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

man with the bats wings the stronger likeness woud be sent to jail for it.
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    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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    Reformist Consider a little you will find, if I am not mistaken, that you have not

    much bettered yourself by refusal /your refusal/ the proffered allowance of devils.

    In the first place see now what you have to prove: viz. that worth, in the sense in which it means wealth, is

    either the same thing with, or that it is with adequate constancy accompanied with

    /it is attended by/, worth in the sense in which it

    includes probity. appropriate

    probity. In the next place see what you have to do /discover/: you have to draw a

    precise line between your angels and your devils: you have to discover what quantity

    of this worth in the one sense is necessary and sufficient to constitute relatively

    adequate worth in the other sense. {You have in a word to draw the line between your

    angels and your devils.} Taking for example the present statutable allowance, 40 s a year constitutes your angel; this being admitted what you have

    to prove is – that by taking, from those same 40 s, the sum of one

    farthing, your angel is transfigured into a devil his goose-wings changed into bats’

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