WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY, W. BLACKWOOD, EDINBurgh. SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. . 679 692 694 706 714 . 727 731 . 735 We request our numerous contributors to observe, that their several articles should be forwarded to our publishers on or before the 10th of the month preceding that in which they are intended to appear. We regret that we cannot avail ourselves of the paper by Theta. A reference to the article which appeared in our last number, upon a similar subject, must convince him that we could not consistently adopt his ingenious and amusing theories. We shall be happy to hear from a writer so able upon any topic not at variance with our recorded opinions. We would beg to remind the Hymettian swarm, who have thought proper to distil their mellifluous anthologies in our " Lion's mouth," of the horror with which the Satirist of Aquinum speaks of listening to poetical rhapsodies in the month of August, and to assure them that, from experience, we would shrink with no less sensitiveness from reading any such in the month of June. We regret that we cannot prescribe for this apparently popular mania some effectual preventive; we would suggest, however, to those aspiring lyrists, the propriety of contrasting a random page of Southey, Scott, or Byron, with the modicum of their own inspiration; should their effusions escape an immediate consignment to "Venus' Lord," and should we continue to be distracted by these "paper pellets of the brain," why we must only submit with a good grace, and perform our usual funeral service, a "donner and blitzen," with a tear or two of laughter, over the lifeless relics which we consign to the sepulchre of our editorial BASKET. To our prose Contributors, who constitute a considerable and respectable class, comprising, as far as we are competent to decide, no ordinary share of female ability, we would with deference observe, that although a " Heart" may appear to be "Broken," or a "Suicide" to be committed, or a "Journal of a Cælebs" to be wound up by "Misery and Matrimony" in very good detail upon some sheets of Bath post, yet it requires somewhat better colouring and a more extended canvass to make such interesting portraitures of "Real Life" available for the purposes of our Magazine. The public, as well as ourselves, have "supped full of horrors," and have lost their appetite for details as dull, however true, as the "Life of a Village Schoolmaster," or the "Sorrows of a Governess," as well as for the more extravagant fictions of " A Second Munchausen." "The Hermit of the Alps," or "The Assassin of Savoy." However enterprise ought not to be discouraged, and we recommend to the Authors of the above-named articles to "lay on" with all the energy of Macduff, solacing themselves with this, that scarcely one, if any, of the best standard writers of modern times is beyond the application of "Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit." The Lines upon Skiddaw," with a "Domestic Sketch at the Cumberland Lakes,” great as our admiration and veneration are for the "Numen Aquæ," we cannot possibly insert. They are full of good feeling and truth, we doubt not; but we have, in limine, an instinctive dread of "Domestic Poems" since the shattering of our bilious and risible system by the attempted perusal of "Theodric the Goth," or the Last of the Goths, we forget which, but we hope the latter: next it would be as little creditable to our taste, as gratifying to the feelings of the illustrious object of K. L.'s eulogy, should it be conveyed in verses, which however well intentioned, are extremely indifferent. We wish the fair writer all the desirable improvements in her rhymes. We cannot point out a more noble subject. The papers signed Q.-F.-. R. M. will not suit us. A communication for Advena, requiring attention at his earliest convenience, lies at our Publisher's. THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. No. VI. JUNE, 1833. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.* The French Revolution! Awful vortex of human passions! mighty in their rise, terrific in their course, destructive in their termination! What Niagara is to ordinary cataracts, the French Revolution is to all the other revolutions that have ever taken place in the world. It constitutes an æra in humanity. As the atrocities of the Cæsars were destined to exemplify the evils resulting from the supreme power of an irresponsible individual, so the horrors of revolutionary power seem destined to afford an equally impressive lesson of the miseries which must be the consequences of the tyranny of the mob. The one preceded a long period during which the government of nations was in the hands of kings, and could not have failed to impress with a salutary caution the minds of those upon whose councils and whose conduct depended the happiness of millions of their species. Those who were not to be moved by the dictates of humanity, and in whose minds no sentiment could be awakened responsive to the claims of natural justice, yet shuddered at the anticipated infamy which must have been the consequence of any such wanton indulgence of their tyrannical humours as might have suggested a resemblance to Caligula or Nero ;—and the very fact that such monsters once lived, and that an historian arose by whom their miscreancy has been immortalized, may be one, and not the least influential, of the causes that have rendered them almost as solitary as they