mount it; that liberty is to be desired for its abstract excellence, rather than its practical benefits, and, therefore, that it is better to run the hazard of the greatest possible degree of a perishable liberty, rather than to accept it with those guards and defences, which, to insane theorists, seem to make it less, but which, on the just analogies of experience, promise to make it immortal; those, in a word, who look on government with fear and aversion, on the relaxation or subversion of it, with complacency and hope; all who from credulity, envy, anger, and pride, from ambition or cupidity, are impatient under the restraints, or eager for the trappings of power.

All such reason, when they can, and act, and feel in a manner unfavourable to the support of the constitution and laws. Their opinions and creeds are various, and many of them are plausible, and seem to be moderate. It is probable they would all, except the leaders, at present incline to stop short of the extremes, to which the first steps are not perceived to tend, but which, when they are taken, are inevitable. They are impelled by a common instinct, as blind as it is steady and powerful in its action.

The democrats really wish to see an impossible experiment fairly tried, and to govern without government. There is universally, a presumption in democracy that promises every thing; and, at the same time, an imbecility that can accomplish nothing, nor even preserve itself.

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CHAPTER VII.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

Of all men I have ever known, the jacobins have the worst opinion of human nature. An honest discharge of duty in any station, is a thing incredible, because with them it is incomprehensible. Accordingly, they begin with accusations and calumnies of the foulest sort, and call upon us to show that they are not true; as if the burden of truth did not rest on the accusers, but the accused.

It is proper to remark to the men who are observers of human nature, that of all kinds of influence the first for ignorant and vulgar minds to suspect, is downright bribery and corruption; it is, nevertheless, the last for even the profligate and shameless to yield to. It is so coarse an instrument, that it seldom answers the purpose. There are instances, and one is said to have happened during our revolution, where a man, who wanted integrity, made an outcry, when he had it in his power to brag that it had been tempted. More than half the indictments for rapes, are founded on the charges of women of no virtue. There is so much shame in yielding to the offer of a bribe, and so much glory in refusing it, that the latter is often the better and more tempting bribe, which determines the conduct.

Sir Robert Walpole, the celebrated English minister, is said to have been a master in the art of corruption; but when public opinion was decided strongly for or

against a measure, as in the cases of the Excise, the Jew-bill, if I mistake not, and the cruelties of the Spanish Guarda-costas, his gold and his art failed to secure a majority in parliament. In the attempt to unite Great Britain and Ireland, the project, in spite of ministerial influence, was at first rejected by the Irish commons. The public reasons were strong, the public good plainly called for the union; yet passion and prejudice opposed the measure. Ireland, by the union, seemed to be lost and swallowed up; and this secret dread, this inward horror, of sinking into nothing, outweighed all the forcible national arguments in favour of the measure. It may be added, that the members felt a like decline of their own weight and influence. It may, therefore, be said, with Sir Robert Walpole, that it is hard to bribe members even to do their duty, and to vote according to their consciences: much less can they be bribed to vote against them, or rather against the known voice of the nation.

All experience shows, that to get a bad measure adopted, when it is popular, is easy; to get a good one is very hard, against the current of even the most absurd and groundless popular clamour. The side, therefore, to look for corrupt influence, is ever the popular side, because that is the unsuspected, and yet the dark side: members, in that case, can be praised for acting against duty. As many are willing to yield their principles, who cannot part with their reputation, the occasions are frequent when members prefer acting so as to please the people instead of serving them.

Democracy, by indulging the fervours of the popular

spirit, is more disposed to imbibe a zeal for proselytism. The everlasting bustle of our elections, the endless disputations and harangues of demagogues, keep our spirits half the time smoking and ready to kindle, and the other half in a blaze. Zeal is ever contagious, and, accordingly, the only political propagandists now in the world are the democrats. The monarchists have less to do in the concerns of their government, and talk and wrangle less about it. The spirit of subordination they have; that of proselytism they have not. When life, liberty, and property are protected, they are contented, although their system should appear to speculatists inferior in its theory to the best of all possible governments.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW ROMANS.

To raise curiosity, wonder, and terror, is the ordinary effect of great political events. All these, but especially wonder, have been produced by the progress of the French revolution. To wonder, is not the way to grow wise to extract wisdom from experience, we must ponder and examine; we must search for the plan which regulates political conduct, and its ultimate design. To know what is done, without knowing why it is done, and with what spirit it was undertaken, is knowing nothing: it is no better than laborious ignorance and studious error. Such has been the crude mass of newspaper information, the blind and undistinguishing admiration of French victories. It would be difficult to understand all that it is profitable to know, in regard to these surprising events, if history did not teach us, that like actors and like scenes have been exhibited in ancient days, and that we may, if we will, learn wisdom from the sad experience of the nations which have gone

before us.

Since the Romans, no nation has appeared on the stage of human affairs, with a character completely military, except the French; and that character was mingled with the commercial, until the revolution.

With less than half a million of citizens in her whole territory, according to the census or enumeration preserved by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rome, soon