heureuse, ou une habile rivalité peuvent enlever presque subitement la plus grande partie de son existence-"

But if a country like England, occupied by a race, slow of disposition, and capable of much endurance—if such a country has any thing to fear from a large manufacturing population— what would be the case in France?

Evoke the events of Lyons! See a people impatient of suffering, eager of hope, careless of consequences, fighting in every house, barricading every street, and signalizing each disastrous epoch of commercial speculation, by a a political revolution or revolt!

Besides, with the manufactures of England is, in a certain degree, connected the naval power of England, and we, the children of an isle, my countrymen, must be great as a naval nation.

But if we are destined to carry to new lands the cares and interests of civilization-we, whose home is on the ocean,-another fate is attached to the people, who have to defend those interests on yonder continent.

What the English are, as a maritime people, the French are as a military people—and shew me the successful army which was not drafted from an agricultural population!

Besides The division of landed property, in attaching to the soil a large proportion of the inhabitants of France, not only makes good soldiers, but makes good soldiers of good citizens.

The recruit who leaves his father's cot for the camp, returns from the camp to cultivate his own field; he does not readily lend himself to the government against the nation, because he is part of the nation.

"Avec une plus grande division des propriétés, l'esprit de propriétaire se répand nécessairement dans une plus grande portion de la société-;" the labouring classes, elsewhere denounced as the lovers of change, become here the protectors of order; and to the warrior uprises an interest not inferior to that of his sword. A country of proprietors may know many transitions, but it can know no convulsions :

and when the revolution of 1830,

differed from

that of 1789, it was because the one was a revolution of paupers-the other a revolution of proprietors.

* M. Pasquier.

VOL. I.

CHAPTER XV.

Though the example of France may not be a wise one for all countries to imitate, it appears a wise one for her to have adopted—The Law of Primogeniture not sanctioned by private right, though it may by public advantage-Real results arising from it-Past conduct defective-Fate of Aristocracy in England.

It follows, from all I have just been saying, that though I in no wise mean to assert that the example of France ought to be universally followed, yet that I believe the laws of succession she has established for herself, capable of salutary modifications, are the best adapted to the character, the position, the happiness of her people.

Her riches do not increase so fast as ours; but they increase in a happy proportion with her intelligence and population.

The comforts of the great masses of her inhabitants are, to say the least, as great as those of our own labourers-and upon the whole their con

dition is better. To use the words of Mr. Birkbeck, "there are in France none of those exhibitions of profligacy which disgust you at every step in our country villages-no ragged wretches staggering home from a filthy alehouse-nor is this to be attributed to poverty! the earnings of the labourer are at least one third more in proportion than in England.”—(P. 101—2.).

In fact, the man who cultivates his own field is morally a different man from the one who cultivates the field of another.

It is with a nobler and a better mind that he pursues his toil. He has a motive for energy which at once awakes his prudence and developes his affections. *

It is the feeling of independence which Mr. Macculloch condemns, and which property

* "It is usual for a youth of sixteen to hire himself as a domestic servant in agriculture, and when he arrives at twenty-one or twenty-two, to have laid up 400 or 500 francs-(161. or 207.)-With 400 francs, he buys a cottage and marries ;-his wife has probably a little portion. He has an opportunity also of buying 1,500 square toises (nearly an acre and a half, English) of uncultivated mountain land-rocky and poor, but fit for vines-for this he pays fifteen or twenty francs, and becomes proprietor, having a constant resource of profitable industry in winter when work may be scarce."-(Birkbeck, p. 60.)

gives, that raises the heart of the French peasant; making him a better soldier, a better citizen, a better husband, a better father.

But if the passion for property has improved the character of the lower classes, the division of property has produced a beneficial effect upon the character of the upper.

It has replaced the ridiculous ostentation of the old courtly time, by a perfect indifference. to stile and shew.

It has brought into manly companionship the man of wealth, the man of letters, the artist and the legislator, the noble and the manufacturer of cotton; it has destroyed prejudices which have been long passing away in England, but which, we must not forget, existed, in full force, in France but fifty years ago.

It has made a parent the friend of his child instead of the patron; it has made the son obey his father from affection, instead of adulating him from interest. "Ah! on le voit trop," said Mirabeau, in that celebrated oration read by M. de Talleyrand after his death, "ce sont les pères qui ont fait ces lois (the old laws then existing) mais en les faisant ils n'ont pensé qu'à leur empire, et ils ont oublié leur paternité;" yes; the parents of those times thought too much of their power, too little of