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Parr, Samuel, 1747-1825. 
The works of Samuel Parr --:-: 


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‘ THE 


WORKS 


OF 


SAMUEL “PARR, LL.D. 


PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S, CURATE OF HATTON, &c. 


WITH 


MEMOIRS OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS, 


AND 


A SELECTION FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE, 


BY 


JOHN JOHNSTONE, M.D. 


FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, AND OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE 


OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON, &e. 
4 


IN EIGHT VOLUMES. 


VOL. III. 


LONDON: 
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, 


PATERNOSTER-ROW. 


1828. “ ; 


3, B. NICHOLS AND SON; 25, PARLIAMENT-STREET. 


CONTENTS OF VOL III. 


Notice of Dr. Combe’s Horace 

Prefatio ad Bellendeni Libros 

Miscellaneous Remarks on Politics, Jurisprudence, 
Morals, &c. . 2 Ξ 

Letter from Irenopolis to the Inhabitants of Eleu- 
theropolis 

Warburtonian Tracts 

Letter to the Rev. Dr. Milner - 

Extracts from a pamphlet published in answer to 
Dr. Combe’s statement respecting his Vario- 
rum Horace. 


Notes on Rapin’s Dissertation on Whigs and Tories 


Page. 
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NOTICE 


OF 


Q. HORATIT FLACCI OPERA, 


Cum variis Lectionibus, notis Variorum, et Indice locupletissimo. 
Tom. IT, Londint. 


Wuken this splendid edition of Horace was first 
presented to our view, we exclaimed, in the words of 
Catullus, 


—— ‘“Charte regia, novi libri, 
Novi umbilici, lora rubra, membrana 
Directa plumbo, et pumice omnia zequata.” 


The brightness of the paper, the amplitude of the 
margin, and the elegance of the type displayed in 
this work, are nearly unrivalled. They do honour 
to the taste and liberality of the editors. They 
show that, by encouragement and exertion, the art 
of printing is in a high and progressive state of im- 
provement, and we are confident that many of our 
readers will be eager to purchase an edition which 
has so many recommendations from novelty and 
magnificence. 

A variorum edition of Horace has been long 
among the desiderata of literature, and therefore 
great commendation is due to the enterprizing spirit 
which produced the work now under our considera- 

VOL. ΠῚ. B 


2 NOTICE OF 


tion. It is well known that scholars of the first 
eminence have often been employed in preparing 
editions of this kind. Among other instances, we 
are indebted to J. G. Grevius for the variorum edi- 
tions of Justin and Suetonius; to J. F. Gronovius 
for those of Plautus and Livy; to Peter Burman 
for those of Quintilian and Ovid. But similar pub- 
lications have often been undertaken with zeal, and 
executed with success, by persons of less intellectual 
prowess, and less literary celebrity, than the critics 
whom we have just now enumerated. If an editor 
unites a large share of accuracy even with a mode- 
rate portion of erudition; if he collects materials 
with industry, and uses them with judgment ; if he 
distinguishes between ingenuity and refinement, and 
separates useful information from ostentatious pe- 
dantry, he will have a claim to public favour, though 
he should not possess the exquisite taste of a Heyne, 
the profound erudition of a Hemsterhuis, or the 
keen penetration of a Porson. 

The writings of Horace are familiar to us from 
our earliest boyhood. They carry with them at- 
tractions which are felt in every period of life, and 
almost every rank of society. They charm alike by 
the harmony of the numbers, and the purity of the 
diction. They exhilarate the gay and interest the 
serious, according to the different kinds of subjects 
upon which the poet is employed. Professing nei- 
ther the precision of analysis, nor the copiousness 
of system, they have advantages, which, among the 
ordinary classes of writers, analysis and system 
rarely attain. They exhibit human imperfections 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 3 


as they really are, and human excellence as it prac- 
tically ought to be. They develope every principle 
of the virtuous in morals, and describe every modi- 
fication of the decorous in manners. They please 
without the glare of ornament, and they instruct 
without the formality of precept. They are the 
produce of a mind enlightened by study, invigorated 
by observation; comprehensive, but not visionary ; 
delicate, but not fastidious; too sagacious to be 
warped by prejudice, and too generous to be cramped 
by suspicion. They are distinguished by language 
adapted to the sentiment, and by effort proportioned 
to the occasion. They contain elegance without 
affectation, grandeur * without bombast, satire with- 
out buffoonery, and philosophy without jargon. 
Hence it is that the writings of Horace are more 
extensively read, and more clearly understood, than 
those of almost any other classical author. The 
explanation of obscure passages, and the discussion 
of conjectural readings, form a part of the educa- 
tion which is given in our public schools. The 
merits of commentators, as well as of the poet him- 
self, are the subjects of our conversation ; and Ho- 
race, like our own countryman Shakspeare, has 
conferred celebrity upon many a scholar, who has 
been able to adjust his text, or to unfold his allusions. 
_ The works of some Roman, and more Greek 
writers, are involved in such obscurity, that no lite- 


* We use the word Grandeur, because we think that Horace 
is seldom sublime. Under the article Grandeur, in the British 
Encyclopedia, our readers will find the distinction between 
grandeur and sublimity stated with great perspicuity and pre- 
cision, 

B2 


4 NOTICE OF 


rary adventurer should presume to publish a vario- 
rum edition of them, unless he has explored the 
deepest recesses of criticism. But in respect to 
Horace, every man of letters knows where infor- 
mation is to be had, and every man of judgment 
will feel little difficulty in applying it to useful and 
even ornamental purposes. 

Of such a writer as Horace, such an edition as 
that which has lately appeared may be well sup- 
posed to have excited a considerable share of public 
curiosity. We mean, therefore, to bestow more 
than ἃ common degree of attention upon the con- 
tents of the present work, and we shall endeavour 
to conduct our enquiry in such a manner as will 
not expose us to the imputation of undistinguishing 
praise, or acrimonious censure. 

The edition now offered to the public bears at 
first view the name of Dr. Combe only. The Dr. 
however, informs us that his late friend Mr. Homer 
had some * concern in the beginning of his task ; but 
we could wish that the Dr. had been pleased to 
favour us with a more particular account of the 
share which really belonged to Mr. Homer; and 
this wish is suggested to us by motives, not of idle 
curiosity, but of substantial justice. We mean not 
to depreciate the abilities, or to arraign the since- 
rity of Dr. Combe. But we have weighty reasons 
for supposing, and no contemptible authority even 
for asserting, that the work was chiefly planned by 
Mr. Homer, that he had procured and arranged ma- 


* The Doctor's brief expression is, Mecum hancce operam 
inceperat. 


~~ 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 3 


terials nearly for the whole, and that jointly with 
Dr. C. he superintended the execution, till the 
fourth book of the Odes was far advanced in the 
press. 

Prefixed to the first volume is an admirable en- 
graving of the late Earl of Mansfield, with this motto 
subjoined to it: 

“‘Virtutis vere custos. —— 
Quo multe magnzque secantur judice lites.” 

Now a critic, without the imputation of fastidi- 
ousness, might pronounce it rather unusual to com- 
pliment the same person in words so remote from 
each other; for the first passage is to be found in 
the first Epistle, and the second in the 16th Epistle 
of Horace. He might doubt how far Lord Mans- 
field could with propriety be called “ Virtutis vere 
Custos,” according to the sense in which Horace 
originally wrote the expression about himself; and 
to the vague application of it, either to the judicial 
or the political character of Lord M. he might op- 
pose many pertinent and formidable objections. 
Remembering the occasion upon which the second 
line was written, he might be led, by a very natural 
association of ideas, to suspect that an enemy of the 
noble Lord would pursue to his disadvantage the 
very quotation which Dr. Combe had begun for the 
purpose of doing him honour. We cannot ourselves 
forget a very unfortunate introduction of a part of 
the passage in the House of Commons ;* and we 
were, as Plautus says, oculati testes, of the ridicu- 


* By Mr, C-n-w-y. 


6 NOTICE OF 


lous effect produced by the statement of the whole 
in a literary company. For the satisfaction then of 
Dr. C. and the vindication of ourselves, we will lay 
before our readers the words of Horace: 


‘¢ Vir bonus est quis? 

Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat, 
Quo multz magnzque secantur judice lites ; 
Quo res sponsore,* et quo cause teste tenentur ; 
SED videt hunc omnis domus, et vicinia tota 
Introrsus turpem, speciosum pelle decora.” 


That Lord Mansfield deserved the commendation 
rather than the censure implied in these lines, and 
that Dr. Combe had, what he would call a right, to 
separate the one from the other, we readily allow. 
But we contend that an encomiast, uniting wariness 
with taste, would have been deterred from selecting 
any line in such a passage, for the description of a 
person whom he meant to hold up to admiration. 
They who read a part may remember the whole ; 
and among those who remember the whole may be 
found prejudiced and mischievous persons, who will 
admit the suitableness of the verse which the Dr. 
has applied, and then proceed to apply the context, 
which the Dr. has overlooked, or forgotten, or defied. 

The dedication to Lord Mansfield is written in 
Latinity almost-} unexceptionable. We learn from 


* We follow the reading of Cuningham; but, in most edi- 
tions, it is printed Responsore. 

+ We say almost, because Lord M. is called “ ob multipli- 
cem et exquisitam eruditionem spectatissimus.” This we think 
a very unauthorized use of the word spectatus. It answers (as 
Dr. C. may learn from the dictionary of Forcellinus) to cogni- 
tus, exploratus, probatus, δοκιμασθεὶς, (misprinted in Forcellinus 
δοκιμασθὴς.) Homo in rebus judicandis spectatus et cognitus. 
Cic. Orat. in Verrem, lib. ii. In perfecto et spectato viro, Cic. 
de amicitif, sect. ii. Utebatur medico ignobili, sed spectato 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. vf 


it, that the noble Lord was “ob multiplicem et ex- 
quisitam eruditionem spectatissimus,” that he was 
“ob benignos et suavissimos mores admodum dili- 
gendus,” that in eloquence he surpassed all his con- 
temporaries in the Senate, as well as at the Bar, 
that with great fame he joined great titles, and that 
he was the Mecenas of Dr. Combe. Much im this 
panegyric is said with truth, and all is said with 
some degree of elegance. But, while we commend 
Dr. C. for what he has done in the way of dedica- 
tion, we must not conceal from our readers what Mr. 
Homer intended to do. If that judicious and dili- 
gent scholar had been living, the illustrious names 
of Mr. Windham and Mr. Burke would have adorned 
the page in which we now find the venerable name 
of Lord Mansfield; and the Dedication itself would 


homine Cleophanto. Cic. pro Cluentio. Applied to things, it 
answers to insignis, nobilis, pulcher. Aulus Gellius, indeed, 
lib. xiii. cap. 21. writes thus: T. Castricius rhetorice discipline 
doctor, qui habuit Romz locum principem declamandi ac do- 
cendi, summa vir auctoritate gravitateque, et a Divo Hadriano 
an mores atque literas spectatus. But we observe, first, that the 
style of Aulus Gellius is not famous for its purity, nor well 
adapted to panegyric. Secondly, that the phraseology of spec- 
tatus in mores is very singular. Thirdly, that mores is joined 
with literas. Fourthly, that Hadrian, the person approving, is 
mentioned as well as Castricius, the person approved; and, 
lastly, that Castricius professed and practised the art of rheto- 
ric, and therefore that his knowledge of that art could be ascer- 
tained. Upon the whole, then, a person may be called Specta- 
tus, for his moral qualities displayed in practice, for his skill in 
the exercise of arts, or his probity and judgment in the con- 
duct of business, as brought to the test of experience. But. for 
the mere acquisition, or the mere possession, or even the mere 
display of learning, no man, we believe, is styled Spectatus by 
the pure writers of Latin. We shall just observe by the way, 
that Gesner refers in his Thesaurus to the 20th chapter of Au- 
lus Gellius, instead of the 21st; and, indeed, his numerical re- 
ferences are often erroneous, 


8 NOTICE OF 


have been written by a person, the whole force of 
whose mind would have been exerted upon such an 
occasion, and whose advice, during the earlier stages 
of this publication, was repeatedly asked, and gene- 
rally followed, by Mr. Henry Homer. 

To the Dedication succeeds the Preface, contain- 
ing three pages. The Editor there tells us, that 
among the numerous and splendid* editions of Ho- 
race, no one has yet appeared with the variorum 
note ; that in this new edition care has been taken 
to assist the studies of scholars, and to adorn the 
libraries of collectors, by the introduction of such 
notes as are approved for their utility by the 
docti judices; that Baxter’s edition, republished by 
Gesner,+ has been preferred by the editor in his 
choice of a text; that this choice was made on ac- 
count of the accuracy of Gesner’s text, and the ex- 
cellence of the notes; and that the text of the Vari- 
orum Edition uniformly follows that of Baxter, ex- 
cept in passages manifestly corrupted by the blun- 
ders of printers. Upon this assertion we beg leave 
to remark, that the text of the Variorum, in many 
places not so corrupted, by no means corresponds to 
the text of Baxter, and that the want of correspond- 
ence is to be imputed, sometimes, it should seem, to 
inadvertency, and sometimes to design. We shall 
hereafter support this general position by the detail 
of particular proofs. 


* Dr. Combe’s words are, Quamvis et eruditione et orna- 
mentis summis nonnullz abundant. 

+ Gesner’s edition of Baxter was first published at Gottin- 
gen, in 1757; and afterwards at Leipsic, in 1772. The cata- 
logue of Var. Edit. notices the last. 


DR. COMBE'S HORACE. 9 


Dr. C. proceeds to inform us, that the notes pro- 
duced from other authors belong “vel ad explica- 
tionem vel ad rem criticam, aliis in quibus vel de re 
mythologica vel historica agitur, et que ubique 
sunt in propatulo, omissis.” 

Dr. C. has carefully read through seven manu- 
scripts preserved in the British Museum. They are 
distinguished in the Var. Edit. by these letters, A, 
B, C, D, E, F, G. 

The MS. marked E, contains only the three first 
books of the Odes, and “ quatuor Odas libri quarti.” 
The MS. marked G, contains the Epistle, the Art 
of Poetry, and “primos sermones novem.” We 
think that Dr. Combe should have said the four first 
Odes of the fourth book, and the nine first Satires 
of the first book; and, upon examining the vv. LI. 
of the Var. Edit. we find our opinion confirmed. 

We shall present to our readers Dr. C.’s cata- 
logue of these Harleian Manuscripts. 


Jae Mee ee DED birdie ΣΑΣ Sec. 10. 
le Eee GOAN. otoeheih: fone Sec. 12. 
(Cos a Pe ZW Ata aes Sec. 13. 
Ὁ ΕΝ τον Sec. 15. 
1 ae AUS 5 OP OR Lee Sec. 15. 
et SF hi ate WOOD veratane. ove 6, convatecs Sec. 15. 
Gece ὁ ἃς μὴ» ACAD A πο ΕΝ Sec. 13. 


The foregoing enumeration is, we doubt not, very 
accurate. But it were to be wished that Dr. C. had 
given in his preface a specimen of every manuscript, 
and enabled his readers to judge for themselves of 
their respective antiquity, and consequently of their 
authority. . 

The Dr. speaks with gratitude, and even triumph, 
of the politeness which he experienced from the 


10 NOTICE OF 


persons who attend at the Royal Library, where he 
had access to the Editio princeps of Horace, and he 
bestows many just encomiums upon a collection, 
which reflects the highest lustre on royal munifi- 
cence. He makes also very proper acknowledg- 
ments to the Curators of the British Museum, 
“pro humanitate qua codices manuscriptos omnes 
quibus opes fuit, ei accommodarunt.” 

The Dr. tells us, that his notes are chiefly taken 
from the writings of Bentley, Cuningham, Baxter, 
Gesner, Klotzius, Janus, Waddelus, Wakefield, and 
others, whom it was scarce necessary to particu- 
larise, “ presertim,” says he, “ctm nomina singu- 
lorum quorum notis usus sum ad calcem hujusce 
procemii subjunxi.” We shall in due time produce 
very strong objections to the accuracy of this state- 
ment. 

The Dr. proceeds thus: Quod ad loca in notis 
citata spectat, hec quidem accurate recognita et 
collata, sepenumero castigata, in vestras manus 
trado. This is a bold declaration indeed, and, for 
the present, we are content with saying, in the 
words of Longinus, τὸ δὲ ἣν &pa οὐχὶ τοσοῦτον, οὐδὲ 
ὀλίγου δεῖ.----ΤοπρΊη. Sec. 32. 

Of the Index, Dr. C. thus speaks: “Indicem vo- 
cabulorum omnium copiosum, et aliis preecedentibus 
locupletiorem adjeci; Index enim a Thoma Tretero 
collectus, ter mille in locis, et ultra, auctus et emen- 
datus est.” Our readers, we doubt not, are well 
acquainted with the correctness of the late Mr. Ho- 
mer, in the very useful office of making Indexes. 


We trust that Dr. C. has profited by the example 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 11 


of his friend. We think the Index to the Var. Ho- 
race very copious ; and, without professing to have 
undergone the drudgery of a minute inquiry, we 
have found it in many instances very exact. 

In the close of the preface Dr. C. adverts to the 
memory of Mr. Homer ; and, because our own opi- 
nions and our own feelings entirely harmonize with 


the Doctor’s, we lay before our readers the following 
sentences: 


«‘Huic procemio finem hic imponere vellem, sed amici, qui 
mecum hancce operam inceperat, quique mecum familiariter, 
dum superstes, vixerat, prematura mors hoc in loco non est 
pretereunda silentio. 

“ἢ Fungamur igitur non inani munere, et merita egregii viri 
Henrici Homer, consiliorum omnium societate mecum nuper 
conjunctissimi, in memoriam revocemus. Fuit ille literarum, 
artiumque humaniorum scientissimus, vit sanctus, probitatis, 
fidei, et amicitiarum tenax, in prosequendis studiis pertinacissi- 
mus, et, dum vires manebant, labore et vigilid indomitus; nihil 
tamen gravitati severe serviebat, intervalla enim negotiorum 
faceto lepore, ut mos est amicorum, dispungebat jucunditer. 

‘“‘ Viri tali ingenio, tanta rerum cognitione, qui Doctorum 
studiis se adjutorem prestabat, qui bibliothecis tot ornamenta 
addidit, quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus? Lugeatis Eum 
mecum omnes, quibuscunque cordi sunt literze, quibuscunque 

candor, et fides et honestas in pretio habentur, lugeatis. 

“0 fallacem hominum spem, fragilemque fortunam, et inanes 
nostras contentiones: que in medio spatio Sepe Sranguntur, et 


corruunt, et ante in 7,050 cursu obruuntur quam portum conspicere 
potuerunt.” 


The eulogy upon Mr. Homer is well founded, 
and well timed. The quotation from Cicero is per- 
tinent and pathetic. But we cannot help obsery- 
ing, that the style in the conclusion of the preface 
seems rather different from that of the preceding 
part, and bears some resemblance to the declama- 
tions we have heard in colleges. 

As to the style of the preface, it is neither deco- 
rated by splendour, nor disgraced by quaintness. 


12 NOTICE OF 


It is grave without dignity, and intelligible without 
elegance. It deserves some praise, and provokes 
little censure. But if the Latinity of Lipsius was 
sometimes arraigned with justice by Henry Ste- 
phens, that of Strada by Gaspar Scioppius, and that 
of Bentley by Richard Johnson, the authors of the 
British Critic may stand acquitted by Dr. C. of pre- 
sumption, when they take the liberty of saying, 
that in the compass of three pages they have found 
two passages which are written ill, and two which 
might have been written better. The Dr. speaking 
of the Royal Library, says, “ utpote per favorem et 
gratiam regii possessoris nihil abest, quod a studio- 
sis et literatis in hac elegantissima et locupletissima 
bibliotheca desiderari possit.”. We assure Dr. C. 
that he will find no authority for this use of utpote 
with nihil abest in Forcellinus, in Gesner, in Tur- 
selline, (vid. pages 895 and 1097. Edit. Schwartz, 
Leipsic, 1719.) Noltenius, p. 1889, gives this plain 
and just canon: utpote “non habet verbum, nisi 
intercedente qui vel quum, aut certé jungitur adjec- 
tivis sine verbo.” 

Intervalla enim negotiorum faceto lepore, says 
the Doctor, ut mos est amicorum, dispungebat jucun- 
diter. We find dulciter in Appuleius, in quo (says 
Rhunkenius, in his admirable preface) inest anti- 
quitatis affectatio molesta eum legentibus. Again, 
cupienter cupit, Ennius in Pheenice. Ampliter, 
Plautus in Cistell. Cupienter, Accius in Philoctete. 
Avariter, Plaut. in Ruden. (vid. Funccius de adoles- 
centia ling. Lat. p. 298. and Laurenburgii antiqua- 
rius.) In p. 2007, of Putschius Gram. Lat. auct. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 13 


antiq. Augustin lays down some judicious rules 
for the formation of adverbs, and in p. 2008, he 
thus proceeds: “sané circa has regulas auctoritas 
usa est, et in paucis presumsit, ut diceret Cicero 
humaniter cium humané dicere debuit; et Teren- 
tius, Vitam parcé ac duriter agebat.” Gesner gives: 
three instances from Cicero of humaniter for hu- 
mané. Nizolius produces four; but in the second 
humaniter feremus, the true reading, perhaps,* is 
humanitus. In Forcellinus there is a fourth in- 
stance quoted from Nonius, where humaniter is 
used for moderaté, comiter, facilé —“ invitus literas 
tuas scinderem, ita sunt humaniter scripte.” As 
to the passage quoted by Augustin from Terence, 
our readers know well that it occurs in the first 
scene, first act of the Andria, and they also remem- 
ber in the Adelphi, 


Semper parce ac duriter 
Se habere. Acti. sc. 1. 


Augustin goes on: Sed tamen ipsi auctores mo- 
destiiis et cum quodam pudore contra regulam pau- 
ca presumserunt. Jucunditer, we are confident, is 
not one of those few. 

Dr. C. writes, “codex G. continet solummodd 
Epistolas,” &c. If the Doctor will take the trouble of 
looking at the Cure Posteriores Cellarii, p. 168, or 
at Scheller’s Praecep. Styli Bené Latin. p. 355. or 
at Noltenii Lexicon L. L. Antibarbarum, p. 1205, 


* Ernestus quotes humaniter in this passage, and explains it 
zquo animo. Ernestus adds a fifth instance from Lib. i. de 
Divinatione, Sect. 7. Docebo profectd quid sit humaniter vi- 
vere; and he explains it by “hilare.” V. Clav. Ciceron, 


Ἀ 


14 NOTICE OF 


he will find that solummodo is not used by any 
writer of the Augustan age, and in future he may 
be inclined to employ tantummodd, which is equi- 
valent in sense, and superior in purity. 

When we compare the size of the preface with 
the extent and variety of the work itself, we are 
compelled to remark, that conciseness sometimes 
produces obscurity ; and that obscurity is not always 
inconvenient to editors, who may know more of 
facts than it is convenient for them to detail, and 
less of criticism than it might be safe for them to 
disclose. 

The preface is followed by the Nomina Aucto- 
rum et Operum, ex quibus Dr. C. notas desumsit. 

The index is said to have been that which was 
prepared by T. Treter, and of which we are to in- 
form our readers that it was printed at Antwerp, 


1575, by Christopher Plantin. 


Nomina auctorum et operum ex quibus notas desumst. 


Barnes—Josh. Barnesii Edit. Homeri, 2 tom. 4to. 1711. 

Baxt.—Gul. Baxteri Edit. Horatii, 8vo. 1725. 

Bent.—Rich. Bentleii Edit. Horatii, 4to. 1711. 

Bond—Joh. Bond Edit. Horatii, 8vo. 1670. 

Bowyer—Explicationes veterum aliquot auctorum ad finem, 
Εὐριπίδου ᾿Ικέτιδες, 4to. 1763. 

Cruqu.—Jacobi Cruquii Edit. Horatii, 4to. 1611. J 

Cuning.—Alex. Cuningamii animadversiones in Rich. Bentleii 
Notas et Emendationes ad Horatium, 12mo. 1721. 

Dac.—And. Dacier Edit. Horatii, 8 tom. 12mo. 1709. 

Desp.—Lud. Desprez Edit. Horatii,1n usum Delphini, 4to. 1691. 

Gesn.—Jo. Matt. Gesneri Edit. Horatii, 8vo. 1772. 

Hare—Jo. Hare Epistola Critica, 4to. 1726. 

Hurd—R. Hurd S. T. Pr. Edit. Epistolarum Horatii ad Pisones 
et Augustum, 3 tom. 12mo. 1766. + 

Jan.—M. Christ. David Jani Edit. Carminum Horatii, 2 tom, 
8vo. 1778. 

