216 62 Thunderproof?s essays. Fune 132 
am not for deifying the people, that I wifh to endow 
princes or their minions with a similar power. 
Thunderproof has my most perfect concurrence when 
he, in his own pointed manner, exposes the vile arts 
by which princes and ministers impose upon the 
people. It is by watching those in power, by deve- 
Joping the plans they adopt for effecting their wicked 
‘purposes, and by exposing their errors to publie¢ 
view, that the idolatry, which the people are ever dis 
posed to pay to those in power, can be abated and 
their power circumscribed. But hard is the tak, 
and difficult to be accomplifhed. Against the minister, 
‘who has obtained the popular favour at the time, rea~ 
son exerts her voice in vain. In a free government, 
however, wise men may still exalt their voice against 
the highest, though, like Cafsandra, they may, for g 
time, raise that warning voice in vain. But in a_ 
popular state, what man dares but whisper a word 
against the demagogue of the day, or plead the cause 
of him who has become the object of popular hate ? 
‘Happy then may be deemed that nation where no one 
can beso highly in favour either with the king or with 
though his triumph may some times be but of fhort duration, he is only 
pulled down to make way for anew favourite eqhally immaculate with 
himself. There is just this difference between the government of Turkey ~ 
and that of a dernocratic state, that, in the first, the people voluntarily, 
avowedly, and without reserve, confer upon the despot their favour for lifes 
Tf he displeases them they cut off his head, and place another in his 
oom. Whereas, inthe Jatter case, the demagogue is endowed with equal 
power, though the people deceive themselves by saying they do eyery thing 
themselves. Inthe first case, like a hen pecked hufband, they tamely, and 
withont blufhing, submit to the rod. In the last, they resemble the taylor, 
who, though obliged to creep undet the bed to avoid the fury of his wife, 
peeped out in an interval of ielaxation, and proudly boasted fhe could not 
deprive him at least of his manlp Jooks. 
