7
mit that I should follow, in detail, even the most recent of those changes; but take such instance as the hazard of memory, or the very shallowest chance-reference can supply; take them entirely from among facts within the cognizance of living men; and you shall crowd into a few pages, such reversal of mercantile, political, social, and religious rights, as have altered the destinies of the entire population of England. Our children are born to the tranquil inheritance of privileges that were struggled for in our time, with fury, ferment, and heart-break. They stand on conquered ground; ground that was inch by inch a battle-field to their fathers. They exchange among themselves as current and common coin, those treasures of Liberty that freighted our argosies in stormier days; when they who watched the doubtful chance, knew not if they should witness the sinking of the wreck, or cheer our entrance to the haven. Some of the captains of those days are at rest; but some are yet among us; witnesses of the folly of those who would set a changeless limit, to that which of all things is most susceptible of change in the onward progress of a nation—the code by which its social interests are governed.
Where is the great question of Roman Catholic Emancipations? Where are the restrictions on trade? The first, already seems to our children almost a matter of History; yet there are living men who heard Canning give Brougham the lie direct in the English Senate, when that question trembled in the balance; and the brilliant Advocate of many causes, in the keen anxiety of the hour, taunted the new Minister with exchanging for the triumphs of office the support he had previously afforded it. The other is a change of yesterday. Fresh, in the mourning memory of friends, is the death of that leader who moored the vessel of the State in an untried anchorage, with the scornful words that he refused to direct its course "by observations taken in 1842," and that he would feel less humiliated by the charge of inconsistency, than by any supposed fear of acknowledging that he had altered his opinions.
