only article in the social compact destroy it, and society is dissolved. A legal provision for the responsibility of kings would infer, that the authority of laws could co-exist with their destruction. It is because they cannot be legally and constitutionally, that they must be morally and rationally, responsible. It is because there are no remedies to be found within the pale of society, that we are to seek them in nature, and throw our parchment chains in the face of our oppressors. No man can deduce a precedent of law from the Revolution; for law cannot exist in the dissolution of government. A precedent of reason and justice only can be established on it; and perhaps the friends of freedom merit the misrepresentation with which they have been opposed, for trusting their cause to such frail and frivolous auxiliaries, and for seeking in the profligate practices of men what is to be found in the sacred rights of nature. The system of lawyers is, indeed, widely different; they can only appeal to usage, precedents, authorities, and statutes. They display their elaborate frivolity, their pefidious friendship, in disgracing freedom with the fantastic honour of a pedigree. A pleader at the Old Bailey, who would attempt to aggravate the guilt of a robber, or a murderer, by proving that King John, or King Alfred, punished robbery and murder, would only provoke derision. A man who should pretend that the reason why we had a right to property is, because our ancestors enjoyed that right 400 years ago, would be justly contemned. Yet so little is plain sense heard in the mysterious nonsense which is the cloak of political fraud, that the Cokes, the Blackstones, and Burkes, speak as if our right to freedom depended on its possession by our ancestors. In the common cases of morality, we would blush at such an absurdity: no man would justify murder by its antiquity, or stigmatise benevolence for being new. The genealogist who should emblazon the one as coeval with Cain, or stigmatise the other as upstart with Howard, would be disclaimed even by the most frantic partisan of aristocracy. This Gothic transfer of genealogy to truth or justice is peculiar to politics. The existence of robbery in one age makes its vindication in the next, and the champions of freedom have abandoned the stronghold of right for precedent, which, when the most favourable, is, as might be expected, from the ages which furnish it, feeble, fluctuating, partial, and equivocal. It is not because we have been free, but because we have a right to be free, that we ought to demand freedom. Justice and liberty have neither birth nor race, youth nor age. It would be the same absurdity to assert that we have a right to freedom because the Englishmen of Alfred's reign were free, as that three and three are six because they were so in the camp of Genghis Khan. Let us hear no more of this ignoble and ignominious pedigree of freedom. Let us hear `no more of her Saxon, Danish, or Norman ancestors. Let the immortal daughter of reason, and of God, be no longer confounded with the spurious abortions that have usurped her name."

The society of "the Friends of the People," for the purpose of obtaining a parliamentary reform, was instituted early in 1792, under the auspices of the present prime minister, then Mr. Grey. It comprised members of both houses of parliament, and some of the most eminent professional, literary, and mercantile men in England. Mackintosh was one of the original members, and became its secretary. The petition of this society, presented to the House of Commons by Mr. Grey, in May, 1793, remained a deadly arrow, fast and festering, in the side of borough oligarchy from that period to the passing of the Reform Bill. The ultimate triumph

of the facts and arguments, which it recorded with admirable compactness, is rather a disheartening proof of the slow progress of human reason, even in a country where reason is least trammelled, than a consoling one of the superior force of truth. There are, however, in the fluctuations of public opinion, the vicissitudes of political party, and the fortunes of party leaders, few events more curious than that it should be reserved for Lord Grey to carry into effect, in his advanced age, the principles of his early youth, after the awful lapse of forty years over his head, and after they had been renounced or despaired of even by himself. Some have supposed that the petition was drawn up by Sir James Mackintosh: but that remarkable document does not bear the impress of his mind or style. It was written by the late Mr. Tierney. He, however, wrote several of the manifestoes; and conducted the correspondence of "the Friends of the People" with great ability. The wellknown "Declaration of the Friends of the People" was written by him. A pamphlet written by him on the apostasy of Mr. Pitt from the cause of reform, obtained him from the Society a vote of thanks. He obtained also the honours of denunciation by the Attorney-General in Parliament. That conservative law officer, Sir John Scott, now Lord Eldon, called upon the House of Commons, in 1795, to continue the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as they feared the writings and principles of Paine, Mackintosh, Mrs. Wolstoncraft, and "the Friends of the People. In two years more the Vindicia Gallica were cited not only with respect, but as an authority, by the adversaries of reform. This change of tone drew the following observations from Mr. Fox :

