pect, and that to facilitate such a scheme, the modern French fhould be permitted and encouraged to fhake the internal and external fecurity of thefe Ecclefiaftical Electorates, Great Britain is fo fituated that fhe could not, with any effect, fet herself in oppofition to fuch a defign. Her principal arm, her marine, could here be of no fort of ufe.Memorial on the Affairs of France in 1791. PITY. PITY is a paffion founded on love.-Sublime and Beautiful. PRECEDENTS. I fhall never quit precedents where I find them applicable.-Oecon. Reform. PRESCRIPTION (THE SACRED RULES OF). THE Crown has confidered me after long service: the Crown has paid the Duke of Bedford by advance. He has had a long credit for any fervice which he may perform hereafter. He is fecure, and long may he be fecure, in his advance, whether he performs any fervices or not. But let him take care how he endangers the fafety of that conftitution which fecures his own utility, or his own infignificance; or how he difcourages those who take up, even puny arms, to defend an order of things, which, like the fun of Heaven, fhines alike on the useful and the worthlefs. His grants are engrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages. They are guarded by the facred rules of prescription, found in that full treasury of jurifprudence from which the jejuneness and penury of our municipal law has, by degrees, been enriched and ftrengthened. This prefcription I had my fhare (a very full share) in 3 bringing to its perfection*. The Duke of Bedford will ftand as long as prefcriptive law endures; as long as the great ftable laws of property, common to us with all civilized nations, are kept in their integrity, and without the fmalleft intermixture of the laws, maxims, principles, or precedents of the grand revolution. They are fecure against all changes but one. The whole revolutionary fyftem, inftitutes, digeft, code, novels, text, glofs, comment, are not only not the fame, but they are the very reverfe, and the reverfe fundamentally, of all the laws on which civil life has hitherto been upheld in all the governments of the world. The learned profeffors of the Rights of Man regard prescription, not as a title to bar all claim, fet up against old poffeffion, but they look on prescription as itself a bar against the poffeffor and proprietor. They hold an immemorial poffeffion to be no more than a long continued, and therefore an aggravated injuftice. Such are their ideas; fuch their religion, and fuch their law. But as to our country and our race, as long as the well-compacted ftructure of our church and ftate, the fanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple t, fhall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion, as long as the British Monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the State, fhall, like the proud Keep of Windfor, rifing in the majefty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful ftructure fhall overfee and guard the fubjected land, fo long the mounds and dykes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our fovereign Lord the King, and his faithful fub *Sir George Saville's Act, called the Nullum Tempus A&. Tem. jects, the Lords and Commons of this realm, the triple cord, which no man can break; the folemn, fworn, conftitutional frank-pledge of this nation; the firm guarantees of each others being, and each others rights; the joint and feveral fecurities, each in its place and order, for every kind and every quality, of property and of dignity; as long as thefe endure, fo long the Duke of Bedford is fafe; and we are all fafe together; the high from the blights of envy and the fpoliations of rapacity; the low from the iron hand of oppreffion and the infolent fpurn of contempt. Amen! and fo be it: and fo it will be, Dum domus Enea Capitoli immobile axum But if the rude inroad of Gallic tumult, with its fophiftical Rights of Man, to falfify the account, and its fword as a makeweight to throw into the fcale, fhall be introduced into our city by a mifguided populace, fet on by proud great men, themfelves blinded and intoxicated by a frantic ambition, we fhall all of us, perifh and be overwhelmed in a common ruin. If a great ftorm blow on our coaft,. it will caft the whales on the ftrand as well as the periwinkles. Letter to a noble Lord. PARTY, (FRENCH) HOW COMPOSED. In the mean time a fyftem of French confpiracy is gaining ground in every country. This fyftem happening to be founded on principles the most delusive indeed, but the moft flattering to the natural propenfities of the unthinking multitude, and to the fpeculations of all thofe who think, without thinking very profoundly, muft daily extend it's influence. predominant inclination towards it appears in all thofe who have no religion, when otherwife their difpofition leads them to be advocates even for defpotifm A Hence Hume, though I cannot fay that he does not throw out fome expreffions of difapprobation on the proceedings of the levellers in the reign of Richard the Second, yet affirms that the doctrines of John Ball were conformable to the primitive ideas of primitive equality, which are engraven on the hearts all men.' -Memorial on the Affairs of France in 1791. PEACE. Not to be too eagerly fought. A peace too eagerly fought, is not always the fooner obtained; and when obtained, it never can be every thing we wifh. The difcovery of vehement wifhes generally fruftrates their attainment; and your adverfary has gained a great advantage over you when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in referve, not only fomething of dignity, but a great deal of prudence too. A fort of courage belongs to negociation as well as to operations of the field. A negociator must seem willing to hazard all, if he wishes to fecure any material point. -Regicide Peace. PRESERVATION (SELF.) THE paffions belonging to felf-prefervation, are the ftrongeft of all the paffions.- Ibid. PRACTICABILITY. THOSE things which are not practicable, are not defirable. There is nothing in the world really beneficial, that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding, and a well-directed purfuit. There is nothing that God has judged good for us, that he has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. If we cry, like children for the moon, like children we must Oecon. Reform. PHYSICAL CAUSES. (SEE TASTE.) cry on. By looking into phyfical causes, our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this purfuit, whether we take or whether we lofe our game, the chace is certainly of fervice. Cicero, true as he was to the academic philofophy, and confequently led to reject the certainty of phyfical, as of every other kind of knowledge, yet freely confeffes its great importance to the human understanding; " Eft animorum inge«niorumque noftrorum naturale quoddam quafi pabulum "confideratio contemplatioque naturæ." If we can direct the lights we derive from fuch exalted fpeculations, upon the humbler field of the imagination, whilft we inveftigate the fprings, and trace the courfes of our paffions, we may not only communicate to the taste a fort of philofophical folidity, but we may reflect back on the feverer fciences fome of the graces and elegances of tafte, without which the greateft proficiency in thofe fciences will always have the appearance of fomething illiberal.Sublime and Beautiful. PARALLELOGRAM. THE form of a crofs ufed in fome churches feems to me not fo eligible as the parallelogram of the atients; at leaft, I imagine it is not fo proper for the outfide. Ibid. QUALIFICATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT. THERE is no qualification for Government, but virtue and wifdom, actual or prefumptive; wherever they are actually found, they have, in whatever state, condition, profeffion, or trade, the paffport of Heaven to human place and honour.Reflections on the Re wolution in France. |