ranks; the spread of education, which has exposed a multitude, tenfold increased, to the influence of political passion and misrepresentation, have all contributed to produce the lamentable result. But powerful as has been the influence of these causes, it is more than doubtful whether they would have been adequate to overturn the English Constitution, if they had not found a ready cooperator in the conduct of the Aristocracy itself; if the nobility and great landed proprietors, when standing on the brink of a precipice, had not acted with a degree of blindness which doubled the strength of their adversaries, and confounded the efforts of their friends.

"Great as were the evils, crying the abuses of France," says a Royalist writer, whose works Mr Burke said posterity will class with the Annals of Tacitus, "it was not they which brought about the Revolution. Insult is more keenly resented than injury it was neither the Taille nor the Vingtièmes, nor the Corvées, nor the Lettres de Cachet, nor the Tithes, nor the Feudal Services, which occasioned the convulsion: the prestige of the nobility alone had this effect." The same cause, we grieve to say, has had too much influence in producing the discontents of the present time; in inducing the impatience of superiority, which forms so leading a feature in the social convulsion in the midst of which we are now placed; in substituting for the old English love of freedom the modern French passion for equality. And it has unfortunately happened, that at the very period when the changes of time were shaking the foundations of aristocratic influence, their own conduct and manners have contributed not a little to widen the breach, and throw the weight which should have supported, into the ranks which are to destroy them.

It is observed in one of the recent fashionable novels, which, like straws, shew how the wind sets, that the institution of Almacks has had more influence than is generally supposed in bringing about the Reform Bill. The observation is perfectly

just, though perhaps not exactly in the sense which the aristocratic novelist intended. In truth, the exclusive system, which, emanating from that centre, has now, like a leprosy, overspread the land, is one of the chief causes of that profound hatred at the Aristocracy, which distinguishes the present from any other popular convulsion in English history. It is in vain to say that the line drawn by the Exclusives is attended with no practical or substantial grievance; that all offices are open to talent; that a Chancellor, raised from the middling or lower orders, is constantly placed at the head of the British Peerage; and that, having conceded so much to the interests and ambition of their inferiors, they may be allowed to select their companions and their society for themselves. All that is perfectly true; but it is as nothing, as long as Mordecai the Jew sits at the King's gate. The exclusive system is felt as an insult, if not as an injury: human weakness proves that it is no answer to conscious worth, talent, and elegance in the middling orders, to say that every office is open to their ambition, if they are excluded from a society to which they are attached both by principle and inclination. Men of fortune, talent, and information, in the class of gentlemen, feel the injustice of that invidious line, which the exclusive system has drawn between them and their superiors in rank, but their equals in birth, and their inferiors, possibly, in every elegant or useful acquirement. They will not submit to it in silence: they resent it as a slight on themselves, their character, their station, and their families, and fall, in consequence, an easy prey to the ambitious leaders, or factious demagogues, who represent the very existence of the Aristocracy as a social grievance, and combination against their power as the first of political duties.

The exclusive system would have been no inconsiderable evil, if it had been confined to London; but spreading as it has done through every county in the kingdom, it has contributed materially to weaken the

natural influence of the aristocracy over their natural supporters,-their neighbours, friends, and tenantry in the country. You hear that a political contest is likely to begin, or has begun in a county; that the conservative family in possession of the representation is sure to be hard run, and that nothing but the greatest exertions can prevent one or both the seats from slipping from their hands; you hear, at the same time, that their house is constantly full of company, and that every species of gaiety and amusement is continually going forward. You, of course, imagine that the county gentlemen, who are to uphold the aristocratic influence, are frequently invited, and that the party whose support is requisite to ensure the success of the contest, is on cordial and intimate terms with its head. Quite the reverse. The county gentlemen, in the same interest, are hardly ever asked to cross the threshold, or, if they are, it is to attend an annual ball, or some great assembly, where they are all classed together, like the peasantry admitted on certain public days to walk through the Park. The company who compose the continual round of gaiety at the great chateau, are a totally different set. They consist too often of foxhunters and sycophants, whiskered dandies, or scarlet-pantalooned hussars, the élégantes of Almacks, and the loungers of St James's Street clubs. If any of the "natives" are admitted, it is such as by their accomplishments or skill in flattery will condescend to make themselves useful to the exclusive circle. A few ladies of a certain age, who may be serviceable in playing quadrilles or waltzes on the piano, and can occasionally at a push stand up themselves; who flatter the mothers and aunts by repeating the compliments they hear paid by the young eligibles to their nieces and daughters; a few talented and travelled young men, who fill the right honourables' albums with their drawings, sing duets with them at the piano, attend them in their rides in default of better beaux, dance with them at balls, and perhaps, in the end, may illustrate the truth of Addison's saying," that when nothing better can be done, there is such a thing as turning a shoeing-horn into

