which were always political. The Frenchman is a much better master, because more sociable, more humane, but he always wishes to show that he is master, officially, prominently, forcibly. There is wanting to him a sort of reserve, both towards others and himself. Instead of disguising his power he makes a point of letting it be seen, felt, touched, and thus he makes it annoying or compromises it. He never understands the importance of some things which appear very small, but which touch the heart of a foreigner; he laughs at him as he does at himself; he insists that people should be like him. He wishes to enforce on them his own laws, his manners, his language, nay, his vices. He wants them all to be adopted at once, not gradually, but by force, openly, without delay. All this of course as a benefit—but what insults people more than anything else, is a benefit imposed by force. He is unpopular without being the least conscious of it, having no suspicion that he has been tyrannical, and sincerely believes that he is securing the happiness of the people whom he is deeply irritating, till all of a sudden his power is overthrown by a storm which he never thought of expecting. It was thus that India slipped out of our hands in a few years. In a few months all Germany roused herself for the great contest of 1813. In a single day the bells of Palermo gave freedom to Sicily. No French conquest has ever been lasting.

'On the other hand we are reminded by this Roman invasion and colonization, so active, so obstinate, so universal, of the incessant and indefatigable advance of English colonization.'

He attributes this to the manner in which the English have allowed the conquered to retain their own institutions, customs, practices, and religion, thus making the fact of conquest as little evident as possible.

'England, like Rome, does not pride itself on making its own language and its own laws universal. The Prætor peregrinus at Rome judged all peoples according to their national laws. The Lord Chancellor in London judges the Canadian according to French law, the inhabitant of Jersey according to the customs of Normandy, of the Isle of France (Mauritius) according to the Code Napoleon, the Indian according to the law of Manou. The social system of England is no more forced on strangers than the social system of Rome; the Mussulman is not obliged to drink its ale, nor the Hindoo to attend its church. All it demands is the right of introducing itself, and introduce itself it does, whole and entire, without modifying or conforming itself, retaining its proud isolation and disdainful peculiarity. This is the course of nations endowed alike with the spirit of conquest and of conservatism. Rome and England have kept their conquests, because their conquest has always been intelligent and politic, because among them the statesman has always been master of the warrior, when it has not happened that the warrior himself was a statesman.' ('Les Césars,' vol. ii. 333.)

Our first impression in reading this passage was that the author had done more than justice to the wisdom of the English people. On second thoughts, however, we believe what he says to be substantially true. There are obvious exceptions on both sides. For instance, nothing can be more remarkable than the manner in which France has succeeded in attaching to herself the German provinces, stolen by Louis XIV. less than two centuries ago; while, on the other hand, England has held Ireland at least since the accession of James I., partially since Henry II., and has never managed for a single day to attach it to herself. The last case is explained, because England, however it may be accounted for, adopted in Ireland exactly the opposite course to that described by M. de Champagny, and forced her own institutions upon a people for whom they were quite unfit. Mr. Gladstone evidently hopes that it is not too late to reconcile Ireland, by allowing it (as the Romans certainly would have done) to be governed by Irish ideas. The loss of the English colonies in America is another instance, for which M. de Champagny, we think, imperfectly accounts. The other instances he mentions seem in point. We do not believe that Frenchmen would have allowed the people of India to retain their institutions, manners, &c., as they have actually done under English government. As for Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, it is to be observed that they were not held as dependencies, but were at once made an integral part of France: and we believe that M. de Montalembert was right in the opinion he expressed, that they had remained intensely anti-French, until after the great Revolution, which for the first time melted down the whole of France into one nationality. This may easily be accounted for. Englishmen who think of that revolution are apt to remember only the hideous crimes by which it was sullied. To the French peasants, and perhaps more especially in the German provinces, the revolution meant the abolition of the feudal system; a system always oppressive to all classes, and most of all to those lower classes on whom the whole weight of the enormous structure rested and pressed.

But we must return to the Roman Empire. By the system we have described it avoided what is ever the most grinding of tyrannies, the domination of race over race. The conquered races, while retaining their national institutions, very easily attained a place among the Romans themselves, and before long, felt that the Empire and all it contained was their own. Before the fall of the Republic, all Italians either enjoyed the full privileges of Romans or knew that they could very easily obtain them. Julius Cæsar had no sooner conquered Gaul than he admitted some Gauls to the senate. This seems to have been premature, and they are said to have been excluded from it by Augustus. But the policy was steadily continued. Claudius, who was an antiquarian, made a well-known speech on the occasion of admitting more Gauls to the honour. Later we find men of almost every province in the highest offices, and even attaining the imperial dignity.

The great proof of the wisdom of this system was in its working. The civilized world was under the dominion of a single city; and yet there was no example of any national revolt, except in the one instance of Judæa; nay, conquered countries deprecated as the greatest of evils separation from the Roman Empire. The 'groans of Britain' when the Romans withdrew from her are well known. But the Gauls afforded a still stronger example. They were among the most warlike and restless of all ancient nations. Their very name had been the greatest terror Rome ever knew. They were made subjects of Rome, after an heroic and desperate resistance, in which a million of them perished, only fifty years before the Christian era. How soon they were left without the presence of any controlling Roman force we are not informed. Such, unquestionably, must have been their ordinary position, to say the least, long before the death of Nero, only one hundred and eighteen years later (a.d. 68). In the civil commotions which followed, almost the whole Roman force (itself, as we have already seen, composed of natives, and employed not to enforce obedience, but to protect the frontier against invasion) was withdrawn into Italy. A small number of enterprising Gauls thought this a favourable opportunity for restoring the national independence. What, however, is most remarkable is, that it does not seem for one moment to have suggested itself, even to them, to abolish the Roman or restore the ancient national institutions. Their hope was to separate themselves from Italy, and set up a Roman Empire, whose seat should be in Gaul. It seems to have been owing to this circumstance, that the small remains of the legionary soldiers still left in the country joined in the movement—an event quite without example. For several months Gaul was to all