NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second " 66 66 Third The Complete Work, Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA. YES! This is the happy Christmas-time, and yet how strange it seems! The crimson flush on the flowering brush, the flame on the splendid streams; The sun's bold glance-the mirage-dance of the bright Australian noon As the warm-breath'd breeze just stirs the trees that girdle the broad lagoon. Still as I gaze on the blooms that fringe the wild creek's sunny flow, I think of faces far away where the fields are white with snow! And wonder and weep memories keep, "Will their 'Mid the mirth of this gladsome day, A sacred place for an absent face Five thousand leagues away?" Again I see the old elm-tree, with its branches bleak and bare, And the rustic seat where lovers meet - Yes! lovers and seat are there; And I fancy I know that arch bright smile, the turn of the glittering curl That hangs (like the spray of the fruitful vine) on the neck of a lovely girl! And the sterner face, above her bent, is lit with a softer light, As her voice falls low like a wavelet's song when sunset fades to night. And they list to the merry Christmas And laugh. Ah! well-a-day! The snow may rest in last year's nest that hangs on the hazel copse: But the birds will flit through the boughs, and sit again in the rocking tops: Tho' the cottage eaves are lone, and miss the flash of a welcome wing, We know the swallows will come again with the sunshine and the spring. And so, returned, an old, old love in each true HE sweeps the strings: the children dance; He sweeps the strings, and hopeful youth The careful mother's wasted cheek; He sweeps the strings; and saddened heart And bids awhile her sorrows cease. And hopeful waits the coming Lord. And, 'mazed, the dear old music hears. From Macmillan's Magazine. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. BY PROFESSER SEELEY. II. I HAVE endeavoured to describe the last great movement in English politics by bringing out those great characteristics of it which are easily overlooked by those who are concerned in the movement itself, because their attention is pre-occupied by details, but which immediately come into conspicuous prominence when the movement is over and has passed into history. I have endeavoured to look at contemporary history as the next generation will look at it, at least in one respect; that is, in giving attention rather to the results produced, and to the changes actually wrought in the institutions of the country, than to the striking incidents or characters that may mark the period. I have delineated a revolution, transacted not without great excitement at times, yet without anarchy or bloodshed, limited in its range, leaving entirely untouched the foundations and framework of the Constitution, and very slightly affecting those great institutes of civilization which modern governments have learned the wise modesty of leaving to themselves, yet still a revolution deserving to be so called. I have endeavoured to analyse the character of this revolution; I have found that it has had a uniform tendency throughout, and may be described in one word as a movement to abolish monopolies. It is impossible to consider such a movement without raising the question of the causes which have produced it. When a nation makes a persevering effort to snap some chain, some cramping restriction under which it suffers, we may be sure that one of two things has taken place,- either the chain has been drawn tighter, and the suffering of the nation has goaded it to resistance; or, oppression remaining the same, or even growing lighter, the spirit of the nation has risen so as to burst through the restraint. We are apt hastily to attribute revolutions to the former cause, whereas history shows that they are generally due to the latter. Revolutions are not generally convulsions of despair, nor are they caused by an increasing severity of oppression. Outbreaks of despair are to be met with in history, but they are commonly unsuccessful. When oppression increases, it is generally because it knows itself strong, and in such cases if it provokes rebellion it usually proves able to crush it, so that actual revolution is averted. There have been outbreaks of despair in Poland, but they have been unsuccessful; in America the unsuccessful rebellion of the Southern States was an outbreak of despair. On the other hand, the French Revolution was no outbreak of despair; it followed not an increase of despotism, but a relaxation of it. It happened not when the sufferings of the people were at the greatest, but when they had been very greatly relieved, and when oppression, comparatively speaking, had ceased to exist. It was caused by a feeling of strength and hope on the part of the people, not by a feeling of despair. It was the painful awakening from a swoon. 64 Life's joy, reviving, roused a throng of pains." In the far less violent English movement of our age the same thing may be remarked. It was not because monopolies had become more oppressive and invidious forty years ago that the rebellion against them began: they had, in fact, become milder. In the preceding age a great many minor disabilities of the Catholics had been removed, and Cobden had his precursor in Huskisson. The excluded classes were not roused by new provocation, but by a new feeling of strength and hope. The first taste of freedom had made them wish for the full enjoyment of it. They saw before them a new chance, which lay in the growth of a new power in the State the power of public opinion. Few principles are better settled in the politics of the present day than the absolute sovereignty of public opinion. If the nation demands a thing, there is no politician or party of politicians that will now undertake to refuse it. Discussion may be raised on the question, What constitutes a demand on the part of the nation? It may be argued, and those who are averse to change will argue, that what pretends to be a national demand is not really so, but merely the demand of a section arrogating to itself the name of the nation; or that it | Brougham in 1822; and ten years later the is not a deliberate and serious demand, but new Monarch Public Opinion was installed a fancy or whim on the part of the public that will not hold. This the opposite party will make a point of denying, and they will spend rather more rhetoric upon proving that the people desire the change in question than they will bestow upon proving it to be beneficial. To prove it beneficial, if the change proposed were of any magnitude, would advance it a very little way. The important question is, Is it wanted? Laws now are like commodities; the supply of them is regulated by the demand. Politicians hold it almost as disrespectful to the nation to outrun its wishes as to thwart them. In former times they had the same feeling towards Parliament. To catch the spirit of Parliament, to jump with its humours, not to be behind it nor too much before it, was the study of many politicians of the last century. Now it is public opinion that has to be watched and studied, and it is wonderful how large a part of our parliamentary debates is now devoted to the question, What do the people want, and how much do they want it, and do they want it now, or will they wait? Aristotle told us, long ago, that the question in deliberative oratory is not of right or wrong, but of expediency. With us even expediency has begun