livered to be nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster, and licked into shape at other times it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. Sometimes it is of noble birth, and sometimes the spawn of a stock-jobber. Here it screams aloud

at the opening of the womb, and there it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now dis turbs half the kingdom with its noise, which, although too proud and great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood. To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world without a sting it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting it dies.

No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be destined for great adventures; and accordingly we see it has been the guardian spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquer kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle. It gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and raise a mole-hill to a mountain has presided for many years at committees of elections; can wash a blackmoor white; make a saint of an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the nation. This goddess flies with a huge lookingglass in her hands, to dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, their ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In this glass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered with fleurs de lis and triple crowns; their girdles hung round with chains, and beads, and wooden shoes; and your worst enemies adorned with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, moderation, and a cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of a flying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she therefore dips them in mud, and, soaring aloft, scatters it in the eyes of the multitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced to stoop in dirty ways for new supplies.

I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself in this town, by observing the different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies which buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's ears in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon in Exchangealley, enough to darken the air; or over a club of discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scattered at elections.

There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which is necessary, according to the various occasions he meets with every hour of differing from himself, and swearing to both sides of a contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has to deal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it is convenient, upon every article, to have some eminent person in our eye, from whom we copy our description. I have strictly observed this rule, and my imagination this minute represents before me a certain great man (earl of Wharton) famous for his talent, to the constant practice of which he owes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in England for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, which he plen

tifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the next half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute or company to affirm or deny it; so that, if you think fit to refine upon him, by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally deceived whether you believe or not the only remedy is to suppose that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any justice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, because he has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes in neither.

Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of no great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often practised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.

Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that maxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at last prevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our understanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution both in church and state, and we at last were brought to the very brink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of those who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend no higher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit, quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to the Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, but loaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and pensioners to France; while truth, who is said to lie in a well, seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I remember it was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of the landed men was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on as an ill omen; and we saw it with the utmost difficulty that they could preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on their side, till they had learned those admirable expedients for deciding elections and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld by most dexterous artifice and management, until the people began to apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in danger; when we saw them greedily laying hold on the firs

occasion to interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the people I shall discourse more at large in some following paper: wherein I shall endeavour to undeceive or discover those deluded or deluding persons who hope or pretend it is only a short madness in the vulgar, from which they may soon recover; whereas, I believe it will appear to be very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences; and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned, that truth (however sometimes late) will at last prevail.

No. 16.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1710.
medioque ut limite curras,

Icare, ait, moneo: ne si demissior ibis,
Unda gravet pennas; si celsior, ignis adurat.

My boy, take care

To wing thy course along the middle air:
If low, the surges wet thy flagging plumes;
If high, the suu the melting wax consumes.

IT must be avowed that for some years past there have been few things more wanted in England than such a paper as this ought to be and such I will endeavour to make it as long as it shall be found of any use, without entering into the violences of either party. Considering the many grievous misrepresentations of persons and things, it is highly requisite at this juncture that the people throughout the kingdom should, if possible, be set right in their opinions by some impartial hand, which has never been yet attempted; those who have hitherto undertaken it being, upon every account, the least qualified of all human kind for such work.

We live here under a limited monarchy, and under the doctrine and discipline of an excellent church. We are unhappily divided into two parties, both which pretend a mighty zeal for our religion and government, only they disagree about the means. The evils we must fence against are, on one side, fanaticism and infidelity in religion, and anarchy, under the name of a commonwealth, in government; on the other side, popery, slavery, and the pretender from France. Now, to inform and direct us in our sentiments upon these weighty points, here are, on one side, two stupid illiterate scribblers, both of them fanatics by profession, I mean the Review and Observator; on the other side, we have an open Nonjuror, whose character and person, as well as learning and good sense, discovered upon other subjects, do indeed deserve respect and esteem; but his Rehearsal and the rest of his political papers are yet more pernicious than those of the former two. If the generality of the people know not how to talk or think until they have read their lesson in the papers of the week, what a misfortune is it that their duty should be conveyed to them through such vehicles as those! For, let some gentlemen think what they please, I cannot but suspect that the two worthies I first mentioned have, in a degree, done mischief among us; the mock authoritative manner of the one, and the insipid mirth of the other, however insupportable to reasonable ears, being of a level with great numbers among the lowest part of mankind. Neither was the author of the Rehearsal, while he continued that paper, less infectious to many persons of better figure, who, perhaps, were as well qualified, and much less prejudiced, to judge for themselves.

It was this reason that moved me to take the matter out of those rough as well as those dirty hands; to let the remote and uninstructed part of the nation see that they have been misled on both sides by mad ridiculous extremes, at a wide dis

tance on each side of the truth; while the right path is so broad and plain as to be easily kept if they were once put into it.

Further I had lately entered on a resolution to take little notice of other papers, unless it were such where the malice and falsehood had so great a mixture of wit and spirit as would make them dangerous; which, in the present circle of scribblers, from twelvepence to a halfpenny, I could easily foresee would not very frequently occur. But here again I am forced to dispense with my resolution, although it be only to tell my reader what measures I am likely to take on such occasions for the future. I was told that the paper called The Observator was twice filled last week with remarks upon a late Examiner. These I read with the first opportunity, and, to speak in the news-writers' phrase, they gave me occasion for many speculations. I observed with singular pleasure the nature of those things which the owners of them usually call answers, and with what dexterity this matchless author had fallen into the whole art and cant of them. To transcribe here and there three or four detached lines of least weight in a discourse, and by a foolish comment mistake every syllable of the meaning, is what I have known many, of a superior class to this formidable adversary, entitle an Answer. This is what he has exactly done, in about thrice as many words as my whole discourse; which is so mighty an advantage over me, that I shall by no means engage in so unequal a combat; but, as far as I can judge of my own temper, entirely dismiss him for the future; heartily wishing he had a match exactly of his own size to meddle with, who should only have the odds of truth and honesty, which, as I take it, would be an effectual way to silence him for ever. Upon this occasion I cannot forbear a short story of a fanatic farmer, who lived in my neighbourhood, and was so great a disputant in religion that the servants in all the families thereabouts reported how he had confuted the bishop and all his clergy. I had then a footman who was fond of reading the Bible; and I borrowed a comment for him, which he studied so close that in a month or two I thought him a match for the farmer. They disputed at several houses, with a ring of servants and other people always about them; where Ned explained his texts so full and clear to the capacity of his audience, and showed the insignificancy of his adversary's cant to the meanest understanding, that he got the whole country on his side, and the farmer was cured of his itch of disputation for ever after.

The worst of it is, that this sort of outrageous party-writers I have spoken of above are like a couple of makebates, who inflame small quarrels by a thousand stories, and, by keeping friends at a distance, hinder them from coming to a good understanding, as they certainly would if they were suffered to meet and debate between themselves; for let any one examine a reasonable honest man, of either side, upon those opinions in religion and government which both parties daily buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in difference between them. I would be glad to ask a question about two great men of the late ministry, how they came to be Whigs? and by what figure of speech half a dozen others, lately put into great employments, can be called Tories? I doubt whoever would suit the definition to the persons, must make it directly contrary to what we understood it at the time of the Revolution.

In order to remove these misapprehensions among us, I believe it will be necessary, upon occasion, to detect the malice and falsehood of some popular

maxims, which those idiots scatter from the press twice a-week, and draw a hundred absurd consequences from them.

For example, I have heard it often objected, as a great piece of insolence in the clergy and others, to say or hint that the church was in danger, when it was voted otherwise in parliament some years ago; and the queen herself, in her last speech, did openly condemn all such insinuations. Notwithstanding which, I did then and do still believe the church has, since that vote, been in very imminent danger; and I think I might then have said so without the least offence to her majesty or either of the two houses. The queen's words, as near as I can remember, mentioned the church being in danger from her administration; and whoever says or thinks that deserves, in my opinion, to be hanged for a traitor; but that the church and state may be both in danger, under the best princes that ever reigned, and without the least guilt of theirs, is such a truth as a man must be a great stranger to history and common sense to doubt. The wisest prince on earth may be forced by the necessity of his affairs and the present power of an unruly faction, or deceived by the craft of ill-designing men. One or two ministers, most in his confidence, may at first have good intentions, but grow corrupted by time, by avarice, by love, by ambition, and have fairer terms offered them to gratify their passions or interests from one set of men than another, until they are too far involved for a retreat, and so be forced to take seven spirits more wicked than themselves. This is a very possible case; and will not the last state of such men be worse than the first? that is to say, will not the public, which was safe at first, grow in danger by such proceedings as these? And shall a faithful subject, who foresees and trembles at the consequences, be called disaffected because he delivers his opinion, although the prince declares, as he justly may, that the danger is not owing to his administration or shall the prince himself be blamed when, in such a juncture, he puts his affairs into other hands, with the universal applause of his people? As to the vote against those who should affirm the church was in danger, I think it likewise referred to danger from or under the queen's administration; for I neither have it by me, nor can suddenly have recourse to it; but, it were otherwise, I know not how it can refer to any dangers but what were past, or at that time present; or how it could affect the future, unless the senators were all inspired, or at least that majority which voted it neither do I see it is any crime, further than ill manners, to differ in opinion from a majority of either or both houses; and that ill manners, must confess, I have been often guilty of for some years past, although I hope I never shall again.

