unfair to bring the very abafement which the nobi lity of France has fuffered, in proof of ip its having fomewhat deserved that abafement. That this great and numerous body, poffeffed for fo many centuries of its elevated station, with fo much power, and so much property to attach mens interefts, with al! its prefent and all its traditionary grandeur to overawe their minds, that fuch a body fhould have fhrunk into annihilation withont a ftruggle, is pretty ftrong evidence of its having loft by fome demerit, that influence which it fhould have had in the country; that it held the people in a Vaffalage intolerably oppreffive, and had exercifed all the feudal tyranny without having gained any of the feudal attachinent, A fimilar argument may be brought with regard to the church. The higher ecclefiaftics muft have forfeited the eflcem and regard of their own fubordinate clergy, and of the people, before their power and their domains could have been wr.fted from them, without the impreffion of facrilege or impiety, almoft without the idea of injustice. Had they claimed veneration by their fanctity, or good will by their benevolence, the reverence, or the love of the people would have felt and refented the infringment, on their poffefions. The people would have complained from fentiment, but it would have ftill been a queftion how far they complained with re-fon. The property of the church certainly ftood on a very different footing from that of an hereditary defcendible eftate. No man is born Archbishop of Paris, or Abbé of St Germains. Their great incomes were a ftipendiary allowance, though they arofe from the poffeffion of land. The function of ecclefiaftical is more facred than that of temporal offices; but if their emoluments are beyond the abilities of the fate, or if any of thofe religious offices are entirely unneceffary, it may fairly enough be argued that the power of refumption of the antient ftipends, or of abolition of the antient offices, lies. with the people. Even if it were to be granted that all the revenues of the church had been laid out in the beft poffible way, yet the charity of the ftate, like the charity of individuals, must be a secondary confideration to its own immediate fubfiftence or fupport. State necefity called for retrenchments and for impofts. Had the King retained that power which this very neceflity tended to overthrow, he would probably have wrung fome more millions of livres from the poverty of the people. Was it muchto be regreted that his fucceffors in that power found a refource in the exorbitant wealth of the church? I eafily allow for your teelings on behalf of the monaftic eftablishments. There is a" dim religious" reverence, a tenderness for ftoried melancholy, which the heart and the fancy will readily acknowledge towards their antient folitary reign;" but the abolishment of their cold afcetic aufierities, (for in a cloyfter there can fcarcely be any virtues) will not, I believe, be confidered by philofophy, (or philanthropy, if you should dif like the word philofophy) as one of the evils of the Revolution, From you, Sir, one would hardly have expected that violent and fomewhat illiberal attack on the philofophers, and men of letters in France which your book contains. Do you really, in your cooler judgment, believe, that the world has gained nothing by their labours? Has your fympathy in the pride or profperity of mankind found nothing with which it could congratulate itfelf in all the increafed knowledge and humanity of the prefent century, for a part of which we are indebted to the men whom your zeal in this argument bas condemned in thegrofs? Would you forego all the difcoveries of their fcience, all the productions, of their genius, to retire again into the fade of that gloomy fuperftition which your fancy has hallowed? In all ages philofophers have been fceptied, and wits licentious but it is not like the liberality of Mr B. to profcribe phi lofophy |