THE PATRIOT KING

From The Idea of a Patriot King.

The good of the people is the ultimate and true end of government. Governors are therefore appointed for this end, and the civil constitution which appoints them, and invests them with their power, is determined to do so by that law of nature and reason which has determined the end of government, and which admits this form of government as the proper mean of arriWng at it.

Now the greatest good of a people is their liberty ; and in the case here referred to, the people has judged it so, and provided for it accordingly. Liberty is to the collective body what health is to the individual body : without health no pleasure can be tasted by man, without liberty no happiness can be enjoyed by society. The obligation, therefore, to defend and maintain the freedom of such constitutions will appear most sacred to a patriot king. Kings who have weak understandings, bad hearts, and strong prejudices, and all these, as it often happens, inflamed by their passions, and rendered incurable by their self-conceit and presumption, such kings are apt to imagine, and they conduct themselves so as to make many of their subjects imagine, that the king and the people in free governments are rival powers, who stand in competition with one another, who have different interests, and must of course have dififerent views ; that the rights and privileges of the people are so many spoils taken from the right and prerogative of the crown ; and that the rules and laws, made for the exercise and security of the former, are so many diminutions of their dignity, and restraints on their power. (lord bolingbroke.)

(b) Kesumer brièvement ce que Mme. de Staël dit de la société en Angleterre.

(a) Traduire en français : —

THE TRIAL OF THE REBEL LORDS From a Letter to Sir Horace Mann, August 1, 1746. I am this moment come from the conclusion of the

greatest and most melancholy scene I ever yet saw ! — you will easily guess it was the trials of the rebel lords. . . . The first appearance of the prisoners shocked me ! their behaviour melted me ! Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord Kilmarnock is tall and slender, with an extreme fine person : his behaviour a most just mixture between dignity and submission ; if in anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a man in his situation ; but when I say this, it is not to find fault with him, but to show how little fault there was to be found. Lord Cromartie is an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected, and rather sullen : he dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon as he got back to his cell.

For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw : the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man ; in the intervals of form, with carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife, his pretty Peggy, with him in the Tower. Ladj' Cromartie only sees her husband through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve him better by her intercession without : she is very handsome : so are their daughters. When they were to be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go— old Balmerino cried : ' Come, come, put it with me.' At the bar he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks to the gentlemangaoler; and one day somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the trial a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see ; he made room for the child, and placed him near himself. (HORACE walpole.)

(b) La vie de Mme. de Staël.

(a) Traduire en français : —