1 83 1 .] The Stale of Europe. 593 



the cry. If we found, in the language of the men who have domineered 

 at the late hustings, a single phrase from which we could extract reve- 

 rence for the sound institutions of the state, respect for the laws, or 

 homage to religioft, we should join in the cry. We should there erect 

 our standard, an^like the rest proceed to the work of renovation. But 

 what has been the language which has received the cheers of the multi- 

 tude : contempt for every thing stamped as wise, manly or necessary by 

 time ; a demand of privileges beyond the constitution, to the overthrow 

 of privileges made sacred by the constitution ; the plunder of rights, 

 found guilty without a crime ; the disfranchisement of boroughs, against 

 which no shadow of imputation lies, for the purpose of transferring their 

 franchise to men who set up no claim of merit but their multitude. The 

 speeches at the hustings have all been revolutionary ; the cheers with 

 which they have been heard, have all been the exultation of anticipated 

 overthrow, and the measures which those representatives will be com- 

 pelled to bring forward, will first shake the minister, and then shake 

 the country. 



We have not been without our experience. Revolution has not 

 started up before us full armed from the feverish brains of party, for the 

 first time. Once we saw it among ourselves ; and the days of the un- 

 happy Charles remain a blot upon our history. But, not more than forty 

 years ago, we had the same measures projected, which are startling 

 us at this moment. The catastrophe was then averted by the sufferings 

 of France. The form before which party would have commanded 

 England to fall down and worship as a beneficent deity, was seen in 

 Prance to be a spirit of darkness. The wisdom of the nation was roused ; 

 the reform was pronounced hostile to the feelings, rights, and interests 

 of England ; and its projectors were driven into utter unpopularity. 



Gibbon, a man whose knowledge and sagacity in human character 

 were unquestionable, and who had the highest opportunities of society 

 at home and abroad, a man withdrawn too from the passions of public 

 life, and with nothing to gain or lose, thus writes to his friend Lord 

 Sheffield from his retirement at Lausanne in 1790, 



" I shuddered at Grey's motion, disliked the half support of Fox, admired 

 the firmness of Pitt's declaration, and excused the usual intemperance of 

 Burke. Does the French democracy gain no ground ? Will the bulk of your 

 party stand firm to their interest, and that of their country ? If you do allow 

 them to perplex Government, if you trifle with this solemn business, if you do 

 not resist the spirit of innovation in the first attempt, if you admit the smallest 

 and most specious change in our Parliamentary system, you are lost. You will 

 be driven from one step to another from principles, just in theory, to conse- 

 quences most pernicious in practice, and your first concessions will be produc- 

 tive of every subsequent mischief, for which you will be answerable to your 

 country and to posterity. Do not suffer yourselves to be lulled into a false 

 security. Remember the proud fabric of the French Monarchy not four 

 years ago it stood, founded, as it might seem, on the rock of time, force, and 

 opinion supported by the triple aristocracy of the church, the nobility, and 

 the Parliaments. They are crumbled into dust they have vanished from the 

 earth. If this tremendous warning has no effect on the men of property in 

 England if it does not open every eye and raise every arm, you will deserve 

 your fate." 



And, again he writes on the same subject, tracing the consequences 

 of such a triumph as the Reformers now struggle to achieve : 

 M.M. New Series. VOL, XL No. 66. 4 G 



