So far, to make us wish for ignorance,
    And rather in the dark to grope our way,
    Than, led by a false guide, to err by day? 
    Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand
    What barbarous invader sack’d the land? 
    But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did bring
    This desolation, but a Christian king,
    When nothing but the name of zeal appears
    ’Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs,
    What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
    When such th’ effects of our devotions are?”

Cooper’s Hill, by Sir JOHN DENHAM.

[103] Rapport de Mons. le Directeur-General des Finances, fait par Ordre du Roi a Versailles.  Mai 5, 1789.

[104] In the Constitution of Scotland, during the Stuart reigns, a committee sat for preparing bills; and none could pass, but those previously approved by them.  This committee was called Lords of Articles.

[105] When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had elapsed from my reading the passage.  A learned friend has found it and it is as follows:—­

[Greek:  To ethos to auto, kai ampho despotika ton beltionon, kai ta psephismata hosper ekei ta epitagmata, kai ho demagogos kai ho kolax hoi autoi kai analogon. kai malista d’ hekateroi par’ hekaterois ischuousin, hoi men kolakes para tois turannois, hoi de demagogoi para tois demois tois toioutois.]

“The ethical character is the same:  both exercise despotism over the better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one what ordinances and arrets are in the other:  the demagogue, too, and the court favorite, are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always bear a close analogy; and these have the principal power, each in their respective forms of government, favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as I have described.”—­Arist.  Politic. lib. iv. cap. 4.

[106] De l’Administration des Finances de la France, par Mons. Necker, Vol.  I. p. 288.

[107] De l’Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.

[108] Vol.  III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.

[109] The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has taken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions, for the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of crimes.

[110] See Gulliver’s Travels for the idea of countries governed by philosophers.

[111] M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris as far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M. Necker’s calculation.

[112]