date

17 Sep. 1809 + Parl y Reform
17 Sep. 1809 +

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch.18. Mischief of Idol-worship

Ch. Elogiums mischievous

Character uncognisible[?]

1

21

Take a fresh paper for Marginal – contracting[?]

§. Real character of a King uncognisible.

But this abstract King of yours (says some one) what have we to do with him, or with

your speculative your theoretical pictures of him whom we have and have had for these

50 years before our eyes, the very King – the very best of Kings actually sitting upon his throne –

The very King? you have him? – and before your eyes? Not you indeed, nor any thing

that deserves so much as to be called a picture of him: nothing but a sign-post

daubing which never has been, never can be so like to the /one/ King whose name is

written under it as any picture of a King in the abstract is like not only to that

one but to every other – including those /not excluding him/ to which it is least

like, provided always he be among those who are born with the prospect of a throne

before their eyes.

Whoever you are (unless it be one of those whose habits of personal intercourse with

him may have presented you with that knowledge which no man who is /is in the way to

be/ master of it ever communicates) what can you fancy yourself to know of him but

what you see in print. And that which you see in print, what is it?

{ Dispraise penal[?]; praise laid on with a trowel: a trowel of paper made out of

Anti Jacobin newspapers and Reviews /Oxford and Cambridge verses/.

Falshood the object of reward in every imaginable shape: punishment a milstone

avowedly hung over the head of truth: hung by a thread, and far[?] ready to drop into

every hand employed in cutting it. }
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    Description: 17 Sep. 1809

    Parl y Reform

    B. I. Necessity

    Ch.18. Mischief of Idol-worship

    Ch. Elogiums mischievous

    § Character uncognisible[?]

    2

    22

    My picture being the picture of the species not of the individual but of the species

    is no more like his Majesty that now than like his Majesty that last was, or his

    Majesty that next will be: but there is not one of them to whom it is not more like

    than any picture of him you ever saw or can ever hope /reasonably look/ to see.

    My picture is a picture of a man, though of a man seated on a throne. Being the

    picture of a man, it presents a human character through {the medium of} a human

    countenance. Your picture is not near so like to any one of them as the picture of

    King Fergus in Holyrood House is to King Fergus. It is neither the picture of a man

    nor of any thing else that has or ever had existence any where. It is a copy of the

    picture of the handsomest Angel, whom you could find {doing Angels business} in your

    prayer-book: to whom in addition to the goose-wing which the original limner has

    equipped him with, you fit up /out/ with a cap with notches and flowerigigs[?] in it

    called crown upon his head, after seating him in the sort of gilt elbow-chair called

    a throne.

    On the opposite side of the way is /sits/ stationed a limner who for his study instead of the King of Glorys handsome messenger takes

    a more industrious officer /personage/ /character/ /a still more active citizen/ whom

    in the same school he sees occupied /finds /beholds/ busy/ sometimes in passing

    impertinent offers upon his betters, sometimes in works of husbandry indeed, but such

    as no Secretary /neither M r Arthur Young nor any other Member/ of

    the Board of Agriculture would approve of.

    But what success can this dauber hope to have in comparison with the other?

    Outen[?], for him who finds the white man with the goose’s wings like, there is the

    fat of the land to feed upon: while he who should have the audacity to find the black

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    If, at the moment in question, it be more agreeable to him to violate the oath than to keep it, he will take a distinction: all proper oaths he will assure you are sacred and inviolable, and as such ought to be fulfilled: all improper oaths are in their own nature null and void, and as such ought not to be fulfilled.

    Break into the capitol,

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    Under a Monarchy, accept the invitation of the wife of the Chief Magistrate, you beget a future possessor of the throne, taking your chance for keeping your head or losing it: in a Representative Democracy, accept the like invitation from the wife of a Chief Magistrate, you beget a future possessor of a farm or a Counting house: your head is not in danger: your purse is or is not, according to circumstances.