Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/408

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360
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE.

so will it he devoid of the time servingness of temporizing reform—which in its deliberative capacity, having investigated the state of the government of England, shall oppose those parts of it, by intellectual force, which will not bear the touch-stone of reason.

For information respecting the principles which I possess, and the nature and spirit of the association which I propose, I refer the reader to a small pamphlet, which I shall publish on the subject, in the course of a few days.

I have published the above address (written in England) in the cheapest possible form, and have taken pains that the remarks which it contains, should be intelligible to the most uneducated minds. Men are not slaves and brutes, because they are poor: it has been the policy of the thoughtless, or wicked of the higher ranks, (as a proof of the decay, of which policy, I am happy to see the rapid success of a comparatively enlightened system of education,) to conceal from the poor the truths which I have endeavoured to teach them. In doing so, I have but translated my thoughts into another language; and as language is only useful as it communicates ideas, I shall think my style so far good, as it is successful as a means to[1] bring about the end which I desire, on any occasion, to accomplish.

A Limerick Paper, which I suppose, professes to support certain loyal and John Bullish principles of freedom—has, in an essay for advocating the Liberty of the Press,

  1. The word to is repeated in the original.