The question, therefore, seems to be, how far we shall probably travel in the revolutionary road; and whether there is any stopping-place, any hope of taking breath, as we run towards the bottomless pit, into which the revolutionary fury is prone to descend. Our assailants are weaker, and our means of defence greater, than the first patriots of France possessed ; our good men, instead of running away, like the French emigrants, and giving up their estates to confiscation, must stay at home, and exert their talents and influence to save the country. Events may

happen to baffle the schemes of jacobinism; and if the country should not be sleepy or infatuated, of which there is, unhappily, great danger, our adversaries will never be able to push the work of mischief to its consummation.

CHAPTER XI.

A VOICE OF WARNING.

ACCIDENT may give rise and extent to states, but the fixed laws that govern human actions and passions will decide their progress and fate. By looking into history, and seeing what has been, we know what will be. It is thus that dumb experience speaks audibly ; it is thus that witnesses come from the dead and testify. Are we warned? No. Are we roused? No. We lie in a more death-like sleep than those wit

nesses.

The plebeians of Rome asserted their right to serve in the highest offices, and at length obtained it; but the people still chose the most able and eminent men, who were patricians, and rejected their worthless tribunes. But we see our tribunes successful. Surely that people have lost their morals, who bestow their votes on those who have none.

The Romans were not wholly sunk from liberty, till morals and religion lost their power. But when the Thomas Paines, and those who recommended him, as a champion against "the presses" of that day, had introduced the doctrines of Epicurus, the Roman people became almost as corrupt as the French are now, and almost as shameless as the favoured patriots of our country, who are panting to get office.

Gradually, all power centred in the Roman populace. While they voted by centuries, (the comitia

centuriata,) property had influence, and could defend itself; but, at length, the doctrine of universal suffrage prevailed. The rabble, not only of Rome, but of all Italy, and of all the conquered nations, flowed in. In Tiberim, defluxit Orontes. Rome could no more be found in Rome itself, than we can see our own countrymen in the favoured patriots of the present day. The senate of Rome sunk to nothing; the owners of the country no longer governed it. A single assembly seemed to govern the world, and the worst men in it governed that assembly.

Thus we see the passions and vices of men operate uniformly. What remains, and there is not much of this resemblance that remains, unfinished, will be completed.

We enjoy, or rather, till very lately, we did enjoy liberty, to as great an extent as it has ever been asserted, and to a much greater than it has ever been successfully maintained.

While we look round with grief and terror on so much of the work of destruction as three years have accomplished, we resolve to hope and sleep in security for the future. We will not believe that the actual prevalence of a faction is any thing worse than an adverse accident, to which all human affairs are liable. Demagogues have taken advantage of our first slumbers, but we are awaking and shall burst their "Lilliputian ties;" and as we really do expect, that the jacobins will divide, and that *** and others will turn state's evidence to convict their accomplices, we resolve to indulge our hopes and our indolence together, and leave it to time, no matter what time, and

truth, to do their slow but sure work, without our concurrence. We still cherish the theories that are dear to our vanity. We still expect, that men will act in their politics, as if they had no passions, and will be most callous or superior to their influence at the very moment, when the arts of tyrants or the progress of public disorders have exalted them to fury. Then, yes, then, in that chosen hour, reason will display her authority, because she will be free to combat error. Her voice will awe tumult into silence: revolution will quench her powder when it is half exploded; the thunder will be checked in mid volley.

Such are the consolations that bedlam gives to philosophy, and that philosophy faithfully gives back to bedlam—and bedlam enjoys them. The Chronicle, with the fervour of scurrility, and all the sincerity of ignorance, avers, that there is no danger—our affairs go on well; and Middlesex is comforted. They can see no danger; if Etna should blaze, it would not cure the moles of their blindness*.

But all other men who have eyes are forced to confess, that the progress of our affairs is in conformity with the fixed laws of our nature. Our wisdom made a government, and committed it to our virtue to keep; but our passions have engrossed it, and they have armed our vices to maintain their usurpation.

What then are we to do? Are we to sit still, as

* The reader is assured, however strange it may appear, that this paragraph is copied with perfect fidelity ;—a moderate sagacity will enable him to divine why this passage in particular needs such an avowal.-ED.

heretofore, till we are overtaken by destruction, or shall we rouse now, late as it is, and show by our effort against a jacobin faction, that, if we cannot escape, we will not deserve, our fate?

We justly consider the condition of civil liberty as the most exalted, to which any nation can aspire; but high as its rank is, and precious as are its prerogatives, it has not pleased God, in the order of his providence, to confer this pre-eminent blessing, except upon a very few, and those very small, spots of the universe. The rest sit in darkness, and as little desire the light of liberty, as they are fit to endure it.

We are ready to wonder, that the best gifts are the most sparingly bestowed, and rashly to conclude, that despotism is the decree of heaven, because by far the largest part of the world lies bound in its fetters. But, either on tracing the course of events in history, or on examining the character and passions of man, we shall find, that the work of slavery is his own, and that he is not condemned to wear chains, till he has been his own artificer to forge them. We shall find, that society cannot subsist, unless the appetites and passions of the violent are made subject to an adequate control. How much control will be adequate to that end, is a problem of no easy solution beforehand, and of no sort of difficulty after some experience. For all who have any thing to defend, and all, indeed, who have nothing to ask protection for, but their lives, will desire that protection; and not only acquiesce, but rejoice in the progress of those slave-making intrigues and tumults, which, at length, assure to society its repose, though it sleeps in bondage. Thus it will