330 FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



ETERNITY. 



ETERNITY, what art thou ? My poor mind 



Ranges in vain through regions of deep thought 



To seek a fitting semblance of thee ! nought 

 Can I collect ! tis vain ! I cannot find 

 Ideas with which I might thine image bind. 



What are the ages that old Time hath brought, 

 Compar'd with thee ? the fame of battles fought, 



Thoughliving as the world ? a gust of wind, 

 That sweeps along, and then is heard no more. 



And what is boasted Time himself to thee ? 

 A flame that for a moment bright will soar, 



Leaving deep gloom through which no eye can see. 

 Or, 'tis a wave that ripples to the shore, 



And dies upon thy rock Eternity ! 



T. 



A CHAPTER ON FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



BOSWELL, in his entertaining medley called " The Life of John- 

 son," has recorded the following saying of that dictatorial sage, 

 " When I say that all governments are alike, I consider that in no 

 government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it/' 

 In fact, it is insufferable : and, in the present day of educated 

 humanity, our common nature shudders at the bare recital of an 

 attempt to perpetrate so shameful an act of moral turpitude. 

 Witness the daily bitterness of denunciation expressed by all patriotic 

 and good men (to whom alone I address myself) relative to the sub- 

 jugation, first, and asbolute destruction, secondly, of Poland, 

 Poland once stood with all the attributes of national glory and 

 honour, perfectly upright in the scale of the nations of the ennobled 

 earth, cheering, by her valour and patriotism upholding by her 

 physical courage supporting by her paternal care fostering, by her 

 strong and natural affection, instructing, by means of her intellectual 

 pretensions, all and every lover of the rights of man, without regard 

 to country or clime. Behold her grovelling in that dust which the 

 indestructible God of nations has written in the book of life " the 

 tyrant himself shall be made to lick." " If a sovereign,'' said Dr. 

 Johnson, " oppress his 'people to a great degree, they will rise and 

 cut off his head. There is a remedy in human nature that will keep 

 us safe under every form of government/' Vol. i. p. 367. 



If this sentence was not a sally in the heat of conversation, 

 probably elicited by the doctor's love of contradicting what any one 

 else advanced, it is a singular instance of the incorrectness of his 

 reasoning on these topics. Passing over the scope he seems to give 



