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such importance not only the intercession of men but of gods is necessary, that the man who has always celebrated your virtues, those of your generals, and the victories of the Roman people; who declares that he will raise eternal monuments to your praise and mine for our conduct in our late domestic dangers; and who is of the number of those who have ever been accounted and pronounced divine, may be so protected by you as to have greater reason to applaud your generosity than to complain of your rigor.

LXXII-SPEECH OF SHREWSBURY BEFORE QUEEN

ELIZABETH.

SCHILLER.

GOD whose wondrous hand has four times protected you, and who to-day gave the feeble arm of gray hairs strength to turn aside the stroke of a madman, should inspire confidence. I will not now speak in the name of justice: this is not the time. In such a tumult, you cannot hear her still small voice. Consider this only; you are fearful now of the living Mary; but I say it is not the living you have to fear. Tremble at the dead-the beheaded. She will rise from the

grave a fiend of dissension. She will awaken the spirit of revenge in your kingdom, and wean the hearts of your subjects from you. At present she is an object of dread to the British; but when she is no more, they will revenge her. No longer will she then be regarded as the enemy of their faith; her mournful fate will cause her to appear as the granddaughter of their king, the victim of man's hatred, and woman's jealousy. Soon will you see the change appear! Drive through London after the bloody deed has been done; show yourself to the people, who now surround you with joyful acclamations: then will you see another England, another people! No longer will you then walk forth encircled by the radiance of heavenly justice which now binds every heart to you. Dread the frightful name of tyrant which will precede you through shuddering hearts, and resound through every street where you pass. You have done the last irrevocable deed. What head stands fast when this sacred one has fallen?

MR. FOX AND THE EAST INDIA BILL.

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LXXIII-MR. FOX AND THE EAST INDIA BILL.

BURKE.

THE author of the East India Bill, Mr. Fox, has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whorn he has never seen. This is the road that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abused for his supposed motives. He will remember, that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory: he will remember, that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in the nature and constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph. These thoughts will support a mind, which only exists for honor, under the burthen of temporary reproach. He is doing indeed a great good; such as rarely falls to the lot, and almost as rarely coincides with the desires of any man. Let him use his time. Let him give the whole length of the reins to his benevolence. He is now on a great eminence, where the eyes of mankind are turned to him. He may live long, he may do much. But here is the summit. He can never exceed what he does this day.

I confess, I anticipate with joy the reward of those, whose whole consequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of mankind; and I carry my mind to all the people, and all the names and descriptions, that, relieved by this bill, will bless the labors of this parliament, and the confidence which the best House of Commons has given to him who the best deserves it. The little cavils of party will not be heard, where freedom and happiness will be felt. There is not a tongue, a nation, or a religion in India, which will not bless the presiding.care and manly beneficence of this House, and of him who proposes to you this great work. Your names will never be separated before the throne of the Divine Goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is asked for sin, and reward for those who imitate the Godhead in his universal bounty to his creatures. These honors you deserve, and they will surely be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and party, and patronage, are swept into oblivion

LXXIV.-DETACHED EMPIRE.

BURKE.

THE last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance, in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point, is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged messengers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go and no farther." Who are you that should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations, who have extensive empire; and it happens into all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt, and Arabia, and Curdistan, as he governs Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea and Algiers, which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his centre, is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well obeyed, as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive and detached empire.

LXXV.-TAXATION OF AMERICA.

BURKE.

LET us, sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean to tax productive revenue from thence?

America, and to draw a
If you do, speak out;

THE RETURN OF PEACE.

309

I do not

name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight when you have something to fight for. If you murder-rob; if you kill, take possession: and do not appear in the character of madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better counsels guide you! Again, and again, revert to your old principles-seek peace and ensue it-leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it. They and we, and their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished forever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burthen them with taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very sources of government, by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, what will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued into slavery.

LXXVI. THE RETURN OF PEACE.

JEFFREY.

We are still too near the great image of Deliverance and Reform which the Genius of Europe has just set up before us, to discern with certainty its just lineaments, or construe the true character of the aspect with which it looks onward

to futurity! We see enough, however, to fill us with innumerable feelings, and the germs of many high and anxious speculations.

The first and predominant feeling which rises on contemplating the scenes that have just burst on our view, is that of deepfelt gratitude and delight,—for the liberation of so many oppressed nations,-for the cessation of bloodshed and fear and misery over the fairest portions of the civilized world,—and for the enchanting, though still dim and uncertain prospect of long peace and measureless improvement, which seems at last to be opening on the suffering kingdoms of Europe. The very novelty of such a state of things, which could be known only by description to the greater part of the existing generation-the suddenness of its arrival, and the contrast which it forms with the anxieties and alarms to which it has so immediately succeeded, all concur most powerfully to enhance its vast intrinsic attractions. It has come upon the world like the balmy air and flushing verdure of a late spring, after the dreary chills of a long and interminable winter; and the refreshing sweetness with which it has visited the earth, feels like. Elysium to those who have just escaped from the driving tempests it has banished.

We have reason to hope, too, that the riches of the harvest will correspond with the splendor of this early promise. All the periods in which human society and human intellect have been known to make great and memorable advances, have followed close upon periods of general agitation and disorder. Men's minds, it would appear, must be deeply and roughly stirred, before they become prolific of great conceptions, or vigorous resolves; and a vast and alarming fermentation must pervade and agitate the mass of society, to inform it with that kindly warmth, by which alone the seeds of genius and improvement can be expanded.

LXXVII-GLORY OF HOLLAND AND IRELAND.

BOYTON.

THE history of the Dutch people dims indeed the lustre, while it transcends all that is marvellous in Spartan story. Subjects of the most powerful monarch of the day, the lord of

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