SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Poitricar, ECONOMY, Monopoly the Cause of all Evil. By Arthur Condoreet O'Connor, General of Division. In three volumes. Firmin Didot and Co.

Titivata,

The Middle•Kingdom ; a Survey of the Geography, Government, Education, Social Life, Arts, Religion, &c., of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants. With a new Map of the Empire, and Illustrations, principally engraved by J. W. Orr. By S. Wells Williams, Author of "Easy Lessons In Chinese," " English and Chinese Vocabulary," &c. In two volumes Wiley and Putnam. FICTION,

Amymone ; a Romance of the Days of Pericles. By the Author of " Azeth the

Egyptian." In three volumes Bentley.

ARTHUR O'CONNOR'S MONOPOLY THE CAIISM ALL EVIL.

Timms bulky octavos, the name of Arthur O'Connor, and the variety and importance of the subjects he handles, challenge an attention to Monopoly the Cause of all Evil which the result does not requite. The veteran "'United Irishman," the political friend of Fox and his Opposition, retains far too much of the style, not to say the cant, of exploded Whig- gem and the dreamy hopes of human perfectibility prevalent about the time of the French Revolution, to handle so large a subject as he under- takes, philosophically and with effect. This subject is neither more nor less than the economical and social system of the civilized world ; the institutions and governments of the same large section of mankind ; the origin. evil, or rather Mr. O'Connor's perception of the purpose of crea- tion,

"which vindicates eternal Providence, And justifies the ways of God to man"; an examination of the Pagan-Jewish corruptions of Christianity, more especially by the Romish Church, together with an exposition of true Christianity according to the'interpretation of General Arthur Condorcet O'Connor.

Another source of the author's ill success is, that events ran too fast for him, albeit he lived and acted during the first French Revolution, the Empire, and the two Restorations. " Experientia docet " ; and the late experience of Democracy in America, and of Revolution in France and Germany, has not raised either to a premium. Hence, when the author comments upon the conduct of the overthrown Governments, the mind compares the evils contemporary with Mr. O'Connor's writing with those contemporary with his publication, and finds the first the more bearable of the two, whatever future benefit may arise from the turmoil. He also exhibits an odd mixture of the violent Milesian and the unscrupulous Whig, as if a man of '98 and a party opponent of Pitt and Castlereagh were rolled into one. The old fallacies of the conspiracy against French freedom, and the other extreme views of questions that have become his- torical, are reproduced in Mr. O'Connor's pages, in a style which, if not as exploded as the matter, is too like Mr. Meagher of the -Sword, and other successors of the United Irishmen of the last century, to be palatable to English tastes. The title of the work indicates the pervading principle of Mr. O'Con- nor's ideas. Monopoly, in his view, is the root of all evil. He at- tributes the misery of the poor of Britain, whose condition he describes from sanatory reports, &c., to the corn-laws, the law of primogeniture, and the rules laid down by modern economists in favour of large farms and other accumulations of capital. Without these monopolies, and those arising from religion, especially from the Romish form of Christianity, equality of fortunes would be introduced, as in France, and all •other kinds of equality would follow. This,_ in fact, is the end designed by Providence. Irrational animals were made'stationary ; as perfect in their instincts the first day of their creation as now. Man, on the contrary, was created helpless and ignorant, because progression was the end of his being—he is a " progressive " animal. Hence, the evils of his con- dition were necessary while he is working his way to happiness ; and the goal will be reached when monopolies are extinguished, privileges abolish- ed, equality, free trade, and small farms setup, men educated to virtue, and a true representative system established, which shall control the executive,—the last point not yet accomplished anywhere very success- fully, though better done in America than in France or England. The backsliding in France is attributed by Mr. O'Connor to the corruption introduced by the various Governments that succeeded his bean ideal the Constituent Assembly, especially by that of Louis Philippe. What he thinks of the submission of the present Assembly to the present Executive we do not know.

When we look at the fifteen hundred pages before us, we see a great mistake. It is not that they contain no new discoveries in political, eco- nomical, or theological science; for such achievements are rare, especially when an author aims at constructing a system, and is not satisfied with presenting isolated truths. It is not, either, that they contain no pro- found or skilful application of existing knowledge to the existing evils of society ; for that too is a rare exertion of intellect. But the author does not handle scientific subjects in a scientific way, so as to collect useful facts or to elicit minor truths if he fails in proving his principal object ; nor does he allow for the inevitable existence of evil even upon

his own system of progression, or show the tolerance which generally comes with years and experience. Monopoly the Cause of all Evil does not even truly expose the evils of society, beyond echoing previous expositions in Mr. O'Connor's own style. In substance and in form, in spirit and in matter, the book is of a fashion half a century old, and as much out of date as the blue and buff of Charles James Fox and his Prince of Wales. It is the individual views of an old gentleman put into print, instead of being reserved for his familiar acquaintance.

Those individual opinions, however, are the best parts of the book, when they refer to matters really personal. Mr. O'Connor has a de- fence of himself and the United Irishmen against the " calumnies" of O'Connell ; and the man of '98 certainly draws a good enough picture of the state to which the "Jesuit" O'Connell and his "Jesuit" priests have brought the Irish people. The character of Napoleon, though violent and depreciatory, has some truth about it; and there are passages of personal reminiscence that partake of the nature of anecdote. The following story shows an occasional habit of Horne Tooke, which it is difficult to account for unless upon the idea of some mooking joke, only perceptible when all the circumstances are present to the mind, or some offence suddenly taken by the aristocratical demagogue at the manner of his opponents.

" The English, who are so reasonable on the subjects that do not affect their national prejudices, and yet so extravagant on all that regards the law of primo- geniture, remind us of Don Quixote, so wild on the subject of chivalry, and so reasonable on all others. It is with them as in all false religions, the more falla- cious and absurd, the more it appears impious to set any bounds to its belief. "In my youth I passed a day with Home Tooke at his house at Wimbledon. The French law of succession was the subject of discussion; in the midst of it, Tooke drew a long poniard-knife fmmhis pocket, opened the blade, and presenting it towards me with a furious look,This,' said he, is the argument I employ with men who take the aide of this question that you do.' I took an early mo- ment to quit the room, and was followed by Sir Francis Burdett; who was so shocked with this action of Tooke's' that he expressed his sorrow and astonish- ment so superior a man should, in his own house, break off a discussion in so brutal a manner.

" When a man of such distinguished talents as this most powerful antagonist of Junius was so blinded by national prejudices, they must be most inveterate indeed."

Among the many evils of society, more especially of British society, discussed by Mr. O'Connor, is that of prostitution : and, notwithstanding the Milesian exaggeration in the writer's mind, it is difficult to say too much upon that evil. Still he does contrive to do so, by comparing it with the state of society in an analogous condition in other countries, where regulated prostitution may take a less openly revolting form simply because the social opinion upon the subject of chastity is leas strict: a part of society there may be less degraded because the moral standard throughout is at a lower pitch. But we question his broad assertions as to the superior morality of Paris during the Revolution and under the Empire : it is even difficult to credit this account, contradicted as-it is by so many authorities. -" When I met Madame de Geniis at Paris in 1803, the first words she uttered were—' Oh General, the morals of the women in Paris are ruined: there are but three thousand women of the town; • and there should be thirty thousand to pre- serve the virtue of the purer classes from seduction. It was in vain I stated to'her that the French Revolution had levelled the leviathan fortunes which were the principal demanders for seduction; and that, as in all the other passions, the more moderate the fortunes the more moderate the desires: that in superabun- dance, men sought superfluities in houses, equipages, servants, horses, and all kinds of living, so in the sexual passion, men sought the same variety; whilst those of moderate fortunes were more confined in their desires, and obliged to con- tent themselves with greater sameness in their fare: that the thousands who passed their lives in seeking objects to satisfy this passion for variety, were replaced by others whose condition forced them to support the `menage' by mutual fidelity. "The immense expenditure in the war of the Revelation had reduced fortunes in France to an humble mediocrity; and when Englishmen dwell upon the dissoluteness of the French Revolution, they show the greatest ignorance, and confound the partial, momentary abuse which some individuals made of the law of divorce, when first passed, to deceive some women. The fact is well known, that this time of humble fortunes was the time when conjugal fidelity was most rigidly observed; for it was that time when libertinism was attended with most certain ruin. The generals of Bonaparte formed his aristocracy; but it was an aristocracy freshly taken from the bourgeoisie; the pure democracy; and in this class of the then aristocracy, I never heard but of one woman spoken of. We have but to compare these times during the domination of Bonaparte with the present state of France, and the progress that has been made in robbery and pros- titution will be found prodigious; and why ? "Louis Philippe's government has created in the interest of the corruption by which alone it governs, a vile, base aristocracy of servile placemen—a miserable suceedaneum even to the feudal plutocracy—they have peopled the capital with a tribe of unproductive vanitous fashionables, infected with Anglomania ' - a system which has drawn to Paris nearly all the produce of the provinces, and etockedit with robbers and prostitutes of every heterogeneous description. Let me add, that this, like every other plutocratic curse has been most powerfully reinforced by the residence of such numbers of British aristocrats at Parts since 1815; who have expended there, as they do everywhere, large sums in paying for seduction, by which they have caused the cruellest ravages in the female morals of the French capital."

