knowing that some Families must be permanently great and opulent, or there would be no security for the possessions of the middle ranks, or of the humble Proprietor.  But, looking at the present constitution and measure of this influence, you cannot but perceive, Gentlemen, that, if there were indeed any thing in it that could justly be complained of, our duty might still be to bear with the local evil, as correcting an opposite extreme in some other quarter of the Island;—­as a counterpoise of some weight elsewhere pressing injuriously upon the springs of social order.  How deplorable would be the ignorance, how pitiful the pride, that could prevent us from submitting to a partial evil for the sake of a general good!  In fine, if a comprehensive survey enjoined no such sacrifice, and even if all that the unthinking, the malevolent, and the desperate, all that the deceivers and the deceived, have conjointly urged at this time against the House of Lowther, were literally true, you would be cautious how you sought a remedy for aristocratic oppression, by throwing yourselves into the arms of a flaming democracy!

Government and civil Society are things of infinite complexity, and rash Politicians are the worst enemies of mankind; because it is mainly through them that rational liberty has made so little progress in the world.  You have heard of a Profession to which the luxury of modern times has given birth, that of Landscape-Gardeners, or Improvers of Pleasure-grounds.  A competent Practitioner in this elegant art begins by considering every object, that he finds in the place where he is called to exercise his skill, as having a right to remain, till the contrary be proved.  If it be a deformity he asks whether a slight alteration may not convert it into a beauty; and he destroys nothing till he has convinced himself by reflection that no alteration, no diminution or addition, can make it ornamental.  Modern Reformers reverse this judicious maxim.  If a thing is before them, so far from deeming that it has on that account a claim to continue and be deliberately dealt with, its existence with them is a sufficient warrant for its destruction.  Institutions are to be subverted, Practices radically altered, and Measures to be reversed.  All men are to change their places, not because the men are objectionable, or the place is injurious, but because certain Pretenders are eager to be at work, being tired of both.  Some are forward, through pruriency of youthful talents—­and Greybeards hobble after them, in whom number of years is a cloak for poverty of experience.  Some who have much leisure, because every affair of their own has withered under their mismanagement, are eager to redeem their credit, by stirring gratis for the public;—­others, having risen a little in the world, take swimmingly to the trade of factious Politics, on their original stock of base manners and vulgar opinions.  Some are theorists hot for practice, others hacknied Practitioners who never had a theory; many are vain, and must be busy; and almost as many are needy—­and the spirit of justice, deciding upon their own merits, will not suffer them to remain at rest.