The National Register. — London, England, 1809-11-12 00:00:00

77. REGISTER. I SUNDAY, POLITICAL DISQUISITIOIi isustiaka SIN Ei'Y-SIX. ••••••• 1 11111..."• e 3 • p. THE MINISTERS. ' It is ixnponible to exhatist, or do adequate justice to this exquisite subject. In our last we were able to trace no -more than a taint outline of a groupe worthy the immortal pen or RABELAIS, SWIFT'S caustic humour, or HOGARTHIII pencil. It unites to the truly comic, one of the strongest attributes of' the sublime; for can any thing inspire greater , terror, than to see a man in a high state of intoxication, mounted upon a spirited horse, galloping and spurring the animal near the brink of some frightful precipice I In contemplating this compound of impotent presumption, and dotage hobbling upon stilts, we experience th9se op .pofite sensations Which SHAIE ESPEAR so frequently excites. We laugh, weep, and are petrified with horror. The so lemnity of the Master of the Ceremonies must be 'put to an excruciating trial, whenever he sees them make the weekly appearance at Buckingham House, with All the 4 .burlesque of over-strained importance. if he maintain the solemn deportment of his office; if he can refrain from tittering, he possesses . mOre rigid muscles than : 6R +CU. TVI himself. Heaveuknows, our laughing humour is but of sluirt duratien, wheneier we examine thi: domestic cat riehturel To look at it long without„pain'; to:dwell up.. i 1 without disgust, implies a dereliction of every public ,;principle, and a perfect indifference to the honour mid' :safety of the country. Has some convulsion effaced every' ;vestige of the occurrences of the last twenty tears? Has • the memory of the Public been affected by the violence or • the shock? Surely i iome extraordinary phenomenon of. this kind must have occurred, to reconcile with the ardu out situation the country is placed in, the existence of the present Ministiy. if experience could teach, or the mis fortunes of others operste as an example, the British Ens *. pire, like some forlorn wretch in an hospital of incurables, would not be abandoned to the wanton experiments of ig norant, unthinking students. We cannot reflect upon the consequences of such bar barous levity, without apprehending a catastrophe more. • alarming than the fall of a Ministry. If they are blind and ruh, it is not fit the Public should lie so. It would be ti ; , poor compensation for the loss of freedom, and the ruin of a mighty Empire, to tnow that the authors did not escape • the general wreck. _At .is a deplorable truth, that.in pro : portion to the*Oillii OA people, their concerns havO been, almostiovariably, ill-administered: How is it possi ble to accotiot,in any othei manner, for the disarpearance -;014q-many powe rful states? How explain the revolutions' f, 01 Our age? .1a the early stagerof soc:.:ty, the minds of thinking men,, too strongly impressed by the catastrophe i 'they'witnessed, attributed to supernatural vengeance, the misery that . befel a people. This esplanation so completely accords with the weakness and depeodent mate of man; with the incessant changes In the moral and physical world, that we can easily conceive how individuals, even of sitpe: r•kii•-•.filp; Our King, Cow:Mutton', ano -Lai. 12, 1809. In ~~ . ~' aae to cau silk code!'), l!eu PRICE 94 'could fall info so extravagant an error.— be a very convenient and very acceptable decr trine, to an imbecile and corrupt administration, who might foel no objection to impute to invidious fortune, the conse quences of their own incapacity. But if we examine our own annals and those of our neighbours; if we turn over the records of ancient times, and observe what is now passing, we shall discover the s;iiiple truth, that the prosperity of a State rises and falls in a proportionate ratio to the capacity and virtue, or the depravity and impotence of its Government. This is so obvious a truth, that it is inconceivable how it should have been ever overloOked. The Public cannot be so totally insensible to their inte rests, so humiliated by recent disappointments, so dis gusted by a succession of incompetent Ministers, as to k come indifferent by whom their affairs are managed. A path/ increases the evil; vigilance and jealousy can alone coati. teract .it. From the moment a people renounce the right ' ie • ending the conduct, and sanctioning the choice of ts, they abandon es ery chance of seeing their affairs entrusted to intelligent and upright Ministers. In trigue and sycophancy are intruded into places where merit and probity might preside. Some fifty years ago, when the country was tranquil and prosperous at home ; when the different PoWers of the Continent were so nicely balanced, endanger the security of the other;—even istration.composed of materials like the presen4 Might have involved the State in inextricable dif ficulties. In the midst of our highest prosperity America was goaded into resistance and rebellion, and Ireland al most driven to the same state, by the ignorance and rash ness of the NORTH Ministry. • There is no nation upon earth which Can produce so many examples huw much the happiness of a people depends upon the wisdom of its Go vernment; and shall we, afttr so ,thuch experience in (Ms awful crisis of our affairs, look on unconcerned, careless about the future, while such impotent, hood-winked crea tures as PERCSVAL and his Associates, are nodding in the first Offices of the State. .The Public must have lately ..be come proselytes to MAaoscr's fatalism ; they must have discarded reason, and acknowledge the sovereignty of chance,—if they are not . alarmed at the consequences that -may result frpin the folly and incapacity of this Junto. We sometimes imagine • ourselves transported to the, island of Liputa,' and, introduced to the sittings of the • ( Academy, when we exiniiiic the preceding'', and look t o c o , A ppqin,t meats of the rem; 'Calsinct. S Wirt lithe imagined. tiilt•this• 'child of his.caustic fancy would one thiy, be realised to -his, native conotry. Nothing is ivasoin4 ; even . a chief : fiapper is appointed in the Organ . • . . of /I:7ster CllOl.Eq. The idca ot Coen nilters,_•iii Qrjetti) iber, iS tw, NOV I EIS, I nor intellects, ) This might lac .4 • trine, to an MI THE NATIONAL r 4.• a . D. No. 98. • i 's I - f 4