CHAP. IV.

But I will hope better of my countrymen, and I think that our clergy have encouragement even from the native character of Britons. National comparisons are indeed ungraceful, and are rarely candid—but I think they may be indulged in this instance. It is of his own countrymen that Voltaire speaks, when he says, that "they resemble a mixed breed of the monkey and the tiger," animals that mix fun with mischief, and that sport with the torments of their prey.—They have indeed given the most shocking proofs of the justness of his portrait. It is with a considerable degree of national pride, therefore, that I compare the behaviour of the French with that of the British in a very similar situation, during the civil wars and the usurpation of Cromwell. There have been more numerous, and infinitely more atrocious, crimes committed in France during any one half year since the beginning of the Revolution, than during the whole of that tumultuous period. And it should be remembered, that in Britain, at that period, to all other grounds of discontent was added no small share of religious fanaticism, a passion (may I call it) which seldom fails to rouse every angry thought of the heart.—Much may be hoped for from an earnest and judicious address to that rich fund of manly kindness that is conspicuous in the British character,—a fund to which I am persuaded we owe the excellence of our constitutional government—No where else in Europe are the claims of the different ranks in society so generally and so candidly admitted. All feel their force, and all allow them to others. Hence it happens that they are enjoyed in so much peace——hence it happens that the gentry live among the yeomen and farmers with so easy and familiar a superiority: