BOOKS.
ALISON'S EUROPE FROM 1815 TO 1852.* Ting fourth volume of Sir Archibald Alison's History of Europe from the fall of Napoleon the First to the accession of Napoleon the Third embraces home affairs from 1822 till the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832. Continental events occupy much less time ; beginning with the Revolution of Silly 1830 and ending with the triumph of Russia at Warsaw in September 1831. The affairs of the different states of Europe are all touched upon in this period; but France, the Belgian revolution, and the Polish war of insur- rection, are handled most fully. Some theorists conceive that every great nation has a " mission " to fulfil in forwarding the world's progress, and that consequently a great principle more or less pervades every portion of its history, which it is the business of the historian to bring out. In his home narrative, Sir Archibald does not illustrate the mission as- signed to Britain, whatever that may be ' • but he certainly has discovered an influential principle. The " first great cause, least understood," was Peel's Bill and cash payments. A contracted cur- rency carried Emancipation thus. The Popish agitators could never have roused the Irish peasantry, but for their misery ; and that misery was caused by the reduced price of agricultural produce
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consequent upon the Bank paying in gold. As the historian also points to the well-known fact, that various causes having rendered the Irish peasant dependent for his existence on a bit of land, competition for •life induced him to offer a rent which the land could not possibly pay, it is difficult to follow Sir Archibald in his conclusion. The peasant spent no money save on his wardrobe ; everything he raised, except the potatoes he vegetated upon, went to his landlord. Had the currency been doubled, the seven guineas an acre, our author speaks of, would have risen to four- teen ; the landlord might have paid his encumbrances—if an Irish landlord ever thought of paying—with ten shillings in the pound ; but Pat would have been where he was—prices doubled, and his rent doubled too. In the historian's opinion, the saine.canse Av.hich produced- Emancipation for the- Ronian Catholics procured Parlia- mentary Reform for the Three Kingdoms. The effect of Peel's Bill was to benefit the "people living on annuities," and the " buy- ing and selling classes," at the expense of the producers, among which class Sir. Archibald reckons the " fruges eonsumere nati." The distress which this and other measures (also produced by pay- ments in gold) gave rise to, induced dissatisfaction ; but the vic- tims attributed their sufferings to wrong causes. They thought it was taxation ; they thought it was boroughmongers and Parlia- mentary corruption; nay, Tories and landlords fell into the Re- form trap. They—but the whole is so clearly and compendiously exhibited in the author's analysis of the contents of the chapter on British history, that we may as well quote it.
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38 Reflections on the abandonment of the Sinking-fund 237 39 Which arose from the repeal of so many indirect taxes 238
40 Which was occasioned by the contraction of the currency 239 41 Which also produced the cry for Reform 240 A few, indeed, were found to resist the general delusion. Mr. Attwood and some others warned Parliament of the " fons et origo malorum"; but in proportion as a man took clear views upon the subject did supporters shrink from him. " Orator Hunt" had a comprehensive idea of the ease, and was left alone in his glory ; but Sir Archibald thinks posterity will do justice to that ill-appreciated patriot. " Mr. Hunt, the Radical Member for Preston, brought this under the no- tice of the House of Commons, by an amendment on the Address, which expressed the feeling of the democratic classes in regard to the remote causes of their distresses. No one seconded his amendment, and it was negatived without a division. Posterity will probably reverse the sentence, as it has already done the unanimous vote of the National Assembly finding Louis XVI. guilty, and come to regard the contraction of the currency, and intro- duction of Free Trade, to which he [Hunt] referred the whole existing dis- tress, as the real cause of all the convulsions into which the nation had been thrown."
