THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.

SECT. XVI.

ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

O LIBERTY, thou goddess heav'nly bright,
Profufe of blifs, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasure in thy prefence reign,
And fmiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eas'd of her load fubjection grows more light,
And poverty looks cheerful in thy fight;
Thou mak'ft the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv❜ft beauty to the fun, and pleasure to the day.
Thee, goddess, thee BRITANNIA's ifle adoręs ;
How has the oft exhaufted all her ftores,

How oft, in fields of death, thy prefence fought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!

VOL. I.

On

On foreign mountains, let the fun refine
The grape's foft juice, and mellow it to wine;
With citron groves adorn a diftant foil;

And the fat olive fwell with floods of oil:
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies,
Nor at the coarsenefs of our heav'n repine,

Though o'er our heads the frozen pleiads fhine;
'Tis Liberty that crown's BRITANNIA's ifle,

That makes her barren rocks and bleakeft mountains smile.

ADDISON.

OUR EXCELLENT CONSTITUTION, LIKE THAT OF MOST COUNTRIES IN EUROPE, HATH GROWN OUT OF OCCASION AND EMERGENCY; FROM THE FLUCTUATING POLICY OF DIFFERENT AGES; FROM THE CONTENTIONS, SUCCESSES, INTERESTS, AND OPPORTUNITIES OF DIFFERENT ORDERS AND PARTIES OF MEN IN THE COMMUNITY. IT RESEMBLES ONE OF THOSE OLD MANSIONS, WHICH, INSTEAD OF BEING BUILT ALL AT ONCE, AFTER A REGULAR PLAN, AND ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF ARCHITECTURE AT PRESENT ESTABLISHED, HAS BEEN REARED IN DIFFERENT AGES OF THE ART, HAS BEEN ALTERED FROM TIME TO TIME, AND HAS BEEN CONTINUALLY RECEIVING ADDITIONS

6

ADDITIONS AND REPAIRS SUITED TO THE TASTE, FORTUNE, OR CONVENIENCY, OF ITS SUCCESSIVE PROPRIETORS. IN SUCH A BUILDING WE LOOK IN

VAIN FOR THE ELEGANCE AND PROPORTION, FOR THE JUST ORDER AND CORRESPONDENCE OF PARTS, WHICH WE EXPECT IN A MODERN EDIFICE; AND WHICH EXTERNAL SYMMETRY, AFTER ALL, CONTRIBUTES MUCH MORE PERHAPS TO THE

AMUSE

MENT OF THE BEHOLDER, THAN THE ACCOMMODA

TION OF THE INHABITANT 2.

a Paley.

SECT.

SECT. XVII.

OF A REFORM IN PARLIAMENT.

WHEN We contemplate the THEORY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT we see THE KING invested with the most abfolute perfonal impunity; with a power of rejecting laws, which have been refolved upon by both boufes of parliament; of conferring by his charter, upon any fet or fucceffion of men he pleases, the privilege of fending reprefentatives into one houfe of parliament, as by his immediate appointment he can place whom he will in the other. What is this, a foreigner might afk, but a more circuitous defpotifm?-Yet, when we turn our attention from the legal extent to the ACTUAL EXERCISE of royal authority in England, we see these formidable prerogatives dwindled into mere ceremonies; and IN THEIR STEAD, a fure and commanding influence established, arifing from that enormous patronage, which the increased territory and opulence of the empire has placed in the dif pofal of the executive magiftrate.

Upon

Upon questions of REFORM the habit of reflection to be encouraged, is a fober comparison of the conftitution under which we live, not with models of fpeculative perfection, but with the actual chance of obtaining a better.This turn of thought will generate a political difpofition, equally removed from that PUERILE ADMIRATION of present establishments which fees no fault, and can endure no change, and that DISTEMPERED SENSIBILITY, which is alive only to perceptions of inconveniency, and is too impatient to be delivered from the uneasiness which it feels, to compute either the peril, or expence of the remedy.

Political innovations commonly produce many effects befide those that are intended.-The direct confequence is often the least important. — Incidental, remote, and unthought of evils or advantages frequently exceed the good that is defigned, or the mischief that is foreseen—It is from the filent and unobferved operation, from the obfcure progrefs of causes, fet at work for different purposes, that the greatest revolutions take their rife.

When ELIZABETH, and her IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOR, applied themselves to the encouragement and regulation of TRADE by many wife laws, they knew not, that, together with wealth and induftry, they were diffusing