Jas. de Nor.—Jason de Noris in Epistolam Q. Horatii, de arte 
poeticd, 8vo. 1553. ἔ 

Klotz.—Chr. Adolph. Klotzii Lectiones Venusine, 8vo, 1770, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 15 


Lamb.—Dion. Lambini Edit. Horatii, fol. 1577. 

Lin.—Car. Linne Systema Vegetabilium, 8vo. 1784. 

a Systerna Nature, 8vo. 1766. 

Muret.—M. Ant. Mureti Edit. Horatii, 8vo. 1561. 

Markl.—Jer. Markland Epistola Critica, 8vo. 1723. 

Pulm.—Theod. Pulmanni Edit. Horatii, 12mo. 1564. 

Rutg.—Jani Rutgersii Lectiones Venusinz, 12mo. 1699. 

Sanad.—Sanadon Edit. Horatii, 2 tom. 4to. 1728. 

Taylor—Jo. Taylor de Jure Civili Angliz, 4to. 1756. 

Torr.—Lauren. Torrentii Edit. Horatii, 4to. 1608. 

Waddel.—Georgii Waddeli Animadversiones in loca quedam 
Horatii, &c. 12mo. 1734. 

Wake.—Gilberti Wakefield in Horatium Observationes Criti- 
cz, editze cum poematibus suis partim scriptis, partim reddi- 
tis, 4to. 1776. 


——— Sylva Critica, 2 tom. 8vo. 1789. 
Zeun.—Jo. Car. Zeunii Edit. Horatii, Jo. Mathiz Gesneri, 8vo. 
1718. 


After the catalogue, we next meet with the life 
of Horace ascribed to Suetonius, and accompanied 
by very copious notes from Janus, Gesner, and Bax- 
ter. This is succeeded by a life of Horace “ in eo- 
dem codice,” says the Var. Edit. “aliter descripta.” 
But we read in Gesner, “in alio exemplari brevits 
descripta.” This seeming contradiction is not ex- 
plained. But in the notes we read, “ eadem paucis 
mutatis ¢ codice antiquo J. Sicardi, legitur in Edit. 
Basil. 1527.” Then follow three different readings 
from the Basil edition. Migravit is in the Basil 
for commigravit. De Arte Poetica is wanting in 
the Basil, and for “optime Acron,” the Basil reads 
“optime /Mmilius.” In Gesner there are no various 
readings ; but we find migravit (which is a various 
reading in the Basil) inserted in the text of the 
Variorum, and we also find in line 10. of Gesner, 
“scripsit,” but in line 8. of the Variorum, “ scripsit 


16 NOTICE OF 


autem.” These variations are of little consequence, 
nor shall we attempt to account for them. 

In the Var. Edit. we next meet with vita Hora- 
tii, “in tribus codd. Bland. aliter descripta.” This 
life is not in Gesner, but Dr. C. found it in Janus.* 
There is a fourth life in the Variorum, called Q. 
Horatii Flacci Vita per annos digesta. Dr. C. does 
not explain whence he took it, but we imagine that 
it was from Janus. 

We could wish that Dr. C. had favoured us with 
what Johannes Masson has written on the chrono- 
logy of Horace; vid. Fabric. Bib. Lat. vol. i. p. 
234. with Dacier’s Chronologia Horatiana, prefixed 
to the Delphin edition by Desprez; and, above all, 
with a tract called de Temporibus Librorum Hora- 
tii et poematum adeo Ricardi Bentleii sententia. 
Gesner has inserted it, and Dr. C. should have at- 
tended to these words of Gesner: “Sed opere pre- 
tium est, h. e. Studiosis Horatii, qui Bentleianum 
exemplar ad manus hon habent accommodatum, 
poni post hance prefationem locum integrum ex 
prefatione viri magni, quo tempora librorum Hora- 
tii ordinat: hoc certé confirmare possum, me, dum 


* Mitscherlich, whose first Vol. of Horace was published at 
Leipsic in 1800, has not mentioned the Variorum Edition. He 
has judiciously subjoined, as did the Variorum Editors, ‘ Vi- 
tam poet a Massono ampla doctrina instructam, a Jani scite 
in Compendium redactam ;” and he adds, ‘* Que vel sola argu- 
mentorum affatim suppedidat, quam infirma omnino Bentleii 
temporum sit ratio qua Horatium primum, idque annis etatis 
suz 26, 33, sermonibus, postea biennio Epodis, deinde septem 
annis tribus prioribus Carminum libris, tum Epistolarum libro 
primo inde Carminum libro 4, et Seculari, denique Arti et 
Epistolarum libro secundo uni vacasse demonstrare conatus 
est.""—Vide Preefat. p. 21. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 17 


recenseo singulas eclogas, diligenter attendisse, 51 
quid esset, Bentleianis temporum rationibus adver- 
sum, nec deprehendisse quidquam, quod momentum 
aliquod ad eas evertendas haberet, licet quibusdam 
eclogis non improbabili ratione forté tempus etiam 
aliud, recentius presertim, possit adscribi.” 
Bentley's Sententia, if produced, might have il- 
lustrated and confirmed the observations of the very 
learned Dr. Warton, in p. 7. of his Dedication to 
the Essay upon Pope. “ Horace,” says Dr. Warton, 
“has more than once disclaimed all right and title 
to the name of poet, on the score of his ethic and 
satiric pieces : 
Neque enim concludere versum 
Dixerit esse satis. 


are lines often repeated, but whose meaning is not 
extended and weighed as it ought to be.” Now 
Horace, according to Bentley’s calculation, wrote 
the first book of the Satires in the 26th, 27th, and 
28th years of his age; the second in the 31st, 32d 
and 33d; the Epodes in 34 and 35; the first book 
of the Odes in 36, 37, 38. From the interval, there- 
fore, between the date of the first book of the Sa- 
tires, from which Dr. Warton quotes, and the sub- 
sequent publication of the Odes, it appears, accord- 
ing to Bentley, Horace had not been distinguished 


in the character of a lyric poet, when he said: 
Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis, 
Excerpam numero. 


Whence Dr. Combe took the fourth life of Horace 
inserted in the Variorum, why he inserted it, and 
why he omitted the above-mentioned work of Bent- 


ley, we are not informed. 
VOL. III. ς 


18 NOTICE OF 


We afterwards come to a tract De Amicis Ho- 
ratii; and, as Dr. Combe is silent here too, we are 
abandoned to conjecture, when we ascribe that tract 
to Janus, in consequence of the following words, 
which we read in Part IV. of the Bibliotheca Cri- 
tica, p. 86: “ Horatii amicos recenset sic, ut omnia 
festinanter corrasisse videatur. Conferant harum 
literarum studiosi ab eo dicta de Q. Dellio cum ani- 
madversatione Ruhnkeniana ad Vell. Pat. 2. 84. 3. 
ut intelligant quid sit temeré effundere, quid accu- 
raté cogitatéque scribere.” Upon the authority of 
of report, and from the signature of H. W. in p. 96 
of the Bibliotheca Critica, we have been accustomed 
to ascribe the learned but severe review of Janus’s 
Horace to Mr. Wagner. 

The Variorum Edition, after the little tract, De 
Amicis Horatii, presents us with two Odes, which 
some time ago were published from a manuscript 
in the Vatican, and which are properly rejected in 
p- 28 of the Prolegomena of the Variorum, as un- 
worthy of Horace. This sentence appears to be 
adopted from Janus. 

After the Odes, we come to the Testimonia An- 
tiqua de Horatio, two of which are found in Ges- 
ner, but the other three, from Ovid, Petronius, and 
Persius, are not in Gesner, but transferred from 
Janus. 

We next meet with a valuable tract of Aldus 
Manutius, De Undeviginti Generibus Metrorum 
Horatii, and the Metra Horatiana, as drawn up by 
Christopher Wase. The former is in Janus, but 
the latter is inserted in Gesner. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 19 


Many readers would perhaps have commended 
the editor for having followed the example of Schroe- 
der in his edition of Seneca’s Tragedies; of Haver- 
camp, in his edition of Lucretius; and of many 
other scholars, who have accumulated metrical in- 
formation in their editions of classical authors. 
We hope to be pardoned for stating that the Bibl. 
Lat. of Fabricius points out several sources of me- 
trical criticism not unworthy our editor’s attention. 
“Metrorum Horationorum rationem explicarunt, 
ex antiquis Diomedes, 3 Art. Gram. p. 517—528; 
ἃ recentioribus, Nic. Perottus et Aldus Manutius, 
quos jam supra memoravi, tum Franciscus Patricius 
qui MS. fuit in Bibl. Heinsiana, ut Dan. Bamber- 
gium aliosque* omittam.” Vid. Fabric. Bibl. Lat 
vol. i. p. 250. 

We have now finished our detail of the prelimi- 
nary matter found in the Var. Edit. It is with 
great concern that we notice the omission of the 
preesidia, as Gesner calls them, of his edition of 
Baxter. This little work is replete with informa- 
tion very necessary to be communicated to the 
readers of Gesner’s Horace. It gives a clear ac- 
count of the Princeps Editio, which Gesner prefers 
to every manuscript, and which Maittaire by conjec- 
ture assigns to Antonius Zarotus Parmensis. Scho- 
lars will be the more interested in the history and 
description of that edition, because, before the ap- 

* Dr. Charles Burney, whose learning, taste, and penetra- 
tion, are justly admired by every scholar, has drawn up a most 
excellent system upon the metre of Horace. The work is re- 


plete with accuracy, perspicuity, and elegance; and we hope 
that the author will not long withhold it from the public. 


eZ 


20 NOTICE OF 


pearance of Gesner, it was the only one in which 
we could find the celebrated reading of pretium 
mentis, for per vim mentis, in v. 140. Epist. 2. 
Lib. 2. 

To depreciate what we know not, and to over- 
value what we know, are failings from which hu- 
man nature is rarely exempted by the strongest 
powers of genius, and the most confirmed habits of 
reflection. He that has attained excellence is ani- 
mated with fresh enthusiasm upon every fresh con- 
templation of the science in which he excels. With 
a dim and imperfect remembrance of the motives 
and the circumstances which accompanied the ear- 
lier stages of his enquiries, he confounds simple 
choice with complex comparison, and ascribes to 
judgment what was the result of accident. He con- 
siders the object chosen as peculiarly adapted to the 
extent of his own views, and the vigour of his own 
faculties. He is persuaded, that the same attain- 
ments which are most agreeable and most orna- 
mental to himself, must be the most advantageous 
and interesting to mankind. Upon comparing 
self with other men, he is conscious of real su- 
periority ; and then, by an easy delusion, in which 
fancy is ductile to pride, he transfers the same su- 
periority from his talents to his studies; and he 
looks down upon every other part of human know- 
ledge as unworthy of his notice, or subordinate and 
subsidiary to those pursuits which habit has facili- 
tated, and success endeared. 

The attention of the present age has been very 
generally directed to experimental philosophy, to 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 21 


historical investigation, and to the discussion of the 
profoundest subjects in politics, in morals, and in 
metaphysics. 


Quod magis ad nos 
Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus. 

As members of civilised society, and as friends to 
the whole commonwealth of literature and science, 
we acknowledge the utility of such researches ; we 
are sensible of the difficulties attending them, and 
we admire all the judicious and intense exertions of 
the human understanding by which those difficul- 
ties are gradually surmounted. But, however exten- 
sive may be the importance of the studies which are 
now most prevalent, and however brilliant the suc- 
cess with which they have been prosecuted, we feel 
no diminution of our reverence for the labours of 
those scholars who have employed their abilities in 
explaining the sense, and in correcting the text of 
ancient writers. Verbal criticism has been seldom 
despised sincerely by any man who was capable of 
cultivating it successfully ; and if the comparative 
dignity of any kind of learning is to be measured 
by the talents of those who are most distinguished 
for the acquisition of it, philology will hold no in- 
considerable rank in the various and splendid classes 
of human knowledge. By a trite and frivolous sort 
of pleasantry, verbal critics are often holden up to 
ridicule as noisy triflers, as abject drudges, as arbi- 
ters of commas, as measurers of syllables, as the very 
lacqueys and slaves of learning, whose greatest am- 
bition is, “ to pursue the triumph, and partake the 
gale,” which wafts writers of genius into the wished- 


22 NOTICE OF 


for haven of fame. But even in this subordinate 
capacity, so much derided, and so little understood, 
they frequently have occasion for more extent and 
variety of information, for more efforts of reflection 
and research, for more solidity of judgment, more 
strength of memory, and, we are not ashamed to 
add, more vigour of imagination, than we see dis- 
played by many sciolists, who, in their own estima- 
tion, are original authors. Some of the very satel- 
lites of Jupiter are superior in magnitude, and 
perhaps in lustre, to such primary planets as Mars 
and the Earth. 

To a correct and comprehensive view of the 
learned languages, a critic must add a clear concep- 
tion of the style, and a quick feeling of the manner 
by which his author is distinguished. He must 
often catch a portion of the spirit with which that 
author is animated. And who, that has perused the 
various writings of Grotius, of Erasmus, of Casau- 
bon, of Salmasius, of the two Scaligers, of Mure- 
tus, of Bentley, of Ernestus, of Hemsterhuis, will 
venture to deny, that they had abilities to produce 
works, equal, and sometimes more than equal, to 
those which they have explained? On some occa- 
sions, indeed, they hold a secondary rank ; but they 
are secondary, it should be remembered, to Virgil, 
to Horace, to Cicero, the Dii Majorum gentium of 
literature, and by inferiority to such writers the hu- 
man intellect is not degraded. 

When we reflect upon the patronage with which 
the British Critic has already been honoured by the 
members of the Established Church, we are con- 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 23 


vinced that no formal and elaborate apology will be 
required by them for the extent to which any philo- 
logical disquisitions may be occasionally carried in 
our Review. In the days which are past indeed, 
but to which every scholar looks back with grati- 
tude and triumph, the Church of England was 
adorned by a Gataker, a Pearson, a Casaubon, * a 
Vossius,f~ a Bentley, a Wasse, and an Ashton.t 
Within our memory it has boasted of Pearce and 
Burton, of Taylor and Musgrave, of Toup and Fos- 
ter, of Markland and Tyrwhitt, and of Porson. At 
the present hour, we recount with honest pride the 
literary merits of Burney, of Huntingford, of Routh, 
of Cleaver, of Burgess; and when the name of 
Wakefield occurs to us, who does not heave a mo- 
mentary sigh, and catching the spirit with which 
Jortin once alluded to the productions of learned 
and ingenious Dissenters, repeat the emphatical 
quotation of that most accomplished and amiable 
scholar, “ Qui tales sunt, utinam essent nostri?” 
See Preface to the Remarks upon Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. 1. 

After these preliminary observations, which are 
evidently intended to justify both the length and the 
minuteness of our remarks upon the Variorum Edi- 


* Isaac Casaubon had a Prebend at Canterbury, and at 
Westminster. 

+ Isaac Vossius, son of Gerrard, was Canon of Windsor. 

{ Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, of whom we quote 
Mr. Wakefield’s words: “‘ Venerabilis viri Caroli Ashton, D.D. 
viri, vel Bentleio judice, qui semper eum et laudibus et amore 
prosequebatur, doctissimi, et collegii Jesu, apud Cantabrigien- 
ses, per quinquaginta annos magistri.” Silva Critica, part iii. 
page 90. § 1812. 


24 NOTICE OF 


tion of Horace, we shall proceed to support these 
strictures, which have already been laid before our 
readers. : 

Dr. Combe speaks thus of Baxter’s edition, im- 
proved hy Gesner: “ Hujusce editionis contextum, 
nisi in locis quibusdam, ab incuria typographorum, 
manifesté pravis, nihil prorsus mutare ausus, pro 
exemplari adhibui.” 

The Doctor says, that he has made no change what- 
soever, except in passages corrupt. But it seems 
to us, that in passages not corrupted, changes have 
now and then been made; nor can we always assign 
the reason which induced the learned editor to 
make them. 


Lib. i. Od. iii, ].21.—Od. xv. 1. 13 and 16. Gesner reads Ne- 
quicquam, the Variorum nequidquam,* 
Lib. i. Od. iv. 1. 19. Gesner Lycidam, Variorum Lycidan. 


The Variorum here differs from Baxter’s text in 
opposition to the spirit of Baxter's note, in which 
we are told that it is of no consequence whether we 
admit the Latin or the Greek termination, and in 
which Bentley is attacked for the favour he shows 
to Hellenisms and Archaisms, in writing Latin 


words. 


Lib. i. Od. xiv. 1. 17. Gesner solicitum, the Variorum solli- 
citum. 

Lib. i. Od. xviii. 1. 4. Gesner solicitudines, the Variorum 
sollicitudines. 

Lib. iii. Od. vii. 1. 9. Gesner solicit, the Variorum sollicite. 


* This variation occurs in the first volume of the Variorum. 
but in the second volume there are two instances where Dr. C. 
seems to forget the Variorum edition, and follows Gesner. 

Lib. ii. Sat. 7. 1. 27. and Lib, i. Epist. 3.1. 82. Nequicquam 
occurs both in Gesner and the Variorum, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 25 


Lib. iii. Od. xxix. 1. 16. Gesner solicitam, the Variorum sol- 
licitam. 

Lib. iv. Od. i. 1. 14. Gesner solicitis, the Variorum sollicitis. 

Lib. iv. Od. xiii. 1.6. Gesner solicitas, the Variorum sollicitas. 

Lib.i. Sat. ii. 1. 3. Gesner solicitum, the Variorum sollicitum. 

Lib. ii. Sat. viii. 1. 68. Gesner solicitudine, the Variorum sol- 
licitudine. 

Lib. ii. Ep. i. 221. Gesner solicito, the Variorum sollicito. 


In the foregoing, and perhaps some other similar 
instances, the Variorum differs from Gesner; and, 
in the following instances, either Gesner, agreeing 
with the Variorum, differs from himself; or the Va- 
riorum editors, agreeing with Gesner, differ from 


themselves. 


Lib. i. Od. xxxv. 1. 5. Gesner and the Variorum give solli- 
cita: but Epod. xiii. 1. 10. Gesner solicitudinibus, and the Va- 
riorum give solicitudinibus, 

Lib. 11. Sat. iii. 253. Gesner and the Variorum give solicitus. 

Lib. ii. Sat. ii. 1. 43. Gesner and the Variorum give solicitat.* 

Lib. i. Sat. vi. 1. 119. Gesner and the Variorum give solicitus, 

Lib. i. Ep. v. 18. Gesner and the Variorum give solicitis, 


Upon comparing the accuracy of Gesner with that 
of our editors, in the foregoing words, we find that 
Gesner once differs from himself; that in nine in- 
stances our editors differ from Gesner, and that in 
five instances their text corresponds with Gesner’s, 
and varies from the orthography which more fre- 
quently occurs in their own. In a work professing 
to follow Gesner we had a right to look for uni- 
formity ; and, in point of fact, we find differences 
unexplained, and to us inexplicable, except on the 
supposition that our editors were ignorant-} of the 


* This word is printed in the Index of the Variorum solli- 
citet. 

+ We have heard that Mr. H. was neither ignorant, nor in- 
different ; that he often consulted the orthography of Cellarius, 
and often applied to his friends in cases of difficulty. In all pro- 


26 NOTICE OF 


dispute about the spelling of these words, or indiffer- 
ent to the opinion of critics who may prefer one mode 
of spelling to the other. But upon Gesner it would 
be presumptuous to charge such ignorance, or such in- 
difference ; for in his text only one variation is found, 
and as that one may with probability be imputed 
to the printer, we commend him for preserving that 
uniformity which our editors have neglected. From 
the uncertainty of the derivation in the word solici- 
tus, and from the unwillingness of the antiqui libra- 
rii to double letters, we admit with Gesner that the 
orthography of the word is doubtful, and yet we 
would recommend to every editor the preservation 
of uniformity. Vid. Heineccii fund. Stil. Cult. p. 
38. Cellarii Orthograp. p. 127. Schelleri Precept. 
p. 41. 

That the practice of Gesner sometimes over-ruled 
the doubts of our editors, we may infer from the 
correspondence of their text in one word to that of 
Gesner, where the text of Gesner is not correspon- 
dent in orthography to itself. 


Lib. i. Od. vi. 1. 16. Gesner and the Variorum give Tydeiden ; 
and in Od. xv. 1. 28. both give Tydides. 


We shall bring forward other variations for which 
Dr. C. has not accounted. 


bability the Preface, if he had lived to write it, would have been 
satisfactory to every candid scholar, and the profession of fol- 
lowing Gesner would have been made with some limitations 
and restrictions. We beg leave to add, that Lambin, in the 
Preface to his Horace, 1568. and Heyne also in the Preface to 
the 2d edition of Virgil, seem to have considered it as part of 
their editorial duty, not to leave the subject of orthography 
wholly unnoticed. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 27 


Lib. i. Od. xxii. 1. 14. Gesner esculetis, the Variorum sescu- 
letis. 

Lib. i, Od. xxxvi. 1. 17. Gesner Damalim, the Variorum Da- 
malin. 

Lib. i. Od. xxxviii. 1. 5. Gesner adlabores, the Variorum 
allabores. 

Lib. ii, Od. ν. 1. 14. Gesner dempserit, the Variorum demserit. 

Lib. ii. Od. xv. 1.4. Gesner ccelebs, the Variorum czlebs.* 

Lib. iv. Od. xi. 1. 34. Gesner foemina, the Variorum femina. 

Lib. iii. Od. x. 1. 1. Gesner Tanaim, the Variorum Tanain. 

Lib. iii, Od. xxvi. 1. 10. Gesner Memphim, the Variorum 
Memphin. 

Epod. Od. i. 1. 20, Gesner adlapsus, the Variorum allapsus. 

Carmen Seculare, 1. 19. Gesner foeminis, the Variorum 
feminis. 

Carmen Seculare, 1, 72. Gesner adplicet, the Variorum ap- 
plicet. 


From the substitution of the Greek for the Latin 
termination in Damalin, Tanain, Memphin, and from 
the doubtful letters in allabores and applicet, we 
suspect that one of the editors had adopted some 
principles of orthography rather different from those 
which Gesner followed ; and that in the Epodes and 
Carmen Seculare, Dr. C. acceded to the practice 
of his coadjutor without observing, or, it may be, 
without regarding, the deviation from Gesner. 

We shall point out a few other words in which 
the texts of Gesner and our editors are at variance. 


Lib. i. Od. xxviii. 1, 3. Gesner littus, the Variorum litus. 

Lib. ii. Od. x. ]. 4. Gesner littus, the Variorum litus. 

Lib. iii. Od. xvii. 1.8. Gesner littoribus, the Variorum lito- 
ribus. 


Thus far the editors differ from Gesner; but in 


* We desire our readers to observe, that in this word the 
text of the Odes once differs from Gesner, and once agrees with 
him, Vid. Od. 8. 1.3.and the text of the Epistles agrees with 
him; for in B. i. Epist. i. 1. 88. Coelibe is found both in Gesner 
and the Variorum. 


28 NOTICE OF 


Kpod. xvi. 1. 63. the surviving editor forgets the 
rule of his coadjutor, and, returning to Gesner, 
prints littora. Again, in the 38th line of the Car- 
men Seculare he abandons Gesner’s text, which 
gives littus, and in his own text he prints litus. 

Lib. i. Od. xxxiii. 1. 11. Gesner ahenea, the Variorum aenea. 

Lib. i. Od. xxxv. 1. 19. Gesner ahena, the Variorum aena. 

Lib. iii. Od. ix. 1, 18. Gesner aheneo, the Variorum aeneo. 

Lib. i. Ep. i. 60. Gesner aheneus, the Variorum aeneus. 

If our editors had no rule for the orthography of 
this word, why did they differ from Gesner in the 
preceding examples, where they omit ἢ ? and if they 
hada rule, why do they break it to follow Gesner 
in one example, where ἡ is inserted ? for in Lib. 11]. 
Od. iii. 1. 65. we find aheneus both in Gesner and 
the Variorum. 

We are under the necessity of bringing forward 
other instances of inattention, or inconsistency. 

Lib. i. Od. ii. 1, 28. Gesner rettulit,* the Variorum retulit. 

Lib. iv. Od. xv. 1. 5. Gesner rettulit, the Variorum retulit. 

Thus we see that in the Odes the Variorum edi- 
tion differs in this word from Gesner, and, in the 
Epistles, we shall now see that it follows Gesner 
implicitly, even in the variations of his text. 


Lib. i. Ep. xvii. 1. 32. Gesner retuleris, do Variorum. 
Lib. ii. Ep. i. 1. 234. Gesner rettulit,¢ do Variorum, 


* On this passage we find in the Variorum, p. 158, vol. i. the 
following note from Janus: 

Rettulit (ut alias relligio, relliquiz, &c.) scribere solent. 
Male hoe, v. Ill. Heyn. ad Virg. ZEn. 5. 598. in V. L.—Jan. (in 
var. lect.) It should seem that one of the editors of the first 
volume adopted Janus’s opinion, because the text is conforma- 
ble to it. But the editor of the second volume appears to have 
forgotten the words of Janus. 

