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London, thou Niobe, who sittest in stone, amidst thy stricken and fated children; nurse of the desolate, that hidest in thy bosom the shame, the sorrows, the sins of many sons; in whose arms the fallen and the outcast shroud their distresses, and shelter from the proud man's contumely; Epitome and Focus of the disparities and maddening contrasts of this wrong world, that assemblest together in one great heap the woes, the joys, the elevations, the debasements of the various tribes of man; mightiest of levellers, confounding in thy whirlpool all ranks, all minds, the graven labours of knowledge, the straws of the maniac, purple and rags, the regalities and the loathsomeness of earth, palace and lazar-house combined!
Hence Hume, though I cannot say that he does not throw out some expressions of disapprobation on the proceedings of the levellers in the reign of Richard the Second, yet affirms that the doctrines of John Ball were "conformable to the ideas of primitive equality which are engraven in the hearts of all men." Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such.
But as to OUR country and OUR race, as long as the well-compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion; as long as the British monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land so long the mounds and dykes of the low, fat Bedford Level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France.
"Yet they will laugh to-day at the same things you will, and consequently there would be a most flattering congeniality between you. Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic." "Oracular, as usual, Count, but, hark, the clock gives tongue.
Be seated. Come, how can I serve you?": and at last he had this Jackanapes taking a handsome salary for doing nothing. When Jack's friends would reproach him and say, "Oh, Jack, Jack, beware this fine gentleman; he will be your ruin," Jack would answer, "A plague on all levellers," or again, "What if he be a gentleman?
The levellers therefore only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of society, by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. The Chancellor of France, at the opening of the states, said, in a tone of oratorical flourish, that all occupations were honourable.
The colonel-major and several captains of his own regiment were cashiered; many of the Levellers and royalists were arrested and imprisoned, or discharged upon bail; and the lord-mayor, aldermen, and common-council received from Cromwell Feb. 4. Thurloe, vi. 778, 779, 781, 788. Parl. Hist. iii. 1525.
Meanwhile the English disciples of Rousseau in the persons of Price and Priestley suggested to him that Locke, "the idol of the levellers of England," was the parent also of French destructiveness. Burke took up the work thus begun; and after he had dealt with the contract theory it ceased to influence political speculation in England.
By this act of vigour it was thought that subordination had been restored; but Cromwell soon discovered that the Levellers constituted two-thirds of the military force, and that it was necessary for him to retrace his steps, if he wished to retain his former influence. With that view he made a public acknowledgment of his error, and a solemn promise to stand or fall with the army.
In this respect there is no difference between gods and men. Great cities are great levellers of both. He who has stood forth in undue proportions in the solitude of the country, sinks out of observation in the solitude of a crowd. The most superficial statement of philosophy among the Romans, if philosophy it can be called, shows us how completely religious sentiment was effaced.
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