effervescence would terminate in a happy calm--a
mild but energetic government; and he looked forward to prosperous
times, when the remembrance of past misfortunes should correct national
manners, and produce a general improvement in the minds and feelings of
men. Neville was always sanguine; and Dr. Beaumont confessed that all
things seemed to tend to the restoration of monarchy; yet, with the
prescience of a man long accustomed to calamity, he doubted whether even
that desired event would speedily repair the deep wound which England
had sustained.

"We shall," said he, "receive with our Prince the inestimable blessings
of our old laws and form of government; but as our troubles have served
rather to show us the necessity, than to prevent the abuse, of the
prerogative, its limits continue undefined, and we shall still too much
depend on the personal character of the King. It were well if the
situation in which we now stand would allow us to propose such
conditions as would make the duties of King and subject plain and easy,
before we invite our Prince to resume the sceptre of his ancestors, as
it would prevent the mistakes into which his father fell, from a
misconception of the bounds of sovereign power, derived from the
arbitrary precedent set by the House of Tudor. But our divisions prevent
us from claiming those advantages which would result from wisdom,
moderation, and unanimity. We fly to the King as to a healer of our
dissensions. A keen feeling of our sorrows and offences has raised the
sensibility of the nation to such a pitch, that it will sooner make
concessions than propose restraints, and rather throw its liberties
before the throne than suggest an abridgement of its splendour. We shall
therefore depend, I fear, upon his mercy for the existence of the sacred
inheritance whose very shadow was so pertinaciously defended from the
approaches of his father. I trust his personal virtues are what his
friends report. He has been educated in adversity, a good school; but
are not his advisers men who have endured too much to be dispassionate
and liberal? They have suffered in a good cause: if, when restored to
power, they abstain from indulging any vindictive propensity, they will
be saints as well as confessors; but, considering their long and
grievous provocations, is not this requiring too much of human frailty?

"Consider too, my dear friends, (and let the reflection allay your
sanguine expectations of another g