120 THE ELECTIONS. 



his youth ; when Madame Holland, with a stoicism worthy of anti- 

 quity, were immolated on the altars of ferocity ; and Condorcet died 

 a death that Cato would have honoured, though Christianity must 

 blame ? If history supply a commentary on political perversity 

 let the luminaries of conservatism mark and learn ; let them 

 trace the progress of a people from spiritless submission to crimi- 

 nal excess ; from the chains of bondage to recuperative vengeance, 

 exulting in the blood of royal martyrdom. A sound intelligence is 

 far too copiously diffused among the people to admit of the evasive 

 plausibilities which formerly eluded its demands. Justice is sought 

 within the halls of legislation, and the nation has approached the 

 vestibule ; the parliament will either tranquillize or rouse the spirit 

 of the people. Does the resolute, the steady temper of the times af- 

 ford a ground to hope, that the demands of equity and reason can be 

 still denied by bigotry or fear ; or that the spacious interests of a cor- 

 rupt exclusion can expect to cloke themselves beneath the narrow 

 pleas of prudence or the shadowy film of dangerous innovation ? 

 These are the exploded common-places of an exploded school ; they 

 were the trite responses of contempt to helplessness. No public 

 question can expect protection from the vapid suffrages of thoughtless 

 egotism. We hardly need advert to the importunate loquacity of 

 ignorance and prejudice, that fly-blown progeny of rank corruption, 

 which pretends to add its insignificant opinions to the sturdy errors 

 of a profligate and systematic school. Such flippancy of politics, like 

 other frivolous indulgences of speech, can never seriously affect the 

 fate of a momentous proposition ; it may degrade the cause which 

 it pretends to serve ; it may expose the folly, which presumes to 

 judge of matters too capacious for the narrow scope of its reflexion. 



" Numerous was the herd of such, 



Who think too little, and who talk too much : 

 These out of mere instinct, they knew not why, 

 Adored their father's God and property ; 

 And by the same blind benefit of fate 

 The devil and the Jebusite did hate ; 

 Born to be saved e'en in their own despite 

 Because they could not help believing right." 



We have conscientiously recorded our mistrust of the existing 

 ministry ; we have detailed the reasons of our diffidence ; and further- 

 more we add, relying on the shrewd anticipations of the country, a 

 restoration of the government to hands that have achieved so much in 

 its behalf. We must be blind indeed to fly from the assurance of 

 approved sincerity, and seek our strength and our salvation in the 

 ranks of questionable converts. A pledge of love betrayed the sa- 

 viour of mankind ; and the device of an Iscariot still may serve to win 

 and to deceive the indiscreet affiance of the people. 