"An honourable gentleman," says he, "has quoted a most able book on the subject of the French Revolution, the work of Mr. Mackintosh; and I rejoice to see that gentleman begin to acknowledge the merits of that eminent writer; and that the impression that it made upon me at the time is now felt and acknowledged even by those who disputed its authority. The honourable gentleman has quoted Mr. Mackintosh's book on account of the observation which he made on the article which relates to the French elections. I have not forgotten the sarcasms that were flung out on my approbation of this celebrated work: that I was told of my 'new library stuffed with the jargon of the Rights of Man;' it now appears, however, that I did not greatly over-rate this performance, and that those persons now quote Mr. Mackintosh as an authority, who before treated him with splenetic scorn.

"Now, Sir, with all my sincere admiration of this book, I think the weakest and most objectionable passage in it is that which the honourable gentleman has quoted; I think it is that which the learned author would himself be the most desirous to correct. Without descending to minute and equivocal theories, and

without enquiring further into the Rights of Man than what is necessary to our purpose, there is one position in which we shall all agree,—that man has the right to be well governed."

Sir James Mackintosh, on engaging actively in politics, renounced medicine, and entered himself of Lincoln's Inn. Called to the bar in 1795, he derived little emoluments from his profession, but was not without resources. The death of an annuitant released the property left by his father from an absorbing charge; and he was enabled to raise money upon it, for his present necessities, by a mortgage. With his characteristic improvidence, he was about to sell it disadvantageously, but was dissuaded by his wife. He, at the same time, employed himself in contributions to the daily and periodical press, but, with his want of economy and prudence, and with the expenses of a family, it will be readily supposed that he was often embarrassed.

His political opinions now underwent a change, which was variously judged. It has been ascribed to a visit of some days to Burke. There are two versions of the origin of his acquaintance with his great adversary. According to one account, he was induced to write to Burke, without having yet had any personal intercourse with him, a letter of recommendation or introduction of some third person: according to the other, Burke charged Doctor Lawrence with a long letter to him, containing an invitation to Beaconsfield. A change of religious opinion, under such circumstances, is credible for obvious reasons. But that the political conversion of Mackintosh should be effected in a few days, even by so eloquent and zealous a propagandist as Burke, can be brought within the limits of probability only by assuming that he had what physicians call a predisposition when he went to Beaconsfield. A humane man would naturally recoil from the turn of affairs in France, and humanity was predominant in the career of Sir James Mackintosh. Yet he might have recollected that, if the Revolution produced men of blood, religion had generated persecutors, and monarchy tyrants, to become as bloody scourges of the human race. The supposition that his political opinions were made thus suddenly to veer about, would shake his claim to that depth, firmness, and force of principles and character, which are the growth of the first order of minds. Other disgusts than those of Jacobinism and the Revolution may be easily conceived to have been felt by him. With talents and ambition, he had his fortune to make. Notwithstand

ing his intimacy with the leading Whigs, and their estimation of him, he was still but the pioneer of a party; and he must have found the cause of liberty and the people a barren service. The man who would attach himself to the Whigs, or serve the people, must not be dependent for his fortune upon either, if he would aspire to political station, or escape disgusts. What was Burke but the subaltern- the very slave of a party- and the pensioner of Lord Rockingham — degraded, rather than distinguished, by the paltry title of a privy counsellor? If Huskisson became a leading cabinet minister, and Canning the chief of an administration, it was because they renounced whiggism at the threshold of public life. Thus humanity, ambition, and his necessities may have predisposed Sir James Mackintosh to become a convert; and the knowledge of this predisposition would account for the spontaneous advances and invitation of Burke. His conversion, however, was not yet openly avowed, and he continued on terms of political and personal intimacy with the leading Whigs. He professed an enthusiastic admiration of Burke's genius, without sharing his principles; and, on the death of that celebrated man, in 1797, asked Fox to move, in parliament, the erection of a monument to his memory. Mr. Fox declined being the mover, but expressed his readiness to support the motion if made by

another.

