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ministers have contrived a mode of revolutionising more formidable and more effective than anything that the French example could have suggested. From the hour that the King of England so far departed from the ancient policy of the Crown, and so entirely mistook the duties for which the kingly function was originally created and had always been exercised, as to authorize his ministers to increase, by the Reform Bill, the already too great power of the popular branch of the constitution-from that hour we left the events of July far behind, and have taken the advanced guard in the march of European revolution. The violence of the proceedings in France tended rather to deter than to encourage other countries; but we, in our own more quiet way, have given an example which, by its apparent moderation and legality, is likely to have a more extensive influence. A popular revolution is unmanageable enough; but we are much mistaken if we, and all Europe with us, do not find that a royal revolution is infinitely more difficult to guide or to restrain.

But though we have outrun France in the principle, we are, fortunately, still behind her in the practice; and it is possible that we may yet derive some wisdom from her experience. For this reason we continue to bring under the consideration of our readers the several works which throw light on the conspiracy by which the July Revolution was produced, and which exhibit its baneful effects on the political condition of the people of France.

To conclude-we confess, with equal sincerity and sorrow, that we do not see our way through the difficulties that press-almost in our opinion equally-upon the governments of France and England. All is doubt, disorder, and dismay. We are in a moral earthquake, and what portions of the social edifice may survive the shock, or what shelter the unhappy survivors may find among the ruins, no mortal eye can foresee. But our danger, though somewhat more remote, is probably greater than that of France. She has passed through the stage of massacre and spoliation which must occur once in every radical revolution. With her, one natural event, by legalizing the title of Louis Philippe, might extinguish the revolutionary principle, and enable a man of vigour and good sense to amalgamate and consolidate the new interests and the old rights into one stable system of constitutional nonarchy. Nay, moral circumstances might produce the same result; for if the cause of Henry V. be-by that insane party to which we have alludedconnected with the Movement, the true Royalists may be driven by the common danger to a sincere and cordial coalition with Louis Philippe. In either of these cases there is at least a chance for France; but for ourselves we have hardly any hope until we shall have passed through an ordeal similar to that which France

has

has undergone. The democratical, or, to speak more truly, the anarchical principles of our Reform, must, we suspect, work themselves out. A frequent change and succession of administrations, each weaker and worse than that it has displaced, will inevitably lead to the contempt, and from the contempt to the dissolution of government. Heavy was the declension of Lord Grey from his accession to his resignation-heavier still the fall from Lord Grey to Lord Melbourne-lower yet will be the degradation that must succeed the early retirement of Lord Melbourne-and-following our downward flight-we shall proceed, we fear, to find in each successive depth a lower still.

The last ministerial paper we have chanced to look into (the Globe of the 12th of August) announces, we see, to the House of Peers, that, by their rejection of the Irish Tithe Bill, they have prepared for themselves the fate of the Church Convocation.' Ominous, but instructive words! And Sir Samuel Whalley, member for the Marylebone district, has given notice of a motion -which, three years ago, would have been high treason-for the abolition of hereditary legislation: this person does not appear to have explained whether his notice meant to include that chief hereditary legislator-the KING. There is, we sincerely believe, only one remaining chance for us. The blind haste and violence of our enemies may-we do not speak sanguinely, but may-defeat their own designs. The combined attack on The Church and the House of Lords, now at length audaciously avowed, may rouse a general feeling in England, for which the assailants are not prepared. There, at all events, is a great and popular principle, to which even yet perhaps the Conservative party may appeal with real confidence. If their ultimate defeat, and the annihilation of the Peerage, shall be suffered in the defence of the Church, they will at least have the universal sympathy of Protestant Christendom to console them amidst the ruins of their country.

NOTE TO THE FIRST ARTICLE.

Ir is with deep regret that we announce the death of Mr. COLERIDGE. When the foregoing article on his poetry was printed, he was weak in body, but exhibited no obvious symptoms of so near a dissolution. The fatal change was sudden and decisive; and six days before his death, he knew, assuredly, that his hour was come. His few worldly affairs had been long settled, and, after many tender adieus, he expressed a wish that he might be as little interrupted as possible. His sufferings were severe and constant

till within thirty-six hours of his end; but they had no power to affect the deep tranquillity of his mind, or the wonted sweetness of his address. His prayer from the beginning was, that God would not withdraw his Spirit; and that by the way in which he would bear the last struggle, he might be able to evince the sincerity of his faith in Christ. If ever man did so, ČOLERIDGE did.

Mr. COLERIDGE wrote, about a month or two ago, his own humble and affectionate epitaph.

Stop, Christian passer-by! Stop, child of God,
And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seemed he-
O, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C. !—
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fame

He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.'