a shoe;" a few fox-hunting squires, who follow the leading star after the hounds, flatter his vanity, and drink his claret. Such is the society which, in too many of the great houses of the kingdom, forms the only addition which the class of gentry afford to the exclusive circle, to enter which is the vain object of plebeian ambition, and to keep the vulgar out of which is the universal end of aristocratic pride.

The exclusives not only keep entirely aloof from their natural supporters and friends in their own counties and vicinity, but they generally associate with each other alone in migrations from province to province. Is there a battue

given, or a select party held in any of the great houses of the kingdom, the persons who are admitted to share in its delights are none of their natural supporters, but the exclusives from other and distant counties; and they in their turn return the compliment by inviting the grandee from their own distant place to a similar reunion of rank and fashion. Wherever you go, it is Almacks and St James's Street; the coterie of a few London drawingrooms which are assembled. The great and fashionable travel in England from one great house to another, from the earl of this to the duke of that, and know as little of either the people or the gentry of their own county, as they do of those in the Continental states through which they pass in their travelling carriages-and-four. Amusement, field-sports, and exclusive society, seem the great objects in life to numbers whose talents, knowledge, and principles, fit them for better things. Is there an assembly of influential members of the Peers and Commons at a chateau in the provinces, the uninformed many imagine, that some great national object is in view, and that it is to save the empire that so great a concourse of rank and talent is brought together; it is, unfortunately, frequently but to beat a preserve for pheasants and woodcocks, or give eclat to the introduction of some debutante of fashion into the gay world.

If we lived in ordinary times, these foibles of the age would form the fit subject of the novelist's pencil

or the poet's satire; but connected as they are with great and disastrous public consequences, and calculated as they appear to be to snap asunder the last links which unite the Aristocracy to the party inclined to support them among the Commons, they assume a graver aspect, and become well worthy of the consideration of all who look forward to the means by which the progress of disaster may yet be stemmed. It is impossible to conceal that the influence of the higher classes of the landholders, and of the Aristocracy, has signally declined within the last fifteen years, and it is as impossible to deny that it has declined very much in consequence of their own conduct. Formerly the great families lived for the greater part of the year upon their estates, and opened their magnificent mansions to all their neighbours and friends with whom they were thrown in contact, either by situation, occupation, or similarity of tastes. The young men of talent in their vicinity looked to these palaces as the centre of their promotion, and the great object of their ambition; and the families in the county were linked to them, not merely by similarity of feeling and principle, but the recollection of happiness experienced, and favours conferred, and distinction received, under their roof. It was this mys terious compound of gratitude, admiration, and flattered ambition, which produced the influence of the great families, and threw over a numerous and powerful body of subordinate landholders, those silken chains which bound them to the Conservative side, and the cause of order, as firmly as the honour and the attachments of feudal power.

Now all this is changed. The landed proprietors know little of the great houses which are dotted through their counties; they seldom enter their gates; and they, in their turn, are strangers to their inmates; they are envious of, because they are excluded from, their superiors' enjoyments. Not one in ten of the middling classes even know them by sight. The secluded and exclusive Aristocratic families frequently lead a luxurious, indolent life, associating solely with each other, studiously keeping their neighbours

at a distance, and knowing as little of the people, whose support is necessary to preserve their own estates or honours from the clutches of the Radicals, as they do of the Kalmucs or Hindoos. The excitation of foxhunting, the whirl of dissipation, the attractions of the opera, the soirées of the exclusives, the country parties of the great, occupy them as entirely as if no danger threatened them and their country; as if no Reform Bill had transferred to impassioned millions, guided by ambitious hundreds, the influence which should be centred in those whose measures are steadied by the possession of property; as if the evil days were not fast approaching, and the dagger was not at every honest man's throat. They appear absolutely blind to the state of the country, even when their more clearsighted inferiors have almost lost hope; too many of them will be feasting like Belshazzar, when the handwriting on the wall is before them in characters of fire; they will be marrying and giving in marriage, when the Deluge is at hand.

