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+Project Gutenberg's The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6, by Samuel Johnson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+       Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK S. JOHNSON V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
+
+
+REVIEWS, POLITICAL TRACTS,
+
+AND
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+
+THE WORKS OF
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+IN NINE VOLUMES.
+
+
+VOLUME THE SIXTH.
+
+
+MDCCCXXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.
+
+
+REVIEWS.
+
+Letter on Du Halde's history of China.
+
+Review of the account of the conduct of the dutchess of Marlborough.
+
+Review of memoirs of the court of Augustus.
+
+Review of four letters from sir Isaac Newton.
+
+Review of a journal of eight days' journey.
+
+Reply to a paper in the Gazetteer.
+
+Review of an essay on the writings and genius of Pope.
+
+Review of a free enquiry into the nature and origin of evil.
+
+Review of the history of the Royal Society of London, &c.
+
+Review of the general history of Polybius.
+
+Review of miscellanies on moral and religious subjects.
+
+Account of a book entitled an historical and critical enquiry into the
+evidence produced by the earls of Moray and Morton against Mary queen of
+Scots, &c.
+
+Marmor Norfolciense; or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription
+in monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk.
+
+Observations on the state of affairs in 1756.
+
+An introduction to the political state of Great Britain.
+
+Observations on the treaty between his Britannic majesty and his
+imperial majesty of all the Russias, &c.
+
+Introduction to the proceedings of the committee appointed to manage the
+contributions for clothing French prisoners of war.
+
+On the bravery of the English common soldiers.
+
+
+POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+Prefatory observations to political tracts.
+
+The False Alarm. 1770.
+
+Prefatory observations on Falkland's islands.
+
+Thoughts on the late transactions respecting Falkland's islands.
+
+The Patriot.
+
+Taxation no tyranny; an answer to the resolutions and address of the
+American congress. 1775.
+
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+Father Paul Sarpi.
+
+Boerhaave.
+
+Blake.
+
+Sir Francis Drake.
+
+Barretier.
+
+Additional account of the life of Barretier in the Gentleman's Magazine,
+1742.
+
+Morin.
+
+Burman.
+
+Sydenham.
+
+Cheynel.
+
+Cave.
+
+King of Prussia.
+
+Browne.
+
+Ascham.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738.
+
+
+There are few nations in the world more talked of, or less known, than
+the Chinese. The confused and imperfect account which travellers have
+given of their grandeur, their sciences, and their policy, have,
+hitherto, excited admiration, but have not been sufficient to satisfy
+even a superficial curiosity. I, therefore, return you my thanks for
+having undertaken, at so great an expense, to convey to English readers
+the most copious and accurate account, yet published, of that remote and
+celebrated people, whose antiquity, magnificence, power, wisdom,
+peculiar customs, and excellent constitution, undoubtedly deserve the
+attention of the publick.
+
+As the satisfaction found in reading descriptions of distant countries
+arises from a comparison which every reader naturally makes, between the
+ideas which he receives from the relation, and those which were familiar
+to him before; or, in other words, between the countries with which he
+is acquainted, and that which the author displays to his imagination; so
+it varies according to the likeness or dissimilitude of the manners of
+the two nations. Any custom or law, unheard and unthought of before,
+strikes us with that surprise which is the effect of novelty; but a
+practice conformable to our own pleases us, because it flatters our
+self-love, by showing us that our opinions are approved by the general
+concurrence of mankind. Of these two pleasures, the first is more
+violent, the other more lasting; the first seems to partake more of
+instinct than reason, and is not easily to be explained, or defined; the
+latter has its foundation in good sense and reflection, and evidently
+depends on the same principles with most human passions.
+
+An attentive reader will frequently feel each of these agreeable
+emotions in the perusal of Du Halde. He will find a calm, peaceful
+satisfaction, when he reads the moral precepts and wise instructions of
+the Chinese sages; he will find that virtue is in every place the same;
+and will look with new contempt on those wild reasoners, who affirm,
+that morality is merely ideal, and that the distinctions between good
+and ill are wholly chimerical.
+
+But he will enjoy all the pleasure that novelty can afford, when he
+becomes acquainted with the Chinese government and constitution; he will
+be amazed to find that there is a country where nobility and knowledge
+are the same, where men advance in rank as they advance in learning, and
+promotion is the effect of virtuous industry; where no man thinks
+ignorance a mark of greatness, or laziness the privilege of high birth.
+
+His surprise will be still heightened by the relations he will there
+meet with, of honest ministers, who, however incredible it may seem,
+have been seen more than once in that monarchy, and have adventured to
+admonish the emperours of any deviation from the laws of their country,
+or any errour in their conduct, that has endangered either their own
+safety, or the happiness of their people. He will read of emperours,
+who, when they have been addressed in this manner, have neither stormed,
+nor threatened, nor kicked their ministers, nor thought it majestick to
+be obstinate in the wrong; but have, with a greatness of mind worthy of
+a Chinese monarch, brought their actions willingly to the test of
+reason, law, and morality, and scorned to exert their power in defence
+of that which they could not support by argument.
+
+I must confess my wonder at these relations was very great, and had been
+much greater, had I not often entertained my imagination with an
+instance of the like conduct in a prince of England, on an occasion that
+happened not quite a century ago, and which I shall relate, that so
+remarkable an example of spirit and firmness in a subject, and of
+conviction and compliance in a prince, may not be forgotten. And I hope
+you will look upon this letter as intended to do honour to my country,
+and not to serve your interest by promoting your undertaking.
+
+The prince, at the christening of his first son, had appointed a noble
+duke to stand as proxy for the father of the princess, without regard to
+the claim of a marquis, (heir apparent to a higher title,) to whom, as
+lord of the bedchamber, then in waiting, that honour properly belonged.
+--The marquis was wholly unacquainted with the affair, till he heard,
+at dinner, the duke's health drunk, by the name of the prince he was
+that evening to represent. This he took an opportunity, after dinner, of
+inquiring the reason of, and was informed, by the prince's treasurer, of
+his highness's intention. The marquis immediately declared, that he
+thought his right invaded, and his honour injured, which he could not
+bear without requiring satisfaction from the usurper of his privileges;
+nor would he longer serve a prince who paid no regard to his lawful
+pretensions. The treasurer could not deny that the marquis's claim was
+incontestable, and, by his permission, acquainted the prince with his
+resolution. The prince, thereupon, sending for the marquis, demanded,
+with a resentful and imperious air, how he could dispute his commands,
+and by what authority he presumed to control him in the management of
+his own family, and the christening of his own son. The marquis
+answered, that he did not encroach upon the prince's right, but only
+defended his own: that he thought his honour concerned, and, as he was a
+young man, would not enter the world with the loss of his reputation.
+The prince, exasperated to a very high degree, repeated his commands;
+but the marquis, with a spirit and firmness not to be depressed or
+shaken, persisted in his determination to assert his claim, and
+concluded with declaring that he would do himself the justice that was
+denied him; and that not the prince himself should trample on his
+character. He was then ordered to withdraw, and the duke coming to him,
+assured him, that the honour was offered him unasked; that when he
+accepted it, he was not informed of his lordship's claim, and that now
+he very willingly resigned it. The marquis very gracefully acknowledged
+the civility of the duke's expressions, and declared himself satisfied
+with his grace's conduct; but thought it inconsistent with his honour to
+accept the representation as a cession of the duke, or on any other
+terms than as his own acknowledged right. The prince, being informed of
+the whole conversation, and having, upon inquiry, found all the
+precedents on the marquis's side, thought it below his dignity to
+persist in an errour, and, restoring the marquis to his right upon his
+own conditions, continued him in his favour, believing that he might
+safely trust his affairs in the hands of a man, who had so nice a sense
+of honour, and so much spirit to assert it.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONDUCT OF THE DUTCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH [1].
+
+
+The universal regard, which is paid by mankind to such accounts of
+publick transactions as have been written by those who were engaged in
+them, may be, with great probability, ascribed to that ardent love of
+truth, which nature has kindled in the breast of man, and which remains
+even where every other laudable passion is extinguished. We cannot but
+read such narratives with uncommon curiosity, because we consider the
+writer as indubitably possessed of the ability to give us just
+representations, and do not always reflect, that, very often,
+proportionate to the opportunities of knowing the truth, are the
+temptations to disguise it.
+
+Authors of this kind have, at least, an incontestable superiority over
+those whose passions are the same, and whose knowledge is less. It is
+evident that those who write in their own defence, discover often more
+impartiality, and less contempt of evidence, than the advocates which
+faction or interest have raised in their favour.
+
+It is, however, to be remembered, that the parent of all memoirs, is the
+ambition of being distinguished from the herd of mankind, and the fear
+of either infamy or oblivion, passions which cannot but have some degree
+of influence, and which may, at least, affect the writer's choice of
+facts, though they may not prevail upon him to advance known falsehoods.
+He may aggravate or extenuate particular circumstances, though he
+preserves the general transaction; as the general likeness may be
+preserved in painting, though a blemish is hid or a beauty improved.
+
+Every man that is solicitous about the esteem of others, is, in a great
+degree, desirous of his own, and makes, by consequence, his first
+apology for his conduct to himself; and when he has once deceived his
+own heart, which is, for the greatest part, too easy a task, he
+propagates the deceit in the world, without reluctance or consciousness
+of falsehood.
+
+But to what purpose, it may be asked, are such reflections, except to
+produce a general incredulity, and to make history of no use? The man
+who knows not the truth cannot, and he who knows it, will not tell it;
+what then remains, but to distrust every relation, and live in perpetual
+negligence of past events; or, what is still more disagreeable, in
+perpetual suspense?
+
+That by such remarks some incredulity is, indeed, produced, cannot be
+denied; but distrust is a necessary qualification of a student in
+history. Distrust quickens his discernment of different degrees of
+probability, animates his search after evidence, and, perhaps, heightens
+his pleasure at the discovery of truth; for truth, though not always
+obvious, is generally discoverable; nor is it any where more likely to
+be found than in private memoirs, which are generally published at a
+time when any gross falsehood may be detected by living witnesses, and
+which always contain a thousand incidents, of which the writer could not
+have acquired a certain knowledge, and which he has no reason for
+disguising.
+
+Such is the account lately published by the dutchess of Marlborough, of
+her own conduct, by which those who are very little concerned about the
+character which it is principally intended to preserve or to retrieve,
+may be entertained and instructed. By the perusal of this account, the
+inquirer into human nature may obtain an intimate acquaintance with the
+characters of those whose names have crowded the latest histories, and
+discover the relation between their minds and their actions. The
+historian may trace the progress of great transactions, and discover the
+secret causes of important events. And, to mention one use more, the
+polite writer may learn an unaffected dignity of style, and an artful
+simplicity of narration.
+
+The method of confirming her relation, by inserting, at length, the
+letters that every transaction occasioned, has not only set the greatest
+part of the work above the danger of confutation, but has added to the
+entertainment of the reader, who has now the satisfaction of forming to
+himself the characters of the actors, and judging how nearly such, as
+have hitherto been given of them, agree with those which they now give
+of themselves.
+
+Even of those whose letters could not be made publick, we have a more
+exact knowledge than can be expected from general histories, because we
+see them in their private apartments, in their careless hours, and
+observe those actions in which they indulged their own inclinations,
+without any regard to censure or applause.
+
+Thus it is, that we are made acquainted with the disposition of king
+William, of whom it may be collected, from various instances, that he
+was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was, at
+all times, disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great
+things, nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of
+gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise
+when it was his interest to keep it.
+
+There are, doubtless, great numbers who will be offended with this
+delineation of the mind of the immortal William, but they whose honesty
+or sense enables them to consider impartially the events of his reign,
+will now be enabled to discover the reason of the frequent oppositions
+which he encountered, and of the personal affronts which he was,
+sometimes, forced to endure. They will observe, that it is not always
+sufficient to do right, and that it is often necessary to add
+gracefulness to virtue. They will recollect how vain it is to endeavour
+to gain men by great qualities, while our cursory behaviour is insolent
+and offensive; and that those may be disgusted by little things, who can
+scarcely be pleased with great.
+
+Charles the second, by his affability and politeness, made himself the
+idol of the nation, which he betrayed and sold. William the third was,
+for his insolence and brutality, hated by that people, which he
+protected and enriched:--had the best part of these two characters been
+united in one prince, the house of Bourbon had fallen before him.
+
+It is not without pain, that the reader observes a shade encroaching
+upon the light with which the memory of queen Mary has been hitherto
+invested--the popular, the beneficent, the pious, the celestial queen
+Mary, from whose presence none ever withdrew without an addition to his
+happiness. What can be charged upon this delight of human kind? Nothing
+less than that _she wanted bowels_, and was insolent with her power;
+that she was resentful, and pertinacious in her resentment; that she
+descended to mean acts of revenge, when heavier vengeance was not in her
+power; that she was desirous of controlling where she had no authority,
+and backward to forgive, even when she had no real injury to complain
+of.
+
+This is a character so different from all those that have been,
+hitherto, given of this celebrated princess, that the reader stands in
+suspense, till he considers the inconsistencies in human conduct,
+remembers that no virtue is without its weakness, and considers that
+queen Mary's character has, hitherto, had this great advantage, that it
+has only been compared with those of kings.
+
+The greatest number of the letters inserted in this account, were
+written by queen Anne, of which it may be truly observed, that they will
+be equally useful for the, confutation of those who have exalted or
+depressed her character. They are written with great purity and
+correctness, without any forced expressions, affected phrases, or
+unnatural sentiments; and show uncommon clearness of understanding,
+tenderness of affection, and rectitude of intention; but discover, at
+the same time, a temper timorous, anxious, and impatient of misfortune;
+a tendency to burst into complaints, helpless dependance on the
+affection of others, and a weak desire of moving compassion. There is,
+indeed, nothing insolent or overbearing; but then there is nothing
+great, or firm, or regal; nothing that enforces obedience and respect,
+or which does not rather invite opposition and petulance. She seems born
+for friendship, not for government; and to be unable to regulate the
+conduct of others, otherwise than by her own example.
+
+That this character is just, appears from the occurrences in her reign,
+in which the nation was governed, for many years, by a party whose
+principles she detested, but whose influence she knew not how to
+obviate, and to whose schemes she was subservient against her
+inclination.
+
+The charge of tyrannising over her, which was made, by turns, against
+each party, proves that, in the opinion of both, she was easily to be
+governed; and though it may be supposed, that the letters here published
+were selected with some regard to respect and ceremony, it appears,
+plainly enough, from them, that she was what she has been represented,
+little more than the slave of the Marlborough family.
+
+The inferiour characters, as they are of less importance, are less
+accurately delineated; the picture of Harley is, at least, partially
+drawn: all the deformities are heightened, and the beauties, for
+beauties of mind he certainly had, are entirely omitted.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF AUGUSTUS;
+
+BY THOMAS BLACKWELL, J.U.D.
+
+PRINCIPAL OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN [2].
+
+
+The first effect, which this book has upon the reader, is that of
+disgusting him with the author's vanity. He endeavours to persuade the
+world, that here are some new treasures of literature spread before his
+eyes; that something is discovered, which, to this happy day, had been
+concealed in darkness; that, by his diligence, time has been robbed of
+some valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that
+names and facts, doomed to oblivion, are now restored to fame.
+
+How must the unlearned reader be surprised, when he shall be told that
+Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city,
+nor found out the way to the library of Fez; nor had a single book in
+his hands, that has not been in the possession of every man that was
+inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a
+people, who, above all others, have furnished employment to the
+studious, and amusements to the idle; who have scarcely left behind them
+a coin or a stone, which has not been examined and explained a thousand
+times; and whose dress, and food, and household stuff, it has been the
+pride of learning to understand.
+
+A man need not fear to incur the imputation of vicious diffidence or
+affected humility, who should have forborne to promise many novelties,
+when he perceived such multitudes of writers possessed of the same
+materials, and intent upon the same purpose. Mr. Blackwell knows well
+the opinion of Horace, concerning those that open their undertakings
+with magnificent promises; and he knows, likewise, the dictates of
+common sense and common honesty, names of greater authority than that of
+Horace, who direct, that no man should promise what he cannot perform.
+
+I do not mean to declare, that this volume has nothing new, or that the
+labours of those who have gone before our author, have made his
+performance an useless addition to the burden of literature. New works
+may be constructed with old materials; the disposition of the parts may
+show contrivance; the ornaments interspersed may discover elegance.
+
+It is not always without good effect, that men, of proper
+qualifications, write, in succession, on the same subject, even when the
+latter add nothing to the information given by the former; for the same
+ideas may be delivered more intelligibly or more delightfully by one
+than by another, or with attractions that may lure minds of a different
+form. No writer pleases all, and every writer may please some.
+
+But, after all, to inherit is not to acquire; to decorate is not to
+make; and the man, who had nothing to do but to read the ancient
+authors, who mention the Roman affairs, and reduce them to common
+places, ought not to boast himself as a great benefactor to the studious
+world.
+
+After a preface of boast, and a letter of flattery, in which he seems to
+imitate the address of Horace, in his "vile potabis modicis Sabinum"--he
+opens his book with telling us, that the "Roman republic, after the
+horrible proscription, was no more at _bleeding Rome_. The regal power
+of her consuls, the authority of her senate, and the majesty of her
+people, were now trampled under foot; these [for those] divine laws and
+hallowed customs, that had been the essence of her constitution--were
+set at nought, and her best friends were lying exposed in their blood."
+
+These were surely very dismal times to those who suffered; but I know
+not, why any one but a schoolboy, in his declamation, should whine over
+the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the
+rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich,
+grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, sold the lives and freedoms of
+themselves, and of one another.
+
+"About this time, Brutus had his patience put to the _highest_ trial: he
+had been married to Clodia; but whether the family did not please him,
+or whether he was dissatisfied with the lady's behaviour during his
+absence, he soon entertained thoughts of a separation. _This raised a
+good deal of talk_, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed
+bitterly against Brutus--but he married Portia, who was worthy of such a
+father as M. Cato, and such a husband as M. Brutus. She had a soul
+capable of an _exalted passion_, and found a proper object to raise and
+give it a sanction; she did not only love but adored her husband; his
+worth, his truth, his every shining and heroic quality, made her gaze on
+him like a god, while the endearing returns of esteem and tenderness she
+met with, brought her joy, her pride, her every wish to centre in her
+beloved Brutus."
+
+When the reader has been awakened by this rapturous preparation, he
+hears the whole story of Portia in the same luxuriant style, till she
+breathed out her last, a little before the _bloody proscription_, and
+"Brutus complained heavily of his friends at Rome, as not having paid
+due attention to his lady in the declining state of her health."
+
+He is a great lover of modern terms. His senators and their wives are
+_gentlemen and ladies_. In this review of Brutus's army, _who was under
+the command of gallant men, not braver officers than true patriots_, he
+tells _us_, "that Sextus, the questor, was _paymaster, secretary at war,
+and commissary general_; and that the _sacred discipline_ of the Romans
+required the closest connexion, like that of father and son, to subsist
+between the general of an army and his questor. Cicero was _general of
+the cavalry_, and the next _general officer_ was Flavius, _master of Ihe
+artillery_, the elder Lentulus was _admiral_, and the younger _rode_ in
+the _band of volunteers_; under these the tribunes, _with many others,
+too tedious to name_." Lentulus, however, was but a subordinate officer;
+for we are informed afterwards, that the Romans had made Sextus Pompeius
+lord high admiral in all the seas of their dominions. Among other
+affectations of this writer, is a furious and unnecessary zeal for
+liberty; or rather, for one form of government as preferable to another.
+This, indeed, might be suffered, because political institution is a
+subject in which men have always differed, and, if they continue to obey
+their lawful governours, and attempt not to make innovations, for the
+sake of their favourite schemes, they may differ for ever, without any
+just reproach from one another. But who can bear the hardy champion, who
+ventures nothing? who, in full security, undertakes the defence of the
+assassination of Cassar, and declares his resolution to speak plain? Yet
+let not just sentiments be overlooked: he has justly observed, that the
+greater part of mankind will be naturally prejudiced against Brutus, for
+all feel the benefits of private friendship; but few can discern the
+advantages of a well-constituted government [3].
+
+We know not whether some apology may not be necessary for the distance
+between the first account of this book and its continuation. The truth
+is, that this work, not being forced upon our attention by much publick
+applause or censure, was sometimes neglected, and sometimes forgotten;
+nor would it, perhaps, have been now resumed, but that we might avoid to
+disappoint our readers by an abrupt desertion of any subject.
+
+It is not our design to criticise the facts of this history, but the
+style; not the veracity, but the address of the writer; for, an account
+of the ancient Romans, as it cannot nearly interest any present reader,
+and must be drawn from writings that have been long known, can owe its
+value only to the language in which it is delivered, and the reflections
+with which it is accompanied. Dr. Blackwell, however, seems to have
+heated his imagination, so as to be much affected with every event, and
+to believe that he can affect others. Enthusiasm is, indeed,
+sufficiently contagious; but I never found any of his readers much
+enamoured of the _glorious Pompey, the patriot approv'd_, or much
+incensed against the _lawless Caesar_, whom this author, probably, stabs
+every day and night in his sleeping or waking dreams.
+
+He is come too late into the world with his fury for freedom, with his
+Brutus and Cassius. We have all, on this side of the Tweed, long since
+settled our opinions: his zeal for Roman liberty and declamations
+against the violators of the republican constitution, only stand now in
+the reader's way, who wishes to proceed in the narrative without the
+interruption of epithets and exclamations. It is not easy to forbear
+laughter at a man so bold in fighting shadows, so busy in a dispute two
+thousand years past, and so zealous for the honour of a people, who,
+while they were poor, robbed mankind, and, as soon as they became rich,
+robbed one another. Of these robberies our author seems to have no very
+quick sense, except when they are committed by Caesar's party, for every
+act is sanctified by the name of a patriot.
+
+If this author's skill in ancient literature were less generally
+acknowledged, one might sometimes suspect, that he had too frequently
+consulted the French writers. He tells us, that Archelaus, the Rhodian,
+made a speech to Cassius, and, _in so saying_, dropt some tears; and
+that Cassius, after the reduction of Rhodes, was _covered with
+glory_.--Deiotarus was a keen and happy spirit--the ingrate Castor kept
+his court.
+
+His great delight is to show his universal acquaintance with terms of
+art, with words that every other polite writer has avoided and despised.
+When Pompey conquered the pirates, he destroyed fifteen hundred ships of
+the line.--The Xanthian parapets were tore down.--Brutus, suspecting
+that his troops were plundering, commanded the trumpets to sound to
+their colours.--Most people understood the act of attainder passed by
+the senate.--The Numidian troopers were unlikely in their appearance.--
+The Numidians beat up one quarter after another.--Salvidienus resolved
+to pass his men over, in boats of leather, and he gave orders for
+equipping a sufficient number of that sort of small craft.--Pompey had
+light, agile frigates, and fought in a strait, where the current and
+caverns occasion swirls and a roll.--A sharp out-look was kept by the
+admiral.--It is a run of about fifty Roman miles.--Brutus broke Lipella
+in the sight of the army.--Mark Antony garbled the senate. He was a
+brave man, well qualified for a commodore.
+
+In his choice of phrases he frequently uses words with great solemnity,
+which every other mouth and pen has appropriated to jocularity and
+levity! The Rhodians gave up the contest, and, in poor plight, fled back
+to Rhodes.--Boys and girls were easily kidnapped.--Deiotarus was a
+mighty believer of augury.--Deiotarus destroyed his ungracious
+progeny.--The regularity of the Romans was their mortal aversion.--They
+desired the consuls to curb such heinous doings.--He had such a shrewd
+invention, that no side of a question came amiss to him.--Brutus found
+his mistress a coquettish creature.
+
+He sometimes, with most unlucky dexterity, mixes the grand and the
+burlesque together; _the violation of faith, sir_, says Cassius, _lies
+at the door of the Rhodians by reite-rated acts of perfidy_.--The iron
+grate fell down, crushed those under it to death, and catched the rest
+as in a trap.--When the Xanthians heard the military shout, and saw the
+flame mount, they concluded there would be no mercy. It was now about
+sunset, and they had been at hot work since noon.
+
+He has, often, words, or phrases, with which our language has hitherto
+had no knowledge.--One was a heart-friend to the republic--A deed was
+expeded.--The Numidians begun to reel, and were in hazard of falling
+into confusion.--The tutor embraced his pupil close in his arms.--Four
+hundred women were taxed, who have, no doubt, been the wives of the best
+Roman citizens.--Men not born to action are inconsequential in
+government.--Collectitious troops.--The foot, by their violent attack,
+began the fatal break in the Pharsaliac field.--He and his brother, with
+a politic, common to other countries, had taken opposite sides.
+
+His epithets are of the gaudy or hyperbolical kind. The glorious
+news--eager hopes and dismal fears--bleeding Rome--divine laws and
+hallowed customs--merciless war--intense anxiety.
+
+Sometimes the reader is suddenly ravished with a sonorous sentence, of
+which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain. When
+Brutus set his legions to fill a moat, instead of heavy dragging and
+slow toil, they set about it with huzzas and racing, as if they had been
+striving at the Olympic games. They hurled impetuous down the huge trees
+and stones, and, with shouts, forced them into the water; so that the
+work, expected to continue half the campaign, was, with rapid toil,
+completed in a few days. Brutus's soldiers fell to the gate with
+resistless fury; it gave way, at last, with hideous crash.--This great
+and good man, doing his duty to his country, received a mortal wound,
+and glorious fell in the cause of Rome; may his memory be ever dear to
+all lovers of liberty, learning, and humanity! This promise ought ever
+to embalm his memory.--The queen of nations was torn by no foreign
+invader.--Rome fell a sacrifice to her own sons, and was ravaged by her
+unnatural offspring: all the great men of the state, all the good, all
+the holy, were openly murdered by the wickedest and worst.--Little
+islands cover the harbour of Brindisi, and form the narrow outlet from
+the numerous creeks that compose its capacious port.--At the appearance
+of Brutus and Cassius, a shout of joy rent the heavens from the
+surrounding multitudes.
+
+Such are the flowers which may be gathered, by every hand, in every part
+of this garden of eloquence. But having thus freely mentioned our
+author's faults, it remains that we acknowledge his merit; and confess,
+that this book is the work of a man of letters, that it is full of
+events displayed with accuracy, and related with vivacity; and though it
+is sufficiently defective to crush the vanity of its author, it is
+sufficiently entertaining to invite readers.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO DR BENTLEY,
+
+Containing some arguments in proof of a Deity [4].
+
+
+It will certainly be required, that notice should be taken of a book,
+however small, written on such a subject, by such an author. Yet I know
+not whether these letters will be very satisfactory; for they are
+answers to inquiries not published; and, therefore, though they contain
+many positions of great importance, are, in some parts, imperfect and
+obscure, by their reference to Dr. Bentley's letters.
+
+Sir Isaac declares, that what he has done is due to nothing but industry
+and patient thought; and, indeed, long consideration is so necessary in
+such abstruse inquiries, that it is always dangerous to publish the
+productions of great men, which are not known to have been designed for
+the press, and of which it is uncertain, whether much patience and
+thought have been bestowed upon them. The principal question of these
+letters gives occasion to observe, how even the mind of Newton gains
+ground, gradually, upon darkness.
+
+"As to your first query," says he, "it seems to me, that if the matter
+of our sun and planets, and all the matter of the universe, were evenly
+scattered, throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate
+gravity towards all the rest, and the whole space, throughout which this
+matter was scattered, was but finite, the matter on the outside of this
+space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside,
+and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and
+there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly
+disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one
+mass, but some of it would convene into one mass, and some into another,
+so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered, at great
+distances, from one to another, throughout all that infinite space. And
+thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were
+of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two
+sorts, and that part of it, which is fit to compose a shining body,
+should fall down into one mass, and make a sun, and the rest, which is
+fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body,
+like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or, if the sun, at
+first, were an opaque body, like the planets, or the planets lucid
+bodies, like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining
+body, whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into
+opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think more explicable
+by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and
+contrivance of a voluntary agent."
+
+The hypothesis of matter evenly disposed through infinite space, seems
+to labour with such difficulties, as makes it almost a contradictory
+supposition, or a supposition destructive of itself.
+
+"Matter evenly disposed through infinite space," is either created or
+eternal; if it was created, it infers a creator; if it was eternal, it
+had been from eternity "evenly spread through infinite space;" or it had
+been once coalesced in masses, and, afterwards, been diffused. Whatever
+state was first must have been from eternity, and what had been from
+eternity could not be changed, but by a cause beginning to act, as it
+had never acted before, that is, by the voluntary act of some external
+power. If matter, infinitely and evenly diffused, was a moment without
+coalition, it could never coalesce at all by its own power. If matter
+originally tended to coalesce, it could never be evenly diffused through
+infinite space. Matter being supposed eternal, there never was a time,
+when it could be diffused before its conglobation, or conglobated before
+its diffusion.
+
+This sir Isaac seems, by degrees, to have understood; for he says, in
+his second letter: "The reason why matter, evenly scattered through a
+finite space, would convene in the midst, you conceive the same with me;
+but, that there should be a central particle, so accurately placed in
+the middle, as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and,
+thereby, continue without motion, seems to me a supposition fully as
+hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright upon its point on a
+looking-glass. For, if the very mathematical centre of the central
+particle be not accurately in the very mathematical centre of the
+attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted
+equally on all sides. And much harder is it to suppose all the
+particles, in an infinite space, should be so accurately poised, one
+among another, as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon
+this as hard as to make not one needle only, but an infinite number of
+them, (so many as there are particles in an infinite space,) stand
+accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least,
+by a divine power; and, if they were once to be placed, I agree with
+you, that they would continue in that posture without motion, for ever,
+unless put into new motion by the same power. When, therefore, I said,
+that matter evenly spread through all space, would convene, by its
+gravity, into one or more great masses, I understand it of matter not
+resting in an accurate poise."
+
+Let not it be thought irreverence to this great name, if I observe, that
+by "matter evenly spread" through infinite space, he now finds it
+necessary to mean "matter not evenly spread." Matter not evenly spread
+will, indeed, convene, but it will convene as soon as it exists. And, in
+my opinion, this puzzling question about matter, is only, how that could
+be that never could have been, or what a man thinks on when he thinks on
+nothing.
+
+Turn matter on all sides, make it eternal, or of late production, finite
+or infinite, there can be no regular system produced, but by a voluntary
+and meaning agent. This the great Newton always asserted, and this he
+asserts in the third letter; but proves, in another manner, in a manner,
+perhaps, more happy and conclusive.
+
+"The hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world, by mechanical
+principles, from matter evenly spread through the heavens, being
+inconsistent with my system, I had considered it very little, before
+your letter put me upon it, and, therefore, trouble you with a line or
+two more about it, if this comes not too late for your use.
+
+"In my former, I represented, that the diurnal rotations of the planets
+could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine arm to impress
+them. And though gravity might give the planets a motion of descent
+towards the sun, either directly, or with some little obliquity, yet the
+transverse motions, by which they revolve in their several orbs,
+required the divine arm to impress them, according to the tangents of
+their orbs. I would now add, that the hypothesis of matter's being, at
+first, evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion,
+inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity, without a
+supernatural power to reconcile them, and, therefore, it infers a deity.
+For, if there be innate gravity, it is impossible now for the matter of
+the earth, and all the planets and stars, to fly up from them, and
+become evenly spread throughout all the heavens, without a supernatural
+power; and, certainly, that which can never be hereafter, without a
+supernatural power, could never be heretofore, without the same power."
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF A JOURNAL OF EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY,
+
+From Portsmouth to Kingston upon Thames, through Southampton, Wiltshire,
+&c. with miscellaneous thoughts, moral and religious; in sixty-four
+letters: addressed to two ladies of the partie. To which is added, an
+Essay On Tea, considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry,
+and impoverishing the nation; with an account of its growth, and great
+consumption in these kingdoms; with several political reflections; and
+thoughts on publick love: in thirty-two letters to two ladies. By Mr. H.
+-----.
+
+[From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. No. xiii. 1757.]
+
+
+Our readers may, perhaps, remember, that we gave them a short account of
+this book, with a letter, extracted from it, in November, 1756. The
+author then sent us an injunction, to forbear his work, till a second
+edition should appear: this prohibition was rather too magisterial; for
+an author is no longer the sole master of a book, which he has given to
+the publick; yet he has been punctually obeyed; we had no desire to
+offend him; and, if his character may be estimated by his book, he is a
+man whose failings may well be pardoned for his virtues.
+
+The second edition is now sent into the world, corrected and enlarged,
+and yielded up, by the author, to the attacks of criticism. But he shall
+find in us, no malignity of censure. We wish, indeed, that, among other
+corrections, he had submitted his pages to the inspection of a
+grammarian, that the elegancies of one line might not have been
+disgraced by the improprieties of another; but, with us, to mean well is
+a degree of merit, which overbalances much greater errours than impurity
+of style.
+
+We have already given, in our collections, one of the letters, in which
+Mr. Hanway endeavours to show, that the consumption of tea is injurious
+to the interest of our country. We shall now endeavour to follow him,
+regularly, through all his observations on this modern luxury; but, it
+can scarcely be candid not to make a previous declaration, that he is to
+expect little justice from the author of this extract, a hardened and
+shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with
+only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely
+time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the
+midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
+
+He begins by refuting a popular notion, that bohea and green tea are
+leaves of the same shrub, gathered at different times of the year. He is
+of opinion, that they are produced by different shrubs. The leaves of
+tea are gathered in dry weather; then dried and curled over the fire, in
+copper pans. The Chinese use little green tea, imagining, that it
+hinders digestion, and excites fevers. How it should have either effect,
+is not easily discovered; and, if we consider the innumerable
+prejudices, which prevail concerning our own plants, we shall very
+little regard these opinions of the Chinese vulgar, which experience
+does not confirm.
+
+When the Chinese drink tea, they infuse it slightly, and extract only
+the more volatile parts; but though this seems to require great
+quantities at a time, yet the author believes, perhaps, only because he
+has an inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch use more
+than all the inhabitants of that extensive empire. The Chinese drink it,
+sometimes, with acids, seldom with sugar; and this practice our author,
+who has no intention to find anything right at home, recommends to his
+countrymen.
+
+The history of the rise and progress of tea-drinking is truly curious.
+Tea was first imported, from Holland, by the earls of Arlington and
+Ossory, in 1666; from their ladies the women of quality learned its use.
+Its price was then three pounds a pound, and continued the same to 1707.
+In 1715, we began to use green tea, and the practice of drinking it
+descended to the lower class of the people. In 1720, the French began to
+send it hither by a clandestine commerce. From 1717 to 1726, we
+imported, annually, seven hundred thousand pounds. From 1732 to 1742, a
+million and two hundred thousand pounds were every year brought to
+London; in some years afterwards three millions; and in 1755, near four
+millions of pounds, or two thousand tons, in which we are not to reckon
+that which is surreptitiously introduced, which, perhaps, is nearly as
+much. Such quantities are, indeed, sufficient to alarm us; it is, at
+least, worth inquiry, to know what are the qualities of such a plant,
+and what the consequences of such a trade.
+
+He then proceeds to enumerate the mischiefs of tea, and seems willing to
+charge upon it every mischief that he can find. He begins, however, by
+questioning the virtues ascribed to it, and denies that the crews of the
+Chinese ships are preserved, in their voyage homewards, from the scurvy
+by tea. About this report I have made some inquiry, and though I cannot
+find that these crews are wholly exempt from scorbutick maladies, they
+seem to suffer them less than other mariners, in any course of equal
+length. This I ascribe to the tea, not as possessing any medicinal
+qualities, but as tempting them to drink more water, to dilute their
+salt food more copiously, and, perhaps, to forbear punch, or other
+strong liquors.
+
+He then proceeds, in the pathetick strain, to tell the ladies how, by
+drinking tea, they injure their health, and, what is yet more dear,
+their beauty.
+
+"To what can we ascribe the numerous complaints which prevail? How many
+sweet creatures of your sex languish with a weak digestion, low spirits,
+lassitudes, melancholy, and twenty disorders, which, in spite of the
+faculty, have yet no names, except the general one of nervous
+complaints? Let them change their diet, and, among other articles, leave
+off drinking tea, it is more than probable, the greatest part of them
+will be restored to health."
+
+"Hot water is also very hurtful to the teeth. The Chinese do not drink
+their tea so hot as we do, and yet they have bad teeth. This cannot be
+ascribed entirely to sugar, for they use very little, as already
+observed; but we all know, that hot or cold things, which pain the
+teeth, destroy them also. If we drank less tea, and used gentle acids
+for the gums and teeth, particularly sour oranges, though we had a less
+number of French dentists, I fancy this essential part of beauty would
+be much better preserved.
+
+"The women in the United Provinces, who sip tea from morning till night,
+are also as remarkable for bad teeth. They also look pallid, and many
+are troubled with certain feminine disorders, arising from a relaxed
+habit. The Portuguese ladies, on the other hand, entertain with
+sweetmeats, and yet they have very good teeth; but their food, in
+general, is more of a farinaceous and vegetable kind than ours. They
+also drink cold water, instead of sipping hot, and never taste any
+fermented liquors; for these reasons, the use of sugar does not seem to
+be at all pernicious to them."
+
+"Men seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their
+beauty. I am not young, but, methinks, there is not quite so much beauty
+in this land as there was. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom,
+I suppose, by sipping tea. Even the agitations of the passions at cards
+are not so great enemies to female charms. What Shakespeare ascribes to
+the concealment of love, is, in this age, more frequently occasioned by
+the use of tea."
+
+To raise the fright still higher, he quotes an account of a pig's tail,
+scalded with tea, on which, however, he does not much insist.
+
+Of these dreadful effects, some are, perhaps, imaginary, and some may
+have another cause. That there is less beauty in the present race of
+females, than in those who entered the world with us, all of us are
+inclined to think, on whom beauty has ceased to smile; but our fathers
+and grandfathers made the same complaint before us; and our posterity
+will still find beauties irresistibly powerful.
+
+That the diseases, commonly called nervous, tremours, fits, habitual
+depression, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility,
+are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however
+deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the
+prohibition of tea. This general languor is the effect of general
+luxury, of general idleness. If it be most to be found among
+tea-drinkers, the reason is, that tea is one of the stated amusements of
+the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of
+voluntary labour, every exercise that strengthened the nerves, and
+hardened the muscles, is fallen into disuse. The inhabitants are crowded
+together in populous cities, so that no occasion of life requires much
+motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and
+delicate seldom pass from one street to another, but in carriages of
+pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the
+hunters and huntresses, the farmers and the housewives, of the former
+generation; and they that pass ten hours in bed, and eight at cards, and
+the greater part of the other six at the table, are taught to impute to
+tea all the diseases which a life, unnatural in all its parts, may
+chance to bring upon them.
+
+Tea, among the greater part of those who use it most, is drunk in no
+great quantity. As it neither exhilarates the heart, nor stimulates the
+palate, it is commonly an entertainment merely nominal, a pretence for
+assembling to prattle, for interrupting business, or diversifying
+idleness. They, who drink one cup, and, who drink twenty, are equally
+punctual in preparing or partaking it; and, indeed, there are few but
+discover, by their indifference about it, that they are brought together
+not by the tea, but the tea-table. Three cups make the common quantity,
+so slightly impregnated, that, perhaps, they might be tinged with the
+Athenian cicuta, and produce less effects than these letters charge upon
+tea.
+
+Our author proceeds to show yet other bad qualities of this hated leaf.
+
+"Green tea, when made strong, even by infusion, is an emetick; nay, I am
+told, it is used as such in China; a decoction of it certainly performs
+this operation; yet, by long use, it is drunk by many without such an
+effect. The infusion also, when it is made strong, and stands long to
+draw the grosser particles, will convulse the bowels: even in the manner
+commonly used, it has this effect on some constitutions, as I have
+already remarked to you from my own experience.
+
+"You see I confess my weakness without reserve; but those who are very
+fond of tea, if their digestion is weak, and they find themselves
+disordered, they generally ascribe it to any cause, except the true one.
+I am aware that the effect, just mentioned, is imputed to the hot water;
+let it be so, and my argument is still good: but who pretends to say, it
+is not partly owing to particular kinds of tea? perhaps, such as partake
+of copperas, which, there is cause to apprehend, is sometimes the case:
+if we judge from the manner in which it is said to be cured, together
+with its ordinary effects, there is some foundation for this opinion.
+Put a drop of strong tea, either green or bohea, but chiefly the former,
+on the blade of a knife, though it is not corrosive, in the same manner
+as vitriol, yet there appears to be a corrosive quality in it, very
+different from that of fruit, which stains the knife."
+
+He afterwards quotes Paulli, to prove, that tea is a "desiccative, and
+ought not to be used after the fortieth year." I have, then, long
+exceeded the limits of permission, but I comfort myself, that all the
+enemies of tea cannot be in the right. If tea be a desiccative,
+according to Paulli, it cannot weaken the fibres, as our author
+imagines; if it be emetick, it must constringe the stomach, rather than
+relax it.
+
+The formidable quality of tinging the knife, it has in common with
+acorns, the bark, and leaves of oak, and every astringent bark or leaf:
+the copperas, which is given to the tea, is really in the knife. Ink may
+be made of any ferruginous matter, and astringent vegetable, as it is
+generally made of galls and copperas.
+
+From tea, the writer digresses to spirituous liquors, about which he
+will have no controversy with the Literary Magazine; we shall,
+therefore, insert almost his whole letter, and add to it one testimony,
+that the mischiefs arising, on every side, from this compendious mode of
+drunkenness, are enormous and insupportable; equally to be found among
+the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet, and distraction,
+harder to be borne, as it cannot be mentioned; and overwhelming
+multitudes with incurable diseases, and unpitied poverty.
+
+"Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this
+island, and his majesty's other dominions, yet, you may be well assured,
+that the governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost
+skill and vigilance, to prevent the children, under their care, from
+being poisoned, or enervated by one or the other. This, however, is not
+the case of workhouses: it is well known, to the shame of those who are
+charged with the care of them, that gin has been too often permitted to
+enter their gates;--and the debauched appetites of the people, who
+inhabit these houses, has been urged as a reason for it.
+
+"Desperate diseases require desperate remedies: if laws are rigidly
+executed against murderers in the highway, those who provide a draught
+of gin, which we see is murderous, ought not to be countenanced. I am
+now informed, that in certain hospitals, where the number of the sick
+used to be about 5600 in 14 years,
+
+  From 1704 to 1718, they increased to 8189;
+  From 1718 to 1734, still augmented to 12,710;
+  And from 1734 to 1749, multiplied to 38,147.
+
+"What a dreadful spectre does this exhibit! nor must we wonder, when
+satisfactory evidence was given, before the great council of the nation,
+that near eight millions of gallons of distilled spirits, at the
+standard it is commonly reduced to for drinking, was actually consumed
+annually in drams! the shocking difference in the numbers of the sick,
+and, we may presume, of the dead also, was supposed to keep pace with
+gin; and the most ingenious and unprejudiced physicians ascribed it to
+this cause. What is to be done under these melancholy circumstances?
+shall we still countenance the distillery, for the sake of the revenue;
+out of tenderness to the few, who will suffer by its being abolished;
+for fear of the madness of the people; or that foreigners will run it in
+upon us? There can be no evil so great as that we now suffer, except the
+making the same consumption, and paying for it to foreigners in money,
+which I hope never will be the case.
+
+"As to the revenue, it certainly may be replaced by taxes upon the
+necessaries of life, even upon the bread we eat, or, in other words,
+upon the land, which is the great source of supply to the public, and to
+individuals. Nor can I persuade myself, but that the people may be
+weaned from the habit of poisoning themselves. The difficulty of
+smuggling a bulky liquid, joined to the severity which ought to be
+exercised towards smugglers, whose illegal commerce is of so infernal a
+nature, must, in time, produce the effect desired. Spirituous liquors
+being abolished, instead of having the most undisciplined and abandoned
+poor, we might soon boast a race of men, temperate, religious, and
+industrious, even to a proverb. We should soon see the ponderous burden
+of the poor's rate decrease, and the beauty and strength of the land
+rejuvenate. Schools, workhouses, and hospitals, might then be sufficient
+to clear our streets of distress and misery, which never will be the
+case, whilst the love of poison prevails, and the means of ruin is sold
+in above one thousand houses in the city of London, in two thousand two
+hundred in Westminster, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty in
+Holborn and St. Giles's.
+
+"But if other uses still demand liquid fire, I would really propose,
+that it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up, with the king's
+seal, with a very high duty, and none sold without being mixed with a
+strong emetic.
+
+"Many become objects of charity by their intemperance, and this excludes
+others, who are such by the unavoidable accidents of life, or who
+cannot, by any means, support themselves. Hence it appears, that the
+introducing new habits of life, is the most substantial charity; and
+that the regulation of charity-schools, hospitals, and workhouses, not
+the augmentation of their number, can make them answer the wise ends,
+for which they were instituted.
+
+"The children of beggars should be also taken from them, and bred up to
+labour, as children of the public. Thus the distressed might be
+relieved, at a sixth part of the present expense; the idle be compelled
+to work or starve; and the mad be sent to Bedlam. We should not see
+human nature disgraced by the aged, the maimed, the sickly, and young
+children, begging their bread; nor would compassion be abused by those,
+who have reduced it to an art to catch the unwary. Nothing is wanting
+but common sense and honesty in the execution of laws.
+
+"To prevent such abuse in the streets, seems more practicable than to
+abolish bad habits within doors, where greater numbers perish. We see,
+in many familiar instances, the fatal effects of example. The careless
+spending of time among servants, who are charged with the care of
+infants, is often fatal: the nurse frequently destroys the child! the
+poor infant, being left neglected, expires whilst she is sipping her
+tea! This may appear to you as rank prejudice, or jest; but, I am
+assured, from the most indubitable evidence, that many very
+extraordinary cases of this kind have really happened, among those whose
+duty does not permit of such kind of habits.
+
+"It is partly from such causes, that nurses of the children of the
+public often forget themselves, and become impatient when infants cry;
+the next step to this is using extraordinary means to quiet them. I have
+already mentioned the term killing nurse, as known in some workhouses:
+Venice treacle, poppy water, and Godfrey's cordial, have been the kind
+instruments of lulling the child to his everlasting rest. If these pious
+women could send up an ejaculation, when the child expired, all was
+well, and no questions asked by the superiors. An ingenious friend of
+mine informs me, that this has been so often the case, in some
+workhouses, that Venice treacle has acquired the appellation of 'the
+Lord have mercy upon me,' in allusion to the nurses' hackneyed
+expression of pretended grief, when infants expire! Farewell."
+
+I know not upon what observation Mr. Hanway founds his confidence in the
+governours of the Foundling Hospital, men of whom I have not any
+knowledge, but whom I entreat to consider a little the minds, as well as
+bodies, of the children. I am inclined to believe irreligion equally
+pernicious with gin and tea, and, therefore, think it not unseasonable
+to mention, that, when, a few months ago, I wandered through the
+hospital, I found not a child that seemed to have heard of his creed, or
+the commandments. To breed up children in this manner, is to rescue them
+from an early grave, that they may find employment for the gibbet; from
+dying in innocence, that they may perish by their crimes.
+
+Having considered the effects of tea upon the health of the drinker,
+which, I think, he has aggravated in the vehemence of his zeal, and
+which, after soliciting them by this watery luxury, year after year, I
+have not yet felt, he proceeds to examine, how it may be shown to affect
+our interest; and first calculates the national loss, by the time spent
+in drinking tea. I have no desire to appear captious, and shall,
+therefore, readily admit, that tea is a liquor not proper for the lower
+classes of the people, as it supplies no strength to labour, or relief
+to disease, but gratifies the taste, without nourishing the body. It is
+a barren superfluity, to which those who can hardly procure what nature
+requires, cannot prudently habituate themselves. Its proper use is to
+amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of
+those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. That time is
+lost in this insipid entertainment cannot be denied; many trifle away,
+at the tea-table, those moments which would be better spent; but that
+any national detriment can be inferred from this waste of time, does not
+evidently appear, because I know not that any work remains undone, for
+want of hands. Our manufactures seem to be limited, not by the
+possibility of work, but by the possibility of sale.
+
+His next argument is more clear. He affirms, that one hundred and fifty
+thousand pounds, in silver, are paid to the Chinese, annually, for three
+millions of pounds of tea, and, that for two millions more, brought
+clandestinely from the neighbouring coasts, we pay, at twenty-pence a
+pound, one hundred sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds.
+The author justly conceives, that this computation will waken us; for,
+says he: "the loss of health, the loss of time, the injury of morals,
+are not very sensibly felt by some, who are alarmed when you talk of the
+loss of money." But he excuses the East India company, as men not
+obliged to be political arithmeticians, or to inquire so much, what the
+nation loses, as how themselves may grow rich. It is certain, that they,
+who drink tea, have no right to complain of those that import it; but if
+Mr. Hanway's computation be just, the importation, and the use of it,
+ought, at once, to be stopped by a penal law.
+
+The author allows one slight argument in favour of tea, which, in my
+opinion, might be, with far greater justice, urged both against that and
+many other parts of our naval trade. "The tea-trade employs," he tells
+us, "six ships, and five or six hundred seamen, sent annually to China.
+It, likewise, brings in a revenue of three hundred and sixty thousand
+pounds, which, as a tax on luxury, may be considered as of great utility
+to the state." The utility of this tax I cannot find: a tax on luxury is
+no better than another tax, unless it hinders luxury, which cannot be
+said of the impost upon tea, while it is thus used by the great and the
+mean, the rich and the poor. The truth is, that, by the loss of one
+hundred and fifty thousand pounds, we procure the means of shifting
+three hundred and sixty thousand, at best, only from one hand to
+another; but, perhaps, sometimes into hands by which it is not very
+honestly employed. Of the five or six hundred seamen, sent to China, I
+am told, that sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the
+voyage; so that, instead of setting this navigation against the
+inconveniencies already alleged, we may add to them, the yearly loss of
+two hundred men, in the prime of life; and reckon, that the trade of
+China has destroyed ten thousand men, since the beginning of this
+century.
+
+If tea be thus pernicious, if it impoverishes our country, if it raises
+temptation, and gives opportunity to illicit commerce, which I have
+always looked on, as one of the strongest evidences of the inefficacy
+of our law, the weakness of our government, and the corruption of our
+people, let us, at once, resolve to prohibit it for ever.
+
+"If the question was, how to promote industry most advantageously, in
+lieu of our tea-trade, supposing every branch of our commerce to be
+already fully supplied with men and money? If a quarter the sum, now
+spent in tea, were laid out, annually, in plantations, in making public
+gardens, in paving and widening streets, in making roads, in rendering
+rivers navigable, erecting palaces, building' bridges, or neat and
+convenient houses, where are now only huts; draining lands, or rendering
+those, which are now barren, of some use; should we not be gainers, and
+provide more for health, pleasure, and long life, compared with the
+consequences of the tea-trade?"
+
+Our riches would be much better employed to these purposes; but if this
+project does not please, let us first resolve to save our money, and we
+shall, afterwards, very easily find ways to spend it.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER OF MAY 26, 1757 [5].
+
+
+It is observed, in Le Sage's Gil Bias, that an exasperated author is not
+easily pacified. I have, therefore, very little hope of making my peace
+with the writer of the Eight Days' Journey; indeed so little, that I
+have long deliberated, whether I should not rather sit silently down,
+under his displeasure, than aggravate my misfortune, by a defence, of
+which my heart forbodes the ill success. Deliberation is often useless.
+I am afraid, that I have, at last, made the wrong choice, and that I
+might better have resigned my cause, without a struggle, to time and
+fortune, since I shall run the hazard of a new oifence, by the necessity
+of asking him, why he is angry.
+
+Distress and terrour often discover to us those faults, with which we
+should never have reproached ourselves in a happy state. Yet, dejected
+as I am, when I review the transaction between me and this writer, I
+cannot find, that I have been deficient in reverence. When his book was
+first printed, he hints, that I procured a sight of it before it was
+published. How the sight of it was procured, I do not now very exactly
+remember; but, if my curiosity was greater than my prudence, if I laid
+rash hands on the fatal volume, I have surely suffered, like him who
+burst the box, from which evil rushed into the world.
+
+I took it, however, and inspected it, as the work of an author not
+higher than myself; and was confirmed in my opinion, when I found, that
+these letters were _not written to be printed_. I concluded, however,
+that, though not _written_ to be _printed_, they were _printed_ to be
+_read_, and inserted one of them in the collection of November last. Not
+many days after, I received a note, informing me, that I ought to have
+waited for a more correct edition. This injunction was obeyed. The
+edition appeared, and I supposed myself at liberty to tell my thoughts
+upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifesto, or an act of
+parliament. But see the fate of ignorant temerity! I now find, but find
+too late, that, instead of a writer, whose only power is in his pen, I
+have irritated an important member of an important corporation; a man,
+who, as he tells us in his letters, puts horses to his chariot.
+
+It was allowed to the disputant of old to yield up the controversy, with
+little resistance, to the master of forty legions. Those who know how
+weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me, if I
+should pay the same respect to a governour of the foundlings. Yets the
+consciousness of my own rectitude of intention incites me to ask once
+again, how I have offended.
+
+There are only three subjects upon which my unlucky pen has happened to
+venture: tea; the author of the journal; and the foundling-hospital.
+
+Of tea, what have I said? That I have drank it twenty years, without
+hurt, and, therefore, believe it not to be poison; that, if it dries the
+fibres, it cannot soften them; that, if it constringes, it cannot relax.
+I have modestly doubted, whether it has diminished the strength of our
+men, or the beauty of our women; and whether it much hinders the
+progress of our woollen or iron manufactures; but I allowed it to be a
+barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that neither
+supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, nor
+exhilarated sorrow: I inserted, without charge or suspicion of
+falsehood, the sums exported to purchase it; and proposed a law to
+prohibit it for ever.
+
+Of the author I unfortunately said, that his injunction was somewhat too
+magisterial. This I said, before I knew that he was a governour of the
+foundlings; but he seems inclined to punish this failure of respect, as
+the czar of Muscovy made war upon Sweden, because he was not treated
+with sufficient honours, when he passed through the country in disguise.
+Yet, was not this irreverence without extenuation. Something was said of
+the merit of _meaning well_, and the journalist was declared to be a
+man, _whose failings might well be pardoned for his virtues_. This is
+the highest praise which human gratitude can confer upon human merit;
+praise that would have more than satisfied Titus or Augustus, but which
+I must own to be inadequate and penurious, when offered to the member of
+an important corporation.
+
+I am asked, whether I meant to satirize the man, or criticise the
+writer, when I say, that "he believes, only, perhaps, because he has
+inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch consume more tea
+than the vast empire of China." Between the writer and the man, I did
+not, at that time, consider the distinction. The writer I found not of
+more than mortal might, and I did not immediately recollect, that the
+man put horses to his chariot. But I did not write wholly without
+consideration. I knew but two causes of belief, evidence and
+inclination. What evidence the journalist could have of the Chinese
+consumption of tea, I was not able to discover. The officers of the East
+India company are excluded, they best know why, from the towns and the
+country of China; they are treated, as we treat gipsies and vagrants,
+and obliged to retire, every night, to their own hovel. What
+intelligence such travellers may bring, is of no great importance. And,
+though the missionaries boast of having once penetrated further, I
+think, they have never calculated the tea drunk by the Chinese. There
+being thus no evidence for his opinion, to what could I ascribe it but
+inclination.
+
+I am yet charged, more heavily, for having said, that "he has no
+intention to find any thing right at home." I believe every reader
+restrained this imputation to the subject which produced it, and
+supposed me to insinuate only, that he meant to spare no part of the
+tea-table, whether essence or circumstance. But this line he has
+selected, as an instance of virulence and acrimony, and confutes it by
+a lofty and splendid panegyrick on himself. He asserts, that he finds
+many things right at home, and that he loves his oountrv almost to
+enthusiasm.
+
+I had not the least doubt, that he found, in his country, many things to
+please him; nor did I suppose, that he desired the same inversion of
+every part of life, as of the use of tea. The proposal of drinking tea
+sour showed, indeed, such a disposition to practical paradoxes, that
+there was reason to fear, lest some succeeding letter should recommend
+the dress of the Picts, or the cookery of the Eskimaux. However, I met
+with no other innovations, and, therefore, was willing to hope, that he
+found something right at home.
+
+But his love of his country seemed not to rise quite to enthusiasm,
+when, amidst his rage against tea, he made a smooth apology for the East
+India company, as men who might not think themselves obliged to be
+political arithmeticians. I hold, though no enthusiastick patriot, that
+every man, who lives and trades under the protection of a community, is
+obliged to consider, whether he hurts or benefits those who protect him;
+and that the most which can be indulged to private interest, is a
+neutral traffick, if any such can be, by which our country is not
+injured, though it may not be benefited.
+
+But he now renews his declamation against tea, notwithstanding the
+greatness or power of those that have interest or inclination to support
+it. I know not of what power or greatness he may dream. The importers
+only have an interest in defending it. I am sure, they are not great,
+and, I hope, they are not powerful. Those, whose inclination leads them
+to continue this practice, are too numerous; but, I believe their power
+is such, as the journalist may defy, without enthusiasm. The love of our
+country, when it rises to enthusiasm, is an ambiguous and uncertain
+virtue: when a man is enthusiastick, he ceases to be reasonable; and,
+when he once departs from reason, what will he do, but drink sour tea?
+As the journalist, though enthusiastically zealous for his country, has,
+with regard to smaller things, the placid happiness of philosophical
+indifference, I can give him no disturbance, by advising him to
+restrain, even the love of his country, within due limits, lest it
+should, sometimes, swell too high, fill the whole capacity of his soul,
+and leave less room for the love of truth.
+
+Nothing now remains, but that I review my positions concerning the
+foundling hospital. What I declared last month, I declare now, once
+more, that I found none of the children that appeared to have heard of
+the catechism. It is inquired, how I wandered, and how I examined. There
+is, doubtless, subtlety in the question; I know not well how to answer
+it. Happily, I did not wander alone; I attended some ladies, with
+another gentleman, who all heard and assisted the inquiry, with equal
+grief and indignation. I did not conceal my observations. Notice was
+given of this shameful defect soon after, at my request, to one of the
+highest names of the society. This, I am now told, is incredible; but,
+since it is true, and the past is out of human power, the most important
+corporation cannot make it false. But, why is it incredible? Because,
+in the rules of the hospital, the children are ordered to learn the
+rudiments of religion. Orders are easily made, but they do not execute
+themselves. They say their catechism, at stated times, under an able
+master. But this able master was, I think, not elected before last
+February; and my visit happened, if I mistake not, in November. The
+children were shy, when interrogated by a stranger. This may be true,
+but the same shiness I do not remember to have hindered them from
+answering other questions; and I wonder, why children, so much
+accustomed to new spectators, should be eminently shy.
+
+My opponent, in the first paragraph, calls the inference that I made
+from this negligence, a hasty conclusion: to the decency of this
+expression I had nothing to object; but, as he grew hot in his career,
+his enthusiasm began to sparkle; and, in the vehemence of his
+postscript, he charges my assertions, and my reasons for advancing them,
+with folly and malice. His argumentation, being somewhat enthusiastical,
+I cannot fully comprehend, but it seems to stand thus: my insinuations
+are foolish or malicious, since I know not one of the governours of the
+hospital; for, he that knows not the governours of the hospital, must be
+very foolish or malicious.
+
+He has, however, so much kindness for me, that he advises me to consult
+my safety, when I talk of corporations. I know not what the most
+important corporation can do, becoming manhood, by which my safety is
+endangered. My reputation is safe, for I can prove the fact; my quiet is
+safe, for I meant well; and for any other safety, I am not used to be
+very solicitous.
+
+I am always sorry, when I see any being labouring in vain; and, in
+return for the journalist's attention to my safety, I will confess some
+compassion for his tumultuous resentment; since all his invectives fume
+into the air, with so little effect upon me, that I still esteem him, as
+one that has the _merit of meaning well_; and still believe him to be a
+man, whose _failings may be justly pardoned for his virtues_ [6].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW [7] OF AN ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS AND GENIUS OF POPE.
+
+
+This is a very curious and entertaining miscellany of critical remarks
+and literary history. Though the book promises nothing but observations
+on the writings of Pope, yet no opportunity is neglected of introducing
+the character of any other writer, or the mention of any performance or
+event, in which learning is interested. From Pope, however, he always
+takes his hint, and to Pope he returns again from his digressions. The
+facts, which he mentions, though they are seldom anecdotes, in a
+rigorous sense, are often such as are very little known, and such as
+will delight more readers than naked criticism.
+
+As he examines the works of this great poet, in an order nearly
+chronological, he necessarily begins with his pastorals, which,
+considered as representations of any kind of life, he very justly
+censures; for there is in them a mixture of Grecian and English, of
+ancient and modern images. Windsor is coupled with Hybla, and Thames
+with Pactolus. He then compares some passages, which Pope has imitated,
+or translated, with the imitation, or version, and gives the preference
+to the originals, perhaps, not always upon convincing arguments.
+
+Theocritus makes his lover wish to be a bee, that he might creep among
+the leaves that form the chaplet of his mistress. Pope's enamoured swain
+longs to be made the captive bird that sings in his fair one's bower,
+that she might listen to his songs, and reward him with her kisses. The
+critick prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate,
+and more uncommon.
+
+It is natural for a lover to wish, that he might be any thing that could
+come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire to be that which she
+fondles and caresses, than that which she would avoid, at least would
+neglect. The snperiour delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor
+can, indeed, find, that either in the one or the other image there is
+any want of delicacy. Which of the two images was less common in the
+time of the poet who used it, for on that consideration the merit of
+novelty depends, I think it is now out of any critick's power to decide.
+
+He remarks, I am afraid, with too much justice, that there is not a
+single new thought in the pastorals; and, with equal reason, declares,
+that their chief beauty consists in their correct and musical
+versification, which has so influenced the English ear, as to render
+every moderate rhymer harmonious.
+
+In his examination of the Messiah, he justly observes some deviations
+from the inspired author, which weaken the imagery, and dispirit the
+expression.
+
+On Windsor Forest, he declares, I think without proof, that descriptive
+poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope; he draws this inference
+from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally
+belong to any other place. He must inquire, whether Windsor forest has,
+in reality, any thing peculiar.
+
+The Stag-chase is not, he says, so full, so animated, and so
+circumstantiated, as Somerville's. Barely to say, that one performance
+is not so good as another, is to criticise with little exactness. But
+Pope has directed, that we should, in every work, regard the author's
+end. The stag-chase is the main subject of Somerville, and might,
+therefore, be properly dilated into all its circumstances; in Pope, it
+is only incidental, and was to be despatched in a few lines.
+
+He makes a just observation, "that the description of the external
+beauties of nature, is usually the first effort of a young genius,
+before he hath studied nature and passions. Some of Milton's most early,
+as well as mos't exquisite pieces, are his Lycidas, l'Allegro, and il
+Penseroso, if we may except his ode on the Nativity of Christ, which is,
+indeed, prior in order of time, and in which a penetrating critick might
+have observed the seeds of that boundless imagination, which was, one
+day, to produce the Paradise Lost."
+
+Mentioning Thomson, and other descriptive poets, he remarks, that
+writers fail in their copies, for want of acquaintance with originals,
+and justly ridicules those who think they can form just ideas of
+valleys, mountains, and rivers, in a garret in the Strand. For this
+reason, I cannot regret, with this author, that Pope laid aside his
+design of writing American pastorals; for, as he must have painted
+scenes, which he never saw, and manners, which he never knew, his
+performance, though it might have been a pleasing amusement of fancy,
+would have exhibited no representation of nature or of life.
+
+After the pastorals, the critick considers the lyrick poetry of Pope,
+and dwells longest on the ode on St. Cecilia's day, which he, like the
+rest of mankind, places next to that of Dryden, and not much below it.
+He remarks, after Mr. Spence, that the first stanza is a perfect
+concert: the second he thinks a little flat; he justly commends the
+fourth, but without notice of the best line in that stanza, or in the
+poem:
+
+  "Transported demi-gods stood round,
+  And men grew heroes at the sound."
+
+In the latter part of the ode, he objects to the stanza of triumph:
+
+  "Thus song could prevail," &c.
+
+as written in a measure ridiculous and burlesque, and justifies his
+answer, by observing, that Addison uses the same numbers in the scene of
+Rosamond, between Grideline and sir Trusty:
+
+  "How unhappy is he," &c.
+
+That the measure is the same in both passages, must be confessed, and
+both poets, perhaps, chose their numbers properly; for they both meant
+to express a kind of airy hilarity. The two passions of merriment and
+exultation are, undoubtedly, different; they are as different as a
+gambol and a triumph, but each is a species of joy; and poetical
+measures have not, in any language, been so far refined, as to provide
+for the subdivisions of passion. They can only be adapted to general
+purposes; but the particular and minuter propriety must be sought only
+in the sentiment and language. Thus the numbers are the same in Colin's
+Complaint, and in the ballad of Darby and Joan, though, in one, sadness
+is represented, and, in the other, tranquillity; so the measure is the
+same of Pope's Unfortunate Lady, and the Praise of Voiture.
+
+He observes, very justly, that the odes, both of Dryden and Pope,
+conclude, unsuitably and unnaturally, with epigram.
+
+He then spends a page upon Mr. Handel's musick to Dryden's ode, and
+speaks of him with that regard which he has generally obtained among the
+lovers of sound. He finds something amiss in the air "With ravished
+ears," but has overlooked, or forgotten, the grossest fault in that
+composition, which is that in this line:
+
+  "Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,"
+
+He has laid much stress upon the two latter words, which are merely
+words of connexion, and ought, in musick, to be considered as
+parenthetical.
+
+From this ode is struck out a digression on the nature of odes, and the
+comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the
+chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham; and thence takes
+occasion to treat of the chorus of the ancients. He then comes to
+another ode, of "The dying Christian to his Soul;" in which, finding an
+apparent imitation of Flatman, he falls into a pleasing and learned
+speculation, on the resembling passages to be found in different poets.
+
+He mentions, with great regard, Pope's ode on Solitude, written when he
+was but twelve years old, but omits to mention the poem on Silence,
+composed, I think, as early, with much greater elegance of diction,
+musick of numbers, extent of observation, and force of thought. If he
+had happened to think on Baillet's chapter of Enfans célèbres, he might
+have made, on this occasion, a very entertaining dissertation on early
+excellence.
+
+He comes next to the Essay on Criticism, the stupendous performance of a
+youth, not yet twenty years old; and, after having detailed the
+felicities of condition, to which he imagines Pope to have owed his
+wonderful prematurity of mind, he tells us, that he is well informed
+this essay was first written in prose. There is nothing improbable in
+the report, nothing, indeed, but what is more likely than the contrary;
+yet I [8] cannot forbear to hint to this writer, and all others, the
+danger and weakness of trusting too readily to information. Nothing but
+experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable
+any man to conceive, that so many groundless reports should be
+propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men
+relate what they think, as what they know; some men, of confused
+memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man, what belongs to
+another; and some talk on, without thought or care. A few men are
+sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently
+diffused by successive relaters.
+
+He proceeds on, examining passage after passage of this essay; but we
+must pass over all these criticisms, to which we have not something to
+add or to object, or where this author does not differ from the general
+voice of mankind. We cannot agree with him in his censure of the
+comparison of a student advancing in science, with a traveller passing
+the Alps, which is, perhaps, the best simile in our language; that, in
+which the most exact resemblance is traced between things, in
+appearance, utterly unrelated to each other. That the last line conveys
+no new _idea_, is not true; it makes particular, what was before
+general. Whether the description, which he adds from another author, be,
+as he says, more full and striking than that of Pope, is not to be
+inquired. Pope's description is relative, and can admit no greater
+length than is usually allowed to a simile, nor any other particulars
+than such as form the correspondence.
+
+Unvaried rhymes, says this writer, highly disgust readers of a good ear.
+It is, surely, not the ear, but the mind that is offended. The fault,
+arising from the use of common rhymes, is, that by reading the past
+line, the second may be guessed, and half the composition loses the
+grace of novelty.
+
+On occasion of the mention of an alexandrine, the critick observes, that
+"the alexandrine may be thought a modern measure, but that _Robert of
+Gloucester's Wife_ is an alexandrine, with the addition of two
+syllables; and that Sternhold and Hopkins translated the Psalms in the
+same measure of fourteen syllables, though they are printed otherwise."
+
+This seems not to be accurately conceived or expressed: an alexandrine,
+with the addition of two syllables, is no more an alexandrine, than with
+the detraction of two syllables. Sternhold and Hopkins did, generally,
+write in the alternate measure of eight and six syllables; but Hopkins
+commonly rhymed the first and third; Sternhold, only the second and
+fourth: so that Sternhold may be considered, as writing couplets of long
+lines; but Hopkins wrote regular stanzas. From the practice of printing
+the long lines of fourteen syllables in two short lines, arose the
+license of some of our poets, who, though professing to write in
+stanzas, neglect the rhymes of the first and third lines.
+
+Pope has mentioned Petronius, among the great names of criticism, as the
+remarker justly observes, without any critical merit. It is to be
+suspected, that Pope had never read his book, and mentioned him on the
+credit of two or three sentences which he had often seen quoted,
+imagining, that where there was so much, there must necessarily be more.
+Young men, in haste to be renowned, too frequently talk of books which
+they have scarcely seen.
+
+The revival of learning, mentioned in this poem, affords an opportunity
+of mentioning the chief periods of literary history, of which this
+writer reckons five: that of Alexander, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, of
+Augustus, of Leo the tenth, of queen Anne.
+
+These observations are concluded with a remark, which deserves great
+attention: "In no polished nation, after criticism has been much
+studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very
+extraordinary book ever appeared."
+
+The Rape of the Lock was always regarded, by Pope, as the highest
+production of his genius. On occasion of this work, the history of the
+comick-heroick is given; and we are told, that it descended from Fassoni
+to Boileau, from Boileau to Garth, and from Garth to Pope. Garth is
+mentioned, perhaps, with too much honour; but all are confessed to be
+inferiour to Pope. There is, in his remarks on this work, no discovery
+of any latent beauty, nor any thing subtle or striking; he is, indeed,
+commonly right, but has discussed no difficult question.
+
+The next pieces to be considered are, the Verses to the Memory of an
+unfortunate Lady, the Prologue to Cato, and Epilogue to Jane Shore. The
+first piece he commends. On occasion of the second, he digresses,
+according to his custom, into a learned dissertation on tragedies, and
+compares the English and French with the Greek stage. He justly censures
+Cato, for want of action and of characters; but scarcely does justice to
+the sublimity of some speeches, and the philosophical exactness in the
+sentiments. "The simile of mount Atlas, and that of the Numidian
+traveller, smothered in the sands, are, indeed, in character," says the
+critick, "but sufficiently obvious." The simile of the mountain is,
+indeed, common; but that of the traveller, I do not remember. That it is
+obvious is easy to say, and easy to deny. Many things are obvious, when
+they are taught.
+
+He proceeds to criticise the other works of Addison, till the epilogue
+calls his attention to Rowe, whose character he discusses in the same
+manner, with sufficient freedom and sufficient candour.
+
+The translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon is next considered;
+but Sappho and Ovid are more the subjects of this disquisition, than
+Pope. We shall, therefore, pass over it to a piece of more importance,
+the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded, as one
+of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.
+
+The critick pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces
+the passages of her letters, to which any allusion is made, and
+intersperses many agreeable particulars and incidental relations. There
+is not much profundity of criticism, because the beauties are sentiments
+of nature, which the learned and the ignorant feel alike. It is justly
+remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa, for the happy passage of
+Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of
+mystick devotion.
+
+These are the pieces examined in this volume: whether the remaining part
+of the work will be one volume, or more, perhaps the writer himself
+cannot yet inform us [9]. This piece is, however, a complete work, so
+far as it goes; and the writer is of opinion, that he has despatched the
+chief part of his task; for he ventures to remark, that the reputation
+of Pope, as a poet, among posterity, will be principally founded on his
+Windsor Forest, Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard; while the facts
+and characters, alluded to in his late writings, will be forgotten and
+unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished; for wit and
+satire are transitory and perishable, but nature and passion are
+eternal.
+
+He has interspersed some passages of Pope's life, with which most
+readers will be pleased. When Pope was yet a child, his father, who had
+been a merchant in London, retired to Binfield. He was taught to read by
+an aunt; and learned to write, without a master, by copying printed
+books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would
+oblige him to correct and retouch them over and over, and, at last,
+could say, "These are good rhymes."
+
+At eight years of age, he was committed to one Taverner, a priest, who
+taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time, he met
+with Ogleby's Homer, which seized his attention; he fell next upon
+Sandys's Ovid, and remembered these two translations, with pleasure, to
+the end of his life.
+
+About ten, being at school, near Hyde-park corner, he was taken to the
+playhouse, and was so struck with the splendour of the drama, that he
+formed a kind of play out of Ogleby's Homer, intermixed with verses of
+his own. He persuaded the head boys to act this piece, and Ajax was
+performed by his master's gardener. They were habited according to the
+pictures in Ogleby. At twelve, he retired, with his father, to Windsor
+forest, and formed himself by study in the best English poets.
+
+In this extract, it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such
+observations, as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating, with the
+author, into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to
+extinguish, curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work, abounding with
+curious quotations and pleasing disquisitions. He must be much
+acquainted with literary history, both of remote and late times, who
+does not find, in this essay, many things which he did not know before;
+and, if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions,
+he may yet properly read this book, as a just specimen of literary
+moderation.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF A FREE ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL [10].
+
+
+This is a treatise, consisting of six letters, upon a very difficult and
+important question, which, I am afraid, this author's endeavours will
+not free from the perplexity which has entangled the speculatists of all
+ages, and which must always continue while _we see_ but _in part_. He
+calls it a _Free Enquiry_, and, indeed, his _freedom_ is, I think,
+greater than his modesty. Though he is far from the contemptible
+arrogance, or the impious licentiousness of Bolingbroke, yet he decides,
+too easily, upon questions out of the reach of human determination, with
+too little consideration of mortal weakness, and with too much vivacity
+for the necessary caution.
+
+In the first letter, on evil in general, he observes, that, "it is the
+solution of this important question, whence came _evil_? alone, that can
+ascertain the moral characteristic of God, without which there is an end
+of all distinction between good and evil." Yet he begins this inquiry by
+this declaration: "That there is a supreme being, infinitely powerful,
+wise, and benevolent, the great creator and preserver of all things, is
+a truth so clearly demonstrated, that it shall be here taken for
+granted." What is this, but to say, that we have already reason to grant
+the existence of those attributes of God, which the present inquiry is
+designed to prove? The present inquiry is, then, surely made to no
+purpose. The attributes, to the demonstration of which the solution of
+this great question is necessary, have been demonstrated, without any
+solution, or by means of the solution of some former writer.
+
+He rejects the Manichean system, but imputes to it an absurdity, from
+which, amidst all its absurdities, it seems to be free, and adopts the
+system of Mr. Pope. "That pain is no evil, if asserted with regard to
+the individuals who suffer it, is downright nonsense; but if considered
+as it affects the universal system, is an undoubted truth, and means
+only, that there is no more pain in it, than what is necessary to the
+production of happiness. How many soever of these evils, then, force
+themselves into the creation, so long as the good preponderates, it is a
+work well worthy of infinite wisdom and benevolence; and,
+notwithstanding the imperfections of its parts, the whole is, most
+undoubtedly, perfect." And, in the former part of the letter, he gives
+the principle of his system in these words: "Omnipotence cannot work
+contradictions; it can only effect all possible things. But so little
+are we acquainted with the whole system of nature, that we know not what
+are possible, and what are not; but if we may judge from that constant
+mixture of pain with pleasure, and inconveniency with advantage, which
+we must observe in every thing around us, we have reason to conclude,
+that, to endue created beings with perfection, that is, to produce good,
+exclusive of evil, is one of those impossibilities, which even infinite
+power cannot accomplish."
+
+This is elegant and acute, but will by no means calm discontent, or
+silence curiosity; for, whether evil can be wholly separated from good
+or not, it is plain, that they may be mixed, in various degrees, and, as
+far as human eyes can judge, the degree of evil might have been less,
+without any impediment to good.
+
+The second letter, on the evils of imperfection, is little more than a
+paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or, yet less than a paraphrase, a mere
+translation of poetry into prose. This is, surely, to attack difficulty
+with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very
+blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former
+solutions, why is one of the latest, which no man can have forgotten,
+given us again? I am told, that this pamphlet is not the effort of
+hunger; what can it be, then, but the product of vanity? and yet, how
+can vanity be gratified by plagiarism or transcription? When this
+speculatist finds himself prompted to another performance, let him
+consider, whether he is about to disburden his mind, or employ his
+fingers; and, if I might venture to offer him a subject, I should wish,
+that he would solve this question: Why he, that has nothing to write,
+should desire to be a writer?
+
+Yet is not this letter without some sentiments, which, though not new,
+are of great importance, and may be read, with pleasure, in the
+thousandth repetition.
+
+"Whatever we enjoy, is purely a free gift from our creator; but, that we
+enjoy no more, can never, sure, be deemed an injury, or a just reason to
+question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his
+goodness; but, that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that
+is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to
+any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the
+wants of a beggar to the person who has relieved him: that he had
+something, was owing to his benefactor; but that he had no more, only to
+his own original poverty."
+
+Thus far he speaks what every man must approve, and what every wise man
+has said before him. He then gives us the system of subordination, not
+invented, for it was known, I think, to the Arabian metaphysicians, but
+adopted by Pope, and, from him, borrowed by the diligent researches of
+this great investigator.
+
+"No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a
+subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members,
+subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various
+colours, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles,
+tenours, and bases; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of
+higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the
+very essence of all created things, and, therefore, cannot be prevented,
+by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all."
+
+These instances are used, instead of Pope's oak and weeds, or Jupiter
+and his satellites; but neither Pope, nor this writer, have much
+contributed to solve the difficulty. Perfection, or imperfection, of
+unconscious beings has no meaning, as referred to themselves; the base
+and the treble are equally perfect; the mean and magnificent apartments
+feel no pleasure or pain from the comparison. Pope might ask the weed,
+why it was less than the oak? but the weed would never ask the question
+for itself. The base and treble differ only to the hearer, meanness and
+magnificence only to the inhabitant. There is no evil but must inhere in
+a conscious being, or be referred to it; that is, evil must be felt,
+before it is evil. Yet, even on this subject, many questions might be
+offered, which human understanding has not yet answered, and which the
+present haste of this extract will not suffer me to dilate.
+
+He proceeds to an humble detail of Pope's opinion: "The universe is a
+system, whose very essence consists in subordination; a scale of beings
+descending, by insensible degrees, from infinite perfection to absolute
+nothing; in which, though we may justly expect to find perfection in the
+whole, could we possibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest
+absurdity to hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and
+happiness of the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its
+parts; that is, on the comparative imperfections of the several beings
+of which it is composed.
+
+"It would have been no more an instance of God's wisdom to have created
+no beings, but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be
+of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the
+most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such,
+nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and, then, all
+inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited; but as it is,
+surely, more agreeable to infinite benevolence, that all these should be
+filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and
+contributing to that of others, they must, necessarily, be filled with
+inferior beings; that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose
+existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more felicity, upon the
+whole, accrues to the universe, than if no such had been created. It is,
+moreover, highly probable, that there is such a connexion between all
+ranks and orders, by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support
+each other's existence, and every one, in its place, is absolutely
+necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric.
+
+"Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so
+high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a
+pretence which must eternally subsist, because, were we ever so much
+higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and,
+since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet
+must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned
+by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine, that he is not an
+angel; nor a horse, that he is not a man; much less, that, in their
+several stations, they possess not the faculties of another; for this
+would be an insufferable misfortune."
+
+This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of
+existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always
+left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.
+
+That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be
+imperfect, is evident to intuition; that, whatever is imperfect must
+have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. But the
+reason which determined this limit, and for which such being was
+suffered to advance thus far, and no farther, we shall never be able to
+discern. Our discoverers tell us, the creator has made beings of all
+orders, and that, therefore, one of them must be such as man; but this
+system seems to be established on a concession, which, if it be refused,
+cannot be extorted.
+
+Every reason which can be brought to prove, that there are beings of
+every possible sort, will prove, that there is the greatest number
+possible of every sort of beings; but this, with respect to man, we
+know, if we know any thing, not to be true.
+
+It does not appear, even to the imagination, that of three orders of
+being, the first and the third receive any advantage from the
+imperfection of the second, or that, indeed, they may not equally exist,
+though the second had never been, or should cease to be; and why should
+that be concluded necessary, which cannot be proved even to be useful?
+
+The scale of existence, from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have
+being. The highest being not infinite, must be, as has been often
+observed, at an infinite distance below infinity. Cheyne, who, with the
+desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical
+images, considers all existence as a cone; allows that the basis is at
+an infinite distance from the body; and in this distance between finite
+and infinite, there will be room, for ever, for an infinite series of
+indefinable existence.
+
+Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose
+positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where
+there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued
+for ever and for ever, and yet infinitely superiour to nonexistence.
+
+To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our
+maker, but of each other, since, on the one side, creation, wherever it
+stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other, infinitely
+above nothing, what necessity there is, that it should proceed so far,
+either way, that beings so high or so low should ever have existed? We
+may ask; but, I believe, no created wisdom can give an adequate answer.
+
+Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite
+vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to
+be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between
+them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders; since every thing
+that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that
+which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can
+judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the
+scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite
+exertion of infinite power.
+
+Thus it appears, how little reason those, who repose their reason upon
+the scale of being, have to triumph over them who recur to any other
+expedient of solution, and what difficulties arise, on every side, to
+repress the rebellions of presumptuous decision: "Qui pauca considerat,
+facile pronunciat." In our passage through the boundless ocean of
+disquisition, we often take fogs for land, and, after having long toiled
+to approach them, find, instead of repose and harbours, new storms of
+objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty.
+
+We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we
+are doomed to suffer.
+
+"Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more
+hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more
+exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than those who possess them
+are usually blessed with. The want of taste and genius, with all the
+pleasures that arise from them, are commonly recompensed by a more
+useful kind of common sense, together with a wonderful delight, as well
+as success, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings
+of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications,
+imperceptible to others, and, sometimes, almost repaid by the
+inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour.
+Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not
+but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a
+pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the
+want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to
+poverty and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of
+infusing that insensibility, which can enable them to endure the
+miseries of the one, and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial,
+administered by the gracious hand of providence, of which they ought
+never to be deprived by an ill-judged and improper education. It is the
+basis of all subordination, the support of society, and the privilege of
+individuals; and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of
+the divine wisdom, that, whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise
+little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in
+man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by
+education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the philosopher
+and the peasant, are, in some measure, fitted for their respective
+situations."
+
+Much of these positions is, perhaps, true; and the whole paragraph might
+well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the
+establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want
+of riches. In that sense, almost every man may, in his own opinion, be
+poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence of all
+that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify
+attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which
+is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the
+publick, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling
+openly, and many secretly.
+
+That hope and fear are inseparably, or very frequently, connected with
+poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder
+degrees of poverty are, sometimes, supported by hope; but the more
+severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen,
+before it can be known. This author and Pope, perhaps, never saw the
+miseries which they imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor, indeed, are
+insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the
+possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich. They are not
+pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a
+compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases
+to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh.
+
+That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of
+some other, may be fairly allowed; but the compensations of sickness I
+have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery
+only prove the intenseness of the pain.
+
+With folly, no man is willing to confess himself very intimately
+acquainted, and, therefore, its pains and pleasures are kept secret. But
+what the author says of its happiness, seems applicable only to fatuity,
+or gross dulness; for that inferiority of understanding, which makes one
+man, without any other reason, the slave, or tool, or property of
+another, which makes him sometimes useless, and sometimes ridiculous, is
+often felt with very quick sensibility. On the happiness of madmen, as
+the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a
+disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe, that I never yet knew
+disorders of mind increase felicity: every madman is either arrogant and
+irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion, or
+notion, destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look,
+and malignity in his bosom. And, if he had the power of choice, he would
+soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace.
+
+Concerning the portion of ignorance necessary to make the condition of
+the lower classes of mankind safe to the publick, and tolerable to
+themselves, both morals and policy exact a nicer inquiry than will be
+very soon or very easily made. There is, undoubtedly, a degree of
+knowledge which will direct a man to refer all to providence, and to
+acquiesce in the condition with which omniscient goodness has determined
+to allot him; to consider this world as a phantom, that must soon glide
+from before his eyes, and the distresses and vexations that encompass
+him, as dust scattered in his path, as a blast that chills him for a
+moment, and passes off for ever.
+
+Such wisdom, arising from the comparison of a part with the whole of our
+existence, those that want it most cannot possibly obtain from
+philosophy; nor, unless the method of education, and the general tenour
+of life are changed, will very easily receive it from religion. The bulk
+of mankind is not likely to be very wise or very good; and I know not,
+whether there are not many states of life, in which all knowledge, less
+than the highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe
+it may be sometimes found, that a _little learning_ is, to a poor man, a
+_dangerous thing_. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily
+see, or quickly feel the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right.
+Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful,
+but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at
+what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found
+equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men, left wholly to their
+appetites and their instincts, with little sense of moral or religious
+obligation, and with very faint distinctions of right and wrong, can
+never be safely employed, or confidently trusted; they can be honest
+only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some
+instruction, therefore, is necessary, and much, perhaps, may be
+dangerous.
+
+Though it should be granted, that those who are _born to poverty and
+drudgery_, should not be _deprived_, by an _improper education_, of the
+_opiate of ignorance_; even this concession will not be of much use to
+direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that are
+_born to poverty_. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after
+generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is, in
+itself, cruel, if not unjust, and is wholly contrary to the maxims of a
+commercial nation, which always suppose and promote a rotation of
+property, and offer every individual a chance of mending his condition
+by his diligence. Those, who communicate literature to the son of a poor
+man consider him, as one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of
+deriving a better fortune from himself. In this attempt, as in others,
+many fail and many succeed. Those that fail, will feel their misery more
+acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity, as
+cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the
+happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn
+the balance against that exacerbation which the others suffer.
+
+I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
+privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I
+shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the
+suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the
+maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints,
+should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
+delights in seeing others depressed.
+
+Pope's doctrine is, at last, exhibited in a comparison, which, like
+other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy
+than convince the reason.
+
+"Thus the universe resembles a large and well-regulated family, in which
+all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are
+subservient to each other, in a proper subordination: each enjoys the
+privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and, at the same time,
+contributes, by that just subordination, to the magnificence and
+happiness of the whole."
+
+The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master,
+and sometimes to the domesticks. But the magnificence of the universe
+adds nothing to the supreme being; for any part of its inhabitants, with
+which human knowledge is acquainted, an universe much less spacious or
+splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not
+appear, that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to
+those of a higher.
+
+The inquiry after the cause of natural evil is continued in the third
+letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture of borrowed truth,
+and native folly, of some notions, just and trite, with others uncommon
+and ridiculous.
+
+His opinion of the value and importance of happiness is certainly just,
+and I shall insert it; not that it will give any information to any
+reader, but it may serve to show, how the most common notion may be
+swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall, perhaps, astonish
+the author himself.
+
+"Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence, neither riches,
+nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor
+virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but
+as they contribute to its production. All these are, in themselves,
+neither good nor evil: happiness alone is their great end, and they are
+desirable only as they tend to promote it."
+
+Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of
+happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what
+has been hid from all former inquirers.
+
+"The true solution of this important question, so long and so vainly
+searched for by the philosophers of all ages and all countries, I take
+to be, at last, no more than this, that these real evils proceed from
+the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated
+of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can
+subsist; all subordination implying imperfection, all imperfection evil,
+and all evil some kind of inconveniency or suffering: so that there
+must, be particular inconvenieucies and sufferings annexed to every
+particular rank of created beings by the circumstances of things, and
+their modes of existence.
+
+"God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in
+a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer
+men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal
+system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies."
+
+In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of
+curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination
+implies imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves
+may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect
+than the oak, as an oak. That _imperfection implies evil, and evil
+suffering_, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative
+evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no
+suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet
+an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief, that he is unhappy
+by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. When this
+author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to
+distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words,
+easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative,
+when applied to the works of omnipotence. Subordination, in human
+affairs, is well understood; but, when it is attributed to the universal
+system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of
+locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning
+with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is _high_ or _low_.
+That, if man, by exaltation to a higher nature, were exempted from the
+evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that, if
+man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising
+from his established notion of the scale of being. A notion to which
+Pope has given some importance, by adopting it, and of which I have,
+therefore, endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This
+scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous
+imagination, to rest on nothing at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the
+top, and to have vacuities, from step to step, through which any order
+of being may sink into nihility without any inconvenience, so far as we
+can judge, to the next rank above or below it. We are, therefore, little
+enlightened by a writer who tells us, that any being in the state of man
+must suffer what man suffers, when the only question that requires to be
+resolved is: Why any being is in this state. Of poverty and labour he
+gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the
+difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the
+present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.
+
+"Poverty is what all could not possibly have been exempted from, not
+only by reason of the fluctuating nature of human possessions, but
+because the world could not subsist without it; for, had all been rich,
+none could have submitted to the commands of another, or the necessary
+drudgeries of life; thence all governments must have been dissolved,
+arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so an universal penury have
+overwhelmed all, instead of now and then pinching a few. Hence, by the
+by, appears the great excellence of charity, by which men are enabled,
+by a particular distribution of the blessings and enjoyments of life, on
+proper occasions, to prevent that poverty, which, by a general one,
+omnipotence itself could never have prevented; so that, by enforcing
+this duty, God, as it were, demands our assistance to promote universal
+happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, where it strives to
+intrude itself.
+
+"Labour, indeed, God might easily have excused us from, since, at his
+command, the earth would readily have poured forth all her treasures,
+without our inconsiderable assistance; but, if the severest labour
+cannot sufficiently subdue the malignity of human nature, what plots and
+machinations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, what profligacy and
+licentiousness, must have been the consequences of universal idleness!
+So that labour ought only to be looked upon, as a task kindly imposed
+upon us by our indulgent creator, necessary to preserve our health, our
+safety, and our innocence."
+
+I am afraid, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
+beginning." If God _could easily have excused us from labour_, I do not
+comprehend why _he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty_.
+For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more
+than necessity of labour; and, in its more severe and deplorable state,
+little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others,
+or to want the succour of others, without work. And the same exuberant
+fertility, which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty
+impossible.
+
+Surely, a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should
+have spoken more cautiously of omnipotence, nor have presumed to say
+what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt, whether
+those, who stand highest in the _scale of being_, speak thus confidently
+of the dispensations of their maker:
+
+  "For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."
+
+Of our inquietudes of mind, his account is still less reasonable:
+"Whilst men are injured, they must be inflamed with anger; and, whilst
+they see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; whilst they perceive
+danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all
+evil, by showing, that one evil produces another. If there is danger,
+there ought to be fear; but, if fear is an evil, why should there be
+danger? His vindication of pain is of the same kind: pain is useful to
+alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must
+be pre-supposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.
+
+Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with
+sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall, therefore,
+insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not
+grow stale by repetition
+
+  "Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils,
+  is so far from being one, that it is the infallible
+  cure for all others.
+
+  To die, is landing on some silent shore,
+  Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.
+  Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.
+
+  GARTH.
+
+For, abstracted from the sickness and sufferings usually attending it,
+it is no more than the expiration of that term of life God was pleased
+to bestow on us, without any claim or merit on our part. But was it an
+evil ever so great, it could not be remedied, but by one much greater,
+which is, by living for ever; by which means, our wickedness,
+unrestrained by the prospect of a future state, would grow so
+insupportable, our sufferings so intolerable by perseverance, and our
+pleasures so tiresome by repetition, that no being in the universe could
+be so completely miserable, as a species of immortal men. We have no
+reason, therefore, to look upon death as an evil, or to fear it as a
+punishment, even without any supposition of a future life: but, if we
+consider it, as a passage to a more perfect state, or a remove only in
+an eternal succession of still-improving states, (for which we have the
+strongest reasons,) it will then appear a new favour from the divine
+munificence; and a man must be as absurd to repine at dying, as a
+traveller would be, who proposed to himself a delightful tour through
+various unknown countries, to lament, that he cannot take up his
+residence at the first dirty inn, which he baits at on the road.
+
+"The instability of human life, or of the changes of its successive
+periods, of which we so frequently complain, are no more than the
+necessary progress of it to this necessary conclusion; and are so far
+from being evils, deserving these complaints, that they are the source
+of our greatest pleasures, as they are the source of all novelty, from
+which our greatest pleasures are ever derived. The continual succession
+of seasons in the human life, by daily presenting to us new scenes,
+render it agreeable, and, like those of the year, afford us delights by
+their change, which the choicest of them could not give us by their
+continuance. In the spring of life, the gilding of the sunshine, the
+verdure of the fields, and the variegated paintings of the sky, are so
+exquisite in the eyes of infants, at their first looking abroad into a
+new world, as nothing, perhaps, afterwards can equal: the heat and
+vigour of the succeeding summer of youth, ripens for us new pleasures,
+the blooming maid, the nightly revel, and the jovial chase: the serene
+autumn of complete manhood feasts us with the golden harvests of our
+worldly pursuits: nor is the hoary winter of old age destitute of its
+peculiar comforts and enjoyments, of which the recollection and relation
+of those past, are, perhaps, none of the least: and, at last, death
+opens to us a new prospect, from whence we shall, probably, look back
+upon the diversions and occupations of this world, with the same
+contempt we do now on our tops and hobby horses, and with the same
+surprise, that they could ever so much entertain or engage us."
+
+I would not willingly detract from the beauty of this paragraph; and, in
+gratitude to him who has so well inculcated such important truths, I
+will venture to admonish him, since the chief comfort of the old is the
+recollection of the past, so to employ his time and his thoughts, that,
+when the imbecility of age shall come upon him, he may be able to
+recreate its languors, by the remembrance of hours spent, not in
+presumptuous decisions, but modest inquiries; not in dogmatical
+limitations of omnipotence, but in humble acquiescence, and fervent
+adoration. Old age will show him, that much of the book, now before us,
+has no other use than to perplex the scrupulous, and to shake the weak,
+to encourage impious presumption, or stimulate idle curiosity.
+
+Having thus despatched the consideration of particular evils, he comes,
+at last, to a general reason, for which _evil_ may be said to be _our
+good_. He is of opinion, that there is some inconceivable benefit in
+pain, abstractedly considered; that pain, however inflicted, or wherever
+felt, communicates some good to the general system of being, and, that
+every animal is, some way or other, the better for the pain of every
+other animal. This opinion he carries so far, as to suppose, that there
+passes some principle of union through all animal life, as attraction is
+communicated to all corporeal nature; and, that the evils suffered on
+this globe, may, by some inconceivable means, contribute to the felicity
+of the inhabitants of the remotest planet.
+
+How the origin of evil is brought nearer to human conception, by any
+_inconceivable_ means, I am not able to discover. We believed, that the
+present system of creation was right, though we could not explain the
+adaptation of one part to the other, or for the whole succession of
+causes and consequences. Where has this inquirer added to the little
+knowledge that we had before? He has told us of the benefits of evil,
+which no man feels, and relations between distant parts of the universe,
+which he cannot himself conceive. There was enough in this question
+inconceivable before, and we have little advantage from a new
+inconceivable solution.
+
+I do not mean to reproach this author for not knowing what is equally
+hidden from learning and from ignorance. The shame is, to impose words,
+for ideas, upon ourselves or others. To imagine, that we are going
+forward, when we are only turning round. To think, that there is any
+difference between him that gives no reason, and him that gives a
+reason, which, by his own confession, cannot be conceived.
+
+But, that he may not be thought to conceive nothing but things
+inconceivable, he has, at last, thought on a way, by which human
+sufferings may produce good effects. He imagines, that as we have not
+only animals for food, but choose some for our diversion, the same
+privilege may be allowed to some beings above us, _who may deceive,
+torment, or destroy us, for the ends, only, of their own pleasure or
+utility_. This he again finds impossible to be conceived, _but that
+impossibility lessens not the probability of the conjecture, which, by
+analogy, is so strongly confirmed_. I cannot resist the temptation of
+contemplating this analogy, which, I think, he might have carried
+further, very much to the advantage of his argument. He might have
+shown, that these "hunters, whose game is man," have many sports
+analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and kittens, they amuse
+themselves, now and then, with sinking a ship, and stand round the
+fields of Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a cockpit. As
+we shoot a bird flying, they take a man in the midst of his business or
+pleasure, and knock him down with an apoplexy. Some of them, perhaps,
+are virtuosi, and delight in the operations of an asthma, as a human
+philosopher in the effects of the air-pump. To swell a man with a
+tympany is as good sport as to blow a frog. Many a merry bout have these
+frolick beings at the vicissitudes of an ague, and good sport it is to
+see a man tumble with an epilepsy, and revive and tumble again, and all
+this he knows not why. As they are wiser and more powerful than we, they
+have more exquisite diversions; for we have no way of procuring any
+sport so brisk and so lasting, as the paroxysms of the gout and stone,
+which, undoubtedly, must make high mirth, especially if the play be a
+little diversified with the blunders and puzzles of the blind and deaf.
+We know not how far their sphere of observation may extend. Perhaps, now
+and then, a merry being may place himself in such a situation, as to
+enjoy, at once, all the varieties of an epidemical disease, or amuse his
+leisure with the tossings and contortions of every possible pain,
+exhibited together.
+
+One sport the merry malice of these beings has found means of enjoying,
+to which we have nothing equal or similar. They now and then catch a
+mortal, proud of his parts, and flattered either by the submission of
+those who court his kindness, or the notice of those who suffer him to
+court theirs. A head, thus prepared for the reception of false opinions,
+and the projection of vain designs, they easily fill with idle notions,
+till, in time, they make their plaything an author; their first
+diversion commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then rises,
+perhaps, to a political irony, and is, at last, brought to its height,
+by a treatise of philosophy. Then begins the poor animal to entangle
+himself in sophisms, and flounder in absurdity, to talk confidently of
+the scale of being, and to give solutions which himself confesses
+impossible to be understood. Sometimes, however, it happens, that their
+pleasure is without much mischief. The author feels no pain, but while
+they are wondering at the extravagance of his opinion, and pointing him
+out to one another, as a new example of human folly, he is enjoying his
+own applause and that of his companions, and, perhaps, is elevated with
+the hope of standing at the head of a new sect.
+
+Many of the books which now crowd the world, may be justly suspected to
+be written for the sake of some invisible order of beings, for surely
+they are of no use to any of the corporeal inhabitants of the world. Of
+the productions of the last bounteous year, how many can be said to
+serve any purpose of use or pleasure! The only end of writing is to
+enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it; and how
+will either of those be put more in our power, by him who tells us, that
+we are puppets, of which some creature, not much wiser than ourselves,
+manages the wires! That a set of beings, unseen and unheard, are
+hovering about us, trying experiments upon our sensibility, putting us
+in agonies, to see our limbs quiver; torturing us to madness, that they
+may laugh at our vagaries; sometimes obstructing the bile, that they may
+see how a man looks, when he is yellow; sometimes breaking a traveller's
+bones, to try how he will get home; sometimes wasting a man to a
+skeleton, and sometimes killing him fat, for the greater elegance of his
+hide.
+
+This is an account of natural evil, which though, like the rest, not
+quite new, is very entertaining, though I know not how much it may
+contribute to patience. The only reason why we should contemplate evil
+is, that we may bear it better; and I am afraid nothing is much more
+placidly endured, for the sake of making others sport.
+
+The first pages of the fourth letter are such, as incline me both to
+hope and wish that I shall find nothing to blame in the succeeding part.
+He offers a criterion of action, on account of virtue and vice, for
+which I have often contended, and which must be embraced by all who are
+willing to know, why they act, or why they forbear to give any reason of
+their conduct to themselves or others.
+
+"In order to find out the true origin of moral evil, it will be
+necessary, in the first place, to enquire into its nature and essence;
+or, what it is that constitutes one action evil, and another good.
+Various have been the opinions of various authors on this criterion of
+virtue; and this variety has rendered that doubtful, which must,
+otherwise, have been clear and manifest to the meanest capacity. Some,
+indeed, have denied, that there is any such thing, because different
+ages and nations have entertained different sentiments concerning it;
+but this is just as reasonable, as to assert, that there are neither
+sun, moon, nor stars, because astronomers have supported different
+systems of the motions and magnitudes of these celestial bodies. Some
+have placed it in conformity to truth, some to the fitness of things,
+and others to the will of God: but all this is merely superficial: they
+resolve us not, why truth, or the fitness of things, are either eligible
+or obligatory, or why God should require us to act in one manner rather
+than another. The true reason of which can possibly be no other than
+this, because some actions produce happiness, and others misery; so that
+all moral good and evil are nothing more than the production of natural.
+This alone it is that makes truth preferable to falsehood, this, that
+determines the fitness of things, and this that induces God to command
+some actions, and forbid others. They who extol the truth, beauty, and
+harmony of virtue, exclusive of its consequences, deal but in pompous
+nonsense; and they, who would persuade us, that good and evil are things
+indifferent, depending wholly on the will of God, do but confound the
+nature of things, as well as all our notions of God himself, by
+representing him capable of willing contradictions; that is, that we
+should be, and be happy, and, at the same time, that we should torment
+and destroy each other; for injuries cannot be made benefits, pain
+cannot be made pleasure, and, consequently, vice cannot be made virtue,
+by any power whatever. It is the consequences, therefore, of all human
+actions that must stamp their value. So far as the general practice of
+any action tends to produce good, and introduce happiness into the
+world, so far we may pronounce it virtuous; so much evil as it
+occasions, such is the degree of vice it contains. I say the general
+practice, because we must always remember, in judging by this rule, to
+apply it only to the general species of actions, and not to particular
+actions; for the infinite wisdom of God, desirous to set bounds to the
+destructive consequences, which must, otherwise, have followed from the
+universal depravity of mankind, has so wonderfully contrived the nature
+of things, that our most vitious actions may, sometimes, accidentally
+and collaterally, produce good. Thus, for instance, robbery may disperse
+useless hoards to the benefit of the public; adultery may bring heirs,
+and good humour too, into many families, where they would otherwise have
+been wanting; and murder, free the world from tyrants and oppressors.
+Luxury maintains its thousands, and vanity its ten thousands.
+Superstition and arbitrary power contribute to the grandeur of many
+nations, and the liberties of others are preserved by the perpetual
+contentions of avarice, knavery, selfishness, and ambition; and thus the
+worst of vices, and the worst of men, are often compelled, by
+providence, to serve the most beneficial purposes, contrary to their own
+malevolent tendencies and inclinations; and thus private vices become
+public benefits, by the force only of accidental circumstances. But this
+impeaches not the truth of the criterion of virtue, before mentioned,
+the only solid foundation on which any true system of ethics can be
+built, the only plain, simple, and uniform rule, by which we can pass
+any judgment on our actions; but by this we may be enabled, not only to
+determine which are good, and which are evil, but, almost
+mathematically, to demonstrate the proportion of virtue or vice which
+belongs to each, by comparing them with the degrees of happiness or
+misery which they occasion. But, though the production of happiness is
+the essence of virtue, it is by no means the end; the great end is the
+probation of mankind, or the giving them an opportunity of exalting or
+degrading themselves, in another state, by their behaviour in the
+present. And thus, indeed, it answers two most important purposes: those
+are, the conservation of our happiness, and the test of our obedience;
+or, had not such a test seemed necessary to God's infinite wisdom, and
+productive of universal good, he would never have permitted the
+happiness of men, even in this life, to have depended on so precarious a
+tenure, as their mutual good behaviour to each other. For it is
+observable, that he, who best knows our formation, has trusted no one
+thing of importance to our reason or virtue: he trusts only to our
+appetites for the support of the individual, and the continuance of our
+species; to our vanity, or compassion, for our bounty to others; and to
+our fears, for the preservation of ourselves; often to our vices, for
+the support of government, and, sometimes, to our follies, for the
+preservation of our religion. But, since some test of our obedience was
+necessary, nothing, sure, could have been commanded for that end, so
+fit, and proper, and, at the same time, so useful, as the practice of
+virtue; nothing could have been so justly rewarded with happiness, as
+the production of happiness, in conformity to the will of God. It is
+this conformity, alone, which adds merit to virtue, and constitutes the
+essential difference between morality and religion. Morality obliges men
+to live honestly and soberly, because such behaviour is most conducive
+to public happiness, and, consequently, to their own; religion, to
+pursue the same course, because conformable to the will of their
+creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue, from prudential
+considerations; religion, from those of gratitude and obedience.
+Morality, therefore, entirely abstracted from religion, can have nothing
+meritorious in it; it being but wisdom, prudence, or good economy,
+which, like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obligations conferred
+upon us by God, than merits in us towards him; for, though we may be
+justly punished for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for
+self-preservation; as suicide deserves punishment and infamy, but a man
+deserves no reward or honours for not being guilty of it. This I take to
+be the meaning of all those passages in our scriptures, in which works
+are represented to have no merit without faith; that is, not without
+believing in historical facts, in creeds, and articles, but, without
+being done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obedience to his
+commands. And now, having mentioned scripture, I cannot omit observing,
+that the christian is the only religious or moral institution in the
+world, that ever set, in a right light, these two material points, the
+essence and the end of virtue, that ever founded the one in the
+production of happiness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their
+language, charity to all men; the other, in the probation of man, and
+his obedience to his creator. Sublime and magnificent as was the
+philosophy of the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient in
+these two important articles. They were all built on the sandy
+foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism;
+and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of human
+glory; foundations, which were, by no means, able to support the
+magnificent structures which they erected upon them; for the beauty of
+virtue, independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonsense; patriotism,
+which injures mankind in general, for the sake of a particular country,
+is but a more extended selfishness, and really criminal; and all human
+glory, but a mean and ridiculous delusion.
+
+"The whole affair, then, of religion and morality, the subject of so
+many thousand volumes, is, in short, no more than this: the supreme
+being, infinitely good, as well as powerful, desirous to diffuse
+happiness by all possible means, has created innumerable ranks and
+orders of beings, all subservient to each other by proper subordination.
+One of these is occupied by man, a creature endued with such a certain
+degree of knowledge, reason, and freewill, as is suitable to his
+situation, and placed, for a time, on this globe, as in a school of
+probation and education. Here he has an opportunity given him of
+improving or debasing his nature, in such a manner, as to render himself
+fit for a rank of higher perfection and happiness, or to degrade himself
+to a state of greater imperfection and misery; necessary, indeed,
+towards carrying on the business of the universe, but very grievous and
+burdensome to those individuals who, by their own misconduct, are
+obliged to submit to it. The test of this his behaviour is doing good,
+that is, cooperating with his creator, as far as his narrow sphere of
+action will permit, in the production of happiness. And thus the
+happiness and misery of a future state will be the just reward or
+punishment of promoting or preventing happiness in this. So
+artificially, by this means, is the nature of all human virtue and vice
+contrived, that their rewards and punishments are woven, as it were, in
+their very essence; their immediate effects give us a foretaste of their
+future, and their fruits, in the present life, are the proper samples of
+what they must unavoidably produce in another. We have reason given us
+to distinguish these consequences, and regulate our conduct; and, lest
+that should neglect its post, conscience also is appointed, as an
+instinctive kind of monitor, perpetually to remind us both of our
+interest and our duty."
+
+"Si sic omnia dixisset!" To this account of the essence of vice and
+virtue, it is only necessary to add, that the consequences of human
+actions being sometimes uncertain, and sometimes remote, it is not
+possible, in many cases, for most men, nor in all cases, for any man, to
+determine what actions will ultimately produce happiness, and,
+therefore, it was proper that revelation should lay down a rule to be
+followed, invariably, in opposition to appearances, and, in every change
+of circumstances, by which we may be certain to promote the general
+felicity, and be set free from the dangerous temptation of _doing evil
+that good may come_. Because it may easily happen, and, in effect, will
+happen, very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted
+by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged, by
+nature, to prefer, ultimately, the happiness of others to his own;
+therefore, to the instructions of infinite wisdom, it was necessary that
+infinite power should add penal sanctions. That every man, to whom those
+instructions shall be imparted, may know, that he can never, ultimately,
+injure himself by benefiting others, or, ultimately, by injuring others
+benefit himself; but that, however the lot of the good and bad may be
+huddled together in the seeming confusion of our present state, the time
+shall undoubtedly come, when the most virtuous will be most happy.
+
+I am sorry, that the remaining part of this letter is not equal to the
+first. The author has, indeed, engaged in a disquisition, in which we
+need not wonder if he fails, in the solution of questions on which
+philosophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,
+
+  "And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
+
+He denies, that man was created _perfect_, because the system requires
+subordination, and because the power of losing his perfection, of
+"rendering himself wicked and miserable, is the highest imperfection
+imaginable." Besides, the regular gradations of the scale of being
+required, somewhere, "such a creature as man, with all his infirmities
+about him; and the total removal of those would be altering his nature,
+and, when he became perfect, he must cease to be man."
+
+I have already spent some considerations on the _scale of being_, of
+which, yet, I am obliged to renew the mention, whenever a new argument
+is made to rest upon it; and I must, therefore, again remark, that
+consequences cannot have greater certainty than the postulate from which
+they are drawn, and that no system can be more hypothetical than this,
+and, perhaps, no hypothesis more absurd.
+
+He again deceives himself with respect to the perfection with which
+_man_ is held to be originally vested. "That man came perfect, that is,
+endued with all possible perfection, out of the hands of his creator, is
+a false notion derived from the philosophers.--The universal system
+required subordination, and, consequently, comparative imperfection."
+That _man was ever endued with all possible perfection_, that is, with
+all perfection, of which the idea is not contradictory, or destructive
+of itself, is, undoubtedly, _false_. But it can hardly be called _a
+false notion_, because no man ever thought it, nor can it be derived
+from the _philosophers_; for, without pretending to guess what
+philosophers he may mean, it is very safe to affirm, that no philosopher
+ever said it. Of those who now maintain that _man_ was once perfect, who
+may very easily be found, let the author inquire, whether _man_ was ever
+omniscient, whether he was ever omnipotent; whether he ever had even the
+lower power of archangels or angels. Their answers will soon inform him,
+that the supposed perfection of _man_ was not absolute, but respective;
+that he was perfect, in a sense consistent enough with subordination,
+perfect, not as compared with different beings, but with himself in his
+present degeneracy; not perfect, as an angel, but perfect, as man.
+
+From this perfection, whatever it was, he thinks it necessary that man
+should be debarred, because pain is necessary to the good of the
+universe; and the pain of one order of beings extending its salutary
+influence to innumerable orders above and below, it was necessary that
+man should suffer; but, because it is not suitable to justice, that pain
+should be inflicted on innocence, it was necessary that man should be
+criminal.
+
+This is given as a satisfactory account of the original of moral evil,
+which amounts only to this, that God created beings, whose guilt he
+foreknew, in order that he might have proper objects of pain, because
+the pain of part is, no man knows how or why, necessary to the felicity
+of the whole.
+
+The perfection which man once had, may be so easily conceived, that,
+without any unusual strain of imagination, we can figure its revival.
+All the duties to God or man, that are neglected, we may fancy
+performed; all the crimes, that are committed, we may conceive forborne.
+Man will then be restored to his moral perfections; and into what head
+can it enter, that, by this change, the universal system would be
+shaken, or the condition of any order of beings altered for the worse?
+
+He comes, in the fifth letter, to political, and, in the sixth, to
+religious evils. Of political evil, if we suppose the origin of moral
+evil discovered, the account is by no means difficult; polity being only
+the conduct of immoral men in publick affairs. The evils of each
+particular kind of government are very clearly and elegantly displayed,
+and, from their secondary causes, very rationally deduced; but the first
+cause lies still in its ancient obscurity. There is, in this letter,
+nothing new, nor any thing eminently instructive; one of his practical
+deductions, that "from government, evils cannot be eradicated, and their
+excess only can be prevented," has been always allowed; the question,
+upon which all dissension arises, is, when that excess begins, at what
+point men shall cease to bear, and attempt to remedy.
+
+Another of his precepts, though not new, well deserves to be
+transcribed, because it cannot be too frequently impressed.
+
+"What has here been said of their imperfections and abuses, is, by no
+means, intended as a defence of them: every wise man ought to redress
+them to the utmost of his power; which can be effected by one method
+only, that is, by a reformation of manners; for, as all political evils
+derive their original from moral, these can never be removed, until
+those are first amended. He, therefore, who strictly adheres to virtue
+and sobriety in his conduct, and enforces them by his example, does more
+real service to a state, than he who displaces a minister, or dethrones
+a tyrant: this gives but a temporary relief, but that exterminates the
+cause of the disease. No immoral man, then, can possibly be a true
+patriot; and all those who profess outrageous zeal for the liberty and
+prosperity of their country, and, at the same time, infringe her laws,
+affront her religion, and debauch her people, are but despicable quacks,
+by fraud or ignorance increasing the disorders they pretend to remedy."
+
+Of religion he has said nothing but what he has learned, or might have
+learned, from the divines; that it is not universal, because it must be
+received upon conviction, and successively received by those whom
+conviction reached; that its evidences and sanctions are not
+irresistible, because it was intended to induce, not to compel; and that
+it is obscure, because we want faculties to comprehend it. What he means
+by his assertion, that it wants policy, I do not well understand; he
+does not mean to deny, that a good christian will be a good governour,
+or a good subject; and he has before justly observed, that the good man
+only is a patriot.
+
+Religion has been, he says, corrupted by the wickedness of those to whom
+it was communicated, and has lost part of its efficacy, by its connexion
+with temporal interest and human passion.
+
+He justly observes, that from all this no conclusion can be drawn
+against the divine original of christianity, since the objections arise
+not from the nature of the revelation, but of him to whom it is
+communicated.
+
+All this is known, and all this is true; but why, we have not yet
+discovered. Our author, if I understand him right, pursues the argument
+thus: the religion of man produces evils, because the morality of man is
+imperfect; his morality is imperfect, that he may be justly a subject of
+punishment; he is made subject to punishment, because the pain of part
+is necessary to the happiness of the whole; pain is necessary to
+happiness, no mortal can tell why, or how.
+
+Thus, after having clambered, with great labour, from one step of
+argumentation to another, instead of rising into the light of knowledge,
+we are devolved back into dark ignorance; and all our effort ends in
+belief, that for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in
+confession, that the reason cannot be found. This is all that has been
+produced by the revival of Chrysippus's untractableness of matter, and
+the Arabian scale of existence. A system has been raised, which is so
+ready to fall to pieces of itself, that no great praise can be derived
+from its destruction. To object, is always easy, and, it has been well
+observed by a late writer, that "the hand which cannot build a hovel,
+may demolish a temple [11]."
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOR IMPROVING OF
+NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, FROM ITS FIRST RISE;
+
+In which the most considerable papers communicated to the society, which
+have, hitherto, not been published, are inserted, in their proper order,
+as a supplement to the Philosophical Transactions. By Thomas Birch, D.
+D. secretary to the Royal society, 2 vols. 4to.
+
+
+This book might, more properly, have been entitled by the author, a
+diary than a history, as it proceeds regularly from day to day, so
+minutely, as to number over the members present at each committee, and
+so slowly, that two large volumes contain only the transactions of the
+eleven first years from the institution of the society.
+
+I am, yet, far from intending to represent this work as useless. Many
+particularities are of importance to one man, though they appear
+trifling to another; and it is always more safe to admit copiousness,
+than to affect brevity. Many informations will be afforded by this book
+to the biographer. I know not where else it can be found, but here, and
+in Ward, that Cowley was doctor in physick. And, whenever any other
+institution, of the same kind, shall be attempted, the exact relation of
+the progress of the Royal society may furnish precedents.
+
+These volumes consist of an exact journal of the society; of some papers
+delivered to them, which, though registered and preserved, had been
+never printed; and of short memoirs of the more eminent members,
+inserted at the end of the year in which each died.
+
+The original of the society is placed earlier in this history than in
+that of Dr. Sprat. Theodore Haak, a German of the Palatinate, in 1645,
+proposed, to some inquisitive and learned men, a weekly meeting, for the
+cultivation of natural knowledge. The first associates, whose names
+ought, surely, to be preserved, were Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Wallis, Dr.
+Goddard, Dr. Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merret, Mr. Foster of Gresham, and
+Mr. Haak. Sometime afterwards, Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard, being
+removed to Oxford, carried on the same design there by stated meetings,
+and adopted into their society Dr. Ward, Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Petty, and
+Dr. Willis.
+
+The Oxford society coming to London, in 1659, joined their friends, and
+augmented their number, and, for some time, met in Gresham college.
+After the restoration, their number was again increased, and on the 28th
+of November, 1660, a select party happening to retire for conversation,
+to Mr. Rooke's apartment in Gresham college, formed the first plan of a
+regular society. Here Dr. Sprat's history begins, and, therefore, from
+this period, the proceedings are well known [12].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE GENERAL HISTORY OP POLYBIUS,
+
+IN FIVE BOOKS, TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK, BY MR. HAMPTON.
+
+
+This appears to be one of the books, which will long do honour to the
+present age. It has been, by some remarker, observed, that no man ever
+grew immortal by a translation; and, undoubtedly, translations into the
+prose of a living language must be laid aside, whenever the language
+changes, because the matter being always to be found in the original,
+contributes nothing to the preservation of the form superinduced by the
+translator. But such versions may last long, though they can scarcely
+last always; and there is reason to believe that this will grow in
+reputation, while the English tongue continues in its present state.
+
+The great difficulty of a translator is to preserve the native form of
+his language, and the unconstrained manner of an original writer. This
+Mr. Hampton seems to have attained, in a degree of which there are few
+examples. His book has the dignity of antiquity, and the easy flow of a
+modern composition.
+
+It were, perhaps, to be desired, that he had illustrated, with notes, an
+author which must have many difficulties to an English reader, and,
+particularly, that he had explained the ancient art of war; but these
+omissions may be easily supplied, by an inferiour hand, from the
+antiquaries and commentators.
+
+To note omissions, where there is so much performed, would be invidious,
+and to commend is unnecessary, where the excellence of the work may be
+more easily and effectually shown, by exhibiting a specimen [13].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF MISCELLANIES ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS,
+
+IN PROSE AND VERSE; BY ELIZABETH HARRISON.
+
+
+This volume, though only one name appears upon the first page, has been
+produced by the contribution of many hands, and printed by the
+encouragement of a numerous subscription, both which favours seem to be
+deserved by the modesty and piety of her on whom they were bestowed.
+
+The authors of the esssays in prose seem, generally, to have imitated,
+or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxunance of Mrs. Rowe; this,
+however, is not all their praise, they have laboured to add to her
+brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr.
+Watts before their eyes, a writer who, if he stood not in the first
+class of genius, compensated that defect, by a ready application of his
+powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of
+romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first made by Mr.
+Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not
+allow him time for the cultivation of style, and the completion of the
+great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first
+who taught the dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing
+them, that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both clone
+honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well
+make their failings forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world
+might wish for communion. They were pure from all the heresies of an
+age, to which every opinion is become a favourite, that the universal
+church has, hitherto, detested.
+
+This praise the general interest of mankind requires to be given to
+writers who please, and do not corrupt, who instruct, and do not weary.
+But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom, I believe applauded by
+angels and numbered with the just [14].
+
+
+
+
+ACCOUNT OF A BOOK ENTITLED AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY
+
+Into the evidence produced by the earls of MORAY and MORTON against
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [15].
+
+With an examination of the reverend Dr. Robertson's Dissertation, and
+Mr. Hume's History, with respect to that evidence [16].
+
+
+We live in an age, in which there is much talk of independence, of
+private judgment, of liberty of thought, and liberty of press. Our
+clamorous praises of liberty sufficiently prove that we enjoy it; and
+if, by liberty, nothing else be meant, than security from the
+persecutions of power, it is so fully possessed by us, that little more
+is to be desired, except that one should talk of it less, and use it
+better.
+
+But a social being can scarcely rise to complete independence; he that
+has any wants, which others can supply, must study the gratification of
+them, whose assistance he expects; this is equally true, whether his
+wants be wants of nature, or of vanity. The writers of the present time
+are not always candidates for preferment, nor often the hirelings of a
+patron. They profess to serve no interest, and speak with loud contempt
+of sycophants and slaves.
+
+There is, however, a power, from whose influence neither they, nor their
+predecessors, have ever been free. Those, who have set greatness at
+defiance, have yet been the slaves of fashion. When an opinion has once
+become popular, very few are willing to oppose it. Idleness is more
+willing to credit than inquire; cowardice is afraid of controversy, and
+vanity of answer; and he that writes merely for sale, is tempted to
+court purchasers by flattering the prejudices of the publick.
+
+It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and
+vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of
+Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot
+pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of
+popularity? yet there remains, still, among us, not wholly
+extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right, in
+opposition to fashion. The author, whose work is now before as, has
+attempted a vindication of Mary of Scotland, whose name has, for some
+years, been generally resigned to infamy, and who has been considered,
+as the murderer of her husband, and condemned by her own letters.
+
+Of these letters, the author of this vindication confesses the
+importance to be such, that, "if they be genuine, the queen was guilty;
+and, if they be spurious, she was innocent." He has, therefore,
+undertaken to prove them spurious, and divided his treatise into six
+parts.
+
+In the first is contained the history of the letters from their
+discovery by the earl of Morton, their being produced against queen
+Mary, and their several appearances in England, before queen Elizabeth
+and her commissioners, until they were finally delivered back again to
+the earl of Morton.
+
+The second contains a short abstract of Mr. Goodall's arguments for
+proving the letters to be spurious and forged; and of Dr. Robertson and
+Mr. Hume's objections, by way of answer to Mr. Goodall, with critical
+observations on these authors.
+
+The third contains an examination of the arguments of Dr. Robertson and
+Mr. Hume, in support of the authenticity of the letters.
+
+The fourth contains an examination of the confession of Nicholas Hubert,
+commonly called _French Paris_, with observations, showing the same to
+be a forgery.
+
+The fifth contains a short recapitulation, or summary, of the arguments
+on both sides of the question.
+
+The last is an historical collection of the direct or positive evidence
+still on record, tending to show what part the earls of Murray and
+Morton, and secretary Lethington, had in the murder of the lord Darnley.
+
+The author apologizes for the length of this book, by observing, that it
+necessarily comprises a great number of particulars, which could not
+easily be contracted: the same plea may be made for the imperfection of
+our extract, which will naturally fall below the force of the book,
+because we can only select parts of that evidence, which owes its
+strength to its concatenation, and which will be weakened, whenever it
+is disjoined.
+
+The account of the seizure of these controverted letters is thus given
+by the queen's enemies.
+
+"That in the castell of Edinburgh, thair was left be the erle of
+Bothwell, before his fleeing away, and was send for be ane George
+Dalgleish, his servand, who was taken be the erle of Mortoun, ane small
+gylt coffer, not fully ane fute lang, garnisht in sindrie places with
+the roman letter F. under ane king's crowne; wharin were certane
+letteris and writings weel knawin, and be aithis to be affirmit to have
+been written with the quene of Scottis awn hand to the erle."
+
+The papers in the box were said to be eight letters, in French, some
+love-sonnets in French also, and a promise of marriage by the queen to
+Bothwell.
+
+To the reality of these letters our author makes some considerable
+objections, from the nature of things; but, as such arguments do not
+always convince, we will pass to the evidence of facts.
+
+On June 15, 1567, the queen delivered herself to Morton, and his party,
+who imprisoned her.
+
+June 20, 1567, Dalgleish was seized, and, six days after, was examined
+by Morton; his examination is still extant, and there is no mention of
+this fatal box.
+
+Dec. 4, 1567, Murray's secret council published an act, in which is the
+first mention of these letters, and in which they are said to be
+_written and subscrivit with her awin hand_. Ten days after, Murray's
+first parliament met, and passed an act, in which they mention _previe
+letters written halelie_ [wholly] _with her awin hand_. The difference
+between _written and subscribed_, and _wholly written_, gives the author
+just reason to suspect, first, a forgery, and then a variation of the
+forgery. It is, indeed, very remarkable, that the first account asserts
+more than the second, though the second contains all the truth; for the
+letters, whether _written_ by the queen or not, were not _subscribed_.
+Had the second account differed from the first only by something added,
+the first might have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as
+the second corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared
+from falsehood.
+
+In October, 1568, these letters were shown at York to Elisabeth's
+commissioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their publick
+character, as commissioners, but by way of private information, and were
+not, therefore, exposed to Mary's commissioners. Mary, however, hearing
+that some letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her
+commissioners to require them for her inspection, and, in the mean time,
+to declare them _false and feigned, forged and invented_, observing,
+that there were many that could counterfeit her hand.
+
+To counterfeit a name is easy, to counterfeit a hand, through eight
+letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were
+ever shown to those who would desire to detect them; and, to the English
+commissioners, a rude and remote imitation might be sufficient, since
+they were not shown as judicial proofs; and why they were not shown as
+proofs, no other reason can be given, than they must have then been
+examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery.
+
+These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all
+the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for
+the murder of the king, acquitted the queen, at the hour of death. These
+letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them, as the reason
+of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and
+pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.
+
+Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was
+suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that
+such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton who accused
+the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers.
+Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning
+them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never
+called to authenticate them, nor was his confession produced against
+Mary, till death had left him no power to disown it.
+
+Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to
+receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty
+of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a
+judge, a very little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of
+Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were seen no more.
+They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of
+writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however,
+endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but "his account,"
+says our author, "is contradicted, almost in every sentence, by the
+records, which, it appears, he has himself perused."
+
+In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined; and it
+seems to be proved, beyond contradiction, that the French letters,
+supposed to have been written by Mary, are translated from the Scotch
+copy, and, if originals, which it was so much the interest of such
+numbers to preserve, are wanting, it is much more likely that they never
+existed, than that they have been lost.
+
+The arguments used by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the
+letters, are next examined. Robertson makes use, principally, of what he
+calls the _internal evidence_, which, amounting, at most, to conjecture,
+is opposed by conjecture equally probable.
+
+In examining the confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this
+new apologist of Mary seems to gain ground upon her accuser. Paris is
+mentioned, in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the
+rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the
+last moment, Paris, instead of suffering his trial, with the rest, at
+Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was absolute; put
+into a dungeon of Murray's citadel; and, two years after, condemned by
+Murray himself, nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a
+confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to
+Cecil, at what exact time, nobody can tell.
+
+Of this confession, Leslie, bishop of Ross, openly denied the
+genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth;
+and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any
+confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to
+Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:
+
+"From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor
+ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their
+keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not
+producing him, with their other evidences, so as he might have been
+publickly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of
+Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with
+the publick affirmation of the bishop of Ross, at the time of Paris's
+death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the
+behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attester of
+this pretended confession, on that occasion; their close and reserved
+silence, at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in
+their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could
+tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only
+direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately
+considered, I think, one may safely conclude, that it was judged not fit
+to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen;
+which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution,
+would, surely, have given clear testimony against, as a notorious
+imposture."
+
+Mr. Hume, indeed, observes: "It is in vain, at present, to seek for
+improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify
+the smallest difficulties into a contradiction. It was certainly a
+regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to
+have been canvassed at the time, if the persons, whom it concerned, had
+been assured of their innocence." To which our author makes a reply,
+which cannot be shortened without weakening it:
+
+"Upon what does this author ground his sentence? Upon two very plain
+reasons, first, that the confession was a judicial one, that is, taken
+in presence, or by authority of a judge. And secondly, that it was
+regularly and judicially given in; that must be understood during the
+time of the conferences before queen Elizabeth and her council, in
+presence of Mary's commissioners; at which time she ought to have
+canvassed it," says our author, "if she knew her innocence.
+
+"That it was not a judicial confession, is evident: the paper itself
+does not bear any such mark; nor does it mention, that it was taken in
+presence of any person, or by any authority whatsoever; and, by
+comparing it with the judicial examinations of Dalgleish, Hay, and
+Hepburn, it is apparent, that it is destitute of every formality,
+requisite in a judicial evidence. In what dark corner, then, this
+strange production was generated, our author may endeavour to find out,
+if he can.
+
+"As to his second assertion, that it was regularly and judicially given
+in, and, therefore, ought to have been canvassed, by Mary during the
+conferences; we have already seen, that this, likewise, is not fact: the
+conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged
+till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it,
+is only dated the 10th of that month. How, then, can this gentleman
+gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought
+to have been, at that very time, canvassed by queen Mary and her
+commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact,
+are unworthy the character of an historian, and may, very justly, render
+his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very
+dubious. In answer, then, to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not
+choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive and
+in their hands, nor any declaration or confession, from him, at the
+critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I
+apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himself;
+that it is in vain, at present, to support the improbabilities and
+absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows
+how, and produced, after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom, and, from
+every appearance, destitute of every formality, requisite and common to
+such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of
+hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a
+gross imposture and forgery."
+
+The state of the evidence relating to the letters is this:
+
+Morton affirms, that they were taken in the hands of Dalgleish. Hie
+examination of Dalgleish is still extant, and he appears never to have
+been once interrogated concerning the letters.
+
+Morton and Murray affirm, that they were written by the queen's hand;
+they were carefully concealed from Mary and her commissioners, and were
+never collated by one man, who could desire to disprove them.
+
+Several of the incidents mentioned in the letters are confirmed by the
+oath of Crawfurd, one of Lennox's defendants, and some of the incidents
+are so minute, as that they could scarcely be thought on by a forger.
+Crawfurd's testimony is not without suspicion. Whoever practises
+forgery, endeavours to make truth the vehicle of falsehood.
+
+Of a prince's life very minute incidents are known; and if any are too
+slight to be remarked, they may be safely feigned, for they are,
+likewise, too slight to be contradicted. But there are still more
+reasons for doubting the genuineness of these letters. They had no date
+of time or place, no seal, no direction, no superscription.
+
+The only evidences that could prove their authenticity were Dalgleish
+and Paris; of which Dalgleish, at his trial, was never questioned about
+them; Paris was never publickly tried, though he was kept alive through
+the time of the conference.
+
+The servants of Bothwell, who were put to death for the king's murder,
+cleared Mary with their last words.
+
+The letters were first declared to be subscribed, and were then produced
+without subscription.
+
+They were shown, during the conferences at York, privately, to the
+English commissioners, but were concealed from the commissioners of
+Mary.
+
+Mary always solicited the perusal of these letters, and was always
+denied it.
+
+She demanded to be heard, in person, by Elizabeth, before the nobles of
+England and the ambassadours of other princes, and was refused.
+
+When Mary persisted in demanding copies of the letters, her
+commissioners were dismissed with their box to Scotland, and the letters
+were seen no more.
+
+The French letters, which, for almost two centuries, have been
+considered as originals, by the enemies of Mary's memory, are now
+discovered to be forgeries, and acknowledged to be translations, and,
+perhaps, French translations of a Latin translation. And the modern
+accusers of Mary are forced to infer, from these letters, which now
+exist, that other letters existed formerly, which have been lost, in
+spite of curiosity, malice, and interest.
+
+The rest of this treatise is employed in an endeavour to prove, that
+Mary's accusers were the murderers of Darnly: through this inquiry it is
+hot necessary to follow him; only let it be observed, that, if these
+letters were forged by them, they may easily be thought capable of other
+crimes. That the letters were forged, is now made so probable, that,
+perhaps, they will never more be cited as testimonies.
+
+
+
+
+MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE:
+
+Or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription, in monkish rhyme,
+lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk. By Probus Britannicus [17].
+
+
+In Norfolk, near the town of Lynn, in a field, which an ancient
+tradition of the country affirms to have been once a deep lake, or meer,
+and which appears, from authentick records, to have been called, about
+two hundred years ago, _Palus_, or the marsh, was discovered, not long
+since, a large square stone, which is found, upon an exact inspection,
+to be a kind of coarse marble of a substance not firm enough to admit of
+being polished, yet harder than our common quarries afford, and not
+easily susceptible of injuries from weather or outward accidents.
+
+It was brought to light by a farmer, who, observing his plough
+obstructed by something, through which the share could not make its way,
+ordered his servants to remove it. This was not effected without some
+difficulty, the stone being three feet four inches deep, and four feet
+square in the superficies; and, consequently, of a weight not easily
+manageable. However, by the application of levers, it was, at length,
+raised, and conveyed to a corner of the field, where it lay, for some
+months, entirely unregarded; nor, perhaps, had we ever been made
+acquainted with this venerable relick of antiquity, had not our good
+fortune been greater than our curiosity.
+
+A gentleman, well known to the learned world, and distinguished by the
+patronage of the Maecenas of Norfolk, whose name, was I permitted to
+mention it, would excite the attention of my reader, and add no small
+authority to my conjectures, observing, as he was walking that way, that
+the clouds began to gather, and threaten him with a shower, had
+recourse, for shelter, to the trees under which this stone happened to
+lie, and sat down upon it, in expectation of fair weather. At length he
+began to amuse himself, in his confinement, by clearing the earth from
+his seat with the point of his cane; and had continued this employment
+some time, when he observed several traces of letters, antique and
+irregular, which, by being very deeply engraven, were still easily
+distinguishable.
+
+This discovery so far raised his curiosity, that, going home
+immediately, he procured an instrument proper for cutting out the clay,
+that filled up the spaces of the letters; and, with very little labour,
+made the inscription legible, which is here exhibited to the publick:
+
+  POST-GENITIS.
+
+  Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet aegra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu:
+  Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes.
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore.
+  Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio; conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+
+  MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE
+
+  Cynthia, tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis;
+  Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua lætus.
+  Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus.
+  En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!
+
+These lines he carefully copied, accompanied, in his letter of July 19,
+with the following translation.
+
+  TO POSTERITY.
+
+  Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country! shalt thou groan distrest,
+  Grief swell thine eyes, and terrour chill thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.
+  Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way.
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil;
+  Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings;
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings.
+  The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread;
+  The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread;
+  Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade;
+  His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace;
+  And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain.
+
+I make not the least doubt, but that this learned person has given us,
+as an antiquary, a true and uncontrovertible representation of the
+writer's meaning; and, am sure, he can confirm it by innumerable
+quotations from the authors of the middle age, should he be publickly
+called upon by any man of eminent rank in the republick of letters; nor
+will he deny the world that satisfaction, provided the animadverter
+proceeds with that sobriety and modesty, with which it becomes every
+learned man to treat a subject of such importance.
+
+Yet, with all proper deference to a name so justly celebrated, I will
+take the freedom of observing, that he has succeeded better as a scholar
+than a poet; having fallen below the strength, the conciseness, and, at
+the same time, below the perspicuity of his author. I shall not point
+out the particular passages in which this disparity is remarkable, but
+content myself with saying, in general, that the criticisms, which there
+is room for on this translation, may be almost an incitement to some
+lawyer, studious of antiquity, to learn Latin.
+
+The inscription, which I now proceed to consider, wants no arguments to
+prove its antiquity to those among the learned, who are versed in the
+writers of the darker ages, and know that the Latin poetry of those
+times was of a peculiar cast and air, not easy to be understood, and
+very difficult to be imitated; nor can it be conceived, that any man
+would lay out his abilities on a way of writing, which, though attained
+with much study, could gain him no reputation; and engrave his chimeras
+on a stone, to astonish posterity.
+
+Its antiquity, therefore, is out of dispute; but how high a degree of
+antiquity is to be assigned it, there is more ground for inquiry than
+determination. How early Latin rhymes made their appearance in the
+world, is yet undecided by the criticks. Verses of this kind were called
+leonine; but whence they derived that appellation, the learned Camden
+[18] confesses himself ignorant; so that the style carries no certain
+marks of its age. I shall only observe farther, on this head, that the
+characters are nearly of the same form with those on king Arthur's
+coffin; but whether, from their similitude, we may venture to pronounce
+them of the same date, I must refer to the decision of better judges.
+
+Our inability to fix the age of this inscription, necessarily infers our
+ignorance of its author, with relation to whom, many controversies may
+be started, worthy of the most profound learning, and most indefatigable
+diligence.
+
+The first question that naturally arises is: Whether he was a Briton or
+a Saxon? I had, at first, conceived some hope that, in this question, in
+which not only the idle curiosity of virtuosos, but the honour of two
+mighty nations, is concerned, some information might be drawn from the
+word _patria_, my country, in the third line; England being not, in
+propriety of speech, the country of the Saxons; at least, not at their
+first arrival. But, upon farther reflection, this argument appeared not
+conclusive, since we find that, in all ages, foreigners have affected to
+call England their country, even when, like the Saxons of old, they came
+only to plunder it.
+
+An argument in favour of the Britons may, indeed, be drawn from the
+tenderness, with which the author seems to lament his country, and the
+compassion he shows for its approaching calamities. I, who am a
+descendant from the Saxons, and, therefore, unwilling to say any thing
+derogatory from the reputation of my forefathers, must yet allow this
+argument its full force; for it has been rarely, very rarely, known,
+that foreigners, however well treated, caressed, enriched, flattered, or
+exalted, have regarded this country with the least gratitude or
+affection, till the race has, by long continuance, after many
+generations, been naturalized and assimilated.
+
+They have been ready, upon all occasions, to prefer the petty interests
+of their own country, though, perhaps, only some desolate and worthless
+corner of the world. They have employed the wealth of England, in paying
+troops to defend mud-wall towns, and uninhabitable rocks, and in
+purchasing barriers for territories, of which the natural sterility
+secured them from invasion.
+
+This argument, which wants no particular instances to confirm it, is, I
+confess, of the greatest weight in this question, and inclines me
+strongly to believe, that the benevolent author of this prediction must
+have been born a Briton.
+
+The learned discoverer of the inscription was pleased to insist, with
+great warmth, upon the etymology of the word _patria_, which signifying,
+says he, _the land of my father_, could be made use of by none, but such
+whose ancestors had resided here; but, in answer to this demonstration,
+as he called it, I only desired him to take notice, how common it is for
+intruders of yesterday to pretend the same title with the ancient
+proprietors, and, having just received an estate, by voluntary grant, to
+erect a claim of _hereditary right_.
+
+Nor is it less difficult to form any satisfactory conjecture, concerning
+the rank or condition of the writer, who, contented with a consciousness
+of having done his duty, in leaving this solemn warning to his country,
+seems studiously to have avoided that veneration, to which his knowledge
+of futurity, undoubtedly, entitled him, and those honours, which his
+memory might justly claim from the gratitude of posterity; and has,
+therefore, left no trace, by which the most sagacious and diligent
+inquirer can hope to discover him.
+
+This conduct, alone, ought to convince us, that the prediction is of no
+small importance to mankind, since the author of it appears not to have
+been influenced by any other motive, than that noble and exalted
+philanthropy, which is above the narrow views of recompense or applause.
+
+That interest had no share in this inscription, is evident beyond
+dispute, since the age in which he lived received neither pleasure nor
+instruction from it. Nor is it less apparent, from the suppression of
+his name, that he was equally a stranger to that wild desire of fame,
+which has, sometimes, infatuated the noblest minds.
+
+His modesty, however, has not been able wholly to extinguish that
+curiosity, which so naturally leads us, when we admire a performance, to
+inquire after the author. Those, whom I have consulted on this occasion;
+and my zeal for the honour of this benefactor of my country has not
+suffered me to forget a single antiquary of reputation, have, almost
+unanimously, determined, that it was written by a king. For where else,
+said they, are we to expect that greatness of mind, and that dignity of
+expression, so eminently conspicuous in this inscription!
+
+It is with a proper sense of the weakness of my own abilities, that I
+venture to lay before the publick the reasons which hinder me from
+concurring with this opinion, which I am not only inclined to favour by
+my respect for the authors of it, but by a natural affection for
+monarchy, and a prevailing inclination to believe, that every excellence
+is inherent in a king.
+
+To condemn an opinion so agreeable to the reverence due to the regal
+dignity, and countenanced by so great authorities, without a long and
+accurate discussion, would be a temerity justly liable to the severest
+censures. A. supercilious and arrogant determination of a controversy of
+such importance, would, doubtless, be treated by the impartial and
+candid with the utmost indignation.
+
+But as I have too high an idea of the learning of my contemporaries, to
+obtrude any crude, hasty, or indigested notions on the publick, I have
+proceeded with the utmost degree of diffidence and caution; I have
+frequently reviewed all my arguments, traced them backwards to their
+first principles, and used every method of examination to discover,
+whether all the deductions were natural and just, and whether I was not
+imposed on by some specious fallacy; but the farther I carried my
+inquiries, and the longer I dwelt upon this great point, the more was I
+convinced, in spite of all my prejudices, that this wonderful prediction
+was not written by a king.
+
+For, after a laborious and attentive perusal of histories, memoirs,
+chronicles, lives, characters, vindications, panegyricks and epitaphs, I
+could find no sufficient authority for ascribing to any of our English
+monarchs, however gracious or glorious, any prophetical knowledge or
+prescience of futurity; which, when we consider how rarely regal virtues
+are forgotten, how soon they are discovered, and how loudly they are
+celebrated, affords a probable argument, at least, that none of them
+have laid any claim to this character. For why should historians have
+omitted to embellish their accounts with such a striking circumstance?
+or, if the histories of that age are lost, by length of time, why was
+not so uncommon an excellence transmitted to posterity, in the more
+lasting colours of poetry? Was that unhappy age without a laureate? Was
+there then no Young [19] or Philips [20], no Ward [21] or Mitchell [22],
+to snatch such wonders from oblivion, and immortalize a prince of such
+capacities? If this was really the case, let us congratulate ourselves
+upon being reserved for better days; days so fruitful of happy writers,
+that no princely virtue can shine in vain. Our monarchs are surrounded
+with refined spirits, so penetrating, that they frequently discover, in
+their masters, great qualities, invisible to vulgar eyes, and which, did
+not they publish them to mankind, would be unobserved for ever.
+
+Nor is it easy to find, in the lives of our monarchs, many instances of
+that regard for posterity, which seems to have been the prevailing
+temper of this venerable man. I have seldom, in any of the gracious
+speeches delivered from the throne, and received, with the highest
+gratitude and satisfaction, by both houses of parliament, discovered any
+other concern than for the current year, for which supplies are
+generally demanded in very pressing terms, and, sometimes, such as imply
+no remarkable solicitude for posterity.
+
+Nothing, indeed, can be more unreasonable and absurd, than to require,
+that a monarch, distracted with cares and surrounded with enemies,
+should involve himself in superfluous anxieties, by an unnecessary
+concern about future generations. Are not pretenders, mock-patriots,
+masquerades, operas, birthnights, treaties, conventions, reviews,
+drawing-rooms, the births of heirs, and the deaths of queens, sufficient
+to overwhelm any capacity but that of a king? Surely, he that acquits
+himself successfully of such affairs may content himself with the glory
+he acquires, and leave posterity to his successours.
+
+That this has been the conduct of most princes, is evident from the
+accounts of all ages and nations; and, therefore, I hope it will not be
+thought that I have, without just reasons, deprived this inscription of
+the veneration it might demand, as the work of a king.
+
+With what laborious struggles against prejudice and inclination, with
+what efforts of reasoning, and pertinacity of self-denial, I have
+prevailed upon myself to sacrifice the honour of this monument to the
+love of truth, none, who are unacquainted with the fondness of a
+commentator, will be able to conceive. But this instance will be, I
+hope, sufficient to convince the publick, that I write with sincerity,
+and that, whatever my success may be, my intentions are good.
+
+Where we are to look for our author, it still remains to be considered;
+whether in the high road of publick employments, or the by-paths of
+private life.
+
+It has always been observed of those that frequent a court, that they
+soon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal spirit of neglecting
+futurity. The minister forms an expedient to suspend, or perplex, an
+inquiry into his measures, for a few months, and applauds and triumphs
+in his own dexterity. The peer puts off his creditor for the present
+day, and forgets that he is ever to see him more. The frown of a prince,
+and the loss of a pension, have, indeed, been found of wonderful
+efficacy to abstract men's thoughts from the present time, and fill them
+with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come. But, I am
+inclined to think more favourably of the author of this prediction, than
+that he was made a patriot by disappointment or disgust. If he ever saw
+a court, I would willingly believe, that he did not owe his concern for
+posterity to his ill reception there, but his ill reception there to his
+concern for posterity.
+
+However, since truth is the same in the mouth of a hermit, or a prince,
+since it is not reason, but weakness, that makes us rate counsel by our
+esteem for the counsellor, let us, at length, desist from this inquiry,
+so useless in itself, in which we have room to hope for so little
+satisfaction. Let us show our gratitude to the author, by answering his
+intentions, by considering minutely the lines which he has left us, and
+examining their import without heat, precipitancy, or party-prejudices;
+let us endeavour to keep the just mean, between searching, ambitiously,
+for far-fetched interpretations, and admitting such low meaning, and
+obvious and low sense, as is inconsistent with those great and extensive
+views, which it is reasonable to ascribe to this excellent man.
+
+It may be yet further asked, whether this inscription, which appears in
+the stone, be an original, and not rather a version of a traditional
+prediction, in the old British tongue, which the zeal of some learned
+man prompted him to translate and engrave, in a more known language, for
+the instruction of future ages: but, as the lines carry, at the first
+view, a reference both to the stone itself, and, very remarkably, to the
+place where it was found, I cannot see any foundation for such a
+suspicion.
+
+It remains, now, that we examine the sense and import of the
+inscription, which, after having long dwelt upon it, with the closest
+and most laborious attention, I must confess myself not yet able fully
+to comprehend. The following explications, therefore, are, by no means,
+laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjectures not
+always wholly satisfactory, even to myself, and which I had not dared to
+propose to so enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great
+ornaments of human nature, skepticks, antimoralists, and infidels, but
+with hopes that they would excite some person of greater abilities, to
+penetrate further into the oraculous obscurity of this wonderful
+prediction.
+
+Not even the four first lines are without their difficulties, in which
+the time of the discovery of the stone seems to be the time assigned for
+the events foretold by it:
+
+  "Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet ægra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu."
+
+  "Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country, shall thou groan distrest,
+  Grief in thine eyes, and terrour in thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground."
+
+"When this stone," says he, "which now lies hid beneath the waters of a
+deep lake, shall be struck upon by the horse, or broken by the plough,
+then shalt thou, my country, be astonished with terrours, and drowned in
+tears; then shall thy towns sound with lamentations, as thy shores with
+the roarings of the waves." These are the words literally rendered, but
+how are they verified! The lake is dry, the stone is turned up, but
+there is no appearance of this dismal scene. Is not all, at home,
+satisfaction and tranquillity? all, abroad, submission and compliance?
+Is it the interest, or inclination, of any prince, or state, to draw a
+sword against us? and are we not, nevertheless, secured by a numerous
+standing army, and a king who is, himself, an army? Have our troops any
+other employment than to march to a review? Have our fleets encountered
+any thing but winds and worms? To me the present state of the nation
+seems so far from any resemblance to the noise and agitation of a
+tempestuous sea, that it may be much more properly compared to the dead
+stillness of the waves before a storm.
+
+  "Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes,
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore."
+
+  "Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way;
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil."
+
+He seems, in these verses, to descend to a particular account of this
+dreadful calamity; but his description is capable of very different
+senses, with almost equal probability:
+
+"Red serpents," says he, (_rubri colubri_ are the Latin words, which the
+poetical translator has rendered _scarlet reptiles_, using a general
+term for a particular, in my opinion, too licentiously,) "Red serpents
+shall wander o'er her meadows, and pillage, and pollute," &c. The
+particular mention of the colour of this destructive viper may be some
+guide to us in this labyrinth, through which, I must acknowledge, I
+cannot yet have any certain path. I confess, that, when a few days after
+my perusal of this passage, I heard of the multitude of lady-birds seen
+in Kent, I began to imagine that these were the fatal insects, by which
+the island was to be laid waste, and, therefore, looked over all
+accounts of them with uncommon concern. But, when my first terrours
+began to subside, I soon recollected that these creatures, having both
+wings and feet, would scarcely have been called serpents; and was
+quickly convinced, by their leaving the country, without doing any hurt,
+that they had no quality, but the colour, in common with the ravagers
+here described.
+
+As I am not able to determine any thing on this question, I shall
+content myself with collecting, into one view, the several properties of
+this pestiferous brood, with which we are threatened, as hints to more
+sagacious and fortunate readers, who, when they shall find any red
+animal, that ranges uncontrouled over the country, and devours the
+labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it
+corruption, rapine, pollution, and devastation; that threatens without
+courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour, they may
+know that the prediction is completed. Let me only remark further, that
+if the style of this, as of all other predictions, is figurative, the
+serpent, a wretched animal that crawls upon the earth, is a proper
+emblem of low views, self-interest, and base submission, as well as of
+cruelty, mischief, and malevolence.
+
+I cannot forbear to observe, in this place, that, as it is of no
+advantage to mankind to be forewarned of inevitable and insurmountable
+misfortunes, the author, probably, intended to hint to his countrymen
+the proper remedies for the evils he describes. In this calamity, on
+which he dwells longest, and which he seems to deplore with the deepest
+sorrow, he points out one circumstance, which may be of great use to
+disperse our apprehensions, and awaken us from that panick which the
+reader must necessarily feel, at the first transient view of this
+dreadful description. These serpents, says the original, are "haud
+pugnaces," of no fighting race; they will threaten, indeed, and hiss,
+and terrify the weak, and timorous, and thoughtless, but have no real
+courage or strength. So that the mischief done by them, their ravages,
+devastations, and robberies, must be only the consequences of cowardice
+in the sufferers, who are harassed and oppressed, only because they
+suffer it without resistance. We are, therefore, to remember, whenever
+the pest, here threatened, shall invade us, that submission and tameness
+will be certain ruin, and that nothing but spirit, vigilance, activity,
+and opposition, can preserve us from the most hateful and reproachful
+misery, that of being plundered, starved, and devoured by vermin and by
+reptiles.
+
+  "Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio."
+
+  "Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings,
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings."
+
+Here the author takes a general survey of the state of the world, and
+the changes that were to happen, about the time of the discovery of this
+monument, in many nations. As it is not likely that he intended to touch
+upon the affairs of other countries, any farther than the advantage of
+his own made it necessary, we may reasonably conjecture, that he had a
+full and distinct view of all the negotiations, treaties, confederacies,
+of all the triple and quadruple alliances, and all the leagues offensive
+and defensive, in which we were to be engaged, either as principals,
+accessaries, or guarantees, whether by policy, or hope, or fear, or our
+concern for preserving the balance of power, or our tenderness for the
+liberties of Europe. He knew that our negotiators would interest us in
+the affairs of the whole earth, and that no state could either rise or
+decline in power, either extend or lose its dominions, without affecting
+politicks, and influencing our councils.
+
+This passage will bear an easy and natural application to the present
+time, in which so many revolutions have happened, so many nations have
+changed their masters, and so many disputes and commotions are
+embroiling, almost in every part of the world.
+
+That almost every state in Europe and Asia, that is, almost every
+country, then known, is comprehended in this prediction, may be easily
+conceived, but whether it extends to regions at that time undiscovered,
+and portends any alteration of government in Carolina and Georgia, let
+more able or more daring expositors determine:
+
+                      "Conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+  Cynthia."
+
+  "The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread."
+
+The terrour created to the moon by the anger of the bear, is a strange
+expression, but may, perhaps, relate to the apprehensions raised in the
+Turkish empire, of which a crescent, or new moon, is the imperial
+standard, by the increasing power of the emperess of Russia, whose
+dominions lie under the northern constellation, called the Bear.
+
+             "Tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis."
+
+  "The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread."
+
+The lilies borne by the kings of France are an apt representation of
+that country; and their flourishing over wide-extended valleys, seems to
+regard the new increase of the French power, wealth, and dominions by
+the advancement of their trade, and the accession of Lorrain. This is,
+at first view, an obvious, but, perhaps, for that very reason not the
+true sense of the inscription. How can we reconcile it with the
+following passage:
+
+  "Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua laetus."
+
+  "Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth, th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade,"
+
+in which the lion that used, at pleasure, to lay the pastures waste, is
+represented, as not daring to touch the lilies, or murmur at their
+growth! The lion, it is true, is one of the supporters of the arms of
+England, and may, therefore, figure our countrymen, who have, in ancient
+times, made France a desert. But can it be said, that the lion dares not
+murmur or rage, (for _fremere_ may import both,) when it is evident,
+that, for many years, this whole kingdom has murmured, however, it may
+be, at present, calm and secure, by its confidence in the wisdom of our
+politicians, and the address of our negotiators:
+
+  "Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus."
+
+  "His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace."
+
+Here are other things mentioned of the lion, equally unintelligible, if
+we suppose them to be spoken of our nation, as that he lies sluggish,
+and depraved with unlawful lusts, while his offspring is trampled and
+tortured before his eyes. But in what place can the English be said to
+be trampled or tortured? Where are they treated with injustice or
+contempt? What nation is there, from pole to pole, that does not
+reverence the nod of the British king? Is not our commerce
+unrestrained? Are not the riches of the world our own? Do not our ships
+sail unmolested, and our merchants traffick in perfect security? Is not
+the very name of England treated by foreigners in a manner never known
+before? Or if some slight injuries have been offered; if some of our
+petty traders have been stopped, our possessions threatened; our effects
+confiscated; our flag insulted; or our ears cropped, have we lain
+sluggish and unactive? Have not our fleets been seen in triumph at
+Spithead? Did not Hosier visit the Bastimentos, and is not Haddock now
+stationed at Port Mahon?
+
+  "En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!"
+
+  "And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain!"
+
+It is farther asserted, in the concluding lines, that the horse shall
+suck the lion's blood. This is still more obscure than any of the rest;
+and, indeed, the difficulties I have met with, ever since the first
+mention of the lion, are so many and great, that I had, in utter despair
+of surmounting them, once desisted from my design of publishing any
+thing upon this subject; but was prevailed upon by the importunity of
+some friends, to whom I can deny nothing, to resume my design; and I
+must own, that nothing animated me so much as the hope, they flattered
+me with, that my essay might be inserted in the Gazetteer, and, so,
+become of service to my country.
+
+That a weaker animal should suck the blood of a stronger, without
+resistance, is wholly improbable, and inconsistent with the regard for
+self-preservation, so observable in every order and species of beings.
+We must, therefore, necessarily endeavour after some figurative sense,
+not liable to so insuperable an objection.
+
+Were I to proceed in the same tenour of interpretation, by which I
+explained the moon and the lilies, I might observe, that a horse is the
+arms of H----. But how, then, does the horse suck the lion's blood!
+Money is the blood of the body politick.--But my zeal for the present
+happy establishment will not suffer me to pursue a train of thought,
+that leads to such shocking conclusions. The idea is detestable, and
+such as, it ought to be hoped, can enter into the mind of none but a
+virulent republican, or bloody jacobite. There is not one honest man in
+the nation unconvinced, how weak an attempt it would be to endeavour to
+confute this insinuation; an insinuation which no party will dare to
+abet, and of so fatal and destructive a tendency, that it may prove
+equally dangerous to the author, whether true or false.
+
+As, therefore, I can form no hypothesis, on which a consistent
+interpretation may be built, I must leave these loose and unconnected
+hints entirely to the candour of the reader, and confess, that I do not
+think my scheme of explication just, since I cannot apply it, throughout
+the whole, without involving myself in difficulties, from which the
+ablest interpreter would find it no easy matter to get free.
+
+Being, therefore, convinced, upon an attentive and deliberate review of
+these observations, and a consultation with my friends, of whose
+abilities I have the highest esteem, and whose impartiality, sincerity,
+and probity, I have long known, and frequently experienced, that my
+conjectures are, in general, very uncertain, often improbable, and,
+sometimes, little less than apparently false, I was long in doubt,
+whether I ought not entirely to suppress them, and content myself with
+publishing in the Gazetteer the inscription, as it stands engraven on
+the stone, without translation or commentary, unless that ingenious and
+learned society should favour the world with their own remarks.
+
+To this scheme, which I thought extremely well calculated for the
+publick good, and, therefore, very eagerly communicated to my
+acquaintance and fellow-students, some objections were started, which,
+as I had not foreseen, I was unable to answer.
+
+It was observed, first, that the daily dissertations, published by that
+fraternity, are written with such profundity of sentiment, and filled
+with such uncommon modes of expression, as to be themselves sufficiently
+unintelligible to vulgar readers; and that, therefore, the venerable
+obscurity of this prediction, would much less excite the curiosity, and
+awaken the attention of mankind, than if it were exhibited in any other
+paper, and placed in opposition to the clear and easy style of an author
+generally understood.
+
+To this argument, formidable as it was, I answered, after a short pause,
+that, with all proper deference to the great sagacity and advanced age
+of the objector, I could not but conceive, that his position confuted
+itself, and that a reader of the Gazetteer, being, by his own
+confession, accustomed to encounter difficulties, and search for
+meaning, where it was not easily to be found, must be better prepared,
+than any other man, for the perusal of these ambiguous expressions; and
+that, besides, the explication of this stone, being a task which nothing
+could surmount but the most acute penetration, joined with indefatigable
+patience, seemed, in reality, reserved for those who have given proofs
+of both, in the highest degree, by reading and understanding the
+Gazetteer.
+
+This answer satisfied every one but the objector, who, with an obstinacy
+not very uncommon, adhered to his own opinion, though he could not
+defend it; and, not being able to make any reply, attempted to laugh
+away my argument, but found the rest of my friends so little disposed to
+jest upon this important question, that he was forced to restrain his
+mirth, and content himself with a sullen and contemptuous silence.
+
+Another of my friends, whom I had assembled on this occasion, having
+owned the solidity of my answer to the first objection, offered a
+second, which, in his opinion, could not be so easily defeated.
+
+"I have observed," says he, "that the essays in the Gazetteer, though
+written on very important subjects, by the ablest hands which ambition
+can incite, friendship engage, or money procure, have never, though
+circulated through the kingdom with the utmost application, had any
+remarkable influence upon the people. I know many persons, of no common
+capacity, that hold it sufficient to peruse these papers four times a
+year; and others, who receive them regularly, and, without looking upon
+them, treasure them under ground for the benefit of posterity. So that
+the inscription may, by being inserted there, sink, once more, into
+darkness and oblivion, instead of informing the age, and assisting our
+present ministry in the regulation of their measures."
+
+Another observed, that nothing was more unreasonable than my hope, that
+any remarks or elucidations would be drawn up by that fraternity, since
+their own employments do not allow them any leisure for such attempts.
+Every one knows that panegyrick is, in its own nature, no easy task, and
+that to defend is much more difficult than to attack; consider, then,
+says he, what industry, what assiduity it must require, to praise and
+vindicate a ministry like ours.
+
+It was hinted, by another, that an inscription, which had no relation to
+any particular set of men amongst us, but was composed many ages before
+the parties, which now divide the nation, had a being, could not be so
+properly conveyed to the world, by means of a paper dedicated to
+political debates.
+
+Another, to whom I had communicated my own observations, in a more
+private manner, and who had inserted some of his own arguments, declared
+it, as his opinion, that they were, though very controvertible and
+unsatisfactory, yet too valuable to be lost; and that though to insert
+the inscription in a paper, of which such numbers are daily distributed
+at the expense of the publick, would, doubtless, be very agreeable to
+the generous design of the author; yet he hoped, that as all the
+students, either of politicks or antiquities, would receive both
+pleasure and improvement from the dissertation with which it is
+accompanied, none of them would regret to pay for so agreeable an
+entertainment.
+
+It cannot be wondered, that I have yielded, at last, to such weighty
+reasons, and such insinuating compliments, and chosen to gratify, at
+once, the inclinations of friends, and the vanity of an author. Yet, I
+should think, I had very imperfectly discharged my duty to my country,
+did I not warn all, whom either interest or curiosity shall incite to
+the perusal of this treatise, not to lay any stress upon my
+explications.
+
+How a more complete and indisputable interpretation may be obtained, it
+is not easy to say. This will, I suppose, be readily granted, that it is
+not to be expected from any single hand, but from the joint inquiries,
+and united labours, of a numerous society of able men, instituted by
+authority, selected with great discernment and impartiality, and
+supported at the charge of the nation.
+
+I am very far from apprehending, that any proposal for the attainment of
+so desirable an end, will be rejected by this inquisitive and
+enlightened age, and shall, therefore, lay before the publick the
+project which I have formed, and matured by long consideration, for the
+institution of a society of commentators upon this inscription.
+
+I humbly propose, that thirty of the most distinguished genius be chosen
+for this employment, half from the inns of court, and half from the
+army, and be incorporated into a society for five years, under the name
+of the Society of Commentators.
+
+That great undertakings can only be executed by a great number of hands,
+is too evident to require any proof; and, I am afraid, all that read
+this scheme will think, that it is chiefly defective in this respect,
+and that when they reflect how many commissaries were thought necessary
+at Seville, and that even their negotiations entirely miscarried,
+probably for want of more associates, they will conclude, that I have
+proposed impossibilities, and that the ends of the institution will be
+defeated by an injudicious and ill timed frugality.
+
+But if it be considered, how well the persons, I recommend, must have
+been qualified, by their education and profession, for the provinces
+assigned them, the objection will grow less weighty than it appears. It
+is well known to be the constant study of the lawyers to discover, in
+acts of parliament, meanings which escaped the committees that drew them
+up, and the senates that passed them into laws, and to explain wills,
+into a sense wholly contrary to the intention of the testator. How
+easily may an adept in these admirable and useful arts, penetrate into
+the most hidden import of this prediction? A man, accustomed to satisfy
+himself with the obvious and natural meaning of a sentence, does not
+easily shake off his habit; but a true-bred lawyer never contents
+himself with one sense, when there is another to be found.
+
+Nor will the beneficial consequences of this scheme terminate in the
+explication of this monument: they will extend much further; for the
+commentators, having sharpened and improved their sagacity by this long
+and difficult course of study, will, when they return into publick life,
+be of wonderful service to the government, in examining pamphlets,
+songs, and journals, and in drawing up informations, indictments, and
+instructions for special juries. They will be wonderfully fitted for the
+posts of attorney and solicitor general, but will excel, above all, as
+licensers for the stage.
+
+The gentlemen of the army will equally adorn the province to which I
+have assigned them, of setting the discoveries and sentiments of their
+associates in a clear and agreeable light. The lawyers are well known
+not to be very happy in expressing their ideas, being, for the most
+part, able to make themselves understood by none but their own
+fraternity. But the geniuses of the army have sufficient opportunities,
+by their free access to the levee and the toilet, their constant
+attendance on balls and assemblies, and that abundant leisure which they
+enjoy, beyond any other body of men, to acquaint themselves with every
+new word, and prevailing mode of expression, and to attain the utmost
+nicety, and most polished prettiness of language.
+
+It will be necessary, that, during their attendance upon the society,
+they be exempt from any obligation to appear on Hyde park; and that upon
+no emergency, however pressing, they be called away from their studies,
+unless the nation be in immediate danger, by an insurrection of weavers,
+colliers, or smugglers.
+
+There may not, perhaps, be found in the army such a number of men, who
+have ever condescended to pass through the labours, and irksome forms of
+education in use, among the lower classes of people, or submitted to
+learn the mercantile and plebeian arts of writing and reading. I must
+own, that though I entirely agree with the notions of the uselessness of
+any such trivial accomplishments in the military profession, and of
+their inconsistency with more valuable attainments; though I am
+convinced, that a man who can read and write becomes, at least, a very
+disagreeable companion to his brother soldiers, if he does not
+absolutely shun their acquaintance; that he is apt to imbibe, from his
+books, odd notions of liberty and independency, and even, sometimes, of
+morality and virtue, utterly inconsistent, with the desirable character
+of a pretty gentleman; though writing frequently stains the whitest
+finger, and reading has a natural tendency to cloud the aspect, and
+depress that airy and thoughtless vivacity, which is the distinguishing
+characteristick of a modern warriour; yet, on this single occasion, I
+cannot but heartily wish, that, by a strict search, there may be
+discovered, in the army, fifteen men who can write and read.
+
+I know that the knowledge of the alphabet is so disreputable among these
+gentlemen, that those who have, by ill fortune, formerly been taught it,
+have partly forgot it by disuse, and partly concealed it from the world,
+to avoid the railleries and insults to which their education might make
+them liable: I propose, therefore, that all the officers of the army may
+be examined upon oath, one by one, and that if fifteen cannot be
+selected, who are, at present, so qualified, the deficiency may be
+supplied out of those who, having once learned to read, may, perhaps,
+with the assistance of a master, in a short time, refresh their
+memories.
+
+It may be thought, at the first sight of this proposal, that it might
+not be improper to assign, to every commentator, a reader and secretary;
+but, it may be easily conceived, that not only the publick might murmur
+at such an addition of expense, but that, by the unfaithfulness or
+negligence of their servants, the discoveries of the society may be
+carried to foreign courts, and made use of to the disadvantage of our
+own country.
+
+For the residence of this society, I cannot think any place more proper
+than Greenwich hospital, in which they may have thirty apartments fitted
+up for them, that they may make their observations in private, and meet,
+once a day, in the painted hall to compare them.
+
+If the establishment of this society be thought a matter of too much
+importance to be deferred till the new buildings are finished, it will
+be necessary to make room for their reception, by the expulsion of such
+of the seamen as have no pretensions to the settlement there, but
+fractured limbs, loss of eyes, or decayed constitutions, who have lately
+been admitted in such numbers, that it is now scarce possible to
+accommodate a nobleman's groom, footman, or postilion, in a manner
+suitable to the dignity of his profession, and the original design of
+the foundation.
+
+The situation of Greenwich will naturally dispose them to reflection and
+study: and particular caution ought to be used, lest any interruption be
+suffered to dissipate their attention, or distract their meditations:
+for this reason, all visits and letters from ladies are strictly to be
+prohibited; and if any of the members shall be detected with a lapdog,
+pack of cards, box of dice, draught-table, snuffbox, or looking-glass,
+he shall, for the first offence, be confined for three months to water
+gruel, and, for the second, be expelled the society.
+
+Nothing now remains, but that an estimate be made of the expenses
+necessary for carrying on this noble and generous design. The salary to
+be allowed each professor cannot be less than 2,000_l_. a year, which
+is, indeed, more than the regular stipend of a commissioner of excise;
+but, it must be remembered, that the commentators have a much more
+difficult and important employment, and can expect their salaries but
+for the short space of five years; whereas a commissioner (unless he
+imprudently suffers himself to be carried away by a whimsical tenderness
+for his country) has an establishment for life.
+
+It will be necessary to allow the society, in general, 30,000_l_.
+yearly, for the support of the publick table, and 40,000_l_. for secret
+service.
+
+Thus will the ministry have a fair prospect of obtaining the full sense
+and import of the prediction, without burdening the publick with more
+than 650,000_l_. which may be paid out of the sinking fund; or, if it be
+not thought proper to violate that sacred treasure, by converting any
+part of it to uses not primarily intended, may be easily raised by a
+general poll-tax, or excise upon bread.
+
+Having now completed my scheme, a scheme calculated for the publick
+benefit, without regard to any party, I entreat all sects, factions, and
+distinctions of men among us, to lay aside, for a time, their
+party-feuds and petty animosities; and, by a warm concurrence on this
+urgent occasion, teach posterity to sacrifice every private interest to
+the advantage of their country.
+
+[In this performance, which was first printed in the year 1739, Dr.
+Johnson, "in a feigned inscription, supposed to have been found in
+Norfolk, the country of sir Robert Walpole, then the obnoxious prime
+minister of this country, inveighs against the Brunswick succession, and
+the measures of government consequent upon it. To this supposed
+prophecy, he added a commentory, making each expression apply to the
+times, with warm anti-Hanoverian zeal."--Boswell's Life, i.]
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN 1756 [23].
+
+
+The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed
+of the national affairs, and in which he has a right to have that
+expectation gratified. For whatever may be urged by ministers, or those
+whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the
+necessity of confidence in our governours, and the presumption of
+prying, with profane eyes, into the recesses of policy, it is evident,
+that this reverence can be claimed only by counsels yet unexecuted, and
+projects suspended in deliberation. But when a design has ended in
+miscarriage or success, when every eye, and every ear, is witness to
+general discontent, or general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to
+disentangle confusion, and illustrate obscurity; to show by what causes
+every event was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate;
+to lay down, with distinct particularity, what rumour always huddles in
+general exclamations, or perplexes by undigested narratives; to show
+whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected;
+and honestly to lay before the people, what inquiry can gather of the
+past, and conjecture can estimate of the future.
+
+The general subject of the present war is sufficiently known. It is
+allowed, on both sides, that hostilities began in America, and that the
+French and English quarrelled about the boundaries of their settlements,
+about grounds and rivers, to which, I am afraid, neither can show any
+other right than that of power, and which neither can occupy but by
+usurpation, and the dispossession of the natural lords and original
+inhabitants. Such is the contest, that no honest man can heartily wish
+success to either party.
+
+It may, indeed, be alleged, that the Indians have granted large tracts
+of land both to one and to the other; but these grants can add little to
+the validity of our titles, till it be experienced, how they were
+obtained; for, if they were extorted by violence, or induced by fraud;
+by threats, which the miseries of other nations had shown not to be
+vain; or by promises, of which no performance was ever intended, what
+are they but new modes of usurpation, but new instances of crueltv and
+treachery?
+
+And, indeed, what but false hope, or resistless terrour, can prevail
+upon a weaker nation to invite a stronger into their country, to give
+their lands to strangers, whom no affinity of manners, or similitude of
+opinion, can be said to recommend, to permit them to build towns, from
+which the natives are excluded, to raise fortresses, by which they are
+intimidated, to settle themselves with such strength, that they cannot
+afterwards be expelled, but are, for ever, to remain the masters of the
+original inhabitants, the dictators of their conduct, and the arbiters
+of their fate?
+
+When we see men acting thus against the precepts of reason, and the
+instincts of nature, we cannot hesitate to determine, that, by some
+means or other, they were debarred from choice; that they were lured or
+frighted into compliance; that they either granted only what they found
+impossible to keep, or expected advantages upon the faith of their new
+inmates, which there was no purpose to confer upon them. It cannot be
+said, that the Indians originally invited us to their coasts; we went,
+uncalled and unexpected, to nations who had no imagination that the
+earth contained any inhabitants, so distant and so different from
+themselves. We astonished them with our ships, with our arms, and with
+our general superiority. They yielded to us, as to beings of another and
+higher race, sent among them from some unknown regions, with power which
+naked Indians could not resist and, which they were, therefore, by every
+act of humility, to propitiate, that they, who could so easily destroy,
+might be induced to spare.
+
+To this influence, and to this only, are to be attributed all the
+cessions and submissions of the Indian princes, if, indeed, any such
+cessions were ever made, of which we have no witness, but those who
+claim from them; and there is no great malignity in suspecting, that
+those who have robbed have also lied.
+
+Some colonies, indeed, have been established more peaceably than others.
+The utmost extremity of wrong has not always been practised; but those
+that have settled in the new world, on the fairest terms, have no other
+merit than that of a scrivener, who ruins in silence, over a plunderer
+that seizes by force; all have taken what had other owners, and all have
+had recourse to arms, rather than quit the prey on which they had
+fastened.
+
+The American dispute, between the French and us, is, therefore, only the
+quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger; but, as robbers
+have terms of confederacy, which they are obliged to observe, as members
+of the gang, so the English and French may have relative rights, and do
+injustice to each other, while both are injuring the Indians. And such,
+indeed, is the present contest: they have parted the northern continent
+of America between them, and are now disputing about their boundaries,
+and each is endeavouring the destruction of the other, by the help of
+the Indians, whose interest it is that both should be destroyed.
+
+Both nations clamour, with great vehemence, about infractions of limits,
+violation of treaties, open usurpation, insidious artifices, and breach
+of faith. The English rail at the perfidious French, and the French at
+the encroaching English: they quote treaties on each side, charge each
+other with aspiring to universal monarchy, and complain, on either part,
+of the insecurity of possession near such turbulent neighbours.
+
+Through this mist of controversy, it can raise no wonder, that the truth
+is not easily discovered. When a quarrel has been long carried on
+between individuals, it is often very hard to tell by whom it was begun.
+Every fact is darkened by distance, by interest, and by multitudes.
+Information is not easily procured from far; those whom the truth will
+not favour, will not step, voluntarily, forth to tell it; and where
+there are many agents, it is easy for every single action to be
+concealed.
+
+All these causes concur to the obscurity of the question: By whom were
+hostilities in America commenced? Perhaps there never can be remembered
+a time, in which hostilities had ceased. Two powerful colonies, inflamed
+with immemorial rivalry, and placed out of the superintendence of the
+mother nations, were not likely to be long at rest. Some opposition was
+always going forward, some mischief was every day done or meditated, and
+the borderers were always better pleased with what they could snatch
+from their neighbours, than what they had of their own.
+
+In this disposition to reciprocal invasion, a cause of dispute never
+could be wanting. The forests and deserts of America are without
+landmarks, and, therefore, cannot be particularly specified in
+stipulations; the appellations of those wide-extended regions have, in
+every mouth, a different meaning, and are understood, on either side, as
+inclination happens to contract or extend them. Who has yet pretended to
+define, how much of America is included in Brazil, Mexico, or Peru? It
+is almost as easy to divide the Atlantick ocean by a line, as clearly to
+ascertain the limits of those uncultivated, uninhabitable, unmeasured
+regions.
+
+It is, likewise, to be considered, that contracts concerning boundaries
+are often left vague and indefinite, without necessity, by the desire of
+each party, to interpret the ambiguity to its own advantage, when a fit
+opportunity shall be found. In forming stipulations, the commissaries
+are often ignorant, and often negligent; they are, sometimes, weary with
+debate, and contract a tedious discussion into general terms, or refer
+it to a former treaty, which was never understood. The weaker part is
+always afraid of requiring explanations, and the stronger always has an
+interest in leaving the question undecided: thus it will happen, without
+great caution on either side, that, after long treaties, solemnly
+ratified, the rights that had been disputed are still equally open to
+controversy.
+
+In America, it may easily be supposed, that there are tracts of land not
+yet claimed by either party, and, therefore, mentioned in no treaties;
+which yet one, or the other, may be afterwards inclined to occupy; but
+to these vacant and unsettled countries each nation may pretend, as each
+conceives itself entitled to all that is not expressly granted to the
+other.
+
+Here, then, is a perpetual ground of contest; every enlargement of the
+possessions of either will be considered as something taken from the
+other, and each will endeavour to regain what had never been claimed,
+but that the other occupied it.
+
+Thus obscure in its original is the American contest. It is difficult to
+find the first invader, or to tell where invasion properly begins; but,
+I suppose, it is not to be doubted, that after the last war, when the
+French had made peace with such apparent superiority, they naturally
+began to treat us with less respect in distant parts of the world, and
+to consider us, as a people from whom they had nothing to fear, and who
+could no longer presume to contravene their designs, or to check their
+progress.
+
+The power of doing wrong with impunity seldom waits long for the will;
+and, it is reasonable to believe, that, in America, the French would
+avow their purpose of aggrandizing themselves with, at least, as little
+reserve as in Europe. We may, therefore, readily believe, that they were
+unquiet neighbours, and had no great regard to right, which they
+believed us no longer able to enforce.
+
+That in forming a line of forts behind our colonies, if in no other part
+of their attempt, they had acted against the general intention, if not
+against the literal terms of treaties, can scarcely be denied; for it
+never can be supposed, that we intended to be inclosed between the sea
+and the French garrisons, or preclude ourselves from extending our
+plantations backwards, to any length that our convenience should
+require.
+
+With dominion is conferred every thing that can secure dominion. He that
+has the coast, has, likewise, the sea, to a certain distance; he that
+possesses a fortress, has the right of prohibiting another fortress to
+be built within the command of its cannon. When, therefore, we planted
+the coast of North America, we supposed the possession of the inland
+region granted to an indefinite extent; and every nation that settled in
+that part of the world, seems, by the permission of every other nation,
+to have made the same supposition in its own favour.
+
+Here, then, perhaps, it will be safest to fix the justice of our cause;
+here we are apparently and indisputably injured, and this injury may,
+according to the practice of nations, be justly resented. Whether we
+have not, in return, made some encroachments upon them, must be left
+doubtful, till our practices on the Ohio shall be stated and vindicated.
+There are no two nations, confining on each other, between whom a war
+may not always be kindled with plausible pretences on either part, as
+there is always passing between them a reciprocation of injuries, and
+fluctuation of encroachments.
+
+From the conclusion of the last peace, perpetual complaints of the
+supplantations and invasions of the French have been sent to Europe,
+from our colonies, and transmitted to our ministers at Paris, where good
+words were, sometimes, given us, and the practices of the American
+commanders were, sometimes, disowned; but no redress was ever obtained,
+nor is it probable, that any prohibition was sent to America. We were
+still amused with such doubtful promises, as those who are afraid of war
+are ready to interpret in their own favour, and the French pushed
+forward their line of fortresses, and seemed to resolve, that before our
+complaints were finally dismissed, all remedy should be hopeless.
+
+We, likewise, endeavoured, at the same time, to form a barrier against
+the Canadians, by sending a colony to New Scotland, a cold uncomfortable
+tract of ground; of which we had long the nominal possession, before we
+really began to occupy it. To this, those were invited whom the
+cessation of war deprived of employment, and made burdensome to their
+country; and settlers were allured thither by many fallacious
+descriptions of fertile valleys and clear skies. What effects these
+pictures of American happiness had upon my countrymen, I was never
+informed, but, I suppose, very few sought provision in those frozen
+regions, whom guilt, or poverty, did not drive from their native
+country. About the boundaries of this new colony there were some
+disputes; but, as there was nothing yet worth a contest, the power of
+the French was not much exerted on that side; some disturbance was,
+however, given, and some skirmishes ensued. But, perhaps, being peopled
+chiefly with soldiers, who would rather live by plunder than by
+agriculture, and who consider war as their best trade, New Scotland
+would be more obstinately defended than some settlements of far greater
+value; and the French are too well informed of their own interest, to
+provoke hostility for no advantage, or to select that country for
+invasion, where they must hazard much and can win little. They,
+therefore, pressed on southward, behind our ancient and wealthy
+settlements, and built fort after fort, at such distances that they
+might conveniently relieve one another, invade our colonies with sudden
+incursions, and retire to places of safety, before our people could
+unite to oppose them.
+
+This design of the French has been long formed, and long known, both in
+America and Europe, and might, at first, have been easily repressed, had
+force been used instead of expostulation. When the English attempted a
+settlement upon the island of St. Lucia, the French, whether justly or
+not, considering it as neutral, and forbidden to be occupied by either
+nation, immediately landed upon it, and destroyed the houses, wasted the
+plantations, and drove, or carried away, the inhabitants. This was done
+in the time of peace, when mutual professions of friendship were daily
+exchanged by the two courts, and was not considered as any violation of
+treaties, nor was any more than a very soft remonstrance made on our
+part.
+
+The French, therefore, taught us how to act; but an Hanoverian quarrel
+with the house of Austria, for some time, induced us to court, at any
+expense, the alliance of a nation, whose very situation makes them our
+enemies. We suffered them to destroy our settlements, and to advance
+their own, which we had an equal right to attack. The time, however,
+came, at last, when we ventured to quarrel with Spain, and then France
+no longer suffered the appearance of peace to subsist between us, but
+armed in defence of her ally.
+
+The events of the war are well known: we pleased ourselves with a
+victory at Dettingen, where we left our wounded men to the care of our
+enemies, but our army was broken at Fontenoy and Val; and though, after
+the disgrace which we suffered in the Mediterranean, we had some naval
+success, and an accidental dearth made peace necessary for the French,
+yet they prescribed the conditions, obliged us to give hostages, and
+acted as conquerors, though as conquerors of moderation.
+
+In this war the Americans distinguished themselves in a manner unknown
+and unexpected. The New English raised an army, and, under the command
+of Pepperel, took cape Breton, with the assistance of the fleet. This is
+the most important fortress in America. We pleased ourselves so much
+with the acquisition, that we could not think of restoring it; and,
+among the arguments used to inflame the people against Charles Stuart,
+it was very clamorously urged, that if he gained the kingdom, he would
+give cape Breton back to the French.
+
+The French, however, had a more easy expedient to regain cape Breton,
+than by exalting Charles Stuart to the English throne. They took, in
+their turn, fort St. George, and had our East India company wholly in
+their power, whom they restored, at the peace, to their former
+possessions, that they may continue to export our silver.
+
+Cape Breton, therefore, was restored, and the French were reestablished
+in America, with equal power and greater spirit, having lost nothing by
+the war, which they had before gained.
+
+To the general reputation of their arms, and that habitual superiority
+which they derive from it, they owe their power in America, rather than
+to any real strength or circumstances of advantage. Their numbers are
+yet not great; their trade, though daily improved, is not very
+extensive; their country is barren; their fortresses, though numerous,
+are weak, and rather shelters from wild beasts, or savage nations, than
+places built for defence against bombs or cannons. Cape Breton has been
+found not to be impregnable; nor, if we consider the state of the places
+possessed by the two nations in America, is there any reason upon which
+the French should have presumed to molest us, but that they thought our
+spirit so broken, that we durst not resist them; and in this opinion our
+long forbearance easily confirmed them.
+
+We forgot, or rather avoided to think, that what we delayed to do, must
+be done at last, and done with more difficulty, as it was delayed
+longer; that while we were complaining, and they were eluding, or
+answering our complaints, fort was rising upon fort, and one invasion
+made a precedent for another.
+
+This confidence of the French is exalted by some real advantages. If
+they possess, in those countries, less than we, they have more to gain,
+and less to hazard; if they are less numerous, they are better united.
+
+The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same
+interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means. They are subject to
+a governour, commissioned by an absolute monarch, and participating the
+authority of his master. Designs are, therefore, formed without debate,
+and executed without impediment. They have yet more martial than
+mercantile ambition, and seldom suffer their military schemes to be
+entangled with collateral projects of gain: they have no wish but for
+conquest, of which they justly consider riches as the consequence.
+
+Some advantages they will always have, as invaders. They make war at the
+hazard of their enemies: the contest being carried on in our
+territories, we must lose more by a victory, than they will suffer by a
+defeat. They will subsist, while they stay, upon our plantations; and,
+perhaps, destroy them, when they can stay no longer. If we pursue them,
+and carry the war into their dominions, our difficulties will increase
+every step as we advance, for we shall leave plenty behind us, and find
+nothing in Canada, but lakes and forests, barren and trackless; our
+enemies will shut themselves up in their forts, against which it is
+difficult to bring cannon through so rough a country, and which, if they
+are provided with good magazines, will soon starve those who besiege
+them.
+
+All these are the natural effects of their government and situation;
+they are accidentally more formidable, as they are less happy. But the
+favour of the Indians, which they enjoy, with very few exceptions, among
+all the nations of the northern continent, we ought to consider with
+other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been
+careful to deserve it. The French, by having these savage nations on
+their side, are always supplied with spies and guides, and with
+auxiliaries, like the Tartars to the Turks, or the Hussars to the
+Germans, of no great use against troops ranged in order of battle, but
+very well qualified to maintain a war among woods and rivulets, where
+much mischief may be done by unexpected onsets, and safety be obtained
+by quick retreats. They can waste a colony by sudden inroads, surprise
+the straggling planters, frighten the inhabitants into towns, hinder the
+cultivation of lands, and starve those whom they are not able to conquer
+[24].
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.
+
+Written in the year 1756 [25].
+
+
+The present system of English politicks may properly be said to have
+taken rise in the reign of queen Elizabeth. At this time the protestant
+religion was established, which naturally allied us to the reformed
+state, and made all the popish powers our enemies.
+
+We began in the same reign to extend our trade, by which we made it
+necessary to ourselves to watch the commercial progress of our
+neighbours; and if not to incommode and obstruct their traffick, to
+hinder them from impairing ours.
+
+We then, likewise, settled colonies in America, which was become the
+great scene of European ambition; for, seeing with what treasures the
+Spaniards were annually enriched from Mexico and Peru, every nation
+imagined, that an American conquest, or plantation, would certainly fill
+the mother country with gold and silver. This produced a large extent of
+very distant dominions, of which we, at this time, neither knew nor
+foresaw the advantage or incumbrance; we seem to have snatched them into
+our hands, upon no very just principles of policy, only because every
+state, according to a prejudice of long continuance, concludes itself
+more powerful, as its territories become larger.
+
+The discoveries of new regions, which were then every day made, the
+profit of remote traffick, and the necessity of long voyages, produced,
+in a few years, a great multiplication of shipping. The sea was
+considered as the wealthy element; and, by degrees, a new kind of
+sovereignty arose, called naval dominion.
+
+As the chief trade of the world, so the chief maritime power was at
+first in the hands of the Portuguese and Spaniards, who, by a compact,
+to which the consent of other princes was not asked, had divided the
+newly discovered countries between them; but the crown of Portugal
+having fallen to the king of Spain, or being seized by him, he was
+master of the ships of the two nations, with which he kept all the
+coasts of Europe in alarm, till the armada, which he had raised, at a
+vast expense, for the conquest of England, was destroyed, which put a
+stop, and almost an end, to the naval power of the Spaniards.
+
+At this time, the Dutch, who were oppressed by the Spaniards, and feared
+yet greater evils than they felt, resolved no longer to endure the
+insolence of their masters: they, therefore, revolted; and, after a
+struggle, in which they were assisted by the money and forces of
+Elizabeth, erected an independent and powerful commonwealth.
+
+When the inhabitants of the Low Countries had formed their system of
+government, and some remission of the war gave them leisure to form
+schemes of future prosperity, they easily perceived, that, as their
+territories were narrow, and their numbers small, they could preserve
+themselves only by that power which is the consequence of wealth; and
+that, by a people whose country produced only the necessaries of life,
+wealth was not to be acquired, but from foreign dominions, and by the
+transportation of the products of one country into another.
+
+From this necessity, thus justly estimated, arose a plan of commerce,
+which was, for many years, prosecuted with industry and success, perhaps
+never seen in the world before, and by which the poor tenants of
+mud-walled villages, and impassable bogs, erected themselves into high
+and mighty states, who put the greatest monarchs at defiance, whose
+alliance was courted by the proudest, and whose power was dreaded by the
+fiercest nation. By the establishment of this state, there arose, to
+England, a new ally, and a new rival.
+
+At this time, which seems to be the period destined for the change of
+the face of Europe, France began first to rise into power, and, from
+defending her own provinces with difficulty and fluctuating success, to
+threaten her neighbours with encroachments and devastations. Henry the
+fourth having, after a long struggle, obtained the crown, found it easy
+to govern nobles, exhausted and wearied with a long civil war, and
+having composed the disputes between the protestants and papists, so as
+to obtain, at least, a truce for both parties, was at leisure to
+accumulate treasure, and raise forces, which he purposed to have
+employed in a design of settling for ever the balance of Europe. Of this
+great scheme he lived not to see the vanity, or to feel the
+disappointment; for he was murdered in the midst of his mighty
+preparations.
+
+The French, however, were, in this reign, taught to know their own
+power; and the great designs of a king, whose wisdom they had so long
+experienced, even though they were not brought to actual experiment,
+disposed them to consider themselves as masters of the destiny of their
+neighbours; and, from that time, he that shall nicely examine their
+schemes and conduct, will, I believe, find that they began to take an
+air of superiority, to which they had never pretended before; and that
+they have been always employed, more or less openly, upon schemes of
+dominion, though with frequent interruptions from domestick troubles,
+and with those intermissions which human counsels must always suffer, as
+men intrusted with great affairs are dissipated in youth, and languid in
+age; are embarrassed by competitors, or, without any external reason,
+change their minds.
+
+France was now no longer in dread of insults, and invasions from
+England. She was not only able to maintain her own territories, but
+prepared, on all occasions, to invade others; and we had now a
+neighbour, whose interest it was to be an enemy, and who has disturbed
+us, from that time to this, with open hostility, or secret machinations.
+
+Such was the state of England, and its neighbours, when Elizabeth left
+the crown to James of Scotland. It has not, I think, been frequently
+observed, by historians, at how critical a time the union of the two
+kingdoms happened. Had England and Scotland continued separate kingdoms,
+when France was established in the full possession of her natural power,
+the Scots, in continuance of the league, which it would now have been
+more than ever their interest to observe, would, upon every instigation
+of the French court, have raised an army with French money, and harassed
+us with an invasion, in which they would have thought themselves
+successful, whatever numbers they might have left behind them. To a
+people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never
+hurtful. The pay of France, and the plunder of the northern countries,
+would always have tempted them to hazard their lives, and we should have
+been under a necessity of keeping a line of garrisons along our border.
+
+This trouble, however, we escaped, by the accession of king James; but
+it is uncertain, whether his natural disposition did not injure us more
+than this accidental condition happened to benefit us. He was a man of
+great theoretical knowledge, but of no practical wisdom; he was very
+well able to discern the true interest of himself, his kingdom, and his
+posterity, but sacrificed it, upon all occasions, to his present
+pleasure or his present ease; so conscious of his own knowledge and
+abilities, that he would not suffer a minister to govern, and so lax of
+attention, and timorous of opposition, that he was not able to govern
+for himself. With this character, James quietly saw the Dutch invade our
+commerce; the French grew every day stronger and stronger; and the
+protestant interest, of which he boasted himself the head, was oppressed
+on every side, while he writ, and hunted, and despatched ambassadours,
+who, when their master's weakness was once known, were treated, in
+foreign courts, with very little ceremony. James, however, took care to
+be flattered at home, and was neither angry nor ashamed at the
+appearance that he made in other countries.
+
+Thus England grew weaker, or, what is, in political estimation, the same
+thing, saw her neighbours grow stronger, without receiving
+proportionable additions to her own power. Not that the mischief was so
+great as it is generally conceived or represented; for, I believe, it
+may be made to appear, that the wealth of the nation was, in this reign,
+very much increased, though, that of the crown was lessened. Our
+reputation for war was impaired; but commerce seems to have been carried
+on with great industry and vigour, and nothing was wanting, but that we
+should have defended ourselves from the encroachments of our neighbours.
+
+The inclination to plant colonies in America still continued, and this
+being the only project in which men of adventure and enterprise could
+exert their qualities, in a pacifick reign, multitudes, who were
+discontented with their condition in their native country, and such
+multitudes there will always be, sought relief, or, at least, a change,
+in the western regions, where they settled, in the northern part of the
+continent, at a distance from the Spaniards, at that time almost the
+only nation that had any power or will to obstruct us.
+
+Such was the condition of this country, when the unhappy Charles
+inherited the crown. He had seen the errours of his father, without
+being able to prevent them, and, when he began his reign, endeavoured to
+raise the nation to its former dignity. The French papists had begun a
+new war upon the protestants: Charles sent a fleet to invade Rhée and
+relieve Rochelle, but his attempts were defeated, and the protestants
+were subdued. The Dutch, grown wealthy and strong, claimed the right of
+fishing in the British seas: this claim the king, who saw the increasing
+power of the states of Holland, resolved to contest. But, for this end,
+it was necessary to build a fleet, and a fleet could not be built
+without expense: he was advised to levy ship-money, which gave occasion
+to the civil war, of which the events and conclusion are too well known.
+
+While the inhabitants of this island were embroiled among themselves,
+the power of France and Holland was every day increasing. The Dutch had
+overcome the difficulties of their infant commonwealth; and, as they
+still retained their vigour and industry, from rich grew continually
+richer, and from powerful more powerful. They extended their traffick,
+and had not yet admitted luxury; so that they had the means and the will
+to accumulate wealth, without any incitement to spend it. The French,
+who wanted nothing to make them powerful, but a prudent regulation of
+their revenues, and a proper use of their natural advantages, by the
+successive care of skilful ministers, became, every day, stronger, and
+more conscious of their strength.
+
+About this time it was, that the French first began to turn their
+thoughts to traffick and navigation, and to desire, like other nations,
+an American territory. All the fruitful and valuable parts of the
+western world were, already, either occupied, or claimed; and nothing
+remained for France, but the leavings of other navigators, for she was
+not yet haughty enough to seize what the neighbouring powers had already
+appropriated.
+
+The French, therefore, contented themselves with sending a colony to
+Canada, a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but
+furs and fish were to be had, and where the new inhabitants could only
+pass a laborious and necessitous life, in perpetual regret of the
+deliciousness and plenty of their native country.
+
+Notwithstanding the opinion which our countrymen have been taught to
+entertain of the comprehension and foresight of French politicians, I am
+not able to persuade myself, that when this colony was first planted, it
+was thought of much value, even by those that encouraged it; there was,
+probably, nothing more intended, than to provide a drain, into which the
+waste of an exuberant nation might be thrown, a place where those who
+could do no good might live without the power of doing mischief. Some
+new advantage they, undoubtedly, saw, or imagined themselves to see, and
+what more was necessary to the establishment of the colony, was supplied
+by natural inclination to experiments, and that impatience of doing
+nothing, to which mankind, perhaps, owe much of what is imagined to be
+effected by more splendid motives.
+
+In this region of desolate sterility they settled themselves, upon
+whatever principle; and, as they have, from that time, had the happiness
+of a government, by which no interest has been neglected, nor any part
+of their subjects overlooked, they have, by continual encouragement and
+assistance from France, been perpetually enlarging their bounds, and
+increasing their numbers.
+
+These were, at first, like other nations who invaded America, inclined
+to consider the neighbourhood of the natives, as troublesome and
+dangerous, and are charged with having destroyed great numbers; but they
+are now grown wiser, if not honester, and, instead of endeavouring to
+frighten the Indians away, they invite them to inter-marriage and
+cohabitation, and allure them, by all practicable methods, to become the
+subjects of the king of France.
+
+If the Spaniards, when they first took possession of the newly
+discovered world, instead of destroying the inhabitants by thousands,
+had either had the urbanity or the policy to have conciliated them by
+kind treatment, and to have united them, gradually, to their own people,
+such an accession might have been made to the power of the king of
+Spain, as would have made him far the greatest monarch that ever yet
+ruled in the globe; but the opportunity was lost by foolishness and
+cruelty, and now can never be recovered.
+
+When the parliament had finally prevailed over our king, and the army
+over the parliament, the interests of the two commonwealths of England
+and Holland soon appeared to be opposite, and a new government declared
+war against the Dutch. In this contest was exerted the utmost power of
+the two nations, and the Dutch were finally defeated, yet not with such
+evidence of superiority, as left us much reason to boast our victory:
+they were obliged, however, to solicit peace, which was granted them on
+easy conditions; and Cromwell, who was now possessed of the supreme
+power, was left at leisure to pursue other designs.
+
+The European powers had not yet ceased to look with envy on the Spanish
+acquisitions in America, and, therefore, Cromwell thought, that if he
+gained any part of these celebrated regions, he should exalt his own
+reputation, and enrich the country. He, therefore, quarrelled with the
+Spaniards upon some such subject of contention, as he that is resolved
+upon hostility may always find; and sent Penn and Venables into the
+western seas. They first landed in Hispaniola, whence they were driven
+off, with no great reputation to themselves; and that they might not
+return without having done something, they afterwards invaded Jamaica,
+where they found less resistance, and obtained that island, which was
+afterwards consigned to us, being probably of little value to the
+Spaniards, and continues, to this day, a place of great wealth and
+dreadful wickedness, a den of tyrants and a dungeon of slaves.
+
+Cromwell, who, perhaps, had not leisure to study foreign politicks, was
+very fatally mistaken with regard to Spain and France. Spain had been
+the last power in Europe which had openly pretended to give law to other
+nations, and the memory of this terrour remained, when the real cause
+was at an end. We had more lately been frighted by Spain than by France;
+and though very few were then alive of the generation that had their
+sleep broken by the armada, yet the name of the Spaniards was still
+terrible and a war against them was pleasing to the people.
+
+Our own troubles had left us very little desire to look out upon the
+continent; an inveterate prejudice hindered us from perceiving, that,
+for more than half a century, the power of France had been increasing,
+and that of Spain had been growing less; nor does it seem to have been
+remembered, which yet required no great depth of policy to discern, that
+of two monarchs, neither of which could be long our friend, it was our
+interest to have the weaker near us; or, that if a war should happen,
+Spain, however wealthy or strong in herself, was, by the dispersion of
+her territories, more obnoxious to the attacks of a naval power, and,
+consequently, had more to fear from us, and had it less in her power to
+hurt us.
+
+All these considerations were overlooked by the wisdom of that age; and
+Cromwell assisted the French to drive the Spaniards out of Flanders, at
+a time when it was our interest to have supported the Spaniards against
+France, as formerly the Hollanders against Spain, by which we might, at
+least, have retarded the growth of the French power, though, I think, it
+must have finally prevailed.
+
+During this time our colonies, which were less disturbed by our
+commotions than the mother-country, naturally increased; it is probable
+that many, who were unhappy at home, took shelter in those remote
+regions, where, for the sake of inviting greater numbers, every one was
+allowed to think and live his own way. The French settlement, in the
+mean time, went slowly forward, too inconsiderable to raise any
+jealousy, and too weak to attempt any encroachments.
+
+When Cromwell died, the confusions that followed produced the
+restoration of monarchy, and some time was employed in repairing the
+ruins of our constitution, and restoring the nation to a state of peace.
+In every change, there will be many that suffer real or imaginary
+grievances, and, therefore, many will be dissatisfied. This was,
+perhaps, the reason why several colonies had their beginning in the
+reign of Charles the second. The quakers willingly sought refuge in
+Pennsylvania; and it is not unlikely that Carolina owed its inhabitants
+to the remains of that restless disposition, which had given so much
+disturbance to our country, and had now no opportunity of acting at
+home.
+
+The Dutch, still continuing to increase in wealth and power, either
+kindled the resentment of their neighbours by their insolence, or raised
+their envy by their prosperity. Charles made war upon them without much
+advantage; but they were obliged, at last, to confess him the sovereign
+of the narrow seas. They were reduced almost to extremities by an
+invasion from France; but soon recovered from their consternation, and,
+by the fluctuation of war, regained their cities and provinces with the
+same speed as they had lost them.
+
+During the time of Charles the second, the power of France was every day
+increasing; and Charles, who never disturbed himself with remote
+consequences, saw the progress of her arms and the extension of her
+dominions, with very little uneasiness. He was, indeed, sometimes
+driven, by the prevailing faction, into confederacies against her; but
+as he had, probably, a secret partiality in her favour, he never
+persevered long in acting against her, nor ever acted with much vigour;
+so that, by his feeble resistance, he rather raised her confidence than
+hindered her designs.
+
+About this time the French first began to perceive the advantage of
+commerce, and the importance of a naval force; and such encouragement
+was given to manufactures, and so eagerly was every project received, by
+which trade could be advanced, that, in a few years, the sea was filled
+with their ships, and all the parts of the world crowded with their
+merchants. There is, perhaps, no instance in human story, of such a
+change produced in so short a time, in the schemes and manners of a
+people, of so many new sources of wealth opened, and such numbers of
+artificers and merchants made to start out of the ground, as was seen in
+the ministry of Colbert.
+
+Now it was that the power of France became formidable to England. Her
+dominions were large before, and her armies numerous; but her operations
+were necessarily confined to the continent. She had neither ships for
+the transportation of her troops, nor money for their support in distant
+expeditions. Colbert saw both these wants, and saw that commerce only
+would supply them. The fertility of their country furnishes the French
+with commodities; the poverty of the common people keeps the price of
+labour low. By the obvious practice of selling much and buying little,
+it was apparent, that they would soon draw the wealth of other countries
+into their own; and, by carrying out their merchandise in their own
+vessels, a numerous body of sailors would quickly be raised.
+
+This was projected, and this was performed. The king of France was soon
+enabled to bribe those whom he could not conquer, and to terrify, with
+his fleets, those whom his armies could not have approached. The
+influence of France was suddenly diffused all over the globe; her arms
+were dreaded, and her pensions received in remote regions, and those
+were almost ready to acknowledge her sovereignty, who, a few years
+before, had scarcely heard her name. She thundered on the coasts of
+Africa, and received ambassadours from Siam.
+
+So much may be done by one wise man endeavouring, with honesty, the
+advantage of the publick. But that we may not rashly condemn all
+ministers, as wanting wisdom or integrity, whose counsels have produced
+no such apparent benefits to their country, it must be considered, that
+Colbert had means of acting, which our government does not allow. He
+could enforce all his orders by the power of an absolute monarch; he
+could compel individuals to sacrifice their private profit to the
+general good; he could make one understanding preside over many hands,
+and remove difficulties by quick and violent expedients. Where no man
+thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead
+of cooperating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths
+to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is
+superiour knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his
+own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity
+and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his
+neighbour.
+
+Colonies are always the effects and causes of navigation. They who visit
+many countries find some, in which pleasure, profit, or safety invite
+them to settle; and these settlements, when they are once made, must
+keep a perpetual correspondence with the original country to which they
+are subject, and on which they depend for protection in danger, and
+supplies in necessity. So that a country, once discovered and planted,
+must always find employment for shipping, more certainly than any
+foreign commerce, which, depending on casualties, may be sometimes more,
+and sometimes less, and which other nations may contract or suppress. A
+trade to colonies can never be much impaired, being, in reality, only an
+intercourse between distant provinces of the same empire, from which
+intruders are easily excluded; likewise the interest and affection of
+the correspondent parties, however distant, is the same.
+
+On this reason all nations, whose power has been exerted on the ocean,
+have fixed colonies in remote parts of the world; and while those
+colonies subsisted, navigation, if it did not increase, was always
+preserved from total decay. With this policy the French were well
+acquainted, and, therefore, improved and augmented the settlements in
+America and other regions, in proportion as they advanced their schemes
+of naval greatness.
+
+The exact time, in which they made their acquisitions in America, or
+other quarters of the globe, it is not necessary to collect. It is
+sufficient to observe, that their trade and their colonies increased
+together; and, if their naval armaments were carried on, as they really
+were, in greater proportion to their commerce, than can be practised in
+other countries, it must be attributed to the martial disposition at
+that time prevailing in the nation, to the frequent wars which Lewis the
+fourteenth made upon his neighbours, and to the extensive commerce of
+the English and Dutch, which afforded so much plunder to privateers,
+that war was more lucrative than traffick.
+
+Thus the naval power of France continued to increase during the reign of
+Charles the second, who, between his fondness of ease and pleasure, the
+struggles of faction, which he could not suppress, and his inclination
+to the friendship of absolute monarchy, had not much power or desire to
+repress it. And of James the second it could not be expected, that he
+should act against his neighbours with great vigour, having the whole
+body of his subjects to oppose. He was not ignorant of the real interest
+of his country; he desired its power and its happiness, and thought
+rightly, that there is no happiness without religion; but he thought
+very erroneously and absurdly, that there is no religion without popery.
+
+When the necessity of self-preservation had impelled the subjects of
+James to drive him from the throne, there came a time in which the
+passions, as well as interest of the government, acted against the
+French, and in which it may, perhaps, be reasonably doubted, whether the
+desire of humbling France was not stronger, than that of exalting
+England: of this, however, it is not necessary to inquire, since, though
+the intention may be different, the event will be the same. All mouths
+were now open to declare what every eye had observed before, that the
+arms of France were become dangerous to Europe; and that, if her
+encroachments were suffered a little longer, resistance would be too
+late.
+
+It was now determined to reassert the empire of the sea; but it was more
+easily determined than performed: the French made a vigorous defence
+against the united power of England and Holland, and were sometimes
+masters of the ocean, though the two maritime powers were united against
+them. At length, however, they were defeated at La Hogue; a great part
+of their fleet was destroyed, and they were reduced to carry on the war
+only with their privateers, from whom there was suffered much petty
+mischief, though there was no danger of conquest or invasion. They
+distressed our merchants, and obliged us to the continual expense of
+convoys and fleets of observation; and, by skulking in little coves and
+shallow waters, escaped our pursuit.
+
+In this reign began our confederacy with the Dutch, which mutual
+interest has now improved into a friendship, conceived by some to be
+inseparable; and, from that time, the states began to be termed, in the
+style of politicians, our faithful friends, the allies which nature has
+given us, our protestant confederates, and by many other names of
+national endearment. We have, it is true, the same interest, as opposed
+to France, and some resemblance of religion, as opposed to popery; but
+we have such a rivalry, in respect of commerce, as will always keep us
+from very close adherence to each other. No mercantile man, or
+mercantile nation, has any friendship but for money, and alliance
+between them will last no longer, than their common safety, or common
+profit is endangered; no longer than they have an enemy, who threatens
+to take from each more than either can steal from the other.
+
+We were both sufficiently interested in repressing the ambition, and
+obstructing the commerce of France; and, therefore, we concurred with as
+much fidelity, and as regular cooperation, as is commonly found. The
+Dutch were in immediate danger, the armies of their enemies hovered over
+their country, and, therefore, they were obliged to dismiss, for a time,
+their love of money, and their narrow projects of private profit, and to
+do what a trader does not willingly, at any time, believe necessary, to
+sacrifice a part for the preservation of the whole.
+
+A peace was at length made, and the French, with their usual vigour and
+industry, rebuilt their fleets, restored their commerce, and became, in
+a very few years, able to contest again the dominion of the sea. Their
+ships were well built, and always very numerously manned; their
+commanders, having no hopes but from their bravery, or their fortune,
+were resolute, and, being very carefully educated for the sea, were
+eminently skilful.
+
+All this was soon perceived, when queen Anne, the then darling of
+England, declared war against France. Our success by sea, though
+sufficient to keep us from dejection, was not such as dejected our
+enemies. It is, indeed, to be confessed, that we did not exert our whole
+naval strength; Marlborough was the governour of our counsels, and the
+great view of Marlborough was a war by land, which he knew well how to
+conduct, both to the honour of his country and his own profit. The fleet
+was, therefore, starved, that the army might be supplied, and naval
+advantages were neglected, for the sake of taking a town in Flanders, to
+be garrisoned by our allies. The French, however, were so weakened by
+one defeat after another, that, though their fleet was never destroyed
+by any total overthrow, they at last retained it in their harbours, and
+applied their whole force to the resistance of the confederate army,
+that now began to approach their frontiers, and threatened to lay waste
+their provinces and cities.
+
+In the latter years of this war, the danger of their neighbourhood in
+America, seems to have been considered, and a fleet was fitted out, and
+supplied with a proper number of land forces, to seize Quebec, the
+capital of Canada, or New France; but this expedition miscarried, like
+that of Anson against the Spaniards, by the lateness of the season, and
+our ignorance of the coasts on which we were to act. We returned with
+loss, and only excited our enemies to greater vigilance, and, perhaps,
+to stronger fortifications.
+
+When the peace of Utrecht was made, which those, who clamoured among us
+most loudly against it, found it their interest to keep, the French
+applied themselves, with the utmost industry, to the extension of their
+trade, which we were so far from hindering, that, for many years, our
+ministry thought their friendship of such value, as to be cheaply
+purchased by whatever concession.
+
+Instead, therefore, of opposing, as we had hitherto professed to do, the
+boundless ambition of the house of Bourbon, we became, on a sudden,
+solicitous for its exaltation, and studious of its interest. We assisted
+the schemes of France and Spain with our fleets, and endeavoured to make
+these our friends by servility, whom nothing but power will keep quiet,
+and who must always be our enemies, while they are endeavouring to grow
+greater, and we determine to remain free.
+
+That nothing might be omitted, which could testify our willingness to
+continue, on any terms, the good friends of France, we were content to
+assist, not only their conquests, but their traffick; and, though we did
+not openly repeal the prohibitory laws, we yet tamely suffered commerce
+to be carried on between the two nations, and wool was daily imported,
+to enable them to make cloth, which they carried to our markets, and
+sold cheaper than we.
+
+During all this time they were extending and strengthening their
+settlements in America, contriving new modes of traffick, and framing
+new alliances with the Indian nations. They began now to find these
+northern regions, barren and desolate as they are, sufficiently valuable
+to desire, at least, a nominal possession, that might furnish a pretence
+for the exclusion of others; they, therefore, extended their claim to
+tracts of land, which they could never hope to occupy, took care to give
+their dominions an unlimited magnitude, have given, in their maps, the
+name of Louisiana to a country, of which part is claimed by the
+Spaniards, and part by the English, without any regard to ancient
+boundaries, or prior discovery.
+
+When the return of Columbus from his great voyage had filled all Europe
+with wonder and curiosity, Henry the seventh sent Sebastian Cabot to try
+what could be found for the benefit of England: he declined the track of
+Columbus, and, steering to the westward, fell upon the island, which,
+from that time, was called by the English Newfoundland. Our princes seem
+to have considered themselves as entitled, by their right of prior
+seizure, to the northern parts of America, as the Spaniards were
+allowed, by universal consent, their claim to the southern region for
+the same reason; and we, accordingly, made our principal settlements
+within the limits of our own discoveries, and, by degrees, planted the
+eastern coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia.
+
+As we had, according to the European principles, which allow nothing to
+the natives of these regions, our choice of situation in this extensive
+country, we naturally fixed our habitations along the coast, for the
+sake of traffick and correspondence and all the conveniencies of
+navigable rivers. And when one port or river was occupied, the next
+colony, instead of fixing themselves in the inland parts behind the
+former, went on southward, till they pleased themselves with another
+maritime situation. For this reason our colonies have more length than
+depth; their extent, from east to west, or from the sea to the interior
+country, bears no proportion to their reach along the coast, from north
+to south.
+
+It was, however, understood, by a kind of tacit compact among the
+commercial powers, that possession of the coast included a right to the
+inland; and, therefore, the charters granted to the several colonies,
+limit their districts only from north to south, leaving their
+possessions from east to west unlimited and discretional, supposing
+that, as the colony increases, they may take lands as they shall want
+them, the possession of the coasts, excluding other navigators, and the
+unhappy Indians having no right of nature or of nations.
+
+This right of the first European possessour was not disputed, till it
+became the interest of the French to question it. Canada, or New France,
+on which they made their first settlement, is situated eastward of our
+colonies, between which they pass up the great river of St. Lawrence,
+with Newfoundland on the north, and Nova Scotia on the south. Their
+establishment in this country was neither envied nor hindered; and they
+lived here, in no great numbers, a long time, neither molesting their
+European neighbours, nor molested by them.
+
+But when they grew stronger and more numerous, they began to extend
+their territories; and, as it is natural for men to seek their own
+convenience, the desire of more fertile and agreeable habitations
+tempted them southward. There is land enough to the north and west of
+their settlements, which they may occupy with as good right as can be
+shown by the other European usurpers, and which neither the English nor
+Spaniards will contest; but of this cold region, they have enough
+already, and their resolution was to get a better country. This was not
+to be had, but by settling to the west of our plantations, on ground
+which has been, hitherto, supposed to belong to us.
+
+Hither, therefore, they resolved to remove, and to fix, at their own
+discretion, the western border of our colonies, which was, heretofore,
+considered as unlimited. Thus by forming a line of forts, in some
+measure parallel to the coast, they inclose us between their garrisons,
+and the sea, and not only hinder our extension westward, but, whenever
+they have a sufficient navy in the sea, can harass us on each side, as
+they can invade us, at pleasure, from one or other of their forts.
+
+This design was not, perhaps, discovered as soon as it was formed, and
+was certainly not opposed so soon as it was discovered: we foolishly
+hoped, that their encroachments would stop; that they would be prevailed
+on, by treaty and remonstrance, to give up what they had taken, or to
+put limits to themselves. We suffered them to establish one settlement
+after another, to pass boundary after boundary, and add fort to fort,
+till, at last, they grew strong enough to avow their designs, and defy
+us to obstruct them.
+
+By these provocations, long continued, we are, at length, forced into a
+war, in which we have had, hitherto, very ill fortune. Our troops, under
+Braddock, were dishonourably defeated; our fleets have yet done nothing
+more than taken a few merchant ships, and have distressed some private
+families, but have very little weakened the power of France. The
+detention of their seamen makes it, indeed, less easy for them to fit
+out their navy; but this deficiency will be easily supplied by the
+alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.
+
+It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet
+it is necessary to show the evils which we desire to be removed; and,
+therefore, some account may very properly be given of the measures which
+have given them their present superiority.
+
+They are said to be supplied from France with better governours than our
+colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governour is
+seldom chosen for any other reason than his qualifications for his
+trust. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be so infamously vitious, that he
+cannot be decently protected in his own country, seldom recommends any
+man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly
+skilful, either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no
+expectation of honour or preferment, but from the justice and vigour of
+their administration.
+
+Their great security is the friendship of the natives, and to this
+advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the
+consequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the
+friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and
+kept but by kind treatment; and, surely, they who intrude, uncalled,
+upon the country of a distant people, ought to consider the natives as
+worthy of common kindness, and content themselves to rob, without
+insulting them. The French, as has been already observed, admit the
+Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themselves; and those
+nations, with which they have no such near intercourse, they gain over
+to their interest by honesty in their dealings. Our factors and traders,
+having no other purpose in view than immediate profit, use all the arts
+of an European counting-house, to defraud the simple hunter of his furs.
+
+These are some of the causes of our present weakness; our planters are
+always quarrelling with their governour, whom they consider as less to
+be trusted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians
+by their tricks and oppressions, and we continue every day to show, by
+new proofs; that no people can be great, who have ceased to be virtuous.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY
+
+Between his Britannick majesty and imperial majesty of all the Russias,
+signed at Moscow, Dec. 11, 1742; the treaty between his Britannick
+majesty and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, signed June 18, 1755; and the
+treaty between his Britannick majesty and her imperial majesty of all
+the Russias, signed at St. Petersburg, Sept. 19/20, 1755 [26].
+
+
+These are the treaties which, for many months, filled the senate with
+debates, and the kingdom with clamours; which were represented, on one
+part, as instances of the most profound policy and the most active care
+of the publick welfare, and, on the other, as acts of the most
+contemptible folly and most flagrant corruption, as violations of the
+great trust of government, by which the wealth of Britain is sacrificed
+to private views and to a particular province.
+
+What honours our ministers and negotiators may expect to be paid to
+their wisdom; it is hard to determine, for the demands of vanity are not
+easily estimated. They should consider, before they call too loudly for
+encomiums, that they live in an age, when the power of gold is no longer
+a secret, and in which no man finds much difficulty in making a bargain,
+with money in his hand. To hire troops is very easy to those who are
+willing to pay their price. It appears, therefore, that whatever has
+been done, was done by means which every man knows how to use, if
+fortune is kind enough to put them in his power. To arm the nations of
+the north in the cause of Britain, to bring down hosts against France,
+from the polar circle, has, indeed, a sound of magnificence, which might
+induce a mind unacquainted with publick affairs to imagine, that some
+effort of policy, more than human, had been exerted, by which distant
+nations were armed in our defence, and the influence of Britain was
+extended to the utmost limits of the world. But when this striking
+phenomenon of negotiation is more nearly inspected, it appears a
+bargain, merely mercantile, of one power that wanted troops more than
+money, with another that wanted money, and was burdened with troops;
+between whom their mutual wants made an easy contract, and who have no
+other friendship for each other, than reciprocal convenience happens to
+produce.
+
+We shall, therefore, leave the praises of our ministers to others, yet
+not without this acknowledgment, that if they have done little, they do
+not seem to boast of doing much; and, that whether influenced by modesty
+or frugality, they have not wearied the publick with mercenary
+panegyrists, but have been content with the concurrence of the
+parliament, and have not much solicited the applauses of the people.
+
+In publick, as in private transactions, men more frequently deviate from
+the right, for want of virtue, than of wisdom; and those who declare
+themselves dissatisfied with these treaties, impute them not to folly,
+but corruption.
+
+By these advocates for the independence of Britain, who, whether their
+arguments be just, or not, seem to be most favourably heard by the
+people, it is alleged, that these treaties are expensive, without
+advantage; that they waste the treasure, which we want for our own
+defence, upon a foreign interest; and pour the gains of our commerce
+into the coffers of princes, whose enmity cannot hurt, nor friendship
+help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any
+inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops,
+with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder shall be
+found.
+
+This, perhaps, is true; but whether it be true, or false, is not worth
+inquiry. We did not expect to buy their friendship, but their troops;
+nor did we examine upon what principle we were supplied with assistance;
+it was sufficient that we wanted forces, and that they were willing to
+furnish them. Policy never pretended to make men wise and good; the
+utmost of her power is to make the best use of men, such as they are, to
+lay hold on lucky hours, to watch the present wants, and present
+interests of others, and make them subservient to her own convenience.
+
+It is further urged, with great vehemence, that these troops of Russia
+and Hesse are not hired in defence of Britain; that we are engaged, in a
+naval war, for territories on a distant continent; and that these
+troops, though mercenaries, can never be auxiliaries; that they increase
+the burden of the war, without hastening its conclusion, or promoting
+its success; since they can neither be sent into America, the only part
+of the world where England can, on the present occasion, have any
+employment for land-forces, nor be put into our ships, by which, and by
+which only, we are now to oppose and subdue our enemies.
+
+Nature has stationed us in an island, inaccessible but by sea; and we
+are now at war with an enemy, whose naval power is inferiour to our own,
+and from whom, therefore, we are in no danger of invasion: to what
+purpose, then, are troops hired in such uncommon numbers? To what end do
+we procure strength, which we cannot exert, and exhaust the nation with
+subsidies, at a time when nothing is disputed, which the princes, who
+receive our subsidies, can defend? If we had purchased ships, and hired
+seamen, we had apparently increased our power, and made ourselves
+formidable to our enemies, and, if any increase of security be possible,
+had secured ourselves still better from invasions: but what can the
+regiments of Russia, or of Hesse, contribute to the defence of the
+coasts of England; or, by what assistance can they repay us the sums,
+which we have stipulated to pay for their costly friendship?
+
+The king of Great Britain has, indeed, a territory on the continent, of
+which the natives of this island scarcely knew the name, till the
+present family was called to the throne, and yet know little more than
+that our king visits it from time to time. Yet, for the defence of this
+country, are these subsidies apparently paid, and these troops evidently
+levied. The riches of our nation are sent into distant countries, and
+the strength, which should be employed in our own quarrel, consequently
+impaired, for the sake of dominions, the interest of which has no
+connexion with ours, and which, by the act of succession, we took care
+to keep separate from the British kingdoms.
+
+To this the advocates for the subsidies say, that unreasonable
+stipulations, whether in the act of settlement, or any other contract,
+are, in themselves, void; and that if a country connected with England,
+by subjection to the same sovereign, is endangered by an English
+quarrel, it must be defended by English force; and that we do not engage
+in a war, for the sake of Hanover, but that Hanover is, for our sake,
+exposed to danger.
+
+Those who brought in these foreign troops have still something further
+to say in their defence, and of no honest plea is it our intention to
+defraud them. They grant, that the terrour of invasion may, possibly, be
+groundless; that the French may want the power, or the courage, to
+attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewise, that an
+invasion is possible, that the armies of France are so numerous, that
+she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself
+exposed; that she is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and
+would be willing to do us mischief, at her own peril. They allow, that
+the invaders may be intercepted at sea, or that, if they land, they may
+be defeated by our native troops. But they say, and say justly, that
+danger is better avoided than encountered; that those ministers consult
+more the good of their country, who prevent invasion, than repel it; and
+that, if these auxiliaries have only saved us from the anxiety of
+expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and distress which
+an invasion, how soon soever repressed, would have produced, the publick
+money is not spent in vain.
+
+These arguments are admitted by some, and by others rejected. But even
+those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of necessity; for
+they consider the reception of mercenaries into our country, as the
+desperate "remedy of desperate distress;" and think, with great reason,
+that all means of prevention should be tried, to save us from any second
+need of such doubtful succours.
+
+That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely
+entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and skill, and
+courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the
+opinion of every Englishman, who can think without prejudice, and speak
+without influence; and, therefore, it will not be easy to persuade the
+nation, a nation long renowned for valour, that it can need the help of
+foreigners to defend it from invasion. We have been long without the
+need of arms by our good fortune, and long without the use by our
+negligence; so long, that the practice, and almost the name, of our old
+trained bands is forgotten; but the story of ancient times will tell us,
+that the trained bands were once able to maintain the quiet and safety
+of their country; and reason, without history, will inform us, that
+those men are most likely to fight bravely, or, at least, to fight
+obstinately, who fight for their own houses and farms, for their own
+wives and children.
+
+A bill was, therefore, offered for the prevention of any future danger
+or invasion, or necessity of mercenary forces, by reestablishing and
+improving the militia. It was passed by the commons, but rejected by the
+lords. That this bill, the first essay of political consideration, as a
+subject long forgotten, should be liable to objection, cannot be
+strange; but surely, justice, policy, common reason, require, that we
+should be trusted with our own defence, and be kept, no longer in such a
+helpless state as, at once, to dread our enemies and confederates.
+
+By the bill, such as it was formed, sixty thousand men would always be
+in arms. We have shown [27] how they may be, upon any exigence, easily
+increased to a hundred and fifty thousand; and, I believe, neither our
+friends nor enemies will think it proper to insult our coasts, when they
+expect to find upon them a hundred and fifty thousand Englishmen, with
+swords in their hands.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,
+
+Appointed to manage the contributions begun at London, December 18,
+1758, for clothing French prisoners of war.
+
+
+The committee intrusted with the money, contributed to the relief of the
+subjects of France, now prisoners in the British dominions, here lay
+before the publick an exact account of all the sums received and
+expended, that the donors may judge how properly their benefactions have
+been applied.
+
+Charity would lose its name, were it influenced by so mean a motive as
+human praise; it is, therefore, not intended to celebrate, by any
+particular memorial, the liberality of single persons, or distinct
+societies; it is sufficient, that their works praise them.
+
+Yet he, who is far from seeking honour, may very justly obviate censure.
+If a good example has been set, it may lose its influence by
+misrepresentation; and, to free charity from reproach is itself a
+charitable action.
+
+Against the relief of the French only one argument has been brought; but
+that one is so popular and specious, that, if it were to remain
+unexamined, it would, by many, be thought irrefragable. It has been
+urged, that charity, like other virtues, may be improperly and
+unseasonably exerted; that, while we are relieving Frenchmen, there
+remain many Englishmen unrelieved; that, while we lavish pity on our
+enemies, we forget the misery of our friends.
+
+Grant this argument all it can prove, and what is the conclusion?--That
+to relieve the French is a good action, but that a better may be
+conceived. This is all the result, and this all is very little. To do
+the best can seldom be the lot of man: it is sufficient if, when
+opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue
+could be practised, if beneficence were to wait always for the most
+proper objects, and the noblest occasions; occasions that may never
+happen, and objects that may never be found.
+
+It is far from certain, that a single Englishman will suffer by the
+charity to the French. New scenes of misery make new impressions; and
+much of the charity, which produced these donations, may be supposed to
+have been generated by a species of calamity never known among us
+before. Some imagine, that the laws have provided all necessary relief,
+in common cases, and remit the poor to the care of the publick; some
+have been deceived by fictitious misery, and are afraid of encouraging
+imposture; many have observed want to be the effect of vice, and
+consider casual alms-givers as patrons of idleness. But all these
+difficulties vanish in the present case: we know, that for the prisoners
+of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress, and are
+certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and
+naked without a crime.
+
+But it is not necessary to make any concessions. The opponents of this
+charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be
+the best. That charity is best, of which the consequences are most
+extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in
+fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse nations, and
+dispose them to peace and amity; in the mean time, it alleviates
+captivity, and takes away something from the miseries of war. The rage
+of war, however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and
+horrour; let it not, then, be unnecessarily extended; let animosity and
+hostility cease together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than
+while his sword is drawn against us.
+
+The effects of these contributions may, perhaps, reach still further.
+Truth is best supported by virtue: we may hope, from those who feel, or
+who see, our charity, that they shall no longer detest, as heresy, that
+religion, which makes its professors the followers of him, who has
+commanded us to "do good to them that hate us."
+
+
+
+
+ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS [28],
+
+By those who have compared the military genius of the English with that
+of the French nation, it is remarked, that "the French officers will
+always lead, if the soldiers will follow;" and that "the English
+soldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead."
+
+
+In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to
+conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers seem to lose what our
+soldiers gain. I know not any reason for supposing that the English
+officers are less willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think,
+universally allowed, that the English soldiers are more willing to
+follow. Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a
+kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We
+can show a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose
+courage may vie with that of their general.
+
+There may be some pleasure in tracing the causes of this plebeian
+magnanimity. The qualities which, commonly, make an army formidable, are
+long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and great
+confidence in the commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a kind of
+mechanical obedience to signals and commands, like that which the
+perverse cartesians impute to animals; discipline may impress such an
+awe upon the mind, that any danger shall be less dreaded, than the
+danger of punishment; and confidence in the wisdom, or fortune, of the
+general may induce the soldiers to follow him blindly to the most
+dangerous enterprise.
+
+What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops
+of the Russian emperess, and Prussian monarch. We find, that they may be
+broken without confusion, and repulsed without flight.
+
+But the English troops have none of these requisites, in any eminent
+degree. Regularity is, by no means, part of their character: they are
+rarely exercised, and, therefore, show very little dexterity in their
+evolutions, as bodies of men, or in the manual use of their weapons, as
+individuals; they neither are thought by others, nor by themselves, more
+active, or exact, than their enemies, and, therefore, derive none of
+their courage from such imaginary superiority.
+
+The manner in which they are dispersed in quarters, over the country,
+during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of discipline: they are
+very little in sight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged
+in the slight duty of the guard, are suffered to live, every man his own
+way.
+
+The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the
+freedom of our tenures, and the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very
+little to reverence superiours. It is not to any great esteem of the
+officers, that the English soldier is indebted for his spirit in the
+hour of battle; for, perhaps, it does not often happen, that he thinks
+much better of his leader than of himself. The French count, who has
+lately published the Art of War, remarks, how much soldiers are
+animated, when they see all their dangers shared by those who were born
+to be their masters, and whom they consider, as beings of a different
+rank. The Englishman despises such motives of courage: he was born
+without a master; and looks not on any man, however dignified by lace or
+titles, as deriving, from nature, any claims to his respect, or
+inheriting any qualities superiour to his own.
+
+There are some, perhaps, who would imagine, that every Englishman fights
+better than the subjects of absolute governments, because he has more to
+defend. But what has the English more than the French soldier? Property
+they are both, commonly, without. Liberty is, to the lowest rank of
+every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving; and
+this choice is, I suppose, equally allowed in every country. The English
+soldier seldom has his head very full of the constitution; nor has there
+been, for more than a century, any war that put the property or liberty
+of a single Englishman in danger.
+
+Whence, then, is the courage of the English vulgar? It proceeds, in my
+opinion, from that dissolution of dependence, which obliges every man to
+regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he
+has no need of any servile arts; he may always have wages for his
+labour; and is no less necessary to his employer, than his employer is
+to him. While he looks for no protection from others, he is naturally
+roused to be his own protector; and having nothing to abate his esteem
+of himself, he, consequently, aspires to the esteem of others. Thus
+every man that crowds our streets is a man of honour, disdainful of
+obligation, impatient of reproach, and desirous of extending his
+reputation among those of his own rank; and, as courage is in most
+frequent use, the fame of courage is most eagerly pursued. From this
+neglect of subordination, I do not deny, that some inconveniencies may,
+from time to time, proceed: the power of the law does not, always,
+sufficiently supply the want of reverence, or maintain the proper
+distinction between different ranks; but good and evil will grow up in
+this world together; and they who complain, in peace, of the insolence
+of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery
+in war.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+
+  Fallitur, egregio quisquis sub principe credit
+  Servitium, nunquam libertas gratior extat
+  Quam sub rege pio.
+
+  CLAUDIANUS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+
+On Johnson's character, as a political writer, we cannot dwell with
+pleasure, since we cannot speak of it with praise. In the following
+pamphlets, however, though we cannot honestly subscribe to their
+doctrines, we must admire the same powers of composition, the same play
+of imagination, the same keen sarcasm and indignant reproof, that
+embellish his other productions. He might, and did, think wrongly on
+these subjects, but he never wrote what he did not believe to be true,
+and, therefore, must be acquitted of all charges of servility or
+dishonesty. The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says
+Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority
+in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom,
+that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to
+exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel to be duly elected
+for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great
+majority of votes. This being justly considered as a gross violation of
+the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all
+over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false, was the purpose of
+Johnson's pamphlet; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with
+constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and
+the house of commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from
+their journals. That the house of commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes
+repeatedly, and as often as he should be rechosen, was not to be denied;
+but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It
+was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general,
+and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an
+understanding as Johnson's in this particular case." Where Boswell
+expresses himself with regard to Johnson, in terms so reprehensive as
+the above, we cannot be accused of severity in repeating his just
+censure. Several answers appeared, but, perhaps, all of them, in
+compliance with the excited feelings of the times, dealt rather in
+personal abuse of Johnson, as a pensioner and hireling, than in fair and
+manly argument. The chief were, the Crisis; a Letter to Dr. Samuel
+Johnson; and, the Constitution Defender and Pensioner exposed, in
+Remarks on the False Alarm.
+
+
+
+
+THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.
+
+
+One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the
+improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary
+terrours, and exemption from false alarms. The unusual appearances,
+whether regular or accidental, which once spread consternation over ages
+of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquisitive security. The sun
+is no more lamented when it is eclipsed, than when it sets; and meteors
+play their coruscations without prognostick or prediction.
+
+The advancement of political knowledge may be expected to produce, in
+time, the like effects. Causeless discontent, and seditious violence,
+will grow less frequent and less formidable, as the science of
+government is better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of
+man. It is not, indeed, to be expected, that physical and political
+truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world
+with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a
+state of neutrality, or, at worst, have nothing to encounter but
+prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without
+interest. But the politician's improvements are opposed by every passion
+that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by
+hope, and by terrour, by publick faction, and private animosity.
+
+It is evident, whatever be the cause, that this nation, with all its
+renown for speculation and for learning, has yet made little proficiency
+in civil wisdom. We are still so much unacquainted with our own state,
+and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without
+danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be
+disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the
+government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamour,
+which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many
+favour it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.
+
+What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion,
+and incite fury, from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known,
+by perusing the papers which have been, at once, presented as petitions
+to the king, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. It
+may, therefore, not be improper to lay before the publick the
+reflections of a man, who cannot favour the opposition, for he thinks it
+wicked, and cannot fear it, for he thinks it weak.
+
+The grievance which has produced all this tempest of outrage, the
+oppression in which all other oppressions are included, the invasion
+which has left us no property, the alarm that suffers no patriot to
+sleep in quiet, is comprised in a vote of the house of commons, by which
+the freeholders of Middlesex are deprived of a Briton's
+birthright--representation in parliament.
+
+They have, indeed, received the usual writ of election; but that writ,
+alas! was malicious mockery: they were insulted with the form, but
+denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice:
+
+  "Non de vi, neque cæde, nec veneno,
+  Sed lis est mihi de tribus capellis."
+
+The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to
+delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no
+man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of
+commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition
+and impiety.
+
+That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors
+of the church and state, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover
+of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief
+county in England cannot take its representative from a gaol.
+
+Whence Middlesex should obtain the right of being denominated the chief
+county cannot easily be discovered; it is, indeed, the county where the
+chief city happens to stand, but, how that city treated the favourite of
+Middlesex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the
+city, has no claim to particular consideration. That a man was in gaol
+for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been, within memory, a
+sufficient reason why he should not come out of gaol a legislator. This
+reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to
+operate on the house of commons. Their notions, however strange, may be
+justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment,
+and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes
+any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what
+he did before with less.
+
+But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house
+cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who
+can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character,
+is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which
+no human authority can depose him.
+
+Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They
+are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to
+establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction
+over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and
+that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often
+in expulsion.
+
+That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is
+inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where
+there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of
+punishment. A member of the house cannot be cited for his conduct in
+parliament before any other court; and, therefore, if the house cannot
+punish him, he may attack, with impunity, the rights of the people, and
+the title of the king.
+
+This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first
+established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is
+not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the
+principles of government. If legislative powers are not coordinate, they
+cease, in part, to be legislative; and if they be coordinate, they are
+unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no
+superiour?
+
+The house of commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation
+has, of late, been very clamorously told; but while it subsists it is
+coordinate with the other powers, and this coordination ceases only,
+when the house, by dissolution, ceases to subsist.
+
+As the particular representatives of the people are, in their publick
+character, above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject
+to the jurisdiction of the house; and as the house, in the exercise of
+its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own
+resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent
+decision of the whole legislature.
+
+This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact,
+but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised,
+probably, from their first institution, but certainly, as their records
+inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for
+derogating from their privileges.
+
+It may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that
+this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences in
+the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are
+cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their
+own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and
+when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an
+offence against society, as an offence against the house.
+
+They have, therefore, divested notorious delinquents of their
+legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment,
+naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of
+parliament.
+
+It is allowed, that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament,
+and the commons probably judged, that, not being bound to the forms of
+law, they might treat these as felons, whose crimes were, in their
+opinion, equivalent to felony; and that, as a known felon could not be
+chosen, a man, so like a felon that he could not easily be
+distinguished, ought to be expelled.
+
+The first laws had no law to enforce them; the first authority was
+constituted by itself. The power exercised by the house of commons is of
+this kind; a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched
+out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and
+precedents have made legal.
+
+It will occur, that authority thus uncontroulable may, in times of heat
+and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who
+suffers injustice is without redress, however innocent, however
+miserable.
+
+The position is true, but the argument is useless. The commons must be
+controlled, or be exempt from control. If they are exempt, they may do
+injury which cannot be redressed, if they are controlled, they are no
+longer legislative.
+
+If the possibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no
+authority ever can be established: if the actual abuse destroys its
+legality, there is no legal government now in the world.
+
+This power, which the commons have so long exercised, they ventured to
+use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and, on the 3rd of February, 1769,
+expelled him the house, "for having printed and published a seditious
+libel, and three obscene and impious libels."
+
+If these imputations were just, the expulsion was, surely, seasonable;
+and that they were just, the house had reason to determine, as he had
+confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term
+seditious, and was convicted, in the King's Bench, of both the
+publications.
+
+But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either
+thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was
+issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John
+Wilkes, esq. expelled the house, his friends, on the sixteenth of
+February, chose him again.
+
+On the 17th, it was resolved, "that John Wilkes, esq. having been, in
+this session of parliament, expelled the house, was, and is, incapable
+of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament."
+
+As there was no other candidate, it was resolved, at the same time, that
+the election of the sixteenth was a void election.
+
+The freeholders still continued to think, that no other man was fit to
+represent them, and, on the sixteenth of March, elected him once more.
+Their resolution was now so well known, that no opponent ventured to
+appear.
+
+The commons began to find, that power, without materials for operation,
+can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but
+if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be
+negative. They, however, made void the last election, and ordered a new
+writ.
+
+On the 13th of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and
+others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was
+used, and some acts of violence were done, to hinder Mr. Lutterel from
+appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited,
+for
+
+  Mr. Wilkes       1143
+  Mr. Lutterel      296
+
+The sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the house, on April the fifteenth,
+determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.
+
+From this day began the clamour, which has continued till now. Those who
+had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater
+magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it
+into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.
+
+Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discontent
+and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with
+exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has spread through all
+ranks, and through both sexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr.
+Wilkes; honest simplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wise
+have escaped infection.
+
+The greater part may justly be suspected of not believing their own
+position, and with them it is not necessary to dispute. They cannot be
+convinced who are convinced already, and it is well known that they will
+not be ashamed. The decision, however, by which the smaller number of
+votes was preferred to the greater, has perplexed the minds of some,
+whose opinions it were indecent to despise, and who, by their integrity,
+well deserve to have their doubts appeased.
+
+Every diffuse and complicated question may be examined by different
+methods, upon different principles; and that truth, which is easily
+found by one investigator, may be missed by another, equally honest and
+equally diligent.
+
+Those who inquire, whether a smaller number of legal votes can elect a
+representative in opposition to a greater, must receive, from every
+tongue, the same answer.
+
+The question, therefore, must be, whether a smaller number of legal
+votes shall not prevail against a greater number of votes not legal.
+
+It must be considered, that those votes only are legal which are legally
+given, and that those only are legally given, which are given for a
+legal candidate.
+
+It remains, then, to be discussed, whether a man expelled can be so
+disqualified by a vote of the house, as that he shall be no longer
+eligible by lawful electors.
+
+Here we must again recur, not to positive institutions, but to the
+unwritten law of social nature, to the great and pregnant principle of
+political necessity. All government supposes subjects; all authority
+implies obedience: to suppose in one the right to command what another
+has the right to refuse, is absurd and contradictory; a state, so
+constituted, must rest for ever in motionless equipoise, with equal
+attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of power balancing
+each other.
+
+Laws which cannot be enforced can neither prevent nor rectify disorders.
+A sentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to
+reform. If the commons have only the power of dismissing, for a few
+days, the man whom his constituents can immediately send back; if they
+can expel, but cannot exclude, they have nothing more than nominal
+authority, to which, perhaps, obedience never may be paid.
+
+The representatives of our ancestors had an opinion very different: they
+fined and imprisoned their members; on great provocation, they disabled
+them for ever; and this power of pronouncing perpetual disability is
+maintained by Selden himself.
+
+These claims seem to have been made and allowed, when the constitution
+of our government had not yet been sufficiently studied. Such powers are
+not legal, because they are not necessary; and of that power which only
+necessity justifies, no more is to be admitted than necessity obtrudes.
+
+The commons cannot make laws; they can only pass resolutions, which,
+like all resolutions, are of force only to those that make them, and to
+those, only while they are willing to observe them.
+
+The vote of the house of commons has, therefore, only so far the force
+of a law, as that force is necessary to preserve the vote from losing
+its efficacy; it must begin by operating upon themselves, and extend its
+influence to others, only by consequences arising from the first
+intention. He that starts game on his own manor, may pursue it into
+another.
+
+They can properly make laws only for themselves: a member, while he
+keeps his seat, is subject to these laws; but when he is expelled, the
+jurisdiction ceases, for he is now no longer within their dominion.
+
+The disability, which a vote can superinduce to expulsion, is no more
+than was included in expulsion itself; it is only a declaration of the
+commons, that they will permit no longer him, whom they thus censure, to
+sit with them in parliament; a declaration made by that right, which
+they necessarily possess, of regulating their own house, and of
+inflicting punishment on their own delinquents.
+
+They have, therefore, no other way to enforce the sentence of
+incapacity, than that of adhering to it. They cannot otherwise punish
+the candidate so disqualified for offering himself, nor the electors for
+accepting him. But if he has any competitor, that competitor must
+prevail, and if he has none, his election will be void; for the right of
+the house to reject annihilates, with regard to the man so rejected, the
+right of electing.
+
+It has been urged, that the power of the house terminates with their
+session; since a prisoner, committed by the speaker's warrant, cannot be
+detained during the recess. That power, indeed, ceases with the session,
+which must operate by the agency of others; because, when they do not
+sit, they can employ no agent, having no longer any legal existence; but
+that which is exercised on themselves revives at their meeting, when the
+subject of that power still subsists: they can, in the next session,
+refuse to re-admit him, whom, in the former session, they expelled. That
+expulsion inferred exclusion, in the present case, must be, I think,
+easily admitted. The expulsion, and the writ issued for a new election
+were in the same session, and, since the house is, by the rule of
+parliament, bound for the session by a vote once passed, the expelled
+member cannot be admitted. He that cannot be admitted, cannot be
+elected; and the votes given to a man ineligible being given in vain,
+the highest number for an eligible candidate becomes a majority.
+
+To these conclusions, as to most moral, and to all political positions,
+many objections may be made. The perpetual subject of political
+disquisition is not absolute, but comparative good. Of two systems of
+government, or two laws relating to the same subject, neither will ever
+be such as theoretical nicety would desire, and, therefore, neither can
+easily force its way against prejudice and obstinacy; each will have its
+excellencies and defects; and every man, with a little help from pride,
+may think his own the best.
+
+It seems to be the opinion of many, that expulsion is only a dismission
+of the representative to his constituents, with such a testimony against
+him, as his sentence may comprise; and that, if his constituents,
+notwithstanding the censure of the house, thinking his case hard, his
+fault trifling, or his excellencies such as overbalance it, should again
+choose him, as still worthy of their trust, the house cannot refuse him,
+for his punishment has purged his fault, and the right of electors must
+not be violated.
+
+This is plausible, but not cogent. It is a scheme of representation,
+which would make a specious appearance in a political romance, but
+cannot be brought into practice among us, who see every day the towering
+head of speculation bow down unwillingly to groveling experience.
+
+Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients,
+as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are
+never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of dissimilar
+materials, raised by different architects, upon different plans. We must
+be content with them, as they are; should we attempt to mend their
+disproportions, we might easily demolish, and difficultly rebuild them.
+
+Laws are now made, and customs are established; these are our rules, and
+by them we must be guided.
+
+It is uncontrovertibly certain, that the commons never intended to leave
+electors the liberty of returning them an expelled member; for they
+always require one to be chosen in the room of him that is expelled, and
+I see not with what propriety a man can be rechosen in his own room.
+
+Expulsion, if this were its whole effect, might very often be desirable.
+Sedition, or obscenity, might be no greater crimes in the opinion of
+other electors, than in that of the freeholders of Middlesex; and many a
+wretch, whom his colleagues should expel, might come back persecuted
+into fame, and provoke, with harder front, a second expulsion.
+
+Many of the representatives of the people can hardly be said to have
+been chosen at all. Some, by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat; and
+some sit by the favour of others, whom, perhaps, they may gratify by the
+act which provoked the expulsion. Some are safe by their popularity, and
+some by their alliances. None would dread expulsion, if this doctrine
+were received, but those who bought their elections, and who would be
+obliged to buy them again at a higher price.
+
+But as uncertainties are to be determined by things certain, and customs
+to be explained, where it is possible, by written law, the patriots have
+triumphed with a quotation from an act of the fourth and fifth of Anne,
+which permits those to be rechosen, whose seats are vacated by the
+acceptance of a place of profit. This they wisely consider as an
+expulsion, and from the permission, in this case, of a reelection,
+infer, that every other expulsion leaves the delinquent entitled to the
+same indulgence. This is the paragraph:
+
+"If any person, being chosen a member of the house of commons, shall
+accept of any office from the crown, during such time as he shall
+continue a member, his election shall be, and is hereby declared to be
+void; and a new writ shall issue for a new election, as if such person,
+so accepting, was naturally dead. Nevertheless such person shall be
+capable of being again elected, as if his place had not become void as
+aforesaid."
+
+How this favours the doctrine of readmission, by a second choice, I am
+not able to discover. The statute of the thirtieth of Charles the second
+had enacted, that "he who should sit in the house of commons, without
+taking the oaths, and subscribing the test, should be disabled to sit in
+the house during that parliament, and a writ should issue for the
+election of a new member, in place of the member so disabled, as if such
+member had naturally died."
+
+This last clause is, apparently, copied in the act of Anne, but with the
+common fate of imitators. In the act of Charles, the political death
+continued during the parliament; in that of Anne it was hardly worth the
+while to kill the man whom the next breath was to revive. It is,
+however, apparent, that in the opinion of the parliament, the dead-doing
+lines would have kept him motionless, if he had not been recovered by a
+kind exception. A seat vacated could not be regained, without express
+permission of the same statute.
+
+The right of being chosen again to a seat thus vacated, is not enjoyed
+by any general right, but required a special clause and solicitous
+provision.
+
+But what resemblance can imagination conceive between one man vacating
+his seat by a mark of favour from the crown, and another driven from it
+for sedition and obscenity? The acceptance of a place contaminates no
+character; the crown that gives it, intends to give with it always
+dignity, sometimes authority. The commons, it is well known, think not
+worse of themselves, or others, for their offices of profit; yet profit
+implies temptation, and may expose a representative to the suspicion of
+his constituents; though, if they still think him worthy of their
+confidence, they may again elect him.
+
+Such is the consequence. When a man is dismissed by law to his
+constituents, with new trust and new dignity, they may, if they think
+him incorruptible, restore him to his seat; what can follow, therefore,
+but that, when the house drives out a varlet, with publick infamy, he
+goes away with the like permission to return?
+
+If infatuation be, as the proverb tells us, the forerunner of
+destruction, how near must be the ruin of a nation that can be incited
+against its governours by sophistry like this! I may be excused, if I
+catch the panick, and join my groans, at this alarming crisis, with the
+general lamentation of weeping patriots.
+
+Another objection is, that the commons, by pronouncing the sentence of
+disqualification, make a law, and take upon themselves the power of the
+whole legislature. Many quotations are then produced to prove, that the
+house of commons can make no laws.
+
+Three acts have been cited, disabling members, for different terms, on
+different occasions; and it is profoundly remarked, that if the commons
+could, by their own privilege, have made a disqualification, their
+jealousy of their privileges would never have admitted the concurrent
+sanction of the other powers.
+
+I must for ever remind these puny controvertists, that those acts are
+laws of permanent obligation; that two of them are now in force, and
+that the other expired only when it had fulfilled its end. Such laws the
+commons cannot make; they could, perhaps, have determined for
+themselves, that they would expel all who should not take the test, but
+they could leave no authority behind them, that should oblige the next
+parliament to expel them. They could refuse the South sea directors, but
+they could not entail the refusal. They can disqualify by vote, but not
+by law; they cannot know that the sentence of disqualification
+pronounced to-day may not become void to-morrow, by the dissolution of
+their own house. Yet, while the same parliament sits, the
+disqualification continues, unless the vote be rescinded; and, while it
+so continues, makes the votes, which freeholders may give to the
+interdicted candidate, useless and dead, since there cannot exist, with
+respect to the same subject, at the same time, an absolute power to
+choose and an absolute power to reject.
+
+In 1614, the attorney general was voted incapable of a seat in the house
+of commons; and the nation is triumphantly told, that, though the vote
+never was revoked, the attorney general is now a member. He, certainly,
+may now be a member, without revocation of the vote. A law is of
+perpetual obligation; but a vote is nothing, when the voters are gone. A
+law is a compact reciprocally made by the legislative powers, and,
+therefore, not to be abrogated but by all the parties. A vote is simply
+a resolution, which binds only him that is willing to be bound.
+
+I have thus punctiliously and minutely pursued this disquisition,
+because I suspect, that these reasoners, whose business is to deceive
+others, have sometimes deceived themselves, and I am willing to free
+them from their embarrassment, though I do not expect much gratitude for
+my kindness.
+
+Other objections are yet remaining, for of political objections there
+cannot easily be an end. It has been observed, that vice is no proper
+cause of expulsion; for if the worst man in the house were always to be
+expelled, in time none would be left; but no man is expelled for being
+worst, he is expelled for being enormously bad; his conduct is compared,
+not with that of others, but with the rule of action.
+
+The punishment of expulsion, being in its own nature uncertain, may be
+too great or too little for the fault.
+
+This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is
+nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally
+a good; and, indeed, any punishment, less than death, is very different
+to different men.
+
+But, if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can,
+hereafter, be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would
+choose. One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch
+an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation
+may, by this stratagem, be without its lawful representatives.
+
+He that sees all this, sees very far. But I can tell him of greater
+evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this
+alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice,
+the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the
+Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a
+house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill
+of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect that these hungry
+intruders from the north are now contriving to expel all the English. We
+may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and
+exclusion are the same; for who can guess what may be done, when the
+Scots have the whole house to themselves?
+
+Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections,
+real or imaginary, thus consistent with the practice of former times,
+and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that
+decision, by which so much violence of discontent has been excited,
+which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.
+
+Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or
+in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and
+give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It
+may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood,
+by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.
+
+All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful
+seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not
+be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part
+of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the publick should
+be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might
+all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there
+would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and
+obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble,
+whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters
+of the bill of rights.
+
+The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it
+ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man,
+whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes,
+and his constituents feel their disappointment, with no less anguish
+than the freeholders of Middlesex. These decisions have often been
+apparently partial, and, sometimes, tyrannically oppressive. A majority
+has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had
+always been allowed, and which, therefore, had the authority by which
+all votes are given, that of custom uninterrupted. When the commons
+determine who shall be constituents, they may, with some propriety, be
+said to make law, because those determinations have, hitherto, for the
+sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote,
+therefore, of the house, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a
+law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.
+
+Yet, though all this has been done, and though, at every new parliament,
+much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced, in any
+former time, such an alarming crisis. We have found, by experience, that
+though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has
+been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it
+did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the
+same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has
+been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly
+reaped it; and he that built a house was master of the door; the
+vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by
+any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it
+neither spread far, nor lasted long.
+
+The nation looked on with little care, because there did not seem to be
+much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and
+we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.
+
+But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is quickened,
+and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see events in their
+causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is
+clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has,
+by the force of English genius, been improved, at last, not only to
+political intuition, but to political prescience.
+
+But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are
+made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called
+second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second
+sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis,
+of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new
+wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.
+
+The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for
+himself, now cares for the publick; for he has learned, that the
+happiness of individuals is comprised in the prosperity of the whole;
+and that his country never suffers, but he suffers with it, however it
+happens that he feels no pain.
+
+Fired with this fever of epidemick patriotism, the tailor slips his
+thimble, the draper drops his yard, and the blacksmith lays down his
+hammer; they meet at an honest ale-house, consider the state of the
+nation, read or hear the last petition, lament the miseries of the time,
+are alarmed at the dreadful crisis, and subscribe to the support of the
+bill of rights.
+
+It sometimes, indeed, happens, that an intruder, of more benevolence
+than prudence, attempts to disperse their cloud of dejection, and ease
+their hearts by seasonable consolation. He tells them, that though the
+government cannot be too diligently watched, it may be too hastily
+accused; and that, though private judgment is every man's right, yet we
+cannot judge of what we do not know; that we feel at present no evils
+which government can alleviate, and that the publick business is
+committed to men, who have as much right to confidence as their
+adversaries; that the freeholders of Middlesex, if they could not choose
+Mr. Wilkes, might have chosen any other man, and that "he trusts we have
+within the realm, five hundred as good as he;" that even if this, which
+has happened to Middlesex, had happened to every other county, that one
+man should be made incapable of being elected, it could produce no great
+change in the parliament, nor much contract the power of election; that,
+what has been done is, probably, right; and that if it be wrong, it is
+of little consequence, since a like case cannot easily occur; that
+expulsions are very rare, and if they should, by unbounded insolence of
+faction, become more frequent, the electors may easily provide a second
+choice.
+
+All this he may say, but not half of this will be heard; his opponents
+will stun him and themselves with a confused sound of pensions and
+places, venality and corruption, oppression and invasion, slavery and
+ruin.
+
+Outcries, like these, uttered by malignity, and echoed by folly; general
+accusations of indeterminate wickedness; and obscure hints of impossible
+designs, dispersed among those that do not know their meaning, by those
+that know them to be false, have disposed part of the nation, though but
+a small part, to pester the court with ridiculous petitions.
+
+The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down
+to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to
+serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government.
+His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have
+nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are
+plentifully provided; a crowd is easily brought together, and those who
+think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell
+those who know it not; ale and clamour unite their powers; the crowd,
+condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition: all
+see a thousand evils, though they cannot show them; and grow impatient
+for a remedy, though they know not what.
+
+A speech is then made by the _Cicero_ of the day; he says much, and
+suppresses more; and credit is equally given to what he tells, and what
+he conceals. The petition is read, and universally approved. Those who
+are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it,
+if they could.
+
+Every man goes home and tells his neighbour of the glories of the day;
+how he was consulted, and what he advised; how he was invited into the
+great room, where his lordship called him by his name; how he was
+caressed by sir Francis, sir Joseph, or sir George; how he eat turtle
+and venison, and drank unanimity to the three brothers.
+
+The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him, or whose wife had locked
+him up, hears the tale of luxury with envy, and, at last, inquires what
+was their petition. Of the petition nothing is remembered by the
+narrator, but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions, and
+something very alarming, and that he is sure it is against the
+government; the other is convinced that it must be right, and wishes he
+had been there, for he loves wine and venison, and is resolved, as long
+as he lives, to be against the government.
+
+The petition is then handed from town to town, and from house to house;
+and, wherever it comes, the inhabitants flock together, that they may
+see that which must be sent to the king. Names are easily collected. One
+man signs, because he hates the papists; another, because he has vowed
+destruction to the tumpikes; one, because it will vex the parson;
+another, because he owes his landlord nothing; one, because he is rich;
+another, because he is poor; one, to show that he is not afraid; and
+another, to show that he can write.
+
+The passage, however, is not always smooth. Those who collect
+contributions to sedition, sometimes apply to a man of higher rank and
+more enlightened mind, who, instead of lending them his name, calmly
+reproves them for being seducers of the people.
+
+You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the
+agents of those who having estimated themselves at too high a price, are
+only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the
+parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who, scarcely, in the most
+common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question
+complicated with law written and unwritten, with the general principles
+of government, and the particular customs of the house of commons; you
+are showing them a grievance, so distant that they cannot see it, and so
+light that they cannot feel it; for how, but by unnecessary intelligence
+and artificial provocation, should the farmers and shopkeepers of
+Yorkshire and Cumberland know or care how Middlesex is represented?
+Instead of wandering thus round the county to exasperate the rage of
+party, and darken the suspicions of ignorance, it is the duty of men
+like you, who have leisure for inquiry, to lead back the people to their
+honest labour; to tell them, that submission is the duty of the
+ignorant, and content the virtue of the poor; that they have no skill in
+the art of government, nor any interest in the dissensions of the great;
+and when you meet with any, as some there are, whose understandings are
+capable of conviction, it will become you to allay this foaming
+ebullition, by showing them, that they have as much happiness as the
+condition of life will easily receive; and that a government, of which
+an erroneous or unjust representation of Middlesex is the greatest crime
+that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is government
+approaching nearer to perfection, than any that experience has known, or
+history related.
+
+The drudges of sedition wish to change their ground; they hear him with
+sullen silence, feel conviction without repentance, and are confounded,
+but not abashed; they go forward to another door, and find a kinder
+reception from a man enraged against the government, because he has just
+been paying the tax upon his windows.
+
+That a petition for a dissolution of the parliament will, at all times,
+have its favourers, may be easily imagined. The people, indeed, do not
+expect that one house of commons will be much honester or much wiser
+than another; they do not suppose that the taxes will be lightened; or,
+though they have been so often taught to hope it, that soap and candles
+will be cheaper; they expect no redress of grievances, for of no
+grievances, but taxes, do they complain; they wish not the extension of
+liberty, for they do not feel any restraint; about the security of
+privilege or property they are totally careless, for they see no
+property invaded, nor know, till they are told, that any privilege has
+suffered violation.
+
+Least of all do they expect, that any future parliament will lessen its
+own powers, or communicate to the people that authority which it has
+once obtained.
+
+Yet a new parliament is sufficiently desirable. The year of election is
+a year of jollity; and, what is still more delightful, a year of
+equality: the glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when
+he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine,
+without the cost: the drone lives awhile without work, and the
+shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price: the mechanick, that
+trembled at the presence of sir Joseph, now bids him come again for an
+answer: and the poacher, whose gun has been seized, now finds an
+opportunity to reclaim it. Even the honest man is not displeased to see
+himself important, and willingly resumes, in two years, that power which
+he had resigned for seven. Few love their friends so well as not to
+desire superiority by unexpensive benefaction.
+
+Yet, notwithstanding all these motives to compliance, the promoters of
+petitions have not been successful. Few could be persuaded to lament
+evils which they did not suffer, or to solicit for redress which they do
+not want. The petition has been, in some places, rejected; and, perhaps,
+in all but one, signed only by the meanest and grossest of the people.
+
+Since this expedient, now invented or revived, to distress the
+government, and equally practicable, at all times, by all who shall be
+excluded from power and from profit, has produced so little effect, let
+us consider the opposition as no longer formidable. The great engine has
+recoiled upon them. They thought, that _the terms_, they _sent, were
+terms of weight_, which would have _amazed all, and stumbled many_; but
+the consternation is now over, and their foes _stand upright_, as
+before.
+
+With great propriety and dignity the king has, in his speech, neglected
+or forgotten them. He might easily know, that what was presented, as the
+sense of the people, is the sense only of the profligate and dissolute;
+and, that whatever parliament should be convened, the same petitioners
+would be ready, for the same reason, to request its dissolution.
+
+As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an opposition of
+the pedlers. The quiet of the nation has been, for years, disturbed by a
+faction, against which all factions ought to conspire; for its original
+principle is the desire of leveling; it is only animated, under the name
+of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great.
+
+When, in the confusion which the English invasions produced in France,
+the villains, imagining that they had found the golden hour of
+emancipation, took arms in their hands, the knights of both nations
+considered the cause as common, and suspending the general hostility,
+united to chastise them.
+
+The whole conduct of this despicable faction is distinguished by
+plebeian grossness, and savage indecency. To misrepresent the actions
+and the principles of their enemies is common to all parties; but the
+insolence of invective, and brutality of reproach, which have lately
+prevailed, are peculiar to this.
+
+An infallible characteristick of meanness is cruelty. This is the only
+faction, that has shouted at the condemnation of a criminal, and that,
+when his innocence procured his pardon, has clamoured for his blood.
+
+All other parties, however enraged at each other, have agreed to treat
+the throne with decency; but these low-born railers have attacked not
+only the authority, but the character of their sovereign, and have
+endeavoured, surely without effect, to alienate the affections of the
+people from the only king, who, for almost a century, has much appeared
+to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve them. They have insulted him
+with rudeness, and with menaces, which were never excited by the gloomy
+sullenness of William, even when half the nation denied him their
+allegiance; nor by the dangerous bigotry of James, unless, when he was
+finally driven from his palace; and with which scarcely the open
+hostilities of rebellion ventured to vilify the unhappy Charles, even in
+the remarks on the cabinet of Naseby.
+
+It is surely not unreasonable to hope, that the nation will consult its
+dignity, if not its safety, and disdain to be protected or enslaved by
+the declaimers, or the plotters of a city tavern. Had Rome fallen by the
+Catilinarian conspiracy, she might have consoled her fate by the
+greatness of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the disgrace
+of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?
+
+One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but
+for some weighty and apparent interest. If the means were violent, the
+end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called, and
+believed, the best religion and the best government. The struggle in the
+reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now
+disputing, with almost equal animosity, whether Middlesex shall be
+represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.
+
+The only comfort left, in such degeneracy, is, that a lower state can be
+no longer possible.
+
+In this contemptuous censure, I mean not to include every single man. In
+all lead, says the chymist, there is silver; and in all copper there is
+gold. But mingled masses are justly denominated by the greater quantity,
+and when the precious particles are not worth extraction, a faction and
+a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance
+allots them:
+
+  "Fiunt urceoli, pelves, sartago, patellæ."
+
+A few weeks will now show, whether the government can be shaken by empty
+noise, and whether the faction, which depends upon its influence, has
+not deceived, alike, the publick and itself. That it should have
+continued till now, is sufficiently shameful. None can, indeed, wonder
+that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of
+sedition, and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now
+remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find
+separation now only tolerated, which was once rewarded; but every honest
+man must lament, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the
+tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by
+opposition to the court, do not yet consider, that they have, at last, a
+king, who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common
+father of all his people.
+
+As a man inebriated only by vapours soon recovers in the open air; a
+nation discontented to madness, without any adequate cause, will return
+to its wits and its allegiance, when a little pause has cooled it to
+reflection. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, at this alarming crisis,
+but to consider the alarm as false. To make concessions is to encourage
+encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed
+people will soon deride it.
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.
+
+
+The following thoughts were published in 1771; from materials furnished
+to the author by the ministry. His description of the miseries of war is
+most eloquently persuasive, and his invectives against the opposition,
+and their mysterious champion, abound with the most forcible and
+poignant satire. In a letter to Mr. Langton, from Johnson, we find that
+lord North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed.
+Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason
+of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a
+dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the
+second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down
+or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the
+value of the Falkland islands to England too low.--ED.
+
+
+
+
+THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771.
+
+
+To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard
+a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the
+discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed
+armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
+
+Not, many years have passed, since the cruelties of war were filling the
+world with terrour and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or
+strength exhausted, and, to the harassed nations peace was restored with
+its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness,
+and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can
+be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger
+of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in
+the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if
+they had not happened to make a seamark, had, perhaps, never had a name!
+
+Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected; and that
+renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness,
+is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was
+ennobled by the passage of Caesar, and the time is now come, when
+Falkland's islands demand their historian.
+
+But the writer, to whom this employment shall be assigned, will have few
+opportunities of descriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of other
+countries it is told, how often they have changed their government;
+these islands have, hitherto, changed only their name. Of heroes to
+conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance;
+nothing has happened to them, but that they have been, sometimes, seen
+by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better
+habitations.
+
+When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered
+America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions, they
+surprised and terrified Europe, by a sudden and unexampled influx of
+riches. They were made, at once, insupportably insolent, and might,
+perhaps, have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous
+treasures been scattered in the air, with the ignorant profusion of
+unaccustomed opulence.
+
+The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches
+flowing into Spain, without attempting to dip their own hands in the
+golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was
+extending her dominions in the east, over regions formed in the gaiety
+of nature; the Hanseatick league, being planned only for the security of
+traffick, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial
+states of Italy, growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and
+not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek, by great hazards, at a
+distance, what was, almost at home, to be found with safety.
+
+The English, alone, were animated by the success of the Spanish
+navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or
+incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north
+there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were
+pre-occupied, yet they still continued their hopes and their labours.
+They were the second nation that dared the extent of the Pacifick ocean,
+and the second circumnavigators of the globe.
+
+By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became
+lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty,
+supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the
+Spaniards. Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their
+influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views
+of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.
+
+In the fatal voyage of Cavendish, (1592,) captain Davis, who, being sent
+out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him, or deserted him,
+as he was driven, by violence of weather, about the straits of Magellan,
+is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called
+Falkland's islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any
+observation; and he left them, as he found them, without a name.
+
+Not long afterwards, (1594,) sir Richard Hawkins being in the same seas,
+with the same designs, saw these islands again, if they are, indeed, the
+same islands, and, in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's
+maiden land.
+
+This voyage was not of renown sufficient to procure a general reception
+to the new name; for when the Dutch, who had now become strong enough
+not only to defend themselves, but to attack their masters, sent (1598)
+Verhagen and Sebald de Wert into the South seas, these islands, which
+were not supposed to have been known before, obtained the denomination
+of Sebald's islands, and were, from that time, placed in the charts;
+though Frezier tells us, that they were yet considered as of doubtful
+existence.
+
+Their present English name was, probably, given them (1689) by Strong,
+whose journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Museum. This name was
+adopted by Halley, and has, from that time, I believe, been received
+into our maps.
+
+The privateers, which were put into motion by the wars of William and
+Anne, saw those islands, and mention them; but they were yet not
+considered as territories worth a contest. Strong affirmed that there
+was no wood; and Dampier suspected that they had no water.
+
+Frezier describes their appearance with more distinctness, and mentions
+some ships of St. Malo's, by which they had been visited, and to which
+he seems willing enough to ascribe the honour of discovering islands,
+which yet he admits to have been seen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de
+Wert. He, I suppose, in honour of his countrymen, called them the
+Malouines, the denomination now used by the Spaniards, who seem not,
+till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deserve a
+name.
+
+Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed
+their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepys's, or Falkland's island,
+recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future
+expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as of such use and
+importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and, in war,
+would make us masters of the South sea.
+
+Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the
+imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. The
+relater of Anson's voyage had heated his mind with its various events;
+had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation suffered
+by its various miscarriages, and then thought nothing could be of
+greater benefit to the nation, than that which might promote the success
+of such another enterprise.
+
+Had the heroes of that history even performed and attained all that,
+when they first spread their sails, they ventured to hope, the
+consequence would yet have produced very little hurt to the Spaniards,
+and very little benefit to the English. They would have taken a few
+towns; Anson and his companions would have shared the plunder or the
+ransome; and the Spaniards, finding their southern territories
+accessible, would, for the future, have guarded them better.
+
+That such a settlement may be of use in war, no man, that considers its
+situation, will deny. But war is not the whole business of life; it
+happens but seldom, and every man, either good or wise, wishes that its
+frequency were still less. That conduct which betrays designs of future
+hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate
+malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and
+continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indirect
+injuries, without the bravery of war or the security of peace.
+
+The advantage of such a settlement, in time of peace, is, I think, not
+easily to be proved. For what use can it have, but of a station for
+contraband traders, a nursery of fraud, and a receptacle of theft!
+Narborough, about a century ago, was of opinion, that no advantage could
+be obtained in voyages to the South sea, except by such an armament as,
+with a sailor's morality, _might trade by force_. It is well known, that
+the prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these countries, to the
+last degree, rigorous, and that no man, not authorized by the king of
+Spain, can trade there but by force or stealth. Whatever profit is
+obtained must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of
+fraud.
+
+Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at such purity and excellence,
+but that some connivance, at least, will be indulged to the triumphant
+robber and successful cheat. He that brings wealth home is seldom
+interrogated by what means it was obtained. This, however, is one of
+those modes of corruption with which mankind ought always to struggle,
+and which they may, in time, hope to overcome. There is reason to
+expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality
+will, at last, be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what
+they would not suffer.
+
+But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity
+far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To
+pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the
+crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! The
+contraband trader is not more worthy of protections; if, with
+Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he
+is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as
+obstructers of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats,
+because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full
+of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those,
+who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when
+he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in
+evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends
+the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example.
+
+Whether these truths were forgotten, or despised; or, whether some
+better purpose was then in agitation, the representation made in Anson's
+voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of that time, that, in 1748,
+some sloops were fitted out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and
+Falkland's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea. This
+expedition, though, perhaps, designed to be secret, was not long
+concealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassadour, who so vehemently opposed
+it, and so strongly maintained the right of the Spaniards to the
+exclusive dominion of the South sea, that the English ministry
+relinquished part of their original design, and declared, that the
+examination of those two islands was the utmost that their orders should
+comprise.
+
+This concession was sufficiently liberal or sufficiently submissive; yet
+the Spanish court was neither gratified by our kindness, nor softened by
+our humility. Sir Benjamin Keene, who then resided at Madrid, was
+interrogated by Carvajal, concerning the visit intended to Pepys's and
+Falkland's islands, in terms of great jealousy and discontent; and the
+intended expedition was represented, if not as a direct violation of the
+late peace, yet as an act inconsistent with amicable intentions, and
+contrary to the professions of mutual kindness, which then passed
+between Spain and England. Keene was directed to protest, that nothing
+more than mere discovery was intended, and that no settlement was to be
+established. The Spaniard readily replied, that, if this was a voyage of
+wanton curiosity, it might be gratified with less trouble, for he was
+willing to communicate whatever was known; that to go so far only to
+come back was no reasonable act; and it would be a slender sacrifice to
+peace and friendship to omit a voyage, in which nothing was to be
+gained; that if we left the, places as we found them, the voyage was
+useless; and if we took possession, it was a hostile armament; nor could
+we expect that the Spaniards would suppose us to visit the southern
+parts of America only from curiosity, after the scheme proposed by the
+author of Anson's voyage.
+
+When once we had disowned all purpose of settling, it is apparent, that
+we could not defend the propriety of our expedition by arguments
+equivalent to Carvajal's objections. The ministry, therefore, dismissed
+the whole design, but no declaration was required, by which our right to
+pursue it, hereafter, might be annulled.
+
+From this time Falkland's island was forgotten or neglected, till the
+conduct of naval affairs was intrusted to the earl of Egmont, a man
+whose mind was vigorous and ardent, whose knowledge was extensive, and
+whose designs were magnificent; but who had somewhat vitiated his
+judgment by too much indulgence of romantick projects and airy
+speculations.
+
+Lord Egmont's eagerness after something new determined him to make
+inquiry after Falkland's island, and he sent out captain Byron, who, in
+the beginning of the year 1765, took, he says, a formal possession, in
+the name of his Britannick majesty.
+
+The possession of this place is, according to Mr. Byron's
+representation, no despicable acquisition. He conceived the island to be
+six or seven hundred miles round, and represented it, as a region naked
+indeed of wood, but which, if that defect were supplied, would have all
+that nature, almost all that luxury could want. The harbour he found
+capacious and secure, and, therefore, thought it worthy of the name of
+Egmont. Of water there was no want, and the ground he described, as
+having all the excellencies of soil, and as covered with antiscorbutick
+herbs, the restoratives of the sailor. Provision was easily to be had,
+for they killed, almost every day, a hundred geese to each ship, by
+pelting them with stones. Not content with physick and with food, he
+searched yet deeper for the value of the new dominion. He dug in quest
+of ore; found iron in abundance, and did not despair of nobler metals.
+
+A country thus fertile and delightful, fortunately found where none
+would have expected it, about the fiftieth degree of southern latitude,
+could not, without great supineness, be neglected. Early in the next
+year, (January 8, 1766,) captain Macbride arrived at port Egmont, where
+he erected a small block-house, and stationed a garrison; His
+description was less flattering. He found what he calls a mass of
+islands and broken lands, of which the soil was nothing but a bog, with
+no better prospect than that of barren mountains, beaten by storms
+almost perpetual. Yet this, says he, is summer, and if the winds of
+winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables'
+length from the shore, must pass weeks without any communication with
+it. The plenty which regaled Mr. Byron, and which might have supported
+not only armies, but armies of Patagons, was no longer to be found. The
+geese were too wise to stay, when men violated their haunts, and Mr.
+Macbride's crew could only now and then kill a goose, when the weather
+would permit. All the quadrupeds which he met there were foxes, supposed
+by him to have been brought upon the ice; but of useless animals, such
+as sea lions and penguins, which he calls vermin, the number was
+incredible. He allows, however, that those who touch at these islands
+may find geese and snipes, and, in the summer months, wild celery and
+sorrel.
+
+No token was seen, by either, of any settlement ever made upon this
+island; and Mr. Macbride thought himself so secure from hostile
+disturbance, that, when he erected his wooden block-house, he omitted to
+open the ports and loopholes.
+
+When a garrison was stationed at port Egmont, it was necessary to try
+what sustenance the ground could be, by culture, excited to produce. A
+garden was prepared; but the plants that sprung up withered away in
+immaturity: some fir seeds were sown; but, though this be the native
+tree of rugged climates, the young firs, that rose above the ground,
+died like weaker herbage: the cold continued long, and the ocean seldom
+was at rest.
+
+Cattle succeeded better than vegetables. Goats, sheep, and hogs, that
+were carried thither, were found to thrive and increase, as in other
+places.
+
+"Nil mortalibus arduum est:" there is nothing which human courage will
+not undertake, and little that human, patience will not endure. The
+garrison lived upon Falkland's island, shrinking from the blast, and
+shuddering at the billows.
+
+This was a colony which could never become independent, for it never
+could be able to maintain itself. The necessary supplies were annually
+sent from England, at an expense which the admiralty began to think
+would not quickly be repaid. But shame of deserting a project, and
+unwillingness to contend with a projector that meant well, continued the
+garrison, and supplied it with regular remittances of stores and
+provision.
+
+That of which we were almost weary ourselves, we did not expect any one
+to envy; and, therefore, supposed that we should be permitted to reside
+in Falkland's island, the undisputed lords of tempest-beaten barrenness.
+
+But, on the 28th of November, 1769, captain Hunt, observing a Spanish
+schooner hovering about the island, and surveying it, sent the commander
+a message, by which he required him to depart. The Spaniard made an
+appearance of obeying, but, in two days, came back with letters, written
+by the governour of port Solidad, and brought by the chief officer of a
+settlement, on the east part of Falkland's island.
+
+In this letter, dated Malouina, November 30, the governour complains,
+that captain Hunt, when he ordered the schooner to depart, assumed a
+power to which he could have no pretensions, by sending an imperious
+message to the Spaniards, in the king of Spain's own dominions.
+
+In another letter, sent at the same time, he supposes the English to be
+in that part only by accident, and to be ready to depart, at the first
+warning. This letter was accompanied by a present, of which, says he,
+"If it be neither equal to my desire nor to your merit, you must impute
+the deficiency to the situation of us both."
+
+In return to this hostile civility, captain Hunt warned them from the
+island, which he claimed in the name of the king, as belonging to the
+English, by right of the first discovery and the first settlement.
+
+This was an assertion of more confidence than certainty. The right of
+discovery, indeed, has already appeared to be probable, but the right
+which priority of settlement confers, I know not whether we yet can
+establish.
+
+On December 10, the officer, sent by the governour of port Solidad, made
+three protests against captain Hunt, for threatening to fire upon him;
+for opposing his entrance into port Egmont; and for entering himself
+into port Solidad. On the 12th, the governour of port Solidad formally
+warned captain Hunt to leave port Egmont, and to forbear the navigation
+of these seas, without permission from the king of Spain.
+
+To this captain Hunt replied, by repeating his former claim; by
+declaring that his orders were to keep possession; and by once more
+warning the Spaniards to depart.
+
+The next month produced more protests and more replies, of which the
+tenour was nearly the same. The operations of such harmless enmity
+having produced no effect, were then reciprocally discontinued, and the
+English were left, for a time, to enjoy the pleasures of Falkland's
+island, without molestation.
+
+This tranquillity, however, did not last long. A few months afterwards,
+(June 4, 1770,) the Industry, a Spanish frigate, commanded by an
+officer, whose name was Madariaga, anchored in port Egmont, bound, as
+was said, for port Solidad, and reduced, by a passage from Buenos Ayres
+of fifty-three days, to want of water.
+
+Three days afterwards, four other frigates entered the port, and a broad
+pendant, such as is borne by the commander of a naval armament, was
+displayed from the Industry. Captain Farmer, of the Swift frigate, who
+commanded the garrison, ordered the crew of the Swift to come on shore,
+and assist in its defence; and directed captain Maltby to bring the
+Favourite frigate, which he commanded, nearer to the land. The Spaniards
+easily discovering the purpose of his motion, let him know, that if he
+weighed his anchor, they would fire upon his ship; but, paying no regard
+to these menaces, he advanced toward the shore. The Spanish fleet
+followed, and two shots were fired, which fell at a distance from him.
+He then sent to inquire the reason of such hostility, and was told, that
+the shots were intended only as signals.
+
+Both the English captains wrote, the next day, to Madariaga, the Spanish
+commodore, warning him from the island, as from a place which the
+English held by right of discovery.
+
+Madariaga, who seems to have had no desire of unnecessary mischief,
+invited them (June 9) to send an officer, who should take a view of his
+forces, that they might be convinced of the vanity of resistance, and do
+that, without compulsion, which he was, upon refusal, prepared to
+enfcrce.
+
+An officer was sent, who found sixteen hundred men, with a train of
+twenty-seven cannon, four mortars, and two hundred bombs. The fleet
+consisted of five frigates, from twenty to thirty guns, which were now
+stationed opposite to the block-house.
+
+He then sent them a formal memorial, in which he maintained his master's
+right to the whole Magellanick region, and exhorted the English to
+retire quietly from the settlement, which they could neither justify by
+right, nor maintain by power.
+
+He offered them the liberty of carrying away whatever they were desirous
+to remove, and promised his receipt for what should be left, that no
+loss might be suffered by them.
+
+His propositions were expressed in terms of great civility; but he
+concludes with demanding an answer in fifteen minutes.
+
+Having, while he was writing, received the letters of warning, written
+the day before by the English captains, he told them, that he thought
+himself able to prove the king of Spain's title to all those countries,
+but that this was no time for verbal altercations. He persisted in his
+determination, and allowed only fifteen minutes for an answer.
+
+To this it was replied, by captain Farmer, that though there had been
+prescribed yet a shorter time, he should still resolutely defend his
+charge; that this, whether menace or force, would be considered as an
+insult on the British flag, and that satisfaction would certainly be
+required.
+
+On the next day, June 10, Madariaga landed his forces, and it may be
+easily imagined, that he had no bloody conquest. The English had only a
+wooden block-house, built at Woolwich, and carried in pieces to the
+island, with a small battery of cannon. To contend with obstinacy had
+been only to lavish life without use or hope, After the exchange of a
+very few shots, a capitulation was proposed.
+
+The Spanish commander acted with moderation; he exerted little of the
+conqueror; what he had offered before the attack, he granted after the
+victory; the English were allowed to leave the place with every honour,
+only their departure was delayed, by the terms of the capitulation,
+twenty days; and, to secure their stay, the rudder of the Favourite was
+taken off. What they desired to carry away they removed without
+molestation; and of what they left, an inventory was drawn, for which
+the Spanish officer, by his receipt, promised to be accountable.
+
+Of this petty revolution, so sudden and so distant, the English ministry
+could not possibly have such notice, as might enable them to prevent it.
+The conquest, if such it may be called, cost but three days; for the
+Spaniards, either supposing the garrison stronger than it was, or
+resolving to trust nothing to chance, or considering that, as their
+force was greater, there was less dariger of bloodshed, came with a
+power that made resistance ridiculous, and, at once, demanded and
+obtained possession.
+
+The first account of any discontent expressed by the Spaniards, was
+brought by captain Hunt, who arriving at Plymouth, June 3, 1770,
+informed the admiralty, that the island had been claimed in December, by
+the governour of port Solidad.
+
+This claim, made by an officer of so little dignity, without any known
+direction from his superiours, could be considered only as the zeal or
+officiousness of an individual, unworthy of publick notice, or the
+formality of remonstrance.
+
+In August, Mr. Harris, the resident at Madrid, gave notice to lord
+Weymouth, of an account newly brought to Cadiz, that the English were in
+possession of port Cuizada, the same which we call port Egmont, in the
+Magellanick sea; that in January, they had warned away two Spanish
+ships; and that an armament was sent out in May, from Buenos Ayres, to
+dislodge them.
+
+It was, perhaps, not yet certain, that this account was true; but the
+information, however faithful, was too late for prevention. It was
+easily known, that a fleet despatched in May, had, before August,
+succeeded or miscarried.
+
+In October, captain Maltby came to England, and gave the account which I
+have now epitomised, of his expulsion from Falkland's islands.
+
+From this moment, the whole nation can witness, that no time was lost.
+The navy was surveyed, the ships refitted, and commanders appointed; and
+a powerful fleet was assembled, well manned and well stored, with
+expedition, after so long a peace, perhaps, never known before, and with
+vigour, which, after the waste of so long a war, scarcely any other
+nation had been capable of exerting.
+
+This preparation, so illustrious in the eyes of Europe, and so
+efficacious in its event, was obstructed by the utmost power of that
+noisy faction, which has too long filled the kingdom, sometimes with the
+roar of empty menace, and sometimes with the yell of hypocritical
+lamentation. Every man saw, and every honest man saw with detestation,
+that they who desired to force their sovereign into war, endeavoured, at
+the same time, to disable him from action.
+
+The vigour and spirit of the ministry easily broke through all the
+machinations of these pygmy rebels, and our armament was quickly such as
+was likely to make our negotiations effectual.
+
+The prince of Masseran, in his first conference with the English
+ministers on this occasion, owned that he had from Madrid received
+intelligence, that the English had been forcibly expelled from
+Falkland's island, by Buccarelli, the governour of Buenos Ayres, without
+any particular orders from the king of Spain. But being asked, whether,
+in his master's name, he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to
+answer, without direction.
+
+The scene of negotiation was now removed to Madrid, and, in September,
+Mr. Harris was directed to demand, from Grimaldi, the Spanish minister,
+the restitution of Falkland's island, and a disavowal of Buccarelli's
+hostilities.
+
+It was to be expected that Grimaldi would object to us our own
+behaviour, who had ordered the Spaniards to depart from the same island.
+To this it was replied, that the English forces were, indeed, directed
+to warn other nations away; but, if compliance were refused, to proceed
+quietly in making their settlement, and suffer the subjects, of whatever
+power, to remain there without molestation. By possession thus taken,
+there was only a disputable claim advanced, which might be peaceably and
+regularly decided, without insult and without force; and, if the
+Spaniards had complained at the British court, their reasons would have
+been heard, and all injuries redressed; but that, by presupposing the
+justice of their own title, and having recourse to arms, without any
+previous notice or remonstrance, they had violated the peace, and
+insulted the British government; and, therefore, it was expected, that
+satisfaction should be made by publick disavowal, and immediate
+restitution.
+
+The answer of Grimaldi was ambiguous and cold. He did not allow that any
+particular orders had been given for driving the English from their
+settlement; but made no scruple of declaring, that such an ejection was
+nothing more than the settlers might have expected; and that Buccarelli
+had not, in his opinion, incurred any blame, as the general injunctions
+to the American governours were to suffer no encroachments on the
+Spanish dominions.
+
+In October, the prince of Masseran proposed a convention, for the
+accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning
+given to the Spaniards, by Hunt, should be disavowed on one side, and
+the violence used by Buccarelli, on the other. This offer was
+considered, as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi was told,
+that injury required reparation; that when either party had suffered
+evident wrong, there was not the parity subsisting, which is implied in
+conventions and contracts; that we considered ourselves as openly
+insulted, and demanded satisfaction, plenary and unconditional.
+
+Grimaldi affected to wonder, that we were not yet appeased by their
+concessions. They had, he said, granted all that was required; they had
+offered to restore the island in the state in which they found it; but
+he thought that they, likewise, might hope for some regard, and that the
+warning, sent by Hunt, would be disavowed.
+
+Mr. Harris, our minister at Madrid, insisted, that the injured party had
+a right to unconditional reparation, and Grimaldi delayed his answer,
+that a council might be called. In a few days, orders were despatched to
+prince Masseran, by which he was commissioned to declare the king of
+Spain's readiness to satisfy the demands of the king of England, in
+expectation of receiving from him reciprocal satisfaction, by the
+disavowal, so often required, of Hunt's warning.
