who wish to please him are suddenly struck with admiration for that amusement. They dote on horses; they delight in driving to the cover-side; they pat the necks of the beautiful animals,' and praise the red coats of their masters. Nay, examples have been known of their donning scarlet habits, and risking their necks, to attract some coveted Nimrod. If a man be fond of theatricals, then each lady who aspires to win him is dying to act too. She discovers that the amateur far excels the best actor on the stage. His tragic acting is so affecting (affected she means); and, having persuaded him that he is the only Romeo alive, she hopes to be selected as his Juliet. Military men are courted, by the female aspirants flocking to reviews, and doting on martial music. Yachters are vanquished by delicate women, who tremble at the bare idea of a storm, and turn pale at a high wave, declaring that they are nowhere so happy as at sea;' that a yacht is infinitely preferable to a house, and a sailor's life the most agreeable thing in the world, except that of being his wife.' It is thus that ladies in England administer to the weakness of the sterner sex,' and subjugate them (apropos of the word subjugate, a man said, two days ago, that subjugate and conjugate were synonymous); while you, in la belle France, exact that deferential homage which is woman's due, and to which she cannot resign her claims, without being guilty of a want of respect towards her whole sex. I attribute the mauvaise manière of the Englishmen of fashion to the want of dignity of the women. The long war took so many men away, that, owing to their scarcity, they became more in demand, and the claimants were so numerous, that the claimed grew saucy. This, I imagine, first led to the unnatural system of the men being courted instead of courting; a practice to which they have now become so used, that I know not how it is ever to be eradicated. A French grisette would expect-ay, and exact, too-more attention than a London fine lady dreams of meeting from the men of her circle."

The sarcasms with which the authoress treats many of the customs of high life both in London and Paris are pungent in the extreme, and chiefly so on account of the truth and correct sentiments which her strictures contain. For example, abiding at home, for we will not travel abroad to find themes for her excellent reproofs and exposures, it is said,

"Sunday after Sunday (but only on this magical day) crowds of our sex may be seen toiling to the Zoological Gardens, to exhibit at once their gay clothes, flirtations, and the proofs of their addiction to the study of natural history, in their accompanying an extensive train of biped animals; who, though far more ridiculous, are infinitely less amusing than those in the surrounding cages.

"Ask them why they frequent this place, Sabbath after Sabbath, having long since exhausted their naïve observations on the monkeys, and they will tell you that every one comes-there is such a crowd;' and that on this day alone the mob-their synonyme for people-cannot get in; and, therefore, they select it. In my simplicity, I ventured to comment on the absurdity of excluding the reputable and intelligent mechanics, and

their wives and daughters, from the garden, the only day their avocations allowed them a few hours for recreation.

"I was answered by, Fancy how dreadful it would be for us to have such people nez-à-nez avec nous at every turn! Oh, it would be insupportable !'

"I cannot fancy,' resumed I, that there could be anything at all insupportable in it; au contraire, the seeing new and agreeable faces, and witnessing the enjoyment of those who have fewer sources of pleasure than we possess, would be more animating than encountering the vapid countenances that people have been yawning at every night during the season; and who look as weary at beholding us, as we are at looking at them. It has been said by one of their most remarkable poets-one, too, of their own rank-that the English fashionables are as tired as they are tiresome but this fact, like the secrets of free-masonry, is attempted to be concealed, lest new votaries should be deterred from entering the lethargic circle.""

The exclusive West-end litterateurs are thus shown up.

"The exclusive circle is at war with genius and talent, though their vanity often induces them to draw to their dull routs and prosy dinners, those who are considered to possess either of these attributes in an eminent degree. They think it looks well' (another favourite phrase) to see among the aristocratic names that are every day announced in the newspapers, as having partaken of their ostentatious hospitalities, those that form the aristocracy of genius; for they imagine themselves modern Mæcenases, who patronise poets and philosophers, from the association with whom they expect to derive distinction. For gentle dulness they have a peculiar predilection-from sympathy, I suppose; a fellow-feeling being said to make men wondrous kind. A few of the houses with the most pretensions to literary taste have their tame poets and petits litterateurs, who run about as docile, and more parasitical, than lap-dogs; and, like them, are equally well-fed, ay, and certainly equally spoiled. The dull plaisanteries, thrice-told anecdotes, and resumés of the scandal of each week, served up réchauffes by these pigmies of literature, are received most graciously by their patrons, who agree in opinion with the French writer,

'Nul n'aura de l'esprit

Hors nous et nos amis.""

