Speaking conscientiously, can a financier cordially love his country? * Where was the country of the duke of Guise surnamed Balafré-at Nanci, at Paris, at Madrid, or at Rome? What country had your cardinals Balue, Duprat, Lorraine, and Mazarine? Where was the country of Attila situated, or that of a hundred other heroes of the same kind, who, although eternally travelling, make themselves always at home? 1 should be much obliged to any one who would acquaint me with the country of Abraham. The first who observed that every land is our country in which we do well, was, I believe, Euripides, in his Phaeton:— Ως παντακῶς γε πατρις βοσκουσα γη. The first man, however, who left the place of his birth to seek a greater share of welfare in another, said it before him. SECTION III. A country is a composition of many families; and as a family is commonly supported on the principle of self-love, when by an opposing interest the same selflove extends to our town, our province, or our nation, it is called love of country. The greater a country becomes, the less we love it; for love is weakened by diffusion. It is impossible to love a family so numerous that all the members can scarcely be known. He who is burning with ambition to be edile, tri * By financier, under the old regime of France, was meant a farmer-general of the taxes. We have no such animals among us; but, during the last war, we had lives-and-fortune-men, contractors, loan-mongers, &c. whose claims to talk of country pretty much resembled those of the French farmers-general. Attached to it they all were, but something in the way that an epicure is attached to his turtle or his turbot. He loves and devours it, and loves it because he devours it.-T. VOL. II. 2 F bune, prætor, consul, or dictator, exclaims that he loves his country, while he loves only himself. Every man wishes to possess the power of sleeping quietly at home, and of preventing any other man from possessing the power of sending him to sleep elsewhere. Every one would be certain of his property and his life. Thus all forming the same wishes, the particular becomes the general interest. The welfare of the republic is spoken of, while all that is signified is love of self. It is impossible that a state was ever formed on earth, which was not governed in the first instance as a republic: it is the natural march of human nature. On the discovery of America, all the people were found divided into republics; there were but two kingdoms in all that part of the world. Of a thousand nations, but two were found subjugated. It was the same in the ancient world; all was republican in Europe, before the little kinglings of Etruria and of Rome. There are yet republics in Africa: the Hottentots, towards the south, still live as people are said to have lived in the first ages of the world,-free, equal, without masters, without subjects, without money, and almost without wants. The flesh of their sheep feeds them; they are clothed with their skins; huts of wood and clay form their habitations. They are the most dirty of all men, but they feel it not, but live and die more easily than we do. There remain eight republics in Europe, without monarchs,-Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva, and St. Marino. Poland, Sweden, and England, may be regarded as republics under a King, but Poland is the only one of them which takes the name.† * An allusion to the lettre de cachet, probably, by which Voltaire was sent to sleep elsewhere once, and threatened with the same favour frequently. This was written in 1764, since which there have been strange alterations; and the Holy Alliance, as far as it can reach, will leave nothing like a republic in Europe, until a reaction once more takes place. The only one which retains a nominal independence, Switzerland, is in fact virtually enslaved.-T. But which of the two is to be preferred for a country, -a monarchy or a republic? This question has been agitated for four thousand years. Ask the rich, and they will tell you an aristocracy; ask the people, and they will reply a democracy; kings alone prefer royalty. Why, then, is almost all the earth governed by monarchs? Put that question to the rats who proposed to hang a bell round the cat's neck. In truth, the genuine reason is, because men are rarely worthy of governing themselves. It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot we must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. That good citizen the ancient Cato always gave it as his opinion, that Carthage must be destroyed: "Delenda est Carthago." To be a good patriot is to wish our own country enriched by commerce, and powerful by arms; but such * No one but a slave can say that he prefers royalty to a wellconstituted republic, where men are truly free, and where, enjoying under good laws all the rights they hold from nature, they will be clear of the danger of foreign oppression; but this republic exists not, and never has existed. There is no choice but between monarchy, aristocracy, and anarchy; and in this case a wise man will prefer monarchy; at all events, he will distrust the natural sentiment which may lead him to a preference of republicanism. It may not be because it renders all men free, but because he hopes to become one of their masters. It may be added, that the most important objects for mankind, as security, civil liberty, property, due division of taxation, liberty of commerce and of industry, ought to be the same in monarchies as in republics; as upon these points the interest of the monarch is the same as the general interest, or at least as much so as that of a legislative body.