as in all things else, to our old settled maxim, never entirely nor at once to depart from antiquity. We found these old institutions, on the whole, favourable to morality and discipline; and we thought they were susceptible of amend|ment, without altering the ground. We thought that they were capable of receiving and meliora|ting, and above all of preserving the accessions of science and literature, as the order of Providence should successively produce them. And after all, with this Gothic and monkish education (for such it is in the ground-work) we may put in our claim to as ample and as early a share in all the improvements in science, in arts, and in lite|rature, which have illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any other nation in Europe; we think one main cause of this improvement was our not despising the patrimony of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers.
It is from our attachment to a church esta|blishment that the English nation did not think it wise to entrust that great fundamental interest of the whole to what they trust no part of their civil or military public service, that is to the unsteady and precarious contribution of indivi|duals. They go further. They certainly never have suffered and never will suffer the fixed es|tate of the church to be converted into a pen|sion, to depend on the treasury, and to be de|layed, withheld, or perhaps to be extinguished by fiscal difficulties, which difficulties may some|times be pretended for political purposes, and are in fact often brought on by the extravagance,
