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look over the new penal code of France and perceive the great improvement made not only on French but British laws, they will surely discover so much sense of shame, as not in future to oppose any attempt to follow in this instance the laudable example of an enemy. Various Reports have been presented to the house from different committees, and from the committee of Finance in par ticular, pointing out abuses, useless offices, sinecures, holding up public defaulters, &c. &c. But these Reports seem to produce little other effect than to display such abuses to public view, and to excite the indignation of those who have no power to rectify them.

Various petitions have likewise been presented from oppressed individuals, Mr. FINNERTY, Mr. DRAKARD, &c. These petitions have been ordered to lay on the table, but like all similar petitions, may lay there till doomsday, or as long as the table of the house of Commons, or the house itself shall remain. Not a motion has been made for inquiry into, or for the removal of trational abuses, but it has been negatived, by larger majorities than usual. There has been searcly a session for these twenty years past, in which the minority have been so neglectful of their duty, so miserable in point of numbers, or ministers have had majorities so large and triumphant.

The state of the PRESS is such as must justly alarm every friend to that most valuable right to freemen-FREE DISCUSSION. Let any one read the opinions which have been lately promulgated, or revived, in the court of King's Bench, respecting the law of libels; the contradictory opinions issuing from the highest legal authorities; the conduct of one jury in condemning that freedom of discussion, which another jury had pronounced innocent, the useful tendency of which discussion had been virtually acknowledged even by the legislature, in a clause adopted in the mutiny bill, which allows a court martial to commute the horrible and degrading punishment of flogging with a cat of nine tails, for imprisonment. From the legal proceedings to which we have alluded; from the revival of the doctrine, that "truth is a libel to be punished if it tends to hurt the feelings of men in office," every independent writer on state abuses, must feel that his liberty, so much boasted by others, is connivance only; and that his property and his personal and social comforts lie entirely at the mercy of au Attorney General, who may half ruin him by indictments which he may never prosecute, or complete his ruin by prosecution; and that evidence adduced to substantiate the truth of a publication, will not be allowed in justication--no-nor, should a contemptible, servile jury pronounce the verdict-Truth is a libel-even in mitigation of punishment!

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As long however, as our present most corrupt representation shall continue, there is no hope that the various abuses, the natural consequence will be removed. As to PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, nothing has been heard on the subject during the past session. Mr. BRAND has, we understand, been frightened out of bis promised motion, by the threatened defection of his party friends, who, judging by their conduct, appear to support the measure only when they are sure it will not be carried into execution!

How long the present system may last it is impossible with precision to determine. If the opinions as lately delivered in the speech in the name of the PRINCE REGENT, ate really those of his Boyal Highness, heaven have mercy on the nation;—and we may indeed join in the exclamation uttered three thousand years since, and which the experience of every succeding age has proved to be perfectly just-Put not your trust in princes! It is impossible for the whole system of the war to be commended in higher terms than in the speech alluded to, which if it does not contain the opinions of the Regent, it is difficult to conceive on what principle of justice or morality such language of deception could have been suffered to be palmed on both houses of perliament, and on the people at large throughout the empire.

Let the people however recollect, that much of the national guilt and the national calamities the sure consequence, are to be imputed to themselves. In a recent instance, the petitions against Lord Sidmouth's bill for violating the Toleration act, they have bad demonstrative evidence what firm, peaceable, and constitu tional efforts may produce. An opportunity will it is probable be shortly afforded to a considerable part of the people of choosing new representatives; but if they can prostitute their consciences by voting on any consideration, for those whose principles and conduct they do not approve, their ruin may justly be imputed to themselves.

We conclude our POLITICAL REVIEW, by repeating the assertions we have so frequently made, and which the experience of every year, confirms the truth of THAT PEACE AND REFORM ARE EQUALLY AND INDISPENSIBLY NECESSARY TO THE SALVATION OF The British EMPIRE: THAT EVERY ATTEMPT ON THE PART OF THIS COUNTRY, BY FORCE OF ARMS TO ABRIDGE THE POWER OF FRANCE, WILL MOST ASSUREDLY END IN ITS INCREASE; AND THAT WITHOUT A RADICAL REFORM OF PARLIAMENT, THE FOUNDATION OF RADICAL REFORM IN THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS OF THE STATE, AND THE CHURCH, OUR SYSTEM OF WAR AND CORRUPTION MUST INEVITABLY TERMINATE IN A REVOLUTION!

