The Sun.
London, England, 1836-07-06 00:00:00

no life of the First Consul and the Emperor as a

legislator. We knew enough of Napoleon as a man
and a warrior ; but little or nothing of him as a Con-
stitution-monger. The following judicious observa-
tions on the causes which mainly contributed to the
success of tyranny in France ought to be carefully
studied by those who are short-sighted enough to sup-
pose that Corporations, under all circumstances, are
no securities against bad government. We allude not
to the Peers, but to a very large proportion of the
liberal middling classes:—
" Any one who will take the pains to follow the progress
of any particular department of the State throughout the
complicated changes of the French Revolution, will find that
the march of that Revolution, from the proclamation of the
Republic, has been a continued progress towards centralization
of powers in the hands of the Executive and in the Minis-
terial offices of the capital, destroying one after another
every individual or local guarantee or franchise, which could
protect the people against the sweeping acts of any faction
that succeeded in getting possession of Paris. In other
countries, such as Switzerland, England, the United States,
Holland, &c., the liberty of the whole nation has been consi-
dered as resting upon the liberties of the parts, fractions, and
individuals, of that nation ; in France it' was made to rest
upon the destruction of every local and individual liberty.
Hence, the little opposition that the successive governments,
terrorist, directorial, consular, and imperial, met with to their
usurpations among the great mass of the people, for all the
elements of resistance had been previously annihilated.
Hence conscriptions, maritime inscription in forced levies of
sailors, contributions, forced paper money, special courts,
arbitrary arrests, proscriptions, measures which have hardly a
parallel in the worst times of the old monarchy, were all en-
forced in the name of liberty, and submitted to with the most
abject compliance. This contradiction between words and
facts, between professions and reality, is found to prevail
throughout the whole system and progress of the French
Revolution ; throughout its domestic and foreign relations,
during 25 years, there was a want of candour, sincerity and
plain speaking ; and it will require a long season of peace, and
wise government, and a new political and moral education of
the people, to do away with the habits and language of mys-
tification long engendered and fostered, by which the minds of
the generation grown up in those times have been i❑ some
measure affected."

The surest safeguards of a country against the op-
pression of its Government will ever be found in its
municipal institutions, provided care is taken to keep
them sufficiently open—neither permitting them to
dwindle into petty oligarchies, or to fall into desuetude
through the indolence of the people. Of this article
we extract the closing passage, on the consequences of
the revolution, and the misguided policy of Napoleon,
i❑ exchanging the Consular for the Imperial au-

thority
" Thus ended the French republic, after a stormy existence
of hardly twelve years. It began in blocd and spoliation ; it
terminated in trickery and mystification. The great body of
the people had never understood it, and yet a million of men
were slain in its behalf. The abolition of exclusive privileges,
which was the pretext for it, had been accomplished before
by the first assembly, which proclaimed the constitutional mo-
narchy. But they afterwards rashly destroyed that Constitu-
tution, and now, after twelve years of continual agitation, they
took refuge under the shade of an imperial throne, without
any popular representation whatever. Such is ever the re- •
action produced by extremes. Of the Governments that suc-
ceeded each other during those twelve years, the consular was
by far the best. With all its faults, Bounaparte's consulship
is an epoch which we love to dwell upon in memor) ; it was
a season of peace for France, a breathing time for mankind,
sacred by the sanguinary violence of the convention, and the
still more odious profligacy of the directorial government. It
was a return to order and to reason, when the language of
frenzy made way for that of humanity and justice, when
the various classes and nations again understood each
other. It was a brilliant epoch, in which many a good
man in every land of Europe had his hopes fixed on him
whose star seemed then to shine with a benignant lustre.
For a time at least be evinced a respect for public opinion and
morality; he displayed feelings of benevolence; he turned
his attention to civil matters ; he re-organized the social sys-
tem. He showed himself liberal to his friends, merciful to
his enemies, just towards all. France was greatly indebted to
him for that period, in which he reecinstiaieted it as a State,
and laid the basis of its permanent greatness. To himself
that was a dignified resting-place, after the brilliancy of his
former campaigns. Had he contented himself with a magis-
tracy for life, surrounded by ample prerogatives—had he pre-
served at least the essential principle and forms of a repre-
sentative Constitution—had he chosen to make France a great,
industrious, and commercial nation instead of a military and
conquering one—he might have lived in honour, and died in
peace, followed by the blessings of men. The Bourbons were
nearly forgotten, their cause had been abandoned by all the
powers ; we have Napoleon's own assertion of the fact. The
only plausible excuse for following the course he preferred
was the uncertainty of his life, and tho conspiracies that were
repeatedly hatched against him. But the plea is insufficient,
for no conspiracy really endangered his life after that of the
infernal machine of 1800 ; and, after all, did the assumption
of absolute power secure in the end the hereditary succession
in his family ? His being childless ought to have been an "
additional reason for his being satisfied with a temporary and
limited power. See how many false steps that phantom of
succession and hereditary dynasty led him into ! He repo.
diated the wife of his choice, allied himself to a rival house,
and fell at last notwithstanding all, and his only s m hardly
reached the age of manhood alter him. He chose to act the
more vulgar part of a conqueror, and as such he will ba chiefly
, remembered in history."
Of that personification of frivolous coxcombry,
Prince Packler-Muskau, the world has heard enough.
The Reviewer denounces him as a " superficial scrib-
bler of silly sentimentalities, shallow witticisms, and
gabbling gossip." As we heartily coincide in this
opinion, we shall take no further notice of his late
wanderings in France and Germany.
The great fault of this Number is, that it wants

substance. There is not body enough in it ; and se-
veral of the Reviews are written in a very common-
ph,e style. We may be mistaken, but our impression
on perusing it Was, that several of the papers bore the
impress of being the production of one contributor.
Nevertheless, a few of the articles are very good, and
three of superior merit.

THE AAVAL lIIS7'ORY of GREAT BRITAIN

By- EDWARD PEl.ll.lm BRENTON, R. N.
Parts 1. and ii,
London, album, 193 U.

Captain Brenton appears to possess, in a pre-emi-
nent degree, the qualifications necessary for a good
naval historian. He writes with the honest bluntness
pf a m whqs.9 141qii19§$: it is, tg lay fqPt§? w'~tlla,llt l4=
gut]. to scholafly acituhements, ang without a thought
of those niceties of style $o highly pri4e4 by the fasti,
diously critical. To tell the truth, and to tell it with
all possible brevity, is all that he particularly aims at,
with the ivp el.ceptioll of an ocmienal dissertation
on the policy of the principal thiropean states,
and then, it must be confessed, he fairly loses his
latitude. The Captain is a good Naval Chronicler,