ring the extent of his information, and candour of his thoughts,
appears surprising--the original prepossessions he had imbibed in favour
of republican institutions. He even carries this so far as to advocate in
his Essays, which form the immediate subject of this paper, an elective in
preference to an hereditary monarchy. He is as ardent an enthusiast in the
cause of civil and religious liberty as Russell or Sidney, though his
views are modified as to time, by observation and experience. He yields to
none of the optimist school of more recent times in sanguine expectations
of the benefits which may be expected from training the people to the
duties of self-government, and ultimately entrusting them with its
powers. He is adverse to an hereditary aristocracy, and strongly advocates
the division of landed property, by adopting in all countries the law of
equal succession, which has given its powers their deathblow both in
France and America. His life has been spent in painting the bright
efflorescence of freedom and genius in the modern Italian republics, and
their long blight under the combined powers of feudal power and Romish
superstition in the French monarchy. The perfection of society, in his
estimation, would be an aggregate of little republics, like those of
Greece or southern Italy in ancient, or of Holland, Florence, Pisa, or
Genoa, in modern times--in which supreme power was vested in the hands of
magistrates, named by the heads of trades, who had been themselves elected
by the general suffrage of their respective bodies. Many readers will
probably be surprised at finding such political opinions entertained by a
man of such acquirements, and class it with the numerous instances which
history affords, of the inability of the greatest minds entirely to throw
off the sway of early impressions and hereditary prepossessions. But we
are not concerned, in this place, with Sismondi's political opinions; it
is his views on social questions that appear peculiarly important, and
which we are desirous of making known to our readers. And we mention his
political opinions in order to show, that he at least cannot be accused of
a prejudice in favour of the monarchical, or aristocratic, side of the
question.

It is from a leaning to, and sympathy with, the opposite class in society,
that his strong and important views on the tendency of social change in
Europe, and especially in Great Britain and France, are directed. He is
de