I tremble when I recollect
that I am in a country where a member of the legislature proposes rewards
for assassination, and the leader of a society, that pretends to inform
and instruct the people, argues in favour of burning all the books. The
French are on the eve of exhibiting the singular spectacle of a nation
enlightened by science, accustomed to the benefit of laws and the
enjoyment of arts, suddenly becoming barbarous by system, and sinking
into ignorance from choice.--When the Goths shared the most curious
antiques by weight, were they not more civilized than the Parisian of
1793, who disturbs the ashes of Henry the Fourth, or destroys the
monument of Turenne, by a decree?--I have myself been forced to an act
very much in the spirit of the times, but I could not, without risking my
own safety, do otherwise; and I sat up late last night for the purpose of
burning Burke, which I had brought with me, but had fortunately so well
concealed, that it escaped the late inquisition. I indeed made this
sacrifice to prudence with great unwillingness--every day, by confirming
Mr. Burke's assertions, or fulfilling his predictions, had so increased
my reverence for the work, that I regarded it as a kind of political
oracle. I did not, however, destroy it without an apologetic apostrophe
to the author's benevolence, which I am sure would suffer, were he to be
the occasion, though involuntarily, of conducting a female to a prison or
the Guillotine.
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