easy task. He must either take a portion of the liberals into power, or dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, and appeal to the electors for assistance in his extremity. The Liberals, however, will, prima facie, be very loth to grant aid to the minister; and this refusal will proceed from a persuasion, that the country is too liberalized to assist an absolutist and a congregationalist; the Associations of Britany and other places, together with that of Paris, having been a true and certain indication of public opinion. The Liberals, of which the Globe is a respectable mouth-piece, thus expressed themselves on the announcement of the new ministry.

'Quelle était notre simplicité ! où nous égarait le besoin d'espérer, l'ennui de soupçonner, la crainte de hair! avions nous oublié, qu'il est un lieu où la raison est sans voix, l'évidence sans clarté, la nécessité sans empire; un lieu où dominent le caprice et la prévention, l'entêtement et l'étourderie; un lieu où ne sont écoutées ni comprises les leçons les plus frappantes et les plus dures; un lieu où l'histoire nous dit que se sont décidés tant de fois, entre les courtisans et les soupers, entre la chasse et le confessional, des coups d'état qui agitent les nations et emportent les dynasties? Ce lieu, c'est la cour. De là vient en effet, et de là seulement, le ministère nouveau. L'intrigue l'a préparé, le bon plaisir l'a formé. Son avènement sépare la France en deux la cour d'un côté, et de l'autre, la nation.

Laissons le passé, l'avenir est trop sérieux. Cette fois, nul ne peut s'y méprendre, et la destinée du nouveau ministère n'échappe à personne. On dit souvent à la naissance d'une nouvelle administration qu'on attend ses œuvres pour la juger: c'est une politesse qui donne un air d'impartialité. Mais ici la réserve serait pure duperie, et le nom des ministres dispense chacun d'attendre l'expérience pour savoir que penser de leur governement. Et plût au ciel que nous pussions l'ajourner à jamais l'expérience, et les juger toujours par avance, et sur leur seule renommée!

Cette renommée suffit en effet pour nous apprendre que nous avons enfin,un ministère de l'extrême droite, c'est-à-dire un ministère de congrégation et d'émigration. Elle nous apprend que les deux hommes regardés comme les chefs de l'absolutisme, l'un au nom du parti-prêtre, l'autre au nom de l'aristocratie de province, viennent d'être placés à la tête du gouvernement. Qu'est-il besoin d'en savoir davantage? Leur conduite future n'est-elle pas écrite dans leurs opinions passées? La France est rajeunie de quatorze ans : les souvenirs de 1815 peuvent servir de programme au gouvernement qui

l'attend.

MM. de Polignac et de Labourdonnaye sont en effet les deux hommes considérables du cabinet nouveau. Parmi leurs collègues, M. de Bourmont seul peut être remarqué. Le choix d'un tel ministre est insensé, s'il n'est pas le signe de quelque projet audacieux et secret. Chacun sait en effet quelle est la position désespérée de M.

de

de Bourmont. Il avait, il est vrai, une certaine réputation de capacité; mais sa conduite en Espagne l'a peu justifiée; et quand elle eût été un chef-d'œuvre de prudence et de talent, le choix d'un tel ministre serait toujours une déclaration de guerre à l'honneur de l'armée française.

Il y a peu de chose à dire des trois autres. Car il ne faut pas compter M. de Rigny; on assure qu'il refusera: nous le croyons volontiers, la gloire du vainqueur de Navarin nous touche. Pour M. de Chabrol, qui n'a point remporté du victoire, il est plus libre de ses actions. Personne même ne songe à remarquer qu'il a jusqu'ici compté parmi les hommes du centre droit, et que son entrée dans ce ministère est un désertion. M. Courvoisier a bien été du centre gauche en 1820; mais depuis lors, il est tombé dans une dévotion qui doit être peu éclairée; et si les sentiments religieux sont en général une garantie d'honnêteté, ce qu'on appelle dévotion est incompatible avec le bon sens politique. Quant à M. de Montbel, c'est un homme ignorant; son mérite est de nous venir de Toulouse, et d'offrir à la cour comme un reflet de M. de Villèle. A la chambre il s'était fait la première année, on sait comment, une réputation qui s'est évanouie à la seconde. Le voilà chargé de l'instruction publique nous verrons ce qu'il faut penser de ses réclamations en faveur de la liberté de l'enseignement.'

