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maturi ty ; 9 constitution which , therefore , mocks and puts to shame every abstraci p theoretical reformer , and tfbich can suffer no alteration but in conformity with the whole , and that
only which the most obvious use and even necessity justifies . Mr . Fox ' s / ' purpose , in his own words , was " not to pull down , but to work upon it , to examine it with care and reverence , to repair it where decayed , to amend it
where defective , to prop it where it tpwited support , and to adapt it to the purposes of the present time , as our ancestors had done from generation to generation , always transmitting it , not < mhf unimpaired , but improved , to their
posterity . Nothing can be more happily expressed than this short sentence , because it keeps in view what has ruined ( because of reform , when lost sight ofr-that our whole history , from its
beginning , has been a perpetual and gradual system of reformation . If all who mixed themselves with this delicate and momentous subject , had held this sound and safe language , and had acted with good faith upon the principles sp justly adopted and illustrated
upon that occasion by Lord Grey , whose speech , both fci wisdom and eloquence , was of the highest order , the cause of reform , in spite of all QbgtaicJgs , would have become popular ; bqt it received an almost deadly bl < m in tjie very outsfct from the
rashness of great numbers of mistaken popple , wjio , instead of following in Ws weUrchosen path , sent forth from eypry part of the kingdom , such unprincipled , inflaiu ? natory and ignorant reflections upon the other branches
of % goyernipeat , and indeed upon ^ . M&feple frame and-structure , aa to v * m and disgust the great body of ^ ft of rank and property , without wJiqs £ support no useful reformation l& the government of any civilized ^ can ever be , brought about . tk 1 e few - 'iBstsuicies ,-nay furnish , I "Jf&k a sufficient clu e for following *** < F *> x through the , many other i ! f ! £ ° . d ° west i < : policy , which 5 *** subjects of these volume In ^ debates regarding our external rer ®*** m which the characters o f W * v statesmen are more prominent ^ important , the reader will find **** ^ here the ^ ame pfrttciplea ; the 7 ^ ^ iite ^ pt for every system of wkg © r ^ JoiGaa- aad the sauic re
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t- ; liance upon the effects of good-will and plain dealing , of openness and kindness , which apply as universally , and as surely to the restoration of peace between contending nations , as they notoriously do to all differences between individual men .
In all questions , therefore , regarding Ireland , whether they related to our connexion with her when a distinct people under her own Parliament , or drawn into our bosom by the union which has happily taken place , the same opinions illustrate and characterize Mr . Fox . He was an
enemy to all artificial restraints when put in the scale against liberal intercourses—he thought with Mr . Burke , " that our affidavits and our sufferances , our dockets and our clearances , were not the great securities of our commerce ; " that the earth was large enough for the full , and overflowing "
prosperity of ^ ali e nations ; and that a partnership never could be thriving , which impoverished any branch of it . We find him also , in the ripeness of his civil wisdom , strenuously opposing himself to the insane policy , which gave birth to the revolutionary war with America and to her United
States—yet such is often the dominion of prejudice and error , even in the most enlightened communities , that I am old enough to remember the immortal orations of Burke upon that momentous subject , delivered to fhe almost empty benches of the House
of Commons , filled only by her infatuated majorities when his warning voice had ceased : yet , now that time and events have pronounced their awful judgments , no man would hazard his character in the most private circle by supporting opinions , which , for a long time triumphed in
Parliament , and enflamed the great body of this people , until one half of our empim was severed from the other * *« So paltry a sum as three-pence in in the eyes of a financier- *—so insignificant an article as tea , in the eyes of a philosopher , shook the pillars of a commercial empire that circled the whole globe . "
Upon the same principle ^ Mr * Fox . had he been now living , would have rejoiced in the peace which has been recently made ; he would have exerted all his eloquence to secure its continuance , and would have counselled the peremptory dui y of for bearing from
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Lord $£ f&V * ' Character of Mr . Fox , a * an Orator and Statesman . S 35
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 335, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/7/
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