Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.

know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in mo|rality; nor many in the great principles of go|vernment, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert lo|quacity. In England we have not yet been completely embowelled of our natural entrails; we still feel within us, and we cherish and cul|tivate, those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals. We have not been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff and rags, and paltry, blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man. We preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisticated by pe|dantry and infidelity. We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God; we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magis|trates; with reverence to priests; and with re|spect to nobility * 1.1. Why? Because when such

Notes

* 1.1

The English are, I conceive, misrepresented in a Letter published in one of the papers, by a gentleman thought to be a dissenting minister.—When writing to Dr. Price, of the spirit which prevails at Paris, he says,
The spirit of the people in this place has abolished all the proud distinctions which the king and nobles had usurped in their minds;
whether they talk of
the king, the noble, or the priest, their whole language is that of the most enlightened and liberal amongst the English.
If this gentleman means to confine the terms enlightened and liberal to one set of men in England, it may be true. It is not generally so.

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About this Item

Title: Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
Author: Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Canvas: Page 128
Publication: London :: printed for J. Dodsley,; 1790.

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Collection: Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo
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Full citation: "Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k043880.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 21, 2025.