ed a majority in the Chamber. But gradu- position he occupied until his accession to ally the government became settled. The the Cabinet, which he now leads. His elements of disturbance which the Revolu- perfect knowledge of the language, literation left behind it subsided and disappeared. ture, and history of England; his known The public began to look for the fruits of predilection for the political institutions of the struggle-the price of the blood which that country, which he desired to see adoptflowed on the three days. This prevailing ed in his own, as far as the habits and consentiment rendered the Conservative and dition of the people would admit; his Prostationary policy of the cabinet of the 11th testantism, for the sincerity of which he October less popular, and diminished its received credit; the simplicity of his manmajority in the Chamber. But besides this, ners, and the austere dignity of his characdissension broke out in the cabinet itself. ter, all conspired to recommend him to the A disagreement arose between MM. De favorable notice of the aristocracy of LonBroglie, Guizot, and M. Hamams, in conse- don. Accordingly, no minister of France, quence of which the latter resigned, and sub- since Chateaubriand, obtained a reception. sequently between MM. Thiers and Guizot. so unexceptionally cordial. This quarrel was supposed at the time, and After the retirement of the Cabinet, subsince, to be secretly fomented by Louis sequent to the collision at Beyrout, M. Philippe and the party of the chateau. Guizot was recalled to take a high position The combined ministry of Thiers, Guizot, in affairs. A certain stiffness of character, and De Broglie, was too strong to allow the and austerity of manner, combined with a king to assume that personal interference in dogmatism which adhered to him from the the affairs of the state which he has always professional chair, which he filled with so desired to exercise. His object was now much distinction, rendered him personally not merely to break up the existing cabinet, unpopular in the Chambers, and although but to sow the seeds of dissension among virtually discharging the functions of the the leading men in the Chambers, so that head of the ministry, he has never, even it might be impossible afterwards to form yet, ventured to assume the actual office of a government so strong, with an opposition President of the Council, which, according so weak, as to render his personal interfer- to the custom of government in France, is ence impracticable. This object he per- that of Prime Minister, and head of the fectly attained. M. Thiers was irritated government. That post in the Cabinet, against M. Guizot, and later, the friendship which has now subsisted in France for between M. Guizot and the Duke of Broglie several years, is filled by Marshal Soult, was undermined. No parliamentary combination was afterwards possible, which should deprive Louis Philippe of the favorite object of his hopes, that of presiding at the cabinet, dictating its policy, and being, in fact, his own minister of foreign affairs.

In fine, M. Guizot retired, and entered into opposition. He immediately assumed a position of open hostility with the cabinet, over which M. Mole presided, the policy of which he described, in one of his memorable addresses from the tribune, as "one without principle or flag, made up of expediencies and superficialities, which, ever tottering, sought support on every side, and aimed at no intelligible object; which augmented and aggravated that vacillation of purpose, that effeminacy of soul, that want of faith, consistency, perseverance, and energy, which are at once the sources of uneasiness to the country, and feebleness to the government!"

The ministry known as that of the 12th May, invited M. Guizot to the Embassy at London, to replace M. Sebastiani, which

who, however, takes no active part in the affairs of the State. M. Guizot is minister of Foreign Affairs, and the real head of the government.

As a speaker, M. Guizɔt wants the more lofty qualities of an orator, and disdains the merely ornamental ones. His art is that of a logician and rhetorician. His discourse is a thesis. There is one prominent text which is wrought out with consummate skill.

To this he fixes the attention of his audience. He turns it on every side, presents it under various aspects, raises round it a most ingenious scaffolding of reasoning. Those who are familiar with colleges, will easily perceive in this the habits which have been transferred from the university to the senate.

M. Guizot has been charged with a frigid scepticism, not merely in his religion, but in his philosophy and politics. Standing between hereditary monarchy and revolution, it has been said that he believes neither in the legitimacy of divine right, nor in the sovereignty of the people. In religion

he is, by descent and profession, Protestant, but his sincerity in any particular faith has been questioned, although his private life attests his serious assent to Christianity. The scenes related to have passed at the bedside of the dying partner of his joys and sorrows cannot leave a doubt of the reality of his religious faith. But what faith? Protestant, certainly; but which of the many tints of Protestantism? No one can answer, and some will say that the illustrious statesman and philosopher himself would pause long before he would commit himself to a categorical answer to that question.

high morality of conduct and sentiment but rarely found in public life.

In his conduct to his political opponents, he is liberal and generous. He willingly gives them credit for good motives, and allows each his meed of praise for the ability he displays.

The party of Doctrinaires in France resembles, in many of their characteristics, the party of the Utilitarians in England. There is the same dogmatism, the same intolerance for other opinions, the same dry rigidity. M. Guizot, the head and leader of the sect, partakes of these qualities, modified, however, by his individual pecuClearness and order are the conspicuous liarities. He is more tenacious, however, attributes of his style, as a parliamentary of his purposes, than even of his maxims. speaker. He goes straight to his object; He is ambitious of office for the power lays down his thesis in the clearest and which it confers, and not for the affluence most unequivocal terms. He admits no re- which it brings. He is a partisan of a dundancy. What he has to say is said constitutional aristocracy. If he had been without uttering one word too much or too noble he would have advocated an aristolittle. His style is pure and chaste, but cracy of birth. Being a commoner, he adwithout brilliancy or coloring. His extem-vocates an aristocracy of the bourgeoisie. poraneous addresses, stenographed, have all the elaborated finish and accuracy of the desk.

The temperament of his soul, and severity of his manners, are adverse to those vehement bursts of passion which have produced the finest passages of ancient and modern oratory. One example of elevation is cited; when ravished with admiration for the constituents of 1789, he exclaimed-" I doubt not that in their unknown abodes, these noble souls, who have so ardently desired the good of humanity, will be sensible of a profound pleasure to behold us to-day, avoiding those shoals upon which their brightest hopes were wrecked."

Nothing in public life is more gratifying to contemplate than the spotless purity of the private character of M. Guizot. No public man has more numerous or rancorous enemies. Not one among these would dare to cast a doubt on his private integrity. With a modest competence, obtained by his personal labor, he entered the Hotel of the Ministry of Public Instruction. With the same modest competence he retired from that palace to his obscure lodging in the Quartier de la Madelin". He returned to office, and has had all the means, direct and indirect, which the head of affairs in a great country can always command, to accumulate wealth. No one suspects him of having done so.

As a child, as a parent, as a husband, and as a father, M. Guizot is a pattern of

After all his years of study of the English system, and all his professed admiration of the union of liberty and monarchy which it exhibits, he has not brought into practice in France the great leading consequence of the royal irresponsibility. The personal irresponsibility of the sovereign gives, as the most inevitable conclusion, the royal non-interference. Where responsibility rests, there alone power must be deposited. Active personal interference, without responsibility, is an outrage on political philosophy, against which it might well be supposed the scholastic dogmatism of the leader of the Doctrinaires would revolt. Yet M. Guizot has now, for nearly seven years, been the virtual head of a cabinet over whose deliberations an irresponsible constitutional sovereign has presided. Nor has such presidency been like that of the Speaker of the Commons, or the chairman of a meeting. The monarch of July has not been a mere moderator amidst his ministers. It is too notorious to admit of dispute that he has always exercised a most, potential voice in their councils, and even assumed occasionally the tone of a dictator. Yet to all this M. Guizot has quietly submitted. He has held the portfolio, and borne the responsibility of office for several years, and has submitted to have his measures rejected by the royal voice, and his state papers mutilated by the royal pen. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he has found his instructions to the representatives

has been insisted on by M. Thiers, who has on various occasions asserted, and on some acted on it. M. Guizot, assenting as strongly to the maxim as his distinguished rival, has nevertheless permitted it to be turned into a dead letter.

