But, most of all, these Continental revolutions teach a lesson of inestimable importance to the people of this country, and which recent events have so well illustrated, as to the incalculable value of a hereditary order of succession in the government, supported by hereditary respect, and resting on the _disinterested_ loyalty of the people. It is in vain to conceal that it was the fact of its being a _usurping government_ which proved fatal, in the crisis of its fate, to the monarchy of Louis Philippe. He was the King of the Barricades, and how could he withstand the force of the Barricades? It was the same with the government of Robespierre, the Directory, and Napoleon: they were all usurpations, and fell before the power which had created them. They had not taken root in the loyal and generous affections of men. The dynasty of Cromwell perished with himself; Charles II. was restored amidst the unanimous transports of the whole nation. It was the same with the government of Great Britain for long after the Revolution of 1688: it is well known that, during the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, it was almost an open question in both houses of parliament, whether the Stuart line should be restored, or the Hanoverian family, in terms of the Act of Settlement, be called to the throne. The devastating civil wars and bloody contests of the Prætorian Guards with the legions, which stained with blood the annals, and shortened the existence of the Roman empire, may show what is the fate of a great nation which, having cast away the bonds of hereditary loyalty, has nothing to be guided by, in the choice of a ruler, but the blind partiality of armed men, or the corrupted support of interested hirelings. It will be long before either will produce the fidelity of the Scottish Highlanders in 1745, or the glories of La Vendée in 1793. Usurpation of the throne is a sure prelude to endless dissension, national corruption, and endangered freedom. The expulsion of the Tarquins brought Rome to the brink of ruin; its effects were not removed for two centuries. England took nearly a century to recover the effects of the most just and necessary revolution in which men were ever engaged--that which chased James II. from the throne. Our present stability, amidst the fall of so many other governments, is mainly owing to this, that by the long possession of the throne by her ancestors, Queen Victoria unites in her person the two firmest foundations of regal power--a nation's consent, and a nation's loyalty.