changed he was carried into the National Assembly. There the dramatist exhibited pedlars and excisemen engaged in financial legislation; country curates as new modelling the church, and country attornies as establishing a code of laws for the government of an empire; with a side prospect of fishwomen taking their seats in the senate, while a mob hallooed behind the scenes. The imagery and pathos of the bard and orator made the first impression. Reflecting, however, that the production was not exhibited for the purpose of theatrical effect, but intended to present facts, enforce conviction, and influence conduct, he returned to examine it in those lights. He acknowledges that when he first reviewed his own fascination he imputed it to the spell of the author’s genius, and supposed that investigation would convince him that its merit was merely poetic and oratorical. He therefore resolved, in his next reading, to view it as a series of reasoning and of philosophy. The connection of argument he did not immediately perceive; separate links were very massive and strong, but he frequently could not discover the juncture; and as the links lay huddled before him, with a vast variety of colouring and decorations, he thought them detached and unconnected pieces; but unfolding and viewing the whole, he saw that they formed one continuous chain, which might have been more simple and regular, but could not well be stronger. Expanded and profound wisdom he saw in the principles and deductions respecting intellectual, moral, political processes and operations, and the influence of religion on the wisdom, virtue, and happiness of individuals and societies. He was by no means, however, convinced that the French revolutionists were such men, either in character or condition, as the author described, and therefore could not entirely admit the justness of his conclusions, or the probable fulfilment of his predictions. He was, however, staggered in his opinion of the French revolution, and resolved to avoid forming any final judgment until it should be farther known by events. He still had no apprehensions that it could possibly produce any bad effects upon Britain. If it were to prove the excellent system of mixed liberty, an order which some of its earliest votaries had sought, the British must love and cherish it, as if not similar in detail, analogous in principle and object to their own. If on the other hand it proved the bloody and ferocious anarchy which Mr. Burke predicted, no Briton, of either patriotism or property, could be so frantic as to wish a change from happiness to misery. But as he attended to the varying state of opinion and sentiment, he began to apprehend that not a few in the prevalent eagerness for change were becoming votaries of revolution.