support of prudence, or rejecting the rules of experience, for the better conduct of those multifarious actions which are alike necessary to the attainment of ends good or bad—­do instinctively prompt the sole prudence which cannot fail.  The higher mode of being does not exclude, but necessarily includes, the lower; the intellectual does not exclude, but necessarily includes, the sentient; the sentient, the animal; and the animal, the vital—­to its lowest degrees.  Wisdom is the hidden root which thrusts forth the stalk of prudence; and these uniting feed and uphold ’the bright consummate flower’—­National Happiness—­the end, the conspicuous crown, and ornament of the whole.

I have announced the feelings of those who hope:  yet one word more to those who despond.  And first; he stands upon a hideous precipice (and it will be the same with all who may succeed to him and his iron sceptre)—­he who has outlawed himself from society by proclaiming, with act and deed, that he acknowledges no mastery but power.  This truth must be evident to all who breathe—­from the dawn of childhood, till the last gleam of twilight is lost in the darkness of dotage.  But take the tyrant as he is, in the plenitude of his supposed strength.  The vast country of Germany, in spite of the rusty but too strong fetters of corrupt princedoms and degenerate nobility,—­Germany—­with its citizens, its peasants, and its philosophers—­will not lie quiet under the weight of injuries which has been heaped upon it.  There is a sleep, but no death, among the mountains of Switzerland.  Florence, and Venice, and Genoa, and Rome,—­have their own poignant recollections, and a majestic train of glory in past ages.  The stir of emancipation may again be felt at the mouths as well as at the sources of the Rhine.  Poland perhaps will not be insensible; Kosciusko and his compeers may not have bled in vain.  Nor is Hungarian loyalty to be overlooked.  And, for Spain itself, the territory is wide:  let it be overrun:  the torrent will weaken as the water spreads.  And, should all resistance disappear, be not daunted:  extremes meet:  and how often do hope and despair almost touch each other—­though unconscious of their neighbourhood, because their faces are turned different ways! yet, in a moment, the one shall vanish; and the other begin a career in the fulness of her joy.

But we may turn from these thoughts:  for the present juncture is most auspicious.  Upon liberty, and upon liberty alone, can there be permanent dependence; but a temporary relief will be given by the share which Austria is about to take in the war.  Now is the time for a great and decisive effort; and, if Britain does not avail herself of it, her disgrace will be indelible, and the loss infinite.  If there be ground of hope in the crimes and errors of the enemy, he has furnished enough of both:  but imbecility in his opponents (above all, the imbecility of the British) has hitherto preserved him from the natural