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THE DESPOTISM OF THE AGE OF BRONZE. 



Thb despc'tism of the last reign is proverbial. It was, however, 

 pregnant with events which have not only rendered our age an age of 

 enli"'htennient ; but they have conduced to signalize it in a very eminent 

 de"-ree. True it is, " the age of bronze" fostered that literature which 

 was one day destined to destroy it. The literature of despotism, like 

 our church pestilent-cant, and pulpit-hypocrisy, may not stand upon its 

 own wickedness. Truth must be sought from a simple heart. It is 

 impossible that we should discover it elsewhere. The learning of despot- 

 ism consists of folly, ambition, and madness. Death is its bosom friend ; 

 annihilation its polluted and final sanctuary. The chambers of Orus, and 

 the burning brow of the adamantine divinity of heaven, have no charms 

 for despotism. It shrinks, appalled, from both daylight and rational 

 liberty. It turns with hatred, from unpretending patriotism ; and 

 affects to despise every true lover of his country. It presumes to de- 

 nounce every independent principle of loyalty, and recklessly violates the 

 first duty of practical humanity, by trampling on the laws which weremade 

 to secure the general good, the peace and happiness of a free-born people. 

 The intrusion of any popular voice was received with uncommon bitter- 

 ness of exacerbation, and rewarded by a " significant frown " from the 

 highest quarter of the state. The very mention of the name of Henry 

 Brougham was said to have more than once deprived the wearer of the 

 crown of England of sleep, — not to say sweet sleep. Good and reflecting 

 men will not marvel at what has been writ. They who have, through 

 the noiseless loopholes of retreat, watched the progress of concurrent 

 events, are more than prepared to hear what the historian shall write 

 on the truth-telling page of history. 



It is no less a singular than an afflicting fact, that the reign which was 

 so hypocritically celebrated as the climax of warlike and literary splen- 

 dour, but which has always appeared to us to have been the consumma- 

 tion of all that was terrible to human tenderness and the best interests of 

 humanity, should have been sovereignised by a vain, dissolute, and ig- 

 noble national magistrate. 



Talent appears, in those days of private and public abominations, 

 to have been robbed of its conscious elevation in the scale of society, and 

 of its undoubted claims to respect, if not deference, from both the King 

 and his Ministers. Talent and independence, which almost invariably 

 walk hand in hand, were invariably at a discount, whilst the Jerry 

 Sneaks of both Oxford and Cambridge ever found a ready way to the 

 imperial smile of valetudinarian decrepitude and irrecoverable debauchery. 



" Where are the miglity thunderbolts of war ? 

 " The Roman Csesars and the Grecian ciiiefs, 



