A Comparative Display of the Different Opinions of the Most Distinguished British Writers on the Subject of the French Revolution: Followed by a Review, and Comparison with Events, Volume 3P. Stuart, 1811 - France |
Common terms and phrases
10th of August abuses amongst antient appeared argument Arthur Young assignats authority Brissot Britain British Burke cause Chauvelin conduct consequences consider constitution controul Convention Court danger debt Declaration decree despotism destroy doubt effect election England equally established Europe evil Executive existence experience factions facts force France French Constitution French Revolution honour House of Commons House of Peers human insurrection interest Jacobin Jacobin Club justice King kingdom legislative liberty Lord Lord Erskine Lord Grenville Mackintosh mankind means ment mind Ministers monarchy Monit motives murder nature never object opinion Paris Parliament party peace persons phemed Pitt political present preserve Princess de Lamballe principles produce radical Reform reason representation Republic republicans rotten boroughs ruin shews spirit taxes theory thing tion tional truth tyranny universal suffrage vernment vote whilst wisdom Writers
Popular passages
Page 58 - They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant...
Page 56 - I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest cut, to that horrible and disgustful situation. Already there appears a poverty of conception, a coarseness and vulgarity, in all the proceedings of the Assembly and of all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and brutal.
Page 58 - ... human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence ; and, to crown all, the paper securities of new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognised species that represent the lasting, conventional credit of mankind...
Page 65 - If I might venture to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris, I mean to experience, I should tell you, that in my course I have known, and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men ; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
Page 66 - Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils, which are so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish.
Page 64 - The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance ; but his movements towards it ought to be deliberate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought by social means. There mind must conspire With mind. Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at.
Page 54 - When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us ; nor can we know distinctly to what port we steer.
Page 60 - ... and bathing in tears and plunging in poverty and distress thousands of worthy men and worthy families. Their cruelty has not even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings, throughout their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain from the beginning.
Page 54 - We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion.
Page 61 - DIFFICULTY is a severe instructor, set over us by the Supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better, too. Pater ipse colendi, haudfacilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill ; our antagonist is our helper.