citizenship, in addition to all their other losses? I envy you not the greater advantages which have fallen to your share, since inequality of fortunes is a necessary or incurable evil; but do not, at any rate, strip me of those imprescriptible blessings which no human law can take away. Permit me even to be proud, at times, of an honourable poverty, and do not try to humble me by the arrogant pretension of reserving to yourself the quality of sovereign, in order to leave me only that of subject. 99 66 "But the people! but corruption!" Ah! cease to profane that touching and sacred word, people, by coupling it with the idea of corruption. Where is the man who, standing by the side of men, his equals in rights, dares to declare his fellow-men unworthy to exercise theirs, in order to rob them of them, for his own profit?-In spite of all prejudices in favour of the virtues ascribed to riches, I venture to assert that you will find, at least, as many, and better virtues in the poorest class of citizens, than amongst the most opulent. Do you imagine, forsooth, that a hardy and laborious life engenders more vices than one of effeminacy, luxury, and ambition?-But let me, for once, avenge those whom you call the common people, of such sacrilegious calumnies. Tell me, then, are you capable of appreciating them, are you formed to know men, you who, since the first development of your reason, have been accustomed to judge of them only according to the absurd ideas of despotism and feudal pride? you who, accustomed to the fantastic jargon it invented, have found it quite natural to vilify the greater part of the human race, by the words rabble, mob, populace, &c.-you who have revealed to the world, that there existed "persons without birth," as if any could exist without being born, and as if all were not born in the same way; you who have discovered" men of straw," mere nobodies," in those who were really men of merit; and "men of honour," "highly respectable persons," in the vilest and most corrupt of human kind? Ah! no wonder you cannot appreciate what is due to the people! you may well be pardoned the injustice you do them. For myself, I call to witness all whom the instincts of a noble and feeling heart have brought into contest with the people, and made worthy of appreciating and loving equality; I call all such persons to bear witness that, in general, there is nothing so just or so good as the common people, where they are not irritated by excessive oppression; that they are grateful for the slightest services, the slightest regards shown them, grateful for the least good you do them, grateful even for not being done harm to; that it is amongst the people we find, under what we call a gross exterior and coarse manners, frank and upright minds, manly sense, and an energy which it would be vain to look for in the class that despises them. The people ask but bare necessaries, they desire only justice and peace; the rich pretend to all; they wish to invade, to monopolize, to domineer over every thing and every body. Abuses are the work and the domain of the rich; abuses are the scourges of the people: the interest of the people is the general interest; that of the rich is private interest, exclusive interest; and yet you would render the people null and the rich omnipotent! Why should we make the sacred rights of man to depend on the mobility of systems of finance, on variations, on such fantastic oddities and crudities as our system presents in different parts of the same state? What a strange system is that whereby a man who is a citizen at some particular point of the territory, ceases to be one, either wholly or in part, if he migrates to some other point; or whereby he who is a citizen to-day, will be no longer one to-morrow, if his fortune experience a reverse! What a system is that whereby the honest man, despoiled by an unjust oppressor, sinks back into the class of helots, while the other rises by his very crime into the rank of citizen! whereby a father sees increase, with the number of his children, the certainty that he will not be able to leave them that title with the slender portion of his divided patrimony; whereby all the sons of family, in one halt of the empire, will not know what it is to have a country, until they shall cease to have a father! Lastly on what a precarious tenure rests this superb prerogative of a member of the sovereign (people), when the partitioner of public contributions has the power to take it away from me, by diminishing my quotation even by a single penny! when it is at once subject to all the caprices of men, and to all the fickleness of fortune! And, after all, what signifies it whether twenty or thirty pence be the elements of the calculus which is to decide my political existence? Have not those who are valued at only nineteen pence, the same rights? and can the eternal principles of justice and reason, upon which those rights are founded, bend and accommodate themselves to the rules of a variable, ever-fluctuating, and arbitrary tariff? "Would that he were still alive!" have we sometimes said to ourselves, as we compared the idea of this great revolution with that of a great man (Rousseau) who so largely contributed to prepare it; would he were still living!-that sensible and eloquent philosopher, whose writings have developed amongst us those principles of public morality which have qualified us to conceive the design of regenerating our country! Well! if he still lived, what would he witness? the sacred rights of man, which he defended, violated by the new-born Constitution, and his own name expunged from the list of citizens! What, in like manner, would say all those illustrious men, who, after governing the freest and most virtuous nations of the ancient world, died not worth the wherewithal to defray the expenses of their funerals, and leaving their families to the resources of public charity? what would they say if, restored to life amongst us, they could witness the establishment of this our so vaunted Constitution? O Aristides! Greece gave thee the surname of Just, and made thee the arbiter of her destiny. Regenerated France would see in thee but a man of straw, not able to pay a marc of silver! In vain might the confidence of the people summon thee to defend their rights; there is not a single municipality that would not repulse thee! Though twenty times thou mightest have saved thy country; nevertheless, thou couldst be neither an elector nor eligible, unless thy great soul should consent to vanquish the rigours of fortune at the expense of thy liberty, or of some one of thy virtues!