-that unwieldy power which cannot move a step without alarm,-it diminished the only interference of the Crown, which is singly and independently exposed before the people, and whose abuses therefore are obvious to their senses and capacities; like the myrtle over a celebrated statue in Minerva's temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from the public eye the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time, however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In the disposal of an immense revenue and the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were laid the innovation of a standing army at once increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settlement opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed during the Whiggish reigns that succeeded; till at length. this spirit of influence has become the vital principle of the State,-an agency, subtle and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution, lurks under all its forms, and regulates all its movements, and, like the invisible sylph or grace which presides over the motions of beauty,

Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit,
Componit furtim subsequiturque."

The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in the minds of Englishmen, that probably in objecting to the latter, I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former; but assuredly nothing could be more unjust thau such a suspicion. The very object, indeed, which my humble animadversions would attain is, that in the crisis to which I think England is now hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 may be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform, she may now seek a Reform without Revolution.

In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland, and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England. There is one name, indeed, connected with Whiggism, of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be monopolized by any party whatever. Mr. Fox belonged to mankind, and they have lost in him their ablest friend.

With respect to the few lines upon Intolerance, which I have subjoined, they are but the imperfect beginning of a long series of Essays, with which I here menace my readers, upon the same important subject. I shall look to no higher merit in the task than that of giving a new form to claims and remon strances, which have often been much more eloquently urged, and which would long ere now have produced their effect, but that the minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more the stronger light there is shed upon them.

CORRUPTION.

AN EPISTLE.

Νυν δ' άπανθ' ώσπερ εξ αγορας εκπεπραται ταυτα' αντεισήκται δε αντι τουτων, υφ' ών απολωλε και νενοσηκεν ή Ελλας. Ταυτα δ' εστι τι; ζηλος, ει τις ειληφε τι γελως αν όμολογη συγγνωμη, τοις ελεγχομένοις· μισος, αν τούτοις τις επιτιμα ταλλα παντα, όσα εκ του δωροδοκείν ηρτηται. Demosthenes, Philipp. iii.

BOAST on, my friend-though stripp'd of all beside,

Thy struggling nation still retains her pride :1

That pride, which once in genuine glory woke

When Marlborough fought, and brilliant St. John spoke

That pride which still, by time and shame unstrung,

Outlives e'en Wh-tel--cke's sword and H-wk sb'ry's tongue }

Boast on, my friend, while in this humbled isle2

Where Honour mourns and Freedom fears to smile,

Where the bright light of England's fame is known

But by the baleful shadow she has thrown

On all our fate3-where, doom'd to wrongs and slights,
We hear you talk of Britain's glorious rights,

As wretched slaves, that under hatches lie,
Hear those on deck extol the sun and sky!

Boast on, while wandering through my native haunts,
I coldly listen to thy patriot vaunts;

And feel, though close our wedded countries twine,
More sorrow for my own than pride from thine.

Yet pause a moment-and if truths severe

Can find an inlet to that courtly ear,

Which loves no politics in rhyme but Pye's,
And hears no news but W-rd's gazetted lies,—

If aught can please thee but the good old saws
Of Church and State,' and 'William's matchless laws,'
And Acts and Rights of glorious Eighty-eight,'—
Things, which though now a century out of date,
Still serve to ballast, with convenient words,,
A few crank arguments for speeching lords,*

1'Angli suos ac sua omnia impense mirantur; cæteras nationes despectui habent."- Barclay (as quoted in one of Dryden's prefaces).

2 England began very early to feel the effects of cruelty towards her dependencies. The severity of her government (says Macpherson) contributed more to deprive her of the continental dominions of the family of Plantagenet than the rms of France.-See his History, vol. i.

By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691 (says Burke), the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as anything in human

affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke.'

