OP ENGLISH LIBERTY. 5 



of the consular constitution, which they placed far above those of the 

 English, " You might do better with less theoretical merits and more 

 practical liberty, of which you do not possess the tenth part of the 

 English," he might have thought, on reading the panegyrics. 



In 1789 the French rejected the constitution which was oflfered to 

 them by Louis XVI on the 23rd of June, because they considered its 

 provisions defective ; yet twenty-five years afterwards they accepted, 

 with gratitude, one, in many essential points, still more faulty. Ever 

 restless and theorizing, the French began, in 1814, a new apprentice- 

 ship of political speculation, under the difficulties of a triple load of 

 taxation, compared with that of the year 1789, No administration 

 was afterwards more suitable to their actual wants and national neces- 

 sities than that of Richlieu, Decayes, and Martignac, who, with firm- 

 ness sufficient to maintain their ground, or at least to prevent them 

 from receding, were yet not bold enough to strike out any decided 

 line of advance. Yet they were dismissed in favour of declared oppo- 

 nents to national liberty, for no other reason but that they did not act 

 lip to general and theoretical principles which, however perfect in 

 themselves, were not calculated to work in harmony with the circum- 

 stances and spirit of the age. Again, in 1828, so deeply the airy 

 notions of theory had eaten into their minds, that when one of the 

 most important, secure, and unequivocal guarantees of national liberty 

 was offered to them, in the introduction of the municipal laws, it was 

 rejected with disdain because it was not more complete. 



Nor were the English at all times free from this, perhaps, natural 

 predilection for political abstract theory. Their political writers of 

 the seventeenth century exercised it, as the French do now their in- 

 tellectual capacities, in investigating and establishing subtle and pro- 

 found philosophical principles, wholly regardless of their consistency 

 with practical application ; and they escaped the fatal consequences of 

 losing the substance by catching at the shadow, only by the simple 

 harmlessness of Richard Cromwell, the thoughtlessness of Charles 

 II, and the impetuous temper of James, his brother. 



Ultimately, however, this speculative spirit subsided, and was suc- 

 ceeded by a more sober tone, the growth of a more practical habit of 

 reflection and experience. Men gradually became aware that theory 

 and practice were two distinct terms^ and they gently relaxed their 

 addiction to the former in favour of the latter ; while, satisfying them- 

 selves with a more homely and useful course of study, and surrender- 

 ing their ideal notions of perfection, they disdained not to take advan- 

 tage of the immediate state of affairs by which they were surrounded, 