+ This word occurs in the Index of the Variorum, but we do 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 29 


It is, we believe, generally agreed, that ocior is 
more correct than ocyor, and, perhaps, this will ac- 
count for the accuracy and consistency of our edi- 
tors. In the text of Gesner, the 7, instead of the y, 
is always found, except once; see lib. 11. od. xi. 1. 18. 
where we meet with ocyus ; but the Variorum gives 
ocius. 

In the word lacryma, and its derivatives, we ob- 
serve, that the Variorum edition sometimes agrees, 
and sometimes disagrees, with the text of Gesner ; 
and that neither the text of Gesner, nor that of the 
Variorum, agrees with itself. 


Lib. i. Od. viii. 1. 14. Gesner lacrimosa, d° Variorum. 

Lib.i. Od. xxi. 1. 13. Gesner lacrimosum, do Variorum. 

Lib. iii, Od. vii. 1. 8. Gesner lacrimis, do Variorum. 

Lib. i. Ep. xvii. 1. 60. Gesner lacryma, 49 Variorum. 

Lib, i. Ep. i. 1. 67. Gesner lacrimosa, do Variorum. 

Lib, ii. Od. vi. 1. 23. Gesner lacryma, the Variorum lacrima. 

Lib. ii. Od, xiv. 1.6. Gesner illacrymabilem, the Variorum 
illacrimabilem. 

Lib. iv. Od. 1,1. 34. Gesner lacryma, the Variorum lacrima, 

We consider both methods of orthography as 
equally defensible ; but we think that our editors, 
in conformity to the profession of the preface- 
writer, ought regularly to have followed Gesner in 
both. 

In the orthography of the word paulo our editors 
are not consistent. 

Lib. iii. Od. xx. 1. 3. Gesner paulo, the Variorum paullo. 

Lib. ii. Sat. iii. 1. 265. Gesner paulo, the Variorum paulo. 

In two other instances of the Satires, in four of 


the Epistles, and in one in the Art of Poetry, the 


not find there the two instances from the Odes, nor retuleris 
from the 17th Epistle, Book Ist. 


30 NOTICE OF 


same agreement is found between the text of Gesner 
and the Variorum. But in the Odes, where the word 
occurs only once, the Variorum differs from Gesner. 
Our readers then will be pleased to remember, that 
through the greater part of the first volume the text 
of the Variorum was conducted by Dr. C. and Mr. 
Homer, jointly, and through the whole of the se- 
cond volume by Dr. C. alone. Dr. C. follows Ges- 
ner’s text in printing paulo; and Mr. H. in not fol- 
lowing it, might have some reason for preferring 
paullo. 

We shall now remark a class of words, in the or- 
thography of which the Variorum differs, more or 
less, from Gesner’s text, and as the difference in one 
of these words is uniform, we suppose that it is 
founded upon some principle, which, though unex- 


plained, may be very just. 
Lib. ii. Od. ix. 1, 9. Gesner urgues, the Variorum urges. 
Lib. iv. Od. 9.1. 27. Gesner urguentur, the Variorum ur- 
gentur. 
Lib. ii. Sat. iv. 1. 77. Gesner urguere, the Variorum urgere. 
Lib, ii. Sat. iii. 1. 30. Gesner urguet, the Variorum urget. 
Lib. i. Epist. xiv. 1, 26. Gesner urgues, the Variorum urges. 
A. P. 1. 434. Gesner urguere, the Variorum urgere. 
Lib. ii. Od. xiv, 1. 27. Gesner tinguet, do Variorum. 
Lib. iii. Od. xxiii, 1. 13. Gesner tinguet, do Variorum. 
Lib. iv. Od. xii. 1, 23. Gesner tinguere, the Variorum tingere. 


Gesner is consistent with himself in the use of 
both words. Our editors are consistent with them- 
selves, and at variance with Gesner, in the ortho- 
graphy of urgeo. Once they differ from Gesner, 
and twice they agree with him, in the word tingo. 

Inter virtutes grammatici habebitur aliqua ne- 
scire. So said Quintilian ;* so, perhaps, would some 


* Vide Rollin’s Quintilian, p. 29. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 31 


of our contemporaries say of the controversies 
which have been agitated by scholars on the sub- 
ject of orthography. But when an editor professes 
to follow the text of a work, which he has delibe- 
rately chosen as the best model for his own edition, 
we hope to give no offence by applying to him the 
observation which Quintilian makes upon another 
occasion, * I]lum ne in minimis quidem oportet falli. 

Of the alterations admitted into the text of the 
first volume, we should not always disapprove, if the 
preface-writer had not forbidden us to expect them. 
We know that some of those alterations are made 
in conformity to the best rules of orthography; we 
believe that one of the persons who sometimes made 
them, understood clearly, and deliberately followed, 
those rules. But we contend that, in point of fact, 
the text of the Variorum does not correspond to 
the text of Baxter. 

The indispensable and appropriate excellence of 
an edition like that which we are now examining 
consists in accuracy; and one of the rules, accord- 
ing to which our preface-writer has professed to be 
accurate, is the text of Gesner. Now, in our for- 
mer Review, we asserted, that the Variorum edition 
had deviated from this rule, and, on the present oc- 
casion, we have supported our assertion by more 
than rorTy instances of variation from the text of 
Gesner, where that text is not manifestly corrupted 
by the carelessness of printers. We are perfectly 
aware that a detail of this kind is not very usual in 
periodical publications, nor very interesting to less 

* Vide Rollin’s Quintilian, p. 31. 


92 NOTICE OF 


learned readers. But we appeal with confidence to 
the Variorum edition itself for the truth of our as- 
sertion, and to the judgment of scholars for the 
importance of our proofs. 

We trust that the good sense and the candour of 
the editor will induce him to consider us as dis- 
charging the duty which we owe to the public, 
when we point out some errors in the breathings and 
accents of Greek words. 


VOL, I. 


P. 13. καλος wants the grave on the ult. 
P. 16. εὐφορτοι wants an acute on the antepen, 
kvoe wants an acute on the penult.; and τουτ᾽ stands 
before ἑρῤδοίτε. 

P. 26. οὐδὲ πόκ᾽ ὕστερον for οὐδέποκ᾽ ὕστερον. 

P. 28. χρυσους wants a circumflex on the ultimate. 

P. 29. ἁιετὸι is printed with a rough, instead of a smooth 
breathing. 

P. 40. We observe, that the penult. of the word Anges wants 
a circumflex, 

P. 44. των wants the circumflex. 

P. 48. Janus produces a note from Lambin, which contains 
a passage from Philostratus in his first book of Icones. Now 
we find the passage neither produced nor referred to in the im- 
mediate text of our Lambin, which was published, Lutetiz, 
1567; but Torrentius, in his note on the passage, says, fabulam 
lepidissimé referri Philostratus imaginum, Lib. i. The reader 
will find the story in the 26th Icon of Philostratus, and the 
words of Philostratus in the omissa of our edition, p. 331. * 
53. του wants the circumflex. 
54. éxovea is thus falsely printed as to the second accent. 
62. των wants the circumflex. 
65. μιλτόπάρηοι wants the x subscript in the penult. 
66. μεν wants the grave. 
70. κρεισσων wants the acute on the penult. 
. 72. there is no comma at οὗτος in the lines quoted from 
Plato. 


"Ὁ "Ὁ τὸ Ὁ Ὁ Ὁ 


* We write this paragraph in favour of Janus’s note, which 
we suppose agrees with Lambin's edition of 1577. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 33 


P. 72. ἀπηρε wants a circumflex; and, perhaps, an « sub- 
script * in the penult. 

P. 84. γλαυχωπις has no circumflex on the penult. and is 
spelled wrong with a y. Ηρη wants the rough breathing, and 
the acute on the penult. ἐνοσιγαιος is spelled with a single ν, 
instead of a double. The error is indeed in Lambin, but ought 
to have been corrected by Dr. C. 

P. 85. τέ δέ μοι. τε is put forz. In Baxter it is ri. 

P. 101. ορημι wants the smooth breathing, and an acute on 
the antepen. Lambin gives ὀρημι for the Holic verb unas- 
pirated. 


ἀκοαι μοι; an acute is wanting on the final of ακοαι. 
In Lambin it is printed right. 

P.107. ἀμήθητον for ἀμύθητον. 

P. 145. γελωντι wants the circumflex on the penult.; and if 
the Doctor had examined Theocritus, as well as the note of Ja- 
nus, he would have avoided the mistake in the Variorum. As we 
are not for the present in possession of Janus’s edition, we know 
not whether this and other errors were committed by him. 

P. 183. opxos wants the aspirate and acute. 

P. 199. ἀμοιβεσθαι has no acute on the antepen.: perhaps it 
was absorbed in the β. 

P. 210. χθονὸς should have an acute, not a grave on the ult., 
for it is the end of asentence. 

P. 227. οὐδ ἕιλέ πω pe. AS πω throws the accent on the 
final of Ae, we think that pe should be accented with a grave. 
See p. 76 of the Treatise on Greek Accents, by Messrs. Port 
Poyal, published in London, 1729. But this error, if it be 
one, is slight ; and our editors followed Dr. Bentley. 

P. 242. των is not accented. 

P. 250. γνώμη μὴ Kabapévor. Here, in the Variorum, γνώμη 
wants the« subscript. If Janus quotes καθαρευοι, he is wrong ; 
and if Dr. C. had consulted Bergler’s edition of Aristophanes, 


* Caninius maintains, that ἦρα and ἦρκα, of dipw, should not 
have the « subscript ; because, say Messrs. Port Royal in their 
Gr. Grammar, ἀρῶ, the future has no. subscript. See Port 
Royal's Gr. Grammar, p. 105. We find ἦρκα without the ἐ sub- 
script, p. 155, of Caninius. But to those who have read Len- 
nep de Analogia, Gr. L. any arguments drawn from the modern 
method of deriving tenses from each other will not be quite 
satisfactory. The opinion of Caninius probably was not pre- 
sent to the mind of our editors when they printed ἀπηρε with- 
out the «, and the general practice of editors is to print with it. 

+ In our edition somebody has written in the margin apy- 
θητον. 


VOL. III. D 


34 NOTICE OF 


instead of Kuster’s, he would have found, and, we trust, would 
also have adopted, the better reading καθαρεύει. 

P. 251. κυανέοισιν ἐπ’ ὄφρυσι. This is a great error. It is 
committed, we grant, in Gesner’s note; and there, doubtless, 
the blame is to be laid on the printers, We should have been 
glad to find κνανέῃσιν in the Variorum edition, which is the true 
and obvious reading. 

Ibidem, κνανέησι wants the x subscript. 

P, 264, ἔθει is erroneously put for ἤθει, but in Gesner it is 
right. 

P. 381. ἠλακάιτη for ἠλακάτη. 

P. 503. χὰι printed with a χ instead of a x. 

Ibidem. ῥεόν instead of ῥέον. The same mistake is in Klot- 
zius, from whom the note is taken. 

Ibidem. διαν re for δια re. This error is also in Klotzius; 
but the text of Muszeus is right. 

Ibidem. λευκοπάρηος wants the c subscript. 

P. 505. πτερὶγύων for πτερύγων. This very gross mistake 
occurs in the Venusine Lectiones of Klotzius, p. 383.* 

P. 508. ὅτιου should be separated. 

Ibidem. τίς ποτ᾽ ἐστιν. We are confident that ἐστιν should 
have an accent upon the final syllable ; and we refer Dr. Combe 
to the Treatise upon Accents above mentioned, Upon-exa- 
mining Lambin, we find the accent faintly marked; and, upon 
looking into Johnson’s Sophocles, we find it distinctly marked. 

P. 541. ipepdevres put erroneously for ἱμερόεντες. 

P. 569. Φρυγιου is without an accent, 

P. 580. Neglenter in the notes for Negligenter. 

P. 615. ἁμεέξερῆσι twice wants the ¢ subscript ; but in Lambin 
from whom the note is taken, the word is right in both places. 
In the second note, Lambin refers to Lucian in his Dialogi 
Meretricii, where the dialogue begins “Ex τίν᾽ δὄισθα. Our editor 
has made the reference more clear by referring to the fourth 
dialogue in the third volume; but, he might have added, of 
Reitzius’s edition. 

P. 616. ἕνὲ has a circumflex accent instead of a smooth 
breathing on the first syllable, and μηγαροις should be peyaposs. 

P. 617. τῃσιν is once without the circumflex on the penult. 


* While we lament the frequent mistakes which occur in 
Greek words, we see great commendation due to the editor for 
the care with which Latin words have nearly in all instances 
been printed ; we heard with much satisfaction that on the dis- 
covery of a few mistakes after the publication of the work, the 
editor cancelled p. 124 of the 1st volume, and pp. 265 and 481 
of the 2d volume, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 35 


P. 630. οὗδέν is erroneously put for. οὐδέν. 

P. 634. ao is erroneously printed for ἀπὸ. 

Ibidem. vorvia: erroneously printed for πότνιαι. The error 
is in Bentley’s note ; but a slight glance upon the text of Aris- 
tophanes would would have enabled Dr. C. to correct it. 


VOL. II, 


P. 9. ημέραν wants the rough breathing, though we find it 
rightly placed in Baxter. 

P. 20. λοιδό ρημα is improperly separated. 

P. 34, την dapa Taddos exor. These four words are without 
accents, and the apostrophic mark is wanted at ὃ before ἄρα. 

P. 37. ὕμνων has a grave accent instead of an acute on the 
penultimate, and of this strange error we shall find more in- 
stances in the second volume of the Variorum Edit. 

P. 38. ὑπάτῃ has a grave instead of a rough breathing upon 
the antepenult.; but in Gesner, from whom the note is taken, 
the word is printed right. 

Ρ 85. αππα has no accent nor breathing, but is right in 
Baxter. 

P. 115. συν, before δαίμονι, should have a grave accent in- 
stead of the apostrophic mark. 

P. 117. woréovrac has the mark of a smooth breathing in- 
stead of an acute on the antepenult. In Gesner the word is 
printed right. 

P. 169. Upon line 85. Sat. ii. lib. ii. Dr Combe produces, 
from Lambin, a note which we cannot find in our edition, printed 
by T. Macceus, 1567. The Doctor, in his catalogue of authors, 
speaks of Lambin’s edition, published 1577 ; we have not that 
edition; but we fird it mentioned in the Bibliotheca Latina of 
Fabricius, who says, that it was published at Franckfort, 1577 ; 
and Harles, in his Introductio in notitiam Literature Romane, 
says of the second and improved edition of Lambin, “ Francof. 
typis Wechelianis aliquoties repetita in forma maxima et quarta.” 
The folio, says Fabricius, was printed at Franckfort, 1577, and 
the quarto in 1596. We therefore suppose the folio to contain 
the passage which is not found in our Paris edition. Dr. C. 
quotes Lambin’s note thus: πῶς 6% τὸν νέον πόιην, which to 
us is unintelligible. If Dr. C. had turned from Lambin to Plu- 
tarch, he would have written πῶς δὲι τὸν νέον ποιημάτων ἀκούειν, 
and he would have found the passage which Lambin quotes in 
p. 33 of Xylander’s edition. The text there gives δαπάναις 


* We are told that ποιην occurs in the edition of Lambin, 
printed by Bartholo. Macczus, Paris, 1605. 


Ὁ 2 


36 NOTICE OF 


ἰσῶσαι, but among the wv. LL. the Basil Codex gives δαπάναισε 
σῶσαι, and this reading Lambin follows. 

P. 169. μέσῶν, with a circumflex on the final, most impro- 
perly following the acute on the penult. 

P.175. viv κὰι Meverrov. Dr. C. prints Μενίππου without 
an accent, * and he also substitutes cau for δὲς This monstrous 
blunder is in Baxter’s note, which the Doctor transcribed, instead 
of correcting, and which he would have corrected, surely, if 
he had consulted Lucian, to whom the epigram is ascribed. 
Every school-boy reads that epigram in Farnaby’s collection, 
and every editor must acknowledge that δὲ is the true reading. 
We do not suppose that Dr, C. holds the heretical opinion of 
those critics, who maintain that o.'and ac final may be made 
short before a word beginning with a consonant, and whom 
Bentley has entirely confuted in his notes upon the first hymn 
of Callimachus, The sense, too, no less than the metre, re- 
quires δὲ, 

Ibidem, οὐδένὸς. Dr. C. gives this word two accents, though 
Gesner + prints only one, and Gesner is right. 

P. 179. μὲταλαμβανομένου τοῦ πάθους. What title has this, 
or any other word, to two accents, where an enclitic does not 
follow ? or, how can a grave be placed on the stxth syllable 
from the ultimate of any word? We fear that Dr. C. has been 
a little misguided by Gesner, in whose edition pera and λαμ- 
βανομενου are printed in two lines, and joined by an hyphen. 

ΠΡ, 186. ξιρῶ νικως. Dr. C. makes two words of one, and he 
puts a circumflex upon the final of εἰρω, but leaves γικως unac- 
cented, Gesner is not to be blamed here, for he prints εἰρωνικῶς. 

Ρ, 209. ἀκουσαις is left without an accent. 

P. 210. φερὸμενος has a grave, instead of an acute, upon the 
antepen. 

P. 225. ὑποδεχτικὰ. This word is printed with three mis- 
takes: on the first syllable there is a grave accent for a rough 
breathing; in the third there is a y for ἃ κ; and on the fifth 
there is a smooth breathing instead of a grave accent; yet Dr. 
Bentley, from whom the note is taken, prints the word right ; 
and in Suidas, whom Dr. Bentley quotes, it is equally right. 

P. 251. ὠρινῇ. Baxter gives an accent to the final syllable, 
and upon the initial he places a rough breathing, where Dr. C. 


* Qr. why are the ends of both Hexameters separated from 
the rest of the lines ? 

+ In speaking of Baxter’s edition, republished by Gesner, 
we indifferently use their names. We observe by the way, that 
the -very learned Dr. Edwards convicts Dr, K. of lavishing an 
accent on the antepenult, of φιλοψέυδη. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 37 


gives a smooth; and he puts no accent on the first syllable, 
where Dr. C. has added a second circumflex. 

P, 265. éay has no accent, and κυκλοτιρῆς is printed with a 
circumflex instead of a grave. ‘The error is not in Bentley. 

P. 270. μὲν κηδομενον and κυντερον are without accents; 
éue has a rough, instead of a smooth breathing; ἄλλο has a 
grave, instead of an acute. 

P. 271. τεθαλαττωμενοι wants the acute on the penult; εἰσι 
wants a grave on the ult.; and λύουσιν is marked with a rough 
breathing instead of an acute accent. 

P. 273. μηλα wants the circumflex on the first syllable. 

P. 283. ὅι καὶ ποθεῦντες, Here we have another instance of 
και for de, to the violation both of the metre and the Greek. 

P. 286. kar’ ἡ λιβὰτων. Here we have two words instead of 
one, ἠλιβάτων; and a grave upon the penult., instead of an 
acute; yet the word in Gesner is printed right, as one word. 

Ibidem. φεύγοντα with a smooth breathing, instead of an 
acute accent on the antepenult. 

P. 303. χρᾶθαι for χρῆσθαι ; but the mistake is in Baxter also. 

P. 307. Καλλίμαχος has no accent; and τὴν is put for τὴν. 

Ῥ 319. xpvrrede. We are not happy enough to be ac- 
quainted with this word. Sophocles wrote κρύπτεται with an 
acute, not a grave, on the antepenult. ; and, as Sophocles wrote, 
so has Torrentius printed. 

Ibidem. ἐκ γῆ. Surely γῆ should be γῆς. 

P. 320. ὦ τλήμων ἀρετὴ Here Dr. C. follows the typogra- 
phical blunder in Baxter. But an ear accustomed to the sound 
of an Iambic verse would have been alarmed at τλημων, and 
Dr. C. if he had looked into Dio Cassius, would have found 
τλῆμον, which suits both the metre and the construction. 

P. 325. The accent on δε before τέρπνον is omitted, and μοι; 
an enclitic after dre is very improperly accented. In both 
these instances Dr. C, was misled by Baxter’s note, where we 
find the same errors, 

P. 330. ny has neither its accent nor its smooth breathing. 

P. 335. γρηταρια for γρυτάρια. Our Lambin, from whom 
the note is taken, prints the word right, and the word occurs in 
the very next note of the Varior. where it is printed right from 
Baxter, 

P. 337. yevynoas παγηρ. The first word should be accented 
on the penult.; and zaynp should be πατηρ; with an acute on 
the ult. 

Ibidem. τὸ μὲν δικαιον are left without their respective 
accents. 

P. 338. We find yapeiy and “πράττείν. Dr. C. to χαιρειν 
gives two accents instead of one; and to πραττειν, though a 
dissyllable, he gives a circumflex and two acutes, though other 


38 NOTICE OF 


editors would have been contented with accenting the penult. 
only. In this page γνωθι is without an accent. 

Ibidem. ὑπέρ has an acute, instead of a grave, on the ult. 

P. 339. ἡπείλησα has a rough instead of a smooth breathing, 
and δικαίους has no accent at all. 

Ibidem. ἐὰν γὰρ συγκοινθῇ ἣ βρεχσθῆ. These words are 
quoted from a note in Lambin, which is not in the edition we 
have: but did Dr. C. find συγκοινθῇ in his Lambin ; or, finding 
it, did he hesitate, and consult Theophrastus? We maintain 
that no such word exists. Upon reading συγκοινθὴ in the Vari- 
orum, we conjectured συγκαυθῇ, and, upon examiniug the 22d 
chap. of the 1st book of Theophrastus, we found our conjecture 
confirmed. 

P. 363. νατακρημνοι is printed for κατακρῆμνοι, καὶ before 
paxers has no accent, and ἔρημοι is printed with two blunders ; 
for ἕρημοι; and εὔτελισμὸς, has a circumflex on the first, instead 
of a smooth breathing. 

P. 375. ποιητικοτερον for ποιητικωτερον. It has no accent on 
the antepen., and substitutes o for w. 

P. 376. 900s wants the smooth breathing. 

P. 383. τι before μὴ wants an acute; and in the same note, 
épyaon has a rough, instead of a smooth, 

P. 384. εἰ κεν. εἰ here wants an acute and a smooth breath- 
ing; and ἠβώοντα should have a rough breathing, instead of a 
smooth. 

Ibidem. oray has neither accent nor rough breathing. 

P. 386. ἀδνρῶν. This strange word is printed for ἀνδρῶν, and 
destroys the sense which is preserved in Lambin, though ut- 
terly abandoned in the Variorum. In the very same note the 
metre and the sense are destroyed in the following line, Expo 
πίσιμος τύχη γένοιτό μοι; pn has here a rough breathing on the 
final syllable, instead of the apostrophic mark, which ought to 
have been prefixed to 'πισιμος ; επισιμος is printed for ἐπίσημος ; 
a rough breathing is given to τυχη; instead of an acute accent ; 
ec wants the smooth breathing, and the feminine article, which 
is necessary to the sense and metre, is wholly omitted. 

P. 390. Ποιων wants a circumflex on the ult. 

P. 397. In this page we have discovered several mistakes, 
which it is our duty to state as we have done elsewhere. 
εὐτυχήματα has an acute accent upon the initial syllable, in- 
stead of the smooth breathing ; ἀλλ᾽ before ἵνα has a grave ac- 
cent, instead of a smooth breathing ; and λάβωσιν has a smooth 
breathing, instead of an acute, upon the first syllable. 

P. 404. ἡμῖν has a smooth, instead of a rough breathing. 

P. 409. Dr. C. who, we know, is a very excellent botanist, 
and who with uncommon solicitude has spread the Linnean 
phraseology over the Variorum edition,-does not seem pecu- 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 39 


liarly fortunate in his quotations from Greek writers upon bo- 
tanical subjects. We shall present our readers with a wonder- 
ful passage quoted by Lambin from Dioscorides, and thus 
printed in p. 409 of the Variorum; τρέπει δὲ καὶ χραδτάβπι τὸ 
ὠχρότερον πίνομενον τε, Kal συγχριόμενον. After a copious dose 
of cummin we could not have turned more pale, than we were 
at the sight of this ugly and strange word χραδτάβπι, and we 
defy the united sagacity of Rhunkenius and Porson to solve the 
difficulty by mere conjecture. In Lambin all is right, τρέπει 
δὲ καὶ χρῶται ἐπὶ τὸ ὠχρότερον πινόμενόν τε, Kal συγχρίομενον. 
Our readers will observe, that in the Variorum συγχριόμενον 
has a smooth breathing, instead of an acute accent upon the 
antepenult. 