It never seems to occur to those orators and addressers who round off so many sentences and paragraphs with the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, &c., that most of the provisions which these Acts contained for the preservation of parliamentary independence have been long laid aside as romantic and troublesome. So that, I confess, I never hear a politician who quotes

Turn, while I tell how England's freedom found,
Where most she look'd for life, her deadliest wound;
How brave she struggled, while her foe was seen,
How faint since Influence lent that foe a screen;
How strong o'er James and Popery she prevail'd,
How weakly fell, when Whigs and gold assail'd.1

While kings were poor, and all those schemes unknown
Which drain the people, to enrich the throne ;

Ere yet a yielding Commons had supplied

Those chains of gold by which themselves are tied ;
Then proud Prerogative, untaught to creep
With bribery's silent foot on Freedom's sleep,
Frankly avow'd his bold enslaving plan,
And claim'd a right from God to trample man!
But Luther's schism had too much roused mankind
For Hampden's truths to linger long behind;
Nor then, when king-like popes had fallen so low,
Could pope-like kings escape the levelling blow.
That ponderous sceptre (in whose place we bow
To the light talisman of influence now),

Too gross, too visible to work the spell
Which modern power performs, in fragments fell:
In fragments lay, till, patch'd and painted o'er
With Heur-de-lys, it shone and scourged once more.

'Twas then, my friend, thy kneeling nation quaff'd
Long, long and deep, the churchman's opiate draught
Of tame obedience-till her sense of right
And pulse of glory seem'd extinguish'd quite,
And Britons slept so sluggish in their chain,
That wakening Freedom call'd almost in vain.
O England! England! what a chance was thine,
When the last tyrant of that ill-starr'd line
Fled from his sullied crown, and left thee free
To found thy own eternal liberty!

How bright, how. glorious, in that sunshine hour
Might patriot hands have raised the triple tower3

seriously the Declaration of Rights, &c., to prove the actual existence of English liberty, that I do not think of that Marquis, whom Montesquieu mentions, who set about looking for mines in the Pyrenees, on the strength of authorities which he had read in some ancient authors. The poor Marquis toiled and searched in vain. He quoted his authorities to the last, but found no mines

after all.

illustration, into what doting, idiotic brains the plan of arbitrary power may enter.

3 Tacitus has expressed his opinion, in a passage very frequently quoted, that such a distri bution of power as the theory of the British constitution exhibits is merely a subject of bright speculation, 'a system more easily praised than practised, and which, even could it happen to exist, would certainly not prove permanent;' and, in truth, a review of England's annals would dispose us to agree with the great historian's remark. For we find that at no period whatever has this balance of the three estates existed; that the nobles predominated till the policy of 2 The drivelling correspondence between James Henry VII. and his successor reduced their I. and his dog Steenie' (the Duke of Bucking-weight by breaking up the feudal system of proham), which we find among the Hardwicke perty; that the power of the Crown became Papers, sufficiently shows, if we wanted any such then supreme and absolute, till the bold en

1 The chief, perhaps the only advantage which has resulted from the system of influence, is that tranquil course of uninterrupted action which it has given to the administration of govern

ment.

262

Of British treedom, on a rock divine

Which neither force could storm nor treachery mine!
But, no-the luminous, the lofty plan,

Like mighty Babel, seem'd too bold for man;
The curse of jarring tongues again was given

To thwart a work that raised men nearer heaven.
While Tories marr'd what Whigs had scarce begun,'
While Whigs undid what Whigs themselves had done,
The time was lost, and William, with a smile,
Saw Freedom weeping o'er the unfinish'd pile!

Hence all the ills you suffer,-hence remain
Such galling fragments of that feudal chain,3

croachments of the Commons subverted the
fabric altogether; that the alternate ascendancy
of prerogative and privilege distracted the period
which followed the Restoration; and that, lastly,
the Acts of 1635, by laying the foundation of an
unbounded court-influence, have secured a pre-
ponderance to the Throne, which every succeeding
So that the vaunted British
year increases.
constitution has never perhaps existed but in
mere theory.

