but efficient for administrative purposes. In these respects it is manifestly inferior to monarchical government. This has the advantage of simplicity; which is always conducive to efficiency. And it has the further advantage that the power is in the hands of one who is directly concerned in the good management of national affairs: seeing that the continued maintenance of his power-nay, often his very life-depends on this. For his own sake a monarch chooses the wisest councillors he can find, regardless of class-distinctions. His interest in getting the best help, is too great to allow of prejudices standing between him and a far-seeing man. We see this abundantly illustrated. Did not the kings of France take Richelieu, and Mazarin, and Turgot to assist them? Had not Henry VIII. his Wolsey, Elizabeth her Burleigh, James his Bacon, Cromwell his Milton? And where not these men of greater calibre than those who hold the reins under our constitutional régime? So strong is the motive of an autocrat to make use of ability wherever it exists, that he will take even his barber into council if he finds him a clever fellow. Besides choosing them for ministers and advisers, he seeks out the most competent men for other offices. Napoleon raised his marshals from the ranks; and owed his military success in great part to the readiness with which he saw and availed himself of merit wherever found. We have recently seen in Russia, how prompt was the recognition and promotion of engineering talent in the case of Todtleben; and know to our cost how greatly the prolonged defence of Sebastopol was due to this.

In the marked contrast to these cases supplied by our own army, in which genius is ignored while muffs are honoured-in which wealth and caste make the advance of plebeian merit next to impossible—and in which jealousies between Queen's service and Company's service render the best generalship almost unavailable—we see

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that the representative system fails in the officering of its executive, as much as in the officering of its legislative. A striking antithesis between the actions of the two forms of government, is presented in the evidence given before the Sebastopol Committee respecting the supply of huts to the Crimean army-evidence showing that while, in his negotiations with the English Government, the contractor for the huts met with nothing but vacillation, delay, and official rudeness; the conduct of the French Government was marked by promptitude, decision, sound judgment, and great civility. Every thing goes to show that for administrative efficiency, autocratic power is the best. If your aim is a well-organized army-if you want to have sanitary departments, and educational departments, and charity-departments, managed in a business-like way-if you would have society actively regulated by staffs of State-agents; then by all means choose that system of complete centralization which we call despotism.

Probably, notwithstanding the hints dropped at the outset, most have read the foregoing pages with surprise. Very likely some have referred to the cover of the Review, to see whether they have not, in mistake, taken up some other than the "Westminster;" while some may, perhaps, have accompanied their perusal by a running commentary of epithets condemnatory of our seeming change of principles. Let them not be alarmed. We have not in the least swerved from the confession of faith set forth in our prospectus. On the contrary, as we shall shortly show, our adhesion to free institutions is as strong as ever-nay, has even gained strength through this apparently antago nistic criticism.

The subordination of a nation to a man, is not a wnolesome but a vicious state of things: needful, indeed, for a

vicious humanity; but to be outgrown as fast as may be. The instinct which makes it possible is any thing but a noble one. Call it "hero-worship," and it looks respecta ble. Call it what it is—a blind awe and fear of power, no matter of what kind, but more especially of the brutal kind; and it is by no means to be admired. Watch it in early ages deifying the cannibal chief; singing the praises of the successful thief; commemorating the most bloodthirsty warriors; speaking with reverence of those who had shown undying revenge; and erecting altars to such as carried furthest the vices which disgrace humanity; and the illusion disappears. Read how, where it was strongest, it immolated crowds of victims at the tomb of the dead king-how, at the altars raised to its heroes, it habitually sacrificed prisoners and children to satisfy their traditional appetite for human flesh-how it produced that fealty of subjects to rulers which made possible endless aggressions, battles, massacres, and horrors innumerablehow it has mercilessly slain those who would not lick the dust before its idols;-read all this, and the feeling no longer seems so worthy an one. See it in later days idealizing the worst as well as the best monarchs; receiv ing assassins with acclamation; hurrahing before successful treachery; rushing to applaud the procession and shows and ceremonies wherewith effete power strengthens itself; and it looks far from laudable. Autocracy presupposes inferiority of nature on the part. of both ruler and subject: on the one side a cold, unsympathetic sacrificing of others' wills to self-will; on the other side a mean, cowardly abandonment of the claims of manhood.

Our very language bears testimony to this. Do not dignity, independence, and other words of approbation, imply a nature at variance with this relation? Are not tyrannical, arbitary, despotic, epithets of reproach? and

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are not truckling, fawning, cringing, epithets of contempt? Is not slavish a condemnatory term? Does not servile, that is, serf-like, imply littleness, meanness? And has not the word villain, which originally meant bondsman, come to signify every thing which is hateful? That language should thus inadvertently embody the dislike of mankind for those who most display the instinct of subordination, is alone sufficient proof that this instinct is associated with evil dispositions. It has been the parent of countless crimes. It is answerable for the torturing and murder of the noble-minded who would not submit— for the horrors of Bastiles and Siberias. It has ever been the represser of knowledge, of free thought, of true progress. In all times it has fostered the vices of courts, and made those vices fashionable throughout nations. With a George IV. on the throne, it weekly tells ten thousand lies, in the shape of prayers for a "most religious and gracious king." And even now it is daily guilty of falsehood, in selling and buying portraits which every one knows to be utterly untrue. Whether you read the aunals of the far past-whether you look at the various uncivilized races dispersed over the globe-or whether you contrast the existing nations of Europe; you equally find that submission to authority decreases as morality and intelligence increase. From ancient warrior-worship down to modern flunkeyism, the sentiment has ever been strong. est where human nature has been vilest.

This relation between barbarism and loyalty, is one of those beneficent arrangements which "the servant and interpreter of nature" everywhere meets with. The subordination of many to one, is a form of society needful for men so long as their natures are savage, or anti-social; and that it may be maintained, it is needful that they should have an extreme awe of the one. Just in Just in propor tion as their conduct to each other is such as to breed per

petual antagonism, endangering social union; just in that proportion must there be a reverence for the strong, determined, cruel ruler, who alone can repress their explosive natures, and keep them from mutual destruction Among such a people any form of free government-presupposing as it does some share of equitable feeling and self-control in those concerned-is an impossibility: there must be a despotism as stern as the people are savage; and that such a despotism may exist, there must be a superstitious worship of the despot. But fast as the discipline of social life modifies the human character-as fast as, through lack of use, the old predatory, aggressive instincts dwindle as fast as, by constant exercise, the sympathetic feelings grow; so fast does this hard rule become less necessary; so fast does the authority of the ruler diminish; so fast does the awe of him disappear. From being originally god, or demi-god, he comes at length to be a very ordinary person; liable to be criticized, ridiculed, caricatured.

Various influences conspire to this result. Accumulating knowledge gradually divests the ruler of those supernatural attributes at first ascribed to him. The concep

tions which developing science gives of the grandeur of creation, as well as the constancy and irresistibleness of its Omnipresent Cause, make all feel the comparative littleness of human power; and the awe once felt for the great man, is, by degrees, transferred to that Universe of which the great man is seen to form but an insignificant part. Continued increase of population, with its average percentage of great men, involves the comparative frequency of such; and the more numerous they are, the less respect can be given to each: they dwarf each other. As society gets settled and organized, its welfare and progress become more and more independent of any one. In a primitive society, the death of a chief may alter the