from which absolute governments are comparatively free-the creation of offices for the sake of patronage. An absolute monarch can give money, and that is always the cheapest way of rewarding or buying. In a mixed government, a place is created or retained, duties are attached to it-generally useless, often mischievous; still, as they are troublesome, they must be remunerated, and a claimant who would have been satisfied with L.100 a-year as a pension, must have L.300 on the condition of residence and employment. It is thus that England retains its three hundred Ecclesiastical Courts. Every one admits that two hundred and ninety-nine of them are instruments for the creation of trouble, delay, and expense. An absolute government would sweep them away by a decree of ten lines. Every year the mixed government of England attacks them, and is repulsed.

Second, The amount of the standing army of a nation seems to depend little on the form of its government. The largest in proportion to its population is that of Holland; the next is that of France; the smallest is that of China. When Spain and Portugal were absolute monarchies, their standing armies were trifling, and so are those of most of the Italian monarchies. Ireland, with eight millions of people, requires a standing army more than twice as large as is necessary in Great Britain, with a population of above twenty-one millions.

So

Third, Again, with respect to centralization. France, under a mixed government, is incomparably more centralized than she was under an absolute monarch. The local administration of Spain under her absolute kings was almost democratic. was that of Norway, when she formed part of the absolute monarchy of Denmark: So is that of India, though she has been ruled by absolute monarchs for twenty-five centuries. An Indian village scarcely knows the existence of its monarch except through his revenue-officers. The fortunes and lives of the inhabitants are at his mercy; but while his taxes are paid, he abstains from all interference. The tendency of the British government is at once towards democracy and centralization; and every advance towards the former is generally accompanied by a much greater advance towards the latter. So far from believing that the exclusion of the people from political power is likely to exclude them from the management of their local interests, we are inclined to think that an absolute government, partly to avoid trouble, partly to avoid expense, and still more from carelessness, is more likely than any other to abandon to the parishioners what it considers the trifling matters of the parish. Fourth, Primogeniture is natural only in a peculiar state of so

ciety, that in which the possession of land gives political power, proportioned in some measure to its extent or value; and even then seldom exists except among the owners of land. It is essentially an aristocratic custom. In Oriental despotisms, therefore, where the land is generally the property of the sovereign, it is unknown. It is rare in the United States of America, except in the Southern States, where a proprietor can vote for his slaves. It is rare in the British islands, excepting among the high landed aristocracy. No man with a fortune consisting of L.20,000 in the funds, or even of a landed estate worth only L.20,000, thinks of making an eldest son. Even if it were lawful in France, it probably would be uncommon. The aristocratic element is so weak in France, that the slight amount of political power which a man could secure to his son by leaving to him his whole property, would seldom be sufficient to conquer his natural feelings of parental justice. The prevalence of primogeniture in the absolute European monarchies, arises from the former prevalence among them all of the aristocratic element. The monarchs have always endeavoured to restrain it. In England, perpetual entails were abolished by the Tudors, the race under whom the monarchical element was strongest. In Scotland, where the aristocratic element has always been more powerful than in any other part of the British islands, a larger proportion of the land is subject to perpetual primogeniture than in any country in Europe, except perhaps some parts of Ger

many.

We cannot think, therefore, that either extravagance, standing armies, centralization, or primogeniture, flow naturally from the monarchical principle. And we must add, that even if we thought monarchy peculiarly favourable to these three latter institutions, we should not treat that tendency as necessarily a vice. Standing armies, indeed, may be too large, and centralization may be excessive; and such is generally the case on the Continent of Europe. But they each may be deficient. The standing army of America is insufficient to keep her at peace at home or abroad, to prevent her inhabitants from injuring one another, or from attacking her neighbours. The local authorities of England are the seats of ignorance, selfishness, jobbing, corruption, and often of oppression. Every diminution of their power has been an improvement: and, if we had room, we could show that the case is the same as to primogeniture. Both the power to entail, and the wish to exercise it, may certainly be excessive, as we think they both are in Scotland and in Germany; but both or either of them may be deficient, as we think they both are in France and in Hindostan.

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We agree with Lord Brougham that the influence of absolute monarchy, even when tempered by European civilization, is unfavourable to the character of its subjects. We agree with him that it is destructive of free action, and, to a certain degree, of free speech, and that it impairs most of the manly and independent virtues. But we do not believe that the alarms, the suspicions, and the precautions prevalent in the society of the superior classes in Italy and Germany, are almost equal to any 'which can be observed in the courts of the East.' That where every man of eminence is conscious that he hates the existing government, and is anxious to subvert it, he should be always on his guard against betraying his feelings and his wishes to the distributors of punishment and favour and that the government itself, knowing that all the ground beneath it is mined, should be always on the watch for an explosion-all this is inevitable in countries which have been recently the scenes of revolutionary movement; and where the sovereign owes his power to conquest, or to foreign support, or to promises treacherously evaded or shamelessly broken. But this state of mutual alarm, suspicion, and precaution, is not a necessary incident to the absolute European monarchies. It does not exist in Prussia, or in Denmark, or in the German provinces of Austria, or, in fact, in any portion of Europe, except parts of Russia, Poland, and Italy. On political subjects, without doubt, there is less freedom of speech in Vienna or in Berlin than in Edinburgh or in London; but there are other subjects on which there is much more; and we believe that it would be safer to talk Chartism in Naples than Abolition in New Orleans.