At the risk of exceeding all reasonable bounds with our extracts, we offer another, persuaded at the same time that not one of our readers will feel it tiresome, uninstructive, or destitute of remarkable point and applicable fitness. Well has her ladyship chosen, as respects her motto, and well has she filled up its meaning. A better commentary could not proceed from the pulpit or lecturer's desk. Tis you that say it, not I: you do the deeds,

And your ungodly deeds find me the words.

"The unmarried men in London are remarkable for a degree of selfishness, indulged even to an oblivion of all else, and for a prudent forethought, even in their affections, not so much the result of wisdom, as VOL. II. (1837). No. 1.

I

the dictate of this all-engrossing egotism. Venus herself, without a fortune, could hardly tempt them to wear any other fetters than those of her cestus; while a very Gorgon, with a large domain, would soon find them eager candidates for the hymeneal chains. They regard every young beauty with distrust and alarm, as having designs on their freedom; or as being likely, by their fascinations, to tempt them into a rash marriage, which they consider as the premature grave of their selfish enjoyments. They look on dowerless wedlock, as on death, a misfortune to be encountered, perhaps, at some remote period; when age and infirmity prevent the pursuit of pleasures, or satiety has palled them. With the distant prospect of settling down at last with some fair young being, who is to be the soother of his irritability, and the nurse of his infirmities, the man of pleasure systematically and ruthlessly pursues a round of heartless dissipation; until his health broken, and his spirits jaded, he selects his victim, and, in the uncongenial union (which, like the atrocious cruelty of Mezentius, chains the living to the dead), seeks the reward of his selfishness. The men forming the upper class generally marry for what they term love, which is nothing more than an evanescent caprice, an envie to possess some object not otherwise to be obtained. They are so little in the habit of denying themselves anything they conceive necessary to their pleasure, that one of their race makes little more difficulty of marrying the girl that has struck his fancy, than he does of buying some celebrated horse, for which he has to pay an extravagant price, and probably gets tired of one as soon as the other. During the first brief months-say three or four-of his union, he considers and treats his young wife, not as the dear friend and companion of his life, the future mother of his children, but as an object of passion; to be idolised while the passion continues, and to be left in loveless solitude-cast, like a faded flower, away-the moment satiety is experienced. She has been indulged to folly, doted on to infatuation, for three months; and then, spoiled by flattery, and corrupted by unwise uxoriousness, she sees herself first neglected, and ultimately abandoned, to bear, as best she may, this humiliating, this torturing change. If she loves her husband, jealousy, with all its envenomed pangs, assails her young breast. She knows how ardently, how madly, he can adore, compares his present undisguised coldness with the fervour of the happy past, and concludes (not in general without cause), that another object has usurped her place in his heart. Love, pride, and jealous rage are now in arms; and how strong must be the virtue, and how steadfast the principles, that enable her to resist the temptations offered by vanity and vengeance! Reproaches or tears await the inconstant at home; his selfishness makes him loathe both, and he seeks abroad a dedommagement for the ennui they produce. The result generally is, that his wife either breaks her heart or her marriage vows, or sinks into that humiliating and humiliated being, an unloved and unpitied hypochondriac; who details her wrongs and maladies, in a whining tone, to the vegetating dowagers and spinsters who have no better occupation than to listen to the tedious catalogue."

115

ART. XII.-General History of Civilization in Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution. Translated from the French of M. Guizor. Oxford: Talboys, 1837.

