pris, ils n'ont rien oubliés," is equally true of the one and the other.

It is the nature of long exclusion from office, or misfortune of any sort, to make men adhere with invincible obstinacy to preconceived opinions, shut their eyes to the lessons of wisdom and experience, and derive no light from the course of passing events. It is the effect of the same causes to make them cling closely together; support each other in their follies, equally as their virtues, and adopt with blind idolatry whatever is put forth by the spiritual leaders of the party. On this principle, the impotence of persecution to extinguish religious heresy is founded; and hence it is that error is nowhere adhered to with such tenacity, as by those who have suffered in any degree for their opinions, and regard themselves as martyrs to the cause of truth. This principle is of universal application, and has been in operation from the beginning of the world; and it is in this reaction of thought against power, that the foundation is laid for the ultimate developement of truth, and the coercion of physical force by the sway of moral resolution.

But though such are the ultimate effects of this salutary principle in human affairs, its immediate consequences are often in the highest degree prejudicial, and productive of the most dreadful convulsions to society. The emigrant noblesse, by shutting their eyes to the lessons of experience and the course of events, imposed a government upon France which was unsuitable to the temper of the times, precipitated the reigning family from the throne, and produced the career of mob-government, popular sway, and universal suffering. The Whigs of England, equally blinded by their sectarian spirit and long exclusion from government, have introduced measures which promise to be hardly less injurious in their consequences, and certainly are as much at variance with wisdom and experi

ence.

Every person must have observed, in every part of the empire, how justly these observations are applicable to the Whig party for the last forty years. As a body, they are respectable for their abilities, and many of them highly estimable for

their talents and their virtues. But there is throughout them, generally, a deplorable want of originality of thought, and a most extraordinary principle of subordination to the doctrines of their leaders. When you are acquainted with one or two of the influential men of the party, you can predicate with perfect certainty their opinions on every subject of philosophy, history, politics, or taste. None seem to think for themselves but a few leading characters; and whatever they say is immediately adopted with implicit obedience and reverential awe by all their inferiors. They have contrived to turn the current of human thought into confined and artificial channels. They take in nothing but Whig newspapers; read nothing but Whig reviews; study nothing but Whig publications; live with none but Whig society. There is to be found in them, generally, a most extraordinary uniformity and slavishness of opinion, accompanied by a degree of prejudice and tenacity to error, which would appear altogether incredible in men of such acquirements as many of them are, did we not know by experience, that it is the uniform attendant of opposition to power in all ages and parts of the world.

By constantly raising the war-cry of freedom, and adopting the doctrines which were agreeable to the humbler classes of the people, in whom their principal political support is to be found, this party have gradually acquired a very great influence over the middling and lower orders. During the war, from the excitation of national enthusiasm, and the influence of government in the disposal of its enormous expenditure, this influence was not sensibly perceived; but since the peace, it has been constantly and steadily on the increase, and has at length produced the social tempest by which we are now assailed. The conservative party were not aware of their danger-reposing in fancied security on the laurels of Nelson and Wellington; strong in the consciousness of the real justice and wisdom of their principles; regarding with satisfaction the growing magnitude, increasing opulence, and augmenting splendour of the empire under their

lenient and moderate sway-they did not perceive how extensively the delusion of error, the poison of infidelity, the seeds of anarchy, had spread among the people. They were not aware that a great part of the British youth, in all ranks, had adopted liberal principles; that the press, directing the fountains of human thought, had almost all espoused the liberal side; and that in the midst of the glories and splendour arising from the triumph of conservative principles, the opposite party, just because these glories and that splendour had crowned the efforts of their opponents, had gradually disseminated the delusions which were calculated to overthrow them. By incessant exertions at public meetings, in periodical journals, newspapers, and political publications, by propagating the doctrines most agreeable to the immense class of readers whom general education was wakening into political activity, and by sedulously striving to instil their principles into the minds of youth, ever accessible to error when disguised under the splendid colouring of freedom and liberality, they have succeeded in poisoning the sources of knowledge, and producing a state of mind in the public which cannot, it is to be feared, be eradicated without an experience of the suffering which such errors are calculated to produce, and of which we are beginning to feel the commencement. They have mingled not life, but death in the honied cup, and the nation is writhing under the poison which it has received.

"Cosi al 'egro fanciul' porgiamo aspersi,
Di soavelicor gli orsi del vaso
Succhi amari, ingannato intanto ei bene
Et dal' inganno suo morte receve."

