LETTERS FROM PARIS, BY 0. P. Q.

Nu. XXXIV.

A GLANCE BACKWARDS, AND A WM: ONwAftps. TO TIIE F.DITOIL OF TILE SPECTATOR.

Path, 111q1 Fchrlefliy S111-1-011 have a moment of m epose. '1Us week, your column, will not be burdened with dotneetic intelligelme; and you will Ite able to devote a few :no. teems to the rest of the wot Id. It it right you should do so; and therefore we will take a glatme backwards, and a look onwards. Yon have got the Tories luck agelin ! A quit he filmic ?—Not mires, sly you ; and I can truly add, not mine. :I wish Earl G RE V, Lord ,A I.T1101: P. Lod holly :RUSSELL, and Lord PA LIIERSTON, could with equal sincerity add, " and cer- tainly not OUTS." Are the Tories to rentain? I fear so ! I fear so more than ever. I teld you my opinicn three months ago. I predicted their return, in your cohunns, more than a year since. Of late I have hell my tongue, and looked through the loopholes of retreat on the sad world which surrounds you. I was fearfttl of discouraging others; and therefore I have been silent. But my silence most Lave its termination as well as toy life; and, please God, I shall soon be in the field again, more than ever ripe for the fray. It is nevertheless sad up-hill work to have to fight ngainst men an I principles whom in 18:31 we had every remon to believe vanquished for ever. Then was the moment ; and then I did my duty, as you did yours. We seem destined, however, to recommence the conflict. Be it so. If we throw away the scabbard, w-e must not again sheath the sword till we have secured the spoils, as well as won the victory. No more confidence in promises! no more blind adhesion to men and to chiefs! But if the battle has to be fought, then let us fight it, at the same time taking our precautions as to the result:. Thus, though our glance backwards may annoy, our look on- wards will cheer us.

I am very sorry that the Reformers have consented to try the question with the Tot ies on the appointment of a Speaker. • It is not a fair trial of strength ; and if the Reformers shall he defeated, it will discourage them, without really any adequate cause for discouragement. Many Members will not have reached London the first day ; many will refuse to vote, on the ground of personal re- spect for the old Speaker ; and many will not think it worth while to make a point of being in the House at the moment when a President is chosen, who will yet vote for an Address which is indirectly if not directly Anti-Ministerial. Let then no sort of discouragement be felt by the Reformers,- though they should see SUTTON elected instead of ABEacKomEY. It will only show that SUTTON has many personal friends, and that the real issue between the parties is to be tried on the question of the Address. When the Address has to be voted, then indeed let the CALL or THE House be rigorously enforced. When all these precautions shall be taken, and these votes shall be come to, if the Tory Administration shall have a majority. then the duties of the Press will become more arduous—the duties of all political associations more immense; and from that moment a war must be begun against Tories and Toryism, which must terminate in their final and eternal overthrow. The future, then, looks labo- rious and difficult, arduous and anxious. But there is nothing to discourage, only to excite—nothing to alarm, only to rally; and I look forwards with much more pleasure than I glance backwards. I cannot say this of FRANCE. Our position here is deplorable, publie spirit is very much humbled. Pnblie sympathy is very much destroyed. France, hat never been, since 17$9, so dejected, disappointed. and sad. 'f he mass of the people have ceased to have eonfidence in their political chiefs; 31111 the political chiefs have ceased to have confidence in themselves or in futurity. This animal, this good eating and good drinking Chamber of Deputies, has five years berme it. It istoo servile to be dissolved. It will die the death of a hardened sinner ; [The readers of the Soectator are awate that we differ iota cab o from 0. 1'. Q. in regard to the policy of fighting the Tories or the Speakership. Our reasons have been stated more than once; and sonic of them will be found In other divisions of this Number.—Eo.] and it n ill neht aseuredly be suffered to bye to its Pait moment f lt tl he. N government, liormver corrupt, can desire tii have better instruments-in its hawk than the Deputies of the present Chamber. Tile Chamber if Peers le alike which is perch/teed by unequalled vh.c :eel neparal- asphing • to the immortaiity

hded prostautem. It votes laws ill a single bitting. It erects itselfiii t 3 tni. lemal to try i:e pehtmal enemies. It sentences them %yid:tett tuercv ti fetea and prisons. It applauds all that the country hetes, and hates all the the country applentle. Yet it k one of the three powere of the State; al we have not event the hope of smile; it changed by the death if its present inmates. If it wero heroin try, the son of noblemen might become vellehtetted, and seeing the t :tors

of their eine. might reform. But even this ebtove i tlil us. h Peers :tre unlimited in number. The Kites also nateea them, and eo names them for life. Thin we have a prospect before us of a lone succession of 1lovoteil 011eaniste, who will look neither to the riedit nor the left, but wall: ete:eldv on-

wards to the end of all their lateens and votes, the eppreha.

