smelt gunpowder," and another, leaving the house, saying "There was hot work, and a great fire within." The simple words of the panic-struck, and the metaphorical orator, were too literally caught up by the persons in the lobby, who sent them to the people on the river. Before carriages were in general use the river was a great thoroughfare; boats were used ere hackney-coaches were projected; a considerable portion of the busy populace were always on the Thames; these re-echoed the report to the city; the drums beat, the train-bands marched," a world of people in arms" flew to Westminster, and this ridiculous incident satisfactorily confirmed to the Commons their own absolute power over the people.'vol. iv. pp. 153–155.

This, and a thousand other such stories, gave an impulse to the revolution, which, whatever might have been its origin, was eventually carried on more like the orgies of a mob of furies, than a sober reformation, by a rational people, of political abuses. But u this, as in all other matters, nations have prodigiously improved. Revolutions are now conducted with all the ease of a drama, in which all the actors sustain the parts that are assigned to them.

The flight of Charles from the capital gave a turn to his affairs, which no concessions could repair. His fruitless attempt to arrest, with his own hand, in the House of Commons, the five members whom he wished to have impeached of high treason, had already reduced his kingly power to a mere shadow. We shall give the particulars from Mr. D'Israeli. They will be found interesting.

At this moment the King was left abandoned amidst the most urgent wants. He could no longer draw the weekly supplies for his household, for the officers of the customs were under the controul of the Commons. The Queen had pawned her plate for a temporary aid. His friends in terror were in flight; and the Sovereign sate amidst a council whom he could no longer consult. He was betrayed by the most confidential of his intimates. He was deserted by those who, like Lord Holland, had depended on his bounty, or whom, like the Earl of Essex, he had unaccountably neglected. "In this sad condition," says Lord Clarendon, was the King at Windsor, fallen in ten days from a height and greatness that his enemies feared, to such a lowness that his own servants durst hardly avow the waiting on him."

Amidst the perplexities of state, and these personal distresses, the anxieties of Charles were increased by the fate of his Queen, and the pressure of his own immediate plans of operation. Henrietta's fears were restless since the menace of impeachment. The pretext of the Queen to accompany her daughter, betrothed to the Prince of Orange, to Holland, covered more than one design. There, in security, not unprovided with the means, carrying with her the crown jewels, she might execute some confidential offices, while the King resolved to fly to the north, as yet untainted by the mobocracy of the metropolis.

There was yet an agony to pass through for the husband, in the separation from his adored companion-that hapless foreigner, now chased to a still more foreign land, to live alone among a people who never cast a sorrowing look on suffering Royalty. Charles accompanied Henrietta and the Princess to Dover; many an importunate message was received from the Commons on his way, and the last hours of the parting of the family were

disturbed by many a gloomy presage. When the Queen had embarked, Charles stood immoveable, watching the departing ship with the most poignant emotions. There was an awful uncertainty whether they should ever meet again. He stood on the shore to give them the last signal, the last farewell!-gazing with moistened eyes, till the shadowy sails vanished in the atmosphere. When the vessel was no longer visible, Charles lingered for some time, pacing along the shore, wrapped in deep and sad thoughts. The King had of late been accustomed to the deprivation of his power--to the destitution of his personal wants, and it was doubtful whether he had a kingdom which acknowledged its monarch, or a soldier who would obey his commands, for at this very moment, and on his road, he had been assailed by reiterated messages to deliver up the militia to the Commons. But he had never yet lost his wife-he had never yet felt that pang of love-the loneliness of the soul.

Yet he was still a father, and Charles contemplated on a melancholy pleasure on his return to Greenwich, to embrace the Prince. On this last tendrill were now clinging his domestic affections; yet of this object of his tenderness the Commons hastened to deprive him. While at Dover, a worthless courtier had been refused to be admitted of the Prince's bedchamber. With men of this stamp a favour denied implies a wrong received; and thus injured, this man declared that "since he could not be considerable by doing the King service, considerable he would be, by doing him disservice." Posting to the Parliament, he gave some pretended information of a design to remove the Prince into France, but more intelligibly offered himself as "their bravo" at taverns and meetings, not deficient in insolence and audacity. This worthless rejected creature of the court, though without talents, and having long lost his character, was publicly embraced and eulogized, even by Hampden. In the spirit of party no man is too mean to court, no arts too gross to practise. Charles had desired the Marquis of Hertford, the governor of the Prince, to bring him to Greenwich; on this an express order from the House forbade his removal. But the command of the father was preferred. Several members hastened to Greenwich to convey the Prince to London, but the King had arrived; and they were silent in the presence of the father. Charles had been greatly agitated on his road by a message from the Commons respecting the Prince. Embracing his son, the melancholy monarch, shedding some joyful tears, exclaimed, “I can now forget all, since I have got Charles!"

