Not content with repulsing from their frontiers the armies sent by Austria, Prussia, and Britain, to avenge and reinstate the Bourbons, the French threw themselves into the heart of the continent with a vigour and a valour alike surprising and discomforting to the disciples of Marlborough and Turenne. As if military tactics had shared in the general revolutionizing, the soldiers of the Republic-chiefly youths, shoeless, illclad, and but partially armed-pressed into the field, leaving in their rear strongly-garrisoned towns, to be disarmed and occupied by the betterprovided divisions that might follow. Thus the Netherlands were subdued-Brussels, Treves, and Cologne, captured-and Holland converted into a republic, under the costly protection of France. Prussia was the first to withdraw from the anti-Gallican league, at the sacrifice of her possessions on this side the Rhine. Spain was next intimidated into peace and alliance. No sooner had the armies of the Republic under Jourdan and Moreau received a check, than it was more than compensated by the brilliant and rapid Italian victories of Bonaparte-brought into notice first by his important service in the reduction of Toulon, next by his sup- ́ pression of the aristocratic insurrection in Paris. From the Alps to the Po -thence to Rome-and again to the very gates of Vienna-the Austrian forces were driven; three armies being completely destroyed in the course of one year. There the young conqueror dictated the treaty known as that of Campoformio [October, 1797], by which several states of Italy, including part of the Papal territories, were recognised as the Cisalpine Republic; Venice basely surrendered to Austria-the first great crime of Napoleon's career; Genoa, Tuscany, Parma, and Sardinia, reduced to the condition of French dependencies, Naples alone retaining its independence; the Netherlands formally ceded to France, and the Rhine acknowledged as her boundary. Geneva had voluntarily annexed herself to the greater Republic of France; and now the whole of Switzerland was compelled-though not till after the resistance of the democratic cantons had been quelled in bloodshed and suffering-to accept a constitution modelled on that of her imperious neighbour. Received, on his return from his military and diplomatic achievements, with the unbounded acclamations of all classes of the French people, Bonaparte reviewed the army that had been formed by the Directory-the then government-for the pretended purpose of invading England. Perceiving that her power was more vulnerable in the East-where it was about to be boldly assailed by Tippo Saib-and impelled by a romantic passion for oriental conquest, he revived a project of the Grand Monarque, and persuaded the Directory to undertake the subjugation of Egypt. Glad to be relieved of the presence of one whose popularity already threatened their own continuance in power, the Directory despatched him thither. The island of Malta had been previously wrested, as if to provide

him with a convenient halting-place, from the Knights of Jerusalem. How he prospered in that enterprise of audacious ambition, need not here be described-its effect on European politics is more to our purpose. It furnished the British minister with an argument to induce Paul, the Emperor of Russia, and Selim, the Sultan of Turkey, to league with Austria and England [1799] against this “disturber of the peace of nations;" as Bonaparte was now colorably designated. Naples joined in the belligerent alliance, and was the first to suffer for her temerity, being quickly reduced by the French, who had garrisoned all the chief places of Italy, and deposed the Pope, because he failed to complete the exactions promised. The Alps of Tyrol and the Grison were surmounted, to open a passage into Germany, and recrossed in retreat; for there the importance of the Czar's alliance was felt. The Russian forces, commanded by Suwaroff, enabled Austria to recover much that she had lost. Switzerland and Italy were again the scene and the object of contention. Rome was restored to the Pontificate-Pius the Seventh having been elected to the chair from which the last Pope of that style had been driven, to die in his exile. The French were forced to retreat upon Genoa, and that beautiful and almost impregnable city was consequently subjected to a siege, the horrors of which have distinguished it as amongst the most sanguinary of sieges-and they should have a separate chapter in the history of war. Information of these disasters, and of the consequent unpopularity of the Directory, causedin part, at least-Bonaparte's sudden and private return from his command in the East. Escaping the British fleet, which, under Nelson, had well nigh destroyed his own at the mouth of the Nile-with a good fortune that reminds one of the dexterous passage of his great prototype through the midst of Pompey's galleys-he arrived in Paris, to be hailed with applauses stimulated by the recollection of his Italian, as well as the knowledge of his Egyptian, successes; and by a sort of universal, though unavowed, expectation that he would supersede the unequal Directoryguilty of incapacity and corruption. The Council of Elders anticipated his appearance by appointing him military commander of Paris. Accompanied by Moreau, Berthier, Murat, and others of his officers-Bernadotte and Jourdan persisting in fidelity to the Republic-he presented himself to the Council, told them they had saved the country by that resolution, and then announced it in public amid the acclamations of the soldiers. The Directors he upbraided thus :-"What have you done with that France which I left to you prosperous and glorious? I left her at peace, and I find her at war; I left her triumphant, and I find nothing but spoliations and misery. What have you done with the hundred thousand Frenchmen whom I left behind, my companions in arms and in glory? They are no more." The power of the Directory was at an end-three out of the five resigned, and the two