MANY persons are in the habit of decrying the study of political economy, and asserting that it leads to no practical benefits; while others, who do not go so far, deny the claims which its professors and advocates set up, when they call it a science. There is a kindred objection sometimes taken to the phrase the "Philosophy of History," which to a great extent is synonimous with that of the "Science of Political Economy." To our apprehension, however, there appears no unreasonable assumption in the use of the words philosophy and science when applied to the departments of investigation referred to. What is it which is required to come up to the lofty demands of these terms, but that a branch of study be capable of being improved by inductive reasoning, and that when one truth has been legitimately established, it give the inquirer a new and more advanced footing in the world of facts, and prepare him to make another stride, which, without having gained the last stage, he could not, in all probability, have ever taken? Facts are the great staple in which for philosophy or science to traffic-and so long as this is the case-that human nature and the laws that govern the universe are the same in the same circumstances-so long as cause and effect are indissolubly connected-history may be treated philosophically, and political economy be susceptible of scientific deduction and arrangement. For where are facts more abundant than in the history of a nation and of mankind? And where is there more scope or more occasion to trace the connection of these, their dependance, and ramifications, than in the history of mankind as a race, whose interests here and destinies hereafter are so grand and surpassingly important? And thus to be engaged is to philosophize-the deductions thence derived amount to a magnificent science.

The difficulty and the danger that arise in the department under consideration—that is, in an investigation into the conditions and alterations which are always occurring among our species, particularly in a civilized state-lay in giving due allowance for each of the many distinct and complex causes which co-exist, and are continually crossing and counteracting one another. So that, to use the words of an able author on civilization, it may happen, that "however clearly it may be shown in theory that a certain effect is produced by a particular cause, a hundred instances may perhaps be adduced in which that cause has been followed by no such effect." It is therefore necessary to bear in mind, when it is said a certain cause will produce a certain result, corresponding with what has uniformly occurred on previous occasions, as ascertained by patient

observation, that the meaning must be-provided other causes capable of counteracting it are not in operation. We find in the volume before us, views corroborative of some of those now taken.

"It has been the custom for some time past, and very properly, to talk of the necessity of confining history to facts: nothing can be more just. But it would be almost absurd to suppose that there are no facts but such as are material and visible: there are moral, hidden facts, which are no less real than battles, wars, and the public acts of government. Besides these individual facts, each of which has its proper name, there are others of a general nature, without a name, of which it is impossible to say that they happened in such a year, or on such a day, and which it is impossible to confine within any precise limits, but which are yet just as much facts as the battles and public acts of which we have spoken. That very portion, indeed, which we are accustomed to hear called the philosophy of history -which consists in shewing the relation of events with each other-the chain which connects them-the causes and effects of events-this is history just as much as the description of battles, and all the other exterior events which it recounts. Facts of this kind are undoubtedly more difficult to unravel; the historian is more liable to deceive himself respecting them; it requires more skill to place them distinctly before the reader; but this difficulty does not alter their nature: they still continue not a whit the less, for all this, to form an essential part of history."

We may add, that though the obstacles which impede the way to the perfecting of history upon ascertained philosophical principles exist, no good reason thence arises why the study should not be ardently pursued, and the most careful methods adopted for overcoming such difficulties. Quite the contrary; while it ought also to be borne in mind, that as to many of the leading principles in this department, no extraordinary difficulty exists with respect to access or discovery.

M. Guizot, in the present series of lectures, describes civilization as one of those very intangible facts in history, to which part of the foregoing extract alludes-stating that it is not only scarcely to be seized, but so complicated as scarcely to be unravelled, and so hidden as scarcely to be discernible-that the difficulty of describing it, of recounting its parts and progress, is apparent and acknowledged-but still that its existence, its worthiness to be described and to be recounted, are not less certain and manifest.

In this manner M. Guizot introduces the subject of the present series of lectures-a subject, than which, unquestionably, few or none can be more important or arresting; for what is civilization but the result of knowledge and virtue?-Nay, it is knowledge and virtue themselves, in a combined and loving relationship. Yet there exist opposite opinions regarding this united entity-for it has been asked whether it be a blessing or a curse?-and one party has said no, and another, yes-one decries it as teeming with mischief to the very beings whom it professes to benefit, while another lauds it