132-044.xml

Title: [1819 Mar. 22 + To Erskine II]

Description: 1819 Mar. 22 +

To Erskine

II. Whig Merits

§.3. J.B’s Remarks

13

7

11

If, in the course of this contest, this idol of theirs shall be found to have received damage, I am truly sorry for it, but the fault is none of mine. Could his friends but have satisfied themselves with keeping up the image of the amiable man, as I have seen that of a Russian Saint, all gilt with gold, in a corner cupboard, or a glass case, for family devotions – nothing of the sort would have happened. But when, like those of Bal and the Dragon his name is made an instrument of delusion, – and the people, whom, while he publickly bowed to, he privately scorned, are called upon, and so indefatigably, to fall down and worship the golden image which party ambition has set up, it will be the fault not of people but of party[?], if, by the fate of those antient idols, that of the reputation of this modern one shall be found to have been […?] and typified.

Back to p. 11

{☞ Reasons for consideration Windham’s Military hardship lessening merit. Transfer part from Letter I.}

132-043.xml

Title: [1819 Mar. + To Erskine II.]

Description: 1819 Mar. +

To Erskine

II. Whig Merits

§.3. J.B. Remarks

12

6

10

Irish nation, and those by which, in 1789, the aristocratical body, composed of the 80,000 French Noblesse, gave up, all in one day, so large a portion of that power under the weight of which the thirty millions had for so many centuries been crushed.

To return to the Whigs. Notwithstanding this unchangeable determination to keep what power they had, such, as early as the year 1780, was their appetite for that which they had not, and so deep the game which it was the effect of that appetite to make them play for it – that, in 1780, under the lead of Charles Fox, that prince of gamesters, to which Brookes’s was supplied one gaming-table and S t Stephens another, they had actually been brought to continue in their adherence to him, after he had signed a declaration in favour of annuality of election, and even of unlimited universality of suffrage. +

To the next page, p. 12.

From the next page p. 12

As to the one party, that on their part from that time and earlier, down to the present, the show of desire of reform, never has been any thing more than a show – that it never has been either their endeavour, or their desire, to help to bestow upon the subject many any the least particle of those means of security which it was in their power to withhold, among the propositions, which, by Your Lordships defence of them I have been engaged to endeavour to prove: to prove more to the conviction than I fear to the satisfaction of a Noble Lord, whose eloquence has lifted him up, as well as so many of his admirers, so much above the sphere of the old philosophers, whose chief study as well as difficulty, was, as he informs us, to know himself.

JB_070_075_001.xml

Title: [Coin. When an Idea is provided with a single]

Description: Coin. When an Idea is provided with a single expression which is

at once universal in it's reception & constant &

unchanging in it's import, what can be more absurd than to

substitute for it upon every occasion a tedious paraphrase which has

not the merit of superior precision to atone for the strain it gives to the

apprehension, & the burthen it imposes on the memory?

Sec 15. G.2.C.28. S1. the consequence of putting [all this] in so much more

than is necessary, is that there is not enough: and if any one

chuses to make a farthing look like a Shilling, which is full as

easy to do as to make it like a sixpence nothing is there here to hinder

him.

Like a General who with the same Army, the

greater extent of frontier he has to defend, the weaker he

is.

Arm Reg. 1771. p.136. 14 th August.

An Edict was published at Paris imposing an additional Tax of 20 Sols on the

Head of every Hog or Sow brought into that City for the consumption of the Inhabitants.

"As the Hogs are not killed in Paris, but brought to Town "by

Cartloads without their garbage, & ready for Sale, one "of the

Undertakers for supplying the Town was driving 6 "loaden Carts into Paris

but had the Precaution first to cut "off the Heads, which he had left at

home. When he arrived "at the Barrier, the Clerks demanded this new duty:

he presented "them the Edict, which specifies the heads only: he bid

"them search, & if they found one single head, he consented "they

should seize the whole. The Clerk laughed at the joke, — "but

insisted that the Hogs should not be brought in untill "the Edict was put

in execution, & the new Tax paid. The "Undertaker sent for an

Attorney, & deposited the Duty, which "the Attorney protested

against, in order to prevent their disposing of the money, until such time

as the Law should pronounce "concerning the validity or invalidity of the

Edict." I know not that I ever saw any article of those which are the

thickest stuffed with these anxious tautologies, to the efficacy of which

the necessity of those very tautologies if admitted would not be fatal:

because let a set of these synonyms have been

inserted

COMPOSIT. Stat. Singly as a discourse. Verbosity Mischiefs [BR] ][][][of

— produces defects.

inserted so many times more than they ought to have been, it scarce ever

happens but that it might be shewn

that — they have been omitted where there is an

equal demand for them [they have been omitted]>

nor is a sentence ever finished by the departing from this plan in

instances less the stands self convicted of tautology in assuming it by his

own confession. The misfortune is, that this Scheme of

supererogation when once taken up cannot afterwards be departed from but

at the expence always of consistency, & oftentimes of

concord: [like a habit of Drunkenness in some constitutions, which

once begun it is dangerous to continue, but fatal to leave off.] For some

little time words shall have been piled upon words, the changes shall

have been rung upon the Numbers & Genders, the Pronouns the

Pronominal Adjectives of the words of specification, the words of no

meaning and the words whose meaning has been [prescripted] anticipated the

change will have been rung I say upon all with tolerable regularity

then when by & by [the correspondent fibres of the Brain either

the hand or the head growing tired [failing thro' fatigue] one is

dropt, and another is dropt, till the sentence came

limping on at the conclusion with half it's compliment, first

undertaken to be furnished. Tone of ill supported amplitude

Musician A Statute of this cast (and almost all are of this cast)

shews like the performance of some raw musician, who more

ambitious of the praise of execution, than of the merit of correctness

firmness of tone improvement sets out with a valocity

which fatigue and awkardness [force him soon to slacken] are

perpetually forcing him at intervals to slacken.