ple, essential to the welfare of
nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the
other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying
power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no
progress; the other the ballast, without which there would be small
safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the
accession of the House of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities
seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not better serve
the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenuously supporting
the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could not better
prove his hatred of revolutions than by attacking a government to which
a revolution had given birth. Both came by degrees to attach more
importance to the means than to the end. Both were thrown into unnatural
situations; and both, like animals transported to an uncongenial
climate, languished and degenerated. The Tory, removed from the sunshine
of the court, was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking
in the rays of royal favor, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia.

Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a
human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted,
stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them,
and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured
into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself
into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The
body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his
body. At length the serpent stood up a man and spake; the man sank down
a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this was the
transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the
two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe,
till at length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the
Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power.

It is true that, when these degenerate politicians discussed questions
merely speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions
relating to the conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to
differ as their grandfathers had differed. The Whig who, during three
Parliaments, had never given one vote against the court, and who was
ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff o