will be ruined; and the resourses of those who either are disposed or compelled to leave us, will be turned against us. The enemy is, in all probability, willing to treat once more he thinks he shall gain by a peace the only thing which war cannot give him, colonies and trade;-and, satisfied with subduing the Continent, he may be inclined to forego the chance of conquering us. If he really has no such views, and will only make peace upon extravagant terms, we must, of course, resolve to fight the battle out, and endeavour to forget by whom our safety has been endangered. But, in the present state of the Continent, if a peace can, upon tolerably good terms, be procured, it will surely be the height of folly to throw away the last chance of bringing back France to the pursuits of civil life, and rendering her a safe and quiet neighbour.

It is an exceedingly prevalent notion in this country, that the enemy is worse off than he affects to be, because he offers moderate terms to those powers whom he pretends to have conquered. He overruns Austria; and when he comes to talk of peace, he takes but a trifling part of her dominions, leaving her still a great nation. Is it possible' say the reasoners to whom we are alluding that he can really have gained such victories? No; he must feel that he can do no better;-he is afraid-he has got into some scrape there is something rotten at home-or he knows that he shall be defeated if the war lasts. Such have been the inferences from the enemy's moderation in former treaties; and, no doubt, the peace which he is about to make with our allies, will be liable to the same remarks. Nothing, however, can be worse founded than opinions of this sort; and nothing can be more fa-. tal, than the delusions to which they give rise. The enemy knows very well, that by taking something at present, he may get more hereafter; and he is aware that he can only continue master of the question of peace and war, with a neighbour whom he has defeated, by giving, in the first instance, moderate terms. If he did otherwise, the treaty might be broken at a moment which did not suit him. To encroach gradually after the war has ended, is a part of the same policy which teaches him to move rapidly while it continues. We must lay our account, then, with his not remaining quiet now, any more than he did after the treaty of Presburg. But to delude ourselves with the hope, that because he is moderate in his terms, compared with the successes which he claims, therefore his pretensions are false; and to derive from them another inference, that by keeping alive some war on the Continent, or at least continuing at war ourselves, as a rallying point to the allies, we shall, in the end, beat him,-is a species of folly which would be ridiculous, were it confined to a few, and productive of less melancholy effects.

It is common with the same class of politicians, to receive, as something akin to disaffection, every gloomy description of our own prospects, or those of our allies. When such a representation is made, they do not inquire whether it be true or false, although that is the only question; but they say, it tends to promote despondency. Those who fairly and honestly state the case as it is, are called prophets of evil, and preachers of despair-are plainly accused of wishing to see their own predictions realized-and more than suspected of assisting in their fulfilment. To all such thoughtless or designing persons, one answer may be sufficient. The evil foretold is a misery which must directly affect every human being in the country-it is an invasion of a large French army, either successful, or with difficulty repelled. This is a prospect which no rational creature can take any pleasure in contemplating. Then do not speak of it,' say the railers, it dispirits the people.' Not so-A nation, whom the timely view of their real fituation can difpirit, will affuredly never face the danger when it comes near. But it is very poffible to enfure a panic, with all its fatal confequences, among the braveft people, by feeding them with falfe hopes, ftimulating their natural spirits by artificial means, and blindfolding them till the moment when the immediate approach of the danger requires them to act. Above all, a strong and general popular feeling against peace is to be dreaded by every wife ftatesman, if it be the refult of fuch delufions; for, when the crifis is at hand, and the truth is known, a ftill stronger averfion to the war is likely to feize the multitude, and all fpirit-ftirring topics will furely fail. The mischiefs of fuch popular infatuation were felt, but in a very fubordinate degree, during the Grand Alliance war; when the general averfion to a treaty upon moderate terms broke off the negotiations; and, being followed by an equally violent clamour for peace, brought about the most inadequate bargain that two nations ever made.

The wifer conduct is to look our fituation in the face, while there is yet time to better it. We have conftantly and glorioufly vanquished all our enemies at fea;-we have gained the most honourable victories over fuperior forces by land ;-we have fuffered not a fingle reverfe which can ftain our reputation. But our allies have been destroyed, rather than conquered,-the world has need of repofe, and the war can no longer benefit any one except our enemy. This is our fituation. We can lofe no honour by fairly agreeing to treat ;-by yielding fomething to the misfortunes, not of ourselves, but our friends-and by endeavouring to be really at peace, as foon as we have put an end to the war.

ART

ART. IX. Cobbett's Political Register. 11 vol. 8vo. pp. innumerable. London 1802-1807.

WE E are induced to take fome notice of this Journal, because we are perfuaded that it has more influence with that most important and most independent clafs of fociety, which ftands juft above the lowest, than was ever poffeffed before by any fimilar publication. Its circulation and its popularity are, we think, upon the whole, very creditable to the country. It is written with great freedom, and often with great force of argument. It flatters few national prejudices-except our love of detraction and abuse; and has often had the merit of maintaining bold truths, both against the party in power, and the prevailing fentiments of the nation. It confifts, in general, of folid argument and copious detail; with little relief of general declamation, and no attraction of playfulness. It is a good fign of a people, we think, when a work of this defcription is generally read and ftudied among them. It can only be acceptable to men of fome vigour of intellect, and fome independence of principle; and it was, upon the whole, with feelings of pride and fatisfaction, that we learned the extent of its circulation among the middling claffes of the community, and the great fuperiority of its influence over that of the timid and venal prints, which fubfift by flattering the prejudices of a party, or of the nation at large.