It is from the same cause that the alarming fact is to be accounted for, that a large proportion of the middling orders of that important class, who, in 1793,were almost unanimous against the principles of revolution, are now become vehement supporters of the Reform Bill. The reason is, that, at the former period, they were not infected with the torrent of error, delusion, and sophistry,with which, for the forty succeeding years, the Whigs have incessantly filled the public mind. The plain good sense

of Englishmen was not then undermined by the "fanaticism of French infidelity," as Carnot finely called it; nor was the firmness of English patriotism overborne by the extravagance of an ambitious Opposition. They had not then learned to veil irreligion under the cloak of liberalitylicentiousness under that of libertyor paradox under that of philosophy. It is the incessant efforts of the Whig party, since they were excluded from office, to pervert the public mind, coupled with the attractive garb of liberality and freedom which they wore, which has gone so far to shake the pillars of national security, and prepared the way for public convulsion, by the unhinging of private opinion. The Tories have much to answer for, in not having sooner made exertions to stem this devastating torrent; but the truth is, they were not aware of their danger, and reposed in fancied security on the edge of an abyss, which was silently preparing to engulf them. They did not recollect, that there is no barrier so great-no power so overwhelming-that is not, in the end, overcome by the incessant application of an inconsiderable force that towers which withstood the shock of war, yield to the mouldering hand of ve getation-and that mountain barriers, impassible to human strength, are worn through by the ceaseless flow of water.

We do not accuse the leaders of Whig thought of intentional error, or a wish to injure the cause of humanity. We are convinced they acted on principles the very reverse; and we have no doubt, as human nature is every where the same, that, in similar circumstances, we should be as much warped by error, and mystified by prejudice, as they have been. What we assert is, that circumstances have produced an utter perversion of mind, and blindness to truth, in almost the whole of their body: that, following the principle of opposition, even in speculative thought, they have studied, not with the design of discovering truth, but of discovering arguments against their opponents, and adopted error, not because it was supported by reason, or justified by experience, but because their antagonists had stumbled upon truth. This principle af

fords a key to their grand errors on all subjects. The Tories supported the war, therefore the Whigs opposed it; the Tories based their authority on the influence of religion, therefore the Whigs covertly, but incessantly, turned it into ridicule; the Tories encouraged the colonies of the empire, therefore the Whigs strove, the moment they got into power, to depress them; the Tories supported the allies of England, and endeavoured to weaken their enemies, therefore the Whigs endeavoured to injure their allies and benefit their enemies; the Tories supported the British against the foreign cultivator, therefore the Whigs are preparing to sacrifice him to his rival; the Tories had augmented the duties on spirits, to check the consumption of that ruinous article, therefore the Whigs earnestly advocated their reduction, and deluged the country with crime in consequence; the Tories had maintained inviolate the national faith, therefore the first measure of the Whigs was to violate it; the Tories laboured assiduously to uphold the constitution, therefore the Whigs signalized their first accession to power by an attempt to overthrow it. Such conduct would appear incredible, on the ordinary principles of human conduct, but it is easily accounted for, when we recollect that the Protestants stood up at prayer, because the Catholics had knelt, and destroyed the cathedrals, because they had erected them.

The sudden and perilous extension of education to the lower orders of the people, at the very time that these perilous and innovating principles were incessantly inculcated by the popular party, and the vast increase of our manufacturing towns, at the same period, have both contributed to augment the same fatal propensity. The one augmented the channels by which the poison of infidelity and the delusions of error reached the lower orders, while the latter increased immensely the inflammable and corrupted mass into which they were to be poured. There are twenty of the poor who can now read, for one who could do so for

merly; and all of the manufacturing towns of Britain have added fifty, many one hundred per cent, to their numbers, during the last ten years. These changes co-existing in the lower classes of society, with the warp towards error which the Whig party had acquired during the revoIutionary contest, have combined to produce the present extraordinary and anomalous state of public thought. When the vast and democratical bodies in the manufacturing towns were wakened into political life, and had their passions turned by the power of reading into the arena of domestic strife, the newspapers soon discovered that their principal circulation was to be looked for in these great emporiums of the passions; and that nothing was so acceptable to them as incessant abuse of their superiors. "Egestas cupida novarum rerum,"* speedily asserted its fatal ascendency in the commonwealth; every thing which was sacred or venerable, sanctified by usage, or recommended by experience, speedily became the object of attack to the shafts of ridicule and the artillery of sophistry; and political ambition, anxious to triumph by such instruments, soon discovered that no method could be relied on for success, but extravagance in the same inflammatory principles, and increase in the same popular flattery. Hence the fatal rapidity with which revolutionary principles have spread of late years; the utter perversion of thought in a large portion of the people on all political subjects; the abhorrence to every thing established; the passion for innovation, and the universal growth of irreligious principle, and moral depravity, in the population of all the great cities of the empire.

As long as these principles were confined only to speculative men, the teachers of youth, or the popular leaders, they did no immediate mischief, and were instrumental only in preparing the downfall of established institutions, by sapping the foundations in general opinion on which they rested; but when they began to be carried into effect by legislation, they have invariably produced,

VOL. XXXI, NO. CLXXXI.

B

or threatened, the most disastrous effects. Each successive accession of the Whig party to power, accordingly, for the last half century, has been marked by the immediate commencement of some perilous measure, and the nation has on every such occasion narrowly escaped shipwreck from their enormous innovations. Mr Fox, in 1783, instantly prepared his India Bill, which, if it had not been defeated by the firmness of the House of Peers, would, by vesting the whole patronage of India in the hands of the Crown, have long ago subverted the balance of the constitution, and destroyed the liberties of the people by the influence of Eastern corruption. No sooner were they installed in power, in 1807, than they set about forcing Catholic emancipation at once on the sovereign and the people-a measure which has wellnigh overthrown the equipoise of the constitution, even at a subsequent period, and which, if persisted in at that time, would unquestionably have led to a civil convulsion. No sooner had they got possession of the reins in 1830, than they set on foot measures of finance which threatened ruin to the great commercial and colonial interests of the empire; and, when defeated in that, united all their strength to subvert the ancient constitution of the empire.

