1825.] 
and another on Portugal, menacing 
with gorgan aspect the principles of 
liberalism and the rights of man! .The 
illustrious representative of the house 
of Braganza, a fearful fugitive from his 
native dominions, and looked upon with 
jealousy by his colonial subjects, deli- 
berates with mutual apprehensions 
which country to adoptas the place of 
his future residence. But 
“‘ Before the decision. was made, the army 
of Portugal, following the example of that 
in Spain, revolted, and under its auspices 
was promulgated one of those crude schemes 
of government, which, like its prototype in 
Spain, was found to be capable of producing 
nothing but—impracticability.”” 
Producing impracticability ! ! !-—- 
‘Truly this is a very new and marvellous 
species of production. We should like 
to know to what genus, class, and 
order it belongs; and whether to the 
animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom. 
The very witches of Macbeth could only 
make themselves—air / To have made 
impracticability, even they must have 
taken lessons in the occult philosophy of 
the Quarterly Reviewers. But had not 
the intrigues of perjured royalty, the 
diplomacy of Holy Allies, and the gold 
of France, or of that most royally and 
christianly benevolent of all Jews, Mr. 
Rothschild, more to do in this mar- 
vellous production of impracticability, 
(if it be indeed a producible thing /) than 
the Cortes either of Spain or Portugal 
—or those still more transient revolu- 
tionizers, who endeavoured to tread the 
same interdicted path of rights and con- 
stitutions in Lombardy and Naples ?— 
Oh!no! The reviewers tell us plainly 
enough, in divers places, that the Holy 
Allies, and the whole brood of legiti- 
mate royalty, are the holiest of holies: 
all candour, fair dealing and benevo- 
lence. That “they have not, it is true, 
at present [See p. 187, Tour in Germa- 
ny and the Austrian Empire.] granted 
constitutions” [as they promised to do, 
when they wanted their subjects’ help !] 
which “ those who imagine that consti- 
tutions can be made and adapted as fast 
as coats and waistcoats, reproach them 
for not having done’—(we should have 
thought that in the ten years which 
have elapsed since the promises of 1814, 
a pair of breeches, even, might have been 
added to the bargain!) yet that they 
are constantly and benignantly em- 
ployed in doing the business in a much 
better way : in accomplishing, by means 
of their uncontrollable power, for. the 
people, every thing which the people are 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.— No. XLI. 
15 
incapable of doing for themselves :— 
“ raising them to political influence by 
gradually fitting them.to be deposito- 
ries of it.”’ 
** It would scarcely be too much to say, 
that the Prussian government must have 
contemplated such a change; for its ad- 
ministration, during the last fourteen years, 
has been directed to produce a state of 
society in which pure despotism cannot 
long exist but by force: it has been throw- 
ing its subjects into those relations, which, 
by the very course of nature, give the, 
people political influence, by making them 
fit to exercise it.””* 
“Such, on the whole, continues the 
Reviewer,+ has been the spirit of the ad- 
minstration of Prussia, since the battle of 
Jenat—a spirit which must eventually be 
felt to the extremities of the empire, and by 
degrees leaven even the army itself—for. 
troops, which are in fact only a militia, 
serving, in succession, for three years, and 
then relapsing into simple citizens, must 
bring, into the ranks, the popular feellng, 
be it what it may.” 
.The latter part of this sentence may 
perhaps be more than plausible; and it 
might perhaps be added that these 
triennial soldiers can scarcely fail to 
take back with them, into the mass of 
the population, some portion of that 
military discipline and expertness in the 
use of arms which give energy and ef- 
ficacy to numerical strength. Despotism, 
perhaps, after all, is but struggling ina 
sort of cleft stick; and the growing 
knowledge of mankind, and the very 
expedients growing out of its own des- 
potic necessities, may, at last, be able to 
convincé it that its boasted legitimacy, 
when put to the test, is but a bastard 
sort of principle, whose title cannot 
secure its inheritance. 
But we are becoming as ungallant as 
the reviewer. Let us return to the 
Lady. She shall now speak for herself; 
and it will be seen, that her lady lips 
can talk, though with a little of her 
sex’s softness, in the same strain with 
her critical panegyrists.§ Of the Bra- 
zilian 
* It is but fair to acknowledge, that this 
is a quotation from the Tour. But it is 
a quotation introduced to support the argu- 
ment of the Reviewer. 
+ In his own person. , 
¢ It was a spirit drubbed into them, 
then, it Seems, by the anti-legitimates.> | 
'§ The panegyric, it should be observed, 
however, is not quite unqualified. Mrs. 
G. is largely censured for having introduc- 
ed only a hasty and ill-arranged abridg- 
ment of brother reviewer Southey’s valua~ 
ble history, p. 13+. ; 
