heard, or any religious duty performed. It is evident that Robespierre, who unquestionably had a design which is now generally understood, was desirous, on the day of the fête of the Supreme Being, to bring back public opinion to the worship of the Deity. Eight months before, we had seen the Bishop of Paris, accompanied by his clergy, appear voluntarily at the bar of the Convention, to abjure the Christian faith and the Catholic religion. But it is not as generally known, that at that period Robespierre was not omnipotent, and could not carry his desires into effect. Nu-tector of the sect, was to deliver a discourse. merous factions then disputed with him the supreme authority. It was not till the end of 1793, and the beginning of 1794, that his power was so completely established that he could venture to act up to his intentions.

This passage is very remarkable. Here we have the greatest intellect of the age, Napoleon himself, recurring to the Gospel, and to the Lord's Prayer, as the only pure system of religion, and the sublimest effort of human composition; and Robespierre endeavouring, in the close of his bloody career, to cement anew the fabric of society, which he had had so large a share in destroying, by a recurrence to religious impressions! So indispensable is devotion to the human heart; so necessary is it to the construction of the first elements of society, and so well may you distinguish the spirit of anarchy and revolution, by the irreligious tendency which invariably attends it, and prepares the overthrow of every national institution, by sapping the foundation of every private virtue. The arrest of the British residents over all France, on the rupture of the peace of Amiens, was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable acts of Napoleon's government. The following scene between Junot and the First Consul on this subject, is singularly characteristic of the impetuous fits of passion to which that great man was subject, and which occasionally betrayed him into actions so unworthy of his general character.

"One morning, at five o'clock, when day was just beginning to break, an order arrived from the First Consul to repair instantly to Malmaison. He had been labouring till four in the morning, and had but just fallen asleep. He set off instantly, and did not return till five in the evening. When he entered he was in great agitation; his meeting with him had been stormy, and the conversation long.

"When Junot arrived at the First Consul's, he found his figure in disorder; his features were contracted; and every thing announced one of those terrible agitations which made every one who approached him tremble.

"Junot,' said he to his old aid-de-camp, 'are you still the friend on whom I can rely? Yes or no. No circumlocution.'

"Yes, my General.'

now handed to him he perceived a motive to authorize the terrible measure which Napoleon had commanded. He would willingly have given him his life; but now he was required to do a thing to the last degree repugnant to the liberal principles in which he had been trained. "The First Consul waited for some time for an answer; but seeing the attitude of Junot, he proceeded, after a pause of some minutes, as if the answer had already been given.

"That measure must be executed at seven o'clock this evening. I am resolved that, this evening, not the most obscure theatre at Paris, not the most miserable restaurateur, should contain an Englishman within its walls.'

"My General,' replied Junot, who had now recovered his composure, 'you know not only my attachment to your person, but my devotion in every thing which regards yourself. Believe me, then, it is nothing but that devotion which makes me hesitate in obeying you, before entreating you to take a few hours to reflect on the measure which you have commanded me to adopt.'

"Napoleon contracted his eye-brows.

666

Again!' said he. What! is the scene of the other day so soon to be renewed? Lannes and you truly give yourselves extraordinary license. Duroc alone, with his tranquil air, does not think himself entitled to preach sermons to me. You shall find, gentlemen, by God, that I can square my hat as well as any man; Lannes has already experienced it; and I do not think he will enjoy much his eating of oranges at Lisbon. As for you, Junot, do not rely too much on my friendship. The day on which I doubt of yours, mine is destroyed!

"My General,' replied Junot, profoundly afflicted at being so much misunderstood," it is not at the moment that I am giving you the strongest proof of my devotion, that you should thus address me. Ask my blood; ask my life; they belong to you, and shall be freely rendered; but to order me to do a thing which will cover us all with

"Go on,' he interrupted, go on, by all means. What will happen to me because I retaliate on a perfidious government the injuries which it has heaped upon me?'

"Well then, before an hour is over, you must take measures instantly, so that all the English, without one single exception, shall be instantly arrested. Room enough for them will be found in the Temple, the Force, the Abbaye, "It does not belong to me,' replied Junot, and the other prisons of Paris; it is indispen-'to decide upon what line of conduct is suitsable that they should all be arrested. We able to you. Of this, however, I am well asmust teach their government, that entrenched sured, that if any thing unworthy of your glory though they are in their isle, they can be reach- is attempted, it will be from your eyes being ed by an enemy who is under no obligation fascinated by the men, who only disquiet you to treat their subjects with any delicacy. The by their advice, and incessantly urge you to wretches,' said he, striking his fist violently on measures of severity. Believe me, my Genethe table, they refuse Malta, and assign as a ral, these men do you infinite mischief.' reason'

'Who do you mean?' said Napoleon. "Junot mentioned the names of several, and stated what he knew of them.