The author's original anti-Jacobinifm was, like all other antiJacobinifm after 1800, extravagant, fcurrilous, and revolting. But this died away; and, for the three or four laft years, till very lately, his influence, we believe, has been rather falutary, and we have been well pleafed that fuch a journal fhould be in exiftence. Difgufted as we have often been with his arrogance; irritated by his coarfe and clamorous abufe; and wearied with the needlefs vehemence and difproportioned fury with which he frequently defcanted on trifles, we could ftill admire his intrepidity, and refpect his force of understanding; and were glad to have a journal in which falutary truths could be ftrongly spoken, and which might serve as a vehicle for independent fentiments, and a record of neceffary, but unpopular accufations. With this general impreffion, we could eafily make allowance for the exceffes into which the author was habitually betrayed, either by the defects of his education, or by his known political partialities; and after setting afide his raving about the funds and the committee at Lloyd's his trafh about the learned languages-and his ignorant fcurrility about Mr Malthus-we had still fome toleration in ftore for his zeal for the Bourbons, his horror at revolutions, and his jealousy of the democratical part of our conftitution.

Within the last fix months, however, he has undergone a moft extraordinary and portentous transformation. Instead of the champion of establishment, of loyalty, and eternal war with all revolutionary agency, he has become the patron of reform and reformers; talks hopefully of revolutions; fcollingly of Parliament; and cavalierly of the Sovereign; and declaims upon the fate of the representation, and on the iniquities of placemen and penfioners, in the very phrafes which have been for fome time laid afide by those whom he used to call levellers and Jacobins.

The inconfiftencies and apoftafies of a common journalist, certainly are neither fo rare nor of fuch importance as to deserve any notice from us. But Mr Cobbett is not quite a common journalist; and his cafe is somewhat peculiar. He has more influence, we believe, than all the other journalists put together; and that influence is still maintained, in a good degree, by the force of his perfonal character. He holds a high tone of patriotism and independence; he puts his name to all his publications; and manfully invites all who diffent from his opinions, to meet him in the fair field of public difputation. Another peculiarity in Mr Cobbett's cafe is, that he ftill ftoutly afferts his confiftency; and maintains, that with a very moderate allowance for the exaggerations of a difputant, and for actual changes in the polition of our affairs, the doctrines which he now promulgates are the fame which he has held and expreffed from the beginning. He has neither professed to be converted like Mr Redhead Yorke, nor attempted to sneak silently to the other side like the herd of venal pamphleteers. Though our quarrel with him, therefore, be entirely on the score of the tendency of his later productions, the question of their consistency or inconsistency with his former professions is by no means indifferent to the issue. There are many who believe in him, partly at least, on account of the sturdy honesty to which he lays claim, and the tone of confidence with which he predicts what is to come, and pretends to have predicted whatever has actually occurred; and there are few, perhaps, of those who have received any impression from his writings, whose faith in his reasonings would not be diminished by a conviction of the inconsistency or versatility of his successive opinions, or a suspicion of the share that passion or party may have had in their formation. It is not, therefore, from any paltry or vindictive motive, but for the purpose of reducing his authority to its just standard, that we think it necessary, before entering upon the examination of his late doctrines, to make a few remarks on his title to the praise of consistency, and to exhibit some instances of what has certainly appeared to us as the most glaring and outrageous contradiction."

The

The first thing that would strike any one who had only known Mr Cobbett as the author of the Porcupine, and the earlier volumes of the Political Register, on looking into any of his later numbers, would be the terms of high and unmeasured praise with which he speaks of the political principles and proceedings of Sir Francis Burdett. We were perfectly certain, that these same principles had formerly been the object of his most furious reprobation, and had an obscure recollection that the worthy Baronet himself had occasionally been subjected to the discipline of his pen. In looking back to the Register for the year 1802, we were surprised, however, to find the excess and scurrility of the abuse which was then poured out on the present idol of the author. Some of the following passages form so extraordinary a contrast with those which Mr Cobbett's readers have lately been in the habit of perusing, that we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing them.

In the Register for July 1802, (vol. II. p. 51.), this loyal politician observes, To read the bills and advertisements which have been published in the county of Middlesex, one would believe that the contest was not between two gentlemen, but between the magistrates and the thieves; and that the great body of those who have espoused the cause of Sir Francis Burdett, have done so with a hope, that, if he were successful, there would be an end to all legal punishment; and that crimes of every sort might be committed in perfect security. The same observation is repeated at p. 90. of the same volume, where it is facetiously observed, that the road to Brentford is lined with ragged wretches from St Giles's, bawling out, Sir Francis Burdett, and no Bastile; and, at the Hustings, there are daily some half dozen convicts, who have served out their time in the house of correction, amusing the rabble with execrations on the head of Mr Mainwaring,' &c. In the same spirit, the worthy Baronet is repeatedly branded as the friend of the convicted traitor O'Connor, and the acquitted traitor Horne Tooke, and held up to detestation as 'the demagogue with his crew,' or 'his gallows-hating citizens.' It would be endless to quote the passages in which this temper is indicated. The following may serve as a pretty fair specimen of the tone in which they are composed. To reason with such a man' (as Sir Francis Burdett) would be absurd. He must be treated with silent contempt, or be combated with weapons very dif ferent from a pen. While, however, we declare our abhorrence of the principles and conduct of the man who, in alluding to the British government, speaks of " hired Magistrates, Parliaments and Kings; "—while we detest and loathe Sir Francis Burdett ;— while we could trample upon him for the false, base and insolent

insinuations