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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
So noble , wise , and virtuous , as the Earl , Should still , to please some petty vanity , Mar all their graces ,, and defile their honours . " Bouchard has vehemently inveighed against the enforcement of these tyrannical laws before the council , and expresses a wish that Bertulphe , the Provost , had been there—when the gentlemanly St . Prieux interrupts him
with" But grave Bouchard , think oi the pretty pickings Among tlie burgher ' s daughters !—Serfs !—all serfs ! Bouchard . — Now shame upon you . " No—the hammer of Wat Tyler , as the " immortal" Southey would say . But we should select a few instances of the mental unsteadiness of Bouchard , three-fourths of whose theory tends
to asserting the cause of nature , and one-fourth ( which gives the casting vote to his practice as well as theory ) the cause of that of aristocracy and its descent . Speaking of Constance , his wife , and the daughter of Bertulphe , he affirms , —
" Were she a sempstress at a cottage-door , Her parents hinds , I had not loved her less ;—But Heaven ' s most glorious works are never cast With such a thriftless hand ;—the perfect flower Grows but upon a rich and generous soil ; And such a sweet perfection , as my Constance , Could only spring from such a noble stem . '
The word in italics is so written by the author . Again , after St . Prieux has complimented Bertulphe with the intended reproach that " his fortune was his own creation , " as if to do nothing for yourself , was to be everything , Bouchard says , — * Regard him as he is ! Think of the arm that saved the state in
war—The wisdom that has swayed its peaceful councils ;—View the proud step that spurns the lowly earth—The untamed eye , whose tire no years can quench . ——Hark to the voice , whose music wraps the soul ;
A line of kings might pride to call him son , And he ruight trace him to a line of kings , Were such a vulgar glory worth his care . " Would anybody expect after such a speech—one , which when
delivered from the stage , drew down thunders of applause from the whole house—that the next line , which is pi ace tf as the conclusion , but for which the audience would not wait , was likely to be a compromise of the whole ? ( 'St . Prieux , that eagle was not sparrow-hatched !* ) Poor Bouchard , amiable and gallant as he is , he cannot shake off the classics of the cradle . He presently replies to an impertinent aristocraticism of Thancmar , with" Thuucmar ! that ' s scarcely courteous ; I depend
On no tutui ' g greutiu'ss but viy own ; the which / huve received from us pure uncestry Ab lliou cau ' bt boiist , and \ vj us pure truinmnt it !"
Untitled Article
IS * The Provort of Brugu .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1836, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2655/page/4/
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