The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 03 (of 12)Hazlitt, William
General
The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 03 (of 12)
Hazlitt, William
English essays -- 19th century
another, after all his vapouring about the liberties of the people and
the independence of states; learned and lofty, sad and solemn, on the
Convention of Paris; looking big at the imposing attitude of Russia, and
going stark staring mad at the application of the torture and the
thumb-screw to the brave Cortes; gnashing his teeth, rolling his eyes,
and dashing his head against the wall, at the total falsification, and
overthrow of every one of his hopes and his prognostics in every corner
of Europe where the Allies have got footing, and there is no corner
which they have not got under their feet, like a toad under a harrow;
and roaring out like Perillus’s bull against the partitions and
repartitions of the coalesced Sovereigns, their invasions, conquests,
seizures, transfers of men and lands; the murders, massacres,
imprisonments, pillagings, frauds, treacheries, breaches of written
treaties and of verbal promises; usurpations, pretensions, and overt
acts of legitimacy, since it was restored to itself, to one and the
self-same tune that he used to lift up his voice, ‘his most sweet
voice,’ against Bonaparte’s wars and conquests, till the Stock Exchange
was stunned with the clamour, and Mr. Walter well-nigh fainted! The only
fault of this account is, that not one word of it is true.
‘Thy stone, oh Sisyphus, stands still:
‘Ixion rests upon his wheel!’
_Once a Jacobin and always a Jacobin_, is a maxim, which,
notwithstanding Mr. Coleridge’s see-saw reasoning to the contrary, we
hold to be true, even of him to this day. _Once an Apostate and always
an Apostate_, we hold to be equally true; and the reason why the last is
true, is that the first is so. A person who is what is called a Jacobin
(and we apply this term in its vulgarest sense to the persons here
meant) that is, who has shaken off certain well known prejudices with
respect to kings or priests, or nobles, cannot so easily resume them
again, whenever his pleasure or his convenience may prompt him to
attempt it. And it is because he cannot resume them again in good
earnest, that he endeavours to make up for his want of sincerity by
violence, either by canting till he makes your soul sicken, like the
author of _The Friend_, or by raving like a Bedlamite, as does the
Editor of _The Times_. Why does he abuse Bonaparte and call him an
upstart? Because he is himself, if he is any thing at all, an upstart;
and because Bonaparte having got the start of him one way, he turned
back to gain the race another, by trying for a court-livery, and to
recommend himself to the house of Brunswick, by proclaiming the
principles of the house of Stuart. Why does he make such a route about
Kings and Queens, and Dukes and Duchesses, and old women of all ages and
both sexes? Because he cares no more for them in his heart than we do.
How should he? ‘What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?’ What motive has
he, or what ground of passion, that he should
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