Another topic of great use to these weekly inflamers is, the young pretender in France, to whom their whole party is in a high measure indebted for all their greatness; and whenever it lies in their power they may perhaps return their acknowledgments, as, out of their zeal for frequent revolutions, they were ready to do to his supposed father, which is a piece of secret history that I hope will one day see the light; and I am sure it shall if ever I am master of it, without regarding whose ears may tingle. But at present the word pretender is a term of art in their profession. A secretary of state cannot desire leave to resign, but the pretender is at bottom; the queen cannot dissolve a parliament, but it is a plot to dethrone herself and bring in the pretender; half-a-score stock-jobbers are playing the knave in Exchange-alley, and there goes the

pretender with a sponge. One would be apt to think they bawl out the pretender so often to take off the terror, or tell so many lies about him to slacken our caution, that when he is really coming, by their connivance, we may not believe them, as the boy served the shepherds about the coming of the wolf; or perhaps they scare us with the pretender because they think he may be like some diseases that come with a fright. Do they not believe that the queen's present ministry love her majesty at least as well as some loved the church? And why is it not as great a mark of disaffection now to say the queen is in danger, as it was some months ago to affirm the same of the church? Suppose it be a false opinion that the queen's right is hereditary and indefeasible; yet how is it possible that those who hold and believe such a doctrine can be in the pretender's interest? His title is weakened by every argument that strengthens hers: it is as plain as the words of an act of parliament can make it that her present majesty is heir to the survivor of the late king and queen, her sister: is not that an hereditary right? What need we explain it any further I have known an article of faith expounded in much looser and more general terms, and that by an author whose opinions are very much followed by a certain party. Suppose we go further, and examine the word indefeasible, with which some writers of late have made themselves so merry; I confess it is hard to conceive how any law which the supreme power makes may not by the same power be repealed; so that I shall not determine whether the queen's right be indefeasible or not. But this I will maintain, that whoever affirms it is so is not guilty of a crime; for in that settlement of the crown after the Revolution, where her present majesty is named in remainder, there are (as near as I can remember) these remarkable words, "to which we bind ourselves and our posterity for ever." Lawyers may explain this, or call them words of form, as they please; and reasoners may argue that such an obligation is against the nature of government; but a plain reader, who takes the words in their natural meaning, may be excused in thinking a right so confirmed is indefeasible; and if there be an absurdity in such an opinion, he is not to answer for it.

P.S. When this paper was going to the press, the printer brought me two more Observators, wholly taken up in my Examiner upon lying, which I was at the pains to read; and they are just such an answer as the two others I have mentioned. This is all I have to say on that matter.

No. 17.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1710.

Qui sunt boni cives? Qui belli, qui domi de patriâ bene merentes, nisi qui patriæ beneficia meminerunt ?

Who is the good and laudable citizen? Who in peace, or who in war, has merited the favour of his country? Who but that person who with gratitude remembers and acknowledges the favours and rewards he has already received?

I WILL employ this present paper upon a subject which of late has very much affected me, which I have considered with a good deal of application, and made several inquiries about among those persons who I thought were best able to inform me; and, if I deliver my sentiments with some freedom, I hope it will be forgiven, while I accompany it with that tenderness which so nice a point requires.

I said in a former paper No. 14) that one specious objection to the late removals at court was, the fear of giving uneasiness to a general who has been

