LORD BROUGHAM’S LETTER 
 
 MARQUESS OF LANDSDOWNE 
 
 LATE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 
 
 THOMAS HAWKINS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN OLLIVIER, 59, PALL MALL; 
 JOSEPH THOMAS, 1, FINCH LANE, CORNHILL. 
 
TO THE MOST NOBLE 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE, K.G., 
 
 8jC. SfC. Ssc. 
 
 My Lord Marquess, 
 
 As you were informed of its progress and in¬ 
 tended publication, it would be absurd to argue as if 
 your lordship were unacquainted with the contents 
 of that Letter which is being trumpeted to all the 
 winds of heaven from the hand, the mouth of a 
 personage so distinguished as to name, and of such 
 lengthened years, that nothing short of my respect 
 for truth and for the office which your lordship 
 holds in the councils of this empire, could excuse my 
 thus publicly calling your attention to the matter. 
 The Letter you have seen, and your lordship has 
 been bespoken, both upon the personality of tone 
 and great national impolicy of the same, to say 
 nothing of that freedom of detail, that license in 
 which it luxuriates, like all other productions of the 
 like kind proceeding from this author. Not, there¬ 
 fore, as presuming to enlighten, or to guard the Lord 
 
2 
 
 President of her Majesty’s Council against the one 
 or the other do I venture any remarks upon this 
 performance; neither as believing that any views or 
 corrections of mine are required to confirm those 
 which lord Lansdowne’s friends and adherents have 
 advanced thereupon; but for the love of truth only 
 I wish openly to complement them all, and from a 
 pure desire to save my lord marquess from the 
 injurious supposition that such a letter synchronises 
 with the feelings or the convictions of one of the 
 foremost, the most trusted, and influential ministers 
 of queen Victoria. 
 
 At the same time, for the author’s tradition in our 
 state, for lord Brougham’s former exalted position 
 under the Crown in these realms, I must profess a 
 respect so little inferior if it do not actually equal 
 what belongs unto yourself, that every word which 
 trenches upon that line where we should most 
 respectfully pause when questioning or dealing with 
 grey-haired men, must be referred to those necessi¬ 
 ties of the situation into which his letter forces us. 
 There are instances of a manner so rude, a bearing 
 so insolent, a caprice so intolerable, with such utter 
 disregard in lord Brougham of all the staid, the 
 ceremonious bearing expected from his tradition, 
 that the forbearing respect, the deference which 
 forbids us to offer to take the least advantage of the 
 ex-Lord High Chancellor is almost painful. But his 
 insolencies in public, to all alike—opponents and 
 partisans; his domineering carriage in the Upper 
 
House to our noblest blood; his consequential 
 assumption everywhere—from the court where it 
 strikes the Crown, to that hall where he waves 
 the pedagogic ruler in Gower-street; however it 
 may incense men, surprise the Lords, cow cock¬ 
 ney academicians;—as all this elicits more pity 
 than it provokes aversion from myself, so neither 
 shall his assurance in attaching my lord marquess’s 
 name to a production so misconceived, both as to 
 fact, policy, and manners, betray me to forget, though 
 I chastise the man, what is always due to a name 
 that ought to be most venerable. 
 
 But for principles like these, arising as well from 
 the sentiments in which I regard lord Lansdowne 
 (the sense of what is due to myself also concurring 
 to increase that honour which we should pay where¬ 
 soever honour is due), far other would be our 
 course, as your lordship knows, to both author and 
 letter. When he presumes upon the name, so 
 audaciously conjoined at page 128 with that of 
 Romilly and another, I am tempted to publish what 
 would for ever silence one who, not content with 
 digging his grave, in garrulous excess challenges 
 the manes of murdered trustfulness. If lord 
 Brougham may invoke the time when you “ were 
 ministers together” (see page 48 of Lord Brougham’s 
 Letter to the Marquess of Lansdowne); if he may 
 reiterate to your lordship when you were “ in office 
 together” (p. 60); if again he reminds lord Lans¬ 
 downe when “ both” (p. 90) struggled together in a 
 
4 
 
 common cause; if again and again (pp. 128 and 
 133) he dwells upon a mutuality with my lord 
 marquess; none the less emphatically might I also 
 refer to the nobleman whose heart was broken in 
 the snare set, poacher-like, to the risk of all within 
 the viscount Melbourne’s cabinet. If lord Palmer¬ 
 ston shunned the noose that the hangman intended 
 for his neck; if he evaded the wire so darkly 
 planted for our Foreign secretary, — who was 
 caught, trapped, killed, that lord Brougham thus 
 confidently draws upon the name, and, without any 
 apparent fear, mentions the late lord Holland ? 
 I was dining with one of the first personages in 
 England when the news of his death arrived,— 
 the party was broken up, less from grief at the 
 event itself, than from indignation towards the 
 traitor who induced, if he did not compass it. 
 Still, let me pause; or lord Brougham were 
 arraigned before a tribunal which, being as merci¬ 
 less, is more fatal to those whom it condemns than 
 were the Ten of Venice. Lord Brougham shall 
 even know that the pen which I blunt from respect, 
 has saved the life of a renegade to his clique, a 
 sore to his friends, a bastard to his country, a 
 Sinon to the world, even in acts more atrocious 
 than those which bring felon-miscreants to the 
 gallows. Though his balance kick the beam, others 
 may mete back unto lord Brougham what measure 
 he dealt herein; to the angels leave the sword of 
 vengeance!—“ Tacent: et ora pallor albus inficit.” 
 
5 
 
 Again, were you not thus misused, had not this 
 author fastened upon my lord ; as it is industriously 
 circulated abroad that lord Brougham’s Letter is 
 vended for a Government purpose; here, also, I 
 were bound, if possible, with a greater force to 
 protest, expose, and sbame his rank production. If 
 anything could impair the strength, damage the 
 reputation, destroy the credit which belongs to the 
 Government, this Letter, taken as expressive of 
 the views which actuate British Ministers, could 
 not but be fatal to them. The inconceivably 
 impudent and altogether unwarrantable inclusion of 
 the duke of Wellington by lord Brougham, as 
 bearing, through him, upon the king of the French 
 and M. Guizot (p. 11), is calculated for that end, 
 although lord Brougham’s cool admission that he 
 pressed an opinion upon the two with all the 
 suggested authority of the duke, lowers our chan¬ 
 cellor to deeps profounder than his greatest enemies 
 supposed to be possible. Insufferably presumptuous 
 as it was towards his grace, more presumptuous 
 still was that towards an independent nation. The 
 insult to the one was only less supreme than the 
 falsity handed to the other. Nor will all the 
 fulsome adulation which is offered at page 61, 
 reconcile the duke of Wellington to either most 
 extreme impertinence. Lord Brougham sinistrously 
 boasts his knowledge concerning “ the wisest, the 
 most candid, the most magnanimous of men” (page 
 11). If a letter in his grace’s handwriting is enough, 
 
our Commander-in-chief, far from wishing- to advise 
 Louis Philippe at the. time, profoundly prayed that 
 he might reign no longer. This I say; and if 
 lord Brougham will produce one iota of evidence 
 confirmatory of his assertion as to the duke of 
 "Wellington’s mind and intention as implied in this 
 pamphlet, my letter which traverses it direct shall 
 be forthcoming. The duke of Wellington inter¬ 
 ested himself in the welfare of Louis Philippe no 
 more than did viscount Palmerston after the Mont- 
 pensier marriage. And it is quite as false to 
 pretend that the British Government, or any one 
 member of the British Government, holds or assents 
 to the views or to the opinions which are set forth in 
 lord Brougham’s Letter. . 
 
 But, while desirous of vindicating your lordship, 
 and all others who appear to be involved by these 
 statements, it is still more imperative that we expose 
 the reasons which provoked lord Brougham to ad¬ 
 venture them ! This is our duty to the Crown as 
 well as to the Government, although it is mist of 
 hell, in the centre one, like Moore’s impostor of 
 Khorasan. Lord Brougham insists that “ no man 
 can foresee things that are afterward to happen” 
 (p. 35); he speaks of the impossibility of foreseeing 
 future events, yet this letter vows the fulfilment of 
 a prophesy the most dreadful. If, as Mokhana 
 supposes at p. 5, his observations are of weight, 
 much more his prophesies to those who, in their 
 simplicity or terror, believe them possible. There- 
 
7 
 
 fore, although lord Brougham never for one instant 
 of time supposed that the French monarchy was 
 in danger (p. 28), let us see why he devotes the 
 Republic to the infernal gods, for both French and 
 English are—the whole world is concerned deeply 
 in that matter. 
 
 Yes ! And if ever there was a time when the 
 destinies of this empire depended upon the clear¬ 
 ness, the justness of vision as to what is passing in 
 foreign parts, and a correct, an exact knowledge of 
 the connexion which those events bear upon our 
 own interests and affairs, now is the moment ! 
 To observe correctly, to note exactly, to weigh 
 righteously all that passed and that is occurring at 
 Paris was, and it is the duty, perhaps the most 
 important of all the duties appertaining, for the 
 moment, to British statesmen. For the first you 
 require a sharp, steady—an unblenching eye; for 
 the second, a clean, an unbribed, and a most sinewy 
 hand,* for the third, ability of power sufficient to 
 lift the colossal balances whereupon a long line of 
 frowning kings with the modern Attila, weigh 
 against Democracy, Republicanism, Commonwealth. 
 Now, what would you say to an Esquimaux, who, 
 seeing the pyramid for the first time, while he was 
 astonished at the sight—what should we think if he 
 went to take one and the other up in his hand to 
 try if Cheop’s was the heaviest? A child, over¬ 
 whelmed with wonder at a pyrotechnic display, would 
 be caned if he pretended that the suns, stars, snakes, 
 
trees, buildings, sparkling in the night, were of his 
 own building, invention, creation. Lord Brougham, 
 while confessing of last February’s doings abroad, 
 that “ the like of this was never before witnessed 
 among men” (p. 14); with this confession of his 
 surprise, and the deuial of all human prescience, 
 yet professes his ability and wish “ to enter calmly, 
 but fully, upon the consideration of the most extra¬ 
 ordinary revolution which ever altered the face of 
 affairs in a civilized country” (p. 1). 
 
 Add to all this amazement on lord Brougham’s 
 part, at “ what no one had dreamt an hour before 
 the Republic was proclaimed” (p. 14), at what was 
 “even unthought of” (p. 15), “having no parallel 
 in the history of nations” (p. 5); add to this 
 astonishing ignorance of the signs that always 
 precede great events, lord Brougham’s intimacy 
 with the king and his minister, and then say what 
 descriptions must we expect from their real and 
 zealous friend (p. 10), what portraits but such as 
 are exaggerated to all the horror, the affright in 
 which the South-sea islanders related the doings 
 and encrimsoned the imitations of their most ab* 
 horred demons. 
 
 Even so it is ; and lord Brougham’s deduc¬ 
 tions therefrom necessarily correspond in character. 
 Despairing of the long, the endless list of contra¬ 
 dictions which nullify his letter at every turn, let 
 ns pass, without circumlocution, on at once to the 
 revolt of February. This he represents as “ the 
 
9 
 
 sudden work of a moment—a change prepared by 
 no preceding plan—prompted by no felt incon¬ 
 venience—announced by no complaint—untkought 
 of” (p. 15), “improvised” (p. 30). At p. 13 it is 
 represented as being altogether an accident; at 
 p. 30 a sudden and unpremeditated revolt; “ ex¬ 
 tempore,” at p. 36; “ without the very least prepa¬ 
 ration” at p. 5. Every word of this is false, shame¬ 
 fully, palpably notoriously false; so abominably 
 false indeed, that in a further page (vide 58), after 
 all this scandalous, this barefaced denial of the facts, 
 lord Brougham admits that the Revolution was 
 accomplished under pretences! At p. 3 he as un¬ 
 guardedly confesses the bringing about of the Revo¬ 
 lution. Page 11 shows that the Republic was, as 
 my lord marquess knows, inevitable; pages 7, 8, 
 9, 10, 11, prove that monarchy was impossible to 
 France, even according to his own deliberate state¬ 
 ment. “The sudden work of a moment”!—as if 
 there were no republicanism in that land which 
 gendered and brought forth a regicidal Brutus 
 yearly, sometimes even two within that short 
 gestative period! “ Without a plan” !—ten thousand 
 had been designed, proposed, accepted, whereby to 
 end the most detested reign of the least endurable 
 prince on record. “ Prompted by no felt inconve¬ 
 nience”!—What, then, sir! do you mean by “the 
 sting left to vex, a wound skinned over,” still fester¬ 
 ing and rankling through the Bourbons? What 
 also do you mean by those other “ grievances”? 
 
10 
 
 grievances from the crown, grievances from the 
 peers, grievances from the deputies, grievances 
 from the judges, grievances from the very tenure 
 of existence, land, so that the skies were brass 
 above the French, the earth as iron. No felt in¬ 
 convenience indeed! when not only had the nation’s 
 honour received a wound, but the king, the court, 
 the chambers, the judges, the very ground added, 
 as you confess to its depth, until the boys, nay the 
 very children rose upon them all simultaneously, 
 and cast the former out that the latter might be 
 not cursed to all generations. But for “ the abo¬ 
 mination of boys and children from school taking 
 a forward part” (p. 93) in the affair, if the half of 
 what you admit be true,. these causes, wrongs, 
 
 Had made them capable.” 
 
 If “the catastrophe of 1789 was free” from this 
 pupilarian, this infantine onslaught, Paris had not 
 then been “twice taken by the Cossacks; an English 
 general twice occupying the country; and ulti¬ 
 mately an army of English and Russians holding it 
 in pawn for the payment of ransom and the per¬ 
 formance of conditions extorted by main force” 
 (p. 7). Then Louis the Eighteenth had not been 
 forced upon the French by foreign armies; nor had 
 the date of his initiative proclamation insulted their 
 glowing reminiscences of an all but universal empire. 
 After him,' Charles the Tenth went to revoke the 
 
11 
 
 laws. In his turn the citizen-king daring worse, 
 left, by your own confession, the Charter dead in all 
 but its letter. That letter killed. If the parents of 
 those children so possessed, though abhorring the 
 Republic, “ would not walk across the street to see 
 the hated plant [Tree of Liberty] destroyed” (p.117), 
 with what an unreckonable amount of odium did 
 they regard that government against which, if no 
 complaint were heard, because its shame was felt 
 beyond all remark in words! “ Unthought of” ! 
 Pitying heaven! as if men were like that grain which 
 unconsciously awaits the spark explosive. 0 the 
 course through which they drive a nation, the train 
 of black events which leaves it so intensely hot that 
 it becomes gunpowder! What doth not that dread¬ 
 ful course, that train of horror imply to every man, 
 to every woman and child within the nitric, the 
 charring operation ! You say that beyond what the 
 French possessed, “ all the further advantages which 
 might have been desirable were really hardly worth 
 a struggle” (p. 13). What, then, did they possess 
 worth having, worth keeping, if, as you pretend, the 
 whole of France submitted to Paris—Paris in turn 
 to “ some half-dozen artisans met in a printing- 
 office, and leading on two or three thousand in a 
 capital of one million souls” ? (p. 14). I take lord 
 Brougham at his word, as originally put forth when 
 you desired to lower, to degrade this event to the 
 headship of “a shoe-maker and sub-editor,” over 
 “ a handful of armed, ruffians, that most insignifi- 
 
12 
 
 cant band” naming “as its chiefs some half-dozen 
 men, of whom no one had dreamt at any time, as 
 rulers of the State, the inhabitants of that great 
 capital” submitting “ to the absolute dominion of the 
 dictators” (p. 14). You speak of your “ respectful 
 attachment to the French,” (Preface, v), “ that inge¬ 
 nious and gallant nation” (p. 7), “ that great and 
 estimable people” (p. 39), nay, “ that great and 
 noble people” (p. 142). If such they are, how is it 
 possible to square such facts with your theory as to 
 the state of France “ one short half year ago, when 
 (as you aver) they enjoyed an ample portion of 
 liberty, with that prime blessing, order, and the 
 prospect of permanent security”? They “were 
 making rapid progress in all the departments of 
 gainful industry—reaping the benefits of the richest 
 variety of soil and climate which any nation was 
 ever favoured with—and profiting by every improve¬ 
 ment, whether in the arts, or in commerce, or in 
 policy, which could be reached by the science and 
 the skill of the most ingenious and most laborious 
 people in the world!” (p. 45). You contradict all 
 this so far as to say, ten pages in advance, that had 
 the French government plan of resistance been pur¬ 
 sued in England in 1832, anarchy must have been 
 the result; but that let pass, and twenty other con¬ 
 tradictions; we nail you here: for if the French were, 
 indeed, great, gallant, noble, and prosperous, this 
 Revolution must have been, not as you insist 
 " wholly at variance with every principle as well as 
 
13 
 
 all experience” (p. 5), “ without ground, without 
 pretext, without one circumstance to justify or even 
 to account for it,” (p. 22). Nations do not forego 
 certain good for assured loss. The French, if they 
 were so well off as you describe, would not “ have 
 exchanged a high degree of prosperity for the most 
 cruel misery which ever a once-thriving people 
 endured; and that far from gaining the amendment 
 of their political institutions, which it was their 
 professed object to accomplish by the change, in all 
 likelihood” retarding “the progress of permanent im¬ 
 provement for the lives of the present generation” 
 (p. 148). 
 
 All these propositions are at war, not only among 
 themselves, but against their author; at every step 
 a contradiction grins ; you are left to the horns of 
 unnumbered dilemmas. Unthought of, did you 
 say ? Did no one “ breathe a whisper of enmity to 
 the dynasty,” which you said the French considered 
 as their last disgrace?—Was there but “little per¬ 
 sonal disrespect shown towards the illustrious 
 prince”? (p. 24). I have never gone to France 
 but men, nay, every person with whom I spoke of 
 Louis Philippe, denounced him as the evil genius of 
 their country. Little disrespect !—Is, then, satan 
 so well-beloved because named but seldom, and 
 when named, then in a bated, an under-breath, as 
 they mentioned what the legitimists considered to 
 be his prototype ? For that reason I can conceive 
 why, being likened unto Louis Philippe in the hoof 
 
14 
 
 and head, you, notwithstanding his downfall, remain 
 attached to him analogically. As the king, so the 
 minister, that minister of justice who “ armed the 
 Government with an undue influence over the press, 
 and made the judges the instruments of exercising 
 that influence: whose judgment and temper were 
 wanting where those qualities are most required, 
 whose course was one uninterrupted succession of 
 unpardonable errors from the day when he sig¬ 
 nalised his accession to power by dismissing one of 
 the most able, learned, and incorruptible magistrates 
 in France, the procureur-general of Aix, a man 
 universally esteemed for his virtues, and who had 
 made himself enemies only by his stern discoun¬ 
 tenance of election corruption in his neighbourhood, 
 to the last act of folly and violence, the unsound 
 opinion delivered upon the traffic in places, sup¬ 
 ported by a palpably-misquoted decision, and the 
 yet more astounding indiscretion of bringing for¬ 
 ward from its resting-place an old, dormant, obsolete 
 decree of the Convention against public meetings” 
 (pp. 25-6). Those are your words. Yet the Revo¬ 
 lution was unthought of! You pretend that “ the 
 sovereign could not stir without an effectual con¬ 
 straint upon all his motions—the law could not be 
 violated by any minister” (p. 13). Why, the king 
 of the French was his own president of the council, 
 and over-ruling M. Guizot to his will, succeeded 
 M. Martin (du Nord) by a judge still more 
 flagrantly corrupted and unrighteous. Unthought 
 
15 
 
 of! Improvised!—Why, everybody pondered the 
 Republic day by day, almost hour by hour; and 
 not only pondered upon, but expected its certain 
 advent. 
 
