Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/392

356 liars and libellers, calumniators and intriguers, are always within call to prevent anything like reform. This is what Kings call governing! It has been the same in all times and in all Courts. Mankind never profit by experience. Dr. Franklin used to say that Experience was the school for Fools. The most profligate woman that walks the Strand can persuade any man that he is the first who has really captivated her. Such are men!

"It would be worth while to examine the lesser causes which have made the institutions of France and England take such a different bent from the time of Queen Elizabeth and Henry IV. I should like to know when and how it came to pass that all the rights of nobility should be conferred in England on the eldest son, while over the rest of Europe it has been extended to all the children, be they ever so many. The consequence is that every family in England has a mixture of aristocracy and democracy in it. The eldest brother is alone noble, the others all are people.

"It would have been happy if the right of primogeniture was destroyed altogether or never had existed. Of all the institutions which ever were invented, it is the most calculated to destroy all domestic and public comfort, as well as all public and private virtue. The eldest son instead of being almost a second father to his family, which nature intended him to be, becomes quite estranged from them; instead of being a pattern of order, sobriety, and industry, in the common course of human passions he is only an example to shun, and has neither feelings nor employments in common with them. In one short generation all younger brothers are sure to be driven from home to beg existence in the army, the church, or in the immediate service of the Court, or in commerce; instead of inheriting a proportionable share of their father's landed property, which is no more than their right, which necessarily would have the effect of attaching them to their native soil, and would be sure to afford them health and affluence, as well as independence both of body and mind. It might have been good, I do not say that it was,