P. 411. καρφεται has no accent. 

P. 420. Ζωσιπᾶσιν is printed as one word, instead of Ζῶσι 
πᾶσιν ; τεθνεωτας and ἐχθρων are without accents. 

P. 452, των has no accent. 

P. 459. καὶ and azavevOe are without accents, and Βορέη 
and Ζεφύρω are without the « subscript. But the line in Lam- 
bin is printed correctly. 

P. 465. κὰρπιμον has a grave upon the first, instead of an 
acute. 

P. 466. We have ἑξηγησις with a wrong breathing, and no 
accent, τῆς in the same page is without the circumflex. 

P. 467. éxas once is without the grave on the final. 

P. 473. καλως wants the circumflex on the ult. 

P. 482. ἐαμβιξειν has no mark of the smooth breathing on 
the first syllable, nor an acute on the penult. This page we 
hear was cancelled. 

P. 491. dpos has a grave, instead of an acute, upon the first 
syllable. 

P. 510. αὗτοι has a wrong breathing and no accent: ποίηταὶ 
has an acute upon the first, and a grave upon the last, but 
ought to have the grave only; τον before Θεσπιν is without an 
accent; apov in the same page has a grave on the first sylla- 
ble, instead of an acute. 

Ρ͵ 513. καθέρομαι is printed for καθαέρομαι; τὴς has a grave 
instead of a circumflex, and ἡ has neither accent nor breathing. 

P. 531. ἐαυτὸν has an acute accent, instead of a rough 
breathing, on the first syllable. 


Here we close our toil in pointing out some of 
the errors which occur in the Greek typography of 
this edition, and we fear that the patience of our 
readers will be equally exercised and equally ex- 
hausted with our own. 


40 NOTICE OF 


May not the Greek language be understood with- 
out a knowledge of accents? Yes. May not an editor 
understand accents, and yet decline the use of 
them ?* Yes. May he not understand and employ 
them, and yet sometimes err? Yes. But such errors, 
when frequent and gross, ought not to be over- 
looked in an edition which professes, like the pre- 
sent, to correct the mistakes of Baxter, Gesner, and 
all preceding editors, by comparing their quotations 
with the text of original authors. A sense of the 
duty which we owe to the public, extorts from us 
these remarks: we do not mean to offer any wan- 
ton insult to the feelings of the editor: we give him 
credit. for real and great proficiency in various 
branches of useful and even ornamental knowledge; 
but we cannot dissemble our opinion upon the 
claims which he in his Preface has laid to correct- 
ness. If those claims had not been made so delibe- 
rately, and so positively ; if writers were not accus- 
tomed to hold in contempt the general observations 
of critics; if readers were not prone to admit the 
general assertions of writers ; we should not have 
submitted to the drudgery of examining, or the 
mortification of producing, particulars, so minute 
indeed in appearance, but, in a question about the 
merits of an editor, so very pertinent and decisive. 
Horace abounds with imitations of Greek writers, 
and allusions to them. The commentators upon 


* Mr. Wakefield omits accents; but, in the Variorum, we 
have seldom or never Greek works quoted from Mr. Wake- 
field’s observations, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE, 4) 


Horace have, with great industry and great judg- 
ment, collected a multitude of these imitations and 
allusions. Every editor of Horace ought to under- 
stand them clearly, and to print them correctly. 
The editor of the Variorum appears to have been 
sensible of this duty, and he professes to have dis- 
charged it with diligence and fidelity. 

We formerly expressed our doubts, not so much 
upon the reality, as the success, of his researches, 
and we have now brought forward a long and appo- 
site series of proofs, in order to convince our readers, 
and to justify ourselves. 


We now proceed to support our assertion, that 
the notes produced in the Variorum Edition of 
Horace do not correspond to the Catalogue of Au- 
thors, with which Dr. Combe has favoured his 


readers. We there find, 


« Bowyer—Explicationes veterum aliquot auctorum, ad finem 
Ἑὐριπιδου ἱκετιδες, 4to. 1763.” 
‘“* Markl.—Jer. Markland, Epistola Critica, 8vo. 1723.” 


We discharge the duty we owe to our readers, 
when we assure them that Bowyer never wrote any 
such work as the Explicationes veterum aliquot 
Auctorum ; and that out of the Epistola Critica, 
which Markland did write, not one observation nor 
emendation is immediately selected, from the first 
page of the first volume to the last page of the last 
volume of the Variorum edition. Dr. Combe must 
have seen the Explicationes veterum aliquot Aucto- 
rum, yet through the Epodes, and the whole of the 
second volume, he has ascribed to Bowyer what 
Bowyer never wrote, nor was supposed to have 


42 NOTICE OF 


written; what Markland did write, and is known 
by every scholar to have written: and this error is 
the more strange, because the very book which was 
used in the Variorum edition was lent in the name 
of Markland; and because the very observations 
selected from that book in the first, second, third, 
and fourth book of the Odes, are properly and uni- 
formly ascribed to Mr. Markland. 

To an editor who professes to have consulted 
every passage quoted from every writer by every 
commentator, great attention is due. We pay it 
cheerfully ; and yet we must state the difficulties 
which have occurred to us, and, doubtless, to some 


of our readers. 
Epod. ii. v. 27. Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus. 


The Variorum produces a note upon this line, to 
which the name of Bowyer is subjoined: but in p. 
253 of the quarto work, which Markland published 
in London 1763, the very same conjectural reading 
of frondes for fontes is made by Markland in the 


very words which Dr. C. ascribes to Bowyer. 


Odes. Lib. i. Carm. 35. v. 5. 
Te pauper ambit sollicita prece 
Ruris colonus. 


Markland says, Colonus ruris est quasi diceret 
nauta maris. He puts a stop at prece, and another 
at ruris; and he says that dominam must be under- 
stood before ruris, as well as equoris. All this 
matter occurs in the 254th page of Markland. It 
is found in p. 135, vol. i. of the variorum edition ; 
and there we read, as we ought to read, the name 
of Markland. We shall now point out an omission 
in the Epodes; and probably such an omission as 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 43 


the deceased editor would have avoided, for reasons 
which we know to be solid. 


A. Ῥ, v. 439 and 440. —-— Melius te posse negares, 
Bis terque expertum frustra, 

Markland, in the very page where he corrects 
the punctuation of Ode xxxv. Book 1. proposes a 
semicolon at expertum, and a colon at frustra. Dr. 
C. passes over this in silence ; and his silence is the 
more remarkable, because on the 5th line of the 
A. P. he quotes from the very same page of Mark- 
land a new punctuation, and erroneously assigns it 
to Bowyer. , 


Epist. vii. Lib. i. 1. 80. —— mutua septem 
Promittit, persuadet uti mercetur agellum. 
Mercatur: ne te longis, &c. 


Markland, in p. 255, would read mercatus; and 
Dr. C. again puts Bowyer’s name to Markland’s 
words. 

Epist. vii. Lib. i. 1. 92. Pol, me miserum, patrone, vocares, &c. 

Markland, in p. 255, says that Horace, in the 93d 
line of this epistle, alluded to v. 499 of Iphigen. in 
Tauris; and here again the Variorum edition, vol. ii. 
p. 337, confounds Markland with Bowyer. 

Epist. i. Lib. i, 1. 55. 


—— hec recinunt juvenes dictata senesque, 
Levo suspensi loculos tabulamque lacerto. 


Markland, in p. 255, puts et after senesque, and 
in p. 287 of the Variorum we meet Bowyer. We 
must here remark a second omission; for in the 
very paragraph, part of which the Variorum edition 
quotes upon the 55th line of the first epistle, Mark- 
land proposes a similar addition of et, in the 100th 
line of Sat. ii. Lib. 2. 


44 NOTICE OF 


_ Ego vectigalia magna et 
Divitias habeo, 
Instead of e. v. m. Divitiasque habeo. 


We ascribe this omission not to choice, but to 
inadvertence, unless some reason be assigned for 
admitting it in one of the above-mentioned places, 
and rejecting ef in the other. 

Odes. B. iii. Carm. 3. v. 54. 

Markland conjectures, in p. 256, vincere for vi- 
sere; and in p. 276, vol. i. of the Variorum, we 
have Markland’s conjecture and Markland’s name. 
He reads also, debacchantur for debacchentur. 

A. P. v. 431. Ut qui conducti, &c. 

Markland, in p. 256, would read que for qui; 
and in p. 527, of the Var. vol. 11. Bowyer appears 
vice Markland. 

Odes, Lib. iii. Carm, 2. v. 14, —— Mors et fugacem, &c. 

Markland, in p. 257, would read efficacem, and 
for this he is rightly quoted in p. 260 of the Ist 
vol. of the Var. 

We now produce a third, perhaps justifiable, 
omission; for in A. P. 244th line, Markland, in p- 
257, instead of Sylvis deducti, proposes educti, i. e. 
educati. But this conjecture is left unnoticed in 
the Variorum edition, and was unmarked in the 


book sent to Mr. H. 


Sat. i. Lib. i. v. 19. —— Atqui licet esse beatis. 
Quid cause est, &c. 


Markland, in p. 258, would read “at queis” (pro 
quibus) and would substitute a comma for the full 
stop at beatis. But in p. 3, vol. ii. of the Vario- 
rum, we again meet with Mr. Bowyer. 


Odes. Lib, iii, Carm. 29. v. 5. Eripe te more ; 
Nec semper udum —— 


visere gestiens. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 45 


Markland, in p. 258, produces a noble emenda- 
tion of this passage, made by his learned friend Ni- 
cholas Hardinge, and the same reading is also men- 
tioned by Dr. Taylor, in his elements of Civil Law, 
p. 37, ut semper-udum Tibur. In the notes on the 
Odes of the Variorum are produced Taylor's words, 
and Hardinge’s emendation, to which, however, is 
improperly affixed the name of Markland only, 
though Markland expressly acknowledges Hardinge 


to be the@uthor. 


Epodes iii. v. 20, Jocose Mzcenas, precor 
Manum puella suavio opponat tuo. 


Markland, p. 258, reads jocosa for jocose, and 
joins it with puella, and Dr. C. brings forward 
Bowyer. 

Epod. xvi. v.51. Nec vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile. 

Markland, p. 258, would substitute vespertinum 
for vespertinus; and in p. 611, vol. i. of the Vario- 


rum, the editor falls into the same error as before. 


Odes. Lib. iv. Carm. 10. v. 2. 
Insperata tue cum veniet pluma superbiz. 


Markland reads poena, and to Markland the read- 


ing is assigned in p. 490, vol. 1. of the Variorum. 


Epist. 12. Lib. i. 1. 22. —— et si quid petet, ultro 
Defer: 


Markland, p. 260, would transfer the comma 
from petet to ultro, which he separates from defer, 
and joins with petet. But in p. 356, vol. ii. of the 
Variorum, Bowyer is represented as the author of 
this punctuation. 

We now state a fourth instance of omission: 
for in 
Epist. xiv. Lib. i. v.19. Nam que deserta et inhospita tesqua. 

Markland, in p. 260, would read tu for nam, and 


46 NOTICE OF 


of this conjecture, though marked, no mention 15 

made in the Variorum. 

Epist. 10. Lib. i. v. 14. Novistine locum potiorem rure beato? 
Markland, p. 260, reads Sabino for beato; and 

in p. 345, vol. ii. of the Variorum, Bowyer is pro- 

duced. 


A. P. v.65. Sterilisque diu palus, aptaque remis. 
Markland, p. 263, conjectures sterilisve palus pul- 
sataque remis; and in p. 481, vol. 11. of the Vario- 


rum, the name of Bowyer recurs. e 


Sat. ii, Lib. i. v. 130. 
Miseram se conscia clamet ; 
Cruribus hec metuat, doti deprensa; egomet mit; 
Discincta tunica fugiendum est, ac pede nudo, 
Ne nummi pereant, aut pyga, aut denique fama. 


Markland, p. 263, would substitute commas for 
semicolons after deprensa and mi. He throws out 
the line discincta tunica, &c. and in the close of 
the next line he would transpose pyga and fama, 
for all which changes the Variorum, p. 35, vol. ii. 
gives the name of Bowyer. 

We have laid before our readers four (we do not 
say improper) instances of omission in the Vario- 
rum, twelve instances of error in the Epodes, Sa- 
tires, and Epistles, where Bowyer is put for Mark- 
land, four instances of right quotation from Mark- 
land in the Odes, and one instance in which Mark- 
land’s name is by mere oversight subjoined to an 
emendation which M. himself ascribes to N. Har- 
dinge. We formerly stated that Mr. H., to the 
best of our recollection, lived till part of the fourth 
book of the Odes was advanced in the press. After 
his death, Dr. C. may, in many respects, be consi- 
dered as the sole editor, and by him the name. of 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 47 


Bowyer is first introduced into the Epodes, and 
continued to the close of the second volume. But 
why then did he overlook the name of Markland, 
when it so often occurs in the Odes, and when it 
there relates to the very book which contains the 
very emendations produced by Dr. C. himself in 
the works of Horace which follow the Odes? Nei- 
ther the title-page of the quarto volume, which Dr. 
C. ascribes to Bowyer, contains the name of Mark- 
land, nor the dedication which follows the title- 
page, nor Dr. Heberden’s Address to the Reader 
which follows the dedication, nor the Explicationes 
veterum aliquot Auctorum, which follow the tract 
upon the third Latin declension. But every learned 
reader must know that Markland was the author. 
The joint editor of the Odes had again and again 
produced the name of Markland,* and surely when 
Dr. Combe perused the first volume of the Vario- 
rum, to the dedication of which his own name is 
subjoined, he must again and again have met with 
Markland’s notes and Markland’s name. Did he 
then suspect any error in his coadjutor? We be- 
lieve not. Has he given any reason why the Odes 
speak of Markland, and the Epodes, Satires, and 
Epistles of Bowyer? No. How then can he ac- 
count for the inconsistency between Mr. Homer 
and Dr. C.? We know that Mr. Homer considered 
Markland as the author of these emendations. We 
imagine that Dr. C., by some means or other, was 


* He only produces the name, without referring explicitly 
to the observations. 


48 NOTICE OF 


not well informed about the author; and we further 
imagine, that he might ascribe the Explicationes 
veterum aliquot Auctorum to Mr. Bowyer because 
he found the names of Mr. Bowyer at the bottom 
of the title-page to Markland’s work. We certainly 
wish the mistake about the name had not been 
committed at all; and if committed earlier, it might 
have deprived Markland of all praise; though, by 
the insertion of the matter, the instruction of readers 
is provided for. It is scarcely necessary for us to 
state that Mr. Markland’s conjectures, &c. are con- 
tained in a work subjoined to his edition of the 
Supplices, and dedicated to his friend William Hall. 
Of the grammatical treatises de imparisyllab. declin. 
Gr. et Lat. forty copies were printed in 1761, and 
in 1763 the whole was reprinted and annexed to 
_ the Supplices Mulieres. As we have never seen 
the first book of 1761, we are left to infer, from a 
passage at the beginning of the Explicationes, that 
they were not originally published with the above- 
mentioned treatises, “ut argumentum precedens, 
inameenum per se, ketiore aliqua materia distingua- 
tur, admittente simul vel poscente talem additionem 
libelli mole, visum est explicanda sumere et adjicere 
pauca veterum auctorum loca.”—Markland, p. 244. 

We shall now see how far the Var. Editor has 
availed himself of Markland’s Epistola Critica, 
which he mentions in the catalogue, and which we 
suppose him to have seen, because he is correct in 
saying that it was printed in 1763. We shall fol- 
low the order in which Mr. Markland has written 
his emendations on Horace. We shall produce all 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 49 


of them for the purpose of proving that the editor 
has produced none; and, as the Letter to Bishop 
Hare is referred to in the catalogue, we, in quoting 
from it, shall consider ourselves as furnishing sup- 
plemental matter to the Variorum edition. 

Sat. i. Lib. i. v.29. Perfidus hic caupo. 

For which Markland, p. 7, reads, Causidicus 
vafer hic. 


Sat. i. Lib. ii. v. 63. 
Primus in hunc operis componere carmina morem. 


M. p. 11, reads hance formam for hunc morem. 
Sat. iii. L. xi. v. 154, Ingens accedit stomacho fultura ruenti. 
M. reads in p. 69. Ingesta for ingens. 


Ibid. v. 182. In cicere atque faba bona tu perdasque lupinis, 
Latus ut in circo spatiere, et aeneus ut stes. 


(We follow Bentley’s reading et aeneus for aut 
zeneus.) 

M. p. 81, reads largus for latus. 

Ep. i. 1. 2.207. Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno, 

M. p. 91, reads /cena for lana. 

In p. 91, M. resumes the passage in which he 
had before proposed largus for latus. 


V. 184. Sat. iii, Lib. ii. 
Nudus agris, nudus nummis, insane, paternis ? 
Scilicet ut plausus, quos fert Agrippa, feras tu. 


Mutatione distinctionis, says M. in p. 92, et ad- 
ditione literze unius, et sensum Horatio, et partem 
suam Tiberio restituisse me confido : 

In cicere atque faba bona tu (Aule) perdasque lupinis, 
Largus ut in circo spatiere, et aeneus ut stes 
Nudus agris, nudus nummis, insane, paternis, 
Scilicet ? aut plausus quos fert Agrippa, feras tu, 
(i. e. Tiberii ) 

Whatever may be the merit of Mr. Markland’s 
conjectures on the foregoing passage, the Var. edit. 
silet. 

VOL. III. E 


50 NOTICE OF 


Sat. vi. B. ii. v. 30. —— tu pulses omne quod obstat, 
Ad Mezecenatem memori si mente recurras. 


Markland, in p. 93, would take away the comma 
at obstat, and place a mark of interrogation at re- 
curras. 

Epist. ii. Lib. i. v. 25. 

Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis et excors, 

M. p. 100, proposes for excors, exsors. 


Od. vi. Lib. i. Scriberis Vario fortis, et hostium 
Victor, Mzonii carminis aliti. 


M. p. 107, proposes alteri for aliti. 
Sat. 10, Lib. i. v. 63. librisque 
Ambustum propriis. 
M. p. 111, reads combustum. 
Epist. vi. Lib. i. v. Improvisa simul species exterret utrumque. 
M. p. 115, for exterret reads exercet. 
Fpist. vii. Lib. i. v. 40, —— proles patientis Ulyssei. 
M. p. 134, reads sapientis for patientis. 
Epist. xvii. Lib. i. v. 62. 
Quere peregrinum, vicinia rauca reclamat. 


M. p. 138, reads cauta. 


Epist. ii. Lib. ii. v. 28. 
—— post hoc vehemens lupus, et sibi et hosti 
Iratus pariter. 


M. p. 166, reads, 


—— post hoc (vehemens lupus ut) sibi et hosti 
Iratus. 
Epist. i. Lib. i. ν. 85. —— Cui si vitiosa libido 
Fecerit auspicium. 


M. p. 169, would substitute ventosa for vitiosa. 

We will now balance accounts between the Epis- 
(οἷα Critica and the Variorum catalogue. Mark- 
land’s Epistola Critica contains fifteen conjectural 
emendations. The catalogue of the Variorum re- 
fers to the Epistola Critica, and in the notes of the 
Variorum, we find of these fifteen emendations—not 
one. Though Dr. C. may have seen the Critica 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 51 


Epistola, he does not appear to have used it, and 
therefore we may be forgiven for expressing our 
wish that he had not mentioned it in the catalogue 
of books from which the notes of the Variorum are 
taken. We imagine that in the course of the work 
Mr. H. intended, or was advised, to consult the 
Epistola Critica, that it was procured by him or for 
him, and perhaps put down in some list, and that 
the successor, forgetting to inspect the Epistola 
Critica, and finding in the notes of the Variorum 
edition that Markland’s name had been several 
times quoted, inferred that the passages under which 
his name appeared, were taken from the Epistola 
Critica, and we have already stated that the word 
observationes is not joined with the word Markland, 
even where they are cited in the Odes. 

Of Bp. Hare we find the following account in 
the catalogue : 

Hare—Jo. Hare Epistola Critica, 4to. 1726. 

Bp. Hare is quoted three times in the first vo- 
lume of the Variorum, and in the second he is not 
quoted once. 

Od. i. Lib. i. v. 35. Quod si me Lyricis vatibus inseres. 

The editor’s note tells us, that Hare proposed to 
read te for me, and very properly refers us to the 
263d page of Bishop Hare’s work called the “ Scrip- 
ture Vindicated.” 

Ibid, v. 5. 


palmaque nobilis 
Terrarum dominos evehit ad deos. 


Here again the joint editor of the Odes, with be- 
coming accuracy and perspicuity, informs his readers 
that Bishop Hare accedes to the opinion of those 
learned men who would remove the point from deos 

E2 


52 NOTICE OF 


in the sixth verse to nobilis in the fifth; and for 
this he properly refers to the 264th page of Scrip- 


ture Vindicated. 


Od. xxvii. Lib. iii. v. 39. 
An vitiis carentem 
Ludit imago 
Vana, que portd fugiens eburnA 
Somnium ducit. 


The Editor of the Odes, p. 405, quotes in Hare’s 
words an emendation which a friend of Hare’s sug- 
gested to him, and which Hare improved. The friend 
proposed quam for que, and Hare would add é before 
porta. Upon this occasion, the editor very justly re- 
fers to the Epistola Critica of Hare, but without men- 
tioning the page. (It is the 423d, in the 2d vol. of 
Hare’s works.) Let us compare the different treat- 
ment which Markland and Hare have experienced. 
Markland’s Epistola Critica is referred to in the cata- 
logue, but never quoted in the Variorum edition. 
Hare’s Scripture Vindicated is twice quoted in the 
edition, but never mentioned in the catalogue. As 
to the Epistola Critica of Hare, it is used and 
quoted once by the editor of the Odes, and in all 
probability, if he had lived, it would have been used 
and quoted again. We, however, shall supply the 
emendation which the sole editor of the Satires has 


omitted. 
Sat. ili. Lib. ii. v. 316. —— illa rogare, 
᾿ Quantane? num tantum, sufflans se, magna fuisset ? 
Dr. Hare, after rejecting the opinions of Bentley 


and Cuningham, would read 
— — Illa rogare 
Quantane? num tantum sufflans se, magna fuit? tum 


Major dimidio, num tantum ? 
Vide 328 p. vol. ii, Hare’s Works. 


SSS SSE EE 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 53 


Our learned readers will thank us for digressing 
a little from Dr. C. and stating the words of Wad- 
delus, who accuses Bishop Hare of plagiarism. 


“Sic,” says Waddelus, “ distinguendus est locus.” 


Illa rogare 
Quantane? num tantum, sufflans se, magna fuisset ? 
Major dimidio, num tantum. 
In quibusdam codd, extat, num tantum se inflans, sic magna 
Suisset. 

Quz lectio maxime perspicuum habet sensum, scilicet ranam, 
primum, ubi se leviter tantum inflasset, rogasse ; deinde cum 
perstitisset se inflare donec dimidio major facta esset, tunc ite- 
rum rogasse. Waddelus goes on: 

Anno 1722 ineunte, cum jam ab omnibus tereretur Cuninga- 
mii editio Horatiana que nuperrime in lucem prodierat, ego 
hanc meam de hoc loco opinionem, cum celeberrimo Snapio, et 
eruditissimis collegii Etonensis rectoribus et magistris, atque 
plerisque aliis viris doctis communicavi, illi omnes eam novam 
judicabant, et plerique tanquam verissimam probabant. Hoc 
ideo monendum putavi quia vidi nuper (si probe memini in 
Epistola Critica in Phedrum Bentleji), locum hunc eodem modo 
explicatum. Vide Waddeli Animadversationes, p. 68. 


Wishing so far as we can to rescue so learned 
and illustrious a prelate as Bishop Hare from the 
imputation of gross plagiarism, we shall first pro- 
duce the Bishop’s words in his letter to Dr. Bland, 
and afterwards state our own opinion upon the 
complaints of Waddelus. 