+
+Finding the Spaniards disposed to make no other acknowledgments, the
+English ministry considered a war as not likely to be long avoided. In
+the latter end of November, private notice was given of their danger to
+the merchants at Cadiz, and the officers, absent from Gibraltar, were
+remanded to their posts. Our naval force was every day increased, and we
+made no abatement of our original demand.
+
+The obstinacy of the Spanish court still continued, and, about the end
+of the year, all hope of reconciliation was so nearly extinguished, that
+Mr. Harris was directed to withdraw, with the usual forms, from his
+residence at Madrid.
+
+Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful; having
+not swelled our first requisition with any superfluous appendages, we
+had nothing to yield, we, therefore, only repeated our first
+proposition, prepared for war, though desirous of peace.
+
+About this time, as is well known, the king of France dismissed Choiseul
+from his employments. What effect this revolution of the French court
+had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul
+had always professed pacifick dispositions; nor is it certain, however
+it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different
+parties.
+
+It seems to be almost the universal errour of historians to suppose it
+politically, as it is physically true, that every effect has a
+proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the
+motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but
+the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws.
+The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always
+that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and
+flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each
+other; and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be
+the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made.
+
+Whether the alteration, which began in January to appear in the Spanish
+counsels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of
+their past conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not easy to
+decide; but they began, whatever was the reason, to relax their
+haughtiness, and Mr. Harris's departure was countermanded.
+
+The demands first made by England were still continued, and on January
+22d, the prince of Masseran delivered a declaration, in which the king
+of Spain "disavows the violent enterprise of Buccarelli," and promises
+"to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and
+stores, according to the inventory."
+
+To this promise of restitution is subjoined, that "this engagement to
+restore port Egmont cannot, nor ought, in any wise, to affect the
+question of the prior right of sovereignty of the _Malouine_, otherwise
+called Falkland's islands."
+
+This concession was accepted by the earl of Rochford, who declared, on
+the part of his master, that the prince of Masseran, being authorized by
+his catholick majesty, "to offer, in his majesty's name, to the king of
+Great Britain, a satisfaction for the injury done him, by dispossessing
+him of port Egmont;" and, having signed a declaration, expressing that
+his catholick majesty "disavows the expedition against port Egmont, and
+engages to restore it, in the state in which it stood before the 10th of
+June, 1770, his Britannick majesty will look upon the said declaration,
+together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his
+catholick majesty, as a satisfaction for the injury done to the crown of
+Great Britain."
+
+This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is disavowed,
+and the island is restored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception
+of lord Rochford's paper, who twice mentions the word _injury_, and
+twice the word _satisfaction_.
+
+The Spaniards have stipulated, that the grant of possession shall not
+preclude the question of prior right, a question which we shall probably
+make no haste to discuss, and a right, of which no formal resignation
+was ever required. This reserve has supplied matter for much clamour,
+and, perhaps the English ministry would have been better pleased had the
+declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was
+asked, why should we complain that we have not more? When the possession
+is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession
+supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for
+a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure,
+because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never
+been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king
+of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his
+title?
+
+If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a
+sovereign through his whole dominions; if sovereignty consists in this,
+that no superiour is acknowledged, our king reigns at port Egmont with
+sovereign authority. Almost every new-acquired territory is, in some
+degree, controvertible, and till the controversy is decided, a term very
+difficult to be fixed, all that can be had is real possession and actual
+dominion.
+
+This, surely, is a sufficient answer to the feudal gabble of a man, who
+is every day lessening that splendour of character which once
+illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and
+for whom it will be happy if the nation shall, at last, dismiss him to
+nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of blame and praise which
+Corneille allows to Richelieu, a man who, I think, had much of his
+merit, and many of his faults:
+
+  "Chacun parle à son gré de ce grand cardinal;
+    Mais, pour moi, je n'en dirai rien:
+  Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal;
+    Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."
+
+To push advantages too far is neither generous nor just. Had we insisted
+on a concession of antecedent right, it may not misbecome us, either as
+moralists or politicians, to consider what Grimaldi could have answered.
+We have already, he might say, granted you the whole effect of right,
+and have not denied you the name. We have not said, that the right was
+ours before this concession, but only that what right we had, is not, by
+this concession, vacated. We have now, for more than two centuries,
+ruled large tracts of the American continent, by a claim which, perhaps,
+is valid only upon this consideration, that no power can produce a
+better; by the right of discovery, and prior settlement. And by such
+titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that
+their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them
+greater veneration. Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole
+fabrick of our empire shakes at the foundation. When you suppose
+yourselves to have first descried the disputed island, you suppose what
+you can hardly prove. We were, at least, the general discoverers of the
+Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies.
+The justice of this tenure the world has, hitherto, admitted, and
+yourselves, at least, tacitly allowed it, when, about twenty years ago,
+you desisted from your purposed expedition, and expressly disowned any
+design of settling, where you are now not content to settle and to
+reign, without extorting such a confession of original right, as may
+invite every other nation to follow you.
+
+To considerations such as these, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety
+of the Spaniards, from which the importance of this island is inferred
+by Junius, one of the few writers of his despicable faction, whose name
+does not disgrace the page of an opponent. The value of the thing
+disputed may be very different to him that gains and him that loses it.
+The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's island, have admitted a precedent
+of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in
+the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior
+right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of
+their American territories.
+
+Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We
+have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarelli's expedition, and a
+restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and
+the superiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired?
+What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from
+human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not
+the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison
+must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of
+Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only
+occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a
+nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers.
+To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the
+island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet
+clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it
+in a short time.
+
+This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a
+numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the
+titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness approaches to
+an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long
+accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding
+another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess.
+But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto
+shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning
+for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!
+
+As war is the last of remedies, "cuncta prius tentanda," all lawful
+expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it
+is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care
+of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of animal
+nature, which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the
+depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collective
+life, for which fire and the sword are the necessary remedies; but in
+what can skill or caution be better shown, than preventing such dreadful
+operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods!
+
+It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of
+mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read
+of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds,
+consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an
+army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most
+successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their
+lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory,
+smile in death."
+
+The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War
+has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.
+Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests
+with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an
+enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and
+putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and
+groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of
+hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelmed in pits, or heaved into the
+ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
+encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and
+enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies
+sluggishly melted away.
+
+Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little
+effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the
+system of empire. The publick perceives scarcely any alteration, but an
+increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not
+supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that
+shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and, after bleeding in the battle,
+grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But, at
+the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death
+of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the
+sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries,
+whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like
+exhalations!
+
+These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing
+rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or
+ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from
+their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to
+figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new
+armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
+
+Those who suffer their minds to dwell on these considerations, will
+think it no great crime in the ministry, that they have not snatched,
+with eagerness, the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when
+they were able to obtain, by quiet negotiation, all the real good that
+victory could have brought us.
+
+Of victory, indeed, every nation is confident before the sword is drawn;
+and this mutual confidence produces that wantonness of bloodshed, that
+has so often desolated the world. But it is evident, that of
+contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind
+does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and
+moderation to the proud.
+
+Let us not think our laurels blasted by condescending to inquire,
+whether we might not possibly grow rather less than greater by attacking
+Spain. Whether we should have to contend with Spain alone, whatever has
+been promised by our patriots, may very reasonably be doubted. A war
+declared for the empty sound of an ancient title to a Magellanick rock,
+would raise the indignation of the earth against us. These encroachers
+on the waste of nature, says our ally the Russian, if they succeed in
+their first effort of usurpation, will make war upon us for a title to
+Kamtschatka. These universal settlers, says our ally the Dane, will, in
+a short time, settle upon Greenland, and a fleet will batter Copenhagen,
+till we are willing to confess, that it always was their own.
+
+In a quarrel, like this, it is not possible that any power should favour
+us, and it is very likely that some would oppose us. The French, we are
+told, are otherwise employed: the contests between the king of France,
+and his own subjects, are sufficient to withhold him from supporting
+Spain. But who does not know that a foreign war has often put a stop to
+civil discords? It withdraws the attention of the publick from domestick
+grievances, and affords opportunities of dismissing the turbulent and
+restless to distant employments. The Spaniards have always an argument
+of irresistible persuasion: if France will not support them against
+England, they will strengthen England against France.
+
+But let us indulge a dream of idle speculation, and suppose that we are
+to engage with Spain, and with Spain alone; it is not even yet very
+certain that much advantage will be gained. Spain is not easily
+vulnerable; her kingdom, by the loss or cession of many fragments of
+dominion, is become solid and compact. The Spaniards have, indeed, no
+fleet able to oppose us, but they will not endeavour actual opposition:
+they will shut themselves up in their own territories, and let us
+exhaust our seamen in a hopeless siege: they will give commissions to
+privateers of every nation, who will prey upon our merchants without
+possibility of reprisal. If they think their Plata fleet in danger, they
+will forbid it to set sail, and live awhile upon the credit of treasure
+which all Europe knows to be safe; and which, if our obstinacy should
+continue till they can no longer be without it, will be conveyed to them
+with secrecy and security, by our natural enemies the French, or by the
+Dutch our natural allies.
+
+But the whole continent of Spanish America will lie open to invasion; we
+shall have nothing to do but march into these wealthy regions, and make
+their present masters confess, that they were always ours by ancient
+right. We shall throw brass and iron out of our houses, and nothing but
+silver will be seen among us.
+
+All this is very desirable, but it is not certain that it can be easily
+attained. Large tracts of America were added, by the last war, to the
+British dominions; but, if the faction credit their own Apollo, they
+were conquered in Germany. They, at best, are only the barren parts of
+the continent, the refuse of the earlier adventurers, which the French,
+who came last, had taken only as better than nothing.
+
+Against the Spanish dominions we have never, hitherto, been able to do
+much. A few privateers have grown rich at their expense, but no scheme
+of conquest has yet been successful. They are defended, not by walls
+mounted with cannons, which by cannons may be battered, but by the
+storms of the deep, and the vapours of the land, by the flames of
+calenture and blasts of pestilence.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, the favourite period of English greatness, no
+enterprises against America had any other consequence than that of
+extending English navigation. Here Cavendish perished, after all his
+hazards; and here Drake and Hawkins, great as they were in knowledge and
+in fame, having promised honour to themselves, and dominion to the
+country, sunk by desperation and misery in dishonourable graves.
+
+During the protectorship of Cromwell, a time of which the patriotick
+tribes still more ardently desire the return, the Spanish dominions were
+again attempted; but here, and only here, the fortune of Cromwell made a
+pause. His forces were driven from Hispaniola; his hopes of possessing
+the West Indies vanished; and Jamaica was taken, only that the whole
+expedition might not grow ridiculous.
+
+The attack of Carthagena is yet remembered, where the Spaniards, from
+the ramparts, saw their invaders destroyed by the hostility of the
+elements, poisoned by the air, and crippled by the dews; where every
+hour swept away battalions; and, in the three days that passed between
+the descent and reembarkation, half an army perished.
+
+In the last war the Havanna was taken; at what expense is too well
+remembered. May my country be never cursed with such another conquest!
+
+These instances of miscarriage, and these arguments of difficulty, may,
+perhaps, abate the military ardour of the publick. Upon the opponents of
+the government their operation will be different; they wish for war, but
+not for conquest; victory would defeat their purposes equally with
+peace, because prosperity would naturally continue the trust in those
+hands which had used it fortunately. The patriots gratified themselves
+with expectations that some sinistrous accident, or erroneous conduct,
+might diffuse discontent, and inflame malignity. Their hope is
+malevolence, and their good is evil.
+
+Of their zeal for their country we have already had a specimen. While
+they were terrifying the nation with doubts, whether it was any longer
+to exist; while they represented invasive armies as hovering in the
+clouds, and hostile fleets, as emerging from the deeps; they obstructed
+our levies of seamen, and embarrassed our endeavours of defence. Of such
+men he thinks with unnecessary candour who does not believe them likely
+to have promoted the miscarriage, which they desired, by intimidating
+our troops, or betraying our counsels.
+
+It is considered as an injury to the publick, by those sanguinary
+statesmen, that though the fleet has been refitted and manned, yet no
+hostilities have followed; and they, who sat wishing for misery and
+slaughter, are disappointed of their pleasure. But as peace is the end
+of war, it is the end, likewise, of preparations for war; and he may be
+justly hunted down, as the enemy of mankind, that can choose to snatch,
+by violence and bloodshed, what gentler means can equally obtain.
+
+The ministry are reproached, as not daring to provoke an enemy, lest ill
+success should discredit and displace them. I hope that they had better
+reasons; that they paid some regard to equity and humanity; and
+considered themselves as intrusted with the safety of their
+fellow-subjects, and as the destroyers of all that should be
+superfluously slaughtered. But let us suppose, that their own safety had
+some influence on their conduct, they will not, however, sink to a level
+with their enemies. Though the motive might be selfish, the act was
+innocent. They, who grow rich by administering physick, are not to be
+numbered with them that get money by dispensing poison. If they maintain
+power by harmlessness and peace, they must for ever be at a great
+distance from ruffians, who would gain it by mischief and confusion. The
+watch of a city may guard it for hire; but are well employed in
+protecting it from those, who lie in wait to fire the streets, and rob
+the houses, amidst the conflagration.
+
+An unsuccessful war would, undoubtedly, have had the effect which the
+enemies of the ministry so earnestly desire; for who could have
+sustained the disgrace of folly ending in misfortune? But had wanton
+invasion undeservedly prospered, had Falkland's island been yielded
+unconditionally, with every right, prior and posterior; though the
+rabble might have shouted, and the windows have blazed, yet those who
+know the value of life, and the uncertainty of publick credit, would
+have murmured, perhaps unheard, at the increase of our debt, and the
+loss of our people.
+
+This thirst of blood, however the visible promoters of sedition may
+think it convenient to shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by
+Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much of its pride, and some of
+its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he
+scatters ambiguous expressions among the vulgar; for he cries havock,
+without reserve, and endeavours to let slip the dogs of foreign or of
+civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what may be
+their prey.
+
+Junius has sometimes made his satire felt, but let not injudicious
+admiration mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. He
+has sometimes sported with lucky malice; but to him that knows his
+company, it is not hard to be sarcastick in a mask. While he walks, like
+Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much mischief
+with little strength. Novelty captivates the superficial and
+thoughtless; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. He that
+contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that
+vilifies established authority will always find abettors.
+
+Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely
+glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him, as a
+monster makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety, by
+impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice,
+enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to
+indulge himself in all the immunities of invisibility; out of the reach
+of danger, he has been bold; out of the reach of shame, he has been
+confident. As a rhetorician, he has had the art of persuading, when he
+seconded desire; as a reasoner, he has convinced those who had no doubt
+before; as a moralist, he has taught, that virtue may disgrace; and, as
+a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high. Finding
+sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it; finding the nation
+combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us abstract from his
+wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the
+sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall
+leave him nothing; the cause that I defend, scorns the help of
+falsehood; but if we leave him only his merit, what will be his praise?
+
+It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his
+fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London, and the boors
+of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They
+admire him, for virtues like their own, for contempt of order, and
+violence of outrage; for rage of defamation, and audacity of falsehood.
+The supporters of the bill of rights feel no niceties of composition,
+nor dexterities of sophistry; their faculties are better proportioned to
+the bawl of Bellas, or barbarity of Beckford; but they are told, that
+Junius is on their side, and they are, therefore, sure that Junius is
+infallible. Those who know not whither he would lead them, resolve to
+follow him; and those who cannot find his meaning, hope he means
+rebellion.
+
+Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which some have gazed with wonder,
+and some with terrour, but wonder and terrour are transitory passions.
+He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined; and
+what folly has taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair shook
+pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the
+vapours of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the
+effervescence of interest, struggling with conviction; which, after
+having plunged its followers in a bog, will leave us, inquiring why we
+regard it.
+
+Yet, though I cannot think the style of Junius secure from criticism,
+though his expressions are often trite, and his periods feeble, I should
+never have stationed him where he has placed himself, had I not rated
+him by his morals rather than his faculties. What, says Pope, must be
+the priest, where a monkey is the god? What must be the drudge of a
+party, of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?
+
+Junius knows his own meaning, and can, therefore, tell it. He is an
+enemy to the ministry; he sees them growing hourly stronger. He knows
+that a war, at once unjust and unsuccessful, would have certainly
+displaced them, and is, therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry
+that war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully conducted. But there
+are others whose thoughts are less clearly expressed, and whose schemes,
+perhaps, are less consequentially digested; who declare that they do not
+wish for a rupture, yet condemn the ministry for not doing that, by
+which a rupture would naturally have been made.
+
+If one party resolves to demand what the other resolves to refuse, the
+dispute can be determined only by arbitration; and between powers who
+have no common superiour, there is no other arbitrator than the sword.
+
+Whether the ministry might not equitably have demanded more is not worth
+a question. The utmost exertion of right is always invidious, and, where
+claims are not easily determinable, is always dangerous. We asked all
+that was necessary, and persisted in our first claim, without mean
+recession, or wanton aggravation. The Spaniards found us resolute, and
+complied, after a short struggle.
+
+The real crime of the ministry is, that they have found the means of
+avoiding their own ruin; but the charge against them is multifarious and
+confused, as will happen, when malice and discontent are ashamed of
+their complaint. The past and the future are complicated in the censure.
+We have heard a tumultuous clamour about honour and rights, injuries and
+insults, the British flag and the Favourite's rudder, Buccarelli's
+conduct and Grimaldi's declarations, the Manilla ransome, delays and
+reparation.
+
+Through the whole argument of the faction runs the general errour, that
+our settlement on Falkland's island was not only lawful, but
+unquestionable; that our right was not only certain, but acknowledged;
+and that the equity of our conduct was such, that the Spaniards could
+not blame or obstruct it, without combating their own conviction, and
+opposing the general opinion of mankind.
+
+If once it be discovered that, in the opinion of the Spaniards, our
+settlement was usurped, our claim arbitrary, and our conduct insolent,
+all that has happened will appear to follow by a natural concatenation.
+Doubts will produce disputes and disquisition; disquisition requires
+delay, and delay causes inconvenience.
+
+Had the Spanish government immediately yielded, unconditionally, all
+that was required, we might have been satisfied; but what would Europe
+have judged of their submission? that they shrunk before us, as a
+conquered people, who, having lately yielded to our arms, were now
+compelled to sacrifice to our pride. The honour of the publick is,
+indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to
+transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily
+been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as
+ourselves.
+
+When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt,
+they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by
+warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of
+insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be
+done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be
+no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to
+each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient
+provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might
+then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less
+inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to
+disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would
+be necessary.
+
+Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of
+Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which
+ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English
+captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which
+they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing
+terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except
+that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they
+secured the performance by taking off the rudder.
+
+To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this
+unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their
+stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If
+the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part
+in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be
+endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot
+yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.
+
+When Buccarelli's invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown
+infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained
+equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our
+exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had
+received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that
+he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which
+the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other
+powers.
+
+To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation
+of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion, which the
+pertinacity of political disputants might have continued without end.
+We, therefore, called for restitution, not as a confession of right, but
+as a reparation of honour, which required that we should be restored to
+our former state upon the island, and that the king of Spain should
+disavow the action of his governour.
+
+In return to this demand, the Spaniards expected from us a disavowal of
+the menaces, with which they had been first insulted by Hunt; and if the
+claim to the island be supposed doubtful, they certainly expected it
+with equal reason. This, however, was refused, and our superiority of
+strength gave validity to our arguments.
+
+But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary
+and fallacious; that Buccarelli's armament had all the appearance of
+regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at
+home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his
+master.
+
+That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied,
+affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court.
+Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere,
+must always be trusted with power to defend them.
+
+As little can be inferred from his reception at the Spanish court. He is
+not punished, indeed; for what has he done that deserves punishment? He
+was sent into America to govern and defend the dominions of Spain. He
+thought the English were encroaching, and drove them away. No Spaniard
+thinks that he has exceeded his duty, nor does the king of Spain charge
+him with excess. The boundaries of dominion, in that part of the world,
+have not yet been settled; and he mistook, if a mistake there was, like
+a zealous subject, in his master's favour.
+
+But all this inquiry is superfluous. Considered as a reparation of
+honour, the disavowal of the king of Spain, made in the sight of all
+Europe, is of equal value, whether true or false. There is, indeed, no
+reason to question its veracity; they, however, who do not believe it,
+must allow the weight of that influence, by which a great prince is
+reduced to disown his own commission.
+
+But the general orders, upon which the governour is acknowledged to have
+acted, are neither disavowed _nor_ explained. Why the Spaniards should
+disavow the defence of their own territories, the warmest disputant will
+find it difficult to tell; and, if by an explanation is meant an
+accurate delineation of the southern empire, and the limitation of their
+claims beyond the line, it cannot be imputed to any very culpable
+remissness, that what has been denied for two centuries to the European
+powers, was not obtained in a hasty wrangle about a petty settlement.
+
+The ministry were too well acquainted with negotiation to fill their
+heads with such idle expectations. The question of right was
+inexplicable and endless. They left it, as it stood. To be restored to
+actual possession was easily practicable. This restoration they required
+and obtained.
+
+But they should, say their opponents, have insisted upon more; they
+should have exacted not only, reparation of our honour, but repayment of
+our expense. Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs
+and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity
+of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of
+Manilla.
+
+The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour
+bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be
+remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham
+remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the
+adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to
+understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge.
+Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes
+wrong, he was often right. [29]
+
+Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more
+reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been
+sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance
+was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and
+destruction.
+
+Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very
+properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which
+provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why
+should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an
+East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a
+sum sufficient to satisfy our demands. If he be honest, he is hardly
+rich; and if he be disposed to rob, he has the misfortune of being
+placed, where robbers have been before him.
+
+The king of Spain, indeed, delayed to comply with our proposals, and our
+armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory
+debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not
+unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.
+
+But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation
+requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by
+inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled
+in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by
+reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to
+the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded
+satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their
+concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation
+is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we
+expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that
+sovereignty which they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they
+are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.
+
+The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all
+that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if
+any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst
+us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those
+who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures,
+waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick
+sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet
+flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of
+Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of
+grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of
+knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well
+known of charging all evil on their governours.
+
+The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last
+anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment,
+but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in
+spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out
+upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could
+not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from
+their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue;
+they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and
+confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as
+dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer
+paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.
+
+Their pretences I have here endeavoured to expose, by showing, that more
+than has been yielded, was not to be expected, that more, perhaps, was
+not to be desired, and that, if all had been refused, there had scarcely
+been an adequate reason for a war.
+
+There was, perhaps, never much danger of war, or of refusal, but what
+danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations,
+unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to
+the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots,
+of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and
+Yorkshire; when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the
+legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined, that such a
+government had little leisure for Falkland's island; they supposed that
+the English, when they returned ejected from port Egmont, would find
+Wilkes invested with the protectorate, or see the mayor of London, what
+the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander
+of the army, and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell
+their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect
+war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the bill of rights.
+
+But our enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are
+recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be
+subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is
+to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels.
+The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the
+vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been
+nothing more than a political _phtheiriasis_, a disease too loathsome
+for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of
+weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger.
+
+Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom
+their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now
+perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a
+savage proves nothing but his hunger.
+
+After all our broils, foreign and domestick, we may, at last, hope to
+remain awhile in quiet, amused with the view of our own success. We have
+gained political strength, by the increase of our reputation; we have
+gained real strength, by the reparation of our navy; we have shown
+Europe, that ten years of war have not yet exhausted us; and we have
+enforced our settlement on an island on which, twenty years ago, we
+durst not venture to look.
+
+These are the gratifications only of honest minds; but there is a time,
+in which hope comes to all. From the present happiness of the publick,
+the patriots themselves may derive advantage. To be harmless, though by
+impotence, obtains some degree of kindness: no man hates a worm as he
+hates a viper; they were once dreaded enough to be detested, as serpents
+that could bite; they have now shown that they can only hiss, and may,
+therefore, quietly slink into holes, and change their slough, unmolested
+and forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+THE PATRIOT. [30]
+
+ADDRESSED TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1774.
+
+  They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
+  Yet still revolt when truth would set them free;
+  License they mean, when they cry liberty,
+  For who loves that must first be wise and good.
+
+  MILTON.
+
+
+To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is
+within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered,
+which might once have been supplied; and much time is lost in regretting
+the time which had been lost before.
+
+At the end of every seven years comes the saturnalian season, when the
+freemen of great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their
+representatives. This happy day has now arrived, somewhat sooner than it
+could be claimed.
+
+To select and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be
+granted, is a high dignity, and an important trust; and it is the
+business of every elector to consider, how this dignity may be well
+sustained, and this trust faithfully discharged.
+
+It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in
+this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in
+parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights:
+no other man can merit our confidence.
+
+A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive,
+the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for
+himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but
+refers every thing to the common interest.
+
+That of five hundred men, such as this degenerate age affords, a
+majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet
+there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect
+more than was expected. Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him;
+and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish
+those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man
+may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent
+qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
+Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and
+unremitting opposition to the court.
+
+This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily
+included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his
+country. He that has been refused a reasonable, or unreasonable request,
+who thinks his merit underrated, and sees his influence declining,
+begins soon to talk of natural equality, the absurdity of "many made for
+one," the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majesty
+of the people. As his political melancholy increases, he tells, and,
+perhaps, dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of
+arbitrary power; yet his design, in all his declamation, is not to
+benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.
+
+These, however, are the most honest of the opponents of government;
+their patriotism is a species of disease; and they feel some part of
+what they express. But the greater, far the greater number of those who
+rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor
+care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by
+virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they
+may be sooner hired to be silent.
+
+A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent,
+and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of
+violated rights, and encroaching usurpation.
+
+This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the
+populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick
+happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that
+unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of
+government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge
+of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by
+reason, but caught by contagion.
+
+The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent,
+when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are still
+filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the freeholders of Middlesex,
+lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chosen, if
+any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclusion makes not any
+honest, or any decent man, think himself in clanger.
+
+It may be doubted, whether the name of a patriot can be fairly given, as
+the reward of secret satire, or open outrage. To fill the newspapers
+with sly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlesex
+Journal, and London Pacquet, may, indeed, be zeal; but it may, likewise,
+be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted;
+to insult a king-with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no
+punishment for legal insolence, is not courage, for there is no danger;
+nor patriotism, for it tends to the subversion of order, and lets
+wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to
+sovereign authority.
+
+It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe
+all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The
+true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to
+sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he
+sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his
+countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may
+be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by
+incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing
+the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power;
+and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own
+laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by
+juries.
+
+Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be
+false. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous
+complaints, that the protestant religion is in danger, because "popery
+is established in the extensive province of Quebec," a falsehood so open
+and shameless, that it can need no confutation among those who know that
+of which it is almost impossible for the most unenlightened zealot to be
+ignorant:
+
+That Quebec is on the other side of the Atlantick, at too great a
+distance to do much good or harm to the European world:
+
+That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are
+certainly more dangerous as enemies than as subjects:
+
+That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so
+many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:
+
+That persecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papist; and
+that, while we blame Lewis the fourteenth, for his dragoons and his
+galleys, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with
+greater equity:
+
+That when Canada, with its inhabitants, was yielded, the free enjoyment
+of their religion was stipulated; a condition, of which king William,
+who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the
+surrender of Limerick:
+
+That in an age, where every mouth is open for _liberty of conscience_,
+it is equitable to show some regard to the conscience of a papist, who
+may be supposed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own
+religion; and that those, at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to
+deny it to our new subjects.
+
+If liberty of conscience be a natural right, we have no power to
+withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while
+it is not denied to other sects.
+
+A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even
+this mark may sometimes deceive us.
+
+The people is a very heterogeneous and confused mass of the wealthy and
+the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we
+confer on a man, who caresses the people, the title of patriot, we must
+examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is
+proverbially said, that he who dissembles his own character, may be
+known by that of his companions. If the candidate of patriotism
+endeavours to infuse right opinions into the higher ranks, and, by their
+influence, to regulate the lower; if he consorts chiefly with the wise,
+the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may
+be rational and honest. But if his first or principal application be to
+the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally
+suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the
+profligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his
+love of the people be no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be
+thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot,
+or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the
+lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and,
+among sober handicraftsmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have
+some better distinction, before he is a patriot.
+
+A patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims, and animate
+the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them, frequently, of
+their rights, and stimulates them to resent encroachments, and to
+multiply securities.
+
+But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that
+raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for
+disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he
+knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his
+followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.
+
+A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten
+parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation,
+transmitted by our ancestors; he knows that futurity is not in his
+power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.
+
+Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
+mandates of his constituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and
+the inconstancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the
+opinion of his constituents shall be taken. Popular instructions are,
+commonly, the work, not of the wise and steady, but the violent and
+rash; meetings held for directing representatives are seldom attended
+but by the idle and the dissolute; and he is not without suspicion, that
+of his constituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may
+often be the wiser.
+
+He considers himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to
+preserve his constituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only
+from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.
+
+The common marks of patriotism having been examined, and shown to be
+such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly misapply, it cannot be
+improper to consider, whether there are not some characteristical modes
+of speaking or acting, which may prove a man to be not a patriot.
+
+In this inquiry, perhaps, clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer
+persuasion attained; for it is, commonly, easier to know what is wrong
+than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should
+pursue.
+
+As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which
+every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to
+hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes
+great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who
+desires the publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by
+aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little
+importance.
+
+It may, therefore, be safely pronounced, that those men are no patriots,
+who, when the national honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and
+the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to a
+disavowal of their attempt, and a relaxation of their claim, would still
+have instigated us to a war, for a bleak and barren spot in the
+Magellanick ocean, of which no use could be made, unless it were a place
+of exile for the hypocrites of patriotism.
+
+Yet let it not be forgotten, that, by the howling violence of patriotick
+rage, the nation was, for a time, exasperated to such madness, that, for
+a barren rock under a stormy sky, we might have now been fighting and
+dying, had not our competitors been wiser than ourselves; and those who
+are now courting the favour of the people, by noisy professions of
+publick spirit, would, while they were counting the profits of their
+artifice, have enjoyed the patriotick pleasure of hearing, sometimes,
+that thousands had been slaughtered in a battle, and, sometimes, that a
+navy had been dispeopled by poisoned air and corrupted food. He that
+wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
+
+That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims
+of American usurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its
+natural and lawful authority over its own colonies; those colonies,
+which were settled under English protection; were constituted by an
+English charter; and have been defended by English arms.
+
+To suppose, that by sending out a colony, the nation established an
+independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are
+become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at
+their own pleasure; and that they shall not be included, like millions
+of their fellow-subjects, in the general system of representation;
+involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the show of
+patriotism could palliate.
+
+He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always
+protected the Americans; we may, therefore, subject them to government.
+
+The less is included in the greater. That power which can take away
+life, may seize upon property. The parliament may enact, for America, a
+law of capital punishment; it may, therefore, establish a mode and
+proportion of taxation.
+
+But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians, because
+they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all
+are involved in the penalty imposed. This, they say, is to violate the
+first rule of justice, by condemning the innocent to suffer with the
+guilty.
+
+This deserves some notice, as it seems dictated by equity and humanity,
+however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the
+state of man, and the system of things. That the innocent should be
+confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil
+which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national
+punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have
+not incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a town,
+the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless
+burghers and the criminal garrison.
+
+In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt. If
+the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted
+the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered,
+but by the slaughter of our friends? A bomb might as well destroy an
+Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants
+would be the first that should perish.
+
+This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
+cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be maintained; and
+the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the
+rebels.
+
+That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their
+due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they
+receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious
+appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament;
+an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel,
+and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with
+gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in
+the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve
+the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of
+elections.
+
+The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first
+claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in
+which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to
+abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of
+the law, and the defeat of justice. The evil was, perhaps, not adequate
+to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this
+privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil. It is, however,
+plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at
+least, lost something from themselves. They divested their dignity of a
+very splendid distinction, and showed that they were more willing than
+their predecessors to stand on a level with their fellow-subjects.
+
+The new mode of trying elections, if it be found effectual, will diffuse
+its consequences further than seems yet to be foreseen. It is, I
+believe, generally considered as advantageous only to those who claim
+seats in parliament; but, if to choose representatives be one of the
+most valuable rights of Englishmen, every voter must consider that law
+as adding to his happiness, which makes his suffrage efficacious; since
+it was vain to choose, while the election could be controlled by any
+other power.
+
+With what imperious contempt of ancient rights, and what audaciousness
+of arbitrary authority former parliaments have judged the disputes about
+elections, it is not necessary to relate. The claim of a candidate, and
+the right of electors, are said scarcely to have been, even in
+appearance, referred to conscience; but to have been decided by party,
+by passion, by prejudice, or by frolick. To have friends in the borough
+was of little use to him, who wanted friends in the house; a pretence
+was easily found to evade a majority, and the seat was, at last, his,
+that was chosen, not by his electors, but his fellow-senators.
+
+Thus the nation was insulted with a mock election, and the parliament
+was filled with spurious representatives one of the most important
+claims, that of right to sit in the supreme council of the kingdom, was
+debated in jest, and no man could be confident of success from the
+justice of his cause.
+
+A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and
+solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of
+his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their
+approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit,
+may be certain, that he has not voted in vain.
+
+Such was the parliament, which some of those, who are now aspiring to
+sit in another, have taught the rabble to consider as an unlawful
+convention of men, worthless, venal, and prostitute, slaves of the
+court, and tyrants of the people.
+
+That the next house of commons may act upon the principles of the last,
+with more constancy and higher spirit, must be the wish of all who wish
+well to the publick; and, it is surely not too much to expect, that the
+nation will recover from its delusion, and unite in a general abhorrence
+of those, who, by deceiving the credulous with fictitious mischiefs,
+overbearing the weak by audacity of falsehood, by appealing to the
+judgment of ignorance, and flattering the vanity of meanness, by
+slandering honesty, and insulting dignity, have gathered round them
+whatever the kingdom can supply of base, and gross, and profligate; and
+"raised by merit to this bad eminence," arrogate to themselves the name
+of patriots.
+
+
+
+
+TAXATION NO TYRANNY;
+
+An answer [31] to the resolutions and address of the American congress.
+1775.
+
+
+In all the parts of human knowledge, whether terminating in science
+merely speculative, or operating upon life, private or civil, are
+admitted some fundamental principles, or common axioms, which,
+being-generally received, are little doubted, and, being little doubted,
+have been rarely proved.
+
+Of these gratuitous and acknowledged truths, it is often the fate to
+become less evident by endeavours to explain them, however necessary
+such endeavours may be made by the misapprehensions of absurdity, or the
+sophistries of interest. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+science; because notions cannot always be found more intelligible than
+those which are questioned. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+practice, because they have, for the most part, not been discovered by
+investigation, but obtruded by experience; and the demonstrator will
+find, after an operose deduction, that he has been trying to make that
+seen, which can be only felt.
+
+Of this kind is the position, that "the supreme power of every community
+has the right of requiring, from all its subjects, such contributions as
+are necessary to the publick safety or publick prosperity," which was
+considered, by all mankind, as comprising the primary and essential
+condition of all political society, till it became disputed by those
+zealots of anarchy, who have denied, to the parliament of Britain the
+right of taxing the American colonies.
+
+In favour of this exemption of the Americans from the authority of their
+lawful sovereign, and the dominion of their mother-country, very loud
+clamours have been raised, and many wild assertions advanced, which, by
+such as borrow their opinions from the reigning fashion, have been
+admitted as arguments; and, what is strange, though their tendency is to
+lessen English honour and English power, have been heard by Englishmen,
+with a wish to find them true. Passion has, in its first violence,
+controlled interest, as the eddy for awhile runs against the stream.
+
+To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near
+to laudable, that they have been often praised, and are always pardoned.
+To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love
+could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made
+without a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either
+in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have,
+with equal blindness, hated their country.
+
+These antipatriotick prejudices are the abortions of folly impregnated
+by faction, which, being produced against the standing order of nature,
+have not strength sufficient for long life. They are born only to scream
+and perish, and leave those to contempt or detestation, whose kindness
+was employed to nurse them into mischief.
+
+To perplex the opinion of the publick many artifices have been used,
+which, as usually happens, when falsehood is to be maintained by fraud,
+lose their force by counteracting one another.
+
+The nation is, sometimes, to be mollified by a tender tale of men, who
+fled from tyranny to rocks and deserts, and is persuaded to lose all
+claims of justice, and all sense of dignity, in compassion for a
+harmless people, who, having worked hard for bread in a wild country,
+and obtained, by the slow progression of manual industry, the
+accommodations of life, are now invaded by unprecedented oppression, and
+plundered of their properties by the harpies of taxation.
+
+We are told how their industry is obstructed by unnatural restraints,
+and their trade confined by rigorous prohibitions; how they are
+forbidden to enjoy the products of their own soil, to manufacture the
+materials which nature spreads before them, or to carry their own goods
+to the nearest market; and surely the generosity of English virtue will
+never heap new weight upon those that are already overladen; will never
+delight in that dominion, which cannot be exercised, but by cruelty and
+outrage.
+
+But, while we are melting in silent sorrow, and, in the transports of
+delirious pity, dropping both the sword and balance from our hands,
+another friend of the Americans thinks it better to awaken another
+passion, and tries to alarm our interest, or excite our veneration, by
+accounts of their greatness and their opulence, of the fertility of
+their land, and the splendour of their towns. We then begin to consider
+the question with more evenness of mind, are ready to conclude that
+those restrictions are not very oppressive, which have been found
+consistent with this speedy growth of prosperity; and begin to think it
+reasonable, that they who thus flourish under the protection of our
+government, should contribute something towards its expense.
+
+But we are soon told, that the Americans, however wealthy, cannot be
+taxed; that they are the descendants of men who left all for liberty,
+and that they have constantly preserved the principles and stubbornness
+of their progenitors; that they are too obstinate for persuasion, and
+too powerful for constraint; that they will laugh at argument, and
+defeat violence; that the continent of North America contains three
+millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty,
+and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of
+their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their
+numbers.
+
+Men accustomed to think themselves masters do not love to be threatened.
+This talk is, I hope, commonly thrown away, or raises passions different
+from those which it was intended to excite. Instead of terrifying the
+English hearer to tame acquiescence, it disposes him to hasten the
+experiment of bending obstinacy, before it is become yet more obdurate,
+and convinces him that it is necessary to attack a nation thus
+prolifick, while we may yet hope to prevail. When he is told, through
+what extent of territory we must travel to subdue them, he recollects
+how far, a few years ago, we travelled in their defence. When it is
+urged, that they will shoot up, like the hydra, he naturally considers
+how the hydra was destroyed.
+
+Nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits. A
+commercial people, however magnanimous, shrinks at the thought of
+declining traffick and an unfavourable balance. The effect of this
+terrour has been tried. We have been stunned with the importance of our
+American commerce, and heard of merchants, with warehouses that are
+never to be emptied, and of manufacturers starving for want of work.
+
+That our commerce with America is profitable, however less than
+ostentatious or deceitful estimates have made it, and that it is our
+interest to preserve it, has never been denied; but, surely, it will
+most effectually be preserved, by being kept always in our own power.
+Concessions may promote it for a moment, but superiority only can ensure
+its continuance. There will always be a part, and always a very large
+part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose
+care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate
+pain, and eagerness for the nearest good. The blind are said to feel
+with peculiar nicety. They who look but little into futurity, have,
+perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present. A merchant's desire is
+not of glory, but of gain; not of publick wealth, but of private
+emolument; he is, therefore, rarely to be consulted about war and peace,
+or any designs of wide extent and distant consequence.
+
+Yet this, like other general characters, will sometimes fail. The
+traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of
+narrow selfishness, by a manly recommendation to parliament of the
+rights and dignity of their native country.
+
+To these men I do not intend to ascribe an absurd and enthusiastick
+contempt of interest, but to give them the rational and just praise of
+distinguishing real from seeming good; of being able to see through the
+cloud of interposing difficulties, to the lasting and solid happiness of
+victory and settlement.
+
+Lest all these topicks of persuasion should fail, the greater actor of
+patriotism has tried another, in which terrour and pity are happily
+combined, not without a proper superaddition of that admiration which
+latter ages have brought into the drama. The heroes of Boston, he tells
+us, if the stamp act had not been repealed, would have left their town,
+their port, and their trade, have resigned the splendour of opulence,
+and quitted the delights of neighbourhood, to disperse themselves over
+the country, where they would till the ground, and fish in the rivers,
+and range the mountains, and be free.
+
+These, surely, are brave words. If the mere sound of freedom can operate
+thus powerfully, let no man, hereafter, doubt the story of the Pied
+Piper. The removal of the people of Boston into the country, seems, even
+to the congress, not only difficult in its execution, but important in
+its consequences. The difficulty of execution is best known to the
+Bostonians themselves; the consequence alas! will only be, that they
+will leave good houses to wiser men.
+
+Yet, before they quit the comforts of a warm home, for the sounding
+something which they think better, he cannot be thought their enemy who
+advises them, to consider well whether they shall find it. By turning
+fishermen or hunters, woodmen or shepherds, they may become wild, but it
+is not so easy to conceive them free; for who can be more a slave than
+he that is driven, by force, from the comforts of life, is compelled to
+leave his house to a casual comer, and, whatever he does, or wherever he
+wanders, finds, every moment, some new testimony of his own subjection?
+If choice of evil be freedom, the felon in the galleys has his option of
+labour or of stripes. The Bostonian may quit his house to starve in the
+fields; his dog may refuse to set, and smart under the lash, and they
+may then congratulate each other upon the smiles of liberty, "profuse of
+bliss, and pregnant with delight."
+
+To treat such designs as serious, would be to think too contemptuously
+of Bostonian understandings. The artifice, indeed, is not new: the
+blusterer, who threatened in vain to destroy his opponent, has,
+sometimes, obtained his end, by making it believed, that he would hang
+himself.
+
+But terrours and pity are not the only means by which the taxation of
+the Americans is opposed. There are those, who profess to use them only
+as auxiliaries to reason and justice; who tell us, that to tax the
+colonies is usurpation and oppression, an invasion of natural and legal
+rights, and a violation of those principles which support the
+constitution of English government.
+
+This question is of great importance. That the Americans are able to
+bear taxation, is indubitable; that their refusal may be overruled, is
+highly probable; but power is no sufficient evidence of truth. Let us
+examine our own claim, and the objections of the recusants, with caution
+proportioned to the event of the decision, which must convict one part
+of robbery, or the other of rebellion.
+
+A tax is a payment, exacted by authority, from part of the community,
+for the benefit of the whole. From whom, and in what proportion such
+payment shall be required, and to what uses it shall be applied, those
+only are to judge to whom government is intrusted. In the British
+dominions taxes are apportioned, levied, and appropriated by the states
+assembled in parliament.
+
+Of every empire all the subordinate communities are liable to taxation,
+because they all share the benefits of government, and, therefore, ought
+all to furnish their proportion of the expense.
+
+This the Americans have never openly denied. That it is their duty to
+pay the costs of their own safety, they seem to admit; nor do they
+refuse their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of
+the British empire; but they make this participation of the publick
+burden a duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation, a duty
+temporary, occasional, and elective, of which they reserve to themselves
+the right of settling the degree, the time, and the duration; of judging
+when it may be required, and when it has been performed.
+
+They allow to the supreme power nothing more than the liberty of
+notifying to them its demands or its necessities. Of this notification
+they profess to think for themselves, how far it shall influence their
+counsels; and of the necessities alleged, how far they shall endeavour
+to relieve them. They assume the exclusive power of settling not only
+the mode, but the quantity, of this payment. They are ready to cooperate
+with all the other dominions of the king; but they will cooperate by no
+means which they do not like, and at no greater charge than they are
+willing to bear.
+
+This claim, wild as it may seem; this claim, which supposes dominion
+without authority, and subjects without subordination, has found among
+the libertines of policy, many clamorous and hardy vindicators. The laws
+of nature, the rights of humanity, the faith of charters, the danger of
+liberty, the encroachments of usurpation, have been thundered in our
+ears, sometimes by interested faction, and sometimes by honest
+stupidity.
+
+It is said by Fontenelle, that if twenty philosophers shall resolutely
+deny that the presence of the sun makes the day, he will not despair but
+whole nations may adopt the opinion. So many political dogmatists have
+denied to the mother-country the power of taxing the colonies, and have
+enforced their denial with so much violence of outcry, that their sect
+is already very numerous, and the publick voice suspends its decision.
+
+In moral and political questions, the contest between interest and
+justice has been often tedious and often fierce, but, perhaps, it never
+happened before, that justice found much opposition, with interest on
+her side.
+
+For the satisfaction of this inquiry, it is necessary to consider, how a
+colony is constituted; what are the terms of migration, as dictated by
+nature, or settled by compact; and what social or political rights the
+man loses or acquires, that leaves his country to establish himself hi a
+distant plantation.
+
+Of two modes of migration the history of mankind informs us, and so far
+as I can yet discover, of two only. In countries where life was yet
+unadjusted, and policy unformed, it sometimes happened, that, by the
+dissensions of heads of families, by the ambition of daring adventurers,
+by some accidental pressure of distress, or by the mere discontent of
+idleness, one part of the community broke off from the rest, and
+numbers, greater or smaller, forsook their habitations, put themselves
+under the command of some favourite of fortune, and with, or without the
+consent of their countrymen or governours, went out to see what better
+regions they could occupy, and in what place, by conquest or by treaty,
+they could gain a habitation.
+
+Sons of enterprise, like these, who committed to their own swords their
+hopes and their lives, when they left their country, became another
+nation, with designs, and prospects, and interests, of their own. They
+looked back no more to their former home; they expected no help from
+those whom they had left behind; if they conquered, they conquered for
+themselves; if they were destroyed, they were not by any other power
+either lamented or revenged.
+
+Of this kind seem to have been all the migrations of the early world,
+whether historical or fabulous, and of this kind were the eruptions of
+those nations, which, from the north, invaded the Roman empire, and
+filled Europe with new sovereignties.
+
+But when, by the gradual admission of wiser laws and gentler manners,
+society became more compacted and better regulated, it was found, that
+the power of every people consisted in union, produced by one common
+interest, and operating in joint efforts and consistent counsels.
+
+From this time independence perceptibly wasted away. No part of the
+nation was permitted to act for itself. All now had the same enemies and
+the same friends; the government protected individuals, and individuals
+were required to refer their designs to the prosperity of the
+government.
+
+By this principle it is, that states are formed and consolidated. Every
+man is taught to consider his own happiness, as combined with the
+publick prosperity, and to think himself great and powerful, in
+proportion to the greatness and power of his governours.
+
+Had the western continent been discovered between the fourth and tenth
+century, when all the northen world was in motion; and had navigation
+been, at that time, sufficiently advanced to make so long a passage
+easily practicable, there is little reason for doubting, but the
+intumescence of nations would have found its vent, like all other
+expansive violence, where there was least resistance; and that Huns and
+Vandals, instead of fighting their way to the south of Europe, would
+have gone, by thousands and by myriads, under their several chiefs, to
+take possession of regions smiling with pleasure, and waving with
+fertility, from which the naked inhabitants were unable to repel them.
+
+Every expedition would, in those days of laxity, have produced a
+distinct and independent state. The Scandinavian heroes might have
+divided the country among them, and have spread the feudal subdivision
+of regality from Hudson's bay to the Pacifick ocean.
+
+But Columbus came five or six hundred years too late for the candidates
+of sovereignty. When he formed his project of discovery, the
+fluctuations of military turbulence had subsided, and Europe began to
+regain a settled form, by established government and regular
+subordination. No man could any longer erect himself into a chieftain,
+and lead out his fellow-subjects, by his own authority, to plunder or to
+war. He that committed any act of hostility, by land or sea, without the
+commission of some acknowledged sovereign, was considered, by all
+mankind, as a robber or pirate, names which were now of little credit,
+and of which, therefore, no man was ambitious.
+
+Columbus, in a remoter time, would have found his way to some
+discontented lord, or some younger brother of a petty sovereign, who
+would have taken fire at his proposal, and have quickly kindled, with
+equal heat, a troop of followers: they would have built ships, or have
+seized them, and have wandered with him, at all adventures, as far as
+they could keep hope in their company. But the age being now past of
+vagrant excursion and fortuitous hostility, he was under the necessity
+of travelling from court to court, scorned and repulsed as a wild
+projector, an idle promiser of kingdoms in the clouds; nor has any part
+of the world yet had reason to rejoice that he found, at last, reception
+and employment.
+
+In the same year, in a year hitherto disastrous to mankind, by the
+Portuguese was discovered the passage of the Indies, and by the
+Spaniards the coast of America. The nations of Europe were fired with
+boundless expectations, and the discoverers, pursuing their enterprise,
+made conquests in both hemispheres of wide extent. But the adventurers
+were not contented with plunder: though they took gold and silver to
+themselves, they seized islands and kingdoms in the name of their
+sovereigns. When a new region was gained, a governour was appointed by
+that power, which had given the commission to the conqueror; nor have I
+met with any European, but Stukely, of London, that formed a design of
+exalting himself in the newly found countries to independent dominion.
+
+To secure a conquest, it was always necessary to plant a colony, and
+territories, thus occupied and settled, were rightly considered, as mere
+extensions, or processes of empire; as ramifications which, by the
+circulation of one publick interest, communicated with the original
+source of dominion, and which were kept flourishing and spreading by the
+radical vigour of the mother-country.
+
+The colonies of England differ no otherwise from those of other nations,
+than as the English constitution differs from theirs. All government is
+ultimately and essentially absolute, but subordinate societies may have
+more immunities, or individuals greater liberty, as the operations of
+government are differently conducted. An Englishman in the common course
+of life and action feels no restraint. An English colony has very
+liberal powers of regulating its own manners, and adjusting its own
+affairs. But an English individual may, by the supreme authority, be
+deprived of liberty, and a colony divested of its powers, for reasons of
+which that authority is the only judge.
+
+In sovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty,
+there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government.
+There must, in every society, be some power or other, from which there
+is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole
+mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts
+laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts
+privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by
+physical necessity.
+
+By this power, wherever it subsists, all legislation and jurisdiction is
+animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations,
+which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not
+infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irresistible, for it can be
+resisted only by rebellion, by an act which makes it questionable, what
+shall be thenceforward the supreme power.
+
+An English colony is a number of persons, to whom the king grants a
+charter, permitting them to settle in some distant country, and enabling
+them to constitute a corporation enjoying such powers as the charter
+grants, to be administered in such forms as the charter prescribes. As a
+corporation, they make laws for themselves; but as a corporation,
+subsisting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that
+authority they continue subject.
+
+As men are placed at a greater distance from the supreme council of the
+kingdom, they must be intrusted with ampler liberty of regulating their
+conduct by their own wisdom. As they are more secluded from easy
+recourse to national judicature, they must be more extensively
+commissioned to pass judgment on each other.
+
+For this reason our more important and opulent colonies see the
+appearance, and feel the effect, of a regular legislature, which, in
+some places, has acted so long with unquestioned authority, that it has
+forgotten whence that authority was originally derived.
+
+To their charters the colonies owe, like other corporations, their
+political existence. The solemnities of legislation, the administration
+of justice, the security of property, are all bestowed upon them by the
+royal grant. Without their charter, there would be no power among them,
+by which any law could be made, or duties enjoined; any debt recovered,
+or criminal punished.
+
+A charter is a grant of certain powers or privileges, given to a part of
+the community for the advantage of the whole, and is, therefore, liable,
+by its nature, to change or to revocation. Every act of government aims
+at publick good. A charter, which experience has shown to be detrimental
+to the nation, is to be repealed; because general prosperity must always
+be preferred to particular interest. If a charter be used to evil
+purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is
+injuriously employed.
+
+The charter, therefore, by which provincial governments are constituted,
+may be always legally, and, where it is either inconvenient in its
+nature, or misapplied in its use, may be equitably repealed; by such
+repeal the whole fabrick of subordination is immediately destroyed, and
+the constitution sunk at once into a chaos; the society is dissolved
+into a tumult of individuals, without authority to command, or
+obligation to obey, without any punishment of wrongs, but by personal
+resentment, or any protection of right, but by the hand of the
+possessor.
+
+A colony is to the mother-country, as a member to the body, deriving its
+action and its strength from the general principle of vitality;
+receiving from the body, and communicating to it, all the benefits and
+evils of health and disease; liable, in dangerous maladies, to sharp
+applications, of which the body, however, must partake the pain; and
+exposed, if incurably tainted, to amputation, by which the body,
+likewise, will be mutilated.
+
+The mother-country always considers the colonies, thus connected, as
+parts of itself; the prosperity or unhappiness of either, is the
+prosperity or unhappiness of both; not, perhaps, of both in the same
+degree, for the body may subsist, though less commodiously, without a
+limb, but the limb must perish, if it be parted from the body.
+
+Our colonies, therefore, however distant, have been, hitherto, treated
+as constituent parts of the British empire. The inhabitants incorporated
+by English charters are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They
+are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated
+by English counsels, and protected by English arms; and it seems to
+follow, by consequence not easily avoided, that they are subject to
+English government, and chargeable by English taxation.
+
+To him that considers the nature, the original, the progress, and the
+constitution of the colonies, who remembers that the first discoverers
+had commissions from the crown, that the first settlers owe to a charter
+their civil forms and regular magistracy, and that all personal
+immunities and legal securities, by which the condition of the subject
+has been, from time to time, improved, have been extended to the
+colonists, it will not be doubted, but the parliament of England has a
+right to bind them by statutes, and to bind them in all cases
+whatsoever; and has, therefore, a natural and constitutional power of
+laying upon them any tax or impost, whether external or internal, upon
+the product of land, or the manufactures of industry, in the exigencies
+of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America,
+for the purpose of raising a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to
+the empire.
+
+There are some, and those not inconsiderable for number, nor
+contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the
+general dominion of parliament, and hold, that whatever degress of
+obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in
+other acts of government, there is still reverence to be paid to money,
+and that legislation passes its limits when it violates the purse.
+
+Of this exception, which, by a head not fully impregnated with
+politicks, is not easily comprehended, it is alleged, as an unanswerable
+reason, that the colonies send no representatives to the house of
+commons.
+
+It is, say the American advocates, the natural distinction of a freeman,
+and the legal privilege of an Englishman, that he is able to call his
+possessions his own, that he can sit secure in the enjoyment of
+inheritance or acquisition, that his house is fortified by the law, and
+that nothing can be taken from him, but by his own consent. This consent
+is given for every man by his representative in parliament. The
+Americans, unrepresented, cannot consent to English taxations, as a
+corporation, and they will not consent, as individuals.
+
+Of this argument, it has been observed by more than one, that its force
+extends equally to all other laws, for a freeman is not to be exposed to
+punishment, or be called to any onerous service, but by his own consent.
+The congress has extracted a position from the fanciful Montesquieu
+that, "in a free state, every man, being a free agent, ought to be
+concerned in his own government." Whatever is true of taxation, is true
+of every other law, that he who is bound by it, without his consent, is
+not free, for he is not concerned in his own government.
+
+He that denies the English parliament the right of taxation, denies it,
+likewise, the right of making any other laws, civil or criminal, yet
+this power over the colonies was never yet disputed by themselves. They
+have always admitted statutes for the punishment of offences, and for
+the redress or prevention of inconveniencies; and the reception of any
+law draws after it, by a chain which cannot be broken, the unwelcome
+necessity of submitting to taxation.
+
+That a freeman is governed by himself, or by laws to which he has
+consented, is a position of mighty sound; but every man that utters it,
+with whatever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever
+acquiescence, if consent be supposed to imply the power of refusal,
+feels it to be false. We virtually and implicitly allow the institutions
+of any government, of which we enjoy the benefit, and solicit the
+protection. In wide extended dominions, though power has been diffused
+with the most even hand, yet a very small part of the people are either
+primarily or secondarily consulted in legislation. The business of the
+publick must be done by delegation. The choice of delegates is made by a
+select number, and those who are not electors stand idle and helpless
+spectators of the commonweal, "wholly unconcerned in the government of
+themselves."
+
+Of the electors the hap is but little better. They are often far from
+unanimity in their choice; and where the numbers approach to equality,
+almost half must be governed not only without, but against their choice.
+
+How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant
+ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most favourite residence
+of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive; a tacit
+admission, in every community, of the terms which that community grants
+and requires. As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we
+may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of
+government. Other consent than this the condition of civil life does not
+allow. It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the
+delirious dream of republican fanaticism.
+
+But hear, ye sons and daughters of liberty, the sounds which the winds
+are wafting from the western continent. The Americans are telling one
+another, what, if we may judge from their noisy triumph, they have but
+lately discovered, and what yet is a very important truth: "That they
+are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and that they have never
+ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either
+without their consent."
+
+While this resolution stands alone, the Americans are free from
+singularity of opinion; their wit has not yet betrayed them to heresy.
+While they speak as the naked sons of nature, they claim but what is
+claimed by other men, and have withheld nothing but what all withhold.
+They are here upon firm ground, behind entrenchments which never can be
+forced.
+
+Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this resemblance to
+Europeans, that they do not always know when they are well. They soon
+quit the fortress, that could neither have been ruined by sophistry, nor
+battered by declamation. Their next resolution declares, that "Their
+ancestors, who first settled the colonies, were, at the time of their
+emigration from the mother-country, entitled to all the rights,
+liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the
+realm of England."
+
+This, likewise, is true; but when this is granted, their boast of
+original rights is at an end; they are no longer in a state of nature.
+These lords of themselves, these kings of ME, these demigods of
+independence sink down to colonists, governed by a charter. If their
+ancestors were subjects, they acknowledged a sovereign; if they had a
+right to English privileges, they were accountable to English laws; and,
+what must grieve the lover of liberty to discover, had ceded to the king
+and parliament, whether the right or not, at least, the power of
+disposing, "without their consent, of their lives, liberties, and
+properties." It, therefore, is required of them to prove, that the
+parliament ever ceded to them a dispensation from that obedience, which
+they owe as natural-born subjects, or any degree of independence or
+immunity, not enjoyed by other Englishmen.
+
+They say, that by such emigration, they by no means forfeited,
+surrendered, or lost any of those rights; but, that "they were, and
+their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all
+such of them, as their local and other circumstances enable them to
+exercise and enjoy."
+
+That they who form a settlement by a lawful charter, having committed no
+crime, forfeit no privileges, will be readily confessed; but what they
+do not forfeit by any judicial sentence, they may lose by natural
+effects. As man can be but in one place, at once, he cannot have the
+advantages of multiplied residence. He that will enjoy the brightness of
+sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade. He who goes voluntarily
+to America, cannot complain of losing what he leaves in Europe. He,
+perhaps, had a right to vote for a knight or burgess; by crossing the
+Atlantick, he has not nullified his right; but he has made its exertion
+no longer possible. [32] By his own choice he has left a country, where
+he had a vote and little property, for another, where he has great
+property, but no vote. But as this preference was deliberate and
+unconstrained, he is still "concerned in the government of himself;" he
+has reduced himself from a voter, to one of the innumerable multitude
+that have no vote. He has truly "ceded his right," but he still is
+governed by his own consent; because he has consented to throw his atom
+of interest into the general mass of the community. Of the consequences
+of his own act he has no cause to complain; he has chosen, or intended
+to choose, the greater good; he is represented, as himself desired, in
+the general representation.
+
+But the privileges of an American scorn the limits of place; they are
+part of himself, and cannot be lost by departure from his country; they
+float in the air, or glide under the ocean:
+
+  "Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam."
+
+A planter, wherever he settles, is not only a freeman, but a legislator:
+"ubi imperator, ibi Roma." "As the English colonists are not represented
+in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive
+power of legislation in their several legislatures, in all cases of
+taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of the
+sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. We
+cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British
+parliament, as are, bona fide, restrained to the regulation of our
+external commerce--excluding every idea of taxation, internal or
+external, for raising a revenue on the subjects of America, without
+their consent."
+
+Their reason for this claim is, "that the foundation of English liberty,
+and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their
+legislative council."
+
+"They inherit," they say, "from their ancestors, the right which their
+ancestors possessed, of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen." That
+they inherit the right of their ancestors is allowed; but they can
+inherit no more. Their ancestors left a country, where the
+representatives of the people were elected by men particularly
+qualified, and where those who wanted qualifications, or who did not use
+them, were bound by the decisions of men, whom they had not deputed.
+
+The colonists are the descendants of men, who either had no vote in
+elections, or who voluntarily resigned them for something, in their
+opinion, of more estimation; they have, therefore, exactly what their
+ancestors left them, not a vote in making laws, or in constituting
+legislators, but the happiness of being protected by law, and the duty
+of obeying it.
+
+What their ancestors did not carry with them, neither they nor their
+descendants have since acquired. They have not, by abandoning their part
+in one legislature, obtained the power of constituting another,
+exclusive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now
+debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate parliament for
+themselves.
+
+Men are wrong for want of sense, but they are wrong by halves for want
+of spirit. Since the Americans have discovered that they can make a
+parliament, whence comes it that they do not think themselves equally
+empowered to make a king? If they are subjects, whose government is
+constituted by a charter, they can form no body of independent
+legislature. If their rights are inherent and underived, they may, by
+their own suffrages, encircle, with a diadem, the brows of Mr. Cushing.
+
+It is further declared, by the congress of Philadelphia, "that his
+majesty's colonies are entitled to all the privileges and immunities
+granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured to them by
+their several codes of provincial laws."
+
+The first clause of this resolution is easily understood, and will be
+readily admitted. To all the privileges which a charter can convey, they
+are, by a royal charter, evidently entitled. The second clause is of
+greater difficulty; for how can a provincial law secure privileges or
+immunities to a province? Provincial laws may grant, to certain
+individuals of the province, the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity
+from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they
+relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They
+may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a
+conceit of the other hemisphere, that men have a right to all which they
+have given to themselves.
+
+A corporation is considered, in law, as an individual, and can no more
+extend its own immunities, than a man can, by his own choice, assume
+dignities or titles.
+
+The legislature of a colony (let not the comparison be too much
+disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess
+on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence
+beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the
+general law, and, whatever may be its internal expenses, is still liable
+to taxes laid by superiour authority.
+
+The charters given to different provinces are different, and no general
+right can be extracted from them. The charter of Pennsylvania, where
+this congress of anarchy has been impudently held, contains a clause
+admitting, in express terms, taxation by the parliament. If, in the
+other charters, no such reserve is made, it must have been omitted, as
+not necessary, because it is implied in the nature of subordinate
+government. They who are subject to laws, are liable to taxes. If any
+such immunity had been granted, it is still revocable by the
+legislature, and ought to be revoked, as contrary to the publick good,
+which is, in every charter, ultimately intended.
+
+Suppose it true, that any such exemption is contained in the charter of
+Maryland, it can be pleaded only by the Marylanders. It is of no use for
+any other province; and, with regard even to them, must have been
+considered as one of the grants in which the king has been deceived; and
+annulled, as mischievous to the publick, by sacrificing to one little
+settlement the general interest of the empire; as infringing the system
+of dominion, and violating the compact of government. But Dr. Tucker has
+shown, that even this charter promises no exemption from parliamentary
+taxes.
+
+In the controversy agitated about the beginning of this century, whether
+the English laws could bind Ireland, Davenant, who defended against
+Molyneux the claims of England, considered it as necessary to prove
+nothing more, than that the present Irish must be deemed a colony.
+
+The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have
+sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their
+meaning.
+
+Our nation is represented in parliament by an assembly as numerous as
+can well consist with order and despatch, chosen by persons so
+differently qualified in different places, that the mode of choice seems
+to be, for the most part, formed by chance, and settled by custom. Of
+individuals, far the greater part have no vote, and, of the voters, few
+have any personal knowledge of him to whom they intrust their liberty
+and fortune.
+
+Yet this representation has the whole effect expected or desired, that
+of spreading so wide the care of general interest, and the participation
+of publick counsels, that the advantage or corruption of particular men
+can seldom operate with much injury to the publick.
+
+For this reason many populous and opulent towns neither enjoy nor desire
+particular representatives: they are included in the general scheme of
+publick administration, and cannot suffer but with the rest of the
+empire.
+
+It is urged, that the Americans have not the same security, and that a
+British legislator may wanton with their property; yet, if it be true,
+that their wealth is our wealth, and that their ruin will be our ruin,
+the parliament has the same interest in attending to them, as to any
+other part of the nation. The reason why we place any confidence in our
+representatives is, that they must share in the good or evil which their
+counsels shall produce. Their share is, indeed, commonly consequential
+and remote; but it is not often possible that any immediate advantage
+can be extended to such numbers as may prevail against it. We are,
+therefore, as secure against intentional depravations of government, as
+human wisdom can make us, and upon this security the Americans may
+venture to repose.
+
+It is said, by the old member who has written an appeal against the tax,
+that "as the produce of American labour is spent in British
+manufactures, the balance of trade is greatly against them; whatever you
+take directly in taxes is, in effect, taken from your own commerce. If
+the minister seizes the money, with which the American should pay his
+debts, and come to market, the merchant cannot expect him as a customer,
+nor can the debts, already contracted, be paid.--Suppose we obtain from
+America a million, instead of one hundred thousand pounds, it would be
+supplying one personal exigence by the future ruin of our commerce."
+
+Part of this is true; but the old member seems not to perceive, that, if
+his brethren of the legislature know this as well as himself, the
+Americans are in no danger of oppression, since by men commonly
+provident they must be so taxed, as that we may not lose one way, what
+we gain another.
+
+The same old member has discovered, that the judges formerly thought it
+illegal to tax Ireland, and declares that no cases can be more alike
+than those of Ireland and America; yet the judges whom he quotes have
+mentioned a difference. Ireland, they say, "hath a parliament of its
+own." When any colony has an independent parliament, acknowledged by the
+parliament of Britain, the cases will differ less. Yet, by the sixth of
+George the first, chapter fifth, the acts of the British parliament bind
+Ireland.
+
+It is urged, that when Wales, Durham, and Chester were divested of their
+particular privileges, or ancient government, and reduced to the state
+of English counties, they had representatives assigned them.
+
+To those from whom something had been taken, something in return might
+properly be given. To the Americans their charters are left, as they
+were, nor have they lost any thing, except that of which their sedition
+has deprived them. If they were to be represented in parliament,
+something would be granted, though nothing is withdrawn.
+
+The inhabitants of Chester, Durham, and Wales were invited to exchange
+their peculiar institutions for the power of voting, which they wanted
+before. The Americans have voluntarily resigned the power of voting, to
+live in distant and separate governments; and what they have voluntarily
+quitted, they have no right to claim.
+
+It must always be remembered, that they are represented by the same
+virtual representation as the greater part of Englishmen; and that, if
+by change of place, they have less share in the legislature than is
+proportionate to their opulence, they, by their removal, gained that
+opulence, and had originally, and have now, their choice of a vote at
+home, or riches at a distance.
+
+We are told, what appears to the old member and to others, a position
+that must drive us into inextricable absurdity: that we have either no
+right, or the sole right, of taxing the colonies. The meaning is, that
+if we can tax them, they cannot tax themselves; and that if they can tax
+themselves, we cannot tax them. We answer, with very little hesitation,
+that, for the general use of the empire, we have the sole right of
+taxing them. If they have contributed any thing in their own assemblies,
+what they contributed was not paid, but given; it was not a tax or
+tribute, but a present. Yet they have the natural and legal power of
+levying money on themselves for provincial purposes, of providing for
+their own expense at their own discretion. Let not this be thought new
+or strange; it is the state of every parish in the kingdom.
+
+The friends of the Americans are of different opinions. Some think,
+that, being unrepresented, they ought to tax themselves; and others,
+that they ought to have representatives in the British parliament.
+
+If they are to tax themselves, what power is to remain in the supreme
+legislature? That they must settle their own mode of levying their money
+is supposed. May the British parliament tell them how much they shall
+contribute? If the sum may be prescribed, they will return few thanks
+for the power of raising it; if they are at liberty to grant or to deny,
+they are no longer subjects.
+
+If they are to be represented, what number of these western orators are
+to be admitted? This, I suppose, the parliament must settle; yet, if men
+have a natural and unalienable right to be represented, who shall
+determine the number of their delegates? Let us, however, suppose them
+to send twenty-three, half as many as the kingdom of Scotland, what will
+this representation avail them? To pay taxes will be still a grievance.
+The love of money will not be lessened, nor the power of getting it
+increased.
+
+Whither will this necessity of representation drive us? Is every petty
+settlement to be out of the reach of government, till it has sent a
+senator to parliament; or may two of them, or a greater number, be
+forced to unite in a single deputation? What, at last, is the difference
+between him that is taxed, by compulsion, without representation, and
+him that is represented, by compulsion, in order to be taxed?
+
+For many reigns the house of commons was in a state of fluctuation: new
+burgesses were added, from time to time, without any reason now to be
+discovered; but the number has been fixed for more than a century and a
+half, and the king's power of increasing it has been questioned. It will
+hardly be thought fit to new-model the constitution in favour of the
+planters, who, as they grow rich, may buy estates in England, and,
+without any innovation, effectually represent their native colonies.
+
+The friends of the Americans, indeed, ask for them what they do not ask
+for themselves. This inestimable right of representation they have never
+solicited. They mean not to exchange solid money for such airy honour.
+They say, and say willingly, that they cannot conveniently be
+represented; because their inference is, that they cannot be taxed. They
+are too remote to share the general government, and, therefore, claim
+the privilege of governing themselves.
+
+Of the principles contained in the resolutions of the congress, however
+wild, indefinite, and obscure, such has been the influence upon American
+understanding, that, from New England to South Carolina, there is formed
+a general combination of all the provinces against their mother-country.
+The madness of independence has spread from colony to colony, till order
+is lost, and government despised; and all is filled with misrule,
+uproar, violence, and confusion. To be quiet is disaffection, to be
+loyal is treason.
+
+The congress of Philadelphia, an assembly convened by its own authority,
+has promulgated a declaration, in compliance with which the
+communication between Britain and the greatest part of North America, is
+now suspended. They ceased to admit the importation of English goods, in
+December, 1774, and determine to permit the exportation of their own no
+longer than to November, 1775.
+
+This might seem enough; but they have done more: they have declared,
+that they shall treat all as enemies who do not concur with them in
+disaffection and perverseness; and that they will trade with none that
+shall trade with Britain.
+
+They threaten to stigmatize, in their gazette, those who shall consume
+the products or merchandise of their mother-country, and are now
+searching suspected houses for prohibited goods.
+
+These hostile declarations they profess themselves ready to maintain by
+force. They have armed the militia of their provinces, and seized the
+publick stores of ammunition. They are, therefore, no longer subjects,
+since they refuse the laws of their sovereign, and, in defence of that
+refusal, are making open preparations for war.
+
+Being now, in their own opinion, free states, they are not only raising
+armies, but forming alliances, not only hastening to rebel themselves,
+but seducing their neighbours to rebellion. They have published an
+address to the inhabitants of Quebec, in which discontent and resistance
+are openly incited, and with very respectful mention of "the sagacity of
+Frenchmen," invite them to send deputies to the congress of
+Philadelphia; to that seat of virtue and veracity, whence the people of
+England are told, that to establish popery, "a religion fraught with
+sanguinary and impious tenets," even in Quebec, a country of which the
+inhabitants are papists, is so contrary to the constitution, that it
+cannot be lawfully done by the legislature itself; where it is made one
+of the articles of their association, to deprive the conquered French of
+their religious establishment; and whence the French of Quebec are, at
+the same time, flattered into sedition, by professions of expecting
+"from the liberality of sentiment distinguishing their nation, that
+difference of religion will not prejudice them against a hearty amity,
+because the transcendant nature of freedom elevates all, who unite in
+the cause, above such low-minded infirmities."
+
+Quebec, however, is at a great distance. They have aimed a stroke, from
+which they may hope for greater and more speedy mischief. They have
+tried to infect the people of England with the contagion of disloyalty.
+Their credit is, happily, not such as gives them influence proportionate
+to their malice. When they talk of their pretended immunities
+"guaranteed by the plighted faith of government, and the most solemn
+compacts with English sovereigns," we think ourselves at liberty to
+inquire, when the faith was plighted, and the compact made; and, when we
+can only find, that king James and king Charles the first promised the
+settlers in Massachusetts bay, now famous by the appellation of
+Bostonians, exemption from taxes for seven years, we infer, with Mr.
+Mauduit, that, by this "solemn compact," they were, after expiration of
+the stipulated term, liable to taxation.
+
+When they apply to our compassion, by telling us, that they are to be
+carried from their own country to be tried for certain offences, we are
+not so ready to pity them, as to advise them not to offend. While they
+are innocent they are safe.
+
+When they tell of laws made expressly for their punishment, we answer,
+that tumults and sedition were always punishable, and that the new law
+prescribes only the mode of execution.
+
+When it is said, that the whole town of Boston is distressed for a
+misdemeanor of a few, we wonder at their shamelessness; for we know that
+the town of Boston and all the associated provinces, are now in
+rebellion to defend or justify the criminals.
+
+If frauds in the imposts of Boston are tried by commission without a
+jury, they are tried here in the same mode; and why should the
+Bostonians expect from us more tenderness for them than for ourselves?
+
+If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a
+trial. The crime is manifest and notorious. All trial is the
+investigation of something doubtful. An Italian philosopher observes,
+that no man desires to hear what he has already seen.
+
+If their assemblies have been suddenly dissolved, what was the reason?
+Their deliberations were indecent, and their intentions seditious. The
+power of dissolution is granted and reserved for such times of
+turbulence. Their best friends have been lately soliciting the king to
+dissolve his parliament; to do what they so loudly complain of
+suffering.
+
+That the same vengeance involves the innocent and guilty, is an evil to
+be lamented; but human caution cannot prevent it, nor human power always
+redress it. To bring misery on those who have not deserved it, is part
+of the aggregated guilt of rebellion.
+
+That governours have been sometimes given them, only that a great man
+might get ease from importunity, and that they have had judges, not
+always of the deepest learning, or the purest integrity, we have no
+great reason to doubt, because such misfortunes happen to ourselves.
+Whoever is governed, will, sometimes, be governed ill, even when he is
+most "concerned in his own government."
+
+That improper officers or magistrates are sent, is the crime or folly of
+those that sent them. When incapacity is discovered, it ought to be
+removed; if corruption is detected, it ought to be punished. No
+government could subsist for a day, if single errours could justify
+defection.
+
+One of their complaints is not such as can claim much commiseration from
+the softest bosom. They tell us, that we have changed our conduct, and
+that a tax is now laid, by parliament, on those who were never taxed by
+parliament before. To this, we think, it may be easily answered, that
+the longer they have been spared, the better they can pay.
+
+It is certainly not much their interest to represent innovation as
+criminal or invidious; for they have introduced into the history of
+mankind a new mode of disaffection, and have given, I believe, the first
+example of a proscription published by a colony against the
+mother-country.
+
+To what is urged of new powers granted to the courts of admiralty, or
+the extension of authority conferred on the judges, it may be answered,
+in a few words, that they have themselves made such regulations
+necessary; that they are established for the prevention of greater
+evils; at the same time, it must be observed, that these powers have not
+been extended since the rebellion in America.
+
+One mode of persuasion their ingenuity has suggested, which it may,
+perhaps, be less easy to resist. That we may not look with indifference
+on the American contest, or imagine that the struggle is for a claim,
+which, however decided, is of small importance and remote consequence,
+the Philadelphian congress has taken care to inform us, that they are
+resisting the demands of parliament, as well for our sakes as their own.
+
+Their keenness of perspicacity has enabled them to pursue consequences
+to a greater distance; to see through clouds impervious to the dimness
+of European sight; and to find, I know not how, that when they are
+taxed, we shall be enslaved.
+
+That slavery is a miserable state we have been often told, and,
+doubtless, many a Briton will tremble to find it so near as in America;
+but how it will be brought hither the congress must inform us. The
+question might distress a common understanding; but the statesmen of the
+other hemisphere can easily resolve it. "Our ministers," they say, "axe
+our enemies, and if they should carry the point of taxation, may, with
+the same army, enslave us. It may be said, we will not pay them; but
+remember," say the western sages, "the taxes from America, and, we may
+add, the men, and particularly the Roman catholicks of this vast
+continent, will then be in the power of your enemies. Nor have you any
+reason to expect, that, after making slaves of us, many of us will
+refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state."
+
+These are dreadful menaces; but suspecting that they have not much the
+sound of probability, the congress proceeds: "Do not treat this as
+chimerical. Know, that in less than half a century, the quitrents
+reserved to the crown, from the numberless grants of this vast
+continent, will pour large streams of wealth into the royal coffers. If
+to this be added the power of taxing America, at pleasure, the crown
+will possess more treasure than may be necessary to purchase the remains
+of liberty in your island."
+
+All this is very dreadful; but, amidst the terrour that shakes my frame,
+I cannot forbear to wish, that some sluice were opened for these streams
+of treasure. I should gladly see America return half of what England has
+expended in her defence; and of the stream that will "flow so largely in
+less than half a century," I hope a small rill, at least, may be found
+to quench the thirst of the present generation, which seems to think
+itself in more danger of wanting money, than of losing liberty.
+
+It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of
+malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather
+repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.
+
+In this last terrifick paragraph are two positions, that, if our fears
+do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to support life a little
+longer. We are told by these croakers of calamity, not only that our
+present ministers design to enslave us, but that the same malignity of
+purpose is to descend through all their successors; and that the wealth
+to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America, will, whenever it
+comes, be employed to purchase the "remains of liberty."
+
+Of those who now conduct the national affairs, we may, without much
+arrogance, presume to know more than themselves; and of those who shall
+succeed them, whether minister or king, not to know less.
+
+The other position is, that "the crown," if this laudable opposition
+should not be successful, "will have the power of taxing America at
+pleasure." Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions,
+when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that
+they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that
+the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained
+any additional power over their possessions.
+
+It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect
+these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter
+among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really
+dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to
+communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But,
+probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries,
+that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands
+among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address,
+though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet,
+probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some
+master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political
+electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to
+repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by
+the name of Boston.
+
+When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general
+legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus
+acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their
+claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and
+allegiance.
+
+It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces
+of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to
+indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found
+themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.
+
+That corporations, constituted by favour, and existing by sufferance,
+should dare to prohibit commerce with their native country, and threaten
+individuals by infamy, and societies with, at least, suspension of
+amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themselves, is
+a degree of insolence which not only deserves to be punished, but of
+which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life and the
+peace of nations.
+
+Yet there have risen up, in the face of the publick, men who, by
+whatever corruptions, or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend
+the Americans, endeavour to shelter them from resentment, and propose
+reconciliation without submission.
+
+As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for
+a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may
+resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English
+constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A
+congress might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties in a
+style not unlike the language of the American patriots:
+
+"FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,--We, the delegates of the several towns
+and parishes of Cornwall, assembled to deliberate upon our own state,
+and that of our constituents, having, after serious debate and calm
+consideration, settled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it
+necessary to declare the resolutions which we think ourselves entitled
+to form, by the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which
+we have been compelled by grievances and oppressions, long endured by us
+in patient silence, not because we did not feel, or could not remove
+them, but because we were unwilling to give disturbance to a settled
+government, and hoped that others would, in time, find, like ourselves,
+their true interest and their original powers, and all cooperate to
+universal happiness.
+
+"But since, having long indulged the pleasing expectation, we find
+general discontent not likely to increase, or not likely to end in
+general defection, we resolve to erect alone the standard of liberty.
+
+"Know then, that you are no longer to consider Cornwall as an English
+county, visited by English judges, receiving law from an English
+parliament, or included in any general taxation of the kingdom; but as a
+state, distinct and independent, governed by its own institutions,
+administered by its own magistrates, and exempt from any tax or tribute,
+but such as we shall impose upon ourselves.
+
+"We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of
+Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the
+island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants.
+Of this descent, our language is a sufficient proof, which, not quite a
+century ago, was different from yours.
+
+"Such are the Cornishmen; but who are you? who, but the unauthorised and
+lawless children of intruders, invaders, and oppressors? who, but the
+transmitters of wrong, the inheritors of robbery? In claiming
+independence, we claim but little. We might require you to depart from a
+land which you possess by usurpation, and to restore all that you have
+taken from us.
+
+"Independence is the gift of nature. No man is born the master of
+another. Every Cornishman is a freeman; for we have never resigned the
+rights of humanity: and he only can be thought free, who is 'not
+governed but by his own consent.
+
+"You may urge, that the present system of government has descended
+through many ages, and that we have a larger part in the representation
+of the kingdom than any other county.
+
+"All this is true, but it is neither cogent nor persuasive. We look to
+the original of things. Our union with the English counties was either
+compelled by force, or settled by compact.
+
+"That which was made by violence, may by violence be broken. If we were
+treated as a conquered people, our rights might be obscured, but could
+never be extinguished. The sword can give nothing but power, which a
+sharper sword can take away.
+
+"If our union was by compact, whom could the compact bind, but those
+that concurred in the stipulations? We gave our ancestors no commission
+to settle the terms of future existence. They might be cowards that were
+frighted, or blockheads that were cheated; but, whatever they were, they
+could contract only for themselves. What they could establish, we can
+annul.
+
+"Against our present form of government, it shall stand in the place of
+all argument, that we do not like it. While we are governed as we do not
+like, where is our liberty? We do not like taxes, we will, therefore,
+not be taxed: we do not like your laws, and will not obey them.
+
+"The taxes laid by our representatives, are laid, you tell us, by our
+own consent; but we will no longer consent to be represented. Our number
+of legislators was originally a burden, and ought to have been refused;
+it is now considered as a disproportionate advantage; who, then, will
+complain if we resign it?
+
+"We shall form a senate of our own, under a president whom the king
+shall nominate, but whose authority we will limit, by adjusting his
+salary to his merit. We will not withhold a proper share of contribution
+to the necessary expense of lawful government, but we will decide for
+ourselves what share is proper, what expense is necessary, and what
+government is lawful.
+
+"Till our counsel is proclaimed independent and unaccountable, we will,
+after the tenth day of September, keep our tin in our own hands: you can
+be supplied from no other place, and must, therefore, comply, or be
+poisoned with the copper of your own kitchens.
+
+"If any Cornishman shall refuse his name to this just and laudable
+association, he shall be tumbled from St. Michael's mount, or buried
+alive in a tin-mine; and if any emissary shall be found seducing
+Cornishmen to their former state, he shall be smeared with tar, and
+rolled in feathers, and chased with dogs out of our dominions.
+
+"From the Cornish congress at Truro."
+
+Of this memorial, what could be said, but that it was written in jest,
+or written by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of
+Pennsylvanian eloquence, can find any argument in the addresses of the
+congress, that is not, with greater strength, urged by the Cornishman.
+
+The argument of the irregular troops of controversy, stripped of its
+colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this. Liberty
+is the birthright of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no
+liberty. The answer is equally simple. Government is necessary to man,
+and where obedience is not compelled, there is no government.
+
+If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use
+compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making
+laws, and then of enforcing them.
+
+To one of the threats hissed out by the congress, I have put nothing
+similar into the Cornish proclamation; because it is too wild for folly,
+and too foolish for madness. If we do not withhold our king and his
+parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantick, and enslave
+us.
+
+How they will come, they have not told us; perhaps they will take wing,
+and light upon our coasts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is
+time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The great orator
+observes, that they will be very fit, after they have been taxed, to
+impose chains upon us. If they are so fit as their friend describes
+them, and so willing as they describe themselves, let us increase our
+army, and double our militia.
+
+It has been, of late, a very general practice to talk of slavery among
+those who are setting at defiance every power that keeps the world in
+order. If the learned author of the Reflections on Learning has rightly
+observed, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain
+to prohibit the use of the word slavery; but I could wish it more
+discreetly uttered: it is driven, at one time, too hard into our ears by
+the loud hurricane of Pennsylvanian eloquence, and, at another, glides
+too cold into our hearts by the soft conveyance of a female patriot,
+bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.
+
+Such has been the progress of sedition, that those who, a few years ago,
+disputed only our right of laying taxes, now question the validity of
+every act of legislation. They consider themselves as emancipated from
+obedience, and as being no longer the subjects of the British crown.
+They leave us no choice, but of yielding or conquering, of resigning our
+dominion or maintaining it by force.
+
+From force many endeavours have been used, either to dissuade, or to
+deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and sometimes
+their sufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to
+the last war; a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their
+protection; a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that
+they can boast is, that they did something for themselves, and did not
+wholly stand inactive, while the sons of Britain were fighting in their
+cause.
+
+If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity those that show
+no regard to their mother-country; have obeyed no law, which they could
+violate; have imparted no good, which they could withhold; have entered
+into associations of fraud to rob their creditors; and into combinations
+to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with
+the cruelty of shutting one port, where every port is shut against us.
+We are censured as tyrannical, for hindering those from fishing, who
+have condemned our merchants to bankruptcy, and our manufacturers to
+hunger.
+
+Others persuade us to give them more liberty, to take off restraints,
+and relax authority; and tell us what happy consequences will arise from
+forbearance; how their affections will be conciliated, and into what
+diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love
+their friends. They will reverence their protectors. They will throw
+themselves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet; they will
+buy from no other what we can sell them; they will sell to no other what
+we wish to buy.
+
+That any obligations should overpower their attention to profit, we have
+known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a
+more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefits, they are
+now showing us, who, as soon as we have delivered them from France, are
+defying and proscribing us.
+
+But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more
+than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will, during
+pleasure, pay us a subsidy. The contest is not now for money, but for
+power. The question is not, how much we shall collect, but, by what
+authority the collection shall be made.
+
+Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown, in any form, that may
+raise love or pity, dress them in habiliments of terrour, and try to
+make us think them formidable. The Bostonians can call into the field
+ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will
+rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take
+possession of the towns, the colonists will retire into the inland
+regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houses, and a wide
+extent of waste and desolation. If we subdue them for the present, they
+will universally revolt in the next war, and resign us, without pity, to
+subjection and destruction.
+
+To all this it may be answered, that between losing America, and
+resigning it, there is no great difference; that it is not very
+reasonable to jump into the sea, because the ship is leaky. All those
+evils may befall us, but we need not hasten them.
+
+The dean of Gloucester has proposed, and seems to propose it seriously,
+that we should, at once, release our claims, declare them masters of
+themselves, and whistle them down the wind. His opinion is, that our
+gain from them will be the same, and our expense less. What they can
+have most cheaply from Britain, they will still buy; what they can sell
+to us at the highest price, they will still sell.
+
+It is, however, a little hard, that, having so lately fought and
+conquered for their safety, we should govern them no longer. By letting
+them loose before the war, how many millions might have been saved. One
+wild proposal is best answered by another. Let us restore to the French
+what we have taken from them. We shall see our colonists at our feet,
+when they have an enemy so near them. Let us give the Indians arms, and
+teach them discipline, and encourage them, now and then, to plunder a
+plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition.
+
+While these different opinions are agitated, it seems to be determined,
+by the legislature, that force shall be tried. Men of the pen have
+seldom any great skill in conquering kingdoms, but they have strong
+inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to wish, that this
+commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued
+by terrour rather than by violence; and, therefore, recommend such a
+force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope of resistance,
+and, by conquering without a battle, save many from the sword.
+
+If their obstinacy continues, without actual hostilities, it may,
+perhaps, be mollified, by turning out the soldiers to free quarters,
+forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the
+slaves should be set free, an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty
+cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and
+utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government
+within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their
+masters.
+
+Far be it from any Englishman, to thirst for the blood of his
+fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are, unhappily,
+at less distance. The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed,
+undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they
+had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by
+European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who
+were friends only to themselves.
+
+On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out
+its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious
+contest, they are, themselves, equally detestable. If they wish success
+to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their
+defeat, they are traitors, at once, to America and England. To them, and
+them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the
+miseries of war, the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood
+of those that shall fall.
+
+Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be
+subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their
+possessions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be
+secured by stricter laws and stronger obligations!
+
+Nothing can be more noxious to society, than that erroneous clemency,
+which, when a rebellion is suppressed, exacts no forfeiture, and
+establishes no securities, but leaves the rebels in their former state.
+Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
+expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
+accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
+than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
+always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
+victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
+gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
+of their port.
+
+Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
+as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
+privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be
+taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers,
+and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent
+planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.
+
+But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom
+the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous,
+and who startle at the thoughts of "England free, and America in
+chains." Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are
+frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word;
+but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations
+between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will
+be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of
+English superiority and American obedience.
+
+We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution
+of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious
+politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,
+how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers
+of negroes?
+
+But let us interrupt awhile this dream of conquest, settlement, and
+supremacy. Let us remember, that being to contend, according to one
+orator, with three millions of whigs, and, according to another, with
+ninety thousand patriots of Massachusetts bay, we may possibly be
+checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon
+equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to
+violate, a second time, the happy borders of the land of liberty. The
+time is now, perhaps, at hand, which sir Thomas Browne predicted,
+between jest and earnest:
+
+  "When America should no more send out her treasure,
+      But spend it at home in American pleasure."
+
+If we are allowed, upon our defeat, to stipulate conditions, I hope the
+treaty of Boston will permit us to import into the confederated cantons
+such products as they do not raise, and such manufactures as they do not
+make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying, like others,
+the appointed customs; that, if an English ship salutes a fort with four
+guns, it shall be answered, at least, with two; and that, if an
+Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath
+of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be suffered, while he lives
+inoffensively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested
+in his conscience by an oath of abjuration.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+
+
+
+FATHER PAUL SARPI [33].
+
+
+Father Paul, whose name, before he entered into the monastick life,
+was Peter Sarpi, was born at Venice, August 14, 1552. His father
+followed merchandise, but with so little success, that, at his death,
+he left his family very ill provided for; but under the care of a
+mother, whose piety was likely to bring the blessings of providence
+upon them, and whose wise conduct supplied the want of fortune by
+advantages of greater value.
+
+Happily for young Sarpi, she had a brother, master of a celebrated
+school, under whose direction he was placed by her. Here he lost no
+time; but cultivated his abilities, naturally of the first rate, with
+unwearied application. He was born for study, having a natural
+aversion to pleasure and gaiety, and a memory so tenacious, that he
+could repeat thirty verses upon once hearing them.
+
+Proportionable to his capacity was his progress in literature: at
+thirteen, having made himself master of school-learning, he turned his
+studies to philosophy and the mathematicks; and entered upon logick,
+under Capella, of Cremona; who, though a celebrated master of that
+science, confessed himself, in a very little time, unable to give his
+pupil further instructions.
+
+As Capella was of the order of the Servites, his scholar was induced,
+by his acquaintance with him, to engage in the same profession, though
+his uncle and his mother represented to him the hardships and
+austerities of that kind of life, and advised him, with great zeal,
+against it.
+
+But he was steady in his resolutions, and, in 1566, took the habit of
+the order, being then only in his fourteenth year, a time of life, in
+most persons, very improper for such engagements; but, in him,
+attended with such maturity of thought, and such a settled temper,
+that he never seemed to regret the choice he then made, and which he
+confirmed by a solemn publick profession, in 1572.
+
+At a general chapter of the Servites, held at Mantua, Paul, for so we
+shall now call him, being then only twenty years old, distinguished
+himself so much, in a publick disputation, by his genius and learning,
+that William, duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the
+consent of his superiours to retain him at his court; and not only
+made him publick professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured
+him with many proofs of his esteem.
+
+But father Paul, finding a court life not agreeable to his temper,
+quitted it two years afterwards, and retired to his beloved privacies,
+being then not only acquainted with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
+Chaldee languages, but with philosophy, the mathematicks, canon and
+civil law, all parts of natural philosophy, and chymistry itself; for
+his application was unremitted, his head clear, his apprehension
+quick, and his memory retentive.
+
+Being made a priest, at twenty-two, he was distinguished by the
+illustrious cardinal Borromeo with his confidence, and employed by
+him, on many occasions, not without the envy of persons of less merit,
+who were so far exasperated as to lay a charge against him, before the
+inquisition, for denying that the trinity could be proved from the
+first chapter of Genesis; but the accusation was too ridiculous to be
+taken notice of.
+
+After this, he passed successively through the dignities of his order,
+and, in the intervals of his employment, applied himself to his
+studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge
+untouched. By him Acquapendente, the great anatomist, confesses, that
+he was informed how vision is performed; and there are proofs, that he
+was not a stranger to the circulation of the blood.
+
+He frequently conversed upon astronomy with mathematicians; upon
+anatomy with surgeons; upon medicine with physicians; and with
+chymists upon the analysis of metals, not as a superficial inquirer,
+but as a complete master.
+
+But the hours of repose, that he employed so well, were interrupted by
+a new information in the inquisition, where a former acquaintance
+produced a letter, written by him, in ciphers, in which he said, "that
+he detested the court of Rome, and that no preferment was obtained
+there, but by dishonest means." This accusation, however dangerous,
+was passed over, on account of his great reputation, but made such
+impression on that court, that he was afterward denied a bishoprick by
+Clement the eighth. After these difficulties were surmounted, father
+Paul again retired to his solitude, where he appears, by some writings
+drawn up by him at that time, to have turned his attention more to
+improvements in piety than learning. Such was the care with which he
+read the scriptures, that, it being his custom to draw a line under
+any passage which he intended more nicely to consider, there was not a
+single word in his New Testament but was underlined; the same marks of
+attention appeared in his Old Testament, Psalter, and Breviary.
+
+But the most active scene of his life began about the year 1615, when
+pope Paul the fifth, exasperated by some decrees of the senate of
+Venice, that interfered with the pretended rights of the church, laid
+the whole state under an interdict.
+
+The senate, filled with indignation at this treatment, forbade the
+bishops to receive or publish the pope's bull; and, convening the
+rectors of the churches, commanded them to celebrate divine service in
+the accustomed manner, with which most of them readily complied; but
+the jesuits, and some others, refusing, were, by a solemn edict,
+expelled the state.
+
+Both parties having proceeded to extremities, employed their ablest
+writers to defend their measures: on the pope's side, among others,
+cardinal Bellarmine entered the lists, and, with his confederate
+authors, defended the papal claims, with great scurrility of
+expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by
+the Venetian apologists, in much more decent language, and with much
+greater solidity of argument.
+
+On this occasion father Paul was most eminently distinguished, by his
+Defence of the Rights of the Supreme Magistrate; his treatise of
+Excommunications, translated from Gerson, with an Apology, and other
+writings, for which he was cited before the inquisition at Rome; but
+it may be easily imagined that he did not obey the summons.
+
+The Venetian writers, whatever might be the abilities of their
+adversaries, were, at least, superiour to them in the justice of their
+cause. The propositions maintained on the side of Rome were these:
+that the pope is invested with all the authority of heaven and earth:
+that all princes are his vassals, and that he may annul their laws at
+pleasure: that kings may appeal to him, as he is temporal monarch of
+the whole earth: that he can discharge subjects from their oaths of
+allegiance, and make it their duty to take up arms against their
+sovereign: that he may depose kings without any fault committed by
+them, if the good of the church requires it: that the clergy are
+exempt from all tribute to kings, and are not accountable to them,
+even in cases of high treason: that the pope cannot err; that his
+decisions are to be received and obeyed on pain of sin, though all the
+world should judge them to be false; that the pope is God upon earth;
+that his sentence and that of God are the same; and that to call his
+power in question, is to call in question the power of God; maxims
+equally shocking, weak, pernicious, and absurd; which did not require
+the abilities or learning of father Paul, to demonstrate their
+falsehood, and destructive tendency.
+
+It may be easily imagined, that such principles were quickly
+overthrown, and that no court, but that of Rome, thought it for its
+interest to favour them. The pope, therefore, finding his authors
+confuted, and his cause abandoned, was willing to conclude the affair
+by treaty, which, by the mediation of Henry the fourth of France, was
+accommodated upon terms very much to the honour of the Venetians.
+
+But the defenders of the Venetian rights were, though comprehended in
+the treaty, excluded by the Romans from the benefit of it; some, upon
+different pretences, were imprisoned, some sent to the galleys, and
+all debarred from preferment. But their malice was chiefly aimed
+against father Paul, who soon found the effects of it; for, as he was
+going one night to his convent, about six months after the
+accommodation, he was attacked by five ruffians, armed with
+stilettoes, who gave him no less than fifteen stabs, three of which
+wounded him in such a manner, that he was left for dead. The murderers
+fled for refuge to the nuncio, and were afterwards received into the
+pope's dominions, but were pursued by divine justice, and all, except
+one man who died in prison, perished by violent deaths.
+
+This and other attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself
+to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council
+of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the
+matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet,
+as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr.
+Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the
+reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy,
+freedom of speech without neglect of decency, severity without rigour,
+and extensive learning without ostentation."
+
+In this and other works of less consequence, he spent the remaining
+part of his life, to the beginning of the year 1622, when he was
+seized with a cold and fever, which he neglected, till it became
+incurable. He languished more than twelve months, which he spent
+almost wholly in a preparation for his passage into eternity; and,
+among his prayers and aspirations, was often heard to repeat, "Lord!
+now let thy servant depart in peace."
+
+On Sunday, the eighth of January of the next year, he rose, weak as he
+was, to mass, and went to take his repast with the rest; but, on
+Monday, was seized with a weakness that threatened immediate death;
+and, on Thursday, prepared for his change, by receiving the viaticum
+with such marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the
+beholders.
+
+Through the whole course of his illness, to the last hour of his life,
+he was consulted by the senate in publick affairs, and returned
+answers, in his greatest weakness, with such presence of mind, as
+could only arise from the consciousness of innocence.
+
+On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the passion of our blessed
+saviour read to him out of St. John's gospel, as on every other day of
+that week, and spoke of the mercy of his redeemer, and his confidence
+in his merits.
+
+As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to
+pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his
+thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, "Esto
+perpetua," mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a
+prayer for the prosperity of his country.
+
+Thus died father Paul, in the seventy-first year of his age; hated by
+the Romans, as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the
+learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His
+detestation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his
+writings, but particularly in this memorable passage of one of his
+letters: "There is nothing more essential than to ruin the reputation
+of the jesuits; by the ruin of the jesuits, Rome will be ruined; and
+if Rome is ruined, religion will reform of itself."
+
+He appears, by many passages of his life, to have had a high esteem of
+the church of England; and his friend, father Fulgentio, who had
+adopted all his notions, made no scruple of administering to Dr.
+Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell sick at Venice, the communion
+in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer, which he had with him
+in Italian.
+
+He was buried with great pomp, at the publick charge, and a
+magnificent monument was erected, to his memory.
+
+
+
+
+BOERHAAVE.
+
+
+The following account of the late Dr. Boerhaave, so loudly celebrated,
+and so universally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we
+hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: we could have made it much
+larger, by adopting flying reports, and inserting unattested facts: a
+close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and
+hindered it from swelling to that bulk, at which modern histories
+generally arrive.
+
+Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December, 1668, about
+one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from
+Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minister of Voorhout, of whom
+his son [34], in a small account of his own life, has given a very
+amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour,
+for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the
+prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous
+family of nine children: he was eminently skilled in history and
+genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.
+
+His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amsterdam,
+from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the
+study of physick, in which she was very inquisitive, and had obtained
+a knowledge of it, not common in female students.
+
+This knowledge, however, she did not live to communicate to her son;
+for she died, in 1673, ten years after her marriage.
+
+His father, finding himself encumbered with the care of seven
+children, thought it necessary to take a second wife, and in July,
+1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden,
+who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her
+husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother.
+
+Herman Boerhaave was always designed, by his father, for the ministry,
+and, with that view, instructed by him in grammatical learning, and
+the first elements of languages; in which he made such a proficiency,
+that he was, at the age of eleven years, not only master of the rules
+of grammar, but capable of translating with tolerable accuracy, and
+not wholly ignorant of critical niceties.
+
+At intervals, to recreate his mind and strengthen his constitution, it
+was his father's custom to send him into the fields, and employ him in
+agriculture, and such kind of rural occupations, which he continued,
+through all his life, to love and practise; and, by this vicissitude
+of study and exercise, preserved himself, in a great measure, from
+those distempers and depressions, which are frequently the
+consequences of indiscreet diligence and uninterrupted application;
+and from which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of
+the human body, sometimes fly for relief, to wine instead of exercise,
+and purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful
+consequences.
+
+The studies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by
+an accident, which deserves a particular mention, as it first inclined
+him to that science, to which he was, by nature, so well adapted, and
+which he afterwards carried to so great perfection.
+
+In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant
+ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years,
+defeated all the art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only
+afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exposed him to such
+sharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were
+equally insufferable. Then it was, that his own pain taught him to
+compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the
+methods then in use, incited him to attempt the discovery of others
+more certain.
+
+He began to practise, at least, honestly, for he began upon himself;
+and his first essay was a prelude to his future success, for having
+laid aside all the prescriptions of his physicians, and all the
+applications of his surgeons, he at last, by tormenting the part with
+salt and urine, effected a cure.
+
+That he might, on this occasion, obtain the assistance of surgeons
+with less inconvenience and expense, he was brought, by his father, at
+fourteen, to Leyden, and placed in the fourth class of the publick
+school, after being examined by the master: here his application and
+abilities were equally conspicuous. In six months, by gaining the
+first prize in the fourth class, he was raised to the fifth; and, in
+six months more, upon the same proof of the superiority of his genius,
+rewarded with another prize, and translated to the sixth; from whence
+it is usual, in six months more, to be removed to the university.
+
+Thus did our young student advance in learning and reputation, when,
+as he was within view of the university, a sudden and unexpected blow
+threatened to defeat all his expectations.
+
+On the 12th of November, in 1682, his father died, and left behind him
+a very slender provision for his widow, and nine children, of which
+the eldest was not yet seventeen years old.
+
+This was a most afflicting loss to the young scholar, whose fortune
+was by no means sufficient to bear the expenses of a learned
+education, and who, therefore, seemed to be now summoned, by
+necessity, to some way of life more immediately and certainly
+lucrative; but, with a resolution equal to his abilities, and a spirit
+not so depressed and shaken, he determined to break through the
+obstacles of poverty, and supply, by diligence, the want of fortune.
+
+He, therefore, asked, and obtained the consent of his guardians, to
+prosecute his studies, so long as his patrimony would support him;
+and, continuing his wonted industry, gained another prize.
+
+He was now to quit the school for the university, but on account of
+the weakness yet remaining in his thigh, was, at his own entreaty,
+continued six months longer under the care of his master, the learned
+Winschotan, where he was once more honoured with the prize.
+
+At his removal to the university, the same genius and industry met
+with the same encouragement and applause. The learned Triglandius, one
+of his father's friends, made soon after professor of divinity at
+Leyden, distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him
+to the friendship of Mr. Van Apphen, in whom he found a generous and
+constant patron.
+
+He became now a diligent hearer of the most celebrated professors, and
+made great advances in all the sciences, still regulating his studies
+with a view, principally, to divinity, for which he was originally
+intended by his father; and, for that reason, exerted his utmost
+application to attain an exact knowledge of the Hebrew tongue.
+
+Being convinced of the necessity of mathematical learning, he began to
+study those sciences in 1687, but without that intense industry with
+which the pleasure he found in that kind of knowledge, induced him
+afterwards to cultivate them.
+
+In 1690, having performed the exercises of the university with
+uncommon reputation, he took his degree in philosophy; and, on that
+occasion, discussed the important and arduous subject of the distinct
+natures of the soul and body, with such-accuracy, perspicuity, and
+subtilty, that he entirely confuted all the sophistry of Epicurus,
+Hobbes, and Spinosa, and equally raised the characters of his piety
+and erudition.
+
+Divinity was still his great employment, and the chief aim of all his
+studies. He read the scriptures in their original languages; and when
+difficulties occurred, consulted the interpretations of the most
+ancient fathers, whom he read in order of time, beginning with Clemens
+Romanus.
+
+In the perusal of those early writers [35], he was struck with the
+profoundest veneration of the simplicity and purity of their
+doctrines, the holiness of their lives, and the sanctity of the
+discipline practised by them; but, as he descended to the lower ages,
+found the peace of Christianity broken by useless controversies, and
+its doctrines sophisticated by the subtilties of the schools: he found
+the holy writers interpreted according to the notions of philosophers,
+and the chimeras of metaphysicians adopted as articles of faith: he
+found difficulties raised by niceties, and fomented to bitterness and
+rancour: he saw the simplicity of the christian doctrine corrupted by
+the private fancies of particular parties, while each adhered to its
+own philosophy, and orthodoxy was confined to the sect in power.
+
+Having now exhausted his fortune in the pursuit of his studies, he
+found the necessity of applying to some profession, that, without
+engrossing all his time, might enable him to support himself; and
+having obtained a very uncommon knowledge of the mathematicks, he read
+lectures in those sciences to a select number of young gentlemen in
+the university.
+
+At length, his propension to the study of physick grew too violent to
+be resisted; and, though he still intended to make divinity the great
+employment of his life, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of
+spending some time upon the medical writers, for the perusal of which
+he was so well qualified by his acquaintance with the mathematicks and
+philosophy.
+
+But this science corresponded so much with his natural genius, that he
+could not forbear making that his business, which he intended only as
+his diversion; and still growing more eager, as he advanced further,
+he at length determined wholly to master that profession, and to take
+his degree in physick, before he engaged in the duties of the
+ministry.
+
+It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is,
+generally, proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any
+into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have
+not abilities, likewise, to perform them. To have formed the design of
+gaining a complete knowledge of medicine, by way of digression from
+theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most
+men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. But
+Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing
+appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts, but
+what appears insurmountable to common understandings.
+
+He began this new course of study by a diligent perusal of Vesalius,
+Bartholine, and Fallopius; and, to acquaint himself more fully with
+the structure of bodies, was a constant attendant upon Nuck's publick
+dissections in the theatre, and himself very accurately inspected the
+bodies of different animals.
+
+Having furnished himself with this preparatory knowledge, he began to
+read the ancient physicians, in the order of time, pursuing his
+inquiries downwards, from Hippocrates through all the Greek and Latin
+writers.
+
+Finding, as he tells us himself, that Hippocrates was the original
+source of all medical knowledge, and that all the later writers were
+little more than transcribers from him, he returned to him with more
+attention, and spent much time in making extracts from him, digesting
+his treatises into method, and fixing them in his memory.
+
+He then descended to the moderns, among whom none engaged him longer,
+or improved him more, than Sydenham, to whose merit he has left this
+attestation, "that he frequently perused him, and always with greater
+eagerness."
+
+His insatiable curiosity after knowledge engaged him now in the
+practice of chymistry, which he prosecuted with all the ardour of a
+philosopher, whose industry was not to be wearied, and whose love of
+truth was too strong to suffer him to acquiesce in the reports of
+others.
+
+Yet did he not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention
+from others: anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor
+chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany, in which he
+was no less skilled than in other parts of physick. He was not only a
+careful examiner of all the plants in the garden of the university,
+but made excursions, for his further improvement, into the woods and
+fields, and left no place unvisited, where any increase of botanical
+knowledge could be reasonably hoped for.
+
+In conjunction with all these inquiries, he still pursued his
+theological studies, and still, as we are informed by himself,
+"proposed, when he had made himself master of the whole art of
+physick, and obtained the honour of a degree in that science, to
+petition regularly for a license to preach, and to engage in the cure
+of souls;" and intended, in his theological exercise, to discuss this
+question, "why so many were formerly converted to Christianity by
+illiterate persons, and so few at present by men of learning."
+
+In pursuance of this plan he went to Hardewich, in order to take the
+degree of doctor in physick, which he obtained in July, 1693, having
+performed a publick disputation, "de utilitate explorandorum
+excrementorum in aegris, ut signorum."
+
+Then returning to Leyden, full of his pious design of undertaking the
+ministry, he found, to his surprise, unexpected obstacles thrown in
+his way, and an insinuation dispersed through the university, that
+made him suspected, not of any slight deviation from received
+opinions, not of any pertinacious adherence to his own notions in
+doubtful and disputable matters, but of no less than Spinosism, or, in
+plainer terms, of atheism itself.
+
+How so injurious a report came to be raised, circulated, and credited,
+will be, doubtless, very eagerly inquired; we shall, therefore, give
+the relation, not only to satisfy the curiosity of mankind, but to
+show that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only
+attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whispers. Those who
+cannot strike with force, can, however, poison their weapon, and, weak
+as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave; so
+true is that observation, that many are able to do hurt, but few to do
+good.
+
+This detestable calumny owed its rise to an incident, from which no
+consequence of importance could be possibly apprehended. As Boerhaave
+was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the
+passengers, upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa,
+which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all
+religion. Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for
+some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by
+his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument,
+began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent
+invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last,
+he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author
+he declaimed against.
+
+The orator, not being able to make much answer, was checked in the
+midst of his invectives, but not without feeling a secret resentment
+against the person who had, at once, interrupted his harangue, and
+exposed his ignorance.
+
+This was observed by a stranger who was in the boat with them; he
+inquired of his neighbour the name of the young man, whose question
+had put an end to the discourse, and having learned it, set it down in
+his pocket-book, as it appears, with a malicious design, for in a few
+days it was the common conversation at Leyden, that Boerhaave had
+revolted to Spinosa.
+
+It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and
+unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly
+of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between
+soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are
+once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice
+of bad, and, sometimes, by the zeal of good men, who, though they do
+not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep
+not only guilty, but suspected men out of publick employments, upon
+this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the
+advantage of few.
+
+Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his
+pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against
+his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither
+necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular
+prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed,
+of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the
+second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind.
+
+He, therefore, applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour
+and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and
+was continually employed in making new acquisitions.
+
+Having now qualified himself for the practice of physick, he began to
+visit patients, but without that encouragement which others, not
+equally deserving, have sometimes met with. His business was, at
+first, not great, and his circumstances by no means easy; but still,
+superiour to any discouragement, he continued his search after
+knowledge, and determined that prosperity, if ever he was to enjoy it,
+should be the consequence not of mean art, or disingenuous
+solicitations, but of real merit, and solid learning.
+
+His steady adherence to his resolutions appears yet more plainly from
+this circumstance: he was, while he yet remained in this unpleasing
+situation, invited by one of the first favourites of king William the
+third, to settle at the Hague, upon very advantageous conditions; but
+declined the offer; for having no ambition but after knowledge, he was
+desirous of living at liberty, without any restraint upon his looks,
+his thoughts, or his tongue, and at the utmost distance from all
+contentions and state-parties. His time was wholly taken up in
+visiting the sick, studying, ntaking chymical experiments, searching
+into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the
+mathematicks, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who
+profess to teach a certain method of loving God [36].
+
+This was his method of living to the year 1701, when he was
+recommended, by Van Berg, to the university, as a proper person to
+succeed Drelincurtius in the professorship of physick, and elected,
+without any solicitations on his part, and almost without his consent,
+on the 18th of May.
+
+On this occasion, having observed, with grief, that Hippocrates, whom
+he regarded not only as the father, but as the prince of physicians,
+was not sufficiently read or esteemed by young students, he pronounced
+an oration, "de commendando studio Hippocratico;" by which he restored
+that great author to his just and ancient reputation.
+
+He now began to read publick lectures with great applause, and was
+prevailed upon, by his audience, to enlarge his original design, and
+instruct them in chymistry. This he undertook, not only to the great
+advantage of his pupils, but to the great improvement of the art
+itself, which had, hitherto, been treated only in a confused and
+irregular manner, and was little more than a history of particular
+experiments, not reduced to certain principles, nor connected one with
+another: this vast chaos he reduced to order, and made that clear and
+easy, which was before, to the last degree, difficult and obscure.
+
+His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
+extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
+professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
+thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
+present course of life.
+
+This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
+university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
+them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
+and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.
+
+On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
+in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
+rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
+structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
+jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
+enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
+and, instead of enlightening their readers with explications of
+nature, have darkened the plainest appearances, and bewildered mankind
+in errour and obscurity.
+
+Boerhaave had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without
+the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor
+Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.
+
+On this occasion he asserted the simplicity and facility of the
+science of physick, in opposition to those that think obscurity
+contributes to the dignity of learning, and that to be admired it is
+necessary not to be understood.
+
+His profession of botany made it part of his duty to superintend the
+physical garden, which improved so much by the immense number of new
+plants which he procured, that it was enlarged to twice its original
+extent.
+
+In 1714, he was deservedly advanced to the highest dignities of the
+university, and, in the same year, made physician of St. Augustin's
+hospital in Leyden, into which the students are admitted twice a week,
+to learn the practice of physick.
+
+This was of equal advantage to the sick and to the students, for the
+success of his practice was the best demonstration of the soundness of
+his principles.
+
+When he laid down his office of governour of the university, in 1715,
+he made an oration upon the subject of "attaining to certainty in
+natural philosophy;" in which he declares, in the strongest terms, in
+favour of experimental knowledge; and reflects, with just severity,
+upon those arrogant philosophers, who are too easily disgusted with
+the slow methods of obtaining true notions by frequent experiments;
+and who, possessed with too high an opinion of their own abilities,
+rather choose to consult their own imaginations, than inquire into
+nature, and are better pleased with the charming amusement of forming
+hypotheses, than the toilsome drudgery of making observations.
+
+The emptiness and uncertainty of all those systems, whether venerable
+for their antiquity, or agreeable for their novelty, he has evidently
+shown; and not only declared, but proved, that we are entirely
+ignorant of the principles of things, and that all the knowledge we
+have, is of such qualities alone as are discoverable by experience, or
+such as may be deduced from them by mathematical demonstration.
+
+This discourse, filled as it was with piety, and a true sense of the
+greatness of the supreme being, and the incomprehensibility of his
+works, gave such offence to a professor of Franeker, who professed the
+utmost esteem for Des Cartes, and considered his principles as the
+bulwark of orthodoxy, that he appeared in vindication of his darling
+author, and spoke of the injury done him with the utmost vehemence,
+declaring little less than that the cartesian system and the Christian
+must inevitably stand and fall together; and that to say that we were
+ignorant of the principles of things, was not only to enlist among the
+skepticks, but to sink into atheism itself.
+
+So far can prejudice darken the understanding, as to make it consider
+precarious systems as the chief support of sacred and invariable
+truth.
+
+This treatment of Boerhaave was so far resented by the governours of
+his university, that they procured from Franeker a recantation of the
+invective that had been thrown out against him: this was not only
+complied with, but offers were made him of more ample satisfaction; to
+which he returned an answer not less to his honour than the victory he
+gained, "that he should think himself sufficiently compensated, if his
+adversary received no further molestation on his account."
+
+So far was this weak and injudicious attack from shaking a reputation
+not casually raised by fashion or caprice, but founded upon solid
+merit, that the same year his correspondence was desired upon botany
+and natural philosophy by the academy of sciences at Paris, of which
+he was, upon the death of count Marsigli, in the year 1728, elected a
+member.
+
+Nor were the French the only nation by which this great man was
+courted and distinguished; for, two years after, he was elected fellow
+of our Royal society.
+
+It cannot be doubted but, thus caressed and honoured with the highest
+and most publick marks of esteem by other nations, he became more
+celebrated in the university; for Boerhaave was not one of those
+learned men, of whom the world has seen too many, that disgrace their
+studies by their vices, and, by unaccountable weaknesses, make
+themselves ridiculous at home, while their writings procure them the
+veneration of distant countries, where their learning is known, but
+not their follies.
+
+Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his
+excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in
+1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of
+chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia
+errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an
+elegance of style not often to be found in chymical writers, who seem
+generally to have affected, not only a barbarous, but unintelligible
+phrase, and to have, like the Pythagoreans of old, wrapt up their
+secrets in symbols and enigmatical expressions, either because they
+believed that mankind would reverence most what they least understood,
+or because they wrote not from benevolence, but vanity, and were
+desirous to be praised for their knowledge, though they could not
+prevail upon themselves to communicate it.
+
+In 1722, his course, both of lectures and practice, was interrupted by
+the gout, which, as he relates it in his speech after his recovery, he
+brought upon himself, by an imprudent confidence in the strength of
+his own constitution, and by transgressing those rules which he had a
+thousand times inculcated to his pupils and acquaintance. Rising in
+the morning before day, he went immediately, hot and sweating, from
+his bed into the open air, and exposed himself to the cold dews.
+
+The history of his illness can hardly be read without horrour: he was
+for five months confined to his bed, where he lay upon his back
+without daring to attempt the least motion, because any effort renewed
+his torments, which were so exquisite, that he was, at length, not
+only deprived of motion but of sense. Here art was at a stand; nothing
+could be attempted, because nothing-could be proposed with the least
+prospect of success. At length, having, in the sixth month of his
+illness, obtained some remission, he took simple medicines [37] in
+large quantities, and, at length, wonderfully recovered.
+
+His recovery, so much desired, and so unexpected, was celebrated on
+Jan. 11, 1723, when he opened his school again, with general joy and
+publick illuminations.
+
+It would be an injury to the memory of Boerhaave, not to mention what
+was related by himself to one of his friends, that when he lay whole
+days and nights without sleep, he found no method of diverting his
+thoughts so effectual, as meditation upon his studies, and that he
+often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments, by the
+recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of
+knowledge, which he had reposited in his memory.
+
+This is, perhaps, an instance of fortitude and steady composure of
+mind, which would have been for ever the boast of the stoick schools,
+and increased the reputation of Seneca or Cato. The patience of
+Boerhaave, as it was more rational, was more lasting than theirs; it
+was that "patientia Christiana," which Lipsius, the great master of
+the stoical philosophy, begged of God in his last hours; it was
+founded on religion, not vanity, not on vain reasonings, but on
+confidence in God.
+
+In 1727, he was seized with a violent burning fever, which continued
+so long, that he was once more given up by his friends.
+
+From this time he was frequently afflicted with returns of his
+distemper, which yet did not so far subdue him, as to make him lay
+aside his studies or his lectures, till, in 1726, he found himself so
+worn out, that it was improper for him to continue any longer the
+professorships of botany or chymistry, which he, therefore, resigned,
+April 28, and, upon his resignation, spoke a "Sermo academicus," or
+oration, in which he asserts the power and wisdom of the creator from
+the wonderful fabrick of the human body; and confutes all those idle
+reasoners, who pretend to explain the formation of parts, or the
+animal operations, to which he proves, that art can produce nothing
+equal, nor any thing parallel. One instance I shall mention, which is
+produced by him, of the vanity of any attempt to rival the work of
+God. Nothing is more boasted by the admirers of chymistry, than that
+they can, by artificial heats and digestion, imitate the productions
+of nature. "Let all these heroes of science meet together," says
+Boerhaave; "let them take bread and wine, the food that forms the
+blood of man, and, by assimilation, contributes to the growth of the
+body: let them try all their arts, they shall not be able, from these
+materials, to produce a single drop of blood. So much is the most
+common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended
+science!"
+
+From this time Boerhaave lived with less publick employment, indeed,
+but not an idle or an useless life; for, besides his hours spent in
+instructing his scholars, a great part of his time was taken up by
+patients, which came, when the distemper would admit it, from all
+parts of Europe to consult him, or by letters which, in more urgent
+cases, were continually sent to inquire his opinion and ask his
+advice.
+
+Of his sagacity, and the wonderful penetration with which he often
+discovered and described, at first sight of a patient, such distempers
+as betray themselves by no symptoms to common eyes, such wonderful
+relations have been spread over the world, as, though attested beyond
+doubt, can scarcely be credited. I mention none of them, because I
+have no opportunity of collecting testimonies, or distinguishing
+between those accounts which are well proved, and those which owe
+their rise to fiction and credulity.
+
+Yet I cannot but implore, with the greatest earnestness, such as have
+been conversant with this great man, that they will not so far neglect
+the common interest of mankind, as to suffer any of these
+circumstances to be lost to posterity. Men are generally idle, and
+ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by
+calling that impossible which is only difficult. The skill to which
+Boerhaave attained, by a long and unwearied observation of nature,
+ought, therefore, to be transmitted, in all its particulars, to future
+ages, that his successors may be ashamed to fall below him, and that
+none may hereafter excuse his ignorance, by pleading the impossibility
+of clearer knowledge.
+
+Yet so far was this great master from presumptuous confidence in his
+abilities, that, in his examinations of the sick, he was remarkably
+circumstantial and particular. He well knew that the originals of
+distempers are often at a distance from their visible effects; that to
+conjecture, where certainty may be obtained, is either vanity or
+negligence; and that life is not to be sacrificed, either to an
+affectation of quick discernment, or of crowded practice, but may be
+required, if trifled away, at the hand of the physician.
+
+About the middle of the year 1737, he felt the first approaches of
+that fatal illness that brought him to the grave, of which we have
+inserted an account, written by himself, Sept. 8, 1738, to a friend at
+London [38]; which deserves not only to be preserved, as an historical
+relation of the disease which deprived us of so great a man, but as a
+proof of his piety and resignation to the divine will.
+
+In this last illness, which was, to the last degree, lingering,
+painful, and afflictive, his constancy and firmness did not forsake
+him. He neither intermitted the necessary cares of life, nor forgot
+the proper preparations for death. Though dejection and lowness of
+spirits was, as he himself tells us, part of his distemper, yet even
+this, in some measure, gave way to that vigour, which the soul
+receives from a consciousness of innocence.
+
+About three weeks before his death he received a visit, at his country
+house, from the reverend Mr. Schultens, his intimate friend, who found
+him sitting without-door, with his wife, sister, and daughter: after
+the compliments of form, the ladies withdrew, and left them to private
+conversation; when Boerhaave took occasion to tell him what had been,
+during his illness, the chief subject of his thoughts. He had never
+doubted of the spiritual and immaterial nature of the soul; but
+declared that he had lately had a kind of experimental certainty of
+the distinction between corporeal and thinking substances, which mere
+reason and philosophy cannot afford, and opportunities of
+contemplating the wonderful and inexplicable union of soul and body,
+which nothing but long sickness can give. This he illustrated by a
+description of the effects which the infirmities of his body had upon
+his faculties, which yet they did not so oppress or vanquish, but his
+soul was always master of itself, and always resigned to the pleasure
+of its maker.
+
+He related, with great concern, that once his patience so far gave way
+to extremity of pain, that, after having lain fifteen hours in
+exquisite tortures, he prayed to God that he might be set free by
+death.
+
+Mr. Schultens, by way of consolation, answered, that he thought such
+wishes, when forced by continued and excessive torments, unavoidable
+in the present state of human nature; that the best men, even Job
+himself, were not able to refrain from such starts of impatience. This
+he did not deny; but said, "he that loves God, ought to think nothing
+desirable, but what is most pleasing to the supreme goodness."
+
+Such were his sentiments, and such his conduct, in this state of
+weakness and pain: as death approached nearer, he was so far from
+terrour or confusion, that he seemed even less sensible of pain, and
+more cheerful under his torments, which continued till the 23rd day of
+September, 1738, on which he died, between four and five in the
+morning, in the 70th year of his age.
+
+Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature for great designs, and
+guided by religion in the exertion of his abilities. He was of a
+robust and athletick constitution of body, so hardened by early
+severities, and wholesome fatigue, that he was insensible of any
+sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and
+remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was, in his air and
+motion, something rough and artless, but so majestick and great, at
+the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration,
+and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.
+
+The vigour and activity of his mind sparkled visibly in his eyes; nor
+was it ever observed, that any change of his fortune, or alteration in
+his affairs, whether happy or unfortunate, affected his countenance.
+
+He was always cheerful, and desirous of promoting mirth by a facetious
+and humorous conversation; he was never soured by calumny and
+detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they
+are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of
+themselves."
+
+Yet he took care never to provoke enemies by severity of censure, for
+he never dwelt on the faults or defects of others, and was so far from
+inflaming the envy of his rivals, by dwelling on his own excellencies,
+that he rarely mentioned himself or his writings.
+
+He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence, frowns, or
+insolence of great men, but persisted, on all occasions, in the right,
+with a resolution always present and always calm. He was modest, but
+not timorous, and firm without rudeness.
+
+He could, with uncommon readiness and certainty, make a conjecture of
+men's inclinations and capacity by their aspect.
+
+His method of life was to study in the morning and evening, and to
+allot the middle of the day to his publick business. His usual
+exercise was riding, till, in his latter years, his distempers made it
+more proper for him to walk: when he was weary, he amused himself with
+playing on the violin.
+
+His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in the country, where
+he had a garden stored with all the herbs and trees which the climate
+would bear; here he used to enjoy his hours unmolested, and prosecute
+his studies without interruption.
+
+The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufficiently
+evident from his success. Statesmen and generals may grow great by
+unexpected accidents, and a fortunate concurrence of circumstances,
+neither procured nor foreseen by themselves; but reputation in the
+learned world must be the effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave
+lost none of his hours, but, when he had attained one science,
+attempted another; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to the
+mathematicks, and anatomy to botany. He examined systems by
+experiments, and formed experiments into systems. He neither neglected
+the observations of others, nor blindly submitted to celebrated names.
+He neither thought so highly of himself, as to imagine he could
+receive no light from books, nor so meanly, as to believe he could
+discover nothing but what was to be learned from them. He examined the
+observations of other men, but trusted only to his own.
+
+Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by
+elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature: he
+knew that but a small part of mankind will sacrifice their pleasure to
+their improvement, and those authors who would find many readers, must
+endeavour to please while they instruct.
+
+He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he
+might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men
+of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours
+less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and
+poetry. Thus was his learning, at once, various and exact, profound
+and agreeable.
+
+But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his character, but the
+second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
+He was an admirable example of temperance, fortitude, humility, and
+devotion. His piety, and a religious sense of his dependance on God,
+was the basis of all his virtues, and the principle of his whole
+conduct. He was too sensible of his weakness to ascribe any thing to
+himself, or to conceive that he could subdue passion, or withstand
+temptation, by his own natural power; he attributed every good
+thought, and every laudable action, to the father of goodness. Being
+once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great
+provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what
+means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable
+passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he
+was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer
+and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself.
+
+As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his whole life,
+his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and
+meditation; this, he often told his friends, gave him spirit and
+vigour in the business of the day, and this he, therefore, commended,
+as the best rule of life; for nothing, he knew, could support the
+soul, in all distresses, but a confidence in the supreme being; nor
+can a steady and rational magnanimity flow from any other source than
+a consciousness of the divine favour.
+
+He asserted, on all occasions, the divine authority and sacred
+efficacy of the holy scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught
+the way of salvation, and that they only could give peace of mind. The
+excellency of the Christian religion was the frequent subject of his
+conversation. A strict obedience to the doctrine, and a diligent
+imitation of the example of our blessed saviour, he often declared to
+be the foundation of true tranquillity. He recommended to his friends
+a careful observation of the precept of Moses, concerning the love of
+God and man. He worshipped God as he is in himself, without attempting
+to inquire into his nature. He desired only to think of God, what God
+knows of himself. There he stopped, lest, by indulging his own ideas,
+he should form a deity from his own imagination, and sin by falling
+down before him. To the will of God he paid an absolute submission,
+without endeavouring to discover the reason of his determinations; and
+this he accounted the first and most inviolable duty of a Christian.
+When he heard of a criminal condemned to die, he used to think: Who
+can tell whether this man is not better than I? or, if I am better, it
+is not to be ascribed to myself, but to the goodness of God.
+
+Such were the sentiments of Boerhaave, whose words we have added in
+the note [39]. So far was this man from being made impious by
+philosophy, or vain by knowledge, or by virtue, that he ascribed all
+his abilities to the bounty, and all his goodness to the grace of God.
+May his example extend its influence to his admirers and followers!
+May those who study his writings imitate his life! and those who
+endeavour after his knowledge, aspire likewise to his piety!
+
+He married, September 17, 1710, Mary Drolenveaux, the only daughter of
+a burgomaster of Leyden, by whom he had Joanna Maria, who survived her
+father, and three other children, who died in their infancy. The works
+of this great writer are so generally known, and so highly esteemed,
+that, though it may not be improper to enumerate them in the order of
+time, in which they were published, it is wholly unnecessary to give
+any other account of them.
+
+He published, in 1707, Institutiones medicae; to which he added, in
+1708, Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis.
+
+1710, Index stirpium in horto academico.
+
+1719, De materia medica, et remediorum formulis liber; and, in 1727, a
+second edition.
+
+1720, Alter index stirpium, &c. adorned with plates, and containing
+twice the number of plants as the former.
+
+1722, Epistola ad cl. Ruischium, qua sententiam Malpighianam de
+glandulis defendit.
+
+1724, Atrocis nee prius descripti morbi historia illustrissimi baronis
+Wassenariae.
+
+1725, Opera anatomica et chirurgica Andreae Vesalii; with the life of
+Vesalius.
+
+1728, Altera atrocis rarissimique morbi marchionis de Sancto Albano
+historia.
+
+Auctores de lue Aphrodisiaca, cum tractatu praefixo.
+
+1731, Aretaei Cappadocis nova editio.
+
+1732, Elementa Chemiae.
+
+1734, Observata de argento vivo, ad Reg. Soc. et Acad. Scient.
+
+These are the writings of the great Boerhaave, which have made all
+encomiums useless and vain, since no man can attentively peruse them,
+without admiring the abilities, and reverencing the virtue of the
+author. [40]
+
+
+
+
+BLAKE.
+
+
+At a time when a nation is engaged in a war with an enemy, whose
+insults, ravages, and barbarities have long called for vengeance, an
+account of such English commanders as have merited the acknowledgments
+of posterity, by extending the powers, and raising the honour of their
+country, seems to be no improper entertainment for our readers [41].
+We shall, therefore, attempt a succinct narration of the life and
+actions of admiral Blake, in which we have nothing further in view,
+than to do justice to his bravery and conduct, without intending any
+parallel between his achievements, and those of our present admirals.
+
+Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, in August,
+1598; his father being a merchant of that place, who had acquired a
+considerable fortune by the Spanish trade. Of his earliest years we
+have no account, and, therefore, can amuse the reader with none of
+those prognosticks of his future actions, so often met with in
+memoirs.
+
+In 1615, he entered into the university of Oxford, where he continued
+till 1623, though without being much countenanced or caressed by his
+superiours, for he was more than once disappointed in his endeavours
+after academical preferments. It is observable, that Mr. Wood, in his
+Athenæ Oxonieuses, ascribes the repulse he met with at Wadham college,
+where he was competitor for a fellowship, either to want of learning,
+or of stature. With regard to the first objection, the same writer had
+before informed us, that he was an early riser and studious, though he
+sometimes relieved his attention by the amusements of fowling and
+fishing. As it is highly probable that he did not want capacity, we
+may, therefore, conclude, upon this confession of his diligence, that
+he could not fail of being learned, at least, in the degree requisite
+to the enjoyment of a fellowship; and may safely ascribe his
+disappointment to his want of stature, it being the custom of sir
+Henry Savil [42], then warden of that college, to pay much regard to
+the outward appearance of those who solicited preferment in that
+society. So much do the greatest events owe sometimes to accident or
+folly!
+
+He afterwards retired to his native place, where "he lived," says
+Clarendon, "without any appearance of ambition to be a greater man
+than he was, but inveighed with great freedom against the license of
+the times, and power of the court."
+
+In 1640, he was chosen burgess for Bridgewater by the puritan party,
+to whom he had recommended himself by the disapprobation of bishop
+Laud's violence and severity, and his non-compliance with those new
+ceremonies, which he was then endeavouring to introduce.
+
+When the civil war broke out, Blake, in conformity with his avowed
+principles, declared for the parliament; and, thinking a bare
+declaration for right not all the duty of a good man, raised a troop
+of dragoons for his party, and appeared in the field with so much
+bravery, that he was, in a short time, advanced, without meeting any
+of those obstructions which he had encountered in the university.
+
+In 1645, he was governour of Tauntou, when the lord Goring came before
+it with an army of ten thousand men. The town was ill fortified, and
+unsupplied with almost every thing necessary for supporting a siege.
+The state of this garrison encouraged colonel Windham, who was
+acquainted with Blake, to propose a capitulation, which was rejected
+by Blake, with indignation and contempt; nor were either menaces or
+persuasions of any effect, for he maintained the place, under all its
+disadvantages, till the siege was raised by the parliament's army.
+
+He continued, on many other occasions, to give proofs of an
+insuperable courage, and a steadiness of resolution not to be shaken;
+and, as a proof of his firm adherence to the parliament, joined with
+the borough of Taunton, in returning thanks for their resolution to
+make no more addresses to the king. Yet was he so far from approving
+the death of Charles the first, that he made no scruple of declaring,
+that he would venture his life to save him, as willingly as he had
+done to serve the parliament.
+
+In February, 1648-9, he was made a commissioner of the navy, and
+appointed to serve on that element, for which he seems by nature to
+have been designed. He was soon afterwards sent in pursuit of prince
+Rupert, whom he shut up in the harbour of Kinsale, in Ireland, for
+several months, till want of provisions, and despair of relief,
+excited the prince to make a daring effort for his escape, by forcing
+through the parliament's fleet: this design he executed with his usual
+intrepidity, and succeeded in it, though with the loss of three ships.
+He was pursued by Blake to the coast of Portugal, where he was
+received into the Tagus, and treated with great distinction by the
+Portuguese.
+
+Blake, coming to the mouth of that river, sent to the king a
+messenger, to inform him, that the fleet, in his port, belonging to
+the publick enemies of the commonwealth of England, he demanded leave
+to fall upon it. This being refused, though the refusal was in very
+soft terms, and accompanied with declarations of esteem, and a present
+of provisions, so exasperated the admiral, that, without any
+hesitation, he fell upon the Portuguese fleet, then returning from
+Brasil, of which he took seventeen ships, and burnt three. It was to
+no purpose that the king of Portugal, alarmed at so unexpected a
+destruction, ordered prince Rupert to attack him, and retake the
+Brasil ships. Blake carried home his prizes without molestation, the
+prince not having force enough to pursue him, and well pleased with
+the opportunity of quitting a port, where he could no longer be
+protected.
+
+Blake soon supplied his fleet with provision, and received orders to
+make reprisals upon the French, who had suffered their privateers to
+molest the English trade; an injury which, in those days, was always
+immediately resented, and if not repaired, certainly punished. Sailing
+with this commission, he took in his way a French man of war, valued
+at a million. How this ship happened to be so rich, we are not
+informed; but as it was a cruiser, it is probable the rich lading was
+the accumulated plunder of many prizes. Then following the unfortunate
+Rupert, whose fleet, by storms and battles, was now reduced to five
+ships, into Carthagena, he demanded leave of the Spanish governour to
+attack him in the harbour, but received the same answer which had been
+returned before by the Portuguese: "That they had a right to protect
+all ships that came into their dominions; that, if the admiral were
+forced in thither, he should find the same security; and that he
+required him not to violate the peace of a neutral port." Blake
+withdrew, upon this answer, into the Mediterranean; and Rupert, then
+leaving Carthagena, entered the port of Malaga, where he burnt and
+sunk several English merchant ships. Blake, judging this to be an
+infringement of the neutrality professed by the Spaniards, now made no
+scruple to fall upon Rupert's fleet in the harbour of Malaga, and,
+having destroyed three of his ships, obliged him to quit the sea, and
+take sanctuary at the Spanish court.
+
+In February, 1650-1, Blake, still continuing to cruise in the
+Mediterranean, met a French ship of considerable force, and commanded
+the captain to come on board, there being no war declared between the
+two nations. The captain, when he came, was asked by him, "whether he
+was willing to lay down his sword, and yield," which he gallantly
+refused, though in his enemy's power. Blake, scorning to take
+advantage of an artifice, and detesting the appearance of treachery,
+told him, "that he was at liberty to go back to his ship, and defend
+it, as long as he could." The captain willingly accepted his offer,
+and, after a fight of two hours, confessed himself conquered, kissed
+his sword, and surrendered it.
+
+In 1652, broke out the memorable war between the two commonwealths of
+England and Holland; a war, in which the greatest admirals that,
+perhaps, any age has produced, were engaged on each side; in which
+nothing less was contested than the dominion of the sea, and which was
+carried on with vigour, animosity, and resolution, proportioned to the
+importance of the dispute. The chief commanders of the Dutch fleets
+were Van Trump, De Ruyter, and De Witt, the most celebrated names of
+their own nation, and who had been, perhaps, more renowned, had they
+been opposed by any other enemies. The states of Holland, having
+carried on their trade without opposition, and almost without
+competition, not only during the unactive reign of James the first,
+but during the commotions of England, had arrived to that height of
+naval power, and that affluence of wealth, that, with the arrogance
+which a long-continued prosperity naturally produces, they began to
+invent new claims, and to treat other nations with insolence, which
+nothing can defend, but superiority of force. They had for some time
+made uncommon preparations, at a vast expense, and had equipped a
+large fleet, without any apparent danger threatening them, or any
+avowed design of attacking their neighbours. This unusual armament was
+not beheld by the English without some jealousy, and care was taken to
+fit out such a fleet as might secure the trade from interruption, and
+the coasts from insults; of this Blake was constituted admiral for
+nine months. In this situation the two nations remained, keeping a
+watchful eye upon each other, without acting hostilities on either
+side, till the 18th of May, 1652, when Van Trump appeared in the
+Downs, with a fleet of forty-five men of war. Blake, who had then but
+twenty ships, upon the approach of the Dutch admiral, saluted him with
+three single shots, to require that he should, by striking his flag,
+show that respect to the English, which is due to every nation in
+their own dominions; to which the Dutchman answered with a broadside;
+and Blake, perceiving that he intended to dispute the point of honour,
+advanced with his own ship before the rest of his fleet, that, if it
+were possible, a general battle might be prevented. But the Dutch,
+instead of admitting him to treat, fired upon him from their whole
+fleet, without any regard to the customs of war, or the law of
+nations. Blake, for some time, stood alone against their whole force,
+till the rest of his squadron coming up, the fight was continued from
+between four and five in the afternoon, till nine at night, when the
+Dutch retired with the loss of two ships, having not destroyed a
+single vessel, nor more than fifteen men, most of which were on board
+the admiral, who, as he wrote to the parliament, was himself engaged
+for four hours with the main body of the Dutch fleet, being the mark
+at which they aimed; and, as Whitlock relates, received above a
+thousand shot. Blake, in his letter, acknowledges the particular
+blessing and preservation of God, and ascribes his success to the
+justice of his cause, the Dutch having first attacked him upon the
+English coast. It is, indeed, little less than miraculous, that a
+thousand great shot should not do more execution; and those who will
+not admit the interposition of providence, may draw, at least, this
+inference from it, that the bravest man is not always in the greatest
+danger.
+
+In July, he met the Dutch fishery fleet, with a convoy of twelve men
+of war, all which he took, with one hundred of their herring-busses.
+And, in September, being stationed in the Downs, with about sixty
+sail, he discovered the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, with
+near the same number, and advanced towards them; but the Dutch being
+obliged, by the nature of their coast, and shallowness of their
+rivers, to build their ships in such a manner, that they require less
+depth of water than the English vessels, took advantage of the form of
+their shipping, and sheltered themselves behind a flat, called Kentish
+Knock; so that the English, finding some of their ships aground, were
+obliged to alter their course; but perceiving, early the next morning,
+that the Hollanders had forsaken their station, they pursued them with
+all the speed that the wind, which was weak and uncertain, allowed,
+but found themselves unable to reach them with the bulk of their
+fleet, and, therefore, detached some of the lightest frigates to chase
+them. These came so near, as to fire upon them about three in the
+afternoon; but the Dutch, instead of tacking about, hoisted their
+sails, steered toward their own coast, and finding themselves, the
+next day, followed by the whole English fleet, retired into Goree. The
+sailors were eager to attack them in their own harbours; but a council
+of war being convened, it was judged imprudent to hazard the fleet
+upon the shoals, or to engage in any important enterprise, without a
+fresh supply of provisions.
+
+That, in this engagement, the victory belonged to the English, is
+beyond dispute, since, without the loss of one ship, and with no more
+than forty men killed, they drove the enemy into their own ports, took
+the rearadmiral and another vessel, and so discouraged the Dutch
+admirals, who had not agreed in their measures, that De Ruyter, who
+had declared against hazarding a battle, desired to resign his
+commission, and De Witt, who had insisted upon fighting, fell sick, as
+it was supposed, with vexation. But how great the loss of the Dutch
+was is not certainly known; that two ships were taken, they are too
+wise to deny, but affirm that those two were all that were destroyed.
+The English, on the other side, affirm, that three of their vessels
+were disabled at the first encounter, that their numbers on the second
+day were visibly diminished, and that on the last day they saw three
+or four ships sink in their flight.
+
+De Witt being now discharged by the Hollanders, as unfortunate, and
+the chief command restored to Van Trump, great preparations were made
+for retrieving their reputation, and repairing those losses. Their
+endeavours were assisted by the English themselves, now made factious
+by success; the men, who were intrusted with the civil administration,
+being jealous of those whose military commands had procured so much
+honour, lest they who raised them should be eclipsed by them. Such is
+the general revolution of affairs in every state; danger and distress
+produce unanimity and bravery, virtues which are seldom unattended
+with success; but success is the parent of pride, and pride of
+jealousy and faction; faction makes way for calamity, and happy is
+that nation whose calamities renew their unanimity. Such is the
+rotation of interests, that equally tend to hinder the total
+destruction of a people, and to obstruct an exorbitant increase of
+power.
+
+Blake had weakened his fleet by many detachments, and lay with no more
+than forty sail in the Downs, very ill provided both with men and
+ammunition, and expecting new supplies from those whose animosity
+hindered them from providing them, and who chose rather to see the
+trade of their country distressed, than the sea officers exalted by a
+new acquisition of honour and influence.
+
+Van Trump, desirous of distinguishing himself, at the resumption of
+his command, by some remarkable action, had assembled eighty ships of
+war, and ten fireships, and steered towards the Downs, where Blake,
+with whose condition and strength he was probably acquainted, was then
+stationed. Blake, not able to restrain his natural ardour, or,
+perhaps, not fully informed of the superiority of his enemies, put out
+to encounter them, though his fleet was so weakly manned, that half of
+his ships were obliged to lie idle without engaging, for want of
+sailors. The force of the whole Dutch fleet was, therefore, sustained
+by about twenty-two ships. Two of the English frigates, named the
+Vanguard and the Victory, after having, for a long time, stood engaged
+amidst the whole Dutch fleet, broke through without much injury, nor
+did the English lose any ships till the evening, when the Garland,
+carrying forty guns, was boarded, at once, by two great ships, which
+were opposed by the English, till they had scarcely any men left to
+defend the decks; then retiring into the lower part of the vessel,
+they blew up their decks, which were now possessed by the enemy, and,
+at length, were overpowered and taken. The Bonaventure, a stout
+well-built merchant ship, going to relieve the Garland, was attacked
+by a man of war, and, after a stout resistance, in which the captain,
+who defended her with the utmost bravery, was killed, was likewise
+carried off by the Dutch. Blake, in the Triumph, seeing the Garland in
+distress, pressed forward to relieve her, but in his way had his
+foremast shattered, and was himself boarded; but, beating off the
+enemies, he disengaged himself, and retired into the Thames, with the
+loss only of two ships of force, and four small frigates, but with his
+whole fleet much shattered. Nor was the victory gained at a cheap
+rate, notwithstanding the unusual disproportion of strength; for of
+the Dutch flagships, one was blown up, and the other two disabled; a
+proof of the English bravery, which should have induced Van Trump to
+have spared the insolence of carrying a broom at his top-mast, in his
+triumphant passage through the Channel, which he intended as a
+declaration, that he would sweep the seas of the English shipping;
+this, which he had little reason to think of accomplishing, he soon
+after perished in attempting.
+
+There are, sometimes, observations and inquiries, which all historians
+seem to decline by agreement, of which this action may afford us an
+example: nothing appears, at the first view, more to demand our
+curiosity, or afford matter for examination, than this wild encounter
+of twenty-two ships, with a force, according to their accounts who
+favour the Dutch, three times superiour. Nothing can justify a
+commander in fighting under such disadvantages, but the impossibility
+of retreating. But what hindered Blake from retiring, as well before
+the fight, as after it? To say he was ignorant of the strength of the
+Dutch fleet, is to impute to him a very criminal degree of negligence;
+and, at least, it must be confessed, that from the time he saw them,
+he could not but know that they were too powerful to be opposed by
+him, and even then there was time for retreat. To urge the ardour of
+his sailors, is to divest him of the authority of a commander, and to
+charge him with the most reproachful weakness that can enter into the
+character of a general. To mention the impetuosity of his own courage,
+is to make the blame of his temerity equal to the praise of his
+valour; which seems, indeed, to be the most gentle censure that the
+truth of history will allow. We must then admit, amidst our eulogies
+and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake, was
+once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprise, by the
+resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of the
+honour of his country.
+
+It was not long, before he had an opportunity of revenging his loss,
+and restraining the insolence of the Dutch. On the 18th of February,
+1652-3, Blake, being at the head of eighty sail, and assisted, at his
+own request, by colonels Monk and Dean, espied Van Trump, with a fleet
+of above one hundred men of war, as Clarendon relates, of seventy by
+their own publick accounts, and three hundred merchant ships under his
+convoy. The English, with their usual intrepidity, advanced towards
+them; and Blake, in the Triumph, in which he always led his fleet,
+with twelve ships more, came to an engagement with the main body of
+the Dutch fleet, and by the disparity of their force was reduced to
+the last extremity, having received in his hull no fewer than seven
+hundred shots, when Lawson, in the Fairfax, came to his assistance.
+The rest of the English fleet now came in, and the fight was continued
+with the utmost degree of vigour and resolution, till the night gave
+the Dutch an opportunity of retiring, with the loss of one flagship,
+and six other men of war. The English had many vessels damaged, but
+none lost. On board Lawson's ship were killed one hundred men, and as
+many on board Blake's, who lost his captain and secretary, and himself
+received a wound in the thigh.
+
+Blake, having set ashore his wounded men, sailed in pursuit of Van
+Trump, who sent his convoy before, and himself retired fighting
+towards Bulloign. Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the
+merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day,
+the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which
+Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the
+peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals. The
+accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the
+Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and
+more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they
+suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated
+defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and
+obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.
+
+In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and
+the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake,
+with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the
+administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust,
+and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments.
+"It is not," said Blake, "the business of a sea-man to mind state
+affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." This was the
+principle from which he never deviated, and which he always
+endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of
+unanimity and steadiness. "Disturb not one another with domestick
+disputes, but remember that we are English, and our enemies are
+foreigners. Enemies! which, let what party soever prevail, it is
+equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain."
+
+After the 30th of April, 1653, Blake, Monk, and Dean sailed out of the
+English harbours with one hundred men of war, and finding the Dutch
+with seventy sail on their own coasts, drove them to the Texel, and
+took fifty doggers. Then they sailed northward in pursuit of Van
+Trump, who, having a fleet of merchants under his convoy, durst not
+enter the Channel, but steered towards the Sound, and, by great
+dexterity and address, escaped the three English admirals, and
+brought all his ships into their harbour; then, knowing that Blake was
+still in the north, came before Dover, and fired upon that town, but
+was driven off by the castle.
+
+Monk and Dean stationed themselves again at the mouth of the Texel,
+and blocked up the Dutch in their own ports with eighty sail; but
+hearing that Van Trump was at Goree, with one hundred and twenty men
+of war, they ordered all ships of force in the river and ports to
+repair to them.
+
+On June the 3rd, the two fleets came to an engagement, in the
+beginning of which Dean was carried off by a cannon-ball; yet the
+fight continued from about twelve to six in the afternoon, when the
+Dutch gave way, and retreated fighting.
+
+On the 4th, in the afternoon, Blake came up with eighteen fresh ships,
+and procured the English a complete victory; nor could the Dutch any
+otherwise preserve their ships than by retiring, once more, into the
+flats and shallows, where the largest of the English vessels could not
+approach.
+
+In this battle Van Trump boarded viceadmiral Penn; but was beaten off,
+and himself boarded, and reduced to blow up his decks, of which the
+English had got possession. He was then entered, at once, by Penn and
+another; nor could possibly have escaped, had not De Ruyter and De
+Witt arrived at that instant, and rescued him.
+
+However the Dutch may endeavour to extenuate their loss in this
+battle, by admitting no more than eight ships to have been taken or
+destroyed, it is evident that they must have received much greater
+damages, not only by the accounts of more impartial historians, but by
+the remonstrances and exclamations of their admirals themselves; Van
+Trump declaring before the states, that "without a numerous
+reinforcement of large men of war, he could serve them no more;" and
+De Witt crying out before them, with the natural warmth of his
+character: "Why should I be silent before my lords and masters? The
+English are our masters, and by consequence masters of the sea."
+
+In November, 1654, Blake was sent by Cromwell into the Mediterranean,
+with a powerful fleet, and may be said to have received the homage of
+all that part of the world, being equally courted by the haughty
+Spaniards, the surly Dutch, and the lawless Algerines.
+
+In March, 1656, having forced Algiers to submission, he entered the
+harbour of Tunis, and demanded reparation for the robberies practised
+upon the English by the pirates of that place, and insisted that the
+captives of his nation should be set at liberty. The governour, having
+planted batteries along the shore, and drawn up his ships under the
+castles, sent Blake an haughty and insolent answer: "there are our
+castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino," said he, "upon which you may do
+your worst;" adding other menaces and insults, and mentioning, in
+terms of ridicule, the inequality of a fight between ships and
+castles. Blake had, likewise, demanded leave to take in water, which
+was refused him. Fired with this inhuman and insolent treatment, he
+curled his whiskers, as was his custom when he was angry, and,
+entering Porto Ferino with his great ships, discharged his shot so
+fast upon the batteries and castles, that in two hours the guns were
+dismounted, and the works forsaken, though he was, at first, exposed
+to the fire of sixty cannon. He then ordered his officers to send out
+their long boats, well manned, to seize nine of the piratical ships
+lying in the road, himself continuing to fire upon the castle. This
+was so bravely executed, that, with the loss of only twenty-five men
+killed, and forty-eight wounded, all the ships were fired in the sight
+of Tunis. Thence sailing to Tripoli, he concluded a peace with that
+nation; then returning to Tunis, he found nothing but submission. And
+such, indeed, was his reputation, that he met with no further
+opposition, but collected a kind of tribute from the princes of those
+countries, his business being to demand reparation for all the
+injuries offered to the English during the civil wars. He exacted from
+the duke of Tuscany 60,000_l_. and, as it is said, sent home
+sixteen ships laden with the effects which he had received from
+several states.
+
+The respect with which he obliged all foreigners to treat his
+countrymen, appears from a story related by bishop Burnet. When he lay
+before Malaga, in a time of peace with Spain, some of his sailors went
+ashore, and meeting a procession of the host, not only refused to pay
+any respect to it, but laughed at those that did. The people, being
+put, by one of the priests, upon resenting this indignity, fell upon
+them and beat them severely. When they returned to their ship, they
+complained of their ill treatment; upon which Blake sent to demand the
+priest who had procured it. The viceroy answered that, having no
+authority over the priests, he could not send him: to which Blake
+replied, "that he did not inquire into the extent of the viceroy's
+authority, but that, if the priest were not sent within three hours,
+he would burn the town." The viceroy then sent the priest to him, who
+pleaded the provocation given by the seamen. Blake bravely and
+rationally answered, that if he had complained to him, he would have
+punished them severely, for he would not have his men affront the
+established religion of any place; but that he was angry that the
+Spaniards should assume that power, for he would have all the world
+know, "that an Englishman was only to be punished by an Englishman."
+So, having used the priest civilly, he sent him back, being satisfied
+that he was in his power. This conduct so much pleased Cromwell, that
+he read the letter in council with great satisfaction, and said, "he
+hoped to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a
+Roman had been."
+
+In 1650, the protector, having declared war against Spain, despatched
+Blake, with twenty-five men of war, to infest their coasts, and
+intercept their shipping. In pursuance of these orders he cruised all
+winter about the straits, and then lay at the mouth of the harbour of
+Cales, where he received intelligence, that the Spanish Plata fleet
+lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the isle of Teneriffe. On
+the 13th of April, 1657, he departed from Cales, and, on the 20th,
+arrived at Santa Cruz, where he found sixteen Spanish vessels. The bay
+was defended on the north side by a castle, well mounted with cannon,
+and in other parts with seven forts, with cannon proportioned to the
+bigness, all united by a line of communication manned with musketeers.
+The Spanish admiral drew up his small ships under the cannon of the
+castle, and stationed six great galleons with their broadsides to the
+sea: an advantageous and prudent disposition, but of little effect
+against the English commander; who, determining to attack them,
+ordered Stayner to enter the bay with his squadron: then posting some
+of his larger ships to play upon the fortifications, himself attacked
+the galleons, which, after a gallant resistance, were, at length,
+abandoned by the Spaniards, though the least of them was bigger than
+the biggest of Blake's ships. The forts and smaller vessels being now
+shattered and forsaken, the whole fleet was set on fire, the galleons
+by Blake, and the smaller vessels by Stayner, the English vessels
+being too much shattered in the fight to bring them away. Thus was the
+whole Plata fleet destroyed, "and the Spaniards," according to Rapin's
+remark, "sustained a great loss of ships, money, men, and merchandise,
+while the English gained nothing but glory;" as if he that increases
+the military reputation of a people, did not increase their power, and
+he that weakens his enemy, in effect, strengthens himself.
+
+"The whole action," says Clarendon, "was so incredible, that all men,
+who knew the place, wondered that any sober man, with what courage
+soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it, and they could hardly
+persuade themselves to believe what they had done; while the Spaniards
+comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils, and not
+men, who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong
+resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no
+resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can
+hardly be imagined bow small a loss the English sustained in this
+unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed
+and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter, on
+board the Spanish ships and on shore, was incredible." The general
+cruised, for some time afterwards, with his victorious fleet, at the
+mouth of Cales, to intercept the Spanish shipping; but, finding his
+constitution broken, by the fatigue of the last three years,
+determined to return home, and died before he came to land.
+
+His body was embalmed, and having lain some time in state at Greenwich
+house, was buried in Henry the seventh's chapel, with all the funeral
+solemnity due to the remains of a man so famed for his bravery, and so
+spotless in his integrity; nor is it without regret, that I am obliged
+to relate the treatment his body met, a year after the restoration,
+when it was taken up by express command, and buried in a pit in St.
+Margaret's church-yard. Had he been guilty of the murder of Charles
+the first, to insult his body had been a mean revenge; but, as he was
+innocent, it was, at least, inhumanity, and, perhaps, ingratitude.
+"Let no man," says the oriental proverb, "pull a dead lion by the
+beard."
+
+But that regard which was denied his body, has been paid to his better
+remains, his name and his memory. Nor has any writer dared to deny him
+the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of
+his country. "He was the first man," says Clarendon, "that declined
+the old track, and made it apparent that the sciences might be
+attained in less time than was imagined. He was the first man that
+brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever been thought
+very formidable, but were discovered by him to make a noise only, and
+to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first
+that infused that proportion of courage into seamen, by making them
+see, by experience, what mighty things they could do, if they were
+resolved; and taught them to fight in fire, as well as upon the water;
+and, though he has been very well imitated and followed, was the first
+that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and
+resolute achievements."
+
+To this attestation of his military excellence, it may be proper to
+subjoin an account of his moral character, from the author of Lives,
+English and Foreign. "He was jealous," says that writer, "of the
+liberty of the subject, and the glory of his nation; and as he made
+use of no mean artifices to raise himself to the highest command at
+sea, so he needed no interest but his merit to support him in it. He
+scorned nothing more than money, which, as fast as it came in, was
+laid out by him in the service of the state, and to show that he was
+animated by that brave, publick spirit, which has since been reckoned
+rather romantick than heroick. And he was so disinterested, that
+though no man had more opportunities to enrich himself than he, who
+had taken so many millions from the enemies of England, yet he threw
+it all into the publick treasury, and did not die five hundred pounds
+richer than his father left him; which the author avers, from his
+personal knowledge of his family and their circumstances, having been
+bred up in it, and often heard his brother give this account of him.
+He was religious, according to the pretended purity of these times,
+but would frequently allow himself to be merry with his officers, and,
+by his tenderness and generosity to the seamen, had so endeared
+himself to them, that, when he died, they lamented his loss, as that
+of a common father."
+
+Instead of more testimonies, his character may be properly concluded
+with one incident of his life, by which it appears how much the spirit
+of Blake was superiour to all private views. His brother, in the last
+action with the Spaniards, having not done his duty, was, at Blake's
+desire, discarded, and the ship was given to another; yet was he not
+less regardful of him as a brother, for, when he died, he left him his
+estate, knowing him well qualified to adorn or enjoy a private
+fortune, though he had found him unfit to serve his country in a
+publick character, and had, therefore, not suffered him to rob it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following brief synopsis of Blake's life, differing, in some
+slight particulars, from Johnson's memoir, is taken from Aubrey's
+Letters, ii. p. 241.
+
+ADMIRALL BLAKE.
+
+Was borne at ... in com. Somerset, was of Albon hall, in Oxford. He
+was there a young man of strong body, and good parts. He was an early
+riser, and studyed well, but also took his robust pleasures of fishing
+and fowling, &c. He would steale swannes [43]--He served in the house
+of comons for.... A°. Dni ... he was made admiral! He did the greatest
+actions at sea that ever were done. He died A°. Dni ... and was buried
+in K.H. 7th's chapell; but upon the returne of the kinge, his body was
+taken up again and removed by Mr. Wells' occasion, and where it is
+now, I know not. Qu. Mr. Wells of Bridgewater?--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+SIR FRANCIS DRAKE [44].
+
+
+Francis Drake was the son of a clergyman, in Devonshire, who being
+inclined to the doctrine of the protestants, at that time much opposed
+by Henry the eighth, was obliged to fly from his place of residence
+into Kent, for refuge, from the persecution raised against him, and
+those of the same opinion, by the law of the six articles.
+
+How long he lived there, or how he was supported, was not known; nor
+have we any account of the first years of sir Francis Drake's life, of
+any disposition to hazards and adventures which might have been
+discovered in his childhood, or of the education which qualified him
+for such wonderful attempts.
+
+We are only informed, that he was put apprentice, by his father, to
+the master of a small vessel, that traded to France and the Low
+Countries, under whom he, probably, learned the rudiments of
+navigation, and familiarized himself to the dangers and hardships of
+the sea.
+
+But how few opportunities soever he might have, in this part of his
+life, for the exercise of his courage, he gave so many proofs of
+diligence and fidelity, that his master, dying unmarried, left him his
+little vessel, in reward of his services; a circumstance that deserves
+to be remembered, not only as it may illustrate the private character
+of this brave man, but as it may hint, to all those, who may hereafter
+propose his conduct for their imitation, that virtue is the surest
+foundation both of reputation and fortune, and that the first step to
+greatness is to be honest.
+
+If it were not improper to dwell longer on an incident, at the first
+view so inconsiderable, it might be added, that it deserves the
+reflection of those, who, when they are engaged in affairs not
+adequate to their abilities, pass them over with a contemptuous
+neglect, and while they amuse themselves with chimerical schemes, and
+plans of future undertakings, suffer every opportunity of smaller
+advantage to slip away, as unworthy their regard. They may learn, from
+the example of Drake, that diligence in employments of less
+consequence, is the most successful introduction to greater
+enterprises.
+
+After having followed, for some time, his master's profession, he grew
+weary of so narrow a province, and, having sold his little vessel,
+ventured his effects in the new trade to the West Indies, which,
+having not been long discovered, and very little frequented by the
+English, till that time, were conceived so much to abound in wealth,
+that no voyage thither could fail of being recompensed by great
+advantages. Nothing was talked of among the mercantile or adventurous
+part of mankind, but the beauty and riches of the new world. Fresh
+discoveries were frequently made, new countries and nations never
+heard of before, were daily described, and it may easily be concluded,
+that the relaters did not diminish the merit of their attempts, by
+suppressing or diminishing any circumstance that might produce wonder,
+or excite curiosity. Nor was their vanity only engaged in raising
+admirers, but their interest, likewise, in procuring adventurers, who
+were, indeed, easily gained by the hopes which naturally arise from
+new prospects, though, through ignorance of the American seas, and by
+the malice of the Spaniards, who, from the first discovery of those
+countries, considered every other nation that attempted to follow
+them, as invaders of their rights, the best concerted designs often
+miscarried.
+
+Among those who suffered most from the Spanish injustice, was captain
+John Hawkins, who, having been admitted, by the viceroy, to traffick
+in the bay of Mexico, was, contrary to the stipulation then made
+between them, and in violation of the peace between Spain and England,
+attacked without any declaration of hostilities, and obliged, after an
+obstinate resistance, to retire with the loss of four ships, and a
+great number of his men, who were either destroyed or carried into
+slavery.
+
+In this voyage Drake had adventured almost all his fortune, which he
+in vain endeavoured to recover, both by his own private interest, and
+by obtaining letters from queen Elizabeth; for the Spaniards, deaf to
+all remonstrances, either vindicated the injustice of the viceroy, or,
+at least, forbore to redress it.
+
+Drake, thus oppressed and impoverished, retained, at least, his
+courage and his industry, that ardent spirit that prompted him to
+adventures, and that indefatigable patience that enabled him to
+surmount difficulties. He did not sit down idly to lament misfortunes
+which heaven had put it in his power to remedy, or to repine at
+poverty, while the wealth of his enemies was to be gained. But having
+made two voyages to America, for the sake of gaining intelligence of
+the state of the Spanish settlements, and acquainted himself with the
+seas and coasts, he determined on a third expedition of more
+importance, by which the Spaniards should find how imprudently they
+always act, who injure and insult a brave man.
+
+On the 24th of May, 1572, Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, in the
+Pascha, of seventy tons, accompanied by the Swan, of twenty-five tons,
+commanded by his brother John Drake, having, in both the vessels,
+seventy-three men and boys, with a year's provision, and such
+artillery and ammunition, as was necessary for his undertaking, which,
+however incredible it may appear to such as consider rather his force
+than his fortitude, was no less than to make reprisals upon the most
+powerful nation in the world.
+
+The wind continuing favourable, they entered, June 29th, between
+Guadaloupe and Dominica, and, on July 6th, saw the highland of Santa
+Martha; then continuing their course, after having been becalmed for
+some time, they arrived at port Pheasant, so named by Drake, in a
+former voyage to the east of Nombre de Dios. Here he proposed to build
+his pinnaces, which he had brought in pieces ready framed from
+Plymouth, and was going ashore, with a few men unarmed, but,
+discovering a smoke at a distance, ordered the other boat to follow
+him with a greater force.
+
+Then marching towards the fire, which was in the top of a high tree,
+he found a plate of lead nailed to another tree, with an inscription
+engraved upon it by one Garret, an Englishman, who had left that place
+but five days before, and had taken this method of informing him, that
+the Spaniards had been advertised of his intention to anchor at that
+place, and that it, therefore, would be prudent to make a very short
+stay there.
+
+But Drake, knowing how convenient this place was for his designs, and
+considering that the hazard and waste of time, which could not be
+avoided, in seeking another station, was equivalent to any other
+danger which was to be apprehended from the Spaniards, determined to
+follow his first resolution; only, for his greater security, he
+ordered a kind of palisade, or fortification, to be made, by felling
+large trees, and laying the trunks and branches, one upon another, by
+the side of the river.
+
+On July 20th, having built their pinnaces, and being joined by one
+captain Rause, who happened to touch at the same place, with a bark of
+fifty men, they set sail towards Nombre de Dios, and, taking two
+frigates at the island of Pines, were informed by the negroes, which
+they found in them, that the inhabitants of that place were in
+expectation of some soldiers, which the governour of Panama had
+promised, to defend them from the Symerons, or fugitive negroes, who,
+having escaped from the tyranny of their masters, in great numbers,
+had settled themselves under two kings, or leaders, on each side of
+the way between Nombre de Dios and Panama, and not only asserted their
+natural right to liberty and independence, but endeavoured to revenge
+the cruelties they had suffered, and had lately put the inhabitants of
+Nombre de Dios into the utmost consternation.
+
+These negroes the captain set on shore on the mainland, so that they
+might, by joining the Symerons, recover their liberty, or, at least,
+might not have it in their power to give the people of Nombre de Dios
+any speedy information of his intention to invade them.
+
+Then selecting fifty-three men from his own company, and twenty from
+the crew of his new associate, captain Rause, he embarked with them,
+in his pinnaces, and set sail for Nombre de Dios.
+
+On July the 28th, at night, he approached the town, undiscovered, and
+dropt his anchors under the shore, intending, after his men were
+refreshed, to begin the attack; but finding that they were terrifying
+each other with formidable accounts of the strength of the place, and
+the multitude of the inhabitants, he determined to hinder the panick
+from spreading further by leading them immediately to action; and,
+therefore, ordering them to their pars, he landed without any
+opposition, there being only one gunner upon the bay, though it was
+secured with six brass cannons of the largest size, ready mounted. But
+the gunner, while they were throwing the cannons from their carriages,
+alarmed the town, as they soon discovered by the bell, the drums, and
+the noise of the people. Drake, leaving twelve men to guard the
+pinnaces, marched round the town, with no great opposition, the men
+being more hurt by treading on the weapons, left on the ground by the
+flying enemy, than by the resistance which they encountered.
+
+At length, having taken some of the Spaniards, Drake commanded them to
+show him the governour's house, where the mules that bring the silver
+from Panama were unloaded; there they found the door open, and,
+entering the room where the silver was reposited, found it heaped up
+in bars, in such quantities as almost exceed belief, the pile being,
+they conjectured, seventy feet in length, ten in breadth, and twelve
+in height, each bar weighing between thirty and forty-five pounds.
+
+It is easy to imagine, that, at the sight of this treasure, nothing
+was thought on by the English, but by what means they might best
+convey it to their boats; and, doubtless, it was not easy for Drake,
+who, considering their distance from the shore and the number of their
+enemies, was afraid of being intercepted in his retreat, to hinder his
+men from encumbering themselves with so much silver as might have
+retarded their march and obstructed the use of their weapons; however,
+by promising to lead them to the king's treasurehouse, where there was
+gold and jewels to a far greater value, and where the treasure was not
+only more portable, but nearer the coast, he persuaded them to follow
+him, and rejoin the main body of his men, then drawn up under the
+command of his brother in the market-place.
+
+Here he found his little troop much discouraged by the imagination,
+that, if they stayed any longer, the enemy would gain possession of
+their pinnaces, and that they should then, without any means of
+safety, be left to stand alone against the whole power of that
+country. Drake, not, indeed, easily terrified, but sufficiently
+cautious, sent to the coast to inquire the truth, and see if the same
+terrour had taken possession of the men whom he had left to guard his
+boats; but, finding no foundation for these dreadful apprehensions, he
+persisted in his first design, and led the troop forward to the
+treasurehouse. In their way, there fell a violent shower of rain,
+which wet some of their bowstrings, and extinguished many of their
+matches; a misfortune which might soon have been repaired, and which,
+perhaps, the enemy might suffer in common with them, but which,
+however, on this occasion, very much embarrassed them, as the delay
+produced by it repressed that ardour which, sometimes, is only to be
+kept up by continued action, and gave time to the timorous and
+slothful to spread their insinuations and propagate their cowardice.
+Some, whose fear was their predominant passion, were continually
+magnifying the numbers and courage of their enemies, and represented
+whole nations as ready to rush upon them; others, whose avarice
+mingled with their concern for their own safety, were more solicitous
+to preserve what they had already gained, than to acquire more; and
+others, brave in themselves and resolute, began to doubt of success in
+an undertaking, in which they were associated with such cowardly
+companions. So that scarcely any man appeared to proceed in their
+enterprise with that spirit and alacrity which could give Drake a
+prospect of success.
+
+This he perceived, and, with some emotion, told them, that if, after
+having had the chief treasure of the world within their reach, they
+should go home and languish in poverty, they could blame nothing but
+their own cowardice; that he had performed his part, and was still
+desirous to lead them on to riches and to honour.
+
+Then finding that either shame or conviction made them willing to
+follow him, he ordered the treasurehouse to be forced, and commanding
+his brother, and Oxenham, of Plymouth, a man known afterwards for his
+bold adventures in the same parts, to take charge of the treasure, he
+commanded the other body to follow him to the market-place, that he
+might be ready to oppose any scattered troops of the Spaniards, and
+hinder them from uniting into one body.
+
+But, as he stepped forward, his strength failed him on a sudden, and
+he fell down speechless. Then it was that his companions perceived a
+wound in his leg, which he had received in the first encounter, but
+hitherto concealed, lest his men, easily discouraged, should make
+their concern for his life a pretence for returning to their boats.
+Such had been his loss of blood, as was discovered upon nearer
+observation, that it had filled the prints of his footsteps, and it
+appeared scarce credible that, after such effusion of blood, life
+should remain.
+
+The bravest were now willing to retire: neither the desire of honour
+nor of riches, was thought enough to prevail in any man over his
+regard for his leader. Drake, whom cordials had now restored to his
+speech, was the only man who could not be prevailed on to leave the
+enterprise unfinished. It was to no purpose that they advised him to
+submit to go on board to have his wound dressed, and promised to
+return with him and complete their design; he well knew how
+impracticable it was to regain the opportunity, when it was once lost;
+and could easily foresee, that a respite, but of a few hours, would
+enable the Spaniards to recover from their consternation, to assemble
+their forces, refit their batteries, and remove their treasure. What
+he had undergone so much danger to obtain was now in his hands, and
+the thought of leaving it untouched was too mortifying to be patiently
+borne.
+
+However, as there was little time for consultation, and the same
+danger attended their stay, in that perplexity and confusion, as their
+return, they bound up his wound with his scarf, and partly by force,
+partly by entreaty, carried him to the boats, in which they all
+embarked by break of day.
+
+Then taking with them, out of the harbour, a ship loaded with wines,
+they went to the Bastimentes, an island about a league from the town,
+where they stayed two days to repose the wounded men, and to regale
+themselves with the fruits, which grew in great plenty in the gardens
+of that island.
+
+During their stay here, there came over, from the mainland, a Spanish
+gentleman, sent by the governour, with instructions to inquire whether
+the captain was that Drake who had been before on their coast; whether
+the arrows with which many of their men were wounded were not
+poisoned; and whether they wanted provisions or other necessaries. The
+messenger, likewise, extolled their courage with the highest
+encomiums, and expressed his admiration of their daring undertaking.
+Drake, though he knew the civilities of an enemy are always to be
+suspected, and that the messenger, amidst all his professions of
+regard, was no other than a spy, yet knowing that he had nothing to
+apprehend, treated him with the highest honours that his condition
+admitted of. In answer to his inquiries, he assured him that he was
+the same Drake with whose character they were before acquainted, that
+he was a rigid observer of the laws of war, and never permitted his
+arrows to be poisoned: he then dismissed him with considerable
+presents, and told him that, though he had unfortunately failed in
+this attempt, he would never desist from his design till he had shared
+with Spain the treasures of America.
+
+They then resolved to return to the isle of Pines, where they had left
+their ships, and consult about the measures they were now to take; and
+having arrived, August 1st, at their former station, they dismissed
+captain Rause, who, judging it unsafe to stay any longer on the coast,
+desired to be no longer engaged in their designs.
+
+But Drake, not to be discouraged from his purpose by a single
+disappointment, after having inquired of a negro, whom he took on
+board at Nombre de Dios, the most wealthy settlements, and weakest
+parts of the coast, resolved to attack Carthagena; and, setting sail
+without loss of time, came to anchor, August 13th, between Charesha
+and St. Barnards, two islands at a little distance from the harbour of
+Carthagena; then passing with his boats round the island, he entered
+the harbour, and, in the mouth of it, found a frigate with only an old
+man in it, who voluntarily informed them, that about an hour before a
+pinnace had passed by with sails and oars, and all the appearance of
+expedition and importance; that, as she passed, the crew on board her
+bid them take care of themselves; and that, as soon as she touched the
+shore, they heard the noise of cannon fired as a warning, and saw the
+shipping in the port drawn up under the guns of the castle.
+
+The captain, who had himself heard the discharge of the artillery, was
+soon convinced that he was discovered, and that, therefore, nothing
+could be attempted with any probability of success. He, therefore,
+contented himself with taking a ship of Seville, of two hundred and
+forty tons, which the relater of this voyage mentions as a very large
+ship, and two small frigates, in which he found letters of advice from
+Nombre de Dios, intended to alarm that part of the coast.
+
+Drake, now finding his pinnaces of great use, and not having a
+sufficient number of sailors for all his vessels, was desirous of
+destroying one of his ships, that his pinnaces might be better manned:
+this, necessary as it was, could not easily be done without disgusting
+his company, who, having made several prosperous voyages in that
+vessel, would be unwilling to have it destroyed. Drake well knew that
+nothing but the love of their leaders could animate his followers to
+encounter such hardships as he was about to expose them to, and,
+therefore, rather chose to bring his designs to pass by artifice than
+authority. He sent for the carpenter of the Swan, took him into his
+cabin, and, having first engaged him to secrecy, ordered him, in the
+middle of the night, to go down into the well of the ship, and bore
+three holes through the bottom, laying something against them that
+might hinder the bubbling of the water from being heard. To this the
+carpenter, after some expostulation, consented, and the next night
+performed his promise.
+
+In the morning, August 15, Drake, going out with his pinnace a
+fishing, rowed up to the Swan, and having invited his brother to
+partake of his diversions, inquired, with a negligent air, why their
+bark was so deep in the water; upon which the steward going down,
+returned immediately with an account that the ship was leaky, and in
+danger of sinking in a little time. They had recourse immediately to
+the pump; but, having laboured till three in the afternoon, and gained
+very little upon the water, they willingly, according to Drake's
+advice, set the vessel on fire, and went on board the pinnaces.
+
+Finding it now necessary to lie concealed for some time, till the
+Spaniards should forget their danger, and remit their vigilance, they
+set sail for the sound of Darien, and without approaching the coast,
+that their course might not be observed, they arrived there in six
+days.
+
+This being a convenient place for their reception, both on account of
+privacy, as it was out of the road of all trade, and as it was well
+supplied with wood, water, wild fowl, hogs, deer, and all kinds of
+provisions, he stayed here fifteen days to clean his vessels, and
+refresh his men, who worked interchangeably, on one day the one half,
+and on the next the other.
+
+On the 5th day of September, Drake left his brother with the ship at
+Darien, and set out with two pinnaces towards the Rio Grande, which
+they reached in three days, and, on the 9th, were discovered by a
+Spaniard from the bank, who believing them to be his countrymen, made
+a signal to them to come on shore, with which they very readily
+complied; but he, soon finding his mistake, abandoned his plantation,
+where they found great plenty of provisions, with which, having laden
+their vessels, they departed. So great was the quantity of provisions
+which they amassed here and in other places, that in different parts
+of the coast they built four magazines or storehouses, which they
+filled with necessaries for the prosecution of their voyage. These
+they placed at such a distance from each other, that the enemy, if he
+should surprise one, might yet not discover the rest.
+
+In the mean time, his brother, captain John Drake, went, according to
+the instructions that had been left him, in search of the Symerons, or
+fugitive negroes, from whose assistance alone they had now any
+prospect of a successful voyage; and touching upon the mainland, by
+means of the negro whom they had taken from Nombre de Dios, engaged
+two of them to come on board his pinnace, leaving two of their own men
+as hostages for their returning. These men, having assured Drake of
+the affection of their nation, appointed an interview between him and
+their leaders. So leaving port Plenty, in the isle of Pines, so named
+by the English from the great stores of provisions which they had
+amassed at that place, they came, by the direction of the Symerons,
+into a secret bay, among beautiful islands covered with trees, which
+concealed their ship from observation, and where the channel was so
+narrow and rocky, that it was impossible to enter it by night, so that
+there was no danger of a sudden attack.
+
+Here they met, and entered into engagements, which common enemies and
+common dangers preserved from violation. But the first conversation
+informed the English, that their expectations were not immediately to
+be gratified; for, upon their inquiries after the most probable means
+of gaining gold and silver, the Symerons told them, that had they
+known sooner the chief end of their expedition, they could easily have
+gratified them; but that during the rainy season, which was now begun,
+and which continues six months, they could not recover the treasure,
+which they had taken from the Spaniards, out of the rivers in which
+they had concealed it.
+
+Drake, therefore, proposing to wait in this place, till the rains were
+past, built, with the assistance of the Symerons, a fort of earth and
+timber, and leaving part of his company with the Symerons, set out
+with three pinnaces towards Carthagena, being of a spirit too active
+to lie still patiently, even in a state of plenty and security, and
+with the most probable expectations of immense riches.
+
+On the 16th of October, he anchored within sight of Carthagena,
+without landing; and on the 17th, going out to sea, took a Spanish
+bark, with which they entered the harbour, where they were accosted by
+a Spanish gentleman, whom they had some time before taken and set at
+liberty, who coming to them in a boat, as he pretended, without the
+knowledge of the governour, made them great promises of refreshment
+and professions of esteem; but Drake, having waited till the next
+morning, without receiving the provisions he had been prevailed upon
+to expect, found that all this pretended kindness was no more than a
+stratagem to amuse him, while the governour was raising forces for his
+destruction.
+
+October 20, they took two frigates coming out of Carthagena, without
+lading. Why the Spaniards, knowing Drake to lie at the mouth of the
+harbour, sent out their vessels on purpose to be taken, does not
+appear. Perhaps they thought that, in order to keep possession of his
+prizes, he would divide his company, and by that division be more
+easily destroyed.
+
+In a few hours afterwards they sent out two frigates well manned,
+which Drake soon forced to retire, and, having sunk one of his prizes,
+and burnt the other in their sight, leaped afterwards ashore, single,
+in defiance of their troops, which hovered at a distance in the woods
+and on the hills, without ever venturing to approach within reach of
+the shot from the pinnaces.
+
+To leap upon an enemy's coast in sight of a superiour force, only to
+show how little they were feared, was an act that would, in these
+times, meet with little applause, nor can the general be seriously
+commended, or rationally vindicated, who exposes his person to
+destruction, and, by consequence, his expedition to miscarriage, only
+for the pleasure of an idle insult, an insignificant bravado. All that
+can be urged in his defence is, that, perhaps, it might contribute to
+heighten the esteem of his followers, as few men, especially of that
+class, are philosophical enough to state the exact limits of prudence
+and bravery, or not to be dazzled with an intrepidity, how improperly
+soever exerted. It may be added, that, perhaps, the Spaniards, whose
+notions of courage are sufficiently romantick, might look upon him as
+a more formidable enemy, and yield more easily to a hero, of whose
+fortitude they had so high an idea.
+
+However, finding the whole country advertised of his attempts, and in
+arms to oppose him, he thought it not proper to stay longer, where
+there was no probability of success, and where he might, in time, be
+overpowered by multitudes, and, therefore, determined to go forward to
+Rio de Heha.
+
+This resolution, when it was known by his followers, threw them into
+astonishment; and the company of one of his pinnaces remonstrated to
+him, that, though they placed the highest confidence in his conduct,
+they could not think of undertaking such a voyage without provisions,
+having only a gammon of bacon and a small quantity of bread for
+seventeen men. Drake answered them, that there was on board his vessel
+even a greater scarcity; but yet, if they would adventure to share his
+fortune, he did not doubt of extricating them from all their
+difficulties.
+
+Such was the heroick spirit of Drake, that he never suffered himself
+to be diverted from his designs by any difficulties, nor ever thought
+of relieving his exigencies, but at the expense of his enemies.
+
+Resolution and success reciprocally produce each other. He had not
+sailed more than three leagues, before they discovered a large ship,
+which they attacked with all the intrepidity that necessity inspires,
+and, happily, found it laden with excellent provisions.
+
+But finding his crew growing faint and sickly, with their manner of
+living in the pinnaces, which was less commodious than on board the
+ships, he determined to go back to the Symerons, with whom he left his
+brother and part of his force, and attempt, by their conduct, to make
+his way over, and invade the Spaniards in the inland parts, where they
+would, probably, never dream of an enemy.
+
+When they arrived at port Diego, so named from the negro who had
+procured them their intercourse with the Symerons, they found captain
+John Drake, and one of his company, dead, being killed in attempting,
+almost unarmed, to board a frigate well provided with all things
+necessary for its defence. The captain was unwilling to attack it, and
+represented to them the madness of their proposal; but, being
+overborne by their clamours and importunities, to avoid the imputation
+of cowardice, complied to his destruction. So dangerous is it for the
+chief commander to be absent.
+
+Nor was this their only misfortune, for, in a very short time, many of
+them were attacked by the calenture, a malignant fever, very frequent
+in the hot climates, which carried away, among several others, Joseph
+Drake, another brother of the commander.
+
+While Drake was employed in taking care of the sick men, the Symerons,
+who ranged the country for intelligence, brought him an account, that
+the Spanish fleet was arrived at Nombre de Dios; the truth of which
+was confirmed by a pinnace, which he sent out to make observations.
+
+This, therefore, was the time for their journey, when the treasures of
+the American mines were to be transported from Panama over land to
+Nombre de Dios. He, therefore, by the direction of the Symerons,
+furnished himself with all things necessary, and, on February 3, set
+out from port Diego.
+
+Having lost, already, twenty-eight of his company, and being under the
+necessity of leaving some to guard his ship, he took with him only
+eighteen English, and thirty Symerons, who not only served as guides
+to show the way, but as purveyors to procure provisions.
+
+They carried not only arrows for war, but for hunting and fowling; the
+heads of which are proportioned in size to the game which they are
+pursuing: for oxen, stags, or wild boars, they have arrows or
+javelins, with heads weighing a pound and half, which they discharge
+near hand, and which scarcely ever fail of being mortal. The second
+sort are about half as heavy as the other, and are generally shot from
+their bows; these are intended for smaller beasts. With the third
+sort, of which the heads are an ounce in weight, they kill birds. As
+this nation is in a state that does not set them above continual cares
+for the immediate necessaries of life, he that can temper iron best,
+is, among them, most esteemed; and, perhaps, it would be happy for
+every nation, if honours and applauses were as justly distributed, and
+he were most distinguished whose abilities were most useful to
+society. How many chimerical titles to precedence, how many false
+pretences to respect, would this rule bring to the ground!
+
+Every day, by sunrising, they began to march, and, having travelled
+till ten, rested near some river till twelve, then travelling again
+till four, they reposed all night in houses, which the Symerons had
+either left standing in their former marches, or very readily erected
+for them, by setting up three or four posts in the ground, and laying
+poles from one to another in form of a roof, which they thatched with
+palmetto boughs and plantain leaves. In the valleys, where they were
+sheltered from the winds, they left three or four feet below open; but
+on the hills, where they were more exposed to the chill blasts of the
+night, they thatched them close to the ground, leaving only a door for
+entrance, and a vent in the middle of the room for the smoke of three
+fires, which they made in every house.
+
+In their march they met not only with plenty of fruits upon the banks
+of the rivers, but with wild swine in great abundance, of which the
+Symerons, without difficulty, killed, for the most part, as much as
+was wanted. One day, however, they found an otter, and were about to
+dress it; at which Drake expressing his wonder, was asked by Pedro,
+the chief Symeron: "Are you a man of war and in want, and yet doubt
+whether this be meat that hath blood in it?" For which Drake in
+private rebuked him, says the relater; whether justly or not, it is
+not very important to determine. There seems to be in Drake's scruple
+somewhat of superstition, perhaps, not easily to be justified; and the
+negro's answer was, at least martial, and will, I believe, be
+generally acknowledged to be rational.
+
+On the third day of their march, Feb. 6, they came to a town of the
+Symerons, situated on the side of a hill, and encompassed with a ditch
+and a mudwall, to secure it from a sudden surprise: here they lived
+with great neatness and plenty, and some observation of religion,
+paying great reverence to the cross; a practice which Drake prevailed
+upon them to change for the use of the Lord's prayer. Here they
+importuned Drake to stay for a few days, promising to double his
+strength; but he, either thinking greater numbers unnecessary, or,
+fearing that, if any difference should arise, he should be overborne
+by the number of Symerons; or that they would demand to share the
+plunder that should be taken in common; or for some other reason that
+might easily occur, refused any addition to his troop, endeavouring to
+express his refusal in such terms as might heighten their opinion of
+his bravery.
+
+He then proceeded on his journey through cool shades and lofty woods,
+which sheltered them so effectually from the sun, that their march was
+less toilsome than if they had travelled in England during the heat of
+the summer. Four of the Symerons, that were acquainted with the way,
+went about a mile before the troop, and scattered branches to direct
+them; then followed twelve Symerons, after whom came the English, with
+the two leaders, and the other Symerons closed the rear.
+
+On February 11, they arrived at the top of a very high hill, on the
+summit of which grew a tree of wonderful greatness, in which they had
+cut steps for the more easy ascent to the top, where there was a kind
+of tower, to which they invited Drake, and from thence showed him not
+only the north sea, from whence they came, but the great south sea, on
+which no English vessel had ever sailed. This prospect exciting his
+natural curiosity, and ardour for adventures and discoveries, he
+lifted up his hands to God, and implored his blessing upon the
+resolution, which he then formed, of sailing in an English ship on
+that sea.
+
+Then continuing their march, they came, after two days, into an open,
+level country, where their passage was somewhat incommoded with the
+grass, which is of a peculiar kind, consisting of a stalk like that of
+wheat, and a blade on which the oxen and other cattle feed till it
+grows too high for them to reach; then the inhabitants set it on fire,
+and in three days it springs up again; this they are obliged to do
+thrice a year, so great is the fertility of the soil.
+
+At length, being within view of Panama, they left all frequented
+roads, for fear of being discovered, and posted themselves in a grove
+near the way between Panama and Nombre de Dios; then they sent a
+Symeron in the habit of a negro of Panama, to inquire on what night
+the recoes, or drivers of mules, by which the treasure is carried,
+were to set forth. The messenger was so well qualified for his
+undertaking, and so industrious in the prosecution of it, that he soon
+returned, with an account that the treasurer of Lima, intending to
+return to Europe, would pass that night, with eight mules laden with
+gold, and one with jewels.
+
+Having received this information, they immediately marched towards
+Venta Cruz, the first town on the way to Nombre de Dios; sending, for
+security, two Symerons before, who, as they went, perceived, by the
+scent of a match, that some Spaniard was before them, and, going
+silently forward, surprised a soldier asleep upon the ground. They
+immediately bound him, and brought him to Drake, who, upon inquiry,
+found that their spy had not deceived them in his intelligence. The
+soldier, having informed himself of the captain's name, conceived such
+a confidence in his well known clemency, that, after having made an
+ample discovery of the treasure that was now at hand, he petitioned
+not only that he would command the Symerons to spare his life, but
+that, when the treasure should fall into his hands, he would allow him
+as much as might maintain him and his mistress, since they were about
+to gain more than their whole company could carry. Drake then ordered
+his men to lie down in the long grass, about fifty paces from the
+road, half on one side, with himself, and half on the other, with
+Oxenham and the captain of the Symerons, so much behind, that one
+company might seize the foremost recoe, and the other the hindermost;
+for the mules of these recoes, or drivers, being tied together, travel
+on a line, and are all guided by leading the first.
+
+When they had lain about an hour in this place, they began to hear the
+bells of the mules on each hand; upon which orders were given, that
+the drove which came from Venta Cruz should pass unmolested, because
+they carried nothing of great value, and those only be intercepted
+which were travelling thither; and that none of the men should rise
+up, till the signal should be given. But one Robert Pike, heated with
+strong liquor, left his company, and prevailed upon one of the
+Symerons to creep with him to the wayside, that they might signalize
+themselves by seizing the first mule; and hearing the trampling of a
+horse, as he lay, could not be restrained by the Symeron from rising
+up to observe who was passing by. This he did so imprudently, that he
+was discovered by the passenger; for, by Drake's order, the English
+had put their shirts on over their coats, that the night and tumult
+might not hinder them from knowing one another.
+
+The gentleman was immediately observed by Drake to change his trot
+into a gallop; but, the reason of it not appearing, it was imputed to
+his fear of the robbers that usually infest that road, and the English
+still continued to expect the treasure.
+
+In a short time, one of the recoes, that were passing towards Venta
+Cruz, came up, and was eagerly seized by the English, who expected
+nothing less than half the revenue of the Indies; nor is it easy to
+imagine their mortification and perplexity, when they found only two
+mules laden with silver, the rest having no other burden than
+provisions.
+
+The driver was brought immediately to the captain, and informed him
+that the horseman, whom he had observed pass by with so much
+precipitation, had informed the treasurer of what he had observed, and
+advised him to send back the mules that carried his gold and jewels,
+and suffer only the rest to proceed, that he might, by that cheap
+experiment, discover whether there was any ambush on the way.
+
+That Drake was not less disgusted than his followers at the
+disappointment, cannot be doubted; but there was now no time to be
+spent in complaints. The whole country was alarmed, and all the force
+of the Spaniards was summoned to overwhelm him. He had no fortress to
+retire to; every man was his enemy; and every retreat better known to
+the Spaniards than to himself.
+
+This was an occasion that demanded all the qualities of an hero, an
+intrepidity never to be shaken, and a judgment never to be perplexed.
+He immediately considered all the circumstances of his present
+situation, and found that it afforded him only the choice of marching
+back the same way through which he came, or of forcing his passage to
+Venta Cruz.
+
+To march back, was to confess the superiority of his enemies, and to
+animate them to the pursuit; the woods would afford opportunities of
+ambush, and his followers must often disperse themselves in search of
+provisions, who would become an easy prey, dispirited by their
+disappointment, and fatigued by their march. On the way to Venta Cruz,
+he should have nothing to fear but from open attacks, and expected
+enemies.
+
+Determining, therefore, to pass forward to Venta Cruz, he asked Pedro,
+the leader of the Symerons, whether he was resolved to follow him;
+and, having received from him the strongest assurances that nothing
+should separate them, commanded his men to refresh themselves, and
+prepare to set forward.
+
+When they came within a mile of the town, they dismissed the mules,
+which they had made use of for their more easy and speedy passage, and
+continued their march along a road cut through thick woods, in which a
+company of soldiers, who were quartered in the place to defend it
+against the Symerons, had posted themselves, together with a convent
+of friars headed by one of their brethren, whose zeal against the
+northern heresy had incited him to hazard his person, and assume the
+province of a general.
+
+Drake, who was advertised by two Symerons, whom he sent before, of the
+approach of the Spaniards, commanded his followers to receive the
+first volley without firing.
+
+In a short time, he heard himself summoned by the Spanish captain to
+yield, with a promise of protection and kind treatment; to which he
+answered with defiance, contempt, and the discharge of his pistol.
+
+Immediately the Spaniards poured in their shot, by which only one man
+was killed, and Drake, with some others, slightly wounded; upon which
+the signal was given by Drake's whistle to fall upon them. The
+English, after discharging their arrows and shot, pressed furiously
+forward, and drove the Spaniards before them; which the Symerons, whom
+the terrour of the shot had driven to some distance, observed, and
+recalling their courage, animated each other with songs in their own
+language, and rushed forward with such impetuosity, that they overtook
+them near the town, and, supported by the English, dispersed them with
+the loss of only one man, who, after he had received his wound, had
+strength and resolution left to kill his assailant.
+
+They pursued the enemy into the town, in which they met with some
+plunder, which was given to the Symerons; and treated the inhabitants
+with great clemency, Drake himself going to the Spanish ladies, to
+assure them that no injuries should be offered them; so inseparable is
+humanity from true courage.
+
+Having thus broken the spirits, and scattered the forces of the
+Spaniards, he pursued his march to his ship, without any apprehension
+of danger, yet with great speed, being very solicitous about the state
+of the crew; so that he allowed his men, harassed as they were, but
+little time for sleep or refreshment, but by kind exhortations, gentle
+authority, and a cheerful participation of all their hardships,
+prevailed upon them to bear, without murmurs, not only the toil of
+travelling, but, on some days, the pain of hunger.
+
+In this march, he owed much of his expedition to the assistance of the
+Symerons, who being accustomed to the climate, and naturally robust,
+not only brought him intelligence, and showed the way, but carried
+necessaries, provided victuals, and built lodgings, and, when any of
+the English fainted in the way, two of them would carry him between
+them for two miles together; nor was their valour less than their
+industry, after they had learned from their English companions to
+despise the firearms of the Spaniards.
+
+When they were within five leagues of the ships, they found a town
+built in their absence by the Symerons, at which Drake consented to
+halt, sending a Symeron to the ship, with his gold toothpick, as a
+token, which, though the master knew it, was not sufficient to gain
+the messenger credit, till, upon examination, he found that the
+captain, having ordered him to regard no messenger without his
+handwriting, had engraven his name upon it with the point of his
+knife. He then sent the pinnace up the river, which they met, and
+afterwards sent to the town for those whose weariness had made them
+unable to march further. On February 23, the whole company was
+reunited; and Drake, whose good or ill success never prevailed over
+his piety, celebrated their meeting with thanks to God.
+
+Drake, not yet discouraged, now turned his thoughts to new prospects,
+and, without languishing in melancholy reflections upon his past
+miscarriages, employed himself in forming schemes for repairing them.
+Eager of action, and acquainted with man's nature, he never suffered
+idleness to infect his followers with cowardice, but kept them from
+sinking under any disappointment, by diverting their attention to some
+new enterprise.
+
+Upon consultation with his own men and the Symerons, he found them
+divided in their opinions; some declaring, that, before they engaged
+in any new attempt, it was necessary to increase their stores of
+provisions; and others urging, that the ships, in which the treasure
+was conveyed, should be immediately attacked. The Symerons proposed a
+third plan, and advised him to undertake another march over land to
+the house of one Pezoro, near Veragua, whose slaves brought him, every
+day, more than two hundred pounds sterling from the mines, which he
+heaped together in a strong stone house, which might, by the help of
+the English, be easily forced.
+
+Drake, being unwilling to fatigue his followers with another journey,
+determined to comply with both the other opinions; and, manning his
+two pinnaces, the Bear and the Minion, he sent John Oxenham, in the
+Bear, towards Tolu, to seize upon provisions; and went himself, in the
+Minion, to the Cabezas, to intercept the treasure that was to be
+transported from Veragua and that coast, to the fleet at Nombre de
+Dios, first dismissing, with presents, those Symerons that desired to
+return to their wives, and ordering those that chose to remain to be
+entertained in the ship.
+
+Drake took, at the Cabezas, a frigate of Nicaragua, the pilot of which
+informed him that there was, in the harbour of Veragua, a ship
+freighted with more than a million of gold, to which he offered to
+conduct him, being well acquainted with the soundings, if he might be
+allowed his share of the prize; so much was his avarice superiour to
+his honesty.
+
+Drake, after some deliberation, complying with the pilot's
+importunities, sailed towards the harbour, but had no sooner entered
+the mouth of it than he heard the report of artillery, which was
+answered by others at a greater distance; upon which the pilot told
+him, that they wero discovered, this being the signal appointed by the
+governour to alarm the coast.
+
+Drake now thought it convenient to return to the ship, that he might
+inquire the success of the other pinnace, which he found, with a
+frigate that she had taken, with twenty-eight fat hogs, two hundred
+hens, and great store of maize or Indian corn. The vessel itself was
+so strong and well built, that he fitted it out for war, determining
+to attack the fleet at Nombre de Dios.
+
+On March the 21st, he set sail, with the new frigate and the Bear,
+towards the Cabezas, at which he arrived in about two days, and found
+there Tètu, a Frenchman, with a ship of war, who, after having
+received from him a supply of water and other necessaries, entreated
+that he might join with him in his attempt; which Drake consenting to,
+admitted him to accompany him with twenty of his men, stipulating to
+allow them an equal share of whatever booty they should gain. Yet were
+they not without some suspicions of danger from this new ally, he
+having eighty men, and they being now reduced to thirty-one.
+
+Then manning the frigate and two pinnaces, they set sail for the
+Cabezas, where they left the frigate, which was too large for the
+shallows over which they were to pass, and proceeded to Rio Francisco.
+Here they landed, and, having ordered the pinnaces to return to the
+same place on the fourth day following, travelled through the woods
+towards Nombre de Dios, with such silence and regularity as surprised
+the French, who did not imagine the Symerons so discreet or obedient
+as they appeared, and were, therefore, in perpetual anxiety about the
+fidelity of their guides, and the probability of their return. Nor did
+the Symerons treat them with that submission and regard which they
+paid to the English, whose bravery and conduct they had already tried.
+
+At length, after a laborious march of more than seven leagues, they
+began to hear the hammers of the carpenters in the bay, it being the
+custom, in that hot season, to work in the night; and, in a short
+time, they perceived the approach of the recoes, or droves of mules,
+from Panama. They now no longer doubted that their labours would be
+rewarded, and every man imagined himself secure from poverty and
+labour for the remaining part of his life. They, therefore, when the
+mules came up, rushed out and seized them, with an alacrity
+proportioned to their expectations. The three droves consisted of one
+hundred and nine mules, each of which carried three hundred pounds'
+weight of silver. It was to little purpose that the soldiers, ordered
+to guard the treasure, attempted resistance. After a short combat, in
+which the French captain and one of the Symerons were wounded, it
+appeared with how much greater ardour men are animated by interest
+than fidelity.
+
+As it was possible for them to carry away but a small part of this
+treasure, after having wearied themselves with hiding it in holes and
+shallow waters, they determined to return by the same way, and,
+without being pursued, entered the woods, where the French captain,
+being disabled by his wound, was obliged to stay, two of his company
+continuing with him.
+
+When they had gone forward about two leagues, the Frenchmen missed
+another of their company, who, upon inquiry, was known to be
+intoxicated with wine, and supposed to have lost himself in the woods,
+by neglecting to observe the guides.
+
+But common prudence not allowing them to hazard the whole company by
+too much solicitude for a single life, they travelled on towards Rio
+Francisco, at which they arrived, April the 3rd; but, looking out for
+their pinnaces, were surprised with the sight of seven Spanish
+shallops, and immediately concluded, that some intelligence of their
+motions had been carried to Nombre de Dios, and that these vessels had
+been fitted out to pursue them, which might, undoubtedly, have
+overpowered the pinnaces and their feeble crew. Nor did their
+suspicion stop here; but immediately it occurred to them, that their
+men had been compelled, by torture, to discover where their frigate
+and ship were stationed, which, being weakly manned, and without the
+presence of the chief commander, would fall into their hands, almost
+without resistance, and all possibility of escaping be entirely cut
+off.
+
+These reflections sunk the whole company into despair; and every one,
+instead of endeavouring to break through the difficulties that
+surrounded him, resigned up himself to his ill fortune; when Drake,
+whose intrepidity was never to be shaken, and whose reason was never
+to be surprised or embarrassed, represented to them that, though the
+Spaniards should have made themselves masters of their pinnaces, they
+might yet be hindered from discovering the ships. He put them in mind,
+that the pinnaces could not be taken, the men examined, their
+examinations compared, the resolutions formed, their vessels sent out,
+and the ships taken in an instant. Some time must, necessarily, be
+spent, before the last blow could be struck; and, if that time were
+not negligently lost, it might be possible for some of them to reach
+the ships before the enemy, and direct them to change their station.
+
+They were animated with this discourse, by which they discovered that
+their leader was not without hope; but when they came to look more
+nearly into their situation, they were unable to conceive upon what it
+was founded. To pass by land was impossible, as the way lay over high
+mountains, through thick woods and deep rivers; and they had not a
+single boat in their power, so that a passage by water seemed equally
+impracticable. But Drake, whose penetration immediately discovered all
+the circumstances and inconveniencies of every scheme, soon determined
+upon the only means of success which their condition afforded them;
+and ordering his men to make a raft out of the trees that were then
+floating on the river, offered himself to put off to sea upon it, and
+cheerfully asked who would accompany him. John Owen, John Smith, and
+two Frenchmen, who were willing to share his fortune, embarked with
+him on the raft, which was fitted out with a sail made of a
+biscuit-sack, and an oar, to direct its course, instead of a rudder.
+
+Then having comforted the rest, with assurances of his regard for
+them, and resolution to leave nothing unattempted for their
+deliverance, he put off, and after having, with much difficulty,
+sailed three leagues, descried two pinnaces hasting towards him,
+which, upon a nearer approach, he discovered to be his own, and
+perceiving that they anchored behind a point that jutted out into the
+sea, he put to shore, and, crossing the land on foot, was received, by
+his company, with that satisfaction, which is only known to those that
+have been acquainted with dangers and distresses.
+
+The same night they rowed to Rio Francisco, where they took in the
+rest, with what treasure they had been able to carry with them through
+the woods; then sailing back with the utmost expedition, they returned
+to their frigate, and soon after to their ship, where Drake divided
+the gold and silver equally between the French and the English.
+
+Here they spent about fourteen days in fitting out their frigate more
+completely, and then dismissing the Spaniards with their ship, lay a
+few days among the Cabezas; while twelve English and sixteen Symerons
+travelled, once more, into the country, as well to recover the French
+captain, whom they had left wounded, as to bring away the treasure
+which they had hidden in the sands. Drake, whom his company would not
+suffer to hazard his person in another land expedition, went with them
+to Rio Francisco, where he found one of the Frenchmen, who had stayed
+to attend their captain, and was informed by him, upon his inquiries
+after his fortune, that, half an hour after their separation, the
+Spaniards came upon them, and easily seized upon the wounded captain;
+but that his companion might have escaped with him, had he not
+preferred money to life; for, seeing him throw down a box of jewels
+that retarded him, he could not forbear taking it up, and with that,
+and the gold which he had already, was so loaded that he could not
+escape. With regard to the bars of gold and silver, which they had
+concealed in the ground, he informed them that two thousand men had
+been employed in digging for them.
+
+The men, however, either mistrusting the informer's veracity, or
+confident that what they had hidden could not be found, pursued their
+journey, but, upon their arrival at the place, found the ground turned
+up for two miles round, and were able to recover no more than thirteen
+bars' of silver, and a small quantity of gold. They discovered
+afterwards, that the Frenchman who was left in the woods, falling
+afterwards into the hands of the Spaniards, was tortured by them, till
+he confessed where Drake had concealed his plunder. So fatal to
+Drake's expedition was the drunkenness of his followers.
+
+Then, dismissing the French, they passed by Carthagena with their
+colours flying, and soon after took a frigate laden with provisions
+and honey, which they valued as a great restorative, and then sailed
+away to the Cabezas.
+
+Here they stayed about a week to clean their vessels, and fit them for
+a long voyage, determining to set sail for England; and, that the
+faithful Symerons might not go away unrewarded, broke up their
+pinnaces, and gave them the iron, the most valuable present in the
+world, to a nation whose only employments were war and hunting, and
+amongst whom show and luxury had no place.
+
+Pedro, their captain, being desired by Drake to go through the ship,
+and to choose what he most desired, fixed his eye upon a cimetar, set
+with diamonds, which the French captain had presented to Drake; and,
+being unwilling to ask for so valuable a present, offered for it four
+large quoits, or thick plates of gold, which he had, hitherto,
+concealed; but Drake, desirous to show him that fidelity is seldom
+without a recompense, gave it him with the highest professions of
+satisfaction and esteem. Pedro, receiving it with the utmost
+gratitude, informed him, that, by bestowing it he had conferred
+greatness and honour upon him; for, by presenting it to his king, he
+doubted not of obtaining the highest rank amongst the Symerons. He
+then persisted in his resolution of leaving the gold, which was
+generously thrown by Drake into the common stock; for he said, that
+those, at whose expenses he had been sent out, ought to share in all
+the gain of the expedition, whatever pretence cavil and chicanery
+might supply for the appropriation of any part of it. Thus was Drake's
+character consistent with itself; he was equally superiour to avarice
+and fear, and through whatever danger he might go in quest of gold, he
+thought it not valuable enough to be obtained by artifice or
+dishonesty.
+
+They now forsook the coast of America, which for many months they had
+kept in perpetual alarms, having taken more than two hundred ships, of
+all sizes, between Carthagena and Nombre de Dios, of which they never
+destroyed any, unless they were fitted out against them; nor ever
+detained the prisoners longer than was necessary for their own
+security or concealment, providing for them in the same manner as for
+themselves, and protecting them from the malice of the Symerous; a
+behaviour which humanity dictates, and which, perhaps, even policy
+cannot disapprove. He must certainly meet with obstinate opposition,
+who makes it equally dangerous to yield as to resist, and who leaves
+his enemies no hopes but from victory.
+
+What riches they acquired is not particularly related; but it is not
+to be doubted, that the plunder of so many vessels, together with the
+silver which they seized at Nombre de Dios, must amount to a very
+large sum, though the part that was allotted to Drake was not
+sufficient to lull him in effeminacy, or to repress his natural
+inclination to adventures.
+
+They arrived at Plymouth on the 9th of August, 1573, on Sunday, in the
+afternoon; and so much were the people delighted with the news of
+their arrival, that they left the preacher, and ran in crowds to the
+quay, with shouts and congratulations.
+
+Drake having, in his former expedition, had a view of the south sea,
+and formed a resolution to sail upon it, did not suffer himself to be
+diverted from his design by the prospect of any difficulties that
+might obstruct the attempt, nor any dangers that might attend the
+execution; obstacles which brave men often find it much more easy to
+overcome, than secret envy and domestick treachery.
+
+Drake's reputation was now sufficiently advanced to incite detraction
+and opposition; and it is easy to imagine, that a man by nature
+superiour to mean artifices, and bred, from his earliest years, to the
+labour and hardships of a sea-life, was very little acquainted with
+policy and intrigue, very little versed in the methods of application
+to the powerful and great, and unable to obviate the practices of
+those whom his merit had made his enemies.
+
+Nor are such the only opponents of great enterprises: there are some
+men, of narrow views and grovelling conceptions, who, without the
+instigation of personal malice, treat every new attempt, as wild and
+chimerical, and look upon every endeavour to depart from the beaten
+track, as the rash effort of a warm imagination, or the glittering
+speculation of an exalted mind, that may please and dazzle for a time,
+but can produce no real or lasting advantage.
+
+These men value themselves upon a perpetual skepticism, upon believing
+nothing but their own senses, upon calling for demonstration where it
+cannot possibly be obtained, and, sometimes, upon holding out against
+it, when it is laid before them; upon inventing arguments against the
+success of any new undertaking, and, where arguments cannot be found,
+upon treating it with contempt and ridicule.
+
+Such have been the most formidable enemies of the great benefactors to
+mankind, and to these we can hardly doubt, but that much of the
+opposition which Drake met with, is to be attributed; for their
+notions and discourse are so agreeable to the lazy, the envious, and
+the timorous, that they seldom fail of becoming popular, and directing
+the opinions of mankind.
+
+Whatsoever were his obstacles, and whatsoever the motives that
+produced them, it was not till the year 1577, that he was able to
+assemble a force proportioned to his design, and to obtain a
+commission from the queen, by which he was constituted captain-general
+of a fleet, consisting of five vessels, of which the Pelican, admiral,
+of a hundred tons, was commanded by himself; the Elizabeth,
+viceadmiral, of eighty tons, by John Winter; the Marigold, of thirty
+tons, by John Thomas; the Swan, fifty tons, by John Chester; the
+Christopher, of fifteen tons, by Thomas Moche, the same, as it seems,
+who was carpenter in the former voyage, and destroyed one of the ships
+by Drake's direction.
+
+These ships, equipped partly by himself, and partly by other private
+adventurers, he manned with one hundred and sixty-four stout sailors,
+and furnished with such provisions as he judged necessary for the long
+voyage in which he was engaged. Nor did he confine his concern to
+naval stores, or military preparations; but carried with him whatever
+he thought might contribute to raise in those nations, with which he
+should have any intercourse, the highest ideas of the politeness and
+magnificence of his native country. He, therefore, not only procured a
+complete service of silver, for his own table, and furnished the
+cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several
+musicians to accompany him; rightly judging, that nothing would more
+excite the admiration of any savage and uncivilized people.
+
+Having been driven back by a tempest in their first attempt, and
+obliged to return to Plymouth, to repair the damages which they had
+suffered, they set sail again from thence on the 13th of December,
+1577, and, on the 25th, had sight of cape Cantin, in Barbary, from
+whence they coasted on southward to the island of Mogador, which Drake
+had appointed for the first place of rendezvous, and on the 27th,
+brought the whole fleet to anchor, in a harbour on the mainland.
+
+They were, soon after their arrival, discovered by the Moors that
+inhabited those coasts, who sent two of the principal men amongst them
+on board Drake's ship, receiving, at the same time, two of his company
+as hostages. These men he not only treated in the most splendid
+manner, but presented with such things as they appeared most to
+admire; it being with him an established maxim, to endeavour to
+secure, in every country, a kind reception to such Englishmen as might
+come after him, by treating the inhabitants with kindness and
+generosity; a conduct, at once just and politick, to the neglect of
+which may be attributed many of the injuries suffered by our sailors
+in distant countries, which are generally ascribed, rather to the
+effects of wickedness and folly of our own commanders, than the
+barbarity of the natives, who seldom fall upon any, unless they have
+been first plundered or insulted; and, in revenging the ravages of one
+crew upon another of the same nation, are guilty of nothing but what
+is countenanced by the example of the Europeans themselves.
+
+But this friendly intercourse was, in appearance, soon broken; for, on
+the next day, observing the Moors making signals from the land, they
+sent out their boat, as before, to fetch them to the ship, and one
+John Fry leaped ashore, intending to become a hostage, as on the
+former day, when immediately he was seized by the Moors; and the crew,
+observing great numbers to start up from behind the rock, with weapons
+in their hands, found it madness to attempt his rescue, and,
+therefore, provided for their own security by returning to the ship.
+
+Fry was immediately carried to the king, who, being then in continual
+expectation of an invasion from Portugal, suspected that these ships
+were sent only to observe the coast, and discover a proper harbour for
+the main fleet; but being informed who they were, and whither they
+were bound, not only dismissed his captive, but made large offers of
+friendship and assistance, which Drake, however, did not stay to
+receive, but, being disgusted at this breach of the laws of commerce,
+and afraid of further violence, after having spent some days in
+searching for his man, in which he met with no resistance, left the
+coast on December 31, some time before Fry's return, who, being
+obliged by this accident to somewhat a longer residence among the
+Moors, was afterwards sent home in a merchant's ship.
+
+On January 16, they arrived at cape Blanc, having in their passage
+taken several Spanish vessels. Here, while Drake was employing his men
+in catching fish, of which this coast affords great plenty, and
+various kinds, the inhabitants came down to the seaside with their
+alisorges, or leather bottles, to traffick for water, which they were
+willing to purchase with ambergris and other gums. But Drake,
+compassionating the misery of their condition, gave them water,
+whenever they asked for it, and left them their commodities to
+traffick with, when they should be again reduced to the same distress,
+without finding the same generosity to relieve them.
+
+Here, having discharged some Spanish ships, which they had taken, they
+set sail towards the isles of cape Verd, and, on January 28, came to
+anchor before Mayo, hoping to furnish themselves with fresh water; but
+having landed, they found the town by the waterside entirely deserted,
+and, marching further up the country, saw the valleys extremely
+fruitful, and abounding with ripe figs, cocoas, and plantains, but
+could by no means prevail upon the inhabitants to converse or traffick
+with them; however, they were suffered by them to range the country
+without molestation, but found no water, except at such a distance
+from the sea, that the labour of conveying it to the ships was greater
+than it was, at that time, necessary for them to undergo. Salt, had
+they wanted it, might have been obtained with less trouble, being left
+by the sea upon the sand, and hardened by the sun during the ebb, in
+such quantities, that the chief traffick of their island is carried on
+with it.
+
+January 31, they passed by St. Jago an island at that time divided
+between the natives and the Portuguese, who, first entering these
+islands under the show of traffick, by degrees established
+themselves;--claimed a superiority over the original inhabitants; and
+harassed them with such cruelty, that they obliged them either to fly
+to the woods and mountains, and perish with hunger, or to take up arms
+against their oppressors, and, under the insuperable disadvantages
+with which they contended, to die, almost without a battle, in defence
+of their natural rights and ancient possessions.
+
+Such treatment had the natives of St. Jago received, which had driven
+them into the rocky parts of the island, from whence they made
+incursions into the plantations of the Portuguese, sometimes with
+loss, but generally with that success which desperation naturally
+procures; so that the Portuguese were in continual alarms, and, lived,
+with the natural consequences of guilt, terrour, and anxiety. They
+were wealthy, but not happy, and possessed the island, but not enjoyed
+it.
+
+They then sailed on within sight of Fuego, an island so called from a
+mountain, about the middle of it, continually burning, and, like the
+rest, inhabited by the Portuguese; two leagues to the south of which
+lies Brava, which has received its name from its fertility, abounding,
+though uninhabited, with all kinds of fruits, and watered with great
+numbers of springs and brooks, which would easily invite the
+possessours of the adjacent islands to settle in it, but that it
+affords neither harbour nor anchorage. Drake, after having sent out
+his boats with plummets, was not able to find any ground about it; and
+it is reported, that many experiments have been made with the same
+success; however, he took in water sufficient, and, on the 2nd of
+February, set sail for the straits of Magellan.
+
+On February 17, they passed the equator, and continued their voyage,
+with sometimes calms, and sometimes contrary winds, but without any
+memorable accident, to March 28, when one of their vessels, with
+twenty-eight men, and the greatest part of their fresh water on board,
+was, to their great discouragement, separated from them; but their
+perplexity lasted not long, for on the next day they discovered and
+rejoined their associates.
+
+In their long course, which gave them opportunities of observing
+several animals, both in the air and water, at that time very little
+known, nothing entertained or surprised them more than the flying
+fish, which is near of the same size with a herring, and has fins of
+the length of his whole body, by the help of which, when he is pursued
+by the bonito or great mackerel, as soon as he finds himself upon the
+point of being taken, he springs up into the air, and flies forward,
+as long as his wings continue wet, moisture being, as it seems,
+necessary to make them pliant and moveable; and when they become dry
+and stiff, he falls down into the water, unless some bark or ship
+intercept him, and dips them again for a second flight. This unhappy
+animal is not only pursued by fishes in his natural element, but
+attacked in the air, where he hopes for security, by the don, or
+sparkite, a great bird that preys upon fish; and their species must
+surely be destroyed, were not their increase so great, that the young
+fry, in one part of the year, covers the sea.
+
+There is another fish, named the cuttle, of which whole shoals will
+sometimes rise at once out of the water, and of which a great
+multitude fell into their ship.
+
+At length, having sailed without sight of land for sixty-three days,
+they arrived, April 5, at the coast of Brasil, where, on the 7th, the
+Christopher was separated again from them by a storm; after which they
+sailed near the land to the southward, and, on the 14th, anchored
+under a cape, which they afterwards called cape Joy, because in two
+days the vessel which they had lost returned to them.
+
+Having spent a fortnight in the river of Plata, to refresh his men,
+after their long voyage, and then standing out to sea, he was again
+surprised by a sudden storm, in which they lost sight of the Swan.
+This accident determined Drake to contract the number of his fleet,
+that he might not only avoid the inconvenience of such frequent
+separations, but ease the labour of his men, by having more hands in
+each vessel.
+
+For this purpose he sailed along the coast, in quest of a commodious
+harbour, and, on May 13, discovered a bay, which seemed not improper
+for their purpose, but which they durst not enter, till it was
+examined; an employment in which Drake never trusted any, whatever
+might be his confidence in his followers on other occasions. He well
+knew how fatal one moment's inattention might be, and how easily
+almost every man suffers himself to be surprised by indolence and
+security. He knew the same credulity, that might prevail upon him to
+trust another, might induce another to commit the same office to a
+third; and it must be, at length, that some of them would be deceived.
+He, therefore, as at other times, ordered the boat to be hoisted out,
+and, taking the line into his hand, went on sounding the passage, till
+he was three leagues from his ship; when, on a sudden, the weather
+changed, the skies blackened, the winds whistled, and all the usual
+forerunners of a storm began to threaten them; nothing was now desired
+but to return to the ship, but the thickness of the fog intercepting
+it from their sight, made the attempt little other than desperate. By
+so many unforeseen accidents is prudence itself liable to be
+embarrassed! So difficult is it, sometimes, for the quickest sagacity,
+and most enlightened experience, to judge what measures ought to be
+taken! To trust another to sound an unknown coast, appeared to Drake
+folly and presumption; to be absent from his fleet, though but for an
+hour, proved nothing less than to hazard the success of all their
+labours, hardships, and dangers.
+
+In this perplexity, which Drake was not more sensible of than those
+whom he had left in the ships, nothing was to be omitted, however
+dangerous, that might contribute to extricate them from it, as they
+could venture nothing of equal value with the life of their general.
+Captain Thomas, therefore, having the lightest vessel, steered boldly
+into the bay, and taking the general aboard, dropped anchor, and lay
+out of danger, while the rest, that were in the open sea, suffered
+much from the tempest, and the Mary, a Portuguese prize, was driven
+away before the wind; the others, as soon as the tempest was over,
+discovering, by the fires which were made on shore, where Drake was,
+repaired to him.
+
+Here, going on shore, they met with no inhabitants, though there were
+several houses or huts standing, in which they found a good quantity
+of dried fowls, and among them a great number of ostriches, of which
+the thighs were as large as those of a sheep. These birds are too
+heavy and unwieldy to rise from the ground, but with the help of their
+wings run so swiftly, that the English could never come near enough to
+shoot at them. The Indians, commonly, by holding a large plume of
+feathers before them, and walking gently forward, drive the ostriches
+into some narrow neck, or point of land, then, spreading a strong net
+from one side to the other, to hinder them from returning back to the
+open fields, set their dogs upon them, thus confined between the net
+and the water, and when they are thrown on their backs, rush in and
+take them.
+
+Not finding this harbour convenient, or well stored with wood and
+water, they left it on the 15th of May, and, on the 18th, entered
+another much safer, and more commodious, which they no sooner arrived
+at, than Drake, whose restless application never remitted, sent Winter
+to the southward, in quest of those ships which were absent, and
+immediately after sailed himself to the northward, and, happily
+meeting with the Swan, conducted it to the rest of the fleet; after
+which, in pursuance of his former resolution, he ordered it to be
+broken up, reserving the iron-work for a future supply. The other
+vessel, which they lost in the late storm, could not be discovered.
+
+While they were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the
+mainland, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they
+were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a
+distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English
+to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells,
+and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness or novelty, he
+imagined would be agreeable. As soon as the English landed, they
+observed two men running towards them, as deputed by the company, who
+came within a little distance, and then standing still could not be
+prevailed upon to come nearer. The English, therefore, tied their
+presents to a pole, which they fixed in the ground, and then retiring,
+saw the Indians advance, who, taking what they found upon the pole,
+left in return such feathers as they wear upon their heads, with a
+small bone about six inches in length, carved round the top, and
+burnished.
+
+Drake, observing their inclination to friendship and traffick,
+advanced, with some of his company, towards the hill, upon sight of
+whom the Indians ranged themselves in a line from east to west, and
+one of them running from one end of the rank to the other, backwards
+and forwards, bowed himself towards the rising and setting of the sun,
+holding his hands over his head, and frequently stopping in the middle
+of the rank, leaping up towards the moon, which then shone directly
+over their heads; thus calling the sun and moon, the deities they
+worship, to witness the sincerity of their professions of peace and
+friendship. While this ceremony was performed, Drake and his company
+ascended the hill, to the apparent terrour of the Indians, whose
+apprehensions, when the English perceived, they peaceably retired,
+which gave the natives so much encouragement, that they came forward
+immediately, and exchanged their arrows, feathers, and bones, for such
+trifles as were offered them.
+
+Thus they traded for some time; but, by frequent intercourse, finding
+that no violence was intended, they became familiar, and mingled with
+the English without the least distrust.
+
+They go quite naked, except a skin of some animal, which they throw
+over their shoulders when they lie in the open air. They knit up their
+hair, which is very long, with a roll of ostrich feathers, and usually
+carry their arrows wrapped up brit, that they may not encumber them,
+they being made with reeds, headed with flint, and, therefore, not
+heavy. Their bows are about an ell long.
+
+Their chief ornament is paint, which they use of several kinds,
+delineating generally upon their bodies, the figures of the sun and
+moon, in honour of their deities.
+
+It is observable, that most nations, amongst whom the use of clothes
+is unknown, paint their bodies. Such was the practice of the first
+inhabitants of our own country. From this custom did our earliest
+enemies, the Picts, owe their denomination. As it is not probable that
+caprice or fancy should be uniform, there must be, doubtless, some
+reason for a practice so general and prevailing in distant parts of
+the world, which have no communication with each other. The original
+end of painting their bodies was, probably, to exclude the cold; an
+end which, if we believe some relations, is so effectually produced by
+it, that the men thus painted never shiver at the most piercing
+blasts. But, doubtless, any people, so hardened by continual
+severities, would, even without paint, be less sensible of the cold
+than the civilized inhabitants of the same climate. However, this
+practice may contribute, in some degree, to defend them from the
+injuries of winter; and, in those climates where little evaporates by
+the pores, may be used with no great inconvenience; but in hot
+countries, where perspiration in greater degree is necessary, the
+natives only use unction to preserve them from the other extreme of
+weather: so well do either reason or experience supply the place of
+science in savage countries.
+
+They had no canoes, like the other Indians, nor any method of crossing
+the water, which was, probably, the reason why the birds, in the
+adjacent islands, were so tame that they might be taken with the hand,
+having never been before frighted or molested. The great plenty of
+fowls and seals, which crowded the shallows in such numbers that they
+killed, at their first arrival, two hundred of them in an hour,
+contributed much to the refreshment of the English, who named the
+place Seal bay, from that animal.
+
+These seals seem to be the chief food of the natives, for the English
+often found raw pieces of their flesh half eaten, and left, as they
+supposed, after a full meal, by the Indians, whom they never knew to
+make use of fire, or any art, in dressing or preparing their victuals.
+
+Nor were their other customs less wild or uncouth than their way of
+feeding; one of them having received a cap off the general's head, and
+being extremely pleased, as well with the honour as the gift, to
+express his gratitude, and confirm the alliance between them, retired
+to a little distance, and thrusting an arrow into his leg, let the
+blood run upon the ground, testifying, as it is probable, that he
+valued Drake's friendship above life.
+
+Having stayed fifteen days among these friendly savages, in 47 deg. 30
+min. s. lat. on June 3 they set sail towards the south sea, and, six
+days afterwards, stopped at another little bay, to break up the
+Christopher. Then passing on, they cast anchor in another bay, not
+more than twenty leagues distant from the straits of Magellan.
+
+It was now time seriously to deliberate in what manner they should act
+with regard to the Portuguese prize, which, having been separated from
+them by the storm, had not yet rejoined them. To return in search of
+it, was sufficiently mortifying; to proceed without it, was not only
+to deprive themselves of a considerable part of their force, but to
+expose their friends and companions, whom common hardships and dangers
+had endeared to them, to certain death or captivity. This
+consideration prevailed; and, therefore, on the 18th, after prayers to
+God, with which Drake never forgot to begin an enterprise, he put to
+sea, and, the next day, near port Julian, discovered their associates,
+whose ship was now grown leaky, having suffered much, both in the
+first storm, by which they were dispersed, and, afterwards, in
+fruitless attempts to regain the fleet.
+
+Drake, therefore, being desirous to relieve their fatigues, entered
+port Julian, and, as it was his custom always to attend in person,
+when any important business was in hand, went ashore, with some of the
+chief of his company, to seek for water, where he was immediately
+accosted by two natives, of whom Magellan left a very terrible
+account, having described them, as a nation of giants and monsters;
+nor is his narrative entirely without foundation, for they are of the
+largest size, though not taller than some Englishmen; their strength
+is proportioned to their bulk, and their voice loud, boisterous, and
+terrible. What were their manners before the arrival of the Spaniards,
+it is not possible to discover; but the slaughter made of their
+countrymen, perhaps without provocation, by these cruel intruders, and
+the general massacre with which that part of the world had been
+depopulated, might have raised in them a suspicion of all strangers,
+and, by consequence, made them inhospitable, treacherous, and bloody.
+
+The two who associated themselves with the English appeared much
+pleased with their new guests, received willingly what was given them,
+and very exactly observed every thing that passed, seeming more
+particularly delighted with seeing Oliver, the master-gunner, shoot an
+English arrow. They shot themselves, likewise, in emulation, but their
+arrows always fell to the ground far short of his.
+
+Soon after this friendly contest came another, who, observing the
+familiarity of his countrymen with the strangers, appeared much
+displeased, and, as the Englishmen perceived, endeavoured to dissuade
+them from such an intercourse. What effect his arguments had was soon
+after apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to
+show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity,
+attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full
+force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were
+unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed
+the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat,
+and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at Winter, who had the
+bow in his hand. He, finding himself wounded in the shoulder,
+endeavoured to refit his bow, and, turning about, was pierced with a
+second arrow in the breast. Oliver, the gunner, immediately presented
+his piece at the insidious assailants, which failing to take fire,
+gave them time to level another flight of arrows by which he was
+killed; nor, perhaps, had any of them escaped, surprised and perplexed
+as they were, had not Drake, with his usual presence of mind, animated
+their courage, and directed their motions, ordering them, by
+perpetually changing their places, to elude, as much as they could,
+the aim of their enemies, and to defend their bodies with their
+targets; and instructing them, by his own example, to pick up, and
+break the arrows as they fell; which they did with so much diligence,
+that the Indians were soon in danger of being disarmed. Then Drake
+himself taking the gun, which Oliver had so unsuccessfully attempted
+to make use of, discharged it at the Indian that first began the fray
+and had killed the gunner, aiming it so happily, that the hailshot,
+with which it was loaded, tore open his belly, and forced him to such
+terrible outcries, that the Indians, though their numbers increased,
+and many of their countrymen showed themselves from different parts of
+the adjoining wood, were too much terrified to renew the assault, and
+suffered Drake, without molestation, to withdraw his wounded friend,
+who, being hurt in his lungs, languished two days, and then dying, was
+interred with his companion, with the usual ceremony of a military
+funeral.
+
+They stayed here two months afterwards, without receiving any other
+injuries from the natives, who, finding the danger to which they
+exposed themselves by open hostilities, and, not being able any more
+to surprise the vigilance of Drake, preferred their safety to revenge.
+
+But Drake had other enemies to conquer or escape far more formidable
+than these barbarians, and insidious practices to obviate, more artful
+and dangerous than the ambushes of the Indians; for in this place was
+laid open a design formed by one of the gentlemen of the fleet, not
+only to defeat the voyage, but to murder the general.
+
+This transaction is related in so obscure and confused a manner, that
+it is difficult to form any judgment upon it. The writer who gives the
+largest account of it, has suppressed the name of the criminal, which
+we learn, from a more succinct narrative, published in a collection of
+travels near that time, to have been Thomas Doughtie. What were his
+inducements to attempt the destruction of his leader, and the ruin of
+the expedition, or what were his views, if his design had succeeded,
+what measures he had hitherto taken, whom he had endeavoured to
+corjupt, with what arts, or what success, we are nowhere told.
+
+The plot, as the narrative assures us, was laid before their departure
+from England, and discovered, in its whole extent, to Drake himself,
+in his garden at Plymouth, who, nevertheless, not only entertained the
+person so accused, as one of his company, but this writer very
+particularly relates, treated him with remarkable kindness and regard,
+setting him always at his own table, and lodged him in the same cabin
+with himself. Nor did ever he discover the least suspicion of his
+intentions, till they arrived at this place, but appeared, by the
+authority with which he invested him, to consider him, as one to whom,
+in his absence, he could most securely intrust the direction of his
+affairs. At length, in this remote corner of the world, he found out a
+design formed against his life, called together all his officers, laid
+before them the evidence on which he grounded the accusation, and
+summoned the criminal, who, full of all the horrours of guilt, and
+confounded at so clear a detection of his whole scheme, immediately
+confessed his crimes, and acknowledged himself unworthy of longer
+life; upon which the whole assembly, consisting of thirty persons,
+after having considered the affair with the attention which it
+required, and heard all that could be urged in extenuation of his
+offence, unanimously signed the sentence by which he was condemned to
+suffer death. Drake, however, unwilling, as it seemed, to proceed to
+extreme severities, offered him his choice, either of being executed
+on the island, or set ashore on the mainland, or being sent to England
+to be tried before the council; of which, after a day's consideration,
+he chose the first, alleging the improbability of persuading any to
+leave the expedition, for the sake of transporting a criminal to
+England, and the danger of his future state among savages and
+infidels. His choice, I believe, few will approve: to be set ashore on
+the mainland, was, indeed, only to be executed in a different manner;
+for what mercy could be expected from the natives so incensed, but the
+most cruel and lingering death! But why he should not rather have
+requested to be sent to England, it is not so easy to conceive. In so
+long a voyage he might have found a thousand opportunities of
+escaping, perhaps with the connivance of his keepers, whose resentment
+must probably in time have given way to compassion, or, at least, by
+their negligence, as it is easy to believe they would, in times of
+ease and refreshment, have remitted their vigilance; at least he would
+have gained longer life; and, to make death desirable, seems not one
+of the effects of guilt. However, he was, as it is related,
+obstinately deaf to all persuasions, and, adhering to his first
+choice, after having received the communion, and dined cheerfully with
+the general, was executed in the afternoon, with many proofs of
+remorse, but none of fear.
+
+How far it is probable that Drake, after having been acquainted with
+this man's designs, should admit him into his fleet, and afterwards
+caress, respect, and trust him; or that Doughtie, who is represented
+as a man of eminent abilities, should engage in so long and hazardous
+a voyage, with no other view than that of defeating it; is left to the
+determination of the reader. What designs he could have formed, with
+any hope of success, or to what actions, worthy of death, he could
+have proceeded without accomplices, for none are mentioned, is equally
+difficult to imagine. Nor, on the other hand, though the obscurity of
+the account, and the remote place chosen for the discovery of this
+wicked project, seem to give some reason for suspicion, does there
+appear any temptation, from either hope, fear, or interest, that might
+induce Drake, or any commander in his state, to put to death an
+innocent man upon false pretences.
+
+After the execution of this man, the whole company, either convinced
+of the justice of the proceeding, or awed by the severity, applied
+themselves, without any murmurs, or appearance of discontent, to the
+prosecution of the voyage; and, having broken up another vessel, and
+reduced the number of their ships to three, they left the port, and,
+on August the 20th, entered the straits of Magellan, in which they
+struggled with contrary winds, and the various dangers to which the
+intricacy of that winding passage exposed them, till night, and then
+entered a more open sea, in which they discovered an island with a
+burning mountain. On the 24th they fell in with three more islands, to
+which Drake gave names, and, landing to take possession of them in the
+name of his sovereign, found in the largest so prodigious a number of
+birds, that they killed three thousand of them in one day. This bird,
+of which they knew not the name, was somewhat less than a wild goose,
+without feathers, and covered with a kind of down, unable to fly or
+rise from the ground, but capable of running and swimming with amazing
+celerity; they feed on the sea, and come to land only to rest at
+night, or lay their eggs, which they deposit in holes like those of
+conies.
+
+From these islands to the south sea, the strait becomes very crooked
+and narrow, so that sometimes, by the interposition of headlands, the
+passage seems shut up, and the voyage entirely stopped. To double
+these capes is very difficult, on account of the frequent alterations
+to be made in the course. There are, indeed, as Magellan observes,
+many harbours, but in most of them no bottom is to be found.
+
+The land, on both sides, rises into innumerable mountains; the tops of
+them are encircled with clouds and vapours, which, being congealed,
+fall down in snow, and increase their height by hardening into ice,
+which is never dissolved; but the valleys are, nevertheless, green,
+fruitful, and pleasant.
+
+Here Drake, finding the strait, in appearance, shut up, went in his
+boat to make further discoveries; and having found a passage towards
+the north, was returning to his ships; but curiosity soon prevailed
+upon him to stop, for the sake of observing a canoe or boat, with
+several natives of the country in it. He could not, at a distance,
+forbear admiring the form of this little vessel, which seemed
+inclining to a semicircle, the stern and prow standing up, and the
+body sinking inward; but much greater was his wonder, when, upon a
+nearer inspection, he found it made only of the barks of trees, sewed
+together with thongs of sealskin, so artificially, that scarcely any
+water entered the seams. The people were well shaped and painted, like
+those which have been already described. On the land they had a hut
+built with poles, and covered with skins, in which they had
+water-vessels, and other utensils, made likewise of the barks of
+trees.
+
+Among these people they had an opportunity of remarking, what is
+frequently observable in savage countries, how natural sagacity and
+unwearied industry may supply the want of such manufactures or natural
+productions, as appear to us absolutely necessary for the support of
+life. The inhabitants of these islands are wholly strangers to iron
+and its use, but, instead of it, make use of the shell of a muscle of
+prodigious size, found upon their coasts; this they grind upon a stone
+to an edge, which is so firm and solid, that neither wood nor stone is
+able to resist it.
+
+September 6, they entered the great south sea, on which no English
+vessel had ever been navigated before, and proposed to have directed
+their course towards the line, that their men, who had suffered by the
+severity of the climate, might recover their strength in a warmer
+latitude. But their designs were scarce formed, before they were
+frustrated; for, on Sept. 7, after an eclipse of the moon, a storm
+arose, so violent, that it left them little hopes of surviving it; nor
+was its fury so dreadful as its continuance; for it lasted, with
+little intermission, till October 28, fifty-two days, during which
+time they were tossed incessantly from one part of the ocean to
+another, without any power of spreading their sails, or lying upon
+their anchors, amidst shelving shores, scattered rocks, and unknown
+islands, the tempest continually roaring, and the waves dashing over
+them.
+
+In this storm, on the 30th of September, the Marigold, commanded by
+captain Thomas, was separated from them. On the 7th of October, having
+entered a harbour, where they hoped for some intermission of their
+fatigues, they were, in a few hours, forced out to sea by a violent
+gust, which broke the cable, at which time they lost sight of the
+Elizabeth, the viceadmiral, whose crew, as was afterwards discovered,
+wearied with labour, and discouraged by the prospect of future
+dangers, recovered the straits on the next day, and, returning by the
+same passage through which they came, sailed along the coast of
+Brasil, and on the 2nd of June, in the year following, arrived at
+England.
+
+From this bay they were driven southward to fifty-five degrees, where,
+among some islands, they stayed two days, to the great refreshment of
+the crew; but, being again forced into the main sea, they were tossed
+about with perpetual expectation of perishing, till, soon after, they
+again came to anchor near the same place, where they found the
+natives, whom the continuance of the storm had probably reduced to
+equal distress, rowing from one island to another, and providing the
+necessaries of life.
+
+It is, perhaps, a just observation, that, with regard to outward
+circumstances, happiness and misery are equally diffused through all
+states of human life. In civilized countries, where regular policies
+have secured the necessaries of life, ambition, avarice, and luxury,
+find the mind at leisure for their reception, and soon engage it in
+new pursuits; pursuits that are to be carried on by incessant labour,
+and, whether vain or successful, produce anxiety and contention. Among
+savage nations, imaginary wants find, indeed, no place; but their
+strength is exhausted by necessary toils, and their passions agitated
+not by contests about superiority, affluence, or precedence, but by
+perpetual care for the present day, and by fear of perishing for want
+of food.
+
+But for such reflections as these they had no time; for, having spent
+three days in supplying themselves with wood and water, they were, by
+a new storm, driven to the latitude of fifty-six degrees, where they
+beheld the extremities of the American coast, and the confluence of
+the Atlantick and southern ocean.
+
+Here they arrived on the 28th of October, and, at last, were blessed
+with the sight of a calm sea, having, for almost two months, endured
+such a storm as no traveller has given an account of, and such as, in
+that part of the world, though accustomed to hurricanes, they were
+before unacquainted with.
+
+On the 30th of October, they steered away towards the place appointed
+for the rendezvous of the fleet, which was in thirty degrees; and, on
+the next day, discovered two islands, so well stocked with fowls, that
+they victualled their ships with them, and then sailed forward along
+the coast of Peru, till they came to thirty-seven degrees, where,
+finding neither of their ships, nor any convenient port, they came to
+anchor, November the 25th, at Mucho, an island inhabited by such
+Indians, as the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors had driven from the
+continent, to whom they applied for water and provisions, offering
+them, in return, such things as they imagined most likely to please
+them. The Indians seemed willing to traffick, and having presented
+them with fruits, and two fat sheep, would have showed them a place
+whither they should come for water.
+
+The next morning, according to agreement, the English landed with
+their water-vessels, and sent two men forward towards the place
+appointed, who, about the middle of the way, were suddenly attacked by
+the Indians, and immediately slain. Nor were the rest of the company
+out of danger; for behind the rocks was lodged an ambush of five
+hundred men, who, starting up from their retreat, discharged their
+arrows into the boat with such dexterity, that every one of the crew
+was wounded by them, the sea being then high, and hindering them from
+either retiring or making use of their weapons. Drake himself received
+an arrow under his eye, which pierced him almost to the brain, and
+another in his head. The danger of these wounds was much increased by
+the absence of their surgeon, who was in the viceadmiral, so that they
+had none to assist them but a boy, whose age did not admit of much
+experience or skill; yet so much were they favoured by providence,
+that they all recovered.
+
+No reason could be assigned for which the Indians should attack them
+with so furious a spirit of malignity, but that they mistook them for
+Spaniards, whose cruelties might very reasonably incite them to
+revenge, whom they had driven by incessant persecution from their
+country, wasting immense tracts of land by massacre and devastation.
+
+On the afternoon of the same day, they set sail, and, on the 30th of
+November, dropped anchor in Philips bay, where their boat, having been
+sent out to discover the country, returned with an Indian in his
+canoe, whom they had intercepted. He was of a graceful stature,
+dressed in a white coat or gown, reaching almost to his knees, very
+mild, humble, and docile, such as, perhaps, were all the Indians, till
+the Spaniards taught them revenge, treachery, and cruelty.
+
+This Indian, having been kindly treated, was dismissed with presents,
+and informed, as far as the English could make him understand, what
+they chiefly wanted, and what they were willing to give in return,
+Drake ordering his boat to attend him in his canoe, and to set him
+safe on the land.
+
+When he was ashore, he directed them to wait till his return, and
+meeting some of his countrymen, gave them such an account of his
+reception, that, within a few hours, several of them repaired with him
+to the boat with fowls, eggs, and a hog, and with them one of their
+captains, who willingly came into the boat, and desired to be conveyed
+by the English to the ship.
+
+By this man Drake was informed, that no supplies were to be expected
+here, but that southward, in a place to which he offered to be his
+pilot, there was great plenty. This proposal was accepted, and, on
+the 5th of December, under the direction of the good-natured Indian,
+they came to anchor in the harbour called, by the Spaniards,
+Valparaiso, near the town of St. James of Chiuli, where they met not
+only with sufficient stores of provision, and with storehouses full of
+the wines of Chili, but with a ship called the Captain of Morial,
+richly laden, having, together with large quantities of the same
+wines, some of the fine gold of Baldivia, and a great cross of gold
+set with emeralds.
+
+Having spent three days in storing their ships with all kinds of
+provision in the utmost plenty, they departed, and landed their Indian
+pilot where they first received him, after having rewarded him much
+above his expectations or desires.
+
+They had now little other anxiety than for their friends who had been
+separated from them, and whom they now determined to seek; but
+considering that, by entering every creek and harbour with their ship,
+they exposed themselves to unnecessary dangers, and that their boat
+would not contain such a number as might defend themselves against,
+the Spaniards, they determined to station their ship at some place,
+where they might commodiously build a pinnace, which, being of light
+burden, might easily sail where the ship was in danger of being
+stranded, and, at the same time, might carry a sufficient force to
+resist the enemy, and afford better accommodation than could be
+expected in the boat.
+
+To this end, on the 19th of December, they entered a bay near Cippo, a
+town inhabited by Spaniards, who, discovering them, immediately issued
+out, to the number of a hundred horsemen, with about two hundred naked
+Indians running by their sides. The English, observing their approach,
+retired to their boat, without any loss, except of one man, whom no
+persuasions or entreaties could move to retire with the rest, and who,
+therefore, was shot by the Spaniards, who, exulting at the victory,
+commanded the Indians to draw the dead carcass from the rock on which
+he fell, and, in the sight of the English, beheaded it, then cut off
+the right hand, and tore out the heart, which they carried away,
+having first commanded the Indians to shoot their arrows all over the
+body. The arrows of the Indians were made of green wood, for the
+immediate service of the day; the Spaniards, with the fear that always
+harasses oppressors, forbidding them to have any weapons, when they do
+not want their present assistance.
+
+Leaving this place, they soon found a harbour more secure and
+convenient, where they built their pinnace, in which Drake went to
+seek his companions; but, finding the wind contrary, he was obliged to
+return in two days.
+
+Leaving this place soon after, they sailed along the coast in search
+of fresh water, and landing at Turapaca, they found a Spaniard asleep,
+with silver bars lying by him, to the value of three thousand ducats:
+not all the insults which they had received from his countrymen could
+provoke them to offer any violence to his person, and, therefore, they
+carried away his treasure, without doing him any further harm.
+
+Landing in another place, they found a Spaniard driving eight Peruvian
+sheep, which are the beasts of burden in that country, each laden with
+a hundred pounds weight of silver, which they seized, likewise, and
+drove to their boats.
+
+Further along the coast lay some Indian towns, from which the
+inhabitants repaired to the ship, on floats made of sealskins, blown
+full of wind, two of which they fasten together, and, sitting between
+them, row with great swiftness, and carry considerable burdens. They
+very readily traded for glass and such trifles, with which the old and
+the young seemed equally delighted.
+
+Arriving at Mormorena, on the 26th of January, Drake invited the
+Spaniards to traffick with him, which they agreed to, and supplied him
+with necessaries, selling to him, among other provisions, some of
+those sheep which have been mentioned, whose bulk is equal to that of
+a cow, and whose strength is such, that one of them can carry three
+tall men upon his back; their necks are like a camel's, and their
+heads like those of our sheep. They are the most useful animals of
+this country, not only affording excellent fleeces and wholesome
+flesh, but serving as carriages over rocks and mountains, where no
+other beast can travel, for their foot is of a peculiar form, which
+enables them to tread firm in the most steep and slippery places.
+
+On all this coast, the whole soil is so impregnated with silver, that
+five ounces may be separated from a hundred pound weight of common
+earth.
+
+Still coasting, in hopes of meeting their friends, they anchored, on
+the 7th of February, before Aria, where they took two barks, with
+about eight hundred pound weight of silver, and, pursuing their
+course, seized another vessel, laden with linens.
+
+On the 15th of February, 1578, they arrived at Lima, and entered the
+harbour without resistance, though thirty ships were stationed there,
+of which seventeen were equipped for their voyage, and many of them
+are represented in the narrative as vessels of considerable force; so
+that their security seems to have consisted, not in their strength,
+but in their reputation, which had so intimidated the Spaniards, that
+the sight of their own superiority could not rouse them to opposition.
+Instances of such panick terrours are to be met with in other
+relations; but as they are, for the most part, quickly dissipated by
+reason and reflection, a wise commander will rarely found his hopes of
+success on them; and, perhaps, on this occasion, the Spaniards
+scarcely deserve a severer censure for their cowardice, than Drake for
+his temerity.
+
+In one of these ships they found fifteen hundred bars of silver; in
+another a chest of money; and very rich lading in many of the rest, of
+which the Spaniards tamely suffered them to carry the most valuable
+part away, and would have permitted them no less peaceably to burn
+their ships; but Drake never made war with a spirit of cruelty or
+revenge, or carried hostilities further than was necessary for his own
+advantage or defence.
+
+They set sail the next morning towards Panama, in quest of the Caca
+Fuego, a very rich ship, which had sailed fourteen days before, bound
+thither from Lima, which they overtook, on the 1st of March, near cape
+Francisco, and, boarding it, found not only a quantity of jewels, and
+twelve chests of ryals of plate, but eighty pounds weight of gold, and
+twenty-six tons of uncoined silver, with pieces of wrought plate to a
+great value. In unlading this prize they spent six days, and then,
+dismissing the Spaniards, Stood off to sea.
+
+Being now sufficiently enriched, and having lost all hopes of finding
+their associates, and, perhaps, beginning to be infected with that
+desire of ease and pleasure, which is the natural consequence of
+wealth obtained by dangers and fatigues, they began to consult about
+their return home, and, in pursuance of Drake's advice, resolved first
+to find out some convenient harbour, where they might supply
+themselves with wood and water, and then endeavour to discover a
+passage from the south sea into the Atlantick ocean; a discovery,
+which would not only enable them to return home with less danger, and
+in a shorter time, but would much facilitate the navigation in those
+parts of the world.
+
+For this purpose they had recourse to a port in the island of Caines,
+where they met with fish, wood, and fresh water; and, in their course,
+took a ship, laden with silk and linen, which was the last that they
+met with on the coast of America.
+
+But being desirous of storing themselves for a long course, they
+touched, April the 15th, at Guatulco, a Spanish island, where they
+supplied themselves with provisions, and seized a bushel of ryals of
+silver.
+
+From Guatulco, which lies in 15 deg. 40 min. they stood out to sea,
+and, without approaching any land, sailed forward, till, on the night
+following, the 3rd of June, being then in the latitude of thirty-eight
+degrees, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts, that they
+were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them,
+as they proceeded, to such a degree, that the sailors were discouraged
+from mounting upon the deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be
+imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately
+accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could
+scarcely be conveyed warm to the table.
+
+On June 17th, they came to anchor in 38 deg. 30 min. when they saw the
+land naked, and the trees without leaves, and in a short time had
+opportunities of observing, that the natives of that country were not
+less sensible of the cold than themselves; for the next day came a man
+rowing in his canoe towards the ship, and at a distance from it made a
+long oration, with very extraordinary gesticulations, and great
+appearance of vehemence, and, a little time afterwards, made a second
+visit, in the same manner, and then returning a third time, he
+presented them, after his harangue was finished, with a kind of crown
+of black feathers, such as their kings wear upon their heads, and a
+basket of rushes, filled with a particular herb, both which he
+fastened to a short stick, and threw into the boat; nor could he be
+prevailed upon to receive any thing in return, though pushed towards
+him upon a board; only he took up a hat, which was flung into the
+water.
+
+Three days afterwards, their ship, having received some damage at sea,
+was brought nearer to land, that the lading might be taken out. In
+order to which, the English, who had now learned not too negligently
+to commit their lives to the mercy of savage nations, raised a kind of
+fortification with stones, and built their tents within it. All this
+was not beheld by the inhabitants without the utmost astonishment,
+which incited them to come down in crowds to the coast, with no other
+view, as it appeared, than to worship the new divinities that had
+condescended to touch upon their country.
+
+Drake was far from countenancing their errours, or taking advantage of
+their weakness, to injure or molest them; and, therefore, having
+directed them to lay aside their bows and arrows, he presented them
+with linen, and other necessaries, of which he showed them the use.
+They then returned to their habitations, about three quarters of a
+mile from the English camp, where they made such loud and violent
+outcries, that they were heard by the English, who found that they
+still persisted in their first notions, and were paying them their
+kind of melancholy adoration.
+
+Two days afterwards they perceived the approach of a far more numerous
+company, who stopped at the top of a hill, which overlooked the
+English settlement, while one of them made a long oration, at the end
+of which all the assembly bowed their bodies, and pronounced the
+syllable _oh_, with a solemn tone, as by way of confirmation of
+what had been said by the orator. Then the men, laying down their
+bows, and leaving the women and children on the top of the hill, came
+down towards the tents, and seemed transported, in the highest degree,
+at the kindness of the general, who received their gifts, and admitted
+them to his presence. The women at a distance appeared seized with a
+kind of phrensy, such as that of old among the pagans in some of their
+religious ceremonies, and in honour, as it seemed, of their guests,
+tore their cheeks and bosoms with their nails, and threw themselves
+upon the stones with their naked bodies, till they were covered with
+blood.
+
+These cruel rites, and mistaken honours, were by no means agreeable to
+Drake, whose predominant sentiments were notions of piety, and,
+therefore, not to make that criminal in himself by his concurrence,
+which, perhaps, ignorance might make guiltless in them, he ordered his
+whole company to fall upon their knees, and, with their eyes lifted up
+to heaven, that the savages might observe that their worship was
+addressed to a being residing there, they all joined in praying that
+this harmless and deluded people might be brought to the knowledge of
+the true religion, and the doctrines of our blessed Saviour; after
+which they sung psalms, a performance so pleasing to their wild
+audience, that, in all their visits, they generally first accosted
+them with a request that they would sing. They then returned all the
+presents which they had received, and retired.
+
+Three days after this, on June 25, 1579, our general received two
+ambassadours from the hioh, or king of the country, who, intending to
+visit the camp, required that some token might be sent him of
+friendship and peace; this request was readily complied with, and soon
+after came the king, attended by a guard of about a hundred tall men,
+and preceded by an officer of state, who carried a sceptre made of
+black wood, adorned with chains of a kind of bone or horn, which are
+marks of the highest honour among them, and having two crowns, made as
+before, with feathers fastened to it, with a bag of the same herb,
+which was presented to Drake at his first arrival.
+
+Behind him was the king himself, dressed in a coat of cony-skins, with
+a caul, woven with feathers, upon his head, an ornament so much in
+estimation there, that none but the domesticks of the king are allowed
+to wear it; his attendants followed him, adorned nearly in the same
+manner; and after them came the common people, with baskets plaited so
+artificially that they held water, in which, by way of sacrifice, they
+brought roots and fish.
+
+Drake, not lulled into security, ranged his men in order of battle,
+and waited their approach, who, coming nearer, stood still, while the
+sceptre-bearer made an oration, at the conclusion of which they again
+came forward to the foot of the hill, and then the sceptre-bearer
+began a song, which he accompanied with a dance, in both which the men
+joined, but the women danced without singing.
+
+Drake now, distrusting them no longer, admitted them into his
+fortification, where they continued their song and dance a short time;
+and then both the king, and some others of the company, made long
+harangues, in which it appeared, by the rest of their behaviour, that
+they entreated him to accept of their country, and to take the
+government of it into his own hands; for the king, with the apparent
+concurrence of the rest, placed the crown upon his head, graced him
+with the chains and other signs of authority, and saluted him with the
+title of hioh.
+
+The kingdom thus offered, though of no further value to him than as it
+furnished him with present necessaries, Drake thought it not prudent
+to refuse; and, therefore, took possession of it in the name of queen
+Elizabeth, not without ardent wishes, that this acquisition might have
+been of use to his native country, and that so mild and innocent a
+people might have been united to the church of Christ.
+
+The kingdom being thus consigned, and the grand affair at an end, the
+common people left their king and his domesticks with Drake, and
+dispersed themselves over the camp; and when they saw any one that
+pleased them by his appearance more than the rest, they tore their
+flesh, and vented their outcries as before, in token of reverence and
+admiration.
+
+They then proceeded to show them their wounds and diseases, in hopes
+of a miraculous and instantaneous cure; to which the English, to
+benefit and undeceive them at the same time, applied such remedies as
+they used on the like occasions.
+
+They were now grown confident and familiar, and came down to the camp
+every day, repeating their ceremonies and sacrifices, till they were
+more fully informed how disagreeable they were to those whose favour
+they were so studious of obtaining: they then visited them without
+adoration, indeed, but with a curiosity so ardent, that it left them
+no leisure to provide the necessaries of life, with which the English
+were, therefore, obliged to supply them.
+
+They had then sufficient opportunity to remark the customs and
+dispositions of these new allies, whom they found tractable and
+benevolent, strong of body, far beyond the English, yet unfurnished
+with weapons, either for assault or defence, their bows being too weak
+for any thing but sport. Their dexterity in taking fish was such,
+that, if they saw them so near the shore that they could come to them
+without swimming, they never missed them.
+
+The same curiosity that had brought them in such crowds to the shore,
+now induced Drake, and some of his company, to travel up into the
+country, which they found, at some distance from the coast, very
+fruitful, filled with large deer, and abounding with a peculiar kind
+of conies, smaller than ours, with tails like that of a rat, and paws
+such as those of a mole; they have bags under their chin, in which
+they carry provisions to their young.
+
+The houses of the inhabitants are round holes dug in the ground, from
+the brink of which they raise rafters, or piles, shelving towards the
+middle, where they all meet, and are crammed together; they lie upon
+rushes, with the fire in the midst, and let the smoke fly out at the
+door.
+
+The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of
+bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer
+over their shoulders. They are very modest, tractable, and obedient to
+their husbands.
+
+Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is,
+perhaps, the state of the greatest part of mankind. Whether more
+enlightened nations ought to look upon them with pity, as less happy
+than themselves, some skepticks have made, very unnecessarily, a
+difficulty of determining. More, they say, is lost by the perplexities
+than gained by the instruction of science; we enlarge our vices with
+our knowledge, and multiply our wants with our attainments, and the
+happiness of life is better secured by the ignorance of vice, than by
+the knowledge of virtue.
+
+The fallacy by which such reasoners have imposed upon themselves,
+seems to arise from the comparison which they make, not between two
+men equally inclined to apply the means of happiness in their power to
+the end for which providence conferred them, but furnished in unequal
+proportions with the means of happiness, which is the true state of
+savage and polished nations; but between two men, of which he to whom
+providence has been most bountiful, destroys the blessings by
+negligence or obstinate misuse; while the other, steady, diligent, and
+virtuous, employs his abilities and conveniences to their proper end.
+The question is not, whether a good Indian or bad Englishman be most
+happy; but, which state is most desirable, supposing virtue and reason
+the same in both.
+
+Nor is this the only mistake which is generally admitted in this
+controversy, for these reasoners frequently confound innocence with
+the mere incapacity of guilt. He that never saw, or heard, or thought
+of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
+
+This land was named, by Drake, Albion, from its white cliffs, in which
+it bore some resemblance to his native country; and the whole history
+of the resignation of it to the English was engraven on a piece of
+brass, then nailed on a post, and fixed up before their departure,
+which being now discovered by the people to be near at hand, they
+could not forbear perpetual lamentations. When the English, on the
+23rd of July, weighed anchor, they saw them climbing to the tops of
+hills, that they might keep them in sight, and observed fires lighted
+up in many parts of the country, on which, as they supposed,
+sacrifices were offered.
+
+Near this harbour they touched at some islands, where they found great
+numbers of seals; and, despairing now to find any passage through the
+northern parts, he, after a general consultation, determined to steer
+away to the Moluccas, and setting sail July 25th, he sailed for
+sixty-eight days without sight of land; and, on September 30th,
+arrived within view of some islands, situate about eight degrees
+northward from the line, from whence the inhabitants resorted to them
+in canoes, hollowed out of the solid trunk of a tree, and raised at
+both ends so high above the water, that they seemed almost a
+semicircle; they were burnished in such a manner that they shone like
+ebony, and were kept steady by a piece of timber, fixed on each side
+of them, with strong canes, that were fastened at one end to the boat,
+and at the other to the end of the timber.
+
+The first company that came brought fruits, potatoes, and other things
+of no great value, with an appearance of traffick, and exchanged their
+lading for other commodities, with great show of honesty and
+friendship; but having, as they imagined, laid all suspicion asleep,
+they soon sent another fleet of canoes, of which the crews behaved
+with all the insolence of tyrants, and all the rapacity of thieves;
+for, whatever was suffered to come into their hands, they seemed to
+consider as their own, and would neither pay for it, nor restore it;
+and, at length, finding the English resolved to admit them no longer,
+they discharged a shower of stones from their boats, which insult
+Drake prudently and generously returned, by ordering a piece of
+ordnance to be fired without hurting them, at which they were so
+terrified, that they leaped into the water, and hid themselves under
+the canoes.
+
+Having, for some time, but little wind, they did not arrive at the
+Moluccas till the 3rd of November, and then, designing to touch at
+Tidore, they were visited, as they sailed by a little island belonging
+to the king of Ternate, by the viceroy of the place, who informed
+them, that it would be more advantageous for them to have recourse to
+his master, for supplies and assistance, than to the king of Ternate,
+who was, in some degree, dependent on the Portuguese, and that he
+would himself carry the news of their arrival, and prepare for their
+reception.
+
+Drake was, by the arguments of the viceroy, prevailed upon to alter
+his resolution, and, on November 5, cast anchor before Ternate; and
+scarce was he arrived, before the viceroy, with others of the chief
+nobles, came out in three large boats, rowed by forty men on each
+side, to conduct the ship into a safe harbour; and soon after the king
+himself, having received a velvet cloak by a messenger from Drake, as
+a token of peace, came with such a retinue and dignity of appearance,
+as was not expected in those remote parts of the world. He was
+received with discharges of cannons and every kind of musick, with
+which he was so much delighted, that, desiring the musicians to come
+down into the boat, he was towed along in it at the stern of the ship.
+
+The king was of a graceful stature, and regal carriage, of a mild
+aspect, and low voice; his attendants were dressed in white cotton or
+calico, of whom some, whose age gave them a venerable appearance,
+seemed his counsellors, and the rest officers or nobles; his guards
+were not ignorant of firearms, but had not many among them, being
+equipped, for the most part, with bows and darts.
+
+The king, having spent some time in admiring the multitude of new
+objects that presented themselves, retired as soon as the ship was
+brought to anchor, and promised to return on the day following; and,
+in the mean time, the inhabitants, having leave to traffick, brought
+down provisions in great abundance.
+
+At the time when the king was expected, his brother came on board, to
+request of Drake that he would come to the castle, proposing to stay
+himself as a hostage for his return. Drake refused to go, but sent
+some gentlemen, detaining the king's brother in the mean time.
+
+These gentlemen were received by another of the king's brothers, who
+conducted them to the council-house, near the castle, in which they
+were directed to walk: there they found threescore old men, privy
+counsellors to the king, and on each side of the door without stood
+four old men of foreign countries, who served as interpreters in
+commerce.
+
+In a short time the king came from the castle, dressed in cloth of
+gold, with his hair woven into gold rings, a chain of gold upon his
+neck, and on his hands rings very artificially set with diamonds and
+jewels of great value; over his head was borne a rich canopy; and by
+his chair of state, on which he sat down when he had entered the
+house, stood a page with a fan set with sapphires, to moderate the
+excess of the heat. Here he received the compliments of the English,
+and then honourably dismissed them.
+
+The castle, which they had some opportunity of observing, seemed of no
+great force; it was built by the Portuguese, who, attempting to reduce
+this kingdom into an absolute subjection, murdered the king, and
+intended to pursue their scheme by the destruction of all his sons;
+but the general abhorrence which cruelty and perfidy naturally excite,
+armed all the nation against them, and procured their total expulsion
+from all the dominions of Ternate, which, from that time, increasing
+in power, continued to make new conquests, and to deprive them of
+other acquisitions.
+
+While they lay before Ternate, a gentleman came on board, attended by
+his interpreter. He was dressed somewhat in the European manner, and
+soon distinguished himself from the natives of Ternate, or any other
+country that they had seen, by his civility and apprehension. Such a
+visitant may easily be imagined to excite their curiosity, which he
+gratified by informing them, that he was a native of China, of the
+family of the king then reigning; and that being accused of a capital
+crime, of which, though he was innocent, he had not evidence to clear
+himself, he had petitioned the king that he might not be exposed to a
+trial, but that his cause might be referred to divine providence, and
+that he might be allowed to leave his country, with a prohibition
+against returning, unless heaven, in attestation of his innocence,
+should enable him to bring back to the king some intelligence that
+might be to the honour and advantage of the empire of China. In search
+of such information he had now spent three years, and had left Tidore
+for the sake of conversing with the English general, from whom he
+hoped to receive such accounts as would enable him to return with
+honour and safety.
+
+Drake willingly recounted all his adventures and observations, to
+which the Chinese exile listened with the utmost attention and
+delight, and, having fixed them in his mind, thanked God for the
+knowledge he had gained. He then proposed to the English general to
+conduct him to China, recounting, by way of invitation, the wealth,
+extent, and felicity of that empire; but Drake could not be induced to
+prolong his voyage.
+
+He, therefore, set sail on the 9th of November, in quest of some
+convenient harbour, in a desert island, to refit his ship, not being
+willing, as it seems, to trust to the generosity of the king of
+Ternate. Five days afterwards he found a very commodious harbour, in
+an island overgrown with wood, where he repaired his vessel and
+refreshed his men, without danger or interruption.
+
+Leaving this place the 12th of December, they sailed towards the
+Celebes; but, having a wind not very favourable, they were detained
+among a multitude of islands, mingled with dangerous shallows, till
+January 9, 1580. When they thought themselves clear, and were sailing
+forward with a strong gale, they were, at the beginning of the night,
+surprised in their course by a sudden shock, of which the cause was
+easily discovered, for they were thrown upon a shoal, and, by the
+speed of their course, fixed too fast for any hope of escaping. Here
+even the intrepidity of Drake was shaken, and his dexterity baffled;
+but his piety, however, remained still the same, and what he could not
+now promise himself from his own ability, he hoped from the assistance
+of providence. The pump was plied, and the ship found free from new
+leaks.
+
+The next attempt was to discover towards the sea some place where they
+might fix their boat, and from thence drag the ship into deep water;
+but, upon examination, it appeared that the rock, on which they had
+struck, rose perpendicularly from the water, and that there was no
+anchorage, nor any bottom to be found a boat's length from the ship.
+But this discovery, with its consequences, was, by Drake, wisely
+concealed from the common sailors, lest they should abandon themselves
+to despair, for which there was indeed cause; there being no prospect
+left, but that they must there sink with the ship, which must,
+undoubtedly, be soon dashed to pieces, or perish in attempting to
+reach the shore in their boat, or be cut in pieces by barbarians, if
+they should arrive at land.
+
+In the midst of this perplexity and distress, Drake directed that the
+sacrament should be administered, and his men fortified with all the
+consolation which religion affords; then persuaded them to lighten the
+vessel, by throwing into the sea part of their lading, which was
+cheerfully complied with, but without effect. At length, when their
+hopes had forsaken them, and no new struggles could be made, they were
+on a sudden relieved by a remission of the wind, which, having
+hitherto blown strongly against the side of the ship which lay towards
+the sea, held it upright against the rock; but when the blast
+slackened, being then low water, the ship lying higher with that part
+which rested on the rock than with the other, and being borne up no
+longer by the wind, reeled into the deep water, to the surprise and
+joy of Drake and his companions.
+
+This was the greatest and most inextricable distress which they had
+ever suffered, and made such an impression upon their minds, that, for
+some time afterwards, they durst not adventure to spread their sails,
+but went slowly forward with the utmost circumspection.
+
+They thus continued their course without any observable occurrence,
+till, on the 11th of March, they came to an anchor, before the island
+of Java, and sending to the king a present of cloth and silks,
+received from him, in return, a large quantity of provisions; and, the
+day following, Drake went himself on shore, and entertained the king
+with his musick, and obtained leave to store his ship with provisions.
+
+The island is governed by a great number of petty kings, or raias,
+subordinate to one chief; of these princes three came on board
+together, a few days after their arrival; and having, upon their
+return, recounted the wonders which they had seen, and the civility
+with which they had been treated, incited others to satisfy their
+curiosity in the same manner; and raia Donan, the chief king, came
+himself to view the ship, with the warlike armaments and instruments
+of navigation.
+
+This intercourse of civilities somewhat retarded the business for
+which they came; but, at length, they not only victualled their ship,
+but cleansed the bottom, which, in the long course, was overgrown with
+a kind of shellfish that impeded her passage.
+
+Leaving Java, on March 26 they sailed homewards by the cape of Good
+Hope, which they saw on June the 5th; on the 15th of August passed the
+tropick; and on the 26th of September arrived at Plymouth, where they
+found that, by passing through so many different climates, they had
+lost a day in their account of time, it being Sunday by their journal,
+but Monday by the general computation.
+
+In this hazardous voyage they had spent two years, ten months, and
+some odd days; but were recompensed for their toils by great riches,
+and the universal applause of their countrymen. Drake afterwards
+brought his ship up to Deptford, where queen Elizabeth visited him on
+board his ship, and conferred the honour of knighthood upon him; an
+honour, in that illustrious reign, not made cheap by prostitution, nor
+even bestowed without uncommon merit.
+
+It is not necessary to give an account, equally particular, of the
+remaining part of his life, as he was no longer a private man, but
+engaged in publick affairs, and associated in his expeditions with
+other generals, whose attempts, and the success of them, are related
+in the histories of those times.
+
+In 1585, on the 12th of September, sir Francis Drake set sail from
+Plymouth with a fleet of five-and-twenty ships and pinnaces, of which
+himself was admiral, captain Martiu Forbisher, viceadmiral, and
+captain Francis Knollis, rearadmiral; they were fitted out to cruise
+upon the Spaniards; and having touched at the isle of Bayonne, and
+plundered Vigo, put to sea again, and on the 16th of November arrived
+before St. Jago, which they entered without resistance, and rested
+there fourteen days, visiting, in the mean time, San Domingo, a town
+within the land, which they found likewise deserted; and, carrying off
+what they pleased of the produce of the island, they, at their
+departure, destroyed the town and villages, in revenge of the murder
+of one of their boys, whose body they found mangled in a most inhuman
+manner.
+
+From this island they pursued their voyage to the West Indies,
+determining to attack St. Domingo in Hispaniola, as the richest place
+in that part of the world; they, therefore, landed a thousand men, and
+with small loss entered the town, of which they kept possession for a
+month without interruption or alarm; during which time a remarkable
+accident happened, which deserves to be related.
+
+Drake, having some intention of treating with the Spaniards, sent to
+them a negro boy with a flag of truce, which one of the Spaniards so
+little regarded, that he stabbed him through the body with a lance.
+The boy, notwithstanding his wound, came back to the general, related
+the treatment which he had found, and died in his sight. Drake was so
+incensed at this outrage, that he ordered two friars, then his
+prisoners, to be conveyed with a guard to the place where the crime
+was committed, and hanged up in the sight of the Spaniards, declaring
+that two Spanish prisoners should undergo the same death every day,
+till the offender should be delivered up by them: they were too well
+acquainted with the character of Drake not to bring him on the day
+following, when, to impress the shame of such actions more effectually
+upon them, he compelled them to execute him with their own hands. Of
+this town, at their departure, they demolished part, and admitted the
+rest to be ransomed for five and twenty thousand ducats.
+
+From thence they sailed to Carthagena, where the enemy having received
+intelligence of the fate of St. Domingo, had strengthened their
+fortifications, and prepared to defend themselves with great
+obstinacy; but the English, landing in the night, came upon them by a
+way which they did not suspect, and being better armed, partly by
+surprise, and partly by superiority of order and valour, became
+masters of the place, where they stayed without fear or danger six
+weeks, and, at their departure, received a hundred and ten thousand
+ducats, for the ransome of the town.
+
+They afterwards took St. Augustin, and, touching at Virginia, took on
+board the governour, Mr. Lane, with the English that had been left
+there, the year before, by sir Walter Raleigh, and arrived at
+Portsmouth on July 28, 1586, having lost in the voyage seven hundred
+and fifty men. The gain of this expedition amounted to sixty thousand
+pounds, of which forty were the share of the adventurers who fitted
+out the ships, and the rest, distributed among the several crews,
+amounted to six pounds each man. So cheaply is life sometimes
+hazarded.
+
+The transactions against the armada, 1588, are, in themselves, far
+more memorable, but less necessary to be recited in this succinct
+narrative; only let it be remembered, that the post of viceadmiral of
+England, to which sir Francis Drake was then raised, is a sufficient
+proof, that no obscurity of birth, or meanness of fortune, is
+unsurmountable to bravery and diligence.
+
+In 1595, sir Francis Drake and sir John Hawkins were sent with a fleet
+to the West Indies, which expedition was only memorable for the
+destruction of Nombre de Dios, and the death of the two commanders, of
+whom sir Francis Drake died January 9, 1597, and was thrown into the
+sea in a leaden coffin, with all the pomp of naval obsequies. It is
+reported by some, that the ill success of this voyage hastened his
+death. Upon what this conjecture is grounded does not appear; and we
+may be allowed to hope, for the honour of so great a man, that it is
+without foundation; and that he, whom no series of success could ever
+betray to vanity or negligence, could have supported a change of
+fortune without impatience or dejection.
+
+
+
+
+BARRETIER [45].
+
+
+Having not been able to procure materials for a complete life of Mr.
+Barretier, and being, nevertheless, willing to gratify the curiosity
+justly raised in the publick by his uncommon attainments, we think the
+following extracts of letters written by his father, proper to be
+inserted in our collection, as they contain many remarkable passages,
+and exhibit a general view of his genius and learning.
+
+John Philip Barretier was born at Schwabach, January 19, 1720-21. His
+father was a calvinist minister of that place, who took upon himself
+the care of his education. What arts of instruction he used, or by
+what method he regulated the studies of his son, we are not able to
+inform the publick; but take this opportunity of intreating those, who
+have received more complete intelligence, not to deny mankind so great
+a benefit as the improvement of education. If Mr. le Fêvre thought the
+method in which he taught his children, worthy to be communicated to
+the learned world, how justly may Mr. Barretier claim the universal
+attention of mankind to a scheme of education that has produced such a
+stupendous progress! The authors, who have endeavoured to teach
+certain and unfailing rules for obtaining a long life, however they
+have failed in their attempts, are universally confessed to have, at
+least, the merit of a great and noble design, and to have deserved
+gratitude and honour. How much more then is due to Mr. Barretier, who
+has succeeded in what they have only attempted? for to prolong life,
+and improve it, are nearly the same. If to have all that riches can
+purchase, is to be rich; if to do all that can be done in a long time,
+is to live long; he is equally a benefactor to mankind, who teaches
+them to protract the duration, or shorten the business of life.
+
+That there are few things more worthy our curiosity than this method,
+by which the father assisted the genius of the son, every man will be
+convinced, that considers the early proficiency at which it enabled
+him to arrive; such a proficiency as no one has yet reached at the
+same age, and to which it is, therefore, probable, that every
+advantageous circumstance concurred.
+
+_At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+languages_, an attainment in itself almost incredible, but
+understood, says his father, the holy writers, better in their
+original tongues, than in his own. If he means, by this assertion,
+that he knew the sense of many passages in the original, which were
+obscure in the translation, the account, however wonderful, may be
+admitted; but if he intends to tell his correspondent, that his son
+was better acquainted with the two languages of the Bible than with
+his own, he must be allowed to speak hyperbolically, or to admit, that
+his son had somewhat neglected the study of his native language; or we
+must own, that the fondness of a parent has transported him into some
+natural exaggerations.
+
+Part of this letter I am tempted to suppress, being unwilling to
+demand the belief of others to that which appears incredible to
+myself; but as my incredulity may, perhaps, be the product rather of
+prejudice than reason, as envy may beget a disinclination to admit so
+immense a superiority, and as an account is not to be immediately
+censured as false, merely because it is wonderful, I shall proceed to
+give the rest of his father's relation, from his letter of the 3rd of
+March, 1729-30. He speaks, continues he, German, Latin, and French,
+equally well. He can, by laying before him a translation, read any of
+the books of the Old or New Testament, in its original language,
+without hesitation or perplexity. _He is no stranger to biblical
+criticism_ or philosophy, nor unacquainted with ancient and modern
+geography, and is qualified to support a conversation with learned
+men, who frequently visit and correspond with him.
+
+In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin,
+but translated the travels of rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into
+French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with
+dissertations; a work in which his father, as he himself declares,
+could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the
+rabbinical dialect.
+
+The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to
+prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto
+accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should
+translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to
+some bookseller, he might, in return for it, have other books which he
+wanted and could not afford to purchase.
+
+Incited by this expectation, he fixed upon the travels of rabbi
+Benjamin, as most proper for his purpose, being a book neither bulky
+nor common, and in one month completed his translation, applying only
+one or two hours a day to that particular task. In another month, he
+drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, wrote some
+dissertations upon particular passages which seemed to require a
+larger examination.
+
+These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the
+common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration,
+judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds, in every page, some
+reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a
+child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by
+reflection, and dextrous, by long practice, in the use of books. Yet,
+that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by
+the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. le
+Maître, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts
+his claim to this work, but affirms, that he heard him, at six years
+of age, explain the Hebrew text, as if it had been his native
+language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without, a degree of
+incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.
+
+This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which
+his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered,
+make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young
+translator; but, after having examined the performance in their
+manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very
+advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might
+not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.
+
+Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and
+had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate
+tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to
+a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his
+performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely
+transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes,
+new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its
+former bulk.
+
+The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the
+book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so
+inconsiderable, that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may
+be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short
+account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son
+to show, so early, how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the
+languages, a knowledge which some men spend their lives in
+cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they
+seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.
+
+What applauses are due to an old age, wasted in a scrupulous attention
+to particular accents and etymologies, may appear, says his father, by
+seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in
+these studies as many, even of these venerable doctors, have not
+attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.
+
+This censure is, doubtless, just, upon those who spend too much of
+their lives upon useless niceties, or who appear to labour without
+making any progress; but, as the knowledge of language is necessary,
+and a minute accuracy sometimes requisite, they are by no means to be
+blamed, who, in compliance with the particular bent of their own
+minds, make the difficulties of dead languages their chief study, and
+arrive at excellence proportionate to their application, since it was
+to the labour of such men that his son was indebted for his own
+learning.
+
+The first languages which Barretier learned were the French, German,
+and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude
+of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and
+burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which
+they require, and the disgust which they create. The method by which
+he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and, therefore, pleasing.
+He learned them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time,
+by conversing in them indifferently with his father.
+
+The other languages, of which he was master, he learned by a method
+yet more uncommon. The only book which he made use of was the Bible,
+which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed
+to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught, by degrees,
+the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made
+the Latin more familiar to him, in his fourth year, than any other
+language.
+
+When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study
+of the Old Testament, in its original language, beginning with the
+book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months;
+after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books,
+in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to
+the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read
+over so often, with so close an attention, and so happy a memory, that
+he could not only translate them, without a moment's hesitation, into
+Latin or French, but turn, with the same facility, the translations
+into the original language in his tenth year.
+
+Growing, at length, weary of being confined to a book which he could
+almost entirely repeat, he deviated, by stealth, into other studies,
+and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read
+a multitude of writers, of various kinds. _In his twelfth year he
+applied more particularly to the study of the fathers_, and
+councils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular
+collection of their canons. He read every author in the original,
+having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most
+translations, that he paid no regard to their authority.
+
+Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor
+discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement
+was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally
+supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of
+those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read
+them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to
+them when his memory should fail him.
+
+It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was,
+nor his want of books, a want of which he was, in the highest degree,
+sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse
+life, without any circumstance of disquiet, frequently creates. He was
+always gay, lively, and facetious; a temper which contributed much to
+recommend his learning, and which some students, much superiour in
+age, would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest,
+by copying from him.
+
+In the year 1735 he published Anti-Artemonius; sive, initium evangelii
+S. Joannis adversus Artemonium vindicatum; and attained such a degree
+of reputation, that not only the publick, but _princes, who are
+commonly the last_ by whom merit is distinguished, began to
+interest themselves in his success; for, the same year, the king of
+Prussia, who had heard of his early advances in literature, on account
+of a scheme for discovering the longitude, which had been sent to the
+Royal society of Berlin, and which was transmitted afterwards by him
+to Paris and London, engaged to take care of his fortune, having
+received further proofs of his abilities at his own court.
+
+Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was
+obliged to travel with his son thither, from Schwabach, through
+Leipsic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his son, as it would
+furnish him with new opportunities of improving his knowledge, and
+extending his acquaintance among men of letters. For this purpose they
+stayed some time at Leipsic, and then travelled to Halle, where young
+Barretier so distinguished himself in his conversation with the
+professors of the university, that they offered him his degree of
+doctor in philosophy, a dignity correspondent to that of master of
+arts among us. Barretier drew up, that night, some positions in
+philosophy, and the mathematicks, which he sent immediately to the
+press, and defended, the next day, in a crowded auditory, with so much
+wit, spirit, presence of thought, and strength of reason, that the
+whole university was delighted and amazed; he was then admitted to his
+degree, and attended by the whole concourse to his lodgings, with
+compliments and acclamations.
+
+His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed in compliance
+with the practice of that university, ran through several editions in
+a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting, that could
+contribute to animate him in his progress.
+
+When they arrived at Berlin, the king ordered him to be brought into
+his presence, and was so much pleased with his conversation, that he
+sent for him almost every day during his stay at Berlin; and diverted
+himself with engaging him in conversations upon a multitude of
+subjects, and in disputes with learned men; on all which occasions he
+acquitted himself so happily, that the king formed the highest ideas
+of his capacity, and future eminence. And thinking, perhaps with
+reason, that active life was the noblest sphere of a great genius, he
+recommended to him the study of modern history, the customs of
+nations, and those parts of learning, that are of use in publick
+transactions and civil employments, declaring, that such abilities,
+properly cultivated, might exalt him, in ten years, to be the greatest
+minister of state in Europe.
+
+Barretier, whether we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience,
+was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered,
+that _he was too much pleased with science and quiet_, to leave
+them for such inextricable studies, or such harassing fatigues. A
+resolution so unpleasing to the king, that his father attributes to it
+the delay of those favours which they had hopes of receiving, the king
+having, as he observes, determined to employ him in the ministry.
+
+It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr.
+Barretier some false conceptions of the king's design; for he infers,
+from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the
+caresses which he received from them, that the king intended him for
+their preceptor; a scheme, says he, which some other resolution
+happily destroyed.
+
+Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these
+intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with
+the highest regard by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a
+present of two hundred crowns; and his father, instead of being fixed
+at Stetin, was made pastor of the French church at Halle; a place more
+commodious for study, to which they retired; Barretier being first
+admitted into the Royal society at Berlin, and recommended, by the
+king, to the university at Halle.
+
+_At Halle he continued his studies_ with his usual application
+and success, and, either by his own reflections, or the persuasions of
+his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to
+those of the king, and direct his inquiries to those subjects that had
+been recommended by him.
+
+He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase
+his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his
+nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition,
+which, being not alarming or violent, was, perhaps, not at first
+sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months,
+during which he spent days among his books, and neither neglected his
+studies, nor left his gaiety, till his distemper, ten days before his
+death, deprived him of the use of his limbs: he then prepared himself
+for his end, without fear or emotion, and, on the 5th of October,
+1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his saviour, with
+_confidence and tranquillity_.
+
+
+
+
+In the Magazine for 1742 appeared the following
+
+ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT of the LIFE OF JOHN PHILIP BARRETIER [46].
+
+
+"As the nature of our collections requires that our accounts of
+remarkable persons and transactions should be early, our readers must
+necessarily pardon us, if they are often not complete, and allow us to
+be sufficiently studious of their satisfaction, if we correct our
+errours, and supply our defects from subsequent intelligence, where
+the importance of the subject merits an extraordinary attention, or
+when we have any peculiar opportunities of procuring information. The
+particulars here inserted we thought proper to annex, by way of note,
+to the following passages, quoted from the magazine for December,
+1740, and for February, 1741."
+
+P. 377. _At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+languages._
+
+French, which was the native language of his mother, was that which he
+learned first, mixed, by living in Germany, with some words of the
+language of the country. After some time, his father took care to
+introduce, in his conversation with him, some words of Latin, in such
+a manner that he might discover the meaning of them by the connexion
+of the sentence, or the occasion on which they were used, without
+discovering that he had any intention of instructing him, or that any
+new attainment was proposed.
+
+By this method of conversation, in which new words were every day
+introduced, his ear had been somewhat accustomed to the inflections
+and variations of the Latin tongue, he began to attempt to speak like
+his father, and was in a short time drawn on, by imperceptible
+degrees, to speak Latin, intermixed with other languages.
+
+Thus, when he was but four years old, he spoke every day French to his
+mother, Latin to his father, and high Dutch to the maid, without any
+perplexity to himself, or any confusion of one language with another.
+
+P. 377. _He is no stranger to biblical criticism._
+
+Having now gained such a degree of skill in the Hebrew language, as to
+be able to compose in it, both in prose and verse, he was extremely
+desirous of reading the rabbins; and having borrowed of the
+neighbouring clergy, and the jews of Schwabach, all the books which
+they could supply him, he prevailed on his father to buy him the great
+rabbinical Bible, published at Amsterdam, in four tomes, folio, 1728,
+and read it with that accuracy and attention which appears, by the
+account of it written by him to his favourite M. le Maitre, inserted
+in the beginning of the twenty-sixth volume of the Bibliothéque
+germanique.
+
+These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances
+or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so
+little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most
+eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their
+fables and chimeras.
+
+P. 381. _In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the
+study of the fathers._
+
+His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him
+on rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recall him to the
+study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to
+which he returned with so much ardour, that, in a short time, he was
+able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.
+
+He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of
+the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father's
+desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the
+name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning
+of St. John's gospel, a reading different from that which is at
+present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the
+divinity of our Saviour.
+
+This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and
+prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a
+formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the
+earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies, which he
+proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but,
+finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book
+itself, he determined to publish it apart.
+
+While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of
+globes into his hands, in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so
+much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, and applied himself
+to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the
+problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so
+clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that
+he began to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose,
+laying aside, for a time, all searches into antiquity, he employed his
+utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematicks, and
+made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have
+spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an
+astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables, but invented new methods
+of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him, because they
+were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of
+reading; and it is a sufficient proof, both of the rapidity of his
+progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his
+first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the
+longitude, which he sent, in January, 1735, to the Royal society at
+London.
