to genuine liberty itself. But nevertheless we still seem to think that, provided the crown be destroyed, or sufficiently stripped of power, no government can be formed that will tyrannize; and that, as freemen, we are bound, not to oppose, if we cannot support, those who have liberty in their mouths, whatever may be their character, motives, schemes, and actions.

Instruction is profusely spread around us, if we would but deign to gather it.

What effects have the Liberals already produced in the world? They snatched liberty from France when it was already in her grasp, and gave her a tyranny of the most oppressive description a tyranny which lasted thirty years, and which, as far as human wisdom can determine, would have lasted to the end of time, if it had not been destroyed by one of those miraculous interpositions, which prove, that the affairs of men are still controlled by the will of Heaven. They have filled Spain with political fanaticism, and inflamed the people with

a horrible thirst for each other's blood. All hopes of liberty are at present blasted in that unhappy country, and, whatever may be the wish of her rulers, they must of necessity be despots-whether these rulers be royalist, or republican, she must now be governed by a searching, sleepless tyranny, or not at all. They have brought Portugal to nearly the same situation. In the Italian States and Germany, they have awakened the slumbering energies of the government, rendered the unremitting exercise of these energies a matter of necessity, and replunged those, who were making considerable advances towards practical liberty, into positive slavery. The situation in which they have placed South America has been already spoken of. While their influence has thus been felt in so large a portion of the world, in no one State where they have been able to accomplish anything, have they produced anything but calamity. Setting aside the blood they have caused to be shed, the deadly feuds they have kindled, and the tremendous wounds they have given to the morals of mankind, wherever they have found a spark of liberty, they have invariably quenched it. The Continental Sovereigns at the peace were unquestionably friendly to

the gradual extension of genuine liberty. They gave freedom to France, they gave freedom to Holland; the King of Prussia promised his subjects a Constitution, the Emperor of Russia made important ameliorations in the condition of his people, and their words and actions were favourable to the cause of freedom throughout. The Liberals started from their hidingplaces, echoed the old dogmas of the French Revolution, and the splendid prospects of mankind vanished. The concession of a single point would have been madness in these Sovereigns, when nothing less was demanded, than that, which would have involved themselves and their dominions in ruin. Liberty, not merely practical, but chartered liberty, has therefore been within the reach of a very large portion of the present generation, and it has been banished-to be seen again only by posterity-by the Liberals alone. Those who are at present the most inveterate enemies of liberty, those who in the present age have literally worked its ruin, are the "Constitutionalists." And, saying nothing of the insatiable ambition and cupidity of these wretched persons, what national objects do they profess to have in view? Are we now strangers to what their principles and schemes produced in France? Is there any man-even a Whig-who knows his right hand from his left, who will say, that the constitutions of Spain, Portugal, and Naples, could have governed, could have existed in, any nation whatever, without resolving themselves into tyrannies of the worst kind? Is it a matter of doubt with any one, that the practice of their creed, civil and religious, would debase still more, already debased humanity, and would quadruple the misery under which mankind now labours? Were we to allow the "Constitutionalists" to do what they wish, we have it in proof, that they would root up what at present exists, only to replace it with what would be infinitely more perniciousthat they would destroy the governments that are, only to build up others that would immediately fall to pieces

and that they would break up society, only to change order into anarchy for a moment, and then to establish tyrannies, a thousand times more galling, than any that can now be found in Europe.

Let us, however, hope that Liberty, however banished at present, will, in the next generation, be the possession of all. Liberty will be easily attained for the world, when it shall be sought at the proper season, and in the proper manner, by those who ought to seek it. But it will never be obtained for the world by disappointed party leaders, political quacks, trading constitution-mongers, mercenary officers, and infuriated mobs.-It will never be obtained for the world by abuses of Kings and Ministers, by exciting hatred against religion and its teachers, by demoralizing mankind, and by arraying every man against his neighbour, and rendering the Democracy, the implacable enemy of the Monarch, and the Aristocracy. And it will never be obtained for the world by seditious, immoral newspapers, and the fanatic scurrilities and imprecations of such men as Brougham. When the "Constitutionalists" return to their native dust, when their raving is no longer heard, and when the lower orders follow their natural leaders in matters above their knowledge, then will be the era of liberty. It will be sought by the wealth, intelligence, wisdom, and honesty of mankind-by men whose characters will be a pledge that they are disinterested, that they seek general good alone, and that they are incapable of asking, what ought not to be granted. They will be guided by public wants, and not abstract doctrines-they will seek only what their respective countries may need— they will conciliate, instead of exasperating their governments-they will seek, not a change of rulers, but of institutions-they will endeavour to recover to Kings, Ministers, and Nobles, as well as to peasants, their just rights—and they will convert the lower orders into efficient allies, by making them more knowing, orderly, loyal, moral, and religious they will thus seek and they will obtain. They will not obtain a complete set of new rulers, and a huge mass of strange institutions at once, but they will slowly add one thing after another to what already exists, until the fruits of their labours will be, national prosperity and happiness -the greatest expedient measure of chartered, and the greatest possible measure of practical, liberty.

