Burke's obscene diatribes against the
French Revolution were still quoted and admired. Nobody had yet made any
emphatic protest against the beastliness of Swift or the brutalities of
Junius.[154]
When these necessary deductions have been made, we can return to the most
admiring eulogy. In 1835 Sydney wrote:--
"Catch me, if you can, in any one illiberal sentiment, or in any
opinion which I have need to recant; and that, after twenty years'
scribbling upon all subjects."
It was no mean boast, and it was absolutely justified by the record. From
first to last he was the convinced, eager, and devoted friend of Freedom,
and that without distinction of place or race or colour. He would make no
terms with a man who temporized about the Slave-Trade.--
"No man should ever hold parley with it, but speak of it with
abhorrence, as the greatest of all human abominations."
The toleration of Slavery was the one and grave exception to his unstinted
admiration of the United States, which afforded, in his opinion, "the most
magnificent picture of human happiness" which the world had ever seen. And
this because in America, more than in any other country, each citizen was
free to live his own life, manage his own affairs, and work out his own
destiny, under the protection of just and equal laws. As regards political
institutions in England, he seems to have been converted rather gradually
to the belief that Reform was necessary.
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