light. It must show man the proper character of
man; and the nearer it can bring him to that standard, the stronger the
National Assembly becomes.

In contemplating the French Constitution, we see in it a rational order
of things. The principles harmonise with the forms, and both with their
origin. It may perhaps be said as an excuse for bad forms, that they
are nothing more than forms; but this is a mistake. Forms grow out of
principles, and operate to continue the principles they grow from. It
is impossible to practise a bad form on anything but a bad principle.
It cannot be ingrafted on a good one; and wherever the forms in any
government are bad, it is a certain indication that the principles are
bad also.

I will here finally close this subject. I began it by remarking that Mr.
Burke had voluntarily declined going into a comparison of the English
and French Constitutions. He apologises (in page 241) for not doing it,
by saying that he had not time. Mr. Burke's book was upwards of eight
months in hand, and is extended to a volume of three hundred and
sixty-six pages. As his omission does injury to his cause, his apology
makes it worse; and men on the English side of the water will begin to
consider, whether there is not some radical defect in what is called the
English constitution, that made it necessary for Mr. Burke to suppress
the comparison, to avoid bringing it into view.

As Mr. Burke has not written on constitutions so neither has he written
on the French Revolution. He gives no account of its commencement or its
progress. He only expresses his wonder. "It looks," says he, "to me, as
if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but
of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe. All circumstances taken
together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has
hitherto happened in the world."

As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at
wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke's
astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the French
Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos,
but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily
existing in France. The mind of the nation had changed beforehand,
and the new order of things has naturally followed the new order of
thoughts. I will here, as concisely as I can, trace out the growth of
the French Revolution, and mark the circumstances