Glorious Days. The romantic school of fiction, indeed, had been steadily growing up under the Restoration; and accordingly, the dramatised tales of Sir Walter Scott had banished in all but the Theatre Français the works of Racine and Corneille from the stage. But it was not till the triumph of the Barricades had cast down the barriers of authority and influence, and let in a flood of licentiousness upon all the regions of thought, that the present intermixture of extravagance and sensuality took place. Still this grievous and demoralising effect is not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to that event, important as it has been in scattering far and wide the seeds of evil. It is not by a mere prætorian tumult in the capital that a nation is demoralised: Rome had twenty such urban and military revolutions as that which overthrew Charles X., without experiencing any material addition to the deep-rooted sources of imperial corruption. It was the first Revolution, with its frightful atrocities and crying sins, which produced this fatal effect; the second merely drew aside the feeble barrier which the Government of the Restoration had opposed to its devastation. present monstrous and unprecedented state of French literature is to be seen the faithful mirror of the state of the public mind produced by that convulsion; of that chaos of thoughts and passions and recollections, which has resulted from a successful insurrection not only against the Government, but against the institutions and the belief of former times; of the extravagance and frenzy of the human mind, when turned adrift, without either principle or authority to direct it, into the stormy sea of passion and pleasure.

In the

The graver and more weighty works which were appearing in such numbers under the Restoration, have all ceased with the victory of the populace. The resplendent genius of Chateaubriand no longer throws its lustre over the declining virtue of the age; the learning and philosophy of Guizot is turned aside from the calm speculations of history to the turbulent sea of politics. Thierry has ceased to diffuse over the early ages of feudal times the discriminating light of sagacious inquiry: the pen of Barante conveys no longer, in clear and vivid colours, the manners of the fourteenth to the nineteenth century; Thiers, transformed into an ambitious politician, strives in vain, in his measures as a

Minister, to counteract the influence of his writings as an historian; the fervent spirit of Beranger is stilled; the poetic glow of Lamartine is quenched; the pictured page of Salvandy is employed only in portraying the deplorable state of social and moral disorganisation consequent on the triumph of the Barricades. Instead of these illustrious men has sprung up a host of minor writers, who pander to the depraved taste of a corrupted age; the race of Dumas, and Victor Hugos, and Janins-men who reflect like the cameleon the colours of the objects by which they are surrounded, and earn, like the opera-dancer, a discreditable livelihood, by exciting the passions or ministering to the pleasures of a depraved and licentious metropolis.

Thus, on all sides, and in every department of government, religion, morals, and literature, is the debasing and pernicious influence of the Revolution manifesting itself. The thin veil which concealed the progress of corruption during the Restoration, is torn aside; government is settling down into despotism, religion into infidelity, morals into licentiousness, literature into depraved extravagance. What is to be the final issue of these melancholy changes, it is impossible confidently to predict; but of this we may be well assured, that it is not till the fountains of wickedness are closed by the seal of religion, and the stream of thought is purified by suffering, that the disastrous consequences of two successful convulsions can be arrested, or freedom established on a secure basis, or public felicity based on a durable foundation.

THE AFFGHANISTAN EXPEDITION

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, FEB. 1840]

"IN the light of precaution," says Gibbon, "all conquest must be ineffectual unless it could be universal; for, if successful, it only involves the belligerent power in additional difficulties and a wider sphere of hostility." All ages have demonstrated the truth of this profound observation. The Romans conquered the neighbouring states of Italy and Gaul, only to be brought into collision with the fiercer and more formidable nations of Germany and Parthia. Alexander overran Media and Persia, only to see his armies rolled back before the arms of the Scythians or the innumerable legions of India; and the empire of Napoleon, victorious over the states of Germany and Italy, recoiled at length before the aroused indignation of the Northern powers. The British empire in India, the most extraordinary work of conquest which modern times have exhibited, forms no exception to the truth of this general principle. The storming of Seringapatam, and the overthrow of the House of Tippoo, only exposed us to the incursions of the Mahratta horse. The subjugation of the Mahrattas involved us in a desperate and doubtful conflict with the power of Holkar. After his subjugation, we came in contact with the independent and brave mountaineers of Nepaul; and even their submission, and the establishment of the British frontier on the summit of the Himalayan snows, has not given that security to our Eastern possessions for which its rulers have so long and strenuously contended; and beyond the stream of the Indus, even to the skirts of the Hindoo Koosh, it has been deemed necessary to establish the terror of the British arms, and the influence of the British name.

