wisest and most reasonable of all human institutions, and that to which increasing reflection and experience will infallibly attach men more and more as the world advances; so, the prerogatives of such a monarch will always be safer and more inviolate, the more the sentiment of liberty, and the love of their political rights, is diffused and encouraged among his people. A legitimate sovereign,

in short, who reigns by the fair exercise of his prerogative, can have no enemies among the lovers of regulated freedom; and the hos tility of such men-by far the most terrible of all internal hostility-can only be directed towards him, when his throne is enveloped, by treacherous advisers, with the hosts of corruption; and disguised, for their ends, in the borrowed colours of tyranny.

(January, 1810.)

Short Remarks on the State of Parties at the Close of the Year 1809. 8vo. pp. 30. London 1809.*

ble a resentment, aversion, and alarm. The two great divisions, in the mean time, are daily provoking each other to greater excesses, and recruiting their hostile ranks, as they ad vance, from the diminishing mass of the calm and the neutral. Every hour the rising tides are eating away the narrow isthmus upon which the adherents of the Constitution now appear to be stationed; and every hour it be comes more necessary for them to oppose some barrier to their encroachments.

THE parties of which we now wish to speak, | both parties, and looking on both with too visiare not the parties in the Cabinet,-nor even the parties in Parliament, but the Parties in the Nation; that nation, whose opinions and whose spirit ought to admonish and control both Cabinet and Parliament, but which now seems to us to be itself breaking rapidly into two furious and irreconcileable parties; by whose collision, if it be not prevented, our constitution and independence must be ultimately destroyed. We have said before, that the root of all our misfortunes was in the state of the People, and not in the constitution of If the two extreme parties are once per the legislature; and the more we see and mitted to shock together in open conflict, there reflect, the more we are satisfied of this truth. is an end to the freedom, and almost to the It is in vain to cleanse the conduits and reser-existence of the nation,-whatever be the revoirs, if the fountain itself be tainted and impure. If the body of the people be infatuated, or corrupt or depraved, it is vain to talk of improving their representation.

The dangers, and the corruptions, and the prodigies of the times, have very nearly put an end to all neutrality and moderation in politics; and the great body of the nation appears to us to be divided into two violent and most pernicious factions;-the courtiers, who are almost for arbitrary power,-and the democrats, who are almost for revolution and republicanism. Between these stand a small, but most respectable band-the friends of liberty and of order-the Old Constitutional Whigs of England-with the best talents and the best intentions, but without present power or popularity,―calumniated and suspected by

*This, I fear, is too much in the style of a sage and solemn Rebuke to the madness of contending factions. Yet it is not all rhetorical or assuming : And the observations on the vast importance and high and difficult duties of a middle party, in all great national contentions, seem to me as universally true, and as applicable to the present position of our affairs, as most of the other things I have ventured, for this reason, now to produce. It may be right to mention, that it was written at a time when the recent failure of that wretched expedition to Walcheren, and certain antipopular declarations in Parliament, had excited a deeper feeling of discontent in the country, and a greater apprehension for its consequences, than had been witnessed since the first great panic and excitement of the French revolution. The spirit of such a time may, perhaps, be detected in some of the following pages.

sult,—although that is not doubtful: And the only human means of preventing a consummation to which things seem so obviously tending, is for the remaining friends of the constitution to unbend from their cold and repulsive neutrality, and to join themselves to the more respectable members of the party to which they have the greatest affinity; and thus, by the weight of their character, and the force of their talents, to temper its violence and moderate its excesses, till it can be guided in safety to the defence, and not to the destruction, of our liberties. In the present crisis, we have no hesitation in saying, that it is to the popular side that the friends of the constitution must turn themselves; and that, if the Whig leaders do not first conciliate, and then restrain the people,-if they do not save them from the leaders they are already choosing in their own body, and become themselves their leaders, by becoming their patrons, and their cordial, though authoritative, advisers; they will in no long time sweep away the Constitution itself, the Monarchy of England, and the Whig aristrocracy, by which that Monarchy is controlled and confirmed, and exalted above all other forms of polity.