 Yes, the Revolution in France was a result which 
 those only could not foresee who were stricken with 
 more than mole, a judicial blindness. A Republic 
 was the end, as demonstrably as is any proposition 
 in Euclid. To suppose that in an age like ours, in 
 such a nation as France, after the trial of so many 
 kings, that one who, to the want of title, showed 
 his utter inability for the style royal, with an abso¬ 
 lute incomprehension of all that becomes a king 
 with his people,—I say, to suppose that he would 
 be tolerated one moment after the opportunity 
 occurred to put such a thing aside is ridiculous. To 
 pretend that the monarchic, or any other but a repub¬ 
 lican form of government was possible to the French 
 after the extradition of Louis Philippe is even more 
 so. To whom could Frenchmen look after the 
 annihilation of this king ? The due d’Orleans was 
 enthroned as offering a last chance for monarchy. 
 Presumed to be well-learned in the severest school, the 
 school of suffering and trial, the due d’Orleans was 
 proposed to the French in the hope that the younger 
 branch of the Bourbons might be accepted as the 
 olive of peace by that Europe which looked askance 
 at the deposition of Charles Dix. Lafayette con¬ 
 cluded rightly as to that: how disappointed the old 
 man was in the better hope that this monarch might 
 
16 
 
 be a blessing to bis people, behold in that mournful 
 scene when Lafayette regretted, with his dying 
 breath, the investiture of the due with power over 
 a betrayed nation. 
 
 And here, remembering when the marquis pro¬ 
 duced Louis Philippe due d’Orleans to the world as 
 the best of men, embracing him before the tumul¬ 
 tuary mob that had just emptied the throne, 
 investing him with the Lieutenant-generalship of 
 France, finally hailing him as King over five and 
 thirty millions of souls; considering these, with 
 the further fact, that the marquis de Lafayette 
 had no sooner served his end, than Egalit6’s son 
 slammed the Tuileries in that soldier’s face, scoffing 
 him from behind the throne, eventually morti¬ 
 fying him to death by looks that the Syracusan 
 Dionysius never reached, how any man within 
 the Four seas, how any human being can boast of 
 Louis Philippe as his friend, astonishes—it astounds 
 me! If Nero retained one heart, if one freedman 
 remained true, in his reverse to him, Nero was 
 young, and he was also sublimely beautiful ! 
 Whom Seneca could but love at the point of 
 death, to such an one others might be, they 
 were attached. But ingratitude, middle-aged, 
 when it is unredeemed even by the grace of 
 days, makes a man a fiend; it metamorphoses 
 a prince to a demon in the sight of all those who 
 have eyes to see, and instinct left to shudder at 
 what is more than detestable. There are passages, 
 
17 
 
 there is one especial passage in lord Brougham’s 
 career when, accused of nothing less, they arraigned 
 him before his peers. A verdict of “ Guilty ” 
 being returned, what less could he expect than 
 to be expelled from the Cabinet? Next, here is 
 the case of our late lord Holland. Louis Philippe 
 receiving intelligence of the resolutions taken in 
 her Majesty’s council, as lord Holland was a par¬ 
 tisan of the French alliance, did he, forswearing 
 himself to the Crown, communicate thus traitor¬ 
 ously with an opposed monarch ? Thus for the 
 moment it appeared, and so were we convinced, 
 as is well known in Printing-house-square. Yet, 
 my lord marquess, he writes to you !—to you 
 who know all that sad, that funereal affair of the 
 too-incontinent noble. Well may lord Brougham 
 abruptly commence this his Letter to the marquess 
 of Lansdowne. Confidence the most assured, 
 the most collected impudence, effrontery was 
 required from the most shameless of the human 
 race, before my lord marquess’s name could be pre¬ 
 sumed upon in this Letter. Then mark by what 
 degrees the cunning lord steals up to, and with 
 all his wily art adopts the frank expression (p. 6). 
 At p. 84 your lordship is not merely his “ friend,” 
 you are the “dear friend” of lord Brougham! 
 Rising at p. 156 to the superlative degree, “my 
 old and excellent friend” is the form applied to 
 the marquess of Lansdowne ! What further proof 
 do we require of that congeniality which exists 
 
18 
 
 between the murderer of Lafayette and this author ? 
 What further illustration do we want of that law 
 which couples, as in the natural world toad to 
 toad, eft to eft, so also in the moral sphere, vice to 
 equal vice for a season ? This, while it explains his 
 insensibility of memory to the sufferer who crowned 
 Louis Philippe king, reminds us forcibly of the 
 crime incarnated in lord Brougham’s person. 
 
 If, therefore, this author see awry, attribute it to 
 the obliquity of a nature depraved, even to the same 
 degree as was the usurper’s who killed his princely 
 benefactor. I speak of Lafayette, as it respects the 
 king; not as in any way committing myself to the 
 praise of so unwise, so vacillating a person. He 
 might have saved Louis XVI., his queen, and his 
 sister. Indeed, had the marquis possessed but half 
 the spirit of a knight, France had been saved from 
 those oceans of blood in which she sinks drowning 
 to suffocation. But our argument is not with him; 
 we are speaking of a man who, to-day declared 
 that no inducement whatsoever should win him to 
 quit his tribunitial place in the House of Commons, 
 to-morrow plain Mr. Henry Brougham sate upon 
 the woolsack Lord High Chancellor! To-day his 
 lordship was hand-and-glove with our noble friend, 
 to-morrow, lo, Holland! his throat cut from ear to 
 ear, dead for ever. 
 
 But proceed we with lord Brougham’s Letter to 
 the marquess of Lansdowne. Of the Revolution he 
 speaks at first contemptuously as “ a passing scene ” 
 
19 
 
 (p. 5); “ no man can pretend to tell what it is; 
 none can apprehend its form and character, or can 
 even hazard any conjecture of its fate” (p. 34). 
 At page 93 lord Brougham defines it to be “the 
 victory over order.” At page 16 the Revolution is 
 “ this lamentable event.” At page 93, “ deplorable” 
 is the term applied; in page 32 the Revolution 
 is covered with ridicule. “ The tumult” (p. 49) ; 
 “ the late Saturnalia of Paris” (p. 55); “ the Paris 
 nuisance” (p. 74). Nuisance! Saturnalia! tumult! 
 the deplorable revolution ! this lamentable event! 
 What wonder if this work of some half-dozen artizans 
 met in a printing-office (p. 14) was, according to 
 the late Lord High Chancellor of England, the work 
 of “perpetrators” (p. 30). 
 
 Lord Lansdowue! I pause; I pause before that 
 most frightful word. From all good, all decent 
 company it is barred equally with the satanic 
 name. In speaking of murder people say it was 
 committed. Scarcely in the most inhuman work of 
 blood do we allow this more than shocking expres¬ 
 sion. The foulest, strangest, most unnatural murder 
 only will admit this last of verbs. Crimes such as 
 Suetonius hints are the proper, the sole subjects for 
 a word so terrible in its sense, so hellish in signifi¬ 
 cance. When Rome was fired Nero outdid his 
 mother’s matricide. The empress suffered infinitely 
 less than did the Romans at Nero’s hand; and it 
 required a greater boldness in a huger grasp of 
 wickedness, a higher degree, a more iniquitous 
 
20 
 
 comprehension to imagine an enormity beyond what 
 ended Poppea. Mothers had often been destroyed 
 by the monsters whom they birthed, but who had 
 ever thought of setting fire to and ravaging the 
 capital of a dominion that owned and obeyed him 
 as Caesar ? Therefore Nero is accursed. He is a per¬ 
 petrator. Cataline, perhaps, exceeded him. The one 
 was a fiend, a fiend-satyr the other. Lord Brougham 
 classes with him these Republicans as “ perpetrators”! 
 Rising from the Ciceronian episode of the Roman 
 history, in his madness lord Brougham also likens 
 one who yet lives, to the Infamy of whom we read 
 in Sallust. As M. Ledru Rollin will settle this with 
 his incriminator, we pass on to others whom lord 
 Brougham charges as being “ perpetrators.” These 
 are the dead—the dead whom France inurned, 
 worshipping them in her sacred heart as saviours. 
 O look not around the boulevards of Paris, nor 
 search the prisons of Vincennes for those who 
 accomplished the last Revolution. All their bodies 
 lie entombed by the Colonne de Juillet, and their 
 souls rest with God in his highest heaven. With 
 that address which is Dagon’s own, with the sharp¬ 
 ness of an Old Bailey lawyer, lord Brougham 
 confounds with martyred saints and hero souls “ the 
 dregs of the populace.” These, “ revelling in the 
 plunder of Neuilly and Surenne—Neuilly, whence 
 a prince had been driven too merciful to keep a 
 crown at the cost of the people’s blood—Surenne, 
 whence its generous owner had just sent the gifts of 
 
21 
 
 his noble charity to solace the wounded of the mob ! 
 There see the fruits of their victory in the dilapi¬ 
 dated mansion, where the assailants fought together 
 like tigers for fragments of the blood-stained spoil, 
 driven from the half-burnt chambers to the cellar, 
 there to glut themselves with strong drinks, and 
 strew the floor with their carcases; some drowned 
 in the rum of which they had stove the casks in 
 their beastly appetite for. intoxication that would 
 brook no delay; many more .burnt in the flames 
 which in their drunken fury they had kindled!” 
 (p. 8S). There aping Tiberian tricks, the ottomans 
 they used, the beds they soiled, served avenging 
 angels for the fire in which they burnt the bodies 
 of these miscreants to ashes. Forgotten are their 
 names; they are blotted from out the book cf 
 life; anathema maranatha is theirs, 0 God ! for 
 ever. But those 'whom a nation mourned as her 
 best of sons, following the flower of all her youth to 
 an eternal tomb; vdiom millions named upon the 
 knee, commending their departed souls to God; 
 those whom the Church assoiled, shedding holy 
 tears; whom she collected as saints that slept the 
 peace, as martyrs who had won the crown, were 
 these, Sidney! Hampden!—must I repeat the 
 word?—were these, ye Maccabees! “perpetrators”? 
 
 This, fastened upon the public purse lord 
 Brougham, in his pride and dotage says, and saying 
 he would of that persuade the world if the thing 
 were possible. Alas, for him. The evil and depraved 
 
22 
 
 disposition of Catiline; his proneness to massacres, 
 rapines, discord; his crafty dissembling mind, 
 burning lusts, were yet redeemed by a warlike, an 
 enduring, a lordly, eloquent soul, and an im- 
 moderancy that reminds one of the fallen Son of the 
 Morning. As this author presents Cataline to our 
 hand, we must needs say that he—even he betrays, 
 naj r , lord Brougham exhibits more than the in¬ 
 vention and the dissimulation of that name in this 
 part of his pamphlet. Well might his late majesty 
 observe that lord Brougham’s spite proved the 
 baseness, littleness, contemptibility of the man. 
 Now, after that I am sick but to be obliged to 
 touch such a person.. The reflection as to what 
 this author is, what lord Brougham was, and the 
 absurdity of treating him as an authority with the 
 world after a libel like that! is no less disgustful. 
 The stripping off this lion skin; the demonstrating 
 what, though braying like an ass, possesses only 
 a crepuscular dimension; the lecturing over an 
 image that was supposed to eat, is so seemingly 
 supererogatory, that as it required all the patience 
 of Daniel when he harangued the priests and wor¬ 
 shippers of Bel, so also our patience is provoked 
 by this selfsame idol. Yet it hath a voice. The 
 attribution of motive to any man were wrong, but 
 observe why lord Brougham ventures upon so blas¬ 
 phemous an extremity in this Letter. Imagine the 
 forcing upon mankind a lie under the pretence of 
 wisdom! Fire and brimstone lord Brougham 
 
23 
 
 forces upon all nations under the plea that it 
 would strengthen, confirm, and save their con¬ 
 stitutions! Sublime impudence! To degrade the 
 Revolution lord Brougham represents the Parisians 
 as terrified by the fear of “ fire, pillage, and 
 massacre” (p. 14). Their “ familiarity with change, 
 the proneness to violence, the habit of undergoing 
 morbid convulsive movement instead of the healthy 
 natural action of the politic body,” is remarked at 
 the twenty-second page. “ Their guilty and sense¬ 
 less conduct last February” he dots down (p. 55 ); 
 at page 89, availing himself of hearsay, lord 
 Brougham refers “ to the chateau d’Eau, near the 
 Palais Royal, where not a few were said to have 
 been cast into the flames and burnt alive, while the 
 people, ‘ so sublime in the hour of victory’ (said their 
 parasites of the press and the tribune), accompanied 
 the roasting of their fellow-creatures with screams 
 of delight and grins of rapture, borrowed from the 
 hyena.” Warming to the demoniac joy which is 
 usual to horror-loving minds, Paris, “ that many¬ 
 headed idol—that Juggernaut” (p. 93), next comes 
 in for all the jeer, the satire that can be commanded 
 by this Aristophanic Mephistophiles. Having vitu¬ 
 perated them with shameful names, enumerated 
 their vices, triumphed over their crimes, lord 
 Brougham next informs you how glad he should be 
 to punish these dastards. He regrets “that the 
 revolt of June was not continued a little longer, in 
 order that the good disposition which had manifested 
 
24 
 
 itself in the provinces, no more to bear the yoke of 
 the capital, might have produced its most precious 
 effect, the hastening of National Guards towards 
 Paris from other towns to overpower the evil- 
 minded and encourage the faint-hearted, and show 
 that proud city that Lyons and Nantes, Dijon and 
 Ronen, and Lisle, as well as Bordeaux and Mar¬ 
 seilles, must no longer be trampled on like slaves, 
 or be forgotten like things that never had any 
 existence” (pp. 111-2). “ When next the distresses 
 of the country, pressing most severely upon Paris, 
 and the folly of the agitators in pursuit of their 
 sinister objects, shall cause scenes like those of May 
 and June, we may confidently trust that any diffi¬ 
 culty in restoring tranquillity will be followed by 
 the march of the departments to aid the friends of 
 order in the capital” (p. 117). This for the 
 Parisians! At page 15 “all France” is accused of 
 having “ tamely submitted” to “ a handful of men 
 in Paris.” “ The National Guards, afraid of having 
 their shops attacked, their windows and toys broken, 
 declined to do their duty” (p. 28); thinking “ only 
 of their shops and their brittle wares, the National 
 Guards with the bulk of the inhabitants (of Paris), 
 to save their lives” (p. 32), “ were subjected to 
 a handful of their own fellow-citizens” (p. 111). 
 “ The whole of the people” are, says our author, 
 “ in their turn entirely subjected to the inhabitants 
 of the capital” (idem). Thus, having infinitely 
 lowered the first, still more infinitely (so to speak,* 1 
 
25 
 
 lord Brougham degrades the second. Having thus 
 described the head and body of the nation, he warns 
 the French what they shall surely get in a certain 
 case, that case being supposed by the ex-chancellor 
 for exciting their minds, of aggravating that he may 
 urge them on to the commission of what would 
 enable Goth, Vandal, and lord Brougham to harry 
 France, to cut her up, and to partition out the 
 country like Poland. 
 
 I say that a scene like this, the would-be 
 Machiavel persuading Gaul, the while his burning 
 poison is being spirted on her face, to take a pill 
 gilded so ill that its Mithridatic nature is apparent, 
 
 —my lord! such a scene as this is so terribly 
 grotesque that a Spartan would consider a single 
 word sufficient for the actor in so extra serio-comic, 
 so strangely dread-ludicrous a drama. But, if he 
 be mad in respect to France, what is lord Brougham 
 to England ? If Britons regard truth, if they like 
 straight-forwardness, if they love fair-play; and if 
 we hate lies, despise mountebanks, and abhor all ; 
 that is proudly-mean, falsely-bold, conjuring, mon- \ 
 keyish, then let this vindictive lord—I will not call | 
 him the quack, the Eady of the age—know that our 
 nausea is equalled only by the wretched, the putres¬ 
 cent stuff which he commends to us in common 
 with the French, the Italians, and our Teuton neigh¬ 
 bours ! What the Revolution was, in his opinion, 
 lo and behold! its principle is with him that of 
 “ Cain with Abel” (p. 160). “ Cain with Abel”!— 
 
certainly that exceeds all that we have heard 
 before; it climaxes lord Brougham, as the devil is 
 sometimes capped in quoting scripture. 
 
 Yes, all this he insists, lord Brougham insists 
 that every word of it is gospel true,—to the unre- 
 garding clouds sailing high above reach of voice ? 
 to the sea when it is raging deaf?—neither to the 
 one nor to the other. To Frenchmen he insists, to 
 Englishmen he raves thus, to Italians lifts he up 
 the voice; the Germans are screamed, they are 
 shrieked to; he screams, shrieks, howls all this to 
 the universe. Astonishing assurance of pretence! 
 incredible impudence! presumption unparalleled ! 
 But are we confiscated? are we also insane? is 
 Europe befooled? is the whole world forgetful? 
 Why, lord Brougham is an accomplice in the 
 whole ! He endeavoured to share in what is thus so 
 inconsequently denounced before men and angels! 
 This accuser of a mighty city, this libeller of the 
 race of Charlemagnus, this palterer with truth, this 
 inconsistent, illogical, self-contradicting prosecutor 
 of nations but yesterday applied to one who lives 
 to attest the fact that he who thus vaunteth himself 
 through the marquess of Lansdowne,— yes, he, 
 Henry, hight baron Brougham and Yaux, formerly 
 the Prolocutor of the House of Lords, did,—yes, 
 the identical writer of this Letter to the Lord 
 President of the Council, even he did, presently 
 after the said Revolution occurred, write, or cause 
 to be written, a certain missive which was addressed 
 
27 
 
 to, and said missive in due time reached the Revo 
 lutionary Government; and therein he, the said 
 Henry lord Brougham, being proprietor of a 
 chateau at Cannes, did request that letters of natu¬ 
 ralization should he granted to him by said Re¬ 
 volutionary Government, citizen Cr&nieux, then'a 
 member of the same, being requested to despatch 
 said letters of naturalization as soon as might be to 
 said applicant, he, the said Henry, professing him¬ 
 self to be ready, if it were necessary in order that 
 he become purely and wholly French, to resign all 
 his rights, both as an English peer and a British 
 subject, to said Revolutionary government in return 
 for letters of naturalization ! 
 
 Thus ran lord Brougham’s letter to the Govern¬ 
 ment that he maligns. Nor was such an application 
 to remain unanswered, however it must be despised 
 by citizen Crdmieux. However ridiculous, how¬ 
 ever scandalous it might sound to hear a former 
 Lord Keeper of England entreat and pray to be 
 admitted into the Cainan fraternity of which 
 we read, the lay Atterbury was, nevertheless, a 
 French seigneur. His ready promptitude of appli¬ 
 cation and eagerness to cast off all those rights which 
 lord Brougham holds in common with ourselves 
 under the imperial Crown, expressed either his 
 indifference to those rights, or the high, the immense 
 value which he attached to the February Revolu¬ 
 tion. You and I, lord marquess, remember when 
 it was a moot question, if the coming Chancellor 
 
28 
 
 would present himself in the usual forensic costume? 
 Mr. Brougham had shown so little respect for form, 
 he felt such a contempt for state, that the symbolic 
 wig, mace and purse were not a little jeopard¬ 
 ized when he vaulted into the Chancellorship. 
 The privileges of a peer and of a subject in Great 
 Britain ranked, probabty, no higher in his regard 
 when writing to this republican administrator. Be 
 that as it may, the application showed his earnest 
 desire, his ardent ambition to be made wholly 
 French, to be transmogrified into the reddest repub¬ 
 lican. The precious gifts with which this favour 
 was sought by lord Brougham, the priceless bribes 
 offered from his lavish hands to citizen Crdmieux, 
 prove that to be French, to be republican was the 
 dearest hope, the fondest and most anxious desidera- 
 lion of our ex-Lord High Chancellor. 
 
