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of absolute sway over his weak mind, and timid virtue, and of a character, the reverse of his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her in ordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d Ar- tois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation ; and her opposition to it, her inflexible per- verseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the Guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and ca lamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no Queen, mere would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked, nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles of their social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor con demn. I am not prepared to say, that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is unamena ble to its punishment : nor yet, that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right, and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the King, many thought him wilfully criminal ; many, that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of Kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die man all. I should not have voted with this portion of die legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding. In this way, no void would have been created, courting the usurpa tion of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those enor mities which demoralised the nations of the world, and destroyed, and is yet to destroy, millions and millions of its inhabitants. There are three epochs in history, signalized by the total extinction of national morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting himself: The next, the successors of the first Caesar : The third, our own age. This was begun by the partition of Po land, followed by that of the treaty of Pilnitz ; next the conflagra-