This is the sum of our doctrine; though we are aware that, to most readers, it will require more development than we can now afford, and be exposed to more objections than we have left ourselves room to answer. To many, we are sensible, our fears will appear altogether chimerical and fantastic. We have

always had these two parties, it will be said- and gradual change in the condition of Euroalways some for carrying things with a high pean society, by which the lower and midhand against the people-and some for sub-dling orders have been insensibly raised into jecting every thing to their nod; but the conflict has hitherto afforded nothing more than a wholesome and invigorating exercise; and the constitution, so far from being endangered by it, has hitherto been found to flourish, in proportion as it became more animated. Why, then, should we anticipate such tragical effects from its continuance?

which this country has been reduced, and for the increased number and increased acrimony of the parties that divide it.

greater importance than they enjoyed when their place in the political scale was originally settled; and attempted to show in what way the revolution in France, and the revolutionary movements of other countries, might be referred partly to the progress, and partly to the neglect of that great movement. We cannot stop now to resume any part of that general Now, to this, and to all such questions, we discussion; but shall merely observe, that the must answer, that we can conceive them to events of the last twenty years are of themproceed only from that fatal ignorance or in-selves sufficient to account for the state to attention to the Signs of the Times, which has been the cause of so many of our errors and misfortunes. It is quite true, that there have always been in this country persons who The success of a plebeian insurrection-the leaned towards arbitrary power, and persons splendid situations to which low-bred men who leaned towards too popular a government. have been exalted, in consequence of that In all mixed governments, there must be such success-the comparative weakness and inmen, and such parties: some will admire the efficiency of the sovereigns and nobles who monarchical, and some the democratical part opposed it, and the contempt and ridicule of the constitution; and, speaking very gener- which has been thrown by the victors upon ally, the rich, and the timid, and the indolent, their order, have all tended to excite and agas well as the base and the servile, will have gravate the bad principles that lead men to a natural tendency to the one side; and the despise existing authorities, and to give into poor, the enthusiastic, and enterprising, as wild and extravagant schemes of innovation. well as the envious and the discontented, will On the other hand, the long-continued ill sucbe inclined to range themselves on the other. cess of our anti-jacobin councils-the sickenThese things have been always; and always ing uniformity of our boastings and failures— must be. They have been hitherto, too, with- the gross and palpable mismanagement of our out mischief or hazard; and might be fairly government-the growing and intolerable considered as symptoms at least, if not as burthen of our taxes-and, above all, the imcauses, of the soundness and vigour of our minent and tremendous peril into which the political organisation. But this has been the whole nation has been brought, have made a case, only because the bulk of the nation has powerful appeal to the good principles that hitherto, or till very lately, belonged to no lead men into similar feelings; and roused party at all. Factions existed only among a those who were lately unwilling to disturb small number of irritable and ambitious indi- themselves with political considerations, to cry viduals; and, for want of partizans, necessa-out in vast numbers for reformation and rerily vented themselves in a few speeches and pamphlets-in an election riot, or a treasury prosecution. The partizans of Mr. Wilkes, and the partizans of Lord Bute, formed but a very inconsiderable part of the population. If they had divided the whole nation among them, the little breaches of the peace and of the law at Westminster, would have been changed into civil war and mutual proscriptions; and the constitution of the country might have perished in the conflict. In those times, therefore, the advocates of arbitrary power and of popular licence were restrained, not merely by the constitutional principles of so many men of weight and authority, but by the absolute neutrality and indifference of the great body of the people. They fought like champions in a ring of impartial spectators; and the multitude who looked on, and thought it sport, had little other interest than to see that each had fair play.

Now, however, the case is lamentably different; and it will not be difficult, we think, to point out the causes which have spread abroad this spirit of contention, and changed so great a proportion of those calm spectators into fierce and impetuous combatants. We have formerly endeavoured, on more than one occasion, to explain the nature of that great

dress. The number of those who have been startled out of their neutrality by such feelings, very greatly exceeds, we believe, that of those who have been tempted from it by the stirrings of an irregular ambition: But both are alike disposed to look with jealousy upon the advocates of power and prerogativeto suspect falsehood and corruption in every thing that is not clearly explained-to resent every appearance of haughtiness or reserveto listen with eager credulity to every tale of detraction against public characters-and to believe with implicit rashness whatever is said of the advantages of popular control.

