As so much evil is supposed to proceed from not obeying the king as head of the church, it might be supposed to be a very active office-that the king was perpetually interfering with the affairs of the churchand that orders were in a course of emanation from the throne which regulated the fervour, and arranged the devotion, of all the members of the Church of England. But we really do not know what orders are ever given by the king to the church, except the ap pointment of a fast-day once in three or four years;nor can we conceive (for appointment to bishoprics is out of the question) what duties there would be to perform, if this allegiance were paid, instead of being withholden. Supremacy appears to us to be a mere name, without exercise of power-and allegiance to be a duty, without any performance annexed. If any one will say what ought to be done which is not done, on account of this divided allegiance, we shall better understand the magnitude of the evil. Till then, we shall consider it as a lucky Protestant phrase, good to look at, like the mottos and ornaments on cake,-but not fit to be eaten. work court of Rome. But Popes of flesh and blood | Mr. William Smith, member for Norwich, the head of have long since disappeared; and in the same way, the Unitarian Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce the those great giants of the city exist no more, but their head of the Clapham Church? Are there not twenty truculent images are at Guildhall. We doubt if there preachers at Leeds, who regulate all the proceedings is in the treasury of the Pope change for a guinea- of the Methodists? The gentlemen we have mentionwe are sure there is not in his armoury one gun which ed are eminent, and most excellent men; but if any will go off. We believe, if he attempted to bless any thing at all is to be apprehended from this divided albody whom Dr. Doyle cursed, or to curse any body legiance, we should be infinitely more afraid of some whom Dr. Doyle blessed, that his blessings and curses Jacobinical fanatic at the head of Protestant Votaries would be as powerless as his artillery. Dr. Doyle is-some man of such character as Lord George Gordou the Pope of Ireland; and the ablest ecclesiastic of-than we should of all the efforts of the Pope. that country will always be its pope-and that Lord Bathurst ought to know-most likely does know. But what a waste of life and time to combat such arguments? Can my Lord Bathurst be ignorant? Can any man, who has the slightest knowledge of Ireland, be ignorant, that the portmanteau which sets out every quarter for Rome, and returns from it, is an heap of ecclesiastical matters, which have no more to do with the safety of the country, than they have to do with the safety of the moon-and which but for the respect to individual feelings, might all be published at Charing Cross? Mrs. Flanagan, intimidated by stomach complaints, wants a dispensation for eating flesh. Cornelius Oh Bowel has intermarried by accident with his grandmother; and finding that she is really his grandmother, his conscience is uneasy. Mr. Mac Tooley, the priest, is discovered to be married; and to have two sons, Castor and Pollux Mac Tooley. Three or four schools-full of little boys have been cursed for going to hear a Methodist preacher. Bargains for shirts and toe-nails of deceased saints-surplices and trencher-caps blessed by the Pope. These are the fruits of double allegiance-the objects of our Nothing can be more unfair than to expect, in an anincredible folly. There is not a syllable which goes cient church like that of the Catholics, the same to or comes from the court of Rome, which, by a judi- uniformity as in churches which have not existed for cious expenditure of sixpence by the year, would not more than two or three centuries. The coats and be open to the examination of every member of the waistcoats of the reign of Henry VIII. bear some recabinet. Those who use such arguments know the semblance to the same garments of the present day; answer to them as well as we do. The real evil they but, as you recede, you get to the skins of wild beasts, dread is the destruction of the church of Ireland, and, or the fleeces of sheep, for the garments of savages.through that, of the Church of England. To which In the same way, it is extremely difficult for a church, we reply, that such danger must proceed from the re- which has to do with the counsels of barbarous ages, gular proceedings of Parliament, or be effected by in- not to be detected in some discrepancy of opinion;surrection and rebellion. The Catholics, restored to while in younger churches, every thing is fair and civil functions, would, we believe, be more likely to fresh, and of modern date and figure; and it is not the cling to the church than to Dissenters. If not, both custom among theologians to own their church in the Catholics and Dissenters must be utterly powerless wrong. 