666 -Here his anger choked his voice, and he was some time in recovering himself. "They assign as a reason, that Lucien has influenced, by my desire, the determinations of the Court of Spain, in regard to a reform of the Clergy; and they refuse to execute the Treaty of Amiens, on pretence that, since it was signed, the situation of the contracting parties had changed.'

"Junot was overwhelmed; but the cause of his consternation was not the rupture with England. It had been foreseen, and known for several days. But in the letters which were

"Nevertheless, these men are devoted to me,' replied he. One of them said the other day, "If the First Consul were to desire me to kill my father, I would kill him."'

"I know not, my General,' replied Junot, 'what degree of attachment to you it is, to sup pose you capable of giving an order to a son to put to death his own father. But it matters not; when one is so unfortunate as to think in that manner, they seldom make it public.'

"Two years afterwards, the First Consul, | how deep must have been the wounds which who was then Emperor, spoke to me of that have changed this lightsome character! For scene, after my return from Portugal, and told me that he was on the point of embracing Junot at these words: so much was he struck with these noble expressions addressed to him, his general, his chief, the man on whom alone his destiny depended. For in fine,' said the Emperor, smiling, 'I must own I am rather unreasonable when I am angry, and that you know, Madame Junot.'

the joyous Frenchman laughs no more; and if he still has some happy days, the sun of gaiety has set for ever. This change has taken place during the fifteen years which have followed the Restoration; while the horrors of the wars of religion, the tyrannical reigns of Louis XI. and XIV., and even the bloody days of the Convention, produced no such effect."

V. 142.

garity, which has arisen from the democratic invasions of later times. Listen to this ardent supporter of the revolutionary order of things, on this subject:

"As for my husband, the conversation which Like all the other writers on the modern he had with the First Consul was of the warm- state of France, of whatever school or party est description. He went the length of remind- in politics, Madame Junot is horrified with the ing him, that at the departure of the ambassa-deterioration of manners, and increased vuldor, Lord Whitworth, the most solemn assurances had been given him of the safety of all the English at Paris. There are,' said he, ' amongst them, women, children, and old men; there are numbers, my General, who night and morning pray to God to prolong your days. They are for the most part persons engaged in trade, for almost all the higher classes of that nation have left Paris. The damage they would sustain from being all imprisoned, is immense. Oh, my General! it is not for you whose noble and generous mind so well comprehends whatever is grand in the creation, to confound a generous nation with a perfidious cabinet.'"VI. 406-410.

With the utmost difficulty, Junot prevailed on Napoleon to commute the original order, which had been for immediate imprisonment, into one for the confinement of the unfortunate British subjects in particular towns, where it is well known most of them lingered till delivered by the Allies in 1814. But Napoleon never forgave this interference with his wrath; and shortly after, Junot was removed from the government of Paris, and sent into honourable exile to superintend the formation of a corps of grenadiers at Arras.

The great change which has taken place in the national character of France since the Restoration, has been noticed by all writers on the subject. The Duchess of Abrantes' observations on the subject are highly curious.

"At that time, (1801,) the habits of good company were not yet extinct in Paris; of the old company of France, and not of what is now termed good company, and which prevailed thirty years ago only among postilions and stable-boys. At that period, men of good birth did not smoke in the apartments of their wives, because they felt it to be a dirty and disgusting practice; they generally washed their hands; when they went out to dine, or to pass the evening in a house of their acquaintance, they bowed to the lady at its head in entering and retiring, and did not appear so abstracted in their thoughts as to behave as they would have done in an hotel. They were then careful not to turn their back on those with whom they conversed, so as to show only an ear or the point of a nose to those whom they addressed. They spoke of something else, besides those eternal politics on which no two can ever agree, and which give occasion only to the interchange of bitter expressions. There has sprung from these endless disputes, disunion in families, the dissolution of the oldest friendships, and the growth of hatred which will continue till the grave. Experience proves that in these contests no one is ever convinced, and that each goes away more than ever persuaded of the truth of his own opinions.

"Down to the year 1800, the national character had undergone no material alteration. "The customs of the world now give me That character overcame all perils, disregard- nothing but pain. From the bosom of the reed all dangers, and even laughed at death it-tirement where I have been secluded for these self. It was this calm in the victims of the fifteen years, I can judge, without prepossesRevolution which gave the executioners their sion, of the extraordinary revolution in manprincipal advantage. A friend of my acquaint-ners which has lately taken place. Old imance, who accidentally found himself surrounded by the crowd who were returning from witnessing the execution of Madame du Barri, heard two of the women in the street speaking to each other on the subject, and one said to the other, 'How that one cried out! If they all cry out in that manner, I will not return again to the executions.' What a volume of reflections arise from these few words spoken, with all the unconcern of those barbarous days!