« Nihil mirum, tantz eruditionis tantique acuminis viros in 
hoc loco restituendo frustra insudasse, cum toti animum ed 
intenderent, ubi nihil erat vitii; id enim in versu precedente 
latet, et levi mutatione omne tollitur, si pro fuzsset legamus fuit ? 
tum. Et huc ipsa constructionis ratio eos ducere debebat, 
cum num fuisset, nisi plurimum fallor, dici nequeat, sed, num 
fuit ? jam autem vide, quam recte omnia incedant 
Illa rogare 

Quantane? num tantum, sufflans se, magna fuit? tum (cum 
ex pulli silentio mentem ejus satis intelligeret) se iterum vehe- 
menter sufflans, et jam major dimidio facta, iterum interrogat, 
num tantum ? pullus etiam-num tacet; quod cum toties repeti- 
tis vicibus frustra fecisset, tum demum puillus, 

Non si te ruperis, mquit, 


54 NOTICE OF 


Par eris —Vides facili emendatione Horatium liberari ab in- 
fami illa macula, quam nec librariis imputari, nec ipsi condo- 
nari posse noster credidit ?—V. p. 328, vol. ii. of Hare’s Works, 


Upon comparing the words of Hare with those 
of Waddelus, we think that the memory of the lat- 
ter was defective, or that his judgment was con- 
fused. About the 318th line they agree entirely, 
but about the preceding line they differ widely. 
Hare rejects Cuningham’s conjecture, fuisset, which 
Waddelus approves, and he proposes fwit tum, 
which did not occur to Waddelus, nor to Cuning- 
ham. Whether the Bishop was led by his own 
sagacity in the reading of line 318, or had heard 
from his Eton friends the opinion which Waddelus 
had communicated to Dr. Snape, we cannot deter- 
mine. We certainly accede to the opinion of Hare 
and Waddelus, who would read major dimidio, num 
tantum: But we think that Bishop Hare’s chief 
merit is in correcting the foregoing line, and the 
merit of that correction surely is quite his own. 

We return to Dr. Combe’s catalogue of the arti- 
cles which he has admitted. "Waddeli Animadver- 
tiones critice in Loca quedam Virgilii, Horatii, 
Ovidii, Lucani, et super illis emendandis Conjec- 
ture. Having long ago read Waddelus, we were anx- 
ious to know how much information he had supplied 
for the Variorum edition: we shall place then the 
general result of our inquiries before our readers, 
and we shall produce, with all possible conciseness, 
the matter which our editor has neglected to use. 

Waddelus considers forty passages of Horace. 
Upon thirty-four he offers conjectural emendations 
of the text, in two he would alter the punctuation, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 55 


in three he suggests interpretations of the sense, 
and in one he would transpose the words. 

Nine emendations relate to such parts of Horace 
as are found in the first volume of the Variorum, 
and of these nine one only is omitted. In the se- 
cond volume of the Variorum, Dr. C. out of 25 
emendations has noticed only one, and as to the in- 
terpretations, the punctuations, and the transposi- 
tion, they are passed by entirely. Now, if so much 
use was made of Waddelus in the first volume, we 
are naturally led to inquire why so little was made 
of him in the second. We are at a loss to deter- 
mine whether the absence of so many articles is to 
he imputed to deliberate rejection, or accidental in- 
advertency, to the disapprobation or forgetfulness of 
Dr. C. If to disapprobation, we ask how a critic, 
who had deserved attention through the first volume, 
had forfeited his claim to it in the second; if to in- 
advertency, we lament the relaxation of diligence in 
the editor of the second volume, after so laudable 
an example of perseverance in the use made of 
Waddelus through the first. Again, if Dr. C.’s copy 
of Waddelus was marked, why did he not, like his 
coadjutor, avail himself of this advantage? and if it 
was not marked, why had he greater reluctance to 
select from Waddelus, through the whole of the se- 
cond volume, than from Bentley, Lambin, Torren- 
tius, Wakefield, Bp. Hurd, and Jason de Nores ? we 
do not extend this question to Cuningham and the 
Explicationes of Bowyer (i. e. Markland), because 
the Editor, perhaps, had a chart to guide him in the 


56 NOTICE OF 


whole of his voyage through these little bays and 
shallows of criticism. 

As we do not find any great disparity of excel- 
lence between the articles omitted in the Variorum 
by Dr. C. and those which are contained in it, we 
shall do Waddelus the same justice, which we have 
already done to Markland, and we trust that our 
readers will not be displeased with us for extracting 
so much matter from a book, which perhaps is not 
very easy for many scholars to procure. 

Od. xii. Lib. i. v.19. Occupavit Pallas honores. 

W. would read occupabit. In vol. i. of the Var. 
this is the only emendation omitted, and it is (by 
mistake doubtless) unmarked, so as to leave no 
blame with Mr. H. 

Sat. ii. B. i. v.81. Hoc Cerinthe tuum tenerum est femur. 

W.would read O Cerinthe tue tenerum est femur. 

Sat, v. B. i.v.6. —— Minus est gravis Appia tardis. 

W. would read nimis for minus, and he found his 
conjecture supported by a Vatican manuscript. 

Sat. vi. B.i. v.53. Quo pueri magnis ἃ centurionibus orti. 

W. interprets the passage thus: “ Quidam, per 
magnos pueros ortos ἃ magnis centurionibus, intel- 
ligunt filios natalibus claros. An autem centuriones 
ita eminebant in Republica * *? Flavius docebat 
arte numerandi et ratiocinandi. Minime dubium 
quin poeta, hic, genus quoddam hominum sordido- 
rum, nummos imprimis sectantium, taxet, qui, ut 
ipsi lucro tantum intenti sunt, liberos suas etiam 
discere volebant artes, quibus pecuniam coacervare 
possent * *. Itaque mihi videtur respicere foenera- 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 57 


tores, quos ideo forsan appellat centuriones, quia 
usura est centesima pars sortis.” 

Sat. vi. B. i. v. 116. Ccoena ministratur pueris tribus, 

W. supposing Horace not to have ordinarily em- 
ployed three slaves at table, once thought of reading 
pueris scabris, and afterwards he conjectured putris 
tripus, to which he gives the preference, and quotes 
the old commentator on the place, who speaks of a 
mean marble table, or τρισκελὴς τράπεϑα, called a 
Delphic table. | 

Sat. ix. B. i. v.45. Nemo dexterius fortuna est usus. 

W. would read deterius, and part of his interpre- 
tation runs thus: miror te nescire uti fortuna: ad- 


jutar aliquis tibi assumendus. 


Sat. ix. B.i. v. 55. et est qui vincit ; eoque 
Difficiles aditus primus habet. Haud mihi deero, 


W. would put a comma at /abet, instead of a full 
stop, and for eoque he would read eo quéod. By an 
error of his memory or his printer, he puts non in- 
stead of haud after habet. 

Sat. x. B. i. v.48. Neque ego illi detrahere ausim, &c. 

For ego illi detrahere, W. p. 62. would read, Lu- 
cili abstrahere. 


Sat. x. B. i. v. 50. sepe ferentem 
Plura quidem tollenda relinquendis. 


We give the substance of W.’s interpretation: De 
sensu horum verborum non convenit inter inter- 
pretes. Quidam dicta putant in favorem Lucilii, 
alii e contra in ejus vituperium.* * * Culpabatur 
Horatius quod dixisset, Sat. iv. “ Lucilium fluere lu- 
tulentum,” verum etiam tunc addidit fuisse “ qudd 
tollere posses ;” Sat. iv. v. 1]. quod hic fusius repe- 
tit, “szepe ferentem plura relinquendis.” Nisi autem 


58 NOTICE OF 


hc in bonam partem accipiantur, nullatenus diluit 


objecta. 
B, ii. Sat, ii, v.75, ———at simul assis 
Miscueris elixa, simul conchylia turdis ; 
Dulcia se in bilem vertent. 
Male distinctus, says W. videtur locus, et dulcia jungendum 
cum conchylia in hunc modum. 


——— simul conchylia turdis 
Dulcia. 
Sat. ili. B. ii. v. 220. ——— ergo ubi prava 


Stultitia, hic summa est insania, 


W. would read ibi parva, and reasons thus. Si 
quis agnam gestet lectica, eamque tractet pro filia, 
illi destinando maritum, ab omnibus tenebitur pro 
mente capto: Sed hujus levis et tolerabilis est stul- 
titia, si cum scelere illius conferatur, qui gnatam 
suam devovet pro agna “ hec summa erit insania.” 


Sat. ili, B. ii. v. 318. Major dimidio num tanto? We have 
already given W.’s reading num tantum. 
Sat. vi. B. ii. v.29. Quid vis insane, et quas res agis ? 


W. after rejecting the opinions of Bentley and 
Cuningham, would read quid tibi vis? isne? ec- 
quas res agis ? 


Sat. vii. B. ii. v. 10. 
Vixit inzequalis, clavum ut mutaret in horas : 


Edibus ex magnis subito se conderet, 


W. alters the punctuation thus: 

Vixit inzequalis : clavum ut mutaret in horas 
fEdibus ex magnis :— 

Lib. i. Epist. i. v. 84, Si dixit dives. 

W. would read Davus. Ad nomen heri quere- 
bam, says he, an aliquid dictum esset de servis, idque 
mihi videor deprehendisse, exigua mutatione pro 
Dives legendo Davus, quod nomen vulgo ponitur 
pro servo subdolo et callido, qui semper se immiscet 
negotiis domini. Saltemsensus non repugnabit ; si 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 59 


servus presenti domino Baias laudaverit, ille statim 
illuc commigrabit. 


Epist. x. v.47. Imperat aut servit collecta pecunia cuique ; 
Pro aut, says W. vix dubitem reponere haud. Per pecuniam 
collectam hic intelligit eam qua non in usum comparatur, sed 
in arcam asservanda reponitur. 


Epist. xiii. v. 12. Sic positum servabis onus. 
W. would read si for sic. 


Epist. xv. v. 11.——Non mihi Cumas 
Est iter aut Baias, leva stomachosus habena, 
Dicet eques. 

Cur equo succenseat Horatius, says W. qui suetum iter pro- 
sequitur? Majori cum ratione quereretur equus se verberari, 
cum rectam insisteret viam——Quare forte pro egues legen- 
dum eguus : Quamvis et eques etiam pro jumento usurpatur. 


Though we approve not of Waddelus’s conjecture, 
we will give an instance or two of the use of eques 
for equus. 


Denique vi magna quadrupes eques, atque elephantei 
Projiciunt sese. Ennius. 

At non quadrupedes equites. Idem. 

Equitem docuere sub armis 

Insultare solo. Virg. Georg. iii. v. 116. 


Where Servius says, Hic eguitem sine dubio 
equum dicit, maxime cum inferat, insultare solo. 
Epist. xv. v. 29. Impransus qui non civem dignosceret hoste. 
W. interprets impransus by bene pransus.* 


Epist. xviii. v. 3. Ut matrona meretrici dispar erat atque 
Discolor, infido scurre distabit amicus. 

W. reads Ut matrona meretrici dispar erit, eque 
Discolor infido scurre, &c. 


Upon the last line of this epistle, the Editor has 
honoured a less probable conjecture than the fore- 
going with a place in the Variorum Edition. For 
det vitam det opes, W. reads, det vel non det opes. 


* Marcilius interpretatur zmprensum bene suburratum, et in- 
de petulantem—sed destituitur, ut puto, ab exemplo.—Ges- 
ner’s note in ἢ. 1. 


60 NOTICE OF 


Epist. xix. v. 13. Exigueque togx simulet textore Catonem 
Quidam codices, says W. habent exiguaque toga. Quid si 
forte scriptum, 
— Si quis vultu torvo ferus, ac pede nudo 
Exiguaque toga, simuletque ex ore Catonem ; 
vel admittendo Cesuram, 
Exiguaque toga simulet, exque ore Catonem. 
Huic lectioni favet, quod Lambinus dicit quosdam viros doc- 
tos affirmare scriptum in quodam cod, tesquore. 


Lib. ii. Epist. i. v. 31. : 
Nil intra est oleam, nil extra est in nuce duri. 


W. proposes nil intra est olea in, and for the po- 
sition of in, he quotes, among other instances, the 


following : 


— Quibus e corpus nobis et viscera constent. Lucret. iii. 376. 
Injiciunt ipsis ex vincula sertis. Virg. Ecl. vi. 19. 
Sed fugam zz se tamen nemo convertitur. 
Plaut. Amph, A. i. S. v. v. 83. 
Nec quo αὖ caveas. Plaut. Asin. i. i. 106. 


Epist. i. B. ii. v. 70. Memini quz plagosum mihi parvo 
Orbilium dictare. 


For que Wad. proposes quia, and assigns a reason 
more likely, we fear, to have weight with school- 


boys, than their masters. 


Epist. i. B. ii. 143. 
—— Sylvanum lacte piabant, 
Floribus et vino genium memorem brevis evi. 


W. would read memores, referring to Agricola, 
v. 139. 
Mr. Wakefield, as will be hereafter seen, has the 


same conjecture. 


Epist. i. B. ii. v. 158. et grave virus 
Munditiz pepulere. 


W. long doubted the genuineness of this reading, 
but suppressed his doubts in obedience to the autho- 
rity of consenting manuscripts. Upon reading the 
notes of Rutgersius he found that critic proposing 
vi rus, and then he modestly offers his own, raris, 
We, upon casting our eye into the Variorum, were 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 61 


forcibly struck with the following words among the 
vy. LL. grave virus conj. Rutgersius.* First, we 
saw that virus was not a various reading ; and se- 
condly, we had read in Waddelus that Rutgersius 
separated the words into vi rus; we turned to Bent- 
ley’s note, and there we found that Waddelus is right, 
and that the Var. Edit. is wrong.—Bentley’s words 
are these: Infelix sane acumen Aurati et Rutgersii 
qui pro virus divisis syllabis vi rus substituere volue- 
runt. We have produced Bentley’s words because 
Dr. C. has not produced them, and because we are 
under the necessity of observing an instance in which 
the division of syllables is, perhaps, confounded with 
their union. As the Editor consults original writers 
in order to correct the annotators, the readers of the 
Var. Edit. must now and then consult the annotators 


in order to adjust the text. 


Epist. i. B. ii. v. 164. ν 
Tentavit quoque rem si digne vertere posset ; 


W. for rem, would read dein. 
Lib. ii. Epist. ii. v. 80. 
—Cunctata, or as the Var. reads, contracta sequi vestigia vatum. 
W. after noticing Bentley's reading non tacta, 
proposes non cuncta. 


A. P, v. 63. —— Sive receptus 
Terra Neptunus, classes aquilonibus arcet 
Regis opus. 


W. found in a Turin manuscript receptos, with 
the letters in different ink. Ina Vatican manu- 
script he observed that the original writing had been 
changed, and that different ink had been employed 


* Query, does conj. in the Var. Edit, mean conjungit or 
conjicit? 


62 NOTICE OF 


to write receptus Neptunus. He thus proceeds— 


Forte ergo legendum, 
Sive recepto 
Terra Neptuno, classes aquilonibus arcet 
Regis opus. 
Id est, sive agger ab Augusto extructus, opus vere Regium, 
immisso mari naves tuetur contra ventos. 


A. P. 114. Davusne loquatur an heros, 


W. would read herusne. 
A, P. 248. Offenduntur enim quibus est equus et pater et res. 


Verba, says W. videntur transposita, et unius vocis in suum 

locum reductione forsan vera restituetur lectio; ita scil. 
Offendentur enim pater, et quibus est equus et res. 

Sic planus erit sensus, offenditur pater, sive per hanc vocem 
intelligas senatores, sive eos qui liberos habent; illi enim cum 
maxime conspicui sint in rep. exemplo modestiz aliis preire 
debent ; hi quia metuunt fillis, ne ipsorum mores corrumpan- 
tur, dum obsceenis assuescant. Offenduntur etiam quibus est 
equus et res, id est, equites et locupletes, qui honestiorem lo- 
cum obtinent inter cives. 

A. P. ν. 461. Si curet quis opem ferre et dimittere funem. 


W. found curat in some manuscripts, and there- 
fore he would read currat, which approaches to cur- 
ret, quoted by Dr. C. in vy. LL. from Zeunius. 

Upon the merit of the preceding emendations we 
shall neither attempt to direct the judgment of our 
readers, nor in detail insist upon our own. But we 
contend generally, that they are not more impro- 
bable than those which are admitted into the first 
volume of the Variorum, and if Dr. C. selected one 
in the second volume, he might, without any im- 
peachment of his sagacity, have selected more. 

In the Catalogue Dr. C. mentions Taylor’s Ele- 
ments of Civil Law. Upon the 6th line of Od. 
xxix. B. iii. Taylor is very properly introduced to 
illustrate and defend semper-udum. But in the se- 
cond volume of the Var. the learned critic totally 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 63 


disappears, and as the Var. Editor has omitted the 
only two remaining conjectures which occur in 
Taylor's book, we shall produce them, especially as 
we have no hesitation in acknowledging that we 
think both ingenious. 

Sat. i. Lib. i. v.29, Perfidus hic caupo. 

Taylor in p. 220, gives the conjecture of a learned 
lawyer, Perfidus hic Cautor.* He decides not upon 
the reading, but produces a number of passages to 
illustrate the technical words respondere and cavere 
in the Roman Law, and as we have mentioned the 
conjecture, we will subjoin, from Taylor, a few in- 


stances of the use of cavere to support it. 

Cicero, in his letter to Appius Pulcher. 

L. Valerium Juris consultum valde tibi commendo; sed ita 
etiam, si non est Juris consultus. Melius enim ei cavere volo, 
quam ipse aliis solet, Fam, Epist, iii, 1. 

He writes thus in a letter to Trebatius, the great 
lawyer: 


Tu qui ceteris cavere didicisti, in Britannia ne ab essedariis 
decipiaris, caveto. Fam, Epist. vii. 6. 
Ovid de Arte Amandi, B. i. 83. 
capitur consultus amore, 
Quique aliis cavit, non cavit ipse sibi. 
Plautus in Captiv. 1 A. ii. S. 2. 5. 
Etiam cum cavisse ratus est, seepe is cautor cautus est. 


Taylor, p. 421, writes thus ; 

“Slaves in the Greek and Roman comedies, are 
often very distinct characters. Nay, they have been 
so well contrasted upon the stage, that some critics 
have ventured to restore this passage in Horace, in 
conformity to that opposition of character. A. P. v. 


* Schrader, p. 71, of the Emendations, reads providus hic 
cautor, and seems not to have known that part of his conjec- 
ture was anticipated. 


64 NOTICE OF 


114. Intererit multum Davusne loquatur, Erosne. 
Every one that looks into inscriptions or reads the 
Digest, will find, that Eros was a very common 
name for a servant, as well as Davus. And this is 
also, I apprehend, more conformable to the MSS. 
Davus was a crafty knave, and Eros a plain servant.” 

Whether Dr. C. knew of these passages in Tay- 
lor, we decide not ; why he omitted them we con- 
jecture not. But we mean to give no offence by 
saying, that Dr. C.’s coadjutor was apprised of their 
existence. 

Dr. C. in his Catalogue has given a place to the 
Sylva Critica of Mr. Wakefield; and we, upon com- 
paring Wakefield’s Sylva with the Variorum Edition, 
find new reason for bringing forward supplemental 
matter. The first volume of Wakefield contains 
eight emendations, and of these eight Dr. C. pro- 
duces not one. The second volume of Wakefield 
contains three emendations and three changes of 
punctuation. The three emendations are omitted in 
the Var. Two of those changes of punctuation are 
omitted also, and one of them is produced, not from 
the Sylva Critica, where it occurs, p. 99, but from 
the Observationes in Horatium, where it may also 
be found, 79th page ; and this we affirm the more 
positively, because the Variorum exhibits every word 
contained in the Observations, and omits every word 
contained in the Sylva Critica. From these pre- 
mises we infer, without any hesitation, that the 
Var. Editor has not very carefully consulted the two 
books of the Sylva Critica, though in the catalogue 
he professes to have employed them in his selections 


DR. COMBES HORACE. 65 


for the Var. Edit. In justice to Mr. Wakefield 

and for the conviction of our readers, we enter upon 

the following detail—Sylva Critica, p. Ist. 

Epist, ii. B. ii. v. 105. Obturem patulas impune legentibus aures. 
Mr. Wakefield, p. 19. proposes obtundem (which 

we consider as a mere typographical error for ob- 


tundam) instead of obturem. 


Horat. B. ii. Od. 3. v. 13. 
Huc vina, et unguenta, et nimium breves # 
Flores amcene ferre jube rose. 


For ameene, Mr. Wakefield, p. 149, would read 
Amynte. 

His words are, Puerum scilicet ejus pro more 
alloquitur Horatius, cujus nomen infelicem immu- 
tationem passum est.—He then quotes, Serta mihi 
Phyllis legeret, cantaret Amyntas.—Vire. 

This emendation reminds us of a note in the No- 
titia Poetarum Anthologicorum, p. 66,* which we 
will bring forward, as it contains a verbal emenda- 
tion of Horace. Maximé frequens in pueris Melea- 
gri, Muisci nomen. Quod frequens in vernarum 
nominibus, presertim nondum adultorum, fuisse 
constat ex Polybio, page 424. |. 9. edit. Wechel. et 
Horatu, B. 2. 9, 10. ubi vulgo prave editum cir- 
cumfertur Mystem, sed Muiscum restituendum est. 


Tu semper urges flebilibus modis 
Muiscum ademptum, 


Od. 38. v. 5. Ὁ. 1. Simplici myrto nihil allabores 
Sedulus, curo. 


Mr. Wakefield, p. 150, would read cure; after 
making this conjecture, he turned to Bentley’s Ho-_ 
race, and found it confirmed, a quodam codice ma- 

* Subjoined to Anthologiz Grace a Constant, Cephala con- 
dite libri tres. Oxford, 1766. 

VOL. ΠῚ. ¥ 


66 NOTICE OF 


nuscripto, quem miror, says he,summum criticum suze 
correctioni posthabuisse, cum ipsissimum dederit At- 
ticum leporem, cujus potissimum fuit studiosus nos- 
ter. It is curious to observe the opinions of great 
critics on the reading of this line. Even Baxter 
upon this place praises Bentley, and reads cura. 
Cuningham, like Wakefield, would read cure. Ges- 
ner is contented with curo, and Klotzius says, illud 
curo exercuit interpretum ingenium, et exercebit. 
Lib. ii, Od. xi. v. 15. Canos odorati capillos. 


Wakefield, p. 51, proposes coronati. 
Lib. iii. Od. iv. v. 21. 


vester in arduos 
Tollor Sabinos. 


Wakefield, p. 151, reads arduum et Sabinus. 

Od. xiv. L. ili. v.11. Jam virum experte. 

Wakefield, p. 152, reads jam virim expertes. 
The Var. mentions not Wakefield, though it gives 
the same reading from Cuningham and Sanadon. 

Odbix) Leave We decedunt amores. 


Wakefield, in p. 152, reads labores for amores. 
Od. x. L. iii. v. 16. 


supplicibus tuis 
Parcas. 


Wakefield, p. 153, reads suppliciis. 


Od. iv. L. iv. v.29. Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis: 
Est in juvencis, est in equis vigor 
Patrum. 


Wakefield, p. 154, puts a comma at fortibus, and 
joins bonis with juvencis. In the Variorum not the 
least notice is taken of Mr. Wakefield ; in the notes, 
however, we have the same reading from Bentley, 
Cuningham, and Janus. 

Epist. ii. L. i. v. 144. memorem brevis evi. 

Wakefield, p. 155, would read memores to be 
joined with agricole, and we have before produced 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 67 


the same emendation from Waddelus. But the 
Var. is silent about both these critics. | 
Sylva Critica, Part 2. 
L. iii, Od. 27. v. 26. — et scatentem 


Belluis pontum, mediasque fraudes 
Palluit audax. 


Mr. Wakefield, p. 17, reads thus: 


at scatentem 
Belluis pontum media, atque fraudes 
Palluit audax. —— Β 
Od. xxxv. L.i.v. 5. Te pauper ambit sollicita prece 
Ruris colonus; te dominam zquoris, 
Quicunque Bithyna lacessit 
Carpathium pelagus carina, —— 
Wakefield, p. 41, thus alters the punctuation: 
Te pauper ambit sollicita prece 
Ruris colonus; te dominam, equoris 
Quicunque Bithyné lacessit 
Carpathium pelagus carin4. 


He illustrates pelagus equoris by πέλαγος θαλάσ- 


σης, from Apollonius Rhodius, L. ii. v. 610. 
Sat. vii. L. ii. v. 85. 


contemnere honores 
Fortis; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus, 
Externi ne quid valeat per leve morari. 


Wakefield, p. 57, points the passage thus: 


—_—- contemnere honores 
Fortis, et in seipso totus; teres atque rotundus, 
Externi ne quid valeat per leve morari. 


Mr. W. ingenuously confesses, that before he 
thought of this punctuation, he had not read Bent- 
ley’s note which proposes it; and we add that Dr. 


C. has judiciously inserted that note in the Vario- 
rum edition, 


4 
Epod. xiv. ν. 7. Inceptos, olim promissum carmen, Iambos. 


Wakefield, p. 99, would transfer the comma from 
inceptos to olim, and he does not take notice of 
having proposed the same change in his observa- 

F2 


68 NOTICE OF 


tions. We have already stated that Dr. C. has ad- 
mitted Mr. Wakefield’s conjecture into the notes 
upon the Epodes, and that he took it not from the 
Sylva Critica, published in 1790, but from the ob- 
servations, published in 1776. We read with care 
and with pleasure three parts of the Sylva Critica 
soon after their respective appearance. From the 
fourth part we have lately derived much instruction, 
and, in due time, shall bear a fuller testimony to its 
merits in the British Critic. 