 If that gentleman had been a Jew M. Cr^mieux 
 could not have shown more penetration than was 
 manifested in his answer. Lord Brougham pre¬ 
 tended that his application was prompted by the 
 truly generous, the patriotic desire to show to his 
 fellow-countrymen what an undoubting confidence 
 he had not only in the Republic, but also in its 
 principle. For the first, as the minister had no 
 fear, while the other was ordained by God, lord 
 Brougham’s motion herein was immaterial to citizen 
 Cr^mieux. His offered abnegation, his proposed 
 self-denudation of even peerage-right was more 
 suspicious. Had there been anything in the ex-lord 
 
29 
 
 chancellor’s career significant of a truly enthusiastic 
 soul, that he should thus offer to renounce, for a 
 mere titularity, for a name like that, the honours 
 for which Henry Brougham scratched, kicked, 
 clawed, cursed, swore, and sold himself to many 
 a work of darkness? Citizen Cr^mieux knew as 
 much, and so knowing divined that the various, the 
 slippery lord, the Protean peer, the canny Scot, was 
 endeavouring to wriggle in amongst the French for 
 an eel-like purpose. If once naturalized, all their 
 equality, their right was his, as a voter, as a repre¬ 
 sentative if any constituency could he induced to 
 return lord Brougham to the Assembly in Paris. 
 Seigneur at Cannes, our well-pensioned chancellor 
 had ample funds wherewith to bribe, to buy over no 
 few Provengal peasants. His sophistical flatteries, 
 his honeyed Negropontine adulation might, it was 
 not impossible, prevail over their department! 
 It were a curious, a singular, an anomalous thing, 
 but if kings desired the Olympic honours, emperors 
 emulating themselves at the Hellenistic games, lord 
 Brougham reviving thus a once magnific part, 
 might play no mean character out upon the stage 
 thus promisingly opened up to his palled, sated, 
 almost asphyxied ambition. Representing the Yar, 
 elected a member of and taking his seat in the 
 French Assembly, behold that un-ermined lawyer- 
 tribune Demosthenising there! In the imagination 
 citizen Cr£mieux did see lord Brougham there, 
 and, no middle course being possible to such a man, 
 
30 
 
 the future Presidentship was his, or the Republic 
 would be undermined for “ the illustrious prince,— 
 the illustrious prince whom the Revolution has set 
 aside,—the illustrious exile” (pp. 24, 139, 4). 
 
 I said that our citizen divined all that, and 
 detecting lord Brougham’s pretence, treated him 
 accordingly. Perfectly right, citizen! For, if your 
 petitioner was the revolutionist which judging from 
 pp. 6 and 7 of this pamphlet, lord Brougham 
 is, not only the Minister of Justice, but the 
 “illiterate creatures” of which we read at p. 162, 
 “LeSitoyonGamier” (p. 161), even the “notorious 
 Barbas, now awaiting his trial” (164), might shrink 
 back aghast from him, as much too levelling, anti¬ 
 social, destructive. What happened in France for, 
 and under the Revolution of 1789-93, we know. 
 Lord Brougham celebrates the “free constitution” 
 therefrom resulting as “ a far more precious pos¬ 
 session” than all the emperor Napoleon’s con¬ 
 quests. “ The arbitrary power of the monarch 
 could no longer make the law; the pride of the 
 aristocracy, with the influence of the hierarchy, 
 were humbled in the dust; and every vestige of 
 feudal abuse was utterly obliterated, even to the 
 most harmless ornaments, and mere empty forms 
 of the system” (pp. 6 and 7). There! Those 
 are his words! There they are, lord Lansdowne 1 
 What mean they ? For what transcends all praise, 
 Louis Capet, and Marie Antoinette, with the 
 sainted madame Elizabeth, had their heads sliced 
 
31 
 
 off. The young dauphin they corrupted that his 
 death might result; but, being less precocious 
 than was hoped, that hapless child was atrophied 
 for want of food, and sent a skeleton to his grave. 
 The aristocracy were hunted down like beasts of 
 prey. If caught, what torments did they not 
 endure?—noyaded, fusilladed, guillotined, with 
 barbarities transcending what you read of the mob 
 of Messina, “ those infernal furies” who “ roasted 
 and devoured” sixty Neapolitans. “ Their execrable 
 repast,” enjoyed but the other day by “ those 
 worse than barbarous cannibals, the savages of 
 Sicily” (p. 89), was still less brutal than the excesses 
 which were perpetrated upon the wretched aristo¬ 
 crats of France, while the hierarchy was ousted 
 from their temples that the old Bacchic and. 
 Cyprian orgies might succeed the Christian 
 mysteries. Driven forth out into the world, the 
 priests recanted the faith when they could not fly, 
 or went to deaths more infamous than Caligula 
 ever conceived in all his pagan cruelty. Yes, 
 hardly was the coin called in, while every figure 
 that suggested the idea of a crown was broken or 
 erased,—no sooner had they overthrown crowned 
 busts, and obliterated princely arms, than down 
 came mitre and cross, with every other symbol 
 of the doctrine that Voltaire scorned, Paine 
 swearing that Christianity was treason against 
 humanity. Then behold, not only the prophana- 
 tion of the royal tombs, the sack of all the sub- 
 
32 
 
 structural St. Denis, lo, also the sacrilegious pol¬ 
 lution of the upper church—a harlot enthronized 
 upon the metropolitan altar of the country in the 
 cathedral of Notre Dame. The abomination of 
 desolation there, that “ free constitution” which 
 lord Brougham lauds above all glory and honour 
 was the result therefrom undeniably. Good may 
 come of evil, but God only can deduce good 
 therefrom. No man can bring a clean thing out 
 of the unclean. Yet lord Brougham laments the 
 hereditary principle when it was surrendered as to 
 the French peerage in 1830. It was a fault, he 
 says, “ the allowing the National Guards to 
 choose their officers” (p. 0); he, moreover, insists 
 upon having an Executive “lifted up above the 
 people, to make it resist external force, enabled 
 to cope with, and overpower on the instant, all 
 resistance. It must have the will and the power 
 not to regard even the wishes of the people—the 
 will and the power to disregard even the voice of 
 their representatives—the will and the power sud¬ 
 denly to crush every attempt at outbreak, and, at 
 all hazards of the most severe military execution” 
 (pp. 87-88). With like inconsequence this tri- 
 bunitial despot denounces that essential condi¬ 
 tion of what is called a “ free constitution ” the 
 Press. The French press “ fawning” (pp. 93-94), 
 and “ their allies elsewhere,” English and German, 
 he would fain put down, by means glanced at in his 
 obscurest page. Had the czar suggested, sultan 
 
33 
 
 or dey proposed them, the world would have rushed 
 to arms, but this was thrown by our author, like 
 Brennus’s sword, into the scale against “ the good 
 which, undeniably', was ultimately gained even by 
 France herself, after the more dreadful effects of the 
 great convulsion were no longer felt (p. 6). Lord 
 Brougham confessing that! well might M. Crdmieux 
 start horrified at the chance of his getting, either as 
 a ravenous wolf or a slimy' snake, amongst his 
 nation. If such was his conviction, if the man of 
 Cannes really felt that the old revolution had 
 obtained a good, resulting in such gain, the extrem¬ 
 ities to which citizen Henry would carry on the 
 February affair transcended all that “ the old 
 African” punished in the republicans de la veille 
 when Cavaignae marched them off, bound hand and 
 foot, to gaol. 
 
 If, on the contrary, that scheming lord, that 
 adroit seigneur, to whom the Tuileries were a half¬ 
 way house to Neuilly or St. Cloud, while Versailles 
 threw wide all her gates to rest him en route for 
 the king at Trianon,—if, as there were reasons to 
 suppose, this would-be Cicero felt ability sufficient 
 to serve those amongst whose real and zealous 
 friends he ranked so high that they admitted him 
 to unwonted familiarities in the cabinet (pp. 10, 11), 
 —if it pleased him best, the citizen of France, the 
 deputy of the Var might intrigue with no little 
 power for that return home, that restoration 
 which is suggested at page 4 and generally all 
 
34 
 
 through lord Brougham’s pamphlet. “Nothing 
 is more firmly believed by the illustrious exiles, 
 than their having to thank the English newspapers 
 for the sudden turn which some of their own 
 journals took against them, and for the all but 
 hopeless state in which the public opinion of France 
 for the present lies prostrate as to their cause” 
 (p. 4). “For the present”! 
 
 Whatever M. Cremieux thought, and, consider¬ 
 ing lord Brougham’s antecedents, his variations, 
 changes, harlequinades, one was just as likely as 
 the other,—wdiether the Lords and the House of 
 Lords, with our gracious Queen his Sovereign 
 Mistress, were to he, as he promised, “ cut,” that 
 our cosmopolitan might rule over France; or 
 whether Louis Philippe was to be availed, as well 
 knew that applicant how to avail him; as both 
 propositions were upon the cai’d, either possible, 
 citizen Cremieux without more ado, returned that 
 card by the same day’s post, as soon as ever it 
 could be returned, to our ex-lord high chancellor. 
 “ Yes! yes!” to borrow your words, lord Brougham, 
 if this pen may dip in such an Avernian pool,— 
 “ yes! yes! this is the truth—the terrible truth!” 
 (p. 14); terrible very to you,—more than terrible,— 
 it is burning, scalding, scarifying, maddening, or 
 the grossest lies that were ever conceived in Bedlam, 
 in Grafton-street,—the hugest agglomeration of 
 phrenzied fancy, perverted fact, contradicting 
 suppositories, rage, nonsense, folly, impudence, 
 
35 
 
 spite, were not mixed up with maniac force in this 
 your Letter. 
 
 My countrymen, I turn now to you!—to you, 
 Frenchmen ! Germans! Italians !—lo, the cause!— 
 citizen Crfemieux’s refusal, the refusal of this 
 Provisional government to concede letters of 
 naturalization to lord Brougham is the com¬ 
 mencing, the primary, the apparent cause why he 
 so miserably figures before all the world, men- 
 daceous beyond compare as to this Revolution. 
 The pangs of disappointed pride, the agonies of 
 a bad ambition in his soul, prevented as lord 
 Brougham was, declined, refused, excluded, spurned 
 from the Parisian stage, thus the more than disap¬ 
 pointed, shut-out, refused actor eases and delivers 
 himself! It is very disgusting. Under the pre¬ 
 tence of wishing to serve, to guard, to protect, and 
 enlighten England, France, Italy, Germany, thus 
 lord Brougham turns upon the man who put him 
 back and kicked him down; thus he befouls him 
 and his colleagues, the Provisional government and 
 Paris, not even stopped by France. Oh it is 
 horribly disgusting. Englishmen may understand, 
 nor are the French less able to conceive, that lord 
 Brougham might be incensed against M. Cremieux. 
 It is too much of man’s nature to resent such an act 
 as his, so humiliating to any lord, so crushing as 
 it was to this particular candidate, this singular 
 aspirant after all the new, the bran new and sound¬ 
 ing, nay, the resounding honours of the Republic 
 
Scarce a month since the representative heir of 
 Napoleon was congratulated before all the world, 
 and then he congratulated himself, while losing the 
 name of prince in the greater, the intenser lustre 
 which was supposed to enhalo the title, Citizen. In 
 the effulgence of that name lord Brougham might 
 have flashed out; a-forth lord Brougham thought 
 he might have burst, Jupiter-Tonans-like, like 
 thunder-bolted Capitolinus to the universe! What 
 heights might not be reached by him ! who neared, 
 not the sun rolling above but the comet that flames 
 below, with no other impression made upon his 
 wings than may be supposed of Belial’s. Scorched, 
 blasted lord Brougham see, like that evil spirit; 
 as, however, his rames remain, hell’s concave might 
 be burst, lord Brougham seizing to himself the 
 throne of all the universe! 
 
 " With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed,” 
 
 the arch-fiend sought as God whom now he repre¬ 
 sents to us as black or blacker than Beelzebub! 
 
 Simple lord! Common policy required of you 
 to advance the name which foiled the ex-Chancellor 
 of England. The most witless men exalt rather than 
 depress whoever may reduce their pretensions. A 
 man of spirit never admits that a vagabond turned 
 him back upon a chosen path; no man is turned 
 back from the road which he elects to walk; nor 
 can any real man be over-matched but in a fair 
 
37 
 
 stand-up fight wherein the conquered falls only 
 when his breath is gone, his brain spinning round 
 like a whirligig. The mere fact that lord Brougham 
 wrote to citizen Cr&nieux proves what status he 
 possessed. Being in a position to deny the ex- 
 Lord High Chancellor of England favour, monsieur 
 was his equal so far; he was lord Brougham’s 
 superior as to that, whatever the man might be, no 
 matter how obscure in origin, unknown in name, 
 deficient in title. In addressing a letter, in pre¬ 
 ferring a request to him, a certain inferiority of 
 situation was admitted by lord Brougham. M. 
 Crdmicux was certainty not beneath his contempt. 
 Yet this, and more than this, is assumed, nay, it is 
 insisted upon in this pamphlet! Without specifying 
 him individually, the Provisional government is 
 bespattered with salivar venom, covered with the 
 spittle of contempt by our ex-Lord High Chancellor! 
 As it is with the Bevolution so it is to them, 
 Crdmieux included in the lot, though he be un¬ 
 mentioned. And it is curious to observe the haste, 
 the hurry in which our author dashes at them all 
 like a he-fury. In his preface we are assured that 
 the view and the sentiments propounded by lord 
 Brougham “ have been dictated by any feelings 
 rather than those of disrespect or of the least un¬ 
 kindness towards the French nation. His repro¬ 
 bation is confined exclusively to the very small 
 number of the guilty.” Who those guilty are you 
 find at the second page,—“ men who, with the single 
 
exception of M. Arago, were either wholly unknown 
 before in any way, even to their very names and 
 existence; or who were known as authors of no 
 great fame; or who were known as of so indifferent 
 reputation that they had better have not been known 
 at all; and M. Arago, the solitary exception to 
 this actual or desirable obscurity, himself known in 
 the world of science alone.” These, “by mere 
 accident, without even the shadow of a title” 
 (p. 120), “without the shadow of a title to any 
 authority at all” (p. 30), “ of whom no one had 
 dreamt at any time as rulers of the state, suddenly 
 appointed by a handful of armed ruffians, headed 
 by a shoemaker and sub-editor, proclaimed by that 
 most insignificant band” (p. 14), named by “ the 
 mob” (p. 29), “the persons” (p. 3S),—thus, even 
 thus lord Brougham describes “some half-dozen 
 men” (p. 14), M. Cremieux amongst the “ eight 
 Dictators” appointed “ to rule with absolute power 
 over the free Commonwealth, and, using the autho¬ 
 rity of the Sovereign People against their persons, 
 to domineer over that people in their own name” 
 (p. 29). These, after singling out M. Ledru Rollin as 
 a “ person” the “ most ridiculous, the most ignorant, 
 yet still dangerous enough to be classed with the 
 great Roman conspirator” (pp. 124-5);—these 
 “obscure” usurpers, as he pretends, are, to his joy, 
 “degraded” (p. 38), after “so long a course of 
 feebleness and folly” (p. 80), “ a military despotism 
 erected, as the only means of saving the capital from 
 
39 
 
 fire and pillage, that city for which alone any interest 
 seems to he felt in all these strange proceedings” 
 (p. 38). “A stormy uncertain rule of three months; 
 a sudden descent into their pristine obscurity; the 
 oblivion which awaits them in all that is connected 
 with the year 1848 ; this is the example which their 
 history holds out to tempt others into the path 
 trodden by them with neither a firm step nor 
 enduring applause, and leading to obscurity both 
 of station and of fame” (pp.146-7). 
 
 Thus, literally, word for word, exactly thus 
 writes he in order to degrade the Government, 
 that left lord Brougham the littlest of the little ! 
 That is not enough ! When a different conclusion 
 is in his eye, the lawyer without more ado falsifies 
 all his falsehood. Having no systematic thought, 
 no principle, lord Brougham reverses all this 
 calumniation when it suits his purpose. Blown 
 about of every wind, weathercock-like, our politician 
 signals out not only M. Arago but M. Lamartine, 
 the first as “ surrounded with new honours from 
 the firmness as well as humanity which in every 
 emergency he displayed. M. Lamartine, among 
 others, exposed himself fearlessly to destruction on 
 more than one occasion.” In the same paragraph, 
 forgetting the injurious imputations which are 
 quoted, this oblivious, senseless, this wretched pen 
 invests “the Provisional Government” with, not 
 credit only but praise, and that too of the very 
 highest order! It was a thing of chance, named 
 
40 
 
 by the mob, appointed by armed ruffians, pro¬ 
 claimed by an insignificant band, without the 
 shadow of a title. Arago was the only exception 
 as to respectability amongst the whole, Lamartine 
 and Louis Blanc (so unmercifully laughed at at 
 page 57) being authors of no great fame in the 
 estimation of this writer! Proconsular Ledru ! you 
 also heard what was predicated concerning the 
 former “ Minister of the Interior.” You “ formed 
 the Club des Clubs,” you “encouraged, it may 
 be said fitted out, the Belgian inroad.” You 
 “sent, at the public expense, missionary agitators 
 into all the departments, to stir up soldiers against 
 their officers, to remind preceptors that their enemy 
 the Ministry is exterminated. C'est la RSpubligue 
 qui a ecrasc Vinfame (pp. 160-1). Forgetting so 
 much of this as was already written, and unan¬ 
 ticipating the rest, ignoring also the fact that next 
 to M. Lamartine, citizens Ledru Rollin and Louis 
 Blanc continue to be two of the most influential 
 men in France; forgetting that these three despised, 
 sneered at, vituperated, damned Triumvirs were 
 the soul of the Provisional government, lord 
 Brougham at page 119 alters, veers, he turns right 
 round upon the three to slaver, lick, he salutes 
 them all with,—yes with “tenderness”! Well 
 knowing that if there were only one genuine 
 Frenchman at Cannes his chateau could be seen 
 again only at the risk of his being horsewhipped, 
 frightened also at the thought of a war wherein 
 
41 
 
 Great Britain might get, lord Brougham fears the 
 worst (p. 119), thinking in his “alarm” (p. 119) 
 upon the chance that the Red Jacobins might con¬ 
 front him in London,—these fears operating upon 
 his mind, the calculating lord wishes, he, yes 
 he, this scurrilous pamphleteer, “set on fire of 
 hell,” even he wishes “ to speak of the Provisional 
 government with all tenderness”! Lord Lans- 
 downe laughs, the world starts surprised. That, 
 however, is the word, the actual, the word written 
 by- our author. Tenderness ! Louis Blanc! thou 
 too so emulous of the work attempted by Sallust’s 
 fiend! Cr&nieux! unknown; Lamartine! unfamed, 
 of you this railer wishes to speak “ vdth all 
 tenderness”! 
 
