* duced he has been styled by a most competent judge, "the most Demosthenian orator who has appeared since the days of Demosthenes." Without the admirable arrangement and lucid order which enabled Mr Pitt to trace, through all the details of a complicated question, the ruling principle which he wished to impress upon his audience, he possessed a greater power of turning to his own advantage the incidents of a debate or admissions of an antagonist, and was unrivalled in the power and eloquence of his reply. In the outset of his speech he often laboured under hesitation of expression, and was ungainly or awkward in manner; but as he warmed with the subject, his oratory became more rapid, his delivery impassioned, and, before it closed, the enraptured senate often hung in breathless suspense on his words. He was an accomplished classical scholar, and was master of an extraordinary power of turning to the best advantage the information which he possessed, or had gained during the debate. But his habits were too desultory-his indolence too great-his love of pleasure too powerful, to permit him to acquire extensive knowledge.+ Respectable as a historian, the fragment on the annals of the English Revolution which he composed is justly admired for the purity of its style and the manliness of its sentiments; but the pen was too cold an instrument to convey the fervid bursts of his eloquence, and the reader will look in vain for the impassioned flow of the parliamentary orator. It is in the debates of the House of Commons that his real greatness is to be seen; and a vigorous intellect will seldom receive higher gratification than from * Sir James Mackintosh. No man more frequently referred to Adam Smith; yet he had never read the "Wealth of Nations." proper cha This is the more remarkable, as he had so elevated a conception of the racter of history that he classed the chief works of thought thus:-1. Poetry. 2. His tory. 3. Oratory. This was no slight homage to the historical muse, when coming from the first orator of his own, or perhaps any age.-Fox's History, Introd. p. vii. VOL. VI. studying the vehement declamationthe powerful and fervent reasoningby which his great speeches there are distinguished. 88. But, notwithstanding all this, the fame of Mr Fox is on the decline, not from a diminished sense of his genius, but an altered view, among the thinking few at least, of his principles. With the extinction of the generation which witnessed his parliamentary efforts-with the death of the friends who were captivated by his social qualities, his vast reputation is sensibly diminishing. Time, the mighty agent which separates truth from falsehood-experience, which dispels the most general illusions-suffering, which extinguishes the warmest anticipations when unfounded in human nature, have separated the wheat from the chaff in his principles. In so far as he sought to uphold the principles of general freedom, and defend the cause of the unfortunate and oppressed, in whatever country-in so far as he protected in legislation the freedom of the press, and opposed the infamous traffic in human flesh, his efforts will ever command the respect and sympathy of mankind. But in so far as he sought to advance this cause by advocating the principles of democracy-in so far as he supported the wild projects of the French revolutionists, and palliated when he could not defend their atrocious excesses-in so far as he did his utmost to transfer to this country the same destructive doctrines, and, under the name of Reform, sought to give an entrance here to Jacobin fanaticism and infidel zeal-in so far as he counselled peace and recommended concession, when peace would have been the commencement of civil warfare, and concession a crouching to revolutionary ambition he supported principles calculated to destroy all the objects which he himself had in view, and induce the very tyranny against which the thunders of his eloquence were directed. 89. The doctrines, that all abuses are owing to power being confined to a few hands-that the extension of ing the spring-flood which drowns the institutions of a state, when these antagonist forces are brought for any length of time to draw in the same direction.* political influence to the lower classes is the only antidote to the evil-that virtue, wisdom, and intelligence will be brought to bear on public affairs when those classes are intrusted with their direction-and that the growth of democratic ascendancy is the commencement of social regeneration, are sometimes amiable, from the philanthropy of those who support them, and always will be popular, from the agreeable flattery they convey to the multitude. They are liable to only one objection that they are altogether visionary and chimerical, founded on a total misconception of human nature, and a fatal forgetfulness of the character of the vast majority of men who in every rank are swayed by selfishness or stimulated by passion. They invariably lead, when put in practice, to results diametrically the reverse of what were held forth or expected by their supporters. Abuses, by the introduction of a democratic regime, it is soon found, instead of being diminished, are multiplied tenfold; tyranny, instead of being eradicated, is enormously increased; personal and social security, instead of being established, is kept in perpetual jeopardy; the weight of public opinion, instead of an antidote to evil, becomes its greatest promoter, by being exerted in favour of those by whom its enormities are perpetrated. It is by the opposing influence of these powers that the blessings of general freedom are secured under a constitutional monarchy; no hope remains of its outlivit had done from many, of his earlier 90. The liberties of England long survived the firm resistance which Mr Pitt opposed to revolutionary principles; but those of France perished at once, and perhaps for ever, under the triumph in which Mr Fox so