'No religion can stand, if men, without reagainst the overwhelming English interests and feel-gard to their God, and with regard only to controversy, ings in the house. Men are less inclined to run into shall take out of the rubbish of antiquity the obsolete rebellion, in proportion as they have less to complain and quaint follies of the sectarians, and affront the ma. of; and, of all other dangers, the greatest to the Irish jesty of the Almighty with the impudent catalogue of and English church establishments, and to the Protes- their devices; and it is a strong argument against the tant faith throughout Europe, is to leave Ireland in its proscriptive system, that it helps to continue this present state of discontent. shocking contest. Theologian against theologian,polemic against polemic, until the two madmen defame their common parent, and expose their common religion.'-Grattan's Speech on the Catholic Question, 1805. A good-natured and well-conditioned person has pleasure in keeping and distributing any thing that is good. If he detects any thing with superior flavour, he presses and invites, and is not easy till others participate; and so it is with political and religious freedom. It is a pleasure to possess it, and a pleasure to communicate it to others. There is something shocking in the greedy, growling, guzzling monopoly of such a blessing. If the intention is to wait to the last, before concession is made, till the French or Americans have landed, and the holy standard has been unfurled, we ought to be sure of the terms which can be obtained at such a crisis. This game was played in America. Commissioners were sent in one year to offer and to press what would have been most thankfully received the year before; but they were always too late The rapid concessions of England were outstripped by the more rapid exactions of the colonies; and the commissioners returned with the melancholy history, that they had humbled themselves before the rebels in vain. If you ever mean to concede at all, do it when every concession will be received as a favour. To wait till you are forced to treat, is as mean in principle as it is dangerous in effect. Then, how many thousand Protestant Dissenters are there who pay a double allegiance to the king, and to the head of their church, who is not the king? Is not * 'Of this I can with great truth assure you; and my testi mony, if not entitled to respect, should not be utterly disregarded, that papal influence will never induce the Catholics of this country either to continue tranquil, or to be disturbed, either to aid or to oppose the government; and that your lordship can contribute much more than the Pope to secure their allegiance, or to render them disaffected.'-Dr. Doyle's Letter to Lord Liverpool, 115. M France is no longer a nation of atheists; and therefore, a great cause of offence to the Irish Roman Catholic clergy is removed. Navigation by steam renders all shores more accessible. The union among Catholics is consolidated; all the dangers of Ireland are redoubled: every thing seems tending to an event fatal to England-fatal (whatever Catholics may foolishly imagine) to Ireland-and which will subject them both to the dominion of France. Formerly a poor man might be removed from a parish if there was the slightest danger of his becoming chargeable; a hole in his coat or breeches excited suspicion. The churchwardens said, 'He has cost us nothing, but he may cost us something; and we must not live even in the apprehension of evil.' All this is changed; and the law now says, 'Wait till you are hurt; time enough to meet the evil when it comes; you have no right to do a certain evil to others, to prevent an uncertain evil to yourselves.' The Catholics, however, are told that what they do ask is objected to, from the fear of what they may ask; that they must do without that which is reasonable, for fear they should ask what is unreasonable. 'I would give you a penny (says the miser to the beggar), if I was quite sure you would not ask me for half a crown.' the moment it suits their purpose, will consent to A shameful and scandalous game, to sport with the serious interests of the country, in order to gain some increase of public power! To the Honest No-Popery People. We respect you very sincerely-but are astonished To the Base. Sweet children of turpitude, beware! the old antipopery people are fast perishing away. Take heed that you are not surprised by an emancipatng king, or an emancipating administration. Leave a locus panitentia !-prepare a place for retreat-get ready your equivocations and denials. The dreadful day may yet come, when liberality may lead to place and power. We understand these matters here. It is the safest to be moderately base-to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when any thing is to be gained by virtue. 