To have surveyed the political events of the last twenty years with a calm and dispassionate eye—to estimate the consequences of each concession to popular clamour, and each move for party purposes—to form inductions as to the future from the indelible history of the past—to trace the causes of social misery and disquiet to their remote and recondite source—to discern the coming cloud of adversity in the midst of apparent abundance—required more than common thought, learning, sagacity, and prescience; and the man who has done all this, cannot fail to be ranked, in the estimation of those whose judgment is of real value, among the first masters of political and economic science. Many brilliant commentaries upon passing events, which at the first blush were received as absolute oracles of wisdom, have utterly failed in their predictions, and are now consigned to oblivion. They failed—if from no other cause, at least assuredly from this—that they flowed from the pens of partisans, whose whole energies were devoted to the advancement of themselves and their faction. Party spirit, indeed, has of late years almost entirely overshadowed that patriotism which was once our highest boast. Truth may be spoken of an opponent—and very often more than truth; but it is seldom expressed with regard to the political conduct of those whom men are accustomed to regard as their friends. Private motives are allowed to interfere with the more rigorous functions of the censor; the moralist is changed into the apologetic rhetorician; the judge becomes the interested advocate. Were the present crisis of our political history less momentous than it truly is—were not the great and final struggle for a return to the principles, by means of which our national greatness was achieved, so near at hand—we might, from motives and considerations easily appreciable, have left this volume of Mr Alison’s collected political essays without any special notice. For a long period of years, embracing the most important changes which have been made in the institutions and relations of this country, Mr Alison has been a constant contributor to the Magazine, adopting his own views, enforcing his own opinions, without reference to the distinctions of party or the position of individual statesmen. We believe that, in some respects, the attitude of the Magazine has differed from that assumed by any periodical publication in the country. It has never been the organ of a Party, and never subservient to a Government. Many times we have been compelled to differ from those whose political opinions have been thought most closely to approximate to our own; and never have we hesitated to express that difference in clear and unambiguous terms, knowing that a true and honourable conviction never ought to be concealed, or can be without affecting the integrity of those who entertain it.