from the path of cool argument, and lead him to substitute invective for enquiry, and the deepest lamentations instead of more fober difapprobation. If we except the effects of long received opinions, perhaps of prejudices, declamation occafionally too florid, and refentment a little too acrimonious, the Reflections on the Revolution in France is one of the most able, the most eloquent, and most interefting works that has appeared on this or any other political fubject for a long series of years. The Reflections are addrefied, in the form of a letter, to a young gentleman at Paris, who requested our author's opinion on this very extraordinary event. The letter was fent, and a fuller examination was requested. The circumftance above alluded to feems to have led Mr. Burke into a more extenfive difcuffion of the queftion; and, as in the first examination, the epiftolary ftyle was continued in the future difquifition.

Mr. Burke's correfpondent fuppofed that the late events in France were approved by him, as they were applauded by the Revolution and Conftitutional Societies, with fome of whose members our author was politically connected. But with these inftitutions Mr. Burke owns no correfpondence: he speaks of them with a cool contempt, which will be differently characterized according to the opinions of thofe who read his obfervations. To fome it will appear unmerited and infolent; to others, juft and well applied. Of the objects of the Conflitutional Society he feems to know little, except it be to circulate conflitutional works, of the greater part of which, he never heard a man of common judgment, or the leaft degree of information, speak a word in praife. The Revolution Society we must defcribe in his own words.

• Your national affembly feems to entertain much the fame opinion that I do of this poor charitable club. As a nation, you referved the whole ftock of your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution Society; when their fellows in the Constitutional were, in equity, entitled to fome fhare. Since you have felected the Revolution Society as the great object of your national thanks and praises, you will think nie excufeable in making its late conduct the fubject of my obfervations. The national affembly of France has given importance to thefe gentlemen by adopting them; and they return the favour, by acting as a fort of fub-committee in England for extending the principles of the national affembly. Henceforward we must confider them as a kind of privileged perfons; as no inconfiderable members in the diplomatic body. This is one among the revolutions which have given fplendour to obscurity, and diftinction to undifcerned merit. Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite fure that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts; no, I believe, thofe of any perfon out of their

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own fet. I find, upon enquiry, that on the anniversary of the Revolution in 1688, a club of Diffenters, but of what denomina tion I know not, have long had the custom of hearing a fermon in one of their churches; and that afterwards they spent the day chearfully, as other clubs do, at the tavern. But I never heard that any public meafure, or political fyftem, much lefs that the merits of the constitution of any foreign nation, had been the fubject of a formal proceeding at their fellivals; until, to my inexpreffible furprize, I found them in a fort of public capacity, by a congratulatory addrefs, giving an authoritative fanction to the proceedings of the National Affembly in France.

In the ancient principles and conduct of the club, so far at least as they were declared, I fee nothing to which I, or any fober man, could poffibly take exception. I think it very probable, that for fome purpose, new members may have entered among them; and that fome truly Chriflian politicians, who love to difpenfe benefits, but are careful to conceal the hand which diftributes the dole, may have made them the inftruments of their pious defigns. Whatever I may have reafon to fufpect concerning private management, I shall speak of nothing as of a certainty, but what is public.

For one, I fhould be forry to be thought, directly or indirectly, concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full fhare, along with the rest of the world, in my individual and private capacity, in fpeculating on what has been done, or is doing, on the public stage; in any place ancient and modern; in the republic of Rome, or the republic of Paris: but having no general apoftolical miflion, being a citizen of a particular state, and being bound up in a confiderable degree, by its public will, I fhould think it, at leaft improper and irregu lar, for me to open a formal public correfpondence with the actual government of a foreign nation, without the exprefs authority of the government under which I live.

Ifhould be still more unwilling to enter into that cotrefpondence, under any thing like an equivocal defeription, which to many unacquainted with our ufages, might make the addrefs, in which I joined, appear as the act of perfons in fome fort of corporate capacity, acknowledged by the laws of this kingdom, and authorized to fpeak the fenfe of fome part of it. On account of the ambiguity and uncertainty of unauthorized general defcriptions, and of the deceit which may be practifed under them, and not from mere formality, the houfe of commons would reject the most fneaking petition for the most trifling object, under that mode of fignature to which you have thrown open the folding doors of your prefence-chamber, and have ushered into your national affembly, with as much cerenony and parade, and with as great a buftle of applaufe, as if you had been vifited by the whole reprefentative majefty of the whole English nation. If what this fociety has thought proper to fend forth had been a piece of argument, it would have fignified

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little whofe argument it was. It would be neither the more nor the lefs convincing on account of the party it came from. But this is only a vote and refolation. It stands folely on authority; and in this cafe it is the mere authority of individuals, few of whom appear. Their fignatures ought, in my opinion, to have been annexed to their infrument. The world would then have the means of knowing how many they are; who they are; and of what value their opinions may be, from their perforal abilities, from their knowledge, their experience, or their lead and authority in this state. To me, who am but a plain man, the proceeding looks a little too refined, and too ingenious; it has too much the air of a political ftratagem, adopted for the fake of giving, under an high founding name, an importance to the public declarations of this club, which, when the matter came to be clofely infpected, they did not altogether fo well deferve. It is a policy that has very much the complexion of a fraud.'