+
+His scheme, being recommended to the society by the queen, was
+considered by them with a degree of attention which, perhaps, would
+not have been bestowed upon the attempt of a mathematician so young,
+had he not been dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But it was
+soon found, that, for want of books, he had imagined himself the
+inventor of methods already in common use, and that he proposed no
+means of discovering the longitude, but such as had been already tried
+and found insufficient. Such will be very frequently the fate of
+those, whose fortune either condemns them to study without the
+necessary assistance from libraries, or who, in too much haste,
+publish their discoveries.
+
+This attempt exhibited, however, such a specimen of his capacity for
+mathematical learning, and such a proof of an early proficiency, that
+the Royal society of Berlin admitted him as one of their members in
+1735.
+
+P. 381. _Princes, who are commonly the last_.
+
+Barretier, had been distinguished much more early by the margravin of
+Anspach, who, in 1726, sent for his father and mother to the court,
+where their son, whom they carried with them, presented her with a
+letter in French, and addressed another in Latin to the young prince;
+who afterwards, in 1734, granted him the privilege of borrowing books
+from the libraries of Anspach, together with an annual pension of
+fifty florins, which he enjoyed for four years.
+
+In this place it may not be improper to recount some honours conferred
+upon him, which, if distinctions are to be rated by the knowledge of
+those who bestow them, may be considered as more valuable than those
+which he received from princes.
+
+In June, 1731, he was initiated in the university of Altdorft, and at
+the end of the year 1732, the synod of the reformed churches, held at
+Christian Erlang, admitted him to be present at their consultations,
+and to preserve the memory of so extraordinary a transaction, as the
+reception of a boy of eleven years into an ecclesiastical council,
+recorded it in a particular article of the acts of the synod.
+
+P. 383. _He was too much pleased with science and quiet_.
+
+Astronomy was always Barretier's favourite study, and so much
+engrossed his thoughts, that he did not willingly converse on any
+other subject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities of the
+greatest persons, as with the conversation of the mathematicians. An
+astronomical observation was sufficient to withhold him from court, or
+to call him away abruptly from the most illustrious assemblies; nor
+was there any hope of enjoying his company, without inviting some
+professor to keep him in temper, and engage him in discourse; nor was
+it possible, without this expedient, to prevail upon him to sit for
+his picture.
+
+Ibid. _At Halle he continued his studies._
+
+Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Halle, where he
+continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be
+improper to give a more particular account.
+
+At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his
+privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the
+students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him,
+though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments,
+too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an
+invitation to three lectures; one critical on the book of Job, another
+on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of
+this employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his
+auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his
+studies which it produced, and, therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted
+wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.
+
+He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his
+own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a
+regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his
+other time upon different studies.
+
+The first year of his residence at Halle was spent upon natural
+philosophy and mathematicks; and scarcely any author, ancient or
+modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by
+him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been
+discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense
+calculations for his own use.
+
+He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his
+Account of Heresies, which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion
+he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a
+project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a
+Chrono-logical Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome,
+from St. Peter to Victor, printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.
+
+He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature,
+and read not only a multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but
+in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabick languages,
+and, in the last year of his life, he was engrossed by the study of
+inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations.
+
+In 1737 he resumed his design of finding a certain method of
+discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained
+by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the
+needle, and sent to the academy of sciences, and to the Royal society
+of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it
+was first answered by the Royal society, that it appeared the same
+with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the
+academy of sciences, that his method was but very little different
+from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was
+ingenious, but ineffectual.
+
+Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two
+men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries
+after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian
+antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity,
+by deciphering the hieroglyphicks, and explaining their astronomy; but
+this design was interrupted by his death.
+
+P. 384. _Confidence and tranquillity_.
+
+Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof
+how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable
+diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled
+almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in
+every profession, except that of physick, from which he had been
+discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had
+been consulted concerning his own disorders.
+
+His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his
+natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and
+when he inquired into the various opinions of the writers of all ages,
+he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once
+comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to
+reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to
+enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He
+wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar
+felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook,
+being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into
+another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed
+original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of
+memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at
+the same time, to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect
+and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what
+was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books
+which he could not procure when he might want them a second time,
+being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what
+he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and
+the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised forty-one
+pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a
+constant reader of literary journals.
+
+With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not
+bear musick, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to
+it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor dancing, nor the
+sports of the field, nor relieved his studies with any other diversion
+than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived
+almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.
+
+He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires,
+which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he,
+therefore, conversed among those who had gained his confidence with
+great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he
+was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to
+discover his sentiments, or display his learning. He never fixed his
+choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession,
+being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with
+avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was
+never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to
+learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to
+irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are
+exposed by idleness or common amusements.
+
+
+
+
+MORIN [47].
+
+
+Lewis Morin was born at Mans, on the 11th of July, 1635, of parents
+eminent for their piety. He was the eldest of sixteen children; a
+family to which their estate bore no proportion, and which, in persons
+less resigned to providence, would have caused great uneasiness and
+anxiety.
+
+His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires,
+and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that
+appeared to have taken possession of his inclination, as soon as the
+bent of his genius could be discovered. A countryman, who supplied the
+apothecaries of the place, was his first master, and was paid by him
+for his instructions with the little money that he could procure, or
+that which was given him to buy something to eat after dinner. Thus
+abstinence and generosity discovered themselves with his passion for
+botany, and the gratification of a desire indifferent in itself, was
+procured by the exercise of two virtues.
+
+He was soon master of all his instructer's knowledge, and was obliged
+to enlarge his acquaintance with plants, by observing them himself in
+the neighbourhood of Mans. Having finished his grammatical studies, he
+was sent to learn philosophy at Paris, whither he travelled on foot
+like a student in botany, and was careful not to lose such an
+opportunity of improvement.
+
+When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his
+love of botany, to the profession of physick, and, from that time,
+engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded, either by the
+ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he
+confined himself to bread and water, and, at most, allowed himself no
+indulgence beyond fruits. By this method, he preserved a constant
+freedom and serenity of spirits, always equally proper for study; for
+his soul had no pretences to complain of being overwhelmed with
+matter. This regimen, extraordinary as it was, had many advantages;
+for it preserved his health, an advantage which very few sufficiently
+regard; it gave him an authority to preach diet and abstinence to his
+patients; and it made him rich without the assistance of fortune;
+rich, not for himself, but for the poor, who were the only persons
+benefited by that artificial affluence, which, of all others, is most
+difficult to acquire. It is easy to imagine, that, while he practised
+in the midst of Paris the severe temperance of a hermit, Paris
+differed no otherwise, with regard to him, from a hermitage, than as
+it supplied him with books and the conversation of learned men.
+
+In 1662, he was admitted doctor of physick. About that time Dr. Fagon,
+Dr. Longuet, and Dr. Galois, all eminent for their skill in botany,
+were employed in drawing up a catalogue of the plants in the Royal
+garden, which was published in 1665, under the name of Dr. Vallot,
+then first physician: during the prosecution of this work, Dr. Morin
+was often consulted, and from those conversations it was that Dr.
+Fagon conceived a particular esteem of him, which he always continued
+to retain.
+
+After having practised physick some years, he was admitted
+_expectant_ at the Hôtel-Dieu, where he was regularly to have
+been made pensionary physician upon the first vacancy; but mere
+unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it
+advances at all. Morin had no acquaintance with the arts necessary to
+carry on schemes of preferment; the moderation of his desires
+preserved him from the necessity of studying them, and the privacy of
+his life debarred him from any opportunity. At last, however, justice
+was done him, in spite of artifice and partiality; but his advancement
+added nothing to his condition, except the power of more extensive
+charity; for all the money which he received, as a salary, he put into
+the chest of the hospital, always, as he imagined, without being
+observed. Not content with serving the poor for nothing, he paid them
+for being served.
+
+His reputation rose so high in Paris, that mademoiselle de Guise was
+desirous to make him her physician; but it was not without difficulty
+that he was prevailed upon by his friend, Dr. Dodart, to accept the
+place. He was by this new advancement laid under the necessity of
+keeping a chariot, an equipage very unsuitable to his temper; but
+while he complied with those exterior appearances, which the publick
+had a right to demand from him, he remitted nothing of his former
+austerity, in the more private and essential parts of his life, which
+he had always the power of regulating according to his own
+disposition.
+
+In two years and a half the princess fell sick, and was despaired of
+by Morin, who was a great master of prognosticks. At the time when she
+thought herself in no danger he pronounced her death inevitable; a
+declaration to the highest degree disagreeable, but which was made
+more easy to him than to any other, by his piety and artless
+simplicity. Nor did his sincerity produce any ill consequences to
+himself; for the princess, affected by his zeal, taking a ring from
+her finger, gave it him, as the last pledge of her affection, and
+rewarded him still more to his satisfaction, by preparing for death
+with a true Christian piety. She left him, by will, a yearly pension
+of two thousand livres, which was always regularly paid him.
+
+No sooner was the princess dead, but he freed himself from the
+encumbrance of his chariot, and retired to St. Victor, without a
+servant; having, however, augmented his daily allowance with a little
+rice, boiled in water. Dodart, who had undertaken the charge of being
+ambitious on his account, procured him, at the restoration of the
+academy, in 1699, to be nominated associate botanist; not knowing,
+what he would doubtless have been pleased with the knowledge of, that
+he introduced into that assembly the man that was to succeed him in
+his place of _pensionary_.
+
+Dr. Morin was not one who had upon his hands the labour of adapting
+himself to the duties of his condition, but always found himself
+naturally adapted to them. He had, therefore, no difficulty in being
+constant at the assemblies of the academy, notwithstanding the
+distance of places, while he had strength enough to support the
+journey. But his regimen was not equally effectual to produce vigour
+as to prevent distempers; and, being sixty-four years old at his
+admission, he could not continue his assiduity more than a year after
+the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.
+
+When Mr. Tournefort went to pursue his botanical inquiries in the
+Levant, he desired Dr. Morin to supply his place of demonstrator of
+the plants in the Royal garden, and rewarded him for the trouble, by
+inscribing to him a new plant, which he brought from the east, by the
+name of Morina orientalis, as he named others the Do-darto, the
+Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipée. These are compliments proper to
+be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to
+the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable
+nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these
+vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name
+conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other
+name than that of tobacco.
+
+Dr. Morin, advancing far in age, was now forced to take a servant,
+and, what was yet a more essential alteration, prevailed upon himself
+to take an ounce of wine a day, which he measured with the same
+exactness as a medicine bordering upon poison. He quitted, at the same
+time, all his practice in the city, and confined it to the poor of his
+neighbourhood, and his visits to the Hôtel-Dieu; but his weakness
+increasing, he was forced to increase his quantity of wine, which yet
+he always continued to adjust by weight [48].
+
+At seventy-eight his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely
+left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the
+last six months of his life. He expired, or, to use a more proper
+term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of eighty years,
+without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having
+enjoyed, by the benefit of his regimen, a long and healthy life, and a
+gentle and easy death.
+
+This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his
+life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and
+exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.
+
+He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He
+spent, in the morning, three hours at his devotions, and went to the
+Hôtel-Dieu, in the summer, between five and six, and, in the winter,
+between six and seven, hearing mass, for the most part, at Notre Dame.
+After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and,
+when it was fair weather, walked till two in the Royal garden, where
+he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest
+passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to
+visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physick,
+but chiefly physick, as the duty of his profession required. This,
+likewise, was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He
+often used this expression: "Those that come to see me, do me honour;
+those that stay away, do me a favour." It is easy to conceive, that a
+man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only
+now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.
+
+Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates,
+more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a
+year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience
+of a hermit [49]. There is, likewise, a journal of the weather, kept
+without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has
+accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the
+dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the
+course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms,
+in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits, in a little
+room, a great train of different observations. What numbers of such
+remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose
+attention had been extended to common objects!
+
+All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of
+herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it
+evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.
+
+
+
+
+BURMAN [50].
+
+
+Peter Burman was born at Utrecht, on the 26th day of June, 1668. The
+family from which he descended has, for several generations, produced
+men of great eminence for piety and learning; and his father, who was
+professor of divinity in the university, and pastor of the city of
+Utrech't, was equally celebrated for the strictness of his life, the
+efficacy and orthodoxy of his sermons, and the learning and
+perspicuity of his academical lectures.
+
+From the assistance and instruction which such a father would
+doubtless have been encouraged by the genius of this son not to have
+omitted, he was unhappily cut off at eleven years of age, being at
+that time, by his father's death, thrown entirely under the care of
+his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was
+so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness,
+to regret the loss of his father.
+
+He was, about this time, sent to the publick school of Utrecht, to be
+instructed in the learned languages; and it will convey no common idea
+of his capacity and industry to relate, that he had passed through the
+classes, and was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year.
+
+This account of the rapidity of his progress in the first part of his
+studies is so stupendous, that, though it is attested by his friend,
+Dr. Osterdyke, of whom it cannot be reasonably suspected that he is
+himself deceived, or that he can desire to deceive others, it must be
+allowed far to exceed the limits of probability, if it be considered,
+with regard to the methods of education practised in our country,
+where it is not uncommon for the highest genius, and most
+comprehensive capacity, to be entangled for ten years, in those thorny
+paths of literature, which Burman is represented to have passed in
+less than two; and we must, doubtless, confess the most skilful of our
+masters much excelled by the address of the Dutch teachers, or the
+abilities of our greatest scholars far surpassed by those of Burinan.
+
+But, to reduce this narrative to credibility, it is necessary that
+admiration should give place to inquiry, and that it be discovered
+what proficiency in literature is expected from a student, requesting
+to be admitted into a Dutch university. It is to be observed, that in
+the universities of foreign countries, they have professors of
+philology, or humanity, whose employment is to instruct the younger
+classes in grammar, rhetorick, and languages; nor do they engage in
+the study of philosophy, till they have passed through a course of
+philological lectures and exercises, to which, in some places, two
+years are commonly allotted.
+
+The English scheme of education, which, with regard to academical
+studies, is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price
+than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are
+initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge
+sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read
+to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies
+without assistance; so that it may be conjectured, that Burman, at his
+entrance into the university, had no such skill in languages, nor such
+ability of composition, as are frequently to be met with in the higher
+classes of an English school; nor was, perhaps, more than moderately
+skilled in Latin, and taught the first rudiments of Greek.
+
+In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Grævius,
+whose regard for his father inclined him to superintend his studies
+with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and
+increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his
+observation of his diligence.
+
+One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Grævius
+for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily
+discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar
+designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of
+literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman
+was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great
+advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction
+of his genius.
+
+Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued
+the vigour of his application, and, for several years, not only
+attended the lectures of Grævius, but made use of every other
+opportunity of improvement, with such diligence as might justly be
+expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.
+
+Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to
+qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to
+the study of the law, and published a dissertation, de Vicesima
+Hæreditatum, which he publickly defended, under the professor Van
+Muyden, with such learning and eloquence, as procured him great
+applause.
+
+Imagining, then, that the conversation of other men of learning might
+be of use towards his further improvement, and rightly judging that
+notions formed in any single seminary are, for the greatest part,
+contracted and partial, he went to Leyden, where he studied philosophy
+for a year, under M. de Volder, whose celebrity was so great, that the
+schools assigned to the sciences, which it was his province to teach,
+were not sufficient, though very spacious, to contain the audience
+that crowded his lectures from all parts of Europe.
+
+Yet he did not suffer himself to be engrossed by philosophical
+disquisitions, to the neglect of those studies in which he was more
+early engaged, and to which he was, perhaps, by nature better adapted;
+for he attended at the same time Ryckius's explanations of Tacitus,
+and James Gronovius's lectures on the Greek writers, and has often
+been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he
+received from them.
+
+Having thus passed a year at Leyden with great advantage, he returned
+to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by
+the assistance of Grævius, whose early hopes of his genius were now
+raised to a full confidence of that excellence, at which he afterwards
+arrived.
+
+At Utrecht, in March, 1688, in the twentieth year of his age, he was
+advanced to the degree of doctor of laws; on which occasion he
+published a learned dissertation, de Transactionibus, and defended it
+with his usual eloquence, learning, and success.
+
+The attainment of this honour was far from having upon Burman that
+effect which has been too often observed to be produced in others,
+who, having in their own opinion no higher object of ambition, have
+relapsed into idleness and security, and spent the rest of their lives
+in a lazy enjoyment of their academical dignities. Burman aspired to
+further improvements, and, not satisfied with the opportunities of
+literary conversation which Utrecht afforded, travelled into
+Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and
+learning.
+
+At his return from this excursion, he engaged in the practice of the
+law, and pleaded several causes with such reputation, as might be
+hoped by a man who had joined to his knowledge of the law, the
+embellishments of polite literature, and the strict ratiocination of
+true philosophy; and who was able to employ, on every occasion, the
+graces of eloquence and the power of argumentation.
+
+While Burman was hastening to high reputation in the courts of
+justice, and to those riches and honours which always follow it, he
+was summoned, in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the
+charge of collector of the tenths, an office, in that place, of great
+honour, and which he accepted, therefore, as a proof of their
+confidence and esteem.
+
+While he was engaged in this employment, he married Eve Clotterboke, a
+young lady of a good family, and uncommon genius and beauty, by whom
+he had ten children, of which eight died young; and only two sons,
+Francis and Caspar, lived to console their mother for their father's
+death.
+
+Neither publick business nor domestick cares detained Burman from the
+prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared
+himself to Grævius, that he Was recommended by him to the regard of
+the university of Utrecht, and, accordingly, in 1696, was chosen
+professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some
+time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of
+politicks; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so
+extensive his knowledge.
+
+At his entrance upon this new province, he pronounced an oration upon
+eloquence and poetry.
+
+Having now more frequent opportunities of displaying his learning, he
+arose, in a short time, to a high reputation, of which the great
+number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the
+proficiency of his pupils showed not to be accidental or undeserved.
+
+In 1714, he formed a resolution of visiting Paris, not only for the
+sake of conferring, in person, upon questions of literature, with the
+learned men of that place, and of gratifying his curiosity with a more
+familiar knowledge of those writers whose works he admired, but with a
+view more important, of visiting the libraries, and making those
+inquiries which might be of advantage to his darling study.
+
+The vacation of the university allowed him to stay at Paris but six
+weeks, which he employed with so much dexterity and industry, that he
+had searched the principal libraries, collated a great number of
+manuscripts and printed copies, and brought back a great treasure of
+curious observations.
+
+In this visit to Paris he contracted an acquaintance, among other
+learned men, with the celebrated father Montfaucon; with whom he
+conversed, at his first interview, with no other character but that of
+a traveller; but, their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the
+stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon
+declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to
+know his name; which he no sooner heard, than he rose from his seat,
+and, embracing him with the utmost ardour, expressed his satisfaction
+at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so
+often praised; and, as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to
+procure him an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, but
+to those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to
+strangers, and undertook to ease the expenses of his journey, by
+procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order.
+
+This favour Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of
+returning to Utrecht at the usual time of beginning a new course of
+lectures, to which there was always so great a concourse of students,
+as much increased the dignity and fame of the university in which he
+taught.
+
+He had already extended to distant parts his reputation for knowledge
+of ancient history, by a treatise, de Vectigalibus Populi Romani, on
+the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and
+in ancient coins, by a tract called Jupiter Fulgurator; and after his
+return from Paris, he published Plædrus, first with the notes of
+various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed many
+poems, made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an
+impression of the epistles of Gudius and Sanavius.
+
+While he was thus employed, the professorships of history, eloquence,
+and the Greek language, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of
+Perizonius, which Burman's reputation incited the curators of the
+university to offer him upon very generous terms, and which, after
+some struggles with his fondness for his native place, his friends,
+and his colleagues, he was prevailed on to accept, finding the
+solicitations from Leyden warm and urgent, and his friends at Utrecht,
+though unwilling to be deprived of him, yet not zealous enough for the
+honour and advantage of their university, to endeavour to detain him
+by great liberality.
+
+At his entrance upon this new professorship, which was conferred upon
+him in 1715, he pronounced an oration upon the duty and office of a
+professor of polite literature; de publici humanioris disciplinæ
+professoris proprio officio et munere; and showed, by the usefulness
+and perspicuity of his lectures, that he was not confined to
+speculative notions on that subject, having a very happy method of
+accommodating his instructions to the different abilities and
+attainments of his pupils.
+
+Nor did he suffer the publick duties of this station to hinder him
+from promoting learning by labours of a different kind; for, besides
+many poems and orations, which he recited on different occasions, he
+wrote several prefaces to the works of others, and published many
+useful editions of the best Latin writers, with large collections of
+notes from various commentators.
+
+He was twice rector, or chief governour of the university, and
+discharged that important office with equal equity and ability, and
+gained, by his conduct in every station, so much esteem, that when the
+professorship of history of the United Provinces became vacant, it was
+conferred on him, as an addition to his honours and revenues, which he
+might justly claim; and afterwards, as a proof of the continuance of
+their regard, and a testimony that his reputation was still
+increasing, they made him chief librarian, an office which was the
+more acceptable to him, as it united his business with his pleasure,
+and gave him an opportunity, at the same time, of superintending the
+library, and carrying on his studies.
+
+Such was the course of his life, till, in his old age, leaving off his
+practice of walking, and other exercises, he began to be afflicted
+with the scurvy, which discovered itself by very tormenting symptoms
+of various kinds; sometimes disturbing his head with vertigos,
+sometimes causing faintness in his limbs, and sometimes attacking his
+legs with anguish so excruciating, that all his vigour was destroyed,
+and the power of walking entirely taken away, till, at length, his
+left foot became motionless. The violence of his pain produced
+irregular fevers, deprived him of rest, and entirely debilitated his
+whole frame.
+
+This tormenting disease he bore, though not without some degree of
+impatience, yet without any unbecoming or irrational despondency, and
+applied himself in the intermission of his pains to seek for comfort
+in the duties of religion.
+
+While he lay in this state of misery he received an account of the
+promotion of two of his grandsons, and a catalogue of the king of
+France's library, presented to him by the command of the king himself,
+and expressed some satisfaction on all these occasions; but soon
+diverted his thoughts to the more important consideration of his
+eternal state, into which he passed on the 31st of March, 1741, in the
+seventy-third year of his age.
+
+He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity,
+which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and
+by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not
+suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by
+frequent intermissions; a practice consistent with the most exemplary
+diligence, and which he that omits will find at last, that time may be
+lost, like money, by unseasonable avarice.
+
+In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far
+to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the
+ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his
+mirth; but enemies so provoked, he thought it beneath him to regard or
+to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malicious, disdained
+dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled
+detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised
+friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of
+flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant
+in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted
+familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence
+in his old age.
+
+His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled
+in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station
+required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon
+knowledge; which, however, appears rather from judicious compilations,
+than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not
+without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to
+that purity, which some writers have attained. He was at least
+instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many
+valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the
+learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may
+claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning, than some others of
+happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination.
+
+The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not
+love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he
+took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary
+declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the
+revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our
+Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole behaviour in
+his long illness was an incontestable proof; and he concluded his
+life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an
+example of true piety.
+
+Of his works we have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he
+published, Quintilianus, 2 vols. 4to; Valerius Flaccus; Ovidius, 4
+vols. 4to; Poetæ Latini Minores, 2 vols. 4to; cum notis variorum.
+Buchanani Opera, 2 vols. 4to [51].
+
+
+
+
+SYDENHAM [52].
+
+
+Thomas Sydenham was born in the year 1624, at Windford Eagle, in
+Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham, esq. had a large
+fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed
+his childhood, whether he made any early discoveries of a genius
+peculiarly adapted to the study of nature, or gave any presages of his
+future eminence in medicine, no information is to be obtained. We
+must, therefore, repress that curiosity, which would naturally incline
+us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in
+its childish inquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices,
+breaking, on trifling occasions, the shackles of credulity, and giving
+proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the
+yoke of prescription, and dispel the phantoms of hypothesis.
+
+That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his
+discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked
+from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt;
+for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely
+related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same
+proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the
+greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only
+by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of
+their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials
+of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily
+recorded in publick registers.
+
+From these it is discovered, that, at the age of eighteen, in 1642, he
+commenced a commoner of Magdalen hall, in Oxford, where it is not
+probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he
+was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor
+is it known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided
+during that long series of publick commotion. It is, indeed, reported,
+that he had a commission in the king's army, but no particular account
+is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he
+obtained, when he entered into the army, or when, or on what occasion,
+he retired from it.
+
+It is, however, certain, that if ever he took upon him the profession
+of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for, in 1648, he
+obtained, at Oxford, the degree of bachelor of physick, for which, as
+some medicinal knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he
+spent some time in qualifying himself.
+
+His application to the study of physick was, as he himself relates,
+produced by an accidental acquaintance with Dr. Cox, a physician,
+eminent at that time in London, who in some sickness prescribed to his
+brother, and attending him frequently on that occasion, inquired of
+him what profession he designed to follow. The young man answering
+that he was undetermined, the doctor recommended physick to him, on
+what account, or with what arguments, it is not related; but his
+persuasions were so effectual, that Sydenham determined to follow his
+advice, and retired to Oxford for leisure and opportunity to pursue
+his studies.
+
+It is evident that this conversation must have happened before his
+promotion to any degree in physick, because he himself fixes it in the
+interval of his absence from the university, a circumstance which will
+enable us to confute many false reports relating to Dr. Sydenham,
+which have been confidently inculcated, and implicitly believed. It is
+the general opinion, that he was made a physician by accident and
+necessity, and sir Richard Blackmore reports, in plain terms, [preface
+to his Treatise on the Small Pox,] that he engaged in practice,
+without any preparatory study, or previous knowledge, of the medicinal
+sciences; and affirms, that when he was consulted by him what books he
+should read to qualify him for the same profession, he recommended Don
+Quixote.
+
+That he recommended Don Quixote to Blackmore, we are not allowed to
+doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love, which dazzles
+all mankind, from discovering that he might intend a satire very
+different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers
+on medicine, since he might, perhaps, mean, either seriously or in
+jest, to insinuate, that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the
+study of physick, and that, whether he should read Cervantes or
+Hippocrates, he would be equally unqualified for practice, and equally
+unsuccessful in it.
+
+Whatsoever was his meaning, nothing is more evident, than that it was
+a transient sally of an imagination warmed with gaiety, or the
+negligent effusion of a mind intent upon some other employment, and in
+haste to dismiss a troublesome intruder; for it is certain that
+Sydenham did not think it impossible to write usefully on medicine,
+because he has himself written upon it; and it is not probable that he
+carried his vanity so far, as to imagine that no man had ever acquired
+the same qualifications besides himself. He could not but know that he
+rather restored, than invented most of his principles, and, therefore,
+could not but acknowledge the value of those writers whose doctrines
+he adopted and enforced.
+
+That he engaged in the practice of physick without any acquaintance
+with the theory, or knowledge of the opinions or precepts of former
+writers, is undoubtedly false; for he declares, that, after he had, in
+pursuance of his conversation with Dr. Cox, determined upon the
+profession of physick, he "applied himself in earnest to it, and spent
+several years in the university," (aliquot annos in academica
+palæstra,) before he began to practise in London.
+
+Nor was he satisfied with the opportunities of knowledge which Oxford
+afforded, but travelled to Montpellier, as Désault relates,
+[Dissertation on Consumptions,] in quest of further information;
+Montpellier, being at that time, the most celebrated school of
+physick: so far was Sydenham from any contempt of academical
+institutions, and so far from thinking it reasonable to learn physick
+by experiments alone, which must necessarily be made at the hazard of
+life.
+
+What can be demanded beyond this by the most zealous advocate for
+regular education? What can be expected from the most cautious and
+most industrious student, than that he should dedicate several years
+to the rudiments of his art, and travel for further instructions from
+one university to another?
+
+It is likewise a common opinion, that Sydenham was thirty years old,
+before he formed his resolution of studying physick, for which I can
+discover no other foundation than one expression in his dedication to
+Dr. Mapletoft, which seems to have given rise to it, by a gross
+misinterpretation; for he only observes, that from his conversation
+with Dr. Cox to the publication of that treatise, thirty years had
+intervened.
+
+Whatever may have produced this notion, or how long soever it may have
+prevailed, it is now proved, beyond controversy, to be false; since it
+appears that Sydenham, having been for some time absent from the
+university, returned to it, in order to pursue his physical inquiries,
+before he was twenty-four years old; for, in 1648, he was admitted to
+the degree of bachelor of physick.
+
+That such reports should be confidently spread, even among the
+contemporaries of the author to whom they relate, and obtain, in a few
+years, such credit as to require a regular confutation; that it should
+be imagined that the greatest physician of the age arrived at so high
+a degree of skill, without any assistance from his predecessors; and
+that a man, eminent for integrity, practised medicine by chance, and
+grew wise only by murder; is not to be considered without
+astonishment.
+
+But if it be, on the other part, remembered, how much this opinion
+favours the laziness of some, and the pride of others; how readily
+some men confide in natural sagacity; and how willingly most would
+spare themselves the labour of accurate reading and tedious inquiry;
+it will be easily discovered, how much the interest of multitudes was
+engaged in the production and continuance of this opinion, and how
+cheaply those, of whom it was known that they practised physick before
+they studied it, might satisfy themselves and others with the example
+of the illustrious Sydenham.
+
+It is, therefore, in an uncommon degree useful to publish a true
+account of this memorable man, that pride, temerity, and idleness, may
+be deprived of that patronage which they have enjoyed too long; that
+life may be secured from the dangerous experiments of the ignorant and
+presumptuous; and that those, who shall, hereafter, assume the
+important province of superintending the health of others, may learn,
+from this great master of the art, that the only means of arriving at
+eminence and success are labour and study.
+
+From these false reports it is probable that another arose, to which,
+though it cannot be with equal certainty confuted, it does not appear
+that entire credit ought to be given. The acquisition of a Latin style
+did not seem consistent with the manner of life imputed to him; nor
+was it probable, that he, who had so diligently cultivated the
+ornamental parts of general literature, would have neglected the
+essential studies of his own profession. Those, therefore, who were
+determined, at whatever price, to retain him in their own party, and
+represent him equally ignorant and daring with themselves, denied him
+the credit of writing his own works in the language in which they were
+published, and asserted, but without proof, that they were composed by
+him in English, and translated into Latin by Dr. Mapletoft.
+
+Whether Dr. Mapletoft lived and was familiar with him, during the
+whole time in which these several treatises were printed, treatises
+written on particular occasions, and printed at periods considerably
+distant from each other, we have had no opportunity of inquiring, and,
+therefore, cannot demonstrate the falsehood of this report; but if it
+be considered how unlikely it is, that any man should engage in a work
+so laborious and so little necessary, only to advance the reputation
+of another, or that he should have leisure to continue the same office
+upon all following occasions; if it be remembered how seldom such
+literary combinations are formed, and how soon they are, for the
+greatest part, dissolved, there will appear no reason for not allowing
+Dr. Sydenham the laurel of eloquence, as well as physick [53].
+
+It is observable, that his Processus Integri, published after his
+death, discovers alone more skill in the Latin language than is
+commonly ascribed to him; and it surely will not be suspected, that
+the officiousness of his friends was continued after his death, or
+that he procured the book to be translated, only that, by leaving it
+behind him, he might secure his claim to his other writings.
+
+It is asserted by sir Hans Sloane, that Dr. Sydenham, with whom he was
+familiarly acquainted, was particularly versed in the writings of the
+great Roman orator and philosopher; and there is evidently such a
+luxuriance in his style, as may discover the author which gave him
+most pleasure, and most engaged his imitation.
+
+About the same time that he became bachelor of physick, he obtained,
+by the interest of a relation, a fellowship of All Souls' college,
+having submitted, by the subscription required, to the authority of
+the visitors appointed by the parliament, upon what principles, or how
+consistently with his former conduct, it is now impossible to
+discover.
+
+When he thought himself qualified for practice, he fixed his residence
+in Westminster, became doctor of physick at Cambridge, received a
+license from the college of physicians, and lived in the first degree
+of reputation, and the greatest affluence of practice, for many years,
+without any other enemies than those which he raised by the superiour
+merit of his conduct, the brighter lustre of his abilities, or his
+improvements of his science, and his contempt of pernicious methods,
+supported only by authority, in opposition to sound reason and
+indubitable experience. These men are indebted to him for concealing
+their names, when he records their malice, since they have, thereby,
+escaped the contempt and detestation of posterity.
+
+It is a melancholy reflection, that they who have obtained the highest
+reputation, by preserving or restoring the health of others, have
+often been hurried away before the natural decline of life, or have
+passed many of their years under the torments of those distempers
+which they profess to relieve. In this number was Sydenham, whose
+health began to fail in the fifty-second year of his age, by the
+frequent attacks of the gout, to which he was subject for a great part
+of his life, and which was afterwards accompanied with the stone in
+the kidneys, and, its natural consequence, bloody urine.
+
+These were distempers which even the art of Sydenham could only
+palliate, without hope of a perfect cure, but which, if he has not
+been able by his precepts to instruct us to remove, he has, at least,
+by his example, taught us to bear; for he never betrayed any indecent
+impatience, or unmanly dejection, under his torments, but supported
+himself by the reflections of philosophy, and the consolations of
+religion; and in every interval of ease applied himself to the
+assistance of others with his usual assiduity.
+
+After a life thus usefully employed, he died at his house in
+Pall-mall, on the 29th of December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle,
+near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster.
+
+What was his character, as a physician, appears from the treatises
+which he has left, which it is not necessary to epitomise or
+transcribe; and from them it may likewise be collected, that his skill
+in physick was not his highest excellence; that his whole character
+was amiable; that his chief view was the benefit of mankind, and the
+chief motive of his actions, the will of God, whom he mentions with
+reverence, well becoming the most enlightened and most penetrating
+mind. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere, and
+religious; qualities, which it were happy, if they could copy from
+him, who emulate his knowledge, and imitate his methods.
+
+
+
+
+CHEYNEL [54].
+
+
+There is always this advantage in contending with illustrious
+adversaries, that the combatant is equally immortalized by conquest or
+defeat. He that dies by the sword of a hero will always be mentioned,
+when the acts of his enemy are mentioned. The man, of whose life the
+following account is offered to the publick, was, indeed, eminent
+among his own party, and had qualities, which, employed in a good
+cause, would have given him some claim to distinction; but no one is
+now so much blinded with bigotry, as to imagine him equal either to
+Hammond or Chillingworth; nor would his memory, perhaps, have been
+preserved, had he not, by being conjoined with illustrious names,
+become the object of publick curiosity.
+
+Francis Cheynel was born in 1608, at Oxford [55], where his father,
+Dr. John Cheynel, who had been fellow of Corpus Christi college,
+practised physick with great reputation. He was educated in one of the
+grammar schools of his native city, and, in the beginning of the year
+1623, became a member of the university.
+
+It is probable, that he lost his father when he was very young; for it
+appears, that before 1629, his mother had married Dr. Abbot, bishop of
+Salisbury, whom she had likewise buried. From this marriage he
+received great advantage; for his mother, being now allied to Dr.
+Brent, then warden of Merton college, exerted her interest so
+vigorously, that he was admitted there a probationer, and afterwards
+obtained a fellowship [56].
+
+Having taken the degree of master of arts, he was admitted to orders,
+according to the rites of the church of England, and held a curacy
+near Oxford, together with his fellowship. He continued in his
+college, till he was qualified, by his years of residence, for the
+degree of bachelor of divinity, which he attempted to take in 1641,
+but was denied his grace [57], for disputing concerning
+predestination, contrary to the king's injunctions.
+
+This refusal of his degree he mentions in his dedication to his
+account of Mr. Chillingworth: "Do not conceive that I snatch up my pen
+in an angry mood, that I might vent my dangerous wit, and ease my
+overburdened spleen; no, no, I have almost forgotten the visitation of
+Merton college, and the denial of my grace, the plundering of my
+house, and little library: I know when, and where, and of whom, to
+demand satisfaction for all these injuries and indignities. I have
+learnt 'centum plagas Spartana nobilitate concoquere.' I have not
+learnt how to plunder others of goods, or living, and make myself
+amends by force of arms. I will not take a living which belonged to
+any civil, studious, learned delinquent; unless it be the
+much-neglected _commendam_ of some lordly prelate, condemned by
+the known laws of the land, and the highest court of the kingdom, for
+some offence of the first magnitude."
+
+It is observable, that he declares himself to have almost forgot his
+injuries and indignities, though he recounts them with an appearance
+of acrimony, which is no proof that the impression is much weakened;
+and insinuates his design of demanding, at a proper time, satisfaction
+for them.
+
+These vexations were the consequence rather of the abuse of learning,
+than the want of it; no one that reads his works can doubt that he was
+turbulent, obstinate, and petulant; and ready to instruct his
+superiours, when he most needed instruction from them. Whatever he
+believed (and the warmth of his imagination naturally made him
+precipitate in forming his opinions) he thought himself obliged to
+profess; and what he professed he was ready to defend, without that
+modesty which is always prudent, and generally necessary, and which,
+though it was not agreeable to Mr. Cheynel's temper, and, therefore,
+readily condemned by him, is a very useful associate to truth, and
+often introduces her, by degrees, where she never could have forced
+her way by argument or declamation.
+
+A temper of this kind is generally inconvenient and offensive in any
+society, but in a place of education is least to be tolerated; for, as
+authority is necessary to instruction, whoever endeavours to destroy
+subordination, by weakening that reverence which is claimed by those
+to whom the guardianship of youth is committed by their country,
+defeats, at once, the institution; and may be justly driven from a
+society, by which he thinks himself too wise to be governed, and in
+which he is too young to teach, and too opinionative to learn.
+
+This may be readily supposed to have been the case of Cheynel; and I
+know not how those can be blamed for censuring his conduct, or
+punishing his disobedience, who had a right to govern him, and who
+might certainly act with equal sincerity, and with greater knowledge.
+
+With regard to the visitation of Merton college, the account is
+equally obscure. Visitors are well known to be generally called to
+regulate the affairs of colleges, when the members disagree with their
+head, or with one another; and the temper that Dr. Cheynel discovers
+will easily incline his readers to suspect, that he could not long
+live in any place, without finding some occasion for debate; nor
+debate any question, without carrying opposition to such a length as
+might make a moderator necessary. Whether this was his conduct at
+Merton, or whether an appeal to the visiter's authority was made by
+him, or his adversaries, or any other member of the college, is not to
+be known; it appears only, that there was a visitation, that he
+suffered by it, and resented his punishment.
+
+He was afterwards presented to a living of great value, near Banbury,
+where he had some dispute with archbishop Laud. Of this dispute I have
+found no particular account. Calamy only says, he had a ruffle with
+bishop Laud, while at his height.
+
+Had Cheynel been equal to his adversary in greatness and learning, it
+had not been easy to have found either a more proper opposite; for
+they were both, to the last degree, zealous, active, and pertinacious,
+and would have afforded mankind a spectacle of resolution and boldness
+not often to be seen. But the amusement of beholding the struggle
+would hardly have been without danger, as they were too fiery not to
+have communicated their heat, though it should have produced a
+conflagration of their country.
+
+About the year 1641, when the whole nation was engaged in the
+controversy about the rights of the church, and necessity of
+episcopacy, he declared himself a presbyterian, and an enemy to
+bishops, liturgies, ceremonies; and was considered, as one of the most
+learned and acute of his party; for, having spent much of his life in
+a college, it cannot be doubted that he had a considerable knowledge
+of books, which the vehemence of his temper enabled him often to
+display, when a more timorous man would have been silent, though in
+learning not his inferiour.
+
+When the war broke out, Mr. Cheynel, in consequence of his principles,
+declared himself for the parliament; and, as he appears to have held
+it as a first principle, that all great and noble spirits abhor
+neutrality, there is no doubt but that he exerted himself to gain
+proselytes, and to promote the interest of that party, which he had
+thought it his duty to espouse. These endeavours were so much regarded
+by the parliament, that, having taken the covenant, he was nominated
+one of the assembly of divines, who were to meet at Westminster for
+the settlement of the new discipline.
+
+This distinction drew, necessarily, upon him the hatred of the
+cavaliers; and his living being not far distant from the king's
+head-quarters, he received a visit from some of the troops, who, as he
+affirms, plundered his house, and drove him from it. His living, which
+was, I suppose, considered as forfeited by his absence, though he was
+not suffered to continue upon it, was given to a clergyman, of whom he
+says, that he would become a stage better than a pulpit; a censure
+which I can neither confute nor admit, because I have not discovered
+who was his successour. He then retired into Sussex, to exercise his
+ministry among his friends, in a place where, as he observes, there
+had been little of the power of religion either known or practised. As
+no reason can be given why the inhabitants of Sussex should have less
+knowledge or virtue than those of other places, it may be suspected
+that he means nothing more than a place where the presbyterian
+discipline or principles had never been received. We now observe, that
+the methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent
+themselves, as preaching the gospel to unconverted nations; and
+enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their
+particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves
+the great instruments of salvation; yet it must be confessed, that all
+places are not equally enlightened; that in the most civilized nations
+there are many corners which may be called barbarous, where neither
+politeness, nor religion, nor the common arts of life, have yet been
+cultivated; and it is likewise certain, that the inhabitants of Sussex
+huve been sometimes mentioned as remarkable for brutality.
+
+From Sussex he went often to London, where, in 1643, he preached three
+times before the parliament; and, returning in November to Colchester,
+to keep the monthly fast there, as was his custom, he obtained a
+convoy of sixteen soldiers, whose bravery or good fortune was such,
+that they faced, and put to flight, more than two hundred of the
+king's forces.
+
+In this journey he found Mr. Chillingworth in the hands of the
+parliament's troops, of whose sickness and death he gave the account,
+which has been sufficiently made known to the learned world by Mr.
+Maizeaux, in his Life of Chillingworth.
+
+With regard to this relation, it may be observed, that it is written
+with an air of fearless veracity, and with the spirit of a man who
+thinks his cause just, and his behaviour without reproach; nor does
+there appear any reason for doubting that Cheynel spoke and acted as
+he relates; for he does not publish an apology, but a challenge, and
+writes not so much to obviate calumnies, as to gain from others that
+applause which he seems to have bestowed very liberally upon himself,
+for his behaviour on that occasion.
+
+Since, therefore, this relation is credible, a great part of it being
+supported by evidence which cannot be refuted, Mr. Maizeaux seems very
+justly, in his Life of Mr. Chillingworth, to oppose the common report,
+that his life was shortened by the inhumanity of those to whom he was
+a prisoner; for Cheynel appears to have preserved, amidst all his
+detestation of the opinions which he imputed to him, a great kindness
+to his person, and veneration for his capacity; nor does he appear to
+have been cruel to him, otherwise than by that incessant importunity
+of disputation, to which he was doubtless incited by a sincere belief
+of the danger of his soul, if he should die without renouncing some of
+his opinions.
+
+The same kindness which made him desirous to convert him before his
+death, would incline him to preserve him from dying before he was
+converted; and accordingly we find, that, when the castle was yielded,
+he took care to procure him a commodious lodging; when he was to have
+been unseasonably removed, he attempted to shorten his journey, which
+he knew would be dangerous; when the physician was disgusted by
+Chillingworth's distrust, he prevailed upon him, as the symptoms grew
+more dangerous, to renew his visits; and when death left no other act
+of kindness to be practised, procured him the rites of burial, which
+some would have denied him.
+
+Having done thus far justice to the humanity of Cheynel, it is proper
+to inquire, how far he deserves blame. He appears to have extended
+none of that kindness to the opinions of Chillingworth, which he
+showed to his person; for he interprets every word in the worst sense,
+and seems industrious to discover, in every line, heresies, which
+might have escaped for ever any other apprehension: he appears always
+suspicious of some latent malignity, and ready to persecute what he
+only suspects, with the same violence, as if it had been openly
+avowed: in all his procedure he shows himself sincere, but without
+candour.
+
+About this time Cheynel, in pursuance of his natural ardour, attended
+the army under the command of the earl of Essex, and added the praise
+of valour to that of learning; for he distinguished himself so much by
+his personal bravery, and obtained so much skill in the science of
+war, that his commands were obeyed by the colonels with as much
+respect as those of the general. He seems, indeed, to have been born a
+soldier; for he had an intrepidity which was never to be shaken by any
+danger, and a spirit of enterprise not to be discouraged by
+difficulty, which were supported by an unusual degree of bodily
+strength. His services of all kinds were thought of so much importance
+ty the parliament, that they bestowed upon him the living of Petworth,
+in Sussex. This living was of the value of seven hundred pounds per
+annum, from which they had ejected a man remarkable for his loyalty,
+and, therefore, in their opinion, not worthy of such revenues. And it
+may be inquired, whether, in accepting this preferment, Cheynel did
+not violate the protestation which he makes in the passage already
+recited, and whether he did not suffer his resolutions to be overborne
+by the temptations of wealth.
+
+In 1646, when Oxford was taken by the forces of the parliament, and
+the reformation of the university was resolved, Mr. Cheynel was sent,
+with six others, to prepare the way for a visitation; being authorized
+by the parliament to preach in any of the churches, without regard to
+the right of the members of the university, that their doctrine might
+prepare their hearers for the changes which were intended.
+
+When they arrived at Oxford, they began to execute their commission,
+by possessing themselves of the pulpits; but, if the relation of Wood
+[58] is to be regarded, were heard with very little veneration. Those
+who had been accustomed to the preachers of Oxford, and the liturgy of
+the church of England, were offended at the emptiness of their
+discourses, which were noisy and unmeaning; at the unusual gestures,
+the wild distortions, and the uncouth tone with which they were
+delivered; at the coldness of their prayers for the king, and the
+vehemence and exuberance of those which they did not fail to utter for
+_the blessed councils_ and actions of the parliament and army;
+and at, what was surely not to be remarked without indignation, their
+omission of the Lord's prayer.
+
+But power easily supplied the want of reverence, and they proceeded in
+their plan of reformation; and thinking sermons not so efficacious to
+conversion as private interrogatories and exhortations, they
+established a weekly meeting for _freeing tender consciences from
+scruple_, at a house that, from the business to which it was
+appropriated, was called the _scruple-shop_.
+
+With this project they were so well pleased, that they sent to the
+parliament an account of it, which was afterwards printed, and is
+ascribed, by Wood, to Mr. Cheynel. They continued for some weeks to
+hold their meetings regularly, and to admit great numbers, whom
+curiosity, or a desire of conviction, or a compliance with the
+prevailing party, brought thither. But their tranquillity was quickly
+disturbed by the turbulence of the independents, whose opinions then
+prevailed among the soldiers, and were very industriously propagated
+by the discourses of William Earbury, a preacher of great reputation
+among them, who one day gathering a considerable number of his most
+zealous followers, went to the house appointed for the resolution of
+scruples, on a day which was set apart for the disquisition of the
+dignity and office of a minister, and began to dispute, with great
+vehemence, against the presbyterians, whom he denied to have any true
+ministers among them, and whose assemblies he affirmed not to be the
+true church. He was opposed with equal heat by the presbyterians, and,
+at length, they agreed to examine the point another day, in a regular
+disputation. Accordingly, they appointed the 12th of November for an
+inquiry: "Whether, in the christian church, the office of minister is
+committed to any particular persons?"
+
+On the day fixed, the antagonists appeared, each attended by great
+numbers; but, when the question was proposed, they began to wrangle,
+not about the doctrine which they had engaged to examine, but about
+the terms of the proposition, which the independents alleged to be
+changed since their agreement; and, at length, the soldiers insisted
+that the question should be, "Whether those who call themselves
+ministers, have more right or power to preach the gospel, than any
+other man that is a christian?" This question was debated, for some
+time, with great vehemence and confusion, but without any prospect of
+a conclusion. At length, one of the soldiers, who thought they had an
+equal right with the rest to engage in the controversy, demanded of
+the presbyterians, whence they themselves received their orders,
+whether from bishops, or any other persons. This unexpected
+interrogatory put them to great difficulties; for it happened that
+they were all ordained by the bishops, which they durst not
+acknowledge, for fear of exposing themselves to a general censure, and
+being convicted from their own declarations, in which they had
+frequently condemned episcopacy, as contrary to Christianity; nor
+durst they deny it, because they might have been confuted, and must,
+at once, have sunk into contempt. The soldiers, seeing their
+perplexity, insulted them; and went away, boasting of their victory;
+nor did the presbyterians, for some time, recover spirit enough to
+renew their meetings, or to proceed in the work of easing consciences.
+
+Earbury, exulting at the victory, which, not his own abilities, but
+the subtlety of the soldier had procured him, began to vent his
+notions of every kind, without scruple, and, at length, asserted, that
+"the saints had an equal measure of the divine nature with our
+Saviour, though not equally manifest." At the same time he took upon
+him the dignity of a prophet, and began to utter predictions relating
+to the affairs of England and Ireland.
+
+His prophecies were not much regarded, but his doctrine was censured
+by the presbyterians in their pulpits; and Mr. Cheynel challenged him
+to a disputation, to which he agreed, and, at his first appearance in
+St. Mary's church, addressed his audience in the following manner:
+
+"Christian friends, kind fellow-soldiers, and worthy students, I, the
+humble servant of all mankind, am this day drawn, against my will, out
+of my cell into this publick assembly, by the double chain of
+accusation and a challenge from the pulpit. I have been charged with
+heresy; I have been challenged to come hither, in a letter written by
+Mr. Francis Cheynel. Here, then, I stand in defence of myself and my
+doctrine, which I shall introduce with only this declaration, that I
+claim not the office of a minister on account of any outward call,
+though I formerly received ordination, nor do I boast of illumination,
+or the knowledge of our Saviour, though I have been held in esteem by
+others, and formerly by myself; for I now declare, that I know
+nothing, and am nothing, nor would I be thought of otherwise than as
+an inquirer and seeker."
+
+He then advanced his former position in stronger terms, and with
+additions equally detestable, which Cheynel attacked with the
+vehemence which, in so warm a temper, such horrid assertions might
+naturally excite. The dispute, frequently interrupted by the clamours
+of the audience, and tumults raised to disconcert Cheynel, who was
+very unpopular, continued about four hours, and then both the
+controvertists grew weary, and retired. The presbyterians afterwards
+thought they should more speedily put an end to the heresies of
+Earbury by power than by argument; and, by soliciting general Fairfax,
+procured his removal.
+
+Mr. Cheynel published an account of this dispute, under the title of,
+Faith triumphing over Errour and Heresy, in a Revelation, &c.; nor can
+it be doubted but he had the victory, where his cause gave him so
+great superiority.
+
+Somewhat before this, his captious and petulant disposition engaged
+him in a controversy, from which he could not expect to gain equal
+reputation. Dr. Hammond had, not long before, published his Practical
+Catechism, in which Mr. Cheynel, according to his custom, found many
+errours implied, if not asserted; and, therefore, as it was much read,
+thought it convenient to censure it in the pulpit. Of this Dr. Hammond
+being informed, desired him, in a letter, to communicate his
+objections; to which Mr. Cheynel returned an answer, written with his
+usual temper, and, therefore, somewhat perverse. The controversy was
+drawn out to a considerable length; and the papers, on both sides,
+were afterwards made publick by Dr. Hammond.
+
+In 1647, it was determined by parliament, that the reformation of
+Oxford should be more vigorously carried on; and Mr. Cheynel was
+nominated one of the visiters. The general process of the visitation,
+the firmness and fidelity of the students, the address by which the
+inquiry was delayed, and the steadiness with which it was opposed,
+which are very particularly related by Wood, and after him by Walker,
+it is not necessary to mention here, as they relate not more to Mr.
+Cheynel's life than to those of his associates.
+
+There is, indeed, some reason to believe that he was more active and
+virulent than the rest, because he appears to have been charged, in a
+particular manner, with some of their most unjustifiable measures. He
+was accused of proposing, that the members of the university should be
+denied the assistance of counsel, and was lampooned by name, as a
+madman, in a satire written on the visitation.
+
+One action, which shows the violence of his temper, and his disregard,
+both of humanity and decency, when they came in competition with his
+passions, must not be forgotten. The visiters, being offended at the
+obstinacy of Dr. Fell, dean of Christchurch, and vicechancellor of the
+university, having first deprived him of his vicechancellorship,
+determined afterwards to dispossess him of his deanery; and, in the
+course of their proceedings, thought it proper to seize upon his
+chambers in the college. This was an act which most men would
+willingly have referred to the officers to whom the law assigned it;
+but Cheynel's fury prompted him to a different conduct. He, and three
+more of the visiters, went and demanded admission; which, being
+steadily refused them, they obtained by the assistance of a file of
+soldiers, who forced the doors with pick-axes. Then entering, they saw
+Mrs. Fell in the lodgings, Dr. Fell being in prison at London, and
+ordered her to quit them, but found her not more obsequious than her
+husband. They repeated their orders with menaces, but were not able to
+prevail upon her to remove. They then retired, and left her exposed to
+the brutality of the soldiers, whom they commanded to keep possession,
+which Mrs. Fell, however, did not leave. About nine days afterwards,
+she received another visit of the same kind from the new chancellor,
+the earl of Pembroke; who having, like the others, ordered her to
+depart without effect, treated her with reproachful language, and, at
+last, commanded the soldiers to take her up in her chair, and carry
+her out of doors. Her daughters, and some other gentlewomen that were
+with her, were afterwards treated in the same manner; one of whom
+predicted, without dejection, that she should enter the house again
+with less difficulty, at some other time; nor was she mistaken in her
+conjecture, for Dr. Fell lived to be restored to his deanery.
+
+At the reception of the chancellor, Cheynel, as the most accomplished
+of the visiters, had the province of presenting him with the ensigns
+of his office, some of which were counterfeit, and addressing him with
+a proper oration. Of this speech, which Wood has preserved, I shall
+give some passages, by which a judgment may be made of his oratory.
+
+Of the staves of the beadles he observes, that "some are stained with
+double guilt, that some are pale with fear, and that others have been
+made use of as crutches, for the support of bad causes and desperate
+fortunes;" and he remarks of the book of statutes which he delivers,
+that "the ignorant may, perhaps, admire the splendour of the cover,
+but the learned know that the real treasure is within." Of these two
+sentences it is easily discovered, that the first is forced and
+unnatural, and the second trivial and low.
+
+Soon afterwards Mr. Cheynel was admitted to the degree of bachelor of
+divinity, for which his grace had been denied him in 1641, and, as he
+then suffered for an ill-timed assertion of the presbyterian
+doctrines, he obtained that his degree should be dated from the time
+at which he was refused it; an honour which, however, did not secure
+him from being soon after publickly reproached as a madman.
+
+But the vigour of Cheynel was thought, by his companions, to deserve
+profit, as well as honour; and Dr. Bailey, the president of St. John's
+college, being not more obedient to the authority of the parliament
+than the rest, was deprived of his revenues and authority, with which
+Mr. Cheynel was immediately invested; who, with his usual coolness and
+modesty, took possession of the lodgings soon after by breaking open
+the doors.
+
+This preferment being not thought adequate to the deserts or abilities
+of Mr. Cheynel, it was, therefore, desired, by the committee of
+parliament, that the visiters would recommend him to the lectureship
+of divinity, founded by the lady Margaret. To recommend him, and to
+choose, was, at that time, the same; and he had now the pleasure of
+propagating his darling doctrine of predestination, without
+interruption, and without danger.
+
+Being thus flushed with power and success, there is little reason for
+doubting that he gave way to his natural vehemence, and indulged
+himself in the utmost excesses of raging zeal, by which he was,
+indeed, so much distinguished, that, in a satire mentioned by Wood, he
+is dignified by the title of archvisiter; an appellation which he
+seems to have been industrious to deserve by severity and
+inflexibility; for, not contented with the commission which he and his
+colleagues had already received, he procured six or seven of the
+members of parliament to meet privately in Mr. Rouse's lodgings, and
+assume the style and authority of a committee, and from them obtained
+a more extensive and tyrannical power, by which the visitors were
+enabled to force the _solemn league and covenant_, and the
+_negative oath_ upon all the members of the university, and to
+prosecute those for a contempt who did not appear to a citation, at
+whatever distance they might be, and whatever reasons they might
+assign for their absence.
+
+By this method he easily drove great numbers from the university,
+whose places he supplied with men of his own opinion, whom he was very
+industrious to draw from other parts, with promises of making a
+liberal provision for them out of the spoils of hereticks and
+malignants.
+
+Having, in time, almost extirpated those opinions which he found so
+prevalent at his arrival, or, at least, obliged those, who would not
+recant, to an appearance of conformity, he was at leisure for
+employments which deserve to be recorded with greater commendation.
+About this time, many socinian writers began to publish their notions
+with great boldness, which the presbyterians, considering as heretical
+and impious, thought it necessary to confute; and, therefore, Cheynel,
+who had now obtained his doctor's degree, was desired, in 1649, to
+write a vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he
+performed, and published the next year.
+
+He drew up, likewise, a confutation of some socinian tenets advanced
+by John Fry, a man who spent great part of his life in ranging from
+one religion to another, and who sat as one of the judges on the king,
+but was expelled afterwards from the house of commons, and disabled
+from sitting in parliament. Dr. Cheynel is said to have shown himself
+evidently superiour to him in the controversy, and was answered by him
+only with an opprobrious book against the presbyterian clergy.
+
+Of the remaining part of his life, there is found only an obscure and
+confused account. He quitted the presidentship of St. John's, and the
+professorship, in 1650, as Calamy relates, because he would not take
+the engagement; and gave a proof that he could suffer, as well as act,
+in a cause which he believed just. We have, indeed, no reason to
+question his resolution, whatever occasion might be given to exert it;
+nor is it probable that he feared affliction more than danger, or that
+he would not have borne persecution himself for those opinions which
+inclined him to persecute others.
+
+He did not suffer much upon this occasion; for he retained the living
+of Petworth, to which he, thenceforward, confined his labours, and
+where he was very assiduous, and, as Calamy affirms, very successful
+in the exercise of his ministry, it being his peculiar character to be
+warm and zealous in all his undertakings.
+
+This heat of his disposition, increased by the uncommon turbulence of
+the times in which he lived, and by the opposition to which the
+unpopular nature of some of his employments exposed him, was, at last,
+heightened to distraction, so that he was, for some years, disordered
+in his understanding, as both Wood and Calamy relate, but with such
+difference as might be expected from their opposite principles. Wood
+appears to think, that a tendency to madness was discoverable in a
+great part of his life; Calamy, that it was only transient and
+accidental, though, in his additions to his first narrative, he pleads
+it, as an extenuation of that fury with which his kindest friends
+confess him to have acted on some occasions. Wood declares, that he
+died little better than distracted; Calamy, that he was perfectly
+recovered to a sound mind, before the restoration, at which time he
+retired to Preston, a small village in Sussex, being turned out of his
+living at Petworth.
+
+It does not appear that he kept his living till the general ejection
+of the nonconformists; and it is not unlikely that the asperity of his
+carriage, and the known virulence of his temper, might have raised him
+enemies, who were willing to make him feel the effects of persecution,
+which he had so furiously incited against others; but of this incident
+of his life there is no particular account.
+
+After his deprivation, he lived, till his death, which happened in
+1665, at a small village near Chichester, upon a paternal estate, not
+augmented by the large preferments wasted upon him in the triumphs of
+his party; having been remarkable, throughout his life, for
+hospitality and contempt of money.
+
+
+
+
+CAVE [59].
+
+
+The curiosity of the publick seems to demand the history of every man
+who has, by whatever means, risen to eminence; and few lives would
+have more readers than that of the compiler of the Gentleman's
+Magazine, if all those who received improvement or entertainment from
+him should retain so much kindness for their benefactor, as to inquire
+after his conduct and character.
+
+Edward Cave was born at Newton, in Warwickshire, Feb. 29, 1691. His
+father (Joseph) was the younger son of Mr. Edward Cave, of
+Cave's-in-the-Hole, a lone house, on the Street road, in the same
+county, which took its name from the occupier; but having concurred
+with his elder brother in cutting off the entail of a small hereditary
+estate, by which act it was lost from the family, he was reduced to
+follow, in Rugby, the trade of a shoemaker. He was a man of good
+reputation in his narrow circle, and remarkable for strength and
+rustick intrepidity. He lived to a great age, and was, in his latter
+years, supported by his son.
+
+It was fortunate for Edward Cave, that, having a disposition to
+literary attainments, he was not cut off by the poverty of his parents
+from opportunities of cultivating his faculties. The school of Rugby,
+in which he had, by the rules of its foundation, a right to be
+instructed, was then in high reputation under the reverend Mr.
+Holyock, to whose care most of the neighbouring families, even of the
+highest rank, intrusted their sons. He had judgment to discover, and,
+for some time, generosity to encourage, the genius of young Cave; and
+was so well pleased with his quick progress in the school, that he
+declared his resolution to breed him for the university, and
+recommended him, as a servitor, to some of his scholars of high rank.
+But prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short
+duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious
+familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations;
+and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky
+prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or
+small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem,
+when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault
+was sure to fall upon poor Cave.
+
+At last, his mistress, by some invisible means, lost a favourite cock.
+Cave was, with little examination, stigmatised as the thief and
+murderer; not because he was more apparently criminal than others, but
+because he was more easily reached by vindictive justice. From that
+time, Mr. Holyock withdrew his kindness visibly from him, and treated
+him with harshness, which the crime, in its utmost aggravation, could
+scarcely deserve; and which, surely, he would have forborne, had he
+considered how hardly the habitual influence of birth and fortune is
+resisted; and how frequently men, not wholly without sense of virtue,
+are betrayed to acts more atrocious than the robbery of a hen-roost,
+by a desire of pleasing their superiours.
+
+Those reflections his master never made, or made without effect; for,
+under pretence that Cave obstructed the discipline of the school, by
+selling clandestine assistance, and supplying exercises to idlers, he
+was oppressed with unreasonable tasks, that there might be an
+opportunity of quarrelling with his failure; and when his diligence
+had surmounted them, no regard was paid to the performance. Cave bore
+this persecution awhile, and then left the school, and the hope of a
+literary education, to seek some other means of gaining a livelihood.
+
+He was first placed with a collector of the excise. He used to
+recount, with some pleasure, a journey or two which he rode with him
+as his clerk, and relate the victories that he gained over the
+excisemen in grammatical disputations. But the insolence of his
+mistress, who employed him in servile drudgery, quickly disgusted him,
+and he went up to London in quest of more suitable employment.
+
+He was recommended to a timber-merchant at the Bankside, and, while he
+was there on liking, is said to have given hopes of great mercantile
+abilities; but this place he soon left, I know not for what reason,
+and was bound apprentice to Mr. Collins, a printer of some reputation,
+and deputy alderman.
+
+This was a trade for which men were formerly qualified by a literary
+education, and which was pleasing to Cave, because it furnished some
+employment for his scholastick attainments. Here, therefore, he
+resolved to settle, though his master and mistress lived in perpetual
+discord, and their house was, therefore, no comfortable habitation.
+From the inconveniencies of these domestick tumults he was soon
+released, having, in only two years, attained so much skill in his
+art, and gained so much the confidence of his master, that he was
+sent, without any superintendant, to conduct a printing-office at
+Norwich, and publish a weekly paper. In this undertaking he met with
+some opposition, which produced a publick controversy, and procured
+young Cave the reputation of a writer.
+
+His master died before his apprenticeship was expired, and he was not
+able to bear the perverseness of his mistress. He, therefore, quitted
+her house upon a stipulated allowance, and married a young widow, with
+whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship was over, he worked, as
+a journeyman, at the printing-house of Mr. Barber, a man much
+distinguished, and employed by the tories, whose principles had, at
+that time, so much prevalence with Cave, that he was, for some years,
+a writer in Mist's Journal; which, though he afterwards obtained, by
+his wife's interest, a small place in the post-office, he for some
+time continued. But, as interest is powerful, and conversation,
+however mean, in time persuasive, he, by degrees, inclined to another
+party; in which, however, he was always moderate, though steady and
+determined.
+
+When he was admitted into the post-office, he still continued, at his
+intervals of attendance, to exercise his trade, or to employ himself
+with some typographical business. He corrected the Gradus ad
+Parnassum; and was liberally rewarded by the company of stationers. He
+wrote an account of the criminals, which had, for some time, a
+considerable sale; and published many little pamphlets, that accident
+brought into his hands, of which it would be very difficult to recover
+the memory. By the correspondence which his place in the post-office
+facilitated, he procured country newspapers, and sold their
+intelligence to a journalist in London, for a guinea a week.
+
+He was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the franks, in
+which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and often stopped
+franks, which were given by members of parliament to their friends,
+because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This
+raised many complaints, and having stopped, among others, a frank
+given to the old dutchess of Marlborough by Mr. Walter Plummer, he was
+cited before the house, as for a breach of privilege, and accused, I
+suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was
+treated with great harshness and severity, but, declining their
+questions, by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And
+it must be recorded to his honour, that, when he was ejected from his
+office, he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but
+continued to refuse, to his nearest friends, any information about the
+management of the office.
+
+By this constancy of diligence and diversification of employment, he
+in time collected a sum sufficient for the purchase of a small
+printing-office, and began the Gentleman's Magazine, a periodical
+pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language
+is spoken. To this undertaking he owed the affluence in which he
+passed the last twenty years of his life, and the fortune which he
+left behind him, which, though large, had been yet larger, had he not
+rashly and wantonly impaired it, by innumerable projects, of which I
+know not that ever one succeeded.
+
+The Gentleman's Magazine, which has now subsisted fifty years, and
+still continues to enjoy the favour of the world [60], is one of the
+most successful and lucrative pamphlets which literary history has
+upon record, and therefore deserves, in this narrative, particular
+notice.
+
+Mr. Cave, when he formed the project, was far from expecting the
+success which he found; and others had so little prospect of its
+consequence, that though he had, for several years, talked of his plan
+among printers and booksellers, none of them thought it worth the
+trial. That they were not restrained by virtue from the execution of
+another man's design, was sufficiently apparent, as soon as that
+design began to be gainful; for, in a few years, a multitude of
+magazines arose and perished: only the London Magazine, supported by a
+powerful association of booksellers, and circulated with all the art
+and all the cunning of trade, exempted itself from the general fate of
+Cave's invaders, and obtained, though not an equal, yet a considerable
+sale [61].
+
+Cave now began to aspire to popularity; and being a greater lover of
+poetry than any other art, he sometimes offered subjects for poems,
+and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty
+pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and
+thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected
+the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered
+the allotment of the prize to the universities. But, when the time
+came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen
+before; the universities and several private men rejected the province
+of assigning the prize. At all this Mr. Cave wondered for awhile; but
+his natural judgment, and a wider acquaintance with the world, soon
+cured him of his astonishment, as of many other prejudices and
+errours. Nor have many men been seen raised by accident or industry to
+sudden riches, that retained less of the meanness of their former
+state.
+
+He continued to improve his magazine, and had the satisfaction of
+seeing its success proportionate to his diligence, till, in 1751, his
+wife died of an asthma. He seemed not at first much affected by her
+death, but in a few days lost his sleep and his appetite, which he
+never recovered; but, after having lingered about two years, with many
+vicissitudes of amendment and relapse, fell, by drinking acid liquors,
+into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargick
+insensibility, in which one of the last acts of reason, which he
+exerted, was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little
+narrative. He died on the 10th of January, 1754, having just concluded
+the twenty-third annual collection [62].
+
+He was a man of a large stature, not only tall but bulky, and was,
+when young, of remarkable strength and activity. He was, generally,
+healthful, and capable of much labour and long application; but in the
+latter years of his life was afflicted with the gout, which he
+endeavoured to cure or alleviate by a total abstinence both from
+strong liquors and animal food. From animal food he abstained about
+four years, and from strong liquors much longer; but the gout
+continued unconquered, perhaps unabated.
+
+His resolution and perseverance were very uncommon; in whatever he
+undertook, neither expense nor fatigue were able to repress him; but
+his constancy was calm, and to those who did not know him appeared
+faint and languid; but he always went forward, though he moved slowly.
+The same chilness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was
+watching the minutest accent of those
+
+  Assisted only by a classical education,
+  Which he received at the Grammar school
+  Of this Town,
+  Planned, executed, and established
+  A literary work, called
+  THE
+  GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE,
+  Whereby he acquired an ample fortune,
+  The whole of which devolved to his family,
+  Here also lies
+  The body of WILLIAM CAVE,
+  Second son of the said JOSEPH CAVE,
+  Who died May 2, 1757, aged 62 years;
+  And who, having survived his elder brother,
+  EDWARD CAVE,
+  Inherited from him a competent estate;
+  And, in gratitude to his benefactor,
+  Ordered this monument to perpetuate his memory.
+
+  He liv'd a patriarch in his numerous race,
+  And show'd in charity a Christian's grace:
+  Whate'er a friend or parent feels, he knew;
+  His hand was open, and his heart was true;
+  In what he gain'd and gave, he taught mankind,
+  A grateful always is a generous mind.
+  Here rest his clay! his soul must ever rest;
+  Who bless'd when living, dying must be blest.
+
+whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was
+surprised when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the
+scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.
+
+He was, consistently with this general tranquillity of mind, a
+tenacious maintainer, though not a clamorous demander, of his right.
+In his youth, having summoned his fellow-journeymen to concert
+measures against the oppression of their masters, he mounted a kind of
+rostrum, and harangued them so efficaciously, that they determined to
+resist all future invasions; and when the stamp-offices demanded to
+stamp the last half-sheet of the magazines, Mr. Cave alone defeated
+their claim, to which the proprietors of the rival magazines would
+meanly have submitted.
+
+He was a friend rather easy and constant, than zealous an'd active;
+yet many instances might be given, where both his money and his
+diligence were employed liberally for others. His enmity was, in like
+manner, cool and deliberate; but though cool, it was not insidious,
+and though deliberate, not pertinacious.
+
+His mental faculties were slow. He saw little at a time, but that
+little he saw with great exactness. He was long in finding the right,
+but seldom failed to find it at last. His affections were not easily
+gained, and his opinions not quickly discovered. His reserve, as it
+might hide his faults, concealed his virtues; but such he was, as they
+who best knew him have most lamented.
+
+
+
+
+KING OF PRUSSIA [63].
+
+
+Charles Frederick, the present king of Prussia, whose actions and
+designs now keep Europe in attention, is the eldest son of Frederick
+William, by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George the first, king of
+England. He was born January 24, 1711-12. Of his early years nothing
+remarkable has been transmitted to us. As he advanced towards manhood,
+he became remarkable by his disagreement with his father.
+
+The late king of Prussia was of a disposition violent and arbitrary,
+of narrow views, and vehement passions, earnestly engaged in little
+pursuits, or in schemes terminating in some speedy consequence,
+without any plan of lasting advantage to himself or his subjects, or
+any prospect of distant events. He was, therefore, always busy, though
+no effects of his activity ever appeared, and always eager, though he
+had nothing to gain. His behaviour was, to the last degree, rough and
+savage. The least provocation, whether designed or accidental, was
+returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and
+princesses.
+
+From such a king and such a father it was not any enormous violation
+of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom, sometimes to differ in
+opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A
+prince of a quick sagacity and comprehensive knowledge, must find many
+practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and
+some which he could scarcely forbear to oppose.
+
+The chief pride of the old king was to be master of the tallest
+regiment in Europe. He, therefore, brought together, from all parts,
+men above the common military standard. To exceed the height of six
+feet, was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of
+seven, a claim to distinction. Men will readily go where they are sure
+to be caressed; and he had, therefore, such a collection of giants,
+as, perhaps, was never seen in the world before.
+
+To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to
+perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he
+immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that
+they might propagate procerity, and produce heirs to the father's
+habiliments.
+
+In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall
+regiment made a fine show at an expense not much greater, when once it
+was collected, than would have been bestowed upon common men. But the
+king's military pastimes were sometimes more pernicious. He maintained
+a numerous army, of which he made no other use than to review and to
+talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emissaries, saw a boy, whose
+form and sprightliness promised a future soldier, he ordered a kind of
+badge to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the
+service, like the sons of Christian captives in Turkey; and his
+parents were forbidden to destine him to any other mode of life.
+
+This was sufficiently oppressive, but this was not the utmost of his
+tyranny. He had learned, though otherwise perhaps no very great
+politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of
+a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his subjects, he wanted
+either ability or benevolence to understand. He, therefore, raised
+exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and possession, and
+piled up the money in his treasury, from which it issued no more. How
+the land which had paid taxes once, was to pay them a second time, how
+imposts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued
+without money, it was not his custom to inquire. Eager to snatch at
+money, and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt,
+and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.
+
+By which of these freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or
+whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he
+complains were of a domestick and personal kind, it is not easy to
+discover. But his resentment, whatever was its cause, rose so high,
+that he resolved not only to leave his father's court, but his
+territories, and to seek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred
+princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to
+England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's
+death, or change of conduct, should give him liberty to return.
+
+His design, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer in the army,
+whose name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and
+whom, having chosen him for the companion of his flight, he
+necessarily trusted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot
+leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was
+to be provided, and something to be adjusted. And, whether Kat found
+the agency of others necessary, and, therefore, was constrained to
+admit some partners of the secret; whether levity or vanity incited
+him to disburden himself of a trust that swelled in his bosom, or to
+show to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in
+itself difficult for princes to transact any thing in secret; so it
+was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the
+prince, and his favourite, a little before the time settled for their
+departure, were arrested, and confined in different places.
+
+The life of princes is seldom in danger, the hazard of their
+irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines
+with them. The king, after an imprisonment of some time, set his son
+at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime.
+The court examined the cause, and acquitted him: the king remanded him
+to a second trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In
+consequence of the sentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was
+publickly beheaded, leaving behind him some papers of reflections made
+in the prison, which were afterwards printed, and among others an
+admonition to the prince, for whose sake he suffered, not to foster in
+himself the opinion of destiny, for that a providence is discoverable
+in every thing round us.
+
+This cruel prosecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by
+compliance with influence not easily to be resisted, was not the only
+act by which the old king irritated his son. A lady with whom the
+prince was suspected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed,
+was seized, I know not upon what accusation, and, by the king's order,
+notwithstanding all the reasons of decency and tenderness that operate
+in other countries, and other judicatures, was publickly whipped in
+the streets of Berlin.
+
+At last, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father
+in its utmost rigour, he was, in 1733, married against his will to the
+princess Elizabetha Christina of Brunswick Luneburg Beveren. He
+married her indeed at his father's command, but without professing for
+her either esteem or affection, and considering the claim of parental
+authority fully satisfied by the external ceremony, obstinately and
+perpetually, during the life of his father, refrained from her bed.
+The poor princess lived about seven years in the court of Berlin, in a
+state which the world has not often seen, a wife without a husband,
+married so far as to engage her person to a man who did not desire her
+affection, and of whom it was doubtful, whether he thought himself
+restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under
+evident compulsion.
+
+Thus he lived secluded from publick business, in contention with his
+father, in alienation from his wife. This state of uneasiness he found
+the only means of softening. He diverted his mind from the scenes
+about him, by studies and liberal amusements. The studies of princes
+seldom produce great effects, for princes draw with meaner mortals the
+lot of understanding; and since of many students not more than one can
+be hoped to advance far towards perfection, it is scarcely to be
+expected that we should find that one a prince; that the desire of
+science should overpower in any mind the love of pleasure, when it is
+always present, or always within call; that laborious meditation
+should be preferred in the days of youth to amusements and festivity;
+or that perseverance should press forward in contempt of flattery; and
+that he, in whom moderate acquisitions would be extolled as prodigies,
+should exact from himself that excellence of which the whole world
+conspires to spare him the necessity.
+
+In every great performance, perhaps in every great character, part is
+the gift of nature, part the contribution of accident, and part, very
+often not the greatest part, the effect of voluntary election, and
+regular design. The king of Prussia was undoubtedly born with more
+than common abilities; but that he has cultivated them with more than
+common diligence, was probably the effect of his peculiar condition,
+of that which he then considered as cruelty and misfortune.
+
+In this long interval of unhappiness and obscurity, he acquired skill
+in the mathematical sciences, such as is said to have put him on the
+level with those who have made them the business of their lives. This
+is, probably, to say too much: the acquisitions of kings are always
+magnified. His skill in poetry and in the French language has been
+loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception, if his honesty
+were equal to his knowledge. Musick he not only understands, but
+practises on the German flute, in the highest perfection; so that,
+according to the regal censure of Philip of Macedon, he may be ashamed
+to play so well.
+
+He may be said to owe to the difficulties of his youth an advantage
+less frequently obtained by princes than literature and mathematicks.
+The necessity of passing his time without pomp, and of partaking of
+the pleasures and labours of a lower station, made him acquainted with
+the various forms of life, and with the genuine passions, interests,
+desires, and distresses, of mankind. Kings, without this help from
+temporary infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies every
+thing near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few
+are able to extend by the mere force of curiosity. I have always
+thought that what Cromwell had more than our lawful kings, he owed to
+the private condition in which he first entered the world, and in
+which he long continued: in that state he learned his art of secret
+transaction, and the knowledge by which he was able to oppose zeal to
+zeal, and make one enthusiast destroy another.
+
+The king of Prussia gained the same arts, and, being born to fairer
+opportunities of using them, brought to the throne the knowledge of a
+private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general
+acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his
+whole life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common
+topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole
+conduct is that of a man who has to do with men, and who is not
+ignorant what motives will prevail over friends or enemies.
+
+In 1740, the old king fell sick, and spoke and acted in his illness
+with his usual turbulence and roughness, reproaching his physicians,
+in the grossest terms, with their unskilfulness and impotence, and
+imputing to their ignorance or wickedness the pain which their
+prescriptions failed to relieve. These insults they bore with the
+submission which is commonly paid to despotick monarchs; till at last
+the celebrated Hoffman was consulted, who failing, like the rest, to
+give ease to his majesty, was, like the rest, treated with injurious
+language. Hoffman, conscious of his own merit, replied, that he could
+not bear reproaches which he did not deserve; that he had tried all
+the remedies that art could supply, or nature could admit; that he
+was, indeed, a professor by his majesty's bounty; but that, if his
+abilities or integrity were doubted, he was willing to leave, not only
+the university, but the kingdom; and that he could not be driven into
+any place where the name of Hoffman would want respect. The king,
+however unaccustomed to such returns, was struck with conviction of
+his own indecency, told Hoffman, that he had spoken well, and
+requested him to continue his attendance.
+
+The king, finding his distemper gaining upon his strength, grew at
+last sensible that his end was approaching, and, ordering the prince
+to be called to his bed, laid several injunctions upon him, of which
+one was to perpetuate the tall regiment by continual recruits, and
+another, to receive his espoused wife. The prince gave him a
+respectful answer, but wisely avoided to diminish his own right or
+power by an absolute promise; and the king died uncertain of the fate
+of the tall regiment.
+
+The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has
+yet surpassed. His father's faults produced many advantages to the
+first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well
+disciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was
+master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raising it.
+It was publickly said in our house of commons, that he had eight
+millions sterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had
+not considered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all
+the Prussian dominions. Men judge of what they do not see by that
+which they see. We are used to talk in England of millions with great
+familiarity, and imagine that there is the same affluence of money in
+other countries, in countries whose manufactures are few, and commerce
+little.
+
+Every man's first cares are necessarily domestick. The king, being now
+no longer under influence, or its appearance, determined how to act
+towards the unhappy lady who had possessed, for seven years, the empty
+title of the princess of Prussia. The papers of those times exhibited
+the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans
+campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his
+wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain
+that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is
+yet in dispute.
+
+In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall
+regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and
+this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.
+
+He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear
+the title of _queen mother_, and that, instead of addressing him
+as _his majesty_, she should only call him _son_.
+
+As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand
+boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his
+coach, and cried out: "merciful king! deliver us from our slavery." He
+promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge
+should be taken off.
+
+He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began
+when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals
+formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the
+times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the
+fourteenth.
+
+It soon appeared that he was resolved to govern with very little
+ministerial assistance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own
+eyes; declared, that in all contrarieties of interest between him and
+his subjects, the publick good should have the preference; and, in one
+of the first exertions of regal power, banished the prime minister and
+favourite of his father, as one that had "betrayed his master, and
+abused his trust."
+
+He then declared his resolution to grant a general toleration of
+religion, and, among other liberalities of concession, allowed the
+profession of free-masonry. It is the great taint of his character,
+that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the
+effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good
+men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good.
+There had subsisted, for some time, in Prussia, an order called the
+"order for favour," which, according to its denomination, had been
+conferred with very little distinction. The king instituted the "order
+for merit," with which he honoured those whom he considered as
+deserving. There were some who thought their merit not sufficiently
+recompensed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant
+pecuniary rewards. Those who were most in his favour he sometimes
+presented with snuffboxes, on which was inscribed, "Amitié augmente le
+prix."
+
+He was, however, charitable, if not liberal, for he ordered the
+magistrates of the several districts to be very attentive to the
+relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that use were
+not sufficient, permitted that the deficiency should be supplied out
+of the revenues of the town.
+
+One of his first cares was the advancement of learning. Immediately
+upon his accession, he wrote to Rollin and Voltaire, that he desired
+the continuance of their friendship; and sent for Mr. Maupertuis, the
+principal of the French academicians, who passed a winter in Lapland,
+to verify, by the mensuration of a degree near the pole, the Newtonian
+doctrine of the form of the earth. He requested of Maupertuis to come
+to Berlin, to settle an academy, in terms of great ardour and great
+condescension.
+
+At the same time, he showed the world that literary amusements were
+not likely, as has more than once happened to royal students, to
+withdraw him from the care of the kingdom, or make him forget his
+interest. He began by reviving a claim to Herstal and Hermal, two
+districts in the possession of the bishop of Liege. When he sent his
+commissary to demand the homage of the inhabitants, they refused him
+admission, declaring that they acknowledged no sovereign but the
+bishop. The king then wrote a letter to the bishop, in which he
+complained of the violation of his right, and the contempt of his
+authority, charged the prelate with countenancing the late act of
+disobedience, and required an answer in two days.
+
+In three days the answer was sent, in which the bishop founds his
+claim to the two lordships, upon a grant of Charles the fifth,
+guaranteed by France and Spain; alleges that his predecessors had
+enjoyed this grant above a century, and that he never intended to
+infringe the rights of Prussia; but as the house of Brandenburgh had
+always made some pretensions to that territory, he was willing to do
+what other bishops had offered, to purchase that claim for a hundred
+thousand crowns.
+
+To every man that knows the state of the feudal countries, the
+intricacy of their pedigrees, the confusion of their alliances, and
+the different rules of inheritance that prevail in different places,
+it will appear evident, that of reviving antiquated claims there can
+be no end, and that the possession of a century is a better title than
+can commonly be produced. So long a prescription supposes an
+acquiescence in the other claimants; and that acquiescence supposes
+also some reason, perhaps now unknown, for which the claim was
+forborne. Whether this rule could be considered as valid in the
+controversy between these sovereigns, may, however, be doubted, for
+the bishop's answer seems to imply, that the title of the house of
+Brandenburg had been kept alive by repeated claims, though the seizure
+of the territory had been hitherto forborne.
+
+The king did not suffer his claim to be subjected to any altercations,
+but, having published a declaration, in which he charged the bishop
+with violence and injustice, and remarked that the feudal laws allowed
+every man, whose possession was withheld from him, to enter it with an
+armed force, he immediately despatched two thousand soldiers into the
+controverted countries, where they lived without control, exercising
+every kind of military tyranny, till the cries of the inhabitants
+forced the bishop to relinquish them to the quiet government of
+Prussia.
+
+This was but a petty acquisition; the time was now come when the king
+of Prussia was to form and execute greater designs. On the 9th of
+October, 1740, half Europe was thrown into confusion by the death of
+Charles the sixth, emperour of Germany, by whose death all the
+hereditary dominions of the house of Austria descended, according to
+the pragmatick sanction, to his eldest daughter, who was married to
+the duke of Lorrain, at the time of the emperour's death, duke of
+Tuscany.
+
+By how many securities the pragmatick sanction was fortified, and how
+little it was regarded when those securities became necessary; how
+many claimants started up at once to the several dominions of the
+house of Austria; how vehemently their pretensions were enforced, and
+how many invasions were threatened or attempted; the distresses of the
+emperour's daughter, known for several years by the title only of the
+queen of Hungary, because Hungary was the only country to which her
+claim had not been disputed: the firmness with which she struggled
+with her difficulties, and the good fortune by which she surmounted
+them; the narrow plan of this essay will not suffer me to relate. Let
+them be told by some other writer of more leisure and wider
+intelligence.
+
+Upon the emperour's death, many of the German princes fell upon the
+Austrian territories, as upon a dead carcass, to be dismembered among
+them without resistance. Among these, with whatever justice, certainly
+with very little generosity, was the king of Prussia, who, having
+assembled his troops, as was imagined, to support the pragmatick
+sanction, on a sudden entered Silesia with thirty thousand men,
+publishing a declaration, in which he disclaims any design of injuring
+the rights of the house of Austria, but urges his claim to Silesia, as
+rising "from ancient conventions of family and confraternity between
+the house of Brandenburg and the princes of Silesia, and other
+honourable titles." He says, the fear of being defeated by other
+pretenders to the Austrian dominions, obliged him to enter Silesia
+without any previous expostulation with the queen, and that he shall
+"strenuously espouse the interests of the house of Austria."
+
+Such a declaration was, I believe, in the opinion of all Europe,
+nothing less than the aggravation of hostility by insult, and was
+received by the Austrians with suitable indignation. The king pursued
+his purpose, marched forward, and in the frontiers of Silesia made a
+speech to his followers, in which he told them, that he considered
+them rather "as friends than subjects, that the troops of Brandenburg
+had been always eminent for their bravery, that they would always
+fight in his presence, and that he would recompense those who should
+distinguish themselves in his service, rather as a father than as a
+king."
+
+The civilities of the great are never thrown away. The soldiers would
+naturally follow such a leader with alacrity; especially because they
+expected no opposition: but human expectations are frequently
+deceived.
+
+Entering thus suddenly into a country which he was supposed rather
+likely to protect than to invade, he acted for some time with absolute
+authority; but, supposing that this submission would not always last,
+he endeavoured to persuade the queen to a cession of Silesia,
+imagining that she would easily be persuaded to yield what was already
+lost. He, therefore, ordered his minister to declare, at Vienna, "that
+he was ready to guarantee all the German dominions of the house of
+Austria; that he would conclude a treaty with Austria, Russia, and the
+maritime powers; that he would endeavour that the duke of Lorrain
+should be elected emperour, and believed that he could accomplish it;
+that he would immediately advance to the queen two millions of
+florins; that, in recompense for all this, he required Silesia to be
+yielded to him."
+
+These seem not to be the offers of a prince very much convinced of his
+own right. He afterwards moderated his claim, and ordered his minister
+to hint at Vienna, that half of Silesia would content him.
+
+The queen answered, that though the king alleged, as his reason for
+entering Silesia, the danger of the Austrian territories from other
+pretenders, and endeavoured to persuade her to give up part of her
+possessions for the preservation of the rest, it was evident that he
+was the first and only invader, and that, till he entered in a hostile
+manner, all her estates were unmolested.
+
+To his promises of assistance she replied, "that she set a high value
+on the king of Prussia's friendship; but that he was already obliged
+to assist her against her invaders, both by the golden bull, and the
+pragmatick sanction, of which he was a guarantee, and that, if these
+ties were of no force she knew not what to hope from other
+engagements."
+
+Of his offers of alliances with Russia and the maritime powers, she
+observed, that it could be never fit to alienate her dominions for the
+consolidation of an alliance formed only to keep them entire.
+
+With regard to his interest in the election of an emperour, she
+expressed her gratitude in strong terms; but added, that the election
+ought to be free, and that it must be necessarily embarrassed by
+contentions thus raised in the heart of the empire. Of the pecuniary
+assistance proposed, she remarks, that no prince ever made war to
+oblige another to take money, and that the contributions already
+levied in Silesia exceed the two millions, offered as its purchase.
+
+She concluded, that as she values the king's friendship, she was
+willing to purchase it by any compliance but the diminution of her
+dominions, and exhorted him to perform his part in support of the
+pragmatick sanction.
+
+The king, finding negotiation thus ineffectual, pushed forward his
+inroads, and now began to show how secretly he could take his
+measures. When he called a council of war, he proposed the question in
+a few words: all his generals wrote their opinions in his presence
+upon separate papers, which he carried away, and, examining them in
+private, formed his resolution, without imparting it otherwise than by
+his orders.
+
+He began not without policy, to seize first upon the estates of the
+clergy, an order every where necessary, and every where envied. He
+plundered the convents of their stores of provision; and told them,
+that he never had heard of any magazines erected by the apostles.
+
+This insult was mean, because it was unjust; but those who could not
+resist were obliged to bear it. He proceeded in his expedition; and a
+detachment of his troops took Jablunca, one of the strong places of
+Silesia, which was soon after abandoned, for want of provisions, which
+the Austrian hussars, who were now in motion, were busy to interrupt.
+
+One of the most remarkable events of the Silesia war, was the conquest
+of great Glogau, which was taken by an assault in the dark, headed by
+prince Leopold of Anhalt Dessau. They arrived at the foot of the
+fortifications about twelve at night, and in two hours were masters of
+the place. In attempts of this kind many accidents happen which cannot
+be heard without surprise. Four Prussian grenadiers, who had climbed
+the ramparts, missing their own company, met an Austrian captain with
+fifty-two men: they were at first frighted, and were about to retreat;
+but, gathering courage, commanded the Austrians to lay down their
+arms, and in the terrour of darkness and confusion were unexpectedly
+obeyed.
+
+At the same time a conspiracy to kill or carry away the king of
+Prussia, was said to be discovered. The Prussians published a
+memorial, in which the Austrian court was accused of employing
+emissaries and assassins against the king; and it was alleged, in
+direct terms, that one of them had confessed himself obliged, by oath,
+to destroy him, which oath had been given him in an Aulick council, in
+the presence of the duke of Lorrain.
+
+To this the Austrians answered, "that the character of the queen and
+duke was too well known not to destroy the force of such an
+accusation; that the tale of the confession was an imposture, and that
+no such attempt was ever made."
+
+Each party was now inflamed, and orders were given to the Austrian
+general to hazard a battle. The two armies met at Molwitz, and parted
+without a complete victory on either side. The Austrians quitted the
+field in good order; and the king of Prussia rode away upon the first
+disorder of his troops, without waiting for the last event. This
+attention to his personal safety has not yet been forgotten.
+
+After this, there was no action of much importance. But the king of
+Prussia, irritated by opposition, transferred his interest in the
+election to the duke of Bavaria; and the queen of Hungary, now
+attacked by France, Spain, and Bavaria, was obliged to make peace with
+him at the expense of half Silesia, without procuring those advantages
+which were once offered her.
+
+To enlarge dominions has been the boast of many princes; to diffuse
+happiness and security through wide regions has been granted to few.
+The king of Prussia has aspired to both these honours, and endeavoured
+to join the praise of legislator to that of conqueror.
+
+To settle property, to suppress false claims, and to regulate the
+administration of civil and criminal justice are attempts so difficult
+and so useful, that I shall willingly suspend or contract the history
+of battles and sieges, to give a larger account of this pacifick
+enterprise.
+
+That the king of Prussia has considered the nature and the reasons of
+laws, with more attention than is common to princes, appears from his
+dissertation on the Reasons for enacting and repealing Laws: a piece
+which yet deserves notice, rather as a proof of good inclination than
+of great ability; for there is nothing to be found in it more than the
+most obvious books may supply, or the weakest intellect discover. Some
+of his observations are just and useful; but upon such a subject who
+can think without often thinking right? It is, however, not to be
+omitted, that he appears always propense towards the side of mercy.
+"If a poor man," says he, "steals in his want a watch, or a few
+pieces, from one to whom the loss is inconsiderable, is this a reason
+for condemning him to death?"
+
+He regrets that the laws against duels have been ineffectual; and is
+of opinion, that they can never attain their end, unless the princes
+of Europe shall agree not to afford an asylum to duellists, and to
+punish all who shall insult their equals, either by word, deed, or
+writing. He seems to suspect this scheme of being chimerical. "Yet
+why," says he, "should not personal quarrels be submitted to judges,
+as well as questions of possession? and why should not a congress be
+appointed for the general good of mankind, as well as for so many
+purposes of less importance?"
+
+He declares himself with great ardour against the use of torture, and
+by some misinformation charges the English that they still retain it.
+
+It is, perhaps, impossible to review the laws of any country without
+discovering many defects and many superfluities. Laws often continue,
+when their reasons have ceased. Laws made for the first state of the
+society continue unabolished, when the general form of life is
+changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were, at first, only
+accidental, become, in time, essential; and formalities are
+accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more
+study than the discovery of right.
+
+The king of Prussia, examining the institutions of his own country,
+thought them such as could only be amended by a general abrogation,
+and the establishment of a new body of law, to which he gave the name
+of the Code Frédérique, which is comprised in one volume of no great
+bulk, and must, therefore, unavoidably contain general positions to be
+accommodated to particular cases by the wisdom and integrity of the
+courts. To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it
+by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all
+civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative
+wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
+
+Of this new system of laws, contracted as it is, a full account cannot
+be expected in these memoirs; but, that curiosity may not be dismissed
+without some gratification, it has been thought proper to epitomise
+the king's plan for the reformation of his courts.
+
+"The differences which arise between members of the same society, may
+be terminated by a voluntary agreement between the parties, by
+arbitration, or by a judicial process.
+
+"The two first methods produce, more frequently, a temporary
+suspension of disputes than a final termination. Courts of justice
+are, therefore, necessary, with a settled method of procedure, of
+which the most simple is to cite the parties, to hear their pleas, and
+dismiss them with immediate decision.
+
+"This, however, is, in many cases, impracticable, and in others is so
+seldom practised, that it is frequent rather to incur loss than to
+seek for legal reparation, by entering a labyrinth of which there is
+no end.
+
+"This tediousness of suits keeps the parties in disquiet and
+perturbation, rouses and perpetuates animosities, exhausts the
+litigants by expense, retards the progress of their fortune, and
+discourages strangers from settling.
+
+"These inconveniencies, with which the best-regulated polities of
+Europe are embarrassed, must be removed, not by the total prohibition
+of suits, which is impossible, but by contraction of processes; by
+opening an easy way for the appearance of truth, and removing all
+obstructions by which it is concealed.
+
+"The ordonnance of 1667, by which Lewis the fourteenth established an
+uniformity of procedure through all his courts, has been considered as
+one of the greatest benefits of his reign.
+
+"The king of Prussia, observing that each of his provinces had a
+different method of judicial procedure, proposed to reduce them all to
+one form; which being tried with success in Pomerania, a province
+remarkable for contention, he afterwards extended to all his
+dominions, ordering the judges to inform him of any difficulties which
+arose from it.
+
+"Some settled method is necessary in judicial procedures. Small and
+simple causes might be decided upon the oral pleas of the two parties
+appearing before the judge; but many cases are so entangled and
+perplexed as to require all the skill and abilities of those who
+devote their lives to the study of the law.
+
+"Advocates, or men who can understand and explain the question to be
+discussed, are, therefore, necessary. But these men, instead of
+endeavouring to promote justice and discover truth, have exerted their
+wits in the defence of bad causes, by forgeries of facts, and
+fallacies of argument.
+
+"To remedy this evil, the king has ordered an inquiry into the
+qualifications of the advocate. All those who practise without a
+regular admission, or who can be convicted of disingenuous practice,
+are discarded. And the judges are commanded to examine which of the
+causes now depending have been protracted by the crimes and ignorance
+of the advocates, and to dismiss those who shall appear culpable.
+
+"When advocates are too numerous to live by honest practice, they busy
+themselves in exciting disputes, and disturbing the community: the
+number of these to be employed in each court is, therefore, fixed.
+
+"The reward of the advocates is fixed with due regard to the nature of
+the cause, and the labour required; but not a penny is received by
+them till the suit is ended, that it may be their interest, as well as
+that of the clients, to shorten the process.
+
+"No advocate is admitted in petty courts, small towns, or villages;
+where the poverty of the people, and, for the most part, the low value
+of the matter contested, make despatch absolutely necessary. In those
+places the parties shall appear in person, and the judge make a
+summary decision.
+
+"There must, likewise, be allowed a subordination of tribunals, and a
+power of appeal. No judge is so skilful and attentive as not sometimes
+to err. Few are so honest as not sometimes to be partial. Petty judges
+would become insupportably tyrannical if they were not restrained by
+the fear of a superiour judicature; and their decisions would be
+negligent or arbitrary if they were not in danger of seeing them
+examined and cancelled.
+
+"The right of appeal must be restrained, that causes may not be
+transferred without end from court to court; and a peremptory decision
+must, at last, be made.
+
+"When an appeal is made to a higher court, the appellant is allowed
+only four weeks to frame his bill, the judge of the lower court being
+to transmit to the higher all the evidences and informations. If, upon
+the first view of the cause thus opened, it shall appear that the
+appeal was made without just cause, the first sentence shall be
+confirmed without citation of the defendant. If any new evidence shall
+appear, or any doubts arise, both the parties shall be heard.
+
+"In the discussion of causes altercation must be allowed; yet to
+altercation some limits must be put. There are, therefore, allowed a
+bill, an answer, a reply, and a rejoinder, to be delivered in writing.
+
+"No cause is allowed to be heard in more than three different courts.
+To further the first decision, every advocate is enjoined, under
+severe penalties, not to begin a suit till he has collected all the
+necessary evidence. If the first court has decided in an
+unsatisfactory manner, an appeal may be made to the second, and from
+the second to the third. The process in each appeal is limited to six
+months. The third court may, indeed, pass an erroneous judgment; and
+then the injury is without redress. But this objection is without end,
+and, therefore, without force. No method can be found of preserving
+humanity from errour; but of contest there must sometime be an end;
+and he, who thinks himself injured for want of an appeal to a fourth
+court, must consider himself as suffering for the publick.
+
+"There is a special advocate appointed for the poor.
+
+"The attorneys, who had formerly the care of collecting evidence, and
+of adjusting all the preliminaries of a suit, are now totally
+dismissed; the whole affair is put into the hands of the advocates,
+and the office of an attorney is annulled for ever.
+
+"If any man is hindered by some lawful impediment from attending his
+suit, time will be granted him upon the representation of his case."
+
+Such is the order according to which civil justice is administered
+through the extensive dominions of the king of Prussia; which, if it
+exhibits nothing very subtle or profound, affords one proof more that
+the right is easily discovered, and that men do not so often want
+ability to find, as willingness to practise it.
+
+We now return to the war.
+
+The time at which the queen of Hungary was willing to purchase peace
+by the resignation of Silesia, though it came at last, was not come
+yet. She had all the spirit, though not all the power of her
+ancestors, and could not bear the thought of losing any part of her
+patrimonial dominions to the enemies which the opinion of her weakness
+raised every where against her.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1742, the elector of Bavaria was invested
+with the imperial dignity, supported by the arms of France, master of
+the kingdom of Bohemia; and confederated with the elector Palatine,
+and the elector of Saxony, who claimed Moravia; and with the king of
+Prussia, who was in possession of Silesia.
+
+Such was the state of the queen of Hungary, pressed on every side, and
+on every side preparing for resistance: she yet refused all offers of
+accommodation, for every prince set peace at a price which she was not
+yet so far humbled as to pay.
+
+The king of Prussia was among the most zealous and forward in the
+confederacy against her. He promised to secure Bohemia to the
+emperour, and Moravia to the elector of Saxony; and, finding no enemy
+in the field able to resist him, he returned to Berlin, and left
+Schwerin, his general, to prosecute the conquest.
+
+The Prussians, in the midst of winter, took Olmutz, the capital of
+Moravia, and laid the whole country under contribution. The cold then
+hindered them from action, and they only blocked up the fortresses of
+Brinn, and Spielberg.
+
+In the spring, the king of Prussia came again into the field, and
+undertook the siege of Brinn; but, upon the approach of prince Charles
+of Lorrain, retired from before it, and quitted Moravia, leaving only
+a garrison in the capital.
+
+The condition of the queen of Hungary was now changed. She was, a few
+months before, without money, without troops, encircled with enemies.
+The Bavarians had entered Austria, Vienna was threatened with a siege,
+and the queen left it to the fate of war, and retired into Hungary,
+where she was received with zeal and affection, not unmingled,
+however, with that neglect which must always be borne by greatness in
+distress. She bore the disrespect of her subjects with the same
+firmness as the outrages of her enemies; and, at last, persuaded the
+English not to despair of her preservation, by not despairing herself.
+
+Voltaire, in his late history, has asserted, that a large sum was
+raised for her succour, by voluntary subscriptions of the English
+ladies. It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch
+greedily at wonders. He was misinformed, and was, perhaps, unwilling
+to learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing. A
+contribution was, by news-writers, upon their own authority,
+fruitlessly, and, I think, illegally proposed. It ended in nothing.
+The parliament voted a supply, and five hundred thousand pounds were
+remitted to her.
+
+It has been always the weakness of the Austrian family to spend in the
+magnificence of empire, those revenues which should be kept for its
+defence. The court is splendid, but the treasury is empty; and, at the
+beginning of every war, advantages are gained against them, before
+their armies can be assembled and equipped.
+
+The English money was to the Austrians, as a shower to a field, where
+all the vegetative powers are kept unactive by a long continuance of
+drought. The armies, which had hitherto been hid in mountains and
+forests, started out of their retreats; and, wherever the queen's
+standard was erected, nations scarcely known by their names, swarmed
+immediately about it. An army, especially a defensive army, multiplies
+itself. The contagion of enterprise spreads from one heart to another.
+Zeal for a native, or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of
+sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular
+men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty
+and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank
+to rank, and squadron to squadron.
+
+The queen had still enemies on every part, but she now, on every part,
+had armies ready to oppose them. Austria was immediately recovered;
+the plains of Bohemia were filled with her troops, though the
+fortresses were garrisoned by the French. The Bavarians were recalled
+to the defence of their own country, now wasted by the incursions of
+troops that were called barbarians, greedy enough of plunder, and
+daring, perhaps, beyond the rules of war, but otherwise not more cruel
+than those whom they attacked. Prince Lobkowitz, with one army,
+observed the motions of Broglio, the French general, in Bohemia; and
+prince Charles with another, put a stop to the advances of the king of
+Prussia.
+
+It was now the turn of the Prussians to retire. They abandoned Olmutz,
+and left behind them part of their cannon and their magazines. And the
+king, finding that Broglio could not long oppose prince Lobkowitz,
+hastened into Bohemia to his assistance; and having received a
+reinforcement of twenty-three thousand men, and taken the castle of
+Glatz, which, being built upon a rock scarcely accessible, would have
+defied all his power, had the garrison been furnished with provisions,
+he purposed to join his allies, and prosecute his conquests.
+
+Prince Charles, seeing Moravia thus evacuated by the Prussians,
+determined to garrison the towns which he had just recovered, and
+pursue the enemy, who, by the assistance of the French, would have
+been too powerful for prince Lobkowitz.
+
+Success had now given confidence to the Austrians, and had
+proportionably abated the spirit of their enemies. The Saxons, who had
+cooperated with the king of Prussia in the conquest of Moravia, of
+which they expected the perpetual possession, seeing all hopes of
+sudden acquisition defeated, and the province left again to its former
+masters, grew weary of following a prince, whom they considered as no
+longer acting the part of their confederate; and when they approached
+the confines of Bohemia took a different road, and left the Prussians
+to their own fortune.
+
+The king continued his march, and Charles his pursuit. At Czaslau the
+two armies came in sight of one another, and the Austrians resolved on
+a decisive day. On the 6th of May, about seven in the morning, the
+Austrians began the attack: their impetuosity was matched by the
+firmness of the Prussians. The animosity of the two armies was much
+inflamed: the Austrians were fighting for their country, and the
+Prussians were in a place, where defeat must inevitably end in death
+or captivity. The fury of the battle continued four hours: the
+Prussian horse were, at length, broken, and the Austrians forced their
+way to the camp, where the wild troops, who had fought with so much
+vigour and constancy, at the sight of plunder forgot their obedience,
+nor had any man the least thought but how to load himself with the
+richest spoils.
+
+While the right wing of the Austrians was thus employed, the main body
+was left naked: the Prussians recovered from their confusion, and
+regained the day. Charles was, at last, forced to retire, and carried
+with him the standards of his enemies, the proofs of a victory, which,
+though so nearly gained, he had not been able to keep.
+
+The victory, however, was dearly bought; the Prussian army was much
+weakened, and the cavalry almost totally destroyed. Peace is easily
+made when it is necessary to both parties; and the king of Prussia had
+now reason to believe that the Austrians were not his only enemies.
+When he found Charles advancing, he sent to Broglio for assistance,
+and was answered, that "he must have orders from Versailles." Such a
+desertion of his most powerful ally disconcerted him, but the battle
+was unavoidable.
+
+When the Prussians were returned to the camp, the king, hearing that
+an Austrian officer was brought in mortally wounded, had the
+condescension to visit him. The officer, struck with this act of
+humanity, said, after a short conversation: "I should die, sir,
+contentedly after this honour, if I might first show my gratitude to
+your majesty by informing you with what allies you are now united,
+allies that have no intention but to deceive you." The king appearing
+to suspect this intelligence; "Sir," said the Austrian, "if you will
+permit me to send a messenger to Vienna, I believe the queen will not
+refuse to transmit an intercepted letter now in her hands, which will
+put my report beyond all doubt."
+
+The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained
+the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops
+on any occasion with the Prussians. Secondly, he was ordered to act
+always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of
+twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe
+very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly,
+to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the
+absence of Bellisle.
+
+The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from
+the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the
+French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in
+three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of
+Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country
+of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one
+third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it
+is stipulated, "that neither should assist the enemies of the other."
+
+The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from
+the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to
+peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his
+imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was
+treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city
+which they had taken from her.
+
+Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own
+capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals,
+concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to
+the augmentation of his army.
+
+This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first
+proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels.
+Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend
+and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of
+intelligence. Men who have great confidence in their own penetration
+are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can
+pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence
+necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they
+believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none
+will try. Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was
+in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king's
+adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a
+distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion.
+Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of
+June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to
+keep a neutrality.
+
+This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem
+agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary
+but the determination of a very few men to be silent.
+
+From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted
+torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and
+deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with
+their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague,
+which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town
+besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any
+prospect appeared of relief.
+
+The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden
+and tumultuary excursions, rather than a regular war, had no great
+degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They, likewise, would
+naturally consider all the mischiefs done to the city, as falling,
+ultimately, upon themselves; and, therefore, were willing to gain it
+by time rather than by force.
+
+It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it
+must be yielded at last, and, therefore, all arts were tried to obtain
+an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent
+back, sometimes unheard, but always with this answer: "That no terms
+would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of
+war."
+
+The condition of the garrison was, in the eyes of all Europe,
+desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity
+cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their
+arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in
+Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprise was
+considered as romantick. Maillebois was a march of forty days distant
+from Bohemia, the passes were narrow, and the ways foul; and it was
+likely that Prague would be taken before he could reach it. The march
+was, however, begun: the army, being joined by that of count Saxe,
+consisted of fifty thousand men, who, notwithstanding all the
+difficulties which two Austrian armies could put in their way, at last
+entered Bohemia. The siege of Prague, though not raised, was remitted,
+and a communication was now opened to it with the country. But the
+Austrians, by perpetual intervention, hindered the garrison from
+joining their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited him to a
+battle, because the army was hourly lessening by the want of
+provisions; but, instead of pressing on to Prague, he retired into
+Bavaria, and completed the ruin of the emperour's territories.
+
+The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief
+command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little
+difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle, by a sudden
+sally, quitted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main
+army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions,
+wasting, in his retreat, the country which he had undertaken to
+protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with
+such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected
+commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means.
+
+The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong
+places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made
+themselves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich, the capital,
+but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector's
+dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of
+ammunition, intended, in the dreams of projected greatness, for the
+siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and
+ornaments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as
+most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken
+away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the
+Bavarians, but without any explanation, whether temporary or
+perpetual.
+
+The emperour lived at Frankfort, in the security that was allowed to
+neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes,
+except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of
+his election, the king of Prussia declared himself determined to
+support him in the imperial dignity, with all his power.
+
+This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the queen
+of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German
+princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an
+emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the
+whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of
+suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be
+objected, that voices were procured by illicit influence.
+
+Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king's declaration, which
+he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at
+London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty
+of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not
+satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice
+disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked
+him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he
+appeared openly as an enemy.
+
+About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting
+his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this
+time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover;
+not, perhaps, because they were thought necessary, but that the king's
+designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were
+not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in
+danger, and that he could not believe the elector of Hanover to be in
+much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops,
+and put them into the pay of England.
+
+He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that
+his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the
+scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the
+French out of Bavaria, lay, for some months, encamped on the Rhine,
+endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been
+evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till, at
+last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in
+the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of
+Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would, in
+their turn, feel the miseries of war; and the nation, which so long
+kept the world in alarm, be taught, at last, the value of peace.
+
+The king of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance
+from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of
+all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he
+had lately made a treaty at Frankfort with the emperour, by which he
+had engaged, "that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared
+backward to reestablish the tranquillity of the empire, and more
+cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of
+cooperating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an
+expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the
+possession of the emperour, his heirs and successours, for ever; in
+gratitude for which the emperour should resign to him and his
+successours a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the
+kingdom of Bohemia. His imperial majesty likewise guaranties to the
+king of Prussia the perpetual possession of upper Silesia; and the
+king guaranties to the emperour the perpetual possession of upper
+Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest."
+
+It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives
+than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show
+to the emperour, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In
+prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according
+to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded
+Bohemia.
+
+Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves
+obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are, indeed,
+not always very satisfactory.
+
+Lewis the fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive
+for the invasion of Holland. The czar attacked Charles of Sweden,
+because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a
+journey in disguise. The king of Prussia, having an opportunity of
+attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July
+30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares:
+
+"That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in
+Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the
+power of the laws, and the authority of the emperour.
+
+"That the queen of Hungary has treated the emperour's hereditary
+dominions with inexpressible cruelty.
+
+"That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched
+through neutral countries without the customary requisitions.
+
+"That the emperour's troops have been attacked under neutral
+fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master
+is the head.
+
+"That the imperial dignity has been treated with indecency by the
+Hungarian troops.
+
+"The queen, declaring the election of the emperour void, and the diet
+of Frankfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but
+injured all the princes who have the right of election.
+
+"That he had no particular quarrel with the queen of Hungary; and that
+he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a
+war for the liberties of Germany.
+
+"That the emperour had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions
+of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to
+him.
+
+"That this proposal had been made to the king of England at Hanau, and
+rejected in such a manner as showed, that the king of England had no
+intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the
+troubles.
+
+"That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they
+declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and
+Austrian courts.
+
+"That the same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected;
+that, therefore, the queen must impute it to her own councils, that
+her enemies find new allies.
+
+"That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands
+nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in
+defence of the emperour, in vindication of the right of election, and
+in support of the liberties of Germany, which the queen of Hungary
+would enslave."
+
+When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it
+was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the
+foregoing positions were repeated; the emperour's candour and
+disinterestedness were magnified; the dangerous designs of the
+Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them, as the most flagrant
+violation of the Germanick constitution, that they had driven the
+emperour's troops out of the empire; the publick spirit and generosity
+of his Prussian majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said,
+that this quarrel having no connexion with English interests, the
+English ought not to interpose.
+
+Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this
+declaration, which, at once, dismounted them from the summit of
+success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What
+succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France, was never
+publickly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince, so
+watchful of opportunity, sold assistance, when it was so much wanted,
+at the highest rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to
+so much hazard only for the freedom of Germany, and a few petty
+districts in Bohemia.
+
+The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting
+whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven
+into their own dominions, and, in their own dominions, were insulted
+and pursued, were, on a sudden, by this new auxiliary, restored to
+their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders,
+and delivered from their terrours. And all the enemies of the house of
+Bourbon saw, with indignation and amazement, the recovery of that
+power which they had, with so much cost and bloodshed, brought low,
+and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet
+lower than it was.
+
+The queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian
+declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to
+the European princes, with some observations on the Prussian
+minister's remonstrance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered
+by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The
+same caution was practised before, when the Prussians, after the
+emperour's death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate
+may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the
+refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very
+difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use
+to honesty or wisdom, and as it has been long known to that class of
+men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly
+in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much
+advance the reputation of regal understanding, or, indeed, that it can
+add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that
+shall adopt it.
+
+The queen, in her answer, after charging the king of Prussia with
+breach of the treaty of Breslaw, and observing how much her enemies
+will exult to see the peace now the third time broken by him,
+declares:
+
+"That she had no intention to injure the rights of the electors, and
+that she calls in question not the event, but the manner of the
+election.
+
+"That she had spared the emperour's troops with great tenderness, and
+that they were driven out of the empire, only because they were in the
+service of France.
+
+"That she is so far from disturbing the peace of the empire, that the
+only commotions now raised in it are the effect of the armaments of
+the king of Prussia."
+
+Nothing is more tedious than publick records, when they relate to
+affairs which, by distance of time or place, lose their power to
+interest the reader. Every thing grows little, as it grows remote; and
+of things thus diminished, it is sufficient to survey the aggregate
+without a minute examination of the parts.
+
+It is easy to perceive, that, if the king of Prussia's reasons be
+sufficient, ambition or animosity can never want a plea for violence
+and invasion. What he charges upon the queen of Hungary, the waste of
+country, the expulsion of the Bavarians, and the employment of foreign
+troops, is the unavoidable consequence of a war inflamed on either
+side to the utmost violence. All these grievances subsisted when he
+made the peace, and, therefore, they could very little justify its
+breach.
+
+It is true, that every prince of the empire is obliged to support the
+imperial dignity, and assist the emperour, when his rights are
+violated. And every subsequent contract must be understood in a sense
+consistent with former obligations. Nor had the king power to make a
+peace on terms contrary to that constitution by which he held a place
+among the Germanick electors. But he could have easily discovered,
+that not the emperour, but the duke of Bavaria, was the queen's enemy;
+not the administrator of the imperial power, but the claimant of the
+Austrian dominions. Nor did his allegiance to the emperour, supposing
+the emperour injured, oblige him to more than a succour of ten
+thousand men. But ten thousand men could not conquer Bohemia, and
+without the conquest of Bohemia he could receive no reward for the
+zeal and fidelity which he so loudly professed.
+
+The success of this enterprise he had taken all possible precaution to
+secure. He was to invade a country guarded only by the faith of
+treaties, and, therefore, left unarmed, and unprovided of all defence.
+He had engaged the French to attack prince Charles, before he should
+repass the Rhine, by which the Austrians would, at least, have been
+hindered from a speedy march into Bohemia: they were, likewise, to
+yield him such other assistance as he might want.
+
+Relying, therefore, upon the promises of the French, he resolved to
+attempt the ruin of the house of Austria, and, in August, 1744, broke
+into Bohemia, at the head of a hundred and four thousand men. When he
+entered the country, he published a proclamation, promising, that his
+army should observe the strictest discipline, and that those who made
+no resistance should be suffered to remain in quiet in their
+habitations. He required that all arms, in the custody of whomsoever
+they might be placed, should be given up, and put into the hands of
+publick officers. He still declared himself to act only as an
+auxiliary to the emperour, and with no other design than to establish
+peace and tranquillity throughout Germany, his dear country.
+
+In this proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not
+remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be
+found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that,
+if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their
+custody, his village shall be reduced to ashes.
+
+It is hard to find upon what pretence the king of Prussia could treat
+the Bohemians as criminals, for preparing to defend their native
+country, or maintaining their allegiance to their lawful sovereign
+against an invader, whether he appears principal or auxiliary, whether
+he professes to intend tranquillity or confusion.
+
+His progress was such as gave great hopes to the enemies of Austria:
+like Caesar, he conquered as he advanced, and met with no opposition,
+till he reached the walls of Prague. The indignation and resentment of
+the queen of Hungary may be easily conceived; the alliance of
+Frankfort was now laid open to all Europe; and the partition of the
+Austrian dominions was again publickly projected. They were to be
+shared among the emperour, the king of Prussia, the elector Palatine,
+and the landgrave of Hesse. All the powers of Europe who had dreamed
+of controlling France, were awakened to their former terrours; all
+that had been done was now to be done again; and every court, from the
+straits of Gibraltar to the Frozen sea, was filled with exultation or
+terrour, with schemes of conquest, or precautions for defence.
+
+The king, delighted with his progress, and expecting, like other
+mortals elated with success, that his prosperity could not be
+interrupted, continued his march, and began, in the latter end of
+September, the siege of Prague. He had gained several of the outer
+posts, when he was informed that the convoy, which attended his
+artillery, was attacked by an unexpected party of the Austrians. The
+king went immediately to their assistance, with the third part of his
+army, and found his troops put to flight, and the Austrians hasting
+away with his cannons: such a loss would have disabled him at once. He
+fell upon the Austrians, whose number would not enable them to
+withstand him, recovered his artillery, and, having also defeated
+Bathiani, raised his batteries; and, there being no artillery to be
+placed against him, he destroyed a great part of the city. He then
+ordered four attacks to be made at once, and reduced the besieged to
+such extremities, that in fourteen days the governour was obliged to
+yield the place.
+
+At the attack, commanded by Schwerin, a grenadier is reported to have
+mounted the bastion alone, and to have defended himself, for some
+time, with his sword, till his followers mounted after him; for this
+act of bravery, the king made him a lieutenant, and gave him a patent
+of nobility.
+
+Nothing now remained but that the Austrians should lay aside all
+thought of invading France, and apply their whole power to their own
+defence. Prince Charles, at the first news of the Prussian invasion,
+prepared to repass the Rhine. This the French, according to their
+contract with the king of Prussia, should have attempted to hinder;
+but they knew, by experience, the Austrians would not be beaten
+without resistance, and that resistance always incommodes an
+assailant. As the king of Prussia rejoiced in the distance of the
+Austrians, whom he considered as entangled in the French territories;
+the French rejoiced in the necessity of their return, and pleased
+themselves with the prospect of easy conquests, while powers, whom
+they considered with equal malevolence, should be employed in
+massacring each other.
+
+Prince Charles took the opportunity of bright moonshine to repass the
+Rhine; and Noailles, who had early intelligence of his motions, gave
+him very little disturbance, but contented himself with attacking the
+rearguard, and, when they retired to the main body, ceased his
+pursuit.
+
+The king, upon the reduction of Prague, struck a medal, which had on
+one side a plan of the town, with this inscription:
+
+  "Prague taken by the king of Prussia,
+    September 16, 1744;
+  For the third time in three years."
+
+On the other side were two verses, in which he prayed, "that his
+conquests might produce peace." He then marched forward with the
+rapidity which constitutes his military character; took possession of
+almost all Bohemia, and began to talk of entering Austria and
+besieging Vienna.
+
+The queen was not yet wholly without resource. The elector of Saxony,
+whether invited or not, was not comprised in the union of Frankfort;
+and, as every sovereign is growing less as his next neighbour is
+growing greater, he could not heartily wish success to a confederacy
+which was to aggrandize the other powers of Germany. The Prussians
+gave him, likewise, a particular and immediate provocation to oppose
+them; for, when they departed to the conquest of Bohemia, with all the
+elation of imaginary success, they passed through his dominions with
+unlicensed and contemptuous disdain of his authority. As the approach
+of prince Charles gave a new prospect of events, he was easily
+persuaded to enter into an alliance with the queen, whom he furnished
+with a very large body of troops.
+
+The king of Prussia having left a garrison in Prague, which he
+commanded to put the burghers to death, if they left their houses in
+the night, went forward to take the other towns and fortresses,
+expecting, perhaps, that prince Charles would be interrupted in his
+march; but the French, though they appeared to follow him, either
+could not, or would not, overtake him.
+
+In a short time, by marches pressed on with the utmost eagerness,
+Charles reached Bohemia, leaving the Bavarians to regain the
+possession of the wasted plains of their country, which their enemies,
+who still kept the strong places, might again seize at will. At the
+approach of the Austrian army, the courage of the king of Prussia
+seemed to have failed him. He retired from post to post, and evacuated
+town after town, and fortress after fortress, without resistance, or
+appearance of resistance, as if he was resigning them to the rightful
+owners.
+
+It might have been expected, that he should have made some effort to
+rescue Prague; but, after a faint attempt to dispute the passage of
+the Elbe, he ordered his garrison of eleven thousand men to quit the
+place. They left behind them their magazines and heavy artillery,
+among which were seven pieces of remarkable excellence, called "the
+seven electors." But they took with them their field cannon, and a
+great number of carriages, laden with stores and plunder, which they
+were forced to leave, in their way, to the Saxons and Austrians that
+harassed their march. They, at last, entered Silesia, with the loss of
+about a third part.
+
+The king of Prussia suffered much in his retreat; for, besides the
+military stores, which he left every where behind him, even to the
+clothes of his troops, there was a want of provisions in his army,
+and, consequently, frequent desertions and many diseases; and a
+soldier sick or killed was equally lost to a flying army.
+
+At last he reentered his own territories, and, having stationed his
+troops in places of security, returned, for a time, to Berlin, where
+he forbade all to speak either ill or well of the campaign.
+
+To what end such a prohibition could conduce, it is difficult to
+discover: there is no country in which men can be forbidden to know
+what they know, and what is universally known may as well be spoken.
+It is true, that in popular governments seditious discourses may
+inflame the vulgar; but in such governments they cannot be restrained,
+and in absolute monarchies they are of little effect.
+
+When the Prussians invaded Bohemia, and this whole nation was fired
+with resentment, the king of England gave orders in his palace, that
+none should mention his nephew with disrespect; by this command he
+maintained the decency necessary between princes, without enforcing,
+and, probably, without expecting obedience, but in his own presence.
+
+The king of Prussia's edict regarded only himself, and, therefore, it
+is difficult to tell what was his motive, unless he intended to spare
+himself the mortification of absurd and illiberal flattery, which, to
+a mind stung with disgrace, must have been in the highest degree
+painful and disgusting.
+
+Moderation in prosperity is a virtue very difficult to all mortals;
+forbearance of revenge, when revenge is within reach, is scarcely ever
+to be found among princes. Now was the time when the queen of Hungary
+might, perhaps, have made peace on her own terms; but keenness of
+resentment, and arrogance of success, withheld her from the due use of
+the present opportunity. It is said, that the king of Prussia, in his
+retreat, sent letters to prince Charles, which were supposed to
+contain ample concessions, but were sent back unopened. The king of
+England offered, likewise, to mediate between them; but his
+propositions were rejected at Vienna, where a resolution was taken,
+not only to revenge the interruption of their success on the Rhine, by
+the recovery of Silesia, but to reward the Saxons for their seasonable
+help, by giving them part of the Prussian dominions.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1745, died the emperour Charles of
+Bavaria; the treaty of Frankfort was consequently at an end; and the
+king of Prussia, being no longer able to maintain the character of
+auxiliary to the emperour, and having avowed no other reason for the
+war, might have honourably withdrawn his forces, and, on his own
+principles, have complied with terms of peace; but no terms were
+offered him; the queen pursued him with the utmost ardour of
+hostility, and the French left him to his own conduct and his own
+destiny.
+
+His Bohemian conquests were already lost; and he was now chased back
+into Silesia, where, at the beginning of the year, the war continued
+in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages. In April, the
+elector of Bavaria, seeing his dominions overrun by the Austrians, and
+receiving very little succour from the French, made a peace with the
+queen of Hungary upon easy conditions, and the Austrians had more
+troops to employ against Prussia.
+
+But the revolutions of war will not suffer human presumption to remain
+long unchecked. The peace with Bavaria was scarcely concluded when,
+the battle of Fontenoy was lost, and all the allies of Austria called
+upon her to exert her utmost power for the preservation of the Low
+Countries; and, a few days after the loss at Fontenoy, the first
+battle between the Prussians and the combined army of Austrians and
+Saxons, was fought at Niedburg in Silesia.
+
+The particulars of this battle were variously reported by the
+different parties, and published in the journals of that time; to
+transcribe them would be tedious and useless, because accounts of
+battles are not easily understood, and because there are no means of
+determining to which of the relations credit should be given. It is
+sufficient that they all end in claiming or allowing a complete
+victory to the king of Prussia, who gained all the Austrian artillery,
+killed four thousand, took seven thousand prisoners, with the loss,
+according to the Prussian narrative, of only sixteen hundred men.
+
+He now advanced again into Bohemia, where, however, he made no great
+progress. The queen of Hungary, though defeated, was not subdued. She
+poured in her troops from all parts to the reinforcement of prince
+Charles, and determined to continue the struggle with all her power.
+The king saw that Bohemia was an unpleasing and inconvenient theatre
+of war, in which he should be ruined by a miscarriage, and should get
+little by a victory. Saxony was left defenceless, and, if it was
+conquered, might be plundered.
+
+He, therefore, published a declaration against the elector of Saxony,
+and, without waiting for reply, invaded his dominions. This invasion
+produced another battle at Standentz, which ended, as the former, to
+the advantage of the Prussians. The Austrians had some advantage in
+the beginning; and their irregular troops, who are always daring, and
+are always ravenous, broke into the Prussian camp, and carried away
+the military chest. But this was easily repaired by the spoils of
+Saxony.
+
+The queen of Hungary was still inflexible, and hoped that fortune
+would, at last, change. She recruited once more her army, and prepared
+to invade the territories of Brandenburg; but the king of Prussia's
+activity prevented all her designs. One part of his forces seized
+Leipsic, and the other once more defeated the Saxons; the king of
+Poland fled from his dominions; prince Charles retired into Bohemia.
+The king of Prussia entered Dresden as a conqueror, exacted very
+severe contributions from the whole country, and the Austrians and
+Saxons were, at last, compelled to receive from him such a peace as he
+would grant. He imposed no severe conditions, except the payment of
+the contributions, made no new claim of dominions, and, with the
+elector Palatine, acknowledged the duke of Tuscany for emperour.
+
+The lives of princes, like the histories of nations, have their
+periods. We shall here suspend our narrative of the king of Prussia,
+who was now at the height of human greatness, giving laws to his
+enemies, and courted by all the powers of Europe.
+
+
+
+
+BROWNE.
+
+
+Though the writer of the following essays [64] seems to have had the
+fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity
+after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of
+his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a
+posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account
+of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification
+of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of
+nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon
+attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its
+possessours, or virtue on its teachers.
+
+Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in
+Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605 [65]. His father was a
+merchant, of an ancient family at Upton, in Cheshire. Of the name or
+family of his mother I find no account.
+
+Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost
+his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of
+orphans [66], defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was
+placed, for his education, at the school of Winchester.
+
+His mother, having taken three thousand pounds [67], as the third part
+of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand,
+a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time, when
+commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it
+happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for
+his mother soon married sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement
+of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian,
+deprived now of both his parents, and, therefore, helpless, and
+unprotected.
+
+He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623, from Winchester to
+Oxford [68], and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate hall, which
+was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke college,
+from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. He was
+admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7; being,
+as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new
+college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most,
+can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.
+
+Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his
+studies to physick [69], and practised it for some time in
+Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or
+invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his
+father-in-law [70], who had some employment in Ireland, in a
+visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then
+made necessary.
+
+He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of
+acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it.
+Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of
+a man of letters; he, therefore, passed into France and Italy [71];
+made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the
+celebrated schools of physick; and, returning home through Holland,
+procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.
+
+When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no
+certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
+his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
+therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
+the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
+indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
+which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
+lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
+frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it
+is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to
+minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to
+deserve the notice of the publick.
+
+About the year 1634 [72], he is supposed to have returned to London;
+and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
+Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician [73]," which he declares
+himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
+for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many
+passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
+importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him
+as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
+think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
+it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
+with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
+not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
+but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without
+his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.
+
+This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing
+to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely,
+some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
+surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
+without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
+repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long
+treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
+curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
+is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
+by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
+copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is
+found faulty or offensive, and charge the errours on the transcriber's
+depravations.
+
+This is a stratagem, by which an author, panting for fame, and yet
+afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and
+preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a
+retreat; and this candour might suffer to pass undetected, as an
+innocent fraud, but that, indeed, no fraud is innocent; for the
+confidence which makes the happiness of society is, in some degree,
+diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.
+
+The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the
+attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.
+
+What is much read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset
+recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned
+his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
+mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute
+remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal
+claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours [74],
+of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in
+reading it.
+
+Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either
+officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to sir Kenelm,
+with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his
+work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition,
+and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally
+genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece,
+pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability,
+and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.
+
+The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes
+in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two
+luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the
+obscuration of each other? yet the animadversions thus weak, thus
+precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly
+passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published,
+with an admonition prefixed, "to those who have or shall peruse the
+observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe
+censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon
+the observator who had usurped his name; nor was this invective
+written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his
+opponent's apology; but by some officious friend, zealous for his
+honour, without his consent.
+
+Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself
+from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are
+delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and,
+therefore, many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and
+not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." The first glance upon
+his book will, indeed, discover examples of this liberty of thought
+and expression: "I could be content," says he, "to be nothing almost
+to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last." He has little
+acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a
+serious opinion, that any thing can be "almost eternal," or that any
+time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite
+duration.
+
+In this book he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of
+himself; but with such generality and conciseness, as affords very
+little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the
+dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he
+was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries;
+but what most awakens curiosity is, his solemn assertion, that "his
+life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate were not
+history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable."
+
+There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which all life is miraculous; as it
+is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession
+of motions, of which the first cause must be supernatural; but life,
+thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of
+fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something,
+by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.
+
+Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life
+offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of
+others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.
+A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed,
+more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of
+adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts;
+and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
+and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing
+miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so
+poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of
+guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own
+mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile
+as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
+man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the
+crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
+leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
+will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
+distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
+of nature or of fortune.
+
+The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage
+the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge [75], whose
+name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
+his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
+French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with
+large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English
+annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book,
+the author is unknown.
+
+Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
+sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published
+a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the
+attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland
+with some difficulty [76]. The first printer to whom he offered it,
+carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for
+three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards
+rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.
+
+The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
+admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
+answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus [77], by
+Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.
+
+At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
+Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr.
+Lushington [78], his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate,
+in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was
+very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was
+incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf [79].
+
+He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham [80], of a good family in Norfolk;
+"a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her
+worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they
+seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism."
+
+This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits
+[81] upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we
+might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately
+declared [82], that "the whole world was made for man, but only the
+twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but
+woman only the rib or crooked part of man."
+
+Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous
+positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so
+formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract
+so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like
+most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and
+inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived
+happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of
+whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived
+him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.
+
+Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
+delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
+dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
+before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646
+[83], he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work,
+which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation
+and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued
+tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an
+enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
+collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
+pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
+arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
+particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had
+longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of
+his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent
+afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large
+additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673,
+the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with
+explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of
+disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered
+from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour,
+thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all
+sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in
+vain.
+
+This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
+answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and,
+not many years ago, into French. It might now be proper, had not the
+favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
+copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly
+emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the
+last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has
+committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and
+Newton's philosophy.
+
+He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
+Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
+suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
+correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
+needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles:
+the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other,
+instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the
+pillars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily
+believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without
+the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have
+obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had
+thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of
+water.
+
+Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy
+to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth
+but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was
+then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was
+confirmed by later observations.
+
+The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
+his name, a book called [84] Nature's Cabinet unlocked,--translated,
+according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
+care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
+been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
+honour thereof, as having no hand in that work [85]."
+
+In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him
+occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of
+sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the
+funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment
+of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
+There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
+reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
+he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
+occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could
+have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
+antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
+importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which
+threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when
+the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
+bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what
+oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were
+distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of
+these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and,
+therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too
+frequently recollected:
+
+"All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being,
+which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted
+conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at.
+Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men
+could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest
+mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions:
+with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold
+potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of
+the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his
+wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.
+
+"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell
+him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state
+to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in
+vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire
+of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied
+considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and
+rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other
+original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed
+the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess
+their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their
+own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes
+of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated
+their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of
+ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting
+contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our
+present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own
+accomplishments."
+
+To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the
+quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients,
+artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he
+begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and
+deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of
+antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we
+actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author
+is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in
+the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
+to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
+feeders on vegetables before the flood.
+
+Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
+and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
+have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt
+the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
+really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but
+disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by
+standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
+nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy
+to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
+properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which
+nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
+frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of
+Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.
+
+In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
+production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation
+or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
+upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
+favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
+ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
+reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
+that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
+and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.
+
+To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
+properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
+to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
+be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
+angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
+it virtually contains two right in every one."
+
+The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
+knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
+form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
+very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
+watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
+their seminal principles.
+
+He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
+by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
+kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
+of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
+the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
+which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
+the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
+the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
+generative societies."
+
+These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
+found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
+press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
+fashion of great and curious writers."
+
+Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
+other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
+selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
+be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
+too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
+interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
+of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the
+papers of Pierescius.
+
+The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon
+several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do
+not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
+reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
+useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of
+description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to
+readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more
+important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some
+obscurity from precepts.
+
+The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject
+merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure
+of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which
+studious men have endeavoured to recover them.
+
+The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his
+Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no
+determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed,
+it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or
+learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes
+produced in the waters of Judea.
+
+Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects;
+and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first
+of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of
+animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious
+observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
+unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
+Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed
+much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in
+their works there is mention of _aucupium_ and _piscatio_,
+they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than
+agriculture, or any other manual labour.
+
+In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but
+without any satisfactory determination; and of _rhopalick_, or
+gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one
+syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more
+than the former; as,
+
+  "O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator." AUSONIUS.
+
+And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
+restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
+sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.
+
+His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
+He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
+of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
+multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
+Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
+have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
+shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
+very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
+Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
+declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].
+
+The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
+the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
+rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
+and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
+auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
+prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
+language, remain with us from the Saxon."
+
+To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
+discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
+is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
+orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
+English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
+Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
+sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
+paternal language more than any modern European dialect.
+
+There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
+artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
+interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
+Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
+Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
+in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
+most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
+Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
+admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
+if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
+their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
+may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth."
+
+In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
+Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he
+determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other
+concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
+writers.
+
+Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at
+Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves
+notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
+indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
+postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
+of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
+judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
+vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
+our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo."
+
+The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of
+several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to
+be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr.
+Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and,
+Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author
+amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
+either never in being or irrecoverably lost.
+
+These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's
+collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
+which any of them were written.
+
+Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind
+with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into
+amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same
+mind has been successfully employed.
+
+The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo,
+London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and
+Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes,
+there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.
+
+The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about
+the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly
+discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter
+to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by
+the author's son, in 1690.
+
+There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing
+Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here
+offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.
+
+To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
+that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
+physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently
+embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at
+Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince,
+who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover
+excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions,
+at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious
+and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and
+greater popularity.
+
+Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he
+was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a
+week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19,
+1682 [87]. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to
+the will of God, and fearlessness of death.
+
+He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with
+this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of
+the altar:
+
+  M. S.
+  Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.
+  Et miles.
+  Anno 1605, Londini natus;
+  Generosa familia apud Upton
+  In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
+  Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea
+  In Coll. Pembr.
+  Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
+  Haud leviter imbutus;
+  In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
+  Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus;
+  Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI
+  Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque
+  Per orbem notissimus.
+  Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus;
+  Obijt Octob. 19, 1682.
+  Pie posuit moestissima conjux
+  Da. Doroth. Br.
+
+  Near the foot of this pillar
+  Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick,
+  Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books,
+  Who practised physick in this city 46 years,
+  And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age.
+  In memory of whom,
+  Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate
+  Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be
+  Erected.
+
+Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three
+daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
+son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.
+
+He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the
+classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
+Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
+admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
+1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
+wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
+sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
+Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
+mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
+countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
+a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
+with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
+any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
+instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
+much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
+very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
+will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
+train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
+the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
+book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
+one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.
+
+Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
+first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
+Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
+those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
+He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
+physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
+office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
+man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
+this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
+well bred as any of the court."
+
+Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
+view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
+have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
+distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
+soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
+every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
+personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
+This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to
+sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr.
+Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have
+had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life."
+Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.
+
+"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
+to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat
+nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].
+
+"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
+affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
+cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very
+warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded
+himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of
+Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.
+
+"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
+of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
+well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the
+number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
+names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
+geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence
+ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its
+products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist,
+that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
+observations, equally useful as entertaining.
+
+"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
+capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was
+remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all
+person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but
+remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular
+discourses and speeches.
+
+"In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and
+pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern,
+wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
+readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and
+expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.
+
+"He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that
+was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of
+the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any
+stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that
+he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them.
+The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and
+concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration,
+which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or
+uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same
+account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with
+many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.
+
+"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
+sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
+seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to
+blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without
+affectation.
+
+"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
+increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
+observable cause.
+
+"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
+found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
+company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
+conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he
+was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
+was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar.
+Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much
+improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to
+spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any
+diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he
+would say, he could not do nothing.
+
+"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
+are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
+understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were
+vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
+not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
+veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
+oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
+though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
+primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the
+derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
+satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.
+
+"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared
+in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his
+Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of
+England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned
+Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was
+not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his
+parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could
+hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In
+his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring
+great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much
+patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical
+apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or
+suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor.'
+
+"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
+faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto,
+which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he
+had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
+from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
+freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often
+triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses
+in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted
+with a meek, rational, and religious courage.
+
+"He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he
+lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
+liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
+sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent
+him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and
+in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to
+his lady and children, gained by his own industry.
+
+"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and
+modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been
+said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place
+of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an
+extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the
+famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.
+
+"Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
+which comes nearest it, he excelled, i.e. the stochastick, wherein he
+was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
+but not apt to discover any presages or superstition."
+
+It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the
+books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse
+from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the
+repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude
+proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer
+experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary
+of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and
+desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
+is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
+irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
+harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
+there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least,
+defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be
+able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best
+Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
+bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more
+flexible and tender judgments."
+
+The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
+in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's
+testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of
+himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments
+or visible qualities.
+
+There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may,
+sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes,
+assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
+charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant
+temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares
+himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride." A perusal
+of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of
+the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which
+pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
+himself.
+
+As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own
+humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that
+"he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be
+quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any
+uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden
+effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it
+is, he mistook for settled resolution.
+
+"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
+face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
+very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
+will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
+bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
+desert him in the great hour of trial.
+
+It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
+"the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
+is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
+testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
+had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
+temptation to flattery.
+
+But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
+he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
+easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men;
+for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and
+scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
+which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.
+
+His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes
+obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his
+decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up
+immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping
+another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel
+or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral
+considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives
+delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his
+mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point
+originally in view.
+
+"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
+minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures."
+This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
+vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
+obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
+allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.
+
+He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
+which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
+every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
+moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
+encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
+though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet
+poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
+significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
+such as _commensality_, for the state of many living at the same
+table; but many superfluous, as a _paralogical_, for an unreasonable
+doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than
+explain it, as _arthritical analogies_, for parts that serve some
+animals in the place of joints.
+
+His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
+heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
+originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
+service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
+our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and
+expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and
+was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any
+language could supply a single term.
+
+But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
+he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would
+never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
+and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
+very little fear of the shame of falling.
+
+There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
+formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages
+from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and
+others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
+conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are
+two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.
+
+It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for
+endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
+can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
+opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own
+doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another
+understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and
+eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a
+celebrated name [88].
+
+The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility;
+men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
+Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat
+concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates
+had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
+paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient,
+in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
+christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so
+watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for
+favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour
+of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of
+inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly
+their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences
+or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately
+repented.
+
+The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply,
+by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause
+less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore,
+not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot
+should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of
+excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding
+strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a
+great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority
+of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the
+addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that
+argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.
+
+Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all
+may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly
+dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous
+persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with
+knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity,
+without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but
+"hopeth all things," and "endureth all things."
+
+Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by
+the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no
+difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of
+christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have
+hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret
+into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a
+phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to
+be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently
+testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with
+such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried
+reverence.
+
+It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without
+the pale of christianity, who declares, "that he assumes the
+honourable style of a christian," not because it is "the religion of
+his country," but because "having in his riper years and confirmed
+judgment seen" and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the
+principles of grace, and the law of his own reason, to embrace "no
+other name but this;" who, to specify his persuasion yet more, tells
+us, that "he is of the reformed religion; of the same belief our
+Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and
+the martyrs confirmed;" who, though "paradoxical in philosophy, loves
+in divinity to keep the beaten road; and pleases himself that he has
+no taint of heresy, schism, or errour:" to whom, "where the scripture
+is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 'tis but a
+comment;" and who uses not "the dictates of his own reason, but where
+there is a joint silence of both: who blesses himself, that he lived
+not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but
+enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw
+not." He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who
+"believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and
+desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms that "this is not
+much to believe;" that "we have reason to owe this faith unto
+history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble
+faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and
+mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt of the
+positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts,
+whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would
+violate his own arm, rather than a church."
+
+The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his
+practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these
+testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be
+obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a
+zealous adherent to the faith of Christ; that he lived in obedience to
+his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.
+
+
+
+
+ASCHAM [89].
+
+
+It often happens to writers, that they are known only by their works;
+the incidents of a literary life are seldom observed, and, therefore,
+seldom recounted: but Ascham has escaped the common fate by the
+friendship of Edward Grauut, the learned master of Westminster school,
+who devoted an oration to his memory, and has marked the various
+vicissitudes of his fortune. Graunt either avoided the labour of
+minute inquiry, or thought domestick occurrences unworthy of his
+notice; or, preferring the character of an orator to that of an
+historian, selected only such particulars as he could best express or
+most happily embellish. His narrative is, therefore, scanty, and I
+know not by what materials it can now be amplified.
+
+Roger Ascham was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, (or Kirby
+Wicke,) a village near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above
+the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family
+of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at
+a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were
+regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very
+conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have
+been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not
+recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the youngest, and some
+daughters; but who can hope, that of any progeny more than one shall
+deserve to be mentioned? They lived married sixty-seven years, and, at
+last, died together almost on the same hour of the same day.
+
+Roger, having passed his first years under the care of his parents,
+was adopted into the family of Antony Wingfield, who maintained him,
+and committed his education, with that of his own sons, to the care of
+one Bond, a domestick tutor. He very early discovered an unusual
+fondness for literature by an eager perusal of English books; and,
+having passed happily through the scholastick rudiments, was put, in
+1530, by his patron Wingfield, to St. John's college in Cambridge.
+
+Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of
+the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardour
+or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had
+driven the Greeks, with their language, into the interiour parts of
+Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and
+Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had
+already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with
+controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets
+of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or
+ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that
+eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and
+dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at
+once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
+emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the
+present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or
+knowing, its benefactors.
+
+Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the
+bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the
+college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous
+for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion;
+and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The
+reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered
+as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment,
+and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually
+losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable
+enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally
+conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by
+teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read
+lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of
+instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of
+great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any
+monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and
+scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek
+learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him
+in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would
+gain more knowledge by explaining one of Æsop's fables to a boy, than
+by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.
+
+Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the
+eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
+now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which,
+according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of
+remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen
+fellow of the college, which election he considered as a second birth.
+Dr. Metcalf, the master of the college, a man, as Ascham tells us,
+"meanly learned himself, but no mean encourager of learning in
+others," clandestinely promoted his election, though he openly seemed
+first to oppose it, and afterwards to censure it, because Ascham was
+known to favour the new opinions; and the master himself was accused
+of giving an unjust preference to the northern men, one of the
+factions into which this nation was divided, before we could find any
+more important reason of dissension, than that some were born on the
+northern, and some on the southern side of Trent. Any cause is
+sufficient for a quarrel; and the zealots of the north and south lived
+long in such animosity, that it was thought necessary at Oxford to
+keep them quiet, by choosing one proctor every year from each.
+
+He seems to have been, hitherto, supported by the bounty of Wingfield,
+which his attainment of a fellowship now freed him from the necessity
+of receiving. Dependance, though in those days it was more common and
+less irksome, than in the present state of things, can never have been
+free from discontent; and, therefore, he that was released from it
+must always have rejoiced. The danger is, lest the joy of escaping
+from the patron may not leave sufficient memory of the benefactor. Of
+this forgetfulness, Ascham cannot be accused; for he is recorded to
+have preserved the most grateful and affectionate reverence for
+Wingfield, and to have never grown weary of recounting his benefits.
+
+His reputation still increased, and many resorted to his chamber to
+hear the Greek writers explained. He was, likewise, eminent for other
+accomplishments. By the advice of Pember, he had learned to play on
+musical instruments, and he was one of the few who excelled in the
+mechanical art of writing, which then began to be cultivated among us,
+and in which we now surpass all other nations. He not only wrote his
+pages with neatness, but embellished them with elegant draughts and
+illuminations; an art at that time so highly valued, that it
+contributed much both to his fame and his fortune.
+
+He became master of arts in March, 1537, in his twenty-first year, and
+then, if not before, commenced tutor, and publickly undertook the
+education of young men. A tutor of one-and-tweuty, however
+accomplished with learning, however exalted by genius, would now gain
+little reverence or obedience; but in those days of discipline and
+regularity, the authority of the statutes easily supplied that of the
+teacher; all power that was lawful was reverenced. Besides, young
+tutors had still younger pupils.
+
+Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every
+incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have
+taken care, at once, to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their
+minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great
+eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished,
+that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court, as a proper
+master of languages for the lady Elizabeth.
+
+There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university,
+therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him
+out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then
+reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by
+king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain
+Greek authors in his own college.
+
+He was at first an opponent of the new pronunciation introduced, or
+rather of the ancient restored, about this time, by Cheke and Smith,
+and made some cautious struggles for the common practice, which the
+credit and dignity of his antagonists did not permit him to defend
+very publickly, or with much vehemence: nor were they long his
+antagonists; for either his affection for their merit, or his
+conviction of the cogency of their arguments, soon changed his opinion
+and his practice, and he adhered ever after to their method of
+utterance.
+
+Of this controversy it is not necessary to give a circumstantial
+account; something of it may be found in Strype's Life of Smith, and
+something in Baker's Reflections upon Learning; it is sufficient to
+remark here, that Cheke's pronunciation was that which now prevails in
+the schools of England. Disquisitions not only verbal, but merely
+literal, are too minute for popular narration.
+
+He was not less eminent, as a writer of Latin, than as a teacher of
+Greek. All the publick letters of the university were of his
+composition; and, as little qualifications must often bring great
+abilities into notice, he was recommended to this honourable
+employment, not less by the neatness of his hand, than the elegance of
+his style.
+
+However great was his learning, he was not always immured in his
+chamber; but, being valetudinary, and weak of body, thought it
+necessary to spend many hours in such exercises as might best relieve
+him after the fatigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery,
+in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time,
+that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and,
+perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did
+not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing
+learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.
+
+To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he
+published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of
+Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery.
+He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an
+example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used
+by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling
+exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains,
+that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by
+arrogance and temerity.
+
+He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently
+vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal
+diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown,
+by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the
+mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art,
+practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole:
+precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow
+excellence.
+
+The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have
+forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained
+the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English
+yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler
+of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms,
+which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they
+are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for
+prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy,
+gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to
+skilful use than any other instrument of offence.
+
+Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had
+been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with
+hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon
+after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to
+imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from
+the account given by the ingenious author of the Exercise for the
+Norfolk Militia.
+
+"The first muskets were very heavy, and could not be fired without a
+rest; they had matchlocks, and barrels of a wide bore, that carried a
+large ball and charge of powder, and did execution at a greater
+distance.
+
+"The musketeers on a march carried only their rests and ammunition,
+and had boys to bear their muskets after them, for which they were
+allowed great additional pay.
+
+"They were very slow in loading, not only by reason of the
+unwieldiness of the pieces, and because they carried the powder and
+balls separate, but from the time it took to prepare and adjust the
+match; so that their fire was not near so brisk as ours is now.
+Afterwards a lighter kind of matchlock musket came into use, and they
+carried their ammunition in bandeliers, which were broad belts that
+came over the shoulder, to which were hung several little cases of
+wood covered with leather, each containing a charge of powder; the
+balls they carried loose in a pouch; and they had also a priming-horn
+hanging by their side.
+
+"The old English writers call those large muskets calivers; the
+harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest.
+The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the
+serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down
+with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was
+a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of
+firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the
+match properly to the cock, so as to come down exactly true on the
+priming, to blow the ashes from the coal, and to guard the pan from
+the sparks that fell from it. A great deal of time was also lost in
+taking it out of the cock, and returning it between the fingers of the
+left hand every time that the piece was fired; and wet weather often
+rendered the matches useless."
+
+While this was the state of firearms, and this state continued among
+us to the civil war, with very little improvement, it is no wonder
+that the long-bow was preferred by sir Thomas Smith, who wrote of the
+choice of weapons in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when the use of the
+bow still continued, though the musket was gradually prevailing. Sir
+John Haward, a writer yet later, has, in his History of the Norman
+Kings, endeavoured to evince the superiority of the archer to the
+musketeer: however, in the long peace of king James, the bow was
+wholly forgotten. Guns have from that time been the weapons of the
+English, as of other nations, and, as they are now improved, are
+certainly more efficacious.
+
+Ascham had yet another reason, if not for writing his book, at least
+for presenting it to king Henry. England was not then, what it may be
+now justly termed, the capital of literature; and, therefore, those
+who aspired to superiour degrees of excellence, thought it necessary
+to travel into other countries. The purse of Ascham was not equal to
+the expense of peregrination; and, therefore, he hoped to have it
+augmented by a pension. Nor was he wholly disappointed; for the king
+rewarded him with a yearly payment of ten pounds.
+
+A pension of ten pounds granted by a king of England to a man of
+letters, appears, to modern readers, so contemptible a benefaction,
+that it is not unworthy of inquiry what might be its value at that
+time, and how much Ascham might be enriched by it. Nothing is more
+uncertain than the estimation of wealth by denominated money; the
+precious metals never retain long the same proportion to real
+commodities, and the same names in different ages do not imply the
+same quantity of metal; so that it is equally difficult to know how
+much money was contained in any nominal sum, and to find what any
+supposed quantity of gold or silver would purchase; both which are
+necessary to the commensuration of money, or the adjustment of
+proportion between the same sums at different periods of time.
+
+A numeral pound, in king Henry's time, contained, as now, twenty
+shillings; and, therefore, it must be inquired what twenty shillings
+could perform. Bread-corn is the most certain standard of the
+necessaries of life. Wheat was generally sold, at that time for one
+shilling, the bushel; if, therefore, we take five shillings the bushel
+for the current price, ten pounds were equivalent to fifty. But here
+is danger of a fallacy. It may be doubted whether wheat was the
+general bread-corn of that age; and if rye, barley, or oats, were the
+common food, and wheat, as I suspect, only a delicacy, the value of
+wheat will not regulate the price of other things. This doubt,
+however, is in favour of Ascham; for if we raise the worth of wheat,
+we raise that of his pension.
+
+But the value of money has another variation, which we are still less
+able to ascertain: the rules of custom, or the different needs of
+artificial life, make that revenue little at one time which is great
+at another. Men are rich and poor, not only in proportion to what they
+have, but to what they want. In some ages, not only necessaries are
+cheaper, but fewer things are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of
+the elegancies and expenses of our present fashions were unknown:
+commerce had not yet distributed superfluity through the lower classes
+of the people, and the character of a student implied frugality, and
+required no splendour to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning
+together the wants which he could supply, and the wants from which he
+was exempt, may be estimated, in my opinion, at more than one hundred
+pounds a year; which, added to the income of his fellowship, put him
+far enough above distress.
+
+This was a year of good fortune to Ascham. He was chosen orator to the
+university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was
+made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains
+admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility,
+and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the
+ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly
+pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time,
+employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand;
+and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess
+Elizabeth, and prince Edward.
+
+Henry the eighth died two years after, and a reformation of religion
+being now openly prosecuted by king Edward and his council, Ascham,
+who was known to favour it, had a new grant of his pension, and
+continued at Cambridge, where he lived in great familiarity with
+Bucer, who had been called from Germany to the professorship of
+divinity. But his retirement was soon at an end; for, in 1548, his
+pupil Grindal, the master of the princess Elizabeth, died, and the
+princess, who had already some acquaintance with Ascham, called him
+from his college to direct her studies.
+
+He obeyed the summons, as we may easily believe, with readiness, and,
+for two years, instructed her with great diligence; but then, being
+disgusted either at her, or her domesticks, perhaps eager for another
+change of life, he left her, without her consent, and returned to the
+university. Of this precipitation he long repented; and, as those who
+are not accustomed to disrespect cannot easily forgive it, he probably
+felt the effects of his imprudence to his death.
+
+After having visited Cambridge, he took a journey into Yorkshire, to
+see his native place, and his old acquaintance, and there received a
+letter from the court, informing him, that he was appointed secretary
+to sir Richard Morisine, who was to be despatched as ambassadour into
+Germany. In his return to London he paid that memorable visit to lady
+Jane Gray, in which he found her reading the Phasdo in Greek, as he
+has related in his Schoolmaster.
+
+In September, 1550, he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over
+great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared
+worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of
+learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but
+Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw
+each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham undertook to
+improve Morisine in Greek, and, for four days in the week, explained
+some passages in Herodotus every morning, and more than two hundred
+verses of Sophocles, or Euripides, every afternoon. He read with him,
+likewise, some of the orations of Demosthenes. On the other days he
+compiled the letters of business, and in the night filled up his
+diary, digested his remarks, and wrote private letters to his friends
+in England, and particularly to those of his college, whom he
+continually exhorted to perseverance in study. Amidst all the
+pleasures of novelty which his travels supplied, and in the dignity of
+his publick station, he preferred the tranquillity of private study,
+and the quiet of academical retirement. The reasonableness of this
+choice has been always disputed; and in the contrariety of human
+interests and dispositions, the controversy will not easily be
+decided.
+
+He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his
+Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was
+desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the
+scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.
+
+In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in
+Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the
+German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts
+many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history,
+in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly
+mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine
+English.
+
+By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped,
+Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end.
+He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment
+and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the
+deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his
+support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the
+assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that
+he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support
+him at Cambridge." There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account
+either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his
+fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him
+plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the
+college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation.
+But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too
+long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return
+with a good will to academical poverty.
+
+He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented
+his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had,
+during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king
+Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was
+instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of
+twenty pounds a year.
+
+Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an
+extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing
+and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven
+letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.
+
+How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the
+favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen
+Mary's court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well
+known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared,
+cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of
+queen Mary's reign must have been well enough remembered, declares,
+that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and
+that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner
+against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet
+he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and
+compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the
+Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his
+innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack
+a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could
+not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was
+never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are
+we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who
+suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so
+necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with
+another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to
+examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the
+inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last,
+to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct,
+caprice, accident, and private affections.
+
+At that time, if some were punished, many were forborne; and of many
+why should not Ascham happen to be one? He seems to have been calm and
+prudent, and content with that peace which he was suffered to enjoy: a
+mode of behaviour that seldom fails to produce security. He had been
+abroad in the last years of king Edward, and had, at least, given no
+recent offence. He was certainly, according to his own opinion, not
+much in danger; for in the next year he resigned his fellowship,
+which, by Gardiner's favour, he had continued to hold, though not
+resident; and married Margaret Howe, a young gentle-woman of a good
+family.
+
+He was distinguished in this reign by the notice of cardinal Pole, a
+man of great candour, learning, and gentleness of manners, and
+particularly eminent for his skill in Latin, who thought highly of
+Ascham's style; of which it is no inconsiderable proof, that when Pole
+was desirous of communicating a speech made by himself as legate, in
+parliament, to the pope, he employed Ascham to translate it.
+
+He is said to have been not only protected by the officers of state,
+but favoured and countenanced by the queen herself, so that he had no
+reason of complaint in that reign of turbulence and persecution: nor
+was his fortune much mended, when, in 1558, his pupil, Elizabeth,
+mounted the throne. He was continued in his former employment, with
+the same stipend; but though he was daily admitted to the presence of
+the queen, assisted her private studies, and partook of her
+diversions; sometimes read to her in the learned languages, and
+sometimes played with her at draughts and chess; he added nothing to
+his twenty pounds a year but the prebend of Westwang, in the church of
+York, which was given him the year following. His fortune was,
+therefore, not proportionate to the rank which his offices and
+reputation gave him, or to the favour in which he seemed to stand with
+his mistress. Of this parsimonious allotment it is again a hopeless
+search to inquire the reason. The queen was not naturally bountiful,
+and, perhaps, did not think it necessary to distinguish, by any
+prodigality of kindness, a man who had formerly deserted her, and whom
+she might still suspect of serving rather for interest than affection.
+Graunt exerts his rhetorical powers in praise of Ascham's
+disinterestedness and contempt of money; and declares, that, though he
+was often reproached by his friends with neglect of his own interest,
+he never would ask any thing, and inflexibly refused all presents
+which his office or imagined interest induced any to offer him.
+Camden, however, imputes the narrowness of his condition to his love
+of dice and cockfights: and Graunt, forgetting himself, allows that
+Ascham was sometimes thrown into agonies by disappointed expectations.
+It may be easily discovered, from his Schoolmaster, that he felt his
+wants, though he might neglect to supply them; and we are left to
+suspect, that he showed his contempt of money only by losing at play.
+If this was his practice, we may excuse Elizabeth, who knew the
+domestick character of her servants, if she did not give much to him
+who was lavish of a little.
+
+However he might fail in his economy, it were indecent to treat with
+wanton levity the memory of a man who shared his frailties with all,
+but whose learning or virtues few can attain, and by whose
+excellencies many may be improved, while himself only suffered by his
+faults.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, nothing remarkable is known to have
+befallen him, except that, in 1563, he was invited, by sir Edward
+Sackville, to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, upon an
+occasion which he relates in the beginning of the book.
+
+This work, though begun with alacrity, in hopes of a considerable
+reward, was interrupted by the death of the patron, and afterwards
+sorrowfully and slowly finished, in the gloom of disappointment, under
+the pressure of distress. But of the author's disinclination or
+dejection there can be found no tokens in the work, which is conceived
+with great vigour, and finished with great accuracy; and, perhaps,
+contains the best advice that was ever given for the study of
+languages.
+
+This treatise he completed, but did not publish; for that poverty
+which, in our days, drives authors so hastily in such numbers to the
+press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. The
+printers gave little for a copy, and, if we may believe the tale of
+Raleigh's history, were not forward to print what was offered them for
+nothing. Ascham's book, therefore, lay unseen in his study, and was,
+at last, dedicated to lord Cecil by his widow.
+
+Ascham never had a robust or vigorous body, and his excuse for so many
+hours of diversion was his inability to endure a long continuance of
+sedentary thought. In the latter part of his life he found it
+necessary to forbear any intense application of the mind from dinner
+to bedtime, and rose to read and write early in the morning. He was,
+for some years, hectically feverish; and, though he found some
+alleviation of his distemper, never obtained a perfect recovery of his
+health. The immediate cause of his last sickness was too close
+application to the composition of a poem, which he purposed to present
+to the queen, on the day of her accession. To finish this, he forbore
+to sleep at his accustomed hours, till, in December, 1568, he fell
+sick of a kind of lingering disease, which Graunt has not named, nor
+accurately described. The most afflictive symptom was want of sleep,
+which he endeavoured to obtain by the motion of a cradle. Growing
+every day weaker, he found it vain to contend with his distemper, and
+prepared to die with the resignation and piety of a true Christian.
+He was attended on his death-bed by Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre,
+and Dr. Nowel, the learned dean of St. Paul's, who gave ample
+testimony to the decency and devotion of his concluding life. He
+frequently testified his desire of that dissolution which he soon
+obtained. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nowel.
+
+Roger Ascham died in the fifty-third year of his age, at a time when,
+according to the general course of life, much might yet have been
+expected from him, and when he might have hoped for much from others:
+but his abilities and his wants were at an end together; and who can
+determine, whether he was cut off from advantages, or rescued from
+calamities? He appears to have been not much qualified for the
+improvement of his fortune. His disposition was kind and social; he
+delighted in the pleasures of conversation, and was probably not much
+inclined to business. This may be suspected from the paucity of his
+writings. He has left little behind him; and of that little, nothing
+was published by himself but the Toxophilus, and the account of
+Germany. The Schoolmaster was printed by his widow; and the epistles
+were collected by Graunt, who dedicated them to queen Elizabeth, that
+he might have an opportunity of recommending his son, Giles Ascham, to
+her patronage. The dedication was not lost: the young man was made, by
+the queen's mandate, fellow of a college in Cambridge, where he
+obtained considerable reputation. What was the effect of his widow's
+dedication to Cecil, is not known: it may be hoped that Ascham's works
+obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did
+not, in his life, very plenteously procure them.
+
+Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot
+now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less
+merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any
+country; and, among us, it may justly call for that reverence which
+all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and
+kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners, nothing can
+be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries.
+Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy,
+benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety, we have
+not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his
+writings.
+
+That his English works have been so long neglected, is a proof of the
+uncertainty of literary fame. He was scarcely known, as an author, in
+his own language, till Mr. Upton published his Schoolmaster, with
+learned notes. His other pieces were read only by those few who
+delight in obsolete books; but as they are now collected into one
+volume, with the addition of some letters never printed before, the
+publick has an opportunity of recompensing the injury, and allotting
+Ascham the reputation due to his knowledge and his eloquence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[1] From the Gentleman's Magazine, 1742.
+
+[2] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 41. 1756.
+
+[3] The first part of this review closed here. What follows did not
+appear until seven months after. To which delay the writer alludes
+with provoking severity.
+
+[4] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p, 89. 1756.
+
+[5] From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. p. 253.
+
+[6] And of such a man, it is to be regretted, that Dr. Johnson was, by
+whatever motive, induced to speak with acrimony; but, it is probable,
+that he took up the subject, at first, merely to give play to his
+fancy. This answer, however, to Mr. Hanway's letter, is, as Mr. Boswell
+has remarked, the only instance, in the whole course of his life, when
+he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against him. C.
+
+[7] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[8] In all the papers and criticisms Dr. Johnson wrote for the
+Literary Magazine, he frequently departs from the customary we of
+anonymous writers. This, with his inimitable style, soon pointed him
+out, as the principal person concerned in that publication.
+
+[9] The second volume of Dr. Warton's Essay was not published until
+the year 1782.
+
+[10] This Enquiry, published in 1757, was the production of Soame
+Jenyns, esq. who never forgave the author of the review. It is painful
+to relate, that, after he had suppressed his resentment during Dr.
+Johnson's life, he gave it vent, in a petulant and illiberal
+mock-epitaph, which would not have deserved notice, had it not been
+admitted into the edition of his works, published by Mr. Cole. When
+this epitaph first appeared in the newspapers, Mr. Boswell answered it
+by another upon Mr. Jenyns, equal, at least, in illiberality.
+
+This review is justly reckoned one of the finest specimens of
+criticism in our language, and was read with such eagerness, when
+published in the Literary Magazine, that the author was induced to
+reprint it in a small volume by itself; a circumstance which appears
+to have escaped Mr. Boswell's research.
+
+[11] New Practice of Physick.
+
+[12] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[13] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[14] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.--There are other reviews of
+books by Dr. Johnson, in this magazine, but, in general, very short,
+and consisting chiefly of a few introductory remarks, and an extract.
+That on Mrs. Harrison's Miscellanies maybe accounted somewhat
+interesting, from the notice of Dr. Watts.
+
+[15] Written by Mr. Tytler, of Edinburgh.
+
+[16] Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1760.
+
+[17] First printed in the year 1739.
+
+[18] See his Remains, 1614, p. 337, "Riming verses, which are called
+_versus leonini_, I know not wherefore, (for a lyon's taile doth
+not answer to the middle parts as these verses doe,) began in the time
+of Carolus Magnus, and were only in request then, and in many ages
+following, which delighted in nothing more than in this minstrelsie of
+meeters."
+
+[19] Dr. Edward Young.
+
+[20] Ambrose Philips, author of the Distrest Mother, &c.
+
+[21] Edward Ward. See Dunciad, and Biographia Dramatica.
+
+[22] Joseph Mitchell. See Biographia Dramatica.
+
+[23] Published first in the Literary Magazine, No. iv. from July 15,
+to Aug. 15, 1756. This periodical work was published by Richardson, in
+Paternoster row, but was discontinued about two years after. Dr. Johnson
+wrote many articles, which have been enumerated by Mr. Boswell, and
+there are others which I should be inclined to attribute to him, from
+internal evidence.
+
+[24] In the magazine, this article is promised "to be continued;" but
+the author was, by whatever means, diverted from it, and no
+continuation appears.
+
+[25] This was the introductory article to the Literary Magazine, No. i.
+
+[26] From the Literary Magazine, for July, 1756.
+
+[27] See Literary Magazine, No. ii. p. 63.
+
+[28] This short paper was added to some editions of the Idler, when
+collected into volumes, but not by Dr. Johnson, as Mr. Boswell
+asserts, nor to the early editions of that work.
+
+[29] In the first edition, this passage stood thus: "Let him not,
+however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally
+possessed; could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransome,
+_he could have counted it_." There were some other alterations
+suggested, it would appear, by lord North.
+
+[30] The Patriot is of the same cast with Johnson's other political
+writings. It endeavours to justify the outrages of the house of
+commons, in the case of the Middlesex election, and to vindicate the
+harsh measures then in agitation against America: it can only,
+therefore, be admired as a clever, sophistical composition.--Eb.
+
+[31] For arguments on the opposite side of this question, see the Abbé
+Raynal's Revolution of America, and Edin. Rev. xl. p. 451.--Ed.
+
+[32] Of this reasoning I owe part to a conversation with sir John
+Hawkins.
+
+[33] Written for the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1738.
+
+[34] "Erat Hermanni genitor Latine, Græce, Hebraice sciens: peritus
+valde historiarum et gentium. Vir apertus, candidus, simplex;
+paterfamilias optimus amore, cura, diligentia, frugalitate, prudentia.
+Qui non magna in re, sed plenus virtutis, novem liberis educandis
+exemplum praebuit singulare, quid exacta parsimonia polleat, et
+frugalitas." _Orig. Edit._
+
+[35] "Jungebat his exercitiis quotidianam patrum lectionem, secundum
+chronologiam, a Clemente Romano exorsus, et juxta seriem seculorum
+descendens: ut Jesu Christi doctrinam in N. T. traditam, primis
+patribus interpretantibus, addisceret.
+
+"Horum simplicitatem sincerae doctrinae, disciplinae sanctitatem,
+vitae Deo Jicatae integritatem adorabat. Subtilitatem scholarum divina
+postmodum inquinasse dolebat. Aegerrime tulit sacrorum interpretationem
+ex sectis sophistarum peti; et Platonis, Aristotelis, Thomas
+Aquinatis, Scoti; suoque tempore Cartesii, cogitata metaphysica
+adhiberi pro legibus, ad quas eastigarentur sacrorum scriptorum de Deo
+sentential. Experiebatur acerba dissidia, ingeniorumque subtilissimorum
+acerrima certamina, odia, ambitiones, inde cieri, foveri; adeo
+contraria paci cum Deo et homine. Nihil hic magis illi obstabat; quam
+quod omnes asserant sacram scripturam [Greek: anthropopathos]
+loquentem, [Greek: theoprepos] explicandam; et [Greek: theoprepouan]
+singuli definiant ex placitis suae metaphysices. Horrebat inde
+dominantis sectae praevalentem opinionem, orthodoxiae modum, et
+regulas, unice dare juxta dictata metaphysicorum, non sacrarum
+literarum; unde tam variae; sententiae de doctrina simplicissima."
+--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[36] "Circa hoc tempus, lautis conditionibus, lautioribus promissis,
+invitatus, plus vice simplici, a viro primariae dignationis, qui
+gratia flagrantissima florebat regis Gulielmi III. ut Hagamcomitum
+sedem caperet fortunarum, declinavit constans. Contentus videlicet
+vita libera, remota a turbis, studiisque porro percolendis unice
+impensa, ubi non cogeretur alia dicere et simulare, alia sentire et
+dissimulare: affectuum studiis rapi, regi. Sic turn vita erat, aegros
+visere, mox domi in musaeo se condere, officinam Vulcaniam exercere;
+omnes medicinae partes acerrime persequi; mathematica etiam aliis
+tradere; sacra legere, et auctores qui profitentur docere rationem
+certam amandi Deum."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[37] "Succos pressos bibit noster herbarum cichoreæ, endiviæ;
+fumariæ; nasturtii aquatici, veronicæ aquatics latifoliæ; copia
+ingenti; simul deglutiens abundantissime gummi ferulacea
+Asiatica."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[38] "Aetas, labor, corporisque opima pinguetudo, effecerant, ante
+annum, ut inertibus refertum, grave, hebes, plenitudine turgens
+corpus, anhelum ad motus minimos, cum sensu suffocationis, pulsu
+mirifice anomalo, ineptum evaderet ad ullum motum. Urgebat praecipue
+subsistens prorsus et intercepta respiratio ad prima somni initia;
+unde somnus prorsus prohibebatur, cum formidabili strangulationis
+molestia. Hinc hydrops pedum, crurum, femorum, scroti, praeputii, et
+abdominis. Quae tamen omnia sublata. Sed dolor manet in abdomine, cum
+anxietate summa, anhelitu suffocante, et debilitate incredibili; somno
+pauco, eoque vago, per somnia turbatissimo; animus vero rebus agendis
+impar. Cum his luctor fessus nec emergo; patienter expectans Dei
+jussa, quibus resigno data, quae sola amo, et honoro unice."--_Orig.
+Edit._
+
+[39] Doctrinam sacris literis Hebraice et Graece traditarn, solam
+animae salutarem et agnovit et sensit. Omni opportunitate profitebatur
+disciplinam, quam Jesus Christus ore et vita expressit, unice
+tranquillitatem dare menti. Semperque dixit amicis, pacem animi baud
+reperiundam, nisi in magno Mosis praecepto de sincere amore Dei et
+hominis bene observato. Neque extra sacra monumenta uspiam inveniri,
+quod mentem serenet. Deum pius adoravit, qui est. Intelligere de Deo,
+unice, volebat id, quod Deus de se intelligit. Eo contentus ultra
+nihil requisivit, ne idolatria erraret. In voluntate Dei sic
+requiescebat, ut illius nullam omnino rationem indagandam putaret.
+Hanc unice supremam omnium legem esse contendebat; deliberata
+constautia perfectissime colendam. De aliis et seipso sentiebat: ut
+quoties criminis reos ad poenas letales damnatos audiret, semper
+cogitaret, saspe diceret: "Quis dixerat annon me sint melioresi
+Utique, si ipse melior, id non mihi auctori tribuendum esse, palam
+aio, confiteor; sed ita largienti Deo."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[40] This life first appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1739, vol.
+ix. p. 176. It, throughout, exhibits that ardent fondness for
+chemistry, which Johnson cherished, and that respect for physicians,
+which his numerous memoirs of members of that profession, and his
+attachment to Dr. Bathurst and the amiable and single-hearted Level,
+evinced.--ED.
+
+[41] This life was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for the
+year 1740.
+
+[42] The name of sir Henry Savil does not occur in the list of the
+wardens of Wadham college.
+
+[43] From H. Norhone, B.D. his contemporary there.
+
+[44] This life was first printed in the Gent. Mag. for 1740, and
+Johnson's unceasing abhorrence of Spanish encroachment and oppression
+is remarkable throughout. See his London, and Idler, 81.--Ed.
+
+[45] This article was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for
+1740. The proper spelling is Baratier.
+
+[46] The passages referred to in the preceding pages we have printed
+in italics, for the more easy reference.
+
+[47] Translated from an éloge by Fontenelle, and first printed in the
+Gentleman's Magazine for 1741.
+
+[48] The practice of Dr. Morin is forbidden, I believe, by every
+writer that has left rules for the preservation of health, and is
+directly opposite to that of Cornaro, who, by his regimen, repaired a
+broken constitution, and protracted his life, without any painful
+infirmities, or any decay of his intellectual abilities, to more than
+a hundred years; it is generally agreed that, as men advance in years,
+they ought to take lighter sustenance, and in less quantities; and
+reason seems easily to discover, that as the concoctive powers grow
+weaker, they ought to labour less.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[49] This is an instance of the disposition generally found in writers
+of lives, to exalt every common occurrence and action into wonder. Are
+not indexes daily written by men, who neither receive nor expect any
+loud applauses for their labours?--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[50] First printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1742.
+
+[51] A more full list is given in the last edition of the Biographical
+Dictionary, vol. vii.
+
+[52] Originally prefixed to the new translation of Dr. Sydenham's
+works, by John Swan, M.D. of Newcastle, in Staffordshire, 1742.
+
+[53] Since the foregoing was written, we have seen Mr. Ward's Lives of
+the Professors of Gresham college; who, in the life of Dr. Mapletoft,
+says, that, in 1676, Dr. Sydenham published his Observationes medicæ
+circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem, which he dedicated to
+Dr. Mapletoft, who, at the desire of the author, had translated them
+into Latin; and that the other pieces of that excellent physician were
+translated into that language by Mr. Gilbert Havers, of Trinity
+college, Cambridge, a student in physick, and friend of Dr. Mapletolt.
+But, as Mr. Ward, like others, neglects to bring any proof of his
+assertion, the question cannot fairly be decided by his authority.--
+_Orig. Edit_.
+
+[54] First printed in The Student, 1751.
+
+[55] Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[56] Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[57] Vide Wood's Hist. Univ. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[58] Vide Wood's Hist. Antiq. Oxon.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[59] This life first appeared in the Gentleman's magazine for 1754,
+and is now printed from a copy revised by the author, at my request,
+in 1781. N.--It was, in the magazine, introduced by a general remark,
+which we have again prefixed.
+
+[60] This was said in the beginning of the year 1781; and may with
+truth be now repeated. N.
+
+[61] The London Magazine ceased to exist in 1785. N.
+
+[62] Mr. Cave was buried in the church of St. James, Clerkenwell,
+without an epitaph; but the following inscription at Rugby, from the
+pen of Dr. Hawkesworth, is here transcribed from the Anecdotes of Mr.
+Bowyer, p. 88.
+
+     Near this place lies
+     The body of
+     JOSEPH CAVE,
+     Late of this parish:
+     Who departed this Life, Nov. 18, 1747,
+     Aged 79 years.
+     Me was placed by Providence in a humble station;
+     But
+     Industry abundantly supplied the wants of Nature,
+     And
+     Temperance blest him with
+     Content and Wealth.
+     As he was an affectionate Father,
+     He was made happy in the decline of life
+     By the deserved eminence of his eldest Son,
+     EDWARD CAVE,
+     Who, without interest, fortune, or connexion,
+     By the native force of his own genius,
+
+[63] First printed in the Literary Magazine for 1756.
+
+[64] Christian Morals, first printed in 1756.
+
+[65] Life of sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of
+Norwich.
+
+[66] Whitefoot's character of sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note.
+
+[67] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[68] Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.
+
+[69] Wood.
+
+[70] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[71] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[72] Biographia Britannica.
+
+[73] Letter to sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+edit.
+
+[74] Digby's Letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+edit.
+
+[75] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[76] Merryweather's letter, inserted in the Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[77] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[78] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.
+
+[79] Wood.
+
+[80] Whitefoot.
+
+[81] Howell's Letters.
+
+[82] Religio Medici.
+
+[83] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[84] Wood, and Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[85] the end of Hydriotaphia.
+
+[86] Johnson, by trusting; to his memory, has here fallen into an
+error. Howell, in his instructions for Foreign Travell, has said
+directly the reverse of what is ascribed to him: "I have beaten my
+brains," he tells us, "to make one sentence good Italian and congruous
+Latin, but could never do it; but in Spanish it is very feasible, as,
+for example, in this stanza:
+
+     Infausta Graecia, tu paris gentes
+     Lubricas, sed amicitias dolosas,
+     Machinando fraudes cautilosas,
+     Ruinando animas innocentes:
+
+which is good Latin enough; and yet is vulgar Spanish, intelligible to
+every plebeian."--J. B.
+
+[87] Browne's Remains.--Whitefoot.
+
+[88] Therefore no hereticks desire to spread Their wild opinions like
+     these epicures. For so their staggering thoughts are computed,
+     And other men's assent their doubt assures.
+
+     DAVIES.
+
+[89] First printed before his Works in 4to. published by Bennet, 1763.
+
+
+END OF VOL. VI.
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and relocated to the
+end of the work.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+by Samuel Johnson
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<meta content="pg2html (binary version 0.12a)"
+    name="generator">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of
+    Reviews, Political Tracts,
+    of Samuel Johnson.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+    * { font-family:   Times;
+      }
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+		    margin:        10%;
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+    HR  { width: 33%; }
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6, by Samuel Johnson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+       Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK S. JOHNSON V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger, Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>
+    DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
+</h1>
+<h1>
+    REVIEWS, POLITICAL TRACTS,
+</h1>
+<center>
+    AND
+</center>
+<center>
+    LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+</center>
+<center>
+    THE WORKS OF
+</center>
+<center>
+    SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
+</center>
+<center>
+    IN ELEVEN VOLUMES.
+</center>
+<center>
+    VOLUME THE SIXTH.
+</center>
+<center>
+    MDCCCXXV.
+</center>
+
+
+
+<br /><br />
+<hr>
+<br /><br />
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<br />
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_2">
+REVIEWS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_3">
+LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_4">
+REVIEW OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONDUCT OF THE DUTCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_5">
+REVIEW OF MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF AUGUSTUS;
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_6">
+REVIEW OF FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO DR BENTLEY,
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_7">
+REVIEW OF A JOURNAL OF EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY,
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_8">
+REPLY TO A PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER OF MAY 26, 1757 [5].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_9">
+REVIEW [7] OF AN ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS AND GENIUS OF POPE.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_10">
+REVIEW OF A FREE ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL [10].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_11">
+REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOR IMPROVING OF
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_12">
+REVIEW OF THE GENERAL HISTORY OP POLYBIUS,
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_13">
+REVIEW OF MISCELLANIES ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS,
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_14">
+ACCOUNT OF A BOOK ENTITLED AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_15">
+MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE:
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_16">
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN 1756 [23].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_17">
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_18">
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HINT19">
+INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_20">
+ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS [28],
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_21">
+POLITICAL TRACTS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_22">
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_23">
+THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_24">
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_25">
+THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_26">
+THE PATRIOT. [30]
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_27">
+TAXATION NO TYRANNY;
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_29">
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_30">
+FATHER PAUL SARPI [33].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_31">
+BOERHAAVE.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_32">
+BLAKE.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_33">
+SIR FRANCIS DRAKE [44].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_34">
+BARRETIER [45].
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_37">
+MORIN [47].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_38">
+BURMAN [50].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_39">
+SYDENHAM [52].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_40">
+CHEYNEL [54].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_41">
+CAVE [59].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_42">
+KING OF PRUSSIA [63].
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_43">
+BROWNE.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_44">
+ASCHAM [89].
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#footnotes">
+FOOTNOTES.
+</a></p>
+
+<br /><br />
+<hr>
+
+
+
+<a name="2H_TOC"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>
+    CONTENTS OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.
+</h2>
+
+
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+
+
+<p><br>
+REVIEWS.<br>
+<br>
+Letter on Du Halde's history of China.<br>
+<br>
+Review of the account of the conduct of the dutchess of Marlborough.<br>
+<br>
+Review of memoirs of the court of Augustus.<br>
+<br>
+Review of four letters from sir Isaac Newton.<br>
+<br>
+Review of a journal of eight days' journey.<br>
+<br>
+Reply to a paper in the Gazetteer.<br>
+<br>
+Review of an essay on the writings and genius of Pope.<br>
+<br>
+Review of a free enquiry into the nature and origin of evil.<br>
+<br>
+Review of the history of the Royal Society of London, &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+Review of the general history of Polybius.<br>
+<br>
+Review of miscellanies on moral and religious subjects.<br>
+<br>
+Account of a book entitled an historical and critical enquiry into the<br>
+evidence produced by the earls of Moray and Morton against Mary queen of<br>
+Scots, &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+Marmor Norfolciense; or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription<br>
+in monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk.<br>
+<br>
+Observations on the state of affairs in 1756.<br>
+<br>
+An introduction to the political state of Great Britain.<br>
+<br>
+Observations on the treaty between his Britannic majesty and his<br>
+imperial majesty of all the Russias, &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+Introduction to the proceedings of the committee appointed to manage the<br>
+contributions for clothing French prisoners of war.<br>
+<br>
+On the bravery of the English common soldiers.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+POLITICAL TRACTS.<br>
+<br>
+Prefatory observations to political tracts.<br>
+<br>
+The False Alarm. 1770.<br>
+<br>
+Prefatory observations on Falkland's islands.<br>
+<br>
+Thoughts on the late transactions respecting Falkland's islands.<br>
+<br>
+The Patriot.<br>
+<br>
+Taxation no tyranny; an answer to the resolutions and address of the<br>
+American congress. 1775.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.<br>
+<br>
+Father Paul Sarpi.<br>
+<br>
+Boerhaave.<br>
+<br>
+Blake.<br>
+<br>
+Sir Francis Drake.<br>
+<br>
+Barretier.<br>
+<br>
+Additional account of the life of Barretier in the Gentleman's Magazine,<br>
+1742.<br>
+<br>
+Morin.<br>
+<br>
+Burman.<br>
+<br>
+Sydenham.<br>
+<br>
+Cheynel.<br>
+<br>
+Cave.<br>
+<br>
+King of Prussia.<br>
+<br>
+Browne.<br>
+<br>
+Ascham.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<br>
+<a name="2H_4_2"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1><br>
+    REVIEWS.
+</h1>
+<a name="2H_4_3"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><br>
+    LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    There are few nations in the world more talked of, or less known, than
+    the Chinese. The confused and imperfect account which travellers have
+    given of their grandeur, their sciences, and their policy, have,
+    hitherto, excited admiration, but have not been sufficient to satisfy
+    even a superficial curiosity. I, therefore, return you my thanks for
+    having undertaken, at so great an expense, to convey to English readers
+    the most copious and accurate account, yet published, of that remote and
+    celebrated people, whose antiquity, magnificence, power, wisdom,
+    peculiar customs, and excellent constitution, undoubtedly deserve the
+    attention of the publick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the satisfaction found in reading descriptions of distant countries
+    arises from a comparison which every reader naturally makes, between the
+    ideas which he receives from the relation, and those which were familiar
+    to him before; or, in other words, between the countries with which he
+    is acquainted, and that which the author displays to his imagination; so
+    it varies according to the likeness or dissimilitude of the manners of
+    the two nations. Any custom or law, unheard and unthought of before,
+    strikes us with that surprise which is the effect of novelty; but a
+    practice conformable to our own pleases us, because it flatters our
+    self-love, by showing us that our opinions are approved by the general
+    concurrence of mankind. Of these two pleasures, the first is more
+    violent, the other more lasting; the first seems to partake more of
+    instinct than reason, and is not easily to be explained, or defined; the
+    latter has its foundation in good sense and reflection, and evidently
+    depends on the same principles with most human passions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An attentive reader will frequently feel each of these agreeable
+    emotions in the perusal of Du Halde. He will find a calm, peaceful
+    satisfaction, when he reads the moral precepts and wise instructions of
+    the Chinese sages; he will find that virtue is in every place the same;
+    and will look with new contempt on those wild reasoners, who affirm,
+    that morality is merely ideal, and that the distinctions between good
+    and ill are wholly chimerical.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But he will enjoy all the pleasure that novelty can afford, when he
+    becomes acquainted with the Chinese government and constitution; he will
+    be amazed to find that there is a country where nobility and knowledge
+    are the same, where men advance in rank as they advance in learning, and
+    promotion is the effect of virtuous industry; where no man thinks
+    ignorance a mark of greatness, or laziness the privilege of high birth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His surprise will be still heightened by the relations he will there
+    meet with, of honest ministers, who, however incredible it may seem,
+    have been seen more than once in that monarchy, and have adventured to
+    admonish the emperours of any deviation from the laws of their country,
+    or any errour in their conduct, that has endangered either their own
+    safety, or the happiness of their people. He will read of emperours,
+    who, when they have been addressed in this manner, have neither stormed,
+    nor threatened, nor kicked their ministers, nor thought it majestick to
+    be obstinate in the wrong; but have, with a greatness of mind worthy of
+    a Chinese monarch, brought their actions willingly to the test of
+    reason, law, and morality, and scorned to exert their power in defence
+    of that which they could not support by argument.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I must confess my wonder at these relations was very great, and had been
+    much greater, had I not often entertained my imagination with an
+    instance of the like conduct in a prince of England, on an occasion that
+    happened not quite a century ago, and which I shall relate, that so
+    remarkable an example of spirit and firmness in a subject, and of
+    conviction and compliance in a prince, may not be forgotten. And I hope
+    you will look upon this letter as intended to do honour to my country,
+    and not to serve your interest by promoting your undertaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The prince, at the christening of his first son, had appointed a noble
+    duke to stand as proxy for the father of the princess, without regard to
+    the claim of a marquis, (heir apparent to a higher title,) to whom, as
+    lord of the bedchamber, then in waiting, that honour properly belonged.
+    &mdash;The marquis was wholly unacquainted with the affair, till he heard,
+    at dinner, the duke's health drunk, by the name of the prince he was
+    that evening to represent. This he took an opportunity, after dinner, of
+    inquiring the reason of, and was informed, by the prince's treasurer, of
+    his highness's intention. The marquis immediately declared, that he
+    thought his right invaded, and his honour injured, which he could not
+    bear without requiring satisfaction from the usurper of his privileges;
+    nor would he longer serve a prince who paid no regard to his lawful
+    pretensions. The treasurer could not deny that the marquis's claim was
+    incontestable, and, by his permission, acquainted the prince with his
+    resolution. The prince, thereupon, sending for the marquis, demanded,
+    with a resentful and imperious air, how he could dispute his commands,
+    and by what authority he presumed to control him in the management of
+    his own family, and the christening of his own son. The marquis
+    answered, that he did not encroach upon the prince's right, but only
+    defended his own: that he thought his honour concerned, and, as he was a
+    young man, would not enter the world with the loss of his reputation.
+    The prince, exasperated to a very high degree, repeated his commands;
+    but the marquis, with a spirit and firmness not to be depressed or
+    shaken, persisted in his determination to assert his claim, and
+    concluded with declaring that he would do himself the justice that was
+    denied him; and that not the prince himself should trample on his
+    character. He was then ordered to withdraw, and the duke coming to him,
+    assured him, that the honour was offered him unasked; that when he
+    accepted it, he was not informed of his lordship's claim, and that now
+    he very willingly resigned it. The marquis very gracefully acknowledged
+    the civility of the duke's expressions, and declared himself satisfied
+    with his grace's conduct; but thought it inconsistent with his honour to
+    accept the representation as a cession of the duke, or on any other
+    terms than as his own acknowledged right. The prince, being informed of
+    the whole conversation, and having, upon inquiry, found all the
+    precedents on the marquis's side, thought it below his dignity to
+    persist in an errour, and, restoring the marquis to his right upon his
+    own conditions, continued him in his favour, believing that he might
+    safely trust his affairs in the hands of a man, who had so nice a sense
+    of honour, and so much spirit to assert it.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_4"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONDUCT OF THE DUTCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH <a href="#note-1">[1]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    The universal regard, which is paid by mankind to such accounts of
+    publick transactions as have been written by those who were engaged in
+    them, may be, with great probability, ascribed to that ardent love of
+    truth, which nature has kindled in the breast of man, and which remains
+    even where every other laudable passion is extinguished. We cannot but
+    read such narratives with uncommon curiosity, because we consider the
+    writer as indubitably possessed of the ability to give us just
+    representations, and do not always reflect, that, very often,
+    proportionate to the opportunities of knowing the truth, are the
+    temptations to disguise it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Authors of this kind have, at least, an incontestable superiority over
+    those whose passions are the same, and whose knowledge is less. It is
+    evident that those who write in their own defence, discover often more
+    impartiality, and less contempt of evidence, than the advocates which
+    faction or interest have raised in their favour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, however, to be remembered, that the parent of all memoirs, is the
+    ambition of being distinguished from the herd of mankind, and the fear
+    of either infamy or oblivion, passions which cannot but have some degree
+    of influence, and which may, at least, affect the writer's choice of
+    facts, though they may not prevail upon him to advance known falsehoods.
+    He may aggravate or extenuate particular circumstances, though he
+    preserves the general transaction; as the general likeness may be
+    preserved in painting, though a blemish is hid or a beauty improved.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every man that is solicitous about the esteem of others, is, in a great
+    degree, desirous of his own, and makes, by consequence, his first
+    apology for his conduct to himself; and when he has once deceived his
+    own heart, which is, for the greatest part, too easy a task, he
+    propagates the deceit in the world, without reluctance or consciousness
+    of falsehood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But to what purpose, it may be asked, are such reflections, except to
+    produce a general incredulity, and to make history of no use? The man
+    who knows not the truth cannot, and he who knows it, will not tell it;
+    what then remains, but to distrust every relation, and live in perpetual
+    negligence of past events; or, what is still more disagreeable, in
+    perpetual suspense?
+</p>
+<p>
+    That by such remarks some incredulity is, indeed, produced, cannot be
+    denied; but distrust is a necessary qualification of a student in
+    history. Distrust quickens his discernment of different degrees of
+    probability, animates his search after evidence, and, perhaps, heightens
+    his pleasure at the discovery of truth; for truth, though not always
+    obvious, is generally discoverable; nor is it any where more likely to
+    be found than in private memoirs, which are generally published at a
+    time when any gross falsehood may be detected by living witnesses, and
+    which always contain a thousand incidents, of which the writer could not
+    have acquired a certain knowledge, and which he has no reason for
+    disguising.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such is the account lately published by the dutchess of Marlborough, of
+    her own conduct, by which those who are very little concerned about the
+    character which it is principally intended to preserve or to retrieve,
+    may be entertained and instructed. By the perusal of this account, the
+    inquirer into human nature may obtain an intimate acquaintance with the
+    characters of those whose names have crowded the latest histories, and
+    discover the relation between their minds and their actions. The
+    historian may trace the progress of great transactions, and discover the
+    secret causes of important events. And, to mention one use more, the
+    polite writer may learn an unaffected dignity of style, and an artful
+    simplicity of narration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The method of confirming her relation, by inserting, at length, the
+    letters that every transaction occasioned, has not only set the greatest
+    part of the work above the danger of confutation, but has added to the
+    entertainment of the reader, who has now the satisfaction of forming to
+    himself the characters of the actors, and judging how nearly such, as
+    have hitherto been given of them, agree with those which they now give
+    of themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Even of those whose letters could not be made publick, we have a more
+    exact knowledge than can be expected from general histories, because we
+    see them in their private apartments, in their careless hours, and
+    observe those actions in which they indulged their own inclinations,
+    without any regard to censure or applause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus it is, that we are made acquainted with the disposition of king
+    William, of whom it may be collected, from various instances, that he
+    was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was, at
+    all times, disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great
+    things, nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of
+    gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise
+    when it was his interest to keep it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are, doubtless, great numbers who will be offended with this
+    delineation of the mind of the immortal William, but they whose honesty
+    or sense enables them to consider impartially the events of his reign,
+    will now be enabled to discover the reason of the frequent oppositions
+    which he encountered, and of the personal affronts which he was,
+    sometimes, forced to endure. They will observe, that it is not always
+    sufficient to do right, and that it is often necessary to add
+    gracefulness to virtue. They will recollect how vain it is to endeavour
+    to gain men by great qualities, while our cursory behaviour is insolent
+    and offensive; and that those may be disgusted by little things, who can
+    scarcely be pleased with great.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charles the second, by his affability and politeness, made himself the
+    idol of the nation, which he betrayed and sold. William the third was,
+    for his insolence and brutality, hated by that people, which he
+    protected and enriched:&mdash;had the best part of these two characters been
+    united in one prince, the house of Bourbon had fallen before him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not without pain, that the reader observes a shade encroaching
+    upon the light with which the memory of queen Mary has been hitherto
+    invested&mdash;the popular, the beneficent, the pious, the celestial queen
+    Mary, from whose presence none ever withdrew without an addition to his
+    happiness. What can be charged upon this delight of human kind? Nothing
+    less than that <i>she wanted bowels</i>, and was insolent with her power;
+    that she was resentful, and pertinacious in her resentment; that she
+    descended to mean acts of revenge, when heavier vengeance was not in her
+    power; that she was desirous of controlling where she had no authority,
+    and backward to forgive, even when she had no real injury to complain
+    of.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is a character so different from all those that have been,
+    hitherto, given of this celebrated princess, that the reader stands in
+    suspense, till he considers the inconsistencies in human conduct,
+    remembers that no virtue is without its weakness, and considers that
+    queen Mary's character has, hitherto, had this great advantage, that it
+    has only been compared with those of kings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The greatest number of the letters inserted in this account, were
+    written by queen Anne, of which it may be truly observed, that they will
+    be equally useful for the, confutation of those who have exalted or
+    depressed her character. They are written with great purity and
+    correctness, without any forced expressions, affected phrases, or
+    unnatural sentiments; and show uncommon clearness of understanding,
+    tenderness of affection, and rectitude of intention; but discover, at
+    the same time, a temper timorous, anxious, and impatient of misfortune;
+    a tendency to burst into complaints, helpless dependance on the
+    affection of others, and a weak desire of moving compassion. There is,
+    indeed, nothing insolent or overbearing; but then there is nothing
+    great, or firm, or regal; nothing that enforces obedience and respect,
+    or which does not rather invite opposition and petulance. She seems born
+    for friendship, not for government; and to be unable to regulate the
+    conduct of others, otherwise than by her own example.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That this character is just, appears from the occurrences in her reign,
+    in which the nation was governed, for many years, by a party whose
+    principles she detested, but whose influence she knew not how to
+    obviate, and to whose schemes she was subservient against her
+    inclination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The charge of tyrannising over her, which was made, by turns, against
+    each party, proves that, in the opinion of both, she was easily to be
+    governed; and though it may be supposed, that the letters here published
+    were selected with some regard to respect and ceremony, it appears,
+    plainly enough, from them, that she was what she has been represented,
+    little more than the slave of the Marlborough family.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The inferiour characters, as they are of less importance, are less
+    accurately delineated; the picture of Harley is, at least, partially
+    drawn: all the deformities are heightened, and the beauties, for
+    beauties of mind he certainly had, are entirely omitted.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_5"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF AUGUSTUS;
+</h2>
+<center>
+    BY THOMAS BLACKWELL, J.U.D.
+</center>
+<center>
+    PRINCIPAL OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN <a href="#note-2">[2]</a>.
+</center>
+<p>
+    The first effect, which this book has upon the reader, is that of
+    disgusting him with the author's vanity. He endeavours to persuade the
+    world, that here are some new treasures of literature spread before his
+    eyes; that something is discovered, which, to this happy day, had been
+    concealed in darkness; that, by his diligence, time has been robbed of
+    some valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that
+    names and facts, doomed to oblivion, are now restored to fame.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How must the unlearned reader be surprised, when he shall be told that
+    Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city,
+    nor found out the way to the library of Fez; nor had a single book in
+    his hands, that has not been in the possession of every man that was
+    inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a
+    people, who, above all others, have furnished employment to the
+    studious, and amusements to the idle; who have scarcely left behind them
+    a coin or a stone, which has not been examined and explained a thousand
+    times; and whose dress, and food, and household stuff, it has been the
+    pride of learning to understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A man need not fear to incur the imputation of vicious diffidence or
+    affected humility, who should have forborne to promise many novelties,
+    when he perceived such multitudes of writers possessed of the same
+    materials, and intent upon the same purpose. Mr. Blackwell knows well
+    the opinion of Horace, concerning those that open their undertakings
+    with magnificent promises; and he knows, likewise, the dictates of
+    common sense and common honesty, names of greater authority than that of
+    Horace, who direct, that no man should promise what he cannot perform.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I do not mean to declare, that this volume has nothing new, or that the
+    labours of those who have gone before our author, have made his
+    performance an useless addition to the burden of literature. New works
+    may be constructed with old materials; the disposition of the parts may
+    show contrivance; the ornaments interspersed may discover elegance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not always without good effect, that men, of proper
+    qualifications, write, in succession, on the same subject, even when the
+    latter add nothing to the information given by the former; for the same
+    ideas may be delivered more intelligibly or more delightfully by one
+    than by another, or with attractions that may lure minds of a different
+    form. No writer pleases all, and every writer may please some.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, after all, to inherit is not to acquire; to decorate is not to
+    make; and the man, who had nothing to do but to read the ancient
+    authors, who mention the Roman affairs, and reduce them to common
+    places, ought not to boast himself as a great benefactor to the studious
+    world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After a preface of boast, and a letter of flattery, in which he seems to
+    imitate the address of Horace, in his "vile potabis modicis Sabinum"&mdash;he
+    opens his book with telling us, that the "Roman republic, after the
+    horrible proscription, was no more at <i>bleeding Rome</i>. The regal power
+    of her consuls, the authority of her senate, and the majesty of her
+    people, were now trampled under foot; these [for those] divine laws and
+    hallowed customs, that had been the essence of her constitution&mdash;were
+    set at nought, and her best friends were lying exposed in their blood."
+</p>
+<p>
+    These were surely very dismal times to those who suffered; but I know
+    not, why any one but a schoolboy, in his declamation, should whine over
+    the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the
+    rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich,
+    grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, sold the lives and freedoms of
+    themselves, and of one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "About this time, Brutus had his patience put to the <i>highest</i> trial: he
+    had been married to Clodia; but whether the family did not please him,
+    or whether he was dissatisfied with the lady's behaviour during his
+    absence, he soon entertained thoughts of a separation. <i>This raised a
+    good deal of talk</i>, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed
+    bitterly against Brutus&mdash;but he married Portia, who was worthy of such a
+    father as M. Cato, and such a husband as M. Brutus. She had a soul
+    capable of an <i>exalted passion</i>, and found a proper object to raise and
+    give it a sanction; she did not only love but adored her husband; his
+    worth, his truth, his every shining and heroic quality, made her gaze on
+    him like a god, while the endearing returns of esteem and tenderness she
+    met with, brought her joy, her pride, her every wish to centre in her
+    beloved Brutus."
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the reader has been awakened by this rapturous preparation, he
+    hears the whole story of Portia in the same luxuriant style, till she
+    breathed out her last, a little before the <i>bloody proscription</i>, and
+    "Brutus complained heavily of his friends at Rome, as not having paid
+    due attention to his lady in the declining state of her health."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He is a great lover of modern terms. His senators and their wives are
+    <i>gentlemen and ladies</i>. In this review of Brutus's army, <i>who was under
+    the command of gallant men, not braver officers than true patriots</i>, he
+    tells <i>us</i>, "that Sextus, the questor, was <i>paymaster, secretary at war,
+    and commissary general</i>; and that the <i>sacred discipline</i> of the Romans
+    required the closest connexion, like that of father and son, to subsist
+    between the general of an army and his questor. Cicero was <i>general of
+    the cavalry</i>, and the next <i>general officer</i> was Flavius, <i>master of Ihe
+    artillery</i>, the elder Lentulus was <i>admiral</i>, and the younger <i>rode</i> in
+    the <i>band of volunteers</i>; under these the tribunes, <i>with many others,
+    too tedious to name</i>." Lentulus, however, was but a subordinate officer;
+    for we are informed afterwards, that the Romans had made Sextus Pompeius
+    lord high admiral in all the seas of their dominions. Among other
+    affectations of this writer, is a furious and unnecessary zeal for
+    liberty; or rather, for one form of government as preferable to another.
+    This, indeed, might be suffered, because political institution is a
+    subject in which men have always differed, and, if they continue to obey
+    their lawful governours, and attempt not to make innovations, for the
+    sake of their favourite schemes, they may differ for ever, without any
+    just reproach from one another. But who can bear the hardy champion, who
+    ventures nothing? who, in full security, undertakes the defence of the
+    assassination of Cassar, and declares his resolution to speak plain? Yet
+    let not just sentiments be overlooked: he has justly observed, that the
+    greater part of mankind will be naturally prejudiced against Brutus, for
+    all feel the benefits of private friendship; but few can discern the
+    advantages of a well-constituted government <a href="#note-3">[3]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We know not whether some apology may not be necessary for the distance
+    between the first account of this book and its continuation. The truth
+    is, that this work, not being forced upon our attention by much publick
+    applause or censure, was sometimes neglected, and sometimes forgotten;
+    nor would it, perhaps, have been now resumed, but that we might avoid to
+    disappoint our readers by an abrupt desertion of any subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not our design to criticise the facts of this history, but the
+    style; not the veracity, but the address of the writer; for, an account
+    of the ancient Romans, as it cannot nearly interest any present reader,
+    and must be drawn from writings that have been long known, can owe its
+    value only to the language in which it is delivered, and the reflections
+    with which it is accompanied. Dr. Blackwell, however, seems to have
+    heated his imagination, so as to be much affected with every event, and
+    to believe that he can affect others. Enthusiasm is, indeed,
+    sufficiently contagious; but I never found any of his readers much
+    enamoured of the <i>glorious Pompey, the patriot approv'd</i>, or much
+    incensed against the <i>lawless Caesar</i>, whom this author, probably, stabs
+    every day and night in his sleeping or waking dreams.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He is come too late into the world with his fury for freedom, with his
+    Brutus and Cassius. We have all, on this side of the Tweed, long since
+    settled our opinions: his zeal for Roman liberty and declamations
+    against the violators of the republican constitution, only stand now in
+    the reader's way, who wishes to proceed in the narrative without the
+    interruption of epithets and exclamations. It is not easy to forbear
+    laughter at a man so bold in fighting shadows, so busy in a dispute two
+    thousand years past, and so zealous for the honour of a people, who,
+    while they were poor, robbed mankind, and, as soon as they became rich,
+    robbed one another. Of these robberies our author seems to have no very
+    quick sense, except when they are committed by Caesar's party, for every
+    act is sanctified by the name of a patriot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If this author's skill in ancient literature were less generally
+    acknowledged, one might sometimes suspect, that he had too frequently
+    consulted the French writers. He tells us, that Archelaus, the Rhodian,
+    made a speech to Cassius, and, <i>in so saying</i>, dropt some tears; and
+    that Cassius, after the reduction of Rhodes, was <i>covered with
+    glory</i>.&mdash;Deiotarus was a keen and happy spirit&mdash;the ingrate Castor kept
+    his court.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His great delight is to show his universal acquaintance with terms of
+    art, with words that every other polite writer has avoided and despised.
+    When Pompey conquered the pirates, he destroyed fifteen hundred ships of
+    the line.&mdash;The Xanthian parapets were tore down.&mdash;Brutus, suspecting
+    that his troops were plundering, commanded the trumpets to sound to
+    their colours.&mdash;Most people understood the act of attainder passed by
+    the senate.&mdash;The Numidian troopers were unlikely in their appearance.&mdash;
+    The Numidians beat up one quarter after another.&mdash;Salvidienus resolved
+    to pass his men over, in boats of leather, and he gave orders for
+    equipping a sufficient number of that sort of small craft.&mdash;Pompey had
+    light, agile frigates, and fought in a strait, where the current and
+    caverns occasion swirls and a roll.&mdash;A sharp out-look was kept by the
+    admiral.&mdash;It is a run of about fifty Roman miles.&mdash;Brutus broke Lipella
+    in the sight of the army.&mdash;Mark Antony garbled the senate. He was a
+    brave man, well qualified for a commodore.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In his choice of phrases he frequently uses words with great solemnity,
+    which every other mouth and pen has appropriated to jocularity and
+    levity! The Rhodians gave up the contest, and, in poor plight, fled back
+    to Rhodes.&mdash;Boys and girls were easily kidnapped.&mdash;Deiotarus was a
+    mighty believer of augury.&mdash;Deiotarus destroyed his ungracious
+    progeny.&mdash;The regularity of the Romans was their mortal aversion.&mdash;They
+    desired the consuls to curb such heinous doings.&mdash;He had such a shrewd
+    invention, that no side of a question came amiss to him.&mdash;Brutus found
+    his mistress a coquettish creature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He sometimes, with most unlucky dexterity, mixes the grand and the
+    burlesque together; <i>the violation of faith, sir</i>, says Cassius, <i>lies
+    at the door of the Rhodians by reite-rated acts of perfidy</i>.&mdash;The iron
+    grate fell down, crushed those under it to death, and catched the rest
+    as in a trap.&mdash;When the Xanthians heard the military shout, and saw the
+    flame mount, they concluded there would be no mercy. It was now about
+    sunset, and they had been at hot work since noon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He has, often, words, or phrases, with which our language has hitherto
+    had no knowledge.&mdash;One was a heart-friend to the republic&mdash;A deed was
+    expeded.&mdash;The Numidians begun to reel, and were in hazard of falling
+    into confusion.&mdash;The tutor embraced his pupil close in his arms.&mdash;Four
+    hundred women were taxed, who have, no doubt, been the wives of the best
+    Roman citizens.&mdash;Men not born to action are inconsequential in
+    government.&mdash;Collectitious troops.&mdash;The foot, by their violent attack,
+    began the fatal break in the Pharsaliac field.&mdash;He and his brother, with
+    a politic, common to other countries, had taken opposite sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His epithets are of the gaudy or hyperbolical kind. The glorious
+    news&mdash;eager hopes and dismal fears&mdash;bleeding Rome&mdash;divine laws and
+    hallowed customs&mdash;merciless war&mdash;intense anxiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sometimes the reader is suddenly ravished with a sonorous sentence, of
+    which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain. When
+    Brutus set his legions to fill a moat, instead of heavy dragging and
+    slow toil, they set about it with huzzas and racing, as if they had been
+    striving at the Olympic games. They hurled impetuous down the huge trees
+    and stones, and, with shouts, forced them into the water; so that the
+    work, expected to continue half the campaign, was, with rapid toil,
+    completed in a few days. Brutus's soldiers fell to the gate with
+    resistless fury; it gave way, at last, with hideous crash.&mdash;This great
+    and good man, doing his duty to his country, received a mortal wound,
+    and glorious fell in the cause of Rome; may his memory be ever dear to
+    all lovers of liberty, learning, and humanity! This promise ought ever
+    to embalm his memory.&mdash;The queen of nations was torn by no foreign
+    invader.&mdash;Rome fell a sacrifice to her own sons, and was ravaged by her
+    unnatural offspring: all the great men of the state, all the good, all
+    the holy, were openly murdered by the wickedest and worst.&mdash;Little
+    islands cover the harbour of Brindisi, and form the narrow outlet from
+    the numerous creeks that compose its capacious port.&mdash;At the appearance
+    of Brutus and Cassius, a shout of joy rent the heavens from the
+    surrounding multitudes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such are the flowers which may be gathered, by every hand, in every part
+    of this garden of eloquence. But having thus freely mentioned our
+    author's faults, it remains that we acknowledge his merit; and confess,
+    that this book is the work of a man of letters, that it is full of
+    events displayed with accuracy, and related with vivacity; and though it
+    is sufficiently defective to crush the vanity of its author, it is
+    sufficiently entertaining to invite readers.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_6"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO DR BENTLEY,
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Containing some arguments in proof of a Deity <a href="#note-4">[4]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It will certainly be required, that notice should be taken of a book,
+    however small, written on such a subject, by such an author. Yet I know
+    not whether these letters will be very satisfactory; for they are
+    answers to inquiries not published; and, therefore, though they contain
+    many positions of great importance, are, in some parts, imperfect and
+    obscure, by their reference to Dr. Bentley's letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Isaac declares, that what he has done is due to nothing but industry
+    and patient thought; and, indeed, long consideration is so necessary in
+    such abstruse inquiries, that it is always dangerous to publish the
+    productions of great men, which are not known to have been designed for
+    the press, and of which it is uncertain, whether much patience and
+    thought have been bestowed upon them. The principal question of these
+    letters gives occasion to observe, how even the mind of Newton gains
+    ground, gradually, upon darkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "As to your first query," says he, "it seems to me, that if the matter
+    of our sun and planets, and all the matter of the universe, were evenly
+    scattered, throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate
+    gravity towards all the rest, and the whole space, throughout which this
+    matter was scattered, was but finite, the matter on the outside of this
+    space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside,
+    and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and
+    there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly
+    disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one
+    mass, but some of it would convene into one mass, and some into another,
+    so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered, at great
+    distances, from one to another, throughout all that infinite space. And
+    thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were
+    of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two
+    sorts, and that part of it, which is fit to compose a shining body,
+    should fall down into one mass, and make a sun, and the rest, which is
+    fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body,
+    like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or, if the sun, at
+    first, were an opaque body, like the planets, or the planets lucid
+    bodies, like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining
+    body, whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into
+    opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think more explicable
+    by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and
+    contrivance of a voluntary agent."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The hypothesis of matter evenly disposed through infinite space, seems
+    to labour with such difficulties, as makes it almost a contradictory
+    supposition, or a supposition destructive of itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Matter evenly disposed through infinite space," is either created or
+    eternal; if it was created, it infers a creator; if it was eternal, it
+    had been from eternity "evenly spread through infinite space;" or it had
+    been once coalesced in masses, and, afterwards, been diffused. Whatever
+    state was first must have been from eternity, and what had been from
+    eternity could not be changed, but by a cause beginning to act, as it
+    had never acted before, that is, by the voluntary act of some external
+    power. If matter, infinitely and evenly diffused, was a moment without
+    coalition, it could never coalesce at all by its own power. If matter
+    originally tended to coalesce, it could never be evenly diffused through
+    infinite space. Matter being supposed eternal, there never was a time,
+    when it could be diffused before its conglobation, or conglobated before
+    its diffusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This sir Isaac seems, by degrees, to have understood; for he says, in
+    his second letter: "The reason why matter, evenly scattered through a
+    finite space, would convene in the midst, you conceive the same with me;
+    but, that there should be a central particle, so accurately placed in
+    the middle, as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and,
+    thereby, continue without motion, seems to me a supposition fully as
+    hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright upon its point on a
+    looking-glass. For, if the very mathematical centre of the central
+    particle be not accurately in the very mathematical centre of the
+    attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted
+    equally on all sides. And much harder is it to suppose all the
+    particles, in an infinite space, should be so accurately poised, one
+    among another, as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon
+    this as hard as to make not one needle only, but an infinite number of
+    them, (so many as there are particles in an infinite space,) stand
+    accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least,
+    by a divine power; and, if they were once to be placed, I agree with
+    you, that they would continue in that posture without motion, for ever,
+    unless put into new motion by the same power. When, therefore, I said,
+    that matter evenly spread through all space, would convene, by its
+    gravity, into one or more great masses, I understand it of matter not
+    resting in an accurate poise."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Let not it be thought irreverence to this great name, if I observe, that
+    by "matter evenly spread" through infinite space, he now finds it
+    necessary to mean "matter not evenly spread." Matter not evenly spread
+    will, indeed, convene, but it will convene as soon as it exists. And, in
+    my opinion, this puzzling question about matter, is only, how that could
+    be that never could have been, or what a man thinks on when he thinks on
+    nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turn matter on all sides, make it eternal, or of late production, finite
+    or infinite, there can be no regular system produced, but by a voluntary
+    and meaning agent. This the great Newton always asserted, and this he
+    asserts in the third letter; but proves, in another manner, in a manner,
+    perhaps, more happy and conclusive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world, by mechanical
+    principles, from matter evenly spread through the heavens, being
+    inconsistent with my system, I had considered it very little, before
+    your letter put me upon it, and, therefore, trouble you with a line or
+    two more about it, if this comes not too late for your use.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In my former, I represented, that the diurnal rotations of the planets
+    could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine arm to impress
+    them. And though gravity might give the planets a motion of descent
+    towards the sun, either directly, or with some little obliquity, yet the
+    transverse motions, by which they revolve in their several orbs,
+    required the divine arm to impress them, according to the tangents of
+    their orbs. I would now add, that the hypothesis of matter's being, at
+    first, evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion,
+    inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity, without a
+    supernatural power to reconcile them, and, therefore, it infers a deity.
+    For, if there be innate gravity, it is impossible now for the matter of
+    the earth, and all the planets and stars, to fly up from them, and
+    become evenly spread throughout all the heavens, without a supernatural
+    power; and, certainly, that which can never be hereafter, without a
+    supernatural power, could never be heretofore, without the same power."
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_7"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF A JOURNAL OF EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY,
+</h2>
+<p>
+    From Portsmouth to Kingston upon Thames, through Southampton, Wiltshire,
+    &amp;c. with miscellaneous thoughts, moral and religious; in sixty-four
+    letters: addressed to two ladies of the partie. To which is added, an
+    Essay On Tea, considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry,
+    and impoverishing the nation; with an account of its growth, and great
+    consumption in these kingdoms; with several political reflections; and
+    thoughts on publick love: in thirty-two letters to two ladies. By Mr. H.
+</p>
+<center>
+    &mdash;&mdash;-.
+</center>
+<p>
+    [From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. No. xiii. 1757.]
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our readers may, perhaps, remember, that we gave them a short account of
+    this book, with a letter, extracted from it, in November, 1756. The
+    author then sent us an injunction, to forbear his work, till a second
+    edition should appear: this prohibition was rather too magisterial; for
+    an author is no longer the sole master of a book, which he has given to
+    the publick; yet he has been punctually obeyed; we had no desire to
+    offend him; and, if his character may be estimated by his book, he is a
+    man whose failings may well be pardoned for his virtues.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The second edition is now sent into the world, corrected and enlarged,
+    and yielded up, by the author, to the attacks of criticism. But he shall
+    find in us, no malignity of censure. We wish, indeed, that, among other
+    corrections, he had submitted his pages to the inspection of a
+    grammarian, that the elegancies of one line might not have been
+    disgraced by the improprieties of another; but, with us, to mean well is
+    a degree of merit, which overbalances much greater errours than impurity
+    of style.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have already given, in our collections, one of the letters, in which
+    Mr. Hanway endeavours to show, that the consumption of tea is injurious
+    to the interest of our country. We shall now endeavour to follow him,
+    regularly, through all his observations on this modern luxury; but, it
+    can scarcely be candid not to make a previous declaration, that he is to
+    expect little justice from the author of this extract, a hardened and
+    shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with
+    only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely
+    time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the
+    midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He begins by refuting a popular notion, that bohea and green tea are
+    leaves of the same shrub, gathered at different times of the year. He is
+    of opinion, that they are produced by different shrubs. The leaves of
+    tea are gathered in dry weather; then dried and curled over the fire, in
+    copper pans. The Chinese use little green tea, imagining, that it
+    hinders digestion, and excites fevers. How it should have either effect,
+    is not easily discovered; and, if we consider the innumerable
+    prejudices, which prevail concerning our own plants, we shall very
+    little regard these opinions of the Chinese vulgar, which experience
+    does not confirm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Chinese drink tea, they infuse it slightly, and extract only
+    the more volatile parts; but though this seems to require great
+    quantities at a time, yet the author believes, perhaps, only because he
+    has an inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch use more
+    than all the inhabitants of that extensive empire. The Chinese drink it,
+    sometimes, with acids, seldom with sugar; and this practice our author,
+    who has no intention to find anything right at home, recommends to his
+    countrymen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The history of the rise and progress of tea-drinking is truly curious.
+    Tea was first imported, from Holland, by the earls of Arlington and
+    Ossory, in 1666; from their ladies the women of quality learned its use.
+    Its price was then three pounds a pound, and continued the same to 1707.
+    In 1715, we began to use green tea, and the practice of drinking it
+    descended to the lower class of the people. In 1720, the French began to
+    send it hither by a clandestine commerce. From 1717 to 1726, we
+    imported, annually, seven hundred thousand pounds. From 1732 to 1742, a
+    million and two hundred thousand pounds were every year brought to
+    London; in some years afterwards three millions; and in 1755, near four
+    millions of pounds, or two thousand tons, in which we are not to reckon
+    that which is surreptitiously introduced, which, perhaps, is nearly as
+    much. Such quantities are, indeed, sufficient to alarm us; it is, at
+    least, worth inquiry, to know what are the qualities of such a plant,
+    and what the consequences of such a trade.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then proceeds to enumerate the mischiefs of tea, and seems willing to
+    charge upon it every mischief that he can find. He begins, however, by
+    questioning the virtues ascribed to it, and denies that the crews of the
+    Chinese ships are preserved, in their voyage homewards, from the scurvy
+    by tea. About this report I have made some inquiry, and though I cannot
+    find that these crews are wholly exempt from scorbutick maladies, they
+    seem to suffer them less than other mariners, in any course of equal
+    length. This I ascribe to the tea, not as possessing any medicinal
+    qualities, but as tempting them to drink more water, to dilute their
+    salt food more copiously, and, perhaps, to forbear punch, or other
+    strong liquors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then proceeds, in the pathetick strain, to tell the ladies how, by
+    drinking tea, they injure their health, and, what is yet more dear,
+    their beauty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "To what can we ascribe the numerous complaints which prevail? How many
+    sweet creatures of your sex languish with a weak digestion, low spirits,
+    lassitudes, melancholy, and twenty disorders, which, in spite of the
+    faculty, have yet no names, except the general one of nervous
+    complaints? Let them change their diet, and, among other articles, leave
+    off drinking tea, it is more than probable, the greatest part of them
+    will be restored to health."
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Hot water is also very hurtful to the teeth. The Chinese do not drink
+    their tea so hot as we do, and yet they have bad teeth. This cannot be
+    ascribed entirely to sugar, for they use very little, as already
+    observed; but we all know, that hot or cold things, which pain the
+    teeth, destroy them also. If we drank less tea, and used gentle acids
+    for the gums and teeth, particularly sour oranges, though we had a less
+    number of French dentists, I fancy this essential part of beauty would
+    be much better preserved.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The women in the United Provinces, who sip tea from morning till night,
+    are also as remarkable for bad teeth. They also look pallid, and many
+    are troubled with certain feminine disorders, arising from a relaxed
+    habit. The Portuguese ladies, on the other hand, entertain with
+    sweetmeats, and yet they have very good teeth; but their food, in
+    general, is more of a farinaceous and vegetable kind than ours. They
+    also drink cold water, instead of sipping hot, and never taste any
+    fermented liquors; for these reasons, the use of sugar does not seem to
+    be at all pernicious to them."
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Men seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their
+    beauty. I am not young, but, methinks, there is not quite so much beauty
+    in this land as there was. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom,
+    I suppose, by sipping tea. Even the agitations of the passions at cards
+    are not so great enemies to female charms. What Shakespeare ascribes to
+    the concealment of love, is, in this age, more frequently occasioned by
+    the use of tea."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To raise the fright still higher, he quotes an account of a pig's tail,
+    scalded with tea, on which, however, he does not much insist.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these dreadful effects, some are, perhaps, imaginary, and some may
+    have another cause. That there is less beauty in the present race of
+    females, than in those who entered the world with us, all of us are
+    inclined to think, on whom beauty has ceased to smile; but our fathers
+    and grandfathers made the same complaint before us; and our posterity
+    will still find beauties irresistibly powerful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the diseases, commonly called nervous, tremours, fits, habitual
+    depression, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility,
+    are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however
+    deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the
+    prohibition of tea. This general languor is the effect of general
+    luxury, of general idleness. If it be most to be found among
+    tea-drinkers, the reason is, that tea is one of the stated amusements of
+    the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of
+    voluntary labour, every exercise that strengthened the nerves, and
+    hardened the muscles, is fallen into disuse. The inhabitants are crowded
+    together in populous cities, so that no occasion of life requires much
+    motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and
+    delicate seldom pass from one street to another, but in carriages of
+    pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the
+    hunters and huntresses, the farmers and the housewives, of the former
+    generation; and they that pass ten hours in bed, and eight at cards, and
+    the greater part of the other six at the table, are taught to impute to
+    tea all the diseases which a life, unnatural in all its parts, may
+    chance to bring upon them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Tea, among the greater part of those who use it most, is drunk in no
+    great quantity. As it neither exhilarates the heart, nor stimulates the
+    palate, it is commonly an entertainment merely nominal, a pretence for
+    assembling to prattle, for interrupting business, or diversifying
+    idleness. They, who drink one cup, and, who drink twenty, are equally
+    punctual in preparing or partaking it; and, indeed, there are few but
+    discover, by their indifference about it, that they are brought together
+    not by the tea, but the tea-table. Three cups make the common quantity,
+    so slightly impregnated, that, perhaps, they might be tinged with the
+    Athenian cicuta, and produce less effects than these letters charge upon
+    tea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our author proceeds to show yet other bad qualities of this hated leaf.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Green tea, when made strong, even by infusion, is an emetick; nay, I am
+    told, it is used as such in China; a decoction of it certainly performs
+    this operation; yet, by long use, it is drunk by many without such an
+    effect. The infusion also, when it is made strong, and stands long to
+    draw the grosser particles, will convulse the bowels: even in the manner
+    commonly used, it has this effect on some constitutions, as I have
+    already remarked to you from my own experience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "You see I confess my weakness without reserve; but those who are very
+    fond of tea, if their digestion is weak, and they find themselves
+    disordered, they generally ascribe it to any cause, except the true one.
+    I am aware that the effect, just mentioned, is imputed to the hot water;
+    let it be so, and my argument is still good: but who pretends to say, it
+    is not partly owing to particular kinds of tea? perhaps, such as partake
+    of copperas, which, there is cause to apprehend, is sometimes the case:
+    if we judge from the manner in which it is said to be cured, together
+    with its ordinary effects, there is some foundation for this opinion.
+    Put a drop of strong tea, either green or bohea, but chiefly the former,
+    on the blade of a knife, though it is not corrosive, in the same manner
+    as vitriol, yet there appears to be a corrosive quality in it, very
+    different from that of fruit, which stains the knife."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He afterwards quotes Paulli, to prove, that tea is a "desiccative, and
+    ought not to be used after the fortieth year." I have, then, long
+    exceeded the limits of permission, but I comfort myself, that all the
+    enemies of tea cannot be in the right. If tea be a desiccative,
+    according to Paulli, it cannot weaken the fibres, as our author
+    imagines; if it be emetick, it must constringe the stomach, rather than
+    relax it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The formidable quality of tinging the knife, it has in common with
+    acorns, the bark, and leaves of oak, and every astringent bark or leaf:
+    the copperas, which is given to the tea, is really in the knife. Ink may
+    be made of any ferruginous matter, and astringent vegetable, as it is
+    generally made of galls and copperas.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From tea, the writer digresses to spirituous liquors, about which he
+    will have no controversy with the Literary Magazine; we shall,
+    therefore, insert almost his whole letter, and add to it one testimony,
+    that the mischiefs arising, on every side, from this compendious mode of
+    drunkenness, are enormous and insupportable; equally to be found among
+    the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet, and distraction,
+    harder to be borne, as it cannot be mentioned; and overwhelming
+    multitudes with incurable diseases, and unpitied poverty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this
+    island, and his majesty's other dominions, yet, you may be well assured,
+    that the governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost
+    skill and vigilance, to prevent the children, under their care, from
+    being poisoned, or enervated by one or the other. This, however, is not
+    the case of workhouses: it is well known, to the shame of those who are
+    charged with the care of them, that gin has been too often permitted to
+    enter their gates;&mdash;and the debauched appetites of the people, who
+    inhabit these houses, has been urged as a reason for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Desperate diseases require desperate remedies: if laws are rigidly
+    executed against murderers in the highway, those who provide a draught
+    of gin, which we see is murderous, ought not to be countenanced. I am
+    now informed, that in certain hospitals, where the number of the sick
+    used to be about 5600 in 14 years,
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  From 1704 to 1718, they increased to 8189;
+  From 1718 to 1734, still augmented to 12,710;
+  And from 1734 to 1749, multiplied to 38,147.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    "What a dreadful spectre does this exhibit! nor must we wonder, when
+    satisfactory evidence was given, before the great council of the nation,
+    that near eight millions of gallons of distilled spirits, at the
+    standard it is commonly reduced to for drinking, was actually consumed
+    annually in drams! the shocking difference in the numbers of the sick,
+    and, we may presume, of the dead also, was supposed to keep pace with
+    gin; and the most ingenious and unprejudiced physicians ascribed it to
+    this cause. What is to be done under these melancholy circumstances?
+    shall we still countenance the distillery, for the sake of the revenue;
+    out of tenderness to the few, who will suffer by its being abolished;
+    for fear of the madness of the people; or that foreigners will run it in
+    upon us? There can be no evil so great as that we now suffer, except the
+    making the same consumption, and paying for it to foreigners in money,
+    which I hope never will be the case.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "As to the revenue, it certainly may be replaced by taxes upon the
+    necessaries of life, even upon the bread we eat, or, in other words,
+    upon the land, which is the great source of supply to the public, and to
+    individuals. Nor can I persuade myself, but that the people may be
+    weaned from the habit of poisoning themselves. The difficulty of
+    smuggling a bulky liquid, joined to the severity which ought to be
+    exercised towards smugglers, whose illegal commerce is of so infernal a
+    nature, must, in time, produce the effect desired. Spirituous liquors
+    being abolished, instead of having the most undisciplined and abandoned
+    poor, we might soon boast a race of men, temperate, religious, and
+    industrious, even to a proverb. We should soon see the ponderous burden
+    of the poor's rate decrease, and the beauty and strength of the land
+    rejuvenate. Schools, workhouses, and hospitals, might then be sufficient
+    to clear our streets of distress and misery, which never will be the
+    case, whilst the love of poison prevails, and the means of ruin is sold
+    in above one thousand houses in the city of London, in two thousand two
+    hundred in Westminster, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty in
+    Holborn and St. Giles's.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "But if other uses still demand liquid fire, I would really propose,
+    that it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up, with the king's
+    seal, with a very high duty, and none sold without being mixed with a
+    strong emetic.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Many become objects of charity by their intemperance, and this excludes
+    others, who are such by the unavoidable accidents of life, or who
+    cannot, by any means, support themselves. Hence it appears, that the
+    introducing new habits of life, is the most substantial charity; and
+    that the regulation of charity-schools, hospitals, and workhouses, not
+    the augmentation of their number, can make them answer the wise ends,
+    for which they were instituted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The children of beggars should be also taken from them, and bred up to
+    labour, as children of the public. Thus the distressed might be
+    relieved, at a sixth part of the present expense; the idle be compelled
+    to work or starve; and the mad be sent to Bedlam. We should not see
+    human nature disgraced by the aged, the maimed, the sickly, and young
+    children, begging their bread; nor would compassion be abused by those,
+    who have reduced it to an art to catch the unwary. Nothing is wanting
+    but common sense and honesty in the execution of laws.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "To prevent such abuse in the streets, seems more practicable than to
+    abolish bad habits within doors, where greater numbers perish. We see,
+    in many familiar instances, the fatal effects of example. The careless
+    spending of time among servants, who are charged with the care of
+    infants, is often fatal: the nurse frequently destroys the child! the
+    poor infant, being left neglected, expires whilst she is sipping her
+    tea! This may appear to you as rank prejudice, or jest; but, I am
+    assured, from the most indubitable evidence, that many very
+    extraordinary cases of this kind have really happened, among those whose
+    duty does not permit of such kind of habits.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "It is partly from such causes, that nurses of the children of the
+    public often forget themselves, and become impatient when infants cry;
+    the next step to this is using extraordinary means to quiet them. I have
+    already mentioned the term killing nurse, as known in some workhouses:
+    Venice treacle, poppy water, and Godfrey's cordial, have been the kind
+    instruments of lulling the child to his everlasting rest. If these pious
+    women could send up an ejaculation, when the child expired, all was
+    well, and no questions asked by the superiors. An ingenious friend of
+    mine informs me, that this has been so often the case, in some
+    workhouses, that Venice treacle has acquired the appellation of 'the
+    Lord have mercy upon me,' in allusion to the nurses' hackneyed
+    expression of pretended grief, when infants expire! Farewell."
+</p>
+<p>
+    I know not upon what observation Mr. Hanway founds his confidence in the
+    governours of the Foundling Hospital, men of whom I have not any
+    knowledge, but whom I entreat to consider a little the minds, as well as
+    bodies, of the children. I am inclined to believe irreligion equally
+    pernicious with gin and tea, and, therefore, think it not unseasonable
+    to mention, that, when, a few months ago, I wandered through the
+    hospital, I found not a child that seemed to have heard of his creed, or
+    the commandments. To breed up children in this manner, is to rescue them
+    from an early grave, that they may find employment for the gibbet; from
+    dying in innocence, that they may perish by their crimes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having considered the effects of tea upon the health of the drinker,
+    which, I think, he has aggravated in the vehemence of his zeal, and
+    which, after soliciting them by this watery luxury, year after year, I
+    have not yet felt, he proceeds to examine, how it may be shown to affect
+    our interest; and first calculates the national loss, by the time spent
+    in drinking tea. I have no desire to appear captious, and shall,
+    therefore, readily admit, that tea is a liquor not proper for the lower
+    classes of the people, as it supplies no strength to labour, or relief
+    to disease, but gratifies the taste, without nourishing the body. It is
+    a barren superfluity, to which those who can hardly procure what nature
+    requires, cannot prudently habituate themselves. Its proper use is to
+    amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of
+    those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. That time is
+    lost in this insipid entertainment cannot be denied; many trifle away,
+    at the tea-table, those moments which would be better spent; but that
+    any national detriment can be inferred from this waste of time, does not
+    evidently appear, because I know not that any work remains undone, for
+    want of hands. Our manufactures seem to be limited, not by the
+    possibility of work, but by the possibility of sale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His next argument is more clear. He affirms, that one hundred and fifty
+    thousand pounds, in silver, are paid to the Chinese, annually, for three
+    millions of pounds of tea, and, that for two millions more, brought
+    clandestinely from the neighbouring coasts, we pay, at twenty-pence a
+    pound, one hundred sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds.
+    The author justly conceives, that this computation will waken us; for,
+    says he: "the loss of health, the loss of time, the injury of morals,
+    are not very sensibly felt by some, who are alarmed when you talk of the
+    loss of money." But he excuses the East India company, as men not
+    obliged to be political arithmeticians, or to inquire so much, what the
+    nation loses, as how themselves may grow rich. It is certain, that they,
+    who drink tea, have no right to complain of those that import it; but if
+    Mr. Hanway's computation be just, the importation, and the use of it,
+    ought, at once, to be stopped by a penal law.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The author allows one slight argument in favour of tea, which, in my
+    opinion, might be, with far greater justice, urged both against that and
+    many other parts of our naval trade. "The tea-trade employs," he tells
+    us, "six ships, and five or six hundred seamen, sent annually to China.
+    It, likewise, brings in a revenue of three hundred and sixty thousand
+    pounds, which, as a tax on luxury, may be considered as of great utility
+    to the state." The utility of this tax I cannot find: a tax on luxury is
+    no better than another tax, unless it hinders luxury, which cannot be
+    said of the impost upon tea, while it is thus used by the great and the
+    mean, the rich and the poor. The truth is, that, by the loss of one
+    hundred and fifty thousand pounds, we procure the means of shifting
+    three hundred and sixty thousand, at best, only from one hand to
+    another; but, perhaps, sometimes into hands by which it is not very
+    honestly employed. Of the five or six hundred seamen, sent to China, I
+    am told, that sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the
+    voyage; so that, instead of setting this navigation against the
+    inconveniencies already alleged, we may add to them, the yearly loss of
+    two hundred men, in the prime of life; and reckon, that the trade of
+    China has destroyed ten thousand men, since the beginning of this
+    century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If tea be thus pernicious, if it impoverishes our country, if it raises
+    temptation, and gives opportunity to illicit commerce, which I have
+    always looked on, as one of the strongest evidences of the inefficacy
+    of our law, the weakness of our government, and the corruption of our
+    people, let us, at once, resolve to prohibit it for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "If the question was, how to promote industry most advantageously, in
+    lieu of our tea-trade, supposing every branch of our commerce to be
+    already fully supplied with men and money? If a quarter the sum, now
+    spent in tea, were laid out, annually, in plantations, in making public
+    gardens, in paving and widening streets, in making roads, in rendering
+    rivers navigable, erecting palaces, building' bridges, or neat and
+    convenient houses, where are now only huts; draining lands, or rendering
+    those, which are now barren, of some use; should we not be gainers, and
+    provide more for health, pleasure, and long life, compared with the
+    consequences of the tea-trade?"
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our riches would be much better employed to these purposes; but if this
+    project does not please, let us first resolve to save our money, and we
+    shall, afterwards, very easily find ways to spend it.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_8"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REPLY TO A PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER OF MAY 26, 1757 <a href="#note-5">[5]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    It is observed, in Le Sage's Gil Bias, that an exasperated author is not
+    easily pacified. I have, therefore, very little hope of making my peace
+    with the writer of the Eight Days' Journey; indeed so little, that I
+    have long deliberated, whether I should not rather sit silently down,
+    under his displeasure, than aggravate my misfortune, by a defence, of
+    which my heart forbodes the ill success. Deliberation is often useless.
+    I am afraid, that I have, at last, made the wrong choice, and that I
+    might better have resigned my cause, without a struggle, to time and
+    fortune, since I shall run the hazard of a new oifence, by the necessity
+    of asking him, why he is angry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Distress and terrour often discover to us those faults, with which we
+    should never have reproached ourselves in a happy state. Yet, dejected
+    as I am, when I review the transaction between me and this writer, I
+    cannot find, that I have been deficient in reverence. When his book was
+    first printed, he hints, that I procured a sight of it before it was
+    published. How the sight of it was procured, I do not now very exactly
+    remember; but, if my curiosity was greater than my prudence, if I laid
+    rash hands on the fatal volume, I have surely suffered, like him who
+    burst the box, from which evil rushed into the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I took it, however, and inspected it, as the work of an author not
+    higher than myself; and was confirmed in my opinion, when I found, that
+    these letters were <i>not written to be printed</i>. I concluded, however,
+    that, though not <i>written</i> to be <i>printed</i>, they were <i>printed</i> to be
+    <i>read</i>, and inserted one of them in the collection of November last. Not
+    many days after, I received a note, informing me, that I ought to have
+    waited for a more correct edition. This injunction was obeyed. The
+    edition appeared, and I supposed myself at liberty to tell my thoughts
+    upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifesto, or an act of
+    parliament. But see the fate of ignorant temerity! I now find, but find
+    too late, that, instead of a writer, whose only power is in his pen, I
+    have irritated an important member of an important corporation; a man,
+    who, as he tells us in his letters, puts horses to his chariot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was allowed to the disputant of old to yield up the controversy, with
+    little resistance, to the master of forty legions. Those who know how
+    weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me, if I
+    should pay the same respect to a governour of the foundlings. Yets the
+    consciousness of my own rectitude of intention incites me to ask once
+    again, how I have offended.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are only three subjects upon which my unlucky pen has happened to
+    venture: tea; the author of the journal; and the foundling-hospital.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of tea, what have I said? That I have drank it twenty years, without
+    hurt, and, therefore, believe it not to be poison; that, if it dries the
+    fibres, it cannot soften them; that, if it constringes, it cannot relax.
+    I have modestly doubted, whether it has diminished the strength of our
+    men, or the beauty of our women; and whether it much hinders the
+    progress of our woollen or iron manufactures; but I allowed it to be a
+    barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that neither
+    supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, nor
+    exhilarated sorrow: I inserted, without charge or suspicion of
+    falsehood, the sums exported to purchase it; and proposed a law to
+    prohibit it for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the author I unfortunately said, that his injunction was somewhat too
+    magisterial. This I said, before I knew that he was a governour of the
+    foundlings; but he seems inclined to punish this failure of respect, as
+    the czar of Muscovy made war upon Sweden, because he was not treated
+    with sufficient honours, when he passed through the country in disguise.
+    Yet, was not this irreverence without extenuation. Something was said of
+    the merit of <i>meaning well</i>, and the journalist was declared to be a
+    man, <i>whose failings might well be pardoned for his virtues</i>. This is
+    the highest praise which human gratitude can confer upon human merit;
+    praise that would have more than satisfied Titus or Augustus, but which
+    I must own to be inadequate and penurious, when offered to the member of
+    an important corporation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am asked, whether I meant to satirize the man, or criticise the
+    writer, when I say, that "he believes, only, perhaps, because he has
+    inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch consume more tea
+    than the vast empire of China." Between the writer and the man, I did
+    not, at that time, consider the distinction. The writer I found not of
+    more than mortal might, and I did not immediately recollect, that the
+    man put horses to his chariot. But I did not write wholly without
+    consideration. I knew but two causes of belief, evidence and
+    inclination. What evidence the journalist could have of the Chinese
+    consumption of tea, I was not able to discover. The officers of the East
+    India company are excluded, they best know why, from the towns and the
+    country of China; they are treated, as we treat gipsies and vagrants,
+    and obliged to retire, every night, to their own hovel. What
+    intelligence such travellers may bring, is of no great importance. And,
+    though the missionaries boast of having once penetrated further, I
+    think, they have never calculated the tea drunk by the Chinese. There
+    being thus no evidence for his opinion, to what could I ascribe it but
+    inclination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am yet charged, more heavily, for having said, that "he has no
+    intention to find any thing right at home." I believe every reader
+    restrained this imputation to the subject which produced it, and
+    supposed me to insinuate only, that he meant to spare no part of the
+    tea-table, whether essence or circumstance. But this line he has
+    selected, as an instance of virulence and acrimony, and confutes it by
+    a lofty and splendid panegyrick on himself. He asserts, that he finds
+    many things right at home, and that he loves his oountrv almost to
+    enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I had not the least doubt, that he found, in his country, many things to
+    please him; nor did I suppose, that he desired the same inversion of
+    every part of life, as of the use of tea. The proposal of drinking tea
+    sour showed, indeed, such a disposition to practical paradoxes, that
+    there was reason to fear, lest some succeeding letter should recommend
+    the dress of the Picts, or the cookery of the Eskimaux. However, I met
+    with no other innovations, and, therefore, was willing to hope, that he
+    found something right at home.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But his love of his country seemed not to rise quite to enthusiasm,
+    when, amidst his rage against tea, he made a smooth apology for the East
+    India company, as men who might not think themselves obliged to be
+    political arithmeticians. I hold, though no enthusiastick patriot, that
+    every man, who lives and trades under the protection of a community, is
+    obliged to consider, whether he hurts or benefits those who protect him;
+    and that the most which can be indulged to private interest, is a
+    neutral traffick, if any such can be, by which our country is not
+    injured, though it may not be benefited.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But he now renews his declamation against tea, notwithstanding the
+    greatness or power of those that have interest or inclination to support
+    it. I know not of what power or greatness he may dream. The importers
+    only have an interest in defending it. I am sure, they are not great,
+    and, I hope, they are not powerful. Those, whose inclination leads them
+    to continue this practice, are too numerous; but, I believe their power
+    is such, as the journalist may defy, without enthusiasm. The love of our
+    country, when it rises to enthusiasm, is an ambiguous and uncertain
+    virtue: when a man is enthusiastick, he ceases to be reasonable; and,
+    when he once departs from reason, what will he do, but drink sour tea?
+    As the journalist, though enthusiastically zealous for his country, has,
+    with regard to smaller things, the placid happiness of philosophical
+    indifference, I can give him no disturbance, by advising him to
+    restrain, even the love of his country, within due limits, lest it
+    should, sometimes, swell too high, fill the whole capacity of his soul,
+    and leave less room for the love of truth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing now remains, but that I review my positions concerning the
+    foundling hospital. What I declared last month, I declare now, once
+    more, that I found none of the children that appeared to have heard of
+    the catechism. It is inquired, how I wandered, and how I examined. There
+    is, doubtless, subtlety in the question; I know not well how to answer
+    it. Happily, I did not wander alone; I attended some ladies, with
+    another gentleman, who all heard and assisted the inquiry, with equal
+    grief and indignation. I did not conceal my observations. Notice was
+    given of this shameful defect soon after, at my request, to one of the
+    highest names of the society. This, I am now told, is incredible; but,
+    since it is true, and the past is out of human power, the most important
+    corporation cannot make it false. But, why is it incredible? Because,
+    in the rules of the hospital, the children are ordered to learn the
+    rudiments of religion. Orders are easily made, but they do not execute
+    themselves. They say their catechism, at stated times, under an able
+    master. But this able master was, I think, not elected before last
+    February; and my visit happened, if I mistake not, in November. The
+    children were shy, when interrogated by a stranger. This may be true,
+    but the same shiness I do not remember to have hindered them from
+    answering other questions; and I wonder, why children, so much
+    accustomed to new spectators, should be eminently shy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    My opponent, in the first paragraph, calls the inference that I made
+    from this negligence, a hasty conclusion: to the decency of this
+    expression I had nothing to object; but, as he grew hot in his career,
+    his enthusiasm began to sparkle; and, in the vehemence of his
+    postscript, he charges my assertions, and my reasons for advancing them,
+    with folly and malice. His argumentation, being somewhat enthusiastical,
+    I cannot fully comprehend, but it seems to stand thus: my insinuations
+    are foolish or malicious, since I know not one of the governours of the
+    hospital; for, he that knows not the governours of the hospital, must be
+    very foolish or malicious.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He has, however, so much kindness for me, that he advises me to consult
+    my safety, when I talk of corporations. I know not what the most
+    important corporation can do, becoming manhood, by which my safety is
+    endangered. My reputation is safe, for I can prove the fact; my quiet is
+    safe, for I meant well; and for any other safety, I am not used to be
+    very solicitous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am always sorry, when I see any being labouring in vain; and, in
+    return for the journalist's attention to my safety, I will confess some
+    compassion for his tumultuous resentment; since all his invectives fume
+    into the air, with so little effect upon me, that I still esteem him, as
+    one that has the <i>merit of meaning well</i>; and still believe him to be a
+    man, whose <i>failings may be justly pardoned for his virtues</i> <a href="#note-6">[6]</a>.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_9"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW <a href="#note-7">[7]</a> OF AN ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS AND GENIUS OF POPE.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    This is a very curious and entertaining miscellany of critical remarks
+    and literary history. Though the book promises nothing but observations
+    on the writings of Pope, yet no opportunity is neglected of introducing
+    the character of any other writer, or the mention of any performance or
+    event, in which learning is interested. From Pope, however, he always
+    takes his hint, and to Pope he returns again from his digressions. The
+    facts, which he mentions, though they are seldom anecdotes, in a
+    rigorous sense, are often such as are very little known, and such as
+    will delight more readers than naked criticism.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As he examines the works of this great poet, in an order nearly
+    chronological, he necessarily begins with his pastorals, which,
+    considered as representations of any kind of life, he very justly
+    censures; for there is in them a mixture of Grecian and English, of
+    ancient and modern images. Windsor is coupled with Hybla, and Thames
+    with Pactolus. He then compares some passages, which Pope has imitated,
+    or translated, with the imitation, or version, and gives the preference
+    to the originals, perhaps, not always upon convincing arguments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Theocritus makes his lover wish to be a bee, that he might creep among
+    the leaves that form the chaplet of his mistress. Pope's enamoured swain
+    longs to be made the captive bird that sings in his fair one's bower,
+    that she might listen to his songs, and reward him with her kisses. The
+    critick prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate,
+    and more uncommon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is natural for a lover to wish, that he might be any thing that could
+    come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire to be that which she
+    fondles and caresses, than that which she would avoid, at least would
+    neglect. The snperiour delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor
+    can, indeed, find, that either in the one or the other image there is
+    any want of delicacy. Which of the two images was less common in the
+    time of the poet who used it, for on that consideration the merit of
+    novelty depends, I think it is now out of any critick's power to decide.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He remarks, I am afraid, with too much justice, that there is not a
+    single new thought in the pastorals; and, with equal reason, declares,
+    that their chief beauty consists in their correct and musical
+    versification, which has so influenced the English ear, as to render
+    every moderate rhymer harmonious.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In his examination of the Messiah, he justly observes some deviations
+    from the inspired author, which weaken the imagery, and dispirit the
+    expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On Windsor Forest, he declares, I think without proof, that descriptive
+    poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope; he draws this inference
+    from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally
+    belong to any other place. He must inquire, whether Windsor forest has,
+    in reality, any thing peculiar.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Stag-chase is not, he says, so full, so animated, and so
+    circumstantiated, as Somerville's. Barely to say, that one performance
+    is not so good as another, is to criticise with little exactness. But
+    Pope has directed, that we should, in every work, regard the author's
+    end. The stag-chase is the main subject of Somerville, and might,
+    therefore, be properly dilated into all its circumstances; in Pope, it
+    is only incidental, and was to be despatched in a few lines.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He makes a just observation, "that the description of the external
+    beauties of nature, is usually the first effort of a young genius,
+    before he hath studied nature and passions. Some of Milton's most early,
+    as well as mos't exquisite pieces, are his Lycidas, l'Allegro, and il
+    Penseroso, if we may except his ode on the Nativity of Christ, which is,
+    indeed, prior in order of time, and in which a penetrating critick might
+    have observed the seeds of that boundless imagination, which was, one
+    day, to produce the Paradise Lost."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mentioning Thomson, and other descriptive poets, he remarks, that
+    writers fail in their copies, for want of acquaintance with originals,
+    and justly ridicules those who think they can form just ideas of
+    valleys, mountains, and rivers, in a garret in the Strand. For this
+    reason, I cannot regret, with this author, that Pope laid aside his
+    design of writing American pastorals; for, as he must have painted
+    scenes, which he never saw, and manners, which he never knew, his
+    performance, though it might have been a pleasing amusement of fancy,
+    would have exhibited no representation of nature or of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the pastorals, the critick considers the lyrick poetry of Pope,
+    and dwells longest on the ode on St. Cecilia's day, which he, like the
+    rest of mankind, places next to that of Dryden, and not much below it.
+    He remarks, after Mr. Spence, that the first stanza is a perfect
+    concert: the second he thinks a little flat; he justly commends the
+    fourth, but without notice of the best line in that stanza, or in the
+    poem:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Transported demi-gods stood round,
+  And men grew heroes at the sound."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    In the latter part of the ode, he objects to the stanza of triumph:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Thus song could prevail," &amp;c.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    as written in a measure ridiculous and burlesque, and justifies his
+    answer, by observing, that Addison uses the same numbers in the scene of
+    Rosamond, between Grideline and sir Trusty:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "How unhappy is he," &amp;c.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    That the measure is the same in both passages, must be confessed, and
+    both poets, perhaps, chose their numbers properly; for they both meant
+    to express a kind of airy hilarity. The two passions of merriment and
+    exultation are, undoubtedly, different; they are as different as a
+    gambol and a triumph, but each is a species of joy; and poetical
+    measures have not, in any language, been so far refined, as to provide
+    for the subdivisions of passion. They can only be adapted to general
+    purposes; but the particular and minuter propriety must be sought only
+    in the sentiment and language. Thus the numbers are the same in Colin's
+    Complaint, and in the ballad of Darby and Joan, though, in one, sadness
+    is represented, and, in the other, tranquillity; so the measure is the
+    same of Pope's Unfortunate Lady, and the Praise of Voiture.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He observes, very justly, that the odes, both of Dryden and Pope,
+    conclude, unsuitably and unnaturally, with epigram.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then spends a page upon Mr. Handel's musick to Dryden's ode, and
+    speaks of him with that regard which he has generally obtained among the
+    lovers of sound. He finds something amiss in the air "With ravished
+    ears," but has overlooked, or forgotten, the grossest fault in that
+    composition, which is that in this line:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,"
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    He has laid much stress upon the two latter words, which are merely
+    words of connexion, and ought, in musick, to be considered as
+    parenthetical.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this ode is struck out a digression on the nature of odes, and the
+    comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the
+    chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham; and thence takes
+    occasion to treat of the chorus of the ancients. He then comes to
+    another ode, of "The dying Christian to his Soul;" in which, finding an
+    apparent imitation of Flatman, he falls into a pleasing and learned
+    speculation, on the resembling passages to be found in different poets.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He mentions, with great regard, Pope's ode on Solitude, written when he
+    was but twelve years old, but omits to mention the poem on Silence,
+    composed, I think, as early, with much greater elegance of diction,
+    musick of numbers, extent of observation, and force of thought. If he
+    had happened to think on Baillet's chapter of Enfans célèbres, he might
+    have made, on this occasion, a very entertaining dissertation on early
+    excellence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He comes next to the Essay on Criticism, the stupendous performance of a
+    youth, not yet twenty years old; and, after having detailed the
+    felicities of condition, to which he imagines Pope to have owed his
+    wonderful prematurity of mind, he tells us, that he is well informed
+    this essay was first written in prose. There is nothing improbable in
+    the report, nothing, indeed, but what is more likely than the contrary;
+    yet I <a href="#note-8">[8]</a> cannot forbear to hint to this writer, and all others, the
+    danger and weakness of trusting too readily to information. Nothing but
+    experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable
+    any man to conceive, that so many groundless reports should be
+    propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men
+    relate what they think, as what they know; some men, of confused
+    memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man, what belongs to
+    another; and some talk on, without thought or care. A few men are
+    sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently
+    diffused by successive relaters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He proceeds on, examining passage after passage of this essay; but we
+    must pass over all these criticisms, to which we have not something to
+    add or to object, or where this author does not differ from the general
+    voice of mankind. We cannot agree with him in his censure of the
+    comparison of a student advancing in science, with a traveller passing
+    the Alps, which is, perhaps, the best simile in our language; that, in
+    which the most exact resemblance is traced between things, in
+    appearance, utterly unrelated to each other. That the last line conveys
+    no new <i>idea</i>, is not true; it makes particular, what was before
+    general. Whether the description, which he adds from another author, be,
+    as he says, more full and striking than that of Pope, is not to be
+    inquired. Pope's description is relative, and can admit no greater
+    length than is usually allowed to a simile, nor any other particulars
+    than such as form the correspondence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Unvaried rhymes, says this writer, highly disgust readers of a good ear.
+    It is, surely, not the ear, but the mind that is offended. The fault,
+    arising from the use of common rhymes, is, that by reading the past
+    line, the second may be guessed, and half the composition loses the
+    grace of novelty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On occasion of the mention of an alexandrine, the critick observes, that
+    "the alexandrine may be thought a modern measure, but that <i>Robert of
+    Gloucester's Wife</i> is an alexandrine, with the addition of two
+    syllables; and that Sternhold and Hopkins translated the Psalms in the
+    same measure of fourteen syllables, though they are printed otherwise."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This seems not to be accurately conceived or expressed: an alexandrine,
+    with the addition of two syllables, is no more an alexandrine, than with
+    the detraction of two syllables. Sternhold and Hopkins did, generally,
+    write in the alternate measure of eight and six syllables; but Hopkins
+    commonly rhymed the first and third; Sternhold, only the second and
+    fourth: so that Sternhold may be considered, as writing couplets of long
+    lines; but Hopkins wrote regular stanzas. From the practice of printing
+    the long lines of fourteen syllables in two short lines, arose the
+    license of some of our poets, who, though professing to write in
+    stanzas, neglect the rhymes of the first and third lines.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Pope has mentioned Petronius, among the great names of criticism, as the
+    remarker justly observes, without any critical merit. It is to be
+    suspected, that Pope had never read his book, and mentioned him on the
+    credit of two or three sentences which he had often seen quoted,
+    imagining, that where there was so much, there must necessarily be more.
+    Young men, in haste to be renowned, too frequently talk of books which
+    they have scarcely seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The revival of learning, mentioned in this poem, affords an opportunity
+    of mentioning the chief periods of literary history, of which this
+    writer reckons five: that of Alexander, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, of
+    Augustus, of Leo the tenth, of queen Anne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These observations are concluded with a remark, which deserves great
+    attention: "In no polished nation, after criticism has been much
+    studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very
+    extraordinary book ever appeared."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Rape of the Lock was always regarded, by Pope, as the highest
+    production of his genius. On occasion of this work, the history of the
+    comick-heroick is given; and we are told, that it descended from Fassoni
+    to Boileau, from Boileau to Garth, and from Garth to Pope. Garth is
+    mentioned, perhaps, with too much honour; but all are confessed to be
+    inferiour to Pope. There is, in his remarks on this work, no discovery
+    of any latent beauty, nor any thing subtle or striking; he is, indeed,
+    commonly right, but has discussed no difficult question.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next pieces to be considered are, the Verses to the Memory of an
+    unfortunate Lady, the Prologue to Cato, and Epilogue to Jane Shore. The
+    first piece he commends. On occasion of the second, he digresses,
+    according to his custom, into a learned dissertation on tragedies, and
+    compares the English and French with the Greek stage. He justly censures
+    Cato, for want of action and of characters; but scarcely does justice to
+    the sublimity of some speeches, and the philosophical exactness in the
+    sentiments. "The simile of mount Atlas, and that of the Numidian
+    traveller, smothered in the sands, are, indeed, in character," says the
+    critick, "but sufficiently obvious." The simile of the mountain is,
+    indeed, common; but that of the traveller, I do not remember. That it is
+    obvious is easy to say, and easy to deny. Many things are obvious, when
+    they are taught.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He proceeds to criticise the other works of Addison, till the epilogue
+    calls his attention to Rowe, whose character he discusses in the same
+    manner, with sufficient freedom and sufficient candour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon is next considered;
+    but Sappho and Ovid are more the subjects of this disquisition, than
+    Pope. We shall, therefore, pass over it to a piece of more importance,
+    the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded, as one
+    of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The critick pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces
+    the passages of her letters, to which any allusion is made, and
+    intersperses many agreeable particulars and incidental relations. There
+    is not much profundity of criticism, because the beauties are sentiments
+    of nature, which the learned and the ignorant feel alike. It is justly
+    remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa, for the happy passage of
+    Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of
+    mystick devotion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are the pieces examined in this volume: whether the remaining part
+    of the work will be one volume, or more, perhaps the writer himself
+    cannot yet inform us <a href="#note-9">[9]</a>. This piece is, however, a complete work, so
+    far as it goes; and the writer is of opinion, that he has despatched the
+    chief part of his task; for he ventures to remark, that the reputation
+    of Pope, as a poet, among posterity, will be principally founded on his
+    Windsor Forest, Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard; while the facts
+    and characters, alluded to in his late writings, will be forgotten and
+    unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished; for wit and
+    satire are transitory and perishable, but nature and passion are
+    eternal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He has interspersed some passages of Pope's life, with which most
+    readers will be pleased. When Pope was yet a child, his father, who had
+    been a merchant in London, retired to Binfield. He was taught to read by
+    an aunt; and learned to write, without a master, by copying printed
+    books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would
+    oblige him to correct and retouch them over and over, and, at last,
+    could say, "These are good rhymes."
+</p>
+<p>
+    At eight years of age, he was committed to one Taverner, a priest, who
+    taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time, he met
+    with Ogleby's Homer, which seized his attention; he fell next upon
+    Sandys's Ovid, and remembered these two translations, with pleasure, to
+    the end of his life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About ten, being at school, near Hyde-park corner, he was taken to the
+    playhouse, and was so struck with the splendour of the drama, that he
+    formed a kind of play out of Ogleby's Homer, intermixed with verses of
+    his own. He persuaded the head boys to act this piece, and Ajax was
+    performed by his master's gardener. They were habited according to the
+    pictures in Ogleby. At twelve, he retired, with his father, to Windsor
+    forest, and formed himself by study in the best English poets.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this extract, it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such
+    observations, as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating, with the
+    author, into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to
+    extinguish, curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work, abounding with
+    curious quotations and pleasing disquisitions. He must be much
+    acquainted with literary history, both of remote and late times, who
+    does not find, in this essay, many things which he did not know before;
+    and, if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions,
+    he may yet properly read this book, as a just specimen of literary
+    moderation.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_10"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF A FREE ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL <a href="#note-10">[10]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    This is a treatise, consisting of six letters, upon a very difficult and
+    important question, which, I am afraid, this author's endeavours will
+    not free from the perplexity which has entangled the speculatists of all
+    ages, and which must always continue while <i>we see</i> but <i>in part</i>. He
+    calls it a <i>Free Enquiry</i>, and, indeed, his <i>freedom</i> is, I think,
+    greater than his modesty. Though he is far from the contemptible
+    arrogance, or the impious licentiousness of Bolingbroke, yet he decides,
+    too easily, upon questions out of the reach of human determination, with
+    too little consideration of mortal weakness, and with too much vivacity
+    for the necessary caution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the first letter, on evil in general, he observes, that, "it is the
+    solution of this important question, whence came <i>evil</i>? alone, that can
+    ascertain the moral characteristic of God, without which there is an end
+    of all distinction between good and evil." Yet he begins this inquiry by
+    this declaration: "That there is a supreme being, infinitely powerful,
+    wise, and benevolent, the great creator and preserver of all things, is
+    a truth so clearly demonstrated, that it shall be here taken for
+    granted." What is this, but to say, that we have already reason to grant
+    the existence of those attributes of God, which the present inquiry is
+    designed to prove? The present inquiry is, then, surely made to no
+    purpose. The attributes, to the demonstration of which the solution of
+    this great question is necessary, have been demonstrated, without any
+    solution, or by means of the solution of some former writer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He rejects the Manichean system, but imputes to it an absurdity, from
+    which, amidst all its absurdities, it seems to be free, and adopts the
+    system of Mr. Pope. "That pain is no evil, if asserted with regard to
+    the individuals who suffer it, is downright nonsense; but if considered
+    as it affects the universal system, is an undoubted truth, and means
+    only, that there is no more pain in it, than what is necessary to the
+    production of happiness. How many soever of these evils, then, force
+    themselves into the creation, so long as the good preponderates, it is a
+    work well worthy of infinite wisdom and benevolence; and,
+    notwithstanding the imperfections of its parts, the whole is, most
+    undoubtedly, perfect." And, in the former part of the letter, he gives
+    the principle of his system in these words: "Omnipotence cannot work
+    contradictions; it can only effect all possible things. But so little
+    are we acquainted with the whole system of nature, that we know not what
+    are possible, and what are not; but if we may judge from that constant
+    mixture of pain with pleasure, and inconveniency with advantage, which
+    we must observe in every thing around us, we have reason to conclude,
+    that, to endue created beings with perfection, that is, to produce good,
+    exclusive of evil, is one of those impossibilities, which even infinite
+    power cannot accomplish."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is elegant and acute, but will by no means calm discontent, or
+    silence curiosity; for, whether evil can be wholly separated from good
+    or not, it is plain, that they may be mixed, in various degrees, and, as
+    far as human eyes can judge, the degree of evil might have been less,
+    without any impediment to good.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The second letter, on the evils of imperfection, is little more than a
+    paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or, yet less than a paraphrase, a mere
+    translation of poetry into prose. This is, surely, to attack difficulty
+    with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very
+    blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former
+    solutions, why is one of the latest, which no man can have forgotten,
+    given us again? I am told, that this pamphlet is not the effort of
+    hunger; what can it be, then, but the product of vanity? and yet, how
+    can vanity be gratified by plagiarism or transcription? When this
+    speculatist finds himself prompted to another performance, let him
+    consider, whether he is about to disburden his mind, or employ his
+    fingers; and, if I might venture to offer him a subject, I should wish,
+    that he would solve this question: Why he, that has nothing to write,
+    should desire to be a writer?
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet is not this letter without some sentiments, which, though not new,
+    are of great importance, and may be read, with pleasure, in the
+    thousandth repetition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Whatever we enjoy, is purely a free gift from our creator; but, that we
+    enjoy no more, can never, sure, be deemed an injury, or a just reason to
+    question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his
+    goodness; but, that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that
+    is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to
+    any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the
+    wants of a beggar to the person who has relieved him: that he had
+    something, was owing to his benefactor; but that he had no more, only to
+    his own original poverty."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus far he speaks what every man must approve, and what every wise man
+    has said before him. He then gives us the system of subordination, not
+    invented, for it was known, I think, to the Arabian metaphysicians, but
+    adopted by Pope, and, from him, borrowed by the diligent researches of
+    this great investigator.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a
+    subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members,
+    subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various
+    colours, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles,
+    tenours, and bases; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of
+    higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the
+    very essence of all created things, and, therefore, cannot be prevented,
+    by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+    These instances are used, instead of Pope's oak and weeds, or Jupiter
+    and his satellites; but neither Pope, nor this writer, have much
+    contributed to solve the difficulty. Perfection, or imperfection, of
+    unconscious beings has no meaning, as referred to themselves; the base
+    and the treble are equally perfect; the mean and magnificent apartments
+    feel no pleasure or pain from the comparison. Pope might ask the weed,
+    why it was less than the oak? but the weed would never ask the question
+    for itself. The base and treble differ only to the hearer, meanness and
+    magnificence only to the inhabitant. There is no evil but must inhere in
+    a conscious being, or be referred to it; that is, evil must be felt,
+    before it is evil. Yet, even on this subject, many questions might be
+    offered, which human understanding has not yet answered, and which the
+    present haste of this extract will not suffer me to dilate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He proceeds to an humble detail of Pope's opinion: "The universe is a
+    system, whose very essence consists in subordination; a scale of beings
+    descending, by insensible degrees, from infinite perfection to absolute
+    nothing; in which, though we may justly expect to find perfection in the
+    whole, could we possibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest
+    absurdity to hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and
+    happiness of the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its
+    parts; that is, on the comparative imperfections of the several beings
+    of which it is composed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "It would have been no more an instance of God's wisdom to have created
+    no beings, but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be
+    of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the
+    most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such,
+    nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and, then, all
+    inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited; but as it is,
+    surely, more agreeable to infinite benevolence, that all these should be
+    filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and
+    contributing to that of others, they must, necessarily, be filled with
+    inferior beings; that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose
+    existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more felicity, upon the
+    whole, accrues to the universe, than if no such had been created. It is,
+    moreover, highly probable, that there is such a connexion between all
+    ranks and orders, by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support
+    each other's existence, and every one, in its place, is absolutely
+    necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so
+    high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a
+    pretence which must eternally subsist, because, were we ever so much
+    higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and,
+    since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet
+    must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned
+    by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine, that he is not an
+    angel; nor a horse, that he is not a man; much less, that, in their
+    several stations, they possess not the faculties of another; for this
+    would be an insufferable misfortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of
+    existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always
+    left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be
+    imperfect, is evident to intuition; that, whatever is imperfect must
+    have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. But the
+    reason which determined this limit, and for which such being was
+    suffered to advance thus far, and no farther, we shall never be able to
+    discern. Our discoverers tell us, the creator has made beings of all
+    orders, and that, therefore, one of them must be such as man; but this
+    system seems to be established on a concession, which, if it be refused,
+    cannot be extorted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every reason which can be brought to prove, that there are beings of
+    every possible sort, will prove, that there is the greatest number
+    possible of every sort of beings; but this, with respect to man, we
+    know, if we know any thing, not to be true.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It does not appear, even to the imagination, that of three orders of
+    being, the first and the third receive any advantage from the
+    imperfection of the second, or that, indeed, they may not equally exist,
+    though the second had never been, or should cease to be; and why should
+    that be concluded necessary, which cannot be proved even to be useful?
+</p>
+<p>
+    The scale of existence, from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have
+    being. The highest being not infinite, must be, as has been often
+    observed, at an infinite distance below infinity. Cheyne, who, with the
+    desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical
+    images, considers all existence as a cone; allows that the basis is at
+    an infinite distance from the body; and in this distance between finite
+    and infinite, there will be room, for ever, for an infinite series of
+    indefinable existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose
+    positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where
+    there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued
+    for ever and for ever, and yet infinitely superiour to nonexistence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our
+    maker, but of each other, since, on the one side, creation, wherever it
+    stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other, infinitely
+    above nothing, what necessity there is, that it should proceed so far,
+    either way, that beings so high or so low should ever have existed? We
+    may ask; but, I believe, no created wisdom can give an adequate answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite
+    vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to
+    be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between
+    them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders; since every thing
+    that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that
+    which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can
+    judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the
+    scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite
+    exertion of infinite power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus it appears, how little reason those, who repose their reason upon
+    the scale of being, have to triumph over them who recur to any other
+    expedient of solution, and what difficulties arise, on every side, to
+    repress the rebellions of presumptuous decision: "Qui pauca considerat,
+    facile pronunciat." In our passage through the boundless ocean of
+    disquisition, we often take fogs for land, and, after having long toiled
+    to approach them, find, instead of repose and harbours, new storms of
+    objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we
+    are doomed to suffer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more
+    hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more
+    exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than those who possess them
+    are usually blessed with. The want of taste and genius, with all the
+    pleasures that arise from them, are commonly recompensed by a more
+    useful kind of common sense, together with a wonderful delight, as well
+    as success, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings
+    of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications,
+    imperceptible to others, and, sometimes, almost repaid by the
+    inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour.
+    Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not
+    but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a
+    pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the
+    want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to
+    poverty and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of
+    infusing that insensibility, which can enable them to endure the
+    miseries of the one, and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial,
+    administered by the gracious hand of providence, of which they ought
+    never to be deprived by an ill-judged and improper education. It is the
+    basis of all subordination, the support of society, and the privilege of
+    individuals; and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of
+    the divine wisdom, that, whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise
+    little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in
+    man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by
+    education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the philosopher
+    and the peasant, are, in some measure, fitted for their respective
+    situations."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Much of these positions is, perhaps, true; and the whole paragraph might
+    well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the
+    establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want
+    of riches. In that sense, almost every man may, in his own opinion, be
+    poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence of all
+    that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify
+    attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which
+    is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the
+    publick, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling
+    openly, and many secretly.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That hope and fear are inseparably, or very frequently, connected with
+    poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder
+    degrees of poverty are, sometimes, supported by hope; but the more
+    severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen,
+    before it can be known. This author and Pope, perhaps, never saw the
+    miseries which they imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor, indeed, are
+    insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the
+    possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich. They are not
+    pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a
+    compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases
+    to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of
+    some other, may be fairly allowed; but the compensations of sickness I
+    have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery
+    only prove the intenseness of the pain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With folly, no man is willing to confess himself very intimately
+    acquainted, and, therefore, its pains and pleasures are kept secret. But
+    what the author says of its happiness, seems applicable only to fatuity,
+    or gross dulness; for that inferiority of understanding, which makes one
+    man, without any other reason, the slave, or tool, or property of
+    another, which makes him sometimes useless, and sometimes ridiculous, is
+    often felt with very quick sensibility. On the happiness of madmen, as
+    the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a
+    disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe, that I never yet knew
+    disorders of mind increase felicity: every madman is either arrogant and
+    irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion, or
+    notion, destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look,
+    and malignity in his bosom. And, if he had the power of choice, he would
+    soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Concerning the portion of ignorance necessary to make the condition of
+    the lower classes of mankind safe to the publick, and tolerable to
+    themselves, both morals and policy exact a nicer inquiry than will be
+    very soon or very easily made. There is, undoubtedly, a degree of
+    knowledge which will direct a man to refer all to providence, and to
+    acquiesce in the condition with which omniscient goodness has determined
+    to allot him; to consider this world as a phantom, that must soon glide
+    from before his eyes, and the distresses and vexations that encompass
+    him, as dust scattered in his path, as a blast that chills him for a
+    moment, and passes off for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such wisdom, arising from the comparison of a part with the whole of our
+    existence, those that want it most cannot possibly obtain from
+    philosophy; nor, unless the method of education, and the general tenour
+    of life are changed, will very easily receive it from religion. The bulk
+    of mankind is not likely to be very wise or very good; and I know not,
+    whether there are not many states of life, in which all knowledge, less
+    than the highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe
+    it may be sometimes found, that a <i>little learning</i> is, to a poor man, a
+    <i>dangerous thing</i>. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily
+    see, or quickly feel the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right.
+    Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful,
+    but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at
+    what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found
+    equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men, left wholly to their
+    appetites and their instincts, with little sense of moral or religious
+    obligation, and with very faint distinctions of right and wrong, can
+    never be safely employed, or confidently trusted; they can be honest
+    only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some
+    instruction, therefore, is necessary, and much, perhaps, may be
+    dangerous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Though it should be granted, that those who are <i>born to poverty and
+    drudgery</i>, should not be <i>deprived</i>, by an <i>improper education</i>, of the
+    <i>opiate of ignorance</i>; even this concession will not be of much use to
+    direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that are
+    <i>born to poverty</i>. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after
+    generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is, in
+    itself, cruel, if not unjust, and is wholly contrary to the maxims of a
+    commercial nation, which always suppose and promote a rotation of
+    property, and offer every individual a chance of mending his condition
+    by his diligence. Those, who communicate literature to the son of a poor
+    man consider him, as one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of
+    deriving a better fortune from himself. In this attempt, as in others,
+    many fail and many succeed. Those that fail, will feel their misery more
+    acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity, as
+    cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the
+    happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn
+    the balance against that exacerbation which the others suffer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
+    privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I
+    shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the
+    suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the
+    maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints,
+    should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
+    delights in seeing others depressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Pope's doctrine is, at last, exhibited in a comparison, which, like
+    other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy
+    than convince the reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Thus the universe resembles a large and well-regulated family, in which
+    all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are
+    subservient to each other, in a proper subordination: each enjoys the
+    privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and, at the same time,
+    contributes, by that just subordination, to the magnificence and
+    happiness of the whole."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master,
+    and sometimes to the domesticks. But the magnificence of the universe
+    adds nothing to the supreme being; for any part of its inhabitants, with
+    which human knowledge is acquainted, an universe much less spacious or
+    splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not
+    appear, that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to
+    those of a higher.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The inquiry after the cause of natural evil is continued in the third
+    letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture of borrowed truth,
+    and native folly, of some notions, just and trite, with others uncommon
+    and ridiculous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His opinion of the value and importance of happiness is certainly just,
+    and I shall insert it; not that it will give any information to any
+    reader, but it may serve to show, how the most common notion may be
+    swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall, perhaps, astonish
+    the author himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence, neither riches,
+    nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor
+    virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but
+    as they contribute to its production. All these are, in themselves,
+    neither good nor evil: happiness alone is their great end, and they are
+    desirable only as they tend to promote it."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of
+    happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what
+    has been hid from all former inquirers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The true solution of this important question, so long and so vainly
+    searched for by the philosophers of all ages and all countries, I take
+    to be, at last, no more than this, that these real evils proceed from
+    the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated
+    of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can
+    subsist; all subordination implying imperfection, all imperfection evil,
+    and all evil some kind of inconveniency or suffering: so that there
+    must, be particular inconvenieucies and sufferings annexed to every
+    particular rank of created beings by the circumstances of things, and
+    their modes of existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in
+    a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer
+    men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal
+    system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of
+    curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination
+    implies imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves
+    may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect
+    than the oak, as an oak. That <i>imperfection implies evil, and evil
+    suffering</i>, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative
+    evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no
+    suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet
+    an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief, that he is unhappy
+    by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. When this
+    author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to
+    distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words,
+    easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative,
+    when applied to the works of omnipotence. Subordination, in human
+    affairs, is well understood; but, when it is attributed to the universal
+    system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of
+    locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning
+    with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is <i>high</i> or <i>low</i>.
+    That, if man, by exaltation to a higher nature, were exempted from the
+    evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that, if
+    man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising
+    from his established notion of the scale of being. A notion to which
+    Pope has given some importance, by adopting it, and of which I have,
+    therefore, endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This
+    scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous
+    imagination, to rest on nothing at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the
+    top, and to have vacuities, from step to step, through which any order
+    of being may sink into nihility without any inconvenience, so far as we
+    can judge, to the next rank above or below it. We are, therefore, little
+    enlightened by a writer who tells us, that any being in the state of man
+    must suffer what man suffers, when the only question that requires to be
+    resolved is: Why any being is in this state. Of poverty and labour he
+    gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the
+    difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the
+    present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Poverty is what all could not possibly have been exempted from, not
+    only by reason of the fluctuating nature of human possessions, but
+    because the world could not subsist without it; for, had all been rich,
+    none could have submitted to the commands of another, or the necessary
+    drudgeries of life; thence all governments must have been dissolved,
+    arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so an universal penury have
+    overwhelmed all, instead of now and then pinching a few. Hence, by the
+    by, appears the great excellence of charity, by which men are enabled,
+    by a particular distribution of the blessings and enjoyments of life, on
+    proper occasions, to prevent that poverty, which, by a general one,
+    omnipotence itself could never have prevented; so that, by enforcing
+    this duty, God, as it were, demands our assistance to promote universal
+    happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, where it strives to
+    intrude itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Labour, indeed, God might easily have excused us from, since, at his
+    command, the earth would readily have poured forth all her treasures,
+    without our inconsiderable assistance; but, if the severest labour
+    cannot sufficiently subdue the malignity of human nature, what plots and
+    machinations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, what profligacy and
+    licentiousness, must have been the consequences of universal idleness!
+    So that labour ought only to be looked upon, as a task kindly imposed
+    upon us by our indulgent creator, necessary to preserve our health, our
+    safety, and our innocence."
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am afraid, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
+    beginning." If God <i>could easily have excused us from labour</i>, I do not
+    comprehend why <i>he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty</i>.
+    For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more
+    than necessity of labour; and, in its more severe and deplorable state,
+    little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others,
+    or to want the succour of others, without work. And the same exuberant
+    fertility, which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty
+    impossible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Surely, a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should
+    have spoken more cautiously of omnipotence, nor have presumed to say
+    what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt, whether
+    those, who stand highest in the <i>scale of being</i>, speak thus confidently
+    of the dispensations of their maker:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Of our inquietudes of mind, his account is still less reasonable:
+    "Whilst men are injured, they must be inflamed with anger; and, whilst
+    they see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; whilst they perceive
+    danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all
+    evil, by showing, that one evil produces another. If there is danger,
+    there ought to be fear; but, if fear is an evil, why should there be
+    danger? His vindication of pain is of the same kind: pain is useful to
+    alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must
+    be pre-supposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with
+    sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall, therefore,
+    insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not
+    grow stale by repetition
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils,
+  is so far from being one, that it is the infallible
+  cure for all others.
+
+  To die, is landing on some silent shore,
+  Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.
+  Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.
+
+  GARTH.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    For, abstracted from the sickness and sufferings usually attending it,
+    it is no more than the expiration of that term of life God was pleased
+    to bestow on us, without any claim or merit on our part. But was it an
+    evil ever so great, it could not be remedied, but by one much greater,
+    which is, by living for ever; by which means, our wickedness,
+    unrestrained by the prospect of a future state, would grow so
+    insupportable, our sufferings so intolerable by perseverance, and our
+    pleasures so tiresome by repetition, that no being in the universe could
+    be so completely miserable, as a species of immortal men. We have no
+    reason, therefore, to look upon death as an evil, or to fear it as a
+    punishment, even without any supposition of a future life: but, if we
+    consider it, as a passage to a more perfect state, or a remove only in
+    an eternal succession of still-improving states, (for which we have the
+    strongest reasons,) it will then appear a new favour from the divine
+    munificence; and a man must be as absurd to repine at dying, as a
+    traveller would be, who proposed to himself a delightful tour through
+    various unknown countries, to lament, that he cannot take up his
+    residence at the first dirty inn, which he baits at on the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The instability of human life, or of the changes of its successive
+    periods, of which we so frequently complain, are no more than the
+    necessary progress of it to this necessary conclusion; and are so far
+    from being evils, deserving these complaints, that they are the source
+    of our greatest pleasures, as they are the source of all novelty, from
+    which our greatest pleasures are ever derived. The continual succession
+    of seasons in the human life, by daily presenting to us new scenes,
+    render it agreeable, and, like those of the year, afford us delights by
+    their change, which the choicest of them could not give us by their
+    continuance. In the spring of life, the gilding of the sunshine, the
+    verdure of the fields, and the variegated paintings of the sky, are so
+    exquisite in the eyes of infants, at their first looking abroad into a
+    new world, as nothing, perhaps, afterwards can equal: the heat and
+    vigour of the succeeding summer of youth, ripens for us new pleasures,
+    the blooming maid, the nightly revel, and the jovial chase: the serene
+    autumn of complete manhood feasts us with the golden harvests of our
+    worldly pursuits: nor is the hoary winter of old age destitute of its
+    peculiar comforts and enjoyments, of which the recollection and relation
+    of those past, are, perhaps, none of the least: and, at last, death
+    opens to us a new prospect, from whence we shall, probably, look back
+    upon the diversions and occupations of this world, with the same
+    contempt we do now on our tops and hobby horses, and with the same
+    surprise, that they could ever so much entertain or engage us."
+</p>
+<p>
+    I would not willingly detract from the beauty of this paragraph; and, in
+    gratitude to him who has so well inculcated such important truths, I
+    will venture to admonish him, since the chief comfort of the old is the
+    recollection of the past, so to employ his time and his thoughts, that,
+    when the imbecility of age shall come upon him, he may be able to
+    recreate its languors, by the remembrance of hours spent, not in
+    presumptuous decisions, but modest inquiries; not in dogmatical
+    limitations of omnipotence, but in humble acquiescence, and fervent
+    adoration. Old age will show him, that much of the book, now before us,
+    has no other use than to perplex the scrupulous, and to shake the weak,
+    to encourage impious presumption, or stimulate idle curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having thus despatched the consideration of particular evils, he comes,
+    at last, to a general reason, for which <i>evil</i> may be said to be <i>our
+    good</i>. He is of opinion, that there is some inconceivable benefit in
+    pain, abstractedly considered; that pain, however inflicted, or wherever
+    felt, communicates some good to the general system of being, and, that
+    every animal is, some way or other, the better for the pain of every
+    other animal. This opinion he carries so far, as to suppose, that there
+    passes some principle of union through all animal life, as attraction is
+    communicated to all corporeal nature; and, that the evils suffered on
+    this globe, may, by some inconceivable means, contribute to the felicity
+    of the inhabitants of the remotest planet.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How the origin of evil is brought nearer to human conception, by any
+    <i>inconceivable</i> means, I am not able to discover. We believed, that the
+    present system of creation was right, though we could not explain the
+    adaptation of one part to the other, or for the whole succession of
+    causes and consequences. Where has this inquirer added to the little
+    knowledge that we had before? He has told us of the benefits of evil,
+    which no man feels, and relations between distant parts of the universe,
+    which he cannot himself conceive. There was enough in this question
+    inconceivable before, and we have little advantage from a new
+    inconceivable solution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I do not mean to reproach this author for not knowing what is equally
+    hidden from learning and from ignorance. The shame is, to impose words,
+    for ideas, upon ourselves or others. To imagine, that we are going
+    forward, when we are only turning round. To think, that there is any
+    difference between him that gives no reason, and him that gives a
+    reason, which, by his own confession, cannot be conceived.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, that he may not be thought to conceive nothing but things
+    inconceivable, he has, at last, thought on a way, by which human
+    sufferings may produce good effects. He imagines, that as we have not
+    only animals for food, but choose some for our diversion, the same
+    privilege may be allowed to some beings above us, <i>who may deceive,
+    torment, or destroy us, for the ends, only, of their own pleasure or
+    utility</i>. This he again finds impossible to be conceived, <i>but that
+    impossibility lessens not the probability of the conjecture, which, by
+    analogy, is so strongly confirmed</i>. I cannot resist the temptation of
+    contemplating this analogy, which, I think, he might have carried
+    further, very much to the advantage of his argument. He might have
+    shown, that these "hunters, whose game is man," have many sports
+    analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and kittens, they amuse
+    themselves, now and then, with sinking a ship, and stand round the
+    fields of Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a cockpit. As
+    we shoot a bird flying, they take a man in the midst of his business or
+    pleasure, and knock him down with an apoplexy. Some of them, perhaps,
+    are virtuosi, and delight in the operations of an asthma, as a human
+    philosopher in the effects of the air-pump. To swell a man with a
+    tympany is as good sport as to blow a frog. Many a merry bout have these
+    frolick beings at the vicissitudes of an ague, and good sport it is to
+    see a man tumble with an epilepsy, and revive and tumble again, and all
+    this he knows not why. As they are wiser and more powerful than we, they
+    have more exquisite diversions; for we have no way of procuring any
+    sport so brisk and so lasting, as the paroxysms of the gout and stone,
+    which, undoubtedly, must make high mirth, especially if the play be a
+    little diversified with the blunders and puzzles of the blind and deaf.
