The praise which
false courtiers feigned for our Edwards and Harrys, the Justinians
of their day, will be the just tribute of the wise and the good to
that monarch under whose sway so mighty an undertaking shall be
accomplished. Of a truth, the holders of sceptres are most chiefly
to be envied for that they bestow the power of thus conquering,
and ruling thus.
"It was the boast of Augustus--it formed part of the glare in
which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost,--that he found
Rome of brick, and left it of marble; a praise not unworthy a
great prince, and to which the present reign also has its claims.
But how much nobler will be the sovereign's boast when he shall
have it to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found
it a sealed book--left it a living letter; found it the patrimony
of the rich--left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the
two-edged sword of craft and oppression--left it the staff of
honesty and the shield of innocence!
"To me, much reflecting on these things, it has always seemed a
worthier honour to be the instrument of making you bestir
yourselves in this high matter, than to enjoy all that office can
bestow--office, of which the patronage would be an irksome
encumbrance, the emoluments superfluous to one content with the
rest of his industrious fellow-citizens that his own hands
minister to his wants; and as for the power supposed to follow
it--I have lived near half a century, and I have learned that
power and place may be severed.
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