ture crimes. It is in the relaxation of security, it
is in the expansion of prosperity, it is in the hour of dilatation of
the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the
real character of men is discerned. If there is any good in them, it
appears then or never. Even wolves and tigers, when gorged with their
prey, are safe and gentle. It is at such times that noble minds give all
the reins to their good nature. They indulge their genius even to
intemperance, in kindness to the afflicted, in generosity to the
conquered,--forbearing insults, forgiving injuries, overpaying benefits.
Full of dignity themselves, they respect dignity in all, but they feel
it sacred in the unhappy. But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of
unmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell
with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious
splendor, and shine out in the full lustre of their native villany and
baseness. It is in that season that no man of sense or honor can be
mistaken for one of them. It was in such a season, for them of political
ease and security, though their people were but just emerged from actual
famine, and were ready to be plunged into a gulf of penury and beggary,
that your philosophic lords chose, with an ostentatious pomp and luxury,
to feast an incredible number of idle and thoughtless people, collected
with art and pains from all quarters of the world. They constructed a
vast amphitheatre in which they raised a species of pillory.[3] On this
pillory they set their lawful king and queen, with an insulting figure
over their heads. There they exposed these objects of pity and respect
to all good minds to the derision of an unthinking and unprincipled
multitude, degenerated even from the versatile tenderness which marks
the irregular and capricious feelings of the populace. That their cruel
insult might have nothing wanting to complete it, they chose the
anniversary of that day in which they exposed the life of their prince
to the most imminent dangers and the vilest indignities, just following
the instant when the assassins, whom they had hired without owning,
first openly took up arms against their king, corrupted his guards,
surprised his castle, butchered some of the poor invalids of his
garrison, murdered his governor, and, like wild beasts, tore to pieces
the chief magistrate of his capital city, on account of his fidelity to
his service.

Till