s, a Friedrich, a Chatham and some others, have it for their
Life-Element. Which, I often think, is their principal misfortune
with Posterity; said Life-Element having gone to such an unutterable
condition for gods and men.

"One other thing surprises us in those Old Pamphlets," says my
Constitutional Friend: "How the phrase, 'Cause of Liberty' ever and anon
turns up, with great though extinct emphasis, evidently sincere. After
groping, one is astonished to find it means Support of the House of
Austria; keeping of the Hapsburgs entire in their old Possessions
among mankind! That, to our great-grandfathers, was the 'Cause of
Liberty;'--said 'Cause' being, with us again, Electoral Suffrage and
other things; a notably different definition, perhaps still wider of the
mark.

"Our great-grandfathers lived in perpetual terror that they would be
devoured by France; that French ambition would overset the Celestial
Balance, and proceed next to eat the British Nation. Stand upon your
guard then, one would have said: Look to your ships, to your defences,
to your industries; to your virtues first of all,--your VIRTUTES,
manhoods, conformities to the Divine Law appointed you; which are
the great and indeed sole strength to any Man or Nation! Discipline
yourselves, wisely, in all kinds; more and more, till there be no
anarchic fibre left in you. Unanarchic, disciplined at all points, you
might then, I should say, with supreme composure, let France, and the
whole World at its back, try what they could do upon you and the unique
little Island you are so lucky as to live in?--Foolish mortals: what
Potentiality of Battle, think you (not against France only, but against
Satanas and the Ministers of Chaos generally), would a poor Friedrich
Wilhelm, not to speak of better, have got out of such a Possession, had
it been his to put in drill! And drill is not of soldiers only; though
perhaps of soldiers first and most indispensably of all; since 'without
Being,' as my Friend Oliver was wont to say, 'Well-being is not
possible.' There is military drill; there is industrial, economic,
spiritual; gradually there are all kinds of drill, of wise discipline,
of peremptory mandate become effective everywhere, 'OBEY the Laws of
Heaven, or else disappear from these latitudes!' Ah me, if one dealt in
day-dreams, and prophecies of an England grown celestial,--celestial she
should be, not in gold nuggets, continents all of beef, and seas all
of beer, Abo