Lord John Russell has said that no government can withstand a combination of the stupid and the foolish; and, with the aid of government, Lord John himself has now gone far towards bringing to demonstration the truth of that proposition. But there is always a third party in such combinations: between such persons as he has designated, and the skilful knaves' of the world, there is a never-failing relation; and it has been said by one, whose worldly wisdom has never been impeached, that wherever 'there are collected numbers of the former, we may be sure that they are directed by the latter.' And folly itself is far from implying innocence or even harmlessness,-so far, indeed, that the word is used in Scripture to denote the greatest possible degree of guilt. There are men who put up their prayers (their only prayers) to that spirit of revolution which is now abroad:Oh great corrector of enormous times; Shaker of o'er-rank states; thou grand decider The earth when it is sick, and curest the world O' the pleurisy of people! In this light it is that the best of those men, they who give themselves credit for cosmopolitan, patriotic, and utilitarian motives, look upon that spirit, that -most unbounded tyrant, whose successes Make heaven unfear'd, and villainy assured Beyond its power there's nothing; almost puts Voluble chance! Stupendous as is the folly of such men, their guilt is yet greater. Bishop Reynolds, who enumerates among the causes of disloyal affections that indignation which grows out of errors in government, when men perceive that foolish and unworthy persons are advanced,' applies many denunciations in scripture against such as attempt to alter the long-established and wholesome constitutions of nations and people, and do rashly overrun the foundations of laws and customs: such changes,' he says, are usually mortiferous to the undertakers of them. Not many years ago it was related in the newspapers, that some labourers who were employed in Ireland to take down an old bridge, set about their work by getting under it, and forcing up the key-stone; upon which the arch fell, and sent them, boat and all, to the bottom. Vested rights are the key-stone of our social edifice: if once it be practically admitted that they may be sacrificed to an abstract principle, and a popular cry,,—that' a breath unmakes them as a breath has made, there will soon be no more security for private than for public rights, for individual than for corporate possessions: titledeeds deeds will be worth as little as charters; whatever will not bear the test of that abstract principle of utility by which the Sovereign People's Most Excellent Majesty (such is the designation seriously given in a paper called The Republican') may think proper to try it, will be swept away. Hear, ye deaf! and look, ye blind, that ye may see!" There are in this country (favoured as it has been above all others) many evils which might be abated or lessened; much misery that might be prevented or alleviated; much wickedness that might be curbed and corrected. There is abundant need and work for a really reforming government. But it is not in the quiet, patient, laborious, unostentatious course of duty that popularity is either sought or gained. Ministers who came into office with a question which they had like a wolf by the ears, not knowing whether to hold or let go,' have let it loose; with what motives and what conscience, God will judge, with what issue, we and our posterity shall feel. Overturn! overturn! is the cry which has gone forth; and all but those who expect either to find their own advantage, or their safety, by joining in it, foresee that this nation will find itself at the end as the shepherd who taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear.' Soon there will remain to be attacked nothing but the distinctions of society, that is to say, rank and fortune. The one is already threatened, loudly and insolently in some journals, and sometimes by insinuation, sometimes in a sneer, sometimes without disguise, by that notorious newspaper, which is universally believed to act under the personal influence of certain members of the cabinet, and has openly received the protection of government, after the most daring and most dangerous insult to the House of Commons that has been offered since the days of the Long Parliament. The levellers threaten the other. We say nothing of their numbers, though that point might deserve the consideration of those who think it wise and justifiable to appeal to the people upon questions which affect the whole fabric of government, when the passions of that people are inflamed to the highest degree. But let no man despise either their arguments or their ability. Prima facie, they have a fair case; they know its strength, and they know their own. They know also that all the reforms which are so loudly called for, and so largely promised, can be of no possible benefit to them, unless as so many steps toward the removal of the only inequality by which human happiness is really affected. They are mistaken in supposing that a state of equality is possible in the present condition of human nature; or that, if possible, it would not lower the standard of civilization, and be incompatible with that freedom which every man in this kingdom possesses now, whether he enjoys or abuses it. (This is a question a question upon which we will enter in a future number, with the diligence and research that it requires.) They are mistaken in thinking that the rich are too rich, or that social good could ever spring from a dislocation of society; but they are not mistaken when they say that the poor are too poor-that their condition might be amended, and that it ought to be amended; and till it shall be amended they see before them (and who does not see?) the materials for instigating a bellum servile. That man,' as an old writer says, ' is in a lethargy, who doth not now sensibly feel God shaking the heavens over his head, and the earth under his feet.' ART. V.-Outlines of History. London. 