As Dr. C. has not inserted the third part of the 
Sylva Critica, published at Cambridge 1792, in his 
catalogue, he is not responsible for its contents. 
We shall, however, extend our principles of intro- 
ducing supplemental matter, and for this purpose 
we shall enable our readers to enrich the margin of 
the Variorum edition with such emendations as we 
have collected from the third part of Mr. Wake- 
field’s Sylva Critica, and from his edition of Vir- 
gil’s Georgics, published at Cambridge 1788. 


Ars Poet. v.99. Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. 


Satis multa, si bene memini, de voce pulchra noster Hurdius, 
sed vir ingeniosus nihil extricat. 


We could wish that Mr. Wakefield, in speaking 
of so illustrious a prelate as Dr. Hurd, would have 
employed his eyes instead of trusting to his me- 
mory. Whatever may be the merits of the expla- 
nation, with which Mr. Wakefield is dissatisfied, 
the Bishop* is answerable only for approving it, 


* However rough in appearance may be the foregoing 
words, which we have cited from Mr. Wakefield, he speaks 
with great and just respect of the Bishop, in a note on line 46 
of the third Georgic, We will quote his words, to efface any _ 


4, ν 
DR. COMBES HORACE. 69 


and if it was written, as we have heard, by an ex- 
cellent and celebrated member of the Established 
Church, who lives at Winchester, we agree with 
the general opinion of Dr. Hurd, when he pro- 
nounces him “ an ingenious person who knows how 
to unite philosophy with criticism, and, to all that 
is elegant in taste, to add what is most just and ac- 
curate in science.” See Hurd’s note. 

As to the sense of pulcher, we shall lay before 
our readers Mr. Wakefield’s words: “ Non satis est, 
inquit summus artifex, secundum artem et regulas 
mox prescriptas, poemata perfici; non sufficit pul- 
chra esse scilicet, et sine culpa: necesse est etiam, 
ut sint tenera, mollia, dulcia, ad affectus excitandos 
suavi artificio concinnata.” Hee est mens auctoris, 
quam verbis luculentissimis aperit nobis Ascensius 


et Acron. 
Ody ἯΙ. 1, wiy.1d 


Obliquo laborat 
' Lympha fugax trepidare rivo. 


We shall give Mr. Wakefield’s words as we find 
them in p. 51. Et constructionem (by an error of 
the press, it is constructionam, in the Sylva Critica) 
paullo perplexiorem enodatam dabimus, quam nescio 
an aliquis ad hunc diem perspexerit. Lt lympha 
Sugiens per obliquum rivum laborat trepidare, non 
sine difficultate, per obstantes scilicet lapillos. et 
serpentem alveum, cursum suum promovet: ideo- 
que moram jucundam nectit, et suaviter interea su- 
surrat. ᾿ 
bad impression that may be made on the mind of the reader 
by Mr. W.’s language, when he speaks of the word pulchra: 
“Que de his tribus versibus (i. 6. Virgilii), disseruit Ricardus 


Hurd, Episcopus Wigorniensis, doctrina viri istius exquisita, 
atque ingenio eleganti prorsus digna sunt.” 


70 NOTICE OF 


Sat. i. L. i. v. 29. Perfidus hic caupo. 

Wakefield, p. 77, accumulates many passages to 
illustrate St. Paul’s use of καπηλεύοντες, cap. 1]. 
epist. ii. ad Corinth.; and at the close he writes 
what we shall quote, not from our assent to the 
criticism, but from our good humour with the 
pleasantry — Denique, mirari subit, doctos homines 
ullo modo velle aliam lectionem in Horatium im- 


portare : 
Perfidus HIC caupo: 

Hic nempe, quem ante memoravimus. Nec, piget dicere! 
verbo magis apto uti poterat poeta. Utinam a se hoc oppro- 
brium causidici vellent amovere, et leges cauponarent minus! 
Dis aliter visum. 


A. P.1.161. Imberbis juvenis tandem custode remoto 
Sat. vi.l. 1. v.81. Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus, 


Mr. Wakefield, p. 89, tells us, that by custos is 
meant the Pedagogus in the former passage lite- 
rally, and in the latter by allusion. We think him 
right, and we suppose that custode in the A. P. has 
been long understood by every learned reader in 
the same manner. 

Sat. ili. B. ii..v. 72. Malis ridentem alienis. 

Mr. W. p. 105, gives this interpretation: immo- 
dice ridentem, nec genis exercendis parcentem, 
quasi alienis ; et proinde nihil doloris et incommodi 


hine sperantem. 

He quotes from the Etymologicum Magnum, érepéyvaGos 
ἵππος, ὁ σκληρόστομος, οἷον ὁ τοῖς γνάθοις ws μὴ ἰδίοις χρώμενος, 
and from the Pan. of Isocrates, ὥσπερ ἐν ἀλλοτρίαις ψύχαις μέλ- 
λοντες κινδυνεύειν, and from Thucydides, B. i. S. 70, ére δὲ τοῖς 
μὲν σώμασιν ἀλλοτριωτάτοις ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως χρῶνται, τῇ δὲ 
γνώμῃ οἰκειοτάτῃ ἐς τὸ πράσσειν τὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς. 

We shall take the liberty of quoting Eustathius 
on the passage, in order to illustrate Mr. Wakefield’s 


interpretation : 
Ἵστέον δὲ ὅτι τὸ γνάθμοις γελᾷν ἀλλοτρίοις; Kat νῦν ἐπιπολά- 


DR, COMBE’S HORACE. 71 


Cet λεγέσθαι παροιμιακῶς, τοὺς γάρ τοι ἐφ᾽ οἷς μὴ ἄξιον γελῶντας 
ἐκ θυμοῦ, ἢ ἀμηχανίας τινὸς, ξέναις φαμὲν γελᾷν παρείαις" ὥσπερ 
καὶ τοὺς πρὸς βίαν ἐσθιόντας, ἀλλοτρίοις ἐσθίειν γνάθμοις, ὡς τῶν 
οἰκείων δήθεν ὀκνούντων" καὶ ἐστὶν 6 τοιοῦτος γέλως, ἕτερός τις 
παρὰ τὸν σαρδόνιον. * * *”Eze δὲ καὶ ἄλλως, σύμβολόν ἐστι 
τὸ ῥηθὲν τοῦ ἐξεστηκέναι τοὺς μνηστῆρας ἑαυτῶν, ὡς οἷον μήδε 
ἐν σώμασιν εἶναι. Διὸ καὶ ἀπηλλοτρίωνταί πως abroi τε τῶν 
οἰκείων σωμάτων, καὶ αὗτα ἐκείνων, ὥστε δοκεῖν ὡς ἀλλοτρίοις 
γελᾷν γνάθμοις. Vide Ρ. 739. Eustath. Hom. νοὶ]. 11. Edit. Ba- 
sil. 1559; and in Odyssey xx. v. 347. Οἵδ᾽ ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελῴων 
ἀλλοτρίοισιν. 


Od. xiv. L. ii. v. 9. 
Compescit unda, scilicet omnibus, 
Quicunque terre munere vescimur, 
Enaviganda. 


Mr. Wakefield, p. 117, would read munera for 
munere. 

Leaving the probability of this emendation to 
the judgment of learned readers, we refer them to 
an excellent note of Broukhusius, p. 264, on the 
following line of Tibullus: 


Sacras innoxia laurus 
Vescar. 


Broukhusius, with great success, vindicates the 


use of an accusative after vescar. 
Od. xxxi. Lib. i. 12, Vina Syra reparata merce. 


Mr. Wakefield, p. 187, approves of Bentley’s in- 
terpretation, and adds reparata, 1. e. condita, reno- 
vata, Syris aromatibus, sua scilicet ipsius mercatura. 
Hic est 6 οἶνος οἰνώδης Hippocratis. 

In Mr. Wakefield’s edition of the Georgics, p. 
24, he reconsiders and explains, at some length, the 
coalescence of vowels into one syllable, at the end 
of a line, and he again mentions his conjecture of 


nec for aut in 


Sat. ii. B ii. v.22. ———— Nec ostrea 
Nec scarus. 


Upon this opinion of Mr. Wakefield we shall 


72 NOTICE OF 


speak at large on some future occasion, and at pre- 
sent we shall only say, that Mr. W. had made the 
same conjecture in his observations published in 
1776, and that his words are printed faithfully in 
the Variorum, p. 159, vol. 11. In p. 35 of the Geor. 
Mr. W. would point the following passage in this 
manner : ' 


Prudens futuri temporis, exitum 
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus. 


Wakefield joins temporis with prudens ; whereas 
it is generally, and we think justly, supposed to fol- 
low exitum. In p. 37 Mr. W. quotes, from the 
14th ode of the fourth book, diluviem meditatur 
agris, but acknowledges the force of Bentley’s argu- 
ments for reading minatatur. In p. 41 Mr. W. 
would read tu* pulses (for pulsas) omne quod ob- 
stat, in the 30th line of the 6th Sat. B. i. Mr. W. 
in p. 73. of the Georgics, offers an emendation of 


the following passage in Od. xvi. B. 11. 
: Quid terras alid calentes 
Sole mutamus ? patriz quis exsul 
Se quoque fugit ? 
He reads patria for patrie, and points the line 
thus : 


Sole mutamus patria ? 


P. 78. He has many emendations. 


Od. ix. Lib. ii. v. 21. Medumque flumen, gentibus additum 
Victis, minores volvere vertices. 


He would read minorem, and quotes from Sat. 
ii. B. ii. tanto certare minorem. Now he had 
made the same emendation, and produced the same 
line to support it, in p. 78. of his observations ; and 


* Markland also reads pulses in p. 98 of the Epistola Critica, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 73 


of this we are the more desirous to inform our 
readers, because this emendation is judiciously ad- 
titted into the Variorum, and because Mr. W. in 
this very note has inserted two conjectures which 
occur in other parts of his writings. One we have 
already given, and now we shall bring forward the 
other. In Od. xxvii. 1. iii. he reads at for et before 
scatentem ; but this correction is found in the Silva 
Critica, p. 16. part 2. 

Mr. W. objects to medias fraudes. His words 
are: “ Quid autem sibi vult medias fraudes, hoc 
equidem nunquam potui discere, aut divinare, et 
aliis explicandum vellem.” We believe that fraudes 
means pericula ceca. It is used for damnum or 


periculum, by Horace, in Od. xix. B. ii. v. 19. 


Nodo coerces viperino 
Bistonidum sine fraude crines. 


Where the old scholiast says, sine noxa. So Virgil, 
in |. 72. Mn. 10. 
Quis deus in fraudem, que dura potentia nostri est ? 

We shall add the note of Servius. In fraudem 
autem in periculum: ita enim in jure lectum est. 
Fraudi erit illa res, id est periculo.— Heyne says, in 
fraudem: est malum, ἄτη, ut toties periculum Ser- 
vius interpretatur. 

Mr. W. in p. 78. would read, Ode xxxvi. Lib. 1. 
y. 25. Ausa ut jacentem for et. And then he writes 
as follows : “ Hinc etiam recte explicandus est Ho- 
ratius et distinguendus ad Od. 1. 4. 4. 53. ubi misere 


rem agunt interpretes pro sua sagacitate. 


Gens, que cremato fortis ab Ilio, 
Jactata Tuscis equoribus sacra, 
Natosque, maturosque patres 

Pertulit Ausonias ad urbes : 


74 NOTICE OF 


Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus 
Nigre feraci frondis in Algido, 
Per damna, per cades, ab ipso 
Ducit opes animumque ferro. 


i.e. ut ilex ducit opes, ita hac gens fortior evasit ob crema- 
tum [ium et sacra jactata, non gens. 


Raptos qui ex hoste penates 
Classe veho mecum, /En. i. v. 382. 


feror exsul in altum 
Cum sociis, natoque, Penatibus, et magnis Dis. En, iii. 2. 


Mr. W. p. 83, corrects the 38th line of Epist. 
xvil. b. 1. 
Quid? qui pervenit, fecitne viriliter ? 
Mr. W. reads provenit for pervenit. 


We shall give Mr. W.’s words from p. 89. upon a 
very important passage in the Ars Poet. 


Syllaba longa brevi subjecta vocatur Iambus 
Per citus ; unde etiam trimetris accrescere jussit 
Nomen Iambeis. Cum senos redderet ictus, 
Primus ad extremum similis sibi, non ita pridem, 
Tardior ut paulo graviorque veniret ad aures, 
Spondeos stabiles in jura paterna recepit 
Commodus et patiens, v. 251. 


i.e. Longa syllaba post brevem vocatur Iambus; pes citus, 
unde (ex qua celeritate, ut optime vetus interpres) nomen citis 
(v. Od. 1. 16. 24. ut a χώλοις ἰάμβοις distinguerentur ) jussit dari 
trimetris Iambeis. Cum vero hic Iambus ab initio versus ad 
finem similis sibi ictus omnes suos redderet, non ita pridem, &c, 
quz sequuntur enim plana per se cuivis sunt. 


We believe that Mr. W.’s interpretation is not to 
be found in any edition of Horace; but we assure 
him that, long before the publication of his Virgil, 
it had occurred to us, and that we were accustomed 
to illustrate it by the following verses of Ovid: ἢ 


* Burman, in his notes on these lines, mentions the strange opinion of a 
critic, who supposed Ovid to speak of the catalectic iambic, and refers him to 
Merula, and the notes of Bersman, to be convinced, or rather informed, that 
the poet speaks of the Scazon, 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 75 


Liber in adversos hostes stringatur Iambus, 
Seu celer, extremum seu trahat ille pedem, 
Remed, Amor. v. 377. 


It may be worth while to remark, ἐν παρόδω, that Milton, in forty-one Latin 
scazons, has fallen into twenty-three mistakes; for in uineteen instances he 
uses the spondee, and in four instances he uses the anapzst, in the fifth place 
before the final spondee. This licence is admitted into Greek scazons (vid. He- 
phest. p. 17. Ed. Pau.) but never into Latin, We shall give the words of Te- 
rentianus Maurus: 

Sed quia jugatos scandimus pedes istos, 
Pwona fieri perspicis pedem in fine : 
Epitritus nam primus implet hane partem 
Brevis locata quum sit ante tres longas. 
Quare cavendum est, ne licentid sueta 
Spondeon, aut qui procreantur ex illo, 
Dari putemus posse nunc loco quinto; 
Ne deprehense# quatuor simul longe 
Parum sonoro fine destruant versum. 

See P. i, 263. Mattaire, Corp. Poet. 

Avantius and Fabricius, in their dissertation upon the metre of Seneca, pre- 
fixed to Schroeder’s edition of the Tragedies, give one instance of a scazon with 
an anapest in the fifth place. 

Cum Dardana tecta Dorici raperent ignes. 
L, 612. Agamemnon. 

But they are mistaken; for the true reading is raperetis, The verse occurs in a 
chorus of Monostrophics. It is an iambic trimeter hypercatalectic, and follows 
a troch. trim. hyperc. Here we should have an additional instance of the 
resemblance between Greek and Roman verse; for if Dardana be the true read- 
ing, two syllables of the second foot are in the first hyperdissyllabic word, where 
the foot is an anapzst. Now Dawes, in the fifth section of the Miscellanea 
Critica, maintains, that in Greek or Latin iambies the ictus rhythmicus falls on 
the last syllable of iambics, spondees, and anapzsts, and on the penultimate of 
Dactyls and Tribrachs admitted into lambic verse: αὐτίκα μάλα is, we believe, 
an exception in Greek ; but the rule certainly holds good in the tragic and comic 
writers amoug the Greeks, and in Terence. Let us pursue this subject a little 
further : Avantius and Fabricius tell us, that in Seneca there are only two in- 
stances of the scazon iambus, and that these two occur in the Agamemnon: 

Cum Dardana tecta Dorici raperent ignes, 
Fatale munus Danaum traximus nostra. 

It has been already observed, that the true reading in the former line is rape- 
retis, and that the verse, therefore, ceases to be a scazon, and becomes an iamb, 
trimet. hypercat. Now in the text of Seneca the second line is thus read, 

Danaumque fatale munus duximus nostra. 
Here the metre is corrupt. It is of little consequence whether we read traximus 
with Avantius, or duximus with Schroeder; but que, which Avantius omits, is 
necessary to the construction. The transposition of one word will restore the 
metre, Danaumquemunus duximus fatale nostra. 
Here we must observe, that lines 611 and 612 correspond to lines 626 and 627; 
in each instance we have a trim. troch. hypercat. followed by a trim. iamb. 
hypercat. F 

In the earlier part of this note, we said Terence, because Mr. Dawes, who 
had corrected Andr, Prol. 23. and Eunuch. 2. 2. 23, says, (p. 212. Ed. Burgess,) 
“*Nullus dubito quin pauca admodum, que hodie apud ‘lerent. contra reprae- 
sentantur, ad ἀκρίβειαν a Grecis servatam sint exigenda; presertim cum levi 
ubique manu fieri possit.”” We shall not for the present controvert the position 


76 NOTICE OF. 


But upon further consideration we abandoned 
our opinion, and we think that upon the meaning 


about Terence; but we deliberately omitted the name of Plautus, and we shall 
now justify that omission by a series of examples, in which Plautus has not con- 
formed to the rule which Dawes affirms to have been observed by Terence. 
Hane fabulam, inquam, hine Juppiter hodie ipse aget. 
Prologue to Amphitryo, v. 94. 
Ita mihi videntur omnia, mare, terra, ccelum consequi. 
‘ Amphit. Act 5. Se. 1. v 8. 
Cum que in potestate habuzmus, ea amisimus. Captiv. A. 1. S. 2. v. 40. 
Multis et multigenertiws opus est tibi. Id. v. 56. 
Oculorum prestringat aciem in acie hostibus. Mil. Glor,A.1.S. l.y. 4. 
Objurgare pater hae me noctes et dies. Mercat. Act. 1. Se. 1. 

We know that with very little trouble we could collect more instances from 
Plautus ; but those which we have adduced are sufficient to show that implicit 
credit is not to be given to Dawes, when he tells us, without any qualification, 
“ΕἾΝ ὁ vero in accentuum ratione vel comicis Latinis majorem permitti licentiam 
mihi persuasum est.” (p. 212.) From the very imperfect state in which the 
fragments of Pacuvius, Afranius, Accius, and other old dramatic writers have 
come down to us, it is often difficult to speak with confidence upon the structure 
of their verse ; but in justice to Mr. Dawes, we must state that, with one or two 
doubtful exceptions, their general practice is strictly conformable to his opinion. 
We shall ever admire the sagacity of Dawes in his remarks on the Greek writers ; 
and our ears are exquisitely sensible of the effect which their delicacy and cor- 
rectness must have produced upon an Athenian audience: hence, with the ex- 
ception mentioned above to αὐτίκα μάλα, we shall admit the canon of Dawes, 
and recommend it, if recommendation be necessary, to the Editors of Greek dra- 
matic writers : ‘* Severiores Musas coluisse video poetas Atticos quam que in 
vocis hyperdissyllabz ultimam correptam accentum cadere paterentur,” (P. 211. 
Misc. Crit.) The ground of this practice, as we have above remarked, was a 
canon laid down in p. 190, where Dawes tells us: “In metris iambicis iambi, 
spondei, et anapesti in ultimam, tribrachi, et dactyli, in mediam —— ictus ca-. 
dit.” Our ears are prepared for accuracy in the iambics of the older writers, 
Solon, Simonides, &c. though the recitation of their verses was not accompanied 
with music. But, when we consider the gradual changes which have been in- 
troduced into the iambic measure of the Greeks, and even of the pronunciation 
of the language, we must feel some degree of surprise, as well as delight, that 
even in compositions not dramatic, the canon of Dawes was generally observed 
for so many ages. To those*who take an interest in these metrical questions, 
and admire, .as we do, the discernment of Dawes, the following references made 
in support of what he has just now said on the long continued practice of the 
Greeks, will not be unacceptable. See the iambics of Solon, vol..i. Ρ. 73. and 
of Simonides, p. 124. the scazons of Aischrio, p. 189. the iambics of Pheedi- 
nus, p 261. the scazons of Theocritus, p. 381. 382. and his iambies, p. 380. 
the trimeter catalectics of Phalecus, p. 42]. the iambics of Philippus, vol. ii. 
p- 216. 219. 221. of Heraclides, p. 261. of Pallas, p. 420. 422. 430. of Co- 
metas, vol. iii. p.16. In the inscriptions, p. 26. 27. 29. 30. the verses of Leo, 


Ρ- 128. 129. 180. the ἀναθήμοτα, p. 140, the ἐπιγράμματα ἀδέσποτα, 
p- 245, 248. 256. 263. 266. 267. 278, 281. 286, 289. 300. 301. 314. the 


αἰνίγματα, p. 890. 324. 332. 

To the foregoing passages, which are to be found in Brunck’s Analecta, may 
be added the dimeter trochees of Archilochus, p. 42. vol. 1. corrected by 
Brunck ; the iambics trimeter ibid., the tetrameter trochaics ibid. p. 43. In 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. | As 


of Horace light may be thrown from Terentianus 
Maurus. After the invocation of the Iambic, in six 
pure stanzas, Terentianus thus proceeds: 


Vides ut icta verba raptet impetus : 
Brevemque crebra consequendo longula 
Citum subinde volvat arctius sonum: Ὁ 
Iamhus ipse sex enim locis manet, 

Et inde nomen inditum est senario. 

Sed ter feritur, hinc trimetrus dicitur, 
Scandendo binos quod pedes conjungimus ; 
Quz causa cogat non morabor edere. 
Nam mox poete (ne nimis secans brevis 
Lex hee iambi verba pauca admitteret, 
Dum parva-longam semper alterno gradu 
Urget, nec aptis exprimi verbis sinit 
Sensus, aperte dissidenté regula, 
Spondeon, et quos iste pes esse creat, 


carm. 16, Brunck properly corrects the 7th line, by reading tay for ἵνα : he 
leaves the sth line uncorrected; but for sivaAsoy we must read ἐγοίλιον, and for 
σφὶ, σφὶν. See also trochees of Archilochus in carm. 18. p. 44, iambics, p. 
45. 46. 47. fee 

The learned reader must be well aware, that some of the passages, to which we 
have referred ia Brunck’s Analecta, were written when the pronunciation of the 
Greek language was very corrupt, and when the ordinary ruies of the iambic 
verse were either not known or not understood. Yet, amidst all these corrup- 
tions, and all that ignorance, the Greek writers were led by their ear not to let 
what Dawes calls the metrical ictus fall upon the ‘ ultimam correptam vocis 
hyperdissyllabz.” No scholar will be displeased with us for extending our refer- 
ences to verses, which are scattered over’ the Billiotheca Greca of Fabricius. 
See Emanuelis Philes Iambi Sepulchrales in Phacrasen, p. 542. vol. x, Ed. 
Hamburgi, 1721. the Carm. of Eman. Phile. in Obitum G. Pachymeras, p. 1719. 
vol. x. the verses erroneously ascribed to. Pisidas, p.477. vol. i. the Sphera 


Empedoclis, p. 478. where in the 4th line we must read yoveéos for ‘yorv warty 


though in the 37th ling the writer uses γονύασι as necessary to the verse. See 
many Greek iambics, from p. 28. to p. 30. in the first Dissertation of Leo Alla- 
tius de Libris Ecclesiasticis Graecorum, published at Hamb. 1712. and inserted 
by Fabricius in vol. 5. of Bibl. Gr. See a Menologia in p. 64. of the same Dis- 
sertation. See Eman. Phile de Animalibus, from p. 697 to p. 709. and his 


ἐπιγροόμματα,, from Ρ- 710 to p. 715. See also the verses of Joannis Geome- 
tre, p. 716. and Joannis Mauropi, p. 718 to p. 722. vol. vii. See Jenesius, p. 
622. vol. vi. and Heliodori Carmen de Chrysopoeia, p. 790 to p. 797. We really 
do not mean to make any ostentatious parade of references, or quotations; but | 
we were anxious to impress very strongly upon the minds of our readers that pro- 
perty of the iambic verse, which, amidst so many and so gross corruptions of it 
in other respects, was still preserved in the point which Dawes had the merit of 
reducing to rule. He would not have been displeased to find, that his own re- 
mark upon the Attic writers of the Drama was capable of being extended to so 


many ἰωμβόγραφοι in other kinds of poetry. 


78 NOTICE OF 


-\dmiscuerunt, impari tamen loco. 
Pedemque primum, tertium, quintum quoque 
Junxere paulo Syllabis majoribus. 

