They are described in scripture as walking in the flesh after the lust of uncleanness and despising government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. They speak evil of the things that they understand not. They are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For, when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness. While they promise liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption."

They were described some thousand years ago by Homer:
Thersites only clamored in the throng,
Loquacious, loud and turbulent of tongue :
Aw'd by no shame, by no respect controled,
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold.
With witty malice studious to defame;
Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim.
But chief he gloried with licentious style
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.
Spleen to mankind his envious heart possess'd
And much he hated all, but most the best,
Ulysses or Achilles still his theme,

But royal scandal his delight supreme.

Similar descriptions are to be found in our sweetest poets; in our most holy divines, and in our most profound legislators: in Shakspeare and in Spenser; in Hooker and in Bacon; and, above all, in every question relating to the freedom of mankind, John Milton; who, himself a noble patriot, well knew the nature of true liberty, and how little it is understood by those

Who bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when truth would set them free:
License they mean when they cry Liberty.

Such visionaries did not escape-and what did escape?-the notice of Shakspeare. In the Tempest there is the following dialogue :

Gon. I' the commonwealth, I would by contràries

Execute all things: for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bond of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, coin, or wine, or oil;

No occupation, all men idle, all,

And women too, but innocent and pure:

No sov'reignty.

Seb. And yet he would be king on't.

Ant. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.
Gon. All things in common, nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,

I 2 Peter, ii.

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth
Of its own kind, all foyzon, all abundance
To feed my innocent people.

Seb. No marrying 'mong his subjects?
Ant. None, man: all idle; whores and knaves.
Gon. I would with such perfection govern, Sir,
T'excel the golden age.

In

Nor did these visionaries escape the divine Spenser. the fifth book of the Fairy Queen, when Arthegal and Talus are journeying together, and are represented as arriving at an assembly of people who are listening to these harangues upon equality, the Orator in his address says,

Therefore I will throw down these mountains high,
And make them level with the lowly plain.
These towering rocks which reach unto the sky
I will thrust down into the deepest main,
And, as they were, them equalize again.
Tyrants that make men subject to their law,
I will suppress, that they no more may reign:
And lordlings curb that commons overawe:
And all the wealth of rich men to the poor will draw.
- he said, they all unequal were,

And had encroached upon each other's share :
Like as the sea (which plain he showed there)
Had worne the earth: so did the fire the air:
So all the rest did other parts impair :
And so were realms and nations run awry;
All which he undertook for to repair,
In sort as they were formed anciently:
And all things would reduce unto equality.
Therefore the vulgar did about him flock,
And cluster thick unto his leasings vain:
Like foolish flies about an honey-crock,
In hope by him great benefit to gain,
And uncontrolled freedom to obtain.

The opinion of the disinterestedness of Demagogues and the supposition of the novelty of their doctrines are not, however, the only advantages which they possess in their addresses to the populace. Knowing that it is easier to tempt, than to resist temptation knowing that vulgar youth is easily misled by the promise of sensual delight; and that ingenuous youth eagerly listen to the flattering illusions of liberty and equality, the Demagogue addresses the senses of the rabble and the imagination of better minds.

In Shakspeare's account of Wat Tyler's insurrection, Jack Cade

says,

Cade. Be brave then, for your Captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves for a penny. The three hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small

beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am King, as King I will be

All. God save your Majesty !

Cade. I thank you, good people. There shall be no money: all shall eat and drink upon my score: and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their Lord.

In a farce from Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, this species of eloquence did not escape the author. The sailors who mutiny assemble, and the leader of the gang thus addresses them :

Now, my lads, as I am Captain, it behoves me to make a bit of an oration, just that we may understand each other. I am told there are some abroad that would rather stick to their old commander than sail under Jack Windlass and a free flag: but the first that mutinies shall be run up to the yard-arm without mercy, by way of example like to the rest. You that are jolly boys shall share alike in all we have and all we may have! We'll sink the Banian days-sleep eight hours instead of four, work little, eat a great deal, and drink a double allowance of grog every Saturday night.

Such is the fool's paradise which Demagogues offer: such the expedients by which, under specious names, the ignorant are misled. Their promises of liberty and equality are of the same nature. They may be found in any of their works, and are embodied in a play, founded on the story of Wat Tyler, which was written in the early part of the French Revolution, by a young man who soon discovered the erroneous views which he had then taken of society.