That such an incursion into Central Asia has vastly extended the sphere both of our diplomatic and hostile relations; that it has brought us in contact with the fierce and barbarous northern tribes, and erected our outposts almost within sight of the Russian videttes, is no impeachment whatever of the wisdom and expediency of the measure, if it has been conducted with due regard to prudence and the rules of art in its execution. It is the destiny of all conquering powers to be exposed to this necessity of advancing in their course. Napoleon constantly said, and he said with justice, that he was not to blame for the conquests he undertook; that he was forced on by invincible necessity; that he was the head merely of a military republic, to which exertion was existence; and that the first pause in his advance was the commencement of his fall. No one can study the eventful history of his times, without being satisfied of the justice of these observations. The British empire in the East is not, indeed, like his in Europe, one based on injustice and supported by pillage. Protection and improvement, not spoliation and misery, have followed in the rear of the English flag; and the sable multitudes of Hindostan now permanently enjoy that protection and security which heretofore they had only tasted under the transient reigns of Baber and Aurungzebe. But still, notwithstanding all its experienced benefits, the British rule in Hindostan is essentially that of opinion; it is the working and middle classes who are benefited by its sway. The interests and passions of too many of the rajahs and nobility are injured by its continuance, to render it a matter of doubt that a large and formidable body of malcontents is to be found within the bosom of the Company's territories, who would take advantage of the first external disaster to raise again the long-forgotten standard of independence; and that, equally with the empire of Napoleon in Europe, our first movement of serious retreat would be the commencement of our fall. Nor would soldiers be wanting to aid the dispossessed nobles in the recovery of their pernicious authority. Whoever raises the standard of even probable warfare, is sure of followers in India; the war castes throughout Hindostan, the Rajpoots and Mahometans of the northern provinces, are panting for the signal of hostilities, and the moment the standard of

native independence is raised, thousands of horse would cluster around it, ardent to carry the spear and the torch into peaceful villages, and renew the glorious days of Mahratta pillage and conflagration.

But it is not only within our natural frontier of the Indus and the Himalaya that the necessity of continually advancing, if we would exist in safety, is felt in the British empire in the East. The same necessity is imposed upon it by its external relations with foreign powers. It is too powerful to be disregarded in the balance of Asiatic politics; its fame has extended far into the regions of China and Tartary; its name must be respected or despised on the banks of the Oxus and the shores of the Araxes. The various powers which lie between the British and Russian frontiers cannot remain neutral; they must be influenced by the one or the other power. "As little," said Alexander the Great, "as the heavens can admit of two suns, can the earth admit of two rulers of the East."

Strongly as all nations, in all ages, have been impressed with military success as the mainspring of diplomatic advances, there is no part of the world in which it is so essential to political influence as in the East. Less informed than those of Europe in regard to the real strength of their opponents, and far less prospective in their principles of policy, the nations of Asia are almost entirely governed by present success in their diplomatic conduct. Remote or contingent danger produces little impression upon them; present peril only is looked at. They never negotiate till the dagger is at their throat; but when it is there, they speedily acquiesce in whatever is exacted of them. Regarding the success of their opponents as the indication of the will of destiny, they bow, not only with submission, but with cheerfulness to it. All our diplomatic advances in the East, accordingly, have followed in the train of military advantages; all our failures have been consequent on the neglect to assert with due spirit the rights and dignity of the British empire. The celebrated Roman maxim, parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, is not there a principle of policy; it is a rule of necessity. It is the condition of existence to every

powerful state.

The court of Persia is in an especial manner subject to