of his landlord; destitute alike of sufficient skill or capital properly to cultivate the ground which he rented, and of all self-confidence and independence. But the scene is now changed: the farmers of France either cultivate their own ground, or hold it under leases, which leave them in possession of their political and civil rights, and with adequate capital and skill. It is abundantly evident, that this change in the condition of the agricultural population must ultimately be highly advantageous both to their intellectual and moral habits; the first consequence must be, that the land will be much better farmed; but this it cannot be, if the farmers remain as ignorant as heretofore. But they have now the most powerful motives to make themselves well and thoroughly acquainted with their business, and to follow it with enterprise and industry.

against large aggregations of property. The despotism is now destroyed, but the middle classes of society still remain; and where they are once firmly established and numerous, they flourish more and spread more extensively than any other class. Of their importance to the real welfare and the independence of a state, England has long afforded a most glorious and striking illustration and proof: it is not going too far to contend, that England has done what she has done within the last twenty years for herself and for the civilized world, principally from the circumstance, that she possessed a numerous and respectable middle class of society. Perhaps the national character of the French is not so well calculated as the national character of the English, to give to this class all the influence which they are capable of possessing, or to stamp them with their highest dignity and usefulness:-but, even under the disadvantage of the French national character, a middle class of society there must be highly useful; and if any circumstance can give to that national character that solidity, prospectiveness and steadiness in which it is deficient, it will be the circumstance of their raising up a numerous middle class of society. We have dwelt long on this subject; but not longer than its difficulty and importance deserve; nor longer than its connection with our subject seemed to demand. If our observations be true and well founded, we shall be at no loss to anticipate the immediate as well as the permanent consequences which the revolution will have on the French nation.

In the first place, the moral degradation, the extreme and unjustifiable fondness for military glory, however they may threaten the

tran.

tranquillity of France and of Eu rope at first, cannot, if the new government act with prudence and wisdom, be permanent; they must soon die away, if they are not fed and cherished by the measures which produced them.

In the second place, there is good reason to believe and hope, that the more beneficial consequences of the revolution will be permanent in France: it is in the nature of man not to retrograde willingly, and without the operation of very powerful causes. As soon as ever the minds of the French are completely disengaged from their old habits and feelings, their natural vivacity and enterprise will be directed to those pursuits, which will strengthen and render permanent whatever good they may have derived from the revolution. They possess an excellent climate and soil; even ill conducted as their agriculture has hi therto been, it has been amply sufficient to support a numerous population. To the improvement of their agriculture, to the extension of their commerce, to the advancement of science, let us hope that those talents which the revolution has called forth, and which have hitherto been exclusively devoted to military exploits, will hereafter be zealously given. If such be the case, the re

volution will not have been without its good, even to those among whom it originated; and France will exhibit another proof, that in the government of the moral, as well as the natural world, the supreme Disposer of events can bring good out of evil.

Having thus considered the revolution with respect to France itself, we shall next consider it in its effects on the other countries of Europe. These may be divided into such as never experienced the military effects of the revolution, but merely its political consequences on the opinions of the inhabitants; and those countries that were brought either directly or indirectly under the influence of France. Of the latter, some suffered entirely from the imbecility of their sovereigns, and some partly from this cause and partly from the spread of French principles.England and Sweden are perhaps the only countries, at least with the exception of Russia, that have not come under the direct or indirect influence of France. Spain and Portugal fell through the imbecility of their government: Holland, Germany, and Italy, partly from that cause and partly from the spread of French principles.

gloomy and threatening to those who were interested in keeping mankind in ignorance and bondage, that it is not surprising that its real causes, character, and probable consequences both on the French nation and on Europe, should not have been accurately foreseen. One circumstance, however, appears either to have been overlooked in estimating its real character and value, or at least not sufficiently attended to and estimated: viz. that neither in ancient nor modern times is there an instance of a nation suddenly and at once bursting free from the bondage of a despotic government, and adopting one of rational and practicable liberty. If we examine the history of those states, whether ancient or modern, which have possessed or do possess a free government, we shall find that this government was formed and established by degrees; in a gradual and almost imperceptible manner; and that those parts in the constitution which, on a superficial observation, would seem to be the cause of their freedom, are in part only the proofs that at the period they were established the people had attained such a degree of freedom as to require them. If we take the example of England, for instance, we shall find that the political and civil freedom which her inhabitants enjoy has grown up very slowly; and that it would be almost impossible to detect and ascertain the different stages of its growth; for we must not confound, as has been justly remarked, the establish. ment of those parts of her constitution, which manifest, and serve now they are established to secure, liberty, with the causes or origin of liberty. The fact is, that the mere form is worthless and without an animating soul, unless the thoughts,

feelings, opinions, determinations, and habits of the people,-not among those who are governed, but those who govern,-are strongly in favour of liberty; and have become so, not suddenly and violently, but gradually and almost impercepti bly. The French revolution, therefore, exhibiting a people long habitnated to a government under which the great mass could have no idea of freedom, all at once bursting out into a violent and intoxicating love of freedom, ought to have presented us with a spectacle rather alarming than encouraging: we ought to have anticipated those effects which, in the common events of life, we always dread from great and sudden changes. These effects were indeed dreaded by some; but even the enemies of the French revolution, while pointing out the probable consequences, betrayed such a dislike to freedom in general, that their well-founded predictions were disregarded, and attributed rather to violent prejudice than sagacious and comprehensive views. In no country was the French revolution likely to produce so strong a sensation as in England; several causes contributed to excite this sensation. In the first place, all who were very warmly devoted to the freedom of mankind, and who could not brook that their attachment to this cause should be full of suspicion or doubt, hailed the French revolution as an event that would soon place France by the side of England in respect to civil and religious freedom. But, in the second place, there were in England a class of men, who had imbibed speculative and impracticable notions on the subject of the perfectability of man; and who were anxious to persuade themselves that their ideas could be reduced to prac

