These volumes are another contribution to the still increasing store of material for the history of the great French Revolution; the first act of that great drama of which another is now being played amid sympathies and antipathies, hopes and fears, perhaps as intense, certainly more widely felt, than those which accompanied the first lifting of the curtain. Now, however, the Revolution and the _ancien régime_ have become accustomed to each other, and know that though it be but as cat and dog, they must awhile lead some sort of life together; and they have modified their reciprocal attitude accordingly. Then each startled by the first apparition of the other, glared at it with the hate, not of prolonged antagonism, but of instant death-grapple. Free England, guided by great and noble-minded men--Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Burke--not only joined in, but led the resistance of the Continental sovereigns, and we have no need to blush for the conduct of our grandsires. Whether, looking from our present coign of vantage, we may judge England's course then wise or imprudent, the evidence afforded by these volumes is enough to show--admitting the hostile prejudice which an established and aristocratic government must needs have against a mushroom democracy--that our statesmen descended to the fray with an honesty of purpose, and an elevated sense of national duty on which we may reflect with grateful and patriotic pride. Mr. Wickham was twice sent by Lord Grenville as minister to Switzerland; to the comparatively slight duties of which office was added the onerous task of concerting, in correspondence with the Royalists in France, with the Prince of Condé, the Court of Vienna, Marshal Suwarrow, General Pichegru, and many others, the measures to be taken against their common foe--the Directory in Paris. At the time of Mr. Wickham's earlier mission, Bonaparte had not yet risen to power, and if Mr. Wickham could have inspired with his own zeal and prudence the selfish and blind potentates whom he was aiding with English counsel and treasure, the glittering series of Napoleonic phenomena might never have appeared. Mr. Wickham was regarded with the most perfect confidence by his own Government. How dangerous he proved to their foes may be judged from the fact that when at a later period he was named to represent his country at the courts, first of Berlin and then of Vienna, his appointment was objected to because it would be displeasing to the French Government.