2 Sep r 1809

Parl y Reform : Necessity

B. I. Necessity

Ch. 18 Mischief of Idol worship

Ch. Elogiums mischievous

3

1

1

1 Ellenboro’ should he punish men for false eulogy?

2 Mischief of this eloquence when applied to probable successors. Most religious of

gracious Kings

3 Particular praise good: general, evidence of sycophancy.

To this topic belongs the consideration of the tendency and effect of those elogiums

which have the personal virtues of the Monarch for their themes.

The indulgence of social affection is at once so natural so amiable and so

beneficial /and so amiable/, the Monarch of the country is at once so conspicuous and

so natural an object of it /that amiable affection/, the figure of speech by which

this exalted personage is placed /seated/ in the imagination of every man and more

especially of every woman /imagination of the public/ in the character of a common

father, the efficient cause and cement of a correspondently kind affection the

affection of fraternity on the part of his subjects, one towards another, that it is

not reluctance /a certain amount of uneasiness/ that a man in whose bosom the

dissocial affections do not predominate can bring himself to bring to view any

considerations, by the effect of which it may happen that to the warmth of so

generous an affection to be /find itself/ diminished. /A cap/ It is indeed a cap, but

a cap which on so serious /important/ an occasion must not be put away.

If indeed the effect of those elogiums terminated with what is most commonly though

not always their professed object – if in a word they never had either for their

effect or for their tendency the disposing men to take the supposed personal will of

the Monarch (for it is scarce ever other than the supposed one) for the rule of

action and standard of propriety and rule of action, the error of these elogiums

supposing it such would by the supposition be a harmless one, and so far as it were

embraced with security, would even be preferable to the truth.

Sure I am that in my own instance it is matter of uneasiness to me to find myself

doing what depends on me towards opposing checks and objections to to what taken in

itself is so innocent as well as harmless an exercise. Neither the /any/

qualification which it may be supposed capable of affording to the royal person who

is the object, not any which it may be the lot of the performer to experience – most

assuredly it is not in the contemplation of pleasure in those or any other shapes

that I find /feel/ the inducement which has engaged me in so ungracious a task.