'Nothing, I am told, is now so common on the continent as to hear our Irish policy discussed. Till of late the extent of at your existence. the disabilities was but little understood, and less regarded, partly because, having less liberty themselves, foreigners could not appreciate the deprivations, and partly because the pre-eminence of England was not so decided as to draw the eyes of the world on all parts of our system. It was scarcely credited that England, that knight-errant abroad, should play the exclusionist at home; that everywhere else she should declaim against oppression, but contemplate it without emotion at her doors. That her armies should march, and her orators philippize, and her poets sing against continental tyranny, and yet that laws should remain extant, and principles be operative within our gates, which are a bitter satire on our philanthropy, and a melancholy negation of our professions. Our sentiments have been so lofty, our deportment to foreigners so haughty, and we have set up such liberty and such morals, that no one could suppose that we were hypocrites. Still less could it be foreseen that a great moralist, called Joseph Surface, kept a "little milliner" behind the scenes, we too should be found out at length in taking the diversion of private tyranny after the most approved models for that amusement.'-Letter to Lord Milton, pp. 50, 51. We sincerely hope-we firmly believe-it will never happen; but if it were to happen, why cannot England be just as happy with Ireland being Catholic, as To the Catholics. Wait. Do not add to your miseries by a mad and desperate rebellion. Persevere in civil exertions, and concede all you can concede. All great alterations in human affairs are produced by compromise. 1803.) An. 10, 1802. it is with Scotland being Presbyterian? Has not the NECKAR'S LAST VIEWS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, Church of England lived side by side with the Kirk, without crossing or jostling, for these last hundred years? Have the Presbyterian members entered into Dernières Vues de Politiques, et de Finance. Par. M. Neckar any conspiracy for mincing bishoprics and deaneries into synods and presbyteries? And is not the Church of England tenfold more rich and more strong than when the separation took place? But however this may be, the real danger, even to the Church of Ire land, as we have before often remarked, is the refusal of Catholic emancipation. It would seem, from the frenzy of many worthy Protestants, whenever the name of Catholic is mentioned, that the greatest possible diversity of religious opinions existed between the Catholic and the Protestant-that they were as different as fish and flesh -as alkali and acid-as cow and cart-horse; whereas it is quite clear, that there are many Protestant sects whose difference from each other is much more marked, both in church discipline and in tenets of faith, than that of Protestants and Catholics. We maintain that Lambeth, in these two points, is quite as near to the Vatican as it is to the Kirk-if not much nearer. Ir power could be measured by territory, or counted by population, the inveteracy, and the disproportion which exists between France and England, must occasion to every friend of the latter country the most serious and well-founded apprehensions. Fortunately however for us, the question of power is not only what is the amount of population? but, how is that population governed? How far is a confidence in the stability of political institutions established by an experience of their wisdom? Are the various interests of society adjusted and protected by a system of laws thoroughly tried, gradually ameliorated, and purely administered? What is the degree of general prosperity evinced by that most perfect of all criteria, general credit? These are the considerations to which an enlightened politician, who speculates on the future destiny of nations, will direct his attention, more than to the august and imposing exterior of territorial dominion, or to those brilliant moments, when a nation, under the influence of great passions, rises above its neighbours, and above itself, in military renown. Instead of lamenting the power of the priests over the lower orders of the Irish, we ought to congratulate ourselves that any influence can affect and control them. Is the tiger less formidable in the forest than If it be visionary to suppose the grandeur and safety when he has been caught and taught to obey a voice of the two nations as compatible and co-existent, we and tremble at a hand? But we over-rate the power have the important (though the cruel) consolation of of the priest, if we suppose that the upper orders are to reflecting, that the French have yet to put together encounter all the dangers of treason and rebellion, to the very elements of a civil and political constitution; confer the revenues of the Protestant church upon the that they have to experience all the danger and all Catholic clergy. If the influence of the Catholic clergy the inconvenience which results from the rashness upon men of rank and education be so unbounded, why and the imperfect views of legislators, who have cannot the French and Italian clergy recover their every thing to conjecture, and every thing to create; possessions, or acquire an equivalent for them? They that they must submit to the confusion of repeated are starving in the full enjoyment of an influence which places (as we think) all the wealth and power of the country at their feet-an influence which, in our opinion, overpowers avarice, fear, ambition, and is the master of every passion which brings on change and movement in the Protestant world. We conclude with a few words of advice to the