learn wisdom, and that when the people speak loudly it is from their being strongly possessed either by the godhead or the dæmon, that in the revolution of the Netherlands he considered the universal adoption of one set of principles, as a proof of the divine presence. 'If Her Majesty,' says he, 'were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means which God useth.' But if my readers wish to see the question of the efficacy of principles and popular opinions for evil and for good proved and illustrated with an eloquence worthy of the subject, I can refer them with the hardiest anticipation of their thanks to the late work concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal, by my honored friend, William Wordsworth, quem quoties lego, non verba mihi videor audire, sed tonitrua.*

* I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation of, the work above mentioned, not as a voluntary tribute of admiration, but as an act of mere justice both to myself and to the readers of The Friend. My own heart bears me witness, that I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth of the principles, which it has been and still more will be my endeavor to enforce, and of their paramount importance to the well-being of society at the present juncture: and that the duty of making the attempt, and the hope of not wholly failing in it, are, far more than the wish for the doubtful good of literary reputation, or any yet meaner object, my great and ruling motives. Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-laborer in the same vineyard, actuated by the same motives and teaching the same principles, but with far greater powers of mind, and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and majesty of the cause. I am strengthened too by the knowledge, that I am not unauthorized by the sympathy of many wise and good men, and men acknowledged as such by the public, in my admiration of his pamphlet. Neque enim debet operibus ejus obesse, quod vivit. An si inter eos, quos numquam vidimus, floruisset, non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis, et gratia quasi satietate languescet? At hoc pravum, malignumque est, non admirari hominem admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, alloqui, audire, complecti, nec laudare tantum, verum etiam amare, contingit. PLIN. Epis. Lib. I. 16.

It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act under the fear that he shall be suspected by honest men of the vileness of praising a work to the public, merely because he happens to be personally acquainted with the author. That this is so commonly done in reviews, furnishes only an additional proof of the morbid hardness produced in the moral sense by the habit of writing anonymous criticisms, especially under the further disguise of a pretended board or association of critics, each man expressing himself, to use the words of Andrew Marvel, as a synodical individuum. With regard, however, to the probability of being warped by partiality, I can only

That erroneous political notions—they having become general and a part of the popular creed-have practical consequences, and these, of course, of a most fearful nature, is a truth as certain as historic evidence can make it and that when the feelings excited by these calamities have passed away, and the interest in them has been displaced by more recent events, the same errors are likely to be started afresh, pregnant with the same calamities, is an evil rooted in human nature in the present state of general information, for which we have hitherto found no adequate remedy. It may, perhaps, in the scheme of Providence, be proper and conducive to its ends, that no adequate remedy should exist for the folly of men is the wisdom of God. But if there be any means, if not of preventing, yet of palliating, the disease, and, in the more favored nations, of checking its progress at the first symptoms; and if these means are to be at all compatible with the civil and intellectual freedom of mankind; they are to be found only in an intelligible and thorough exposure of the error, and, through that discovery, of the source, from which it derives its speciousness and powers of influence on the human mind. This therefore is my first motive for undertaking the disquisition.

The second is, that though the French code of revolutionary principles is now generally rejected as a system, yet everywhere in the speeches and writings of the English reformers, nay, not seldom in those of their opponents, I find certain maxims asserted say that I judge of all works indifferently by certain fixed rules previously formed in my mind with all the power and vigilance of my judgment; and that I should certainly of the two apply them with greater rigor to the production of a friend than to that of a person indifferent to me. But wherever I find in any work all the conditions of excellence in its kind, it is not the accident of the author's being my contemporary or even my friend, or the sneers of bad-hearted men, that shall prevent me from speaking of it, as in my inmost convictions I deem it deserves.

no, friend!

Though it be now the fashion to commend,
As men of strong minds, those alone who can
Censure with judgment, no such piece of man
Makes up my spirit: where desert does live,
There will I plant my wonder, and there give
My best endeavors to build up his glory,
That truly merits!

Recommendatory Verses to one of the old plays.

or appealed to, which are not tenable, except as constituent parts of that system. Many of the most specious arguments in proof of the imperfection and injustice of the present constitution of our legislature will be found, on closer examination, to presuppose the truth of certain principles, from which the adducers of these arguments loudly profess their dissent. But in political changes no permanence can be hoped for in the edifice, without consistency in the foundation.