Such are the natural and original causes of the increase of that popular discontent which has of late assumed so formidable an aspect, and is, in fact, far more widely spread and more deeply rooted in the nation, than the sanguine and contemptuous will believe. The enumeration, however, would be quite incomplete, if we were not to add, that it has been prodigiously helped by the contempt, and aversion, and defiance, which has been so loudly and unwisely expressed by the opposite party. Instead of endeavouring to avoid the occasions of dissatisfaction, and to soothe and conciliate those whom it could never be creditable to have for enemies, it has been

but too often the policy of the advocates for strong government to exasperate them by menaces and abuse;-to defend, with insolence, every thing that was attacked, how ever obviously indefensible;-and to insult and defy their opponents by a needless ostentation of their own present power, and their resolution to use it in support of their most offensive and unjustifiable measures. This unfortunate tone, which was first adopted in the time of Mr. Pitt, has been pretty well maintained by most of his successors; and has done more, we are persuaded, to revolt and alienate the hearts of independent and brave men, than all the errors and inconsistencies of which they have been guilty.

in power, and show themselves;-but for this very reason, their real force is probably a great deal less than it appears to be. Many wear their livery, out of necessity or convenience, whose hearts are with their adversaries; and many clamour loudly in their cause, who would clamour more loudly against them, the moment they thought that cause was going back in the world. The democratic party, on the other hand, is scattered, and obscurely visible. It can hardly be for the immediate interest of any one to acknowledge it; and scarcely any one is, as yet, proud of its badge or denomination. It lurks, however, in private dwellings,-it gathers strength at homely firesides,-it is confirmed in conferences of In running thus rapidly over the causes friends,-it breaks out in pamphlets and jourwhich have raised the pretensions and aggra-nals of every description, and shows its head vated the discontents of the People, we have, in fact, stated also, the sources of the increased acrimony and pretensions of the advocates for power. The same spectacle of popular excess and popular triumph which excited the dangerous passions of the turbulent and daring, in the way of Sympathy, struck a corresponding alarm into the breasts of the timid and prosperous, and excited a furious Antipathy in those of the proud and domineering. As fear and hatred lead equally to severity, and are neither of them very far-sighted in their councils, they naturally attempted to bear down this rising spirit by menaces and abuse. All hot-headed and shallow-headed persons of rank, with their parasites and dependants -and indeed almost all rich persons, of quiet tempers and weak intellects, started up into furious anti-jacobins; and took at once a most violent part in those political contentions, as to which they had, in former times, been confessedly ignorant and indifferent. When this tone was once given, from passion and mistaken principle among the actual possessors of power, it was readily taken up by mere servile venality. The vast multiplication of offices and occupations in the gift of the government, and the enormous patronage and expectancy, of which it has recently become the centre, has drawn a still greater number, and of baser natures, out of the political neutrality in which they would otherwise have remained, and led them to counterfeit, for hire, that unfortunate violence which necessarily produces a corresponding violence in its objects.

Thus has the nation been set on fire at the four corners! and thus has an incredible and most alarming share of its population been separated into two hostile and irritated parties, neither of which can now subdue the other without a civil war; and the triumph of either of which would be equally fatal to the constitution.

The force and extent of these parties is but imperfectly known, we believe, even to those who have been respectively most active in arraying them; and the extent of the adverse party is rarely ever suspected by those who are zealously opposed to it. There must be least error, however, in the estimate of the partizans of arbitrary government. They are

now and then in the more tumultuous assemblies of populous cities. In the metropolis especially, where the concentration of num. bers gives them confidence and importance, it exhibits itself very nearly, though not altogether, in its actual force. How that force now stands in comparison with what is opposed to it, it would not perhaps be very easy to calculate. Taking the whole nation over head, we should conjecture, that, as things now are, they would be pretty equally balanced; but, if any great calamity should give a shock to the stability of government, or call imperiously for more vigorous councils, we are convinced that the partizans of popular government would be found to outnumber their opponents in the proportion of three to two. When the one party, indeed, had failed so fatally, it must seem to be a natural resource to make a trial of the other; and, if civil war or foreign conquest should really fall on us, it would be a movement almost of instinctive wisdom, to displace and to punish those under whose direction they had been brought on. Upon any such serious alarm, too, all the venal and unprincipled adherents of the prerogative would inevitably desert their colours, and go over to the enemy,-while the Throne would be left to be defended only by its regular forces and its immediate dependants,-reinforced by a few bands of devoted Tories, mingled with some generous, but downcast spirits, under the banner of the Whig aristocracy.

