an, at the time of his
inflicting the death-wound of that Parliament, produced at once the
shortest and the grandest funeral oration that ever was or could be made
upon the departure of a great court of magistracy. Though he had himself
smarted under its lash, as every one knows who knows his history, (and
he was elevated to dreadful notoriety in history,) yet, when he
pronounced the death sentence upon that Parliament, and inflicted the
mortal wound, he declared that his motives for doing it were merely
political, and that their hands were as pure as those of justice itself,
which they administered. A great and glorious exit, my Lords, of a great
and glorious body! And never was a eulogy pronounced upon a body more
deserved. They were persons, in nobility of rank, in amplitude of
fortune, in weight of authority, in depth of learning, inferior to few
of those that hear me. My Lords, it was but the other day that they
submitted their necks to the axe; but their honor was unwounded. Their
enemies, the persons who sentenced them to death, were lawyers full of
subtlety, they were enemies full of malice; yet lawyers full of
subtlety, and enemies full of malice, as they were, they did not dare to
reproach them with having supported the wealthy, the great, and
powerful, and of having oppressed the weak and feeble, in any of their
judgments, or of having perverted justice, in any one instance whatever,
through favor, through interest, or cabal.

My Lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! But if you stand,--and
stand I trust you will, together with the fortune of this ancient
monarchy, together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and
illustrious kingdom,--may you stand as unimpeached in honor as in power!
May you stand, not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of
virtue, as a security for virtue! May you stand long, and long stand the
terror of tyrants! May you stand the refuge of afflicted nations! May
you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable
justice!

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS,

AND

INDEX.

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.

VOL. I.

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A Vindication of Natural Society: or, A View of the Miseries and
Evils arising to Mankind from every Species of Artificial Society 1

A Philosophical Inquiry into th