existing French despotism, have already dimmed the recollections of the democratic phrenzy in the minds of men; by little and little, have drawn off to other objects the electric force of the feelings, which had massed and upholden those recollections; and that a favourable concurrence of occasions is alone wanting to awaken the thunder and precipitate the lightning from the opposite quarter of the political heaven. The true origin of human events is so little susceptible of that kind of evidence which can compel our belief even against our will; and so many are the disturbing forces which modify the motion given by the first projection; and every age has, or imagines it has, its own circumstances which render past experience no longer applicable to the present case; that there will never be wanting answers and explanations, and specious flatteries of hope. I well remember, that when the examples of former Jacobins, Julius Cæsar, Cromwell, &c. were adduced in France and England at the commencement of the French Consulate, it was ridiculed as pedantry and pedants' ignorance, to fear a repetition of such usurpation at the close of the enlightened eighteenth century. Those who possess the Moniteurs of that date will find set proofs, that such results were little less than impossible, and that it was an insult to so philosophical an age, and so enlightened a nation, to dare direct the public eye towards them as lights of admonition and warning.

It is a common weakness with official statesmen, and with those who deem themselves honoured by their acquaintance, to attribute great national events to the influence of particular persons, to the errors of one man and to the intrigues of another, to any possible spark of a particular occasion, rather than to the true cause, the predominant state of public opinion. I have known men who, with most significant nods, and the civil contempt of pitying half smiles, have declared the natural explanation of the French revolution, to be the mere fancies of garretteers, and then, with the solemnity of cabinet ministers, have proceeded to explain the whole by anecdotes. It is so stimulant to the pride of a vulgar mind, to be persuaded that it knows what few others know, and that it is the important depository of a sort of state secret, by communicating which it confers an obligation on others! But I have likewise met with men of intelligence, who at the commencement of the revolution were travelling on foot through the French provinces, and they bear witness, that in the remotest villages every tongue was employed in echoing and enforcing the doctrines of the Parisian journalists; that the public highways were crowded with enthusiasts, some shouting the watchwords of the revolution, others disputing on the most abstract principles of the universal constitution, which they fully believed, that all the nations of the earth were shortly to adopt; the most ignorant among them confident of his fitness for the

highest duties of a legislator; and all prepared to shed their blood in the defence of the inalienable sovereignty of the self-governed people. The more abstract the notions were, with the closer affinity did they combine with the most fervent feelings and all the immediate impulses to action. The Lord Chancellor Bacon lived in an age of court intrigues, and was familiarly acquainted with all the secrets of personal influence. He, if any man, was qualified to take the gauge and measurement of their comparative power; and he has told us, that there is one, and but one infallible source of political prophecy, the knowledge of the predominant opinions and the speculative principles of men in general, between the age of twenty and thirty. Sir Philip Sidney, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, the paramount gentleman of Europe, the nephew, andas far as a good man could be-the confidant of the intriguing and dark-minded Earl of Leicester,was so deeply convinced that the principles diffused through the majority of a nation are the true oracles from whence statesmen are to learn wisdom, and that when the people speak loudly it is from their being strongly possessed either by the godhead or the dæmon, that in the revolution of the Netherlands he considered the universal adoption of one set of principles, as a proof of the divine pre'If Her Majesty,' says he,' were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means

sence.

which God useth.' But if my readers wish to see the question of the efficacy of principles and popular opinions for evil and for good proved and illustrated with an eloquence worthy of the subject, I can refer them with the hardiest anticipation of their thanks, to the late work concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal, by my honoured friend, William Wordsworth, quem quoties lego, non verba mihi videor audire, sed tonitrua.*

That erroneous political notions-they having become general and a part of the popular creedhave practical consequences, and these, of course, of a most fearful nature, is a truth as certain as

ness,

*I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation of, the work above mentioned, not as a voluntary tribute of admiration, but as an act of mere justice both to myself and to the readers of The Friend. My own heart bears me witthat I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth of the principles, which it has been and still more will be my endeavour to enforce, and of their paramount importance to the well-being of society at the present juncture: and that the duty of making the attempt, and the hope of not wholly failing in it, are, far more than the wish for the doubtful good of literary reputation, or any yet meaner object, my great and ruling motives. Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-labourer in the same vineyard, actuated by the same motives and teaching the same principles, but with far greater powers of mind, and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and majesty of the cause. I am strengthened too by the knowledge, that I am not unauthorized by the sympathy of many wise and good men, and men acknowledged as such by the public, in my admiration of his pamphlet.--Ne

historic evidence can make it: and that when the feelings excited by these calamities have passed away, and the interest in them has been displaced by more recent events, the same errors are likely to be started afresh, pregnant with the same calamities, is an evil rooted in human nature in the present state of general information, for which we have hitherto found no adequate remedy. It may, perhaps in the scheme of Providence, be proper and conducive to its ends, that no adequate remedy should exist for the folly of men is the wisdom of God. But if there be any means, if not of preventing, yet of palliating, the disease, and, in the

que enim debet operibus ejus obesse, quod vivit. An si inter eos, quos numquam vidimus, floruisset, non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis, et gratia quasi satictate languescet? At hoc pravum, malignumque est, non admirari hominem admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, alloqui, audire complecti, nec laudare tantum, verum etiam amare, contingit. PLIN. Epis. Lib. I. 16.

It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act under the fear that he shall be suspected by honest men of the vileness of praising a work to the public, merely because he happens to be personally acquainted with the author. That this is so commonly done in reviews, furnishes only an additional proof of the morbid hardness produced in the moral sense by the habit of writing anonymous criticisms, especially under the further disguise of a pretended board or association of critics, each man expressing himself, to use the words of Andrew Marvel, as a synodical individuum. With regard, however, to the probability of being warped by partiality, I can only say that I judge of all works