No. 8, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1809.

(Continued from page 112.)

That erroneous political notions (they having become general and a part of the popular creed), have practical consequences, and these, of course, of a most fearful nature, is a Truth as certain as historic evidence can make it: and that when the feelings excited by these Calamities have passed away, and the interest in them has been displaced by more recent events, the same Errors are likely to be started afresh, pregnant with the same Calamities, is an evil rooted in Human Nature in the present state of general information, for which we have hitherto found no adequate remedy. (It may, perhaps in the scheme of Providence, be proper and conducive to its ends, that no adequate remedy should exist for the folly of men is the wisdom of God). But if there be any means, if not of preventing yet of palliating the disease, and in the more favoured nations, of checking its progress at the first symptoms; and if these means are to be at all compatible with the civil and intellectual Freedom of Mankind, they are to be found only in an intelligible and thorough exposure of the error, and, through that discovery, of the source, from which it derives its speciousness and powers of influence on the human mind. This therefore is my first motive for undertaking the disquisition.

The second is, that though the French Code of revolutionary Principles, is now generally rejected as a System, yet every where in the speeches and writings, of the English Reformers, nay, not seldom in those of their Opponents, I find certain maxims asserted or appealed to, which are not tenable, except as constituent parts of that System. Many of the most specious arguments in proof of the imperfection and injustice of the present Constitution of our Legislature will be found, on closer examination, to presuppose the truth of certain Principles, from which the Adducers of these arguments loudly profess their dissent. But in political changes no permanence

can be hoped for in the edifice, without consistency in the Foundation.

The third motive is, that by detecting the true source of the influence of these Principles, we shall at the same time discover their natural place and object : and that in themselves they are not only Truths, but most important and sublime Truths; aud that their falsehood and their danger consist altogether in their misapplication. Thus the dignity of Human Nature will be secured, and at the same time a lesson of Humility taught to each Individual, when we are made to see that the universal necessary Laws, and pure IDEAS of Reason, were given us, not for purpose of flattering our Pride and enabling us to become national Legislators; but that by an energy of continued self conquest, we might establish a free and yet absolute Government in our own Spirits.

ESSAY V.

THE Intelligence, which produces or controls human actions and occurrences, is often represented by the Mystics under the name and notion of the supreme Harmonist. I do not myself approve of these metaphors: they seem to imply a restlessness to understand that which is not among the appointed objects of our comprehension or discursive faculty. But certainly there is one excellence in good music, to which, without mysticism, we may find or make an analogy in the records of History. I allude to that sense of recognition, which accompanies our sense of novelty in the most original passages of a great composer. If we listen to a Symphony of CIMAROSA, the present strain still seems not only to recal, but almost to renew, some past movement, another and yet the same! Each present movement bringing back, as it were, and embodying the Spirit of some melody that had gone before, anticipates and seems trying to overtake something that is to come: and the Musician has reached the summit of his art, when having thus modified the Present by the Past, he at the same time weds the Past in the Present to some prepared and corresponsive Future. The Auditor's thoughts and feelings move under the same influence: retrospection blends with anticipation, and Hope and Memory (a female Janus) become one Power with a double Aspect.

A similar effect the Reader may produce for himself in the pages of History, if he will be content to substitute an intellectual complacency for pleasurable sensation. The Events and Characters of one Age, like the Strains in Music, recal those of another, and the variety by which each is individualized, not only gives a charm and poig nancy to the.resemblance, but likewise renders the whole more intelligible. Meantime ample room is afforded for the exercise both of the Judgement and the Fancy, in distinguishing cases of real resemblance from those of intentional imitation, the analogies of Nature, revolving upon herself, from the masquerade Figures of Cunning and Vanity.

It is not from identity of opinions, or from similarity of events and outward actions, that a real resemblance in the radical character can be deduced. On the contrary, Men of great and stirring Powers, who are destined to mould the Age in which they are born, must first mould themselves upon it. Mahomet born twelve Centuries later, and in the heart of Europe, would not have been a false Prophet; nor would a false Prophet of the present Generation have been a Mahomet in the sixth Century. I have myself, therefore, derived the deepest interest from the comparison of Men, whose Characters at the first view appear widely dissimilar, who yet have produced similar effects on their different Ages, and this by the exertion of powers which on examination will be found far more alike, than the altered drapery and costume would have led us to suspect. Of the Heirs of Fame few are more respected by me, though for very different qualities, than Erasmus and Luther: scarcely any one has a larger share of my aversion than Voltaire; and even of the better-hearted Rousseau I was never more than a very lukewarm admirer. I should perhaps too rudely affront the general opinion, if I avowed my whole Creed concerning the proportions of real Talent between the two Purifiers of revealed Religion, now neglected as obsolete, and the two modern Conspirators against its' authority, who are still the Alpha and Omega of Continental Genius. Yet when I abstract the questions of evil and good, and measure only the effects produced and the mode of producing them, I have repeatedly found the idea of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Robespierre, recal in a similar cluster and connection that of Erasmus, Luther, and Munster.