+    We know not how far their sphere of observation may extend. Perhaps, now
+    and then, a merry being may place himself in such a situation, as to
+    enjoy, at once, all the varieties of an epidemical disease, or amuse his
+    leisure with the tossings and contortions of every possible pain,
+    exhibited together.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One sport the merry malice of these beings has found means of enjoying,
+    to which we have nothing equal or similar. They now and then catch a
+    mortal, proud of his parts, and flattered either by the submission of
+    those who court his kindness, or the notice of those who suffer him to
+    court theirs. A head, thus prepared for the reception of false opinions,
+    and the projection of vain designs, they easily fill with idle notions,
+    till, in time, they make their plaything an author; their first
+    diversion commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then rises,
+    perhaps, to a political irony, and is, at last, brought to its height,
+    by a treatise of philosophy. Then begins the poor animal to entangle
+    himself in sophisms, and flounder in absurdity, to talk confidently of
+    the scale of being, and to give solutions which himself confesses
+    impossible to be understood. Sometimes, however, it happens, that their
+    pleasure is without much mischief. The author feels no pain, but while
+    they are wondering at the extravagance of his opinion, and pointing him
+    out to one another, as a new example of human folly, he is enjoying his
+    own applause and that of his companions, and, perhaps, is elevated with
+    the hope of standing at the head of a new sect.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many of the books which now crowd the world, may be justly suspected to
+    be written for the sake of some invisible order of beings, for surely
+    they are of no use to any of the corporeal inhabitants of the world. Of
+    the productions of the last bounteous year, how many can be said to
+    serve any purpose of use or pleasure! The only end of writing is to
+    enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it; and how
+    will either of those be put more in our power, by him who tells us, that
+    we are puppets, of which some creature, not much wiser than ourselves,
+    manages the wires! That a set of beings, unseen and unheard, are
+    hovering about us, trying experiments upon our sensibility, putting us
+    in agonies, to see our limbs quiver; torturing us to madness, that they
+    may laugh at our vagaries; sometimes obstructing the bile, that they may
+    see how a man looks, when he is yellow; sometimes breaking a traveller's
+    bones, to try how he will get home; sometimes wasting a man to a
+    skeleton, and sometimes killing him fat, for the greater elegance of his
+    hide.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is an account of natural evil, which though, like the rest, not
+    quite new, is very entertaining, though I know not how much it may
+    contribute to patience. The only reason why we should contemplate evil
+    is, that we may bear it better; and I am afraid nothing is much more
+    placidly endured, for the sake of making others sport.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first pages of the fourth letter are such, as incline me both to
+    hope and wish that I shall find nothing to blame in the succeeding part.
+    He offers a criterion of action, on account of virtue and vice, for
+    which I have often contended, and which must be embraced by all who are
+    willing to know, why they act, or why they forbear to give any reason of
+    their conduct to themselves or others.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In order to find out the true origin of moral evil, it will be
+    necessary, in the first place, to enquire into its nature and essence;
+    or, what it is that constitutes one action evil, and another good.
+    Various have been the opinions of various authors on this criterion of
+    virtue; and this variety has rendered that doubtful, which must,
+    otherwise, have been clear and manifest to the meanest capacity. Some,
+    indeed, have denied, that there is any such thing, because different
+    ages and nations have entertained different sentiments concerning it;
+    but this is just as reasonable, as to assert, that there are neither
+    sun, moon, nor stars, because astronomers have supported different
+    systems of the motions and magnitudes of these celestial bodies. Some
+    have placed it in conformity to truth, some to the fitness of things,
+    and others to the will of God: but all this is merely superficial: they
+    resolve us not, why truth, or the fitness of things, are either eligible
+    or obligatory, or why God should require us to act in one manner rather
+    than another. The true reason of which can possibly be no other than
+    this, because some actions produce happiness, and others misery; so that
+    all moral good and evil are nothing more than the production of natural.
+    This alone it is that makes truth preferable to falsehood, this, that
+    determines the fitness of things, and this that induces God to command
+    some actions, and forbid others. They who extol the truth, beauty, and
+    harmony of virtue, exclusive of its consequences, deal but in pompous
+    nonsense; and they, who would persuade us, that good and evil are things
+    indifferent, depending wholly on the will of God, do but confound the
+    nature of things, as well as all our notions of God himself, by
+    representing him capable of willing contradictions; that is, that we
+    should be, and be happy, and, at the same time, that we should torment
+    and destroy each other; for injuries cannot be made benefits, pain
+    cannot be made pleasure, and, consequently, vice cannot be made virtue,
+    by any power whatever. It is the consequences, therefore, of all human
+    actions that must stamp their value. So far as the general practice of
+    any action tends to produce good, and introduce happiness into the
+    world, so far we may pronounce it virtuous; so much evil as it
+    occasions, such is the degree of vice it contains. I say the general
+    practice, because we must always remember, in judging by this rule, to
+    apply it only to the general species of actions, and not to particular
+    actions; for the infinite wisdom of God, desirous to set bounds to the
+    destructive consequences, which must, otherwise, have followed from the
+    universal depravity of mankind, has so wonderfully contrived the nature
+    of things, that our most vitious actions may, sometimes, accidentally
+    and collaterally, produce good. Thus, for instance, robbery may disperse
+    useless hoards to the benefit of the public; adultery may bring heirs,
+    and good humour too, into many families, where they would otherwise have
+    been wanting; and murder, free the world from tyrants and oppressors.
+    Luxury maintains its thousands, and vanity its ten thousands.
+    Superstition and arbitrary power contribute to the grandeur of many
+    nations, and the liberties of others are preserved by the perpetual
+    contentions of avarice, knavery, selfishness, and ambition; and thus the
+    worst of vices, and the worst of men, are often compelled, by
+    providence, to serve the most beneficial purposes, contrary to their own
+    malevolent tendencies and inclinations; and thus private vices become
+    public benefits, by the force only of accidental circumstances. But this
+    impeaches not the truth of the criterion of virtue, before mentioned,
+    the only solid foundation on which any true system of ethics can be
+    built, the only plain, simple, and uniform rule, by which we can pass
+    any judgment on our actions; but by this we may be enabled, not only to
+    determine which are good, and which are evil, but, almost
+    mathematically, to demonstrate the proportion of virtue or vice which
+    belongs to each, by comparing them with the degrees of happiness or
+    misery which they occasion. But, though the production of happiness is
+    the essence of virtue, it is by no means the end; the great end is the
+    probation of mankind, or the giving them an opportunity of exalting or
+    degrading themselves, in another state, by their behaviour in the
+    present. And thus, indeed, it answers two most important purposes: those
+    are, the conservation of our happiness, and the test of our obedience;
+    or, had not such a test seemed necessary to God's infinite wisdom, and
+    productive of universal good, he would never have permitted the
+    happiness of men, even in this life, to have depended on so precarious a
+    tenure, as their mutual good behaviour to each other. For it is
+    observable, that he, who best knows our formation, has trusted no one
+    thing of importance to our reason or virtue: he trusts only to our
+    appetites for the support of the individual, and the continuance of our
+    species; to our vanity, or compassion, for our bounty to others; and to
+    our fears, for the preservation of ourselves; often to our vices, for
+    the support of government, and, sometimes, to our follies, for the
+    preservation of our religion. But, since some test of our obedience was
+    necessary, nothing, sure, could have been commanded for that end, so
+    fit, and proper, and, at the same time, so useful, as the practice of
+    virtue; nothing could have been so justly rewarded with happiness, as
+    the production of happiness, in conformity to the will of God. It is
+    this conformity, alone, which adds merit to virtue, and constitutes the
+    essential difference between morality and religion. Morality obliges men
+    to live honestly and soberly, because such behaviour is most conducive
+    to public happiness, and, consequently, to their own; religion, to
+    pursue the same course, because conformable to the will of their
+    creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue, from prudential
+    considerations; religion, from those of gratitude and obedience.
+    Morality, therefore, entirely abstracted from religion, can have nothing
+    meritorious in it; it being but wisdom, prudence, or good economy,
+    which, like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obligations conferred
+    upon us by God, than merits in us towards him; for, though we may be
+    justly punished for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for
+    self-preservation; as suicide deserves punishment and infamy, but a man
+    deserves no reward or honours for not being guilty of it. This I take to
+    be the meaning of all those passages in our scriptures, in which works
+    are represented to have no merit without faith; that is, not without
+    believing in historical facts, in creeds, and articles, but, without
+    being done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obedience to his
+    commands. And now, having mentioned scripture, I cannot omit observing,
+    that the christian is the only religious or moral institution in the
+    world, that ever set, in a right light, these two material points, the
+    essence and the end of virtue, that ever founded the one in the
+    production of happiness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their
+    language, charity to all men; the other, in the probation of man, and
+    his obedience to his creator. Sublime and magnificent as was the
+    philosophy of the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient in
+    these two important articles. They were all built on the sandy
+    foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism;
+    and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of human
+    glory; foundations, which were, by no means, able to support the
+    magnificent structures which they erected upon them; for the beauty of
+    virtue, independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonsense; patriotism,
+    which injures mankind in general, for the sake of a particular country,
+    is but a more extended selfishness, and really criminal; and all human
+    glory, but a mean and ridiculous delusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The whole affair, then, of religion and morality, the subject of so
+    many thousand volumes, is, in short, no more than this: the supreme
+    being, infinitely good, as well as powerful, desirous to diffuse
+    happiness by all possible means, has created innumerable ranks and
+    orders of beings, all subservient to each other by proper subordination.
+    One of these is occupied by man, a creature endued with such a certain
+    degree of knowledge, reason, and freewill, as is suitable to his
+    situation, and placed, for a time, on this globe, as in a school of
+    probation and education. Here he has an opportunity given him of
+    improving or debasing his nature, in such a manner, as to render himself
+    fit for a rank of higher perfection and happiness, or to degrade himself
+    to a state of greater imperfection and misery; necessary, indeed,
+    towards carrying on the business of the universe, but very grievous and
+    burdensome to those individuals who, by their own misconduct, are
+    obliged to submit to it. The test of this his behaviour is doing good,
+    that is, cooperating with his creator, as far as his narrow sphere of
+    action will permit, in the production of happiness. And thus the
+    happiness and misery of a future state will be the just reward or
+    punishment of promoting or preventing happiness in this. So
+    artificially, by this means, is the nature of all human virtue and vice
+    contrived, that their rewards and punishments are woven, as it were, in
+    their very essence; their immediate effects give us a foretaste of their
+    future, and their fruits, in the present life, are the proper samples of
+    what they must unavoidably produce in another. We have reason given us
+    to distinguish these consequences, and regulate our conduct; and, lest
+    that should neglect its post, conscience also is appointed, as an
+    instinctive kind of monitor, perpetually to remind us both of our
+    interest and our duty."
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Si sic omnia dixisset!" To this account of the essence of vice and
+    virtue, it is only necessary to add, that the consequences of human
+    actions being sometimes uncertain, and sometimes remote, it is not
+    possible, in many cases, for most men, nor in all cases, for any man, to
+    determine what actions will ultimately produce happiness, and,
+    therefore, it was proper that revelation should lay down a rule to be
+    followed, invariably, in opposition to appearances, and, in every change
+    of circumstances, by which we may be certain to promote the general
+    felicity, and be set free from the dangerous temptation of <i>doing evil
+    that good may come</i>. Because it may easily happen, and, in effect, will
+    happen, very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted
+    by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged, by
+    nature, to prefer, ultimately, the happiness of others to his own;
+    therefore, to the instructions of infinite wisdom, it was necessary that
+    infinite power should add penal sanctions. That every man, to whom those
+    instructions shall be imparted, may know, that he can never, ultimately,
+    injure himself by benefiting others, or, ultimately, by injuring others
+    benefit himself; but that, however the lot of the good and bad may be
+    huddled together in the seeming confusion of our present state, the time
+    shall undoubtedly come, when the most virtuous will be most happy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am sorry, that the remaining part of this letter is not equal to the
+    first. The author has, indeed, engaged in a disquisition, in which we
+    need not wonder if he fails, in the solution of questions on which
+    philosophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    He denies, that man was created <i>perfect</i>, because the system requires
+    subordination, and because the power of losing his perfection, of
+    "rendering himself wicked and miserable, is the highest imperfection
+    imaginable." Besides, the regular gradations of the scale of being
+    required, somewhere, "such a creature as man, with all his infirmities
+    about him; and the total removal of those would be altering his nature,
+    and, when he became perfect, he must cease to be man."
+</p>
+<p>
+    I have already spent some considerations on the <i>scale of being</i>, of
+    which, yet, I am obliged to renew the mention, whenever a new argument
+    is made to rest upon it; and I must, therefore, again remark, that
+    consequences cannot have greater certainty than the postulate from which
+    they are drawn, and that no system can be more hypothetical than this,
+    and, perhaps, no hypothesis more absurd.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He again deceives himself with respect to the perfection with which
+    <i>man</i> is held to be originally vested. "That man came perfect, that is,
+    endued with all possible perfection, out of the hands of his creator, is
+    a false notion derived from the philosophers.&mdash;The universal system
+    required subordination, and, consequently, comparative imperfection."
+    That <i>man was ever endued with all possible perfection</i>, that is, with
+    all perfection, of which the idea is not contradictory, or destructive
+    of itself, is, undoubtedly, <i>false</i>. But it can hardly be called <i>a
+    false notion</i>, because no man ever thought it, nor can it be derived
+    from the <i>philosophers</i>; for, without pretending to guess what
+    philosophers he may mean, it is very safe to affirm, that no philosopher
+    ever said it. Of those who now maintain that <i>man</i> was once perfect, who
+    may very easily be found, let the author inquire, whether <i>man</i> was ever
+    omniscient, whether he was ever omnipotent; whether he ever had even the
+    lower power of archangels or angels. Their answers will soon inform him,
+    that the supposed perfection of <i>man</i> was not absolute, but respective;
+    that he was perfect, in a sense consistent enough with subordination,
+    perfect, not as compared with different beings, but with himself in his
+    present degeneracy; not perfect, as an angel, but perfect, as man.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this perfection, whatever it was, he thinks it necessary that man
+    should be debarred, because pain is necessary to the good of the
+    universe; and the pain of one order of beings extending its salutary
+    influence to innumerable orders above and below, it was necessary that
+    man should suffer; but, because it is not suitable to justice, that pain
+    should be inflicted on innocence, it was necessary that man should be
+    criminal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is given as a satisfactory account of the original of moral evil,
+    which amounts only to this, that God created beings, whose guilt he
+    foreknew, in order that he might have proper objects of pain, because
+    the pain of part is, no man knows how or why, necessary to the felicity
+    of the whole.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The perfection which man once had, may be so easily conceived, that,
+    without any unusual strain of imagination, we can figure its revival.
+    All the duties to God or man, that are neglected, we may fancy
+    performed; all the crimes, that are committed, we may conceive forborne.
+    Man will then be restored to his moral perfections; and into what head
+    can it enter, that, by this change, the universal system would be
+    shaken, or the condition of any order of beings altered for the worse?
+</p>
+<p>
+    He comes, in the fifth letter, to political, and, in the sixth, to
+    religious evils. Of political evil, if we suppose the origin of moral
+    evil discovered, the account is by no means difficult; polity being only
+    the conduct of immoral men in publick affairs. The evils of each
+    particular kind of government are very clearly and elegantly displayed,
+    and, from their secondary causes, very rationally deduced; but the first
+    cause lies still in its ancient obscurity. There is, in this letter,
+    nothing new, nor any thing eminently instructive; one of his practical
+    deductions, that "from government, evils cannot be eradicated, and their
+    excess only can be prevented," has been always allowed; the question,
+    upon which all dissension arises, is, when that excess begins, at what
+    point men shall cease to bear, and attempt to remedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another of his precepts, though not new, well deserves to be
+    transcribed, because it cannot be too frequently impressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "What has here been said of their imperfections and abuses, is, by no
+    means, intended as a defence of them: every wise man ought to redress
+    them to the utmost of his power; which can be effected by one method
+    only, that is, by a reformation of manners; for, as all political evils
+    derive their original from moral, these can never be removed, until
+    those are first amended. He, therefore, who strictly adheres to virtue
+    and sobriety in his conduct, and enforces them by his example, does more
+    real service to a state, than he who displaces a minister, or dethrones
+    a tyrant: this gives but a temporary relief, but that exterminates the
+    cause of the disease. No immoral man, then, can possibly be a true
+    patriot; and all those who profess outrageous zeal for the liberty and
+    prosperity of their country, and, at the same time, infringe her laws,
+    affront her religion, and debauch her people, are but despicable quacks,
+    by fraud or ignorance increasing the disorders they pretend to remedy."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of religion he has said nothing but what he has learned, or might have
+    learned, from the divines; that it is not universal, because it must be
+    received upon conviction, and successively received by those whom
+    conviction reached; that its evidences and sanctions are not
+    irresistible, because it was intended to induce, not to compel; and that
+    it is obscure, because we want faculties to comprehend it. What he means
+    by his assertion, that it wants policy, I do not well understand; he
+    does not mean to deny, that a good christian will be a good governour,
+    or a good subject; and he has before justly observed, that the good man
+    only is a patriot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Religion has been, he says, corrupted by the wickedness of those to whom
+    it was communicated, and has lost part of its efficacy, by its connexion
+    with temporal interest and human passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He justly observes, that from all this no conclusion can be drawn
+    against the divine original of christianity, since the objections arise
+    not from the nature of the revelation, but of him to whom it is
+    communicated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All this is known, and all this is true; but why, we have not yet
+    discovered. Our author, if I understand him right, pursues the argument
+    thus: the religion of man produces evils, because the morality of man is
+    imperfect; his morality is imperfect, that he may be justly a subject of
+    punishment; he is made subject to punishment, because the pain of part
+    is necessary to the happiness of the whole; pain is necessary to
+    happiness, no mortal can tell why, or how.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus, after having clambered, with great labour, from one step of
+    argumentation to another, instead of rising into the light of knowledge,
+    we are devolved back into dark ignorance; and all our effort ends in
+    belief, that for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in
+    confession, that the reason cannot be found. This is all that has been
+    produced by the revival of Chrysippus's untractableness of matter, and
+    the Arabian scale of existence. A system has been raised, which is so
+    ready to fall to pieces of itself, that no great praise can be derived
+    from its destruction. To object, is always easy, and, it has been well
+    observed by a late writer, that "the hand which cannot build a hovel,
+    may demolish a temple <a href="#note-11">[11]</a>."
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_11"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOR IMPROVING OF
+</h2>
+<center>
+    NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, FROM ITS FIRST RISE;
+</center>
+<p>
+    In which the most considerable papers communicated to the society, which
+    have, hitherto, not been published, are inserted, in their proper order,
+    as a supplement to the Philosophical Transactions. By Thomas Birch, D.
+    D. secretary to the Royal society, 2 vols. 4to.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This book might, more properly, have been entitled by the author, a
+    diary than a history, as it proceeds regularly from day to day, so
+    minutely, as to number over the members present at each committee, and
+    so slowly, that two large volumes contain only the transactions of the
+    eleven first years from the institution of the society.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am, yet, far from intending to represent this work as useless. Many
+    particularities are of importance to one man, though they appear
+    trifling to another; and it is always more safe to admit copiousness,
+    than to affect brevity. Many informations will be afforded by this book
+    to the biographer. I know not where else it can be found, but here, and
+    in Ward, that Cowley was doctor in physick. And, whenever any other
+    institution, of the same kind, shall be attempted, the exact relation of
+    the progress of the Royal society may furnish precedents.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These volumes consist of an exact journal of the society; of some papers
+    delivered to them, which, though registered and preserved, had been
+    never printed; and of short memoirs of the more eminent members,
+    inserted at the end of the year in which each died.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The original of the society is placed earlier in this history than in
+    that of Dr. Sprat. Theodore Haak, a German of the Palatinate, in 1645,
+    proposed, to some inquisitive and learned men, a weekly meeting, for the
+    cultivation of natural knowledge. The first associates, whose names
+    ought, surely, to be preserved, were Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Wallis, Dr.
+    Goddard, Dr. Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merret, Mr. Foster of Gresham, and
+    Mr. Haak. Sometime afterwards, Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard, being
+    removed to Oxford, carried on the same design there by stated meetings,
+    and adopted into their society Dr. Ward, Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Petty, and
+    Dr. Willis.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Oxford society coming to London, in 1659, joined their friends, and
+    augmented their number, and, for some time, met in Gresham college.
+    After the restoration, their number was again increased, and on the 28th
+    of November, 1660, a select party happening to retire for conversation,
+    to Mr. Rooke's apartment in Gresham college, formed the first plan of a
+    regular society. Here Dr. Sprat's history begins, and, therefore, from
+    this period, the proceedings are well known <a href="#note-12">[12]</a>.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_12"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF THE GENERAL HISTORY OP POLYBIUS,
+</h2>
+<center>
+    IN FIVE BOOKS, TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK, BY MR. HAMPTON.
+</center>
+<p>
+    This appears to be one of the books, which will long do honour to the
+    present age. It has been, by some remarker, observed, that no man ever
+    grew immortal by a translation; and, undoubtedly, translations into the
+    prose of a living language must be laid aside, whenever the language
+    changes, because the matter being always to be found in the original,
+    contributes nothing to the preservation of the form superinduced by the
+    translator. But such versions may last long, though they can scarcely
+    last always; and there is reason to believe that this will grow in
+    reputation, while the English tongue continues in its present state.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great difficulty of a translator is to preserve the native form of
+    his language, and the unconstrained manner of an original writer. This
+    Mr. Hampton seems to have attained, in a degree of which there are few
+    examples. His book has the dignity of antiquity, and the easy flow of a
+    modern composition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It were, perhaps, to be desired, that he had illustrated, with notes, an
+    author which must have many difficulties to an English reader, and,
+    particularly, that he had explained the ancient art of war; but these
+    omissions may be easily supplied, by an inferiour hand, from the
+    antiquaries and commentators.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To note omissions, where there is so much performed, would be invidious,
+    and to commend is unnecessary, where the excellence of the work may be
+    more easily and effectually shown, by exhibiting a specimen <a href="#note-13">[13]</a>.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_13"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    REVIEW OF MISCELLANIES ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS,
+</h2>
+<center>
+    IN PROSE AND VERSE; BY ELIZABETH HARRISON.
+</center>
+<p>
+    This volume, though only one name appears upon the first page, has been
+    produced by the contribution of many hands, and printed by the
+    encouragement of a numerous subscription, both which favours seem to be
+    deserved by the modesty and piety of her on whom they were bestowed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The authors of the esssays in prose seem, generally, to have imitated,
+    or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxunance of Mrs. Rowe; this,
+    however, is not all their praise, they have laboured to add to her
+    brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr.
+    Watts before their eyes, a writer who, if he stood not in the first
+    class of genius, compensated that defect, by a ready application of his
+    powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of
+    romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first made by Mr.
+    Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not
+    allow him time for the cultivation of style, and the completion of the
+    great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first
+    who taught the dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing
+    them, that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both clone
+    honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well
+    make their failings forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world
+    might wish for communion. They were pure from all the heresies of an
+    age, to which every opinion is become a favourite, that the universal
+    church has, hitherto, detested.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This praise the general interest of mankind requires to be given to
+    writers who please, and do not corrupt, who instruct, and do not weary.
+    But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom, I believe applauded by
+    angels and numbered with the just <a href="#note-14">[14]</a>.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_14"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    ACCOUNT OF A BOOK ENTITLED AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Into the evidence produced by the earls of MORAY and MORTON against
+</p>
+<center>
+    MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS <a href="#note-15">[15]</a>.
+</center>
+<p>
+    With an examination of the reverend Dr. Robertson's Dissertation, and
+    Mr. Hume's History, with respect to that evidence <a href="#note-16">[16]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We live in an age, in which there is much talk of independence, of
+    private judgment, of liberty of thought, and liberty of press. Our
+    clamorous praises of liberty sufficiently prove that we enjoy it; and
+    if, by liberty, nothing else be meant, than security from the
+    persecutions of power, it is so fully possessed by us, that little more
+    is to be desired, except that one should talk of it less, and use it
+    better.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But a social being can scarcely rise to complete independence; he that
+    has any wants, which others can supply, must study the gratification of
+    them, whose assistance he expects; this is equally true, whether his
+    wants be wants of nature, or of vanity. The writers of the present time
+    are not always candidates for preferment, nor often the hirelings of a
+    patron. They profess to serve no interest, and speak with loud contempt
+    of sycophants and slaves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is, however, a power, from whose influence neither they, nor their
+    predecessors, have ever been free. Those, who have set greatness at
+    defiance, have yet been the slaves of fashion. When an opinion has once
+    become popular, very few are willing to oppose it. Idleness is more
+    willing to credit than inquire; cowardice is afraid of controversy, and
+    vanity of answer; and he that writes merely for sale, is tempted to
+    court purchasers by flattering the prejudices of the publick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and
+    vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of
+    Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot
+    pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of
+    popularity? yet there remains, still, among us, not wholly
+    extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right, in
+    opposition to fashion. The author, whose work is now before as, has
+    attempted a vindication of Mary of Scotland, whose name has, for some
+    years, been generally resigned to infamy, and who has been considered,
+    as the murderer of her husband, and condemned by her own letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these letters, the author of this vindication confesses the
+    importance to be such, that, "if they be genuine, the queen was guilty;
+    and, if they be spurious, she was innocent." He has, therefore,
+    undertaken to prove them spurious, and divided his treatise into six
+    parts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the first is contained the history of the letters from their
+    discovery by the earl of Morton, their being produced against queen
+    Mary, and their several appearances in England, before queen Elizabeth
+    and her commissioners, until they were finally delivered back again to
+    the earl of Morton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The second contains a short abstract of Mr. Goodall's arguments for
+    proving the letters to be spurious and forged; and of Dr. Robertson and
+    Mr. Hume's objections, by way of answer to Mr. Goodall, with critical
+    observations on these authors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The third contains an examination of the arguments of Dr. Robertson and
+    Mr. Hume, in support of the authenticity of the letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fourth contains an examination of the confession of Nicholas Hubert,
+    commonly called <i>French Paris</i>, with observations, showing the same to
+    be a forgery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fifth contains a short recapitulation, or summary, of the arguments
+    on both sides of the question.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The last is an historical collection of the direct or positive evidence
+    still on record, tending to show what part the earls of Murray and
+    Morton, and secretary Lethington, had in the murder of the lord Darnley.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The author apologizes for the length of this book, by observing, that it
+    necessarily comprises a great number of particulars, which could not
+    easily be contracted: the same plea may be made for the imperfection of
+    our extract, which will naturally fall below the force of the book,
+    because we can only select parts of that evidence, which owes its
+    strength to its concatenation, and which will be weakened, whenever it
+    is disjoined.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The account of the seizure of these controverted letters is thus given
+    by the queen's enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That in the castell of Edinburgh, thair was left be the erle of
+    Bothwell, before his fleeing away, and was send for be ane George
+    Dalgleish, his servand, who was taken be the erle of Mortoun, ane small
+    gylt coffer, not fully ane fute lang, garnisht in sindrie places with
+    the roman letter F. under ane king's crowne; wharin were certane
+    letteris and writings weel knawin, and be aithis to be affirmit to have
+    been written with the quene of Scottis awn hand to the erle."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The papers in the box were said to be eight letters, in French, some
+    love-sonnets in French also, and a promise of marriage by the queen to
+    Bothwell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To the reality of these letters our author makes some considerable
+    objections, from the nature of things; but, as such arguments do not
+    always convince, we will pass to the evidence of facts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On June 15, 1567, the queen delivered herself to Morton, and his party,
+    who imprisoned her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    June 20, 1567, Dalgleish was seized, and, six days after, was examined
+    by Morton; his examination is still extant, and there is no mention of
+    this fatal box.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dec. 4, 1567, Murray's secret council published an act, in which is the
+    first mention of these letters, and in which they are said to be
+    <i>written and subscrivit with her awin hand</i>. Ten days after, Murray's
+    first parliament met, and passed an act, in which they mention <i>previe
+    letters written halelie</i> [wholly] <i>with her awin hand</i>. The difference
+    between <i>written and subscribed</i>, and <i>wholly written</i>, gives the author
+    just reason to suspect, first, a forgery, and then a variation of the
+    forgery. It is, indeed, very remarkable, that the first account asserts
+    more than the second, though the second contains all the truth; for the
+    letters, whether <i>written</i> by the queen or not, were not <i>subscribed</i>.
+    Had the second account differed from the first only by something added,
+    the first might have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as
+    the second corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared
+    from falsehood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In October, 1568, these letters were shown at York to Elisabeth's
+    commissioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their publick
+    character, as commissioners, but by way of private information, and were
+    not, therefore, exposed to Mary's commissioners. Mary, however, hearing
+    that some letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her
+    commissioners to require them for her inspection, and, in the mean time,
+    to declare them <i>false and feigned, forged and invented</i>, observing,
+    that there were many that could counterfeit her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To counterfeit a name is easy, to counterfeit a hand, through eight
+    letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were
+    ever shown to those who would desire to detect them; and, to the English
+    commissioners, a rude and remote imitation might be sufficient, since
+    they were not shown as judicial proofs; and why they were not shown as
+    proofs, no other reason can be given, than they must have then been
+    examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all
+    the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for
+    the murder of the king, acquitted the queen, at the hour of death. These
+    letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them, as the reason
+    of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and
+    pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was
+    suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that
+    such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton who accused
+    the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers.
+    Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning
+    them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never
+    called to authenticate them, nor was his confession produced against
+    Mary, till death had left him no power to disown it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to
+    receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty
+    of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a
+    judge, a very little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of
+    Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were seen no more.
+    They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of
+    writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however,
+    endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but "his account,"
+    says our author, "is contradicted, almost in every sentence, by the
+    records, which, it appears, he has himself perused."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined; and it
+    seems to be proved, beyond contradiction, that the French letters,
+    supposed to have been written by Mary, are translated from the Scotch
+    copy, and, if originals, which it was so much the interest of such
+    numbers to preserve, are wanting, it is much more likely that they never
+    existed, than that they have been lost.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The arguments used by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the
+    letters, are next examined. Robertson makes use, principally, of what he
+    calls the <i>internal evidence</i>, which, amounting, at most, to conjecture,
+    is opposed by conjecture equally probable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In examining the confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this
+    new apologist of Mary seems to gain ground upon her accuser. Paris is
+    mentioned, in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the
+    rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the
+    last moment, Paris, instead of suffering his trial, with the rest, at
+    Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was absolute; put
+    into a dungeon of Murray's citadel; and, two years after, condemned by
+    Murray himself, nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a
+    confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to
+    Cecil, at what exact time, nobody can tell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this confession, Leslie, bishop of Ross, openly denied the
+    genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth;
+    and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any
+    confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to
+    Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor
+    ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their
+    keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not
+    producing him, with their other evidences, so as he might have been
+    publickly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of
+    Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with
+    the publick affirmation of the bishop of Ross, at the time of Paris's
+    death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the
+    behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attester of
+    this pretended confession, on that occasion; their close and reserved
+    silence, at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in
+    their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could
+    tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only
+    direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately
+    considered, I think, one may safely conclude, that it was judged not fit
+    to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen;
+    which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution,
+    would, surely, have given clear testimony against, as a notorious
+    imposture."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Hume, indeed, observes: "It is in vain, at present, to seek for
+    improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify
+    the smallest difficulties into a contradiction. It was certainly a
+    regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to
+    have been canvassed at the time, if the persons, whom it concerned, had
+    been assured of their innocence." To which our author makes a reply,
+    which cannot be shortened without weakening it:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Upon what does this author ground his sentence? Upon two very plain
+    reasons, first, that the confession was a judicial one, that is, taken
+    in presence, or by authority of a judge. And secondly, that it was
+    regularly and judicially given in; that must be understood during the
+    time of the conferences before queen Elizabeth and her council, in
+    presence of Mary's commissioners; at which time she ought to have
+    canvassed it," says our author, "if she knew her innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That it was not a judicial confession, is evident: the paper itself
+    does not bear any such mark; nor does it mention, that it was taken in
+    presence of any person, or by any authority whatsoever; and, by
+    comparing it with the judicial examinations of Dalgleish, Hay, and
+    Hepburn, it is apparent, that it is destitute of every formality,
+    requisite in a judicial evidence. In what dark corner, then, this
+    strange production was generated, our author may endeavour to find out,
+    if he can.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "As to his second assertion, that it was regularly and judicially given
+    in, and, therefore, ought to have been canvassed, by Mary during the
+    conferences; we have already seen, that this, likewise, is not fact: the
+    conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged
+    till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it,
+    is only dated the 10th of that month. How, then, can this gentleman
+    gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought
+    to have been, at that very time, canvassed by queen Mary and her
+    commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact,
+    are unworthy the character of an historian, and may, very justly, render
+    his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very
+    dubious. In answer, then, to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not
+    choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive and
+    in their hands, nor any declaration or confession, from him, at the
+    critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I
+    apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himself;
+    that it is in vain, at present, to support the improbabilities and
+    absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows
+    how, and produced, after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom, and, from
+    every appearance, destitute of every formality, requisite and common to
+    such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of
+    hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a
+    gross imposture and forgery."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The state of the evidence relating to the letters is this:
+</p>
+<p>
+    Morton affirms, that they were taken in the hands of Dalgleish. Hie
+    examination of Dalgleish is still extant, and he appears never to have
+    been once interrogated concerning the letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Morton and Murray affirm, that they were written by the queen's hand;
+    they were carefully concealed from Mary and her commissioners, and were
+    never collated by one man, who could desire to disprove them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Several of the incidents mentioned in the letters are confirmed by the
+    oath of Crawfurd, one of Lennox's defendants, and some of the incidents
+    are so minute, as that they could scarcely be thought on by a forger.
+    Crawfurd's testimony is not without suspicion. Whoever practises
+    forgery, endeavours to make truth the vehicle of falsehood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of a prince's life very minute incidents are known; and if any are too
+    slight to be remarked, they may be safely feigned, for they are,
+    likewise, too slight to be contradicted. But there are still more
+    reasons for doubting the genuineness of these letters. They had no date
+    of time or place, no seal, no direction, no superscription.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The only evidences that could prove their authenticity were Dalgleish
+    and Paris; of which Dalgleish, at his trial, was never questioned about
+    them; Paris was never publickly tried, though he was kept alive through
+    the time of the conference.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The servants of Bothwell, who were put to death for the king's murder,
+    cleared Mary with their last words.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The letters were first declared to be subscribed, and were then produced
+    without subscription.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They were shown, during the conferences at York, privately, to the
+    English commissioners, but were concealed from the commissioners of
+    Mary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mary always solicited the perusal of these letters, and was always
+    denied it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    She demanded to be heard, in person, by Elizabeth, before the nobles of
+    England and the ambassadours of other princes, and was refused.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Mary persisted in demanding copies of the letters, her
+    commissioners were dismissed with their box to Scotland, and the letters
+    were seen no more.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French letters, which, for almost two centuries, have been
+    considered as originals, by the enemies of Mary's memory, are now
+    discovered to be forgeries, and acknowledged to be translations, and,
+    perhaps, French translations of a Latin translation. And the modern
+    accusers of Mary are forced to infer, from these letters, which now
+    exist, that other letters existed formerly, which have been lost, in
+    spite of curiosity, malice, and interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The rest of this treatise is employed in an endeavour to prove, that
+    Mary's accusers were the murderers of Darnly: through this inquiry it is
+    hot necessary to follow him; only let it be observed, that, if these
+    letters were forged by them, they may easily be thought capable of other
+    crimes. That the letters were forged, is now made so probable, that,
+    perhaps, they will never more be cited as testimonies.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_15"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE:
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription, in monkish rhyme,
+    lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk. By Probus Britannicus <a href="#note-17">[17]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In Norfolk, near the town of Lynn, in a field, which an ancient
+    tradition of the country affirms to have been once a deep lake, or meer,
+    and which appears, from authentick records, to have been called, about
+    two hundred years ago, <i>Palus</i>, or the marsh, was discovered, not long
+    since, a large square stone, which is found, upon an exact inspection,
+    to be a kind of coarse marble of a substance not firm enough to admit of
+    being polished, yet harder than our common quarries afford, and not
+    easily susceptible of injuries from weather or outward accidents.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was brought to light by a farmer, who, observing his plough
+    obstructed by something, through which the share could not make its way,
+    ordered his servants to remove it. This was not effected without some
+    difficulty, the stone being three feet four inches deep, and four feet
+    square in the superficies; and, consequently, of a weight not easily
+    manageable. However, by the application of levers, it was, at length,
+    raised, and conveyed to a corner of the field, where it lay, for some
+    months, entirely unregarded; nor, perhaps, had we ever been made
+    acquainted with this venerable relick of antiquity, had not our good
+    fortune been greater than our curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A gentleman, well known to the learned world, and distinguished by the
+    patronage of the Maecenas of Norfolk, whose name, was I permitted to
+    mention it, would excite the attention of my reader, and add no small
+    authority to my conjectures, observing, as he was walking that way, that
+    the clouds began to gather, and threaten him with a shower, had
+    recourse, for shelter, to the trees under which this stone happened to
+    lie, and sat down upon it, in expectation of fair weather. At length he
+    began to amuse himself, in his confinement, by clearing the earth from
+    his seat with the point of his cane; and had continued this employment
+    some time, when he observed several traces of letters, antique and
+    irregular, which, by being very deeply engraven, were still easily
+    distinguishable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This discovery so far raised his curiosity, that, going home
+    immediately, he procured an instrument proper for cutting out the clay,
+    that filled up the spaces of the letters; and, with very little labour,
+    made the inscription legible, which is here exhibited to the publick:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  POST-GENITIS.
+
+  Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet aegra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu:
+  Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes.
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore.
+  Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio; conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+
+  MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE
+
+  Cynthia, tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis;
+  Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua lætus.
+  Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus.
+  En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    These lines he carefully copied, accompanied, in his letter of July 19,
+    with the following translation.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  TO POSTERITY.
+
+  Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country! shalt thou groan distrest,
+  Grief swell thine eyes, and terrour chill thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.
+  Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way.
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil;
+  Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings;
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings.
+  The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread;
+  The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread;
+  Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade;
+  His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace;
+  And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    I make not the least doubt, but that this learned person has given us,
+    as an antiquary, a true and uncontrovertible representation of the
+    writer's meaning; and, am sure, he can confirm it by innumerable
+    quotations from the authors of the middle age, should he be publickly
+    called upon by any man of eminent rank in the republick of letters; nor
+    will he deny the world that satisfaction, provided the animadverter
+    proceeds with that sobriety and modesty, with which it becomes every
+    learned man to treat a subject of such importance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet, with all proper deference to a name so justly celebrated, I will
+    take the freedom of observing, that he has succeeded better as a scholar
+    than a poet; having fallen below the strength, the conciseness, and, at
+    the same time, below the perspicuity of his author. I shall not point
+    out the particular passages in which this disparity is remarkable, but
+    content myself with saying, in general, that the criticisms, which there
+    is room for on this translation, may be almost an incitement to some
+    lawyer, studious of antiquity, to learn Latin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The inscription, which I now proceed to consider, wants no arguments to
+    prove its antiquity to those among the learned, who are versed in the
+    writers of the darker ages, and know that the Latin poetry of those
+    times was of a peculiar cast and air, not easy to be understood, and
+    very difficult to be imitated; nor can it be conceived, that any man
+    would lay out his abilities on a way of writing, which, though attained
+    with much study, could gain him no reputation; and engrave his chimeras
+    on a stone, to astonish posterity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Its antiquity, therefore, is out of dispute; but how high a degree of
+    antiquity is to be assigned it, there is more ground for inquiry than
+    determination. How early Latin rhymes made their appearance in the
+    world, is yet undecided by the criticks. Verses of this kind were called
+    leonine; but whence they derived that appellation, the learned Camden
+    <a href="#note-18">[18]</a> confesses himself ignorant; so that the style carries no certain
+    marks of its age. I shall only observe farther, on this head, that the
+    characters are nearly of the same form with those on king Arthur's
+    coffin; but whether, from their similitude, we may venture to pronounce
+    them of the same date, I must refer to the decision of better judges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our inability to fix the age of this inscription, necessarily infers our
+    ignorance of its author, with relation to whom, many controversies may
+    be started, worthy of the most profound learning, and most indefatigable
+    diligence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first question that naturally arises is: Whether he was a Briton or
+    a Saxon? I had, at first, conceived some hope that, in this question, in
+    which not only the idle curiosity of virtuosos, but the honour of two
+    mighty nations, is concerned, some information might be drawn from the
+    word <i>patria</i>, my country, in the third line; England being not, in
+    propriety of speech, the country of the Saxons; at least, not at their
+    first arrival. But, upon farther reflection, this argument appeared not
+    conclusive, since we find that, in all ages, foreigners have affected to
+    call England their country, even when, like the Saxons of old, they came
+    only to plunder it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An argument in favour of the Britons may, indeed, be drawn from the
+    tenderness, with which the author seems to lament his country, and the
+    compassion he shows for its approaching calamities. I, who am a
+    descendant from the Saxons, and, therefore, unwilling to say any thing
+    derogatory from the reputation of my forefathers, must yet allow this
+    argument its full force; for it has been rarely, very rarely, known,
+    that foreigners, however well treated, caressed, enriched, flattered, or
+    exalted, have regarded this country with the least gratitude or
+    affection, till the race has, by long continuance, after many
+    generations, been naturalized and assimilated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They have been ready, upon all occasions, to prefer the petty interests
+    of their own country, though, perhaps, only some desolate and worthless
+    corner of the world. They have employed the wealth of England, in paying
+    troops to defend mud-wall towns, and uninhabitable rocks, and in
+    purchasing barriers for territories, of which the natural sterility
+    secured them from invasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This argument, which wants no particular instances to confirm it, is, I
+    confess, of the greatest weight in this question, and inclines me
+    strongly to believe, that the benevolent author of this prediction must
+    have been born a Briton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The learned discoverer of the inscription was pleased to insist, with
+    great warmth, upon the etymology of the word <i>patria</i>, which signifying,
+    says he, <i>the land of my father</i>, could be made use of by none, but such
+    whose ancestors had resided here; but, in answer to this demonstration,
+    as he called it, I only desired him to take notice, how common it is for
+    intruders of yesterday to pretend the same title with the ancient
+    proprietors, and, having just received an estate, by voluntary grant, to
+    erect a claim of <i>hereditary right</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor is it less difficult to form any satisfactory conjecture, concerning
+    the rank or condition of the writer, who, contented with a consciousness
+    of having done his duty, in leaving this solemn warning to his country,
+    seems studiously to have avoided that veneration, to which his knowledge
+    of futurity, undoubtedly, entitled him, and those honours, which his
+    memory might justly claim from the gratitude of posterity; and has,
+    therefore, left no trace, by which the most sagacious and diligent
+    inquirer can hope to discover him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This conduct, alone, ought to convince us, that the prediction is of no
+    small importance to mankind, since the author of it appears not to have
+    been influenced by any other motive, than that noble and exalted
+    philanthropy, which is above the narrow views of recompense or applause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That interest had no share in this inscription, is evident beyond
+    dispute, since the age in which he lived received neither pleasure nor
+    instruction from it. Nor is it less apparent, from the suppression of
+    his name, that he was equally a stranger to that wild desire of fame,
+    which has, sometimes, infatuated the noblest minds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His modesty, however, has not been able wholly to extinguish that
+    curiosity, which so naturally leads us, when we admire a performance, to
+    inquire after the author. Those, whom I have consulted on this occasion;
+    and my zeal for the honour of this benefactor of my country has not
+    suffered me to forget a single antiquary of reputation, have, almost
+    unanimously, determined, that it was written by a king. For where else,
+    said they, are we to expect that greatness of mind, and that dignity of
+    expression, so eminently conspicuous in this inscription!
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is with a proper sense of the weakness of my own abilities, that I
+    venture to lay before the publick the reasons which hinder me from
+    concurring with this opinion, which I am not only inclined to favour by
+    my respect for the authors of it, but by a natural affection for
+    monarchy, and a prevailing inclination to believe, that every excellence
+    is inherent in a king.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To condemn an opinion so agreeable to the reverence due to the regal
+    dignity, and countenanced by so great authorities, without a long and
+    accurate discussion, would be a temerity justly liable to the severest
+    censures. A. supercilious and arrogant determination of a controversy of
+    such importance, would, doubtless, be treated by the impartial and
+    candid with the utmost indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But as I have too high an idea of the learning of my contemporaries, to
+    obtrude any crude, hasty, or indigested notions on the publick, I have
+    proceeded with the utmost degree of diffidence and caution; I have
+    frequently reviewed all my arguments, traced them backwards to their
+    first principles, and used every method of examination to discover,
+    whether all the deductions were natural and just, and whether I was not
+    imposed on by some specious fallacy; but the farther I carried my
+    inquiries, and the longer I dwelt upon this great point, the more was I
+    convinced, in spite of all my prejudices, that this wonderful prediction
+    was not written by a king.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For, after a laborious and attentive perusal of histories, memoirs,
+    chronicles, lives, characters, vindications, panegyricks and epitaphs, I
+    could find no sufficient authority for ascribing to any of our English
+    monarchs, however gracious or glorious, any prophetical knowledge or
+    prescience of futurity; which, when we consider how rarely regal virtues
+    are forgotten, how soon they are discovered, and how loudly they are
+    celebrated, affords a probable argument, at least, that none of them
+    have laid any claim to this character. For why should historians have
+    omitted to embellish their accounts with such a striking circumstance?
+    or, if the histories of that age are lost, by length of time, why was
+    not so uncommon an excellence transmitted to posterity, in the more
+    lasting colours of poetry? Was that unhappy age without a laureate? Was
+    there then no Young <a href="#note-19">[19]</a> or Philips [20], no Ward [21] or Mitchell [22],
+    to snatch such wonders from oblivion, and immortalize a prince of such
+    capacities? If this was really the case, let us congratulate ourselves
+    upon being reserved for better days; days so fruitful of happy writers,
+    that no princely virtue can shine in vain. Our monarchs are surrounded
+    with refined spirits, so penetrating, that they frequently discover, in
+    their masters, great qualities, invisible to vulgar eyes, and which, did
+    not they publish them to mankind, would be unobserved for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor is it easy to find, in the lives of our monarchs, many instances of
+    that regard for posterity, which seems to have been the prevailing
+    temper of this venerable man. I have seldom, in any of the gracious
+    speeches delivered from the throne, and received, with the highest
+    gratitude and satisfaction, by both houses of parliament, discovered any
+    other concern than for the current year, for which supplies are
+    generally demanded in very pressing terms, and, sometimes, such as imply
+    no remarkable solicitude for posterity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing, indeed, can be more unreasonable and absurd, than to require,
+    that a monarch, distracted with cares and surrounded with enemies,
+    should involve himself in superfluous anxieties, by an unnecessary
+    concern about future generations. Are not pretenders, mock-patriots,
+    masquerades, operas, birthnights, treaties, conventions, reviews,
+    drawing-rooms, the births of heirs, and the deaths of queens, sufficient
+    to overwhelm any capacity but that of a king? Surely, he that acquits
+    himself successfully of such affairs may content himself with the glory
+    he acquires, and leave posterity to his successours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That this has been the conduct of most princes, is evident from the
+    accounts of all ages and nations; and, therefore, I hope it will not be
+    thought that I have, without just reasons, deprived this inscription of
+    the veneration it might demand, as the work of a king.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With what laborious struggles against prejudice and inclination, with
+    what efforts of reasoning, and pertinacity of self-denial, I have
+    prevailed upon myself to sacrifice the honour of this monument to the
+    love of truth, none, who are unacquainted with the fondness of a
+    commentator, will be able to conceive. But this instance will be, I
+    hope, sufficient to convince the publick, that I write with sincerity,
+    and that, whatever my success may be, my intentions are good.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Where we are to look for our author, it still remains to be considered;
+    whether in the high road of publick employments, or the by-paths of
+    private life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has always been observed of those that frequent a court, that they
+    soon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal spirit of neglecting
+    futurity. The minister forms an expedient to suspend, or perplex, an
+    inquiry into his measures, for a few months, and applauds and triumphs
+    in his own dexterity. The peer puts off his creditor for the present
+    day, and forgets that he is ever to see him more. The frown of a prince,
+    and the loss of a pension, have, indeed, been found of wonderful
+    efficacy to abstract men's thoughts from the present time, and fill them
+    with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come. But, I am
+    inclined to think more favourably of the author of this prediction, than
+    that he was made a patriot by disappointment or disgust. If he ever saw
+    a court, I would willingly believe, that he did not owe his concern for
+    posterity to his ill reception there, but his ill reception there to his
+    concern for posterity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However, since truth is the same in the mouth of a hermit, or a prince,
+    since it is not reason, but weakness, that makes us rate counsel by our
+    esteem for the counsellor, let us, at length, desist from this inquiry,
+    so useless in itself, in which we have room to hope for so little
+    satisfaction. Let us show our gratitude to the author, by answering his
+    intentions, by considering minutely the lines which he has left us, and
+    examining their import without heat, precipitancy, or party-prejudices;
+    let us endeavour to keep the just mean, between searching, ambitiously,
+    for far-fetched interpretations, and admitting such low meaning, and
+    obvious and low sense, as is inconsistent with those great and extensive
+    views, which it is reasonable to ascribe to this excellent man.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may be yet further asked, whether this inscription, which appears in
+    the stone, be an original, and not rather a version of a traditional
+    prediction, in the old British tongue, which the zeal of some learned
+    man prompted him to translate and engrave, in a more known language, for
+    the instruction of future ages: but, as the lines carry, at the first
+    view, a reference both to the stone itself, and, very remarkably, to the
+    place where it was found, I cannot see any foundation for such a
+    suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It remains, now, that we examine the sense and import of the
+    inscription, which, after having long dwelt upon it, with the closest
+    and most laborious attention, I must confess myself not yet able fully
+    to comprehend. The following explications, therefore, are, by no means,
+    laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjectures not
+    always wholly satisfactory, even to myself, and which I had not dared to
+    propose to so enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great
+    ornaments of human nature, skepticks, antimoralists, and infidels, but
+    with hopes that they would excite some person of greater abilities, to
+    penetrate further into the oraculous obscurity of this wonderful
+    prediction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not even the four first lines are without their difficulties, in which
+    the time of the discovery of the stone seems to be the time assigned for
+    the events foretold by it:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet ægra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu."
+
+  "Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country, shall thou groan distrest,
+  Grief in thine eyes, and terrour in thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    "When this stone," says he, "which now lies hid beneath the waters of a
+    deep lake, shall be struck upon by the horse, or broken by the plough,
+    then shalt thou, my country, be astonished with terrours, and drowned in
+    tears; then shall thy towns sound with lamentations, as thy shores with
+    the roarings of the waves." These are the words literally rendered, but
+    how are they verified! The lake is dry, the stone is turned up, but
+    there is no appearance of this dismal scene. Is not all, at home,
+    satisfaction and tranquillity? all, abroad, submission and compliance?
+    Is it the interest, or inclination, of any prince, or state, to draw a
+    sword against us? and are we not, nevertheless, secured by a numerous
+    standing army, and a king who is, himself, an army? Have our troops any
+    other employment than to march to a review? Have our fleets encountered
+    any thing but winds and worms? To me the present state of the nation
+    seems so far from any resemblance to the noise and agitation of a
+    tempestuous sea, that it may be much more properly compared to the dead
+    stillness of the waves before a storm.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes,
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore."
+
+  "Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way;
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    He seems, in these verses, to descend to a particular account of this
+    dreadful calamity; but his description is capable of very different
+    senses, with almost equal probability:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Red serpents," says he, (<i>rubri colubri</i> are the Latin words, which the
+    poetical translator has rendered <i>scarlet reptiles</i>, using a general
+    term for a particular, in my opinion, too licentiously,) "Red serpents
+    shall wander o'er her meadows, and pillage, and pollute," &amp;c. The
+    particular mention of the colour of this destructive viper may be some
+    guide to us in this labyrinth, through which, I must acknowledge, I
+    cannot yet have any certain path. I confess, that, when a few days after
+    my perusal of this passage, I heard of the multitude of lady-birds seen
+    in Kent, I began to imagine that these were the fatal insects, by which
+    the island was to be laid waste, and, therefore, looked over all
+    accounts of them with uncommon concern. But, when my first terrours
+    began to subside, I soon recollected that these creatures, having both
+    wings and feet, would scarcely have been called serpents; and was
+    quickly convinced, by their leaving the country, without doing any hurt,
+    that they had no quality, but the colour, in common with the ravagers
+    here described.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As I am not able to determine any thing on this question, I shall
+    content myself with collecting, into one view, the several properties of
+    this pestiferous brood, with which we are threatened, as hints to more
+    sagacious and fortunate readers, who, when they shall find any red
+    animal, that ranges uncontrouled over the country, and devours the
+    labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it
+    corruption, rapine, pollution, and devastation; that threatens without
+    courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour, they may
+    know that the prediction is completed. Let me only remark further, that
+    if the style of this, as of all other predictions, is figurative, the
+    serpent, a wretched animal that crawls upon the earth, is a proper
+    emblem of low views, self-interest, and base submission, as well as of
+    cruelty, mischief, and malevolence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I cannot forbear to observe, in this place, that, as it is of no
+    advantage to mankind to be forewarned of inevitable and insurmountable
+    misfortunes, the author, probably, intended to hint to his countrymen
+    the proper remedies for the evils he describes. In this calamity, on
+    which he dwells longest, and which he seems to deplore with the deepest
+    sorrow, he points out one circumstance, which may be of great use to
+    disperse our apprehensions, and awaken us from that panick which the
+    reader must necessarily feel, at the first transient view of this
+    dreadful description. These serpents, says the original, are "haud
+    pugnaces," of no fighting race; they will threaten, indeed, and hiss,
+    and terrify the weak, and timorous, and thoughtless, but have no real
+    courage or strength. So that the mischief done by them, their ravages,
+    devastations, and robberies, must be only the consequences of cowardice
+    in the sufferers, who are harassed and oppressed, only because they
+    suffer it without resistance. We are, therefore, to remember, whenever
+    the pest, here threatened, shall invade us, that submission and tameness
+    will be certain ruin, and that nothing but spirit, vigilance, activity,
+    and opposition, can preserve us from the most hateful and reproachful
+    misery, that of being plundered, starved, and devoured by vermin and by
+    reptiles.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio."
+
+  "Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings,
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Here the author takes a general survey of the state of the world, and
+    the changes that were to happen, about the time of the discovery of this
+    monument, in many nations. As it is not likely that he intended to touch
+    upon the affairs of other countries, any farther than the advantage of
+    his own made it necessary, we may reasonably conjecture, that he had a
+    full and distinct view of all the negotiations, treaties, confederacies,
+    of all the triple and quadruple alliances, and all the leagues offensive
+    and defensive, in which we were to be engaged, either as principals,
+    accessaries, or guarantees, whether by policy, or hope, or fear, or our
+    concern for preserving the balance of power, or our tenderness for the
+    liberties of Europe. He knew that our negotiators would interest us in
+    the affairs of the whole earth, and that no state could either rise or
+    decline in power, either extend or lose its dominions, without affecting
+    politicks, and influencing our councils.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This passage will bear an easy and natural application to the present
+    time, in which so many revolutions have happened, so many nations have
+    changed their masters, and so many disputes and commotions are
+    embroiling, almost in every part of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That almost every state in Europe and Asia, that is, almost every
+    country, then known, is comprehended in this prediction, may be easily
+    conceived, but whether it extends to regions at that time undiscovered,
+    and portends any alteration of government in Carolina and Georgia, let
+    more able or more daring expositors determine:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+                      "Conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+  Cynthia."
+
+  "The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The terrour created to the moon by the anger of the bear, is a strange
+    expression, but may, perhaps, relate to the apprehensions raised in the
+    Turkish empire, of which a crescent, or new moon, is the imperial
+    standard, by the increasing power of the emperess of Russia, whose
+    dominions lie under the northern constellation, called the Bear.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+             "Tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis."
+
+  "The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The lilies borne by the kings of France are an apt representation of
+    that country; and their flourishing over wide-extended valleys, seems to
+    regard the new increase of the French power, wealth, and dominions by
+    the advancement of their trade, and the accession of Lorrain. This is,
+    at first view, an obvious, but, perhaps, for that very reason not the
+    true sense of the inscription. How can we reconcile it with the
+    following passage:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua laetus."
+
+  "Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth, th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade,"
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    in which the lion that used, at pleasure, to lay the pastures waste, is
+    represented, as not daring to touch the lilies, or murmur at their
+    growth! The lion, it is true, is one of the supporters of the arms of
+    England, and may, therefore, figure our countrymen, who have, in ancient
+    times, made France a desert. But can it be said, that the lion dares not
+    murmur or rage, (for <i>fremere</i> may import both,) when it is evident,
+    that, for many years, this whole kingdom has murmured, however, it may
+    be, at present, calm and secure, by its confidence in the wisdom of our
+    politicians, and the address of our negotiators:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus."
+
+  "His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Here are other things mentioned of the lion, equally unintelligible, if
+    we suppose them to be spoken of our nation, as that he lies sluggish,
+    and depraved with unlawful lusts, while his offspring is trampled and
+    tortured before his eyes. But in what place can the English be said to
+    be trampled or tortured? Where are they treated with injustice or
+    contempt? What nation is there, from pole to pole, that does not
+    reverence the nod of the British king? Is not our commerce
+    unrestrained? Are not the riches of the world our own? Do not our ships
+    sail unmolested, and our merchants traffick in perfect security? Is not
+    the very name of England treated by foreigners in a manner never known
+    before? Or if some slight injuries have been offered; if some of our
+    petty traders have been stopped, our possessions threatened; our effects
+    confiscated; our flag insulted; or our ears cropped, have we lain
+    sluggish and unactive? Have not our fleets been seen in triumph at
+    Spithead? Did not Hosier visit the Bastimentos, and is not Haddock now
+    stationed at Port Mahon?
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!"
+
+  "And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain!"
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    It is farther asserted, in the concluding lines, that the horse shall
+    suck the lion's blood. This is still more obscure than any of the rest;
+    and, indeed, the difficulties I have met with, ever since the first
+    mention of the lion, are so many and great, that I had, in utter despair
+    of surmounting them, once desisted from my design of publishing any
+    thing upon this subject; but was prevailed upon by the importunity of
+    some friends, to whom I can deny nothing, to resume my design; and I
+    must own, that nothing animated me so much as the hope, they flattered
+    me with, that my essay might be inserted in the Gazetteer, and, so,
+    become of service to my country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That a weaker animal should suck the blood of a stronger, without
+    resistance, is wholly improbable, and inconsistent with the regard for
+    self-preservation, so observable in every order and species of beings.
+    We must, therefore, necessarily endeavour after some figurative sense,
+    not liable to so insuperable an objection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Were I to proceed in the same tenour of interpretation, by which I
+    explained the moon and the lilies, I might observe, that a horse is the
+    arms of H&mdash;&mdash;. But how, then, does the horse suck the lion's blood!
+    Money is the blood of the body politick.&mdash;But my zeal for the present
+    happy establishment will not suffer me to pursue a train of thought,
+    that leads to such shocking conclusions. The idea is detestable, and
+    such as, it ought to be hoped, can enter into the mind of none but a
+    virulent republican, or bloody jacobite. There is not one honest man in
+    the nation unconvinced, how weak an attempt it would be to endeavour to
+    confute this insinuation; an insinuation which no party will dare to
+    abet, and of so fatal and destructive a tendency, that it may prove
+    equally dangerous to the author, whether true or false.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As, therefore, I can form no hypothesis, on which a consistent
+    interpretation may be built, I must leave these loose and unconnected
+    hints entirely to the candour of the reader, and confess, that I do not
+    think my scheme of explication just, since I cannot apply it, throughout
+    the whole, without involving myself in difficulties, from which the
+    ablest interpreter would find it no easy matter to get free.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being, therefore, convinced, upon an attentive and deliberate review of
+    these observations, and a consultation with my friends, of whose
+    abilities I have the highest esteem, and whose impartiality, sincerity,
+    and probity, I have long known, and frequently experienced, that my
+    conjectures are, in general, very uncertain, often improbable, and,
+    sometimes, little less than apparently false, I was long in doubt,
+    whether I ought not entirely to suppress them, and content myself with
+    publishing in the Gazetteer the inscription, as it stands engraven on
+    the stone, without translation or commentary, unless that ingenious and
+    learned society should favour the world with their own remarks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this scheme, which I thought extremely well calculated for the
+    publick good, and, therefore, very eagerly communicated to my
+    acquaintance and fellow-students, some objections were started, which,
+    as I had not foreseen, I was unable to answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was observed, first, that the daily dissertations, published by that
+    fraternity, are written with such profundity of sentiment, and filled
+    with such uncommon modes of expression, as to be themselves sufficiently
+    unintelligible to vulgar readers; and that, therefore, the venerable
+    obscurity of this prediction, would much less excite the curiosity, and
+    awaken the attention of mankind, than if it were exhibited in any other
+    paper, and placed in opposition to the clear and easy style of an author
+    generally understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this argument, formidable as it was, I answered, after a short pause,
+    that, with all proper deference to the great sagacity and advanced age
+    of the objector, I could not but conceive, that his position confuted
+    itself, and that a reader of the Gazetteer, being, by his own
+    confession, accustomed to encounter difficulties, and search for
+    meaning, where it was not easily to be found, must be better prepared,
+    than any other man, for the perusal of these ambiguous expressions; and
+    that, besides, the explication of this stone, being a task which nothing
+    could surmount but the most acute penetration, joined with indefatigable
+    patience, seemed, in reality, reserved for those who have given proofs
+    of both, in the highest degree, by reading and understanding the
+    Gazetteer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This answer satisfied every one but the objector, who, with an obstinacy
+    not very uncommon, adhered to his own opinion, though he could not
+    defend it; and, not being able to make any reply, attempted to laugh
+    away my argument, but found the rest of my friends so little disposed to
+    jest upon this important question, that he was forced to restrain his
+    mirth, and content himself with a sullen and contemptuous silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another of my friends, whom I had assembled on this occasion, having
+    owned the solidity of my answer to the first objection, offered a
+    second, which, in his opinion, could not be so easily defeated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "I have observed," says he, "that the essays in the Gazetteer, though
+    written on very important subjects, by the ablest hands which ambition
+    can incite, friendship engage, or money procure, have never, though
+    circulated through the kingdom with the utmost application, had any
+    remarkable influence upon the people. I know many persons, of no common
+    capacity, that hold it sufficient to peruse these papers four times a
+    year; and others, who receive them regularly, and, without looking upon
+    them, treasure them under ground for the benefit of posterity. So that
+    the inscription may, by being inserted there, sink, once more, into
+    darkness and oblivion, instead of informing the age, and assisting our
+    present ministry in the regulation of their measures."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another observed, that nothing was more unreasonable than my hope, that
+    any remarks or elucidations would be drawn up by that fraternity, since
+    their own employments do not allow them any leisure for such attempts.
+    Every one knows that panegyrick is, in its own nature, no easy task, and
+    that to defend is much more difficult than to attack; consider, then,
+    says he, what industry, what assiduity it must require, to praise and
+    vindicate a ministry like ours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was hinted, by another, that an inscription, which had no relation to
+    any particular set of men amongst us, but was composed many ages before
+    the parties, which now divide the nation, had a being, could not be so
+    properly conveyed to the world, by means of a paper dedicated to
+    political debates.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another, to whom I had communicated my own observations, in a more
+    private manner, and who had inserted some of his own arguments, declared
+    it, as his opinion, that they were, though very controvertible and
+    unsatisfactory, yet too valuable to be lost; and that though to insert
+    the inscription in a paper, of which such numbers are daily distributed
+    at the expense of the publick, would, doubtless, be very agreeable to
+    the generous design of the author; yet he hoped, that as all the
+    students, either of politicks or antiquities, would receive both
+    pleasure and improvement from the dissertation with which it is
+    accompanied, none of them would regret to pay for so agreeable an
+    entertainment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It cannot be wondered, that I have yielded, at last, to such weighty
+    reasons, and such insinuating compliments, and chosen to gratify, at
+    once, the inclinations of friends, and the vanity of an author. Yet, I
+    should think, I had very imperfectly discharged my duty to my country,
+    did I not warn all, whom either interest or curiosity shall incite to
+    the perusal of this treatise, not to lay any stress upon my
+    explications.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How a more complete and indisputable interpretation may be obtained, it
+    is not easy to say. This will, I suppose, be readily granted, that it is
+    not to be expected from any single hand, but from the joint inquiries,
+    and united labours, of a numerous society of able men, instituted by
+    authority, selected with great discernment and impartiality, and
+    supported at the charge of the nation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I am very far from apprehending, that any proposal for the attainment of
+    so desirable an end, will be rejected by this inquisitive and
+    enlightened age, and shall, therefore, lay before the publick the
+    project which I have formed, and matured by long consideration, for the
+    institution of a society of commentators upon this inscription.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I humbly propose, that thirty of the most distinguished genius be chosen
+    for this employment, half from the inns of court, and half from the
+    army, and be incorporated into a society for five years, under the name
+    of the Society of Commentators.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That great undertakings can only be executed by a great number of hands,
+    is too evident to require any proof; and, I am afraid, all that read
+    this scheme will think, that it is chiefly defective in this respect,
+    and that when they reflect how many commissaries were thought necessary
+    at Seville, and that even their negotiations entirely miscarried,
+    probably for want of more associates, they will conclude, that I have
+    proposed impossibilities, and that the ends of the institution will be
+    defeated by an injudicious and ill timed frugality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But if it be considered, how well the persons, I recommend, must have
+    been qualified, by their education and profession, for the provinces
+    assigned them, the objection will grow less weighty than it appears. It
+    is well known to be the constant study of the lawyers to discover, in
+    acts of parliament, meanings which escaped the committees that drew them
+    up, and the senates that passed them into laws, and to explain wills,
+    into a sense wholly contrary to the intention of the testator. How
+    easily may an adept in these admirable and useful arts, penetrate into
+    the most hidden import of this prediction? A man, accustomed to satisfy
+    himself with the obvious and natural meaning of a sentence, does not
+    easily shake off his habit; but a true-bred lawyer never contents
+    himself with one sense, when there is another to be found.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor will the beneficial consequences of this scheme terminate in the
+    explication of this monument: they will extend much further; for the
+    commentators, having sharpened and improved their sagacity by this long
+    and difficult course of study, will, when they return into publick life,
+    be of wonderful service to the government, in examining pamphlets,
+    songs, and journals, and in drawing up informations, indictments, and
+    instructions for special juries. They will be wonderfully fitted for the
+    posts of attorney and solicitor general, but will excel, above all, as
+    licensers for the stage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The gentlemen of the army will equally adorn the province to which I
+    have assigned them, of setting the discoveries and sentiments of their
+    associates in a clear and agreeable light. The lawyers are well known
+    not to be very happy in expressing their ideas, being, for the most
+    part, able to make themselves understood by none but their own
+    fraternity. But the geniuses of the army have sufficient opportunities,
+    by their free access to the levee and the toilet, their constant
+    attendance on balls and assemblies, and that abundant leisure which they
+    enjoy, beyond any other body of men, to acquaint themselves with every
+    new word, and prevailing mode of expression, and to attain the utmost
+    nicety, and most polished prettiness of language.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It will be necessary, that, during their attendance upon the society,
+    they be exempt from any obligation to appear on Hyde park; and that upon
+    no emergency, however pressing, they be called away from their studies,
+    unless the nation be in immediate danger, by an insurrection of weavers,
+    colliers, or smugglers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There may not, perhaps, be found in the army such a number of men, who
+    have ever condescended to pass through the labours, and irksome forms of
+    education in use, among the lower classes of people, or submitted to
+    learn the mercantile and plebeian arts of writing and reading. I must
+    own, that though I entirely agree with the notions of the uselessness of
+    any such trivial accomplishments in the military profession, and of
+    their inconsistency with more valuable attainments; though I am
+    convinced, that a man who can read and write becomes, at least, a very
+    disagreeable companion to his brother soldiers, if he does not
+    absolutely shun their acquaintance; that he is apt to imbibe, from his
+    books, odd notions of liberty and independency, and even, sometimes, of
+    morality and virtue, utterly inconsistent, with the desirable character
+    of a pretty gentleman; though writing frequently stains the whitest
+    finger, and reading has a natural tendency to cloud the aspect, and
+    depress that airy and thoughtless vivacity, which is the distinguishing
+    characteristick of a modern warriour; yet, on this single occasion, I
+    cannot but heartily wish, that, by a strict search, there may be
+    discovered, in the army, fifteen men who can write and read.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I know that the knowledge of the alphabet is so disreputable among these
+    gentlemen, that those who have, by ill fortune, formerly been taught it,
+    have partly forgot it by disuse, and partly concealed it from the world,
+    to avoid the railleries and insults to which their education might make
+    them liable: I propose, therefore, that all the officers of the army may
+    be examined upon oath, one by one, and that if fifteen cannot be
+    selected, who are, at present, so qualified, the deficiency may be
+    supplied out of those who, having once learned to read, may, perhaps,
+    with the assistance of a master, in a short time, refresh their
+    memories.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may be thought, at the first sight of this proposal, that it might
+    not be improper to assign, to every commentator, a reader and secretary;
+    but, it may be easily conceived, that not only the publick might murmur
+    at such an addition of expense, but that, by the unfaithfulness or
+    negligence of their servants, the discoveries of the society may be
+    carried to foreign courts, and made use of to the disadvantage of our
+    own country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For the residence of this society, I cannot think any place more proper
+    than Greenwich hospital, in which they may have thirty apartments fitted
+    up for them, that they may make their observations in private, and meet,
+    once a day, in the painted hall to compare them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the establishment of this society be thought a matter of too much
+    importance to be deferred till the new buildings are finished, it will
+    be necessary to make room for their reception, by the expulsion of such
+    of the seamen as have no pretensions to the settlement there, but
+    fractured limbs, loss of eyes, or decayed constitutions, who have lately
+    been admitted in such numbers, that it is now scarce possible to
+    accommodate a nobleman's groom, footman, or postilion, in a manner
+    suitable to the dignity of his profession, and the original design of
+    the foundation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The situation of Greenwich will naturally dispose them to reflection and
+    study: and particular caution ought to be used, lest any interruption be
+    suffered to dissipate their attention, or distract their meditations:
+    for this reason, all visits and letters from ladies are strictly to be
+    prohibited; and if any of the members shall be detected with a lapdog,
+    pack of cards, box of dice, draught-table, snuffbox, or looking-glass,
+    he shall, for the first offence, be confined for three months to water
+    gruel, and, for the second, be expelled the society.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing now remains, but that an estimate be made of the expenses
+    necessary for carrying on this noble and generous design. The salary to
+    be allowed each professor cannot be less than 2,000<i>l</i>. a year, which
+    is, indeed, more than the regular stipend of a commissioner of excise;
+    but, it must be remembered, that the commentators have a much more
+    difficult and important employment, and can expect their salaries but
+    for the short space of five years; whereas a commissioner (unless he
+    imprudently suffers himself to be carried away by a whimsical tenderness
+    for his country) has an establishment for life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It will be necessary to allow the society, in general, 30,000<i>l</i>.
+    yearly, for the support of the publick table, and 40,000<i>l</i>. for secret
+    service.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus will the ministry have a fair prospect of obtaining the full sense
+    and import of the prediction, without burdening the publick with more
+    than 650,000<i>l</i>. which may be paid out of the sinking fund; or, if it be
+    not thought proper to violate that sacred treasure, by converting any
+    part of it to uses not primarily intended, may be easily raised by a
+    general poll-tax, or excise upon bread.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now completed my scheme, a scheme calculated for the publick
+    benefit, without regard to any party, I entreat all sects, factions, and
+    distinctions of men among us, to lay aside, for a time, their
+    party-feuds and petty animosities; and, by a warm concurrence on this
+    urgent occasion, teach posterity to sacrifice every private interest to
+    the advantage of their country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    [In this performance, which was first printed in the year 1739, Dr.
+    Johnson, "in a feigned inscription, supposed to have been found in
+    Norfolk, the country of sir Robert Walpole, then the obnoxious prime
+    minister of this country, inveighs against the Brunswick succession, and
+    the measures of government consequent upon it. To this supposed
+    prophecy, he added a commentory, making each expression apply to the
+    times, with warm anti-Hanoverian zeal."&mdash;Boswell's Life, i.]
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_16"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN 1756 <a href="#note-23">[23]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed
+    of the national affairs, and in which he has a right to have that
+    expectation gratified. For whatever may be urged by ministers, or those
+    whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the
+    necessity of confidence in our governours, and the presumption of
+    prying, with profane eyes, into the recesses of policy, it is evident,
+    that this reverence can be claimed only by counsels yet unexecuted, and
+    projects suspended in deliberation. But when a design has ended in
+    miscarriage or success, when every eye, and every ear, is witness to
+    general discontent, or general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to
+    disentangle confusion, and illustrate obscurity; to show by what causes
+    every event was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate;
+    to lay down, with distinct particularity, what rumour always huddles in
+    general exclamations, or perplexes by undigested narratives; to show
+    whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected;
+    and honestly to lay before the people, what inquiry can gather of the
+    past, and conjecture can estimate of the future.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The general subject of the present war is sufficiently known. It is
+    allowed, on both sides, that hostilities began in America, and that the
+    French and English quarrelled about the boundaries of their settlements,
+    about grounds and rivers, to which, I am afraid, neither can show any
+    other right than that of power, and which neither can occupy but by
+    usurpation, and the dispossession of the natural lords and original
+    inhabitants. Such is the contest, that no honest man can heartily wish
+    success to either party.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may, indeed, be alleged, that the Indians have granted large tracts
+    of land both to one and to the other; but these grants can add little to
+    the validity of our titles, till it be experienced, how they were
+    obtained; for, if they were extorted by violence, or induced by fraud;
+    by threats, which the miseries of other nations had shown not to be
+    vain; or by promises, of which no performance was ever intended, what
+    are they but new modes of usurpation, but new instances of crueltv and
+    treachery?
+</p>
+<p>
+    And, indeed, what but false hope, or resistless terrour, can prevail
+    upon a weaker nation to invite a stronger into their country, to give
+    their lands to strangers, whom no affinity of manners, or similitude of
+    opinion, can be said to recommend, to permit them to build towns, from
+    which the natives are excluded, to raise fortresses, by which they are
+    intimidated, to settle themselves with such strength, that they cannot
+    afterwards be expelled, but are, for ever, to remain the masters of the
+    original inhabitants, the dictators of their conduct, and the arbiters
+    of their fate?
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we see men acting thus against the precepts of reason, and the
+    instincts of nature, we cannot hesitate to determine, that, by some
+    means or other, they were debarred from choice; that they were lured or
+    frighted into compliance; that they either granted only what they found
+    impossible to keep, or expected advantages upon the faith of their new
+    inmates, which there was no purpose to confer upon them. It cannot be
+    said, that the Indians originally invited us to their coasts; we went,
+    uncalled and unexpected, to nations who had no imagination that the
+    earth contained any inhabitants, so distant and so different from
+    themselves. We astonished them with our ships, with our arms, and with
+    our general superiority. They yielded to us, as to beings of another and
+    higher race, sent among them from some unknown regions, with power which
+    naked Indians could not resist and, which they were, therefore, by every
+    act of humility, to propitiate, that they, who could so easily destroy,
+    might be induced to spare.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this influence, and to this only, are to be attributed all the
+    cessions and submissions of the Indian princes, if, indeed, any such
+    cessions were ever made, of which we have no witness, but those who
+    claim from them; and there is no great malignity in suspecting, that
+    those who have robbed have also lied.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some colonies, indeed, have been established more peaceably than others.
+    The utmost extremity of wrong has not always been practised; but those
+    that have settled in the new world, on the fairest terms, have no other
+    merit than that of a scrivener, who ruins in silence, over a plunderer
+    that seizes by force; all have taken what had other owners, and all have
+    had recourse to arms, rather than quit the prey on which they had
+    fastened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The American dispute, between the French and us, is, therefore, only the
+    quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger; but, as robbers
+    have terms of confederacy, which they are obliged to observe, as members
+    of the gang, so the English and French may have relative rights, and do
+    injustice to each other, while both are injuring the Indians. And such,
+    indeed, is the present contest: they have parted the northern continent
+    of America between them, and are now disputing about their boundaries,
+    and each is endeavouring the destruction of the other, by the help of
+    the Indians, whose interest it is that both should be destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Both nations clamour, with great vehemence, about infractions of limits,
+    violation of treaties, open usurpation, insidious artifices, and breach
+    of faith. The English rail at the perfidious French, and the French at
+    the encroaching English: they quote treaties on each side, charge each
+    other with aspiring to universal monarchy, and complain, on either part,
+    of the insecurity of possession near such turbulent neighbours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Through this mist of controversy, it can raise no wonder, that the truth
+    is not easily discovered. When a quarrel has been long carried on
+    between individuals, it is often very hard to tell by whom it was begun.
+    Every fact is darkened by distance, by interest, and by multitudes.
+    Information is not easily procured from far; those whom the truth will
+    not favour, will not step, voluntarily, forth to tell it; and where
+    there are many agents, it is easy for every single action to be
+    concealed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All these causes concur to the obscurity of the question: By whom were
+    hostilities in America commenced? Perhaps there never can be remembered
+    a time, in which hostilities had ceased. Two powerful colonies, inflamed
+    with immemorial rivalry, and placed out of the superintendence of the
+    mother nations, were not likely to be long at rest. Some opposition was
+    always going forward, some mischief was every day done or meditated, and
+    the borderers were always better pleased with what they could snatch
+    from their neighbours, than what they had of their own.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this disposition to reciprocal invasion, a cause of dispute never
+    could be wanting. The forests and deserts of America are without
+    landmarks, and, therefore, cannot be particularly specified in
+    stipulations; the appellations of those wide-extended regions have, in
+    every mouth, a different meaning, and are understood, on either side, as
+    inclination happens to contract or extend them. Who has yet pretended to
+    define, how much of America is included in Brazil, Mexico, or Peru? It
+    is almost as easy to divide the Atlantick ocean by a line, as clearly to
+    ascertain the limits of those uncultivated, uninhabitable, unmeasured
+    regions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, likewise, to be considered, that contracts concerning boundaries
+    are often left vague and indefinite, without necessity, by the desire of
+    each party, to interpret the ambiguity to its own advantage, when a fit
+    opportunity shall be found. In forming stipulations, the commissaries
+    are often ignorant, and often negligent; they are, sometimes, weary with
+    debate, and contract a tedious discussion into general terms, or refer
+    it to a former treaty, which was never understood. The weaker part is
+    always afraid of requiring explanations, and the stronger always has an
+    interest in leaving the question undecided: thus it will happen, without
+    great caution on either side, that, after long treaties, solemnly
+    ratified, the rights that had been disputed are still equally open to
+    controversy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In America, it may easily be supposed, that there are tracts of land not
+    yet claimed by either party, and, therefore, mentioned in no treaties;
+    which yet one, or the other, may be afterwards inclined to occupy; but
+    to these vacant and unsettled countries each nation may pretend, as each
+    conceives itself entitled to all that is not expressly granted to the
+    other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here, then, is a perpetual ground of contest; every enlargement of the
+    possessions of either will be considered as something taken from the
+    other, and each will endeavour to regain what had never been claimed,
+    but that the other occupied it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus obscure in its original is the American contest. It is difficult to
+    find the first invader, or to tell where invasion properly begins; but,
+    I suppose, it is not to be doubted, that after the last war, when the
+    French had made peace with such apparent superiority, they naturally
+    began to treat us with less respect in distant parts of the world, and
+    to consider us, as a people from whom they had nothing to fear, and who
+    could no longer presume to contravene their designs, or to check their
+    progress.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The power of doing wrong with impunity seldom waits long for the will;
+    and, it is reasonable to believe, that, in America, the French would
+    avow their purpose of aggrandizing themselves with, at least, as little
+    reserve as in Europe. We may, therefore, readily believe, that they were
+    unquiet neighbours, and had no great regard to right, which they
+    believed us no longer able to enforce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That in forming a line of forts behind our colonies, if in no other part
+    of their attempt, they had acted against the general intention, if not
+    against the literal terms of treaties, can scarcely be denied; for it
+    never can be supposed, that we intended to be inclosed between the sea
+    and the French garrisons, or preclude ourselves from extending our
+    plantations backwards, to any length that our convenience should
+    require.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With dominion is conferred every thing that can secure dominion. He that
+    has the coast, has, likewise, the sea, to a certain distance; he that
+    possesses a fortress, has the right of prohibiting another fortress to
+    be built within the command of its cannon. When, therefore, we planted
+    the coast of North America, we supposed the possession of the inland
+    region granted to an indefinite extent; and every nation that settled in
+    that part of the world, seems, by the permission of every other nation,
+    to have made the same supposition in its own favour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here, then, perhaps, it will be safest to fix the justice of our cause;
+    here we are apparently and indisputably injured, and this injury may,
+    according to the practice of nations, be justly resented. Whether we
+    have not, in return, made some encroachments upon them, must be left
+    doubtful, till our practices on the Ohio shall be stated and vindicated.
+    There are no two nations, confining on each other, between whom a war
+    may not always be kindled with plausible pretences on either part, as
+    there is always passing between them a reciprocation of injuries, and
+    fluctuation of encroachments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the conclusion of the last peace, perpetual complaints of the
+    supplantations and invasions of the French have been sent to Europe,
+    from our colonies, and transmitted to our ministers at Paris, where good
+    words were, sometimes, given us, and the practices of the American
+    commanders were, sometimes, disowned; but no redress was ever obtained,
+    nor is it probable, that any prohibition was sent to America. We were
+    still amused with such doubtful promises, as those who are afraid of war
+    are ready to interpret in their own favour, and the French pushed
+    forward their line of fortresses, and seemed to resolve, that before our
+    complaints were finally dismissed, all remedy should be hopeless.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We, likewise, endeavoured, at the same time, to form a barrier against
+    the Canadians, by sending a colony to New Scotland, a cold uncomfortable
+    tract of ground; of which we had long the nominal possession, before we
+    really began to occupy it. To this, those were invited whom the
+    cessation of war deprived of employment, and made burdensome to their
+    country; and settlers were allured thither by many fallacious
+    descriptions of fertile valleys and clear skies. What effects these
+    pictures of American happiness had upon my countrymen, I was never
+    informed, but, I suppose, very few sought provision in those frozen
+    regions, whom guilt, or poverty, did not drive from their native
+    country. About the boundaries of this new colony there were some
+    disputes; but, as there was nothing yet worth a contest, the power of
+    the French was not much exerted on that side; some disturbance was,
+    however, given, and some skirmishes ensued. But, perhaps, being peopled
+    chiefly with soldiers, who would rather live by plunder than by
+    agriculture, and who consider war as their best trade, New Scotland
+    would be more obstinately defended than some settlements of far greater
+    value; and the French are too well informed of their own interest, to
+    provoke hostility for no advantage, or to select that country for
+    invasion, where they must hazard much and can win little. They,
+    therefore, pressed on southward, behind our ancient and wealthy
+    settlements, and built fort after fort, at such distances that they
+    might conveniently relieve one another, invade our colonies with sudden
+    incursions, and retire to places of safety, before our people could
+    unite to oppose them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This design of the French has been long formed, and long known, both in
+    America and Europe, and might, at first, have been easily repressed, had
+    force been used instead of expostulation. When the English attempted a
+    settlement upon the island of St. Lucia, the French, whether justly or
+    not, considering it as neutral, and forbidden to be occupied by either
+    nation, immediately landed upon it, and destroyed the houses, wasted the
+    plantations, and drove, or carried away, the inhabitants. This was done
+    in the time of peace, when mutual professions of friendship were daily
+    exchanged by the two courts, and was not considered as any violation of
+    treaties, nor was any more than a very soft remonstrance made on our
+    part.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French, therefore, taught us how to act; but an Hanoverian quarrel
+    with the house of Austria, for some time, induced us to court, at any
+    expense, the alliance of a nation, whose very situation makes them our
+    enemies. We suffered them to destroy our settlements, and to advance
+    their own, which we had an equal right to attack. The time, however,
+    came, at last, when we ventured to quarrel with Spain, and then France
+    no longer suffered the appearance of peace to subsist between us, but
+    armed in defence of her ally.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The events of the war are well known: we pleased ourselves with a
+    victory at Dettingen, where we left our wounded men to the care of our
+    enemies, but our army was broken at Fontenoy and Val; and though, after
+    the disgrace which we suffered in the Mediterranean, we had some naval
+    success, and an accidental dearth made peace necessary for the French,
+    yet they prescribed the conditions, obliged us to give hostages, and
+    acted as conquerors, though as conquerors of moderation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this war the Americans distinguished themselves in a manner unknown
+    and unexpected. The New English raised an army, and, under the command
+    of Pepperel, took cape Breton, with the assistance of the fleet. This is
+    the most important fortress in America. We pleased ourselves so much
+    with the acquisition, that we could not think of restoring it; and,
+    among the arguments used to inflame the people against Charles Stuart,
+    it was very clamorously urged, that if he gained the kingdom, he would
+    give cape Breton back to the French.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French, however, had a more easy expedient to regain cape Breton,
+    than by exalting Charles Stuart to the English throne. They took, in
+    their turn, fort St. George, and had our East India company wholly in
+    their power, whom they restored, at the peace, to their former
+    possessions, that they may continue to export our silver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cape Breton, therefore, was restored, and the French were reestablished
+    in America, with equal power and greater spirit, having lost nothing by
+    the war, which they had before gained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To the general reputation of their arms, and that habitual superiority
+    which they derive from it, they owe their power in America, rather than
+    to any real strength or circumstances of advantage. Their numbers are
+    yet not great; their trade, though daily improved, is not very
+    extensive; their country is barren; their fortresses, though numerous,
+    are weak, and rather shelters from wild beasts, or savage nations, than
+    places built for defence against bombs or cannons. Cape Breton has been
+    found not to be impregnable; nor, if we consider the state of the places
+    possessed by the two nations in America, is there any reason upon which
+    the French should have presumed to molest us, but that they thought our
+    spirit so broken, that we durst not resist them; and in this opinion our
+    long forbearance easily confirmed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We forgot, or rather avoided to think, that what we delayed to do, must
+    be done at last, and done with more difficulty, as it was delayed
+    longer; that while we were complaining, and they were eluding, or
+    answering our complaints, fort was rising upon fort, and one invasion
+    made a precedent for another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This confidence of the French is exalted by some real advantages. If
+    they possess, in those countries, less than we, they have more to gain,
+    and less to hazard; if they are less numerous, they are better united.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same
+    interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means. They are subject to
+    a governour, commissioned by an absolute monarch, and participating the
+    authority of his master. Designs are, therefore, formed without debate,
+    and executed without impediment. They have yet more martial than
+    mercantile ambition, and seldom suffer their military schemes to be
+    entangled with collateral projects of gain: they have no wish but for
+    conquest, of which they justly consider riches as the consequence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some advantages they will always have, as invaders. They make war at the
+    hazard of their enemies: the contest being carried on in our
+    territories, we must lose more by a victory, than they will suffer by a
+    defeat. They will subsist, while they stay, upon our plantations; and,
+    perhaps, destroy them, when they can stay no longer. If we pursue them,
+    and carry the war into their dominions, our difficulties will increase
+    every step as we advance, for we shall leave plenty behind us, and find
+    nothing in Canada, but lakes and forests, barren and trackless; our
+    enemies will shut themselves up in their forts, against which it is
+    difficult to bring cannon through so rough a country, and which, if they
+    are provided with good magazines, will soon starve those who besiege
+    them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All these are the natural effects of their government and situation;
+    they are accidentally more formidable, as they are less happy. But the
+    favour of the Indians, which they enjoy, with very few exceptions, among
+    all the nations of the northern continent, we ought to consider with
+    other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been
+    careful to deserve it. The French, by having these savage nations on
+    their side, are always supplied with spies and guides, and with
+    auxiliaries, like the Tartars to the Turks, or the Hussars to the
+    Germans, of no great use against troops ranged in order of battle, but
+    very well qualified to maintain a war among woods and rivulets, where
+    much mischief may be done by unexpected onsets, and safety be obtained
+    by quick retreats. They can waste a colony by sudden inroads, surprise
+    the straggling planters, frighten the inhabitants into towns, hinder the
+    cultivation of lands, and starve those whom they are not able to conquer
+</p>
+<center>
+    <a href="#note-24">[24]</a>.
+</center>
+<a name="2H_4_17"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Written in the year 1756 <a href="#note-25">[25]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The present system of English politicks may properly be said to have
+    taken rise in the reign of queen Elizabeth. At this time the protestant
+    religion was established, which naturally allied us to the reformed
+    state, and made all the popish powers our enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We began in the same reign to extend our trade, by which we made it
+    necessary to ourselves to watch the commercial progress of our
+    neighbours; and if not to incommode and obstruct their traffick, to
+    hinder them from impairing ours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We then, likewise, settled colonies in America, which was become the
+    great scene of European ambition; for, seeing with what treasures the
+    Spaniards were annually enriched from Mexico and Peru, every nation
+    imagined, that an American conquest, or plantation, would certainly fill
+    the mother country with gold and silver. This produced a large extent of
+    very distant dominions, of which we, at this time, neither knew nor
+    foresaw the advantage or incumbrance; we seem to have snatched them into
+    our hands, upon no very just principles of policy, only because every
+    state, according to a prejudice of long continuance, concludes itself
+    more powerful, as its territories become larger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The discoveries of new regions, which were then every day made, the
+    profit of remote traffick, and the necessity of long voyages, produced,
+    in a few years, a great multiplication of shipping. The sea was
+    considered as the wealthy element; and, by degrees, a new kind of
+    sovereignty arose, called naval dominion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the chief trade of the world, so the chief maritime power was at
+    first in the hands of the Portuguese and Spaniards, who, by a compact,
+    to which the consent of other princes was not asked, had divided the
+    newly discovered countries between them; but the crown of Portugal
+    having fallen to the king of Spain, or being seized by him, he was
+    master of the ships of the two nations, with which he kept all the
+    coasts of Europe in alarm, till the armada, which he had raised, at a
+    vast expense, for the conquest of England, was destroyed, which put a
+    stop, and almost an end, to the naval power of the Spaniards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At this time, the Dutch, who were oppressed by the Spaniards, and feared
+    yet greater evils than they felt, resolved no longer to endure the
+    insolence of their masters: they, therefore, revolted; and, after a
+    struggle, in which they were assisted by the money and forces of
+    Elizabeth, erected an independent and powerful commonwealth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the inhabitants of the Low Countries had formed their system of
+    government, and some remission of the war gave them leisure to form
+    schemes of future prosperity, they easily perceived, that, as their
+    territories were narrow, and their numbers small, they could preserve
+    themselves only by that power which is the consequence of wealth; and
+    that, by a people whose country produced only the necessaries of life,
+    wealth was not to be acquired, but from foreign dominions, and by the
+    transportation of the products of one country into another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this necessity, thus justly estimated, arose a plan of commerce,
+    which was, for many years, prosecuted with industry and success, perhaps
+    never seen in the world before, and by which the poor tenants of
+    mud-walled villages, and impassable bogs, erected themselves into high
+    and mighty states, who put the greatest monarchs at defiance, whose
+    alliance was courted by the proudest, and whose power was dreaded by the
+    fiercest nation. By the establishment of this state, there arose, to
+    England, a new ally, and a new rival.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At this time, which seems to be the period destined for the change of
+    the face of Europe, France began first to rise into power, and, from
+    defending her own provinces with difficulty and fluctuating success, to
+    threaten her neighbours with encroachments and devastations. Henry the
+    fourth having, after a long struggle, obtained the crown, found it easy
+    to govern nobles, exhausted and wearied with a long civil war, and
+    having composed the disputes between the protestants and papists, so as
+    to obtain, at least, a truce for both parties, was at leisure to
+    accumulate treasure, and raise forces, which he purposed to have
+    employed in a design of settling for ever the balance of Europe. Of this
+    great scheme he lived not to see the vanity, or to feel the
+    disappointment; for he was murdered in the midst of his mighty
+    preparations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French, however, were, in this reign, taught to know their own
+    power; and the great designs of a king, whose wisdom they had so long
+    experienced, even though they were not brought to actual experiment,
+    disposed them to consider themselves as masters of the destiny of their
+    neighbours; and, from that time, he that shall nicely examine their
+    schemes and conduct, will, I believe, find that they began to take an
+    air of superiority, to which they had never pretended before; and that
+    they have been always employed, more or less openly, upon schemes of
+    dominion, though with frequent interruptions from domestick troubles,
+    and with those intermissions which human counsels must always suffer, as
+    men intrusted with great affairs are dissipated in youth, and languid in
+    age; are embarrassed by competitors, or, without any external reason,
+    change their minds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    France was now no longer in dread of insults, and invasions from
+    England. She was not only able to maintain her own territories, but
+    prepared, on all occasions, to invade others; and we had now a
+    neighbour, whose interest it was to be an enemy, and who has disturbed
+    us, from that time to this, with open hostility, or secret machinations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the state of England, and its neighbours, when Elizabeth left
+    the crown to James of Scotland. It has not, I think, been frequently
+    observed, by historians, at how critical a time the union of the two
+    kingdoms happened. Had England and Scotland continued separate kingdoms,
+    when France was established in the full possession of her natural power,
+    the Scots, in continuance of the league, which it would now have been
+    more than ever their interest to observe, would, upon every instigation
+    of the French court, have raised an army with French money, and harassed
+    us with an invasion, in which they would have thought themselves
+    successful, whatever numbers they might have left behind them. To a
+    people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never
+    hurtful. The pay of France, and the plunder of the northern countries,
+    would always have tempted them to hazard their lives, and we should have
+    been under a necessity of keeping a line of garrisons along our border.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This trouble, however, we escaped, by the accession of king James; but
+    it is uncertain, whether his natural disposition did not injure us more
+    than this accidental condition happened to benefit us. He was a man of
+    great theoretical knowledge, but of no practical wisdom; he was very
+    well able to discern the true interest of himself, his kingdom, and his
+    posterity, but sacrificed it, upon all occasions, to his present
+    pleasure or his present ease; so conscious of his own knowledge and
+    abilities, that he would not suffer a minister to govern, and so lax of
+    attention, and timorous of opposition, that he was not able to govern
+    for himself. With this character, James quietly saw the Dutch invade our
+    commerce; the French grew every day stronger and stronger; and the
+    protestant interest, of which he boasted himself the head, was oppressed
+    on every side, while he writ, and hunted, and despatched ambassadours,
+    who, when their master's weakness was once known, were treated, in
+    foreign courts, with very little ceremony. James, however, took care to
+    be flattered at home, and was neither angry nor ashamed at the
+    appearance that he made in other countries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus England grew weaker, or, what is, in political estimation, the same
+    thing, saw her neighbours grow stronger, without receiving
+    proportionable additions to her own power. Not that the mischief was so
+    great as it is generally conceived or represented; for, I believe, it
+    may be made to appear, that the wealth of the nation was, in this reign,
+    very much increased, though, that of the crown was lessened. Our
+    reputation for war was impaired; but commerce seems to have been carried
+    on with great industry and vigour, and nothing was wanting, but that we
+    should have defended ourselves from the encroachments of our neighbours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The inclination to plant colonies in America still continued, and this
+    being the only project in which men of adventure and enterprise could
+    exert their qualities, in a pacifick reign, multitudes, who were
+    discontented with their condition in their native country, and such
+    multitudes there will always be, sought relief, or, at least, a change,
+    in the western regions, where they settled, in the northern part of the
+    continent, at a distance from the Spaniards, at that time almost the
+    only nation that had any power or will to obstruct us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the condition of this country, when the unhappy Charles
+    inherited the crown. He had seen the errours of his father, without
+    being able to prevent them, and, when he began his reign, endeavoured to
+    raise the nation to its former dignity. The French papists had begun a
+    new war upon the protestants: Charles sent a fleet to invade Rhée and
+    relieve Rochelle, but his attempts were defeated, and the protestants
+    were subdued. The Dutch, grown wealthy and strong, claimed the right of
+    fishing in the British seas: this claim the king, who saw the increasing
+    power of the states of Holland, resolved to contest. But, for this end,
+    it was necessary to build a fleet, and a fleet could not be built
+    without expense: he was advised to levy ship-money, which gave occasion
+    to the civil war, of which the events and conclusion are too well known.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While the inhabitants of this island were embroiled among themselves,
+    the power of France and Holland was every day increasing. The Dutch had
+    overcome the difficulties of their infant commonwealth; and, as they
+    still retained their vigour and industry, from rich grew continually
+    richer, and from powerful more powerful. They extended their traffick,
+    and had not yet admitted luxury; so that they had the means and the will
+    to accumulate wealth, without any incitement to spend it. The French,
+    who wanted nothing to make them powerful, but a prudent regulation of
+    their revenues, and a proper use of their natural advantages, by the
+    successive care of skilful ministers, became, every day, stronger, and
+    more conscious of their strength.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About this time it was, that the French first began to turn their
+    thoughts to traffick and navigation, and to desire, like other nations,
+    an American territory. All the fruitful and valuable parts of the
+    western world were, already, either occupied, or claimed; and nothing
+    remained for France, but the leavings of other navigators, for she was
+    not yet haughty enough to seize what the neighbouring powers had already
+    appropriated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French, therefore, contented themselves with sending a colony to
+    Canada, a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but
+    furs and fish were to be had, and where the new inhabitants could only
+    pass a laborious and necessitous life, in perpetual regret of the
+    deliciousness and plenty of their native country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Notwithstanding the opinion which our countrymen have been taught to
+    entertain of the comprehension and foresight of French politicians, I am
+    not able to persuade myself, that when this colony was first planted, it
+    was thought of much value, even by those that encouraged it; there was,
+    probably, nothing more intended, than to provide a drain, into which the
+    waste of an exuberant nation might be thrown, a place where those who
+    could do no good might live without the power of doing mischief. Some
+    new advantage they, undoubtedly, saw, or imagined themselves to see, and
+    what more was necessary to the establishment of the colony, was supplied
+    by natural inclination to experiments, and that impatience of doing
+    nothing, to which mankind, perhaps, owe much of what is imagined to be
+    effected by more splendid motives.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this region of desolate sterility they settled themselves, upon
+    whatever principle; and, as they have, from that time, had the happiness
+    of a government, by which no interest has been neglected, nor any part
+    of their subjects overlooked, they have, by continual encouragement and
+    assistance from France, been perpetually enlarging their bounds, and
+    increasing their numbers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These were, at first, like other nations who invaded America, inclined
+    to consider the neighbourhood of the natives, as troublesome and
+    dangerous, and are charged with having destroyed great numbers; but they
+    are now grown wiser, if not honester, and, instead of endeavouring to
+    frighten the Indians away, they invite them to inter-marriage and
+    cohabitation, and allure them, by all practicable methods, to become the
+    subjects of the king of France.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the Spaniards, when they first took possession of the newly
+    discovered world, instead of destroying the inhabitants by thousands,
+    had either had the urbanity or the policy to have conciliated them by
+    kind treatment, and to have united them, gradually, to their own people,
+    such an accession might have been made to the power of the king of
+    Spain, as would have made him far the greatest monarch that ever yet
+    ruled in the globe; but the opportunity was lost by foolishness and
+    cruelty, and now can never be recovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the parliament had finally prevailed over our king, and the army
+    over the parliament, the interests of the two commonwealths of England
+    and Holland soon appeared to be opposite, and a new government declared
+    war against the Dutch. In this contest was exerted the utmost power of
+    the two nations, and the Dutch were finally defeated, yet not with such
+    evidence of superiority, as left us much reason to boast our victory:
+    they were obliged, however, to solicit peace, which was granted them on
+    easy conditions; and Cromwell, who was now possessed of the supreme
+    power, was left at leisure to pursue other designs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The European powers had not yet ceased to look with envy on the Spanish
+    acquisitions in America, and, therefore, Cromwell thought, that if he
+    gained any part of these celebrated regions, he should exalt his own
+    reputation, and enrich the country. He, therefore, quarrelled with the
+    Spaniards upon some such subject of contention, as he that is resolved
+    upon hostility may always find; and sent Penn and Venables into the
+    western seas. They first landed in Hispaniola, whence they were driven
+    off, with no great reputation to themselves; and that they might not
+    return without having done something, they afterwards invaded Jamaica,
+    where they found less resistance, and obtained that island, which was
+    afterwards consigned to us, being probably of little value to the
+    Spaniards, and continues, to this day, a place of great wealth and
+    dreadful wickedness, a den of tyrants and a dungeon of slaves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cromwell, who, perhaps, had not leisure to study foreign politicks, was
+    very fatally mistaken with regard to Spain and France. Spain had been
+    the last power in Europe which had openly pretended to give law to other
+    nations, and the memory of this terrour remained, when the real cause
+    was at an end. We had more lately been frighted by Spain than by France;
+    and though very few were then alive of the generation that had their
+    sleep broken by the armada, yet the name of the Spaniards was still
+    terrible and a war against them was pleasing to the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our own troubles had left us very little desire to look out upon the
+    continent; an inveterate prejudice hindered us from perceiving, that,
+    for more than half a century, the power of France had been increasing,
+    and that of Spain had been growing less; nor does it seem to have been
+    remembered, which yet required no great depth of policy to discern, that
+    of two monarchs, neither of which could be long our friend, it was our
+    interest to have the weaker near us; or, that if a war should happen,
+    Spain, however wealthy or strong in herself, was, by the dispersion of
+    her territories, more obnoxious to the attacks of a naval power, and,
+    consequently, had more to fear from us, and had it less in her power to
+    hurt us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All these considerations were overlooked by the wisdom of that age; and
+    Cromwell assisted the French to drive the Spaniards out of Flanders, at
+    a time when it was our interest to have supported the Spaniards against
+    France, as formerly the Hollanders against Spain, by which we might, at
+    least, have retarded the growth of the French power, though, I think, it
+    must have finally prevailed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During this time our colonies, which were less disturbed by our
+    commotions than the mother-country, naturally increased; it is probable
+    that many, who were unhappy at home, took shelter in those remote
+    regions, where, for the sake of inviting greater numbers, every one was
+    allowed to think and live his own way. The French settlement, in the
+    mean time, went slowly forward, too inconsiderable to raise any
+    jealousy, and too weak to attempt any encroachments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Cromwell died, the confusions that followed produced the
+    restoration of monarchy, and some time was employed in repairing the
+    ruins of our constitution, and restoring the nation to a state of peace.
+    In every change, there will be many that suffer real or imaginary
+    grievances, and, therefore, many will be dissatisfied. This was,
+    perhaps, the reason why several colonies had their beginning in the
+    reign of Charles the second. The quakers willingly sought refuge in
+    Pennsylvania; and it is not unlikely that Carolina owed its inhabitants
+    to the remains of that restless disposition, which had given so much
+    disturbance to our country, and had now no opportunity of acting at
+    home.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Dutch, still continuing to increase in wealth and power, either
+    kindled the resentment of their neighbours by their insolence, or raised
+    their envy by their prosperity. Charles made war upon them without much
+    advantage; but they were obliged, at last, to confess him the sovereign
+    of the narrow seas. They were reduced almost to extremities by an
+    invasion from France; but soon recovered from their consternation, and,
+    by the fluctuation of war, regained their cities and provinces with the
+    same speed as they had lost them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During the time of Charles the second, the power of France was every day
+    increasing; and Charles, who never disturbed himself with remote
+    consequences, saw the progress of her arms and the extension of her
+    dominions, with very little uneasiness. He was, indeed, sometimes
+    driven, by the prevailing faction, into confederacies against her; but
+    as he had, probably, a secret partiality in her favour, he never
+    persevered long in acting against her, nor ever acted with much vigour;
+    so that, by his feeble resistance, he rather raised her confidence than
+    hindered her designs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About this time the French first began to perceive the advantage of
+    commerce, and the importance of a naval force; and such encouragement
+    was given to manufactures, and so eagerly was every project received, by
+    which trade could be advanced, that, in a few years, the sea was filled
+    with their ships, and all the parts of the world crowded with their
+    merchants. There is, perhaps, no instance in human story, of such a
+    change produced in so short a time, in the schemes and manners of a
+    people, of so many new sources of wealth opened, and such numbers of
+    artificers and merchants made to start out of the ground, as was seen in
+    the ministry of Colbert.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Now it was that the power of France became formidable to England. Her
+    dominions were large before, and her armies numerous; but her operations
+    were necessarily confined to the continent. She had neither ships for
+    the transportation of her troops, nor money for their support in distant
+    expeditions. Colbert saw both these wants, and saw that commerce only
+    would supply them. The fertility of their country furnishes the French
+    with commodities; the poverty of the common people keeps the price of
+    labour low. By the obvious practice of selling much and buying little,
+    it was apparent, that they would soon draw the wealth of other countries
+    into their own; and, by carrying out their merchandise in their own
+    vessels, a numerous body of sailors would quickly be raised.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was projected, and this was performed. The king of France was soon
+    enabled to bribe those whom he could not conquer, and to terrify, with
+    his fleets, those whom his armies could not have approached. The
+    influence of France was suddenly diffused all over the globe; her arms
+    were dreaded, and her pensions received in remote regions, and those
+    were almost ready to acknowledge her sovereignty, who, a few years
+    before, had scarcely heard her name. She thundered on the coasts of
+    Africa, and received ambassadours from Siam.
+</p>
+<p>
+    So much may be done by one wise man endeavouring, with honesty, the
+    advantage of the publick. But that we may not rashly condemn all
+    ministers, as wanting wisdom or integrity, whose counsels have produced
+    no such apparent benefits to their country, it must be considered, that
+    Colbert had means of acting, which our government does not allow. He
+    could enforce all his orders by the power of an absolute monarch; he
+    could compel individuals to sacrifice their private profit to the
+    general good; he could make one understanding preside over many hands,
+    and remove difficulties by quick and violent expedients. Where no man
+    thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead
+    of cooperating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths
+    to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is
+    superiour knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his
+    own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity
+    and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his
+    neighbour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Colonies are always the effects and causes of navigation. They who visit
+    many countries find some, in which pleasure, profit, or safety invite
+    them to settle; and these settlements, when they are once made, must
+    keep a perpetual correspondence with the original country to which they
+    are subject, and on which they depend for protection in danger, and
+    supplies in necessity. So that a country, once discovered and planted,
+    must always find employment for shipping, more certainly than any
+    foreign commerce, which, depending on casualties, may be sometimes more,
+    and sometimes less, and which other nations may contract or suppress. A
+    trade to colonies can never be much impaired, being, in reality, only an
+    intercourse between distant provinces of the same empire, from which
+    intruders are easily excluded; likewise the interest and affection of
+    the correspondent parties, however distant, is the same.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On this reason all nations, whose power has been exerted on the ocean,
+    have fixed colonies in remote parts of the world; and while those
+    colonies subsisted, navigation, if it did not increase, was always
+    preserved from total decay. With this policy the French were well
+    acquainted, and, therefore, improved and augmented the settlements in
+    America and other regions, in proportion as they advanced their schemes
+    of naval greatness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The exact time, in which they made their acquisitions in America, or
+    other quarters of the globe, it is not necessary to collect. It is
+    sufficient to observe, that their trade and their colonies increased
+    together; and, if their naval armaments were carried on, as they really
+    were, in greater proportion to their commerce, than can be practised in
+    other countries, it must be attributed to the martial disposition at
+    that time prevailing in the nation, to the frequent wars which Lewis the
+    fourteenth made upon his neighbours, and to the extensive commerce of
+    the English and Dutch, which afforded so much plunder to privateers,
+    that war was more lucrative than traffick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus the naval power of France continued to increase during the reign of
+    Charles the second, who, between his fondness of ease and pleasure, the
+    struggles of faction, which he could not suppress, and his inclination
+    to the friendship of absolute monarchy, had not much power or desire to
+    repress it. And of James the second it could not be expected, that he
+    should act against his neighbours with great vigour, having the whole
+    body of his subjects to oppose. He was not ignorant of the real interest
+    of his country; he desired its power and its happiness, and thought
+    rightly, that there is no happiness without religion; but he thought
+    very erroneously and absurdly, that there is no religion without popery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the necessity of self-preservation had impelled the subjects of
+    James to drive him from the throne, there came a time in which the
+    passions, as well as interest of the government, acted against the
+    French, and in which it may, perhaps, be reasonably doubted, whether the
+    desire of humbling France was not stronger, than that of exalting
+    England: of this, however, it is not necessary to inquire, since, though
+    the intention may be different, the event will be the same. All mouths
+    were now open to declare what every eye had observed before, that the
+    arms of France were become dangerous to Europe; and that, if her
+    encroachments were suffered a little longer, resistance would be too
+    late.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was now determined to reassert the empire of the sea; but it was more
+    easily determined than performed: the French made a vigorous defence
+    against the united power of England and Holland, and were sometimes
+    masters of the ocean, though the two maritime powers were united against
+    them. At length, however, they were defeated at La Hogue; a great part
+    of their fleet was destroyed, and they were reduced to carry on the war
+    only with their privateers, from whom there was suffered much petty
+    mischief, though there was no danger of conquest or invasion. They
+    distressed our merchants, and obliged us to the continual expense of
+    convoys and fleets of observation; and, by skulking in little coves and
+    shallow waters, escaped our pursuit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this reign began our confederacy with the Dutch, which mutual
+    interest has now improved into a friendship, conceived by some to be
+    inseparable; and, from that time, the states began to be termed, in the
+    style of politicians, our faithful friends, the allies which nature has
+    given us, our protestant confederates, and by many other names of
+    national endearment. We have, it is true, the same interest, as opposed
+    to France, and some resemblance of religion, as opposed to popery; but
+    we have such a rivalry, in respect of commerce, as will always keep us
+    from very close adherence to each other. No mercantile man, or
+    mercantile nation, has any friendship but for money, and alliance
+    between them will last no longer, than their common safety, or common
+    profit is endangered; no longer than they have an enemy, who threatens
+    to take from each more than either can steal from the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We were both sufficiently interested in repressing the ambition, and
+    obstructing the commerce of France; and, therefore, we concurred with as
+    much fidelity, and as regular cooperation, as is commonly found. The
+    Dutch were in immediate danger, the armies of their enemies hovered over
+    their country, and, therefore, they were obliged to dismiss, for a time,
+    their love of money, and their narrow projects of private profit, and to
+    do what a trader does not willingly, at any time, believe necessary, to
+    sacrifice a part for the preservation of the whole.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A peace was at length made, and the French, with their usual vigour and
+    industry, rebuilt their fleets, restored their commerce, and became, in
+    a very few years, able to contest again the dominion of the sea. Their
+    ships were well built, and always very numerously manned; their
+    commanders, having no hopes but from their bravery, or their fortune,
+    were resolute, and, being very carefully educated for the sea, were
+    eminently skilful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All this was soon perceived, when queen Anne, the then darling of
+    England, declared war against France. Our success by sea, though
+    sufficient to keep us from dejection, was not such as dejected our
+    enemies. It is, indeed, to be confessed, that we did not exert our whole
+    naval strength; Marlborough was the governour of our counsels, and the
+    great view of Marlborough was a war by land, which he knew well how to
+    conduct, both to the honour of his country and his own profit. The fleet
+    was, therefore, starved, that the army might be supplied, and naval
+    advantages were neglected, for the sake of taking a town in Flanders, to
+    be garrisoned by our allies. The French, however, were so weakened by
+    one defeat after another, that, though their fleet was never destroyed
+    by any total overthrow, they at last retained it in their harbours, and
+    applied their whole force to the resistance of the confederate army,
+    that now began to approach their frontiers, and threatened to lay waste
+    their provinces and cities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the latter years of this war, the danger of their neighbourhood in
+    America, seems to have been considered, and a fleet was fitted out, and
+    supplied with a proper number of land forces, to seize Quebec, the
+    capital of Canada, or New France; but this expedition miscarried, like
+    that of Anson against the Spaniards, by the lateness of the season, and
+    our ignorance of the coasts on which we were to act. We returned with
+    loss, and only excited our enemies to greater vigilance, and, perhaps,
+    to stronger fortifications.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the peace of Utrecht was made, which those, who clamoured among us
+    most loudly against it, found it their interest to keep, the French
+    applied themselves, with the utmost industry, to the extension of their
+    trade, which we were so far from hindering, that, for many years, our
+    ministry thought their friendship of such value, as to be cheaply
+    purchased by whatever concession.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Instead, therefore, of opposing, as we had hitherto professed to do, the
+    boundless ambition of the house of Bourbon, we became, on a sudden,
+    solicitous for its exaltation, and studious of its interest. We assisted
+    the schemes of France and Spain with our fleets, and endeavoured to make
+    these our friends by servility, whom nothing but power will keep quiet,
+    and who must always be our enemies, while they are endeavouring to grow
+    greater, and we determine to remain free.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That nothing might be omitted, which could testify our willingness to
+    continue, on any terms, the good friends of France, we were content to
+    assist, not only their conquests, but their traffick; and, though we did
+    not openly repeal the prohibitory laws, we yet tamely suffered commerce
+    to be carried on between the two nations, and wool was daily imported,
+    to enable them to make cloth, which they carried to our markets, and
+    sold cheaper than we.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During all this time they were extending and strengthening their
+    settlements in America, contriving new modes of traffick, and framing
+    new alliances with the Indian nations. They began now to find these
+    northern regions, barren and desolate as they are, sufficiently valuable
+    to desire, at least, a nominal possession, that might furnish a pretence
+    for the exclusion of others; they, therefore, extended their claim to
+    tracts of land, which they could never hope to occupy, took care to give
+    their dominions an unlimited magnitude, have given, in their maps, the
+    name of Louisiana to a country, of which part is claimed by the
+    Spaniards, and part by the English, without any regard to ancient
+    boundaries, or prior discovery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the return of Columbus from his great voyage had filled all Europe
+    with wonder and curiosity, Henry the seventh sent Sebastian Cabot to try
+    what could be found for the benefit of England: he declined the track of
+    Columbus, and, steering to the westward, fell upon the island, which,
+    from that time, was called by the English Newfoundland. Our princes seem
+    to have considered themselves as entitled, by their right of prior
+    seizure, to the northern parts of America, as the Spaniards were
+    allowed, by universal consent, their claim to the southern region for
+    the same reason; and we, accordingly, made our principal settlements
+    within the limits of our own discoveries, and, by degrees, planted the
+    eastern coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we had, according to the European principles, which allow nothing to
+    the natives of these regions, our choice of situation in this extensive
+    country, we naturally fixed our habitations along the coast, for the
+    sake of traffick and correspondence and all the conveniencies of
+    navigable rivers. And when one port or river was occupied, the next
+    colony, instead of fixing themselves in the inland parts behind the
+    former, went on southward, till they pleased themselves with another
+    maritime situation. For this reason our colonies have more length than
+    depth; their extent, from east to west, or from the sea to the interior
+    country, bears no proportion to their reach along the coast, from north
+    to south.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was, however, understood, by a kind of tacit compact among the
+    commercial powers, that possession of the coast included a right to the
+    inland; and, therefore, the charters granted to the several colonies,
+    limit their districts only from north to south, leaving their
+    possessions from east to west unlimited and discretional, supposing
+    that, as the colony increases, they may take lands as they shall want
+    them, the possession of the coasts, excluding other navigators, and the
+    unhappy Indians having no right of nature or of nations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This right of the first European possessour was not disputed, till it
+    became the interest of the French to question it. Canada, or New France,
+    on which they made their first settlement, is situated eastward of our
+    colonies, between which they pass up the great river of St. Lawrence,
+    with Newfoundland on the north, and Nova Scotia on the south. Their
+    establishment in this country was neither envied nor hindered; and they
+    lived here, in no great numbers, a long time, neither molesting their
+    European neighbours, nor molested by them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But when they grew stronger and more numerous, they began to extend
+    their territories; and, as it is natural for men to seek their own
+    convenience, the desire of more fertile and agreeable habitations
+    tempted them southward. There is land enough to the north and west of
+    their settlements, which they may occupy with as good right as can be
+    shown by the other European usurpers, and which neither the English nor
+    Spaniards will contest; but of this cold region, they have enough
+    already, and their resolution was to get a better country. This was not
+    to be had, but by settling to the west of our plantations, on ground
+    which has been, hitherto, supposed to belong to us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hither, therefore, they resolved to remove, and to fix, at their own
+    discretion, the western border of our colonies, which was, heretofore,
+    considered as unlimited. Thus by forming a line of forts, in some
+    measure parallel to the coast, they inclose us between their garrisons,
+    and the sea, and not only hinder our extension westward, but, whenever
+    they have a sufficient navy in the sea, can harass us on each side, as
+    they can invade us, at pleasure, from one or other of their forts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This design was not, perhaps, discovered as soon as it was formed, and
+    was certainly not opposed so soon as it was discovered: we foolishly
+    hoped, that their encroachments would stop; that they would be prevailed
+    on, by treaty and remonstrance, to give up what they had taken, or to
+    put limits to themselves. We suffered them to establish one settlement
+    after another, to pass boundary after boundary, and add fort to fort,
+    till, at last, they grew strong enough to avow their designs, and defy
+    us to obstruct them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By these provocations, long continued, we are, at length, forced into a
+    war, in which we have had, hitherto, very ill fortune. Our troops, under
+    Braddock, were dishonourably defeated; our fleets have yet done nothing
+    more than taken a few merchant ships, and have distressed some private
+    families, but have very little weakened the power of France. The
+    detention of their seamen makes it, indeed, less easy for them to fit
+    out their navy; but this deficiency will be easily supplied by the
+    alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet
+    it is necessary to show the evils which we desire to be removed; and,
+    therefore, some account may very properly be given of the measures which
+    have given them their present superiority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They are said to be supplied from France with better governours than our
+    colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governour is
+    seldom chosen for any other reason than his qualifications for his
+    trust. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be so infamously vitious, that he
+    cannot be decently protected in his own country, seldom recommends any
+    man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly
+    skilful, either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no
+    expectation of honour or preferment, but from the justice and vigour of
+    their administration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their great security is the friendship of the natives, and to this
+    advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the
+    consequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the
+    friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and
+    kept but by kind treatment; and, surely, they who intrude, uncalled,
+    upon the country of a distant people, ought to consider the natives as
+    worthy of common kindness, and content themselves to rob, without
+    insulting them. The French, as has been already observed, admit the
+    Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themselves; and those
+    nations, with which they have no such near intercourse, they gain over
+    to their interest by honesty in their dealings. Our factors and traders,
+    having no other purpose in view than immediate profit, use all the arts
+    of an European counting-house, to defraud the simple hunter of his furs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are some of the causes of our present weakness; our planters are
+    always quarrelling with their governour, whom they consider as less to
+    be trusted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians
+    by their tricks and oppressions, and we continue every day to show, by
+    new proofs; that no people can be great, who have ceased to be virtuous.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_18"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Between his Britannick majesty and imperial majesty of all the Russias,
+    signed at Moscow, Dec. 11, 1742; the treaty between his Britannick
+    majesty and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, signed June 18, 1755; and the
+    treaty between his Britannick majesty and her imperial majesty of all
+    the Russias, signed at St. Petersburg, Sept. 19/20, 1755 <a href="#note-26">[26]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are the treaties which, for many months, filled the senate with
+    debates, and the kingdom with clamours; which were represented, on one
+    part, as instances of the most profound policy and the most active care
+    of the publick welfare, and, on the other, as acts of the most
+    contemptible folly and most flagrant corruption, as violations of the
+    great trust of government, by which the wealth of Britain is sacrificed
+    to private views and to a particular province.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What honours our ministers and negotiators may expect to be paid to
+    their wisdom; it is hard to determine, for the demands of vanity are not
+    easily estimated. They should consider, before they call too loudly for
+    encomiums, that they live in an age, when the power of gold is no longer
+    a secret, and in which no man finds much difficulty in making a bargain,
+    with money in his hand. To hire troops is very easy to those who are
+    willing to pay their price. It appears, therefore, that whatever has
+    been done, was done by means which every man knows how to use, if
+    fortune is kind enough to put them in his power. To arm the nations of
+    the north in the cause of Britain, to bring down hosts against France,
+    from the polar circle, has, indeed, a sound of magnificence, which might
+    induce a mind unacquainted with publick affairs to imagine, that some
+    effort of policy, more than human, had been exerted, by which distant
+    nations were armed in our defence, and the influence of Britain was
+    extended to the utmost limits of the world. But when this striking
+    phenomenon of negotiation is more nearly inspected, it appears a
+    bargain, merely mercantile, of one power that wanted troops more than
+    money, with another that wanted money, and was burdened with troops;
+    between whom their mutual wants made an easy contract, and who have no
+    other friendship for each other, than reciprocal convenience happens to
+    produce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We shall, therefore, leave the praises of our ministers to others, yet
+    not without this acknowledgment, that if they have done little, they do
+    not seem to boast of doing much; and, that whether influenced by modesty
+    or frugality, they have not wearied the publick with mercenary
+    panegyrists, but have been content with the concurrence of the
+    parliament, and have not much solicited the applauses of the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In publick, as in private transactions, men more frequently deviate from
+    the right, for want of virtue, than of wisdom; and those who declare
+    themselves dissatisfied with these treaties, impute them not to folly,
+    but corruption.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By these advocates for the independence of Britain, who, whether their
+    arguments be just, or not, seem to be most favourably heard by the
+    people, it is alleged, that these treaties are expensive, without
+    advantage; that they waste the treasure, which we want for our own
+    defence, upon a foreign interest; and pour the gains of our commerce
+    into the coffers of princes, whose enmity cannot hurt, nor friendship
+    help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any
+    inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops,
+    with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder shall be
+    found.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This, perhaps, is true; but whether it be true, or false, is not worth
+    inquiry. We did not expect to buy their friendship, but their troops;
+    nor did we examine upon what principle we were supplied with assistance;
+    it was sufficient that we wanted forces, and that they were willing to
+    furnish them. Policy never pretended to make men wise and good; the
+    utmost of her power is to make the best use of men, such as they are, to
+    lay hold on lucky hours, to watch the present wants, and present
+    interests of others, and make them subservient to her own convenience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is further urged, with great vehemence, that these troops of Russia
+    and Hesse are not hired in defence of Britain; that we are engaged, in a
+    naval war, for territories on a distant continent; and that these
+    troops, though mercenaries, can never be auxiliaries; that they increase
+    the burden of the war, without hastening its conclusion, or promoting
+    its success; since they can neither be sent into America, the only part
+    of the world where England can, on the present occasion, have any
+    employment for land-forces, nor be put into our ships, by which, and by
+    which only, we are now to oppose and subdue our enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nature has stationed us in an island, inaccessible but by sea; and we
+    are now at war with an enemy, whose naval power is inferiour to our own,
+    and from whom, therefore, we are in no danger of invasion: to what
+    purpose, then, are troops hired in such uncommon numbers? To what end do
+    we procure strength, which we cannot exert, and exhaust the nation with
+    subsidies, at a time when nothing is disputed, which the princes, who
+    receive our subsidies, can defend? If we had purchased ships, and hired
+    seamen, we had apparently increased our power, and made ourselves
+    formidable to our enemies, and, if any increase of security be possible,
+    had secured ourselves still better from invasions: but what can the
+    regiments of Russia, or of Hesse, contribute to the defence of the
+    coasts of England; or, by what assistance can they repay us the sums,
+    which we have stipulated to pay for their costly friendship?
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Great Britain has, indeed, a territory on the continent, of
+    which the natives of this island scarcely knew the name, till the
+    present family was called to the throne, and yet know little more than
+    that our king visits it from time to time. Yet, for the defence of this
+    country, are these subsidies apparently paid, and these troops evidently
+    levied. The riches of our nation are sent into distant countries, and
+    the strength, which should be employed in our own quarrel, consequently
+    impaired, for the sake of dominions, the interest of which has no
+    connexion with ours, and which, by the act of succession, we took care
+    to keep separate from the British kingdoms.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this the advocates for the subsidies say, that unreasonable
+    stipulations, whether in the act of settlement, or any other contract,
+    are, in themselves, void; and that if a country connected with England,
+    by subjection to the same sovereign, is endangered by an English
+    quarrel, it must be defended by English force; and that we do not engage
+    in a war, for the sake of Hanover, but that Hanover is, for our sake,
+    exposed to danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who brought in these foreign troops have still something further
+    to say in their defence, and of no honest plea is it our intention to
+    defraud them. They grant, that the terrour of invasion may, possibly, be
+    groundless; that the French may want the power, or the courage, to
+    attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewise, that an
+    invasion is possible, that the armies of France are so numerous, that
+    she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself
+    exposed; that she is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and
+    would be willing to do us mischief, at her own peril. They allow, that
+    the invaders may be intercepted at sea, or that, if they land, they may
+    be defeated by our native troops. But they say, and say justly, that
+    danger is better avoided than encountered; that those ministers consult
+    more the good of their country, who prevent invasion, than repel it; and
+    that, if these auxiliaries have only saved us from the anxiety of
+    expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and distress which
+    an invasion, how soon soever repressed, would have produced, the publick
+    money is not spent in vain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These arguments are admitted by some, and by others rejected. But even
+    those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of necessity; for
+    they consider the reception of mercenaries into our country, as the
+    desperate "remedy of desperate distress;" and think, with great reason,
+    that all means of prevention should be tried, to save us from any second
+    need of such doubtful succours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely
+    entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and skill, and
+    courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the
+    opinion of every Englishman, who can think without prejudice, and speak
+    without influence; and, therefore, it will not be easy to persuade the
+    nation, a nation long renowned for valour, that it can need the help of
+    foreigners to defend it from invasion. We have been long without the
+    need of arms by our good fortune, and long without the use by our
+    negligence; so long, that the practice, and almost the name, of our old
+    trained bands is forgotten; but the story of ancient times will tell us,
+    that the trained bands were once able to maintain the quiet and safety
+    of their country; and reason, without history, will inform us, that
+    those men are most likely to fight bravely, or, at least, to fight
+    obstinately, who fight for their own houses and farms, for their own
+    wives and children.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A bill was, therefore, offered for the prevention of any future danger
+    or invasion, or necessity of mercenary forces, by reestablishing and
+    improving the militia. It was passed by the commons, but rejected by the
+    lords. That this bill, the first essay of political consideration, as a
+    subject long forgotten, should be liable to objection, cannot be
+    strange; but surely, justice, policy, common reason, require, that we
+    should be trusted with our own defence, and be kept, no longer in such a
+    helpless state as, at once, to dread our enemies and confederates.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By the bill, such as it was formed, sixty thousand men would always be
+    in arms. We have shown <a href="#note-27">[27]</a> how they may be, upon any exigence, easily
+    increased to a hundred and fifty thousand; and, I believe, neither our
+    friends nor enemies will think it proper to insult our coasts, when they
+    expect to find upon them a hundred and fifty thousand Englishmen, with
+    swords in their hands.
+</p>
+<a name="2HINT19"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Appointed to manage the contributions begun at London, December 18,
+    1758, for clothing French prisoners of war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The committee intrusted with the money, contributed to the relief of the
+    subjects of France, now prisoners in the British dominions, here lay
+    before the publick an exact account of all the sums received and
+    expended, that the donors may judge how properly their benefactions have
+    been applied.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Charity would lose its name, were it influenced by so mean a motive as
+    human praise; it is, therefore, not intended to celebrate, by any
+    particular memorial, the liberality of single persons, or distinct
+    societies; it is sufficient, that their works praise them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet he, who is far from seeking honour, may very justly obviate censure.
+    If a good example has been set, it may lose its influence by
+    misrepresentation; and, to free charity from reproach is itself a
+    charitable action.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Against the relief of the French only one argument has been brought; but
+    that one is so popular and specious, that, if it were to remain
+    unexamined, it would, by many, be thought irrefragable. It has been
+    urged, that charity, like other virtues, may be improperly and
+    unseasonably exerted; that, while we are relieving Frenchmen, there
+    remain many Englishmen unrelieved; that, while we lavish pity on our
+    enemies, we forget the misery of our friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Grant this argument all it can prove, and what is the conclusion?&mdash;That
+    to relieve the French is a good action, but that a better may be
+    conceived. This is all the result, and this all is very little. To do
+    the best can seldom be the lot of man: it is sufficient if, when
+    opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue
+    could be practised, if beneficence were to wait always for the most
+    proper objects, and the noblest occasions; occasions that may never
+    happen, and objects that may never be found.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is far from certain, that a single Englishman will suffer by the
+    charity to the French. New scenes of misery make new impressions; and
+    much of the charity, which produced these donations, may be supposed to
+    have been generated by a species of calamity never known among us
+    before. Some imagine, that the laws have provided all necessary relief,
+    in common cases, and remit the poor to the care of the publick; some
+    have been deceived by fictitious misery, and are afraid of encouraging
+    imposture; many have observed want to be the effect of vice, and
+    consider casual alms-givers as patrons of idleness. But all these
+    difficulties vanish in the present case: we know, that for the prisoners
+    of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress, and are
+    certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and
+    naked without a crime.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But it is not necessary to make any concessions. The opponents of this
+    charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be
+    the best. That charity is best, of which the consequences are most
+    extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in
+    fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse nations, and
+    dispose them to peace and amity; in the mean time, it alleviates
+    captivity, and takes away something from the miseries of war. The rage
+    of war, however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and
+    horrour; let it not, then, be unnecessarily extended; let animosity and
+    hostility cease together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than
+    while his sword is drawn against us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The effects of these contributions may, perhaps, reach still further.
+    Truth is best supported by virtue: we may hope, from those who feel, or
+    who see, our charity, that they shall no longer detest, as heresy, that
+    religion, which makes its professors the followers of him, who has
+    commanded us to "do good to them that hate us."
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_20"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS <a href="#note-28">[28]</a>,
+</h2>
+<p>
+    By those who have compared the military genius of the English with that
+    of the French nation, it is remarked, that "the French officers will
+    always lead, if the soldiers will follow;" and that "the English
+    soldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to
+    conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers seem to lose what our
+    soldiers gain. I know not any reason for supposing that the English
+    officers are less willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think,
+    universally allowed, that the English soldiers are more willing to
+    follow. Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a
+    kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We
+    can show a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose
+    courage may vie with that of their general.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There may be some pleasure in tracing the causes of this plebeian
+    magnanimity. The qualities which, commonly, make an army formidable, are
+    long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and great
+    confidence in the commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a kind of
+    mechanical obedience to signals and commands, like that which the
+    perverse cartesians impute to animals; discipline may impress such an
+    awe upon the mind, that any danger shall be less dreaded, than the
+    danger of punishment; and confidence in the wisdom, or fortune, of the
+    general may induce the soldiers to follow him blindly to the most
+    dangerous enterprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops
+    of the Russian emperess, and Prussian monarch. We find, that they may be
+    broken without confusion, and repulsed without flight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the English troops have none of these requisites, in any eminent
+    degree. Regularity is, by no means, part of their character: they are
+    rarely exercised, and, therefore, show very little dexterity in their
+    evolutions, as bodies of men, or in the manual use of their weapons, as
+    individuals; they neither are thought by others, nor by themselves, more
+    active, or exact, than their enemies, and, therefore, derive none of
+    their courage from such imaginary superiority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The manner in which they are dispersed in quarters, over the country,
+    during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of discipline: they are
+    very little in sight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged
+    in the slight duty of the guard, are suffered to live, every man his own
+    way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the
+    freedom of our tenures, and the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very
+    little to reverence superiours. It is not to any great esteem of the
+    officers, that the English soldier is indebted for his spirit in the
+    hour of battle; for, perhaps, it does not often happen, that he thinks
+    much better of his leader than of himself. The French count, who has
+    lately published the Art of War, remarks, how much soldiers are
+    animated, when they see all their dangers shared by those who were born
+    to be their masters, and whom they consider, as beings of a different
+    rank. The Englishman despises such motives of courage: he was born
+    without a master; and looks not on any man, however dignified by lace or
+    titles, as deriving, from nature, any claims to his respect, or
+    inheriting any qualities superiour to his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are some, perhaps, who would imagine, that every Englishman fights
+    better than the subjects of absolute governments, because he has more to
+    defend. But what has the English more than the French soldier? Property
+    they are both, commonly, without. Liberty is, to the lowest rank of
+    every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving; and
+    this choice is, I suppose, equally allowed in every country. The English
+    soldier seldom has his head very full of the constitution; nor has there
+    been, for more than a century, any war that put the property or liberty
+    of a single Englishman in danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whence, then, is the courage of the English vulgar? It proceeds, in my
+    opinion, from that dissolution of dependence, which obliges every man to
+    regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he
+    has no need of any servile arts; he may always have wages for his
+    labour; and is no less necessary to his employer, than his employer is
+    to him. While he looks for no protection from others, he is naturally
+    roused to be his own protector; and having nothing to abate his esteem
+    of himself, he, consequently, aspires to the esteem of others. Thus
+    every man that crowds our streets is a man of honour, disdainful of
+    obligation, impatient of reproach, and desirous of extending his
+    reputation among those of his own rank; and, as courage is in most
+    frequent use, the fame of courage is most eagerly pursued. From this
+    neglect of subordination, I do not deny, that some inconveniencies may,
+    from time to time, proceed: the power of the law does not, always,
+    sufficiently supply the want of reverence, or maintain the proper
+    distinction between different ranks; but good and evil will grow up in
+    this world together; and they who complain, in peace, of the insolence
+    of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery
+    in war.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_21"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    POLITICAL TRACTS.
+</h2>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  Fallitur, egregio quisquis sub principe credit
+  Servitium, nunquam libertas gratior extat
+  Quam sub rege pio.
+
+  CLAUDIANUS.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<a name="2H_4_22"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    On Johnson's character, as a political writer, we cannot dwell with
+    pleasure, since we cannot speak of it with praise. In the following
+    pamphlets, however, though we cannot honestly subscribe to their
+    doctrines, we must admire the same powers of composition, the same play
+    of imagination, the same keen sarcasm and indignant reproof, that
+    embellish his other productions. He might, and did, think wrongly on
+    these subjects, but he never wrote what he did not believe to be true,
+    and, therefore, must be acquitted of all charges of servility or
+    dishonesty. The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says
+    Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority
+    in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom,
+    that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to
+    exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel to be duly elected
+    for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great
+    majority of votes. This being justly considered as a gross violation of
+    the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all
+    over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false, was the purpose of
+    Johnson's pamphlet; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with
+    constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and
+    the house of commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from
+    their journals. That the house of commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes
+    repeatedly, and as often as he should be rechosen, was not to be denied;
+    but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It
+    was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general,
+    and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an
+    understanding as Johnson's in this particular case." Where Boswell
+    expresses himself with regard to Johnson, in terms so reprehensive as
+    the above, we cannot be accused of severity in repeating his just
+    censure. Several answers appeared, but, perhaps, all of them, in
+    compliance with the excited feelings of the times, dealt rather in
+    personal abuse of Johnson, as a pensioner and hireling, than in fair and
+    manly argument. The chief were, the Crisis; a Letter to Dr. Samuel
+    Johnson; and, the Constitution Defender and Pensioner exposed, in
+    Remarks on the False Alarm.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_23"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the
+    improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary
+    terrours, and exemption from false alarms. The unusual appearances,
+    whether regular or accidental, which once spread consternation over ages
+    of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquisitive security. The sun
+    is no more lamented when it is eclipsed, than when it sets; and meteors
+    play their coruscations without prognostick or prediction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The advancement of political knowledge may be expected to produce, in
+    time, the like effects. Causeless discontent, and seditious violence,
+    will grow less frequent and less formidable, as the science of
+    government is better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of
+    man. It is not, indeed, to be expected, that physical and political
+    truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world
+    with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a
+    state of neutrality, or, at worst, have nothing to encounter but
+    prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without
+    interest. But the politician's improvements are opposed by every passion
+    that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by
+    hope, and by terrour, by publick faction, and private animosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is evident, whatever be the cause, that this nation, with all its
+    renown for speculation and for learning, has yet made little proficiency
+    in civil wisdom. We are still so much unacquainted with our own state,
+    and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without
+    danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be
+    disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the
+    government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamour,
+    which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many
+    favour it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion,
+    and incite fury, from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known,
+    by perusing the papers which have been, at once, presented as petitions
+    to the king, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. It
+    may, therefore, not be improper to lay before the publick the
+    reflections of a man, who cannot favour the opposition, for he thinks it
+    wicked, and cannot fear it, for he thinks it weak.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The grievance which has produced all this tempest of outrage, the
+    oppression in which all other oppressions are included, the invasion
+    which has left us no property, the alarm that suffers no patriot to
+    sleep in quiet, is comprised in a vote of the house of commons, by which
+    the freeholders of Middlesex are deprived of a Briton's
+    birthright&mdash;representation in parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They have, indeed, received the usual writ of election; but that writ,
+    alas! was malicious mockery: they were insulted with the form, but
+    denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Non de vi, neque cæde, nec veneno,
+  Sed lis est mihi de tribus capellis."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to
+    delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no
+    man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of
+    commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition
+    and impiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors
+    of the church and state, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover
+    of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief
+    county in England cannot take its representative from a gaol.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whence Middlesex should obtain the right of being denominated the chief
+    county cannot easily be discovered; it is, indeed, the county where the
+    chief city happens to stand, but, how that city treated the favourite of
+    Middlesex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the
+    city, has no claim to particular consideration. That a man was in gaol
+    for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been, within memory, a
+    sufficient reason why he should not come out of gaol a legislator. This
+    reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to
+    operate on the house of commons. Their notions, however strange, may be
+    justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment,
+    and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes
+    any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what
+    he did before with less.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house
+    cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who
+    can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character,
+    is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which
+    no human authority can depose him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They
+    are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to
+    establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction
+    over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and
+    that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often
+    in expulsion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is
+    inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where
+    there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of
+    punishment. A member of the house cannot be cited for his conduct in
+    parliament before any other court; and, therefore, if the house cannot
+    punish him, he may attack, with impunity, the rights of the people, and
+    the title of the king.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first
+    established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is
+    not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the
+    principles of government. If legislative powers are not coordinate, they
+    cease, in part, to be legislative; and if they be coordinate, they are
+    unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no
+    superiour?
+</p>
+<p>
+    The house of commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation
+    has, of late, been very clamorously told; but while it subsists it is
+    coordinate with the other powers, and this coordination ceases only,
+    when the house, by dissolution, ceases to subsist.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As the particular representatives of the people are, in their publick
+    character, above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject
+    to the jurisdiction of the house; and as the house, in the exercise of
+    its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own
+    resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent
+    decision of the whole legislature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact,
+    but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised,
+    probably, from their first institution, but certainly, as their records
+    inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for
+    derogating from their privileges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that
+    this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences in
+    the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are
+    cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their
+    own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and
+    when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an
+    offence against society, as an offence against the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They have, therefore, divested notorious delinquents of their
+    legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment,
+    naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of
+    parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is allowed, that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament,
+    and the commons probably judged, that, not being bound to the forms of
+    law, they might treat these as felons, whose crimes were, in their
+    opinion, equivalent to felony; and that, as a known felon could not be
+    chosen, a man, so like a felon that he could not easily be
+    distinguished, ought to be expelled.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first laws had no law to enforce them; the first authority was
+    constituted by itself. The power exercised by the house of commons is of
+    this kind; a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched
+    out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and
+    precedents have made legal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It will occur, that authority thus uncontroulable may, in times of heat
+    and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who
+    suffers injustice is without redress, however innocent, however
+    miserable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The position is true, but the argument is useless. The commons must be
+    controlled, or be exempt from control. If they are exempt, they may do
+    injury which cannot be redressed, if they are controlled, they are no
+    longer legislative.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the possibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no
+    authority ever can be established: if the actual abuse destroys its
+    legality, there is no legal government now in the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This power, which the commons have so long exercised, they ventured to
+    use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and, on the 3rd of February, 1769,
+    expelled him the house, "for having printed and published a seditious
+    libel, and three obscene and impious libels."
+</p>
+<p>
+    If these imputations were just, the expulsion was, surely, seasonable;
+    and that they were just, the house had reason to determine, as he had
+    confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term
+    seditious, and was convicted, in the King's Bench, of both the
+    publications.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either
+    thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was
+    issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John
+    Wilkes, esq. expelled the house, his friends, on the sixteenth of
+    February, chose him again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 17th, it was resolved, "that John Wilkes, esq. having been, in
+    this session of parliament, expelled the house, was, and is, incapable
+    of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament."
+</p>
+<p>
+    As there was no other candidate, it was resolved, at the same time, that
+    the election of the sixteenth was a void election.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The freeholders still continued to think, that no other man was fit to
+    represent them, and, on the sixteenth of March, elected him once more.
+    Their resolution was now so well known, that no opponent ventured to
+    appear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The commons began to find, that power, without materials for operation,
+    can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but
+    if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be
+    negative. They, however, made void the last election, and ordered a new
+    writ.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 13th of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and
+    others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was
+    used, and some acts of violence were done, to hinder Mr. Lutterel from
+    appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited,
+    for
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  Mr. Wilkes       1143
+  Mr. Lutterel      296
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the house, on April the fifteenth,
+    determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this day began the clamour, which has continued till now. Those who
+    had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater
+    magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it
+    into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discontent
+    and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with
+    exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has spread through all
+    ranks, and through both sexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr.
+    Wilkes; honest simplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wise
+    have escaped infection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The greater part may justly be suspected of not believing their own
+    position, and with them it is not necessary to dispute. They cannot be
+    convinced who are convinced already, and it is well known that they will
+    not be ashamed. The decision, however, by which the smaller number of
+    votes was preferred to the greater, has perplexed the minds of some,
+    whose opinions it were indecent to despise, and who, by their integrity,
+    well deserve to have their doubts appeased.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every diffuse and complicated question may be examined by different
+    methods, upon different principles; and that truth, which is easily
+    found by one investigator, may be missed by another, equally honest and
+    equally diligent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who inquire, whether a smaller number of legal votes can elect a
+    representative in opposition to a greater, must receive, from every
+    tongue, the same answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The question, therefore, must be, whether a smaller number of legal
+    votes shall not prevail against a greater number of votes not legal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It must be considered, that those votes only are legal which are legally
+    given, and that those only are legally given, which are given for a
+    legal candidate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It remains, then, to be discussed, whether a man expelled can be so
+    disqualified by a vote of the house, as that he shall be no longer
+    eligible by lawful electors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here we must again recur, not to positive institutions, but to the
+    unwritten law of social nature, to the great and pregnant principle of
+    political necessity. All government supposes subjects; all authority
+    implies obedience: to suppose in one the right to command what another
+    has the right to refuse, is absurd and contradictory; a state, so
+    constituted, must rest for ever in motionless equipoise, with equal
+    attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of power balancing
+    each other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Laws which cannot be enforced can neither prevent nor rectify disorders.
+    A sentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to
+    reform. If the commons have only the power of dismissing, for a few
+    days, the man whom his constituents can immediately send back; if they
+    can expel, but cannot exclude, they have nothing more than nominal
+    authority, to which, perhaps, obedience never may be paid.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The representatives of our ancestors had an opinion very different: they
+    fined and imprisoned their members; on great provocation, they disabled
+    them for ever; and this power of pronouncing perpetual disability is
+    maintained by Selden himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These claims seem to have been made and allowed, when the constitution
+    of our government had not yet been sufficiently studied. Such powers are
+    not legal, because they are not necessary; and of that power which only
+    necessity justifies, no more is to be admitted than necessity obtrudes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The commons cannot make laws; they can only pass resolutions, which,
+    like all resolutions, are of force only to those that make them, and to
+    those, only while they are willing to observe them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The vote of the house of commons has, therefore, only so far the force
+    of a law, as that force is necessary to preserve the vote from losing
+    its efficacy; it must begin by operating upon themselves, and extend its
+    influence to others, only by consequences arising from the first
+    intention. He that starts game on his own manor, may pursue it into
+    another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They can properly make laws only for themselves: a member, while he
+    keeps his seat, is subject to these laws; but when he is expelled, the
+    jurisdiction ceases, for he is now no longer within their dominion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The disability, which a vote can superinduce to expulsion, is no more
+    than was included in expulsion itself; it is only a declaration of the
+    commons, that they will permit no longer him, whom they thus censure, to
+    sit with them in parliament; a declaration made by that right, which
+    they necessarily possess, of regulating their own house, and of
+    inflicting punishment on their own delinquents.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They have, therefore, no other way to enforce the sentence of
+    incapacity, than that of adhering to it. They cannot otherwise punish
+    the candidate so disqualified for offering himself, nor the electors for
+    accepting him. But if he has any competitor, that competitor must
+    prevail, and if he has none, his election will be void; for the right of
+    the house to reject annihilates, with regard to the man so rejected, the
+    right of electing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been urged, that the power of the house terminates with their
+    session; since a prisoner, committed by the speaker's warrant, cannot be
+    detained during the recess. That power, indeed, ceases with the session,
+    which must operate by the agency of others; because, when they do not
+    sit, they can employ no agent, having no longer any legal existence; but
+    that which is exercised on themselves revives at their meeting, when the
+    subject of that power still subsists: they can, in the next session,
+    refuse to re-admit him, whom, in the former session, they expelled. That
+    expulsion inferred exclusion, in the present case, must be, I think,
+    easily admitted. The expulsion, and the writ issued for a new election
+    were in the same session, and, since the house is, by the rule of
+    parliament, bound for the session by a vote once passed, the expelled
+    member cannot be admitted. He that cannot be admitted, cannot be
+    elected; and the votes given to a man ineligible being given in vain,
+    the highest number for an eligible candidate becomes a majority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To these conclusions, as to most moral, and to all political positions,
+    many objections may be made. The perpetual subject of political
+    disquisition is not absolute, but comparative good. Of two systems of
+    government, or two laws relating to the same subject, neither will ever
+    be such as theoretical nicety would desire, and, therefore, neither can
+    easily force its way against prejudice and obstinacy; each will have its
+    excellencies and defects; and every man, with a little help from pride,
+    may think his own the best.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It seems to be the opinion of many, that expulsion is only a dismission
+    of the representative to his constituents, with such a testimony against
+    him, as his sentence may comprise; and that, if his constituents,
+    notwithstanding the censure of the house, thinking his case hard, his
+    fault trifling, or his excellencies such as overbalance it, should again
+    choose him, as still worthy of their trust, the house cannot refuse him,
+    for his punishment has purged his fault, and the right of electors must
+    not be violated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is plausible, but not cogent. It is a scheme of representation,
+    which would make a specious appearance in a political romance, but
+    cannot be brought into practice among us, who see every day the towering
+    head of speculation bow down unwillingly to groveling experience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients,
+    as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are
+    never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of dissimilar
+    materials, raised by different architects, upon different plans. We must
+    be content with them, as they are; should we attempt to mend their
+    disproportions, we might easily demolish, and difficultly rebuild them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Laws are now made, and customs are established; these are our rules, and
+    by them we must be guided.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is uncontrovertibly certain, that the commons never intended to leave
+    electors the liberty of returning them an expelled member; for they
+    always require one to be chosen in the room of him that is expelled, and
+    I see not with what propriety a man can be rechosen in his own room.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Expulsion, if this were its whole effect, might very often be desirable.
+    Sedition, or obscenity, might be no greater crimes in the opinion of
+    other electors, than in that of the freeholders of Middlesex; and many a
+    wretch, whom his colleagues should expel, might come back persecuted
+    into fame, and provoke, with harder front, a second expulsion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many of the representatives of the people can hardly be said to have
+    been chosen at all. Some, by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat; and
+    some sit by the favour of others, whom, perhaps, they may gratify by the
+    act which provoked the expulsion. Some are safe by their popularity, and
+    some by their alliances. None would dread expulsion, if this doctrine
+    were received, but those who bought their elections, and who would be
+    obliged to buy them again at a higher price.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But as uncertainties are to be determined by things certain, and customs
+    to be explained, where it is possible, by written law, the patriots have
+    triumphed with a quotation from an act of the fourth and fifth of Anne,
+    which permits those to be rechosen, whose seats are vacated by the
+    acceptance of a place of profit. This they wisely consider as an
+    expulsion, and from the permission, in this case, of a reelection,
+    infer, that every other expulsion leaves the delinquent entitled to the
+    same indulgence. This is the paragraph:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "If any person, being chosen a member of the house of commons, shall
+    accept of any office from the crown, during such time as he shall
+    continue a member, his election shall be, and is hereby declared to be
+    void; and a new writ shall issue for a new election, as if such person,
+    so accepting, was naturally dead. Nevertheless such person shall be
+    capable of being again elected, as if his place had not become void as
+    aforesaid."
+</p>
+<p>
+    How this favours the doctrine of readmission, by a second choice, I am
+    not able to discover. The statute of the thirtieth of Charles the second
+    had enacted, that "he who should sit in the house of commons, without
+    taking the oaths, and subscribing the test, should be disabled to sit in
+    the house during that parliament, and a writ should issue for the
+    election of a new member, in place of the member so disabled, as if such
+    member had naturally died."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This last clause is, apparently, copied in the act of Anne, but with the
+    common fate of imitators. In the act of Charles, the political death
+    continued during the parliament; in that of Anne it was hardly worth the
+    while to kill the man whom the next breath was to revive. It is,
+    however, apparent, that in the opinion of the parliament, the dead-doing
+    lines would have kept him motionless, if he had not been recovered by a
+    kind exception. A seat vacated could not be regained, without express
+    permission of the same statute.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The right of being chosen again to a seat thus vacated, is not enjoyed
+    by any general right, but required a special clause and solicitous
+    provision.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But what resemblance can imagination conceive between one man vacating
+    his seat by a mark of favour from the crown, and another driven from it
+    for sedition and obscenity? The acceptance of a place contaminates no
+    character; the crown that gives it, intends to give with it always
+    dignity, sometimes authority. The commons, it is well known, think not
+    worse of themselves, or others, for their offices of profit; yet profit
+    implies temptation, and may expose a representative to the suspicion of
+    his constituents; though, if they still think him worthy of their
+    confidence, they may again elect him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such is the consequence. When a man is dismissed by law to his
+    constituents, with new trust and new dignity, they may, if they think
+    him incorruptible, restore him to his seat; what can follow, therefore,
+    but that, when the house drives out a varlet, with publick infamy, he
+    goes away with the like permission to return?
+</p>
+<p>
+    If infatuation be, as the proverb tells us, the forerunner of
+    destruction, how near must be the ruin of a nation that can be incited
+    against its governours by sophistry like this! I may be excused, if I
+    catch the panick, and join my groans, at this alarming crisis, with the
+    general lamentation of weeping patriots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another objection is, that the commons, by pronouncing the sentence of
+    disqualification, make a law, and take upon themselves the power of the
+    whole legislature. Many quotations are then produced to prove, that the
+    house of commons can make no laws.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three acts have been cited, disabling members, for different terms, on
+    different occasions; and it is profoundly remarked, that if the commons
+    could, by their own privilege, have made a disqualification, their
+    jealousy of their privileges would never have admitted the concurrent
+    sanction of the other powers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I must for ever remind these puny controvertists, that those acts are
+    laws of permanent obligation; that two of them are now in force, and
+    that the other expired only when it had fulfilled its end. Such laws the
+    commons cannot make; they could, perhaps, have determined for
+    themselves, that they would expel all who should not take the test, but
+    they could leave no authority behind them, that should oblige the next
+    parliament to expel them. They could refuse the South sea directors, but
+    they could not entail the refusal. They can disqualify by vote, but not
+    by law; they cannot know that the sentence of disqualification
+    pronounced to-day may not become void to-morrow, by the dissolution of
+    their own house. Yet, while the same parliament sits, the
+    disqualification continues, unless the vote be rescinded; and, while it
+    so continues, makes the votes, which freeholders may give to the
+    interdicted candidate, useless and dead, since there cannot exist, with
+    respect to the same subject, at the same time, an absolute power to
+    choose and an absolute power to reject.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1614, the attorney general was voted incapable of a seat in the house
+    of commons; and the nation is triumphantly told, that, though the vote
+    never was revoked, the attorney general is now a member. He, certainly,
+    may now be a member, without revocation of the vote. A law is of
+    perpetual obligation; but a vote is nothing, when the voters are gone. A
+    law is a compact reciprocally made by the legislative powers, and,
+    therefore, not to be abrogated but by all the parties. A vote is simply
+    a resolution, which binds only him that is willing to be bound.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I have thus punctiliously and minutely pursued this disquisition,
+    because I suspect, that these reasoners, whose business is to deceive
+    others, have sometimes deceived themselves, and I am willing to free
+    them from their embarrassment, though I do not expect much gratitude for
+    my kindness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Other objections are yet remaining, for of political objections there
+    cannot easily be an end. It has been observed, that vice is no proper
+    cause of expulsion; for if the worst man in the house were always to be
+    expelled, in time none would be left; but no man is expelled for being
+    worst, he is expelled for being enormously bad; his conduct is compared,
+    not with that of others, but with the rule of action.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The punishment of expulsion, being in its own nature uncertain, may be
+    too great or too little for the fault.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is
+    nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally
+    a good; and, indeed, any punishment, less than death, is very different
+    to different men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can,
+    hereafter, be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would
+    choose. One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch
+    an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation
+    may, by this stratagem, be without its lawful representatives.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He that sees all this, sees very far. But I can tell him of greater
+    evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this
+    alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice,
+    the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the
+    Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a
+    house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill
+    of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect that these hungry
+    intruders from the north are now contriving to expel all the English. We
+    may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and
+    exclusion are the same; for who can guess what may be done, when the
+    Scots have the whole house to themselves?
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections,
+    real or imaginary, thus consistent with the practice of former times,
+    and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that
+    decision, by which so much violence of discontent has been excited,
+    which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or
+    in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and
+    give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It
+    may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood,
+    by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful
+    seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not
+    be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part
+    of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the publick should
+    be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might
+    all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there
+    would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and
+    obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble,
+    whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters
+    of the bill of rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it
+    ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man,
+    whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes,
+    and his constituents feel their disappointment, with no less anguish
+    than the freeholders of Middlesex. These decisions have often been
+    apparently partial, and, sometimes, tyrannically oppressive. A majority
+    has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had
+    always been allowed, and which, therefore, had the authority by which
+    all votes are given, that of custom uninterrupted. When the commons
+    determine who shall be constituents, they may, with some propriety, be
+    said to make law, because those determinations have, hitherto, for the
+    sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote,
+    therefore, of the house, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a
+    law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet, though all this has been done, and though, at every new parliament,
+    much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced, in any
+    former time, such an alarming crisis. We have found, by experience, that
+    though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has
+    been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it
+    did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the
+    same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has
+    been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly
+    reaped it; and he that built a house was master of the door; the
+    vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by
+    any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it
+    neither spread far, nor lasted long.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The nation looked on with little care, because there did not seem to be
+    much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and
+    we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is quickened,
+    and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see events in their
+    causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is
+    clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has,
+    by the force of English genius, been improved, at last, not only to
+    political intuition, but to political prescience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are
+    made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called
+    second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second
+    sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis,
+    of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new
+    wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for
+    himself, now cares for the publick; for he has learned, that the
+    happiness of individuals is comprised in the prosperity of the whole;
+    and that his country never suffers, but he suffers with it, however it
+    happens that he feels no pain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Fired with this fever of epidemick patriotism, the tailor slips his
+    thimble, the draper drops his yard, and the blacksmith lays down his
+    hammer; they meet at an honest ale-house, consider the state of the
+    nation, read or hear the last petition, lament the miseries of the time,
+    are alarmed at the dreadful crisis, and subscribe to the support of the
+    bill of rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It sometimes, indeed, happens, that an intruder, of more benevolence
+    than prudence, attempts to disperse their cloud of dejection, and ease
+    their hearts by seasonable consolation. He tells them, that though the
+    government cannot be too diligently watched, it may be too hastily
+    accused; and that, though private judgment is every man's right, yet we
+    cannot judge of what we do not know; that we feel at present no evils
+    which government can alleviate, and that the publick business is
+    committed to men, who have as much right to confidence as their
+    adversaries; that the freeholders of Middlesex, if they could not choose
+    Mr. Wilkes, might have chosen any other man, and that "he trusts we have
+    within the realm, five hundred as good as he;" that even if this, which
+    has happened to Middlesex, had happened to every other county, that one
+    man should be made incapable of being elected, it could produce no great
+    change in the parliament, nor much contract the power of election; that,
+    what has been done is, probably, right; and that if it be wrong, it is
+    of little consequence, since a like case cannot easily occur; that
+    expulsions are very rare, and if they should, by unbounded insolence of
+    faction, become more frequent, the electors may easily provide a second
+    choice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All this he may say, but not half of this will be heard; his opponents
+    will stun him and themselves with a confused sound of pensions and
+    places, venality and corruption, oppression and invasion, slavery and
+    ruin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Outcries, like these, uttered by malignity, and echoed by folly; general
+    accusations of indeterminate wickedness; and obscure hints of impossible
+    designs, dispersed among those that do not know their meaning, by those
+    that know them to be false, have disposed part of the nation, though but
+    a small part, to pester the court with ridiculous petitions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down
+    to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to
+    serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government.
+    His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have
+    nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are
+    plentifully provided; a crowd is easily brought together, and those who
+    think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell
+    those who know it not; ale and clamour unite their powers; the crowd,
+    condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition: all
+    see a thousand evils, though they cannot show them; and grow impatient
+    for a remedy, though they know not what.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A speech is then made by the <i>Cicero</i> of the day; he says much, and
+    suppresses more; and credit is equally given to what he tells, and what
+    he conceals. The petition is read, and universally approved. Those who
+    are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it,
+    if they could.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every man goes home and tells his neighbour of the glories of the day;
+    how he was consulted, and what he advised; how he was invited into the
+    great room, where his lordship called him by his name; how he was
+    caressed by sir Francis, sir Joseph, or sir George; how he eat turtle
+    and venison, and drank unanimity to the three brothers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him, or whose wife had locked
+    him up, hears the tale of luxury with envy, and, at last, inquires what
+    was their petition. Of the petition nothing is remembered by the
+    narrator, but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions, and
+    something very alarming, and that he is sure it is against the
+    government; the other is convinced that it must be right, and wishes he
+    had been there, for he loves wine and venison, and is resolved, as long
+    as he lives, to be against the government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The petition is then handed from town to town, and from house to house;
+    and, wherever it comes, the inhabitants flock together, that they may
+    see that which must be sent to the king. Names are easily collected. One
+    man signs, because he hates the papists; another, because he has vowed
+    destruction to the tumpikes; one, because it will vex the parson;
+    another, because he owes his landlord nothing; one, because he is rich;
+    another, because he is poor; one, to show that he is not afraid; and
+    another, to show that he can write.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The passage, however, is not always smooth. Those who collect
+    contributions to sedition, sometimes apply to a man of higher rank and
+    more enlightened mind, who, instead of lending them his name, calmly
+    reproves them for being seducers of the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the
+    agents of those who having estimated themselves at too high a price, are
+    only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the
+    parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who, scarcely, in the most
+    common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question
+    complicated with law written and unwritten, with the general principles
+    of government, and the particular customs of the house of commons; you
+    are showing them a grievance, so distant that they cannot see it, and so
+    light that they cannot feel it; for how, but by unnecessary intelligence
+    and artificial provocation, should the farmers and shopkeepers of
+    Yorkshire and Cumberland know or care how Middlesex is represented?
+    Instead of wandering thus round the county to exasperate the rage of
+    party, and darken the suspicions of ignorance, it is the duty of men
+    like you, who have leisure for inquiry, to lead back the people to their
+    honest labour; to tell them, that submission is the duty of the
+    ignorant, and content the virtue of the poor; that they have no skill in
+    the art of government, nor any interest in the dissensions of the great;
+    and when you meet with any, as some there are, whose understandings are
+    capable of conviction, it will become you to allay this foaming
+    ebullition, by showing them, that they have as much happiness as the
+    condition of life will easily receive; and that a government, of which
+    an erroneous or unjust representation of Middlesex is the greatest crime
+    that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is government
+    approaching nearer to perfection, than any that experience has known, or
+    history related.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The drudges of sedition wish to change their ground; they hear him with
+    sullen silence, feel conviction without repentance, and are confounded,
+    but not abashed; they go forward to another door, and find a kinder
+    reception from a man enraged against the government, because he has just
+    been paying the tax upon his windows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That a petition for a dissolution of the parliament will, at all times,
+    have its favourers, may be easily imagined. The people, indeed, do not
+    expect that one house of commons will be much honester or much wiser
+    than another; they do not suppose that the taxes will be lightened; or,
+    though they have been so often taught to hope it, that soap and candles
+    will be cheaper; they expect no redress of grievances, for of no
+    grievances, but taxes, do they complain; they wish not the extension of
+    liberty, for they do not feel any restraint; about the security of
+    privilege or property they are totally careless, for they see no
+    property invaded, nor know, till they are told, that any privilege has
+    suffered violation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Least of all do they expect, that any future parliament will lessen its
+    own powers, or communicate to the people that authority which it has
+    once obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet a new parliament is sufficiently desirable. The year of election is
+    a year of jollity; and, what is still more delightful, a year of
+    equality: the glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when
+    he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine,
+    without the cost: the drone lives awhile without work, and the
+    shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price: the mechanick, that
+    trembled at the presence of sir Joseph, now bids him come again for an
+    answer: and the poacher, whose gun has been seized, now finds an
+    opportunity to reclaim it. Even the honest man is not displeased to see
+    himself important, and willingly resumes, in two years, that power which
+    he had resigned for seven. Few love their friends so well as not to
+    desire superiority by unexpensive benefaction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet, notwithstanding all these motives to compliance, the promoters of
+    petitions have not been successful. Few could be persuaded to lament
+    evils which they did not suffer, or to solicit for redress which they do
+    not want. The petition has been, in some places, rejected; and, perhaps,
+    in all but one, signed only by the meanest and grossest of the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Since this expedient, now invented or revived, to distress the
+    government, and equally practicable, at all times, by all who shall be
+    excluded from power and from profit, has produced so little effect, let
+    us consider the opposition as no longer formidable. The great engine has
+    recoiled upon them. They thought, that <i>the terms</i>, they <i>sent, were
+    terms of weight</i>, which would have <i>amazed all, and stumbled many</i>; but
+    the consternation is now over, and their foes <i>stand upright</i>, as
+    before.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With great propriety and dignity the king has, in his speech, neglected
+    or forgotten them. He might easily know, that what was presented, as the
+    sense of the people, is the sense only of the profligate and dissolute;
+    and, that whatever parliament should be convened, the same petitioners
+    would be ready, for the same reason, to request its dissolution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an opposition of
+    the pedlers. The quiet of the nation has been, for years, disturbed by a
+    faction, against which all factions ought to conspire; for its original
+    principle is the desire of leveling; it is only animated, under the name
+    of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When, in the confusion which the English invasions produced in France,
+    the villains, imagining that they had found the golden hour of
+    emancipation, took arms in their hands, the knights of both nations
+    considered the cause as common, and suspending the general hostility,
+    united to chastise them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The whole conduct of this despicable faction is distinguished by
+    plebeian grossness, and savage indecency. To misrepresent the actions
+    and the principles of their enemies is common to all parties; but the
+    insolence of invective, and brutality of reproach, which have lately
+    prevailed, are peculiar to this.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An infallible characteristick of meanness is cruelty. This is the only
+    faction, that has shouted at the condemnation of a criminal, and that,
+    when his innocence procured his pardon, has clamoured for his blood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All other parties, however enraged at each other, have agreed to treat
+    the throne with decency; but these low-born railers have attacked not
+    only the authority, but the character of their sovereign, and have
+    endeavoured, surely without effect, to alienate the affections of the
+    people from the only king, who, for almost a century, has much appeared
+    to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve them. They have insulted him
+    with rudeness, and with menaces, which were never excited by the gloomy
+    sullenness of William, even when half the nation denied him their
+    allegiance; nor by the dangerous bigotry of James, unless, when he was
+    finally driven from his palace; and with which scarcely the open
+    hostilities of rebellion ventured to vilify the unhappy Charles, even in
+    the remarks on the cabinet of Naseby.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is surely not unreasonable to hope, that the nation will consult its
+    dignity, if not its safety, and disdain to be protected or enslaved by
+    the declaimers, or the plotters of a city tavern. Had Rome fallen by the
+    Catilinarian conspiracy, she might have consoled her fate by the
+    greatness of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the disgrace
+    of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?
+</p>
+<p>
+    One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but
+    for some weighty and apparent interest. If the means were violent, the
+    end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called, and
+    believed, the best religion and the best government. The struggle in the
+    reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now
+    disputing, with almost equal animosity, whether Middlesex shall be
+    represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The only comfort left, in such degeneracy, is, that a lower state can be
+    no longer possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this contemptuous censure, I mean not to include every single man. In
+    all lead, says the chymist, there is silver; and in all copper there is
+    gold. But mingled masses are justly denominated by the greater quantity,
+    and when the precious particles are not worth extraction, a faction and
+    a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance
+    allots them:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Fiunt urceoli, pelves, sartago, patellæ."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    A few weeks will now show, whether the government can be shaken by empty
+    noise, and whether the faction, which depends upon its influence, has
+    not deceived, alike, the publick and itself. That it should have
+    continued till now, is sufficiently shameful. None can, indeed, wonder
+    that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of
+    sedition, and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now
+    remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find
+    separation now only tolerated, which was once rewarded; but every honest
+    man must lament, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the
+    tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by
+    opposition to the court, do not yet consider, that they have, at last, a
+    king, who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common
+    father of all his people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As a man inebriated only by vapours soon recovers in the open air; a
+    nation discontented to madness, without any adequate cause, will return
+    to its wits and its allegiance, when a little pause has cooled it to
+    reflection. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, at this alarming crisis,
+    but to consider the alarm as false. To make concessions is to encourage
+    encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed
+    people will soon deride it.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_24"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    The following thoughts were published in 1771; from materials furnished
+    to the author by the ministry. His description of the miseries of war is
+    most eloquently persuasive, and his invectives against the opposition,
+    and their mysterious champion, abound with the most forcible and
+    poignant satire. In a letter to Mr. Langton, from Johnson, we find that
+    lord North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed.
+    Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason
+    of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a
+    dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the
+    second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down
+    or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the
+    value of the Falkland islands to England too low.&mdash;ED.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_25"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard
+    a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the
+    discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed
+    armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not, many years have passed, since the cruelties of war were filling the
+    world with terrour and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or
+    strength exhausted, and, to the harassed nations peace was restored with
+    its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness,
+    and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can
+    be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger
+    of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in
+    the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if
+    they had not happened to make a seamark, had, perhaps, never had a name!
+</p>
+<p>
+    Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected; and that
+    renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness,
+    is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was
+    ennobled by the passage of Caesar, and the time is now come, when
+    Falkland's islands demand their historian.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the writer, to whom this employment shall be assigned, will have few
+    opportunities of descriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of other
+    countries it is told, how often they have changed their government;
+    these islands have, hitherto, changed only their name. Of heroes to
+    conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance;
+    nothing has happened to them, but that they have been, sometimes, seen
+    by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better
+    habitations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered
+    America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions, they
+    surprised and terrified Europe, by a sudden and unexampled influx of
+    riches. They were made, at once, insupportably insolent, and might,
+    perhaps, have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous
+    treasures been scattered in the air, with the ignorant profusion of
+    unaccustomed opulence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches
+    flowing into Spain, without attempting to dip their own hands in the
+    golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was
+    extending her dominions in the east, over regions formed in the gaiety
+    of nature; the Hanseatick league, being planned only for the security of
+    traffick, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial
+    states of Italy, growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and
+    not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek, by great hazards, at a
+    distance, what was, almost at home, to be found with safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The English, alone, were animated by the success of the Spanish
+    navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or
+    incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north
+    there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were
+    pre-occupied, yet they still continued their hopes and their labours.
+    They were the second nation that dared the extent of the Pacifick ocean,
+    and the second circumnavigators of the globe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became
+    lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty,
+    supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the
+    Spaniards. Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their
+    influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views
+    of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the fatal voyage of Cavendish, (1592,) captain Davis, who, being sent
+    out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him, or deserted him,
+    as he was driven, by violence of weather, about the straits of Magellan,
+    is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called
+    Falkland's islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any
+    observation; and he left them, as he found them, without a name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not long afterwards, (1594,) sir Richard Hawkins being in the same seas,
+    with the same designs, saw these islands again, if they are, indeed, the
+    same islands, and, in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's
+    maiden land.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This voyage was not of renown sufficient to procure a general reception
+    to the new name; for when the Dutch, who had now become strong enough
+    not only to defend themselves, but to attack their masters, sent (1598)
+    Verhagen and Sebald de Wert into the South seas, these islands, which
+    were not supposed to have been known before, obtained the denomination
+    of Sebald's islands, and were, from that time, placed in the charts;
+    though Frezier tells us, that they were yet considered as of doubtful
+    existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their present English name was, probably, given them (1689) by Strong,
+    whose journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Museum. This name was
+    adopted by Halley, and has, from that time, I believe, been received
+    into our maps.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The privateers, which were put into motion by the wars of William and
+    Anne, saw those islands, and mention them; but they were yet not
+    considered as territories worth a contest. Strong affirmed that there
+    was no wood; and Dampier suspected that they had no water.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Frezier describes their appearance with more distinctness, and mentions
+    some ships of St. Malo's, by which they had been visited, and to which
+    he seems willing enough to ascribe the honour of discovering islands,
+    which yet he admits to have been seen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de
+    Wert. He, I suppose, in honour of his countrymen, called them the
+    Malouines, the denomination now used by the Spaniards, who seem not,
+    till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deserve a
+    name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed
+    their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepys's, or Falkland's island,
+    recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future
+    expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as of such use and
+    importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and, in war,
+    would make us masters of the South sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the
+    imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. The
+    relater of Anson's voyage had heated his mind with its various events;
+    had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation suffered
+    by its various miscarriages, and then thought nothing could be of
+    greater benefit to the nation, than that which might promote the success
+    of such another enterprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Had the heroes of that history even performed and attained all that,
+    when they first spread their sails, they ventured to hope, the
+    consequence would yet have produced very little hurt to the Spaniards,
+    and very little benefit to the English. They would have taken a few
+    towns; Anson and his companions would have shared the plunder or the
+    ransome; and the Spaniards, finding their southern territories
+    accessible, would, for the future, have guarded them better.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That such a settlement may be of use in war, no man, that considers its
+    situation, will deny. But war is not the whole business of life; it
+    happens but seldom, and every man, either good or wise, wishes that its
+    frequency were still less. That conduct which betrays designs of future
+    hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate
+    malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and
+    continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indirect
+    injuries, without the bravery of war or the security of peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The advantage of such a settlement, in time of peace, is, I think, not
+    easily to be proved. For what use can it have, but of a station for
+    contraband traders, a nursery of fraud, and a receptacle of theft!
+    Narborough, about a century ago, was of opinion, that no advantage could
+    be obtained in voyages to the South sea, except by such an armament as,
+    with a sailor's morality, <i>might trade by force</i>. It is well known, that
+    the prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these countries, to the
+    last degree, rigorous, and that no man, not authorized by the king of
+    Spain, can trade there but by force or stealth. Whatever profit is
+    obtained must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of
+    fraud.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at such purity and excellence,
+    but that some connivance, at least, will be indulged to the triumphant
+    robber and successful cheat. He that brings wealth home is seldom
+    interrogated by what means it was obtained. This, however, is one of
+    those modes of corruption with which mankind ought always to struggle,
+    and which they may, in time, hope to overcome. There is reason to
+    expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality
+    will, at last, be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what
+    they would not suffer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity
+    far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To
+    pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the
+    crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! The
+    contraband trader is not more worthy of protections; if, with
+    Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he
+    is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as
+    obstructers of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats,
+    because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full
+    of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those,
+    who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when
+    he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in
+    evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends
+    the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether these truths were forgotten, or despised; or, whether some
+    better purpose was then in agitation, the representation made in Anson's
+    voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of that time, that, in 1748,
+    some sloops were fitted out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and
+    Falkland's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea. This
+    expedition, though, perhaps, designed to be secret, was not long
+    concealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassadour, who so vehemently opposed
+    it, and so strongly maintained the right of the Spaniards to the
+    exclusive dominion of the South sea, that the English ministry
+    relinquished part of their original design, and declared, that the
+    examination of those two islands was the utmost that their orders should
+    comprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This concession was sufficiently liberal or sufficiently submissive; yet
+    the Spanish court was neither gratified by our kindness, nor softened by
+    our humility. Sir Benjamin Keene, who then resided at Madrid, was
+    interrogated by Carvajal, concerning the visit intended to Pepys's and
+    Falkland's islands, in terms of great jealousy and discontent; and the
+    intended expedition was represented, if not as a direct violation of the
+    late peace, yet as an act inconsistent with amicable intentions, and
+    contrary to the professions of mutual kindness, which then passed
+    between Spain and England. Keene was directed to protest, that nothing
+    more than mere discovery was intended, and that no settlement was to be
+    established. The Spaniard readily replied, that, if this was a voyage of
+    wanton curiosity, it might be gratified with less trouble, for he was
+    willing to communicate whatever was known; that to go so far only to
+    come back was no reasonable act; and it would be a slender sacrifice to
+    peace and friendship to omit a voyage, in which nothing was to be
+    gained; that if we left the, places as we found them, the voyage was
+    useless; and if we took possession, it was a hostile armament; nor could
+    we expect that the Spaniards would suppose us to visit the southern
+    parts of America only from curiosity, after the scheme proposed by the
+    author of Anson's voyage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When once we had disowned all purpose of settling, it is apparent, that
+    we could not defend the propriety of our expedition by arguments
+    equivalent to Carvajal's objections. The ministry, therefore, dismissed
+    the whole design, but no declaration was required, by which our right to
+    pursue it, hereafter, might be annulled.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this time Falkland's island was forgotten or neglected, till the
+    conduct of naval affairs was intrusted to the earl of Egmont, a man
+    whose mind was vigorous and ardent, whose knowledge was extensive, and
+    whose designs were magnificent; but who had somewhat vitiated his
+    judgment by too much indulgence of romantick projects and airy
+    speculations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lord Egmont's eagerness after something new determined him to make
+    inquiry after Falkland's island, and he sent out captain Byron, who, in
+    the beginning of the year 1765, took, he says, a formal possession, in
+    the name of his Britannick majesty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The possession of this place is, according to Mr. Byron's
+    representation, no despicable acquisition. He conceived the island to be
+    six or seven hundred miles round, and represented it, as a region naked
+    indeed of wood, but which, if that defect were supplied, would have all
+    that nature, almost all that luxury could want. The harbour he found
+    capacious and secure, and, therefore, thought it worthy of the name of
+    Egmont. Of water there was no want, and the ground he described, as
+    having all the excellencies of soil, and as covered with antiscorbutick
+    herbs, the restoratives of the sailor. Provision was easily to be had,
+    for they killed, almost every day, a hundred geese to each ship, by
+    pelting them with stones. Not content with physick and with food, he
+    searched yet deeper for the value of the new dominion. He dug in quest
+    of ore; found iron in abundance, and did not despair of nobler metals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A country thus fertile and delightful, fortunately found where none
+    would have expected it, about the fiftieth degree of southern latitude,
+    could not, without great supineness, be neglected. Early in the next
+    year, (January 8, 1766,) captain Macbride arrived at port Egmont, where
+    he erected a small block-house, and stationed a garrison; His
+    description was less flattering. He found what he calls a mass of
+    islands and broken lands, of which the soil was nothing but a bog, with
+    no better prospect than that of barren mountains, beaten by storms
+    almost perpetual. Yet this, says he, is summer, and if the winds of
+    winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables'
+    length from the shore, must pass weeks without any communication with
+    it. The plenty which regaled Mr. Byron, and which might have supported
+    not only armies, but armies of Patagons, was no longer to be found. The
+    geese were too wise to stay, when men violated their haunts, and Mr.
+    Macbride's crew could only now and then kill a goose, when the weather
+    would permit. All the quadrupeds which he met there were foxes, supposed
+    by him to have been brought upon the ice; but of useless animals, such
+    as sea lions and penguins, which he calls vermin, the number was
+    incredible. He allows, however, that those who touch at these islands
+    may find geese and snipes, and, in the summer months, wild celery and
+    sorrel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No token was seen, by either, of any settlement ever made upon this
+    island; and Mr. Macbride thought himself so secure from hostile
+    disturbance, that, when he erected his wooden block-house, he omitted to
+    open the ports and loopholes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When a garrison was stationed at port Egmont, it was necessary to try
+    what sustenance the ground could be, by culture, excited to produce. A
+    garden was prepared; but the plants that sprung up withered away in
+    immaturity: some fir seeds were sown; but, though this be the native
+    tree of rugged climates, the young firs, that rose above the ground,
+    died like weaker herbage: the cold continued long, and the ocean seldom
+    was at rest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cattle succeeded better than vegetables. Goats, sheep, and hogs, that
+    were carried thither, were found to thrive and increase, as in other
+    places.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Nil mortalibus arduum est:" there is nothing which human courage will
+    not undertake, and little that human, patience will not endure. The
+    garrison lived upon Falkland's island, shrinking from the blast, and
+    shuddering at the billows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was a colony which could never become independent, for it never
+    could be able to maintain itself. The necessary supplies were annually
+    sent from England, at an expense which the admiralty began to think
+    would not quickly be repaid. But shame of deserting a project, and
+    unwillingness to contend with a projector that meant well, continued the
+    garrison, and supplied it with regular remittances of stores and
+    provision.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That of which we were almost weary ourselves, we did not expect any one
+    to envy; and, therefore, supposed that we should be permitted to reside
+    in Falkland's island, the undisputed lords of tempest-beaten barrenness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, on the 28th of November, 1769, captain Hunt, observing a Spanish
+    schooner hovering about the island, and surveying it, sent the commander
+    a message, by which he required him to depart. The Spaniard made an
+    appearance of obeying, but, in two days, came back with letters, written
+    by the governour of port Solidad, and brought by the chief officer of a
+    settlement, on the east part of Falkland's island.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this letter, dated Malouina, November 30, the governour complains,
+    that captain Hunt, when he ordered the schooner to depart, assumed a
+    power to which he could have no pretensions, by sending an imperious
+    message to the Spaniards, in the king of Spain's own dominions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In another letter, sent at the same time, he supposes the English to be
+    in that part only by accident, and to be ready to depart, at the first
+    warning. This letter was accompanied by a present, of which, says he,
+    "If it be neither equal to my desire nor to your merit, you must impute
+    the deficiency to the situation of us both."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In return to this hostile civility, captain Hunt warned them from the
+    island, which he claimed in the name of the king, as belonging to the
+    English, by right of the first discovery and the first settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was an assertion of more confidence than certainty. The right of
+    discovery, indeed, has already appeared to be probable, but the right
+    which priority of settlement confers, I know not whether we yet can
+    establish.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On December 10, the officer, sent by the governour of port Solidad, made
+    three protests against captain Hunt, for threatening to fire upon him;
+    for opposing his entrance into port Egmont; and for entering himself
+    into port Solidad. On the 12th, the governour of port Solidad formally
+    warned captain Hunt to leave port Egmont, and to forbear the navigation
+    of these seas, without permission from the king of Spain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this captain Hunt replied, by repeating his former claim; by
+    declaring that his orders were to keep possession; and by once more
+    warning the Spaniards to depart.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next month produced more protests and more replies, of which the
+    tenour was nearly the same. The operations of such harmless enmity
+    having produced no effect, were then reciprocally discontinued, and the
+    English were left, for a time, to enjoy the pleasures of Falkland's
+    island, without molestation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This tranquillity, however, did not last long. A few months afterwards,
+    (June 4, 1770,) the Industry, a Spanish frigate, commanded by an
+    officer, whose name was Madariaga, anchored in port Egmont, bound, as
+    was said, for port Solidad, and reduced, by a passage from Buenos Ayres
+    of fifty-three days, to want of water.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three days afterwards, four other frigates entered the port, and a broad
+    pendant, such as is borne by the commander of a naval armament, was
+    displayed from the Industry. Captain Farmer, of the Swift frigate, who
+    commanded the garrison, ordered the crew of the Swift to come on shore,
+    and assist in its defence; and directed captain Maltby to bring the
+    Favourite frigate, which he commanded, nearer to the land. The Spaniards
+    easily discovering the purpose of his motion, let him know, that if he
+    weighed his anchor, they would fire upon his ship; but, paying no regard
+    to these menaces, he advanced toward the shore. The Spanish fleet
+    followed, and two shots were fired, which fell at a distance from him.
+    He then sent to inquire the reason of such hostility, and was told, that
+    the shots were intended only as signals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Both the English captains wrote, the next day, to Madariaga, the Spanish
+    commodore, warning him from the island, as from a place which the
+    English held by right of discovery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Madariaga, who seems to have had no desire of unnecessary mischief,
+    invited them (June 9) to send an officer, who should take a view of his
+    forces, that they might be convinced of the vanity of resistance, and do
+    that, without compulsion, which he was, upon refusal, prepared to
+    enfcrce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An officer was sent, who found sixteen hundred men, with a train of
+    twenty-seven cannon, four mortars, and two hundred bombs. The fleet
+    consisted of five frigates, from twenty to thirty guns, which were now
+    stationed opposite to the block-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then sent them a formal memorial, in which he maintained his master's
+    right to the whole Magellanick region, and exhorted the English to
+    retire quietly from the settlement, which they could neither justify by
+    right, nor maintain by power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He offered them the liberty of carrying away whatever they were desirous
+    to remove, and promised his receipt for what should be left, that no
+    loss might be suffered by them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His propositions were expressed in terms of great civility; but he
+    concludes with demanding an answer in fifteen minutes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having, while he was writing, received the letters of warning, written
+    the day before by the English captains, he told them, that he thought
+    himself able to prove the king of Spain's title to all those countries,
+    but that this was no time for verbal altercations. He persisted in his
+    determination, and allowed only fifteen minutes for an answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this it was replied, by captain Farmer, that though there had been
+    prescribed yet a shorter time, he should still resolutely defend his
+    charge; that this, whether menace or force, would be considered as an
+    insult on the British flag, and that satisfaction would certainly be
+    required.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the next day, June 10, Madariaga landed his forces, and it may be
+    easily imagined, that he had no bloody conquest. The English had only a
+    wooden block-house, built at Woolwich, and carried in pieces to the
+    island, with a small battery of cannon. To contend with obstinacy had
+    been only to lavish life without use or hope, After the exchange of a
+    very few shots, a capitulation was proposed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Spanish commander acted with moderation; he exerted little of the
+    conqueror; what he had offered before the attack, he granted after the
+    victory; the English were allowed to leave the place with every honour,
+    only their departure was delayed, by the terms of the capitulation,
+    twenty days; and, to secure their stay, the rudder of the Favourite was
+    taken off. What they desired to carry away they removed without
+    molestation; and of what they left, an inventory was drawn, for which
+    the Spanish officer, by his receipt, promised to be accountable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this petty revolution, so sudden and so distant, the English ministry
+    could not possibly have such notice, as might enable them to prevent it.
+    The conquest, if such it may be called, cost but three days; for the
+    Spaniards, either supposing the garrison stronger than it was, or
+    resolving to trust nothing to chance, or considering that, as their
+    force was greater, there was less dariger of bloodshed, came with a
+    power that made resistance ridiculous, and, at once, demanded and
+    obtained possession.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first account of any discontent expressed by the Spaniards, was
+    brought by captain Hunt, who arriving at Plymouth, June 3, 1770,
+    informed the admiralty, that the island had been claimed in December, by
+    the governour of port Solidad.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This claim, made by an officer of so little dignity, without any known
+    direction from his superiours, could be considered only as the zeal or
+    officiousness of an individual, unworthy of publick notice, or the
+    formality of remonstrance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In August, Mr. Harris, the resident at Madrid, gave notice to lord
+    Weymouth, of an account newly brought to Cadiz, that the English were in
+    possession of port Cuizada, the same which we call port Egmont, in the
+    Magellanick sea; that in January, they had warned away two Spanish
+    ships; and that an armament was sent out in May, from Buenos Ayres, to
+    dislodge them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was, perhaps, not yet certain, that this account was true; but the
+    information, however faithful, was too late for prevention. It was
+    easily known, that a fleet despatched in May, had, before August,
+    succeeded or miscarried.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In October, captain Maltby came to England, and gave the account which I
+    have now epitomised, of his expulsion from Falkland's islands.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this moment, the whole nation can witness, that no time was lost.
+    The navy was surveyed, the ships refitted, and commanders appointed; and
+    a powerful fleet was assembled, well manned and well stored, with
+    expedition, after so long a peace, perhaps, never known before, and with
+    vigour, which, after the waste of so long a war, scarcely any other
+    nation had been capable of exerting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This preparation, so illustrious in the eyes of Europe, and so
+    efficacious in its event, was obstructed by the utmost power of that
+    noisy faction, which has too long filled the kingdom, sometimes with the
+    roar of empty menace, and sometimes with the yell of hypocritical
+    lamentation. Every man saw, and every honest man saw with detestation,
+    that they who desired to force their sovereign into war, endeavoured, at
+    the same time, to disable him from action.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The vigour and spirit of the ministry easily broke through all the
+    machinations of these pygmy rebels, and our armament was quickly such as
+    was likely to make our negotiations effectual.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The prince of Masseran, in his first conference with the English
+    ministers on this occasion, owned that he had from Madrid received
+    intelligence, that the English had been forcibly expelled from
+    Falkland's island, by Buccarelli, the governour of Buenos Ayres, without
+    any particular orders from the king of Spain. But being asked, whether,
+    in his master's name, he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to
+    answer, without direction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The scene of negotiation was now removed to Madrid, and, in September,
+    Mr. Harris was directed to demand, from Grimaldi, the Spanish minister,
+    the restitution of Falkland's island, and a disavowal of Buccarelli's
+    hostilities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was to be expected that Grimaldi would object to us our own
+    behaviour, who had ordered the Spaniards to depart from the same island.
+    To this it was replied, that the English forces were, indeed, directed
+    to warn other nations away; but, if compliance were refused, to proceed
+    quietly in making their settlement, and suffer the subjects, of whatever
+    power, to remain there without molestation. By possession thus taken,
+    there was only a disputable claim advanced, which might be peaceably and
+    regularly decided, without insult and without force; and, if the
+    Spaniards had complained at the British court, their reasons would have
+    been heard, and all injuries redressed; but that, by presupposing the
+    justice of their own title, and having recourse to arms, without any
+    previous notice or remonstrance, they had violated the peace, and
+    insulted the British government; and, therefore, it was expected, that
+    satisfaction should be made by publick disavowal, and immediate
+    restitution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The answer of Grimaldi was ambiguous and cold. He did not allow that any
+    particular orders had been given for driving the English from their
+    settlement; but made no scruple of declaring, that such an ejection was
+    nothing more than the settlers might have expected; and that Buccarelli
+    had not, in his opinion, incurred any blame, as the general injunctions
+    to the American governours were to suffer no encroachments on the
+    Spanish dominions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In October, the prince of Masseran proposed a convention, for the
+    accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning
+    given to the Spaniards, by Hunt, should be disavowed on one side, and
+    the violence used by Buccarelli, on the other. This offer was
+    considered, as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi was told,
+    that injury required reparation; that when either party had suffered
+    evident wrong, there was not the parity subsisting, which is implied in
+    conventions and contracts; that we considered ourselves as openly
+    insulted, and demanded satisfaction, plenary and unconditional.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Grimaldi affected to wonder, that we were not yet appeased by their
+    concessions. They had, he said, granted all that was required; they had
+    offered to restore the island in the state in which they found it; but
+    he thought that they, likewise, might hope for some regard, and that the
+    warning, sent by Hunt, would be disavowed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Harris, our minister at Madrid, insisted, that the injured party had
+    a right to unconditional reparation, and Grimaldi delayed his answer,
+    that a council might be called. In a few days, orders were despatched to
+    prince Masseran, by which he was commissioned to declare the king of
+    Spain's readiness to satisfy the demands of the king of England, in
+    expectation of receiving from him reciprocal satisfaction, by the
+    disavowal, so often required, of Hunt's warning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Finding the Spaniards disposed to make no other acknowledgments, the
+    English ministry considered a war as not likely to be long avoided. In
+    the latter end of November, private notice was given of their danger to
+    the merchants at Cadiz, and the officers, absent from Gibraltar, were
+    remanded to their posts. Our naval force was every day increased, and we
+    made no abatement of our original demand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The obstinacy of the Spanish court still continued, and, about the end
+    of the year, all hope of reconciliation was so nearly extinguished, that
+    Mr. Harris was directed to withdraw, with the usual forms, from his
+    residence at Madrid.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful; having
+    not swelled our first requisition with any superfluous appendages, we
+    had nothing to yield, we, therefore, only repeated our first
+    proposition, prepared for war, though desirous of peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About this time, as is well known, the king of France dismissed Choiseul
+    from his employments. What effect this revolution of the French court
+    had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul
+    had always professed pacifick dispositions; nor is it certain, however
+    it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different
+    parties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It seems to be almost the universal errour of historians to suppose it
+    politically, as it is physically true, that every effect has a
+    proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the
+    motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but
+    the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws.
+    The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always
+    that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and
+    flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each
+    other; and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be
+    the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether the alteration, which began in January to appear in the Spanish
+    counsels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of
+    their past conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not easy to
+    decide; but they began, whatever was the reason, to relax their
+    haughtiness, and Mr. Harris's departure was countermanded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The demands first made by England were still continued, and on January
+    22d, the prince of Masseran delivered a declaration, in which the king
+    of Spain "disavows the violent enterprise of Buccarelli," and promises
+    "to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and
+    stores, according to the inventory."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this promise of restitution is subjoined, that "this engagement to
+    restore port Egmont cannot, nor ought, in any wise, to affect the
+    question of the prior right of sovereignty of the <i>Malouine</i>, otherwise
+    called Falkland's islands."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This concession was accepted by the earl of Rochford, who declared, on
+    the part of his master, that the prince of Masseran, being authorized by
+    his catholick majesty, "to offer, in his majesty's name, to the king of
+    Great Britain, a satisfaction for the injury done him, by dispossessing
+    him of port Egmont;" and, having signed a declaration, expressing that
+    his catholick majesty "disavows the expedition against port Egmont, and
+    engages to restore it, in the state in which it stood before the 10th of
+    June, 1770, his Britannick majesty will look upon the said declaration,
+    together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his
+    catholick majesty, as a satisfaction for the injury done to the crown of
+    Great Britain."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is disavowed,
+    and the island is restored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception
+    of lord Rochford's paper, who twice mentions the word <i>injury</i>, and
+    twice the word <i>satisfaction</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Spaniards have stipulated, that the grant of possession shall not
+    preclude the question of prior right, a question which we shall probably
+    make no haste to discuss, and a right, of which no formal resignation
+    was ever required. This reserve has supplied matter for much clamour,
+    and, perhaps the English ministry would have been better pleased had the
+    declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was
+    asked, why should we complain that we have not more? When the possession
+    is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession
+    supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for
+    a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure,
+    because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never
+    been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king
+    of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his
+    title?
+</p>
+<p>
+    If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a
+    sovereign through his whole dominions; if sovereignty consists in this,
+    that no superiour is acknowledged, our king reigns at port Egmont with
+    sovereign authority. Almost every new-acquired territory is, in some
+    degree, controvertible, and till the controversy is decided, a term very
+    difficult to be fixed, all that can be had is real possession and actual
+    dominion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This, surely, is a sufficient answer to the feudal gabble of a man, who
+    is every day lessening that splendour of character which once
+    illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and
+    for whom it will be happy if the nation shall, at last, dismiss him to
+    nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of blame and praise which
+    Corneille allows to Richelieu, a man who, I think, had much of his
+    merit, and many of his faults:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Chacun parle à son gré de ce grand cardinal;
+    Mais, pour moi, je n'en dirai rien:
+  Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal;
+    Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    To push advantages too far is neither generous nor just. Had we insisted
+    on a concession of antecedent right, it may not misbecome us, either as
+    moralists or politicians, to consider what Grimaldi could have answered.
+    We have already, he might say, granted you the whole effect of right,
+    and have not denied you the name. We have not said, that the right was
+    ours before this concession, but only that what right we had, is not, by
+    this concession, vacated. We have now, for more than two centuries,
+    ruled large tracts of the American continent, by a claim which, perhaps,
+    is valid only upon this consideration, that no power can produce a
+    better; by the right of discovery, and prior settlement. And by such
+    titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that
+    their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them
+    greater veneration. Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole
+    fabrick of our empire shakes at the foundation. When you suppose
+    yourselves to have first descried the disputed island, you suppose what
+    you can hardly prove. We were, at least, the general discoverers of the
+    Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies.
+    The justice of this tenure the world has, hitherto, admitted, and
+    yourselves, at least, tacitly allowed it, when, about twenty years ago,
+    you desisted from your purposed expedition, and expressly disowned any
+    design of settling, where you are now not content to settle and to
+    reign, without extorting such a confession of original right, as may
+    invite every other nation to follow you.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To considerations such as these, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety
+    of the Spaniards, from which the importance of this island is inferred
+    by Junius, one of the few writers of his despicable faction, whose name
+    does not disgrace the page of an opponent. The value of the thing
+    disputed may be very different to him that gains and him that loses it.
+    The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's island, have admitted a precedent
+    of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in
+    the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior
+    right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of
+    their American territories.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We
+    have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarelli's expedition, and a
+    restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and
+    the superiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired?
+    What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from
+    human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not
+    the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison
+    must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of
+    Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only
+    occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a
+    nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers.
+    To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the
+    island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet
+    clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it
+    in a short time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a
+    numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the
+    titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness approaches to
+    an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long
+    accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding
+    another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess.
+    But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto
+    shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning
+    for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!
+</p>
+<p>
+    As war is the last of remedies, "cuncta prius tentanda," all lawful
+    expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it
+    is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care
+    of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of animal
+    nature, which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the
+    depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collective
+    life, for which fire and the sword are the necessary remedies; but in
+    what can skill or caution be better shown, than preventing such dreadful
+    operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods!
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of
+    mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read
+    of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds,
+    consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an
+    army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most
+    successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their
+    lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory,
+    smile in death."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War
+    has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.
+    Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests
+    with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an
+    enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and
+    putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and
+    groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of
+    hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelmed in pits, or heaved into the
+    ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
+    encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and
+    enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies
+    sluggishly melted away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little
+    effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the
+    system of empire. The publick perceives scarcely any alteration, but an
+    increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not
+    supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that
+    shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and, after bleeding in the battle,
+    grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But, at
+    the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death
+    of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the
+    sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries,
+    whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like
+    exhalations!
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing
+    rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or
+    ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from
+    their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to
+    figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new
+    armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who suffer their minds to dwell on these considerations, will
+    think it no great crime in the ministry, that they have not snatched,
+    with eagerness, the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when
+    they were able to obtain, by quiet negotiation, all the real good that
+    victory could have brought us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of victory, indeed, every nation is confident before the sword is drawn;
+    and this mutual confidence produces that wantonness of bloodshed, that
+    has so often desolated the world. But it is evident, that of
+    contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind
+    does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and
+    moderation to the proud.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Let us not think our laurels blasted by condescending to inquire,
+    whether we might not possibly grow rather less than greater by attacking
+    Spain. Whether we should have to contend with Spain alone, whatever has
+    been promised by our patriots, may very reasonably be doubted. A war
+    declared for the empty sound of an ancient title to a Magellanick rock,
+    would raise the indignation of the earth against us. These encroachers
+    on the waste of nature, says our ally the Russian, if they succeed in
+    their first effort of usurpation, will make war upon us for a title to
+    Kamtschatka. These universal settlers, says our ally the Dane, will, in
+    a short time, settle upon Greenland, and a fleet will batter Copenhagen,
+    till we are willing to confess, that it always was their own.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a quarrel, like this, it is not possible that any power should favour
+    us, and it is very likely that some would oppose us. The French, we are
+    told, are otherwise employed: the contests between the king of France,
+    and his own subjects, are sufficient to withhold him from supporting
+    Spain. But who does not know that a foreign war has often put a stop to
+    civil discords? It withdraws the attention of the publick from domestick
+    grievances, and affords opportunities of dismissing the turbulent and
+    restless to distant employments. The Spaniards have always an argument
+    of irresistible persuasion: if France will not support them against
+    England, they will strengthen England against France.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But let us indulge a dream of idle speculation, and suppose that we are
+    to engage with Spain, and with Spain alone; it is not even yet very
+    certain that much advantage will be gained. Spain is not easily
+    vulnerable; her kingdom, by the loss or cession of many fragments of
+    dominion, is become solid and compact. The Spaniards have, indeed, no
+    fleet able to oppose us, but they will not endeavour actual opposition:
+    they will shut themselves up in their own territories, and let us
+    exhaust our seamen in a hopeless siege: they will give commissions to
+    privateers of every nation, who will prey upon our merchants without
+    possibility of reprisal. If they think their Plata fleet in danger, they
+    will forbid it to set sail, and live awhile upon the credit of treasure
+    which all Europe knows to be safe; and which, if our obstinacy should
+    continue till they can no longer be without it, will be conveyed to them
+    with secrecy and security, by our natural enemies the French, or by the
+    Dutch our natural allies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the whole continent of Spanish America will lie open to invasion; we
+    shall have nothing to do but march into these wealthy regions, and make
+    their present masters confess, that they were always ours by ancient
+    right. We shall throw brass and iron out of our houses, and nothing but
+    silver will be seen among us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All this is very desirable, but it is not certain that it can be easily
+    attained. Large tracts of America were added, by the last war, to the
+    British dominions; but, if the faction credit their own Apollo, they
+    were conquered in Germany. They, at best, are only the barren parts of
+    the continent, the refuse of the earlier adventurers, which the French,
+    who came last, had taken only as better than nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Against the Spanish dominions we have never, hitherto, been able to do
+    much. A few privateers have grown rich at their expense, but no scheme
+    of conquest has yet been successful. They are defended, not by walls
+    mounted with cannons, which by cannons may be battered, but by the
+    storms of the deep, and the vapours of the land, by the flames of
+    calenture and blasts of pestilence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the reign of Elizabeth, the favourite period of English greatness, no
+    enterprises against America had any other consequence than that of
+    extending English navigation. Here Cavendish perished, after all his
+    hazards; and here Drake and Hawkins, great as they were in knowledge and
+    in fame, having promised honour to themselves, and dominion to the
+    country, sunk by desperation and misery in dishonourable graves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During the protectorship of Cromwell, a time of which the patriotick
+    tribes still more ardently desire the return, the Spanish dominions were
+    again attempted; but here, and only here, the fortune of Cromwell made a
+    pause. His forces were driven from Hispaniola; his hopes of possessing
+    the West Indies vanished; and Jamaica was taken, only that the whole
+    expedition might not grow ridiculous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The attack of Carthagena is yet remembered, where the Spaniards, from
+    the ramparts, saw their invaders destroyed by the hostility of the
+    elements, poisoned by the air, and crippled by the dews; where every
+    hour swept away battalions; and, in the three days that passed between
+    the descent and reembarkation, half an army perished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the last war the Havanna was taken; at what expense is too well
+    remembered. May my country be never cursed with such another conquest!
+</p>
+<p>
+    These instances of miscarriage, and these arguments of difficulty, may,
+    perhaps, abate the military ardour of the publick. Upon the opponents of
+    the government their operation will be different; they wish for war, but
+    not for conquest; victory would defeat their purposes equally with
+    peace, because prosperity would naturally continue the trust in those
+    hands which had used it fortunately. The patriots gratified themselves
+    with expectations that some sinistrous accident, or erroneous conduct,
+    might diffuse discontent, and inflame malignity. Their hope is
+    malevolence, and their good is evil.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of their zeal for their country we have already had a specimen. While
+    they were terrifying the nation with doubts, whether it was any longer
+    to exist; while they represented invasive armies as hovering in the
+    clouds, and hostile fleets, as emerging from the deeps; they obstructed
+    our levies of seamen, and embarrassed our endeavours of defence. Of such
+    men he thinks with unnecessary candour who does not believe them likely
+    to have promoted the miscarriage, which they desired, by intimidating
+    our troops, or betraying our counsels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is considered as an injury to the publick, by those sanguinary
+    statesmen, that though the fleet has been refitted and manned, yet no
+    hostilities have followed; and they, who sat wishing for misery and
+    slaughter, are disappointed of their pleasure. But as peace is the end
+    of war, it is the end, likewise, of preparations for war; and he may be
+    justly hunted down, as the enemy of mankind, that can choose to snatch,
+    by violence and bloodshed, what gentler means can equally obtain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ministry are reproached, as not daring to provoke an enemy, lest ill
+    success should discredit and displace them. I hope that they had better
+    reasons; that they paid some regard to equity and humanity; and
+    considered themselves as intrusted with the safety of their
+    fellow-subjects, and as the destroyers of all that should be
+    superfluously slaughtered. But let us suppose, that their own safety had
+    some influence on their conduct, they will not, however, sink to a level
+    with their enemies. Though the motive might be selfish, the act was
+    innocent. They, who grow rich by administering physick, are not to be
+    numbered with them that get money by dispensing poison. If they maintain
+    power by harmlessness and peace, they must for ever be at a great
+    distance from ruffians, who would gain it by mischief and confusion. The
+    watch of a city may guard it for hire; but are well employed in
+    protecting it from those, who lie in wait to fire the streets, and rob
+    the houses, amidst the conflagration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An unsuccessful war would, undoubtedly, have had the effect which the
+    enemies of the ministry so earnestly desire; for who could have
+    sustained the disgrace of folly ending in misfortune? But had wanton
+    invasion undeservedly prospered, had Falkland's island been yielded
+    unconditionally, with every right, prior and posterior; though the
+    rabble might have shouted, and the windows have blazed, yet those who
+    know the value of life, and the uncertainty of publick credit, would
+    have murmured, perhaps unheard, at the increase of our debt, and the
+    loss of our people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This thirst of blood, however the visible promoters of sedition may
+    think it convenient to shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by
+    Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much of its pride, and some of
+    its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he
+    scatters ambiguous expressions among the vulgar; for he cries havock,
+    without reserve, and endeavours to let slip the dogs of foreign or of
+    civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what may be
+    their prey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Junius has sometimes made his satire felt, but let not injudicious
+    admiration mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. He
+    has sometimes sported with lucky malice; but to him that knows his
+    company, it is not hard to be sarcastick in a mask. While he walks, like
+    Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much mischief
+    with little strength. Novelty captivates the superficial and
+    thoughtless; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. He that
+    contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that
+    vilifies established authority will always find abettors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely
+    glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him, as a
+    monster makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety, by
+    impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice,
+    enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to
+    indulge himself in all the immunities of invisibility; out of the reach
+    of danger, he has been bold; out of the reach of shame, he has been
+    confident. As a rhetorician, he has had the art of persuading, when he
+    seconded desire; as a reasoner, he has convinced those who had no doubt
+    before; as a moralist, he has taught, that virtue may disgrace; and, as
+    a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high. Finding
+    sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it; finding the nation
+    combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us abstract from his
+    wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the
+    sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall
+    leave him nothing; the cause that I defend, scorns the help of
+    falsehood; but if we leave him only his merit, what will be his praise?
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his
+    fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London, and the boors
+    of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They
+    admire him, for virtues like their own, for contempt of order, and
+    violence of outrage; for rage of defamation, and audacity of falsehood.
+    The supporters of the bill of rights feel no niceties of composition,
+    nor dexterities of sophistry; their faculties are better proportioned to
+    the bawl of Bellas, or barbarity of Beckford; but they are told, that
+    Junius is on their side, and they are, therefore, sure that Junius is
+    infallible. Those who know not whither he would lead them, resolve to
+    follow him; and those who cannot find his meaning, hope he means
+    rebellion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which some have gazed with wonder,
+    and some with terrour, but wonder and terrour are transitory passions.
+    He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined; and
+    what folly has taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair shook
+    pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the
+    vapours of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the
+    effervescence of interest, struggling with conviction; which, after
+    having plunged its followers in a bog, will leave us, inquiring why we
+    regard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet, though I cannot think the style of Junius secure from criticism,
+    though his expressions are often trite, and his periods feeble, I should
+    never have stationed him where he has placed himself, had I not rated
+    him by his morals rather than his faculties. What, says Pope, must be
+    the priest, where a monkey is the god? What must be the drudge of a
+    party, of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?
+</p>
+<p>
+    Junius knows his own meaning, and can, therefore, tell it. He is an
+    enemy to the ministry; he sees them growing hourly stronger. He knows
+    that a war, at once unjust and unsuccessful, would have certainly
+    displaced them, and is, therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry
+    that war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully conducted. But there
+    are others whose thoughts are less clearly expressed, and whose schemes,
+    perhaps, are less consequentially digested; who declare that they do not
+    wish for a rupture, yet condemn the ministry for not doing that, by
+    which a rupture would naturally have been made.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If one party resolves to demand what the other resolves to refuse, the
+    dispute can be determined only by arbitration; and between powers who
+    have no common superiour, there is no other arbitrator than the sword.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether the ministry might not equitably have demanded more is not worth
+    a question. The utmost exertion of right is always invidious, and, where
+    claims are not easily determinable, is always dangerous. We asked all
+    that was necessary, and persisted in our first claim, without mean
+    recession, or wanton aggravation. The Spaniards found us resolute, and
+    complied, after a short struggle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The real crime of the ministry is, that they have found the means of
+    avoiding their own ruin; but the charge against them is multifarious and
+    confused, as will happen, when malice and discontent are ashamed of
+    their complaint. The past and the future are complicated in the censure.
+    We have heard a tumultuous clamour about honour and rights, injuries and
+    insults, the British flag and the Favourite's rudder, Buccarelli's
+    conduct and Grimaldi's declarations, the Manilla ransome, delays and
+    reparation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Through the whole argument of the faction runs the general errour, that
+    our settlement on Falkland's island was not only lawful, but
+    unquestionable; that our right was not only certain, but acknowledged;
+    and that the equity of our conduct was such, that the Spaniards could
+    not blame or obstruct it, without combating their own conviction, and
+    opposing the general opinion of mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If once it be discovered that, in the opinion of the Spaniards, our
+    settlement was usurped, our claim arbitrary, and our conduct insolent,
+    all that has happened will appear to follow by a natural concatenation.
+    Doubts will produce disputes and disquisition; disquisition requires
+    delay, and delay causes inconvenience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Had the Spanish government immediately yielded, unconditionally, all
+    that was required, we might have been satisfied; but what would Europe
+    have judged of their submission? that they shrunk before us, as a
+    conquered people, who, having lately yielded to our arms, were now
+    compelled to sacrifice to our pride. The honour of the publick is,
+    indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to
+    transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily
+    been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as
+    ourselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt,
+    they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by
+    warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of
+    insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be
+    done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be
+    no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to
+    each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient
+    provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might
+    then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less
+    inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to
+    disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would
+    be necessary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of
+    Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which
+    ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English
+    captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which
+    they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing
+    terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except
+    that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they
+    secured the performance by taking off the rudder.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this
+    unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their
+    stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If
+    the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part
+    in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be
+    endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot
+    yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Buccarelli's invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown
+    infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained
+    equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our
+    exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had
+    received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that
+    he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which
+    the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other
+    powers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation
+    of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion, which the
+    pertinacity of political disputants might have continued without end.
+    We, therefore, called for restitution, not as a confession of right, but
+    as a reparation of honour, which required that we should be restored to
+    our former state upon the island, and that the king of Spain should
+    disavow the action of his governour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In return to this demand, the Spaniards expected from us a disavowal of
+    the menaces, with which they had been first insulted by Hunt; and if the
+    claim to the island be supposed doubtful, they certainly expected it
+    with equal reason. This, however, was refused, and our superiority of
+    strength gave validity to our arguments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary
+    and fallacious; that Buccarelli's armament had all the appearance of
+    regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at
+    home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his
+    master.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied,
+    affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court.
+    Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere,
+    must always be trusted with power to defend them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As little can be inferred from his reception at the Spanish court. He is
+    not punished, indeed; for what has he done that deserves punishment? He
+    was sent into America to govern and defend the dominions of Spain. He
+    thought the English were encroaching, and drove them away. No Spaniard
+    thinks that he has exceeded his duty, nor does the king of Spain charge
+    him with excess. The boundaries of dominion, in that part of the world,
+    have not yet been settled; and he mistook, if a mistake there was, like
+    a zealous subject, in his master's favour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But all this inquiry is superfluous. Considered as a reparation of
+    honour, the disavowal of the king of Spain, made in the sight of all
+    Europe, is of equal value, whether true or false. There is, indeed, no
+    reason to question its veracity; they, however, who do not believe it,
+    must allow the weight of that influence, by which a great prince is
+    reduced to disown his own commission.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the general orders, upon which the governour is acknowledged to have
+    acted, are neither disavowed <i>nor</i> explained. Why the Spaniards should
+    disavow the defence of their own territories, the warmest disputant will
+    find it difficult to tell; and, if by an explanation is meant an
+    accurate delineation of the southern empire, and the limitation of their
+    claims beyond the line, it cannot be imputed to any very culpable
+    remissness, that what has been denied for two centuries to the European
+    powers, was not obtained in a hasty wrangle about a petty settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The ministry were too well acquainted with negotiation to fill their
+    heads with such idle expectations. The question of right was
+    inexplicable and endless. They left it, as it stood. To be restored to
+    actual possession was easily practicable. This restoration they required
+    and obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But they should, say their opponents, have insisted upon more; they
+    should have exacted not only, reparation of our honour, but repayment of
+    our expense. Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs
+    and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity
+    of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of
+    Manilla.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour
+    bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be
+    remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham
+    remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the
+    adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to
+    understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge.
+    Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes
+    wrong, he was often right. <a href="#note-29">[29]</a>
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more
+    reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been
+    sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance
+    was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and
+    destruction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very
+    properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which
+    provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why
+    should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an
+    East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a
+    sum sufficient to satisfy our demands. If he be honest, he is hardly
+    rich; and if he be disposed to rob, he has the misfortune of being
+    placed, where robbers have been before him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Spain, indeed, delayed to comply with our proposals, and our
+    armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory
+    debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not
+    unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation
+    requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by
+    inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled
+    in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by
+    reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to
+    the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded
+    satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their
+    concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation
+    is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we
+    expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that
+    sovereignty which they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they
+    are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all
+    that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if
+    any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst
+    us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those
+    who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures,
+    waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick
+    sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet
+    flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of
+    Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of
+    grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of
+    knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well
+    known of charging all evil on their governours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last
+    anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment,
+    but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in
+    spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out
+    upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could
+    not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from
+    their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue;
+    they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and
+    confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as
+    dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer
+    paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their pretences I have here endeavoured to expose, by showing, that more
+    than has been yielded, was not to be expected, that more, perhaps, was
+    not to be desired, and that, if all had been refused, there had scarcely
+    been an adequate reason for a war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was, perhaps, never much danger of war, or of refusal, but what
+    danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations,
+    unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to
+    the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots,
+    of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and
+    Yorkshire; when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the
+    legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined, that such a
+    government had little leisure for Falkland's island; they supposed that
+    the English, when they returned ejected from port Egmont, would find
+    Wilkes invested with the protectorate, or see the mayor of London, what
+    the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander
+    of the army, and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell
+    their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect
+    war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the bill of rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But our enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are
+    recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be
+    subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is
+    to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels.
+    The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the
+    vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been
+    nothing more than a political <i>phtheiriasis</i>, a disease too loathsome
+    for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of
+    weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom
+    their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now
+    perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a
+    savage proves nothing but his hunger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After all our broils, foreign and domestick, we may, at last, hope to
+    remain awhile in quiet, amused with the view of our own success. We have
+    gained political strength, by the increase of our reputation; we have
+    gained real strength, by the reparation of our navy; we have shown
+    Europe, that ten years of war have not yet exhausted us; and we have
+    enforced our settlement on an island on which, twenty years ago, we
+    durst not venture to look.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are the gratifications only of honest minds; but there is a time,
+    in which hope comes to all. From the present happiness of the publick,
+    the patriots themselves may derive advantage. To be harmless, though by
+    impotence, obtains some degree of kindness: no man hates a worm as he
+    hates a viper; they were once dreaded enough to be detested, as serpents
+    that could bite; they have now shown that they can only hiss, and may,
+    therefore, quietly slink into holes, and change their slough, unmolested
+    and forgotten.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_26"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    THE PATRIOT. <a href="#note-30">[30]</a>
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ADDRESSED TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1774.
+</center>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
+  Yet still revolt when truth would set them free;
+  License they mean, when they cry liberty,
+  For who loves that must first be wise and good.
+
+  MILTON.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is
+    within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered,
+    which might once have been supplied; and much time is lost in regretting
+    the time which had been lost before.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the end of every seven years comes the saturnalian season, when the
+    freemen of great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their
+    representatives. This happy day has now arrived, somewhat sooner than it
+    could be claimed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To select and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be
+    granted, is a high dignity, and an important trust; and it is the
+    business of every elector to consider, how this dignity may be well
+    sustained, and this trust faithfully discharged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in
+    this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in
+    parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights:
+    no other man can merit our confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive,
+    the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for
+    himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but
+    refers every thing to the common interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That of five hundred men, such as this degenerate age affords, a
+    majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet
+    there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect
+    more than was expected. Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him;
+    and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish
+    those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man
+    may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent
+    qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
+    Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and
+    unremitting opposition to the court.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily
+    included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his
+    country. He that has been refused a reasonable, or unreasonable request,
+    who thinks his merit underrated, and sees his influence declining,
+    begins soon to talk of natural equality, the absurdity of "many made for
+    one," the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majesty
+    of the people. As his political melancholy increases, he tells, and,
+    perhaps, dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of
+    arbitrary power; yet his design, in all his declamation, is not to
+    benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These, however, are the most honest of the opponents of government;
+    their patriotism is a species of disease; and they feel some part of
+    what they express. But the greater, far the greater number of those who
+    rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor
+    care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by
+    virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they
+    may be sooner hired to be silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent,
+    and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of
+    violated rights, and encroaching usurpation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the
+    populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick
+    happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that
+    unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of
+    government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge
+    of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by
+    reason, but caught by contagion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent,
+    when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are still
+    filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the freeholders of Middlesex,
+    lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chosen, if
+    any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclusion makes not any
+    honest, or any decent man, think himself in clanger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may be doubted, whether the name of a patriot can be fairly given, as
+    the reward of secret satire, or open outrage. To fill the newspapers
+    with sly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlesex
+    Journal, and London Pacquet, may, indeed, be zeal; but it may, likewise,
+    be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted;
+    to insult a king-with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no
+    punishment for legal insolence, is not courage, for there is no danger;
+    nor patriotism, for it tends to the subversion of order, and lets
+    wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to
+    sovereign authority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe
+    all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The
+    true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to
+    sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he
+    sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his
+    countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may
+    be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by
+    incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing
+    the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power;
+    and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own
+    laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by
+    juries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be
+    false. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous
+    complaints, that the protestant religion is in danger, because "popery
+    is established in the extensive province of Quebec," a falsehood so open
+    and shameless, that it can need no confutation among those who know that
+    of which it is almost impossible for the most unenlightened zealot to be
+    ignorant:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That Quebec is on the other side of the Atlantick, at too great a
+    distance to do much good or harm to the European world:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are
+    certainly more dangerous as enemies than as subjects:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so
+    many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That persecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papist; and
+    that, while we blame Lewis the fourteenth, for his dragoons and his
+    galleys, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with
+    greater equity:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That when Canada, with its inhabitants, was yielded, the free enjoyment
+    of their religion was stipulated; a condition, of which king William,
+    who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the
+    surrender of Limerick:
+</p>
+<p>
+    That in an age, where every mouth is open for <i>liberty of conscience</i>,
+    it is equitable to show some regard to the conscience of a papist, who
+    may be supposed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own
+    religion; and that those, at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to
+    deny it to our new subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If liberty of conscience be a natural right, we have no power to
+    withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while
+    it is not denied to other sects.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even
+    this mark may sometimes deceive us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The people is a very heterogeneous and confused mass of the wealthy and
+    the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we
+    confer on a man, who caresses the people, the title of patriot, we must
+    examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is
+    proverbially said, that he who dissembles his own character, may be
+    known by that of his companions. If the candidate of patriotism
+    endeavours to infuse right opinions into the higher ranks, and, by their
+    influence, to regulate the lower; if he consorts chiefly with the wise,
+    the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may
+    be rational and honest. But if his first or principal application be to
+    the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally
+    suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the
+    profligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his
+    love of the people be no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be
+    thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot,
+    or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the
+    lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and,
+    among sober handicraftsmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have
+    some better distinction, before he is a patriot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims, and animate
+    the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them, frequently, of
+    their rights, and stimulates them to resent encroachments, and to
+    multiply securities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that
+    raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for
+    disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he
+    knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his
+    followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten
+    parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation,
+    transmitted by our ancestors; he knows that futurity is not in his
+    power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
+    mandates of his constituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and
+    the inconstancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the
+    opinion of his constituents shall be taken. Popular instructions are,
+    commonly, the work, not of the wise and steady, but the violent and
+    rash; meetings held for directing representatives are seldom attended
+    but by the idle and the dissolute; and he is not without suspicion, that
+    of his constituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may
+    often be the wiser.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He considers himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to
+    preserve his constituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only
+    from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The common marks of patriotism having been examined, and shown to be
+    such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly misapply, it cannot be
+    improper to consider, whether there are not some characteristical modes
+    of speaking or acting, which may prove a man to be not a patriot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this inquiry, perhaps, clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer
+    persuasion attained; for it is, commonly, easier to know what is wrong
+    than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should
+    pursue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which
+    every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to
+    hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes
+    great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who
+    desires the publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by
+    aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little
+    importance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may, therefore, be safely pronounced, that those men are no patriots,
+    who, when the national honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and
+    the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to a
+    disavowal of their attempt, and a relaxation of their claim, would still
+    have instigated us to a war, for a bleak and barren spot in the
+    Magellanick ocean, of which no use could be made, unless it were a place
+    of exile for the hypocrites of patriotism.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet let it not be forgotten, that, by the howling violence of patriotick
+    rage, the nation was, for a time, exasperated to such madness, that, for
+    a barren rock under a stormy sky, we might have now been fighting and
+    dying, had not our competitors been wiser than ourselves; and those who
+    are now courting the favour of the people, by noisy professions of
+    publick spirit, would, while they were counting the profits of their
+    artifice, have enjoyed the patriotick pleasure of hearing, sometimes,
+    that thousands had been slaughtered in a battle, and, sometimes, that a
+    navy had been dispeopled by poisoned air and corrupted food. He that
+    wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims
+    of American usurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its
+    natural and lawful authority over its own colonies; those colonies,
+    which were settled under English protection; were constituted by an
+    English charter; and have been defended by English arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To suppose, that by sending out a colony, the nation established an
+    independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are
+    become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at
+    their own pleasure; and that they shall not be included, like millions
+    of their fellow-subjects, in the general system of representation;
+    involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the show of
+    patriotism could palliate.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always
+    protected the Americans; we may, therefore, subject them to government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The less is included in the greater. That power which can take away
+    life, may seize upon property. The parliament may enact, for America, a
+    law of capital punishment; it may, therefore, establish a mode and
+    proportion of taxation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians, because
+    they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all
+    are involved in the penalty imposed. This, they say, is to violate the
+    first rule of justice, by condemning the innocent to suffer with the
+    guilty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This deserves some notice, as it seems dictated by equity and humanity,
+    however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the
+    state of man, and the system of things. That the innocent should be
+    confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil
+    which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national
+    punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have
+    not incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a town,
+    the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless
+    burghers and the criminal garrison.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt. If
+    the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted
+    the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered,
+    but by the slaughter of our friends? A bomb might as well destroy an
+    Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants
+    would be the first that should perish.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
+    cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be maintained; and
+    the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the
+    rebels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their
+    due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they
+    receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious
+    appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament;
+    an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel,
+    and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with
+    gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in
+    the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve
+    the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of
+    elections.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first
+    claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in
+    which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to
+    abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of
+    the law, and the defeat of justice. The evil was, perhaps, not adequate
+    to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this
+    privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil. It is, however,
+    plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at
+    least, lost something from themselves. They divested their dignity of a
+    very splendid distinction, and showed that they were more willing than
+    their predecessors to stand on a level with their fellow-subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The new mode of trying elections, if it be found effectual, will diffuse
+    its consequences further than seems yet to be foreseen. It is, I
+    believe, generally considered as advantageous only to those who claim
+    seats in parliament; but, if to choose representatives be one of the
+    most valuable rights of Englishmen, every voter must consider that law
+    as adding to his happiness, which makes his suffrage efficacious; since
+    it was vain to choose, while the election could be controlled by any
+    other power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With what imperious contempt of ancient rights, and what audaciousness
+    of arbitrary authority former parliaments have judged the disputes about
+    elections, it is not necessary to relate. The claim of a candidate, and
+    the right of electors, are said scarcely to have been, even in
+    appearance, referred to conscience; but to have been decided by party,
+    by passion, by prejudice, or by frolick. To have friends in the borough
+    was of little use to him, who wanted friends in the house; a pretence
+    was easily found to evade a majority, and the seat was, at last, his,
+    that was chosen, not by his electors, but his fellow-senators.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus the nation was insulted with a mock election, and the parliament
+    was filled with spurious representatives one of the most important
+    claims, that of right to sit in the supreme council of the kingdom, was
+    debated in jest, and no man could be confident of success from the
+    justice of his cause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and
+    solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of
+    his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their
+    approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit,
+    may be certain, that he has not voted in vain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the parliament, which some of those, who are now aspiring to
+    sit in another, have taught the rabble to consider as an unlawful
+    convention of men, worthless, venal, and prostitute, slaves of the
+    court, and tyrants of the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the next house of commons may act upon the principles of the last,
+    with more constancy and higher spirit, must be the wish of all who wish
+    well to the publick; and, it is surely not too much to expect, that the
+    nation will recover from its delusion, and unite in a general abhorrence
+    of those, who, by deceiving the credulous with fictitious mischiefs,
+    overbearing the weak by audacity of falsehood, by appealing to the
+    judgment of ignorance, and flattering the vanity of meanness, by
+    slandering honesty, and insulting dignity, have gathered round them
+    whatever the kingdom can supply of base, and gross, and profligate; and
+    "raised by merit to this bad eminence," arrogate to themselves the name
+    of patriots.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_27"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    TAXATION NO TYRANNY;
+</h2>
+<p>
+    An answer <a href="#note-31">[31]</a> to the resolutions and address of the American congress.
+</p>
+<center>
+    1775.
+</center>
+<p>
+    In all the parts of human knowledge, whether terminating in science
+    merely speculative, or operating upon life, private or civil, are
+    admitted some fundamental principles, or common axioms, which,
+    being-generally received, are little doubted, and, being little doubted,
+    have been rarely proved.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these gratuitous and acknowledged truths, it is often the fate to
+    become less evident by endeavours to explain them, however necessary
+    such endeavours may be made by the misapprehensions of absurdity, or the
+    sophistries of interest. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+    science; because notions cannot always be found more intelligible than
+    those which are questioned. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+    practice, because they have, for the most part, not been discovered by
+    investigation, but obtruded by experience; and the demonstrator will
+    find, after an operose deduction, that he has been trying to make that
+    seen, which can be only felt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this kind is the position, that "the supreme power of every community
+    has the right of requiring, from all its subjects, such contributions as
+    are necessary to the publick safety or publick prosperity," which was
+    considered, by all mankind, as comprising the primary and essential
+    condition of all political society, till it became disputed by those
+    zealots of anarchy, who have denied, to the parliament of Britain the
+    right of taxing the American colonies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In favour of this exemption of the Americans from the authority of their
+    lawful sovereign, and the dominion of their mother-country, very loud
+    clamours have been raised, and many wild assertions advanced, which, by
+    such as borrow their opinions from the reigning fashion, have been
+    admitted as arguments; and, what is strange, though their tendency is to
+    lessen English honour and English power, have been heard by Englishmen,
+    with a wish to find them true. Passion has, in its first violence,
+    controlled interest, as the eddy for awhile runs against the stream.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near
+    to laudable, that they have been often praised, and are always pardoned.
+    To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love
+    could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made
+    without a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either
+    in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have,
+    with equal blindness, hated their country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These antipatriotick prejudices are the abortions of folly impregnated
+    by faction, which, being produced against the standing order of nature,
+    have not strength sufficient for long life. They are born only to scream
+    and perish, and leave those to contempt or detestation, whose kindness
+    was employed to nurse them into mischief.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To perplex the opinion of the publick many artifices have been used,
+    which, as usually happens, when falsehood is to be maintained by fraud,
+    lose their force by counteracting one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The nation is, sometimes, to be mollified by a tender tale of men, who
+    fled from tyranny to rocks and deserts, and is persuaded to lose all
+    claims of justice, and all sense of dignity, in compassion for a
+    harmless people, who, having worked hard for bread in a wild country,
+    and obtained, by the slow progression of manual industry, the
+    accommodations of life, are now invaded by unprecedented oppression, and
+    plundered of their properties by the harpies of taxation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We are told how their industry is obstructed by unnatural restraints,
+    and their trade confined by rigorous prohibitions; how they are
+    forbidden to enjoy the products of their own soil, to manufacture the
+    materials which nature spreads before them, or to carry their own goods
+    to the nearest market; and surely the generosity of English virtue will
+    never heap new weight upon those that are already overladen; will never
+    delight in that dominion, which cannot be exercised, but by cruelty and
+    outrage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, while we are melting in silent sorrow, and, in the transports of
+    delirious pity, dropping both the sword and balance from our hands,
+    another friend of the Americans thinks it better to awaken another
+    passion, and tries to alarm our interest, or excite our veneration, by
+    accounts of their greatness and their opulence, of the fertility of
+    their land, and the splendour of their towns. We then begin to consider
+    the question with more evenness of mind, are ready to conclude that
+    those restrictions are not very oppressive, which have been found
+    consistent with this speedy growth of prosperity; and begin to think it
+    reasonable, that they who thus flourish under the protection of our
+    government, should contribute something towards its expense.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But we are soon told, that the Americans, however wealthy, cannot be
+    taxed; that they are the descendants of men who left all for liberty,
+    and that they have constantly preserved the principles and stubbornness
+    of their progenitors; that they are too obstinate for persuasion, and
+    too powerful for constraint; that they will laugh at argument, and
+    defeat violence; that the continent of North America contains three
+    millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty,
+    and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of
+    their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their
+    numbers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Men accustomed to think themselves masters do not love to be threatened.
+    This talk is, I hope, commonly thrown away, or raises passions different
+    from those which it was intended to excite. Instead of terrifying the
+    English hearer to tame acquiescence, it disposes him to hasten the
+    experiment of bending obstinacy, before it is become yet more obdurate,
+    and convinces him that it is necessary to attack a nation thus
+    prolifick, while we may yet hope to prevail. When he is told, through
+    what extent of territory we must travel to subdue them, he recollects
+    how far, a few years ago, we travelled in their defence. When it is
+    urged, that they will shoot up, like the hydra, he naturally considers
+    how the hydra was destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits. A
+    commercial people, however magnanimous, shrinks at the thought of
+    declining traffick and an unfavourable balance. The effect of this
+    terrour has been tried. We have been stunned with the importance of our
+    American commerce, and heard of merchants, with warehouses that are
+    never to be emptied, and of manufacturers starving for want of work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That our commerce with America is profitable, however less than
+    ostentatious or deceitful estimates have made it, and that it is our
+    interest to preserve it, has never been denied; but, surely, it will
+    most effectually be preserved, by being kept always in our own power.
+    Concessions may promote it for a moment, but superiority only can ensure
+    its continuance. There will always be a part, and always a very large
+    part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose
+    care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate
+    pain, and eagerness for the nearest good. The blind are said to feel
+    with peculiar nicety. They who look but little into futurity, have,
+    perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present. A merchant's desire is
+    not of glory, but of gain; not of publick wealth, but of private
+    emolument; he is, therefore, rarely to be consulted about war and peace,
+    or any designs of wide extent and distant consequence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet this, like other general characters, will sometimes fail. The
+    traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of
+    narrow selfishness, by a manly recommendation to parliament of the
+    rights and dignity of their native country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To these men I do not intend to ascribe an absurd and enthusiastick
+    contempt of interest, but to give them the rational and just praise of
+    distinguishing real from seeming good; of being able to see through the
+    cloud of interposing difficulties, to the lasting and solid happiness of
+    victory and settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lest all these topicks of persuasion should fail, the greater actor of
+    patriotism has tried another, in which terrour and pity are happily
+    combined, not without a proper superaddition of that admiration which
+    latter ages have brought into the drama. The heroes of Boston, he tells
+    us, if the stamp act had not been repealed, would have left their town,
+    their port, and their trade, have resigned the splendour of opulence,
+    and quitted the delights of neighbourhood, to disperse themselves over
+    the country, where they would till the ground, and fish in the rivers,
+    and range the mountains, and be free.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These, surely, are brave words. If the mere sound of freedom can operate
+    thus powerfully, let no man, hereafter, doubt the story of the Pied
+    Piper. The removal of the people of Boston into the country, seems, even
+    to the congress, not only difficult in its execution, but important in
+    its consequences. The difficulty of execution is best known to the
+    Bostonians themselves; the consequence alas! will only be, that they
+    will leave good houses to wiser men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet, before they quit the comforts of a warm home, for the sounding
+    something which they think better, he cannot be thought their enemy who
+    advises them, to consider well whether they shall find it. By turning
+    fishermen or hunters, woodmen or shepherds, they may become wild, but it
+    is not so easy to conceive them free; for who can be more a slave than
+    he that is driven, by force, from the comforts of life, is compelled to
+    leave his house to a casual comer, and, whatever he does, or wherever he
+    wanders, finds, every moment, some new testimony of his own subjection?
+    If choice of evil be freedom, the felon in the galleys has his option of
+    labour or of stripes. The Bostonian may quit his house to starve in the
+    fields; his dog may refuse to set, and smart under the lash, and they
+    may then congratulate each other upon the smiles of liberty, "profuse of
+    bliss, and pregnant with delight."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To treat such designs as serious, would be to think too contemptuously
+    of Bostonian understandings. The artifice, indeed, is not new: the
+    blusterer, who threatened in vain to destroy his opponent, has,
+    sometimes, obtained his end, by making it believed, that he would hang
+    himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But terrours and pity are not the only means by which the taxation of
+    the Americans is opposed. There are those, who profess to use them only
+    as auxiliaries to reason and justice; who tell us, that to tax the
+    colonies is usurpation and oppression, an invasion of natural and legal
+    rights, and a violation of those principles which support the
+    constitution of English government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This question is of great importance. That the Americans are able to
+    bear taxation, is indubitable; that their refusal may be overruled, is
+    highly probable; but power is no sufficient evidence of truth. Let us
+    examine our own claim, and the objections of the recusants, with caution
+    proportioned to the event of the decision, which must convict one part
+    of robbery, or the other of rebellion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A tax is a payment, exacted by authority, from part of the community,
+    for the benefit of the whole. From whom, and in what proportion such
+    payment shall be required, and to what uses it shall be applied, those
+    only are to judge to whom government is intrusted. In the British
+    dominions taxes are apportioned, levied, and appropriated by the states
+    assembled in parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of every empire all the subordinate communities are liable to taxation,
+    because they all share the benefits of government, and, therefore, ought
+    all to furnish their proportion of the expense.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This the Americans have never openly denied. That it is their duty to
+    pay the costs of their own safety, they seem to admit; nor do they
+    refuse their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of
+    the British empire; but they make this participation of the publick
+    burden a duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation, a duty
+    temporary, occasional, and elective, of which they reserve to themselves
+    the right of settling the degree, the time, and the duration; of judging
+    when it may be required, and when it has been performed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They allow to the supreme power nothing more than the liberty of
+    notifying to them its demands or its necessities. Of this notification
+    they profess to think for themselves, how far it shall influence their
+    counsels; and of the necessities alleged, how far they shall endeavour
+    to relieve them. They assume the exclusive power of settling not only
+    the mode, but the quantity, of this payment. They are ready to cooperate
+    with all the other dominions of the king; but they will cooperate by no
+    means which they do not like, and at no greater charge than they are
+    willing to bear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This claim, wild as it may seem; this claim, which supposes dominion
+    without authority, and subjects without subordination, has found among
+    the libertines of policy, many clamorous and hardy vindicators. The laws
+    of nature, the rights of humanity, the faith of charters, the danger of
+    liberty, the encroachments of usurpation, have been thundered in our
+    ears, sometimes by interested faction, and sometimes by honest
+    stupidity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is said by Fontenelle, that if twenty philosophers shall resolutely
+    deny that the presence of the sun makes the day, he will not despair but
+    whole nations may adopt the opinion. So many political dogmatists have
+    denied to the mother-country the power of taxing the colonies, and have
+    enforced their denial with so much violence of outcry, that their sect
+    is already very numerous, and the publick voice suspends its decision.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In moral and political questions, the contest between interest and
+    justice has been often tedious and often fierce, but, perhaps, it never
+    happened before, that justice found much opposition, with interest on
+    her side.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For the satisfaction of this inquiry, it is necessary to consider, how a
+    colony is constituted; what are the terms of migration, as dictated by
+    nature, or settled by compact; and what social or political rights the
+    man loses or acquires, that leaves his country to establish himself hi a
+    distant plantation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of two modes of migration the history of mankind informs us, and so far
+    as I can yet discover, of two only. In countries where life was yet
+    unadjusted, and policy unformed, it sometimes happened, that, by the
+    dissensions of heads of families, by the ambition of daring adventurers,
+    by some accidental pressure of distress, or by the mere discontent of
+    idleness, one part of the community broke off from the rest, and
+    numbers, greater or smaller, forsook their habitations, put themselves
+    under the command of some favourite of fortune, and with, or without the
+    consent of their countrymen or governours, went out to see what better
+    regions they could occupy, and in what place, by conquest or by treaty,
+    they could gain a habitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sons of enterprise, like these, who committed to their own swords their
+    hopes and their lives, when they left their country, became another
+    nation, with designs, and prospects, and interests, of their own. They
+    looked back no more to their former home; they expected no help from
+    those whom they had left behind; if they conquered, they conquered for
+    themselves; if they were destroyed, they were not by any other power
+    either lamented or revenged.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this kind seem to have been all the migrations of the early world,
+    whether historical or fabulous, and of this kind were the eruptions of
+    those nations, which, from the north, invaded the Roman empire, and
+    filled Europe with new sovereignties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But when, by the gradual admission of wiser laws and gentler manners,
+    society became more compacted and better regulated, it was found, that
+    the power of every people consisted in union, produced by one common
+    interest, and operating in joint efforts and consistent counsels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this time independence perceptibly wasted away. No part of the
+    nation was permitted to act for itself. All now had the same enemies and
+    the same friends; the government protected individuals, and individuals
+    were required to refer their designs to the prosperity of the
+    government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this principle it is, that states are formed and consolidated. Every
+    man is taught to consider his own happiness, as combined with the
+    publick prosperity, and to think himself great and powerful, in
+    proportion to the greatness and power of his governours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Had the western continent been discovered between the fourth and tenth
+    century, when all the northen world was in motion; and had navigation
+    been, at that time, sufficiently advanced to make so long a passage
+    easily practicable, there is little reason for doubting, but the
+    intumescence of nations would have found its vent, like all other
+    expansive violence, where there was least resistance; and that Huns and
+    Vandals, instead of fighting their way to the south of Europe, would
+    have gone, by thousands and by myriads, under their several chiefs, to
+    take possession of regions smiling with pleasure, and waving with
+    fertility, from which the naked inhabitants were unable to repel them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every expedition would, in those days of laxity, have produced a
+    distinct and independent state. The Scandinavian heroes might have
+    divided the country among them, and have spread the feudal subdivision
+    of regality from Hudson's bay to the Pacifick ocean.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But Columbus came five or six hundred years too late for the candidates
+    of sovereignty. When he formed his project of discovery, the
+    fluctuations of military turbulence had subsided, and Europe began to
+    regain a settled form, by established government and regular
+    subordination. No man could any longer erect himself into a chieftain,
+    and lead out his fellow-subjects, by his own authority, to plunder or to
+    war. He that committed any act of hostility, by land or sea, without the
+    commission of some acknowledged sovereign, was considered, by all
+    mankind, as a robber or pirate, names which were now of little credit,
+    and of which, therefore, no man was ambitious.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Columbus, in a remoter time, would have found his way to some
+    discontented lord, or some younger brother of a petty sovereign, who
+    would have taken fire at his proposal, and have quickly kindled, with
+    equal heat, a troop of followers: they would have built ships, or have
+    seized them, and have wandered with him, at all adventures, as far as
+    they could keep hope in their company. But the age being now past of
+    vagrant excursion and fortuitous hostility, he was under the necessity
+    of travelling from court to court, scorned and repulsed as a wild
+    projector, an idle promiser of kingdoms in the clouds; nor has any part
+    of the world yet had reason to rejoice that he found, at last, reception
+    and employment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the same year, in a year hitherto disastrous to mankind, by the
+    Portuguese was discovered the passage of the Indies, and by the
+    Spaniards the coast of America. The nations of Europe were fired with
+    boundless expectations, and the discoverers, pursuing their enterprise,
+    made conquests in both hemispheres of wide extent. But the adventurers
+    were not contented with plunder: though they took gold and silver to
+    themselves, they seized islands and kingdoms in the name of their
+    sovereigns. When a new region was gained, a governour was appointed by
+    that power, which had given the commission to the conqueror; nor have I
+    met with any European, but Stukely, of London, that formed a design of
+    exalting himself in the newly found countries to independent dominion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To secure a conquest, it was always necessary to plant a colony, and
+    territories, thus occupied and settled, were rightly considered, as mere
+    extensions, or processes of empire; as ramifications which, by the
+    circulation of one publick interest, communicated with the original
+    source of dominion, and which were kept flourishing and spreading by the
+    radical vigour of the mother-country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The colonies of England differ no otherwise from those of other nations,
+    than as the English constitution differs from theirs. All government is
+    ultimately and essentially absolute, but subordinate societies may have
+    more immunities, or individuals greater liberty, as the operations of
+    government are differently conducted. An Englishman in the common course
+    of life and action feels no restraint. An English colony has very
+    liberal powers of regulating its own manners, and adjusting its own
+    affairs. But an English individual may, by the supreme authority, be
+    deprived of liberty, and a colony divested of its powers, for reasons of
+    which that authority is the only judge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In sovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty,
+    there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government.
+    There must, in every society, be some power or other, from which there
+    is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole
+    mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts
+    laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts
+    privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by
+    physical necessity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this power, wherever it subsists, all legislation and jurisdiction is
+    animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations,
+    which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not
+    infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irresistible, for it can be
+    resisted only by rebellion, by an act which makes it questionable, what
+    shall be thenceforward the supreme power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An English colony is a number of persons, to whom the king grants a
+    charter, permitting them to settle in some distant country, and enabling
+    them to constitute a corporation enjoying such powers as the charter
+    grants, to be administered in such forms as the charter prescribes. As a
+    corporation, they make laws for themselves; but as a corporation,
+    subsisting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that
+    authority they continue subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As men are placed at a greater distance from the supreme council of the
+    kingdom, they must be intrusted with ampler liberty of regulating their
+    conduct by their own wisdom. As they are more secluded from easy
+    recourse to national judicature, they must be more extensively
+    commissioned to pass judgment on each other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For this reason our more important and opulent colonies see the
+    appearance, and feel the effect, of a regular legislature, which, in
+    some places, has acted so long with unquestioned authority, that it has
+    forgotten whence that authority was originally derived.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To their charters the colonies owe, like other corporations, their
+    political existence. The solemnities of legislation, the administration
+    of justice, the security of property, are all bestowed upon them by the
+    royal grant. Without their charter, there would be no power among them,
+    by which any law could be made, or duties enjoined; any debt recovered,
+    or criminal punished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A charter is a grant of certain powers or privileges, given to a part of
+    the community for the advantage of the whole, and is, therefore, liable,
+    by its nature, to change or to revocation. Every act of government aims
+    at publick good. A charter, which experience has shown to be detrimental
+    to the nation, is to be repealed; because general prosperity must always
+    be preferred to particular interest. If a charter be used to evil
+    purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is
+    injuriously employed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The charter, therefore, by which provincial governments are constituted,
+    may be always legally, and, where it is either inconvenient in its
+    nature, or misapplied in its use, may be equitably repealed; by such
+    repeal the whole fabrick of subordination is immediately destroyed, and
+    the constitution sunk at once into a chaos; the society is dissolved
+    into a tumult of individuals, without authority to command, or
+    obligation to obey, without any punishment of wrongs, but by personal
+    resentment, or any protection of right, but by the hand of the
+    possessor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A colony is to the mother-country, as a member to the body, deriving its
+    action and its strength from the general principle of vitality;
+    receiving from the body, and communicating to it, all the benefits and
+    evils of health and disease; liable, in dangerous maladies, to sharp
+    applications, of which the body, however, must partake the pain; and
+    exposed, if incurably tainted, to amputation, by which the body,
+    likewise, will be mutilated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The mother-country always considers the colonies, thus connected, as
+    parts of itself; the prosperity or unhappiness of either, is the
+    prosperity or unhappiness of both; not, perhaps, of both in the same
+    degree, for the body may subsist, though less commodiously, without a
+    limb, but the limb must perish, if it be parted from the body.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our colonies, therefore, however distant, have been, hitherto, treated
+    as constituent parts of the British empire. The inhabitants incorporated
+    by English charters are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They
+    are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated
+    by English counsels, and protected by English arms; and it seems to
+    follow, by consequence not easily avoided, that they are subject to
+    English government, and chargeable by English taxation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To him that considers the nature, the original, the progress, and the
+    constitution of the colonies, who remembers that the first discoverers
+    had commissions from the crown, that the first settlers owe to a charter
+    their civil forms and regular magistracy, and that all personal
+    immunities and legal securities, by which the condition of the subject
+    has been, from time to time, improved, have been extended to the
+    colonists, it will not be doubted, but the parliament of England has a
+    right to bind them by statutes, and to bind them in all cases
+    whatsoever; and has, therefore, a natural and constitutional power of
+    laying upon them any tax or impost, whether external or internal, upon
+    the product of land, or the manufactures of industry, in the exigencies
+    of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America,
+    for the purpose of raising a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to
+    the empire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are some, and those not inconsiderable for number, nor
+    contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the
+    general dominion of parliament, and hold, that whatever degress of
+    obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in
+    other acts of government, there is still reverence to be paid to money,
+    and that legislation passes its limits when it violates the purse.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this exception, which, by a head not fully impregnated with
+    politicks, is not easily comprehended, it is alleged, as an unanswerable
+    reason, that the colonies send no representatives to the house of
+    commons.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, say the American advocates, the natural distinction of a freeman,
+    and the legal privilege of an Englishman, that he is able to call his
+    possessions his own, that he can sit secure in the enjoyment of
+    inheritance or acquisition, that his house is fortified by the law, and
+    that nothing can be taken from him, but by his own consent. This consent
+    is given for every man by his representative in parliament. The
+    Americans, unrepresented, cannot consent to English taxations, as a
+    corporation, and they will not consent, as individuals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this argument, it has been observed by more than one, that its force
+    extends equally to all other laws, for a freeman is not to be exposed to
+    punishment, or be called to any onerous service, but by his own consent.
+    The congress has extracted a position from the fanciful Montesquieu
+    that, "in a free state, every man, being a free agent, ought to be
+    concerned in his own government." Whatever is true of taxation, is true
+    of every other law, that he who is bound by it, without his consent, is
+    not free, for he is not concerned in his own government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He that denies the English parliament the right of taxation, denies it,
+    likewise, the right of making any other laws, civil or criminal, yet
+    this power over the colonies was never yet disputed by themselves. They
+    have always admitted statutes for the punishment of offences, and for
+    the redress or prevention of inconveniencies; and the reception of any
+    law draws after it, by a chain which cannot be broken, the unwelcome
+    necessity of submitting to taxation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That a freeman is governed by himself, or by laws to which he has
+    consented, is a position of mighty sound; but every man that utters it,
+    with whatever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever
+    acquiescence, if consent be supposed to imply the power of refusal,
+    feels it to be false. We virtually and implicitly allow the institutions
+    of any government, of which we enjoy the benefit, and solicit the
+    protection. In wide extended dominions, though power has been diffused
+    with the most even hand, yet a very small part of the people are either
+    primarily or secondarily consulted in legislation. The business of the
+    publick must be done by delegation. The choice of delegates is made by a
+    select number, and those who are not electors stand idle and helpless
+    spectators of the commonweal, "wholly unconcerned in the government of
+    themselves."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the electors the hap is but little better. They are often far from
+    unanimity in their choice; and where the numbers approach to equality,
+    almost half must be governed not only without, but against their choice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant
+    ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most favourite residence
+    of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive; a tacit
+    admission, in every community, of the terms which that community grants
+    and requires. As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we
+    may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of
+    government. Other consent than this the condition of civil life does not
+    allow. It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the
+    delirious dream of republican fanaticism.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But hear, ye sons and daughters of liberty, the sounds which the winds
+    are wafting from the western continent. The Americans are telling one
+    another, what, if we may judge from their noisy triumph, they have but
+    lately discovered, and what yet is a very important truth: "That they
+    are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and that they have never
+    ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either
+    without their consent."
+</p>
+<p>
+    While this resolution stands alone, the Americans are free from
+    singularity of opinion; their wit has not yet betrayed them to heresy.
+    While they speak as the naked sons of nature, they claim but what is
+    claimed by other men, and have withheld nothing but what all withhold.
+    They are here upon firm ground, behind entrenchments which never can be
+    forced.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this resemblance to
+    Europeans, that they do not always know when they are well. They soon
+    quit the fortress, that could neither have been ruined by sophistry, nor
+    battered by declamation. Their next resolution declares, that "Their
+    ancestors, who first settled the colonies, were, at the time of their
+    emigration from the mother-country, entitled to all the rights,
+    liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the
+    realm of England."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This, likewise, is true; but when this is granted, their boast of
+    original rights is at an end; they are no longer in a state of nature.
+    These lords of themselves, these kings of ME, these demigods of
+    independence sink down to colonists, governed by a charter. If their
+    ancestors were subjects, they acknowledged a sovereign; if they had a
+    right to English privileges, they were accountable to English laws; and,
+    what must grieve the lover of liberty to discover, had ceded to the king
+    and parliament, whether the right or not, at least, the power of
+    disposing, "without their consent, of their lives, liberties, and
+    properties." It, therefore, is required of them to prove, that the
+    parliament ever ceded to them a dispensation from that obedience, which
+    they owe as natural-born subjects, or any degree of independence or
+    immunity, not enjoyed by other Englishmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They say, that by such emigration, they by no means forfeited,
+    surrendered, or lost any of those rights; but, that "they were, and
+    their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all
+    such of them, as their local and other circumstances enable them to
+    exercise and enjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+    That they who form a settlement by a lawful charter, having committed no
+    crime, forfeit no privileges, will be readily confessed; but what they
+    do not forfeit by any judicial sentence, they may lose by natural
+    effects. As man can be but in one place, at once, he cannot have the
+    advantages of multiplied residence. He that will enjoy the brightness of
+    sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade. He who goes voluntarily
+    to America, cannot complain of losing what he leaves in Europe. He,
+    perhaps, had a right to vote for a knight or burgess; by crossing the
+    Atlantick, he has not nullified his right; but he has made its exertion
+    no longer possible. <a href="#note-32">[32]</a> By his own choice he has left a country, where
+    he had a vote and little property, for another, where he has great
+    property, but no vote. But as this preference was deliberate and
+    unconstrained, he is still "concerned in the government of himself;" he
+    has reduced himself from a voter, to one of the innumerable multitude
+    that have no vote. He has truly "ceded his right," but he still is
+    governed by his own consent; because he has consented to throw his atom
+    of interest into the general mass of the community. Of the consequences
+    of his own act he has no cause to complain; he has chosen, or intended
+    to choose, the greater good; he is represented, as himself desired, in
+    the general representation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the privileges of an American scorn the limits of place; they are
+    part of himself, and cannot be lost by departure from his country; they
+    float in the air, or glide under the ocean:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    A planter, wherever he settles, is not only a freeman, but a legislator:
+    "ubi imperator, ibi Roma." "As the English colonists are not represented
+    in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive
+    power of legislation in their several legislatures, in all cases of
+    taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of the
+    sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. We
+    cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British
+    parliament, as are, bona fide, restrained to the regulation of our
+    external commerce&mdash;excluding every idea of taxation, internal or
+    external, for raising a revenue on the subjects of America, without
+    their consent."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their reason for this claim is, "that the foundation of English liberty,
+    and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their
+    legislative council."
+</p>
+<p>
+    "They inherit," they say, "from their ancestors, the right which their
+    ancestors possessed, of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen." That
+    they inherit the right of their ancestors is allowed; but they can
+    inherit no more. Their ancestors left a country, where the
+    representatives of the people were elected by men particularly
+    qualified, and where those who wanted qualifications, or who did not use
+    them, were bound by the decisions of men, whom they had not deputed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The colonists are the descendants of men, who either had no vote in
+    elections, or who voluntarily resigned them for something, in their
+    opinion, of more estimation; they have, therefore, exactly what their
+    ancestors left them, not a vote in making laws, or in constituting
+    legislators, but the happiness of being protected by law, and the duty
+    of obeying it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What their ancestors did not carry with them, neither they nor their
+    descendants have since acquired. They have not, by abandoning their part
+    in one legislature, obtained the power of constituting another,
+    exclusive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now
+    debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate parliament for
+    themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Men are wrong for want of sense, but they are wrong by halves for want
+    of spirit. Since the Americans have discovered that they can make a
+    parliament, whence comes it that they do not think themselves equally
+    empowered to make a king? If they are subjects, whose government is
+    constituted by a charter, they can form no body of independent
+    legislature. If their rights are inherent and underived, they may, by
+    their own suffrages, encircle, with a diadem, the brows of Mr. Cushing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is further declared, by the congress of Philadelphia, "that his
+    majesty's colonies are entitled to all the privileges and immunities
+    granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured to them by
+    their several codes of provincial laws."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first clause of this resolution is easily understood, and will be
+    readily admitted. To all the privileges which a charter can convey, they
+    are, by a royal charter, evidently entitled. The second clause is of
+    greater difficulty; for how can a provincial law secure privileges or
+    immunities to a province? Provincial laws may grant, to certain
+    individuals of the province, the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity
+    from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they
+    relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They
+    may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a
+    conceit of the other hemisphere, that men have a right to all which they
+    have given to themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A corporation is considered, in law, as an individual, and can no more
+    extend its own immunities, than a man can, by his own choice, assume
+    dignities or titles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The legislature of a colony (let not the comparison be too much
+    disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess
+    on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence
+    beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the
+    general law, and, whatever may be its internal expenses, is still liable
+    to taxes laid by superiour authority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The charters given to different provinces are different, and no general
+    right can be extracted from them. The charter of Pennsylvania, where
+    this congress of anarchy has been impudently held, contains a clause
+    admitting, in express terms, taxation by the parliament. If, in the
+    other charters, no such reserve is made, it must have been omitted, as
+    not necessary, because it is implied in the nature of subordinate
+    government. They who are subject to laws, are liable to taxes. If any
+    such immunity had been granted, it is still revocable by the
+    legislature, and ought to be revoked, as contrary to the publick good,
+    which is, in every charter, ultimately intended.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Suppose it true, that any such exemption is contained in the charter of
+    Maryland, it can be pleaded only by the Marylanders. It is of no use for
+    any other province; and, with regard even to them, must have been
+    considered as one of the grants in which the king has been deceived; and
+    annulled, as mischievous to the publick, by sacrificing to one little
+    settlement the general interest of the empire; as infringing the system
+    of dominion, and violating the compact of government. But Dr. Tucker has
+    shown, that even this charter promises no exemption from parliamentary
+    taxes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the controversy agitated about the beginning of this century, whether
+    the English laws could bind Ireland, Davenant, who defended against
+    Molyneux the claims of England, considered it as necessary to prove
+    nothing more, than that the present Irish must be deemed a colony.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have
+    sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their
+    meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Our nation is represented in parliament by an assembly as numerous as
+    can well consist with order and despatch, chosen by persons so
+    differently qualified in different places, that the mode of choice seems
+    to be, for the most part, formed by chance, and settled by custom. Of
+    individuals, far the greater part have no vote, and, of the voters, few
+    have any personal knowledge of him to whom they intrust their liberty
+    and fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet this representation has the whole effect expected or desired, that
+    of spreading so wide the care of general interest, and the participation
+    of publick counsels, that the advantage or corruption of particular men
+    can seldom operate with much injury to the publick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For this reason many populous and opulent towns neither enjoy nor desire
+    particular representatives: they are included in the general scheme of
+    publick administration, and cannot suffer but with the rest of the
+    empire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is urged, that the Americans have not the same security, and that a
+    British legislator may wanton with their property; yet, if it be true,
+    that their wealth is our wealth, and that their ruin will be our ruin,
+    the parliament has the same interest in attending to them, as to any
+    other part of the nation. The reason why we place any confidence in our
+    representatives is, that they must share in the good or evil which their
+    counsels shall produce. Their share is, indeed, commonly consequential
+    and remote; but it is not often possible that any immediate advantage
+    can be extended to such numbers as may prevail against it. We are,
+    therefore, as secure against intentional depravations of government, as
+    human wisdom can make us, and upon this security the Americans may
+    venture to repose.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is said, by the old member who has written an appeal against the tax,
+    that "as the produce of American labour is spent in British
+    manufactures, the balance of trade is greatly against them; whatever you
+    take directly in taxes is, in effect, taken from your own commerce. If
+    the minister seizes the money, with which the American should pay his
+    debts, and come to market, the merchant cannot expect him as a customer,
+    nor can the debts, already contracted, be paid.&mdash;Suppose we obtain from
+    America a million, instead of one hundred thousand pounds, it would be
+    supplying one personal exigence by the future ruin of our commerce."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Part of this is true; but the old member seems not to perceive, that, if
+    his brethren of the legislature know this as well as himself, the
+    Americans are in no danger of oppression, since by men commonly
+    provident they must be so taxed, as that we may not lose one way, what
+    we gain another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same old member has discovered, that the judges formerly thought it
+    illegal to tax Ireland, and declares that no cases can be more alike
+    than those of Ireland and America; yet the judges whom he quotes have
+    mentioned a difference. Ireland, they say, "hath a parliament of its
+    own." When any colony has an independent parliament, acknowledged by the
+    parliament of Britain, the cases will differ less. Yet, by the sixth of
+    George the first, chapter fifth, the acts of the British parliament bind
+    Ireland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is urged, that when Wales, Durham, and Chester were divested of their
+    particular privileges, or ancient government, and reduced to the state
+    of English counties, they had representatives assigned them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To those from whom something had been taken, something in return might
+    properly be given. To the Americans their charters are left, as they
+    were, nor have they lost any thing, except that of which their sedition
+    has deprived them. If they were to be represented in parliament,
+    something would be granted, though nothing is withdrawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The inhabitants of Chester, Durham, and Wales were invited to exchange
+    their peculiar institutions for the power of voting, which they wanted
+    before. The Americans have voluntarily resigned the power of voting, to
+    live in distant and separate governments; and what they have voluntarily
+    quitted, they have no right to claim.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It must always be remembered, that they are represented by the same
+    virtual representation as the greater part of Englishmen; and that, if
+    by change of place, they have less share in the legislature than is
+    proportionate to their opulence, they, by their removal, gained that
+    opulence, and had originally, and have now, their choice of a vote at
+    home, or riches at a distance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We are told, what appears to the old member and to others, a position
+    that must drive us into inextricable absurdity: that we have either no
+    right, or the sole right, of taxing the colonies. The meaning is, that
+    if we can tax them, they cannot tax themselves; and that if they can tax
+    themselves, we cannot tax them. We answer, with very little hesitation,
+    that, for the general use of the empire, we have the sole right of
+    taxing them. If they have contributed any thing in their own assemblies,
+    what they contributed was not paid, but given; it was not a tax or
+    tribute, but a present. Yet they have the natural and legal power of
+    levying money on themselves for provincial purposes, of providing for
+    their own expense at their own discretion. Let not this be thought new
+    or strange; it is the state of every parish in the kingdom.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The friends of the Americans are of different opinions. Some think,
+    that, being unrepresented, they ought to tax themselves; and others,
+    that they ought to have representatives in the British parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If they are to tax themselves, what power is to remain in the supreme
+    legislature? That they must settle their own mode of levying their money
+    is supposed. May the British parliament tell them how much they shall
+    contribute? If the sum may be prescribed, they will return few thanks
+    for the power of raising it; if they are at liberty to grant or to deny,
+    they are no longer subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If they are to be represented, what number of these western orators are
+    to be admitted? This, I suppose, the parliament must settle; yet, if men
+    have a natural and unalienable right to be represented, who shall
+    determine the number of their delegates? Let us, however, suppose them
+    to send twenty-three, half as many as the kingdom of Scotland, what will
+    this representation avail them? To pay taxes will be still a grievance.
+    The love of money will not be lessened, nor the power of getting it
+    increased.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whither will this necessity of representation drive us? Is every petty
+    settlement to be out of the reach of government, till it has sent a
+    senator to parliament; or may two of them, or a greater number, be
+    forced to unite in a single deputation? What, at last, is the difference
+    between him that is taxed, by compulsion, without representation, and
+    him that is represented, by compulsion, in order to be taxed?
+</p>
+<p>
+    For many reigns the house of commons was in a state of fluctuation: new
+    burgesses were added, from time to time, without any reason now to be
+    discovered; but the number has been fixed for more than a century and a
+    half, and the king's power of increasing it has been questioned. It will
+    hardly be thought fit to new-model the constitution in favour of the
+    planters, who, as they grow rich, may buy estates in England, and,
+    without any innovation, effectually represent their native colonies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The friends of the Americans, indeed, ask for them what they do not ask
+    for themselves. This inestimable right of representation they have never
+    solicited. They mean not to exchange solid money for such airy honour.
+    They say, and say willingly, that they cannot conveniently be
+    represented; because their inference is, that they cannot be taxed. They
+    are too remote to share the general government, and, therefore, claim
+    the privilege of governing themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the principles contained in the resolutions of the congress, however
+    wild, indefinite, and obscure, such has been the influence upon American
+    understanding, that, from New England to South Carolina, there is formed
+    a general combination of all the provinces against their mother-country.
+    The madness of independence has spread from colony to colony, till order
+    is lost, and government despised; and all is filled with misrule,
+    uproar, violence, and confusion. To be quiet is disaffection, to be
+    loyal is treason.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The congress of Philadelphia, an assembly convened by its own authority,
+    has promulgated a declaration, in compliance with which the
+    communication between Britain and the greatest part of North America, is
+    now suspended. They ceased to admit the importation of English goods, in
+    December, 1774, and determine to permit the exportation of their own no
+    longer than to November, 1775.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This might seem enough; but they have done more: they have declared,
+    that they shall treat all as enemies who do not concur with them in
+    disaffection and perverseness; and that they will trade with none that
+    shall trade with Britain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They threaten to stigmatize, in their gazette, those who shall consume
+    the products or merchandise of their mother-country, and are now
+    searching suspected houses for prohibited goods.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These hostile declarations they profess themselves ready to maintain by
+    force. They have armed the militia of their provinces, and seized the
+    publick stores of ammunition. They are, therefore, no longer subjects,
+    since they refuse the laws of their sovereign, and, in defence of that
+    refusal, are making open preparations for war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being now, in their own opinion, free states, they are not only raising
+    armies, but forming alliances, not only hastening to rebel themselves,
+    but seducing their neighbours to rebellion. They have published an
+    address to the inhabitants of Quebec, in which discontent and resistance
+    are openly incited, and with very respectful mention of "the sagacity of
+    Frenchmen," invite them to send deputies to the congress of
+    Philadelphia; to that seat of virtue and veracity, whence the people of
+    England are told, that to establish popery, "a religion fraught with
+    sanguinary and impious tenets," even in Quebec, a country of which the
+    inhabitants are papists, is so contrary to the constitution, that it
+    cannot be lawfully done by the legislature itself; where it is made one
+    of the articles of their association, to deprive the conquered French of
+    their religious establishment; and whence the French of Quebec are, at
+    the same time, flattered into sedition, by professions of expecting
+    "from the liberality of sentiment distinguishing their nation, that
+    difference of religion will not prejudice them against a hearty amity,
+    because the transcendant nature of freedom elevates all, who unite in
+    the cause, above such low-minded infirmities."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Quebec, however, is at a great distance. They have aimed a stroke, from
+    which they may hope for greater and more speedy mischief. They have
+    tried to infect the people of England with the contagion of disloyalty.
+    Their credit is, happily, not such as gives them influence proportionate
+    to their malice. When they talk of their pretended immunities
+    "guaranteed by the plighted faith of government, and the most solemn
+    compacts with English sovereigns," we think ourselves at liberty to
+    inquire, when the faith was plighted, and the compact made; and, when we
+    can only find, that king James and king Charles the first promised the
+    settlers in Massachusetts bay, now famous by the appellation of
+    Bostonians, exemption from taxes for seven years, we infer, with Mr.
+    Mauduit, that, by this "solemn compact," they were, after expiration of
+    the stipulated term, liable to taxation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they apply to our compassion, by telling us, that they are to be
+    carried from their own country to be tried for certain offences, we are
+    not so ready to pity them, as to advise them not to offend. While they
+    are innocent they are safe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they tell of laws made expressly for their punishment, we answer,
+    that tumults and sedition were always punishable, and that the new law
+    prescribes only the mode of execution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When it is said, that the whole town of Boston is distressed for a
+    misdemeanor of a few, we wonder at their shamelessness; for we know that
+    the town of Boston and all the associated provinces, are now in
+    rebellion to defend or justify the criminals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If frauds in the imposts of Boston are tried by commission without a
+    jury, they are tried here in the same mode; and why should the
+    Bostonians expect from us more tenderness for them than for ourselves?
+</p>
+<p>
+    If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a
+    trial. The crime is manifest and notorious. All trial is the
+    investigation of something doubtful. An Italian philosopher observes,
+    that no man desires to hear what he has already seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If their assemblies have been suddenly dissolved, what was the reason?
+    Their deliberations were indecent, and their intentions seditious. The
+    power of dissolution is granted and reserved for such times of
+    turbulence. Their best friends have been lately soliciting the king to
+    dissolve his parliament; to do what they so loudly complain of
+    suffering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the same vengeance involves the innocent and guilty, is an evil to
+    be lamented; but human caution cannot prevent it, nor human power always
+    redress it. To bring misery on those who have not deserved it, is part
+    of the aggregated guilt of rebellion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That governours have been sometimes given them, only that a great man
+    might get ease from importunity, and that they have had judges, not
+    always of the deepest learning, or the purest integrity, we have no
+    great reason to doubt, because such misfortunes happen to ourselves.
+    Whoever is governed, will, sometimes, be governed ill, even when he is
+    most "concerned in his own government."
+</p>
+<p>
+    That improper officers or magistrates are sent, is the crime or folly of
+    those that sent them. When incapacity is discovered, it ought to be
+    removed; if corruption is detected, it ought to be punished. No
+    government could subsist for a day, if single errours could justify
+    defection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of their complaints is not such as can claim much commiseration from
+    the softest bosom. They tell us, that we have changed our conduct, and
+    that a tax is now laid, by parliament, on those who were never taxed by
+    parliament before. To this, we think, it may be easily answered, that
+    the longer they have been spared, the better they can pay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is certainly not much their interest to represent innovation as
+    criminal or invidious; for they have introduced into the history of
+    mankind a new mode of disaffection, and have given, I believe, the first
+    example of a proscription published by a colony against the
+    mother-country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To what is urged of new powers granted to the courts of admiralty, or
+    the extension of authority conferred on the judges, it may be answered,
+    in a few words, that they have themselves made such regulations
+    necessary; that they are established for the prevention of greater
+    evils; at the same time, it must be observed, that these powers have not
+    been extended since the rebellion in America.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One mode of persuasion their ingenuity has suggested, which it may,
+    perhaps, be less easy to resist. That we may not look with indifference
+    on the American contest, or imagine that the struggle is for a claim,
+    which, however decided, is of small importance and remote consequence,
+    the Philadelphian congress has taken care to inform us, that they are
+    resisting the demands of parliament, as well for our sakes as their own.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their keenness of perspicacity has enabled them to pursue consequences
+    to a greater distance; to see through clouds impervious to the dimness
+    of European sight; and to find, I know not how, that when they are
+    taxed, we shall be enslaved.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That slavery is a miserable state we have been often told, and,
+    doubtless, many a Briton will tremble to find it so near as in America;
+    but how it will be brought hither the congress must inform us. The
+    question might distress a common understanding; but the statesmen of the
+    other hemisphere can easily resolve it. "Our ministers," they say, "axe
+    our enemies, and if they should carry the point of taxation, may, with
+    the same army, enslave us. It may be said, we will not pay them; but
+    remember," say the western sages, "the taxes from America, and, we may
+    add, the men, and particularly the Roman catholicks of this vast
+    continent, will then be in the power of your enemies. Nor have you any
+    reason to expect, that, after making slaves of us, many of us will
+    refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state."
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are dreadful menaces; but suspecting that they have not much the
+    sound of probability, the congress proceeds: "Do not treat this as
+    chimerical. Know, that in less than half a century, the quitrents
+    reserved to the crown, from the numberless grants of this vast
+    continent, will pour large streams of wealth into the royal coffers. If
+    to this be added the power of taxing America, at pleasure, the crown
+    will possess more treasure than may be necessary to purchase the remains
+    of liberty in your island."
+</p>
+<p>
+    All this is very dreadful; but, amidst the terrour that shakes my frame,
+    I cannot forbear to wish, that some sluice were opened for these streams
+    of treasure. I should gladly see America return half of what England has
+    expended in her defence; and of the stream that will "flow so largely in
+    less than half a century," I hope a small rill, at least, may be found
+    to quench the thirst of the present generation, which seems to think
+    itself in more danger of wanting money, than of losing liberty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of
+    malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather
+    repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this last terrifick paragraph are two positions, that, if our fears
+    do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to support life a little
+    longer. We are told by these croakers of calamity, not only that our
+    present ministers design to enslave us, but that the same malignity of
+    purpose is to descend through all their successors; and that the wealth
+    to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America, will, whenever it
+    comes, be employed to purchase the "remains of liberty."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of those who now conduct the national affairs, we may, without much
+    arrogance, presume to know more than themselves; and of those who shall
+    succeed them, whether minister or king, not to know less.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The other position is, that "the crown," if this laudable opposition
+    should not be successful, "will have the power of taxing America at
+    pleasure." Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions,
+    when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that
+    they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that
+    the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained
+    any additional power over their possessions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect
+    these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter
+    among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really
+    dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to
+    communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But,
+    probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries,
+    that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands
+    among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address,
+    though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet,
+    probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some
+    master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political
+    electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to
+    repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by
+    the name of Boston.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general
+    legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus
+    acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their
+    claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and
+    allegiance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces
+    of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to
+    indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found
+    themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That corporations, constituted by favour, and existing by sufferance,
+    should dare to prohibit commerce with their native country, and threaten
+    individuals by infamy, and societies with, at least, suspension of
+    amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themselves, is
+    a degree of insolence which not only deserves to be punished, but of
+    which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life and the
+    peace of nations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet there have risen up, in the face of the publick, men who, by
+    whatever corruptions, or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend
+    the Americans, endeavour to shelter them from resentment, and propose
+    reconciliation without submission.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for
+    a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may
+    resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English
+    constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A
+    congress might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties in a
+    style not unlike the language of the American patriots:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,&mdash;We, the delegates of the several towns
+    and parishes of Cornwall, assembled to deliberate upon our own state,
+    and that of our constituents, having, after serious debate and calm
+    consideration, settled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it
+    necessary to declare the resolutions which we think ourselves entitled
+    to form, by the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which
+    we have been compelled by grievances and oppressions, long endured by us
+    in patient silence, not because we did not feel, or could not remove
+    them, but because we were unwilling to give disturbance to a settled
+    government, and hoped that others would, in time, find, like ourselves,
+    their true interest and their original powers, and all cooperate to
+    universal happiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "But since, having long indulged the pleasing expectation, we find
+    general discontent not likely to increase, or not likely to end in
+    general defection, we resolve to erect alone the standard of liberty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Know then, that you are no longer to consider Cornwall as an English
+    county, visited by English judges, receiving law from an English
+    parliament, or included in any general taxation of the kingdom; but as a
+    state, distinct and independent, governed by its own institutions,
+    administered by its own magistrates, and exempt from any tax or tribute,
+    but such as we shall impose upon ourselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of
+    Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the
+    island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants.
+    Of this descent, our language is a sufficient proof, which, not quite a
+    century ago, was different from yours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Such are the Cornishmen; but who are you? who, but the unauthorised and
+    lawless children of intruders, invaders, and oppressors? who, but the
+    transmitters of wrong, the inheritors of robbery? In claiming
+    independence, we claim but little. We might require you to depart from a
+    land which you possess by usurpation, and to restore all that you have
+    taken from us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Independence is the gift of nature. No man is born the master of
+    another. Every Cornishman is a freeman; for we have never resigned the
+    rights of humanity: and he only can be thought free, who is 'not
+    governed but by his own consent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "You may urge, that the present system of government has descended
+    through many ages, and that we have a larger part in the representation
+    of the kingdom than any other county.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "All this is true, but it is neither cogent nor persuasive. We look to
+    the original of things. Our union with the English counties was either
+    compelled by force, or settled by compact.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That which was made by violence, may by violence be broken. If we were
+    treated as a conquered people, our rights might be obscured, but could
+    never be extinguished. The sword can give nothing but power, which a
+    sharper sword can take away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "If our union was by compact, whom could the compact bind, but those
+    that concurred in the stipulations? We gave our ancestors no commission
+    to settle the terms of future existence. They might be cowards that were
+    frighted, or blockheads that were cheated; but, whatever they were, they
+    could contract only for themselves. What they could establish, we can
+    annul.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Against our present form of government, it shall stand in the place of
+    all argument, that we do not like it. While we are governed as we do not
+    like, where is our liberty? We do not like taxes, we will, therefore,
+    not be taxed: we do not like your laws, and will not obey them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The taxes laid by our representatives, are laid, you tell us, by our
+    own consent; but we will no longer consent to be represented. Our number
+    of legislators was originally a burden, and ought to have been refused;
+    it is now considered as a disproportionate advantage; who, then, will
+    complain if we resign it?
+</p>
+<p>
+    "We shall form a senate of our own, under a president whom the king
+    shall nominate, but whose authority we will limit, by adjusting his
+    salary to his merit. We will not withhold a proper share of contribution
+    to the necessary expense of lawful government, but we will decide for
+    ourselves what share is proper, what expense is necessary, and what
+    government is lawful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Till our counsel is proclaimed independent and unaccountable, we will,
+    after the tenth day of September, keep our tin in our own hands: you can
+    be supplied from no other place, and must, therefore, comply, or be
+    poisoned with the copper of your own kitchens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "If any Cornishman shall refuse his name to this just and laudable
+    association, he shall be tumbled from St. Michael's mount, or buried
+    alive in a tin-mine; and if any emissary shall be found seducing
+    Cornishmen to their former state, he shall be smeared with tar, and
+    rolled in feathers, and chased with dogs out of our dominions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "From the Cornish congress at Truro."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this memorial, what could be said, but that it was written in jest,
+    or written by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of
+    Pennsylvanian eloquence, can find any argument in the addresses of the
+    congress, that is not, with greater strength, urged by the Cornishman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The argument of the irregular troops of controversy, stripped of its
+    colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this. Liberty
+    is the birthright of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no
+    liberty. The answer is equally simple. Government is necessary to man,
+    and where obedience is not compelled, there is no government.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use
+    compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making
+    laws, and then of enforcing them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To one of the threats hissed out by the congress, I have put nothing
+    similar into the Cornish proclamation; because it is too wild for folly,
+    and too foolish for madness. If we do not withhold our king and his
+    parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantick, and enslave
+    us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How they will come, they have not told us; perhaps they will take wing,
+    and light upon our coasts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is
+    time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The great orator
+    observes, that they will be very fit, after they have been taxed, to
+    impose chains upon us. If they are so fit as their friend describes
+    them, and so willing as they describe themselves, let us increase our
+    army, and double our militia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been, of late, a very general practice to talk of slavery among
+    those who are setting at defiance every power that keeps the world in
+    order. If the learned author of the Reflections on Learning has rightly
+    observed, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain
+    to prohibit the use of the word slavery; but I could wish it more
+    discreetly uttered: it is driven, at one time, too hard into our ears by
+    the loud hurricane of Pennsylvanian eloquence, and, at another, glides
+    too cold into our hearts by the soft conveyance of a female patriot,
+    bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such has been the progress of sedition, that those who, a few years ago,
+    disputed only our right of laying taxes, now question the validity of
+    every act of legislation. They consider themselves as emancipated from
+    obedience, and as being no longer the subjects of the British crown.
+    They leave us no choice, but of yielding or conquering, of resigning our
+    dominion or maintaining it by force.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From force many endeavours have been used, either to dissuade, or to
+    deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and sometimes
+    their sufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to
+    the last war; a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their
+    protection; a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that
+    they can boast is, that they did something for themselves, and did not
+    wholly stand inactive, while the sons of Britain were fighting in their
+    cause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity those that show
+    no regard to their mother-country; have obeyed no law, which they could
+    violate; have imparted no good, which they could withhold; have entered
+    into associations of fraud to rob their creditors; and into combinations
+    to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with
+    the cruelty of shutting one port, where every port is shut against us.
+    We are censured as tyrannical, for hindering those from fishing, who
+    have condemned our merchants to bankruptcy, and our manufacturers to
+    hunger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Others persuade us to give them more liberty, to take off restraints,
+    and relax authority; and tell us what happy consequences will arise from
+    forbearance; how their affections will be conciliated, and into what
+    diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love
+    their friends. They will reverence their protectors. They will throw
+    themselves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet; they will
+    buy from no other what we can sell them; they will sell to no other what
+    we wish to buy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That any obligations should overpower their attention to profit, we have
+    known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a
+    more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefits, they are
+    now showing us, who, as soon as we have delivered them from France, are
+    defying and proscribing us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more
+    than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will, during
+    pleasure, pay us a subsidy. The contest is not now for money, but for
+    power. The question is not, how much we shall collect, but, by what
+    authority the collection shall be made.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown, in any form, that may
+    raise love or pity, dress them in habiliments of terrour, and try to
+    make us think them formidable. The Bostonians can call into the field
+    ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will
+    rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take
+    possession of the towns, the colonists will retire into the inland
+    regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houses, and a wide
+    extent of waste and desolation. If we subdue them for the present, they
+    will universally revolt in the next war, and resign us, without pity, to
+    subjection and destruction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To all this it may be answered, that between losing America, and
+    resigning it, there is no great difference; that it is not very
+    reasonable to jump into the sea, because the ship is leaky. All those
+    evils may befall us, but we need not hasten them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The dean of Gloucester has proposed, and seems to propose it seriously,
+    that we should, at once, release our claims, declare them masters of
+    themselves, and whistle them down the wind. His opinion is, that our
+    gain from them will be the same, and our expense less. What they can
+    have most cheaply from Britain, they will still buy; what they can sell
+    to us at the highest price, they will still sell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, however, a little hard, that, having so lately fought and
+    conquered for their safety, we should govern them no longer. By letting
+    them loose before the war, how many millions might have been saved. One
+    wild proposal is best answered by another. Let us restore to the French
+    what we have taken from them. We shall see our colonists at our feet,
+    when they have an enemy so near them. Let us give the Indians arms, and
+    teach them discipline, and encourage them, now and then, to plunder a
+    plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While these different opinions are agitated, it seems to be determined,
+    by the legislature, that force shall be tried. Men of the pen have
+    seldom any great skill in conquering kingdoms, but they have strong
+    inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to wish, that this
+    commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued
+    by terrour rather than by violence; and, therefore, recommend such a
+    force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope of resistance,
+    and, by conquering without a battle, save many from the sword.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If their obstinacy continues, without actual hostilities, it may,
+    perhaps, be mollified, by turning out the soldiers to free quarters,
+    forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the
+    slaves should be set free, an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty
+    cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and
+    utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government
+    within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their
+    masters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Far be it from any Englishman, to thirst for the blood of his
+    fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are, unhappily,
+    at less distance. The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed,
+    undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they
+    had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by
+    European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who
+    were friends only to themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out
+    its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious
+    contest, they are, themselves, equally detestable. If they wish success
+    to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their
+    defeat, they are traitors, at once, to America and England. To them, and
+    them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the
+    miseries of war, the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood
+    of those that shall fall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be
+    subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their
+    possessions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be
+    secured by stricter laws and stronger obligations!
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing can be more noxious to society, than that erroneous clemency,
+    which, when a rebellion is suppressed, exacts no forfeiture, and
+    establishes no securities, but leaves the rebels in their former state.
+    Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
+    expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
+    accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
+    than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
+    always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
+    victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
+    gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
+    of their port.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
+    as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
+    privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be
+    taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers,
+    and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent
+    planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom
+    the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous,
+    and who startle at the thoughts of "England free, and America in
+    chains." Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are
+    frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word;
+    but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations
+    between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will
+    be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of
+    English superiority and American obedience.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution
+    of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious
+    politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,
+    how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers
+    of negroes?