• Revenons donc à MM. de Polignac et de Labourdonnaye; c'est dans leurs mains que tombe le poids du gouvernement; ils représentent toute la politique du ministère. L'un est un homme de cour à qui la dévotion seule donne du sérieux. Sans cette dévotion, qui est fervente et pratiqué, ce ne sarait qu'un homme léger, de mœurs simples et d'une politesse froide. Long-temps étranger à la France, ce n'est ni à l'école des conspirations ni à l'école de la diplomatie qu'il a pu apprendre à la connaître. Il se croit constitutionnel, parcequ'il a vécu en Angleterre. Il se déclare l'ami de la liberté de la presse; mais il ignore quels embarras, quels tourments elle lui prépare, et c'est à l'épreuve seulement qu'on pourra juger de la solidité des sentiments qu'elle lui inspire. Adossé au duc de Wellington pour la politique étrangère, et à l'église pour la politique intérieure, il a de plus auprès du prince tout le crédit d'un favori. On doit donc le regarder comme le chef du cabinet, non par luimême, mais par sa position.

'Celle de M. Labourdonnaye est différente. La France le connaît. C'est un de ces hommes marqués de souvenirs qui ne périssent pas. Dans sa conversation, il professe assez ouvertement, dit-on, que la force est tout le secret de la politique, et que la religion n'est qu'un moyen. Lui seul évidemment sera chargé de prêter du caractère au nouveau conseil. Sans M. de Labourdonnaye, le ministère serait ridicule; avec lui, il peut devenir redoutable.'

There is little conciliation in these passages from the Globe, and we are sorry that the spirit therein manifested is common among the Liberals of France. There is no doubt but that

country

The

country is in imminent danger from opposing and conflicting currents of public opinion and undecided measures. Liberals ought to concede something to their country, if not to their minister. They accuse him of being of the 'parti-prêtre.' We can scarcely believe any minister in France so weakheaded as to allow an ascendancy to that faction; his downfall, we think, would be dated from that hour. But there is a vast difference between allowing supreme power to the Church, and upholding the Church. Surely the Liberals would not wish to destroy the Church; they would wish to have some distinguishing national church. Better to have some church, than no church. Let them, if they are blind enough, and will, call religion a prejudice ;-still in all ages, and in all countries, it has been one of salutary efficacy. Better to do good by a popular error, than to destroy every link of society by the opposite truth, and reduce mankind to the dreadful expedient of self-defenee, by inducing them into the Millite principle of government, that every man is a rogue. The excesses of the no-church principle were of manifold evidence during the dark days of the French Revolution. The efficacy of the some

church principle is shewn forth in the United States of America, according to the account of the Prince Bernhard of SaxeWeimar, who says, that the better portion of society throughout that extensive and youthful confederacy is gradually turning towards Episcopacy.

The conciliation of the Liberals would benefit the country and themselves; they might redeem, adjust, advance, and fix irrecoverably all popular rights; they might obtain that employment which is dear to every opposition; while the minister would gain the confidence of the country, and be enabled to move with unshackled hands. But then all good intentions will be neutralised without mutual confidence and co-operation. Let the aristocracy of the provinces and the parti-prêtre form an opposition, if they please,-they will effect nothing. And while they are fretting amidst their ineffectual efforts to excite trouble and commotion, the Prime Minister, who, by his residence in this country, knows full well the state of public feeling on this side the channel-and that the true interest of England and France, as far as foreign policy is concerned, is one and undivided-may confer some real and lasting bcnefit on his monarch.

It will be said that Prince Polignac is too decidedly a secondrate personage, in point of talent to be raised to the helm of state. To this we have a brief reply. Second-rate men have always been, and will always be, the very best helmsmen for the rudder

of

countries.

of government, provided they have influence sufficient to gain the assistance of men of first rate and undoubted talent. This is observable in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome, and during the period of the Cæsarian sway in Italy and of the Autocrats of the Lower Empire. This is observable in all times and in all Witness the administration of Lord Liverpool, amongst ourselves. Men of first class energy and capability are too obstinate in their own opinion, and seldom condescend to listen to the advice or contradictory opinions of their coministers. If they find these last too troublesome they remove them, and supply the vacancies with creatures of their own. The consequence is, that the intellect of one governs the state, and that state, not unfrequently, is drifted amidst shoals and breakers, and eventually suffers shipwreck. Have we not an exemplification of this during the times of Cardinal Mazarin ?

