being formed for the prosecution of political offences, namely, that bad as are the effects of such offences upon the community, they are in many cases matters of opinion, which can be counteracted by the press itself. We consider that Dr. Watson's Apology for the Bible,' did more towards discountenancing the infidel writings of Tom Paine, than years of prosecution would have done. The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge does not proceed by indictment against blasphemers and Atheists. No! Its efforts are all argumentative; it answers the sophistry, and confutes by reasoning, the dogmas of the day. "A comparison has been drawn between this Association and the Society for the Suppression of Vice; but the difference between the two is obvious +. An obscene print, or snuff box, a book which denies Christianity, or the breach of the Sabbath, are declared offences at common law; they require proof only of the fact to become cognizable to punishment. But in political cases, the fact of publication being proved, still leaves the libel as matter of opinion; and that such opinion may vary, is evident in the result of Hone's trial, and that of a country bookseller: the one was acquitted in London, and the other found guilty in the country, upon the same publication, and similar prosecution. We should think the writer here fell into an obscurity, and intended to have said, a similarity is supposed to exist between this Association, and the Society for the Suppression of Vice." The one prosecutes for matter of fact, -the other for matter of opinion. The one associates to do that which is the duty of every and any individual, and particularly of magistrates, police officers, and constables, but which they neglect to perform, the other associates to prosecute offences, for which the custom of the Constitution has provided a public and responsible officer. Is not this circumstance a proof of the bias of London jurymen; and does it not afford an additional reason for this undertaking? "Your Majesty may possibly discover from these pro and con arguments, that good as are the motives of such an Association, yet an attempt to carry them into effect deranges the usual course of the laws; it supersedes or divides the duty and office of the Attorney-General; it interferes with the particular department of the Home Secretary of State, whose office is co-existent with the Constitution, which an ephemeral society cannot be; it confuses or may confuse the discharge of the duties of grand jurors; it provokes an unnecessary challenge to the special or common jurymen; but should such Association abandon its system of prosecution, and upon proper occasions call upon the Attorney-General to do his duty, or point out to him cases deserving public indictment; if with such vigilance they promoted, at the same time, the efforts of conscientious and consistent writers, by aiding the first introduction of their works into circulation, they might possibly accomplish all their good and well-intentioned designs, in as certain, and in a much more unexceptionable manner, at all events they aim only at legal decisions †." This conscientious and vital difference of opinion, between the Editors of this Constitutional Guardian and the Constitutional Association, (both engaged in the same objects,) is the very point of difference upon which we at Bristol stand, in contradistinction from the London Ultras. We contend that the Constitution has power enough to defend itself; we place a reliance upon its enacted and long established wisdom, and seek only to bring forth its excellencies and its strength. We aim not to introduce any anomaly into the practice of the existing laws, much . it should be, additional cause of challenge. We understand that the Constitutional Association has abandoned its third pledge-of encouraging the press, as announced in its contract with the public. less to act upon such. Whilst they prosecute, we aim to convince and conciliate. Whilst they are ferreting out libellers, we will expose the libels, and guard the unwary and thoughtless against their fallacies and inuendoes: and the very pledge which they have broken, we take up as the ground-work of all our proceedings. They may imprison libellers, we will endeavour to prevent the reading of libels to the utmost of our power, by every ingenious device and good-natured expedient, which our wits and those of our neighbours and friends can devise. Experience will decide which mode is best. But we are fully of opinion, that an ultra zeal, (seldom chancing to be permanent,) often tends to perpetuate, and to render popular, the evil it affects to check: for in the execution of the laws there is a nice hair-breadth which divides justice from persecution, and which sinks the abhorrence of guilt in commiseration for the guilty. In this our undertaking we look confidently and anxiously for the influence of rank, and the support of talent; and when we are found not to redeem the pledges we give, or to depart from the good cause, let that influence and that support be withdrawn from us. W. THE BLUE PILL. JOHN BULL upon his sick bed lay, And first prescrib'd a noted Quack, And said they'd brought poor John into John Bull he sweated, purg'd, and bled, And tried, (to keep his fever down,) Then in bounc'd Doctor Radical, Who did both curse and swear, Sir, Such rotten Constitutions Were hardly worth repair, Sir, That quite corrupted was his blood, Nor had he one disease alone, For he'd a complication. So he proposed, (and now poor John That radical must be the cure ; John rais'd him up in bed, and cried, 'Tis you and all your Med'cines. With that he soon dismiss'd the Quacks, Physician, Doctor True Blue. John, blubbering, said, I shall grow wise, Both Pill and Potion I have took, For down my throat by force, Sir, Have cheer, the good Physician cried, To trust, since you are sound in heart, A strength'ning blue pill merely take, Admit no Quacks to take your life, May George be every inch a King, Q. to admit that the desire of informa. THE AGE OF GEORGE THE tion on subjects of policy, morals, THIRD; Or, a Review of the Moral, Political, Literary and Commercial Improvement of Great Britain, during the last Sixty Years. INTRODUCTION. "Ulteriora mirari, præsentia sequi, Bonos imperatores expetere, qualescumque tolerare."