!mien of the Cunt t, and the ;teem:ebullient (.t. their meta lot tenes these of their f.ili. Tile Fees in FrantT i CIADAly 'fl:.• LW'S Width OppleS.. it cannot he altered without a revolution ; and the people e ill not and cannot he expeeted to make reveltaieas every month or even every year. The eersecution of the pre ee ie carried to elicit an extent, that t ven

1..scneshme are sot ev tolerated on the question of the Royal prerogative ; and Jerie• are found. alio at least by a majority of votes ( for it ie only uece.sai y te con le e.9 .t ty, and not unanimously, tIS ill Elig13110 Will deCi■le egaieet ti.e p diem uf liberty which exists in this country.

But yen will tell les that the rising generation think differently ; and will, as y arrive at years of active influence and flintily ener■ry, destroy thi, house t.t. cerds and this fabric Id tlelusion. This we believe, and this we It. )t. It we ha•L

net, like you, some confidence in the future, AST Shoubl eei tainiy It ad inert be the most miserable. On the other hand, we have me forgotten the Mete' ice of Greece and Rome ; and tee are not wholly Wind to the fact, that a n Iton nese- beeome animal, and corrupt. as well as a pat ty a government. We fear deeply the timeless of this animaliem—this syetem of mitten:diem iuthditical goveree mem, which is g tinilig ground em rapidly in this country. Tie. influelice. of a con upting government is much to be (headed. Balls, ditomrs, bamplets, skew,

parade, awl even a prefligate expenditure of money, at e all encete aged and behl up as constitutieg the son. mom bonom of human enjoyment. Tile tvorkman is that I.:atheism ie not becoming in him ; awl that be end hresel ash wins are the only subjects which should occupy his though, s, which he should

suffer to interest hie imagination. All that is litetat et, scientific, lareely educa- tional, and popularly and generally eulightenims, isdisapproved and tliscom aged ; whilst ties shopkeepers are appealed to, awl asked, " Well, are net yeur slope nitwit more crowded than they wen., when liberty wee aieatt to preside over your tetebliehments, and to destroy all nionopolice ard peculiar privileges? " The senses are eyerYwhere appeelcd to. Even immorality is el:teenaged, to dietract :le- :Mention of Ole young from those more ser:,.us studies which their tie twat and uncorrupted tastes would have led them to cultivate. This is a eml pie- titre, but it is a true one. To animalize the 'tieing generatium and to de-a: or in young men, and young women too, the love of their country, of liberty. and of' their fellow species, is the mission which the present Government has assigned to it-elf' in France. All who are generous and enthusiastic are represented as noisy and clamorous beggars, who dine clamply and have no funtunce—thua measuring public virtue and private worth by the weielat or lent Ii of ths All who distinguish themselves by their open and avowed attachment to Lib!rel principles, are denounced as conspirators, and as dangenms joust ; t luci r landlerde and their tradesmen are cautioned not to truet them, for th it they are needy men, and to be poor, is now represented by the Court of the Tull cries es a vice. If:sides this if all these plots will not succeed in 1.11111411g to mill a young man of public vittne aed true patriotism, then his apartment is seerelted le fire. arms, or for ;Republican and incendiary pempldets; and though rut thing be found by police agents or spies, still the harm is done—the veung matt becomes " euspected" in the quarter in which he resides and he is compelled in nine eases out of ten to change his residence, and to expose himself to renewed attacks and to renewed calumny and reproach. And then, remember, that independent of all this, the laws afford him no redress. The Government may arrest bhn, and send him to prison, merely to satisfy its vengeance, and metely to gratify its love of power and its hatred of liberty. When brought up for trial, some six or twelve months afterwards, he is of course acquitted, but in the mean time he lees been ruined. And what is the natural consequence of all this? Why, that hundreds nay thousands of timid young men, who still love lihetty ie their hearts, though they dare not associate with the friends of liberty for fear of their total ruin in a worldly sense, and as far as their fortunes and prospects are con-

ca.ned, abandon journals, politics, the progress of educat- and liberty, and are soon swallowed no in the vortex of mere animalism. Although, therefore, we hope that the rising generation will avenge our wrongs and regenerate their country, still that hope is not unalloyed with fear ; for the Govetument is con- stantly engaged in endeavouring so to persecute all that is patriotic and public- spirited, as to bring it even into contempt, and always into danger ; and is offer- ing constant premiums to those who will detach the youth of France from the cause of the people, and induce them to fix their affections on animal pleasures and mere physical and material enjoyment:. You can easily believe sue, there- fore, when I say, that in FRANCE, the look onwards is by no means so cheering as it is in Great Britain, and that we have abundant motives for dissatisfaction and sadness.

of which mint be, " Lt:T ES TA C I7 It G E."

I ant, Sir, your obedient 'servant, 0. P. Q.