arish, and from a parish to a
private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. They _cannot_ do
the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly
fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of
things,--what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To
these great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law.

Our legislature has fallen into this fault, as well as other
governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state
which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose
ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this
error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,--[Greek:
ESSETAI HMAP] Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the
flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the
hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and
Constitutionalists of France: a species of traitors, of whose fury and
atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the frenzy and depravation
of mankind had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never
think or speak without a mixed sensation of disgust, of horror, and of
detestation, not easy to be expressed. These nefarious monsters
destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was
in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed
and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world. But
though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished
them with means for its destruction. My dear departed friend, whose loss
is even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the
leading vice of the French monarchy (which he had well studied) was in
good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of governing too
much. The hand of authority was seen in everything and in every place.
All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic
affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in
this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious
power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible
imbecility. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I
thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior
power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much
use politically in removing government from many