Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/347

 1837. "London and Westminster Review": "Aphorisms" (January); "Arm and Carrel" (October).

1838. "London and Westminster Review": "A Prophecy" (January). "Alfred de Vigny" (April). "Bentham" (August).

1839. Illness. Received six months' leave of absence, and traveled in Italy.

1840. "London and Westminster": "Coleridge" (March). "Edinburgh Review": De Tocqueville's "Democracy" (October). With Henry at Falmouth, in his last illness.

He tells us how he was excited by the French Revolution of 1830, and visited Paris in consequence. He wrote on the 13th August a long letter to his father on the state of parties. He begins: "I have had some conversation with M. Say, and a great deal with Adolphe d'Eichthal and Victor Lanjuinais, and I have been a very assiduous reader of all the newspapers since I arrived. At present, if I were to look only at the cowardice and imbecility of the existing generation of public men, with scarcely a single exception, I should expect very little good; but when I consider the spirit and intelligence of the young men and of the people, the immense influence of the journals, and the strength of the public voice, I am encouraged to hope that as there has been an excellent revolution without leaders, leaders will not be required in order to establish a good government." He then goes on to give a detailed account of how the revolution was accomplished—the flinching of the generals of the army, the cowardice and meanness of Dupin above everybody. He has the lowest opinion of the ministry, not a Radical among them except Dupont de l'Eure; all mere place-hunters. Thiers at the meeting for organizing the resistance showed great weakness and pusillanimity. (I heard him long afterward say he detested Thiers.) Of the new measures he praises most the lowering of the age qualification to the Chamber from forty to thirty; he has seen no one that attaches due importance to this change. "I am going to the Chamber of Deputies to-morrow with Mr. Austin, and next week I am to be introduced to the Society of ‘Aide-toi,’ where I am to be brought in contact with almost all the best of the young men, and there are few besides that I should at all care to be acquainted with. . . . I have heard of an immense number of the most affecting instances of the virtue and good sense of the common people." These last observations are thoroughly characteristic. Young men and ouvriers were Mill's hopes.

We learn from himself that he wrote the articles in the "Examiner" on French politics for several years. Even when English politics became all-engrossing, he still maintained his interest and fond hopes in the future of France.

His first bad illness was ten years after the beginning of the period