arrives, he finds
the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and
each with a petition in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry
of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without
deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour.
Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of
curiosity!--But the attention of this apostle of republicanism is not
often bestowed, except on high rank, or beauty; and a woman who is old,
or ill dressed, that ventures to approach him, is usually repulsed with
vulgar brutality--while the very sight of a male suppliant renders him
furious. The first half hour he walks about, surrounded by his fair
cortege, and is tolerably civil; but at length, fatigued, I suppose by
continual importunity, he loses his temper, departs, and throws all the
petitions he has received unopened into the fire.

Adieu--the subject is too humiliating to dwell on. I feel for myself, I
feel for human nature, when I see the fastidiousness of wealth, the more
liberal pride of birth, and the yet more allowable pretensions of beauty,
degraded into the most abject submission to such a being as Dumont. Are
our principles every where the mere children of circumstance, or is it in
this country only that nothing is stable? For my own part I love
inflexibility of character; and pride, even when ill founded, seems more
respectable while it sustains itself, than concessions which, refused to
the suggestions of reason, are yielded to the dictates of fear.--Yours.

February 12, 1794.

I was too much occupied by my personal distresses to make any remarks on
the revolutionary government at the time of its adoption. The text of
this political phoenomenon must be well known in England--I shall,
therefore, confine myself to giving you a general idea of its spirit and
tendency,--It is, compared to regular government, what force is to
mechanism, or the usual and peaceful operations of nature to the ravages
of a storm--it substitutes violence for conciliation, and sweeps with
precipitate fury all that opposes its devastating progress. It refers
every thing to a single principle, which is in itself not susceptible of
definition, and, like all undefined power, is continually vibrating
between despotism and anarchy. It is the execrable shape of Milton's
Death, "which shape hath none," and which can be described only by its
effects.--For