The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838Gillman, James
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The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838
Gillman, James
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Sir, we have been told that Jacobinism is extinct, or at least dying.
We have been asked too, what we mean by Jacobinism? Sir, to employ
arguments solely to the purposes of popular irritation is a branch of
Jacobinism? It is with pain, Sir, that I have heard arguments
manifestly of this tendency, and having heard them, I hear with
redoubled suspicion of the assertions, that Jacobinism is extinct. By
what softer name shall we characterise the attempts to connect the war
by false facts and false reasoning with accidental scarcity? By what
softer name shall we characterise appeals to the people on a subject
which touches their feelings, and precludes their reasoning? It is
this, Sir, which makes me say, that those whose eyes are now open to
the horrors and absurdities of Jacobinism are nevertheless still
influenced by their early partiality to it. A somewhat of the
'feeling' lurks behind, even when all the 'principle' has been
sincerely abjured. If this be the case with mere spectators, who have
but sympathised in the distance, and have caught disease only by
'looking on', how much more must this hold good of the actors? And
with what increased caution and jealousy ought we not to listen to the
affirmation, that Jacobinism is obsolete even in France? The
honourable gentleman next charges me with an unbeseeming haughtiness
of tone, in deeming that the House had pledged itself to the present
measure by their late vote for the continuance of the war. This is not
accurate. I did not deem the House pledged: I only assigned reasons of
'probability', that having voted for the continuance of war, they
would deem themselves inconsistent if they refused assent to those
measures by which the objects of the war were most likely to be
realised. My argument was, not that the House had pledged itself to
this measure directly, but only as far as they must perceive it to be
a means of bringing the war to that conclusion to which they have
pledged themselves: for unless gendemen will tell me, that though they
cannot prevent votes in favour of the war, they will yet endeavour to
palsy the arm of the country in the conduct of it; and though they
cannot stifle the vast majority of suffrages to the plan, they will
yet endeavour to way-lay it in its execution; unless the gentlemen
will tell me so themselves, I will not impute it to them. (Here Mr.
Pitt made a short reply to some observations of Mr. Bouverie in the
early part of the debate, and then proceeded.) It was said of himself
and friends (and often said) by a gentleman who does not now commonly
honour us with his presence here, 'We are the minority who represent
the opinions of the country.' In my opinion a state of universal
suffrage, formal or virtual, in which, nevertheless, the few represent
the many, is a true picture of Jacobinism. But, however this may be,
if smallness of number is to become a mark and pledge of genuine
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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