"old Simeon, Lord, now letteft thou thy fervant depart "in peace, for mine eyes bave feen thy falvation."* Peters had not the fruits of his prayer; for he neither departed fo foon as he wished, nor in peace. He became (what I heartily hope none of his followers may be in this country) himself a facrifice to the triumph which he led as Pontiff They dealt at the reftoration, perhaps, too hardly with this poor good man. But we owe it to his memory and his fufferings, that he had as much illumination, and as much zeal, and had as effectually undermined all the fuperftition and error which might impede the great bufinefs he was engaged in, as any who follow and repeat after him, in this age, which would affume to itself an exclufive title to the knowledge of the rights of men, and all the glorious confequences of that knowledge.

After this fally of the preacher of the Old Jewry, which differs only in place and time, but agrees perfectly with the fpirit and letter of the rapture of 1648, the Revolution Society, the fabricators of governments, the heroic band of cafbierers of monarchs, electors of lovereigns, and leaders of kings in triumph, ftrutting with a proud confcioufnefs of the diffufion of knowledge, of which every member had obtained fo large a share in the donative, were in haste to make a generous diffufion of the knowledge they had thus gratuitoufly received. To make this bountiful communication, they adjourned from the church in the Old Jewry, to the London Tavern ; where the fame Dr. Price, in whom the fumes of his oracular tripod were not entirely evaporated, moved and carried the refolution, or addrefs of congratulation, tranfmitted by Lord Stanhope to the National Affembly of France.

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I find a preacher of the gospel prophaning the beautiful and prophetic ejaculation, commonly called":nune "dimittis," made on the first prefentation of our Saviour in the Temple, and applying it, with an inhuman and unnatural rapture, to the most horrid, atrocious, and afflicting fpectacle, that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity and indignation of mankind. This "leading in triumph," a thing in its best form unmanły

State Trials, vol. ii. p. 360, p. 363.

and

and irreligious, which fills our Preacher with fuch unhallowed tranfports, muft fhock, I believe, the moral tafte of every well-born mind. Several English were the ftupified and indignant fpectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been ftrangely deceived) a fpectacle more refembling a proceffion of American favages, entering into Onondaga, after fome of their murders called victories, and leading into hovels hung round with fcalps, their captives, overpowered with the fcoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves, much more than it refembled the triumphal pomp of a civilized martial nation ;—if a civilized nation, or any men who had a sense of generofity, were capable of a perfonal triumph over the fallen and afflicted.

This, my dear Sir, was not the triumph of France. I must believe that, as a nation, it overwhelmed you with fhame and horror. I must believe that the National Affembly find themselves in a ftate of the greatest humiliation, in not being able to punish the authors of this triumph, or the actors in it; and that they are in a fituation in which any enquiry they may make upon the subject, must be deftitute even of the appearance of liberty or impartiality. The apology of that Affembly is found in their fituation; but when we approve what they muft bear, it is in us the degenerate choice of a vitiated mind.

With a compelled appearance of deliberation, they vote under the dominion of ftern neceffity. They fit in the heart, as it were, of a foreign republic: they have their refidence in a city whofe conftitution has emanated neither from the charter of their king, nor from their legiflative power. There they are furrounded by an army not raifed either by the authority of their crown, or by their command; and which, if they fhould order to diffolve itself, would inftantly diffolve them. There they fit. A gang of affaffins had driven away fome hundreds of the members, whilft those who held the fame moderate principles, with more patience or better hope, continued every day expofed to outrageous infults and murderous threats. There a majority, fometimes real, fometimes pretended, captive itself, compels a captive

king to iffue as royal edicts, at third hand, the polluted nonsense of their most licentious and giddy coffee-houses. It is notorious, that all their measures are decided before they are debated. It is beyond doubt, that under the terror of the bayonet, and the lamp-poft, and the torch to their houses, they are obliged to adopt all the crude and defperate measures suggested by clubs compofed of a monstrous medley of all conditions, tongues and nations. Among these are found perfons, in comparison of whom Catiline would be thought fcrupulous, and Cethegus a man of fobriety and moderation. Nor is it in thefe clubs alone that the public measures are deformed into monsters. They undergo a previous distortion in academies, intended as fo many feminaries for these clubs, which are fet up in all the places of public resort. In these meetings of all forts, every counfel, in proportion as it is daring, and violent, and perfidious, is taken for the mark of fuperior genius. Humanity and compaffion are ridiculed as the fruits of fuperftition and ignorance. Tendernefs to individuals is confidered as treason to the public. Liberty is always to be estimated perfect as property is rendered infecure. Amidst affaffination, massacre, and confifcation, perpetrated or meditated, they are forming plans for the good order of future fociety. Embracing in their arms the carcases of base criminals, and promoting their relations on the title of their offences, they drive hundreds of virtuous perfons to the fame end, by forcing them to fubfift by beggary or by crime.

