kindled in their bosoms by their late ruler, can be soothed to rest by the endearments of home, and the quietude of domestic life. The conquerors of the world will be long ere they forget, and remembering, they will, at least mentally, resent, how, and by whom they were conquered.

To Spain we turn with more satisfaction. There a most important revolution has been effected without bloodshed, and by establishing, rather than overturning the altar and the throne. The beloved Ferdinand, from fear, perhaps, rather than from love, has accepted the constitution, and assembled the Cortes. Spain, therefore, from an arbitrary, has become a limited monarchy. Upon the Spaniard an important change has passed; and in the renovation of his political being, he has ceased to be a slave, proud in his degradation, and flattered in his chains-and thinks-acts-speaks-bears himself as a man. The sudden burst of public opinion-the newly awakened energies of a fine national character dormant for ages-for so long that many thought it dead-has already burst open the doors of the inquisition, and set its prisoners free; abolished-may it be for ever that most cruel and degrading shackle ever forged by ignorance and bigotry for the human mind; established the liberty of the press; and expelled from their shores that crafty society of political monks, who have long been keepers of the conscience of the Kings of Spain, and but too much masters of the destinies of their people. As men; as Britons; as Christians, we rejoice that these great things have been done; whilst we look for greater yet. A spark of knowledge has, we trust, been kindled in this country, hitherto centuries behind the rest of Europe in every thing that was liberal or enlightened, that never shall go out. Counter-plots; even counter-revolutions, there may be, but they will not quench it; for every thing that promotes discussion—every thing that rouses to action-every thing that excites and interests—will rather tend to fan it to a flame.

One feeling of regret mingles, however, with our satisfaction. We can, and we do rejoice at the formation of a national militia, and at the injunction to all heads of universities and schoolmasters, to inculcate into the Spanish youth the principles of the political constitution; but when we find that the expatiating on the advantages of the latter is, by authority, to form a part of the ordinary vocation of all ecclesiastical dignitaries and curates on a Sabbath, in their discourses from the pulpit, when we call to mind that the Cortes for the first time met, under the new constitution, and in the presence of the king, on that sacred day, we remember the words of him who said, "My kingdom is not of this world,” and cannot but remark, that to the interests of his kingdom the Sabbath is exclusively set apart.

Another branch of the house of Bourbon has been compelled to give way to the enlightened and the enlightening spirit of the times, and, like France and Spain, Naples has now a constitution. This has been obtained for her without bloodshed, and by the intervention of the military, who, in their subordination as soldiers, have not forgotten either their rights or their duties as citizens. It remains for them now but to protect and to try the constitution they have been the means of establishing, and to be careful of suffering a revolutionary spirit to lead them beyond the attainment of a due security of their own rights and those of their fellow-subjects. We wish there were no reverse to this picture--nothing to shed a gloom over this pleasing scene; but this is not the case. Sicily, the other branch of this united kingdom, or rather the other of the two kingdoms over which one and the same king presides, seems strongly inclined to reject the constitution granted by his Sicilian Majesty to his Neapolitan subjects, adhering, in preference, to one established amongst them whilst under the protection of

the British government, and more nearly resembling our own; and in support of this the inhabitants of Palermo and its vicinity have already flown to arms, and engaged in a conflict with the Neapolitan soldiery, in which at least 2000 lives were sacrificed. Liberty and the constitution! was the watch-word on either side; yet were they but the onset to an attack distinguished by circumstances of atrocity and ferociousness in both parties but too nearly resembling the deadly feuds of barbarian hordes. The defeated party (for the Sicilians were ultimately victorious) appear to be determined in carrying their point; and an expedition, composed entirely of men who have sworn allegiance to the new Neapolitan constitution, is about to proceed to Sicily, to force its acceptance there. Surely the spirit of liberty must be ill understood by these new knights-crusaders for its establishment, who in all justice and equity are bound to leave to their Sicilian fellow-subjects the choice of establishing, with the consent of their common monarch, their constitutional, as well as their hereditary head, whatever form of government they think best adapted to secure their own prosperity.

It remains for time to shew what part the leading powers of Europe mean to take in these proceedings. Their wisdom, however, as well as their duty, is to be quiet spectators of the scene: with the internal affairs of other and independent states, neither do the laws of God nor man give them a right or pretext to interfere. Austria shews a strong disposition, indeed, to pass this discretionary line; and the vicinity of her own Italian states to the renovated countries may give her good reason to fear the progress of these innovations. Let her then magnanimously come forward, and give to their inhabitants those securities for their natural rights, which sooner or later they will obtain. The reign of arbitrary monarchs is, we hope, rapidly passing by for ever. Sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas, ought no longer to be the language of any civilized government. Spain has broken, Italy is breaking, and Germany will break the chains which ignorance and superstition have forged-which power has rivetted upon their sons. Happy for themselves, happy will it be for humanity, if their rulers, discerning the signs of the times, bow to the march of intellect; conform themselves to the general diffusion of liberal and sound, not factious or mere revolutionary opinions, on matters of government, whose ultimate triumphs it will be as vain for them to attempt to prevent, as to bind the sea with a rope of sand.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PRINTED BY J. MOYES, GREVILLE STREET, LONDON.

THE FIRST VOLUME.