different opponents of the Catholic question. To the No-Popery Fool. You are made use of by men who laugh at you, and despise you for your folly and ignorance; and who, change, or the greater evil of obstinate perseverance in error; that they must live for a century in that state of perilous uncertainty in which every revolu tionized nation remains, before rational liberty be comes feeling and habit, as well as law, and is written statute; and that the opportunity of beginning this in the hearts of men as plainly as in the letter of the immense edifice of human happiness is so far from being presented to them at present, that it is extremely problematical whether or not they are to be bandied from one vulgar usurper to another, and remain for a century subjugated to the rigour of a mili tary governmenf, at once the scorn and the scourge of Europe. To the more pleasing supposition, that the First Consul will make use of his power to give his country a free constitution, we are indebted for the work of M. Neckar now before us, a work of which good temper is the characteristic excellence it every where preserves that cool impartiality which it is so difficult to retain in the discussion of subjects connected with recent and important events; modestly proposes the results of reflection; and, neither deceived nor wearied by theories, examines the best of all that mankind have said or done for the attainment of rational liberty. 6 The principal object of M. Neckar's book is to examine this question, An opportunity of election supposed, and her present circumstances considered what is the best form of government which France is capable of receiving?' and he answers his own query, by giving the preference to a Republic One and Indi visible. The work is divided into four parts. 1. An examination of the present constitution of France. 2. On the best form of a Republic One and Indivisible. 3. On the best form of a Monarchical Government. 4. Thoughts upon Finance. From the misfortune which has hitherto attended all discussions of present constitutions in France, M. Neckar has not escaped. The subject has proved too rapid for the author; and its existence has ceased before its properties were examined. This part of the work, therefore, we shall entirely pass over; because, to discuss a mere name, is an idle waste of time; and no man pretends that the present constitution of France can, with propriety, be considered as any thing more. We shall proceed to a description of that form of a republican government which appears to M. Neckar best calculated to promote the happiness of that country. Every department is to be divided into five parts, each of which is to send one member. Upon the eve of an election, all persons paying 200 livres of govern. ment taxes in direct contribution, are to assemble together, and choose 100 members from their own number, who form what M. Neckar calls a chamber of indication. This chamber of indication is to present five candidates, of whom the people are to elect one; and the right of voting in this latter election is given to every body engaged in a wholesale or retail business; to all superintendents of manufactures and trades; to all commissioned and non-commissioned officers and soldiers who have received their discharge; and to all citizens paying, in direct contribution, to the amount of twelve livres. Votes are not to be given in one spot, but before the chief magistrate of each commune where the voter resides, and there inserted in registers; from a comparison of which, the successful candidate is to be determined. The municipal officers are to enjoy the right of recommend ing one of these candidates to the people, who are free to adopt their recommendation or not, as they may think proper. The right of voting is confined to qualified single men of twenty-five years of age: married men of the same description may vote at any age. To this plan of election we cannot help thinking there are many great and insuperable objections. The first and infallible consequence of it would be, a devolution of the whole elective franchise upon the chamber of indication, and a complete exclusion of the people from any share in the privilege: for the chamber bound to return five candidates, would take care to return four out of the five so thoroughly objectionable, that the people would be compelled to choose the fifth. Such has been the constant effect of all elections so constituted in Great Britain, where the power of conferring the office has always been found to be vested in those who named the candidates, not in those who selected an individual from the candidates named. But if such were not the consequences of a double election; and if it were so well constituted, as to retain that character which the legislature meant to impress upon it, there are other reasons which would induce us to pronounce it a very pernicious institution. The only foundation of political liberty is the spirit of the people; and the only circumstance which makes a lively impression upon their senses, and powerfully reminds them of their importance, their power, and their rights, is the periodical choice of their