At qui cothurnis regios actus levant, 

Ut sermo Pompz regiz capax foret : 
Magis magisque latioribus sonis 

Pedes frequentant, lege servata tamen. 
Dum pes secundus, quartus, et novissimus, 
Semper dicatus uni fambo serviat : 

Nam nullus alius ponitur, tantum solet 
Temporibus equus non repelli Tribrachys. 


Ovid, indeed, calls the Iambic celer in contradis- 
tinction to the scazon. But Horace uses citus of 
the pure Iambic verse, as distinguished from the 
more slow verses, which the tragic writers adopted, 
and into which spondees were admitted in the Ist, 
3d, and 5th places. It is somewhat remarkable, 
that, according to the schema trimetrorum Senece, 
drawn up by Avantius, the iambic in the fifth place 
occurs only nine times, and the tribrach thrice. 
The spondee, generally, and sometimes an anapest, 
are used in that part of the verse. By an error, we 
suppose, of the press, a dactyl is put in the Metri- 
cal Table, for the anapest. 

Mr. W. p. 124. of the Geor. corrects a word in 
line 113. 6th Sat. B. 1. 


Fallacem circum vespertinumque pererro 
Sepe forum. 
See Mattaire, Corp. Poet. vol II. p. 1261. 


For vespertinum he reads vespertinus: we think 
this correction far more probable than that of Mark- 
land, on the 16th Epode, where he proposes ves- 
pertinum for vespertinus, and quotes the very line 
which Wakefield here would alter. As to the po- 
sition of que, no objection can be drawn from it 
against Mr. W.; for Horace writes, 


ee 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 79 


Ore pedes tetigitque crura. 
Moribus hic meliorque fama. 


parvi me quodque pusilli 
Finxerunt animi 


To the learned reader no apology is necessary for 
the introduction of the conjectures which we have 
found in Mr. Wakefield’s third part of the Silva 
Critica, and in his edition of the Georgics. Dr. C. 
does not profess to have consulted them, and there- 
fore he is not to be blamed for omitting what is 
contained in them. But the good wishes we have 
for the. Var. Ed. induce us to say that we should 
have been happy to find this labour anticipated. 

The Georgics were published in 1788, and of 
course the observations contained in them might 
have been somewhere inserted in the Var. edit. The 
third part of the Silva Critica appeared in 1792, 
and as the Var. edit. was then far advanced, Dr. C. 
might have thrown together Mr. W.’s conjectures 
at the end of his edition, which came out in the win- 
ter of 1793. 

Dr. C. does not mention in his catalogue the 
conjectures upon Horace, which are to be found in 
Mr. Markland’s edition of the Silve of Statius. But 
in conformity to our principle of bringing forward 
supplemental matter to the Variorum edition, we 
shall lay before our readers the substance of what 
Mr. Markland has written about Horace, in the 
work above mentioned. 


B. iii. Od. xxiii, v. 7. aut dulces alumni 


Pomifero grave tempus anno. 
Markland, in his Statius, p. 35, reads, pomi- 
feri anni. Tempus pomiferi anni, says he, ut tem- 


80 NOTICE OF 


pus teneri anni seu veris, apud Martialem, Epig. xiv. 
1. 19. de Earino. 
Nomen habes teneri quod tempora nuncupat anni. 

Epod. i. ν. 29. Nec ut superni villa candens Tusculi. 

M. prefers in p. 50. superbi to superni. 

Epist. i. Lib. ii, v. 207. 

-Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno. 

M. p. 101. would read Lena, shortly adding, that 
he had made the same emendations, p. 87. of the 
Kpist. Crit. This epistle was published at Cam- 
bridge, 1723, and the Statius in London, 1728. It 
is always of importance to mark the interval be- 
tween the different appearances of the same criti- 
cism, for we ought to presume, that a critic, after 
reconsideration, acquiesces in his first opinion. 

Lib. 1. Od. 31. v. 3. 


non opimas 
Sardinia segetes feracis, 


The common reading is opime, and so we find it 
in Cuningham, Bentley, Torrentius, and Lambin. 
Mr. M. p. 225: in his Statius, would read opimas, 
and so it is printed in Gesner, the Delphin edition, 
and the Variorum. 

Ars Poet. v. 40. cui lecta potenter erit res. 

Markland, p. 232, would read pudenter, and this 
reading is, in the Variorum, produced from a note 
of Bishop Hurd, who introduces it from the learned 
editor of Statius. The Bishop says, a similar pas- 
sage in the Epistle to Augustus adds some weight 
to this conjecture. 


Nec meus audet 
Rem tentare pudor, quam vires ferre recusent. 


But in justice to Mr. Markland, we must add, 
that he has himself quoted this very passage, and 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. ¥*81 


yet the words of the Bishop might lead his readers 
to suppose, that they were indebted to him only for 
the quotation. We do not mean to insinuate that 
the Bishop intended to misguide us. We observe 
by the way, Dr. Combe, in translating the words of 
the Bishop, seems to have made an unnecessary and 
incorrect addition. The Bishop says plainly, “ the 
learned Editor* of Statius:” but the Variorum Edi- 
tor says, “Editor doctissimus Papilii Statii.” With 
submission to the Doctor, we remembered, and we 
have since found, that Markland, Veenhusen, and 
Cruquius, write Papinius, not Papilius; and we 
would remark, that our poet, invested with the tri- 
ple dignity of names, was called Publius Papinius 
Statius. In Gruter’s inscriptions we find Papinius 
and Papirius, but not Papilius. Again, in the Ta- 
bule Coss. and Triumph of Verrius Flaccus, we 
find Popilius, and Papirius, but not Papilius. 

Lib. ii. Od. iv. v.13. ——— Nescias an te generum beati. 

Markland, p. 247. would read, qui scis an te, &c. 
and quotes from the Ars Poet. 462. Qui scis an 
prudens. 


* We quote from the Cambridge edition of 1757, but we 
believe that a more enlarged edition has since been published, 
in which, however, it is not very probable that the Bishop has 
inserted the word Papilius. We wish Dr. C. had told his read- 
ers the particular work of Statius, for though the Bishop men- 
tions it not, yet in p. 460. vol.i. of the Variorum, we have a 
note, wherein Klotzius expressly speaks of Markland as con- 
firming, in p. 192 of his notes ad Statii Silvam. lib. iv. i. the 
opinion which Klotzius holds about Dux bone, lib. iv. Od. 5. 
v. 37. where he defends Dux in opposition to Bentley, who 
would read Rex, and adds, that Dux is not confined to the sig- 
nification of military glory ; referring for the justness of this 
remark to Horace, lib. iii. Od. xiv, ν. 7. and to the note of 
Markland above mentioned. 


VOL. III. F9 


*82 NOTICE OF 


Epist. i. B. ii. v. 110. Fronde comas vincti coenant. 

Markland, p. 247. would read certant, quia Ho- 
ratius hic agit de studio scribendi: sed quid ad rem 
utrum ccenent vel non coenent ὃ 

Od. xv. B. i. v. 35. Post certas hyemes. 

M. in p. 247. would read denas for certas. 

Sat. iii. B. ii. ν᾿ 234. In nive Lucana dormis ocreatus, 

M. in p. 248. would read duras for dormis. He 
prints tu for in before nive, and so does wearers 
ham in his text, but with this note, “Tu nive,” ita 
citat. H. Johnson,:ad Gratium, p. 20. et ita R. B. 
In nive MSS. edd. 

We have now laid before our readers a series of 
emendations, many of which we should have been 
more happy to see in the Variorum edition, than to 
insert in our Review; and if any excuse be required 
for the length of this article, we shall find one in 
the spirit of Markland’s words, Leve est quod dic- 
turus sum, nisi quod ad Horatium pertinet; et 
ideo non est leve. Markland’s Epist. Crit. p. 164. 

At the close of this critique, we return to the 
Var. Editor. In the catalogue, he says, Leevinii 
Torrentii edit. Horatii, 4to. 1608. But it would 
have been useful to add, cum Commentario Petri 
Nannii Alcmariani in Hor. de Art. Poet. Nannius 
is first introduced by Dr. C. to his readers in a note 
upon line 34. de Art. Poet. and he is quoted in the 
same work of Horace on no less than thirty pas- 
sages. We must therefore state, what Dr. C. ought 
to have explained for the information of such per- 
sons as may purchase the Variorum, but are not in 
possession of Torrentius’s edition. The notes of 


DR. COMBE’ HORACE. *83 


Torrentius are not continued beyond the second 
epistle of the second book. But the commentary 
of Nannius is subjoined to Horace de Art. Poet. 
and begins p. 783. of Torrentius’s edition. See Fa- 
bricii Bib. Lat. vol. i. p. 254. and Harles’s Intro- 
duct. ad Notit. Lig. Rom. part 11. page 384. 

The purchasers of a Variorum edition may 1n se- 
veral respects be compared to jurymen, who are 
supposed only to know what the occasion immedi- 
ately brings before them; and the writer of the pre- 
face to such an edition seems to resemble a judge, 
whose office it is to hold up every striking circum- 
stance of the case, to exhibit a clear view of its ge- 
neral merits, and to assist those to whom he ad- 
dresses himself, in forming correct conceptions, and 
passing an impartial sentence. But lest we should 
ourselves be likened to Lord Biron, and “ proclaimed 
for men full of comparisons and wounding flouts,” 
we will not press these resemblances any further. 
Reasonable, however, we do call it, that he, who se- 
lects notes from various critics, who, with various 
degrees of talent, and for various purposes of illus- 
tration, have endeavoured to explain the same an- 
cient author, should be expected to favour his 
readers with some intimation of his own opinions 
upon their comparative excellencies, to give a short 
representation of the character, by which they are 
severally distinguished; to unfold, now and then, 
the order of their succession to each other; to 
touch upon circumstances, if there be any, of lite- 


rary or personal hostility, and perspicuously, if not 
F 10 


*84 NOTICE OF 


copiously, to lay open the principles of selection, 
which may have prevailed through his own work. 
There is a medium between conciseness and pro- 
lixity, which men of sense are at no loss to pre- 
serve ; and he, who from false delicacy, or conscious 
incapacity, says too little, sometimes multiplies those 
difficulties, which, in point of fact, are removed by 
him, who says too much, whether he be impelled by 
motives of petty ostentation or superfluous soli- 
citude. 

General celebrity excites general curiosity, and by 
exciting it, makes the explanation, of which we are 
speaking, more necessary. What is distinctly 
known by an editor, may be known very imperfectly 
by many readers, and before they can determine 
with propriety upon the execution of the work, they 
must enter fully into the views of the person by 
whom it is conducted. They must see the reasons 
which operated upon his mind in the different struc- 
ture of different parts, and then, by examining them 
both separately and collectively, they will under- 
stand the whole with precision, and with justice will 
approve of the correspondence between profession 
and performance, between that which raises expect- 
ation and that which gratifies it, between general 
rules and their particular application. 

It is the custom of scholars, and perhaps the duty 
of reviewers, to compare the materials of a Variorum 
edition, with the contents of those learned works, 
from which they are extracted. But such toil 
ought not to be imposed upon the general classes of 
readers ; and indeed one great and characteristic use 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. *85 


of such an edition is, to supersede the necessity of 
laborious and complicated inquiry, to collect what 
was before scattered, and to throw within the reach of 
many, that information which in the ordinary course 
of things is accessible only to few. The superficial 
and the learned are alike expected to read it, and the 
same explanations which add to the knowledge of 
the one, tend at the same time to guide the decisions 
of the other. 

We admit without reluctance, and without re- 
serve, the discretionary right of an editor to reject 
one critic, and employ another; to use the works of 
the same critic more or less; to dismiss and recal 
him at will, or at will to retain him in perpetual ser- 
vice. But there are cases where we may also insist 
upon the right of a reader to be informed of the 
causes which have produced such preference, and 
we conceive, that in stating such causes, an editor 
would meet with many valuable opportunities for 
showing the justness of his choice, the delicacy of 
his taste, and the adaptation of his previous re-— 
searches to his immediate design. They who deny 
this right, are governed by rules which are to us 
totally unknown ; and they who contend for it, will 
have on their side the general wishes of those who 
read, and the.general practice of those who write. 
As to the exceptions which might be adduced, and 
of which we are ourselves well aware, they are 
not very formidable, either from number or au- 
thority ; and the plea which they furnish may easily 
be invalidated, by the examples of Grevius, of Gro- 
novius, and other illustrious scholars, whose charac- 


*86 NOTICE OF 


ters the learned world has long contemplated with 
reverence ; and whose works have spread before in- 
ferior writers such models of regularity, as may be 
understood without difficulty, and imitated with ad- 
vantage. 

Of the critics, whose observations are admitted 
into the Variorum edition of Horace, many stand in 
the highest class of literary eminence ; and upon the 
whole, we are convinced that they who have written 
most ably, appear most frequently. But in order to 
secure the assent of our readers to this general posi- 
tion, and at the same time to preserve that accuracy 
which, in justice to the editor, and to the public, 
we have attempted in every part of our observations 
upon this splendid work, we must descend to a more 
particular statement. 

In the former part of our Review, which was chiefly 
employed on the catalogue, we took the liberty of 
remarking, that one conjecture of Bishop Hare, one 
explanation by Dr. Taylor, and one emendation by 
Taylor’s friend, are omitted in the second volume of 
the Var. edit.; that in neither volume can be found 
the contents of Wakefield’s Silva Critica, Parts I. 
and II. nor of Markland’s Epistola Critica; that 
from the Epodes, to the end of Horace’s work De 
Arte Poetica, the Observations published by Mark- 
land, at the end of the Ἱκετίδες, are by mistake as- 
cribed to the very learned Mr. Bowyer; and that 
from Waddelus, who in thirty-one places might have 
furnished interpretations, or conjectural readings, 
for the second volume, only one emendation is pro- 


duced, videlicet, on verse 112 of the 18th Epist. lib. 


DR. COMBE’s HORACE. *87 


1. Now we leave it with our readers to decide on 
the comparative merits of the criticisms which are, 
and of those which are not, inserted from Waddelus. 
But we are confident that they will not blame our 
fidelity, in vindicating Markland’s claims to Mark- 
land’s observations; and we trust, that they will be 
disposed to praise our industry, in communicating 
from Hare, Taylor, Wakefield,* and Markland, those 
materials, which it would have given us great plea- 
sure to see in the Variorum edition, and which, 
from their intrinsic worth, are intitled to the notice 
of scholars. 

After careful inquiry, we are compelled to ac- 
knowledge that the fate of several other critics is 
not only various, but to us, more than once inex- 
plicable. Some, like the ἄγγελοι, or the ἐξάγγελοι, 
in the ancient drama, come forward, tell their tale, 
depart, and return no more. Others, like the leading 
Dramatis Persone, appear and disappear, as occa- 
sion may seem to require. A third class, like the 
chorus, when they have once taken their station, 
preserve it to the close. Something like this, in an 
uncommon manner, and to a degree uncommon, 
may be done with the distinct knowledge and deli- 
berate choice of an editor. But wheresoever it is 
done, we could wish to have been previously in- 


* Knowing that Mr. W. does not use accents in his Silva 
Critica, in his Translation of St. Matthew, and many other of his 
learned writings, we, in our Review for February, excepted him 
from those who used them. But, on consulting his Observations, 
we find accents used there, though not in any passage quoted 
by the correctors of the Var. Edit. of Horace. 


*88 NOTICE OF 


formed of peculiarities, which, however irregular in 
appearance, may in reality be quite judicious. 

The names of Desprez, Sanadon, Dacier, Muretus, 
Bond, and Pulman, as subjoined to their respective 
notes, do not occur again after a few first odes of 
the first book. Barnes’s Homer is quoted once on 
the second Ode of the same book, and no more. 
The notes of Rutgersius do not appear beyond the 
same book. Zeunius is for the first time introduced 
in the first Ode of the second book, and is used, 
more or less, to the conclusion of the second vo- 
lume. The notes of Lambin, Cruquius, and Tor- 
rentius, are employed in the first and second books 
of the Odes. No traces are to be found of them in 
the third book. But in the fourth, they re-appear, 
and do not again vanish in the succeeding parts of 
Horace. Baxter, Gesner, Cuningham, and Bent- 
ley, are happily found through the whole work. 
The same, probably, may be said of Linnzeus, from 
whom we learn, among other particulars, that palma, 
the third text word in the second line of page 2, 
vol. i. means Phoenix Dactylifera; and that hirudo, 
the last text word, in the last line of the last page 
of vol. ii. means Hirudo Medicinalis. The Venu- 
sine Lectiones of Klotzius are very properly em- 
ployed through the Odes, and, so far as they could 
be, in other parts of Horace. From Janus copious 
extracts are made through the four first books of 
the Odes, and his edition, it is well known, extends 
no further. Markland’s conjectures, subjoined to 
the quarto edition of the Supplices Mulieres, and 
Wakefield’s Observations, published in 1776, are 


DR. COMBE'S HORACE. *89 


turned to a very good account. Waddelus is seen 
about eight times in the first volume, and once in 
the second. A few detached remarks,* from Bos, 
Toup, Schrader, Mr. Gray, and the Adventurer, oc- 
cur in the first volume of the Var. Edit. and in the 
second we find a note from Dr. Warton’s Essay on 
Pope, vol. ii. where the Doctor had in view the 
Epigram of Philodemus in Reiske’s Anthologia. 
To these we may add two original and very un- 
important explanations, communicated to the editor, 
on the first and second Odes of the first book; one 
statement, accompanied with disapprobation, of Mr. 
Wakefield’s interpretation of the word grave, in 
Ode ii. lib. i.; one alteration in a line of Ennius, 
quoted by Baxter on line 11 of Epode xvii.; and 
one very disputable change of punctuation on line 4, 
Ode xxxvii. of the first book, which may or may 
not be seen in any of the printed editions, and was 
from memory imparted to Mr. Homer, by a person 
who had no claim to the merit of proposing it. Of 
the information derived from Taylor’s Civil Law, 
and Hare’s Epistola Critica, which are mentioned in 
the catalogue, and from a book of the latter, called 
“Scripture vindicated,” which is not mentioned in 
the catalogue, but referred to in the notes, we have 
already spoken. It remains for us to express our 
firm conviction, that the value of the Var. edit. is 


* All these notes, and those which follow, in our Review, 
down to the transposition of a stop, which we have noticed in 
Ode xxxvii. lib. i. together with two notes in page 338. verse 1. 
are signed Editor, Two notes on Ode i, from Hare, have the 
same signature. 


*90 NOTICE OF 


considerably increased by the readings which Dr. 
Combe has produced from six manuscripts in the 
British Museum. 

In regard to Muretus, Rutgersius, Desprez, Sana- 
don, Dacier, Bond, Pulman, and Schrader, we would 
be understood to have spoken of the notes, which 
are immediately and expressly taken from their re- 
spective writings, and inserted in the Var. edit. ; for 
we find the names of most or all of them occasion- 
ally and concisely mentioned, either in the VV. LL. 
of the work before us, or in notes selected for that 
work from other writers, and especially in the notes 
of Janus and Bentley. 

Here we think it incumbent upon us to notice a 
few circumstances with respect to Janus. In pp. 93 
and 94 of the Bibliotheca Critica, part iv, the 
learned and acute Mr. Wagner has written several 
strictures upon Janus, some of which we shall enu- 
merate. Janus, on v. 32, Od. ii. lib. 1. seems to 
‘say, that Horace drew his imagery from Quintus 
Calaber, quod puero vix ignoscendum, says Wag- 
ner. The age of this writer 15 not distinctly known, 
though it is highly probable that he lived long 
after Horace. Vixisse eum Seculo quinto post 
Christum natum Rhodomanus ex stylo satis proba- 
biliter colligit. Vid. Prefat. Pauw. ad Quint. Cal. 
Saxius, in his Onomasticon literarium, p. 21, vol. ii. 
places Calaber among the carminum scriptores qui 
ad tempora Principatus Anastasii Aug. referri pos- 
sunt, and of course brings him down to the sixth 
century. The Oxford editor of Aristotle’s Poetics, 
in duodecimo, supposes the work ascribed to Quin- 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. *QO1 


tus Calaber, to be the little Iliad, and upon this hy- 
pothesis, to which few of our readers, we believe 
will assent, the lines of Calaber might be known to 
Horace. Imaginem hance, are the words of Wag- 
ner, ductam esse ait (Janus) ἃ Ὁ. Calabro; and, 
with Wagner, we think that a strange error has 
been committed in chronology, which, however, for 
our own parts, we are disposed to forgive, on ac- 
count of the high respect we feel for Janus. We 
are told that Janus complains of an error in the 
press, though with what justice we cannot deter- 
mine. Klotzius quotes the same lines, and pro- 
perly says, compara cum his apud Q. Calabrum, lib. 
v. ver. 71. Κύπρις ἐὐστέφανος x. τ. a. Vid. p. 13. 
vol. i. Var. Edit. 

Upon Ode iii. lib. i. v. 9. Janus ascribes to Mar- 
cilius some lines which, as Wagner says, really were 
written by Pindar, and we add, that they are quoted 
by Plutarch, in the work de tarda Dei vindicta, and 
may be found, p. 494, in the Oxford edition of 
Pindar. Janus, upon Ode xiv. lib. 11. v. 26, men- 
tions Toup’s reading of superbis for superbum, but 
omits the line which Toup had produced from Ion 
of Chios, to illustrate that reading. In Ode 1. lib. 1. 
Janus explains Sunt quos juvat, by εἰσὶν ods τέρπεται. 
But Wagner substitutes τέρπει. In stanza the first, 
Ode ii. lib. 1. Dira joined with grando is explained 
by Janus, θεοχόλωτος, for which Wagner proposes 
θεήλατος. On stanza the llth of the same Ode, 
patiens vocari Cesaris ultor, Janus writes ὑποφέρων 
καλεῖσθαι Καίσαρος ἐκδικήτης ; but, according to 
Wagner's opinion, τλὰς is more proper than ὑποφέ- 


*92 NOTICE OF 


pov, and τιμωρὸς than ἐκδικήτης. In Ode iv. lib. i. 
Janus explains choros ducit, by yopous ἀρτύνει, and 
Wagner exclaims, augeantur Lexica hac nova lo- 
quendi formula. In Ode xvi. stanza 3. Deterret is im- 
properly explained by παραπλήσσειν, which literally 
signifies perperam pulsare et ferire, ut mali Citha- 
reedi dicuntur παραπλήττειν, cum inconcinne citha- 
ram pulsant, and is metaphorically applied to per- 
sons who are mente perculsi et attoniti ; vid. Con- 
stantini Lexicon. On Ode xi. lib. 2. Janus explains 
devium, joined with scortum, by κατάκλειστος, a 
word, which, in the fragments of Callimachus, is 
used de Virgine, and which Janus, says W. infeli- 
citer transtulit ad scortum. In Qde xix. lib. ii. 
Janus explains pervicaces, by σκληραυχένας, a word, 
says Wagner, which occurs in the Old and New 
Testament, and which was familiar to the Judai 
Greecissantes, but not to the Veteres Greci, whom 
Horace read. We assent to the justness of Mr. 
Wagner's criticisms, and we have detailed them for 
the benefit of those purchasers of the Var. Edit. 
who may not have in their possession, or within 
their reach, the Bibliotheca Critica, from which 
they are taken. Our motive for adverting to them, 
is to state that, through the good fortune or good 
sense of those who were concerned in the Var. 
Edit. of Horace, only one of the foregoing passages, 
to which Wagner objects, is found in that edition, 
and occurs there p. 212, vol. i. in Var. Lect. taken 


from Janus.* 


* The length to which the Review of Horace has been already extended, 
compels us to omit many observations of our own, upon the sense and the read- 


λ 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. *93 


The preface writer of the Var. Edit. informs us, 
that in those parts of Horace’s works, to which the 
labours of Janus were not extended, he has endea- 
voured to lessen this defect, by choosing the best 


ings of controverted passages, upon peculiarities in the style of the Epodes, not 
hitherto, we believe, remarked, and upon the authenticity of two lines in the 
work de Arte Poetica, which we should not have presumed to call in question, 
if our doubts had not been founded upon numerous, and, we think, weighty 
reasons. We cannot, however, refuse ourselves the satisfaction of laying before 
our readers an interpretation of a passage in Jerome which occurred to us as we 
were going through the notes upon Horace, and the praise of which is due to 
the very sagacious and learned Mr. Gaches, late Fellow of King’s College, Cam- 
bridge. In p. 285 of the Var. Edit. vol. i. are these words: Sanctus Hieronymus 
scribit se duos Scotos (h. e. Hibernos) in Gallia vidisse humano cadavere vescen- 
tes. The passage which the writer of this note probably had in view runs, we 
believe, thus: Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Attacottos gentem 
Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus; et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et 
armentorum, pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates et Seminarum papillas solere 
abscindere ; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. 

