The enclosed letter ran thus:

"Cousin Walter,

"I always hated you-you were ever in my way, and your presence made me little better than an upper servant in my uncle's house, where as a boy I was domesticated fully three years before you and your sister were taken in from charity; had you not come, I should have been the heir. I had every right to the property. My mother was senior to your father in years, as I was to you. You always crossed me-lowered me in the eyes of the woman I loved, and degraded me with the menials; and now you would drag me into the dock for taking my own. Farewell for ever. I hate you and I leave you. G. N. K.”

"This note," said Mr. Pendarvis, 66 appears to be written by an insane person; yet there's method in his madness. How different is the letter of that honest John McClintock, your Irish attorney. Depend upon it, Kildoon is now self expatriated, and has, I strongly suspect, taken with him all the property he could lay his hands on, and which combined value with portableness, in those well packed portmanteaus and imperials."

And this was but too true; letter after letter now poured in upon me in a daily post office shower from McClintock, giving an account of the abstraction of money, much of the plate, and some articles of costly bijouterie, all swept away in the coffers of my caitiff cousin. I cared not; I was too happy to regard such losses in any other light than mere trifles in comparison of my great gain in the reacquisition of my place, my property, and my social position.

I might now spin out the web of my history in a longer tissue; but this would be a task to myself and a needless tax on my reader's patience. I might describe at length my return to the Darragh, which was effected in the quietest fashion, my uncle's death being too recent to allow me to permit anything of an ovation. I might tell of the legal proving of the true Will, and my establishment in my property. I might tell of a delightful Christmas party, consisting of Montfort and the whole tribe of Gaystons, married and single, and the extravagant and boyish spirits exhibit

VOL XLVIII NO CCLXXXVI

ed by Edward during his visit; and then I might dwell for whole chapters on a delightful visit I paid at Pendarvis Castle, and the great boon and blessing which God gave me there, in the deep and true love of her who has been the mistress of my heart and house for many a smiling year-the joy and pride of my youth-the companion and counsellor of my manhood -the solace and sweetener of the cares of coming old age; and, above all, the instructor of my spirit in the great undying matters of futurity, and one who sweetly and wisely herself "allured to brighter worlds and led the way." I might tell of the rapture of the Joyces, the noisy delight of my nurse, and the grim satisfaction of the corporal at my restoration; but these are things which the reader can well imagine without the trouble of writing or reading on my part and on his.

Of Mr. Kildoon I heard nothing for five years. Then I received a letter from a strange gentleman, dated Montreal, informing me of his death by a brain fever; he died unmarried, and, as far as I could learn concerning his end, the victim of habits of intemperance acting on an excitable temperament, and a mind disorganized by hereditary predisposition, and beaten down by remorse, disappointment, and shame. I often thought over his conduct-so strange, so unprincipled, and so productive of evil to his own interests and I felt assured that he had acted more or less under aberration of mind, which idea I loved to encourage-though both Montfort and McClintock would smile at it for it made me half pity him, and wholly forgive him.

Murellos lived for many years, principally at Malaga, driving his trade chiefly among the English. I believe he never again played the rogue, which Mr. McClintock ascribed to a wholesome fear of the gallows, from which he had so barely escaped. His daughter was married to my tall honest friend Diaz, who is now a thriving wine merchant in part of Australia. She makes him a loving and an excellent wife, and I believe there is no measure to the number of olive plants which already grow around their pleasant hearth and table, or the number which may be expected.

some

Major Clitheroe is now a general,

EE

and has a district command, and his lady is patroness at all the garrison balls in the neighborhood. They are childless, and the uncivil world reports the matrimonial drill is as heavy and severe as the military; but of this I can only say that I hope it is untrue.

Mrs. Cardonald has long since been consigned to the tomb of all the Capulets," as the sweet bard of Avon would say, and as she herself would no doubt quote were she permitted to revisit the glimpses of the moon, and to make a posthumous observation on her own sepulture. As she grew old, she became less full of Shakespeare and more full of herself-vegetating in Cheltenham, and living on green tea and ecarte. She painfully realized the words of the bard who satirized the sex,

See how the world its veterans rewards,
A youth of folly-an old age of cards.