long successful abroad; and accordingly the common clamour of tongues and pens for some months past has run against the baseness, the inconstancy, and ingratitude of the whole kingdom to the duke of Marlborough, in return of the most eminent services that ever were performed by a subject to his country; not to be equalled in history: and then, to be sure, some bitter stroke of detraction against Alexander and Cæsar, who never did us the least injury. Besides, the people who read Plutarch come upon us with parallels drawn from the Greeks and Romans, who ungratefully dealt with I know not how many of their most deserving generals; while the profounder politicians have seen pamphlets where Tacitus and Machiavel have been quoted to show the danger of too resplendent a merit. If a stranger should hear these serious outcries of ingratitude against our general without knowing the particulars, he would be apt to inquire where was his tomb, or whether he was allowed christian burial not doubting but we had put him to some ignominious death. Or has he been tried for his life, and very narrowly escaped? has he been accused of high crimes and misdemeanors? has the prince seized on his estate and left him to starve ? has he been hooted at as he passed the streets by an ungrateful rabble? have neither honours, offices, nor grants, been conferred on him or his family? have not he and they been barbarously stripped of them all have not he and his forces been ill paid abroad? and does not the prince, by a scanty limited commission, hinder him from pursuing his own methods in the conduct of the war? has he no power at all of disposing of commissions as he pleases? is he not severely used by the ministry or parliament, who yearly call him to a strict account? has the senate ever thanked him for good success, and have they not always publicly censured him for the least miscarriage?-Will the accusers of the nation join issue upon any of these particulars, or tell us in what point our damnable sin of ingratitude lies? Why, it is plain and clear; for while he is commanding abroad, the queen dissolves her parliament and changes her ministry at home; in which universal calamity, no less than two persons allied by marriage to the general [Sunderland and Godolphin] have lost their places. Whence came this wonderful sympathy between the civil and military powers? Will the troops in Flanders refuse to fight unless they can have their own lord-keeper, their own lord-president of the council, their own parliament ? In a kingdom where the people are free, how came they to be so fond of having their counsels under the influence of their army, or those that lead it? who, in all well-instituted states, had no commerce with the civil power, further than to receive their orders, and obey them without reserve.

When a general is not so popular, either in his army or at home, as one might expect from a long course of success, it may perhaps be ascribed to his wisdom, or perhaps to his complexion. The possession of some one quality, or defect in some other, will extremely damp the people's favour, as well as the love of the soldiers. Besides, this is not an age to produce favourites of the people, while we live under a queen who engrosses all our love and all our veneration; and where the only way for a great general or minister to acquire any degree of subordinate affection from the public must be, by all marks of the most entire submission and respect to her sacred person and commands; otherwise, no pretence of great services, either in the field or the cabinet, will be able to screen them from universal hatred.

But the late ministry was closely joined to the general by friendship, interest, alliance, inclination, and opinion; which cannot be affirmed of the present and the ingratitude of the nation lies in the people's joining, as one man, to wish that such a ministry should be changed. Is it not, at the same time, notorious to the whole kingdom, that nothing but a tender regard to the general was able to preserve that ministry so long, until neither God nor man could suffer their continuance? Yet, in the highest ferment of things, we heard few or no reflections upon this great commander; but all seemed unanimous in wishing he might still be at the head of the confederate forces; only at the same time, in case he were resolved to resign, they chose rather to turn their thoughts somewhere else than throw up all in despair. And this I cannot but add, in defence of the people, with regard to the person we are speaking of, that in the high station he has been for many years past, his real defects (as nothing human is without them) have, in a detracting age, been very sparingly mentioned either in libels or conversation, and all successes very freely and universally applauded.

There an active and a passive ingratitude: applying both to this occasion, we may say, the first is, when a prince or people returns good services with cruelty or ill usage; the other is, when good services are not at all or very meanly rewarded. We have already spoken of the former; let us therefore, in the second place, examine how the services of our general have been rewarded, and whether, upon that article, either prince or people have been guilty of ingratitude.

Those are the most valuable rewards which are given to us from the certain knowledge of the donor that they fit our temper best: I shall therefore say nothing of the title of duke, or the garter, which the queen bestowed upon the general in the beginning of her reign; but I shall come to more substantial instances, and mention nothing which has not been given in the face of the world. The lands of Woodstock may, I believe, be reckoned worth 40,0007.; on the building of Blenheim castle 200,000l. have been already expended, although it be not yet near finished; the grant of 5000l. per annum on the post-office is richly worth 100,000l.; his principality in Germany may be computed at 30,000/.; pictures, jewels, and other gifts from foreign princes, 60,0007.; the grant at the Pall-mall, the rangership, &c., for want of more certain knowledge, may be called 10,0007.; his own and his duchess's employments at five years' value, reckoning only the known and avowed salaries, are very low rated at 100,000. Here is a good deal above half a million of money; and, I dare say, those who are loudest with the clamour of ingratitude will readily own that all this is but a trifle in comparison of what is untold.

The reason of my stating this account is only to convince the world that we are not quite so ungrateful either as the Greeks or the Romans; and in order to adjust the matter with all fairness, I shall confine myself to the latter, who were much more generous of the two. A victorious general of Rome, in the height of that empire, having entirely subdued his enemies, was rewarded with the larger triumph, and perhaps a statue in the Forum, a bull for a sacrifice, an embroidered garment to appear in, a crown of laurel, a monumental trophy with inscriptions; sometimes five hundred or a thousand copper coins were struck on occasion of the victory, which, doing honour to the general, we will place to his account; and lastly, sometimes, although not very frequently, a triumphal arch. These are all the