commercial and middle classes, and a division of the succession, whether in land or money, into nearly equal parts, very generally took place. It may readily be inferred from these observations, that the doctrines of Montesquieu, as to the moulding of institutions by external circumstances, and the character of nations, not of the character of nations by institutions and forms of government, is one of the very highest importance, not merely to speculative philosophers, but practical statesmen. In truth, it is the question of questions; the one thing needful to be understood both by the leaders of thought and the rulers of men. Unless correct and rational views are entertained on this subject, internal legislation will be perpetually at fault, external policy in a false direction. Reform will degenerate into revolution, conquest into desolation. The greatest calamities, both social and foreign, recorded in the history of the last half century, have arisen from a neglect of the maxims of Montesquieu, as to the indelible influence of race and external circumstances on human character, and the adoption in their stead of the doctrines of Voltaire and Rousseau, on the paramount influence of political institutions and general education on human felicity. Our policy, both social and foreign, is still mainly founded on the latter basis. If Montesquieu's principles as to no nation ever arriving at durable greatness but by institutions in harmony with its spirit and origin, had been generally adopted, the French Revolution, which originated in the Anglo and American mania, and the desire to transplant English institutions into the soil of France, would never have taken place. Had the same views prevailed in the British Cabinet, the iniquitous support of the revolt of the South American colonies in 1821 and 1822, and the insidious encouragement of the ruinous revolutions of Spain and Portugal during the Carlist war, would not have stained the honour of England, and ruined the prospects of the Peninsula. Had they pervaded the British community, the two fatal mistakes of policy in our time, the sudden emancipation of the negro slaves in the West Indies, and the unloosing all the bonds of government in Ireland, by the transplantation of Anglo-Saxon institutions, and the tempered freedom of England, into the midst of the Celtic blood and semi-barbarous passions of Ireland, would never have been committed. The great question at issue, in short, between Montesquieu and the Encyclopedists, as to whether man is moulded by institutions, or institutions by man, is the fundamental question, not only speculative, but practical, of the age; and without correct ideas on which, internal legislation and external policy are equally certain to be precipitated into error, and benevolence itself to become the parent of unbounded calamities.