Edward Gayston rose to great and deserved eminence at the bar; and on the exhalation of my uncle Silverties from earth, he succeeded to his property as nearest of blood, and took my dear aunt to live with him, thus cheering and supporting her in a beneficent and calmly happy old age.

Montfort spends every winter with us. He never married, but was faithful to his buried love; he greatly admired and valued my peerless wife, and our second son is called by his name, and is, I believe, to be the inheritor of his property.

As for myself, happy in my dear partner, in her love, her sympathy, and community of tastes, in my strong and reciprocated friendship for her

father and all her family, in my many sterling friends, in my restored independence; happy among the woods, and streams, and cliffs, and mountains of my beloved Darragh; and happy amidst the warm hearted peasantry by whom I am surrounded and beloved; I walk calmly on, fulfilling my destinies, and endeavouring to perform my duties. I take no open or active part either in politics or polemics, whatever my opinions on these matters may be. My tastes are more of a literary and domestic nature.

Two brave sons of mine sat in cavalry saddles at the charge of Balaclava, and escaped with a very slight hurt each; they have been with me and their mother to day up Glenroe, and among the iron cliffs which form the roots of Slieve-naQuilla as it breaks down to meet the sea. My wife loves the crags, and the mountains, and the wild beach air, and the solitude of the sea as much as I do, and our children have all our tastes as heirlooms from great nature.

Meanwhile, when I look abroad, I am proud and happy to mark the steady advance of MY COUNTRY in enterprize, in industry, and in success ; and I rejoice to see her hastening to take her rightful and acknowledged position among the nations. I was with her in the bleak night of her famine, and I hope to live to be with her in the bright morning of her fame; and I cannot but hope that our God will yet do great things for her, whereat all who love her as truly as I do will be glad. Adieu.

WALTER BASSET NUGENT. The Darragh, September, 1856.

THERE are not a great many ideas in M. De Tocqueville's present volume which will be new to the English student of political philosophy. In France we should suppose it is calculated to create a wide and startling

sensation. Since the French Revolution of 1789, England has been far more unlike the continental nations of Western Europe than she ever was before. That event, in its effect upon society, may be likened to the

Reformation in its effect upon religion. It broke up a great dominant class into fragments. In the days of Louis the Fifteenth, "the gentlemen of Europe" were a caste, with an esprit du corps pervading the whole body from Copenhagen to Palermo, from the Land's End to Trieste. They had traditions and usages of their own, wholly distinct from the peoples among which they lived, and independent of nationality and origin. From the table land of gentility, as Sir Walter calls it, they looked down upon the rest of Europe with a feeling of perfect security; and Voltaire and La Fayette no more foresaw to what a complete change their doctrines would lead, than Luther, when he first denounced indulgences, could have foreseen the disrupture of the Papacy, and the separation of ties which had bound mankind for a thousand years. In England, owing to her position, the effect of these two great human storms wasonly very partially felt. Her church is still Catholic, her institutions are still feudal. Her manners change, but her traditions linger. The general tone of society is not materially different. There is still the same mixture of freedom and loyalty which excited the admiration of Burke; still the same external symbols of authority, the preservation of which at our own Revolution has been rightly eulogised by Macaulay; still the same friendly intercourse between gentle and simple which so favourably impressed the judgment of Mr. Washington Irving. All over the continent, if we are not very greatly mistaken, whether thrones or dynasties have been preserved or not, much of this sort of thing has completely passed away; and England, which in the eighteenth century was the least feudal of all the great western kingdoms, is in the nineteenth century probably the most so. Seeing, therefore, this practical contradiction before their eyes-that those institutions and customs which are vulgarly supposed the most injurious to liberty, do nevertheless flourish most in that country where alone liberty has been preserved,--the English have been constantly prompted to draw certain practical conclusions from the facts which in reality have seldom

failed to coincide with M. De Tocqueville's own. His present volume will not therefore strike upon the English mind with the enlightening effect of a revelation. But its value will still be enormous. It is the first time that public attention has been specially directed to the cardinal points in the history of that great convulsion; the first time that its truest and deepest lesson has been formally proclaimed. The manner is excellent. Loose threads are gathered up, and the whole state of the case laid before us with an exhaustive accuracy, a most lucid arrangement, and a pregnant brevity that reminds us of the Greeks. The essence of modern history is extracted, and compressed within the limits of one goodsized octavo volume.

