Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ...The contest between rights, and what were called prerogatives, continued to heat the nation till some time after the conclusion of the American revolution, when all at once it fell a calm; execration exchanged jtself for applause, and court popularity sprung up like a mushroom in the night. To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to observe that there are two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by merit, the-other by resentment. As the nation had formed itself into two-parties, and each was extolling the merits of its parliamentary champions for and against the prerogative, nothing could operate to give a more general shock than an immediate coalition of the champions themselves. The partisans of each being thus suddenly left in the lurch, and mutually heated with disgust at the measure, felt no other relief than uniting in a common execration against both. A higher stimulus of resentment being thus excited than what the contest on prerogatives had occasioned, the nation quitted.all former objects of rights and wrongs, and sought only that of gratification.--The indignation at the coalition so effectually superseded the indignation against the court as to extinguish it; and without any change of principles on the part of the court, the same people who had reprobated its despotism, united with it, to revenge themselves on the coalition parlinment. The case was not, which they liked best--but, which they hated most; and the least hated passed for love. The dissolution of the coalition parliament, as it afforded the means of gratifying the resentment of the nation, could not fail to be popular; and hence arose the popularity of the court. Transitions of this kind exhibit to us a nation uuder the government of temper, instead...
