does not our country owe to the Catholic religion !'-without having our estimate of his understanding depressed in proportion to our belief of his integrity.

The suppression of the present work by the Police, in what motive soever it originated, was certainly a very foolish as well as arbitrary measure, and reflects more discredit on the present ministers of France, than all that M. de Chateaubriand alleges against them. Probably the measure was more vindictive than prudential; and yet the anxiety the ministry have shewn with regard to the late election of Deputies, might lead them to apprehend danger from the circulation of this volume at the present moment. Or the Police itself might take umbrage at the freedom with which the Author deprecates its unconstitutional powers. However this may be, the suppression will have had but the effect of giving double notoriety to the work, and weight to its opinions, and of placing M. de Chateaubriand in the engaging attitude of an injured patriot. But we must hasten to satisfy the curiosity of our readers as to the contents of the work itself.

France,' according to M. de Chateaubriand, desires her legiti mate king. There are three modes of government which might exist under the legitimate king. 1. The Old Regime. 2. A Despotism. 3. The Charter.'

It seems that there are many who still sigh for the ancient form of government. Unhappily,' says our Author in his "Political Reflections," that beautiful political edifice has been thrown to the ground.'

We do not stop to enquire whether it was more solid or more perfect than that raised in its stead; whether the old government, founded upon religion like those of the days of antiquity, and formed slowly by our manners, our character, our soil, our climate, and proved by the experience of ages, was not more in harmony with the genius of the nation, aud more fitted to produce great men and substantial virtues, than the government which replaced it. We enquire not, nor do we examine, whether that which is now called the progress of political light, is a real progress, or a retrograde movement of the human mind, a return towards barbarism, and an absolute corruption of religion, of politics, of morality, and of taste. All that may be maintained; and those who take that cause in hand cannot be deficient in powerful reasons, and, above all, in pathetic sentiments for the justification of their opinion. But it is necessary, in life, always to set out from the point at which we have arrived. A fact is a fact; and whether the government which was destroyed was bad or good, this much is certain, that the people of France are no longer in that situation which they occupied a century back, much less what they were three ages ago." Political Reflections on the True Interests of the French Nation. 8vo. 1814. pp 123–125.

In short,' as he elsewhere confesses, mankind now possess a general and a mutual portion of knowledge, of which you cannot

deprive them. With this the King is well acquainted, because his mind is justly enlightened, and therefore he has given us a charter.'

And therefore-M. de Chateaubriand is quite right-therefore the old regime is now impossible.'

Despotism requires an iron hand, an audacious spirit,' an army devoted to its leader. A Bourbon cannot, our Author conceives, become a despot.

The only mode that remains, is a Charter. And this only possible mode, M. de Chateaubriand remarks, agrees with the fact.We have a Charter, and we can have nothing but this Charter.' This being assumed as the basis of all political discussions, he proceeds to vindicate the constitutional doctrine so essential to freedom of discussion, that ministers alone are responsible for all the acts of government. The most devoted Royalist may,' he contends, venture to push aside the shield, though blazoned with the king's image, and attack the minister who stands behind it. Our business is with himnot with the King.' Our Author displays much good sense in treating of this subject, a quality by which his writings are certainly characterized whenever his imagination will admit of his keeping the safe line of argument and fact. He complains that for want of making this proper distinction between the King and his Ministers, the Chamber of Deputies, the majority of whom were undoubtedly Royalists, hesitated to oppose any thing that was produced to them in the King's name;' because the proposed law was submitted in the shape of an ordonnance"Louis, by the grace of God," &c. He shews that to give the initiation of laws' to the King, to the exclusion of the Chambers, is ultimately to degrade the royal person, and to weaken the prerogative; that the secret suggestion of laws is an absurdity; that the free and open proposition of laws, is the essence of a Representative Government; and that with a passive senate, a mute legislature,' the Charter becomes null, and a free constitution but a name.

One is apt, on reading these just but obvious remarks, to feel something like a contemptuous surprise, that such truisms should need be thus formally argued before an assembly of enlightened politicians and constitutionalists-like those of Paris! But we do not think that this self-complacent feeling is altogether authorized by the superior light of our own statesmen. M. de Chateaubriand, it is evident from all his writings, has studied English history and the English constitution with advantage, and he regards with intelligent admiration the constitutional provisions by which our liberties are guarded. He continually refers to these as a model for other nations, and draws his illustrations of the principles of government, from our own history. The responsibility of ministers, one of the first principles of

our constitution, is thus recognised by a foreigner. What shall we say then to an English statesman, returning from Paris, infected, as it should seem, with the very ideas that M. de Chateaubriand reprobates, and in love with the purer forms of government that the Continental nations enjoy, bringing forward continually the private sentiments of the Head of the Government, to shield his advisers from responsibility, attributing to his personal will the acts of his ministers, and in a strain of modest self-denying loyalty lavishing on his Royal master the praise of those achievements which have exhausted our country? Is such a man fit to be entrusted with the interests of nations, as the representative of an English prince, or as the servant of a free people?

