It must flow out of a duty, and it is under that name that the
process of humanization ought to begin and to be conducted throughout.
* * * * *
Thirty years ago, and more, Pitt availed himself, with great political
dexterity, of the apprehension, which Burke and the conduct of some of the
clubs in London had excited, and endeavoured to inspire into the nation a
panic of property. Fox, instead of exposing the absurdity of this by
showing the real numbers and contemptible weakness of the disaffected, fell
into Pitt's trap, and was mad enough to exaggerate even Pitt's surmises.
The consequence was, a very general apprehension throughout the country of
an impending revolution, at a time when, I will venture to say, the people
were more heart-whole than they had been for a hundred years previously.
After I had travelled in Sicily and Italy, countries where there were real
grounds for fear, I became deeply impressed with the difference. Now, after
a long continuance of high national glory and influence, when a revolution
of a most searching and general character is actually at work, and the old
institutions of the country are all awaiting their certain destruction or
violent modification--the people at large are perfectly secure, sleeping or
gambolling on the very brink of a volcano.
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