too that the
reparation, when made by myself, may be made without injury either to
the strength or beauty of the building. It has been buffeted, in the
course of ages, by a thousand storms; yet still it stands unshaken as a
rock, the wonder of all my neighbours, each of whom sighs for one of a
similar construction. Your house may be suited to your climate and
temper, this is suited to mine. Permit me, however, to observe to you,
that you have not yet lived long enough in your new house to be sensible
of all the inconveniences to which it may be liable, nor have you yet
had any experience of its strength; it has yet sustained no shocks; the
first whirlwind may scatter its component members in the air; the first
earthquake may shake its foundation; the first inundation may sweep the
superstructure from the surface of the earth. I hope no accident will
happen to your house, but I am satisfied with mine own.

Great calamities of every kind attend the breaking up of established
governments:--yet there are some forms of government, especially when
they happen to be badly administered, so exceedingly destructive of the
happiness of mankind, that a change of them is not improvidently
purchased at the expense of the mischief accompanying their subversion.
Our government is not of that kind; look round the globe, and see if you
can discover a single nation on all its surface so powerful, so rich, so
beneficent, so free and happy as our own. May Heaven avert from the
minds of my countrymen the slightest wish to abolish their constitution!

'Kingdoms,' observes Mr. Locke, 'have been overturned by the pride,
ambition, and turbulency of private men; by the people's wantonness and
desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, as well as by
the rulers' insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary
power over the people.' The recent danger to our constitution was in my
opinion small; for I considered its excellence to be so obvious to men
even of the most unimproved understandings, that I looked upon it as an
idle and fruitless effort, either in foreign or domestic incendiaries,
to endeavour to persuade the bulk of the people to consent to an
alteration of it in favour of a republic. I knew, indeed, that in every
country the flagitious dregs of a nation were always ripe for
revolutions; but I was sensible, at the same time, that it was the
interest, not only of the opulent and powerful, not only of the
mercantil