5« 



Sometimes, it diffufes panic fears, and caufelefs defperation, the fource of 

 maddening tumult and cruel outrage. At other times, it takes poffeflion of 

 tlie public imagination with high conceits engendering pride, it raifes airy 

 hopes ; intoxicates the multitude with vain confidence ; it impels them to 

 enterprifes above their ftrength, and contrary to their interefts — without 

 dcfcending to modern inftances, we may fee this exemplified, in the dif- 

 aftrous attempt of the Athenians in Sicily. 



Superficial obfervers, indeed, mufl: they be, and wholly unacquainted 

 with the human heart, who confider the prevalence of floating rumours, 

 and the unhappy affiduity, the invention fertile in poifons of thofe, who 

 operate on the public credulity, as light and trivial objects : they moft 

 vitally affeft the government of fiates, and the fubfifting order of things. 

 No principles of reafon, however certain, are able to fet bounds to the 

 torrent of credulous delufion ; no circumftances of probability, however 

 obvious, are able, when fet in oppofition to the multiplied horrors, an- 

 tipathes, and prejudices of prevailing rumour, to gain the leafl attention 

 from the populace, and the great and the rich, when they do not avail 

 themfelves of the advantages of their education, when they revolt firom 

 the guidance of reafon and are fwayed by abfurd and vulgar motives : what 

 are they but a. populace ? — the powerful eifefts of popular credulity, the 

 great ufe, which may be made of it, in producing revolutionary move- 

 ments, and the arts, which may be employed, to inflame the paflions of 

 the multitude, through this medium, are fully exemplified, in the mourn- 

 ful details, of that civil conflift, which condufted the unhappy Charles to 

 a fcaffold, and the fuccefsful ufurper to fupreme command. Were any 

 additional illuftration requifite, to this fubjeft, we may find it in the hiftory 

 of the prefent French revolution, which in many of its features, will be 

 found to bear a moft ftriking fimilitude, to that which convulfed Britain. 



When the delufion, excited by popular credulity, has taken entire pof- 

 fclfion of the mind, it becomes a moft powerful fource of anions, and im- 

 parts 



6ee Hume's hiftory of England : Vol. 6. and 7. particularly, for various paflages to this 



