certain point. Ergo, I shall try a first number.

In the opinions I have already received, I have been enough reminded of Gaffer Grist, Gaffer's son, and a little jackass, &c.; but I have learned this good from it, i. e. to follow my own judgment, adopting from the opinions of others just what I approve of, and no more. One thing

you may depend on, that nothing shall ever interfere with my attention to the school. Thucydides, Register and all, should soon go to the dogs if they were likely to do that. I have got a gallows at last, and am quite happy; it is like getting a new twenty horse power in my capacities for work. I could laugh like Democritus himself at the notion of my being thought a dangerous person, when I hang happily on my gallows, or make it serve as a target to spear at.

xxvIII. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

Rugby, March 20, 1831.

I was reminded of you when I heard of the

great loss that all Europe has sustained in the sudden. death of Niebuhr. I knew your personal admiration and regard for him, and that you would feel his loss privately as well as publicly. Besides all this, the exceedingly anxious state of public affairs has naturally made me think of you, whose views on those matters I had found to be so entirely in agreement with my own. Our accounts of Italy are very imperfect, but there have been reports of disturbances in Rome itself, which made me wish that you and your family were in a more tranquil country, or at least, in one, where, if there were any commotions, you might be able to be of more service than you could be amongst foreigners and Italians.

We were

I was again in Italy this last summer. at Venice during the Revolution at Paris, and the first intelligence I heard of it was from the postmaster at the little town of Bludenz in the Vorarlberg. The circum

stances under which I first heard of it, will never, I think, depart from my memory. We had been enjoying the most delightful summer weather throughout our tour, and particularly in all the early part of that very day; when, just as we arrived at Bludenz, about four or five in the afternoon, the whole sky was suddenly overcast, the wind arose violently, and every thing announced the approach of a complete Alpine storm. We were in the very act of putting up the head of the carriage and preparing for the coming rain, when the postmaster, in answer to an observation of mine about the weather when I had passed through France a few weeks before, seemed to relieve himself by telling me of all the troubles that were then raging. His expression was, "Alles ist übel in Frankreich," the mere tumult and violence of political quarrels seeming to the inhabitant of a Tyrolese valley, as something shocking, because it was so unpeaceful. Hearing only indistinct accounts of what was going on, we resolved not to enter France immediately, but to go round by the Rhine through Wirtemberg and Baden; a plan which I shall now ever think of with pleasure, as otherwise I never should have seen Niebuhr. I was very glad too, to see something more of Germany; only it was rather vexatious to be obliged to pass on so quickly, for I could not wait at Heidelberg long enough to see Creuzer, and my stay even at Bonn was only one afternoon. I had the happiness of sitting three hours with Niebuhr, and he introduced me to his poor wife and children. His conversation completely verified the impression which you had given me of his character, and has left me with no recollections but such as are satisfactory to think of now. The news a of the Duke of Orleans' accession to the French throne reached Bonn while I was with Niebuhr, and I was struck with the enthusiastic joy which he displayed on hearing it. I fully expected that the Revolution in France would lead to one

a See Extracts from Journals, in 1830, in the Appendix.

