better treated in England than in Persia, he may perhaps find out, in the course of his enquiries, why it is that the Danes are better governed than the subjects of Caligula.'

It is very possible that such enquiry might elucidate the subject; but not for the cause relied on by the Edinburgh.

Admitting that a man treats his wife well, 'because, if he loves her, he has pleasure in seeing her pleased; and because, even if he dislikes her, he is unwilling that the whole neighbourhood should cry shame on his meanness and ill-nature.' Yet is it equally certain that he would treat her equally well, if not seeing her, the reflexion of her pleasure did not constitute his comfort; if not hearing the cries of the neighbourhood, he took no shame in his meanness and ill-nature. This will not be the operation of a well-regulated mind; but it is the nature of many, and more especially of the higher orders, who act on the impulse of their feelings, not on the conviction of their reason: when they see the distresses of the people, they may be willing to relieve them; but they are slow to open their eyes, and prefer the indolent luxury of keeping them closed. The man and his wife have an identity of interest, daily and hourly excited, unity of feeling is essential to their comfort; but the first lesson taught to a king, the first flattery whispered to a lordling, is that they have nothing in common with the people; the very fiction of royal and noble blood implies that they and the vulgar are animated by different principles of vitality; the court chaplain dare not tell them that they are of the same clay; the embalmer endeavours to defend them from the common sentence of corruption. The king does not hear the cry of shame, he is shut up in his gynoceum, surrounded by his courtiers, lulled by his ministers; it is long indeed before the clamour of the people can pierce the walls of the palace! If he goes forth men put on their holiday clothes, and meet him with smiling faces; he is not permitted to view the nakedness of the land; and even those whose interest it is that he should know the truth, join in the conventional politeness of imposing a delusion upon him.

George the Fourth, for instance, visited Ireland; and there were many who hoped that his personal inspection, and the known kindness of his disposition, when operated upon through the medium of his sympathies, would have induced some important amelioration in the condition of that wretched country; but that good-natured people would not allow him the opportunity of exerting his benevolence; they put themselves in masquerade, and, like a famished stroller playing Father Paul, simulated plenty.

The fancied analogy between private families and governments, as now constituted, fails in this, that the feeling of immediate identity of interest operates in the one directly; in the other, a common interest may exist, but it is remote, and does not operate on those who see a present good to themselves, and only a contingent and

remote evil to others, in the objects of their desires. If the Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, or Yeomen of the Guard, perchance sees the bed of a poor man sold for taxes, his feelings of pity may be excited; and it would be rather too much to require him to calculate what fraction of the distress was occasioned by the splendor of his train, or the magnitude of his salary. To the aristocracy, these and similar sinecures are a present and tangible good; to the poor they are a remote evil: the noble pensioner takes no `shame to himself, individually, for a calamity which cannot be traced to his own person; but if the greater number possessed political power, they would take care that useless expenditure did not reduce their quantum of property, and through their property the means of happiness.

In the abstract, therefore, Mr. Mill is right, in attributing the evil of an aristocracy to the desire of all men to obtain the means of pleasure; practically he is wrong, if, as a point of practice, he has stated that this plunder will be carried to the extreme, implied by his reviewer. The nobles never take all; a Turkish Pasha does not devour the seed corn; theory might lead to this result, but, in politics as in science, there are disturbing influences, which always prevent the exact accomplishment of a principle. He is unfortunate, too, in the term swallow up; he ought to have used the less heroic word, 'nibble away' it is not at a gulp that kings and nobles devour a people, as people devour an oyster, but by slow and almost imperceptible degrees; like a thieving housemaid stealing her mistress's tea, or her master's brandy: she does not pounce upon the pound of Twining at one fell swoop, nor guzzle the Cogniac at one huge draught; but she pilfers the tea by the dram, and the dram by the sup; the real owners, meanwhile, have the apparent use of the articles, and it is only when they find them consumed, in an unusually short space of time, and that too sometimes not till after repeated experiences, that they begin to suspect that their servant is not quite as honest as she ought to be; or that the monarch and his court are not quite as tender of the people's pockets, as the occasional speeches to parliament, edicts, or proclamations, may have appeared to indicate.

All governments know that there is a point beyond which the forbearance of the multitude cannot be relied upon, and that when numerical and physical strength is resorted to, political power must fail; they know, too, that the appearance of moderation is necessary, in order to blind the multitude, and have invented an infinity of fine sayings, to delude the vulgar into a belief that ministers never pick the pockets of the people, except for their own good. The doctrines of the Utilitarians would unmask such delusions, and the sophistry of the aristocratic part of the Whigs must ever be joined to the Church, and the Tories, to perpetuate the delusion. This certainly is not the avowed purpose of the article in the Edin

burgh; but as we have imputed a motive to it, or, which amounts to the same thing, have shown the evident tendency of the act, we must do the writer the justice of quoting his own words, though we dispute his conclusions.

'Our readers can scarcely mistake our object in writing this article. They will not suspect us of any disposition to advocate the cause of absolute monarchy, or of any narrow form of oligarchy, or to exaggerate the evils of popular governments. Our object at present is, not so much to attack or defend any particular system of polity, as to expose the vices of a kind of reasoning utterly unfit for moral and political discussions-of a kind of reasoning, which may be so readily turned to purposes of falsehood, that it ought to receive no quarter, even when by accident it may be employed on the side of truth.'

This latter passage is passing strange; but that which follows far surpasses it.

