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Thus our attention is naturally awakened to France; and we anxiously enquire whether the dangers that menace her, are such as we shall have in our turn to experience. Let us then see whether that nation, which possesses more popular ideas, and in some respects, more popular institutions than ours, does not also still possess some trappings of a galling and tinselled tyranny, such as we never saw. In its manners are the traces of former servitude yet visible? Over its laws do those manners yet exercise some influence? In its progress do we remark those abrupt stoppages and rapid movements which shew that it has pursued not the safe, and even course?

On the other hand;-is it not true, that the improvements we are looking forward to, will come as the necessary result of others that have preceded them?

Is it not true that the equality we anticipate will have been preceded by a freedom we have long enjoyed; and that the democracy attaining power will have been educated by an aristocracy that has long possessed it?

Is it not true, that a government of the middle classes in this country would be the government-not of a few of those classes admitted with fear and caution into the gestion of pub

lic affairs-but of the great bulk of the people long accustomed to the management of their local concerns?

Is it not true that a government of the middle classes in England would be a government well suited to the serious and commercial character of the English, as a government of the middle classes in France is hostile to the vain and military character of the French?

Neither would such a government be productive, in both countries, of all the same results. I have to notice a licentious literature, an irreligious people, a philosophy imbrued with that spirit of association natural to the state of things amidst which it appears, but covered, at the same time, with the taudry tatters of a depraved licentiousness, the baleful heritage of times gone by. Nobody will believe-whatever mischief might arise therefrom that the advancing influence of the middling and lower orders of society with us would be accompanied by such consequences. The evils to dread would indeed be of a directly contrary description ;-an over fanatic zeal in religion, an extravagant severity of manners, and a temporary absence of those charms of literature and society, which add to the happiness, and ought not to corrupt the manners, of mankind.

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To prepare the change that is inevitable, to infuse into the democracy that is advancing to power, what was great and graceful in the best days of the aristocracy that has long possessed it;-to ingraft on the manly and solid character of the English people, the lofty daring and the cultivated intelligence which in times not remote from these were remarkable in the English nobility;-to join to the popular virtues of economy and industry, the no less necessary qualities (in those who are to guide an empire) of justice, honour, and courage ;-to moderate the popular zeal in politics and religion, by a learned toleration for the feelings and opinions of all opponents;-such, it appears to me, should be the desire of a writer who hopes, my dear Sir, for your friendship, and aspires above the mere party aims and politics of the hour.

Some, I know, imagine that every period of civilization is to have the same results. They quarrel with the times gone by, on account of the class which ruled then, as others quarrel with the present, because the power from that class is passing-has in fact passed away. This, I feel sure, is not the judgment of your liberal and enlightened mind. To an independent and respectable nobility, we owe much.

It has enriched our merchants and our tradesmen with the spirit and intelligence of a senate; and preserved the morality of our gentry from the enervating corruptions of a

court.

Let us not disdain, then, but embody, our past history in our future progress! This is the way that a great people march on easily and naturally in the road to greatness.

Of old, the seer who sought in vain one of those mysterious luminaries he was accustomed to admire-said, "the star is not lost to mankind; but, attracted to some mightier orb, enriches with the effulgence that I miss -the splendours of a more glorious world :-" and so, on this pigmy earth-the institutions of one generation, when they apparently disappear, do but pass on to the next; and the great system of society is perpetually brightened by the systems it perpetually absorbs.

It is, my dear Sir, with a sincere friendship, that I subscribe myself,

Yours most faithfully,

HENRY LYTTON BULWER,

8, James Street, Buckingham Palace,

October 1835.

VOL. 1.

B 6

A salutation to all of you, friends and enemies, whom I have had as judges, and before whose tribunal I am once more to appear! Thanks to you who have seen any merit, more thanks to you who have seen any utility in the pages I have, with a deep humility, previously offered to the public. You will agree with me, I have little doubt, as to the imperfect manner in which my task has been fulfilled. You will agree with me also, I venture to trust, in acknowledging there was some difficulty attending its fulfilment.

To paint a country which, visiting every year, every person imagines that he knows—yet which, for the very reason perhaps that it is at their door, few persons have attentively examined to be met first by the idea that you can say nothing new; and then by the prejudice against all you do say which is not old-to enter last into competition with deservedly distinguished writers, who have wielded the weapons of controversy with a grace and a tact which betray-what their judgment might have concealed-the sex they belonged to;* this was no easy labour to have accomplished with or

* See Lady Morgan's France, and Miss Berry's State of Society in France and England.

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