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gerous folly has changed the whole spirit of our policy, as it threatens the safety of all our institutions. It has already lost us all character with our old continental allies. And England, instead of being the anchorage in which they all took shelter in the storm; is now the shoal which they all dread, even in the calm. And with unquestionably decreasing influence in Europe; with new antipathies rising in the great world of the West, with the power of the multitude domineering at home, and the power of the Constitution corrupted by popery, we have to make our preparations, as we best may, against the bloodiest contest that Europe has ever seen, and in which the war will be with England, against England, and for the last ship and shilling, the last acre, and the last privilege, of England.

All conjecture on the course of such a war must be vague; yet it is scarcely to be doubted, that it will develope features of character new to European hostility. It will probably be on a larger scale, with more desperate hazards, and more decisive and final devastation than any which our era has witnessed. It is evidently the opinion of those most conversant with such subjects, that the means, and the site of war will alike be changed; that the means will be, not skill, but numbers; that science will have the inferior operation; the true element of the war will be multitude. With the Euxine for her wet dock, Russia alone may pour down a hundred or a thousand ships; some to be destroyed, some to be captured, but the rest to sweep the

seas. Europe perhaps will not be, as of old, the only, or even the chief scene, of these hostilities. Asia Minor, Syria, the borders of the Euphrates, and the Indus, too, may have their fields. The days may be at hand, when those vast stagnant countries, capable of being roused from their stagnation only by war, will have their share of the whirlwind; Egypt and the Saracen world will pour forth, to meet the North; the Tartar tribes, which have now for two hundred years been swelling their undisturbed population, and sharpening their unused swords for war, may be once more summoned to the work of ruin, fill the East with terrors of barbarian inroad, and perform once again their part in shaking the system of the world. Whether this will be the last blow; or whether a still more universal havoc shall complete the catastrophe; is among those questions which only presumption would attempt to resolve. But, of one thing we are sure, that, to prepare for struggle is the best security for success; and that to return to the maxims by which England was made wise, happy, and free, is the best preparation, let the struggle come when it will.

What was the fine far-seeing language of Burke forty years ago? "A French conspiracy is gaining ground in every country. This system, happening to be founded on principles the most delusive, indeed, but the most flattering to the natural propensities of the unthinking multitude, and to the speculations of all who think, without thinking profoundly, must extend its influence. A predominant inclination towards it

appears in all who have no religion; when otherwise, their disposition leads them to be advocates even for despotism. Hence Hume, though I cannot say that he does not throw out some expressions of disapprobation on the proceedings of the levellers, in the reign of Richard II., yet affirms that the doctrines of John Bull were conformable to the ideas of primitive equality, which are engraven in the hearts of all men. Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists, as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse. They were, like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But they have grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious. They are sworn enemies to king, nobility and priesthood."

Now, the fact being unquestionable, that French principles are the principles of a large, powerful, and reckless party in England, who, alternately regarding Ministers as their tools and their antagonists, feel perfectly satisfied as to their being able to sweep all administrations into their current; it must be of some import to know what those principles are. Forty years ago their creed as to kings was laid down by the celebrated Condorcet, in his paper on the education of the Dauphin, of whom he had been chosen by the National Assembly the tutor, or rather the jailer. "The Assembly willed that the uselessness of a King, and the necessity of seeking means to establish something in lieu of a power founded on illusion, should be one of the first truths offered to the reason of the pupil; the obligation of conforming himself to this, be

ing the first of his moral duties. The object is less to form a King, than to teach him that he should know how to wish no longer to be such." This was the creed of the man who had filled the chair of the National Assembly, was their perpetual secretary, and their principal guide. And this was at the period when a King was still acknowledged, and before the philosophers had given the practical illustration of their doctrines by cutting off the King's head.

CHAPTER VII.

Illness of Burke's Son-Death-Burke's Dejection-Ridicule of the late Duke of Norfolk-Attack on Burke's Pension-His attack on the Duke of Bedford.

BUT while Burke was thus supporting, by his parliamentary labours, and by his unrivalled pen, the cause of the Constitution and of human nature, he received a blow which almost totally unmanned him. His only son was seized with an illness, which speedily made such progress, that to all eyes, but those of the fond and sanguine father, his fate was sealed. It had been Burke's ambition to educate his son for public life, and no pains were spared to cultivate in him all the qualities of Statesmanship. It has been too much the habit to compare the son with the eminent father, and to depreciate him below the level of ordinary talent, as much as he fell below the level of extraordinary. By this unfair estimate Richard Burke has passed for one of the customary examples of parental blindness to filial mediocrity, and has thus been reckoned altogether beneath his value. But Burke

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