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Thee therefore, ftill blame-worthy as thou art,
with all thy lofs of empire, and though squeez'd
by public exigence till annual food

fails for the craving hunger of the state,
thee I account ftill happy, and the chief
among the nations, feeing thou art FREE!
my native nook of carth! thy clime is rude,
replete with vapours, and difpofes much

all hearts to fadness, and none more than mine
thine unadult'rate manners are lefs foft
and plaufible than focial life requires,
and thou haft need of difcipline and art

to give thee that which warmer climes receive
from NATURE's bounty, that humane addrefs
and sweetness, without which no pleasure is
in converfe, either ftar'd by cold referve,
or flush'd with fierce difpute, a fenfeless brawl;
yet being FREE, I love thee. For the fake
of that ONE FEATURE, can be well content,
difgrac'd as thou haft been, poor as thou art,
to seek no fublunary rest beside.
But once ENSLAVED, farewell! I could endure
chains no where patiently, and chains at home,
where I am FREE by birthright, not at all.
-I fhould then with double pain

feel all the rigour of the fickle clime,

and if I must bewail the bleffing lost,

for which our HAMPDENS and our SIDNEYS bled,

I would

I would at leaft bewail it under skies

milder, among a people lefs auftere,

in fcenes which, having never known me FREE,
would not reproach me with the loss I felt.

COWPER.

THERE are two great tyrannies, the tyranny of a def- ' pot, and that of a multitude. Of these the most dreadful is republican tyranny. The defpot may receive the juft blow, and fall from his high elevation, nothing is required but the arm of a Brutus: but the deftruction of the many headed monster is an Herculean labour. In defpotic states, as well as in republics, the downfal of the ministers of government is ufually effected by the death of the parties. In the former, they quietly yield up their breath; in the latter, the struggle is attended with a dreadful convulfion, and the fuperiour faction gains the afcendancy after a mighty carnage.

Situated between the two ftands, the MIXED FORM of GOVERNMENT, a GOVERNMENT nicely poised between THE EXTREMES of TOO MUCH LIBERTY and TOO MUCH POWER, where an unsuccessful and improvident minifter is displaced without the loss of life, and the murder of his friends, and where the several parts of the CONSTITUTIONs are fo framed, that

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they ferve as a check to each other; a CONSTITUTION, where the king is clothed with a power, that enables him to do all the good he has a mind to; and wants no degree of authority, but what a good prince would not, and an ill one ought not to have: where he governs, though not abfolutely, yet gloriously, because he governs men, and not flaves; and is obeyed by them cheerfully, because they know that, in obeying him, they obey those laws only which they themselves have had a fhare in contriving.

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It is undoubtedly very natural for men to think that form of government the beft, under which they draw their first breath, and to propofe it as a model and ftandard for all others. But, if any people upon earth have a just title thus to boast, it is we of this ifland; who enjoy a CONSTITUTION, wifely moulded, out of all the different forms and kinds of civil government, into fuch an excellent and happy frame, as contains in it all the advantages of their feveral forms, without fharing in any of their great inconveniencies. Our MIXED FORM of GOVERNMENT is authorized by lawyers, admired by ftrangers, recommended by di vines, acknowledged by politicians, acquiefced in, nay paffionately cherished, by the people in general; and all

this during a period of at least a hundred and eighty years. This general consent furely, during fo long a time, must be fufficient to render any constitution legal and valid: if the origin of all power be derived, as is alledged, from the people here is their confent in the fulleft and most ample terms that can be derived or imagined. We must be all fenfible that the plan of liberty is fettled; its happy effects are proved by experience; a long tract of time has given it ftability. We must be sensible, that public liberty with internal peace and order, has flourished almoft without interruption: trade and manufactures, and agriculture, have increased: the arts and sciences, and philofophy, have been cultivated. Even religious parties have been neceffitated to lay afide their mutual rancour: and the glory of the nation has spread itself all over Europe; derived equally from our progrefs in the arts of peace, and from our valour in war. So long and fo glorious a period no nation almost can boast of: nor is there another inftance in the whole hiftory of mankind, that fo many millions of people have, during fuch a Space of time, been held together, in a manner fo free, fo rationable, and fo fuitable to the dignity of human nature.

SECT.

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As I was betwixt fleep and waking, methought on a fudden I perceived one of the most shocking figures imagination can frame advancing towards me. She was dreft in black, her skin was contracted into a thousand wrinkles, her eyes deep funk in her head, and her complexion pale and livid as the countenance of death. Her looks were filled with terror and unrelenting severity, and her hands armed with whips and fcorpions. As foon as fhe came near, with a horrid frown, and a voice that chilled my very blood, fhe bid me follow her. I obeyed, and she led me through rugged paths, befet with briars and thorns, into a deep folitary valley. Wherever she paffed the fading verdure withered beneath her steps; her peftilential breath infected the air with malignant vapours,

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