588 
—belonging properly to none: — but 
each restrains it, and would retain it, 
under especial protection, as it is called, 
so as to keep it in its present state. It 
comprizes Moldavia, Walachia, Bul- 
garia, and Servia. Favoured by nature 
with the most fertile soil in Europe, and 
the most temperate climate,— its spacious 
and imperial river (the Danube) was the 
ancient course of that commerce which 
formerly linked the East and the West, 
and the civilization of Constantinople 
with that of Germany and France. 
But this country, to which Providence 
has dispensed so many advantages, whose 
development should minister to its 
happiness and glory, has been long un- 
der the unmitigated influence of the re- 
trograde system. Since the time of 
Trajan, who rendered it flourishing—or 
of Charlemagne, who opened, through 
the vale of the Danube, the communicae- 
tion between the two empires, it has 
never ceased to decline; and the ex- 
tinction of arts, agriculture, commerce 
and civilization, have been the lamenta- 
ble consequences. In that now deso- 
lated and deplorable region, neither mind 
nor morals have a sanctuary; nor is there 
security of person or of property ;—the 
population is reduced to one-twentieth 
part; and even that scanty remnant is 
in a state more savage and more misera- 
ble than the wild beasts, with whom they 
divide the produce of the rich valley of 
the Danube. Thereis no other country, 
whence every kind of liberty is so effec- 
tually banished as from this. From the 
districts, particularly, of Bulgaria and 
Servia, every refinement and every vir- 
tue is banished and proscribed. The 
peasant is a bondsman; the master 
without will, or power to protect him : 
the very language is obscured in barba- 
rism. Virtue is unknown; for where 
there are no rights, there can be no duties. 
The gross intemperance of the Boyars 
(nobles), and the coarse manners of their 
women, are disgustingly contrasted with 
the luxury by which they are surround- 
ed; and warfare, bleodshed and robbery 
have been prolonged for centuries. 
‘Such is the picture upon which the 
rotectoral eye of the neighbouring 
potentates (the most powerful of Euro- 
pean monarchs) can look with compla- 
cency,—without assembling any con- 
gress, without availing themselves of any 
influence which treaties have given them, 
to check the anarchy or restrain the fero- 
cious atrocity of that brigandism, which 
yenders so fair a portion of Europe a 
Retrospect of the last Twenty-five Years. 
worse than desert—a scene and a source 
of devastation. 
But there is no danger, in all this, of 
any revolt from despotism ; and despotic 
sovereigns are apt to trouble themselves 
but little about that anarchy which in- 
terferes not with the acknowledgment, 
or the exercise of their sovereignty : no 
matter whether it be over a pestilent 
desert, or over cities thronged with po- 
pulation, and flowing with the opulence 
and the enjoyments of commerce, arts 
andintellect. There is no republiean- 
ism, no liberalism here; no new lights, 
or new philosophy; no innovation in 
behalf of the representative system ; and 
Legitimate Alliances have, therefore, no 
motive for holy interference. 
It is well, however, that we should 
sometimes look towards the Walachians 
and Moldavians, that, by knowing what 
is the inevitable tendency of the retro- 
grade movement, we may guard with so 
much the more jealousy and determina- 
‘tion against going backwards. 
PROGRESSIVE AND RETROGRADE SYSTEMS, 
Let us not be led astray by the use of 
other terms, invented by fraud, and ap- 
plied by servility, to confound discrimina- 
tion, and disguise the tendencies of the 
two systems. _ Arbitrary and sophistical 
distinctions—the misnomers of tradition, 
and the mystified abuse of words, either 
meaningless, or perverted in their mean- 
ings, have had an unfortunate influence 
over the last twenty-five years, and have 
fostered many errors. The two parties 
have deceived themselves by a declara- 
tion of principles which they did not 
really feel or understand. Even the 
leading tenet of what is called Liberalism, 
“ the sovereignty of the people,” has been 
more used than understood: for the so- 
vereignty of the people, in any country 
that would retain its station, much more 
advance in the scale of civilization, 
cannot consist in a state of things under 
which the functions of government are 
to be exercised by the collective body.° 
It must be an organized, not a personal, 
many-headed sovereignty; for the igno- 
rant multitude is much more numerous 
than the well-informed class; and. it is 
the intellect of a nation that must direct 
the physical force, or that force be- 
comes worse than impotent. There 
were seasons, during the French revolu- 
tion, in which the Sovereign Multitude 
shewed themselves no less capable of 
retrograding than the Despots: when 
they (or such portion of them as, by 
clamour 