Harlow, July 29, 1811.

B. F.

THE

MONTHLY MISCELLANY:

FOR JULY, 1811.

SCARCE AND VALUABLE BOOKS.

THE IDEA OF A PATRIOT KING.
BY LORD BOLINGBROKE.
[Concluded from page 288.]

But I think it proper to explain a little more what I mean, when I say a limited monarchy, that I may leave nothing untouched which ought to be taken into consideration by us, when we attempt to fix our ideas of a Patriot King.

Among many reasons which determine me to prefer monarchy to every form of government, this is a principal one. When monarchy is the essential form, it may be more easily and more usefully tempered with aristocracy or democracy, or both, than either of them, when they are the essential forms, can be tempered with monarchy. It seems to me, that the introduction of a real permanent monarchical power, or any thing more than the pageantry of it, into either of these, must destroy them and extinguish them, as a great light extinguishes a less. Whereas it may easily be shewn, and the true form of our govenment will demonstrate, without seeking any other example, that very considerable aristrocratical and democratical powers may be grafted on a monarchical stock, without diminishing the lustre, or restraining the power and authority of the prince, enough to alter in any degree the essential form.

A great difference is made in nature, and therefore the distinction should be always preserved in our notions, between two things that we are apt to confound in speculation, as they have been confounded in

VOL. IX.

practice, legislative and monarchical power. There must be an absolute, unlimited,and uncontroulable power lodged somewhere in every government; but to constitute monarchy, or the government of a single person, it is not necessary that this power should be lodged in the monarch alone. It is no more necessary that he should exclusively and independently establish the rule of his government, thau it is, that he should govern without any rule at all: and this surely will be thought reasonable by no man.

I would not say God governs by a rule that we know, or may know as well as he, and upon our knowledge of which he appeals to men for the justice of his proceedings towards them; which a famous divine has impiously advanced, in a pretended demonstration of his being and attributes. God forbid! But this I may say, that God does always that which is fittest to be done, and that this fitness, whereof neither that presumptuous dogmatist was, nor any created being is, a competent judge, results from the various natures, and the more various relations of things; so that, as creator of all systems by which these natures and relations are constituted, he prescribed to himself the rule, which he follows as governor of every system of being. In short, with reverence be it spoken, God is a monarch, yet not an arbitrary but a limited monarch, limited by the rule which infinite wisdom prescribes to infinite power. I know well enough the impropriety of these expressions; but when our ideas are inadequate,

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our expressions must needs be improper. Such conceptions however as we are able to form of these attributes, and of the exercise of them in the government of the universe, may serve to show what I have produced them to shew. If governing without any rule, and by arbitrary will, be not essential to our idea of the monarchy of the Supreme Being, it is plainly ridiculous to suppose them necessarily included in the idea of a human monarchy: and though God in his eternal ideas, for we are able to conceive no other manner of knowing, has prescribed to himself that rule by which he governs the universe he created; it will be just as ridiculous to affirm, that the idea of human monarchy cannot be preserved, if kings are obliged to govern according to a rule established by the wisdom of a state, that was a state before they were kings, and by the consent of a people that they did not most certainly create; especially when the whole executive power is exclusively in their hands, and the legislative power cannot be exercised without their concurrence.

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There are limitations indeed that would destroy the essential form of monarchy or in other words, a monarchical constitution may be changed, under pretence of limiting the monarch.This happened among us in the last century, when the vilest usurpation, and the most infamous tyranny, were esta blished over our nation, by some of the worst and some of the meanest men in it. I will not say, that the essential form of monarchy should be preserved, though the preservation of it were to cause the loss of liberty. Sulus reip. suprema lex esto, is a fundamental law and sure I am, the safety of a commonwealth is ill provided for, if the liberty be given up. But this I presume to say, and can demonstrate, that all the limitations necessary to preserve

