Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
counterbalance each other, this is a reason, not for keeping both, but
for getting rid of both together. At present you close against men of
talents that broad, that noble entrance which belongs to them, and which
ought to stand wide open to them; and in exchange you open to them a bye
entrance, low and narrow, always obscure, often filthy, through which,
too often, they can pass only by crawling on their hands and knees, and
from which they too often emerge sullied with stains never to be washed
away. But take the most favourable case. Suppose that the member who
sits for a nomination borough owes his seat to a man of virtue and
honour, to a man whose service is perfect freedom, to a man who would
think himself degraded by any proof of gratitude which might degrade
his nominee. Yet is it nothing that such a member comes into this House
wearing the badge, though not feeling the chain of servitude? Is it
nothing that he cannot speak of his independence without exciting a
smile? Is it nothing that he is considered, not as a Representative, but
as an adventurer? This is what your system does for men of genius. It
admits them to political power, not as, under better institutions, they
would be admitted to power, erect, independent, unsullied; but by
means which corrupt the virtue of many, and in some degree diminish the
authority of all. Could any system be devised, better fitted to pervert
the principles and break the spirit of men formed to be the glory of
their country? And, can we mention no instance in which this system has
made such men useless, or worse than useless, to the country of which
their talents were the ornament, and might, in happier circumstances,
have been the salvation? Ariel, the beautiful and kindly Ariel, doing
the bidding of the loathsome and malignant Sycorax, is but a faint
type of genius enslaved by the spells, and employed in the drudgery of
corruption--
"A spirit too delicate
To act those earthy and abhorred commands."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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