pressions are replaced, it is said, by new ones; that is all. Are, then, the new ones superior? I cannot believe it. Morality itself is rapidly undergoing dissolution; every character is contaminated, and no one knows from whence the poison is inhaled. Young men now lounge away their evenings in the box of a theatre, or the Boulevards, or carry on elegant conversation with a fair seller of gloves and perfumery, make compliments on her lily and vermilion cheeks, and present her with a cheap ting, ac "The three years of the Revolution follow-companied with a gross and indelicate compli ing 1793, taught us to weep, but did not teach us to cease to laugh. They laughed under the are yet stained with blood;-they laughed as the victim slept at Venice under the burning irons which were to waken his dreams. Alas!

ment. Society is so disunited, that it is daily becoming more vulgar, in the literal sense of the word. Whence any improvement is to arise, God only knows."-V. 156, 157.

While we are concluding these observations

the first revolt. They have now fought with the utmost fury against the people, as they did at Lyons, and French blood has amply stained their bayonets; but it has come too late to wash out the stain of their former treason, or revive the liberties which it lost for their country.

another bloody revolt has occurred at Paris; | sequent sufferings of their country, and the the three glorious days of June have come to total extinction of their liberties on the last crown the work, and develope the consequences occasion, were owing to their vacillation in of the three glorious days of July.* After a desperate struggle, maintained with much greater resolution and vigour on the part of the insurgents than the insurrection which proved fatal to Charles X.; after Paris having been the theatre, for three days, of bloodshed and devastation; after 75,000 men had been engaged against the Revolutionists; after the. Polignac is now completely justified for al thunder of artillery had broken down the Re- but the incapacity of commencing a change publican barricades, and showers of grape- of the constitution with 5000 men, four pieces shot had thinned the ranks of the citizen-sol- of cannon, and eight rounds of grape-shot to diers, the military force triumphed, and peace support it. The ordinances of Charles X., now was restored to the trembling city. What has adopted with increased severity by Louis Phibeen the consequence? All the forms of law lippe, were destined to accomplish, without have been suspended; military commissions bloodshed, that change which the fury of deestablished; domiciliary visits become univer-mocracy rendered necessary, and without sal; several thousand persons thrown into which it has been found the Throne of the prison; and, before this, the fusillades of the Barricades cannot exist. It is evident that new heroes of the Barricades have announced the French do not know what freedom is. They to a suffering country that the punishment of had it under the Bourbons, as our people had their sins has commenced. The liberty of the it under the old constitution; but it would not press is destroyed, the editors delivered over content them, because it was not liberty, but to military commissions, the printing presses power, not freedom, but democracy, not exof the opposition journals thrown into the emption from tyranny, but the power of tyranSeine, and all attempts at insurrection, or nizing over others, that they desired. They words tending to excite it, and all offences of the gained their point, they accomplished their press tending to excite dissatisfaction or revolt, wishes,-and the consequence has been, two handed over to military commissions, com- years of suffering, followed by military desposed exclusively of officers! This is the potism. We always predicted the three glori freedom which the three glorious days have ous days would lead to this result; but the procured for France! termination of the drama has come more rapidly than the history of the first Revolution led us to anticipate.

The soldiers were desperately chagrined and mortified at the result of the three days of July; and well they might be so, as all the sub-1

BOSSUET.

To those who study only the writers of a particular period, or have been deeply immersed in the literature of a certain age, it is almost incredible how great a change is to be found in the human mind as it there appears, as compared with distant times, and how much even the greatest intellects are governed by the circumstances in which they arise, and the prevailing tone of the public mind with which they are surrounded. How much soever we may ascribe, and sometimes with justice ascribe, to the force and ascendant of individual genius, nothing is more certain than that, in the general case, it is external events and circumstances which give a certain bent to human speculation, and that the most original thought is rarely able to do much more than anticipate by a few years, the simultaneous efforts of inferior intellects. Generally, it will be found that particular seasons or periods in the great year of nations or of the world, bring forth their own appropriate

Written on the day when the accounts of the defeat of the great Revolt at the Cloister of Silleri by Louis Philippe and Marshal Soult were received.

fruits: it is rarely that in June can be matured those of September. The changes which have made the greatest and most lasting alteration on the progress of science or the march of human affairs-printing, gunpowder, steam navigation-were brought to light, it is hardly known how, and by several different persons, so nearly at the same time, that it is difficult to say to whom the palm of original invention is to be awarded. The discovery of fluxions, awarded by common consent to the unapproachable intellect of Newton, was made about the same time by his contemporaries, Leibnitz and Gregory; the honours of original thought in political economy are divided be tween Adam Smith and the French economists; the improvements on the steam-engine were made in the same age by Watt and Arkwright; and the science of strategy was developed with equal clearness in the German treatise of the Archduke Charles, as the contemporary treatises of Jomini and Napoleon. The greatest intellect perceives only the coming light; the rays of the rising sun strike first upon the summits of the mountains, but his ascending

