narchy, are gone. No
single new corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new
institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when everything
has been chosen with care and selection to forward all those ambitious
designs and dispositions, not to control them? The whole is a body of
ways and means for the supply of dominion, without one heterogeneous
particle in it.

Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has
occurred to me on the _genius and character_ of the French Revolution.
From having this before us, we may be better able to determine on the
first question I proposed, that is, how far nations, called foreign,
are likely to be affected with the system established within that
territory. I intended to proceed next on the question of her
facilities, from _the internal state of other nations, and
particularly of this_, for obtaining her ends: but I ought to be
aware that my notions are controverted.--I mean, therefore, in my next
letter, to take notice of what, in that way, has been recommended to
me as the most deserving of notice. In the examination of those
pieces, I shall have occasion to discuss some others of the topics to
which I have called your attention. You know that the letters which I
now send to the press, as well as a part of what is to follow, have
been in their substance long since written. A circumstance which your
partiality alone could make of importance to you, but which to the
public is of no importance at all, retarded their appearance. The late
events which press upon us obliged me to make some additions; but no
substantial change in the matter.

This discussion, my friend, will be long. But the matter is serious;
and if ever the fate of the world could be truly said to depend on a
particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell.

V.--'PETER PLYMLEY'S LETTERS'

BY SYDNEY SMITH

(LETTERS II., VI., VII., IX.)

(_The pamphleteering spirit is strong in almost all Sydney Smith's
'Contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_,' but the form and subjects
of those contributions exclude them here. Of his two great pamphlet
issues proper, _Peter Plymley's Letters_ and those _To Archdeacon
Singleton_, the former are, though perhaps of less polished and
perfect wit than the latter, more distinctly political, and have more
of that _diable au corps_ which Voltaire considered necessary to
success in the arts. They have also the advantage tha