nquest.

As the estimation of all things is given by comparison, the Revolution
of 1688, however from circumstances it may have been exalted beyond its
value, will find its level. It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the
enlarging orb of reason, and the luminous revolutions of America and
France. In less than another century it will go, as well as Mr. Burke's
labours, "to the family vault of all the Capulets." Mankind will then
scarcely believe that a country calling itself free would send
to Holland for a man, and clothe him with power on purpose to put
themselves in fear of him, and give him almost a million sterling a year
for leave to submit themselves and their posterity, like bondmen and
bondwomen, for ever.

But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have had the
opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances,
there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as
courtiers. But they well know, that if it were seen by others, as it is
seen by them, the juggle could not be kept up; they are in the condition
of men who get their living by a show, and to whom the folly of that
show is so familiar that they ridicule it; but were the audience to be
made as wise in this respect as themselves, there would be an end to the
show and the profits with it. The difference between a republican and
a courtier with respect to monarchy, is that the one opposes monarchy,
believing it to be something; and the other laughs at it, knowing it to
be nothing.

As I used sometimes to correspond with Mr. Burke believing him then to
be a man of sounder principles than his book shows him to be, I wrote
to him last winter from Paris, and gave him an account how prosperously
matters were going on. Among other subjects in that letter, I referred
to the happy situation the National Assembly were placed in; that they
had taken ground on which their moral duty and their political interest
were united. They have not to hold out a language which they do not
themselves believe, for the fraudulent purpose of making others believe
it. Their station requires no artifice to support it, and can only be
maintained by enlightening mankind. It is not their interest to cherish
ignorance, but to dispel it. They are not in the case of a ministerial
or an opposition party in England, who, though they are opposed, are
still united to keep up the common mystery. The National Assembly must
throw open a magazine of