It would be well were the panegyrics lavished by M. de Chateaubriand and others on the English Constitution, to lead our countrymen to gain more intelligent notions respecting its principles and characteristic excellences. The instance alluded to is not the only one in which the spirit of the Constitution has been daringly violated. Doctrines which had slumbered in the graves of the Stuarts, have obtained a vampire resurrection, and walk at large in the face of day. We too have our Royalists, but they are men attached not to the person but to the power of the King, who hesitate to oppose any thing that is produced to them' by the Minister. According to their exposition of the doctrines of the Constitution, it is not the King only that can do no wrong, but the Administration. They would shudder at the idea of attacking the Minister behind the shield of Prerogative. In the fanaticism of their loyalty, they call in Scripture as the expositor of the Constitution, and would fain have us believe that to " Honour the King," to " render unto "Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," and to pay "tribute to "whom tribute is due," imply that we should implicitly submit to all the aggressions of the Crown, support a corrupt Administration, applaud the war, and cheerfully bear the income-tax: that is, in plain words, political liberty is discountenanced by Christianity as incompatible with civil obedience, and the English Constitution which expressly recognises the doctrine of resistance, that ultimate resource,' as De Lolme terms it, of an oppressed people,' admits of no other conduct on the part of the Christian subject, than that which the Apostle enjoined on the tumultuary Jews, on their becoming converts to Christianity in the days of Nero.*

* It is perhaps unnecessary to say, that in making these remarks, we have no personal reference. But we shall take this occasion of bestowing a very few words more on the Rev. John Scott. Our allusion to the venerated name of the Rector of Aston Sandford, has

M. de Chateaubriand has in a few emphatic words exposed the fallacious notions of the Ultras of France. 'Our business

led this gentleman actually to drag his excellent father before the public, for the purpose of gravely shaking his stick at us. We have the highest respect for the Rev. T. Scott's theological knowledge, and for his piety; but if his political opinions are indeed such as this letter would lead us to imagine, we do not hesitate to say, that they are in our view not more at variance with the principles of the English Constitution, than with the dictates of reason and of Scripture.

As Protestant Dissenters, we seldom feel disposed to concede a point to authority, nor do we wish to give importance to our own opinions by a name; but the following remarks from the pen of the Rev. Robert Hall, are at once so apposite and so judicious, that we do not hesitate to transcribe them.

That (passage of Scripture) on which the greatest stress is laid, (by those who condemn the exertions of Christians in the cause of freedom,) is found in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans : "Let every soul be subject," &c. This passage, which, from the time of Sir Robert Filmer to the present day, has been the strong hold of the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, will admit of an easy solution, by attending to the nature of Christianity, and the circumstances of its professors, during the period it was written. The extraordinary privileges and dignity conferred by the Gospel on believers, must have affected the minds of the first Christians, just emerging from the shades of ignorance, and awakened to new hopes, with singular force. Feeling an elevation to which they were strangers before, and looking down upon the world around them, as the vassals of sin and Satan, they might be easily tempted to imagine the restraint of laws could not extend to persons so highly privileged, and that it was ignominious in the free men of Jesus Christ to submit to the yoke of idolatrous rulers. Natural to their situation as these sentiments might be, none could be conceived of more detrimental to the credit and propagation of a rising religion, or more likely to draw down upon its professors the whole weight of the Roman empire, with which they were in no condition to contend. In this situation, it was proper for the Apostle to remind Christians, their religion did not interfere with the rights of princes, or diminish their obligation to attend to those salutary regulations, which are established for the protection of innocence, and the punishment of the guilty. That this only was the intention of the writer, may be inferred from the considerations he adduces to strengthen his advice. He does not draw his arguments for submission from any thing peculiar to the Christian system, as he must have done, had he intended to oppose that religion to the natural rights of mankind, but from the utility and necessity of civil restraints. The Ruler is the Minister of God to thee for good, is the reason he urges for submission. Civil government, as if he had said, is a salutary institution, appointed to restrain and punish outrage and injustice, but exhibiting to the quiet

' is with the Minister, not with the King:' with the Minister as responsible for the acts of Government. This responsibility implies that the duties of Government have a respect to the rights of the people, and that the people, through the medium of their representatives, are warranted in calling the Ministry to account for the administration of its delegated power. This power on the part of their rulers, and this liberty on the part of the subject, rest on exactly the same basis: both originate in law, and both are circumscribed by law. Surely this is not the period when the awful and much-abused responsibility of ministers ought to be treated as a chimera, or annulled out of courtesy, by any men who wish well to their country.

We return to M. de Chateaubriand. He is fearful that his exposition of the principles of a Representative Government, will tend to reduce the monarch, according to the notions of some of the Royalists, to a mere idol which we adore, but which has neither motion nor power.' To combat this mistake, he proceeds to rehearse, in a style bordering closely upon poetry, the

and inoffensive, nothing of which they need be afraid. If thou doest that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the "sword in vain.” He is an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Christians were not to consider themselves privileged above their fellowcitizens, as their religion conferred upon them no civil immunities, but left them subject to all the ties and restraints, whatever they were, which could be justly imposed by the civil power, or any other part of mankind.

The limits of every duty must be determined by its reasons, and the only ones assigned here, or that can be assigned for submission to civil authority, are its tendencies to do good; wherever therefore this shall cease to be the case, submission becomes absurd, having no longer any rational view. But at what time this evil shall be judged to have arrived, or what remedy it may be proper to apply, Christianity does not decide, but leaves to be determined by an appeal to natural reason and right. By one of the strongest misconceptions in the world, when we are taught that Christianity does not bestow upon us any new rights, it has been thought to strip us of our old which is just the same as it would be to conclude, that because it did not first furnish us with hands or feet, it obliges us to cut them off.

• Under every form of government, that civil order which affords protection to property, and tranquillity to individuals, must be obeyed; and I have no doubt, that before the revolution in France, they who are now its warmest admirers, had they lived there, would have yielded a quiet submission to its laws, as being conscious the social compact can only be considered as dissolved, by an expression of the general will.'-Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom. By Robert Hall, M. A. 8vo. 1791. pp. 42-6.