There is, too, a vast difference between the internal political condition of this country and that of France; and, in this respect, the latter nation ought in no wise to take example from us. Our liberties, and our constitution, and our mixed government, are too old and too well distinguished, to require measures of the kind with those which we have been speaking of in respect to France. All intermixture of parties in this country has ended miserably. A century hence it may be so with France; but her Charter is yet in its infancy. Nations must go through the different grades of radicalism and whiggism, before they arrive at the stage when wholesome toryism can exist as a well-organised and independent body; according to that principle of philosophy which says that, to arrive at a true belief, you must first proceed from total unbelief.

One word on M. de la Bourdonnaye, and we have done. It is well for France that he has been expelled her councils. Haughty and arrogant, and overbearing and violent-a man who has shifted opinions to gain preeminence,-who appears not to have a spark of feeling in his composition,—and who has, on every occasion, comported himself with outrage, and violence, and insult, he would have only proved an inextinguishable firebrand in the councils of the King. As he is no longer of the ministry, perhaps the expulsion will extend to his minion, the Prefect Mangin, and then we shall hear of fewer prosecutions for libel, a frightful list of which we have perceived in a very recent number of the Journal des Débats.' -Where the slightest vestige of public feedom is discernible, there ought to be tolerated the Liberty of the Press.

ART. IV.

ART. IV.-Magister Vacarius, primus Juris Romani in Anglia Professor, ex Annalium Monumentis et Opere accurate descripto illustratus, Juris Romani in Bononiensis Scholae Initiis Fortunam illustrans, Emendationem Interpretationem hodiernam juvans, studiis Caroli Friderici Christiani Wenck, Jur. Doct. et Prof. Lips. Lipsiae, 1820, 8vo.

THE

HE author of this volume is a man of great learning in his profession, and is no unworthy successor of Haubold. The university of Leipzig, in which he has the honour to fill a professor's chair, has long been distinguished as a school of jurisprudence; and as it has long been one of the first classical seminaries in Europe, the study of the civil law is here supported by all the collateral aid that is to be derived from ancient literature. Ernesti, a philologer and theologian, who had no small influence in forming the recent character of this university, was sufficiently aware of the importance of some knowledge of the Roman jurisprudence to a classical scholar :* he recommended the study by his precepts, as well as by his example; and the importance of classical learning to the civilian, was equally well understood by his contemporaries. Bachius, the learned author of the history of the Roman jurisprudence, was one of Ernesti's pupils; and, from that period down to the present, the university of Leipzig has in general been adequately supplied with able professors and zealous students. With the eminent merits of Haubold we trust that few of our juridical readers are entirely unacquainted. He was a man of solid abilities, and of a correct judgment; and as he exercised the most unwearied industry, he had acquired a consummate knowledge, not only of the doctrines, but likewise of the literature of the law; in this latter department it may indeed be affirmed, without much hazard of contradiction, that he had

"Neque enim ignorabat, quam multa essent in libris Latinis, quae sine juris illius scientia satis intelligi et explicari non possent." (Ernesti Narratio de J. M. Gesnero: Opuscula Oratoria, p. 327. Lugd. Bat. 1762, 8vo.) In another of his works, Ernesti has formed a very high estimate of the qualifications requisite in a lawyer, "si quis juris consulti perfecti formam exprimere velit." (Opusculorum Oratoriorum novum volumen, p. 74. Lipsiae, 1791, 8vo.)

One of his learned labours was an edition of some of the works of Xenophon. Ξενοφώντος τινα. Xenophontis Oeconomicus, Apologia Socratis, Symposium, Hiero, Agesilaus, cum animadversionibus Jo. Augusti Bachii. Lipsiae, 1749, 8vo. To this volume he has prefixed a critical epistle of his learned preceptor, "Jo. Augusti Ernesti Epistola ad Jo. Augustum Bachium de Xenophonteis Locis nonnullis," which concludes in the following manner: "Nihil jam amplius restat, quam ut tibi, doctissime Bachi, specimen hoc egregiae eruditionis Graecae gratuler, optemque ut et hujus et reliquae tuae elegantissimae doctrinae dignos et copiosos fructus capias, tuique ingenii, quod in te cognovi rarae felicitatis atque elegantiae, lumen clarius indies eluceat. Ita vale, et amorem in me tuum mihi perpetue conserva."

VOL, V.-NO. IX.

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no