to seem too abstract a consideration; the question now is rather of opportuneness. It is not, Will the measure be useful, and will it work? but, Do people want it, and are they calling out for it? The House of Commons, which we are accustomed to call supreme in the State, has in fact always been under one master or another. In the last century it never talked of the influence that ruled it. The debates are silent of that which was always uppermost in the minds of the Members. Parliament was devoured by a secret passion it never told its love. But as soon as it escaped from this spell, from the dominion of the great pension-giver or placegiver of the day (the Minister in the first half of the century, the King himself in the last), it fell under the influence of public opinion an influence which it was not so much ashamed to acknowledge. The last Resolution directed against the overpowering influence of the Crown was moved by with the passing of the Reform Bill. Now where was public opinion in the last century? Had it no power, no existence ? From the time that it was aroused by Wilkes and Junins, i.e. from about 1770, it had certainly a power, though a power indefinite and seldom exercised. That was the beginning of the new time, though the dial was afterwards put back many degrees in the panic of the French Revolution. But, before that, what traces do we find of the influence of public opinion? There are one or two. Walpole's Excise was defeated by a popular clamour in 1733. The indignation gradually excited in the public mind by the pertinacious invective of the Patriots principally contributed to the fall of Walpole in 1741. But these isolated efforts rather served to make the general insignificance of public opinion more striking. They were irresistible movements, but blind and irrational ones. They were dreaded by Ministers, and turned to account by the Opposition, as Shaftesbury turned to account the hurricane raised by Oates; but they could impress neither party with any respect for the opinion out of doors. How strongly contrasted the wild clamour, to which Walpole, with secret contempt, yielded his Excise, and the popular agitation to which another great Minister, a hundred years later, convinced and candidly confessing his economical error, yielded up the Corn Law! England has never been absolutely without a public opinion. There never perhaps was a time when an obnoxious tax threatening men's pockets, or some keen sense of public disgrace, would not excite a formidable clamour. As much public opinion as this, but scarcely more, there was in the first half of the eighteenth century. The most striking proof of its general powerlessness is to be found in the fact that, whereas legislation now in all great matters invariably takes the direction indicated by public opinion, in the eighteenth century it took, on the whole, the opposite direction. The constitutional development of that age was accomplished, for the most part, in defiance of the wishes of the majority. The Toleration Act and the Act of Settlement were may think, if we will, that public opinion now does not rule wisely, and that there might be a much better ruler; but the populace that ran after Sacheverell, and clamoured against excise, were evidently inca passed, the Brunswick family introduced and supported, at a time when, as Lord Macaulay acknowledges, the effect of a Reform Bill would certainly have been a persecution of the Dissenters, and probably a restoration of the Stuarts. The Whig able of ruling at all. It is manifest that a party of that age won their cause. They great change must have passed over the wished to limit the influence of the Crown character of public opinion. Such a change and of the Church. These objects they at- it is not difficult to discover, and it may be attained. The Crown and the Church have expressed in one word, by saying that in been controlled not less, and probably the interval between 1770 and 1829 the more, than they wished. And yet through- public opinion of the country gained organout that century the nation was Tory. Pub-ization. lic opinion, such as it was—if we may give that name to a mere sum of individual opinions was uniformly on the losing side. The present sovereignty of public opinion is evidenced, as I have said, by the tone of parliamentary debate. Its insignificance in the last century may be shown by the same test. Instead of deference, the House of Commons in that age adopted a peremptory and despotic style in their dealings with the people. If now their temptation is to sink into delegates, then they rather assumed the airs of the fathers of the people. There was indeed a time when it seemed possible that there might be a revolutionary collision between the nation and its representative assembly. Parliament seemed entering upon the career of the Stuarts, and might have suffered a fate like theirs, had it been possible for the perversity of an assembly to be as desperate as that of a wrong-headed individual. Public opinion, as I have said, is not merely the sum of the opinions of the individuals composing the public. The individuals must be brought into relation with each other, and be formed into some sort of organic whole, before anything worthy to be called a public opinion can spring up among them. It is by discussion and communication that men arrive at a common understanding. But supposing such a common understanding created, it could not become a commanding force in politics except in certain conditions. It would require, first, some means of obtaining a constant supply of information upon public affairs, and, secondly, some means of making its conclusions known. Public opinion is organized when it has three things sources of information, means of discussion, organs of expression. These three things are enough for organization. Wanting them, public opinion is powerless: possessing them, it Now, what is the change which has passed becomes a power, and is in a condition to over the country to raise public opinion from govern. Perhaps something more is reinsignificance to actual omnipotence? To quired to make it wise as well as powerful speak of the spread of democratic senti- -to make it govern well, as well as govern. ments is not to solve the problem, but mereAll these three conditions of power publy to state it again in other words. Nor lic opinion in the eighteenth century may will it do to say that public opinion, having be said practically to have wanted, though been invoked by the Whigs in the first Re-it did not want any of them absolutely. It form Bill against their enemies, the Tories, acquired them in the period between 1770 has refused to give up the position it was allowed momentarily to assume. Public opinion must have changed very much since the last century to be able to hold so high a tone. The popular opinion to which Shaftesbury appealed, or that which Pulteney inflamed against Walpole, was not capable of being dangerous to the statesmen that had taken it into their alliance. Had it tried to govern, it must have failed. We and 1829, through the extension of the newspaper system, through the rise of the practice of association and public meeting for political purposes, and through the extension of the old practice of petitioning. That period may be called the period of the organization of public opinion. The newspaper supplies to public opinion all the three requisites at once, though in very unequal degrees. It furnishes the |