But it is in the very magnitude of these changes, and the vital interests which they every where affect, that the best security against their ultimate success is to be found. All the great interests of the empire-our agriculture, our colonies, our shipping, our commerce, are threatened by these perilous innovations. Nothing but the way in which, for a quarter of a century, they have deluged the country with sophistical principles, could have enabled the authors of these changes to remain a week at the head of affairs: they are borne forward merely on the stream of error and passion which they originally

formed, and have now urged into a torrent. But the practical effect of these ruinous innovations must, in the end, open men's eyes to the delusion on which they are founded, and convince those whose understandings have become so warped as to be inaccessible to every other species of persuasion. Already every branch of industry-every man who lives by his labour in the country, is suffering from their innovations. If fatal measures can be retarded a little longer, the tide must set in the other direction.

Still greater hope is to be derived from the reaction of genius and wisdom, against violence and ignorance, which is now so powerfully taking place, and promises soon to purify the streams of thought of all the dross and poison with which they have so long been polluted. It is this under current perpetually flowing, which corrects the errors of prevailing institutions, and ultimately comes to influence the measures of government, by swaying the opinions of those who direct it. Already the talents of the conservative party have been splendidly drawn forth; already have the youth of England flocked to the side of truth at both universities, and the cause of order triumphed in every field where it has been brought to combat the principle of misrule. In the solitude of thought, the drops of genius are beginning to fall from their crystal cells, and the fountains of eloquence to pour forth those mighty streams which, unlocked in a moment of peril and alarm, are destined to vivify and improve mankind through every succeeding age. It is in such contemplation of the healing powers of Nature, that men, in arduous times, are best fitted to discharge their social duties; and the sufferings are not to be regretted which awaken men to noble feelings, and amidst the passions which distract, point to the wisdom which finally governs the world.

How we came into possession of the following important documents we do not feel ourselves called upon to say, further than that, in giving them to the world, we are guilty of no breach of private confidence.

They contain disclosures respecting the views of the Roman Catholic party in Ireland, which will not come by surprise upon the readers of this journal, as they are in accordance with all our previous anticipations. We required them not for the confirmation of our opinions. But there are many to whom they must be of use. Facts are stubborn things,and often bring home conviction to minds that would have been inaccessible to argument.

The reader will smile at the serious earnestness with which this popish writer argues in favour of the notion, that, because events have strangely combined for the temporary exaltation of his cause, that cause is therefore under the guidance of a special providence. The induction is far too limited to warrant the conclusion that he draws;-but it is important as evincing the deep sincerity as well as the enthusiasm of his persuasions. The time will come when we shall be able, by tracing events a little farther, to reverse the inference, and to show how all things, even the most apparently adverse, work together for good, and how true religion shall have been benefited by the temporary exaltation of its enemies. Meanwhile, it is well to be instructed by these enemies in their own designs, and to be distinctly forewarned by them upon what it is they calculate for the accomplishment of their gigantic projects.

When the writer speaks of his own party, we may give the most implicit credit to his statements. Not so, when he speaks of the Established Church. Although there is much

MY DEAR FRIEND,

truth in what he says respecting her present condition, yet, generally speaking, her deficiencies are exaggerated, and the errors that are committed in the disposal of her patronage, are noticed with too much censoriousness and too little discrimination. Nevertheless, we have not thought it right to withhold such animadversions from the public. A man's enemy is often his best looking-glass. It is better to see our faults through a medium by which they are extravagantly magnified, than not to see them at all. We may then be enabled to realize the poet's wish,

"Oh, wad kind Heaven the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us,
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An foolish notion,"

and the very malice that exults in our anticipated destruction may prove like the noise of the rattlesnake, the warning that apprizes us of our danger.

It was, of course, with no such view the following letters were written; but it is with no other they are now submitted to the reader. They furnish food for much reflection. They prove the exceedingly unsound foundation of our present policy. They evince the watchful wiliness of our adversaries, and our own supineness and infatuation. They show how much more has been granted "upon compulsion," than Should have been conferred by prudence or by wisdom. In a word, our folly is now so apparent, and our danger so imminent, that if we fail to profit by this last and most striking exhortation to take heed, furnished as it were by the sparkling of the assassin's dagger which has dropped unawares from its sheath, miracles would fail to rouse us," we would not be convinced even though one rose from the dead!"

You are naturally desirous to know how matters go on in Ireland: I mean, of course, the only matters which should or ought to interest you those which concern our hitherto af

Alicted religion-the true Church of God in the Wilderness. Truly, m friend, deep is the joy with wh inform you that nothing can sent be more prosperous. U Continent, you tell me, all is