Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Letter, Addressed to the Right Hon. Thomas Spring Rice, M. P. &C. &C. &C: On the Means of Reconciling Parliamentary Reform, to the Interests and Opinions of the Different Orders of the Community
I shall begin by acknowledging that I venerate the wisdom of our ancestors. I entertain no superstitious respect for antiquity but comparison is the only sure test of the efficacy and merit of human institutions; and if we try our own English constitution by this criterion, we are compelled to acknowledge its excellence. In a comparatively rude state of society, England enjoyed more tranquillity than the opulent regions of the Nether lands, and more permanent liberty than the vaunted Re publics of Italy. Our Parliaments, though assuming a humbler port and aspect than the Cortes of Castile or Arragon, continued to preserve and exercise their powers, whilst all the other legislative assemblies of Europe be came merely the courts for registering the decrees of the sovereign, or wholly disappeared. And the crown, deprived of all power of assailing the franchises of the subject, still retains the decent pride and dignity which a monarchy requires.
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