+</p>
+<p>
+    But let us interrupt awhile this dream of conquest, settlement, and
+    supremacy. Let us remember, that being to contend, according to one
+    orator, with three millions of whigs, and, according to another, with
+    ninety thousand patriots of Massachusetts bay, we may possibly be
+    checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon
+    equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to
+    violate, a second time, the happy borders of the land of liberty. The
+    time is now, perhaps, at hand, which sir Thomas Browne predicted,
+    between jest and earnest:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "When America should no more send out her treasure,
+      But spend it at home in American pleasure."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    If we are allowed, upon our defeat, to stipulate conditions, I hope the
+    treaty of Boston will permit us to import into the confederated cantons
+    such products as they do not raise, and such manufactures as they do not
+    make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying, like others,
+    the appointed customs; that, if an English ship salutes a fort with four
+    guns, it shall be answered, at least, with two; and that, if an
+    Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath
+    of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be suffered, while he lives
+    inoffensively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested
+    in his conscience by an oath of abjuration.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_29"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+</h2>
+<a name="2H_4_30"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    FATHER PAUL SARPI <a href="#note-33">[33]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Father Paul, whose name, before he entered into the monastick life,
+    was Peter Sarpi, was born at Venice, August 14, 1552. His father
+    followed merchandise, but with so little success, that, at his death,
+    he left his family very ill provided for; but under the care of a
+    mother, whose piety was likely to bring the blessings of providence
+    upon them, and whose wise conduct supplied the want of fortune by
+    advantages of greater value.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Happily for young Sarpi, she had a brother, master of a celebrated
+    school, under whose direction he was placed by her. Here he lost no
+    time; but cultivated his abilities, naturally of the first rate, with
+    unwearied application. He was born for study, having a natural
+    aversion to pleasure and gaiety, and a memory so tenacious, that he
+    could repeat thirty verses upon once hearing them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Proportionable to his capacity was his progress in literature: at
+    thirteen, having made himself master of school-learning, he turned his
+    studies to philosophy and the mathematicks; and entered upon logick,
+    under Capella, of Cremona; who, though a celebrated master of that
+    science, confessed himself, in a very little time, unable to give his
+    pupil further instructions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As Capella was of the order of the Servites, his scholar was induced,
+    by his acquaintance with him, to engage in the same profession, though
+    his uncle and his mother represented to him the hardships and
+    austerities of that kind of life, and advised him, with great zeal,
+    against it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But he was steady in his resolutions, and, in 1566, took the habit of
+    the order, being then only in his fourteenth year, a time of life, in
+    most persons, very improper for such engagements; but, in him,
+    attended with such maturity of thought, and such a settled temper,
+    that he never seemed to regret the choice he then made, and which he
+    confirmed by a solemn publick profession, in 1572.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a general chapter of the Servites, held at Mantua, Paul, for so we
+    shall now call him, being then only twenty years old, distinguished
+    himself so much, in a publick disputation, by his genius and learning,
+    that William, duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the
+    consent of his superiours to retain him at his court; and not only
+    made him publick professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured
+    him with many proofs of his esteem.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But father Paul, finding a court life not agreeable to his temper,
+    quitted it two years afterwards, and retired to his beloved privacies,
+    being then not only acquainted with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
+    Chaldee languages, but with philosophy, the mathematicks, canon and
+    civil law, all parts of natural philosophy, and chymistry itself; for
+    his application was unremitted, his head clear, his apprehension
+    quick, and his memory retentive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being made a priest, at twenty-two, he was distinguished by the
+    illustrious cardinal Borromeo with his confidence, and employed by
+    him, on many occasions, not without the envy of persons of less merit,
+    who were so far exasperated as to lay a charge against him, before the
+    inquisition, for denying that the trinity could be proved from the
+    first chapter of Genesis; but the accusation was too ridiculous to be
+    taken notice of.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After this, he passed successively through the dignities of his order,
+    and, in the intervals of his employment, applied himself to his
+    studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge
+    untouched. By him Acquapendente, the great anatomist, confesses, that
+    he was informed how vision is performed; and there are proofs, that he
+    was not a stranger to the circulation of the blood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He frequently conversed upon astronomy with mathematicians; upon
+    anatomy with surgeons; upon medicine with physicians; and with
+    chymists upon the analysis of metals, not as a superficial inquirer,
+    but as a complete master.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the hours of repose, that he employed so well, were interrupted by
+    a new information in the inquisition, where a former acquaintance
+    produced a letter, written by him, in ciphers, in which he said, "that
+    he detested the court of Rome, and that no preferment was obtained
+    there, but by dishonest means." This accusation, however dangerous,
+    was passed over, on account of his great reputation, but made such
+    impression on that court, that he was afterward denied a bishoprick by
+    Clement the eighth. After these difficulties were surmounted, father
+    Paul again retired to his solitude, where he appears, by some writings
+    drawn up by him at that time, to have turned his attention more to
+    improvements in piety than learning. Such was the care with which he
+    read the scriptures, that, it being his custom to draw a line under
+    any passage which he intended more nicely to consider, there was not a
+    single word in his New Testament but was underlined; the same marks of
+    attention appeared in his Old Testament, Psalter, and Breviary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the most active scene of his life began about the year 1615, when
+    pope Paul the fifth, exasperated by some decrees of the senate of
+    Venice, that interfered with the pretended rights of the church, laid
+    the whole state under an interdict.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The senate, filled with indignation at this treatment, forbade the
+    bishops to receive or publish the pope's bull; and, convening the
+    rectors of the churches, commanded them to celebrate divine service in
+    the accustomed manner, with which most of them readily complied; but
+    the jesuits, and some others, refusing, were, by a solemn edict,
+    expelled the state.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Both parties having proceeded to extremities, employed their ablest
+    writers to defend their measures: on the pope's side, among others,
+    cardinal Bellarmine entered the lists, and, with his confederate
+    authors, defended the papal claims, with great scurrility of
+    expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by
+    the Venetian apologists, in much more decent language, and with much
+    greater solidity of argument.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On this occasion father Paul was most eminently distinguished, by his
+    Defence of the Rights of the Supreme Magistrate; his treatise of
+    Excommunications, translated from Gerson, with an Apology, and other
+    writings, for which he was cited before the inquisition at Rome; but
+    it may be easily imagined that he did not obey the summons.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Venetian writers, whatever might be the abilities of their
+    adversaries, were, at least, superiour to them in the justice of their
+    cause. The propositions maintained on the side of Rome were these:
+    that the pope is invested with all the authority of heaven and earth:
+    that all princes are his vassals, and that he may annul their laws at
+    pleasure: that kings may appeal to him, as he is temporal monarch of
+    the whole earth: that he can discharge subjects from their oaths of
+    allegiance, and make it their duty to take up arms against their
+    sovereign: that he may depose kings without any fault committed by
+    them, if the good of the church requires it: that the clergy are
+    exempt from all tribute to kings, and are not accountable to them,
+    even in cases of high treason: that the pope cannot err; that his
+    decisions are to be received and obeyed on pain of sin, though all the
+    world should judge them to be false; that the pope is God upon earth;
+    that his sentence and that of God are the same; and that to call his
+    power in question, is to call in question the power of God; maxims
+    equally shocking, weak, pernicious, and absurd; which did not require
+    the abilities or learning of father Paul, to demonstrate their
+    falsehood, and destructive tendency.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It may be easily imagined, that such principles were quickly
+    overthrown, and that no court, but that of Rome, thought it for its
+    interest to favour them. The pope, therefore, finding his authors
+    confuted, and his cause abandoned, was willing to conclude the affair
+    by treaty, which, by the mediation of Henry the fourth of France, was
+    accommodated upon terms very much to the honour of the Venetians.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the defenders of the Venetian rights were, though comprehended in
+    the treaty, excluded by the Romans from the benefit of it; some, upon
+    different pretences, were imprisoned, some sent to the galleys, and
+    all debarred from preferment. But their malice was chiefly aimed
+    against father Paul, who soon found the effects of it; for, as he was
+    going one night to his convent, about six months after the
+    accommodation, he was attacked by five ruffians, armed with
+    stilettoes, who gave him no less than fifteen stabs, three of which
+    wounded him in such a manner, that he was left for dead. The murderers
+    fled for refuge to the nuncio, and were afterwards received into the
+    pope's dominions, but were pursued by divine justice, and all, except
+    one man who died in prison, perished by violent deaths.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This and other attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself
+    to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council
+    of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the
+    matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet,
+    as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr.
+    Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the
+    reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy,
+    freedom of speech without neglect of decency, severity without rigour,
+    and extensive learning without ostentation."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this and other works of less consequence, he spent the remaining
+    part of his life, to the beginning of the year 1622, when he was
+    seized with a cold and fever, which he neglected, till it became
+    incurable. He languished more than twelve months, which he spent
+    almost wholly in a preparation for his passage into eternity; and,
+    among his prayers and aspirations, was often heard to repeat, "Lord!
+    now let thy servant depart in peace."
+</p>
+<p>
+    On Sunday, the eighth of January of the next year, he rose, weak as he
+    was, to mass, and went to take his repast with the rest; but, on
+    Monday, was seized with a weakness that threatened immediate death;
+    and, on Thursday, prepared for his change, by receiving the viaticum
+    with such marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the
+    beholders.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Through the whole course of his illness, to the last hour of his life,
+    he was consulted by the senate in publick affairs, and returned
+    answers, in his greatest weakness, with such presence of mind, as
+    could only arise from the consciousness of innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the passion of our blessed
+    saviour read to him out of St. John's gospel, as on every other day of
+    that week, and spoke of the mercy of his redeemer, and his confidence
+    in his merits.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to
+    pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his
+    thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, "Esto
+    perpetua," mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a
+    prayer for the prosperity of his country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus died father Paul, in the seventy-first year of his age; hated by
+    the Romans, as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the
+    learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His
+    detestation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his
+    writings, but particularly in this memorable passage of one of his
+    letters: "There is nothing more essential than to ruin the reputation
+    of the jesuits; by the ruin of the jesuits, Rome will be ruined; and
+    if Rome is ruined, religion will reform of itself."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He appears, by many passages of his life, to have had a high esteem of
+    the church of England; and his friend, father Fulgentio, who had
+    adopted all his notions, made no scruple of administering to Dr.
+    Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell sick at Venice, the communion
+    in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer, which he had with him
+    in Italian.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was buried with great pomp, at the publick charge, and a
+    magnificent monument was erected, to his memory.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_31"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    BOERHAAVE.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    The following account of the late Dr. Boerhaave, so loudly celebrated,
+    and so universally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we
+    hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: we could have made it much
+    larger, by adopting flying reports, and inserting unattested facts: a
+    close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and
+    hindered it from swelling to that bulk, at which modern histories
+    generally arrive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December, 1668, about
+    one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from
+    Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minister of Voorhout, of whom
+    his son <a href="#note-34">[34]</a>, in a small account of his own life, has given a very
+    amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour,
+    for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the
+    prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous
+    family of nine children: he was eminently skilled in history and
+    genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amsterdam,
+    from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the
+    study of physick, in which she was very inquisitive, and had obtained
+    a knowledge of it, not common in female students.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This knowledge, however, she did not live to communicate to her son;
+    for she died, in 1673, ten years after her marriage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His father, finding himself encumbered with the care of seven
+    children, thought it necessary to take a second wife, and in July,
+    1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden,
+    who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her
+    husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Herman Boerhaave was always designed, by his father, for the ministry,
+    and, with that view, instructed by him in grammatical learning, and
+    the first elements of languages; in which he made such a proficiency,
+    that he was, at the age of eleven years, not only master of the rules
+    of grammar, but capable of translating with tolerable accuracy, and
+    not wholly ignorant of critical niceties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At intervals, to recreate his mind and strengthen his constitution, it
+    was his father's custom to send him into the fields, and employ him in
+    agriculture, and such kind of rural occupations, which he continued,
+    through all his life, to love and practise; and, by this vicissitude
+    of study and exercise, preserved himself, in a great measure, from
+    those distempers and depressions, which are frequently the
+    consequences of indiscreet diligence and uninterrupted application;
+    and from which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of
+    the human body, sometimes fly for relief, to wine instead of exercise,
+    and purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful
+    consequences.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The studies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by
+    an accident, which deserves a particular mention, as it first inclined
+    him to that science, to which he was, by nature, so well adapted, and
+    which he afterwards carried to so great perfection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant
+    ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years,
+    defeated all the art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only
+    afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exposed him to such
+    sharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were
+    equally insufferable. Then it was, that his own pain taught him to
+    compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the
+    methods then in use, incited him to attempt the discovery of others
+    more certain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He began to practise, at least, honestly, for he began upon himself;
+    and his first essay was a prelude to his future success, for having
+    laid aside all the prescriptions of his physicians, and all the
+    applications of his surgeons, he at last, by tormenting the part with
+    salt and urine, effected a cure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That he might, on this occasion, obtain the assistance of surgeons
+    with less inconvenience and expense, he was brought, by his father, at
+    fourteen, to Leyden, and placed in the fourth class of the publick
+    school, after being examined by the master: here his application and
+    abilities were equally conspicuous. In six months, by gaining the
+    first prize in the fourth class, he was raised to the fifth; and, in
+    six months more, upon the same proof of the superiority of his genius,
+    rewarded with another prize, and translated to the sixth; from whence
+    it is usual, in six months more, to be removed to the university.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus did our young student advance in learning and reputation, when,
+    as he was within view of the university, a sudden and unexpected blow
+    threatened to defeat all his expectations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 12th of November, in 1682, his father died, and left behind him
+    a very slender provision for his widow, and nine children, of which
+    the eldest was not yet seventeen years old.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was a most afflicting loss to the young scholar, whose fortune
+    was by no means sufficient to bear the expenses of a learned
+    education, and who, therefore, seemed to be now summoned, by
+    necessity, to some way of life more immediately and certainly
+    lucrative; but, with a resolution equal to his abilities, and a spirit
+    not so depressed and shaken, he determined to break through the
+    obstacles of poverty, and supply, by diligence, the want of fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He, therefore, asked, and obtained the consent of his guardians, to
+    prosecute his studies, so long as his patrimony would support him;
+    and, continuing his wonted industry, gained another prize.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was now to quit the school for the university, but on account of
+    the weakness yet remaining in his thigh, was, at his own entreaty,
+    continued six months longer under the care of his master, the learned
+    Winschotan, where he was once more honoured with the prize.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At his removal to the university, the same genius and industry met
+    with the same encouragement and applause. The learned Triglandius, one
+    of his father's friends, made soon after professor of divinity at
+    Leyden, distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him
+    to the friendship of Mr. Van Apphen, in whom he found a generous and
+    constant patron.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He became now a diligent hearer of the most celebrated professors, and
+    made great advances in all the sciences, still regulating his studies
+    with a view, principally, to divinity, for which he was originally
+    intended by his father; and, for that reason, exerted his utmost
+    application to attain an exact knowledge of the Hebrew tongue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being convinced of the necessity of mathematical learning, he began to
+    study those sciences in 1687, but without that intense industry with
+    which the pleasure he found in that kind of knowledge, induced him
+    afterwards to cultivate them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1690, having performed the exercises of the university with
+    uncommon reputation, he took his degree in philosophy; and, on that
+    occasion, discussed the important and arduous subject of the distinct
+    natures of the soul and body, with such-accuracy, perspicuity, and
+    subtilty, that he entirely confuted all the sophistry of Epicurus,
+    Hobbes, and Spinosa, and equally raised the characters of his piety
+    and erudition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Divinity was still his great employment, and the chief aim of all his
+    studies. He read the scriptures in their original languages; and when
+    difficulties occurred, consulted the interpretations of the most
+    ancient fathers, whom he read in order of time, beginning with Clemens
+    Romanus.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the perusal of those early writers <a href="#note-35">[35]</a>, he was struck with the
+    profoundest veneration of the simplicity and purity of their
+    doctrines, the holiness of their lives, and the sanctity of the
+    discipline practised by them; but, as he descended to the lower ages,
+    found the peace of Christianity broken by useless controversies, and
+    its doctrines sophisticated by the subtilties of the schools: he found
+    the holy writers interpreted according to the notions of philosophers,
+    and the chimeras of metaphysicians adopted as articles of faith: he
+    found difficulties raised by niceties, and fomented to bitterness and
+    rancour: he saw the simplicity of the christian doctrine corrupted by
+    the private fancies of particular parties, while each adhered to its
+    own philosophy, and orthodoxy was confined to the sect in power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now exhausted his fortune in the pursuit of his studies, he
+    found the necessity of applying to some profession, that, without
+    engrossing all his time, might enable him to support himself; and
+    having obtained a very uncommon knowledge of the mathematicks, he read
+    lectures in those sciences to a select number of young gentlemen in
+    the university.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length, his propension to the study of physick grew too violent to
+    be resisted; and, though he still intended to make divinity the great
+    employment of his life, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of
+    spending some time upon the medical writers, for the perusal of which
+    he was so well qualified by his acquaintance with the mathematicks and
+    philosophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But this science corresponded so much with his natural genius, that he
+    could not forbear making that his business, which he intended only as
+    his diversion; and still growing more eager, as he advanced further,
+    he at length determined wholly to master that profession, and to take
+    his degree in physick, before he engaged in the duties of the
+    ministry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is,
+    generally, proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any
+    into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have
+    not abilities, likewise, to perform them. To have formed the design of
+    gaining a complete knowledge of medicine, by way of digression from
+    theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most
+    men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. But
+    Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing
+    appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts, but
+    what appears insurmountable to common understandings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He began this new course of study by a diligent perusal of Vesalius,
+    Bartholine, and Fallopius; and, to acquaint himself more fully with
+    the structure of bodies, was a constant attendant upon Nuck's publick
+    dissections in the theatre, and himself very accurately inspected the
+    bodies of different animals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having furnished himself with this preparatory knowledge, he began to
+    read the ancient physicians, in the order of time, pursuing his
+    inquiries downwards, from Hippocrates through all the Greek and Latin
+    writers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Finding, as he tells us himself, that Hippocrates was the original
+    source of all medical knowledge, and that all the later writers were
+    little more than transcribers from him, he returned to him with more
+    attention, and spent much time in making extracts from him, digesting
+    his treatises into method, and fixing them in his memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then descended to the moderns, among whom none engaged him longer,
+    or improved him more, than Sydenham, to whose merit he has left this
+    attestation, "that he frequently perused him, and always with greater
+    eagerness."
+</p>
+<p>
+    His insatiable curiosity after knowledge engaged him now in the
+    practice of chymistry, which he prosecuted with all the ardour of a
+    philosopher, whose industry was not to be wearied, and whose love of
+    truth was too strong to suffer him to acquiesce in the reports of
+    others.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet did he not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention
+    from others: anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor
+    chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany, in which he
+    was no less skilled than in other parts of physick. He was not only a
+    careful examiner of all the plants in the garden of the university,
+    but made excursions, for his further improvement, into the woods and
+    fields, and left no place unvisited, where any increase of botanical
+    knowledge could be reasonably hoped for.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In conjunction with all these inquiries, he still pursued his
+    theological studies, and still, as we are informed by himself,
+    "proposed, when he had made himself master of the whole art of
+    physick, and obtained the honour of a degree in that science, to
+    petition regularly for a license to preach, and to engage in the cure
+    of souls;" and intended, in his theological exercise, to discuss this
+    question, "why so many were formerly converted to Christianity by
+    illiterate persons, and so few at present by men of learning."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In pursuance of this plan he went to Hardewich, in order to take the
+    degree of doctor in physick, which he obtained in July, 1693, having
+    performed a publick disputation, "de utilitate explorandorum
+    excrementorum in aegris, ut signorum."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then returning to Leyden, full of his pious design of undertaking the
+    ministry, he found, to his surprise, unexpected obstacles thrown in
+    his way, and an insinuation dispersed through the university, that
+    made him suspected, not of any slight deviation from received
+    opinions, not of any pertinacious adherence to his own notions in
+    doubtful and disputable matters, but of no less than Spinosism, or, in
+    plainer terms, of atheism itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How so injurious a report came to be raised, circulated, and credited,
+    will be, doubtless, very eagerly inquired; we shall, therefore, give
+    the relation, not only to satisfy the curiosity of mankind, but to
+    show that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only
+    attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whispers. Those who
+    cannot strike with force, can, however, poison their weapon, and, weak
+    as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave; so
+    true is that observation, that many are able to do hurt, but few to do
+    good.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This detestable calumny owed its rise to an incident, from which no
+    consequence of importance could be possibly apprehended. As Boerhaave
+    was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the
+    passengers, upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa,
+    which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all
+    religion. Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for
+    some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by
+    his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument,
+    began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent
+    invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last,
+    he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author
+    he declaimed against.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The orator, not being able to make much answer, was checked in the
+    midst of his invectives, but not without feeling a secret resentment
+    against the person who had, at once, interrupted his harangue, and
+    exposed his ignorance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was observed by a stranger who was in the boat with them; he
+    inquired of his neighbour the name of the young man, whose question
+    had put an end to the discourse, and having learned it, set it down in
+    his pocket-book, as it appears, with a malicious design, for in a few
+    days it was the common conversation at Leyden, that Boerhaave had
+    revolted to Spinosa.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and
+    unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly
+    of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between
+    soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are
+    once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice
+    of bad, and, sometimes, by the zeal of good men, who, though they do
+    not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep
+    not only guilty, but suspected men out of publick employments, upon
+    this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the
+    advantage of few.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his
+    pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against
+    his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither
+    necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular
+    prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed,
+    of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the
+    second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He, therefore, applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour
+    and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and
+    was continually employed in making new acquisitions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now qualified himself for the practice of physick, he began to
+    visit patients, but without that encouragement which others, not
+    equally deserving, have sometimes met with. His business was, at
+    first, not great, and his circumstances by no means easy; but still,
+    superiour to any discouragement, he continued his search after
+    knowledge, and determined that prosperity, if ever he was to enjoy it,
+    should be the consequence not of mean art, or disingenuous
+    solicitations, but of real merit, and solid learning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His steady adherence to his resolutions appears yet more plainly from
+    this circumstance: he was, while he yet remained in this unpleasing
+    situation, invited by one of the first favourites of king William the
+    third, to settle at the Hague, upon very advantageous conditions; but
+    declined the offer; for having no ambition but after knowledge, he was
+    desirous of living at liberty, without any restraint upon his looks,
+    his thoughts, or his tongue, and at the utmost distance from all
+    contentions and state-parties. His time was wholly taken up in
+    visiting the sick, studying, ntaking chymical experiments, searching
+    into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the
+    mathematicks, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who
+    profess to teach a certain method of loving God <a href="#note-36">[36]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was his method of living to the year 1701, when he was
+    recommended, by Van Berg, to the university, as a proper person to
+    succeed Drelincurtius in the professorship of physick, and elected,
+    without any solicitations on his part, and almost without his consent,
+    on the 18th of May.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On this occasion, having observed, with grief, that Hippocrates, whom
+    he regarded not only as the father, but as the prince of physicians,
+    was not sufficiently read or esteemed by young students, he pronounced
+    an oration, "de commendando studio Hippocratico;" by which he restored
+    that great author to his just and ancient reputation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He now began to read publick lectures with great applause, and was
+    prevailed upon, by his audience, to enlarge his original design, and
+    instruct them in chymistry. This he undertook, not only to the great
+    advantage of his pupils, but to the great improvement of the art
+    itself, which had, hitherto, been treated only in a confused and
+    irregular manner, and was little more than a history of particular
+    experiments, not reduced to certain principles, nor connected one with
+    another: this vast chaos he reduced to order, and made that clear and
+    easy, which was before, to the last degree, difficult and obscure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
+    extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
+    professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
+    thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
+    present course of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
+    university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
+    them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
+    and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
+    in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
+    rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
+    structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
+    jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
+    enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
+    and, instead of enlightening their readers with explications of
+    nature, have darkened the plainest appearances, and bewildered mankind
+    in errour and obscurity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Boerhaave had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without
+    the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor
+    Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On this occasion he asserted the simplicity and facility of the
+    science of physick, in opposition to those that think obscurity
+    contributes to the dignity of learning, and that to be admired it is
+    necessary not to be understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His profession of botany made it part of his duty to superintend the
+    physical garden, which improved so much by the immense number of new
+    plants which he procured, that it was enlarged to twice its original
+    extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1714, he was deservedly advanced to the highest dignities of the
+    university, and, in the same year, made physician of St. Augustin's
+    hospital in Leyden, into which the students are admitted twice a week,
+    to learn the practice of physick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was of equal advantage to the sick and to the students, for the
+    success of his practice was the best demonstration of the soundness of
+    his principles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he laid down his office of governour of the university, in 1715,
+    he made an oration upon the subject of "attaining to certainty in
+    natural philosophy;" in which he declares, in the strongest terms, in
+    favour of experimental knowledge; and reflects, with just severity,
+    upon those arrogant philosophers, who are too easily disgusted with
+    the slow methods of obtaining true notions by frequent experiments;
+    and who, possessed with too high an opinion of their own abilities,
+    rather choose to consult their own imaginations, than inquire into
+    nature, and are better pleased with the charming amusement of forming
+    hypotheses, than the toilsome drudgery of making observations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The emptiness and uncertainty of all those systems, whether venerable
+    for their antiquity, or agreeable for their novelty, he has evidently
+    shown; and not only declared, but proved, that we are entirely
+    ignorant of the principles of things, and that all the knowledge we
+    have, is of such qualities alone as are discoverable by experience, or
+    such as may be deduced from them by mathematical demonstration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This discourse, filled as it was with piety, and a true sense of the
+    greatness of the supreme being, and the incomprehensibility of his
+    works, gave such offence to a professor of Franeker, who professed the
+    utmost esteem for Des Cartes, and considered his principles as the
+    bulwark of orthodoxy, that he appeared in vindication of his darling
+    author, and spoke of the injury done him with the utmost vehemence,
+    declaring little less than that the cartesian system and the Christian
+    must inevitably stand and fall together; and that to say that we were
+    ignorant of the principles of things, was not only to enlist among the
+    skepticks, but to sink into atheism itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    So far can prejudice darken the understanding, as to make it consider
+    precarious systems as the chief support of sacred and invariable
+    truth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This treatment of Boerhaave was so far resented by the governours of
+    his university, that they procured from Franeker a recantation of the
+    invective that had been thrown out against him: this was not only
+    complied with, but offers were made him of more ample satisfaction; to
+    which he returned an answer not less to his honour than the victory he
+    gained, "that he should think himself sufficiently compensated, if his
+    adversary received no further molestation on his account."
+</p>
+<p>
+    So far was this weak and injudicious attack from shaking a reputation
+    not casually raised by fashion or caprice, but founded upon solid
+    merit, that the same year his correspondence was desired upon botany
+    and natural philosophy by the academy of sciences at Paris, of which
+    he was, upon the death of count Marsigli, in the year 1728, elected a
+    member.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor were the French the only nation by which this great man was
+    courted and distinguished; for, two years after, he was elected fellow
+    of our Royal society.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It cannot be doubted but, thus caressed and honoured with the highest
+    and most publick marks of esteem by other nations, he became more
+    celebrated in the university; for Boerhaave was not one of those
+    learned men, of whom the world has seen too many, that disgrace their
+    studies by their vices, and, by unaccountable weaknesses, make
+    themselves ridiculous at home, while their writings procure them the
+    veneration of distant countries, where their learning is known, but
+    not their follies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his
+    excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in
+    1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of
+    chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia
+    errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an
+    elegance of style not often to be found in chymical writers, who seem
+    generally to have affected, not only a barbarous, but unintelligible
+    phrase, and to have, like the Pythagoreans of old, wrapt up their
+    secrets in symbols and enigmatical expressions, either because they
+    believed that mankind would reverence most what they least understood,
+    or because they wrote not from benevolence, but vanity, and were
+    desirous to be praised for their knowledge, though they could not
+    prevail upon themselves to communicate it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1722, his course, both of lectures and practice, was interrupted by
+    the gout, which, as he relates it in his speech after his recovery, he
+    brought upon himself, by an imprudent confidence in the strength of
+    his own constitution, and by transgressing those rules which he had a
+    thousand times inculcated to his pupils and acquaintance. Rising in
+    the morning before day, he went immediately, hot and sweating, from
+    his bed into the open air, and exposed himself to the cold dews.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The history of his illness can hardly be read without horrour: he was
+    for five months confined to his bed, where he lay upon his back
+    without daring to attempt the least motion, because any effort renewed
+    his torments, which were so exquisite, that he was, at length, not
+    only deprived of motion but of sense. Here art was at a stand; nothing
+    could be attempted, because nothing-could be proposed with the least
+    prospect of success. At length, having, in the sixth month of his
+    illness, obtained some remission, he took simple medicines <a href="#note-37">[37]</a> in
+    large quantities, and, at length, wonderfully recovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His recovery, so much desired, and so unexpected, was celebrated on
+    Jan. 11, 1723, when he opened his school again, with general joy and
+    publick illuminations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It would be an injury to the memory of Boerhaave, not to mention what
+    was related by himself to one of his friends, that when he lay whole
+    days and nights without sleep, he found no method of diverting his
+    thoughts so effectual, as meditation upon his studies, and that he
+    often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments, by the
+    recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of
+    knowledge, which he had reposited in his memory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is, perhaps, an instance of fortitude and steady composure of
+    mind, which would have been for ever the boast of the stoick schools,
+    and increased the reputation of Seneca or Cato. The patience of
+    Boerhaave, as it was more rational, was more lasting than theirs; it
+    was that "patientia Christiana," which Lipsius, the great master of
+    the stoical philosophy, begged of God in his last hours; it was
+    founded on religion, not vanity, not on vain reasonings, but on
+    confidence in God.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1727, he was seized with a violent burning fever, which continued
+    so long, that he was once more given up by his friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this time he was frequently afflicted with returns of his
+    distemper, which yet did not so far subdue him, as to make him lay
+    aside his studies or his lectures, till, in 1726, he found himself so
+    worn out, that it was improper for him to continue any longer the
+    professorships of botany or chymistry, which he, therefore, resigned,
+    April 28, and, upon his resignation, spoke a "Sermo academicus," or
+    oration, in which he asserts the power and wisdom of the creator from
+    the wonderful fabrick of the human body; and confutes all those idle
+    reasoners, who pretend to explain the formation of parts, or the
+    animal operations, to which he proves, that art can produce nothing
+    equal, nor any thing parallel. One instance I shall mention, which is
+    produced by him, of the vanity of any attempt to rival the work of
+    God. Nothing is more boasted by the admirers of chymistry, than that
+    they can, by artificial heats and digestion, imitate the productions
+    of nature. "Let all these heroes of science meet together," says
+    Boerhaave; "let them take bread and wine, the food that forms the
+    blood of man, and, by assimilation, contributes to the growth of the
+    body: let them try all their arts, they shall not be able, from these
+    materials, to produce a single drop of blood. So much is the most
+    common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended
+    science!"
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this time Boerhaave lived with less publick employment, indeed,
+    but not an idle or an useless life; for, besides his hours spent in
+    instructing his scholars, a great part of his time was taken up by
+    patients, which came, when the distemper would admit it, from all
+    parts of Europe to consult him, or by letters which, in more urgent
+    cases, were continually sent to inquire his opinion and ask his
+    advice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of his sagacity, and the wonderful penetration with which he often
+    discovered and described, at first sight of a patient, such distempers
+    as betray themselves by no symptoms to common eyes, such wonderful
+    relations have been spread over the world, as, though attested beyond
+    doubt, can scarcely be credited. I mention none of them, because I
+    have no opportunity of collecting testimonies, or distinguishing
+    between those accounts which are well proved, and those which owe
+    their rise to fiction and credulity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet I cannot but implore, with the greatest earnestness, such as have
+    been conversant with this great man, that they will not so far neglect
+    the common interest of mankind, as to suffer any of these
+    circumstances to be lost to posterity. Men are generally idle, and
+    ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by
+    calling that impossible which is only difficult. The skill to which
+    Boerhaave attained, by a long and unwearied observation of nature,
+    ought, therefore, to be transmitted, in all its particulars, to future
+    ages, that his successors may be ashamed to fall below him, and that
+    none may hereafter excuse his ignorance, by pleading the impossibility
+    of clearer knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet so far was this great master from presumptuous confidence in his
+    abilities, that, in his examinations of the sick, he was remarkably
+    circumstantial and particular. He well knew that the originals of
+    distempers are often at a distance from their visible effects; that to
+    conjecture, where certainty may be obtained, is either vanity or
+    negligence; and that life is not to be sacrificed, either to an
+    affectation of quick discernment, or of crowded practice, but may be
+    required, if trifled away, at the hand of the physician.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About the middle of the year 1737, he felt the first approaches of
+    that fatal illness that brought him to the grave, of which we have
+    inserted an account, written by himself, Sept. 8, 1738, to a friend at
+    London <a href="#note-38">[38]</a>; which deserves not only to be preserved, as an historical
+    relation of the disease which deprived us of so great a man, but as a
+    proof of his piety and resignation to the divine will.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this last illness, which was, to the last degree, lingering,
+    painful, and afflictive, his constancy and firmness did not forsake
+    him. He neither intermitted the necessary cares of life, nor forgot
+    the proper preparations for death. Though dejection and lowness of
+    spirits was, as he himself tells us, part of his distemper, yet even
+    this, in some measure, gave way to that vigour, which the soul
+    receives from a consciousness of innocence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About three weeks before his death he received a visit, at his country
+    house, from the reverend Mr. Schultens, his intimate friend, who found
+    him sitting without-door, with his wife, sister, and daughter: after
+    the compliments of form, the ladies withdrew, and left them to private
+    conversation; when Boerhaave took occasion to tell him what had been,
+    during his illness, the chief subject of his thoughts. He had never
+    doubted of the spiritual and immaterial nature of the soul; but
+    declared that he had lately had a kind of experimental certainty of
+    the distinction between corporeal and thinking substances, which mere
+    reason and philosophy cannot afford, and opportunities of
+    contemplating the wonderful and inexplicable union of soul and body,
+    which nothing but long sickness can give. This he illustrated by a
+    description of the effects which the infirmities of his body had upon
+    his faculties, which yet they did not so oppress or vanquish, but his
+    soul was always master of itself, and always resigned to the pleasure
+    of its maker.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He related, with great concern, that once his patience so far gave way
+    to extremity of pain, that, after having lain fifteen hours in
+    exquisite tortures, he prayed to God that he might be set free by
+    death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Schultens, by way of consolation, answered, that he thought such
+    wishes, when forced by continued and excessive torments, unavoidable
+    in the present state of human nature; that the best men, even Job
+    himself, were not able to refrain from such starts of impatience. This
+    he did not deny; but said, "he that loves God, ought to think nothing
+    desirable, but what is most pleasing to the supreme goodness."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such were his sentiments, and such his conduct, in this state of
+    weakness and pain: as death approached nearer, he was so far from
+    terrour or confusion, that he seemed even less sensible of pain, and
+    more cheerful under his torments, which continued till the 23rd day of
+    September, 1738, on which he died, between four and five in the
+    morning, in the 70th year of his age.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature for great designs, and
+    guided by religion in the exertion of his abilities. He was of a
+    robust and athletick constitution of body, so hardened by early
+    severities, and wholesome fatigue, that he was insensible of any
+    sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and
+    remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was, in his air and
+    motion, something rough and artless, but so majestick and great, at
+    the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration,
+    and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The vigour and activity of his mind sparkled visibly in his eyes; nor
+    was it ever observed, that any change of his fortune, or alteration in
+    his affairs, whether happy or unfortunate, affected his countenance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was always cheerful, and desirous of promoting mirth by a facetious
+    and humorous conversation; he was never soured by calumny and
+    detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they
+    are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of
+    themselves."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet he took care never to provoke enemies by severity of censure, for
+    he never dwelt on the faults or defects of others, and was so far from
+    inflaming the envy of his rivals, by dwelling on his own excellencies,
+    that he rarely mentioned himself or his writings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence, frowns, or
+    insolence of great men, but persisted, on all occasions, in the right,
+    with a resolution always present and always calm. He was modest, but
+    not timorous, and firm without rudeness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He could, with uncommon readiness and certainty, make a conjecture of
+    men's inclinations and capacity by their aspect.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His method of life was to study in the morning and evening, and to
+    allot the middle of the day to his publick business. His usual
+    exercise was riding, till, in his latter years, his distempers made it
+    more proper for him to walk: when he was weary, he amused himself with
+    playing on the violin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in the country, where
+    he had a garden stored with all the herbs and trees which the climate
+    would bear; here he used to enjoy his hours unmolested, and prosecute
+    his studies without interruption.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufficiently
+    evident from his success. Statesmen and generals may grow great by
+    unexpected accidents, and a fortunate concurrence of circumstances,
+    neither procured nor foreseen by themselves; but reputation in the
+    learned world must be the effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave
+    lost none of his hours, but, when he had attained one science,
+    attempted another; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to the
+    mathematicks, and anatomy to botany. He examined systems by
+    experiments, and formed experiments into systems. He neither neglected
+    the observations of others, nor blindly submitted to celebrated names.
+    He neither thought so highly of himself, as to imagine he could
+    receive no light from books, nor so meanly, as to believe he could
+    discover nothing but what was to be learned from them. He examined the
+    observations of other men, but trusted only to his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by
+    elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature: he
+    knew that but a small part of mankind will sacrifice their pleasure to
+    their improvement, and those authors who would find many readers, must
+    endeavour to please while they instruct.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he
+    might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men
+    of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours
+    less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and
+    poetry. Thus was his learning, at once, various and exact, profound
+    and agreeable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his character, but the
+    second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
+    He was an admirable example of temperance, fortitude, humility, and
+    devotion. His piety, and a religious sense of his dependance on God,
+    was the basis of all his virtues, and the principle of his whole
+    conduct. He was too sensible of his weakness to ascribe any thing to
+    himself, or to conceive that he could subdue passion, or withstand
+    temptation, by his own natural power; he attributed every good
+    thought, and every laudable action, to the father of goodness. Being
+    once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great
+    provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what
+    means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable
+    passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he
+    was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer
+    and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his whole life,
+    his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and
+    meditation; this, he often told his friends, gave him spirit and
+    vigour in the business of the day, and this he, therefore, commended,
+    as the best rule of life; for nothing, he knew, could support the
+    soul, in all distresses, but a confidence in the supreme being; nor
+    can a steady and rational magnanimity flow from any other source than
+    a consciousness of the divine favour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He asserted, on all occasions, the divine authority and sacred
+    efficacy of the holy scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught
+    the way of salvation, and that they only could give peace of mind. The
+    excellency of the Christian religion was the frequent subject of his
+    conversation. A strict obedience to the doctrine, and a diligent
+    imitation of the example of our blessed saviour, he often declared to
+    be the foundation of true tranquillity. He recommended to his friends
+    a careful observation of the precept of Moses, concerning the love of
+    God and man. He worshipped God as he is in himself, without attempting
+    to inquire into his nature. He desired only to think of God, what God
+    knows of himself. There he stopped, lest, by indulging his own ideas,
+    he should form a deity from his own imagination, and sin by falling
+    down before him. To the will of God he paid an absolute submission,
+    without endeavouring to discover the reason of his determinations; and
+    this he accounted the first and most inviolable duty of a Christian.
+    When he heard of a criminal condemned to die, he used to think: Who
+    can tell whether this man is not better than I? or, if I am better, it
+    is not to be ascribed to myself, but to the goodness of God.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such were the sentiments of Boerhaave, whose words we have added in
+    the note <a href="#note-39">[39]</a>. So far was this man from being made impious by
+    philosophy, or vain by knowledge, or by virtue, that he ascribed all
+    his abilities to the bounty, and all his goodness to the grace of God.
+    May his example extend its influence to his admirers and followers!
+    May those who study his writings imitate his life! and those who
+    endeavour after his knowledge, aspire likewise to his piety!
+</p>
+<p>
+    He married, September 17, 1710, Mary Drolenveaux, the only daughter of
+    a burgomaster of Leyden, by whom he had Joanna Maria, who survived her
+    father, and three other children, who died in their infancy. The works
+    of this great writer are so generally known, and so highly esteemed,
+    that, though it may not be improper to enumerate them in the order of
+    time, in which they were published, it is wholly unnecessary to give
+    any other account of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He published, in 1707, Institutiones medicae; to which he added, in
+    1708, Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1710, Index stirpium in horto academico.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1719, De materia medica, et remediorum formulis liber; and, in 1727, a
+    second edition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1720, Alter index stirpium, &amp;c. adorned with plates, and containing
+    twice the number of plants as the former.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1722, Epistola ad cl. Ruischium, qua sententiam Malpighianam de
+    glandulis defendit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1724, Atrocis nee prius descripti morbi historia illustrissimi baronis
+    Wassenariae.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1725, Opera anatomica et chirurgica Andreae Vesalii; with the life of
+    Vesalius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1728, Altera atrocis rarissimique morbi marchionis de Sancto Albano
+    historia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Auctores de lue Aphrodisiaca, cum tractatu praefixo.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1731, Aretaei Cappadocis nova editio.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1732, Elementa Chemiae.
+</p>
+<p>
+    1734, Observata de argento vivo, ad Reg. Soc. et Acad. Scient.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are the writings of the great Boerhaave, which have made all
+    encomiums useless and vain, since no man can attentively peruse them,
+    without admiring the abilities, and reverencing the virtue of the
+    author. <a href="#note-40">[40]</a>
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_32"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    BLAKE.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    At a time when a nation is engaged in a war with an enemy, whose
+    insults, ravages, and barbarities have long called for vengeance, an
+    account of such English commanders as have merited the acknowledgments
+    of posterity, by extending the powers, and raising the honour of their
+    country, seems to be no improper entertainment for our readers <a href="#note-41">[41]</a>.
+    We shall, therefore, attempt a succinct narration of the life and
+    actions of admiral Blake, in which we have nothing further in view,
+    than to do justice to his bravery and conduct, without intending any
+    parallel between his achievements, and those of our present admirals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, in August,
+    1598; his father being a merchant of that place, who had acquired a
+    considerable fortune by the Spanish trade. Of his earliest years we
+    have no account, and, therefore, can amuse the reader with none of
+    those prognosticks of his future actions, so often met with in
+    memoirs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1615, he entered into the university of Oxford, where he continued
+    till 1623, though without being much countenanced or caressed by his
+    superiours, for he was more than once disappointed in his endeavours
+    after academical preferments. It is observable, that Mr. Wood, in his
+    Athenæ Oxonieuses, ascribes the repulse he met with at Wadham college,
+    where he was competitor for a fellowship, either to want of learning,
+    or of stature. With regard to the first objection, the same writer had
+    before informed us, that he was an early riser and studious, though he
+    sometimes relieved his attention by the amusements of fowling and
+    fishing. As it is highly probable that he did not want capacity, we
+    may, therefore, conclude, upon this confession of his diligence, that
+    he could not fail of being learned, at least, in the degree requisite
+    to the enjoyment of a fellowship; and may safely ascribe his
+    disappointment to his want of stature, it being the custom of sir
+    Henry Savil <a href="#note-42">[42]</a>, then warden of that college, to pay much regard to
+    the outward appearance of those who solicited preferment in that
+    society. So much do the greatest events owe sometimes to accident or
+    folly!
+</p>
+<p>
+    He afterwards retired to his native place, where "he lived," says
+    Clarendon, "without any appearance of ambition to be a greater man
+    than he was, but inveighed with great freedom against the license of
+    the times, and power of the court."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1640, he was chosen burgess for Bridgewater by the puritan party,
+    to whom he had recommended himself by the disapprobation of bishop
+    Laud's violence and severity, and his non-compliance with those new
+    ceremonies, which he was then endeavouring to introduce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the civil war broke out, Blake, in conformity with his avowed
+    principles, declared for the parliament; and, thinking a bare
+    declaration for right not all the duty of a good man, raised a troop
+    of dragoons for his party, and appeared in the field with so much
+    bravery, that he was, in a short time, advanced, without meeting any
+    of those obstructions which he had encountered in the university.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1645, he was governour of Tauntou, when the lord Goring came before
+    it with an army of ten thousand men. The town was ill fortified, and
+    unsupplied with almost every thing necessary for supporting a siege.
+    The state of this garrison encouraged colonel Windham, who was
+    acquainted with Blake, to propose a capitulation, which was rejected
+    by Blake, with indignation and contempt; nor were either menaces or
+    persuasions of any effect, for he maintained the place, under all its
+    disadvantages, till the siege was raised by the parliament's army.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He continued, on many other occasions, to give proofs of an
+    insuperable courage, and a steadiness of resolution not to be shaken;
+    and, as a proof of his firm adherence to the parliament, joined with
+    the borough of Taunton, in returning thanks for their resolution to
+    make no more addresses to the king. Yet was he so far from approving
+    the death of Charles the first, that he made no scruple of declaring,
+    that he would venture his life to save him, as willingly as he had
+    done to serve the parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In February, 1648-9, he was made a commissioner of the navy, and
+    appointed to serve on that element, for which he seems by nature to
+    have been designed. He was soon afterwards sent in pursuit of prince
+    Rupert, whom he shut up in the harbour of Kinsale, in Ireland, for
+    several months, till want of provisions, and despair of relief,
+    excited the prince to make a daring effort for his escape, by forcing
+    through the parliament's fleet: this design he executed with his usual
+    intrepidity, and succeeded in it, though with the loss of three ships.
+    He was pursued by Blake to the coast of Portugal, where he was
+    received into the Tagus, and treated with great distinction by the
+    Portuguese.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Blake, coming to the mouth of that river, sent to the king a
+    messenger, to inform him, that the fleet, in his port, belonging to
+    the publick enemies of the commonwealth of England, he demanded leave
+    to fall upon it. This being refused, though the refusal was in very
+    soft terms, and accompanied with declarations of esteem, and a present
+    of provisions, so exasperated the admiral, that, without any
+    hesitation, he fell upon the Portuguese fleet, then returning from
+    Brasil, of which he took seventeen ships, and burnt three. It was to
+    no purpose that the king of Portugal, alarmed at so unexpected a
+    destruction, ordered prince Rupert to attack him, and retake the
+    Brasil ships. Blake carried home his prizes without molestation, the
+    prince not having force enough to pursue him, and well pleased with
+    the opportunity of quitting a port, where he could no longer be
+    protected.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Blake soon supplied his fleet with provision, and received orders to
+    make reprisals upon the French, who had suffered their privateers to
+    molest the English trade; an injury which, in those days, was always
+    immediately resented, and if not repaired, certainly punished. Sailing
+    with this commission, he took in his way a French man of war, valued
+    at a million. How this ship happened to be so rich, we are not
+    informed; but as it was a cruiser, it is probable the rich lading was
+    the accumulated plunder of many prizes. Then following the unfortunate
+    Rupert, whose fleet, by storms and battles, was now reduced to five
+    ships, into Carthagena, he demanded leave of the Spanish governour to
+    attack him in the harbour, but received the same answer which had been
+    returned before by the Portuguese: "That they had a right to protect
+    all ships that came into their dominions; that, if the admiral were
+    forced in thither, he should find the same security; and that he
+    required him not to violate the peace of a neutral port." Blake
+    withdrew, upon this answer, into the Mediterranean; and Rupert, then
+    leaving Carthagena, entered the port of Malaga, where he burnt and
+    sunk several English merchant ships. Blake, judging this to be an
+    infringement of the neutrality professed by the Spaniards, now made no
+    scruple to fall upon Rupert's fleet in the harbour of Malaga, and,
+    having destroyed three of his ships, obliged him to quit the sea, and
+    take sanctuary at the Spanish court.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In February, 1650-1, Blake, still continuing to cruise in the
+    Mediterranean, met a French ship of considerable force, and commanded
+    the captain to come on board, there being no war declared between the
+    two nations. The captain, when he came, was asked by him, "whether he
+    was willing to lay down his sword, and yield," which he gallantly
+    refused, though in his enemy's power. Blake, scorning to take
+    advantage of an artifice, and detesting the appearance of treachery,
+    told him, "that he was at liberty to go back to his ship, and defend
+    it, as long as he could." The captain willingly accepted his offer,
+    and, after a fight of two hours, confessed himself conquered, kissed
+    his sword, and surrendered it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1652, broke out the memorable war between the two commonwealths of
+    England and Holland; a war, in which the greatest admirals that,
+    perhaps, any age has produced, were engaged on each side; in which
+    nothing less was contested than the dominion of the sea, and which was
+    carried on with vigour, animosity, and resolution, proportioned to the
+    importance of the dispute. The chief commanders of the Dutch fleets
+    were Van Trump, De Ruyter, and De Witt, the most celebrated names of
+    their own nation, and who had been, perhaps, more renowned, had they
+    been opposed by any other enemies. The states of Holland, having
+    carried on their trade without opposition, and almost without
+    competition, not only during the unactive reign of James the first,
+    but during the commotions of England, had arrived to that height of
+    naval power, and that affluence of wealth, that, with the arrogance
+    which a long-continued prosperity naturally produces, they began to
+    invent new claims, and to treat other nations with insolence, which
+    nothing can defend, but superiority of force. They had for some time
+    made uncommon preparations, at a vast expense, and had equipped a
+    large fleet, without any apparent danger threatening them, or any
+    avowed design of attacking their neighbours. This unusual armament was
+    not beheld by the English without some jealousy, and care was taken to
+    fit out such a fleet as might secure the trade from interruption, and
+    the coasts from insults; of this Blake was constituted admiral for
+    nine months. In this situation the two nations remained, keeping a
+    watchful eye upon each other, without acting hostilities on either
+    side, till the 18th of May, 1652, when Van Trump appeared in the
+    Downs, with a fleet of forty-five men of war. Blake, who had then but
+    twenty ships, upon the approach of the Dutch admiral, saluted him with
+    three single shots, to require that he should, by striking his flag,
+    show that respect to the English, which is due to every nation in
+    their own dominions; to which the Dutchman answered with a broadside;
+    and Blake, perceiving that he intended to dispute the point of honour,
+    advanced with his own ship before the rest of his fleet, that, if it
+    were possible, a general battle might be prevented. But the Dutch,
+    instead of admitting him to treat, fired upon him from their whole
+    fleet, without any regard to the customs of war, or the law of
+    nations. Blake, for some time, stood alone against their whole force,
+    till the rest of his squadron coming up, the fight was continued from
+    between four and five in the afternoon, till nine at night, when the
+    Dutch retired with the loss of two ships, having not destroyed a
+    single vessel, nor more than fifteen men, most of which were on board
+    the admiral, who, as he wrote to the parliament, was himself engaged
+    for four hours with the main body of the Dutch fleet, being the mark
+    at which they aimed; and, as Whitlock relates, received above a
+    thousand shot. Blake, in his letter, acknowledges the particular
+    blessing and preservation of God, and ascribes his success to the
+    justice of his cause, the Dutch having first attacked him upon the
+    English coast. It is, indeed, little less than miraculous, that a
+    thousand great shot should not do more execution; and those who will
+    not admit the interposition of providence, may draw, at least, this
+    inference from it, that the bravest man is not always in the greatest
+    danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In July, he met the Dutch fishery fleet, with a convoy of twelve men
+    of war, all which he took, with one hundred of their herring-busses.
+    And, in September, being stationed in the Downs, with about sixty
+    sail, he discovered the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, with
+    near the same number, and advanced towards them; but the Dutch being
+    obliged, by the nature of their coast, and shallowness of their
+    rivers, to build their ships in such a manner, that they require less
+    depth of water than the English vessels, took advantage of the form of
+    their shipping, and sheltered themselves behind a flat, called Kentish
+    Knock; so that the English, finding some of their ships aground, were
+    obliged to alter their course; but perceiving, early the next morning,
+    that the Hollanders had forsaken their station, they pursued them with
+    all the speed that the wind, which was weak and uncertain, allowed,
+    but found themselves unable to reach them with the bulk of their
+    fleet, and, therefore, detached some of the lightest frigates to chase
+    them. These came so near, as to fire upon them about three in the
+    afternoon; but the Dutch, instead of tacking about, hoisted their
+    sails, steered toward their own coast, and finding themselves, the
+    next day, followed by the whole English fleet, retired into Goree. The
+    sailors were eager to attack them in their own harbours; but a council
+    of war being convened, it was judged imprudent to hazard the fleet
+    upon the shoals, or to engage in any important enterprise, without a
+    fresh supply of provisions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That, in this engagement, the victory belonged to the English, is
+    beyond dispute, since, without the loss of one ship, and with no more
+    than forty men killed, they drove the enemy into their own ports, took
+    the rearadmiral and another vessel, and so discouraged the Dutch
+    admirals, who had not agreed in their measures, that De Ruyter, who
+    had declared against hazarding a battle, desired to resign his
+    commission, and De Witt, who had insisted upon fighting, fell sick, as
+    it was supposed, with vexation. But how great the loss of the Dutch
+    was is not certainly known; that two ships were taken, they are too
+    wise to deny, but affirm that those two were all that were destroyed.
+    The English, on the other side, affirm, that three of their vessels
+    were disabled at the first encounter, that their numbers on the second
+    day were visibly diminished, and that on the last day they saw three
+    or four ships sink in their flight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    De Witt being now discharged by the Hollanders, as unfortunate, and
+    the chief command restored to Van Trump, great preparations were made
+    for retrieving their reputation, and repairing those losses. Their
+    endeavours were assisted by the English themselves, now made factious
+    by success; the men, who were intrusted with the civil administration,
+    being jealous of those whose military commands had procured so much
+    honour, lest they who raised them should be eclipsed by them. Such is
+    the general revolution of affairs in every state; danger and distress
+    produce unanimity and bravery, virtues which are seldom unattended
+    with success; but success is the parent of pride, and pride of
+    jealousy and faction; faction makes way for calamity, and happy is
+    that nation whose calamities renew their unanimity. Such is the
+    rotation of interests, that equally tend to hinder the total
+    destruction of a people, and to obstruct an exorbitant increase of
+    power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Blake had weakened his fleet by many detachments, and lay with no more
+    than forty sail in the Downs, very ill provided both with men and
+    ammunition, and expecting new supplies from those whose animosity
+    hindered them from providing them, and who chose rather to see the
+    trade of their country distressed, than the sea officers exalted by a
+    new acquisition of honour and influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Van Trump, desirous of distinguishing himself, at the resumption of
+    his command, by some remarkable action, had assembled eighty ships of
+    war, and ten fireships, and steered towards the Downs, where Blake,
+    with whose condition and strength he was probably acquainted, was then
+    stationed. Blake, not able to restrain his natural ardour, or,
+    perhaps, not fully informed of the superiority of his enemies, put out
+    to encounter them, though his fleet was so weakly manned, that half of
+    his ships were obliged to lie idle without engaging, for want of
+    sailors. The force of the whole Dutch fleet was, therefore, sustained
+    by about twenty-two ships. Two of the English frigates, named the
+    Vanguard and the Victory, after having, for a long time, stood engaged
+    amidst the whole Dutch fleet, broke through without much injury, nor
+    did the English lose any ships till the evening, when the Garland,
+    carrying forty guns, was boarded, at once, by two great ships, which
+    were opposed by the English, till they had scarcely any men left to
+    defend the decks; then retiring into the lower part of the vessel,
+    they blew up their decks, which were now possessed by the enemy, and,
+    at length, were overpowered and taken. The Bonaventure, a stout
+    well-built merchant ship, going to relieve the Garland, was attacked
+    by a man of war, and, after a stout resistance, in which the captain,
+    who defended her with the utmost bravery, was killed, was likewise
+    carried off by the Dutch. Blake, in the Triumph, seeing the Garland in
+    distress, pressed forward to relieve her, but in his way had his
+    foremast shattered, and was himself boarded; but, beating off the
+    enemies, he disengaged himself, and retired into the Thames, with the
+    loss only of two ships of force, and four small frigates, but with his
+    whole fleet much shattered. Nor was the victory gained at a cheap
+    rate, notwithstanding the unusual disproportion of strength; for of
+    the Dutch flagships, one was blown up, and the other two disabled; a
+    proof of the English bravery, which should have induced Van Trump to
+    have spared the insolence of carrying a broom at his top-mast, in his
+    triumphant passage through the Channel, which he intended as a
+    declaration, that he would sweep the seas of the English shipping;
+    this, which he had little reason to think of accomplishing, he soon
+    after perished in attempting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are, sometimes, observations and inquiries, which all historians
+    seem to decline by agreement, of which this action may afford us an
+    example: nothing appears, at the first view, more to demand our
+    curiosity, or afford matter for examination, than this wild encounter
+    of twenty-two ships, with a force, according to their accounts who
+    favour the Dutch, three times superiour. Nothing can justify a
+    commander in fighting under such disadvantages, but the impossibility
+    of retreating. But what hindered Blake from retiring, as well before
+    the fight, as after it? To say he was ignorant of the strength of the
+    Dutch fleet, is to impute to him a very criminal degree of negligence;
+    and, at least, it must be confessed, that from the time he saw them,
+    he could not but know that they were too powerful to be opposed by
+    him, and even then there was time for retreat. To urge the ardour of
+    his sailors, is to divest him of the authority of a commander, and to
+    charge him with the most reproachful weakness that can enter into the
+    character of a general. To mention the impetuosity of his own courage,
+    is to make the blame of his temerity equal to the praise of his
+    valour; which seems, indeed, to be the most gentle censure that the
+    truth of history will allow. We must then admit, amidst our eulogies
+    and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake, was
+    once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprise, by the
+    resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of the
+    honour of his country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was not long, before he had an opportunity of revenging his loss,
+    and restraining the insolence of the Dutch. On the 18th of February,
+    1652-3, Blake, being at the head of eighty sail, and assisted, at his
+    own request, by colonels Monk and Dean, espied Van Trump, with a fleet
+    of above one hundred men of war, as Clarendon relates, of seventy by
+    their own publick accounts, and three hundred merchant ships under his
+    convoy. The English, with their usual intrepidity, advanced towards
+    them; and Blake, in the Triumph, in which he always led his fleet,
+    with twelve ships more, came to an engagement with the main body of
+    the Dutch fleet, and by the disparity of their force was reduced to
+    the last extremity, having received in his hull no fewer than seven
+    hundred shots, when Lawson, in the Fairfax, came to his assistance.
+    The rest of the English fleet now came in, and the fight was continued
+    with the utmost degree of vigour and resolution, till the night gave
+    the Dutch an opportunity of retiring, with the loss of one flagship,
+    and six other men of war. The English had many vessels damaged, but
+    none lost. On board Lawson's ship were killed one hundred men, and as
+    many on board Blake's, who lost his captain and secretary, and himself
+    received a wound in the thigh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Blake, having set ashore his wounded men, sailed in pursuit of Van
+    Trump, who sent his convoy before, and himself retired fighting
+    towards Bulloign. Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the
+    merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day,
+    the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which
+    Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the
+    peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals. The
+    accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the
+    Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and
+    more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they
+    suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated
+    defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and
+    obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and
+    the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake,
+    with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the
+    administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust,
+    and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments.
+    "It is not," said Blake, "the business of a sea-man to mind state
+    affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." This was the
+    principle from which he never deviated, and which he always
+    endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of
+    unanimity and steadiness. "Disturb not one another with domestick
+    disputes, but remember that we are English, and our enemies are
+    foreigners. Enemies! which, let what party soever prevail, it is
+    equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain."
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the 30th of April, 1653, Blake, Monk, and Dean sailed out of the
+    English harbours with one hundred men of war, and finding the Dutch
+    with seventy sail on their own coasts, drove them to the Texel, and
+    took fifty doggers. Then they sailed northward in pursuit of Van
+    Trump, who, having a fleet of merchants under his convoy, durst not
+    enter the Channel, but steered towards the Sound, and, by great
+    dexterity and address, escaped the three English admirals, and
+    brought all his ships into their harbour; then, knowing that Blake was
+    still in the north, came before Dover, and fired upon that town, but
+    was driven off by the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Monk and Dean stationed themselves again at the mouth of the Texel,
+    and blocked up the Dutch in their own ports with eighty sail; but
+    hearing that Van Trump was at Goree, with one hundred and twenty men
+    of war, they ordered all ships of force in the river and ports to
+    repair to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On June the 3rd, the two fleets came to an engagement, in the
+    beginning of which Dean was carried off by a cannon-ball; yet the
+    fight continued from about twelve to six in the afternoon, when the
+    Dutch gave way, and retreated fighting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 4th, in the afternoon, Blake came up with eighteen fresh ships,
+    and procured the English a complete victory; nor could the Dutch any
+    otherwise preserve their ships than by retiring, once more, into the
+    flats and shallows, where the largest of the English vessels could not
+    approach.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this battle Van Trump boarded viceadmiral Penn; but was beaten off,
+    and himself boarded, and reduced to blow up his decks, of which the
+    English had got possession. He was then entered, at once, by Penn and
+    another; nor could possibly have escaped, had not De Ruyter and De
+    Witt arrived at that instant, and rescued him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However the Dutch may endeavour to extenuate their loss in this
+    battle, by admitting no more than eight ships to have been taken or
+    destroyed, it is evident that they must have received much greater
+    damages, not only by the accounts of more impartial historians, but by
+    the remonstrances and exclamations of their admirals themselves; Van
+    Trump declaring before the states, that "without a numerous
+    reinforcement of large men of war, he could serve them no more;" and
+    De Witt crying out before them, with the natural warmth of his
+    character: "Why should I be silent before my lords and masters? The
+    English are our masters, and by consequence masters of the sea."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In November, 1654, Blake was sent by Cromwell into the Mediterranean,
+    with a powerful fleet, and may be said to have received the homage of
+    all that part of the world, being equally courted by the haughty
+    Spaniards, the surly Dutch, and the lawless Algerines.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In March, 1656, having forced Algiers to submission, he entered the
+    harbour of Tunis, and demanded reparation for the robberies practised
+    upon the English by the pirates of that place, and insisted that the
+    captives of his nation should be set at liberty. The governour, having
+    planted batteries along the shore, and drawn up his ships under the
+    castles, sent Blake an haughty and insolent answer: "there are our
+    castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino," said he, "upon which you may do
+    your worst;" adding other menaces and insults, and mentioning, in
+    terms of ridicule, the inequality of a fight between ships and
+    castles. Blake had, likewise, demanded leave to take in water, which
+    was refused him. Fired with this inhuman and insolent treatment, he
+    curled his whiskers, as was his custom when he was angry, and,
+    entering Porto Ferino with his great ships, discharged his shot so
+    fast upon the batteries and castles, that in two hours the guns were
+    dismounted, and the works forsaken, though he was, at first, exposed
+    to the fire of sixty cannon. He then ordered his officers to send out
+    their long boats, well manned, to seize nine of the piratical ships
+    lying in the road, himself continuing to fire upon the castle. This
+    was so bravely executed, that, with the loss of only twenty-five men
+    killed, and forty-eight wounded, all the ships were fired in the sight
+    of Tunis. Thence sailing to Tripoli, he concluded a peace with that
+    nation; then returning to Tunis, he found nothing but submission. And
+    such, indeed, was his reputation, that he met with no further
+    opposition, but collected a kind of tribute from the princes of those
+    countries, his business being to demand reparation for all the
+    injuries offered to the English during the civil wars. He exacted from
+    the duke of Tuscany 60,000<i>l</i>. and, as it is said, sent home
+    sixteen ships laden with the effects which he had received from
+    several states.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The respect with which he obliged all foreigners to treat his
+    countrymen, appears from a story related by bishop Burnet. When he lay
+    before Malaga, in a time of peace with Spain, some of his sailors went
+    ashore, and meeting a procession of the host, not only refused to pay
+    any respect to it, but laughed at those that did. The people, being
+    put, by one of the priests, upon resenting this indignity, fell upon
+    them and beat them severely. When they returned to their ship, they
+    complained of their ill treatment; upon which Blake sent to demand the
+    priest who had procured it. The viceroy answered that, having no
+    authority over the priests, he could not send him: to which Blake
+    replied, "that he did not inquire into the extent of the viceroy's
+    authority, but that, if the priest were not sent within three hours,
+    he would burn the town." The viceroy then sent the priest to him, who
+    pleaded the provocation given by the seamen. Blake bravely and
+    rationally answered, that if he had complained to him, he would have
+    punished them severely, for he would not have his men affront the
+    established religion of any place; but that he was angry that the
+    Spaniards should assume that power, for he would have all the world
+    know, "that an Englishman was only to be punished by an Englishman."
+    So, having used the priest civilly, he sent him back, being satisfied
+    that he was in his power. This conduct so much pleased Cromwell, that
+    he read the letter in council with great satisfaction, and said, "he
+    hoped to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a
+    Roman had been."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1650, the protector, having declared war against Spain, despatched
+    Blake, with twenty-five men of war, to infest their coasts, and
+    intercept their shipping. In pursuance of these orders he cruised all
+    winter about the straits, and then lay at the mouth of the harbour of
+    Cales, where he received intelligence, that the Spanish Plata fleet
+    lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the isle of Teneriffe. On
+    the 13th of April, 1657, he departed from Cales, and, on the 20th,
+    arrived at Santa Cruz, where he found sixteen Spanish vessels. The bay
+    was defended on the north side by a castle, well mounted with cannon,
+    and in other parts with seven forts, with cannon proportioned to the
+    bigness, all united by a line of communication manned with musketeers.
+    The Spanish admiral drew up his small ships under the cannon of the
+    castle, and stationed six great galleons with their broadsides to the
+    sea: an advantageous and prudent disposition, but of little effect
+    against the English commander; who, determining to attack them,
+    ordered Stayner to enter the bay with his squadron: then posting some
+    of his larger ships to play upon the fortifications, himself attacked
+    the galleons, which, after a gallant resistance, were, at length,
+    abandoned by the Spaniards, though the least of them was bigger than
+    the biggest of Blake's ships. The forts and smaller vessels being now
+    shattered and forsaken, the whole fleet was set on fire, the galleons
+    by Blake, and the smaller vessels by Stayner, the English vessels
+    being too much shattered in the fight to bring them away. Thus was the
+    whole Plata fleet destroyed, "and the Spaniards," according to Rapin's
+    remark, "sustained a great loss of ships, money, men, and merchandise,
+    while the English gained nothing but glory;" as if he that increases
+    the military reputation of a people, did not increase their power, and
+    he that weakens his enemy, in effect, strengthens himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The whole action," says Clarendon, "was so incredible, that all men,
+    who knew the place, wondered that any sober man, with what courage
+    soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it, and they could hardly
+    persuade themselves to believe what they had done; while the Spaniards
+    comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils, and not
+    men, who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong
+    resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no
+    resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can
+    hardly be imagined bow small a loss the English sustained in this
+    unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed
+    and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter, on
+    board the Spanish ships and on shore, was incredible." The general
+    cruised, for some time afterwards, with his victorious fleet, at the
+    mouth of Cales, to intercept the Spanish shipping; but, finding his
+    constitution broken, by the fatigue of the last three years,
+    determined to return home, and died before he came to land.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His body was embalmed, and having lain some time in state at Greenwich
+    house, was buried in Henry the seventh's chapel, with all the funeral
+    solemnity due to the remains of a man so famed for his bravery, and so
+    spotless in his integrity; nor is it without regret, that I am obliged
+    to relate the treatment his body met, a year after the restoration,
+    when it was taken up by express command, and buried in a pit in St.
+    Margaret's church-yard. Had he been guilty of the murder of Charles
+    the first, to insult his body had been a mean revenge; but, as he was
+    innocent, it was, at least, inhumanity, and, perhaps, ingratitude.
+    "Let no man," says the oriental proverb, "pull a dead lion by the
+    beard."
+</p>
+<p>
+    But that regard which was denied his body, has been paid to his better
+    remains, his name and his memory. Nor has any writer dared to deny him
+    the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of
+    his country. "He was the first man," says Clarendon, "that declined
+    the old track, and made it apparent that the sciences might be
+    attained in less time than was imagined. He was the first man that
+    brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever been thought
+    very formidable, but were discovered by him to make a noise only, and
+    to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first
+    that infused that proportion of courage into seamen, by making them
+    see, by experience, what mighty things they could do, if they were
+    resolved; and taught them to fight in fire, as well as upon the water;
+    and, though he has been very well imitated and followed, was the first
+    that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and
+    resolute achievements."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this attestation of his military excellence, it may be proper to
+    subjoin an account of his moral character, from the author of Lives,
+    English and Foreign. "He was jealous," says that writer, "of the
+    liberty of the subject, and the glory of his nation; and as he made
+    use of no mean artifices to raise himself to the highest command at
+    sea, so he needed no interest but his merit to support him in it. He
+    scorned nothing more than money, which, as fast as it came in, was
+    laid out by him in the service of the state, and to show that he was
+    animated by that brave, publick spirit, which has since been reckoned
+    rather romantick than heroick. And he was so disinterested, that
+    though no man had more opportunities to enrich himself than he, who
+    had taken so many millions from the enemies of England, yet he threw
+    it all into the publick treasury, and did not die five hundred pounds
+    richer than his father left him; which the author avers, from his
+    personal knowledge of his family and their circumstances, having been
+    bred up in it, and often heard his brother give this account of him.
+    He was religious, according to the pretended purity of these times,
+    but would frequently allow himself to be merry with his officers, and,
+    by his tenderness and generosity to the seamen, had so endeared
+    himself to them, that, when he died, they lamented his loss, as that
+    of a common father."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Instead of more testimonies, his character may be properly concluded
+    with one incident of his life, by which it appears how much the spirit
+    of Blake was superiour to all private views. His brother, in the last
+    action with the Spaniards, having not done his duty, was, at Blake's
+    desire, discarded, and the ship was given to another; yet was he not
+    less regardful of him as a brother, for, when he died, he left him his
+    estate, knowing him well qualified to adorn or enjoy a private
+    fortune, though he had found him unfit to serve his country in a
+    publick character, and had, therefore, not suffered him to rob it.
+</p>
+<hr>
+<p>
+    The following brief synopsis of Blake's life, differing, in some
+    slight particulars, from Johnson's memoir, is taken from Aubrey's
+    Letters, ii. p. 241.
+</p>
+<center>
+    ADMIRALL BLAKE.
+</center>
+<p>
+    Was borne at ... in com. Somerset, was of Albon hall, in Oxford. He
+    was there a young man of strong body, and good parts. He was an early
+    riser, and studyed well, but also took his robust pleasures of fishing
+    and fowling, &amp;c. He would steale swannes <a href="#note-43">[43]</a>&mdash;He served in the house
+    of comons for.... A°. Dni ... he was made admiral! He did the greatest
+    actions at sea that ever were done. He died A°. Dni ... and was buried
+    in K.H. 7th's chapell; but upon the returne of the kinge, his body was
+    taken up again and removed by Mr. Wells' occasion, and where it is
+    now, I know not. Qu. Mr. Wells of Bridgewater?&mdash;Ed.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_33"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    SIR FRANCIS DRAKE <a href="#note-44">[44]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Francis Drake was the son of a clergyman, in Devonshire, who being
+    inclined to the doctrine of the protestants, at that time much opposed
+    by Henry the eighth, was obliged to fly from his place of residence
+    into Kent, for refuge, from the persecution raised against him, and
+    those of the same opinion, by the law of the six articles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How long he lived there, or how he was supported, was not known; nor
+    have we any account of the first years of sir Francis Drake's life, of
+    any disposition to hazards and adventures which might have been
+    discovered in his childhood, or of the education which qualified him
+    for such wonderful attempts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We are only informed, that he was put apprentice, by his father, to
+    the master of a small vessel, that traded to France and the Low
+    Countries, under whom he, probably, learned the rudiments of
+    navigation, and familiarized himself to the dangers and hardships of
+    the sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But how few opportunities soever he might have, in this part of his
+    life, for the exercise of his courage, he gave so many proofs of
+    diligence and fidelity, that his master, dying unmarried, left him his
+    little vessel, in reward of his services; a circumstance that deserves
+    to be remembered, not only as it may illustrate the private character
+    of this brave man, but as it may hint, to all those, who may hereafter
+    propose his conduct for their imitation, that virtue is the surest
+    foundation both of reputation and fortune, and that the first step to
+    greatness is to be honest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If it were not improper to dwell longer on an incident, at the first
+    view so inconsiderable, it might be added, that it deserves the
+    reflection of those, who, when they are engaged in affairs not
+    adequate to their abilities, pass them over with a contemptuous
+    neglect, and while they amuse themselves with chimerical schemes, and
+    plans of future undertakings, suffer every opportunity of smaller
+    advantage to slip away, as unworthy their regard. They may learn, from
+    the example of Drake, that diligence in employments of less
+    consequence, is the most successful introduction to greater
+    enterprises.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After having followed, for some time, his master's profession, he grew
+    weary of so narrow a province, and, having sold his little vessel,
+    ventured his effects in the new trade to the West Indies, which,
+    having not been long discovered, and very little frequented by the
+    English, till that time, were conceived so much to abound in wealth,
+    that no voyage thither could fail of being recompensed by great
+    advantages. Nothing was talked of among the mercantile or adventurous
+    part of mankind, but the beauty and riches of the new world. Fresh
+    discoveries were frequently made, new countries and nations never
+    heard of before, were daily described, and it may easily be concluded,
+    that the relaters did not diminish the merit of their attempts, by
+    suppressing or diminishing any circumstance that might produce wonder,
+    or excite curiosity. Nor was their vanity only engaged in raising
+    admirers, but their interest, likewise, in procuring adventurers, who
+    were, indeed, easily gained by the hopes which naturally arise from
+    new prospects, though, through ignorance of the American seas, and by
+    the malice of the Spaniards, who, from the first discovery of those
+    countries, considered every other nation that attempted to follow
+    them, as invaders of their rights, the best concerted designs often
+    miscarried.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among those who suffered most from the Spanish injustice, was captain
+    John Hawkins, who, having been admitted, by the viceroy, to traffick
+    in the bay of Mexico, was, contrary to the stipulation then made
+    between them, and in violation of the peace between Spain and England,
+    attacked without any declaration of hostilities, and obliged, after an
+    obstinate resistance, to retire with the loss of four ships, and a
+    great number of his men, who were either destroyed or carried into
+    slavery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this voyage Drake had adventured almost all his fortune, which he
+    in vain endeavoured to recover, both by his own private interest, and
+    by obtaining letters from queen Elizabeth; for the Spaniards, deaf to
+    all remonstrances, either vindicated the injustice of the viceroy, or,
+    at least, forbore to redress it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, thus oppressed and impoverished, retained, at least, his
+    courage and his industry, that ardent spirit that prompted him to
+    adventures, and that indefatigable patience that enabled him to
+    surmount difficulties. He did not sit down idly to lament misfortunes
+    which heaven had put it in his power to remedy, or to repine at
+    poverty, while the wealth of his enemies was to be gained. But having
+    made two voyages to America, for the sake of gaining intelligence of
+    the state of the Spanish settlements, and acquainted himself with the
+    seas and coasts, he determined on a third expedition of more
+    importance, by which the Spaniards should find how imprudently they
+    always act, who injure and insult a brave man.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 24th of May, 1572, Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, in the
+    Pascha, of seventy tons, accompanied by the Swan, of twenty-five tons,
+    commanded by his brother John Drake, having, in both the vessels,
+    seventy-three men and boys, with a year's provision, and such
+    artillery and ammunition, as was necessary for his undertaking, which,
+    however incredible it may appear to such as consider rather his force
+    than his fortitude, was no less than to make reprisals upon the most
+    powerful nation in the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wind continuing favourable, they entered, June 29th, between
+    Guadaloupe and Dominica, and, on July 6th, saw the highland of Santa
+    Martha; then continuing their course, after having been becalmed for
+    some time, they arrived at port Pheasant, so named by Drake, in a
+    former voyage to the east of Nombre de Dios. Here he proposed to build
+    his pinnaces, which he had brought in pieces ready framed from
+    Plymouth, and was going ashore, with a few men unarmed, but,
+    discovering a smoke at a distance, ordered the other boat to follow
+    him with a greater force.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then marching towards the fire, which was in the top of a high tree,
+    he found a plate of lead nailed to another tree, with an inscription
+    engraved upon it by one Garret, an Englishman, who had left that place
+    but five days before, and had taken this method of informing him, that
+    the Spaniards had been advertised of his intention to anchor at that
+    place, and that it, therefore, would be prudent to make a very short
+    stay there.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But Drake, knowing how convenient this place was for his designs, and
+    considering that the hazard and waste of time, which could not be
+    avoided, in seeking another station, was equivalent to any other
+    danger which was to be apprehended from the Spaniards, determined to
+    follow his first resolution; only, for his greater security, he
+    ordered a kind of palisade, or fortification, to be made, by felling
+    large trees, and laying the trunks and branches, one upon another, by
+    the side of the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On July 20th, having built their pinnaces, and being joined by one
+    captain Rause, who happened to touch at the same place, with a bark of
+    fifty men, they set sail towards Nombre de Dios, and, taking two
+    frigates at the island of Pines, were informed by the negroes, which
+    they found in them, that the inhabitants of that place were in
+    expectation of some soldiers, which the governour of Panama had
+    promised, to defend them from the Symerons, or fugitive negroes, who,
+    having escaped from the tyranny of their masters, in great numbers,
+    had settled themselves under two kings, or leaders, on each side of
+    the way between Nombre de Dios and Panama, and not only asserted their
+    natural right to liberty and independence, but endeavoured to revenge
+    the cruelties they had suffered, and had lately put the inhabitants of
+    Nombre de Dios into the utmost consternation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These negroes the captain set on shore on the mainland, so that they
+    might, by joining the Symerons, recover their liberty, or, at least,
+    might not have it in their power to give the people of Nombre de Dios
+    any speedy information of his intention to invade them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then selecting fifty-three men from his own company, and twenty from
+    the crew of his new associate, captain Rause, he embarked with them,
+    in his pinnaces, and set sail for Nombre de Dios.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On July the 28th, at night, he approached the town, undiscovered, and
+    dropt his anchors under the shore, intending, after his men were
+    refreshed, to begin the attack; but finding that they were terrifying
+    each other with formidable accounts of the strength of the place, and
+    the multitude of the inhabitants, he determined to hinder the panick
+    from spreading further by leading them immediately to action; and,
+    therefore, ordering them to their pars, he landed without any
+    opposition, there being only one gunner upon the bay, though it was
+    secured with six brass cannons of the largest size, ready mounted. But
+    the gunner, while they were throwing the cannons from their carriages,
+    alarmed the town, as they soon discovered by the bell, the drums, and
+    the noise of the people. Drake, leaving twelve men to guard the
+    pinnaces, marched round the town, with no great opposition, the men
+    being more hurt by treading on the weapons, left on the ground by the
+    flying enemy, than by the resistance which they encountered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length, having taken some of the Spaniards, Drake commanded them to
+    show him the governour's house, where the mules that bring the silver
+    from Panama were unloaded; there they found the door open, and,
+    entering the room where the silver was reposited, found it heaped up
+    in bars, in such quantities as almost exceed belief, the pile being,
+    they conjectured, seventy feet in length, ten in breadth, and twelve
+    in height, each bar weighing between thirty and forty-five pounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is easy to imagine, that, at the sight of this treasure, nothing
+    was thought on by the English, but by what means they might best
+    convey it to their boats; and, doubtless, it was not easy for Drake,
+    who, considering their distance from the shore and the number of their
+    enemies, was afraid of being intercepted in his retreat, to hinder his
+    men from encumbering themselves with so much silver as might have
+    retarded their march and obstructed the use of their weapons; however,
+    by promising to lead them to the king's treasurehouse, where there was
+    gold and jewels to a far greater value, and where the treasure was not
+    only more portable, but nearer the coast, he persuaded them to follow
+    him, and rejoin the main body of his men, then drawn up under the
+    command of his brother in the market-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here he found his little troop much discouraged by the imagination,
+    that, if they stayed any longer, the enemy would gain possession of
+    their pinnaces, and that they should then, without any means of
+    safety, be left to stand alone against the whole power of that
+    country. Drake, not, indeed, easily terrified, but sufficiently
+    cautious, sent to the coast to inquire the truth, and see if the same
+    terrour had taken possession of the men whom he had left to guard his
+    boats; but, finding no foundation for these dreadful apprehensions, he
+    persisted in his first design, and led the troop forward to the
+    treasurehouse. In their way, there fell a violent shower of rain,
+    which wet some of their bowstrings, and extinguished many of their
+    matches; a misfortune which might soon have been repaired, and which,
+    perhaps, the enemy might suffer in common with them, but which,
+    however, on this occasion, very much embarrassed them, as the delay
+    produced by it repressed that ardour which, sometimes, is only to be
+    kept up by continued action, and gave time to the timorous and
+    slothful to spread their insinuations and propagate their cowardice.
+    Some, whose fear was their predominant passion, were continually
+    magnifying the numbers and courage of their enemies, and represented
+    whole nations as ready to rush upon them; others, whose avarice
+    mingled with their concern for their own safety, were more solicitous
+    to preserve what they had already gained, than to acquire more; and
+    others, brave in themselves and resolute, began to doubt of success in
+    an undertaking, in which they were associated with such cowardly
+    companions. So that scarcely any man appeared to proceed in their
+    enterprise with that spirit and alacrity which could give Drake a
+    prospect of success.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This he perceived, and, with some emotion, told them, that if, after
+    having had the chief treasure of the world within their reach, they
+    should go home and languish in poverty, they could blame nothing but
+    their own cowardice; that he had performed his part, and was still
+    desirous to lead them on to riches and to honour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then finding that either shame or conviction made them willing to
+    follow him, he ordered the treasurehouse to be forced, and commanding
+    his brother, and Oxenham, of Plymouth, a man known afterwards for his
+    bold adventures in the same parts, to take charge of the treasure, he
+    commanded the other body to follow him to the market-place, that he
+    might be ready to oppose any scattered troops of the Spaniards, and
+    hinder them from uniting into one body.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, as he stepped forward, his strength failed him on a sudden, and
+    he fell down speechless. Then it was that his companions perceived a
+    wound in his leg, which he had received in the first encounter, but
+    hitherto concealed, lest his men, easily discouraged, should make
+    their concern for his life a pretence for returning to their boats.
+    Such had been his loss of blood, as was discovered upon nearer
+    observation, that it had filled the prints of his footsteps, and it
+    appeared scarce credible that, after such effusion of blood, life
+    should remain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bravest were now willing to retire: neither the desire of honour
+    nor of riches, was thought enough to prevail in any man over his
+    regard for his leader. Drake, whom cordials had now restored to his
+    speech, was the only man who could not be prevailed on to leave the
+    enterprise unfinished. It was to no purpose that they advised him to
+    submit to go on board to have his wound dressed, and promised to
+    return with him and complete their design; he well knew how
+    impracticable it was to regain the opportunity, when it was once lost;
+    and could easily foresee, that a respite, but of a few hours, would
+    enable the Spaniards to recover from their consternation, to assemble
+    their forces, refit their batteries, and remove their treasure. What
+    he had undergone so much danger to obtain was now in his hands, and
+    the thought of leaving it untouched was too mortifying to be patiently
+    borne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However, as there was little time for consultation, and the same
+    danger attended their stay, in that perplexity and confusion, as their
+    return, they bound up his wound with his scarf, and partly by force,
+    partly by entreaty, carried him to the boats, in which they all
+    embarked by break of day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then taking with them, out of the harbour, a ship loaded with wines,
+    they went to the Bastimentes, an island about a league from the town,
+    where they stayed two days to repose the wounded men, and to regale
+    themselves with the fruits, which grew in great plenty in the gardens
+    of that island.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During their stay here, there came over, from the mainland, a Spanish
+    gentleman, sent by the governour, with instructions to inquire whether
+    the captain was that Drake who had been before on their coast; whether
+    the arrows with which many of their men were wounded were not
+    poisoned; and whether they wanted provisions or other necessaries. The
+    messenger, likewise, extolled their courage with the highest
+    encomiums, and expressed his admiration of their daring undertaking.
+    Drake, though he knew the civilities of an enemy are always to be
+    suspected, and that the messenger, amidst all his professions of
+    regard, was no other than a spy, yet knowing that he had nothing to
+    apprehend, treated him with the highest honours that his condition
+    admitted of. In answer to his inquiries, he assured him that he was
+    the same Drake with whose character they were before acquainted, that
+    he was a rigid observer of the laws of war, and never permitted his
+    arrows to be poisoned: he then dismissed him with considerable
+    presents, and told him that, though he had unfortunately failed in
+    this attempt, he would never desist from his design till he had shared
+    with Spain the treasures of America.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They then resolved to return to the isle of Pines, where they had left
+    their ships, and consult about the measures they were now to take; and
+    having arrived, August 1st, at their former station, they dismissed
+    captain Rause, who, judging it unsafe to stay any longer on the coast,
+    desired to be no longer engaged in their designs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But Drake, not to be discouraged from his purpose by a single
+    disappointment, after having inquired of a negro, whom he took on
+    board at Nombre de Dios, the most wealthy settlements, and weakest
+    parts of the coast, resolved to attack Carthagena; and, setting sail
+    without loss of time, came to anchor, August 13th, between Charesha
+    and St. Barnards, two islands at a little distance from the harbour of
+    Carthagena; then passing with his boats round the island, he entered
+    the harbour, and, in the mouth of it, found a frigate with only an old
+    man in it, who voluntarily informed them, that about an hour before a
+    pinnace had passed by with sails and oars, and all the appearance of
+    expedition and importance; that, as she passed, the crew on board her
+    bid them take care of themselves; and that, as soon as she touched the
+    shore, they heard the noise of cannon fired as a warning, and saw the
+    shipping in the port drawn up under the guns of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The captain, who had himself heard the discharge of the artillery, was
+    soon convinced that he was discovered, and that, therefore, nothing
+    could be attempted with any probability of success. He, therefore,
+    contented himself with taking a ship of Seville, of two hundred and
+    forty tons, which the relater of this voyage mentions as a very large
+    ship, and two small frigates, in which he found letters of advice from
+    Nombre de Dios, intended to alarm that part of the coast.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, now finding his pinnaces of great use, and not having a
+    sufficient number of sailors for all his vessels, was desirous of
+    destroying one of his ships, that his pinnaces might be better manned:
+    this, necessary as it was, could not easily be done without disgusting
+    his company, who, having made several prosperous voyages in that
+    vessel, would be unwilling to have it destroyed. Drake well knew that
+    nothing but the love of their leaders could animate his followers to
+    encounter such hardships as he was about to expose them to, and,
+    therefore, rather chose to bring his designs to pass by artifice than
+    authority. He sent for the carpenter of the Swan, took him into his
+    cabin, and, having first engaged him to secrecy, ordered him, in the
+    middle of the night, to go down into the well of the ship, and bore
+    three holes through the bottom, laying something against them that
+    might hinder the bubbling of the water from being heard. To this the
+    carpenter, after some expostulation, consented, and the next night
+    performed his promise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the morning, August 15, Drake, going out with his pinnace a
+    fishing, rowed up to the Swan, and having invited his brother to
+    partake of his diversions, inquired, with a negligent air, why their
+    bark was so deep in the water; upon which the steward going down,
+    returned immediately with an account that the ship was leaky, and in
+    danger of sinking in a little time. They had recourse immediately to
+    the pump; but, having laboured till three in the afternoon, and gained
+    very little upon the water, they willingly, according to Drake's
+    advice, set the vessel on fire, and went on board the pinnaces.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Finding it now necessary to lie concealed for some time, till the
+    Spaniards should forget their danger, and remit their vigilance, they
+    set sail for the sound of Darien, and without approaching the coast,
+    that their course might not be observed, they arrived there in six
+    days.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This being a convenient place for their reception, both on account of
+    privacy, as it was out of the road of all trade, and as it was well
+    supplied with wood, water, wild fowl, hogs, deer, and all kinds of
+    provisions, he stayed here fifteen days to clean his vessels, and
+    refresh his men, who worked interchangeably, on one day the one half,
+    and on the next the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 5th day of September, Drake left his brother with the ship at
+    Darien, and set out with two pinnaces towards the Rio Grande, which
+    they reached in three days, and, on the 9th, were discovered by a
+    Spaniard from the bank, who believing them to be his countrymen, made
+    a signal to them to come on shore, with which they very readily
+    complied; but he, soon finding his mistake, abandoned his plantation,
+    where they found great plenty of provisions, with which, having laden
+    their vessels, they departed. So great was the quantity of provisions
+    which they amassed here and in other places, that in different parts
+    of the coast they built four magazines or storehouses, which they
+    filled with necessaries for the prosecution of their voyage. These
+    they placed at such a distance from each other, that the enemy, if he
+    should surprise one, might yet not discover the rest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the mean time, his brother, captain John Drake, went, according to
+    the instructions that had been left him, in search of the Symerons, or
+    fugitive negroes, from whose assistance alone they had now any
+    prospect of a successful voyage; and touching upon the mainland, by
+    means of the negro whom they had taken from Nombre de Dios, engaged
+    two of them to come on board his pinnace, leaving two of their own men
+    as hostages for their returning. These men, having assured Drake of
+    the affection of their nation, appointed an interview between him and
+    their leaders. So leaving port Plenty, in the isle of Pines, so named
+    by the English from the great stores of provisions which they had
+    amassed at that place, they came, by the direction of the Symerons,
+    into a secret bay, among beautiful islands covered with trees, which
+    concealed their ship from observation, and where the channel was so
+    narrow and rocky, that it was impossible to enter it by night, so that
+    there was no danger of a sudden attack.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here they met, and entered into engagements, which common enemies and
+    common dangers preserved from violation. But the first conversation
+    informed the English, that their expectations were not immediately to
+    be gratified; for, upon their inquiries after the most probable means
+    of gaining gold and silver, the Symerons told them, that had they
+    known sooner the chief end of their expedition, they could easily have
+    gratified them; but that during the rainy season, which was now begun,
+    and which continues six months, they could not recover the treasure,
+    which they had taken from the Spaniards, out of the rivers in which
+    they had concealed it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, therefore, proposing to wait in this place, till the rains were
+    past, built, with the assistance of the Symerons, a fort of earth and
+    timber, and leaving part of his company with the Symerons, set out
+    with three pinnaces towards Carthagena, being of a spirit too active
+    to lie still patiently, even in a state of plenty and security, and
+    with the most probable expectations of immense riches.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 16th of October, he anchored within sight of Carthagena,
+    without landing; and on the 17th, going out to sea, took a Spanish
+    bark, with which they entered the harbour, where they were accosted by
+    a Spanish gentleman, whom they had some time before taken and set at
+    liberty, who coming to them in a boat, as he pretended, without the
+    knowledge of the governour, made them great promises of refreshment
+    and professions of esteem; but Drake, having waited till the next
+    morning, without receiving the provisions he had been prevailed upon
+    to expect, found that all this pretended kindness was no more than a
+    stratagem to amuse him, while the governour was raising forces for his
+    destruction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    October 20, they took two frigates coming out of Carthagena, without
+    lading. Why the Spaniards, knowing Drake to lie at the mouth of the
+    harbour, sent out their vessels on purpose to be taken, does not
+    appear. Perhaps they thought that, in order to keep possession of his
+    prizes, he would divide his company, and by that division be more
+    easily destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a few hours afterwards they sent out two frigates well manned,
+    which Drake soon forced to retire, and, having sunk one of his prizes,
+    and burnt the other in their sight, leaped afterwards ashore, single,
+    in defiance of their troops, which hovered at a distance in the woods
+    and on the hills, without ever venturing to approach within reach of
+    the shot from the pinnaces.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To leap upon an enemy's coast in sight of a superiour force, only to
+    show how little they were feared, was an act that would, in these
+    times, meet with little applause, nor can the general be seriously
+    commended, or rationally vindicated, who exposes his person to
+    destruction, and, by consequence, his expedition to miscarriage, only
+    for the pleasure of an idle insult, an insignificant bravado. All that
+    can be urged in his defence is, that, perhaps, it might contribute to
+    heighten the esteem of his followers, as few men, especially of that
+    class, are philosophical enough to state the exact limits of prudence
+    and bravery, or not to be dazzled with an intrepidity, how improperly
+    soever exerted. It may be added, that, perhaps, the Spaniards, whose
+    notions of courage are sufficiently romantick, might look upon him as
+    a more formidable enemy, and yield more easily to a hero, of whose
+    fortitude they had so high an idea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However, finding the whole country advertised of his attempts, and in
+    arms to oppose him, he thought it not proper to stay longer, where
+    there was no probability of success, and where he might, in time, be
+    overpowered by multitudes, and, therefore, determined to go forward to
+    Rio de Heha.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This resolution, when it was known by his followers, threw them into
+    astonishment; and the company of one of his pinnaces remonstrated to
+    him, that, though they placed the highest confidence in his conduct,
+    they could not think of undertaking such a voyage without provisions,
+    having only a gammon of bacon and a small quantity of bread for
+    seventeen men. Drake answered them, that there was on board his vessel
+    even a greater scarcity; but yet, if they would adventure to share his
+    fortune, he did not doubt of extricating them from all their
+    difficulties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the heroick spirit of Drake, that he never suffered himself
+    to be diverted from his designs by any difficulties, nor ever thought
+    of relieving his exigencies, but at the expense of his enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Resolution and success reciprocally produce each other. He had not
+    sailed more than three leagues, before they discovered a large ship,
+    which they attacked with all the intrepidity that necessity inspires,
+    and, happily, found it laden with excellent provisions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But finding his crew growing faint and sickly, with their manner of
+    living in the pinnaces, which was less commodious than on board the
+    ships, he determined to go back to the Symerons, with whom he left his
+    brother and part of his force, and attempt, by their conduct, to make
+    his way over, and invade the Spaniards in the inland parts, where they
+    would, probably, never dream of an enemy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they arrived at port Diego, so named from the negro who had
+    procured them their intercourse with the Symerons, they found captain
+    John Drake, and one of his company, dead, being killed in attempting,
+    almost unarmed, to board a frigate well provided with all things
+    necessary for its defence. The captain was unwilling to attack it, and
+    represented to them the madness of their proposal; but, being
+    overborne by their clamours and importunities, to avoid the imputation
+    of cowardice, complied to his destruction. So dangerous is it for the
+    chief commander to be absent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor was this their only misfortune, for, in a very short time, many of
+    them were attacked by the calenture, a malignant fever, very frequent
+    in the hot climates, which carried away, among several others, Joseph
+    Drake, another brother of the commander.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While Drake was employed in taking care of the sick men, the Symerons,
+    who ranged the country for intelligence, brought him an account, that
+    the Spanish fleet was arrived at Nombre de Dios; the truth of which
+    was confirmed by a pinnace, which he sent out to make observations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This, therefore, was the time for their journey, when the treasures of
+    the American mines were to be transported from Panama over land to
+    Nombre de Dios. He, therefore, by the direction of the Symerons,
+    furnished himself with all things necessary, and, on February 3, set
+    out from port Diego.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having lost, already, twenty-eight of his company, and being under the
+    necessity of leaving some to guard his ship, he took with him only
+    eighteen English, and thirty Symerons, who not only served as guides
+    to show the way, but as purveyors to procure provisions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They carried not only arrows for war, but for hunting and fowling; the
+    heads of which are proportioned in size to the game which they are
+    pursuing: for oxen, stags, or wild boars, they have arrows or
+    javelins, with heads weighing a pound and half, which they discharge
+    near hand, and which scarcely ever fail of being mortal. The second
+    sort are about half as heavy as the other, and are generally shot from
+    their bows; these are intended for smaller beasts. With the third
+    sort, of which the heads are an ounce in weight, they kill birds. As
+    this nation is in a state that does not set them above continual cares
+    for the immediate necessaries of life, he that can temper iron best,
+    is, among them, most esteemed; and, perhaps, it would be happy for
+    every nation, if honours and applauses were as justly distributed, and
+    he were most distinguished whose abilities were most useful to
+    society. How many chimerical titles to precedence, how many false
+    pretences to respect, would this rule bring to the ground!
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every day, by sunrising, they began to march, and, having travelled
+    till ten, rested near some river till twelve, then travelling again
+    till four, they reposed all night in houses, which the Symerons had
+    either left standing in their former marches, or very readily erected
+    for them, by setting up three or four posts in the ground, and laying
+    poles from one to another in form of a roof, which they thatched with
+    palmetto boughs and plantain leaves. In the valleys, where they were
+    sheltered from the winds, they left three or four feet below open; but
+    on the hills, where they were more exposed to the chill blasts of the
+    night, they thatched them close to the ground, leaving only a door for
+    entrance, and a vent in the middle of the room for the smoke of three
+    fires, which they made in every house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In their march they met not only with plenty of fruits upon the banks
+    of the rivers, but with wild swine in great abundance, of which the
+    Symerons, without difficulty, killed, for the most part, as much as
+    was wanted. One day, however, they found an otter, and were about to
+    dress it; at which Drake expressing his wonder, was asked by Pedro,
+    the chief Symeron: "Are you a man of war and in want, and yet doubt
+    whether this be meat that hath blood in it?" For which Drake in
+    private rebuked him, says the relater; whether justly or not, it is
+    not very important to determine. There seems to be in Drake's scruple
+    somewhat of superstition, perhaps, not easily to be justified; and the
+    negro's answer was, at least martial, and will, I believe, be
+    generally acknowledged to be rational.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the third day of their march, Feb. 6, they came to a town of the
+    Symerons, situated on the side of a hill, and encompassed with a ditch
+    and a mudwall, to secure it from a sudden surprise: here they lived
+    with great neatness and plenty, and some observation of religion,
+    paying great reverence to the cross; a practice which Drake prevailed
+    upon them to change for the use of the Lord's prayer. Here they
+    importuned Drake to stay for a few days, promising to double his
+    strength; but he, either thinking greater numbers unnecessary, or,
+    fearing that, if any difference should arise, he should be overborne
+    by the number of Symerons; or that they would demand to share the
+    plunder that should be taken in common; or for some other reason that
+    might easily occur, refused any addition to his troop, endeavouring to
+    express his refusal in such terms as might heighten their opinion of
+    his bravery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then proceeded on his journey through cool shades and lofty woods,
+    which sheltered them so effectually from the sun, that their march was
+    less toilsome than if they had travelled in England during the heat of
+    the summer. Four of the Symerons, that were acquainted with the way,
+    went about a mile before the troop, and scattered branches to direct
+    them; then followed twelve Symerons, after whom came the English, with
+    the two leaders, and the other Symerons closed the rear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On February 11, they arrived at the top of a very high hill, on the
+    summit of which grew a tree of wonderful greatness, in which they had
+    cut steps for the more easy ascent to the top, where there was a kind
+    of tower, to which they invited Drake, and from thence showed him not
+    only the north sea, from whence they came, but the great south sea, on
+    which no English vessel had ever sailed. This prospect exciting his
+    natural curiosity, and ardour for adventures and discoveries, he
+    lifted up his hands to God, and implored his blessing upon the
+    resolution, which he then formed, of sailing in an English ship on
+    that sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then continuing their march, they came, after two days, into an open,
+    level country, where their passage was somewhat incommoded with the
+    grass, which is of a peculiar kind, consisting of a stalk like that of
+    wheat, and a blade on which the oxen and other cattle feed till it
+    grows too high for them to reach; then the inhabitants set it on fire,
+    and in three days it springs up again; this they are obliged to do
+    thrice a year, so great is the fertility of the soil.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length, being within view of Panama, they left all frequented
+    roads, for fear of being discovered, and posted themselves in a grove
+    near the way between Panama and Nombre de Dios; then they sent a
+    Symeron in the habit of a negro of Panama, to inquire on what night
+    the recoes, or drivers of mules, by which the treasure is carried,
+    were to set forth. The messenger was so well qualified for his
+    undertaking, and so industrious in the prosecution of it, that he soon
+    returned, with an account that the treasurer of Lima, intending to
+    return to Europe, would pass that night, with eight mules laden with
+    gold, and one with jewels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having received this information, they immediately marched towards
+    Venta Cruz, the first town on the way to Nombre de Dios; sending, for
+    security, two Symerons before, who, as they went, perceived, by the
+    scent of a match, that some Spaniard was before them, and, going
+    silently forward, surprised a soldier asleep upon the ground. They
+    immediately bound him, and brought him to Drake, who, upon inquiry,
+    found that their spy had not deceived them in his intelligence. The
+    soldier, having informed himself of the captain's name, conceived such
+    a confidence in his well known clemency, that, after having made an
+    ample discovery of the treasure that was now at hand, he petitioned
+    not only that he would command the Symerons to spare his life, but
+    that, when the treasure should fall into his hands, he would allow him
+    as much as might maintain him and his mistress, since they were about
+    to gain more than their whole company could carry. Drake then ordered
+    his men to lie down in the long grass, about fifty paces from the
+    road, half on one side, with himself, and half on the other, with
+    Oxenham and the captain of the Symerons, so much behind, that one
+    company might seize the foremost recoe, and the other the hindermost;
+    for the mules of these recoes, or drivers, being tied together, travel
+    on a line, and are all guided by leading the first.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they had lain about an hour in this place, they began to hear the
+    bells of the mules on each hand; upon which orders were given, that
+    the drove which came from Venta Cruz should pass unmolested, because
+    they carried nothing of great value, and those only be intercepted
+    which were travelling thither; and that none of the men should rise
+    up, till the signal should be given. But one Robert Pike, heated with
+    strong liquor, left his company, and prevailed upon one of the
+    Symerons to creep with him to the wayside, that they might signalize
+    themselves by seizing the first mule; and hearing the trampling of a
+    horse, as he lay, could not be restrained by the Symeron from rising
+    up to observe who was passing by. This he did so imprudently, that he
+    was discovered by the passenger; for, by Drake's order, the English
+    had put their shirts on over their coats, that the night and tumult
+    might not hinder them from knowing one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The gentleman was immediately observed by Drake to change his trot
+    into a gallop; but, the reason of it not appearing, it was imputed to
+    his fear of the robbers that usually infest that road, and the English
+    still continued to expect the treasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a short time, one of the recoes, that were passing towards Venta
+    Cruz, came up, and was eagerly seized by the English, who expected
+    nothing less than half the revenue of the Indies; nor is it easy to
+    imagine their mortification and perplexity, when they found only two
+    mules laden with silver, the rest having no other burden than
+    provisions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The driver was brought immediately to the captain, and informed him
+    that the horseman, whom he had observed pass by with so much
+    precipitation, had informed the treasurer of what he had observed, and
+    advised him to send back the mules that carried his gold and jewels,
+    and suffer only the rest to proceed, that he might, by that cheap
+    experiment, discover whether there was any ambush on the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That Drake was not less disgusted than his followers at the
+    disappointment, cannot be doubted; but there was now no time to be
+    spent in complaints. The whole country was alarmed, and all the force
+    of the Spaniards was summoned to overwhelm him. He had no fortress to
+    retire to; every man was his enemy; and every retreat better known to
+    the Spaniards than to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was an occasion that demanded all the qualities of an hero, an
+    intrepidity never to be shaken, and a judgment never to be perplexed.
+    He immediately considered all the circumstances of his present
+    situation, and found that it afforded him only the choice of marching
+    back the same way through which he came, or of forcing his passage to
+    Venta Cruz.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To march back, was to confess the superiority of his enemies, and to
+    animate them to the pursuit; the woods would afford opportunities of
+    ambush, and his followers must often disperse themselves in search of
+    provisions, who would become an easy prey, dispirited by their
+    disappointment, and fatigued by their march. On the way to Venta Cruz,
+    he should have nothing to fear but from open attacks, and expected
+    enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Determining, therefore, to pass forward to Venta Cruz, he asked Pedro,
+    the leader of the Symerons, whether he was resolved to follow him;
+    and, having received from him the strongest assurances that nothing
+    should separate them, commanded his men to refresh themselves, and
+    prepare to set forward.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they came within a mile of the town, they dismissed the mules,
+    which they had made use of for their more easy and speedy passage, and
+    continued their march along a road cut through thick woods, in which a
+    company of soldiers, who were quartered in the place to defend it
+    against the Symerons, had posted themselves, together with a convent
+    of friars headed by one of their brethren, whose zeal against the
+    northern heresy had incited him to hazard his person, and assume the
+    province of a general.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, who was advertised by two Symerons, whom he sent before, of the
+    approach of the Spaniards, commanded his followers to receive the
+    first volley without firing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a short time, he heard himself summoned by the Spanish captain to
+    yield, with a promise of protection and kind treatment; to which he
+    answered with defiance, contempt, and the discharge of his pistol.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Immediately the Spaniards poured in their shot, by which only one man
+    was killed, and Drake, with some others, slightly wounded; upon which
+    the signal was given by Drake's whistle to fall upon them. The
+    English, after discharging their arrows and shot, pressed furiously
+    forward, and drove the Spaniards before them; which the Symerons, whom
+    the terrour of the shot had driven to some distance, observed, and
+    recalling their courage, animated each other with songs in their own
+    language, and rushed forward with such impetuosity, that they overtook
+    them near the town, and, supported by the English, dispersed them with
+    the loss of only one man, who, after he had received his wound, had
+    strength and resolution left to kill his assailant.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They pursued the enemy into the town, in which they met with some
+    plunder, which was given to the Symerons; and treated the inhabitants
+    with great clemency, Drake himself going to the Spanish ladies, to
+    assure them that no injuries should be offered them; so inseparable is
+    humanity from true courage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having thus broken the spirits, and scattered the forces of the
+    Spaniards, he pursued his march to his ship, without any apprehension
+    of danger, yet with great speed, being very solicitous about the state
+    of the crew; so that he allowed his men, harassed as they were, but
+    little time for sleep or refreshment, but by kind exhortations, gentle
+    authority, and a cheerful participation of all their hardships,
+    prevailed upon them to bear, without murmurs, not only the toil of
+    travelling, but, on some days, the pain of hunger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this march, he owed much of his expedition to the assistance of the
+    Symerons, who being accustomed to the climate, and naturally robust,
+    not only brought him intelligence, and showed the way, but carried
+    necessaries, provided victuals, and built lodgings, and, when any of
+    the English fainted in the way, two of them would carry him between
+    them for two miles together; nor was their valour less than their
+    industry, after they had learned from their English companions to
+    despise the firearms of the Spaniards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they were within five leagues of the ships, they found a town
+    built in their absence by the Symerons, at which Drake consented to
+    halt, sending a Symeron to the ship, with his gold toothpick, as a
+    token, which, though the master knew it, was not sufficient to gain
+    the messenger credit, till, upon examination, he found that the
+    captain, having ordered him to regard no messenger without his
+    handwriting, had engraven his name upon it with the point of his
+    knife. He then sent the pinnace up the river, which they met, and
+    afterwards sent to the town for those whose weariness had made them
+    unable to march further. On February 23, the whole company was
+    reunited; and Drake, whose good or ill success never prevailed over
+    his piety, celebrated their meeting with thanks to God.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, not yet discouraged, now turned his thoughts to new prospects,
+    and, without languishing in melancholy reflections upon his past
+    miscarriages, employed himself in forming schemes for repairing them.
+    Eager of action, and acquainted with man's nature, he never suffered
+    idleness to infect his followers with cowardice, but kept them from
+    sinking under any disappointment, by diverting their attention to some
+    new enterprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Upon consultation with his own men and the Symerons, he found them
+    divided in their opinions; some declaring, that, before they engaged
+    in any new attempt, it was necessary to increase their stores of
+    provisions; and others urging, that the ships, in which the treasure
+    was conveyed, should be immediately attacked. The Symerons proposed a
+    third plan, and advised him to undertake another march over land to
+    the house of one Pezoro, near Veragua, whose slaves brought him, every
+    day, more than two hundred pounds sterling from the mines, which he
+    heaped together in a strong stone house, which might, by the help of
+    the English, be easily forced.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, being unwilling to fatigue his followers with another journey,
+    determined to comply with both the other opinions; and, manning his
+    two pinnaces, the Bear and the Minion, he sent John Oxenham, in the
+    Bear, towards Tolu, to seize upon provisions; and went himself, in the
+    Minion, to the Cabezas, to intercept the treasure that was to be
+    transported from Veragua and that coast, to the fleet at Nombre de
+    Dios, first dismissing, with presents, those Symerons that desired to
+    return to their wives, and ordering those that chose to remain to be
+    entertained in the ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake took, at the Cabezas, a frigate of Nicaragua, the pilot of which
+    informed him that there was, in the harbour of Veragua, a ship
+    freighted with more than a million of gold, to which he offered to
+    conduct him, being well acquainted with the soundings, if he might be
+    allowed his share of the prize; so much was his avarice superiour to
+    his honesty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, after some deliberation, complying with the pilot's
+    importunities, sailed towards the harbour, but had no sooner entered
+    the mouth of it than he heard the report of artillery, which was
+    answered by others at a greater distance; upon which the pilot told
+    him, that they wero discovered, this being the signal appointed by the
+    governour to alarm the coast.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake now thought it convenient to return to the ship, that he might
+    inquire the success of the other pinnace, which he found, with a
+    frigate that she had taken, with twenty-eight fat hogs, two hundred
+    hens, and great store of maize or Indian corn. The vessel itself was
+    so strong and well built, that he fitted it out for war, determining
+    to attack the fleet at Nombre de Dios.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On March the 21st, he set sail, with the new frigate and the Bear,
+    towards the Cabezas, at which he arrived in about two days, and found
+    there Tètu, a Frenchman, with a ship of war, who, after having
+    received from him a supply of water and other necessaries, entreated
+    that he might join with him in his attempt; which Drake consenting to,
+    admitted him to accompany him with twenty of his men, stipulating to
+    allow them an equal share of whatever booty they should gain. Yet were
+    they not without some suspicions of danger from this new ally, he
+    having eighty men, and they being now reduced to thirty-one.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then manning the frigate and two pinnaces, they set sail for the
+    Cabezas, where they left the frigate, which was too large for the
+    shallows over which they were to pass, and proceeded to Rio Francisco.
+    Here they landed, and, having ordered the pinnaces to return to the
+    same place on the fourth day following, travelled through the woods
+    towards Nombre de Dios, with such silence and regularity as surprised
+    the French, who did not imagine the Symerons so discreet or obedient
+    as they appeared, and were, therefore, in perpetual anxiety about the
+    fidelity of their guides, and the probability of their return. Nor did
+    the Symerons treat them with that submission and regard which they
+    paid to the English, whose bravery and conduct they had already tried.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length, after a laborious march of more than seven leagues, they
+    began to hear the hammers of the carpenters in the bay, it being the
+    custom, in that hot season, to work in the night; and, in a short
+    time, they perceived the approach of the recoes, or droves of mules,
+    from Panama. They now no longer doubted that their labours would be
+    rewarded, and every man imagined himself secure from poverty and
+    labour for the remaining part of his life. They, therefore, when the
+    mules came up, rushed out and seized them, with an alacrity
+    proportioned to their expectations. The three droves consisted of one
+    hundred and nine mules, each of which carried three hundred pounds'
+    weight of silver. It was to little purpose that the soldiers, ordered
+    to guard the treasure, attempted resistance. After a short combat, in
+    which the French captain and one of the Symerons were wounded, it
+    appeared with how much greater ardour men are animated by interest
+    than fidelity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As it was possible for them to carry away but a small part of this
+    treasure, after having wearied themselves with hiding it in holes and
+    shallow waters, they determined to return by the same way, and,
+    without being pursued, entered the woods, where the French captain,
+    being disabled by his wound, was obliged to stay, two of his company
+    continuing with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they had gone forward about two leagues, the Frenchmen missed
+    another of their company, who, upon inquiry, was known to be
+    intoxicated with wine, and supposed to have lost himself in the woods,
+    by neglecting to observe the guides.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But common prudence not allowing them to hazard the whole company by
+    too much solicitude for a single life, they travelled on towards Rio
+    Francisco, at which they arrived, April the 3rd; but, looking out for
+    their pinnaces, were surprised with the sight of seven Spanish
+    shallops, and immediately concluded, that some intelligence of their
+    motions had been carried to Nombre de Dios, and that these vessels had
+    been fitted out to pursue them, which might, undoubtedly, have
+    overpowered the pinnaces and their feeble crew. Nor did their
+    suspicion stop here; but immediately it occurred to them, that their
+    men had been compelled, by torture, to discover where their frigate
+    and ship were stationed, which, being weakly manned, and without the
+    presence of the chief commander, would fall into their hands, almost
+    without resistance, and all possibility of escaping be entirely cut
+    off.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These reflections sunk the whole company into despair; and every one,
+    instead of endeavouring to break through the difficulties that
+    surrounded him, resigned up himself to his ill fortune; when Drake,
+    whose intrepidity was never to be shaken, and whose reason was never
+    to be surprised or embarrassed, represented to them that, though the
+    Spaniards should have made themselves masters of their pinnaces, they
+    might yet be hindered from discovering the ships. He put them in mind,
+    that the pinnaces could not be taken, the men examined, their
+    examinations compared, the resolutions formed, their vessels sent out,
+    and the ships taken in an instant. Some time must, necessarily, be
+    spent, before the last blow could be struck; and, if that time were
+    not negligently lost, it might be possible for some of them to reach
+    the ships before the enemy, and direct them to change their station.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They were animated with this discourse, by which they discovered that
+    their leader was not without hope; but when they came to look more
+    nearly into their situation, they were unable to conceive upon what it
+    was founded. To pass by land was impossible, as the way lay over high
+    mountains, through thick woods and deep rivers; and they had not a
+    single boat in their power, so that a passage by water seemed equally
+    impracticable. But Drake, whose penetration immediately discovered all
+    the circumstances and inconveniencies of every scheme, soon determined
+    upon the only means of success which their condition afforded them;
+    and ordering his men to make a raft out of the trees that were then
+    floating on the river, offered himself to put off to sea upon it, and
+    cheerfully asked who would accompany him. John Owen, John Smith, and
+    two Frenchmen, who were willing to share his fortune, embarked with
+    him on the raft, which was fitted out with a sail made of a
+    biscuit-sack, and an oar, to direct its course, instead of a rudder.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then having comforted the rest, with assurances of his regard for
+    them, and resolution to leave nothing unattempted for their
+    deliverance, he put off, and after having, with much difficulty,
+    sailed three leagues, descried two pinnaces hasting towards him,
+    which, upon a nearer approach, he discovered to be his own, and
+    perceiving that they anchored behind a point that jutted out into the
+    sea, he put to shore, and, crossing the land on foot, was received, by
+    his company, with that satisfaction, which is only known to those that
+    have been acquainted with dangers and distresses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same night they rowed to Rio Francisco, where they took in the
+    rest, with what treasure they had been able to carry with them through
+    the woods; then sailing back with the utmost expedition, they returned
+    to their frigate, and soon after to their ship, where Drake divided
+    the gold and silver equally between the French and the English.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here they spent about fourteen days in fitting out their frigate more
+    completely, and then dismissing the Spaniards with their ship, lay a
+    few days among the Cabezas; while twelve English and sixteen Symerons
+    travelled, once more, into the country, as well to recover the French
+    captain, whom they had left wounded, as to bring away the treasure
+    which they had hidden in the sands. Drake, whom his company would not
+    suffer to hazard his person in another land expedition, went with them
+    to Rio Francisco, where he found one of the Frenchmen, who had stayed
+    to attend their captain, and was informed by him, upon his inquiries
+    after his fortune, that, half an hour after their separation, the
+    Spaniards came upon them, and easily seized upon the wounded captain;
+    but that his companion might have escaped with him, had he not
+    preferred money to life; for, seeing him throw down a box of jewels
+    that retarded him, he could not forbear taking it up, and with that,
+    and the gold which he had already, was so loaded that he could not
+    escape. With regard to the bars of gold and silver, which they had
+    concealed in the ground, he informed them that two thousand men had
+    been employed in digging for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men, however, either mistrusting the informer's veracity, or
+    confident that what they had hidden could not be found, pursued their
+    journey, but, upon their arrival at the place, found the ground turned
+    up for two miles round, and were able to recover no more than thirteen
+    bars' of silver, and a small quantity of gold. They discovered
+    afterwards, that the Frenchman who was left in the woods, falling
+    afterwards into the hands of the Spaniards, was tortured by them, till
+    he confessed where Drake had concealed his plunder. So fatal to
+    Drake's expedition was the drunkenness of his followers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then, dismissing the French, they passed by Carthagena with their
+    colours flying, and soon after took a frigate laden with provisions
+    and honey, which they valued as a great restorative, and then sailed
+    away to the Cabezas.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here they stayed about a week to clean their vessels, and fit them for
+    a long voyage, determining to set sail for England; and, that the
+    faithful Symerons might not go away unrewarded, broke up their
+    pinnaces, and gave them the iron, the most valuable present in the
+    world, to a nation whose only employments were war and hunting, and
+    amongst whom show and luxury had no place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Pedro, their captain, being desired by Drake to go through the ship,
+    and to choose what he most desired, fixed his eye upon a cimetar, set
+    with diamonds, which the French captain had presented to Drake; and,
+    being unwilling to ask for so valuable a present, offered for it four
+    large quoits, or thick plates of gold, which he had, hitherto,
+    concealed; but Drake, desirous to show him that fidelity is seldom
+    without a recompense, gave it him with the highest professions of
+    satisfaction and esteem. Pedro, receiving it with the utmost
+    gratitude, informed him, that, by bestowing it he had conferred
+    greatness and honour upon him; for, by presenting it to his king, he
+    doubted not of obtaining the highest rank amongst the Symerons. He
+    then persisted in his resolution of leaving the gold, which was
+    generously thrown by Drake into the common stock; for he said, that
+    those, at whose expenses he had been sent out, ought to share in all
+    the gain of the expedition, whatever pretence cavil and chicanery
+    might supply for the appropriation of any part of it. Thus was Drake's
+    character consistent with itself; he was equally superiour to avarice
+    and fear, and through whatever danger he might go in quest of gold, he
+    thought it not valuable enough to be obtained by artifice or
+    dishonesty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They now forsook the coast of America, which for many months they had
+    kept in perpetual alarms, having taken more than two hundred ships, of
+    all sizes, between Carthagena and Nombre de Dios, of which they never
+    destroyed any, unless they were fitted out against them; nor ever
+    detained the prisoners longer than was necessary for their own
+    security or concealment, providing for them in the same manner as for
+    themselves, and protecting them from the malice of the Symerous; a
+    behaviour which humanity dictates, and which, perhaps, even policy
+    cannot disapprove. He must certainly meet with obstinate opposition,
+    who makes it equally dangerous to yield as to resist, and who leaves
+    his enemies no hopes but from victory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What riches they acquired is not particularly related; but it is not
+    to be doubted, that the plunder of so many vessels, together with the
+    silver which they seized at Nombre de Dios, must amount to a very
+    large sum, though the part that was allotted to Drake was not
+    sufficient to lull him in effeminacy, or to repress his natural
+    inclination to adventures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They arrived at Plymouth on the 9th of August, 1573, on Sunday, in the
+    afternoon; and so much were the people delighted with the news of
+    their arrival, that they left the preacher, and ran in crowds to the
+    quay, with shouts and congratulations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake having, in his former expedition, had a view of the south sea,
+    and formed a resolution to sail upon it, did not suffer himself to be
+    diverted from his design by the prospect of any difficulties that
+    might obstruct the attempt, nor any dangers that might attend the
+    execution; obstacles which brave men often find it much more easy to
+    overcome, than secret envy and domestick treachery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake's reputation was now sufficiently advanced to incite detraction
+    and opposition; and it is easy to imagine, that a man by nature
+    superiour to mean artifices, and bred, from his earliest years, to the
+    labour and hardships of a sea-life, was very little acquainted with
+    policy and intrigue, very little versed in the methods of application
+    to the powerful and great, and unable to obviate the practices of
+    those whom his merit had made his enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor are such the only opponents of great enterprises: there are some
+    men, of narrow views and grovelling conceptions, who, without the
+    instigation of personal malice, treat every new attempt, as wild and
+    chimerical, and look upon every endeavour to depart from the beaten
+    track, as the rash effort of a warm imagination, or the glittering
+    speculation of an exalted mind, that may please and dazzle for a time,
+    but can produce no real or lasting advantage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These men value themselves upon a perpetual skepticism, upon believing
+    nothing but their own senses, upon calling for demonstration where it
+    cannot possibly be obtained, and, sometimes, upon holding out against
+    it, when it is laid before them; upon inventing arguments against the
+    success of any new undertaking, and, where arguments cannot be found,
+    upon treating it with contempt and ridicule.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such have been the most formidable enemies of the great benefactors to
+    mankind, and to these we can hardly doubt, but that much of the
+    opposition which Drake met with, is to be attributed; for their
+    notions and discourse are so agreeable to the lazy, the envious, and
+    the timorous, that they seldom fail of becoming popular, and directing
+    the opinions of mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whatsoever were his obstacles, and whatsoever the motives that
+    produced them, it was not till the year 1577, that he was able to
+    assemble a force proportioned to his design, and to obtain a
+    commission from the queen, by which he was constituted captain-general
+    of a fleet, consisting of five vessels, of which the Pelican, admiral,
+    of a hundred tons, was commanded by himself; the Elizabeth,
+    viceadmiral, of eighty tons, by John Winter; the Marigold, of thirty
+    tons, by John Thomas; the Swan, fifty tons, by John Chester; the
+    Christopher, of fifteen tons, by Thomas Moche, the same, as it seems,
+    who was carpenter in the former voyage, and destroyed one of the ships
+    by Drake's direction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These ships, equipped partly by himself, and partly by other private
+    adventurers, he manned with one hundred and sixty-four stout sailors,
+    and furnished with such provisions as he judged necessary for the long
+    voyage in which he was engaged. Nor did he confine his concern to
+    naval stores, or military preparations; but carried with him whatever
+    he thought might contribute to raise in those nations, with which he
+    should have any intercourse, the highest ideas of the politeness and
+    magnificence of his native country. He, therefore, not only procured a
+    complete service of silver, for his own table, and furnished the
+    cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several
+    musicians to accompany him; rightly judging, that nothing would more
+    excite the admiration of any savage and uncivilized people.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having been driven back by a tempest in their first attempt, and
+    obliged to return to Plymouth, to repair the damages which they had
+    suffered, they set sail again from thence on the 13th of December,
+    1577, and, on the 25th, had sight of cape Cantin, in Barbary, from
+    whence they coasted on southward to the island of Mogador, which Drake
+    had appointed for the first place of rendezvous, and on the 27th,
+    brought the whole fleet to anchor, in a harbour on the mainland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They were, soon after their arrival, discovered by the Moors that
+    inhabited those coasts, who sent two of the principal men amongst them
+    on board Drake's ship, receiving, at the same time, two of his company
+    as hostages. These men he not only treated in the most splendid
+    manner, but presented with such things as they appeared most to
+    admire; it being with him an established maxim, to endeavour to
+    secure, in every country, a kind reception to such Englishmen as might
+    come after him, by treating the inhabitants with kindness and
+    generosity; a conduct, at once just and politick, to the neglect of
+    which may be attributed many of the injuries suffered by our sailors
+    in distant countries, which are generally ascribed, rather to the
+    effects of wickedness and folly of our own commanders, than the
+    barbarity of the natives, who seldom fall upon any, unless they have
+    been first plundered or insulted; and, in revenging the ravages of one
+    crew upon another of the same nation, are guilty of nothing but what
+    is countenanced by the example of the Europeans themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But this friendly intercourse was, in appearance, soon broken; for, on
+    the next day, observing the Moors making signals from the land, they
+    sent out their boat, as before, to fetch them to the ship, and one
+    John Fry leaped ashore, intending to become a hostage, as on the
+    former day, when immediately he was seized by the Moors; and the crew,
+    observing great numbers to start up from behind the rock, with weapons
+    in their hands, found it madness to attempt his rescue, and,
+    therefore, provided for their own security by returning to the ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Fry was immediately carried to the king, who, being then in continual
+    expectation of an invasion from Portugal, suspected that these ships
+    were sent only to observe the coast, and discover a proper harbour for
+    the main fleet; but being informed who they were, and whither they
+    were bound, not only dismissed his captive, but made large offers of
+    friendship and assistance, which Drake, however, did not stay to
+    receive, but, being disgusted at this breach of the laws of commerce,
+    and afraid of further violence, after having spent some days in
+    searching for his man, in which he met with no resistance, left the
+    coast on December 31, some time before Fry's return, who, being
+    obliged by this accident to somewhat a longer residence among the
+    Moors, was afterwards sent home in a merchant's ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On January 16, they arrived at cape Blanc, having in their passage
+    taken several Spanish vessels. Here, while Drake was employing his men
+    in catching fish, of which this coast affords great plenty, and
+    various kinds, the inhabitants came down to the seaside with their
+    alisorges, or leather bottles, to traffick for water, which they were
+    willing to purchase with ambergris and other gums. But Drake,
+    compassionating the misery of their condition, gave them water,
+    whenever they asked for it, and left them their commodities to
+    traffick with, when they should be again reduced to the same distress,
+    without finding the same generosity to relieve them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here, having discharged some Spanish ships, which they had taken, they
+    set sail towards the isles of cape Verd, and, on January 28, came to
+    anchor before Mayo, hoping to furnish themselves with fresh water; but
+    having landed, they found the town by the waterside entirely deserted,
+    and, marching further up the country, saw the valleys extremely
+    fruitful, and abounding with ripe figs, cocoas, and plantains, but
+    could by no means prevail upon the inhabitants to converse or traffick
+    with them; however, they were suffered by them to range the country
+    without molestation, but found no water, except at such a distance
+    from the sea, that the labour of conveying it to the ships was greater
+    than it was, at that time, necessary for them to undergo. Salt, had
+    they wanted it, might have been obtained with less trouble, being left
+    by the sea upon the sand, and hardened by the sun during the ebb, in
+    such quantities, that the chief traffick of their island is carried on
+    with it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    January 31, they passed by St. Jago an island at that time divided
+    between the natives and the Portuguese, who, first entering these
+    islands under the show of traffick, by degrees established
+    themselves;&mdash;claimed a superiority over the original inhabitants; and
+    harassed them with such cruelty, that they obliged them either to fly
+    to the woods and mountains, and perish with hunger, or to take up arms
+    against their oppressors, and, under the insuperable disadvantages
+    with which they contended, to die, almost without a battle, in defence
+    of their natural rights and ancient possessions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such treatment had the natives of St. Jago received, which had driven
+    them into the rocky parts of the island, from whence they made
+    incursions into the plantations of the Portuguese, sometimes with
+    loss, but generally with that success which desperation naturally
+    procures; so that the Portuguese were in continual alarms, and, lived,
+    with the natural consequences of guilt, terrour, and anxiety. They
+    were wealthy, but not happy, and possessed the island, but not enjoyed
+    it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They then sailed on within sight of Fuego, an island so called from a
+    mountain, about the middle of it, continually burning, and, like the
+    rest, inhabited by the Portuguese; two leagues to the south of which
+    lies Brava, which has received its name from its fertility, abounding,
+    though uninhabited, with all kinds of fruits, and watered with great
+    numbers of springs and brooks, which would easily invite the
+    possessours of the adjacent islands to settle in it, but that it
+    affords neither harbour nor anchorage. Drake, after having sent out
+    his boats with plummets, was not able to find any ground about it; and
+    it is reported, that many experiments have been made with the same
+    success; however, he took in water sufficient, and, on the 2nd of
+    February, set sail for the straits of Magellan.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On February 17, they passed the equator, and continued their voyage,
+    with sometimes calms, and sometimes contrary winds, but without any
+    memorable accident, to March 28, when one of their vessels, with
+    twenty-eight men, and the greatest part of their fresh water on board,
+    was, to their great discouragement, separated from them; but their
+    perplexity lasted not long, for on the next day they discovered and
+    rejoined their associates.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In their long course, which gave them opportunities of observing
+    several animals, both in the air and water, at that time very little
+    known, nothing entertained or surprised them more than the flying
+    fish, which is near of the same size with a herring, and has fins of
+    the length of his whole body, by the help of which, when he is pursued
+    by the bonito or great mackerel, as soon as he finds himself upon the
+    point of being taken, he springs up into the air, and flies forward,
+    as long as his wings continue wet, moisture being, as it seems,
+    necessary to make them pliant and moveable; and when they become dry
+    and stiff, he falls down into the water, unless some bark or ship
+    intercept him, and dips them again for a second flight. This unhappy
+    animal is not only pursued by fishes in his natural element, but
+    attacked in the air, where he hopes for security, by the don, or
+    sparkite, a great bird that preys upon fish; and their species must
+    surely be destroyed, were not their increase so great, that the young
+    fry, in one part of the year, covers the sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is another fish, named the cuttle, of which whole shoals will
+    sometimes rise at once out of the water, and of which a great
+    multitude fell into their ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length, having sailed without sight of land for sixty-three days,
+    they arrived, April 5, at the coast of Brasil, where, on the 7th, the
+    Christopher was separated again from them by a storm; after which they
+    sailed near the land to the southward, and, on the 14th, anchored
+    under a cape, which they afterwards called cape Joy, because in two
+    days the vessel which they had lost returned to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having spent a fortnight in the river of Plata, to refresh his men,
+    after their long voyage, and then standing out to sea, he was again
+    surprised by a sudden storm, in which they lost sight of the Swan.
+    This accident determined Drake to contract the number of his fleet,
+    that he might not only avoid the inconvenience of such frequent
+    separations, but ease the labour of his men, by having more hands in
+    each vessel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For this purpose he sailed along the coast, in quest of a commodious
+    harbour, and, on May 13, discovered a bay, which seemed not improper
+    for their purpose, but which they durst not enter, till it was
+    examined; an employment in which Drake never trusted any, whatever
+    might be his confidence in his followers on other occasions. He well
+    knew how fatal one moment's inattention might be, and how easily
+    almost every man suffers himself to be surprised by indolence and
+    security. He knew the same credulity, that might prevail upon him to
+    trust another, might induce another to commit the same office to a
+    third; and it must be, at length, that some of them would be deceived.
+    He, therefore, as at other times, ordered the boat to be hoisted out,
+    and, taking the line into his hand, went on sounding the passage, till
+    he was three leagues from his ship; when, on a sudden, the weather
+    changed, the skies blackened, the winds whistled, and all the usual
+    forerunners of a storm began to threaten them; nothing was now desired
+    but to return to the ship, but the thickness of the fog intercepting
+    it from their sight, made the attempt little other than desperate. By
+    so many unforeseen accidents is prudence itself liable to be
+    embarrassed! So difficult is it, sometimes, for the quickest sagacity,
+    and most enlightened experience, to judge what measures ought to be
+    taken! To trust another to sound an unknown coast, appeared to Drake
+    folly and presumption; to be absent from his fleet, though but for an
+    hour, proved nothing less than to hazard the success of all their
+    labours, hardships, and dangers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this perplexity, which Drake was not more sensible of than those
+    whom he had left in the ships, nothing was to be omitted, however
+    dangerous, that might contribute to extricate them from it, as they
+    could venture nothing of equal value with the life of their general.
+    Captain Thomas, therefore, having the lightest vessel, steered boldly
+    into the bay, and taking the general aboard, dropped anchor, and lay
+    out of danger, while the rest, that were in the open sea, suffered
+    much from the tempest, and the Mary, a Portuguese prize, was driven
+    away before the wind; the others, as soon as the tempest was over,
+    discovering, by the fires which were made on shore, where Drake was,
+    repaired to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here, going on shore, they met with no inhabitants, though there were
+    several houses or huts standing, in which they found a good quantity
+    of dried fowls, and among them a great number of ostriches, of which
+    the thighs were as large as those of a sheep. These birds are too
+    heavy and unwieldy to rise from the ground, but with the help of their
+    wings run so swiftly, that the English could never come near enough to
+    shoot at them. The Indians, commonly, by holding a large plume of
+    feathers before them, and walking gently forward, drive the ostriches
+    into some narrow neck, or point of land, then, spreading a strong net
+    from one side to the other, to hinder them from returning back to the
+    open fields, set their dogs upon them, thus confined between the net
+    and the water, and when they are thrown on their backs, rush in and
+    take them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Not finding this harbour convenient, or well stored with wood and
+    water, they left it on the 15th of May, and, on the 18th, entered
+    another much safer, and more commodious, which they no sooner arrived
+    at, than Drake, whose restless application never remitted, sent Winter
+    to the southward, in quest of those ships which were absent, and
+    immediately after sailed himself to the northward, and, happily
+    meeting with the Swan, conducted it to the rest of the fleet; after
+    which, in pursuance of his former resolution, he ordered it to be
+    broken up, reserving the iron-work for a future supply. The other
+    vessel, which they lost in the late storm, could not be discovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While they were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the
+    mainland, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they
+    were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a
+    distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English
+    to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells,
+    and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness or novelty, he
+    imagined would be agreeable. As soon as the English landed, they
+    observed two men running towards them, as deputed by the company, who
+    came within a little distance, and then standing still could not be
+    prevailed upon to come nearer. The English, therefore, tied their
+    presents to a pole, which they fixed in the ground, and then retiring,
+    saw the Indians advance, who, taking what they found upon the pole,
+    left in return such feathers as they wear upon their heads, with a
+    small bone about six inches in length, carved round the top, and
+    burnished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, observing their inclination to friendship and traffick,
+    advanced, with some of his company, towards the hill, upon sight of
+    whom the Indians ranged themselves in a line from east to west, and
+    one of them running from one end of the rank to the other, backwards
+    and forwards, bowed himself towards the rising and setting of the sun,
+    holding his hands over his head, and frequently stopping in the middle
+    of the rank, leaping up towards the moon, which then shone directly
+    over their heads; thus calling the sun and moon, the deities they
+    worship, to witness the sincerity of their professions of peace and
+    friendship. While this ceremony was performed, Drake and his company
+    ascended the hill, to the apparent terrour of the Indians, whose
+    apprehensions, when the English perceived, they peaceably retired,
+    which gave the natives so much encouragement, that they came forward
+    immediately, and exchanged their arrows, feathers, and bones, for such
+    trifles as were offered them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus they traded for some time; but, by frequent intercourse, finding
+    that no violence was intended, they became familiar, and mingled with
+    the English without the least distrust.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They go quite naked, except a skin of some animal, which they throw
+    over their shoulders when they lie in the open air. They knit up their
+    hair, which is very long, with a roll of ostrich feathers, and usually
+    carry their arrows wrapped up brit, that they may not encumber them,
+    they being made with reeds, headed with flint, and, therefore, not
+    heavy. Their bows are about an ell long.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Their chief ornament is paint, which they use of several kinds,
+    delineating generally upon their bodies, the figures of the sun and
+    moon, in honour of their deities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is observable, that most nations, amongst whom the use of clothes
+    is unknown, paint their bodies. Such was the practice of the first
+    inhabitants of our own country. From this custom did our earliest
+    enemies, the Picts, owe their denomination. As it is not probable that
+    caprice or fancy should be uniform, there must be, doubtless, some
+    reason for a practice so general and prevailing in distant parts of
+    the world, which have no communication with each other. The original
+    end of painting their bodies was, probably, to exclude the cold; an
+    end which, if we believe some relations, is so effectually produced by
+    it, that the men thus painted never shiver at the most piercing
+    blasts. But, doubtless, any people, so hardened by continual
+    severities, would, even without paint, be less sensible of the cold
+    than the civilized inhabitants of the same climate. However, this
+    practice may contribute, in some degree, to defend them from the
+    injuries of winter; and, in those climates where little evaporates by
+    the pores, may be used with no great inconvenience; but in hot
+    countries, where perspiration in greater degree is necessary, the
+    natives only use unction to preserve them from the other extreme of
+    weather: so well do either reason or experience supply the place of
+    science in savage countries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They had no canoes, like the other Indians, nor any method of crossing
+    the water, which was, probably, the reason why the birds, in the
+    adjacent islands, were so tame that they might be taken with the hand,
+    having never been before frighted or molested. The great plenty of
+    fowls and seals, which crowded the shallows in such numbers that they
+    killed, at their first arrival, two hundred of them in an hour,
+    contributed much to the refreshment of the English, who named the
+    place Seal bay, from that animal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These seals seem to be the chief food of the natives, for the English
+    often found raw pieces of their flesh half eaten, and left, as they
+    supposed, after a full meal, by the Indians, whom they never knew to
+    make use of fire, or any art, in dressing or preparing their victuals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor were their other customs less wild or uncouth than their way of
+    feeding; one of them having received a cap off the general's head, and
+    being extremely pleased, as well with the honour as the gift, to
+    express his gratitude, and confirm the alliance between them, retired
+    to a little distance, and thrusting an arrow into his leg, let the
+    blood run upon the ground, testifying, as it is probable, that he
+    valued Drake's friendship above life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having stayed fifteen days among these friendly savages, in 47 deg. 30
+    min. s. lat. on June 3 they set sail towards the south sea, and, six
+    days afterwards, stopped at another little bay, to break up the
+    Christopher. Then passing on, they cast anchor in another bay, not
+    more than twenty leagues distant from the straits of Magellan.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was now time seriously to deliberate in what manner they should act
+    with regard to the Portuguese prize, which, having been separated from
+    them by the storm, had not yet rejoined them. To return in search of
+    it, was sufficiently mortifying; to proceed without it, was not only
+    to deprive themselves of a considerable part of their force, but to
+    expose their friends and companions, whom common hardships and dangers
+    had endeared to them, to certain death or captivity. This
+    consideration prevailed; and, therefore, on the 18th, after prayers to
+    God, with which Drake never forgot to begin an enterprise, he put to
+    sea, and, the next day, near port Julian, discovered their associates,
+    whose ship was now grown leaky, having suffered much, both in the
+    first storm, by which they were dispersed, and, afterwards, in
+    fruitless attempts to regain the fleet.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, therefore, being desirous to relieve their fatigues, entered
+    port Julian, and, as it was his custom always to attend in person,
+    when any important business was in hand, went ashore, with some of the
+    chief of his company, to seek for water, where he was immediately
+    accosted by two natives, of whom Magellan left a very terrible
+    account, having described them, as a nation of giants and monsters;
+    nor is his narrative entirely without foundation, for they are of the
+    largest size, though not taller than some Englishmen; their strength
+    is proportioned to their bulk, and their voice loud, boisterous, and
+    terrible. What were their manners before the arrival of the Spaniards,
+    it is not possible to discover; but the slaughter made of their
+    countrymen, perhaps without provocation, by these cruel intruders, and
+    the general massacre with which that part of the world had been
+    depopulated, might have raised in them a suspicion of all strangers,
+    and, by consequence, made them inhospitable, treacherous, and bloody.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The two who associated themselves with the English appeared much
+    pleased with their new guests, received willingly what was given them,
+    and very exactly observed every thing that passed, seeming more
+    particularly delighted with seeing Oliver, the master-gunner, shoot an
+    English arrow. They shot themselves, likewise, in emulation, but their
+    arrows always fell to the ground far short of his.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Soon after this friendly contest came another, who, observing the
+    familiarity of his countrymen with the strangers, appeared much
+    displeased, and, as the Englishmen perceived, endeavoured to dissuade
+    them from such an intercourse. What effect his arguments had was soon
+    after apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to
+    show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity,
+    attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full
+    force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were
+    unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed
+    the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat,
+    and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at Winter, who had the
+    bow in his hand. He, finding himself wounded in the shoulder,
+    endeavoured to refit his bow, and, turning about, was pierced with a
+    second arrow in the breast. Oliver, the gunner, immediately presented
+    his piece at the insidious assailants, which failing to take fire,
+    gave them time to level another flight of arrows by which he was
+    killed; nor, perhaps, had any of them escaped, surprised and perplexed
+    as they were, had not Drake, with his usual presence of mind, animated
+    their courage, and directed their motions, ordering them, by
+    perpetually changing their places, to elude, as much as they could,
+    the aim of their enemies, and to defend their bodies with their
+    targets; and instructing them, by his own example, to pick up, and
+    break the arrows as they fell; which they did with so much diligence,
+    that the Indians were soon in danger of being disarmed. Then Drake
+    himself taking the gun, which Oliver had so unsuccessfully attempted
+    to make use of, discharged it at the Indian that first began the fray
+    and had killed the gunner, aiming it so happily, that the hailshot,
+    with which it was loaded, tore open his belly, and forced him to such
+    terrible outcries, that the Indians, though their numbers increased,
+    and many of their countrymen showed themselves from different parts of
+    the adjoining wood, were too much terrified to renew the assault, and
+    suffered Drake, without molestation, to withdraw his wounded friend,
+    who, being hurt in his lungs, languished two days, and then dying, was
+    interred with his companion, with the usual ceremony of a military
+    funeral.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They stayed here two months afterwards, without receiving any other
+    injuries from the natives, who, finding the danger to which they
+    exposed themselves by open hostilities, and, not being able any more
+    to surprise the vigilance of Drake, preferred their safety to revenge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But Drake had other enemies to conquer or escape far more formidable
+    than these barbarians, and insidious practices to obviate, more artful
+    and dangerous than the ambushes of the Indians; for in this place was
+    laid open a design formed by one of the gentlemen of the fleet, not
+    only to defeat the voyage, but to murder the general.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This transaction is related in so obscure and confused a manner, that
+    it is difficult to form any judgment upon it. The writer who gives the
+    largest account of it, has suppressed the name of the criminal, which
+    we learn, from a more succinct narrative, published in a collection of
+    travels near that time, to have been Thomas Doughtie. What were his
+    inducements to attempt the destruction of his leader, and the ruin of
+    the expedition, or what were his views, if his design had succeeded,
+    what measures he had hitherto taken, whom he had endeavoured to
+    corjupt, with what arts, or what success, we are nowhere told.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The plot, as the narrative assures us, was laid before their departure
+    from England, and discovered, in its whole extent, to Drake himself,
+    in his garden at Plymouth, who, nevertheless, not only entertained the
+    person so accused, as one of his company, but this writer very
+    particularly relates, treated him with remarkable kindness and regard,
+    setting him always at his own table, and lodged him in the same cabin
+    with himself. Nor did ever he discover the least suspicion of his
+    intentions, till they arrived at this place, but appeared, by the
+    authority with which he invested him, to consider him, as one to whom,
+    in his absence, he could most securely intrust the direction of his
+    affairs. At length, in this remote corner of the world, he found out a
+    design formed against his life, called together all his officers, laid
+    before them the evidence on which he grounded the accusation, and
+    summoned the criminal, who, full of all the horrours of guilt, and
+    confounded at so clear a detection of his whole scheme, immediately
+    confessed his crimes, and acknowledged himself unworthy of longer
+    life; upon which the whole assembly, consisting of thirty persons,
+    after having considered the affair with the attention which it
+    required, and heard all that could be urged in extenuation of his
+    offence, unanimously signed the sentence by which he was condemned to
+    suffer death. Drake, however, unwilling, as it seemed, to proceed to
+    extreme severities, offered him his choice, either of being executed
+    on the island, or set ashore on the mainland, or being sent to England
+    to be tried before the council; of which, after a day's consideration,
+    he chose the first, alleging the improbability of persuading any to
+    leave the expedition, for the sake of transporting a criminal to
+    England, and the danger of his future state among savages and
+    infidels. His choice, I believe, few will approve: to be set ashore on
+    the mainland, was, indeed, only to be executed in a different manner;
+    for what mercy could be expected from the natives so incensed, but the
+    most cruel and lingering death! But why he should not rather have
+    requested to be sent to England, it is not so easy to conceive. In so
+    long a voyage he might have found a thousand opportunities of
+    escaping, perhaps with the connivance of his keepers, whose resentment
+    must probably in time have given way to compassion, or, at least, by
+    their negligence, as it is easy to believe they would, in times of
+    ease and refreshment, have remitted their vigilance; at least he would
+    have gained longer life; and, to make death desirable, seems not one
+    of the effects of guilt. However, he was, as it is related,
+    obstinately deaf to all persuasions, and, adhering to his first
+    choice, after having received the communion, and dined cheerfully with
+    the general, was executed in the afternoon, with many proofs of
+    remorse, but none of fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How far it is probable that Drake, after having been acquainted with
+    this man's designs, should admit him into his fleet, and afterwards
+    caress, respect, and trust him; or that Doughtie, who is represented
+    as a man of eminent abilities, should engage in so long and hazardous
+    a voyage, with no other view than that of defeating it; is left to the
+    determination of the reader. What designs he could have formed, with
+    any hope of success, or to what actions, worthy of death, he could
+    have proceeded without accomplices, for none are mentioned, is equally
+    difficult to imagine. Nor, on the other hand, though the obscurity of
+    the account, and the remote place chosen for the discovery of this
+    wicked project, seem to give some reason for suspicion, does there
+    appear any temptation, from either hope, fear, or interest, that might
+    induce Drake, or any commander in his state, to put to death an
+    innocent man upon false pretences.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the execution of this man, the whole company, either convinced
+    of the justice of the proceeding, or awed by the severity, applied
+    themselves, without any murmurs, or appearance of discontent, to the
+    prosecution of the voyage; and, having broken up another vessel, and
+    reduced the number of their ships to three, they left the port, and,
+    on August the 20th, entered the straits of Magellan, in which they
+    struggled with contrary winds, and the various dangers to which the
+    intricacy of that winding passage exposed them, till night, and then
+    entered a more open sea, in which they discovered an island with a
+    burning mountain. On the 24th they fell in with three more islands, to
+    which Drake gave names, and, landing to take possession of them in the
+    name of his sovereign, found in the largest so prodigious a number of
+    birds, that they killed three thousand of them in one day. This bird,
+    of which they knew not the name, was somewhat less than a wild goose,
+    without feathers, and covered with a kind of down, unable to fly or
+    rise from the ground, but capable of running and swimming with amazing
+    celerity; they feed on the sea, and come to land only to rest at
+    night, or lay their eggs, which they deposit in holes like those of
+    conies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From these islands to the south sea, the strait becomes very crooked
+    and narrow, so that sometimes, by the interposition of headlands, the
+    passage seems shut up, and the voyage entirely stopped. To double
+    these capes is very difficult, on account of the frequent alterations
+    to be made in the course. There are, indeed, as Magellan observes,
+    many harbours, but in most of them no bottom is to be found.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The land, on both sides, rises into innumerable mountains; the tops of
+    them are encircled with clouds and vapours, which, being congealed,
+    fall down in snow, and increase their height by hardening into ice,
+    which is never dissolved; but the valleys are, nevertheless, green,
+    fruitful, and pleasant.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here Drake, finding the strait, in appearance, shut up, went in his
+    boat to make further discoveries; and having found a passage towards
+    the north, was returning to his ships; but curiosity soon prevailed
+    upon him to stop, for the sake of observing a canoe or boat, with
+    several natives of the country in it. He could not, at a distance,
+    forbear admiring the form of this little vessel, which seemed
+    inclining to a semicircle, the stern and prow standing up, and the
+    body sinking inward; but much greater was his wonder, when, upon a
+    nearer inspection, he found it made only of the barks of trees, sewed
+    together with thongs of sealskin, so artificially, that scarcely any
+    water entered the seams. The people were well shaped and painted, like
+    those which have been already described. On the land they had a hut
+    built with poles, and covered with skins, in which they had
+    water-vessels, and other utensils, made likewise of the barks of
+    trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among these people they had an opportunity of remarking, what is
+    frequently observable in savage countries, how natural sagacity and
+    unwearied industry may supply the want of such manufactures or natural
+    productions, as appear to us absolutely necessary for the support of
+    life. The inhabitants of these islands are wholly strangers to iron
+    and its use, but, instead of it, make use of the shell of a muscle of
+    prodigious size, found upon their coasts; this they grind upon a stone
+    to an edge, which is so firm and solid, that neither wood nor stone is
+    able to resist it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    September 6, they entered the great south sea, on which no English
+    vessel had ever been navigated before, and proposed to have directed
+    their course towards the line, that their men, who had suffered by the
+    severity of the climate, might recover their strength in a warmer
+    latitude. But their designs were scarce formed, before they were
+    frustrated; for, on Sept. 7, after an eclipse of the moon, a storm
+    arose, so violent, that it left them little hopes of surviving it; nor
+    was its fury so dreadful as its continuance; for it lasted, with
+    little intermission, till October 28, fifty-two days, during which
+    time they were tossed incessantly from one part of the ocean to
+    another, without any power of spreading their sails, or lying upon
+    their anchors, amidst shelving shores, scattered rocks, and unknown
+    islands, the tempest continually roaring, and the waves dashing over
+    them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this storm, on the 30th of September, the Marigold, commanded by
+    captain Thomas, was separated from them. On the 7th of October, having
+    entered a harbour, where they hoped for some intermission of their
+    fatigues, they were, in a few hours, forced out to sea by a violent
+    gust, which broke the cable, at which time they lost sight of the
+    Elizabeth, the viceadmiral, whose crew, as was afterwards discovered,
+    wearied with labour, and discouraged by the prospect of future
+    dangers, recovered the straits on the next day, and, returning by the
+    same passage through which they came, sailed along the coast of
+    Brasil, and on the 2nd of June, in the year following, arrived at
+    England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this bay they were driven southward to fifty-five degrees, where,
+    among some islands, they stayed two days, to the great refreshment of
+    the crew; but, being again forced into the main sea, they were tossed
+    about with perpetual expectation of perishing, till, soon after, they
+    again came to anchor near the same place, where they found the
+    natives, whom the continuance of the storm had probably reduced to
+    equal distress, rowing from one island to another, and providing the
+    necessaries of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, perhaps, a just observation, that, with regard to outward
+    circumstances, happiness and misery are equally diffused through all
+    states of human life. In civilized countries, where regular policies
+    have secured the necessaries of life, ambition, avarice, and luxury,
+    find the mind at leisure for their reception, and soon engage it in
+    new pursuits; pursuits that are to be carried on by incessant labour,
+    and, whether vain or successful, produce anxiety and contention. Among
+    savage nations, imaginary wants find, indeed, no place; but their
+    strength is exhausted by necessary toils, and their passions agitated
+    not by contests about superiority, affluence, or precedence, but by
+    perpetual care for the present day, and by fear of perishing for want
+    of food.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But for such reflections as these they had no time; for, having spent
+    three days in supplying themselves with wood and water, they were, by
+    a new storm, driven to the latitude of fifty-six degrees, where they
+    beheld the extremities of the American coast, and the confluence of
+    the Atlantick and southern ocean.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Here they arrived on the 28th of October, and, at last, were blessed
+    with the sight of a calm sea, having, for almost two months, endured
+    such a storm as no traveller has given an account of, and such as, in
+    that part of the world, though accustomed to hurricanes, they were
+    before unacquainted with.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 30th of October, they steered away towards the place appointed
+    for the rendezvous of the fleet, which was in thirty degrees; and, on
+    the next day, discovered two islands, so well stocked with fowls, that
+    they victualled their ships with them, and then sailed forward along
+    the coast of Peru, till they came to thirty-seven degrees, where,
+    finding neither of their ships, nor any convenient port, they came to
+    anchor, November the 25th, at Mucho, an island inhabited by such
+    Indians, as the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors had driven from the
+    continent, to whom they applied for water and provisions, offering
+    them, in return, such things as they imagined most likely to please
+    them. The Indians seemed willing to traffick, and having presented
+    them with fruits, and two fat sheep, would have showed them a place
+    whither they should come for water.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next morning, according to agreement, the English landed with
+    their water-vessels, and sent two men forward towards the place
+    appointed, who, about the middle of the way, were suddenly attacked by
+    the Indians, and immediately slain. Nor were the rest of the company
+    out of danger; for behind the rocks was lodged an ambush of five
+    hundred men, who, starting up from their retreat, discharged their
+    arrows into the boat with such dexterity, that every one of the crew
+    was wounded by them, the sea being then high, and hindering them from
+    either retiring or making use of their weapons. Drake himself received
+    an arrow under his eye, which pierced him almost to the brain, and
+    another in his head. The danger of these wounds was much increased by
+    the absence of their surgeon, who was in the viceadmiral, so that they
+    had none to assist them but a boy, whose age did not admit of much
+    experience or skill; yet so much were they favoured by providence,
+    that they all recovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No reason could be assigned for which the Indians should attack them
+    with so furious a spirit of malignity, but that they mistook them for
+    Spaniards, whose cruelties might very reasonably incite them to
+    revenge, whom they had driven by incessant persecution from their
+    country, wasting immense tracts of land by massacre and devastation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the afternoon of the same day, they set sail, and, on the 30th of
+    November, dropped anchor in Philips bay, where their boat, having been
+    sent out to discover the country, returned with an Indian in his
+    canoe, whom they had intercepted. He was of a graceful stature,
+    dressed in a white coat or gown, reaching almost to his knees, very
+    mild, humble, and docile, such as, perhaps, were all the Indians, till
+    the Spaniards taught them revenge, treachery, and cruelty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This Indian, having been kindly treated, was dismissed with presents,
+    and informed, as far as the English could make him understand, what
+    they chiefly wanted, and what they were willing to give in return,
+    Drake ordering his boat to attend him in his canoe, and to set him
+    safe on the land.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he was ashore, he directed them to wait till his return, and
+    meeting some of his countrymen, gave them such an account of his
+    reception, that, within a few hours, several of them repaired with him
+    to the boat with fowls, eggs, and a hog, and with them one of their
+    captains, who willingly came into the boat, and desired to be conveyed
+    by the English to the ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this man Drake was informed, that no supplies were to be expected
+    here, but that southward, in a place to which he offered to be his
+    pilot, there was great plenty. This proposal was accepted, and, on
+    the 5th of December, under the direction of the good-natured Indian,
+    they came to anchor in the harbour called, by the Spaniards,
+    Valparaiso, near the town of St. James of Chiuli, where they met not
+    only with sufficient stores of provision, and with storehouses full of
+    the wines of Chili, but with a ship called the Captain of Morial,
+    richly laden, having, together with large quantities of the same
+    wines, some of the fine gold of Baldivia, and a great cross of gold
+    set with emeralds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having spent three days in storing their ships with all kinds of
+    provision in the utmost plenty, they departed, and landed their Indian
+    pilot where they first received him, after having rewarded him much
+    above his expectations or desires.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They had now little other anxiety than for their friends who had been
+    separated from them, and whom they now determined to seek; but
+    considering that, by entering every creek and harbour with their ship,
+    they exposed themselves to unnecessary dangers, and that their boat
+    would not contain such a number as might defend themselves against,
+    the Spaniards, they determined to station their ship at some place,
+    where they might commodiously build a pinnace, which, being of light
+    burden, might easily sail where the ship was in danger of being
+    stranded, and, at the same time, might carry a sufficient force to
+    resist the enemy, and afford better accommodation than could be
+    expected in the boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this end, on the 19th of December, they entered a bay near Cippo, a
+    town inhabited by Spaniards, who, discovering them, immediately issued
+    out, to the number of a hundred horsemen, with about two hundred naked
+    Indians running by their sides. The English, observing their approach,
+    retired to their boat, without any loss, except of one man, whom no
+    persuasions or entreaties could move to retire with the rest, and who,
+    therefore, was shot by the Spaniards, who, exulting at the victory,
+    commanded the Indians to draw the dead carcass from the rock on which
+    he fell, and, in the sight of the English, beheaded it, then cut off
+    the right hand, and tore out the heart, which they carried away,
+    having first commanded the Indians to shoot their arrows all over the
+    body. The arrows of the Indians were made of green wood, for the
+    immediate service of the day; the Spaniards, with the fear that always
+    harasses oppressors, forbidding them to have any weapons, when they do
+    not want their present assistance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving this place, they soon found a harbour more secure and
+    convenient, where they built their pinnace, in which Drake went to
+    seek his companions; but, finding the wind contrary, he was obliged to
+    return in two days.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving this place soon after, they sailed along the coast in search
+    of fresh water, and landing at Turapaca, they found a Spaniard asleep,
+    with silver bars lying by him, to the value of three thousand ducats:
+    not all the insults which they had received from his countrymen could
+    provoke them to offer any violence to his person, and, therefore, they
+    carried away his treasure, without doing him any further harm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Landing in another place, they found a Spaniard driving eight Peruvian
+    sheep, which are the beasts of burden in that country, each laden with
+    a hundred pounds weight of silver, which they seized, likewise, and
+    drove to their boats.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Further along the coast lay some Indian towns, from which the
+    inhabitants repaired to the ship, on floats made of sealskins, blown
+    full of wind, two of which they fasten together, and, sitting between
+    them, row with great swiftness, and carry considerable burdens. They
+    very readily traded for glass and such trifles, with which the old and
+    the young seemed equally delighted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Arriving at Mormorena, on the 26th of January, Drake invited the
+    Spaniards to traffick with him, which they agreed to, and supplied him
+    with necessaries, selling to him, among other provisions, some of
+    those sheep which have been mentioned, whose bulk is equal to that of
+    a cow, and whose strength is such, that one of them can carry three
+    tall men upon his back; their necks are like a camel's, and their
+    heads like those of our sheep. They are the most useful animals of
+    this country, not only affording excellent fleeces and wholesome
+    flesh, but serving as carriages over rocks and mountains, where no
+    other beast can travel, for their foot is of a peculiar form, which
+    enables them to tread firm in the most steep and slippery places.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On all this coast, the whole soil is so impregnated with silver, that
+    five ounces may be separated from a hundred pound weight of common
+    earth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Still coasting, in hopes of meeting their friends, they anchored, on
+    the 7th of February, before Aria, where they took two barks, with
+    about eight hundred pound weight of silver, and, pursuing their
+    course, seized another vessel, laden with linens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the 15th of February, 1578, they arrived at Lima, and entered the
+    harbour without resistance, though thirty ships were stationed there,
+    of which seventeen were equipped for their voyage, and many of them
+    are represented in the narrative as vessels of considerable force; so
+    that their security seems to have consisted, not in their strength,
+    but in their reputation, which had so intimidated the Spaniards, that
+    the sight of their own superiority could not rouse them to opposition.
+    Instances of such panick terrours are to be met with in other
+    relations; but as they are, for the most part, quickly dissipated by
+    reason and reflection, a wise commander will rarely found his hopes of
+    success on them; and, perhaps, on this occasion, the Spaniards
+    scarcely deserve a severer censure for their cowardice, than Drake for
+    his temerity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In one of these ships they found fifteen hundred bars of silver; in
+    another a chest of money; and very rich lading in many of the rest, of
+    which the Spaniards tamely suffered them to carry the most valuable
+    part away, and would have permitted them no less peaceably to burn
+    their ships; but Drake never made war with a spirit of cruelty or
+    revenge, or carried hostilities further than was necessary for his own
+    advantage or defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They set sail the next morning towards Panama, in quest of the Caca
+    Fuego, a very rich ship, which had sailed fourteen days before, bound
+    thither from Lima, which they overtook, on the 1st of March, near cape
+    Francisco, and, boarding it, found not only a quantity of jewels, and
+    twelve chests of ryals of plate, but eighty pounds weight of gold, and
+    twenty-six tons of uncoined silver, with pieces of wrought plate to a
+    great value. In unlading this prize they spent six days, and then,
+    dismissing the Spaniards, Stood off to sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being now sufficiently enriched, and having lost all hopes of finding
+    their associates, and, perhaps, beginning to be infected with that
+    desire of ease and pleasure, which is the natural consequence of
+    wealth obtained by dangers and fatigues, they began to consult about
+    their return home, and, in pursuance of Drake's advice, resolved first
+    to find out some convenient harbour, where they might supply
+    themselves with wood and water, and then endeavour to discover a
+    passage from the south sea into the Atlantick ocean; a discovery,
+    which would not only enable them to return home with less danger, and
+    in a shorter time, but would much facilitate the navigation in those
+    parts of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    For this purpose they had recourse to a port in the island of Caines,
+    where they met with fish, wood, and fresh water; and, in their course,
+    took a ship, laden with silk and linen, which was the last that they
+    met with on the coast of America.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But being desirous of storing themselves for a long course, they
+    touched, April the 15th, at Guatulco, a Spanish island, where they
+    supplied themselves with provisions, and seized a bushel of ryals of
+    silver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Guatulco, which lies in 15 deg. 40 min. they stood out to sea,
+    and, without approaching any land, sailed forward, till, on the night
+    following, the 3rd of June, being then in the latitude of thirty-eight
+    degrees, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts, that they
+    were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them,
+    as they proceeded, to such a degree, that the sailors were discouraged
+    from mounting upon the deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be
+    imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately
+    accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could
+    scarcely be conveyed warm to the table.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On June 17th, they came to anchor in 38 deg. 30 min. when they saw the
+    land naked, and the trees without leaves, and in a short time had
+    opportunities of observing, that the natives of that country were not
+    less sensible of the cold than themselves; for the next day came a man
+    rowing in his canoe towards the ship, and at a distance from it made a
+    long oration, with very extraordinary gesticulations, and great
+    appearance of vehemence, and, a little time afterwards, made a second
+    visit, in the same manner, and then returning a third time, he
+    presented them, after his harangue was finished, with a kind of crown
+    of black feathers, such as their kings wear upon their heads, and a
+    basket of rushes, filled with a particular herb, both which he
+    fastened to a short stick, and threw into the boat; nor could he be
+    prevailed upon to receive any thing in return, though pushed towards
+    him upon a board; only he took up a hat, which was flung into the
+    water.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three days afterwards, their ship, having received some damage at sea,
+    was brought nearer to land, that the lading might be taken out. In
+    order to which, the English, who had now learned not too negligently
+    to commit their lives to the mercy of savage nations, raised a kind of
+    fortification with stones, and built their tents within it. All this
+    was not beheld by the inhabitants without the utmost astonishment,
+    which incited them to come down in crowds to the coast, with no other
+    view, as it appeared, than to worship the new divinities that had
+    condescended to touch upon their country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake was far from countenancing their errours, or taking advantage of
+    their weakness, to injure or molest them; and, therefore, having
+    directed them to lay aside their bows and arrows, he presented them
+    with linen, and other necessaries, of which he showed them the use.
+    They then returned to their habitations, about three quarters of a
+    mile from the English camp, where they made such loud and violent
+    outcries, that they were heard by the English, who found that they
+    still persisted in their first notions, and were paying them their
+    kind of melancholy adoration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two days afterwards they perceived the approach of a far more numerous
+    company, who stopped at the top of a hill, which overlooked the
+    English settlement, while one of them made a long oration, at the end
+    of which all the assembly bowed their bodies, and pronounced the
+    syllable <i>oh</i>, with a solemn tone, as by way of confirmation of
+    what had been said by the orator. Then the men, laying down their
+    bows, and leaving the women and children on the top of the hill, came
+    down towards the tents, and seemed transported, in the highest degree,
+    at the kindness of the general, who received their gifts, and admitted
+    them to his presence. The women at a distance appeared seized with a
+    kind of phrensy, such as that of old among the pagans in some of their
+    religious ceremonies, and in honour, as it seemed, of their guests,
+    tore their cheeks and bosoms with their nails, and threw themselves
+    upon the stones with their naked bodies, till they were covered with
+    blood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These cruel rites, and mistaken honours, were by no means agreeable to
+    Drake, whose predominant sentiments were notions of piety, and,
+    therefore, not to make that criminal in himself by his concurrence,
+    which, perhaps, ignorance might make guiltless in them, he ordered his
+    whole company to fall upon their knees, and, with their eyes lifted up
+    to heaven, that the savages might observe that their worship was
+    addressed to a being residing there, they all joined in praying that
+    this harmless and deluded people might be brought to the knowledge of
+    the true religion, and the doctrines of our blessed Saviour; after
+    which they sung psalms, a performance so pleasing to their wild
+    audience, that, in all their visits, they generally first accosted
+    them with a request that they would sing. They then returned all the
+    presents which they had received, and retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three days after this, on June 25, 1579, our general received two
+    ambassadours from the hioh, or king of the country, who, intending to
+    visit the camp, required that some token might be sent him of
+    friendship and peace; this request was readily complied with, and soon
+    after came the king, attended by a guard of about a hundred tall men,
+    and preceded by an officer of state, who carried a sceptre made of
+    black wood, adorned with chains of a kind of bone or horn, which are
+    marks of the highest honour among them, and having two crowns, made as
+    before, with feathers fastened to it, with a bag of the same herb,
+    which was presented to Drake at his first arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Behind him was the king himself, dressed in a coat of cony-skins, with
+    a caul, woven with feathers, upon his head, an ornament so much in
+    estimation there, that none but the domesticks of the king are allowed
+    to wear it; his attendants followed him, adorned nearly in the same
+    manner; and after them came the common people, with baskets plaited so
+    artificially that they held water, in which, by way of sacrifice, they
+    brought roots and fish.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, not lulled into security, ranged his men in order of battle,
+    and waited their approach, who, coming nearer, stood still, while the
+    sceptre-bearer made an oration, at the conclusion of which they again
+    came forward to the foot of the hill, and then the sceptre-bearer
+    began a song, which he accompanied with a dance, in both which the men
+    joined, but the women danced without singing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake now, distrusting them no longer, admitted them into his
+    fortification, where they continued their song and dance a short time;
+    and then both the king, and some others of the company, made long
+    harangues, in which it appeared, by the rest of their behaviour, that
+    they entreated him to accept of their country, and to take the
+    government of it into his own hands; for the king, with the apparent
+    concurrence of the rest, placed the crown upon his head, graced him
+    with the chains and other signs of authority, and saluted him with the
+    title of hioh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The kingdom thus offered, though of no further value to him than as it
+    furnished him with present necessaries, Drake thought it not prudent
+    to refuse; and, therefore, took possession of it in the name of queen
+    Elizabeth, not without ardent wishes, that this acquisition might have
+    been of use to his native country, and that so mild and innocent a
+    people might have been united to the church of Christ.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The kingdom being thus consigned, and the grand affair at an end, the
+    common people left their king and his domesticks with Drake, and
+    dispersed themselves over the camp; and when they saw any one that
+    pleased them by his appearance more than the rest, they tore their
+    flesh, and vented their outcries as before, in token of reverence and
+    admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They then proceeded to show them their wounds and diseases, in hopes
+    of a miraculous and instantaneous cure; to which the English, to
+    benefit and undeceive them at the same time, applied such remedies as
+    they used on the like occasions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They were now grown confident and familiar, and came down to the camp
+    every day, repeating their ceremonies and sacrifices, till they were
+    more fully informed how disagreeable they were to those whose favour
+    they were so studious of obtaining: they then visited them without
+    adoration, indeed, but with a curiosity so ardent, that it left them
+    no leisure to provide the necessaries of life, with which the English
+    were, therefore, obliged to supply them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They had then sufficient opportunity to remark the customs and
+    dispositions of these new allies, whom they found tractable and
+    benevolent, strong of body, far beyond the English, yet unfurnished
+    with weapons, either for assault or defence, their bows being too weak
+    for any thing but sport. Their dexterity in taking fish was such,
+    that, if they saw them so near the shore that they could come to them
+    without swimming, they never missed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same curiosity that had brought them in such crowds to the shore,
+    now induced Drake, and some of his company, to travel up into the
+    country, which they found, at some distance from the coast, very
+    fruitful, filled with large deer, and abounding with a peculiar kind
+    of conies, smaller than ours, with tails like that of a rat, and paws
+    such as those of a mole; they have bags under their chin, in which
+    they carry provisions to their young.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The houses of the inhabitants are round holes dug in the ground, from
+    the brink of which they raise rafters, or piles, shelving towards the
+    middle, where they all meet, and are crammed together; they lie upon
+    rushes, with the fire in the midst, and let the smoke fly out at the
+    door.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of
+    bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer
+    over their shoulders. They are very modest, tractable, and obedient to
+    their husbands.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is,
+    perhaps, the state of the greatest part of mankind. Whether more
+    enlightened nations ought to look upon them with pity, as less happy
+    than themselves, some skepticks have made, very unnecessarily, a
+    difficulty of determining. More, they say, is lost by the perplexities
+    than gained by the instruction of science; we enlarge our vices with
+    our knowledge, and multiply our wants with our attainments, and the
+    happiness of life is better secured by the ignorance of vice, than by
+    the knowledge of virtue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fallacy by which such reasoners have imposed upon themselves,
+    seems to arise from the comparison which they make, not between two
+    men equally inclined to apply the means of happiness in their power to
+    the end for which providence conferred them, but furnished in unequal
+    proportions with the means of happiness, which is the true state of
+    savage and polished nations; but between two men, of which he to whom
+    providence has been most bountiful, destroys the blessings by
+    negligence or obstinate misuse; while the other, steady, diligent, and
+    virtuous, employs his abilities and conveniences to their proper end.
+    The question is not, whether a good Indian or bad Englishman be most
+    happy; but, which state is most desirable, supposing virtue and reason
+    the same in both.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor is this the only mistake which is generally admitted in this
+    controversy, for these reasoners frequently confound innocence with
+    the mere incapacity of guilt. He that never saw, or heard, or thought
+    of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This land was named, by Drake, Albion, from its white cliffs, in which
+    it bore some resemblance to his native country; and the whole history
+    of the resignation of it to the English was engraven on a piece of
+    brass, then nailed on a post, and fixed up before their departure,
+    which being now discovered by the people to be near at hand, they
+    could not forbear perpetual lamentations. When the English, on the
+    23rd of July, weighed anchor, they saw them climbing to the tops of
+    hills, that they might keep them in sight, and observed fires lighted
+    up in many parts of the country, on which, as they supposed,
+    sacrifices were offered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near this harbour they touched at some islands, where they found great
+    numbers of seals; and, despairing now to find any passage through the
+    northern parts, he, after a general consultation, determined to steer
+    away to the Moluccas, and setting sail July 25th, he sailed for
+    sixty-eight days without sight of land; and, on September 30th,
+    arrived within view of some islands, situate about eight degrees
+    northward from the line, from whence the inhabitants resorted to them
+    in canoes, hollowed out of the solid trunk of a tree, and raised at
+    both ends so high above the water, that they seemed almost a
+    semicircle; they were burnished in such a manner that they shone like
+    ebony, and were kept steady by a piece of timber, fixed on each side
+    of them, with strong canes, that were fastened at one end to the boat,
+    and at the other to the end of the timber.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first company that came brought fruits, potatoes, and other things
+    of no great value, with an appearance of traffick, and exchanged their
+    lading for other commodities, with great show of honesty and
+    friendship; but having, as they imagined, laid all suspicion asleep,
+    they soon sent another fleet of canoes, of which the crews behaved
+    with all the insolence of tyrants, and all the rapacity of thieves;
+    for, whatever was suffered to come into their hands, they seemed to
+    consider as their own, and would neither pay for it, nor restore it;
+    and, at length, finding the English resolved to admit them no longer,
+    they discharged a shower of stones from their boats, which insult
+    Drake prudently and generously returned, by ordering a piece of
+    ordnance to be fired without hurting them, at which they were so
+    terrified, that they leaped into the water, and hid themselves under
+    the canoes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having, for some time, but little wind, they did not arrive at the
+    Moluccas till the 3rd of November, and then, designing to touch at
+    Tidore, they were visited, as they sailed by a little island belonging
+    to the king of Ternate, by the viceroy of the place, who informed
+    them, that it would be more advantageous for them to have recourse to
+    his master, for supplies and assistance, than to the king of Ternate,
+    who was, in some degree, dependent on the Portuguese, and that he
+    would himself carry the news of their arrival, and prepare for their
+    reception.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake was, by the arguments of the viceroy, prevailed upon to alter
+    his resolution, and, on November 5, cast anchor before Ternate; and
+    scarce was he arrived, before the viceroy, with others of the chief
+    nobles, came out in three large boats, rowed by forty men on each
+    side, to conduct the ship into a safe harbour; and soon after the king
+    himself, having received a velvet cloak by a messenger from Drake, as
+    a token of peace, came with such a retinue and dignity of appearance,
+    as was not expected in those remote parts of the world. He was
+    received with discharges of cannons and every kind of musick, with
+    which he was so much delighted, that, desiring the musicians to come
+    down into the boat, he was towed along in it at the stern of the ship.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king was of a graceful stature, and regal carriage, of a mild
+    aspect, and low voice; his attendants were dressed in white cotton or
+    calico, of whom some, whose age gave them a venerable appearance,
+    seemed his counsellors, and the rest officers or nobles; his guards
+    were not ignorant of firearms, but had not many among them, being
+    equipped, for the most part, with bows and darts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king, having spent some time in admiring the multitude of new
+    objects that presented themselves, retired as soon as the ship was
+    brought to anchor, and promised to return on the day following; and,
+    in the mean time, the inhabitants, having leave to traffick, brought
+    down provisions in great abundance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the time when the king was expected, his brother came on board, to
+    request of Drake that he would come to the castle, proposing to stay
+    himself as a hostage for his return. Drake refused to go, but sent
+    some gentlemen, detaining the king's brother in the mean time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These gentlemen were received by another of the king's brothers, who
+    conducted them to the council-house, near the castle, in which they
+    were directed to walk: there they found threescore old men, privy
+    counsellors to the king, and on each side of the door without stood
+    four old men of foreign countries, who served as interpreters in
+    commerce.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a short time the king came from the castle, dressed in cloth of
+    gold, with his hair woven into gold rings, a chain of gold upon his
+    neck, and on his hands rings very artificially set with diamonds and
+    jewels of great value; over his head was borne a rich canopy; and by
+    his chair of state, on which he sat down when he had entered the
+    house, stood a page with a fan set with sapphires, to moderate the
+    excess of the heat. Here he received the compliments of the English,
+    and then honourably dismissed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle, which they had some opportunity of observing, seemed of no
+    great force; it was built by the Portuguese, who, attempting to reduce
+    this kingdom into an absolute subjection, murdered the king, and
+    intended to pursue their scheme by the destruction of all his sons;
+    but the general abhorrence which cruelty and perfidy naturally excite,
+    armed all the nation against them, and procured their total expulsion
+    from all the dominions of Ternate, which, from that time, increasing
+    in power, continued to make new conquests, and to deprive them of
+    other acquisitions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While they lay before Ternate, a gentleman came on board, attended by
+    his interpreter. He was dressed somewhat in the European manner, and
+    soon distinguished himself from the natives of Ternate, or any other
+    country that they had seen, by his civility and apprehension. Such a
+    visitant may easily be imagined to excite their curiosity, which he
+    gratified by informing them, that he was a native of China, of the
+    family of the king then reigning; and that being accused of a capital
+    crime, of which, though he was innocent, he had not evidence to clear
+    himself, he had petitioned the king that he might not be exposed to a
+    trial, but that his cause might be referred to divine providence, and
+    that he might be allowed to leave his country, with a prohibition
+    against returning, unless heaven, in attestation of his innocence,
+    should enable him to bring back to the king some intelligence that
+    might be to the honour and advantage of the empire of China. In search
+    of such information he had now spent three years, and had left Tidore
+    for the sake of conversing with the English general, from whom he
+    hoped to receive such accounts as would enable him to return with
+    honour and safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake willingly recounted all his adventures and observations, to
+    which the Chinese exile listened with the utmost attention and
+    delight, and, having fixed them in his mind, thanked God for the
+    knowledge he had gained. He then proposed to the English general to
+    conduct him to China, recounting, by way of invitation, the wealth,
+    extent, and felicity of that empire; but Drake could not be induced to
+    prolong his voyage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He, therefore, set sail on the 9th of November, in quest of some
+    convenient harbour, in a desert island, to refit his ship, not being
+    willing, as it seems, to trust to the generosity of the king of
+    Ternate. Five days afterwards he found a very commodious harbour, in
+    an island overgrown with wood, where he repaired his vessel and
+    refreshed his men, without danger or interruption.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving this place the 12th of December, they sailed towards the
+    Celebes; but, having a wind not very favourable, they were detained
+    among a multitude of islands, mingled with dangerous shallows, till
+    January 9, 1580. When they thought themselves clear, and were sailing
+    forward with a strong gale, they were, at the beginning of the night,
+    surprised in their course by a sudden shock, of which the cause was
+    easily discovered, for they were thrown upon a shoal, and, by the
+    speed of their course, fixed too fast for any hope of escaping. Here
+    even the intrepidity of Drake was shaken, and his dexterity baffled;
+    but his piety, however, remained still the same, and what he could not
+    now promise himself from his own ability, he hoped from the assistance
+    of providence. The pump was plied, and the ship found free from new
+    leaks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next attempt was to discover towards the sea some place where they
+    might fix their boat, and from thence drag the ship into deep water;
+    but, upon examination, it appeared that the rock, on which they had
+    struck, rose perpendicularly from the water, and that there was no
+    anchorage, nor any bottom to be found a boat's length from the ship.
+    But this discovery, with its consequences, was, by Drake, wisely
+    concealed from the common sailors, lest they should abandon themselves
+    to despair, for which there was indeed cause; there being no prospect
+    left, but that they must there sink with the ship, which must,
+    undoubtedly, be soon dashed to pieces, or perish in attempting to
+    reach the shore in their boat, or be cut in pieces by barbarians, if
+    they should arrive at land.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the midst of this perplexity and distress, Drake directed that the
+    sacrament should be administered, and his men fortified with all the
+    consolation which religion affords; then persuaded them to lighten the
+    vessel, by throwing into the sea part of their lading, which was
+    cheerfully complied with, but without effect. At length, when their
+    hopes had forsaken them, and no new struggles could be made, they were
+    on a sudden relieved by a remission of the wind, which, having
+    hitherto blown strongly against the side of the ship which lay towards
+    the sea, held it upright against the rock; but when the blast
+    slackened, being then low water, the ship lying higher with that part
+    which rested on the rock than with the other, and being borne up no
+    longer by the wind, reeled into the deep water, to the surprise and
+    joy of Drake and his companions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was the greatest and most inextricable distress which they had
+    ever suffered, and made such an impression upon their minds, that, for
+    some time afterwards, they durst not adventure to spread their sails,
+    but went slowly forward with the utmost circumspection.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They thus continued their course without any observable occurrence,
+    till, on the 11th of March, they came to an anchor, before the island
+    of Java, and sending to the king a present of cloth and silks,
+    received from him, in return, a large quantity of provisions; and, the
+    day following, Drake went himself on shore, and entertained the king
+    with his musick, and obtained leave to store his ship with provisions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The island is governed by a great number of petty kings, or raias,
+    subordinate to one chief; of these princes three came on board
+    together, a few days after their arrival; and having, upon their
+    return, recounted the wonders which they had seen, and the civility
+    with which they had been treated, incited others to satisfy their
+    curiosity in the same manner; and raia Donan, the chief king, came
+    himself to view the ship, with the warlike armaments and instruments
+    of navigation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This intercourse of civilities somewhat retarded the business for
+    which they came; but, at length, they not only victualled their ship,
+    but cleansed the bottom, which, in the long course, was overgrown with
+    a kind of shellfish that impeded her passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving Java, on March 26 they sailed homewards by the cape of Good
+    Hope, which they saw on June the 5th; on the 15th of August passed the
+    tropick; and on the 26th of September arrived at Plymouth, where they
+    found that, by passing through so many different climates, they had
+    lost a day in their account of time, it being Sunday by their journal,
+    but Monday by the general computation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this hazardous voyage they had spent two years, ten months, and
+    some odd days; but were recompensed for their toils by great riches,
+    and the universal applause of their countrymen. Drake afterwards
+    brought his ship up to Deptford, where queen Elizabeth visited him on
+    board his ship, and conferred the honour of knighthood upon him; an
+    honour, in that illustrious reign, not made cheap by prostitution, nor
+    even bestowed without uncommon merit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not necessary to give an account, equally particular, of the
+    remaining part of his life, as he was no longer a private man, but
+    engaged in publick affairs, and associated in his expeditions with
+    other generals, whose attempts, and the success of them, are related
+    in the histories of those times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1585, on the 12th of September, sir Francis Drake set sail from
+    Plymouth with a fleet of five-and-twenty ships and pinnaces, of which
+    himself was admiral, captain Martiu Forbisher, viceadmiral, and
+    captain Francis Knollis, rearadmiral; they were fitted out to cruise
+    upon the Spaniards; and having touched at the isle of Bayonne, and
+    plundered Vigo, put to sea again, and on the 16th of November arrived
+    before St. Jago, which they entered without resistance, and rested
+    there fourteen days, visiting, in the mean time, San Domingo, a town
+    within the land, which they found likewise deserted; and, carrying off
+    what they pleased of the produce of the island, they, at their
+    departure, destroyed the town and villages, in revenge of the murder
+    of one of their boys, whose body they found mangled in a most inhuman
+    manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this island they pursued their voyage to the West Indies,
+    determining to attack St. Domingo in Hispaniola, as the richest place
+    in that part of the world; they, therefore, landed a thousand men, and
+    with small loss entered the town, of which they kept possession for a
+    month without interruption or alarm; during which time a remarkable
+    accident happened, which deserves to be related.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Drake, having some intention of treating with the Spaniards, sent to
+    them a negro boy with a flag of truce, which one of the Spaniards so
+    little regarded, that he stabbed him through the body with a lance.
+    The boy, notwithstanding his wound, came back to the general, related
+    the treatment which he had found, and died in his sight. Drake was so
+    incensed at this outrage, that he ordered two friars, then his
+    prisoners, to be conveyed with a guard to the place where the crime
+    was committed, and hanged up in the sight of the Spaniards, declaring
+    that two Spanish prisoners should undergo the same death every day,
+    till the offender should be delivered up by them: they were too well
+    acquainted with the character of Drake not to bring him on the day
+    following, when, to impress the shame of such actions more effectually
+    upon them, he compelled them to execute him with their own hands. Of
+    this town, at their departure, they demolished part, and admitted the
+    rest to be ransomed for five and twenty thousand ducats.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From thence they sailed to Carthagena, where the enemy having received
+    intelligence of the fate of St. Domingo, had strengthened their
+    fortifications, and prepared to defend themselves with great
+    obstinacy; but the English, landing in the night, came upon them by a
+    way which they did not suspect, and being better armed, partly by
+    surprise, and partly by superiority of order and valour, became
+    masters of the place, where they stayed without fear or danger six
+    weeks, and, at their departure, received a hundred and ten thousand
+    ducats, for the ransome of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    They afterwards took St. Augustin, and, touching at Virginia, took on
+    board the governour, Mr. Lane, with the English that had been left
+    there, the year before, by sir Walter Raleigh, and arrived at
+    Portsmouth on July 28, 1586, having lost in the voyage seven hundred
+    and fifty men. The gain of this expedition amounted to sixty thousand
+    pounds, of which forty were the share of the adventurers who fitted
+    out the ships, and the rest, distributed among the several crews,
+    amounted to six pounds each man. So cheaply is life sometimes
+    hazarded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The transactions against the armada, 1588, are, in themselves, far
+    more memorable, but less necessary to be recited in this succinct
+    narrative; only let it be remembered, that the post of viceadmiral of
+    England, to which sir Francis Drake was then raised, is a sufficient
+    proof, that no obscurity of birth, or meanness of fortune, is
+    unsurmountable to bravery and diligence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1595, sir Francis Drake and sir John Hawkins were sent with a fleet
+    to the West Indies, which expedition was only memorable for the
+    destruction of Nombre de Dios, and the death of the two commanders, of
+    whom sir Francis Drake died January 9, 1597, and was thrown into the
+    sea in a leaden coffin, with all the pomp of naval obsequies. It is
+    reported by some, that the ill success of this voyage hastened his
+    death. Upon what this conjecture is grounded does not appear; and we
+    may be allowed to hope, for the honour of so great a man, that it is
+    without foundation; and that he, whom no series of success could ever
+    betray to vanity or negligence, could have supported a change of
+    fortune without impatience or dejection.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_34"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    BARRETIER <a href="#note-45">[45]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Having not been able to procure materials for a complete life of Mr.
+    Barretier, and being, nevertheless, willing to gratify the curiosity
+    justly raised in the publick by his uncommon attainments, we think the
+    following extracts of letters written by his father, proper to be
+    inserted in our collection, as they contain many remarkable passages,
+    and exhibit a general view of his genius and learning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    John Philip Barretier was born at Schwabach, January 19, 1720-21. His
+    father was a calvinist minister of that place, who took upon himself
+    the care of his education. What arts of instruction he used, or by
+    what method he regulated the studies of his son, we are not able to
+    inform the publick; but take this opportunity of intreating those, who
+    have received more complete intelligence, not to deny mankind so great
+    a benefit as the improvement of education. If Mr. le Fêvre thought the
+    method in which he taught his children, worthy to be communicated to
+    the learned world, how justly may Mr. Barretier claim the universal
+    attention of mankind to a scheme of education that has produced such a
+    stupendous progress! The authors, who have endeavoured to teach
+    certain and unfailing rules for obtaining a long life, however they
+    have failed in their attempts, are universally confessed to have, at
+    least, the merit of a great and noble design, and to have deserved
+    gratitude and honour. How much more then is due to Mr. Barretier, who
+    has succeeded in what they have only attempted? for to prolong life,
+    and improve it, are nearly the same. If to have all that riches can
+    purchase, is to be rich; if to do all that can be done in a long time,
+    is to live long; he is equally a benefactor to mankind, who teaches
+    them to protract the duration, or shorten the business of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That there are few things more worthy our curiosity than this method,
+    by which the father assisted the genius of the son, every man will be
+    convinced, that considers the early proficiency at which it enabled
+    him to arrive; such a proficiency as no one has yet reached at the
+    same age, and to which it is, therefore, probable, that every
+    advantageous circumstance concurred.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <i>At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+    languages</i>, an attainment in itself almost incredible, but
+    understood, says his father, the holy writers, better in their
+    original tongues, than in his own. If he means, by this assertion,
+    that he knew the sense of many passages in the original, which were
+    obscure in the translation, the account, however wonderful, may be
+    admitted; but if he intends to tell his correspondent, that his son
+    was better acquainted with the two languages of the Bible than with
+    his own, he must be allowed to speak hyperbolically, or to admit, that
+    his son had somewhat neglected the study of his native language; or we
+    must own, that the fondness of a parent has transported him into some
+    natural exaggerations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Part of this letter I am tempted to suppress, being unwilling to
+    demand the belief of others to that which appears incredible to
+    myself; but as my incredulity may, perhaps, be the product rather of
+    prejudice than reason, as envy may beget a disinclination to admit so
+    immense a superiority, and as an account is not to be immediately
+    censured as false, merely because it is wonderful, I shall proceed to
+    give the rest of his father's relation, from his letter of the 3rd of
+    March, 1729-30. He speaks, continues he, German, Latin, and French,
+    equally well. He can, by laying before him a translation, read any of
+    the books of the Old or New Testament, in its original language,
+    without hesitation or perplexity. <i>He is no stranger to biblical
+    criticism</i> or philosophy, nor unacquainted with ancient and modern
+    geography, and is qualified to support a conversation with learned
+    men, who frequently visit and correspond with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin,
+    but translated the travels of rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into
+    French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with
+    dissertations; a work in which his father, as he himself declares,
+    could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the
+    rabbinical dialect.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to
+    prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto
+    accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should
+    translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to
+    some bookseller, he might, in return for it, have other books which he
+    wanted and could not afford to purchase.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Incited by this expectation, he fixed upon the travels of rabbi
+    Benjamin, as most proper for his purpose, being a book neither bulky
+    nor common, and in one month completed his translation, applying only
+    one or two hours a day to that particular task. In another month, he
+    drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, wrote some
+    dissertations upon particular passages which seemed to require a
+    larger examination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the
+    common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration,
+    judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds, in every page, some
+    reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a
+    child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by
+    reflection, and dextrous, by long practice, in the use of books. Yet,
+    that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by
+    the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. le
+    Maître, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts
+    his claim to this work, but affirms, that he heard him, at six years
+    of age, explain the Hebrew text, as if it had been his native
+    language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without, a degree of
+    incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which
+    his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered,
+    make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young
+    translator; but, after having examined the performance in their
+    manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very
+    advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might
+    not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and
+    had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate
+    tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to
+    a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his
+    performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely
+    transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes,
+    new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its
+    former bulk.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the
+    book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so
+    inconsiderable, that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may
+    be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short
+    account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son
+    to show, so early, how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the
+    languages, a knowledge which some men spend their lives in
+    cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they
+    seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What applauses are due to an old age, wasted in a scrupulous attention
+    to particular accents and etymologies, may appear, says his father, by
+    seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in
+    these studies as many, even of these venerable doctors, have not
+    attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This censure is, doubtless, just, upon those who spend too much of
+    their lives upon useless niceties, or who appear to labour without
+    making any progress; but, as the knowledge of language is necessary,
+    and a minute accuracy sometimes requisite, they are by no means to be
+    blamed, who, in compliance with the particular bent of their own
+    minds, make the difficulties of dead languages their chief study, and
+    arrive at excellence proportionate to their application, since it was
+    to the labour of such men that his son was indebted for his own
+    learning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first languages which Barretier learned were the French, German,
+    and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude
+    of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and
+    burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which
+    they require, and the disgust which they create. The method by which
+    he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and, therefore, pleasing.
+    He learned them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time,
+    by conversing in them indifferently with his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The other languages, of which he was master, he learned by a method
+    yet more uncommon. The only book which he made use of was the Bible,
+    which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed
+    to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught, by degrees,
+    the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made
+    the Latin more familiar to him, in his fourth year, than any other
+    language.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study
+    of the Old Testament, in its original language, beginning with the
+    book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months;
+    after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books,
+    in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to
+    the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read
+    over so often, with so close an attention, and so happy a memory, that
+    he could not only translate them, without a moment's hesitation, into
+    Latin or French, but turn, with the same facility, the translations
+    into the original language in his tenth year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Growing, at length, weary of being confined to a book which he could
+    almost entirely repeat, he deviated, by stealth, into other studies,
+    and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read
+    a multitude of writers, of various kinds. <i>In his twelfth year he
+    applied more particularly to the study of the fathers</i>, and
+    councils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular
+    collection of their canons. He read every author in the original,
+    having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most
+    translations, that he paid no regard to their authority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor
+    discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement
+    was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally
+    supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of
+    those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read
+    them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to
+    them when his memory should fail him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was,
+    nor his want of books, a want of which he was, in the highest degree,
+    sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse
+    life, without any circumstance of disquiet, frequently creates. He was
+    always gay, lively, and facetious; a temper which contributed much to
+    recommend his learning, and which some students, much superiour in
+    age, would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest,
+    by copying from him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the year 1735 he published Anti-Artemonius; sive, initium evangelii
+    S. Joannis adversus Artemonium vindicatum; and attained such a degree
+    of reputation, that not only the publick, but <i>princes, who are
+    commonly the last</i> by whom merit is distinguished, began to
+    interest themselves in his success; for, the same year, the king of
+    Prussia, who had heard of his early advances in literature, on account
+    of a scheme for discovering the longitude, which had been sent to the
+    Royal society of Berlin, and which was transmitted afterwards by him
+    to Paris and London, engaged to take care of his fortune, having
+    received further proofs of his abilities at his own court.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was
+    obliged to travel with his son thither, from Schwabach, through
+    Leipsic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his son, as it would
+    furnish him with new opportunities of improving his knowledge, and
+    extending his acquaintance among men of letters. For this purpose they
+    stayed some time at Leipsic, and then travelled to Halle, where young
+    Barretier so distinguished himself in his conversation with the
+    professors of the university, that they offered him his degree of
+    doctor in philosophy, a dignity correspondent to that of master of
+    arts among us. Barretier drew up, that night, some positions in
+    philosophy, and the mathematicks, which he sent immediately to the
+    press, and defended, the next day, in a crowded auditory, with so much
+    wit, spirit, presence of thought, and strength of reason, that the
+    whole university was delighted and amazed; he was then admitted to his
+    degree, and attended by the whole concourse to his lodgings, with
+    compliments and acclamations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed in compliance
+    with the practice of that university, ran through several editions in
+    a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting, that could
+    contribute to animate him in his progress.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they arrived at Berlin, the king ordered him to be brought into
+    his presence, and was so much pleased with his conversation, that he
+    sent for him almost every day during his stay at Berlin; and diverted
+    himself with engaging him in conversations upon a multitude of
+    subjects, and in disputes with learned men; on all which occasions he
+    acquitted himself so happily, that the king formed the highest ideas
+    of his capacity, and future eminence. And thinking, perhaps with
+    reason, that active life was the noblest sphere of a great genius, he
+    recommended to him the study of modern history, the customs of
+    nations, and those parts of learning, that are of use in publick
+    transactions and civil employments, declaring, that such abilities,
+    properly cultivated, might exalt him, in ten years, to be the greatest
+    minister of state in Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Barretier, whether we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience,
+    was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered,
+    that <i>he was too much pleased with science and quiet</i>, to leave
+    them for such inextricable studies, or such harassing fatigues. A
+    resolution so unpleasing to the king, that his father attributes to it
+    the delay of those favours which they had hopes of receiving, the king
+    having, as he observes, determined to employ him in the ministry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr.
+    Barretier some false conceptions of the king's design; for he infers,
+    from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the
+    caresses which he received from them, that the king intended him for
+    their preceptor; a scheme, says he, which some other resolution
+    happily destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these
+    intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with
+    the highest regard by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a
+    present of two hundred crowns; and his father, instead of being fixed
+    at Stetin, was made pastor of the French church at Halle; a place more
+    commodious for study, to which they retired; Barretier being first
+    admitted into the Royal society at Berlin, and recommended, by the
+    king, to the university at Halle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <i>At Halle he continued his studies</i> with his usual application
+    and success, and, either by his own reflections, or the persuasions of
+    his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to
+    those of the king, and direct his inquiries to those subjects that had
+    been recommended by him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase
+    his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his
+    nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition,
+    which, being not alarming or violent, was, perhaps, not at first
+    sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months,
+    during which he spent days among his books, and neither neglected his
+    studies, nor left his gaiety, till his distemper, ten days before his
+    death, deprived him of the use of his limbs: he then prepared himself
+    for his end, without fear or emotion, and, on the 5th of October,
+    1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his saviour, with
+    <i>confidence and tranquillity</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    In the Magazine for 1742 appeared the following
+</p>
+<p>
+    ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT of the LIFE OF JOHN PHILIP BARRETIER <a href="#note-46">[46]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "As the nature of our collections requires that our accounts of
+    remarkable persons and transactions should be early, our readers must
+    necessarily pardon us, if they are often not complete, and allow us to
+    be sufficiently studious of their satisfaction, if we correct our
+    errours, and supply our defects from subsequent intelligence, where
+    the importance of the subject merits an extraordinary attention, or
+    when we have any peculiar opportunities of procuring information. The
+    particulars here inserted we thought proper to annex, by way of note,
+    to the following passages, quoted from the magazine for December,
+    1740, and for February, 1741."
+</p>
+<p>
+    P. 377. <i>At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+    languages.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    French, which was the native language of his mother, was that which he
+    learned first, mixed, by living in Germany, with some words of the
+    language of the country. After some time, his father took care to
+    introduce, in his conversation with him, some words of Latin, in such
+    a manner that he might discover the meaning of them by the connexion
+    of the sentence, or the occasion on which they were used, without
+    discovering that he had any intention of instructing him, or that any
+    new attainment was proposed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this method of conversation, in which new words were every day
+    introduced, his ear had been somewhat accustomed to the inflections
+    and variations of the Latin tongue, he began to attempt to speak like
+    his father, and was in a short time drawn on, by imperceptible
+    degrees, to speak Latin, intermixed with other languages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus, when he was but four years old, he spoke every day French to his
+    mother, Latin to his father, and high Dutch to the maid, without any
+    perplexity to himself, or any confusion of one language with another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    P. 377. <i>He is no stranger to biblical criticism.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now gained such a degree of skill in the Hebrew language, as to
+    be able to compose in it, both in prose and verse, he was extremely
+    desirous of reading the rabbins; and having borrowed of the
+    neighbouring clergy, and the jews of Schwabach, all the books which
+    they could supply him, he prevailed on his father to buy him the great
+    rabbinical Bible, published at Amsterdam, in four tomes, folio, 1728,
+    and read it with that accuracy and attention which appears, by the
+    account of it written by him to his favourite M. le Maitre, inserted
+    in the beginning of the twenty-sixth volume of the Bibliothéque
+    germanique.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances
+    or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so
+    little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most
+    eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their
+    fables and chimeras.
+</p>
+<p>
+    P. 381. <i>In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the
+    study of the fathers.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him
+    on rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recall him to the
+    study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to
+    which he returned with so much ardour, that, in a short time, he was
+    able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of
+    the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father's
+    desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the
+    name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning
+    of St. John's gospel, a reading different from that which is at
+    present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the
+    divinity of our Saviour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and
+    prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a
+    formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the
+    earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies, which he
+    proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but,
+    finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book
+    itself, he determined to publish it apart.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of
+    globes into his hands, in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so
+    much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, and applied himself
+    to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the
+    problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so
+    clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that
+    he began to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose,
+    laying aside, for a time, all searches into antiquity, he employed his
+    utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematicks, and
+    made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have
+    spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an
+    astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables, but invented new methods
+    of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him, because they
+    were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of
+    reading; and it is a sufficient proof, both of the rapidity of his
+    progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his
+    first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the
+    longitude, which he sent, in January, 1735, to the Royal society at
+    London.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His scheme, being recommended to the society by the queen, was
+    considered by them with a degree of attention which, perhaps, would
+    not have been bestowed upon the attempt of a mathematician so young,
+    had he not been dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But it was
+    soon found, that, for want of books, he had imagined himself the
+    inventor of methods already in common use, and that he proposed no
+    means of discovering the longitude, but such as had been already tried
+    and found insufficient. Such will be very frequently the fate of
+    those, whose fortune either condemns them to study without the
+    necessary assistance from libraries, or who, in too much haste,
+    publish their discoveries.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This attempt exhibited, however, such a specimen of his capacity for
+    mathematical learning, and such a proof of an early proficiency, that
+    the Royal society of Berlin admitted him as one of their members in
+</p>
+<center>
+    1735.
+</center>
+<p>
+    P. 381. <i>Princes, who are commonly the last</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Barretier, had been distinguished much more early by the margravin of
+    Anspach, who, in 1726, sent for his father and mother to the court,
+    where their son, whom they carried with them, presented her with a
+    letter in French, and addressed another in Latin to the young prince;
+    who afterwards, in 1734, granted him the privilege of borrowing books
+    from the libraries of Anspach, together with an annual pension of
+    fifty florins, which he enjoyed for four years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this place it may not be improper to recount some honours conferred
+    upon him, which, if distinctions are to be rated by the knowledge of
+    those who bestow them, may be considered as more valuable than those
+    which he received from princes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In June, 1731, he was initiated in the university of Altdorft, and at
+    the end of the year 1732, the synod of the reformed churches, held at
+    Christian Erlang, admitted him to be present at their consultations,
+    and to preserve the memory of so extraordinary a transaction, as the
+    reception of a boy of eleven years into an ecclesiastical council,
+    recorded it in a particular article of the acts of the synod.
+</p>
+<p>
+    P. 383. <i>He was too much pleased with science and quiet</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Astronomy was always Barretier's favourite study, and so much
+    engrossed his thoughts, that he did not willingly converse on any
+    other subject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities of the
+    greatest persons, as with the conversation of the mathematicians. An
+    astronomical observation was sufficient to withhold him from court, or
+    to call him away abruptly from the most illustrious assemblies; nor
+    was there any hope of enjoying his company, without inviting some
+    professor to keep him in temper, and engage him in discourse; nor was
+    it possible, without this expedient, to prevail upon him to sit for
+    his picture.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ibid. <i>At Halle he continued his studies.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Halle, where he
+    continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be
+    improper to give a more particular account.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his
+    privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the
+    students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him,
+    though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments,
+    too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an
+    invitation to three lectures; one critical on the book of Job, another
+    on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of
+    this employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his
+    auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his
+    studies which it produced, and, therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted
+    wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his
+    own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a
+    regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his
+    other time upon different studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first year of his residence at Halle was spent upon natural
+    philosophy and mathematicks; and scarcely any author, ancient or
+    modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by
+    him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been
+    discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense
+    calculations for his own use.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his
+    Account of Heresies, which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion
+    he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a
+    project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a
+    Chrono-logical Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome,
+    from St. Peter to Victor, printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature,
+    and read not only a multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but
+    in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabick languages,
+    and, in the last year of his life, he was engrossed by the study of
+    inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1737 he resumed his design of finding a certain method of
+    discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained
+    by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the
+    needle, and sent to the academy of sciences, and to the Royal society
+    of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it
+    was first answered by the Royal society, that it appeared the same
+    with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the
+    academy of sciences, that his method was but very little different
+    from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was
+    ingenious, but ineffectual.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two
+    men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries
+    after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian
+    antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity,
+    by deciphering the hieroglyphicks, and explaining their astronomy; but
+    this design was interrupted by his death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    P. 384. <i>Confidence and tranquillity</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof
+    how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable
+    diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled
+    almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in
+    every profession, except that of physick, from which he had been
+    discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had
+    been consulted concerning his own disorders.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his
+    natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and
+    when he inquired into the various opinions of the writers of all ages,
+    he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once
+    comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to
+    reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to
+    enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He
+    wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar
+    felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook,
+    being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into
+    another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed
+    original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of
+    memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at
+    the same time, to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect
+    and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what
+    was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books
+    which he could not procure when he might want them a second time,
+    being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what
+    he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and
+    the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised forty-one
+    pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a
+    constant reader of literary journals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not
+    bear musick, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to
+    it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor dancing, nor the
+    sports of the field, nor relieved his studies with any other diversion
+    than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived
+    almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires,
+    which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he,
+    therefore, conversed among those who had gained his confidence with
+    great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he
+    was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to
+    discover his sentiments, or display his learning. He never fixed his
+    choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession,
+    being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with
+    avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was
+    never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to
+    learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to
+    irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are
+    exposed by idleness or common amusements.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_37"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    MORIN <a href="#note-47">[47]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Lewis Morin was born at Mans, on the 11th of July, 1635, of parents
+    eminent for their piety. He was the eldest of sixteen children; a
+    family to which their estate bore no proportion, and which, in persons
+    less resigned to providence, would have caused great uneasiness and
+    anxiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires,
+    and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that
+    appeared to have taken possession of his inclination, as soon as the
+    bent of his genius could be discovered. A countryman, who supplied the
+    apothecaries of the place, was his first master, and was paid by him
+    for his instructions with the little money that he could procure, or
+    that which was given him to buy something to eat after dinner. Thus
+    abstinence and generosity discovered themselves with his passion for
+    botany, and the gratification of a desire indifferent in itself, was
+    procured by the exercise of two virtues.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was soon master of all his instructer's knowledge, and was obliged
+    to enlarge his acquaintance with plants, by observing them himself in
+    the neighbourhood of Mans. Having finished his grammatical studies, he
+    was sent to learn philosophy at Paris, whither he travelled on foot
+    like a student in botany, and was careful not to lose such an
+    opportunity of improvement.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his
+    love of botany, to the profession of physick, and, from that time,
+    engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded, either by the
+    ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he
+    confined himself to bread and water, and, at most, allowed himself no
+    indulgence beyond fruits. By this method, he preserved a constant
+    freedom and serenity of spirits, always equally proper for study; for
+    his soul had no pretences to complain of being overwhelmed with
+    matter. This regimen, extraordinary as it was, had many advantages;
+    for it preserved his health, an advantage which very few sufficiently
+    regard; it gave him an authority to preach diet and abstinence to his
+    patients; and it made him rich without the assistance of fortune;
+    rich, not for himself, but for the poor, who were the only persons
+    benefited by that artificial affluence, which, of all others, is most
+    difficult to acquire. It is easy to imagine, that, while he practised
+    in the midst of Paris the severe temperance of a hermit, Paris
+    differed no otherwise, with regard to him, from a hermitage, than as
+    it supplied him with books and the conversation of learned men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1662, he was admitted doctor of physick. About that time Dr. Fagon,
+    Dr. Longuet, and Dr. Galois, all eminent for their skill in botany,
+    were employed in drawing up a catalogue of the plants in the Royal
+    garden, which was published in 1665, under the name of Dr. Vallot,
+    then first physician: during the prosecution of this work, Dr. Morin
+    was often consulted, and from those conversations it was that Dr.
+    Fagon conceived a particular esteem of him, which he always continued
+    to retain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After having practised physick some years, he was admitted
+    <i>expectant</i> at the Hôtel-Dieu, where he was regularly to have
+    been made pensionary physician upon the first vacancy; but mere
+    unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it
+    advances at all. Morin had no acquaintance with the arts necessary to
+    carry on schemes of preferment; the moderation of his desires
+    preserved him from the necessity of studying them, and the privacy of
+    his life debarred him from any opportunity. At last, however, justice
+    was done him, in spite of artifice and partiality; but his advancement
+    added nothing to his condition, except the power of more extensive
+    charity; for all the money which he received, as a salary, he put into
+    the chest of the hospital, always, as he imagined, without being
+    observed. Not content with serving the poor for nothing, he paid them
+    for being served.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His reputation rose so high in Paris, that mademoiselle de Guise was
+    desirous to make him her physician; but it was not without difficulty
+    that he was prevailed upon by his friend, Dr. Dodart, to accept the
+    place. He was by this new advancement laid under the necessity of
+    keeping a chariot, an equipage very unsuitable to his temper; but
+    while he complied with those exterior appearances, which the publick
+    had a right to demand from him, he remitted nothing of his former
+    austerity, in the more private and essential parts of his life, which
+    he had always the power of regulating according to his own
+    disposition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In two years and a half the princess fell sick, and was despaired of
+    by Morin, who was a great master of prognosticks. At the time when she
+    thought herself in no danger he pronounced her death inevitable; a
+    declaration to the highest degree disagreeable, but which was made
+    more easy to him than to any other, by his piety and artless
+    simplicity. Nor did his sincerity produce any ill consequences to
+    himself; for the princess, affected by his zeal, taking a ring from
+    her finger, gave it him, as the last pledge of her affection, and
+    rewarded him still more to his satisfaction, by preparing for death
+    with a true Christian piety. She left him, by will, a yearly pension
+    of two thousand livres, which was always regularly paid him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No sooner was the princess dead, but he freed himself from the
+    encumbrance of his chariot, and retired to St. Victor, without a
+    servant; having, however, augmented his daily allowance with a little
+    rice, boiled in water. Dodart, who had undertaken the charge of being
+    ambitious on his account, procured him, at the restoration of the
+    academy, in 1699, to be nominated associate botanist; not knowing,
+    what he would doubtless have been pleased with the knowledge of, that
+    he introduced into that assembly the man that was to succeed him in
+    his place of <i>pensionary</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dr. Morin was not one who had upon his hands the labour of adapting
+    himself to the duties of his condition, but always found himself
+    naturally adapted to them. He had, therefore, no difficulty in being
+    constant at the assemblies of the academy, notwithstanding the
+    distance of places, while he had strength enough to support the
+    journey. But his regimen was not equally effectual to produce vigour
+    as to prevent distempers; and, being sixty-four years old at his
+    admission, he could not continue his assiduity more than a year after
+    the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Mr. Tournefort went to pursue his botanical inquiries in the
+    Levant, he desired Dr. Morin to supply his place of demonstrator of
+    the plants in the Royal garden, and rewarded him for the trouble, by
+    inscribing to him a new plant, which he brought from the east, by the
+    name of Morina orientalis, as he named others the Do-darto, the
+    Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipée. These are compliments proper to
+    be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to
+    the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable
+    nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these
+    vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name
+    conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other
+    name than that of tobacco.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Dr. Morin, advancing far in age, was now forced to take a servant,
+    and, what was yet a more essential alteration, prevailed upon himself
+    to take an ounce of wine a day, which he measured with the same
+    exactness as a medicine bordering upon poison. He quitted, at the same
+    time, all his practice in the city, and confined it to the poor of his
+    neighbourhood, and his visits to the Hôtel-Dieu; but his weakness
+    increasing, he was forced to increase his quantity of wine, which yet
+    he always continued to adjust by weight <a href="#note-48">[48]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At seventy-eight his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely
+    left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the
+    last six months of his life. He expired, or, to use a more proper
+    term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of eighty years,
+    without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having
+    enjoyed, by the benefit of his regimen, a long and healthy life, and a
+    gentle and easy death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his
+    life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and
+    exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He
+    spent, in the morning, three hours at his devotions, and went to the
+    Hôtel-Dieu, in the summer, between five and six, and, in the winter,
+    between six and seven, hearing mass, for the most part, at Notre Dame.
+    After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and,
+    when it was fair weather, walked till two in the Royal garden, where
+    he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest
+    passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to
+    visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physick,
+    but chiefly physick, as the duty of his profession required. This,
+    likewise, was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He
+    often used this expression: "Those that come to see me, do me honour;
+    those that stay away, do me a favour." It is easy to conceive, that a
+    man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only
+    now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates,
+    more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a
+    year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience
+    of a hermit <a href="#note-49">[49]</a>. There is, likewise, a journal of the weather, kept
+    without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has
+    accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the
+    dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the
+    course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms,
+    in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits, in a little
+    room, a great train of different observations. What numbers of such
+    remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose
+    attention had been extended to common objects!
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of
+    herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it
+    evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_38"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    BURMAN <a href="#note-50">[50]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Peter Burman was born at Utrecht, on the 26th day of June, 1668. The
+    family from which he descended has, for several generations, produced
+    men of great eminence for piety and learning; and his father, who was
+    professor of divinity in the university, and pastor of the city of
+    Utrech't, was equally celebrated for the strictness of his life, the
+    efficacy and orthodoxy of his sermons, and the learning and
+    perspicuity of his academical lectures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the assistance and instruction which such a father would
+    doubtless have been encouraged by the genius of this son not to have
+    omitted, he was unhappily cut off at eleven years of age, being at
+    that time, by his father's death, thrown entirely under the care of
+    his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was
+    so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness,
+    to regret the loss of his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was, about this time, sent to the publick school of Utrecht, to be
+    instructed in the learned languages; and it will convey no common idea
+    of his capacity and industry to relate, that he had passed through the
+    classes, and was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This account of the rapidity of his progress in the first part of his
+    studies is so stupendous, that, though it is attested by his friend,
+    Dr. Osterdyke, of whom it cannot be reasonably suspected that he is
+    himself deceived, or that he can desire to deceive others, it must be
+    allowed far to exceed the limits of probability, if it be considered,
+    with regard to the methods of education practised in our country,
+    where it is not uncommon for the highest genius, and most
+    comprehensive capacity, to be entangled for ten years, in those thorny
+    paths of literature, which Burman is represented to have passed in
+    less than two; and we must, doubtless, confess the most skilful of our
+    masters much excelled by the address of the Dutch teachers, or the
+    abilities of our greatest scholars far surpassed by those of Burinan.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But, to reduce this narrative to credibility, it is necessary that
+    admiration should give place to inquiry, and that it be discovered
+    what proficiency in literature is expected from a student, requesting
+    to be admitted into a Dutch university. It is to be observed, that in
+    the universities of foreign countries, they have professors of
+    philology, or humanity, whose employment is to instruct the younger
+    classes in grammar, rhetorick, and languages; nor do they engage in
+    the study of philosophy, till they have passed through a course of
+    philological lectures and exercises, to which, in some places, two
+    years are commonly allotted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The English scheme of education, which, with regard to academical
+    studies, is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price
+    than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are
+    initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge
+    sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read
+    to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies
+    without assistance; so that it may be conjectured, that Burman, at his
+    entrance into the university, had no such skill in languages, nor such
+    ability of composition, as are frequently to be met with in the higher
+    classes of an English school; nor was, perhaps, more than moderately
+    skilled in Latin, and taught the first rudiments of Greek.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Grævius,
+    whose regard for his father inclined him to superintend his studies
+    with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and
+    increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his
+    observation of his diligence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Grævius
+    for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily
+    discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar
+    designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of
+    literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman
+    was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great
+    advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction
+    of his genius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued
+    the vigour of his application, and, for several years, not only
+    attended the lectures of Grævius, but made use of every other
+    opportunity of improvement, with such diligence as might justly be
+    expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to
+    qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to
+    the study of the law, and published a dissertation, de Vicesima
+    Hæreditatum, which he publickly defended, under the professor Van
+    Muyden, with such learning and eloquence, as procured him great
+    applause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Imagining, then, that the conversation of other men of learning might
+    be of use towards his further improvement, and rightly judging that
+    notions formed in any single seminary are, for the greatest part,
+    contracted and partial, he went to Leyden, where he studied philosophy
+    for a year, under M. de Volder, whose celebrity was so great, that the
+    schools assigned to the sciences, which it was his province to teach,
+    were not sufficient, though very spacious, to contain the audience
+    that crowded his lectures from all parts of Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yet he did not suffer himself to be engrossed by philosophical
+    disquisitions, to the neglect of those studies in which he was more
+    early engaged, and to which he was, perhaps, by nature better adapted;
+    for he attended at the same time Ryckius's explanations of Tacitus,
+    and James Gronovius's lectures on the Greek writers, and has often
+    been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he
+    received from them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having thus passed a year at Leyden with great advantage, he returned
+    to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by
+    the assistance of Grævius, whose early hopes of his genius were now
+    raised to a full confidence of that excellence, at which he afterwards
+    arrived.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Utrecht, in March, 1688, in the twentieth year of his age, he was
+    advanced to the degree of doctor of laws; on which occasion he
+    published a learned dissertation, de Transactionibus, and defended it
+    with his usual eloquence, learning, and success.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The attainment of this honour was far from having upon Burman that
+    effect which has been too often observed to be produced in others,
+    who, having in their own opinion no higher object of ambition, have
+    relapsed into idleness and security, and spent the rest of their lives
+    in a lazy enjoyment of their academical dignities. Burman aspired to
+    further improvements, and, not satisfied with the opportunities of
+    literary conversation which Utrecht afforded, travelled into
+    Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and
+    learning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At his return from this excursion, he engaged in the practice of the
+    law, and pleaded several causes with such reputation, as might be
+    hoped by a man who had joined to his knowledge of the law, the
+    embellishments of polite literature, and the strict ratiocination of
+    true philosophy; and who was able to employ, on every occasion, the
+    graces of eloquence and the power of argumentation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While Burman was hastening to high reputation in the courts of
+    justice, and to those riches and honours which always follow it, he
+    was summoned, in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the
+    charge of collector of the tenths, an office, in that place, of great
+    honour, and which he accepted, therefore, as a proof of their
+    confidence and esteem.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While he was engaged in this employment, he married Eve Clotterboke, a
+    young lady of a good family, and uncommon genius and beauty, by whom
+    he had ten children, of which eight died young; and only two sons,
+    Francis and Caspar, lived to console their mother for their father's
+    death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Neither publick business nor domestick cares detained Burman from the
+    prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared
+    himself to Grævius, that he Was recommended by him to the regard of
+    the university of Utrecht, and, accordingly, in 1696, was chosen
+    professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some
+    time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of
+    politicks; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so
+    extensive his knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At his entrance upon this new province, he pronounced an oration upon
+    eloquence and poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having now more frequent opportunities of displaying his learning, he
+    arose, in a short time, to a high reputation, of which the great
+    number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the
+    proficiency of his pupils showed not to be accidental or undeserved.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1714, he formed a resolution of visiting Paris, not only for the
+    sake of conferring, in person, upon questions of literature, with the
+    learned men of that place, and of gratifying his curiosity with a more
+    familiar knowledge of those writers whose works he admired, but with a
+    view more important, of visiting the libraries, and making those
+    inquiries which might be of advantage to his darling study.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The vacation of the university allowed him to stay at Paris but six
+    weeks, which he employed with so much dexterity and industry, that he
+    had searched the principal libraries, collated a great number of
+    manuscripts and printed copies, and brought back a great treasure of
+    curious observations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this visit to Paris he contracted an acquaintance, among other
+    learned men, with the celebrated father Montfaucon; with whom he
+    conversed, at his first interview, with no other character but that of
+    a traveller; but, their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the
+    stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon
+    declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to
+    know his name; which he no sooner heard, than he rose from his seat,
+    and, embracing him with the utmost ardour, expressed his satisfaction
+    at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so
+    often praised; and, as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to
+    procure him an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, but
+    to those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to
+    strangers, and undertook to ease the expenses of his journey, by
+    procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This favour Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of
+    returning to Utrecht at the usual time of beginning a new course of
+    lectures, to which there was always so great a concourse of students,
+    as much increased the dignity and fame of the university in which he
+    taught.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He had already extended to distant parts his reputation for knowledge
+    of ancient history, by a treatise, de Vectigalibus Populi Romani, on
+    the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and
+    in ancient coins, by a tract called Jupiter Fulgurator; and after his
+    return from Paris, he published Plædrus, first with the notes of
+    various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed many
+    poems, made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an
+    impression of the epistles of Gudius and Sanavius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While he was thus employed, the professorships of history, eloquence,
+    and the Greek language, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of
+    Perizonius, which Burman's reputation incited the curators of the
+    university to offer him upon very generous terms, and which, after
+    some struggles with his fondness for his native place, his friends,
+    and his colleagues, he was prevailed on to accept, finding the
+    solicitations from Leyden warm and urgent, and his friends at Utrecht,
+    though unwilling to be deprived of him, yet not zealous enough for the
+    honour and advantage of their university, to endeavour to detain him
+    by great liberality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At his entrance upon this new professorship, which was conferred upon
+    him in 1715, he pronounced an oration upon the duty and office of a
+    professor of polite literature; de publici humanioris disciplinæ
+    professoris proprio officio et munere; and showed, by the usefulness
+    and perspicuity of his lectures, that he was not confined to
+    speculative notions on that subject, having a very happy method of
+    accommodating his instructions to the different abilities and
+    attainments of his pupils.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor did he suffer the publick duties of this station to hinder him
+    from promoting learning by labours of a different kind; for, besides
+    many poems and orations, which he recited on different occasions, he
+    wrote several prefaces to the works of others, and published many
+    useful editions of the best Latin writers, with large collections of
+    notes from various commentators.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was twice rector, or chief governour of the university, and
+    discharged that important office with equal equity and ability, and
+    gained, by his conduct in every station, so much esteem, that when the
+    professorship of history of the United Provinces became vacant, it was
+    conferred on him, as an addition to his honours and revenues, which he
+    might justly claim; and afterwards, as a proof of the continuance of
+    their regard, and a testimony that his reputation was still
+    increasing, they made him chief librarian, an office which was the
+    more acceptable to him, as it united his business with his pleasure,
+    and gave him an opportunity, at the same time, of superintending the
+    library, and carrying on his studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the course of his life, till, in his old age, leaving off his
+    practice of walking, and other exercises, he began to be afflicted
+    with the scurvy, which discovered itself by very tormenting symptoms
+    of various kinds; sometimes disturbing his head with vertigos,
+    sometimes causing faintness in his limbs, and sometimes attacking his
+    legs with anguish so excruciating, that all his vigour was destroyed,
+    and the power of walking entirely taken away, till, at length, his
+    left foot became motionless. The violence of his pain produced
+    irregular fevers, deprived him of rest, and entirely debilitated his
+    whole frame.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This tormenting disease he bore, though not without some degree of
+    impatience, yet without any unbecoming or irrational despondency, and
+    applied himself in the intermission of his pains to seek for comfort
+    in the duties of religion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While he lay in this state of misery he received an account of the
+    promotion of two of his grandsons, and a catalogue of the king of
+    France's library, presented to him by the command of the king himself,
+    and expressed some satisfaction on all these occasions; but soon
+    diverted his thoughts to the more important consideration of his
+    eternal state, into which he passed on the 31st of March, 1741, in the
+    seventy-third year of his age.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity,
+    which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and
+    by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not
+    suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by
+    frequent intermissions; a practice consistent with the most exemplary
+    diligence, and which he that omits will find at last, that time may be
+    lost, like money, by unseasonable avarice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far
+    to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the
+    ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his
+    mirth; but enemies so provoked, he thought it beneath him to regard or
+    to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malicious, disdained
+    dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled
+    detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised
+    friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of
+    flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant
+    in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted
+    familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence
+    in his old age.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled
+    in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station
+    required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon
+    knowledge; which, however, appears rather from judicious compilations,
+    than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not
+    without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to
+    that purity, which some writers have attained. He was at least
+    instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many
+    valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the
+    learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may
+    claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning, than some others of
+    happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not
+    love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he
+    took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary
+    declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the
+    revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our
+    Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole behaviour in
+    his long illness was an incontestable proof; and he concluded his
+    life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an
+    example of true piety.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of his works we have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he
+    published, Quintilianus, 2 vols. 4to; Valerius Flaccus; Ovidius, 4
+    vols. 4to; Poetæ Latini Minores, 2 vols. 4to; cum notis variorum.
+    Buchanani Opera, 2 vols. 4to <a href="#note-51">[51]</a>.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_39"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    SYDENHAM <a href="#note-52">[52]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Thomas Sydenham was born in the year 1624, at Windford Eagle, in
+    Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham, esq. had a large
+    fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed
+    his childhood, whether he made any early discoveries of a genius
+    peculiarly adapted to the study of nature, or gave any presages of his
+    future eminence in medicine, no information is to be obtained. We
+    must, therefore, repress that curiosity, which would naturally incline
+    us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in
+    its childish inquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices,
+    breaking, on trifling occasions, the shackles of credulity, and giving
+    proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the
+    yoke of prescription, and dispel the phantoms of hypothesis.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his
+    discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked
+    from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt;
+    for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely
+    related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same
+    proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the
+    greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only
+    by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of
+    their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials
+    of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily
+    recorded in publick registers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From these it is discovered, that, at the age of eighteen, in 1642, he
+    commenced a commoner of Magdalen hall, in Oxford, where it is not
+    probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he
+    was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor
+    is it known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided
+    during that long series of publick commotion. It is, indeed, reported,
+    that he had a commission in the king's army, but no particular account
+    is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he
+    obtained, when he entered into the army, or when, or on what occasion,
+    he retired from it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, however, certain, that if ever he took upon him the profession
+    of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for, in 1648, he
+    obtained, at Oxford, the degree of bachelor of physick, for which, as
+    some medicinal knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he
+    spent some time in qualifying himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His application to the study of physick was, as he himself relates,
+    produced by an accidental acquaintance with Dr. Cox, a physician,
+    eminent at that time in London, who in some sickness prescribed to his
+    brother, and attending him frequently on that occasion, inquired of
+    him what profession he designed to follow. The young man answering
+    that he was undetermined, the doctor recommended physick to him, on
+    what account, or with what arguments, it is not related; but his
+    persuasions were so effectual, that Sydenham determined to follow his
+    advice, and retired to Oxford for leisure and opportunity to pursue
+    his studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is evident that this conversation must have happened before his
+    promotion to any degree in physick, because he himself fixes it in the
+    interval of his absence from the university, a circumstance which will
+    enable us to confute many false reports relating to Dr. Sydenham,
+    which have been confidently inculcated, and implicitly believed. It is
+    the general opinion, that he was made a physician by accident and
+    necessity, and sir Richard Blackmore reports, in plain terms, [preface
+    to his Treatise on the Small Pox,] that he engaged in practice,
+    without any preparatory study, or previous knowledge, of the medicinal
+    sciences; and affirms, that when he was consulted by him what books he
+    should read to qualify him for the same profession, he recommended Don
+    Quixote.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That he recommended Don Quixote to Blackmore, we are not allowed to
+    doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love, which dazzles
+    all mankind, from discovering that he might intend a satire very
+    different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers
+    on medicine, since he might, perhaps, mean, either seriously or in
+    jest, to insinuate, that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the
+    study of physick, and that, whether he should read Cervantes or
+    Hippocrates, he would be equally unqualified for practice, and equally
+    unsuccessful in it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whatsoever was his meaning, nothing is more evident, than that it was
+    a transient sally of an imagination warmed with gaiety, or the
+    negligent effusion of a mind intent upon some other employment, and in
+    haste to dismiss a troublesome intruder; for it is certain that
+    Sydenham did not think it impossible to write usefully on medicine,
+    because he has himself written upon it; and it is not probable that he
+    carried his vanity so far, as to imagine that no man had ever acquired
+    the same qualifications besides himself. He could not but know that he
+    rather restored, than invented most of his principles, and, therefore,
+    could not but acknowledge the value of those writers whose doctrines
+    he adopted and enforced.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That he engaged in the practice of physick without any acquaintance
+    with the theory, or knowledge of the opinions or precepts of former
+    writers, is undoubtedly false; for he declares, that, after he had, in
+    pursuance of his conversation with Dr. Cox, determined upon the
+    profession of physick, he "applied himself in earnest to it, and spent
+    several years in the university," (aliquot annos in academica
+    palæstra,) before he began to practise in London.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nor was he satisfied with the opportunities of knowledge which Oxford
+    afforded, but travelled to Montpellier, as Désault relates,
+    [Dissertation on Consumptions,] in quest of further information;
+    Montpellier, being at that time, the most celebrated school of
+    physick: so far was Sydenham from any contempt of academical
+    institutions, and so far from thinking it reasonable to learn physick
+    by experiments alone, which must necessarily be made at the hazard of
+    life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What can be demanded beyond this by the most zealous advocate for
+    regular education? What can be expected from the most cautious and
+    most industrious student, than that he should dedicate several years
+    to the rudiments of his art, and travel for further instructions from
+    one university to another?
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is likewise a common opinion, that Sydenham was thirty years old,
+    before he formed his resolution of studying physick, for which I can
+    discover no other foundation than one expression in his dedication to
+    Dr. Mapletoft, which seems to have given rise to it, by a gross
+    misinterpretation; for he only observes, that from his conversation
+    with Dr. Cox to the publication of that treatise, thirty years had
+    intervened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whatever may have produced this notion, or how long soever it may have
+    prevailed, it is now proved, beyond controversy, to be false; since it
+    appears that Sydenham, having been for some time absent from the
+    university, returned to it, in order to pursue his physical inquiries,
+    before he was twenty-four years old; for, in 1648, he was admitted to
+    the degree of bachelor of physick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That such reports should be confidently spread, even among the
+    contemporaries of the author to whom they relate, and obtain, in a few
+    years, such credit as to require a regular confutation; that it should
+    be imagined that the greatest physician of the age arrived at so high
+    a degree of skill, without any assistance from his predecessors; and
+    that a man, eminent for integrity, practised medicine by chance, and
+    grew wise only by murder; is not to be considered without
+    astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But if it be, on the other part, remembered, how much this opinion
+    favours the laziness of some, and the pride of others; how readily
+    some men confide in natural sagacity; and how willingly most would
+    spare themselves the labour of accurate reading and tedious inquiry;
+    it will be easily discovered, how much the interest of multitudes was
+    engaged in the production and continuance of this opinion, and how
+    cheaply those, of whom it was known that they practised physick before
+    they studied it, might satisfy themselves and others with the example
+    of the illustrious Sydenham.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, therefore, in an uncommon degree useful to publish a true
+    account of this memorable man, that pride, temerity, and idleness, may
+    be deprived of that patronage which they have enjoyed too long; that
+    life may be secured from the dangerous experiments of the ignorant and
+    presumptuous; and that those, who shall, hereafter, assume the
+    important province of superintending the health of others, may learn,
+    from this great master of the art, that the only means of arriving at
+    eminence and success are labour and study.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From these false reports it is probable that another arose, to which,
+    though it cannot be with equal certainty confuted, it does not appear
+    that entire credit ought to be given. The acquisition of a Latin style
+    did not seem consistent with the manner of life imputed to him; nor
+    was it probable, that he, who had so diligently cultivated the
+    ornamental parts of general literature, would have neglected the
+    essential studies of his own profession. Those, therefore, who were
+    determined, at whatever price, to retain him in their own party, and
+    represent him equally ignorant and daring with themselves, denied him
+    the credit of writing his own works in the language in which they were
+    published, and asserted, but without proof, that they were composed by
+    him in English, and translated into Latin by Dr. Mapletoft.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether Dr. Mapletoft lived and was familiar with him, during the
+    whole time in which these several treatises were printed, treatises
+    written on particular occasions, and printed at periods considerably
+    distant from each other, we have had no opportunity of inquiring, and,
+    therefore, cannot demonstrate the falsehood of this report; but if it
+    be considered how unlikely it is, that any man should engage in a work
+    so laborious and so little necessary, only to advance the reputation
+    of another, or that he should have leisure to continue the same office
+    upon all following occasions; if it be remembered how seldom such
+    literary combinations are formed, and how soon they are, for the
+    greatest part, dissolved, there will appear no reason for not allowing
+    Dr. Sydenham the laurel of eloquence, as well as physick <a href="#note-53">[53]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is observable, that his Processus Integri, published after his
+    death, discovers alone more skill in the Latin language than is
+    commonly ascribed to him; and it surely will not be suspected, that
+    the officiousness of his friends was continued after his death, or
+    that he procured the book to be translated, only that, by leaving it
+    behind him, he might secure his claim to his other writings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is asserted by sir Hans Sloane, that Dr. Sydenham, with whom he was
+    familiarly acquainted, was particularly versed in the writings of the
+    great Roman orator and philosopher; and there is evidently such a
+    luxuriance in his style, as may discover the author which gave him
+    most pleasure, and most engaged his imitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About the same time that he became bachelor of physick, he obtained,
+    by the interest of a relation, a fellowship of All Souls' college,
+    having submitted, by the subscription required, to the authority of
+    the visitors appointed by the parliament, upon what principles, or how
+    consistently with his former conduct, it is now impossible to
+    discover.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he thought himself qualified for practice, he fixed his residence
+    in Westminster, became doctor of physick at Cambridge, received a
+    license from the college of physicians, and lived in the first degree
+    of reputation, and the greatest affluence of practice, for many years,
+    without any other enemies than those which he raised by the superiour
+    merit of his conduct, the brighter lustre of his abilities, or his
+    improvements of his science, and his contempt of pernicious methods,
+    supported only by authority, in opposition to sound reason and
+    indubitable experience. These men are indebted to him for concealing
+    their names, when he records their malice, since they have, thereby,
+    escaped the contempt and detestation of posterity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is a melancholy reflection, that they who have obtained the highest
+    reputation, by preserving or restoring the health of others, have
+    often been hurried away before the natural decline of life, or have
+    passed many of their years under the torments of those distempers
+    which they profess to relieve. In this number was Sydenham, whose
+    health began to fail in the fifty-second year of his age, by the
+    frequent attacks of the gout, to which he was subject for a great part
+    of his life, and which was afterwards accompanied with the stone in
+    the kidneys, and, its natural consequence, bloody urine.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These were distempers which even the art of Sydenham could only
+    palliate, without hope of a perfect cure, but which, if he has not
+    been able by his precepts to instruct us to remove, he has, at least,
+    by his example, taught us to bear; for he never betrayed any indecent
+    impatience, or unmanly dejection, under his torments, but supported
+    himself by the reflections of philosophy, and the consolations of
+    religion; and in every interval of ease applied himself to the
+    assistance of others with his usual assiduity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After a life thus usefully employed, he died at his house in
+    Pall-mall, on the 29th of December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle,
+    near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What was his character, as a physician, appears from the treatises
+    which he has left, which it is not necessary to epitomise or
+    transcribe; and from them it may likewise be collected, that his skill
+    in physick was not his highest excellence; that his whole character
+    was amiable; that his chief view was the benefit of mankind, and the
+    chief motive of his actions, the will of God, whom he mentions with
+    reverence, well becoming the most enlightened and most penetrating
+    mind. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere, and
+    religious; qualities, which it were happy, if they could copy from
+    him, who emulate his knowledge, and imitate his methods.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_40"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHEYNEL <a href="#note-54">[54]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    There is always this advantage in contending with illustrious
+    adversaries, that the combatant is equally immortalized by conquest or
+    defeat. He that dies by the sword of a hero will always be mentioned,
+    when the acts of his enemy are mentioned. The man, of whose life the
+    following account is offered to the publick, was, indeed, eminent
+    among his own party, and had qualities, which, employed in a good
+    cause, would have given him some claim to distinction; but no one is
+    now so much blinded with bigotry, as to imagine him equal either to
+    Hammond or Chillingworth; nor would his memory, perhaps, have been
+    preserved, had he not, by being conjoined with illustrious names,
+    become the object of publick curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Francis Cheynel was born in 1608, at Oxford <a href="#note-55">[55]</a>, where his father,
+    Dr. John Cheynel, who had been fellow of Corpus Christi college,
+    practised physick with great reputation. He was educated in one of the
+    grammar schools of his native city, and, in the beginning of the year
+    1623, became a member of the university.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is probable, that he lost his father when he was very young; for it
+    appears, that before 1629, his mother had married Dr. Abbot, bishop of
+    Salisbury, whom she had likewise buried. From this marriage he
+    received great advantage; for his mother, being now allied to Dr.
+    Brent, then warden of Merton college, exerted her interest so
+    vigorously, that he was admitted there a probationer, and afterwards
+    obtained a fellowship <a href="#note-56">[56]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having taken the degree of master of arts, he was admitted to orders,
+    according to the rites of the church of England, and held a curacy
+    near Oxford, together with his fellowship. He continued in his
+    college, till he was qualified, by his years of residence, for the
+    degree of bachelor of divinity, which he attempted to take in 1641,
+    but was denied his grace <a href="#note-57">[57]</a>, for disputing concerning
+    predestination, contrary to the king's injunctions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This refusal of his degree he mentions in his dedication to his
+    account of Mr. Chillingworth: "Do not conceive that I snatch up my pen
+    in an angry mood, that I might vent my dangerous wit, and ease my
+    overburdened spleen; no, no, I have almost forgotten the visitation of
+    Merton college, and the denial of my grace, the plundering of my
+    house, and little library: I know when, and where, and of whom, to
+    demand satisfaction for all these injuries and indignities. I have
+    learnt 'centum plagas Spartana nobilitate concoquere.' I have not
+    learnt how to plunder others of goods, or living, and make myself
+    amends by force of arms. I will not take a living which belonged to
+    any civil, studious, learned delinquent; unless it be the
+    much-neglected <i>commendam</i> of some lordly prelate, condemned by
+    the known laws of the land, and the highest court of the kingdom, for
+    some offence of the first magnitude."
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is observable, that he declares himself to have almost forgot his
+    injuries and indignities, though he recounts them with an appearance
+    of acrimony, which is no proof that the impression is much weakened;
+    and insinuates his design of demanding, at a proper time, satisfaction
+    for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These vexations were the consequence rather of the abuse of learning,
+    than the want of it; no one that reads his works can doubt that he was
+    turbulent, obstinate, and petulant; and ready to instruct his
+    superiours, when he most needed instruction from them. Whatever he
+    believed (and the warmth of his imagination naturally made him
+    precipitate in forming his opinions) he thought himself obliged to
+    profess; and what he professed he was ready to defend, without that
+    modesty which is always prudent, and generally necessary, and which,
+    though it was not agreeable to Mr. Cheynel's temper, and, therefore,
+    readily condemned by him, is a very useful associate to truth, and
+    often introduces her, by degrees, where she never could have forced
+    her way by argument or declamation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A temper of this kind is generally inconvenient and offensive in any
+    society, but in a place of education is least to be tolerated; for, as
+    authority is necessary to instruction, whoever endeavours to destroy
+    subordination, by weakening that reverence which is claimed by those
+    to whom the guardianship of youth is committed by their country,
+    defeats, at once, the institution; and may be justly driven from a
+    society, by which he thinks himself too wise to be governed, and in
+    which he is too young to teach, and too opinionative to learn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This may be readily supposed to have been the case of Cheynel; and I
+    know not how those can be blamed for censuring his conduct, or
+    punishing his disobedience, who had a right to govern him, and who
+    might certainly act with equal sincerity, and with greater knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With regard to the visitation of Merton college, the account is
+    equally obscure. Visitors are well known to be generally called to
+    regulate the affairs of colleges, when the members disagree with their
+    head, or with one another; and the temper that Dr. Cheynel discovers
+    will easily incline his readers to suspect, that he could not long
+    live in any place, without finding some occasion for debate; nor
+    debate any question, without carrying opposition to such a length as
+    might make a moderator necessary. Whether this was his conduct at
+    Merton, or whether an appeal to the visiter's authority was made by
+    him, or his adversaries, or any other member of the college, is not to
+    be known; it appears only, that there was a visitation, that he
+    suffered by it, and resented his punishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was afterwards presented to a living of great value, near Banbury,
+    where he had some dispute with archbishop Laud. Of this dispute I have
+    found no particular account. Calamy only says, he had a ruffle with
+    bishop Laud, while at his height.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Had Cheynel been equal to his adversary in greatness and learning, it
+    had not been easy to have found either a more proper opposite; for
+    they were both, to the last degree, zealous, active, and pertinacious,
+    and would have afforded mankind a spectacle of resolution and boldness
+    not often to be seen. But the amusement of beholding the struggle
+    would hardly have been without danger, as they were too fiery not to
+    have communicated their heat, though it should have produced a
+    conflagration of their country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About the year 1641, when the whole nation was engaged in the
+    controversy about the rights of the church, and necessity of
+    episcopacy, he declared himself a presbyterian, and an enemy to
+    bishops, liturgies, ceremonies; and was considered, as one of the most
+    learned and acute of his party; for, having spent much of his life in
+    a college, it cannot be doubted that he had a considerable knowledge
+    of books, which the vehemence of his temper enabled him often to
+    display, when a more timorous man would have been silent, though in
+    learning not his inferiour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the war broke out, Mr. Cheynel, in consequence of his principles,
+    declared himself for the parliament; and, as he appears to have held
+    it as a first principle, that all great and noble spirits abhor
+    neutrality, there is no doubt but that he exerted himself to gain
+    proselytes, and to promote the interest of that party, which he had
+    thought it his duty to espouse. These endeavours were so much regarded
+    by the parliament, that, having taken the covenant, he was nominated
+    one of the assembly of divines, who were to meet at Westminster for
+    the settlement of the new discipline.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This distinction drew, necessarily, upon him the hatred of the
+    cavaliers; and his living being not far distant from the king's
+    head-quarters, he received a visit from some of the troops, who, as he
+    affirms, plundered his house, and drove him from it. His living, which
+    was, I suppose, considered as forfeited by his absence, though he was
+    not suffered to continue upon it, was given to a clergyman, of whom he
+    says, that he would become a stage better than a pulpit; a censure
+    which I can neither confute nor admit, because I have not discovered
+    who was his successour. He then retired into Sussex, to exercise his
+    ministry among his friends, in a place where, as he observes, there
+    had been little of the power of religion either known or practised. As
+    no reason can be given why the inhabitants of Sussex should have less
+    knowledge or virtue than those of other places, it may be suspected
+    that he means nothing more than a place where the presbyterian
+    discipline or principles had never been received. We now observe, that
+    the methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent
+    themselves, as preaching the gospel to unconverted nations; and
+    enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their
+    particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves
+    the great instruments of salvation; yet it must be confessed, that all
+    places are not equally enlightened; that in the most civilized nations
+    there are many corners which may be called barbarous, where neither
+    politeness, nor religion, nor the common arts of life, have yet been
+    cultivated; and it is likewise certain, that the inhabitants of Sussex
+    huve been sometimes mentioned as remarkable for brutality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Sussex he went often to London, where, in 1643, he preached three
+    times before the parliament; and, returning in November to Colchester,
+    to keep the monthly fast there, as was his custom, he obtained a
+    convoy of sixteen soldiers, whose bravery or good fortune was such,
+    that they faced, and put to flight, more than two hundred of the
+    king's forces.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this journey he found Mr. Chillingworth in the hands of the
+    parliament's troops, of whose sickness and death he gave the account,
+    which has been sufficiently made known to the learned world by Mr.
+    Maizeaux, in his Life of Chillingworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With regard to this relation, it may be observed, that it is written
+    with an air of fearless veracity, and with the spirit of a man who
+    thinks his cause just, and his behaviour without reproach; nor does
+    there appear any reason for doubting that Cheynel spoke and acted as
+    he relates; for he does not publish an apology, but a challenge, and
+    writes not so much to obviate calumnies, as to gain from others that
+    applause which he seems to have bestowed very liberally upon himself,
+    for his behaviour on that occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Since, therefore, this relation is credible, a great part of it being
+    supported by evidence which cannot be refuted, Mr. Maizeaux seems very
+    justly, in his Life of Mr. Chillingworth, to oppose the common report,
+    that his life was shortened by the inhumanity of those to whom he was
+    a prisoner; for Cheynel appears to have preserved, amidst all his
+    detestation of the opinions which he imputed to him, a great kindness
+    to his person, and veneration for his capacity; nor does he appear to
+    have been cruel to him, otherwise than by that incessant importunity
+    of disputation, to which he was doubtless incited by a sincere belief
+    of the danger of his soul, if he should die without renouncing some of
+    his opinions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same kindness which made him desirous to convert him before his
+    death, would incline him to preserve him from dying before he was
+    converted; and accordingly we find, that, when the castle was yielded,
+    he took care to procure him a commodious lodging; when he was to have
+    been unseasonably removed, he attempted to shorten his journey, which
+    he knew would be dangerous; when the physician was disgusted by
+    Chillingworth's distrust, he prevailed upon him, as the symptoms grew
+    more dangerous, to renew his visits; and when death left no other act
+    of kindness to be practised, procured him the rites of burial, which
+    some would have denied him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having done thus far justice to the humanity of Cheynel, it is proper
+    to inquire, how far he deserves blame. He appears to have extended
+    none of that kindness to the opinions of Chillingworth, which he
+    showed to his person; for he interprets every word in the worst sense,
+    and seems industrious to discover, in every line, heresies, which
+    might have escaped for ever any other apprehension: he appears always
+    suspicious of some latent malignity, and ready to persecute what he
+    only suspects, with the same violence, as if it had been openly
+    avowed: in all his procedure he shows himself sincere, but without
+    candour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About this time Cheynel, in pursuance of his natural ardour, attended
+    the army under the command of the earl of Essex, and added the praise
+    of valour to that of learning; for he distinguished himself so much by
+    his personal bravery, and obtained so much skill in the science of
+    war, that his commands were obeyed by the colonels with as much
+    respect as those of the general. He seems, indeed, to have been born a
+    soldier; for he had an intrepidity which was never to be shaken by any
+    danger, and a spirit of enterprise not to be discouraged by
+    difficulty, which were supported by an unusual degree of bodily
+    strength. His services of all kinds were thought of so much importance
+    ty the parliament, that they bestowed upon him the living of Petworth,
+    in Sussex. This living was of the value of seven hundred pounds per
+    annum, from which they had ejected a man remarkable for his loyalty,
+    and, therefore, in their opinion, not worthy of such revenues. And it
+    may be inquired, whether, in accepting this preferment, Cheynel did
+    not violate the protestation which he makes in the passage already
+    recited, and whether he did not suffer his resolutions to be overborne
+    by the temptations of wealth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1646, when Oxford was taken by the forces of the parliament, and
+    the reformation of the university was resolved, Mr. Cheynel was sent,
+    with six others, to prepare the way for a visitation; being authorized
+    by the parliament to preach in any of the churches, without regard to
+    the right of the members of the university, that their doctrine might
+    prepare their hearers for the changes which were intended.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When they arrived at Oxford, they began to execute their commission,
+    by possessing themselves of the pulpits; but, if the relation of Wood
+    <a href="#note-58">[58]</a> is to be regarded, were heard with very little veneration. Those
+    who had been accustomed to the preachers of Oxford, and the liturgy of
+    the church of England, were offended at the emptiness of their
+    discourses, which were noisy and unmeaning; at the unusual gestures,
+    the wild distortions, and the uncouth tone with which they were
+    delivered; at the coldness of their prayers for the king, and the
+    vehemence and exuberance of those which they did not fail to utter for
+    <i>the blessed councils</i> and actions of the parliament and army;
+    and at, what was surely not to be remarked without indignation, their
+    omission of the Lord's prayer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But power easily supplied the want of reverence, and they proceeded in
+    their plan of reformation; and thinking sermons not so efficacious to
+    conversion as private interrogatories and exhortations, they
+    established a weekly meeting for <i>freeing tender consciences from
+    scruple</i>, at a house that, from the business to which it was
+    appropriated, was called the <i>scruple-shop</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With this project they were so well pleased, that they sent to the
+    parliament an account of it, which was afterwards printed, and is
+    ascribed, by Wood, to Mr. Cheynel. They continued for some weeks to
+    hold their meetings regularly, and to admit great numbers, whom
+    curiosity, or a desire of conviction, or a compliance with the
+    prevailing party, brought thither. But their tranquillity was quickly
+    disturbed by the turbulence of the independents, whose opinions then
+    prevailed among the soldiers, and were very industriously propagated
+    by the discourses of William Earbury, a preacher of great reputation
+    among them, who one day gathering a considerable number of his most
+    zealous followers, went to the house appointed for the resolution of
+    scruples, on a day which was set apart for the disquisition of the
+    dignity and office of a minister, and began to dispute, with great
+    vehemence, against the presbyterians, whom he denied to have any true
+    ministers among them, and whose assemblies he affirmed not to be the
+    true church. He was opposed with equal heat by the presbyterians, and,
+    at length, they agreed to examine the point another day, in a regular
+    disputation. Accordingly, they appointed the 12th of November for an
+    inquiry: "Whether, in the christian church, the office of minister is
+    committed to any particular persons?"
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the day fixed, the antagonists appeared, each attended by great
+    numbers; but, when the question was proposed, they began to wrangle,
+    not about the doctrine which they had engaged to examine, but about
+    the terms of the proposition, which the independents alleged to be
+    changed since their agreement; and, at length, the soldiers insisted
+    that the question should be, "Whether those who call themselves
+    ministers, have more right or power to preach the gospel, than any
+    other man that is a christian?" This question was debated, for some
+    time, with great vehemence and confusion, but without any prospect of
+    a conclusion. At length, one of the soldiers, who thought they had an
+    equal right with the rest to engage in the controversy, demanded of
+    the presbyterians, whence they themselves received their orders,
+    whether from bishops, or any other persons. This unexpected
+    interrogatory put them to great difficulties; for it happened that
+    they were all ordained by the bishops, which they durst not
+    acknowledge, for fear of exposing themselves to a general censure, and
+    being convicted from their own declarations, in which they had
+    frequently condemned episcopacy, as contrary to Christianity; nor
+    durst they deny it, because they might have been confuted, and must,
+    at once, have sunk into contempt. The soldiers, seeing their
+    perplexity, insulted them; and went away, boasting of their victory;
+    nor did the presbyterians, for some time, recover spirit enough to
+    renew their meetings, or to proceed in the work of easing consciences.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Earbury, exulting at the victory, which, not his own abilities, but
+    the subtlety of the soldier had procured him, began to vent his
+    notions of every kind, without scruple, and, at length, asserted, that
+    "the saints had an equal measure of the divine nature with our
+    Saviour, though not equally manifest." At the same time he took upon
+    him the dignity of a prophet, and began to utter predictions relating
+    to the affairs of England and Ireland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His prophecies were not much regarded, but his doctrine was censured
+    by the presbyterians in their pulpits; and Mr. Cheynel challenged him
+    to a disputation, to which he agreed, and, at his first appearance in
+    St. Mary's church, addressed his audience in the following manner:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Christian friends, kind fellow-soldiers, and worthy students, I, the
+    humble servant of all mankind, am this day drawn, against my will, out
+    of my cell into this publick assembly, by the double chain of
+    accusation and a challenge from the pulpit. I have been charged with
+    heresy; I have been challenged to come hither, in a letter written by
+    Mr. Francis Cheynel. Here, then, I stand in defence of myself and my
+    doctrine, which I shall introduce with only this declaration, that I
+    claim not the office of a minister on account of any outward call,
+    though I formerly received ordination, nor do I boast of illumination,
+    or the knowledge of our Saviour, though I have been held in esteem by
+    others, and formerly by myself; for I now declare, that I know
+    nothing, and am nothing, nor would I be thought of otherwise than as
+    an inquirer and seeker."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then advanced his former position in stronger terms, and with
+    additions equally detestable, which Cheynel attacked with the
+    vehemence which, in so warm a temper, such horrid assertions might
+    naturally excite. The dispute, frequently interrupted by the clamours
+    of the audience, and tumults raised to disconcert Cheynel, who was
+    very unpopular, continued about four hours, and then both the
+    controvertists grew weary, and retired. The presbyterians afterwards
+    thought they should more speedily put an end to the heresies of
+    Earbury by power than by argument; and, by soliciting general Fairfax,
+    procured his removal.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Cheynel published an account of this dispute, under the title of,
+    Faith triumphing over Errour and Heresy, in a Revelation, &amp;c.; nor can
+    it be doubted but he had the victory, where his cause gave him so
+    great superiority.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Somewhat before this, his captious and petulant disposition engaged
+    him in a controversy, from which he could not expect to gain equal
+    reputation. Dr. Hammond had, not long before, published his Practical
+    Catechism, in which Mr. Cheynel, according to his custom, found many
+    errours implied, if not asserted; and, therefore, as it was much read,
+    thought it convenient to censure it in the pulpit. Of this Dr. Hammond
+    being informed, desired him, in a letter, to communicate his
+    objections; to which Mr. Cheynel returned an answer, written with his
+    usual temper, and, therefore, somewhat perverse. The controversy was
+    drawn out to a considerable length; and the papers, on both sides,
+    were afterwards made publick by Dr. Hammond.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1647, it was determined by parliament, that the reformation of
+    Oxford should be more vigorously carried on; and Mr. Cheynel was
+    nominated one of the visiters. The general process of the visitation,
+    the firmness and fidelity of the students, the address by which the
+    inquiry was delayed, and the steadiness with which it was opposed,
+    which are very particularly related by Wood, and after him by Walker,
+    it is not necessary to mention here, as they relate not more to Mr.
+    Cheynel's life than to those of his associates.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is, indeed, some reason to believe that he was more active and
+    virulent than the rest, because he appears to have been charged, in a
+    particular manner, with some of their most unjustifiable measures. He
+    was accused of proposing, that the members of the university should be
+    denied the assistance of counsel, and was lampooned by name, as a
+    madman, in a satire written on the visitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One action, which shows the violence of his temper, and his disregard,
+    both of humanity and decency, when they came in competition with his
+    passions, must not be forgotten. The visiters, being offended at the
+    obstinacy of Dr. Fell, dean of Christchurch, and vicechancellor of the
+    university, having first deprived him of his vicechancellorship,
+    determined afterwards to dispossess him of his deanery; and, in the
+    course of their proceedings, thought it proper to seize upon his
+    chambers in the college. This was an act which most men would
+    willingly have referred to the officers to whom the law assigned it;
+    but Cheynel's fury prompted him to a different conduct. He, and three
+    more of the visiters, went and demanded admission; which, being
+    steadily refused them, they obtained by the assistance of a file of
+    soldiers, who forced the doors with pick-axes. Then entering, they saw
+    Mrs. Fell in the lodgings, Dr. Fell being in prison at London, and
+    ordered her to quit them, but found her not more obsequious than her
+    husband. They repeated their orders with menaces, but were not able to
+    prevail upon her to remove. They then retired, and left her exposed to
+    the brutality of the soldiers, whom they commanded to keep possession,
+    which Mrs. Fell, however, did not leave. About nine days afterwards,
+    she received another visit of the same kind from the new chancellor,
+    the earl of Pembroke; who having, like the others, ordered her to
+    depart without effect, treated her with reproachful language, and, at
+    last, commanded the soldiers to take her up in her chair, and carry
+    her out of doors. Her daughters, and some other gentlewomen that were
+    with her, were afterwards treated in the same manner; one of whom
+    predicted, without dejection, that she should enter the house again
+    with less difficulty, at some other time; nor was she mistaken in her
+    conjecture, for Dr. Fell lived to be restored to his deanery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the reception of the chancellor, Cheynel, as the most accomplished
+    of the visiters, had the province of presenting him with the ensigns
+    of his office, some of which were counterfeit, and addressing him with
+    a proper oration. Of this speech, which Wood has preserved, I shall
+    give some passages, by which a judgment may be made of his oratory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the staves of the beadles he observes, that "some are stained with
+    double guilt, that some are pale with fear, and that others have been
+    made use of as crutches, for the support of bad causes and desperate
+    fortunes;" and he remarks of the book of statutes which he delivers,
+    that "the ignorant may, perhaps, admire the splendour of the cover,
+    but the learned know that the real treasure is within." Of these two
+    sentences it is easily discovered, that the first is forced and
+    unnatural, and the second trivial and low.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Soon afterwards Mr. Cheynel was admitted to the degree of bachelor of
+    divinity, for which his grace had been denied him in 1641, and, as he
+    then suffered for an ill-timed assertion of the presbyterian
+    doctrines, he obtained that his degree should be dated from the time
+    at which he was refused it; an honour which, however, did not secure
+    him from being soon after publickly reproached as a madman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the vigour of Cheynel was thought, by his companions, to deserve
+    profit, as well as honour; and Dr. Bailey, the president of St. John's
+    college, being not more obedient to the authority of the parliament
+    than the rest, was deprived of his revenues and authority, with which
+    Mr. Cheynel was immediately invested; who, with his usual coolness and
+    modesty, took possession of the lodgings soon after by breaking open
+    the doors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This preferment being not thought adequate to the deserts or abilities
+    of Mr. Cheynel, it was, therefore, desired, by the committee of
+    parliament, that the visiters would recommend him to the lectureship
+    of divinity, founded by the lady Margaret. To recommend him, and to
+    choose, was, at that time, the same; and he had now the pleasure of
+    propagating his darling doctrine of predestination, without
+    interruption, and without danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Being thus flushed with power and success, there is little reason for
+    doubting that he gave way to his natural vehemence, and indulged
+    himself in the utmost excesses of raging zeal, by which he was,
+    indeed, so much distinguished, that, in a satire mentioned by Wood, he
+    is dignified by the title of archvisiter; an appellation which he
+    seems to have been industrious to deserve by severity and
+    inflexibility; for, not contented with the commission which he and his
+    colleagues had already received, he procured six or seven of the
+    members of parliament to meet privately in Mr. Rouse's lodgings, and
+    assume the style and authority of a committee, and from them obtained
+    a more extensive and tyrannical power, by which the visitors were
+    enabled to force the <i>solemn league and covenant</i>, and the
+    <i>negative oath</i> upon all the members of the university, and to
+    prosecute those for a contempt who did not appear to a citation, at
+    whatever distance they might be, and whatever reasons they might
+    assign for their absence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this method he easily drove great numbers from the university,
+    whose places he supplied with men of his own opinion, whom he was very
+    industrious to draw from other parts, with promises of making a
+    liberal provision for them out of the spoils of hereticks and
+    malignants.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having, in time, almost extirpated those opinions which he found so
+    prevalent at his arrival, or, at least, obliged those, who would not
+    recant, to an appearance of conformity, he was at leisure for
+    employments which deserve to be recorded with greater commendation.
+    About this time, many socinian writers began to publish their notions
+    with great boldness, which the presbyterians, considering as heretical
+    and impious, thought it necessary to confute; and, therefore, Cheynel,
+    who had now obtained his doctor's degree, was desired, in 1649, to
+    write a vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he
+    performed, and published the next year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He drew up, likewise, a confutation of some socinian tenets advanced
+    by John Fry, a man who spent great part of his life in ranging from
+    one religion to another, and who sat as one of the judges on the king,
+    but was expelled afterwards from the house of commons, and disabled
+    from sitting in parliament. Dr. Cheynel is said to have shown himself
+    evidently superiour to him in the controversy, and was answered by him
+    only with an opprobrious book against the presbyterian clergy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the remaining part of his life, there is found only an obscure and
+    confused account. He quitted the presidentship of St. John's, and the
+    professorship, in 1650, as Calamy relates, because he would not take
+    the engagement; and gave a proof that he could suffer, as well as act,
+    in a cause which he believed just. We have, indeed, no reason to
+    question his resolution, whatever occasion might be given to exert it;
+    nor is it probable that he feared affliction more than danger, or that
+    he would not have borne persecution himself for those opinions which
+    inclined him to persecute others.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He did not suffer much upon this occasion; for he retained the living
+    of Petworth, to which he, thenceforward, confined his labours, and
+    where he was very assiduous, and, as Calamy affirms, very successful
+    in the exercise of his ministry, it being his peculiar character to be
+    warm and zealous in all his undertakings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This heat of his disposition, increased by the uncommon turbulence of
+    the times in which he lived, and by the opposition to which the
+    unpopular nature of some of his employments exposed him, was, at last,
+    heightened to distraction, so that he was, for some years, disordered
+    in his understanding, as both Wood and Calamy relate, but with such
+    difference as might be expected from their opposite principles. Wood
+    appears to think, that a tendency to madness was discoverable in a
+    great part of his life; Calamy, that it was only transient and
+    accidental, though, in his additions to his first narrative, he pleads
+    it, as an extenuation of that fury with which his kindest friends
+    confess him to have acted on some occasions. Wood declares, that he
+    died little better than distracted; Calamy, that he was perfectly
+    recovered to a sound mind, before the restoration, at which time he
+    retired to Preston, a small village in Sussex, being turned out of his
+    living at Petworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It does not appear that he kept his living till the general ejection
+    of the nonconformists; and it is not unlikely that the asperity of his
+    carriage, and the known virulence of his temper, might have raised him
+    enemies, who were willing to make him feel the effects of persecution,
+    which he had so furiously incited against others; but of this incident
+    of his life there is no particular account.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After his deprivation, he lived, till his death, which happened in
+    1665, at a small village near Chichester, upon a paternal estate, not
+    augmented by the large preferments wasted upon him in the triumphs of
+    his party; having been remarkable, throughout his life, for
+    hospitality and contempt of money.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_41"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CAVE <a href="#note-59">[59]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    The curiosity of the publick seems to demand the history of every man
+    who has, by whatever means, risen to eminence; and few lives would
+    have more readers than that of the compiler of the Gentleman's
+    Magazine, if all those who received improvement or entertainment from
+    him should retain so much kindness for their benefactor, as to inquire
+    after his conduct and character.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Edward Cave was born at Newton, in Warwickshire, Feb. 29, 1691. His
+    father (Joseph) was the younger son of Mr. Edward Cave, of
+    Cave's-in-the-Hole, a lone house, on the Street road, in the same
+    county, which took its name from the occupier; but having concurred
+    with his elder brother in cutting off the entail of a small hereditary
+    estate, by which act it was lost from the family, he was reduced to
+    follow, in Rugby, the trade of a shoemaker. He was a man of good
+    reputation in his narrow circle, and remarkable for strength and
+    rustick intrepidity. He lived to a great age, and was, in his latter
+    years, supported by his son.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was fortunate for Edward Cave, that, having a disposition to
+    literary attainments, he was not cut off by the poverty of his parents
+    from opportunities of cultivating his faculties. The school of Rugby,
+    in which he had, by the rules of its foundation, a right to be
+    instructed, was then in high reputation under the reverend Mr.
+    Holyock, to whose care most of the neighbouring families, even of the
+    highest rank, intrusted their sons. He had judgment to discover, and,
+    for some time, generosity to encourage, the genius of young Cave; and
+    was so well pleased with his quick progress in the school, that he
+    declared his resolution to breed him for the university, and
+    recommended him, as a servitor, to some of his scholars of high rank.
+    But prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short
+    duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious
+    familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations;
+    and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky
+    prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or
+    small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem,
+    when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault
+    was sure to fall upon poor Cave.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last, his mistress, by some invisible means, lost a favourite cock.
+    Cave was, with little examination, stigmatised as the thief and
+    murderer; not because he was more apparently criminal than others, but
+    because he was more easily reached by vindictive justice. From that
+    time, Mr. Holyock withdrew his kindness visibly from him, and treated
+    him with harshness, which the crime, in its utmost aggravation, could
+    scarcely deserve; and which, surely, he would have forborne, had he
+    considered how hardly the habitual influence of birth and fortune is
+    resisted; and how frequently men, not wholly without sense of virtue,
+    are betrayed to acts more atrocious than the robbery of a hen-roost,
+    by a desire of pleasing their superiours.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those reflections his master never made, or made without effect; for,
+    under pretence that Cave obstructed the discipline of the school, by
+    selling clandestine assistance, and supplying exercises to idlers, he
+    was oppressed with unreasonable tasks, that there might be an
+    opportunity of quarrelling with his failure; and when his diligence
+    had surmounted them, no regard was paid to the performance. Cave bore
+    this persecution awhile, and then left the school, and the hope of a
+    literary education, to seek some other means of gaining a livelihood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was first placed with a collector of the excise. He used to
+    recount, with some pleasure, a journey or two which he rode with him
+    as his clerk, and relate the victories that he gained over the
+    excisemen in grammatical disputations. But the insolence of his
+    mistress, who employed him in servile drudgery, quickly disgusted him,
+    and he went up to London in quest of more suitable employment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was recommended to a timber-merchant at the Bankside, and, while he
+    was there on liking, is said to have given hopes of great mercantile
+    abilities; but this place he soon left, I know not for what reason,
+    and was bound apprentice to Mr. Collins, a printer of some reputation,
+    and deputy alderman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was a trade for which men were formerly qualified by a literary
+    education, and which was pleasing to Cave, because it furnished some
+    employment for his scholastick attainments. Here, therefore, he
+    resolved to settle, though his master and mistress lived in perpetual
+    discord, and their house was, therefore, no comfortable habitation.
+    From the inconveniencies of these domestick tumults he was soon
+    released, having, in only two years, attained so much skill in his
+    art, and gained so much the confidence of his master, that he was
+    sent, without any superintendant, to conduct a printing-office at
+    Norwich, and publish a weekly paper. In this undertaking he met with
+    some opposition, which produced a publick controversy, and procured
+    young Cave the reputation of a writer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His master died before his apprenticeship was expired, and he was not
+    able to bear the perverseness of his mistress. He, therefore, quitted
+    her house upon a stipulated allowance, and married a young widow, with
+    whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship was over, he worked, as
+    a journeyman, at the printing-house of Mr. Barber, a man much
+    distinguished, and employed by the tories, whose principles had, at
+    that time, so much prevalence with Cave, that he was, for some years,
+    a writer in Mist's Journal; which, though he afterwards obtained, by
+    his wife's interest, a small place in the post-office, he for some
+    time continued. But, as interest is powerful, and conversation,
+    however mean, in time persuasive, he, by degrees, inclined to another
+    party; in which, however, he was always moderate, though steady and
+    determined.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he was admitted into the post-office, he still continued, at his
+    intervals of attendance, to exercise his trade, or to employ himself
+    with some typographical business. He corrected the Gradus ad
+    Parnassum; and was liberally rewarded by the company of stationers. He
+    wrote an account of the criminals, which had, for some time, a
+    considerable sale; and published many little pamphlets, that accident
+    brought into his hands, of which it would be very difficult to recover
+    the memory. By the correspondence which his place in the post-office
+    facilitated, he procured country newspapers, and sold their
+    intelligence to a journalist in London, for a guinea a week.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the franks, in
+    which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and often stopped
+    franks, which were given by members of parliament to their friends,
+    because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This
+    raised many complaints, and having stopped, among others, a frank
+    given to the old dutchess of Marlborough by Mr. Walter Plummer, he was
+    cited before the house, as for a breach of privilege, and accused, I
+    suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was
+    treated with great harshness and severity, but, declining their
+    questions, by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And
+    it must be recorded to his honour, that, when he was ejected from his
+    office, he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but
+    continued to refuse, to his nearest friends, any information about the
+    management of the office.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By this constancy of diligence and diversification of employment, he
+    in time collected a sum sufficient for the purchase of a small
+    printing-office, and began the Gentleman's Magazine, a periodical
+    pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language
+    is spoken. To this undertaking he owed the affluence in which he
+    passed the last twenty years of his life, and the fortune which he
+    left behind him, which, though large, had been yet larger, had he not
+    rashly and wantonly impaired it, by innumerable projects, of which I
+    know not that ever one succeeded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Gentleman's Magazine, which has now subsisted fifty years, and
+    still continues to enjoy the favour of the world <a href="#note-60">[60]</a>, is one of the
+    most successful and lucrative pamphlets which literary history has
+    upon record, and therefore deserves, in this narrative, particular
+    notice.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mr. Cave, when he formed the project, was far from expecting the
+    success which he found; and others had so little prospect of its
+    consequence, that though he had, for several years, talked of his plan
+    among printers and booksellers, none of them thought it worth the
+    trial. That they were not restrained by virtue from the execution of
+    another man's design, was sufficiently apparent, as soon as that
+    design began to be gainful; for, in a few years, a multitude of
+    magazines arose and perished: only the London Magazine, supported by a
+    powerful association of booksellers, and circulated with all the art
+    and all the cunning of trade, exempted itself from the general fate of
+    Cave's invaders, and obtained, though not an equal, yet a considerable
+    sale <a href="#note-61">[61]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Cave now began to aspire to popularity; and being a greater lover of
+    poetry than any other art, he sometimes offered subjects for poems,
+    and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty
+    pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and
+    thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected
+    the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered
+    the allotment of the prize to the universities. But, when the time
+    came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen
+    before; the universities and several private men rejected the province
+    of assigning the prize. At all this Mr. Cave wondered for awhile; but
+    his natural judgment, and a wider acquaintance with the world, soon
+    cured him of his astonishment, as of many other prejudices and
+    errours. Nor have many men been seen raised by accident or industry to
+    sudden riches, that retained less of the meanness of their former
+    state.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He continued to improve his magazine, and had the satisfaction of
+    seeing its success proportionate to his diligence, till, in 1751, his
+    wife died of an asthma. He seemed not at first much affected by her
+    death, but in a few days lost his sleep and his appetite, which he
+    never recovered; but, after having lingered about two years, with many
+    vicissitudes of amendment and relapse, fell, by drinking acid liquors,
+    into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargick
+    insensibility, in which one of the last acts of reason, which he
+    exerted, was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little
+    narrative. He died on the 10th of January, 1754, having just concluded
+    the twenty-third annual collection <a href="#note-62">[62]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was a man of a large stature, not only tall but bulky, and was,
+    when young, of remarkable strength and activity. He was, generally,
+    healthful, and capable of much labour and long application; but in the
+    latter years of his life was afflicted with the gout, which he
+    endeavoured to cure or alleviate by a total abstinence both from
+    strong liquors and animal food. From animal food he abstained about
+    four years, and from strong liquors much longer; but the gout
+    continued unconquered, perhaps unabated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His resolution and perseverance were very uncommon; in whatever he
+    undertook, neither expense nor fatigue were able to repress him; but
+    his constancy was calm, and to those who did not know him appeared
+    faint and languid; but he always went forward, though he moved slowly.
+    The same chilness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was
+    watching the minutest accent of those
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  Assisted only by a classical education,
+  Which he received at the Grammar school
+  Of this Town,
+  Planned, executed, and established
+  A literary work, called
+  THE
+  GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE,
+  Whereby he acquired an ample fortune,
+  The whole of which devolved to his family,
+  Here also lies
+  The body of WILLIAM CAVE,
+  Second son of the said JOSEPH CAVE,
+  Who died May 2, 1757, aged 62 years;
+  And who, having survived his elder brother,
+  EDWARD CAVE,
+  Inherited from him a competent estate;
+  And, in gratitude to his benefactor,
+  Ordered this monument to perpetuate his memory.
+
+  He liv'd a patriarch in his numerous race,
+  And show'd in charity a Christian's grace:
+  Whate'er a friend or parent feels, he knew;
+  His hand was open, and his heart was true;
+  In what he gain'd and gave, he taught mankind,
+  A grateful always is a generous mind.
+  Here rest his clay! his soul must ever rest;
+  Who bless'd when living, dying must be blest.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was
+    surprised when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the
+    scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was, consistently with this general tranquillity of mind, a
+    tenacious maintainer, though not a clamorous demander, of his right.
+    In his youth, having summoned his fellow-journeymen to concert
+    measures against the oppression of their masters, he mounted a kind of
+    rostrum, and harangued them so efficaciously, that they determined to
+    resist all future invasions; and when the stamp-offices demanded to
+    stamp the last half-sheet of the magazines, Mr. Cave alone defeated
+    their claim, to which the proprietors of the rival magazines would
+    meanly have submitted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was a friend rather easy and constant, than zealous an'd active;
+    yet many instances might be given, where both his money and his
+    diligence were employed liberally for others. His enmity was, in like
+    manner, cool and deliberate; but though cool, it was not insidious,
+    and though deliberate, not pertinacious.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His mental faculties were slow. He saw little at a time, but that
+    little he saw with great exactness. He was long in finding the right,
+    but seldom failed to find it at last. His affections were not easily
+    gained, and his opinions not quickly discovered. His reserve, as it
+    might hide his faults, concealed his virtues; but such he was, as they
+    who best knew him have most lamented.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_42"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    KING OF PRUSSIA <a href="#note-63">[63]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Charles Frederick, the present king of Prussia, whose actions and
+    designs now keep Europe in attention, is the eldest son of Frederick
+    William, by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George the first, king of
+    England. He was born January 24, 1711-12. Of his early years nothing
+    remarkable has been transmitted to us. As he advanced towards manhood,
+    he became remarkable by his disagreement with his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The late king of Prussia was of a disposition violent and arbitrary,
+    of narrow views, and vehement passions, earnestly engaged in little
+    pursuits, or in schemes terminating in some speedy consequence,
+    without any plan of lasting advantage to himself or his subjects, or
+    any prospect of distant events. He was, therefore, always busy, though
+    no effects of his activity ever appeared, and always eager, though he
+    had nothing to gain. His behaviour was, to the last degree, rough and
+    savage. The least provocation, whether designed or accidental, was
+    returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and
+    princesses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From such a king and such a father it was not any enormous violation
+    of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom, sometimes to differ in
+    opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A
+    prince of a quick sagacity and comprehensive knowledge, must find many
+    practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and
+    some which he could scarcely forbear to oppose.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The chief pride of the old king was to be master of the tallest
+    regiment in Europe. He, therefore, brought together, from all parts,
+    men above the common military standard. To exceed the height of six
+    feet, was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of
+    seven, a claim to distinction. Men will readily go where they are sure
+    to be caressed; and he had, therefore, such a collection of giants,
+    as, perhaps, was never seen in the world before.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to
+    perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he
+    immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that
+    they might propagate procerity, and produce heirs to the father's
+    habiliments.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall
+    regiment made a fine show at an expense not much greater, when once it
+    was collected, than would have been bestowed upon common men. But the
+    king's military pastimes were sometimes more pernicious. He maintained
+    a numerous army, of which he made no other use than to review and to
+    talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emissaries, saw a boy, whose
+    form and sprightliness promised a future soldier, he ordered a kind of
+    badge to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the
+    service, like the sons of Christian captives in Turkey; and his
+    parents were forbidden to destine him to any other mode of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was sufficiently oppressive, but this was not the utmost of his
+    tyranny. He had learned, though otherwise perhaps no very great
+    politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of
+    a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his subjects, he wanted
+    either ability or benevolence to understand. He, therefore, raised
+    exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and possession, and
+    piled up the money in his treasury, from which it issued no more. How
+    the land which had paid taxes once, was to pay them a second time, how
+    imposts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued
+    without money, it was not his custom to inquire. Eager to snatch at
+    money, and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt,
+    and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By which of these freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or
+    whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he
+    complains were of a domestick and personal kind, it is not easy to
+    discover. But his resentment, whatever was its cause, rose so high,
+    that he resolved not only to leave his father's court, but his
+    territories, and to seek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred
+    princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to
+    England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's
+    death, or change of conduct, should give him liberty to return.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His design, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer in the army,
+    whose name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and
+    whom, having chosen him for the companion of his flight, he
+    necessarily trusted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot
+    leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was
+    to be provided, and something to be adjusted. And, whether Kat found
+    the agency of others necessary, and, therefore, was constrained to
+    admit some partners of the secret; whether levity or vanity incited
+    him to disburden himself of a trust that swelled in his bosom, or to
+    show to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in
+    itself difficult for princes to transact any thing in secret; so it
+    was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the
+    prince, and his favourite, a little before the time settled for their
+    departure, were arrested, and confined in different places.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The life of princes is seldom in danger, the hazard of their
+    irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines
+    with them. The king, after an imprisonment of some time, set his son
+    at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime.
+    The court examined the cause, and acquitted him: the king remanded him
+    to a second trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In
+    consequence of the sentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was
+    publickly beheaded, leaving behind him some papers of reflections made
+    in the prison, which were afterwards printed, and among others an
+    admonition to the prince, for whose sake he suffered, not to foster in
+    himself the opinion of destiny, for that a providence is discoverable
+    in every thing round us.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This cruel prosecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by
+    compliance with influence not easily to be resisted, was not the only
+    act by which the old king irritated his son. A lady with whom the
+    prince was suspected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed,
+    was seized, I know not upon what accusation, and, by the king's order,
+    notwithstanding all the reasons of decency and tenderness that operate
+    in other countries, and other judicatures, was publickly whipped in
+    the streets of Berlin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father
+    in its utmost rigour, he was, in 1733, married against his will to the
+    princess Elizabetha Christina of Brunswick Luneburg Beveren. He
+    married her indeed at his father's command, but without professing for
+    her either esteem or affection, and considering the claim of parental
+    authority fully satisfied by the external ceremony, obstinately and
+    perpetually, during the life of his father, refrained from her bed.
+    The poor princess lived about seven years in the court of Berlin, in a
+    state which the world has not often seen, a wife without a husband,
+    married so far as to engage her person to a man who did not desire her
+    affection, and of whom it was doubtful, whether he thought himself
+    restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under
+    evident compulsion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus he lived secluded from publick business, in contention with his
+    father, in alienation from his wife. This state of uneasiness he found
+    the only means of softening. He diverted his mind from the scenes
+    about him, by studies and liberal amusements. The studies of princes
+    seldom produce great effects, for princes draw with meaner mortals the
+    lot of understanding; and since of many students not more than one can
+    be hoped to advance far towards perfection, it is scarcely to be
+    expected that we should find that one a prince; that the desire of
+    science should overpower in any mind the love of pleasure, when it is
+    always present, or always within call; that laborious meditation
+    should be preferred in the days of youth to amusements and festivity;
+    or that perseverance should press forward in contempt of flattery; and
+    that he, in whom moderate acquisitions would be extolled as prodigies,
+    should exact from himself that excellence of which the whole world
+    conspires to spare him the necessity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In every great performance, perhaps in every great character, part is
+    the gift of nature, part the contribution of accident, and part, very
+    often not the greatest part, the effect of voluntary election, and
+    regular design. The king of Prussia was undoubtedly born with more
+    than common abilities; but that he has cultivated them with more than
+    common diligence, was probably the effect of his peculiar condition,
+    of that which he then considered as cruelty and misfortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this long interval of unhappiness and obscurity, he acquired skill
+    in the mathematical sciences, such as is said to have put him on the
+    level with those who have made them the business of their lives. This
+    is, probably, to say too much: the acquisitions of kings are always
+    magnified. His skill in poetry and in the French language has been
+    loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception, if his honesty
+    were equal to his knowledge. Musick he not only understands, but
+    practises on the German flute, in the highest perfection; so that,
+    according to the regal censure of Philip of Macedon, he may be ashamed
+    to play so well.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He may be said to owe to the difficulties of his youth an advantage
+    less frequently obtained by princes than literature and mathematicks.
+    The necessity of passing his time without pomp, and of partaking of
+    the pleasures and labours of a lower station, made him acquainted with
+    the various forms of life, and with the genuine passions, interests,
+    desires, and distresses, of mankind. Kings, without this help from
+    temporary infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies every
+    thing near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few
+    are able to extend by the mere force of curiosity. I have always
+    thought that what Cromwell had more than our lawful kings, he owed to
+    the private condition in which he first entered the world, and in
+    which he long continued: in that state he learned his art of secret
+    transaction, and the knowledge by which he was able to oppose zeal to
+    zeal, and make one enthusiast destroy another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia gained the same arts, and, being born to fairer
+    opportunities of using them, brought to the throne the knowledge of a
+    private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general
+    acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his
+    whole life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common
+    topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole
+    conduct is that of a man who has to do with men, and who is not
+    ignorant what motives will prevail over friends or enemies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1740, the old king fell sick, and spoke and acted in his illness
+    with his usual turbulence and roughness, reproaching his physicians,
+    in the grossest terms, with their unskilfulness and impotence, and
+    imputing to their ignorance or wickedness the pain which their
+    prescriptions failed to relieve. These insults they bore with the
+    submission which is commonly paid to despotick monarchs; till at last
+    the celebrated Hoffman was consulted, who failing, like the rest, to
+    give ease to his majesty, was, like the rest, treated with injurious
+    language. Hoffman, conscious of his own merit, replied, that he could
+    not bear reproaches which he did not deserve; that he had tried all
+    the remedies that art could supply, or nature could admit; that he
+    was, indeed, a professor by his majesty's bounty; but that, if his
+    abilities or integrity were doubted, he was willing to leave, not only
+    the university, but the kingdom; and that he could not be driven into
+    any place where the name of Hoffman would want respect. The king,
+    however unaccustomed to such returns, was struck with conviction of
+    his own indecency, told Hoffman, that he had spoken well, and
+    requested him to continue his attendance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king, finding his distemper gaining upon his strength, grew at
+    last sensible that his end was approaching, and, ordering the prince
+    to be called to his bed, laid several injunctions upon him, of which
+    one was to perpetuate the tall regiment by continual recruits, and
+    another, to receive his espoused wife. The prince gave him a
+    respectful answer, but wisely avoided to diminish his own right or
+    power by an absolute promise; and the king died uncertain of the fate
+    of the tall regiment.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has
+    yet surpassed. His father's faults produced many advantages to the
+    first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well
+    disciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was
+    master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raising it.
+    It was publickly said in our house of commons, that he had eight
+    millions sterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had
+    not considered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all
+    the Prussian dominions. Men judge of what they do not see by that
+    which they see. We are used to talk in England of millions with great
+    familiarity, and imagine that there is the same affluence of money in
+    other countries, in countries whose manufactures are few, and commerce
+    little.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Every man's first cares are necessarily domestick. The king, being now
+    no longer under influence, or its appearance, determined how to act
+    towards the unhappy lady who had possessed, for seven years, the empty
+    title of the princess of Prussia. The papers of those times exhibited
+    the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans
+    campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his
+    wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain
+    that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is
+    yet in dispute.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall
+    regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and
+    this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear
+    the title of <i>queen mother</i>, and that, instead of addressing him
+    as <i>his majesty</i>, she should only call him <i>son</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand
+    boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his
+    coach, and cried out: "merciful king! deliver us from our slavery." He
+    promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge
+    should be taken off.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began
+    when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals
+    formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the
+    times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the
+    fourteenth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It soon appeared that he was resolved to govern with very little
+    ministerial assistance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own
+    eyes; declared, that in all contrarieties of interest between him and
+    his subjects, the publick good should have the preference; and, in one
+    of the first exertions of regal power, banished the prime minister and
+    favourite of his father, as one that had "betrayed his master, and
+    abused his trust."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He then declared his resolution to grant a general toleration of
+    religion, and, among other liberalities of concession, allowed the
+    profession of free-masonry. It is the great taint of his character,
+    that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the
+    effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good
+    men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good.
+    There had subsisted, for some time, in Prussia, an order called the
+    "order for favour," which, according to its denomination, had been
+    conferred with very little distinction. The king instituted the "order
+    for merit," with which he honoured those whom he considered as
+    deserving. There were some who thought their merit not sufficiently
+    recompensed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant
+    pecuniary rewards. Those who were most in his favour he sometimes
+    presented with snuffboxes, on which was inscribed, "Amitié augmente le
+    prix."
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was, however, charitable, if not liberal, for he ordered the
+    magistrates of the several districts to be very attentive to the
+    relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that use were
+    not sufficient, permitted that the deficiency should be supplied out
+    of the revenues of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of his first cares was the advancement of learning. Immediately
+    upon his accession, he wrote to Rollin and Voltaire, that he desired
+    the continuance of their friendship; and sent for Mr. Maupertuis, the
+    principal of the French academicians, who passed a winter in Lapland,
+    to verify, by the mensuration of a degree near the pole, the Newtonian
+    doctrine of the form of the earth. He requested of Maupertuis to come
+    to Berlin, to settle an academy, in terms of great ardour and great
+    condescension.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the same time, he showed the world that literary amusements were
+    not likely, as has more than once happened to royal students, to
+    withdraw him from the care of the kingdom, or make him forget his
+    interest. He began by reviving a claim to Herstal and Hermal, two
+    districts in the possession of the bishop of Liege. When he sent his
+    commissary to demand the homage of the inhabitants, they refused him
+    admission, declaring that they acknowledged no sovereign but the
+    bishop. The king then wrote a letter to the bishop, in which he
+    complained of the violation of his right, and the contempt of his
+    authority, charged the prelate with countenancing the late act of
+    disobedience, and required an answer in two days.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In three days the answer was sent, in which the bishop founds his
+    claim to the two lordships, upon a grant of Charles the fifth,
+    guaranteed by France and Spain; alleges that his predecessors had
+    enjoyed this grant above a century, and that he never intended to
+    infringe the rights of Prussia; but as the house of Brandenburgh had
+    always made some pretensions to that territory, he was willing to do
+    what other bishops had offered, to purchase that claim for a hundred
+    thousand crowns.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To every man that knows the state of the feudal countries, the
+    intricacy of their pedigrees, the confusion of their alliances, and
+    the different rules of inheritance that prevail in different places,
+    it will appear evident, that of reviving antiquated claims there can
+    be no end, and that the possession of a century is a better title than
+    can commonly be produced. So long a prescription supposes an
+    acquiescence in the other claimants; and that acquiescence supposes
+    also some reason, perhaps now unknown, for which the claim was
+    forborne. Whether this rule could be considered as valid in the
+    controversy between these sovereigns, may, however, be doubted, for
+    the bishop's answer seems to imply, that the title of the house of
+    Brandenburg had been kept alive by repeated claims, though the seizure
+    of the territory had been hitherto forborne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king did not suffer his claim to be subjected to any altercations,
+    but, having published a declaration, in which he charged the bishop
+    with violence and injustice, and remarked that the feudal laws allowed
+    every man, whose possession was withheld from him, to enter it with an
+    armed force, he immediately despatched two thousand soldiers into the
+    controverted countries, where they lived without control, exercising
+    every kind of military tyranny, till the cries of the inhabitants
+    forced the bishop to relinquish them to the quiet government of
+    Prussia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was but a petty acquisition; the time was now come when the king
+    of Prussia was to form and execute greater designs. On the 9th of
+    October, 1740, half Europe was thrown into confusion by the death of
+    Charles the sixth, emperour of Germany, by whose death all the
+    hereditary dominions of the house of Austria descended, according to
+    the pragmatick sanction, to his eldest daughter, who was married to
+    the duke of Lorrain, at the time of the emperour's death, duke of
+    Tuscany.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By how many securities the pragmatick sanction was fortified, and how
+    little it was regarded when those securities became necessary; how
+    many claimants started up at once to the several dominions of the
+    house of Austria; how vehemently their pretensions were enforced, and
+    how many invasions were threatened or attempted; the distresses of the
+    emperour's daughter, known for several years by the title only of the
+    queen of Hungary, because Hungary was the only country to which her
+    claim had not been disputed: the firmness with which she struggled
+    with her difficulties, and the good fortune by which she surmounted
+    them; the narrow plan of this essay will not suffer me to relate. Let
+    them be told by some other writer of more leisure and wider
+    intelligence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Upon the emperour's death, many of the German princes fell upon the
+    Austrian territories, as upon a dead carcass, to be dismembered among
+    them without resistance. Among these, with whatever justice, certainly
+    with very little generosity, was the king of Prussia, who, having
+    assembled his troops, as was imagined, to support the pragmatick
+    sanction, on a sudden entered Silesia with thirty thousand men,
+    publishing a declaration, in which he disclaims any design of injuring
+    the rights of the house of Austria, but urges his claim to Silesia, as
+    rising "from ancient conventions of family and confraternity between
+    the house of Brandenburg and the princes of Silesia, and other
+    honourable titles." He says, the fear of being defeated by other
+    pretenders to the Austrian dominions, obliged him to enter Silesia
+    without any previous expostulation with the queen, and that he shall
+    "strenuously espouse the interests of the house of Austria."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such a declaration was, I believe, in the opinion of all Europe,
+    nothing less than the aggravation of hostility by insult, and was
+    received by the Austrians with suitable indignation. The king pursued
+    his purpose, marched forward, and in the frontiers of Silesia made a
+    speech to his followers, in which he told them, that he considered
+    them rather "as friends than subjects, that the troops of Brandenburg
+    had been always eminent for their bravery, that they would always
+    fight in his presence, and that he would recompense those who should
+    distinguish themselves in his service, rather as a father than as a
+    king."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The civilities of the great are never thrown away. The soldiers would
+    naturally follow such a leader with alacrity; especially because they
+    expected no opposition: but human expectations are frequently
+    deceived.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Entering thus suddenly into a country which he was supposed rather
+    likely to protect than to invade, he acted for some time with absolute
+    authority; but, supposing that this submission would not always last,
+    he endeavoured to persuade the queen to a cession of Silesia,
+    imagining that she would easily be persuaded to yield what was already
+    lost. He, therefore, ordered his minister to declare, at Vienna, "that
+    he was ready to guarantee all the German dominions of the house of
+    Austria; that he would conclude a treaty with Austria, Russia, and the
+    maritime powers; that he would endeavour that the duke of Lorrain
+    should be elected emperour, and believed that he could accomplish it;
+    that he would immediately advance to the queen two millions of
+    florins; that, in recompense for all this, he required Silesia to be
+    yielded to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+    These seem not to be the offers of a prince very much convinced of his
+    own right. He afterwards moderated his claim, and ordered his minister
+    to hint at Vienna, that half of Silesia would content him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen answered, that though the king alleged, as his reason for
+    entering Silesia, the danger of the Austrian territories from other
+    pretenders, and endeavoured to persuade her to give up part of her
+    possessions for the preservation of the rest, it was evident that he
+    was the first and only invader, and that, till he entered in a hostile
+    manner, all her estates were unmolested.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To his promises of assistance she replied, "that she set a high value
+    on the king of Prussia's friendship; but that he was already obliged
+    to assist her against her invaders, both by the golden bull, and the
+    pragmatick sanction, of which he was a guarantee, and that, if these
+    ties were of no force she knew not what to hope from other
+    engagements."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of his offers of alliances with Russia and the maritime powers, she
+    observed, that it could be never fit to alienate her dominions for the
+    consolidation of an alliance formed only to keep them entire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With regard to his interest in the election of an emperour, she
+    expressed her gratitude in strong terms; but added, that the election
+    ought to be free, and that it must be necessarily embarrassed by
+    contentions thus raised in the heart of the empire. Of the pecuniary
+    assistance proposed, she remarks, that no prince ever made war to
+    oblige another to take money, and that the contributions already
+    levied in Silesia exceed the two millions, offered as its purchase.