eloquently exulted on the other side of the Channel. Taught by this great example, posterity will not search the speeches of Mr Fox for historic truth, or pronounce him gifted with any extraordinary political penetration. On the contrary, it must record with regret, that the light which broke upon Mr Burke at the outset of the Revolution, and on Mr Pitt before its principal atrocities began, only shone on his fervent mind when descending to the grave. It can only award to him, during the greater part of his career, the praise of an eloquent debater, a brilliant sophist, but not that of a profound thinker or a philosophic observer. But recollecting the mixture of weakness in the nature of all, and the strong tendency of political contention to dim the clearest intellect and warp the strongest judgment, it will, while it condemns a great part of his principles, do justice to his motives and venerate his heart, it will indulge the pleasing hope, that a longer life would have weaned him from all, as he honourably admits "In the contests of the Greek common- elevated to power are the most worthless wealth," says Thucydides, "those who were and profligate of the community." "Demoesteemed the most depraved, and had the cracy," says the author of the Vindicia Galleast foresight, invariably prevailed; for, lica, "is the most monstrous of all governbeing conscious of this weakness, and dread-ments, beecause it is impossible at once to ing to be overreached by those of greater act and to control; and consequently the penetration, they went to work hastily with sovereign power is there left without any the sword and poniard, and thereby got the restraint whatever. That form of governbetter of their antagonists, who were occu- ment is the best which places the efficient pied with more refined schemes." Amidst direction in the hands of the aristocracy, submobs and sedition,' says the Roman an- jecting them in its exercise to the control of the nalist, "all that is base has the greatest people at large." What a surprising coincipower; peace and tranquillity are sustained dence between the opinions of such men in such distant ages! He is a bold speculator who, on such a subject, differs from the concurring authority of Thucydides, Sallust, Danton, Mr Pitt, and Sir James Mackintosh.-THUCYDIDES, 1. iii. c. 39; SALLUST, de Bello Cat.; RIOUFFE, 67; Parlementaire Histoire, xxx. 902; MACKINTOSH'S Memoirs, i. 92. by the good."— delusions; and admire the magnani- | by bequeathing, in a moment of extramous firmness with which, on the bed ordinary gloom, the flag of England of death, he atoned for his past errors, unlowered to his successors. CHAPTER XLIII. CAMPAIGN OF JENA-FALL OF PRUSSIA. tion increasing with such steady rapidity." * 1. No monarchy in Europe is less indebted than the Prussian, for its political power and importance, to the 2. If Prussia owes little to her naadvantages of nature. Its territory, tural advantages, she is indebted still flat, sandy, and in great part compara- less to the political facilities of her tively sterile, can only be brought to a situation, or the homogeneity in chahigh state of cultivation by long-con- racter of her inhabitants. Her territinued efforts, and the unsparing ap- tory, which has gradually been enplication of human industry. Its sea-larged by the talents or good fortune coast has few advantageous harbours; of her rulers, is widely scattered from its rivers, though numerous, and in the Rhine to the Vistula, with other general navigable, descend for the states in some places intervening, and greater part of their course through in general in such long shreds as equally the territories of separate or rival to expose her to attack and to deprive states. Without the natural fertility her of the advantages of a compact of the Sarmatian plains, or the mineral formation of defence. Her population wealth of the Bohemian mountains; is composed of different races, speakdestitute alike of the flocks of Hungary and the herds of Switzerland; enjoying neither the forests of Norway nor the vines of France-it depends entirely on grain crops and pastures, and for them the bounty of nature has afforded no peculiar advantages. Vast tracts of gloomy heath, or blowing sand, hardly less unproductive, form a large part of its surface; in other places, cheerless, desolate plains, thickly strewn with rushes or stunted firs, convey a monotonous, mournful impression to the mind of the traveller. Yet have the industry and perseverance of man conquered all these disadvantages: the arid sands have been covered with waving crops, the rushy fields with rich pastures; and in no country in Europe is agriculture now advancing with more vigorous strides, or popula ing in some places different languages, ARPENTS. 47,295,716 1,024,176 14,326,429 16,972,714 23,800,000 8,986,347 112,405,382 Or nearly 111,000 square English geographical miles. Twenty-one thousand four hundred and ninety arpents make a square German FORSTER and WEBER, Statistiques de la Prusse, geographical mile.-TCHOBORSKI, i. 115; and 17, 21. Silesia, conquered by the Great Frede- | leagues, and their average is not above rick in the middle of the eighteenth forty. These straggling territories are century, is a province of Bohemia, in many places interrupted by the posand is chiefly inhabited by Slavonian sessions of foreign princes, enclosed tribes; while Prussian Poland was the within those of Prussia, which, on the fruit of the iniquitous spoliation of other hand, has no inconsiderable porthat unhappy state in 1772 and 1794, tion of its dependencies imbedded in and its inhabitants retain all the the dominions of other states. Thus mournful recollections and national the Prussian dominions present an irtraditions by which the Sarmatian regular strip stretching along the whole race is characterised in every part of north of Germany, having its back to the world. Yet does the Prussian mon- the Baltic Sea and German Ocean, the archy now form a united and pros- harbours of which are liable to be perous whole: its rise during the last blockaded by the superior fleets of century has been rapid beyond ex- Britain; while its long front is exposed ample; it singly defeated, under the to the incursions of Austria, and its Great Frederick, a coalition of the two extremities lie open, with no nathree most powerful monarchies in tural frontier capable of defence, and Europe; and it yields to no country but few artificial strongholds, to the in the world in patriotic spirit, and incursions of the great monarchies of the glorious efforts which it has since France and Russia-the former posmade to maintain its independence. sessing above twice, the latter nearly four times its military resources. 