[The Prose Works of William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth]@TWC D-Link bookThe Prose Works of William Wordsworth PREFACE 321/1026
But Time, that Judge from whom none but triflers appeal to conjecture, has decided upon leading principles and main events, and given the verdict against his clients.
While, with a ready tongue, the Advocate of a disappointed party is filling one scale, do you, with a clear memory and apt judgment, silently throw in what of right belongs to the other; and the result will be, that no sensible man among you, who has supported the present Members on account of their steady adherence to Ministers, can be induced to change his conduct, or be persuaded that the hour is either come, or approaching, when, for the sake of bringing the power of Opposition in this County nearer to an equality with that of Ministers, it will be his duty to vote against those Representatives in whom he has hitherto confided.
No, if Mr. Brougham had not individually passed far beyond the line of that Party--if his conduct had been such that even they themselves would admit that he truly belonged to them--the exception would still lie against the general rule; and will remain till the character of men and measures materially changes, for the better, assuredly, on the one side, if not for the worse on the other.
Remember what England might have been with an Administration countenancing French Doctrines at the dawn of the French Revolution, and suffering them, as it advanced, to be sown with every wind that came across the Channel! Think what was the state of Europe before the French Emperor, the apparent, and in too many respects the real, Idol of Opposition, was overthrown! Numbers, I am aware, do not cease vehemently to maintain, that the late war was neither just nor necessary; that the ostensible and real causes of it were widely different; that it was not begun, and persisted in, for the purpose of withstanding foreign aggression, and in defence of social order: but from unprincipled ambition in the Powers of Europe, eager to seize that opportunity of augmenting their territories at the expence of distracted and enfeebled France .-- Events ever-to-be-lamented do, I grant, give too much colour to those affirmations.
But this was a war upon a large scale, wherein many Belligerents took part; and no one who distinctly remembers the state of Europe at its commencement will be inclined any more to question that the alleged motives had a solid foundation, because then, or afterwards, others might mix with them, than he would doubt that the maintenance of Christianity and the reduction of the power of the Infidels were the principal motives of the Crusades, because roving Adventurers, joining in those expeditions, turned them to their own profit.
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