represen tatives. How easily that spirit may be totally extin guished, and of the degree of abject fear and slavery to which the human race may be reduced for ages, every man of reflection is sufficiently aware: and he knows that the preservation of that feeling is, of all other objects of political science, the most delicate and the most difficult. It appears to us, that a people who did not choose their representatives, but only those who chose their representatives, would very soon become indifferent to their elections altogether. To deprive them of their power of nominating their own candidate, would be still worse. The eagerness of the people to vote, is kept alive by their occasional expulsion of a candidate who has rendered himself objectionable, or the adoption of one who knows how to render himself agreeable to them. They are proud of being solicited personally by a man of family or wealth. The uproar even, and the confusion and the clamour of a popular election in England, have their use; they give a stamp to the names, Liberty, Constitution, and People; they infuse sentiments which nothing but violent passions and gross objects of sense could infuse; and which would never exist, perhaps, if the sober constituents were to sneak, one by one, into a notary's office to deliver their votes for a representative, or were to form the first link in that long chain. of causes and effects, which, in this compound kind of elections, ends with choosing a member of parliament. deadly to a republican government: for when such a politiAbove all things (says M. Neckar) languor is the most cal association is animated neither by a kind of instinctive affection for its beauty, nor by the continual homage of reflection to the happy union of order and liberty, the public spirit is half lost, and with it the republic. The rapid brilliancy of despotism is preferred to a mere complicated machine, from which every symptom of life and organization is fled.' Sickness, absence, and nonage, would (even under the supposition of universal suffrage) reduce the voters of any country to one fourth of its population. A qualification much lower than that of the payment of twelve livres in direct contribution, would reduce that fourth one half, and leave the voters in France three millions and a half, which, divided by 600, gives between five and six thousand constituents for each representative; a number, not amounting to a third part of the voters for many counties in England, and which certainly is not so unwieldy as to make it necessary to have recourse to the complex mechanism of double elections. Besides, too, if it could be believed that the peril were considerable, of gathering men together in such masses, we have no hesitation in saying, that it would be infinitely preferable to thin their numbers, by increasing the value of the qualification, than to obviate the apprehended bad effects, by complicating the system of election. M. Neckar (much as he has seen and observed) is clearly deficient in that kind of experience which is gained by living under free governments; he mistakes the riots of a free, for the insurrections of an enslaved people; and appears to be impressed with the most tremendous notions of an English election. The difference is, that the tranquillity of an arbitrary government is rarely disturbed, but from the most serious provocations, not to be expiated by any ordinary vengeance. The excesses of a free people are less important, because their resentments are less serious;and they can commit a great deal of apparent disorder with very little real mischief. An English mob, which to a foreigner, might convey the belief of an impending massacre, is often contented by the demolition of *All this is, unfortunately, as true now as it was when a few windows. written thirty years ago. The idea of diminishing the number of constituents, rather by extending the period of nonage to twentyfive years, than by increasing the value of the qualification, appears to us to be new and ingenious. No person considers himself as so completely deprived of a share in the government, who is to enjoy it when he becomes older, as he would do, were that privilege deferred till he became richer-time comes to all, wealth to few. We believe M. Neckar to be right in his idea of not exacting any qualification of property in his legisla tive assemblies. When men are left to choose their own governors, they are guided in their choice by some one of those motives which has always commanded their homage and admiration :-if they do not choose wealth, they choose birth or talents, or military fame and of all these species of pre-eminence, a large popThis assembly of representatives, as M. Neckar has ular assembly should be constituted. In England, the constituted it, appears to us to be in extreme danger laws, requiring that members of parliament should be of turning out to be a mere collection of country gen-possessed of certain property, are (except in the intlemen. Every thing is determined by territorial ex- stance of members for counties) practically repealed. tent and population; and as the voters in town must, In the salaries