M. de Tocqueville has himself divided his work into two books. For our present purpose it will perhaps be more convenient to divide it into three parts. The first is taken up with digcussing the object and scope of the French Revolution; the second, the system of administration; the third, the condition of society and the state of the people.

The five chapters of the first book are occupied in demonstrating the mistake of those who imagine that the Revolution was a movement towards anarchy and atheism. That such was not the case is best shewn, says M. de Tocqueville, by contemplating its final results. Whether we confine our observation to France, or extend it to all those countries in which the Revolution was for a time dominant, we shall find the same truth. Its rage was directed against certain institutions; and political order and religious belief were injured because inseparably interwoven with these institutions, but not because they themselves were the objects of popular animosity at that particular time. And so we see that "order" and "faith" have come out of the struggle unscathed. In one word, it was the aristocracy which the people rose against, and not the monarchy. It was the Gallican church which they detested, and not the Catholic religion. The system of centralizationthe cause rather than the effect of the Revolution--had made the aristocracy contemptible, and the church be

cause it was a part of the aristocracy. Here are M. de Tocqueville's own words:

In the other parts of their doctrines, the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked the church with the utmost fury: they fell foul of her clergy, her hierarchy, her institutions, her dogmas; and in order more surely to overthrow them, they endeavoured to tear up the very foundations of Christianity. But as this part of the philosophy of the eighteenth century arose out of the very abuses which the Revolution destroyed, it necessarily disappeared together with them, and was, as it were, buried beneath its own triumph. I will add but one word to make myself more fully understood, as I shall return hereafter to this important subject; it was in the character of a political institution, far more than in that of a religious doctrine, that Christianity had inspired such fierce hatreds. It was not so much because the priests assumed authority over the concerns of the next world, as because they were landholders, landlords, tithe-owners, and adininistrators in this world; not because the church was unable to find a place in the new society which was about to be constituted, but because she filled the strongest and most privileged place in the old state of society which was doomed to destruction.

Observe how the progress of time has made and still makes this truth more and more palpable day by day. In the same measure that the political effects of the Revolution have become more firmly established, its irreligious results have been annihilated. In the same measure that all the old political institutions which the Revolution attacked have been entirely destroyed, the powers, the influences, and the classes which were the objects of its special hostility have been irrevocably crushed, until even the hatred they inspired has begun to lose its intensity. In the same measure, finally, as the clergy has separated itself more and more from all that formerly fell with it, we have seen the power of the church gradually regain and re-establish its ascendency over the minds of men.

These are very remarkable words. Yet the fact specified will not appear to be a subject of unmixed congratulation to those who remember that of all the Romish churches in Europe, the ancient French church was the most independent, and the modern French church the most servile. Nor should it be forgotten that the most ultra high churchmen in England, of the tractarian school, are ac

customed to insist that nothing would promote their principles so much as a separation of church and state. To dispossess the clergy of their lands, and convert them into state stipendiaries, would probably have much the same effect, by stimulating the purely professional spirit, already sufficiently strong, and cutting them off from many of the duties of citizenship. We have two strong reasons, the one special and the other general, for making these observations. The first is that a disposition has been lately evinced to urge upon the English Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the propriety of transferring to themselves the entire management of the episcopal estates; merely paying the bishops a certain sum out of the revenues. What is sauce for a bishop, if we may say so without irreverence, is sauce for a vicar; and if the former were to be made a stipendiary, we have little doubt that the whole English priesthood would ere long become the same. The select committee appointed to enquire into the question has, it is true, expressed an opinion in favour of leaving the management of their estates in the hands of the bishops; but we cannot tell what influence may be brought to bear upon the point, and we are happy to add the indirect testimony of M. de Tocqueville to the already notorious fact, that the church of France has gone over to the side of religious intolerance, since she has been deprived of political duties and territorial influence. Our second reason was for the sake of reminding our readers, that it is on this one great point that the conservative party in Great Britain must agree to differ from the great conservative statesmen and writers of France. Such is the portion of the recent admirable publication of M. de Montalembert upon England from which we are obliged to dissent. Such is the case with M. de Tocqueville. Such will probably be the case with succeeding authors.

