These palaces are a true emblem of some governments: the inhabitants are decayed, but the governors and magistrates still flourish.
Edmund Burke: “These palaces are a true emblem of some governments: the inhabitants are decayed, but the governors and magistrates…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke compares decayed palaces to governments that appear to thrive despite their decline.
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Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.





