whigs, who were on the point of extending their hands to the partizans of revolutionary reformed Under these considerations, itais painful for a Frenchman to revert to his own country, where a minister of narrow and egotistical views, is compromising the ins terests of the throne by an insidious course of policy, and gradually degrading the national character by a system of corruption and jobbing, worthy at once of Sir R. Walpole and the Abbé Terray. I may, perhaps, be told in this place, that politics ought to be banished from a work announced to be sofa literary character. The wish to exclude politics from literature, is a manoeuvre of ministerial chicanery. How can literature be the reflection of the social image, if prohibited from referring to associations which are naturally obtrudedon all reflecting minds? We should not be surprised at the French ministry patronizing in Shine phraseology, the system pretendingly called classical, but which ought to be called ministerial; a system which tends to deprive France of her popular literature, byeondemning authors to the continual invocation of the divinities and heroes of Rome and Athens, or to the disfigurement of national

ex

subjects, by forms exclusively appertaining to antiquity. The less we attend to our national history, thes less watchful we shall be of the existing government.It was not so with our Greek and Roman models. Epopee, tragedy, comedy, ode, satire, everything with them hade a political object. In conformity with this system, even under the empire, the muse of Claudian took upon herself to exonerate the Gods, when Rufinus had hausted their long indurance. roTaddt moThe French ministry would, no doubt, prefer having no other association with literature, than such as is furnished by subscriptions and dedications. Unfortunately for them, our literature daily assumes a charactermofor more decided independence. The flower of French talent is in the ranks of the opposition, and the unpopular ministers have the daily mortification of seeing it beat vout of the field whatever intellectual eminence may have lent them a transitory assistance.

Ashto myself (for the reader naturally -wishes to know something of the opinions of cantraveller, who relating what he has seen band heard, in conformity with his personal I prepossessions, is necessarily obliged to occupy

the reader. in some small degree, with his personal affairs): as to myself, I say, I amd: afraid I have been occasionally too frank ins revealing my impressions, and that I have to accuse myself of having displayed too marked an independence of opinion, at the hazard of offending all parties at the same timedaywis

I was

"The consequence of being of no party,i ydorsa I shall offend all parties: never mind."

BYRON.

It is lucky that the independence of an obscure author is of little consequence. I am inclined to think, that I shall not even enjoy the honour of extorting a frown from the powers that be, on account of the few malcontent allusions, scattered here and there through my letters. Brought up, as I have been, in monarchical sentiments, my royalist A friends are alone entitled to complain of the too numerous concessions I make to liberal d opinion. But what royalist is not liberal now-a-days? Some few individuals, indeed, may still wish to disguise the circumstance from themselves, by investing their greater or less degree of hostility to power with new phrases. No one escapes the influence of his

aged The revolution has enabled us to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil. All persons have become reasoners,1s in a greater or less degree.com vin geilsoves It was only by the opposition; often by anos appeal to public good sense; and almostys always by a more or less sincere alliance with the new ideas of the age, that the creed of monarchy has recovered its life and popularity, since 1815. It may be added, in order to excuse the discontented spirit of the times, that in all ages, and under all regimes, the people have evinced their resistance, and have imposed conditions, which power has neither been able ១៥៖ to repel by force, nor to elude by compro mise. Would Henry IV. have succeeded in q reigning over Catholic France, if he had not thought that a kingdom was worth a mass? At a later period, protestant England deprived James II. of the crown, because he attempted to reign by means of the Jesuits. Jon et dol

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I shall not, however, seek to exonerate myself from the charge of a few contradictions, real or supposed, which may be brought against me by those who think that, in politics, all principles must be rigorously conca

tenated, as a necessary consequence, with their antecedents, and that an individual is obliged to submit to all the exaggerations of any gi given opinion, on pain of being disavowed by the party holding it. It will be found, therefore, that I defend the catholic religion against anglicanism, without feeling a greater preference for the jesuits; if indeed jesuits can be said to exist in France. I am animated with enthusiasm by old traditions, the prowess of the chivalrous ages, the ruins of feudal towers; but it is not because I survey them through the prism of poetry, that I retain undiminished attachment to the results of the revolution, which I regard as a real indemnity to myself, and all such Frenchmen as have not emigrated. In short, I love liberty, without adopting all its dogmas. I love it as I love Shakspeare, with reference to all which it comprehends of sublime and beautiful. I

Literature is now distinguished, like politics, by its parties and shades of opinion. The ensuing work will shew what are my opinions on standing literary questions. I may recapitulate them by anticipation in saying that, as concerns the arts as well as politics, whatever is arbitrary disgusts me; but that