Perfons living at the revolu tion efpecially qualified to judge of civil liberty. ture to be ruled and governed. The field was then open to redress every past griev ance, and to introduce whatever innovation they thought requifite or conducive to the full enjoyment of their rights and liberties. The minds of the generation then living were perhaps better formed for judging of the effects of civil liberty, than any preceding or fubfequent generation whatever. The fubverfion of monarchy by the death of king Charles I.; the experience of republicanism in the protectorate; the revival of monarchy in the restoration of king Charles II. under fresh conditions and limitations of the royal prerogative, after the nation had been gorged and furfeited with the tyrannical licentiousness of democracy; the abandonment, dereliction, refignation, abdication, or forfeiture of the regal trust and executive power of government by king James II. were facts fo recent, that their combined force would then, if ever, work their full impreffion upon the minds of thofe, who had experienced the whole variety of these changes. Thus the bishop of Worcester introduces ferjeant Maynard, conversing with Mr. Somers and bifhop Burnet, immediately after the coronation of king William 窿 William and queen Mary, on the 11th of April 1689; "Bear with me, faid he, my young friends. Age, you know, hath its privilege; and it may be, I use it somewhat unreasonably. But I, who have seen the prize of liberty contending for through half a century, to find it obtained at last by a method fo fure, and yet fo unexpected, do you think it poffible, that I fhould contain myself on fuch an occafion? Oh, if ye had lived with me in those days, when fuch mighty ftruggles were made for public freedom, when so many wife counfels miscarried, and so many generous enterprizes concluded but in the confirmation of lawless tyranny; if I say, ye had lived in those days, and now at length were able to contraft with me, to the tragedies that were then acted, this fafe, this bloodless, this complete deliverance, I am miftaken, if the youngest of you could reprove me for this joy, which makes me think I can never fay enough on fo delightful a fubject." The refult of these impreffions upon our ancestors, who framed the bill of rights, and who new modelled the fucceffion and tenure of the crown, was to readopt as much of the old form of government, as was con Hurd's Dial, Meral and Political, vol. ii. p. 94, 95. fiftent Our ancestors wifely preferv ed what they could of the an cient form of government. fiftent with that perfection of liberty, which they then meant to establish and transmit, as the most valuable inheritance to their pofterity for ever; moft wifely keeping in view that seasonable and juft adage of Tacitus, Arcanum novi ftatus, imago antiqui: "the fecret of fetting up a new government, is to retain the figure (or form) of the old one.” Hence I think no one will deny, that a firm acquiefcence in that form of government established at the revolution, and a ftrong reluctance to break in upon it by any fort of innovation are not only laudable, but Parliament has even conftitutional. We have nevertheless will alter what feen, as occafions have required, very falutary and beneficial regulations made by parliament fince that time, to check, moderate, and ascertain the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of each feparate branch of the legislature. And we look up to parliament in full confidence, that they will, in the fame fpirit of patriotifm, continue for ever to prune luxuriances, fupply defects, and correct abuses, as in the frailty of all human institutions they may be found to arife. altered, and they think proper. Though the public be in the habit of refpecting and revering the innovations made in the constitution at the revolution, as facred and immutable, yet if degrees of deference of our con are admiffible for different parts * Mr. Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philofophy, p. 426, as quoted by Dr. Priestley, in his Fourth Letter to Mr. Burke, p. 42. more The old forms of our govern ment more respectable than the new. Frequent more deference and refpect than other laws, changes of go- it is either the advantage of the prefent conftitution of government (which rea vernment to be avoided. The prefent fyftem of reprefentation fon must be of different force in different countries) or, because in all countries, it is of importance, that the form and ufage of governing be acknowledged and understood, as well by the governors as the governed, and because the feldomer it is changed, the more it will be respected by both fides." The practice of every human inftitution must effentially be lefs perfect, than the theory of it. And daily experience fhews, how much more eafy it is to invent objections, and start difficulties, than to adminifter relief, and cure evils. There can be but two general grounds, upon which the difcontented declaimers of the day complain of the inadequate, partial, and corrupt representation of this nation in parliament; either that we have fwerved from the original usages and inftitutions of our ancestors, or that the system of representation has never as yet been brought to that degree of perfection, to which their speculative ideas have carried it. This latter ground of complaint will be foftened in proportion as the pro comparatively greffive improvements of our conftitution fhall be traced from the times and circum complete. stances, |