d notions of liberty
imbibed from poets and historians, fade away--my reverence for names long
consecrated in our annals abates--and the sole object of my political
attachment is the English constitution, as tried by time and undeformed
by the experiments of visionaries and impostors. I begin to doubt either
the sense or honesty of most of those men who are celebrated as the
promoters of changes of government which have chiefly been adopted rather
with a view to indulge a favourite theory, than to relieve a people from
any acknowledged oppression. A wise or good man would distrust his
judgment on a subject so momentous, and perhaps the best of such
reformers were but enthusiasts. Shaftesbury calls enthusiasm an honest
passion; yet we have seen it is a very dangerous one: and we may perhaps
learn, from the example of France, not to venerate principles which we do
not admire in practice.*

* I do not imply that the French Revolution was the work of
enthusiasts, but that the enthusiasm of Rousseau produced a horde of
Brissots, Marats, Robespierres, &c. who speculated on the
affectation of it. The Abbe Sieyes, whose views were directed to a
change of Monarchs, not a dissolution of the monarchy, and who in
promoting a revolution did not mean to found a republic, has
ventured to doubt both the political genius of Rousseau, and the
honesty of his sectaries. These truths from the Abbe are not the
less so for our knowing they would not be avowed if it answered his
purpose to conceal them.--_"Helas! un ecrivain justement celebre qui
seroit mort de douleur s'il avoit connu ses disciples; un philosophe
aussi parfait de sentiment que foible de vues, n'a-t-il pas dans ses
pages eloquentes, riches en detail, pauvre au fond, confondu
lui-meme les principes de l'art social avec les commencemens de la
societe humaine? Que dire si l'on voyait dans un autre genre de
mechaniques, entreprendre le radoub ou la construction d'un vaisseau
de ligne avec la seule theorie, avec les seules resources des
Sauvages dans la construction de leurs Pirogues!"_--"Alas! has not a
justly-celebrated writer, who would have died with grief, could he
have known what disciples he was destined to have;--a philosopher as
perfect in sentiment as feeble in his views,--confounded, in his
eloquent pages--pages which are as rich in matter as poor in
s