of the members of the two councils, in any single division, be almost always inferior to the with the exception of the expense, there is, perhaps, country voters, the candidates will be returned in virtue no great balance of good or harm. To some men it of large landed property; and that infinite advantage would be an inducement to become senators; to othwhich is derived to a popular assembly, from the ers, induced by more honorable motives, it would afvariety of characters of which it is composed, would ford the means of supporting that situation without be entirely lost under the system of M. Neckar. The disgrace. Twenty-five years of age is certainly too sea-ports, the universities, the great commercial late a period for the members of the great council. Of towns, should all have their separate organs in the what astonishing displays of eloquence and talent parliament of a great country. There should be some should we have been deprived in this country under means of bringing in active, able, young men, who the adoption of a similar rule! would submit to the labour of business, from the stimulus of honour and wealth. Others should be there, expressly to speak the sentiments, and defend the interests of the executive. Every popular assembly must be grossly imperfect, that is not composed of such heterogeneous materials as these. Our own parliament may perhaps contain within itself too many of that species of representatives, who could never have arrived at the dignity under a pure and perfect system of election; but, for all the practical purposes of gov. ernment, amidst a great majority fairly elected by the people, we should always wish to see a certain uumber of the legislative body representing interests very distinct from those of the people. The institution of two assemblies constitutes a check upon the passion and precipitation by which the resolutions of any single popular assembly may occasionally be governed. The chances, that one will correct the other, do not depend solely upon their dividuality, but upon the different ingredients of which they are composed, and that difference of system and spirit, which results from a difference of conformation. Per. haps M. Neckar has not sufficiently attended to this consideration. The difference between his two assemblies is not very material; and the same popular fury which marked the proceedings of the one, would not be very sure of meeting with an adequate corrective in the dignified coolness and wholesome gravity of the other. The legislative part of his constitution M. Neckar All power which is tacitly allowed to devolve upon manages in the following manner. There are two the executive part of a government, from the expe councils, the great and the little. The great council rience that it is most conveniently placed there, is is composed of five members from each department, both safer, and less likely to be complained of, than elected in the manner we have just described, and that which is conferred upon it by law. If M. Neckar amounting to the number of six hundred. The assem- had placed some agents of the executive in the great bly is re-elected every five years. No qualification council, all measures of finance would, in fact, have of property is necessary to its members, who receive originated in them, without any exclusive right to such each a salary of 12,000 livres. No one is eligible to initiation; but the right of initiation, from M. Neckthe assembly before the age of twenty-five years.-ar's contrivance, is likely to excite that discontent in The little national council consists of one hundred the people, which alone can render it dangerous and members, or from that number to one hundred and objectionable. twenty; one for each department. It is re-elected every ten years; its members must be thirty years of age; and they receive the same salary as the members of the great council. For the election of the little council, each of the five chambers of indication, in every departmant, gives in the name of one candidate; and, from the five so named, the same voters who choose the great council select one. The municipal officers enjoy, in this election, the same right of recommending one of the candidates to the people; a privilege which they would certainly exercise indirectly, without a law, wherever they could exercise it with any effect, and the influence of which the sanction of the law would at all times rather diminish than increase. The grand national council commences all deliberations which concern public order, and the interest of the state, with the exception of those only which belong to finance. Nevertheless, the executive and the little council have it in their power to propose any law for the consideration of the grand council. When a law has passed the two councils, and received the sanction of the executive senate, it becomes binding upon the people. If the executive senate disapprove of any law presented to them for their adoption, they are to send it back to the two councils for reconsideration; but if it pass these two bodies again, with the approbation of two-thirds of the members of each assembly, the executive