consider the constitution of Rome, at the period when he had an opportunity of observing it. "When we contemplate the power of the councils, it seems to be a monarchy; when we attend to the power of the senate, it seems to be an aristocracy; when we attend to the power of the people, we are ready to pronounce it a democracy."

To supply so manifest a deficiency, the Roman statesmen praised, without giving it a distinctive name, a fourth form of government, (such as the schoolmen would have called a "participative mean,") which by a judicious intermixture of the other three should combine their merits, and reject their faults. Cicero thought it not unworthy of Scipio to admit its superior excellence. Tacitust delivered it as his judgment, that it could more easily be praised than established, and if ever established was not likely to be durable. It was reserved for Montesquieu to confirm the just anticipation of its excellence, and to point to the government thus praised by the ancients in action in Great Britain. It was reserved for our times to prove that constitutional monarchy has been as durable as glorious.

Though we take our government as the type of its class, can any one say at which moment of our history it became a constitutional monarchy? Was it before the execution of Charles, or before the reign of William III.

"Itaque quartum quoddam genus reipublicæ maxime probandum esse sentio, quod est ex his quæ prima dixi moderatum et permixtuin tribus."-Cic. De Rep. lib. i. c. 29.

"Cunctas nationes et urbes populus aut primores aut singuli regunt, delecta ex his et consociata reipublicæ forma, laudari facilius quam evenire vel si evenit, haud diuturna esse potest."-Tac. Ann. iv. 33.

Montesquieu felt the same difficulty as Polybius, for he sometimes calls the government of England a monarchy, sometimes a republic concealed under the form of a monarchy, sometimes simply a republic. Even the author of the "Prince" (Discorsi, ch. ii.) condemned the three rigid forms, and commended Lycurgus for his approximation to a government in which king, nobles, commons, should each have their share of power.

that our monarchy deserved to be called constitutional; and after some of the legislation of our age, does our constitution deserve to be called monarchical? Again, under which of the four forms can any one, not gifted with an arbitrary power over language, rank the absolute despotisms of the continent, which owe to the obedient presence of a complaisant and paid diet their doubtful promotion to the brevet rank of constitutional monarchies ?

Another difficulty haunts us: no two men agree on the examples which they shall select as the standardseach of its own tribe of governments-but every one takes his chief idea of monarchy or democracy or aristocracy from that specimen with which he happens, from nearness of time or place, to be best acquainted. We are as badly off, therefore, to tell which of the many. varieties of a form of government is meant by the general name for that form, as traders were formerly to tell what was an ell when every man measured it from his own arm. We want a monarch to decree what shall be called monarchy, and what aristocracy, as Henry IV. decreed that his subjects should measure their ells from the royal limb.

You are thus early, reader, apprised of the poor and bare furniture of my studio, my meagre and clumsy tools, and the loose and slippery materials upon which I am to operate. If with such appliances anything may be accomplished, others perhaps will take heart and not refuse to labour with me; if the only result is failure, your charity and fairness will lay that failure the less to my discredit.

If I may adopt an expression from mathematical language, I would here lay down a position in these terms: The form of government is the dependent, the national character the independent variable. It is a maxim for which there would have been far more difficulty in gaining credence fifty years ago than I anticipate now, for while the more mechanical statesmen adhere vigorously to the old blunder, those who have combined reflection with

practice have not hesitated to expose it. From the days when Athens was often content, that the only mark of subjugation in a conquered state should be the adoption of democratic institutions, and Sparta was even more completely pacified by the establishment of an oligarchy, to the memorable era when the French republic was anxious to raise around it the Batavian, the Cisalpine, the Helvetic, and the Parthenopeian republics, because they were kindred forms of government, may be traced the frequent repetition of the same error which Great Britain has far from escaped when at great cost and with unhappy success it aided in establishing in Spain, in Portugal, in Belgium, in Greece, and in more than one state of Germany, these mock constitutions-paper-providences, as a king, with more felicity of thought than of situation, called them in a speech from the throne-which every now and then wither away, and demonstrate to the deluded nations the absurdity of transplanting govern

ments.

In a constitution planned and perfected in the closet, even though it may be made to order to fit a particular state, there is always one fault, and there has been in nearly every case a second. The first and invariable fault is the immovability of the structure. The government does not live, but is a dead machine. So long as it is desirable that the national character and sentiments should remain unchanged, there can be no objection to a fixed machine; but men are placed in this dilemma, either the nation must remain in the stage in which it is for ever, a supposition against nature in the limit, though the examples of Sparta and Norway show that a very long duration in one stage under an unchanged government is perfectly possible, or when the social frame on which the machine was to act changes, the machine becomes worthless, and men must resort for another "paper-providence" to the closet of the political philosopher.

Here at once is seen the difference between the English

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Comte constitution and the constitutions formerly set up in France. They were written, and could not change along with the people. They had no future, the present must ake, be prolonged indefinitely; when that becomes impossible, ethere is chaos. The English constitution has been in a continual change. We cannot say when it first came into existence, nor can we attempt to define minutely what it is. It is unwritten, existing in the temper and affections of the people more than in their statute-book. Its leading features are prodigiously different at different times. The government of Elizabeth, for instance, bears very little resemblance to that of Victoria, yet both were phases of the English constitution, and its great and unique merit is, that the system which worked well in Elizabeth's time is not a dead machine, fixed for ever on the nation, but changes as we change, and has become, without causing a revolution (except to vindicate its existence against the attacks of the Stuarts), that altered government which suits us now so well. Of this necessity for change some few legislators who happen to have thought before they acted, have been painfully aware when they were framing these codes thus destined to be ephemeral; and while they have enjoined adherence to them on all living, they have made provision against the attempt at an unlimited continuance, that could only end in abolition amid bloodshed and revolution; for the systems which have raised a nation to grandeur and to opulence may not suffice to preserve it in its splendour. The second fault is one equally fatal, though not equally universal the bad choice of a machine by the legislator. Why were Lycurgus and Solon great legislators? Not because they framed a model system, to be copied for ever by all founders of constitutions, but because they selected for adoption the laws most suited to the particular state upon which they operated. When Solon was asked whether he had given the Athenians the best laws; he answered, "I gave them the best that they were

capable of receiving." In that selection by Solon of the best suited, and not the best as judged by some absolute standard, was shown that wisdom which has justly become proverbial. Now, those wretched schemers who, having to deal with a nation in which centralisation had been completely and irresistibly established, for instance France, thought fit to put upon it a constitution which could not work well without strong local independence, committed that very blunder, by avoiding which Solon earned his fame. Ali Pacha was not worse than this when he sent a messenger to Corfu, to look for a constitution for him.

Instances are unfortunately too abundant of the senseless imposition of a government suited to one stage of national existence upon a nation in another stage. The people in office have taken a precedent off the official file, and taken a wrong one. Modern Athens, Naples in 1820, and Ireland, afford melancholy spectacles, from which we eagerly turn to Norway, where, on its union with Sweden, a constitution was established which, because it embodied the principles already in action, and relied for its good working on no social element that was deficient, has, without "revolution," taken deep root in the affections of the people, and bids fair to last till that apparently distant period when some organic change in the national occupations and character shall advance Norway to a new phase of national existence, to which the present system of government would be inappropriate.

Constitutions, then, cannot be successfully imposed by the most astute legislator unless they are suited to the state for which they are intended, nor can they be retained after their aptitude has ceased. Forms of government are therefore like the other inventions which, as Bacon says, are the offspring rather of the time than of the inventor (magis temporis partus quam ingenii). A discoverer who makes unseasonable discoveries loses all his credit because his efforts are of no utility. The Scan