monarchs is to be dreaded consult the very judicious critical observations on the politics of that reign, inserted in the military treatise of the Marquis de Montalembert. Let those who wish to know what is to be dreaded from an ambitious republic consult no author, no military critic, no historical critic. Let them open their own eyes, which degeneracy and pusillanimity have shut from the light that pains them, and let them not vainly seek their security in a voluntary ignorance of their danger.
To dispose us towards this peace,—an attempt in which our author has, I do not know whether to call it the good or ill fortune to agree with whatever is most seditious, factious, and treasonable in this country,—we are told by many dealers in speculation, but not so distinctly by the author himself, (too great distinctness of affirmation not being his fault,)—but we are told, that the French have lately obtained a very pretty sort of Constitution, and that it resembles the British Constitution as if they had been twinned together in the womb,—mire sagaces fallere hospites discrimen obscurum. It may be so: but I confess I am not yet made to it: nor is the noble author. He finds the "elements" excellent, but the disposition very inartificial indeed. Contrary to what we might expect at Paris, the meat is good, the cookery abominable. I agree with him fully in the last; and if I were forced to allow the first, I should still think, with our old coarse by-word, that the same power which furnished all their former restaurateurs sent also their present cooks. I have a great opinion of Thomas Paine, and of all his productions: I remember his having been one of the committee for forming one of their annual Constitutions, I mean the admirable Constitution of 1793, after having been a chamber council to the no less admirable Constitution of 1791. This pious patriot has his eyes still directed to his dear native country, notwithstanding her in gratitude to so kind a benefactor. This outlaw of England, and lawgiver to France, is now, in secret probably, trying his hand again, and inviting us to him by making his Constitution such as may give his disciples in England some plausible pretext for going into the house that he has opened. We have discovered, it seems, that all which the boasted wisdom of our ancestors has labored to bring to perfection for six or seven centuries is nearly, or altogether, matched in six or seven days, at the leisure hours and sober intervals of Citizen Thomas Paine.
"But though the treacherous tapster, Thomas,
Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,
As fine as dauber's hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a shame and sin
To quit the good old Angel Inn,"
Indeed, in this good old house, where everything at least is well aired, I shall be content to put up my fatigued horses, and here take a bed for the long night that begins to darken upon me. Had I, however, the honor (I must now call it so) of being a member of any of the constitutional clubs, I should think I had carried my point most completely. It is clear, by the applauses bestowed on what the author calls this new Constitution, a mixed oligarchy, that the difference between the clubbists and the old adherents to the monarchy of this country is hardly worth a scuffle. Let it depart in peace, and light lie the earth on the British Constitution! By this easy manner of treating the most difficult of all subjects, the constitution for a great kingdom, and by letting loose an opinion that they may be made by any adventurers in speculation in a small given time, and for any country, all the ties, which, whether of reason or prejudice, attach mankind to their old, habitual, domestic governments, are not a little loosened; all communion, which the similarity of the basis has produced between all the governments that compose what we call the Christian world and the republic of Europe, would be dissolved. By these hazarded speculations France is more approximated to us in constitution than in situation; and in proportion as we recede from the ancient system of Europe, we approach to that connection which alone can remain to us, a close alliance with the new-discovered moral and political world in France.
These theories would be of little importance, if we did not only know, but sorely feel, that there is a strong Jacobin faction in this country, which has long employed itself in speculating upon constitutions, and to whom the circumstance of their government being home-bred and prescriptive seems no sort of recommendation. What seemed to us to be the best system of liberty that a nation ever enjoyed to them seems the yoke of an intolerable slavery. This speculative faction had long been at work. The French Revolution did not cause it: it only discovered it, increased it, and gave fresh vigor to its operations. I have reason to be persuaded that it was in this country, and from English writers and English caballers, that France herself was instituted in this revolutionary fury. The communion of these two factions upon any pretended basis of similarity is a matter of very serious consideration. They are always considering the formal distributions of power in a constitution: the moral basis they consider as nothing. Very different is my opinion: I consider the moral basis as everything,—the formal arrangements, further than as they promote the moral principles of government, and the keeping desperately wicked persons as the subjects of laws and not the makers of them, to be of little importance. What signifies the cutting and shuffling of cards, while the pack still remains the same? As a basis for such a connection as has subsisted between the powers of Europe, we had nothing to fear, but from the lapses and frailties of men,—and that was enough; but this new pretended republic has given us more to apprehend from what they call their virtues than we had to dread from the vices of other men. Avowedly and systematically, they have given the upperhand to all the vicious and degenerate part of human nature. It is from their lapses and deviations from their principle that alone we have anything to hope.
I hear another inducement to fraternity with the present rulers. They have murdered one Robespierre. This Robespierre, they tell us, was a cruel tyrant, and now that he is put out of the way, all will go well in France. Astræa will again return to that earth from which she has been an emigrant, and all nations will resort to her golden scales. It is very extraordinary, that, the very instant the mode of Paris is known here, it becomes all the fashion in London. This is their jargon. It is the old bon-ton of robbers, who cast their common crimes on the wickedness of their departed associates. I care little about the memory of this same Robespierre. I am sure he was an execrable villain. I rejoiced at his punishment neither more nor less than I should at the execution of the present Directory, or any of its members. But who gave Robespierre the power of being a tyrant? and who were the instruments of his tyranny? The present virtuous constitution-mongers. He was a tyrant; they were his satellites and his hangmen. Their sole merit is in the murder of their colleague. They have expiated their other murders by a new murder. It has always been the case among this banditti. They have always had the knife at each other's throats, after they had almost blunted it at the throats of every honest man. These people thought, that, in the commerce of murder, he was like to have the better of the bargain, if any time was lost; they therefore took one of their short revolutionary methods, and massacred him in a manner so perfidious and cruel as would shock all humanity, if the stroke was not struck by the present rulers on one of their own associates. But this last act of infidelity and murder is to expiate all the rest, and to qualify them for the amity of an humane and virtuous sovereign and civilized people. I have heard that a Tartar believes, when he has killed a man, that all his estimable qualities pass with his clothes and arms to the murderer; but I have never heard that it was the opinion of any savage Scythian, that, if he kills a brother villain, he is, ipso facto, absolved of all his own offences. The Tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion. The murderers of Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in the same tontine of infamy, are his representatives, have inherited all his murderous qualities, in addition to their own private stock. But it seems we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious assassins. I confess I am of a different mind, and am rather inclined, of the two, to think and speak less hardly of a dead ruffian than to associate with the living. I could better bear the stench of the gibbeted murderer than the society of the bloody felons who yet annoy the world. Whilst they wait the recompense due to their ancient crimes, they merit new punishment by the new offences they commit. There is a period to the offences of Robespierre. They survive in his assassins. "Better a living dog," says the old proverb, "than a dead lion." Not so here. Murderers and hogs never look well till they are hanged. From villany no good can arise, but in the example of its fate. So I leave them their dead Robespierre,