 My lord marquess is reminded of a certain 
 passage in Holy Writ, and scarcely kenned we 
 these words, when a shudder followed. What 
 was he next to do ? whose “ tongue was a sharp 
 sword, his teeth spears and arro%vs.” Having 
 run the Provisional government to earth, it was 
 natural that, ferret-like, he should track it through 
 the long winding hole like a rat of Norway. 
 We smelt its blood, lord Brougham fastening 
 upon that hapless thing with all the fangs of a 
 stoat, shaking it like a polecat. Tearing out its 
 eyes, crushing in the ribs; then see our author 
 dash his mouth, head, body, and soul into its 
 dearest life-blood! As “ the tender mercies of the 
 wicked are cruel” all this we thought when this 
 
furious Cyclop spoke of “ all tenderness.” But high 
 God, who knows their heart, not unfrequently 
 confounds the ogre. Confounded lord Brougham 
 stands, “ Impostor” stamped upon his brow, branded 
 before the universe as a “Liar.” In the teeth of 
 all his spite, malice, fury, his rage, horror, and 
 vengeance, just as the ferocious peer was about to 
 slake his unquenchable thirstin their heart’s blood,— 
 at the moment when Fe-Fo-Fum expected to grind 
 their bones to make him bread, behold the attesta¬ 
 tion, the character which, as by a sudden judgment 
 from on high, lord Brougham gives of the Provisional 
 Government! “ No men ever had a more arduous 
 
 duty cast upon them than that which they discharged 
 with great success. . . . They suddenly became 
 
 Dictators in a crisis of unexampled peril; and it was 
 at any moment not merely possible, but likely that 
 all Paris should be wrapt in a whirlwind of slaughter 
 and rapine. They showed great courage in meeting 
 the exigency of their position, eminently perilous to 
 themselves individually, as well as to their country. 
 They boldly confronted those dangers; M. La¬ 
 martine, among others, exposed himself fearlessly 
 to destruction on more than one occasion; and the 
 great name of Arago is surrounded with new 
 honours from the firmness as well as humanity 
 which in every emergency he displayed.” (Vide the 
 pamphlet, p. 119). 
 
 But why do I delay?—why should we dilate 
 over a Laodicean so black, so white, so hot, so cold, 
 
that every one knowing lord Brougham has long 
 since spewed him (Revelations iii. 16) out of the 
 mouth. This writes he! This he says! North, 
 west, south, east, at once; a heap of impossibilities; 
 the complement of all falsity; the simulator of 
 truth ; pseudo-philosopher ; pretended politician ; 
 taking God’s name in vain, parading his “ Chris¬ 
 tian dislike” (p. 90). Eheu ! alas ! stop! stop 
 at that. His perversion of fact you saw, his 
 
 vilification of those men you heard,—like a dog- 
 returned to his vomit it is eaten up, how soon shall 
 we not have lord Brougham wallowing in his usual 
 mire ? Pass what acridities he blurts against those 
 “ constitution-makers,” going “ through the farce 
 of deliberating upon a new constitution” (p. 35) ; 
 “framing their Republican scheme (p.56). “ Sages,” 
 conjoined with Robespierre and St. Just at p. 57 ; 
 “ framing a constitution for the people at a cost of 
 a pound a day to each of the nine hundred 
 
 members” (p. 59). “ Constitution-mongers” (p. 85). 
 
 These lord Brougham may abuse, ridicule, scoff 
 at, all his entrails vomited up at the end upon 
 the French Assembly. The “ ferocious ” Parisians 
 he may also curse. Germany let him accuse 
 as “ the slave of fantastic theory, prone to 
 
 visionary belief . . . apt to engage in odd, 
 
 unintelligible brawls.Where 
 
 sound reason is wanting, who shall tell to what 
 excesses the vagaries of the disturbed brain may 
 lead? Corruptio optimi pessima; and I own I have 
 
my fears of a German mob, and its ideologue 
 leaders” (79).— 
 
 Ideologue leaders ! Stop again ! Leaders ! 
 Ideologue! What does Mokhana mean ? At 
 p. 3 he represents certain men as “ stricken with 
 impatience to distinguish themselves, any how,” 
 except by the proper, the only legitimate means. 
 At p. 92 we read of speculative doctors who, being 
 conjoined in the same sentence with “ practical 
 banditti,” these then are the leaders which lord 
 Brougham means.” “ Doctors ”! why, this man 
 himself is a doctor, D.C.L. “ Speculative ”! what 
 are lord Brougham’s works ? “ Stricken with 
 
 impatience to distinguish themselves, any how ” !— 
 when the prince Begent put away his queen, 
 who rushed to Bergami’s rescue against the hus¬ 
 band for money?— money ! Who, stigmatizing 
 him as the modern Yitellius, bearded the Fourth 
 George on his coronation-day in Westminster- 
 hall, and thus gaining the applauses of a world, 
 when no further eclat could be had, flung aside 
 queen Caroline as you would fling a stick no 
 longer serviceable ? 
 
 Oh! belch blasphemies against the French, 
 even Israel sinned against their government, the 
 government of king David was far from perfect 
 to Shimei. Insult the Assembly with scorn. The 
 French, the English, and German journalists, 
 abuse. With them include the nations which 
 they serve. Exacerbate, peel, torture the world 
 
45 
 
 enough. But, know ! thou wretched, rash, in¬ 
 truding fool, Polonius of this other Play,—though 
 thou art stirred up with all the serpent’s “ envy 
 and revenge, 
 
 aspiring 
 
 To set himself in glory above his peers,” 
 
 know that the blast which laid his throne in 
 dust and degraded the second Nebuchadnezzar,— 
 if that Power struck royals with dismay (p. 4), the 
 power of truth divine is ten times dreader ! Thus 
 “ be-netted round with villanies, the bubbles are 
 out,”—perhaps, while there is yet a space for 
 repentance left to him who, Judas Iscariot-like, 
 bought kings, sold queens, and who now hawks 
 Principles and Men about the world in hope to 
 gain, as did Ely mas the sorcerer. 
 
 And now we come to that ground, the actual 
 ground for which I publish this Letter. My lord 
 marquess knows that when that ex-lord chancellor 
 was glorying in his old plebeian cognomen to the 
 republican government of France,—the Lord Presi¬ 
 dent of the Council knows that when that recreant 
 peer subscribed himself plain “ H. Brougham” to 
 citizen Crfemieux, in order to be made an alien 
 man,—upon that identical day, well you know who 
 was ready and willing to go through fire-and-water 
 
46 
 
 for our Crown and Constitution. Lord Brougham 
 having previously written to the Provisional go¬ 
 vernment for such letters of naturalization, on that 
 to-be-remembered day further explained himself in 
 these words to citizen Cr6mieux, — “I thought it 
 my duty to show my confidence in French institu¬ 
 tions, by encouraging my countrymen to trust in 
 them as I would do.” Whilst the ex-Lord High 
 Chancellor of England was inscribing those ex¬ 
 pressive words, that (constructible) treason, if no con¬ 
 stable-staff was mine, my lord marquess knows who, 
 that moment engaged himself to the exactest con¬ 
 verse. I mention the circumstance only that lord 
 Brougham’s character may be placed in a light 
 which contrast alone can give, but having commu¬ 
 nicated with lord John Russell on the Sunday night, 
 the next morning I was with one of the chief Com¬ 
 missioners of Police with the view of rendering such 
 help on the Tenth of April as was within my power. 
 As colonel Rowan was entirely unknown to me, to 
 prevent also the least misconstruction of my pro¬ 
 ceedings, as the interest, the intensitum of the day 
 encreased, I handed to the colonel the following note 
 for the Privy Council.—“ Under the circumstances 
 Mr. Hawkins holds it best to stand at the call of 
 Government, since (assuming it for the argument), 
 should the Chartists obtain anything like a com¬ 
 manding position, Mr. Hawkins will, he believes, 
 be able to penetrate their array to the centre, where 
 he has no doubt that he should succeed in deciding 
 
47 
 
 nearly half their number to the Cause of Order and 
 Conciliation.—Monday, half-past 11 o’clock, White- 
 hall-place.” 
 
 The significance, the meaning, the pith, the 
 marrow of that communication will be understood 
 in the sequel, meanwhile I place the document 
 here,—juxtaposed to, over against lord Brougham’s 
 correspondence with citizen Cr&nieux. This I do 
 not only in aggravation of the last, but for the still 
 more necessary purpose of guarding myself from 
 the suspicion that our severities upon the ex-lord 
 High Chancellor are inspired by love, affection, or 
 respect for the French republic, for the French re¬ 
 publicans, or any other foreigners whomsoever. 
 The two-faced Janus of the day, the peer who self- 
 protested himself on, above all other days in the 
 year, the Tenth of April!—the self-hating noble, 
 who so anxiously sought for himself the-cap-of- 
 liberty-wearing, sans-culotte-republicanism trans¬ 
 formation,—he blames, he damns, with con¬ 
 temptuous hate to eternal obloquy, Republic, Re¬ 
 publicans, Press, Parisians, French, and I know 
 not who ! I who thus offered (no more than I was 
 in duty bound) my blood, my life, to uphold the 
 British Crown and Constitution,—I detect, expose, 
 fix,—I spear lord Brougham in the act,—not as 
 sympathising with French fashions or whims,—not 
 because I am one with the Press,—but for truth’s 
 sake. And why should one feel loath, why 
 hesitate to produce, to print a document which for 
 
48 
 
 ever illustrates true loyalty? It may seem absurd 
 to many, I will not say a better, a truer man than 
 the subscribed,—but to many a bigger, a richer, a 
 more consequential personage, it will seem absurd 
 in any individual, the supposing himself competent 
 for such an occasion as was inferred in that commu¬ 
 nication to the Privy Council. I have to say that it 
 was handed to colonel Rowan with an assurance 
 that, in a certain case, its author could march one 
 hundred thousand stalwart men on the metropolis. 
 The “ extraordinary power” which was so “ success¬ 
 fully exerted in France” (p. 2), ma\' be as well, as 
 surely developed here, for the same, or the contrary 
 purpose in England. 
 
 Yes, and if my lord marquess would keep 
 Bowood—if the duke is to retain Apsley-house,— 
 if, in short, our most gracious Queen is to hold 
 Buckingham-palace, you must learn how that is to 
 be done, and that instanter. It is time full-ripe, 
 the time is over-ripe, when Governments must, if they 
 would live, learn this Eleusinian secret. If the esta¬ 
 blished church has failed to indoctrinate and over¬ 
 rule the Realm, none can depend upon the church. 
 Can you depend upon the army ? I was closeted 
 with a prince when a minister remarked that the 
 February affair had ended, as was thought by the 
 monarchists at the time, their chance for ever. 
 The blood of the Hardikings never was cold. The 
 blood of the Hardikings is not cold. There is no 
 dilution in my veins of what won for us in Kent, an 
 
40 
 
 earldom. If, therefore, I looked forward to the time 
 when no mortal could reign on earth, not because I 
 was in fact, a republican. Abstractedly you may 
 be like Plato, like sir Thomas Moore; to be like the 
 apostles, who looked for the second Advent, were 
 still wiser. But cognizant of the facts, knowing the 
 use of form, the necessity in which mankind stood,— 
 as the chemists require alloys for the sublimation of 
 recondite elements, so men no less require for the 
 perfection of politics, vehicular signs and figments. 
 Remembering these, that royal youth was reassured 
 as I smiled all his doubts and fears away upon the 
 instant. 
 
 For what does this hubbub mean ? this noise ? 
 so laughable, if it did not end in the death of many 
 innocent and some of the noblest amongst men, as 
 yearning, urging, driving after the happiness and 
 contentment of millions. It is not in the codes, 
 nor yet in our theories of laws that you should look 
 for a solution of the present disturbed, the endan¬ 
 gered, the falling state of Europe. Codes! the old 
 Roman, the Justinian code is ours; the Napoleonic 
 belongs to the French. The Germans, the Italians, 
 enjoy the two, with many additions of value. 
 Jurisconsults have discoursed eloquently to the 
 nations which each respectively adorned; Montes¬ 
 quieu, Blackstone, with many other lawyers not 
 less renowned through Europe. They have been 
 thumbed enough. From their theoretic spheres 
 turn now to men, the vast majority of whom must 
 
50 
 
 always be thought for, governed,—How ? That is 
 the query, the question for all existing Governments. 
 And here we are again directly at variance with the 
 man who, having used the Press for his own ad¬ 
 vancement, suggests means by which to keep it 
 down, though what those means include lord 
 Brougham dares only hint at in his pamphlet. 
 I remember doctor Chalmers, when that cele¬ 
 brated divine was inclined to the Malthusian and 
 other theories of a cognate kind, and even he 
 was led to accept the theory of moral and physical 
 repression. I was but a boy at the time, but Dr. 
 Chalmers, admitting me to a familiarity as flattering 
 to my pride as it was unusual to his custom, in¬ 
 sisted both upon the enormities of the Press and the 
 necessity for its coercion. I did not suppose that a 
 censorship was indicated by my excellent friend, 
 but lord Brougham would, clearly, resort thereto 
 failing such checks, curbs, hindrances as are con¬ 
 templated in his Letter to you. Thus the political 
 economists always begin at the wrong, the tyrannic 
 end, proceeding in their perversest, their bad, un¬ 
 natural course till it ends, here at Sodom, there at 
 Andover. Who separated man and wife even with¬ 
 out regard to age? Who set females to crack 
 stones upon the highways ? They yoked men to 
 carts as if men were beasts of burden. Not but 
 that the lusts of the flesh shall be cauterized; they 
 shall be excised, cut off, while idle-improvidence 
 is delivered over to tormentors. But to contest 
 
51 
 
 against human right, and to reverse all the heart’s 
 instincts can be the work only of demons. Human 
 right! what is that ? The heart’s instincts! who 
 can discern which are not en-viced ?—If Rochefou- 
 cault implead them all, leave that to the All-seeing- 
 eye above and to God’s holy angels. For us it is 
 enough to know that all things whatsoever we would 
 that men should do unto us, that ought we to do to 
 them, according to the Law and the Prophets. Thus 
 the benighted would be saved, the erring taught, 
 those who wander would be brought back, like the 
 sheep so much rejoiced over in the parable. The 
 true Law is Gospel law; for that prophets and 
 apostles died, nay, a greater than them all, even 
 the Lord our Saviour. 
 
 By this means only can the country, the world be 
 amended, improved, pacified, and settled down to 
 peace and order. And if the most selfish miser 
 would count the cost, the enormous cost of wrong, 
 and what a dear price they pay for all their perish¬ 
 ing possessions, this obvious and most just principle 
 would prevail, even as the sea prevails in all its 
 channels. If thousands toil that one may eat the 
 bread of idleness, idleness in his turn is mulct 
 beyond all that his slaves endured, until Dives may 
 well envy the sorest condition of the poor, who, 
 Lazarus-like, exist upon the leavings of his table. 
 
 But such reflections will be considered trite, and 
 they are only common-place; the question is not as 
 to the theory by which, but in what way it is best 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 to govern nations? “Measures, not men,” is the 
 vulgar cry. I say, Measures and Men, or wo to 
 you! If wo be to the realm whose king is a child, 
 wo three times over to the nation whose Crown is 
 less even than an infant! Kings were appointed 
 by heaven to be as gods upon the earth. For 
 this the course is as plain as it is straight and 
 perfect before them. For long kings have been in 
 the hands of men who rule, or exploitate nations to 
 their ends, power, or peculation. Those who had 
 the wisdom of the serpent but too often proscribing 
 such as owned only the dove’s harmlessness, what 
 marvel if all crowned heads are surprised and 
 horror-struck ? From the Reformation down when 
 the great church-principle was cashiered in courts, 
 nations have been administered upon what may be 
 called the legal in contradistinction to the sacred 
 dogmas. To the cardinal-ministers of state, a 
 Burleigh, a Bacon, a Stafford, a Shaftesbury suc¬ 
 ceeding, the nadir was reached when the destiny 
 of this almost universal empire was over-ridden by 
 one so fearless of Almighty God that his most 
 awful denunciations were despised for the purpose 
 of making the invalided and the aged poor labour 
 with a view to procure them a little victuals. 
 Irreligious man, heartless lord, amidst all his 
 odious calculations. Thus were violated all that 
 we esteem, both as men and Christians. Well 
 might, not only the Vitellius of the land abhor, our 
 Otho detested one who from his pride of place 
 
53 
 
 launched, first the bolts that blasted kings next 
 those decress that killed the poor throughout all 
 the Land by tens of thousands. The survivors 
 were oppressed beyond what the most orgillous 
 tyrants thought to be possible. 
 
 When you remember what befel the poor under this 
 grinding Pharaoh,—if eat they must and would, then 
 a prison was their place wherein they had less where¬ 
 upon to keep body and soul together than we gave 
 the malefactors; and even that they received -was 
 given with a view to death, that death the dreadful 
 end which so many paupers found in the Bridge- 
 water-union ;—I say, when we remember these, 
 but for a providence the British crown must have 
 been lost to queen Victoria. And let her Majesty 
 beware. What hallucination could exceed that of 
 the Father of Lies ? and yet that Old Serpent won 
 the world’s empery from God, the Prince of the 
 powers of the Air is the Devil. It was the thought 
 of such a fact that sharpened our zeal to a keenness 
 against this lord which the Queen’s danger is 
 required to justify. Ridiculous he may seem; he 
 may be pitiable to the depths of scorn, beneath 
 one’s contempt. But the basest thing may sting, 
 the vilest creature bite, and a scorpion, though we 
 surround him on every hand with fire can squirt 
 some poison at you. Lord Brougham is encircled 
 on every hand with fire, but great are the powers of 
 his enchantment, guard then the Crown 1 For 
 that realm which the magician bound by his 
 
54 
 
 conjurations, if wrath is to be turned aside, not 
 by a concession here, a largess there, and 
 words, without further act of heavenly kindness. 
 Lo, what signs and wonders flame along all the 
 sky ! The fingers of a man’s hand and what they 
 wrote over against the candlestick upon the polish 
 of the wall of the king’s palace at Babylon were 
 not more portentous to Beltezshazzar. Even minis¬ 
 ters are aghast, savagest hordes thundering in over 
 all the defences of crowns and governments. Like 
 as when the Danube was swum by one, thousands 
 of barbarians followed, unawed by all the majesty 
 of eternal Rome, so now also the antique state, the 
 awful shrine of gods finds no respect from man; 
 it is irruption all, and confusion throughout all the 
 universe. 
 
 Yes. Why mince the fact?—for what divide 
 the truth ?—how dare we cry, Peace ! Peace! when 
 no peace there is save to such as shut their eyes, 
 stop their ears, and hide beyond the reach of day¬ 
 light ? Because the ostrich of the desert poke her 
 head into a bush, does the hunter tarry who seeks 
 her life fast as a horse can carry him? I tell you 
 that the olden respect, the homage that men paid 
 to thrones is gone. Suppress not to your thought 
 what the whole world attends while they proclaim 
 that so it is from, not the house-tops only, but the 
 highest towers of Europe and America. The 
 mythic, semi-religious feelings which anointed 
 heads for so many ages received shall be offered to 
 
them henceforth no more for ever 1 The conditions 
 necessary to such a sentiment having ceased, men 
 approach, they proceed to scan, they examine into, 
 they strip, they tear off the robes of kings, wo to 
 the wicked! It was the exposure of his liideosity, 
 his nakedness that struck the knell of doom to 
 
 “ That vice of kings, 
 
 A cutpurse of the empire and the rod. 
 
 That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
 
 And put it in his pocket.” 
 
