mon order; but when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things is requisite than ever office gave, or than office can ever give. Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power of human legislation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was greatly owing to law and institution, and not quite so much to liberty; for but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be revenue.

I do believe, that he had a very serious desire to benefit the public. But with no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at least equally, carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He generally considered his objects in lights that were rather too detached.

GRIEVANCES.

Men may be sorely touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as well as in their purses. Men may lose little in property by the act which takes away all their

freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the twopence lost that constitutes the capital outrage: This is not confined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part of those who enjoyed such favours, operate as grievances.

HABIT.

We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently desirous of novelty, we are as strongly attached to habit and custom. But it is the nature of things which hold us by custom, to affect us very little whilst we are in possession of them, but strongly when they are absent. I remember to have frequented a certain place, every day, for a long time together; and I may truly say, that, so far from finding pleasure in it, I was affected with a sort of weariness and disgust; I came, I went, I returned, without pleasure; yet if by any means I passed by the usual time of my going thither, I was remarkably uneasy, and was not quiet till I had got into my old track. They who use snuff take it almost without being sensible that they take it, and the acute sense of smell is deadened, so as to feel hardly any thing from so sharp a stimulus; yet deprive the

snuff-taker of his box, and he is the most uneasy mortal in the world.

HAPPINESS,

Philosophical happiness is to want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much.

CLOSE OF MR. BURKE'S LAST SPEECH ON THE IMPEACHMENT OF MR. HASTINGS.

Your

My lords, the commons wait the issue of this cause with trembling solicitude. Twenty-two years have they been employed in it, seven of which have passed in this trial. They behold the dearest interests of their country deeply involved in it; they feel that the very existence of this constitution depends upon it. lordships' justice stands pre-eminent in the world; but it stands amidst a vast heap of ruins, which surround it in every corner of Europe. If you slacken justice, and thereby weaken the bonds of society, the welltempered authority of this court, which I trust in God will continue to the end of time, must receive a fatal wound, that no balm can cure, that no time can restore. My lords, it is not the criminality of the prisoner; it is not the claims of the

commons to demand judgment to be passed upon him; it is not the honour and dignity of this court, and the welfare of millions of the human race, that alone call upon you. When the devouring flames shall have destroyed this perishable globe, and it sinks into the abyss of nature, from whence it was commanded into existence by the great Author of it, then, my lords, when all nature, kings and judges themselves, must answer for their actions, there will be found, what supersedes creation itself, namely, Eternal Justice. It was the attribute of the great God of nature before worlds were; it will reside with him when they perish; and the earthly portion of it, committed to your care, is now solemnly deposited in your hands by the commons of England. I have done.

HENRY IV. OF FRANCE.

Henry of Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He possessed, indeed, great humanity and mildness, that never stood in the way of his interests. He never sought to be loved without putting himself first in a condition to be feared. He used soft language with determined conduct. He asserted and maintained his authority in the gross, and distributed his acts of

concession only in the detail. He spent the income of his prerogatives nobly; but he took care not to break in upon the capital; never abandoning for a moment any of the claims, which he made under the fundamental laws, nor sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him, often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had famished Paris into a surrender.

HISTORY.

We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history. On the contrary, without care it may be used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. It may, in the perversion, serve for a magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in church and state, and supplying the means of keeping alive, or reviving, dissensions and ani