were virtually prisoners. The Council of Elders and of Five Hundred were adjourned to St. Cloud. The sitting of the former body was entered on the morning of the 19th Brumaire,[Nov. 10th, 1799] by Bonaparte, and a premonition given of the more stormy scene that was about to ensue in the Council of Five Hundred-a scene that has become familiar as the companion picture to Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament. A new constitution-last of the many drawn up by the ex-Abbé and exDirector Sieyes-was quickly decided upon and promulgated. It conferred vast powers on the First Consul, and took away all direct representation from the people. Bonaparte being provisionally nominated, by a fragment of the Five Hundred, to the Consulate, appointed his colleagues, who chose the Senate, the Senate naming a body of one hundred called the Tribunate, and another of three hundred called a Legislature. Self-created, however, as were these authorities, they were sanctioned, when submitted to the people, by a majority of 3,011,007 to 1,562 votes-so willing was the versatile nation to accept a master.

The state of parties and of the people in our own country is less generally known than the events just described. The outburst of the storm found the reins of government in the vigorous hands of William Pitt, son of the greater Chatham. Seduced from among the most democratic of the Whigs, he sat alone on the seat of power, unsustained by the co-operation of a single man of more than mediocre talent, until the apostasy of Burke-if so harsh a term may be applied to the frenzied renunciation of his old principles and friends by that splendid genius. Opposite sat Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, Grey, and (for a while) Windham*masters in constitutional learning, parliamentary eloquence, and all the arts of popularity. These, and the Whig party, of which they were the leaders, hailed the Revolution, while they deplored the sanguinary scenes in which its enemies involved it, energetically denounced leaguing with the despots of Europe against the young Republic, and demanded the purification and enlargement of the representation; their parliamentary strength ranging from fifty to ninety-three votes, while the Ministry could at any time command two hundred and fifty to three hundred. Out-of-doors-represented in the House only by young Sir Francis Burdett-was the great democratic party, headed by the celebrated Horne Tooke, which had arisen so early as

It was this Windham of whom Dr. Johnson was accustomed to speak as "inter stellas Luna minores," and to whom he paid the more equivocal compliment, when lamenting that his new post of Irish Secretary would compel him to practise what his conscience would not approve―" Don't be afraid, Sir, you will soon make a very pretty rascal;" which the all-admiring Boswell calls one of Johnso 's best things.