Our author then proceeds more particularly to his subject. He fpeaks in praife of a juft, rational, and manly liberty. Government is alfo not less essential to the happiness of mankind; and he profeffes himself not quite fo Quixotic as to congratulate a highwayman after his efcape from prifon, on the recovery of his natural rights.' He cannot congratulate France on the recovery of her liberty, till he fees whether it be a blessing; till he finds how it is combined with government, with public force, with the difcipline and obedience of armies, with the collection of an effective well established revenue, with morality and religion, with the folidity of property, with peace and order, with civil and focial manners.' All this is juft; and, if the affembly from their first inftitution had taken one decifive ftep to afcertain and perpetuate thefe valuable purposes, we fhould think that they deferved the liberty they had laboured to obtain.

The scene is, however, very different: the affembly is a difcordant mafs, which may in time fettle into order, and produce fome national benefit; but, at prefent, Mr. Burke's very strong and figurative defcription is fcarcely an exaggerated one. Yet this affembly has had its patrons, its defenders, and its eager idolaters. We have already followed Dr. Price's political fermon, and can chearfully praife every part of Mr. Burke's argument in oppofition to the unconstitutional doctrines of that difcourfe, which he mixes, perhaps improperly, with the moft marked and mortifying contempt. Thefe Reflections will have their opponents without number: if we fhould be in time to give one hint to the eager zealot, in favour of the reverend calculator, we should advife him to guard againft too indifcriminate commendation, and caert all his powers in proving Dr. Price's doctrines

doctrines are conftitutional, and his conduct truly patriotic. Mr. Burke's chief object is that part, which fays our king is the onİy lawful monarch, because the only one who owes his crown to the choice of his people. On the contrary, the author of the Reflections fhows, with great force of argument and depth of conftitutional knowledge, that every lawful defcendent, by the ftatute of limitations, is a lawful monarch; Nati natorum & qui nafcuntur ab illis, independent of every choice. We truft we have shown on the other hand, that he is not the phantom, the flave fet up to gaze at, and to ferve; but a true, feparate, and independent part of the conftitution. Let us add our author's continuation of this argument,

Kings in one fenfe, are undoubtedly the fervants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary fenfe (by our conftitution, at least) any thing like fervants; the effence of whofe fituation is to obey the commands of fome other, and to be removeable at pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no other perfon; all other perfons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience. The law which knows neither to flatter not to infult, calls this high magistrate, not our fervant as this humble divine calls him, but our fovereign Lord the King;" and we, on our parts, have learned to speak only the primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their Babylonian pulpits.

As he is not to obey us, but as we are to obey the law in him, our conflitution has made no fort of provision towards rendering him, as a fervant, in any degree refponfible. Our conftitution knows nothing of a magiftrate like the jufticia of Arragon; nor of any court legally appointed, nor of any procef, legally fettled for fubmitting the king to the refponsibility belonging to ail fervants. In this he is not diftinguished from the commons and the lords; who in their feveral public capa cities, can never be called to an account for their conduct; although the Revolution Society chooses to affert, in direct oppofition to one of the wifeft and most beautiful parts of our conftitution, that a king is no more than the firit fervant of the public, created by it, and refponible to it."

I would our ancestors at the revolution have deferved their fame for wildom, if they had found no fecurity for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its oper ations, and precarious in its tenure; if they had been able to contrive no better remedy again arbitrary power than civil confusion. Let thefe gentiemen ftate who that representative public is to whom they will affirm the king, as a fervant, to be refponfible. It will be then time enough for me to produce to them the pofitive ftatute law which affirms that he is not.'

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In anfwer to that claim of the Society, or its preacher, the right of forming a government for themfelves,' Mr. Burke, without engaging in the abstract queftion, shows that no fuch right has ever been conftitutionally afferted: the claim to liberty has uniformly been that of inheritance. We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage; and a houfe of commons, and a people inheriting privileges, franchifes, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.'

The conftitution of France was in part loft, but it was not forgotten; it wanted repairs, and had never been completed; but parts of the outline were bold, able, and masterly. Mr. Burke expoftulates very juftly with his correfpondent, on their neglect of the remaining foundations in the re-erection of their edifice. Their wild inconfiderate, it cannot be called a building, for it wants proportion, folidity, and dignity; their loose, disjointed materials, in our author's opinion, render them ridiculous, and France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings. Their attempt was, he obferves, unprovoked, and they have found their punishment in their fuccefs ’

Laws overturned, tribunals fubverted, induty without vigour, commerce expiring, the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished, a church pillaged, and a late not relieved; civil and military anarchy made the confiitution of the kingdom; every thing human and divine facrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the confequence; and to crown all, the paper fecurities of new, precarious, totsering power, the difcredited paper fecurities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the fupport of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized species that represent the lasting conventional credit of mankind, which difappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the principle of property, whofe creatures and reprefentatives they are, was fyilematically fubverted.'

If this picture is coloured more gloomily than that which we had formerly occafion to draw of France, from the works of Frenchmen, it is becaufe a few months have added to the evils, and the National Affembly have preferred difcuffions on the colour of the flags and uniforms to fecuring fubordination in the navy and army, to the prefervation of property, and the fecurity of life itself. If Mr. Burke's account be true, noahing better could be expected: the third eftate was, according to his reprefentation, difproportionally, and he adds, un*conftitutionally, large, whilst its members, at least the majoPrity, were fuch as would more probably increase the confusion than leffen it, because they had more to gain from anarchy

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