Here too was brought forth that
monstrous conception which even patrician Rome in its most
ruthless period never equalled--the mortgaging of the industry
of the country to enrich and to protect property; an act which
is now bringing its retributive consequences in a degraded and
alienated population. Here too have the innocent been
impeached and hunted to death; and a virtuous and able monarch
martyred, because, among other benefits projected for his
people, he was of opinion that it was more for their advantage
that the economic service of the state should be supplied by
direct taxation levied by an individual known to all, than by
indirect taxation, raised by an irresponsible and fluctuating
assembly. But thanks to parliamentary patriotism, the people
of England were saved from ship-money, which money the wealthy
paid, and only got in its stead the customs and excise, which
the poor mainly supply. Rightly was King Charles surnamed the
Martyr; for he was the holocaust of direct taxation. Never
yet did man lay down his heroic life for so great a cause: the
cause of the Church and the cause of the Poor.
Even now in the quiet times in which we live, when public
robbery is out of fashion and takes the milder title of a
commission of inquiry, and when there is no treason except
voting against a Minister, who, though he may have changed all
the policy which you have been elected to support, expects
your vote and confidence all the same; even in this age of
mean passions and petty risks, it is something to step aside
from Palace Yard and instead of listening to a dull debate,
where the facts are only a repetition of the blue books you
have already read, and the fancy an ingenious appeal to the
recrimination of Hansard, to enter the old abbey and listen to
an anthem!
This was a favourite habit of Egremont, and though the mean
discipline and sordid arrangements of the ecclesiastical body
to which the guardianship of the beautiful edifice is
intrusted, have certainly done all that could injure and
impair the holy genius of the place, it still was a habit
often full of charm and consolation.
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