-Bronterre's Life of Robespierre. TO THREE BARBER'S-BLOCKS, INVESTED WITH JUDICIAL WIGS. (Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's-Inn.) Ho! what is Law? I mean eternal Law, Not parchment-must, where black, Old Time makes yellow What, Equity? Not that whose windings flaw Large fortunes, where fee'd gownsmen meet to bellow, What's Justice? What is Truth? What's Innocent? Ye do not know;-and yet ye know as well Monthly Repository. ERROR OF LEGISLATORS. THE diversity of the human race is necessary to the happiness of man. In the very few instances in which there has been a strong resemblance between two individuals, living at the same period, in the same district, the inconveniences which have been experienced have been sufficient to prove the endless confusion that would arise if the individuals of the human race were formed to be more nearly alike than they have been. This diversity is, then, not only a necessary result of the organization of man, but should be found, and in a rational state of society will be found, a potential cause of his greatest happiness. Without this diversity, society itself would be a mass of confusion, and universal disorder would pervade all the transactions of mankind; the business of life could not be continued without this variety among the human species. It is irrational to suppose, then, that all men or that any portion of mankind can be justly governed under any complicated system of human laws, which pre-supposes men to be influenced alike by the same external circumstances. Nothing can demonstrate more forcibly the irrational state in which men have heretofore existed, and the little knowledge of human nature which their rulers have possessed, than the modes by which they have been governed in, what is called, the civilized world. It is now quite evident that the legislators and law-givers of former times were themselves totally ignorant of human nature, and, consequently, of all the practical measures necessary to be adopted, in order to insure its welldoing, well-being, and happiness. In consequence of the human mind not having been directed to the study of itself and of human nature generally, every imaginable error has been committed in forming society in those countries which have been called civilized. Some individuals, ages ago, supposed that human nature ought not to be what it ever has been, and is, but something quite different, and they set about inventing various devices of religions, laws, and governments, to force it to become what they conceived it should be, and could be made to be. But through every device hitherto adopted to change and improve human nature, it has remained unchanged in its original character, and has been made to act infinitely worse by all the attempts to compel it to become unnatural Until men shall be induced, by reason, to desist from these absurdities, human nature will continue vicious or unnatural, and men will still exhibit all manner of irrationality in their public and private transactions, and render each other as miserable as their nature will admit. When the error of this proceeding shall be made manifest, all attempts to govern men on the notion that they all ought to feel, think, and act alike, or that each individual ought to feel, think, and act alike at all times, will cease, and the natural diversity of man will be acknowledged and provided for, as well as the natural change of feelings, thoughts, and actions of the same individual as he grows in experience, or is altered by the presence of successive and differing objects.— Robert Owen. Public Property.-The following inscription is placed in the public walks of Metz: "These promenades are under the safe-guard of the inhabitants, all of whom are equally interested in preserving them. The mayor invites his fellow-citizens to share with him in this duty." Niagara. A river of North America, forming the boundary between the United States and Canada, and connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario. Eighteen miles from Fort Erie are the Falls, three distinct cataracts of one hundred and fifty feet in height. The river is here seven hundred and forty yards wide. HYMNS FOR THE UNENFRANCHISED. No. III. WHO is the Traitor, worse than Slave, Who would build his house upon Freedom's grave Selling his own and his children's good, For the shame of a ruffian's gratitude? Let him be character'd, that We He, worn to the heart with toil, Who, for the sake of a thriving trade, One-the vilest, a Thing "well-bred, No. IV. "We're hungry, Mother! give us bread." The peasant's household laboureth hard There is money on the chimney-piece, Yet the mother may not see Her children fed :-What if they starve The rent is paid, the children pine; The serf must sit with chained hands, There is no money now:-Oh, shame! Blood from a stone-a vain excuse; What doth he forth in the stealthy night, WHY should even Queens speak nonsense? A "great" Nation may surely claim good language from its rulers. But, it is not the usual form. Royal Speeches have ever been lying oracles. We must act according to precedent. For the benefit of all whom it may concern, we subjoin the principal passages of AND AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN. THE SPEECH AS IT WAS I rejoice to meet you again in Parliament. I am particularly desirous of recurring to your advice and assistance. I continue to receive from Foreign Powers gratifying assurances of their desire to maintain with me the most friendly relations.* The Reform and Amendment of the Municipal Corporations of Ireland are essential to the interest of that part of my dominions. It is also urgent that you should apply yourselves to the prosecution I grieve to see you again in Parliament. I well know that you will neither advise nor assist me for the good of the Nation. I continue to receive gratifying assurances that Foreign Nations are not about to be hounded on to miserable War by their respective govern ments. The entire Abolition of all Monopolies throughout the British Empire is essential to the peace and well-being of those realms. It is also urgent that measures should be originated and forthwith Why are foreign affairs first mentioned?-Printer's Devil. |