3. Augmented as it has been by the acquisitions made at the treaty of Paris in 1814, the Prussian monarchy now contains upwards of fifteen millions of inhabitants, who are diffused over a territory embracing one hundred and eleven thousand four hundred and eighty-eight square English miles -a surface little less than that of Great Britain and Ireland, which contain one hundred and twenty-two thousand. At the commencement of the war of 1806, however, both were much less considerable; the former only amounting to nine million five hundred thousand souls, the latter to seventy-two thousand square miles of territory. If this considerable population was placed on a compact and defensible territory, it would form a great and powerful monarchy, having nearly the resources, in population and territory, of the British empire in Europe at the commencement of the Revolutionary war; but both population and territory are so scattered over a long and narrow extent of level surface, that they seem at first sight to be a source rather of weakness than strength. They extend from the banks of the Niemen to those of the Sarre, over a space three hundred leagues, or nine hundred miles in length; while the greatest breadth does not exceed a hundred and thirty 4. The urban population of Prussia bears a remarkably large proportion to the rural, for the former amounts to a fourth of the whole inhabitants. The number of towns and burghs is ten hundred and twelve, of which thirtyseven contain above ten thousand inhabitants.* This great number and of the general increase of rural produce is to be found in the fact, that though population in Prussia is now advancing more rapidly than in any country of Europe, so as to double, if the present progress should continue, in twentysix years, yet no importation of foreign grain is required.+ Subsistence, under the influence of increased production, so far from becoming scarce, is constantly declining in price, and the augmented comforts and wants of a prosperous people are amply provided for by the labours of the agricultural portion of the community. size of towns indicates either extraor- | in 1825 to 14,156,000-that is, nearly dinary riches in the adjacent territory, doubled; and the most decisive proof as in Lombardy and Flanders, or considerable manufacturing advantages, such as those which have raised the cities to such a stupendous magnitude in the north of England and the west of Scotland. Such, accordingly, is the case; and the manufacturing industry of Prussia, in spite of the prohibitory system adopted generally by the Continental states, is very considerable. Inferior, of course, by more than a half, in proportion to the square league of territory to that of Britain, it is considerably superior to that of France.* The iron-works and manufactories of zinc and copper, as well as the salt-works, in its dominions, are very extensive; and the cotton manufactures, though recently established, are making, under the shelter of the heavy protective duties established against those of England, rapid progress. The total amount of its exports in 1828 was 24,102,000 thalers, or nearly £4,000,000, and four thousand merchant vessels bore the flag of Frederick-William. 6. It was by slow degrees, however, and by the successive efforts of more than one generation of great men, that Prussia was raised to its present prosperous condition. The monarchy, in reality, dates from the accession of Frederick the Great; but during the short period which has since elapsed, it has made unexampled progress. The treasure, indeed, amassed by that great warrior and able prince, had been wholly dissipated during the succeeding reign; but, both under his sway and that of his successor Frederick-William, the monarchy had made important advances in territory, wealth, and population. By withdrawing from the al 5. The main strength of Prussia, however, lies in its agriculture; and it is in the patriotic spirit and undaunted courage of the class engaged in it, that the monarchy in every age has found the surest bulwark against foreign ag-liance against France in 1794, the gression. So rapid has been the increase of sheep of late years in Prussia, that their number, which in 1816 amounted only to 8,261,400, had risen cabinet of Berlin succeeded in appropriating to itself a large portion of the spoils of Poland; while the open preference to French interests which they evinced for the ten years which followed the treaty of Bâle, was rewarded by a considerable share of the indemnities-in other words, of the spoils of the ecclesiastical princes of the empire; and a most important increase of influence, by the place assigned to Prussia as the protector of the neutral leagues situated beyond a fixed line in the north of Germany. During this long period † In 1828, the total population of the Prussian provinces, exclusive of the Canton of Neuchâtel, was 12,672,000 inhabitants. In 1832, it was 13,843,000; and it is now (1843) upwards of 15,000,000. The proportion per square league in the first period was 892; in the second, 993-a prodigious difference to have taken place in so short a period as four years.-MALTE BRUN, v. 276. |