ed
to heat the nation till some time after the conclusion of the American
War, when all at once it fell a calm--Execration exchanged itself for
applause, and Court popularity sprung up like a mushroom in a night.

To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to observe that
there are two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by merit,
and the other by resentment. As the Nation had formed itself into
two parties, and each was extolling the merits of its parliamentary
champions for and against prerogative, nothing could operate to give
a more general shock than an immediate coalition of the champions
themselves. The partisans of each being thus suddenly left in the lurch,
and mutually heated with disgust at the measure, felt no other relief
than uniting in a common execration against both. A higher stimulus
or resentment being thus excited than what the contest on prerogatives
occasioned, the nation quitted all former objects of rights and wrongs,
and sought only that of gratification. The indignation at the Coalition
so effectually superseded the indignation against the Court as to
extinguish it; and without any change of principles on the part of the
Court, the same people who had reprobated its despotism united with it
to revenge themselves on the Coalition Parliament. The case was not,
which they liked best, but which they hated most; and the least hated
passed for love. The dissolution of the Coalition Parliament, as it
afforded the means of gratifying the resentment of the Nation, could not
fail to be popular; and from hence arose the popularity of the Court.

Transitions of this kind exhibit a Nation under the government of
temper, instead of a fixed and steady principle; and having once
committed itself, however rashly, it feels itself urged along to justify
by continuance its first proceeding. Measures which at other times
it would censure it now approves, and acts persuasion upon itself to
suffocate its judgment.

On the return of a new Parliament, the new Minister, Mr. Pitt, found
himself in a secure majority; and the Nation gave him credit, not out
of regard to himself, but because it had resolved to do it out of
resentment to another. He introduced himself to public notice by
a proposed Reform of Parliament, which in its operation would have
amounted to a public justification of corruption. The Nation was to be
at the expense of buying up the rotten boroughs, whereas it ought to
punish the