In the meantime, let us be careful to avoid identifying ourselves with the

pretended friends of liberty-let us, instead of listening to their words, look at their conduct. It is the common cry, that, because we are Constitutionalists ourselves, we are bound to regard the Constitutionalists of Europe with brotherly affection; and that whenever they seize upon a throne, it is our especial constitutional duty to rejoice on the occasion. Lord Holland, in the fulness of his wisdom, even seems to think, that we ought to put ourselves at the head of these persons forthwith. Now, in the name of common sense, what relationship have we with them? What principle do we, as worshippers of the British_Constitution, hold in common with the Constitutionalists of the continent? Does our constitution teach us to wage war against royalty and aristocracy, against religion and public morals? Or, does it instruct us to reduce Kings and Nobles to ciphers, to fashion an unbridled faction into the virtual Executive, and to make the democracy the one and all of the people? Away with such stupid and vile delusions! Our constitutional creed is more abhorrent to that of these persons, than to the creed of absolute governments. We stand between the two extremes, but we are much nearer to the one, than the other; we esteem a monarchy to be infinitely preferable to a republic, and we think a despotic government to be far better than none at all. With the governing Constitutionalists of France, and the Federalists of America, we agree in many essential points of faith, but with the Constitutionalists in question, we are fiercely at issue on foundation principles; and, in truth, they hate us quite as cordially, as they hate any of their opponents whatever. The Whigs have joined them-have in reality placed themselves at their head, but, in doing this, they have renounced British Constitutional principles, and have become the eneinies of what at present constitutes British liberty. Let us, therefore, carefully stand aloof from the continental Constitutionalists.Let us, whenever a nation is rendering itself free, or colonies are declaring themselves independent—instead of merely bawling liberty, and chuckling over everything they do bestir ourselves to teach them right principles, to put them into the proper path, and to assist them to convert their triumph into solid gain-into real li

berty. Whenever they wish to take "the Liberals" for leaders, and to build upon "Liberal opinions," let us oppose it by all legitimate means to the utmost. We shall then discharge our duty as British Constitutionalists, and we shall prove ourselves to be, not the pretended, but the true friends of the rights of mankind, not the nominal, but the real and efficient champions of liberty. If we act differently-if we affect to respect the principles of the foreign revolutionists, and connive at their efforts; and if we think that liberty and our constitution command us to remain neutral, whenever they are engaged in war, and obtaining a conquest, we shall find, that human nature will at every step dash to pieces

the dazzling theories of their philosophy-that the proofs of experience are yet more valuable than the dreams of imagination, and that, what was truth and wisdom ages ago, is truth and wisdom still. We shall find that every victory they obtain will be a wound to liberty-that every acquisition they make will be a subtraction from the rights and well-being of mankind; and we shall find, besides, that we have, by our error and inaction, placed ourselves and our best possessions in jeopardy, and largely contributed to fill the world with plagues and misery, when the means were in our hands for leading it to blessings and happi

ness.

Y. Y. Y.

DEAR SIR, I COMPASSIONATE the feeling with which you must have perused the first Number of this long promised and loudly-trumpeted periodical. In its publication you cannot have failed to perceive the last and infallible symptom. The Quarterly came first-a violent wound-external, and dealt from a distance; then came Blackwood, a close hoine-thrust-you might bandage it up, and smile, and smile; but you felt what was within, and trembled inly-last of all comes this fearful, this fatal, this consummating Westminster Review-here is neither the gunshot wound nor the dagger-thrust -here is disease-here is the plaguespot-here is the putrefaction from within here is the rottenness for which there can be neither cure nor hope. This is the last of your " three sufficient warnings.”

See, now, to what all your fine theories have come! Behold, now, the upshot of your elegant quibblings, your sarcastic whisperings, your graceful cunning innuendoes, your skilful balancings, your most exquisite trimmings: See what is come of your beautiful hesitations, your fine scruplés, your pretty pauses, your politic

periphrases, your play, your by-play, your double play. Admirable ropedancer! are you clean thrown at last? Noble jockey! will the stubborn steed bend his neck never again to be patted by your condescending, conciliating hand? Splendid aeronaut! is there never a parachute in reserve? Is the wax clean melted; O Icarus, and does thy last quill quiver?

So much for exordium and euphonia! now to business in the old plain style.

Your cause, my man.-the cause of the literary partizans of Whiggery, is utterly gone at last. For twenty years your game has been to conciliate the rabble of Jacobinism, Radicalism, Liberalism, (no matter about a little chopping and changing of names,) in order that, backed by the vulgar outcry, if not the vulgar force, your party might be enabled to supplant the Tory ministry, and to distribute among you and their other dependants, the loaves and fishes of Great Britain. This has been your perpetual object; your career has had no meaning but this. In the prosecution of this scheme your difficulties have been considerable, and you have not always got out of the difficulties so well as might

have been wished. You have been induced to say things which required to be unsaid to insinuate what you were obliged to disavow-you have shamefully paltered in a double sense, and not seldom you have been detected.

But not until now could you have completely brought home to your own bosom, the utter, and entire, and irremediable failure of ALL YOUR SCHEMES, In spite of occasional suspicion, visible and audible-in spite of many little checks and stumblings-in spite of Carlile-in spite of Hone-in spite of Cobbett himself—you might still preserve some faint hope that your objects might, some day or other, come to be forwarded by the alliance of those whom your understanding always despised, whom your lords and masters found it convenient you should flatter, and whom you and your superiors must now be contented to unite in fearing. Your tricks have all been exposed, Mr Jeffrey; Not by your old enemies the Tories-God knows, they exposed them often enough, but they did not, could not, expose them among the radicals; they could not stoop to that work; but by the radicals themselves. They have taken up the tone which was that of your most bitter enemies and which is so still-though the enemies have been changed; for as to us, the Tories, being your ene mies now, you may depend on it, that is entirely out of the question. We should as soon think of warring with women, or hating the dead.

The exposé is complete.-You and your coadjutors have for a score of years sneered at what you durst not openly revile-you have for a score of years hinted what you durst not put in plain words-and all this to please a set of people who now take the affair quite into their own hands, and not contented with that, sneer at you, yes, at you and all your clan, more bitterly than ever you dared to sneer at anything; revile your whole manoeuvres more scornfully than ever you dared to revile anything; and speaking smack out without periphrasis or equivoque, everything that ever you dared to utter the smallest hint of, tell you as plainly as words can do, that they saw through you all the while, and allowed you to go on, not from the most distant notion that you ever wished to do the least good to them, but in the

most sincere conviction, belief, knowledge, that your own doings would in the upshot emasculate, destroy, and nullify yourself and your whole set, and thereby serve them and their cause, far more effectually than anything that could possibly be done or devised for your destruction by others. This then is the finale of your cowardly concili→ atory concerto. You gave them inch after inch, and now they at last tell you that nothing but the ell will do for them-that they will have the ell

and that when they have it, you, of all people in the world, are the very last to whom they in their turn would give so much as a hairsbreadth. Your reflections must be sweet.

The plain tale of these gentry has put you down with a vengeance. You have been going on snuffling and whispering about "liberal opinions," the "increased light of the time," "discussion,' ""march of ideas," and God only knows what stuff besides of the same sort. In another department, (if indeed it can be called another one,) you have been cracking your little cunning jokes against" church," "tithes," "bishops," even down to Dr Parr's wig, and the " huge amorphous hats" of doctors of divinity-to say nothing about some still slyer touches of a truly detestable nature-sly and cunning and ingeniously wrapt up, but still smelt, Mr Jeffrey, and sometimes exposed too, as ye may perhaps remember. You have also been from time to time trumpeting up American constitutions, forsooth, American laws, American presidents, and what not; and you have also indulged in occa sional wipes at your own king; both at him that was, and at him that now is. I mean personal wipes at the king, not at his ministers and their proceedings. All along this sort of cant has been muttered by you and your gen tlemen between your teeth-you have been saying these things in a sort of perpetual (aside)-while the tences you were delivering aperto ore, and in facie theatri, were garnished with beautiful high-sounding words of "loyalty," ""constitutional monarchy of England," "our holy religion," "our venerable establishments in church and state," the "practical blessings of our polity, as it is," the "superiority of England" over all other countries, and tribes, and kindreds, and tongues, &c. &c. &c. At one time you went

sen

so far as to attack the Methodists distinctly and expressly on the ground of their being like enough to play over again the part of the old Puritans, and "overturn," these are your own words, "the constitution in church and state;" or, as you word it in another paragraph, "the throne and the altar." Often and often have you in your upper key abused the "madness," the folly," the "visionary trash" of the radical reformers-a hundred and a hundred times over have you thus played hot and cold. We saw through you all the while, and we told you so; but you chose not to be warned by that, for you thought that you were still gulling your own brutum vulgus. You can now no longer lay that flattering unction to your soul.

The radical party, sir, have long had in Cobbett, a man a thousand miles above you in native vigour of mind, and no more to be compared with you as a writer of the English tongue, than the war-horse of Napoleon was to be compared to old Chiaramonti's pet ambling mule. You, in jealousy, or rather in fear, tried to destroy Cobbett -but Cobbett laughed, as he well might, at anything you could do, rattling with your little auctioneer's penny-hammer, (which you mistook for a warrior's mace,) upon his steel coat and cuisses. You did nothing; and he did all himself-he destroyed himself-it is no time to tell how here but he destroyed himself. And it was only his having done this that prevent ed HIM from destroying you also. The radical party have also had for a long time Jeremy Bentham, a man immeasurably superior in his single intellect certainly, to you and all your divan put together. But Jeremy's absurd peculiarities of thinking, still more of writing, rendered him almost as harmless as errors and defects of quite another order had rendered Cobbett. The one had sunk himself below the respect the other could never bring himself down to the intellect of the radicals. In spite, therefore, of these two great men; for they are both of them entitled, in some sort, to be so called-in spite of the admirable ingenuity of the one intellect, and the admirable pith of the other, you and your coadjutors still found nothing to prevent your continuing to play on the same old double game. You played on sprucely

and airily, but at last your hour was come!

In this new Review, the party with which ye had been so long paltering, has at last found an organ and a rallying point of intellect for themselves. Henceforth they tell you distinctly and scornfully they have no need of you. They have told you their old and rooted contempt at once. They have declared their resolution to stand by themselves, and for themselves. "No more asides; no more whispers ; no more hints; no more insinuations; no more Whig-radicals; no more Jeffreys; no more Edinburgh Review; no more milk and water for us." Such is the language this party now speaks; and the thing is spoken in a tone which verily you, sir, and all your associates, may well tremble to hear.

This is a work, Mr Jeffrey, of no common talent. Had the same talent come forth on any side, it must have done something; but coming forward in this shape, and on this side, it must indeed do much. You cannot have glanced the book over without being satisfied of this in a general, or perhaps I should say, in a vague way. But I propose to illuminate your ideas a little farther. You are shocked, puzzled, discomfitted, downcast, perplexed, bamboozled-I am cool as a cucumber. You fear and tremble-I do neither the one nor the other. Do, therefore, permit me to lend you my spectacles, if it be but for a glimpse or

two.

You have no longer to maintain yourself against the shufflings and twistings of the self-confuted and selftortured Cobbett, or the page-and-ahalf polysyllabics of "The Old Man of the Mountain," (as my nephew calls Jeremy ;) you have to do with a clever, determined, resolute, thorough-going knot of radical writers-a set of men, educated, some of them at least, as well as the Edinburgh Reviewers,

and quite as well skilled as the best of them could ever pretend to be in the arts of communicating with the intellect of the world as it is-and (here lies their immense advantage,) these men have a single object in view, and have adopted boldly and decidedly a single set of measures for the attainment of this object. They have none of the demi-tints to study. They have