vernment of a fingle perfon, no obfcure way opened to the reftoration of the lawful king (p. 232). But many of his measures were of a very different cast. On the fuppreflion of eighty newspapers, with an infolent hypocrify, he affirmed, that now" the liberty of the prefs had fucceeded to its licence." P. 237. The nomination of mayors, and all officers of corporations, he has confided to his confular præfects; and by them they are removable (p. 238). He has had the weakness or wickednefs to promife liberty to the negroes; and he has ufurped many of the powers, velted in the deliberative bodies (p. 239) of the new constitution by himfelf. The following is a moft flagitious inftance of one of these acts. The depofed government had obtained eighty millions of livres, by transferring the receipts of the taxes of certain departments to the advances. This debt, in the fhort fitting of St. Cloud, on the day of the revolution, was declared facred. There remained due feventy millions, when the Couful feized the revenues fo pledged; his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gaudin, affuring the creditors, that the measure was by no means hoftile" to their intereft, properly understood.” P 215, &c. It appears alfo, that more political courage, or at leaft conftancy, has been attributed to him than he poffeffes; nothing can be more fluctuating and wavering than his meafures, with refpect to the emigrants, have been (p. 246). This was the twelfth of Gaudin's plans to fill the treasury of the Conful, and the only effective one; the other eleven deferve no notice: all failed, and the deficit appears more threatening than ever*. Hence, when his power shall come to depend on what revenue he can raise by taxation, it must fall: it appears, however, hitherto to have fufficed to clothe, arm, and fubfift great bodies of men, until he can precipitate them on the neighbouring ftates, where they are paid and fed by them; and they have, without doubt, made him fome lucrative returns for the charge of their first fitting out. Poffeffed only of fuch a feeble and decreafing revenue, Bonaparte has founded his new conftitution on two principles, which jointly multiply public expences indefinitely: the first is that of abfolure equality, which the original experimentalists in government dared not to venture to adopt. Every man is thereby equally eligible to every function in the state, and even to the Confulfhip, whether poffeffed of an income or not, all pecuniary qualifications for any public trust being disavowed by * Average of firft nine months of the feventh year, 34 millions per month; of the firfl four of the eighth year, 15 millions only. it (p. 311): and the fecond is, that the falary of every public agent must be fuch, as to fupport himself and his family in a manner equal to the dignity of the office he fills, not to dishonour merit in poverty (p. 317). How profound a gulf of revenue these principles open, may be eafily conceived, if to our ordinary expences of government we add falaries to our two Houses of Parliament, to the total magistracy of the realm, and all inferior officers now acting without pay; equal to the charge of maintaining themselves and families, in a manner fuitable to the dignity thofe offices confer. Bonaparte having thus involved himself under the neceffity of impofing taxes almoft without limit, has involved himself alfo under a fecond neceffity, of excluding the first and second claffes of proprietors from all power; for none but men relatively without property will confent to a fpoliation of it, adequate to his future preffing demands. Thus we understand how his declaration of the 29th of October following his acceffion is to be conftrued; that the only diftinction to direct the choice of the new government to places of truft, will be probity, talents, and patriotifm. Probity and patriotifm, he will difcern only in those men, and thofe acts, which fecond his views in unreserved dependence. As much of talents and information of this description as can be found, will be brought forward probably by him; and the power of the ftate, with high emoluments, will be enjoyed by perfons of a lower clafs, but of venal and intriguing ability, convertible to every purpose of its employer. Every nation in Europe now abounds with men of this defcription, in the middle rank; what a fpur must the acquifitions of authority and wealth, by their own order in France, be to their ambition and defire of gratification! These are the effective agitators of every country; and no revolution, which has of late years taken place; no principle, which has been promulged by the chaotic republic, has yet held out fuch an excitement to them, to proceed in their efforts for general ruin. In fine, we must obferve, that the revolutionary principle is a cancer in the bofom of Europe; it has almost entirely eaten away the fubftance of the part it first feized upon. This is evident from the detached notices contained in this work, of the interior state of the country. France has not been able to defray above a fixth part of the neceffary charge of the po lice; her artizans have perished for want of employment, or by war, executions, and banishment, and none trained up to replace them; there are in that country many hofpitals for the reception of children deserted by their parents, but for want of reception of children deserted by Cc BRIT, CRIT. VOL. XVII, APRIL, 1801. being being able to hire nurses for them, eleven twelfths of them dic. (p. 362); the bye-roads are, by the ftate, put up to sale; the bye-roads are to the circulation of the commodities of the first neceffity, what the ultimate fubdivifions of the veins and arteries are to that of the blood; the greater neither tranfmit or receive any thing but through the less: the public edifices, for want of repairs, are rapidly falling into ruin; and, to make up the deficiency of the requifition of horfes, the Conful has been obliged to feize them from the plough. Many and miferable are the inftances we have, in our former accounts of the works of this writer, given of the acrid and devouring internal power of this virus; by the unprecedented, unqualified adoption, of the principle of equality, it has been fhown that it is greatly exalted; and its deftructive powers being hereby acceFerated in their operation, muft foon complete the erosion of the old fubftance remaining; and being propagated with new vigour to new and feemingly found parts, muft work the fame. ravages in them. This