the Eastern nations, who pay little regard to the title of their sovereigns, but sacrifice them every day to the caprice or momentary humour of the populace or soldiery. It is but a foolish wisdom which is so carefully displayed in under-valuing princes and placing them on a level with the meanest of mankind. To be sure, an anatomist finds no more in the greatest monarch than in the lowest peasant or day-labourer, and a moralist may perhaps frequently find less. But what do all these reflections tend to? We all of us still retain these prejudices in favour of birth and family, and neither in our serious occupations nor most careless amusements can we ever get entirely rid of them. A tragedy that should {p205} represent the adventures of sailors or porters, or even of private gentlemen, would presently disgust us; but one that introduces kings and princes acquires in our eyes an air of importance and dignity. Or should a man be able, by his superior wisdom, to get entirely above such prepossessions, he would soon, by means of the same wisdom, again bring himself down to them for the sake of society, whose welfare he would perceive to be intimately connected with them. Far from endeavouring to undeceive the people in this particular, he would cherish such sentiments of reverence to their princes as requisite to preserve a due subordination in society. And though the lives of twenty thousand men be often sacrificed to maintain a king in possession of his throne, or preserve the right of succession undisturbed, he entertains no indignation at the loss on pretence that every individual was perhaps in himself as valuable as the prince he served. He considers the consequences of violating the hereditary right of kings—consequences which may be felt for many centuries; while the loss of several thousand men brings so little prejudice to a large kingdom that it may not be perceived a few years afterwards.
The advantages of the Hanover succession are of an opposite nature, and arise from this very circumstance, that it violates hereditary right, and places on the throne a prince to whom birth gave no title to that dignity. It is evident to any one who considers the history of this island that the