of France at foreign courts, subordinate to and they are transcendently the most emiother instructions, proceeding directly from ment men that have issued from that cona higher quarter. Yet with all these fla- vulsion. grant violations of the constitutional re- They both, professing admiration for gime, which M. Guizot so much admires, the English system of constitutional gohe has still retained the cares and honors vernment, have evinced their repugnance to of office, and with them the responsibility that personal interference in the business for proceedings not his own, and of which of the cabinet, which Louis Philippe has he often is kept in ignorance until they be- never ceased to exercise; but the opposicome irrevocable. tion of M. Thiers to it has been more perM. Guizot's long continuance and appa- severing and active. M. Guizot has tacitrent security in office, is a consequence ly submitted, when he ought to have rerather of the divisions among his oppo- signed. M. Thiers has openly denounced nents, than the cordial support of the ma- the system as unconstitutional. The maxjority which has voted with him. Among im, Le roi regne, mais il ne gouverne pas, his colleagues he is unpopular, so much so, that notwithstanding his known ambition, and his unquestionable right, according to parliamentary standing and influence, to the first place in the cabinet, he has never ventured to assume it. The chair is occupied by a lay-figure-the Duke of Dalma- There is a course by which these two tia. But he has been secure, for among his statesmen could have extinguished personal opponents there are irreconcilable differ- government in France. The state of parences. The dynastic opposition occupy-ties has long rendered no government posing the left centre, are now divided into sible, in which one or the other does not two sections, one led by MM. Thiers and hold a prominent place. Had they comO'Dillon Barrot, the other by MM. Du- bined in resisting the Royal presence at faure and Belliault. Again, left of these cabinet councils, the object would have are the anti-dynastic or republican opposi- been attained. This they had not moral tion, occupying the extreme left, in which firmness or personal independence sufficient MM. Dupont de l'Eure, and Arago, the ce- to accomplish. lebrated astronomer, are prominent; and, An able delineator* of public characters, finally, there is the legitimate or Carlist in whose political views, however, we do not party. Now, all of these fragments of the in all respects coincide, has happily sketchopposition are as much or more opposed to ed and contrasted these two parliamentary each other than to the Guizot ministry. rivals:Hence, the strength of the head of the Doctrinaires.

"Born of the press," says he, "they have, after sucking her milk even to her blood, strangled their mother.

We presented, lately, to our readers, a rapid sketch of M. Thiers, the great rival Both have joined to light the pile round and inevitable successor of M. Guizot. So freedom of thought, and, like inquisitors, have said completely correlative are these two states-to their victims:- Believe, or burn! They are both devoted to the person of the men in their political position, that it is Sovereign, whoever he may be, for the time being. impossible to pronounce the name of either They are not more attached to the younger branch without raising before the mind's eye also of the Bourbons than to the elder, or any other the image of the other. Both spring from branch. They are impelled by the ambition of the people; both raised to the highest po- fortune, or the obstinacy of system. They would sition in the state by the sole, unaided, un- be just as willing, under like circunstances, to dispatronized energy of their talents; both pose of Louis Philippe, as they were to dispose men of letters, so eminent, that had they

of Charles X.

Between MM. Guizot and Thiers there is a

never entered the chambers, they would strong contrast of character, sentiment, and talent. still hold foremost places among the illus- The latter is pliable, conversational, familiar, mistrious of the age; both orators and states-chievous, and wheedling; the former is imperious, men so distinguished, that had they never austere, and rigid. wielded the pen, they would still be the "With diplomatists, M. Guizot, by his science most brilliant ornaments of the senate ;and his gravity, passes for an aristocrat. both journalists, and both thrown up to the withstanding all his efforts, and the marvellous surface by the great commotion of 1830,

* Livre des Orateurs, par Timon.

Not

The one, more of a spiritualist, appeals to right. The other, more of a materialist, appeals to facts. The one believes in some sort of morality; the other believes in almost nothing.

"M. Guizot, whether in office or out of office, is still a politician. He has the force, the resolution, and the obstinacy of a man whose thoughts are necessarily engrossed by the same object. For him office is an affair of temperament as much as of ambition.

"M. Thiers does not surrender himself altogether to the ambition of office, or even to the Eng-affairs of politics. No longer minister, he turns to art, to steam, to a classical tour, to unroll mummies, or to write histories.

"M. Thiers, on the other hand, appears in his history more in the character of a statesman than "M. Guizot is too proud not to despise offen- an annalist or philosopher. He is remarkable ces; T. Thiers too careless to remember them. neither for plan, nor order, nor coloring, nor depth, "Out of office, M. Guizot works the parlia-nor brevity. He is admirable for his lofty view mentary power against the personal power of the crown; in office, he works the personal power of the crown against the parliamentary power.

"No French writer has equalled him in the description of military campaigns and especially of battles, nor in the exposition of financial crises. He has produced the most popular and widely cir"M. Guizot overcomes opposition by tenacity culating history of the wars, the constitutions, the of purpose. M. Thiers eludes it by his supple-diplomacy and the laws of the great Revolution. ness. He slips through your fingers like an eel. To retain him, you must take him in your teeth.

From the People's Journal.

THE PROVINCE OF POETRY AND THE DUTIES OF THE POET.

BY CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D.