It
grapples honestly with the facts lying before all men, groups and
disposes them with a master's mind, -- and with a heart full of manly
tenderness, offers his best counsel to his brothers. Obviously it is
the book of a powerful and accomplished thinker, who has looked with
naked eyes at the dreadful political signs in England for the last
few years, has conversed much on these topics with such wise men of
all ranks and parties as are drawn to a scholar's house, until such
daily and nightly meditation has grown into a great connexion, if not
a system of thoughts, and the topic of English politics becomes the
best vehicle for the expression of his recent thinking, recommended
to him by the desire to give some timely counsels, and to strip the
worst mischiefs of their plausibility. It is a brave and just book,
and not a semblance. "No new truth," say the critics on all sides.
Is it so? truth is very old; but the merit of seers is not to invent,
but to dispose objects in their right places, and he is the commander
who is always in the mount, whose eye not only sees details, but
throws crowds of details into their right arrangement and a larger
and juster totality than any other.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244