In the disposal of an immense revenue and
the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power
of the Crown were laid; the innovation of a standing army at once
increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act
of Settlement opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed
during the Whiggish reigns that succeeded; till at length this spirit of
influence has become the vital principle of the state,--an agency, subtle
and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution, lurks under all
its forms and regulates all its movements, and, like the invisible sylph
or grace which presides over the motions of beauty,
"_illam, quicquid agit, quoquo westigia flectit,
componit furlim subsequiturque."_
The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in
the minds of Englishmen that probably in objecting to the latter I may be
thought hostile or indifferent to the former. But assuredly nothing could
be more unjust than such a suspicion. The very object indeed which my
humble animadversions would attain is that in the crisis to which I think
England is now hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she
may soon be compelled to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 should
be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution
without Reform, so she may now endeavor to accomplish a Reform without
Revolution.
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