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Untitled Article
Those ill-omened attendants of the night , Intolerance , Bigotry , Persecution , were beginning again to make their appearance and to clap their wings . But the introduction of the new dynasty scattered the fears which had possessed the friends of religious and civil freedom : and no class of the subjects of these realms have equal reason with Dissidents from the established religion—none perhaps so powerful—to review with gratitude the augmentation of such blessings under the government of successive members of the House of Hanover .
Of the extension of religious liberty in the reign of the father of the present monarch , the annals of that reign afford many a gratifying proof : * of the yet more ample extension of such freedom during the brief yet pacific sway of George IV * , my readers scarcely need to be informed ; since the events , to which I am alluding , cannot but be deeply engraven in their me * mories , and are warmly cheering to their hearts .
Many improvements , however , of a different kind , marked the public life of his venerable parent ; improvements in science , in arts , in general literature , in the degree and the direction of inquiry , in grand national undertakings , conducive at once to ornament and to use , in commercial and maritime enterprize , in the discovery of coasts and regions unexplored before , in the erection of various magnificent edifices , and in the enlargement and increased accommodations of our towns and cities . Far more
than half a century ago , such facts arrested the attention ; and they were recorded by the pen of elegance and taste .-f * How are they now multiplied ! How rapid , nearly beyond the most sanguine expectations and calculations , has been the subsequent progress of improvement ! No long interval of time occurs , without some fresh and beautiful illustration of the maxim , that " knowledge is power . " Man is perpetually rendering the elements of nature and its materials , more obedient to his controul , more instrumental to his benefit : and our prospects here are at once truly wonderful and cheering .
To what secondary though still most efficient cause shall we ascribe this spirit of investigation and manly adventure , this diffusion of knowledge and thirst for more , and this generally successful application of it to some of the best ends of private life and national distinction ? It is , in one word , our sense of security under a free and just government . Under such a government alone can individuals hope to reap and to enjoy the fruits of their personal skill and diligence and good conduct , and to rise , in the most honourable manner , from comparative obscurity to rank and eminence .
There is that in our civil constitution which tends to correct and improve itself , and , by a wonderful elasticity , adapts its growth to the progress of society—of thought , of knowledge , and of public opinion , which , in turn ; , it accelerates and encourages , No people can be really and permanently free before they are prepared , by sobriety of reflection and of manners , for being free . This is our high privilege . J We are inhabitants of a land , where , as far as regards human judgment and conduct , there is , no doubt ,
* Mon . Rep . [ O- S . j Vol . XV . pp . 647 , &c . : " thy name hath chronicled A long , bright page of England ' s story / ' Barbauld . t Warton ' s Essay on Pope ( 5 th ed . ) , Vol . II . 196 , &c . % If we may judge from some recent transactions , it has become the privilege of France . The example of such a Revolution , effected without vindictive bloodshed , is most noble and refresh ing .
Untitled Article
668 Progress of British Freedom .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1830, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2589/page/12/
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