as correcting an opposite extreme in some other quarter of the
Island;--as a counterpoise of some weight elsewhere pressing injuriously
upon the springs of social order. How deplorable would be the ignorance,
how pitiful the pride, that could prevent us from submitting to a
partial evil for the sake of a general good! In fine, if a comprehensive
survey enjoined no such sacrifice, and even if all that the unthinking,
the malevolent, and the desperate, all that the deceivers and the
deceived, have conjointly urged at this time against the House of
Lowther, were literally true, you would be cautious how you sought a
remedy for aristocratic oppression, by throwing yourselves into the arms
of a flaming democracy!

Government and civil Society are things of infinite complexity, and rash
Politicians are the worst enemies of mankind; because it is mainly
through them that rational liberty has made so little progress in the
world. You have heard of a Profession to which the luxury of modern
times has given birth, that of Landscape-Gardeners, or Improvers of
Pleasure-grounds. A competent Practitioner in this elegant art begins by
considering every object, that he finds in the place where he is called
to exercise his skill, as having a right to remain, till the contrary be
proved. If it be a deformity he asks whether a slight alteration may not
convert it into a beauty; and he destroys nothing till he has convinced
himself by reflection that no alteration, no diminution or addition, can
make it ornamental. Modern Reformers reverse this judicious maxim. If a
thing is before them, so far from deeming that it has on that account a
claim to continue and be deliberately dealt with, its existence with
them is a sufficient warrant for its destruction. Institutions are to be
subverted, Practices radically altered, and Measures to be reversed.
All men are to change their places, not because the men are
objectionable, or the place is injurious, but because certain Pretenders
are eager to be at work, being tired of both. Some are forward, through
pruriency of youthful talents--and Greybeards hobble after them, in whom
number of years is a cloak for poverty of experience. Some who have much
leisure, because every affair of their own has withered under their
mismanagement, are eager to redeem their credit, by stirring gratis for
the public;--others, having risen a little in the world, take
_swimmingly_ to the trade of factious Politics, on the