ligious without
fanaticism, and free without licentiousness; honouring the wisdom of
their fathers, without rejecting the wisdom of the living age;
aspiring but to the ministration of universal good, and feeling that
its opulence, knowledge, and grandeur are only gifts for mankind.

The system of the war was now fully established. All the feelings of
England were fixed on the Peninsula, and all the politics of her
statesmen and their rivals were alike guided by the course of the
conflict. The prediction was gallantly fulfilled--that the French
empire would there expose its flank to English intrepidity; that the
breaching battery which was to open the way to Paris, would be fixed
on the Pyrenees; that the true sign of conquest was the banner of
England.

The battle of the Ministry was fought in Spain, and as victoriously as
the battle of our army. We saw Opposition gradually throw away its
arms, and gradually diminish in the popular view, until its existence
was scarcely visible. Successive changes varied the cabinet, but none
shook its stability. Successive ministers sank into the grave, but the
ministry stood. The spirit of the nation, justly proud of its
triumphs, disdained to listen to the whispers of a party, who murmured
defeat with victory before their eyes; who conjured up visions of
ruin, only to be rebuked by realities of triumph; and to whom the
national scorn of pusillanimity, and the national rejoicing in the
proudest success, could not unteach the language of despair. Perceval,
the overthrower of the Foxite ministry, perished; but the political
system of the cabinet remained unchanged. Castlereaghperished--Liverpool
perished; but the political system still remained. The successive
pilots might give up the helm, but the course of the great vessel
continued the same--guided by the same science, and making her way
through sunshine, and through storm, to the same point of destination.

The three successive ministers were men of high ability for
government, though their character of ability exhibited the most
remarkable distinctions. Perceval had been a lawyer, and had risen to
the rank of attorney-general. In the House, he carried the acuteness,
the logic, and even the manner, of his profession with him. Without
pretending to the power of eloquence, he singularly possessed the
power of conviction; without effecting changes in the theory of the
constitution, he put its truths in a new light; and without a tra