it, he is a hero and a calamity, formed to punish France and to perplex Europe.

LESSON 52.

GRATTAN: AGAINST NAPOLEON IN 1815.

(Continued.)

The authority of Mr. Fox has been alluded to-a great authority, and a great man; his name excites tenderness and wonder. To do justice to that immortal person, you must not limit your view to this country: his genius was not confined to England; it acted three hundred miles off, in breaking the chains of Ireland; it was seen three thousand miles off, in communicating freedom to the Americans; it was visible, I know not how far off, in ameliorating the condition of the Indian; it was discernible on the coast of Africa, in accomplishing the abolition of the slave-trade. You are to measure the magnitude of his mind by parallels of latitude. His heart was as soft as that of a woman, his intellect was adamant; his weaknesses were virtues-they protected him against the hard habit of a politician, and assisted nature to make him amiable and interesting. The question discussed by Mr. Fox in 1792 was, whether you would treat with a revolutionary government; the present is, whether you will confirm a military and a hostile one. You will observe that when Mr. Fox was ready to treat, the French, it was understood, were ready to evacuate the Low Countries. If you confirm the present government, you must expect to lose them. Mr. Fox objected to the idea of driv

ing France upon her resources, lest you should make her a military government. The question now is, whether you will make that military government perpetual. I therefore do not think the theory of Mr. Fox can be quoted against us; and the practice of Mr. Fox tends to establish our proposition, for he treated with Buonaparte, and failed. Mr. Fox was tenacious of England, and would never yield an iota of her superiority; but the failure of the attempt to treat was to be found, not in Mr. Fox, but in Buonaparte.

On the French subject, speaking of authority, we cannot forget Mr. Burke,-Mr. Burke, the prodigy of nature and acquisition! He read everything, he foresaw everything. His knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and when he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between the access of fever and the force of health; and what other men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness; and then, prophet-like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and in his prophetic fury admonished nations.

I

Gentlemen speak of the Bourbon family. have already said we should not force the Bourbon upon France; but we owe it to departed (I would rather say to interrupted) greatness to observe that the house of Bourbon was not tyrannical: under her, everything, except the administration of the country, was open to animadversion; every subject was open to discussion,-philosophical, ecclesiastical, and political,-so that learning, and arts, and sciences made progress. Even England consented to borrow not a little from the temperate

meridian of that government. Her court stood controlled by opinion, limited by principles of honour, and softened by the influence of manners ; and, on the whole, there was an amenity in the condition of France which rendered the French an amiable, an enlightened, a gallant and accomplished race. Over this gallant race you see imposed an Oriental despotism. Their present court (Buonaparte's court) has gotten the idiom of the East as well as her constitution; a fantastic and barbaric expression; an unreality which leaves in the shade the modesty of truth, and states nothing as it is, and everything as it is not. The attitude is affected, the taste is corrupted, and the intellect perverted. Do you wish to confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe?-a tyranny founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil government, tending to universalize throughout Europe the domination of the sword, and to reduce to paper and parchment Magna Charta and all our civil institutions: an experiment such as no country ever made, and no good country would ever permit-to relax the moral and religious influences; to set heaven and earth. adrift from one another, and make God Almighty a tolerated alien in His creation; an insurrectionary hope to every bad man in the community; and a frightful lesson of profit and power, vested in those who have pandered their allegiance from king to emperor, and now found their pretensions to domination on the merit of breaking their oaths and deposing their sovereign. Should you do anything so monstrous as to leave your allies in order to confirm such a system; should you forget your name, forget your ancestors, and the inheritance they have left you of morality and

renown; should you astonish Europe by quitting your allies to render immortal such a composition, would not the nations exclaim, 'You have very providently watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed to our service, and do you falter now? In vain have you stopped in your own person the flying fortunes of Europe; in vain have you taken the eagle of Napoleon, and snatched invincibility from this standard; if now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you take the lead in the desertion, and preach the penitence of Buonaparte and the poverty of England.'

As to her poverty, you must not consider the money you spend in her defence, but the fortune you would lose if you were not defended; and further, you must recollect you will pay less to an immediate war than to a peace with a war establishment, and a war to follow it. Recollect, further, that whatever be your resources, they must outlast those of all your enemies; and further, that your empire cannot be saved by a calculation. Besides, your wealth is only a part of your situation.

The

name you have established, the deeds you have achieved, and the part you have sustained, preclude you from a second place among nations; and when you cease to be the first, you are nothing.

LESSON 53.

FAMOUS SPEECHES.

III. BROUGHAM: ON LAW REFORM.

code, laws collected and ar- | Justinian, a Roman emperor

After a long interval of various fortune, and filled with vast events, we are again called to the grand labour of surveying and amending our laws. For this task it well becomes us to begird ourselves, as the honest representatives of the people. Despatch and vigour are imperiously demanded; but that deliberation, too, must not be lost sight of which so mighty an enterprise requires. When we shall have done the work, we may fairly challenge the utmost approval of our constituents, for in none other have they so deep a stake.

In pursuing the course which I now invite you to enter upon, I avow that I look for the co-operation of the king's Government. But whether I

have the support of the ministers or no, to the House I look, with confident expectation, that it will control them, and assist me, if I go too far, checking my progress; if I go too fast, abating my