But, without pretending to settle the numerical or relative force of the two opposing parties, we wish only to press it upon our readers, that they are both so strong and so numerous, as to render it quite impossible that the one should now crush or overcome the other, without a ruinous contention; and that they are so exasperated, and so sanguine and presumptuous, that they will push forward to such a contention in no long time, unless they be separated or appeased by some powerful interference. That the number of the democrats is vast, and is daily increasing with a visible and dangerous rapidity, any man may satisfy himself, by the common and obvious means of information. It is a fact which he may read legibly in the prodigious sale, and still more prodigious circulation, of Cobbett's Register, and other weekly papers of the same

general description: He may learn it in every the people go on a little longer to excite in street of all the manufacturing and populous them a contempt and distrust of all public towns in the heart of the country; and may, and characters, and of all institutions of authority, must hear it most audibly, in the public and while many among our public men go on to private talk of the citizens of the metropolis. justify, by their conduct, that contempt and All these afford direct and palpable proofs of distrust;-if the people are taught by all who the actual increase of this formidable party. now take the trouble to win their confidence, But no man, who understands any thing of that Parliament is a mere assemblage of unhuman nature, or knows any thing of our re- principled place-hunters, and that ins and outs cent history, can need direct evidence to con- are equally determined to defend corruption vince him, that it must have experienced a and peculation; and if Parliament continues prodigious increase. In a country where more to busy itself with personalities,-to decline than a million of men take some interest in the investigation of corruptions,--and to ap politics, and are daily accustomed (right or prove, by its votes, what no sane man in the wrong) to refer the blessings or the evils of kingdom can consider as admitting of apolotheir condition to the conduct of their rulers, gy;-if those to whom their natural leaders is it possible to conceive, that a third part at have given up the guidance of the people, least of every man's income should be taken shall continue to tell them that they may from him in the shape of taxes,-and that, after easily be relieved of half their taxes, and twenty years of boastful hostility, we should placed in a situation of triumphant security, be left without a single ally, and in imminent while the government continues to multiply hazard of being invaded by a revolutionary its impositions, and to waste their blood and foe, without producing a very general feeling of disaffection and discontent, and spreading through the body of the nation, not only a great disposition to despise and distrust their governors, but to judge unfavourably of the form of government itself which could admit of such gross ignorance or imposition?

The great increase of the opposite party, again, is but too visible, we are sorry to say, in the votes of Parliament, in the existence of the present administration, and in the sale and the tenor of the treasury journals. But, independent of such proof, this too might have been safely inferred from the known circumstances of the times. In a nation abounding with wealth and loyalty, enamoured of its old institutions, and originally indebted for its freedom, in a great degree, to the spirit of its landed Aristocracy, it was impossible that the excesses of a plebeian insurrection should not have excited a great aversion to every thing that had a similar tendency; and in any nation, alas! that had recently multiplied its taxes, and increased the patronage of its government to three times their original extent, it could not but happen, that multitudes would be found to barter their independence for their interest; and to exchange the language of free men for that which was most agreeable to the party upon whose favour they depended. If the numbers of the opposed factions, however, be formidable to the peace of the country, the acrimony of their mutual hostility is still more alarming. If the whole nation were divided into the followers of Mr. Cobbett and Sir Francis Burdett, and the followers of Mr. John Gifford and Mr. John Bowles, does not every man see that a civil war and a revolution would be inevitable? Now, we say, that the factions into which the country is divided, are not very different from the followers of Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Gifford; or, at all events, that if they are allowed to defy and provoke each other into new extravagance and increased hostility, as they have been doing lately, we do not see how that most tremendous of all calamities is to be avoided. If those who have influence with

treasure in expeditions which make us hateful and ridiculous in the eyes of many of our neighbours, while they bring the danger nearer to our own door ;-if, finally, the people are a little more persuaded that, without a radical change in the constitution of the Legislature, they must continue in the condition of slaves to a junto of boroughmongers, while Parliament rejects with disdain every proposal to correct the most palpable defects of that constitution ;— Then we say that the wholesome days of England are numbered,-that she is gliding to the verge of the most dreadful of all calamities, and that all the freedom and happiness which we undoubtedly still enjoy, and all the morality and intelligence, and the long habits of sober thinking and kindly affection which adorn and exalt our people, will not long protect us from the horrors of a civil war.

In such an unhallowed conflict it is scarcely necessary to say that the triumph of either party would be the ruin of English liberty, and of her peace, happiness, and prosperity. Those who have merely lived in our times, must have seen, and they who have read of other times, or reflected on what Man is at all times, must know, independent of that lesson, how much Chance, and how much Time, must concur with genius and patriotism, to form a good or a stable government. We have the frame and the materials of such a government in the constitution of England; but if we rend asunder that frame, and scatter these materials--if we "put out the light" of our living polity,

"We know not where is that Promethean fire, That may its flame relumine."

