Page:Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things - Shelley (1811).djvu/19



Vices as glaring as the noon-day sun.—See the speech of one of his Majesty's ministers in the last Session of Parliament.—The candour of the Right Hon. Gentleman demands our admiration, his impudence has ceased to surprise us.

Oblivion marks the murdering poor man's tomb.—It cannot be supposed that by this the Author means to justify the crimes of the indigent, but thinks that no earthly power for whatever offence, has a right to deprive an individual of that life which a will, superior to human law, entrusted to his preservation, with which intention human law ought to concur. Confinement, restriction, punishment even is necessary for the support of civilized society; but to shut the door of repentance even upon a murderer, to put an eternal termination to his usefulness in this life, to force him upon an unknown, inconceivable existence, is beyond what we can conceive to be the authority of custom. The morality, if not the necessity of war, must in course be impeached by this argument. If war then is proved to be deleterious, which I think few will deny, then those, in the identification of whom none can hesitate, ought to be deprived of the power of mischief, whose interest, whose desire it is to promote so forcible an outrage on its happiness.

Kings are but men, &c.—By Kings here the Author must be understood to mean, not merely those men who are invested with the regal authority, but also all who are entrusted with the executive part of legislation, to whom more advantages result from the station which they fill, than the consciousness of having discharged their duty for the welfare of their fellow creatures.

We cannot say with Horace "Rex ille est."