Dumouriez, Custine, Biron, Dillon, &c. are doing wonders, in spite of the
season; but the laurel is an ever-green, and these heroes gather it
equally among the snows of the Alps, and the fogs of Belgium. If we may
credit the French papers too, what they call the cause of liberty is not
less successfully propagated by the pen than the sword. England is said
to be on the eve of a revolution, and all its inhabitants, except the
King and Mr. Pitt, become Jacobins. If I did not believe "the wish was
father to the thought," I should read these assertions with much
inquietude, as I have not yet discovered the excellencies of a republican
form of government sufficiently to make me wish it substituted for our
own.--It should seem that the Temple of Liberty, as well as the Temple of
Virtue, is placed on an ascent, and that as many inflexions and
retrogradations occur in endeavouring to attain it. In the ardour of
reaching these difficult acclivities, a fall sometimes leaves us lower
than the situation we first set out from; or, to speak without a figure,
so much power is exercised by our leaders, and so much submission exacted
from the people, that the French are in danger of becoming habituated to
a despotism which almost sanctifies the errors of their ancient monarchy,
while they suppose themselves in the pursuit of a degree of freedom more
sublime and more absolute than has been enjoyed by any other nation.
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