and while reading the history of the French Revolution, I now leave, as a parting legacy of my lectures, to all who have heard them.

Having addressed myself to those whom I consider as the more ardent friends of freedom, I must now turn to those who would rather, perhaps, entitle themselves the friends of that very constitution I so admire, those of high notions in church and state; men with whom peace and order is the one thing needful, and who also read the history of the French Revolution, as I conceive, amiss; who draw any conclusions but the proper conclusions, from the scenes that were there witnessed. Such men are made more than ever determined in their dislike, of all movement in the political world, of all inquiry and discussion, of all schemes of improvement, of all popular feelings, meetings, and privileges; and the example of the French Revolution is quoted by them, not as a reason for improving everything in time, but for keeping everything at rest.

This is the effect which has been very generally produced over our own islands by the example of the French Revolution: the recoil from all popular principles of government has been very visible and very widely extended.

But I could wish to remind all such men, the lovers of peace and order, that popular principles of government, and popular privileges, are to them, paradoxical as may to them seem the assertion, the best and only security. Where governments are arbitrary, insurrections are the usual resource; and the more arbitrary the government, the greater the chance for such calamities. Not so where popular privileges exist: patriots may there be wise, and the cause of freedom temperate; there is no movement at all, or it is of a rational nature.

Take the instance of England. A sensation is felt in the community; a tax is thought oppressive: some reform is thought desirable; some intended measure of government is deprecated: what is the consequence? A mob, an insurrection, sounds of sedition, or a tumult? Nothing of the kind. A public meeting is announced, its purposes stated, a president chosen, the speakers heard, resolutions drawn up, in a few days all the proceedings known to the government and all the kingdom; and those who have been interested in the affair discussed, having proceeded to the length appointed by the constitution, and no further, the sentiment subsides or circulates, and at last becomes successful, sooner or later, or fails, as the reason of the case requires.

If there be any one conclusion that can be drawn more clearly than another, from the history of the French Revolution, it is, the value of popular privileges. If they had existed in France, it is impossible that the people of property, and the church, and the privileged orders, and the king, should have suffered such calamities and destruction as they did. The parliaments were aristocratic bodies, and come not within our present meaning. The people in France had no legal methods of expressing their sentiments, and none of redress.

Violence, tumult, the alarming of the persons in authority by manifestations of discontent, calculated to excite their personal fears; these were the means they but too naturally resorted to. They were exposed, from this very want of popular privileges, to be the mere instruments of furious and wrongheaded demagogues. Every great step in the French Revolution was the immediate effect of some popular insurrection. No habits of constitutional freedom existed in the country. The same was the case in the prior periods of the French history, in the time of Cardinal de Retz. Whatever were his objects, popular insurrections seem to have been his great instruments. And it will be ever thus. And all through these lectures (and the lesson is made more than ever striking from the history of the French Revolution) I have never failed to make every effort in my power to impress upon the minds of those who are not only of arbitrary but of peaceful disposition, that popular privileges, timely concessions, mild government, that these are the safety as well as the prosperity of a state; that these are the conclusions to be drawn from the records of history, and more particularly from the French Revolution; the very reverse of what men of high prerogative notions themselves draw, and would wish everywhere to be drawn by others.

Let me not be accused of having spoken all through these lectures with alternate censure, sometimes addressed to the friends of freedom, sometimes to those who are rather the friends of prerogative. This cannot be avoided: such is the nature of man, the virtues and vices run into the confines of each other; advantages are placed on the right and on the left. Neither in morals nor in politics (to a commentator on history they are the same) can a reasoner proceed a step without his balance in his hand.

Distinctions must be made, and differences weighed out. The scale will often descend with very different velocity; but weight, of some kind or other, must always be expected in each scale,

however trifling in the lighter scale it may sometimes appear to be. On all occasions, through all the details of history, when different parties are to be blamed, the student, who wishes to gain wisdom from the past, should consider to which class he himself belongs, and be ready to mark not so much the faults of those who are opposed to him, as of those who are of his own peculiar temperament; for in their failings and mistakes he may consider himself as warned of the temptation that doth so easily beset him; he may receive edification where others have nothing to learn, and on the contrary, hear of faults which he is in no danger of committing.