are execrable. We are fated to live in times in which a VOL. I. different spirit prevails, and when the ascendancy of popular principles, as they are called, threatens the world with evils only less deplorable than those resulting from the abuses of sovereign authority, because they must more speedily work their own remedy. A despotism may endure for ages, without any essential variation in its character; but of a pure democracy, it may be said, that "it never continueth in one stay "-and, therefore, the miseries, resulting from the gusts and the whirlwinds of popular passion or prejudice, must be comparatively shortlived and undurable. It may be added that, as they much more frequently proceed from error of judgment, than from deliberate malignity, so they may be remedied by enlightening the public mind. Popular assemblies always pay this homage to truth and to virtue, that they never, openly and professedly, act in direct opposition to their dictates. They always pretend the sanction of these august and venerable authorities, even when their conduct obviously implies a contempt for them. When the republican party in England made war upon the unhappy Charles the First, they said, that they took up arms in defence of the King! When the Irish Parliament robbed the clergy of the tithe of agistment, they said, that they did so for the good of the church! And the measure now in progress for the destruction of the church, which gives its peculiar character to this first session of the reformed parliament, is said, to be undertaken out of pure love to the established religion! This may A History of Europe during the French Revolution, from the Assembly of the Notables in 1789, to the establishment of the Directory in 1795. By Archibald Alison, Advocate. 2 Vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1833. VOL. 1. 4 M be called hypocrisy ;-and it is hypocrisy but it indicates the presence of a feeling which, if rightly acted upon, may yet lead to a re-action such as would go far towards compensating society for the ruin caused by popular phrenzy. Nor should any opportunity be omitted of emblazoning, as it were, for popular inspection, the records of those crimes and follies which had their source in the perverted state of the public mind; that all who are called upon to take a part in public affairs may learn to distinguish between license and liberty; and that tyranny of every denomination may experience its appropriate reward. But there is this distinction to be noted between what we trust may be called by-gone, and what we fear must be called coming tyranny, that, in the former case, the individual despot might be acted upon by motives, and actuated by principles, to which the manyheaded monster must ever be a stranger. He was, although a depraved, yet a consciously responsible human being, whose heart could sometimes be touched by human regards, and who, if he was careless of the distinction between right and wrong, was yet not altogether insensible to the difference between fame and infamy.The lessons of history were, therefore, not lost upon him, nor were its admonitions always disregarded. But, in the latter case, where the tyranny consists in the ascendency of evil passions, or even of good passions, under the direction of ignorance or delusion, which cohere but for one object, and are not impersonated in any visible representative of humanity, history can never produce the same direct effect in mitigating its ferocity, and controuling its capricious violence; and the most that can be hoped for from the strongest representation that may be made of the evils attending the domination of the mob, is, that individuals will be detached from the tyrannizing populace, and a party gradually raised up by which its "movements" may be resisted. We have been led into these remarks by the appearance of Mr. Alison's History of the French Revolution; a work of very considerable research and labour, and written in a style and spirit which renders it no mean accession to our historical literature. Our readers will suppose it scarcely possi ble to produce any thing upon that subject which had not been forestalled. The history of an event which excited the attention of the civilized world, and continued to engage that attention more or less for a period of thirty years, must, they will naturally imagine, be little more than a collection of the facts and the observations, with which the public have been long since familiar. But such is not the case. The event was too astounding to be a fit subject of cotemporary history. Those who are nearest the volcano when an eruption takes place, are not circumstanced most favourably for giving an accurate account of that terrific phenomenon.