f blood, embodied in a mass
of mankind rushing down upon luxury and profligacy, and governmental
incapacity embodied in other masses of mankind. An invasion from the
African wilderness with all its lions and leopards in full roar, could
scarcely have less been urged by motives of human nature.

But the great revolution which in our time shook Europe, and is still
spreading its shock to the confines of the world, was _human_ in the
most remarkable degree. It was the work of impulses fierce and wild, yet
peculiarly belonging to man. It was a succession of lights and shadows
of human character, contrasted in the most powerful degree, as they
passed before the eye of Europe--the ambition of man, the rage of man,
the voluptuousness, the ferocity, the gallantry, and the fortitude of
man, in all the varieties of human character. It was man in the robes of
tragedy, comedy, and pantomime, but it was every where _man_. Every
great event on which the revolution was suspended for the time,
originated with some remarkable individual, and took its shape even from
some peculiarity in that individual.

Thus, the period of mob-massacre began with the sudden ascendency of
Marat--a hideous assassin, who regarded the knife as the only instrument
of governing, and proclaimed as his first principle of political
regeneration, that "half a million of heads must fall."

The second stage, the Reign of Terror, began with Robespierre, a village
lawyer; in whose mingled cruelty and craft originated the bloody
mockeries of that "Revolutionary Tribunal," which, under the semblance
of trial, sent all the accused to the guillotine, and in all the
formalities of justice committed wholesale murder.

The third stage was the reign of the Directory--the work of the
voluptuous Barras--and reflecting his profligacy in all the
dissoluteness of a government of plunder and confiscation, closing in
national debauchery and decay.

The final stage was War--under the guidance of a man whose whole
character displayed the most prominent features of soldiership. From
that moment, the republic bore the sole impress of war. France had
placed at her head the most impetuous, subtle, ferocious, and
all-grasping, of the monarchs of mankind. She instantly took the shape
which, like the magicians of old commanding their familiar spirits, the
great magician of our age commanded her to assume. Peace--the rights of
man--the mutual ties of nations--the freedom of the serf and