which the man does not exist. To give therefore no more importance, in the social order, to such descriptions of men, than that of so many units, is a horrible usurpation.

When great multitudes act together, under that discipline of nature, I recognise the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty and decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony; when you break up this beautiful order, this array of truth and nature, as well as of habit and prejudice; when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains, so as to form them into an adverse army, I no longer know that venerable object called the People in such a disbanded race of deserters and vagabonds. For a while they may be terrible indeed; but in such a manner as wild beasts are terrible. The mind owes to them no sort of submission. They are, as they have always been reputed, rebels. They may lawfully be fought with, and brought under, whenever an advantage offers. Those who attempt by outrage and violence to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under the laws, and to destroy the natural order of life, proclaim war against them.

We have read in history of that furious insurrection of the common people in France called the Jacquerie; for this is not the first time that the people have been enlightened into treason, murder, and rapine. Its object was to extirpate the gentry. The Captal de Buche, a famous soldier of those days, dishonoured the name of a gentleman and of a man by taking, for their cruelties, a cruel vengeance on these deluded wretches: it was, however, his right and his duty to make war upon them, and afterwards, in moderation, to bring them to punishment for their rebellion; though in the sense of the French Revolution, and of some of our clubs, they were the people; and were truly so, if you will call by that appellation any majority of men told by the head.

At a time not very remote from the same period (for these humours never have affected one of the nations without some influence on the other) happened several risings of the lower commons in England. These insurgents were certainly the majority of the inhabitants of the counties in which they re

sided; and Cade, Ket, and Straw, at the head national guards, and fomented by certain traito rank, did no more than exert, according to the d our and the Parisian societies, the sovereign powe in the majority.

We call the time of those events a dark age. are too indulgent to our own proficiency. The A Ball understood the rights of man as well as the A goire. That reverend patriarch of sedition, and pr our modern preachers, was of opinion with the Na sembly, that all the evils which have fallen upor been caused by an ignorance of their "having beer continued equal as to their rights." Had the pop able to repeat that profound maxim all would have fectly well with them. No tyranny, no vexation, sion, no care, no sorrow, could have existed in This would have cured them like a charm for the t But the lowest wretches, in their most ignorant s able at all times to talk such stuff; and yet at have they suffered many evils and many oppress before and since the republication by the National of this spell of healing potency and virtue. The e Dr. Ball, when he wished to rekindle the lights a his audience on this point, chose for the text the couplet :

When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?

Of this sapient maxim, however, I do not give hi inventor. It seems to have been handed down by and had certainly become proverbial; but whether posed, or only applied, thus much must be admitte learning, sense, energy, and comprehensiveness, i equal to all the modern dissertations on the equalit kind; and it has one advantage over them, tha rhyme.1

'It is no small loss to the world, that the whole of this enlig philosophic sermon, preached to two hundred thousand nationa sembled at Blackheath, (a number probably equal to the subli jestic Federation of the 14th July, 1790, in the Champs de M preserved. A short abstract is, however, to be found in Wals have added it here for the edification of the modern Whigs, wh

lemmas, theorems, scholia, corollaries, and all the apparatus of science, which was furnished in as great plenty and per

and I am inclined to prefer the pithy and sententious brevity of these balletins of ancient rebellion, before the loose and confused prolixity of the modern advertisements of constitutional information. They contain more good morality and less bad politics; they had much more foundation in real oppression; and they have the recommendation of being much better adapted to the capacities of those for whose instruction they were intended. Whatever laudable pains the teachers of the present day appear to take, I cannot compliment them so far as to allow, that they have succeeded in writing down to the level of their pupils, the members of the sovereign, with half the ability of Jack Carter and the reverend John Ball. That my readers may judge for themselves, I shall give them one or two specimens.

The first is an address from the reverend John Ball, under his nom de guerre of John Schep. I know not against what particular "guyle in borough" the writer means to caution the people; it may have been only a general cry against "rotten boroughs," which it was thought convenient then as now to make the first pretext, and place at the head of the list of grievances.

JOHN SCHEP.

John Schep sometime Seint Mary Priest of Yorke, and now of Colchester, greeteth well John Nameless, & John the Miller, & John Carter, and biddeth them that they beware of guyle in borough, and stand together in God's name; and biddeth Piers Ploweman goe to his werk, and chastise well Hob the robber [probably the king] and take with you John Trewman, and all his fellows and no moc.

John the Miller hath yground smal, small, small;

The King's Sonne of Heven shall pay for all.

Beware or ye be woe,

Know your frende fro your foe.

Have enough and say hoe:

And do wel and better, and flee sinne,

And seeke peace and holde you therein;

& so biddeth John Trewman, & all his fellowes.

The reader has perceived, from the last lines of this curious state paper, how well the National Assembly has copied its union of the profession o universal peace, with the practice of murder and confusion, and the blast of the trumpet of sedition in all nations. He will, in the following constitutional paper, observe how well, in their enigmatical style, like the Assembly and their abettors, the old philosophers proscribe all hereditary distinction, and bestow it only on virtue and wisdom, according to their estimation of both. Yet these people are supposed never to have heard of "the rights of man."

JACK MYLNer.

Jakke Mylner asketh help to turn his mylne aright.

He hath grounden smal, smal,

The King's Sone of Heven he shall pay for alle.