so very favorable to the true balance of power in Europe as
this author imagines it would be, and to the commerce of nations? I
greatly differ from him. I perhaps shall prove in a future letter, with
the political map of Europe before my eye, that the general liberty and
independence of the great Christian commonwealth could not exist with
such a dismemberment, unless it were followed (as probably enough it
would) by the dismemberment of every other considerable country in
Europe: and what convulsions would arise in the constitution of every
state in Europe it is not easy to conjecture in the mode, impossible not
to foresee in the mass. Speculate on, good my Lord! provided you ground
no part of your politics on such unsteady speculations. But as to any
practice to ensue, are we not yet cured of the malady of speculating on
the circumstances of things totally different from those in which we
live and move? Five years has this monster continued whole and entire in
all its members. Far from falling into a division within itself, it is
augmented by tremendous additions. We cannot bear to look that frightful
form in the face, as it is, and in its own actual shape. We dare not be
wise; we have not the fortitude of rational fear; we will not provide
for our future safety; but we endeavor to hush the cries of present
timidity by guesses at what may be hereafter,--

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow."

Is this our style of talk, when

"all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death"?

Talk not to me of what swarm of republics may come from this carcass! It
is no carcass. Now, now, whilst we are talking, it is full of life and
action. What say you to the Regicide empire of to-day? Tell me, my
friend, do its terrors appall you into an abject submission, or rouse
you to a vigorous defence? But do--I no longer prevent it--do go
on,--look into futurity. Has this empire nothing to alarm you when all
struggle against it is over, when mankind shall be silent before it,
when all nations shall be disarmed, disheartened, and _truly divided_ by
a treacherous peace? Its malignity towards humankind will subsist with
undiminished heat, whilst the means of giving it effect must proceed,
and every means of resisting it must inevitably and rapidly decline.

Against alarm on their politic and military empire these are the
writer's sedative remedies. But he leaves us sadly in the dark with
regard to the mor