The Affembly, their organ, acts before them the farce of deliberation with as little decency as liberty. They act like the comedians of a fair before a riotous audience; they act amidst the tumultuous crimes of a mixed mob of ferocious men, and of women loft to fhame, who according to their infolent fancies, direct, control, applaud explode them; and fometimes mix and take their feats amongst them; domineering over them with a strange mixture of fervile petulance and proud prefumptuous authority. As they have inverted order in all things, the gallery is in the place of the house. This Affembly, which overthrows kings and kingdoms, has not even the phyfiognomy

phyfiognomy and aspect of a grave legislative body-net calar imperii, nec frons erat ulla fenatus. They have a power given to them like that of the evil principle, to fubvert and destroy; but none to conftruct, except fuch machines as may be fitted for further fubverfion and further deftruction.

Who is it that admires, and from the heart is attached to national reprefentative affemblies, but muft turn with horror and difguft from fuch a profane burlefque, and abominable perverfion of that facred inftitute? Lovers of monarchy, lovers of republics, muft alike abhor it. The members of your Affembly muft themselves groan under the tyranny of which they have all the fhame, none of the direction, and little of the profit. I am fure many of the members who compofe even the majority of that body, muft feel as I do, notwithstanding the applaufes of the Revolution Society. Miferable king! miferable AfSembly! How must that affembly be filently fcandalized with those of their members, who would call a day which feemed to blot the fun out of Heaven, 66 un beau jour!"* How muft they be inwardly indignant at hearing others, who thought fit to declare to them, "that the veffel of "the ftate would fly forward in her course towards rege

neration with more speed than ever," from the stiff gale of treafon and murder, which preceded our Preacher's triumph! What muft they have felt, whilft with outward patience and inward indignation they heard of the ilaughter of innocent gentlemen in their houses, that "the blood spilled was not the most pure ?" What must they have felt, when they were befieged by complaints of diforders which shook their country to its foundations, at being compelled coolly to tell the complainants, that they were under the protection of the law, and that they would addrefs the king (the captive king) to cause the laws to be enforced for their protection; when the enflaved ministers of that captive king had formally notified to them, that there were neither law, nor authority, nor power left to protect? What must they have felt at being obliged, as a felicitation on the prefent new year, to request their captive king to forget the ftormy period of the last, on account of the great good which he was likely

6th of October, 1789.

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to produce to his people; to the complete attainment of which good they adjourned the practical demonftrations of their loyalty, affuring him of their obedience, when he fhould no longer poffefs any authority to command ?

This addrefs was made with much good-nature and affection, to be fure. But among the revolutions in France, must be reckoned a confiderable revolution in their ideas of politeness. In England we are faid to learn manners at fecond hand from your fide of the water, and that we dress our behaviour in the frippery of France. If fo, we are still in the old cut and have not fo far conformed to the new Parifian mode of good-breeding, as to think it quite in the most refined strain of delicate compliment (whether in condolence or congratulation) to say, to the most humiliated creature that crawls upon the earth, that great public benefits are derived from the murder of his fervants, the attempted affaffination of himself and of his wife, and the mortification, difgrace and degradation, that he has perfonally fuffered. It is a topic of confolation which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I fhould have thought that the hangman of Paris, now that he is liberalized by the vote of the National Affembly, and is allowed his rank and arms in the Herald's College of the rights of men, would be too generous, too gallant a man, too full of the sense of his new dignity, to employ that cutting confolation to any of the perfons whom the leze nation might bring under the adminiftration of his executive powers.

A man is fallen indeed, when he is thus flattered. The anodyne draught of oblivion, thus drugged, is well calculated to preferve a galling wakefulnefs, and to feed the living ulcer of a corroding memory. Thus to adminifter the opiate potion of amnefty, powdered with all the ingredients of fcorn and contempt, is to hold to his lips, instead of the balm of hurt minds," the cup of human mifery full to the brim, and to force him to drink it to the dregs.

Yielding to reafons, at leaft as forcible as thofe which were fo delicately urged in the compliment on the new year, the king of France will probably endeavour to

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forget