ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



951 



as It Is less intelligible with respect 

 to its motive than the other, so is 

 it in its consequences still more 

 pernicious to the general interests 

 of mankind. Fear of censure 

 from contemporaries, will seldom 

 have much effect upon men in si- 

 tuations of unlimited authority. 

 They will too ofien flatter theai- 

 selves that the same power which 

 commits the crime will secure them 

 from the reproach. The dread of 

 posthumous infamy, therefore, be- 

 ing the only restraint, their con- 

 sciences excepted, upon the pas- 

 sions of such persons, it is la- 

 mentable that this last defence 

 (feeble enough at best) should in 

 any degree be impaired ; and im- 

 paired it must be, if not totally 

 destroyed, when tyrants can hope 

 to find in a man like Hume, no 

 less eminent for the benevolence 

 and integrity of his heart, than for 

 the depth and soundness of his un- 

 derstanding, an apologist for even 

 their foulest murders." The whole 

 of this passage, containing so 

 striking a moral, has, in the 

 French translation, been suppress- 

 ed. Mr. Fox, speaking of the 

 right of political resistance, says : 

 " Success, it has been invidiously 

 remarked, constitutes, in most in- 

 stances, the sole difference between 

 the traitor and the deliverer of his 

 country. A rational probability 

 of success, distinguisl'.es the well- 

 considered enterprise of the patriot 

 from the rash schemes of the dis- 

 turber of the public peace. To 

 command success is not in the 

 power of man ; but to deserve 

 success, by choosing a proper time, 

 as well as a proper object — by the 

 prudence of his means, no less than 

 by the purity of his views— by a 



cause, not only intrinsically just, 

 but likely to ensure general sup- 

 port, is the indispensable duty of 

 him who engages in an insurrection 

 against an existing government." 

 This passage is expunged, as was 

 to be expected. But, to enume- 

 rate all the instances in which Mr. 

 F'ox's history has been mutilated 

 and garbled in the French transla- 

 tion, would, indeed, be a tedious 

 task. There has been so much 

 pains taken to pick out the white 

 hairs from Mr. Fox's grey and ve- 

 nerable head, as in a very great 

 measure to disfigure and disguise it- 

 Yet, stripped as it is of the general 

 reflections in which Mr. Fox has 

 stamped the sanction of his great 

 name upon the most important 

 truths and precepts for guiding the 

 conduct of public men, in periods 

 of arbitrary administration, or po- 

 pular delusion, the author's senti- 

 ments, in favour of liberty and jus- 

 tice, are so interwoven into the 

 body of the composition, that they 

 could not be wholly erazed with- 

 out tearing to pieces the whole 

 texture, and destroying even the 

 show of a progressive narrative. 

 And, after ail that it has under- 

 gone, it will not be read in France 

 without effect. It is only sur- 

 prising that a translation of the 

 book has been suffered to be sold 

 at all. 



This prodigious garbling of Mr. 

 Fox's book in the French transla- 

 tion, excites the pleasing reflection 

 thuc Buonaparte lives in terror, 

 and that his very efforts, like those 

 of all tyrants, to avert, tend to in- 

 crease his danger. That Buona- 

 parte has seen and perused Mr. 

 Fox's book, which might be pe- 

 rused in so ihort a time, cannot be 



doubted. 



