6

nlSTOET OF ENGLAND.

chap, evil, and to underrate present good; to long for wliat he has—not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity,as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both bylaughing and by weeping philosophers. It was a favouritetheme of Horace and of Pascal, of Voltaire and of Johnson.To its influence on the fate of great communities may heascribed most of the revolutions and counterrevolutions re-corded in history. A hundred generations have elapsed sincethe first great national emancipation, of which an account hascome down to us. We read in the most ancient of books that apeople bowed to the dust under a cruel yoke, scourged to toilby hard taskmasters, not supplied with straw', yet compelled tofurnish the daily tale of bricks, became sick of life, and raisedsuch a cry of misery as pierced the heavens. The slaves w r erewonderfully set free: at the moment of their liberation theyraised a song of gratitude and triumph: hut, in a few hours,they began to regret their slavery, and to murmur against theleader who had decoyed them away from the savoury fare of thehouse of bondage to the dreary waste which still separated themfrom the land flowing with milk and hone}'. Since that time thehistory of every great deliverer has been the history of Mosesretold. Down to the present hour rejoicings like those on theshore of the Red Sea have ever been speedily follow'ed by mur-murings like those at the Waters of Strife.* The most just andsalutary revolution must produce much suffering. The mostjust and salutary revolution cannot produce all the good thathad been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds andsanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still re-cent, weigh quite fairly the evils which it has caused against

* This illustration is repeated to satiety in sermons and pamphlets ofthe time of William the Third. There is a poor imitation of Absalom andAhitophel entitled the Murmurcrs. William is Moses; Corah, Dathan andAbiram, nonjuring Bishops; Balaam, I think, Dryden; and PbinehasShrewsbury.