derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders.

BROUGHAM.

In all the despotisms of the East, it has been observed that the
further any part of the empire is removed from the capital, the more do
its inhabitants enjoy some sort of rights and privileges: the more
inefficacious is the power of the monarch; and the more feeble and
easily decayed is the organisation of the government.

You perceive that Brougham has transferred Burke's thought to his own
page: but will you not also perceive how pitiably, by dissolving Burke's
vivid particulars into smooth generalities, he has enervated its hold on
the mind?

'This particularising style,' comments Mr Payne, 'is the essence of
Poetry; and in Prose it is impossible not to be struck with the energy it
produces. Brougham's passage is excellent in its way: but it pales before
the flashing lights of Burke's sentences. The best instances of this
energy of style, he adds, are to be found in the classical writers of the
seventeenth century. 'When South says, "An Aristotle was but the rubbish
of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise," he communicates
more effectually the notion of the difference between the intellect of
fallen and of unfallen humanity than in all the philosophy of his sermons
put together.'

You may agree with me, or you may not, that South in this passage is
expounding trash; but you will agree with Mr Payne and me that he uttered
it vividly.