has no longer the power of withholding its assent. All measures of finance are to initiate with government. Nothing can be more absurd than our qualifications for parliament: it is nothing but a foolish and expensive lie on parchment. In this plan of a republic, every thing seems to depend upon the purity and the moderation of its govern ors. The executive has no connection with the great council; the members of the great council have no motive of hope, or interest, to consult the wishes of the executive. The assembly, which is to give exam ple to the nation, and enjoy its confidence, is composed of six hundred men, whose passions have no other control than that pure love of the public, which it is hoped they may possess, and that cool investigation of interests, which it is hoped they may pursue. Of the effects of such a constitution, every thing must be conjectured; for experience enables us to make no assertion respecting it. There is only one govern ment in the modern world, which, from the effects it has produced, and the time it has endured, can with justice be called good and free. Its constitution, in books, contains the description of a legislative assem bly, similar to that of M. Neckar's. Happily, perhaps, for the people, the share they have really enjoyed in its election, is much less ample than that allotted to them in this republic of the closet. How long a really popular assembly would tolerate any rival and co-existing power in the state-for what period the feeble executive, and the untitled, unblazoned peers of a republic, could stand against it-whether any institu tions, compatible with the essence and meaning of a republic, could prevent it from absorbing all the dig nity, the popularity, and the power of the state,-are questions that we leave for the resolution of wiser heads; with the sincerest joy, that we have only a theoretical interest in stating them. The executive senate is to consist of seven; and the * That interest is at present not quite so theoretical as it was. right of presenting the candidates, and selecting from | the candidates alternately from one assembly to the other, i. e. on a vacancy, the great council present three candidates to the little council, who select one from that number; and on the next vacancy, by the inversion of this process, the little council present and the great council select; and so alternately. The members of the executive must be thirty-five years of age. Their measures are determined by a majority. The president, called the Consul, has a casting vote: his salary is fixed at 300,000 livres; that of all the other senators at 60,000 livres. The office of consul is annual. Every senator enjoys it in his turn. Every year one senator goes out, unless re-elected; which he may be once, and even twice, if he unites three fourths of the votes of each council in his favour. The executive shall name to all civil and military of fices, except to mayors and municipalities. Political negociations, and connections with foreign countries, fall under the direction of the executive. Declarations of war or peace, when presented by the executive to the legislative body, are to be adopted, the first by a majority of three-fifths, the last by a simple majority. The parade, honours, and ceremonies of the executive, devolve upon the consul alone. The members of the senate, upon going out of office, become members of the little council to the number of seven. Upon the vacation of an eighth senator, the oldest ex-senator in the little council resigns his seat to make room for him. All responsibility rests upon the consul alone, who has a right to stop the proceedings of a majority of the executive senate, by declaring them unconstitutional; and if the majority persevere, in spite of this declaration, the dispute is referred to and decided by a secret committee of the little council. M. Neckar takes along with him the same mistake through the whole of his constitution, by conferring the choice of candidates on one body, and the election of the member on another: so that though the alternation would take place between the two councils, it would turn out to be in an order directly opposite to that which was intended. Having thus finished his project of a republic, Mr. Neckar proposes the government of this country as the best model of a temperate and hereditary monar chy; pointing out such alterations in it as the genius of the French people, the particular circumstances in which they are placed, or the abuses which have crept into our policy, may require. From one or the other of these motives he re-establishes the salique law:* forms his elections after the same manner as that previously described in his scheme of a republic; and excludes the clergy from the house of peers. This latter assembly M. Neckar composes of 250 hereditary peers chosen from the best families in France, and of 50 assistant peers enjoying that dignity for life only, and nominated by the crown. The number of heredi tary peers is limited as above; the peerage goes only in the male line; and upon each peer is perpetually entailed landed property to the amount of 30,000 livres. This