danger never menaced fo ftrongly the parts of Europe, hitherto apparently the fafeft from this cauftic and irrefiftible ferment. Such are the effects which the new practical fyftem of equality has the strongest tendency to produce. We fhall only notice another confequence of the new conAtitution. It takes away from France the poffibility of difengaging herself ultimately from every war, or laying down her arms; for Sir F. D'Ivernois here affirms, that THE FOUN. DERS OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION HAVE, IN THE 86th ARTICLE, HAD THE UNPARALLELED EFFRONTERY TO RENEW THE PROMISE OF THE MILLIARD OR DONATIVE OF 413 MILLIONS STERLING TO THE ARMY, AT THE CONCLUSION OF SUCH A PEACE (p. 364). After this folemn renewal of that fatal engagement by the exifting government, the world must wait for peace until its fall, or until it be accomplished. Though this article has extended to a great length, it is but a fmall part of its important details contained in this work, to which we have been able to give a place, and even a fmall part of what we had noted for that purpose. All the reflections of this writer on the errors of the former monarchy are here paffed over; and the comparison of the economy of the peace eftablishments of Great Britain and Pruffia, the charges of which are more frugally ordered than that of any other power on the continent, which is determined in avour of that of the former. although on each of these heads we find much to commend. The ftyle of a work, the principal subject of which is the finances of a state, must be marked by a general uniformity = there are parts, however, even in fuch compofitions, which of 3 neceffity neceffity must be raised above that level. Of fuch, we could felect paffages which would meet, we doubt not, with general approbation; our attention to the main fubject has drawn us to a length which obliges us to decline it; but we think the effect of Sir F. D'I.'s important tracts would be increased, if he adopted a manner fomewhat more compreffed. ART. IH. Lettres fur l'Education Religieufe de l'Enfance. THE HE fagacious and refpectable author of this work is indefa tigable in his endeavours to ftem the torrent of infidelity, which has long threatened to overwhelm the whole of Europe. The artful and infidious methods adopted by the Illuminés to accomplish their grand design of extirpating religion, have served in fo many ways to unfettle the minds of men, that though in fome places the evil may now feem to be happily abating, from an experience of its effects (fee pp. 129, 130, &c. of this work) yet in others, at the fame time, it is continually breaking out in fome new fhape or other. A ftrong inftance of this we have in that very extraordinary memoir prefented by certain Jews to M. Teller of Berlin, which this author, in another publication, has fo ably answered (See Brit. Crit. vol. xiv. P. 575). The real object is to lop off gradually all the doctrinal and ceremonial parts of religion, as likely to bewilder the weak, confound the diffident, and keep afunder thofe that might otherwise be united, till by reciprocal facrifices on the part of all that at prefent differ, nothing effential fhall be left, or at least nothing but the mere practical part; which is in itself fo fimple (though truly fublime) and fo level to the capacity of all claffes of people, that it is foon found easy to proceed one step further, and perfuade men, that the human understanding alone has always been adequate to the invention and establishment of this part of the fyftem. Revelation of course appearing unneceffary is easily abandoned; then follows too late the discovery, that human laws have no fanction to restrain the inward device, or fecret injury. Injuftice, fraud, treachery, and every other evil, deftructive of the peace of fociety, prevail Cc2 without without controul; the wicked triumph, and the virtuous (if any remain) are infulted and oppreffed. This is the iffue of that one great miftake of fuffering the practical and moral parts of religion to be feparated from its revealed doctrines. Every Chriftian virtue is intrinsically amiable, and admits of being inculcated on the ground of its own worth; but while it is inculcated as a moral law of natural or focial obligation only, its real fanctions are gradually fuffered to vanish, and while we fee it perhaps exalted to the fkies by the infidious praises and commendations of these pretended friends to mankind, its foundation is all the time undermined, and on the first trial it gives way without remorfe. The venerable author of this work long ago forefaw thefe fatal effects, as fure to flow from the fyftem fpreading widely and rapidly on the continent, of keeping back all religious inftruction from young people, under a preter.ce that their reafon could not be fufficiently matured to comprehend the great truths of revelation. In the year 1777, he was led into a regular correfpondence upon this fubject by the following circumftance. In a tour he had just been making, for the exprefs purpose of examining the internal fructure as well as the fuperficies of our continents, in order to combat thofe emiffaries of the Encyclopædifts, who had been exprefsly fet to work to invalidate the Mosaic history, by bringing Nature herself to bear evidence against it*, he happened to be prefent on a Sunday at the mines of Claufthal in the Hartz, and being ftruck with the folemnities of their sabbath, and the detail that was given him of the religious education of the children employed in the mines, he was induced to infert an account of it in his Letters to the Queen, and which were afterwards published under the title of "Lettres Physiques et Morales fur les Montagnes, et fur l'hiftoire de la terre et de l'homme." A young friend of his, to whom he was in the habit of communicating his writings, objected to this part, upon the very principle above-mentioned, of the incapacity of children to comprehend divine truths. Thefe objections were the fubject of the correfpondence which is now given to the public, in nine Letters; wherein fome very strong and interefting arguments are brought forward in fupport of the cotrary opinion. Mr. De Luc proves, that to wait for the confent of the reafon is very hazardous; reafon at the last being incompetent to a clear apprehenfion of the Divine Perfections, but that fo foon as ever the existence of a Deity and superin One of their deepeft plots to overthrow religion. See the Abbé Barruel's Hift. of Jacobinism. tending |