Mr. COLERIDGE breathed his last at half past six o'clock, in the morning of Friday the 25th day of July last, under the roof of his dear and kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Gillman of Highgate; and was interred on the 2d of August in the vault of Highgate Church.

London Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambeth.

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Japan, voorgesteld in Schetsen over de Zeden en Gebruiken van dat Rijk; byzonder over de Ingezetenen der Stad Nagasaky. Door G. F. Meijlan, Opperhoofd aldaar. Amsterdam. 1830.

2. Bijdrage tot de Kennis van het Japansche Rijk. Door J. F. van Overmeer Fischer, Ambteenaar van Neerlandsch Indie. Amsterdam.

1833.

IT is hardly necessary to remind our readers that, from the year 1657, when the Portuguese were expelled from Japan, of all the nations of Europe the Dutch alone have been allowed access to the groupe of islands which constitute that empire. That this exclusive privilege has been ever confined within narrow limits, we knew from Kæmpfer and all the older authorities. From the works now under consideration, we learn that these limits have been progressively and recently narrowed, and that the trade which they still permit has so far declined under the discouragement and increasing jealousy of the natives, as to have become rather matter of curiosity and habit, than of commercial profit to the Hollander. Unconnected as our own country is, and must expect long to remain, by any bond of intercourse or communion with this extensive empire and singular people, we yet think that the majority of our readers will share with us the satisfaction and interest with which we receive any information, however scanty and imperfect, on this subject, from those who are alone enabled to afford it. We say advisedly, that we are likely to remain excluded from all means of investigation of our own. In one instance, indeed, in the present century, our flag has waved in the harbour of Nagasaki, as we shall hereafter state, and with what result. We are aware also, that Sir Stamford Raffles, that great promoter of Oriental enterprise, had his yearnings in that direction, and that the instructions for the late expedition to the Chinese seas embraced the contingency of an attempt at in

*

*It is worthy of remark that to English skill and courage the Dutch owe their first access to Japan. The Erasmus, the first Dutch ship which ever reached that coast in 1599, was piloted by William Adams. For his most curious and interesting adventures in that country where his skill in mathematics and ship-building procured him a long but honourable detention, see Harris's Collection of Voyages, vol. i. p. 856. He deserves a high place in the list of the heroes of naval discovery and enterprise, and equally so among the diplomatists of commerce and civilization.

VOL. LII. NO. CIV.

X

tercourse

tercourse with Japan. We think it, however, much more likely that the sole remaining link between Europe and Japan, the Dutch connexion, should be severed by violence or obliterated by disuse, than that either force or persuasion should devise a new one between this country or any of its dependencies and that empire; that New Holland, Borneo, or Central Africa, have a fairer chance of being diplomatized or dragooned into hospitality or submission towards us, within any period to which the speculation of mortal man can reasonably extend. The Dutch themselves, indeed, are confined to a solitary factory, and Decima, as a residence, presents means for the study of the three islands, little superior to those which the Isle of Sheppey would afford to a foreigner in this country, even though he were favoured with a biennial visit from the governor of Sheerness, and allowed about as often to make an excursion to Canterbury in a sedan chair, closely watched and attended by a body of the new police. The once annual visit of the deputies from the Dutch factory has been reduced to a quadrennial one-and it is at best a mere retreading of the route pursued by Kæmpfer, under circumstances and ceremonies precisely similar. Still the Dutch are the only Europeans permitted to inhabit that commercial prison and to perform that unvaried journey, and whether a residence in Decima, and a pilgrimage to Jeddo, elicit new facts, or produce little more than a confirmation of those on record, we feel, in either case, thankful to any of them who, like Messrs. Meylan and Fischer, will communicate their observations to the world. The two works in question are, indeed, locked up in a language which finds few students and fewer translators in this country or even on the continent: but these are not times when we can expect Dutchmen to show complaisance to foreign nations, by abandoning their own language, and we are, therefore, additionally pleased to see them cultivating their national literature.

Mr. Meylan, the first author on our list, has resided for many years in the Dutch factory, where, we believe, he at this moment holds the situation of Opperhoofd or President. The unpretending title of Sketches of Japan' would become a work more desultory and less instructive than the one before us. Into a thin octavo a great deal of information has been compressed; and the writer's observations are so concise and judicious, as to prove that the art of book-making is one which has been brought to little perfection at Decima. The volume of Mr. Fischer is a quarto, which, by its excellence of type and paper, and the singular beauty of its illustrations-being fac-similes of drawings by native Japanese artists-is of rank to figure on the shelves of an English collector, albeit as ignorant of Dutch as many collectors are of

the

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