partial creation of peers for life only, appears to remedy a very material defect in the English constitution. An hereditary legislative aristocracy not only adds to the dignity of the throne, and estab lishes that gradation of ranks which is, perhaps, absolutely necessary to its security, but it transacts a considerable share of the business of the nation, as well in the framing of laws as in the discharge of its juridical functions. But men of rank and wealth, though they are interested by a splendid debate, will not submit to the drudgery of business, much less can they be supposed conversant in all the niceties of law questions. It is therefore necessary to add to their number a certain portion of novi homines, men of established character for talents, and upon whom the previous tenour of their lives has necessarily impressed the habits of business. The evil of this is, that the title We perfectly acquiesce in the reasons M. Neckar descends to their posterity, without the talents and has alleged for the preference given to an executive the utility that procured it; and the dignity of the constituted of many individuals, rather than of one. peerage is impaired by the increase of its numbers: The prize of supreme power is too tempting to admit not only so, but as the reward of military, as well as of fair play in the game of ambition; and it is wise to the earest of civil services, and as the annuity comlessen its value by dividing it: at least it is wise to monly granted with it is only for one or two lives, we do so under a form of government that cannot admit are in some danger of seeing a race of nobles wholly the better expedient of rendering the executive hered-dependent upon the crown for their support, and sacitary; an expedient (gross and absurd as it seems to rificing their political freedom to their necessities. be) the best calculated, perhaps, to obviate the effects These evils are effectually, as it should seem, obviatof ambition upon the stability of governments, by ed by the creation of a certaint number of peers for narrowing the field on which it acts, and the object for life only; and the increase of power which it seems to which it contends. The Americans have determined give to the Crown, is very fairly counteracted by the otherwise, and adopted an elective presidency: but exclusion of the episcopacy, and the limitation of the there are innumerable circumstances, as M. Neckar hereditary peerage. As the weight of business in the very justly observes, which render the example of upper house would principally devolve upon the creaAmerica inapplicable to other governments. America ted peers, and as they would hardly arrive at that digis a federative republic, and the extensive jurisdiction nity without having previously acquired great civil or of the individual States exonerates the president from military reputation, the consideration they would enjoy so great a portion of the cares of domestic govern- would be little inferior to that of the other part of the ment, that he may almost be considered as a mere aristocracy. When the noblesse of nature are fairly minister of foreign affairs. America presents such an opposed to the noblesse created by political instituimmediate, and such a seducing species of provision to tions, there is little fear that the former should suffer all its inhabitants, that it has no idle discontented by the comparison. populace; its population amounts to six millions, and 1 is not condensed in such masses as the population of Europe. After all, an experiment of twenty years is never to be cited in politics; nothing can be built upon such a slender inference. Even if America were to remain stationary, she might find that she had presented too fascinating and irresistible an object to hu man ambition: of course that peril is increased by every augmentation of a people, who are hastening on, with rapid and irresistible pace, to the highest eminences of human grandeur. Some contest for power there must be in every free state: but the contest for vicarial and deputed power, as it implies the presence of a moderator and master, is more prudent than the struggle for that which is original and supreme. The difficulty of reconciling the responsibility of the executive with its dignity, M. Neckar foresees; and If the clergy are suffered to sit in the lower house, the exclusion of the episcopacy from the upper house is of less importance: but, in some part of the legisla tive bodies, the interests of the church ought unques. tionably to be represented. This consideration M. Neckar wholly passes over. * A most sensible and valuable law, banishing gallantry and chivalry from cabinets, and preventing the amiable antics of grave statesmen. The most useless and offensive tumour in the body politic, is the titled son of a great man whose merit has placed him in the peerage. The name, face, and perhaps the pension remain. The dæmon is gone; or there is a slight flavour from the cask, but it is empty. The parochial clergy are as much unrepresented in the English Parliament asthey are in the Parliament of Brobdignag. The Bishops make just what laws they please, and the |