Indeed at
that time, I seriously held the doctrine of passive obedience, though a
violent enemy of the first war. Afterwards, and for the last ten years
of my life, I have been fighting incessantly in the good cause, against
French ambition, and French principles; and I had Mr. Addington's
suffrage, as to the good produced by my Essays, written in the "Morning
Post", in the interval of the peace of Amiens, and the second war,
together with my two letters to Mr. Fox. [2]
Of my former errors, I should be no more ashamed, than of my change of
body, natural to increase of age; but in that first edition, there was
inserted (without my consent!) a Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, in direct
contradiction, equally, to my "then", as to my present principles. A
Sonnet written by me in ridicule and mockery of the bloated style of
French jacobinical declamation, and inserted by Biggs, (the fool of a
printer,) in order forsooth, that he might send the book, and a letter
to Earl Stanhope; who, to prove that he was not mad in all things,
treated both book and letter with silent contempt. I have therefore sent
Mr. Poole's second edition, and if it be in your power, I could wish you
to read the "dedication to my brother," at the beginning, to Lady E.
Perceval, to obtain whose esteem, so far at least as not to be
confounded with the herd of vulgar mob flatterers, I am not ashamed to
confess myself solicitous.
Pages:
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382