1818 Aug. 29.

Things as they are

§.8. Splendor

9

The Monarch is every where the image of the divinity. In England he is God upon earth: he has the attribute /God’s attributes are his/. This is among those things which /have been proved by/ Blackstone has proved to the satisfaction of all Church of Englandists. The God of heaven is the invisible God: the King of England the visible one. All this is orthodoxy: M r Wilberforce knows better than to call upon Lord Liverpool to prosecute as for blasphemy those who would palm upon us for God a self-confessed miserable sinner. Splendor as all Catholics and all Church of Englandists know is of the number of three[?] attributes. Who ever saw at Rome God sitting on his throne, or in England a dove hovering over it, without light enough to consume it if it were a combustible one? The invisible God is encompassed with /seated in/ a full blaze of splendor: the visible one when he is upon his throne has never as yet had more than a few sparks issuing from a few diamonds.

Splendor is therefore among the attributes which belong to the Crown jure divino: it is amongst the appendages and evidences of legitimacy.

Of extortion /oppression/ of waste, of corruption - and now of delusion /deception/ - of fraud on the one part of delusion on the other - of all these enormities they have the phrases splendor of the Crown lustre of the Crown - been proved to be the instruments. Who is there that can deny them? Who among those who have ever either put off or received this trash for sterling who is there can now confess it without shame?