When I reflect on the event which these men have so indecently
commemorated, and the horrors which succeeded it, I feel something more
than a detestation for republicanism. The undefined notions of liberty
imbibed from poets and historians, fade away--my reverence for names long
consecrated in our annals abates--and the sole object of my political
attachment is the English constitution, as tried by time and undeformed
by the experiments of visionaries and impostors. I begin to doubt either
the sense or honesty of most of those men who are celebrated as the
promoters of changes of government which have chiefly been adopted rather
with a view to indulge a favourite theory, than to relieve a people from
any acknowledged oppression. A wise or good man would distrust his
judgment on a subject so momentous, and perhaps the best of such
reformers were but enthusiasts. Shaftesbury calls enthusiasm an honest
passion; yet we have seen it is a very dangerous one: and we may perhaps
learn, from the example of France, not to venerate principles which we do
not admire in practice.*

* I do not imply that the French Revolution was the work of
enthusiasts, but that the enthusiasm of Rousseau produced a horde of
Brissots, Marats, Robespierres, &c. who speculated on the
affectation of it. The Abbe Sieyes, whose views were directed to a
change of Monarchs, not a dissolution of the monarchy, and who in
promoting a revolution did not mean to found a republic, has
ventured to doubt both the political genius of Rousseau, and the
honesty of his sectaries. These truths from the Abbe are not the
less so for our knowing they would not be avowed if it answered his
purpose to conceal them.--_"Helas! un ecrivain justement celebre qui
seroit mort de douleur s'il avoit connu ses disciples; un philosophe
aussi parfait de sentiment que foible de vues, n'a-t-il pas dans ses