We have no individuals in view in these remarks. Some bright exceptions to them are frequently to be met with even in the most elevated stations. Illustrations of their truth may be found, we fear, almost in every county of the kingdom. It is with classes of society, and general habits, not individual men, that the political observer is concerned.

It is the more melancholy to see the influence of the Aristocracy gliding away from beneath their feet in consequence of their own thoughtlessness and folly, when we recollect that they really possess within themselves talent, energy, and information perfectly sufficient, if properly directed, to place them at once at the head of the Conservative Party, that is, the holders of property throughout the kingdom. It is in vain to deny, that the talents of the Peerage are of the very first order: the debates in Parliament on the Reform Bill placed that beyond a doubt. There is more statesmanlike reflection, more elaborate information, more valuable argument, more profound views, more enchaining eloquence in one debate of the House of Peers than in twenty of the Com

mons since the recent change in its composition. The Radicals, after all their boasting, have not produced one new orator or statesman of distinction out of the hundred and thirty seats which they have gained in the chapel of St Stephens. The bones and sinews of Old England, her ornaments in peace and her leaders in war, are still to be found in her Aristocratic families: plebeian talent furnishes frequent and invaluable assistance, and is indispensable as a perpetual stimulant; but the weight of the conflict yet falls on the patrician blood.

What is equally important, the taste and habits of the people are still essentially Aristocratic, and they are more accessible to flattery and influence from that side than any other. This must be obvious to the most careless observer. There is hardly a Radical in the kingdom who is not open to influence from that quarter. The transports of Republicanism, proof against every consideration of wisdom or prudence, will often melt away under the rays of fashion. In truth, the passion of the middling ranks for notice from the nobility, for admission into their circles, and even a bow or a smile from their leading characters, is perfectly ridiculous, and is one of the features of our political situation, which most excites the astonishment of foreigners. One convincing proof of the amazing extent of this passion may be found in the multitude and success of the novels purporting to portray the manners of the great which have recently issued from the press; and the eagerness with which they are devoured, not merely by the higher circles, but the inferior grades in society; not only by right honourables and lords, but haberdashers' youths and milliners' apprentices. It is in vain that we seek to emancipate ourselves from our feudal recollections and Aristocratic associations; we are perpetually thrown back upon them in every department of life, and every walk of literature. The poet, the painter, the novelist, the historian, know the influence of these feelings in all their attempts to interest or charm mankind; and if nothing else existed to bind us to the olden time, the plays of Shakspeare and the novels of Scott would for

ever throw over the mind of youth unseen chains, more powerful than all the stings of envy, or all the allurements of ambition in after life.

But let the higher orders beware, and take counsel in time. In proportion as they are still an object of admiration to the middling ranks; in proportion as their society or notice is still courted-is the depth of the feeling of animosity and hatred which may be engendered, if the exclusive system is carried too far.Love and admiration are allied, not to lukewarmness and carelessness, but hatred and jealousy. The transition is easy from preference to animosity, but hardly possible to indifference. It was the sight of a bar which they could not pass which excited the universal enmity of the French tiers état to their noblesse. Let the English nobility beware lest the exclusive system may engender a feeling of dislike as general, and animosity as profound, as that which destroyed their brethren on the other side of the channel. The times are gone by, when they can expect to receive respect, and command influence, independently of personal conduct and exertion;-the tiers état do not now await the mandates of their sovereign on their knees; the Commons do not begin their petitions with "For God's sake, and as an act of mercy." Fierce and pitiless, loud and long the blasts of Revolution are sweeping over the land. Let them seek shelter in the arms of their fellow-citizens, or they will be speedily overwhelmed by their fury.

