The Prejudices of Memory.
Memory, though it is not in other respects the most im portant, or the most beneficial of our faculties, is that which gives birth to the most powerful and the most nu merous class of our prejudices, and of which the influence is the deepest and most permanent on our opinions and our affections. Life, when new, was to all of us a season of joy and delight ; our increasing vigour of body re moved from us every want and every anxiety ; hope sup plied the place of reality ; even our sufferings were blended with emotions so lively and so elastic, with a sensibility so active, with an imagination so fertile, that the remem brance of it is, to the latest period of existence, cherished with peculiar fondness. Even its illusions, its troubles, and its defects, memory dwells upon with melancholy sa tisfaction, and arrays them in colours of the most interest ing and fascinating kind. In our more advanced years, the innocence and the charms by which our youth was characterized, cannot be felt, and are deeply regretted. We discover our sensibility to be blunted, our imagination to be extinguished, our confidence and buoyancy of spirit to be fled,—and our matured reason and judgment, with all their dignity and advantages, cannot supply to us the want of what age has deprived us. And this change, which is so painful to us, we are induced to impute not so much to any aberration in our own mind and circum stances, as to the degeneracy of the age in which we live. We like to cherish the belief, however illusory, that there was something of reality in the scenes and the sentiments, of which, though long passed, we retain so lively a remem brance. We attribute to an alteration in the circumstances of the world, or of others, and not to any in our own, that distrust, and that jealousy, by which we are now distin guished. The kings, the magistrates, the priests of our youth, never, we flatter ourselves, abused their power, be cause we never suspected them of any abuse. Parents and masters had no other interests but those of their depend ants and children, because our obedience and dutifulness were submissive and unsuspecting. The character of those who died, ere we attained to the age of manhood, their failings or the ircrimes were un known to us. These dreams of age, however—this love of the days that are past—this respect for the character of those individuals whom we knew in our early years, are the consequences (often amiable, but always fallacious) of that reverence which we pay to the, objects of me mory, and of that love, which, at every subsequent period of life, we cherish for the emotions and susceptibilities of youth.
Of all the public institutions, which form the basis and safe-guard of human society, there is none, the perma nence and stability of which are not owing, in a great de gree, if not entirely, to the feeling which we are contem plating, namely, the great reverence and respect we main tain for the remembrances of youth. A striking proof of this may be traced in that indescribable popular affection shown to all established reigning families, though they are the depositories of a power, which, from its very nature, is more frequently employed to punish than to reward. Though they are the objects of the most devoted attach ment, it is in their name, and by their authority, that taxes are raised, restrictions and prohibitions imposed, war and the levying of soldiers take place, punishment and torture of every kind inflicted; whilst the good which they do, and the benefits they confer on society, are entirely of a metaphysical nature, and incapable of being appreciated by the great mass of the people. They maintain order and afford protection, neither of which we feel, or which seem to result not from them, but from ourselves. Their most beneficial influence resembles the air which we breathe : it is essential to our very existence, a fact of which we either are not aware, or which we entirely overlook. A few individuals, indeed, are known to the sovereign, whom all love and obey ; they obtain personal favours, and are elevated to places of honour and distinction; but the great body of the people have no other connexion with the go vernment than by the taxes they pay, and the privations they undergo to support it. Every class of the communi ty, however—the soldier, the peasant, the artisan—uni formly speak of the prince who rules over them, in terms of the warmest tenderness and the blindest confidence, of which prejudice alone tells them he is deserving. " Ile is our good king," they say, " our beloved monarch : if he do evil, it is because he has been deceived, because he cannot be expected to know and see every thing, because lie is surrounded by perfidious ministers." Never do the people attribute to their king individually, crimes, narrow mindedness, or error.