Let him remit his rigor on the disproportion between merit and
reward in others, and they will make no inquiry into the origin of his
fortune. They will regard with much more satisfaction, as he will
contemplate with infinitely more advantage, whatever in his pedigree has
been dulcified by an exposure to the influence of heaven in a long flow
of generations from the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of the
spring. It is little to be doubted that several of his forefathers in
that long series have degenerated into honor and virtue. Let the Duke of
Bedford (I am sure he will) reject with scorn and horror the counsels of
the lecturers, those wicked panders to avarice and ambition, who would
tempt him, in the troubles of his country, to seek another enormous
fortune from the forfeitures of another nobility and the plunder of
another Church. Let him (and I trust that yet he will) employ all the
energy of his youth and all the resources of his wealth to crush
rebellious principles which have no foundation in morals, and rebellious
movements that have no provocation in tyranny.
Then will be forgot the rebellions which, by a doubtful priority in
crime, his ancestor had provoked and extinguished. On such a conduct in
the noble Duke, many of his countrymen might, and with some excuse
might, give way to the enthusiasm of their gratitude, and, in the
dashing style of some of the old declaimers, cry out, that, if the Fates
had found no other way in which they could give a[18] Duke of Bedford
and his opulence as props to a tottering world, then the butchery of
the Duke of Buckingham might be tolerated; it might be regarded even
with complacency, whilst in the heir of confiscation they saw the
sympathizing comforter of the martyrs who suffer under the cruel
confiscation of this day, whilst they beheld with admiration his zealous
protection of the virtuous and loyal nobility of France, and his manly
support of his brethren, the yet standing nobility and gentry of his
native land.
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