others, there is little danger of his thinking himself into any thing. But suppose the worst. The young gentleman is dying for Rosalind. What then? He may be very silly, but he is not very criminal. Romance is not virtue; it is not reason; but it is better than selfishness and her litter of puppy follies. The reign of imagination favours at least the growth of generous and exalted feelings, which, though ludicrous from their extravagance, have something about them, that, in youth, is not wholly unamiable or unbecoming. Life, too, sup plies correctives abundantly. The romancer of eighteen is sad and sober at thirty; and if he purchases that lesson of the highest wisdom, for which most of us pay in suffering, more dearly than others, the impression, it may be hoped, will prove the more deep and lasting.

To return, in conclusion, to the Family Shakspeare. I would not be understood to deny, that some words may be found in the reformed copy, which it would have been more proper to oinit. Had the reviewers offered a kind and friendly remonstrance on these points, the editor would probably have confessed that his vigilance had sometimes slumbered, and have seized the first occasion of repairing the defects. But no man was ever goaded into a sincere acknowledgment or conviction of errors by the stings and scourges of persecution. Neither can it be admitted that those errors are nuOn the contrary, I am persuaded that they who are the most competent to estimate the

merous.

merits of this performance, will not, upon an accurate examination, think its execution unworthy of the virtuous and disinterested motives which gave it birth.

To find fault is the easiest of all things; and one of the least becoming of all things, is, to find fault pettishly. In men too, who, upon all moral questions, assume a severe tone, and refer continually to the highest and only just standard of action, we are entitled to expect a very guarded practice. A face of beauty renders every blemish remarkable. To declaim against theatres and theatrical compositions, routs, balls, and card-parties, while we are unkind, ungentle, fretful, or censorious, is exactly of a piece with the old mortality of the Pharisees, the more modern casuistry of the Jesuits, and the inconsistencies of formalism in all ages. Whether public amusements are lawful may be questionable; but there can be no question at all, as to the evil tempers being criminal, in all degrees, and of every description. For myself, though I am not now in the habit either of reading dramas or attending their representation, I have no difficulty in confessing, that my mind would be far less burthened with the recollecting of having spent an evening in the stage box at Drury-lane, than of having given to the world the review of the Family Shakspeare.

POLITICAL institutions, in order that they may be either permanent or beneficial, as they have had their origin in the wants of those for whom they are provided, must also accord in the main with the character and wishes of the community. It is true, indeed, that most governments have been originally founded in violence. It is also true, that an exact mathematical correspondence, a perfect and unvarying sympathy, between the constituted authorities of state and the great body of its population, is neither necessary nor possible. It is moreover true, that to denounce all political establishments as illegitimate which have had their origin in violence, or which, being more quietly erected, no longer retain in every particular their primitive character, is rash and wicked. Yet after every reasonable concession has been made, and every proper allowance for the imperfections of all human performances, it still remains certain, that wherever the government of a

country, including both its formal constitution and the general spirit of its administration, is decidedly at variance with the settled sentiments and wishes of the prevailing part of the community, there is not only a manifest departure from all just theory, but there is also imminent danger of some national convulsion.

But this is not all. The characters of nations change like the characters of individuals; not so rapidly, but almost as certainly. Wherever the advancement of industry and knowledge has not been violently excluded, a great revolution is silently ef fected in the morals, manners, habits, opinions, and affections of a whole people. Kings and princes are no longer the captains of their armies, renowned for courage and enterprize. The steel-clad barons of a rougher age are softened into silken courtiers, or trained perhaps by a happier discipline into wellbred and very peaceable gentlemen. The middle class of society is swelled far beyond its natural dimensions, and becomes the depository of a large part of the more active virtues and vices of the community. The sympathy between this body and the lower orders grows at the same time to be quick and powerful. Prejudices which once held the world in awe become feeble or contemptible. Sentiments and attachments which supplied the place of reason, and carried men away sometimes to wisdom and sometimes to folly, sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to their hurt, but always with a mighty energy, are obliterated, or superseded by principles

of action wholly differing in their origin and in their objects. "New forms arise and different views engage;" and for a new state of forms and views a new constitution of public authority is evidently required. It is not enough, therefore, that the government of a country be originally framed with wisdom, or at any given period well suited to a particular community:-it is necessary that there should be in its organization elements of softness; a power and a disposition to conform to the varying conditions and characters of mankind; not indeed too rapidly, for it is the very office of government to forbid sudden changes, but slowly and steadily, for the purpose of preventing that very evil which an excessive pliability would occasion. It is with nations as with parties, "we must follow in order that we may lead." There must be some avenue or organ through which the public sentiments may be received, with a corresponding capacity of gradu ally approximating in principle and practice to the actual state of the community. Without these all is darkness and danger.

The French revolution was an earthquake. In France there was little which indicated to a superficial observer the approach of that terrible convul. sion. Her temples were yet standing, and the priests ministered at the altars, The balance of justice was suspended in her halls. The palaces were blazoned with the ensigns of royalty. The whole structure of her constitution was entire, its proportions unimpaired, its bulwarks uninjured ;'

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