Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection that I
can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered
out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most
miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his
talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than
he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching
his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his
imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.
Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him
from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the
genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be
a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of
misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.

As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille
(and his silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his
readers with refections on supposed facts distorted into real
falsehoods, I will give, since he has not, some account of the
circumstances which preceded that transaction. They will serve to
show that less mischief could scarcely have accompanied such an event
when considered with the treacherous and hostile aggravations of the
enemies of the Revolution.

The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous scene than
what the city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille,
and for two days before and after, nor perceive the possibility of
its quieting so soon. At a distance this transaction has appeared
only as an act of heroism standing on itself, and the close political
connection it had with the Revolution is lost in the brilliancy of