 “ The,” to quote lord Brougham’s praise,—“ the 
 illustrious Prince, who, with extraordinary ability 
 and complete success had, in times of foreign and 
 domestic difficulty, steered the vessel of the State 
 in safety and in peace during a period of above 
 seventeen years, and whose private conduct was as 
 unimpeachable as his capacity for affairs was 
 renowned (p. 24),—he, it is notorious, my lord, crept 
 up to Charles the Tenth, provoked the Ordinances 
 of July, whipped the crown from off the thoughtless 
 monarch’s head, diced for and won from Lafayette 
 by sleight of hand that diadem, trafficked it as soon 
 as had to England in Tahiti, to Russia for the 
 Rentes, while one son after another went, regularly 
 sold, until the youngest marrying princess Louise, 
 the French perceived that to increase his wealth and 
 found his throne Louis Philippe had not feared to 
 sell even them and their children’s children. This 
 did he, in all that was rascal-low exceeding, not 
 
56 
 
 Tiberius in his Campanian Isle of Goats, but Ves¬ 
 pasian in his latter age when he descended to tax 
 the nameless necessities of nature. But, Isabella 
 of Spain, thou art avenged ! De Bresson looks a 
 ghastly smile, the blood gushing from his razored 
 throat! I see the duchess of Choiseul-Praslin wave 
 her gory arms, that dabbled ghost rejoicing in his 
 end who ruled, not by love but guile, and thus 
 turned Paris into a Pandemonium, France into a 
 hell so hot that its monarch was fain to fly from the 
 fiery furnace. At his 16th page, lord Brougham 
 remarks that “ to throw off the yoke of a despot, 
 whose domination had become unbearable, even to 
 get rid of the individual tyrant whose cruelty had 
 rendered him execrable, or whose crimes had made 
 him despicable in all men’s eyes, even when little 
 was actually suffered beyond the shame of sub¬ 
 mitting to such a ruler, bellua qua nulla vastior, 
 nec srevior, neque dis, hominibusque magis invisa — 
 has ever been deemed the right, nay, the duty of 
 the people, and its fearless performance has justly 
 made the leaders of their resistance be (sic) handed 
 down to the remotest ages among the most illus¬ 
 trious benefactors of mankind. In such a calamitous 
 state of things human nature revolts of itself ; the 
 feelings of the heart take the lead and no process of 
 reasoning is required to point out the duty of 
 resistance; the fear of failure alone remains to be 
 overcome ; and a continuance of the scourge puts 
 that, with every whisper of prudence, to silence.’ 
 
57 
 
 Thus, singularly enough, even the Philippist advo¬ 
 cate explains “ the general acceptance” which the 
 forfeiture, deposition and flight received “ abroad 
 as well as at home,” as remarked at the very com¬ 
 mencement of his pamphlet. “ The Public Press, 
 generally speaking in Europe and America, but, 
 (and ?) and also in England itself, almost entirely 
 joined the cause of the Revolution” (p. 3). That 
 cause was, for the moment, wholly and solely 
 against the king. Its further development may 
 appear, in what is as much the curse of France as it 
 would be the scourge of Europe. 
 
 This also should make us take all the more heed 
 unto our feet, or Great Britain slipping will lose 
 the pinnacle amongst nations. Thus the question 
 again recurs, and with trebled force, How can 
 our position be enwalled and ensured while 
 they are earthquaked to ruin beyond all that 
 of Lisbon 1 In the Book whence we draw so 
 oft, you read of a man of God who brought 
 fire down from heaven, as well for his country’s 
 honour, as for the destruction of those who sought 
 innocent blood by the command of Ahaziah. It 
 is no fable what you read in the second book 
 of Kings, besides Elijah the heathen owned and 
 celebrated Prometheus. In England it has been 
 the rule, for many a sluggish year, to rule, or 
 manage the mob by the highest born, our 
 prophets being kept out of all emolument as 
 much as possible. Upon every vacancy in the 
 
58 
 
 British government, if a man of talent had a 
 chance, it was gained by dint of perseverance 
 indomitable. Hence what is come to pass,—of 
 the Established church, incompetent to the end 
 which Parliament proposed to itself when it 
 was founded and endowed with revenues suffi¬ 
 cient. Of the Bar,—although lawyers eat up all 
 the land like locusts, to their eternal honour it 
 must be said that our judges are as just and 
 more incorrupt than were the Amphictyons. The 
 army and the navy boast warrior and sailor 
 names so proud that of both Great Britain may 
 say, These are my sons! This arises solely from the 
 native pluck, the lion-courage of Britons. This, 
 saving both the land-service and our marine, 
 while good old English honesty retrieves the 
 legal world, the British must be a noble, we 
 must be a godh'ke race thus to overcome so 
 vicious, so truly impious a system. But, it must, 
 it can no longer hold in presence of the dread 
 events passing in Europe. The converse must 
 obtain, the exception must become the rule in 
 our councils. If queen Victoria continues served 
 only by aristocrats and that Talent which did 
 not disdain intrigue, that talent, those upstarts, 
 and the Queen will be banished into outer dark¬ 
 ness, there shall be weeping, wailing, and 
 gnashing of teeth. Yes, this also must be 
 confessed amidst all the affronts, the wicked 
 humiliations that have been put upon the poor; 
 
59 
 
 while the rich oppressed those whom God 
 Almighty will avenge, a modem nobility frowned 
 down such men as possessed only the nobility 
 of worth and genius. Thus forbidden at court, 
 refused the blessed light of the Queen’s coun¬ 
 tenance, left without a place whereupon to lay 
 their head, while the foxes found holes, the 
 birds of the air nests, the greater number, pro¬ 
 voked beyond all that human nature could endure, 
 renounced their allegiance to the crown, and 
 with malediction rushed forth as destroying- 
 angels. As the armies of Sennacherib were 
 smitten in a single night, behold what was 
 withered in as short a space last February ! 
 So also shall it be wherever Crowns blaspheme 
 this awful Power, whether themselves or by 
 their servants. 
 
 I put the matter thus broadly, plainly, not so 
 much because it is my mode, but in order that 
 the truth may be understood by all concerned 
 herein. Frankly, I care but very little for you 
 whose houses and lands were procured by the 
 sweat of slaves, they will reckon with all those 
 who left the poor to starve that they might live 
 in riot upon their labour. Your day draweth 
 nigh. But it is not your blindness that I seek 
 now to enlighten. You ! scribes and pharisees, 
 it is you, who brought England to such a pass, 
 that but for a miracle of grace Victoria will 
 be the last crowned head of the Brunswicks. 
 
60 
 
 Through, first, the limitations which they imposed 
 upon the Prince of Orange; next, the insouciance 
 of the Georges; lastly, the liberties upon which 
 usurers and the basest of men have presumed 
 of late years, the Crown is well-nigh lost to 
 Great Britain. The Crown is all but gone,— 
 gone in that respect which distinguished the 
 times of old, and which respect constituted its 
 very life, its soul to the country. It were not 
 only cruel, it would be wrong to draw any 
 parallel between Louis Philippe and his cabinet, 
 and the queen of England and British states¬ 
 men; if the worst happened to her Majesty, the 
 versatility that we beheld in France would not, 
 it could not be copied or followed in this 
 island. There the republicans dc la veille found 
 themselves out-numbered by the republicans du 
 lendemain when, the contest being decided, their 
 opponents confessed, Odillon Barrot and Thiers 
 at their head, conversion to the new creed with 
 more than heathen unction! But if sir Robert 
 Peel, and lord John Russell, the marquess of 
 Lansdowne, and the rest, remained true and loyal 
 to the queen after her Majesty’s rustication or 
 descent into common life at Saxe G'obourg Gotha, 
 where are those faces that should surround a 
 throne ? 
 
 “ the four-fold visaged four 
 Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels 
 Distinct alike with multitude of eyes; 
 
61 
 
 One spirit in them ruled; and every eye 
 Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire 
 Among the accursed, that withered all their strength. 
 And of their wonted vigour left them drain’d. 
 Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall’n”? 
 
 Now, no dreadful shade contiguous from cherubic 
 wings, the throne they skeer, our queen they jibe, 
 her spouse they scorn, her children—but oh! 
 forbear, although her plate, her clothes, her kitchen- 
 utensils are inventoried and ticketed. To auction 
 they go, with the chases, the parks, the palaces, and 
 the castle belonging to our Crown, if what proved so 
 all-sufficient to the Plantagenets and to the Tudors 
 be not solicited, courted, besought, and triumphantly 
 won. And yet lord Brougham, skipping the noto¬ 
 rious fact, that it was M. Emile Girardin who dic¬ 
 tated abdication to the king, admitting how entii’ely 
 the revolution differs “ in every one particular from 
 all former changes in the political system of any 
 country” (p. 16), blinks the fact, the manifest un¬ 
 doubted fact, that men-of-Ietters, of mind began that 
 Revolution if the mob carried it on, the whole 
 nation approving, applauding both the brawny arm 
 that helped, and the brain that planned the whole 
 from the commencement. It is false, therefore, to 
 say, as thjs,.author does (p. 117), that France is en¬ 
 slaved by “ a paltry mobif France be enslaved, 
 then by spirits who scorned Cuffy as a toad, O’Brien 
 as the prince-of-fools for dreaming that they could 
 follow spell an example! Ballingary to the one, 
 
62 
 
 t£jj 
 
 Orange-street to the other, we are reminded of the 
 silly crow which observing an eagle carry off a 
 lamb in talons, at once flew down and caught 
 hold of a lordly ram, thinking to do likewise. When 
 Mr. Cobden broke with O’Connor in the Lower 
 House, the English physical-force men lost all their 
 chance; in Ireland it was irretrievably lost when 
 John Mitchel was transported to Bermuda. Therein 
 the Lord Lieutenant was wise, for without minds to 
 order and direct them, the millions are like sand, 
 they are like the down of a thistle before the winds 
 of Government. Wielding all power from the law, 
 mastering the resources of the state, commanding 
 the army, what can mere brute force effect against 
 an array like that, possessed moreover of every 
 position in the land whence the surrounding parts 
 can be harried ? I say that you are a pack of fools 
 to suppose, and worse than dogs to hope that London 
 is to be fired, England to be sacked by headless 
 chartists. Therefore however just may be your 
 demands,—whatever merit your Points may possess 
 intrinsically,—the men that wish their brethren 
 well, whose flesh creeps upon their bones before the 
 abuses of this land, whose inmost soul is shocked to 
 witness your distresses,—all they are driven afar, 
 beyond the reach of any call, beyond the possibility 
 of helping what they deplore, through your depra¬ 
 vity. But though true Genius stand aloof from 
 
 mere brutality, they organize and will, by the help 
 of God effect what is mete and right for all men. 
 
63 
 
 Upon that- middle ground which has been called 
 neutral, there remain two or three who, Abdiel-like, 
 preserve from utter alienation to our Throne the 
 seraph-host that wavers to rebellion. Look abroad! 
 —send your eyes through all this realm, and tell me 
 what seraph amongst all those virtues, powers, 
 now insists upon, maintains, upholds the domina¬ 
 tion of Crown, Lords and Commons ? His must be 
 an archangelic power and supreme success, or the 
 sins of pride, avarice, ignorance, will be shortly 
 visited upon that House which knew not the things 
 that belonged to our peace till they were inaccessible. 
 It may be a novelty to presume, but if queen Bess 
 had neglected, nay had she not especially remarked 
 to favour Spenser and Shakespeare, how easily one 
 or the other might have overturned her throne! 
 The author of the “ Faery Queen” seen in his 
 chamber writing verses,—the bard of Avon casting 
 a play, though absurd it seems to say that either or 
 both were enough for this, yet no doubt it was in 
 their power to destroy the most magnific of thrones 
 had they so determined. John Milton, 
 
 “ lie died, 
 
 Who was the sire of an immortal strain, 
 
 Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride 
 The priest, the slave and the liberticide 
 Of lust and blood: he went, unterrified. 
 
 Trampled and mock’d with many a loathed rite. 
 
 Into the gulf of death; hut his clear sprite 
 Yet reigns o’er earth, the third among the sons of light,”— 
 
64 
 
 the third, one with Shakespeare and with Homer, 
 or whoever was in Shelley’s thought when framing 
 that most exquisite of all monodies, “ Adonais,”— 
 John Milton it was who being lost accidentally to 
 Charles the First, or provoked by his acts, turned 
 Stuart’s throne into a chair, and, in the plenitude 
 of mind seating Oliver Cromwell there, proclaimed 
 him Lord High Protector! When we read South’s 
 description of this brewer, can it be for one moment 
 longer believed that a man so plain was, in him- 
 selfj sufficient for the Commonwealth? His body 
 was in the place of Kings, but the latin secretary 
 swayed all Cromwell’s thought, from the moment 
 when they agreed together to the crowning hour 
 in which Monarchy was reversed for the one-and- 
 indivisible Republic of England. 
 
 Again, supposing that war break out, who is to 
 rouse, to fire the spirit of the country 1 I admire 
 as often as I see that Arc de Triomphe which 
 was decreed by France to Napoleon’s victories, 
 because what the architect wanted the sculptor 
 has so well supplied to the grandest of all the 
 Paris monuments. The artist may have followed 
 the ancients as to the point, but in enstoning 
 Bellona over all his group, where young and 
 old rush to war, he showed his appreciation of what 
 really inspires a nation against its enemies. The 
 indignation of aged men, and the example of 
 middle-age go far to raise the noblest temper of the 
 young when called to arms; but a mighty standard 
 
must be upreared when next we do battle. Where 
 is your cherub, tall enough to unfurl our imperial 
 ensign? And where are the musicians that can 
 pipe till the woods, the mountains dance as is 
 related of the Thracian Orpheus ? It will be like 
 creating a soul even in the ribs of Death when 
 war comes upon England. That odious offspring 
 conceived of Death which tore through all Sin’s 
 entrails, with fear and pain distorting her nether 
 shape, hath begotten monsters more frightful still, 
 which, while they feed upon, do also den in England’s 
 bowels. The first Frenchman that treads these 
 shores will be helped of them, with sorrow infinite 
 to their mother. Thus, not only against an alien 
 foe, against what is direr than a world in arms, 
 Great Britain must contend, her metropolitan heart 
 lacerated from within while thousands and tens of 
 thousands ravage and lay waste that part of our 
 sea-coast where the Danish enormities will be out¬ 
 done under a Blood-red banner. Then, think you 
 that a trump which gives an uncertain sound 
 can muster men to the battle! Lord Brougham 
 charges that it is cracked, aud utterly perverted 
 from the proper end; this at least is certain, that 
 the Press would be divided against the crown and 
 constitution in case of a propagandist invasion. 
 If the spirits who direct the press of Europe 
 were canvassed, nine out of every ten would, 
 at this moment vote the abolition of Monarchy; 
 at its first reverse in England the House of 
 
Brunswick would be pronounced dispossessed 
 for ever. To this all things tend, with .hourly- 
 increasing momentum, as well from the self- 
 destroying bureaucracy of the times as from the 
 nature of events which is thus geometrically 
 accelerated. The impulsion must be met by 
 a superior force or there is no redemption. 
 Force ! I use a word which may be turned 
 against oneself. Let it stand ; but observe our 
 limitation. Lord Brougham proposed Force against 
 the lightning that blasts, the thunder that rattles 
 through the universe! Against what left the king 
 of the French a blackened cinder, Frederick Wil¬ 
 liam of Prussia and the emperor scarcely saving 
 their lives,—against what awed even the Czar, 
 lord Brougham proposes Force! Force against 
 what wraps the world in universal conflagration ! 
 Well, what force is his?—Did the theme admit, 
 were it possible in such a serious page as ours 
 to snatch a line from Juvenal, now would we enjoy 
 with that satirist a hearty laugh over the fond, 
 the foolish chancellor. For, notwithstanding his ire, 
 wrought up as lord Brougham is to a pitch high 
 above insanity, at the moment when ten thunder¬ 
 bolts, ten tripled, quadrupled, quintupled most pro¬ 
 digious arlablasts should fulminate through all the 
 empyreum, instead, this Salmoneus flings at the 
 Press a lawyer’s quill, charged certainly with ink, 
 but that paler than it is black, being qualified with 
 vinegar! Against tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, lord 
 
67 
 
 Brougham wills, not those laws which availed in 
 France* “ the laws of September,”—these kept 
 the factious back for no little while, but venturing 
 not so far, lord Brougham would quench Etna 
 with a pen squirting a little verjuice from West¬ 
 minster ! Thus, the mountain and the mouse 
 being again repeated, the inextinguishable laughter 
 of which we read as seizing the Olympians might be 
 indulged to us. The occasion, however, is too 
 grave, and we are admonished as well by the reflec¬ 
 tion that we deal with no Comus, but with one the 
 arch of traitors. And, therefore, we dwell all the 
 more emphatically upon this, since, between the 
 insincerity of the man and his ingratitude, it may 
 be questioned if tKSggutker mean hereby to cover 
 the Press under a pretence while the Crown may 
 go unto its place, or whether he really wishes to 
 serve the queen against what made lord Brougham’s 
 fortune? In the one case you see how infinitely 
 insufficient for the purpose were all that this lord 
 intends; in the other it is explained to the design 
 which requires that any force against the Press 
 shall be reduced to but a show, a cloak, the merest 
 minimum. The Force spoken to by us is a dif¬ 
 ferent thing. We saw the office of La Presse sur¬ 
 rounded with furious men, its editor was but too 
 fortunate in being put au secret last June; thus 
 general Cavaignac saved both La Presse and 
 M. Girardin. But neither such force as that nor any 
 other power of the kind did we contemplate when 
 r 2 
 
68 
 
 adopting that duplexed word, that two-edged sword 
 which cuts one way or the other. No, it is not 
 the rage of spite but firm and unmoved Truth 
 which we would bring to bear against the works 
 of evil. As before against the man who, like 
 Ananias lied, so here also against the flood of wick¬ 
 edness which is gone forth let us turn all the 
 assuaging wind, the light of the Holy Spirit. Then 
 the fountains of the abyss shall be stopped, the 
 storms of heaven restrained, the waters abating 
 continually from before that persuasive means which 
 alone can save our ark as upon another Ararat. 
 It was too hastily presumed the other day that the 
 deluge was gone, when our nobles proposed to 
 build a hospital of thanksgiving. The raven they 
 sent forth winged to-and-fro, finding no more 
 rest for the sole of her foot than the dove that I 
 now let out of the window. See the king of 
 Prussia a prisoner at Bellevue or Potsdam. 
 Where is the Austrian Ferdinand ? What are they 
 at in Vienna? Because a Creole is transported 
 with the wretches that meant to murder you in 
 the dead of night,—and because the member for 
 Limerick lies in gaol sentenced to death, are the 
 antediluvians saved ? There are a few blackguards 
 the less from amongst the thousands of London, 
 and Ireland no longer shoots up a volcanic flame. 
 But if one fire no longer play, while Whitechapel 
 stands cowed, it is only a few drops of rain ex¬ 
 haled and the disappearance of but a lambent sign 
 
69 
 
 from amongst ten thousand portents. What St. 
 Augustine saw of one who endeavoured to ladle 
 out the sea, the same may be said of those who 
 flatter themselves that the removal of Mr. Smith 
 O’Brien, and others like unto him, will suffice 
 for their salvation. Lord Clarendon also knows, 
 or his secretary would not be over-worked, that to 
 avoid a catastrophe you must not only quench one 
 accidental spark of a candle, but remove the tun 
 of gunpowder which lies contiguous to the fire. 
 Quench as often as you can; trample out every 
 falling spark that threats the United Kingdom. 
 But repression is not enough. Touch with 
 Ithuriel-spears what monsters have the nation’s 
 ear, assaying, with devilish art, to forge those illu¬ 
 sions, dreams, distempered, discontented thoughts, 
 vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires of which 
 we read in Milton. 
 
