He ought not to apprehend that his
raising fences about popular privileges this day will infer that he
ought on the next to concur with those who would pull down the throne;
because on the next he defends the throne, it ought not to be supposed
that he has abandoned the rights of the people.
A man, who, among various objects of his equal regard, is secure of
some, and full of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to much
greater lengths in his preference of the objects of his immediate
solicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced often
seems to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and disown, those
that are out of danger. This is the voice of Nature and truth, and not
of inconsistency and false pretence. The danger of anything very dear
to us removes, for the moment, every other affection from the mind. When
Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his Hector, he
repels with indignation, and drives from him with a thousand reproaches,
his surviving sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him to
offer their assistance.
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