must be ever the first and paramount consideration: the establishment of a strict police, and even the repression of occasional license and disorder, are only secondary and subordinate. Nor need the rulers of this country be told, that, by adopting in common cases a liberal and conciliatory system, they will be enabled to strike with ten-fold effect, whenever they are compelled by the madness and infatuation of misguided men to rouse the energy of the executive power, to arm themselves with the terrors of the law, and crush the efforts of anarchy and atheism. They must watch over the progress of opinion; they must study always to modify and direct, but never attempt to counteract or oppose, it. The spirit of a great nation may be compared to water: to turn it is easy; to compress it is impossible.

We

The state of Ireland, and the proper line of policy to be observed with regard to her affairs, are questions of such awful and portentous interest, that we have judged them well entitled to a separate consideration. We have already commenced a series of articles upon the subject. shall not, therefore, repeat here what we have already said, nor anticipate what we have hereafter to recommend. The question, too, of Catholic Emancipation is so intimately connected with the posture of things in Ireland, that we shall defer the full developement of our views upon that topic, until we come to a farther examination of the concerns of the sister-kingdom. We feel it, however, due to ourselves and our readers to observe, that we are friends, ardent, devoted, unalterable, friends to the Protestant ascendency; that we abhor the spirit of Catholicism, as a political religion; that we should deprecate and lament, far more deeply than words can express, its re-establishment in these kingdoms. But we see not even the shadow of danger that such an event will occur in the nineteenth century, or at any period when the public mind is unshackled and enlightened, and has been long accustomed to free and vigorous speculations. We believe, for our own parts, that the concessions which are asked may be safely granted; that the Catholic might have the most ample justice, without the smallest injury accruing to the

VOL. II.

Protestant. Yet, perhaps, we would grant these concessions by degrees; because we would see by the use which the Catholics make of a less degree of power, with what propriety they could be intrusted with a greater; and because we would pay some regard to the honest prejudices of zealous and conscientious Protestants, and strive to soften and extinguish those prejudices, by proving to their possessors from the good effects of a partial, the very inconsiderable hazard of a total, Emancipation. Moreover, we have this consolatory hope: from observing how much the outcry against Popery has been diminished within the last few years; how the fury of intolerance has subsided, until it burns amid the embers with almost a smothered flame, we fondly anticipate that, in a few years more, the spirit of exclusion will have past away, and that some wise and beneficent scheme may be devised, by which the wishes and interests of all parties shall be reconciled and amalgamated.

With regard to our colonies and dependencies, the kindest and most liberal system may be unhesitatingly recommended. To impose laws upon them for which they are not adapted or prepared; to fetter them with commercial restrictions; to prevent them from enjoying the free and full benefit of their climate and situation; has been demonstrated, both by right reason, and practical experience, to be alike detrimental to the new settlement and the mother-country. These may seem trite and barren generalities; but we have here only spare time to lay down the general abstract principles on which our particular opinions will be founded.

We shall carry the same views along with us to our continental relations, which we have taken of our internal policy. But we must premise, that we are unshaken believers in the justice and necessity of the late war. To have shrunk from engaging in it would have been the very madness of pusillanimity: and whatever burdens it may entail upon us and our posterity, they are far more endurable than the shameful and degrading consequences of a fatal and inglorious inaction. There was only a choice of evils, and the country chose the least. There was no other

alternative, but to enter with spirit upon a long, hazardous, expensive, and sanguinary struggle; or to see Europe immediately, and England perhaps ultimately, prostrate at the feet of a military adventurer, an ambitious usurper, a heartless arbitrary despot. We fought the good fight, and we conquered; but we could not hope to conquer without present loss, and subsequent embarrassment. Yet it is better to be impoverished than enslaved; pecuniary difficulties are preferable to national extinction.

So far, then, we shall always give our warm and cordial support to the ministers who planned and conducted the war against Napoleon. So far they deserve, and they should enjoy, the thanks of the country. But that war, they must remember, was a war against tyranny and usurpation: no blow was struck, that was not struck for justice; no arm was raised, that was not raised for liberty. They must remember, too, that after having combated for freedom, to lend the slightest countenance to arbitrary designs is a desertion of the very principles for which they fought; an abandonment of the very cause in which they vanquished.