The King had granted so much, that he had nothing left to bestow, save one great object of the ambition of the triumphant party,—the army itself.

"They had first proposed to nominate the Lords Lieutenant of every country, chiefly their adherents, who were to obey the orders of the two Houses; the two Houses were now the House of Commons. The King bad not refused even this point, reserving to himself a revocable power. But their policy was now, observes Hume, to astonish the King by the boldness of their enterprises. They declared that their fears and jealousies had so multiplied on them, that it was necessary for them to dispose of the whole military force of the kingdom, both for the safety of his Majesty' and the people; this they had resolved to do, by the authority of both Houses that is by their own authority. And they mercifully invited his Majesty to fix his residence among them.

'It is remarkable of Charles the First, that whenever he acted unembarrassed by the distracting councils of others, there was a promptness in reply, and a decision in conduct, which convey the most favourable impressions not only of his intellect, but of his intellectual courage. When the Committee of both Houses went down to Newmarket to deliver this astonishing message, instead of finding the King subdued into pusillanimity, an object of the contempt they had so studiously shown him, they were answered by such an unexpected denial, in a style so vigorous and indignant, that it startled the Committee, who had relied on what of late had so often passed. They had come to vanquish a deserted Monarch, and were themselves repulsed. Lord Holland would not venture to report the King's words, without a written memorandum. By this circumstance posterity receives an authentic specimen of Charles's colloquial discourse; we trace his warm undisguised emotions expressive of his anger, or pathetic from deep and injured feelings.

From the King's interviews with the Committee I transcribe those passages which will interest the readers of his history.

"I am confident that you expect not that I should give you a speedy answer to this strange and unexpected declaration.

"What would you have? Have I violated your laws? Have I denied to pass any one Bill for the ease and security of my subjects? I do not ask you what have you done for me?

"Have any of my people been transported with fears and apprehensions? I have offered as free and general a pardon, as yourselves can devise. All this considered, there is a judgment from Heaven upon this nation if these distractions continue. God so deal with me and mine that all my thoughts and intentions are upright for the maintenance of the true Protestant profession, and for the observation and preservation of the laws of the land."

'On the following day the Earl of Holland endeavoured to persuade his Majesty to come near the Parliament. Charles replied, "I would you had given me cause, but I am sure this Declaration is not the way to it. And in all Aristotle's rhetoric there is no such argument of persuasion."

'The Earl of Pembroke pressed to learn of his Majesty what he would have them say to the Parliament? Charles smartly replied, that " He would whip a boy in Westminster School that could not tell that by his

answer."

'Again pressed by the Earl of Pembroke, after all that had passed, to compromise the demand of the Commons, by granting the militia for a time Charles suddenly swore, "By God! not for an hour! You have asked that of me in this, was never asked of a King, and with which I will not trust my wife and children."

Well might Charles the First exclaim, as once he did, in addressing the Commons, 66 Surely, we too have our grievances !"'-vol. iv. pp. 499.-506.

From this, and indeed from most of the passages which we have cited, it will be seen that Mr. D'Israeli is, at every point, a royalist

a jacobite of the old school. He has come out with his apologies at a bad time. Toryism is altogether gone out of fashion, as he will find to his cost before he finishes his work.

ART. V.-A General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, LL.D. F.R.S. M.P. 4to. Edinburgh: Black; London: Simpkin and Co. 1830.

