I
may excite laughter, by dropping an hint, which I mean to pursue, some
future time, for I really think that women ought to have
representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without
having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of
government.
But, as the whole system of representation is now, in this
country, only a convenient handle for despotism, they need not
complain, for they are as well represented as a numerous class of hard
working mechanics, who pay for the support of royalty when they can
scarcely stop their children's mouths with bread. How are they
represented whose very sweat supports the splendid stud of an heir
apparent, or varnishes the chariot of some female favourite who
looks down on shame? Taxes on the very necessaries of life, enable
an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid
pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which
costs them so dear. This is mere gothic grandeur, something like the
barbarous useless parade of having sentinels on horseback at
Whitehall, which I could never view without a mixture of contempt
and indignation.
How strangely must the mind be sophisticated when this sort of state
impresses it! But, till these monuments of folly are levelled by
virtue, similar follies will leaven the whole mass. For the same
character, in some degree, will prevail in the aggregate of society:
and the refinements of luxury, or the vicious repinings of envious
poverty, will equally banish virtue from society, considered as the
characteristic of that society, or only allow it to appear as one of
the stripes of the harlequin coat, worn by the civilized man.
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