England, if she would maintain her present influence, and her rank in the scale of nations, must take some share in the concerns of Europe and the world. But she must beware how she mixes herself with continental intrigues, under whatever mask they may be disguised; or becomes a party to the leagues of monarchs, by whatever name they may be consecrated. She should even tell those monarchs, that if they form combinations against the liberty of their subjects, they themselves are Carbonari, conspirators, and traitors, and that they are laying plots for their own ruin. England has a difficult part to play, between the preservation of legitimacy and order on the one hand, and of freedom, on the other; and the rights of mankind. It is her office, and it will be her praise, to steer the middle course with determination and steadiness. She may hold the balance not only between the different powers of the continent, but between the monarch and the people in every individual state. She may be the mediator and arbitress between nation and nation; be

tween sovereigns and their subjects. What situation can be more honourable? What destiny can be more glorious?

While we are speaking of the war and its consequences, we would just hint at another subject of vital importance to the best interests of the empire. We fear, at times, that the wonderful achievements which our soldiers have performed, and the heroic manner in which they have maintained the honour of the country, may have engendered too exclusive a fondness for our armies, and given › us too high a notion of our military power. In such an error, there is improvidence, there is infatuation, there is the germ of our downfall and our destruction. Far is it from our wish to draw invidious comparisons, where all have equally well deserved; but shall we be unmindful of almost the earliest principle which was imprinted on the hearts of our fathers? Shall we forget, that from her insular situation, and from the genius of her people, her navy must be ever the great constitutional bulwark of Great Britain? If we are led by a love of military parade, to place our sole, or principal, dependence upon our landforces; if we cease to remember, that nature seems to have allotted the ocean as our portion, and destined us to rule upon the waves, England may keep for a few years a delusive appearance of grandeur and exaltation, but she must eventually be undone her real glory, and strength, and prosperity, must vanish for ever. If such were to be the case, we should weep over the triumphs of our armies, and sigh in desponding anticipation for all the victories which they have won. For who shall say, at what expense they will have been earned?

But we must hasten to other topics; and even leave many, which well merit our attention, for the present altogether untouched.

With regard to the laws, we can do little more than repeat what we have hinted in a former number. We shall labour to obtain a mitigation of our criminal code; since it is in some respects of so severe and sanguinary a character, that it might be almost said, that our laws, like those of Draco, have been written in blood. But some

remarks upon a particular branch of the subject, will be found immediately following this declaration of our sentiments. We shall also direct our efforts to the simplification of our civil code, and to the diminution of those delays and expenses, which are now necessarily attendant upon civil actions.

We cannot afford to say a single word upon the national debt, and the plans which have been proposed for its liquidation; upon our financial embarrassments, and the possible means of extrication; upon the distresses of the agriculturists, and the practicability of relief; upon the state of the poor, and the laws which have a reference to them; upon the temporalities of the church, and the manner in which the tithes are collected in England and Ireland; upon the various departments of political economy; together with many other subjects of almost equal moment ;-except that we shall form our own views of them all, alike uninfluenced by motives of interest, and undeterred by the clamours of faction.

Nor can we here notice those important subjects, which come under the head of Politics, when understood in the true and comprehensive meaning of the term; but which have never yet sufficiently employed the thoughts, and engaged the attention of any government in this, or any other, country; such as the popular feeling and disposition, national education, and the formation of national character.

We have, in fact, purposely confined ourselves, with few exceptions, to the points which go under the denomination of party-questions. In our treatment of them, we must have made it evident, that we are not party-men. Or if we are, we belong to no party but our own. Each of us may individually describe himself in the lines of Pope:

In moderation placing all my glory,

While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.

Such is a brief sketch of our political opinions. We trust that they will bear us out in the proud title which we have adopted. We wish that they may please; but if they offend, we cannot alter them. Personally speaking, we