 But this supposes what we did not grant only 
 two pages back. The transitions of states are often 
 so insensibly made, that without any disrespect to 
 the premier and his colleagues, we supposed that 
 Government found no other or better weapon than 
 the Law. This is sufficient for acts overt; the 
 statute-book furnishes arms enough for the correc¬ 
 tion of evil-doers. What we propose is a means 
 whereby to check sedition in the thought, to .extir¬ 
 pate the political cancer in its germ, and to enlighten 
 while we save the body-politic. It is now above 
 eighteen-hundred years ago when inception of a sin 
 
70 
 
 was shown to be as criminal as the carrying sin out. 
 Theologians may decide what degree exists between 
 two things, both infinite. And many insist that 
 grace alone can prevent one or the other. Un¬ 
 doubtedly every good and perfect gift cometli from 
 God; we must invoke bis aid before any blessing- 
 can be derived to our undertaking. Not therefore 
 as presuming upon ground which belongs to heaven, 
 but only as expressing what ability remains to man¬ 
 kind, do we propose to help them with such means 
 as are in our power. That means is Genius. If it 
 be not that salt of the earth described in the New 
 Testament, Genius may yet save any country not 
 gone into the last putrescence. England, though 
 sorely lacerated, is, we hope, yet sound at heart. 
 If there be a possibility of our regeneration, then, 
 not only keep away “ the classes connected with 
 science, letters, and the arts, from the vile trade of 
 agitation” (p. 49), see to the intellectual giants who 
 stalk our streets like Brobdignagians in Lilliput. 
 Men of genius may be as easily singled out, unless, 
 indeed, your eyes are incompetent to dimension. 
 Let us hope that it is not so, scarce less for the sake 
 of ministers than from anxiety for the Crown, to 
 whom the instant selection and present employment 
 of what undishonoured genius and unsoiled talent 
 there may be in Great Britain is indispensable. 
 
 Indispensable did we say?—We should, we ought 
 to have insisted that all the pure Genius and talent 
 in the empire was of the first, the most absolute 
 
71 
 
 necessity to both Crown and Government. It is 
 not one whit less so to the People. At this moment 
 men of birth, some of whom may be called rich, 
 and many men-of-mind also, wait with them, impa¬ 
 tiently, to put an end to the old system of faith, 
 morals, laws, manners, society. With them I feel 
 that morals are debauched, while our laws are placed 
 high above the reach of those who, above all, require 
 protection. Our system is defective, manners bad, 
 but that did not prevent my restraining a spirit 
 which Government, with the civic and military 
 authorities, might have found to be unconquer¬ 
 able. . He, showing to me a heart, such as the 
 Gracchi owned, declared that if a blow were struck 
 against the populace, it should not want a chief on 
 the tenth of April. I heard, and I trembled, for 
 how many thousands must fall before such a pard 
 as that could be speared to death in the sworded 
 jungle of London! 
 
 Than Autronius there does not exist -within the 
 British Islands one more capable for any hazard 
 whereon he might choose to stake with his life, what 
 is immeasurably dearer to him still, his social rela¬ 
 tions. Boy in years, but a thorough man in all his 
 thought, Autronius adds to these first-rate advan¬ 
 tages, ability of learning equal to what distinguished 
 Nigidius Figulus, and a political comprehension as 
 keen as Alcibiades’ 1 Autronius has compared 
 notes with one whom Mr. William Miles con¬ 
 siders as the arch-conspirator of the age; another 
 
72 
 
 with whom my friend communes, might pass for 
 Cneius Piso. I mentioned one sufficient for any 
 command wherein action is required more than 
 thought, fitted the rather to act than plan; to fight 
 tiger-like, no man is better calculated than our 
 Gracchus. Autronius equals him in courage, and 
 at times he is an Issachar to see and hear; but the 
 serpent-wisdom of Dan qualifying this wild horse- 
 colt, out stands he, one of the most potent, able, 
 consummate characters of the time. It is our rare 
 fortune to enjoy the confidence, in some instances 
 the affection of men the most opposed to myself in 
 religious, social, and political opinion,—Autronius 
 therefore does not hide and he would scorn to con¬ 
 ceal himself from me,—nay, his inmost soul has been 
 long my own with more than the love of a brother. 
 Now, as it is impossible to say what calamities might 
 have befallen the country if these colossi had not 
 been over-ruled, observe also how they were per¬ 
 suaded from, Thistlewoodism the one, Wat Tylerism 
 the other. Nor let it be imagined because so hum¬ 
 ble an individual prevailed over the two, either that 
 I name the circumstances for the purpose of self¬ 
 magnification, or that the men were visionary. I 
 wrestled with them all night, and if Jacob confessed 
 that the hollow of his hip was put out of joint, it 
 scarcely pained either Jacob or Esau. There be but 
 one or two English Autronius’s in a century, nor 
 doth the nameless man of Peniel often strive with, 
 still more seldom can he prevail over red-haired 
 
73 
 
 Esau. How many others there are like him,— 
 ready and eager to make such an inquisition into 
 time’s abuses as also threaten that holy Faith 
 against which a mob can be turned like fiery 
 dragons! Such an one at the head of but a few 
 thousand raised such a commotion in this city, as 
 soon wrapped it in flames, while massacre cleared 
 the streets of men, women, and children. Then the 
 glare that lighted up em-bloodied Paris, were 
 exceeded upon a vaster stage, even beyond the 
 numerical proportions which London bears to that 
 city. For, wanting that glacial touch, that edge 
 which belongs to genius, Esau remains, notwith¬ 
 standing all the polish of steel, but common iron. 
 While therefore Autronius, if he moved an arm 
 would cut through bone and marrow, stopped, no 
 more than was the Roman augur by a mill-stone, 
 Gracchus (so him to call), undreaming of such a 
 sharpened knife, would hack and hew like a Vandal. 
 Swinging barbed balls, such as you see in Guildhall, 
 through the modern Babylon he would stride as 
 Gog, that horrid flail threshing out her inhabitants. 
 What fiends would then appear,—what demons red- 
 hot from hades'.—haggard to see, their hair like 
 streaming flames, their eyes like burning coals, 
 shouting, as you heard them shout at Nismes, 
 “ Vive I’enfer!” 
 
 To these you must put an end, either by brute force 
 or by mental power. The first being physically im¬ 
 possible, apply the other. If we understood the rea- 
 
74 
 
 sons which induced Marius and Scylla in their turn to 
 decimate the Latian commonwealth, and were we 
 acquainted with all the dire necessities that impelled 
 both Marat and Robespierre to their course, although 
 the former and the latter succeeded momentarily, 
 who may dare what they dared ?—who attempt what 
 they ventured against senator and plebeian ? Pro¬ 
 scription is murder, whether denounced against the 
 person or the character of a man; when it be 
 decreed against any class or any faction in a nation, 
 it is wholesale butchery. You cannot venture that. 
 You have not the conscience to slaughter men like 
 sheep. Have you that nerve which is necessary 
 when going to murder them as devils ? Not a man 
 in office this day, there is not one minister of the 
 Crown but would shrink from attempting to take any 
 man’s life ; the sight of blood would urge your very 
 heart up. Nor think that others are less squeamish, 
 timid, unwilling than yourselves. There are in the 
 police and in the army those who could make a 
 breakfast upon the liver of christian-men, but 
 they are not all upon your side, even if lord John 
 Russell and sir George Grey were like the duumvirs. 
 Beside, he that killeth with the sword shall be slain 
 by the sword, is a promise that is never broken to 
 Christendom. Neither the ability to the man, nor 
 the impunity which is required to make his instru-; 
 ments effective being found, as this thing is, to you, 
 impossible; if you would not be proscribed, to save 
 also the Crown, come, come you must and shall to 
 
75 
 
 power mental! Yes. For as the Athenian Govern¬ 
 ment was condemned by Xenophon, as quoted by 
 lord Brougham (pp. 69-70), while the putting of 
 Socrates to death covers his judges with eternal 
 infamy, the means by which they swayed an unre¬ 
 flecting multitude being those of many a modern 
 Thersites, as no falsehood can endure the light, 
 touch these agitating scoundrels and so return every 
 one of them to their hideous nakedness. As men 
 gather not grapes of thorns, nor figs from thistles, 
 whatever may be their infatuation, you have only to 
 strip these wolves of the clothing which they assume, 
 and the people fly them. For the people never 
 should we despair, not even in Tipperary, even 
 the wildest Celt is still amenable to reason. Divinize 
 that! reason with a celestial temper before all the 
 people, and those ancients 
 
 “ whose resistless eloquence 
 "Wielded at will that fierce democratic, 
 
 Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
 To Macedon and Artaxerxes’ throne,”— , 
 
 I say that even those godlike orators, although 
 never can we exceed Demosthenes,—yet what Pitt, 
 Chatham, Burke accomplished might be again 
 repeated for Great Britain. The aspirations of 
 Genius are- not beyond the real. Its sense of power 
 is not beyond the use. The conviction of a thing 
 is, its reality, anywhere out of St. Luke’s." .The 
 highest order of minds, the supremest intellectual 
 force always comprehend the greatest amount of 
 
administrative ability and the truest wisdom. Rulers 
 imperatively require these for the solution of what 
 distresses government. No sphynx propounds her 
 riddle. The questions now on hand are as to the 
 general convenience and advantage, or the reverse, 
 of the monarchic and the republican form of govern¬ 
 ment respectively. Instead of solving these, lord 
 Brougham sins against France, trifles with Great 
 Britain, insults the whole world, and lies to his own 
 soul concerning last February. It has been observed 
 that to perpetuate any imposture but one martyr 
 was required. By the same rule one lie may per¬ 
 petuate the worst of systems. There are classes in 
 this country which, frightened at the blood of June, 
 wall laud lord Brougham to his face wdiile despising 
 him in the heart for this most egregious folly and 
 wickedness. The Fleet-street tailor had his shop- 
 window in his eye, and Mr. Crispin in Regent-street, 
 also grasping the urban staff last Whit Monday, 
 thought of his stock in trade behind it. The one 
 and the other cared for the Government as such, no 
 more than did the Chartists. Pulled down to the 
 earth by tax-gatherers, tradesmen generally own 
 to no more affection for the Government than 
 they do. Yet having somewhat to lose, though it 
 were only credit, their subsistence depending upon 
 the course of trade, necessity obliged the shop¬ 
 keepers to act the constable on the tenth of April. 
 Now these, or such of these as knowing, and most 
 of them do know what has occurred in France,— 
 
77 
 
 1 say that these, reading lord Brougham’s libel 
 will be convinced, while thousands side with the 
 democrats. For if so much truth is suppressed with 
 a view to monarchy, lord Brougham finding it also 
 necessary to invent so many lies, the gain upon which 
 he reckoned must be placed reversely. 
 
 “ Hie nigra succus loliginis, liaec est 
 jErugo mera.” 
 
 Why not tell the truth of that French affair? 
 just as we should relate the changes that happened 
 in Mexico under Cortes and Pizarro. To historian, 
 annalist, or chronicler, the king of the French 
 should be no more than the last of the Yncas. If our 
 interests are more concerned with and by what 
 passes across the Channel than from what happened 
 to Montezuma, for that very reason itbehoves English¬ 
 men to suffer no deception in the matter. To find 
 the cause, they must have the results; the same re¬ 
 versely, or the sum can neither be proved nor made in 
 any way useful. The distortion of but a single fact 
 leads to error. Error is always dangerous and often 
 fatal to nations aswell as it notoriouslyis to individuals. 
 The Revolution came upon the Orleanists with sur¬ 
 prise?—More than twelve months ago this-author- 
 published the decheance of the French king, the 
 causes working thereunto being fully exposed in 
 “ France and Great Britain.” As the pamphlet 
 was addressed to the French and every other em- 
 
78 
 
 bassy in London, if Europe were startled last Feb¬ 
 ruary, I can only say that darkness covered the 
 earth and gross darkness the people. As to the event 
 itself, you cannot but remark an hiatus in all lord 
 •Brougham says or pretends concerning the revolu¬ 
 tion. Excepting the hearsay evidence which he ad¬ 
 duces about the chateau d’Eau, not a single instance 
 of barbarism occurred in Paris from the beginning- 
 all through the progress to the termination of the 
 same! This of itself justified the insurrectionists 
 from the scandalous, the hellish name which he— 
 nt cum ratione insaniat —puts upon them. Had 
 they been ruffian, though there were only three or 
 four thousand as averred, the Tuileries and Louvre 
 at least would have been laid in ashes, with the 
 half of Paris. 
 
 If for the sustaining of monarchy such inven¬ 
 tions are required, the sooner that" her maids of 
 honour pack up the queen’s wardrobe the better for 
 her Majesty. But it were no less injurious to our 
 Crown than it is false thus to presume arguments 
 and suggestives so contrary to all that the grounds 
 warrant or that the facts imply. Truth is truth, 
 and it must out, whatever come therefrom. Those 
 who shun the truth know that their intentions are 
 evil. An advocate kicking up a dust and making a 
 mighty noise is always suspected; such a proceed¬ 
 ing prejudices one against what he has in hand. 
 That cause cannot but be bad which is intentionally 
 mystified. Consequently, for every poor, unthink- 
 
79 
 
 ing, unreflecting creature reduced or taken captive 
 of lord Brougham, a hundred superior men will he 
 decided against monarchic government. 
 
 Again, therefore, we say that his impertinence to 
 the marquess of Lansdowne, falsification of the 
 duke of Wellington, and implication of the Cabi¬ 
 net, sink to nothing before the danger with which 
 all this fiendlike diatribe surrounds the crown of 
 England. I could adduce, amongst many inferior 
 instances of its effect, one so important as to the 
 quarter that if lord Brougham’s Letter had no other 
 result it were lamentable. Provocative in tone, as 
 sinister in the contents, this pamphlet confirms 
 democracy in his view without strengthening the 
 ground of monarchy. Indeed, the latter thought 
 never entered its author’s head, for while lord 
 Brougham fails in the attempt to dishonour France, 
 not one suggestion does he offer whereby our throne 
 may be availed against what menaces us. Intelli¬ 
 gence from gentlemen upon the spot while the 
 insurrection raged, was so little to the credit of 
 certain persons in Paris, that a man with half the 
 practice of so old a lawyer would have required but 
 little epigrammatic force and less invective in order 
 to dress out a case against them. The peril in 
 which lord Brougham supposes all “ existing go¬ 
 vernments to be involved, would have taxed the 
 invention of a better’, a sincerer Englishman while 
 it warned the patriot into a discovery of some means 
 whereby to avail, at least, this imperial Realm 
 
against what he abominates. Never did lover 
 descend so deep against the object of his passion 
 when she was lost to. him in the arms of another as 
 does lord Brougham" afiehf this revolution. Not 
 observing the real defects of Amaryllis, the blotch 
 upon her face escaping his observation, our Arcadian 
 storms at his shepherdess like a trull, and ends by 
 swearing that she is uglier than a negress ! In like 
 manner, pretending an affection for Andromeda, the 
 acknowledged beauty, the comeliness which graces 
 her makes so little impression upon lord Brougham, 
 that not a finger does the man lift to save her. 
 Such the facts, the whole matter is now before the 
 country. It were worse than impudent in us, in 
 any horn Englishman, to hold his candle up 
 against a blazing torch, that were intolerable to the 
 French, while the Italians and Germans are in 
 process of the same enlightenment. Moreover, 
 the endeavouring to draw conclusions, applicable 
 at the same time and to the same extent to 
 England and foreign parts, were altogether hope¬ 
 less. The interest of all is good to every individual 
 nation, but the converse never holds in politics. 
 Here, therefore, we shall not affect the partiality 
 which so oddly contrasts lord Brougham’s spite 
 against the French as seen in this Letter. Thus 
 a fellow might run about the streets dressed in a 
 ragged shirt, one side white, the other black as 
 soot could make it; or as if a lunatic presented 
 himself in the park dressed out, the one half 
 
grenadier-like, the other half dressed like a fish- 
 woman. This inconsistency it is which leaves lord 
 Brougham so bizarre. He is the Pantaloon of 
 Europe. 
 
 Again, lord Brougham’s professed fondness for 
 the French is at right angles with his declaration of 
 attachment to Louis Philippe. For many years 
 Louis Philippe deserved well of us, playing to 
 England whenever and whatever the cards allowed 
 him. Who does not remember when, although his 
 minister had stolen so far in the king’s advance, 
 yet Louis Philippe struck M. Thiers down, and 
 disarmed the nation as to Syria. Four millions 
 sterling had been disbursed by France for Syria and 
 Egypt: at our reclamation Ibrahim pacha was 
 abandoned, the French fleet ordered home while we 
 bombarded Acre ! 
 
 The Otalieitan quarrel put the king even more 
 painfully to the test concerning England. French¬ 
 men gnashed their teeth and stamped the foot but 
 to think of Mr. Pritchard. He was, nevertheless, 
 indemnified by Louis Philippe. So far therefore, 
 as checking prejudice, and keeping down the 
 belligerent propensities of his people, the king 
 deserved our thanks. For that queen Victoria 
 crossed to Eu, she received the host that feasted 
 her there, right royally at Windsor Castle. But 
 the tables were reversed, at length the cloven- 
 hoof was at last manifested. From the moment of 
 his design upon the Spanish crown Louis Philippe’s 
 
82 
 
 policy was reversed as to England. Hardly was 
 the earl of Aberdeen deceived, lord Palmerston 
 being swindled when Louis Philippe harked-on the 
 French against Great Britain. To consummate 
 that work Louis Philippe must needs hazard all 
 against Great Britain. Still more monstrous there¬ 
 fore it seems that he who defended the queen of 
 George the Fourth, should forget himself so far as to 
 eulogise one more infamous than “Vitellius.” As 
 it cannot be denied that don Francisco de Assis was 
 that princess’s aversion, to any woman having a 
 heart for love with sufficient cause,—so as notoriously 
 did Louis Philippe force that person upon Isabella 
 that she might destroy herself or leave Charles 
 the Fifth’s crown to his daughter-in-law. Thus 
 all the Florentine’s suggestions outdone by Philippe 
 d’Orleans, behold a princess undone, the Iberians 
 bought, England betrayed, France committed to a 
 present war in which she must fight for existence ! 
 
 Whether as a man, or as a Briton, a well-wisher 
 to the French, or as a cosmopolitan, this atrocious 
 marriage should have prevented lord Brougham from 
 such parade, I pity misfortune, I respect age, but 
 who is Louis Philippe that any lord high chancellor 
 dare call him a friend r If the fell and foul excuse 
 the word, he is a perpetrator. This I charge. 
 And denouncing him, I appeal this lord also for an 
 equal treason. Is not his complicity confessed P— 
 “ What Suetonius tells of palaced Bestials, never 
 equalled the violation of one queen’s faith to ste- 
 
83 
 
 rilize another.” {Tide “ France and Great 
 Britain.” This did he, and in defending the car¬ 
 case of the ex-king, lord Brougham commits a perpe¬ 
 tration only less horrible than Louis Philippe’s. 
 