+</p>
+<p>
+    She concluded, that as she values the king's friendship, she was
+    willing to purchase it by any compliance but the diminution of her
+    dominions, and exhorted him to perform his part in support of the
+    pragmatick sanction.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king, finding negotiation thus ineffectual, pushed forward his
+    inroads, and now began to show how secretly he could take his
+    measures. When he called a council of war, he proposed the question in
+    a few words: all his generals wrote their opinions in his presence
+    upon separate papers, which he carried away, and, examining them in
+    private, formed his resolution, without imparting it otherwise than by
+    his orders.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He began not without policy, to seize first upon the estates of the
+    clergy, an order every where necessary, and every where envied. He
+    plundered the convents of their stores of provision; and told them,
+    that he never had heard of any magazines erected by the apostles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This insult was mean, because it was unjust; but those who could not
+    resist were obliged to bear it. He proceeded in his expedition; and a
+    detachment of his troops took Jablunca, one of the strong places of
+    Silesia, which was soon after abandoned, for want of provisions, which
+    the Austrian hussars, who were now in motion, were busy to interrupt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the most remarkable events of the Silesia war, was the conquest
+    of great Glogau, which was taken by an assault in the dark, headed by
+    prince Leopold of Anhalt Dessau. They arrived at the foot of the
+    fortifications about twelve at night, and in two hours were masters of
+    the place. In attempts of this kind many accidents happen which cannot
+    be heard without surprise. Four Prussian grenadiers, who had climbed
+    the ramparts, missing their own company, met an Austrian captain with
+    fifty-two men: they were at first frighted, and were about to retreat;
+    but, gathering courage, commanded the Austrians to lay down their
+    arms, and in the terrour of darkness and confusion were unexpectedly
+    obeyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the same time a conspiracy to kill or carry away the king of
+    Prussia, was said to be discovered. The Prussians published a
+    memorial, in which the Austrian court was accused of employing
+    emissaries and assassins against the king; and it was alleged, in
+    direct terms, that one of them had confessed himself obliged, by oath,
+    to destroy him, which oath had been given him in an Aulick council, in
+    the presence of the duke of Lorrain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To this the Austrians answered, "that the character of the queen and
+    duke was too well known not to destroy the force of such an
+    accusation; that the tale of the confession was an imposture, and that
+    no such attempt was ever made."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Each party was now inflamed, and orders were given to the Austrian
+    general to hazard a battle. The two armies met at Molwitz, and parted
+    without a complete victory on either side. The Austrians quitted the
+    field in good order; and the king of Prussia rode away upon the first
+    disorder of his troops, without waiting for the last event. This
+    attention to his personal safety has not yet been forgotten.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After this, there was no action of much importance. But the king of
+    Prussia, irritated by opposition, transferred his interest in the
+    election to the duke of Bavaria; and the queen of Hungary, now
+    attacked by France, Spain, and Bavaria, was obliged to make peace with
+    him at the expense of half Silesia, without procuring those advantages
+    which were once offered her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To enlarge dominions has been the boast of many princes; to diffuse
+    happiness and security through wide regions has been granted to few.
+    The king of Prussia has aspired to both these honours, and endeavoured
+    to join the praise of legislator to that of conqueror.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To settle property, to suppress false claims, and to regulate the
+    administration of civil and criminal justice are attempts so difficult
+    and so useful, that I shall willingly suspend or contract the history
+    of battles and sieges, to give a larger account of this pacifick
+    enterprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That the king of Prussia has considered the nature and the reasons of
+    laws, with more attention than is common to princes, appears from his
+    dissertation on the Reasons for enacting and repealing Laws: a piece
+    which yet deserves notice, rather as a proof of good inclination than
+    of great ability; for there is nothing to be found in it more than the
+    most obvious books may supply, or the weakest intellect discover. Some
+    of his observations are just and useful; but upon such a subject who
+    can think without often thinking right? It is, however, not to be
+    omitted, that he appears always propense towards the side of mercy.
+    "If a poor man," says he, "steals in his want a watch, or a few
+    pieces, from one to whom the loss is inconsiderable, is this a reason
+    for condemning him to death?"
+</p>
+<p>
+    He regrets that the laws against duels have been ineffectual; and is
+    of opinion, that they can never attain their end, unless the princes
+    of Europe shall agree not to afford an asylum to duellists, and to
+    punish all who shall insult their equals, either by word, deed, or
+    writing. He seems to suspect this scheme of being chimerical. "Yet
+    why," says he, "should not personal quarrels be submitted to judges,
+    as well as questions of possession? and why should not a congress be
+    appointed for the general good of mankind, as well as for so many
+    purposes of less importance?"
+</p>
+<p>
+    He declares himself with great ardour against the use of torture, and
+    by some misinformation charges the English that they still retain it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, perhaps, impossible to review the laws of any country without
+    discovering many defects and many superfluities. Laws often continue,
+    when their reasons have ceased. Laws made for the first state of the
+    society continue unabolished, when the general form of life is
+    changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were, at first, only
+    accidental, become, in time, essential; and formalities are
+    accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more
+    study than the discovery of right.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia, examining the institutions of his own country,
+    thought them such as could only be amended by a general abrogation,
+    and the establishment of a new body of law, to which he gave the name
+    of the Code Frédérique, which is comprised in one volume of no great
+    bulk, and must, therefore, unavoidably contain general positions to be
+    accommodated to particular cases by the wisdom and integrity of the
+    courts. To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it
+    by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all
+    civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative
+    wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this new system of laws, contracted as it is, a full account cannot
+    be expected in these memoirs; but, that curiosity may not be dismissed
+    without some gratification, it has been thought proper to epitomise
+    the king's plan for the reformation of his courts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The differences which arise between members of the same society, may
+    be terminated by a voluntary agreement between the parties, by
+    arbitration, or by a judicial process.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The two first methods produce, more frequently, a temporary
+    suspension of disputes than a final termination. Courts of justice
+    are, therefore, necessary, with a settled method of procedure, of
+    which the most simple is to cite the parties, to hear their pleas, and
+    dismiss them with immediate decision.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "This, however, is, in many cases, impracticable, and in others is so
+    seldom practised, that it is frequent rather to incur loss than to
+    seek for legal reparation, by entering a labyrinth of which there is
+    no end.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "This tediousness of suits keeps the parties in disquiet and
+    perturbation, rouses and perpetuates animosities, exhausts the
+    litigants by expense, retards the progress of their fortune, and
+    discourages strangers from settling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "These inconveniencies, with which the best-regulated polities of
+    Europe are embarrassed, must be removed, not by the total prohibition
+    of suits, which is impossible, but by contraction of processes; by
+    opening an easy way for the appearance of truth, and removing all
+    obstructions by which it is concealed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The ordonnance of 1667, by which Lewis the fourteenth established an
+    uniformity of procedure through all his courts, has been considered as
+    one of the greatest benefits of his reign.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The king of Prussia, observing that each of his provinces had a
+    different method of judicial procedure, proposed to reduce them all to
+    one form; which being tried with success in Pomerania, a province
+    remarkable for contention, he afterwards extended to all his
+    dominions, ordering the judges to inform him of any difficulties which
+    arose from it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Some settled method is necessary in judicial procedures. Small and
+    simple causes might be decided upon the oral pleas of the two parties
+    appearing before the judge; but many cases are so entangled and
+    perplexed as to require all the skill and abilities of those who
+    devote their lives to the study of the law.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Advocates, or men who can understand and explain the question to be
+    discussed, are, therefore, necessary. But these men, instead of
+    endeavouring to promote justice and discover truth, have exerted their
+    wits in the defence of bad causes, by forgeries of facts, and
+    fallacies of argument.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "To remedy this evil, the king has ordered an inquiry into the
+    qualifications of the advocate. All those who practise without a
+    regular admission, or who can be convicted of disingenuous practice,
+    are discarded. And the judges are commanded to examine which of the
+    causes now depending have been protracted by the crimes and ignorance
+    of the advocates, and to dismiss those who shall appear culpable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "When advocates are too numerous to live by honest practice, they busy
+    themselves in exciting disputes, and disturbing the community: the
+    number of these to be employed in each court is, therefore, fixed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The reward of the advocates is fixed with due regard to the nature of
+    the cause, and the labour required; but not a penny is received by
+    them till the suit is ended, that it may be their interest, as well as
+    that of the clients, to shorten the process.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "No advocate is admitted in petty courts, small towns, or villages;
+    where the poverty of the people, and, for the most part, the low value
+    of the matter contested, make despatch absolutely necessary. In those
+    places the parties shall appear in person, and the judge make a
+    summary decision.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "There must, likewise, be allowed a subordination of tribunals, and a
+    power of appeal. No judge is so skilful and attentive as not sometimes
+    to err. Few are so honest as not sometimes to be partial. Petty judges
+    would become insupportably tyrannical if they were not restrained by
+    the fear of a superiour judicature; and their decisions would be
+    negligent or arbitrary if they were not in danger of seeing them
+    examined and cancelled.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The right of appeal must be restrained, that causes may not be
+    transferred without end from court to court; and a peremptory decision
+    must, at last, be made.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "When an appeal is made to a higher court, the appellant is allowed
+    only four weeks to frame his bill, the judge of the lower court being
+    to transmit to the higher all the evidences and informations. If, upon
+    the first view of the cause thus opened, it shall appear that the
+    appeal was made without just cause, the first sentence shall be
+    confirmed without citation of the defendant. If any new evidence shall
+    appear, or any doubts arise, both the parties shall be heard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In the discussion of causes altercation must be allowed; yet to
+    altercation some limits must be put. There are, therefore, allowed a
+    bill, an answer, a reply, and a rejoinder, to be delivered in writing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "No cause is allowed to be heard in more than three different courts.
+    To further the first decision, every advocate is enjoined, under
+    severe penalties, not to begin a suit till he has collected all the
+    necessary evidence. If the first court has decided in an
+    unsatisfactory manner, an appeal may be made to the second, and from
+    the second to the third. The process in each appeal is limited to six
+    months. The third court may, indeed, pass an erroneous judgment; and
+    then the injury is without redress. But this objection is without end,
+    and, therefore, without force. No method can be found of preserving
+    humanity from errour; but of contest there must sometime be an end;
+    and he, who thinks himself injured for want of an appeal to a fourth
+    court, must consider himself as suffering for the publick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "There is a special advocate appointed for the poor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The attorneys, who had formerly the care of collecting evidence, and
+    of adjusting all the preliminaries of a suit, are now totally
+    dismissed; the whole affair is put into the hands of the advocates,
+    and the office of an attorney is annulled for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "If any man is hindered by some lawful impediment from attending his
+    suit, time will be granted him upon the representation of his case."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such is the order according to which civil justice is administered
+    through the extensive dominions of the king of Prussia; which, if it
+    exhibits nothing very subtle or profound, affords one proof more that
+    the right is easily discovered, and that men do not so often want
+    ability to find, as willingness to practise it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We now return to the war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The time at which the queen of Hungary was willing to purchase peace
+    by the resignation of Silesia, though it came at last, was not come
+    yet. She had all the spirit, though not all the power of her
+    ancestors, and could not bear the thought of losing any part of her
+    patrimonial dominions to the enemies which the opinion of her weakness
+    raised every where against her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the beginning of the year 1742, the elector of Bavaria was invested
+    with the imperial dignity, supported by the arms of France, master of
+    the kingdom of Bohemia; and confederated with the elector Palatine,
+    and the elector of Saxony, who claimed Moravia; and with the king of
+    Prussia, who was in possession of Silesia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such was the state of the queen of Hungary, pressed on every side, and
+    on every side preparing for resistance: she yet refused all offers of
+    accommodation, for every prince set peace at a price which she was not
+    yet so far humbled as to pay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia was among the most zealous and forward in the
+    confederacy against her. He promised to secure Bohemia to the
+    emperour, and Moravia to the elector of Saxony; and, finding no enemy
+    in the field able to resist him, he returned to Berlin, and left
+    Schwerin, his general, to prosecute the conquest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Prussians, in the midst of winter, took Olmutz, the capital of
+    Moravia, and laid the whole country under contribution. The cold then
+    hindered them from action, and they only blocked up the fortresses of
+    Brinn, and Spielberg.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the spring, the king of Prussia came again into the field, and
+    undertook the siege of Brinn; but, upon the approach of prince Charles
+    of Lorrain, retired from before it, and quitted Moravia, leaving only
+    a garrison in the capital.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The condition of the queen of Hungary was now changed. She was, a few
+    months before, without money, without troops, encircled with enemies.
+    The Bavarians had entered Austria, Vienna was threatened with a siege,
+    and the queen left it to the fate of war, and retired into Hungary,
+    where she was received with zeal and affection, not unmingled,
+    however, with that neglect which must always be borne by greatness in
+    distress. She bore the disrespect of her subjects with the same
+    firmness as the outrages of her enemies; and, at last, persuaded the
+    English not to despair of her preservation, by not despairing herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Voltaire, in his late history, has asserted, that a large sum was
+    raised for her succour, by voluntary subscriptions of the English
+    ladies. It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch
+    greedily at wonders. He was misinformed, and was, perhaps, unwilling
+    to learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing. A
+    contribution was, by news-writers, upon their own authority,
+    fruitlessly, and, I think, illegally proposed. It ended in nothing.
+    The parliament voted a supply, and five hundred thousand pounds were
+    remitted to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been always the weakness of the Austrian family to spend in the
+    magnificence of empire, those revenues which should be kept for its
+    defence. The court is splendid, but the treasury is empty; and, at the
+    beginning of every war, advantages are gained against them, before
+    their armies can be assembled and equipped.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The English money was to the Austrians, as a shower to a field, where
+    all the vegetative powers are kept unactive by a long continuance of
+    drought. The armies, which had hitherto been hid in mountains and
+    forests, started out of their retreats; and, wherever the queen's
+    standard was erected, nations scarcely known by their names, swarmed
+    immediately about it. An army, especially a defensive army, multiplies
+    itself. The contagion of enterprise spreads from one heart to another.
+    Zeal for a native, or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of
+    sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular
+    men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty
+    and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank
+    to rank, and squadron to squadron.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen had still enemies on every part, but she now, on every part,
+    had armies ready to oppose them. Austria was immediately recovered;
+    the plains of Bohemia were filled with her troops, though the
+    fortresses were garrisoned by the French. The Bavarians were recalled
+    to the defence of their own country, now wasted by the incursions of
+    troops that were called barbarians, greedy enough of plunder, and
+    daring, perhaps, beyond the rules of war, but otherwise not more cruel
+    than those whom they attacked. Prince Lobkowitz, with one army,
+    observed the motions of Broglio, the French general, in Bohemia; and
+    prince Charles with another, put a stop to the advances of the king of
+    Prussia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was now the turn of the Prussians to retire. They abandoned Olmutz,
+    and left behind them part of their cannon and their magazines. And the
+    king, finding that Broglio could not long oppose prince Lobkowitz,
+    hastened into Bohemia to his assistance; and having received a
+    reinforcement of twenty-three thousand men, and taken the castle of
+    Glatz, which, being built upon a rock scarcely accessible, would have
+    defied all his power, had the garrison been furnished with provisions,
+    he purposed to join his allies, and prosecute his conquests.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Prince Charles, seeing Moravia thus evacuated by the Prussians,
+    determined to garrison the towns which he had just recovered, and
+    pursue the enemy, who, by the assistance of the French, would have
+    been too powerful for prince Lobkowitz.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Success had now given confidence to the Austrians, and had
+    proportionably abated the spirit of their enemies. The Saxons, who had
+    cooperated with the king of Prussia in the conquest of Moravia, of
+    which they expected the perpetual possession, seeing all hopes of
+    sudden acquisition defeated, and the province left again to its former
+    masters, grew weary of following a prince, whom they considered as no
+    longer acting the part of their confederate; and when they approached
+    the confines of Bohemia took a different road, and left the Prussians
+    to their own fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king continued his march, and Charles his pursuit. At Czaslau the
+    two armies came in sight of one another, and the Austrians resolved on
+    a decisive day. On the 6th of May, about seven in the morning, the
+    Austrians began the attack: their impetuosity was matched by the
+    firmness of the Prussians. The animosity of the two armies was much
+    inflamed: the Austrians were fighting for their country, and the
+    Prussians were in a place, where defeat must inevitably end in death
+    or captivity. The fury of the battle continued four hours: the
+    Prussian horse were, at length, broken, and the Austrians forced their
+    way to the camp, where the wild troops, who had fought with so much
+    vigour and constancy, at the sight of plunder forgot their obedience,
+    nor had any man the least thought but how to load himself with the
+    richest spoils.
+</p>
+<p>
+    While the right wing of the Austrians was thus employed, the main body
+    was left naked: the Prussians recovered from their confusion, and
+    regained the day. Charles was, at last, forced to retire, and carried
+    with him the standards of his enemies, the proofs of a victory, which,
+    though so nearly gained, he had not been able to keep.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The victory, however, was dearly bought; the Prussian army was much
+    weakened, and the cavalry almost totally destroyed. Peace is easily
+    made when it is necessary to both parties; and the king of Prussia had
+    now reason to believe that the Austrians were not his only enemies.
+    When he found Charles advancing, he sent to Broglio for assistance,
+    and was answered, that "he must have orders from Versailles." Such a
+    desertion of his most powerful ally disconcerted him, but the battle
+    was unavoidable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Prussians were returned to the camp, the king, hearing that
+    an Austrian officer was brought in mortally wounded, had the
+    condescension to visit him. The officer, struck with this act of
+    humanity, said, after a short conversation: "I should die, sir,
+    contentedly after this honour, if I might first show my gratitude to
+    your majesty by informing you with what allies you are now united,
+    allies that have no intention but to deceive you." The king appearing
+    to suspect this intelligence; "Sir," said the Austrian, "if you will
+    permit me to send a messenger to Vienna, I believe the queen will not
+    refuse to transmit an intercepted letter now in her hands, which will
+    put my report beyond all doubt."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained
+    the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops
+    on any occasion with the Prussians. Secondly, he was ordered to act
+    always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of
+    twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe
+    very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly,
+    to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the
+    absence of Bellisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from
+    the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the
+    French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in
+    three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of
+    Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country
+    of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one
+    third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it
+    is stipulated, "that neither should assist the enemies of the other."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from
+    the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to
+    peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his
+    imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was
+    treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city
+    which they had taken from her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own
+    capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals,
+    concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to
+    the augmentation of his army.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first
+    proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels.
+    Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend
+    and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of
+    intelligence. Men who have great confidence in their own penetration
+    are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can
+    pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence
+    necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they
+    believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none
+    will try. Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was
+    in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king's
+    adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a
+    distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion.
+    Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of
+    June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to
+    keep a neutrality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem
+    agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary
+    but the determination of a very few men to be silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted
+    torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and
+    deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with
+    their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague,
+    which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town
+    besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any
+    prospect appeared of relief.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden
+    and tumultuary excursions, rather than a regular war, had no great
+    degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They, likewise, would
+    naturally consider all the mischiefs done to the city, as falling,
+    ultimately, upon themselves; and, therefore, were willing to gain it
+    by time rather than by force.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it
+    must be yielded at last, and, therefore, all arts were tried to obtain
+    an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent
+    back, sometimes unheard, but always with this answer: "That no terms
+    would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of
+    war."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The condition of the garrison was, in the eyes of all Europe,
+    desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity
+    cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their
+    arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in
+    Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprise was
+    considered as romantick. Maillebois was a march of forty days distant
+    from Bohemia, the passes were narrow, and the ways foul; and it was
+    likely that Prague would be taken before he could reach it. The march
+    was, however, begun: the army, being joined by that of count Saxe,
+    consisted of fifty thousand men, who, notwithstanding all the
+    difficulties which two Austrian armies could put in their way, at last
+    entered Bohemia. The siege of Prague, though not raised, was remitted,
+    and a communication was now opened to it with the country. But the
+    Austrians, by perpetual intervention, hindered the garrison from
+    joining their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited him to a
+    battle, because the army was hourly lessening by the want of
+    provisions; but, instead of pressing on to Prague, he retired into
+    Bavaria, and completed the ruin of the emperour's territories.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief
+    command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little
+    difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle, by a sudden
+    sally, quitted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main
+    army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions,
+    wasting, in his retreat, the country which he had undertaken to
+    protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with
+    such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected
+    commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong
+    places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made
+    themselves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich, the capital,
+    but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector's
+    dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of
+    ammunition, intended, in the dreams of projected greatness, for the
+    siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and
+    ornaments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as
+    most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken
+    away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the
+    Bavarians, but without any explanation, whether temporary or
+    perpetual.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The emperour lived at Frankfort, in the security that was allowed to
+    neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes,
+    except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of
+    his election, the king of Prussia declared himself determined to
+    support him in the imperial dignity, with all his power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the queen
+    of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German
+    princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an
+    emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the
+    whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of
+    suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be
+    objected, that voices were procured by illicit influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king's declaration, which
+    he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at
+    London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty
+    of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not
+    satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice
+    disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked
+    him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he
+    appeared openly as an enemy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting
+    his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this
+    time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover;
+    not, perhaps, because they were thought necessary, but that the king's
+    designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were
+    not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in
+    danger, and that he could not believe the elector of Hanover to be in
+    much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops,
+    and put them into the pay of England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that
+    his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the
+    scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the
+    French out of Bavaria, lay, for some months, encamped on the Rhine,
+    endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been
+    evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till, at
+    last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in
+    the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of
+    Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would, in
+    their turn, feel the miseries of war; and the nation, which so long
+    kept the world in alarm, be taught, at last, the value of peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance
+    from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of
+    all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he
+    had lately made a treaty at Frankfort with the emperour, by which he
+    had engaged, "that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared
+    backward to reestablish the tranquillity of the empire, and more
+    cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of
+    cooperating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an
+    expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the
+    possession of the emperour, his heirs and successours, for ever; in
+    gratitude for which the emperour should resign to him and his
+    successours a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the
+    kingdom of Bohemia. His imperial majesty likewise guaranties to the
+    king of Prussia the perpetual possession of upper Silesia; and the
+    king guaranties to the emperour the perpetual possession of upper
+    Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest."
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives
+    than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show
+    to the emperour, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In
+    prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according
+    to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded
+    Bohemia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves
+    obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are, indeed,
+    not always very satisfactory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Lewis the fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive
+    for the invasion of Holland. The czar attacked Charles of Sweden,
+    because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a
+    journey in disguise. The king of Prussia, having an opportunity of
+    attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July
+    30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in
+    Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the
+    power of the laws, and the authority of the emperour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the queen of Hungary has treated the emperour's hereditary
+    dominions with inexpressible cruelty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched
+    through neutral countries without the customary requisitions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the emperour's troops have been attacked under neutral
+    fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master
+    is the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the imperial dignity has been treated with indecency by the
+    Hungarian troops.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The queen, declaring the election of the emperour void, and the diet
+    of Frankfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but
+    injured all the princes who have the right of election.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That he had no particular quarrel with the queen of Hungary; and that
+    he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a
+    war for the liberties of Germany.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the emperour had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions
+    of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to
+    him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That this proposal had been made to the king of England at Hanau, and
+    rejected in such a manner as showed, that the king of England had no
+    intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the
+    troubles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they
+    declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and
+    Austrian courts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That the same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected;
+    that, therefore, the queen must impute it to her own councils, that
+    her enemies find new allies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands
+    nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in
+    defence of the emperour, in vindication of the right of election, and
+    in support of the liberties of Germany, which the queen of Hungary
+    would enslave."
+</p>
+<p>
+    When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it
+    was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the
+    foregoing positions were repeated; the emperour's candour and
+    disinterestedness were magnified; the dangerous designs of the
+    Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them, as the most flagrant
+    violation of the Germanick constitution, that they had driven the
+    emperour's troops out of the empire; the publick spirit and generosity
+    of his Prussian majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said,
+    that this quarrel having no connexion with English interests, the
+    English ought not to interpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this
+    declaration, which, at once, dismounted them from the summit of
+    success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What
+    succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France, was never
+    publickly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince, so
+    watchful of opportunity, sold assistance, when it was so much wanted,
+    at the highest rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to
+    so much hazard only for the freedom of Germany, and a few petty
+    districts in Bohemia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting
+    whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven
+    into their own dominions, and, in their own dominions, were insulted
+    and pursued, were, on a sudden, by this new auxiliary, restored to
+    their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders,
+    and delivered from their terrours. And all the enemies of the house of
+    Bourbon saw, with indignation and amazement, the recovery of that
+    power which they had, with so much cost and bloodshed, brought low,
+    and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet
+    lower than it was.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian
+    declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to
+    the European princes, with some observations on the Prussian
+    minister's remonstrance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered
+    by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The
+    same caution was practised before, when the Prussians, after the
+    emperour's death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate
+    may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the
+    refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very
+    difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use
+    to honesty or wisdom, and as it has been long known to that class of
+    men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly
+    in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much
+    advance the reputation of regal understanding, or, indeed, that it can
+    add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that
+    shall adopt it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen, in her answer, after charging the king of Prussia with
+    breach of the treaty of Breslaw, and observing how much her enemies
+    will exult to see the peace now the third time broken by him,
+    declares:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That she had no intention to injure the rights of the electors, and
+    that she calls in question not the event, but the manner of the
+    election.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That she had spared the emperour's troops with great tenderness, and
+    that they were driven out of the empire, only because they were in the
+    service of France.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That she is so far from disturbing the peace of the empire, that the
+    only commotions now raised in it are the effect of the armaments of
+    the king of Prussia."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing is more tedious than publick records, when they relate to
+    affairs which, by distance of time or place, lose their power to
+    interest the reader. Every thing grows little, as it grows remote; and
+    of things thus diminished, it is sufficient to survey the aggregate
+    without a minute examination of the parts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is easy to perceive, that, if the king of Prussia's reasons be
+    sufficient, ambition or animosity can never want a plea for violence
+    and invasion. What he charges upon the queen of Hungary, the waste of
+    country, the expulsion of the Bavarians, and the employment of foreign
+    troops, is the unavoidable consequence of a war inflamed on either
+    side to the utmost violence. All these grievances subsisted when he
+    made the peace, and, therefore, they could very little justify its
+    breach.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is true, that every prince of the empire is obliged to support the
+    imperial dignity, and assist the emperour, when his rights are
+    violated. And every subsequent contract must be understood in a sense
+    consistent with former obligations. Nor had the king power to make a
+    peace on terms contrary to that constitution by which he held a place
+    among the Germanick electors. But he could have easily discovered,
+    that not the emperour, but the duke of Bavaria, was the queen's enemy;
+    not the administrator of the imperial power, but the claimant of the
+    Austrian dominions. Nor did his allegiance to the emperour, supposing
+    the emperour injured, oblige him to more than a succour of ten
+    thousand men. But ten thousand men could not conquer Bohemia, and
+    without the conquest of Bohemia he could receive no reward for the
+    zeal and fidelity which he so loudly professed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The success of this enterprise he had taken all possible precaution to
+    secure. He was to invade a country guarded only by the faith of
+    treaties, and, therefore, left unarmed, and unprovided of all defence.
+    He had engaged the French to attack prince Charles, before he should
+    repass the Rhine, by which the Austrians would, at least, have been
+    hindered from a speedy march into Bohemia: they were, likewise, to
+    yield him such other assistance as he might want.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Relying, therefore, upon the promises of the French, he resolved to
+    attempt the ruin of the house of Austria, and, in August, 1744, broke
+    into Bohemia, at the head of a hundred and four thousand men. When he
+    entered the country, he published a proclamation, promising, that his
+    army should observe the strictest discipline, and that those who made
+    no resistance should be suffered to remain in quiet in their
+    habitations. He required that all arms, in the custody of whomsoever
+    they might be placed, should be given up, and put into the hands of
+    publick officers. He still declared himself to act only as an
+    auxiliary to the emperour, and with no other design than to establish
+    peace and tranquillity throughout Germany, his dear country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not
+    remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be
+    found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that,
+    if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their
+    custody, his village shall be reduced to ashes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is hard to find upon what pretence the king of Prussia could treat
+    the Bohemians as criminals, for preparing to defend their native
+    country, or maintaining their allegiance to their lawful sovereign
+    against an invader, whether he appears principal or auxiliary, whether
+    he professes to intend tranquillity or confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His progress was such as gave great hopes to the enemies of Austria:
+    like Caesar, he conquered as he advanced, and met with no opposition,
+    till he reached the walls of Prague. The indignation and resentment of
+    the queen of Hungary may be easily conceived; the alliance of
+    Frankfort was now laid open to all Europe; and the partition of the
+    Austrian dominions was again publickly projected. They were to be
+    shared among the emperour, the king of Prussia, the elector Palatine,
+    and the landgrave of Hesse. All the powers of Europe who had dreamed
+    of controlling France, were awakened to their former terrours; all
+    that had been done was now to be done again; and every court, from the
+    straits of Gibraltar to the Frozen sea, was filled with exultation or
+    terrour, with schemes of conquest, or precautions for defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king, delighted with his progress, and expecting, like other
+    mortals elated with success, that his prosperity could not be
+    interrupted, continued his march, and began, in the latter end of
+    September, the siege of Prague. He had gained several of the outer
+    posts, when he was informed that the convoy, which attended his
+    artillery, was attacked by an unexpected party of the Austrians. The
+    king went immediately to their assistance, with the third part of his
+    army, and found his troops put to flight, and the Austrians hasting
+    away with his cannons: such a loss would have disabled him at once. He
+    fell upon the Austrians, whose number would not enable them to
+    withstand him, recovered his artillery, and, having also defeated
+    Bathiani, raised his batteries; and, there being no artillery to be
+    placed against him, he destroyed a great part of the city. He then
+    ordered four attacks to be made at once, and reduced the besieged to
+    such extremities, that in fourteen days the governour was obliged to
+    yield the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the attack, commanded by Schwerin, a grenadier is reported to have
+    mounted the bastion alone, and to have defended himself, for some
+    time, with his sword, till his followers mounted after him; for this
+    act of bravery, the king made him a lieutenant, and gave him a patent
+    of nobility.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Nothing now remained but that the Austrians should lay aside all
+    thought of invading France, and apply their whole power to their own
+    defence. Prince Charles, at the first news of the Prussian invasion,
+    prepared to repass the Rhine. This the French, according to their
+    contract with the king of Prussia, should have attempted to hinder;
+    but they knew, by experience, the Austrians would not be beaten
+    without resistance, and that resistance always incommodes an
+    assailant. As the king of Prussia rejoiced in the distance of the
+    Austrians, whom he considered as entangled in the French territories;
+    the French rejoiced in the necessity of their return, and pleased
+    themselves with the prospect of easy conquests, while powers, whom
+    they considered with equal malevolence, should be employed in
+    massacring each other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Prince Charles took the opportunity of bright moonshine to repass the
+    Rhine; and Noailles, who had early intelligence of his motions, gave
+    him very little disturbance, but contented himself with attacking the
+    rearguard, and, when they retired to the main body, ceased his
+    pursuit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king, upon the reduction of Prague, struck a medal, which had on
+    one side a plan of the town, with this inscription:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Prague taken by the king of Prussia,
+    September 16, 1744;
+  For the third time in three years."
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    On the other side were two verses, in which he prayed, "that his
+    conquests might produce peace." He then marched forward with the
+    rapidity which constitutes his military character; took possession of
+    almost all Bohemia, and began to talk of entering Austria and
+    besieging Vienna.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen was not yet wholly without resource. The elector of Saxony,
+    whether invited or not, was not comprised in the union of Frankfort;
+    and, as every sovereign is growing less as his next neighbour is
+    growing greater, he could not heartily wish success to a confederacy
+    which was to aggrandize the other powers of Germany. The Prussians
+    gave him, likewise, a particular and immediate provocation to oppose
+    them; for, when they departed to the conquest of Bohemia, with all the
+    elation of imaginary success, they passed through his dominions with
+    unlicensed and contemptuous disdain of his authority. As the approach
+    of prince Charles gave a new prospect of events, he was easily
+    persuaded to enter into an alliance with the queen, whom he furnished
+    with a very large body of troops.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia having left a garrison in Prague, which he
+    commanded to put the burghers to death, if they left their houses in
+    the night, went forward to take the other towns and fortresses,
+    expecting, perhaps, that prince Charles would be interrupted in his
+    march; but the French, though they appeared to follow him, either
+    could not, or would not, overtake him.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a short time, by marches pressed on with the utmost eagerness,
+    Charles reached Bohemia, leaving the Bavarians to regain the
+    possession of the wasted plains of their country, which their enemies,
+    who still kept the strong places, might again seize at will. At the
+    approach of the Austrian army, the courage of the king of Prussia
+    seemed to have failed him. He retired from post to post, and evacuated
+    town after town, and fortress after fortress, without resistance, or
+    appearance of resistance, as if he was resigning them to the rightful
+    owners.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It might have been expected, that he should have made some effort to
+    rescue Prague; but, after a faint attempt to dispute the passage of
+    the Elbe, he ordered his garrison of eleven thousand men to quit the
+    place. They left behind them their magazines and heavy artillery,
+    among which were seven pieces of remarkable excellence, called "the
+    seven electors." But they took with them their field cannon, and a
+    great number of carriages, laden with stores and plunder, which they
+    were forced to leave, in their way, to the Saxons and Austrians that
+    harassed their march. They, at last, entered Silesia, with the loss of
+    about a third part.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia suffered much in his retreat; for, besides the
+    military stores, which he left every where behind him, even to the
+    clothes of his troops, there was a want of provisions in his army,
+    and, consequently, frequent desertions and many diseases; and a
+    soldier sick or killed was equally lost to a flying army.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last he reentered his own territories, and, having stationed his
+    troops in places of security, returned, for a time, to Berlin, where
+    he forbade all to speak either ill or well of the campaign.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To what end such a prohibition could conduce, it is difficult to
+    discover: there is no country in which men can be forbidden to know
+    what they know, and what is universally known may as well be spoken.
+    It is true, that in popular governments seditious discourses may
+    inflame the vulgar; but in such governments they cannot be restrained,
+    and in absolute monarchies they are of little effect.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Prussians invaded Bohemia, and this whole nation was fired
+    with resentment, the king of England gave orders in his palace, that
+    none should mention his nephew with disrespect; by this command he
+    maintained the decency necessary between princes, without enforcing,
+    and, probably, without expecting obedience, but in his own presence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The king of Prussia's edict regarded only himself, and, therefore, it
+    is difficult to tell what was his motive, unless he intended to spare
+    himself the mortification of absurd and illiberal flattery, which, to
+    a mind stung with disgrace, must have been in the highest degree
+    painful and disgusting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Moderation in prosperity is a virtue very difficult to all mortals;
+    forbearance of revenge, when revenge is within reach, is scarcely ever
+    to be found among princes. Now was the time when the queen of Hungary
+    might, perhaps, have made peace on her own terms; but keenness of
+    resentment, and arrogance of success, withheld her from the due use of
+    the present opportunity. It is said, that the king of Prussia, in his
+    retreat, sent letters to prince Charles, which were supposed to
+    contain ample concessions, but were sent back unopened. The king of
+    England offered, likewise, to mediate between them; but his
+    propositions were rejected at Vienna, where a resolution was taken,
+    not only to revenge the interruption of their success on the Rhine, by
+    the recovery of Silesia, but to reward the Saxons for their seasonable
+    help, by giving them part of the Prussian dominions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the beginning of the year 1745, died the emperour Charles of
+    Bavaria; the treaty of Frankfort was consequently at an end; and the
+    king of Prussia, being no longer able to maintain the character of
+    auxiliary to the emperour, and having avowed no other reason for the
+    war, might have honourably withdrawn his forces, and, on his own
+    principles, have complied with terms of peace; but no terms were
+    offered him; the queen pursued him with the utmost ardour of
+    hostility, and the French left him to his own conduct and his own
+    destiny.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His Bohemian conquests were already lost; and he was now chased back
+    into Silesia, where, at the beginning of the year, the war continued
+    in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages. In April, the
+    elector of Bavaria, seeing his dominions overrun by the Austrians, and
+    receiving very little succour from the French, made a peace with the
+    queen of Hungary upon easy conditions, and the Austrians had more
+    troops to employ against Prussia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the revolutions of war will not suffer human presumption to remain
+    long unchecked. The peace with Bavaria was scarcely concluded when,
+    the battle of Fontenoy was lost, and all the allies of Austria called
+    upon her to exert her utmost power for the preservation of the Low
+    Countries; and, a few days after the loss at Fontenoy, the first
+    battle between the Prussians and the combined army of Austrians and
+    Saxons, was fought at Niedburg in Silesia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The particulars of this battle were variously reported by the
+    different parties, and published in the journals of that time; to
+    transcribe them would be tedious and useless, because accounts of
+    battles are not easily understood, and because there are no means of
+    determining to which of the relations credit should be given. It is
+    sufficient that they all end in claiming or allowing a complete
+    victory to the king of Prussia, who gained all the Austrian artillery,
+    killed four thousand, took seven thousand prisoners, with the loss,
+    according to the Prussian narrative, of only sixteen hundred men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He now advanced again into Bohemia, where, however, he made no great
+    progress. The queen of Hungary, though defeated, was not subdued. She
+    poured in her troops from all parts to the reinforcement of prince
+    Charles, and determined to continue the struggle with all her power.
+    The king saw that Bohemia was an unpleasing and inconvenient theatre
+    of war, in which he should be ruined by a miscarriage, and should get
+    little by a victory. Saxony was left defenceless, and, if it was
+    conquered, might be plundered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He, therefore, published a declaration against the elector of Saxony,
+    and, without waiting for reply, invaded his dominions. This invasion
+    produced another battle at Standentz, which ended, as the former, to
+    the advantage of the Prussians. The Austrians had some advantage in
+    the beginning; and their irregular troops, who are always daring, and
+    are always ravenous, broke into the Prussian camp, and carried away
+    the military chest. But this was easily repaired by the spoils of
+    Saxony.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The queen of Hungary was still inflexible, and hoped that fortune
+    would, at last, change. She recruited once more her army, and prepared
+    to invade the territories of Brandenburg; but the king of Prussia's
+    activity prevented all her designs. One part of his forces seized
+    Leipsic, and the other once more defeated the Saxons; the king of
+    Poland fled from his dominions; prince Charles retired into Bohemia.
+    The king of Prussia entered Dresden as a conqueror, exacted very
+    severe contributions from the whole country, and the Austrians and
+    Saxons were, at last, compelled to receive from him such a peace as he
+    would grant. He imposed no severe conditions, except the payment of
+    the contributions, made no new claim of dominions, and, with the
+    elector Palatine, acknowledged the duke of Tuscany for emperour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The lives of princes, like the histories of nations, have their
+    periods. We shall here suspend our narrative of the king of Prussia,
+    who was now at the height of human greatness, giving laws to his
+    enemies, and courted by all the powers of Europe.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_43"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    BROWNE.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    Though the writer of the following essays <a href="#note-64">[64]</a> seems to have had the
+    fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity
+    after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of
+    his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a
+    posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account
+    of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification
+    of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of
+    nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon
+    attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its
+    possessours, or virtue on its teachers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in
+    Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605 <a href="#note-65">[65]</a>. His father was a
+    merchant, of an ancient family at Upton, in Cheshire. Of the name or
+    family of his mother I find no account.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost
+    his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of
+    orphans <a href="#note-66">[66]</a>, defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was
+    placed, for his education, at the school of Winchester.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His mother, having taken three thousand pounds <a href="#note-67">[67]</a>, as the third part
+    of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand,
+    a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time, when
+    commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it
+    happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for
+    his mother soon married sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement
+    of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian,
+    deprived now of both his parents, and, therefore, helpless, and
+    unprotected.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623, from Winchester to
+    Oxford <a href="#note-68">[68]</a>, and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate hall, which
+    was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke college,
+    from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. He was
+    admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7; being,
+    as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new
+    college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most,
+    can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his
+    studies to physick <a href="#note-69">[69]</a>, and practised it for some time in
+    Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or
+    invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his
+    father-in-law <a href="#note-70">[70]</a>, who had some employment in Ireland, in a
+    visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then
+    made necessary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of
+    acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it.
+    Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of
+    a man of letters; he, therefore, passed into France and Italy <a href="#note-71">[71]</a>;
+    made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the
+    celebrated schools of physick; and, returning home through Holland,
+    procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no
+    certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
+    his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
+    therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
+    the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
+    indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
+    which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
+    lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
+    frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it
+    is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to
+    minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to
+    deserve the notice of the publick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About the year 1634 <a href="#note-72">[72]</a>, he is supposed to have returned to London;
+    and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
+    Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician <a href="#note-73">[73]</a>," which he declares
+    himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
+    for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many
+    passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
+    importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him
+    as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
+    think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
+    it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
+    with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
+    not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
+    but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without
+    his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing
+    to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely,
+    some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
+    surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
+    without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
+    repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long
+    treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
+    curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
+    is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
+    by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
+    copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is
+    found faulty or offensive, and charge the errours on the transcriber's
+    depravations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is a stratagem, by which an author, panting for fame, and yet
+    afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and
+    preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a
+    retreat; and this candour might suffer to pass undetected, as an
+    innocent fraud, but that, indeed, no fraud is innocent; for the
+    confidence which makes the happiness of society is, in some degree,
+    diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the
+    attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+    sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+    allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What is much read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset
+    recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned
+    his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
+    mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute
+    remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal
+    claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours <a href="#note-74">[74]</a>,
+    of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in
+    reading it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either
+    officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to sir Kenelm,
+    with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his
+    work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition,
+    and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally
+    genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece,
+    pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability,
+    and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes
+    in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two
+    luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the
+    obscuration of each other? yet the animadversions thus weak, thus
+    precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly
+    passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published,
+    with an admonition prefixed, "to those who have or shall peruse the
+    observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe
+    censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon
+    the observator who had usurped his name; nor was this invective
+    written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his
+    opponent's apology; but by some officious friend, zealous for his
+    honour, without his consent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself
+    from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are
+    delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and,
+    therefore, many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and
+    not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." The first glance upon
+    his book will, indeed, discover examples of this liberty of thought
+    and expression: "I could be content," says he, "to be nothing almost
+    to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last." He has little
+    acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a
+    serious opinion, that any thing can be "almost eternal," or that any
+    time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite
+    duration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this book he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of
+    himself; but with such generality and conciseness, as affords very
+    little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the
+    dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he
+    was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries;
+    but what most awakens curiosity is, his solemn assertion, that "his
+    life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate were not
+    history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable."
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which all life is miraculous; as it
+    is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession
+    of motions, of which the first cause must be supernatural; but life,
+    thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of
+    fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something,
+    by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life
+    offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of
+    others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.
+    A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed,
+    more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of
+    adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts;
+    and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
+    and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing
+    miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so
+    poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of
+    guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own
+    mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile
+    as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
+    man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the
+    crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
+    leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
+    will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
+    distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
+    of nature or of fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage
+    the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge <a href="#note-75">[75]</a>, whose
+    name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
+    his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
+    French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with
+    large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English
+    annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book,
+    the author is unknown.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
+    sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published
+    a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the
+    attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland
+    with some difficulty <a href="#note-76">[76]</a>. The first printer to whom he offered it,
+    carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for
+    three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards
+    rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
+    admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
+    answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus <a href="#note-77">[77]</a>, by
+    Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
+    Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr.
+    Lushington <a href="#note-78">[78]</a>, his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate,
+    in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was
+    very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was
+    incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf <a href="#note-79">[79]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham <a href="#note-80">[80]</a>, of a good family in Norfolk;
+    "a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her
+    worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they
+    seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism."
+</p>
+<p>
+    This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits
+    <a href="#note-81">[81]</a> upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we
+    might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately
+    declared <a href="#note-82">[82]</a>, that "the whole world was made for man, but only the
+    twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but
+    woman only the rib or crooked part of man."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous
+    positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so
+    formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract
+    so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like
+    most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and
+    inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived
+    happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of
+    whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived
+    him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
+    delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
+    dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
+    before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646
+    <a href="#note-83">[83]</a>, he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work,
+    which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation
+    and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued
+    tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an
+    enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
+    collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
+    pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
+    arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
+    particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had
+    longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of
+    his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent
+    afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large
+    additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673,
+    the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with
+    explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of
+    disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered
+    from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour,
+    thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all
+    sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in
+    vain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
+    answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and,
+    not many years ago, into French. It might now be proper, had not the
+    favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
+    copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly
+    emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the
+    last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has
+    committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and
+    Newton's philosophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
+    Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
+    suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
+    correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
+    needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles:
+    the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other,
+    instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the
+    pillars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily
+    believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without
+    the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have
+    obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had
+    thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of
+    water.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy
+    to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth
+    but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was
+    then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was
+    confirmed by later observations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
+    his name, a book called <a href="#note-84">[84]</a> Nature's Cabinet unlocked,&mdash;translated,
+    according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
+    care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
+    been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
+    honour thereof, as having no hand in that work <a href="#note-85">[85]</a>."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him
+    occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of
+    sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the
+    funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment
+    of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
+    There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
+    reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
+    he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
+    occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could
+    have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
+    antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
+    importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which
+    threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when
+    the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
+    bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what
+    oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were
+    distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of
+    these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and,
+    therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too
+    frequently recollected:
+</p>
+<p>
+    "All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being,
+    which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted
+    conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at.
+    Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men
+    could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest
+    mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions:
+    with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold
+    potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of
+    the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his
+    wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell
+    him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state
+    to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in
+    vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire
+    of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied
+    considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and
+    rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other
+    original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed
+    the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess
+    their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their
+    own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes
+    of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated
+    their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of
+    ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting
+    contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our
+    present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own
+    accomplishments."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the
+    quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients,
+    artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he
+    begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and
+    deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of
+    antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we
+    actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author
+    is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in
+    the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
+    to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
+    feeders on vegetables before the flood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
+    and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
+    have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt
+    the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
+    really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but
+    disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by
+    standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
+    nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy
+    to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
+    properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which
+    nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
+    frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of
+    Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
+    production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation
+    or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
+    upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
+    favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
+    ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
+    reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
+    that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
+    and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
+    properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
+    to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
+    be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
+    angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
+    it virtually contains two right in every one."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
+    knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
+    form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
+    very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
+    watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
+    their seminal principles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
+    by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
+    kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
+    of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
+    the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
+    which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
+    the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
+    the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
+    generative societies."
+</p>
+<p>
+    These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
+    found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
+    press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
+    fashion of great and curious writers."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
+    other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
+    selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
+    be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
+    too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
+    interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
+    of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the
+    papers of Pierescius.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon
+    several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do
+    not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
+    reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
+    useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of
+    description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to
+    readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more
+    important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some
+    obscurity from precepts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject
+    merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure
+    of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which
+    studious men have endeavoured to recover them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his
+    Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no
+    determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed,
+    it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or
+    learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes
+    produced in the waters of Judea.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects;
+    and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first
+    of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of
+    animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious
+    observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
+    unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
+    Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed
+    much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in
+    their works there is mention of <i>aucupium</i> and <i>piscatio</i>,
+    they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than
+    agriculture, or any other manual labour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but
+    without any satisfactory determination; and of <i>rhopalick</i>, or
+    gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one
+    syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more
+    than the former; as,
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator." AUSONIUS.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
+    restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
+    sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
+    He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
+    of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
+    multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
+    Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
+    have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
+    shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
+    very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
+    Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
+    declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it <a href="#note-86">[86]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
+    the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
+    rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
+    and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
+    auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
+    prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
+    language, remain with us from the Saxon."
+</p>
+<p>
+    To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
+    discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
+    is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
+    orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
+    English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
+    Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
+    sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
+    paternal language more than any modern European dialect.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
+    artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
+    interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
+    Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
+    Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
+    in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
+    most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
+    Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
+    admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
+    if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
+    their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
+    may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth."
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
+    Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he
+    determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other
+    concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
+    writers.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at
+    Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves
+    notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
+    indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
+    postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
+    of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
+    judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
+    vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
+    our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of
+    several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to
+    be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr.
+    Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and,
+    Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author
+    amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
+    either never in being or irrecoverably lost.
+</p>
+<p>
+    These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's
+    collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
+    which any of them were written.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind
+    with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into
+    amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same
+    mind has been successfully employed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo,
+    London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and
+    Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes,
+    there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about
+    the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly
+    discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter
+    to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by
+    the author's son, in 1690.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing
+    Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here
+    offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
+    that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
+    physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently
+    embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at
+    Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince,
+    who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover
+    excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions,
+    at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious
+    and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and
+    greater popularity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he
+    was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a
+    week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19,
+    1682 <a href="#note-87">[87]</a>. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to
+    the will of God, and fearlessness of death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with
+    this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of
+    the altar:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  M. S.
+  Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.
+  Et miles.
+  Anno 1605, Londini natus;
+  Generosa familia apud Upton
+  In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
+  Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea
+  In Coll. Pembr.
+  Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
+  Haud leviter imbutus;
+  In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
+  Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus;
+  Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI
+  Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque
+  Per orbem notissimus.
+  Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus;
+  Obijt Octob. 19, 1682.
+  Pie posuit moestissima conjux
+  Da. Doroth. Br.
+
+  Near the foot of this pillar
+  Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick,
+  Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books,
+  Who practised physick in this city 46 years,
+  And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age.
+  In memory of whom,
+  Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate
+  Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be
+  Erected.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three
+    daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
+    son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the
+    classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
+    Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
+    admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
+    1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
+    wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
+    sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
+    Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
+    mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
+    countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
+    a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
+    with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
+    any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
+    instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
+    much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
+    very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
+    will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
+    train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
+    the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
+    book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
+    one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
+    first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
+    Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
+    those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
+    He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
+    physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
+    office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
+    man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
+    this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
+    well bred as any of the court."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
+    view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
+    have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
+    distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
+    soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
+    every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
+    personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
+    This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to
+    sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr.
+    Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have
+    had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life."
+    Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
+    to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat
+    nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
+    affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
+    cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very
+    warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded
+    himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of
+    Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
+    of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
+    well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the
+    number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
+    names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
+    geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence
+    ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its
+    products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist,
+    that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
+    observations, equally useful as entertaining.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
+    capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was
+    remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all
+    person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but
+    remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular
+    discourses and speeches.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and
+    pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern,
+    wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
+    readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and
+    expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that
+    was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of
+    the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any
+    stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that
+    he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them.
+    The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and
+    concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration,
+    which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or
+    uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same
+    account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with
+    many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
+    sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
+    seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to
+    blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without
+    affectation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
+    increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
+    observable cause.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
+    found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
+    company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
+    conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he
+    was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
+    was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar.
+    Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much
+    improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to
+    spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any
+    diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he
+    would say, he could not do nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
+    are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
+    understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were
+    vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
+    not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
+    veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
+    oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
+    though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
+    primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the
+    derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
+    satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared
+    in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his
+    Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of
+    England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned
+    Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was
+    not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his
+    parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could
+    hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In
+    his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring
+    great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much
+    patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical
+    apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or
+    suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    "His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
+    faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto,
+    which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he
+    had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
+    from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
+    freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often
+    triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses
+    in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted
+    with a meek, rational, and religious courage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he
+    lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
+    liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
+    sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent
+    him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and
+    in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to
+    his lady and children, gained by his own industry.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and
+    modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been
+    said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place
+    of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an
+    extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the
+    famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
+    which comes nearest it, he excelled, i.e. the stochastick, wherein he
+    was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
+    but not apt to discover any presages or superstition."
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the
+    books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse
+    from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the
+    repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude
+    proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer
+    experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary
+    of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and
+    desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
+    is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
+    irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
+    harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
+    there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least,
+    defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be
+    able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best
+    Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
+    bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more
+    flexible and tender judgments."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
+    in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's
+    testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of
+    himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments
+    or visible qualities.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may,
+    sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes,
+    assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
+    charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant
+    temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares
+    himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride." A perusal
+    of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of
+    the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which
+    pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
+    himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own
+    humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that
+    "he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be
+    quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any
+    uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden
+    effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it
+    is, he mistook for settled resolution.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
+    face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
+    very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
+    will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
+    bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
+    desert him in the great hour of trial.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
+    "the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
+    is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
+    testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
+    had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
+    temptation to flattery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
+    he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
+    easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men;
+    for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and
+    scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
+    which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes
+    obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his
+    decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up
+    immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping
+    another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel
+    or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral
+    considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives
+    delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his
+    mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point
+    originally in view.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
+    minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures."
+    This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
+    vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
+    obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
+    allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
+    which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
+    every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
+    moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
+    encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
+    though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet
+    poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
+    significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
+    such as <i>commensality</i>, for the state of many living at the same
+    table; but many superfluous, as a <i>paralogical</i>, for an unreasonable
+    doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than
+    explain it, as <i>arthritical analogies</i>, for parts that serve some
+    animals in the place of joints.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
+    heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
+    originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
+    service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
+    our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and
+    expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and
+    was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any
+    language could supply a single term.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
+    he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would
+    never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
+    and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
+    very little fear of the shame of falling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
+    formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages
+    from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and
+    others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
+    conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are
+    two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for
+    endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
+    can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
+    opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own
+    doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another
+    understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and
+    eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a
+    celebrated name <a href="#note-88">[88]</a>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility;
+    men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
+    Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat
+    concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates
+    had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
+    paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient,
+    in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
+    christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so
+    watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for
+    favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour
+    of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of
+    inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly
+    their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences
+    or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately
+    repented.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply,
+    by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause
+    less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore,
+    not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot
+    should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of
+    excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding
+    strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a
+    great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority
+    of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the
+    addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that
+    argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all
+    may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly
+    dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous
+    persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with
+    knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity,
+    without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but
+    "hopeth all things," and "endureth all things."
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by
+    the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no
+    difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of
+    christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have
+    hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret
+    into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a
+    phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to
+    be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently
+    testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with
+    such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried
+    reverence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without
+    the pale of christianity, who declares, "that he assumes the
+    honourable style of a christian," not because it is "the religion of
+    his country," but because "having in his riper years and confirmed
+    judgment seen" and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the
+    principles of grace, and the law of his own reason, to embrace "no
+    other name but this;" who, to specify his persuasion yet more, tells
+    us, that "he is of the reformed religion; of the same belief our
+    Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and
+    the martyrs confirmed;" who, though "paradoxical in philosophy, loves
+    in divinity to keep the beaten road; and pleases himself that he has
+    no taint of heresy, schism, or errour:" to whom, "where the scripture
+    is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 'tis but a
+    comment;" and who uses not "the dictates of his own reason, but where
+    there is a joint silence of both: who blesses himself, that he lived
+    not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but
+    enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw
+    not." He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who
+    "believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and
+    desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms that "this is not
+    much to believe;" that "we have reason to owe this faith unto
+    history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble
+    faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and
+    mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt of the
+    positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts,
+    whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would
+    violate his own arm, rather than a church."
+</p>
+<p>
+    The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his
+    practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these
+    testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be
+    obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a
+    zealous adherent to the faith of Christ; that he lived in obedience to
+    his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_44"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    ASCHAM <a href="#note-89">[89]</a>.
+</h2>
+<p>
+    It often happens to writers, that they are known only by their works;
+    the incidents of a literary life are seldom observed, and, therefore,
+    seldom recounted: but Ascham has escaped the common fate by the
+    friendship of Edward Grauut, the learned master of Westminster school,
+    who devoted an oration to his memory, and has marked the various
+    vicissitudes of his fortune. Graunt either avoided the labour of
+    minute inquiry, or thought domestick occurrences unworthy of his
+    notice; or, preferring the character of an orator to that of an
+    historian, selected only such particulars as he could best express or
+    most happily embellish. His narrative is, therefore, scanty, and I
+    know not by what materials it can now be amplified.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Roger Ascham was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, (or Kirby
+    Wicke,) a village near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above
+    the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family
+    of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at
+    a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were
+    regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very
+    conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have
+    been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not
+    recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the youngest, and some
+    daughters; but who can hope, that of any progeny more than one shall
+    deserve to be mentioned? They lived married sixty-seven years, and, at
+    last, died together almost on the same hour of the same day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Roger, having passed his first years under the care of his parents,
+    was adopted into the family of Antony Wingfield, who maintained him,
+    and committed his education, with that of his own sons, to the care of
+    one Bond, a domestick tutor. He very early discovered an unusual
+    fondness for literature by an eager perusal of English books; and,
+    having passed happily through the scholastick rudiments, was put, in
+    1530, by his patron Wingfield, to St. John's college in Cambridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of
+    the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardour
+    or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had
+    driven the Greeks, with their language, into the interiour parts of
+    Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and
+    Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had
+    already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with
+    controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets
+    of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or
+    ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that
+    eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and
+    dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at
+    once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
+    emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the
+    present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or
+    knowing, its benefactors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the
+    bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the
+    college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous
+    for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion;
+    and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The
+    reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered
+    as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment,
+    and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually
+    losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable
+    enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally
+    conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by
+    teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read
+    lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of
+    instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of
+    great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any
+    monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and
+    scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek
+    learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him
+    in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would
+    gain more knowledge by explaining one of Æsop's fables to a boy, than
+    by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the
+    eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
+    now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which,
+    according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of
+    remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen
+    fellow of the college, which election he considered as a second birth.
+    Dr. Metcalf, the master of the college, a man, as Ascham tells us,
+    "meanly learned himself, but no mean encourager of learning in
+    others," clandestinely promoted his election, though he openly seemed
+    first to oppose it, and afterwards to censure it, because Ascham was
+    known to favour the new opinions; and the master himself was accused
+    of giving an unjust preference to the northern men, one of the
+    factions into which this nation was divided, before we could find any
+    more important reason of dissension, than that some were born on the
+    northern, and some on the southern side of Trent. Any cause is
+    sufficient for a quarrel; and the zealots of the north and south lived
+    long in such animosity, that it was thought necessary at Oxford to
+    keep them quiet, by choosing one proctor every year from each.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He seems to have been, hitherto, supported by the bounty of Wingfield,
+    which his attainment of a fellowship now freed him from the necessity
+    of receiving. Dependance, though in those days it was more common and
+    less irksome, than in the present state of things, can never have been
+    free from discontent; and, therefore, he that was released from it
+    must always have rejoiced. The danger is, lest the joy of escaping
+    from the patron may not leave sufficient memory of the benefactor. Of
+    this forgetfulness, Ascham cannot be accused; for he is recorded to
+    have preserved the most grateful and affectionate reverence for
+    Wingfield, and to have never grown weary of recounting his benefits.
+</p>
+<p>
+    His reputation still increased, and many resorted to his chamber to
+    hear the Greek writers explained. He was, likewise, eminent for other
+    accomplishments. By the advice of Pember, he had learned to play on
+    musical instruments, and he was one of the few who excelled in the
+    mechanical art of writing, which then began to be cultivated among us,
+    and in which we now surpass all other nations. He not only wrote his
+    pages with neatness, but embellished them with elegant draughts and
+    illuminations; an art at that time so highly valued, that it
+    contributed much both to his fame and his fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He became master of arts in March, 1537, in his twenty-first year, and
+    then, if not before, commenced tutor, and publickly undertook the
+    education of young men. A tutor of one-and-tweuty, however
+    accomplished with learning, however exalted by genius, would now gain
+    little reverence or obedience; but in those days of discipline and
+    regularity, the authority of the statutes easily supplied that of the
+    teacher; all power that was lawful was reverenced. Besides, young
+    tutors had still younger pupils.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every
+    incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have
+    taken care, at once, to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their
+    minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great
+    eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished,
+    that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court, as a proper
+    master of languages for the lady Elizabeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university,
+    therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him
+    out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then
+    reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by
+    king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain
+    Greek authors in his own college.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was at first an opponent of the new pronunciation introduced, or
+    rather of the ancient restored, about this time, by Cheke and Smith,
+    and made some cautious struggles for the common practice, which the
+    credit and dignity of his antagonists did not permit him to defend
+    very publickly, or with much vehemence: nor were they long his
+    antagonists; for either his affection for their merit, or his
+    conviction of the cogency of their arguments, soon changed his opinion
+    and his practice, and he adhered ever after to their method of
+    utterance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of this controversy it is not necessary to give a circumstantial
+    account; something of it may be found in Strype's Life of Smith, and
+    something in Baker's Reflections upon Learning; it is sufficient to
+    remark here, that Cheke's pronunciation was that which now prevails in
+    the schools of England. Disquisitions not only verbal, but merely
+    literal, are too minute for popular narration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was not less eminent, as a writer of Latin, than as a teacher of
+    Greek. All the publick letters of the university were of his
+    composition; and, as little qualifications must often bring great
+    abilities into notice, he was recommended to this honourable
+    employment, not less by the neatness of his hand, than the elegance of
+    his style.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However great was his learning, he was not always immured in his
+    chamber; but, being valetudinary, and weak of body, thought it
+    necessary to spend many hours in such exercises as might best relieve
+    him after the fatigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery,
+    in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time,
+    that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and,
+    perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did
+    not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing
+    learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he
+    published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of
+    Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery.
+    He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an
+    example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used
+    by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling
+    exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains,
+    that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by
+    arrogance and temerity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently
+    vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal
+    diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown,
+    by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the
+    mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art,
+    practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole:
+    precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow
+    excellence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have
+    forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained
+    the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English
+    yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler
+    of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms,
+    which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they
+    are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for
+    prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy,
+    gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to
+    skilful use than any other instrument of offence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had
+    been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with
+    hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon
+    after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to
+    imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from
+    the account given by the ingenious author of the Exercise for the
+    Norfolk Militia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The first muskets were very heavy, and could not be fired without a
+    rest; they had matchlocks, and barrels of a wide bore, that carried a
+    large ball and charge of powder, and did execution at a greater
+    distance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The musketeers on a march carried only their rests and ammunition,
+    and had boys to bear their muskets after them, for which they were
+    allowed great additional pay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "They were very slow in loading, not only by reason of the
+    unwieldiness of the pieces, and because they carried the powder and
+    balls separate, but from the time it took to prepare and adjust the
+    match; so that their fire was not near so brisk as ours is now.
+    Afterwards a lighter kind of matchlock musket came into use, and they
+    carried their ammunition in bandeliers, which were broad belts that
+    came over the shoulder, to which were hung several little cases of
+    wood covered with leather, each containing a charge of powder; the
+    balls they carried loose in a pouch; and they had also a priming-horn
+    hanging by their side.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The old English writers call those large muskets calivers; the
+    harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest.
+    The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the
+    serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down
+    with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was
+    a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of
+    firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the
+    match properly to the cock, so as to come down exactly true on the
+    priming, to blow the ashes from the coal, and to guard the pan from
+    the sparks that fell from it. A great deal of time was also lost in
+    taking it out of the cock, and returning it between the fingers of the
+    left hand every time that the piece was fired; and wet weather often
+    rendered the matches useless."
+</p>
+<p>
+    While this was the state of firearms, and this state continued among
+    us to the civil war, with very little improvement, it is no wonder
+    that the long-bow was preferred by sir Thomas Smith, who wrote of the
+    choice of weapons in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when the use of the
+    bow still continued, though the musket was gradually prevailing. Sir
+    John Haward, a writer yet later, has, in his History of the Norman
+    Kings, endeavoured to evince the superiority of the archer to the
+    musketeer: however, in the long peace of king James, the bow was
+    wholly forgotten. Guns have from that time been the weapons of the
+    English, as of other nations, and, as they are now improved, are
+    certainly more efficacious.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham had yet another reason, if not for writing his book, at least
+    for presenting it to king Henry. England was not then, what it may be
+    now justly termed, the capital of literature; and, therefore, those
+    who aspired to superiour degrees of excellence, thought it necessary
+    to travel into other countries. The purse of Ascham was not equal to
+    the expense of peregrination; and, therefore, he hoped to have it
+    augmented by a pension. Nor was he wholly disappointed; for the king
+    rewarded him with a yearly payment of ten pounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A pension of ten pounds granted by a king of England to a man of
+    letters, appears, to modern readers, so contemptible a benefaction,
+    that it is not unworthy of inquiry what might be its value at that
+    time, and how much Ascham might be enriched by it. Nothing is more
+    uncertain than the estimation of wealth by denominated money; the
+    precious metals never retain long the same proportion to real
+    commodities, and the same names in different ages do not imply the
+    same quantity of metal; so that it is equally difficult to know how
+    much money was contained in any nominal sum, and to find what any
+    supposed quantity of gold or silver would purchase; both which are
+    necessary to the commensuration of money, or the adjustment of
+    proportion between the same sums at different periods of time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A numeral pound, in king Henry's time, contained, as now, twenty
+    shillings; and, therefore, it must be inquired what twenty shillings
+    could perform. Bread-corn is the most certain standard of the
+    necessaries of life. Wheat was generally sold, at that time for one
+    shilling, the bushel; if, therefore, we take five shillings the bushel
+    for the current price, ten pounds were equivalent to fifty. But here
+    is danger of a fallacy. It may be doubted whether wheat was the
+    general bread-corn of that age; and if rye, barley, or oats, were the
+    common food, and wheat, as I suspect, only a delicacy, the value of
+    wheat will not regulate the price of other things. This doubt,
+    however, is in favour of Ascham; for if we raise the worth of wheat,
+    we raise that of his pension.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But the value of money has another variation, which we are still less
+    able to ascertain: the rules of custom, or the different needs of
+    artificial life, make that revenue little at one time which is great
+    at another. Men are rich and poor, not only in proportion to what they
+    have, but to what they want. In some ages, not only necessaries are
+    cheaper, but fewer things are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of
+    the elegancies and expenses of our present fashions were unknown:
+    commerce had not yet distributed superfluity through the lower classes
+    of the people, and the character of a student implied frugality, and
+    required no splendour to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning
+    together the wants which he could supply, and the wants from which he
+    was exempt, may be estimated, in my opinion, at more than one hundred
+    pounds a year; which, added to the income of his fellowship, put him
+    far enough above distress.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This was a year of good fortune to Ascham. He was chosen orator to the
+    university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was
+    made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains
+    admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility,
+    and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the
+    ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly
+    pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time,
+    employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand;
+    and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess
+    Elizabeth, and prince Edward.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Henry the eighth died two years after, and a reformation of religion
+    being now openly prosecuted by king Edward and his council, Ascham,
+    who was known to favour it, had a new grant of his pension, and
+    continued at Cambridge, where he lived in great familiarity with
+    Bucer, who had been called from Germany to the professorship of
+    divinity. But his retirement was soon at an end; for, in 1548, his
+    pupil Grindal, the master of the princess Elizabeth, died, and the
+    princess, who had already some acquaintance with Ascham, called him
+    from his college to direct her studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He obeyed the summons, as we may easily believe, with readiness, and,
+    for two years, instructed her with great diligence; but then, being
+    disgusted either at her, or her domesticks, perhaps eager for another
+    change of life, he left her, without her consent, and returned to the
+    university. Of this precipitation he long repented; and, as those who
+    are not accustomed to disrespect cannot easily forgive it, he probably
+    felt the effects of his imprudence to his death.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After having visited Cambridge, he took a journey into Yorkshire, to
+    see his native place, and his old acquaintance, and there received a
+    letter from the court, informing him, that he was appointed secretary
+    to sir Richard Morisine, who was to be despatched as ambassadour into
+    Germany. In his return to London he paid that memorable visit to lady
+    Jane Gray, in which he found her reading the Phasdo in Greek, as he
+    has related in his Schoolmaster.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In September, 1550, he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over
+    great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared
+    worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of
+    learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but
+    Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw
+    each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham undertook to
+    improve Morisine in Greek, and, for four days in the week, explained
+    some passages in Herodotus every morning, and more than two hundred
+    verses of Sophocles, or Euripides, every afternoon. He read with him,
+    likewise, some of the orations of Demosthenes. On the other days he
+    compiled the letters of business, and in the night filled up his
+    diary, digested his remarks, and wrote private letters to his friends
+    in England, and particularly to those of his college, whom he
+    continually exhorted to perseverance in study. Amidst all the
+    pleasures of novelty which his travels supplied, and in the dignity of
+    his publick station, he preferred the tranquillity of private study,
+    and the quiet of academical retirement. The reasonableness of this
+    choice has been always disputed; and in the contrariety of human
+    interests and dispositions, the controversy will not easily be
+    decided.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his
+    Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was
+    desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the
+    scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in
+    Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the
+    German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts
+    many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history,
+    in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly
+    mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine
+    English.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped,
+    Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end.
+    He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment
+    and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the
+    deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his
+    support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the
+    assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that
+    he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support
+    him at Cambridge." There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account
+    either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his
+    fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him
+    plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the
+    college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation.
+    But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too
+    long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return
+    with a good will to academical poverty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented
+    his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had,
+    during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king
+    Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was
+    instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of
+    twenty pounds a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an
+    extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing
+    and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven
+    letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the
+    favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen
+    Mary's court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well
+    known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared,
+    cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of
+    queen Mary's reign must have been well enough remembered, declares,
+    that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and
+    that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner
+    against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet
+    he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and
+    compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the
+    Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his
+    innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack
+    a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could
+    not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was
+    never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are
+    we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who
+    suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so
+    necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with
+    another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to
+    examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the
+    inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last,
+    to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct,
+    caprice, accident, and private affections.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At that time, if some were punished, many were forborne; and of many
+    why should not Ascham happen to be one? He seems to have been calm and
+    prudent, and content with that peace which he was suffered to enjoy: a
+    mode of behaviour that seldom fails to produce security. He had been
+    abroad in the last years of king Edward, and had, at least, given no
+    recent offence. He was certainly, according to his own opinion, not
+    much in danger; for in the next year he resigned his fellowship,
+    which, by Gardiner's favour, he had continued to hold, though not
+    resident; and married Margaret Howe, a young gentle-woman of a good
+    family.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He was distinguished in this reign by the notice of cardinal Pole, a
+    man of great candour, learning, and gentleness of manners, and
+    particularly eminent for his skill in Latin, who thought highly of
+    Ascham's style; of which it is no inconsiderable proof, that when Pole
+    was desirous of communicating a speech made by himself as legate, in
+    parliament, to the pope, he employed Ascham to translate it.
+</p>
+<p>
+    He is said to have been not only protected by the officers of state,
+    but favoured and countenanced by the queen herself, so that he had no
+    reason of complaint in that reign of turbulence and persecution: nor
+    was his fortune much mended, when, in 1558, his pupil, Elizabeth,
+    mounted the throne. He was continued in his former employment, with
+    the same stipend; but though he was daily admitted to the presence of
+    the queen, assisted her private studies, and partook of her
+    diversions; sometimes read to her in the learned languages, and
+    sometimes played with her at draughts and chess; he added nothing to
+    his twenty pounds a year but the prebend of Westwang, in the church of
+    York, which was given him the year following. His fortune was,
+    therefore, not proportionate to the rank which his offices and
+    reputation gave him, or to the favour in which he seemed to stand with
+    his mistress. Of this parsimonious allotment it is again a hopeless
+    search to inquire the reason. The queen was not naturally bountiful,
+    and, perhaps, did not think it necessary to distinguish, by any
+    prodigality of kindness, a man who had formerly deserted her, and whom
+    she might still suspect of serving rather for interest than affection.
+    Graunt exerts his rhetorical powers in praise of Ascham's
+    disinterestedness and contempt of money; and declares, that, though he
+    was often reproached by his friends with neglect of his own interest,
+    he never would ask any thing, and inflexibly refused all presents
+    which his office or imagined interest induced any to offer him.
+    Camden, however, imputes the narrowness of his condition to his love
+    of dice and cockfights: and Graunt, forgetting himself, allows that
+    Ascham was sometimes thrown into agonies by disappointed expectations.
+    It may be easily discovered, from his Schoolmaster, that he felt his
+    wants, though he might neglect to supply them; and we are left to
+    suspect, that he showed his contempt of money only by losing at play.
+    If this was his practice, we may excuse Elizabeth, who knew the
+    domestick character of her servants, if she did not give much to him
+    who was lavish of a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+    However he might fail in his economy, it were indecent to treat with
+    wanton levity the memory of a man who shared his frailties with all,
+    but whose learning or virtues few can attain, and by whose
+    excellencies many may be improved, while himself only suffered by his
+    faults.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the reign of Elizabeth, nothing remarkable is known to have
+    befallen him, except that, in 1563, he was invited, by sir Edward
+    Sackville, to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, upon an
+    occasion which he relates in the beginning of the book.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This work, though begun with alacrity, in hopes of a considerable
+    reward, was interrupted by the death of the patron, and afterwards
+    sorrowfully and slowly finished, in the gloom of disappointment, under
+    the pressure of distress. But of the author's disinclination or
+    dejection there can be found no tokens in the work, which is conceived
+    with great vigour, and finished with great accuracy; and, perhaps,
+    contains the best advice that was ever given for the study of
+    languages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This treatise he completed, but did not publish; for that poverty
+    which, in our days, drives authors so hastily in such numbers to the
+    press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. The
+    printers gave little for a copy, and, if we may believe the tale of
+    Raleigh's history, were not forward to print what was offered them for
+    nothing. Ascham's book, therefore, lay unseen in his study, and was,
+    at last, dedicated to lord Cecil by his widow.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ascham never had a robust or vigorous body, and his excuse for so many
+    hours of diversion was his inability to endure a long continuance of
+    sedentary thought. In the latter part of his life he found it
+    necessary to forbear any intense application of the mind from dinner
+    to bedtime, and rose to read and write early in the morning. He was,
+    for some years, hectically feverish; and, though he found some
+    alleviation of his distemper, never obtained a perfect recovery of his
+    health. The immediate cause of his last sickness was too close
+    application to the composition of a poem, which he purposed to present
+    to the queen, on the day of her accession. To finish this, he forbore
+    to sleep at his accustomed hours, till, in December, 1568, he fell
+    sick of a kind of lingering disease, which Graunt has not named, nor
+    accurately described. The most afflictive symptom was want of sleep,
+    which he endeavoured to obtain by the motion of a cradle. Growing
+    every day weaker, he found it vain to contend with his distemper, and
+    prepared to die with the resignation and piety of a true Christian.
+    He was attended on his death-bed by Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre,
+    and Dr. Nowel, the learned dean of St. Paul's, who gave ample
+    testimony to the decency and devotion of his concluding life. He
+    frequently testified his desire of that dissolution which he soon
+    obtained. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nowel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Roger Ascham died in the fifty-third year of his age, at a time when,
+    according to the general course of life, much might yet have been
+    expected from him, and when he might have hoped for much from others:
+    but his abilities and his wants were at an end together; and who can
+    determine, whether he was cut off from advantages, or rescued from
+    calamities? He appears to have been not much qualified for the
+    improvement of his fortune. His disposition was kind and social; he
+    delighted in the pleasures of conversation, and was probably not much
+    inclined to business. This may be suspected from the paucity of his
+    writings. He has left little behind him; and of that little, nothing
+    was published by himself but the Toxophilus, and the account of
+    Germany. The Schoolmaster was printed by his widow; and the epistles
+    were collected by Graunt, who dedicated them to queen Elizabeth, that
+    he might have an opportunity of recommending his son, Giles Ascham, to
+    her patronage. The dedication was not lost: the young man was made, by
+    the queen's mandate, fellow of a college in Cambridge, where he
+    obtained considerable reputation. What was the effect of his widow's
+    dedication to Cecil, is not known: it may be hoped that Ascham's works
+    obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did
+    not, in his life, very plenteously procure them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot
+    now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less
+    merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any
+    country; and, among us, it may justly call for that reverence which
+    all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and
+    kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners, nothing can
+    be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries.
+    Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy,
+    benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety, we have
+    not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his
+    writings.
+</p>
+<p>
+    That his English works have been so long neglected, is a proof of the
+    uncertainty of literary fame. He was scarcely known, as an author, in
+    his own language, till Mr. Upton published his Schoolmaster, with
+    learned notes. His other pieces were read only by those few who
+    delight in obsolete books; but as they are now collected into one
+    volume, with the addition of some letters never printed before, the
+    publick has an opportunity of recompensing the injury, and allotting
+    Ascham the reputation due to his knowledge and his eloquence.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<a name="2H_4_45"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<a name="footnotes"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>FOOTNOTES</h1>
+<br>
+
+<p>
+    <a name="note-1">[1]</a> From the Gentleman's Magazine, 1742.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-2">[2]</a> Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 41. 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-3">[3]</a> The first part of this review closed here. What follows did not
+    appear until seven months after. To which delay the writer alludes
+    with provoking severity.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-4">[4]</a> Literary Magazine, vol. i. p, 89. 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-5">[5]</a> From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. p. 253.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-6">[6]</a> And of such a man, it is to be regretted, that Dr. Johnson was, by
+    whatever motive, induced to speak with acrimony; but, it is probable,
+    that he took up the subject, at first, merely to give play to his
+    fancy. This answer, however, to Mr. Hanway's letter, is, as Mr. Boswell
+    has remarked, the only instance, in the whole course of his life, when
+    he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against him. C.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-7">[7]</a> From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-8">[8]</a> In all the papers and criticisms Dr. Johnson wrote for the
+    Literary Magazine, he frequently departs from the customary we of
+    anonymous writers. This, with his inimitable style, soon pointed him
+    out, as the principal person concerned in that publication.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-9">[9]</a> The second volume of Dr. Warton's Essay was not published until
+    the year 1782.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-10">[10]</a> This Enquiry, published in 1757, was the production of Soame
+    Jenyns, esq. who never forgave the author of the review. It is painful
+    to relate, that, after he had suppressed his resentment during Dr.
+    Johnson's life, he gave it vent, in a petulant and illiberal
+    mock-epitaph, which would not have deserved notice, had it not been
+    admitted into the edition of his works, published by Mr. Cole. When
+    this epitaph first appeared in the newspapers, Mr. Boswell answered it
+    by another upon Mr. Jenyns, equal, at least, in illiberality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This review is justly reckoned one of the finest specimens of
+    criticism in our language, and was read with such eagerness, when
+    published in the Literary Magazine, that the author was induced to
+    reprint it in a small volume by itself; a circumstance which appears
+    to have escaped Mr. Boswell's research.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-11">[11]</a> New Practice of Physick.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-12">[12]</a> From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-13">[13]</a> From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-14">[14]</a> From the Literary Magazine, 1756.&mdash;There are other reviews of
+    books by Dr. Johnson, in this magazine, but, in general, very short,
+    and consisting chiefly of a few introductory remarks, and an extract.
+    That on Mrs. Harrison's Miscellanies maybe accounted somewhat
+    interesting, from the notice of Dr. Watts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-15">[15]</a> Written by Mr. Tytler, of Edinburgh.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-16">[16]</a> Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1760.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-17">[17]</a> First printed in the year 1739.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-18">[18]</a> See his Remains, 1614, p. 337, "Riming verses, which are called
+    <i>versus leonini</i>, I know not wherefore, (for a lyon's taile doth
+    not answer to the middle parts as these verses doe,) began in the time
+    of Carolus Magnus, and were only in request then, and in many ages
+    following, which delighted in nothing more than in this minstrelsie of
+    meeters."
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-19">[19]</a> Dr. Edward Young.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-20">[20]</a> Ambrose Philips, author of the Distrest Mother, &amp;c.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-21">[21]</a> Edward Ward. See Dunciad, and Biographia Dramatica.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-22">[22]</a> Joseph Mitchell. See Biographia Dramatica.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-23">[23]</a> Published first in the Literary Magazine, No. iv. from July 15,
+    to Aug. 15, 1756. This periodical work was published by Richardson, in
+    Paternoster row, but was discontinued about two years after. Dr. Johnson
+    wrote many articles, which have been enumerated by Mr. Boswell, and
+    there are others which I should be inclined to attribute to him, from
+    internal evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-24">[24]</a> In the magazine, this article is promised "to be continued;" but
+    the author was, by whatever means, diverted from it, and no
+    continuation appears.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-25">[25]</a> This was the introductory article to the Literary Magazine, No. i.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-26">[26]</a> From the Literary Magazine, for July, 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-27">[27]</a> See Literary Magazine, No. ii. p. 63.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-28">[28]</a> This short paper was added to some editions of the Idler, when
+    collected into volumes, but not by Dr. Johnson, as Mr. Boswell
+    asserts, nor to the early editions of that work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-29">[29]</a> In the first edition, this passage stood thus: "Let him not,
+    however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally
+    possessed; could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransome,
+    <i>he could have counted it</i>." There were some other alterations
+    suggested, it would appear, by lord North.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-30">[30]</a> The Patriot is of the same cast with Johnson's other political
+    writings. It endeavours to justify the outrages of the house of
+    commons, in the case of the Middlesex election, and to vindicate the
+    harsh measures then in agitation against America: it can only,
+    therefore, be admired as a clever, sophistical composition.&mdash;Ed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-31">[31]</a> For arguments on the opposite side of this question, see the Abbé
+    Raynal's Revolution of America, and Edin. Rev. xl. p. 451.&mdash;Ed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-32">[32]</a> Of this reasoning I owe part to a conversation with sir John
+    Hawkins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-33">[33]</a> Written for the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1738.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-34">[34]</a> "Erat Hermanni genitor Latine, Græce, Hebraice sciens: peritus
+    valde historiarum et gentium. Vir apertus, candidus, simplex;
+    paterfamilias optimus amore, cura, diligentia, frugalitate, prudentia.
+    Qui non magna in re, sed plenus virtutis, novem liberis educandis
+    exemplum praebuit singulare, quid exacta parsimonia polleat, et
+    frugalitas." <i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-35">[35]</a> "Jungebat his exercitiis quotidianam patrum lectionem, secundum
+    chronologiam, a Clemente Romano exorsus, et juxta seriem seculorum
+    descendens: ut Jesu Christi doctrinam in N. T. traditam, primis
+    patribus interpretantibus, addisceret.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "Horum simplicitatem sincerae doctrinae, disciplinae sanctitatem,
+    vitae Deo Jicatae integritatem adorabat. Subtilitatem scholarum divina
+    postmodum inquinasse dolebat. Aegerrime tulit sacrorum interpretationem
+    ex sectis sophistarum peti; et Platonis, Aristotelis, Thomas
+    Aquinatis, Scoti; suoque tempore Cartesii, cogitata metaphysica
+    adhiberi pro legibus, ad quas eastigarentur sacrorum scriptorum de Deo
+    sentential. Experiebatur acerba dissidia, ingeniorumque subtilissimorum
+    acerrima certamina, odia, ambitiones, inde cieri, foveri; adeo
+    contraria paci cum Deo et homine. Nihil hic magis illi obstabat; quam
+    quod omnes asserant sacram scripturam [Greek: anthropopathos]
+    loquentem, [Greek: theoprepos] explicandam; et [Greek: theoprepouan]
+    singuli definiant ex placitis suae metaphysices. Horrebat inde
+    dominantis sectae praevalentem opinionem, orthodoxiae modum, et
+    regulas, unice dare juxta dictata metaphysicorum, non sacrarum
+    literarum; unde tam variae; sententiae de doctrina simplicissima."
+    &mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-36">[36]</a> "Circa hoc tempus, lautis conditionibus, lautioribus promissis,
+    invitatus, plus vice simplici, a viro primariae dignationis, qui
+    gratia flagrantissima florebat regis Gulielmi III. ut Hagamcomitum
+    sedem caperet fortunarum, declinavit constans. Contentus videlicet
+    vita libera, remota a turbis, studiisque porro percolendis unice
+    impensa, ubi non cogeretur alia dicere et simulare, alia sentire et
+    dissimulare: affectuum studiis rapi, regi. Sic turn vita erat, aegros
+    visere, mox domi in musaeo se condere, officinam Vulcaniam exercere;
+    omnes medicinae partes acerrime persequi; mathematica etiam aliis
+    tradere; sacra legere, et auctores qui profitentur docere rationem
+    certam amandi Deum."&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-37">[37]</a> "Succos pressos bibit noster herbarum cichoreæ, endiviæ;
+    fumariæ; nasturtii aquatici, veronicæ aquatics latifoliæ; copia
+    ingenti; simul deglutiens abundantissime gummi ferulacea
+    Asiatica."&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-38">[38]</a> "Aetas, labor, corporisque opima pinguetudo, effecerant, ante
+    annum, ut inertibus refertum, grave, hebes, plenitudine turgens
+    corpus, anhelum ad motus minimos, cum sensu suffocationis, pulsu
+    mirifice anomalo, ineptum evaderet ad ullum motum. Urgebat praecipue
+    subsistens prorsus et intercepta respiratio ad prima somni initia;
+    unde somnus prorsus prohibebatur, cum formidabili strangulationis
+    molestia. Hinc hydrops pedum, crurum, femorum, scroti, praeputii, et
+    abdominis. Quae tamen omnia sublata. Sed dolor manet in abdomine, cum
+    anxietate summa, anhelitu suffocante, et debilitate incredibili; somno
+    pauco, eoque vago, per somnia turbatissimo; animus vero rebus agendis
+    impar. Cum his luctor fessus nec emergo; patienter expectans Dei
+    jussa, quibus resigno data, quae sola amo, et honoro unice."&mdash;<i>Orig.
+    Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-39">[39]</a> Doctrinam sacris literis Hebraice et Graece traditarn, solam
+    animae salutarem et agnovit et sensit. Omni opportunitate profitebatur
+    disciplinam, quam Jesus Christus ore et vita expressit, unice
+    tranquillitatem dare menti. Semperque dixit amicis, pacem animi baud
+    reperiundam, nisi in magno Mosis praecepto de sincere amore Dei et
+    hominis bene observato. Neque extra sacra monumenta uspiam inveniri,
+    quod mentem serenet. Deum pius adoravit, qui est. Intelligere de Deo,
+    unice, volebat id, quod Deus de se intelligit. Eo contentus ultra
+    nihil requisivit, ne idolatria erraret. In voluntate Dei sic
+    requiescebat, ut illius nullam omnino rationem indagandam putaret.
+    Hanc unice supremam omnium legem esse contendebat; deliberata
+    constautia perfectissime colendam. De aliis et seipso sentiebat: ut
+    quoties criminis reos ad poenas letales damnatos audiret, semper
+    cogitaret, saspe diceret: "Quis dixerat annon me sint melioresi
+    Utique, si ipse melior, id non mihi auctori tribuendum esse, palam
+    aio, confiteor; sed ita largienti Deo."&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-40">[40]</a> This life first appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1739, vol.
+    ix. p. 176. It, throughout, exhibits that ardent fondness for
+    chemistry, which Johnson cherished, and that respect for physicians,
+    which his numerous memoirs of members of that profession, and his
+    attachment to Dr. Bathurst and the amiable and single-hearted Level,
+    evinced.&mdash;ED.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-41">[41]</a> This life was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for the
+    year 1740.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-42">[42]</a> The name of sir Henry Savil does not occur in the list of the
+    wardens of Wadham college.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-43">[43]</a> From H. Norhone, B.D. his contemporary there.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-44">[44]</a> This life was first printed in the Gent. Mag. for 1740, and
+    Johnson's unceasing abhorrence of Spanish encroachment and oppression
+    is remarkable throughout. See his London, and Idler, 81.&mdash;Ed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-45">[45]</a> This article was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for
+    1740. The proper spelling is Baratier.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-46">[46]</a> The passages referred to in the preceding pages we have printed
+    in italics, for the more easy reference.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-47">[47]</a> Translated from an éloge by Fontenelle, and first printed in the
+    Gentleman's Magazine for 1741.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-48">[48]</a> The practice of Dr. Morin is forbidden, I believe, by every
+    writer that has left rules for the preservation of health, and is
+    directly opposite to that of Cornaro, who, by his regimen, repaired a
+    broken constitution, and protracted his life, without any painful
+    infirmities, or any decay of his intellectual abilities, to more than
+    a hundred years; it is generally agreed that, as men advance in years,
+    they ought to take lighter sustenance, and in less quantities; and
+    reason seems easily to discover, that as the concoctive powers grow
+    weaker, they ought to labour less.&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-49">[49]</a> This is an instance of the disposition generally found in writers
+    of lives, to exalt every common occurrence and action into wonder. Are
+    not indexes daily written by men, who neither receive nor expect any
+    loud applauses for their labours?&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-50">[50]</a> First printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1742.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-51">[51]</a> A more full list is given in the last edition of the Biographical
+    Dictionary, vol. vii.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-52">[52]</a> Originally prefixed to the new translation of Dr. Sydenham's
+    works, by John Swan, M.D. of Newcastle, in Staffordshire, 1742.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-53">[53]</a> Since the foregoing was written, we have seen Mr. Ward's Lives of
+    the Professors of Gresham college; who, in the life of Dr. Mapletoft,
+    says, that, in 1676, Dr. Sydenham published his Observationes medicæ
+    circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem, which he dedicated to
+    Dr. Mapletoft, who, at the desire of the author, had translated them
+    into Latin; and that the other pieces of that excellent physician were
+    translated into that language by Mr. Gilbert Havers, of Trinity
+    college, Cambridge, a student in physick, and friend of Dr. Mapletolt.
+    But, as Mr. Ward, like others, neglects to bring any proof of his
+    assertion, the question cannot fairly be decided by his authority.&mdash;
+    <i>Orig. Edit</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-54">[54]</a> First printed in The Student, 1751.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-55">[55]</a> Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-56">[56]</a> Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-57">[57]</a> Vide Wood's Hist. Univ. Ox.&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-58">[58]</a> Vide Wood's Hist. Antiq. Oxon.&mdash;<i>Orig. Edit.</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-59">[59]</a> This life first appeared in the Gentleman's magazine for 1754,
+    and is now printed from a copy revised by the author, at my request,
+    in 1781. N.&mdash;It was, in the magazine, introduced by a general remark,
+    which we have again prefixed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-60">[60]</a> This was said in the beginning of the year 1781; and may with
+    truth be now repeated. N.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-61">[61]</a> The London Magazine ceased to exist in 1785. N.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-62">[62]</a> Mr. Cave was buried in the church of St. James, Clerkenwell,
+    without an epitaph; but the following inscription at Rugby, from the
+    pen of Dr. Hawkesworth, is here transcribed from the Anecdotes of Mr.
+    Bowyer, p. 88.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+     Near this place lies
+     The body of
+     JOSEPH CAVE,
+     Late of this parish:
+     Who departed this Life, Nov. 18, 1747,
+     Aged 79 years.
+     Me was placed by Providence in a humble station;
+     But
+     Industry abundantly supplied the wants of Nature,
+     And
+     Temperance blest him with
+     Content and Wealth.
+     As he was an affectionate Father,
+     He was made happy in the decline of life
+     By the deserved eminence of his eldest Son,
+     EDWARD CAVE,
+     Who, without interest, fortune, or connexion,
+     By the native force of his own genius,
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-63">[63]</a> First printed in the Literary Magazine for 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-64">[64]</a> Christian Morals, first printed in 1756.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-65">[65]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of
+    Norwich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-66">[66]</a> Whitefoot's character of sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-67">[67]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-68">[68]</a> Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-69">[69]</a> Wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-70">[70]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-71">[71]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-72">[72]</a> Biographia Britannica.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-73">[73]</a> Letter to sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+    edit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-74">[74]</a> Digby's Letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+    edit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-75">[75]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-76">[76]</a> Merryweather's letter, inserted in the Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-77">[77]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-78">[78]</a> Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-79">[79]</a> Wood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-80">[80]</a> Whitefoot.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-81">[81]</a> Howell's Letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-82">[82]</a> Religio Medici.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-83">[83]</a> Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-84">[84]</a> Wood, and Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-85">[85]</a> the end of Hydriotaphia.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-86">[86]</a> Johnson, by trusting; to his memory, has here fallen into an
+    error. Howell, in his instructions for Foreign Travell, has said
+    directly the reverse of what is ascribed to him: "I have beaten my
+    brains," he tells us, "to make one sentence good Italian and congruous
+    Latin, but could never do it; but in Spanish it is very feasible, as,
+    for example, in this stanza:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+     Infausta Graecia, tu paris gentes
+     Lubricas, sed amicitias dolosas,
+     Machinando fraudes cautilosas,
+     Ruinando animas innocentes:
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    which is good Latin enough; and yet is vulgar Spanish, intelligible to
+    every plebeian."&mdash;J. B.
+</p>
+<p>
+    <a name="note-87">[87]</a> Browne's Remains.&mdash;Whitefoot.
+</p>
+<br>
+<p>
+<a name="note-88"><small>88</small></a>
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+     Therefore no hereticks desire to spread Their wild opinions like
+     these epicures. For so their staggering thoughts are computed,
+     And other men's assent their doubt assures.
+
+     DAVIES.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<p>
+    <a name="note-89">[89]</a> First printed before his Works in 4to. published by Bennet, 1763.
+</p>
+<center>
+    END OF VOL. VI.
+</center>
+<p>
+    [Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and relocated to the
+    end of the work.]
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+by Samuel Johnson
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+Project Gutenberg's The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6, by Samuel Johnson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+       Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK S. JOHNSON V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
+
+
+REVIEWS, POLITICAL TRACTS,
+
+AND
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+
+THE WORKS OF
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+IN NINE VOLUMES.
+
+
+VOLUME THE SIXTH.
+
+
+MDCCCXXV.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.
+
+
+REVIEWS.
+
+Letter on Du Halde's history of China.
+
+Review of the account of the conduct of the dutchess of Marlborough.
+
+Review of memoirs of the court of Augustus.
+
+Review of four letters from sir Isaac Newton.
+
+Review of a journal of eight days' journey.
+
+Reply to a paper in the Gazetteer.
+
+Review of an essay on the writings and genius of Pope.
+
+Review of a free enquiry into the nature and origin of evil.
+
+Review of the history of the Royal Society of London, &c.
+
+Review of the general history of Polybius.
+
+Review of miscellanies on moral and religious subjects.
+
+Account of a book entitled an historical and critical enquiry into the
+evidence produced by the earls of Moray and Morton against Mary queen of
+Scots, &c.
+
+Marmor Norfolciense; or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription
+in monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk.
+
+Observations on the state of affairs in 1756.
+
+An introduction to the political state of Great Britain.
+
+Observations on the treaty between his Britannic majesty and his
+imperial majesty of all the Russias, &c.
+
+Introduction to the proceedings of the committee appointed to manage the
+contributions for clothing French prisoners of war.
+
+On the bravery of the English common soldiers.
+
+
+POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+Prefatory observations to political tracts.
+
+The False Alarm. 1770.
+
+Prefatory observations on Falkland's islands.
+
+Thoughts on the late transactions respecting Falkland's islands.
+
+The Patriot.
+
+Taxation no tyranny; an answer to the resolutions and address of the
+American congress. 1775.
+
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+Father Paul Sarpi.
+
+Boerhaave.
+
+Blake.
+
+Sir Francis Drake.
+
+Barretier.
+
+Additional account of the life of Barretier in the Gentleman's Magazine,
+1742.
+
+Morin.
+
+Burman.
+
+Sydenham.
+
+Cheynel.
+
+Cave.
+
+King of Prussia.
+
+Browne.
+
+Ascham.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738.
+
+
+There are few nations in the world more talked of, or less known, than
+the Chinese. The confused and imperfect account which travellers have
+given of their grandeur, their sciences, and their policy, have,
+hitherto, excited admiration, but have not been sufficient to satisfy
+even a superficial curiosity. I, therefore, return you my thanks for
+having undertaken, at so great an expense, to convey to English readers
+the most copious and accurate account, yet published, of that remote and
+celebrated people, whose antiquity, magnificence, power, wisdom,
+peculiar customs, and excellent constitution, undoubtedly deserve the
+attention of the publick.
+
+As the satisfaction found in reading descriptions of distant countries
+arises from a comparison which every reader naturally makes, between the
+ideas which he receives from the relation, and those which were familiar
+to him before; or, in other words, between the countries with which he
+is acquainted, and that which the author displays to his imagination; so
+it varies according to the likeness or dissimilitude of the manners of
+the two nations. Any custom or law, unheard and unthought of before,
+strikes us with that surprise which is the effect of novelty; but a
+practice conformable to our own pleases us, because it flatters our
+self-love, by showing us that our opinions are approved by the general
+concurrence of mankind. Of these two pleasures, the first is more
+violent, the other more lasting; the first seems to partake more of
+instinct than reason, and is not easily to be explained, or defined; the
+latter has its foundation in good sense and reflection, and evidently
+depends on the same principles with most human passions.
+
+An attentive reader will frequently feel each of these agreeable
+emotions in the perusal of Du Halde. He will find a calm, peaceful
+satisfaction, when he reads the moral precepts and wise instructions of
+the Chinese sages; he will find that virtue is in every place the same;
+and will look with new contempt on those wild reasoners, who affirm,
+that morality is merely ideal, and that the distinctions between good
+and ill are wholly chimerical.
+
+But he will enjoy all the pleasure that novelty can afford, when he
+becomes acquainted with the Chinese government and constitution; he will
+be amazed to find that there is a country where nobility and knowledge
+are the same, where men advance in rank as they advance in learning, and
+promotion is the effect of virtuous industry; where no man thinks
+ignorance a mark of greatness, or laziness the privilege of high birth.
+
+His surprise will be still heightened by the relations he will there
+meet with, of honest ministers, who, however incredible it may seem,
+have been seen more than once in that monarchy, and have adventured to
+admonish the emperours of any deviation from the laws of their country,
+or any errour in their conduct, that has endangered either their own
+safety, or the happiness of their people. He will read of emperours,
+who, when they have been addressed in this manner, have neither stormed,
+nor threatened, nor kicked their ministers, nor thought it majestick to
+be obstinate in the wrong; but have, with a greatness of mind worthy of
+a Chinese monarch, brought their actions willingly to the test of
+reason, law, and morality, and scorned to exert their power in defence
+of that which they could not support by argument.
+
+I must confess my wonder at these relations was very great, and had been
+much greater, had I not often entertained my imagination with an
+instance of the like conduct in a prince of England, on an occasion that
+happened not quite a century ago, and which I shall relate, that so
+remarkable an example of spirit and firmness in a subject, and of
+conviction and compliance in a prince, may not be forgotten. And I hope
+you will look upon this letter as intended to do honour to my country,
+and not to serve your interest by promoting your undertaking.
+
+The prince, at the christening of his first son, had appointed a noble
+duke to stand as proxy for the father of the princess, without regard to
+the claim of a marquis, (heir apparent to a higher title,) to whom, as
+lord of the bedchamber, then in waiting, that honour properly belonged.
+--The marquis was wholly unacquainted with the affair, till he heard,
+at dinner, the duke's health drunk, by the name of the prince he was
+that evening to represent. This he took an opportunity, after dinner, of
+inquiring the reason of, and was informed, by the prince's treasurer, of
+his highness's intention. The marquis immediately declared, that he
+thought his right invaded, and his honour injured, which he could not
+bear without requiring satisfaction from the usurper of his privileges;
+nor would he longer serve a prince who paid no regard to his lawful
+pretensions. The treasurer could not deny that the marquis's claim was
+incontestable, and, by his permission, acquainted the prince with his
+resolution. The prince, thereupon, sending for the marquis, demanded,
+with a resentful and imperious air, how he could dispute his commands,
+and by what authority he presumed to control him in the management of
+his own family, and the christening of his own son. The marquis
+answered, that he did not encroach upon the prince's right, but only
+defended his own: that he thought his honour concerned, and, as he was a
+young man, would not enter the world with the loss of his reputation.
+The prince, exasperated to a very high degree, repeated his commands;
+but the marquis, with a spirit and firmness not to be depressed or
+shaken, persisted in his determination to assert his claim, and
+concluded with declaring that he would do himself the justice that was
+denied him; and that not the prince himself should trample on his
+character. He was then ordered to withdraw, and the duke coming to him,
+assured him, that the honour was offered him unasked; that when he
+accepted it, he was not informed of his lordship's claim, and that now
+he very willingly resigned it. The marquis very gracefully acknowledged
+the civility of the duke's expressions, and declared himself satisfied
+with his grace's conduct; but thought it inconsistent with his honour to
+accept the representation as a cession of the duke, or on any other
+terms than as his own acknowledged right. The prince, being informed of
+the whole conversation, and having, upon inquiry, found all the
+precedents on the marquis's side, thought it below his dignity to
+persist in an errour, and, restoring the marquis to his right upon his
+own conditions, continued him in his favour, believing that he might
+safely trust his affairs in the hands of a man, who had so nice a sense
+of honour, and so much spirit to assert it.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONDUCT OF THE DUTCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH [1].
+
+
+The universal regard, which is paid by mankind to such accounts of
+publick transactions as have been written by those who were engaged in
+them, may be, with great probability, ascribed to that ardent love of
+truth, which nature has kindled in the breast of man, and which remains
+even where every other laudable passion is extinguished. We cannot but
+read such narratives with uncommon curiosity, because we consider the
+writer as indubitably possessed of the ability to give us just
+representations, and do not always reflect, that, very often,
+proportionate to the opportunities of knowing the truth, are the
+temptations to disguise it.
+
+Authors of this kind have, at least, an incontestable superiority over
+those whose passions are the same, and whose knowledge is less. It is
+evident that those who write in their own defence, discover often more
+impartiality, and less contempt of evidence, than the advocates which
+faction or interest have raised in their favour.
+
+It is, however, to be remembered, that the parent of all memoirs, is the
+ambition of being distinguished from the herd of mankind, and the fear
+of either infamy or oblivion, passions which cannot but have some degree
+of influence, and which may, at least, affect the writer's choice of
+facts, though they may not prevail upon him to advance known falsehoods.
+He may aggravate or extenuate particular circumstances, though he
+preserves the general transaction; as the general likeness may be
+preserved in painting, though a blemish is hid or a beauty improved.
+
+Every man that is solicitous about the esteem of others, is, in a great
+degree, desirous of his own, and makes, by consequence, his first
+apology for his conduct to himself; and when he has once deceived his
+own heart, which is, for the greatest part, too easy a task, he
+propagates the deceit in the world, without reluctance or consciousness
+of falsehood.
+
+But to what purpose, it may be asked, are such reflections, except to
+produce a general incredulity, and to make history of no use? The man
+who knows not the truth cannot, and he who knows it, will not tell it;
+what then remains, but to distrust every relation, and live in perpetual
+negligence of past events; or, what is still more disagreeable, in
+perpetual suspense?
+
+That by such remarks some incredulity is, indeed, produced, cannot be
+denied; but distrust is a necessary qualification of a student in
+history. Distrust quickens his discernment of different degrees of
+probability, animates his search after evidence, and, perhaps, heightens
+his pleasure at the discovery of truth; for truth, though not always
+obvious, is generally discoverable; nor is it any where more likely to
+be found than in private memoirs, which are generally published at a
+time when any gross falsehood may be detected by living witnesses, and
+which always contain a thousand incidents, of which the writer could not
+have acquired a certain knowledge, and which he has no reason for
+disguising.
+
+Such is the account lately published by the dutchess of Marlborough, of
+her own conduct, by which those who are very little concerned about the
+character which it is principally intended to preserve or to retrieve,
+may be entertained and instructed. By the perusal of this account, the
+inquirer into human nature may obtain an intimate acquaintance with the
+characters of those whose names have crowded the latest histories, and
+discover the relation between their minds and their actions. The
+historian may trace the progress of great transactions, and discover the
+secret causes of important events. And, to mention one use more, the
+polite writer may learn an unaffected dignity of style, and an artful
+simplicity of narration.
+
+The method of confirming her relation, by inserting, at length, the
+letters that every transaction occasioned, has not only set the greatest
+part of the work above the danger of confutation, but has added to the
+entertainment of the reader, who has now the satisfaction of forming to
+himself the characters of the actors, and judging how nearly such, as
+have hitherto been given of them, agree with those which they now give
+of themselves.
+
+Even of those whose letters could not be made publick, we have a more
+exact knowledge than can be expected from general histories, because we
+see them in their private apartments, in their careless hours, and
+observe those actions in which they indulged their own inclinations,
+without any regard to censure or applause.
+
+Thus it is, that we are made acquainted with the disposition of king
+William, of whom it may be collected, from various instances, that he
+was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was, at
+all times, disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great
+things, nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of
+gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise
+when it was his interest to keep it.
+
+There are, doubtless, great numbers who will be offended with this
+delineation of the mind of the immortal William, but they whose honesty
+or sense enables them to consider impartially the events of his reign,
+will now be enabled to discover the reason of the frequent oppositions
+which he encountered, and of the personal affronts which he was,
+sometimes, forced to endure. They will observe, that it is not always
+sufficient to do right, and that it is often necessary to add
+gracefulness to virtue. They will recollect how vain it is to endeavour
+to gain men by great qualities, while our cursory behaviour is insolent
+and offensive; and that those may be disgusted by little things, who can
+scarcely be pleased with great.
+
+Charles the second, by his affability and politeness, made himself the
+idol of the nation, which he betrayed and sold. William the third was,
+for his insolence and brutality, hated by that people, which he
+protected and enriched:--had the best part of these two characters been
+united in one prince, the house of Bourbon had fallen before him.
+
+It is not without pain, that the reader observes a shade encroaching
+upon the light with which the memory of queen Mary has been hitherto
+invested--the popular, the beneficent, the pious, the celestial queen
+Mary, from whose presence none ever withdrew without an addition to his
+happiness. What can be charged upon this delight of human kind? Nothing
+less than that _she wanted bowels_, and was insolent with her power;
+that she was resentful, and pertinacious in her resentment; that she
+descended to mean acts of revenge, when heavier vengeance was not in her
+power; that she was desirous of controlling where she had no authority,
+and backward to forgive, even when she had no real injury to complain
+of.
+
+This is a character so different from all those that have been,
+hitherto, given of this celebrated princess, that the reader stands in
+suspense, till he considers the inconsistencies in human conduct,
+remembers that no virtue is without its weakness, and considers that
+queen Mary's character has, hitherto, had this great advantage, that it
+has only been compared with those of kings.
+
+The greatest number of the letters inserted in this account, were
+written by queen Anne, of which it may be truly observed, that they will
+be equally useful for the, confutation of those who have exalted or
+depressed her character. They are written with great purity and
+correctness, without any forced expressions, affected phrases, or
+unnatural sentiments; and show uncommon clearness of understanding,
+tenderness of affection, and rectitude of intention; but discover, at
+the same time, a temper timorous, anxious, and impatient of misfortune;
+a tendency to burst into complaints, helpless dependance on the
+affection of others, and a weak desire of moving compassion. There is,
+indeed, nothing insolent or overbearing; but then there is nothing
+great, or firm, or regal; nothing that enforces obedience and respect,
+or which does not rather invite opposition and petulance. She seems born
+for friendship, not for government; and to be unable to regulate the
+conduct of others, otherwise than by her own example.
+
+That this character is just, appears from the occurrences in her reign,
+in which the nation was governed, for many years, by a party whose
+principles she detested, but whose influence she knew not how to
+obviate, and to whose schemes she was subservient against her
+inclination.
+
+The charge of tyrannising over her, which was made, by turns, against
+each party, proves that, in the opinion of both, she was easily to be
+governed; and though it may be supposed, that the letters here published
+were selected with some regard to respect and ceremony, it appears,
+plainly enough, from them, that she was what she has been represented,
+little more than the slave of the Marlborough family.
+
+The inferiour characters, as they are of less importance, are less
+accurately delineated; the picture of Harley is, at least, partially
+drawn: all the deformities are heightened, and the beauties, for
+beauties of mind he certainly had, are entirely omitted.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF AUGUSTUS;
+
+BY THOMAS BLACKWELL, J.U.D.
+
+PRINCIPAL OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN [2].
+
+
+The first effect, which this book has upon the reader, is that of
+disgusting him with the author's vanity. He endeavours to persuade the
+world, that here are some new treasures of literature spread before his
+eyes; that something is discovered, which, to this happy day, had been
+concealed in darkness; that, by his diligence, time has been robbed of
+some valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that
+names and facts, doomed to oblivion, are now restored to fame.
+
+How must the unlearned reader be surprised, when he shall be told that
+Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city,
+nor found out the way to the library of Fez; nor had a single book in
+his hands, that has not been in the possession of every man that was
+inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a
+people, who, above all others, have furnished employment to the
+studious, and amusements to the idle; who have scarcely left behind them
+a coin or a stone, which has not been examined and explained a thousand
+times; and whose dress, and food, and household stuff, it has been the
+pride of learning to understand.
+
+A man need not fear to incur the imputation of vicious diffidence or
+affected humility, who should have forborne to promise many novelties,
+when he perceived such multitudes of writers possessed of the same
+materials, and intent upon the same purpose. Mr. Blackwell knows well
+the opinion of Horace, concerning those that open their undertakings
+with magnificent promises; and he knows, likewise, the dictates of
+common sense and common honesty, names of greater authority than that of
+Horace, who direct, that no man should promise what he cannot perform.
+
+I do not mean to declare, that this volume has nothing new, or that the
+labours of those who have gone before our author, have made his
+performance an useless addition to the burden of literature. New works
+may be constructed with old materials; the disposition of the parts may
+show contrivance; the ornaments interspersed may discover elegance.
+
+It is not always without good effect, that men, of proper
+qualifications, write, in succession, on the same subject, even when the
+latter add nothing to the information given by the former; for the same
+ideas may be delivered more intelligibly or more delightfully by one
+than by another, or with attractions that may lure minds of a different
+form. No writer pleases all, and every writer may please some.
+
+But, after all, to inherit is not to acquire; to decorate is not to
+make; and the man, who had nothing to do but to read the ancient
+authors, who mention the Roman affairs, and reduce them to common
+places, ought not to boast himself as a great benefactor to the studious
+world.
+
+After a preface of boast, and a letter of flattery, in which he seems to
+imitate the address of Horace, in his "vile potabis modicis Sabinum"--he
+opens his book with telling us, that the "Roman republic, after the
+horrible proscription, was no more at _bleeding Rome_. The regal power
+of her consuls, the authority of her senate, and the majesty of her
+people, were now trampled under foot; these [for those] divine laws and
+hallowed customs, that had been the essence of her constitution--were
+set at nought, and her best friends were lying exposed in their blood."
+
+These were surely very dismal times to those who suffered; but I know
+not, why any one but a schoolboy, in his declamation, should whine over
+the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the
+rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich,
+grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, sold the lives and freedoms of
+themselves, and of one another.
+
+"About this time, Brutus had his patience put to the _highest_ trial: he
+had been married to Clodia; but whether the family did not please him,
+or whether he was dissatisfied with the lady's behaviour during his
+absence, he soon entertained thoughts of a separation. _This raised a
+good deal of talk_, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed
+bitterly against Brutus--but he married Portia, who was worthy of such a
+father as M. Cato, and such a husband as M. Brutus. She had a soul
+capable of an _exalted passion_, and found a proper object to raise and
+give it a sanction; she did not only love but adored her husband; his
+worth, his truth, his every shining and heroic quality, made her gaze on
+him like a god, while the endearing returns of esteem and tenderness she
+met with, brought her joy, her pride, her every wish to centre in her
+beloved Brutus."
+
+When the reader has been awakened by this rapturous preparation, he
+hears the whole story of Portia in the same luxuriant style, till she
+breathed out her last, a little before the _bloody proscription_, and
+"Brutus complained heavily of his friends at Rome, as not having paid
+due attention to his lady in the declining state of her health."
+
+He is a great lover of modern terms. His senators and their wives are
+_gentlemen and ladies_. In this review of Brutus's army, _who was under
+the command of gallant men, not braver officers than true patriots_, he
+tells _us_, "that Sextus, the questor, was _paymaster, secretary at war,
+and commissary general_; and that the _sacred discipline_ of the Romans
+required the closest connexion, like that of father and son, to subsist
+between the general of an army and his questor. Cicero was _general of
+the cavalry_, and the next _general officer_ was Flavius, _master of Ihe
+artillery_, the elder Lentulus was _admiral_, and the younger _rode_ in
+the _band of volunteers_; under these the tribunes, _with many others,
+too tedious to name_." Lentulus, however, was but a subordinate officer;
+for we are informed afterwards, that the Romans had made Sextus Pompeius
+lord high admiral in all the seas of their dominions. Among other
+affectations of this writer, is a furious and unnecessary zeal for
+liberty; or rather, for one form of government as preferable to another.
+This, indeed, might be suffered, because political institution is a
+subject in which men have always differed, and, if they continue to obey
+their lawful governours, and attempt not to make innovations, for the
+sake of their favourite schemes, they may differ for ever, without any
+just reproach from one another. But who can bear the hardy champion, who
+ventures nothing? who, in full security, undertakes the defence of the
+assassination of Cassar, and declares his resolution to speak plain? Yet
+let not just sentiments be overlooked: he has justly observed, that the
+greater part of mankind will be naturally prejudiced against Brutus, for
+all feel the benefits of private friendship; but few can discern the
+advantages of a well-constituted government [3].
+
+We know not whether some apology may not be necessary for the distance
+between the first account of this book and its continuation. The truth
+is, that this work, not being forced upon our attention by much publick
+applause or censure, was sometimes neglected, and sometimes forgotten;
+nor would it, perhaps, have been now resumed, but that we might avoid to
+disappoint our readers by an abrupt desertion of any subject.
+
+It is not our design to criticise the facts of this history, but the
+style; not the veracity, but the address of the writer; for, an account
+of the ancient Romans, as it cannot nearly interest any present reader,
+and must be drawn from writings that have been long known, can owe its
+value only to the language in which it is delivered, and the reflections
+with which it is accompanied. Dr. Blackwell, however, seems to have
+heated his imagination, so as to be much affected with every event, and
+to believe that he can affect others. Enthusiasm is, indeed,
+sufficiently contagious; but I never found any of his readers much
+enamoured of the _glorious Pompey, the patriot approv'd_, or much
+incensed against the _lawless Caesar_, whom this author, probably, stabs
+every day and night in his sleeping or waking dreams.
+
+He is come too late into the world with his fury for freedom, with his
+Brutus and Cassius. We have all, on this side of the Tweed, long since
+settled our opinions: his zeal for Roman liberty and declamations
+against the violators of the republican constitution, only stand now in
+the reader's way, who wishes to proceed in the narrative without the
+interruption of epithets and exclamations. It is not easy to forbear
+laughter at a man so bold in fighting shadows, so busy in a dispute two
+thousand years past, and so zealous for the honour of a people, who,
+while they were poor, robbed mankind, and, as soon as they became rich,
+robbed one another. Of these robberies our author seems to have no very
+quick sense, except when they are committed by Caesar's party, for every
+act is sanctified by the name of a patriot.
+
+If this author's skill in ancient literature were less generally
+acknowledged, one might sometimes suspect, that he had too frequently
+consulted the French writers. He tells us, that Archelaus, the Rhodian,
+made a speech to Cassius, and, _in so saying_, dropt some tears; and
+that Cassius, after the reduction of Rhodes, was _covered with
+glory_.--Deiotarus was a keen and happy spirit--the ingrate Castor kept
+his court.
+
+His great delight is to show his universal acquaintance with terms of
+art, with words that every other polite writer has avoided and despised.
+When Pompey conquered the pirates, he destroyed fifteen hundred ships of
+the line.--The Xanthian parapets were tore down.--Brutus, suspecting
+that his troops were plundering, commanded the trumpets to sound to
+their colours.--Most people understood the act of attainder passed by
+the senate.--The Numidian troopers were unlikely in their appearance.--
+The Numidians beat up one quarter after another.--Salvidienus resolved
+to pass his men over, in boats of leather, and he gave orders for
+equipping a sufficient number of that sort of small craft.--Pompey had
+light, agile frigates, and fought in a strait, where the current and
+caverns occasion swirls and a roll.--A sharp out-look was kept by the
+admiral.--It is a run of about fifty Roman miles.--Brutus broke Lipella
+in the sight of the army.--Mark Antony garbled the senate. He was a
+brave man, well qualified for a commodore.
+
+In his choice of phrases he frequently uses words with great solemnity,
+which every other mouth and pen has appropriated to jocularity and
+levity! The Rhodians gave up the contest, and, in poor plight, fled back
+to Rhodes.--Boys and girls were easily kidnapped.--Deiotarus was a
+mighty believer of augury.--Deiotarus destroyed his ungracious
+progeny.--The regularity of the Romans was their mortal aversion.--They
+desired the consuls to curb such heinous doings.--He had such a shrewd
+invention, that no side of a question came amiss to him.--Brutus found
+his mistress a coquettish creature.
+
+He sometimes, with most unlucky dexterity, mixes the grand and the
+burlesque together; _the violation of faith, sir_, says Cassius, _lies
+at the door of the Rhodians by reite-rated acts of perfidy_.--The iron
+grate fell down, crushed those under it to death, and catched the rest
+as in a trap.--When the Xanthians heard the military shout, and saw the
+flame mount, they concluded there would be no mercy. It was now about
+sunset, and they had been at hot work since noon.
+
+He has, often, words, or phrases, with which our language has hitherto
+had no knowledge.--One was a heart-friend to the republic--A deed was
+expeded.--The Numidians begun to reel, and were in hazard of falling
+into confusion.--The tutor embraced his pupil close in his arms.--Four
+hundred women were taxed, who have, no doubt, been the wives of the best
+Roman citizens.--Men not born to action are inconsequential in
+government.--Collectitious troops.--The foot, by their violent attack,
+began the fatal break in the Pharsaliac field.--He and his brother, with
+a politic, common to other countries, had taken opposite sides.
+
+His epithets are of the gaudy or hyperbolical kind. The glorious
+news--eager hopes and dismal fears--bleeding Rome--divine laws and
+hallowed customs--merciless war--intense anxiety.
+
+Sometimes the reader is suddenly ravished with a sonorous sentence, of
+which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain. When
+Brutus set his legions to fill a moat, instead of heavy dragging and
+slow toil, they set about it with huzzas and racing, as if they had been
+striving at the Olympic games. They hurled impetuous down the huge trees
+and stones, and, with shouts, forced them into the water; so that the
+work, expected to continue half the campaign, was, with rapid toil,
+completed in a few days. Brutus's soldiers fell to the gate with
+resistless fury; it gave way, at last, with hideous crash.--This great
+and good man, doing his duty to his country, received a mortal wound,
+and glorious fell in the cause of Rome; may his memory be ever dear to
+all lovers of liberty, learning, and humanity! This promise ought ever
+to embalm his memory.--The queen of nations was torn by no foreign
+invader.--Rome fell a sacrifice to her own sons, and was ravaged by her
+unnatural offspring: all the great men of the state, all the good, all
+the holy, were openly murdered by the wickedest and worst.--Little
+islands cover the harbour of Brindisi, and form the narrow outlet from
+the numerous creeks that compose its capacious port.--At the appearance
+of Brutus and Cassius, a shout of joy rent the heavens from the
+surrounding multitudes.
+
+Such are the flowers which may be gathered, by every hand, in every part
+of this garden of eloquence. But having thus freely mentioned our
+author's faults, it remains that we acknowledge his merit; and confess,
+that this book is the work of a man of letters, that it is full of
+events displayed with accuracy, and related with vivacity; and though it
+is sufficiently defective to crush the vanity of its author, it is
+sufficiently entertaining to invite readers.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO DR BENTLEY,
+
+Containing some arguments in proof of a Deity [4].
+
+
+It will certainly be required, that notice should be taken of a book,
+however small, written on such a subject, by such an author. Yet I know
+not whether these letters will be very satisfactory; for they are
+answers to inquiries not published; and, therefore, though they contain
+many positions of great importance, are, in some parts, imperfect and
+obscure, by their reference to Dr. Bentley's letters.
+
+Sir Isaac declares, that what he has done is due to nothing but industry
+and patient thought; and, indeed, long consideration is so necessary in
+such abstruse inquiries, that it is always dangerous to publish the
+productions of great men, which are not known to have been designed for
+the press, and of which it is uncertain, whether much patience and
+thought have been bestowed upon them. The principal question of these
+letters gives occasion to observe, how even the mind of Newton gains
+ground, gradually, upon darkness.
+
+"As to your first query," says he, "it seems to me, that if the matter
+of our sun and planets, and all the matter of the universe, were evenly
+scattered, throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate
+gravity towards all the rest, and the whole space, throughout which this
+matter was scattered, was but finite, the matter on the outside of this
+space would, by its gravity, tend towards all the matter on the inside,
+and, by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space, and
+there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly
+disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one
+mass, but some of it would convene into one mass, and some into another,
+so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered, at great
+distances, from one to another, throughout all that infinite space. And
+thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were
+of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two
+sorts, and that part of it, which is fit to compose a shining body,
+should fall down into one mass, and make a sun, and the rest, which is
+fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body,
+like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or, if the sun, at
+first, were an opaque body, like the planets, or the planets lucid
+bodies, like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining
+body, whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into
+opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think more explicable
+by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and
+contrivance of a voluntary agent."
+
+The hypothesis of matter evenly disposed through infinite space, seems
+to labour with such difficulties, as makes it almost a contradictory
+supposition, or a supposition destructive of itself.
+
+"Matter evenly disposed through infinite space," is either created or
+eternal; if it was created, it infers a creator; if it was eternal, it
+had been from eternity "evenly spread through infinite space;" or it had
+been once coalesced in masses, and, afterwards, been diffused. Whatever
+state was first must have been from eternity, and what had been from
+eternity could not be changed, but by a cause beginning to act, as it
+had never acted before, that is, by the voluntary act of some external
+power. If matter, infinitely and evenly diffused, was a moment without
+coalition, it could never coalesce at all by its own power. If matter
+originally tended to coalesce, it could never be evenly diffused through
+infinite space. Matter being supposed eternal, there never was a time,
+when it could be diffused before its conglobation, or conglobated before
+its diffusion.
+
+This sir Isaac seems, by degrees, to have understood; for he says, in
+his second letter: "The reason why matter, evenly scattered through a
+finite space, would convene in the midst, you conceive the same with me;
+but, that there should be a central particle, so accurately placed in
+the middle, as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and,
+thereby, continue without motion, seems to me a supposition fully as
+hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright upon its point on a
+looking-glass. For, if the very mathematical centre of the central
+particle be not accurately in the very mathematical centre of the
+attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted
+equally on all sides. And much harder is it to suppose all the
+particles, in an infinite space, should be so accurately poised, one
+among another, as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon
+this as hard as to make not one needle only, but an infinite number of
+them, (so many as there are particles in an infinite space,) stand
+accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least,
+by a divine power; and, if they were once to be placed, I agree with
+you, that they would continue in that posture without motion, for ever,
+unless put into new motion by the same power. When, therefore, I said,
+that matter evenly spread through all space, would convene, by its
+gravity, into one or more great masses, I understand it of matter not
+resting in an accurate poise."
+
+Let not it be thought irreverence to this great name, if I observe, that
+by "matter evenly spread" through infinite space, he now finds it
+necessary to mean "matter not evenly spread." Matter not evenly spread
+will, indeed, convene, but it will convene as soon as it exists. And, in
+my opinion, this puzzling question about matter, is only, how that could
+be that never could have been, or what a man thinks on when he thinks on
+nothing.
+
+Turn matter on all sides, make it eternal, or of late production, finite
+or infinite, there can be no regular system produced, but by a voluntary
+and meaning agent. This the great Newton always asserted, and this he
+asserts in the third letter; but proves, in another manner, in a manner,
+perhaps, more happy and conclusive.
+
+"The hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world, by mechanical
+principles, from matter evenly spread through the heavens, being
+inconsistent with my system, I had considered it very little, before
+your letter put me upon it, and, therefore, trouble you with a line or
+two more about it, if this comes not too late for your use.
+
+"In my former, I represented, that the diurnal rotations of the planets
+could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine arm to impress
+them. And though gravity might give the planets a motion of descent
+towards the sun, either directly, or with some little obliquity, yet the
+transverse motions, by which they revolve in their several orbs,
+required the divine arm to impress them, according to the tangents of
+their orbs. I would now add, that the hypothesis of matter's being, at
+first, evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion,
+inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity, without a
+supernatural power to reconcile them, and, therefore, it infers a deity.
+For, if there be innate gravity, it is impossible now for the matter of
+the earth, and all the planets and stars, to fly up from them, and
+become evenly spread throughout all the heavens, without a supernatural
+power; and, certainly, that which can never be hereafter, without a
+supernatural power, could never be heretofore, without the same power."
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF A JOURNAL OF EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY,
+
+From Portsmouth to Kingston upon Thames, through Southampton, Wiltshire,
+&c. with miscellaneous thoughts, moral and religious; in sixty-four
+letters: addressed to two ladies of the partie. To which is added, an
+Essay On Tea, considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry,
+and impoverishing the nation; with an account of its growth, and great
+consumption in these kingdoms; with several political reflections; and
+thoughts on publick love: in thirty-two letters to two ladies. By Mr. H.
+-----.
+
+[From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. No. xiii. 1757.]
+
+
+Our readers may, perhaps, remember, that we gave them a short account of
+this book, with a letter, extracted from it, in November, 1756. The
+author then sent us an injunction, to forbear his work, till a second
+edition should appear: this prohibition was rather too magisterial; for
+an author is no longer the sole master of a book, which he has given to
+the publick; yet he has been punctually obeyed; we had no desire to
+offend him; and, if his character may be estimated by his book, he is a
+man whose failings may well be pardoned for his virtues.
+
+The second edition is now sent into the world, corrected and enlarged,
+and yielded up, by the author, to the attacks of criticism. But he shall
+find in us, no malignity of censure. We wish, indeed, that, among other
+corrections, he had submitted his pages to the inspection of a
+grammarian, that the elegancies of one line might not have been
+disgraced by the improprieties of another; but, with us, to mean well is
+a degree of merit, which overbalances much greater errours than impurity
+of style.
+
+We have already given, in our collections, one of the letters, in which
+Mr. Hanway endeavours to show, that the consumption of tea is injurious
+to the interest of our country. We shall now endeavour to follow him,
+regularly, through all his observations on this modern luxury; but, it
+can scarcely be candid not to make a previous declaration, that he is to
+expect little justice from the author of this extract, a hardened and
+shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with
+only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely
+time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the
+midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
+
+He begins by refuting a popular notion, that bohea and green tea are
+leaves of the same shrub, gathered at different times of the year. He is
+of opinion, that they are produced by different shrubs. The leaves of
+tea are gathered in dry weather; then dried and curled over the fire, in
+copper pans. The Chinese use little green tea, imagining, that it
+hinders digestion, and excites fevers. How it should have either effect,
+is not easily discovered; and, if we consider the innumerable
+prejudices, which prevail concerning our own plants, we shall very
+little regard these opinions of the Chinese vulgar, which experience
+does not confirm.
+
+When the Chinese drink tea, they infuse it slightly, and extract only
+the more volatile parts; but though this seems to require great
+quantities at a time, yet the author believes, perhaps, only because he
+has an inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch use more
+than all the inhabitants of that extensive empire. The Chinese drink it,
+sometimes, with acids, seldom with sugar; and this practice our author,
+who has no intention to find anything right at home, recommends to his
+countrymen.
+
+The history of the rise and progress of tea-drinking is truly curious.
+Tea was first imported, from Holland, by the earls of Arlington and
+Ossory, in 1666; from their ladies the women of quality learned its use.
+Its price was then three pounds a pound, and continued the same to 1707.
+In 1715, we began to use green tea, and the practice of drinking it
+descended to the lower class of the people. In 1720, the French began to
+send it hither by a clandestine commerce. From 1717 to 1726, we
+imported, annually, seven hundred thousand pounds. From 1732 to 1742, a
+million and two hundred thousand pounds were every year brought to
+London; in some years afterwards three millions; and in 1755, near four
+millions of pounds, or two thousand tons, in which we are not to reckon
+that which is surreptitiously introduced, which, perhaps, is nearly as
+much. Such quantities are, indeed, sufficient to alarm us; it is, at
+least, worth inquiry, to know what are the qualities of such a plant,
+and what the consequences of such a trade.
+
+He then proceeds to enumerate the mischiefs of tea, and seems willing to
+charge upon it every mischief that he can find. He begins, however, by
+questioning the virtues ascribed to it, and denies that the crews of the
+Chinese ships are preserved, in their voyage homewards, from the scurvy
+by tea. About this report I have made some inquiry, and though I cannot
+find that these crews are wholly exempt from scorbutick maladies, they
+seem to suffer them less than other mariners, in any course of equal
+length. This I ascribe to the tea, not as possessing any medicinal
+qualities, but as tempting them to drink more water, to dilute their
+salt food more copiously, and, perhaps, to forbear punch, or other
+strong liquors.
+
+He then proceeds, in the pathetick strain, to tell the ladies how, by
+drinking tea, they injure their health, and, what is yet more dear,
+their beauty.
+
+"To what can we ascribe the numerous complaints which prevail? How many
+sweet creatures of your sex languish with a weak digestion, low spirits,
+lassitudes, melancholy, and twenty disorders, which, in spite of the
+faculty, have yet no names, except the general one of nervous
+complaints? Let them change their diet, and, among other articles, leave
+off drinking tea, it is more than probable, the greatest part of them
+will be restored to health."
+
+"Hot water is also very hurtful to the teeth. The Chinese do not drink
+their tea so hot as we do, and yet they have bad teeth. This cannot be
+ascribed entirely to sugar, for they use very little, as already
+observed; but we all know, that hot or cold things, which pain the
+teeth, destroy them also. If we drank less tea, and used gentle acids
+for the gums and teeth, particularly sour oranges, though we had a less
+number of French dentists, I fancy this essential part of beauty would
+be much better preserved.
+
+"The women in the United Provinces, who sip tea from morning till night,
+are also as remarkable for bad teeth. They also look pallid, and many
+are troubled with certain feminine disorders, arising from a relaxed
+habit. The Portuguese ladies, on the other hand, entertain with
+sweetmeats, and yet they have very good teeth; but their food, in
+general, is more of a farinaceous and vegetable kind than ours. They
+also drink cold water, instead of sipping hot, and never taste any
+fermented liquors; for these reasons, the use of sugar does not seem to
+be at all pernicious to them."
+
+"Men seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their
+beauty. I am not young, but, methinks, there is not quite so much beauty
+in this land as there was. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom,
+I suppose, by sipping tea. Even the agitations of the passions at cards
+are not so great enemies to female charms. What Shakespeare ascribes to
+the concealment of love, is, in this age, more frequently occasioned by
+the use of tea."
+
+To raise the fright still higher, he quotes an account of a pig's tail,
+scalded with tea, on which, however, he does not much insist.
+
+Of these dreadful effects, some are, perhaps, imaginary, and some may
+have another cause. That there is less beauty in the present race of
+females, than in those who entered the world with us, all of us are
+inclined to think, on whom beauty has ceased to smile; but our fathers
+and grandfathers made the same complaint before us; and our posterity
+will still find beauties irresistibly powerful.
+
+That the diseases, commonly called nervous, tremours, fits, habitual
+depression, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility,
+are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however
+deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the
+prohibition of tea. This general languor is the effect of general
+luxury, of general idleness. If it be most to be found among
+tea-drinkers, the reason is, that tea is one of the stated amusements of
+the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of
+voluntary labour, every exercise that strengthened the nerves, and
+hardened the muscles, is fallen into disuse. The inhabitants are crowded
+together in populous cities, so that no occasion of life requires much
+motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and
+delicate seldom pass from one street to another, but in carriages of
+pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the
+hunters and huntresses, the farmers and the housewives, of the former
+generation; and they that pass ten hours in bed, and eight at cards, and
+the greater part of the other six at the table, are taught to impute to
+tea all the diseases which a life, unnatural in all its parts, may
+chance to bring upon them.
+
+Tea, among the greater part of those who use it most, is drunk in no
+great quantity. As it neither exhilarates the heart, nor stimulates the
+palate, it is commonly an entertainment merely nominal, a pretence for
+assembling to prattle, for interrupting business, or diversifying
+idleness. They, who drink one cup, and, who drink twenty, are equally
+punctual in preparing or partaking it; and, indeed, there are few but
+discover, by their indifference about it, that they are brought together
+not by the tea, but the tea-table. Three cups make the common quantity,
+so slightly impregnated, that, perhaps, they might be tinged with the
+Athenian cicuta, and produce less effects than these letters charge upon
+tea.
+
+Our author proceeds to show yet other bad qualities of this hated leaf.
+
+"Green tea, when made strong, even by infusion, is an emetick; nay, I am
+told, it is used as such in China; a decoction of it certainly performs
+this operation; yet, by long use, it is drunk by many without such an
+effect. The infusion also, when it is made strong, and stands long to
+draw the grosser particles, will convulse the bowels: even in the manner
+commonly used, it has this effect on some constitutions, as I have
+already remarked to you from my own experience.
+
+"You see I confess my weakness without reserve; but those who are very
+fond of tea, if their digestion is weak, and they find themselves
+disordered, they generally ascribe it to any cause, except the true one.
+I am aware that the effect, just mentioned, is imputed to the hot water;
+let it be so, and my argument is still good: but who pretends to say, it
+is not partly owing to particular kinds of tea? perhaps, such as partake
+of copperas, which, there is cause to apprehend, is sometimes the case:
+if we judge from the manner in which it is said to be cured, together
+with its ordinary effects, there is some foundation for this opinion.
+Put a drop of strong tea, either green or bohea, but chiefly the former,
+on the blade of a knife, though it is not corrosive, in the same manner
+as vitriol, yet there appears to be a corrosive quality in it, very
+different from that of fruit, which stains the knife."
+
+He afterwards quotes Paulli, to prove, that tea is a "desiccative, and
+ought not to be used after the fortieth year." I have, then, long
+exceeded the limits of permission, but I comfort myself, that all the
+enemies of tea cannot be in the right. If tea be a desiccative,
+according to Paulli, it cannot weaken the fibres, as our author
+imagines; if it be emetick, it must constringe the stomach, rather than
+relax it.
+
+The formidable quality of tinging the knife, it has in common with
+acorns, the bark, and leaves of oak, and every astringent bark or leaf:
+the copperas, which is given to the tea, is really in the knife. Ink may
+be made of any ferruginous matter, and astringent vegetable, as it is
+generally made of galls and copperas.
+
+From tea, the writer digresses to spirituous liquors, about which he
+will have no controversy with the Literary Magazine; we shall,
+therefore, insert almost his whole letter, and add to it one testimony,
+that the mischiefs arising, on every side, from this compendious mode of
+drunkenness, are enormous and insupportable; equally to be found among
+the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet, and distraction,
+harder to be borne, as it cannot be mentioned; and overwhelming
+multitudes with incurable diseases, and unpitied poverty.
+
+"Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this
+island, and his majesty's other dominions, yet, you may be well assured,
+that the governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost
+skill and vigilance, to prevent the children, under their care, from
+being poisoned, or enervated by one or the other. This, however, is not
+the case of workhouses: it is well known, to the shame of those who are
+charged with the care of them, that gin has been too often permitted to
+enter their gates;--and the debauched appetites of the people, who
+inhabit these houses, has been urged as a reason for it.
+
+"Desperate diseases require desperate remedies: if laws are rigidly
+executed against murderers in the highway, those who provide a draught
+of gin, which we see is murderous, ought not to be countenanced. I am
+now informed, that in certain hospitals, where the number of the sick
+used to be about 5600 in 14 years,
+
+  From 1704 to 1718, they increased to 8189;
+  From 1718 to 1734, still augmented to 12,710;
+  And from 1734 to 1749, multiplied to 38,147.
+
+"What a dreadful spectre does this exhibit! nor must we wonder, when
+satisfactory evidence was given, before the great council of the nation,
+that near eight millions of gallons of distilled spirits, at the
+standard it is commonly reduced to for drinking, was actually consumed
+annually in drams! the shocking difference in the numbers of the sick,
+and, we may presume, of the dead also, was supposed to keep pace with
+gin; and the most ingenious and unprejudiced physicians ascribed it to
+this cause. What is to be done under these melancholy circumstances?
+shall we still countenance the distillery, for the sake of the revenue;
+out of tenderness to the few, who will suffer by its being abolished;
+for fear of the madness of the people; or that foreigners will run it in
+upon us? There can be no evil so great as that we now suffer, except the
+making the same consumption, and paying for it to foreigners in money,
+which I hope never will be the case.
+
+"As to the revenue, it certainly may be replaced by taxes upon the
+necessaries of life, even upon the bread we eat, or, in other words,
+upon the land, which is the great source of supply to the public, and to
+individuals. Nor can I persuade myself, but that the people may be
+weaned from the habit of poisoning themselves. The difficulty of
+smuggling a bulky liquid, joined to the severity which ought to be
+exercised towards smugglers, whose illegal commerce is of so infernal a
+nature, must, in time, produce the effect desired. Spirituous liquors
+being abolished, instead of having the most undisciplined and abandoned
+poor, we might soon boast a race of men, temperate, religious, and
+industrious, even to a proverb. We should soon see the ponderous burden
+of the poor's rate decrease, and the beauty and strength of the land
+rejuvenate. Schools, workhouses, and hospitals, might then be sufficient
+to clear our streets of distress and misery, which never will be the
+case, whilst the love of poison prevails, and the means of ruin is sold
+in above one thousand houses in the city of London, in two thousand two
+hundred in Westminster, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty in
+Holborn and St. Giles's.
+
+"But if other uses still demand liquid fire, I would really propose,
+that it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up, with the king's
+seal, with a very high duty, and none sold without being mixed with a
+strong emetic.
+
+"Many become objects of charity by their intemperance, and this excludes
+others, who are such by the unavoidable accidents of life, or who
+cannot, by any means, support themselves. Hence it appears, that the
+introducing new habits of life, is the most substantial charity; and
+that the regulation of charity-schools, hospitals, and workhouses, not
+the augmentation of their number, can make them answer the wise ends,
+for which they were instituted.
+
+"The children of beggars should be also taken from them, and bred up to
+labour, as children of the public. Thus the distressed might be
+relieved, at a sixth part of the present expense; the idle be compelled
+to work or starve; and the mad be sent to Bedlam. We should not see
+human nature disgraced by the aged, the maimed, the sickly, and young
+children, begging their bread; nor would compassion be abused by those,
+who have reduced it to an art to catch the unwary. Nothing is wanting
+but common sense and honesty in the execution of laws.
+
+"To prevent such abuse in the streets, seems more practicable than to
+abolish bad habits within doors, where greater numbers perish. We see,
+in many familiar instances, the fatal effects of example. The careless
+spending of time among servants, who are charged with the care of
+infants, is often fatal: the nurse frequently destroys the child! the
+poor infant, being left neglected, expires whilst she is sipping her
+tea! This may appear to you as rank prejudice, or jest; but, I am
+assured, from the most indubitable evidence, that many very
+extraordinary cases of this kind have really happened, among those whose
+duty does not permit of such kind of habits.
+
+"It is partly from such causes, that nurses of the children of the
+public often forget themselves, and become impatient when infants cry;
+the next step to this is using extraordinary means to quiet them. I have
+already mentioned the term killing nurse, as known in some workhouses:
+Venice treacle, poppy water, and Godfrey's cordial, have been the kind
+instruments of lulling the child to his everlasting rest. If these pious
+women could send up an ejaculation, when the child expired, all was
+well, and no questions asked by the superiors. An ingenious friend of
+mine informs me, that this has been so often the case, in some
+workhouses, that Venice treacle has acquired the appellation of 'the
+Lord have mercy upon me,' in allusion to the nurses' hackneyed
+expression of pretended grief, when infants expire! Farewell."
+
+I know not upon what observation Mr. Hanway founds his confidence in the
+governours of the Foundling Hospital, men of whom I have not any
+knowledge, but whom I entreat to consider a little the minds, as well as
+bodies, of the children. I am inclined to believe irreligion equally
+pernicious with gin and tea, and, therefore, think it not unseasonable
+to mention, that, when, a few months ago, I wandered through the
+hospital, I found not a child that seemed to have heard of his creed, or
+the commandments. To breed up children in this manner, is to rescue them
+from an early grave, that they may find employment for the gibbet; from
+dying in innocence, that they may perish by their crimes.
+
+Having considered the effects of tea upon the health of the drinker,
+which, I think, he has aggravated in the vehemence of his zeal, and
+which, after soliciting them by this watery luxury, year after year, I
+have not yet felt, he proceeds to examine, how it may be shown to affect
+our interest; and first calculates the national loss, by the time spent
+in drinking tea. I have no desire to appear captious, and shall,
+therefore, readily admit, that tea is a liquor not proper for the lower
+classes of the people, as it supplies no strength to labour, or relief
+to disease, but gratifies the taste, without nourishing the body. It is
+a barren superfluity, to which those who can hardly procure what nature
+requires, cannot prudently habituate themselves. Its proper use is to
+amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of
+those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. That time is
+lost in this insipid entertainment cannot be denied; many trifle away,
+at the tea-table, those moments which would be better spent; but that
+any national detriment can be inferred from this waste of time, does not
+evidently appear, because I know not that any work remains undone, for
+want of hands. Our manufactures seem to be limited, not by the
+possibility of work, but by the possibility of sale.
+
+His next argument is more clear. He affirms, that one hundred and fifty
+thousand pounds, in silver, are paid to the Chinese, annually, for three
+millions of pounds of tea, and, that for two millions more, brought
+clandestinely from the neighbouring coasts, we pay, at twenty-pence a
+pound, one hundred sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds.
+The author justly conceives, that this computation will waken us; for,
+says he: "the loss of health, the loss of time, the injury of morals,
+are not very sensibly felt by some, who are alarmed when you talk of the
+loss of money." But he excuses the East India company, as men not
+obliged to be political arithmeticians, or to inquire so much, what the
+nation loses, as how themselves may grow rich. It is certain, that they,
+who drink tea, have no right to complain of those that import it; but if
+Mr. Hanway's computation be just, the importation, and the use of it,
+ought, at once, to be stopped by a penal law.
+
+The author allows one slight argument in favour of tea, which, in my
+opinion, might be, with far greater justice, urged both against that and
+many other parts of our naval trade. "The tea-trade employs," he tells
+us, "six ships, and five or six hundred seamen, sent annually to China.
+It, likewise, brings in a revenue of three hundred and sixty thousand
+pounds, which, as a tax on luxury, may be considered as of great utility
+to the state." The utility of this tax I cannot find: a tax on luxury is
+no better than another tax, unless it hinders luxury, which cannot be
+said of the impost upon tea, while it is thus used by the great and the
+mean, the rich and the poor. The truth is, that, by the loss of one
+hundred and fifty thousand pounds, we procure the means of shifting
+three hundred and sixty thousand, at best, only from one hand to
+another; but, perhaps, sometimes into hands by which it is not very
+honestly employed. Of the five or six hundred seamen, sent to China, I
+am told, that sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the
+voyage; so that, instead of setting this navigation against the
+inconveniencies already alleged, we may add to them, the yearly loss of
+two hundred men, in the prime of life; and reckon, that the trade of
+China has destroyed ten thousand men, since the beginning of this
+century.
+
+If tea be thus pernicious, if it impoverishes our country, if it raises
+temptation, and gives opportunity to illicit commerce, which I have
+always looked on, as one of the strongest evidences of the inefficacy
+of our law, the weakness of our government, and the corruption of our
+people, let us, at once, resolve to prohibit it for ever.
+
+"If the question was, how to promote industry most advantageously, in
+lieu of our tea-trade, supposing every branch of our commerce to be
+already fully supplied with men and money? If a quarter the sum, now
+spent in tea, were laid out, annually, in plantations, in making public
+gardens, in paving and widening streets, in making roads, in rendering
+rivers navigable, erecting palaces, building' bridges, or neat and
+convenient houses, where are now only huts; draining lands, or rendering
+those, which are now barren, of some use; should we not be gainers, and
+provide more for health, pleasure, and long life, compared with the
+consequences of the tea-trade?"
+
+Our riches would be much better employed to these purposes; but if this
+project does not please, let us first resolve to save our money, and we
+shall, afterwards, very easily find ways to spend it.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER OF MAY 26, 1757 [5].
+
+
+It is observed, in Le Sage's Gil Bias, that an exasperated author is not
+easily pacified. I have, therefore, very little hope of making my peace
+with the writer of the Eight Days' Journey; indeed so little, that I
+have long deliberated, whether I should not rather sit silently down,
+under his displeasure, than aggravate my misfortune, by a defence, of
+which my heart forbodes the ill success. Deliberation is often useless.
+I am afraid, that I have, at last, made the wrong choice, and that I
+might better have resigned my cause, without a struggle, to time and
+fortune, since I shall run the hazard of a new oifence, by the necessity
+of asking him, why he is angry.
+
+Distress and terrour often discover to us those faults, with which we
+should never have reproached ourselves in a happy state. Yet, dejected
+as I am, when I review the transaction between me and this writer, I
+cannot find, that I have been deficient in reverence. When his book was
+first printed, he hints, that I procured a sight of it before it was
+published. How the sight of it was procured, I do not now very exactly
+remember; but, if my curiosity was greater than my prudence, if I laid
+rash hands on the fatal volume, I have surely suffered, like him who
+burst the box, from which evil rushed into the world.
+
+I took it, however, and inspected it, as the work of an author not
+higher than myself; and was confirmed in my opinion, when I found, that
+these letters were _not written to be printed_. I concluded, however,
+that, though not _written_ to be _printed_, they were _printed_ to be
+_read_, and inserted one of them in the collection of November last. Not
+many days after, I received a note, informing me, that I ought to have
+waited for a more correct edition. This injunction was obeyed. The
+edition appeared, and I supposed myself at liberty to tell my thoughts
+upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifesto, or an act of
+parliament. But see the fate of ignorant temerity! I now find, but find
+too late, that, instead of a writer, whose only power is in his pen, I
+have irritated an important member of an important corporation; a man,
+who, as he tells us in his letters, puts horses to his chariot.
+
+It was allowed to the disputant of old to yield up the controversy, with
+little resistance, to the master of forty legions. Those who know how
+weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me, if I
+should pay the same respect to a governour of the foundlings. Yets the
+consciousness of my own rectitude of intention incites me to ask once
+again, how I have offended.
+
+There are only three subjects upon which my unlucky pen has happened to
+venture: tea; the author of the journal; and the foundling-hospital.
+
+Of tea, what have I said? That I have drank it twenty years, without
+hurt, and, therefore, believe it not to be poison; that, if it dries the
+fibres, it cannot soften them; that, if it constringes, it cannot relax.
+I have modestly doubted, whether it has diminished the strength of our
+men, or the beauty of our women; and whether it much hinders the
+progress of our woollen or iron manufactures; but I allowed it to be a
+barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that neither
+supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, nor
+exhilarated sorrow: I inserted, without charge or suspicion of
+falsehood, the sums exported to purchase it; and proposed a law to
+prohibit it for ever.
+
+Of the author I unfortunately said, that his injunction was somewhat too
+magisterial. This I said, before I knew that he was a governour of the
+foundlings; but he seems inclined to punish this failure of respect, as
+the czar of Muscovy made war upon Sweden, because he was not treated
+with sufficient honours, when he passed through the country in disguise.
+Yet, was not this irreverence without extenuation. Something was said of
+the merit of _meaning well_, and the journalist was declared to be a
+man, _whose failings might well be pardoned for his virtues_. This is
+the highest praise which human gratitude can confer upon human merit;
+praise that would have more than satisfied Titus or Augustus, but which
+I must own to be inadequate and penurious, when offered to the member of
+an important corporation.
+
+I am asked, whether I meant to satirize the man, or criticise the
+writer, when I say, that "he believes, only, perhaps, because he has
+inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch consume more tea
+than the vast empire of China." Between the writer and the man, I did
+not, at that time, consider the distinction. The writer I found not of
+more than mortal might, and I did not immediately recollect, that the
+man put horses to his chariot. But I did not write wholly without
+consideration. I knew but two causes of belief, evidence and
+inclination. What evidence the journalist could have of the Chinese
+consumption of tea, I was not able to discover. The officers of the East
+India company are excluded, they best know why, from the towns and the
+country of China; they are treated, as we treat gipsies and vagrants,
+and obliged to retire, every night, to their own hovel. What
+intelligence such travellers may bring, is of no great importance. And,
+though the missionaries boast of having once penetrated further, I
+think, they have never calculated the tea drunk by the Chinese. There
+being thus no evidence for his opinion, to what could I ascribe it but
+inclination.
+
+I am yet charged, more heavily, for having said, that "he has no
+intention to find any thing right at home." I believe every reader
+restrained this imputation to the subject which produced it, and
+supposed me to insinuate only, that he meant to spare no part of the
+tea-table, whether essence or circumstance. But this line he has
+selected, as an instance of virulence and acrimony, and confutes it by
+a lofty and splendid panegyrick on himself. He asserts, that he finds
+many things right at home, and that he loves his oountrv almost to
+enthusiasm.
+
+I had not the least doubt, that he found, in his country, many things to
+please him; nor did I suppose, that he desired the same inversion of
+every part of life, as of the use of tea. The proposal of drinking tea
+sour showed, indeed, such a disposition to practical paradoxes, that
+there was reason to fear, lest some succeeding letter should recommend
+the dress of the Picts, or the cookery of the Eskimaux. However, I met
+with no other innovations, and, therefore, was willing to hope, that he
+found something right at home.
+
+But his love of his country seemed not to rise quite to enthusiasm,
+when, amidst his rage against tea, he made a smooth apology for the East
+India company, as men who might not think themselves obliged to be
+political arithmeticians. I hold, though no enthusiastick patriot, that
+every man, who lives and trades under the protection of a community, is
+obliged to consider, whether he hurts or benefits those who protect him;
+and that the most which can be indulged to private interest, is a
+neutral traffick, if any such can be, by which our country is not
+injured, though it may not be benefited.
+
+But he now renews his declamation against tea, notwithstanding the
+greatness or power of those that have interest or inclination to support
+it. I know not of what power or greatness he may dream. The importers
+only have an interest in defending it. I am sure, they are not great,
+and, I hope, they are not powerful. Those, whose inclination leads them
+to continue this practice, are too numerous; but, I believe their power
+is such, as the journalist may defy, without enthusiasm. The love of our
+country, when it rises to enthusiasm, is an ambiguous and uncertain
+virtue: when a man is enthusiastick, he ceases to be reasonable; and,
+when he once departs from reason, what will he do, but drink sour tea?
+As the journalist, though enthusiastically zealous for his country, has,
+with regard to smaller things, the placid happiness of philosophical
+indifference, I can give him no disturbance, by advising him to
+restrain, even the love of his country, within due limits, lest it
+should, sometimes, swell too high, fill the whole capacity of his soul,
+and leave less room for the love of truth.
+
+Nothing now remains, but that I review my positions concerning the
+foundling hospital. What I declared last month, I declare now, once
+more, that I found none of the children that appeared to have heard of
+the catechism. It is inquired, how I wandered, and how I examined. There
+is, doubtless, subtlety in the question; I know not well how to answer
+it. Happily, I did not wander alone; I attended some ladies, with
+another gentleman, who all heard and assisted the inquiry, with equal
+grief and indignation. I did not conceal my observations. Notice was
+given of this shameful defect soon after, at my request, to one of the
+highest names of the society. This, I am now told, is incredible; but,
+since it is true, and the past is out of human power, the most important
+corporation cannot make it false. But, why is it incredible? Because,
+in the rules of the hospital, the children are ordered to learn the
+rudiments of religion. Orders are easily made, but they do not execute
+themselves. They say their catechism, at stated times, under an able
+master. But this able master was, I think, not elected before last
+February; and my visit happened, if I mistake not, in November. The
+children were shy, when interrogated by a stranger. This may be true,
+but the same shiness I do not remember to have hindered them from
+answering other questions; and I wonder, why children, so much
+accustomed to new spectators, should be eminently shy.
+
+My opponent, in the first paragraph, calls the inference that I made
+from this negligence, a hasty conclusion: to the decency of this
+expression I had nothing to object; but, as he grew hot in his career,
+his enthusiasm began to sparkle; and, in the vehemence of his
+postscript, he charges my assertions, and my reasons for advancing them,
+with folly and malice. His argumentation, being somewhat enthusiastical,
+I cannot fully comprehend, but it seems to stand thus: my insinuations
+are foolish or malicious, since I know not one of the governours of the
+hospital; for, he that knows not the governours of the hospital, must be
+very foolish or malicious.
+
+He has, however, so much kindness for me, that he advises me to consult
+my safety, when I talk of corporations. I know not what the most
+important corporation can do, becoming manhood, by which my safety is
+endangered. My reputation is safe, for I can prove the fact; my quiet is
+safe, for I meant well; and for any other safety, I am not used to be
+very solicitous.
+
+I am always sorry, when I see any being labouring in vain; and, in
+return for the journalist's attention to my safety, I will confess some
+compassion for his tumultuous resentment; since all his invectives fume
+into the air, with so little effect upon me, that I still esteem him, as
+one that has the _merit of meaning well_; and still believe him to be a
+man, whose _failings may be justly pardoned for his virtues_ [6].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW [7] OF AN ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS AND GENIUS OF POPE.
+
+
+This is a very curious and entertaining miscellany of critical remarks
+and literary history. Though the book promises nothing but observations
+on the writings of Pope, yet no opportunity is neglected of introducing
+the character of any other writer, or the mention of any performance or
+event, in which learning is interested. From Pope, however, he always
+takes his hint, and to Pope he returns again from his digressions. The
+facts, which he mentions, though they are seldom anecdotes, in a
+rigorous sense, are often such as are very little known, and such as
+will delight more readers than naked criticism.
+
+As he examines the works of this great poet, in an order nearly
+chronological, he necessarily begins with his pastorals, which,
+considered as representations of any kind of life, he very justly
+censures; for there is in them a mixture of Grecian and English, of
+ancient and modern images. Windsor is coupled with Hybla, and Thames
+with Pactolus. He then compares some passages, which Pope has imitated,
+or translated, with the imitation, or version, and gives the preference
+to the originals, perhaps, not always upon convincing arguments.
+
+Theocritus makes his lover wish to be a bee, that he might creep among
+the leaves that form the chaplet of his mistress. Pope's enamoured swain
+longs to be made the captive bird that sings in his fair one's bower,
+that she might listen to his songs, and reward him with her kisses. The
+critick prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate,
+and more uncommon.
+
+It is natural for a lover to wish, that he might be any thing that could
+come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire to be that which she
+fondles and caresses, than that which she would avoid, at least would
+neglect. The snperiour delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor
+can, indeed, find, that either in the one or the other image there is
+any want of delicacy. Which of the two images was less common in the
+time of the poet who used it, for on that consideration the merit of
+novelty depends, I think it is now out of any critick's power to decide.
+
+He remarks, I am afraid, with too much justice, that there is not a
+single new thought in the pastorals; and, with equal reason, declares,
+that their chief beauty consists in their correct and musical
+versification, which has so influenced the English ear, as to render
+every moderate rhymer harmonious.
+
+In his examination of the Messiah, he justly observes some deviations
+from the inspired author, which weaken the imagery, and dispirit the
+expression.
+
+On Windsor Forest, he declares, I think without proof, that descriptive
+poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope; he draws this inference
+from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally
+belong to any other place. He must inquire, whether Windsor forest has,
+in reality, any thing peculiar.
+
+The Stag-chase is not, he says, so full, so animated, and so
+circumstantiated, as Somerville's. Barely to say, that one performance
+is not so good as another, is to criticise with little exactness. But
+Pope has directed, that we should, in every work, regard the author's
+end. The stag-chase is the main subject of Somerville, and might,
+therefore, be properly dilated into all its circumstances; in Pope, it
+is only incidental, and was to be despatched in a few lines.
+
+He makes a just observation, "that the description of the external
+beauties of nature, is usually the first effort of a young genius,
+before he hath studied nature and passions. Some of Milton's most early,
+as well as mos't exquisite pieces, are his Lycidas, l'Allegro, and il
+Penseroso, if we may except his ode on the Nativity of Christ, which is,
+indeed, prior in order of time, and in which a penetrating critick might
+have observed the seeds of that boundless imagination, which was, one
+day, to produce the Paradise Lost."
+
+Mentioning Thomson, and other descriptive poets, he remarks, that
+writers fail in their copies, for want of acquaintance with originals,
+and justly ridicules those who think they can form just ideas of
+valleys, mountains, and rivers, in a garret in the Strand. For this
+reason, I cannot regret, with this author, that Pope laid aside his
+design of writing American pastorals; for, as he must have painted
+scenes, which he never saw, and manners, which he never knew, his
+performance, though it might have been a pleasing amusement of fancy,
+would have exhibited no representation of nature or of life.
+
+After the pastorals, the critick considers the lyrick poetry of Pope,
+and dwells longest on the ode on St. Cecilia's day, which he, like the
+rest of mankind, places next to that of Dryden, and not much below it.
+He remarks, after Mr. Spence, that the first stanza is a perfect
+concert: the second he thinks a little flat; he justly commends the
+fourth, but without notice of the best line in that stanza, or in the
+poem:
+
+  "Transported demi-gods stood round,
+  And men grew heroes at the sound."
+
+In the latter part of the ode, he objects to the stanza of triumph:
+
+  "Thus song could prevail," &c.
+
+as written in a measure ridiculous and burlesque, and justifies his
+answer, by observing, that Addison uses the same numbers in the scene of
+Rosamond, between Grideline and sir Trusty:
+
+  "How unhappy is he," &c.
+
+That the measure is the same in both passages, must be confessed, and
+both poets, perhaps, chose their numbers properly; for they both meant
+to express a kind of airy hilarity. The two passions of merriment and
+exultation are, undoubtedly, different; they are as different as a
+gambol and a triumph, but each is a species of joy; and poetical
+measures have not, in any language, been so far refined, as to provide
+for the subdivisions of passion. They can only be adapted to general
+purposes; but the particular and minuter propriety must be sought only
+in the sentiment and language. Thus the numbers are the same in Colin's
+Complaint, and in the ballad of Darby and Joan, though, in one, sadness
+is represented, and, in the other, tranquillity; so the measure is the
+same of Pope's Unfortunate Lady, and the Praise of Voiture.
+
+He observes, very justly, that the odes, both of Dryden and Pope,
+conclude, unsuitably and unnaturally, with epigram.
+
+He then spends a page upon Mr. Handel's musick to Dryden's ode, and
+speaks of him with that regard which he has generally obtained among the
+lovers of sound. He finds something amiss in the air "With ravished
+ears," but has overlooked, or forgotten, the grossest fault in that
+composition, which is that in this line:
+
+  "Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,"
+
+He has laid much stress upon the two latter words, which are merely
+words of connexion, and ought, in musick, to be considered as
+parenthetical.
+
+From this ode is struck out a digression on the nature of odes, and the
+comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the
+chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham; and thence takes
+occasion to treat of the chorus of the ancients. He then comes to
+another ode, of "The dying Christian to his Soul;" in which, finding an
+apparent imitation of Flatman, he falls into a pleasing and learned
+speculation, on the resembling passages to be found in different poets.
+
+He mentions, with great regard, Pope's ode on Solitude, written when he
+was but twelve years old, but omits to mention the poem on Silence,
+composed, I think, as early, with much greater elegance of diction,
+musick of numbers, extent of observation, and force of thought. If he
+had happened to think on Baillet's chapter of Enfans celebres, he might
+have made, on this occasion, a very entertaining dissertation on early
+excellence.
+
+He comes next to the Essay on Criticism, the stupendous performance of a
+youth, not yet twenty years old; and, after having detailed the
+felicities of condition, to which he imagines Pope to have owed his
+wonderful prematurity of mind, he tells us, that he is well informed
+this essay was first written in prose. There is nothing improbable in
+the report, nothing, indeed, but what is more likely than the contrary;
+yet I [8] cannot forbear to hint to this writer, and all others, the
+danger and weakness of trusting too readily to information. Nothing but
+experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable
+any man to conceive, that so many groundless reports should be
+propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men
+relate what they think, as what they know; some men, of confused
+memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man, what belongs to
+another; and some talk on, without thought or care. A few men are
+sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently
+diffused by successive relaters.
+
+He proceeds on, examining passage after passage of this essay; but we
+must pass over all these criticisms, to which we have not something to
+add or to object, or where this author does not differ from the general
+voice of mankind. We cannot agree with him in his censure of the
+comparison of a student advancing in science, with a traveller passing
+the Alps, which is, perhaps, the best simile in our language; that, in
+which the most exact resemblance is traced between things, in
+appearance, utterly unrelated to each other. That the last line conveys
+no new _idea_, is not true; it makes particular, what was before
+general. Whether the description, which he adds from another author, be,
+as he says, more full and striking than that of Pope, is not to be
+inquired. Pope's description is relative, and can admit no greater
+length than is usually allowed to a simile, nor any other particulars
+than such as form the correspondence.
+
+Unvaried rhymes, says this writer, highly disgust readers of a good ear.
+It is, surely, not the ear, but the mind that is offended. The fault,
+arising from the use of common rhymes, is, that by reading the past
+line, the second may be guessed, and half the composition loses the
+grace of novelty.
+
+On occasion of the mention of an alexandrine, the critick observes, that
+"the alexandrine may be thought a modern measure, but that _Robert of
+Gloucester's Wife_ is an alexandrine, with the addition of two
+syllables; and that Sternhold and Hopkins translated the Psalms in the
+same measure of fourteen syllables, though they are printed otherwise."
+
+This seems not to be accurately conceived or expressed: an alexandrine,
+with the addition of two syllables, is no more an alexandrine, than with
+the detraction of two syllables. Sternhold and Hopkins did, generally,
+write in the alternate measure of eight and six syllables; but Hopkins
+commonly rhymed the first and third; Sternhold, only the second and
+fourth: so that Sternhold may be considered, as writing couplets of long
+lines; but Hopkins wrote regular stanzas. From the practice of printing
+the long lines of fourteen syllables in two short lines, arose the
+license of some of our poets, who, though professing to write in
+stanzas, neglect the rhymes of the first and third lines.
+
+Pope has mentioned Petronius, among the great names of criticism, as the
+remarker justly observes, without any critical merit. It is to be
+suspected, that Pope had never read his book, and mentioned him on the
+credit of two or three sentences which he had often seen quoted,
+imagining, that where there was so much, there must necessarily be more.
+Young men, in haste to be renowned, too frequently talk of books which
+they have scarcely seen.
+
+The revival of learning, mentioned in this poem, affords an opportunity
+of mentioning the chief periods of literary history, of which this
+writer reckons five: that of Alexander, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, of
+Augustus, of Leo the tenth, of queen Anne.
+
+These observations are concluded with a remark, which deserves great
+attention: "In no polished nation, after criticism has been much
+studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very
+extraordinary book ever appeared."
+
+The Rape of the Lock was always regarded, by Pope, as the highest
+production of his genius. On occasion of this work, the history of the
+comick-heroick is given; and we are told, that it descended from Fassoni
+to Boileau, from Boileau to Garth, and from Garth to Pope. Garth is
+mentioned, perhaps, with too much honour; but all are confessed to be
+inferiour to Pope. There is, in his remarks on this work, no discovery
+of any latent beauty, nor any thing subtle or striking; he is, indeed,
+commonly right, but has discussed no difficult question.
+
+The next pieces to be considered are, the Verses to the Memory of an
+unfortunate Lady, the Prologue to Cato, and Epilogue to Jane Shore. The
+first piece he commends. On occasion of the second, he digresses,
+according to his custom, into a learned dissertation on tragedies, and
+compares the English and French with the Greek stage. He justly censures
+Cato, for want of action and of characters; but scarcely does justice to
+the sublimity of some speeches, and the philosophical exactness in the
+sentiments. "The simile of mount Atlas, and that of the Numidian
+traveller, smothered in the sands, are, indeed, in character," says the
+critick, "but sufficiently obvious." The simile of the mountain is,
+indeed, common; but that of the traveller, I do not remember. That it is
+obvious is easy to say, and easy to deny. Many things are obvious, when
+they are taught.
+
+He proceeds to criticise the other works of Addison, till the epilogue
+calls his attention to Rowe, whose character he discusses in the same
+manner, with sufficient freedom and sufficient candour.
+
+The translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon is next considered;
+but Sappho and Ovid are more the subjects of this disquisition, than
+Pope. We shall, therefore, pass over it to a piece of more importance,
+the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded, as one
+of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.
+
+The critick pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces
+the passages of her letters, to which any allusion is made, and
+intersperses many agreeable particulars and incidental relations. There
+is not much profundity of criticism, because the beauties are sentiments
+of nature, which the learned and the ignorant feel alike. It is justly
+remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa, for the happy passage of
+Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of
+mystick devotion.
+
+These are the pieces examined in this volume: whether the remaining part
+of the work will be one volume, or more, perhaps the writer himself
+cannot yet inform us [9]. This piece is, however, a complete work, so
+far as it goes; and the writer is of opinion, that he has despatched the
+chief part of his task; for he ventures to remark, that the reputation
+of Pope, as a poet, among posterity, will be principally founded on his
+Windsor Forest, Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard; while the facts
+and characters, alluded to in his late writings, will be forgotten and
+unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished; for wit and
+satire are transitory and perishable, but nature and passion are
+eternal.
+
+He has interspersed some passages of Pope's life, with which most
+readers will be pleased. When Pope was yet a child, his father, who had
+been a merchant in London, retired to Binfield. He was taught to read by
+an aunt; and learned to write, without a master, by copying printed
+books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would
+oblige him to correct and retouch them over and over, and, at last,
+could say, "These are good rhymes."
+
+At eight years of age, he was committed to one Taverner, a priest, who
+taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time, he met
+with Ogleby's Homer, which seized his attention; he fell next upon
+Sandys's Ovid, and remembered these two translations, with pleasure, to
+the end of his life.
+
+About ten, being at school, near Hyde-park corner, he was taken to the
+playhouse, and was so struck with the splendour of the drama, that he
+formed a kind of play out of Ogleby's Homer, intermixed with verses of
+his own. He persuaded the head boys to act this piece, and Ajax was
+performed by his master's gardener. They were habited according to the
+pictures in Ogleby. At twelve, he retired, with his father, to Windsor
+forest, and formed himself by study in the best English poets.
+
+In this extract, it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such
+observations, as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating, with the
+author, into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to
+extinguish, curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work, abounding with
+curious quotations and pleasing disquisitions. He must be much
+acquainted with literary history, both of remote and late times, who
+does not find, in this essay, many things which he did not know before;
+and, if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions,
+he may yet properly read this book, as a just specimen of literary
+moderation.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF A FREE ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL [10].
+
+
+This is a treatise, consisting of six letters, upon a very difficult and
+important question, which, I am afraid, this author's endeavours will
+not free from the perplexity which has entangled the speculatists of all
+ages, and which must always continue while _we see_ but _in part_. He
+calls it a _Free Enquiry_, and, indeed, his _freedom_ is, I think,
+greater than his modesty. Though he is far from the contemptible
+arrogance, or the impious licentiousness of Bolingbroke, yet he decides,
+too easily, upon questions out of the reach of human determination, with
+too little consideration of mortal weakness, and with too much vivacity
+for the necessary caution.
+
+In the first letter, on evil in general, he observes, that, "it is the
+solution of this important question, whence came _evil_? alone, that can
+ascertain the moral characteristic of God, without which there is an end
+of all distinction between good and evil." Yet he begins this inquiry by
+this declaration: "That there is a supreme being, infinitely powerful,
+wise, and benevolent, the great creator and preserver of all things, is
+a truth so clearly demonstrated, that it shall be here taken for
+granted." What is this, but to say, that we have already reason to grant
+the existence of those attributes of God, which the present inquiry is
+designed to prove? The present inquiry is, then, surely made to no
+purpose. The attributes, to the demonstration of which the solution of
+this great question is necessary, have been demonstrated, without any
+solution, or by means of the solution of some former writer.
+
+He rejects the Manichean system, but imputes to it an absurdity, from
+which, amidst all its absurdities, it seems to be free, and adopts the
+system of Mr. Pope. "That pain is no evil, if asserted with regard to
+the individuals who suffer it, is downright nonsense; but if considered
+as it affects the universal system, is an undoubted truth, and means
+only, that there is no more pain in it, than what is necessary to the
+production of happiness. How many soever of these evils, then, force
+themselves into the creation, so long as the good preponderates, it is a
+work well worthy of infinite wisdom and benevolence; and,
+notwithstanding the imperfections of its parts, the whole is, most
+undoubtedly, perfect." And, in the former part of the letter, he gives
+the principle of his system in these words: "Omnipotence cannot work
+contradictions; it can only effect all possible things. But so little
+are we acquainted with the whole system of nature, that we know not what
+are possible, and what are not; but if we may judge from that constant
+mixture of pain with pleasure, and inconveniency with advantage, which
+we must observe in every thing around us, we have reason to conclude,
+that, to endue created beings with perfection, that is, to produce good,
+exclusive of evil, is one of those impossibilities, which even infinite
+power cannot accomplish."
+
+This is elegant and acute, but will by no means calm discontent, or
+silence curiosity; for, whether evil can be wholly separated from good
+or not, it is plain, that they may be mixed, in various degrees, and, as
+far as human eyes can judge, the degree of evil might have been less,
+without any impediment to good.
+
+The second letter, on the evils of imperfection, is little more than a
+paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or, yet less than a paraphrase, a mere
+translation of poetry into prose. This is, surely, to attack difficulty
+with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very
+blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former
+solutions, why is one of the latest, which no man can have forgotten,
+given us again? I am told, that this pamphlet is not the effort of
+hunger; what can it be, then, but the product of vanity? and yet, how
+can vanity be gratified by plagiarism or transcription? When this
+speculatist finds himself prompted to another performance, let him
+consider, whether he is about to disburden his mind, or employ his
+fingers; and, if I might venture to offer him a subject, I should wish,
+that he would solve this question: Why he, that has nothing to write,
+should desire to be a writer?
+
+Yet is not this letter without some sentiments, which, though not new,
+are of great importance, and may be read, with pleasure, in the
+thousandth repetition.
+
+"Whatever we enjoy, is purely a free gift from our creator; but, that we
+enjoy no more, can never, sure, be deemed an injury, or a just reason to
+question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his
+goodness; but, that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that
+is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to
+any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the
+wants of a beggar to the person who has relieved him: that he had
+something, was owing to his benefactor; but that he had no more, only to
+his own original poverty."
+
+Thus far he speaks what every man must approve, and what every wise man
+has said before him. He then gives us the system of subordination, not
+invented, for it was known, I think, to the Arabian metaphysicians, but
+adopted by Pope, and, from him, borrowed by the diligent researches of
+this great investigator.
+
+"No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a
+subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members,
+subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various
+colours, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles,
+tenours, and bases; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of
+higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the
+very essence of all created things, and, therefore, cannot be prevented,
+by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all."
+
+These instances are used, instead of Pope's oak and weeds, or Jupiter
+and his satellites; but neither Pope, nor this writer, have much
+contributed to solve the difficulty. Perfection, or imperfection, of
+unconscious beings has no meaning, as referred to themselves; the base
+and the treble are equally perfect; the mean and magnificent apartments
+feel no pleasure or pain from the comparison. Pope might ask the weed,
+why it was less than the oak? but the weed would never ask the question
+for itself. The base and treble differ only to the hearer, meanness and
+magnificence only to the inhabitant. There is no evil but must inhere in
+a conscious being, or be referred to it; that is, evil must be felt,
+before it is evil. Yet, even on this subject, many questions might be
+offered, which human understanding has not yet answered, and which the
+present haste of this extract will not suffer me to dilate.
+
+He proceeds to an humble detail of Pope's opinion: "The universe is a
+system, whose very essence consists in subordination; a scale of beings
+descending, by insensible degrees, from infinite perfection to absolute
+nothing; in which, though we may justly expect to find perfection in the
+whole, could we possibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest
+absurdity to hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and
+happiness of the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its
+parts; that is, on the comparative imperfections of the several beings
+of which it is composed.
+
+"It would have been no more an instance of God's wisdom to have created
+no beings, but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be
+of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the
+most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such,
+nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and, then, all
+inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited; but as it is,
+surely, more agreeable to infinite benevolence, that all these should be
+filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and
+contributing to that of others, they must, necessarily, be filled with
+inferior beings; that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose
+existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more felicity, upon the
+whole, accrues to the universe, than if no such had been created. It is,
+moreover, highly probable, that there is such a connexion between all
+ranks and orders, by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support
+each other's existence, and every one, in its place, is absolutely
+necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric.
+
+"Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so
+high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a
+pretence which must eternally subsist, because, were we ever so much
+higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and,
+since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet
+must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned
+by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine, that he is not an
+angel; nor a horse, that he is not a man; much less, that, in their
+several stations, they possess not the faculties of another; for this
+would be an insufferable misfortune."
+
+This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of
+existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always
+left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.
+
+That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be
+imperfect, is evident to intuition; that, whatever is imperfect must
+have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. But the
+reason which determined this limit, and for which such being was
+suffered to advance thus far, and no farther, we shall never be able to
+discern. Our discoverers tell us, the creator has made beings of all
+orders, and that, therefore, one of them must be such as man; but this
+system seems to be established on a concession, which, if it be refused,
+cannot be extorted.
+
+Every reason which can be brought to prove, that there are beings of
+every possible sort, will prove, that there is the greatest number
+possible of every sort of beings; but this, with respect to man, we
+know, if we know any thing, not to be true.
+
+It does not appear, even to the imagination, that of three orders of
+being, the first and the third receive any advantage from the
+imperfection of the second, or that, indeed, they may not equally exist,
+though the second had never been, or should cease to be; and why should
+that be concluded necessary, which cannot be proved even to be useful?
+
+The scale of existence, from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have
+being. The highest being not infinite, must be, as has been often
+observed, at an infinite distance below infinity. Cheyne, who, with the
+desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical
+images, considers all existence as a cone; allows that the basis is at
+an infinite distance from the body; and in this distance between finite
+and infinite, there will be room, for ever, for an infinite series of
+indefinable existence.
+
+Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose
+positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where
+there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued
+for ever and for ever, and yet infinitely superiour to nonexistence.
+
+To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our
+maker, but of each other, since, on the one side, creation, wherever it
+stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other, infinitely
+above nothing, what necessity there is, that it should proceed so far,
+either way, that beings so high or so low should ever have existed? We
+may ask; but, I believe, no created wisdom can give an adequate answer.
+
+Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite
+vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to
+be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between
+them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders; since every thing
+that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that
+which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can
+judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the
+scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite
+exertion of infinite power.
+
+Thus it appears, how little reason those, who repose their reason upon
+the scale of being, have to triumph over them who recur to any other
+expedient of solution, and what difficulties arise, on every side, to
+repress the rebellions of presumptuous decision: "Qui pauca considerat,
+facile pronunciat." In our passage through the boundless ocean of
+disquisition, we often take fogs for land, and, after having long toiled
+to approach them, find, instead of repose and harbours, new storms of
+objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty.
+
+We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we
+are doomed to suffer.
+
+"Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more
+hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more
+exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than those who possess them
+are usually blessed with. The want of taste and genius, with all the
+pleasures that arise from them, are commonly recompensed by a more
+useful kind of common sense, together with a wonderful delight, as well
+as success, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings
+of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications,
+imperceptible to others, and, sometimes, almost repaid by the
+inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour.
+Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not
+but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a
+pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the
+want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to
+poverty and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of
+infusing that insensibility, which can enable them to endure the
+miseries of the one, and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial,
+administered by the gracious hand of providence, of which they ought
+never to be deprived by an ill-judged and improper education. It is the
+basis of all subordination, the support of society, and the privilege of
+individuals; and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of
+the divine wisdom, that, whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise
+little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in
+man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by
+education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the philosopher
+and the peasant, are, in some measure, fitted for their respective
+situations."
+
+Much of these positions is, perhaps, true; and the whole paragraph might
+well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the
+establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want
+of riches. In that sense, almost every man may, in his own opinion, be
+poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence of all
+that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify
+attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which
+is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the
+publick, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling
+openly, and many secretly.
+
+That hope and fear are inseparably, or very frequently, connected with
+poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder
+degrees of poverty are, sometimes, supported by hope; but the more
+severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen,
+before it can be known. This author and Pope, perhaps, never saw the
+miseries which they imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor, indeed, are
+insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the
+possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich. They are not
+pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a
+compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases
+to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh.
+
+That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of
+some other, may be fairly allowed; but the compensations of sickness I
+have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery
+only prove the intenseness of the pain.
+
+With folly, no man is willing to confess himself very intimately
+acquainted, and, therefore, its pains and pleasures are kept secret. But
+what the author says of its happiness, seems applicable only to fatuity,
+or gross dulness; for that inferiority of understanding, which makes one
+man, without any other reason, the slave, or tool, or property of
+another, which makes him sometimes useless, and sometimes ridiculous, is
+often felt with very quick sensibility. On the happiness of madmen, as
+the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a
+disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe, that I never yet knew
+disorders of mind increase felicity: every madman is either arrogant and
+irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion, or
+notion, destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look,
+and malignity in his bosom. And, if he had the power of choice, he would
+soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace.
+
+Concerning the portion of ignorance necessary to make the condition of
+the lower classes of mankind safe to the publick, and tolerable to
+themselves, both morals and policy exact a nicer inquiry than will be
+very soon or very easily made. There is, undoubtedly, a degree of
+knowledge which will direct a man to refer all to providence, and to
+acquiesce in the condition with which omniscient goodness has determined
+to allot him; to consider this world as a phantom, that must soon glide
+from before his eyes, and the distresses and vexations that encompass
+him, as dust scattered in his path, as a blast that chills him for a
+moment, and passes off for ever.
+
+Such wisdom, arising from the comparison of a part with the whole of our
+existence, those that want it most cannot possibly obtain from
+philosophy; nor, unless the method of education, and the general tenour
+of life are changed, will very easily receive it from religion. The bulk
+of mankind is not likely to be very wise or very good; and I know not,
+whether there are not many states of life, in which all knowledge, less
+than the highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe
+it may be sometimes found, that a _little learning_ is, to a poor man, a
+_dangerous thing_. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily
+see, or quickly feel the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right.
+Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful,
+but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at
+what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found
+equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men, left wholly to their
+appetites and their instincts, with little sense of moral or religious
+obligation, and with very faint distinctions of right and wrong, can
+never be safely employed, or confidently trusted; they can be honest
+only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some
+instruction, therefore, is necessary, and much, perhaps, may be
+dangerous.
+
+Though it should be granted, that those who are _born to poverty and
+drudgery_, should not be _deprived_, by an _improper education_, of the
+_opiate of ignorance_; even this concession will not be of much use to
+direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that are
+_born to poverty_. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after
+generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is, in
+itself, cruel, if not unjust, and is wholly contrary to the maxims of a
+commercial nation, which always suppose and promote a rotation of
+property, and offer every individual a chance of mending his condition
+by his diligence. Those, who communicate literature to the son of a poor
+man consider him, as one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of
+deriving a better fortune from himself. In this attempt, as in others,
+many fail and many succeed. Those that fail, will feel their misery more
+acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity, as
+cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the
+happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn
+the balance against that exacerbation which the others suffer.
+
+I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
+privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I
+shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the
+suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the
+maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints,
+should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
+delights in seeing others depressed.
+
+Pope's doctrine is, at last, exhibited in a comparison, which, like
+other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy
+than convince the reason.
+
+"Thus the universe resembles a large and well-regulated family, in which
+all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are
+subservient to each other, in a proper subordination: each enjoys the
+privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and, at the same time,
+contributes, by that just subordination, to the magnificence and
+happiness of the whole."
+
+The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master,
+and sometimes to the domesticks. But the magnificence of the universe
+adds nothing to the supreme being; for any part of its inhabitants, with
+which human knowledge is acquainted, an universe much less spacious or
+splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not
+appear, that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to
+those of a higher.
+
+The inquiry after the cause of natural evil is continued in the third
+letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture of borrowed truth,
+and native folly, of some notions, just and trite, with others uncommon
+and ridiculous.
+
+His opinion of the value and importance of happiness is certainly just,
+and I shall insert it; not that it will give any information to any
+reader, but it may serve to show, how the most common notion may be
+swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall, perhaps, astonish
+the author himself.
+
+"Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence, neither riches,
+nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor
+virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but
+as they contribute to its production. All these are, in themselves,
+neither good nor evil: happiness alone is their great end, and they are
+desirable only as they tend to promote it."
+
+Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of
+happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what
+has been hid from all former inquirers.
+
+"The true solution of this important question, so long and so vainly
+searched for by the philosophers of all ages and all countries, I take
+to be, at last, no more than this, that these real evils proceed from
+the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated
+of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can
+subsist; all subordination implying imperfection, all imperfection evil,
+and all evil some kind of inconveniency or suffering: so that there
+must, be particular inconvenieucies and sufferings annexed to every
+particular rank of created beings by the circumstances of things, and
+their modes of existence.
+
+"God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in
+a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer
+men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal
+system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies."
+
+In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of
+curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination
+implies imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves
+may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect
+than the oak, as an oak. That _imperfection implies evil, and evil
+suffering_, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative
+evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no
+suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet
+an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief, that he is unhappy
+by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. When this
+author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to
+distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words,
+easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative,
+when applied to the works of omnipotence. Subordination, in human
+affairs, is well understood; but, when it is attributed to the universal
+system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of
+locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning
+with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is _high_ or _low_.
+That, if man, by exaltation to a higher nature, were exempted from the
+evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that, if
+man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising
+from his established notion of the scale of being. A notion to which
+Pope has given some importance, by adopting it, and of which I have,
+therefore, endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This
+scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous
+imagination, to rest on nothing at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the
+top, and to have vacuities, from step to step, through which any order
+of being may sink into nihility without any inconvenience, so far as we
+can judge, to the next rank above or below it. We are, therefore, little
+enlightened by a writer who tells us, that any being in the state of man
+must suffer what man suffers, when the only question that requires to be
+resolved is: Why any being is in this state. Of poverty and labour he
+gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the
+difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the
+present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.
+
+"Poverty is what all could not possibly have been exempted from, not
+only by reason of the fluctuating nature of human possessions, but
+because the world could not subsist without it; for, had all been rich,
+none could have submitted to the commands of another, or the necessary
+drudgeries of life; thence all governments must have been dissolved,
+arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so an universal penury have
+overwhelmed all, instead of now and then pinching a few. Hence, by the
+by, appears the great excellence of charity, by which men are enabled,
+by a particular distribution of the blessings and enjoyments of life, on
+proper occasions, to prevent that poverty, which, by a general one,
+omnipotence itself could never have prevented; so that, by enforcing
+this duty, God, as it were, demands our assistance to promote universal
+happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, where it strives to
+intrude itself.
+
+"Labour, indeed, God might easily have excused us from, since, at his
+command, the earth would readily have poured forth all her treasures,
+without our inconsiderable assistance; but, if the severest labour
+cannot sufficiently subdue the malignity of human nature, what plots and
+machinations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, what profligacy and
+licentiousness, must have been the consequences of universal idleness!
+So that labour ought only to be looked upon, as a task kindly imposed
+upon us by our indulgent creator, necessary to preserve our health, our
+safety, and our innocence."
+
+I am afraid, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
+beginning." If God _could easily have excused us from labour_, I do not
+comprehend why _he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty_.
+For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more
+than necessity of labour; and, in its more severe and deplorable state,
+little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others,
+or to want the succour of others, without work. And the same exuberant
+fertility, which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty
+impossible.
+
+Surely, a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should
+have spoken more cautiously of omnipotence, nor have presumed to say
+what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt, whether
+those, who stand highest in the _scale of being_, speak thus confidently
+of the dispensations of their maker:
+
+  "For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."
+
+Of our inquietudes of mind, his account is still less reasonable:
+"Whilst men are injured, they must be inflamed with anger; and, whilst
+they see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; whilst they perceive
+danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all
+evil, by showing, that one evil produces another. If there is danger,
+there ought to be fear; but, if fear is an evil, why should there be
+danger? His vindication of pain is of the same kind: pain is useful to
+alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must
+be pre-supposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.
+
+Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with
+sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall, therefore,
+insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not
+grow stale by repetition
+
+  "Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils,
+  is so far from being one, that it is the infallible
+  cure for all others.
+
+  To die, is landing on some silent shore,
+  Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.
+  Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.
+
+  GARTH.
+
+For, abstracted from the sickness and sufferings usually attending it,
+it is no more than the expiration of that term of life God was pleased
+to bestow on us, without any claim or merit on our part. But was it an
+evil ever so great, it could not be remedied, but by one much greater,
+which is, by living for ever; by which means, our wickedness,
+unrestrained by the prospect of a future state, would grow so
+insupportable, our sufferings so intolerable by perseverance, and our
+pleasures so tiresome by repetition, that no being in the universe could
+be so completely miserable, as a species of immortal men. We have no
+reason, therefore, to look upon death as an evil, or to fear it as a
+punishment, even without any supposition of a future life: but, if we
+consider it, as a passage to a more perfect state, or a remove only in
+an eternal succession of still-improving states, (for which we have the
+strongest reasons,) it will then appear a new favour from the divine
+munificence; and a man must be as absurd to repine at dying, as a
+traveller would be, who proposed to himself a delightful tour through
+various unknown countries, to lament, that he cannot take up his
+residence at the first dirty inn, which he baits at on the road.
+
+"The instability of human life, or of the changes of its successive
+periods, of which we so frequently complain, are no more than the
+necessary progress of it to this necessary conclusion; and are so far
+from being evils, deserving these complaints, that they are the source
+of our greatest pleasures, as they are the source of all novelty, from
+which our greatest pleasures are ever derived. The continual succession
+of seasons in the human life, by daily presenting to us new scenes,
+render it agreeable, and, like those of the year, afford us delights by
+their change, which the choicest of them could not give us by their
+continuance. In the spring of life, the gilding of the sunshine, the
+verdure of the fields, and the variegated paintings of the sky, are so
+exquisite in the eyes of infants, at their first looking abroad into a
+new world, as nothing, perhaps, afterwards can equal: the heat and
+vigour of the succeeding summer of youth, ripens for us new pleasures,
+the blooming maid, the nightly revel, and the jovial chase: the serene
+autumn of complete manhood feasts us with the golden harvests of our
+worldly pursuits: nor is the hoary winter of old age destitute of its
+peculiar comforts and enjoyments, of which the recollection and relation
+of those past, are, perhaps, none of the least: and, at last, death
+opens to us a new prospect, from whence we shall, probably, look back
+upon the diversions and occupations of this world, with the same
+contempt we do now on our tops and hobby horses, and with the same
+surprise, that they could ever so much entertain or engage us."
+
+I would not willingly detract from the beauty of this paragraph; and, in
+gratitude to him who has so well inculcated such important truths, I
+will venture to admonish him, since the chief comfort of the old is the
+recollection of the past, so to employ his time and his thoughts, that,
+when the imbecility of age shall come upon him, he may be able to
+recreate its languors, by the remembrance of hours spent, not in
+presumptuous decisions, but modest inquiries; not in dogmatical
+limitations of omnipotence, but in humble acquiescence, and fervent
+adoration. Old age will show him, that much of the book, now before us,
+has no other use than to perplex the scrupulous, and to shake the weak,
+to encourage impious presumption, or stimulate idle curiosity.
+
+Having thus despatched the consideration of particular evils, he comes,
+at last, to a general reason, for which _evil_ may be said to be _our
+good_. He is of opinion, that there is some inconceivable benefit in
+pain, abstractedly considered; that pain, however inflicted, or wherever
+felt, communicates some good to the general system of being, and, that
+every animal is, some way or other, the better for the pain of every
+other animal. This opinion he carries so far, as to suppose, that there
+passes some principle of union through all animal life, as attraction is
+communicated to all corporeal nature; and, that the evils suffered on
+this globe, may, by some inconceivable means, contribute to the felicity
+of the inhabitants of the remotest planet.
+
+How the origin of evil is brought nearer to human conception, by any
+_inconceivable_ means, I am not able to discover. We believed, that the
+present system of creation was right, though we could not explain the
+adaptation of one part to the other, or for the whole succession of
+causes and consequences. Where has this inquirer added to the little
+knowledge that we had before? He has told us of the benefits of evil,
+which no man feels, and relations between distant parts of the universe,
+which he cannot himself conceive. There was enough in this question
+inconceivable before, and we have little advantage from a new
+inconceivable solution.
+
+I do not mean to reproach this author for not knowing what is equally
+hidden from learning and from ignorance. The shame is, to impose words,
+for ideas, upon ourselves or others. To imagine, that we are going
+forward, when we are only turning round. To think, that there is any
+difference between him that gives no reason, and him that gives a
+reason, which, by his own confession, cannot be conceived.
+
+But, that he may not be thought to conceive nothing but things
+inconceivable, he has, at last, thought on a way, by which human
+sufferings may produce good effects. He imagines, that as we have not
+only animals for food, but choose some for our diversion, the same
+privilege may be allowed to some beings above us, _who may deceive,
+torment, or destroy us, for the ends, only, of their own pleasure or
+utility_. This he again finds impossible to be conceived, _but that
+impossibility lessens not the probability of the conjecture, which, by
+analogy, is so strongly confirmed_. I cannot resist the temptation of
+contemplating this analogy, which, I think, he might have carried
+further, very much to the advantage of his argument. He might have
+shown, that these "hunters, whose game is man," have many sports
+analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and kittens, they amuse
+themselves, now and then, with sinking a ship, and stand round the
+fields of Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a cockpit. As
+we shoot a bird flying, they take a man in the midst of his business or
+pleasure, and knock him down with an apoplexy. Some of them, perhaps,
+are virtuosi, and delight in the operations of an asthma, as a human
+philosopher in the effects of the air-pump. To swell a man with a
+tympany is as good sport as to blow a frog. Many a merry bout have these
+frolick beings at the vicissitudes of an ague, and good sport it is to
+see a man tumble with an epilepsy, and revive and tumble again, and all
+this he knows not why. As they are wiser and more powerful than we, they
+have more exquisite diversions; for we have no way of procuring any
+sport so brisk and so lasting, as the paroxysms of the gout and stone,
+which, undoubtedly, must make high mirth, especially if the play be a
+little diversified with the blunders and puzzles of the blind and deaf.
+We know not how far their sphere of observation may extend. Perhaps, now
+and then, a merry being may place himself in such a situation, as to
+enjoy, at once, all the varieties of an epidemical disease, or amuse his
+leisure with the tossings and contortions of every possible pain,
+exhibited together.
+
+One sport the merry malice of these beings has found means of enjoying,
+to which we have nothing equal or similar. They now and then catch a
+mortal, proud of his parts, and flattered either by the submission of
+those who court his kindness, or the notice of those who suffer him to
+court theirs. A head, thus prepared for the reception of false opinions,
+and the projection of vain designs, they easily fill with idle notions,
+till, in time, they make their plaything an author; their first
+diversion commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then rises,
+perhaps, to a political irony, and is, at last, brought to its height,
+by a treatise of philosophy. Then begins the poor animal to entangle
+himself in sophisms, and flounder in absurdity, to talk confidently of
+the scale of being, and to give solutions which himself confesses
+impossible to be understood. Sometimes, however, it happens, that their
+pleasure is without much mischief. The author feels no pain, but while
+they are wondering at the extravagance of his opinion, and pointing him
+out to one another, as a new example of human folly, he is enjoying his
+own applause and that of his companions, and, perhaps, is elevated with
+the hope of standing at the head of a new sect.
+
+Many of the books which now crowd the world, may be justly suspected to
+be written for the sake of some invisible order of beings, for surely
+they are of no use to any of the corporeal inhabitants of the world. Of
+the productions of the last bounteous year, how many can be said to
+serve any purpose of use or pleasure! The only end of writing is to
+enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it; and how
+will either of those be put more in our power, by him who tells us, that
+we are puppets, of which some creature, not much wiser than ourselves,
+manages the wires! That a set of beings, unseen and unheard, are
+hovering about us, trying experiments upon our sensibility, putting us
+in agonies, to see our limbs quiver; torturing us to madness, that they
+may laugh at our vagaries; sometimes obstructing the bile, that they may
+see how a man looks, when he is yellow; sometimes breaking a traveller's
+bones, to try how he will get home; sometimes wasting a man to a
+skeleton, and sometimes killing him fat, for the greater elegance of his
+hide.
+
+This is an account of natural evil, which though, like the rest, not
+quite new, is very entertaining, though I know not how much it may
+contribute to patience. The only reason why we should contemplate evil
+is, that we may bear it better; and I am afraid nothing is much more
+placidly endured, for the sake of making others sport.
+
+The first pages of the fourth letter are such, as incline me both to
+hope and wish that I shall find nothing to blame in the succeeding part.
+He offers a criterion of action, on account of virtue and vice, for
+which I have often contended, and which must be embraced by all who are
+willing to know, why they act, or why they forbear to give any reason of
+their conduct to themselves or others.
+
+"In order to find out the true origin of moral evil, it will be
+necessary, in the first place, to enquire into its nature and essence;
+or, what it is that constitutes one action evil, and another good.
+Various have been the opinions of various authors on this criterion of
+virtue; and this variety has rendered that doubtful, which must,
+otherwise, have been clear and manifest to the meanest capacity. Some,
+indeed, have denied, that there is any such thing, because different
+ages and nations have entertained different sentiments concerning it;
+but this is just as reasonable, as to assert, that there are neither
+sun, moon, nor stars, because astronomers have supported different
+systems of the motions and magnitudes of these celestial bodies. Some
+have placed it in conformity to truth, some to the fitness of things,
+and others to the will of God: but all this is merely superficial: they
+resolve us not, why truth, or the fitness of things, are either eligible
+or obligatory, or why God should require us to act in one manner rather
+than another. The true reason of which can possibly be no other than
+this, because some actions produce happiness, and others misery; so that
+all moral good and evil are nothing more than the production of natural.
+This alone it is that makes truth preferable to falsehood, this, that
+determines the fitness of things, and this that induces God to command
+some actions, and forbid others. They who extol the truth, beauty, and
+harmony of virtue, exclusive of its consequences, deal but in pompous
+nonsense; and they, who would persuade us, that good and evil are things
+indifferent, depending wholly on the will of God, do but confound the
+nature of things, as well as all our notions of God himself, by
+representing him capable of willing contradictions; that is, that we
+should be, and be happy, and, at the same time, that we should torment
+and destroy each other; for injuries cannot be made benefits, pain
+cannot be made pleasure, and, consequently, vice cannot be made virtue,
+by any power whatever. It is the consequences, therefore, of all human
+actions that must stamp their value. So far as the general practice of
+any action tends to produce good, and introduce happiness into the
+world, so far we may pronounce it virtuous; so much evil as it
+occasions, such is the degree of vice it contains. I say the general
+practice, because we must always remember, in judging by this rule, to
+apply it only to the general species of actions, and not to particular
+actions; for the infinite wisdom of God, desirous to set bounds to the
+destructive consequences, which must, otherwise, have followed from the
+universal depravity of mankind, has so wonderfully contrived the nature
+of things, that our most vitious actions may, sometimes, accidentally
+and collaterally, produce good. Thus, for instance, robbery may disperse
+useless hoards to the benefit of the public; adultery may bring heirs,
+and good humour too, into many families, where they would otherwise have
+been wanting; and murder, free the world from tyrants and oppressors.
+Luxury maintains its thousands, and vanity its ten thousands.
+Superstition and arbitrary power contribute to the grandeur of many
+nations, and the liberties of others are preserved by the perpetual
+contentions of avarice, knavery, selfishness, and ambition; and thus the
+worst of vices, and the worst of men, are often compelled, by
+providence, to serve the most beneficial purposes, contrary to their own
+malevolent tendencies and inclinations; and thus private vices become
+public benefits, by the force only of accidental circumstances. But this
+impeaches not the truth of the criterion of virtue, before mentioned,
+the only solid foundation on which any true system of ethics can be
+built, the only plain, simple, and uniform rule, by which we can pass
+any judgment on our actions; but by this we may be enabled, not only to
+determine which are good, and which are evil, but, almost
+mathematically, to demonstrate the proportion of virtue or vice which
+belongs to each, by comparing them with the degrees of happiness or
+misery which they occasion. But, though the production of happiness is
+the essence of virtue, it is by no means the end; the great end is the
+probation of mankind, or the giving them an opportunity of exalting or
+degrading themselves, in another state, by their behaviour in the
+present. And thus, indeed, it answers two most important purposes: those
+are, the conservation of our happiness, and the test of our obedience;
+or, had not such a test seemed necessary to God's infinite wisdom, and
+productive of universal good, he would never have permitted the
+happiness of men, even in this life, to have depended on so precarious a
+tenure, as their mutual good behaviour to each other. For it is
+observable, that he, who best knows our formation, has trusted no one
+thing of importance to our reason or virtue: he trusts only to our
+appetites for the support of the individual, and the continuance of our
+species; to our vanity, or compassion, for our bounty to others; and to
+our fears, for the preservation of ourselves; often to our vices, for
+the support of government, and, sometimes, to our follies, for the
+preservation of our religion. But, since some test of our obedience was
+necessary, nothing, sure, could have been commanded for that end, so
+fit, and proper, and, at the same time, so useful, as the practice of
+virtue; nothing could have been so justly rewarded with happiness, as
+the production of happiness, in conformity to the will of God. It is
+this conformity, alone, which adds merit to virtue, and constitutes the
+essential difference between morality and religion. Morality obliges men
+to live honestly and soberly, because such behaviour is most conducive
+to public happiness, and, consequently, to their own; religion, to
+pursue the same course, because conformable to the will of their
+creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue, from prudential
+considerations; religion, from those of gratitude and obedience.
+Morality, therefore, entirely abstracted from religion, can have nothing
+meritorious in it; it being but wisdom, prudence, or good economy,
+which, like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obligations conferred
+upon us by God, than merits in us towards him; for, though we may be
+justly punished for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for
+self-preservation; as suicide deserves punishment and infamy, but a man
+deserves no reward or honours for not being guilty of it. This I take to
+be the meaning of all those passages in our scriptures, in which works
+are represented to have no merit without faith; that is, not without
+believing in historical facts, in creeds, and articles, but, without
+being done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obedience to his
+commands. And now, having mentioned scripture, I cannot omit observing,
+that the christian is the only religious or moral institution in the
+world, that ever set, in a right light, these two material points, the
+essence and the end of virtue, that ever founded the one in the
+production of happiness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their
+language, charity to all men; the other, in the probation of man, and
+his obedience to his creator. Sublime and magnificent as was the
+philosophy of the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient in
+these two important articles. They were all built on the sandy
+foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism;
+and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of human
+glory; foundations, which were, by no means, able to support the
+magnificent structures which they erected upon them; for the beauty of
+virtue, independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonsense; patriotism,
+which injures mankind in general, for the sake of a particular country,
+is but a more extended selfishness, and really criminal; and all human
+glory, but a mean and ridiculous delusion.
+
+"The whole affair, then, of religion and morality, the subject of so
+many thousand volumes, is, in short, no more than this: the supreme
+being, infinitely good, as well as powerful, desirous to diffuse
+happiness by all possible means, has created innumerable ranks and
+orders of beings, all subservient to each other by proper subordination.
+One of these is occupied by man, a creature endued with such a certain
+degree of knowledge, reason, and freewill, as is suitable to his
+situation, and placed, for a time, on this globe, as in a school of
+probation and education. Here he has an opportunity given him of
+improving or debasing his nature, in such a manner, as to render himself
+fit for a rank of higher perfection and happiness, or to degrade himself
+to a state of greater imperfection and misery; necessary, indeed,
+towards carrying on the business of the universe, but very grievous and
+burdensome to those individuals who, by their own misconduct, are
+obliged to submit to it. The test of this his behaviour is doing good,
+that is, cooperating with his creator, as far as his narrow sphere of
+action will permit, in the production of happiness. And thus the
+happiness and misery of a future state will be the just reward or
+punishment of promoting or preventing happiness in this. So
+artificially, by this means, is the nature of all human virtue and vice
+contrived, that their rewards and punishments are woven, as it were, in
+their very essence; their immediate effects give us a foretaste of their
+future, and their fruits, in the present life, are the proper samples of
+what they must unavoidably produce in another. We have reason given us
+to distinguish these consequences, and regulate our conduct; and, lest
+that should neglect its post, conscience also is appointed, as an
+instinctive kind of monitor, perpetually to remind us both of our
+interest and our duty."
+
+"Si sic omnia dixisset!" To this account of the essence of vice and
+virtue, it is only necessary to add, that the consequences of human
+actions being sometimes uncertain, and sometimes remote, it is not
+possible, in many cases, for most men, nor in all cases, for any man, to
+determine what actions will ultimately produce happiness, and,
+therefore, it was proper that revelation should lay down a rule to be
+followed, invariably, in opposition to appearances, and, in every change
+of circumstances, by which we may be certain to promote the general
+felicity, and be set free from the dangerous temptation of _doing evil
+that good may come_. Because it may easily happen, and, in effect, will
+happen, very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted
+by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged, by
+nature, to prefer, ultimately, the happiness of others to his own;
+therefore, to the instructions of infinite wisdom, it was necessary that
+infinite power should add penal sanctions. That every man, to whom those
+instructions shall be imparted, may know, that he can never, ultimately,
+injure himself by benefiting others, or, ultimately, by injuring others
+benefit himself; but that, however the lot of the good and bad may be
+huddled together in the seeming confusion of our present state, the time
+shall undoubtedly come, when the most virtuous will be most happy.
+
+I am sorry, that the remaining part of this letter is not equal to the
+first. The author has, indeed, engaged in a disquisition, in which we
+need not wonder if he fails, in the solution of questions on which
+philosophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,
+
+  "And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
+
+He denies, that man was created _perfect_, because the system requires
+subordination, and because the power of losing his perfection, of
+"rendering himself wicked and miserable, is the highest imperfection
+imaginable." Besides, the regular gradations of the scale of being
+required, somewhere, "such a creature as man, with all his infirmities
+about him; and the total removal of those would be altering his nature,
+and, when he became perfect, he must cease to be man."
+
+I have already spent some considerations on the _scale of being_, of
+which, yet, I am obliged to renew the mention, whenever a new argument
+is made to rest upon it; and I must, therefore, again remark, that
+consequences cannot have greater certainty than the postulate from which
+they are drawn, and that no system can be more hypothetical than this,
+and, perhaps, no hypothesis more absurd.
+
+He again deceives himself with respect to the perfection with which
+_man_ is held to be originally vested. "That man came perfect, that is,
+endued with all possible perfection, out of the hands of his creator, is
+a false notion derived from the philosophers.--The universal system
+required subordination, and, consequently, comparative imperfection."
+That _man was ever endued with all possible perfection_, that is, with
+all perfection, of which the idea is not contradictory, or destructive
+of itself, is, undoubtedly, _false_. But it can hardly be called _a
+false notion_, because no man ever thought it, nor can it be derived
+from the _philosophers_; for, without pretending to guess what
+philosophers he may mean, it is very safe to affirm, that no philosopher
+ever said it. Of those who now maintain that _man_ was once perfect, who
+may very easily be found, let the author inquire, whether _man_ was ever
+omniscient, whether he was ever omnipotent; whether he ever had even the
+lower power of archangels or angels. Their answers will soon inform him,
+that the supposed perfection of _man_ was not absolute, but respective;
+that he was perfect, in a sense consistent enough with subordination,
+perfect, not as compared with different beings, but with himself in his
+present degeneracy; not perfect, as an angel, but perfect, as man.
+
+From this perfection, whatever it was, he thinks it necessary that man
+should be debarred, because pain is necessary to the good of the
+universe; and the pain of one order of beings extending its salutary
+influence to innumerable orders above and below, it was necessary that
+man should suffer; but, because it is not suitable to justice, that pain
+should be inflicted on innocence, it was necessary that man should be
+criminal.
+
+This is given as a satisfactory account of the original of moral evil,
+which amounts only to this, that God created beings, whose guilt he
+foreknew, in order that he might have proper objects of pain, because
+the pain of part is, no man knows how or why, necessary to the felicity
+of the whole.
+
+The perfection which man once had, may be so easily conceived, that,
+without any unusual strain of imagination, we can figure its revival.
+All the duties to God or man, that are neglected, we may fancy
+performed; all the crimes, that are committed, we may conceive forborne.
+Man will then be restored to his moral perfections; and into what head
+can it enter, that, by this change, the universal system would be
+shaken, or the condition of any order of beings altered for the worse?
+
+He comes, in the fifth letter, to political, and, in the sixth, to
+religious evils. Of political evil, if we suppose the origin of moral
+evil discovered, the account is by no means difficult; polity being only
+the conduct of immoral men in publick affairs. The evils of each
+particular kind of government are very clearly and elegantly displayed,
+and, from their secondary causes, very rationally deduced; but the first
+cause lies still in its ancient obscurity. There is, in this letter,
+nothing new, nor any thing eminently instructive; one of his practical
+deductions, that "from government, evils cannot be eradicated, and their
+excess only can be prevented," has been always allowed; the question,
+upon which all dissension arises, is, when that excess begins, at what
+point men shall cease to bear, and attempt to remedy.
+
+Another of his precepts, though not new, well deserves to be
+transcribed, because it cannot be too frequently impressed.
+
+"What has here been said of their imperfections and abuses, is, by no
+means, intended as a defence of them: every wise man ought to redress
+them to the utmost of his power; which can be effected by one method
+only, that is, by a reformation of manners; for, as all political evils
+derive their original from moral, these can never be removed, until
+those are first amended. He, therefore, who strictly adheres to virtue
+and sobriety in his conduct, and enforces them by his example, does more
+real service to a state, than he who displaces a minister, or dethrones
+a tyrant: this gives but a temporary relief, but that exterminates the
+cause of the disease. No immoral man, then, can possibly be a true
+patriot; and all those who profess outrageous zeal for the liberty and
+prosperity of their country, and, at the same time, infringe her laws,
+affront her religion, and debauch her people, are but despicable quacks,
+by fraud or ignorance increasing the disorders they pretend to remedy."
+
+Of religion he has said nothing but what he has learned, or might have
+learned, from the divines; that it is not universal, because it must be
+received upon conviction, and successively received by those whom
+conviction reached; that its evidences and sanctions are not
+irresistible, because it was intended to induce, not to compel; and that
+it is obscure, because we want faculties to comprehend it. What he means
+by his assertion, that it wants policy, I do not well understand; he
+does not mean to deny, that a good christian will be a good governour,
+or a good subject; and he has before justly observed, that the good man
+only is a patriot.
+
+Religion has been, he says, corrupted by the wickedness of those to whom
+it was communicated, and has lost part of its efficacy, by its connexion
+with temporal interest and human passion.
+
+He justly observes, that from all this no conclusion can be drawn
+against the divine original of christianity, since the objections arise
+not from the nature of the revelation, but of him to whom it is
+communicated.
+
+All this is known, and all this is true; but why, we have not yet
+discovered. Our author, if I understand him right, pursues the argument
+thus: the religion of man produces evils, because the morality of man is
+imperfect; his morality is imperfect, that he may be justly a subject of
+punishment; he is made subject to punishment, because the pain of part
+is necessary to the happiness of the whole; pain is necessary to
+happiness, no mortal can tell why, or how.
+
+Thus, after having clambered, with great labour, from one step of
+argumentation to another, instead of rising into the light of knowledge,
+we are devolved back into dark ignorance; and all our effort ends in
+belief, that for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in
+confession, that the reason cannot be found. This is all that has been
+produced by the revival of Chrysippus's untractableness of matter, and
+the Arabian scale of existence. A system has been raised, which is so
+ready to fall to pieces of itself, that no great praise can be derived
+from its destruction. To object, is always easy, and, it has been well
+observed by a late writer, that "the hand which cannot build a hovel,
+may demolish a temple [11]."
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOR IMPROVING OF
+NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, FROM ITS FIRST RISE;
+
+In which the most considerable papers communicated to the society, which
+have, hitherto, not been published, are inserted, in their proper order,
+as a supplement to the Philosophical Transactions. By Thomas Birch, D.
+D. secretary to the Royal society, 2 vols. 4to.
+
+
+This book might, more properly, have been entitled by the author, a
+diary than a history, as it proceeds regularly from day to day, so
+minutely, as to number over the members present at each committee, and
+so slowly, that two large volumes contain only the transactions of the
+eleven first years from the institution of the society.
+
+I am, yet, far from intending to represent this work as useless. Many
+particularities are of importance to one man, though they appear
+trifling to another; and it is always more safe to admit copiousness,
+than to affect brevity. Many informations will be afforded by this book
+to the biographer. I know not where else it can be found, but here, and
+in Ward, that Cowley was doctor in physick. And, whenever any other
+institution, of the same kind, shall be attempted, the exact relation of
+the progress of the Royal society may furnish precedents.
+
+These volumes consist of an exact journal of the society; of some papers
+delivered to them, which, though registered and preserved, had been
+never printed; and of short memoirs of the more eminent members,
+inserted at the end of the year in which each died.
+
+The original of the society is placed earlier in this history than in
+that of Dr. Sprat. Theodore Haak, a German of the Palatinate, in 1645,
+proposed, to some inquisitive and learned men, a weekly meeting, for the
+cultivation of natural knowledge. The first associates, whose names
+ought, surely, to be preserved, were Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Wallis, Dr.
+Goddard, Dr. Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merret, Mr. Foster of Gresham, and
+Mr. Haak. Sometime afterwards, Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard, being
+removed to Oxford, carried on the same design there by stated meetings,
+and adopted into their society Dr. Ward, Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Petty, and
+Dr. Willis.
+
+The Oxford society coming to London, in 1659, joined their friends, and
+augmented their number, and, for some time, met in Gresham college.
+After the restoration, their number was again increased, and on the 28th
+of November, 1660, a select party happening to retire for conversation,
+to Mr. Rooke's apartment in Gresham college, formed the first plan of a
+regular society. Here Dr. Sprat's history begins, and, therefore, from
+this period, the proceedings are well known [12].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF THE GENERAL HISTORY OP POLYBIUS,
+
+IN FIVE BOOKS, TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK, BY MR. HAMPTON.
+
+
+This appears to be one of the books, which will long do honour to the
+present age. It has been, by some remarker, observed, that no man ever
+grew immortal by a translation; and, undoubtedly, translations into the
+prose of a living language must be laid aside, whenever the language
+changes, because the matter being always to be found in the original,
+contributes nothing to the preservation of the form superinduced by the
+translator. But such versions may last long, though they can scarcely
+last always; and there is reason to believe that this will grow in
+reputation, while the English tongue continues in its present state.
+
+The great difficulty of a translator is to preserve the native form of
+his language, and the unconstrained manner of an original writer. This
+Mr. Hampton seems to have attained, in a degree of which there are few
+examples. His book has the dignity of antiquity, and the easy flow of a
+modern composition.
+
+It were, perhaps, to be desired, that he had illustrated, with notes, an
+author which must have many difficulties to an English reader, and,
+particularly, that he had explained the ancient art of war; but these
+omissions may be easily supplied, by an inferiour hand, from the
+antiquaries and commentators.
+
+To note omissions, where there is so much performed, would be invidious,
+and to commend is unnecessary, where the excellence of the work may be
+more easily and effectually shown, by exhibiting a specimen [13].
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW OF MISCELLANIES ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS,
+
+IN PROSE AND VERSE; BY ELIZABETH HARRISON.
+
+
+This volume, though only one name appears upon the first page, has been
+produced by the contribution of many hands, and printed by the
+encouragement of a numerous subscription, both which favours seem to be
+deserved by the modesty and piety of her on whom they were bestowed.
+
+The authors of the esssays in prose seem, generally, to have imitated,
+or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxunance of Mrs. Rowe; this,
+however, is not all their praise, they have laboured to add to her
+brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr.
+Watts before their eyes, a writer who, if he stood not in the first
+class of genius, compensated that defect, by a ready application of his
+powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of
+romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first made by Mr.
+Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not
+allow him time for the cultivation of style, and the completion of the
+great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first
+who taught the dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing
+them, that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both clone
+honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well
+make their failings forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world
+might wish for communion. They were pure from all the heresies of an
+age, to which every opinion is become a favourite, that the universal
+church has, hitherto, detested.
+
+This praise the general interest of mankind requires to be given to
+writers who please, and do not corrupt, who instruct, and do not weary.
+But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom, I believe applauded by
+angels and numbered with the just [14].
+
+
+
+
+ACCOUNT OF A BOOK ENTITLED AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY
+
+Into the evidence produced by the earls of MORAY and MORTON against
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [15].
+
+With an examination of the reverend Dr. Robertson's Dissertation, and
+Mr. Hume's History, with respect to that evidence [16].
+
+
+We live in an age, in which there is much talk of independence, of
+private judgment, of liberty of thought, and liberty of press. Our
+clamorous praises of liberty sufficiently prove that we enjoy it; and
+if, by liberty, nothing else be meant, than security from the
+persecutions of power, it is so fully possessed by us, that little more
+is to be desired, except that one should talk of it less, and use it
+better.
+
+But a social being can scarcely rise to complete independence; he that
+has any wants, which others can supply, must study the gratification of
+them, whose assistance he expects; this is equally true, whether his
+wants be wants of nature, or of vanity. The writers of the present time
+are not always candidates for preferment, nor often the hirelings of a
+patron. They profess to serve no interest, and speak with loud contempt
+of sycophants and slaves.
+
+There is, however, a power, from whose influence neither they, nor their
+predecessors, have ever been free. Those, who have set greatness at
+defiance, have yet been the slaves of fashion. When an opinion has once
+become popular, very few are willing to oppose it. Idleness is more
+willing to credit than inquire; cowardice is afraid of controversy, and
+vanity of answer; and he that writes merely for sale, is tempted to
+court purchasers by flattering the prejudices of the publick.
+
+It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and
+vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of
+Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot
+pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of
+popularity? yet there remains, still, among us, not wholly
+extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right, in
+opposition to fashion. The author, whose work is now before as, has
+attempted a vindication of Mary of Scotland, whose name has, for some
+years, been generally resigned to infamy, and who has been considered,
+as the murderer of her husband, and condemned by her own letters.
+
+Of these letters, the author of this vindication confesses the
+importance to be such, that, "if they be genuine, the queen was guilty;
+and, if they be spurious, she was innocent." He has, therefore,
+undertaken to prove them spurious, and divided his treatise into six
+parts.
+
+In the first is contained the history of the letters from their
+discovery by the earl of Morton, their being produced against queen
+Mary, and their several appearances in England, before queen Elizabeth
+and her commissioners, until they were finally delivered back again to
+the earl of Morton.
+
+The second contains a short abstract of Mr. Goodall's arguments for
+proving the letters to be spurious and forged; and of Dr. Robertson and
+Mr. Hume's objections, by way of answer to Mr. Goodall, with critical
+observations on these authors.
+
+The third contains an examination of the arguments of Dr. Robertson and
+Mr. Hume, in support of the authenticity of the letters.
+
+The fourth contains an examination of the confession of Nicholas Hubert,
+commonly called _French Paris_, with observations, showing the same to
+be a forgery.
+
+The fifth contains a short recapitulation, or summary, of the arguments
+on both sides of the question.
+
+The last is an historical collection of the direct or positive evidence
+still on record, tending to show what part the earls of Murray and
+Morton, and secretary Lethington, had in the murder of the lord Darnley.
+
+The author apologizes for the length of this book, by observing, that it
+necessarily comprises a great number of particulars, which could not
+easily be contracted: the same plea may be made for the imperfection of
+our extract, which will naturally fall below the force of the book,
+because we can only select parts of that evidence, which owes its
+strength to its concatenation, and which will be weakened, whenever it
+is disjoined.
+
+The account of the seizure of these controverted letters is thus given
+by the queen's enemies.
+
+"That in the castell of Edinburgh, thair was left be the erle of
+Bothwell, before his fleeing away, and was send for be ane George
+Dalgleish, his servand, who was taken be the erle of Mortoun, ane small
+gylt coffer, not fully ane fute lang, garnisht in sindrie places with
+the roman letter F. under ane king's crowne; wharin were certane
+letteris and writings weel knawin, and be aithis to be affirmit to have
+been written with the quene of Scottis awn hand to the erle."
+
+The papers in the box were said to be eight letters, in French, some
+love-sonnets in French also, and a promise of marriage by the queen to
+Bothwell.
+
+To the reality of these letters our author makes some considerable
+objections, from the nature of things; but, as such arguments do not
+always convince, we will pass to the evidence of facts.
+
+On June 15, 1567, the queen delivered herself to Morton, and his party,
+who imprisoned her.
+
+June 20, 1567, Dalgleish was seized, and, six days after, was examined
+by Morton; his examination is still extant, and there is no mention of
+this fatal box.
+
+Dec. 4, 1567, Murray's secret council published an act, in which is the
+first mention of these letters, and in which they are said to be
+_written and subscrivit with her awin hand_. Ten days after, Murray's
+first parliament met, and passed an act, in which they mention _previe
+letters written halelie_ [wholly] _with her awin hand_. The difference
+between _written and subscribed_, and _wholly written_, gives the author
+just reason to suspect, first, a forgery, and then a variation of the
+forgery. It is, indeed, very remarkable, that the first account asserts
+more than the second, though the second contains all the truth; for the
+letters, whether _written_ by the queen or not, were not _subscribed_.
+Had the second account differed from the first only by something added,
+the first might have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as
+the second corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared
+from falsehood.
+
+In October, 1568, these letters were shown at York to Elisabeth's
+commissioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their publick
+character, as commissioners, but by way of private information, and were
+not, therefore, exposed to Mary's commissioners. Mary, however, hearing
+that some letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her
+commissioners to require them for her inspection, and, in the mean time,
+to declare them _false and feigned, forged and invented_, observing,
+that there were many that could counterfeit her hand.
+
+To counterfeit a name is easy, to counterfeit a hand, through eight
+letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were
+ever shown to those who would desire to detect them; and, to the English
+commissioners, a rude and remote imitation might be sufficient, since
+they were not shown as judicial proofs; and why they were not shown as
+proofs, no other reason can be given, than they must have then been
+examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery.
+
+These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all
+the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for
+the murder of the king, acquitted the queen, at the hour of death. These
+letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them, as the reason
+of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and
+pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.
+
+Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was
+suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that
+such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton who accused
+the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers.
+Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning
+them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never
+called to authenticate them, nor was his confession produced against
+Mary, till death had left him no power to disown it.
+
+Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to
+receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty
+of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a
+judge, a very little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of
+Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were seen no more.
+They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of
+writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however,
+endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but "his account,"
+says our author, "is contradicted, almost in every sentence, by the
+records, which, it appears, he has himself perused."
+
+In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined; and it
+seems to be proved, beyond contradiction, that the French letters,
+supposed to have been written by Mary, are translated from the Scotch
+copy, and, if originals, which it was so much the interest of such
+numbers to preserve, are wanting, it is much more likely that they never
+existed, than that they have been lost.
+
+The arguments used by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the
+letters, are next examined. Robertson makes use, principally, of what he
+calls the _internal evidence_, which, amounting, at most, to conjecture,
+is opposed by conjecture equally probable.
+
+In examining the confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this
+new apologist of Mary seems to gain ground upon her accuser. Paris is
+mentioned, in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the
+rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the
+last moment, Paris, instead of suffering his trial, with the rest, at
+Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was absolute; put
+into a dungeon of Murray's citadel; and, two years after, condemned by
+Murray himself, nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a
+confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to
+Cecil, at what exact time, nobody can tell.
+
+Of this confession, Leslie, bishop of Ross, openly denied the
+genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth;
+and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any
+confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to
+Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:
+
+"From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor
+ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their
+keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not
+producing him, with their other evidences, so as he might have been
+publickly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of
+Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with
+the publick affirmation of the bishop of Ross, at the time of Paris's
+death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the
+behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attester of
+this pretended confession, on that occasion; their close and reserved
+silence, at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in
+their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could
+tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only
+direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately
+considered, I think, one may safely conclude, that it was judged not fit
+to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen;
+which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution,
+would, surely, have given clear testimony against, as a notorious
+imposture."
+
+Mr. Hume, indeed, observes: "It is in vain, at present, to seek for
+improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify
+the smallest difficulties into a contradiction. It was certainly a
+regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to
+have been canvassed at the time, if the persons, whom it concerned, had
+been assured of their innocence." To which our author makes a reply,
+which cannot be shortened without weakening it:
+
+"Upon what does this author ground his sentence? Upon two very plain
+reasons, first, that the confession was a judicial one, that is, taken
+in presence, or by authority of a judge. And secondly, that it was
+regularly and judicially given in; that must be understood during the
+time of the conferences before queen Elizabeth and her council, in
+presence of Mary's commissioners; at which time she ought to have
+canvassed it," says our author, "if she knew her innocence.
+
+"That it was not a judicial confession, is evident: the paper itself
+does not bear any such mark; nor does it mention, that it was taken in
+presence of any person, or by any authority whatsoever; and, by
+comparing it with the judicial examinations of Dalgleish, Hay, and
+Hepburn, it is apparent, that it is destitute of every formality,
+requisite in a judicial evidence. In what dark corner, then, this
+strange production was generated, our author may endeavour to find out,
+if he can.
+
+"As to his second assertion, that it was regularly and judicially given
+in, and, therefore, ought to have been canvassed, by Mary during the
+conferences; we have already seen, that this, likewise, is not fact: the
+conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged
+till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it,
+is only dated the 10th of that month. How, then, can this gentleman
+gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought
+to have been, at that very time, canvassed by queen Mary and her
+commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact,
+are unworthy the character of an historian, and may, very justly, render
+his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very
+dubious. In answer, then, to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not
+choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive and
+in their hands, nor any declaration or confession, from him, at the
+critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I
+apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himself;
+that it is in vain, at present, to support the improbabilities and
+absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows
+how, and produced, after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom, and, from
+every appearance, destitute of every formality, requisite and common to
+such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of
+hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a
+gross imposture and forgery."
+
+The state of the evidence relating to the letters is this:
+
+Morton affirms, that they were taken in the hands of Dalgleish. Hie
+examination of Dalgleish is still extant, and he appears never to have
+been once interrogated concerning the letters.
+
+Morton and Murray affirm, that they were written by the queen's hand;
+they were carefully concealed from Mary and her commissioners, and were
+never collated by one man, who could desire to disprove them.
+
+Several of the incidents mentioned in the letters are confirmed by the
+oath of Crawfurd, one of Lennox's defendants, and some of the incidents
+are so minute, as that they could scarcely be thought on by a forger.
+Crawfurd's testimony is not without suspicion. Whoever practises
+forgery, endeavours to make truth the vehicle of falsehood.
+
+Of a prince's life very minute incidents are known; and if any are too
+slight to be remarked, they may be safely feigned, for they are,
+likewise, too slight to be contradicted. But there are still more
+reasons for doubting the genuineness of these letters. They had no date
+of time or place, no seal, no direction, no superscription.
+
+The only evidences that could prove their authenticity were Dalgleish
+and Paris; of which Dalgleish, at his trial, was never questioned about
+them; Paris was never publickly tried, though he was kept alive through
+the time of the conference.
+
+The servants of Bothwell, who were put to death for the king's murder,
+cleared Mary with their last words.
+
+The letters were first declared to be subscribed, and were then produced
+without subscription.
+
+They were shown, during the conferences at York, privately, to the
+English commissioners, but were concealed from the commissioners of
+Mary.
+
+Mary always solicited the perusal of these letters, and was always
+denied it.
+
+She demanded to be heard, in person, by Elizabeth, before the nobles of
+England and the ambassadours of other princes, and was refused.
+
+When Mary persisted in demanding copies of the letters, her
+commissioners were dismissed with their box to Scotland, and the letters
+were seen no more.
+
+The French letters, which, for almost two centuries, have been
+considered as originals, by the enemies of Mary's memory, are now
+discovered to be forgeries, and acknowledged to be translations, and,
+perhaps, French translations of a Latin translation. And the modern
+accusers of Mary are forced to infer, from these letters, which now
+exist, that other letters existed formerly, which have been lost, in
+spite of curiosity, malice, and interest.
+
+The rest of this treatise is employed in an endeavour to prove, that
+Mary's accusers were the murderers of Darnly: through this inquiry it is
+hot necessary to follow him; only let it be observed, that, if these
+letters were forged by them, they may easily be thought capable of other
+crimes. That the letters were forged, is now made so probable, that,
+perhaps, they will never more be cited as testimonies.
+
+
+
+
+MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE:
+
+Or, an essay on an ancient prophetical inscription, in monkish rhyme,
+lately discovered near Lynn, in Norfolk. By Probus Britannicus [17].
+
+
+In Norfolk, near the town of Lynn, in a field, which an ancient
+tradition of the country affirms to have been once a deep lake, or meer,
+and which appears, from authentick records, to have been called, about
+two hundred years ago, _Palus_, or the marsh, was discovered, not long
+since, a large square stone, which is found, upon an exact inspection,
+to be a kind of coarse marble of a substance not firm enough to admit of
+being polished, yet harder than our common quarries afford, and not
+easily susceptible of injuries from weather or outward accidents.
+
+It was brought to light by a farmer, who, observing his plough
+obstructed by something, through which the share could not make its way,
+ordered his servants to remove it. This was not effected without some
+difficulty, the stone being three feet four inches deep, and four feet
+square in the superficies; and, consequently, of a weight not easily
+manageable. However, by the application of levers, it was, at length,
+raised, and conveyed to a corner of the field, where it lay, for some
+months, entirely unregarded; nor, perhaps, had we ever been made
+acquainted with this venerable relick of antiquity, had not our good
+fortune been greater than our curiosity.
+
+A gentleman, well known to the learned world, and distinguished by the
+patronage of the Maecenas of Norfolk, whose name, was I permitted to
+mention it, would excite the attention of my reader, and add no small
+authority to my conjectures, observing, as he was walking that way, that
+the clouds began to gather, and threaten him with a shower, had
+recourse, for shelter, to the trees under which this stone happened to
+lie, and sat down upon it, in expectation of fair weather. At length he
+began to amuse himself, in his confinement, by clearing the earth from
+his seat with the point of his cane; and had continued this employment
+some time, when he observed several traces of letters, antique and
+irregular, which, by being very deeply engraven, were still easily
+distinguishable.
+
+This discovery so far raised his curiosity, that, going home
+immediately, he procured an instrument proper for cutting out the clay,
+that filled up the spaces of the letters; and, with very little labour,
+made the inscription legible, which is here exhibited to the publick:
+
+  POST-GENITIS.
+
+  Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet aegra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu:
+  Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes.
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore.
+  Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio; conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+
+  MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE
+
+  Cynthia, tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis;
+  Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua laetus.
+  Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus.
+  En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!
+
+These lines he carefully copied, accompanied, in his letter of July 19,
+with the following translation.
+
+  TO POSTERITY.
+
+  Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country! shalt thou groan distrest,
+  Grief swell thine eyes, and terrour chill thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.
+  Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way.
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil;
+  Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings;
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings.
+  The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread;
+  The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread;
+  Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade;
+  His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace;
+  And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain.
+
+I make not the least doubt, but that this learned person has given us,
+as an antiquary, a true and uncontrovertible representation of the
+writer's meaning; and, am sure, he can confirm it by innumerable
+quotations from the authors of the middle age, should he be publickly
+called upon by any man of eminent rank in the republick of letters; nor
+will he deny the world that satisfaction, provided the animadverter
+proceeds with that sobriety and modesty, with which it becomes every
+learned man to treat a subject of such importance.
+
+Yet, with all proper deference to a name so justly celebrated, I will
+take the freedom of observing, that he has succeeded better as a scholar
+than a poet; having fallen below the strength, the conciseness, and, at
+the same time, below the perspicuity of his author. I shall not point
+out the particular passages in which this disparity is remarkable, but
+content myself with saying, in general, that the criticisms, which there
+is room for on this translation, may be almost an incitement to some
+lawyer, studious of antiquity, to learn Latin.
+
+The inscription, which I now proceed to consider, wants no arguments to
+prove its antiquity to those among the learned, who are versed in the
+writers of the darker ages, and know that the Latin poetry of those
+times was of a peculiar cast and air, not easy to be understood, and
+very difficult to be imitated; nor can it be conceived, that any man
+would lay out his abilities on a way of writing, which, though attained
+with much study, could gain him no reputation; and engrave his chimeras
+on a stone, to astonish posterity.
+
+Its antiquity, therefore, is out of dispute; but how high a degree of
+antiquity is to be assigned it, there is more ground for inquiry than
+determination. How early Latin rhymes made their appearance in the
+world, is yet undecided by the criticks. Verses of this kind were called
+leonine; but whence they derived that appellation, the learned Camden
+[18] confesses himself ignorant; so that the style carries no certain
+marks of its age. I shall only observe farther, on this head, that the
+characters are nearly of the same form with those on king Arthur's
+coffin; but whether, from their similitude, we may venture to pronounce
+them of the same date, I must refer to the decision of better judges.
+
+Our inability to fix the age of this inscription, necessarily infers our
+ignorance of its author, with relation to whom, many controversies may
+be started, worthy of the most profound learning, and most indefatigable
+diligence.
+
+The first question that naturally arises is: Whether he was a Briton or
+a Saxon? I had, at first, conceived some hope that, in this question, in
+which not only the idle curiosity of virtuosos, but the honour of two
+mighty nations, is concerned, some information might be drawn from the
+word _patria_, my country, in the third line; England being not, in
+propriety of speech, the country of the Saxons; at least, not at their
+first arrival. But, upon farther reflection, this argument appeared not
+conclusive, since we find that, in all ages, foreigners have affected to
+call England their country, even when, like the Saxons of old, they came
+only to plunder it.
+
+An argument in favour of the Britons may, indeed, be drawn from the
+tenderness, with which the author seems to lament his country, and the
+compassion he shows for its approaching calamities. I, who am a
+descendant from the Saxons, and, therefore, unwilling to say any thing
+derogatory from the reputation of my forefathers, must yet allow this
+argument its full force; for it has been rarely, very rarely, known,
+that foreigners, however well treated, caressed, enriched, flattered, or
+exalted, have regarded this country with the least gratitude or
+affection, till the race has, by long continuance, after many
+generations, been naturalized and assimilated.
+
+They have been ready, upon all occasions, to prefer the petty interests
+of their own country, though, perhaps, only some desolate and worthless
+corner of the world. They have employed the wealth of England, in paying
+troops to defend mud-wall towns, and uninhabitable rocks, and in
+purchasing barriers for territories, of which the natural sterility
+secured them from invasion.
+
+This argument, which wants no particular instances to confirm it, is, I
+confess, of the greatest weight in this question, and inclines me
+strongly to believe, that the benevolent author of this prediction must
+have been born a Briton.
+
+The learned discoverer of the inscription was pleased to insist, with
+great warmth, upon the etymology of the word _patria_, which signifying,
+says he, _the land of my father_, could be made use of by none, but such
+whose ancestors had resided here; but, in answer to this demonstration,
+as he called it, I only desired him to take notice, how common it is for
+intruders of yesterday to pretend the same title with the ancient
+proprietors, and, having just received an estate, by voluntary grant, to
+erect a claim of _hereditary right_.
+
+Nor is it less difficult to form any satisfactory conjecture, concerning
+the rank or condition of the writer, who, contented with a consciousness
+of having done his duty, in leaving this solemn warning to his country,
+seems studiously to have avoided that veneration, to which his knowledge
+of futurity, undoubtedly, entitled him, and those honours, which his
+memory might justly claim from the gratitude of posterity; and has,
+therefore, left no trace, by which the most sagacious and diligent
+inquirer can hope to discover him.
+
+This conduct, alone, ought to convince us, that the prediction is of no
+small importance to mankind, since the author of it appears not to have
+been influenced by any other motive, than that noble and exalted
+philanthropy, which is above the narrow views of recompense or applause.
+
+That interest had no share in this inscription, is evident beyond
+dispute, since the age in which he lived received neither pleasure nor
+instruction from it. Nor is it less apparent, from the suppression of
+his name, that he was equally a stranger to that wild desire of fame,
+which has, sometimes, infatuated the noblest minds.
+
+His modesty, however, has not been able wholly to extinguish that
+curiosity, which so naturally leads us, when we admire a performance, to
+inquire after the author. Those, whom I have consulted on this occasion;
+and my zeal for the honour of this benefactor of my country has not
+suffered me to forget a single antiquary of reputation, have, almost
+unanimously, determined, that it was written by a king. For where else,
+said they, are we to expect that greatness of mind, and that dignity of
+expression, so eminently conspicuous in this inscription!
+
+It is with a proper sense of the weakness of my own abilities, that I
+venture to lay before the publick the reasons which hinder me from
+concurring with this opinion, which I am not only inclined to favour by
+my respect for the authors of it, but by a natural affection for
+monarchy, and a prevailing inclination to believe, that every excellence
+is inherent in a king.
+
+To condemn an opinion so agreeable to the reverence due to the regal
+dignity, and countenanced by so great authorities, without a long and
+accurate discussion, would be a temerity justly liable to the severest
+censures. A. supercilious and arrogant determination of a controversy of
+such importance, would, doubtless, be treated by the impartial and
+candid with the utmost indignation.
+
+But as I have too high an idea of the learning of my contemporaries, to
+obtrude any crude, hasty, or indigested notions on the publick, I have
+proceeded with the utmost degree of diffidence and caution; I have
+frequently reviewed all my arguments, traced them backwards to their
+first principles, and used every method of examination to discover,
+whether all the deductions were natural and just, and whether I was not
+imposed on by some specious fallacy; but the farther I carried my
+inquiries, and the longer I dwelt upon this great point, the more was I
+convinced, in spite of all my prejudices, that this wonderful prediction
+was not written by a king.
+
+For, after a laborious and attentive perusal of histories, memoirs,
+chronicles, lives, characters, vindications, panegyricks and epitaphs, I
+could find no sufficient authority for ascribing to any of our English
+monarchs, however gracious or glorious, any prophetical knowledge or
+prescience of futurity; which, when we consider how rarely regal virtues
+are forgotten, how soon they are discovered, and how loudly they are
+celebrated, affords a probable argument, at least, that none of them
+have laid any claim to this character. For why should historians have
+omitted to embellish their accounts with such a striking circumstance?
+or, if the histories of that age are lost, by length of time, why was
+not so uncommon an excellence transmitted to posterity, in the more
+lasting colours of poetry? Was that unhappy age without a laureate? Was
+there then no Young [19] or Philips [20], no Ward [21] or Mitchell [22],
+to snatch such wonders from oblivion, and immortalize a prince of such
+capacities? If this was really the case, let us congratulate ourselves
+upon being reserved for better days; days so fruitful of happy writers,
+that no princely virtue can shine in vain. Our monarchs are surrounded
+with refined spirits, so penetrating, that they frequently discover, in
+their masters, great qualities, invisible to vulgar eyes, and which, did
+not they publish them to mankind, would be unobserved for ever.
+
+Nor is it easy to find, in the lives of our monarchs, many instances of
+that regard for posterity, which seems to have been the prevailing
+temper of this venerable man. I have seldom, in any of the gracious
+speeches delivered from the throne, and received, with the highest
+gratitude and satisfaction, by both houses of parliament, discovered any
+other concern than for the current year, for which supplies are
+generally demanded in very pressing terms, and, sometimes, such as imply
+no remarkable solicitude for posterity.
+
+Nothing, indeed, can be more unreasonable and absurd, than to require,
+that a monarch, distracted with cares and surrounded with enemies,
+should involve himself in superfluous anxieties, by an unnecessary
+concern about future generations. Are not pretenders, mock-patriots,
+masquerades, operas, birthnights, treaties, conventions, reviews,
+drawing-rooms, the births of heirs, and the deaths of queens, sufficient
+to overwhelm any capacity but that of a king? Surely, he that acquits
+himself successfully of such affairs may content himself with the glory
+he acquires, and leave posterity to his successours.
+
+That this has been the conduct of most princes, is evident from the
+accounts of all ages and nations; and, therefore, I hope it will not be
+thought that I have, without just reasons, deprived this inscription of
+the veneration it might demand, as the work of a king.
+
+With what laborious struggles against prejudice and inclination, with
+what efforts of reasoning, and pertinacity of self-denial, I have
+prevailed upon myself to sacrifice the honour of this monument to the
+love of truth, none, who are unacquainted with the fondness of a
+commentator, will be able to conceive. But this instance will be, I
+hope, sufficient to convince the publick, that I write with sincerity,
+and that, whatever my success may be, my intentions are good.
+
+Where we are to look for our author, it still remains to be considered;
+whether in the high road of publick employments, or the by-paths of
+private life.
+
+It has always been observed of those that frequent a court, that they
+soon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal spirit of neglecting
+futurity. The minister forms an expedient to suspend, or perplex, an
+inquiry into his measures, for a few months, and applauds and triumphs
+in his own dexterity. The peer puts off his creditor for the present
+day, and forgets that he is ever to see him more. The frown of a prince,
+and the loss of a pension, have, indeed, been found of wonderful
+efficacy to abstract men's thoughts from the present time, and fill them
+with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come. But, I am
+inclined to think more favourably of the author of this prediction, than
+that he was made a patriot by disappointment or disgust. If he ever saw
+a court, I would willingly believe, that he did not owe his concern for
+posterity to his ill reception there, but his ill reception there to his
+concern for posterity.
+
+However, since truth is the same in the mouth of a hermit, or a prince,
+since it is not reason, but weakness, that makes us rate counsel by our
+esteem for the counsellor, let us, at length, desist from this inquiry,
+so useless in itself, in which we have room to hope for so little
+satisfaction. Let us show our gratitude to the author, by answering his
+intentions, by considering minutely the lines which he has left us, and
+examining their import without heat, precipitancy, or party-prejudices;
+let us endeavour to keep the just mean, between searching, ambitiously,
+for far-fetched interpretations, and admitting such low meaning, and
+obvious and low sense, as is inconsistent with those great and extensive
+views, which it is reasonable to ascribe to this excellent man.
+
+It may be yet further asked, whether this inscription, which appears in
+the stone, be an original, and not rather a version of a traditional
+prediction, in the old British tongue, which the zeal of some learned
+man prompted him to translate and engrave, in a more known language, for
+the instruction of future ages: but, as the lines carry, at the first
+view, a reference both to the stone itself, and, very remarkably, to the
+place where it was found, I cannot see any foundation for such a
+suspicion.
+
+It remains, now, that we examine the sense and import of the
+inscription, which, after having long dwelt upon it, with the closest
+and most laborious attention, I must confess myself not yet able fully
+to comprehend. The following explications, therefore, are, by no means,
+laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjectures not
+always wholly satisfactory, even to myself, and which I had not dared to
+propose to so enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great
+ornaments of human nature, skepticks, antimoralists, and infidels, but
+with hopes that they would excite some person of greater abilities, to
+penetrate further into the oraculous obscurity of this wonderful
+prediction.
+
+Not even the four first lines are without their difficulties, in which
+the time of the discovery of the stone seems to be the time assigned for
+the events foretold by it:
+
+  "Cum lapidem hunc, magni
+  Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
+  Vel pede equus tanget,
+  Vel arator vomere franget,
+  Sentiet aegra metus,
+  Effundet patria fletus,
+  Littoraque ut fluctu,
+  Resonabunt oppida luctu."
+
+  "Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
+  The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
+  Then, O my country, shall thou groan distrest,
+  Grief in thine eyes, and terrour in thy breast.
+  Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
+  Loud as the billows bursting on the ground."
+
+"When this stone," says he, "which now lies hid beneath the waters of a
+deep lake, shall be struck upon by the horse, or broken by the plough,
+then shalt thou, my country, be astonished with terrours, and drowned in
+tears; then shall thy towns sound with lamentations, as thy shores with
+the roarings of the waves." These are the words literally rendered, but
+how are they verified! The lake is dry, the stone is turned up, but
+there is no appearance of this dismal scene. Is not all, at home,
+satisfaction and tranquillity? all, abroad, submission and compliance?
+Is it the interest, or inclination, of any prince, or state, to draw a
+sword against us? and are we not, nevertheless, secured by a numerous
+standing army, and a king who is, himself, an army? Have our troops any
+other employment than to march to a review? Have our fleets encountered
+any thing but winds and worms? To me the present state of the nation
+seems so far from any resemblance to the noise and agitation of a
+tempestuous sea, that it may be much more properly compared to the dead
+stillness of the waves before a storm.
+
+  "Nam foecunda rubri
+  Serpent per prata colubri,
+  Gramina vastantes,
+  Flores fructusque vorantes,
+  Omnia foedantes,
+  Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
+  Quanquam haud pugnaces,
+  Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
+  Fures absque timore,
+  Et pingues absque labore."
+
+  "Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
+  And rapine and pollution mark their way;
+  Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
+  Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
+  The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
+  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r;
+  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants' spoil,
+  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil."
+
+He seems, in these verses, to descend to a particular account of this
+dreadful calamity; but his description is capable of very different
+senses, with almost equal probability:
+
+"Red serpents," says he, (_rubri colubri_ are the Latin words, which the
+poetical translator has rendered _scarlet reptiles_, using a general
+term for a particular, in my opinion, too licentiously,) "Red serpents
+shall wander o'er her meadows, and pillage, and pollute," &c. The
+particular mention of the colour of this destructive viper may be some
+guide to us in this labyrinth, through which, I must acknowledge, I
+cannot yet have any certain path. I confess, that, when a few days after
+my perusal of this passage, I heard of the multitude of lady-birds seen
+in Kent, I began to imagine that these were the fatal insects, by which
+the island was to be laid waste, and, therefore, looked over all
+accounts of them with uncommon concern. But, when my first terrours
+began to subside, I soon recollected that these creatures, having both
+wings and feet, would scarcely have been called serpents; and was
+quickly convinced, by their leaving the country, without doing any hurt,
+that they had no quality, but the colour, in common with the ravagers
+here described.
+
+As I am not able to determine any thing on this question, I shall
+content myself with collecting, into one view, the several properties of
+this pestiferous brood, with which we are threatened, as hints to more
+sagacious and fortunate readers, who, when they shall find any red
+animal, that ranges uncontrouled over the country, and devours the
+labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it
+corruption, rapine, pollution, and devastation; that threatens without
+courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour, they may
+know that the prediction is completed. Let me only remark further, that
+if the style of this, as of all other predictions, is figurative, the
+serpent, a wretched animal that crawls upon the earth, is a proper
+emblem of low views, self-interest, and base submission, as well as of
+cruelty, mischief, and malevolence.
+
+I cannot forbear to observe, in this place, that, as it is of no
+advantage to mankind to be forewarned of inevitable and insurmountable
+misfortunes, the author, probably, intended to hint to his countrymen
+the proper remedies for the evils he describes. In this calamity, on
+which he dwells longest, and which he seems to deplore with the deepest
+sorrow, he points out one circumstance, which may be of great use to
+disperse our apprehensions, and awaken us from that panick which the
+reader must necessarily feel, at the first transient view of this
+dreadful description. These serpents, says the original, are "haud
+pugnaces," of no fighting race; they will threaten, indeed, and hiss,
+and terrify the weak, and timorous, and thoughtless, but have no real
+courage or strength. So that the mischief done by them, their ravages,
+devastations, and robberies, must be only the consequences of cowardice
+in the sufferers, who are harassed and oppressed, only because they
+suffer it without resistance. We are, therefore, to remember, whenever
+the pest, here threatened, shall invade us, that submission and tameness
+will be certain ruin, and that nothing but spirit, vigilance, activity,
+and opposition, can preserve us from the most hateful and reproachful
+misery, that of being plundered, starved, and devoured by vermin and by
+reptiles.
+
+  "Horrida dementes
+  Rapiet discordia gentes;
+  Plurima tunc leges
+  Mutabit, plurima reges
+  Natio."
+
+  "Then o'er the world shall discord stretch her wings,
+  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings."
+
+Here the author takes a general survey of the state of the world, and
+the changes that were to happen, about the time of the discovery of this
+monument, in many nations. As it is not likely that he intended to touch
+upon the affairs of other countries, any farther than the advantage of
+his own made it necessary, we may reasonably conjecture, that he had a
+full and distinct view of all the negotiations, treaties, confederacies,
+of all the triple and quadruple alliances, and all the leagues offensive
+and defensive, in which we were to be engaged, either as principals,
+accessaries, or guarantees, whether by policy, or hope, or fear, or our
+concern for preserving the balance of power, or our tenderness for the
+liberties of Europe. He knew that our negotiators would interest us in
+the affairs of the whole earth, and that no state could either rise or
+decline in power, either extend or lose its dominions, without affecting
+politicks, and influencing our councils.
+
+This passage will bear an easy and natural application to the present
+time, in which so many revolutions have happened, so many nations have
+changed their masters, and so many disputes and commotions are
+embroiling, almost in every part of the world.
+
+That almost every state in Europe and Asia, that is, almost every
+country, then known, is comprehended in this prediction, may be easily
+conceived, but whether it extends to regions at that time undiscovered,
+and portends any alteration of government in Carolina and Georgia, let
+more able or more daring expositors determine:
+
+                      "Conversa
+  In rabiem tunc contremet ursa
+  Cynthia."
+
+  "The bear, enrag'd, th' affrighted moon shall dread."
+
+The terrour created to the moon by the anger of the bear, is a strange
+expression, but may, perhaps, relate to the apprehensions raised in the
+Turkish empire, of which a crescent, or new moon, is the imperial
+standard, by the increasing power of the emperess of Russia, whose
+dominions lie under the northern constellation, called the Bear.
+
+             "Tunc latis
+  Florebunt lilia pratis."
+
+  "The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread."
+
+The lilies borne by the kings of France are an apt representation of
+that country; and their flourishing over wide-extended valleys, seems to
+regard the new increase of the French power, wealth, and dominions by
+the advancement of their trade, and the accession of Lorrain. This is,
+at first view, an obvious, but, perhaps, for that very reason not the
+true sense of the inscription. How can we reconcile it with the
+following passage:
+
+  "Nec fremere audebit
+  Leo, sed violare timebit,
+  Omnia consuetus
+  Populari pascua laetus."
+
+  "Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
+  Despotick o'er the desolated plain,
+  Henceforth, th' inviolable bloom invade,
+  Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade,"
+
+in which the lion that used, at pleasure, to lay the pastures waste, is
+represented, as not daring to touch the lilies, or murmur at their
+growth! The lion, it is true, is one of the supporters of the arms of
+England, and may, therefore, figure our countrymen, who have, in ancient
+times, made France a desert. But can it be said, that the lion dares not
+murmur or rage, (for _fremere_ may import both,) when it is evident,
+that, for many years, this whole kingdom has murmured, however, it may
+be, at present, calm and secure, by its confidence in the wisdom of our
+politicians, and the address of our negotiators:
+
+  "Ante oculos natos
+  Calceatos et cruciatos
+  Jam feret ignavus,
+  Vetitaque libidine pravus."
+
+  "His tortur'd sons shall die before his face,
+  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace."
+
+Here are other things mentioned of the lion, equally unintelligible, if
+we suppose them to be spoken of our nation, as that he lies sluggish,
+and depraved with unlawful lusts, while his offspring is trampled and
+tortured before his eyes. But in what place can the English be said to
+be trampled or tortured? Where are they treated with injustice or
+contempt? What nation is there, from pole to pole, that does not
+reverence the nod of the British king? Is not our commerce
+unrestrained? Are not the riches of the world our own? Do not our ships
+sail unmolested, and our merchants traffick in perfect security? Is not
+the very name of England treated by foreigners in a manner never known
+before? Or if some slight injuries have been offered; if some of our
+petty traders have been stopped, our possessions threatened; our effects
+confiscated; our flag insulted; or our ears cropped, have we lain
+sluggish and unactive? Have not our fleets been seen in triumph at
+Spithead? Did not Hosier visit the Bastimentos, and is not Haddock now
+stationed at Port Mahon?
+
+  "En quoque quod mirum,
+  Quod dicas denique dirum,
+  Sanguinem equus sugit,
+  Neque bellua victa remugit!"
+
+  "And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
+  Nor shall the passive coward once complain!"
+
+It is farther asserted, in the concluding lines, that the horse shall
+suck the lion's blood. This is still more obscure than any of the rest;
+and, indeed, the difficulties I have met with, ever since the first
+mention of the lion, are so many and great, that I had, in utter despair
+of surmounting them, once desisted from my design of publishing any
+thing upon this subject; but was prevailed upon by the importunity of
+some friends, to whom I can deny nothing, to resume my design; and I
+must own, that nothing animated me so much as the hope, they flattered
+me with, that my essay might be inserted in the Gazetteer, and, so,
+become of service to my country.
+
+That a weaker animal should suck the blood of a stronger, without
+resistance, is wholly improbable, and inconsistent with the regard for
+self-preservation, so observable in every order and species of beings.
+We must, therefore, necessarily endeavour after some figurative sense,
+not liable to so insuperable an objection.
+
+Were I to proceed in the same tenour of interpretation, by which I
+explained the moon and the lilies, I might observe, that a horse is the
+arms of H----. But how, then, does the horse suck the lion's blood!
+Money is the blood of the body politick.--But my zeal for the present
+happy establishment will not suffer me to pursue a train of thought,
+that leads to such shocking conclusions. The idea is detestable, and
+such as, it ought to be hoped, can enter into the mind of none but a
+virulent republican, or bloody jacobite. There is not one honest man in
+the nation unconvinced, how weak an attempt it would be to endeavour to
+confute this insinuation; an insinuation which no party will dare to
+abet, and of so fatal and destructive a tendency, that it may prove
+equally dangerous to the author, whether true or false.
+
+As, therefore, I can form no hypothesis, on which a consistent
+interpretation may be built, I must leave these loose and unconnected
+hints entirely to the candour of the reader, and confess, that I do not
+think my scheme of explication just, since I cannot apply it, throughout
+the whole, without involving myself in difficulties, from which the
+ablest interpreter would find it no easy matter to get free.
+
+Being, therefore, convinced, upon an attentive and deliberate review of
+these observations, and a consultation with my friends, of whose
+abilities I have the highest esteem, and whose impartiality, sincerity,
+and probity, I have long known, and frequently experienced, that my
+conjectures are, in general, very uncertain, often improbable, and,
+sometimes, little less than apparently false, I was long in doubt,
+whether I ought not entirely to suppress them, and content myself with
+publishing in the Gazetteer the inscription, as it stands engraven on
+the stone, without translation or commentary, unless that ingenious and
+learned society should favour the world with their own remarks.
+
+To this scheme, which I thought extremely well calculated for the
+publick good, and, therefore, very eagerly communicated to my
+acquaintance and fellow-students, some objections were started, which,
+as I had not foreseen, I was unable to answer.
+
+It was observed, first, that the daily dissertations, published by that
+fraternity, are written with such profundity of sentiment, and filled
+with such uncommon modes of expression, as to be themselves sufficiently
+unintelligible to vulgar readers; and that, therefore, the venerable
+obscurity of this prediction, would much less excite the curiosity, and
+awaken the attention of mankind, than if it were exhibited in any other
+paper, and placed in opposition to the clear and easy style of an author
+generally understood.
+
+To this argument, formidable as it was, I answered, after a short pause,
+that, with all proper deference to the great sagacity and advanced age
+of the objector, I could not but conceive, that his position confuted
+itself, and that a reader of the Gazetteer, being, by his own
+confession, accustomed to encounter difficulties, and search for
+meaning, where it was not easily to be found, must be better prepared,
+than any other man, for the perusal of these ambiguous expressions; and
+that, besides, the explication of this stone, being a task which nothing
+could surmount but the most acute penetration, joined with indefatigable
+patience, seemed, in reality, reserved for those who have given proofs
+of both, in the highest degree, by reading and understanding the
+Gazetteer.
+
+This answer satisfied every one but the objector, who, with an obstinacy
+not very uncommon, adhered to his own opinion, though he could not
+defend it; and, not being able to make any reply, attempted to laugh
+away my argument, but found the rest of my friends so little disposed to
+jest upon this important question, that he was forced to restrain his
+mirth, and content himself with a sullen and contemptuous silence.
+
+Another of my friends, whom I had assembled on this occasion, having
+owned the solidity of my answer to the first objection, offered a
+second, which, in his opinion, could not be so easily defeated.
+
+"I have observed," says he, "that the essays in the Gazetteer, though
+written on very important subjects, by the ablest hands which ambition
+can incite, friendship engage, or money procure, have never, though
+circulated through the kingdom with the utmost application, had any
+remarkable influence upon the people. I know many persons, of no common
+capacity, that hold it sufficient to peruse these papers four times a
+year; and others, who receive them regularly, and, without looking upon
+them, treasure them under ground for the benefit of posterity. So that
+the inscription may, by being inserted there, sink, once more, into
+darkness and oblivion, instead of informing the age, and assisting our
+present ministry in the regulation of their measures."
+
+Another observed, that nothing was more unreasonable than my hope, that
+any remarks or elucidations would be drawn up by that fraternity, since
+their own employments do not allow them any leisure for such attempts.
+Every one knows that panegyrick is, in its own nature, no easy task, and
+that to defend is much more difficult than to attack; consider, then,
+says he, what industry, what assiduity it must require, to praise and
+vindicate a ministry like ours.
+
+It was hinted, by another, that an inscription, which had no relation to
+any particular set of men amongst us, but was composed many ages before
+the parties, which now divide the nation, had a being, could not be so
+properly conveyed to the world, by means of a paper dedicated to
+political debates.
+
+Another, to whom I had communicated my own observations, in a more
+private manner, and who had inserted some of his own arguments, declared
+it, as his opinion, that they were, though very controvertible and
+unsatisfactory, yet too valuable to be lost; and that though to insert
+the inscription in a paper, of which such numbers are daily distributed
+at the expense of the publick, would, doubtless, be very agreeable to
+the generous design of the author; yet he hoped, that as all the
+students, either of politicks or antiquities, would receive both
+pleasure and improvement from the dissertation with which it is
+accompanied, none of them would regret to pay for so agreeable an
+entertainment.
+
+It cannot be wondered, that I have yielded, at last, to such weighty
+reasons, and such insinuating compliments, and chosen to gratify, at
+once, the inclinations of friends, and the vanity of an author. Yet, I
+should think, I had very imperfectly discharged my duty to my country,
+did I not warn all, whom either interest or curiosity shall incite to
+the perusal of this treatise, not to lay any stress upon my
+explications.
+
+How a more complete and indisputable interpretation may be obtained, it
+is not easy to say. This will, I suppose, be readily granted, that it is
+not to be expected from any single hand, but from the joint inquiries,
+and united labours, of a numerous society of able men, instituted by
+authority, selected with great discernment and impartiality, and
+supported at the charge of the nation.
+
+I am very far from apprehending, that any proposal for the attainment of
+so desirable an end, will be rejected by this inquisitive and
+enlightened age, and shall, therefore, lay before the publick the
+project which I have formed, and matured by long consideration, for the
+institution of a society of commentators upon this inscription.
+
+I humbly propose, that thirty of the most distinguished genius be chosen
+for this employment, half from the inns of court, and half from the
+army, and be incorporated into a society for five years, under the name
+of the Society of Commentators.
+
+That great undertakings can only be executed by a great number of hands,
+is too evident to require any proof; and, I am afraid, all that read
+this scheme will think, that it is chiefly defective in this respect,
+and that when they reflect how many commissaries were thought necessary
+at Seville, and that even their negotiations entirely miscarried,
+probably for want of more associates, they will conclude, that I have
+proposed impossibilities, and that the ends of the institution will be
+defeated by an injudicious and ill timed frugality.
+
+But if it be considered, how well the persons, I recommend, must have
+been qualified, by their education and profession, for the provinces
+assigned them, the objection will grow less weighty than it appears. It
+is well known to be the constant study of the lawyers to discover, in
+acts of parliament, meanings which escaped the committees that drew them
+up, and the senates that passed them into laws, and to explain wills,
+into a sense wholly contrary to the intention of the testator. How
+easily may an adept in these admirable and useful arts, penetrate into
+the most hidden import of this prediction? A man, accustomed to satisfy
+himself with the obvious and natural meaning of a sentence, does not
+easily shake off his habit; but a true-bred lawyer never contents
+himself with one sense, when there is another to be found.
+
+Nor will the beneficial consequences of this scheme terminate in the
+explication of this monument: they will extend much further; for the
+commentators, having sharpened and improved their sagacity by this long
+and difficult course of study, will, when they return into publick life,
+be of wonderful service to the government, in examining pamphlets,
+songs, and journals, and in drawing up informations, indictments, and
+instructions for special juries. They will be wonderfully fitted for the
+posts of attorney and solicitor general, but will excel, above all, as
+licensers for the stage.
+
+The gentlemen of the army will equally adorn the province to which I
+have assigned them, of setting the discoveries and sentiments of their
+associates in a clear and agreeable light. The lawyers are well known
+not to be very happy in expressing their ideas, being, for the most
+part, able to make themselves understood by none but their own
+fraternity. But the geniuses of the army have sufficient opportunities,
+by their free access to the levee and the toilet, their constant
+attendance on balls and assemblies, and that abundant leisure which they
+enjoy, beyond any other body of men, to acquaint themselves with every
+new word, and prevailing mode of expression, and to attain the utmost
+nicety, and most polished prettiness of language.
+
+It will be necessary, that, during their attendance upon the society,
+they be exempt from any obligation to appear on Hyde park; and that upon
+no emergency, however pressing, they be called away from their studies,
+unless the nation be in immediate danger, by an insurrection of weavers,
+colliers, or smugglers.
+
+There may not, perhaps, be found in the army such a number of men, who
+have ever condescended to pass through the labours, and irksome forms of
+education in use, among the lower classes of people, or submitted to
+learn the mercantile and plebeian arts of writing and reading. I must
+own, that though I entirely agree with the notions of the uselessness of
+any such trivial accomplishments in the military profession, and of
+their inconsistency with more valuable attainments; though I am
+convinced, that a man who can read and write becomes, at least, a very
+disagreeable companion to his brother soldiers, if he does not
+absolutely shun their acquaintance; that he is apt to imbibe, from his
+books, odd notions of liberty and independency, and even, sometimes, of
+morality and virtue, utterly inconsistent, with the desirable character
+of a pretty gentleman; though writing frequently stains the whitest
+finger, and reading has a natural tendency to cloud the aspect, and
+depress that airy and thoughtless vivacity, which is the distinguishing
+characteristick of a modern warriour; yet, on this single occasion, I
+cannot but heartily wish, that, by a strict search, there may be
+discovered, in the army, fifteen men who can write and read.
+
+I know that the knowledge of the alphabet is so disreputable among these
+gentlemen, that those who have, by ill fortune, formerly been taught it,
+have partly forgot it by disuse, and partly concealed it from the world,
+to avoid the railleries and insults to which their education might make
+them liable: I propose, therefore, that all the officers of the army may
+be examined upon oath, one by one, and that if fifteen cannot be
+selected, who are, at present, so qualified, the deficiency may be
+supplied out of those who, having once learned to read, may, perhaps,
+with the assistance of a master, in a short time, refresh their
+memories.
+
+It may be thought, at the first sight of this proposal, that it might
+not be improper to assign, to every commentator, a reader and secretary;
+but, it may be easily conceived, that not only the publick might murmur
+at such an addition of expense, but that, by the unfaithfulness or
+negligence of their servants, the discoveries of the society may be
+carried to foreign courts, and made use of to the disadvantage of our
+own country.
+
+For the residence of this society, I cannot think any place more proper
+than Greenwich hospital, in which they may have thirty apartments fitted
+up for them, that they may make their observations in private, and meet,
+once a day, in the painted hall to compare them.
+
+If the establishment of this society be thought a matter of too much
+importance to be deferred till the new buildings are finished, it will
+be necessary to make room for their reception, by the expulsion of such
+of the seamen as have no pretensions to the settlement there, but
+fractured limbs, loss of eyes, or decayed constitutions, who have lately
+been admitted in such numbers, that it is now scarce possible to
+accommodate a nobleman's groom, footman, or postilion, in a manner
+suitable to the dignity of his profession, and the original design of
+the foundation.
+
+The situation of Greenwich will naturally dispose them to reflection and
+study: and particular caution ought to be used, lest any interruption be
+suffered to dissipate their attention, or distract their meditations:
+for this reason, all visits and letters from ladies are strictly to be
+prohibited; and if any of the members shall be detected with a lapdog,
+pack of cards, box of dice, draught-table, snuffbox, or looking-glass,
+he shall, for the first offence, be confined for three months to water
+gruel, and, for the second, be expelled the society.
+
+Nothing now remains, but that an estimate be made of the expenses
+necessary for carrying on this noble and generous design. The salary to
+be allowed each professor cannot be less than 2,000_l_. a year, which
+is, indeed, more than the regular stipend of a commissioner of excise;
+but, it must be remembered, that the commentators have a much more
+difficult and important employment, and can expect their salaries but
+for the short space of five years; whereas a commissioner (unless he
+imprudently suffers himself to be carried away by a whimsical tenderness
+for his country) has an establishment for life.
+
+It will be necessary to allow the society, in general, 30,000_l_.
+yearly, for the support of the publick table, and 40,000_l_. for secret
+service.
+
+Thus will the ministry have a fair prospect of obtaining the full sense
+and import of the prediction, without burdening the publick with more
+than 650,000_l_. which may be paid out of the sinking fund; or, if it be
+not thought proper to violate that sacred treasure, by converting any
+part of it to uses not primarily intended, may be easily raised by a
+general poll-tax, or excise upon bread.
+
+Having now completed my scheme, a scheme calculated for the publick
+benefit, without regard to any party, I entreat all sects, factions, and
+distinctions of men among us, to lay aside, for a time, their
+party-feuds and petty animosities; and, by a warm concurrence on this
+urgent occasion, teach posterity to sacrifice every private interest to
+the advantage of their country.
+
+[In this performance, which was first printed in the year 1739, Dr.
+Johnson, "in a feigned inscription, supposed to have been found in
+Norfolk, the country of sir Robert Walpole, then the obnoxious prime
+minister of this country, inveighs against the Brunswick succession, and
+the measures of government consequent upon it. To this supposed
+prophecy, he added a commentory, making each expression apply to the
+times, with warm anti-Hanoverian zeal."--Boswell's Life, i.]
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN 1756 [23].
+
+
+The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed
+of the national affairs, and in which he has a right to have that
+expectation gratified. For whatever may be urged by ministers, or those
+whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the
+necessity of confidence in our governours, and the presumption of
+prying, with profane eyes, into the recesses of policy, it is evident,
+that this reverence can be claimed only by counsels yet unexecuted, and
+projects suspended in deliberation. But when a design has ended in
+miscarriage or success, when every eye, and every ear, is witness to
+general discontent, or general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to
+disentangle confusion, and illustrate obscurity; to show by what causes
+every event was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate;
+to lay down, with distinct particularity, what rumour always huddles in
+general exclamations, or perplexes by undigested narratives; to show
+whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected;
+and honestly to lay before the people, what inquiry can gather of the
+past, and conjecture can estimate of the future.
+
+The general subject of the present war is sufficiently known. It is
+allowed, on both sides, that hostilities began in America, and that the
+French and English quarrelled about the boundaries of their settlements,
+about grounds and rivers, to which, I am afraid, neither can show any
+other right than that of power, and which neither can occupy but by
+usurpation, and the dispossession of the natural lords and original
+inhabitants. Such is the contest, that no honest man can heartily wish
+success to either party.
+
+It may, indeed, be alleged, that the Indians have granted large tracts
+of land both to one and to the other; but these grants can add little to
+the validity of our titles, till it be experienced, how they were
+obtained; for, if they were extorted by violence, or induced by fraud;
+by threats, which the miseries of other nations had shown not to be
+vain; or by promises, of which no performance was ever intended, what
+are they but new modes of usurpation, but new instances of crueltv and
+treachery?
+
+And, indeed, what but false hope, or resistless terrour, can prevail
+upon a weaker nation to invite a stronger into their country, to give
+their lands to strangers, whom no affinity of manners, or similitude of
+opinion, can be said to recommend, to permit them to build towns, from
+which the natives are excluded, to raise fortresses, by which they are
+intimidated, to settle themselves with such strength, that they cannot
+afterwards be expelled, but are, for ever, to remain the masters of the
+original inhabitants, the dictators of their conduct, and the arbiters
+of their fate?
+
+When we see men acting thus against the precepts of reason, and the
+instincts of nature, we cannot hesitate to determine, that, by some
+means or other, they were debarred from choice; that they were lured or
+frighted into compliance; that they either granted only what they found
+impossible to keep, or expected advantages upon the faith of their new
+inmates, which there was no purpose to confer upon them. It cannot be
+said, that the Indians originally invited us to their coasts; we went,
+uncalled and unexpected, to nations who had no imagination that the
+earth contained any inhabitants, so distant and so different from
+themselves. We astonished them with our ships, with our arms, and with
+our general superiority. They yielded to us, as to beings of another and
+higher race, sent among them from some unknown regions, with power which
+naked Indians could not resist and, which they were, therefore, by every
+act of humility, to propitiate, that they, who could so easily destroy,
+might be induced to spare.
+
+To this influence, and to this only, are to be attributed all the
+cessions and submissions of the Indian princes, if, indeed, any such
+cessions were ever made, of which we have no witness, but those who
+claim from them; and there is no great malignity in suspecting, that
+those who have robbed have also lied.
+
+Some colonies, indeed, have been established more peaceably than others.
+The utmost extremity of wrong has not always been practised; but those
+that have settled in the new world, on the fairest terms, have no other
+merit than that of a scrivener, who ruins in silence, over a plunderer
+that seizes by force; all have taken what had other owners, and all have
+had recourse to arms, rather than quit the prey on which they had
+fastened.
+
+The American dispute, between the French and us, is, therefore, only the
+quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger; but, as robbers
+have terms of confederacy, which they are obliged to observe, as members
+of the gang, so the English and French may have relative rights, and do
+injustice to each other, while both are injuring the Indians. And such,
+indeed, is the present contest: they have parted the northern continent
+of America between them, and are now disputing about their boundaries,
+and each is endeavouring the destruction of the other, by the help of
+the Indians, whose interest it is that both should be destroyed.
+
+Both nations clamour, with great vehemence, about infractions of limits,
+violation of treaties, open usurpation, insidious artifices, and breach
+of faith. The English rail at the perfidious French, and the French at
+the encroaching English: they quote treaties on each side, charge each
+other with aspiring to universal monarchy, and complain, on either part,
+of the insecurity of possession near such turbulent neighbours.
+
+Through this mist of controversy, it can raise no wonder, that the truth
+is not easily discovered. When a quarrel has been long carried on
+between individuals, it is often very hard to tell by whom it was begun.
+Every fact is darkened by distance, by interest, and by multitudes.
+Information is not easily procured from far; those whom the truth will
+not favour, will not step, voluntarily, forth to tell it; and where
+there are many agents, it is easy for every single action to be
+concealed.
+
+All these causes concur to the obscurity of the question: By whom were
+hostilities in America commenced? Perhaps there never can be remembered
+a time, in which hostilities had ceased. Two powerful colonies, inflamed
+with immemorial rivalry, and placed out of the superintendence of the
+mother nations, were not likely to be long at rest. Some opposition was
+always going forward, some mischief was every day done or meditated, and
+the borderers were always better pleased with what they could snatch
+from their neighbours, than what they had of their own.
+
+In this disposition to reciprocal invasion, a cause of dispute never
+could be wanting. The forests and deserts of America are without
+landmarks, and, therefore, cannot be particularly specified in
+stipulations; the appellations of those wide-extended regions have, in
+every mouth, a different meaning, and are understood, on either side, as
+inclination happens to contract or extend them. Who has yet pretended to
+define, how much of America is included in Brazil, Mexico, or Peru? It
+is almost as easy to divide the Atlantick ocean by a line, as clearly to
+ascertain the limits of those uncultivated, uninhabitable, unmeasured
+regions.
+
+It is, likewise, to be considered, that contracts concerning boundaries
+are often left vague and indefinite, without necessity, by the desire of
+each party, to interpret the ambiguity to its own advantage, when a fit
+opportunity shall be found. In forming stipulations, the commissaries
+are often ignorant, and often negligent; they are, sometimes, weary with
+debate, and contract a tedious discussion into general terms, or refer
+it to a former treaty, which was never understood. The weaker part is
+always afraid of requiring explanations, and the stronger always has an
+interest in leaving the question undecided: thus it will happen, without
+great caution on either side, that, after long treaties, solemnly
+ratified, the rights that had been disputed are still equally open to
+controversy.
+
+In America, it may easily be supposed, that there are tracts of land not
+yet claimed by either party, and, therefore, mentioned in no treaties;
+which yet one, or the other, may be afterwards inclined to occupy; but
+to these vacant and unsettled countries each nation may pretend, as each
+conceives itself entitled to all that is not expressly granted to the
+other.
+
+Here, then, is a perpetual ground of contest; every enlargement of the
+possessions of either will be considered as something taken from the
+other, and each will endeavour to regain what had never been claimed,
+but that the other occupied it.
+
+Thus obscure in its original is the American contest. It is difficult to
+find the first invader, or to tell where invasion properly begins; but,
+I suppose, it is not to be doubted, that after the last war, when the
+French had made peace with such apparent superiority, they naturally
+began to treat us with less respect in distant parts of the world, and
+to consider us, as a people from whom they had nothing to fear, and who
+could no longer presume to contravene their designs, or to check their
+progress.
+
+The power of doing wrong with impunity seldom waits long for the will;
+and, it is reasonable to believe, that, in America, the French would
+avow their purpose of aggrandizing themselves with, at least, as little
+reserve as in Europe. We may, therefore, readily believe, that they were
+unquiet neighbours, and had no great regard to right, which they
+believed us no longer able to enforce.
+
+That in forming a line of forts behind our colonies, if in no other part
+of their attempt, they had acted against the general intention, if not
+against the literal terms of treaties, can scarcely be denied; for it
+never can be supposed, that we intended to be inclosed between the sea
+and the French garrisons, or preclude ourselves from extending our
+plantations backwards, to any length that our convenience should
+require.
+
+With dominion is conferred every thing that can secure dominion. He that
+has the coast, has, likewise, the sea, to a certain distance; he that
+possesses a fortress, has the right of prohibiting another fortress to
+be built within the command of its cannon. When, therefore, we planted
+the coast of North America, we supposed the possession of the inland
+region granted to an indefinite extent; and every nation that settled in
+that part of the world, seems, by the permission of every other nation,
+to have made the same supposition in its own favour.
+
+Here, then, perhaps, it will be safest to fix the justice of our cause;
+here we are apparently and indisputably injured, and this injury may,
+according to the practice of nations, be justly resented. Whether we
+have not, in return, made some encroachments upon them, must be left
+doubtful, till our practices on the Ohio shall be stated and vindicated.
+There are no two nations, confining on each other, between whom a war
+may not always be kindled with plausible pretences on either part, as
+there is always passing between them a reciprocation of injuries, and
+fluctuation of encroachments.
+
+From the conclusion of the last peace, perpetual complaints of the
+supplantations and invasions of the French have been sent to Europe,
+from our colonies, and transmitted to our ministers at Paris, where good
+words were, sometimes, given us, and the practices of the American
+commanders were, sometimes, disowned; but no redress was ever obtained,
+nor is it probable, that any prohibition was sent to America. We were
+still amused with such doubtful promises, as those who are afraid of war
+are ready to interpret in their own favour, and the French pushed
+forward their line of fortresses, and seemed to resolve, that before our
+complaints were finally dismissed, all remedy should be hopeless.
+
+We, likewise, endeavoured, at the same time, to form a barrier against
+the Canadians, by sending a colony to New Scotland, a cold uncomfortable
+tract of ground; of which we had long the nominal possession, before we
+really began to occupy it. To this, those were invited whom the
+cessation of war deprived of employment, and made burdensome to their
+country; and settlers were allured thither by many fallacious
+descriptions of fertile valleys and clear skies. What effects these
+pictures of American happiness had upon my countrymen, I was never
+informed, but, I suppose, very few sought provision in those frozen
+regions, whom guilt, or poverty, did not drive from their native
+country. About the boundaries of this new colony there were some
+disputes; but, as there was nothing yet worth a contest, the power of
+the French was not much exerted on that side; some disturbance was,
+however, given, and some skirmishes ensued. But, perhaps, being peopled
+chiefly with soldiers, who would rather live by plunder than by
+agriculture, and who consider war as their best trade, New Scotland
+would be more obstinately defended than some settlements of far greater
+value; and the French are too well informed of their own interest, to
+provoke hostility for no advantage, or to select that country for
+invasion, where they must hazard much and can win little. They,
+therefore, pressed on southward, behind our ancient and wealthy
+settlements, and built fort after fort, at such distances that they
+might conveniently relieve one another, invade our colonies with sudden
+incursions, and retire to places of safety, before our people could
+unite to oppose them.
+
+This design of the French has been long formed, and long known, both in
+America and Europe, and might, at first, have been easily repressed, had
+force been used instead of expostulation. When the English attempted a
+settlement upon the island of St. Lucia, the French, whether justly or
+not, considering it as neutral, and forbidden to be occupied by either
+nation, immediately landed upon it, and destroyed the houses, wasted the
+plantations, and drove, or carried away, the inhabitants. This was done
+in the time of peace, when mutual professions of friendship were daily
+exchanged by the two courts, and was not considered as any violation of
+treaties, nor was any more than a very soft remonstrance made on our
+part.
+
+The French, therefore, taught us how to act; but an Hanoverian quarrel
+with the house of Austria, for some time, induced us to court, at any
+expense, the alliance of a nation, whose very situation makes them our
+enemies. We suffered them to destroy our settlements, and to advance
+their own, which we had an equal right to attack. The time, however,
+came, at last, when we ventured to quarrel with Spain, and then France
+no longer suffered the appearance of peace to subsist between us, but
+armed in defence of her ally.
+
+The events of the war are well known: we pleased ourselves with a
+victory at Dettingen, where we left our wounded men to the care of our
+enemies, but our army was broken at Fontenoy and Val; and though, after
+the disgrace which we suffered in the Mediterranean, we had some naval
+success, and an accidental dearth made peace necessary for the French,
+yet they prescribed the conditions, obliged us to give hostages, and
+acted as conquerors, though as conquerors of moderation.
+
+In this war the Americans distinguished themselves in a manner unknown
+and unexpected. The New English raised an army, and, under the command
+of Pepperel, took cape Breton, with the assistance of the fleet. This is
+the most important fortress in America. We pleased ourselves so much
+with the acquisition, that we could not think of restoring it; and,
+among the arguments used to inflame the people against Charles Stuart,
+it was very clamorously urged, that if he gained the kingdom, he would
+give cape Breton back to the French.
+
+The French, however, had a more easy expedient to regain cape Breton,
+than by exalting Charles Stuart to the English throne. They took, in
+their turn, fort St. George, and had our East India company wholly in
+their power, whom they restored, at the peace, to their former
+possessions, that they may continue to export our silver.
+
+Cape Breton, therefore, was restored, and the French were reestablished
+in America, with equal power and greater spirit, having lost nothing by
+the war, which they had before gained.
+
+To the general reputation of their arms, and that habitual superiority
+which they derive from it, they owe their power in America, rather than
+to any real strength or circumstances of advantage. Their numbers are
+yet not great; their trade, though daily improved, is not very
+extensive; their country is barren; their fortresses, though numerous,
+are weak, and rather shelters from wild beasts, or savage nations, than
+places built for defence against bombs or cannons. Cape Breton has been
+found not to be impregnable; nor, if we consider the state of the places
+possessed by the two nations in America, is there any reason upon which
+the French should have presumed to molest us, but that they thought our
+spirit so broken, that we durst not resist them; and in this opinion our
+long forbearance easily confirmed them.
+
+We forgot, or rather avoided to think, that what we delayed to do, must
+be done at last, and done with more difficulty, as it was delayed
+longer; that while we were complaining, and they were eluding, or
+answering our complaints, fort was rising upon fort, and one invasion
+made a precedent for another.
+
+This confidence of the French is exalted by some real advantages. If
+they possess, in those countries, less than we, they have more to gain,
+and less to hazard; if they are less numerous, they are better united.
+
+The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same
+interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means. They are subject to
+a governour, commissioned by an absolute monarch, and participating the
+authority of his master. Designs are, therefore, formed without debate,
+and executed without impediment. They have yet more martial than
+mercantile ambition, and seldom suffer their military schemes to be
+entangled with collateral projects of gain: they have no wish but for
+conquest, of which they justly consider riches as the consequence.
+
+Some advantages they will always have, as invaders. They make war at the
+hazard of their enemies: the contest being carried on in our
+territories, we must lose more by a victory, than they will suffer by a
+defeat. They will subsist, while they stay, upon our plantations; and,
+perhaps, destroy them, when they can stay no longer. If we pursue them,
+and carry the war into their dominions, our difficulties will increase
+every step as we advance, for we shall leave plenty behind us, and find
+nothing in Canada, but lakes and forests, barren and trackless; our
+enemies will shut themselves up in their forts, against which it is
+difficult to bring cannon through so rough a country, and which, if they
+are provided with good magazines, will soon starve those who besiege
+them.
+
+All these are the natural effects of their government and situation;
+they are accidentally more formidable, as they are less happy. But the
+favour of the Indians, which they enjoy, with very few exceptions, among
+all the nations of the northern continent, we ought to consider with
+other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been
+careful to deserve it. The French, by having these savage nations on
+their side, are always supplied with spies and guides, and with
+auxiliaries, like the Tartars to the Turks, or the Hussars to the
+Germans, of no great use against troops ranged in order of battle, but
+very well qualified to maintain a war among woods and rivulets, where
+much mischief may be done by unexpected onsets, and safety be obtained
+by quick retreats. They can waste a colony by sudden inroads, surprise
+the straggling planters, frighten the inhabitants into towns, hinder the
+cultivation of lands, and starve those whom they are not able to conquer
+[24].
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.
+
+Written in the year 1756 [25].
+
+
+The present system of English politicks may properly be said to have
+taken rise in the reign of queen Elizabeth. At this time the protestant
+religion was established, which naturally allied us to the reformed
+state, and made all the popish powers our enemies.
+
+We began in the same reign to extend our trade, by which we made it
+necessary to ourselves to watch the commercial progress of our
+neighbours; and if not to incommode and obstruct their traffick, to
+hinder them from impairing ours.
+
+We then, likewise, settled colonies in America, which was become the
+great scene of European ambition; for, seeing with what treasures the
+Spaniards were annually enriched from Mexico and Peru, every nation
+imagined, that an American conquest, or plantation, would certainly fill
+the mother country with gold and silver. This produced a large extent of
+very distant dominions, of which we, at this time, neither knew nor
+foresaw the advantage or incumbrance; we seem to have snatched them into
+our hands, upon no very just principles of policy, only because every
+state, according to a prejudice of long continuance, concludes itself
+more powerful, as its territories become larger.
+
+The discoveries of new regions, which were then every day made, the
+profit of remote traffick, and the necessity of long voyages, produced,
+in a few years, a great multiplication of shipping. The sea was
+considered as the wealthy element; and, by degrees, a new kind of
+sovereignty arose, called naval dominion.
+
+As the chief trade of the world, so the chief maritime power was at
+first in the hands of the Portuguese and Spaniards, who, by a compact,
+to which the consent of other princes was not asked, had divided the
+newly discovered countries between them; but the crown of Portugal
+having fallen to the king of Spain, or being seized by him, he was
+master of the ships of the two nations, with which he kept all the
+coasts of Europe in alarm, till the armada, which he had raised, at a
+vast expense, for the conquest of England, was destroyed, which put a
+stop, and almost an end, to the naval power of the Spaniards.
