"Liberal? the panting field and sun-dried plain
"Ask'd for one drop-one single drop in vain,"
Exclaim'd the Mountain-" Liberal, indeed,
"To those who ask'd no favour-felt no need."

'THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR AND THE SEA.

'The waves had whelmed the venturous bark, And dashed the Shipwrecked Seaman on the shore; He turn'd himself, impatient at their roar,

And cried, "Perfidious Sea!

'Why didst thou lure me, smiling tranquilly,
"To such a fate, so desolate and dark."

The Ocean-god awoke, and frowning said,
"Hurl not your vain reproaches at my head,

My waters calmly ebb and flow,

"Till the loud warring tempest break their rest;
"Go! to the storm-winds be thy plaints addressed,
"Go! to the whirlwind, go!"

And he spoke wisely, it must be confess'd;
Woulds't thou forbid the winds to blow,

Seaman? O, no!'

A very pretty volume might be made out of the fabulists of Russia. Most of her poets have successfully treated this department of fiction. It suits a despotic sphere. Men may be the dexterous champions of good government allegorically-they may stab misrule through the side of a metaphor, and stand a chance of not being understood-or, if understood, forgiven. One of the modern poets of Russia (Pushkin) lately made a more rash experiment; he ventured to animadvert on the not absolute wisdom of some decrees of the Russian Autocrat, and was sent to gather experience among Siberian snows. fables, then, ye men of Russia!

Write

ART. XI. Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe, from the Peace of Utrecht. 4to. London. Murray. 1824.

THOUGH the reputed author of this volume is an eminent

member of the Whig party, it is not our intention, in the present notice, to comment upon all the specimens of Whig doctrine which it contains. We have dedicated another article in the present Number to the exposure of those doctrines, and we shall confine ourselves at present to the merits of the work before us in the character of Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe.

As our author has thought fit to begin them from the Peace of Utrecht, his Memoirs of English Affairs have not the most

legitimate era for commencement. A history of the conduct of the two great parties, the Whigs and the Tories, which this part of the work seems chiefly designed to illustrate, should rather have been begun from the year 1688. It may be useful perhaps to take a short preliminary glance at the government of England, as it relates to the two parties, from that date to the Peace of Utrecht.

It would be well if this period of English History were more attended to than it is, in order that the nature of the Revolution of 1688 and its effects might be more generally understood. If James II. had admitted the aristocracy to share in his government as his brother had done, and not madly determined to govern by the counsel of foreign priests, there is no reason to believe that the aristocracy would have been more concerned, than in his brother's reign, at any exercise of arbitrary power over the people. And judging from the previous and subsequent conduct of that church which in 1686 passed the celebrated Oxford decree, it is not improbable, if he had proceeded with any degree of prudence, instead of attacking it in its head quarters, the universities, and commanding the clergy to publish their own humiliation from their own pulpits, that the Church of England would, after no long period, have differed from the Church of Rome in little but in forms and in name.

It is nothing wonderful that the aristocracy should be continually praising a revolution which not only secured them from the arbitrary power of the crown, so often before severely felt by individuals among them, but placed the ruling power substantially in their hands. Nor is it wonderful that even the church should join in that praise, considering that the Revolu tion continued it in all its exclusive privileges, that of trampling upon the Dissenters included. King William did not completely understand the nature of a corporation of priests, when he recommended the clergy, assembled in convocation in 1689, to alter their liturgy so as to comprehend a considerable part of the Dissenters, and seemed to expect that they would comply. The answer to the recommendation was, as might have been anticipated from such an assembly, that the liturgy needed no alteration.

Though brought about by the aristocracy for their own safety, and though it conferred no real securities on the people against misgovernment, no one would think of denying that great advantages resulted from the Revolution; greater regularity was introduced into the government by it, and public opinion acquired greater strength. But many of those who are so often boasting of the complete securities to the subject, contained in

the Bill of Rights are perhaps not aware, that while that bill has, indeed, several provisions that the crown shall not make itself independent of the parliament, it has only one vague clause* to provide that the parliament shall not make itself independent of the people. Nor was the freedom of elections better provided for at subsequent periods: corrupt influence was universal and notorious; the acknowledged prevalence of this corrupt influence was made a ground for passing seven different acts in the reign of William and Mary for its suppression: how efficient those acts have been, let every subsequent election testify. No mention was made of the only effectual remedy, the secret suffrage, though it cannot be asserted that the Whigs were ignorant of that remedy, the secret suffrage being distinctly recommended in a posthumous paper by the earl of Shaftesbury, published in 1688.+

It may be easily allowed to the Whigs of the reigns of William and of Anne, that they proceeded on more enlightened principles than the Tories, when we consider that to this latter party belonged the church and the country gentlemen. Under the general name of Whigs were included many honest men, whose only object was, as far as they knew, to obtain securities for good government. But the conduct of the Whigs, as a party, will not be found to have belied what universal experience would have led us to expect, that a body of men, whether called by one name or another, would always prefer its own interest to that of the community. And even the Tories will sometimes be found to have taken just views of a question, when those views were in opposition to the Whigs. In the early part of the reign of William, though the Tories held some places in the ministry, the power of the Whigs predominated both in the ministry and the parliament. Among the first measures of the latter was the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act upon the usual pretence of danger. The Tories opposed the measure as coming from the other party, pretending, of course, to feel great anxiety

* Clause 8. "That election of members of parliament ought to be free." And even this clause, taken with the rest of the bill, seems rather to express jealousy of the influence of the crown than of that of the aristocracy.