"Those two thieves," says Ralph," between whom the nation was crucified."-Use and Abuse of Parliament.

The monarchs of Great Britain can never be sufficiently grateful for that accommodating spirit which led the Revolutionary Whigs to give away the crown, without imposing any of those restraints or stipulations which other men might have taken advantage of so favourable a moment to enforce, and in the framing of which they had so good a model to follow as the limitations proposed by the Lords Essex and Halifax, in the debate upon the Exclusion Bill, They not only condescended, however, to accept of places, but took care that these dignities should be no impediment to their voice potential' in affairs of legislation; and although an Act was after many years suffered to pass, which by one of its articles disqualified placemen from serving as members of the House of Commons, it was yet not allowed to interfere with the influence of the reigning monarch, nor with that of his successor Anne. The purifying elause, indeed, was not to take effect till after the decease of the latter Sovereign, and she very considerately repealed it altogether. So that, as representation has continued ever since, if the king were simple enough to send to foreign courts ambassadors who were most of them in the pay of those courts, he would be just as honestly and faithfully represented as are his people.

It would be endless to enumerate all the favours which were conferred upon William by They complimented those apostate Whigs.' him with the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which had been hazarded since the confirmation of that privilege; and this example of our deliverer's reign has not been lost upon any of his successors. They promoted the stablishment of a standing army, and circu

lated in its defence the celebrated Balancing
Letter,' in which it is insinuated that England,
even then, in her boasted hour of regeneration,
was arrived at such a pitch of faction and cor-
ruption that nothing could keep her in order but
a Whig ministry and a standing army. They
refused as long as they could, to shorten the
duration of Parliaments; and though the Decla
ration of Rights acknowledged the necessity of
such a reform, they were able, by arts not un-
known to modern ministers, to brand those as
traitors and republicans who urged it. But the
grand and distinguishing trait of their measures
was the power which they gave to the Crown of
annihilating the freedom of elections, of muddy-
ing for ever that stream of representation which
had, even in the most agitated times, reflected
some features of the people, but which then for
the first time became the Pactolus of the Court,
and grew so darkened with sands of gold that it
served for the people's mirror no longer. We
need but consult the writings of that time to
understand the astonishment then excited by
measures which the practice of a century has
rendered not only familiar, but necessary. See
a pamphlet called The Danger of Mercenary
Parliaments,' 1698; 'State Tracts,' Will. III.
vol. ii. p. 633; and see also 'Some Paradoxes
presented as a New Year's Gift.'-(State Poems,
vol. iii. p. 327).

3 The last great wound given to the feudal system was the Act of the 12th of Charles II., which abolished the tenure of knight's service in capite, and which Blackstone compares, for its salutary influence upon property, to the boasted provisions of Magna Charta itself. Yet even in this Act we see the effects of that counteracting spirit which has contrived to weaken every effort of the English nation towards liberty. The exclusion of copyholders from their share of elective rights was permitted to remain as a brand of feudal servitude, and as an ob stacle to the rise of that strong counter balance which an equal representation of property would oppose to the weight of the Crown. If the managers of the Revolution had been sincere in their wishes for reform, they would not only have taken this fetter off the rights of election, but would have renewed the mode adopted in Cromwell's time, of in

Whose links around you by the Norman flung,
Though loosed and broke so often, still have clung.
Hence sly Prerogative, like Jove of old,
Has turn'd his thunder into showers of gold,
Whose silent courtship wins securer joys,1
Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise.
While parliaments, no more those sacred things
Which make and rule the destiny of kings,
Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown,
And each new set of sharpers cog their own.
Hence the rich oil, that from the Treasury steals,
And drips o'er all the Constitution's wheels,
Giving the old machine such pliant play,2
That Court and Commous jog one joltless way,
While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car,
So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far;
And the duped people, hourly doom'd to pay
The sums that bribe their liberties away,