His is unlike the generous rapacity of the noble eagle, who preys upon a living, struggling, reluctant, equal victim; his is like that of the ravenous vulture, who falls upon the decayed, the sickly, the dying, and the dead, and only anticipates Nature in the destruction of its object.
Burke uses a vivid metaphor to compare corrupt leaders to vultures that prey on the weak and dying.
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Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
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