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1819 June 17
To Erskine
Lett. 7. Whigs AntiReformists
§.5. Pos. 4. Whig Excellence
6
Title to other people’s merits. The principle of vicarious retribution is an instrument not less useful than brilliant in the hand of Whig eloquence. {It comes consecrated /sanctified/ to him by {the hand of} orthodoxy.} The fewer merits a man has of his own, the more /greater the/ need he has of other men’s. Eloquence is never so much at home as when exspatiating on this ground. Eloquence is never in such high spirits as when she is {treading Justice under her feet} /trampling upon justice/. A. did good deeds. B. is to be rewarded for them. It was for the Whigs of 1819 that Russel died. {He did, and he did not, the deed for which he suffered. He did it that Whigs might reap the reward of it. He did it not, that the injustice of the Stuarts from whom he suffered might be the more manifest, and the triumph of the namesake of the Whigs of 1819 more conspicuous.}
Oh rare {Saint Russel! Oh rare martyred} Russel! {first} /chief/ of Saints and Martyrs in the Whig Calendar! {what a useful} /how useful a/ death was there! How has thy blood taken away the sins not only of us the otherwise miserable sinners, thy descendants, but of the forefathers for whom monks were plundered of their lands.
{Oh matchless Russel! Trumpeted be the name of Russel! whispered or better sunk the name of his associate Sydney. Sydney went too far: Sydney was wild and visionary: Sydney was not for a King in pasteboard, with Whigs to pull the wires by which he was moved.}
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Title: [1819 Mar 22 Lett II C + + To Erskine]Description: 1819 Mar 22 Lett II C + + To Erskine II. Whig Merits § 3. J. B.s Remarks 9 3 7 In this same order I now have to submitt to Your Lordship these same alledged Whig Merits with a few remarks. 1 Liberticide Wars opposed. – Execrable indeed these same Wars. But, bad or good, in so far as by comparison any war can be stiled good, whatever be the Opposition, war will be sure to be opposed by it. Be it ever so necessary, war abroad will always be not only a bad thing, but the worst of all bad things except despotism at home. But no degree of readiness to oppose unnecessary war can exceed their readiness to make it. Under the notion of serving the country where he was born, never was George the 2 d so eager to sacrifice to his ambition the welfare of that native country of his which gave him a ducal, together with that of the country which gave him a royal throne, as Charles Fox and Lord Grenville were to please George the 3 d who had never been there. “Witness Hanover and Hampshire”. + The eloquence of Charles Fox had provided him with a short word, with which he declared himself ready to pallify any war, for any thing or for nothing, at any time. Witness, Honour: Witness, Glory: or, if neither be sufficient, witness both together. || Kestrel, in Johnson’s Every Man in his humour, was the prototype of Charles Fox. Oh rare eloquence! Human comforts – human affliction! – dull elements of calculation! how are ye looked down upon by eloquence!
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Title: [1819 Apr. 13 + + To Erskine]Description: 1819 Apr. 13 + + To Erskine Lett. II Whig Merits 1 16 Well, my Lord I have told Your Lordship where merits are not: I will now tell you where they are. Direct instruction commences the work of instruction: contrast perfects it. Merits are not in Your Lordship’s “great body” of the Parliamentary Whigs: they are in the 3883, against whom these Whigs, with their Tory helpmates prevailed on the Westminster Hustings in March 1819. In the “great body” of Your Lordship’s Clients, pretensions abundant: good deeds: unavoidable and uncostly not a few: merits, none. In the 3883 – “in the miserable little junto” – “in the Rump who administer Westminster in the in the name of Sir Francis Burdett” [*] ... there it is that merits may be seen – seen in an abundance by which I am the more astonished the more I think of it:- seen by those whose eyes allow them, not only to see merits, but to see them where they are. In that miserable little junto, would you see labour without profit – labour with expence instead of profit – would you even uncalculable loss – would you see in a word see self-sacrifice? there you may see self-sacrifice: there you may see what a may look for, till his eyes water, and not find it, in Your Lordship’s calumniated Whigs of England (p. 9 l. 1.) in your Lordship’s band of patriots (p. 7. l. 9) in your Lordship’s “men of honour, manliness and wisdom” (p. 13. l. 29) in Your Lordship’s “men of true wisdom” (p. 23 l. 11) – in your Lordship’s men who follow the dictates “of a pure and honest sense of duty, conscious of their talents and their honest disposition” (p 24. l. 15) in your Lordship’s “acknowledged possessors of the highest sense of honour” (p. 24 l. 24) in your Lordship’s “enlightened and independent men” (p. 30. l. 12.) and so forth. “Shade of Hampden! look down, and in a host of Tradesmen and Shop-keepers, behold thy yet living and altogether worthy successor”. [+] Such was the exclamation called forth by the contemplation of the merits of these my fellow citizens of Westminster – of such their merits as in the year 1817 had already manifested themselves. Now in 1819, do I see any reason for lowering this voice? No: I see encreased reason for raising it. [*] Morn. Chron. 11 March 1819 [+] Parl. Cat. Introd p cxxix
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