THIS valuable composition forms the second of the preliminary discourses which are to enrich the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It has been published separately as an honourable specimen of the additional matter which that work is to contain, and of the typographical elegance with which it is to be executed. Too much praise cannot be given to the persons who have suggested and undertaken this enterprise, which is indeed, in no slight degree, connected with the literary character of the nation. We have already received several numbers, having been amongst the earliest subscribers; and we must say, that we are perfectly satisfied with the style in which the text, plates, and maps are printed. The extension of the latter, from a single to a double quarto page, cannot fail to be generally acceptable, and it affords a satisfactory proof of the liberality of the proprietors. We have no doubt that the promises which they have held out, of presenting in a well digested shape all the improvements that have been made in the circle of human knowledge, since the publication of the supplement, will be fully realized and if they be, we shall be enabled to point to the Encyclopædia Britannica as the most complete compilation of the kind to be found in any language.

It will be generally thought that the subject of the present dissertation is one, for the illustration of which the talents and acquirements of Sir James Mackintosh were peculiarly well adapted. It harmonizes with the course of his studies and writings. Essentially a labour of criticism, it required his philosophic mind, his ample knowledge, and masterly style. Nevertheless, the view which he has given of the progress of Ethical Philosophy, is, in one respect at least, seriously defective. He has given abundant space to the opinions of antiquity, of the middle ages, and of most of the principal writers of England and France in modern times. But he has summed up in a page or two all that has been done upon this subject in Germany. We do not say that this is like omitting the part of the Prince of Denmark, in the play of Hamlet, but it certainly leaves a formidable chasm in a history of Ethical Philosophy. Germany has long been the great laboratory of the human mind, in which every faculty of thought, reflection, and imagination, has been wrought to its highest degree of excitement, with the view of not merely augmenting our store of ascertained facts, but of widening the sphere of the soul itself in its most refined operations.

For this and for some other omissions and imperfections, Sir James Mackintosh alleges, by way of apology, the pressure of

other occupations, and indifferent health. Of the latter excuse we hear with unaffected regret, as there are but very few of our public men whose active exertions are more conducive to the interests of the country. But we must say, that if his occupations were such as to prevent him from treating such a subject in the manner which it deserved, he ought rather to have yielded the task to others, than have left his work so defective. It will be the duty of the proprietors to provide for these omissions in the body of the Encyclopædia.

Sir James commences his introduction with the usual complaint of the inadequacy of the words of ordinary language for the purposes of philosophy. We suspect that this complaint has no just, or at least, no extensive foundation. It is, perhaps, ideas that we chiefly want in ethical discussions, rather than diction. Man has been engaged, since the beginning of the world, in exploring the depths of his own mind, and he is now almost as ignorant of the world which it contains, as he was six thousand years ago. He has done no more than coast, as it were, round this Terra Incognita. Thousands who have failed in penetrating to its interior, have yet ventured to describe its recesses, and to draw from their observations rules for the attainment of human happiness. As many philosophers as have appeared, so many systems have been promulgated. The enthusiasm of disciples, impatience of contradiction, the pride of controversy, and eagerness for triumph, havé engrossed more attention than the original subject of dispute.

Perhaps, also, men have blinded themselves too long in the pursuit of what is called Ethical Philosophy. Its essential object is to teach us what is right and wrong, and to induce us to practice the one and abstain from the other. Are we afraid to acknowledge that the only unerring clue to this most important of all sciences, is to be found exclusively in the precepts of Christianity? Is it not the mere haughtiness of reason, unassisted by revelation, or passing over its sublime disclosures, that bids us to bewilder ourselves in seeking out for those rules of conduct, which the New Testament pronounces in words of the most beautiful simplicity?

It is not indeed to be wondered at, that the writings of the ancients abound in such unprofitable speculations. Controversies arising out of them began with the stoical and epicurean schools of Greece, which were taken up by some of the most accomplished philosophers of Rome. The general object of the principles enforced by Socrates, and elegantly explained by Plato, was 'to inspire the love of truth, of wisdom, of beauty, especially of goodness, the highest beauty, and of that supreme and eternal mind, which contains all truth and wisdom, all beauty and goodness.' Vague as his language was, it is evident that Socrates wished to raise the mind from mean and transitory objects, and to prepare it for those higher destinies, of which he derived from instinct some faint idea. Aristotle, the pupil and rival of Plato, though much