Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/342

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the rights and liberties of mankind. Thus Mr. Southey sings in laureat strains:—

"One fate attends the altar and the throne."

Yet the same peremptory versifier qualifies the Church of Rome with the epithets of "that Harlot old,—

"The same that is, that was, and is to be,"—

without giving us to understand whether in Popish countries, the best and most "single-hearted" portion of Europe, the same lofty and abstracted doctrine holds good. This uncivil laureat has indeed gone so far in one of his "songs of delight and rustical roundelays," as to give the Princess Charlotte the following critical advice:—

"Bear thou that great Eliza in thy mind.
Who from a wreck this fabric edified,
And her who, to a nation's voice resigned,
When Rome in hope her wiliest engines plied,
By her own heart and righteous Heav'n approved,
Stood up against the Father whom she lov'd.
"

These lines seem to glance at contingent rebellion, at speculative treason: they have a squint, a strong cast of the eye, that way. But it is neither our business nor inclination to point out passages in prose or verse, for the animadversion of the Attorney-General. Mr. Croker, we fear, however, must have been greatly scandalised at this specimen of his friend's original mode of thinking for himself in such delicate matters as the cashiering of Kings and encouraging their daughters, as in duty bound, to stand up against them whenever Mr. Southey pleases. Launce could not have been more put to it when his dog misbehaved "among the gentlemanlike dogs at the Duke's table." than the Admiralty Secretary at this faux-pas of Mr. Southey's reformed Jacobin Muse. It was shewing the lady's breeding to some purpose. This gratuitous piece of advice to a Protest-