'Our objection to the essay of Mr. Mill is fundamental. We believe that it is utterly impossible to deduce the science of government from the principles of human nature.'

And then the reviewer proceeds to argue, that because there are in the world misers and prodigals, cut-throats and philanthropists, heroes and cowards, and as each of these men has no doubt acted from self-interest,' we gain nothing by this, except the pleasure, if it be one, of multiplying useless words. We, on the contrary, gain from this the means, in our theory of government, of making a man's supposed self-interest comport with the general welfare of society. The law against perpetuities discourages the incipient hoarder; the fear of a jail checks the spendthrift; the dread of the gallows has prevented murder; and the horror of being drummed out of a regiment has made men stand, who would have preferred running away. Occasional cowards, cut-throats, and profligates, are the exceptions, not the rule of human nature; and the rationale of their actions is, that they have sacrificed their permanent selfinterest to an immediate, real or fancied, convenience.

We have not space, however, to enter into the logical disquisition on modes of reasoning; we will get at the truth, when and how we can n; not following those blind judges, who mistake the means for the end, and check discovery by rules of evidence; nor yet those equally blind guides of the schools, analytical, synthetical, logical, or mathematical, who conclude that they have attained the objects of an art, when they have only learnt the names and handling of their tools, without having put their learning to any practical purpose. We must return to the political bearing of the article; or rather to that part of it which we take to be the vindication of the aristocracy.

The author does not advocate any narrow form of oligarchy;

not a dozen, nor twenty-four, nor perhaps a hundred, unless he had the selection; but his expression does imply that he advocates some oligarchy, and it is of this that we accuse him. He would subject the many to the government of a few, and that few will have a constant tendency to reduce their own ranks, till their number shall be limited to a very narrow oligarchy. We advocate the government of many; and though we admit that all cannot govern, we would make the multitude as great as will consist with the necessary energy, unity of action, and other faculties requisite for the conduct of public affairs. Excluding none from representation, coercing none in their choice, but making the number of representatives too numerous for the management of a ministry, and the period of service too short for the corruptive fermentation to which unstirred masses of perishable material must ever be liable. We will allow the influence of learning, public service, private character, individual benevolence: we cannot exclude, perhaps we would not exclude, the incidental influence of wealth; but we would guard against its direct application in the form of bribery, and denounce its agency when made to operate on the fears of the people.

We, too, will give the 'bonne bouche of wisdom,' with which our reviewer makes himself merry.

Mr. Mill says, the opinions of that class of the people who are below the middle rank, are formed, and their minds are directed, by that intelligent, that virtuous rank, who come the most immediately in contact with them; who are in the constant habit of intimate communication with them; to whom they fly for advice and assistance in all their numerous difficulties; upon whom they feel an immediate and daily dependence in health and in sickness, in infancy and in old age; to whom their children look up as models for their imitation; whose opinions they hear daily repeated, and account it their honour to adopt. There can be no doubt that the middle rank, which gives to science, to art, and to legislation itself, their most distinguished ornaments, and is the chief source of all that has exalted and refined human nature, is that portion of the community of which, if the basis of representation were ever so far extended, the opinion would ultimately decide. Of the people beneath them, a vast majority would be seen to be guided by their advice and example.'

But, says the reviewer, if the interest of the middle rank be identical with that of the people, why should not the powers of government be intrusted to that rank? If the powers of government were intrusted to that rank, there would evidently be an aristocracy of wealth; and to constitute an aristocracy of wealth, though it were a very numerous one, would, according to Mr. Mill, leave the community without protection, and exposed to all the evils of unbridled power.'

Now, has Mr. Mill said one word, in the passage quoted, of an

aristocracy of wealth?

He speaks of a virtuous middle rank; the critic is thinking of gentlemen in carriages. Wealth, no doubt, will rise in that middle rank, and with wealth its corruptions, pride and the love of power. Of the few who have so risen above the level of society, some will then have lost caste, as a virtuous and intelligent rank; but their places will be supplied by others, whose interests are identical with those of the multitude; who will not use their power to the destruction of the many, and who will shield the people from that aristocracy, whether of birth or wealth, which deems its privileges inconsistent with the enjoyment of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Here we quit the subject, referring such of our readers as wish to peruse it, to a very able, though unequally written, article, which appeared in the Westminster, as an avowed answer to 'The Edinburgh Review.' It is now printed separately, and is well worthy of the notice which at this moment we have not space to give it.

WRITTEN ON THE CONTEMPLATION OF DEATH.

THE Sun is descending, descending to rest,
Where night's gloomy shadows repose;
And Nature is lending the purest, the best,
Of sympathy's tears as he goes.

But I am pursuing, pursuing the flight,
Of Day's gaudy king to the tomb;

With no mother strewing soft sympathy's light
To scatter, or brighten the gloom.

I feel my heart fading, my sickly life shrink,
From chilling mortality's clasp ;

I see the terrific, the shadowy brink,
That watches Existence's gasp.

Alas! when the tide of my bosom hath flowed,
So guiltily, how can I dare,

To lift up an eye, to my Judge, to my God,
Or breathe in Life's twilight a prayer.

Holy Angel of Pity, O strew on my head,
Repentance's ashes, that Heaven

In mercy may visit my gloomy death-bed,
Ere rest to my Spirit be given.

With tokens of mercy, my parting soul cheer,

Ere Life shall have stolen away;

That th' woes which have traced all my wanderings here,

May stretch not beyond my Death-day.

D. C.