The political situation in 1789 was, however, it seems, comprehended by Mirabeau :-

Within a year from the Leginning of the

Revolution, Mirabeau wrote secretly to the king: Compare the new state of things with the old rule. There is the ground for comfort and hope. One part of the acts of the National Assembly, and that the more considerable part, is evidently favourable to monarchical government. Is it nothing to be without parliaments? Without the pays d'etat? Without a body of clergy? Without a privileged class? Without a nobility? The idea of forming a single class of all the citizens would have pleased Richelieu; this equality of the surface facilitates the exercise of power. Several successive reigns of an absolute monarchy would not have done as much for the royal authority as this one year of Revolution." Such was the view of the Revolution taken by a man capable of guiding it.

Is it nothing to be without an hereditary peerage? Is it nothing to be without provincial activity? Is it nothing to be without a landed hierarchy? Is it nothing to be without independent county magistrates? Vide the liberal press, passim. How like is the language of despotism to that of democracy! We wonder if the demagogues know it. The effect of the Revolution upon the general condition of Europe our author hints rather than describes, as follows:

It was this simple, regular, and imposing form of power, which Mirabeau perceived through the dust and rubbish of ancient, half demolished institutions. This object, in spite of its greatness, was still invisible to the eyes of the many; but time has gradually unveiled it to all eyes. At the present moment it especially attracts the attention of rulers; it is looked upon with adiniration and envy, not only by those whom the Revolution has created, but by those who are the most alien and the most hostile to it; each endeavours within his own dominions to destroy immunities and to abolish privileges. They confound ranks, they equalise classes, they supe: sede the aristocracy by public functionaries, local franchises by uniform enactments, and the diversities of authority by the unity of a central govern

in Prussia? Is it possible that those acts of violence were tokens of illregulated resentment at the systematic depression of an order? Prussia is a country in which we are compelled to take great interest just now, whether we will or no, and we should like these questions to be answered. In every wealthy and populous country there is a tendency towards centralization. The rich grow luxurious, and the poor grow ambitious. Under judicious management the former may soon be induced to give less and less attention to public affairs; the latter, from which the malcontent class springs, is salaried, silent, and satisfied. Such is the process. How it was that in France that process produced the Revolution, it is the object of M. De Tocqueville's second book to explain.

The first portion of the Second Book is a full and interesting account of the machinery of the ancient regime. And the leading feature in its character is this, that while the seignorial rights of the aristocracy remained in full force, they no longer took the very slightest share in the government of the country. A series of extracts will elucidate and confirm this remark.

In the eighteenth century, all the affairs of the parish were managed by a certain number of parochial officers, who were no longerthe agents of the manor or domain, and whom the lord no longer selected. Some of these persons were nominated by the intendant of the province, others were elected by the peasants themselves. The duty of these authorities was to assess the taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to convoke and preside over the vestry or parochial meeting. They attended to the property of the parish, and determined the application of it. They sued, and were sued in its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer conducted the administration of these small local affairs, but he did not even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government or the control of the central power, as we shall shew in a subsequent chapter. Nay more, the seigneur had almost ceased to act as the representative of the crown in the parish, or as the channel of communication between the king and his subjects. He was no longer expected to apply in the parish the general laws of the realin, to call out the militia, to collect the taxes, to promulgate the mandates of the sovereign, or distribute the bounty of the crown. All these duties and all those rights belonged to others. The seigneur was in fact no longer anything but an inhabitant