I have never heard that even
the most ambitious Potentates ever pretended to extend their subjugation
beyond the persons and property of the conquered; but these militant
dogmatists claim an empire even over opinions, and insist that no people
can be free or happy unless they regulate their ideas of freedom and
happiness by the variable standard of the Jacobin club. Far from being
of Hudibras's philosophy,* they seem to think the mind as tangible as the
body, and that, with the assistance of an army, they may as soon lay one
"by the heels" as the other.
* "Quoth he, one half of man, his mind,
"Is, sui juris, unconfin'd,
"And ne'er can be laid by the heels,
"Whate'er the other moiety feels."
Hudibras.
Now this I conceive to be the worst of all tyrannies, nor have I seen it
exceeded on the French theatre, though, within the last year, the
imagination of their poets has been peculiarly ingenious and inventive on
this subject.--It is absurd to suppose this vain and overbearing
disposition will cease when the French government is settled. The
intrigues of the popular party began in England the very moment they
attained power, and long before there was any reason to suspect that the
English would deviate from their plan of neutrality.
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