John Ball. My brethren, these are truths, and weighty ones:
Ye all are equal: nature made you so.
Equality is your birth-right;-when I gaze
On the proud palace, and behold one man
In the blood-purpled robes of royalty,
Feasting at ease, and lording over millions,
Then turn me to the hut of poverty,
And see the wretched lab'rer, worn with toil,
Divide his scanty morsel with his infants,
I sicken, and, indignant at the sight,
'Blush for the patience of humanity.'
Jack Straw. We will assert our rights.
Tom Miller. We'll trample down

These insolent oppressors.

Sir J. Tresilian. John Ball, you are accused of stirring up
The poor deluded people to rebellion;

Not having the fear of God and of the King

Before your eyes of preaching up strange notions
Heretical and treasonous; such as saying

That kings have not a right from heaven to govern;

That all mankind are equal; and that ranks

And the distinctions of society,

Aye, and the sacred rights of property,
Are evil and oppressive:-Plead you guilty

To this most heavy charge?

John Ball.

If it be guilt

To preach what you are pleased to call strange notions:

That all mankind as brethren must be equal;
That privileg'd orders of society

Are evil and oppressive; that the right

Of property is a juggle to deceive

The poor whom you oppress ;-I plead me guilty.

Sir J. Tresilian. Did you not tell the mob they were oppress'd,

And preach upon the equality of man;

John Ball.

With evil intent thereby to stir them up
To tumult and rebellion?
That I told them
That all mankind are equal, is most true;
Ye came as helpless infants to the world:
Ye feel alike the infirmities of nature;
And at last moulder into common clay.

Why then these vain distinctions ?-bears not the earth
Food in abundance ?-must your granaries

O'erflow with plenty, while the poor man starves ?
Sir Judge, why sit you there clad in your furs?
Why are your cellars stor'd with choicest wines?
Your larders hung with dainties, while your vassal,
As virtuous, and as able too by nature,
Tho' by your selfish tyranny depriv'd
Of mind's improvement, shivers in his rags,
And starves amid the plenty he creates ?
I have said this is wrong, and I repeat it-
And there will be a time when this great truth
Shall be confess'd-be felt by all mankind.
The electric truth shall run from man to man,
And the blood-cemented pyramid of greatness
Shall fall before the flash!

Tell me, Sir Judge,

What does the government avail the peasant?
Would not he plow his field and sow the corn,
Aye, and in peace enjoy the harvest too?
Would not the sunshine and the dews descend,
Tho' neither King nor Parliament existed?

Do your Court Politics aught matter him?

Would he be warring even unto the death

With his French neighbours?-Charles and Richard contend;
The people fight and suffer:-think ye, Sirs,

If neither country had been cursed with a chief,
The peasants would have quarrell'd?

Such are the baits by which our better passions are allured.

In addition to the power which Demagogues possess, from the supposition of their disinterestedness and of the novelty of their doctrines and their addresses to the passions; the Demagogue, knowing that it is easier to find faults than to mend them, fixes upon the real or apparent objections to which all human institutions are subject; and, finding a favorable disposition for his address in the common propensity of mankind to discover and exaggerate defects, easily induces ignorance to believe that the whole of

government is defective: whilst the Patriot, in explaining the advantages of society, the necessity of coercion and the beauty of order, finds an unfavorable disposition in his hearers from their aversion to restraint; is watched with suspicion, and has difficulty in explaining, even to intelligent youth, the necessity of our establishments. We see,' says Lord Bacon, 'it ever falleth out, that the forbidden writing is always thought to be certain sparks of truth, that fly up into the faces of those that seek to choke it and tread it out: whereas a book authorized is thought to be but temporis voces, the language of the time.'

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The Demagogue appeals to the ignorance of his hearers, and is surrounded by a multitude. The Patriot relies upon the permanent effect of reason upon their understandings, and is, for a time, deserted. When a citizen of London threatened Mr. Wilkes that he would take the sense of the Livery upon his conduct, Mr. Wilkes answered, I will take the nonsense, and beat you out and out. Why,' said the regular physician to the quack doctor, 'do live in affluence whilst I am starving?' Because,' answered the mountebank, 'I live upon their folly, and you upon their wisdom.' -But so this has ever been and ever will be. Some thousand years ago Isocrates said in one of his orations against the sophists, that it is far more easy to maintain a wrong cause, and to support paradoxical opinions to the satisfaction of a common auditory, than to establish a doubtful truth by solid and conclusive arguments; and, some centuries ago, we were admonished by the pious Hooker, who says,The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministreth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed; and if there be occasion at any time to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on. In like manner the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. He therefore that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favorable hearers, because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regimen is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind; under this fair and