Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and SpeechesBurke, Edmund
General
Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1789
most comprehensive relation, our country, is gone.
It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course
we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the
character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures; but we
are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is
become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This Constitution in
former days used to be the admiration and the envy of the world; it was
the pattern for politicians; the theme of the eloquent; the meditation of
the philosopher in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was
their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, for it they were ready
to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly covered by partiality,
and partly borne by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgotten,
its faults are now forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every
artifice of representation. It is despised and rejected of men; and
every device and invention of ingenuity, or idleness, set up in
opposition or in preference to it. It is to this humour, and it is to
the measures growing out of it, that I set myself (I hope not alone) in
the most determined opposition. Never before did we at any time in this
country meet upon the theory of our frame of government, to sit in
judgment on the Constitution of our country, to call it as a delinquent
before us, and to accuse it of every defect and every vice; to see
whether it, an object of our veneration, even our adoration, did or did
not accord with a preconceived scheme in the minds of certain gentlemen.
Cast your eyes on the journals of Parliament. It is for fear of losing
the inestimable treasure we have, that I do not venture to game it out of
my hands for the vain hope of improving it. I look with filial reverence
on the Constitution of my country, and never will cut it in pieces, and
put it into the kettle of any magician, in order to boil it, with the
puddle of their compounds, into youth and vigour. On the contrary, I
will drive away such pretenders; I will nurse its venerable age, and with
lenient arts extend a parent's breath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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