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 294 much assumption of the infallible working of known laws, without doubt or distrust as to the intervention of anything unexpected; and the usefulness of his work among a people singularly in need of it has been restricted accordingly; but not the less has De Tocqueville been, for thirty years, up to the time of his lamented death in 1859, the representative political philosopher of the time. This philosophy was his pursuit, his engrossing interest, the proper field of his genius, and the natural channel for both his patriotism and his general benevolence. At the same time, it enhanced instead of mitigating the great grief of his life,—the suppression of liberty in his own country. His thorough understanding of the causes of the submission of France to the existing despotism aggravated his keen sense of the calamity; and his hopelessness of the course of affairs cast a deep shadow over the last years of his life.

He was descended from an old and noble family in Normandy. Louis XVIII. restored the title of Count to his father, and it is still borne by his elder brother; but Alexis never adopted it, having, as he said, no inclination to accept a distinction which had for ever lost the characteristic of honour which made titles worth having. He was ten years old when the First Empire closed at the battle of Waterloo. During the subsequent Bourbon reigns he was diligently prosecuting his education, and on reaching manhood ranged himself with the liberal party, clearly anticipating the downfaldownfall [sic] of the Bourbons. He regarded the accession of the Orleans family and policy as only a new stage in the revolution, because he saw that there was no preparation of the mind of the French people for withstanding the despotism which inevitably accompanies an immature growth of democracy. In 1831 he went to America, and in his work on “Democracy in America” he gave utterance, in a philosophical form, to his clear views of the prospects of his own and every other country in which the democratic principle has established itself unwatched and unchecked by political philosophy incorporated with practice. He was almost as much at home in England as in France, and his hopes found a resting-place in the sound quality and natural growth of English liberties. Such comfort as he experienced, as a political philosopher, during the last depressed years of his life, were derived from our country; and this should be at once an admonition and an encouragement to us to take heed to the lessons and the prophecies of the one political sage of our times.

It is plain to all eyes that the lesson is needed. Everybody is aware that the present condition of politics cannot last. In the absence of political parties marked by oppositions of principles, we are halting between two opinions in a way which can bring nothing but disaster. A democratic tendency is now universal, and cannot be arrested; and to ignore it in the freest country in the world is fatal folly. It is not to be expected, especially in England, that practical statesmen should be political philosophers. Ours are not, and do not pretend to be so. But they might look for guidance in the wisdom of those who are; and this is what no statesman of any party is at present doing. The existing and all recent parliaments have displayed an insensibility to the situation which De Tocqueville could have shown them, and which his works do show, to be very perilous; and the elements of discontent which are gathering outside of political expression are, as he would avouch, more dangerous than any mode of expression that they could find under the forms of the constitution. It is by bad faith and ignorant levity that they have been excluded: and it is only a question of time whether the enlarged franchises and reforms now for some time due shall be obtained with such safety and tranquillity as may still be possible, or be imperiously demanded by an exasperated popular will which shall overbear, more perilously than thirty years ago, the power of resistance rightfully belonging to the classes who ought to be the exemplars of the cultivated intelligence of the country. After all parties have agreed that there has been a great advance in the intelligence of the people, and that that intelligence is a sound title to a share in political counsel and action, it is rash in the extreme to delay the admission on false pretences, or by catching at accidents, at home and abroad. If De Tocqueville were among us now, there is no doubt what his opinion of our present parliament would be, and his writings ought, by this time, to have made our rulers wiser than they are. We may hope that the people of England will yet cause his name and fame to be honoured among us as they deserve.

2em

persons would be surprised if they were told that a new quadruped had, within some few years past, been discovered in this island; and yet it is so. Mr. White of Selborne was the person to do this, and his researches were rewarded by his introducing to naturalists the harvest mouse, certainly the smallest four-footed animal we have. We will proceed to give some account of it, and it will be found from its manner of life that it is possessed of equal sagacity with the larger kinds.

We have stated that Mr. White was the first person to bring these animals into notice, although from the account he has published in his charming “Natural History of Selborne,” he was evidently ignorant of many of their habits. We will endeavour to supply this deficiency, and the account may prove interesting to those who are little acquainted with the animal in question.

The length of the harvest mouse, including the tail, is four inches. Its colour a beautiful reddish yellow on the back and sides, the whole of the under parts being a pure white. The head is small, the nose sharp, the eyes large and prominent and jet black. The whiskers are numerous but weak, ears short, the fore-feet small, with four toes and a rudimentary thumb. The nails are long in proportion, and with them the animal firmly holds its food, and conveys it to his mouth. The hind feet are much longer and stronger, having five distinct toes, long and covered with fine hair to the nails. The tail is equal in length to the body, prehensile, thus greatly assisting them when climbing amongst the grass. Weight, two penny weights