ተ "Some Observations concerning the regulating of Elections, found among the earl of Shaftesbury's Papers after his death, and now recommended to the Consideration of this Present Parliament" (that is to say, the Convention Parliament, which met on 22nd January, 1688; for it was not till then that these Observations were made public). Vide Somers' Tracts, coll. vol. 1, p. 63; or, Hansard's Parl. History, vol. 5, Appendix No. 1.

for the liberty of the subject. It was necessary in 1689 to enter into a war with France, as Louis XIV. had transported troops into Ireland to assist James II. But the Whigs drove this country as a principal into a continental contest, from which, however successful, no other advantage could be derived than that of gratifying king William's love of war, and supporting his theory of the balance of power.*

In 1694, the bill for triennial parliaments was passed. This was a good bill, inasmuch as it enabled the people to exercise the little influence they had in elections so much oftener. The object of those who passed the bill is evident, viz. to prevent the king from becoming too independent of the aristocracy, by keeping a kind of standing parliament, as Charles II. had kept the parliament called the Pensioner Parliament undissolved for sixteen years.

The credit of having involved England in the war of the Succession may be divided between the Whigs and the Tories, as it was a Tory parliament which first gave encouragement to William to form foreign alliances to carry on that war; a Whig parliament which approved of the alliances when made, and which enabled queen Anne to begin hostilities; and again a Tory parliament which supported the war for the first three years. But the Whigs were the most earnest in promoting that war, and from 1705 to 1710 they had the conduct of it. The chief objects of that war were, to place the archduke Charles, son of the emperor of Germany, on the throne of Spain, in opposition to Philip, duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. and to procure a barrier in the Netherlands for Holland-objects in which the real interest of England was

* It would exceed our limits if we were to notice even a small part of the profligacy with which votes, on both sides, in parliament were sold, directly or indirectly, to carry general or particular measures during this reign. But our readers may refer for instances to "The Report of Sums issued for Secret Service and paid to Members of Parliament," presented to the House of Commons, 9th December, 1693, from the commissioners of Public Accounts; also, "Report of Corrupt Practices in the procuring the passing of the Orphan's Bill," presented from a committee, 20th March, 1695; also," Reports of the Examination of Sir Thomas Cooke, and of Sir Basil Firebrace," concerning Corruptions in the East-India Company's affairs, presented from same committee, same day. Vide Hansard's Parl. Hist. vol. 5. Also, A short State of our Condition, with relation to the present Parliament, commonly called the Hush-money Paper," by C. Lawton, esq. printed about November 1693. Vide Hansard's Parl. Hist. vol. 5, Appendix, No. 9. Or State Tracts, published during the reign of William III. vol. 2, p. 369.

+ Vide Address of the Commons to support the King, 14th Feb. 1701, 5th parliament of William III.; also, Address of 20th February.

nowise concerned. The danger of France and Spain becoming one power was chimerical, as was shewn after the death of Louis XIV. when the policy of the two countries became as distinct as if the Bourbons had never succeeded to the throne of the latter. But supposing that these objects had been really of importance to England, they might have been obtained both before and after the campaign of 1709, when the French king offered to renounce his grandson's claim to the Spanish throne, and to cede the places in the Netherlands which the Statesgeneral demanded for their barrier. The Whigs, notwithstanding these offers, determined to continue the war. Independent of immediate party interest, they had the general interest, that an aristocratic body has in war, in diverting the attention of the people from domestic affairs, and in enjoying war expenditure, and patronage.

In 1710, the Whigs impeached Dr. Sacheverel for having in a sermon asserted the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience. The doctrine maintained by the Whig managers of the impeachment, for the Commons, was in fact nothing better. They admitted the general doctrine of non-resistance,* but asserted, that cases of necessity were exceptions; which was merely asserting an identical proposition. Sir Joseph Jekyll, one of the managers, says, in his speech before the Lords, "It is far from the intent of the Commons to state the limits and bounds of the subject's submission to the sovereign." Again, in his reply to Sacheverel's counsel, he says, "If the doctor had pretended to have stated the particular bounds and limits of non-resistance, and told the people in what cases they might or might not resist, he would have been much to

* Certainly it must be granted, that the doctrine that commands obedience to the supreme power, though in things contrary to nature, even to suffer death, which is the highest injustice that can be done a man, rather than make an opposition to the supreme power, is unreasonable." -Speech of Sir John Hawles, one of the managers of the Impeachment for the Commons. State Trials, vol. 5, p. 676. "Resistance is no where enacted to be legal, but subjected, by all the laws now in being, to the greatest penalties. It is what is not, cannot, nor ought ever to be, described or affirmed in any positive law to be excusable."-Speech of Mr. Walpole, another of the managers. See also the speeches of the other managers. State Trials. On the other side, the bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Hooper) amuses us with his frankness-" He allowed, indeed, of what the bishop of Oxford had advanced about the necessity and legality of resistance in some extraordinary cases, but was of opinion that this ought to be kept from the knowledge of the people, who are naturally too apt to resist, and that the opposite doctrine ought rather to be maintained and enforced." See his Speech in the debate on the Articles of Impeachment. Hansard's Parl. Hist. vol. 6.