They
seem rather such as ought to be expected from those grand compounders in
politics who shorten the road to their degrees in the state, and have a
certain inward fanatical assurance and illumination upon all
subjects,--upon the credit of which, one of their doctors has thought
fit, with great applause, and greater success, to caution the Assembly
not to attend to old men, or to any persons who value themselves upon
their experience. I suppose all the ministers of state must qualify, and
take this test,--wholly abjuring the errors and heresies of experience
and observation. Every man has his own relish; but I think, if I could
not attain to the wisdom, I would at least preserve something of the
stiff and peremptory dignity of age. These gentlemen deal in
regeneration: but at any price I should hardly yield my rigid fibres to
be regenerated by them,--nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall
in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental
sounds of their barbarous metaphysics.[128] _Si isti mihi largiantur ut
repuerascam, et in eorum cunis vagiam, valde recusem!_
The imbecility of any part of the puerile and pedantic system which they
call a Constitution cannot be laid open without discovering the utter
insufficiency and mischief of every other part with which it comes in
contact, or that bears any the remotest relation to it.
Pages:
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587