Monthly Review of Literature. 199 



king might have enjoyed a servant; the violent aristocrats a balance; the 

 democrats a muffle ; the limited monarchists a shield, a sword, and a trun- 

 cheon ; Marat would have died, perhaps, in exile ; and Robespierre, Roland, 

 and Louis XVI. calmly in their beds/' 



" WHO ARE EVER READY TO THROW THE BLAME OFF THEIR OWN SHOULDERS. 



" Elizabeth threw the blame of the execution of the duke of Norfolk on 

 Lord Burleigh ; and that of Mary, Queen of Scots, on her secretary Davison. 

 Nothing indeed is so convenient to a tyrant, whether male or female, as a 

 scape-goat ! 



" When men fail in their attempts, every one is to blame rather themselves. 

 Fortune or heaven are the general scape-goats ; and on these are our igno- 

 rances, vices, and crimes universally laid. 



"Men often affect to disdain when their only feeling is fear. Metellus 

 ridiculed Sertorius, and called him ' fugitive' and ' outlaw.' Yet he offered 

 for the head of this fugitive and outlaw no less than one hundred talents* of 

 silver and twenty thousand acres of land. 



" Some men are more courageous against tongues than they are against 

 swords ; others more so against swords than tongues. When Edward VI. 

 was constrained, by the repeated importunities of his ministers, to consent to 

 the martyrdom of Joan of Kent, for entertaining some point of doctrine not 

 esteemed orthodox, the king said to Cranmer, ' I submit, my lord of Canter- 

 bury, to sign this warrant; but if there is any wrong, the blame must fall 

 upon your grace's head ;' and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke. 

 This was beautifully said, since Edward was a boy ; but it would not have 

 been beautifully said, had Edward been a man. He would then have laid 

 commands upon the archbishop never to enter the council-chamber again. 



" When virtue nourishes and sails prosperously before the wind, most men 

 are envious of it. The ship encounters a gale, which increases into a storm. 

 It is blown from north to south, from east to west, at the caprice of the hur- 

 ricane. It loses its pilot, and lastly its rudder ; no one flies to its assistance. 

 It is seen to sink deeper and deeper every minute. At last the waters rise over 

 the deck, a whirlpool is witnessed in the water, and a mast only remains, like a 

 spire, to tell the tale of misfortune. All, then, bewail the severity of the storm, 

 and blame their associates for not affording a hand to save the devoted vessel. 

 " Men may expect justice and liberality in the construction of an enemy, 

 and they will find them ; that is, in five persons out of fifty thousand. An 

 evil occurs. It is caused by some one ; or perhaps twenty persons have oc- 

 casioned it. All these twenty will resemble each other in this, that they will 

 endeavour, with the greatest industry, to throw the blame off their own 

 shoulders ; and to get it off, they will hurl it upon any one, even on a man in 

 no way concerned. ' Come, unfortunate women,' said Marie Antoinette, 

 when at the monastery of the Feuillants ; ' come, and see one still more 

 miserable than yourselves ; since she has been the cause of all your misfor- 

 tunes. We are ruined ; we have arrived at that point to which they have 

 been leading us for these three years through all possible outrages. We shall 

 fall in this dreadful revolution ; and many others will perish after us. All have 

 contributed to our downfall. The reformers have urged it like mad people ; 

 and others, through ambition, for their own interest; for the wildest Jacobin 

 seeks wealth and distinction, and the mob is eager for plunder. There is not 

 one lover of his country amongst this infamous horde ; the emigrant party 

 have their intrigues and schemes ; foreigners seek to profit by the dissensions 

 of France ; every one has had a share in our misfortunes.' 



" This is all true ; but not all that is true. Her majesty forgot the hand 

 the king, and even herself, had in the fatal work, by being unfaithful to the 

 constitution his majesty had sworn to respect. Had he regarded his oath, all 

 perhaps had been well." 



* * Patercul. , ii. 50. Flor., iii. c. 21 . 