It is not very easy to put an end to observations of this general nature, but I must conclude my lecture, and a few words may now suffice.

I have already mentioned to you that I do not think of proceeding further, and that I leave the remainder of this great subject to those who are to come after me. But I do not conceal from myself, that the more important part of it has been mine. From the period at which we are now arrived, the revolutionary fury somewhat declined; and when Buonaparte seized the government, it was the independence of every state in Europe that was at issue, rather than the elementary principles on which all society was founded. The struggle between the new and old opinions was comparatively at an end; and it is this struggle that I have had to comment upon-of all the most memorable that has occurred in the intellectual history of civilized man, since the first great struggle for the propagation of Christianity, and the second, for the freedom of religious inquiry and a purer faith, at the period of the Reformation.

This new struggle of the eighteenth century I have had to announce to you, and call upon you to observe, how it was prac tically illustrated by the history of the French Revolution, and no lecturer had ever such a subject presented to him before; for my subject embraced whatever could concern the vices, the virtues, the passions, and the genius of mankind; whatever could affect the rights of property, the domestic charities; the claims of mercy and justice among men; the love of peace, the love of freedom; a sense of duty, of piety, of religion; all that is owing to our fellow creatures on earth, all that is due to Heaven. All these were to be explained, adjusted, and exemplified; and I had to warn those who heard me of the importance of reasonable principles, of the indispensable necessity of steady notions of duty, and to make them aware of what, before

the horrors of the French Revolution, no imagination could ever have conceived, how wild may be the possible extravagances of the human understanding, and how desperate the possible wickedness of the human heart.

Such were the topics that pressed upon me while addressing you; and if the tongues of men and of angels had been mine, they had been worthily employed on themes like these. I might even, while musing on these things, forgetting awhile my own humble nature, and everything around me, have summoned up in vision before me the author of the Paradise Lost, and imitating his example, while meditating the future scenes of his immortal work, turned away from all that could be obtained by earthly succour, and thought only of addressing myself, as he did, "by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases."

But these, the workings of a diviner inspiration, must not be approached by ordinary minds. What is possible must be attempted, what is allowed by the great Creator must be done. Sufficient for me, if some curiosity has been excited, some knowledge communicated, some hints, that may be useful, afforded, the nobler qualities of the heart encouraged, the meaner and the bad discountenanced and reproved; a love of freedom, of mild government, of peace and order; a sense of duty, of piety, of religion, inculcated and impressed: sufficient for me, if such has been the anxiety, and such the diligence of your lecturer, that he may humbly hope, that the single talent committed to him by the Almighty Master, has been intrusted to him not entirely in vain.

SUPPLEMENTARY LECTURES.

LECTURE I.

DUMONT.

NOV. 1832.

Ir is more than twenty years since I first began to give lectures on the subject of modern history. The first course that I delivered, included the period between the irruption of the northern nations and the Revolution of 1688. The second extended from that event to the close of the American war. My third course consisted of such remarks as I could venture to make on the French Revolution. The period that I attempted to consider, was from the accession of Louis XVI. to the close of the Constituent Assembly. The fourth and last course extended to the fall of Robespierre. It is now my duty once more to renew my lectures, and I do so with increased anxiety. The importance of good opinions in the educated classes of society, is now more than ever obvious; but it has been so for many years. While I was first delivering lectures, Buonaparte was advancing every day in his dreadful career, and was fast subduing Europe. In my introductory lecture I was obliged to confess, that this mighty conqueror had destroyed what had hitherto been the studies of the readers of history; that there was no Holland, no Italy, and no Germany to be found; and that the treaties, and interests of states and kingdoms, as they had formerly stood, had disappeared: but I immediately subjoined, and have never failed, every successive year that I have delivered this introductory lecture, to subjoin, that "though the details of history might not be considered of such importance as they once were, the philosophy of history was more than ever to be studied; that empires might now be seen in all their different gradations of rise and progress, and more especially of decline and fall; that history was, in truth, now more than ever an object of reasonable curiosity, and even of just anxiety and necessary attention; and that whether we considered the state of our own country, or of Europe, it was impossible to say how much might not depend on the intelligence and virtue of the rising generation." With these words have I