288 The Progress of Cant. [SEPt. 
au 
are,” votes the bank-note of hypocrisy to be worth the twenty. shillings of 
truth} and renders it, if not’ penal, at least scandalous to question. the 
soundness of the currency. In England, too, every thing cons Ires to 
favour deception. “All questions, it has been said, have, aon 8, 
but in England this is especially true. The legislative system, wi hont 
giving the people any efficient check on the Government, is_s ills - 
ciently popular to flatter vanity, and to furnish themes for declamat mn. 
The law is, indeed, inviolable by the King, although it is open, fo. the 
attack of any one who can afford to pay for what Dulman calls. a 
“ pecia secretie knaveria.” The natural religion sufficiently reforme d 
from its grosser abuses to justify comparative eulogy, is still too chteaty 
+ fo to the state for its own purity or for the freedom of the subject. 
ersonal liberty is so secured, that a negro drops his chains the instant 
he touches the sacred soil: yet is the peasant adscriptus elebe, and 
punished for seeking to exercise his industry in the place where it is 
most in demand. _ 
The nation, in its aggregate, is the richest on the face of the earth, 
and yet the day-labourer starves on the smallest pittance that. will 
‘ender his labour available. “Here be truths,” as Pompey says, and 
truths which amply serve the purpose of cant in all its branches. On 
the Continent, things present themselves in a much neater and clearer 
point of view to the imagination; and the people, with worse institu- 
tions, have better notions of the object and end of government. Abroad 
the people are true to themselves, and have few or no common interests 
with their rulers. At home, every man above the mere mob, partakes 
in some degree, or may do so, in the details of government ; and is 
. assailed with some temptation to job, and consequently to conceal mal- 
versation under an outward garb of sanctity and moral purity. ~ This 
fact manifests itself in a conventional jargon, which few take ‘the 
trouble of examining—a jargon in which the farmer of the post-horse 
duty, the trustee ‘of a turnpike road, nay the simplest churchwarden, 
speaks with as much instinctive facility of mother wit, as the most huppé 
member of the Pitt Club. England is the especial land of classes and 
corporations—of associations and combinations. ‘There is rarely a question 
concerning the interests of the “ populus Anglicanus :” it is ever what will 
the country gentlemen think of this ? what will the West=India proprietor 
suffer by that ? Pray take care of the vested rights (rights ?) of the'close 
borough proprietors, don’t touch the monopoly of the board of Directors! 
Now a corporation is a poor thing indeed that has not more than one 
sophism to urge’ in its defence, witha distinct vocabulary of! earit “for 
giving it utterance. HS3101 
q viogaal 
In brief, then, the reign of ‘cant belongs to the va’ of transition 
from darkness‘to light, from despotism to good governnients'andit ean 
flourish only where a mixture of good and evil, ‘of ‘sound principle arid 
abusive practice, produces'a jumble of anomalies; anda’ consequentéor 
fusion of' ideas. In France’ ¢ant is’ confined to 'the ‘clergy and ®s 
‘awkwardly do they overact it, that they impose upon no’ones’ The 
government has ceased to cant about Ja charte, because’it ‘thinks asélf 
secure of the army. In America, ‘on' the: contrary, mein do niet Scare, 
because the people there are all in all, and there are few, if any, cor- 
rupt interests to deck. 
If there be any thing in the people of England favourable to cant 
besides their political position, it is to be found in their abstract and 
~ . e ‘ ; ‘9 ~ 4') son M Veal 
oT 