-Note by Voltaire. It is useless for Voltaire to assert that the interest of the monarch is the same as the general interest, when monarchs can be so seldom brought to think so themselves. He coufounds the interest of the monarchy with the interest of the monarch. For the maintenance and prosperity of a certain regimen, it ought to consult the general interest; but is it constructed to do so? It is the interest of Ferdinand of Spain to consult that of his people;-can he understand it? And in this respect at least nine out of ten kings are like him. The growth and prosperity of the United States of America have answered much of the above note of Voltaire, who appears to have but slightly studied the capability of the representative system, under a state of diffused information. He would not have. written this note thirty years later.-T. is the condition of mankind, that to wish the greatness of our own country is often to wish evil to our neighbours. He who could bring himself to wish that his country shall always remain as it is, would be a citizen of the universe.* CRIMES OR OFFENCES. Of Time and Place. A ROMAN in Egypt very unfortunately killed a consecrated cat, and the infuriated people punished this sacrilege by tearing him to pieces. If this Roman had been carried before the tribunal, and the judges had possessed common sense, he would have been condemned to ask pardon of the Egyptians and the cats, and to pay a heavy fine either in money or mice. They would have told him that he ought to respect the follies of the people, since he was not strong enough to correct them. The venerable chief justice should have spoken to him in this manner: 66 Every country has its legal impertinences, and its offences of time and place. If in your Rome, which has become the sovereign of Europe, Africa, and Asia Minor, you were to kill a sacred fowl, at the precise time that you give it grain in order to ascertain the just will of the gods, you would be severely punished. We believe that you have only killed our cat accidentally. The court admonishes you. Go peace, and be more circumspect in future.' in It seems a very indifferent thing to have a statue in * A country may augment its real riches without diminishing, but even while increasing, that of its neighbours. It is the same as with the public good; the welfare of one nation is not to be obtained by sacrificing the prosperity of another. It is not thus with power; but no nation is called upon to augment its power beyond what is necessary to its security.-Note in French Edition. The proposition in the first sentence of the foregoing note is becoming better understood every day. Cato was only a more respectable barbarian, although infinitely to be preferred to the cold-hearted oppressors, who would perpetuate an eternal helotism in Ireland and Italy, and prate all the while about paternity and christianity.—T, our hall; but if, when Octavius surnamed Augustus was absolute master, a Roman had placed in his house the statue of Brutus, he would have been punished as seditious. If a citizen, under a reigning emperor, had the statue of the competitor to the empire, it is said that it was accounted a crime of high treason. An Englishman, having nothing to do, went to Rome, where he met prince Charles Edward at the house of a cardinal. Pleased at the incident, on his return he drank in a tavern to the health of prince Charles Edward, and was immediately accused of high treason. But whom did he highly betray, in wishing the prince well? If he had conspired to place him on the throne, then he would have been guilty towards the nation; but I do not see that the most rigid justice of parliament could require more from him than to drink four cups to the health of the house of Hanover, supposing he had drank two to that of the house of Stuart. Of Crimes of Time and Place, which ought to be concealed. It is well known how much our Lady of Loretto ought to be respected in the March of Ancona. Three young people happened to be joking on the house of our Lady, which has travelled through the air to Dalmatia; which has two or three times changed its situation, and has only found itself comfortable at Loretto. Our three scatterbrains sang a song at supper, formerly made by a Huguenot, in ridicule of the translation of the santa casa of Jerusalem to the one end of the Adriatic Gulf. A fanatic having heard by chance what passed at their supper, inade strict enquiries, sought witnesses, and engaged a magistrate to issue a summons. This proceeding alarmed all consciences. Every one trembled in speaking of it. Chambermaids, vergers, innkeepers, lacqueys, servants, all heard what was never said, and saw what was never done: there was an uproar, a horrible scandal throughout the whole March of Ancona. It was said half a league from Loretto, that these youths had killed our Lady; and a league farther, that they had thrown the |