what fatisfaction can their hirers give in return? Not all the wealth raked together by the most corrupt rapacious minifters, in the longest course of unlimited power, would be fufficient to atone for the hundredth part of fuch an injury.

In the common way of thinking, it is a fituation fufficient in all confcience to fatisfy a reasonable ambition, for a private perfon, to command the laws, the forces, the revenues of a great kingdom, to reward and advance his followers and flatterers as he pleases, and to keep his enemies (real or imaginary) in the duft. In such an exaltation, why should he be at the trouble to make use of fools to found his praises, (because I always thought the lion was hard fet, when he chose the ass for his trumpeter) or knaves to revenge his quarrels, at the expence of innocent mens reputations?

With all thofe advantages, I cannot fee why perfons, in the height of power, fhould be under the leaft concern on account of their reputation, for which they have no manner of ufe; or to ruin that of others, which may perhaps be the only poffeffion their enemies have left them. Supposing times of corruption, which I am

very far from doing, if a writer displays them in their proper colours, does he do any thing worse than sending customers to the fhop? Here only, at the fign of the Brazen Head, are to be fold places and penfions: beware of counterfeits, and take care of miftaking the door.

For my own part, I think it very unneceffary to give the character of a great minister in the fulness of his power, because it is a thing that naturally does itself, and is obvious to the eyes of all mankind; for his perfonal qualities are all derived into the most minute parts of his administration. If this be juft, prudent, regular, impartial, intent upon the public good, prepared for prefent exigencies, and provident of the future; fuch is the director himself in his private capacity: If it be rapacious, infolent, partial, palliating long and deep diseases of the public with empirical remedies, false, disguised, impudent, malicious, revengeful; you fhall infallibly find the private life of the conductor to answer in every point; nay, what is more, every twinge of the gout or gravel will be felt in their confequences by the community: As the thief-catcher, upon viewing a house broke open, could imme

diately

diately distinguish, from the manner of the workmanship, by what hand it was done.

It is hard to form a maxim against which an exception is not ready to start up: So, in the prefent cafe, where the minister grows enormously rich, the public is proportionably poor; as, in a private family, the fteward always thrives the fafteft when his Lord is running out.

O F

PUBLIC ABSURDITIES

IN ENGLAND.

T is a common topic of fatire, which you

IT

will hear not only from the mouths of minifters of state, but of every whiffler in office, that half a dozen obfcure:fellows, over a bottle of wine or a difh of coffee, fhall prefume to cenfure the actions of parliaments and councils, to form fchemes of government, and new-model the commonwealth; and this ufually, ridiculed as a pragmatical difpofition to politics, in the very nature and genius of the people. It may poffibly be true: And yet I am grossly deceived if any fober man,

of

very moderate talents, when he reflects upon the many ridiculous hurtful maxims, cuftoms, and general rules of life, which prevail in this kingdom, would not with great reafon be tempted, according to the prefent turn of his humour, either to laugh, lament, or be angry; or, if he were fanguine enough, perhaps to dream of a remedy. It is the mistake of wife and good

men, that they expect more reason and virtue from human nature, than, taking it in the bulk, it is in any fort capable of. Whoever hath been prefent at councils or af femblies of any fort, if he be a man of common prudence, cannot but have obferved fuch refults and opinions to have frequently paffed a majority, as he would be ashamed to advance in private converfation. I fay nothing of cruelty, oppref fion, injustice, and the like, because these are fairly to be accounted for in all affemblies, as best gratifying the paffions and interests of leaders; which is a point of fuch high confideration, that all others must give place to it. But I would be underftood here to fpeak only of opinions ridiculous, foolish, and abfurd; with conclufions and actions fuitable to them, at the fame time when the most reasonable propofitions are often unanimously rejected.

And, as all affemblies of men are liable to this accufation, fo likewife there are natural abfurdities from which the wifeft ftates are not exempt, which proceed less from the nature of their climate than that of their government; the Gauls, the Britons, the Spaniards, and Italians, having

retained