witnesses, gave the Eucharist to an ape, or prostituted the printing-press to multiply copies of a production that would dye with blushes the cheek of an impure. It is the abuse, no doubt, of such popular courses, that we should reprobate. Popularity is far from being contemptible; it is often an honourable acquisition; when duly earned, always a test of good done or evil resisted. But to be of a pure and genuine kind, it must have one stamp-the security of one safe and certain die; it must be the popularity that follows good actions, not that which is run after. Nor can we do a greater service to the people themselves, or read a more wholesome lesson to the race, above all, of rising statesmen, than to mark how much the mock-patriot, the mob-seeker, the parasite of the giddy multitude, falls into the very worst faults for which popular men are wont the most loudly to condemn, and most heartily to despise, the courtly fawners upon princes. Flattery indeed! obsequiousness! time-serving! What courtier of them all ever took more pains to soothe an irritable or to please a capricious prince than Wilkes to assuage the anger or gain the favour, by humouring the prejudices, of the mob! Falsehood, truly! intrigue! manoeuvre! Where did ever titled suitor for promotion lay his plots more cunningly, or spread more wide his net, or plant more pensively in the fire those irons by which the waiters upon royal bounty forge chains to themselves and to their country, that they may also fashion the ladder they are to mount by, than the patriot of the city did to delude the multitude, whose slave he made himself, in order to be rewarded with their sweet voices, and so rise to wealth and to power? When he penned the letter of cant about administering justice, rather than join in a procession to honour the accession of a prince whom in a private petition he covered over thick and threefold with the slime of his flattery, he called it himself a "manœuvre." When he delivered a rant about liberty before the reverend judges of the land-the speaking law of the land-he knew full well that he was not delighting those he addressed, but the mob out of doors, on whose ears the trash was to fall echoed back. When he spoke a speech in Parliament of which no one heard a word, and said aside to a friend who urged the fruitlessness of the attempt at making the House listen-"Speak it I must, for it has been printed in the newspapers this half-hour"-he confessed that he was acting a false part in one place to compass a real object in another; as thoroughly as ever minister did when he affected by smiles to be well in his prince's good graces before the multitude, all the while knowing that he was receiving a royal rebuke. When he and one confederate in the private room of a tavern issued a declaration, beginning, "We, the people of England," and signed "by order of the meeting,"-he practised as gross a fraud upon that people as ever peer or parasite did, when affecting to pine for the prince's smiles, and to be devoted to his pleasure, in all the life they led consecrated to the furtherance of their own. It is no object of mine to exalt courtly arts, or undervalue popular courses; no wish have I to over-estimate the claims of the aristocracy at the cost of lowering the people. Both departments of our mixed social structure demand equally our regard; but let the claims of both be put on their proper footing. We may say, and very sincerely say, with Cicero "Omnes boni semper nobilitati favemus, et quia utile est reipublicæ nobiles homines esse dignos majoribus suis; et quia valet, apud nos, clarorum hominum et bene de republica meritorum memoria, etiam mortuorum." (Pro Sext.) These are the uses, and these the merits of the aristocratic branch of our system; while the mean arts of the courtier only degrade the patrician character. But mean as they are, their vileness does not exceed that of the like arts practised towards the multitude; nor is the Sovereign Prince whose ear the flatterers essay to tickle that they may deceive him for their own purposes, more entirely injured by the deception which withholds the truth, than the Sovereign People is betrayed and undone by those who, for their own vile ends, pass their lives in suppressing wholesome truth, and propagating popular delusion. INDEX. American War, 10, 14, 39, 40, 42, | Camden, Earl, reply to Lord Thurlow 57, 60. Barons, ancient and modern, com- Bedford, John, fourth Duke of, object accused of corruption, 388, 389. Burke, Edmund, general attainments, style, great varieties of, 233. "Thoughts on the causes of present opinion on French affairs, 242, 247 general opinions, 252, 253. Camden, Earl, unsuccessful in early judicial qualifications, 406 to 409. mode of proceeding in parliament, powers of eloquence, 419. on Fox's libel act, 424. general character, 351, 356. sketch of his career, 353 to 356. remarks on his love of office, 358 to Charles II.'s wit, Clarendon cited Chatham, Lord, George III.'s senti- aptitude for government, 20, 24, oratorical powers, 22, 33, 35. threatened resignation, 25. Demagogue Arts, 426 to 438. Dundas, Robert, general abilities and remarks on his impeachment, 310. Eloquence, described by Cicero, 240. Erskine, Thomas, judicial eloquence, Grenville, Lord, sketch of his career, 315. legal talents, 318. public and private character, 320. Fox, Charles James, general attain- deficient education, 263. sketch of his career, 274 to 276. General Warrants, Earl Camden's animosity towards the Whig party, business habits, 12. minute interference with public letters of, to Lord North (see Let- remark on death of Lord Lough- oratorical powers, 338. 330 to 333. character as a statesman, 333. Halliday's biography of Mansfield, History of nations, perfect knowledge Holland, Henry Fox, first Lord, cited refutation of the charge, 387. Impeachment of Lord Melville, 312. Johnson, Dr., parliamentary debates Junius's charges against Lord Mans- ignorance of common law, 204, 205. slanders against the Duke of Bed- printer's apology for his letter to attack on Lord Mansfield, cited, attack on the Duke of Grafton and Letters of George III. to Lord North, appointment of a chancellor, 73. colonial policy, 124, 150, 161. Duke of Cumberland's debts, 72. |