Sir James Mackintosh appears to have cherished the memory of Burke with a feeling of affectionate piety. Dr. Parr had an acknowledged, or assumed, pre-eminence as a writer of Latin in what is called the lapidary style: recourse was had to the Foxite Doctor, probably through Sir James, for an epitaph on Burke,-a proof, by the way, that rhetoric is more consulted than truth in those mortuary eulogies. There is, in the published correspondence of Parr, a letter from Mackintosh on the subject of the epitaph, curious for the artifices of expression, and surcharged compliments, in which it was necessary to envelop the suggestion of even a critical doubt to the jealous Latinist. The letter professes to be a joint production, Mackintosh holding the pen.

Scarlet, Sharp, and G. Philips, are in town. The two first are within your permission as to the epitaph, and my admiration is too warm for me not to be eager to communicate it to men so well qualified to feel its excellence. I need not tell you how they felt it. My wonder increases with familiarity, contrary to the common course of our feelings; but it is because I cannot peruse it or think of it without discovering new difficulties overcome, and new beauties attained. We

all admire it so much, that we hope you will think us authorised to lay before you our doubts (we shall not call them criticisms) respecting one part of it. It is that which follows Critico,' and which I presume you mean to apply to the book on the Sublime and Beautiful.

"Our first doubt relates to the first line, 'qui verborum quotidianorum vim reconditam illustravit.' How is this praise peculiarly appropriate to the book? Has it any reference to our idiomatic style, or does it not rather refer to the philosophical illustration of terms which had been generally but vaguely used before? Our next difficulty relates to the third line, 'Adumbratas rerum imagines multo expressiores reddidit, multoque dilucidiores.' The construction of this line is easy, and the phraseology beautiful; but we are perplexed by the application of it to the work which it is designed to characterise. It seems to us eapable of more than one meaning. This perplexity arises, no doubt, from our ignorance; but there will be many readers of the epitaph still more ignorant than we are."

Strong signs of the new faith of Mackintosh may be observed in his anonymous contributions at this period to the Reviews of the day. He wrote a great number of papers, and upon a great variety of subjects, in the Monthly Review. Among these are notices of Burke's "Letter to a Noble Lord," and "Thoughts on a Regicide Peace."

The contemplation of Burke's writings, genius, and afflictions appears to have inspired him with a sentiment of reverential kindness. He vindicates, by antiquarian research, the ancestor of the Duke of Bedford from the eloquent diatribe of his assailant, but condemns the provocation given, and writes with restraint and difficulty between the adverse distractions of party and private feeling,-the Whigs, the alarmists, Fox and Burke.

"All the writings of Mr. Burke possess so many powerful attractions, that even the irksome and ungrateful topics of personal altercation become interesting in his hands. The publication before us has taken its rise from a parliamentary discussion on his pension; a discussion, which (with the utmost respect for the noble persons with whom it originated) we always thought had too much the air of a harsh and unseemly proceeding. Many circumstances will suggest themselves to the unprejudiced mind, which might have been sufficient to silence any rigorous scrutiny into the merits of the present grant. The venerable age of a great man, his transcendent genius, his retirement from the world, his domestic calamities, ought surely to have prevailed over party resentment, and, perhaps, even to have disarmed the severity of public virtue herself. At least we might have expected a similar effect from similar causes, in generous and amiable natures, such as we most sincerely believe to be those of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale. We agree with these noble persons in doubting the propriety, if not the legality, of applying the fund from which this pension is drawn to such a purpose; and we believe that Mr. Burke himself has severely felt (though he has not chosen to express it in this pamphlet) the mortification of receiving, as a clandestine gift, that which he expected to have been voted by