sentiments have rushed in to fill up the void produced by the previous annihilation of common sense, wisdom, and humanity!”
I have so far been a little hard on poets and reformers. Lest I should be thought to have taken a particular spite to them, I will try to make them the amende honorable by turning to a passage in the writings of one who neither is nor ever pretended to be a poet or a reformer, but the antithesis of both, an accomplished man of the world, a courtier, and a wit, and who has endeavoured to move the previous question on all schemes of fanciful improvement, and all plans of practical reform, by the following declaration. It is in itself a finished common-place; and may serve as a test whether that sort of smooth, verbal reasoning which passes current because it excites no one idea in the mind, is much freer from inherent absurdity than the wildest paradox.
“My lot,” says Mr. Canning in the conclusion of his Liverpool speech, “is cast under the British Monarchy. Under that I have lived; under that I have seen my country flourish[1]; under that I have seen it enjoy as great a share of prosperity, of happiness, and
- ↑ Troja fuit.
