would be really an attempt to commit an open and barefaced robbery of a particular class of the community, whose rights are as sacred, and ought to be as much respected, as those of any other class. But, although we were wrong in both these conclusions-although the forcible reduction of the claims of the fundholders were a measure dictated alike by necessity, and by a sincere desire to give effect to the principles of fair and impartial justice, we should still be as much entitled as ever to object to its being done by a reduction of the standard of money. Why attempt to accomplish that by a mean and paltry subterfuge, which may be much better accomplished by a manly and open proceeding? If the debt is to be reduced, it is surely as easy a matter to pass an act ordering 10 or 20 per cent. to be deducted from the dividends, as it would be to pass an act ordering 10 or 20 per cent. to be deducted from the value of the money in which they are paid. An act simply reducing the dividends would have that effect--and it would have none else. It would diminish the debt; and it would not also vitiate and falsify every existing contract, and occasion that universal robbery of private creditors which must always result from the degradation of the standard. Whatever, therefore,' to avail ourselves of the just and forcible expressions of Mr Harris, may be the fate of future times, and whatever the exigencies of affairs may require; it is to be hoped that that most awkward, clandestine, and most direful method of cancelling debts by debasing the standard of money, will be the last that shall be thought of. ' *

ART. XII. Histoire des Français.

SISMONDI. 3 vols. 8vo. don. 1821.

Par T. C. L. SIMONDE DE Treuttel & Züitz. Paris & Lon

THE HE author of the historical work now before us is already well known to our readers. His talents, his principles, and his peculiar qualifications for his present most arduous undertaking, cannot be better described than in the following passage of a writer whose judgment is of undisputed authority, in whatever relates to the early history of the European nations.

The publication of M. Sismondi's Historie des Républiques Italiennes, has thrown a blaze of light around the most interesting, at least in many respects, of European countries during the middle ages. I am happy to bear witness, so far as my own studies have enabled me, to the learning and diligence of this writer; qualities

Harris on Money and Coins, Part II. p. 108.

which the world is sometimes apt not to suppose, when they perceive so much eloquence and philosophy. I cannot express my opinion of M. Sismondi, in this respect, more strongly than by saying, that his work has almost superseded the Annals of Muratori. I mean from the twelfth century: before which period his labour hardly commences. Though doubtless not more accurate than Muratori, he has consulted a much more extensive list of authors; and, considered as a register of facts alone, his history is incomparably more useful. These are combined in so skilful a manner as to diminish, in a great degree, that inevitable confusion which arises from frequency of transition, and want of general unity. It is much to be regretted, that, from too redundant details of unnecessary circumstances, and sometimes, if I may take the liberty of saying so, from unnecessary reflections, M. Sismondi has run into a prolixity which will probably intimidate the languid students of our age. It is the more to be regretted, because the history of the Italian Republics is calculated to produce a good far more important than storing the memory with historical facts:-that of communicating to the reader's bosom some sparks of the dignified philosophy, the love for truth and virtue, which lives along its eloquent pages.'-Hallam's Middle Ages, I. 232,

note.

That a writer thus endowed should have employed his powers on so great a subject as that which now occupies them, is the more fortunate, because the History of France is a book which remains to be written. It is one of the most important chasms in the literature of Europe. On the field which he has now chosen, M. Sismondi must be considered, not as having rivals to surpass, but as having an entire deficiency to supply. Daniel, and even Mezeray, are no longer read. Velly is a cold and languid compiler, whose narrative is very incomplete, and who is more inaccurate than is excusable in a writer who is so little turned aside by reflection from inquiring into facts. Henault's Abridgement is no more than a portable book of reference, and a convenient help to the recollection of those who are already acquainted with history. It were to be wished, indeed, that, for the same useful purposes, we had an abridgement of British History equally well executed. The want of a

*The President Henault represents himself (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscrip. xxviii. 611.), though with no great truth, as an imitator of Velleius Paterculus, whose work he calls the Model of Abridgements. À more unfortunate model could not well be imagined. Velleius was an ingenious, and sometimes a brilliant writer, of impure taste, whose antithetical characters, and rhetorical commonplaces, which would not be beauties of a high order any where, are very gross blemishes in an historical abridgement.

History of France is rendered more remarkable by the abundance of materials which offer themselves to the historian. In recent times, the French Memoirs exceed in value, still more than in quantity, those of any other nation; and their ancient history has been illustrated by the Collection of the Historians and the Ordinances of the Kings; '—great national works, conducted under the patronage of successive Governments, which survived the Revolution, and were resumed as soon as tranquillity began to reappear in the reign of Napoleon. Both these works are still a reproach to Great Britain. We have no collection of our ancient historians, and no complete and authentic publication of our Parliamentary Records; though it be well known that men, admirably qualified for the conduct of both these national works, are ready to offer their services, whenever the necessary support shall be afforded by Government.