1770, and adopted several organizations, the last of which was the famous London Corresponding Society. Demanding no less than universal suffrage and annual parliaments, they hailed with proportionate delight the triumphs of democracy, first in America and next in Europe, circulated by tens of thousands the replies to Burke's "Reflections" furnished by Mackintosh's brilliant "Vindicia Gallicæ," and Paine's masterpiece of common sense, "The Rights of Man." Intense was their sorrow and indignation at finding their recreant associate resolute to employ all the powers of their country against France, and to crush themselves into silence. The latter was, indeed, his purpose-as though he would fill up the cup of his guilt with the blood of his companions—and with relentless cruelty was it prosecuted. Supported by the royal favour, and by an overwhelming majority, composed of the members for treasury boroughs, the nominees of courtly peers, and a mob of country gentlemen-while his opponents were weakened by the timidity of the middle classes, whom Burke had most effectually panic-stricken by his phantasms, though he could not inspire them with his patriotism—the Minister replied to every motion for discontinuing the war, or reforming Parliament, by ringing the division-bell; and to the immense gatherings and imposing memorials of the people, by instructing his tool, Sir John Scott (afterwards Lord Eldon), to use all the machinery of the law, and to enlist an infamous army of spies, for the destruction of their leaders. Thus were Palmer, Muir, Skirving, and Gerald-poor Gerald! young, gifted, and enthusiastic; the favourite pupil of that leviathan of learning, Dr. Parr-condemned by the pliant judicature of Scotland to transportation; Gerald dying in the convict-ship. The English reformers -Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, and others-stood at the bar of the Old Bailey for nine days [Nov. 1794], but were happily acquitted by a courageous jury, to the exultation of the people. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, spite of the stubbornest resistance of the few and faithful Whigs who still adhered to Fox-for the majority had followed Burke, under the Duke of Portland and Mr. Windham. The gaols were filled with political prisonersclubs were shut up-public meetings were suppressed. The retirement and death of Burke- -a spirit-broken man-brought to a pause those tremendous encounters which rapt the gaze of England, and the mere record of which fills us with admiration and wonder; the burning philippics of Burke, or the stately eloquence of Pitt, repelled by Fox's crushing declamation—the tirades of the demented genius followed, while yet tingling the ear, by the majestic periods of his gigantic antagonist; half reluctant to strike so heavily an ancient friend, though inspired to his full height by his great theme-as fulminating clouds are imagined to meet and shatter on the heavenly plains; or, as the Homeric heroes, when spear and sword fell broken to the ground like reeds, sent ponderous stones thundering through mid-air

while Sheridan and Windham rained their sharp and glistening satires from side to side. Fox, and most of his few remaining followers, disgusted with the despotism of the minister-or despairing of supplanting him in powerseceded from the House on the contemptuous rejection of Mr. Grey's motion for a reform of the representation [May, 1797], and but rarely re-appeared during the next four years. They might almost have been forgiven had they despaired of their country, and conspired her deliverance by the perilous chances of an insurrection. The national debt had swelled from the eighty-eight millions of which it consisted at the commencement of the reign, to three hundred and ten millions, and was augmenting every session, by loans of eighteen millions. The annual taxation had risen since the same period, from about ten millions to twenty-eight or thirty millions. Poorrates were increasing at the frightful speed of from fifty to sixty thousand a year. Some 120,000 sailors and marines were afloat; the yeomanry and volunteers numbered 30,000 men; and the militia, available in Ireland as well as Great Britain, and subject to frequent draftings into the regular army, was 85,000 strong. The Minister's simple method of meeting this enormous and, then, unparalleled expenditure, was the trebling of the assessed taxes; and when that failed, the imposition of an income tax. When the Bank of England found itself unable to meet the loans demanded, and at the same time continue cash payments to its note-holders, it was authorized to issue paper as a legal tender, and to allay the general panic by accommodating bankers and traders with a hundred thousand pounds of specie. Bad harvests, and consequent dearth of food, came to complete the calamities of an oppressed people. And withal, there was little of that success in war which might render them an imaginary compensation, and animate them to sustain their burdens by the excitation of their national pride. Howe and Nelson confirmed the cherished supremacy of Britain on the seas; but defeat almost invariably disgraced and dispirited her forces by land. The Duke of York, with the generalship worthy of his family, led an army of British and Russian soldiers into a captivity from which they could only be redeemed by the surrender of prisoners taken on the other element, by commanders who owed not their commission to their birth. A large proportion of the sums raised from the English people was spent in hiring foreign despots to fight the French, which could bring no glory to those who paid, and only added to the empire it was intended to destroy : Austria received £3,200,000 for one campaign, and the Czar £112,000 a month for the eight months his forces were in the field. But neither disasters abroad nor distress at home could bend the proud obstinacy of the Minister, nor disturb the blind confidence reposed in him by the timid and selfish propertied classes-the landocracy revelling in a false and feverish prosperity; merchants and tradesmen corrupted by the distribution among