Reminiscences of Mr. O'Connor's own career as a Member of the .Irish Parliament and an United Irishman mingle with his attack upon O'Con- nell. Among these is a story of the difficulty he had in dealing with the people corrupted by the priests, with the Romiah dogma of no salvation beyond the pale of the Church.

' It was in 1795, after this blow of Pitt's, the union of all Irishmen, which'had been a theory, became an existing fact. In Ulster, from this time, the generous

spirit of union was propagated with the most active energy by the Protestants,

who formed a population which, with the Lowlands of Scotland, was the best in- formed in all Europe. Each parish had its library; and the excellent journal the Northern Star instructed them and regaled them in their evening's recreation. The Directory, composed of Tenant, the two brothers Sims, Nelson, &c., conducted the union. I joined them in 1796. The organization and propagation of union in the other three provinces devolved on my beloved Edward Fitzgerald and me. In those parts of Ireland the grossest ignorance and superstition pervaded the people, except in the towns marking how unflinchingly the system of Elizabeth for weakening and barbarizing Ireland had been followed. 1 lost not an instant to push the work I had undertaken to its perfection. The mountain barrier I had to remove was the infernal dogma of the Popish religion, which exacts from all its members the belief that every human being who is not a Papist is irrevo- cably and eternally damned. I know there are some, more alive to shame than others, who deny this dogma; but I assert it exists, and that I found it in my way at every step I made to promote union. In the thousands of Catholics I have had to do with, I never met a single one who did not confess their priests never failed to enforce this dogma; as the sine qua non of Popish salvation. Yet such was the ardent desire at this time for political liberty, that by representing that without the union of Catholic and Protestant the attainment of political freedom was impossible—that the Catholics without the Protestants could never resist England, and, vice versa, the Protestants without the Catholics must remain in the same impuissance--I was enabled to surmount it. The difficulty this dia- bolical dogma threw in my way was immense; an anecdote-will give an idea of the opposition the Popish priest exercised against us, and will show how far .I had succeeded in mastering this priestly spirit of domination. "Two Popish priests in the neighbourhood of Dublin called on me, their drys and appearance denoting them to be of the higher order: they accosted meiiith saying they had forbidden the reading of the Press journal in their parishes, because it attacked their religion. I assured them they were in error; that in nothing was I more careful than in excluding from my journal all kinds of re- ligious polemics. I asked them to cite me a word which had ever appeared in the Press for or against any religion: they told me what they complained of was extracts I published from Volney's Natural Law. I know that at Rome the moral science was regarded as the antagonist of the religion which had substituted ceremonies and priestly infallibility to all the laws of (sod; but I did not imagine this annihilation of the moral science had found its way to the ignorant priests of Ireland. I observed to these two priests, that there was not a tittle of any religion in this work of Volney's from first to last: to which they replied, that being a work purely moral, it went to attack their religion, which was wholly founded on the efficacity of ceremonies, dogmas, and prayer. I flatly told them I never would submit to such abominable intolerance, or suffer any class of men to proscribe moral science in a country where we were contending for liberty: then, said they, we will exclude the Press from our parishes. Go, Sirs, and by and by you will give me news of your success.' I sent that very evening two intelligent agents to explain to the parishioners the pretensions and menaces of their priests. In a fortnight after, the same two priests came to tell me, that not a man would commune with them, not a soul had come to their mass: if I would forgive them, the Press should be received in their parishes as it was throughout all Ireland; so thoroughly had political liberty gotten the upper hand of priestly intolerance."

We have spoken of Arthur O'Connor's style and ideas as akin to those of the modern Irish patriots : and in point of blood perhaps they are kindred spirits, but here all likeness ends. The old United Irishman was of a higher metal; and he had excuses. His country was smarting under the Penal Laws ; the administrative corruption was gross ; the impending Union was an unconstitutional change, and a novelty broached by Conservatives par excellence. Neither was O'Connor a mere day- dreamer. He had some hopes of being able to accomplish his end by means of the European war, that engrossed the attention of Great Britain and promised him aid from France ; which aid was not only granted, but actually sent on more than one occasion, though always baffled by ac- cident and fortune. It may be said too, as a further excuse, that men's minds were excited throughout the civilized world by the success of popular freedom in America, the apparent downfall of despotism in France, and the dreams of a millennium indulged in by philosophers, some of whom calculated that if all men were equally compelled to work and the produce equally divided, two hours of daily labour would suffice to sup- port society, and all the rest of time might be devoted to improvement and enjoyment.