evils follow.  Science and Art must dwindle, whether the power be hereditary or not:  and the virtues of a Trajan or an Antonine are a hollow support for the feeling of contentment and happiness in the hearts of their subjects:  such virtues are even a painful mockery;—­something that is, and may vanish in a moment, and leave the monstrous crimes of a Caracalla or a Domitian in its place,—­men, who are probably leaders of a long procession of their kind.  The feebleness of despotic power we have had before our eyes in the late condition of Spain and Prussia; and in that of France before the Revolution; and in the present condition of Austria and Russia.  But, in a new-born arbitrary and military Government (especially if, like that of France, it have been immediately preceded by a popular Constitution), not only this weakness is not found; but it possesses, for the purposes of external annoyance, a preternatural vigour.  Many causes contribute to this:  we need only mention that, fitness—­real or supposed—­being necessarily the chief (and almost sole) recommendation to offices of trust, it is clear that such offices will in general be ably filled; and their duties, comparatively, well executed:  and that, from the conjunction of absolute civil and military authority in a single Person, there naturally follows promptness of decision; concentration of effort; rapidity of motion; and confidence that the movements made will be regularly supported.  This is all which need now be said upon the subject of this first basis of French Tyranny.

For the second—­namely, the personal character of the Chief; I shall at present content myself with noting (to prevent misconception) that this basis is not laid in any superiority of talents in him, but in his utter rejection of the restraints of morality—­in wickedness which acknowledges no limit but the extent of its own power.  Let any one reflect a moment; and he will feel that a new world of forces is opened to a Being who has made this desperate leap.  It is a tremendous principle to be adopted, and steadily adhered to, by a man in the station which Buonaparte occupies; and he has taken the full benefit of it.  What there is in this principle of weak, perilous, and self-destructive—­I may find a grateful employment in endeavouring to shew upon some future occasion.  But it is a duty which we owe to the present moment to proclaim—­in vindication of the dignity of human nature, and for an admonition to men of prostrate spirit—­that the dominion, which this Enemy of mankind holds, has neither been acquired nor is sustained by endowments of intellect which are rarely bestowed, or by uncommon accumulations of knowledge; but that it has risen from circumstances over which he had no influence; circumstances which, with the power they conferred, have stimulated passions whose natural food hath been and is ignorance; from the barbarian impotence and insolence of a mind—­originally of ordinary constitution—­lagging, in moral