+
+At this time, the Dutch, who were oppressed by the Spaniards, and feared
+yet greater evils than they felt, resolved no longer to endure the
+insolence of their masters: they, therefore, revolted; and, after a
+struggle, in which they were assisted by the money and forces of
+Elizabeth, erected an independent and powerful commonwealth.
+
+When the inhabitants of the Low Countries had formed their system of
+government, and some remission of the war gave them leisure to form
+schemes of future prosperity, they easily perceived, that, as their
+territories were narrow, and their numbers small, they could preserve
+themselves only by that power which is the consequence of wealth; and
+that, by a people whose country produced only the necessaries of life,
+wealth was not to be acquired, but from foreign dominions, and by the
+transportation of the products of one country into another.
+
+From this necessity, thus justly estimated, arose a plan of commerce,
+which was, for many years, prosecuted with industry and success, perhaps
+never seen in the world before, and by which the poor tenants of
+mud-walled villages, and impassable bogs, erected themselves into high
+and mighty states, who put the greatest monarchs at defiance, whose
+alliance was courted by the proudest, and whose power was dreaded by the
+fiercest nation. By the establishment of this state, there arose, to
+England, a new ally, and a new rival.
+
+At this time, which seems to be the period destined for the change of
+the face of Europe, France began first to rise into power, and, from
+defending her own provinces with difficulty and fluctuating success, to
+threaten her neighbours with encroachments and devastations. Henry the
+fourth having, after a long struggle, obtained the crown, found it easy
+to govern nobles, exhausted and wearied with a long civil war, and
+having composed the disputes between the protestants and papists, so as
+to obtain, at least, a truce for both parties, was at leisure to
+accumulate treasure, and raise forces, which he purposed to have
+employed in a design of settling for ever the balance of Europe. Of this
+great scheme he lived not to see the vanity, or to feel the
+disappointment; for he was murdered in the midst of his mighty
+preparations.
+
+The French, however, were, in this reign, taught to know their own
+power; and the great designs of a king, whose wisdom they had so long
+experienced, even though they were not brought to actual experiment,
+disposed them to consider themselves as masters of the destiny of their
+neighbours; and, from that time, he that shall nicely examine their
+schemes and conduct, will, I believe, find that they began to take an
+air of superiority, to which they had never pretended before; and that
+they have been always employed, more or less openly, upon schemes of
+dominion, though with frequent interruptions from domestick troubles,
+and with those intermissions which human counsels must always suffer, as
+men intrusted with great affairs are dissipated in youth, and languid in
+age; are embarrassed by competitors, or, without any external reason,
+change their minds.
+
+France was now no longer in dread of insults, and invasions from
+England. She was not only able to maintain her own territories, but
+prepared, on all occasions, to invade others; and we had now a
+neighbour, whose interest it was to be an enemy, and who has disturbed
+us, from that time to this, with open hostility, or secret machinations.
+
+Such was the state of England, and its neighbours, when Elizabeth left
+the crown to James of Scotland. It has not, I think, been frequently
+observed, by historians, at how critical a time the union of the two
+kingdoms happened. Had England and Scotland continued separate kingdoms,
+when France was established in the full possession of her natural power,
+the Scots, in continuance of the league, which it would now have been
+more than ever their interest to observe, would, upon every instigation
+of the French court, have raised an army with French money, and harassed
+us with an invasion, in which they would have thought themselves
+successful, whatever numbers they might have left behind them. To a
+people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never
+hurtful. The pay of France, and the plunder of the northern countries,
+would always have tempted them to hazard their lives, and we should have
+been under a necessity of keeping a line of garrisons along our border.
+
+This trouble, however, we escaped, by the accession of king James; but
+it is uncertain, whether his natural disposition did not injure us more
+than this accidental condition happened to benefit us. He was a man of
+great theoretical knowledge, but of no practical wisdom; he was very
+well able to discern the true interest of himself, his kingdom, and his
+posterity, but sacrificed it, upon all occasions, to his present
+pleasure or his present ease; so conscious of his own knowledge and
+abilities, that he would not suffer a minister to govern, and so lax of
+attention, and timorous of opposition, that he was not able to govern
+for himself. With this character, James quietly saw the Dutch invade our
+commerce; the French grew every day stronger and stronger; and the
+protestant interest, of which he boasted himself the head, was oppressed
+on every side, while he writ, and hunted, and despatched ambassadours,
+who, when their master's weakness was once known, were treated, in
+foreign courts, with very little ceremony. James, however, took care to
+be flattered at home, and was neither angry nor ashamed at the
+appearance that he made in other countries.
+
+Thus England grew weaker, or, what is, in political estimation, the same
+thing, saw her neighbours grow stronger, without receiving
+proportionable additions to her own power. Not that the mischief was so
+great as it is generally conceived or represented; for, I believe, it
+may be made to appear, that the wealth of the nation was, in this reign,
+very much increased, though, that of the crown was lessened. Our
+reputation for war was impaired; but commerce seems to have been carried
+on with great industry and vigour, and nothing was wanting, but that we
+should have defended ourselves from the encroachments of our neighbours.
+
+The inclination to plant colonies in America still continued, and this
+being the only project in which men of adventure and enterprise could
+exert their qualities, in a pacifick reign, multitudes, who were
+discontented with their condition in their native country, and such
+multitudes there will always be, sought relief, or, at least, a change,
+in the western regions, where they settled, in the northern part of the
+continent, at a distance from the Spaniards, at that time almost the
+only nation that had any power or will to obstruct us.
+
+Such was the condition of this country, when the unhappy Charles
+inherited the crown. He had seen the errours of his father, without
+being able to prevent them, and, when he began his reign, endeavoured to
+raise the nation to its former dignity. The French papists had begun a
+new war upon the protestants: Charles sent a fleet to invade Rhee and
+relieve Rochelle, but his attempts were defeated, and the protestants
+were subdued. The Dutch, grown wealthy and strong, claimed the right of
+fishing in the British seas: this claim the king, who saw the increasing
+power of the states of Holland, resolved to contest. But, for this end,
+it was necessary to build a fleet, and a fleet could not be built
+without expense: he was advised to levy ship-money, which gave occasion
+to the civil war, of which the events and conclusion are too well known.
+
+While the inhabitants of this island were embroiled among themselves,
+the power of France and Holland was every day increasing. The Dutch had
+overcome the difficulties of their infant commonwealth; and, as they
+still retained their vigour and industry, from rich grew continually
+richer, and from powerful more powerful. They extended their traffick,
+and had not yet admitted luxury; so that they had the means and the will
+to accumulate wealth, without any incitement to spend it. The French,
+who wanted nothing to make them powerful, but a prudent regulation of
+their revenues, and a proper use of their natural advantages, by the
+successive care of skilful ministers, became, every day, stronger, and
+more conscious of their strength.
+
+About this time it was, that the French first began to turn their
+thoughts to traffick and navigation, and to desire, like other nations,
+an American territory. All the fruitful and valuable parts of the
+western world were, already, either occupied, or claimed; and nothing
+remained for France, but the leavings of other navigators, for she was
+not yet haughty enough to seize what the neighbouring powers had already
+appropriated.
+
+The French, therefore, contented themselves with sending a colony to
+Canada, a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but
+furs and fish were to be had, and where the new inhabitants could only
+pass a laborious and necessitous life, in perpetual regret of the
+deliciousness and plenty of their native country.
+
+Notwithstanding the opinion which our countrymen have been taught to
+entertain of the comprehension and foresight of French politicians, I am
+not able to persuade myself, that when this colony was first planted, it
+was thought of much value, even by those that encouraged it; there was,
+probably, nothing more intended, than to provide a drain, into which the
+waste of an exuberant nation might be thrown, a place where those who
+could do no good might live without the power of doing mischief. Some
+new advantage they, undoubtedly, saw, or imagined themselves to see, and
+what more was necessary to the establishment of the colony, was supplied
+by natural inclination to experiments, and that impatience of doing
+nothing, to which mankind, perhaps, owe much of what is imagined to be
+effected by more splendid motives.
+
+In this region of desolate sterility they settled themselves, upon
+whatever principle; and, as they have, from that time, had the happiness
+of a government, by which no interest has been neglected, nor any part
+of their subjects overlooked, they have, by continual encouragement and
+assistance from France, been perpetually enlarging their bounds, and
+increasing their numbers.
+
+These were, at first, like other nations who invaded America, inclined
+to consider the neighbourhood of the natives, as troublesome and
+dangerous, and are charged with having destroyed great numbers; but they
+are now grown wiser, if not honester, and, instead of endeavouring to
+frighten the Indians away, they invite them to inter-marriage and
+cohabitation, and allure them, by all practicable methods, to become the
+subjects of the king of France.
+
+If the Spaniards, when they first took possession of the newly
+discovered world, instead of destroying the inhabitants by thousands,
+had either had the urbanity or the policy to have conciliated them by
+kind treatment, and to have united them, gradually, to their own people,
+such an accession might have been made to the power of the king of
+Spain, as would have made him far the greatest monarch that ever yet
+ruled in the globe; but the opportunity was lost by foolishness and
+cruelty, and now can never be recovered.
+
+When the parliament had finally prevailed over our king, and the army
+over the parliament, the interests of the two commonwealths of England
+and Holland soon appeared to be opposite, and a new government declared
+war against the Dutch. In this contest was exerted the utmost power of
+the two nations, and the Dutch were finally defeated, yet not with such
+evidence of superiority, as left us much reason to boast our victory:
+they were obliged, however, to solicit peace, which was granted them on
+easy conditions; and Cromwell, who was now possessed of the supreme
+power, was left at leisure to pursue other designs.
+
+The European powers had not yet ceased to look with envy on the Spanish
+acquisitions in America, and, therefore, Cromwell thought, that if he
+gained any part of these celebrated regions, he should exalt his own
+reputation, and enrich the country. He, therefore, quarrelled with the
+Spaniards upon some such subject of contention, as he that is resolved
+upon hostility may always find; and sent Penn and Venables into the
+western seas. They first landed in Hispaniola, whence they were driven
+off, with no great reputation to themselves; and that they might not
+return without having done something, they afterwards invaded Jamaica,
+where they found less resistance, and obtained that island, which was
+afterwards consigned to us, being probably of little value to the
+Spaniards, and continues, to this day, a place of great wealth and
+dreadful wickedness, a den of tyrants and a dungeon of slaves.
+
+Cromwell, who, perhaps, had not leisure to study foreign politicks, was
+very fatally mistaken with regard to Spain and France. Spain had been
+the last power in Europe which had openly pretended to give law to other
+nations, and the memory of this terrour remained, when the real cause
+was at an end. We had more lately been frighted by Spain than by France;
+and though very few were then alive of the generation that had their
+sleep broken by the armada, yet the name of the Spaniards was still
+terrible and a war against them was pleasing to the people.
+
+Our own troubles had left us very little desire to look out upon the
+continent; an inveterate prejudice hindered us from perceiving, that,
+for more than half a century, the power of France had been increasing,
+and that of Spain had been growing less; nor does it seem to have been
+remembered, which yet required no great depth of policy to discern, that
+of two monarchs, neither of which could be long our friend, it was our
+interest to have the weaker near us; or, that if a war should happen,
+Spain, however wealthy or strong in herself, was, by the dispersion of
+her territories, more obnoxious to the attacks of a naval power, and,
+consequently, had more to fear from us, and had it less in her power to
+hurt us.
+
+All these considerations were overlooked by the wisdom of that age; and
+Cromwell assisted the French to drive the Spaniards out of Flanders, at
+a time when it was our interest to have supported the Spaniards against
+France, as formerly the Hollanders against Spain, by which we might, at
+least, have retarded the growth of the French power, though, I think, it
+must have finally prevailed.
+
+During this time our colonies, which were less disturbed by our
+commotions than the mother-country, naturally increased; it is probable
+that many, who were unhappy at home, took shelter in those remote
+regions, where, for the sake of inviting greater numbers, every one was
+allowed to think and live his own way. The French settlement, in the
+mean time, went slowly forward, too inconsiderable to raise any
+jealousy, and too weak to attempt any encroachments.
+
+When Cromwell died, the confusions that followed produced the
+restoration of monarchy, and some time was employed in repairing the
+ruins of our constitution, and restoring the nation to a state of peace.
+In every change, there will be many that suffer real or imaginary
+grievances, and, therefore, many will be dissatisfied. This was,
+perhaps, the reason why several colonies had their beginning in the
+reign of Charles the second. The quakers willingly sought refuge in
+Pennsylvania; and it is not unlikely that Carolina owed its inhabitants
+to the remains of that restless disposition, which had given so much
+disturbance to our country, and had now no opportunity of acting at
+home.
+
+The Dutch, still continuing to increase in wealth and power, either
+kindled the resentment of their neighbours by their insolence, or raised
+their envy by their prosperity. Charles made war upon them without much
+advantage; but they were obliged, at last, to confess him the sovereign
+of the narrow seas. They were reduced almost to extremities by an
+invasion from France; but soon recovered from their consternation, and,
+by the fluctuation of war, regained their cities and provinces with the
+same speed as they had lost them.
+
+During the time of Charles the second, the power of France was every day
+increasing; and Charles, who never disturbed himself with remote
+consequences, saw the progress of her arms and the extension of her
+dominions, with very little uneasiness. He was, indeed, sometimes
+driven, by the prevailing faction, into confederacies against her; but
+as he had, probably, a secret partiality in her favour, he never
+persevered long in acting against her, nor ever acted with much vigour;
+so that, by his feeble resistance, he rather raised her confidence than
+hindered her designs.
+
+About this time the French first began to perceive the advantage of
+commerce, and the importance of a naval force; and such encouragement
+was given to manufactures, and so eagerly was every project received, by
+which trade could be advanced, that, in a few years, the sea was filled
+with their ships, and all the parts of the world crowded with their
+merchants. There is, perhaps, no instance in human story, of such a
+change produced in so short a time, in the schemes and manners of a
+people, of so many new sources of wealth opened, and such numbers of
+artificers and merchants made to start out of the ground, as was seen in
+the ministry of Colbert.
+
+Now it was that the power of France became formidable to England. Her
+dominions were large before, and her armies numerous; but her operations
+were necessarily confined to the continent. She had neither ships for
+the transportation of her troops, nor money for their support in distant
+expeditions. Colbert saw both these wants, and saw that commerce only
+would supply them. The fertility of their country furnishes the French
+with commodities; the poverty of the common people keeps the price of
+labour low. By the obvious practice of selling much and buying little,
+it was apparent, that they would soon draw the wealth of other countries
+into their own; and, by carrying out their merchandise in their own
+vessels, a numerous body of sailors would quickly be raised.
+
+This was projected, and this was performed. The king of France was soon
+enabled to bribe those whom he could not conquer, and to terrify, with
+his fleets, those whom his armies could not have approached. The
+influence of France was suddenly diffused all over the globe; her arms
+were dreaded, and her pensions received in remote regions, and those
+were almost ready to acknowledge her sovereignty, who, a few years
+before, had scarcely heard her name. She thundered on the coasts of
+Africa, and received ambassadours from Siam.
+
+So much may be done by one wise man endeavouring, with honesty, the
+advantage of the publick. But that we may not rashly condemn all
+ministers, as wanting wisdom or integrity, whose counsels have produced
+no such apparent benefits to their country, it must be considered, that
+Colbert had means of acting, which our government does not allow. He
+could enforce all his orders by the power of an absolute monarch; he
+could compel individuals to sacrifice their private profit to the
+general good; he could make one understanding preside over many hands,
+and remove difficulties by quick and violent expedients. Where no man
+thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead
+of cooperating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths
+to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is
+superiour knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his
+own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity
+and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his
+neighbour.
+
+Colonies are always the effects and causes of navigation. They who visit
+many countries find some, in which pleasure, profit, or safety invite
+them to settle; and these settlements, when they are once made, must
+keep a perpetual correspondence with the original country to which they
+are subject, and on which they depend for protection in danger, and
+supplies in necessity. So that a country, once discovered and planted,
+must always find employment for shipping, more certainly than any
+foreign commerce, which, depending on casualties, may be sometimes more,
+and sometimes less, and which other nations may contract or suppress. A
+trade to colonies can never be much impaired, being, in reality, only an
+intercourse between distant provinces of the same empire, from which
+intruders are easily excluded; likewise the interest and affection of
+the correspondent parties, however distant, is the same.
+
+On this reason all nations, whose power has been exerted on the ocean,
+have fixed colonies in remote parts of the world; and while those
+colonies subsisted, navigation, if it did not increase, was always
+preserved from total decay. With this policy the French were well
+acquainted, and, therefore, improved and augmented the settlements in
+America and other regions, in proportion as they advanced their schemes
+of naval greatness.
+
+The exact time, in which they made their acquisitions in America, or
+other quarters of the globe, it is not necessary to collect. It is
+sufficient to observe, that their trade and their colonies increased
+together; and, if their naval armaments were carried on, as they really
+were, in greater proportion to their commerce, than can be practised in
+other countries, it must be attributed to the martial disposition at
+that time prevailing in the nation, to the frequent wars which Lewis the
+fourteenth made upon his neighbours, and to the extensive commerce of
+the English and Dutch, which afforded so much plunder to privateers,
+that war was more lucrative than traffick.
+
+Thus the naval power of France continued to increase during the reign of
+Charles the second, who, between his fondness of ease and pleasure, the
+struggles of faction, which he could not suppress, and his inclination
+to the friendship of absolute monarchy, had not much power or desire to
+repress it. And of James the second it could not be expected, that he
+should act against his neighbours with great vigour, having the whole
+body of his subjects to oppose. He was not ignorant of the real interest
+of his country; he desired its power and its happiness, and thought
+rightly, that there is no happiness without religion; but he thought
+very erroneously and absurdly, that there is no religion without popery.
+
+When the necessity of self-preservation had impelled the subjects of
+James to drive him from the throne, there came a time in which the
+passions, as well as interest of the government, acted against the
+French, and in which it may, perhaps, be reasonably doubted, whether the
+desire of humbling France was not stronger, than that of exalting
+England: of this, however, it is not necessary to inquire, since, though
+the intention may be different, the event will be the same. All mouths
+were now open to declare what every eye had observed before, that the
+arms of France were become dangerous to Europe; and that, if her
+encroachments were suffered a little longer, resistance would be too
+late.
+
+It was now determined to reassert the empire of the sea; but it was more
+easily determined than performed: the French made a vigorous defence
+against the united power of England and Holland, and were sometimes
+masters of the ocean, though the two maritime powers were united against
+them. At length, however, they were defeated at La Hogue; a great part
+of their fleet was destroyed, and they were reduced to carry on the war
+only with their privateers, from whom there was suffered much petty
+mischief, though there was no danger of conquest or invasion. They
+distressed our merchants, and obliged us to the continual expense of
+convoys and fleets of observation; and, by skulking in little coves and
+shallow waters, escaped our pursuit.
+
+In this reign began our confederacy with the Dutch, which mutual
+interest has now improved into a friendship, conceived by some to be
+inseparable; and, from that time, the states began to be termed, in the
+style of politicians, our faithful friends, the allies which nature has
+given us, our protestant confederates, and by many other names of
+national endearment. We have, it is true, the same interest, as opposed
+to France, and some resemblance of religion, as opposed to popery; but
+we have such a rivalry, in respect of commerce, as will always keep us
+from very close adherence to each other. No mercantile man, or
+mercantile nation, has any friendship but for money, and alliance
+between them will last no longer, than their common safety, or common
+profit is endangered; no longer than they have an enemy, who threatens
+to take from each more than either can steal from the other.
+
+We were both sufficiently interested in repressing the ambition, and
+obstructing the commerce of France; and, therefore, we concurred with as
+much fidelity, and as regular cooperation, as is commonly found. The
+Dutch were in immediate danger, the armies of their enemies hovered over
+their country, and, therefore, they were obliged to dismiss, for a time,
+their love of money, and their narrow projects of private profit, and to
+do what a trader does not willingly, at any time, believe necessary, to
+sacrifice a part for the preservation of the whole.
+
+A peace was at length made, and the French, with their usual vigour and
+industry, rebuilt their fleets, restored their commerce, and became, in
+a very few years, able to contest again the dominion of the sea. Their
+ships were well built, and always very numerously manned; their
+commanders, having no hopes but from their bravery, or their fortune,
+were resolute, and, being very carefully educated for the sea, were
+eminently skilful.
+
+All this was soon perceived, when queen Anne, the then darling of
+England, declared war against France. Our success by sea, though
+sufficient to keep us from dejection, was not such as dejected our
+enemies. It is, indeed, to be confessed, that we did not exert our whole
+naval strength; Marlborough was the governour of our counsels, and the
+great view of Marlborough was a war by land, which he knew well how to
+conduct, both to the honour of his country and his own profit. The fleet
+was, therefore, starved, that the army might be supplied, and naval
+advantages were neglected, for the sake of taking a town in Flanders, to
+be garrisoned by our allies. The French, however, were so weakened by
+one defeat after another, that, though their fleet was never destroyed
+by any total overthrow, they at last retained it in their harbours, and
+applied their whole force to the resistance of the confederate army,
+that now began to approach their frontiers, and threatened to lay waste
+their provinces and cities.
+
+In the latter years of this war, the danger of their neighbourhood in
+America, seems to have been considered, and a fleet was fitted out, and
+supplied with a proper number of land forces, to seize Quebec, the
+capital of Canada, or New France; but this expedition miscarried, like
+that of Anson against the Spaniards, by the lateness of the season, and
+our ignorance of the coasts on which we were to act. We returned with
+loss, and only excited our enemies to greater vigilance, and, perhaps,
+to stronger fortifications.
+
+When the peace of Utrecht was made, which those, who clamoured among us
+most loudly against it, found it their interest to keep, the French
+applied themselves, with the utmost industry, to the extension of their
+trade, which we were so far from hindering, that, for many years, our
+ministry thought their friendship of such value, as to be cheaply
+purchased by whatever concession.
+
+Instead, therefore, of opposing, as we had hitherto professed to do, the
+boundless ambition of the house of Bourbon, we became, on a sudden,
+solicitous for its exaltation, and studious of its interest. We assisted
+the schemes of France and Spain with our fleets, and endeavoured to make
+these our friends by servility, whom nothing but power will keep quiet,
+and who must always be our enemies, while they are endeavouring to grow
+greater, and we determine to remain free.
+
+That nothing might be omitted, which could testify our willingness to
+continue, on any terms, the good friends of France, we were content to
+assist, not only their conquests, but their traffick; and, though we did
+not openly repeal the prohibitory laws, we yet tamely suffered commerce
+to be carried on between the two nations, and wool was daily imported,
+to enable them to make cloth, which they carried to our markets, and
+sold cheaper than we.
+
+During all this time they were extending and strengthening their
+settlements in America, contriving new modes of traffick, and framing
+new alliances with the Indian nations. They began now to find these
+northern regions, barren and desolate as they are, sufficiently valuable
+to desire, at least, a nominal possession, that might furnish a pretence
+for the exclusion of others; they, therefore, extended their claim to
+tracts of land, which they could never hope to occupy, took care to give
+their dominions an unlimited magnitude, have given, in their maps, the
+name of Louisiana to a country, of which part is claimed by the
+Spaniards, and part by the English, without any regard to ancient
+boundaries, or prior discovery.
+
+When the return of Columbus from his great voyage had filled all Europe
+with wonder and curiosity, Henry the seventh sent Sebastian Cabot to try
+what could be found for the benefit of England: he declined the track of
+Columbus, and, steering to the westward, fell upon the island, which,
+from that time, was called by the English Newfoundland. Our princes seem
+to have considered themselves as entitled, by their right of prior
+seizure, to the northern parts of America, as the Spaniards were
+allowed, by universal consent, their claim to the southern region for
+the same reason; and we, accordingly, made our principal settlements
+within the limits of our own discoveries, and, by degrees, planted the
+eastern coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia.
+
+As we had, according to the European principles, which allow nothing to
+the natives of these regions, our choice of situation in this extensive
+country, we naturally fixed our habitations along the coast, for the
+sake of traffick and correspondence and all the conveniencies of
+navigable rivers. And when one port or river was occupied, the next
+colony, instead of fixing themselves in the inland parts behind the
+former, went on southward, till they pleased themselves with another
+maritime situation. For this reason our colonies have more length than
+depth; their extent, from east to west, or from the sea to the interior
+country, bears no proportion to their reach along the coast, from north
+to south.
+
+It was, however, understood, by a kind of tacit compact among the
+commercial powers, that possession of the coast included a right to the
+inland; and, therefore, the charters granted to the several colonies,
+limit their districts only from north to south, leaving their
+possessions from east to west unlimited and discretional, supposing
+that, as the colony increases, they may take lands as they shall want
+them, the possession of the coasts, excluding other navigators, and the
+unhappy Indians having no right of nature or of nations.
+
+This right of the first European possessour was not disputed, till it
+became the interest of the French to question it. Canada, or New France,
+on which they made their first settlement, is situated eastward of our
+colonies, between which they pass up the great river of St. Lawrence,
+with Newfoundland on the north, and Nova Scotia on the south. Their
+establishment in this country was neither envied nor hindered; and they
+lived here, in no great numbers, a long time, neither molesting their
+European neighbours, nor molested by them.
+
+But when they grew stronger and more numerous, they began to extend
+their territories; and, as it is natural for men to seek their own
+convenience, the desire of more fertile and agreeable habitations
+tempted them southward. There is land enough to the north and west of
+their settlements, which they may occupy with as good right as can be
+shown by the other European usurpers, and which neither the English nor
+Spaniards will contest; but of this cold region, they have enough
+already, and their resolution was to get a better country. This was not
+to be had, but by settling to the west of our plantations, on ground
+which has been, hitherto, supposed to belong to us.
+
+Hither, therefore, they resolved to remove, and to fix, at their own
+discretion, the western border of our colonies, which was, heretofore,
+considered as unlimited. Thus by forming a line of forts, in some
+measure parallel to the coast, they inclose us between their garrisons,
+and the sea, and not only hinder our extension westward, but, whenever
+they have a sufficient navy in the sea, can harass us on each side, as
+they can invade us, at pleasure, from one or other of their forts.
+
+This design was not, perhaps, discovered as soon as it was formed, and
+was certainly not opposed so soon as it was discovered: we foolishly
+hoped, that their encroachments would stop; that they would be prevailed
+on, by treaty and remonstrance, to give up what they had taken, or to
+put limits to themselves. We suffered them to establish one settlement
+after another, to pass boundary after boundary, and add fort to fort,
+till, at last, they grew strong enough to avow their designs, and defy
+us to obstruct them.
+
+By these provocations, long continued, we are, at length, forced into a
+war, in which we have had, hitherto, very ill fortune. Our troops, under
+Braddock, were dishonourably defeated; our fleets have yet done nothing
+more than taken a few merchant ships, and have distressed some private
+families, but have very little weakened the power of France. The
+detention of their seamen makes it, indeed, less easy for them to fit
+out their navy; but this deficiency will be easily supplied by the
+alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.
+
+It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet
+it is necessary to show the evils which we desire to be removed; and,
+therefore, some account may very properly be given of the measures which
+have given them their present superiority.
+
+They are said to be supplied from France with better governours than our
+colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governour is
+seldom chosen for any other reason than his qualifications for his
+trust. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be so infamously vitious, that he
+cannot be decently protected in his own country, seldom recommends any
+man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly
+skilful, either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no
+expectation of honour or preferment, but from the justice and vigour of
+their administration.
+
+Their great security is the friendship of the natives, and to this
+advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the
+consequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the
+friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and
+kept but by kind treatment; and, surely, they who intrude, uncalled,
+upon the country of a distant people, ought to consider the natives as
+worthy of common kindness, and content themselves to rob, without
+insulting them. The French, as has been already observed, admit the
+Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themselves; and those
+nations, with which they have no such near intercourse, they gain over
+to their interest by honesty in their dealings. Our factors and traders,
+having no other purpose in view than immediate profit, use all the arts
+of an European counting-house, to defraud the simple hunter of his furs.
+
+These are some of the causes of our present weakness; our planters are
+always quarrelling with their governour, whom they consider as less to
+be trusted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians
+by their tricks and oppressions, and we continue every day to show, by
+new proofs; that no people can be great, who have ceased to be virtuous.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY
+
+Between his Britannick majesty and imperial majesty of all the Russias,
+signed at Moscow, Dec. 11, 1742; the treaty between his Britannick
+majesty and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, signed June 18, 1755; and the
+treaty between his Britannick majesty and her imperial majesty of all
+the Russias, signed at St. Petersburg, Sept. 19/20, 1755 [26].
+
+
+These are the treaties which, for many months, filled the senate with
+debates, and the kingdom with clamours; which were represented, on one
+part, as instances of the most profound policy and the most active care
+of the publick welfare, and, on the other, as acts of the most
+contemptible folly and most flagrant corruption, as violations of the
+great trust of government, by which the wealth of Britain is sacrificed
+to private views and to a particular province.
+
+What honours our ministers and negotiators may expect to be paid to
+their wisdom; it is hard to determine, for the demands of vanity are not
+easily estimated. They should consider, before they call too loudly for
+encomiums, that they live in an age, when the power of gold is no longer
+a secret, and in which no man finds much difficulty in making a bargain,
+with money in his hand. To hire troops is very easy to those who are
+willing to pay their price. It appears, therefore, that whatever has
+been done, was done by means which every man knows how to use, if
+fortune is kind enough to put them in his power. To arm the nations of
+the north in the cause of Britain, to bring down hosts against France,
+from the polar circle, has, indeed, a sound of magnificence, which might
+induce a mind unacquainted with publick affairs to imagine, that some
+effort of policy, more than human, had been exerted, by which distant
+nations were armed in our defence, and the influence of Britain was
+extended to the utmost limits of the world. But when this striking
+phenomenon of negotiation is more nearly inspected, it appears a
+bargain, merely mercantile, of one power that wanted troops more than
+money, with another that wanted money, and was burdened with troops;
+between whom their mutual wants made an easy contract, and who have no
+other friendship for each other, than reciprocal convenience happens to
+produce.
+
+We shall, therefore, leave the praises of our ministers to others, yet
+not without this acknowledgment, that if they have done little, they do
+not seem to boast of doing much; and, that whether influenced by modesty
+or frugality, they have not wearied the publick with mercenary
+panegyrists, but have been content with the concurrence of the
+parliament, and have not much solicited the applauses of the people.
+
+In publick, as in private transactions, men more frequently deviate from
+the right, for want of virtue, than of wisdom; and those who declare
+themselves dissatisfied with these treaties, impute them not to folly,
+but corruption.
+
+By these advocates for the independence of Britain, who, whether their
+arguments be just, or not, seem to be most favourably heard by the
+people, it is alleged, that these treaties are expensive, without
+advantage; that they waste the treasure, which we want for our own
+defence, upon a foreign interest; and pour the gains of our commerce
+into the coffers of princes, whose enmity cannot hurt, nor friendship
+help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any
+inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops,
+with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder shall be
+found.
+
+This, perhaps, is true; but whether it be true, or false, is not worth
+inquiry. We did not expect to buy their friendship, but their troops;
+nor did we examine upon what principle we were supplied with assistance;
+it was sufficient that we wanted forces, and that they were willing to
+furnish them. Policy never pretended to make men wise and good; the
+utmost of her power is to make the best use of men, such as they are, to
+lay hold on lucky hours, to watch the present wants, and present
+interests of others, and make them subservient to her own convenience.
+
+It is further urged, with great vehemence, that these troops of Russia
+and Hesse are not hired in defence of Britain; that we are engaged, in a
+naval war, for territories on a distant continent; and that these
+troops, though mercenaries, can never be auxiliaries; that they increase
+the burden of the war, without hastening its conclusion, or promoting
+its success; since they can neither be sent into America, the only part
+of the world where England can, on the present occasion, have any
+employment for land-forces, nor be put into our ships, by which, and by
+which only, we are now to oppose and subdue our enemies.
+
+Nature has stationed us in an island, inaccessible but by sea; and we
+are now at war with an enemy, whose naval power is inferiour to our own,
+and from whom, therefore, we are in no danger of invasion: to what
+purpose, then, are troops hired in such uncommon numbers? To what end do
+we procure strength, which we cannot exert, and exhaust the nation with
+subsidies, at a time when nothing is disputed, which the princes, who
+receive our subsidies, can defend? If we had purchased ships, and hired
+seamen, we had apparently increased our power, and made ourselves
+formidable to our enemies, and, if any increase of security be possible,
+had secured ourselves still better from invasions: but what can the
+regiments of Russia, or of Hesse, contribute to the defence of the
+coasts of England; or, by what assistance can they repay us the sums,
+which we have stipulated to pay for their costly friendship?
+
+The king of Great Britain has, indeed, a territory on the continent, of
+which the natives of this island scarcely knew the name, till the
+present family was called to the throne, and yet know little more than
+that our king visits it from time to time. Yet, for the defence of this
+country, are these subsidies apparently paid, and these troops evidently
+levied. The riches of our nation are sent into distant countries, and
+the strength, which should be employed in our own quarrel, consequently
+impaired, for the sake of dominions, the interest of which has no
+connexion with ours, and which, by the act of succession, we took care
+to keep separate from the British kingdoms.
+
+To this the advocates for the subsidies say, that unreasonable
+stipulations, whether in the act of settlement, or any other contract,
+are, in themselves, void; and that if a country connected with England,
+by subjection to the same sovereign, is endangered by an English
+quarrel, it must be defended by English force; and that we do not engage
+in a war, for the sake of Hanover, but that Hanover is, for our sake,
+exposed to danger.
+
+Those who brought in these foreign troops have still something further
+to say in their defence, and of no honest plea is it our intention to
+defraud them. They grant, that the terrour of invasion may, possibly, be
+groundless; that the French may want the power, or the courage, to
+attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewise, that an
+invasion is possible, that the armies of France are so numerous, that
+she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself
+exposed; that she is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and
+would be willing to do us mischief, at her own peril. They allow, that
+the invaders may be intercepted at sea, or that, if they land, they may
+be defeated by our native troops. But they say, and say justly, that
+danger is better avoided than encountered; that those ministers consult
+more the good of their country, who prevent invasion, than repel it; and
+that, if these auxiliaries have only saved us from the anxiety of
+expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and distress which
+an invasion, how soon soever repressed, would have produced, the publick
+money is not spent in vain.
+
+These arguments are admitted by some, and by others rejected. But even
+those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of necessity; for
+they consider the reception of mercenaries into our country, as the
+desperate "remedy of desperate distress;" and think, with great reason,
+that all means of prevention should be tried, to save us from any second
+need of such doubtful succours.
+
+That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely
+entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and skill, and
+courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the
+opinion of every Englishman, who can think without prejudice, and speak
+without influence; and, therefore, it will not be easy to persuade the
+nation, a nation long renowned for valour, that it can need the help of
+foreigners to defend it from invasion. We have been long without the
+need of arms by our good fortune, and long without the use by our
+negligence; so long, that the practice, and almost the name, of our old
+trained bands is forgotten; but the story of ancient times will tell us,
+that the trained bands were once able to maintain the quiet and safety
+of their country; and reason, without history, will inform us, that
+those men are most likely to fight bravely, or, at least, to fight
+obstinately, who fight for their own houses and farms, for their own
+wives and children.
+
+A bill was, therefore, offered for the prevention of any future danger
+or invasion, or necessity of mercenary forces, by reestablishing and
+improving the militia. It was passed by the commons, but rejected by the
+lords. That this bill, the first essay of political consideration, as a
+subject long forgotten, should be liable to objection, cannot be
+strange; but surely, justice, policy, common reason, require, that we
+should be trusted with our own defence, and be kept, no longer in such a
+helpless state as, at once, to dread our enemies and confederates.
+
+By the bill, such as it was formed, sixty thousand men would always be
+in arms. We have shown [27] how they may be, upon any exigence, easily
+increased to a hundred and fifty thousand; and, I believe, neither our
+friends nor enemies will think it proper to insult our coasts, when they
+expect to find upon them a hundred and fifty thousand Englishmen, with
+swords in their hands.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,
+
+Appointed to manage the contributions begun at London, December 18,
+1758, for clothing French prisoners of war.
+
+
+The committee intrusted with the money, contributed to the relief of the
+subjects of France, now prisoners in the British dominions, here lay
+before the publick an exact account of all the sums received and
+expended, that the donors may judge how properly their benefactions have
+been applied.
+
+Charity would lose its name, were it influenced by so mean a motive as
+human praise; it is, therefore, not intended to celebrate, by any
+particular memorial, the liberality of single persons, or distinct
+societies; it is sufficient, that their works praise them.
+
+Yet he, who is far from seeking honour, may very justly obviate censure.
+If a good example has been set, it may lose its influence by
+misrepresentation; and, to free charity from reproach is itself a
+charitable action.
+
+Against the relief of the French only one argument has been brought; but
+that one is so popular and specious, that, if it were to remain
+unexamined, it would, by many, be thought irrefragable. It has been
+urged, that charity, like other virtues, may be improperly and
+unseasonably exerted; that, while we are relieving Frenchmen, there
+remain many Englishmen unrelieved; that, while we lavish pity on our
+enemies, we forget the misery of our friends.
+
+Grant this argument all it can prove, and what is the conclusion?--That
+to relieve the French is a good action, but that a better may be
+conceived. This is all the result, and this all is very little. To do
+the best can seldom be the lot of man: it is sufficient if, when
+opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue
+could be practised, if beneficence were to wait always for the most
+proper objects, and the noblest occasions; occasions that may never
+happen, and objects that may never be found.
+
+It is far from certain, that a single Englishman will suffer by the
+charity to the French. New scenes of misery make new impressions; and
+much of the charity, which produced these donations, may be supposed to
+have been generated by a species of calamity never known among us
+before. Some imagine, that the laws have provided all necessary relief,
+in common cases, and remit the poor to the care of the publick; some
+have been deceived by fictitious misery, and are afraid of encouraging
+imposture; many have observed want to be the effect of vice, and
+consider casual alms-givers as patrons of idleness. But all these
+difficulties vanish in the present case: we know, that for the prisoners
+of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress, and are
+certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and
+naked without a crime.
+
+But it is not necessary to make any concessions. The opponents of this
+charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be
+the best. That charity is best, of which the consequences are most
+extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in
+fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse nations, and
+dispose them to peace and amity; in the mean time, it alleviates
+captivity, and takes away something from the miseries of war. The rage
+of war, however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and
+horrour; let it not, then, be unnecessarily extended; let animosity and
+hostility cease together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than
+while his sword is drawn against us.
+
+The effects of these contributions may, perhaps, reach still further.
+Truth is best supported by virtue: we may hope, from those who feel, or
+who see, our charity, that they shall no longer detest, as heresy, that
+religion, which makes its professors the followers of him, who has
+commanded us to "do good to them that hate us."
+
+
+
+
+ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS [28],
+
+By those who have compared the military genius of the English with that
+of the French nation, it is remarked, that "the French officers will
+always lead, if the soldiers will follow;" and that "the English
+soldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead."
+
+
+In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to
+conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers seem to lose what our
+soldiers gain. I know not any reason for supposing that the English
+officers are less willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think,
+universally allowed, that the English soldiers are more willing to
+follow. Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a
+kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We
+can show a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose
+courage may vie with that of their general.
+
+There may be some pleasure in tracing the causes of this plebeian
+magnanimity. The qualities which, commonly, make an army formidable, are
+long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and great
+confidence in the commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a kind of
+mechanical obedience to signals and commands, like that which the
+perverse cartesians impute to animals; discipline may impress such an
+awe upon the mind, that any danger shall be less dreaded, than the
+danger of punishment; and confidence in the wisdom, or fortune, of the
+general may induce the soldiers to follow him blindly to the most
+dangerous enterprise.
+
+What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops
+of the Russian emperess, and Prussian monarch. We find, that they may be
+broken without confusion, and repulsed without flight.
+
+But the English troops have none of these requisites, in any eminent
+degree. Regularity is, by no means, part of their character: they are
+rarely exercised, and, therefore, show very little dexterity in their
+evolutions, as bodies of men, or in the manual use of their weapons, as
+individuals; they neither are thought by others, nor by themselves, more
+active, or exact, than their enemies, and, therefore, derive none of
+their courage from such imaginary superiority.
+
+The manner in which they are dispersed in quarters, over the country,
+during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of discipline: they are
+very little in sight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged
+in the slight duty of the guard, are suffered to live, every man his own
+way.
+
+The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the
+freedom of our tenures, and the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very
+little to reverence superiours. It is not to any great esteem of the
+officers, that the English soldier is indebted for his spirit in the
+hour of battle; for, perhaps, it does not often happen, that he thinks
+much better of his leader than of himself. The French count, who has
+lately published the Art of War, remarks, how much soldiers are
+animated, when they see all their dangers shared by those who were born
+to be their masters, and whom they consider, as beings of a different
+rank. The Englishman despises such motives of courage: he was born
+without a master; and looks not on any man, however dignified by lace or
+titles, as deriving, from nature, any claims to his respect, or
+inheriting any qualities superiour to his own.
+
+There are some, perhaps, who would imagine, that every Englishman fights
+better than the subjects of absolute governments, because he has more to
+defend. But what has the English more than the French soldier? Property
+they are both, commonly, without. Liberty is, to the lowest rank of
+every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving; and
+this choice is, I suppose, equally allowed in every country. The English
+soldier seldom has his head very full of the constitution; nor has there
+been, for more than a century, any war that put the property or liberty
+of a single Englishman in danger.
+
+Whence, then, is the courage of the English vulgar? It proceeds, in my
+opinion, from that dissolution of dependence, which obliges every man to
+regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he
+has no need of any servile arts; he may always have wages for his
+labour; and is no less necessary to his employer, than his employer is
+to him. While he looks for no protection from others, he is naturally
+roused to be his own protector; and having nothing to abate his esteem
+of himself, he, consequently, aspires to the esteem of others. Thus
+every man that crowds our streets is a man of honour, disdainful of
+obligation, impatient of reproach, and desirous of extending his
+reputation among those of his own rank; and, as courage is in most
+frequent use, the fame of courage is most eagerly pursued. From this
+neglect of subordination, I do not deny, that some inconveniencies may,
+from time to time, proceed: the power of the law does not, always,
+sufficiently supply the want of reverence, or maintain the proper
+distinction between different ranks; but good and evil will grow up in
+this world together; and they who complain, in peace, of the insolence
+of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery
+in war.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+
+  Fallitur, egregio quisquis sub principe credit
+  Servitium, nunquam libertas gratior extat
+  Quam sub rege pio.
+
+  CLAUDIANUS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS.
+
+
+On Johnson's character, as a political writer, we cannot dwell with
+pleasure, since we cannot speak of it with praise. In the following
+pamphlets, however, though we cannot honestly subscribe to their
+doctrines, we must admire the same powers of composition, the same play
+of imagination, the same keen sarcasm and indignant reproof, that
+embellish his other productions. He might, and did, think wrongly on
+these subjects, but he never wrote what he did not believe to be true,
+and, therefore, must be acquitted of all charges of servility or
+dishonesty. The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says
+Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority
+in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom,
+that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to
+exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel to be duly elected
+for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great
+majority of votes. This being justly considered as a gross violation of
+the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all
+over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false, was the purpose of
+Johnson's pamphlet; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with
+constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and
+the house of commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from
+their journals. That the house of commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes
+repeatedly, and as often as he should be rechosen, was not to be denied;
+but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It
+was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general,
+and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an
+understanding as Johnson's in this particular case." Where Boswell
+expresses himself with regard to Johnson, in terms so reprehensive as
+the above, we cannot be accused of severity in repeating his just
+censure. Several answers appeared, but, perhaps, all of them, in
+compliance with the excited feelings of the times, dealt rather in
+personal abuse of Johnson, as a pensioner and hireling, than in fair and
+manly argument. The chief were, the Crisis; a Letter to Dr. Samuel
+Johnson; and, the Constitution Defender and Pensioner exposed, in
+Remarks on the False Alarm.
+
+
+
+
+THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.
+
+
+One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the
+improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary
+terrours, and exemption from false alarms. The unusual appearances,
+whether regular or accidental, which once spread consternation over ages
+of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquisitive security. The sun
+is no more lamented when it is eclipsed, than when it sets; and meteors
+play their coruscations without prognostick or prediction.
+
+The advancement of political knowledge may be expected to produce, in
+time, the like effects. Causeless discontent, and seditious violence,
+will grow less frequent and less formidable, as the science of
+government is better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of
+man. It is not, indeed, to be expected, that physical and political
+truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world
+with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a
+state of neutrality, or, at worst, have nothing to encounter but
+prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without
+interest. But the politician's improvements are opposed by every passion
+that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by
+hope, and by terrour, by publick faction, and private animosity.
+
+It is evident, whatever be the cause, that this nation, with all its
+renown for speculation and for learning, has yet made little proficiency
+in civil wisdom. We are still so much unacquainted with our own state,
+and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without
+danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be
+disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the
+government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamour,
+which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many
+favour it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.
+
+What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion,
+and incite fury, from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known,
+by perusing the papers which have been, at once, presented as petitions
+to the king, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. It
+may, therefore, not be improper to lay before the publick the
+reflections of a man, who cannot favour the opposition, for he thinks it
+wicked, and cannot fear it, for he thinks it weak.
+
+The grievance which has produced all this tempest of outrage, the
+oppression in which all other oppressions are included, the invasion
+which has left us no property, the alarm that suffers no patriot to
+sleep in quiet, is comprised in a vote of the house of commons, by which
+the freeholders of Middlesex are deprived of a Briton's
+birthright--representation in parliament.
+
+They have, indeed, received the usual writ of election; but that writ,
+alas! was malicious mockery: they were insulted with the form, but
+denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice:
+
+  "Non de vi, neque caede, nec veneno,
+  Sed lis est mihi de tribus capellis."
+
+The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to
+delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no
+man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of
+commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition
+and impiety.
+
+That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors
+of the church and state, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover
+of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief
+county in England cannot take its representative from a gaol.
+
+Whence Middlesex should obtain the right of being denominated the chief
+county cannot easily be discovered; it is, indeed, the county where the
+chief city happens to stand, but, how that city treated the favourite of
+Middlesex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the
+city, has no claim to particular consideration. That a man was in gaol
+for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been, within memory, a
+sufficient reason why he should not come out of gaol a legislator. This
+reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to
+operate on the house of commons. Their notions, however strange, may be
+justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment,
+and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes
+any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what
+he did before with less.
+
+But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house
+cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who
+can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character,
+is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which
+no human authority can depose him.
+
+Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They
+are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to
+establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction
+over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and
+that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often
+in expulsion.
+
+That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is
+inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where
+there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of
+punishment. A member of the house cannot be cited for his conduct in
+parliament before any other court; and, therefore, if the house cannot
+punish him, he may attack, with impunity, the rights of the people, and
+the title of the king.
+
+This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first
+established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is
+not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the
+principles of government. If legislative powers are not coordinate, they
+cease, in part, to be legislative; and if they be coordinate, they are
+unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no
+superiour?
+
+The house of commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation
+has, of late, been very clamorously told; but while it subsists it is
+coordinate with the other powers, and this coordination ceases only,
+when the house, by dissolution, ceases to subsist.
+
+As the particular representatives of the people are, in their publick
+character, above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject
+to the jurisdiction of the house; and as the house, in the exercise of
+its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own
+resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent
+decision of the whole legislature.
+
+This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact,
+but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised,
+probably, from their first institution, but certainly, as their records
+inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for
+derogating from their privileges.
+
+It may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that
+this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences in
+the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are
+cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their
+own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and
+when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an
+offence against society, as an offence against the house.
+
+They have, therefore, divested notorious delinquents of their
+legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment,
+naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of
+parliament.
+
+It is allowed, that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament,
+and the commons probably judged, that, not being bound to the forms of
+law, they might treat these as felons, whose crimes were, in their
+opinion, equivalent to felony; and that, as a known felon could not be
+chosen, a man, so like a felon that he could not easily be
+distinguished, ought to be expelled.
+
+The first laws had no law to enforce them; the first authority was
+constituted by itself. The power exercised by the house of commons is of
+this kind; a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched
+out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and
+precedents have made legal.
+
+It will occur, that authority thus uncontroulable may, in times of heat
+and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who
+suffers injustice is without redress, however innocent, however
+miserable.
+
+The position is true, but the argument is useless. The commons must be
+controlled, or be exempt from control. If they are exempt, they may do
+injury which cannot be redressed, if they are controlled, they are no
+longer legislative.
+
+If the possibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no
+authority ever can be established: if the actual abuse destroys its
+legality, there is no legal government now in the world.
+
+This power, which the commons have so long exercised, they ventured to
+use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and, on the 3rd of February, 1769,
+expelled him the house, "for having printed and published a seditious
+libel, and three obscene and impious libels."
+
+If these imputations were just, the expulsion was, surely, seasonable;
+and that they were just, the house had reason to determine, as he had
+confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term
+seditious, and was convicted, in the King's Bench, of both the
+publications.
+
+But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either
+thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was
+issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John
+Wilkes, esq. expelled the house, his friends, on the sixteenth of
+February, chose him again.
+
+On the 17th, it was resolved, "that John Wilkes, esq. having been, in
+this session of parliament, expelled the house, was, and is, incapable
+of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament."
+
+As there was no other candidate, it was resolved, at the same time, that
+the election of the sixteenth was a void election.
+
+The freeholders still continued to think, that no other man was fit to
+represent them, and, on the sixteenth of March, elected him once more.
+Their resolution was now so well known, that no opponent ventured to
+appear.
+
+The commons began to find, that power, without materials for operation,
+can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but
+if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be
+negative. They, however, made void the last election, and ordered a new
+writ.
+
+On the 13th of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and
+others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was
+used, and some acts of violence were done, to hinder Mr. Lutterel from
+appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited,
+for
+
+  Mr. Wilkes       1143
+  Mr. Lutterel      296
+
+The sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the house, on April the fifteenth,
+determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.
+
+From this day began the clamour, which has continued till now. Those who
+had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater
+magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it
+into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.
+
+Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discontent
+and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with
+exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has spread through all
+ranks, and through both sexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr.
+Wilkes; honest simplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wise
+have escaped infection.
+
+The greater part may justly be suspected of not believing their own
+position, and with them it is not necessary to dispute. They cannot be
+convinced who are convinced already, and it is well known that they will
+not be ashamed. The decision, however, by which the smaller number of
+votes was preferred to the greater, has perplexed the minds of some,
+whose opinions it were indecent to despise, and who, by their integrity,
+well deserve to have their doubts appeased.
+
+Every diffuse and complicated question may be examined by different
+methods, upon different principles; and that truth, which is easily
+found by one investigator, may be missed by another, equally honest and
+equally diligent.
+
+Those who inquire, whether a smaller number of legal votes can elect a
+representative in opposition to a greater, must receive, from every
+tongue, the same answer.
+
+The question, therefore, must be, whether a smaller number of legal
+votes shall not prevail against a greater number of votes not legal.
+
+It must be considered, that those votes only are legal which are legally
+given, and that those only are legally given, which are given for a
+legal candidate.
+
+It remains, then, to be discussed, whether a man expelled can be so
+disqualified by a vote of the house, as that he shall be no longer
+eligible by lawful electors.
+
+Here we must again recur, not to positive institutions, but to the
+unwritten law of social nature, to the great and pregnant principle of
+political necessity. All government supposes subjects; all authority
+implies obedience: to suppose in one the right to command what another
+has the right to refuse, is absurd and contradictory; a state, so
+constituted, must rest for ever in motionless equipoise, with equal
+attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of power balancing
+each other.
+
+Laws which cannot be enforced can neither prevent nor rectify disorders.
+A sentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to
+reform. If the commons have only the power of dismissing, for a few
+days, the man whom his constituents can immediately send back; if they
+can expel, but cannot exclude, they have nothing more than nominal
+authority, to which, perhaps, obedience never may be paid.
+
+The representatives of our ancestors had an opinion very different: they
+fined and imprisoned their members; on great provocation, they disabled
+them for ever; and this power of pronouncing perpetual disability is
+maintained by Selden himself.
+
+These claims seem to have been made and allowed, when the constitution
+of our government had not yet been sufficiently studied. Such powers are
+not legal, because they are not necessary; and of that power which only
+necessity justifies, no more is to be admitted than necessity obtrudes.
+
+The commons cannot make laws; they can only pass resolutions, which,
+like all resolutions, are of force only to those that make them, and to
+those, only while they are willing to observe them.
+
+The vote of the house of commons has, therefore, only so far the force
+of a law, as that force is necessary to preserve the vote from losing
+its efficacy; it must begin by operating upon themselves, and extend its
+influence to others, only by consequences arising from the first
+intention. He that starts game on his own manor, may pursue it into
+another.
+
+They can properly make laws only for themselves: a member, while he
+keeps his seat, is subject to these laws; but when he is expelled, the
+jurisdiction ceases, for he is now no longer within their dominion.
+
+The disability, which a vote can superinduce to expulsion, is no more
+than was included in expulsion itself; it is only a declaration of the
+commons, that they will permit no longer him, whom they thus censure, to
+sit with them in parliament; a declaration made by that right, which
+they necessarily possess, of regulating their own house, and of
+inflicting punishment on their own delinquents.
+
+They have, therefore, no other way to enforce the sentence of
+incapacity, than that of adhering to it. They cannot otherwise punish
+the candidate so disqualified for offering himself, nor the electors for
+accepting him. But if he has any competitor, that competitor must
+prevail, and if he has none, his election will be void; for the right of
+the house to reject annihilates, with regard to the man so rejected, the
+right of electing.
+
+It has been urged, that the power of the house terminates with their
+session; since a prisoner, committed by the speaker's warrant, cannot be
+detained during the recess. That power, indeed, ceases with the session,
+which must operate by the agency of others; because, when they do not
+sit, they can employ no agent, having no longer any legal existence; but
+that which is exercised on themselves revives at their meeting, when the
+subject of that power still subsists: they can, in the next session,
+refuse to re-admit him, whom, in the former session, they expelled. That
+expulsion inferred exclusion, in the present case, must be, I think,
+easily admitted. The expulsion, and the writ issued for a new election
+were in the same session, and, since the house is, by the rule of
+parliament, bound for the session by a vote once passed, the expelled
+member cannot be admitted. He that cannot be admitted, cannot be
+elected; and the votes given to a man ineligible being given in vain,
+the highest number for an eligible candidate becomes a majority.
+
+To these conclusions, as to most moral, and to all political positions,
+many objections may be made. The perpetual subject of political
+disquisition is not absolute, but comparative good. Of two systems of
+government, or two laws relating to the same subject, neither will ever
+be such as theoretical nicety would desire, and, therefore, neither can
+easily force its way against prejudice and obstinacy; each will have its
+excellencies and defects; and every man, with a little help from pride,
+may think his own the best.
+
+It seems to be the opinion of many, that expulsion is only a dismission
+of the representative to his constituents, with such a testimony against
+him, as his sentence may comprise; and that, if his constituents,
+notwithstanding the censure of the house, thinking his case hard, his
+fault trifling, or his excellencies such as overbalance it, should again
+choose him, as still worthy of their trust, the house cannot refuse him,
+for his punishment has purged his fault, and the right of electors must
+not be violated.
+
+This is plausible, but not cogent. It is a scheme of representation,
+which would make a specious appearance in a political romance, but
+cannot be brought into practice among us, who see every day the towering
+head of speculation bow down unwillingly to groveling experience.
+
+Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients,
+as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are
+never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of dissimilar
+materials, raised by different architects, upon different plans. We must
+be content with them, as they are; should we attempt to mend their
+disproportions, we might easily demolish, and difficultly rebuild them.
+
+Laws are now made, and customs are established; these are our rules, and
+by them we must be guided.
+
+It is uncontrovertibly certain, that the commons never intended to leave
+electors the liberty of returning them an expelled member; for they
+always require one to be chosen in the room of him that is expelled, and
+I see not with what propriety a man can be rechosen in his own room.
+
+Expulsion, if this were its whole effect, might very often be desirable.
+Sedition, or obscenity, might be no greater crimes in the opinion of
+other electors, than in that of the freeholders of Middlesex; and many a
+wretch, whom his colleagues should expel, might come back persecuted
+into fame, and provoke, with harder front, a second expulsion.
+
+Many of the representatives of the people can hardly be said to have
+been chosen at all. Some, by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat; and
+some sit by the favour of others, whom, perhaps, they may gratify by the
+act which provoked the expulsion. Some are safe by their popularity, and
+some by their alliances. None would dread expulsion, if this doctrine
+were received, but those who bought their elections, and who would be
+obliged to buy them again at a higher price.
+
+But as uncertainties are to be determined by things certain, and customs
+to be explained, where it is possible, by written law, the patriots have
+triumphed with a quotation from an act of the fourth and fifth of Anne,
+which permits those to be rechosen, whose seats are vacated by the
+acceptance of a place of profit. This they wisely consider as an
+expulsion, and from the permission, in this case, of a reelection,
+infer, that every other expulsion leaves the delinquent entitled to the
+same indulgence. This is the paragraph:
+
+"If any person, being chosen a member of the house of commons, shall
+accept of any office from the crown, during such time as he shall
+continue a member, his election shall be, and is hereby declared to be
+void; and a new writ shall issue for a new election, as if such person,
+so accepting, was naturally dead. Nevertheless such person shall be
+capable of being again elected, as if his place had not become void as
+aforesaid."
+
+How this favours the doctrine of readmission, by a second choice, I am
+not able to discover. The statute of the thirtieth of Charles the second
+had enacted, that "he who should sit in the house of commons, without
+taking the oaths, and subscribing the test, should be disabled to sit in
+the house during that parliament, and a writ should issue for the
+election of a new member, in place of the member so disabled, as if such
+member had naturally died."
+
+This last clause is, apparently, copied in the act of Anne, but with the
+common fate of imitators. In the act of Charles, the political death
+continued during the parliament; in that of Anne it was hardly worth the
+while to kill the man whom the next breath was to revive. It is,
+however, apparent, that in the opinion of the parliament, the dead-doing
+lines would have kept him motionless, if he had not been recovered by a
+kind exception. A seat vacated could not be regained, without express
+permission of the same statute.
+
+The right of being chosen again to a seat thus vacated, is not enjoyed
+by any general right, but required a special clause and solicitous
+provision.
+
+But what resemblance can imagination conceive between one man vacating
+his seat by a mark of favour from the crown, and another driven from it
+for sedition and obscenity? The acceptance of a place contaminates no
+character; the crown that gives it, intends to give with it always
+dignity, sometimes authority. The commons, it is well known, think not
+worse of themselves, or others, for their offices of profit; yet profit
+implies temptation, and may expose a representative to the suspicion of
+his constituents; though, if they still think him worthy of their
+confidence, they may again elect him.
+
+Such is the consequence. When a man is dismissed by law to his
+constituents, with new trust and new dignity, they may, if they think
+him incorruptible, restore him to his seat; what can follow, therefore,
+but that, when the house drives out a varlet, with publick infamy, he
+goes away with the like permission to return?
+
+If infatuation be, as the proverb tells us, the forerunner of
+destruction, how near must be the ruin of a nation that can be incited
+against its governours by sophistry like this! I may be excused, if I
+catch the panick, and join my groans, at this alarming crisis, with the
+general lamentation of weeping patriots.
+
+Another objection is, that the commons, by pronouncing the sentence of
+disqualification, make a law, and take upon themselves the power of the
+whole legislature. Many quotations are then produced to prove, that the
+house of commons can make no laws.
+
+Three acts have been cited, disabling members, for different terms, on
+different occasions; and it is profoundly remarked, that if the commons
+could, by their own privilege, have made a disqualification, their
+jealousy of their privileges would never have admitted the concurrent
+sanction of the other powers.
+
+I must for ever remind these puny controvertists, that those acts are
+laws of permanent obligation; that two of them are now in force, and
+that the other expired only when it had fulfilled its end. Such laws the
+commons cannot make; they could, perhaps, have determined for
+themselves, that they would expel all who should not take the test, but
+they could leave no authority behind them, that should oblige the next
+parliament to expel them. They could refuse the South sea directors, but
+they could not entail the refusal. They can disqualify by vote, but not
+by law; they cannot know that the sentence of disqualification
+pronounced to-day may not become void to-morrow, by the dissolution of
+their own house. Yet, while the same parliament sits, the
+disqualification continues, unless the vote be rescinded; and, while it
+so continues, makes the votes, which freeholders may give to the
+interdicted candidate, useless and dead, since there cannot exist, with
+respect to the same subject, at the same time, an absolute power to
+choose and an absolute power to reject.
+
+In 1614, the attorney general was voted incapable of a seat in the house
+of commons; and the nation is triumphantly told, that, though the vote
+never was revoked, the attorney general is now a member. He, certainly,
+may now be a member, without revocation of the vote. A law is of
+perpetual obligation; but a vote is nothing, when the voters are gone. A
+law is a compact reciprocally made by the legislative powers, and,
+therefore, not to be abrogated but by all the parties. A vote is simply
+a resolution, which binds only him that is willing to be bound.
+
+I have thus punctiliously and minutely pursued this disquisition,
+because I suspect, that these reasoners, whose business is to deceive
+others, have sometimes deceived themselves, and I am willing to free
+them from their embarrassment, though I do not expect much gratitude for
+my kindness.
+
+Other objections are yet remaining, for of political objections there
+cannot easily be an end. It has been observed, that vice is no proper
+cause of expulsion; for if the worst man in the house were always to be
+expelled, in time none would be left; but no man is expelled for being
+worst, he is expelled for being enormously bad; his conduct is compared,
+not with that of others, but with the rule of action.
+
+The punishment of expulsion, being in its own nature uncertain, may be
+too great or too little for the fault.
+
+This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is
+nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally
+a good; and, indeed, any punishment, less than death, is very different
+to different men.
+
+But, if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can,
+hereafter, be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would
+choose. One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch
+an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation
+may, by this stratagem, be without its lawful representatives.
+
+He that sees all this, sees very far. But I can tell him of greater
+evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this
+alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice,
+the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the
+Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a
+house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill
+of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect that these hungry
+intruders from the north are now contriving to expel all the English. We
+may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and
+exclusion are the same; for who can guess what may be done, when the
+Scots have the whole house to themselves?
+
+Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections,
+real or imaginary, thus consistent with the practice of former times,
+and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that
+decision, by which so much violence of discontent has been excited,
+which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.
+
+Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or
+in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and
+give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It
+may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood,
+by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.
+
+All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful
+seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not
+be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part
+of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the publick should
+be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might
+all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there
+would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and
+obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble,
+whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters
+of the bill of rights.
+
+The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it
+ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man,
+whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes,
+and his constituents feel their disappointment, with no less anguish
+than the freeholders of Middlesex. These decisions have often been
+apparently partial, and, sometimes, tyrannically oppressive. A majority
+has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had
+always been allowed, and which, therefore, had the authority by which
+all votes are given, that of custom uninterrupted. When the commons
+determine who shall be constituents, they may, with some propriety, be
+said to make law, because those determinations have, hitherto, for the
+sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote,
+therefore, of the house, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a
+law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.
+
+Yet, though all this has been done, and though, at every new parliament,
+much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced, in any
+former time, such an alarming crisis. We have found, by experience, that
+though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has
+been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it
+did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the
+same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has
+been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly
+reaped it; and he that built a house was master of the door; the
+vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by
+any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it
+neither spread far, nor lasted long.
+
+The nation looked on with little care, because there did not seem to be
+much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and
+we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.
+
+But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is quickened,
+and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see events in their
+causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is
+clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has,
+by the force of English genius, been improved, at last, not only to
+political intuition, but to political prescience.
+
+But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are
+made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called
+second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second
+sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis,
+of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new
+wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.
+
+The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for
+himself, now cares for the publick; for he has learned, that the
+happiness of individuals is comprised in the prosperity of the whole;
+and that his country never suffers, but he suffers with it, however it
+happens that he feels no pain.
+
+Fired with this fever of epidemick patriotism, the tailor slips his
+thimble, the draper drops his yard, and the blacksmith lays down his
+hammer; they meet at an honest ale-house, consider the state of the
+nation, read or hear the last petition, lament the miseries of the time,
+are alarmed at the dreadful crisis, and subscribe to the support of the
+bill of rights.
+
+It sometimes, indeed, happens, that an intruder, of more benevolence
+than prudence, attempts to disperse their cloud of dejection, and ease
+their hearts by seasonable consolation. He tells them, that though the
+government cannot be too diligently watched, it may be too hastily
+accused; and that, though private judgment is every man's right, yet we
+cannot judge of what we do not know; that we feel at present no evils
+which government can alleviate, and that the publick business is
+committed to men, who have as much right to confidence as their
+adversaries; that the freeholders of Middlesex, if they could not choose
+Mr. Wilkes, might have chosen any other man, and that "he trusts we have
+within the realm, five hundred as good as he;" that even if this, which
+has happened to Middlesex, had happened to every other county, that one
+man should be made incapable of being elected, it could produce no great
+change in the parliament, nor much contract the power of election; that,
+what has been done is, probably, right; and that if it be wrong, it is
+of little consequence, since a like case cannot easily occur; that
+expulsions are very rare, and if they should, by unbounded insolence of
+faction, become more frequent, the electors may easily provide a second
+choice.
+
+All this he may say, but not half of this will be heard; his opponents
+will stun him and themselves with a confused sound of pensions and
+places, venality and corruption, oppression and invasion, slavery and
+ruin.
+
+Outcries, like these, uttered by malignity, and echoed by folly; general
+accusations of indeterminate wickedness; and obscure hints of impossible
+designs, dispersed among those that do not know their meaning, by those
+that know them to be false, have disposed part of the nation, though but
+a small part, to pester the court with ridiculous petitions.
+
+The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down
+to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to
+serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government.
+His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have
+nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are
+plentifully provided; a crowd is easily brought together, and those who
+think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell
+those who know it not; ale and clamour unite their powers; the crowd,
+condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition: all
+see a thousand evils, though they cannot show them; and grow impatient
+for a remedy, though they know not what.
+
+A speech is then made by the _Cicero_ of the day; he says much, and
+suppresses more; and credit is equally given to what he tells, and what
+he conceals. The petition is read, and universally approved. Those who
+are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it,
+if they could.
+
+Every man goes home and tells his neighbour of the glories of the day;
+how he was consulted, and what he advised; how he was invited into the
+great room, where his lordship called him by his name; how he was
+caressed by sir Francis, sir Joseph, or sir George; how he eat turtle
+and venison, and drank unanimity to the three brothers.
+
+The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him, or whose wife had locked
+him up, hears the tale of luxury with envy, and, at last, inquires what
+was their petition. Of the petition nothing is remembered by the
+narrator, but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions, and
+something very alarming, and that he is sure it is against the
+government; the other is convinced that it must be right, and wishes he
+had been there, for he loves wine and venison, and is resolved, as long
+as he lives, to be against the government.
+
+The petition is then handed from town to town, and from house to house;
+and, wherever it comes, the inhabitants flock together, that they may
+see that which must be sent to the king. Names are easily collected. One
+man signs, because he hates the papists; another, because he has vowed
+destruction to the tumpikes; one, because it will vex the parson;
+another, because he owes his landlord nothing; one, because he is rich;
+another, because he is poor; one, to show that he is not afraid; and
+another, to show that he can write.
+
+The passage, however, is not always smooth. Those who collect
+contributions to sedition, sometimes apply to a man of higher rank and
+more enlightened mind, who, instead of lending them his name, calmly
+reproves them for being seducers of the people.
+
+You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the
+agents of those who having estimated themselves at too high a price, are
+only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the
+parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who, scarcely, in the most
+common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question
+complicated with law written and unwritten, with the general principles
+of government, and the particular customs of the house of commons; you
+are showing them a grievance, so distant that they cannot see it, and so
+light that they cannot feel it; for how, but by unnecessary intelligence
+and artificial provocation, should the farmers and shopkeepers of
+Yorkshire and Cumberland know or care how Middlesex is represented?
+Instead of wandering thus round the county to exasperate the rage of
+party, and darken the suspicions of ignorance, it is the duty of men
+like you, who have leisure for inquiry, to lead back the people to their
+honest labour; to tell them, that submission is the duty of the
+ignorant, and content the virtue of the poor; that they have no skill in
+the art of government, nor any interest in the dissensions of the great;
+and when you meet with any, as some there are, whose understandings are
+capable of conviction, it will become you to allay this foaming
+ebullition, by showing them, that they have as much happiness as the
+condition of life will easily receive; and that a government, of which
+an erroneous or unjust representation of Middlesex is the greatest crime
+that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is government
+approaching nearer to perfection, than any that experience has known, or
+history related.
+
+The drudges of sedition wish to change their ground; they hear him with
+sullen silence, feel conviction without repentance, and are confounded,
+but not abashed; they go forward to another door, and find a kinder
+reception from a man enraged against the government, because he has just
+been paying the tax upon his windows.
+
+That a petition for a dissolution of the parliament will, at all times,
+have its favourers, may be easily imagined. The people, indeed, do not
+expect that one house of commons will be much honester or much wiser
+than another; they do not suppose that the taxes will be lightened; or,
+though they have been so often taught to hope it, that soap and candles
+will be cheaper; they expect no redress of grievances, for of no
+grievances, but taxes, do they complain; they wish not the extension of
+liberty, for they do not feel any restraint; about the security of
+privilege or property they are totally careless, for they see no
+property invaded, nor know, till they are told, that any privilege has
+suffered violation.
+
+Least of all do they expect, that any future parliament will lessen its
+own powers, or communicate to the people that authority which it has
+once obtained.
+
+Yet a new parliament is sufficiently desirable. The year of election is
+a year of jollity; and, what is still more delightful, a year of
+equality: the glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when
+he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine,
+without the cost: the drone lives awhile without work, and the
+shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price: the mechanick, that
+trembled at the presence of sir Joseph, now bids him come again for an
+answer: and the poacher, whose gun has been seized, now finds an
+opportunity to reclaim it. Even the honest man is not displeased to see
+himself important, and willingly resumes, in two years, that power which
+he had resigned for seven. Few love their friends so well as not to
+desire superiority by unexpensive benefaction.
+
+Yet, notwithstanding all these motives to compliance, the promoters of
+petitions have not been successful. Few could be persuaded to lament
+evils which they did not suffer, or to solicit for redress which they do
+not want. The petition has been, in some places, rejected; and, perhaps,
+in all but one, signed only by the meanest and grossest of the people.
+
+Since this expedient, now invented or revived, to distress the
+government, and equally practicable, at all times, by all who shall be
+excluded from power and from profit, has produced so little effect, let
+us consider the opposition as no longer formidable. The great engine has
+recoiled upon them. They thought, that _the terms_, they _sent, were
+terms of weight_, which would have _amazed all, and stumbled many_; but
+the consternation is now over, and their foes _stand upright_, as
+before.
+
+With great propriety and dignity the king has, in his speech, neglected
+or forgotten them. He might easily know, that what was presented, as the
+sense of the people, is the sense only of the profligate and dissolute;
+and, that whatever parliament should be convened, the same petitioners
+would be ready, for the same reason, to request its dissolution.
+
+As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an opposition of
+the pedlers. The quiet of the nation has been, for years, disturbed by a
+faction, against which all factions ought to conspire; for its original
+principle is the desire of leveling; it is only animated, under the name
+of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great.
+
+When, in the confusion which the English invasions produced in France,
+the villains, imagining that they had found the golden hour of
+emancipation, took arms in their hands, the knights of both nations
+considered the cause as common, and suspending the general hostility,
+united to chastise them.
+
+The whole conduct of this despicable faction is distinguished by
+plebeian grossness, and savage indecency. To misrepresent the actions
+and the principles of their enemies is common to all parties; but the
+insolence of invective, and brutality of reproach, which have lately
+prevailed, are peculiar to this.
+
+An infallible characteristick of meanness is cruelty. This is the only
+faction, that has shouted at the condemnation of a criminal, and that,
+when his innocence procured his pardon, has clamoured for his blood.
+
+All other parties, however enraged at each other, have agreed to treat
+the throne with decency; but these low-born railers have attacked not
+only the authority, but the character of their sovereign, and have
+endeavoured, surely without effect, to alienate the affections of the
+people from the only king, who, for almost a century, has much appeared
+to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve them. They have insulted him
+with rudeness, and with menaces, which were never excited by the gloomy
+sullenness of William, even when half the nation denied him their
+allegiance; nor by the dangerous bigotry of James, unless, when he was
+finally driven from his palace; and with which scarcely the open
+hostilities of rebellion ventured to vilify the unhappy Charles, even in
+the remarks on the cabinet of Naseby.
+
+It is surely not unreasonable to hope, that the nation will consult its
+dignity, if not its safety, and disdain to be protected or enslaved by
+the declaimers, or the plotters of a city tavern. Had Rome fallen by the
+Catilinarian conspiracy, she might have consoled her fate by the
+greatness of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the disgrace
+of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?
+
+One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but
+for some weighty and apparent interest. If the means were violent, the
+end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called, and
+believed, the best religion and the best government. The struggle in the
+reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now
+disputing, with almost equal animosity, whether Middlesex shall be
+represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.
+
+The only comfort left, in such degeneracy, is, that a lower state can be
+no longer possible.
+
+In this contemptuous censure, I mean not to include every single man. In
+all lead, says the chymist, there is silver; and in all copper there is
+gold. But mingled masses are justly denominated by the greater quantity,
+and when the precious particles are not worth extraction, a faction and
+a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance
+allots them:
+
+  "Fiunt urceoli, pelves, sartago, patellae."
+
+A few weeks will now show, whether the government can be shaken by empty
+noise, and whether the faction, which depends upon its influence, has
+not deceived, alike, the publick and itself. That it should have
+continued till now, is sufficiently shameful. None can, indeed, wonder
+that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of
+sedition, and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now
+remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find
+separation now only tolerated, which was once rewarded; but every honest
+man must lament, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the
+tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by
+opposition to the court, do not yet consider, that they have, at last, a
+king, who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common
+father of all his people.
+
+As a man inebriated only by vapours soon recovers in the open air; a
+nation discontented to madness, without any adequate cause, will return
+to its wits and its allegiance, when a little pause has cooled it to
+reflection. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, at this alarming crisis,
+but to consider the alarm as false. To make concessions is to encourage
+encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed
+people will soon deride it.
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.
+
+
+The following thoughts were published in 1771; from materials furnished
+to the author by the ministry. His description of the miseries of war is
+most eloquently persuasive, and his invectives against the opposition,
+and their mysterious champion, abound with the most forcible and
+poignant satire. In a letter to Mr. Langton, from Johnson, we find that
+lord North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed.
+Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason
+of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a
+dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the
+second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down
+or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the
+value of the Falkland islands to England too low.--ED.
+
+
+
+
+THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771.
+
+
+To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard
+a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the
+discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed
+armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
+
+Not, many years have passed, since the cruelties of war were filling the
+world with terrour and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or
+strength exhausted, and, to the harassed nations peace was restored with
+its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness,
+and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can
+be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger
+of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in
+the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if
+they had not happened to make a seamark, had, perhaps, never had a name!
+
+Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected; and that
+renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness,
+is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was
+ennobled by the passage of Caesar, and the time is now come, when
+Falkland's islands demand their historian.
+
+But the writer, to whom this employment shall be assigned, will have few
+opportunities of descriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of other
+countries it is told, how often they have changed their government;
+these islands have, hitherto, changed only their name. Of heroes to
+conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance;
+nothing has happened to them, but that they have been, sometimes, seen
+by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better
+habitations.
+
+When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered
+America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions, they
+surprised and terrified Europe, by a sudden and unexampled influx of
+riches. They were made, at once, insupportably insolent, and might,
+perhaps, have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous
+treasures been scattered in the air, with the ignorant profusion of
+unaccustomed opulence.
+
+The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches
+flowing into Spain, without attempting to dip their own hands in the
+golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was
+extending her dominions in the east, over regions formed in the gaiety
+of nature; the Hanseatick league, being planned only for the security of
+traffick, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial
+states of Italy, growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and
+not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek, by great hazards, at a
+distance, what was, almost at home, to be found with safety.
+
+The English, alone, were animated by the success of the Spanish
+navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or
+incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north
+there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were
+pre-occupied, yet they still continued their hopes and their labours.
+They were the second nation that dared the extent of the Pacifick ocean,
+and the second circumnavigators of the globe.
+
+By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became
+lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty,
+supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the
+Spaniards. Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their
+influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views
+of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.
+
+In the fatal voyage of Cavendish, (1592,) captain Davis, who, being sent
+out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him, or deserted him,
+as he was driven, by violence of weather, about the straits of Magellan,
+is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called
+Falkland's islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any
+observation; and he left them, as he found them, without a name.
+
+Not long afterwards, (1594,) sir Richard Hawkins being in the same seas,
+with the same designs, saw these islands again, if they are, indeed, the
+same islands, and, in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's
+maiden land.
+
+This voyage was not of renown sufficient to procure a general reception
+to the new name; for when the Dutch, who had now become strong enough
+not only to defend themselves, but to attack their masters, sent (1598)
+Verhagen and Sebald de Wert into the South seas, these islands, which
+were not supposed to have been known before, obtained the denomination
+of Sebald's islands, and were, from that time, placed in the charts;
+though Frezier tells us, that they were yet considered as of doubtful
+existence.
+
+Their present English name was, probably, given them (1689) by Strong,
+whose journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Museum. This name was
+adopted by Halley, and has, from that time, I believe, been received
+into our maps.
+
+The privateers, which were put into motion by the wars of William and
+Anne, saw those islands, and mention them; but they were yet not
+considered as territories worth a contest. Strong affirmed that there
+was no wood; and Dampier suspected that they had no water.
+
+Frezier describes their appearance with more distinctness, and mentions
+some ships of St. Malo's, by which they had been visited, and to which
+he seems willing enough to ascribe the honour of discovering islands,
+which yet he admits to have been seen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de
+Wert. He, I suppose, in honour of his countrymen, called them the
+Malouines, the denomination now used by the Spaniards, who seem not,
+till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deserve a
+name.
+
+Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed
+their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepys's, or Falkland's island,
+recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future
+expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as of such use and
+importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and, in war,
+would make us masters of the South sea.
+
+Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the
+imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. The
+relater of Anson's voyage had heated his mind with its various events;
+had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation suffered
+by its various miscarriages, and then thought nothing could be of
+greater benefit to the nation, than that which might promote the success
+of such another enterprise.
+
+Had the heroes of that history even performed and attained all that,
+when they first spread their sails, they ventured to hope, the
+consequence would yet have produced very little hurt to the Spaniards,
+and very little benefit to the English. They would have taken a few
+towns; Anson and his companions would have shared the plunder or the
+ransome; and the Spaniards, finding their southern territories
+accessible, would, for the future, have guarded them better.
+
+That such a settlement may be of use in war, no man, that considers its
+situation, will deny. But war is not the whole business of life; it
+happens but seldom, and every man, either good or wise, wishes that its
+frequency were still less. That conduct which betrays designs of future
+hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate
+malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and
+continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indirect
+injuries, without the bravery of war or the security of peace.
+
+The advantage of such a settlement, in time of peace, is, I think, not
+easily to be proved. For what use can it have, but of a station for
+contraband traders, a nursery of fraud, and a receptacle of theft!
+Narborough, about a century ago, was of opinion, that no advantage could
+be obtained in voyages to the South sea, except by such an armament as,
+with a sailor's morality, _might trade by force_. It is well known, that
+the prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these countries, to the
+last degree, rigorous, and that no man, not authorized by the king of
+Spain, can trade there but by force or stealth. Whatever profit is
+obtained must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of
+fraud.
+
+Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at such purity and excellence,
+but that some connivance, at least, will be indulged to the triumphant
+robber and successful cheat. He that brings wealth home is seldom
+interrogated by what means it was obtained. This, however, is one of
+those modes of corruption with which mankind ought always to struggle,
+and which they may, in time, hope to overcome. There is reason to
+expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality
+will, at last, be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what
+they would not suffer.
+
+But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity
+far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To
+pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the
+crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! The
+contraband trader is not more worthy of protections; if, with
+Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he
+is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as
+obstructers of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats,
+because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full
+of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those,
+who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when
+he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in
+evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends
+the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example.
+
+Whether these truths were forgotten, or despised; or, whether some
+better purpose was then in agitation, the representation made in Anson's
+voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of that time, that, in 1748,
+some sloops were fitted out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and
+Falkland's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea. This
+expedition, though, perhaps, designed to be secret, was not long
+concealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassadour, who so vehemently opposed
+it, and so strongly maintained the right of the Spaniards to the
+exclusive dominion of the South sea, that the English ministry
+relinquished part of their original design, and declared, that the
+examination of those two islands was the utmost that their orders should
+comprise.
+
+This concession was sufficiently liberal or sufficiently submissive; yet
+the Spanish court was neither gratified by our kindness, nor softened by
+our humility. Sir Benjamin Keene, who then resided at Madrid, was
+interrogated by Carvajal, concerning the visit intended to Pepys's and
+Falkland's islands, in terms of great jealousy and discontent; and the
+intended expedition was represented, if not as a direct violation of the
+late peace, yet as an act inconsistent with amicable intentions, and
+contrary to the professions of mutual kindness, which then passed
+between Spain and England. Keene was directed to protest, that nothing
+more than mere discovery was intended, and that no settlement was to be
+established. The Spaniard readily replied, that, if this was a voyage of
+wanton curiosity, it might be gratified with less trouble, for he was
+willing to communicate whatever was known; that to go so far only to
+come back was no reasonable act; and it would be a slender sacrifice to
+peace and friendship to omit a voyage, in which nothing was to be
+gained; that if we left the, places as we found them, the voyage was
+useless; and if we took possession, it was a hostile armament; nor could
+we expect that the Spaniards would suppose us to visit the southern
+parts of America only from curiosity, after the scheme proposed by the
+author of Anson's voyage.
+
+When once we had disowned all purpose of settling, it is apparent, that
+we could not defend the propriety of our expedition by arguments
+equivalent to Carvajal's objections. The ministry, therefore, dismissed
+the whole design, but no declaration was required, by which our right to
+pursue it, hereafter, might be annulled.
+
+From this time Falkland's island was forgotten or neglected, till the
+conduct of naval affairs was intrusted to the earl of Egmont, a man
+whose mind was vigorous and ardent, whose knowledge was extensive, and
+whose designs were magnificent; but who had somewhat vitiated his
+judgment by too much indulgence of romantick projects and airy
+speculations.
+
+Lord Egmont's eagerness after something new determined him to make
+inquiry after Falkland's island, and he sent out captain Byron, who, in
+the beginning of the year 1765, took, he says, a formal possession, in
+the name of his Britannick majesty.
+
+The possession of this place is, according to Mr. Byron's
+representation, no despicable acquisition. He conceived the island to be
+six or seven hundred miles round, and represented it, as a region naked
+indeed of wood, but which, if that defect were supplied, would have all
+that nature, almost all that luxury could want. The harbour he found
+capacious and secure, and, therefore, thought it worthy of the name of
+Egmont. Of water there was no want, and the ground he described, as
+having all the excellencies of soil, and as covered with antiscorbutick
+herbs, the restoratives of the sailor. Provision was easily to be had,
+for they killed, almost every day, a hundred geese to each ship, by
+pelting them with stones. Not content with physick and with food, he
+searched yet deeper for the value of the new dominion. He dug in quest
+of ore; found iron in abundance, and did not despair of nobler metals.
+
+A country thus fertile and delightful, fortunately found where none
+would have expected it, about the fiftieth degree of southern latitude,
+could not, without great supineness, be neglected. Early in the next
+year, (January 8, 1766,) captain Macbride arrived at port Egmont, where
+he erected a small block-house, and stationed a garrison; His
+description was less flattering. He found what he calls a mass of
+islands and broken lands, of which the soil was nothing but a bog, with
+no better prospect than that of barren mountains, beaten by storms
+almost perpetual. Yet this, says he, is summer, and if the winds of
+winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables'
+length from the shore, must pass weeks without any communication with
+it. The plenty which regaled Mr. Byron, and which might have supported
+not only armies, but armies of Patagons, was no longer to be found. The
+geese were too wise to stay, when men violated their haunts, and Mr.
+Macbride's crew could only now and then kill a goose, when the weather
+would permit. All the quadrupeds which he met there were foxes, supposed
+by him to have been brought upon the ice; but of useless animals, such
+as sea lions and penguins, which he calls vermin, the number was
+incredible. He allows, however, that those who touch at these islands
+may find geese and snipes, and, in the summer months, wild celery and
+sorrel.
+
+No token was seen, by either, of any settlement ever made upon this
+island; and Mr. Macbride thought himself so secure from hostile
+disturbance, that, when he erected his wooden block-house, he omitted to
+open the ports and loopholes.
+
+When a garrison was stationed at port Egmont, it was necessary to try
+what sustenance the ground could be, by culture, excited to produce. A
+garden was prepared; but the plants that sprung up withered away in
+immaturity: some fir seeds were sown; but, though this be the native
+tree of rugged climates, the young firs, that rose above the ground,
+died like weaker herbage: the cold continued long, and the ocean seldom
+was at rest.
+
+Cattle succeeded better than vegetables. Goats, sheep, and hogs, that
+were carried thither, were found to thrive and increase, as in other
+places.
+
+"Nil mortalibus arduum est:" there is nothing which human courage will
+not undertake, and little that human, patience will not endure. The
+garrison lived upon Falkland's island, shrinking from the blast, and
+shuddering at the billows.
+
+This was a colony which could never become independent, for it never
+could be able to maintain itself. The necessary supplies were annually
+sent from England, at an expense which the admiralty began to think
+would not quickly be repaid. But shame of deserting a project, and
+unwillingness to contend with a projector that meant well, continued the
+garrison, and supplied it with regular remittances of stores and
+provision.
+
+That of which we were almost weary ourselves, we did not expect any one
+to envy; and, therefore, supposed that we should be permitted to reside
+in Falkland's island, the undisputed lords of tempest-beaten barrenness.
+
+But, on the 28th of November, 1769, captain Hunt, observing a Spanish
+schooner hovering about the island, and surveying it, sent the commander
+a message, by which he required him to depart. The Spaniard made an
+appearance of obeying, but, in two days, came back with letters, written
+by the governour of port Solidad, and brought by the chief officer of a
+settlement, on the east part of Falkland's island.
+
+In this letter, dated Malouina, November 30, the governour complains,
+that captain Hunt, when he ordered the schooner to depart, assumed a
+power to which he could have no pretensions, by sending an imperious
+message to the Spaniards, in the king of Spain's own dominions.
+
+In another letter, sent at the same time, he supposes the English to be
+in that part only by accident, and to be ready to depart, at the first
+warning. This letter was accompanied by a present, of which, says he,
+"If it be neither equal to my desire nor to your merit, you must impute
+the deficiency to the situation of us both."
+
+In return to this hostile civility, captain Hunt warned them from the
+island, which he claimed in the name of the king, as belonging to the
+English, by right of the first discovery and the first settlement.
+
+This was an assertion of more confidence than certainty. The right of
+discovery, indeed, has already appeared to be probable, but the right
+which priority of settlement confers, I know not whether we yet can
+establish.
+
+On December 10, the officer, sent by the governour of port Solidad, made
+three protests against captain Hunt, for threatening to fire upon him;
+for opposing his entrance into port Egmont; and for entering himself
+into port Solidad. On the 12th, the governour of port Solidad formally
+warned captain Hunt to leave port Egmont, and to forbear the navigation
+of these seas, without permission from the king of Spain.
+
+To this captain Hunt replied, by repeating his former claim; by
+declaring that his orders were to keep possession; and by once more
+warning the Spaniards to depart.
+
+The next month produced more protests and more replies, of which the
+tenour was nearly the same. The operations of such harmless enmity
+having produced no effect, were then reciprocally discontinued, and the
+English were left, for a time, to enjoy the pleasures of Falkland's
+island, without molestation.
+
+This tranquillity, however, did not last long. A few months afterwards,
+(June 4, 1770,) the Industry, a Spanish frigate, commanded by an
+officer, whose name was Madariaga, anchored in port Egmont, bound, as
+was said, for port Solidad, and reduced, by a passage from Buenos Ayres
+of fifty-three days, to want of water.
+
+Three days afterwards, four other frigates entered the port, and a broad
+pendant, such as is borne by the commander of a naval armament, was
+displayed from the Industry. Captain Farmer, of the Swift frigate, who
+commanded the garrison, ordered the crew of the Swift to come on shore,
+and assist in its defence; and directed captain Maltby to bring the
+Favourite frigate, which he commanded, nearer to the land. The Spaniards
+easily discovering the purpose of his motion, let him know, that if he
+weighed his anchor, they would fire upon his ship; but, paying no regard
+to these menaces, he advanced toward the shore. The Spanish fleet
+followed, and two shots were fired, which fell at a distance from him.
+He then sent to inquire the reason of such hostility, and was told, that
+the shots were intended only as signals.
+
+Both the English captains wrote, the next day, to Madariaga, the Spanish
+commodore, warning him from the island, as from a place which the
+English held by right of discovery.
+
+Madariaga, who seems to have had no desire of unnecessary mischief,
+invited them (June 9) to send an officer, who should take a view of his
+forces, that they might be convinced of the vanity of resistance, and do
+that, without compulsion, which he was, upon refusal, prepared to
+enfcrce.
+
+An officer was sent, who found sixteen hundred men, with a train of
+twenty-seven cannon, four mortars, and two hundred bombs. The fleet
+consisted of five frigates, from twenty to thirty guns, which were now
+stationed opposite to the block-house.
+
+He then sent them a formal memorial, in which he maintained his master's
+right to the whole Magellanick region, and exhorted the English to
+retire quietly from the settlement, which they could neither justify by
+right, nor maintain by power.
+
+He offered them the liberty of carrying away whatever they were desirous
+to remove, and promised his receipt for what should be left, that no
+loss might be suffered by them.
+
+His propositions were expressed in terms of great civility; but he
+concludes with demanding an answer in fifteen minutes.
+
+Having, while he was writing, received the letters of warning, written
+the day before by the English captains, he told them, that he thought
+himself able to prove the king of Spain's title to all those countries,
+but that this was no time for verbal altercations. He persisted in his
+determination, and allowed only fifteen minutes for an answer.
+
+To this it was replied, by captain Farmer, that though there had been
+prescribed yet a shorter time, he should still resolutely defend his
+charge; that this, whether menace or force, would be considered as an
+insult on the British flag, and that satisfaction would certainly be
+required.
+
+On the next day, June 10, Madariaga landed his forces, and it may be
+easily imagined, that he had no bloody conquest. The English had only a
+wooden block-house, built at Woolwich, and carried in pieces to the
+island, with a small battery of cannon. To contend with obstinacy had
+been only to lavish life without use or hope, After the exchange of a
+very few shots, a capitulation was proposed.
+
+The Spanish commander acted with moderation; he exerted little of the
+conqueror; what he had offered before the attack, he granted after the
+victory; the English were allowed to leave the place with every honour,
+only their departure was delayed, by the terms of the capitulation,
+twenty days; and, to secure their stay, the rudder of the Favourite was
+taken off. What they desired to carry away they removed without
+molestation; and of what they left, an inventory was drawn, for which
+the Spanish officer, by his receipt, promised to be accountable.
+
+Of this petty revolution, so sudden and so distant, the English ministry
+could not possibly have such notice, as might enable them to prevent it.
+The conquest, if such it may be called, cost but three days; for the
+Spaniards, either supposing the garrison stronger than it was, or
+resolving to trust nothing to chance, or considering that, as their
+force was greater, there was less dariger of bloodshed, came with a
+power that made resistance ridiculous, and, at once, demanded and
+obtained possession.
+
+The first account of any discontent expressed by the Spaniards, was
+brought by captain Hunt, who arriving at Plymouth, June 3, 1770,
+informed the admiralty, that the island had been claimed in December, by
+the governour of port Solidad.
+
+This claim, made by an officer of so little dignity, without any known
+direction from his superiours, could be considered only as the zeal or
+officiousness of an individual, unworthy of publick notice, or the
+formality of remonstrance.
+
+In August, Mr. Harris, the resident at Madrid, gave notice to lord
+Weymouth, of an account newly brought to Cadiz, that the English were in
+possession of port Cuizada, the same which we call port Egmont, in the
+Magellanick sea; that in January, they had warned away two Spanish
+ships; and that an armament was sent out in May, from Buenos Ayres, to
+dislodge them.
+
+It was, perhaps, not yet certain, that this account was true; but the
+information, however faithful, was too late for prevention. It was
+easily known, that a fleet despatched in May, had, before August,
+succeeded or miscarried.
+
+In October, captain Maltby came to England, and gave the account which I
+have now epitomised, of his expulsion from Falkland's islands.
+
+From this moment, the whole nation can witness, that no time was lost.
+The navy was surveyed, the ships refitted, and commanders appointed; and
+a powerful fleet was assembled, well manned and well stored, with
+expedition, after so long a peace, perhaps, never known before, and with
+vigour, which, after the waste of so long a war, scarcely any other
+nation had been capable of exerting.
+
+This preparation, so illustrious in the eyes of Europe, and so
+efficacious in its event, was obstructed by the utmost power of that
+noisy faction, which has too long filled the kingdom, sometimes with the
+roar of empty menace, and sometimes with the yell of hypocritical
+lamentation. Every man saw, and every honest man saw with detestation,
+that they who desired to force their sovereign into war, endeavoured, at
+the same time, to disable him from action.
+
+The vigour and spirit of the ministry easily broke through all the
+machinations of these pygmy rebels, and our armament was quickly such as
+was likely to make our negotiations effectual.
+
+The prince of Masseran, in his first conference with the English
+ministers on this occasion, owned that he had from Madrid received
+intelligence, that the English had been forcibly expelled from
+Falkland's island, by Buccarelli, the governour of Buenos Ayres, without
+any particular orders from the king of Spain. But being asked, whether,
+in his master's name, he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to
+answer, without direction.
+
+The scene of negotiation was now removed to Madrid, and, in September,
+Mr. Harris was directed to demand, from Grimaldi, the Spanish minister,
+the restitution of Falkland's island, and a disavowal of Buccarelli's
+hostilities.
+
+It was to be expected that Grimaldi would object to us our own
+behaviour, who had ordered the Spaniards to depart from the same island.
+To this it was replied, that the English forces were, indeed, directed
+to warn other nations away; but, if compliance were refused, to proceed
+quietly in making their settlement, and suffer the subjects, of whatever
+power, to remain there without molestation. By possession thus taken,
+there was only a disputable claim advanced, which might be peaceably and
+regularly decided, without insult and without force; and, if the
+Spaniards had complained at the British court, their reasons would have
+been heard, and all injuries redressed; but that, by presupposing the
+justice of their own title, and having recourse to arms, without any
+previous notice or remonstrance, they had violated the peace, and
+insulted the British government; and, therefore, it was expected, that
+satisfaction should be made by publick disavowal, and immediate
+restitution.
+
+The answer of Grimaldi was ambiguous and cold. He did not allow that any
+particular orders had been given for driving the English from their
+settlement; but made no scruple of declaring, that such an ejection was
+nothing more than the settlers might have expected; and that Buccarelli
+had not, in his opinion, incurred any blame, as the general injunctions
+to the American governours were to suffer no encroachments on the
+Spanish dominions.
+
+In October, the prince of Masseran proposed a convention, for the
+accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning
+given to the Spaniards, by Hunt, should be disavowed on one side, and
+the violence used by Buccarelli, on the other. This offer was
+considered, as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi was told,
+that injury required reparation; that when either party had suffered
+evident wrong, there was not the parity subsisting, which is implied in
+conventions and contracts; that we considered ourselves as openly
+insulted, and demanded satisfaction, plenary and unconditional.
+
+Grimaldi affected to wonder, that we were not yet appeased by their
+concessions. They had, he said, granted all that was required; they had
+offered to restore the island in the state in which they found it; but
+he thought that they, likewise, might hope for some regard, and that the
+warning, sent by Hunt, would be disavowed.
+
+Mr. Harris, our minister at Madrid, insisted, that the injured party had
+a right to unconditional reparation, and Grimaldi delayed his answer,
+that a council might be called. In a few days, orders were despatched to
+prince Masseran, by which he was commissioned to declare the king of
+Spain's readiness to satisfy the demands of the king of England, in
+expectation of receiving from him reciprocal satisfaction, by the
+disavowal, so often required, of Hunt's warning.
+
+Finding the Spaniards disposed to make no other acknowledgments, the
+English ministry considered a war as not likely to be long avoided. In
+the latter end of November, private notice was given of their danger to
+the merchants at Cadiz, and the officers, absent from Gibraltar, were
+remanded to their posts. Our naval force was every day increased, and we
+made no abatement of our original demand.
+
+The obstinacy of the Spanish court still continued, and, about the end
+of the year, all hope of reconciliation was so nearly extinguished, that
+Mr. Harris was directed to withdraw, with the usual forms, from his
+residence at Madrid.
+
+Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful; having
+not swelled our first requisition with any superfluous appendages, we
+had nothing to yield, we, therefore, only repeated our first
+proposition, prepared for war, though desirous of peace.
+
+About this time, as is well known, the king of France dismissed Choiseul
+from his employments. What effect this revolution of the French court
+had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul
+had always professed pacifick dispositions; nor is it certain, however
+it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different
+parties.
+
+It seems to be almost the universal errour of historians to suppose it
+politically, as it is physically true, that every effect has a
+proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the
+motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but
+the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws.
+The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always
+that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and
+flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each
+other; and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be
+the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made.
+
+Whether the alteration, which began in January to appear in the Spanish
+counsels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of
+their past conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not easy to
+decide; but they began, whatever was the reason, to relax their
+haughtiness, and Mr. Harris's departure was countermanded.
+
+The demands first made by England were still continued, and on January
+22d, the prince of Masseran delivered a declaration, in which the king
+of Spain "disavows the violent enterprise of Buccarelli," and promises
+"to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and
+stores, according to the inventory."
+
+To this promise of restitution is subjoined, that "this engagement to
+restore port Egmont cannot, nor ought, in any wise, to affect the
+question of the prior right of sovereignty of the _Malouine_, otherwise
+called Falkland's islands."
+
+This concession was accepted by the earl of Rochford, who declared, on
+the part of his master, that the prince of Masseran, being authorized by
+his catholick majesty, "to offer, in his majesty's name, to the king of
+Great Britain, a satisfaction for the injury done him, by dispossessing
+him of port Egmont;" and, having signed a declaration, expressing that
+his catholick majesty "disavows the expedition against port Egmont, and
+engages to restore it, in the state in which it stood before the 10th of
+June, 1770, his Britannick majesty will look upon the said declaration,
+together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his
+catholick majesty, as a satisfaction for the injury done to the crown of
+Great Britain."
+
+This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is disavowed,
+and the island is restored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception
+of lord Rochford's paper, who twice mentions the word _injury_, and
+twice the word _satisfaction_.
+
+The Spaniards have stipulated, that the grant of possession shall not
+preclude the question of prior right, a question which we shall probably
+make no haste to discuss, and a right, of which no formal resignation
+was ever required. This reserve has supplied matter for much clamour,
+and, perhaps the English ministry would have been better pleased had the
+declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was
+asked, why should we complain that we have not more? When the possession
+is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession
+supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for
+a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure,
+because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never
+been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king
+of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his
+title?
+
+If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a
+sovereign through his whole dominions; if sovereignty consists in this,
+that no superiour is acknowledged, our king reigns at port Egmont with
+sovereign authority. Almost every new-acquired territory is, in some
+degree, controvertible, and till the controversy is decided, a term very
+difficult to be fixed, all that can be had is real possession and actual
+dominion.
+
+This, surely, is a sufficient answer to the feudal gabble of a man, who
+is every day lessening that splendour of character which once
+illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and
+for whom it will be happy if the nation shall, at last, dismiss him to
+nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of blame and praise which
+Corneille allows to Richelieu, a man who, I think, had much of his
+merit, and many of his faults:
+
+  "Chacun parle a son gre de ce grand cardinal;
+    Mais, pour moi, je n'en dirai rien:
+  Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal;
+    Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."
+
+To push advantages too far is neither generous nor just. Had we insisted
+on a concession of antecedent right, it may not misbecome us, either as
+moralists or politicians, to consider what Grimaldi could have answered.
+We have already, he might say, granted you the whole effect of right,
+and have not denied you the name. We have not said, that the right was
+ours before this concession, but only that what right we had, is not, by
+this concession, vacated. We have now, for more than two centuries,
+ruled large tracts of the American continent, by a claim which, perhaps,
+is valid only upon this consideration, that no power can produce a
+better; by the right of discovery, and prior settlement. And by such
+titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that
+their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them
+greater veneration. Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole
+fabrick of our empire shakes at the foundation. When you suppose
+yourselves to have first descried the disputed island, you suppose what
+you can hardly prove. We were, at least, the general discoverers of the
+Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies.
+The justice of this tenure the world has, hitherto, admitted, and
+yourselves, at least, tacitly allowed it, when, about twenty years ago,
+you desisted from your purposed expedition, and expressly disowned any
+design of settling, where you are now not content to settle and to
+reign, without extorting such a confession of original right, as may
+invite every other nation to follow you.
+
+To considerations such as these, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety
+of the Spaniards, from which the importance of this island is inferred
+by Junius, one of the few writers of his despicable faction, whose name
+does not disgrace the page of an opponent. The value of the thing
+disputed may be very different to him that gains and him that loses it.
+The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's island, have admitted a precedent
+of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in
+the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior
+right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of
+their American territories.
+
+Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We
+have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarelli's expedition, and a
+restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and
+the superiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired?
+What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from
+human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not
+the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison
+must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of
+Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only
+occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a
+nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers.
+To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the
+island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet
+clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it
+in a short time.
+
+This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a
+numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the
+titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness approaches to
+an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long
+accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding
+another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess.
+But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto
+shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning
+for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!
+
+As war is the last of remedies, "cuncta prius tentanda," all lawful
+expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it
+is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care
+of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of animal
+nature, which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the
+depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collective
+life, for which fire and the sword are the necessary remedies; but in
+what can skill or caution be better shown, than preventing such dreadful
+operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods!
+
+It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of
+mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read
+of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds,
+consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an
+army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most
+successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their
+lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory,
+smile in death."
+
+The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War
+has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.
+Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests
+with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an
+enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and
+putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and
+groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of
+hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelmed in pits, or heaved into the
+ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
+encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and
+enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies
+sluggishly melted away.
+
+Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little
+effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the
+system of empire. The publick perceives scarcely any alteration, but an
+increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not
+supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that
+shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and, after bleeding in the battle,
+grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But, at
+the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death
+of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the
+sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries,
+whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like
+exhalations!
+
+These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing
+rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or
+ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from
+their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to
+figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new
+armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
+
+Those who suffer their minds to dwell on these considerations, will
+think it no great crime in the ministry, that they have not snatched,
+with eagerness, the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when
+they were able to obtain, by quiet negotiation, all the real good that
+victory could have brought us.
+
+Of victory, indeed, every nation is confident before the sword is drawn;
+and this mutual confidence produces that wantonness of bloodshed, that
+has so often desolated the world. But it is evident, that of
+contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind
+does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and
+moderation to the proud.
+
+Let us not think our laurels blasted by condescending to inquire,
+whether we might not possibly grow rather less than greater by attacking
+Spain. Whether we should have to contend with Spain alone, whatever has
+been promised by our patriots, may very reasonably be doubted. A war
+declared for the empty sound of an ancient title to a Magellanick rock,
+would raise the indignation of the earth against us. These encroachers
+on the waste of nature, says our ally the Russian, if they succeed in
+their first effort of usurpation, will make war upon us for a title to
+Kamtschatka. These universal settlers, says our ally the Dane, will, in
+a short time, settle upon Greenland, and a fleet will batter Copenhagen,
+till we are willing to confess, that it always was their own.
+
+In a quarrel, like this, it is not possible that any power should favour
+us, and it is very likely that some would oppose us. The French, we are
+told, are otherwise employed: the contests between the king of France,
+and his own subjects, are sufficient to withhold him from supporting
+Spain. But who does not know that a foreign war has often put a stop to
+civil discords? It withdraws the attention of the publick from domestick
+grievances, and affords opportunities of dismissing the turbulent and
+restless to distant employments. The Spaniards have always an argument
+of irresistible persuasion: if France will not support them against
+England, they will strengthen England against France.
+
+But let us indulge a dream of idle speculation, and suppose that we are
+to engage with Spain, and with Spain alone; it is not even yet very
+certain that much advantage will be gained. Spain is not easily
+vulnerable; her kingdom, by the loss or cession of many fragments of
+dominion, is become solid and compact. The Spaniards have, indeed, no
+fleet able to oppose us, but they will not endeavour actual opposition:
+they will shut themselves up in their own territories, and let us
+exhaust our seamen in a hopeless siege: they will give commissions to
+privateers of every nation, who will prey upon our merchants without
+possibility of reprisal. If they think their Plata fleet in danger, they
+will forbid it to set sail, and live awhile upon the credit of treasure
+which all Europe knows to be safe; and which, if our obstinacy should
+continue till they can no longer be without it, will be conveyed to them
+with secrecy and security, by our natural enemies the French, or by the
+Dutch our natural allies.
+
+But the whole continent of Spanish America will lie open to invasion; we
+shall have nothing to do but march into these wealthy regions, and make
+their present masters confess, that they were always ours by ancient
+right. We shall throw brass and iron out of our houses, and nothing but
+silver will be seen among us.
+
+All this is very desirable, but it is not certain that it can be easily
+attained. Large tracts of America were added, by the last war, to the
+British dominions; but, if the faction credit their own Apollo, they
+were conquered in Germany. They, at best, are only the barren parts of
+the continent, the refuse of the earlier adventurers, which the French,
+who came last, had taken only as better than nothing.
+
+Against the Spanish dominions we have never, hitherto, been able to do
+much. A few privateers have grown rich at their expense, but no scheme
+of conquest has yet been successful. They are defended, not by walls
+mounted with cannons, which by cannons may be battered, but by the
+storms of the deep, and the vapours of the land, by the flames of
+calenture and blasts of pestilence.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, the favourite period of English greatness, no
+enterprises against America had any other consequence than that of
+extending English navigation. Here Cavendish perished, after all his
+hazards; and here Drake and Hawkins, great as they were in knowledge and
+in fame, having promised honour to themselves, and dominion to the
+country, sunk by desperation and misery in dishonourable graves.
+
+During the protectorship of Cromwell, a time of which the patriotick
+tribes still more ardently desire the return, the Spanish dominions were
+again attempted; but here, and only here, the fortune of Cromwell made a
+pause. His forces were driven from Hispaniola; his hopes of possessing
+the West Indies vanished; and Jamaica was taken, only that the whole
+expedition might not grow ridiculous.
+
+The attack of Carthagena is yet remembered, where the Spaniards, from
+the ramparts, saw their invaders destroyed by the hostility of the
+elements, poisoned by the air, and crippled by the dews; where every
+hour swept away battalions; and, in the three days that passed between
+the descent and reembarkation, half an army perished.
+
+In the last war the Havanna was taken; at what expense is too well
+remembered. May my country be never cursed with such another conquest!
+
+These instances of miscarriage, and these arguments of difficulty, may,
+perhaps, abate the military ardour of the publick. Upon the opponents of
+the government their operation will be different; they wish for war, but
+not for conquest; victory would defeat their purposes equally with
+peace, because prosperity would naturally continue the trust in those
+hands which had used it fortunately. The patriots gratified themselves
+with expectations that some sinistrous accident, or erroneous conduct,
+might diffuse discontent, and inflame malignity. Their hope is
+malevolence, and their good is evil.
+
+Of their zeal for their country we have already had a specimen. While
+they were terrifying the nation with doubts, whether it was any longer
+to exist; while they represented invasive armies as hovering in the
+clouds, and hostile fleets, as emerging from the deeps; they obstructed
+our levies of seamen, and embarrassed our endeavours of defence. Of such
+men he thinks with unnecessary candour who does not believe them likely
+to have promoted the miscarriage, which they desired, by intimidating
+our troops, or betraying our counsels.
+
+It is considered as an injury to the publick, by those sanguinary
+statesmen, that though the fleet has been refitted and manned, yet no
+hostilities have followed; and they, who sat wishing for misery and
+slaughter, are disappointed of their pleasure. But as peace is the end
+of war, it is the end, likewise, of preparations for war; and he may be
+justly hunted down, as the enemy of mankind, that can choose to snatch,
+by violence and bloodshed, what gentler means can equally obtain.
+
+The ministry are reproached, as not daring to provoke an enemy, lest ill
+success should discredit and displace them. I hope that they had better
+reasons; that they paid some regard to equity and humanity; and
+considered themselves as intrusted with the safety of their
+fellow-subjects, and as the destroyers of all that should be
+superfluously slaughtered. But let us suppose, that their own safety had
+some influence on their conduct, they will not, however, sink to a level
+with their enemies. Though the motive might be selfish, the act was
+innocent. They, who grow rich by administering physick, are not to be
+numbered with them that get money by dispensing poison. If they maintain
+power by harmlessness and peace, they must for ever be at a great
+distance from ruffians, who would gain it by mischief and confusion. The
+watch of a city may guard it for hire; but are well employed in
+protecting it from those, who lie in wait to fire the streets, and rob
+the houses, amidst the conflagration.
+
+An unsuccessful war would, undoubtedly, have had the effect which the
+enemies of the ministry so earnestly desire; for who could have
+sustained the disgrace of folly ending in misfortune? But had wanton
+invasion undeservedly prospered, had Falkland's island been yielded
+unconditionally, with every right, prior and posterior; though the
+rabble might have shouted, and the windows have blazed, yet those who
+know the value of life, and the uncertainty of publick credit, would
+have murmured, perhaps unheard, at the increase of our debt, and the
+loss of our people.
+
+This thirst of blood, however the visible promoters of sedition may
+think it convenient to shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by
+Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much of its pride, and some of
+its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he
+scatters ambiguous expressions among the vulgar; for he cries havock,
+without reserve, and endeavours to let slip the dogs of foreign or of
+civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what may be
+their prey.
+
+Junius has sometimes made his satire felt, but let not injudicious
+admiration mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. He
+has sometimes sported with lucky malice; but to him that knows his
+company, it is not hard to be sarcastick in a mask. While he walks, like
+Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much mischief
+with little strength. Novelty captivates the superficial and
+thoughtless; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. He that
+contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that
+vilifies established authority will always find abettors.
+
+Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely
+glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him, as a
+monster makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety, by
+impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice,
+enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to
+indulge himself in all the immunities of invisibility; out of the reach
+of danger, he has been bold; out of the reach of shame, he has been
+confident. As a rhetorician, he has had the art of persuading, when he
+seconded desire; as a reasoner, he has convinced those who had no doubt
+before; as a moralist, he has taught, that virtue may disgrace; and, as
+a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high. Finding
+sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it; finding the nation
+combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us abstract from his
+wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the
+sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall
+leave him nothing; the cause that I defend, scorns the help of
+falsehood; but if we leave him only his merit, what will be his praise?
+
+It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his
+fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London, and the boors
+of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They
+admire him, for virtues like their own, for contempt of order, and
+violence of outrage; for rage of defamation, and audacity of falsehood.
+The supporters of the bill of rights feel no niceties of composition,
+nor dexterities of sophistry; their faculties are better proportioned to
+the bawl of Bellas, or barbarity of Beckford; but they are told, that
+Junius is on their side, and they are, therefore, sure that Junius is
+infallible. Those who know not whither he would lead them, resolve to
+follow him; and those who cannot find his meaning, hope he means
+rebellion.
+
+Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which some have gazed with wonder,
+and some with terrour, but wonder and terrour are transitory passions.
+He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined; and
+what folly has taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair shook
+pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the
+vapours of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the
+effervescence of interest, struggling with conviction; which, after
+having plunged its followers in a bog, will leave us, inquiring why we
+regard it.
+
+Yet, though I cannot think the style of Junius secure from criticism,
+though his expressions are often trite, and his periods feeble, I should
+never have stationed him where he has placed himself, had I not rated
+him by his morals rather than his faculties. What, says Pope, must be
+the priest, where a monkey is the god? What must be the drudge of a
+party, of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?
+
+Junius knows his own meaning, and can, therefore, tell it. He is an
+enemy to the ministry; he sees them growing hourly stronger. He knows
+that a war, at once unjust and unsuccessful, would have certainly
+displaced them, and is, therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry
+that war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully conducted. But there
+are others whose thoughts are less clearly expressed, and whose schemes,
+perhaps, are less consequentially digested; who declare that they do not
+wish for a rupture, yet condemn the ministry for not doing that, by
+which a rupture would naturally have been made.
+
+If one party resolves to demand what the other resolves to refuse, the
+dispute can be determined only by arbitration; and between powers who
+have no common superiour, there is no other arbitrator than the sword.
+
+Whether the ministry might not equitably have demanded more is not worth
+a question. The utmost exertion of right is always invidious, and, where
+claims are not easily determinable, is always dangerous. We asked all
+that was necessary, and persisted in our first claim, without mean
+recession, or wanton aggravation. The Spaniards found us resolute, and
+complied, after a short struggle.
+
+The real crime of the ministry is, that they have found the means of
+avoiding their own ruin; but the charge against them is multifarious and
+confused, as will happen, when malice and discontent are ashamed of
+their complaint. The past and the future are complicated in the censure.
+We have heard a tumultuous clamour about honour and rights, injuries and
+insults, the British flag and the Favourite's rudder, Buccarelli's
+conduct and Grimaldi's declarations, the Manilla ransome, delays and
+reparation.
+
+Through the whole argument of the faction runs the general errour, that
+our settlement on Falkland's island was not only lawful, but
+unquestionable; that our right was not only certain, but acknowledged;
+and that the equity of our conduct was such, that the Spaniards could
+not blame or obstruct it, without combating their own conviction, and
+opposing the general opinion of mankind.
+
+If once it be discovered that, in the opinion of the Spaniards, our
+settlement was usurped, our claim arbitrary, and our conduct insolent,
+all that has happened will appear to follow by a natural concatenation.
+Doubts will produce disputes and disquisition; disquisition requires
+delay, and delay causes inconvenience.
+
+Had the Spanish government immediately yielded, unconditionally, all
+that was required, we might have been satisfied; but what would Europe
+have judged of their submission? that they shrunk before us, as a
+conquered people, who, having lately yielded to our arms, were now
+compelled to sacrifice to our pride. The honour of the publick is,
+indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to
+transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily
+been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as
+ourselves.
+
+When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt,
+they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by
+warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of
+insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be
+done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be
+no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to
+each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient
+provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might
+then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less
+inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to
+disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would
+be necessary.
+
+Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of
+Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which
+ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English
+captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which
+they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing
+terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except
+that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they
+secured the performance by taking off the rudder.
+
+To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this
+unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their
+stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If
+the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part
+in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be
+endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot
+yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.
+
+When Buccarelli's invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown
+infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained
+equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our
+exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had
+received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that
+he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which
+the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other
+powers.
+
+To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation
+of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion, which the
+pertinacity of political disputants might have continued without end.
+We, therefore, called for restitution, not as a confession of right, but
+as a reparation of honour, which required that we should be restored to
+our former state upon the island, and that the king of Spain should
+disavow the action of his governour.
+
+In return to this demand, the Spaniards expected from us a disavowal of
+the menaces, with which they had been first insulted by Hunt; and if the
+claim to the island be supposed doubtful, they certainly expected it
+with equal reason. This, however, was refused, and our superiority of
+strength gave validity to our arguments.
+
+But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary
+and fallacious; that Buccarelli's armament had all the appearance of
+regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at
+home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his
+master.
+
+That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied,
+affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court.
+Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere,
+must always be trusted with power to defend them.
+
+As little can be inferred from his reception at the Spanish court. He is
+not punished, indeed; for what has he done that deserves punishment? He
+was sent into America to govern and defend the dominions of Spain. He
+thought the English were encroaching, and drove them away. No Spaniard
+thinks that he has exceeded his duty, nor does the king of Spain charge
+him with excess. The boundaries of dominion, in that part of the world,
+have not yet been settled; and he mistook, if a mistake there was, like
+a zealous subject, in his master's favour.
+
+But all this inquiry is superfluous. Considered as a reparation of
+honour, the disavowal of the king of Spain, made in the sight of all
+Europe, is of equal value, whether true or false. There is, indeed, no
+reason to question its veracity; they, however, who do not believe it,
+must allow the weight of that influence, by which a great prince is
+reduced to disown his own commission.
+
+But the general orders, upon which the governour is acknowledged to have
+acted, are neither disavowed _nor_ explained. Why the Spaniards should
+disavow the defence of their own territories, the warmest disputant will
+find it difficult to tell; and, if by an explanation is meant an
+accurate delineation of the southern empire, and the limitation of their
+claims beyond the line, it cannot be imputed to any very culpable
+remissness, that what has been denied for two centuries to the European
+powers, was not obtained in a hasty wrangle about a petty settlement.
+
+The ministry were too well acquainted with negotiation to fill their
+heads with such idle expectations. The question of right was
+inexplicable and endless. They left it, as it stood. To be restored to
+actual possession was easily practicable. This restoration they required
+and obtained.
+
+But they should, say their opponents, have insisted upon more; they
+should have exacted not only, reparation of our honour, but repayment of
+our expense. Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs
+and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity
+of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of
+Manilla.
+
+The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour
+bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be
+remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham
+remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the
+adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to
+understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge.
+Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes
+wrong, he was often right. [29]
+
+Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more
+reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been
+sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance
+was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and
+destruction.
+
+Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very
+properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which
+provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why
+should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an
+East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a
+sum sufficient to satisfy our demands. If he be honest, he is hardly
+rich; and if he be disposed to rob, he has the misfortune of being
+placed, where robbers have been before him.
+
+The king of Spain, indeed, delayed to comply with our proposals, and our
+armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory
+debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not
+unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.
+
+But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation
+requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by
+inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled
+in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by
+reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to
+the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded
+satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their
+concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation
+is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we
+expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that
+sovereignty which they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they
+are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.
+
+The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all
+that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if
+any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst
+us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those
+who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures,
+waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick
+sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet
+flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of
+Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of
+grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of
+knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well
+known of charging all evil on their governours.
+
+The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last
+anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment,
+but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in
+spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out
+upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could
+not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from
+their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue;
+they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and
+confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as
+dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer
+paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.
+
+Their pretences I have here endeavoured to expose, by showing, that more
+than has been yielded, was not to be expected, that more, perhaps, was
+not to be desired, and that, if all had been refused, there had scarcely
+been an adequate reason for a war.
+
+There was, perhaps, never much danger of war, or of refusal, but what
+danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations,
+unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to
+the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots,
+of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and
+Yorkshire; when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the
+legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined, that such a
+government had little leisure for Falkland's island; they supposed that
+the English, when they returned ejected from port Egmont, would find
+Wilkes invested with the protectorate, or see the mayor of London, what
+the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander
+of the army, and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell
+their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect
+war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the bill of rights.
+
+But our enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are
+recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be
+subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is
+to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels.
+The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the
+vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been
+nothing more than a political _phtheiriasis_, a disease too loathsome
+for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of
+weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger.
+
+Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom
+their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now
+perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a
+savage proves nothing but his hunger.
+
+After all our broils, foreign and domestick, we may, at last, hope to
+remain awhile in quiet, amused with the view of our own success. We have
+gained political strength, by the increase of our reputation; we have
+gained real strength, by the reparation of our navy; we have shown
+Europe, that ten years of war have not yet exhausted us; and we have
+enforced our settlement on an island on which, twenty years ago, we
+durst not venture to look.
+
+These are the gratifications only of honest minds; but there is a time,
+in which hope comes to all. From the present happiness of the publick,
+the patriots themselves may derive advantage. To be harmless, though by
+impotence, obtains some degree of kindness: no man hates a worm as he
+hates a viper; they were once dreaded enough to be detested, as serpents
+that could bite; they have now shown that they can only hiss, and may,
+therefore, quietly slink into holes, and change their slough, unmolested
+and forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+THE PATRIOT. [30]
+
+ADDRESSED TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1774.
+
+  They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
+  Yet still revolt when truth would set them free;
+  License they mean, when they cry liberty,
+  For who loves that must first be wise and good.
+
+  MILTON.
+
+
+To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is
+within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered,
+which might once have been supplied; and much time is lost in regretting
+the time which had been lost before.
+
+At the end of every seven years comes the saturnalian season, when the
+freemen of great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their
+representatives. This happy day has now arrived, somewhat sooner than it
+could be claimed.
+
+To select and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be
+granted, is a high dignity, and an important trust; and it is the
+business of every elector to consider, how this dignity may be well
+sustained, and this trust faithfully discharged.
+
+It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in
+this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in
+parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights:
+no other man can merit our confidence.
+
+A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive,
+the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for
+himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but
+refers every thing to the common interest.
+
+That of five hundred men, such as this degenerate age affords, a
+majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet
+there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect
+more than was expected. Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him;
+and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish
+those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man
+may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent
+qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
+Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and
+unremitting opposition to the court.
+
+This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily
+included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his
+country. He that has been refused a reasonable, or unreasonable request,
+who thinks his merit underrated, and sees his influence declining,
+begins soon to talk of natural equality, the absurdity of "many made for
+one," the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majesty
+of the people. As his political melancholy increases, he tells, and,
+perhaps, dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of
+arbitrary power; yet his design, in all his declamation, is not to
+benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.
+
+These, however, are the most honest of the opponents of government;
+their patriotism is a species of disease; and they feel some part of
+what they express. But the greater, far the greater number of those who
+rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor
+care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by
+virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they
+may be sooner hired to be silent.
+
+A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent,
+and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of
+violated rights, and encroaching usurpation.
+
+This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the
+populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick
+happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that
+unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of
+government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge
+of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by
+reason, but caught by contagion.
+
+The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent,
+when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are still
+filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the freeholders of Middlesex,
+lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chosen, if
+any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclusion makes not any
+honest, or any decent man, think himself in clanger.
+
+It may be doubted, whether the name of a patriot can be fairly given, as
+the reward of secret satire, or open outrage. To fill the newspapers
+with sly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlesex
+Journal, and London Pacquet, may, indeed, be zeal; but it may, likewise,
+be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted;
+to insult a king-with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no
+punishment for legal insolence, is not courage, for there is no danger;
+nor patriotism, for it tends to the subversion of order, and lets
+wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to
+sovereign authority.
+
+It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe
+all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The
+true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to
+sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he
+sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his
+countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may
+be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by
+incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing
+the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power;
+and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own
+laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by
+juries.
+
+Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be
+false. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous
+complaints, that the protestant religion is in danger, because "popery
+is established in the extensive province of Quebec," a falsehood so open
+and shameless, that it can need no confutation among those who know that
+of which it is almost impossible for the most unenlightened zealot to be
+ignorant:
+
+That Quebec is on the other side of the Atlantick, at too great a
+distance to do much good or harm to the European world:
+
+That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are
+certainly more dangerous as enemies than as subjects:
+
+That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so
+many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:
+
+That persecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papist; and
+that, while we blame Lewis the fourteenth, for his dragoons and his
+galleys, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with
+greater equity:
+
+That when Canada, with its inhabitants, was yielded, the free enjoyment
+of their religion was stipulated; a condition, of which king William,
+who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the
+surrender of Limerick:
+
+That in an age, where every mouth is open for _liberty of conscience_,
+it is equitable to show some regard to the conscience of a papist, who
+may be supposed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own
+religion; and that those, at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to
+deny it to our new subjects.
+
+If liberty of conscience be a natural right, we have no power to
+withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while
+it is not denied to other sects.
+
+A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even
+this mark may sometimes deceive us.
+
+The people is a very heterogeneous and confused mass of the wealthy and
+the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we
+confer on a man, who caresses the people, the title of patriot, we must
+examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is
+proverbially said, that he who dissembles his own character, may be
+known by that of his companions. If the candidate of patriotism
+endeavours to infuse right opinions into the higher ranks, and, by their
+influence, to regulate the lower; if he consorts chiefly with the wise,
+the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may
+be rational and honest. But if his first or principal application be to
+the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally
+suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the
+profligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his
+love of the people be no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be
+thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot,
+or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the
+lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and,
+among sober handicraftsmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have
+some better distinction, before he is a patriot.
+
+A patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims, and animate
+the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them, frequently, of
+their rights, and stimulates them to resent encroachments, and to
+multiply securities.
+
+But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that
+raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for
+disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he
+knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his
+followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.
+
+A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten
+parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation,
+transmitted by our ancestors; he knows that futurity is not in his
+power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.
+
+Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
+mandates of his constituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and
+the inconstancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the
+opinion of his constituents shall be taken. Popular instructions are,
+commonly, the work, not of the wise and steady, but the violent and
+rash; meetings held for directing representatives are seldom attended
+but by the idle and the dissolute; and he is not without suspicion, that
+of his constituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may
+often be the wiser.
+
+He considers himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to
+preserve his constituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only
+from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.
+
+The common marks of patriotism having been examined, and shown to be
+such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly misapply, it cannot be
+improper to consider, whether there are not some characteristical modes
+of speaking or acting, which may prove a man to be not a patriot.
+
+In this inquiry, perhaps, clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer
+persuasion attained; for it is, commonly, easier to know what is wrong
+than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should
+pursue.
+
+As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which
+every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to
+hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes
+great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who
+desires the publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by
+aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little
+importance.
+
+It may, therefore, be safely pronounced, that those men are no patriots,
+who, when the national honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and
+the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to a
+disavowal of their attempt, and a relaxation of their claim, would still
+have instigated us to a war, for a bleak and barren spot in the
+Magellanick ocean, of which no use could be made, unless it were a place
+of exile for the hypocrites of patriotism.
+
+Yet let it not be forgotten, that, by the howling violence of patriotick
+rage, the nation was, for a time, exasperated to such madness, that, for
+a barren rock under a stormy sky, we might have now been fighting and
+dying, had not our competitors been wiser than ourselves; and those who
+are now courting the favour of the people, by noisy professions of
+publick spirit, would, while they were counting the profits of their
+artifice, have enjoyed the patriotick pleasure of hearing, sometimes,
+that thousands had been slaughtered in a battle, and, sometimes, that a
+navy had been dispeopled by poisoned air and corrupted food. He that
+wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
+
+That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims
+of American usurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its
+natural and lawful authority over its own colonies; those colonies,
+which were settled under English protection; were constituted by an
+English charter; and have been defended by English arms.
+
+To suppose, that by sending out a colony, the nation established an
+independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are
+become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at
+their own pleasure; and that they shall not be included, like millions
+of their fellow-subjects, in the general system of representation;
+involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the show of
+patriotism could palliate.
+
+He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always
+protected the Americans; we may, therefore, subject them to government.
+
+The less is included in the greater. That power which can take away
+life, may seize upon property. The parliament may enact, for America, a
+law of capital punishment; it may, therefore, establish a mode and
+proportion of taxation.
+
+But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians, because
+they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all
+are involved in the penalty imposed. This, they say, is to violate the
+first rule of justice, by condemning the innocent to suffer with the
+guilty.
+
+This deserves some notice, as it seems dictated by equity and humanity,
+however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the
+state of man, and the system of things. That the innocent should be
+confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil
+which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national
+punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have
+not incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a town,
+the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless
+burghers and the criminal garrison.
+
+In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt. If
+the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted
+the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered,
+but by the slaughter of our friends? A bomb might as well destroy an
+Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants
+would be the first that should perish.
+
+This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
+cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be maintained; and
+the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the
+rebels.
+
+That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their
+due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they
+receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious
+appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament;
+an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel,
+and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with
+gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in
+the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve
+the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of
+elections.
+
+The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first
+claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in
+which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to
+abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of
+the law, and the defeat of justice. The evil was, perhaps, not adequate
+to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this
+privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil. It is, however,
+plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at
+least, lost something from themselves. They divested their dignity of a
+very splendid distinction, and showed that they were more willing than
+their predecessors to stand on a level with their fellow-subjects.
+
+The new mode of trying elections, if it be found effectual, will diffuse
+its consequences further than seems yet to be foreseen. It is, I
+believe, generally considered as advantageous only to those who claim
+seats in parliament; but, if to choose representatives be one of the
+most valuable rights of Englishmen, every voter must consider that law
+as adding to his happiness, which makes his suffrage efficacious; since
+it was vain to choose, while the election could be controlled by any
+other power.
+
+With what imperious contempt of ancient rights, and what audaciousness
+of arbitrary authority former parliaments have judged the disputes about
+elections, it is not necessary to relate. The claim of a candidate, and
+the right of electors, are said scarcely to have been, even in
+appearance, referred to conscience; but to have been decided by party,
+by passion, by prejudice, or by frolick. To have friends in the borough
+was of little use to him, who wanted friends in the house; a pretence
+was easily found to evade a majority, and the seat was, at last, his,
+that was chosen, not by his electors, but his fellow-senators.
+
+Thus the nation was insulted with a mock election, and the parliament
+was filled with spurious representatives one of the most important
+claims, that of right to sit in the supreme council of the kingdom, was
+debated in jest, and no man could be confident of success from the
+justice of his cause.
+
+A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and
+solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of
+his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their
+approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit,
+may be certain, that he has not voted in vain.
+
+Such was the parliament, which some of those, who are now aspiring to
+sit in another, have taught the rabble to consider as an unlawful
+convention of men, worthless, venal, and prostitute, slaves of the
+court, and tyrants of the people.
+
+That the next house of commons may act upon the principles of the last,
+with more constancy and higher spirit, must be the wish of all who wish
+well to the publick; and, it is surely not too much to expect, that the
+nation will recover from its delusion, and unite in a general abhorrence
+of those, who, by deceiving the credulous with fictitious mischiefs,
+overbearing the weak by audacity of falsehood, by appealing to the
+judgment of ignorance, and flattering the vanity of meanness, by
+slandering honesty, and insulting dignity, have gathered round them
+whatever the kingdom can supply of base, and gross, and profligate; and
+"raised by merit to this bad eminence," arrogate to themselves the name
+of patriots.
+
+
+
+
+TAXATION NO TYRANNY;
+
+An answer [31] to the resolutions and address of the American congress.
+1775.
+
+
+In all the parts of human knowledge, whether terminating in science
+merely speculative, or operating upon life, private or civil, are
+admitted some fundamental principles, or common axioms, which,
+being-generally received, are little doubted, and, being little doubted,
+have been rarely proved.
+
+Of these gratuitous and acknowledged truths, it is often the fate to
+become less evident by endeavours to explain them, however necessary
+such endeavours may be made by the misapprehensions of absurdity, or the
+sophistries of interest. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+science; because notions cannot always be found more intelligible than
+those which are questioned. It is difficult to prove the principles of
+practice, because they have, for the most part, not been discovered by
+investigation, but obtruded by experience; and the demonstrator will
+find, after an operose deduction, that he has been trying to make that
+seen, which can be only felt.
+
+Of this kind is the position, that "the supreme power of every community
+has the right of requiring, from all its subjects, such contributions as
+are necessary to the publick safety or publick prosperity," which was
+considered, by all mankind, as comprising the primary and essential
+condition of all political society, till it became disputed by those
+zealots of anarchy, who have denied, to the parliament of Britain the
+right of taxing the American colonies.
+
+In favour of this exemption of the Americans from the authority of their
+lawful sovereign, and the dominion of their mother-country, very loud
+clamours have been raised, and many wild assertions advanced, which, by
+such as borrow their opinions from the reigning fashion, have been
+admitted as arguments; and, what is strange, though their tendency is to
+lessen English honour and English power, have been heard by Englishmen,
+with a wish to find them true. Passion has, in its first violence,
+controlled interest, as the eddy for awhile runs against the stream.
+
+To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near
+to laudable, that they have been often praised, and are always pardoned.
+To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love
+could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made
+without a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either
+in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have,
+with equal blindness, hated their country.
+
+These antipatriotick prejudices are the abortions of folly impregnated
+by faction, which, being produced against the standing order of nature,
+have not strength sufficient for long life. They are born only to scream
+and perish, and leave those to contempt or detestation, whose kindness
+was employed to nurse them into mischief.
+
+To perplex the opinion of the publick many artifices have been used,
+which, as usually happens, when falsehood is to be maintained by fraud,
+lose their force by counteracting one another.
+
+The nation is, sometimes, to be mollified by a tender tale of men, who
+fled from tyranny to rocks and deserts, and is persuaded to lose all
+claims of justice, and all sense of dignity, in compassion for a
+harmless people, who, having worked hard for bread in a wild country,
+and obtained, by the slow progression of manual industry, the
+accommodations of life, are now invaded by unprecedented oppression, and
+plundered of their properties by the harpies of taxation.
+
+We are told how their industry is obstructed by unnatural restraints,
+and their trade confined by rigorous prohibitions; how they are
+forbidden to enjoy the products of their own soil, to manufacture the
+materials which nature spreads before them, or to carry their own goods
+to the nearest market; and surely the generosity of English virtue will
+never heap new weight upon those that are already overladen; will never
+delight in that dominion, which cannot be exercised, but by cruelty and
+outrage.
+
+But, while we are melting in silent sorrow, and, in the transports of
+delirious pity, dropping both the sword and balance from our hands,
+another friend of the Americans thinks it better to awaken another
+passion, and tries to alarm our interest, or excite our veneration, by
+accounts of their greatness and their opulence, of the fertility of
+their land, and the splendour of their towns. We then begin to consider
+the question with more evenness of mind, are ready to conclude that
+those restrictions are not very oppressive, which have been found
+consistent with this speedy growth of prosperity; and begin to think it
+reasonable, that they who thus flourish under the protection of our
+government, should contribute something towards its expense.
+
+But we are soon told, that the Americans, however wealthy, cannot be
+taxed; that they are the descendants of men who left all for liberty,
+and that they have constantly preserved the principles and stubbornness
+of their progenitors; that they are too obstinate for persuasion, and
+too powerful for constraint; that they will laugh at argument, and
+defeat violence; that the continent of North America contains three
+millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty,
+and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of
+their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their
+numbers.
+
+Men accustomed to think themselves masters do not love to be threatened.
+This talk is, I hope, commonly thrown away, or raises passions different
+from those which it was intended to excite. Instead of terrifying the
+English hearer to tame acquiescence, it disposes him to hasten the
+experiment of bending obstinacy, before it is become yet more obdurate,
+and convinces him that it is necessary to attack a nation thus
+prolifick, while we may yet hope to prevail. When he is told, through
+what extent of territory we must travel to subdue them, he recollects
+how far, a few years ago, we travelled in their defence. When it is
+urged, that they will shoot up, like the hydra, he naturally considers
+how the hydra was destroyed.
+
+Nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits. A
+commercial people, however magnanimous, shrinks at the thought of
+declining traffick and an unfavourable balance. The effect of this
+terrour has been tried. We have been stunned with the importance of our
+American commerce, and heard of merchants, with warehouses that are
+never to be emptied, and of manufacturers starving for want of work.
+
+That our commerce with America is profitable, however less than
+ostentatious or deceitful estimates have made it, and that it is our
+interest to preserve it, has never been denied; but, surely, it will
+most effectually be preserved, by being kept always in our own power.
+Concessions may promote it for a moment, but superiority only can ensure
+its continuance. There will always be a part, and always a very large
+part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose
+care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate
+pain, and eagerness for the nearest good. The blind are said to feel
+with peculiar nicety. They who look but little into futurity, have,
+perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present. A merchant's desire is
+not of glory, but of gain; not of publick wealth, but of private
+emolument; he is, therefore, rarely to be consulted about war and peace,
+or any designs of wide extent and distant consequence.
+
+Yet this, like other general characters, will sometimes fail. The
+traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of
+narrow selfishness, by a manly recommendation to parliament of the
+rights and dignity of their native country.
+
+To these men I do not intend to ascribe an absurd and enthusiastick
+contempt of interest, but to give them the rational and just praise of
+distinguishing real from seeming good; of being able to see through the
+cloud of interposing difficulties, to the lasting and solid happiness of
+victory and settlement.
+
+Lest all these topicks of persuasion should fail, the greater actor of
+patriotism has tried another, in which terrour and pity are happily
+combined, not without a proper superaddition of that admiration which
+latter ages have brought into the drama. The heroes of Boston, he tells
+us, if the stamp act had not been repealed, would have left their town,
+their port, and their trade, have resigned the splendour of opulence,
+and quitted the delights of neighbourhood, to disperse themselves over
+the country, where they would till the ground, and fish in the rivers,
+and range the mountains, and be free.
+
+These, surely, are brave words. If the mere sound of freedom can operate
+thus powerfully, let no man, hereafter, doubt the story of the Pied
+Piper. The removal of the people of Boston into the country, seems, even
+to the congress, not only difficult in its execution, but important in
+its consequences. The difficulty of execution is best known to the
+Bostonians themselves; the consequence alas! will only be, that they
+will leave good houses to wiser men.
+
+Yet, before they quit the comforts of a warm home, for the sounding
+something which they think better, he cannot be thought their enemy who
+advises them, to consider well whether they shall find it. By turning
+fishermen or hunters, woodmen or shepherds, they may become wild, but it
+is not so easy to conceive them free; for who can be more a slave than
+he that is driven, by force, from the comforts of life, is compelled to
+leave his house to a casual comer, and, whatever he does, or wherever he
+wanders, finds, every moment, some new testimony of his own subjection?
+If choice of evil be freedom, the felon in the galleys has his option of
+labour or of stripes. The Bostonian may quit his house to starve in the
+fields; his dog may refuse to set, and smart under the lash, and they
+may then congratulate each other upon the smiles of liberty, "profuse of
+bliss, and pregnant with delight."
+
+To treat such designs as serious, would be to think too contemptuously
+of Bostonian understandings. The artifice, indeed, is not new: the
+blusterer, who threatened in vain to destroy his opponent, has,
+sometimes, obtained his end, by making it believed, that he would hang
+himself.
+
+But terrours and pity are not the only means by which the taxation of
+the Americans is opposed. There are those, who profess to use them only
+as auxiliaries to reason and justice; who tell us, that to tax the
+colonies is usurpation and oppression, an invasion of natural and legal
+rights, and a violation of those principles which support the
+constitution of English government.
+
+This question is of great importance. That the Americans are able to
+bear taxation, is indubitable; that their refusal may be overruled, is
+highly probable; but power is no sufficient evidence of truth. Let us
+examine our own claim, and the objections of the recusants, with caution
+proportioned to the event of the decision, which must convict one part
+of robbery, or the other of rebellion.
+
+A tax is a payment, exacted by authority, from part of the community,
+for the benefit of the whole. From whom, and in what proportion such
+payment shall be required, and to what uses it shall be applied, those
+only are to judge to whom government is intrusted. In the British
+dominions taxes are apportioned, levied, and appropriated by the states
+assembled in parliament.
+
+Of every empire all the subordinate communities are liable to taxation,
+because they all share the benefits of government, and, therefore, ought
+all to furnish their proportion of the expense.
+
+This the Americans have never openly denied. That it is their duty to
+pay the costs of their own safety, they seem to admit; nor do they
+refuse their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of
+the British empire; but they make this participation of the publick
+burden a duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation, a duty
+temporary, occasional, and elective, of which they reserve to themselves
+the right of settling the degree, the time, and the duration; of judging
+when it may be required, and when it has been performed.
+
+They allow to the supreme power nothing more than the liberty of
+notifying to them its demands or its necessities. Of this notification
+they profess to think for themselves, how far it shall influence their
+counsels; and of the necessities alleged, how far they shall endeavour
+to relieve them. They assume the exclusive power of settling not only
+the mode, but the quantity, of this payment. They are ready to cooperate
+with all the other dominions of the king; but they will cooperate by no
+means which they do not like, and at no greater charge than they are
+willing to bear.
+
+This claim, wild as it may seem; this claim, which supposes dominion
+without authority, and subjects without subordination, has found among
+the libertines of policy, many clamorous and hardy vindicators. The laws
+of nature, the rights of humanity, the faith of charters, the danger of
+liberty, the encroachments of usurpation, have been thundered in our
+ears, sometimes by interested faction, and sometimes by honest
+stupidity.
+
+It is said by Fontenelle, that if twenty philosophers shall resolutely
+deny that the presence of the sun makes the day, he will not despair but
+whole nations may adopt the opinion. So many political dogmatists have
+denied to the mother-country the power of taxing the colonies, and have
+enforced their denial with so much violence of outcry, that their sect
+is already very numerous, and the publick voice suspends its decision.
+
+In moral and political questions, the contest between interest and
+justice has been often tedious and often fierce, but, perhaps, it never
+happened before, that justice found much opposition, with interest on
+her side.
+
+For the satisfaction of this inquiry, it is necessary to consider, how a
+colony is constituted; what are the terms of migration, as dictated by
+nature, or settled by compact; and what social or political rights the
+man loses or acquires, that leaves his country to establish himself hi a
+distant plantation.
+
+Of two modes of migration the history of mankind informs us, and so far
+as I can yet discover, of two only. In countries where life was yet
+unadjusted, and policy unformed, it sometimes happened, that, by the
+dissensions of heads of families, by the ambition of daring adventurers,
+by some accidental pressure of distress, or by the mere discontent of
+idleness, one part of the community broke off from the rest, and
+numbers, greater or smaller, forsook their habitations, put themselves
+under the command of some favourite of fortune, and with, or without the
+consent of their countrymen or governours, went out to see what better
+regions they could occupy, and in what place, by conquest or by treaty,
+they could gain a habitation.
+
+Sons of enterprise, like these, who committed to their own swords their
+hopes and their lives, when they left their country, became another
+nation, with designs, and prospects, and interests, of their own. They
+looked back no more to their former home; they expected no help from
+those whom they had left behind; if they conquered, they conquered for
+themselves; if they were destroyed, they were not by any other power
+either lamented or revenged.
+
+Of this kind seem to have been all the migrations of the early world,
+whether historical or fabulous, and of this kind were the eruptions of
+those nations, which, from the north, invaded the Roman empire, and
+filled Europe with new sovereignties.
+
+But when, by the gradual admission of wiser laws and gentler manners,
+society became more compacted and better regulated, it was found, that
+the power of every people consisted in union, produced by one common
+interest, and operating in joint efforts and consistent counsels.
+
+From this time independence perceptibly wasted away. No part of the
+nation was permitted to act for itself. All now had the same enemies and
+the same friends; the government protected individuals, and individuals
+were required to refer their designs to the prosperity of the
+government.
+
+By this principle it is, that states are formed and consolidated. Every
+man is taught to consider his own happiness, as combined with the
+publick prosperity, and to think himself great and powerful, in
+proportion to the greatness and power of his governours.
+
+Had the western continent been discovered between the fourth and tenth
+century, when all the northen world was in motion; and had navigation
+been, at that time, sufficiently advanced to make so long a passage
+easily practicable, there is little reason for doubting, but the
+intumescence of nations would have found its vent, like all other
+expansive violence, where there was least resistance; and that Huns and
+Vandals, instead of fighting their way to the south of Europe, would
+have gone, by thousands and by myriads, under their several chiefs, to
+take possession of regions smiling with pleasure, and waving with
+fertility, from which the naked inhabitants were unable to repel them.
+
+Every expedition would, in those days of laxity, have produced a
+distinct and independent state. The Scandinavian heroes might have
+divided the country among them, and have spread the feudal subdivision
+of regality from Hudson's bay to the Pacifick ocean.
+
+But Columbus came five or six hundred years too late for the candidates
+of sovereignty. When he formed his project of discovery, the
+fluctuations of military turbulence had subsided, and Europe began to
+regain a settled form, by established government and regular
+subordination. No man could any longer erect himself into a chieftain,
+and lead out his fellow-subjects, by his own authority, to plunder or to
+war. He that committed any act of hostility, by land or sea, without the
+commission of some acknowledged sovereign, was considered, by all
+mankind, as a robber or pirate, names which were now of little credit,
+and of which, therefore, no man was ambitious.
+
+Columbus, in a remoter time, would have found his way to some
+discontented lord, or some younger brother of a petty sovereign, who
+would have taken fire at his proposal, and have quickly kindled, with
+equal heat, a troop of followers: they would have built ships, or have
+seized them, and have wandered with him, at all adventures, as far as
+they could keep hope in their company. But the age being now past of
+vagrant excursion and fortuitous hostility, he was under the necessity
+of travelling from court to court, scorned and repulsed as a wild
+projector, an idle promiser of kingdoms in the clouds; nor has any part
+of the world yet had reason to rejoice that he found, at last, reception
+and employment.
+
+In the same year, in a year hitherto disastrous to mankind, by the
+Portuguese was discovered the passage of the Indies, and by the
+Spaniards the coast of America. The nations of Europe were fired with
+boundless expectations, and the discoverers, pursuing their enterprise,
+made conquests in both hemispheres of wide extent. But the adventurers
+were not contented with plunder: though they took gold and silver to
+themselves, they seized islands and kingdoms in the name of their
+sovereigns. When a new region was gained, a governour was appointed by
+that power, which had given the commission to the conqueror; nor have I
+met with any European, but Stukely, of London, that formed a design of
+exalting himself in the newly found countries to independent dominion.
+
+To secure a conquest, it was always necessary to plant a colony, and
+territories, thus occupied and settled, were rightly considered, as mere
+extensions, or processes of empire; as ramifications which, by the
+circulation of one publick interest, communicated with the original
+source of dominion, and which were kept flourishing and spreading by the
+radical vigour of the mother-country.
+
+The colonies of England differ no otherwise from those of other nations,
+than as the English constitution differs from theirs. All government is
+ultimately and essentially absolute, but subordinate societies may have
+more immunities, or individuals greater liberty, as the operations of
+government are differently conducted. An Englishman in the common course
+of life and action feels no restraint. An English colony has very
+liberal powers of regulating its own manners, and adjusting its own
+affairs. But an English individual may, by the supreme authority, be
+deprived of liberty, and a colony divested of its powers, for reasons of
+which that authority is the only judge.
+
+In sovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty,
+there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government.
+There must, in every society, be some power or other, from which there
+is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole
+mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts
+laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts
+privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by
+physical necessity.
+
+By this power, wherever it subsists, all legislation and jurisdiction is
+animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations,
+which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not
+infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irresistible, for it can be
+resisted only by rebellion, by an act which makes it questionable, what
+shall be thenceforward the supreme power.
+
+An English colony is a number of persons, to whom the king grants a
+charter, permitting them to settle in some distant country, and enabling
+them to constitute a corporation enjoying such powers as the charter
+grants, to be administered in such forms as the charter prescribes. As a
+corporation, they make laws for themselves; but as a corporation,
+subsisting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that
+authority they continue subject.
+
+As men are placed at a greater distance from the supreme council of the
+kingdom, they must be intrusted with ampler liberty of regulating their
+conduct by their own wisdom. As they are more secluded from easy
+recourse to national judicature, they must be more extensively
+commissioned to pass judgment on each other.
+
+For this reason our more important and opulent colonies see the
+appearance, and feel the effect, of a regular legislature, which, in
+some places, has acted so long with unquestioned authority, that it has
+forgotten whence that authority was originally derived.
+
+To their charters the colonies owe, like other corporations, their
+political existence. The solemnities of legislation, the administration
+of justice, the security of property, are all bestowed upon them by the
+royal grant. Without their charter, there would be no power among them,
+by which any law could be made, or duties enjoined; any debt recovered,
+or criminal punished.
+
+A charter is a grant of certain powers or privileges, given to a part of
+the community for the advantage of the whole, and is, therefore, liable,
+by its nature, to change or to revocation. Every act of government aims
+at publick good. A charter, which experience has shown to be detrimental
+to the nation, is to be repealed; because general prosperity must always
+be preferred to particular interest. If a charter be used to evil
+purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is
+injuriously employed.
+
+The charter, therefore, by which provincial governments are constituted,
+may be always legally, and, where it is either inconvenient in its
+nature, or misapplied in its use, may be equitably repealed; by such
+repeal the whole fabrick of subordination is immediately destroyed, and
+the constitution sunk at once into a chaos; the society is dissolved
+into a tumult of individuals, without authority to command, or
+obligation to obey, without any punishment of wrongs, but by personal
+resentment, or any protection of right, but by the hand of the
+possessor.
+
+A colony is to the mother-country, as a member to the body, deriving its
+action and its strength from the general principle of vitality;
+receiving from the body, and communicating to it, all the benefits and
+evils of health and disease; liable, in dangerous maladies, to sharp
+applications, of which the body, however, must partake the pain; and
+exposed, if incurably tainted, to amputation, by which the body,
+likewise, will be mutilated.
+
+The mother-country always considers the colonies, thus connected, as
+parts of itself; the prosperity or unhappiness of either, is the
+prosperity or unhappiness of both; not, perhaps, of both in the same
+degree, for the body may subsist, though less commodiously, without a
+limb, but the limb must perish, if it be parted from the body.
+
+Our colonies, therefore, however distant, have been, hitherto, treated
+as constituent parts of the British empire. The inhabitants incorporated
+by English charters are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They
+are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated
+by English counsels, and protected by English arms; and it seems to
+follow, by consequence not easily avoided, that they are subject to
+English government, and chargeable by English taxation.
+
+To him that considers the nature, the original, the progress, and the
+constitution of the colonies, who remembers that the first discoverers
+had commissions from the crown, that the first settlers owe to a charter
+their civil forms and regular magistracy, and that all personal
+immunities and legal securities, by which the condition of the subject
+has been, from time to time, improved, have been extended to the
+colonists, it will not be doubted, but the parliament of England has a
+right to bind them by statutes, and to bind them in all cases
+whatsoever; and has, therefore, a natural and constitutional power of
+laying upon them any tax or impost, whether external or internal, upon
+the product of land, or the manufactures of industry, in the exigencies
+of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America,
+for the purpose of raising a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to
+the empire.
+
+There are some, and those not inconsiderable for number, nor
+contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the
+general dominion of parliament, and hold, that whatever degress of
+obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in
+other acts of government, there is still reverence to be paid to money,
+and that legislation passes its limits when it violates the purse.
+
+Of this exception, which, by a head not fully impregnated with
+politicks, is not easily comprehended, it is alleged, as an unanswerable
+reason, that the colonies send no representatives to the house of
+commons.
+
+It is, say the American advocates, the natural distinction of a freeman,
+and the legal privilege of an Englishman, that he is able to call his
+possessions his own, that he can sit secure in the enjoyment of
+inheritance or acquisition, that his house is fortified by the law, and
+that nothing can be taken from him, but by his own consent. This consent
+is given for every man by his representative in parliament. The
+Americans, unrepresented, cannot consent to English taxations, as a
+corporation, and they will not consent, as individuals.
+
+Of this argument, it has been observed by more than one, that its force
+extends equally to all other laws, for a freeman is not to be exposed to
+punishment, or be called to any onerous service, but by his own consent.
+The congress has extracted a position from the fanciful Montesquieu
+that, "in a free state, every man, being a free agent, ought to be
+concerned in his own government." Whatever is true of taxation, is true
+of every other law, that he who is bound by it, without his consent, is
+not free, for he is not concerned in his own government.
+
+He that denies the English parliament the right of taxation, denies it,
+likewise, the right of making any other laws, civil or criminal, yet
+this power over the colonies was never yet disputed by themselves. They
+have always admitted statutes for the punishment of offences, and for
+the redress or prevention of inconveniencies; and the reception of any
+law draws after it, by a chain which cannot be broken, the unwelcome
+necessity of submitting to taxation.
+
+That a freeman is governed by himself, or by laws to which he has
+consented, is a position of mighty sound; but every man that utters it,
+with whatever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever
+acquiescence, if consent be supposed to imply the power of refusal,
+feels it to be false. We virtually and implicitly allow the institutions
+of any government, of which we enjoy the benefit, and solicit the
+protection. In wide extended dominions, though power has been diffused
+with the most even hand, yet a very small part of the people are either
+primarily or secondarily consulted in legislation. The business of the
+publick must be done by delegation. The choice of delegates is made by a
+select number, and those who are not electors stand idle and helpless
+spectators of the commonweal, "wholly unconcerned in the government of
+themselves."
+
+Of the electors the hap is but little better. They are often far from
+unanimity in their choice; and where the numbers approach to equality,
+almost half must be governed not only without, but against their choice.
+
+How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant
+ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most favourite residence
+of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive; a tacit
+admission, in every community, of the terms which that community grants
+and requires. As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we
+may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of
+government. Other consent than this the condition of civil life does not
+allow. It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the
+delirious dream of republican fanaticism.
+
+But hear, ye sons and daughters of liberty, the sounds which the winds
+are wafting from the western continent. The Americans are telling one
+another, what, if we may judge from their noisy triumph, they have but
+lately discovered, and what yet is a very important truth: "That they
+are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and that they have never
+ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either
+without their consent."
+
+While this resolution stands alone, the Americans are free from
+singularity of opinion; their wit has not yet betrayed them to heresy.
+While they speak as the naked sons of nature, they claim but what is
+claimed by other men, and have withheld nothing but what all withhold.
+They are here upon firm ground, behind entrenchments which never can be
+forced.
+
+Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this resemblance to
+Europeans, that they do not always know when they are well. They soon
+quit the fortress, that could neither have been ruined by sophistry, nor
+battered by declamation. Their next resolution declares, that "Their
+ancestors, who first settled the colonies, were, at the time of their
+emigration from the mother-country, entitled to all the rights,
+liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the
+realm of England."
+
+This, likewise, is true; but when this is granted, their boast of
+original rights is at an end; they are no longer in a state of nature.
+These lords of themselves, these kings of ME, these demigods of
+independence sink down to colonists, governed by a charter. If their
+ancestors were subjects, they acknowledged a sovereign; if they had a
+right to English privileges, they were accountable to English laws; and,
+what must grieve the lover of liberty to discover, had ceded to the king
+and parliament, whether the right or not, at least, the power of
+disposing, "without their consent, of their lives, liberties, and
+properties." It, therefore, is required of them to prove, that the
+parliament ever ceded to them a dispensation from that obedience, which
+they owe as natural-born subjects, or any degree of independence or
+immunity, not enjoyed by other Englishmen.
+
+They say, that by such emigration, they by no means forfeited,
+surrendered, or lost any of those rights; but, that "they were, and
+their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all
+such of them, as their local and other circumstances enable them to
+exercise and enjoy."
+
+That they who form a settlement by a lawful charter, having committed no
+crime, forfeit no privileges, will be readily confessed; but what they
+do not forfeit by any judicial sentence, they may lose by natural
+effects. As man can be but in one place, at once, he cannot have the
+advantages of multiplied residence. He that will enjoy the brightness of
+sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade. He who goes voluntarily
+to America, cannot complain of losing what he leaves in Europe. He,
+perhaps, had a right to vote for a knight or burgess; by crossing the
+Atlantick, he has not nullified his right; but he has made its exertion
+no longer possible. [32] By his own choice he has left a country, where
+he had a vote and little property, for another, where he has great
+property, but no vote. But as this preference was deliberate and
+unconstrained, he is still "concerned in the government of himself;" he
+has reduced himself from a voter, to one of the innumerable multitude
+that have no vote. He has truly "ceded his right," but he still is
+governed by his own consent; because he has consented to throw his atom
+of interest into the general mass of the community. Of the consequences
+of his own act he has no cause to complain; he has chosen, or intended
+to choose, the greater good; he is represented, as himself desired, in
+the general representation.
+
+But the privileges of an American scorn the limits of place; they are
+part of himself, and cannot be lost by departure from his country; they
+float in the air, or glide under the ocean:
+
+  "Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam."
+
+A planter, wherever he settles, is not only a freeman, but a legislator:
+"ubi imperator, ibi Roma." "As the English colonists are not represented
+in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive
+power of legislation in their several legislatures, in all cases of
+taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of the
+sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. We
+cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British
+parliament, as are, bona fide, restrained to the regulation of our
+external commerce--excluding every idea of taxation, internal or
+external, for raising a revenue on the subjects of America, without
+their consent."
+
+Their reason for this claim is, "that the foundation of English liberty,
+and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their
+legislative council."
+
+"They inherit," they say, "from their ancestors, the right which their
+ancestors possessed, of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen." That
+they inherit the right of their ancestors is allowed; but they can
+inherit no more. Their ancestors left a country, where the
+representatives of the people were elected by men particularly
+qualified, and where those who wanted qualifications, or who did not use
+them, were bound by the decisions of men, whom they had not deputed.
+
+The colonists are the descendants of men, who either had no vote in
+elections, or who voluntarily resigned them for something, in their
+opinion, of more estimation; they have, therefore, exactly what their
+ancestors left them, not a vote in making laws, or in constituting
+legislators, but the happiness of being protected by law, and the duty
+of obeying it.
+
+What their ancestors did not carry with them, neither they nor their
+descendants have since acquired. They have not, by abandoning their part
+in one legislature, obtained the power of constituting another,
+exclusive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now
+debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate parliament for
+themselves.
+
+Men are wrong for want of sense, but they are wrong by halves for want
+of spirit. Since the Americans have discovered that they can make a
+parliament, whence comes it that they do not think themselves equally
+empowered to make a king? If they are subjects, whose government is
+constituted by a charter, they can form no body of independent
+legislature. If their rights are inherent and underived, they may, by
+their own suffrages, encircle, with a diadem, the brows of Mr. Cushing.
+
+It is further declared, by the congress of Philadelphia, "that his
+majesty's colonies are entitled to all the privileges and immunities
+granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured to them by
+their several codes of provincial laws."
+
+The first clause of this resolution is easily understood, and will be
+readily admitted. To all the privileges which a charter can convey, they
+are, by a royal charter, evidently entitled. The second clause is of
+greater difficulty; for how can a provincial law secure privileges or
+immunities to a province? Provincial laws may grant, to certain
+individuals of the province, the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity
+from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they
+relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They
+may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a
+conceit of the other hemisphere, that men have a right to all which they
+have given to themselves.
+
+A corporation is considered, in law, as an individual, and can no more
+extend its own immunities, than a man can, by his own choice, assume
+dignities or titles.
+
+The legislature of a colony (let not the comparison be too much
+disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess
+on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence
+beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the
+general law, and, whatever may be its internal expenses, is still liable
+to taxes laid by superiour authority.
+
+The charters given to different provinces are different, and no general
+right can be extracted from them. The charter of Pennsylvania, where
+this congress of anarchy has been impudently held, contains a clause
+admitting, in express terms, taxation by the parliament. If, in the
+other charters, no such reserve is made, it must have been omitted, as
+not necessary, because it is implied in the nature of subordinate
+government. They who are subject to laws, are liable to taxes. If any
+such immunity had been granted, it is still revocable by the
+legislature, and ought to be revoked, as contrary to the publick good,
+which is, in every charter, ultimately intended.
+
+Suppose it true, that any such exemption is contained in the charter of
+Maryland, it can be pleaded only by the Marylanders. It is of no use for
+any other province; and, with regard even to them, must have been
+considered as one of the grants in which the king has been deceived; and
+annulled, as mischievous to the publick, by sacrificing to one little
+settlement the general interest of the empire; as infringing the system
+of dominion, and violating the compact of government. But Dr. Tucker has
+shown, that even this charter promises no exemption from parliamentary
+taxes.
+
+In the controversy agitated about the beginning of this century, whether
+the English laws could bind Ireland, Davenant, who defended against
+Molyneux the claims of England, considered it as necessary to prove
+nothing more, than that the present Irish must be deemed a colony.
+
+The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have
+sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their
+meaning.
+
+Our nation is represented in parliament by an assembly as numerous as
+can well consist with order and despatch, chosen by persons so
+differently qualified in different places, that the mode of choice seems
+to be, for the most part, formed by chance, and settled by custom. Of
+individuals, far the greater part have no vote, and, of the voters, few
+have any personal knowledge of him to whom they intrust their liberty
+and fortune.
+
+Yet this representation has the whole effect expected or desired, that
+of spreading so wide the care of general interest, and the participation
+of publick counsels, that the advantage or corruption of particular men
+can seldom operate with much injury to the publick.
+
+For this reason many populous and opulent towns neither enjoy nor desire
+particular representatives: they are included in the general scheme of
+publick administration, and cannot suffer but with the rest of the
+empire.
+
+It is urged, that the Americans have not the same security, and that a
+British legislator may wanton with their property; yet, if it be true,
+that their wealth is our wealth, and that their ruin will be our ruin,
+the parliament has the same interest in attending to them, as to any
+other part of the nation. The reason why we place any confidence in our
+representatives is, that they must share in the good or evil which their
+counsels shall produce. Their share is, indeed, commonly consequential
+and remote; but it is not often possible that any immediate advantage
+can be extended to such numbers as may prevail against it. We are,
+therefore, as secure against intentional depravations of government, as
+human wisdom can make us, and upon this security the Americans may
+venture to repose.
+
+It is said, by the old member who has written an appeal against the tax,
+that "as the produce of American labour is spent in British
+manufactures, the balance of trade is greatly against them; whatever you
+take directly in taxes is, in effect, taken from your own commerce. If
+the minister seizes the money, with which the American should pay his
+debts, and come to market, the merchant cannot expect him as a customer,
+nor can the debts, already contracted, be paid.--Suppose we obtain from
+America a million, instead of one hundred thousand pounds, it would be
+supplying one personal exigence by the future ruin of our commerce."
+
+Part of this is true; but the old member seems not to perceive, that, if
+his brethren of the legislature know this as well as himself, the
+Americans are in no danger of oppression, since by men commonly
+provident they must be so taxed, as that we may not lose one way, what
+we gain another.
+
+The same old member has discovered, that the judges formerly thought it
+illegal to tax Ireland, and declares that no cases can be more alike
+than those of Ireland and America; yet the judges whom he quotes have
+mentioned a difference. Ireland, they say, "hath a parliament of its
+own." When any colony has an independent parliament, acknowledged by the
+parliament of Britain, the cases will differ less. Yet, by the sixth of
+George the first, chapter fifth, the acts of the British parliament bind
+Ireland.
+
+It is urged, that when Wales, Durham, and Chester were divested of their
+particular privileges, or ancient government, and reduced to the state
+of English counties, they had representatives assigned them.
+
+To those from whom something had been taken, something in return might
+properly be given. To the Americans their charters are left, as they
+were, nor have they lost any thing, except that of which their sedition
+has deprived them. If they were to be represented in parliament,
+something would be granted, though nothing is withdrawn.
+
+The inhabitants of Chester, Durham, and Wales were invited to exchange
+their peculiar institutions for the power of voting, which they wanted
+before. The Americans have voluntarily resigned the power of voting, to
+live in distant and separate governments; and what they have voluntarily
+quitted, they have no right to claim.
+
+It must always be remembered, that they are represented by the same
+virtual representation as the greater part of Englishmen; and that, if
+by change of place, they have less share in the legislature than is
+proportionate to their opulence, they, by their removal, gained that
+opulence, and had originally, and have now, their choice of a vote at
+home, or riches at a distance.
+
+We are told, what appears to the old member and to others, a position
+that must drive us into inextricable absurdity: that we have either no
+right, or the sole right, of taxing the colonies. The meaning is, that
+if we can tax them, they cannot tax themselves; and that if they can tax
+themselves, we cannot tax them. We answer, with very little hesitation,
+that, for the general use of the empire, we have the sole right of
+taxing them. If they have contributed any thing in their own assemblies,
+what they contributed was not paid, but given; it was not a tax or
+tribute, but a present. Yet they have the natural and legal power of
+levying money on themselves for provincial purposes, of providing for
+their own expense at their own discretion. Let not this be thought new
+or strange; it is the state of every parish in the kingdom.
+
+The friends of the Americans are of different opinions. Some think,
+that, being unrepresented, they ought to tax themselves; and others,
+that they ought to have representatives in the British parliament.
+
+If they are to tax themselves, what power is to remain in the supreme
+legislature? That they must settle their own mode of levying their money
+is supposed. May the British parliament tell them how much they shall
+contribute? If the sum may be prescribed, they will return few thanks
+for the power of raising it; if they are at liberty to grant or to deny,
+they are no longer subjects.
+
+If they are to be represented, what number of these western orators are
+to be admitted? This, I suppose, the parliament must settle; yet, if men
+have a natural and unalienable right to be represented, who shall
+determine the number of their delegates? Let us, however, suppose them
+to send twenty-three, half as many as the kingdom of Scotland, what will
+this representation avail them? To pay taxes will be still a grievance.
+The love of money will not be lessened, nor the power of getting it
+increased.
+
+Whither will this necessity of representation drive us? Is every petty
+settlement to be out of the reach of government, till it has sent a
+senator to parliament; or may two of them, or a greater number, be
+forced to unite in a single deputation? What, at last, is the difference
+between him that is taxed, by compulsion, without representation, and
+him that is represented, by compulsion, in order to be taxed?
+
+For many reigns the house of commons was in a state of fluctuation: new
+burgesses were added, from time to time, without any reason now to be
+discovered; but the number has been fixed for more than a century and a
+half, and the king's power of increasing it has been questioned. It will
+hardly be thought fit to new-model the constitution in favour of the
+planters, who, as they grow rich, may buy estates in England, and,
+without any innovation, effectually represent their native colonies.
+
+The friends of the Americans, indeed, ask for them what they do not ask
+for themselves. This inestimable right of representation they have never
+solicited. They mean not to exchange solid money for such airy honour.
+They say, and say willingly, that they cannot conveniently be
+represented; because their inference is, that they cannot be taxed. They
+are too remote to share the general government, and, therefore, claim
+the privilege of governing themselves.
+
+Of the principles contained in the resolutions of the congress, however
+wild, indefinite, and obscure, such has been the influence upon American
+understanding, that, from New England to South Carolina, there is formed
+a general combination of all the provinces against their mother-country.
+The madness of independence has spread from colony to colony, till order
+is lost, and government despised; and all is filled with misrule,
+uproar, violence, and confusion. To be quiet is disaffection, to be
+loyal is treason.
+
+The congress of Philadelphia, an assembly convened by its own authority,
+has promulgated a declaration, in compliance with which the
+communication between Britain and the greatest part of North America, is
+now suspended. They ceased to admit the importation of English goods, in
+December, 1774, and determine to permit the exportation of their own no
+longer than to November, 1775.
+
+This might seem enough; but they have done more: they have declared,
+that they shall treat all as enemies who do not concur with them in
+disaffection and perverseness; and that they will trade with none that
+shall trade with Britain.
+
+They threaten to stigmatize, in their gazette, those who shall consume
+the products or merchandise of their mother-country, and are now
+searching suspected houses for prohibited goods.
+
+These hostile declarations they profess themselves ready to maintain by
+force. They have armed the militia of their provinces, and seized the
+publick stores of ammunition. They are, therefore, no longer subjects,
+since they refuse the laws of their sovereign, and, in defence of that
+refusal, are making open preparations for war.
+
+Being now, in their own opinion, free states, they are not only raising
+armies, but forming alliances, not only hastening to rebel themselves,
+but seducing their neighbours to rebellion. They have published an
+address to the inhabitants of Quebec, in which discontent and resistance
+are openly incited, and with very respectful mention of "the sagacity of
+Frenchmen," invite them to send deputies to the congress of
+Philadelphia; to that seat of virtue and veracity, whence the people of
+England are told, that to establish popery, "a religion fraught with
+sanguinary and impious tenets," even in Quebec, a country of which the
+inhabitants are papists, is so contrary to the constitution, that it
+cannot be lawfully done by the legislature itself; where it is made one
+of the articles of their association, to deprive the conquered French of
+their religious establishment; and whence the French of Quebec are, at
+the same time, flattered into sedition, by professions of expecting
+"from the liberality of sentiment distinguishing their nation, that
+difference of religion will not prejudice them against a hearty amity,
+because the transcendant nature of freedom elevates all, who unite in
+the cause, above such low-minded infirmities."
+
+Quebec, however, is at a great distance. They have aimed a stroke, from
+which they may hope for greater and more speedy mischief. They have
+tried to infect the people of England with the contagion of disloyalty.
+Their credit is, happily, not such as gives them influence proportionate
+to their malice. When they talk of their pretended immunities
+"guaranteed by the plighted faith of government, and the most solemn
+compacts with English sovereigns," we think ourselves at liberty to
+inquire, when the faith was plighted, and the compact made; and, when we
+can only find, that king James and king Charles the first promised the
+settlers in Massachusetts bay, now famous by the appellation of
+Bostonians, exemption from taxes for seven years, we infer, with Mr.
+Mauduit, that, by this "solemn compact," they were, after expiration of
+the stipulated term, liable to taxation.
+
+When they apply to our compassion, by telling us, that they are to be
+carried from their own country to be tried for certain offences, we are
+not so ready to pity them, as to advise them not to offend. While they
+are innocent they are safe.
+
+When they tell of laws made expressly for their punishment, we answer,
+that tumults and sedition were always punishable, and that the new law
+prescribes only the mode of execution.
+
+When it is said, that the whole town of Boston is distressed for a
+misdemeanor of a few, we wonder at their shamelessness; for we know that
+the town of Boston and all the associated provinces, are now in
+rebellion to defend or justify the criminals.
+
+If frauds in the imposts of Boston are tried by commission without a
+jury, they are tried here in the same mode; and why should the
+Bostonians expect from us more tenderness for them than for ourselves?
+
+If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a
+trial. The crime is manifest and notorious. All trial is the
+investigation of something doubtful. An Italian philosopher observes,
+that no man desires to hear what he has already seen.
+
+If their assemblies have been suddenly dissolved, what was the reason?
+Their deliberations were indecent, and their intentions seditious. The
+power of dissolution is granted and reserved for such times of
+turbulence. Their best friends have been lately soliciting the king to
+dissolve his parliament; to do what they so loudly complain of
+suffering.
+
+That the same vengeance involves the innocent and guilty, is an evil to
+be lamented; but human caution cannot prevent it, nor human power always
+redress it. To bring misery on those who have not deserved it, is part
+of the aggregated guilt of rebellion.
+
+That governours have been sometimes given them, only that a great man
+might get ease from importunity, and that they have had judges, not
+always of the deepest learning, or the purest integrity, we have no
+great reason to doubt, because such misfortunes happen to ourselves.
+Whoever is governed, will, sometimes, be governed ill, even when he is
+most "concerned in his own government."
+
+That improper officers or magistrates are sent, is the crime or folly of
+those that sent them. When incapacity is discovered, it ought to be
+removed; if corruption is detected, it ought to be punished. No
+government could subsist for a day, if single errours could justify
+defection.
+
+One of their complaints is not such as can claim much commiseration from
+the softest bosom. They tell us, that we have changed our conduct, and
+that a tax is now laid, by parliament, on those who were never taxed by
+parliament before. To this, we think, it may be easily answered, that
+the longer they have been spared, the better they can pay.
+
+It is certainly not much their interest to represent innovation as
+criminal or invidious; for they have introduced into the history of
+mankind a new mode of disaffection, and have given, I believe, the first
+example of a proscription published by a colony against the
+mother-country.
+
+To what is urged of new powers granted to the courts of admiralty, or
+the extension of authority conferred on the judges, it may be answered,
+in a few words, that they have themselves made such regulations
+necessary; that they are established for the prevention of greater
+evils; at the same time, it must be observed, that these powers have not
+been extended since the rebellion in America.
+
+One mode of persuasion their ingenuity has suggested, which it may,
+perhaps, be less easy to resist. That we may not look with indifference
+on the American contest, or imagine that the struggle is for a claim,
+which, however decided, is of small importance and remote consequence,
+the Philadelphian congress has taken care to inform us, that they are
+resisting the demands of parliament, as well for our sakes as their own.
+
+Their keenness of perspicacity has enabled them to pursue consequences
+to a greater distance; to see through clouds impervious to the dimness
+of European sight; and to find, I know not how, that when they are
+taxed, we shall be enslaved.
+
+That slavery is a miserable state we have been often told, and,
+doubtless, many a Briton will tremble to find it so near as in America;
+but how it will be brought hither the congress must inform us. The
+question might distress a common understanding; but the statesmen of the
+other hemisphere can easily resolve it. "Our ministers," they say, "axe
+our enemies, and if they should carry the point of taxation, may, with
+the same army, enslave us. It may be said, we will not pay them; but
+remember," say the western sages, "the taxes from America, and, we may
+add, the men, and particularly the Roman catholicks of this vast
+continent, will then be in the power of your enemies. Nor have you any
+reason to expect, that, after making slaves of us, many of us will
+refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state."
+
+These are dreadful menaces; but suspecting that they have not much the
+sound of probability, the congress proceeds: "Do not treat this as
+chimerical. Know, that in less than half a century, the quitrents
+reserved to the crown, from the numberless grants of this vast
+continent, will pour large streams of wealth into the royal coffers. If
+to this be added the power of taxing America, at pleasure, the crown
+will possess more treasure than may be necessary to purchase the remains
+of liberty in your island."
+
+All this is very dreadful; but, amidst the terrour that shakes my frame,
+I cannot forbear to wish, that some sluice were opened for these streams
+of treasure. I should gladly see America return half of what England has
+expended in her defence; and of the stream that will "flow so largely in
+less than half a century," I hope a small rill, at least, may be found
+to quench the thirst of the present generation, which seems to think
+itself in more danger of wanting money, than of losing liberty.
+
+It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of
+malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather
+repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.
+
+In this last terrifick paragraph are two positions, that, if our fears
+do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to support life a little
+longer. We are told by these croakers of calamity, not only that our
+present ministers design to enslave us, but that the same malignity of
+purpose is to descend through all their successors; and that the wealth
+to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America, will, whenever it
+comes, be employed to purchase the "remains of liberty."
+
+Of those who now conduct the national affairs, we may, without much
+arrogance, presume to know more than themselves; and of those who shall
+succeed them, whether minister or king, not to know less.
+
+The other position is, that "the crown," if this laudable opposition
+should not be successful, "will have the power of taxing America at
+pleasure." Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions,
+when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that
+they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that
+the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained
+any additional power over their possessions.
+
+It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect
+these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter
+among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really
+dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to
+communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But,
+probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries,
+that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands
+among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address,
+though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet,
+probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some
+master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political
+electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to
+repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by
+the name of Boston.
+
+When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general
+legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus
+acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their
+claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and
+allegiance.
+
+It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces
+of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to
+indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found
+themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.
+
+That corporations, constituted by favour, and existing by sufferance,
+should dare to prohibit commerce with their native country, and threaten
+individuals by infamy, and societies with, at least, suspension of
+amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themselves, is
+a degree of insolence which not only deserves to be punished, but of
+which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life and the
+peace of nations.
+
+Yet there have risen up, in the face of the publick, men who, by
+whatever corruptions, or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend
+the Americans, endeavour to shelter them from resentment, and propose
+reconciliation without submission.
+
+As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for
+a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may
+resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English
+constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A
+congress might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties in a
+style not unlike the language of the American patriots:
+
+"FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,--We, the delegates of the several towns
+and parishes of Cornwall, assembled to deliberate upon our own state,
+and that of our constituents, having, after serious debate and calm
+consideration, settled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it
+necessary to declare the resolutions which we think ourselves entitled
+to form, by the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which
+we have been compelled by grievances and oppressions, long endured by us
+in patient silence, not because we did not feel, or could not remove
+them, but because we were unwilling to give disturbance to a settled
+government, and hoped that others would, in time, find, like ourselves,
+their true interest and their original powers, and all cooperate to
+universal happiness.
+
+"But since, having long indulged the pleasing expectation, we find
+general discontent not likely to increase, or not likely to end in
+general defection, we resolve to erect alone the standard of liberty.
+
+"Know then, that you are no longer to consider Cornwall as an English
+county, visited by English judges, receiving law from an English
+parliament, or included in any general taxation of the kingdom; but as a
+state, distinct and independent, governed by its own institutions,
+administered by its own magistrates, and exempt from any tax or tribute,
+but such as we shall impose upon ourselves.
+
+"We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of
+Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the
+island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants.
+Of this descent, our language is a sufficient proof, which, not quite a
+century ago, was different from yours.
+
+"Such are the Cornishmen; but who are you? who, but the unauthorised and
+lawless children of intruders, invaders, and oppressors? who, but the
+transmitters of wrong, the inheritors of robbery? In claiming
+independence, we claim but little. We might require you to depart from a
+land which you possess by usurpation, and to restore all that you have
+taken from us.
+
+"Independence is the gift of nature. No man is born the master of
+another. Every Cornishman is a freeman; for we have never resigned the
+rights of humanity: and he only can be thought free, who is 'not
+governed but by his own consent.
+
+"You may urge, that the present system of government has descended
+through many ages, and that we have a larger part in the representation
+of the kingdom than any other county.
+
+"All this is true, but it is neither cogent nor persuasive. We look to
+the original of things. Our union with the English counties was either
+compelled by force, or settled by compact.
+
+"That which was made by violence, may by violence be broken. If we were
+treated as a conquered people, our rights might be obscured, but could
+never be extinguished. The sword can give nothing but power, which a
+sharper sword can take away.
+
+"If our union was by compact, whom could the compact bind, but those
+that concurred in the stipulations? We gave our ancestors no commission
+to settle the terms of future existence. They might be cowards that were
+frighted, or blockheads that were cheated; but, whatever they were, they
+could contract only for themselves. What they could establish, we can
+annul.
+
+"Against our present form of government, it shall stand in the place of
+all argument, that we do not like it. While we are governed as we do not
+like, where is our liberty? We do not like taxes, we will, therefore,
+not be taxed: we do not like your laws, and will not obey them.
+
+"The taxes laid by our representatives, are laid, you tell us, by our
+own consent; but we will no longer consent to be represented. Our number
+of legislators was originally a burden, and ought to have been refused;
+it is now considered as a disproportionate advantage; who, then, will
+complain if we resign it?
+
+"We shall form a senate of our own, under a president whom the king
+shall nominate, but whose authority we will limit, by adjusting his
+salary to his merit. We will not withhold a proper share of contribution
+to the necessary expense of lawful government, but we will decide for
+ourselves what share is proper, what expense is necessary, and what
+government is lawful.
+
+"Till our counsel is proclaimed independent and unaccountable, we will,
+after the tenth day of September, keep our tin in our own hands: you can
+be supplied from no other place, and must, therefore, comply, or be
+poisoned with the copper of your own kitchens.
+
+"If any Cornishman shall refuse his name to this just and laudable
+association, he shall be tumbled from St. Michael's mount, or buried
+alive in a tin-mine; and if any emissary shall be found seducing
+Cornishmen to their former state, he shall be smeared with tar, and
+rolled in feathers, and chased with dogs out of our dominions.
+
+"From the Cornish congress at Truro."
+
+Of this memorial, what could be said, but that it was written in jest,
+or written by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of
+Pennsylvanian eloquence, can find any argument in the addresses of the
+congress, that is not, with greater strength, urged by the Cornishman.
+
+The argument of the irregular troops of controversy, stripped of its
+colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this. Liberty
+is the birthright of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no
+liberty. The answer is equally simple. Government is necessary to man,
+and where obedience is not compelled, there is no government.
+
+If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use
+compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making
+laws, and then of enforcing them.
+
+To one of the threats hissed out by the congress, I have put nothing
+similar into the Cornish proclamation; because it is too wild for folly,
+and too foolish for madness. If we do not withhold our king and his
+parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantick, and enslave
+us.
+
+How they will come, they have not told us; perhaps they will take wing,
+and light upon our coasts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is
+time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The great orator
+observes, that they will be very fit, after they have been taxed, to
+impose chains upon us. If they are so fit as their friend describes
+them, and so willing as they describe themselves, let us increase our
+army, and double our militia.
+
+It has been, of late, a very general practice to talk of slavery among
+those who are setting at defiance every power that keeps the world in
+order. If the learned author of the Reflections on Learning has rightly
+observed, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain
+to prohibit the use of the word slavery; but I could wish it more
+discreetly uttered: it is driven, at one time, too hard into our ears by
+the loud hurricane of Pennsylvanian eloquence, and, at another, glides
+too cold into our hearts by the soft conveyance of a female patriot,
+bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.
+
+Such has been the progress of sedition, that those who, a few years ago,
+disputed only our right of laying taxes, now question the validity of
+every act of legislation. They consider themselves as emancipated from
+obedience, and as being no longer the subjects of the British crown.
+They leave us no choice, but of yielding or conquering, of resigning our
+dominion or maintaining it by force.
+
+From force many endeavours have been used, either to dissuade, or to
+deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and sometimes
+their sufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to
+the last war; a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their
+protection; a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that
+they can boast is, that they did something for themselves, and did not
+wholly stand inactive, while the sons of Britain were fighting in their
+cause.
+
+If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity those that show
+no regard to their mother-country; have obeyed no law, which they could
+violate; have imparted no good, which they could withhold; have entered
+into associations of fraud to rob their creditors; and into combinations
+to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with
+the cruelty of shutting one port, where every port is shut against us.
+We are censured as tyrannical, for hindering those from fishing, who
+have condemned our merchants to bankruptcy, and our manufacturers to
+hunger.
+
+Others persuade us to give them more liberty, to take off restraints,
+and relax authority; and tell us what happy consequences will arise from
+forbearance; how their affections will be conciliated, and into what
+diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love
+their friends. They will reverence their protectors. They will throw
+themselves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet; they will
+buy from no other what we can sell them; they will sell to no other what
+we wish to buy.
+
+That any obligations should overpower their attention to profit, we have
+known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a
+more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefits, they are
+now showing us, who, as soon as we have delivered them from France, are
+defying and proscribing us.
+
+But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more
+than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will, during
+pleasure, pay us a subsidy. The contest is not now for money, but for
+power. The question is not, how much we shall collect, but, by what
+authority the collection shall be made.
+
+Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown, in any form, that may
+raise love or pity, dress them in habiliments of terrour, and try to
+make us think them formidable. The Bostonians can call into the field
+ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will
+rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take
+possession of the towns, the colonists will retire into the inland
+regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houses, and a wide
+extent of waste and desolation. If we subdue them for the present, they
+will universally revolt in the next war, and resign us, without pity, to
+subjection and destruction.
+
+To all this it may be answered, that between losing America, and
+resigning it, there is no great difference; that it is not very
+reasonable to jump into the sea, because the ship is leaky. All those
+evils may befall us, but we need not hasten them.
+
+The dean of Gloucester has proposed, and seems to propose it seriously,
+that we should, at once, release our claims, declare them masters of
+themselves, and whistle them down the wind. His opinion is, that our
+gain from them will be the same, and our expense less. What they can
+have most cheaply from Britain, they will still buy; what they can sell
+to us at the highest price, they will still sell.
+
+It is, however, a little hard, that, having so lately fought and
+conquered for their safety, we should govern them no longer. By letting
+them loose before the war, how many millions might have been saved. One
+wild proposal is best answered by another. Let us restore to the French
+what we have taken from them. We shall see our colonists at our feet,
+when they have an enemy so near them. Let us give the Indians arms, and
+teach them discipline, and encourage them, now and then, to plunder a
+plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition.
+
+While these different opinions are agitated, it seems to be determined,
+by the legislature, that force shall be tried. Men of the pen have
+seldom any great skill in conquering kingdoms, but they have strong
+inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to wish, that this
+commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued
+by terrour rather than by violence; and, therefore, recommend such a
+force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope of resistance,
+and, by conquering without a battle, save many from the sword.
+
+If their obstinacy continues, without actual hostilities, it may,
+perhaps, be mollified, by turning out the soldiers to free quarters,
+forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the
+slaves should be set free, an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty
+cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and
+utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government
+within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their
+masters.
+
+Far be it from any Englishman, to thirst for the blood of his
+fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are, unhappily,
+at less distance. The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed,
+undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they
+had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by
+European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who
+were friends only to themselves.
+
+On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out
+its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious
+contest, they are, themselves, equally detestable. If they wish success
+to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their
+defeat, they are traitors, at once, to America and England. To them, and
+them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the
+miseries of war, the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood
+of those that shall fall.
+
+Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be
+subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their
+possessions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be
+secured by stricter laws and stronger obligations!
+
+Nothing can be more noxious to society, than that erroneous clemency,
+which, when a rebellion is suppressed, exacts no forfeiture, and
+establishes no securities, but leaves the rebels in their former state.
+Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
+expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
+accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
+than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
+always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
+victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
+gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
+of their port.
+
+Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
+as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
+privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be
+taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers,
+and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent
+planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.
+
+But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom
+the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous,
+and who startle at the thoughts of "England free, and America in
+chains." Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are
+frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word;
+but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations
+between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will
+be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of
+English superiority and American obedience.
+
+We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution
+of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious
+politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,
+how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers
+of negroes?
+
+But let us interrupt awhile this dream of conquest, settlement, and
+supremacy. Let us remember, that being to contend, according to one
+orator, with three millions of whigs, and, according to another, with
+ninety thousand patriots of Massachusetts bay, we may possibly be
+checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon
+equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to
+violate, a second time, the happy borders of the land of liberty. The
+time is now, perhaps, at hand, which sir Thomas Browne predicted,
+between jest and earnest:
+
+  "When America should no more send out her treasure,
+      But spend it at home in American pleasure."
+
+If we are allowed, upon our defeat, to stipulate conditions, I hope the
+treaty of Boston will permit us to import into the confederated cantons
+such products as they do not raise, and such manufactures as they do not
+make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying, like others,
+the appointed customs; that, if an English ship salutes a fort with four
+guns, it shall be answered, at least, with two; and that, if an
+Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath
+of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be suffered, while he lives
+inoffensively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested
+in his conscience by an oath of abjuration.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.
+
+
+
+
+FATHER PAUL SARPI [33].
+
+
+Father Paul, whose name, before he entered into the monastick life,
+was Peter Sarpi, was born at Venice, August 14, 1552. His father
+followed merchandise, but with so little success, that, at his death,
+he left his family very ill provided for; but under the care of a
+mother, whose piety was likely to bring the blessings of providence
+upon them, and whose wise conduct supplied the want of fortune by
+advantages of greater value.
+
+Happily for young Sarpi, she had a brother, master of a celebrated
+school, under whose direction he was placed by her. Here he lost no
+time; but cultivated his abilities, naturally of the first rate, with
+unwearied application. He was born for study, having a natural
+aversion to pleasure and gaiety, and a memory so tenacious, that he
+could repeat thirty verses upon once hearing them.
+
+Proportionable to his capacity was his progress in literature: at
+thirteen, having made himself master of school-learning, he turned his
+studies to philosophy and the mathematicks; and entered upon logick,
+under Capella, of Cremona; who, though a celebrated master of that
+science, confessed himself, in a very little time, unable to give his
+pupil further instructions.
+
+As Capella was of the order of the Servites, his scholar was induced,
+by his acquaintance with him, to engage in the same profession, though
+his uncle and his mother represented to him the hardships and
+austerities of that kind of life, and advised him, with great zeal,
+against it.
+
+But he was steady in his resolutions, and, in 1566, took the habit of
+the order, being then only in his fourteenth year, a time of life, in
+most persons, very improper for such engagements; but, in him,
+attended with such maturity of thought, and such a settled temper,
+that he never seemed to regret the choice he then made, and which he
+confirmed by a solemn publick profession, in 1572.
+
+At a general chapter of the Servites, held at Mantua, Paul, for so we
+shall now call him, being then only twenty years old, distinguished
+himself so much, in a publick disputation, by his genius and learning,
+that William, duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the
+consent of his superiours to retain him at his court; and not only
+made him publick professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured
+him with many proofs of his esteem.
+
+But father Paul, finding a court life not agreeable to his temper,
+quitted it two years afterwards, and retired to his beloved privacies,
+being then not only acquainted with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
+Chaldee languages, but with philosophy, the mathematicks, canon and
+civil law, all parts of natural philosophy, and chymistry itself; for
+his application was unremitted, his head clear, his apprehension
+quick, and his memory retentive.
+
+Being made a priest, at twenty-two, he was distinguished by the
+illustrious cardinal Borromeo with his confidence, and employed by
+him, on many occasions, not without the envy of persons of less merit,
+who were so far exasperated as to lay a charge against him, before the
+inquisition, for denying that the trinity could be proved from the
+first chapter of Genesis; but the accusation was too ridiculous to be
+taken notice of.
+
+After this, he passed successively through the dignities of his order,
+and, in the intervals of his employment, applied himself to his
+studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge
+untouched. By him Acquapendente, the great anatomist, confesses, that
+he was informed how vision is performed; and there are proofs, that he
+was not a stranger to the circulation of the blood.
+
+He frequently conversed upon astronomy with mathematicians; upon
+anatomy with surgeons; upon medicine with physicians; and with
+chymists upon the analysis of metals, not as a superficial inquirer,
+but as a complete master.
+
+But the hours of repose, that he employed so well, were interrupted by
+a new information in the inquisition, where a former acquaintance
+produced a letter, written by him, in ciphers, in which he said, "that
+he detested the court of Rome, and that no preferment was obtained
+there, but by dishonest means." This accusation, however dangerous,
+was passed over, on account of his great reputation, but made such
+impression on that court, that he was afterward denied a bishoprick by
+Clement the eighth. After these difficulties were surmounted, father
+Paul again retired to his solitude, where he appears, by some writings
+drawn up by him at that time, to have turned his attention more to
+improvements in piety than learning. Such was the care with which he
+read the scriptures, that, it being his custom to draw a line under
+any passage which he intended more nicely to consider, there was not a
+single word in his New Testament but was underlined; the same marks of
+attention appeared in his Old Testament, Psalter, and Breviary.
+
+But the most active scene of his life began about the year 1615, when
+pope Paul the fifth, exasperated by some decrees of the senate of
+Venice, that interfered with the pretended rights of the church, laid
+the whole state under an interdict.
+
+The senate, filled with indignation at this treatment, forbade the
+bishops to receive or publish the pope's bull; and, convening the
+rectors of the churches, commanded them to celebrate divine service in
+the accustomed manner, with which most of them readily complied; but
+the jesuits, and some others, refusing, were, by a solemn edict,
+expelled the state.
+
+Both parties having proceeded to extremities, employed their ablest
+writers to defend their measures: on the pope's side, among others,
+cardinal Bellarmine entered the lists, and, with his confederate
+authors, defended the papal claims, with great scurrility of
+expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by
+the Venetian apologists, in much more decent language, and with much
+greater solidity of argument.
+
+On this occasion father Paul was most eminently distinguished, by his
+Defence of the Rights of the Supreme Magistrate; his treatise of
+Excommunications, translated from Gerson, with an Apology, and other
+writings, for which he was cited before the inquisition at Rome; but
+it may be easily imagined that he did not obey the summons.
+
+The Venetian writers, whatever might be the abilities of their
+adversaries, were, at least, superiour to them in the justice of their
+cause. The propositions maintained on the side of Rome were these:
+that the pope is invested with all the authority of heaven and earth:
+that all princes are his vassals, and that he may annul their laws at
+pleasure: that kings may appeal to him, as he is temporal monarch of
+the whole earth: that he can discharge subjects from their oaths of
+allegiance, and make it their duty to take up arms against their
+sovereign: that he may depose kings without any fault committed by
+them, if the good of the church requires it: that the clergy are
+exempt from all tribute to kings, and are not accountable to them,
+even in cases of high treason: that the pope cannot err; that his
+decisions are to be received and obeyed on pain of sin, though all the
+world should judge them to be false; that the pope is God upon earth;
+that his sentence and that of God are the same; and that to call his
+power in question, is to call in question the power of God; maxims
+equally shocking, weak, pernicious, and absurd; which did not require
+the abilities or learning of father Paul, to demonstrate their
+falsehood, and destructive tendency.
+
+It may be easily imagined, that such principles were quickly
+overthrown, and that no court, but that of Rome, thought it for its
+interest to favour them. The pope, therefore, finding his authors
+confuted, and his cause abandoned, was willing to conclude the affair
+by treaty, which, by the mediation of Henry the fourth of France, was
+accommodated upon terms very much to the honour of the Venetians.
+
+But the defenders of the Venetian rights were, though comprehended in
+the treaty, excluded by the Romans from the benefit of it; some, upon
+different pretences, were imprisoned, some sent to the galleys, and
+all debarred from preferment. But their malice was chiefly aimed
+against father Paul, who soon found the effects of it; for, as he was
+going one night to his convent, about six months after the
+accommodation, he was attacked by five ruffians, armed with
+stilettoes, who gave him no less than fifteen stabs, three of which
+wounded him in such a manner, that he was left for dead. The murderers
+fled for refuge to the nuncio, and were afterwards received into the
+pope's dominions, but were pursued by divine justice, and all, except
+one man who died in prison, perished by violent deaths.
+
+This and other attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself
+to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council
+of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the
+matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet,
+as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr.
+Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the
+reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy,
+freedom of speech without neglect of decency, severity without rigour,
+and extensive learning without ostentation."
+
+In this and other works of less consequence, he spent the remaining
+part of his life, to the beginning of the year 1622, when he was
+seized with a cold and fever, which he neglected, till it became
+incurable. He languished more than twelve months, which he spent
+almost wholly in a preparation for his passage into eternity; and,
+among his prayers and aspirations, was often heard to repeat, "Lord!
+now let thy servant depart in peace."
+
+On Sunday, the eighth of January of the next year, he rose, weak as he
+was, to mass, and went to take his repast with the rest; but, on
+Monday, was seized with a weakness that threatened immediate death;
+and, on Thursday, prepared for his change, by receiving the viaticum
+with such marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the
+beholders.
+
+Through the whole course of his illness, to the last hour of his life,
+he was consulted by the senate in publick affairs, and returned
+answers, in his greatest weakness, with such presence of mind, as
+could only arise from the consciousness of innocence.
+
+On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the passion of our blessed
+saviour read to him out of St. John's gospel, as on every other day of
+that week, and spoke of the mercy of his redeemer, and his confidence
+in his merits.
+
+As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to
+pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his
+thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, "Esto
+perpetua," mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a
+prayer for the prosperity of his country.
+
+Thus died father Paul, in the seventy-first year of his age; hated by
+the Romans, as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the
+learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His
+detestation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his
+writings, but particularly in this memorable passage of one of his
+letters: "There is nothing more essential than to ruin the reputation
+of the jesuits; by the ruin of the jesuits, Rome will be ruined; and
+if Rome is ruined, religion will reform of itself."
+
+He appears, by many passages of his life, to have had a high esteem of
+the church of England; and his friend, father Fulgentio, who had
+adopted all his notions, made no scruple of administering to Dr.
+Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell sick at Venice, the communion
+in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer, which he had with him
+in Italian.
+
+He was buried with great pomp, at the publick charge, and a
+magnificent monument was erected, to his memory.
+
+
+
+
+BOERHAAVE.
+
+
+The following account of the late Dr. Boerhaave, so loudly celebrated,
+and so universally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we
+hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: we could have made it much
+larger, by adopting flying reports, and inserting unattested facts: a
+close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and
+hindered it from swelling to that bulk, at which modern histories
+generally arrive.
+
+Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December, 1668, about
+one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from
+Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minister of Voorhout, of whom
+his son [34], in a small account of his own life, has given a very
+amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour,
+for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the
+prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous
+family of nine children: he was eminently skilled in history and
+genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.
+
+His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amsterdam,
+from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the
+study of physick, in which she was very inquisitive, and had obtained
+a knowledge of it, not common in female students.
+
+This knowledge, however, she did not live to communicate to her son;
+for she died, in 1673, ten years after her marriage.
+
+His father, finding himself encumbered with the care of seven
+children, thought it necessary to take a second wife, and in July,
+1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden,
+who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her
+husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother.
+
+Herman Boerhaave was always designed, by his father, for the ministry,
+and, with that view, instructed by him in grammatical learning, and
+the first elements of languages; in which he made such a proficiency,
+that he was, at the age of eleven years, not only master of the rules
+of grammar, but capable of translating with tolerable accuracy, and
+not wholly ignorant of critical niceties.
+
+At intervals, to recreate his mind and strengthen his constitution, it
+was his father's custom to send him into the fields, and employ him in
+agriculture, and such kind of rural occupations, which he continued,
+through all his life, to love and practise; and, by this vicissitude
+of study and exercise, preserved himself, in a great measure, from
+those distempers and depressions, which are frequently the
+consequences of indiscreet diligence and uninterrupted application;
+and from which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of
+the human body, sometimes fly for relief, to wine instead of exercise,
+and purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful
+consequences.
+
+The studies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by
+an accident, which deserves a particular mention, as it first inclined
+him to that science, to which he was, by nature, so well adapted, and
+which he afterwards carried to so great perfection.
+
+In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant
+ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years,
+defeated all the art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only
+afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exposed him to such
+sharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were
+equally insufferable. Then it was, that his own pain taught him to
+compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the
+methods then in use, incited him to attempt the discovery of others
+more certain.
+
+He began to practise, at least, honestly, for he began upon himself;
+and his first essay was a prelude to his future success, for having
+laid aside all the prescriptions of his physicians, and all the
+applications of his surgeons, he at last, by tormenting the part with
+salt and urine, effected a cure.
+
+That he might, on this occasion, obtain the assistance of surgeons
+with less inconvenience and expense, he was brought, by his father, at
+fourteen, to Leyden, and placed in the fourth class of the publick
+school, after being examined by the master: here his application and
+abilities were equally conspicuous. In six months, by gaining the
+first prize in the fourth class, he was raised to the fifth; and, in
+six months more, upon the same proof of the superiority of his genius,
+rewarded with another prize, and translated to the sixth; from whence
+it is usual, in six months more, to be removed to the university.
+
+Thus did our young student advance in learning and reputation, when,
+as he was within view of the university, a sudden and unexpected blow
+threatened to defeat all his expectations.
+
+On the 12th of November, in 1682, his father died, and left behind him
+a very slender provision for his widow, and nine children, of which
+the eldest was not yet seventeen years old.
+
+This was a most afflicting loss to the young scholar, whose fortune
+was by no means sufficient to bear the expenses of a learned
+education, and who, therefore, seemed to be now summoned, by
+necessity, to some way of life more immediately and certainly
+lucrative; but, with a resolution equal to his abilities, and a spirit
+not so depressed and shaken, he determined to break through the
+obstacles of poverty, and supply, by diligence, the want of fortune.
+
+He, therefore, asked, and obtained the consent of his guardians, to
+prosecute his studies, so long as his patrimony would support him;
+and, continuing his wonted industry, gained another prize.
+
+He was now to quit the school for the university, but on account of
+the weakness yet remaining in his thigh, was, at his own entreaty,
+continued six months longer under the care of his master, the learned
+Winschotan, where he was once more honoured with the prize.
+
+At his removal to the university, the same genius and industry met
+with the same encouragement and applause. The learned Triglandius, one
+of his father's friends, made soon after professor of divinity at
+Leyden, distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him
+to the friendship of Mr. Van Apphen, in whom he found a generous and
+constant patron.
+
+He became now a diligent hearer of the most celebrated professors, and
+made great advances in all the sciences, still regulating his studies
+with a view, principally, to divinity, for which he was originally
+intended by his father; and, for that reason, exerted his utmost
+application to attain an exact knowledge of the Hebrew tongue.
+
+Being convinced of the necessity of mathematical learning, he began to
+study those sciences in 1687, but without that intense industry with
+which the pleasure he found in that kind of knowledge, induced him
+afterwards to cultivate them.
+
+In 1690, having performed the exercises of the university with
+uncommon reputation, he took his degree in philosophy; and, on that
+occasion, discussed the important and arduous subject of the distinct
+natures of the soul and body, with such-accuracy, perspicuity, and
+subtilty, that he entirely confuted all the sophistry of Epicurus,
+Hobbes, and Spinosa, and equally raised the characters of his piety
+and erudition.
+
+Divinity was still his great employment, and the chief aim of all his
+studies. He read the scriptures in their original languages; and when
+difficulties occurred, consulted the interpretations of the most
+ancient fathers, whom he read in order of time, beginning with Clemens
+Romanus.
+
+In the perusal of those early writers [35], he was struck with the
+profoundest veneration of the simplicity and purity of their
+doctrines, the holiness of their lives, and the sanctity of the
+discipline practised by them; but, as he descended to the lower ages,
+found the peace of Christianity broken by useless controversies, and
+its doctrines sophisticated by the subtilties of the schools: he found
+the holy writers interpreted according to the notions of philosophers,
+and the chimeras of metaphysicians adopted as articles of faith: he
+found difficulties raised by niceties, and fomented to bitterness and
+rancour: he saw the simplicity of the christian doctrine corrupted by
+the private fancies of particular parties, while each adhered to its
+own philosophy, and orthodoxy was confined to the sect in power.
+
+Having now exhausted his fortune in the pursuit of his studies, he
+found the necessity of applying to some profession, that, without
+engrossing all his time, might enable him to support himself; and
+having obtained a very uncommon knowledge of the mathematicks, he read
+lectures in those sciences to a select number of young gentlemen in
+the university.
+
+At length, his propension to the study of physick grew too violent to
+be resisted; and, though he still intended to make divinity the great
+employment of his life, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of
+spending some time upon the medical writers, for the perusal of which
+he was so well qualified by his acquaintance with the mathematicks and
+philosophy.
+
+But this science corresponded so much with his natural genius, that he
+could not forbear making that his business, which he intended only as
+his diversion; and still growing more eager, as he advanced further,
+he at length determined wholly to master that profession, and to take
+his degree in physick, before he engaged in the duties of the
+ministry.
+
+It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is,
+generally, proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any
+into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have
+not abilities, likewise, to perform them. To have formed the design of
+gaining a complete knowledge of medicine, by way of digression from
+theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most
+men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. But
+Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing
+appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts, but
+what appears insurmountable to common understandings.
+
+He began this new course of study by a diligent perusal of Vesalius,
+Bartholine, and Fallopius; and, to acquaint himself more fully with
+the structure of bodies, was a constant attendant upon Nuck's publick
+dissections in the theatre, and himself very accurately inspected the
+bodies of different animals.
+
+Having furnished himself with this preparatory knowledge, he began to
+read the ancient physicians, in the order of time, pursuing his
+inquiries downwards, from Hippocrates through all the Greek and Latin
+writers.
+
+Finding, as he tells us himself, that Hippocrates was the original
+source of all medical knowledge, and that all the later writers were
+little more than transcribers from him, he returned to him with more
+attention, and spent much time in making extracts from him, digesting
+his treatises into method, and fixing them in his memory.
+
+He then descended to the moderns, among whom none engaged him longer,
+or improved him more, than Sydenham, to whose merit he has left this
+attestation, "that he frequently perused him, and always with greater
+eagerness."
+
+His insatiable curiosity after knowledge engaged him now in the
+practice of chymistry, which he prosecuted with all the ardour of a
+philosopher, whose industry was not to be wearied, and whose love of
+truth was too strong to suffer him to acquiesce in the reports of
+others.
+
+Yet did he not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention
+from others: anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor
+chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany, in which he
+was no less skilled than in other parts of physick. He was not only a
+careful examiner of all the plants in the garden of the university,
+but made excursions, for his further improvement, into the woods and
+fields, and left no place unvisited, where any increase of botanical
+knowledge could be reasonably hoped for.
+
+In conjunction with all these inquiries, he still pursued his
+theological studies, and still, as we are informed by himself,
+"proposed, when he had made himself master of the whole art of
+physick, and obtained the honour of a degree in that science, to
+petition regularly for a license to preach, and to engage in the cure
+of souls;" and intended, in his theological exercise, to discuss this
+question, "why so many were formerly converted to Christianity by
+illiterate persons, and so few at present by men of learning."
+
+In pursuance of this plan he went to Hardewich, in order to take the
+degree of doctor in physick, which he obtained in July, 1693, having
+performed a publick disputation, "de utilitate explorandorum
+excrementorum in aegris, ut signorum."
+
+Then returning to Leyden, full of his pious design of undertaking the
+ministry, he found, to his surprise, unexpected obstacles thrown in
+his way, and an insinuation dispersed through the university, that
+made him suspected, not of any slight deviation from received
+opinions, not of any pertinacious adherence to his own notions in
+doubtful and disputable matters, but of no less than Spinosism, or, in
+plainer terms, of atheism itself.
+
+How so injurious a report came to be raised, circulated, and credited,
+will be, doubtless, very eagerly inquired; we shall, therefore, give
+the relation, not only to satisfy the curiosity of mankind, but to
+show that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only
+attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whispers. Those who
+cannot strike with force, can, however, poison their weapon, and, weak
+as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave; so
+true is that observation, that many are able to do hurt, but few to do
+good.
+
+This detestable calumny owed its rise to an incident, from which no
+consequence of importance could be possibly apprehended. As Boerhaave
+was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the
+passengers, upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa,
+which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all
+religion. Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for
+some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by
+his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument,
+began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent
+invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last,
+he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author
+he declaimed against.
+
+The orator, not being able to make much answer, was checked in the
+midst of his invectives, but not without feeling a secret resentment
+against the person who had, at once, interrupted his harangue, and
+exposed his ignorance.
+
+This was observed by a stranger who was in the boat with them; he
+inquired of his neighbour the name of the young man, whose question
+had put an end to the discourse, and having learned it, set it down in
+his pocket-book, as it appears, with a malicious design, for in a few
+days it was the common conversation at Leyden, that Boerhaave had
+revolted to Spinosa.
+
+It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and
+unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly
+of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between
+soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are
+once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice
+of bad, and, sometimes, by the zeal of good men, who, though they do
+not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep
+not only guilty, but suspected men out of publick employments, upon
+this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the
+advantage of few.
+
+Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his
+pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against
+his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither
+necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular
+prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed,
+of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the
+second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind.
+
+He, therefore, applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour
+and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and
+was continually employed in making new acquisitions.
+
+Having now qualified himself for the practice of physick, he began to
+visit patients, but without that encouragement which others, not
+equally deserving, have sometimes met with. His business was, at
+first, not great, and his circumstances by no means easy; but still,
+superiour to any discouragement, he continued his search after
+knowledge, and determined that prosperity, if ever he was to enjoy it,
+should be the consequence not of mean art, or disingenuous
+solicitations, but of real merit, and solid learning.
+
+His steady adherence to his resolutions appears yet more plainly from
+this circumstance: he was, while he yet remained in this unpleasing
+situation, invited by one of the first favourites of king William the
+third, to settle at the Hague, upon very advantageous conditions; but
+declined the offer; for having no ambition but after knowledge, he was
+desirous of living at liberty, without any restraint upon his looks,
+his thoughts, or his tongue, and at the utmost distance from all
+contentions and state-parties. His time was wholly taken up in
+visiting the sick, studying, ntaking chymical experiments, searching
+into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the
+mathematicks, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who
+profess to teach a certain method of loving God [36].
+
+This was his method of living to the year 1701, when he was
+recommended, by Van Berg, to the university, as a proper person to
+succeed Drelincurtius in the professorship of physick, and elected,
+without any solicitations on his part, and almost without his consent,
+on the 18th of May.
+
+On this occasion, having observed, with grief, that Hippocrates, whom
+he regarded not only as the father, but as the prince of physicians,
+was not sufficiently read or esteemed by young students, he pronounced
+an oration, "de commendando studio Hippocratico;" by which he restored
+that great author to his just and ancient reputation.
+
+He now began to read publick lectures with great applause, and was
+prevailed upon, by his audience, to enlarge his original design, and
+instruct them in chymistry. This he undertook, not only to the great
+advantage of his pupils, but to the great improvement of the art
+itself, which had, hitherto, been treated only in a confused and
+irregular manner, and was little more than a history of particular
+experiments, not reduced to certain principles, nor connected one with
+another: this vast chaos he reduced to order, and made that clear and
+easy, which was before, to the last degree, difficult and obscure.
+
+His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
+extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
+professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
+thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
+present course of life.
+
+This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
+university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
+them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
+and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.
+
+On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
+in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
+rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
+structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
+jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
+enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
+and, instead of enlightening their readers with explications of
+nature, have darkened the plainest appearances, and bewildered mankind
+in errour and obscurity.
+
+Boerhaave had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without
+the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor
+Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.
+
+On this occasion he asserted the simplicity and facility of the
+science of physick, in opposition to those that think obscurity
+contributes to the dignity of learning, and that to be admired it is
+necessary not to be understood.
+
+His profession of botany made it part of his duty to superintend the
+physical garden, which improved so much by the immense number of new
+plants which he procured, that it was enlarged to twice its original
+extent.
+
+In 1714, he was deservedly advanced to the highest dignities of the
+university, and, in the same year, made physician of St. Augustin's
+hospital in Leyden, into which the students are admitted twice a week,
+to learn the practice of physick.
+
+This was of equal advantage to the sick and to the students, for the
+success of his practice was the best demonstration of the soundness of
+his principles.
+
+When he laid down his office of governour of the university, in 1715,
+he made an oration upon the subject of "attaining to certainty in
+natural philosophy;" in which he declares, in the strongest terms, in
+favour of experimental knowledge; and reflects, with just severity,
+upon those arrogant philosophers, who are too easily disgusted with
+the slow methods of obtaining true notions by frequent experiments;
+and who, possessed with too high an opinion of their own abilities,
+rather choose to consult their own imaginations, than inquire into
+nature, and are better pleased with the charming amusement of forming
+hypotheses, than the toilsome drudgery of making observations.
+
+The emptiness and uncertainty of all those systems, whether venerable
+for their antiquity, or agreeable for their novelty, he has evidently
+shown; and not only declared, but proved, that we are entirely
+ignorant of the principles of things, and that all the knowledge we
+have, is of such qualities alone as are discoverable by experience, or
+such as may be deduced from them by mathematical demonstration.
+
+This discourse, filled as it was with piety, and a true sense of the
+greatness of the supreme being, and the incomprehensibility of his
+works, gave such offence to a professor of Franeker, who professed the
+utmost esteem for Des Cartes, and considered his principles as the
+bulwark of orthodoxy, that he appeared in vindication of his darling
+author, and spoke of the injury done him with the utmost vehemence,
+declaring little less than that the cartesian system and the Christian
+must inevitably stand and fall together; and that to say that we were
+ignorant of the principles of things, was not only to enlist among the
+skepticks, but to sink into atheism itself.
+
+So far can prejudice darken the understanding, as to make it consider
+precarious systems as the chief support of sacred and invariable
+truth.
+
+This treatment of Boerhaave was so far resented by the governours of
+his university, that they procured from Franeker a recantation of the
+invective that had been thrown out against him: this was not only
+complied with, but offers were made him of more ample satisfaction; to
+which he returned an answer not less to his honour than the victory he
+gained, "that he should think himself sufficiently compensated, if his
+adversary received no further molestation on his account."
+
+So far was this weak and injudicious attack from shaking a reputation
+not casually raised by fashion or caprice, but founded upon solid
+merit, that the same year his correspondence was desired upon botany
+and natural philosophy by the academy of sciences at Paris, of which
+he was, upon the death of count Marsigli, in the year 1728, elected a
+member.
+
+Nor were the French the only nation by which this great man was
+courted and distinguished; for, two years after, he was elected fellow
+of our Royal society.
+
+It cannot be doubted but, thus caressed and honoured with the highest
+and most publick marks of esteem by other nations, he became more
+celebrated in the university; for Boerhaave was not one of those
+learned men, of whom the world has seen too many, that disgrace their
+studies by their vices, and, by unaccountable weaknesses, make
+themselves ridiculous at home, while their writings procure them the
+veneration of distant countries, where their learning is known, but
+not their follies.
+
+Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his
+excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in
+1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of
+chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia
+errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an
+elegance of style not often to be found in chymical writers, who seem
+generally to have affected, not only a barbarous, but unintelligible
+phrase, and to have, like the Pythagoreans of old, wrapt up their
+secrets in symbols and enigmatical expressions, either because they
+believed that mankind would reverence most what they least understood,
+or because they wrote not from benevolence, but vanity, and were
+desirous to be praised for their knowledge, though they could not
+prevail upon themselves to communicate it.
+
+In 1722, his course, both of lectures and practice, was interrupted by
+the gout, which, as he relates it in his speech after his recovery, he
+brought upon himself, by an imprudent confidence in the strength of
+his own constitution, and by transgressing those rules which he had a
+thousand times inculcated to his pupils and acquaintance. Rising in
+the morning before day, he went immediately, hot and sweating, from
+his bed into the open air, and exposed himself to the cold dews.
+
+The history of his illness can hardly be read without horrour: he was
+for five months confined to his bed, where he lay upon his back
+without daring to attempt the least motion, because any effort renewed
+his torments, which were so exquisite, that he was, at length, not
+only deprived of motion but of sense. Here art was at a stand; nothing
+could be attempted, because nothing-could be proposed with the least
+prospect of success. At length, having, in the sixth month of his
+illness, obtained some remission, he took simple medicines [37] in
+large quantities, and, at length, wonderfully recovered.
+
+His recovery, so much desired, and so unexpected, was celebrated on
+Jan. 11, 1723, when he opened his school again, with general joy and
+publick illuminations.
+
+It would be an injury to the memory of Boerhaave, not to mention what
+was related by himself to one of his friends, that when he lay whole
+days and nights without sleep, he found no method of diverting his
+thoughts so effectual, as meditation upon his studies, and that he
+often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments, by the
+recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of
+knowledge, which he had reposited in his memory.
+
+This is, perhaps, an instance of fortitude and steady composure of
+mind, which would have been for ever the boast of the stoick schools,
+and increased the reputation of Seneca or Cato. The patience of
+Boerhaave, as it was more rational, was more lasting than theirs; it
+was that "patientia Christiana," which Lipsius, the great master of
+the stoical philosophy, begged of God in his last hours; it was
+founded on religion, not vanity, not on vain reasonings, but on
+confidence in God.
+
+In 1727, he was seized with a violent burning fever, which continued
+so long, that he was once more given up by his friends.
+
+From this time he was frequently afflicted with returns of his
+distemper, which yet did not so far subdue him, as to make him lay
+aside his studies or his lectures, till, in 1726, he found himself so
+worn out, that it was improper for him to continue any longer the
+professorships of botany or chymistry, which he, therefore, resigned,
+April 28, and, upon his resignation, spoke a "Sermo academicus," or
+oration, in which he asserts the power and wisdom of the creator from
+the wonderful fabrick of the human body; and confutes all those idle
+reasoners, who pretend to explain the formation of parts, or the
+animal operations, to which he proves, that art can produce nothing
+equal, nor any thing parallel. One instance I shall mention, which is
+produced by him, of the vanity of any attempt to rival the work of
+God. Nothing is more boasted by the admirers of chymistry, than that
+they can, by artificial heats and digestion, imitate the productions
+of nature. "Let all these heroes of science meet together," says
+Boerhaave; "let them take bread and wine, the food that forms the
+blood of man, and, by assimilation, contributes to the growth of the
+body: let them try all their arts, they shall not be able, from these
+materials, to produce a single drop of blood. So much is the most
+common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended
+science!"
+
+From this time Boerhaave lived with less publick employment, indeed,
+but not an idle or an useless life; for, besides his hours spent in
+instructing his scholars, a great part of his time was taken up by
+patients, which came, when the distemper would admit it, from all
+parts of Europe to consult him, or by letters which, in more urgent
+cases, were continually sent to inquire his opinion and ask his
+advice.
+
+Of his sagacity, and the wonderful penetration with which he often
+discovered and described, at first sight of a patient, such distempers
+as betray themselves by no symptoms to common eyes, such wonderful
+relations have been spread over the world, as, though attested beyond
+doubt, can scarcely be credited. I mention none of them, because I
+have no opportunity of collecting testimonies, or distinguishing
+between those accounts which are well proved, and those which owe
+their rise to fiction and credulity.
+
+Yet I cannot but implore, with the greatest earnestness, such as have
+been conversant with this great man, that they will not so far neglect
+the common interest of mankind, as to suffer any of these
+circumstances to be lost to posterity. Men are generally idle, and
+ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by
+calling that impossible which is only difficult. The skill to which
+Boerhaave attained, by a long and unwearied observation of nature,
+ought, therefore, to be transmitted, in all its particulars, to future
+ages, that his successors may be ashamed to fall below him, and that
+none may hereafter excuse his ignorance, by pleading the impossibility
+of clearer knowledge.
+
+Yet so far was this great master from presumptuous confidence in his
+abilities, that, in his examinations of the sick, he was remarkably
+circumstantial and particular. He well knew that the originals of
+distempers are often at a distance from their visible effects; that to
+conjecture, where certainty may be obtained, is either vanity or
+negligence; and that life is not to be sacrificed, either to an
+affectation of quick discernment, or of crowded practice, but may be
+required, if trifled away, at the hand of the physician.
+
+About the middle of the year 1737, he felt the first approaches of
+that fatal illness that brought him to the grave, of which we have
+inserted an account, written by himself, Sept. 8, 1738, to a friend at
+London [38]; which deserves not only to be preserved, as an historical
+relation of the disease which deprived us of so great a man, but as a
+proof of his piety and resignation to the divine will.
+
+In this last illness, which was, to the last degree, lingering,
+painful, and afflictive, his constancy and firmness did not forsake
+him. He neither intermitted the necessary cares of life, nor forgot
+the proper preparations for death. Though dejection and lowness of
+spirits was, as he himself tells us, part of his distemper, yet even
+this, in some measure, gave way to that vigour, which the soul
+receives from a consciousness of innocence.
+
+About three weeks before his death he received a visit, at his country
+house, from the reverend Mr. Schultens, his intimate friend, who found
+him sitting without-door, with his wife, sister, and daughter: after
+the compliments of form, the ladies withdrew, and left them to private
+conversation; when Boerhaave took occasion to tell him what had been,
+during his illness, the chief subject of his thoughts. He had never
+doubted of the spiritual and immaterial nature of the soul; but
+declared that he had lately had a kind of experimental certainty of
+the distinction between corporeal and thinking substances, which mere
+reason and philosophy cannot afford, and opportunities of
+contemplating the wonderful and inexplicable union of soul and body,
+which nothing but long sickness can give. This he illustrated by a
+description of the effects which the infirmities of his body had upon
+his faculties, which yet they did not so oppress or vanquish, but his
+soul was always master of itself, and always resigned to the pleasure
+of its maker.
+
+He related, with great concern, that once his patience so far gave way
+to extremity of pain, that, after having lain fifteen hours in
+exquisite tortures, he prayed to God that he might be set free by
+death.
+
+Mr. Schultens, by way of consolation, answered, that he thought such
+wishes, when forced by continued and excessive torments, unavoidable
+in the present state of human nature; that the best men, even Job
+himself, were not able to refrain from such starts of impatience. This
+he did not deny; but said, "he that loves God, ought to think nothing
+desirable, but what is most pleasing to the supreme goodness."
+
+Such were his sentiments, and such his conduct, in this state of
+weakness and pain: as death approached nearer, he was so far from
+terrour or confusion, that he seemed even less sensible of pain, and
+more cheerful under his torments, which continued till the 23rd day of
+September, 1738, on which he died, between four and five in the
+morning, in the 70th year of his age.
+
+Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature for great designs, and
+guided by religion in the exertion of his abilities. He was of a
+robust and athletick constitution of body, so hardened by early
+severities, and wholesome fatigue, that he was insensible of any
+sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and
+remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was, in his air and
+motion, something rough and artless, but so majestick and great, at
+the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration,
+and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.
+
+The vigour and activity of his mind sparkled visibly in his eyes; nor
+was it ever observed, that any change of his fortune, or alteration in
+his affairs, whether happy or unfortunate, affected his countenance.
+
+He was always cheerful, and desirous of promoting mirth by a facetious
+and humorous conversation; he was never soured by calumny and
+detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they
+are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of
+themselves."
+
+Yet he took care never to provoke enemies by severity of censure, for
+he never dwelt on the faults or defects of others, and was so far from
+inflaming the envy of his rivals, by dwelling on his own excellencies,
+that he rarely mentioned himself or his writings.
+
+He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence, frowns, or
+insolence of great men, but persisted, on all occasions, in the right,
+with a resolution always present and always calm. He was modest, but
+not timorous, and firm without rudeness.
+
+He could, with uncommon readiness and certainty, make a conjecture of
+men's inclinations and capacity by their aspect.
+
+His method of life was to study in the morning and evening, and to
+allot the middle of the day to his publick business. His usual
+exercise was riding, till, in his latter years, his distempers made it
+more proper for him to walk: when he was weary, he amused himself with
+playing on the violin.
+
+His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in the country, where
+he had a garden stored with all the herbs and trees which the climate
+would bear; here he used to enjoy his hours unmolested, and prosecute
+his studies without interruption.
+
+The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufficiently
+evident from his success. Statesmen and generals may grow great by
+unexpected accidents, and a fortunate concurrence of circumstances,
+neither procured nor foreseen by themselves; but reputation in the
+learned world must be the effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave
+lost none of his hours, but, when he had attained one science,
+attempted another; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to the
+mathematicks, and anatomy to botany. He examined systems by
+experiments, and formed experiments into systems. He neither neglected
+the observations of others, nor blindly submitted to celebrated names.
+He neither thought so highly of himself, as to imagine he could
+receive no light from books, nor so meanly, as to believe he could
+discover nothing but what was to be learned from them. He examined the
+observations of other men, but trusted only to his own.
+
+Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by
+elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature: he
+knew that but a small part of mankind will sacrifice their pleasure to
+their improvement, and those authors who would find many readers, must
+endeavour to please while they instruct.
+
+He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he
+might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men
+of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours
+less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and
+poetry. Thus was his learning, at once, various and exact, profound
+and agreeable.
+
+But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his character, but the
+second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
+He was an admirable example of temperance, fortitude, humility, and
+devotion. His piety, and a religious sense of his dependance on God,
+was the basis of all his virtues, and the principle of his whole
+conduct. He was too sensible of his weakness to ascribe any thing to
+himself, or to conceive that he could subdue passion, or withstand
+temptation, by his own natural power; he attributed every good
+thought, and every laudable action, to the father of goodness. Being
+once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great
+provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what
+means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable
+passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he
+was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer
+and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself.
+
+As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his whole life,
+his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and
+meditation; this, he often told his friends, gave him spirit and
+vigour in the business of the day, and this he, therefore, commended,
+as the best rule of life; for nothing, he knew, could support the
+soul, in all distresses, but a confidence in the supreme being; nor
+can a steady and rational magnanimity flow from any other source than
+a consciousness of the divine favour.
+
+He asserted, on all occasions, the divine authority and sacred
+efficacy of the holy scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught
+the way of salvation, and that they only could give peace of mind. The
+excellency of the Christian religion was the frequent subject of his
+conversation. A strict obedience to the doctrine, and a diligent
+imitation of the example of our blessed saviour, he often declared to
+be the foundation of true tranquillity. He recommended to his friends
+a careful observation of the precept of Moses, concerning the love of
+God and man. He worshipped God as he is in himself, without attempting
+to inquire into his nature. He desired only to think of God, what God
+knows of himself. There he stopped, lest, by indulging his own ideas,
+he should form a deity from his own imagination, and sin by falling
+down before him. To the will of God he paid an absolute submission,
+without endeavouring to discover the reason of his determinations; and
+this he accounted the first and most inviolable duty of a Christian.
+When he heard of a criminal condemned to die, he used to think: Who
+can tell whether this man is not better than I? or, if I am better, it
+is not to be ascribed to myself, but to the goodness of God.
+
+Such were the sentiments of Boerhaave, whose words we have added in
+the note [39]. So far was this man from being made impious by
+philosophy, or vain by knowledge, or by virtue, that he ascribed all
+his abilities to the bounty, and all his goodness to the grace of God.
+May his example extend its influence to his admirers and followers!
+May those who study his writings imitate his life! and those who
+endeavour after his knowledge, aspire likewise to his piety!
+
+He married, September 17, 1710, Mary Drolenveaux, the only daughter of
+a burgomaster of Leyden, by whom he had Joanna Maria, who survived her
+father, and three other children, who died in their infancy. The works
+of this great writer are so generally known, and so highly esteemed,
+that, though it may not be improper to enumerate them in the order of
+time, in which they were published, it is wholly unnecessary to give
+any other account of them.
+
+He published, in 1707, Institutiones medicae; to which he added, in
+1708, Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis.
+
+1710, Index stirpium in horto academico.
+
+1719, De materia medica, et remediorum formulis liber; and, in 1727, a
+second edition.
+
+1720, Alter index stirpium, &c. adorned with plates, and containing
+twice the number of plants as the former.
+
+1722, Epistola ad cl. Ruischium, qua sententiam Malpighianam de
+glandulis defendit.
+
+1724, Atrocis nee prius descripti morbi historia illustrissimi baronis
+Wassenariae.
+
+1725, Opera anatomica et chirurgica Andreae Vesalii; with the life of
+Vesalius.
+
+1728, Altera atrocis rarissimique morbi marchionis de Sancto Albano
+historia.
+
+Auctores de lue Aphrodisiaca, cum tractatu praefixo.
+
+1731, Aretaei Cappadocis nova editio.
+
+1732, Elementa Chemiae.
+
+1734, Observata de argento vivo, ad Reg. Soc. et Acad. Scient.
+
+These are the writings of the great Boerhaave, which have made all
+encomiums useless and vain, since no man can attentively peruse them,
+without admiring the abilities, and reverencing the virtue of the
+author. [40]
+
+
+
+
+BLAKE.
+
+
+At a time when a nation is engaged in a war with an enemy, whose
+insults, ravages, and barbarities have long called for vengeance, an
+account of such English commanders as have merited the acknowledgments
+of posterity, by extending the powers, and raising the honour of their
+country, seems to be no improper entertainment for our readers [41].
+We shall, therefore, attempt a succinct narration of the life and
+actions of admiral Blake, in which we have nothing further in view,
+than to do justice to his bravery and conduct, without intending any
+parallel between his achievements, and those of our present admirals.
+
+Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, in August,
+1598; his father being a merchant of that place, who had acquired a
+considerable fortune by the Spanish trade. Of his earliest years we
+have no account, and, therefore, can amuse the reader with none of
+those prognosticks of his future actions, so often met with in
+memoirs.
+
+In 1615, he entered into the university of Oxford, where he continued
+till 1623, though without being much countenanced or caressed by his
+superiours, for he was more than once disappointed in his endeavours
+after academical preferments. It is observable, that Mr. Wood, in his
+Athenae Oxonieuses, ascribes the repulse he met with at Wadham college,
+where he was competitor for a fellowship, either to want of learning,
+or of stature. With regard to the first objection, the same writer had
+before informed us, that he was an early riser and studious, though he
+sometimes relieved his attention by the amusements of fowling and
+fishing. As it is highly probable that he did not want capacity, we
+may, therefore, conclude, upon this confession of his diligence, that
+he could not fail of being learned, at least, in the degree requisite
+to the enjoyment of a fellowship; and may safely ascribe his
+disappointment to his want of stature, it being the custom of sir
+Henry Savil [42], then warden of that college, to pay much regard to
+the outward appearance of those who solicited preferment in that
+society. So much do the greatest events owe sometimes to accident or
+folly!
+
+He afterwards retired to his native place, where "he lived," says
+Clarendon, "without any appearance of ambition to be a greater man
+than he was, but inveighed with great freedom against the license of
+the times, and power of the court."
+
+In 1640, he was chosen burgess for Bridgewater by the puritan party,
+to whom he had recommended himself by the disapprobation of bishop
+Laud's violence and severity, and his non-compliance with those new
+ceremonies, which he was then endeavouring to introduce.
+
+When the civil war broke out, Blake, in conformity with his avowed
+principles, declared for the parliament; and, thinking a bare
+declaration for right not all the duty of a good man, raised a troop
+of dragoons for his party, and appeared in the field with so much
+bravery, that he was, in a short time, advanced, without meeting any
+of those obstructions which he had encountered in the university.
+
+In 1645, he was governour of Tauntou, when the lord Goring came before
+it with an army of ten thousand men. The town was ill fortified, and
+unsupplied with almost every thing necessary for supporting a siege.
+The state of this garrison encouraged colonel Windham, who was
+acquainted with Blake, to propose a capitulation, which was rejected
+by Blake, with indignation and contempt; nor were either menaces or
+persuasions of any effect, for he maintained the place, under all its
+disadvantages, till the siege was raised by the parliament's army.
+
+He continued, on many other occasions, to give proofs of an
+insuperable courage, and a steadiness of resolution not to be shaken;
+and, as a proof of his firm adherence to the parliament, joined with
+the borough of Taunton, in returning thanks for their resolution to
+make no more addresses to the king. Yet was he so far from approving
+the death of Charles the first, that he made no scruple of declaring,
+that he would venture his life to save him, as willingly as he had
+done to serve the parliament.
+
+In February, 1648-9, he was made a commissioner of the navy, and
+appointed to serve on that element, for which he seems by nature to
+have been designed. He was soon afterwards sent in pursuit of prince
+Rupert, whom he shut up in the harbour of Kinsale, in Ireland, for
+several months, till want of provisions, and despair of relief,
+excited the prince to make a daring effort for his escape, by forcing
+through the parliament's fleet: this design he executed with his usual
+intrepidity, and succeeded in it, though with the loss of three ships.
+He was pursued by Blake to the coast of Portugal, where he was
+received into the Tagus, and treated with great distinction by the
+Portuguese.
+
+Blake, coming to the mouth of that river, sent to the king a
+messenger, to inform him, that the fleet, in his port, belonging to
+the publick enemies of the commonwealth of England, he demanded leave
+to fall upon it. This being refused, though the refusal was in very
+soft terms, and accompanied with declarations of esteem, and a present
+of provisions, so exasperated the admiral, that, without any
+hesitation, he fell upon the Portuguese fleet, then returning from
+Brasil, of which he took seventeen ships, and burnt three. It was to
+no purpose that the king of Portugal, alarmed at so unexpected a
+destruction, ordered prince Rupert to attack him, and retake the
+Brasil ships. Blake carried home his prizes without molestation, the
+prince not having force enough to pursue him, and well pleased with
+the opportunity of quitting a port, where he could no longer be
+protected.
+
+Blake soon supplied his fleet with provision, and received orders to
+make reprisals upon the French, who had suffered their privateers to
+molest the English trade; an injury which, in those days, was always
+immediately resented, and if not repaired, certainly punished. Sailing
+with this commission, he took in his way a French man of war, valued
+at a million. How this ship happened to be so rich, we are not
+informed; but as it was a cruiser, it is probable the rich lading was
+the accumulated plunder of many prizes. Then following the unfortunate
+Rupert, whose fleet, by storms and battles, was now reduced to five
+ships, into Carthagena, he demanded leave of the Spanish governour to
+attack him in the harbour, but received the same answer which had been
+returned before by the Portuguese: "That they had a right to protect
+all ships that came into their dominions; that, if the admiral were
+forced in thither, he should find the same security; and that he
+required him not to violate the peace of a neutral port." Blake
+withdrew, upon this answer, into the Mediterranean; and Rupert, then
+leaving Carthagena, entered the port of Malaga, where he burnt and
+sunk several English merchant ships. Blake, judging this to be an
+infringement of the neutrality professed by the Spaniards, now made no
+scruple to fall upon Rupert's fleet in the harbour of Malaga, and,
+having destroyed three of his ships, obliged him to quit the sea, and
+take sanctuary at the Spanish court.
+
+In February, 1650-1, Blake, still continuing to cruise in the
+Mediterranean, met a French ship of considerable force, and commanded
+the captain to come on board, there being no war declared between the
+two nations. The captain, when he came, was asked by him, "whether he
+was willing to lay down his sword, and yield," which he gallantly
+refused, though in his enemy's power. Blake, scorning to take
+advantage of an artifice, and detesting the appearance of treachery,
+told him, "that he was at liberty to go back to his ship, and defend
+it, as long as he could." The captain willingly accepted his offer,
+and, after a fight of two hours, confessed himself conquered, kissed
+his sword, and surrendered it.
+
+In 1652, broke out the memorable war between the two commonwealths of
+England and Holland; a war, in which the greatest admirals that,
+perhaps, any age has produced, were engaged on each side; in which
+nothing less was contested than the dominion of the sea, and which was
+carried on with vigour, animosity, and resolution, proportioned to the
+importance of the dispute. The chief commanders of the Dutch fleets
+were Van Trump, De Ruyter, and De Witt, the most celebrated names of
+their own nation, and who had been, perhaps, more renowned, had they
+been opposed by any other enemies. The states of Holland, having
+carried on their trade without opposition, and almost without
+competition, not only during the unactive reign of James the first,
+but during the commotions of England, had arrived to that height of
+naval power, and that affluence of wealth, that, with the arrogance
+which a long-continued prosperity naturally produces, they began to
+invent new claims, and to treat other nations with insolence, which
+nothing can defend, but superiority of force. They had for some time
+made uncommon preparations, at a vast expense, and had equipped a
+large fleet, without any apparent danger threatening them, or any
+avowed design of attacking their neighbours. This unusual armament was
+not beheld by the English without some jealousy, and care was taken to
+fit out such a fleet as might secure the trade from interruption, and
+the coasts from insults; of this Blake was constituted admiral for
+nine months. In this situation the two nations remained, keeping a
+watchful eye upon each other, without acting hostilities on either
+side, till the 18th of May, 1652, when Van Trump appeared in the
+Downs, with a fleet of forty-five men of war. Blake, who had then but
+twenty ships, upon the approach of the Dutch admiral, saluted him with
+three single shots, to require that he should, by striking his flag,
+show that respect to the English, which is due to every nation in
+their own dominions; to which the Dutchman answered with a broadside;
+and Blake, perceiving that he intended to dispute the point of honour,
+advanced with his own ship before the rest of his fleet, that, if it
+were possible, a general battle might be prevented. But the Dutch,
+instead of admitting him to treat, fired upon him from their whole
+fleet, without any regard to the customs of war, or the law of
+nations. Blake, for some time, stood alone against their whole force,
+till the rest of his squadron coming up, the fight was continued from
+between four and five in the afternoon, till nine at night, when the
+Dutch retired with the loss of two ships, having not destroyed a
+single vessel, nor more than fifteen men, most of which were on board
+the admiral, who, as he wrote to the parliament, was himself engaged
+for four hours with the main body of the Dutch fleet, being the mark
+at which they aimed; and, as Whitlock relates, received above a
+thousand shot. Blake, in his letter, acknowledges the particular
+blessing and preservation of God, and ascribes his success to the
+justice of his cause, the Dutch having first attacked him upon the
+English coast. It is, indeed, little less than miraculous, that a
+thousand great shot should not do more execution; and those who will
+not admit the interposition of providence, may draw, at least, this
+inference from it, that the bravest man is not always in the greatest
+danger.
+
+In July, he met the Dutch fishery fleet, with a convoy of twelve men
+of war, all which he took, with one hundred of their herring-busses.
+And, in September, being stationed in the Downs, with about sixty
+sail, he discovered the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, with
+near the same number, and advanced towards them; but the Dutch being
+obliged, by the nature of their coast, and shallowness of their
+rivers, to build their ships in such a manner, that they require less
+depth of water than the English vessels, took advantage of the form of
+their shipping, and sheltered themselves behind a flat, called Kentish
+Knock; so that the English, finding some of their ships aground, were
+obliged to alter their course; but perceiving, early the next morning,
+that the Hollanders had forsaken their station, they pursued them with
+all the speed that the wind, which was weak and uncertain, allowed,
+but found themselves unable to reach them with the bulk of their
+fleet, and, therefore, detached some of the lightest frigates to chase
+them. These came so near, as to fire upon them about three in the
+afternoon; but the Dutch, instead of tacking about, hoisted their
+sails, steered toward their own coast, and finding themselves, the
+next day, followed by the whole English fleet, retired into Goree. The
+sailors were eager to attack them in their own harbours; but a council
+of war being convened, it was judged imprudent to hazard the fleet
+upon the shoals, or to engage in any important enterprise, without a
+fresh supply of provisions.
+
+That, in this engagement, the victory belonged to the English, is
+beyond dispute, since, without the loss of one ship, and with no more
+than forty men killed, they drove the enemy into their own ports, took
+the rearadmiral and another vessel, and so discouraged the Dutch
+admirals, who had not agreed in their measures, that De Ruyter, who
+had declared against hazarding a battle, desired to resign his
+commission, and De Witt, who had insisted upon fighting, fell sick, as
+it was supposed, with vexation. But how great the loss of the Dutch
+was is not certainly known; that two ships were taken, they are too
+wise to deny, but affirm that those two were all that were destroyed.
+The English, on the other side, affirm, that three of their vessels
+were disabled at the first encounter, that their numbers on the second
+day were visibly diminished, and that on the last day they saw three
+or four ships sink in their flight.
+
+De Witt being now discharged by the Hollanders, as unfortunate, and
+the chief command restored to Van Trump, great preparations were made
+for retrieving their reputation, and repairing those losses. Their
+endeavours were assisted by the English themselves, now made factious
+by success; the men, who were intrusted with the civil administration,
+being jealous of those whose military commands had procured so much
+honour, lest they who raised them should be eclipsed by them. Such is
+the general revolution of affairs in every state; danger and distress
+produce unanimity and bravery, virtues which are seldom unattended
+with success; but success is the parent of pride, and pride of
+jealousy and faction; faction makes way for calamity, and happy is
+that nation whose calamities renew their unanimity. Such is the
+rotation of interests, that equally tend to hinder the total
+destruction of a people, and to obstruct an exorbitant increase of
+power.
+
+Blake had weakened his fleet by many detachments, and lay with no more
+than forty sail in the Downs, very ill provided both with men and
+ammunition, and expecting new supplies from those whose animosity
+hindered them from providing them, and who chose rather to see the
+trade of their country distressed, than the sea officers exalted by a
+new acquisition of honour and influence.
+
+Van Trump, desirous of distinguishing himself, at the resumption of
+his command, by some remarkable action, had assembled eighty ships of
+war, and ten fireships, and steered towards the Downs, where Blake,
+with whose condition and strength he was probably acquainted, was then
+stationed. Blake, not able to restrain his natural ardour, or,
+perhaps, not fully informed of the superiority of his enemies, put out
+to encounter them, though his fleet was so weakly manned, that half of
+his ships were obliged to lie idle without engaging, for want of
+sailors. The force of the whole Dutch fleet was, therefore, sustained
+by about twenty-two ships. Two of the English frigates, named the
+Vanguard and the Victory, after having, for a long time, stood engaged
+amidst the whole Dutch fleet, broke through without much injury, nor
+did the English lose any ships till the evening, when the Garland,
+carrying forty guns, was boarded, at once, by two great ships, which
+were opposed by the English, till they had scarcely any men left to
+defend the decks; then retiring into the lower part of the vessel,
+they blew up their decks, which were now possessed by the enemy, and,
+at length, were overpowered and taken. The Bonaventure, a stout
+well-built merchant ship, going to relieve the Garland, was attacked
+by a man of war, and, after a stout resistance, in which the captain,
+who defended her with the utmost bravery, was killed, was likewise
+carried off by the Dutch. Blake, in the Triumph, seeing the Garland in
+distress, pressed forward to relieve her, but in his way had his
+foremast shattered, and was himself boarded; but, beating off the
+enemies, he disengaged himself, and retired into the Thames, with the
+loss only of two ships of force, and four small frigates, but with his
+whole fleet much shattered. Nor was the victory gained at a cheap
+rate, notwithstanding the unusual disproportion of strength; for of
+the Dutch flagships, one was blown up, and the other two disabled; a
+proof of the English bravery, which should have induced Van Trump to
+have spared the insolence of carrying a broom at his top-mast, in his
+triumphant passage through the Channel, which he intended as a
+declaration, that he would sweep the seas of the English shipping;
+this, which he had little reason to think of accomplishing, he soon
+after perished in attempting.
+
+There are, sometimes, observations and inquiries, which all historians
+seem to decline by agreement, of which this action may afford us an
+example: nothing appears, at the first view, more to demand our
+curiosity, or afford matter for examination, than this wild encounter
+of twenty-two ships, with a force, according to their accounts who
+favour the Dutch, three times superiour. Nothing can justify a
+commander in fighting under such disadvantages, but the impossibility
+of retreating. But what hindered Blake from retiring, as well before
+the fight, as after it? To say he was ignorant of the strength of the
+Dutch fleet, is to impute to him a very criminal degree of negligence;
+and, at least, it must be confessed, that from the time he saw them,
+he could not but know that they were too powerful to be opposed by
+him, and even then there was time for retreat. To urge the ardour of
+his sailors, is to divest him of the authority of a commander, and to
+charge him with the most reproachful weakness that can enter into the
+character of a general. To mention the impetuosity of his own courage,
+is to make the blame of his temerity equal to the praise of his
+valour; which seems, indeed, to be the most gentle censure that the
+truth of history will allow. We must then admit, amidst our eulogies
+and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake, was
+once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprise, by the
+resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of the
+honour of his country.
+
+It was not long, before he had an opportunity of revenging his loss,
+and restraining the insolence of the Dutch. On the 18th of February,
+1652-3, Blake, being at the head of eighty sail, and assisted, at his
+own request, by colonels Monk and Dean, espied Van Trump, with a fleet
+of above one hundred men of war, as Clarendon relates, of seventy by
+their own publick accounts, and three hundred merchant ships under his
+convoy. The English, with their usual intrepidity, advanced towards
+them; and Blake, in the Triumph, in which he always led his fleet,
+with twelve ships more, came to an engagement with the main body of
+the Dutch fleet, and by the disparity of their force was reduced to
+the last extremity, having received in his hull no fewer than seven
+hundred shots, when Lawson, in the Fairfax, came to his assistance.
+The rest of the English fleet now came in, and the fight was continued
+with the utmost degree of vigour and resolution, till the night gave
+the Dutch an opportunity of retiring, with the loss of one flagship,
+and six other men of war. The English had many vessels damaged, but
+none lost. On board Lawson's ship were killed one hundred men, and as
+many on board Blake's, who lost his captain and secretary, and himself
+received a wound in the thigh.
+
+Blake, having set ashore his wounded men, sailed in pursuit of Van
+Trump, who sent his convoy before, and himself retired fighting
+towards Bulloign. Blake ordered his light frigates to follow the
+merchants; still continued to harass Van Trump; and, on the third day,
+the 20th of February, the two fleets came to another battle, in which
+Van Trump once more retired before the English, and, making use of the
+peculiar form of his shipping, secured himself in the shoals. The
+accounts of this fight, as of all the others, are various; but the
+Dutch writers themselves confess, that they lost eight men of war, and
+more than twenty merchant ships; and, it is probable, that they
+suffered much more than they are willing to allow, for these repeated
+defeats provoked the common people to riots and insurrections, and
+obliged the states to ask, though ineffectually, for peace.
+
+In April following, the form of government in England was changed, and
+the supreme authority assumed by Cromwell; upon which occasion Blake,
+with his associates, declared that, notwithstanding the change in the
+administration, they should still be ready to discharge their trust,
+and to defend the nation from insults, injuries, and encroachments.
+"It is not," said Blake, "the business of a sea-man to mind state
+affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." This was the
+principle from which he never deviated, and which he always
+endeavoured to inculcate in the fleet, as the surest foundation of
+unanimity and steadiness. "Disturb not one another with domestick
+disputes, but remember that we are English, and our enemies are
+foreigners. Enemies! which, let what party soever prevail, it is
+equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain."
+
+After the 30th of April, 1653, Blake, Monk, and Dean sailed out of the
+English harbours with one hundred men of war, and finding the Dutch
+with seventy sail on their own coasts, drove them to the Texel, and
+took fifty doggers. Then they sailed northward in pursuit of Van
+Trump, who, having a fleet of merchants under his convoy, durst not
+enter the Channel, but steered towards the Sound, and, by great
+dexterity and address, escaped the three English admirals, and
+brought all his ships into their harbour; then, knowing that Blake was
+still in the north, came before Dover, and fired upon that town, but
+was driven off by the castle.
+
+Monk and Dean stationed themselves again at the mouth of the Texel,
+and blocked up the Dutch in their own ports with eighty sail; but
+hearing that Van Trump was at Goree, with one hundred and twenty men
+of war, they ordered all ships of force in the river and ports to
+repair to them.
+
+On June the 3rd, the two fleets came to an engagement, in the
+beginning of which Dean was carried off by a cannon-ball; yet the
+fight continued from about twelve to six in the afternoon, when the
+Dutch gave way, and retreated fighting.
+
+On the 4th, in the afternoon, Blake came up with eighteen fresh ships,
+and procured the English a complete victory; nor could the Dutch any
+otherwise preserve their ships than by retiring, once more, into the
+flats and shallows, where the largest of the English vessels could not
+approach.
+
+In this battle Van Trump boarded viceadmiral Penn; but was beaten off,
+and himself boarded, and reduced to blow up his decks, of which the
+English had got possession. He was then entered, at once, by Penn and
+another; nor could possibly have escaped, had not De Ruyter and De
+Witt arrived at that instant, and rescued him.
+
+However the Dutch may endeavour to extenuate their loss in this
+battle, by admitting no more than eight ships to have been taken or
+destroyed, it is evident that they must have received much greater
+damages, not only by the accounts of more impartial historians, but by
+the remonstrances and exclamations of their admirals themselves; Van
+Trump declaring before the states, that "without a numerous
+reinforcement of large men of war, he could serve them no more;" and
+De Witt crying out before them, with the natural warmth of his
+character: "Why should I be silent before my lords and masters? The
+English are our masters, and by consequence masters of the sea."
+
+In November, 1654, Blake was sent by Cromwell into the Mediterranean,
+with a powerful fleet, and may be said to have received the homage of
+all that part of the world, being equally courted by the haughty
+Spaniards, the surly Dutch, and the lawless Algerines.
+
+In March, 1656, having forced Algiers to submission, he entered the
+harbour of Tunis, and demanded reparation for the robberies practised
+upon the English by the pirates of that place, and insisted that the
+captives of his nation should be set at liberty. The governour, having
+planted batteries along the shore, and drawn up his ships under the
+castles, sent Blake an haughty and insolent answer: "there are our
+castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino," said he, "upon which you may do
+your worst;" adding other menaces and insults, and mentioning, in
+terms of ridicule, the inequality of a fight between ships and
+castles. Blake had, likewise, demanded leave to take in water, which
+was refused him. Fired with this inhuman and insolent treatment, he
+curled his whiskers, as was his custom when he was angry, and,
+entering Porto Ferino with his great ships, discharged his shot so
+fast upon the batteries and castles, that in two hours the guns were
+dismounted, and the works forsaken, though he was, at first, exposed
+to the fire of sixty cannon. He then ordered his officers to send out
+their long boats, well manned, to seize nine of the piratical ships
+lying in the road, himself continuing to fire upon the castle. This
+was so bravely executed, that, with the loss of only twenty-five men
+killed, and forty-eight wounded, all the ships were fired in the sight
+of Tunis. Thence sailing to Tripoli, he concluded a peace with that
+nation; then returning to Tunis, he found nothing but submission. And
+such, indeed, was his reputation, that he met with no further
+opposition, but collected a kind of tribute from the princes of those
+countries, his business being to demand reparation for all the
+injuries offered to the English during the civil wars. He exacted from
+the duke of Tuscany 60,000_l_. and, as it is said, sent home
+sixteen ships laden with the effects which he had received from
+several states.
+
+The respect with which he obliged all foreigners to treat his
+countrymen, appears from a story related by bishop Burnet. When he lay
+before Malaga, in a time of peace with Spain, some of his sailors went
+ashore, and meeting a procession of the host, not only refused to pay
+any respect to it, but laughed at those that did. The people, being
+put, by one of the priests, upon resenting this indignity, fell upon
+them and beat them severely. When they returned to their ship, they
+complained of their ill treatment; upon which Blake sent to demand the
+priest who had procured it. The viceroy answered that, having no
+authority over the priests, he could not send him: to which Blake
+replied, "that he did not inquire into the extent of the viceroy's
+authority, but that, if the priest were not sent within three hours,
+he would burn the town." The viceroy then sent the priest to him, who
+pleaded the provocation given by the seamen. Blake bravely and
+rationally answered, that if he had complained to him, he would have
+punished them severely, for he would not have his men affront the
+established religion of any place; but that he was angry that the
+Spaniards should assume that power, for he would have all the world
+know, "that an Englishman was only to be punished by an Englishman."
+So, having used the priest civilly, he sent him back, being satisfied
+that he was in his power. This conduct so much pleased Cromwell, that
+he read the letter in council with great satisfaction, and said, "he
+hoped to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a
+Roman had been."
+
+In 1650, the protector, having declared war against Spain, despatched
+Blake, with twenty-five men of war, to infest their coasts, and
+intercept their shipping. In pursuance of these orders he cruised all
+winter about the straits, and then lay at the mouth of the harbour of
+Cales, where he received intelligence, that the Spanish Plata fleet
+lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the isle of Teneriffe. On
+the 13th of April, 1657, he departed from Cales, and, on the 20th,
+arrived at Santa Cruz, where he found sixteen Spanish vessels. The bay
+was defended on the north side by a castle, well mounted with cannon,
+and in other parts with seven forts, with cannon proportioned to the
+bigness, all united by a line of communication manned with musketeers.
+The Spanish admiral drew up his small ships under the cannon of the
+castle, and stationed six great galleons with their broadsides to the
+sea: an advantageous and prudent disposition, but of little effect
+against the English commander; who, determining to attack them,
+ordered Stayner to enter the bay with his squadron: then posting some
+of his larger ships to play upon the fortifications, himself attacked
+the galleons, which, after a gallant resistance, were, at length,
+abandoned by the Spaniards, though the least of them was bigger than
+the biggest of Blake's ships. The forts and smaller vessels being now
+shattered and forsaken, the whole fleet was set on fire, the galleons
+by Blake, and the smaller vessels by Stayner, the English vessels
+being too much shattered in the fight to bring them away. Thus was the
+whole Plata fleet destroyed, "and the Spaniards," according to Rapin's
+remark, "sustained a great loss of ships, money, men, and merchandise,
+while the English gained nothing but glory;" as if he that increases
+the military reputation of a people, did not increase their power, and
+he that weakens his enemy, in effect, strengthens himself.
+
+"The whole action," says Clarendon, "was so incredible, that all men,
+who knew the place, wondered that any sober man, with what courage
+soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it, and they could hardly
+persuade themselves to believe what they had done; while the Spaniards
+comforted themselves with the belief, that they were devils, and not
+men, who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong
+resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no
+resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can
+hardly be imagined bow small a loss the English sustained in this
+unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed
+and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter, on
+board the Spanish ships and on shore, was incredible." The general
+cruised, for some time afterwards, with his victorious fleet, at the
+mouth of Cales, to intercept the Spanish shipping; but, finding his
+constitution broken, by the fatigue of the last three years,
+determined to return home, and died before he came to land.
+
+His body was embalmed, and having lain some time in state at Greenwich
+house, was buried in Henry the seventh's chapel, with all the funeral
+solemnity due to the remains of a man so famed for his bravery, and so
+spotless in his integrity; nor is it without regret, that I am obliged
+to relate the treatment his body met, a year after the restoration,
+when it was taken up by express command, and buried in a pit in St.
+Margaret's church-yard. Had he been guilty of the murder of Charles
+the first, to insult his body had been a mean revenge; but, as he was
+innocent, it was, at least, inhumanity, and, perhaps, ingratitude.
+"Let no man," says the oriental proverb, "pull a dead lion by the
+beard."
+
+But that regard which was denied his body, has been paid to his better
+remains, his name and his memory. Nor has any writer dared to deny him
+the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of
+his country. "He was the first man," says Clarendon, "that declined
+the old track, and made it apparent that the sciences might be
+attained in less time than was imagined. He was the first man that
+brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever been thought
+very formidable, but were discovered by him to make a noise only, and
+to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first
+that infused that proportion of courage into seamen, by making them
+see, by experience, what mighty things they could do, if they were
+resolved; and taught them to fight in fire, as well as upon the water;
+and, though he has been very well imitated and followed, was the first
+that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and
+resolute achievements."
+
+To this attestation of his military excellence, it may be proper to
+subjoin an account of his moral character, from the author of Lives,
+English and Foreign. "He was jealous," says that writer, "of the
+liberty of the subject, and the glory of his nation; and as he made
+use of no mean artifices to raise himself to the highest command at
+sea, so he needed no interest but his merit to support him in it. He
+scorned nothing more than money, which, as fast as it came in, was
+laid out by him in the service of the state, and to show that he was
+animated by that brave, publick spirit, which has since been reckoned
+rather romantick than heroick. And he was so disinterested, that
+though no man had more opportunities to enrich himself than he, who
+had taken so many millions from the enemies of England, yet he threw
+it all into the publick treasury, and did not die five hundred pounds
+richer than his father left him; which the author avers, from his
+personal knowledge of his family and their circumstances, having been
+bred up in it, and often heard his brother give this account of him.
+He was religious, according to the pretended purity of these times,
+but would frequently allow himself to be merry with his officers, and,
+by his tenderness and generosity to the seamen, had so endeared
+himself to them, that, when he died, they lamented his loss, as that
+of a common father."
+
+Instead of more testimonies, his character may be properly concluded
+with one incident of his life, by which it appears how much the spirit
+of Blake was superiour to all private views. His brother, in the last
+action with the Spaniards, having not done his duty, was, at Blake's
+desire, discarded, and the ship was given to another; yet was he not
+less regardful of him as a brother, for, when he died, he left him his
+estate, knowing him well qualified to adorn or enjoy a private
+fortune, though he had found him unfit to serve his country in a
+publick character, and had, therefore, not suffered him to rob it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following brief synopsis of Blake's life, differing, in some
+slight particulars, from Johnson's memoir, is taken from Aubrey's
+Letters, ii. p. 241.
+
+ADMIRALL BLAKE.
+
+Was borne at ... in com. Somerset, was of Albon hall, in Oxford. He
+was there a young man of strong body, and good parts. He was an early
+riser, and studyed well, but also took his robust pleasures of fishing
+and fowling, &c. He would steale swannes [43]--He served in the house
+of comons for.... A deg.. Dni ... he was made admiral! He did the greatest
+actions at sea that ever were done. He died A deg.. Dni ... and was buried
+in K.H. 7th's chapell; but upon the returne of the kinge, his body was
+taken up again and removed by Mr. Wells' occasion, and where it is
+now, I know not. Qu. Mr. Wells of Bridgewater?--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+SIR FRANCIS DRAKE [44].
+
+
+Francis Drake was the son of a clergyman, in Devonshire, who being
+inclined to the doctrine of the protestants, at that time much opposed
+by Henry the eighth, was obliged to fly from his place of residence
+into Kent, for refuge, from the persecution raised against him, and
+those of the same opinion, by the law of the six articles.
+
+How long he lived there, or how he was supported, was not known; nor
+have we any account of the first years of sir Francis Drake's life, of
+any disposition to hazards and adventures which might have been
+discovered in his childhood, or of the education which qualified him
+for such wonderful attempts.
+
+We are only informed, that he was put apprentice, by his father, to
+the master of a small vessel, that traded to France and the Low
+Countries, under whom he, probably, learned the rudiments of
+navigation, and familiarized himself to the dangers and hardships of
+the sea.
+
+But how few opportunities soever he might have, in this part of his
+life, for the exercise of his courage, he gave so many proofs of
+diligence and fidelity, that his master, dying unmarried, left him his
+little vessel, in reward of his services; a circumstance that deserves
+to be remembered, not only as it may illustrate the private character
+of this brave man, but as it may hint, to all those, who may hereafter
+propose his conduct for their imitation, that virtue is the surest
+foundation both of reputation and fortune, and that the first step to
+greatness is to be honest.
+
+If it were not improper to dwell longer on an incident, at the first
+view so inconsiderable, it might be added, that it deserves the
+reflection of those, who, when they are engaged in affairs not
+adequate to their abilities, pass them over with a contemptuous
+neglect, and while they amuse themselves with chimerical schemes, and
+plans of future undertakings, suffer every opportunity of smaller
+advantage to slip away, as unworthy their regard. They may learn, from
+the example of Drake, that diligence in employments of less
+consequence, is the most successful introduction to greater
+enterprises.
+
+After having followed, for some time, his master's profession, he grew
+weary of so narrow a province, and, having sold his little vessel,
+ventured his effects in the new trade to the West Indies, which,
+having not been long discovered, and very little frequented by the
+English, till that time, were conceived so much to abound in wealth,
+that no voyage thither could fail of being recompensed by great
+advantages. Nothing was talked of among the mercantile or adventurous
+part of mankind, but the beauty and riches of the new world. Fresh
+discoveries were frequently made, new countries and nations never
+heard of before, were daily described, and it may easily be concluded,
+that the relaters did not diminish the merit of their attempts, by
+suppressing or diminishing any circumstance that might produce wonder,
+or excite curiosity. Nor was their vanity only engaged in raising
+admirers, but their interest, likewise, in procuring adventurers, who
+were, indeed, easily gained by the hopes which naturally arise from
+new prospects, though, through ignorance of the American seas, and by
+the malice of the Spaniards, who, from the first discovery of those
+countries, considered every other nation that attempted to follow
+them, as invaders of their rights, the best concerted designs often
+miscarried.
+
+Among those who suffered most from the Spanish injustice, was captain
+John Hawkins, who, having been admitted, by the viceroy, to traffick
+in the bay of Mexico, was, contrary to the stipulation then made
+between them, and in violation of the peace between Spain and England,
+attacked without any declaration of hostilities, and obliged, after an
+obstinate resistance, to retire with the loss of four ships, and a
+great number of his men, who were either destroyed or carried into
+slavery.
+
+In this voyage Drake had adventured almost all his fortune, which he
+in vain endeavoured to recover, both by his own private interest, and
+by obtaining letters from queen Elizabeth; for the Spaniards, deaf to
+all remonstrances, either vindicated the injustice of the viceroy, or,
+at least, forbore to redress it.
+
+Drake, thus oppressed and impoverished, retained, at least, his
+courage and his industry, that ardent spirit that prompted him to
+adventures, and that indefatigable patience that enabled him to
+surmount difficulties. He did not sit down idly to lament misfortunes
+which heaven had put it in his power to remedy, or to repine at
+poverty, while the wealth of his enemies was to be gained. But having
+made two voyages to America, for the sake of gaining intelligence of
+the state of the Spanish settlements, and acquainted himself with the
+seas and coasts, he determined on a third expedition of more
+importance, by which the Spaniards should find how imprudently they
+always act, who injure and insult a brave man.
+
+On the 24th of May, 1572, Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, in the
+Pascha, of seventy tons, accompanied by the Swan, of twenty-five tons,
+commanded by his brother John Drake, having, in both the vessels,
+seventy-three men and boys, with a year's provision, and such
+artillery and ammunition, as was necessary for his undertaking, which,
+however incredible it may appear to such as consider rather his force
+than his fortitude, was no less than to make reprisals upon the most
+powerful nation in the world.
+
+The wind continuing favourable, they entered, June 29th, between
+Guadaloupe and Dominica, and, on July 6th, saw the highland of Santa
+Martha; then continuing their course, after having been becalmed for
+some time, they arrived at port Pheasant, so named by Drake, in a
+former voyage to the east of Nombre de Dios. Here he proposed to build
+his pinnaces, which he had brought in pieces ready framed from
+Plymouth, and was going ashore, with a few men unarmed, but,
+discovering a smoke at a distance, ordered the other boat to follow
+him with a greater force.
+
+Then marching towards the fire, which was in the top of a high tree,
+he found a plate of lead nailed to another tree, with an inscription
+engraved upon it by one Garret, an Englishman, who had left that place
+but five days before, and had taken this method of informing him, that
+the Spaniards had been advertised of his intention to anchor at that
+place, and that it, therefore, would be prudent to make a very short
+stay there.
+
+But Drake, knowing how convenient this place was for his designs, and
+considering that the hazard and waste of time, which could not be
+avoided, in seeking another station, was equivalent to any other
+danger which was to be apprehended from the Spaniards, determined to
+follow his first resolution; only, for his greater security, he
+ordered a kind of palisade, or fortification, to be made, by felling
+large trees, and laying the trunks and branches, one upon another, by
+the side of the river.
+
+On July 20th, having built their pinnaces, and being joined by one
+captain Rause, who happened to touch at the same place, with a bark of
+fifty men, they set sail towards Nombre de Dios, and, taking two
+frigates at the island of Pines, were informed by the negroes, which
+they found in them, that the inhabitants of that place were in
+expectation of some soldiers, which the governour of Panama had
+promised, to defend them from the Symerons, or fugitive negroes, who,
+having escaped from the tyranny of their masters, in great numbers,
+had settled themselves under two kings, or leaders, on each side of
+the way between Nombre de Dios and Panama, and not only asserted their
+natural right to liberty and independence, but endeavoured to revenge
+the cruelties they had suffered, and had lately put the inhabitants of
+Nombre de Dios into the utmost consternation.
+
+These negroes the captain set on shore on the mainland, so that they
+might, by joining the Symerons, recover their liberty, or, at least,
+might not have it in their power to give the people of Nombre de Dios
+any speedy information of his intention to invade them.
+
+Then selecting fifty-three men from his own company, and twenty from
+the crew of his new associate, captain Rause, he embarked with them,
+in his pinnaces, and set sail for Nombre de Dios.
+
+On July the 28th, at night, he approached the town, undiscovered, and
+dropt his anchors under the shore, intending, after his men were
+refreshed, to begin the attack; but finding that they were terrifying
+each other with formidable accounts of the strength of the place, and
+the multitude of the inhabitants, he determined to hinder the panick
+from spreading further by leading them immediately to action; and,
+therefore, ordering them to their pars, he landed without any
+opposition, there being only one gunner upon the bay, though it was
+secured with six brass cannons of the largest size, ready mounted. But
+the gunner, while they were throwing the cannons from their carriages,
+alarmed the town, as they soon discovered by the bell, the drums, and
+the noise of the people. Drake, leaving twelve men to guard the
+pinnaces, marched round the town, with no great opposition, the men
+being more hurt by treading on the weapons, left on the ground by the
+flying enemy, than by the resistance which they encountered.
+
+At length, having taken some of the Spaniards, Drake commanded them to
+show him the governour's house, where the mules that bring the silver
+from Panama were unloaded; there they found the door open, and,
+entering the room where the silver was reposited, found it heaped up
+in bars, in such quantities as almost exceed belief, the pile being,
+they conjectured, seventy feet in length, ten in breadth, and twelve
+in height, each bar weighing between thirty and forty-five pounds.
+
+It is easy to imagine, that, at the sight of this treasure, nothing
+was thought on by the English, but by what means they might best
+convey it to their boats; and, doubtless, it was not easy for Drake,
+who, considering their distance from the shore and the number of their
+enemies, was afraid of being intercepted in his retreat, to hinder his
+men from encumbering themselves with so much silver as might have
+retarded their march and obstructed the use of their weapons; however,
+by promising to lead them to the king's treasurehouse, where there was
+gold and jewels to a far greater value, and where the treasure was not
+only more portable, but nearer the coast, he persuaded them to follow
+him, and rejoin the main body of his men, then drawn up under the
+command of his brother in the market-place.
+
+Here he found his little troop much discouraged by the imagination,
+that, if they stayed any longer, the enemy would gain possession of
+their pinnaces, and that they should then, without any means of
+safety, be left to stand alone against the whole power of that
+country. Drake, not, indeed, easily terrified, but sufficiently
+cautious, sent to the coast to inquire the truth, and see if the same
+terrour had taken possession of the men whom he had left to guard his
+boats; but, finding no foundation for these dreadful apprehensions, he
+persisted in his first design, and led the troop forward to the
+treasurehouse. In their way, there fell a violent shower of rain,
+which wet some of their bowstrings, and extinguished many of their
+matches; a misfortune which might soon have been repaired, and which,
+perhaps, the enemy might suffer in common with them, but which,
+however, on this occasion, very much embarrassed them, as the delay
+produced by it repressed that ardour which, sometimes, is only to be
+kept up by continued action, and gave time to the timorous and
+slothful to spread their insinuations and propagate their cowardice.
+Some, whose fear was their predominant passion, were continually
+magnifying the numbers and courage of their enemies, and represented
+whole nations as ready to rush upon them; others, whose avarice
+mingled with their concern for their own safety, were more solicitous
+to preserve what they had already gained, than to acquire more; and
+others, brave in themselves and resolute, began to doubt of success in
+an undertaking, in which they were associated with such cowardly
+companions. So that scarcely any man appeared to proceed in their
+enterprise with that spirit and alacrity which could give Drake a
+prospect of success.
+
+This he perceived, and, with some emotion, told them, that if, after
+having had the chief treasure of the world within their reach, they
+should go home and languish in poverty, they could blame nothing but
+their own cowardice; that he had performed his part, and was still
+desirous to lead them on to riches and to honour.
+
+Then finding that either shame or conviction made them willing to
+follow him, he ordered the treasurehouse to be forced, and commanding
+his brother, and Oxenham, of Plymouth, a man known afterwards for his
+bold adventures in the same parts, to take charge of the treasure, he
+commanded the other body to follow him to the market-place, that he
+might be ready to oppose any scattered troops of the Spaniards, and
+hinder them from uniting into one body.
+
+But, as he stepped forward, his strength failed him on a sudden, and
+he fell down speechless. Then it was that his companions perceived a
+wound in his leg, which he had received in the first encounter, but
+hitherto concealed, lest his men, easily discouraged, should make
+their concern for his life a pretence for returning to their boats.
+Such had been his loss of blood, as was discovered upon nearer
+observation, that it had filled the prints of his footsteps, and it
+appeared scarce credible that, after such effusion of blood, life
+should remain.
+
+The bravest were now willing to retire: neither the desire of honour
+nor of riches, was thought enough to prevail in any man over his
+regard for his leader. Drake, whom cordials had now restored to his
+speech, was the only man who could not be prevailed on to leave the
+enterprise unfinished. It was to no purpose that they advised him to
+submit to go on board to have his wound dressed, and promised to
+return with him and complete their design; he well knew how
+impracticable it was to regain the opportunity, when it was once lost;
+and could easily foresee, that a respite, but of a few hours, would
+enable the Spaniards to recover from their consternation, to assemble
+their forces, refit their batteries, and remove their treasure. What
+he had undergone so much danger to obtain was now in his hands, and
+the thought of leaving it untouched was too mortifying to be patiently
+borne.
+
+However, as there was little time for consultation, and the same
+danger attended their stay, in that perplexity and confusion, as their
+return, they bound up his wound with his scarf, and partly by force,
+partly by entreaty, carried him to the boats, in which they all
+embarked by break of day.
+
+Then taking with them, out of the harbour, a ship loaded with wines,
+they went to the Bastimentes, an island about a league from the town,
+where they stayed two days to repose the wounded men, and to regale
+themselves with the fruits, which grew in great plenty in the gardens
+of that island.
+
+During their stay here, there came over, from the mainland, a Spanish
+gentleman, sent by the governour, with instructions to inquire whether
+the captain was that Drake who had been before on their coast; whether
+the arrows with which many of their men were wounded were not
+poisoned; and whether they wanted provisions or other necessaries. The
+messenger, likewise, extolled their courage with the highest
+encomiums, and expressed his admiration of their daring undertaking.
+Drake, though he knew the civilities of an enemy are always to be
+suspected, and that the messenger, amidst all his professions of
+regard, was no other than a spy, yet knowing that he had nothing to
+apprehend, treated him with the highest honours that his condition
+admitted of. In answer to his inquiries, he assured him that he was
+the same Drake with whose character they were before acquainted, that
+he was a rigid observer of the laws of war, and never permitted his
+arrows to be poisoned: he then dismissed him with considerable
+presents, and told him that, though he had unfortunately failed in
+this attempt, he would never desist from his design till he had shared
+with Spain the treasures of America.
+
+They then resolved to return to the isle of Pines, where they had left
+their ships, and consult about the measures they were now to take; and
+having arrived, August 1st, at their former station, they dismissed
+captain Rause, who, judging it unsafe to stay any longer on the coast,
+desired to be no longer engaged in their designs.
+
+But Drake, not to be discouraged from his purpose by a single
+disappointment, after having inquired of a negro, whom he took on
+board at Nombre de Dios, the most wealthy settlements, and weakest
+parts of the coast, resolved to attack Carthagena; and, setting sail
+without loss of time, came to anchor, August 13th, between Charesha
+and St. Barnards, two islands at a little distance from the harbour of
+Carthagena; then passing with his boats round the island, he entered
+the harbour, and, in the mouth of it, found a frigate with only an old
+man in it, who voluntarily informed them, that about an hour before a
+pinnace had passed by with sails and oars, and all the appearance of
+expedition and importance; that, as she passed, the crew on board her
+bid them take care of themselves; and that, as soon as she touched the
+shore, they heard the noise of cannon fired as a warning, and saw the
+shipping in the port drawn up under the guns of the castle.
+
+The captain, who had himself heard the discharge of the artillery, was
+soon convinced that he was discovered, and that, therefore, nothing
+could be attempted with any probability of success. He, therefore,
+contented himself with taking a ship of Seville, of two hundred and
+forty tons, which the relater of this voyage mentions as a very large
+ship, and two small frigates, in which he found letters of advice from
+Nombre de Dios, intended to alarm that part of the coast.
+
+Drake, now finding his pinnaces of great use, and not having a
+sufficient number of sailors for all his vessels, was desirous of
+destroying one of his ships, that his pinnaces might be better manned:
+this, necessary as it was, could not easily be done without disgusting
+his company, who, having made several prosperous voyages in that
+vessel, would be unwilling to have it destroyed. Drake well knew that
+nothing but the love of their leaders could animate his followers to
+encounter such hardships as he was about to expose them to, and,
+therefore, rather chose to bring his designs to pass by artifice than
+authority. He sent for the carpenter of the Swan, took him into his
+cabin, and, having first engaged him to secrecy, ordered him, in the
+middle of the night, to go down into the well of the ship, and bore
+three holes through the bottom, laying something against them that
+might hinder the bubbling of the water from being heard. To this the
+carpenter, after some expostulation, consented, and the next night
+performed his promise.
+
+In the morning, August 15, Drake, going out with his pinnace a
+fishing, rowed up to the Swan, and having invited his brother to
+partake of his diversions, inquired, with a negligent air, why their
+bark was so deep in the water; upon which the steward going down,
+returned immediately with an account that the ship was leaky, and in
+danger of sinking in a little time. They had recourse immediately to
+the pump; but, having laboured till three in the afternoon, and gained
+very little upon the water, they willingly, according to Drake's
+advice, set the vessel on fire, and went on board the pinnaces.
+
+Finding it now necessary to lie concealed for some time, till the
+Spaniards should forget their danger, and remit their vigilance, they
+set sail for the sound of Darien, and without approaching the coast,
+that their course might not be observed, they arrived there in six
+days.
+
+This being a convenient place for their reception, both on account of
+privacy, as it was out of the road of all trade, and as it was well
+supplied with wood, water, wild fowl, hogs, deer, and all kinds of
+provisions, he stayed here fifteen days to clean his vessels, and
+refresh his men, who worked interchangeably, on one day the one half,
+and on the next the other.
+
+On the 5th day of September, Drake left his brother with the ship at
+Darien, and set out with two pinnaces towards the Rio Grande, which
+they reached in three days, and, on the 9th, were discovered by a
+Spaniard from the bank, who believing them to be his countrymen, made
+a signal to them to come on shore, with which they very readily
+complied; but he, soon finding his mistake, abandoned his plantation,
+where they found great plenty of provisions, with which, having laden
+their vessels, they departed. So great was the quantity of provisions
+which they amassed here and in other places, that in different parts
+of the coast they built four magazines or storehouses, which they
+filled with necessaries for the prosecution of their voyage. These
+they placed at such a distance from each other, that the enemy, if he
+should surprise one, might yet not discover the rest.
+
+In the mean time, his brother, captain John Drake, went, according to
+the instructions that had been left him, in search of the Symerons, or
+fugitive negroes, from whose assistance alone they had now any
+prospect of a successful voyage; and touching upon the mainland, by
+means of the negro whom they had taken from Nombre de Dios, engaged
+two of them to come on board his pinnace, leaving two of their own men
+as hostages for their returning. These men, having assured Drake of
+the affection of their nation, appointed an interview between him and
+their leaders. So leaving port Plenty, in the isle of Pines, so named
+by the English from the great stores of provisions which they had
+amassed at that place, they came, by the direction of the Symerons,
+into a secret bay, among beautiful islands covered with trees, which
+concealed their ship from observation, and where the channel was so
+narrow and rocky, that it was impossible to enter it by night, so that
+there was no danger of a sudden attack.
+
+Here they met, and entered into engagements, which common enemies and
+common dangers preserved from violation. But the first conversation
+informed the English, that their expectations were not immediately to
+be gratified; for, upon their inquiries after the most probable means
+of gaining gold and silver, the Symerons told them, that had they
+known sooner the chief end of their expedition, they could easily have
+gratified them; but that during the rainy season, which was now begun,
+and which continues six months, they could not recover the treasure,
+which they had taken from the Spaniards, out of the rivers in which
+they had concealed it.
+
+Drake, therefore, proposing to wait in this place, till the rains were
+past, built, with the assistance of the Symerons, a fort of earth and
+timber, and leaving part of his company with the Symerons, set out
+with three pinnaces towards Carthagena, being of a spirit too active
+to lie still patiently, even in a state of plenty and security, and
+with the most probable expectations of immense riches.
+
+On the 16th of October, he anchored within sight of Carthagena,
+without landing; and on the 17th, going out to sea, took a Spanish
+bark, with which they entered the harbour, where they were accosted by
+a Spanish gentleman, whom they had some time before taken and set at
+liberty, who coming to them in a boat, as he pretended, without the
+knowledge of the governour, made them great promises of refreshment
+and professions of esteem; but Drake, having waited till the next
+morning, without receiving the provisions he had been prevailed upon
+to expect, found that all this pretended kindness was no more than a
+stratagem to amuse him, while the governour was raising forces for his
+destruction.
+
+October 20, they took two frigates coming out of Carthagena, without
+lading. Why the Spaniards, knowing Drake to lie at the mouth of the
+harbour, sent out their vessels on purpose to be taken, does not
+appear. Perhaps they thought that, in order to keep possession of his
+prizes, he would divide his company, and by that division be more
+easily destroyed.
+
+In a few hours afterwards they sent out two frigates well manned,
+which Drake soon forced to retire, and, having sunk one of his prizes,
+and burnt the other in their sight, leaped afterwards ashore, single,
+in defiance of their troops, which hovered at a distance in the woods
+and on the hills, without ever venturing to approach within reach of
+the shot from the pinnaces.
+
+To leap upon an enemy's coast in sight of a superiour force, only to
+show how little they were feared, was an act that would, in these
+times, meet with little applause, nor can the general be seriously
+commended, or rationally vindicated, who exposes his person to
+destruction, and, by consequence, his expedition to miscarriage, only
+for the pleasure of an idle insult, an insignificant bravado. All that
+can be urged in his defence is, that, perhaps, it might contribute to
+heighten the esteem of his followers, as few men, especially of that
+class, are philosophical enough to state the exact limits of prudence
+and bravery, or not to be dazzled with an intrepidity, how improperly
+soever exerted. It may be added, that, perhaps, the Spaniards, whose
+notions of courage are sufficiently romantick, might look upon him as
+a more formidable enemy, and yield more easily to a hero, of whose
+fortitude they had so high an idea.
+
+However, finding the whole country advertised of his attempts, and in
+arms to oppose him, he thought it not proper to stay longer, where
+there was no probability of success, and where he might, in time, be
+overpowered by multitudes, and, therefore, determined to go forward to
+Rio de Heha.
+
+This resolution, when it was known by his followers, threw them into
+astonishment; and the company of one of his pinnaces remonstrated to
+him, that, though they placed the highest confidence in his conduct,
+they could not think of undertaking such a voyage without provisions,
+having only a gammon of bacon and a small quantity of bread for
+seventeen men. Drake answered them, that there was on board his vessel
+even a greater scarcity; but yet, if they would adventure to share his
+fortune, he did not doubt of extricating them from all their
+difficulties.
+
+Such was the heroick spirit of Drake, that he never suffered himself
+to be diverted from his designs by any difficulties, nor ever thought
+of relieving his exigencies, but at the expense of his enemies.
+
+Resolution and success reciprocally produce each other. He had not
+sailed more than three leagues, before they discovered a large ship,
+which they attacked with all the intrepidity that necessity inspires,
+and, happily, found it laden with excellent provisions.
+
+But finding his crew growing faint and sickly, with their manner of
+living in the pinnaces, which was less commodious than on board the
+ships, he determined to go back to the Symerons, with whom he left his
+brother and part of his force, and attempt, by their conduct, to make
+his way over, and invade the Spaniards in the inland parts, where they
+would, probably, never dream of an enemy.
+
+When they arrived at port Diego, so named from the negro who had
+procured them their intercourse with the Symerons, they found captain
+John Drake, and one of his company, dead, being killed in attempting,
+almost unarmed, to board a frigate well provided with all things
+necessary for its defence. The captain was unwilling to attack it, and
+represented to them the madness of their proposal; but, being
+overborne by their clamours and importunities, to avoid the imputation
+of cowardice, complied to his destruction. So dangerous is it for the
+chief commander to be absent.
+
+Nor was this their only misfortune, for, in a very short time, many of
+them were attacked by the calenture, a malignant fever, very frequent
+in the hot climates, which carried away, among several others, Joseph
+Drake, another brother of the commander.
+
+While Drake was employed in taking care of the sick men, the Symerons,
+who ranged the country for intelligence, brought him an account, that
+the Spanish fleet was arrived at Nombre de Dios; the truth of which
+was confirmed by a pinnace, which he sent out to make observations.
+
+This, therefore, was the time for their journey, when the treasures of
+the American mines were to be transported from Panama over land to
+Nombre de Dios. He, therefore, by the direction of the Symerons,
+furnished himself with all things necessary, and, on February 3, set
+out from port Diego.
+
+Having lost, already, twenty-eight of his company, and being under the
+necessity of leaving some to guard his ship, he took with him only
+eighteen English, and thirty Symerons, who not only served as guides
+to show the way, but as purveyors to procure provisions.
+
+They carried not only arrows for war, but for hunting and fowling; the
+heads of which are proportioned in size to the game which they are
+pursuing: for oxen, stags, or wild boars, they have arrows or
+javelins, with heads weighing a pound and half, which they discharge
+near hand, and which scarcely ever fail of being mortal. The second
+sort are about half as heavy as the other, and are generally shot from
+their bows; these are intended for smaller beasts. With the third
+sort, of which the heads are an ounce in weight, they kill birds. As
+this nation is in a state that does not set them above continual cares
+for the immediate necessaries of life, he that can temper iron best,
+is, among them, most esteemed; and, perhaps, it would be happy for
+every nation, if honours and applauses were as justly distributed, and
+he were most distinguished whose abilities were most useful to
+society. How many chimerical titles to precedence, how many false
+pretences to respect, would this rule bring to the ground!
+
+Every day, by sunrising, they began to march, and, having travelled
+till ten, rested near some river till twelve, then travelling again
+till four, they reposed all night in houses, which the Symerons had
+either left standing in their former marches, or very readily erected
+for them, by setting up three or four posts in the ground, and laying
+poles from one to another in form of a roof, which they thatched with
+palmetto boughs and plantain leaves. In the valleys, where they were
+sheltered from the winds, they left three or four feet below open; but
+on the hills, where they were more exposed to the chill blasts of the
+night, they thatched them close to the ground, leaving only a door for
+entrance, and a vent in the middle of the room for the smoke of three
+fires, which they made in every house.
+
+In their march they met not only with plenty of fruits upon the banks
+of the rivers, but with wild swine in great abundance, of which the
+Symerons, without difficulty, killed, for the most part, as much as
+was wanted. One day, however, they found an otter, and were about to
+dress it; at which Drake expressing his wonder, was asked by Pedro,
+the chief Symeron: "Are you a man of war and in want, and yet doubt
+whether this be meat that hath blood in it?" For which Drake in
+private rebuked him, says the relater; whether justly or not, it is
+not very important to determine. There seems to be in Drake's scruple
+somewhat of superstition, perhaps, not easily to be justified; and the
+negro's answer was, at least martial, and will, I believe, be
+generally acknowledged to be rational.
+
+On the third day of their march, Feb. 6, they came to a town of the
+Symerons, situated on the side of a hill, and encompassed with a ditch
+and a mudwall, to secure it from a sudden surprise: here they lived
+with great neatness and plenty, and some observation of religion,
+paying great reverence to the cross; a practice which Drake prevailed
+upon them to change for the use of the Lord's prayer. Here they
+importuned Drake to stay for a few days, promising to double his
+strength; but he, either thinking greater numbers unnecessary, or,
+fearing that, if any difference should arise, he should be overborne
+by the number of Symerons; or that they would demand to share the
+plunder that should be taken in common; or for some other reason that
+might easily occur, refused any addition to his troop, endeavouring to
+express his refusal in such terms as might heighten their opinion of
+his bravery.