 Prince! for you attend my speech while stand¬ 
 ing on our throne,—you the apple of her eye, 
 the most beloved consort of our adored Queen,— 
 behold who perjured themselves, first to the 
 people, the one for St. Louis’s crown, what the 
 other snatched at on the tenth of June last has 
 been made manifest. Looking from out of the 
 windows of the palace where sate Charles Dix, 
 many laughed to hear the tonsured priest insist 
 that Louis Philippe beneath would reign therein 
 in the event. Not less amusing does it appear 
 to courtiers surrounding you, to charge lord 
 Brougham with a design upon the French Presi¬ 
 dency or Dictatorship. Lord Brougham’s hand¬ 
 writing being conclusive thereupon, no man can 
 say, and hardly dare one patriot tell what that 
 denationalized peer dare yet promise to his ambi¬ 
 tion. Cashiered by ministers, avoided in the 
 Lords, inadmissible to her Majesty’s councils, 
 what you read of one who goeth about as a 
 roaring ' Iihri may be with no less certainty con¬ 
 cluded oTthe ex-chancellor. If this pebble from 
 the brook does not prostrate Goliath,—if this 
 arrow prove not the death of the Python, hard 
 shall it go but he will yet devour you. Having 
 failed in the Aristotelian steps of Verulam, falling 
 g 2 
 
short of Locke’s fame, again failing as a Quintilian, 
 falling short of the Ciceronian flight; — what he 
 could not build that Erostratus destroyed, and 
 but for this stone from the sling, this bow drawn at 
 a venture, lord Brougham thought to fire the world 
 as that incendiary fired the great Ephesian temple. 
 And no ordinary holocaust for him; a princely heca¬ 
 tomb he requires. Sovereign Majesty of England ! 
 this, this is the traitor! Like the umbrella-king 
 looks he, like hunchbacked Richard. But thus 
 Lucifer himself appeared, the hosts of heaven 
 umveeting what quenchless fire the while moved 
 him against Omnipotence. Thus rages he, in the 
 words of Bolingbroke, “ a traitor and a miscreant.” 
 For self-stultified like Lucifer, Who, now, darkly 
 attempts the crown, the peers, the commons, the 
 people? Deceiving those by words who derive 
 no wisdom from facts, towards a precipice lord 
 Brougham leads one and the other. To the verge 
 of heaven he wins, onward to the pit into the 
 wasteful void to plunge the universe. O Queen! 
 beware in time, beware of this deceiver. If he can 
 make the w orse appear to be the better reason, if the 
 blackest of all demons can transform himself into an 
 angel of light,—if satan’s effrontery might deceive 
 even the elect, as you value that title which we 
 guard, the life for which we pray, those little-ones 
 who are your love, frown scorn upon him. He 
 would protest the past, but the rattling bones in his 
 tail, the Lybian snake involuntarily warns every 
 
85 
 
 victim. The German doctors were laughed at. 
 “Political adventurers” (p. 76) come next. Was 
 he not one himself? In England the woolsack, in 
 France at what did not “ H. Brougham” fly? For 
 the world’s throne made he, that from a presi¬ 
 dential chair Julian the Apostate’s dreams might 
 be realized. Stupendous the attempt, the failure is 
 as deep; so, splitting his tongue in twain with one 
 sting he fires France to rage, with the other, be¬ 
 numbing England, now observe him! But that 
 angel which guards our queen remarks the act, and 
 herein behold the antidote to all his deadly fj&ison. 
 It is black as Lethe and as narcotic—“ I wish to 
 treat the late events as a passing scene, and to dis¬ 
 encumber of them and of their influence upon 
 political principle, the Philosophy of Politics” (p. 5). 
 
 “ A passing scene.” Thus lord Brougham would 
 fain blind, he would burke crown, government, and 
 people. Not only because the principle nor cause of 
 the revolution was foreseen in his “ Politics,” but 
 with this further view, the political Hare palms, or 
 attempts to palm this pitch-plaster upon us. A 
 passing scene! The Revolution was an act that 
 could not last till doomsday, but its effects are not 
 ceased, and they shall be felt till the end of time 
 perceptibly. Like a bundle of sticks, every one of 
 which ought to be laid across lord Brougham’s back, 
 I gathered his assertions up, from the centre lo! 
 one that escaped our observation. In his initial 
 page lord Brougham speaks of the Revolution as 
 
86 
 
 having had a “plot;” within one line count de 
 Neuillv’s friend promises himself its “ catastrophe.” 
 Thus earnestly would he convince you of the fleeting, 
 the spectral nature which is assumed to the Revo¬ 
 lution. With so flattering an unction he persuades 
 you to sleep, to sleep upon that mast which, now 
 pointing to heaven anon plunges in the waves, the 
 ship of our constitution almost foundered. “ Catas¬ 
 trophe”! catastrophes there have been more than 
 once and enough in this empire; but to speak 
 intelligibly of the Revolution we must divest our¬ 
 selves of all nationality. To judge the Revolution 
 as Englishmen were absurd; although its advantages 
 are hitherto all to us, its immediate disadvantages to 
 our neighbours. The antithesi s is strong, but that for 
 which the French poured forth rivers of blood, to 
 them it has thus far been a positive loss, and only 
 a negative good; we, on the contrary, though pro¬ 
 testing change, therefrom receive the greatest benefits. 
 The induction of what is great is always difficult to 
 man, and it costs almost superhuman efforts; while, 
 therefore, we are far from concluding that the 
 French reckoned without their host, every Briton 
 must rejoice over what makes lord Brougham curse, 
 like Ahab or Gehazi. The fall of the king, the 
 forfeiture of his line, and the promulgation of what 
 our author stigmatises as the Fraternity of Cain with 
 Abel, availed England vitally. But for the Revo¬ 
 lution the king of the French would have floated 
 his almost stranded bark upon the spring-tide flood 
 
87 
 
 of a war to the knife with Great Britain. No sooner 
 were Isabella’s death compassed than his daughter- 
 in-law for Spain! maugre the Utrechtian treaty. 
 But for the Revolution, the earl of Ellesmere and 
 many others are of opinion that London might have 
 been won and had, and not only had but gutted like 
 that Moscow whence Napoleon issued his orders to 
 continental Europe. It were silly to say that I, you, 
 you, and tens upon tens of thousands besides had 
 fronted and fought for the heart of our monarchy. 
 If Napoleon might not resist the Allied armies when 
 his own were no longer found, what better success 
 could the duke of Wellington expect at the head of 
 an unmilitary nation ? 
 
 Moreover, had the Republic done no more than 
 inscribe Liberty, Egalite, Fraternity upon her flag,— 
 those three cheering words, as they are found 
 engraven on our heart, so every Christian must rejoice 
 to see them acknowledged thus and so highly honoured. 
 Other governments may not the less observe to follow 
 out those lights, but there is a value in knowing dis¬ 
 tinctly what are the professed rules of a people. This 
 sentiment may be held by England, Prussia, Russia. 
 A constitutional monarch observes the laws, the laws 
 are, or ought to be founded in righteousness. The czar 
 is an experienced prince, his knowledge forbids the 
 supposition that Muscovy is administered but upon 
 the wisest principles. While, therefore, England might 
 inscribe upon her banner, Justice, Russia rejoiced 
 in the, to her fitter word, Paternity. Signs like these 
 
carry an infinity of sense, they are explanatory of the 
 nations which emblazing, consecrate them to service. 
 Easy, therefore, it is to perceive, what the spirit and 
 tendency of Frenchmen are under that inestimable 
 designation. And, having bound themselves to ob¬ 
 serve these virtues, they are pledges as to the rights 
 of the world, power being ours to punish any violation 
 of justice by whomsoever adventured. 
 
 This being the significance to us of what has hap¬ 
 pened across the Channel, it were idle in Englishmen 
 to pass an opinion upon a drama of which they as yet 
 know but the preludal part, that only by translation. 
 Miserable performers are to be found in every theatre, 
 not excepting Drury-lane; the Italian Opera does not 
 consist altogether of stars of the first magnitude. 
 Because all the parts are not correctly and most criti¬ 
 cally delivered, it does not follow that you are to 
 curse all the stars, the opera, and the theatre. Again, 
 plays are always unequal in merit, merit, like alt 
 other mundane things, having its introcessions. As 
 well might you suppose that the ocean was ebbing 
 never to flow again, as conclude anything more from 
 the reaction consequent upon what has happened. It 
 it a grand affair! We admire it much, mightily 
 pleased to think when entering the pit, that the 
 soldiers on the boards of Paris had been diverted 
 from scenes where they were less welcome. I would 
 rather attend generals Cavaignac, Budeau, Lamori- 
 ci&re, and the rest there, than upon the sands of Kent, 
 or close to Portsmouth. Forgetting the weald they 
 
89 
 
 turned to a better, as it was so much less dangerous 
 an attempt; if a few hundred gladiators fell, that was 
 as scarce one to a thousand who otherwise must have 
 bit the dust in Albion. So approved, both as to the 
 French and to ourselves, good-humoured, good- 
 tempered, although rockets cleft the air and some fire¬ 
 balls went oft’, the play seems to us not only amusing 
 but delightful. In short, that gay and lively nation 
 could engage in no better sport, and it is but fair that 
 the representation should be defrayed by those who 
 designed and got up the play for their own especial 
 pleasure. Scaramouch being at last found out, there 
 was a mighty chattering; apes squeaked and squalled; 
 if some climbed too high, whatever their indiscretion, 
 we cannot but commiserate the broken-necked. 
 Again therefore I say, that the French have not only 
 done excellently well for themselves in expelling king 
 Stork, but they are eminently deserving of our plaudits 
 for ridding what threatened England also. I say 
 nothing of the contagion of example, to Prussia, in 
 Austria, or elsewhere. What followed the Revolu- 
 tion in Ireland, yielded the earl of Clarendon the 
 opportunity to show both our power and our forbear¬ 
 ance, where they laughed the one to scorn while the 
 other was exercised. Thus our very virtue was turned 
 against the majesty of the realm ; but whilst nations 
 ought to cease from evil, they should never fatigue of 
 doing good, as the rew'ard lately derived to Great 
 Britain from the same demonstrates. 
 
 And now this returns us to that point whence all 
 
90 
 
 our affections proceed, our eyes having been sent to- 
 and-fro, less with any regard to plan than to try where 
 our ground lies. If, to quote the Journal des Dibats, 
 the decrease of public wealth, the individual ruin, the 
 diminution of manufacturing labour, the number of 
 commercial houses closed, the amount of wages lost 
 to the operative classes, and the distress of every de¬ 
 scription which is suffered in France be the first-fruits 
 of the Revolution, against that loss the gain being 
 placed, the former, lamentable though it be to indi- 
 viduals, sinks into insignificance as to the nation. 
 The descent of a class occurs by that ordination 
 which lowers the mountain only that the valleys may 
 be elevated. Because fewer carriages glide through 
 Longchamps,—although banks, shops, ateliers are 
 closed by the score in the Faubourg St. Honord,—even 
 if the taxes be increased fifty per cent., the annuncia¬ 
 tion of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, is inestimable. 
 The happiness of man does not consist in abundance 
 of goods, and I am sure that not one true Frenchman 
 could be found from Dunkirk to Bayonne but would 
 rejoice to subscribe his all were that all necessary, to 
 keep quit of him who w as thus cheaply got rid of by 
 the Parisians. 
 
 But while sincerely congratulating that people, we 
 are not to suppose that what suited the taste and 
 circumstances of France is applicable to us, so long 
 as Great Britain maintain that House which has 
 crowned us for above a century. If it be a question 
 of convenience, first of advantage or of disadvantage, 
 
91 
 
 next as to a monarchic or a republican form of 
 government, that question may be resolved by you 
 directly. If it were possible to place monarchy and 
 republicanism upon a par, and if you could as easily 
 and as readily adopt the one as the other, against the 
 abuses which attend the first the second could pro¬ 
 duce none greater. Republics may be degraded to 
 infamy, blit not republicanism; its principles, there¬ 
 fore, must be preferred to the mere cadavre of mo¬ 
 narchy. I shall be highly blamed for conceding this 
 to the democrats.—Who are they ?—Where are they? 
 —Autronius answers. Crassus shouts. Piso and 
 twenty more of my acquaintance insist that they are 
 democrats upon Plato’s plan! Nor do I doubt 
 that there are among you men bold enough, spirits 
 strong enough to form a government that should 
 be a blessing to the world. If I gave out the 
 names, Great Britain and Ireland would not deny 
 your ability to protect and worthiness to keep the 
 most precious charges. Passing you, for the most 
 part disdaining notoriety, behold the men who are 
 known as democrats. Of these one dealt in Greek 
 bonds to the filling of his purse, the purse of another 
 was turned inside-out and then sent to the pawn¬ 
 broker. Childe Harold gave himself up, body and 
 soul to Hellas, Mr. Joseph Hume lent money to the 
 resurging slate at so much per cent, per annum. 
 His antipodes in character suffers all the pains of 
 advancing age, even while the colour haunts his cheek 
 and his hair shows a curl that belongs to manhood. 
 
92 
 
 It was not so much his fault as his generosity that 
 plunged the one into debt while the other’s nig¬ 
 gardliness served to riches. To name Mr. Peargus 
 O’Connor is enough. Alien in name, vain in manner, 
 attainted in character, he may be, nay he is an able 
 man, but official place to him also is out of the ques¬ 
 tion. The corn-law agitator being more republican 
 than Mr. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, and so far in 
 accord with the member for Nottingham, with them 
 Richard Cobden stands as a politician. Honest in 
 his dealings, persevering in his intents, fluent of speech, 
 it was hoped Mr. Cobden would prove eminently 
 useful. But the blindness upon which lord Brougham 
 Insists doubly fallen to him, disgrace followed, it 
 was not a film over the eyes, the scales which made 
 Tobias dark were as nothing to those that covered the 
 eyes of the hon. member for the West Riding. W hile 
 I was proclaiming the approaching downfal of the 
 French king, and the dismembering of the Empire, 
 insensible to all the light which flooded the scenes, 
 Mr. Cobden promised Saturnian times and everlasting 
 peace to Europe. “ Disband your armies, break up 
 your fleets, beat swords into ploughshares, your 
 spears into pruning-hooks, war can never occur 
 again!” This said he, even when Austria was no 
 more, but a few days before the blast of February. 
 “ Heaven!” cried he to-day, thinking of cotton 
 twist, to-morrow hundreds of thousands threatened 
 to make London like Gomorrha. 
 
 Stand you back my friends, while I ask England 
 
93 
 
 if these are the men, the minds fit for the foundation 
 of a republic? I am of Socrates’s opinion, that one 
 may be of greater service to his country in training up 
 several able politicians for managing the government 
 of the state, than were he himself to govern it. As 
 you, however, though ready, are yet aggregatively 
 unknown, look now abroad and say if it be not like 
 Ezekiel’s valley of bones ? Cannot those bones 
 live ? I answer you affirmatively, but the trump of 
 doom alone can enlife so many millions. Besides, 
 the chivalry of ancient times, the devotion of an 
 antique age is not yet altogether gone from among you. 
 Cast now your eyes towards the throne and see that 
 empress to whom we vowed our best affections! 
 How dare you forswear the one or overturn the other, 
 if that were possible? And why remove so just, so 
 standard a weight as that to place another, only in 
 the abstract exaeter, upon this centre of gravitation ? 
 If the Crown be a negation, whose is the fault?— 
 why do we allow' it ? I tell you that, not the 
 aristocracy of the land but the oligarchs of the law 
 reduced our monarchs to puppets. That, however, 
 they could effect, countrymen! only by your folly or 
 connivance. As the Commons have had a vote in 
 every statute now' for above, say, two hundred years, 
 if their ignorance served our nobles while they allowed 
 vampires to in-death the Crown, the blame rests 
 with youselves in permitting it. 
 
 We are not disposed to follow' lord Brougham into 
 a digression made, apparently, for the purpose of 
 
94 
 
 advertising that work which, he informs us, memo¬ 
 rised six long years in the publication. What 
 Athens, Rome, Lavinium, or any other nation did, 
 why should we ask ? seeing how much the French 
 are laughed at for elaborating a constitution theoreti¬ 
 cally. Locke failed in his attempt to form one for 
 the Carolinas because he thought more of precedent 
 than of common-sense. A sophist himself and a 
 lawyer lord Brougham, although recommending his 
 compilations to the world implies all through his 
 letter to the marquis of Lansdowne that the utmost 
 learning cannot avail any nation in this matter. If 
 Locke’s judgment failed, monarchy having worn 
 itself completely out or become suicide in France, I 
 do not understand why the Assembly should be reviled 
 because they attempt it. It is our happier fortune 
 to be spared this herculean task, although the time 
 is arrived when there must be a great alteration. If 
 the happiness and contentment of the people have 
 not been attained, our government will elevate itself 
 to an ability for both. Having every disposition to 
 advance the common good, the query is how so to 
 intensify government that all the functions necessary 
 to the well-being of the community shall be per¬ 
 fected ? It is amusing to watch the roundabout way 
 in which folk go to work with the plainest questions. 
 A politician seldom, lawyers never grapple directly 
 with any question. There are so many limitations 
 to be observed in every case, it is so difficult to 
 arbitrate the plainest matters in politics or in law 
 
95 
 
 that those have been esteemed to be the profoundest 
 sages who know not what to say until time compels 
 them to conclude, lord Eldon-like, for one side or 
 the other. Far be it from us to condemn the 
 pyrrhonists, while than lord Brougham no one more 
 expressly knows that haste is oftener rash than ad¬ 
 visable. For that so many of his chancery decisions 
 were reversed, with much less consideration than we 
 manifest towards the ex-Lord-Keeper. Society, 
 however, can no more wait than can time itself for 
 those who, if they will pause, must that moment give 
 place to others. The difference between monarchy 
 and republicanism being such as may be observed 
 between the form and the fact, let us conjoin the two, 
 as God united soul and body together. 
 
 This illustration of what we require opens up that 
 question of compensation of which our author speaks; 
 and it will be always difficult so to balance conflicting 
 interests that no just demand of any party in the 
 state shall be compromised. But a government which 
 intends well, if it have mind will reflex all our 
 inequalities to a mean. In that mean consists the 
 entire worth of government. As soon as the doctrine 
 of incompatibilities shall be honoured, all antagonism 
 will be at an end in ours, save, indeed, that theoretic 
 antagonism which is indispensable to the nation. As 
 equalization obtains, facts must be supposed by the 
 legislature. This branch of the public service arro¬ 
 gating to itself the signs of abstract power, the 
 executive will deliberate upon and assist the interests 
 
95 
 
 of every individual. All that is reverse to right, if 
 they can show it to be wrong, not excepting the pomp 
 which Mr. Cobden denounced as “ barbaric,” will be 
 dropped, the Crown and the Government standing 
 out simply majestic. Well may the Crown dispense 
 with trappings so absurd, while the Government will 
 be but too happy to remove what proves to be a 
 stumbling-block of offence to many. The littleness, 
 the nothing of such things being well understood, 
 reduce them by the rule of right, and they are gone 
 immediately. 
 
 But here let us explain a point about which no 
 mistake must be committed. It is difficult, nor 
 would it be advisable to maintain the same intona¬ 
 tion, to harp upon only one string in a work like 
 ours, although the contents of a book should be in 
 unison altogether. As, however, there are no such 
 rules for the composition of words as musicians 
 enjoy in the production of sounds, occasionally in 
 passing from the grave to gay, an author will seem 
 to commit one or another discord. Convinced that 
 as every good and perfect gift cometh from God, to 
 him men must refer for all w isdom; and being no 
 less convinced that the legislators of old w r ere the 
 best, if they were not actually divine expositors of 
 justice, our eye has been fixed upon those codes 
 which if Confucius, Solon, Lycurgus seem great, 
 contained all that they enacted for man’s good, 
 while the Old and New Testaments lay down prin¬ 
 ciples so far in advance of the profoundest lawgivers 
 
97 
 
 that the whole world hastens to receive the words of 
 Moses and of Christ as a revelation. With a belief so 
 deep, the reader will understand why the power 
 herein required for the country is always hallowed. 
 Not that either the profession of Christianity or the 
 possession of religion qualifies men for state. The 
 first is a recommendation, the second a property 
 which puts everybody in love with him who is 
 favoured to possess religion. But while it enables a man 
 to rule himself, for ruling others he is disqualified by 
 religion if it be not intellectualized. It is not enough 
 to have an honest will, you must show one, not un¬ 
 scrupulous but determined. For politics infer not 
 only responsibility to God but an answerableness to 
 man such as man requireth. And herein is the 
 difficulty, how to square the twofold and often 
 apparently irreconcileable obligations imposed upon 
 rulers. How to walk, both by faith and sight, can 
 only be resolved by those who while they serve 
 heaven first, will serve men next at all hazards. It 
 is not enough to say that conscience should be our 
 guide, and that so long as we obey its dictates all 
 those acts which are intended for his praise will be 
 providenced by God to those for whom you ad¬ 
 minister. There are occasions when expediency will 
 be heard, in such an exigeant tone that even lord 
 Ashley cannot withstand it. Therefore it was that 
 the man who did not hesitate to slay an Egyptian, 
 was chosen to deliver Israel. He who made himself 
 all things to all men became the great apostle of the 
 
Gentiles. Subtilty without grace, likens a man to 
 that unhappy spirit which plunged the universe in 
 woe; grace, on the other hand, without wisdom is 
 insufficient for statedom. 
 
