'As a Christian who had imbibed from the breast of her mother the principles of a religion which elevates the soul from earth to thoughts of immortality, she drew from unmeasured confidence in God all the force she needed to endure the asperity of her fate and the injustice of men. She could feel indignation without sin, to use a biblical expression. She gladly pardoned her enemies for having robbed her of a perishable crown; for her faith promised her another of which no one could deprive her. 'She was less famous than Mary Stuart, since she had not the catastrophe of a tragic end; but she had not less to endure than that heroine of persecution. 'Married for motives of state in spite of her religious aspirations, having passed through rude trials before arriving at the throne, having been raised to its summit to be thence precipitated without recall,-she knew the grief of having to survive almost the whole of her family, and had to endure fresh afflictions in her widowhood. She had a court, but of unreal, borrowed, and precarious splendour; she was a queen without a sceptre, without a country, without a kingdom. The very title which was lavished on her in France only recalled too vividly the sad reality of the one she had lost in England. She had a son, calumniated from his cradle, saved by chance in his flight amid a thousand dangers; but she lived long enough to see a price set upon this cherished head, and the most illustrious partisans of his cause exposed to persecution and oppression, imprisoned, stripped of their fortune or of their life, or forced to partake with her of the bread of the stranger.' (Vol. i. pp. 8-9.) Among other curious documents in these volumes, we may cite the papal briefs, addressed by Innocent XI. to the Duke and Duchess of York in 1697 (vol. i. pp. 302–304), advising the former to moderate the excess of his zeal in the cause of the Catholic Church, as additional proof that his unconstitutional errors were always disapproved of at Rome. Additional evidence is also to be found here of the adroit way in which the Prince of Orange contrived to attach both the Pope and the Emperor of Germany to his interests, always making professions of entire devotion to James II., until the moment arrived when he could take his place. The French alliance was, indeed, as prejudicial to the interests of James II. at the Vatican and Vienna as it was in England. But we imagine that the most novel portion of these documents will be contained in the future volumes. ART. III.-1. Thoughts upon Government. By ARTHUR 2. Des Formes de Gouvernement et des Lois qui les régissent. Par M. HIPPOLYTE PASSY, Membre de l'Institut. 1870. Paris: ESSAYS and treatises without end have been written on the forms of political government. One of the latest and best of these productions is the volume by M. Hippolyte Passy, which we have placed at the head of this article; for the learned author seeks not only to classify the innumerable forms which the governments of different countries have assumed-all of them, even when they bear the same name, being infinitely various and dissimilar-but he endeavours to trace out the causes of this dissimilarity. The book merits an attentive perusal. But we are grateful to Mr. Arthur Helps for not having followed in the same track. Monarchies and republics-aristocracies and democracies-afford an interminable subject of philosophical discussion; but when all is said, these distinctions do not solve the problems of civil government, which are common to all alike. Strange as it may appear, infinitely more has been written about the form of government than about its substance. The reason is that the forms assumed by the exercise of power are the tilting ground of politics. It is chiefly with reference to them that parties are constituted and party warfare carried on. In Mr. Helps' "Thoughts upon Government' the reader will seek in vain for any trace of what are commonly called 'politics.' He speaks of civil government as a science and as an art. He considers its functions as not merely embracing peace and war, the administration of justice and the regulations of police, but the whole material and moral welfare of the community, as far as that depends on the action of the State: and he inquires how these vast and delicate functions can best be carried on. Like everything that proceeds from the pen of Mr. Helps, this volume is written with extreme purity of style and a candid thoughtfulness which win the confidence of the reader. He brings to the consideration of these questions a certain amount of official experience, acquired not in the contentious atmosphere of the House of Commons, but in those serener departments of government in which the greater part of the business of the nation is silently performed by men whose names are scarcely known out of Downing Street. And he discusses the subject from a point of view which is alike new and instructive to the majority of readers. With the exception of Sir Henry Taylor's Statesman,' to which this volume may in some respects be compared, we hardly know another book in which the real mechanism of administrative government is examined with equal nicety and discernment. To anyone who will take the trouble to reflect on the subject it will become apparent that the common and universal functions of civil government, under whatever form of political government men may be living, far surpass in magnitude and importance those functions which fall within the proper sphere of political discussion. For these functions of civil government embrace and provide for all the interests a man has as a member of society, and all the general interests of the community. Although the proper discharge of these functions is the result of a highly artificial mechanism, the perfection it has attained in a well-ordered State is shown by nothing so much as by their action being unperceived. Like the circulation of the blood and the other unconscious functions of animal life, they go on as it were spontaneously; not until some derangement occurs do we estimate the importance of each portion of this complicated machine. The more a nation advances in civilisation and culture, the more various and numerous do these functions become; until nine-tenths of them are regarded as necessaries, indispensable to social life, and absolutely due from the State to the community, although perhaps not a hundred years ago a great many of them were unthought of. Let us hastily recapitulate the most obvious of these public duties. The