violence and his grief, his silence on some
points and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr.
Burke is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of the
Pope and the Bastille, are pulled down.

Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection that I
can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered out
the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most miserable of
prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt
himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is
not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the
showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage,
but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand
that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition
of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his
heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real
prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.

As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille (and
his silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his readers
with refections on supposed facts distorted into real falsehoods, I will
give, since he has not, some account of the circumstances which preceded
that transaction. They will serve to show that less mischief could
scarcely have accompanied such an event when considered with the
treacherous and hostile aggravations of the enemies of the Revolution.

The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous scene than what
the city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille, and for
two days before and after, nor perceive the possibility of its quieting
so soon. At a distance this transaction has appeared only as an act of
heroism standing on itself, and the close political connection it had
with the Revolution is lost in the brilliancy of the achievement. But
we are to consider it as the strength of the parties brought man to man,
and contending for the issue. The Bastille was to be either the prize
or the prison of the assailants. The downfall of it included the idea
of the downfall of despotism, and this compounded image was become as
figuratively united as Bunyan's Doubting Castle and Giant Despair.

The National Assembly, before and at the time of taking the Bastille,
was sitting at Versailles, twelve miles