ABSTRACT
These addresses were delivered to a popular assembly in the month of february last. They are eloquent harangues on interesting political topics: the first, on the general subject of liberty; the second, on the nature and consequences of the present war. The orator asserts the rights of free citizens with confidence; but it is not the confidence of an unprincipled demagogue, who, like Robespierre, ‘despotises in all the pomp of patriotism, and masquerades on the bloody stage of revolution, a Caligula with the cap of liberty on his head’. The ends which he pursues are reformation; but the instruments, which he wishes to employ, are only those of truth and reason. In order to render men susceptible of their rights, his plan is, to teach them their duties: and he would prepare them to maintain the one, and practise the other, by instilling into their minds the principles of religion. The philanthropic spirit, and the superiour talents of this writer, will be seen in the following description of that small but glorious band, whom he distinguishes by the title of ‘thinking and dispassionate patriots’.
These are the men who have encouraged the sympathetic passions till they have become irresistible habits, and made their duty a necessary part of their self interest, by the long continued cultivation of that moral taste which derives our most exquisite pleasures from the contemplation of possible perfection, and proportionate pain from the perception of existing depravation. Accustomed to regard all the affairs of man as a process, they never hurry and they never pause. Theirs is not that twilight of political knowledge which gives us just light enough to place one foot before the other; as they advance the scene still opens upon them, and they press right onward with a vast and various landscape of existence around them. Calmness and energy mark all their actions. Convinced that vice originates not in the man, but in the surrounding circumstances; not in the heart, but in the understanding; he is hopeless concerning no one—to 26correct a vice or generate a virtuous conduct he pollutes not his hands with the scourge of coercion; but by endeavouring to alter the circumstances would remove, or by strengthening the intellect, disarms, the temptation. The unhappy children of vice and folly, whose tempers are adverse to their own happiness as well as to the happiness of others, will at times awaken a natural pang; but he looks forward with gladdened heart to that glorious period when justice shall have established the universal fraternity of love. These soul-ennobling views bestow the virtues which they anticipate. He whose mind is habitually imprest with them soars above the present state of humanity, and may be justly said to dwell in the presence of the Most High.
would the forms Of servile custom cramp the patriot’s power? Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth Of ignorance and rapine, bow him down To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear? Lo! he appeals to nature, to the winds And rolling waves, the sun’s unwearied course, The elements and seasons—all declare For what the Eternal Maker has ordain’d The powers of man: we feel within ourselves His energy divine: he tells the heart He meant, he made us to behold and love What he beholds and loves, the general orb Of Life and Being—to be great like him, Beneficent and active. AKENSIDE