— The man who is placed in security and at a distance, as he must be a more competent observer, so he may be a more faithful describer of the effects and the progress of a conflagration, which he can contemplate without any feeling of personal danger. It is just so with the historian of the French revolution. While a year has not elapsed since that event, which has not added to the stores of knowledge which constitute the materials of history, the time has only just arrived when they may be made truly available for those important purposes which should constitute the end and aim of historical narration; and we do Mr. Alison no more than justice in stating, that his narrative is not only succinctly and even elegantly written, but that he has evinced, in its compilation, a degree of candour, diligence, and ability, which renders his work as valuable as its subject is important. The time is gone by, we trust for ever, when the French revolution might be regarded merely as the armoury of faction, and only appealed to as it might serve the cause of tyrants against subjects, or of subjects against tyrants. Its horrors were equally employed to aid the cause of oppression or of revolt; and while sovereigns sought to guarantee their powers by pointing to the dreadful consequences which resulted from the madness of the people, the very same appeal was made by the leaders of the populace, who argued, and not without great appearance of reason, that such excesses never would have been committed if they had not been provoked by the abuses of power. Thus, the very event which would seem best calculated to correct the errors of the two extreme parties who almost divided the world, was, during the ferment which it occasioned, but the instrument of keeping up the exasperation which rendered them almost irreconcileable. Despots were provoked by it to exercise a sterner and a more vindictive despotism; while those, who were actuated by the new-born love of liberty, felt themselves relieved from all the restraints of a principled obedience, and claimed a kind of licentious privilege to indulge in the perpetration of the most atrocious crimes, provided these crimes had any obvious tendency to subvert the authority of their rulers. This fatal abuse of one of the most impressive lessons of history is, we trust, no longer possible. Mr. Alison has traced the causes which led to the French Revolution with the hand of a master, and his work may be read with equal instruction both by subjects and by kings. The latter may learn from it to avoid those errors in government which must, sooner or later, lead to disaffection and revolt; and the former, to be on their guard against that spirit of theoretical improvement, which, professing to enlighten, only intoxicates, and, aiming at reform, only accomplishes destruc tion. There was no topic by which the anarchists were enabled to produce a greater effect upon the minds of their hearers, than the evils of slavery, and its iniquity as an invasion of the rights of men. And yet, nothing is more certain than that, in its origin, slavery was rather to be considered a good than an evil; that it proceeded more frequently from clemency than from cruelty; and that, instead of usurping the privileges, it protected the weakness of prostrate and indigent humanity. "How just soever," says Mr. Alison, "it may appear to us that the welfare and interests of the great body of the people should he protected from the aggression of the powerful, there is nothing more certain than that such is not the primitive or original state of society.The varieties of human characters, the different degrees of intellectual or physical strength with which men are endowed, the consequences of accident, misfortune, or crime, early introduce the distinction of ranks, and precipitate the lower orders into that state of depen dence on their superiors which is known by the name of slavery. This institution, however odious its name has now justly become, is not an evil when it first arises; it only becomes such by being continued in circumstances different from those in which it originated, and in times when the protection it affords the poor is no longer needed. The universality of slavery in the early ages of mankind, is a certain indication that it is unavoidable from the circumstances in which the hufirst stages of society. Where capital is man species is every where placed in the unknown, property insecure, and violence universal, there is no security for the lower classes but in the protection of their superiors, and the sole condition on which this can be obtained is slavery.— Property in the person and labour of the poor, is the only inducement which can be held out to the opulent to take them under their protection. Humanity, justice, and policy, so powerful in civilized ages, are then unknown; and the sufferings of the destitute are as much disregarded as those of the lower animals.If they belonged to no lord, they would speedily fall a prey to famine or violence. How miserable soever the condition of slaves may be, they are incomparably better off than they would have been if they had incurred the destitution of free dom." The rapid increase of domestic slavery was one of the principal causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. It was thus totally unprepared for the vigorous assaults of the manly and energetic barbarians by whom it was overrun; and who lorded it over the Roman Provinces with a domination as resistless and supreme, as the Romans, in the height of their power, over the rest of the civilized world. "Hence," says Mr. Alison, "arose a total separation of the higher and lower orders, and an entire change in the habits, occupations, and character of the different ranks of society. From the free conquerors of and privileged classes of modern EuRoman provinces have sprung the noble rope; from their enslaved subjects, the numerous and degraded ranks of pea sants. The equality and energy of pastoral life stamped a feeling of pride and independence upon the descendants of the conquerors, which in many countries is yet undiminished; the misery and degradation of the vanquished rivetted chains about their necks, which were hardly loosened for a |