The stability of the English constitution de. pends upon its monarchy and aristocracy; and their stability, again, depends very much on the circumstance of their having grown natu. rally out of the frame and inward structure of our society-upon their having struck their roots deep through every stratum of the po litical soil, and having been moulded and im. pressed, during a long course of ages, by the

usages, institutions, habits, and affections of the community. A popular revolution would overthrow the monarchy and the aristocracy; and even if it were not true that revolution propagates revolution, as waves gives rise to waves, till the agitation is stopped by the iron boundary of despotism, it would still require ages of anxious discomfort, before we could build up again that magnificent fabric, which now requires purification rather than repair; or secure that permanency to our new establishments, without which they could have no other good quality.

march, and mix with the ranks of the offend ers, that they may be enabled to reclaim and repress them, and save both them and themselves from a sure and shameful destruction. They have no longer strength to overawe or repel either party by a direct and forcible attack; and must work, therefore, by gentle and conciliatory means, upon that which is most dangerous, most flexible, and most capa. ble of being guided to noble exertions. Like the Sabine women of old, they must throw themselves between the kindred combatants; and stay the fatal feud, by praises and embraces, and dissuasives of kindness and flattery.

Even those who do not much love or care for the people, are now called upon to pacify them, by granting, at least, all that can reasonably be granted; and not only to redress their Grievances, but to comply with their Des.res, in so far as they can be complied with, with less hazard than must evidently arise from disregarding them.

We do not say, therefore, that a thorough reconciliation between the Whig royalists and the great body of the people is desirable merely-but that it is indispensable: since it is a dream-a gross solecism and absurdity, to suppose, that such a party should exist, unless supported by the affections and approbation of the people. The advocates of prerogative have the support of prerogative; and they who rule by corruption and the direct agency of wealth, have wealth and the means of corruption in their hands:-But the friends of national freedom must be recognised by the nation. If the Whigs are not supported by the people, they can have no support: and, therefore, if the people are seduced away from them, they must just go after them and bring them back: And are no more to be excused for leaving them to be corrupted by Demagogues, than they would be for leaving them to be oppressed by tyrants. If a party is to exist at all, therefore, friendly at once to the liberties of the people and the integrity of the monarchy, and holding that liberty is best secured by a monarchical establishment, it is absolutely necessary that it should possess the confidence and attachment of the people; and if it appear at any time to have lost it, the first of all its duties, and the neces sary prelude to the discharge of all the rest, is to regain it, by every effort consistent with probity and honour.

Such we humbly conceive to be the course, and the causes, of the evils which we believe to be impending. It is time now to inquire whether there be no remedy. If the whole nation were actually divided into revolutionists and high-monarchy men, we do not see how they could be prevented from fighting, and giving us the miserable choice of a despotism or a tumultuary democracy. Fortunately, however, this is not the case. There is a third party in the nation-small, indeed, in point of numbers, compared with either of the others—and, for this very reason, low, we fear, in present popularity-but essentially powerful from talents and reputation, and calculated to become both popular and authoritative, by the fairness and the firmness of its principles. This is composed of the Whig Royalists of England,-men who, without forgetting that all government is from the people, and for the people, are satisfied that the rights and liberties of the people are best maintained by a regulated hereditary monarchy, and a large, open aristocracy; and who are as much averse, therefore, from every attempt to undermine the throne, or to discredit the nobles, as they are indignant at every project to insult or enslave the people. In the better days of the constitution, this party formed almost the whole ordinary opposition, and bore no inconsiderable proportion to that of the courtiers. It might be said too, to have with it, not only the greater part of those who were jealous of the prerogative, but all that great mass of the population which was apparently neutral and indifferent to the issue of the contest. The new-sprung factions, however, have swallowed up almost all this disposable body; and have drawn largely from the ranks of the old constitutionalists themselves. In consequence of this change of circumstances, they can no longer act with Now, it may be true, that the present alieneffect, as a separate party; and are far too ation of the body of the people from the old weak to make head, at the same time, against constitutional champions of their freedom, the overbearing influence of the Crown, and originated in the excesses and delusion of the the rising pretensions of the people. It is nec- people themselves; but it is not less true, that essary, therefore, that they should now leave the Whig royalists have increased that alienthis attitude of stern and defying mediation; ation by the haughtiness of their deportment and, if they would escape being crushed-by the marked displeasure with which they along with the constitution on the collision of the two hostile bodies, they must identify themselves cordially with the better part of one of them, and thus soothe, ennoble, and control it, by the infusion of their own spirit, and the authority of their own wisdom and experience. Like faithful generals, whose troops have mutinied, they must join the

have disavowed most of the popular proceedings-and the tone of needless and imprudent distrust and reprobation with which they have treated pretensions that were only partly inadmissible. They have given too much way to the offence which they naturally received from the rudeness and irreverence of the terms in which their grievances were frequently