The third motive is, that by detecting the true source of the influence of these principles, we shall at the same time discover their natural place and object; and that in themselves they are not only truths, but most important and sublime truths; and that their falsehood and their danger consist altogether in their misapplication. Thus the dignity of human nature will be secured, and at the same time a lesson of humility taught to each individual, when we are made to see that the universal necessary laws, and pure ideas of reason, were given us, not for the purpose of flattering our pride, and enabling us to become national legislators; but that, by an energy of continued self-conquest, we might establish a free and yet absolute government in our own spirits.

ESSAY IV.

Albeit therefore, much of that we are to speak in this present cause, may seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate (for many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth and therefore, when they are led thereunto, they are soon weary, as men drawn from those beaten paths, wherewith they have been inured); yet this may not so far prevail, as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, howsoever the nice humor of some be therewith pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious, are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labor which they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they must consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass, than in sundry the works both of art, and also of nature, where that which hath greatest force in the very things we see, is, notwithstanding, itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye: but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of

the earth concealed; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws, all that live under them, may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung, be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience, pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of their quality, it behooveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them to be discovered. Which, because we are not oftentimes accustomed to do, when we do it, the pains we take are more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the matters which we handle, seem by reason of newness (till the mind grow better acquainted with them), dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For as much help whereof, as may be in this case, I have endeavored throughout the body of this whole discourse, that every former part might give strength unto all that follow, and every latter bring some light unto all before: so that if the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspense, as touching these first more general meditations, till in order they have perused the rest that ensue; what may seem dark at the first, will afterwards be found more plain, even as the latter particular decisions will appear, I doubt not, more strong when the other have been read before. HOOKER.*

ON THE GROUNDS OF GOVERNMENT AS LAID EXCLUSIVELY IN THE PURE REASON; OR A STATEMENT AND CRITIQUE OF THE THIRD SYSTEM OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, THE THEORY OF ROUSSEAU AND THE FRENCH ECONOMISTS.

I PROCEED to my promise of developing from its embryo principles the tree of French liberty, of which the declaration of the rights of man, and the constitution of 1791 were the leaves, and the succeeding and present state of France the fruits. Let me not be blamed, if, in the interposed essays, introductory to this section, I have connected this system, though only in imagination, though only as a possible case, with a name so deservedly reverenced as that of Luther. It is some excuse, that to interweave with the reader's recollections a certain life and dramatic interest, during the perusal of the abstract reasonings that are to fol

*Eccl. Pol. B. I. c. 1, 2.-Ed.

I have been charged in The Friend with a novel and perplexing use of the word abstract, both as verb and noun. Novel it certainly is not; it being authorized by Lord Bacon, Des Cartes, and others. The fact is this: I take the word in its proper meaning, as abstraho, I draw from. The image, by which I represent to myself an oak-tree, is no fac simile or ade

low, is the only means I possess of bribing his attention. We have, most of us, at some period or other of our lives, been amused with dialogues of the dead. Who is there, that wishing to form a probable opinion on the grounds of hope and fear for an injured people warring against mighty armies, would not be pleased with a spirited fiction, which brought before him an old Numantian discoursing on that subject in Elysium, with a newly-arrived spirit from the streets of Saragoza or the walls of Gerona?

But I have a better reason. I wished to give every fair advantage to the opinions, which I deemed it of importance to confute. It is bad policy to represent a political system as having no charm but for robbers and assassins, and no natural origin but in the brains of fools or madmen, when experience has proved, that the great danger of the system consists in the peculiar fascination it is calculated to exert on noble and imaginative spirits ; on all those who, in the amiable intoxication of youthful benevolence, are apt to mistake their own best virtues and choicest powers for the average qualities and attributes of the human character. The very minds, which a good man would most wish to preserve or disentangle from the snare, are by these angry misrepresentations rather lured into it. Is it wonderful that a man should reject the arguments unheard, when his own heart proves the falsehood of the assumptions by which they are prefaced; or that he should retaliate on the aggressors their own evil thoughts? I am well aware, that the provocation was great, the temptation almost inevitable; yet still I can not repel the conviction from my mind, that in part to this error, and in part to a certain inconsistency in his own fundamental principles, we are to attribute the small number of converts made by Burke

quate icon of the tree, but is abstracted from it by my eye. Now this appears to me a more natural as well as more grammatical and philosophical use of the word, than that elliptic construction, by which an accusative noun, and the preposition following it are to be understood, namely, I draw (my attention from) the, &c. Thus :-I give the outline of a flower on a slate with a slate pencil.-Now, I would say, I abstract the shape from the flower, or of the flower. But the objector would express the same thing by saying, I abstract the color, &c. (that is, my attention from the color, &c.)

Perhaps the latter might be better in familiar writing; but I continue to prefer the former on subjects that require precision. 1830.