( 8 )
Revolutions are sudden to the unthinking only. Political Disturbances happen not without their warning Harbingers. Strange Rumblings and confused Noises still precede these earthquakes and hurricanes of the moral World. In the eventful years previous to a Revolution, the Philosopher as he passes up and down the walks of Life, examines with an anxious eye the motives and manners, that characterise those who seem destined to be the Actors in it. To delineate with a free hand the different Classes of our present Oppositionists to "Things as they are,"—may be a delicate, but it is a necessary Task—in order that we may enlighten, or at least beware of, the misguided men who have enlisted themselves under the banners of Freedom from no Principles or from bad ones—whether they be those, "Who extol things vulgar'—and
And know not whom, but as one leads the other"—or whether those,
Whose end is private Hate, not help to Freedom,
In her way to Virtue adverse and turbulent."
The first Class among the professed Friends of Liberty is composed of Men, who unaccustomed to the labor of thorough Investigation and not particularly oppressed by the Burthen of State, are yet impelled by their feelings to disapprove of its grosser depravities, and prepared to give an indolent Vote in favor of Reform. Their sensibilities unbraced by the co-operation of fixed principles, they offer no sacrifices to the divinity of active Virtue. Their political Opinions depend with weather-cock
