CHARACTERS, 
- 
the existence of such severe orders; 
when it does, astonisiment at the 
artificial miseries, which the inge- 
nuity of human beings forms for 
themselves by seclusion, is as bound- 
less as at the other miseries, with 
which the most trivial vanity and 
envy so frequently pollute the inter- 
courses of social life. The poor 
nuns, thus nearly entombed during 
their lives, are, after death, tied 
upon a board, in the clothes they 
died in, and, with only their veils 
thrown over their face, are buried 
in the garden of the convent. 
Observations on the distinct Charac- 
ters of Modern Whigs and Tories ; 
from Belsham’s Memoirs of the 
Reign of George III. 
PE established appellations of 
whig and tory, as descriptive 
of the two grand political parties 
which, under these or equivalent 
terms of distinction, will doubtless 
subsist so long as the present consti- 
tution of government shall remain, 
though greatly changed from their 
original signification, it would ne- 
vertheless te fastidious to reject. 
The gradations of sentiment and 
principle which mark their progress 
it is however of indispensible im- 
portance occasionally to specify. 
‘Tae principles of whiggism may in- 
deed, in this respect, be said to have 
gained @ complete triumph over 
those of the ancient tories, inasmuch 
as the once favourite maxims of 
toryism—passive obedience, non- 
resistance. and the divine and inde-’ 
feasible right of monarchy—have 
fallen into general contempt. Nor 
can any doctrines bearing the most 
distant analogy to these monstrous 
- 
absurdities be now maintained, 
without the use of such artificial and 
ambiguous phraseology as, however 
magnificent in sound and show, shall 
vanish from the touch of reason as 
mists and vapours from the noon- 
day sun. 
Agreeably then to the vicissitu des 
which have, in a long series of 
eventful years, taken place in the 
_ views and sentiments of the opposing 
parties of the state, a whig must 
now be understood to mean a man 
who, in addition to the speculative 
princ'ples of liberty, civil and re- 
ligious, which have descended to 
him from his ancestors, entertains a 
lively and well-founded jealousy 
lest the prerogative of the crown 
should, in consequence of the pro- 
digious increase of its influence, ul- 
timately absorb the whole power 
and authority of the other branches 
‘of the government, and with them 
the liberties of the nation at large, 
in its vast and tremendous vortex. 
A modern whig acknowledges and 
deeply regrets the improvidence of 
his ancestors in contributing, by ' 
the facility of their compliances, 
to the accumulation of an immense 
public debt, and the establishment 
of a standing army, both of which 
are yet in a state alarmingly pro- 
gressive. ble can scarcely forgive 
those extravagant ebullitions of loy- 
alty which could sacrifice the most 
sacred principles of the constitution 
to the interest or ambition of the 
reigning family, in, prolonging, by 
a most unjustifiable stretch of power, 
the existence of parliaments to a 
term of dangerous duration, and in 
furnishing toa minister, litile scru- 
pulous of expedients, and regard. 
less of consequences, the means of 
universal and unbounded corruption. 
Whatever palliations of the fatal 
Pass system 
