des this, it had to remove the obstructions
which Mr. Burke's rude and outrageous attack on the French Revolution
had artfully raised.

1 The Royal Proclamation issued against seditious writings,
May 21st. This pamphlet, the proof of which was read in
Paris (see P. S. of preceding chapter), was published at 1s.
6d. by H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, and Thomas Clio
Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street (where it was written),
both pub-Ushers being soon after prosecuted.--_Editor_.

But how easy does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the laboured productions of
the brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally
familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight.
No artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of
daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with
every conviction which truth begets.

To overthrow Mr. Burke's fallacious book was scarcely the operation of a
day. Even the phalanx of Placemen and Pensioners, who had given the
tone to the multitude, by clamouring forth his political fame, became
suddenly silent; and the final event to himself has been, that as he
rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.

It seldom happens, that the mind rests satisfied with the simple
detection of error or imposition. Once put in motion, _that_ motion soon
becomes accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new
reasons to proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the
limits it first prescribed to itself. Thus it has happened to the people
of England. From a detection of Mr. Burke's incoherent rhapsodies, and
distorted facts, they began an enquiry into the first principles of
Government, whilst himself, like an object left far behind, became
invisible and forgotten.

Much as the First Part of RIGHTS OF Man impressed at its first
appearance, the progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far
enough. It detected errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric
of political superstition; it generated new ideas; but it did not
produce a regular system of principles in the room of those which it
displaced. And, if I may guess at the mind of the Government-party,
they beheld it as an unexpected gale that would soon blow over, and
they forbore, like sailors in threatening weather, to whistle, lest they
should encrease(sic) the wi