all men will
gradually get reminded of it, perhaps terribly to their cost; and the
sooner they all lay it to heart again, I think it will be the better.
For in spite of our oblivion of it, the thing remains forever true; nor
is there any Constitution or body of Constitutions, were they clothed
with never such venerabilities and general acceptabilities, that avails
to deliver a Nation from the consequences of forgetting it. Nature,
I assure you, does forevermore remember it; and a hundred British
Constitutions are but as a hundred cobwebs between her and the penalty
she levies for forgetting it. Tell me what kind of man governs a People,
you tell me, with much exactness, what the net sum-total of social worth
in that People has for some time been. Whether _they_ have loved
the phylacteries or the eternal noblenesses; whether they have been
struggling heavenward like eagles, brothers of the radiances, or groping
owl-like with horn-eyed diligence, catching mice and balances at their
banker's,--poor devils, you will see it all in that one fact. A fact
long prepared beforehand; which, if it is a peaceably received one, must
have been acquiesced in, judged to be "best," by the poor mousing owls,
intent only to have a large balance at their banker's and keep a whole
skin.

Such sordid populations, which were long blind to Heaven's light,
are getting themselves burnt up rapidly, in these days, by
street-insurrection and Hell-fire;--as is indeed inevitable, my esteemed
M'Croudy! Light, accept the blessed light, if you will have it when
Heaven vouchsafes. You refuse? You prefer Delolme on the British
Constitution, the Gospel according to M'Croudy, and a good balance at
your banker's? Very well: the "light" is more and more withdrawn; and
for some time you have a general dusk, very favorable for catching
mice; and the opulent owlery is very "happy," and well-off at its
banker's;--and furthermore, by due sequence, infallible as the
foundations of the Universe and Nature's oldest law, the light _returns_
on you, condensed, this time, into _lightning_, which there is not any
skin whatever too thick for taking in!

No. IV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET. [April 15, 1850.]

In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there
is one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our
modern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to
anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other w