singularly few. Its soldiers have been known chiefly as mercenaries, and its peasantry as the poorest, perhaps, in Europe. But our poets have taught us to think of Switzerland as the mountain home of liberty. Certainly it is not, nor ever has been, the land of popular liberty. Like all the republics of antiquity, it has always been essentially aristocratical both in its institutions and its social character. The distinction of aristocratic and democratic cantons was comparative only, for a pure democracy never existed, in fact, in any of them. In all, the descendants of the first founders of Swiss independence, the burghers from descent or by admission, alone enjoyed political rights, and were sovereign. These formed scarcely one half, and, in some of the cantons, only a fourth of the male population. The aggregate population of Uri, Underwalden, Schwytz, Zug, and Glaris, five of those which were distinguished as democratic cantons, amounted, in 1796, to 83,000 souls, out of which there were scarcely 20,000 burghers or freemen. The latter governed besides, various subject districts, forming a population of 337,000 souls, making altogether twenty subjects

to one democratic king. In one of the most aristocratic cantons, that of Fribourg, seventy-one families, with their col. · lateral branches, governed a population of 73,000 inhabitants.

• Men,' remarks M. Simond, are always more tenacious of their authority over those nearly their equals, than over those decidedly their inferiors. Our republicans have accordingly shewed themselves very ready to repress any attempt at resistance, not only on the part of their own subjects, but those of other cantons. When, in 1653, the peasants of the aristocratic cantons revolted, the democratic captons were the first to take up arms against them. A great degree of corruption prevailed in the administration of justice.

" It is undoubted,” said Stanyan, " that in the subject districts, especially those held jointly by several of the democratic cantons, justice is in a great degree venal, and that it forins the main source of emolument to the baillies. All those crimes which are not capital, are punished by fines, which are their perquisites ! In civil causes, he who pays best, carries it.” Thus it was to the time of the Revolution ; but there are now no subject districts ; and we hope the Revolution, which made them independent, operated a reform in their administration of justice.' Vol. II. p. 443.

This, it must be confessed, is a state of things ill corres. ponding to an Englishman's notion of liberty and popular rights. But, in fact, the existence of democratic freedom presupposes a diffusion of intelligence and of wealth among the common people, which we should in vain look for

the peasantry of Helvetia. In thinly peopled agricultural districts, where the people consist but of two classes, the proprietors and

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their dependents, liberty must depend for its existence on a power independent of either, and a monarchical government is its only security. The formation of a middle class, which can take place only in an advanced state of society, and as the result of long years of peace, a successful commerce, and a thriving internal trade, is indispensable to the existence, as well as to the preservation of a legitimate democratic influence, which, again, is the only safeguard of civil justice and personal independence. Among the Swiss aristocracies, Berne affords the purest model of that species of government since the days of the Roman republic. Many of the founders of the commonwealth were nobles; but the mode of government was, for several centuries, essentially democratical. The heads of families annually elected their magistrates; and, though the choice usually fell on the nobles or principal citizens, there was nothing to preclude any individual from aspiring to any office in the state.

During the heroic period of Switzerland, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of burghers was at one time 30,000; but the councils passed a law in 1619, excluding the country burghers from any share in the government; and in the years 1635, 1643, and 1669, new measures were taken to secure permanently the reigning families-regiments fähige bürgers, as they are called at Berne. In 1684, their names were recorded in chancery; the number of these families was then about one hundred and fifty; but it increased after that period, and in the year 1782, it was fixed permanently at two. hundred and thirty-six. The government was then composed of several councils, or rather of one, the sovereign council or the two hundred, and of branches of that council: 1st. the senate, a selection of twenty-five counsellors, presided by the avoyer, to whom the executive and judicial departments belong; 2nd. the secret committee, composed of a smaller selection of five or six counsellors, presided likewise by the avoyer; and 3rd. the sixteen, chosen by lots from among the bailiffs or governors who had served their time: their functions were of less importance. Besides the secret committee above mentioned, there were the two secret counsellors, being the two youngest members of the two hundred; whose functions were to overLook the conduct of the members of government from the highest to the lowest, and inform against any trespass or abuses. Their functions have been compared to those of the Roman tribunes, while those of the secret committee were the reverse, being employed in watching the people. No great degree of activity or conscientious zeal would naturally be expected on the part of this censorship of magistrates against their brethren: yet it is a fact, that the trust reposed in them by individuals denouncing powerful members of the government, against whom they did not choose to appear, never was betrayed, and that they always brought forward the complaints faith

fully, the council generally paying great attention to their communi.

cations.

Since the year 1787, whenever patrician families to the number of five had become extinct, they were replaced by three families of the German divisions, and two from the Romand or Pays de Vaud. The sovereign council was recruited out of the whole body of burghers apparently, but in fact gut of seventy-six families, who stood, by a sort of prescriptive right, at the head among the two hundred and thirty-six families of burghers; and even among these, there were only twenty families decidedly paramount, and the other fifty-six formed a sort of opposition. Vacancies in the council by death or otherwise, were not filled until there were more than eighty, which happened every eight or ten years•••••• The magnificent and sovereign lords selected from their own caste all the public officers in the different departments; they made laws and executed them, they sate on the bench as judges, and pleaded at the bar as advocates; in short, united in their own persons all functions and all powers. In theory, these might well be deemed the elements of a most detestable state of things in practice, it was a government under which a permanent peace of two centuries, and the strictest economy and fidelity, had made it unnecessary to raise any money from the people, except tithes, which, besides the very moderate salary of the clergy, supported public schools. Other sources of revenue actually exceeded the wants of government. The right of taxation was untried, and remained a dead letter. This excess of the revenue over the current expenses, placed the government in a predicament of which there is not another example that of paying the people, instead of being paid by them; it actually laid out every year more money than was raised by taxes. It was a government under which the administration of justice was speedy, and certainly incorruptible, in the highest tribunal at least...... It was a government, in short, under which, since its foundation, history records only two instances of popular insurrection from political motives; viz. in the years 1384 and 1631, between a defenceless magistracy, commanding a standing force of 300 regulars, and a warlike people, among whom every man from the age of sixteen was provided with arms, and trained to the use of them. The meanest peasant might at all times find access to the chief magistrate, present his petition, and state his grievance.