liberty, as long as the spirit of it subsists, and longer than that, no limitations of monarchy, nor any other form of government, can preserve it, are compatible with monarchy. Ithink on these subjects, neither as the Tories, nor as the Whigs have thought: at least I endeavour to avoid the excesses of both. I neither dress up kings like so many burlesque Jupiters, weighing the fortunes of mankind in the scales of fate, and darting thunderbolts at the heads of rebellious giants: nor do I strip them naked, as it were, and leave them at most a few tattered rags to clothe their majesty, but such as can serve really as little for use as for ornament.— My aim is to fix this principle, that limitations on the crown ought to be carried as far as is necessary to se cure the liberties of a people; and that all such limitations may subsist, without weakening or endangering monarchy.

I shall be told perhaps, for I have heard it said by many, that this point is imaginary, and that limitations sufficient to procure good government, and to secure liberty under a bad prince, cannot be made, unless they are such as will deprive the subjects of many benefits in the reign of a good prince, clog his administration, maintain an unjust jealousy between him and his people, and occasion a defect of power, necessary to preserve the public tran quillity, and to promote the na tional prosperity. If this was true, here would be a much more melan⚫ choly instance of the imperfections of our nature, and of the inefficacy of our reason to supply this imper fection, than the former. In the former, reason prompted by experience avoids a certain evil effectually, and is able to provide, in some measure, against the contingent evils that may arise from the expedient itself. But in the latter, if what is there advanced was true, these

provisions against contingent evils would, in some cases, be the occa sion of much certain evil, and of positive good in none: under a good prince they would render the admiDistration defective; and under a bad one there would be no government at all. But the truth is widely different from this representation. The limitations necessary to preserve liberty under monarchy will restrain effectually a bad prince, without being ever felt as shackles by a good one. Our constitution is brought, or almost brought, to such a point, a point of perfection I think it, that no king who is not, in the true meaning of the word, a patriot, can govern Britain with ease, security, honour, dignity, or indeed with sufficient power and strength. But yet a king, who is a patriot, may govern with all the former; and be sides them, with power as extended as the most absolute monarch can boast, and a power too far more agreeable in the enjoyment, as well as more effectual in the operation.

To attain these great and noble ends, the patriotism must be real, and not in shew alone. It is something to desire to appear a patriot: and the desire of having fame is a step towards deserving it, because it is a motive the more to deserve it. If it be true, as Tacitus says, Contemptu famæ contemni vertutem, that a contempt of a good name, or an indifference about it, begets or accompanies always a contempt of virtue, the contrary will be true; and they are certainly both true. But this motive alone is not sufficient. To constitute a patriot, whether king or subject, there must be some thing more substantial than a desire of fame, in the composition: and if there be not, this desire of fame will never rise above that sentiment which may be compared to the coquetry of women; a fondness of transient applause, which is courted by vanity, given by flattery, and spends

itself in shew, like the qualities which acquire it. Patriotism must be founded in great principles, and supported by great virtues. The chief of these principles I have endeavoured to trace; but I will not scruple to assert, that a man can be a good king upon no other. He may, without them and by complexion, be unambitious, generous, good-natured; but without them the exercise even of these virtues will be often ill directed: and with principles of another sort, he will be drawn easily, notwithstanding these virtues, from all the purposes of his institution.

I mention these opposite principles the rather, because, instead of wondering that so many kings, unfit and unworthy to be trusted with the government of mankind, appear in the world, I have been tempted to wonder that there are any tolerable when I have considered the flattery that environs them most commonly from the cradle, and the tendency of all those false notions that are instilled into them by precept, and by example, by the habits of courts, and by the interested selfish views of courtiers. They are bred to esteem themselves of a distinct and superior species among men, as men among animals.

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Lewis the fourteenth was a strong instance of the effect of this education, which trains up kings to be tyrants, without knowing that they are so. That oppression under which he kept his people, during the whole course of a long reign, might proceed, in some degree, from the natural haughtiness of his temper; but it proceeded in a greater degree, from the principles and habits of his education. By this he had been brought to look on his kingdom as a patrimony that descended to him from his ancestors, and that it was to be considered in no other light: so that when a very considerable man had discoursed to him at large of the miserable condition to which

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