-TACITUS. IN history, as in cosmography, there are certain divisions or meridional lines, by which we are enabled to trace with accuracy the general progress of civilization, and the gradual advancement that has been made in knowledge. From hence, as from so many headlands, the observer takes a survey of the course of science, connects the ages that are past with the current of time that is actually flowing; and thus marks distinctively the relation which events, far remote in date and locality, bear to each other. It is no less true in morals than in physics, that there is nothing so absolutely insulated as to be without a cause, or so inert as to be wholly unproductive of effects. Every action in man arises from the impulse of some motive; and therefore, necessarily in its turn, becomes an operating principle, determining other circumstances into being. If therefore it is essential to private happiness, that the individual should be careful in regard to first impressions, and to examine narrowly the changes which take place in his own mind, it must be equally important to observe the movements of opinion in society, and to counteract those impulses, which unchecked would lead to public disorder. The present age, more than any that preceded it, is characterised by an activity of intellectual exertion; and far be it from us to wish that it were otherwise, since it is by the combined spirit of enquiry only, that great improvements can be accomplished. But though ever ready and religion, no less than on those of natural science, ought to be encouraged rather than repressed; we must strenuously contend for the indispensible necessity of bounds being set to innovation, lest they, who with even good intentions, aim at perfection, should succeed in in. flaming the multitude to deeds of mischief; and by misplaced and misdirected zeal destroy what no human wisdom can possibly replace. This was exemplified in a lamentable manner, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, when that which is justly called "the age of reformation," was disgraced by the worse than savage fury of the German fanatics, who committed the most abominable outrages against humanity, under the pretext of establishing the kingdom of righteousness; as though the Supreme Deity were to be served by violence, and could be worshipped acceptably in madness. These evils were the consequence of giving the ignorant just so much knowledge as fitted them to become the instruments of destruction; when, had they been grounded in the principles of reli. gion, instead of having their imaginations heated by visionary notions, they might indeed have been martyrs to the cause of truth, but they would not have scandalized it by proving murderers. Similar, but more frequent and extensive have been the miseries brought upon states, by letting loose the passions of men, under an idea of improving the government, which no mob ever did, or ever can change, but for the worst. The reason of this is obvious: for the moral and social duties are as inflexible as the higher ones of religion; and the same principle must operate in all, otherwise whenever a people shall become impatient of authority, and assume each one for himself the right of determining the rule-and measure of obedience to the laws; the result of that spirit, if suffered to spread, will inevitably be anarchy. Yet such is the force of self-deception and public delusion, that there are men, not drivellers in common life, who actually dream of ameliorating the condition of the country, by increasing the power of the people beyond a constitutional equilibrium; and who, in despite of the wisdom of experience, would therefore commit that vast machine of government, which has been the work and pride of ages, to the management of an unprincipled faction, and the mercy of an ignorant mob. However harmless, or even amiable the idea of perfectibility may be, as a motive of emulation in private concerns, it would, as a rule of action applied to the administration of public interests, prove inevitable destruction; since, being in its very nature a principle of mutation, it must be continually occupied in changes, without leaving any thing permanent in the room of what it shall have displaced. But the planet-stricken times, in which it is our lot to be cast, are strongly marked by this feverish disposition; and the love of novelty pervades the nation to such a degree, that political integrity is no longer estimated by purity of prin. ciple, or the utility of measures, but by the speciousness of its theories, and the boldness of its experiments. Hence to oppose authority, is by many considered as the height of patriotism; and to despise precedents, is reckoned a proof of aspiring genius. In this state of excitement, to which no man can be insensible who has paid the smallest attention to the scene around him, and to which none can be indifferent without being chargeable with a culpable want of concern for the welfare of his country, it becomes our duty to take a firm stand in the good old way of the Constitution, as laid down by our ancestors. Next to the duty of setting an example of personal loy alty, an imperative obligation binds all faithful subjects, who possess any influence in society, to prevent as far as persuasion can operate, their acquaintances and neighbours from being led away by the new lights of policy, which are now flitting about and crossing the path of "the good cause" in every direction. But as abstract reasoning rarely convinces those who have made up their minds on a subject in which their passions take an interest ; perhaps one most effectual mode of undeceiving the deluded, and of disarming the seducers, would be to shew historically the fatal effects of political imposture; another mode of removing the prejudices of men in regard to the government, and of inciting them to a more liberal course of thinking and acting as subjects, is to bring under review the benefits that have been produced, and which still continue to result from that very system, which is decried by the demagogues of faction, as the source of corruption, and the engine of oppression. One fact is worth a thousand arguments. Thus when the blaspheming infidel declaims against Providence, the best way to stop his mouth, is by referring to the very organ of speech which he perverts, and which he could not make the instrument of conveying his thoughts, had not superior wisdom adapted it to the purpose. In like manner, when the seditionist rails at the constitution of his country, prates on the defects of government, and the abridgment of civil rights; our shortest course to prove the existence of liberty, is to shew the licentiousness which prevails; while, to refute the clamour about political corruption, we need do no more than point to the equal administration of our laws, our high attainments in literature and science, the varied and numerous institutions scattered over the land, for the improvement of the mind and manners in all ranks of life, and then |