With this outline of things before him, it becomes a prudent observer not to admit lightly the accusations of tyranny bestowed in our days upon the oligarchy of Berne. There never was an arbitrary government guilty of fewer acts of oppression: none ever enjoyed to so high a degree the confidence of the people at large. It was literally a government de confiance in which none of the constitutional precautions against misrule had been taken, nor any check introduced, simply because confidence never was betrayed, and no danger apprehended. The finances were administered with exemplary regularity and economy, like those of a well-ordered family. A committee of finance received the yearly account of the collectors, and made vut an aggregate statement, submitted to the sovereign council, where

any member might make objections and institute inquiries. There were very few instances of peculation, exactions, or breach of trust on the part of inferior agents; none ever on the part of any member of the government. We have on this point the honourable testimony of a determined, active, and open enemy of Berne, Colonel Laharpe, who declared to us, that le gouvernment de Berne est le plus intégre qui existe.' Simond. Vol. II. pp. 465-73.

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Still, it was an arbitrary government, arbitrary, though kind, and one which owed its stability to the stationary character of the people. It did not encourage either commerce or manufactures, nor, indeed, the arts, or the sciences, or any branch of industry, except husbandry. It was, in principles and in practice, says M. Simond, a patriarchal government.' Bat a patriarchal government is ill adapted for any but the earliest stage of society, when all are proprietors or slaves. It cannot survive either foreign invasion or the growth of national wealth, because it depends on a sort of equipoise which must in either case, be destroyed. It is the interest of such a government, therefore, and will be more or less its actual policy, to retard the progress of society, by discouraging the spirit of enterprise and the dissemination of knowledge. Thus, public establishments of education at Berne bore no proportion to the other institutions. In point of fact, there was no middle class : they were all either magnifiques et souverains seigneurs,' or substantial peasants. And this,' says M. Simond, may be said ⚫ of all Switzerland.' Now, the question is not, what might be the comparative sum of happiness enjoyed under such a political constitution. The peasantry were quietly ignorant and contented, and so, if they happen to have a kind master, are the serfs in Russia. No one can doubt that a large share of social happiness may be enjoyed under the most arbitrary government. But, though the Poet may sing or say, that when ⚫ ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' or, that when slavery is bliss, 'tis folly to be free, yet, a constitution of things which tends to paralyse the faculties of man, to check every tendency, to improvement, to exclude the mass of society alike from knowledge and from honourable distinction, and to infuse a torpor into the public mind as unfavourable to moral advances ment as to the development of talent and industry,-such a political constitution cannot be regarded as upon the whole conducive to the welfare of its subjects, except as any and every sort of government is a positive blessing, when opposed to anarchy. We imagine,' says M. S., the friends of Berne must plead guilty here, and admit there was really something of a torpid nature in the Bernese institutions; a certain want of proper excitements. Their subjects were, in truth, so weil

• off and so comfortable, that they were apt to go to sleep.' And so long as they were sleepily disposed, it was well; but the time came when they could no longer sleep. So far back as 1714, Stanyan, a British minister in Switzerland, remarked, that the Bernese were certainly the most free from political burdens of any people; but, for what I can observe, the sub• jects think no mildness in the government can make them amends for the hardship of being excluded from their share of it.' M. Simond has on this subject a fine remark.

• When the state of civilisation is so far advanced that moral enjoyment becomes one of the necessaries of life, and the humiliation at. tached, not to legal restraints, but to legal exclusion, hereditary and irrevocable, weighs upon men with more force than physical evil, no civil institutions are safe which overlook this disposition and wound this feeling: The foundations of society, undermined by degrees, may still shew a fair face above ground ; but the least shake will pall down the hollow structure. Obedience, on the most favourable hypotheses, becomes mere resignation : it is only lent provisionally, and, without an appearance of rebellion, the peace of society hangs on a thread. It is not material interests, nor a rivality of power, necessarily confined to a few individuals, which excite the most general discon. tents, or kindle the most deadly hatred, but the violation of favourite doctrines and principles; and the feeling may operate on a whole people at once with a degree of force amounting to fanaticism Civil liberty is the end of political institutions; yet does the attain. ment of that end excite less enthusiasm than the attainment of the means,—as the miser sacrifices, all his life, present enjoyment, to the abstract and indefinite power of enjoying in future.' pp. 479, 80.

An illustration of the truth of this remark must immediately suggest itself to our readers,—one of a nature but too forcible and ominous,-in the present state of Ireland. But Switzerland was free, and happy, and prosperous in comparison with that most injured and unhappy country. It neither groaned beneath a foreign yoke, nor was crushed beneath a bloated hierarchy. Its clergy were not of a different religion from the people, nor its rulers, of another nation, nor its nobles, absentees

who tyrannised by deputy. The population was divided into patricians and peasants, not into princes and beggars. And yet, the invidious system of political exclusion was felt by the subjects of Berne as a grievance and an injury, and laid the foundation for the Revolution. It is remarkable, that one source of peculiar irritation was the Bernese Game-laws. Their Excellencies of Berne had the privilege of shooting snipes (grives) in the vineyards of their subjects of the Pays de Vaud, while the proprietors themselves were excluded from the sport without special permission. • It could scarcely be imagined,' says