Those who are familiar with the Works of Erasmus, and who know the influence of his Wit, as the Pioneer of the Reformation; and who likewise know, that by his Wit, added to the vast variety of knowledge communicated in his Works, he had won over by anticipation so large a part of the polite and lettered World to the Protestant Party, will be at no loss in discovering the intended counterpart in the Life and Writings of the veteran Frenchman. They will see, indeed, that the knowledge of the one was solid through its whole extent, and that of the other extensive at a cheap rate, by its superficiality; that the Wit of the one is always bottomed on sound sense, peoples and enriches the mind of the Reader with an endless variety of distinct images and living interests; and that his broadest laughter is every where translatable into grave and weighty truth: while the wit of the Frenchman, without imagery, without character, and without that pathos which gives the magic charm to genuine humour, consists, when it is most perfect, in happy turns of phrase, but far too often in fantastic incidents, outrages of the pure imagination, and the poor low trick of combining the ridiculous with the venerable, where he, who does not laugh, abhors. Neither will they have forgotten, that the object of the one was to drive the Thieves and Mummers out of the Temple, while the other was propelling a worse Banditti, first to profane and pillage, and ultimately to raze it. Yet not the less will they perceive, that the effects remain parallel, the circumstances analagous, and the instruments the same. In each case the effects extended over Europe, were attested and augmented by the praise and patronage of thrones and dignities, and are not to be explained but by extraordinary industry and a life of Literature; in both instances the circumstances were supplied by an Age of Hopes and Promises-the Age of Erasmus restless from the first vernal influences of real knowledge, that of Voltaire from the hectic of imagined superiority in the voluminous Works of both, the instruments employed are chiefly those of wit and amusive erudition, and alike in both the Errors and Evils (real or imputed) in Religion and Politics, are the objects of the Battery. And here we must stop. The two Men were essentially different. Exchange mutually their dates and spheres of action, yet Voltaire, had he been ten-fold a Voltaire, could not have made up an Erasinus; and Erasmus must have emptied

himself of half his greatness and all his goodness, to have become a Voltaire.

Shall we succeed better or worse with the next pair, in this our new Dance of Death, or rather of the Shadows which we have brought forth-two by two-from the historic Ark? In our first couple we have at least secured an honourable retreat, and though we failed as to the Agents, we have maintained a fair analogy in the Actions and the Objects. But the heroic LUTHER, a Giant awaking in his strength! and the crazy ROUSSEAU, the Dreamer of love-sick Tales, and the Spinner of speculative Cobwebs; shy of light as the Mole, but as quickeared too for every whisper of the public opinion; the Teacher of stoic Pride in his Principles, yet the victim of morbid Vanity in his Feelings and Conduct! from what point of Likeness can we commence the Comparison between a Luther and a Rousseau? And truly had I been seeking for Characters that, taken as they really existed, closely resemble each other, and this too to our first apprehensions, and according to the common rules of biographical comparison, I could scarcely have made a more unlucky choice: unless I had desired that my Parallel of the German "Son of Thunder" and the Visionary of Geneva, should sit on the same bench with honest Fluellin's of Alexander the Great and Harry of Monmouth. Still, however, the same analogy would hold as in my former instance: the effects produced on their several Ages by Luther and Rousseau, were commensurate with each other, and were produced in both cases by (what their Contemporaries felt as) serious and vehement eloquence, and an elevated tone of moral feeling and Luther, not less than Rousseau, was actuated by an almost superstitious hatred of Superstition, and a turbulent prejudice against Prejudices. In the relation too which their Writings severally bore to those of Erasmus and Voltaire, and the way in which the latter co-operated with them to the same general end, each finding its' own class of Admirers and Proselytes, the Parallel is complete. I cannot, however, rest here! Spite of the apparent incongruities, I am disposed to plead for a resemblance in the Men themselves, for that similarity in their radical natures, which I abandoned all pretence and desire of shewing in the instances of Voltaire and Erasmus. But then my Readers must think of Luther not as he really was, but as he might have been, if he had been born in