18mo. 1830. ACCORDING to Plato, human souls are ætherial spirits, which, unable to attend the triumphant career of the heavenly choir in their progress through the spheres, have sunk to the terrestrial regions, and been imprisoned in corruptible bodies. Even in this state, however, there are various and important gradations. He distributes these degraded spirits into nine classes, the first of which animates the bodies of true philosophers, and, in general, the men of comprehensive sympathies. The five succeeding classes need no description here, and we shall content ourselves with delineating the three lowest. The seventh class of spirits animates the agriculturist and artisan; the eighth, the sophist and demagogue; and the ninth, the tyrant. Plato evidently hints that each of these individual spirits passes in rotation through each of these nine steps, and that the happiness of mankind depends on the class which may at any given period predominate; and it may perhaps be worth a page to apply the reveries of the ancient philosopher to the events of the passing time-to endeavour to evolve eternal truth from the fantastic imagery in which he has enveloped it-in the language of the poet, to unsphere his spirit,' and gather from old experience' some intimation of the probable future; for, Plato, after all, was no mere cloister-dreamer, and however strange it may sound in the ears of our modern sciolists, the experience of the later Greeks in the practical tendencies of the various forms of government was incomparably more extensive than all that the history of modern states can furnish. They had seen, for themselves, government after government proceed from limited monarchy to aristocracy, and then degenerate into lawless democracy, from which the transition to tyranny was rapid and inevitable. They had witnessed each successive change, and marked, with observant eye, its origin, progress, and results. Writing as we do in June, 1831, it assuredly does not require a power a power of observation, quickened by the experience of an Athenian, to perceive that we are in a transition state; that our age is passing from the long-sustained domination of the agricul tural and manufacturing genii; and that the more malignant demons of the sophist and the demagogue are rapidly taking possession of the persons of our rulers. The sophist indeed no longer parades our streets, and offers his mercenary instructions in the art of making the worse appear the better reason, and of confounding the eternal distinctions between truth and falsehood, right and wrong; but, shrouded in the obscurity of a garret, daily commits to all the winds of heaven his pestilent doctrines, and, in virtue of his concealment, claiming an oracular infallibility, deals in assertions equally unfounded and flagitious. The demagogue, unchanged in character, exhibits the same deceptive arts and unwearied assiduity; and although twenty centuries have elapsed since Cleon led the mob of Athens, and Hyperbolus caused even the rabble to blush at the absurdities of their idol, we may still recognise the same spirits enacting the same parts, though in different persons, on the English and Irish stage. The catastrophe of this drama, as exemplified in ancient history, is familiar to every school-boy. What infatuation, then, prevents our applying this knowledge to the events passing before our eyes? Why should we hesitate, with these facts before us, to admit the inevitable conclusion, that unless the better spirits be roused into instant and strenuous exertions, the domination of the base will be established, only to be succeeded by the last and lowest geniusthat of the solitary tyrant? In a word, the shallow conceit which would sneer at the standing records of history, as equally worthless with the pages of a superannuated Ephemeris, is in fashion in high places; but not yet, we hope, so firmly established that we shall excite nothing but a smile by an attempt, in spite of the Plunketian doctrine, to illustrate the present state and probable prospects of our own country, by a brief reference to some of the grand outlines of the Grecian and Roman Old Almanack.' The earliest form in which the Athenian government presents itself to the inquirer, is that of a limited monarchy, under which it offers few materials for history, because the people were happy at home and respected abroad. The Dorian irruption, pregnant with great events, excited a spirit hitherto unknown, and gave a totally new impulse to the minds of the inhabitants. The changes, however, which they adopted were neither violent nor precipitate. When Codrus perished by an act of patriotic selfdevotion, they abolished the kingly name and office, but continued the sovereignty in his family under the new title of Archon, or or president, who enjoyed his office during life. Years passed away under this new form, during which Athens enjoyed peace and prosperity, for the change to which she had been subjected was more nominal than real. A greater and more vital change, however, was effected on the extinction of the dynasty of the Medontidæ, for so were the descendants of Codrus entitled. At this period the archonship was rendered a decennial office, and thrown open to all families of noble descent; a measure, in itself revolutionary, and destined to continue in force no longer than seventy years. A still wider step toward democracy was then taken; the duration of the office was limited to a single year, and the number of holders increased to ten. Then commenced the fearful double struggle in which we are already engaged-the struggle between contending factions of the nobility on one hand, and that between the popular body and the dis-united and tottering aristocracy on the other. Sedition, civil war, and every other domestic and political misfortune were the unhappy consequences, until the people, wearied with their suicidal contests, and convinced that the whole social fabric had dissolved into its primitive elements, delegated to Solon the task of re-organising the state. The most perfect reconstruction which he could devise, or rather perhaps which the temper of the times allowed him to effect, was the establishment of a timocracy, in which the several classes of citizens were arranged with reference principally to property, and which entirely excluded persons below a certain census from eligibility to office. As a check to the too great influence of wealth on the one hand, and the undue ascendency of ambitious talent over the popular deliberations on the other, he created, or rather perhaps new-modelled, the celebrated court of the Areopagus: to this body, composed of the oldest, wisest, and most experienced citizens, he intrusted the power of annulling all unworthy elections, of restraining all rash innovations, and of rejecting every law which was not found to harmonize with the settled principles of the constitution. The vigour of the vital principle which this wise legislator breathed into his institutions may best be estimated by considering that the absolute, though most equitable government of Pisistratus, was conducted without in any degree violating their principles or forms. Their intrinsic equity and adaptation to the habits of the people gave them an elasticity which firmly supported any change in the form of the executive. Under the shadow of this admirable constitution, the public mind of Athens flourished in genial beauty and luxuriance; it developed a vigour which the most gigantic efforts of foreign foes could never arrest, and put forth blossoms whose fragrance will never cease to breathe the choicest perfumes |