beams will soon illuminate the slopes on their | sures of Hope. Coleridge and Wordsworth sides, and the valleys at their feet. passed for little better than imaginative illuThere is, however, a considerable variety minati with the great bulk of their contempoin the rapidity with which the novel and ori-raries. ginal ideas of different great men are communicated to their contemporaries; and hence the extraordinary difference between the early celebrity which some works, destined for future immortality, have obtained in comparison of others. This has long been matter of familiar observation to all persons at all acquainted with literary history. The works of some great men have at once stepped into that celebrity which was their destined meed through every subsequent age of the world, while the productions of others have languished on through a long period of obscurity, unnoticed by all save a few elevated minds, till the period arrived when the world became capable of understanding their truth, or feeling their beauty. The tomb of Euripides, at Athens, bore that all Greece mourned at his obsequies. We learn from Pliny's Epistles, that even in his own lifetime, immortality was anticipated not only for Tacitus, but all who were noticed in his annals. Shakspeare, though not yet arrived at the full maturity of his fame, was yet well known to, and enthusiastically admired by his contemporaries. Lope de Vega amassed a hundred thousand crowns in the sixteenth century, by the sale of his eighteen hundred plays. Gibbon's early volumes obtained a celebrity in the outset nearly as great as his elaborate and fascinating work has since attained. In the next generation after Adam Smith, his principles were generally embraced, and largely acted upon by the legislature. The first edition of Robertson's Scotand sold off in a month; and Sir Walter Scott, by the sale of his novels and poems, was able, in twenty years, besides entertaining all the literary society of Europe, to purchase the large estate, and rear the princely fabric, library, and armory of Abbotsford.

Instances, on the other hand, exist in equal number, and perhaps of a still more striking character, in which the greatest and most profound works which the human mind has ever produced have remained, often for a long time, unnoticed, till the progress of social affairs brought the views of others generally to a level with that of their authors. Bacon bequeathed his reputation in his last testament to the generation after the next; so clearly did he perceive that more than one race of men must expire before the opinions of others attained the level of his own far-seeing sagacity. Burke advanced principles in his French Revolution f which we are now, only now, beginning, after the lapse of half a century, to feel the full truth and importance. Hume met with so little encouragement in the earlier volumes of nis history, that but for the animating assurances of a few enlightened friends, he has himself told us, he would have resigned his task in despair. Milton sold the Paradise Lost for five pounds, and that immortal work languished on with a very limited sale till, fifty years afterwards, it was brought into light by the criticisms of Addison. Campbell for years could not find a bookseller who would buy the Plea

The principle which seems to regulate this remarkable difference is this: Where a work of genius either describes manners, characters, or scenes with which the great bulk of mankind are familiar, or concerning which they are generally desirous of obtaining informa tion; or if it advance principles which, based on the doctrines popular with the multitude, lead them to new and agreeable results, or deduces from them conclusions slightly in advance of the opinions of the age, but lying in the same direction, it is almost sure of meeting with immediate popularity. Where, on the other hand, it is founded on principles which are adverse to the prevailing current of public opinion-where it sternly asserts the great principles of religion and morality, in opposition to the prejudices or passions of a corrupted age-when it advocates the necessity of a rational and conservative government, in the midst of the fervor of innovation or the passion of revolution-when it stigmatizes present vices, or reprobates present follies, or portrays the consequences of present iniquity-when it appeals to feelings and virtues which have passed from the breasts of the present generation-the chances are that it will meet with present admiration only from a few enlightened or virtuous men, and that a different generation must arise, possibly a new race of mankind become dominant, before it attains that general popularity which is its destined and certain reward. On this account the chances are much against the survivance, for any considerable period, of any work, either on religion, politics, or morals, which has early attained to a very great celebrity, because the fact of its having done so is, in general, evidence of its having fallen in, to an extent inconsistent with truth, with the prevailing opinions and prejudices of the age. In such opinions there is almost always a considerable foundation of truth, but as commonly a large intermixture of error. Principles are, by the irreflecting mass, in general pushed too far; due weight is not given to the considerations on the other side; the concurring influence of other causes is either overlooked or disregarded. This is more particularly the case with periods of general excitement, whether on religious or political subjects, insomuch that there is hardly an instance of works which attained an early and extraordinary celebrity at such eras having survived the fervour which gave them birth, and the general concurrence of opinion in which they were cradled. Where are now the innumerable polemical writings which issued both from the Catholic and Protestant divines during the fervour of the Reformation? Where the forty thousand tracts which convulsed the nation in the course of the great Rebellion? Where the deluge of enthusiasm and infidelity which overspread the world at the commencement of the French Revolution? On the other hand, the works which have survived such periods of general fervour are those whose