in Belgium; and indeed, we passed through Brussels scarcely ten days before the insurrection broke out. You are so well acquainted with English politics, that you will take a deep interest in the fate of the Reform Bill, now before Parliament. I believe that, if it passes now, "Felix sæclorum nascitur ordo;" that the aristocracy still retain a strong hold on the respect and regard of England, and if their excessive influence is curtailed, they will be driven to try to gain a more legitimate influence, to be obtained by the exercise of those great and good qualities which so many of them possess. At present this may be done; but five years hence the democratical spirit may have gained such a height, that the utmost virtue on the part of the aristocracy will be unable to save it. And I think nearly the same with regard to the Church. Reform would now, I fully believe, prevent destruction; but every year of delayed reform strengthens those who wish not to amend, but to destroy. Meanwhile, the moral state of France is to me most awful; I sympathized fully with the Revolution in July, but if this detestable warlike spirit gets head amongst the French people, I hope, and earnestly believe, that we shall see another and more effectual coalition of 1815 to put it down. Nothing can be more opposite than Liberalism and Bonapartism; and, I fear, the mass of the French people are more thirsting to renew the old career of spoliation and conquest than to establish or promote true liberty; "for who loves that, must first be wise and good." My hope is that, whatever domestic abuses may exist, Germany will never forget the glorious struggle of 1813, and will know that the tread of a Frenchman on the right bank of the Rhine is the worst of all pollutions to her soil. And I trust and think, that the general feeling in England is strong on this point, and that the whole power of the nation would be heartily put forth to strangle in the birth the first symptoms of Napoleonism. I was at a party in the summer, at Geneva, where I met Thierry, the historian of "Les Gaulois," and the warlike spirit

at

which I perceived, even then, in the French liberals, made a deep impression on me.

XXIX. TO JOHN WARD, ESQ.

(Co-Editor with him of the Englishman's Register.)

Rugby, April 27, 1831.

Your own articles I have carefully read over; and, in style, they more than answer all my expectations. Still, as we are beginning a work which must take its character chiefly from us two, I will fairly say that, considering for whom we are principally writing, I think the spirit too polemical. When I speak of the aristocracy of England bearing hard upon the poor, I always mean the whole class of gentlemen, and not the nobility or great landed and commercial proprietors. I cannot think that you or I suffer from any aristocracy above us, but we ourselves belong to a part of society which has not done its duty to the poor, although, with no intention to the contrary, but much the reverse. Again, I regard the Ministerial Reform Bill as a safe and a necessary measure, and I should, above all things, dread its rejection, but I cannot be so sanguine as you are about its good effects; because I think that the people are quite as likely to choose men who will commit blunders and injustice as the boroughmongers are, though not exactly of the same sort. Above all, in writing to the lower people, my object is much more to improve them morally than politically; and I would, therefore, carefully avoid exciting political violence in them. Now so far as the Register is concerned, I care comparatively little about the Reform Bill, but I should wish to explain, as you have done most excellently, the baseness of corruption on one hand, and as I think you might do, the mischief of party and popular excitement on the other. I should urge the duty of trying to learn the merits of the case, and that an ignorant vote is little better than a corrupt one, where the ignorance

could in any degree be helped. But in such an address I would not assume that the Reform Bill would do all sorts of good, and that every honest man must be in favour of it: because such assertions, addressed to ignorant men, are doing the very thing I deprecate, i. e. trying rather to get their vote, than to make that vote, whether it be given for us or against us, really independent and respectable. Again, with the debt. It is surely a matter of importance to show that the greatest part of our burthens is owing to this, and not to present extravagance. It affords a memorable lesson against foolish and unjust wars, and the selfish carelessness with which they were waged. This you have put very well, and have properly put down the nonsense of the "Debt being no harm.” Urge all this as strongly as you will, to prevent any repetition of the loan system for the time to come. But the fundholders are not to blame for the Debt; they lent their money; and if the money was wasted, that was no fault of theirs. Pay the debt off, if you will and can, or make a fair adjustment of the advantages and disadvantages of different sorts of property, with a view of putting them all on equal terms; but surely the fundholder's dividends are as much his lawful property as a landholder's estate, or a merchant's or manufacturer's capital, liable justly, like all other property, to the claims of severe national distress; but only together with other property, and by no means as if it were more just in the nation to lay hands on the fundholder's dividends than on the profits of your law or of my school. Nor can the fundholders be fairly said to be living in idleness at the expense of the nation in any invidious sense, any more than your clients who borrowed my money could say it of me, if they had borrowed £10,000 of me instead of £300, and then choose to go and fool it away in fireworks and illuminations. If they had spent the principal

a On this he felt at all times strongly. "Woe be to that generation," he would say, "that is living in England when the coalmines are exhausted and the National Debt not paid off."