tice, in the case of France at first, and afterwards by their own country, and the world at large. These were well-meaning but not enlightened men. But they were joined by others of a very different character; men of desperate fortunes, and of equally desperate views, who were anxicus, under the pretext of bring ing about this impracticable perfection, of introducing violent and unnecessary changes in the English constitution. Such were the men who, either sincerely and from good motives, or insincerely and to serve their own bad purposes, hailed the French revolution with pleasure. But, in England, there were also men who regarded this event in a very different light: the motives by which they were actuated were doubtless different; it is not to be concealed that some were jealous of France; they did not trouble themselves with calling in the aid of history, or a knowledge of human nature, to determine whether the revolution was likely to be productive of advantages to France or mankind; but the very idea that France was taking measures to obtain a constitution as free as that of England, alarmed their jealousy. It may be said that this class of men could not possibly be numerous but the reverse, we believe, was the case: they were not indeed numerous among the higher classes of society, but they were so among the middle and lower classes. There was however, in England, a dislike and opposition to the revolution from other motives, and among a very different description of people. All those who retained the high tory principles of government, either in church or state, were alarmed at what was taking place in France, and were desirous of crushing it: they did not manifest hostility to it because they thought it would not terminate in

the real and permanent liberty of the French; but because they preferred the old French government even to a liberty of this description. The opinions of another class of people were hostile to this event, on account of the tendency which they discovered in England to imitate the most violent of the French revolutionists, and trench upon the most sacred and essential principles of the English constitution. Such in general were the feelings and sentiments of the people of England, with regard to the revolution, at the commencement of it; but they were soon destined to undergo a change. It is foreign to our purpose to enter into any discussion respecting the necessity or the justice of the war which ensued between France and the principal states of Europe; or to investigate whether the atrocities which the French committed, ought fairly to be ascribed to their own want of principle, and their unfitness for the situation into which they had been suddenly and precipitately thrown, or to the invasion of their country by the allied powers. It is sufficient for our purpose to observe, that the calm, sincere, and enlightened friends of liberty in England soon began to doubt, whether the termination of the French revolution would be as favourable as they had at first anticipated: they were still however willing to hope that it would, and to attribute the atrocities of the French to any cause but what threatened the destruction of their hopes. But when they saw them substituting a spirit of conquest for a spirit of liberty; when they saw them fighting with as much zeal and alacrity to conquer other countries, as they had done to defend their own; and quietly submitting to a succession of the most cruel tyrants at

home, provided they could be victorious abread, they reluctantly abandoned all hope. In the mean time, the dread that similar scenes would be exhibited in England,and the artfully attributing, by interested persons, those scenes in France to their newly acquired li berty, had rendered the very name of liberty unpopular in England; and, strange to say, in the height of their alarm and apprehension, Englishmen were disposed to prefer quiet tyranny to hazardous liberty. This state of thought and feeling, however, could not last long in England; and long before the termination of the French revolution the commonly received opinion seems to have been, that the atrocities committed by the French ought to be ascribed neither to the plans of the allies against her, as one party had contended, nor to the spirit of liberty, as the other party had believed; but, in fact, to the circumstance, that the French had entered, quite unprepared, into their new state; and, like all those who from external or accidental circumstances, and not by the long continued and enlightened efforts of their own, suddenly shake off the yoke of tyranny and oppression, were disposed to revenge themselves on their former oppressors, and even to be jealous of one another. The permanent effects produced in England by the French revolution, are on the whole salutary and bene. ficial it may indeed be the case, that we still retain such an apprehension of any political change, that we shall prefer the continuance to the removal of real and acknowledged abuses; and that, in our dread of new tyrants, we shall not always oppose so unanimously and decidedly as we ought to do, any encroachments of power on the

part of our rulers. In short, one consequence produced by the French revolution in England undoubtedly has been, to render us less jealous of our liberty, and more afraid of reforming abuses, than we previously were: but, on the other hand, we have derived great advantages from this event. In political matters we are better able, as well as more disposed, to separate what is really practicable from what is merely visionary, and to prefer the portion of good which we possess, to the danger of losing it in the attempt to increase it.But it is principally as it regards the feelings and principles of those in whose hands the efficient government of this country must always be placed, that we ought to look for the chief benefits derived from the French revolution. It has been already remarked, that the people are now less disposed than they were before that event, to attempt the removal of political abuses and grievances; they dread the conse quences: but, on the other hand, those who govern have also learnt that, by being more disposed to do away with what is wrong, unpopular, or oppressive, they will most effectually prevent the occurrence of those scenes from which France, and through her most of Europe, has suffered. Thus, though infuture the people may do less in rendering the government under which they live, more perfect, and more conducive to their liberty and happiness, yet it is to be hoped that those who govern will do more: and certainly, in every respect, it is preferable that the necessary changes or removal of abuses should come from the latter, and not from the former.

There is still another point of view in which the effects of the French revolution, as they regard England,