 As Aristippus esteemed it to be a benefit derived to 
 him from philosophy, the freedom with which he could 
 disclose his mind, thus frankly profess I myself to 
 those amongst my friends who are in error. Dis¬ 
 daining as much the pretences of cant as the pre¬ 
 sumption of guilt, no greater liberty can be allowed 
 to those who verge upon the first than is permissible 
 to the other. You must be men to men and saints 
 with God, or better had it been for you if your 
 convictions and necessities never met: between the 
 one and the other a fall is inevitable. What are 
 the cherubim, such also are they who can make the 
 crooked straight before us. It may seem impossible, 
 but with the likeness of a man every ruler to be 
 successful must have four faces and four wings. 
 They go and return like lightning. What further 
 appearance is theirs you may read in the prophet, 
 who, speaking of their work, describes it as a w heel 
 in the middle of a wheel. Their compass, dreadful 
 in height is, everywhere full of eyes ! Let those who 
 have scarcely two use them under divine correction. 
 
 If the time be arrived for thus openly defining 
 the positions of men, exposing all who come not 
 up to the rule and standard of body and mind 
 requisite for Government, not less imperiously do we 
 require to know the position of the country. If it 
 
99 
 
 be a matter of supreme importance to demonstrate 
 capacities as to men, the place which a nation occu¬ 
 pies must be found before even a guess ought to 
 be ventured as to its destinies. The state-and- 
 condition of the country has been discussed so often 
 that it is gone into a term which no two men can 
 be found to reduce correctly. We are speaking not 
 of “ state-and-condition ” but of place, the place 
 occupied by Great Britain in the world politically. 
 I imagine that wherever we are, it is by the 
 merit, or through the default of those who admi¬ 
 nister this empire. The questions of capacity and 
 of position therefore being involved, the one answers 
 the other. Given, a man and his department, we 
 easily find the results proceeding of both. Given a 
 government as easily we find where the country is 
 situated, morally, socially, politically. It is a mis¬ 
 take to ignore the action of government, the 
 people are not all in all to themselves, no more 
 than is the body corporal as distinguished from 
 the head which guides it. 
 
 Amidst all lord Brougham’s discussions one might 
 expect, if but as by the chance hit of a flint a spark, 
 here and there to break the darkness in which he 
 is enveloped. It aggravates you but to think that 
 his Letter is unredeemed by any light, flames 
 only making the darkness still more palpable. 
 In those places where he strives for light, an imp 
 instantly drives him off, his very endeavours quenched 
 in flaming blackness. Alas! In denouncing a foreign 
 
100 
 
 government the late Lord High Chancellor of England 
 might have been expected greatly to enlighten our 
 own. In stigmatising a nation the late Lord Keeper 
 should have derived some advantage therefrom to us. 
 With a disappointment at his omissions equalling 
 the disgust which was induced by his perpetra- 
 j tions, we flung this pamphlet down, wondering how 
 'the-autbor could have squailed at the Gallic cock 
 with no more result. It was the wont of our 
 -^villagers to think not only of the bird on Shrove- 
 tuesday, but of their sweethearts as well. Thus even 
 a cruel act was subserved to a graceful end by our 
 rustic swains. Lord Brougham pleases us no more 
 in the intention than in the act, nay, as he cares 
 nothing for attitude nor science, the spectator cannot 
 but be horrified at the fury which possesses him 
 against the eagle also. Were there any justification 
 for his rage, or love-of-country in his mind, this 
 work had read a lesson to statesmen while England 
 received therefrom the fruits of such sagacity and 
 wisdom as become all her Chancellors. But besides 
 the celebration of himself, “ a leader in political 
 movements . . . bringing about the greatest 
 
 constitutional change that ever was effected without 
 actual violence” (page 1), as no other man seems 
 to have entered his mind, so government is un¬ 
 glanced, the nation also remaining unspoken but in an 
 unknown tongue. This absence of light from lord 
 Brougham’s work is still more scandalous than the 
 hiatus which we remarked in it concerning the Revo- 
 
101 
 
 lution. Scandalous it was to presume all that which 
 you read against the Revolution, but ten times more 
 so is the omission of ail moral from his tale, if, 
 indeed, a moral could be derived from pure falsehood 
 or invention. Lord Brougham insinuates, he edges- 
 in male and female fires, but we know' not what to 
 make of the horrid creatures of so dark an imagina¬ 
 tion. Hence the recommendation that government 
 should enlarge the constituency, although proposed 
 ostensibly as a means of resistance to change, is of 
 so doubtful a kind that the inducements offered for 
 its acceptance dispose us the other way, the one 
 being in direct antagonism to the other. 
 
 But, to return, we said that if men’s capacities 
 were ascertained the position of the country as to 
 Europe should be as certainly ascertained ; for not to 
 know where they are is scarcely less dangerous to 
 nations than that self-ignorance which so often 
 commits them to destruction. As they take the 
 meridian for a ship when at sea, so to determine 
 a nation’s place we must find the axle of the 
 universe. The dispute has been as to where that 
 axle w'as ; is the meridian to be that of London 
 Paris, or St. Petersburg? Although the French 
 cannot be denied that leadership in the arts which 
 has been successively enjoyed by the several Italian 
 states, for all that ministers to life in comfort and 
 duration the English excel total Europe. Hence it 
 were difficult to say which nation is the greater, the 
 polish and solidity of the two exceeding one the 
 
103 
 
 otber. If, therefore, we presume upon nothing at 
 their expense, the French cannot but be satisfied with 
 the admission of their equality. Russia need not be 
 mentioned here. Greater than both France and 
 England upon the Turkish frontier, the Save and the 
 Drave may yet fall to her. For the two former 
 nations, as Great Britain owns more ships, France 
 possessing most men, their power may be said to equal 
 or balance one the other. 
 
 In such circumstances the French and British are 
 entered the lists as competitors for dominion. Not 
 only in arts, science, and letters must they contest 
 nnder such circumstances, in politics they are matched, 
 the world’s prize before them. And as two strong 
 wrestlers watch each the other, wo to the nation that 
 falls behind, or that may be tripped up. Now, I 
 take the late Revolution to be a most promising 
 incident for England not only because with the 
 monarchy all its most hateful passions against us were 
 laid, but because the Revolution holds out the right 
 hand of fellowship to the universe. As fair play is 
 a jewel, no less promising to nations are those pre- 
 ludal acts which imply good humour on the part of 
 such as are opposed to them. How easily wrath is 
 turned aside those know who study soft words. If 
 they prove so useful to individuals, to nations pro¬ 
 portionally. The change, therefore, which has taken 
 place in France, so far from endangering the British 
 . Crown gives us a valuable pledge for the same, while 
 we have much less to apprehend from France in the 
 
103 
 
 arena. The former system, as it produced insult 
 so it must have ended in war; under the present 
 order, pure reason will prevail over rashness, if we 
 are so minded. The supposition that a form of 
 government wdiich differs so much from our own 
 must prove obstructive to those friendly offices that 
 attach nations is incorrect. If England remain 
 monarchic, France being the reverse, their common 
 object must be to carry out the principles of their re¬ 
 spective forms, so that the world shall recognise which is 
 preferable or better. Thus the majesty of England and 
 the French president may well agree together, Europe 
 being protected from outrage, themselves from guile by 
 a watch held in turn over all barrators and disturbers. 
 The difference between our crown and such a presi¬ 
 dent as, say Cavaignac, is more apparent than real, 
 our queen succeeding to the affections of her lieges, 
 whereas the French voted that general to be their 
 tutelary guardian. Or should the emperor’s nephew, 
 whom this parvenu lord so rudely assails (p. 140), 
 attain to that distinguished place, the difference were 
 reduced to a hair since, though Louis Napoleon’s 
 family be recent his origin equals that of the Norman 
 duke from whom our queen derives part title. In 
 the event of the installation of the due de Bordeaux, 
 in him England would acknowledge an heir, so that 
 but little difficulty seems attached to this important 
 matter for the present. 
 
 Considered thus the French and English v'ould be 
 to the world what the poles are to the globe. Though 
 
104 
 
 antipodal as to form, the same spirit equilibriated 
 then the two for all nations. Centres of gravitation 
 to themselves, around them nations would revolve, 
 receiving and reflecting light one to the other. Thus 
 should we revive the syncreticism of old, when the 
 same legale that ruled in Rome swayed the councils 
 of the remotest lands, not by such arts as Talleyrand 
 used, but in that spirit which was not only sanctifi¬ 
 cation to the cardinal but wisdom in the sage, the 
 remotest nations enjoying a just share of his love and 
 solicitude. And this prospect is glimpsed, this pos¬ 
 sibility is understood where the extremest prejudice 
 was thought to hold against the Revolution. Ad¬ 
 miring what seems to promise so great advantage to 
 the world, the czar, crediting the progress of events, 
 maintains a respectful silence. When the world 
 seemed wrecked, had not Nicholas I. took our view, 
 Havoc! would have been the cry, his dogs of war let 
 slip upon prostrate Europe. 
 
 For this, if for no other reason, lord Brougham 
 has condemned himself. While such awful issues 
 were undecided, at a moment when a feather might 
 turn the scale, in jumps he with all the momentum 
 of a name, the force of a fiend, the weight of a devil 
 to pull down that France 'which is the pivot, Britain 
 being the balance of the world. Imagine the effect 
 of his Letter with prince Paskewitsch. It might 
 induce a less reflective monarch than the emperor 
 to draw his sword. Provoked, the one by Poland, 
 the other Austria besought, both when they read this 
 
105 
 
 Letter might suppose that the time was come to 
 punish French licence, English fortune. Under the 
 diabolical incantation of the man this was to be 
 feared. To be feared, not a war of nations—it were 
 a game, nor a war of races—that were a fight,—we 
 should have to fear a war of principles which wrapped 
 the world in flame until 
 
 “ Some god. 
 
 Whose throne was in a comet, passed and cried 
 
 ‘ Be not!’ and, like my words, they were no more.” 
 
 And now this seems to he men’s fate to arrive at the 
 dread point in order that nations yell, gasp, and die. 
 They come to be abolished. What is known of the 
 fates of empires shows ever some demented fool in 
 the act of precipitating them. Not to mention Asian 
 seers, nor Persian magi, who can doubt that the 
 Roman commonwealth, though once saved was lost 
 also by Cicero ? So also a priest’s obstinacy cost 
 the second Roma, dominion. In stirring Lethe to 
 the depths, in upturning Tartarus from the bottom, 
 lord Brougham exceeds in turpitude all that we ever 
 read of those blind which led nations into the ditch 
 that they might perish with them. His duty was to 
 discuss, instruct, inform, not to calumniate rulers 
 and fire all the passions of nations. These being like 
 the Goodwin-sands, it behoves us all to take good 
 care or not only France, but England may go some 
 day head-foremost to the bottom. 
 
106 
 
 If it cannot be denied that “ how disastrous soever 
 war might prove to France, her people would fain 
 have an opportunity of wiping out the memory of 
 the defeats which they sustained at the close of the 
 great contest” (p. 13y), yet so long as England is just 
 and conciliating (always supposing her to be on the 
 guard of which we spoke in a previous page), the 
 French esteem themselves too highly and will respect 
 us too much to venture upon the extremities which 
 lord Brougham contemplates. He seems terrified at 
 but the thought, we, although equally averse to war, 
 know that the best way to meet war is to resist it as 
 we are told to resist him who flees the man of might 
 while the coward is captived at will by the evil 
 spirit. To be strong therefore, and of a good courage, 
 is our duty, nor second to that the avoiding 
 to give ofience where the most insensitive nation 
 would resent it. And here I cannot but seize the 
 opportunity of offering to France the expression of 
 my regret that any Englishman should have dared to 
 ajffront her truth with lies7~heTpride with advice, as 
 /' fatirical as the former is infamous. I am sure that in 
 '^expressing what is particularly grateful to my own feel¬ 
 ings, the vast majority of thinking men concur in the 
 same, and I beg to say that this my Letter is published, 
 less from a desire to combat the Chancellor: than for 
 the purpose of making the amende honourable to an 
 insulted people. 
 
 For our Government it will note from “ the general 
 acceptance” with which this Revolution was hailed, 
 
107 
 
 that henceforth Thought is known to be a Power—the 
 Power supremest. If the Revolution was brought 
 about “ without the assent of any regular body what¬ 
 ever” (pp. 13, 14,) then Thought is a Power superior 
 to all other. Supposing that all the great organisms, 
 the corporate bodies of France had life, the Revolu¬ 
 tion implies a power exceeding all the force of the 
 crown, the church, the senate, the chamber, and the 
 
 bar. If they are supposed of -as gone to death, 
 then the galvanising of the hierarchal limbs of that 
 body-politic implies no less than what the natural 
 philosopher wields over a corpse, those batteries at 
 hand which drive the very dead unto the feet, their 
 teeth gnashed and ground, their eyeballs starting out 
 of the socket at you. It is a solemn, an awful 
 thing. When we reflect upon those vessels of clay 
 wherein the operator dips his wire, and consider that 
 philosophers themselves are but earthen vessels ; 
 seeing moreover that their patients or subjects are 
 not hospital bodies, nor paupers, but nations count¬ 
 less in men ; what a manner ought ours to be, 
 what thoughts in presence of such a fact! It is, 
 not only the demonstration of death, but the simula¬ 
 tion of life. Inspired with the divinest love for 
 man, even life was within the Titan’s power. He 
 en-souled our race and, according to the myth, saved 
 
 us. If there be no limitation to the good, God only 
 can control evil minds. These finding all forms effete 
 may prove as irresistible as was Prometheus. 
 
 Finally, though it be against the gorge to say that 
 
108 
 
 we agree with lord Brougham anywhere, yet, sup¬ 
 posing a nation as dead, whether from inanition or 
 murder, as its resuscitation is impossible to mere 
 human means, so the ability to frame thereby a con¬ 
 stitution de novo may be questioned. Not that 
 Locke's failure implies much beyond the incapacity 
 of that Aristotelian for what he undertook as to 
 the Carolinas. Still, if Numa Pompilius resorted to 
 Egeria, Mahomet also pretending to revelations from 
 heaven, the best friends of the French may fear for 
 while none but an enemy would sneer at their attempt 
 as does this-tratbtfr. If the most consummate genius 
 be barely competent herein, this ought to attach us 
 ^the more unto a Crown beloved and to the Constitu¬ 
 tion of England. Not a word, a syllable does lord 
 Brougham award the first, but one who was for¬ 
 merly the great first law-officer of the realm could not 
 suffer the opportunity to pass of eulogizing our Con¬ 
 stitution. This, to quote him once more,—this 
 has “ been improved so as to give us the inestimable 
 blessing of a free government, with stability and 
 order, a popular legislature with a firm and efficient 
 executive. Under this system, while liberty has 
 been protected, the peace of the country has been 
 preserved and its prosperity increased to an unex¬ 
 ampled pitch.” These being his assertions at page 
 forty-four, the apprehension of what bloody work is 
 suggested at the one hundred and fifty-first page 
 struck our ears like discard. If our Constitution 
 be so good, the government so just, the people so 
 
109 
 
 happy, so that “ouv position is in all respects the 
 envy of every other nation in the world,” the alleged 
 horrors of the chateau d’Eau with the scenes of 
 Neuilly and Surenne could never be enacted here, 
 nor attempted. The merest possibility of the thing 
 should have warned lord Brougham to reserve all his 
 advice for us instead of carrying it out of his way to 
 France long after the pitcher was broken. With 
 Germany and Italy also is he too late except to 
 irritate them to despair or provoke them to the 
 last retaliation. 
 
 Thus, both special and general considerations of 
 policy forbid to Great Britain even the appearance 
 of offence. If offence come wo to those who 
 induced it. At home and abroad the part of England 
 is to watch solicitously over her own children, with a 
 disposition to extend the helping hand to such 
 nations as require any assistance. As it is more 
 blessed to give than receive, a kindly word, a for¬ 
 bearing look, a providential forethought becomes 
 imperial Britain. As no bad practices must be ours 
 at home, so neither let us indulge abroad that pride 
 which cometh before a fall. Those are not always 
 the safest who feel the most confident in themselves. 
 And Michael’s might must be put forth, or Great 
 Britain will yet fall convulsed into the hands of un¬ 
 pitying demons. 
 
 London, October 20, 1848. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 1. “To the angels leave the sword of vengeance’’ (page 4).— 
 It will horrify many persons to hear, hut we must inform the 
 public of the fact of the existence of a society which adopted the 
 principle involved in the phrase " Killing no murder.” Sir 
 Robert Peel was about to fall before their machinations when we 
 discovered and prevented them. We have been subsequently 
 obliged, by the danger which menaces the Crown, to form an 
 association for the purpose of overruling this atrocious society 
 by its own principle. How far the father of the new Poor-law 
 may be said to have rendered himself obuoxious to the same, 
 admits but of little doubt, more especially since the publication 
 of his Letter to Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 2. “ Nero was young, and he was also sublimely beautiful” 
 (p. 16).—Therefore many were the attachments which remained 
 to him even after death. The fascination of youth and beauty 
 overpowers all the abhorrence which men and angels naturally 
 feel for crime, or the first would not have followed Catiline, the 
 second devoting themselves to him who being Lucifer, the Son 
 of the Morning, seduced a third of heaven to an attempt that was 
 absolutely past all hope. 
 
 “ Optat supremo collo'care Sisyphus 
 In monte saxum; sed vetant leges Jovis.” 
 
 3. " Martyred saints and hero souls” (p. 20).—Those who fell 
 in February devoted themselves for France, and are therefore 
 worthy of all laudation even according to lord Brougham’s prin¬ 
 ciple or confession as made in his 16tli page. Whatever might 
 have been their errors, as the love of country brought them to 
 an untimely death, thus the fallen gained a right to the highest 
 titles. 
 
m 
 
 4. “ No middle course being possible to such a man, the 
 future Presidentship -was his, or the Republic would be under¬ 
 mined” (pp. 29-30).—It appears, from a letter which lord 
 Brougham lately addressed to the papers that his real object in 
 seeking French naturalization was to save his chateau. This 
 base avowal must he received as adding the last finish to 
 his disgrace. It is a deep beyond all the depth in which lord 
 Brougham floundered before writing to the National. 
 
 5. “ That vice of kings,” &c., (p. 55.)—To understand all that 
 has happened to Louis Philippe we have hat to imagine a man 
 on the throne of England using the place with a view solely to 
 his own enrichment and aggrandizement. In his case there was, 
 moreover, added aggravation from the fact that he was not the 
 legitimate monarch, hut one substituted for the rightful prince in 
 order'that France might derive all possible assistance from a 
 superior discernment and excellence. 
 
 6. “Milton” (pp. 63-4),—The influence of a man upon his age 
 is equal in degree with that which is felt from him by posterity. 
 A whale lying dead at the bottom of the sea must be the wonder 
 of all the crawling creatures that see him. But he was a greater 
 wonder still when full of life he ruled the total ocean. 
 
 7. " Genius may yet save any country not gone into the last 
 putrescence” (p. 70).—Lamartine! 
 
 8. “ The oligarchs of the law” (p. 93).—Henceforth the contest 
 lies between these and Genius. Upon the Crown’s election 
 between the two depends the existence of monarchy in England. 
 
 9. “ For that so many of his Chancery decisions were reversed” 
 (p. 95).—And no marvel if, as I am assured by a barrister friend, 
 lord Brougham erred no less than ten years as to the operation of 
 the law of Prescription. 
 
 10. " There are occasions when expediency will be heard, in 
 such an exigeant tone, that even lord Ashley cannot withstand 
 it” (p. 97).—The Ten Hours Bill.