These crotchets of Sir Archibald Alison are well enough known as injuring his narrative and perverting history into disquisition, besides impiiiting to himself the appearance of a bobby-rider. They are more predominant than ever in the present volume ; while their real predominance is increased in appearance by the re- striction to civil and political subjects. This gives to the home history the air of a " discourse," in which though the topics are various the preacher has one leading moral to which he is ever recurring. In point of composition itself, the volume is inferior to most of the previous works of the author : his turgid verboseness is increased, but unrelieved by his wonted touches of powerful rhetoric. kis passages of generalization have not • History- of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., D.C.L.; Author of a " History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1780 to the Battle of Waterloo," Ste. &c. "Volume IV. Published by Blackwood and Sons. the weight which lie has formerly given to philosophical deduc- tions, nor has the narrative his former strength. There is at- traction in the subject, from its close relation to our present condi- tion, more especially to those who remember the events and struggles the writer is recording. The portraits which he intro- duces have that kind of interest which arises in art when the spec- tator is familiar with the originals,—as Brougham, Palmerston, Lord Sohn Russell, the late Earl Grey, and even the two Kings George and William the Fourth. In the course of so many obser- vations by a man with the training and experience of Sir Archibald Alison, some true or keen reflections must turn up. The reader may not go with him in all his ideas as to the conversion of the country by the Reform Bill into a nation of shopkeepers ; but there is some truth in the following passage. If the new constituency has not shown any remarkable aptitude for rule or the choice of rulers, it has managed to let its power be felt in the agreeable mode of escaping payments. When Peel drew the line of exemption in schedule D, he probably had his mind turned to the Registration Courts, where he once directed his followers to fight their battles. With the elasticity of common consciences in claiming exemption, it is probable that the extension of the tax to incomes of 1001. a year reaches very few of what are called the ten-pounders. " Two facts, of general notoriety and decisive importance, demonstrate the reality of these vast changes, and the unbounded influence which they must have on the future fate of the British empire. The first of these is, that, in less than a quarter of a century after the Reform Bill had given them the government of the country, the urban shopkeepers had obtained for themselves an entire exemption from every species of direct taxation, and laid it with increased severity upon the disfranchised classes in the state ; while, at the same time, they contrived to shake off all the indirect taxes by which they were more immediately affected. They have got the window-tax taken off, and the house-tax from all houses below 201., the line where the ruling class begins; and when Lord Derby's Ministry brought forward the proposal, obviously just, to lower the duty to 101. houses, they instantly expelled them from office by a vote of the House of Commons. They kept the income-tax for long at incomes above 1501. ; and now they have only brought it down, under the pregame of war, to 1001.—a line which practically insures an ex- emption from that burden to nearly the whole of the ruling occupants of houses below 20/. ; while a tax producing now above 10,000,0001. a year is saddled exclusively upon lea than .250,000 persons in the empire. They have got quit entirely of the taxes on grain, lowered almost to nothing those on wood and meat, and signally reduced those on tea and sugar and coffee, in which so large a part of their consumption lies ; while the direct taxes on the land and higher classes, not embracing above 250,000 persons, have been increased so as now to yield above 20,000,0001. a year, or 801. BY EACH FER801,1 on an average, in income-tax, assessed taxes, and stamps ! In a word, since they got the power, the notables of England have established a much more entire and unjust exemption in their own favour, from taxa- tion, than the notables in France did before the Revolution."
Foreign affairs are treated in a more historical manner; that is, with less of disquisition, though there is quite enough. The nar- rative is closer, with a greater number of facts in proportion to the words ; but the character of the whole is that of an article rather than history. It is not a well-digested 'narrative, but an account got up from the readiest sources,—the history of Louis Blanc, for example, furnishing large quotations. Even the war in Poland is but poorly done, when the nature of the theme and the raciness of the original materials are considered. The volume closes with a remark,on the present war, which deserves consideration apart from the usual dogmatism of the author. "In the very front rank of the great league of the Western Powers, which can alone preserve Europe from Russian subjugation, must be placed the restoration of Poland. Such a measure would not be revolutionary ; it would be conservative. Restoration is a work of justice, of which no go- vernment, how strong soever, need-be ashamed : the principle of revolution is spoliation, not restitution. To restore Poland, is not to introduce new ways, but to return to the old ones. In the courage and heroism of the Sar- matian race is to be found the real and the only effective barrier against the encroachments of the Muscovite ; in their indelible feeling of nationality, the provision made by Providence for its resurrection, like the Phoenix from its ashes. Such a barrier is not to be found in Turkey. England and France may fight their own battle in the Crimea or on the Danube, but they will not find their real allies in the Ottomans. The Cross must defend itself ; it is not to be defended, by the Crescent. Europe committed a great sin in permitting the barrier of Poland to be swept away ; it can be expiated only by aiding in its restoration. The extension of Austria to the mouth of the Danube, and the acquisition by it of Moldavia and Wallachia, under the burden of the stipulated payment to the Porte, is the obvious mode, without doing injustice to any one, of winning its consent to the cession of Gallicis. If Prussia casts in its lot with the Muscovites, it cannot complain if it un- dergoes the fate which itself imposed on Saxony when its sovereign ad- hered to Napoleon in 1814. But to cement the league which is to achieve this mighty deliverance, the cause of independence must be severed from that of democracy ; Poland must be restored by an effort of united Europe, not by arming one section of it against the other. Its partition was the sin of the sovereigns alone, and restitution must be made or retribution endured by the sovereigns, not the people." The erection of Poland into a kingdom to serve as a barrier against Russia would be the most advantageous measure that could be adopted, more especially for the two states that would pro- bably offer the greatest 'opposition, Austria and Prussia. But is it practicable ? Does Poland in fact yet survive?—that is, are there in the countries that once were Poland the elements of na- tionality, to defend the independence to be given them, or even to
form a presentable government and institutions ? We know not where an answer, or the means of inferring a favourable answer, can be found. Yet it is obvious that upon this answer the whole of the project must rest.
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