ute, of such monstrous
and even portentous corruption, that no example in the history of human
depravity, or even in the fictions of poetic imagination, could possibly
match it,--if it should be a judgment which, with cold, unfeeling
cruelty, after long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent
people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of
the finest countries upon earth to ravage and desolation,--does any one
think that any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and bullying
insolence of their own, can save them from the ruin that must fell on
all institutions of dignity or of authority that are perverted from
their purport to the oppression of human nature in others and to its
disgrace in themselves? As the wisdom of men mates such institutions,
the folly of men destroys them. Whatever we may pretend, there is always
more in the soundness of the materials than in the fashion of the work.
The order of a good building is something. But if it be wholly declined
from its perpendicular, if the cement is loose and incoherent, if the
stones are scaling with every change of the weather, and the whole
toppling on our heads, what matter is it whether we are crushed by a
Corinthian or a Doric ruin? The fine form of a vessel is a matter of use
and of delight. It is pleasant to see her decorated with cost and art.
But what signifies even the mathematical truth of her form,--what
signify all the art and cost with which she can be carved, and painted,
and gilded, and covered with decorations from stem to stern,--what
signify all her rigging and sails, her flags, her pendants, and her
streamers,--what signify even her cannon, her stores, and her
provisions, if all her planks and timbers be unsound and rotten?

Quamvis Pontica pinus,
Silvae filia nobilis,
Jactes et genus et nomen inutile.

I have been stimulated, I know not how, to give you this trouble by what
very few except myself would think worth any trouble at all. In a speech
in the House of Lords, I have been attacked for the defence of a scheme
of government in which that body inheres, and in which alone it can
exist. Peers of Great Britain may become as penitent as the sovereign of
Prussia. They may repent of what they have done in assertion of the
honor of their king, and in favor of their own safety. But never the
gloom that lowers over the fortune of the cause, nor anything which the
great may do towards hastening thei