We fear that we shall be thought paradoxical if we suggest some doubts as to the superiority which Lord Brougham ascribes to the principle of succession, over that of election, in absolute monarchies. In limited monarchies, where the King reigns but does not govern-where he has only to accept the ministers who can obtain a parliamentary majority, to sign whatever they lay before him, and to receive their resignations when they find it necessary to retire there is scarcely any drawback to the advantages of hereditary succession. The sovereign's great office is to be a keystone, merely to fill space-to occupy the supreme station, in order to keep others out of it. He may be perhaps it is better that he should be the person in his kingdom who knows least, and cares least, about politics. His personal character is comparatively unimportant. We say comparatively; because, even in the most limited monarchy, the social influence of the sovereign for good or for evil is considerable. His habits and tastes are always matters of notoriety, and often of imitation.

VOL. LXXXI. NO. CLXIII.

Access to his society is always coveted. He may give that access in a manner useful, or mischievous, or absolutely indifferent. He may call to his court those who are most distinguished by genins or by knowledge; or those whose only merit is their birth or their station; or parasites, buffoons, or profligates. Even in the appointment of ministers, he may sometimes exercise a sort of selection. He is sometimes able to delay for a short period the fall of those whom he likes, and the accession of those whom he dislikes; and he can sometimes permanently exclude an individual. But even these powers he can seldom exercise unless in a state of balanced parties. If one party have a decided ascendency in the legislative assemblies, and in the constituencies, the limited sovereign is little more than a phantom; and there can be no doubt that it is better that a phantom should be hereditary. An absolute King always is, or ought to be, a substance. Supposing such a monarch to covet the leisure, the quiet, and the irresponsibility of a limited King-to desire that the fittest persons should be his ministers, and manage public affairs without his interference-how is he to discover who are the fittest persons? How is he to avoid appointing or retaining persons positively unfit? He has no parliament to direct his choice-no opposition to expose the errors of those whom he has chosen; he cannot mix in society, and hear the independent voice of public opinion. Even the press gives him little assistance; first, because a free press probably cannot exist-certainly never does exist in an absolute monarchy; and secondly, because the press is never a well-informed, an impartial, or even an incorrupt adviser. A King governed by newspapers would resemble a Judge who should allow himself to be influenced by anonymous letters. There is one mode, and only one mode, by which he eam satisfy himself that his ministers are fit for their office; and that is, by giving up his scheme of non-interference, and performing himself a great part of their functions. Every absolute King who is an honest man, must be in constant communication with the beads of every department-he must take part in every — rust exercise his own judgment on every important Mourete past, in short, be the chief of his own cubier. Dye if the exercise of the art of government the most incer ters, the most complicated, and the most diñent of es—de pe wick recurres must knowledge, mest intrees, and mast vinar v to be over INU S VERSIO IN001ZAL DE #ocupa, pond, # Land Svugdam das wei, remarked, proudly redupret by edzo a gred is it that he was 14 NL LE, SOME Wegar guzweg roligge mama wanachaine des ENTENAS ZI

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chances of civil war. But does this advantage really exist? If Europe possessed a universal, a well known, and an unalterable law of hereditary royal succession, and if the facts calling that law into operation were always certain and always notorious, so that, on the decease of a King, there never could be a doubt as to his legitimate successor, we should have, what Lord Brougham terms, the hereditary principle of succession in perfection. But it is obyious that such a law does not exist, and cannot exist. In some absolute monarchies, the law of succession excludes females in others it excludes foreigners in all it excludes bastards and in all it necessarily can be altered by the reigning monarch. If the Salic be the existing law, and the monarch has only daughters, he abolishes it, like Ferdinand VII. of Spain. If it admit females, and the reigning monarch wishes to exclude them, he abolishes it, and introduces the Salic law, like Philip V, of Spain. In each case a civil war is probable. If he have no issue, he adopts if his issue be illegitimate, he legitimatizes it. Even if it be legitimate, its legitimacy may be contested, and the peace of the kingdom may depend on a mixed question of law and fact, in which every element of the decision may be doubtful. The children of Kings generally make royal marriages, and the party who ascends, or becomes likely to ascend a foreign throne, is generally required, before he leaves his own country, to renounce all claims to its succession. Is such a renunciation binding on the renouncing party? Is it binding on his issue? Those who might claim if there had been no renunciation, always maintain that it is not those who claim against it, that it is; and the consequence is, as in the case of the Spanish succession after Charles II., a complication of foreign and civil war. Again, most monarchies are composite, and the different parts are subject to different laws of succession. Females succeed in Jutland, and are excluded in Holstein. If the Prince-Royal of Denmark should die, as will probably be the case, without male issue, will the kingdom of Denmark be dismembered? If kept entire, will it be at the expense of civil war? Or will the result be an unopposed usurpation, like the retention of Sardinia and Montserrat, both female fiefs, by the present King of Piedmont, in disregard of the claims of his predecessor's daughter? If we compare the wars of succession, foreign and civil, which have laid waste Europe, between the Norman Conquest and the French Revolution, it will be found that they exceed all other wars put together in number, and still more in duration. A war of succession is the most lasting of wars. The hereditary principle keeps it in perpetual life-a war of election is always short, and never

revives.