The great body of the middling ranks-of the holders of property of whatever description, whether they call themselves Whigs or Tories, are now inclined to Conservative principles. It is impossible to attend any public assembly, where the respectable classes are brought together, without being sensible of this fact. But unless they are connected with, and cordially act with the Aristocracy, all their efforts will be of no avail. Their exertions, insulated and unconnected, will be shattered by the compact and well-drilled phalanx of their adversaries. The holders of property must now be united and arrayed under the great proprietors in their respective vicinities, or all is lost. But how are they to be so

united or arrayed, if the demon of Fashion has drawn an impassable line between them-if the nobility, shut up in their castles, and living only with an aristocratic circle, remain in perfect ignorance of the wishes, habits, or interests of the gentlemen in their neighbourhood; and they are ignorant of the visage even of their neigh bouring potentate, unless they catch a glimpse of it as he is posting in his caleche-and-four from one great house to another?-Is it thus that the intimate knowledge, the perfect acquaintance, is to be formed, which qualifies men to stand side by side in an arduous conflict? Is it by a fastidious pride, a cold reserve, a supercilious or condescending eti quette, that the attachment of the great body of proprietors is to be secured? And is it under leaders whom they see only following the foxhounds, or plunging into exclusive amusement, that the weighty mass of the middling classes can be expected to enter upon a contest, in which their lives or estates may be at stake?

We are no enemies to elegant Reunions or field-sports. We are fully aware of the immense influence which they have in retaining the landed-proprietors on their estates, and linking them with their neighbours and tenants, and preventing them from sinking into the degradation of the Corso at Milan, or the Cassino at Florence. We perfectly agree with Mr Burke, in thinking that fox-hunting is one of the balances in the Constitution; and that, if ever it is abandoned, the influence of the landed proprietors will be as much impaired as their character will be injured. But what we maintain to be hurtful are the exclusive habits and enjoyments of the great. Let them amuse themselves as much as they please: by so doing, they will increase rather than diminish their influence, if they share their pleasures with those who support their political power. But let them not imagine, that by rigidly and invariably excluding all but a limited circle from their hospitality, they can either uphold their popularity, or prevent the fall of their influence, or prepare the State to go through the stormy scenes to which the ambition of the Revolutionists, we fear, is rapidly conducting us.

What then, it may be asked, is the conduct which the higher classes of the Aristocracy, both Whig and Tory, should pursue, if their past habits have tended so much to alienate them from the middling classes? The answer is obvious. They must throw themselves upon the gentlemen of the county, treat them on a footing of perfect equality, engage in their undertakings, join in their amusements, sympathize with their interests, manifest indulgence to their foibles. It is by such means that the affections of mankind, in every age, have been secured: what madness, in the midst of a common danger, to decline, from a contemptible feeling of pride or etiquette, a recourse to the only means by which the public calamities can be averted!

How was it that Napoleon won the affections of all ranks in France, and excited that enthusiasm in his favour, which led them to sacrifice every thing, even their own flesh and blood, in his cause? Was it by a haughty seclusion and reserve: by living only with his compeers in rank, by journeying from palace to palace, without any consideration of, or intercourse with, the subjects upon whom he depended for support? No. It was by universal affability and condescension, by observing and rewarding merit, however low, in whatever grade or station; by attending to the wishes, and consulting the interests, and gratifying the desires of all classes, that he performed all the prodigies of his reign, and wielded at pleasure the energies of eighty millions of men. Ask the vieux moustache, the veteran of the Pyramids or Austerlitz, how the Emperor won the affections of his soldiers? He will answer, that he was indefatigable in attending to their wishes; that he was occupied, in the midst of the revolution of Empires, with their interests; that he mingled decrees for the overthrow of Sovereigns, with regulations for their rations, their dress, their provisions; that he often shared the bivouac of the humblest sentinel, and in the midst of carnage, wounds, and death, sought out merit in the lowest ranks, and threw the radiance of imperial favour over the bravery even of the youngest conscripts.

How did it happen that La Ven.