To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task,--especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity.
Burke reflects on the challenges of being a member of Parliament during a tumultuous time.
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But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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