332 FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



absolute oppression, after bleeding very freely both in the " basili- 

 cal" and every other vein, has subsided into a state of passive 

 despondent submission to a usurped authority, infinitely more 

 galling- and dreadfully rigorous than that which it |threw off; and 

 has become the instrument of extending the same iron sway over all 

 Europe, with the exception of merry but determined England ! 



I would seriously ask my devoted countrymen, What is this 

 Island ? It is the seat of a form of government the most nicely 

 balanced and adjusted, the most carefully planned and vigilantly 

 supported, that the admiring world ever saw : and surely the many 

 arduous struggles about it have not been the " contest of fools !" 

 This form is, in (fact, its essence. That combination of different 

 orders and interests by which its legislative proceedings, and the 

 freedom of discussion, together with the saving influence of an 

 unfettered press, are the real safeguards against those abuses of 

 authority which the immense power necessarily placed in the hands 

 of the executive government cannot but tend to generate. The 

 totality of " public power" is, indeed, by its nature unlimited ; but 

 the limitation of each branch of it is by express stipulations, and the 

 check given one to another creates all the difference between a 

 tyranny and a constitution. Never, then, let an indifference towards 

 "forms'" enter into the political feelings of this aroused but forbear- 

 ing nation ! 



The lion, that noble creature, will, sometimes bear a great deal 

 of trifling provocation from its keeper : but no sooner shall he have 

 passed the usual bounds of petty managerial tyranny, and inflicted 

 a fresh torture on the spirit of the king of the forest than he is 

 brought low, beneath the " living thing" whose patience and mascu- 

 line modesty he had stupidly insulted ; and perhaps the framework 

 of his flesh-eaten carcase left exposed under the eye of the burning 

 sun as an example to other keepers if not to the whole world. 

 In addressing the people, I would, in a pure and Christian spirit, a 

 spirit of loyalty, not of vulgar disaffection advise the keepers of 

 monarchies to take warning by the example also. *' The press, my 

 lords, and the stage," said the great Clarendon. " are our great out- 

 posts ; without their salutary aid we are as nothing in the balance." 



England and America, at the close of their civil wars, had long- 

 received notions of legitimate authority to recur to, which soon 

 healed the public wounds, and restored an orderly course of admini- 

 stration. France, self-tortured France, in the same conjuncture, had 

 nothing left worthy of renewal, and therefore, after the wildest in- 

 novations, sank into submission to a single will. How striking is the 

 condition of that unhappy and devoted country at the present moment, 

 when contrasted with her " predicament" at the epoch I have just 

 referred to! France cannot in the nature of things, in her present 

 condition, be rendered competent to enjoy liberty. It were merely 

 pandering to her inherent vanity to assert it ; and the man that dare 

 assert it, I would not believe to be a real friend to the sacred and 

 heaven-directed cause of civil and religious freedom. Let those 

 answer who may. I am with and for the people ! Ancient forms 

 may be improved with the progress of knowledge and experience; 



