date

18 Sep. 1809 Parl y Reform
18 Sep. 1809

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch.18. Mischief of Idol-worship

Ch. Elogiums mischievous

§ King worship

2

9

2

For this sort of public spirit, as[?] reasons never could have been so reasons never

have been wanting.

At first it was because he was so young, besides /not to speak/ his having actually

been born in the same island with other people.

Then it was because the royal partner of his bed had borne so many children: {and

because he had never been seen administering to her in public any of that marital

discipline which the law without commending justifies /would have justified/:} that

they occupied commonly the same house, and beyond question sometimes the same bed:

that they were seen every now and then going to Church together and going to the Play

together: that when the one was riding in a Coach, the other would be riding

sometimes in a /the same/ coach, and sometimes though on horseback at some[?] great

distance: and that in a word that if it happened to them as sometimes it will do to

man and wife to have quarrels, they have the prudence as well as the decorum to keep

them to themselves.

Then it was because he was so ill – so very ill: and the more compleatly he was

understood to be disqualified from keeping up so much as the appearance of governing,

the more impatient were these men of public spirit to see the reality of it once more

in his hands.
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    In the annals of the Roman Commonwealth we see the chief man in it /one of the

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    He may be /Though he were/ ever so young, or ever so old, ever so constant at Church

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    A tenth[?] into rather to one labourer than as they[?]: not

    to two.

    For my own part this I know, that since I began first to think /consider/ with

    myself what duty was and what mankind were born to {a length of time greater than

    that which produces all this joy} never has this strain of sentimental sympathy which

    prides itself on the sacrifice of the many to the few presented itself to my

    conception in any better character /colour/ than that of the depth or height of

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    In cribbage as in any other kind of sport, yes: ten or any greater number: but in

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    a man by being a king, appear capable of telling[?] for any more than one.
  • Title: [18 Sep. 1809 + Parl y Reform]
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    And is it then true that the whole people of an enlightened country are at once so

    weak {and so unjust} as to love each one of them a man and the same man and one of

    whom so much better than himself, and so unjust as to love him better than all their

    fellow countrymen to the amount of so many millions put together? all this without

    any one rational cause, without any one justifying fact the truth of which if it be

    true, can have made its way to his knowledge?

    True? Not it indeed – what is true is neither more nor less than this – viz that a

    tribe of meritless not to say worthless men seeing /beholding each of them/ in this

    man either the creater or the preserver of their superfluous ill-deserved prosperity,

    present or future, vested or contingent, love[?] /worship/ in his person /the person

    of this their living idol/ or rather in his name; each of them himself, careless of

    the whole people /millions/ at whose expence this prosperity is /is or is to be/

    expected or deserved.