It would be difficult perhaps to devise a plausible reason for the want of historical talent among a nation like the French, eminently distinguished in almost every other department of literature. Though history requires freedom more than most exertions of the human mind, yet the form of the French Government does not perhaps sufficiently explain this singular deficiency. Even the great historian who ascribes to slavery the fall of Roman history after the usurpation of Augustus, has justly added, that historical truth was then violated, not only by the base flatterers of tyrants, but more dangerously, because more speciously, by the indignation which tyranny excited. The milder monarchies of modern times neither exacted such undistinguishing adulation, nor inspired such strong abhorrence. Absolute monarchy, however, in its most moderate form, is no doubt destructive of the free spirit which is the soul of history; and it is remarkable that, as long as an irregular liberty was kept up by civil wars and religious controversies, France produced considerable historians. It was not till the establishment of a polished and peaceable despotism in the boasted age of Louis XIV., that the voice of history was utterly silenced. He indeed employed men of genius to compose the history of his reign. But he was ignorant that their genius must forsake them in the composition of a narrative which was to be approved by their master, when they were degraded in their own eyes by the consciousness of dependence and partiality. It did not escape the sagacity of Tacitus, that the decline of history under the Imperial Government was in part caused by the exclusion of the people from public affairs. In popular States, even where the historian himself has no di

* Partim inscitiâ Reipublicæ, ut alienæ.

rect experience of public business, he at least breathes an atmosphere full of political traditions and debates. He lives with those who think and speak more of them than of most other subjects. He cannot be an utter stiger to the spirit of civil prudence. Under absolute monarchies, on the other hand, the few who know the causes of events are either afraid to write, or see no importance in any thing but the intrigues by which they obtain and preserve power; and the task of writing history is necessarily abandoned either to mere compilers, or to sophists and rhetors, who, of all men, are the most destitute of insight into character, and of judgment in civil affairs.

Another cause of the decay or absence of historical talent in France, is probably to be found in the want of habits of research among their late popular writers. The genius of history is nourished by the study of original narrators, and by critical examination of the minute circumstances of facts. Ingenious speculation and ostentatious ornament are miserable substitutes for these historical virtues; and their place is still worse supplied by the vivacity or pleasantry which, where it is most successful, will most completely extinguish that serious and deep interest in the affairs of men, which the historian aims to inspire. An historian is not a jester or a satirist. It is not his business to sneer or laugh at men, or to lower human nature. It is by maintaining the dignity of man, and the importance of his pursuits, that history creates a fellow-feeling with his passions, and a delight in contemplating his character and actions.

My work,' says M. de Sismondi, was begun and completed from the originals, according to the advice which I formerly received from the great historian John de Muller. I studied history in the contemporary writers. I endeavoured to represent it in the light in which it appeared to them; and it is only after having exhausted these original authorities, and formed an unprejudiced opinion from them, that I had recourse to subsequent writers. Then only I often learned the existence of historical controversies, of which I had not before suspected the possibility. I have lost something by this process; but the contrary method would, I think, have been more injurious. History, thus contemplated at its source, appears to me so new, so different from what I supposed it to be, that I seem to myself to have gained more by guarding against the prejudices of compilers, than I can have lost by renouncing the aid of their information.' Introd. xxvii.

Though this language may seem to indicate too rigorous an exclusion of modern aid, there is nothing more certain than that the history of remote ages can never be composed as it should be, unless it be chiefly drawn from original writers. The importance of this practice to truth is obvious; yet no man with

out experience can know the full extent of the danger of trusting even to the best compilers. In long works, oversights are inevi table; and, in the course of time, small inaccuracies are, by the negligence of successive compilers, magnified into considerable, and sometimes essential errors. Whoever traces a remarkable story through a long series of historians, will often be astonished at the utter dissimilarity of the last to the first edition, though in each intermediate stage the additions or alterations may be almost imperceptible. There are few countries in which the truth of history has suffered more than in England, from the indolence with which almost every one of our modern historians has taken the basis of his narrative from his predecessor. A better spirit has indeed lately shown itself; and, when Government have done their duty by making public the ample materials under their control, we may hope to see our ancient history illustrated from authentic sources.

But it is not to accuracy only that the consultation of original authorities is essential. The delight with which we peruse the history of ages long passed, depends chiefly on its lively and picturesque representation of men, manners, and events. But these are only to be found in the dramatic narrative of the eyewitness or the contemporary, who had always seen the manners which he paints, and had generally felt some degree of the passions which actuated his heroes. The spirit of these original narratives evaporates when they are poured from compilation to compilation. If a modern historian can recover this charm, it is only when he either borrows directly from the first sources, or when frequent and familiar contemplation of them has kindled his imagination, and enabled him to antiquate his feelings, so as to become for a moment the contemporary of those ages of which he is the historian. Nothing, therefore, is more true, however paradoxical it may seem, than that the means of amusement, and, what is more, of interest, are to be found by a modern writer of adequate talents, chiefly in those researches into antiquity, and that diligent study of ancient writers, which appear so tedious to indolent readers, and may be represented in so ludicrous a light by men of wit. The narrative of ancient events by a mere modern thinker, must always be uninteresting, because he never can paint, or even conceive, the feelings from which these events arose.

It is on the sympathy which History excites that its moral effect depends. The moral improvement to be derived from all

* Particularly in the work of Mr Lingard, which, when it is com pleted, will call for our most serious attention.