+
+He then proceeded on his journey through cool shades and lofty woods,
+which sheltered them so effectually from the sun, that their march was
+less toilsome than if they had travelled in England during the heat of
+the summer. Four of the Symerons, that were acquainted with the way,
+went about a mile before the troop, and scattered branches to direct
+them; then followed twelve Symerons, after whom came the English, with
+the two leaders, and the other Symerons closed the rear.
+
+On February 11, they arrived at the top of a very high hill, on the
+summit of which grew a tree of wonderful greatness, in which they had
+cut steps for the more easy ascent to the top, where there was a kind
+of tower, to which they invited Drake, and from thence showed him not
+only the north sea, from whence they came, but the great south sea, on
+which no English vessel had ever sailed. This prospect exciting his
+natural curiosity, and ardour for adventures and discoveries, he
+lifted up his hands to God, and implored his blessing upon the
+resolution, which he then formed, of sailing in an English ship on
+that sea.
+
+Then continuing their march, they came, after two days, into an open,
+level country, where their passage was somewhat incommoded with the
+grass, which is of a peculiar kind, consisting of a stalk like that of
+wheat, and a blade on which the oxen and other cattle feed till it
+grows too high for them to reach; then the inhabitants set it on fire,
+and in three days it springs up again; this they are obliged to do
+thrice a year, so great is the fertility of the soil.
+
+At length, being within view of Panama, they left all frequented
+roads, for fear of being discovered, and posted themselves in a grove
+near the way between Panama and Nombre de Dios; then they sent a
+Symeron in the habit of a negro of Panama, to inquire on what night
+the recoes, or drivers of mules, by which the treasure is carried,
+were to set forth. The messenger was so well qualified for his
+undertaking, and so industrious in the prosecution of it, that he soon
+returned, with an account that the treasurer of Lima, intending to
+return to Europe, would pass that night, with eight mules laden with
+gold, and one with jewels.
+
+Having received this information, they immediately marched towards
+Venta Cruz, the first town on the way to Nombre de Dios; sending, for
+security, two Symerons before, who, as they went, perceived, by the
+scent of a match, that some Spaniard was before them, and, going
+silently forward, surprised a soldier asleep upon the ground. They
+immediately bound him, and brought him to Drake, who, upon inquiry,
+found that their spy had not deceived them in his intelligence. The
+soldier, having informed himself of the captain's name, conceived such
+a confidence in his well known clemency, that, after having made an
+ample discovery of the treasure that was now at hand, he petitioned
+not only that he would command the Symerons to spare his life, but
+that, when the treasure should fall into his hands, he would allow him
+as much as might maintain him and his mistress, since they were about
+to gain more than their whole company could carry. Drake then ordered
+his men to lie down in the long grass, about fifty paces from the
+road, half on one side, with himself, and half on the other, with
+Oxenham and the captain of the Symerons, so much behind, that one
+company might seize the foremost recoe, and the other the hindermost;
+for the mules of these recoes, or drivers, being tied together, travel
+on a line, and are all guided by leading the first.
+
+When they had lain about an hour in this place, they began to hear the
+bells of the mules on each hand; upon which orders were given, that
+the drove which came from Venta Cruz should pass unmolested, because
+they carried nothing of great value, and those only be intercepted
+which were travelling thither; and that none of the men should rise
+up, till the signal should be given. But one Robert Pike, heated with
+strong liquor, left his company, and prevailed upon one of the
+Symerons to creep with him to the wayside, that they might signalize
+themselves by seizing the first mule; and hearing the trampling of a
+horse, as he lay, could not be restrained by the Symeron from rising
+up to observe who was passing by. This he did so imprudently, that he
+was discovered by the passenger; for, by Drake's order, the English
+had put their shirts on over their coats, that the night and tumult
+might not hinder them from knowing one another.
+
+The gentleman was immediately observed by Drake to change his trot
+into a gallop; but, the reason of it not appearing, it was imputed to
+his fear of the robbers that usually infest that road, and the English
+still continued to expect the treasure.
+
+In a short time, one of the recoes, that were passing towards Venta
+Cruz, came up, and was eagerly seized by the English, who expected
+nothing less than half the revenue of the Indies; nor is it easy to
+imagine their mortification and perplexity, when they found only two
+mules laden with silver, the rest having no other burden than
+provisions.
+
+The driver was brought immediately to the captain, and informed him
+that the horseman, whom he had observed pass by with so much
+precipitation, had informed the treasurer of what he had observed, and
+advised him to send back the mules that carried his gold and jewels,
+and suffer only the rest to proceed, that he might, by that cheap
+experiment, discover whether there was any ambush on the way.
+
+That Drake was not less disgusted than his followers at the
+disappointment, cannot be doubted; but there was now no time to be
+spent in complaints. The whole country was alarmed, and all the force
+of the Spaniards was summoned to overwhelm him. He had no fortress to
+retire to; every man was his enemy; and every retreat better known to
+the Spaniards than to himself.
+
+This was an occasion that demanded all the qualities of an hero, an
+intrepidity never to be shaken, and a judgment never to be perplexed.
+He immediately considered all the circumstances of his present
+situation, and found that it afforded him only the choice of marching
+back the same way through which he came, or of forcing his passage to
+Venta Cruz.
+
+To march back, was to confess the superiority of his enemies, and to
+animate them to the pursuit; the woods would afford opportunities of
+ambush, and his followers must often disperse themselves in search of
+provisions, who would become an easy prey, dispirited by their
+disappointment, and fatigued by their march. On the way to Venta Cruz,
+he should have nothing to fear but from open attacks, and expected
+enemies.
+
+Determining, therefore, to pass forward to Venta Cruz, he asked Pedro,
+the leader of the Symerons, whether he was resolved to follow him;
+and, having received from him the strongest assurances that nothing
+should separate them, commanded his men to refresh themselves, and
+prepare to set forward.
+
+When they came within a mile of the town, they dismissed the mules,
+which they had made use of for their more easy and speedy passage, and
+continued their march along a road cut through thick woods, in which a
+company of soldiers, who were quartered in the place to defend it
+against the Symerons, had posted themselves, together with a convent
+of friars headed by one of their brethren, whose zeal against the
+northern heresy had incited him to hazard his person, and assume the
+province of a general.
+
+Drake, who was advertised by two Symerons, whom he sent before, of the
+approach of the Spaniards, commanded his followers to receive the
+first volley without firing.
+
+In a short time, he heard himself summoned by the Spanish captain to
+yield, with a promise of protection and kind treatment; to which he
+answered with defiance, contempt, and the discharge of his pistol.
+
+Immediately the Spaniards poured in their shot, by which only one man
+was killed, and Drake, with some others, slightly wounded; upon which
+the signal was given by Drake's whistle to fall upon them. The
+English, after discharging their arrows and shot, pressed furiously
+forward, and drove the Spaniards before them; which the Symerons, whom
+the terrour of the shot had driven to some distance, observed, and
+recalling their courage, animated each other with songs in their own
+language, and rushed forward with such impetuosity, that they overtook
+them near the town, and, supported by the English, dispersed them with
+the loss of only one man, who, after he had received his wound, had
+strength and resolution left to kill his assailant.
+
+They pursued the enemy into the town, in which they met with some
+plunder, which was given to the Symerons; and treated the inhabitants
+with great clemency, Drake himself going to the Spanish ladies, to
+assure them that no injuries should be offered them; so inseparable is
+humanity from true courage.
+
+Having thus broken the spirits, and scattered the forces of the
+Spaniards, he pursued his march to his ship, without any apprehension
+of danger, yet with great speed, being very solicitous about the state
+of the crew; so that he allowed his men, harassed as they were, but
+little time for sleep or refreshment, but by kind exhortations, gentle
+authority, and a cheerful participation of all their hardships,
+prevailed upon them to bear, without murmurs, not only the toil of
+travelling, but, on some days, the pain of hunger.
+
+In this march, he owed much of his expedition to the assistance of the
+Symerons, who being accustomed to the climate, and naturally robust,
+not only brought him intelligence, and showed the way, but carried
+necessaries, provided victuals, and built lodgings, and, when any of
+the English fainted in the way, two of them would carry him between
+them for two miles together; nor was their valour less than their
+industry, after they had learned from their English companions to
+despise the firearms of the Spaniards.
+
+When they were within five leagues of the ships, they found a town
+built in their absence by the Symerons, at which Drake consented to
+halt, sending a Symeron to the ship, with his gold toothpick, as a
+token, which, though the master knew it, was not sufficient to gain
+the messenger credit, till, upon examination, he found that the
+captain, having ordered him to regard no messenger without his
+handwriting, had engraven his name upon it with the point of his
+knife. He then sent the pinnace up the river, which they met, and
+afterwards sent to the town for those whose weariness had made them
+unable to march further. On February 23, the whole company was
+reunited; and Drake, whose good or ill success never prevailed over
+his piety, celebrated their meeting with thanks to God.
+
+Drake, not yet discouraged, now turned his thoughts to new prospects,
+and, without languishing in melancholy reflections upon his past
+miscarriages, employed himself in forming schemes for repairing them.
+Eager of action, and acquainted with man's nature, he never suffered
+idleness to infect his followers with cowardice, but kept them from
+sinking under any disappointment, by diverting their attention to some
+new enterprise.
+
+Upon consultation with his own men and the Symerons, he found them
+divided in their opinions; some declaring, that, before they engaged
+in any new attempt, it was necessary to increase their stores of
+provisions; and others urging, that the ships, in which the treasure
+was conveyed, should be immediately attacked. The Symerons proposed a
+third plan, and advised him to undertake another march over land to
+the house of one Pezoro, near Veragua, whose slaves brought him, every
+day, more than two hundred pounds sterling from the mines, which he
+heaped together in a strong stone house, which might, by the help of
+the English, be easily forced.
+
+Drake, being unwilling to fatigue his followers with another journey,
+determined to comply with both the other opinions; and, manning his
+two pinnaces, the Bear and the Minion, he sent John Oxenham, in the
+Bear, towards Tolu, to seize upon provisions; and went himself, in the
+Minion, to the Cabezas, to intercept the treasure that was to be
+transported from Veragua and that coast, to the fleet at Nombre de
+Dios, first dismissing, with presents, those Symerons that desired to
+return to their wives, and ordering those that chose to remain to be
+entertained in the ship.
+
+Drake took, at the Cabezas, a frigate of Nicaragua, the pilot of which
+informed him that there was, in the harbour of Veragua, a ship
+freighted with more than a million of gold, to which he offered to
+conduct him, being well acquainted with the soundings, if he might be
+allowed his share of the prize; so much was his avarice superiour to
+his honesty.
+
+Drake, after some deliberation, complying with the pilot's
+importunities, sailed towards the harbour, but had no sooner entered
+the mouth of it than he heard the report of artillery, which was
+answered by others at a greater distance; upon which the pilot told
+him, that they wero discovered, this being the signal appointed by the
+governour to alarm the coast.
+
+Drake now thought it convenient to return to the ship, that he might
+inquire the success of the other pinnace, which he found, with a
+frigate that she had taken, with twenty-eight fat hogs, two hundred
+hens, and great store of maize or Indian corn. The vessel itself was
+so strong and well built, that he fitted it out for war, determining
+to attack the fleet at Nombre de Dios.
+
+On March the 21st, he set sail, with the new frigate and the Bear,
+towards the Cabezas, at which he arrived in about two days, and found
+there Tetu, a Frenchman, with a ship of war, who, after having
+received from him a supply of water and other necessaries, entreated
+that he might join with him in his attempt; which Drake consenting to,
+admitted him to accompany him with twenty of his men, stipulating to
+allow them an equal share of whatever booty they should gain. Yet were
+they not without some suspicions of danger from this new ally, he
+having eighty men, and they being now reduced to thirty-one.
+
+Then manning the frigate and two pinnaces, they set sail for the
+Cabezas, where they left the frigate, which was too large for the
+shallows over which they were to pass, and proceeded to Rio Francisco.
+Here they landed, and, having ordered the pinnaces to return to the
+same place on the fourth day following, travelled through the woods
+towards Nombre de Dios, with such silence and regularity as surprised
+the French, who did not imagine the Symerons so discreet or obedient
+as they appeared, and were, therefore, in perpetual anxiety about the
+fidelity of their guides, and the probability of their return. Nor did
+the Symerons treat them with that submission and regard which they
+paid to the English, whose bravery and conduct they had already tried.
+
+At length, after a laborious march of more than seven leagues, they
+began to hear the hammers of the carpenters in the bay, it being the
+custom, in that hot season, to work in the night; and, in a short
+time, they perceived the approach of the recoes, or droves of mules,
+from Panama. They now no longer doubted that their labours would be
+rewarded, and every man imagined himself secure from poverty and
+labour for the remaining part of his life. They, therefore, when the
+mules came up, rushed out and seized them, with an alacrity
+proportioned to their expectations. The three droves consisted of one
+hundred and nine mules, each of which carried three hundred pounds'
+weight of silver. It was to little purpose that the soldiers, ordered
+to guard the treasure, attempted resistance. After a short combat, in
+which the French captain and one of the Symerons were wounded, it
+appeared with how much greater ardour men are animated by interest
+than fidelity.
+
+As it was possible for them to carry away but a small part of this
+treasure, after having wearied themselves with hiding it in holes and
+shallow waters, they determined to return by the same way, and,
+without being pursued, entered the woods, where the French captain,
+being disabled by his wound, was obliged to stay, two of his company
+continuing with him.
+
+When they had gone forward about two leagues, the Frenchmen missed
+another of their company, who, upon inquiry, was known to be
+intoxicated with wine, and supposed to have lost himself in the woods,
+by neglecting to observe the guides.
+
+But common prudence not allowing them to hazard the whole company by
+too much solicitude for a single life, they travelled on towards Rio
+Francisco, at which they arrived, April the 3rd; but, looking out for
+their pinnaces, were surprised with the sight of seven Spanish
+shallops, and immediately concluded, that some intelligence of their
+motions had been carried to Nombre de Dios, and that these vessels had
+been fitted out to pursue them, which might, undoubtedly, have
+overpowered the pinnaces and their feeble crew. Nor did their
+suspicion stop here; but immediately it occurred to them, that their
+men had been compelled, by torture, to discover where their frigate
+and ship were stationed, which, being weakly manned, and without the
+presence of the chief commander, would fall into their hands, almost
+without resistance, and all possibility of escaping be entirely cut
+off.
+
+These reflections sunk the whole company into despair; and every one,
+instead of endeavouring to break through the difficulties that
+surrounded him, resigned up himself to his ill fortune; when Drake,
+whose intrepidity was never to be shaken, and whose reason was never
+to be surprised or embarrassed, represented to them that, though the
+Spaniards should have made themselves masters of their pinnaces, they
+might yet be hindered from discovering the ships. He put them in mind,
+that the pinnaces could not be taken, the men examined, their
+examinations compared, the resolutions formed, their vessels sent out,
+and the ships taken in an instant. Some time must, necessarily, be
+spent, before the last blow could be struck; and, if that time were
+not negligently lost, it might be possible for some of them to reach
+the ships before the enemy, and direct them to change their station.
+
+They were animated with this discourse, by which they discovered that
+their leader was not without hope; but when they came to look more
+nearly into their situation, they were unable to conceive upon what it
+was founded. To pass by land was impossible, as the way lay over high
+mountains, through thick woods and deep rivers; and they had not a
+single boat in their power, so that a passage by water seemed equally
+impracticable. But Drake, whose penetration immediately discovered all
+the circumstances and inconveniencies of every scheme, soon determined
+upon the only means of success which their condition afforded them;
+and ordering his men to make a raft out of the trees that were then
+floating on the river, offered himself to put off to sea upon it, and
+cheerfully asked who would accompany him. John Owen, John Smith, and
+two Frenchmen, who were willing to share his fortune, embarked with
+him on the raft, which was fitted out with a sail made of a
+biscuit-sack, and an oar, to direct its course, instead of a rudder.
+
+Then having comforted the rest, with assurances of his regard for
+them, and resolution to leave nothing unattempted for their
+deliverance, he put off, and after having, with much difficulty,
+sailed three leagues, descried two pinnaces hasting towards him,
+which, upon a nearer approach, he discovered to be his own, and
+perceiving that they anchored behind a point that jutted out into the
+sea, he put to shore, and, crossing the land on foot, was received, by
+his company, with that satisfaction, which is only known to those that
+have been acquainted with dangers and distresses.
+
+The same night they rowed to Rio Francisco, where they took in the
+rest, with what treasure they had been able to carry with them through
+the woods; then sailing back with the utmost expedition, they returned
+to their frigate, and soon after to their ship, where Drake divided
+the gold and silver equally between the French and the English.
+
+Here they spent about fourteen days in fitting out their frigate more
+completely, and then dismissing the Spaniards with their ship, lay a
+few days among the Cabezas; while twelve English and sixteen Symerons
+travelled, once more, into the country, as well to recover the French
+captain, whom they had left wounded, as to bring away the treasure
+which they had hidden in the sands. Drake, whom his company would not
+suffer to hazard his person in another land expedition, went with them
+to Rio Francisco, where he found one of the Frenchmen, who had stayed
+to attend their captain, and was informed by him, upon his inquiries
+after his fortune, that, half an hour after their separation, the
+Spaniards came upon them, and easily seized upon the wounded captain;
+but that his companion might have escaped with him, had he not
+preferred money to life; for, seeing him throw down a box of jewels
+that retarded him, he could not forbear taking it up, and with that,
+and the gold which he had already, was so loaded that he could not
+escape. With regard to the bars of gold and silver, which they had
+concealed in the ground, he informed them that two thousand men had
+been employed in digging for them.
+
+The men, however, either mistrusting the informer's veracity, or
+confident that what they had hidden could not be found, pursued their
+journey, but, upon their arrival at the place, found the ground turned
+up for two miles round, and were able to recover no more than thirteen
+bars' of silver, and a small quantity of gold. They discovered
+afterwards, that the Frenchman who was left in the woods, falling
+afterwards into the hands of the Spaniards, was tortured by them, till
+he confessed where Drake had concealed his plunder. So fatal to
+Drake's expedition was the drunkenness of his followers.
+
+Then, dismissing the French, they passed by Carthagena with their
+colours flying, and soon after took a frigate laden with provisions
+and honey, which they valued as a great restorative, and then sailed
+away to the Cabezas.
+
+Here they stayed about a week to clean their vessels, and fit them for
+a long voyage, determining to set sail for England; and, that the
+faithful Symerons might not go away unrewarded, broke up their
+pinnaces, and gave them the iron, the most valuable present in the
+world, to a nation whose only employments were war and hunting, and
+amongst whom show and luxury had no place.
+
+Pedro, their captain, being desired by Drake to go through the ship,
+and to choose what he most desired, fixed his eye upon a cimetar, set
+with diamonds, which the French captain had presented to Drake; and,
+being unwilling to ask for so valuable a present, offered for it four
+large quoits, or thick plates of gold, which he had, hitherto,
+concealed; but Drake, desirous to show him that fidelity is seldom
+without a recompense, gave it him with the highest professions of
+satisfaction and esteem. Pedro, receiving it with the utmost
+gratitude, informed him, that, by bestowing it he had conferred
+greatness and honour upon him; for, by presenting it to his king, he
+doubted not of obtaining the highest rank amongst the Symerons. He
+then persisted in his resolution of leaving the gold, which was
+generously thrown by Drake into the common stock; for he said, that
+those, at whose expenses he had been sent out, ought to share in all
+the gain of the expedition, whatever pretence cavil and chicanery
+might supply for the appropriation of any part of it. Thus was Drake's
+character consistent with itself; he was equally superiour to avarice
+and fear, and through whatever danger he might go in quest of gold, he
+thought it not valuable enough to be obtained by artifice or
+dishonesty.
+
+They now forsook the coast of America, which for many months they had
+kept in perpetual alarms, having taken more than two hundred ships, of
+all sizes, between Carthagena and Nombre de Dios, of which they never
+destroyed any, unless they were fitted out against them; nor ever
+detained the prisoners longer than was necessary for their own
+security or concealment, providing for them in the same manner as for
+themselves, and protecting them from the malice of the Symerous; a
+behaviour which humanity dictates, and which, perhaps, even policy
+cannot disapprove. He must certainly meet with obstinate opposition,
+who makes it equally dangerous to yield as to resist, and who leaves
+his enemies no hopes but from victory.
+
+What riches they acquired is not particularly related; but it is not
+to be doubted, that the plunder of so many vessels, together with the
+silver which they seized at Nombre de Dios, must amount to a very
+large sum, though the part that was allotted to Drake was not
+sufficient to lull him in effeminacy, or to repress his natural
+inclination to adventures.
+
+They arrived at Plymouth on the 9th of August, 1573, on Sunday, in the
+afternoon; and so much were the people delighted with the news of
+their arrival, that they left the preacher, and ran in crowds to the
+quay, with shouts and congratulations.
+
+Drake having, in his former expedition, had a view of the south sea,
+and formed a resolution to sail upon it, did not suffer himself to be
+diverted from his design by the prospect of any difficulties that
+might obstruct the attempt, nor any dangers that might attend the
+execution; obstacles which brave men often find it much more easy to
+overcome, than secret envy and domestick treachery.
+
+Drake's reputation was now sufficiently advanced to incite detraction
+and opposition; and it is easy to imagine, that a man by nature
+superiour to mean artifices, and bred, from his earliest years, to the
+labour and hardships of a sea-life, was very little acquainted with
+policy and intrigue, very little versed in the methods of application
+to the powerful and great, and unable to obviate the practices of
+those whom his merit had made his enemies.
+
+Nor are such the only opponents of great enterprises: there are some
+men, of narrow views and grovelling conceptions, who, without the
+instigation of personal malice, treat every new attempt, as wild and
+chimerical, and look upon every endeavour to depart from the beaten
+track, as the rash effort of a warm imagination, or the glittering
+speculation of an exalted mind, that may please and dazzle for a time,
+but can produce no real or lasting advantage.
+
+These men value themselves upon a perpetual skepticism, upon believing
+nothing but their own senses, upon calling for demonstration where it
+cannot possibly be obtained, and, sometimes, upon holding out against
+it, when it is laid before them; upon inventing arguments against the
+success of any new undertaking, and, where arguments cannot be found,
+upon treating it with contempt and ridicule.
+
+Such have been the most formidable enemies of the great benefactors to
+mankind, and to these we can hardly doubt, but that much of the
+opposition which Drake met with, is to be attributed; for their
+notions and discourse are so agreeable to the lazy, the envious, and
+the timorous, that they seldom fail of becoming popular, and directing
+the opinions of mankind.
+
+Whatsoever were his obstacles, and whatsoever the motives that
+produced them, it was not till the year 1577, that he was able to
+assemble a force proportioned to his design, and to obtain a
+commission from the queen, by which he was constituted captain-general
+of a fleet, consisting of five vessels, of which the Pelican, admiral,
+of a hundred tons, was commanded by himself; the Elizabeth,
+viceadmiral, of eighty tons, by John Winter; the Marigold, of thirty
+tons, by John Thomas; the Swan, fifty tons, by John Chester; the
+Christopher, of fifteen tons, by Thomas Moche, the same, as it seems,
+who was carpenter in the former voyage, and destroyed one of the ships
+by Drake's direction.
+
+These ships, equipped partly by himself, and partly by other private
+adventurers, he manned with one hundred and sixty-four stout sailors,
+and furnished with such provisions as he judged necessary for the long
+voyage in which he was engaged. Nor did he confine his concern to
+naval stores, or military preparations; but carried with him whatever
+he thought might contribute to raise in those nations, with which he
+should have any intercourse, the highest ideas of the politeness and
+magnificence of his native country. He, therefore, not only procured a
+complete service of silver, for his own table, and furnished the
+cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several
+musicians to accompany him; rightly judging, that nothing would more
+excite the admiration of any savage and uncivilized people.
+
+Having been driven back by a tempest in their first attempt, and
+obliged to return to Plymouth, to repair the damages which they had
+suffered, they set sail again from thence on the 13th of December,
+1577, and, on the 25th, had sight of cape Cantin, in Barbary, from
+whence they coasted on southward to the island of Mogador, which Drake
+had appointed for the first place of rendezvous, and on the 27th,
+brought the whole fleet to anchor, in a harbour on the mainland.
+
+They were, soon after their arrival, discovered by the Moors that
+inhabited those coasts, who sent two of the principal men amongst them
+on board Drake's ship, receiving, at the same time, two of his company
+as hostages. These men he not only treated in the most splendid
+manner, but presented with such things as they appeared most to
+admire; it being with him an established maxim, to endeavour to
+secure, in every country, a kind reception to such Englishmen as might
+come after him, by treating the inhabitants with kindness and
+generosity; a conduct, at once just and politick, to the neglect of
+which may be attributed many of the injuries suffered by our sailors
+in distant countries, which are generally ascribed, rather to the
+effects of wickedness and folly of our own commanders, than the
+barbarity of the natives, who seldom fall upon any, unless they have
+been first plundered or insulted; and, in revenging the ravages of one
+crew upon another of the same nation, are guilty of nothing but what
+is countenanced by the example of the Europeans themselves.
+
+But this friendly intercourse was, in appearance, soon broken; for, on
+the next day, observing the Moors making signals from the land, they
+sent out their boat, as before, to fetch them to the ship, and one
+John Fry leaped ashore, intending to become a hostage, as on the
+former day, when immediately he was seized by the Moors; and the crew,
+observing great numbers to start up from behind the rock, with weapons
+in their hands, found it madness to attempt his rescue, and,
+therefore, provided for their own security by returning to the ship.
+
+Fry was immediately carried to the king, who, being then in continual
+expectation of an invasion from Portugal, suspected that these ships
+were sent only to observe the coast, and discover a proper harbour for
+the main fleet; but being informed who they were, and whither they
+were bound, not only dismissed his captive, but made large offers of
+friendship and assistance, which Drake, however, did not stay to
+receive, but, being disgusted at this breach of the laws of commerce,
+and afraid of further violence, after having spent some days in
+searching for his man, in which he met with no resistance, left the
+coast on December 31, some time before Fry's return, who, being
+obliged by this accident to somewhat a longer residence among the
+Moors, was afterwards sent home in a merchant's ship.
+
+On January 16, they arrived at cape Blanc, having in their passage
+taken several Spanish vessels. Here, while Drake was employing his men
+in catching fish, of which this coast affords great plenty, and
+various kinds, the inhabitants came down to the seaside with their
+alisorges, or leather bottles, to traffick for water, which they were
+willing to purchase with ambergris and other gums. But Drake,
+compassionating the misery of their condition, gave them water,
+whenever they asked for it, and left them their commodities to
+traffick with, when they should be again reduced to the same distress,
+without finding the same generosity to relieve them.
+
+Here, having discharged some Spanish ships, which they had taken, they
+set sail towards the isles of cape Verd, and, on January 28, came to
+anchor before Mayo, hoping to furnish themselves with fresh water; but
+having landed, they found the town by the waterside entirely deserted,
+and, marching further up the country, saw the valleys extremely
+fruitful, and abounding with ripe figs, cocoas, and plantains, but
+could by no means prevail upon the inhabitants to converse or traffick
+with them; however, they were suffered by them to range the country
+without molestation, but found no water, except at such a distance
+from the sea, that the labour of conveying it to the ships was greater
+than it was, at that time, necessary for them to undergo. Salt, had
+they wanted it, might have been obtained with less trouble, being left
+by the sea upon the sand, and hardened by the sun during the ebb, in
+such quantities, that the chief traffick of their island is carried on
+with it.
+
+January 31, they passed by St. Jago an island at that time divided
+between the natives and the Portuguese, who, first entering these
+islands under the show of traffick, by degrees established
+themselves;--claimed a superiority over the original inhabitants; and
+harassed them with such cruelty, that they obliged them either to fly
+to the woods and mountains, and perish with hunger, or to take up arms
+against their oppressors, and, under the insuperable disadvantages
+with which they contended, to die, almost without a battle, in defence
+of their natural rights and ancient possessions.
+
+Such treatment had the natives of St. Jago received, which had driven
+them into the rocky parts of the island, from whence they made
+incursions into the plantations of the Portuguese, sometimes with
+loss, but generally with that success which desperation naturally
+procures; so that the Portuguese were in continual alarms, and, lived,
+with the natural consequences of guilt, terrour, and anxiety. They
+were wealthy, but not happy, and possessed the island, but not enjoyed
+it.
+
+They then sailed on within sight of Fuego, an island so called from a
+mountain, about the middle of it, continually burning, and, like the
+rest, inhabited by the Portuguese; two leagues to the south of which
+lies Brava, which has received its name from its fertility, abounding,
+though uninhabited, with all kinds of fruits, and watered with great
+numbers of springs and brooks, which would easily invite the
+possessours of the adjacent islands to settle in it, but that it
+affords neither harbour nor anchorage. Drake, after having sent out
+his boats with plummets, was not able to find any ground about it; and
+it is reported, that many experiments have been made with the same
+success; however, he took in water sufficient, and, on the 2nd of
+February, set sail for the straits of Magellan.
+
+On February 17, they passed the equator, and continued their voyage,
+with sometimes calms, and sometimes contrary winds, but without any
+memorable accident, to March 28, when one of their vessels, with
+twenty-eight men, and the greatest part of their fresh water on board,
+was, to their great discouragement, separated from them; but their
+perplexity lasted not long, for on the next day they discovered and
+rejoined their associates.
+
+In their long course, which gave them opportunities of observing
+several animals, both in the air and water, at that time very little
+known, nothing entertained or surprised them more than the flying
+fish, which is near of the same size with a herring, and has fins of
+the length of his whole body, by the help of which, when he is pursued
+by the bonito or great mackerel, as soon as he finds himself upon the
+point of being taken, he springs up into the air, and flies forward,
+as long as his wings continue wet, moisture being, as it seems,
+necessary to make them pliant and moveable; and when they become dry
+and stiff, he falls down into the water, unless some bark or ship
+intercept him, and dips them again for a second flight. This unhappy
+animal is not only pursued by fishes in his natural element, but
+attacked in the air, where he hopes for security, by the don, or
+sparkite, a great bird that preys upon fish; and their species must
+surely be destroyed, were not their increase so great, that the young
+fry, in one part of the year, covers the sea.
+
+There is another fish, named the cuttle, of which whole shoals will
+sometimes rise at once out of the water, and of which a great
+multitude fell into their ship.
+
+At length, having sailed without sight of land for sixty-three days,
+they arrived, April 5, at the coast of Brasil, where, on the 7th, the
+Christopher was separated again from them by a storm; after which they
+sailed near the land to the southward, and, on the 14th, anchored
+under a cape, which they afterwards called cape Joy, because in two
+days the vessel which they had lost returned to them.
+
+Having spent a fortnight in the river of Plata, to refresh his men,
+after their long voyage, and then standing out to sea, he was again
+surprised by a sudden storm, in which they lost sight of the Swan.
+This accident determined Drake to contract the number of his fleet,
+that he might not only avoid the inconvenience of such frequent
+separations, but ease the labour of his men, by having more hands in
+each vessel.
+
+For this purpose he sailed along the coast, in quest of a commodious
+harbour, and, on May 13, discovered a bay, which seemed not improper
+for their purpose, but which they durst not enter, till it was
+examined; an employment in which Drake never trusted any, whatever
+might be his confidence in his followers on other occasions. He well
+knew how fatal one moment's inattention might be, and how easily
+almost every man suffers himself to be surprised by indolence and
+security. He knew the same credulity, that might prevail upon him to
+trust another, might induce another to commit the same office to a
+third; and it must be, at length, that some of them would be deceived.
+He, therefore, as at other times, ordered the boat to be hoisted out,
+and, taking the line into his hand, went on sounding the passage, till
+he was three leagues from his ship; when, on a sudden, the weather
+changed, the skies blackened, the winds whistled, and all the usual
+forerunners of a storm began to threaten them; nothing was now desired
+but to return to the ship, but the thickness of the fog intercepting
+it from their sight, made the attempt little other than desperate. By
+so many unforeseen accidents is prudence itself liable to be
+embarrassed! So difficult is it, sometimes, for the quickest sagacity,
+and most enlightened experience, to judge what measures ought to be
+taken! To trust another to sound an unknown coast, appeared to Drake
+folly and presumption; to be absent from his fleet, though but for an
+hour, proved nothing less than to hazard the success of all their
+labours, hardships, and dangers.
+
+In this perplexity, which Drake was not more sensible of than those
+whom he had left in the ships, nothing was to be omitted, however
+dangerous, that might contribute to extricate them from it, as they
+could venture nothing of equal value with the life of their general.
+Captain Thomas, therefore, having the lightest vessel, steered boldly
+into the bay, and taking the general aboard, dropped anchor, and lay
+out of danger, while the rest, that were in the open sea, suffered
+much from the tempest, and the Mary, a Portuguese prize, was driven
+away before the wind; the others, as soon as the tempest was over,
+discovering, by the fires which were made on shore, where Drake was,
+repaired to him.
+
+Here, going on shore, they met with no inhabitants, though there were
+several houses or huts standing, in which they found a good quantity
+of dried fowls, and among them a great number of ostriches, of which
+the thighs were as large as those of a sheep. These birds are too
+heavy and unwieldy to rise from the ground, but with the help of their
+wings run so swiftly, that the English could never come near enough to
+shoot at them. The Indians, commonly, by holding a large plume of
+feathers before them, and walking gently forward, drive the ostriches
+into some narrow neck, or point of land, then, spreading a strong net
+from one side to the other, to hinder them from returning back to the
+open fields, set their dogs upon them, thus confined between the net
+and the water, and when they are thrown on their backs, rush in and
+take them.
+
+Not finding this harbour convenient, or well stored with wood and
+water, they left it on the 15th of May, and, on the 18th, entered
+another much safer, and more commodious, which they no sooner arrived
+at, than Drake, whose restless application never remitted, sent Winter
+to the southward, in quest of those ships which were absent, and
+immediately after sailed himself to the northward, and, happily
+meeting with the Swan, conducted it to the rest of the fleet; after
+which, in pursuance of his former resolution, he ordered it to be
+broken up, reserving the iron-work for a future supply. The other
+vessel, which they lost in the late storm, could not be discovered.
+
+While they were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the
+mainland, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they
+were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a
+distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English
+to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells,
+and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness or novelty, he
+imagined would be agreeable. As soon as the English landed, they
+observed two men running towards them, as deputed by the company, who
+came within a little distance, and then standing still could not be
+prevailed upon to come nearer. The English, therefore, tied their
+presents to a pole, which they fixed in the ground, and then retiring,
+saw the Indians advance, who, taking what they found upon the pole,
+left in return such feathers as they wear upon their heads, with a
+small bone about six inches in length, carved round the top, and
+burnished.
+
+Drake, observing their inclination to friendship and traffick,
+advanced, with some of his company, towards the hill, upon sight of
+whom the Indians ranged themselves in a line from east to west, and
+one of them running from one end of the rank to the other, backwards
+and forwards, bowed himself towards the rising and setting of the sun,
+holding his hands over his head, and frequently stopping in the middle
+of the rank, leaping up towards the moon, which then shone directly
+over their heads; thus calling the sun and moon, the deities they
+worship, to witness the sincerity of their professions of peace and
+friendship. While this ceremony was performed, Drake and his company
+ascended the hill, to the apparent terrour of the Indians, whose
+apprehensions, when the English perceived, they peaceably retired,
+which gave the natives so much encouragement, that they came forward
+immediately, and exchanged their arrows, feathers, and bones, for such
+trifles as were offered them.
+
+Thus they traded for some time; but, by frequent intercourse, finding
+that no violence was intended, they became familiar, and mingled with
+the English without the least distrust.
+
+They go quite naked, except a skin of some animal, which they throw
+over their shoulders when they lie in the open air. They knit up their
+hair, which is very long, with a roll of ostrich feathers, and usually
+carry their arrows wrapped up brit, that they may not encumber them,
+they being made with reeds, headed with flint, and, therefore, not
+heavy. Their bows are about an ell long.
+
+Their chief ornament is paint, which they use of several kinds,
+delineating generally upon their bodies, the figures of the sun and
+moon, in honour of their deities.
+
+It is observable, that most nations, amongst whom the use of clothes
+is unknown, paint their bodies. Such was the practice of the first
+inhabitants of our own country. From this custom did our earliest
+enemies, the Picts, owe their denomination. As it is not probable that
+caprice or fancy should be uniform, there must be, doubtless, some
+reason for a practice so general and prevailing in distant parts of
+the world, which have no communication with each other. The original
+end of painting their bodies was, probably, to exclude the cold; an
+end which, if we believe some relations, is so effectually produced by
+it, that the men thus painted never shiver at the most piercing
+blasts. But, doubtless, any people, so hardened by continual
+severities, would, even without paint, be less sensible of the cold
+than the civilized inhabitants of the same climate. However, this
+practice may contribute, in some degree, to defend them from the
+injuries of winter; and, in those climates where little evaporates by
+the pores, may be used with no great inconvenience; but in hot
+countries, where perspiration in greater degree is necessary, the
+natives only use unction to preserve them from the other extreme of
+weather: so well do either reason or experience supply the place of
+science in savage countries.
+
+They had no canoes, like the other Indians, nor any method of crossing
+the water, which was, probably, the reason why the birds, in the
+adjacent islands, were so tame that they might be taken with the hand,
+having never been before frighted or molested. The great plenty of
+fowls and seals, which crowded the shallows in such numbers that they
+killed, at their first arrival, two hundred of them in an hour,
+contributed much to the refreshment of the English, who named the
+place Seal bay, from that animal.
+
+These seals seem to be the chief food of the natives, for the English
+often found raw pieces of their flesh half eaten, and left, as they
+supposed, after a full meal, by the Indians, whom they never knew to
+make use of fire, or any art, in dressing or preparing their victuals.
+
+Nor were their other customs less wild or uncouth than their way of
+feeding; one of them having received a cap off the general's head, and
+being extremely pleased, as well with the honour as the gift, to
+express his gratitude, and confirm the alliance between them, retired
+to a little distance, and thrusting an arrow into his leg, let the
+blood run upon the ground, testifying, as it is probable, that he
+valued Drake's friendship above life.
+
+Having stayed fifteen days among these friendly savages, in 47 deg. 30
+min. s. lat. on June 3 they set sail towards the south sea, and, six
+days afterwards, stopped at another little bay, to break up the
+Christopher. Then passing on, they cast anchor in another bay, not
+more than twenty leagues distant from the straits of Magellan.
+
+It was now time seriously to deliberate in what manner they should act
+with regard to the Portuguese prize, which, having been separated from
+them by the storm, had not yet rejoined them. To return in search of
+it, was sufficiently mortifying; to proceed without it, was not only
+to deprive themselves of a considerable part of their force, but to
+expose their friends and companions, whom common hardships and dangers
+had endeared to them, to certain death or captivity. This
+consideration prevailed; and, therefore, on the 18th, after prayers to
+God, with which Drake never forgot to begin an enterprise, he put to
+sea, and, the next day, near port Julian, discovered their associates,
+whose ship was now grown leaky, having suffered much, both in the
+first storm, by which they were dispersed, and, afterwards, in
+fruitless attempts to regain the fleet.
+
+Drake, therefore, being desirous to relieve their fatigues, entered
+port Julian, and, as it was his custom always to attend in person,
+when any important business was in hand, went ashore, with some of the
+chief of his company, to seek for water, where he was immediately
+accosted by two natives, of whom Magellan left a very terrible
+account, having described them, as a nation of giants and monsters;
+nor is his narrative entirely without foundation, for they are of the
+largest size, though not taller than some Englishmen; their strength
+is proportioned to their bulk, and their voice loud, boisterous, and
+terrible. What were their manners before the arrival of the Spaniards,
+it is not possible to discover; but the slaughter made of their
+countrymen, perhaps without provocation, by these cruel intruders, and
+the general massacre with which that part of the world had been
+depopulated, might have raised in them a suspicion of all strangers,
+and, by consequence, made them inhospitable, treacherous, and bloody.
+
+The two who associated themselves with the English appeared much
+pleased with their new guests, received willingly what was given them,
+and very exactly observed every thing that passed, seeming more
+particularly delighted with seeing Oliver, the master-gunner, shoot an
+English arrow. They shot themselves, likewise, in emulation, but their
+arrows always fell to the ground far short of his.
+
+Soon after this friendly contest came another, who, observing the
+familiarity of his countrymen with the strangers, appeared much
+displeased, and, as the Englishmen perceived, endeavoured to dissuade
+them from such an intercourse. What effect his arguments had was soon
+after apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to
+show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity,
+attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full
+force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were
+unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed
+the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat,
+and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at Winter, who had the
+bow in his hand. He, finding himself wounded in the shoulder,
+endeavoured to refit his bow, and, turning about, was pierced with a
+second arrow in the breast. Oliver, the gunner, immediately presented
+his piece at the insidious assailants, which failing to take fire,
+gave them time to level another flight of arrows by which he was
+killed; nor, perhaps, had any of them escaped, surprised and perplexed
+as they were, had not Drake, with his usual presence of mind, animated
+their courage, and directed their motions, ordering them, by
+perpetually changing their places, to elude, as much as they could,
+the aim of their enemies, and to defend their bodies with their
+targets; and instructing them, by his own example, to pick up, and
+break the arrows as they fell; which they did with so much diligence,
+that the Indians were soon in danger of being disarmed. Then Drake
+himself taking the gun, which Oliver had so unsuccessfully attempted
+to make use of, discharged it at the Indian that first began the fray
+and had killed the gunner, aiming it so happily, that the hailshot,
+with which it was loaded, tore open his belly, and forced him to such
+terrible outcries, that the Indians, though their numbers increased,
+and many of their countrymen showed themselves from different parts of
+the adjoining wood, were too much terrified to renew the assault, and
+suffered Drake, without molestation, to withdraw his wounded friend,
+who, being hurt in his lungs, languished two days, and then dying, was
+interred with his companion, with the usual ceremony of a military
+funeral.
+
+They stayed here two months afterwards, without receiving any other
+injuries from the natives, who, finding the danger to which they
+exposed themselves by open hostilities, and, not being able any more
+to surprise the vigilance of Drake, preferred their safety to revenge.
+
+But Drake had other enemies to conquer or escape far more formidable
+than these barbarians, and insidious practices to obviate, more artful
+and dangerous than the ambushes of the Indians; for in this place was
+laid open a design formed by one of the gentlemen of the fleet, not
+only to defeat the voyage, but to murder the general.
+
+This transaction is related in so obscure and confused a manner, that
+it is difficult to form any judgment upon it. The writer who gives the
+largest account of it, has suppressed the name of the criminal, which
+we learn, from a more succinct narrative, published in a collection of
+travels near that time, to have been Thomas Doughtie. What were his
+inducements to attempt the destruction of his leader, and the ruin of
+the expedition, or what were his views, if his design had succeeded,
+what measures he had hitherto taken, whom he had endeavoured to
+corjupt, with what arts, or what success, we are nowhere told.
+
+The plot, as the narrative assures us, was laid before their departure
+from England, and discovered, in its whole extent, to Drake himself,
+in his garden at Plymouth, who, nevertheless, not only entertained the
+person so accused, as one of his company, but this writer very
+particularly relates, treated him with remarkable kindness and regard,
+setting him always at his own table, and lodged him in the same cabin
+with himself. Nor did ever he discover the least suspicion of his
+intentions, till they arrived at this place, but appeared, by the
+authority with which he invested him, to consider him, as one to whom,
+in his absence, he could most securely intrust the direction of his
+affairs. At length, in this remote corner of the world, he found out a
+design formed against his life, called together all his officers, laid
+before them the evidence on which he grounded the accusation, and
+summoned the criminal, who, full of all the horrours of guilt, and
+confounded at so clear a detection of his whole scheme, immediately
+confessed his crimes, and acknowledged himself unworthy of longer
+life; upon which the whole assembly, consisting of thirty persons,
+after having considered the affair with the attention which it
+required, and heard all that could be urged in extenuation of his
+offence, unanimously signed the sentence by which he was condemned to
+suffer death. Drake, however, unwilling, as it seemed, to proceed to
+extreme severities, offered him his choice, either of being executed
+on the island, or set ashore on the mainland, or being sent to England
+to be tried before the council; of which, after a day's consideration,
+he chose the first, alleging the improbability of persuading any to
+leave the expedition, for the sake of transporting a criminal to
+England, and the danger of his future state among savages and
+infidels. His choice, I believe, few will approve: to be set ashore on
+the mainland, was, indeed, only to be executed in a different manner;
+for what mercy could be expected from the natives so incensed, but the
+most cruel and lingering death! But why he should not rather have
+requested to be sent to England, it is not so easy to conceive. In so
+long a voyage he might have found a thousand opportunities of
+escaping, perhaps with the connivance of his keepers, whose resentment
+must probably in time have given way to compassion, or, at least, by
+their negligence, as it is easy to believe they would, in times of
+ease and refreshment, have remitted their vigilance; at least he would
+have gained longer life; and, to make death desirable, seems not one
+of the effects of guilt. However, he was, as it is related,
+obstinately deaf to all persuasions, and, adhering to his first
+choice, after having received the communion, and dined cheerfully with
+the general, was executed in the afternoon, with many proofs of
+remorse, but none of fear.
+
+How far it is probable that Drake, after having been acquainted with
+this man's designs, should admit him into his fleet, and afterwards
+caress, respect, and trust him; or that Doughtie, who is represented
+as a man of eminent abilities, should engage in so long and hazardous
+a voyage, with no other view than that of defeating it; is left to the
+determination of the reader. What designs he could have formed, with
+any hope of success, or to what actions, worthy of death, he could
+have proceeded without accomplices, for none are mentioned, is equally
+difficult to imagine. Nor, on the other hand, though the obscurity of
+the account, and the remote place chosen for the discovery of this
+wicked project, seem to give some reason for suspicion, does there
+appear any temptation, from either hope, fear, or interest, that might
+induce Drake, or any commander in his state, to put to death an
+innocent man upon false pretences.
+
+After the execution of this man, the whole company, either convinced
+of the justice of the proceeding, or awed by the severity, applied
+themselves, without any murmurs, or appearance of discontent, to the
+prosecution of the voyage; and, having broken up another vessel, and
+reduced the number of their ships to three, they left the port, and,
+on August the 20th, entered the straits of Magellan, in which they
+struggled with contrary winds, and the various dangers to which the
+intricacy of that winding passage exposed them, till night, and then
+entered a more open sea, in which they discovered an island with a
+burning mountain. On the 24th they fell in with three more islands, to
+which Drake gave names, and, landing to take possession of them in the
+name of his sovereign, found in the largest so prodigious a number of
+birds, that they killed three thousand of them in one day. This bird,
+of which they knew not the name, was somewhat less than a wild goose,
+without feathers, and covered with a kind of down, unable to fly or
+rise from the ground, but capable of running and swimming with amazing
+celerity; they feed on the sea, and come to land only to rest at
+night, or lay their eggs, which they deposit in holes like those of
+conies.
+
+From these islands to the south sea, the strait becomes very crooked
+and narrow, so that sometimes, by the interposition of headlands, the
+passage seems shut up, and the voyage entirely stopped. To double
+these capes is very difficult, on account of the frequent alterations
+to be made in the course. There are, indeed, as Magellan observes,
+many harbours, but in most of them no bottom is to be found.
+
+The land, on both sides, rises into innumerable mountains; the tops of
+them are encircled with clouds and vapours, which, being congealed,
+fall down in snow, and increase their height by hardening into ice,
+which is never dissolved; but the valleys are, nevertheless, green,
+fruitful, and pleasant.
+
+Here Drake, finding the strait, in appearance, shut up, went in his
+boat to make further discoveries; and having found a passage towards
+the north, was returning to his ships; but curiosity soon prevailed
+upon him to stop, for the sake of observing a canoe or boat, with
+several natives of the country in it. He could not, at a distance,
+forbear admiring the form of this little vessel, which seemed
+inclining to a semicircle, the stern and prow standing up, and the
+body sinking inward; but much greater was his wonder, when, upon a
+nearer inspection, he found it made only of the barks of trees, sewed
+together with thongs of sealskin, so artificially, that scarcely any
+water entered the seams. The people were well shaped and painted, like
+those which have been already described. On the land they had a hut
+built with poles, and covered with skins, in which they had
+water-vessels, and other utensils, made likewise of the barks of
+trees.
+
+Among these people they had an opportunity of remarking, what is
+frequently observable in savage countries, how natural sagacity and
+unwearied industry may supply the want of such manufactures or natural
+productions, as appear to us absolutely necessary for the support of
+life. The inhabitants of these islands are wholly strangers to iron
+and its use, but, instead of it, make use of the shell of a muscle of
+prodigious size, found upon their coasts; this they grind upon a stone
+to an edge, which is so firm and solid, that neither wood nor stone is
+able to resist it.
+
+September 6, they entered the great south sea, on which no English
+vessel had ever been navigated before, and proposed to have directed
+their course towards the line, that their men, who had suffered by the
+severity of the climate, might recover their strength in a warmer
+latitude. But their designs were scarce formed, before they were
+frustrated; for, on Sept. 7, after an eclipse of the moon, a storm
+arose, so violent, that it left them little hopes of surviving it; nor
+was its fury so dreadful as its continuance; for it lasted, with
+little intermission, till October 28, fifty-two days, during which
+time they were tossed incessantly from one part of the ocean to
+another, without any power of spreading their sails, or lying upon
+their anchors, amidst shelving shores, scattered rocks, and unknown
+islands, the tempest continually roaring, and the waves dashing over
+them.
+
+In this storm, on the 30th of September, the Marigold, commanded by
+captain Thomas, was separated from them. On the 7th of October, having
+entered a harbour, where they hoped for some intermission of their
+fatigues, they were, in a few hours, forced out to sea by a violent
+gust, which broke the cable, at which time they lost sight of the
+Elizabeth, the viceadmiral, whose crew, as was afterwards discovered,
+wearied with labour, and discouraged by the prospect of future
+dangers, recovered the straits on the next day, and, returning by the
+same passage through which they came, sailed along the coast of
+Brasil, and on the 2nd of June, in the year following, arrived at
+England.
+
+From this bay they were driven southward to fifty-five degrees, where,
+among some islands, they stayed two days, to the great refreshment of
+the crew; but, being again forced into the main sea, they were tossed
+about with perpetual expectation of perishing, till, soon after, they
+again came to anchor near the same place, where they found the
+natives, whom the continuance of the storm had probably reduced to
+equal distress, rowing from one island to another, and providing the
+necessaries of life.
+
+It is, perhaps, a just observation, that, with regard to outward
+circumstances, happiness and misery are equally diffused through all
+states of human life. In civilized countries, where regular policies
+have secured the necessaries of life, ambition, avarice, and luxury,
+find the mind at leisure for their reception, and soon engage it in
+new pursuits; pursuits that are to be carried on by incessant labour,
+and, whether vain or successful, produce anxiety and contention. Among
+savage nations, imaginary wants find, indeed, no place; but their
+strength is exhausted by necessary toils, and their passions agitated
+not by contests about superiority, affluence, or precedence, but by
+perpetual care for the present day, and by fear of perishing for want
+of food.
+
+But for such reflections as these they had no time; for, having spent
+three days in supplying themselves with wood and water, they were, by
+a new storm, driven to the latitude of fifty-six degrees, where they
+beheld the extremities of the American coast, and the confluence of
+the Atlantick and southern ocean.
+
+Here they arrived on the 28th of October, and, at last, were blessed
+with the sight of a calm sea, having, for almost two months, endured
+such a storm as no traveller has given an account of, and such as, in
+that part of the world, though accustomed to hurricanes, they were
+before unacquainted with.
+
+On the 30th of October, they steered away towards the place appointed
+for the rendezvous of the fleet, which was in thirty degrees; and, on
+the next day, discovered two islands, so well stocked with fowls, that
+they victualled their ships with them, and then sailed forward along
+the coast of Peru, till they came to thirty-seven degrees, where,
+finding neither of their ships, nor any convenient port, they came to
+anchor, November the 25th, at Mucho, an island inhabited by such
+Indians, as the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors had driven from the
+continent, to whom they applied for water and provisions, offering
+them, in return, such things as they imagined most likely to please
+them. The Indians seemed willing to traffick, and having presented
+them with fruits, and two fat sheep, would have showed them a place
+whither they should come for water.
+
+The next morning, according to agreement, the English landed with
+their water-vessels, and sent two men forward towards the place
+appointed, who, about the middle of the way, were suddenly attacked by
+the Indians, and immediately slain. Nor were the rest of the company
+out of danger; for behind the rocks was lodged an ambush of five
+hundred men, who, starting up from their retreat, discharged their
+arrows into the boat with such dexterity, that every one of the crew
+was wounded by them, the sea being then high, and hindering them from
+either retiring or making use of their weapons. Drake himself received
+an arrow under his eye, which pierced him almost to the brain, and
+another in his head. The danger of these wounds was much increased by
+the absence of their surgeon, who was in the viceadmiral, so that they
+had none to assist them but a boy, whose age did not admit of much
+experience or skill; yet so much were they favoured by providence,
+that they all recovered.
+
+No reason could be assigned for which the Indians should attack them
+with so furious a spirit of malignity, but that they mistook them for
+Spaniards, whose cruelties might very reasonably incite them to
+revenge, whom they had driven by incessant persecution from their
+country, wasting immense tracts of land by massacre and devastation.
+
+On the afternoon of the same day, they set sail, and, on the 30th of
+November, dropped anchor in Philips bay, where their boat, having been
+sent out to discover the country, returned with an Indian in his
+canoe, whom they had intercepted. He was of a graceful stature,
+dressed in a white coat or gown, reaching almost to his knees, very
+mild, humble, and docile, such as, perhaps, were all the Indians, till
+the Spaniards taught them revenge, treachery, and cruelty.
+
+This Indian, having been kindly treated, was dismissed with presents,
+and informed, as far as the English could make him understand, what
+they chiefly wanted, and what they were willing to give in return,
+Drake ordering his boat to attend him in his canoe, and to set him
+safe on the land.
+
+When he was ashore, he directed them to wait till his return, and
+meeting some of his countrymen, gave them such an account of his
+reception, that, within a few hours, several of them repaired with him
+to the boat with fowls, eggs, and a hog, and with them one of their
+captains, who willingly came into the boat, and desired to be conveyed
+by the English to the ship.
+
+By this man Drake was informed, that no supplies were to be expected
+here, but that southward, in a place to which he offered to be his
+pilot, there was great plenty. This proposal was accepted, and, on
+the 5th of December, under the direction of the good-natured Indian,
+they came to anchor in the harbour called, by the Spaniards,
+Valparaiso, near the town of St. James of Chiuli, where they met not
+only with sufficient stores of provision, and with storehouses full of
+the wines of Chili, but with a ship called the Captain of Morial,
+richly laden, having, together with large quantities of the same
+wines, some of the fine gold of Baldivia, and a great cross of gold
+set with emeralds.
+
+Having spent three days in storing their ships with all kinds of
+provision in the utmost plenty, they departed, and landed their Indian
+pilot where they first received him, after having rewarded him much
+above his expectations or desires.
+
+They had now little other anxiety than for their friends who had been
+separated from them, and whom they now determined to seek; but
+considering that, by entering every creek and harbour with their ship,
+they exposed themselves to unnecessary dangers, and that their boat
+would not contain such a number as might defend themselves against,
+the Spaniards, they determined to station their ship at some place,
+where they might commodiously build a pinnace, which, being of light
+burden, might easily sail where the ship was in danger of being
+stranded, and, at the same time, might carry a sufficient force to
+resist the enemy, and afford better accommodation than could be
+expected in the boat.
+
+To this end, on the 19th of December, they entered a bay near Cippo, a
+town inhabited by Spaniards, who, discovering them, immediately issued
+out, to the number of a hundred horsemen, with about two hundred naked
+Indians running by their sides. The English, observing their approach,
+retired to their boat, without any loss, except of one man, whom no
+persuasions or entreaties could move to retire with the rest, and who,
+therefore, was shot by the Spaniards, who, exulting at the victory,
+commanded the Indians to draw the dead carcass from the rock on which
+he fell, and, in the sight of the English, beheaded it, then cut off
+the right hand, and tore out the heart, which they carried away,
+having first commanded the Indians to shoot their arrows all over the
+body. The arrows of the Indians were made of green wood, for the
+immediate service of the day; the Spaniards, with the fear that always
+harasses oppressors, forbidding them to have any weapons, when they do
+not want their present assistance.
+
+Leaving this place, they soon found a harbour more secure and
+convenient, where they built their pinnace, in which Drake went to
+seek his companions; but, finding the wind contrary, he was obliged to
+return in two days.
+
+Leaving this place soon after, they sailed along the coast in search
+of fresh water, and landing at Turapaca, they found a Spaniard asleep,
+with silver bars lying by him, to the value of three thousand ducats:
+not all the insults which they had received from his countrymen could
+provoke them to offer any violence to his person, and, therefore, they
+carried away his treasure, without doing him any further harm.
+
+Landing in another place, they found a Spaniard driving eight Peruvian
+sheep, which are the beasts of burden in that country, each laden with
+a hundred pounds weight of silver, which they seized, likewise, and
+drove to their boats.
+
+Further along the coast lay some Indian towns, from which the
+inhabitants repaired to the ship, on floats made of sealskins, blown
+full of wind, two of which they fasten together, and, sitting between
+them, row with great swiftness, and carry considerable burdens. They
+very readily traded for glass and such trifles, with which the old and
+the young seemed equally delighted.
+
+Arriving at Mormorena, on the 26th of January, Drake invited the
+Spaniards to traffick with him, which they agreed to, and supplied him
+with necessaries, selling to him, among other provisions, some of
+those sheep which have been mentioned, whose bulk is equal to that of
+a cow, and whose strength is such, that one of them can carry three
+tall men upon his back; their necks are like a camel's, and their
+heads like those of our sheep. They are the most useful animals of
+this country, not only affording excellent fleeces and wholesome
+flesh, but serving as carriages over rocks and mountains, where no
+other beast can travel, for their foot is of a peculiar form, which
+enables them to tread firm in the most steep and slippery places.
+
+On all this coast, the whole soil is so impregnated with silver, that
+five ounces may be separated from a hundred pound weight of common
+earth.
+
+Still coasting, in hopes of meeting their friends, they anchored, on
+the 7th of February, before Aria, where they took two barks, with
+about eight hundred pound weight of silver, and, pursuing their
+course, seized another vessel, laden with linens.
+
+On the 15th of February, 1578, they arrived at Lima, and entered the
+harbour without resistance, though thirty ships were stationed there,
+of which seventeen were equipped for their voyage, and many of them
+are represented in the narrative as vessels of considerable force; so
+that their security seems to have consisted, not in their strength,
+but in their reputation, which had so intimidated the Spaniards, that
+the sight of their own superiority could not rouse them to opposition.
+Instances of such panick terrours are to be met with in other
+relations; but as they are, for the most part, quickly dissipated by
+reason and reflection, a wise commander will rarely found his hopes of
+success on them; and, perhaps, on this occasion, the Spaniards
+scarcely deserve a severer censure for their cowardice, than Drake for
+his temerity.
+
+In one of these ships they found fifteen hundred bars of silver; in
+another a chest of money; and very rich lading in many of the rest, of
+which the Spaniards tamely suffered them to carry the most valuable
+part away, and would have permitted them no less peaceably to burn
+their ships; but Drake never made war with a spirit of cruelty or
+revenge, or carried hostilities further than was necessary for his own
+advantage or defence.
+
+They set sail the next morning towards Panama, in quest of the Caca
+Fuego, a very rich ship, which had sailed fourteen days before, bound
+thither from Lima, which they overtook, on the 1st of March, near cape
+Francisco, and, boarding it, found not only a quantity of jewels, and
+twelve chests of ryals of plate, but eighty pounds weight of gold, and
+twenty-six tons of uncoined silver, with pieces of wrought plate to a
+great value. In unlading this prize they spent six days, and then,
+dismissing the Spaniards, Stood off to sea.
+
+Being now sufficiently enriched, and having lost all hopes of finding
+their associates, and, perhaps, beginning to be infected with that
+desire of ease and pleasure, which is the natural consequence of
+wealth obtained by dangers and fatigues, they began to consult about
+their return home, and, in pursuance of Drake's advice, resolved first
+to find out some convenient harbour, where they might supply
+themselves with wood and water, and then endeavour to discover a
+passage from the south sea into the Atlantick ocean; a discovery,
+which would not only enable them to return home with less danger, and
+in a shorter time, but would much facilitate the navigation in those
+parts of the world.
+
+For this purpose they had recourse to a port in the island of Caines,
+where they met with fish, wood, and fresh water; and, in their course,
+took a ship, laden with silk and linen, which was the last that they
+met with on the coast of America.
+
+But being desirous of storing themselves for a long course, they
+touched, April the 15th, at Guatulco, a Spanish island, where they
+supplied themselves with provisions, and seized a bushel of ryals of
+silver.
+
+From Guatulco, which lies in 15 deg. 40 min. they stood out to sea,
+and, without approaching any land, sailed forward, till, on the night
+following, the 3rd of June, being then in the latitude of thirty-eight
+degrees, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts, that they
+were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them,
+as they proceeded, to such a degree, that the sailors were discouraged
+from mounting upon the deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be
+imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately
+accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could
+scarcely be conveyed warm to the table.
+
+On June 17th, they came to anchor in 38 deg. 30 min. when they saw the
+land naked, and the trees without leaves, and in a short time had
+opportunities of observing, that the natives of that country were not
+less sensible of the cold than themselves; for the next day came a man
+rowing in his canoe towards the ship, and at a distance from it made a
+long oration, with very extraordinary gesticulations, and great
+appearance of vehemence, and, a little time afterwards, made a second
+visit, in the same manner, and then returning a third time, he
+presented them, after his harangue was finished, with a kind of crown
+of black feathers, such as their kings wear upon their heads, and a
+basket of rushes, filled with a particular herb, both which he
+fastened to a short stick, and threw into the boat; nor could he be
+prevailed upon to receive any thing in return, though pushed towards
+him upon a board; only he took up a hat, which was flung into the
+water.
+
+Three days afterwards, their ship, having received some damage at sea,
+was brought nearer to land, that the lading might be taken out. In
+order to which, the English, who had now learned not too negligently
+to commit their lives to the mercy of savage nations, raised a kind of
+fortification with stones, and built their tents within it. All this
+was not beheld by the inhabitants without the utmost astonishment,
+which incited them to come down in crowds to the coast, with no other
+view, as it appeared, than to worship the new divinities that had
+condescended to touch upon their country.
+
+Drake was far from countenancing their errours, or taking advantage of
+their weakness, to injure or molest them; and, therefore, having
+directed them to lay aside their bows and arrows, he presented them
+with linen, and other necessaries, of which he showed them the use.
+They then returned to their habitations, about three quarters of a
+mile from the English camp, where they made such loud and violent
+outcries, that they were heard by the English, who found that they
+still persisted in their first notions, and were paying them their
+kind of melancholy adoration.
+
+Two days afterwards they perceived the approach of a far more numerous
+company, who stopped at the top of a hill, which overlooked the
+English settlement, while one of them made a long oration, at the end
+of which all the assembly bowed their bodies, and pronounced the
+syllable _oh_, with a solemn tone, as by way of confirmation of
+what had been said by the orator. Then the men, laying down their
+bows, and leaving the women and children on the top of the hill, came
+down towards the tents, and seemed transported, in the highest degree,
+at the kindness of the general, who received their gifts, and admitted
+them to his presence. The women at a distance appeared seized with a
+kind of phrensy, such as that of old among the pagans in some of their
+religious ceremonies, and in honour, as it seemed, of their guests,
+tore their cheeks and bosoms with their nails, and threw themselves
+upon the stones with their naked bodies, till they were covered with
+blood.
+
+These cruel rites, and mistaken honours, were by no means agreeable to
+Drake, whose predominant sentiments were notions of piety, and,
+therefore, not to make that criminal in himself by his concurrence,
+which, perhaps, ignorance might make guiltless in them, he ordered his
+whole company to fall upon their knees, and, with their eyes lifted up
+to heaven, that the savages might observe that their worship was
+addressed to a being residing there, they all joined in praying that
+this harmless and deluded people might be brought to the knowledge of
+the true religion, and the doctrines of our blessed Saviour; after
+which they sung psalms, a performance so pleasing to their wild
+audience, that, in all their visits, they generally first accosted
+them with a request that they would sing. They then returned all the
+presents which they had received, and retired.
+
+Three days after this, on June 25, 1579, our general received two
+ambassadours from the hioh, or king of the country, who, intending to
+visit the camp, required that some token might be sent him of
+friendship and peace; this request was readily complied with, and soon
+after came the king, attended by a guard of about a hundred tall men,
+and preceded by an officer of state, who carried a sceptre made of
+black wood, adorned with chains of a kind of bone or horn, which are
+marks of the highest honour among them, and having two crowns, made as
+before, with feathers fastened to it, with a bag of the same herb,
+which was presented to Drake at his first arrival.
+
+Behind him was the king himself, dressed in a coat of cony-skins, with
+a caul, woven with feathers, upon his head, an ornament so much in
+estimation there, that none but the domesticks of the king are allowed
+to wear it; his attendants followed him, adorned nearly in the same
+manner; and after them came the common people, with baskets plaited so
+artificially that they held water, in which, by way of sacrifice, they
+brought roots and fish.
+
+Drake, not lulled into security, ranged his men in order of battle,
+and waited their approach, who, coming nearer, stood still, while the
+sceptre-bearer made an oration, at the conclusion of which they again
+came forward to the foot of the hill, and then the sceptre-bearer
+began a song, which he accompanied with a dance, in both which the men
+joined, but the women danced without singing.
+
+Drake now, distrusting them no longer, admitted them into his
+fortification, where they continued their song and dance a short time;
+and then both the king, and some others of the company, made long
+harangues, in which it appeared, by the rest of their behaviour, that
+they entreated him to accept of their country, and to take the
+government of it into his own hands; for the king, with the apparent
+concurrence of the rest, placed the crown upon his head, graced him
+with the chains and other signs of authority, and saluted him with the
+title of hioh.
+
+The kingdom thus offered, though of no further value to him than as it
+furnished him with present necessaries, Drake thought it not prudent
+to refuse; and, therefore, took possession of it in the name of queen
+Elizabeth, not without ardent wishes, that this acquisition might have
+been of use to his native country, and that so mild and innocent a
+people might have been united to the church of Christ.
+
+The kingdom being thus consigned, and the grand affair at an end, the
+common people left their king and his domesticks with Drake, and
+dispersed themselves over the camp; and when they saw any one that
+pleased them by his appearance more than the rest, they tore their
+flesh, and vented their outcries as before, in token of reverence and
+admiration.
+
+They then proceeded to show them their wounds and diseases, in hopes
+of a miraculous and instantaneous cure; to which the English, to
+benefit and undeceive them at the same time, applied such remedies as
+they used on the like occasions.
+
+They were now grown confident and familiar, and came down to the camp
+every day, repeating their ceremonies and sacrifices, till they were
+more fully informed how disagreeable they were to those whose favour
+they were so studious of obtaining: they then visited them without
+adoration, indeed, but with a curiosity so ardent, that it left them
+no leisure to provide the necessaries of life, with which the English
+were, therefore, obliged to supply them.
+
+They had then sufficient opportunity to remark the customs and
+dispositions of these new allies, whom they found tractable and
+benevolent, strong of body, far beyond the English, yet unfurnished
+with weapons, either for assault or defence, their bows being too weak
+for any thing but sport. Their dexterity in taking fish was such,
+that, if they saw them so near the shore that they could come to them
+without swimming, they never missed them.
+
+The same curiosity that had brought them in such crowds to the shore,
+now induced Drake, and some of his company, to travel up into the
+country, which they found, at some distance from the coast, very
+fruitful, filled with large deer, and abounding with a peculiar kind
+of conies, smaller than ours, with tails like that of a rat, and paws
+such as those of a mole; they have bags under their chin, in which
+they carry provisions to their young.
+
+The houses of the inhabitants are round holes dug in the ground, from
+the brink of which they raise rafters, or piles, shelving towards the
+middle, where they all meet, and are crammed together; they lie upon
+rushes, with the fire in the midst, and let the smoke fly out at the
+door.
+
+The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of
+bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer
+over their shoulders. They are very modest, tractable, and obedient to
+their husbands.
+
+Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is,
+perhaps, the state of the greatest part of mankind. Whether more
+enlightened nations ought to look upon them with pity, as less happy
+than themselves, some skepticks have made, very unnecessarily, a
+difficulty of determining. More, they say, is lost by the perplexities
+than gained by the instruction of science; we enlarge our vices with
+our knowledge, and multiply our wants with our attainments, and the
+happiness of life is better secured by the ignorance of vice, than by
+the knowledge of virtue.
+
+The fallacy by which such reasoners have imposed upon themselves,
+seems to arise from the comparison which they make, not between two
+men equally inclined to apply the means of happiness in their power to
+the end for which providence conferred them, but furnished in unequal
+proportions with the means of happiness, which is the true state of
+savage and polished nations; but between two men, of which he to whom
+providence has been most bountiful, destroys the blessings by
+negligence or obstinate misuse; while the other, steady, diligent, and
+virtuous, employs his abilities and conveniences to their proper end.
+The question is not, whether a good Indian or bad Englishman be most
+happy; but, which state is most desirable, supposing virtue and reason
+the same in both.
+
+Nor is this the only mistake which is generally admitted in this
+controversy, for these reasoners frequently confound innocence with
+the mere incapacity of guilt. He that never saw, or heard, or thought
+of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
+
+This land was named, by Drake, Albion, from its white cliffs, in which
+it bore some resemblance to his native country; and the whole history
+of the resignation of it to the English was engraven on a piece of
+brass, then nailed on a post, and fixed up before their departure,
+which being now discovered by the people to be near at hand, they
+could not forbear perpetual lamentations. When the English, on the
+23rd of July, weighed anchor, they saw them climbing to the tops of
+hills, that they might keep them in sight, and observed fires lighted
+up in many parts of the country, on which, as they supposed,
+sacrifices were offered.
+
+Near this harbour they touched at some islands, where they found great
+numbers of seals; and, despairing now to find any passage through the
+northern parts, he, after a general consultation, determined to steer
+away to the Moluccas, and setting sail July 25th, he sailed for
+sixty-eight days without sight of land; and, on September 30th,
+arrived within view of some islands, situate about eight degrees
+northward from the line, from whence the inhabitants resorted to them
+in canoes, hollowed out of the solid trunk of a tree, and raised at
+both ends so high above the water, that they seemed almost a
+semicircle; they were burnished in such a manner that they shone like
+ebony, and were kept steady by a piece of timber, fixed on each side
+of them, with strong canes, that were fastened at one end to the boat,
+and at the other to the end of the timber.
+
+The first company that came brought fruits, potatoes, and other things
+of no great value, with an appearance of traffick, and exchanged their
+lading for other commodities, with great show of honesty and
+friendship; but having, as they imagined, laid all suspicion asleep,
+they soon sent another fleet of canoes, of which the crews behaved
+with all the insolence of tyrants, and all the rapacity of thieves;
+for, whatever was suffered to come into their hands, they seemed to
+consider as their own, and would neither pay for it, nor restore it;
+and, at length, finding the English resolved to admit them no longer,
+they discharged a shower of stones from their boats, which insult
+Drake prudently and generously returned, by ordering a piece of
+ordnance to be fired without hurting them, at which they were so
+terrified, that they leaped into the water, and hid themselves under
+the canoes.
+
+Having, for some time, but little wind, they did not arrive at the
+Moluccas till the 3rd of November, and then, designing to touch at
+Tidore, they were visited, as they sailed by a little island belonging
+to the king of Ternate, by the viceroy of the place, who informed
+them, that it would be more advantageous for them to have recourse to
+his master, for supplies and assistance, than to the king of Ternate,
+who was, in some degree, dependent on the Portuguese, and that he
+would himself carry the news of their arrival, and prepare for their
+reception.
+
+Drake was, by the arguments of the viceroy, prevailed upon to alter
+his resolution, and, on November 5, cast anchor before Ternate; and
+scarce was he arrived, before the viceroy, with others of the chief
+nobles, came out in three large boats, rowed by forty men on each
+side, to conduct the ship into a safe harbour; and soon after the king
+himself, having received a velvet cloak by a messenger from Drake, as
+a token of peace, came with such a retinue and dignity of appearance,
+as was not expected in those remote parts of the world. He was
+received with discharges of cannons and every kind of musick, with
+which he was so much delighted, that, desiring the musicians to come
+down into the boat, he was towed along in it at the stern of the ship.
+
+The king was of a graceful stature, and regal carriage, of a mild
+aspect, and low voice; his attendants were dressed in white cotton or
+calico, of whom some, whose age gave them a venerable appearance,
+seemed his counsellors, and the rest officers or nobles; his guards
+were not ignorant of firearms, but had not many among them, being
+equipped, for the most part, with bows and darts.
+
+The king, having spent some time in admiring the multitude of new
+objects that presented themselves, retired as soon as the ship was
+brought to anchor, and promised to return on the day following; and,
+in the mean time, the inhabitants, having leave to traffick, brought
+down provisions in great abundance.
+
+At the time when the king was expected, his brother came on board, to
+request of Drake that he would come to the castle, proposing to stay
+himself as a hostage for his return. Drake refused to go, but sent
+some gentlemen, detaining the king's brother in the mean time.
+
+These gentlemen were received by another of the king's brothers, who
+conducted them to the council-house, near the castle, in which they
+were directed to walk: there they found threescore old men, privy
+counsellors to the king, and on each side of the door without stood
+four old men of foreign countries, who served as interpreters in
+commerce.
+
+In a short time the king came from the castle, dressed in cloth of
+gold, with his hair woven into gold rings, a chain of gold upon his
+neck, and on his hands rings very artificially set with diamonds and
+jewels of great value; over his head was borne a rich canopy; and by
+his chair of state, on which he sat down when he had entered the
+house, stood a page with a fan set with sapphires, to moderate the
+excess of the heat. Here he received the compliments of the English,
+and then honourably dismissed them.
+
+The castle, which they had some opportunity of observing, seemed of no
+great force; it was built by the Portuguese, who, attempting to reduce
+this kingdom into an absolute subjection, murdered the king, and
+intended to pursue their scheme by the destruction of all his sons;
+but the general abhorrence which cruelty and perfidy naturally excite,
+armed all the nation against them, and procured their total expulsion
+from all the dominions of Ternate, which, from that time, increasing
+in power, continued to make new conquests, and to deprive them of
+other acquisitions.
+
+While they lay before Ternate, a gentleman came on board, attended by
+his interpreter. He was dressed somewhat in the European manner, and
+soon distinguished himself from the natives of Ternate, or any other
+country that they had seen, by his civility and apprehension. Such a
+visitant may easily be imagined to excite their curiosity, which he
+gratified by informing them, that he was a native of China, of the
+family of the king then reigning; and that being accused of a capital
+crime, of which, though he was innocent, he had not evidence to clear
+himself, he had petitioned the king that he might not be exposed to a
+trial, but that his cause might be referred to divine providence, and
+that he might be allowed to leave his country, with a prohibition
+against returning, unless heaven, in attestation of his innocence,
+should enable him to bring back to the king some intelligence that
+might be to the honour and advantage of the empire of China. In search
+of such information he had now spent three years, and had left Tidore
+for the sake of conversing with the English general, from whom he
+hoped to receive such accounts as would enable him to return with
+honour and safety.
+
+Drake willingly recounted all his adventures and observations, to
+which the Chinese exile listened with the utmost attention and
+delight, and, having fixed them in his mind, thanked God for the
+knowledge he had gained. He then proposed to the English general to
+conduct him to China, recounting, by way of invitation, the wealth,
+extent, and felicity of that empire; but Drake could not be induced to
+prolong his voyage.
+
+He, therefore, set sail on the 9th of November, in quest of some
+convenient harbour, in a desert island, to refit his ship, not being
+willing, as it seems, to trust to the generosity of the king of
+Ternate. Five days afterwards he found a very commodious harbour, in
+an island overgrown with wood, where he repaired his vessel and
+refreshed his men, without danger or interruption.
+
+Leaving this place the 12th of December, they sailed towards the
+Celebes; but, having a wind not very favourable, they were detained
+among a multitude of islands, mingled with dangerous shallows, till
+January 9, 1580. When they thought themselves clear, and were sailing
+forward with a strong gale, they were, at the beginning of the night,
+surprised in their course by a sudden shock, of which the cause was
+easily discovered, for they were thrown upon a shoal, and, by the
+speed of their course, fixed too fast for any hope of escaping. Here
+even the intrepidity of Drake was shaken, and his dexterity baffled;
+but his piety, however, remained still the same, and what he could not
+now promise himself from his own ability, he hoped from the assistance
+of providence. The pump was plied, and the ship found free from new
+leaks.
+
+The next attempt was to discover towards the sea some place where they
+might fix their boat, and from thence drag the ship into deep water;
+but, upon examination, it appeared that the rock, on which they had
+struck, rose perpendicularly from the water, and that there was no
+anchorage, nor any bottom to be found a boat's length from the ship.
+But this discovery, with its consequences, was, by Drake, wisely
+concealed from the common sailors, lest they should abandon themselves
+to despair, for which there was indeed cause; there being no prospect
+left, but that they must there sink with the ship, which must,
+undoubtedly, be soon dashed to pieces, or perish in attempting to
+reach the shore in their boat, or be cut in pieces by barbarians, if
+they should arrive at land.
+
+In the midst of this perplexity and distress, Drake directed that the
+sacrament should be administered, and his men fortified with all the
+consolation which religion affords; then persuaded them to lighten the
+vessel, by throwing into the sea part of their lading, which was
+cheerfully complied with, but without effect. At length, when their
+hopes had forsaken them, and no new struggles could be made, they were
+on a sudden relieved by a remission of the wind, which, having
+hitherto blown strongly against the side of the ship which lay towards
+the sea, held it upright against the rock; but when the blast
+slackened, being then low water, the ship lying higher with that part
+which rested on the rock than with the other, and being borne up no
+longer by the wind, reeled into the deep water, to the surprise and
+joy of Drake and his companions.
+
+This was the greatest and most inextricable distress which they had
+ever suffered, and made such an impression upon their minds, that, for
+some time afterwards, they durst not adventure to spread their sails,
+but went slowly forward with the utmost circumspection.
+
+They thus continued their course without any observable occurrence,
+till, on the 11th of March, they came to an anchor, before the island
+of Java, and sending to the king a present of cloth and silks,
+received from him, in return, a large quantity of provisions; and, the
+day following, Drake went himself on shore, and entertained the king
+with his musick, and obtained leave to store his ship with provisions.
+
+The island is governed by a great number of petty kings, or raias,
+subordinate to one chief; of these princes three came on board
+together, a few days after their arrival; and having, upon their
+return, recounted the wonders which they had seen, and the civility
+with which they had been treated, incited others to satisfy their
+curiosity in the same manner; and raia Donan, the chief king, came
+himself to view the ship, with the warlike armaments and instruments
+of navigation.
+
+This intercourse of civilities somewhat retarded the business for
+which they came; but, at length, they not only victualled their ship,
+but cleansed the bottom, which, in the long course, was overgrown with
+a kind of shellfish that impeded her passage.
+
+Leaving Java, on March 26 they sailed homewards by the cape of Good
+Hope, which they saw on June the 5th; on the 15th of August passed the
+tropick; and on the 26th of September arrived at Plymouth, where they
+found that, by passing through so many different climates, they had
+lost a day in their account of time, it being Sunday by their journal,
+but Monday by the general computation.
+
+In this hazardous voyage they had spent two years, ten months, and
+some odd days; but were recompensed for their toils by great riches,
+and the universal applause of their countrymen. Drake afterwards
+brought his ship up to Deptford, where queen Elizabeth visited him on
+board his ship, and conferred the honour of knighthood upon him; an
+honour, in that illustrious reign, not made cheap by prostitution, nor
+even bestowed without uncommon merit.
+
+It is not necessary to give an account, equally particular, of the
+remaining part of his life, as he was no longer a private man, but
+engaged in publick affairs, and associated in his expeditions with
+other generals, whose attempts, and the success of them, are related
+in the histories of those times.
+
+In 1585, on the 12th of September, sir Francis Drake set sail from
+Plymouth with a fleet of five-and-twenty ships and pinnaces, of which
+himself was admiral, captain Martiu Forbisher, viceadmiral, and
+captain Francis Knollis, rearadmiral; they were fitted out to cruise
+upon the Spaniards; and having touched at the isle of Bayonne, and
+plundered Vigo, put to sea again, and on the 16th of November arrived
+before St. Jago, which they entered without resistance, and rested
+there fourteen days, visiting, in the mean time, San Domingo, a town
+within the land, which they found likewise deserted; and, carrying off
+what they pleased of the produce of the island, they, at their
+departure, destroyed the town and villages, in revenge of the murder
+of one of their boys, whose body they found mangled in a most inhuman
+manner.
+
+From this island they pursued their voyage to the West Indies,
+determining to attack St. Domingo in Hispaniola, as the richest place
+in that part of the world; they, therefore, landed a thousand men, and
+with small loss entered the town, of which they kept possession for a
+month without interruption or alarm; during which time a remarkable
+accident happened, which deserves to be related.
+
+Drake, having some intention of treating with the Spaniards, sent to
+them a negro boy with a flag of truce, which one of the Spaniards so
+little regarded, that he stabbed him through the body with a lance.
+The boy, notwithstanding his wound, came back to the general, related
+the treatment which he had found, and died in his sight. Drake was so
+incensed at this outrage, that he ordered two friars, then his
+prisoners, to be conveyed with a guard to the place where the crime
+was committed, and hanged up in the sight of the Spaniards, declaring
+that two Spanish prisoners should undergo the same death every day,
+till the offender should be delivered up by them: they were too well
+acquainted with the character of Drake not to bring him on the day
+following, when, to impress the shame of such actions more effectually
+upon them, he compelled them to execute him with their own hands. Of
+this town, at their departure, they demolished part, and admitted the
+rest to be ransomed for five and twenty thousand ducats.
+
+From thence they sailed to Carthagena, where the enemy having received
+intelligence of the fate of St. Domingo, had strengthened their
+fortifications, and prepared to defend themselves with great
+obstinacy; but the English, landing in the night, came upon them by a
+way which they did not suspect, and being better armed, partly by
+surprise, and partly by superiority of order and valour, became
+masters of the place, where they stayed without fear or danger six
+weeks, and, at their departure, received a hundred and ten thousand
+ducats, for the ransome of the town.
+
+They afterwards took St. Augustin, and, touching at Virginia, took on
+board the governour, Mr. Lane, with the English that had been left
+there, the year before, by sir Walter Raleigh, and arrived at
+Portsmouth on July 28, 1586, having lost in the voyage seven hundred
+and fifty men. The gain of this expedition amounted to sixty thousand
+pounds, of which forty were the share of the adventurers who fitted
+out the ships, and the rest, distributed among the several crews,
+amounted to six pounds each man. So cheaply is life sometimes
+hazarded.
+
+The transactions against the armada, 1588, are, in themselves, far
+more memorable, but less necessary to be recited in this succinct
+narrative; only let it be remembered, that the post of viceadmiral of
+England, to which sir Francis Drake was then raised, is a sufficient
+proof, that no obscurity of birth, or meanness of fortune, is
+unsurmountable to bravery and diligence.
+
+In 1595, sir Francis Drake and sir John Hawkins were sent with a fleet
+to the West Indies, which expedition was only memorable for the
+destruction of Nombre de Dios, and the death of the two commanders, of
+whom sir Francis Drake died January 9, 1597, and was thrown into the
+sea in a leaden coffin, with all the pomp of naval obsequies. It is
+reported by some, that the ill success of this voyage hastened his
+death. Upon what this conjecture is grounded does not appear; and we
+may be allowed to hope, for the honour of so great a man, that it is
+without foundation; and that he, whom no series of success could ever
+betray to vanity or negligence, could have supported a change of
+fortune without impatience or dejection.
+
+
+
+
+BARRETIER [45].
+
+
+Having not been able to procure materials for a complete life of Mr.
+Barretier, and being, nevertheless, willing to gratify the curiosity
+justly raised in the publick by his uncommon attainments, we think the
+following extracts of letters written by his father, proper to be
+inserted in our collection, as they contain many remarkable passages,
+and exhibit a general view of his genius and learning.
+
+John Philip Barretier was born at Schwabach, January 19, 1720-21. His
+father was a calvinist minister of that place, who took upon himself
+the care of his education. What arts of instruction he used, or by
+what method he regulated the studies of his son, we are not able to
+inform the publick; but take this opportunity of intreating those, who
+have received more complete intelligence, not to deny mankind so great
+a benefit as the improvement of education. If Mr. le Fevre thought the
+method in which he taught his children, worthy to be communicated to
+the learned world, how justly may Mr. Barretier claim the universal
+attention of mankind to a scheme of education that has produced such a
+stupendous progress! The authors, who have endeavoured to teach
+certain and unfailing rules for obtaining a long life, however they
+have failed in their attempts, are universally confessed to have, at
+least, the merit of a great and noble design, and to have deserved
+gratitude and honour. How much more then is due to Mr. Barretier, who
+has succeeded in what they have only attempted? for to prolong life,
+and improve it, are nearly the same. If to have all that riches can
+purchase, is to be rich; if to do all that can be done in a long time,
+is to live long; he is equally a benefactor to mankind, who teaches
+them to protract the duration, or shorten the business of life.
+
+That there are few things more worthy our curiosity than this method,
+by which the father assisted the genius of the son, every man will be
+convinced, that considers the early proficiency at which it enabled
+him to arrive; such a proficiency as no one has yet reached at the
+same age, and to which it is, therefore, probable, that every
+advantageous circumstance concurred.
+
+_At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+languages_, an attainment in itself almost incredible, but
+understood, says his father, the holy writers, better in their
+original tongues, than in his own. If he means, by this assertion,
+that he knew the sense of many passages in the original, which were
+obscure in the translation, the account, however wonderful, may be
+admitted; but if he intends to tell his correspondent, that his son
+was better acquainted with the two languages of the Bible than with
+his own, he must be allowed to speak hyperbolically, or to admit, that
+his son had somewhat neglected the study of his native language; or we
+must own, that the fondness of a parent has transported him into some
+natural exaggerations.
+
+Part of this letter I am tempted to suppress, being unwilling to
+demand the belief of others to that which appears incredible to
+myself; but as my incredulity may, perhaps, be the product rather of
+prejudice than reason, as envy may beget a disinclination to admit so
+immense a superiority, and as an account is not to be immediately
+censured as false, merely because it is wonderful, I shall proceed to
+give the rest of his father's relation, from his letter of the 3rd of
+March, 1729-30. He speaks, continues he, German, Latin, and French,
+equally well. He can, by laying before him a translation, read any of
+the books of the Old or New Testament, in its original language,
+without hesitation or perplexity. _He is no stranger to biblical
+criticism_ or philosophy, nor unacquainted with ancient and modern
+geography, and is qualified to support a conversation with learned
+men, who frequently visit and correspond with him.
+
+In his eleventh year, he not only published a learned letter in Latin,
+but translated the travels of rabbi Benjamin from the Hebrew into
+French, which he illustrated with notes, and accompanied with
+dissertations; a work in which his father, as he himself declares,
+could give him little assistance, as he did not understand the
+rabbinical dialect.
+
+The reason for which his father engaged him in this work, was only to
+prevail upon him to write a fairer hand than he had hitherto
+accustomed himself to do, by giving him hopes, that, if he should
+translate some little author, and offer a fair copy of his version to
+some bookseller, he might, in return for it, have other books which he
+wanted and could not afford to purchase.
+
+Incited by this expectation, he fixed upon the travels of rabbi
+Benjamin, as most proper for his purpose, being a book neither bulky
+nor common, and in one month completed his translation, applying only
+one or two hours a day to that particular task. In another month, he
+drew up the principal notes; and, in the third, wrote some
+dissertations upon particular passages which seemed to require a
+larger examination.
+
+These notes contain so many curious remarks and inquiries, out of the
+common road of learning, and afford so many instances of penetration,
+judgment, and accuracy, that the reader finds, in every page, some
+reason to persuade him that they cannot possibly be the work of a
+child, but of a man long accustomed to these studies, enlightened by
+reflection, and dextrous, by long practice, in the use of books. Yet,
+that it is the performance of a boy thus young, is not only proved by
+the testimony of his father, but by the concurrent evidence of Mr. le
+Maitre, his associate in the church of Schwabach, who not only asserts
+his claim to this work, but affirms, that he heard him, at six years
+of age, explain the Hebrew text, as if it had been his native
+language; so that the fact is not to be doubted without, a degree of
+incredulity, which it will not be very easy to defend.
+
+This copy was, however, far from being written with the neatness which
+his father desired; nor did the booksellers, to whom it was offered,
+make proposals very agreeable to the expectations of the young
+translator; but, after having examined the performance in their
+manner, and determined to print it upon conditions not very
+advantageous, returned it to be transcribed, that the printers might
+not be embarrassed with a copy so difficult to read.
+
+Barretier was now advanced to the latter end of his twelfth year, and
+had made great advances in his studies, notwithstanding an obstinate
+tumour in his left hand, which gave him great pain, and obliged him to
+a tedious and troublesome method of cure; and reading over his
+performance, was so far from contenting himself with barely
+transcribing it, that he altered the greatest part of the notes,
+new-modelled the dissertations, and augmented the book to twice its
+former bulk.
+
+The few touches which his father bestowed upon the revisal of the
+book, though they are minutely set down by him in the preface, are so
+inconsiderable, that it is not necessary to mention them; and it may
+be much more agreeable, as well as useful, to exhibit the short
+account which he there gives of the method by which he enabled his son
+to show, so early, how easy an attainment is the knowledge of the
+languages, a knowledge which some men spend their lives in
+cultivating, to the neglect of more valuable studies, and which they
+seem to regard as the highest perfection of human nature.
+
+What applauses are due to an old age, wasted in a scrupulous attention
+to particular accents and etymologies, may appear, says his father, by
+seeing how little time is required to arrive at such an eminence in
+these studies as many, even of these venerable doctors, have not
+attained, for want of rational methods and regular application.
+
+This censure is, doubtless, just, upon those who spend too much of
+their lives upon useless niceties, or who appear to labour without
+making any progress; but, as the knowledge of language is necessary,
+and a minute accuracy sometimes requisite, they are by no means to be
+blamed, who, in compliance with the particular bent of their own
+minds, make the difficulties of dead languages their chief study, and
+arrive at excellence proportionate to their application, since it was
+to the labour of such men that his son was indebted for his own
+learning.
+
+The first languages which Barretier learned were the French, German,
+and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude
+of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and
+burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which
+they require, and the disgust which they create. The method by which
+he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and, therefore, pleasing.
+He learned them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time,
+by conversing in them indifferently with his father.
+
+The other languages, of which he was master, he learned by a method
+yet more uncommon. The only book which he made use of was the Bible,
+which his father laid before him in the language that he then proposed
+to learn, accompanied with a translation, being taught, by degrees,
+the inflections of nouns and verbs. This method, says his father, made
+the Latin more familiar to him, in his fourth year, than any other
+language.
+
+When he was near the end of his sixth year, he entered upon the study
+of the Old Testament, in its original language, beginning with the
+book of Genesis, to which his father confined him for six months;
+after which he read cursorily over the rest of the historical books,
+in which he found very little difficulty, and then applied himself to
+the study of the poetical writers, and the prophets, which he read
+over so often, with so close an attention, and so happy a memory, that
+he could not only translate them, without a moment's hesitation, into
+Latin or French, but turn, with the same facility, the translations
+into the original language in his tenth year.
+
+Growing, at length, weary of being confined to a book which he could
+almost entirely repeat, he deviated, by stealth, into other studies,
+and, as his translation of Benjamin is a sufficient evidence, he read
+a multitude of writers, of various kinds. _In his twelfth year he
+applied more particularly to the study of the fathers_, and
+councils of the six first centuries, and began to make a regular
+collection of their canons. He read every author in the original,
+having discovered so much negligence or ignorance in most
+translations, that he paid no regard to their authority.
+
+Thus he continued his studies, neither drawn aside by pleasures nor
+discouraged by difficulties. The greatest obstacle to his improvement
+was want of books, with which his narrow fortune could not liberally
+supply him; so that he was obliged to borrow the greatest part of
+those which his studies required, and to return them when he had read
+them, without being able to consult them occasionally, or to recur to
+them when his memory should fail him.
+
+It is observable, that neither his diligence, unintermitted as it was,
+nor his want of books, a want of which he was, in the highest degree,
+sensible, ever produced in him that asperity, which a long and recluse
+life, without any circumstance of disquiet, frequently creates. He was
+always gay, lively, and facetious; a temper which contributed much to
+recommend his learning, and which some students, much superiour in
+age, would consult their ease, their reputation, and their interest,
+by copying from him.
+
+In the year 1735 he published Anti-Artemonius; sive, initium evangelii
+S. Joannis adversus Artemonium vindicatum; and attained such a degree
+of reputation, that not only the publick, but _princes, who are
+commonly the last_ by whom merit is distinguished, began to
+interest themselves in his success; for, the same year, the king of
+Prussia, who had heard of his early advances in literature, on account
+of a scheme for discovering the longitude, which had been sent to the
+Royal society of Berlin, and which was transmitted afterwards by him
+to Paris and London, engaged to take care of his fortune, having
+received further proofs of his abilities at his own court.
+
+Mr. Barretier, being promoted to the cure of the church of Stetin, was
+obliged to travel with his son thither, from Schwabach, through
+Leipsic and Berlin, a journey very agreeable to his son, as it would
+furnish him with new opportunities of improving his knowledge, and
+extending his acquaintance among men of letters. For this purpose they
+stayed some time at Leipsic, and then travelled to Halle, where young
+Barretier so distinguished himself in his conversation with the
+professors of the university, that they offered him his degree of
+doctor in philosophy, a dignity correspondent to that of master of
+arts among us. Barretier drew up, that night, some positions in
+philosophy, and the mathematicks, which he sent immediately to the
+press, and defended, the next day, in a crowded auditory, with so much
+wit, spirit, presence of thought, and strength of reason, that the
+whole university was delighted and amazed; he was then admitted to his
+degree, and attended by the whole concourse to his lodgings, with
+compliments and acclamations.
+
+His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed in compliance
+with the practice of that university, ran through several editions in
+a few weeks, and no testimony of regard was wanting, that could
+contribute to animate him in his progress.
+
+When they arrived at Berlin, the king ordered him to be brought into
+his presence, and was so much pleased with his conversation, that he
+sent for him almost every day during his stay at Berlin; and diverted
+himself with engaging him in conversations upon a multitude of
+subjects, and in disputes with learned men; on all which occasions he
+acquitted himself so happily, that the king formed the highest ideas
+of his capacity, and future eminence. And thinking, perhaps with
+reason, that active life was the noblest sphere of a great genius, he
+recommended to him the study of modern history, the customs of
+nations, and those parts of learning, that are of use in publick
+transactions and civil employments, declaring, that such abilities,
+properly cultivated, might exalt him, in ten years, to be the greatest
+minister of state in Europe.
+
+Barretier, whether we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience,
+was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered,
+that _he was too much pleased with science and quiet_, to leave
+them for such inextricable studies, or such harassing fatigues. A
+resolution so unpleasing to the king, that his father attributes to it
+the delay of those favours which they had hopes of receiving, the king
+having, as he observes, determined to employ him in the ministry.
+
+It is not impossible that paternal affection might suggest to Mr.
+Barretier some false conceptions of the king's design; for he infers,
+from the introduction of his son to the young princes, and the
+caresses which he received from them, that the king intended him for
+their preceptor; a scheme, says he, which some other resolution
+happily destroyed.
+
+Whatever was originally intended, and by whatever means these
+intentions were frustrated, Barretier, after having been treated with
+the highest regard by the whole royal family, was dismissed with a
+present of two hundred crowns; and his father, instead of being fixed
+at Stetin, was made pastor of the French church at Halle; a place more
+commodious for study, to which they retired; Barretier being first
+admitted into the Royal society at Berlin, and recommended, by the
+king, to the university at Halle.
+
+_At Halle he continued his studies_ with his usual application
+and success, and, either by his own reflections, or the persuasions of
+his father, was prevailed upon to give up his own inclinations to
+those of the king, and direct his inquiries to those subjects that had
+been recommended by him.
+
+He continued to add new acquisitions to his learning, and to increase
+his reputation by new performances, till, in the beginning of his
+nineteenth year, his health began to decline, and his indisposition,
+which, being not alarming or violent, was, perhaps, not at first
+sufficiently regarded, increased by slow degrees for eighteen months,
+during which he spent days among his books, and neither neglected his
+studies, nor left his gaiety, till his distemper, ten days before his
+death, deprived him of the use of his limbs: he then prepared himself
+for his end, without fear or emotion, and, on the 5th of October,
+1740, resigned his soul into the hands of his saviour, with
+_confidence and tranquillity_.
+
+
+
+
+In the Magazine for 1742 appeared the following
+
+ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT of the LIFE OF JOHN PHILIP BARRETIER [46].
+
+
+"As the nature of our collections requires that our accounts of
+remarkable persons and transactions should be early, our readers must
+necessarily pardon us, if they are often not complete, and allow us to
+be sufficiently studious of their satisfaction, if we correct our
+errours, and supply our defects from subsequent intelligence, where
+the importance of the subject merits an extraordinary attention, or
+when we have any peculiar opportunities of procuring information. The
+particulars here inserted we thought proper to annex, by way of note,
+to the following passages, quoted from the magazine for December,
+1740, and for February, 1741."
+
+P. 377. _At the age of nine years he not only was master of five
+languages._
+
+French, which was the native language of his mother, was that which he
+learned first, mixed, by living in Germany, with some words of the
+language of the country. After some time, his father took care to
+introduce, in his conversation with him, some words of Latin, in such
+a manner that he might discover the meaning of them by the connexion
+of the sentence, or the occasion on which they were used, without
+discovering that he had any intention of instructing him, or that any
+new attainment was proposed.
+
+By this method of conversation, in which new words were every day
+introduced, his ear had been somewhat accustomed to the inflections
+and variations of the Latin tongue, he began to attempt to speak like
+his father, and was in a short time drawn on, by imperceptible
+degrees, to speak Latin, intermixed with other languages.
+
+Thus, when he was but four years old, he spoke every day French to his
+mother, Latin to his father, and high Dutch to the maid, without any
+perplexity to himself, or any confusion of one language with another.
+
+P. 377. _He is no stranger to biblical criticism._
+
+Having now gained such a degree of skill in the Hebrew language, as to
+be able to compose in it, both in prose and verse, he was extremely
+desirous of reading the rabbins; and having borrowed of the
+neighbouring clergy, and the jews of Schwabach, all the books which
+they could supply him, he prevailed on his father to buy him the great
+rabbinical Bible, published at Amsterdam, in four tomes, folio, 1728,
+and read it with that accuracy and attention which appears, by the
+account of it written by him to his favourite M. le Maitre, inserted
+in the beginning of the twenty-sixth volume of the Bibliotheque
+germanique.
+
+These writers were read by him, as other young persons peruse romances
+or novels, only from a puerile desire of amusement; for he had so
+little veneration for them, even while he studied them with most
+eagerness, that he often diverted his parents with recounting their
+fables and chimeras.
+
+P. 381. _In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the
+study of the fathers._
+
+His father being somewhat uneasy to observe so much time spent by him
+on rabbinical trifles, thought it necessary now to recall him to the
+study of the Greek language, which he had of late neglected, but to
+which he returned with so much ardour, that, in a short time, he was
+able to read Greek with the same facility as French or Latin.
+
+He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of
+the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father's
+desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the
+name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning
+of St. John's gospel, a reading different from that which is at
+present received, and less favourable to the orthodox doctrine of the
+divinity of our Saviour.
+
+This task was undertaken by Barretier with great ardour, and
+prosecuted by him with suitable application, for he not only drew up a
+formal confutation of Artemonius, but made large collections from the
+earliest writers, relating to the history of heresies, which he
+proposed at first to have published as preliminaries to his book, but,
+finding the introduction grew at last to a greater bulk than the book
+itself, he determined to publish it apart.
+
+While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of
+globes into his hands, in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so
+much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, and applied himself
+to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the
+problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so
+clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that
+he began to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose,
+laying aside, for a time, all searches into antiquity, he employed his
+utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematicks, and
+made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have
+spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an
+astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables, but invented new methods
+of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him, because they
+were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of
+reading; and it is a sufficient proof, both of the rapidity of his
+progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his
+first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the
+longitude, which he sent, in January, 1735, to the Royal society at
+London.
+
+His scheme, being recommended to the society by the queen, was
+considered by them with a degree of attention which, perhaps, would
+not have been bestowed upon the attempt of a mathematician so young,
+had he not been dignified with so illustrious a patronage. But it was
+soon found, that, for want of books, he had imagined himself the
+inventor of methods already in common use, and that he proposed no
+means of discovering the longitude, but such as had been already tried
+and found insufficient. Such will be very frequently the fate of
+those, whose fortune either condemns them to study without the
+necessary assistance from libraries, or who, in too much haste,
+publish their discoveries.
+
+This attempt exhibited, however, such a specimen of his capacity for
+mathematical learning, and such a proof of an early proficiency, that
+the Royal society of Berlin admitted him as one of their members in
+1735.
+
+P. 381. _Princes, who are commonly the last_.
+
+Barretier, had been distinguished much more early by the margravin of
+Anspach, who, in 1726, sent for his father and mother to the court,
+where their son, whom they carried with them, presented her with a
+letter in French, and addressed another in Latin to the young prince;
+who afterwards, in 1734, granted him the privilege of borrowing books
+from the libraries of Anspach, together with an annual pension of
+fifty florins, which he enjoyed for four years.
+
+In this place it may not be improper to recount some honours conferred
+upon him, which, if distinctions are to be rated by the knowledge of
+those who bestow them, may be considered as more valuable than those
+which he received from princes.
+
+In June, 1731, he was initiated in the university of Altdorft, and at
+the end of the year 1732, the synod of the reformed churches, held at
+Christian Erlang, admitted him to be present at their consultations,
+and to preserve the memory of so extraordinary a transaction, as the
+reception of a boy of eleven years into an ecclesiastical council,
+recorded it in a particular article of the acts of the synod.
+
+P. 383. _He was too much pleased with science and quiet_.
+
+Astronomy was always Barretier's favourite study, and so much
+engrossed his thoughts, that he did not willingly converse on any
+other subject; nor was he so well pleased with the civilities of the
+greatest persons, as with the conversation of the mathematicians. An
+astronomical observation was sufficient to withhold him from court, or
+to call him away abruptly from the most illustrious assemblies; nor
+was there any hope of enjoying his company, without inviting some
+professor to keep him in temper, and engage him in discourse; nor was
+it possible, without this expedient, to prevail upon him to sit for
+his picture.
+
+Ibid. _At Halle he continued his studies._
+
+Mr. Barretier returned, on the 28th of April, 1735, to Halle, where he
+continued the remaining part of his life, of which it may not be
+improper to give a more particular account.
+
+At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his
+privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the
+students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him,
+though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments,
+too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities. He published an
+invitation to three lectures; one critical on the book of Job, another
+on astronomy, and a third upon ancient ecclesiastical history. But of
+this employment he was soon made weary by the petulance of his
+auditors, the fatigue which it occasioned, and the interruption of his
+studies which it produced, and, therefore, in a fortnight, he desisted
+wholly from his lectures, and never afterwards resumed them.
+
+He then applied himself to the study of the law, almost against his
+own inclination, which, however, he conquered so far as to become a
+regular attendant on the lectures on that science, but spent all his
+other time upon different studies.
+
+The first year of his residence at Halle was spent upon natural
+philosophy and mathematicks; and scarcely any author, ancient or
+modern, that has treated on those parts of learning was neglected by
+him, nor was he satisfied with the knowledge of what had been
+discovered by others, but made new observations, and drew up immense
+calculations for his own use.
+
+He then returned to ecclesiastical history, and began to retouch his
+Account of Heresies, which he had begun at Schwabach: on this occasion
+he read the primitive writers with great accuracy, and formed a
+project of regulating the chronology of those ages; which produced a
+Chrono-logical Dissertation on the succession of the Bishops of Rome,
+from St. Peter to Victor, printed in Latin at Utrecht, 1740.
+
+He afterwards was wholly absorbed in application to polite literature,
+and read not only a multitude of writers in the Greek and Latin, but
+in the German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Arabick languages,
+and, in the last year of his life, he was engrossed by the study of
+inscriptions, medals, and antiquities of all nations.
+
+In 1737 he resumed his design of finding a certain method of
+discovering the longitude, which he imagined himself to have attained
+by exact observations of the declination and inclination of the
+needle, and sent to the academy of sciences, and to the Royal society
+of London, at the same time, an account of his schemes; to which it
+was first answered by the Royal society, that it appeared the same
+with one which Mr. Whiston had laid before them; and afterwards by the
+academy of sciences, that his method was but very little different
+from one that had been proposed by M. de la Croix, and which was
+ingenious, but ineffectual.
+
+Mr. Barretier, finding his invention already in the possession of two
+men eminent for mathematical knowledge, desisted from all inquiries
+after the longitude, and engaged in an examination of the Egyptian
+antiquities, which he proposed to free from their present obscurity,
+by deciphering the hieroglyphicks, and explaining their astronomy; but
+this design was interrupted by his death.
+
+P. 384. _Confidence and tranquillity_.
+
+Thus died Barretier, in the 20th year of his age, having given a proof
+how much may be performed in so short a time by indefatigable
+diligence. He was not only master of many languages, but skilled
+almost in every science, and capable of distinguishing himself in
+every profession, except that of physick, from which he had been
+discouraged by remarking the diversity of opinions among those who had
+been consulted concerning his own disorders.
+
+His learning, however vast, had not depressed or overburdened his
+natural faculties, for his genius always appeared predominant; and
+when he inquired into the various opinions of the writers of all ages,
+he reasoned and determined for himself, having a mind at once
+comprehensive and delicate, active and attentive. He was able to
+reason with the metaphysicians on the most abstruse questions, or to
+enliven the most unpleasing subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He
+wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar
+felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook,
+being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into
+another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed
+original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of
+memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at
+the same time, to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect
+and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what
+was useful for his purpose. He seldom made extracts, except of books
+which he could not procure when he might want them a second time,
+being always able to find in any author, with great expedition, what
+he had once read. He read over, in one winter, twenty vast folios; and
+the catalogue of books which he had borrowed, comprised forty-one
+pages in quarto, the writing close, and the titles abridged. He was a
+constant reader of literary journals.
+
+With regard to common life he had some peculiarities. He could not
+bear musick, and if he was ever engaged at play could not attend to
+it. He neither loved wine nor entertainments, nor dancing, nor the
+sports of the field, nor relieved his studies with any other diversion
+than that of walking and conversation. He eat little flesh, and lived
+almost wholly upon milk, tea, bread, fruits, and sweetmeats.
+
+He had great vivacity in his imagination, and ardour in his desires,
+which the easy method of his education had never repressed; he,
+therefore, conversed among those who had gained his confidence with
+great freedom, but his favourites were not numerous, and to others he
+was always reserved and silent, without the least inclination to
+discover his sentiments, or display his learning. He never fixed his
+choice upon any employment, nor confined his views to any profession,
+being desirous of nothing but knowledge, and entirely untainted with
+avarice or ambition. He preserved himself always independent, and was
+never known to be guilty of a lie. His constant application to
+learning suppressed those passions which betray others of his age to
+irregularities, and excluded all those temptations to which men are
+exposed by idleness or common amusements.
+
+
+
+
+MORIN [47].
+
+
+Lewis Morin was born at Mans, on the 11th of July, 1635, of parents
+eminent for their piety. He was the eldest of sixteen children; a
+family to which their estate bore no proportion, and which, in persons
+less resigned to providence, would have caused great uneasiness and
+anxiety.
+
+His parents omitted nothing in his education, which religion requires,
+and which their fortune could supply. Botany was the study that
+appeared to have taken possession of his inclination, as soon as the
+bent of his genius could be discovered. A countryman, who supplied the
+apothecaries of the place, was his first master, and was paid by him
+for his instructions with the little money that he could procure, or
+that which was given him to buy something to eat after dinner. Thus
+abstinence and generosity discovered themselves with his passion for
+botany, and the gratification of a desire indifferent in itself, was
+procured by the exercise of two virtues.
+
+He was soon master of all his instructer's knowledge, and was obliged
+to enlarge his acquaintance with plants, by observing them himself in
+the neighbourhood of Mans. Having finished his grammatical studies, he
+was sent to learn philosophy at Paris, whither he travelled on foot
+like a student in botany, and was careful not to lose such an
+opportunity of improvement.
+
+When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his
+love of botany, to the profession of physick, and, from that time,
+engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded, either by the
+ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he
+confined himself to bread and water, and, at most, allowed himself no
+indulgence beyond fruits. By this method, he preserved a constant
+freedom and serenity of spirits, always equally proper for study; for
+his soul had no pretences to complain of being overwhelmed with
+matter. This regimen, extraordinary as it was, had many advantages;
+for it preserved his health, an advantage which very few sufficiently
+regard; it gave him an authority to preach diet and abstinence to his
+patients; and it made him rich without the assistance of fortune;
+rich, not for himself, but for the poor, who were the only persons
+benefited by that artificial affluence, which, of all others, is most
+difficult to acquire. It is easy to imagine, that, while he practised
+in the midst of Paris the severe temperance of a hermit, Paris
+differed no otherwise, with regard to him, from a hermitage, than as
+it supplied him with books and the conversation of learned men.
+
+In 1662, he was admitted doctor of physick. About that time Dr. Fagon,
+Dr. Longuet, and Dr. Galois, all eminent for their skill in botany,
+were employed in drawing up a catalogue of the plants in the Royal
+garden, which was published in 1665, under the name of Dr. Vallot,
+then first physician: during the prosecution of this work, Dr. Morin
+was often consulted, and from those conversations it was that Dr.
+Fagon conceived a particular esteem of him, which he always continued
+to retain.
+
+After having practised physick some years, he was admitted
+_expectant_ at the Hotel-Dieu, where he was regularly to have
+been made pensionary physician upon the first vacancy; but mere
+unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it
+advances at all. Morin had no acquaintance with the arts necessary to
+carry on schemes of preferment; the moderation of his desires
+preserved him from the necessity of studying them, and the privacy of
+his life debarred him from any opportunity. At last, however, justice
+was done him, in spite of artifice and partiality; but his advancement
+added nothing to his condition, except the power of more extensive
+charity; for all the money which he received, as a salary, he put into
+the chest of the hospital, always, as he imagined, without being
+observed. Not content with serving the poor for nothing, he paid them
+for being served.
+
+His reputation rose so high in Paris, that mademoiselle de Guise was
+desirous to make him her physician; but it was not without difficulty
+that he was prevailed upon by his friend, Dr. Dodart, to accept the
+place. He was by this new advancement laid under the necessity of
+keeping a chariot, an equipage very unsuitable to his temper; but
+while he complied with those exterior appearances, which the publick
+had a right to demand from him, he remitted nothing of his former
+austerity, in the more private and essential parts of his life, which
+he had always the power of regulating according to his own
+disposition.
+
+In two years and a half the princess fell sick, and was despaired of
+by Morin, who was a great master of prognosticks. At the time when she
+thought herself in no danger he pronounced her death inevitable; a
+declaration to the highest degree disagreeable, but which was made
+more easy to him than to any other, by his piety and artless
+simplicity. Nor did his sincerity produce any ill consequences to
+himself; for the princess, affected by his zeal, taking a ring from
+her finger, gave it him, as the last pledge of her affection, and
+rewarded him still more to his satisfaction, by preparing for death
+with a true Christian piety. She left him, by will, a yearly pension
+of two thousand livres, which was always regularly paid him.
+
+No sooner was the princess dead, but he freed himself from the
+encumbrance of his chariot, and retired to St. Victor, without a
+servant; having, however, augmented his daily allowance with a little
+rice, boiled in water. Dodart, who had undertaken the charge of being
+ambitious on his account, procured him, at the restoration of the
+academy, in 1699, to be nominated associate botanist; not knowing,
+what he would doubtless have been pleased with the knowledge of, that
+he introduced into that assembly the man that was to succeed him in
+his place of _pensionary_.
+
+Dr. Morin was not one who had upon his hands the labour of adapting
+himself to the duties of his condition, but always found himself
+naturally adapted to them. He had, therefore, no difficulty in being
+constant at the assemblies of the academy, notwithstanding the
+distance of places, while he had strength enough to support the
+journey. But his regimen was not equally effectual to produce vigour
+as to prevent distempers; and, being sixty-four years old at his
+admission, he could not continue his assiduity more than a year after
+the death of Dodart, whom he succeeded in 1707.
+
+When Mr. Tournefort went to pursue his botanical inquiries in the
+Levant, he desired Dr. Morin to supply his place of demonstrator of
+the plants in the Royal garden, and rewarded him for the trouble, by
+inscribing to him a new plant, which he brought from the east, by the
+name of Morina orientalis, as he named others the Do-darto, the
+Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipee. These are compliments proper to
+be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to
+the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable
+nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these
+vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name
+conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other
+name than that of tobacco.
+
+Dr. Morin, advancing far in age, was now forced to take a servant,
+and, what was yet a more essential alteration, prevailed upon himself
+to take an ounce of wine a day, which he measured with the same
+exactness as a medicine bordering upon poison. He quitted, at the same
+time, all his practice in the city, and confined it to the poor of his
+neighbourhood, and his visits to the Hotel-Dieu; but his weakness
+increasing, he was forced to increase his quantity of wine, which yet
+he always continued to adjust by weight [48].
+
+At seventy-eight his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely
+left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the
+last six months of his life. He expired, or, to use a more proper
+term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of eighty years,
+without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having
+enjoyed, by the benefit of his regimen, a long and healthy life, and a
+gentle and easy death.
+
+This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his
+life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and
+exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.
+
+He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He
+spent, in the morning, three hours at his devotions, and went to the
+Hotel-Dieu, in the summer, between five and six, and, in the winter,
+between six and seven, hearing mass, for the most part, at Notre Dame.
+After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and,
+when it was fair weather, walked till two in the Royal garden, where
+he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest
+passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to
+visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physick,
+but chiefly physick, as the duty of his profession required. This,
+likewise, was the time he received visits, if any were paid him. He
+often used this expression: "Those that come to see me, do me honour;
+those that stay away, do me a favour." It is easy to conceive, that a
+man of this temper was not crowded with salutations: there was only
+now and then an Antony that would pay Paul a visit.
+
+Among his papers was found a Greek and Latin index to Hippocrates,
+more copious and exact than that of Pini, which he had finished only a
+year before his death. Such a work required the assiduity and patience
+of a hermit [49]. There is, likewise, a journal of the weather, kept
+without interruption, for more than forty years, in which he has
+accurately set down the state of the barometer and thermometer, the
+dryness and moisture of the air, the variations of the wind in the
+course of the day, the rain, the thunders, and even the sudden storms,
+in a very commodious and concise method, which exhibits, in a little
+room, a great train of different observations. What numbers of such
+remarks had escaped a man less uniform in his life, and whose
+attention had been extended to common objects!
+
+All the estate which he left is a collection of medals, another of
+herbs, and a library rated at two thousand crowns; which make it
+evident that he spent much more upon his mind than upon his body.
+
+
+
+
+BURMAN [50].
+
+
+Peter Burman was born at Utrecht, on the 26th day of June, 1668. The
+family from which he descended has, for several generations, produced
+men of great eminence for piety and learning; and his father, who was
+professor of divinity in the university, and pastor of the city of
+Utrech't, was equally celebrated for the strictness of his life, the
+efficacy and orthodoxy of his sermons, and the learning and
+perspicuity of his academical lectures.
+
+From the assistance and instruction which such a father would
+doubtless have been encouraged by the genius of this son not to have
+omitted, he was unhappily cut off at eleven years of age, being at
+that time, by his father's death, thrown entirely under the care of
+his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was
+so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness,
+to regret the loss of his father.
+
+He was, about this time, sent to the publick school of Utrecht, to be
+instructed in the learned languages; and it will convey no common idea
+of his capacity and industry to relate, that he had passed through the
+classes, and was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year.
+
+This account of the rapidity of his progress in the first part of his
+studies is so stupendous, that, though it is attested by his friend,
+Dr. Osterdyke, of whom it cannot be reasonably suspected that he is
+himself deceived, or that he can desire to deceive others, it must be
+allowed far to exceed the limits of probability, if it be considered,
+with regard to the methods of education practised in our country,
+where it is not uncommon for the highest genius, and most
+comprehensive capacity, to be entangled for ten years, in those thorny
+paths of literature, which Burman is represented to have passed in
+less than two; and we must, doubtless, confess the most skilful of our
+masters much excelled by the address of the Dutch teachers, or the
+abilities of our greatest scholars far surpassed by those of Burinan.
+
+But, to reduce this narrative to credibility, it is necessary that
+admiration should give place to inquiry, and that it be discovered
+what proficiency in literature is expected from a student, requesting
+to be admitted into a Dutch university. It is to be observed, that in
+the universities of foreign countries, they have professors of
+philology, or humanity, whose employment is to instruct the younger
+classes in grammar, rhetorick, and languages; nor do they engage in
+the study of philosophy, till they have passed through a course of
+philological lectures and exercises, to which, in some places, two
+years are commonly allotted.
+
+The English scheme of education, which, with regard to academical
+studies, is more rigorous, and sets literary honours at a higher price
+than that of any other country, exacts from the youth, who are
+initiated in our colleges, a degree of philological knowledge
+sufficient to qualify them for lectures in philosophy, which are read
+to them in Latin, and to enable them to proceed in other studies
+without assistance; so that it may be conjectured, that Burman, at his
+entrance into the university, had no such skill in languages, nor such
+ability of composition, as are frequently to be met with in the higher
+classes of an English school; nor was, perhaps, more than moderately
+skilled in Latin, and taught the first rudiments of Greek.
+
+In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Graevius,
+whose regard for his father inclined him to superintend his studies
+with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and
+increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his
+observation of his diligence.
+
+One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Graevius
+for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily
+discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar
+designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of
+literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman
+was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great
+advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction
+of his genius.
+
+Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued
+the vigour of his application, and, for several years, not only
+attended the lectures of Graevius, but made use of every other
+opportunity of improvement, with such diligence as might justly be
+expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.
+
+Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to
+qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to
+the study of the law, and published a dissertation, de Vicesima
+Haereditatum, which he publickly defended, under the professor Van
+Muyden, with such learning and eloquence, as procured him great
+applause.
+
+Imagining, then, that the conversation of other men of learning might
+be of use towards his further improvement, and rightly judging that
+notions formed in any single seminary are, for the greatest part,
+contracted and partial, he went to Leyden, where he studied philosophy
+for a year, under M. de Volder, whose celebrity was so great, that the
+schools assigned to the sciences, which it was his province to teach,
+were not sufficient, though very spacious, to contain the audience
+that crowded his lectures from all parts of Europe.
+
+Yet he did not suffer himself to be engrossed by philosophical
+disquisitions, to the neglect of those studies in which he was more
+early engaged, and to which he was, perhaps, by nature better adapted;
+for he attended at the same time Ryckius's explanations of Tacitus,
+and James Gronovius's lectures on the Greek writers, and has often
+been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he
+received from them.
+
+Having thus passed a year at Leyden with great advantage, he returned
+to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by
+the assistance of Graevius, whose early hopes of his genius were now
+raised to a full confidence of that excellence, at which he afterwards
+arrived.
+
+At Utrecht, in March, 1688, in the twentieth year of his age, he was
+advanced to the degree of doctor of laws; on which occasion he
+published a learned dissertation, de Transactionibus, and defended it
+with his usual eloquence, learning, and success.
+
+The attainment of this honour was far from having upon Burman that
+effect which has been too often observed to be produced in others,
+who, having in their own opinion no higher object of ambition, have
+relapsed into idleness and security, and spent the rest of their lives
+in a lazy enjoyment of their academical dignities. Burman aspired to
+further improvements, and, not satisfied with the opportunities of
+literary conversation which Utrecht afforded, travelled into
+Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and
+learning.
+
+At his return from this excursion, he engaged in the practice of the
+law, and pleaded several causes with such reputation, as might be
+hoped by a man who had joined to his knowledge of the law, the
+embellishments of polite literature, and the strict ratiocination of
+true philosophy; and who was able to employ, on every occasion, the
+graces of eloquence and the power of argumentation.
+
+While Burman was hastening to high reputation in the courts of
+justice, and to those riches and honours which always follow it, he
+was summoned, in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the
+charge of collector of the tenths, an office, in that place, of great
+honour, and which he accepted, therefore, as a proof of their
+confidence and esteem.
+
+While he was engaged in this employment, he married Eve Clotterboke, a
+young lady of a good family, and uncommon genius and beauty, by whom
+he had ten children, of which eight died young; and only two sons,
+Francis and Caspar, lived to console their mother for their father's
+death.
+
+Neither publick business nor domestick cares detained Burman from the
+prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared
+himself to Graevius, that he Was recommended by him to the regard of
+the university of Utrecht, and, accordingly, in 1696, was chosen
+professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some
+time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of
+politicks; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so
+extensive his knowledge.
+
+At his entrance upon this new province, he pronounced an oration upon
+eloquence and poetry.
+
+Having now more frequent opportunities of displaying his learning, he
+arose, in a short time, to a high reputation, of which the great
+number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the
+proficiency of his pupils showed not to be accidental or undeserved.
+
+In 1714, he formed a resolution of visiting Paris, not only for the
+sake of conferring, in person, upon questions of literature, with the
+learned men of that place, and of gratifying his curiosity with a more
+familiar knowledge of those writers whose works he admired, but with a
+view more important, of visiting the libraries, and making those
+inquiries which might be of advantage to his darling study.
+
+The vacation of the university allowed him to stay at Paris but six
+weeks, which he employed with so much dexterity and industry, that he
+had searched the principal libraries, collated a great number of
+manuscripts and printed copies, and brought back a great treasure of
+curious observations.
+
+In this visit to Paris he contracted an acquaintance, among other
+learned men, with the celebrated father Montfaucon; with whom he
+conversed, at his first interview, with no other character but that of
+a traveller; but, their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the
+stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon
+declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to
+know his name; which he no sooner heard, than he rose from his seat,
+and, embracing him with the utmost ardour, expressed his satisfaction
+at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so
+often praised; and, as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to
+procure him an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, but
+to those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to
+strangers, and undertook to ease the expenses of his journey, by
+procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order.
+
+This favour Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of
+returning to Utrecht at the usual time of beginning a new course of
+lectures, to which there was always so great a concourse of students,
+as much increased the dignity and fame of the university in which he
+taught.
+
+He had already extended to distant parts his reputation for knowledge
+of ancient history, by a treatise, de Vectigalibus Populi Romani, on
+the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and
+in ancient coins, by a tract called Jupiter Fulgurator; and after his
+return from Paris, he published Plaedrus, first with the notes of
+various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed many
+poems, made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an
+impression of the epistles of Gudius and Sanavius.
+
+While he was thus employed, the professorships of history, eloquence,
+and the Greek language, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of
+Perizonius, which Burman's reputation incited the curators of the
+university to offer him upon very generous terms, and which, after
+some struggles with his fondness for his native place, his friends,
+and his colleagues, he was prevailed on to accept, finding the
+solicitations from Leyden warm and urgent, and his friends at Utrecht,
+though unwilling to be deprived of him, yet not zealous enough for the
+honour and advantage of their university, to endeavour to detain him
+by great liberality.
+
+At his entrance upon this new professorship, which was conferred upon
+him in 1715, he pronounced an oration upon the duty and office of a
+professor of polite literature; de publici humanioris disciplinae
+professoris proprio officio et munere; and showed, by the usefulness
+and perspicuity of his lectures, that he was not confined to
+speculative notions on that subject, having a very happy method of
+accommodating his instructions to the different abilities and
+attainments of his pupils.
+
+Nor did he suffer the publick duties of this station to hinder him
+from promoting learning by labours of a different kind; for, besides
+many poems and orations, which he recited on different occasions, he
+wrote several prefaces to the works of others, and published many
+useful editions of the best Latin writers, with large collections of
+notes from various commentators.
+
+He was twice rector, or chief governour of the university, and
+discharged that important office with equal equity and ability, and
+gained, by his conduct in every station, so much esteem, that when the
+professorship of history of the United Provinces became vacant, it was
+conferred on him, as an addition to his honours and revenues, which he
+might justly claim; and afterwards, as a proof of the continuance of
+their regard, and a testimony that his reputation was still
+increasing, they made him chief librarian, an office which was the
+more acceptable to him, as it united his business with his pleasure,
+and gave him an opportunity, at the same time, of superintending the
+library, and carrying on his studies.
+
+Such was the course of his life, till, in his old age, leaving off his
+practice of walking, and other exercises, he began to be afflicted
+with the scurvy, which discovered itself by very tormenting symptoms
+of various kinds; sometimes disturbing his head with vertigos,
+sometimes causing faintness in his limbs, and sometimes attacking his
+legs with anguish so excruciating, that all his vigour was destroyed,
+and the power of walking entirely taken away, till, at length, his
+left foot became motionless. The violence of his pain produced
+irregular fevers, deprived him of rest, and entirely debilitated his
+whole frame.
+
+This tormenting disease he bore, though not without some degree of
+impatience, yet without any unbecoming or irrational despondency, and
+applied himself in the intermission of his pains to seek for comfort
+in the duties of religion.
+
+While he lay in this state of misery he received an account of the
+promotion of two of his grandsons, and a catalogue of the king of
+France's library, presented to him by the command of the king himself,
+and expressed some satisfaction on all these occasions; but soon
+diverted his thoughts to the more important consideration of his
+eternal state, into which he passed on the 31st of March, 1741, in the
+seventy-third year of his age.
+
+He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity,
+which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and
+by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not
+suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by
+frequent intermissions; a practice consistent with the most exemplary
+diligence, and which he that omits will find at last, that time may be
+lost, like money, by unseasonable avarice.
+
+In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far
+to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the
+ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his
+mirth; but enemies so provoked, he thought it beneath him to regard or
+to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malicious, disdained
+dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled
+detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised
+friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of
+flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant
+in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted
+familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence
+in his old age.
+
+His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled
+in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station
+required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon
+knowledge; which, however, appears rather from judicious compilations,
+than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not
+without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to
+that purity, which some writers have attained. He was at least
+instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many
+valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the
+learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may
+claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning, than some others of
+happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination.
+
+The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not
+love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he
+took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary
+declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the
+revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our
+Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole behaviour in
+his long illness was an incontestable proof; and he concluded his
+life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an
+example of true piety.
+
+Of his works we have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he
+published, Quintilianus, 2 vols. 4to; Valerius Flaccus; Ovidius, 4
+vols. 4to; Poetae Latini Minores, 2 vols. 4to; cum notis variorum.
+Buchanani Opera, 2 vols. 4to [51].
+
+
+
+
+SYDENHAM [52].
+
+
+Thomas Sydenham was born in the year 1624, at Windford Eagle, in
+Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham, esq. had a large
+fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed
+his childhood, whether he made any early discoveries of a genius
+peculiarly adapted to the study of nature, or gave any presages of his
+future eminence in medicine, no information is to be obtained. We
+must, therefore, repress that curiosity, which would naturally incline
+us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in
+its childish inquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices,
+breaking, on trifling occasions, the shackles of credulity, and giving
+proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the
+yoke of prescription, and dispel the phantoms of hypothesis.
+
+That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his
+discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked
+from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt;
+for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely
+related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same
+proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the
+greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only
+by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of
+their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials
+of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily
+recorded in publick registers.
+
+From these it is discovered, that, at the age of eighteen, in 1642, he
+commenced a commoner of Magdalen hall, in Oxford, where it is not
+probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he
+was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor
+is it known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided
+during that long series of publick commotion. It is, indeed, reported,
+that he had a commission in the king's army, but no particular account
+is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he
+obtained, when he entered into the army, or when, or on what occasion,
+he retired from it.
+
+It is, however, certain, that if ever he took upon him the profession
+of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for, in 1648, he
+obtained, at Oxford, the degree of bachelor of physick, for which, as
+some medicinal knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he
+spent some time in qualifying himself.
+
+His application to the study of physick was, as he himself relates,
+produced by an accidental acquaintance with Dr. Cox, a physician,
+eminent at that time in London, who in some sickness prescribed to his
+brother, and attending him frequently on that occasion, inquired of
+him what profession he designed to follow. The young man answering
+that he was undetermined, the doctor recommended physick to him, on
+what account, or with what arguments, it is not related; but his
+persuasions were so effectual, that Sydenham determined to follow his
+advice, and retired to Oxford for leisure and opportunity to pursue
+his studies.
+
+It is evident that this conversation must have happened before his
+promotion to any degree in physick, because he himself fixes it in the
+interval of his absence from the university, a circumstance which will
+enable us to confute many false reports relating to Dr. Sydenham,
+which have been confidently inculcated, and implicitly believed. It is
+the general opinion, that he was made a physician by accident and
+necessity, and sir Richard Blackmore reports, in plain terms, [preface
+to his Treatise on the Small Pox,] that he engaged in practice,
+without any preparatory study, or previous knowledge, of the medicinal
+sciences; and affirms, that when he was consulted by him what books he
+should read to qualify him for the same profession, he recommended Don
+Quixote.
+
+That he recommended Don Quixote to Blackmore, we are not allowed to
+doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love, which dazzles
+all mankind, from discovering that he might intend a satire very
+different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers
+on medicine, since he might, perhaps, mean, either seriously or in
+jest, to insinuate, that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the
+study of physick, and that, whether he should read Cervantes or
+Hippocrates, he would be equally unqualified for practice, and equally
+unsuccessful in it.
+
+Whatsoever was his meaning, nothing is more evident, than that it was
+a transient sally of an imagination warmed with gaiety, or the
+negligent effusion of a mind intent upon some other employment, and in
+haste to dismiss a troublesome intruder; for it is certain that
+Sydenham did not think it impossible to write usefully on medicine,
+because he has himself written upon it; and it is not probable that he
+carried his vanity so far, as to imagine that no man had ever acquired
+the same qualifications besides himself. He could not but know that he
+rather restored, than invented most of his principles, and, therefore,
+could not but acknowledge the value of those writers whose doctrines
+he adopted and enforced.
+
+That he engaged in the practice of physick without any acquaintance
+with the theory, or knowledge of the opinions or precepts of former
+writers, is undoubtedly false; for he declares, that, after he had, in
+pursuance of his conversation with Dr. Cox, determined upon the
+profession of physick, he "applied himself in earnest to it, and spent
+several years in the university," (aliquot annos in academica
+palaestra,) before he began to practise in London.
+
+Nor was he satisfied with the opportunities of knowledge which Oxford
+afforded, but travelled to Montpellier, as Desault relates,
+[Dissertation on Consumptions,] in quest of further information;
+Montpellier, being at that time, the most celebrated school of
+physick: so far was Sydenham from any contempt of academical
+institutions, and so far from thinking it reasonable to learn physick
+by experiments alone, which must necessarily be made at the hazard of
+life.
+
+What can be demanded beyond this by the most zealous advocate for
+regular education? What can be expected from the most cautious and
+most industrious student, than that he should dedicate several years
+to the rudiments of his art, and travel for further instructions from
+one university to another?
+
+It is likewise a common opinion, that Sydenham was thirty years old,
+before he formed his resolution of studying physick, for which I can
+discover no other foundation than one expression in his dedication to
+Dr. Mapletoft, which seems to have given rise to it, by a gross
+misinterpretation; for he only observes, that from his conversation
+with Dr. Cox to the publication of that treatise, thirty years had
+intervened.
+
+Whatever may have produced this notion, or how long soever it may have
+prevailed, it is now proved, beyond controversy, to be false; since it
+appears that Sydenham, having been for some time absent from the
+university, returned to it, in order to pursue his physical inquiries,
+before he was twenty-four years old; for, in 1648, he was admitted to
+the degree of bachelor of physick.
+
+That such reports should be confidently spread, even among the
+contemporaries of the author to whom they relate, and obtain, in a few
+years, such credit as to require a regular confutation; that it should
+be imagined that the greatest physician of the age arrived at so high
+a degree of skill, without any assistance from his predecessors; and
+that a man, eminent for integrity, practised medicine by chance, and
+grew wise only by murder; is not to be considered without
+astonishment.
+
+But if it be, on the other part, remembered, how much this opinion
+favours the laziness of some, and the pride of others; how readily
+some men confide in natural sagacity; and how willingly most would
+spare themselves the labour of accurate reading and tedious inquiry;
+it will be easily discovered, how much the interest of multitudes was
+engaged in the production and continuance of this opinion, and how
+cheaply those, of whom it was known that they practised physick before
+they studied it, might satisfy themselves and others with the example
+of the illustrious Sydenham.
+
+It is, therefore, in an uncommon degree useful to publish a true
+account of this memorable man, that pride, temerity, and idleness, may
+be deprived of that patronage which they have enjoyed too long; that
+life may be secured from the dangerous experiments of the ignorant and
+presumptuous; and that those, who shall, hereafter, assume the
+important province of superintending the health of others, may learn,
+from this great master of the art, that the only means of arriving at
+eminence and success are labour and study.
+
+From these false reports it is probable that another arose, to which,
+though it cannot be with equal certainty confuted, it does not appear
+that entire credit ought to be given. The acquisition of a Latin style
+did not seem consistent with the manner of life imputed to him; nor
+was it probable, that he, who had so diligently cultivated the
+ornamental parts of general literature, would have neglected the
+essential studies of his own profession. Those, therefore, who were
+determined, at whatever price, to retain him in their own party, and
+represent him equally ignorant and daring with themselves, denied him
+the credit of writing his own works in the language in which they were
+published, and asserted, but without proof, that they were composed by
+him in English, and translated into Latin by Dr. Mapletoft.
+
+Whether Dr. Mapletoft lived and was familiar with him, during the
+whole time in which these several treatises were printed, treatises
+written on particular occasions, and printed at periods considerably
+distant from each other, we have had no opportunity of inquiring, and,
+therefore, cannot demonstrate the falsehood of this report; but if it
+be considered how unlikely it is, that any man should engage in a work
+so laborious and so little necessary, only to advance the reputation
+of another, or that he should have leisure to continue the same office
+upon all following occasions; if it be remembered how seldom such
+literary combinations are formed, and how soon they are, for the
+greatest part, dissolved, there will appear no reason for not allowing
+Dr. Sydenham the laurel of eloquence, as well as physick [53].
+
+It is observable, that his Processus Integri, published after his
+death, discovers alone more skill in the Latin language than is
+commonly ascribed to him; and it surely will not be suspected, that
+the officiousness of his friends was continued after his death, or
+that he procured the book to be translated, only that, by leaving it
+behind him, he might secure his claim to his other writings.
+
+It is asserted by sir Hans Sloane, that Dr. Sydenham, with whom he was
+familiarly acquainted, was particularly versed in the writings of the
+great Roman orator and philosopher; and there is evidently such a
+luxuriance in his style, as may discover the author which gave him
+most pleasure, and most engaged his imitation.
+
+About the same time that he became bachelor of physick, he obtained,
+by the interest of a relation, a fellowship of All Souls' college,
+having submitted, by the subscription required, to the authority of
+the visitors appointed by the parliament, upon what principles, or how
+consistently with his former conduct, it is now impossible to
+discover.
+
+When he thought himself qualified for practice, he fixed his residence
+in Westminster, became doctor of physick at Cambridge, received a
+license from the college of physicians, and lived in the first degree
+of reputation, and the greatest affluence of practice, for many years,
+without any other enemies than those which he raised by the superiour
+merit of his conduct, the brighter lustre of his abilities, or his
+improvements of his science, and his contempt of pernicious methods,
+supported only by authority, in opposition to sound reason and
+indubitable experience. These men are indebted to him for concealing
+their names, when he records their malice, since they have, thereby,
+escaped the contempt and detestation of posterity.
+
+It is a melancholy reflection, that they who have obtained the highest
+reputation, by preserving or restoring the health of others, have
+often been hurried away before the natural decline of life, or have
+passed many of their years under the torments of those distempers
+which they profess to relieve. In this number was Sydenham, whose
+health began to fail in the fifty-second year of his age, by the
+frequent attacks of the gout, to which he was subject for a great part
+of his life, and which was afterwards accompanied with the stone in
+the kidneys, and, its natural consequence, bloody urine.
+
+These were distempers which even the art of Sydenham could only
+palliate, without hope of a perfect cure, but which, if he has not
+been able by his precepts to instruct us to remove, he has, at least,
+by his example, taught us to bear; for he never betrayed any indecent
+impatience, or unmanly dejection, under his torments, but supported
+himself by the reflections of philosophy, and the consolations of
+religion; and in every interval of ease applied himself to the
+assistance of others with his usual assiduity.
+
+After a life thus usefully employed, he died at his house in
+Pall-mall, on the 29th of December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle,
+near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster.
+
+What was his character, as a physician, appears from the treatises
+which he has left, which it is not necessary to epitomise or
+transcribe; and from them it may likewise be collected, that his skill
+in physick was not his highest excellence; that his whole character
+was amiable; that his chief view was the benefit of mankind, and the
+chief motive of his actions, the will of God, whom he mentions with
+reverence, well becoming the most enlightened and most penetrating
+mind. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere, and
+religious; qualities, which it were happy, if they could copy from
+him, who emulate his knowledge, and imitate his methods.
+
+
+
+
+CHEYNEL [54].
+
+
+There is always this advantage in contending with illustrious
+adversaries, that the combatant is equally immortalized by conquest or
+defeat. He that dies by the sword of a hero will always be mentioned,
+when the acts of his enemy are mentioned. The man, of whose life the
+following account is offered to the publick, was, indeed, eminent
+among his own party, and had qualities, which, employed in a good
+cause, would have given him some claim to distinction; but no one is
+now so much blinded with bigotry, as to imagine him equal either to
+Hammond or Chillingworth; nor would his memory, perhaps, have been
+preserved, had he not, by being conjoined with illustrious names,
+become the object of publick curiosity.
+
+Francis Cheynel was born in 1608, at Oxford [55], where his father,
+Dr. John Cheynel, who had been fellow of Corpus Christi college,
+practised physick with great reputation. He was educated in one of the
+grammar schools of his native city, and, in the beginning of the year
+1623, became a member of the university.
+
+It is probable, that he lost his father when he was very young; for it
+appears, that before 1629, his mother had married Dr. Abbot, bishop of
+Salisbury, whom she had likewise buried. From this marriage he
+received great advantage; for his mother, being now allied to Dr.
+Brent, then warden of Merton college, exerted her interest so
+vigorously, that he was admitted there a probationer, and afterwards
+obtained a fellowship [56].
+
+Having taken the degree of master of arts, he was admitted to orders,
+according to the rites of the church of England, and held a curacy
+near Oxford, together with his fellowship. He continued in his
+college, till he was qualified, by his years of residence, for the
+degree of bachelor of divinity, which he attempted to take in 1641,
+but was denied his grace [57], for disputing concerning
+predestination, contrary to the king's injunctions.
+
+This refusal of his degree he mentions in his dedication to his
+account of Mr. Chillingworth: "Do not conceive that I snatch up my pen
+in an angry mood, that I might vent my dangerous wit, and ease my
+overburdened spleen; no, no, I have almost forgotten the visitation of
+Merton college, and the denial of my grace, the plundering of my
+house, and little library: I know when, and where, and of whom, to
+demand satisfaction for all these injuries and indignities. I have
+learnt 'centum plagas Spartana nobilitate concoquere.' I have not
+learnt how to plunder others of goods, or living, and make myself
+amends by force of arms. I will not take a living which belonged to
+any civil, studious, learned delinquent; unless it be the
+much-neglected _commendam_ of some lordly prelate, condemned by
+the known laws of the land, and the highest court of the kingdom, for
+some offence of the first magnitude."
+
+It is observable, that he declares himself to have almost forgot his
+injuries and indignities, though he recounts them with an appearance
+of acrimony, which is no proof that the impression is much weakened;
+and insinuates his design of demanding, at a proper time, satisfaction
+for them.
+
+These vexations were the consequence rather of the abuse of learning,
+than the want of it; no one that reads his works can doubt that he was
+turbulent, obstinate, and petulant; and ready to instruct his
+superiours, when he most needed instruction from them. Whatever he
+believed (and the warmth of his imagination naturally made him
+precipitate in forming his opinions) he thought himself obliged to
+profess; and what he professed he was ready to defend, without that
+modesty which is always prudent, and generally necessary, and which,
+though it was not agreeable to Mr. Cheynel's temper, and, therefore,
+readily condemned by him, is a very useful associate to truth, and
+often introduces her, by degrees, where she never could have forced
+her way by argument or declamation.
+
+A temper of this kind is generally inconvenient and offensive in any
+society, but in a place of education is least to be tolerated; for, as
+authority is necessary to instruction, whoever endeavours to destroy
+subordination, by weakening that reverence which is claimed by those
+to whom the guardianship of youth is committed by their country,
+defeats, at once, the institution; and may be justly driven from a
+society, by which he thinks himself too wise to be governed, and in
+which he is too young to teach, and too opinionative to learn.
+
+This may be readily supposed to have been the case of Cheynel; and I
+know not how those can be blamed for censuring his conduct, or
+punishing his disobedience, who had a right to govern him, and who
+might certainly act with equal sincerity, and with greater knowledge.
+
+With regard to the visitation of Merton college, the account is
+equally obscure. Visitors are well known to be generally called to
+regulate the affairs of colleges, when the members disagree with their
+head, or with one another; and the temper that Dr. Cheynel discovers
+will easily incline his readers to suspect, that he could not long
+live in any place, without finding some occasion for debate; nor
+debate any question, without carrying opposition to such a length as
+might make a moderator necessary. Whether this was his conduct at
+Merton, or whether an appeal to the visiter's authority was made by
+him, or his adversaries, or any other member of the college, is not to
+be known; it appears only, that there was a visitation, that he
+suffered by it, and resented his punishment.
+
+He was afterwards presented to a living of great value, near Banbury,
+where he had some dispute with archbishop Laud. Of this dispute I have
+found no particular account. Calamy only says, he had a ruffle with
+bishop Laud, while at his height.
+
+Had Cheynel been equal to his adversary in greatness and learning, it
+had not been easy to have found either a more proper opposite; for
+they were both, to the last degree, zealous, active, and pertinacious,
+and would have afforded mankind a spectacle of resolution and boldness
+not often to be seen. But the amusement of beholding the struggle
+would hardly have been without danger, as they were too fiery not to
+have communicated their heat, though it should have produced a
+conflagration of their country.
+
+About the year 1641, when the whole nation was engaged in the
+controversy about the rights of the church, and necessity of
+episcopacy, he declared himself a presbyterian, and an enemy to
+bishops, liturgies, ceremonies; and was considered, as one of the most
+learned and acute of his party; for, having spent much of his life in
+a college, it cannot be doubted that he had a considerable knowledge
+of books, which the vehemence of his temper enabled him often to
+display, when a more timorous man would have been silent, though in
+learning not his inferiour.
+
+When the war broke out, Mr. Cheynel, in consequence of his principles,
+declared himself for the parliament; and, as he appears to have held
+it as a first principle, that all great and noble spirits abhor
+neutrality, there is no doubt but that he exerted himself to gain
+proselytes, and to promote the interest of that party, which he had
+thought it his duty to espouse. These endeavours were so much regarded
+by the parliament, that, having taken the covenant, he was nominated
+one of the assembly of divines, who were to meet at Westminster for
+the settlement of the new discipline.
+
+This distinction drew, necessarily, upon him the hatred of the
+cavaliers; and his living being not far distant from the king's
+head-quarters, he received a visit from some of the troops, who, as he
+affirms, plundered his house, and drove him from it. His living, which
+was, I suppose, considered as forfeited by his absence, though he was
+not suffered to continue upon it, was given to a clergyman, of whom he
+says, that he would become a stage better than a pulpit; a censure
+which I can neither confute nor admit, because I have not discovered
+who was his successour. He then retired into Sussex, to exercise his
+ministry among his friends, in a place where, as he observes, there
+had been little of the power of religion either known or practised. As
+no reason can be given why the inhabitants of Sussex should have less
+knowledge or virtue than those of other places, it may be suspected
+that he means nothing more than a place where the presbyterian
+discipline or principles had never been received. We now observe, that
+the methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent
+themselves, as preaching the gospel to unconverted nations; and
+enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their
+particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves
+the great instruments of salvation; yet it must be confessed, that all
+places are not equally enlightened; that in the most civilized nations
+there are many corners which may be called barbarous, where neither
+politeness, nor religion, nor the common arts of life, have yet been
+cultivated; and it is likewise certain, that the inhabitants of Sussex
+huve been sometimes mentioned as remarkable for brutality.
+
+From Sussex he went often to London, where, in 1643, he preached three
+times before the parliament; and, returning in November to Colchester,
+to keep the monthly fast there, as was his custom, he obtained a
+convoy of sixteen soldiers, whose bravery or good fortune was such,
+that they faced, and put to flight, more than two hundred of the
+king's forces.
+
+In this journey he found Mr. Chillingworth in the hands of the
+parliament's troops, of whose sickness and death he gave the account,
+which has been sufficiently made known to the learned world by Mr.
+Maizeaux, in his Life of Chillingworth.
+
+With regard to this relation, it may be observed, that it is written
+with an air of fearless veracity, and with the spirit of a man who
+thinks his cause just, and his behaviour without reproach; nor does
+there appear any reason for doubting that Cheynel spoke and acted as
+he relates; for he does not publish an apology, but a challenge, and
+writes not so much to obviate calumnies, as to gain from others that
+applause which he seems to have bestowed very liberally upon himself,
+for his behaviour on that occasion.
+
+Since, therefore, this relation is credible, a great part of it being
+supported by evidence which cannot be refuted, Mr. Maizeaux seems very
+justly, in his Life of Mr. Chillingworth, to oppose the common report,
+that his life was shortened by the inhumanity of those to whom he was
+a prisoner; for Cheynel appears to have preserved, amidst all his
+detestation of the opinions which he imputed to him, a great kindness
+to his person, and veneration for his capacity; nor does he appear to
+have been cruel to him, otherwise than by that incessant importunity
+of disputation, to which he was doubtless incited by a sincere belief
+of the danger of his soul, if he should die without renouncing some of
+his opinions.
+
+The same kindness which made him desirous to convert him before his
+death, would incline him to preserve him from dying before he was
+converted; and accordingly we find, that, when the castle was yielded,
+he took care to procure him a commodious lodging; when he was to have
+been unseasonably removed, he attempted to shorten his journey, which
+he knew would be dangerous; when the physician was disgusted by
+Chillingworth's distrust, he prevailed upon him, as the symptoms grew
+more dangerous, to renew his visits; and when death left no other act
+of kindness to be practised, procured him the rites of burial, which
+some would have denied him.
+
+Having done thus far justice to the humanity of Cheynel, it is proper
+to inquire, how far he deserves blame. He appears to have extended
+none of that kindness to the opinions of Chillingworth, which he
+showed to his person; for he interprets every word in the worst sense,
+and seems industrious to discover, in every line, heresies, which
+might have escaped for ever any other apprehension: he appears always
+suspicious of some latent malignity, and ready to persecute what he
+only suspects, with the same violence, as if it had been openly
+avowed: in all his procedure he shows himself sincere, but without
+candour.
+
+About this time Cheynel, in pursuance of his natural ardour, attended
+the army under the command of the earl of Essex, and added the praise
+of valour to that of learning; for he distinguished himself so much by
+his personal bravery, and obtained so much skill in the science of
+war, that his commands were obeyed by the colonels with as much
+respect as those of the general. He seems, indeed, to have been born a
+soldier; for he had an intrepidity which was never to be shaken by any
+danger, and a spirit of enterprise not to be discouraged by
+difficulty, which were supported by an unusual degree of bodily
+strength. His services of all kinds were thought of so much importance
+ty the parliament, that they bestowed upon him the living of Petworth,
+in Sussex. This living was of the value of seven hundred pounds per
+annum, from which they had ejected a man remarkable for his loyalty,
+and, therefore, in their opinion, not worthy of such revenues. And it
+may be inquired, whether, in accepting this preferment, Cheynel did
+not violate the protestation which he makes in the passage already
+recited, and whether he did not suffer his resolutions to be overborne
+by the temptations of wealth.
+
+In 1646, when Oxford was taken by the forces of the parliament, and
+the reformation of the university was resolved, Mr. Cheynel was sent,
+with six others, to prepare the way for a visitation; being authorized
+by the parliament to preach in any of the churches, without regard to
+the right of the members of the university, that their doctrine might
+prepare their hearers for the changes which were intended.
+
+When they arrived at Oxford, they began to execute their commission,
+by possessing themselves of the pulpits; but, if the relation of Wood
+[58] is to be regarded, were heard with very little veneration. Those
+who had been accustomed to the preachers of Oxford, and the liturgy of
+the church of England, were offended at the emptiness of their
+discourses, which were noisy and unmeaning; at the unusual gestures,
+the wild distortions, and the uncouth tone with which they were
+delivered; at the coldness of their prayers for the king, and the
+vehemence and exuberance of those which they did not fail to utter for
+_the blessed councils_ and actions of the parliament and army;
+and at, what was surely not to be remarked without indignation, their
+omission of the Lord's prayer.
+
+But power easily supplied the want of reverence, and they proceeded in
+their plan of reformation; and thinking sermons not so efficacious to
+conversion as private interrogatories and exhortations, they
+established a weekly meeting for _freeing tender consciences from
+scruple_, at a house that, from the business to which it was
+appropriated, was called the _scruple-shop_.
+
+With this project they were so well pleased, that they sent to the
+parliament an account of it, which was afterwards printed, and is
+ascribed, by Wood, to Mr. Cheynel. They continued for some weeks to
+hold their meetings regularly, and to admit great numbers, whom
+curiosity, or a desire of conviction, or a compliance with the
+prevailing party, brought thither. But their tranquillity was quickly
+disturbed by the turbulence of the independents, whose opinions then
+prevailed among the soldiers, and were very industriously propagated
+by the discourses of William Earbury, a preacher of great reputation
+among them, who one day gathering a considerable number of his most
+zealous followers, went to the house appointed for the resolution of
+scruples, on a day which was set apart for the disquisition of the
+dignity and office of a minister, and began to dispute, with great
+vehemence, against the presbyterians, whom he denied to have any true
+ministers among them, and whose assemblies he affirmed not to be the
+true church. He was opposed with equal heat by the presbyterians, and,
+at length, they agreed to examine the point another day, in a regular
+disputation. Accordingly, they appointed the 12th of November for an
+inquiry: "Whether, in the christian church, the office of minister is
+committed to any particular persons?"
+
+On the day fixed, the antagonists appeared, each attended by great
+numbers; but, when the question was proposed, they began to wrangle,
+not about the doctrine which they had engaged to examine, but about
+the terms of the proposition, which the independents alleged to be
+changed since their agreement; and, at length, the soldiers insisted
+that the question should be, "Whether those who call themselves
+ministers, have more right or power to preach the gospel, than any
+other man that is a christian?" This question was debated, for some
+time, with great vehemence and confusion, but without any prospect of
+a conclusion. At length, one of the soldiers, who thought they had an
+equal right with the rest to engage in the controversy, demanded of
+the presbyterians, whence they themselves received their orders,
+whether from bishops, or any other persons. This unexpected
+interrogatory put them to great difficulties; for it happened that
+they were all ordained by the bishops, which they durst not
+acknowledge, for fear of exposing themselves to a general censure, and
+being convicted from their own declarations, in which they had
+frequently condemned episcopacy, as contrary to Christianity; nor
+durst they deny it, because they might have been confuted, and must,
+at once, have sunk into contempt. The soldiers, seeing their
+perplexity, insulted them; and went away, boasting of their victory;
+nor did the presbyterians, for some time, recover spirit enough to
+renew their meetings, or to proceed in the work of easing consciences.
+
+Earbury, exulting at the victory, which, not his own abilities, but
+the subtlety of the soldier had procured him, began to vent his
+notions of every kind, without scruple, and, at length, asserted, that
+"the saints had an equal measure of the divine nature with our
+Saviour, though not equally manifest." At the same time he took upon
+him the dignity of a prophet, and began to utter predictions relating
+to the affairs of England and Ireland.
+
+His prophecies were not much regarded, but his doctrine was censured
+by the presbyterians in their pulpits; and Mr. Cheynel challenged him
+to a disputation, to which he agreed, and, at his first appearance in
+St. Mary's church, addressed his audience in the following manner:
+
+"Christian friends, kind fellow-soldiers, and worthy students, I, the
+humble servant of all mankind, am this day drawn, against my will, out
+of my cell into this publick assembly, by the double chain of
+accusation and a challenge from the pulpit. I have been charged with
+heresy; I have been challenged to come hither, in a letter written by
+Mr. Francis Cheynel. Here, then, I stand in defence of myself and my
+doctrine, which I shall introduce with only this declaration, that I
+claim not the office of a minister on account of any outward call,
+though I formerly received ordination, nor do I boast of illumination,
+or the knowledge of our Saviour, though I have been held in esteem by
+others, and formerly by myself; for I now declare, that I know
+nothing, and am nothing, nor would I be thought of otherwise than as
+an inquirer and seeker."
+
+He then advanced his former position in stronger terms, and with
+additions equally detestable, which Cheynel attacked with the
+vehemence which, in so warm a temper, such horrid assertions might
+naturally excite. The dispute, frequently interrupted by the clamours
+of the audience, and tumults raised to disconcert Cheynel, who was
+very unpopular, continued about four hours, and then both the
+controvertists grew weary, and retired. The presbyterians afterwards
+thought they should more speedily put an end to the heresies of
+Earbury by power than by argument; and, by soliciting general Fairfax,
+procured his removal.
+
+Mr. Cheynel published an account of this dispute, under the title of,
+Faith triumphing over Errour and Heresy, in a Revelation, &c.; nor can
+it be doubted but he had the victory, where his cause gave him so
+great superiority.
+
+Somewhat before this, his captious and petulant disposition engaged
+him in a controversy, from which he could not expect to gain equal
+reputation. Dr. Hammond had, not long before, published his Practical
+Catechism, in which Mr. Cheynel, according to his custom, found many
+errours implied, if not asserted; and, therefore, as it was much read,
+thought it convenient to censure it in the pulpit. Of this Dr. Hammond
+being informed, desired him, in a letter, to communicate his
+objections; to which Mr. Cheynel returned an answer, written with his
+usual temper, and, therefore, somewhat perverse. The controversy was
+drawn out to a considerable length; and the papers, on both sides,
+were afterwards made publick by Dr. Hammond.
+
+In 1647, it was determined by parliament, that the reformation of
+Oxford should be more vigorously carried on; and Mr. Cheynel was
+nominated one of the visiters. The general process of the visitation,
+the firmness and fidelity of the students, the address by which the
+inquiry was delayed, and the steadiness with which it was opposed,
+which are very particularly related by Wood, and after him by Walker,
+it is not necessary to mention here, as they relate not more to Mr.
+Cheynel's life than to those of his associates.
+
+There is, indeed, some reason to believe that he was more active and
+virulent than the rest, because he appears to have been charged, in a
+particular manner, with some of their most unjustifiable measures. He
+was accused of proposing, that the members of the university should be
+denied the assistance of counsel, and was lampooned by name, as a
+madman, in a satire written on the visitation.
+
+One action, which shows the violence of his temper, and his disregard,
+both of humanity and decency, when they came in competition with his
+passions, must not be forgotten. The visiters, being offended at the
+obstinacy of Dr. Fell, dean of Christchurch, and vicechancellor of the
+university, having first deprived him of his vicechancellorship,
+determined afterwards to dispossess him of his deanery; and, in the
+course of their proceedings, thought it proper to seize upon his
+chambers in the college. This was an act which most men would
+willingly have referred to the officers to whom the law assigned it;
+but Cheynel's fury prompted him to a different conduct. He, and three
+more of the visiters, went and demanded admission; which, being
+steadily refused them, they obtained by the assistance of a file of
+soldiers, who forced the doors with pick-axes. Then entering, they saw
+Mrs. Fell in the lodgings, Dr. Fell being in prison at London, and
+ordered her to quit them, but found her not more obsequious than her
+husband. They repeated their orders with menaces, but were not able to
+prevail upon her to remove. They then retired, and left her exposed to
+the brutality of the soldiers, whom they commanded to keep possession,
+which Mrs. Fell, however, did not leave. About nine days afterwards,
+she received another visit of the same kind from the new chancellor,
+the earl of Pembroke; who having, like the others, ordered her to
+depart without effect, treated her with reproachful language, and, at
+last, commanded the soldiers to take her up in her chair, and carry
+her out of doors. Her daughters, and some other gentlewomen that were
+with her, were afterwards treated in the same manner; one of whom
+predicted, without dejection, that she should enter the house again
+with less difficulty, at some other time; nor was she mistaken in her
+conjecture, for Dr. Fell lived to be restored to his deanery.
+
+At the reception of the chancellor, Cheynel, as the most accomplished
+of the visiters, had the province of presenting him with the ensigns
+of his office, some of which were counterfeit, and addressing him with
+a proper oration. Of this speech, which Wood has preserved, I shall
+give some passages, by which a judgment may be made of his oratory.
+
+Of the staves of the beadles he observes, that "some are stained with
+double guilt, that some are pale with fear, and that others have been
+made use of as crutches, for the support of bad causes and desperate
+fortunes;" and he remarks of the book of statutes which he delivers,
+that "the ignorant may, perhaps, admire the splendour of the cover,
+but the learned know that the real treasure is within." Of these two
+sentences it is easily discovered, that the first is forced and
+unnatural, and the second trivial and low.
+
+Soon afterwards Mr. Cheynel was admitted to the degree of bachelor of
+divinity, for which his grace had been denied him in 1641, and, as he
+then suffered for an ill-timed assertion of the presbyterian
+doctrines, he obtained that his degree should be dated from the time
+at which he was refused it; an honour which, however, did not secure
+him from being soon after publickly reproached as a madman.
+
+But the vigour of Cheynel was thought, by his companions, to deserve
+profit, as well as honour; and Dr. Bailey, the president of St. John's
+college, being not more obedient to the authority of the parliament
+than the rest, was deprived of his revenues and authority, with which
+Mr. Cheynel was immediately invested; who, with his usual coolness and
+modesty, took possession of the lodgings soon after by breaking open
+the doors.
+
+This preferment being not thought adequate to the deserts or abilities
+of Mr. Cheynel, it was, therefore, desired, by the committee of
+parliament, that the visiters would recommend him to the lectureship
+of divinity, founded by the lady Margaret. To recommend him, and to
+choose, was, at that time, the same; and he had now the pleasure of
+propagating his darling doctrine of predestination, without
+interruption, and without danger.
+
+Being thus flushed with power and success, there is little reason for
+doubting that he gave way to his natural vehemence, and indulged
+himself in the utmost excesses of raging zeal, by which he was,
+indeed, so much distinguished, that, in a satire mentioned by Wood, he
+is dignified by the title of archvisiter; an appellation which he
+seems to have been industrious to deserve by severity and
+inflexibility; for, not contented with the commission which he and his
+colleagues had already received, he procured six or seven of the
+members of parliament to meet privately in Mr. Rouse's lodgings, and
+assume the style and authority of a committee, and from them obtained
+a more extensive and tyrannical power, by which the visitors were
+enabled to force the _solemn league and covenant_, and the
+_negative oath_ upon all the members of the university, and to
+prosecute those for a contempt who did not appear to a citation, at
+whatever distance they might be, and whatever reasons they might
+assign for their absence.
+
+By this method he easily drove great numbers from the university,
+whose places he supplied with men of his own opinion, whom he was very
+industrious to draw from other parts, with promises of making a
+liberal provision for them out of the spoils of hereticks and
+malignants.
+
+Having, in time, almost extirpated those opinions which he found so
+prevalent at his arrival, or, at least, obliged those, who would not
+recant, to an appearance of conformity, he was at leisure for
+employments which deserve to be recorded with greater commendation.
+About this time, many socinian writers began to publish their notions
+with great boldness, which the presbyterians, considering as heretical
+and impious, thought it necessary to confute; and, therefore, Cheynel,
+who had now obtained his doctor's degree, was desired, in 1649, to
+write a vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he
+performed, and published the next year.
+
+He drew up, likewise, a confutation of some socinian tenets advanced
+by John Fry, a man who spent great part of his life in ranging from
+one religion to another, and who sat as one of the judges on the king,
+but was expelled afterwards from the house of commons, and disabled
+from sitting in parliament. Dr. Cheynel is said to have shown himself
+evidently superiour to him in the controversy, and was answered by him
+only with an opprobrious book against the presbyterian clergy.
+
+Of the remaining part of his life, there is found only an obscure and
+confused account. He quitted the presidentship of St. John's, and the
+professorship, in 1650, as Calamy relates, because he would not take
+the engagement; and gave a proof that he could suffer, as well as act,
+in a cause which he believed just. We have, indeed, no reason to
+question his resolution, whatever occasion might be given to exert it;
+nor is it probable that he feared affliction more than danger, or that
+he would not have borne persecution himself for those opinions which
+inclined him to persecute others.
+
+He did not suffer much upon this occasion; for he retained the living
+of Petworth, to which he, thenceforward, confined his labours, and
+where he was very assiduous, and, as Calamy affirms, very successful
+in the exercise of his ministry, it being his peculiar character to be
+warm and zealous in all his undertakings.
+
+This heat of his disposition, increased by the uncommon turbulence of
+the times in which he lived, and by the opposition to which the
+unpopular nature of some of his employments exposed him, was, at last,
+heightened to distraction, so that he was, for some years, disordered
+in his understanding, as both Wood and Calamy relate, but with such
+difference as might be expected from their opposite principles. Wood
+appears to think, that a tendency to madness was discoverable in a
+great part of his life; Calamy, that it was only transient and
+accidental, though, in his additions to his first narrative, he pleads
+it, as an extenuation of that fury with which his kindest friends
+confess him to have acted on some occasions. Wood declares, that he
+died little better than distracted; Calamy, that he was perfectly
+recovered to a sound mind, before the restoration, at which time he
+retired to Preston, a small village in Sussex, being turned out of his
+living at Petworth.
+
+It does not appear that he kept his living till the general ejection
+of the nonconformists; and it is not unlikely that the asperity of his
+carriage, and the known virulence of his temper, might have raised him
+enemies, who were willing to make him feel the effects of persecution,
+which he had so furiously incited against others; but of this incident
+of his life there is no particular account.
+
+After his deprivation, he lived, till his death, which happened in
+1665, at a small village near Chichester, upon a paternal estate, not
+augmented by the large preferments wasted upon him in the triumphs of
+his party; having been remarkable, throughout his life, for
+hospitality and contempt of money.
+
+
+
+
+CAVE [59].
+
+
+The curiosity of the publick seems to demand the history of every man
+who has, by whatever means, risen to eminence; and few lives would
+have more readers than that of the compiler of the Gentleman's
+Magazine, if all those who received improvement or entertainment from
+him should retain so much kindness for their benefactor, as to inquire
+after his conduct and character.
+
+Edward Cave was born at Newton, in Warwickshire, Feb. 29, 1691. His
+father (Joseph) was the younger son of Mr. Edward Cave, of
+Cave's-in-the-Hole, a lone house, on the Street road, in the same
+county, which took its name from the occupier; but having concurred
+with his elder brother in cutting off the entail of a small hereditary
+estate, by which act it was lost from the family, he was reduced to
+follow, in Rugby, the trade of a shoemaker. He was a man of good
+reputation in his narrow circle, and remarkable for strength and
+rustick intrepidity. He lived to a great age, and was, in his latter
+years, supported by his son.
+
+It was fortunate for Edward Cave, that, having a disposition to
+literary attainments, he was not cut off by the poverty of his parents
+from opportunities of cultivating his faculties. The school of Rugby,
+in which he had, by the rules of its foundation, a right to be
+instructed, was then in high reputation under the reverend Mr.
+Holyock, to whose care most of the neighbouring families, even of the
+highest rank, intrusted their sons. He had judgment to discover, and,
+for some time, generosity to encourage, the genius of young Cave; and
+was so well pleased with his quick progress in the school, that he
+declared his resolution to breed him for the university, and
+recommended him, as a servitor, to some of his scholars of high rank.
+But prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short
+duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious
+familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations;
+and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky
+prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or
+small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem,
+when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault
+was sure to fall upon poor Cave.
+
+At last, his mistress, by some invisible means, lost a favourite cock.
+Cave was, with little examination, stigmatised as the thief and
+murderer; not because he was more apparently criminal than others, but
+because he was more easily reached by vindictive justice. From that
+time, Mr. Holyock withdrew his kindness visibly from him, and treated
+him with harshness, which the crime, in its utmost aggravation, could
+scarcely deserve; and which, surely, he would have forborne, had he
+considered how hardly the habitual influence of birth and fortune is
+resisted; and how frequently men, not wholly without sense of virtue,
+are betrayed to acts more atrocious than the robbery of a hen-roost,
+by a desire of pleasing their superiours.
+
+Those reflections his master never made, or made without effect; for,
+under pretence that Cave obstructed the discipline of the school, by
+selling clandestine assistance, and supplying exercises to idlers, he
+was oppressed with unreasonable tasks, that there might be an
+opportunity of quarrelling with his failure; and when his diligence
+had surmounted them, no regard was paid to the performance. Cave bore
+this persecution awhile, and then left the school, and the hope of a
+literary education, to seek some other means of gaining a livelihood.
+
+He was first placed with a collector of the excise. He used to
+recount, with some pleasure, a journey or two which he rode with him
+as his clerk, and relate the victories that he gained over the
+excisemen in grammatical disputations. But the insolence of his
+mistress, who employed him in servile drudgery, quickly disgusted him,
+and he went up to London in quest of more suitable employment.
+
+He was recommended to a timber-merchant at the Bankside, and, while he
+was there on liking, is said to have given hopes of great mercantile
+abilities; but this place he soon left, I know not for what reason,
+and was bound apprentice to Mr. Collins, a printer of some reputation,
+and deputy alderman.
+
+This was a trade for which men were formerly qualified by a literary
+education, and which was pleasing to Cave, because it furnished some
+employment for his scholastick attainments. Here, therefore, he
+resolved to settle, though his master and mistress lived in perpetual
+discord, and their house was, therefore, no comfortable habitation.
+From the inconveniencies of these domestick tumults he was soon
+released, having, in only two years, attained so much skill in his
+art, and gained so much the confidence of his master, that he was
+sent, without any superintendant, to conduct a printing-office at
+Norwich, and publish a weekly paper. In this undertaking he met with
+some opposition, which produced a publick controversy, and procured
+young Cave the reputation of a writer.
+
+His master died before his apprenticeship was expired, and he was not
+able to bear the perverseness of his mistress. He, therefore, quitted
+her house upon a stipulated allowance, and married a young widow, with
+whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship was over, he worked, as
+a journeyman, at the printing-house of Mr. Barber, a man much
+distinguished, and employed by the tories, whose principles had, at
+that time, so much prevalence with Cave, that he was, for some years,
+a writer in Mist's Journal; which, though he afterwards obtained, by
+his wife's interest, a small place in the post-office, he for some
+time continued. But, as interest is powerful, and conversation,
+however mean, in time persuasive, he, by degrees, inclined to another
+party; in which, however, he was always moderate, though steady and
+determined.
+
+When he was admitted into the post-office, he still continued, at his
+intervals of attendance, to exercise his trade, or to employ himself
+with some typographical business. He corrected the Gradus ad
+Parnassum; and was liberally rewarded by the company of stationers. He
+wrote an account of the criminals, which had, for some time, a
+considerable sale; and published many little pamphlets, that accident
+brought into his hands, of which it would be very difficult to recover
+the memory. By the correspondence which his place in the post-office
+facilitated, he procured country newspapers, and sold their
+intelligence to a journalist in London, for a guinea a week.
+
+He was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the franks, in
+which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and often stopped
+franks, which were given by members of parliament to their friends,
+because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This
+raised many complaints, and having stopped, among others, a frank
+given to the old dutchess of Marlborough by Mr. Walter Plummer, he was
+cited before the house, as for a breach of privilege, and accused, I
+suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was
+treated with great harshness and severity, but, declining their
+questions, by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And
+it must be recorded to his honour, that, when he was ejected from his
+office, he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but
+continued to refuse, to his nearest friends, any information about the
+management of the office.
+
+By this constancy of diligence and diversification of employment, he
+in time collected a sum sufficient for the purchase of a small
+printing-office, and began the Gentleman's Magazine, a periodical
+pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language
+is spoken. To this undertaking he owed the affluence in which he
+passed the last twenty years of his life, and the fortune which he
+left behind him, which, though large, had been yet larger, had he not
+rashly and wantonly impaired it, by innumerable projects, of which I
+know not that ever one succeeded.
+
+The Gentleman's Magazine, which has now subsisted fifty years, and
+still continues to enjoy the favour of the world [60], is one of the
+most successful and lucrative pamphlets which literary history has
+upon record, and therefore deserves, in this narrative, particular
+notice.
+
+Mr. Cave, when he formed the project, was far from expecting the
+success which he found; and others had so little prospect of its
+consequence, that though he had, for several years, talked of his plan
+among printers and booksellers, none of them thought it worth the
+trial. That they were not restrained by virtue from the execution of
+another man's design, was sufficiently apparent, as soon as that
+design began to be gainful; for, in a few years, a multitude of
+magazines arose and perished: only the London Magazine, supported by a
+powerful association of booksellers, and circulated with all the art
+and all the cunning of trade, exempted itself from the general fate of
+Cave's invaders, and obtained, though not an equal, yet a considerable
+sale [61].
+
+Cave now began to aspire to popularity; and being a greater lover of
+poetry than any other art, he sometimes offered subjects for poems,
+and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty
+pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and
+thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected
+the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered
+the allotment of the prize to the universities. But, when the time
+came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen
+before; the universities and several private men rejected the province
+of assigning the prize. At all this Mr. Cave wondered for awhile; but
+his natural judgment, and a wider acquaintance with the world, soon
+cured him of his astonishment, as of many other prejudices and
+errours. Nor have many men been seen raised by accident or industry to
+sudden riches, that retained less of the meanness of their former
+state.
+
+He continued to improve his magazine, and had the satisfaction of
+seeing its success proportionate to his diligence, till, in 1751, his
+wife died of an asthma. He seemed not at first much affected by her
+death, but in a few days lost his sleep and his appetite, which he
+never recovered; but, after having lingered about two years, with many
+vicissitudes of amendment and relapse, fell, by drinking acid liquors,
+into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargick
+insensibility, in which one of the last acts of reason, which he
+exerted, was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little
+narrative. He died on the 10th of January, 1754, having just concluded
+the twenty-third annual collection [62].
+
+He was a man of a large stature, not only tall but bulky, and was,
+when young, of remarkable strength and activity. He was, generally,
+healthful, and capable of much labour and long application; but in the
+latter years of his life was afflicted with the gout, which he
+endeavoured to cure or alleviate by a total abstinence both from
+strong liquors and animal food. From animal food he abstained about
+four years, and from strong liquors much longer; but the gout
+continued unconquered, perhaps unabated.
+
+His resolution and perseverance were very uncommon; in whatever he
+undertook, neither expense nor fatigue were able to repress him; but
+his constancy was calm, and to those who did not know him appeared
+faint and languid; but he always went forward, though he moved slowly.
+The same chilness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was
+watching the minutest accent of those
+
+  Assisted only by a classical education,
+  Which he received at the Grammar school
+  Of this Town,
+  Planned, executed, and established
+  A literary work, called
+  THE
+  GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE,
+  Whereby he acquired an ample fortune,
+  The whole of which devolved to his family,
+  Here also lies
+  The body of WILLIAM CAVE,
+  Second son of the said JOSEPH CAVE,
+  Who died May 2, 1757, aged 62 years;
+  And who, having survived his elder brother,
+  EDWARD CAVE,
+  Inherited from him a competent estate;
+  And, in gratitude to his benefactor,
+  Ordered this monument to perpetuate his memory.
+
+  He liv'd a patriarch in his numerous race,
+  And show'd in charity a Christian's grace:
+  Whate'er a friend or parent feels, he knew;
+  His hand was open, and his heart was true;
+  In what he gain'd and gave, he taught mankind,
+  A grateful always is a generous mind.
+  Here rest his clay! his soul must ever rest;
+  Who bless'd when living, dying must be blest.
+
+whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was
+surprised when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the
+scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.
+
+He was, consistently with this general tranquillity of mind, a
+tenacious maintainer, though not a clamorous demander, of his right.
+In his youth, having summoned his fellow-journeymen to concert
+measures against the oppression of their masters, he mounted a kind of
+rostrum, and harangued them so efficaciously, that they determined to
+resist all future invasions; and when the stamp-offices demanded to
+stamp the last half-sheet of the magazines, Mr. Cave alone defeated
+their claim, to which the proprietors of the rival magazines would
+meanly have submitted.
+
+He was a friend rather easy and constant, than zealous an'd active;
+yet many instances might be given, where both his money and his
+diligence were employed liberally for others. His enmity was, in like
+manner, cool and deliberate; but though cool, it was not insidious,
+and though deliberate, not pertinacious.
+
+His mental faculties were slow. He saw little at a time, but that
+little he saw with great exactness. He was long in finding the right,
+but seldom failed to find it at last. His affections were not easily
+gained, and his opinions not quickly discovered. His reserve, as it
+might hide his faults, concealed his virtues; but such he was, as they
+who best knew him have most lamented.
+
+
+
+
+KING OF PRUSSIA [63].
+
+
+Charles Frederick, the present king of Prussia, whose actions and
+designs now keep Europe in attention, is the eldest son of Frederick
+William, by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George the first, king of
+England. He was born January 24, 1711-12. Of his early years nothing
+remarkable has been transmitted to us. As he advanced towards manhood,
+he became remarkable by his disagreement with his father.
+
+The late king of Prussia was of a disposition violent and arbitrary,
+of narrow views, and vehement passions, earnestly engaged in little
+pursuits, or in schemes terminating in some speedy consequence,
+without any plan of lasting advantage to himself or his subjects, or
+any prospect of distant events. He was, therefore, always busy, though
+no effects of his activity ever appeared, and always eager, though he
+had nothing to gain. His behaviour was, to the last degree, rough and
+savage. The least provocation, whether designed or accidental, was
+returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and
+princesses.
+
+From such a king and such a father it was not any enormous violation
+of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom, sometimes to differ in
+opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A
+prince of a quick sagacity and comprehensive knowledge, must find many
+practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and
+some which he could scarcely forbear to oppose.
+
+The chief pride of the old king was to be master of the tallest
+regiment in Europe. He, therefore, brought together, from all parts,
+men above the common military standard. To exceed the height of six
+feet, was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of
+seven, a claim to distinction. Men will readily go where they are sure
+to be caressed; and he had, therefore, such a collection of giants,
+as, perhaps, was never seen in the world before.
+
+To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to
+perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he
+immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that
+they might propagate procerity, and produce heirs to the father's
+habiliments.
+
+In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall
+regiment made a fine show at an expense not much greater, when once it
+was collected, than would have been bestowed upon common men. But the
+king's military pastimes were sometimes more pernicious. He maintained
+a numerous army, of which he made no other use than to review and to
+talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emissaries, saw a boy, whose
+form and sprightliness promised a future soldier, he ordered a kind of
+badge to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the
+service, like the sons of Christian captives in Turkey; and his
+parents were forbidden to destine him to any other mode of life.
+
+This was sufficiently oppressive, but this was not the utmost of his
+tyranny. He had learned, though otherwise perhaps no very great
+politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of
+a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his subjects, he wanted
+either ability or benevolence to understand. He, therefore, raised
+exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and possession, and
+piled up the money in his treasury, from which it issued no more. How
+the land which had paid taxes once, was to pay them a second time, how
+imposts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued
+without money, it was not his custom to inquire. Eager to snatch at
+money, and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt,
+and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.
+
+By which of these freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or
+whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he
+complains were of a domestick and personal kind, it is not easy to
+discover. But his resentment, whatever was its cause, rose so high,
+that he resolved not only to leave his father's court, but his
+territories, and to seek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred
+princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to
+England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's
+death, or change of conduct, should give him liberty to return.
+
+His design, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer in the army,
+whose name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and
+whom, having chosen him for the companion of his flight, he
+necessarily trusted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot
+leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was
+to be provided, and something to be adjusted. And, whether Kat found
+the agency of others necessary, and, therefore, was constrained to
+admit some partners of the secret; whether levity or vanity incited
+him to disburden himself of a trust that swelled in his bosom, or to
+show to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in
+itself difficult for princes to transact any thing in secret; so it
+was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the
+prince, and his favourite, a little before the time settled for their
+departure, were arrested, and confined in different places.
+
+The life of princes is seldom in danger, the hazard of their
+irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines
+with them. The king, after an imprisonment of some time, set his son
+at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime.
+The court examined the cause, and acquitted him: the king remanded him
+to a second trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In
+consequence of the sentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was
+publickly beheaded, leaving behind him some papers of reflections made
+in the prison, which were afterwards printed, and among others an
+admonition to the prince, for whose sake he suffered, not to foster in
+himself the opinion of destiny, for that a providence is discoverable
+in every thing round us.
+
+This cruel prosecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by
+compliance with influence not easily to be resisted, was not the only
+act by which the old king irritated his son. A lady with whom the
+prince was suspected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed,
+was seized, I know not upon what accusation, and, by the king's order,
+notwithstanding all the reasons of decency and tenderness that operate
+in other countries, and other judicatures, was publickly whipped in
+the streets of Berlin.
+
+At last, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father
+in its utmost rigour, he was, in 1733, married against his will to the
+princess Elizabetha Christina of Brunswick Luneburg Beveren. He
+married her indeed at his father's command, but without professing for
+her either esteem or affection, and considering the claim of parental
+authority fully satisfied by the external ceremony, obstinately and
+perpetually, during the life of his father, refrained from her bed.
+The poor princess lived about seven years in the court of Berlin, in a
+state which the world has not often seen, a wife without a husband,
+married so far as to engage her person to a man who did not desire her
+affection, and of whom it was doubtful, whether he thought himself
+restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under
+evident compulsion.
+
+Thus he lived secluded from publick business, in contention with his
+father, in alienation from his wife. This state of uneasiness he found
+the only means of softening. He diverted his mind from the scenes
+about him, by studies and liberal amusements. The studies of princes
+seldom produce great effects, for princes draw with meaner mortals the
+lot of understanding; and since of many students not more than one can
+be hoped to advance far towards perfection, it is scarcely to be
+expected that we should find that one a prince; that the desire of
+science should overpower in any mind the love of pleasure, when it is
+always present, or always within call; that laborious meditation
+should be preferred in the days of youth to amusements and festivity;
+or that perseverance should press forward in contempt of flattery; and
+that he, in whom moderate acquisitions would be extolled as prodigies,
+should exact from himself that excellence of which the whole world
+conspires to spare him the necessity.
+
+In every great performance, perhaps in every great character, part is
+the gift of nature, part the contribution of accident, and part, very
+often not the greatest part, the effect of voluntary election, and
+regular design. The king of Prussia was undoubtedly born with more
+than common abilities; but that he has cultivated them with more than
+common diligence, was probably the effect of his peculiar condition,
+of that which he then considered as cruelty and misfortune.
+
+In this long interval of unhappiness and obscurity, he acquired skill
+in the mathematical sciences, such as is said to have put him on the
+level with those who have made them the business of their lives. This
+is, probably, to say too much: the acquisitions of kings are always
+magnified. His skill in poetry and in the French language has been
+loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception, if his honesty
+were equal to his knowledge. Musick he not only understands, but
+practises on the German flute, in the highest perfection; so that,
+according to the regal censure of Philip of Macedon, he may be ashamed
+to play so well.
+
+He may be said to owe to the difficulties of his youth an advantage
+less frequently obtained by princes than literature and mathematicks.
+The necessity of passing his time without pomp, and of partaking of
+the pleasures and labours of a lower station, made him acquainted with
+the various forms of life, and with the genuine passions, interests,
+desires, and distresses, of mankind. Kings, without this help from
+temporary infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies every
+thing near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few
+are able to extend by the mere force of curiosity. I have always
+thought that what Cromwell had more than our lawful kings, he owed to
+the private condition in which he first entered the world, and in
+which he long continued: in that state he learned his art of secret
+transaction, and the knowledge by which he was able to oppose zeal to
+zeal, and make one enthusiast destroy another.
+
+The king of Prussia gained the same arts, and, being born to fairer
+opportunities of using them, brought to the throne the knowledge of a
+private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general
+acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his
+whole life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common
+topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole
+conduct is that of a man who has to do with men, and who is not
+ignorant what motives will prevail over friends or enemies.
+
+In 1740, the old king fell sick, and spoke and acted in his illness
+with his usual turbulence and roughness, reproaching his physicians,
+in the grossest terms, with their unskilfulness and impotence, and
+imputing to their ignorance or wickedness the pain which their
+prescriptions failed to relieve. These insults they bore with the
+submission which is commonly paid to despotick monarchs; till at last
+the celebrated Hoffman was consulted, who failing, like the rest, to
+give ease to his majesty, was, like the rest, treated with injurious
+language. Hoffman, conscious of his own merit, replied, that he could
+not bear reproaches which he did not deserve; that he had tried all
+the remedies that art could supply, or nature could admit; that he
+was, indeed, a professor by his majesty's bounty; but that, if his
+abilities or integrity were doubted, he was willing to leave, not only
+the university, but the kingdom; and that he could not be driven into
+any place where the name of Hoffman would want respect. The king,
+however unaccustomed to such returns, was struck with conviction of
+his own indecency, told Hoffman, that he had spoken well, and
+requested him to continue his attendance.
+
+The king, finding his distemper gaining upon his strength, grew at
+last sensible that his end was approaching, and, ordering the prince
+to be called to his bed, laid several injunctions upon him, of which
+one was to perpetuate the tall regiment by continual recruits, and
+another, to receive his espoused wife. The prince gave him a
+respectful answer, but wisely avoided to diminish his own right or
+power by an absolute promise; and the king died uncertain of the fate
+of the tall regiment.
+
+The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has
+yet surpassed. His father's faults produced many advantages to the
+first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well
+disciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was
+master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raising it.
+It was publickly said in our house of commons, that he had eight
+millions sterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had
+not considered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all
+the Prussian dominions. Men judge of what they do not see by that
+which they see. We are used to talk in England of millions with great
+familiarity, and imagine that there is the same affluence of money in
+other countries, in countries whose manufactures are few, and commerce
+little.
+
+Every man's first cares are necessarily domestick. The king, being now
+no longer under influence, or its appearance, determined how to act
+towards the unhappy lady who had possessed, for seven years, the empty
+title of the princess of Prussia. The papers of those times exhibited
+the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans
+campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his
+wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain
+that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is
+yet in dispute.
+
+In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall
+regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and
+this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.
+
+He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear
+the title of _queen mother_, and that, instead of addressing him
+as _his majesty_, she should only call him _son_.
+
+As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand
+boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his
+coach, and cried out: "merciful king! deliver us from our slavery." He
+promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge
+should be taken off.
+
+He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began
+when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals
+formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the
+times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the
+fourteenth.
+
+It soon appeared that he was resolved to govern with very little
+ministerial assistance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own
+eyes; declared, that in all contrarieties of interest between him and
+his subjects, the publick good should have the preference; and, in one
+of the first exertions of regal power, banished the prime minister and
+favourite of his father, as one that had "betrayed his master, and
+abused his trust."
+
+He then declared his resolution to grant a general toleration of
+religion, and, among other liberalities of concession, allowed the
+profession of free-masonry. It is the great taint of his character,
+that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the
+effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good
+men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good.
+There had subsisted, for some time, in Prussia, an order called the
+"order for favour," which, according to its denomination, had been
+conferred with very little distinction. The king instituted the "order
+for merit," with which he honoured those whom he considered as
+deserving. There were some who thought their merit not sufficiently
+recompensed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant
+pecuniary rewards. Those who were most in his favour he sometimes
+presented with snuffboxes, on which was inscribed, "Amitie augmente le
+prix."
+
+He was, however, charitable, if not liberal, for he ordered the
+magistrates of the several districts to be very attentive to the
+relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that use were
+not sufficient, permitted that the deficiency should be supplied out
+of the revenues of the town.
+
+One of his first cares was the advancement of learning. Immediately
+upon his accession, he wrote to Rollin and Voltaire, that he desired
+the continuance of their friendship; and sent for Mr. Maupertuis, the
+principal of the French academicians, who passed a winter in Lapland,
+to verify, by the mensuration of a degree near the pole, the Newtonian
+doctrine of the form of the earth. He requested of Maupertuis to come
+to Berlin, to settle an academy, in terms of great ardour and great
+condescension.
+
+At the same time, he showed the world that literary amusements were
+not likely, as has more than once happened to royal students, to
+withdraw him from the care of the kingdom, or make him forget his
+interest. He began by reviving a claim to Herstal and Hermal, two
+districts in the possession of the bishop of Liege. When he sent his
+commissary to demand the homage of the inhabitants, they refused him
+admission, declaring that they acknowledged no sovereign but the
+bishop. The king then wrote a letter to the bishop, in which he
+complained of the violation of his right, and the contempt of his
+authority, charged the prelate with countenancing the late act of
+disobedience, and required an answer in two days.
+
+In three days the answer was sent, in which the bishop founds his
+claim to the two lordships, upon a grant of Charles the fifth,
+guaranteed by France and Spain; alleges that his predecessors had
+enjoyed this grant above a century, and that he never intended to
+infringe the rights of Prussia; but as the house of Brandenburgh had
+always made some pretensions to that territory, he was willing to do
+what other bishops had offered, to purchase that claim for a hundred
+thousand crowns.
+
+To every man that knows the state of the feudal countries, the
+intricacy of their pedigrees, the confusion of their alliances, and
+the different rules of inheritance that prevail in different places,
+it will appear evident, that of reviving antiquated claims there can
+be no end, and that the possession of a century is a better title than
+can commonly be produced. So long a prescription supposes an
+acquiescence in the other claimants; and that acquiescence supposes
+also some reason, perhaps now unknown, for which the claim was
+forborne. Whether this rule could be considered as valid in the
+controversy between these sovereigns, may, however, be doubted, for
+the bishop's answer seems to imply, that the title of the house of
+Brandenburg had been kept alive by repeated claims, though the seizure
+of the territory had been hitherto forborne.
+
+The king did not suffer his claim to be subjected to any altercations,
+but, having published a declaration, in which he charged the bishop
+with violence and injustice, and remarked that the feudal laws allowed
+every man, whose possession was withheld from him, to enter it with an
+armed force, he immediately despatched two thousand soldiers into the
+controverted countries, where they lived without control, exercising
+every kind of military tyranny, till the cries of the inhabitants
+forced the bishop to relinquish them to the quiet government of
+Prussia.
+
+This was but a petty acquisition; the time was now come when the king
+of Prussia was to form and execute greater designs. On the 9th of
+October, 1740, half Europe was thrown into confusion by the death of
+Charles the sixth, emperour of Germany, by whose death all the
+hereditary dominions of the house of Austria descended, according to
+the pragmatick sanction, to his eldest daughter, who was married to
+the duke of Lorrain, at the time of the emperour's death, duke of
+Tuscany.
+
+By how many securities the pragmatick sanction was fortified, and how
+little it was regarded when those securities became necessary; how
+many claimants started up at once to the several dominions of the
+house of Austria; how vehemently their pretensions were enforced, and
+how many invasions were threatened or attempted; the distresses of the
+emperour's daughter, known for several years by the title only of the
+queen of Hungary, because Hungary was the only country to which her
+claim had not been disputed: the firmness with which she struggled
+with her difficulties, and the good fortune by which she surmounted
+them; the narrow plan of this essay will not suffer me to relate. Let
+them be told by some other writer of more leisure and wider
+intelligence.
+
+Upon the emperour's death, many of the German princes fell upon the
+Austrian territories, as upon a dead carcass, to be dismembered among
+them without resistance. Among these, with whatever justice, certainly
+with very little generosity, was the king of Prussia, who, having
+assembled his troops, as was imagined, to support the pragmatick
+sanction, on a sudden entered Silesia with thirty thousand men,
+publishing a declaration, in which he disclaims any design of injuring
+the rights of the house of Austria, but urges his claim to Silesia, as
+rising "from ancient conventions of family and confraternity between
+the house of Brandenburg and the princes of Silesia, and other
+honourable titles." He says, the fear of being defeated by other
+pretenders to the Austrian dominions, obliged him to enter Silesia
+without any previous expostulation with the queen, and that he shall
+"strenuously espouse the interests of the house of Austria."
+
+Such a declaration was, I believe, in the opinion of all Europe,
+nothing less than the aggravation of hostility by insult, and was
+received by the Austrians with suitable indignation. The king pursued
+his purpose, marched forward, and in the frontiers of Silesia made a
+speech to his followers, in which he told them, that he considered
+them rather "as friends than subjects, that the troops of Brandenburg
+had been always eminent for their bravery, that they would always
+fight in his presence, and that he would recompense those who should
+distinguish themselves in his service, rather as a father than as a
+king."
+
+The civilities of the great are never thrown away. The soldiers would
+naturally follow such a leader with alacrity; especially because they
+expected no opposition: but human expectations are frequently
+deceived.
+
+Entering thus suddenly into a country which he was supposed rather
+likely to protect than to invade, he acted for some time with absolute
+authority; but, supposing that this submission would not always last,
+he endeavoured to persuade the queen to a cession of Silesia,
+imagining that she would easily be persuaded to yield what was already
+lost. He, therefore, ordered his minister to declare, at Vienna, "that
+he was ready to guarantee all the German dominions of the house of
+Austria; that he would conclude a treaty with Austria, Russia, and the
+maritime powers; that he would endeavour that the duke of Lorrain
+should be elected emperour, and believed that he could accomplish it;
+that he would immediately advance to the queen two millions of
+florins; that, in recompense for all this, he required Silesia to be
+yielded to him."
+
+These seem not to be the offers of a prince very much convinced of his
+own right. He afterwards moderated his claim, and ordered his minister
+to hint at Vienna, that half of Silesia would content him.
+
+The queen answered, that though the king alleged, as his reason for
+entering Silesia, the danger of the Austrian territories from other
+pretenders, and endeavoured to persuade her to give up part of her
+possessions for the preservation of the rest, it was evident that he
+was the first and only invader, and that, till he entered in a hostile
+manner, all her estates were unmolested.
+
+To his promises of assistance she replied, "that she set a high value
+on the king of Prussia's friendship; but that he was already obliged
+to assist her against her invaders, both by the golden bull, and the
+pragmatick sanction, of which he was a guarantee, and that, if these
+ties were of no force she knew not what to hope from other
+engagements."
+
+Of his offers of alliances with Russia and the maritime powers, she
+observed, that it could be never fit to alienate her dominions for the
+consolidation of an alliance formed only to keep them entire.
+
+With regard to his interest in the election of an emperour, she
+expressed her gratitude in strong terms; but added, that the election
+ought to be free, and that it must be necessarily embarrassed by
+contentions thus raised in the heart of the empire. Of the pecuniary
+assistance proposed, she remarks, that no prince ever made war to
+oblige another to take money, and that the contributions already
+levied in Silesia exceed the two millions, offered as its purchase.
+
+She concluded, that as she values the king's friendship, she was
+willing to purchase it by any compliance but the diminution of her
+dominions, and exhorted him to perform his part in support of the
+pragmatick sanction.
+
+The king, finding negotiation thus ineffectual, pushed forward his
+inroads, and now began to show how secretly he could take his
+measures. When he called a council of war, he proposed the question in
+a few words: all his generals wrote their opinions in his presence
+upon separate papers, which he carried away, and, examining them in
+private, formed his resolution, without imparting it otherwise than by
+his orders.
+
+He began not without policy, to seize first upon the estates of the
+clergy, an order every where necessary, and every where envied. He
+plundered the convents of their stores of provision; and told them,
+that he never had heard of any magazines erected by the apostles.
+
+This insult was mean, because it was unjust; but those who could not
+resist were obliged to bear it. He proceeded in his expedition; and a
+detachment of his troops took Jablunca, one of the strong places of
+Silesia, which was soon after abandoned, for want of provisions, which
+the Austrian hussars, who were now in motion, were busy to interrupt.
+
+One of the most remarkable events of the Silesia war, was the conquest
+of great Glogau, which was taken by an assault in the dark, headed by
+prince Leopold of Anhalt Dessau. They arrived at the foot of the
+fortifications about twelve at night, and in two hours were masters of
+the place. In attempts of this kind many accidents happen which cannot
+be heard without surprise. Four Prussian grenadiers, who had climbed
+the ramparts, missing their own company, met an Austrian captain with
+fifty-two men: they were at first frighted, and were about to retreat;
+but, gathering courage, commanded the Austrians to lay down their
+arms, and in the terrour of darkness and confusion were unexpectedly
+obeyed.
+
+At the same time a conspiracy to kill or carry away the king of
+Prussia, was said to be discovered. The Prussians published a
+memorial, in which the Austrian court was accused of employing
+emissaries and assassins against the king; and it was alleged, in
+direct terms, that one of them had confessed himself obliged, by oath,
+to destroy him, which oath had been given him in an Aulick council, in
+the presence of the duke of Lorrain.
+
+To this the Austrians answered, "that the character of the queen and
+duke was too well known not to destroy the force of such an
+accusation; that the tale of the confession was an imposture, and that
+no such attempt was ever made."
+
+Each party was now inflamed, and orders were given to the Austrian
+general to hazard a battle. The two armies met at Molwitz, and parted
+without a complete victory on either side. The Austrians quitted the
+field in good order; and the king of Prussia rode away upon the first
+disorder of his troops, without waiting for the last event. This
+attention to his personal safety has not yet been forgotten.
+
+After this, there was no action of much importance. But the king of
+Prussia, irritated by opposition, transferred his interest in the
+election to the duke of Bavaria; and the queen of Hungary, now
+attacked by France, Spain, and Bavaria, was obliged to make peace with
+him at the expense of half Silesia, without procuring those advantages
+which were once offered her.
+
+To enlarge dominions has been the boast of many princes; to diffuse
+happiness and security through wide regions has been granted to few.
+The king of Prussia has aspired to both these honours, and endeavoured
+to join the praise of legislator to that of conqueror.
+
+To settle property, to suppress false claims, and to regulate the
+administration of civil and criminal justice are attempts so difficult
+and so useful, that I shall willingly suspend or contract the history
+of battles and sieges, to give a larger account of this pacifick
+enterprise.
+
+That the king of Prussia has considered the nature and the reasons of
+laws, with more attention than is common to princes, appears from his
+dissertation on the Reasons for enacting and repealing Laws: a piece
+which yet deserves notice, rather as a proof of good inclination than
+of great ability; for there is nothing to be found in it more than the
+most obvious books may supply, or the weakest intellect discover. Some
+of his observations are just and useful; but upon such a subject who
+can think without often thinking right? It is, however, not to be
+omitted, that he appears always propense towards the side of mercy.
+"If a poor man," says he, "steals in his want a watch, or a few
+pieces, from one to whom the loss is inconsiderable, is this a reason
+for condemning him to death?"
+
+He regrets that the laws against duels have been ineffectual; and is
+of opinion, that they can never attain their end, unless the princes
+of Europe shall agree not to afford an asylum to duellists, and to
+punish all who shall insult their equals, either by word, deed, or
+writing. He seems to suspect this scheme of being chimerical. "Yet
+why," says he, "should not personal quarrels be submitted to judges,
+as well as questions of possession? and why should not a congress be
+appointed for the general good of mankind, as well as for so many
+purposes of less importance?"
+
+He declares himself with great ardour against the use of torture, and
+by some misinformation charges the English that they still retain it.
+
+It is, perhaps, impossible to review the laws of any country without
+discovering many defects and many superfluities. Laws often continue,
+when their reasons have ceased. Laws made for the first state of the
+society continue unabolished, when the general form of life is
+changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were, at first, only
+accidental, become, in time, essential; and formalities are
+accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more
+study than the discovery of right.
+
+The king of Prussia, examining the institutions of his own country,
+thought them such as could only be amended by a general abrogation,
+and the establishment of a new body of law, to which he gave the name
+of the Code Frederique, which is comprised in one volume of no great
+bulk, and must, therefore, unavoidably contain general positions to be
+accommodated to particular cases by the wisdom and integrity of the
+courts. To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it
+by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all
+civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative
+wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
+
+Of this new system of laws, contracted as it is, a full account cannot
+be expected in these memoirs; but, that curiosity may not be dismissed
+without some gratification, it has been thought proper to epitomise
+the king's plan for the reformation of his courts.
+
+"The differences which arise between members of the same society, may
+be terminated by a voluntary agreement between the parties, by
+arbitration, or by a judicial process.
+
+"The two first methods produce, more frequently, a temporary
+suspension of disputes than a final termination. Courts of justice
+are, therefore, necessary, with a settled method of procedure, of
+which the most simple is to cite the parties, to hear their pleas, and
+dismiss them with immediate decision.
+
+"This, however, is, in many cases, impracticable, and in others is so
+seldom practised, that it is frequent rather to incur loss than to
+seek for legal reparation, by entering a labyrinth of which there is
+no end.
+
+"This tediousness of suits keeps the parties in disquiet and
+perturbation, rouses and perpetuates animosities, exhausts the
+litigants by expense, retards the progress of their fortune, and
+discourages strangers from settling.
+
+"These inconveniencies, with which the best-regulated polities of
+Europe are embarrassed, must be removed, not by the total prohibition
+of suits, which is impossible, but by contraction of processes; by
+opening an easy way for the appearance of truth, and removing all
+obstructions by which it is concealed.
+
+"The ordonnance of 1667, by which Lewis the fourteenth established an
+uniformity of procedure through all his courts, has been considered as
+one of the greatest benefits of his reign.
+
+"The king of Prussia, observing that each of his provinces had a
+different method of judicial procedure, proposed to reduce them all to
+one form; which being tried with success in Pomerania, a province
+remarkable for contention, he afterwards extended to all his
+dominions, ordering the judges to inform him of any difficulties which
+arose from it.
+
+"Some settled method is necessary in judicial procedures. Small and
+simple causes might be decided upon the oral pleas of the two parties
+appearing before the judge; but many cases are so entangled and
+perplexed as to require all the skill and abilities of those who
+devote their lives to the study of the law.
+
+"Advocates, or men who can understand and explain the question to be
+discussed, are, therefore, necessary. But these men, instead of
+endeavouring to promote justice and discover truth, have exerted their
+wits in the defence of bad causes, by forgeries of facts, and
+fallacies of argument.
+
+"To remedy this evil, the king has ordered an inquiry into the
+qualifications of the advocate. All those who practise without a
+regular admission, or who can be convicted of disingenuous practice,
+are discarded. And the judges are commanded to examine which of the
+causes now depending have been protracted by the crimes and ignorance
+of the advocates, and to dismiss those who shall appear culpable.
+
+"When advocates are too numerous to live by honest practice, they busy
+themselves in exciting disputes, and disturbing the community: the
+number of these to be employed in each court is, therefore, fixed.
+
+"The reward of the advocates is fixed with due regard to the nature of
+the cause, and the labour required; but not a penny is received by
+them till the suit is ended, that it may be their interest, as well as
+that of the clients, to shorten the process.
+
+"No advocate is admitted in petty courts, small towns, or villages;
+where the poverty of the people, and, for the most part, the low value
+of the matter contested, make despatch absolutely necessary. In those
+places the parties shall appear in person, and the judge make a
+summary decision.
+
+"There must, likewise, be allowed a subordination of tribunals, and a
+power of appeal. No judge is so skilful and attentive as not sometimes
+to err. Few are so honest as not sometimes to be partial. Petty judges
+would become insupportably tyrannical if they were not restrained by
+the fear of a superiour judicature; and their decisions would be
+negligent or arbitrary if they were not in danger of seeing them
+examined and cancelled.
+
+"The right of appeal must be restrained, that causes may not be
+transferred without end from court to court; and a peremptory decision
+must, at last, be made.
+
+"When an appeal is made to a higher court, the appellant is allowed
+only four weeks to frame his bill, the judge of the lower court being
+to transmit to the higher all the evidences and informations. If, upon
+the first view of the cause thus opened, it shall appear that the
+appeal was made without just cause, the first sentence shall be
+confirmed without citation of the defendant. If any new evidence shall
+appear, or any doubts arise, both the parties shall be heard.
+
+"In the discussion of causes altercation must be allowed; yet to
+altercation some limits must be put. There are, therefore, allowed a
+bill, an answer, a reply, and a rejoinder, to be delivered in writing.
+
+"No cause is allowed to be heard in more than three different courts.
+To further the first decision, every advocate is enjoined, under
+severe penalties, not to begin a suit till he has collected all the
+necessary evidence. If the first court has decided in an
+unsatisfactory manner, an appeal may be made to the second, and from
+the second to the third. The process in each appeal is limited to six
+months. The third court may, indeed, pass an erroneous judgment; and
+then the injury is without redress. But this objection is without end,
+and, therefore, without force. No method can be found of preserving
+humanity from errour; but of contest there must sometime be an end;
+and he, who thinks himself injured for want of an appeal to a fourth
+court, must consider himself as suffering for the publick.
+
+"There is a special advocate appointed for the poor.
+
+"The attorneys, who had formerly the care of collecting evidence, and
+of adjusting all the preliminaries of a suit, are now totally
+dismissed; the whole affair is put into the hands of the advocates,
+and the office of an attorney is annulled for ever.
+
+"If any man is hindered by some lawful impediment from attending his
+suit, time will be granted him upon the representation of his case."
+
+Such is the order according to which civil justice is administered
+through the extensive dominions of the king of Prussia; which, if it
+exhibits nothing very subtle or profound, affords one proof more that
+the right is easily discovered, and that men do not so often want
+ability to find, as willingness to practise it.
+
+We now return to the war.
+
+The time at which the queen of Hungary was willing to purchase peace
+by the resignation of Silesia, though it came at last, was not come
+yet. She had all the spirit, though not all the power of her
+ancestors, and could not bear the thought of losing any part of her
+patrimonial dominions to the enemies which the opinion of her weakness
+raised every where against her.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1742, the elector of Bavaria was invested
+with the imperial dignity, supported by the arms of France, master of
+the kingdom of Bohemia; and confederated with the elector Palatine,
+and the elector of Saxony, who claimed Moravia; and with the king of
+Prussia, who was in possession of Silesia.
+
+Such was the state of the queen of Hungary, pressed on every side, and
+on every side preparing for resistance: she yet refused all offers of
+accommodation, for every prince set peace at a price which she was not
+yet so far humbled as to pay.
+
+The king of Prussia was among the most zealous and forward in the
+confederacy against her. He promised to secure Bohemia to the
+emperour, and Moravia to the elector of Saxony; and, finding no enemy
+in the field able to resist him, he returned to Berlin, and left
+Schwerin, his general, to prosecute the conquest.
+
+The Prussians, in the midst of winter, took Olmutz, the capital of
+Moravia, and laid the whole country under contribution. The cold then
+hindered them from action, and they only blocked up the fortresses of
+Brinn, and Spielberg.
+
+In the spring, the king of Prussia came again into the field, and
+undertook the siege of Brinn; but, upon the approach of prince Charles
+of Lorrain, retired from before it, and quitted Moravia, leaving only
+a garrison in the capital.
+
+The condition of the queen of Hungary was now changed. She was, a few
+months before, without money, without troops, encircled with enemies.
+The Bavarians had entered Austria, Vienna was threatened with a siege,
+and the queen left it to the fate of war, and retired into Hungary,
+where she was received with zeal and affection, not unmingled,
+however, with that neglect which must always be borne by greatness in
+distress. She bore the disrespect of her subjects with the same
+firmness as the outrages of her enemies; and, at last, persuaded the
+English not to despair of her preservation, by not despairing herself.
+
+Voltaire, in his late history, has asserted, that a large sum was
+raised for her succour, by voluntary subscriptions of the English
+ladies. It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch
+greedily at wonders. He was misinformed, and was, perhaps, unwilling
+to learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing. A
+contribution was, by news-writers, upon their own authority,
+fruitlessly, and, I think, illegally proposed. It ended in nothing.
+The parliament voted a supply, and five hundred thousand pounds were
+remitted to her.
+
+It has been always the weakness of the Austrian family to spend in the
+magnificence of empire, those revenues which should be kept for its
+defence. The court is splendid, but the treasury is empty; and, at the
+beginning of every war, advantages are gained against them, before
+their armies can be assembled and equipped.
+
+The English money was to the Austrians, as a shower to a field, where
+all the vegetative powers are kept unactive by a long continuance of
+drought. The armies, which had hitherto been hid in mountains and
+forests, started out of their retreats; and, wherever the queen's
+standard was erected, nations scarcely known by their names, swarmed
+immediately about it. An army, especially a defensive army, multiplies
+itself. The contagion of enterprise spreads from one heart to another.
+Zeal for a native, or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of
+sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular
+men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty
+and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank
+to rank, and squadron to squadron.
+
+The queen had still enemies on every part, but she now, on every part,
+had armies ready to oppose them. Austria was immediately recovered;
+the plains of Bohemia were filled with her troops, though the
+fortresses were garrisoned by the French. The Bavarians were recalled
+to the defence of their own country, now wasted by the incursions of
+troops that were called barbarians, greedy enough of plunder, and
+daring, perhaps, beyond the rules of war, but otherwise not more cruel
+than those whom they attacked. Prince Lobkowitz, with one army,
+observed the motions of Broglio, the French general, in Bohemia; and
+prince Charles with another, put a stop to the advances of the king of
+Prussia.
+
+It was now the turn of the Prussians to retire. They abandoned Olmutz,
+and left behind them part of their cannon and their magazines. And the
+king, finding that Broglio could not long oppose prince Lobkowitz,
+hastened into Bohemia to his assistance; and having received a
+reinforcement of twenty-three thousand men, and taken the castle of
+Glatz, which, being built upon a rock scarcely accessible, would have
+defied all his power, had the garrison been furnished with provisions,
+he purposed to join his allies, and prosecute his conquests.
+
+Prince Charles, seeing Moravia thus evacuated by the Prussians,
+determined to garrison the towns which he had just recovered, and
+pursue the enemy, who, by the assistance of the French, would have
+been too powerful for prince Lobkowitz.
+
+Success had now given confidence to the Austrians, and had
+proportionably abated the spirit of their enemies. The Saxons, who had
+cooperated with the king of Prussia in the conquest of Moravia, of
+which they expected the perpetual possession, seeing all hopes of
+sudden acquisition defeated, and the province left again to its former
+masters, grew weary of following a prince, whom they considered as no
+longer acting the part of their confederate; and when they approached
+the confines of Bohemia took a different road, and left the Prussians
+to their own fortune.
+
+The king continued his march, and Charles his pursuit. At Czaslau the
+two armies came in sight of one another, and the Austrians resolved on
+a decisive day. On the 6th of May, about seven in the morning, the
+Austrians began the attack: their impetuosity was matched by the
+firmness of the Prussians. The animosity of the two armies was much
+inflamed: the Austrians were fighting for their country, and the
+Prussians were in a place, where defeat must inevitably end in death
+or captivity. The fury of the battle continued four hours: the
+Prussian horse were, at length, broken, and the Austrians forced their
+way to the camp, where the wild troops, who had fought with so much
+vigour and constancy, at the sight of plunder forgot their obedience,
+nor had any man the least thought but how to load himself with the
+richest spoils.
+
+While the right wing of the Austrians was thus employed, the main body
+was left naked: the Prussians recovered from their confusion, and
+regained the day. Charles was, at last, forced to retire, and carried
+with him the standards of his enemies, the proofs of a victory, which,
+though so nearly gained, he had not been able to keep.
+
+The victory, however, was dearly bought; the Prussian army was much
+weakened, and the cavalry almost totally destroyed. Peace is easily
+made when it is necessary to both parties; and the king of Prussia had
+now reason to believe that the Austrians were not his only enemies.
+When he found Charles advancing, he sent to Broglio for assistance,
+and was answered, that "he must have orders from Versailles." Such a
+desertion of his most powerful ally disconcerted him, but the battle
+was unavoidable.
+
+When the Prussians were returned to the camp, the king, hearing that
+an Austrian officer was brought in mortally wounded, had the
+condescension to visit him. The officer, struck with this act of
+humanity, said, after a short conversation: "I should die, sir,
+contentedly after this honour, if I might first show my gratitude to
+your majesty by informing you with what allies you are now united,
+allies that have no intention but to deceive you." The king appearing
+to suspect this intelligence; "Sir," said the Austrian, "if you will
+permit me to send a messenger to Vienna, I believe the queen will not
+refuse to transmit an intercepted letter now in her hands, which will
+put my report beyond all doubt."
+
+The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained
+the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops
+on any occasion with the Prussians. Secondly, he was ordered to act
+always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of
+twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe
+very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly,
+to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the
+absence of Bellisle.
+
+The king now, with great reason, considered himself as disengaged from
+the confederacy, being deserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the
+French; he, therefore, accepted the mediation of king George, and, in
+three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw, made peace with the queen of
+Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country
+of such extent and opulence, that he is said to receive from it one
+third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it
+is stipulated, "that neither should assist the enemies of the other."
+
+The queen of Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from
+the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to
+peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his
+imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was
+treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city
+which they had taken from her.
+
+Having thus obtained Silesia, the king of Prussia returned to his own
+capital, where he reformed his laws, forbade the torture of criminals,
+concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to
+the augmentation of his army.
+
+This treaty of peace with the queen of Hungary was one of the first
+proofs given by the king of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels.
+Bellisle, the French general, was with him in the camp, as a friend
+and coadjutor in appearance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of
+intelligence. Men who have great confidence in their own penetration
+are often by that confidence deceived; they imagine that they can
+pierce through all the involutions of intrigue, without the diligence
+necessary to weaker minds, and, therefore, sit idle and secure; they
+believe that none can hope to deceive them, and, therefore, that none
+will try. Bellisle, with all his reputation of sagacity, though he was
+in the Prussian camp, gave, every day, fresh assurances of the king's
+adherence to his allies; while Broglio, who commanded the army at a
+distance, discovered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion.
+Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till, on the 11th of
+June, the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to
+keep a neutrality.
+
+This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem
+agreed to celebrate and admire; yet, to all this nothing was necessary
+but the determination of a very few men to be silent.
+
+From this time the queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted
+torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and
+deprived of fortress after fortress, were, at last, enclosed with
+their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague,
+which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town
+besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any
+prospect appeared of relief.
+
+The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden
+and tumultuary excursions, rather than a regular war, had no great
+degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They, likewise, would
+naturally consider all the mischiefs done to the city, as falling,
+ultimately, upon themselves; and, therefore, were willing to gain it
+by time rather than by force.
+
+It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it
+must be yielded at last, and, therefore, all arts were tried to obtain
+an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent
+back, sometimes unheard, but always with this answer: "That no terms
+would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of
+war."
+
+The condition of the garrison was, in the eyes of all Europe,
+desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity
+cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their
+arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in
+Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprise was
+considered as romantick. Maillebois was a march of forty days distant
+from Bohemia, the passes were narrow, and the ways foul; and it was
+likely that Prague would be taken before he could reach it. The march
+was, however, begun: the army, being joined by that of count Saxe,
+consisted of fifty thousand men, who, notwithstanding all the
+difficulties which two Austrian armies could put in their way, at last
+entered Bohemia. The siege of Prague, though not raised, was remitted,
+and a communication was now opened to it with the country. But the
+Austrians, by perpetual intervention, hindered the garrison from
+joining their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited him to a
+battle, because the army was hourly lessening by the want of
+provisions; but, instead of pressing on to Prague, he retired into
+Bavaria, and completed the ruin of the emperour's territories.
+
+The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief
+command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little
+difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle, by a sudden
+sally, quitted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main
+army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions,
+wasting, in his retreat, the country which he had undertaken to
+protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with
+such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected
+commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means.
+
+The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong
+places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made
+themselves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich, the capital,
+but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector's
+dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of
+ammunition, intended, in the dreams of projected greatness, for the
+siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and
+ornaments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as
+most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken
+away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the
+Bavarians, but without any explanation, whether temporary or
+perpetual.
+
+The emperour lived at Frankfort, in the security that was allowed to
+neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes,
+except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of
+his election, the king of Prussia declared himself determined to
+support him in the imperial dignity, with all his power.
+
+This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the queen
+of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German
+princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an
+emperour, once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the
+whole Germanick constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of
+suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be
+objected, that voices were procured by illicit influence.
+
+Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king's declaration, which
+he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at
+London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty
+of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not
+satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice
+disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked
+him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he
+appeared openly as an enemy.
+
+About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting
+his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this
+time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover;
+not, perhaps, because they were thought necessary, but that the king's
+designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were
+not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in
+danger, and that he could not believe the elector of Hanover to be in
+much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops,
+and put them into the pay of England.
+
+He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that
+his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the
+scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the
+French out of Bavaria, lay, for some months, encamped on the Rhine,
+endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been
+evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till, at
+last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in
+the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of
+Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would, in
+their turn, feel the miseries of war; and the nation, which so long
+kept the world in alarm, be taught, at last, the value of peace.
+
+The king of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance
+from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of
+all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he
+had lately made a treaty at Frankfort with the emperour, by which he
+had engaged, "that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared
+backward to reestablish the tranquillity of the empire, and more
+cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of
+cooperating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an
+expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the
+possession of the emperour, his heirs and successours, for ever; in
+gratitude for which the emperour should resign to him and his
+successours a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the
+kingdom of Bohemia. His imperial majesty likewise guaranties to the
+king of Prussia the perpetual possession of upper Silesia; and the
+king guaranties to the emperour the perpetual possession of upper
+Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest."
+
+It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives
+than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show
+to the emperour, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In
+prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according
+to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded
+Bohemia.
+
+Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves
+obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are, indeed,
+not always very satisfactory.
+
+Lewis the fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive
+for the invasion of Holland. The czar attacked Charles of Sweden,
+because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a
+journey in disguise. The king of Prussia, having an opportunity of
+attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July
+30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares:
+
+"That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in
+Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the
+power of the laws, and the authority of the emperour.
+
+"That the queen of Hungary has treated the emperour's hereditary
+dominions with inexpressible cruelty.
+
+"That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched
+through neutral countries without the customary requisitions.
+
+"That the emperour's troops have been attacked under neutral
+fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master
+is the head.
+
+"That the imperial dignity has been treated with indecency by the
+Hungarian troops.
+
+"The queen, declaring the election of the emperour void, and the diet
+of Frankfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but
+injured all the princes who have the right of election.
+
+"That he had no particular quarrel with the queen of Hungary; and that
+he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a
+war for the liberties of Germany.
+
+"That the emperour had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions
+of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to
+him.
+
+"That this proposal had been made to the king of England at Hanau, and
+rejected in such a manner as showed, that the king of England had no
+intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the
+troubles.
+
+"That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they
+declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and
+Austrian courts.
+
+"That the same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected;
+that, therefore, the queen must impute it to her own councils, that
+her enemies find new allies.
+
+"That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands
+nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in
+defence of the emperour, in vindication of the right of election, and
+in support of the liberties of Germany, which the queen of Hungary
+would enslave."
+
+When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it
+was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the
+foregoing positions were repeated; the emperour's candour and
+disinterestedness were magnified; the dangerous designs of the
+Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them, as the most flagrant
+violation of the Germanick constitution, that they had driven the
+emperour's troops out of the empire; the publick spirit and generosity
+of his Prussian majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said,
+that this quarrel having no connexion with English interests, the
+English ought not to interpose.
+
+Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this
+declaration, which, at once, dismounted them from the summit of
+success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What
+succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France, was never
+publickly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince, so
+watchful of opportunity, sold assistance, when it was so much wanted,
+at the highest rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to
+so much hazard only for the freedom of Germany, and a few petty
+districts in Bohemia.
+
+The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting
+whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven
+into their own dominions, and, in their own dominions, were insulted
+and pursued, were, on a sudden, by this new auxiliary, restored to
+their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders,
+and delivered from their terrours. And all the enemies of the house of
+Bourbon saw, with indignation and amazement, the recovery of that
+power which they had, with so much cost and bloodshed, brought low,
+and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet
+lower than it was.
+
+The queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian
+declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to
+the European princes, with some observations on the Prussian
+minister's remonstrance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered
+by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The
+same caution was practised before, when the Prussians, after the
+emperour's death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate
+may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the
+refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very
+difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use
+to honesty or wisdom, and as it has been long known to that class of
+men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly
+in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much
+advance the reputation of regal understanding, or, indeed, that it can
+add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that
+shall adopt it.
+
+The queen, in her answer, after charging the king of Prussia with
+breach of the treaty of Breslaw, and observing how much her enemies
+will exult to see the peace now the third time broken by him,
+declares:
+
+"That she had no intention to injure the rights of the electors, and
+that she calls in question not the event, but the manner of the
+election.
+
+"That she had spared the emperour's troops with great tenderness, and
+that they were driven out of the empire, only because they were in the
+service of France.
+
+"That she is so far from disturbing the peace of the empire, that the
+only commotions now raised in it are the effect of the armaments of
+the king of Prussia."
+
+Nothing is more tedious than publick records, when they relate to
+affairs which, by distance of time or place, lose their power to
+interest the reader. Every thing grows little, as it grows remote; and
+of things thus diminished, it is sufficient to survey the aggregate
+without a minute examination of the parts.
+
+It is easy to perceive, that, if the king of Prussia's reasons be
+sufficient, ambition or animosity can never want a plea for violence
+and invasion. What he charges upon the queen of Hungary, the waste of
+country, the expulsion of the Bavarians, and the employment of foreign
+troops, is the unavoidable consequence of a war inflamed on either
+side to the utmost violence. All these grievances subsisted when he
+made the peace, and, therefore, they could very little justify its
+breach.
+
+It is true, that every prince of the empire is obliged to support the
+imperial dignity, and assist the emperour, when his rights are
+violated. And every subsequent contract must be understood in a sense
+consistent with former obligations. Nor had the king power to make a
+peace on terms contrary to that constitution by which he held a place
+among the Germanick electors. But he could have easily discovered,
+that not the emperour, but the duke of Bavaria, was the queen's enemy;
+not the administrator of the imperial power, but the claimant of the
+Austrian dominions. Nor did his allegiance to the emperour, supposing
+the emperour injured, oblige him to more than a succour of ten
+thousand men. But ten thousand men could not conquer Bohemia, and
+without the conquest of Bohemia he could receive no reward for the
+zeal and fidelity which he so loudly professed.
+
+The success of this enterprise he had taken all possible precaution to
+secure. He was to invade a country guarded only by the faith of
+treaties, and, therefore, left unarmed, and unprovided of all defence.
+He had engaged the French to attack prince Charles, before he should
+repass the Rhine, by which the Austrians would, at least, have been
+hindered from a speedy march into Bohemia: they were, likewise, to
+yield him such other assistance as he might want.
+
+Relying, therefore, upon the promises of the French, he resolved to
+attempt the ruin of the house of Austria, and, in August, 1744, broke
+into Bohemia, at the head of a hundred and four thousand men. When he
+entered the country, he published a proclamation, promising, that his
+army should observe the strictest discipline, and that those who made
+no resistance should be suffered to remain in quiet in their
+habitations. He required that all arms, in the custody of whomsoever
+they might be placed, should be given up, and put into the hands of
+publick officers. He still declared himself to act only as an
+auxiliary to the emperour, and with no other design than to establish
+peace and tranquillity throughout Germany, his dear country.
+
+In this proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not
+remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be
+found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that,
+if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their
+custody, his village shall be reduced to ashes.
+
+It is hard to find upon what pretence the king of Prussia could treat
+the Bohemians as criminals, for preparing to defend their native
+country, or maintaining their allegiance to their lawful sovereign
+against an invader, whether he appears principal or auxiliary, whether
+he professes to intend tranquillity or confusion.
+
+His progress was such as gave great hopes to the enemies of Austria:
+like Caesar, he conquered as he advanced, and met with no opposition,
+till he reached the walls of Prague. The indignation and resentment of
+the queen of Hungary may be easily conceived; the alliance of
+Frankfort was now laid open to all Europe; and the partition of the
+Austrian dominions was again publickly projected. They were to be
+shared among the emperour, the king of Prussia, the elector Palatine,
+and the landgrave of Hesse. All the powers of Europe who had dreamed
+of controlling France, were awakened to their former terrours; all
+that had been done was now to be done again; and every court, from the
+straits of Gibraltar to the Frozen sea, was filled with exultation or
+terrour, with schemes of conquest, or precautions for defence.
+
+The king, delighted with his progress, and expecting, like other
+mortals elated with success, that his prosperity could not be
+interrupted, continued his march, and began, in the latter end of
+September, the siege of Prague. He had gained several of the outer
+posts, when he was informed that the convoy, which attended his
+artillery, was attacked by an unexpected party of the Austrians. The
+king went immediately to their assistance, with the third part of his
+army, and found his troops put to flight, and the Austrians hasting
+away with his cannons: such a loss would have disabled him at once. He
+fell upon the Austrians, whose number would not enable them to
+withstand him, recovered his artillery, and, having also defeated
+Bathiani, raised his batteries; and, there being no artillery to be
+placed against him, he destroyed a great part of the city. He then
+ordered four attacks to be made at once, and reduced the besieged to
+such extremities, that in fourteen days the governour was obliged to
+yield the place.
+
+At the attack, commanded by Schwerin, a grenadier is reported to have
+mounted the bastion alone, and to have defended himself, for some
+time, with his sword, till his followers mounted after him; for this
+act of bravery, the king made him a lieutenant, and gave him a patent
+of nobility.
+
+Nothing now remained but that the Austrians should lay aside all
+thought of invading France, and apply their whole power to their own
+defence. Prince Charles, at the first news of the Prussian invasion,
+prepared to repass the Rhine. This the French, according to their
+contract with the king of Prussia, should have attempted to hinder;
+but they knew, by experience, the Austrians would not be beaten
+without resistance, and that resistance always incommodes an
+assailant. As the king of Prussia rejoiced in the distance of the
+Austrians, whom he considered as entangled in the French territories;
+the French rejoiced in the necessity of their return, and pleased
+themselves with the prospect of easy conquests, while powers, whom
+they considered with equal malevolence, should be employed in
+massacring each other.
+
+Prince Charles took the opportunity of bright moonshine to repass the
+Rhine; and Noailles, who had early intelligence of his motions, gave
+him very little disturbance, but contented himself with attacking the
+rearguard, and, when they retired to the main body, ceased his
+pursuit.
+
+The king, upon the reduction of Prague, struck a medal, which had on
+one side a plan of the town, with this inscription:
+
+  "Prague taken by the king of Prussia,
+    September 16, 1744;
+  For the third time in three years."
+
+On the other side were two verses, in which he prayed, "that his
+conquests might produce peace." He then marched forward with the
+rapidity which constitutes his military character; took possession of
+almost all Bohemia, and began to talk of entering Austria and
+besieging Vienna.
+
+The queen was not yet wholly without resource. The elector of Saxony,
+whether invited or not, was not comprised in the union of Frankfort;
+and, as every sovereign is growing less as his next neighbour is
+growing greater, he could not heartily wish success to a confederacy
+which was to aggrandize the other powers of Germany. The Prussians
+gave him, likewise, a particular and immediate provocation to oppose
+them; for, when they departed to the conquest of Bohemia, with all the
+elation of imaginary success, they passed through his dominions with
+unlicensed and contemptuous disdain of his authority. As the approach
+of prince Charles gave a new prospect of events, he was easily
+persuaded to enter into an alliance with the queen, whom he furnished
+with a very large body of troops.
+
+The king of Prussia having left a garrison in Prague, which he
+commanded to put the burghers to death, if they left their houses in
+the night, went forward to take the other towns and fortresses,
+expecting, perhaps, that prince Charles would be interrupted in his
+march; but the French, though they appeared to follow him, either
+could not, or would not, overtake him.
+
+In a short time, by marches pressed on with the utmost eagerness,
+Charles reached Bohemia, leaving the Bavarians to regain the
+possession of the wasted plains of their country, which their enemies,
+who still kept the strong places, might again seize at will. At the
+approach of the Austrian army, the courage of the king of Prussia
+seemed to have failed him. He retired from post to post, and evacuated
+town after town, and fortress after fortress, without resistance, or
+appearance of resistance, as if he was resigning them to the rightful
+owners.
+
+It might have been expected, that he should have made some effort to
+rescue Prague; but, after a faint attempt to dispute the passage of
+the Elbe, he ordered his garrison of eleven thousand men to quit the
+place. They left behind them their magazines and heavy artillery,
+among which were seven pieces of remarkable excellence, called "the
+seven electors." But they took with them their field cannon, and a
+great number of carriages, laden with stores and plunder, which they
+were forced to leave, in their way, to the Saxons and Austrians that
+harassed their march. They, at last, entered Silesia, with the loss of
+about a third part.
+
+The king of Prussia suffered much in his retreat; for, besides the
+military stores, which he left every where behind him, even to the
+clothes of his troops, there was a want of provisions in his army,
+and, consequently, frequent desertions and many diseases; and a
+soldier sick or killed was equally lost to a flying army.
+
+At last he reentered his own territories, and, having stationed his
+troops in places of security, returned, for a time, to Berlin, where
+he forbade all to speak either ill or well of the campaign.
+
+To what end such a prohibition could conduce, it is difficult to
+discover: there is no country in which men can be forbidden to know
+what they know, and what is universally known may as well be spoken.
+It is true, that in popular governments seditious discourses may
+inflame the vulgar; but in such governments they cannot be restrained,
+and in absolute monarchies they are of little effect.
+
+When the Prussians invaded Bohemia, and this whole nation was fired
+with resentment, the king of England gave orders in his palace, that
+none should mention his nephew with disrespect; by this command he
+maintained the decency necessary between princes, without enforcing,
+and, probably, without expecting obedience, but in his own presence.
+
+The king of Prussia's edict regarded only himself, and, therefore, it
+is difficult to tell what was his motive, unless he intended to spare
+himself the mortification of absurd and illiberal flattery, which, to
+a mind stung with disgrace, must have been in the highest degree
+painful and disgusting.
+
+Moderation in prosperity is a virtue very difficult to all mortals;
+forbearance of revenge, when revenge is within reach, is scarcely ever
+to be found among princes. Now was the time when the queen of Hungary
+might, perhaps, have made peace on her own terms; but keenness of
+resentment, and arrogance of success, withheld her from the due use of
+the present opportunity. It is said, that the king of Prussia, in his
+retreat, sent letters to prince Charles, which were supposed to
+contain ample concessions, but were sent back unopened. The king of
+England offered, likewise, to mediate between them; but his
+propositions were rejected at Vienna, where a resolution was taken,
+not only to revenge the interruption of their success on the Rhine, by
+the recovery of Silesia, but to reward the Saxons for their seasonable
+help, by giving them part of the Prussian dominions.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1745, died the emperour Charles of
+Bavaria; the treaty of Frankfort was consequently at an end; and the
+king of Prussia, being no longer able to maintain the character of
+auxiliary to the emperour, and having avowed no other reason for the
+war, might have honourably withdrawn his forces, and, on his own
+principles, have complied with terms of peace; but no terms were
+offered him; the queen pursued him with the utmost ardour of
+hostility, and the French left him to his own conduct and his own
+destiny.
+
+His Bohemian conquests were already lost; and he was now chased back
+into Silesia, where, at the beginning of the year, the war continued
+in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages. In April, the
+elector of Bavaria, seeing his dominions overrun by the Austrians, and
+receiving very little succour from the French, made a peace with the
+queen of Hungary upon easy conditions, and the Austrians had more
+troops to employ against Prussia.
+
+But the revolutions of war will not suffer human presumption to remain
+long unchecked. The peace with Bavaria was scarcely concluded when,
+the battle of Fontenoy was lost, and all the allies of Austria called
+upon her to exert her utmost power for the preservation of the Low
+Countries; and, a few days after the loss at Fontenoy, the first
+battle between the Prussians and the combined army of Austrians and
+Saxons, was fought at Niedburg in Silesia.
+
+The particulars of this battle were variously reported by the
+different parties, and published in the journals of that time; to
+transcribe them would be tedious and useless, because accounts of
+battles are not easily understood, and because there are no means of
+determining to which of the relations credit should be given. It is
+sufficient that they all end in claiming or allowing a complete
+victory to the king of Prussia, who gained all the Austrian artillery,
+killed four thousand, took seven thousand prisoners, with the loss,
+according to the Prussian narrative, of only sixteen hundred men.
+
+He now advanced again into Bohemia, where, however, he made no great
+progress. The queen of Hungary, though defeated, was not subdued. She
+poured in her troops from all parts to the reinforcement of prince
+Charles, and determined to continue the struggle with all her power.
+The king saw that Bohemia was an unpleasing and inconvenient theatre
+of war, in which he should be ruined by a miscarriage, and should get
+little by a victory. Saxony was left defenceless, and, if it was
+conquered, might be plundered.
+
+He, therefore, published a declaration against the elector of Saxony,
+and, without waiting for reply, invaded his dominions. This invasion
+produced another battle at Standentz, which ended, as the former, to
+the advantage of the Prussians. The Austrians had some advantage in
+the beginning; and their irregular troops, who are always daring, and
+are always ravenous, broke into the Prussian camp, and carried away
+the military chest. But this was easily repaired by the spoils of
+Saxony.
+
+The queen of Hungary was still inflexible, and hoped that fortune
+would, at last, change. She recruited once more her army, and prepared
+to invade the territories of Brandenburg; but the king of Prussia's
+activity prevented all her designs. One part of his forces seized
+Leipsic, and the other once more defeated the Saxons; the king of
+Poland fled from his dominions; prince Charles retired into Bohemia.
+The king of Prussia entered Dresden as a conqueror, exacted very
+severe contributions from the whole country, and the Austrians and
+Saxons were, at last, compelled to receive from him such a peace as he
+would grant. He imposed no severe conditions, except the payment of
+the contributions, made no new claim of dominions, and, with the
+elector Palatine, acknowledged the duke of Tuscany for emperour.
+
+The lives of princes, like the histories of nations, have their
+periods. We shall here suspend our narrative of the king of Prussia,
+who was now at the height of human greatness, giving laws to his
+enemies, and courted by all the powers of Europe.
+
+
+
+
+BROWNE.
+
+
+Though the writer of the following essays [64] seems to have had the
+fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity
+after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of
+his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a
+posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account
+of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification
+of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of
+nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon
+attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its
+possessours, or virtue on its teachers.
+
+Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in
+Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605 [65]. His father was a
+merchant, of an ancient family at Upton, in Cheshire. Of the name or
+family of his mother I find no account.
+
+Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost
+his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of
+orphans [66], defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was
+placed, for his education, at the school of Winchester.
+
+His mother, having taken three thousand pounds [67], as the third part
+of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand,
+a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time, when
+commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it
+happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for
+his mother soon married sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement
+of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian,
+deprived now of both his parents, and, therefore, helpless, and
+unprotected.
+
+He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623, from Winchester to
+Oxford [68], and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate hall, which
+was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke college,
+from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. He was
+admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7; being,
+as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new
+college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most,
+can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.
+
+Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his
+studies to physick [69], and practised it for some time in
+Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or
+invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his
+father-in-law [70], who had some employment in Ireland, in a
+visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then
+made necessary.
+
+He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of
+acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it.
+Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of
+a man of letters; he, therefore, passed into France and Italy [71];
+made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the
+celebrated schools of physick; and, returning home through Holland,
+procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.
+
+When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no
+certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
+his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
+therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
+the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
+indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
+which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
+lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
+frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it
+is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to
+minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to
+deserve the notice of the publick.
+
+About the year 1634 [72], he is supposed to have returned to London;
+and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
+Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician [73]," which he declares
+himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
+for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many
+passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
+importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him
+as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
+think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
+it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
+with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
+not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
+but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without
+his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.
+
+This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing
+to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely,
+some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
+surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
+without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
+repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long
+treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
+curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
+is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
+by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
+copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is
+found faulty or offensive, and charge the errours on the transcriber's
+depravations.
+
+This is a stratagem, by which an author, panting for fame, and yet
+afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and
+preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a
+retreat; and this candour might suffer to pass undetected, as an
+innocent fraud, but that, indeed, no fraud is innocent; for the
+confidence which makes the happiness of society is, in some degree,
+diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.
+
+The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the
+attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.
+
+What is much read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset
+recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned
+his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
+mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute
+remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal
+claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours [74],
+of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in
+reading it.
+
+Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either
+officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to sir Kenelm,
+with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his
+work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition,
+and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally
+genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece,
+pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability,
+and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.
+
+The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes
+in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two
+luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the
+obscuration of each other? yet the animadversions thus weak, thus
+precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly
+passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published,
+with an admonition prefixed, "to those who have or shall peruse the
+observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe
+censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon
+the observator who had usurped his name; nor was this invective
+written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his
+opponent's apology; but by some officious friend, zealous for his
+honour, without his consent.
+
+Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself
+from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are
+delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and,
+therefore, many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and
+not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." The first glance upon
+his book will, indeed, discover examples of this liberty of thought
+and expression: "I could be content," says he, "to be nothing almost
+to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last." He has little
+acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a
+serious opinion, that any thing can be "almost eternal," or that any
+time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite
+duration.
+
+In this book he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of
+himself; but with such generality and conciseness, as affords very
+little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the
+dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he
+was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries;
+but what most awakens curiosity is, his solemn assertion, that "his
+life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate were not
+history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable."
+
+There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which all life is miraculous; as it
+is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession
+of motions, of which the first cause must be supernatural; but life,
+thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of
+fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something,
+by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.
+
+Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life
+offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of
+others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.
+A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed,
+more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of
+adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts;
+and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
+and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing
+miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so
+poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of
+guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own
+mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile
+as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
+man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the
+crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
+leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
+will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
+distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
+of nature or of fortune.
+
+The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage
+the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge [75], whose
+name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
+his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
+French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with
+large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English
+annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book,
+the author is unknown.
+
+Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
+sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published
+a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the
+attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland
+with some difficulty [76]. The first printer to whom he offered it,
+carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for
+three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards
+rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.
+
+The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
+admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
+answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus [77], by
+Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.
+
+At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
+Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr.
+Lushington [78], his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate,
+in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was
+very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was
+incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf [79].
+
+He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham [80], of a good family in Norfolk;
+"a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her
+worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they
+seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism."
+
+This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits
+[81] upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we
+might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately
+declared [82], that "the whole world was made for man, but only the
+twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but
+woman only the rib or crooked part of man."
+
+Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous
+positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so
+formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract
+so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like
+most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and
+inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived
+happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of
+whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived
+him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.
+
+Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
+delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
+dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
+before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646
+[83], he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work,
+which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation
+and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued
+tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an
+enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
+collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
+pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
+arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
+particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had
+longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of
+his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent
+afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large
+additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673,
+the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with
+explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of
+disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered
+from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour,
+thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all
+sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in
+vain.
+
+This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
+answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and,
+not many years ago, into French. It might now be proper, had not the
+favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
+copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly
+emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the
+last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has
+committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and
+Newton's philosophy.
+
+He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
+Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
+suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
+correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
+needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles:
+the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other,
+instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the
+pillars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily
+believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without
+the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have
+obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had
+thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of
+water.
+
+Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy
+to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth
+but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was
+then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was
+confirmed by later observations.
+
+The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
+his name, a book called [84] Nature's Cabinet unlocked,--translated,
+according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
+care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
+been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
+honour thereof, as having no hand in that work [85]."
+
+In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him
+occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of
+sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the
+funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment
+of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
+There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
+reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
+he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
+occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could
+have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
+antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
+importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which
+threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when
+the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
+bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what
+oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were
+distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of
+these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and,
+therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too
+frequently recollected:
+
+"All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being,
+which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted
+conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at.
+Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men
+could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest
+mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions:
+with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold
+potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of
+the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his
+wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.
+
+"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell
+him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state
+to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in
+vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire
+of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied
+considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and
+rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other
+original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed
+the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess
+their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their
+own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes
+of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated
+their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of
+ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting
+contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our
+present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own
+accomplishments."
+
+To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the
+quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients,
+artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he
+begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and
+deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of
+antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we
+actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author
+is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in
+the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
+to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
+feeders on vegetables before the flood.
+
+Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
+and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
+have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt
+the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
+really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but
+disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by
+standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
+nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy
+to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
+properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which
+nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
+frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of
+Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.
+
+In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
+production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation
+or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
+upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
+favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
+ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
+reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
+that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
+and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.
+
+To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
+properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
+to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
+be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
+angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
+it virtually contains two right in every one."
+
+The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
+knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
+form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
+very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
+watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
+their seminal principles.
+
+He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
+by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
+kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
+of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
+the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
+which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
+the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
+the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
+generative societies."
+
+These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
+found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
+press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
+fashion of great and curious writers."
+
+Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
+other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
+selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
+be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
+too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
+interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
+of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the
+papers of Pierescius.
+
+The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon
+several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do
+not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
+reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
+useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of
+description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to
+readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more
+important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some
+obscurity from precepts.
+
+The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject
+merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure
+of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which
+studious men have endeavoured to recover them.
+
+The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his
+Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no
+determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed,
+it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or
+learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes
+produced in the waters of Judea.
+
+Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects;
+and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first
+of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of
+animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious
+observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
+unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
+Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed
+much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in
+their works there is mention of _aucupium_ and _piscatio_,
+they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than
+agriculture, or any other manual labour.
+
+In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but
+without any satisfactory determination; and of _rhopalick_, or
+gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one
+syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more
+than the former; as,
+
+  "O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator." AUSONIUS.
+
+And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
+restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
+sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.
+
+His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
+He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
+of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
+multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
+Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
+have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
+shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
+very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
+Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
+declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].
+
+The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
+the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
+rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
+and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
+auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
+prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
+language, remain with us from the Saxon."
+
+To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
+discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
+is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
+orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
+English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
+Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
+sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
+paternal language more than any modern European dialect.
+
+There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
+artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
+interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
+Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
+Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
+in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
+most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
+Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
+admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
+if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
+their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
+may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth."
+
+In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
+Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he
+determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other
+concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
+writers.
+
+Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at
+Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves
+notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
+indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
+postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
+of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
+judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
+vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
+our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo."
+
+The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of
+several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to
+be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr.
+Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and,
+Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author
+amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
+either never in being or irrecoverably lost.
+
+These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's
+collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
+which any of them were written.
+
+Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind
+with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into
+amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same
+mind has been successfully employed.
+
+The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo,
+London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and
+Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes,
+there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.
+
+The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about
+the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly
+discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter
+to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by
+the author's son, in 1690.
+
+There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing
+Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here
+offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.
+
+To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
+that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
+physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently
+embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at
+Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince,
+who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover
+excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions,
+at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious
+and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and
+greater popularity.
+
+Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he
+was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a
+week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19,
+1682 [87]. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to
+the will of God, and fearlessness of death.
+
+He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with
+this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of
+the altar:
+
+  M. S.
+  Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.
+  Et miles.
+  Anno 1605, Londini natus;
+  Generosa familia apud Upton
+  In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
+  Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea
+  In Coll. Pembr.
+  Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
+  Haud leviter imbutus;
+  In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
+  Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus;
+  Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI
+  Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque
+  Per orbem notissimus.
+  Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus;
+  Obijt Octob. 19, 1682.
+  Pie posuit moestissima conjux
+  Da. Doroth. Br.
+
+  Near the foot of this pillar
+  Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick,
+  Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books,
+  Who practised physick in this city 46 years,
+  And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age.
+  In memory of whom,
+  Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate
+  Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be
+  Erected.
+
+Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three
+daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
+son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.
+
+He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the
+classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
+Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
+admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
+1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
+wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
+sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
+Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
+mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
+countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
+a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
+with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
+any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
+instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
+much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
+very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
+will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
+train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
+the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
+book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
+one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.
+
+Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
+first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
+Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
+those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
+He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
+physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
+office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
+man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
+this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
+well bred as any of the court."
+
+Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
+view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
+have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
+distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
+soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
+every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
+personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
+This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to
+sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr.
+Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have
+had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life."
+Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.
+
+"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
+to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat
+nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].
+
+"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
+affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
+cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very
+warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded
+himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of
+Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.
+
+"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
+of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
+well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the
+number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
+names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
+geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence
+ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its
+products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist,
+that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
+observations, equally useful as entertaining.
+
+"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
+capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was
+remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all
+person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but
+remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular
+discourses and speeches.
+
+"In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and
+pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern,
+wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
+readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and
+expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.
+
+"He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that
+was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of
+the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any
+stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that
+he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them.
+The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and
+concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration,
+which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or
+uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same
+account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with
+many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.
+
+"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
+sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
+seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to
+blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without
+affectation.
+
+"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
+increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
+observable cause.
+
+"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
+found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
+company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
+conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he
+was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
+was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar.
+Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much
+improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to
+spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any
+diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he
+would say, he could not do nothing.
+
+"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
+are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
+understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were
+vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
+not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
+veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
+oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
+though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
+primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the
+derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
+satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.
+
+"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared
+in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his
+Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of
+England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned
+Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was
+not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his
+parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could
+hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In
+his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring
+great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much
+patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical
+apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or
+suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor.'
+
+"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
+faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto,
+which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he
+had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
+from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
+freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often
+triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses
+in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted
+with a meek, rational, and religious courage.
+
+"He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he
+lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
+liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
+sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent
+him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and
+in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to
+his lady and children, gained by his own industry.
+
+"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and
+modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been
+said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place
+of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an
+extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the
+famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.
+
+"Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
+which comes nearest it, he excelled, i.e. the stochastick, wherein he
+was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
+but not apt to discover any presages or superstition."
+
+It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the
+books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse
+from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the
+repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude
+proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer
+experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary
+of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and
+desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
+is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
+irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
+harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
+there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least,
+defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be
+able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best
+Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
+bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more
+flexible and tender judgments."
+
+The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
+in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's
+testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of
+himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments
+or visible qualities.
+
+There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may,
+sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes,
+assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
+charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant
+temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares
+himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride." A perusal
+of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of
+the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which
+pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
+himself.
+
+As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own
+humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that
+"he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be
+quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any
+uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden
+effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it
+is, he mistook for settled resolution.
+
+"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
+face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
+very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
+will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
+bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
+desert him in the great hour of trial.
+
+It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
+"the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
+is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
+testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
+had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
+temptation to flattery.
+
+But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
+he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
+easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men;
+for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and
+scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
+which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.
+
+His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes
+obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his
+decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up
+immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping
+another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel
+or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral
+considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives
+delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his
+mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point
+originally in view.
+
+"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
+minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures."
+This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
+vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
+obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
+allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.
+
+He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
+which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
+every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
+moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
+encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
+though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet
+poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
+significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
+such as _commensality_, for the state of many living at the same
+table; but many superfluous, as a _paralogical_, for an unreasonable
+doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than
+explain it, as _arthritical analogies_, for parts that serve some
+animals in the place of joints.
+
+His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
+heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
+originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
+service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
+our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and
+expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and
+was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any
+language could supply a single term.
+
+But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
+he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would
+never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
+and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
+very little fear of the shame of falling.
+
+There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
+formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages
+from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and
+others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
+conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are
+two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.
+
+It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for
+endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
+can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
+opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own
+doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another
+understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and
+eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a
+celebrated name [88].
+
+The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility;
+men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
+Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat
+concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates
+had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
+paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient,
+in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
+christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so
+watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for
+favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour
+of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of
+inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly
+their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences
+or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately
+repented.
+
+The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply,
+by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause
+less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore,
+not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot
+should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of
+excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding
+strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a
+great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority
+of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the
+addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that
+argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.
+
+Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all
+may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly
+dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous
+persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with
+knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity,
+without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but
+"hopeth all things," and "endureth all things."
+
+Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by
+the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no
+difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of
+christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have
+hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret
+into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a
+phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to
+be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently
+testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with
+such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried
+reverence.
+
+It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without
+the pale of christianity, who declares, "that he assumes the
+honourable style of a christian," not because it is "the religion of
+his country," but because "having in his riper years and confirmed
+judgment seen" and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the
+principles of grace, and the law of his own reason, to embrace "no
+other name but this;" who, to specify his persuasion yet more, tells
+us, that "he is of the reformed religion; of the same belief our
+Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and
+the martyrs confirmed;" who, though "paradoxical in philosophy, loves
+in divinity to keep the beaten road; and pleases himself that he has
+no taint of heresy, schism, or errour:" to whom, "where the scripture
+is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 'tis but a
+comment;" and who uses not "the dictates of his own reason, but where
+there is a joint silence of both: who blesses himself, that he lived
+not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but
+enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw
+not." He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who
+"believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and
+desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms that "this is not
+much to believe;" that "we have reason to owe this faith unto
+history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble
+faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and
+mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt of the
+positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts,
+whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would
+violate his own arm, rather than a church."
+
+The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his
+practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these
+testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be
+obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a
+zealous adherent to the faith of Christ; that he lived in obedience to
+his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.
+
+
+
+
+ASCHAM [89].
+
+
+It often happens to writers, that they are known only by their works;
+the incidents of a literary life are seldom observed, and, therefore,
+seldom recounted: but Ascham has escaped the common fate by the
+friendship of Edward Grauut, the learned master of Westminster school,
+who devoted an oration to his memory, and has marked the various
+vicissitudes of his fortune. Graunt either avoided the labour of
+minute inquiry, or thought domestick occurrences unworthy of his
+notice; or, preferring the character of an orator to that of an
+historian, selected only such particulars as he could best express or
+most happily embellish. His narrative is, therefore, scanty, and I
+know not by what materials it can now be amplified.
+
+Roger Ascham was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, (or Kirby
+Wicke,) a village near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above
+the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family
+of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at
+a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were
+regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very
+conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have
+been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not
+recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the youngest, and some
+daughters; but who can hope, that of any progeny more than one shall
+deserve to be mentioned? They lived married sixty-seven years, and, at
+last, died together almost on the same hour of the same day.
+
+Roger, having passed his first years under the care of his parents,
+was adopted into the family of Antony Wingfield, who maintained him,
+and committed his education, with that of his own sons, to the care of
+one Bond, a domestick tutor. He very early discovered an unusual
+fondness for literature by an eager perusal of English books; and,
+having passed happily through the scholastick rudiments, was put, in
+1530, by his patron Wingfield, to St. John's college in Cambridge.
+
+Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of
+the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardour
+or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had
+driven the Greeks, with their language, into the interiour parts of
+Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and
+Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had
+already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with
+controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets
+of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or
+ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that
+eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and
+dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at
+once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
+emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the
+present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or
+knowing, its benefactors.
+
+Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the
+bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the
+college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous
+for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion;
+and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The
+reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered
+as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment,
+and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually
+losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable
+enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally
+conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by
+teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read
+lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of
+instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of
+great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any
+monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and
+scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek
+learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him
+in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would
+gain more knowledge by explaining one of AEsop's fables to a boy, than
+by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.
+
+Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the
+eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
+now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which,
+according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of
+remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen
+fellow of the college, which election he considered as a second birth.
+Dr. Metcalf, the master of the college, a man, as Ascham tells us,
+"meanly learned himself, but no mean encourager of learning in
+others," clandestinely promoted his election, though he openly seemed
+first to oppose it, and afterwards to censure it, because Ascham was
+known to favour the new opinions; and the master himself was accused
+of giving an unjust preference to the northern men, one of the
+factions into which this nation was divided, before we could find any
+more important reason of dissension, than that some were born on the
+northern, and some on the southern side of Trent. Any cause is
+sufficient for a quarrel; and the zealots of the north and south lived
+long in such animosity, that it was thought necessary at Oxford to
+keep them quiet, by choosing one proctor every year from each.
+
+He seems to have been, hitherto, supported by the bounty of Wingfield,
+which his attainment of a fellowship now freed him from the necessity
+of receiving. Dependance, though in those days it was more common and
+less irksome, than in the present state of things, can never have been
+free from discontent; and, therefore, he that was released from it
+must always have rejoiced. The danger is, lest the joy of escaping
+from the patron may not leave sufficient memory of the benefactor. Of
+this forgetfulness, Ascham cannot be accused; for he is recorded to
+have preserved the most grateful and affectionate reverence for
+Wingfield, and to have never grown weary of recounting his benefits.
+
+His reputation still increased, and many resorted to his chamber to
+hear the Greek writers explained. He was, likewise, eminent for other
+accomplishments. By the advice of Pember, he had learned to play on
+musical instruments, and he was one of the few who excelled in the
+mechanical art of writing, which then began to be cultivated among us,
+and in which we now surpass all other nations. He not only wrote his
+pages with neatness, but embellished them with elegant draughts and
+illuminations; an art at that time so highly valued, that it
+contributed much both to his fame and his fortune.
+
+He became master of arts in March, 1537, in his twenty-first year, and
+then, if not before, commenced tutor, and publickly undertook the
+education of young men. A tutor of one-and-tweuty, however
+accomplished with learning, however exalted by genius, would now gain
+little reverence or obedience; but in those days of discipline and
+regularity, the authority of the statutes easily supplied that of the
+teacher; all power that was lawful was reverenced. Besides, young
+tutors had still younger pupils.
+
+Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every
+incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have
+taken care, at once, to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their
+minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great
+eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished,
+that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court, as a proper
+master of languages for the lady Elizabeth.
+
+There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university,
+therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him
+out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then
+reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by
+king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain
+Greek authors in his own college.
+
+He was at first an opponent of the new pronunciation introduced, or
+rather of the ancient restored, about this time, by Cheke and Smith,
+and made some cautious struggles for the common practice, which the
+credit and dignity of his antagonists did not permit him to defend
+very publickly, or with much vehemence: nor were they long his
+antagonists; for either his affection for their merit, or his
+conviction of the cogency of their arguments, soon changed his opinion
+and his practice, and he adhered ever after to their method of
+utterance.
+
+Of this controversy it is not necessary to give a circumstantial
+account; something of it may be found in Strype's Life of Smith, and
+something in Baker's Reflections upon Learning; it is sufficient to
+remark here, that Cheke's pronunciation was that which now prevails in
+the schools of England. Disquisitions not only verbal, but merely
+literal, are too minute for popular narration.
+
+He was not less eminent, as a writer of Latin, than as a teacher of
+Greek. All the publick letters of the university were of his
+composition; and, as little qualifications must often bring great
+abilities into notice, he was recommended to this honourable
+employment, not less by the neatness of his hand, than the elegance of
+his style.
+
+However great was his learning, he was not always immured in his
+chamber; but, being valetudinary, and weak of body, thought it
+necessary to spend many hours in such exercises as might best relieve
+him after the fatigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery,
+in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time,
+that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and,
+perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did
+not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing
+learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.
+
+To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he
+published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of
+Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery.
+He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an
+example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used
+by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling
+exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains,
+that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by
+arrogance and temerity.
+
+He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently
+vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal
+diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown,
+by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the
+mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art,
+practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole:
+precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow
+excellence.
+
+The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have
+forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained
+the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English
+yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler
+of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms,
+which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they
+are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for
+prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy,
+gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to
+skilful use than any other instrument of offence.
+
+Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had
+been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with
+hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon
+after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to
+imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from
+the account given by the ingenious author of the Exercise for the
+Norfolk Militia.
+
+"The first muskets were very heavy, and could not be fired without a
+rest; they had matchlocks, and barrels of a wide bore, that carried a
+large ball and charge of powder, and did execution at a greater
+distance.
+
+"The musketeers on a march carried only their rests and ammunition,
+and had boys to bear their muskets after them, for which they were
+allowed great additional pay.
+
+"They were very slow in loading, not only by reason of the
+unwieldiness of the pieces, and because they carried the powder and
+balls separate, but from the time it took to prepare and adjust the
+match; so that their fire was not near so brisk as ours is now.
+Afterwards a lighter kind of matchlock musket came into use, and they
+carried their ammunition in bandeliers, which were broad belts that
+came over the shoulder, to which were hung several little cases of
+wood covered with leather, each containing a charge of powder; the
+balls they carried loose in a pouch; and they had also a priming-horn
+hanging by their side.
+
+"The old English writers call those large muskets calivers; the
+harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest.
+The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the
+serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down
+with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was
+a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of
+firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the
+match properly to the cock, so as to come down exactly true on the
+priming, to blow the ashes from the coal, and to guard the pan from
+the sparks that fell from it. A great deal of time was also lost in
+taking it out of the cock, and returning it between the fingers of the
+left hand every time that the piece was fired; and wet weather often
+rendered the matches useless."
+
+While this was the state of firearms, and this state continued among
+us to the civil war, with very little improvement, it is no wonder
+that the long-bow was preferred by sir Thomas Smith, who wrote of the
+choice of weapons in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when the use of the
+bow still continued, though the musket was gradually prevailing. Sir
+John Haward, a writer yet later, has, in his History of the Norman
+Kings, endeavoured to evince the superiority of the archer to the
+musketeer: however, in the long peace of king James, the bow was
+wholly forgotten. Guns have from that time been the weapons of the
+English, as of other nations, and, as they are now improved, are
+certainly more efficacious.
+
+Ascham had yet another reason, if not for writing his book, at least
+for presenting it to king Henry. England was not then, what it may be
+now justly termed, the capital of literature; and, therefore, those
+who aspired to superiour degrees of excellence, thought it necessary
+to travel into other countries. The purse of Ascham was not equal to
+the expense of peregrination; and, therefore, he hoped to have it
+augmented by a pension. Nor was he wholly disappointed; for the king
+rewarded him with a yearly payment of ten pounds.
+
+A pension of ten pounds granted by a king of England to a man of
+letters, appears, to modern readers, so contemptible a benefaction,
+that it is not unworthy of inquiry what might be its value at that
+time, and how much Ascham might be enriched by it. Nothing is more
+uncertain than the estimation of wealth by denominated money; the
+precious metals never retain long the same proportion to real
+commodities, and the same names in different ages do not imply the
+same quantity of metal; so that it is equally difficult to know how
+much money was contained in any nominal sum, and to find what any
+supposed quantity of gold or silver would purchase; both which are
+necessary to the commensuration of money, or the adjustment of
+proportion between the same sums at different periods of time.
+
+A numeral pound, in king Henry's time, contained, as now, twenty
+shillings; and, therefore, it must be inquired what twenty shillings
+could perform. Bread-corn is the most certain standard of the
+necessaries of life. Wheat was generally sold, at that time for one
+shilling, the bushel; if, therefore, we take five shillings the bushel
+for the current price, ten pounds were equivalent to fifty. But here
+is danger of a fallacy. It may be doubted whether wheat was the
+general bread-corn of that age; and if rye, barley, or oats, were the
+common food, and wheat, as I suspect, only a delicacy, the value of
+wheat will not regulate the price of other things. This doubt,
+however, is in favour of Ascham; for if we raise the worth of wheat,
+we raise that of his pension.
+
+But the value of money has another variation, which we are still less
+able to ascertain: the rules of custom, or the different needs of
+artificial life, make that revenue little at one time which is great
+at another. Men are rich and poor, not only in proportion to what they
+have, but to what they want. In some ages, not only necessaries are
+cheaper, but fewer things are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of
+the elegancies and expenses of our present fashions were unknown:
+commerce had not yet distributed superfluity through the lower classes
+of the people, and the character of a student implied frugality, and
+required no splendour to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning
+together the wants which he could supply, and the wants from which he
+was exempt, may be estimated, in my opinion, at more than one hundred
+pounds a year; which, added to the income of his fellowship, put him
+far enough above distress.
+
+This was a year of good fortune to Ascham. He was chosen orator to the
+university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was
+made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains
+admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility,
+and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the
+ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly
+pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time,
+employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand;
+and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess
+Elizabeth, and prince Edward.
+
+Henry the eighth died two years after, and a reformation of religion
+being now openly prosecuted by king Edward and his council, Ascham,
+who was known to favour it, had a new grant of his pension, and
+continued at Cambridge, where he lived in great familiarity with
+Bucer, who had been called from Germany to the professorship of
+divinity. But his retirement was soon at an end; for, in 1548, his
+pupil Grindal, the master of the princess Elizabeth, died, and the
+princess, who had already some acquaintance with Ascham, called him
+from his college to direct her studies.
+
+He obeyed the summons, as we may easily believe, with readiness, and,
+for two years, instructed her with great diligence; but then, being
+disgusted either at her, or her domesticks, perhaps eager for another
+change of life, he left her, without her consent, and returned to the
+university. Of this precipitation he long repented; and, as those who
+are not accustomed to disrespect cannot easily forgive it, he probably
+felt the effects of his imprudence to his death.
+
+After having visited Cambridge, he took a journey into Yorkshire, to
+see his native place, and his old acquaintance, and there received a
+letter from the court, informing him, that he was appointed secretary
+to sir Richard Morisine, who was to be despatched as ambassadour into
+Germany. In his return to London he paid that memorable visit to lady
+Jane Gray, in which he found her reading the Phasdo in Greek, as he
+has related in his Schoolmaster.
+
+In September, 1550, he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over
+great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared
+worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of
+learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but
+Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw
+each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham undertook to
+improve Morisine in Greek, and, for four days in the week, explained
+some passages in Herodotus every morning, and more than two hundred
+verses of Sophocles, or Euripides, every afternoon. He read with him,
+likewise, some of the orations of Demosthenes. On the other days he
+compiled the letters of business, and in the night filled up his
+diary, digested his remarks, and wrote private letters to his friends
+in England, and particularly to those of his college, whom he
+continually exhorted to perseverance in study. Amidst all the
+pleasures of novelty which his travels supplied, and in the dignity of
+his publick station, he preferred the tranquillity of private study,
+and the quiet of academical retirement. The reasonableness of this
+choice has been always disputed; and in the contrariety of human
+interests and dispositions, the controversy will not easily be
+decided.
+
+He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his
+Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was
+desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the
+scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.
+
+In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in
+Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the
+German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts
+many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history,
+in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly
+mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine
+English.
+
+By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped,
+Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end.
+He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment
+and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the
+deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his
+support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the
+assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that
+he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support
+him at Cambridge." There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account
+either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his
+fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him
+plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the
+college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation.
+But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too
+long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return
+with a good will to academical poverty.
+
+He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented
+his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had,
+during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king
+Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was
+instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of
+twenty pounds a year.
+
+Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an
+extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing
+and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven
+letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.
+
+How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the
+favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen
+Mary's court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well
+known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared,
+cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of
+queen Mary's reign must have been well enough remembered, declares,
+that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and
+that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner
+against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet
+he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and
+compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the
+Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his
+innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack
+a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could
+not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was
+never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are
+we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who
+suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so
+necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with
+another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to
+examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the
+inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last,
+to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct,
+caprice, accident, and private affections.
+
+At that time, if some were punished, many were forborne; and of many
+why should not Ascham happen to be one? He seems to have been calm and
+prudent, and content with that peace which he was suffered to enjoy: a
+mode of behaviour that seldom fails to produce security. He had been
+abroad in the last years of king Edward, and had, at least, given no
+recent offence. He was certainly, according to his own opinion, not
+much in danger; for in the next year he resigned his fellowship,
+which, by Gardiner's favour, he had continued to hold, though not
+resident; and married Margaret Howe, a young gentle-woman of a good
+family.
+
+He was distinguished in this reign by the notice of cardinal Pole, a
+man of great candour, learning, and gentleness of manners, and
+particularly eminent for his skill in Latin, who thought highly of
+Ascham's style; of which it is no inconsiderable proof, that when Pole
+was desirous of communicating a speech made by himself as legate, in
+parliament, to the pope, he employed Ascham to translate it.
+
+He is said to have been not only protected by the officers of state,
+but favoured and countenanced by the queen herself, so that he had no
+reason of complaint in that reign of turbulence and persecution: nor
+was his fortune much mended, when, in 1558, his pupil, Elizabeth,
+mounted the throne. He was continued in his former employment, with
+the same stipend; but though he was daily admitted to the presence of
+the queen, assisted her private studies, and partook of her
+diversions; sometimes read to her in the learned languages, and
+sometimes played with her at draughts and chess; he added nothing to
+his twenty pounds a year but the prebend of Westwang, in the church of
+York, which was given him the year following. His fortune was,
+therefore, not proportionate to the rank which his offices and
+reputation gave him, or to the favour in which he seemed to stand with
+his mistress. Of this parsimonious allotment it is again a hopeless
+search to inquire the reason. The queen was not naturally bountiful,
+and, perhaps, did not think it necessary to distinguish, by any
+prodigality of kindness, a man who had formerly deserted her, and whom
+she might still suspect of serving rather for interest than affection.
+Graunt exerts his rhetorical powers in praise of Ascham's
+disinterestedness and contempt of money; and declares, that, though he
+was often reproached by his friends with neglect of his own interest,
+he never would ask any thing, and inflexibly refused all presents
+which his office or imagined interest induced any to offer him.
+Camden, however, imputes the narrowness of his condition to his love
+of dice and cockfights: and Graunt, forgetting himself, allows that
+Ascham was sometimes thrown into agonies by disappointed expectations.
+It may be easily discovered, from his Schoolmaster, that he felt his
+wants, though he might neglect to supply them; and we are left to
+suspect, that he showed his contempt of money only by losing at play.
+If this was his practice, we may excuse Elizabeth, who knew the
+domestick character of her servants, if she did not give much to him
+who was lavish of a little.
+
+However he might fail in his economy, it were indecent to treat with
+wanton levity the memory of a man who shared his frailties with all,
+but whose learning or virtues few can attain, and by whose
+excellencies many may be improved, while himself only suffered by his
+faults.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, nothing remarkable is known to have
+befallen him, except that, in 1563, he was invited, by sir Edward
+Sackville, to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, upon an
+occasion which he relates in the beginning of the book.
+
+This work, though begun with alacrity, in hopes of a considerable
+reward, was interrupted by the death of the patron, and afterwards
+sorrowfully and slowly finished, in the gloom of disappointment, under
+the pressure of distress. But of the author's disinclination or
+dejection there can be found no tokens in the work, which is conceived
+with great vigour, and finished with great accuracy; and, perhaps,
+contains the best advice that was ever given for the study of
+languages.
+
+This treatise he completed, but did not publish; for that poverty
+which, in our days, drives authors so hastily in such numbers to the
+press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. The
+printers gave little for a copy, and, if we may believe the tale of
+Raleigh's history, were not forward to print what was offered them for
+nothing. Ascham's book, therefore, lay unseen in his study, and was,
+at last, dedicated to lord Cecil by his widow.
+
+Ascham never had a robust or vigorous body, and his excuse for so many
+hours of diversion was his inability to endure a long continuance of
+sedentary thought. In the latter part of his life he found it
+necessary to forbear any intense application of the mind from dinner
+to bedtime, and rose to read and write early in the morning. He was,
+for some years, hectically feverish; and, though he found some
+alleviation of his distemper, never obtained a perfect recovery of his
+health. The immediate cause of his last sickness was too close
+application to the composition of a poem, which he purposed to present
+to the queen, on the day of her accession. To finish this, he forbore
+to sleep at his accustomed hours, till, in December, 1568, he fell
+sick of a kind of lingering disease, which Graunt has not named, nor
+accurately described. The most afflictive symptom was want of sleep,
+which he endeavoured to obtain by the motion of a cradle. Growing
+every day weaker, he found it vain to contend with his distemper, and
+prepared to die with the resignation and piety of a true Christian.
+He was attended on his death-bed by Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre,
+and Dr. Nowel, the learned dean of St. Paul's, who gave ample
+testimony to the decency and devotion of his concluding life. He
+frequently testified his desire of that dissolution which he soon
+obtained. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nowel.
+
+Roger Ascham died in the fifty-third year of his age, at a time when,
+according to the general course of life, much might yet have been
+expected from him, and when he might have hoped for much from others:
+but his abilities and his wants were at an end together; and who can
+determine, whether he was cut off from advantages, or rescued from
+calamities? He appears to have been not much qualified for the
+improvement of his fortune. His disposition was kind and social; he
+delighted in the pleasures of conversation, and was probably not much
+inclined to business. This may be suspected from the paucity of his
+writings. He has left little behind him; and of that little, nothing
+was published by himself but the Toxophilus, and the account of
+Germany. The Schoolmaster was printed by his widow; and the epistles
+were collected by Graunt, who dedicated them to queen Elizabeth, that
+he might have an opportunity of recommending his son, Giles Ascham, to
+her patronage. The dedication was not lost: the young man was made, by
+the queen's mandate, fellow of a college in Cambridge, where he
+obtained considerable reputation. What was the effect of his widow's
+dedication to Cecil, is not known: it may be hoped that Ascham's works
+obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did
+not, in his life, very plenteously procure them.
+
+Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot
+now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less
+merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any
+country; and, among us, it may justly call for that reverence which
+all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and
+kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners, nothing can
+be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries.
+Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy,
+benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety, we have
+not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his
+writings.
+
+That his English works have been so long neglected, is a proof of the
+uncertainty of literary fame. He was scarcely known, as an author, in
+his own language, till Mr. Upton published his Schoolmaster, with
+learned notes. His other pieces were read only by those few who
+delight in obsolete books; but as they are now collected into one
+volume, with the addition of some letters never printed before, the
+publick has an opportunity of recompensing the injury, and allotting
+Ascham the reputation due to his knowledge and his eloquence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[1] From the Gentleman's Magazine, 1742.
+
+[2] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 41. 1756.
+
+[3] The first part of this review closed here. What follows did not
+appear until seven months after. To which delay the writer alludes
+with provoking severity.
+
+[4] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p, 89. 1756.
+
+[5] From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. p. 253.
+
+[6] And of such a man, it is to be regretted, that Dr. Johnson was, by
+whatever motive, induced to speak with acrimony; but, it is probable,
+that he took up the subject, at first, merely to give play to his
+fancy. This answer, however, to Mr. Hanway's letter, is, as Mr. Boswell
+has remarked, the only instance, in the whole course of his life, when
+he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against him. C.
+
+[7] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[8] In all the papers and criticisms Dr. Johnson wrote for the
+Literary Magazine, he frequently departs from the customary we of
+anonymous writers. This, with his inimitable style, soon pointed him
+out, as the principal person concerned in that publication.
+
+[9] The second volume of Dr. Warton's Essay was not published until
+the year 1782.
+
+[10] This Enquiry, published in 1757, was the production of Soame
+Jenyns, esq. who never forgave the author of the review. It is painful
+to relate, that, after he had suppressed his resentment during Dr.
+Johnson's life, he gave it vent, in a petulant and illiberal
+mock-epitaph, which would not have deserved notice, had it not been
+admitted into the edition of his works, published by Mr. Cole. When
+this epitaph first appeared in the newspapers, Mr. Boswell answered it
+by another upon Mr. Jenyns, equal, at least, in illiberality.
+
+This review is justly reckoned one of the finest specimens of
+criticism in our language, and was read with such eagerness, when
+published in the Literary Magazine, that the author was induced to
+reprint it in a small volume by itself; a circumstance which appears
+to have escaped Mr. Boswell's research.
+
+[11] New Practice of Physick.
+
+[12] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[13] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.
+
+[14] From the Literary Magazine, 1756.--There are other reviews of
+books by Dr. Johnson, in this magazine, but, in general, very short,
+and consisting chiefly of a few introductory remarks, and an extract.
+That on Mrs. Harrison's Miscellanies maybe accounted somewhat
+interesting, from the notice of Dr. Watts.
+
+[15] Written by Mr. Tytler, of Edinburgh.
+
+[16] Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1760.
+
+[17] First printed in the year 1739.
+
+[18] See his Remains, 1614, p. 337, "Riming verses, which are called
+_versus leonini_, I know not wherefore, (for a lyon's taile doth
+not answer to the middle parts as these verses doe,) began in the time
+of Carolus Magnus, and were only in request then, and in many ages
+following, which delighted in nothing more than in this minstrelsie of
+meeters."
+
+[19] Dr. Edward Young.
+
+[20] Ambrose Philips, author of the Distrest Mother, &c.
+
+[21] Edward Ward. See Dunciad, and Biographia Dramatica.
+
+[22] Joseph Mitchell. See Biographia Dramatica.
+
+[23] Published first in the Literary Magazine, No. iv. from July 15,
+to Aug. 15, 1756. This periodical work was published by Richardson, in
+Paternoster row, but was discontinued about two years after. Dr. Johnson
+wrote many articles, which have been enumerated by Mr. Boswell, and
+there are others which I should be inclined to attribute to him, from
+internal evidence.
+
+[24] In the magazine, this article is promised "to be continued;" but
+the author was, by whatever means, diverted from it, and no
+continuation appears.
+
+[25] This was the introductory article to the Literary Magazine, No. i.
+
+[26] From the Literary Magazine, for July, 1756.
+
+[27] See Literary Magazine, No. ii. p. 63.
+
+[28] This short paper was added to some editions of the Idler, when
+collected into volumes, but not by Dr. Johnson, as Mr. Boswell
+asserts, nor to the early editions of that work.
+
+[29] In the first edition, this passage stood thus: "Let him not,
+however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally
+possessed; could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransome,
+_he could have counted it_." There were some other alterations
+suggested, it would appear, by lord North.
+
+[30] The Patriot is of the same cast with Johnson's other political
+writings. It endeavours to justify the outrages of the house of
+commons, in the case of the Middlesex election, and to vindicate the
+harsh measures then in agitation against America: it can only,
+therefore, be admired as a clever, sophistical composition.--Eb.
+
+[31] For arguments on the opposite side of this question, see the Abbe
+Raynal's Revolution of America, and Edin. Rev. xl. p. 451.--Ed.
+
+[32] Of this reasoning I owe part to a conversation with sir John
+Hawkins.
+
+[33] Written for the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1738.
+
+[34] "Erat Hermanni genitor Latine, Graece, Hebraice sciens: peritus
+valde historiarum et gentium. Vir apertus, candidus, simplex;
+paterfamilias optimus amore, cura, diligentia, frugalitate, prudentia.
+Qui non magna in re, sed plenus virtutis, novem liberis educandis
+exemplum praebuit singulare, quid exacta parsimonia polleat, et
+frugalitas." _Orig. Edit._
+
+[35] "Jungebat his exercitiis quotidianam patrum lectionem, secundum
+chronologiam, a Clemente Romano exorsus, et juxta seriem seculorum
+descendens: ut Jesu Christi doctrinam in N. T. traditam, primis
+patribus interpretantibus, addisceret.
+
+"Horum simplicitatem sincerae doctrinae, disciplinae sanctitatem,
+vitae Deo Jicatae integritatem adorabat. Subtilitatem scholarum divina
+postmodum inquinasse dolebat. Aegerrime tulit sacrorum interpretationem
+ex sectis sophistarum peti; et Platonis, Aristotelis, Thomas
+Aquinatis, Scoti; suoque tempore Cartesii, cogitata metaphysica
+adhiberi pro legibus, ad quas eastigarentur sacrorum scriptorum de Deo
+sentential. Experiebatur acerba dissidia, ingeniorumque subtilissimorum
+acerrima certamina, odia, ambitiones, inde cieri, foveri; adeo
+contraria paci cum Deo et homine. Nihil hic magis illi obstabat; quam
+quod omnes asserant sacram scripturam [Greek: anthropopathos]
+loquentem, [Greek: theoprepos] explicandam; et [Greek: theoprepouan]
+singuli definiant ex placitis suae metaphysices. Horrebat inde
+dominantis sectae praevalentem opinionem, orthodoxiae modum, et
+regulas, unice dare juxta dictata metaphysicorum, non sacrarum
+literarum; unde tam variae; sententiae de doctrina simplicissima."
+--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[36] "Circa hoc tempus, lautis conditionibus, lautioribus promissis,
+invitatus, plus vice simplici, a viro primariae dignationis, qui
+gratia flagrantissima florebat regis Gulielmi III. ut Hagamcomitum
+sedem caperet fortunarum, declinavit constans. Contentus videlicet
+vita libera, remota a turbis, studiisque porro percolendis unice
+impensa, ubi non cogeretur alia dicere et simulare, alia sentire et
+dissimulare: affectuum studiis rapi, regi. Sic turn vita erat, aegros
+visere, mox domi in musaeo se condere, officinam Vulcaniam exercere;
+omnes medicinae partes acerrime persequi; mathematica etiam aliis
+tradere; sacra legere, et auctores qui profitentur docere rationem
+certam amandi Deum."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[37] "Succos pressos bibit noster herbarum cichoreae, endiviae;
+fumariae; nasturtii aquatici, veronicae aquatics latifoliae; copia
+ingenti; simul deglutiens abundantissime gummi ferulacea
+Asiatica."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[38] "Aetas, labor, corporisque opima pinguetudo, effecerant, ante
+annum, ut inertibus refertum, grave, hebes, plenitudine turgens
+corpus, anhelum ad motus minimos, cum sensu suffocationis, pulsu
+mirifice anomalo, ineptum evaderet ad ullum motum. Urgebat praecipue
+subsistens prorsus et intercepta respiratio ad prima somni initia;
+unde somnus prorsus prohibebatur, cum formidabili strangulationis
+molestia. Hinc hydrops pedum, crurum, femorum, scroti, praeputii, et
+abdominis. Quae tamen omnia sublata. Sed dolor manet in abdomine, cum
+anxietate summa, anhelitu suffocante, et debilitate incredibili; somno
+pauco, eoque vago, per somnia turbatissimo; animus vero rebus agendis
+impar. Cum his luctor fessus nec emergo; patienter expectans Dei
+jussa, quibus resigno data, quae sola amo, et honoro unice."--_Orig.
+Edit._
+
+[39] Doctrinam sacris literis Hebraice et Graece traditarn, solam
+animae salutarem et agnovit et sensit. Omni opportunitate profitebatur
+disciplinam, quam Jesus Christus ore et vita expressit, unice
+tranquillitatem dare menti. Semperque dixit amicis, pacem animi baud
+reperiundam, nisi in magno Mosis praecepto de sincere amore Dei et
+hominis bene observato. Neque extra sacra monumenta uspiam inveniri,
+quod mentem serenet. Deum pius adoravit, qui est. Intelligere de Deo,
+unice, volebat id, quod Deus de se intelligit. Eo contentus ultra
+nihil requisivit, ne idolatria erraret. In voluntate Dei sic
+requiescebat, ut illius nullam omnino rationem indagandam putaret.
+Hanc unice supremam omnium legem esse contendebat; deliberata
+constautia perfectissime colendam. De aliis et seipso sentiebat: ut
+quoties criminis reos ad poenas letales damnatos audiret, semper
+cogitaret, saspe diceret: "Quis dixerat annon me sint melioresi
+Utique, si ipse melior, id non mihi auctori tribuendum esse, palam
+aio, confiteor; sed ita largienti Deo."--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[40] This life first appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1739, vol.
+ix. p. 176. It, throughout, exhibits that ardent fondness for
+chemistry, which Johnson cherished, and that respect for physicians,
+which his numerous memoirs of members of that profession, and his
+attachment to Dr. Bathurst and the amiable and single-hearted Level,
+evinced.--ED.
+
+[41] This life was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for the
+year 1740.
+
+[42] The name of sir Henry Savil does not occur in the list of the
+wardens of Wadham college.
+
+[43] From H. Norhone, B.D. his contemporary there.
+
+[44] This life was first printed in the Gent. Mag. for 1740, and
+Johnson's unceasing abhorrence of Spanish encroachment and oppression
+is remarkable throughout. See his London, and Idler, 81.--Ed.
+
+[45] This article was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for
+1740. The proper spelling is Baratier.
+
+[46] The passages referred to in the preceding pages we have printed
+in italics, for the more easy reference.
+
+[47] Translated from an eloge by Fontenelle, and first printed in the
+Gentleman's Magazine for 1741.
+
+[48] The practice of Dr. Morin is forbidden, I believe, by every
+writer that has left rules for the preservation of health, and is
+directly opposite to that of Cornaro, who, by his regimen, repaired a
+broken constitution, and protracted his life, without any painful
+infirmities, or any decay of his intellectual abilities, to more than
+a hundred years; it is generally agreed that, as men advance in years,
+they ought to take lighter sustenance, and in less quantities; and
+reason seems easily to discover, that as the concoctive powers grow
+weaker, they ought to labour less.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[49] This is an instance of the disposition generally found in writers
+of lives, to exalt every common occurrence and action into wonder. Are
+not indexes daily written by men, who neither receive nor expect any
+loud applauses for their labours?--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[50] First printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1742.
+
+[51] A more full list is given in the last edition of the Biographical
+Dictionary, vol. vii.
+
+[52] Originally prefixed to the new translation of Dr. Sydenham's
+works, by John Swan, M.D. of Newcastle, in Staffordshire, 1742.
+
+[53] Since the foregoing was written, we have seen Mr. Ward's Lives of
+the Professors of Gresham college; who, in the life of Dr. Mapletoft,
+says, that, in 1676, Dr. Sydenham published his Observationes medicae
+circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem, which he dedicated to
+Dr. Mapletoft, who, at the desire of the author, had translated them
+into Latin; and that the other pieces of that excellent physician were
+translated into that language by Mr. Gilbert Havers, of Trinity
+college, Cambridge, a student in physick, and friend of Dr. Mapletolt.
+But, as Mr. Ward, like others, neglects to bring any proof of his
+assertion, the question cannot fairly be decided by his authority.--
+_Orig. Edit_.
+
+[54] First printed in The Student, 1751.
+
+[55] Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[56] Vide Wood's Ath. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[57] Vide Wood's Hist. Univ. Ox.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[58] Vide Wood's Hist. Antiq. Oxon.--_Orig. Edit._
+
+[59] This life first appeared in the Gentleman's magazine for 1754,
+and is now printed from a copy revised by the author, at my request,
+in 1781. N.--It was, in the magazine, introduced by a general remark,
+which we have again prefixed.
+
+[60] This was said in the beginning of the year 1781; and may with
+truth be now repeated. N.
+
+[61] The London Magazine ceased to exist in 1785. N.
+
+[62] Mr. Cave was buried in the church of St. James, Clerkenwell,
+without an epitaph; but the following inscription at Rugby, from the
+pen of Dr. Hawkesworth, is here transcribed from the Anecdotes of Mr.
+Bowyer, p. 88.
+
+     Near this place lies
+     The body of
+     JOSEPH CAVE,
+     Late of this parish:
+     Who departed this Life, Nov. 18, 1747,
+     Aged 79 years.
+     Me was placed by Providence in a humble station;
+     But
+     Industry abundantly supplied the wants of Nature,
+     And
+     Temperance blest him with
+     Content and Wealth.
+     As he was an affectionate Father,
+     He was made happy in the decline of life
+     By the deserved eminence of his eldest Son,
+     EDWARD CAVE,
+     Who, without interest, fortune, or connexion,
+     By the native force of his own genius,
+
+[63] First printed in the Literary Magazine for 1756.
+
+[64] Christian Morals, first printed in 1756.
+
+[65] Life of sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of
+Norwich.
+
+[66] Whitefoot's character of sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note.
+
+[67] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[68] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.
+
+[69] Wood.
+
+[70] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[71] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[72] Biographia Britannica.
+
+[73] Letter to sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+edit.
+
+[74] Digby's Letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
+edit.
+
+[75] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[76] Merryweather's letter, inserted in the Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[77] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[78] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.
+
+[79] Wood.
+
+[80] Whitefoot.
+
+[81] Howell's Letters.
+
+[82] Religio Medici.
+
+[83] Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[84] Wood, and Life of sir Thomas Browne.
+
+[85] the end of Hydriotaphia.
+
+[86] Johnson, by trusting; to his memory, has here fallen into an
+error. Howell, in his instructions for Foreign Travell, has said
+directly the reverse of what is ascribed to him: "I have beaten my
+brains," he tells us, "to make one sentence good Italian and congruous
+Latin, but could never do it; but in Spanish it is very feasible, as,
+for example, in this stanza:
+
+     Infausta Graecia, tu paris gentes
+     Lubricas, sed amicitias dolosas,
+     Machinando fraudes cautilosas,
+     Ruinando animas innocentes:
+
+which is good Latin enough; and yet is vulgar Spanish, intelligible to
+every plebeian."--J. B.
+
+[87] Browne's Remains.--Whitefoot.
+
+[88] Therefore no hereticks desire to spread Their wild opinions like
+     these epicures. For so their staggering thoughts are computed,
+     And other men's assent their doubt assures.
+
+     DAVIES.
+
+[89] First printed before his Works in 4to. published by Bennet, 1763.
+
+
+END OF VOL. VI.
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and relocated to the
+end of the work.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6
+by Samuel Johnson
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