basis of them all is, of course, the collection, distribution, and audit of the public revenue, on which we shall have something more to say presently. Armed with the purse of the nation, the first duty of the State is to provide the material means for the defence of the country by sea and land, and for the maintenance of order at home. The second (if it be second), to establish and maintain the authority of the law, by courts of justice and means of punishment for the repression of crime and for the protection of the rights of property and of personal freedom. These three departments of revenue, defence, and law are the pillars of the edifice; to which may be added the Church, but that, as it exists in this country on a basis of independent endowment, can hardly be included within the sphere of civil government. Without a due provision for these essential wants of society, no State can be said to exist at all. They are to be found, though with less perfection, even among barbarous nations. But if we turn to a community like that of Britain, we shall find that the functions of civil government are infinitely more numerous; and that they are extending every year. In fact, their extension is the extension of civilisation itself. The best and most certain results of the progress of society are those which are common to the whole social body, through the action of the State. For example, it is now fully acknowledged, though only within the last thirty years in this country, that the education of the people is one of the duties of the State, and that it must be largely assisted by some form of public rating and taxation-the estimate in our budget already reaches to nearly two millions and a half. Next in order come the sanitary measures urgently required of Government by the people themselves-power to remove nuisances, to trace epidemic diseases to their source, to inspect deleterious manufactories and dangerous mines, to limit the hours of labour, to survey buildings, and similar duties. The State, which embraces the largest imperial interests, is not the less held responsible through its agents for the life of every foundling and the relief of every pauper; and the administration of the Poor Law casts upon it the responsibility of providing for the existence of nearly a million of human beings. The registration of births, deaths, and marriages, which fixes the civil status of every member of the community; the enumeration from time to time of the population; the record and investigation of the various causes of disease and death, are matters of the highest importance which now occupy a whole department of government; a few years back these duties were abandoned to the parish clerk and the sexton, or neglected altogether. We are old enough to recollect the time when there was not a single statistical department in any of the public offices; the mere col-lection and analysis of statistical information for the use of the public is now become an essential and laborious portion of the duties of government. Then come the great mechanical departments the Post Office, which with marvellous fidelity and rapidity transmits to any part of the kingdom and of the globe the varied intercourse of business and social life; and the Telegraph, which with still greater velocity places at the command of every man for a shilling a power as wonderful as the creations of any tale of magic. Hardly less important, and equally beyond the reach of individual or private means, is the whole system organised for the navigation of the seasbuoys, lights, piers, and harbours, which render the approaches to the English coasts as familiar and secure to the mariner as a high road. The supply of water and of light in the form of gas with some control over their purity, are equally essential to social and individual life. In a highly artificial state of society, where immense multitudes of human beings are crowded into a small area, it is impossible that they can exist at all without the intervention of a supreme power to regulate their collective interests. Even water and air, the simplest gifts of nature, would fail them, and unhappily do fail them, and the very earth would refuse to receive their remains. The necessity for legislative control and executive interference increases notably with the density of population. The welfare of the individual depends more and more on a good organisation of his collective interests, which is the true function of government. Thus the drainage of towns, the improvements of public buildings and thoroughfares, the maintenance of roads, are all works to be done by authority; and to these necessaries of life must be added some of its recreations and amusements, occasional public festivals and ceremonies, and the distribution of honours. All these things are matters of civil government, though in England, the State properly so-called wisely devolves as many of them as it can on local agents. But down to the humblest local board, they demand, for their due performance, the faculties of administrative skill, the choice of good and faithful agents, and something of the science of government. We have purposely omitted from this brief survey the duties which have a political character. Those we have enumerated are simply the essentials of modern social life. They must be performed alike, with more or less completeness, in all civilised communities. They must be performed alike under monarchies or republics, or any conceivable form of government. They are independent of party distinctions or political opinions; yet they comprise by far the largest portion of the public expenditure, and nearly everything that is really essential to the public safety and convenience. To do these things well-to take care that the administrative train rolls rapidly and easily along, without blunders, mistakes, or accidents-to see that the public money is wisely and economically spent for the public advantage-are really the best claims that a Government can now have to the confidence of the nation. Is the Government of Great Britain in these respects as perfect as it can be made? Have we been so fortunate as to hit upon that just mean between freedom and authority, which gives us all the blessings of individual liberty and all the benefits of State action? Mr. Helps would give rather an optimist answer to these questions. He thinks that the British people and their near relations in America and the Colonies are the most governable people on the face of the earth; that they are |