Mr. Gibbon falls into a great error about this passage; he writes thus: 
«¢ When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said that they attacked the shep- 
herd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate 
and brawny parts both of males and females, which they prepared for their hor- 
rid repasts.”’—Vol. ii. p. 531. Now Mr. Gaches, suo marte, and without con- 
sulting Jerome, conjectured that pastorum nates et foeminarum papille were used 
by Jerome, uot of human beings, but of the porcorum et armentorum pecu- 
dumque greges, which the Attacotti found in the woods; and upon examining 
the context in Jerome, we are convinced that his conjecture is just, as well as 
ingenious. The general proposition which Jerome lays down is this: Quis 
ignoret unamquamque gentem non communi lege nature, sed iis quorum apud 
se copia est, vesci solitam. If our readers will be pleased to look at the illustra- 
trations of this position, in chapter vi. book ii. adversus Jovinianum, they will 
probably accede to the opinion of Mr. Gaches, when they find that Jerome men- 
tions incidentally the eating of human flesh, and that he was led by his subject 
more immediately to speak of the food which was found in abundance, by the 
Attacotti, in uncultivated forests. 

Camden cites this passage from Jerome, but as his book was written origi- 
nally in Latin, we cannot decide what sense he affixed to the words. The old 
translator of Camden, Philemon Holland, renders them according to the sense 
given by Mr. Gibbon; but on turning to page 99 of Mr. Gough’s translation, 
we were surprised and pleased to find that his opinion coincides with that of Mr. 
Gaches, and we are happy to praise the sagacity of both. Now Mr. Gough’s 
Camden was published in 1789; but we understand the conjecture of Mr. Ga- 
ches to have been made not long after the appearance of Mr. Gibbon’s second 
volume in 1781. It is therefore clear that his conjecture was original, and 
doubtless Mr. Gough also was indebted to his own penetration only, for an 
opinion which he, like every other scholar, would be glad to have confirmed by 
such authority as that of Mr. Gaches. 

We have not Mr. Colman’s book; but if our memory does not deceive us, he 
lays a strong and proper stress upon the transition which Horace makes in line 
366 to O major juvenum. Now the following note, which we extract from the 


*Q4 NOTICE OF 


and most useful notes of other interpreters. Ac- 
cordingly, we find that, from Torrentius, Lambin, 
Cruquius, and perhaps Zeunius, larger selections 
seem to have been made in the Epodes, the Carmen 
Seculare, the Satires, and the Epistles, than in the 
Odes, and this is a fact which deserves notice and 
commendation. The art of poetry is enriched by 
large quotations from Nannius, and from Jason de 
Nores, the whole of whose very scarce and excellent 
work, might have been inserted, we think, without 
any great injury to the credit of the Var. Edit. 
Bishop Hurd, whose criticisms upon many particular 
passages are justly admired by those who may not 
agree with him in his general view of Horace’s de- 
sign, is quoted four or five times on the Book de 
Arte Poetica, and once on the Epistle to Augustus. 
Thus have we endeavoured to give a faithful account 
of the multifarious matter contained in the Var. 
Edit. we hope to have been guilty of no material 
error or omission, and we believe that the most cap- 
tious critic will hardly accuse us of having ventured 
upon one unfounded objection, or one ungracious 
reproach. 

Let us, however, hope to be excused for express- 


407th page, vol. v. of the Miscellaneze Observationes, published at Amsterdam, 

1745, may induce our readers to imagine that Horace had a particular view to 

the poetical labours of the elder son of Piso, even in an earlier part of the work. 

We will produce the whole passage. 
Art. Poet. v. 128. 


Tuque 
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus. 

Plerique sic intelligi volunt, quasi scriptum sit, deduces, et omnibus dictum 
Poetis, qui operam locant Theatro. At melius aliquid offerebat vetus Scholias- 
tes, in vers. 316. Scripsit enim, inquit, Piso, Tragedias. Eum opinor, cum 
hance Horatius Epistolam componeret in Iliade trageedia fuisse occupatum. Quin 
ratio apparet, cur de tragcedia longe plura hie suut, quam de aliis operibus 
poeticis. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. *Q5 


ing at least our well-founded wishes, that in the ab- 
sence of Janus, a little more use had, in the second 
volume of the Var. Edit. been now and then made 
of some of the critics, whose notes disappear after 
the first Book of the Odes. From Dacier we 
parted with much regret: but when Janus was no 
longer at hand, we think that, as a poet of antiquity 
is said to have extracted ex Enni stercore gemmas, 
so a modern editor might here and there have 
gleaned valuable matter from Sanadon, Rutgersius, 
&c. for the notes of the second volume; and in this 
opinion we are the more confirmed, because the Sa- 
tires and Epistles of Horace, are often involved in 
obscurities, which, however they may escape the at- 
tention of superficial readers, are known and con- 
fessed by accurate scholars. The quick feeling, and 
the explicit acknowledgment of difficulties in an 
ancient writer, may be considered as a most sure, as 
well as most honourable criterion, not only of the 
ingenuousness, but of the judgment, for which a 
critic can deserve our respect and confidence. Hac- 
tenus de Horatio, says Markland, in his Explica- 
tiones, p. 261. in quo auctore, post omnia que in 
eum scripta vidi, innumera sunt, que non intelligo. 
In toto opere vix una est ode, sermo, vel epistola, in 
quibus hoc non sentio dum lego. We applaud the 
spirit of this concession, without acceding to the 
strict letter of it. But, after repeated and diligent 
perusals of the writings of Horace, we know where 
the greatest embarrassments are experienced, and 
where the most urgent necessity exists for every 
kind and every degree of aid in removing or alle- 
viating them. 


*9O6 NOTICE OF 


We formerly read with much pleasure Mr. Col- 
man’s translation of the Book de Arte Poetica, and 
from some of his notes we derived very useful in- 
formation. This work had been mentioned to Mr. 
Homer, and we are inclined to believe that he 
would not have refused to notice at least two trans- 
positions, which Mr. Colman proposed.* It is not 
in our power to decide whether these transpositions 
were known to the surviving editor, or disapproved 
by him, and therefore omitted; possible it is that 
he thought of Colman, as Gesner thought of Da- 
niel Heinsius, upon a similar occasion: “ Danielis 
Heinsii transpositionibus -f zequo nos animo carere 
posse arbitrabar.” See Gesner’s note upon line 79 
de Arte Poetica. 


* Mr. Colman would carry back lines 211 and 212. Indoctus quid enim 
superet, &c. and insert them immediately after the 207th line, Et frugi castus- 
que. He thinks, also, that much embarrassment would be removed by taking 
the lines begiuning at ver. 251. Verum ubi plura nitent, &c. down to line 274, 
ending with non concessere columne, from the order in which they now stand, 
and putting them after the 384th line, ending with vitioque remotus ab omni. 

+ Though, like Gesner, we disapprove of Heinsius’s transpositions, we beg 
leave to lay before our readers the text of Horace, in the order which Heinsius 
recommends, and which they may easily compare with that of other editions. 

Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit autor, 
Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice lis est. 
Musa dedit fidibus Divos puerosque Deorum, 
Et pugilem victorem et equum certamine primum, 
Et juvenum curas et libera vina referre. 
Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo. 
Hunce socci cepere pedem, grandesque cothurni, 
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares 
Viucentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis. 
Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult. 
Indignatur item privatis ac prope socco 

Dignis carminibus, narrari coena Thyeste. 
Singula quaque locum teneant sortita decenter, 
Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, 
Cur ego si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor ὃ 
Cur nescire pudens prave quam discere malo ? 
Interdum tamen, &c. 

Heinsius seems to have great confidence in the propriety of the three forego- 
ing transpositions, and assigns his reasons for making them in page 128 of his 
Notes upon Horace, published at Leyden, 1629, and often subjoined to his cele- 
brated work de Satyra Horatiana. 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. Ἀ07 


Great commendation is due to the industry and 
fidelity of the Variorum editors, in their collation 
of the first edition of Horace, preserved in the 
King’s library. The faults of that edition are stated 
by Gesner, in his Presidia, and in his note upon 
line 140. of the Second Epistle of the Second Book of 
Horace. They prove, in his opinion, that the edition 
was formed only from one manuscript, which the 
printers implicitly followed: and from this singular 
circumstance he judiciously infers that the good 
readings which occur in it may be depended upon 
as proceeding ab antiquo codice, non ab ingenio cor- 
rectoris. He pronounces the exemplum of that edi- 
tion, with which he had been furnished by a friend, 
libro cuivis manuscripto facile comparandum, and 
by these words we understand, not, as we errone- 
neously stated in our first Review of the Variorum 
Horace, that “ he prefers it to every manuscript,” 
but, as we now state, that he puts it upon an equal 
footing of credit with any manuscript. Such, upon 
re-consideration, seems to us the sense of Gesner’s 
words, and in regard to the faults which are justly 
imputed to it as an edition, they do not shake the 
opinion which we conceive Gesner to have enter- 
tained and expressed of it as a mere manuscript. 
The propriety of this distinction will be obvious to 
every reader who considers the difference between 
the contents of single manuscripts and the contents 
of editions which are usually formed from more ma- 
nuscripts than one, and into the text of which con- 
jectures are sometimes admitted, after they have 

VOL. ΠΙ. Ε17 


98* NOTICE OF 


long stood the test of examination, and have been 
generally approved by scholars. 

It was not without solid reasons that we, in our 
first Review, lamented the omission of Gesner’s 
Presidia, in the Var. Edit., and for our own justifi- 
cation we shall now bring forward one of those 
reasons. On Ode vii. v. 15. book the Ist, are 
these words in Gesner’s edition: Hic nove Oda 
initium Zarot. Now a reader who has met with 
the Presidia, in that edition, would immediately 
know that these words refer to the Editio Prin- 
ceps of Horace. The same words occur on the 
same line in the Var. Edit.; but in the Var. Edit. 
we have not been prepared for saying that the edi- 
tion of Zarotus, and the Editio Princeps, are the 
same, and therefore a reader of the Var. Edit. only 
would look in vain to the catalogue, when he is 
desirous of knowing what the word Zarot. means. 
This difficulty will not be removed, even when he 
has advanced so far as the 140th line of the Second 
Epistle of the Second Book, for Gesner there says, 
pulcherrimam sententiam parit lectio Zaroti, but 
without telling his readers again what he had told 
them before in the Presidia, that by a conjecture of 
Mattaire, the first edition of Horace is ascribed An- 
tonio Zaroto Parmensi et Mediolano. Our readers, 
however, when they meet the name of Zarotus in 
the Var. Edit. will now see that it is equivalent to 
the words Editio Princeps, and surely they will not 
blame us for this attempt to give the information, 
which might with ease and with propriety have been 
communicated from another quarter. 

The introduction of Bentley's notes highly en- 


DR. COMBE’S HORACE. *99 


hances the value of the Var. Edit. and does honour 
to the judgment of those by whom it was con- 
ducted. Through the Odes, through the Epodes, 
through the Carmen Seculare, through the Satires, 
through the Epistles, and the work de Arte Poetica, 
the scenery wears a bright and cheerful appearance, 
from the irradiations of Bentley’s genius. Perhaps, 
in the first volume of the Var. Edit. we recognize 
many clear vestiges of a regular and systematic se- 
lection, which aimed at the production of such pas- 
sages as might display to advantage the sagacity of 
Bentley, in the establishment of general canons, and 
the emendation of particular words,—of such as 
are discussed most frequently in the conversation 
or the writings of learned men, and of such, we 
venture to add, as have furnished his numerous and 
fierce antagonists with the most favourable occa- 
sions of confuting him, and contributing by their 
remarks to the public stores of useful criticism. In 
the second volume, also, we meet with Bentley 
often, and in various instances, too, where a scholar 
would be glad to meet with him. How far, indeed, 
he might with propriety have been introduced upon 
other passages, where we looked for him, and look- 
ed in vain, is a question upon which we have em- 
ployed the most accurate examination, and formed 
the most decided opinion. But reasons of delicacy 
will not permit us either to announce that opinion 
in broad and strong generalities, or to support it by 
pertinent and minute detail. 

From the perusal of Bentley we now rise, and 
upon former occasions too we have risen, as from a 


*100 NOTICE OF DR. COMBE’S HORACE. 


cena dubia, where the keenest or most fastidious 
appetite may find gratification in a profusion of va- 
rious and exquisite viands, which not only please 
the taste, but invigorate the constitution. We leave 
him, as we often have left him before, with renewed 
and increased conviction, that amidst all his blun- 
ders and refinements, all his frivolous cavils and 
hardy conjectures, all his sacrifices of taste to acute- 
ness, and all his rovings from poetry to prose, STILL 
he is the first Critic whom a true scholar would 
wish to consult in adjusting the text of Horace. 
Yes, the memory of Bentley has ultimately tri- 
umphed over the attacks of his enemies, and his 
mistakes are found to be light in the balance, when 
weighed against his numerous, his splendid, and 
matchless discoveries. He has not much to fear, 
even from such rivals in literary fame as Cuning- 
ham, Baxter, and Dawes. He deserved to obtain, 
and he has obtained, the honourable suffrages of 
kindred spirits, a Lennep, a Ruhnken, a Hemster- 
huis, and a Porson. In fine, he was one of those 
rare and exalted personages, who, whether right or 
wrong in detached instances, always excite attention 
and reward it—always inform where they do not 
convince—always send away their readers with en- 
larged knowledge — with animated curiosity, and 
with wholesome exercise to those general habits of 
thinking, which enable them, upon maturer reflec- 
tion, and after more extensive inquiry, to discern 
and avoid the errors of their illustrious guides. 


*101 


PRHFATIONIS 
GULIELMI BELLENDENI 
LIBROS, 

BE os TAU, 


EDITIO SECUNDA. 


VOL, IIL. Fr 19 


PROEMIUM. 


Qu me cause potissimum impulerint ad hancce 
prefationem, denuo et separatim edendam, dilucide 
qua potero, et simpliciter exponam. 

Priori editione dum prelum fervebat, gravissimis 
nonnunquam impeditus sum negotiis, quo minus 
Σφαάλματα PappaKocwoyaesyapal ypothetarum quanta, 
et vellem et deberem, diligentia corrigerem. Pro- 
fecto oculos mihi parum Lynceos ipsa natura con- 
cessit ; nec vero, artem preli regendi, maxime illam 
quidem ex usu et exercitatione pendentem, ut exco- 
lerem, mihi, qui in libris et curis vitam fere totam 
contriverim, unquam contigit. Ad hancce, sive ig- 
norantiam rei Typographice, sive insolentiam, aliud 
nesclo quo pacto accessit, quod candide, necesse est, 
aperteque de me confitear. 

Equidem de Henrico Stephano szpius accepi, 
manum ei in scribendo fuisse, que elegantissima a 
Scaligero pronuntiata esset, et in litteris Graecis La- 
tinisque exarandis felicissime versaretur. De Angelo 
etiam Vergecio memoriz proditum est, quicquid ab 
eo manu scriptum esset, tanquam exemplar quod- 
dam pulcherrimum inserviisse typis* regiis. At 
nostra est, fateor, cum ab hac parte, tum etiam czte- 
ris ingenii ac doctrine laudibus, sors longe iniquior. 


* Vide Almelovenium in Vit. Henrici Stephani, p. 30. 
VOL, III. G 


82 PROEMIUM. 


Quin idem nobis vel accidit, vel usu venit, quod de 
Porphyrione est a Plotino hisce verbis memoratum: 
"Eypage οὔτε εἰς κάλλος ἀποτυπούμενος TA γράμματα, 
οὔτε εὐσήμως τὰς συλλαβὰς διαιρῶν. Ὲ Quee cum ita 
essent, cure hoc mihi vel in primis esse debuit, ut, 
que animo meo ipse distincte et accurate complexus 
essem, sed confuse et permiste in chartis identidem 
conscribillassem, ea in publicam lucem nunc demum 
prodirent, et a me, et a Typographis, minus quam 
antea fuissent, deformata. 

Tllud quoque a rumore hominum cognovi, non- 
nullos, etsi de Bellendeni opere quod edidissem 
non magnopere laborarent, impensius tamen cupere 
ea inspicere, quae de quibusdam Politicis viris paulo 
studiosius scripsissem. Horum ego votis ut satis- 
facerem, illud opusculum meum recensui totum ; 
graviterque tuli, meo id Marte mihi faciendum esse, 
preesertim cum ad manum nullus mihi esset subtilis 
atque acer judex, qui-f vel ambitiose ornata reci- 


* Vit. Plotin. 

+ Uno de versiculo, in quo, contra legem quandam metricam, 
a Dawesio positam atque illustratam, imprudenter peccassem, 
peropportune me perque officiose monuit ὁ πάνυ Burneius. Ilum 
ego canonem, etsi Bentleio parum cognitus fuerit, itemque a 
Cel. Brenckio nusquam, quod sciam, memoratus sit, statuo ta- 
men verissimum esse. Nec vero, que ei repugnantia primo as- 
pectu, sed, mendis, ni fallor, laborantia, e Menandro, Aristo- 
phane, Damoxeno, Antiphane, aliisque scriptoribus, collegi loca, 
unquam me moverint, quo minus credam, Poetas, cum Grecos, 
tum Latinos, qui Iambos scripserint, “‘accentum cadere non pati 
in vocis hyperdissyllabe ultimam correptam.”’— Vide Dawes, 
Misc. Crit. pp. 190, 211, et 300, edit. Burgess. Atqui credide- 
rim verba, αὐτίκα pada, et alias, si que sint, istiusmodi formu- 


PROEMIUM. 83 


deret, vel dure composita perpoliret, vel ea, quze aut 
incondita, aut subobscura, aut minus emendate et 
Latine scripta essent, calamo transverso notaret. 
Alia igitur statui, ut inter legendum fit, addi opor- 
tere: alia etiam, que mihi aliquantulum vel corri- 
genda, vel illuminanda esse viderentur, in melius, 
pro virili parte, immutavi; quod quidem ezquus 
harum rerum et intelligens estimator, minime, ut 
spero, mihi vitio verterit. 

Profecto δευτέρων ᾧροντίδων vis, quanta sit, probe 
teneo. Et vero is ego semper fui, aut esse volui, qui 
illud, in quo me vel minime delinquere sensissem, 
vertere diligenter mallem, quam pudens prave dissi- 
mulare, odioseque defendere. Gravissimos styli sui 
et acerrimos Censores quondam habuerunt, Henri- 
cum quidem Stephanum Justus Lipsius, Scioppium 
vero Famianus Strada. Etenim quamvis et ingenio 
admirabili, et exquisita doctrina, et singulari indus- 
tria fuerunt, Scriptis tamen eorum quasdam macu- 
las hic illic affudit, vel incuria, vel queedam in edo- 


las excipi oportere; qua de re, cum ea Dawesium fefellisse vi- 
deatur, monitos lectores velim. Pace doctorum virorum dixe- 
rim me, ad hasce Grammaticorum argutias, reique metrice 
paulo subtiliores rationes, posse aures afferre, que arte et usu 
aliquantulum trite sint. Illam vero ipsam regulam, quam 
Dawesii quedam admirabilis ἀκρίβεια olim extuderat, summa 
cum voluptate bis terve legi, aliisque, ut eandem legerent, lec- 
tamque religiose in scribendo servarent, identidem precepi. 
Hocce igitur quicquid est peccati profluxit, vel a nimia festi- 
natione, vel a vitio aliquo memorize, ‘‘ quz perquam labilis esse 
solet et infidelis, unde non inscite Arabes ductum ab oblivione 
nomen homini indiderunt.’’— Vide Tib. Hemsterhuis, in addend. 
ad Jul. Poll. Sed manum, quod aiunt, de Tabula. 


Go 


84 PROEMIUM. 


landis, elimandisque operibus nimia morositas, vel 
denique ipsa humane imbecillitas nature. Horum 
sane virorum a laudibus, longo illud meum, quicquid 
est, quod in scribendo facere volui, longo, inquam, 
intervallo abest. At vero declamatorum ineptias 
pueriles, et importuna conviciatorum maledicta, et 
eorum, qui sibi soli sapere videntur, strenuam in nugis 
difficilibus venditandis inertiam, facile contemserim. 
Atque idem ego, homines, quos vel eruditione pre- 
clara vere ornatos, vel judicio, quod sincerum et 
subtile esset, preditos cognoverim, illos, quo decuit 
studio summo, et quidem summa reverentia semper 
prosecutus sum. Talium itaque lectorum ut in re- 
prehensiones ipse incurram, committere tam nolim, 
quam qui maxime, Hac de causa, pondera omnium 
verborum, quo potui labore maximo, examinavi. * 
Semel me memoria, id quod Marcus etiam Cicero 
nonnunquam passus est, lapsum esse sensi. Stylum 
autem meum comperi, quamvis uno aut altero in loco 
paululum a Latini sermonis consuetudine aberrasset, 
longe tamen ab eadem abhorruisse perraro. 

At ne cui forte videar quandam quasi Alcinoi 
apologiam,* compositam et fucatam concinnare 
velle, quid in hoc corrigendi genere viri clarissimi 
semel atque iterum ac sepius fecerint, idque magna 
cum laude, dicere supersedeo. Verba autem Schel- 
leri, cum ad rationes meas accommodatissima sint, 


* In voc. Marianum, p. 54, edit. prin. Pref. corrig, Mem- 
mianum. 


+ Vid. A. Gellii, lib. xv. cap. 6. et Epist. ad Attic, lib, xii. 


Epist. 6. 
{ Vid. Suid, in voce ᾿Απόλογος. 


PROEMIUM. 85 


‘que tandem religio est, quo minus in medium pro- 
feram ὃ “ Nostra, ut omnium rerum, ita et lingua- 
rum cognitio in dies crescit, modo eam crescere veli- 
mus, nec inepta superbia inflati, opinemur ipsam ad 
summum jam fastigium ascendisse, neque ita incre- 
mentum amplius admittere.”* 

Quod ea que Latine scripseram, Anglice jam, me 
neque hortante, neque sciente, conversa sint, vehe- 
menter doleo. Aures quippe mez solent respuere 
Euge+ illud et Sophos,+ quod ab infima plebecula 
captant ii, qui de rebus Politicis raptim et turbu- 
lente scriptitant: qui famam virorum politicorum 
illotis manibus tractant atteruntque : quibus denique 
nihil magis est cordi, quam ut quelibet in quemvis, 
cul popularis aura faverit, maledicta ex trivio arrepta 
conferant. 

Hujusmodi ego ab ineptiis ac vitiis cum alienus 
essem, paucis volui contentus esse lectoribus ; idque 
eo magis, quod in Juvene illo, qui navis gubernande 
aliquantum inscius clavum tenet, quicquid pruden- 
tiores in eodem reprehendissent, nihil tamen vidi, 
quod contemnere deberet turba indocta atque im- 
perita. Hoc igitur me assequi tum, cum Latine 
scriberem, posse existimavi, ut Prefatio mea in mul- 
titudinis manus non veniret ; qua quidem in re, cum 
versio ejus ex improviso facta sit, frustra fui. Quis 
autem sit ille, qui alienam in messem falcem immi- 
serit suam, Vix, aut ne vix quidem, suspicari ausim. 


* Preefat. edit. secund. precept. Styl. bene Latin. 
t Pers, Sat. i. lin. 49 et 75. t Martial. lib. i. ep. 4 et 50. 
§ Vid. Adag. Junii, p. 1390. 


86 PROEMIUM. 


Sed quicunque is demum fuerit, aut quo se cunque 
modo in scripta mea animatum esse senserit, me qui- 
dem certe, neque Aristarchum,* neque Phalarim 
Grammaticum habebit. Atque vereor, ut possit, viris, 
qui linguee tum Latin, tum Anglicane litterate 
periti sint, consilii illius sui causam et rationem satis 
probare. Mihi interea in eo laborandum esse arbi- 
tror, ut sententiz, que vel a fidissimo interprete 
redditz, saepe inconcinne, sepe putide, sepe frigide, 
seepe mutile, et quasi decurtate, non possint non 
videri, 1160, suo queeque vestitu, suo loco, sua qua- 
licunque vi et pondere, oculis legentium proponan- 
tur. 

Molestissima est omnis arrogantia, cum ingenii, 
quod in me, sentio, quam exiguum, aut plane nullum 
sit, tum doctrine, in qua excolenda multum tempo- 
ris multumque laboris me impendisse non inficior. 
Quare suo, per me licet, sale nigro ii delectentur, 
sueque superbiz morem gerant, qui me dictitant, 
veluti quendam Ludimagistrum,+} ex alienis orati- 
onibus librum meum composuisse. Neutiquam me 
fallit, quid potissimum velint, mea cum scripta car- 
pant nugis armati, neque tamen edant sua. Aigre et 
acerbe ferunt, si, quale sit id, quod usu ac litteris 
quisquam, paulo diligentius, quam ipsi, efficere et 
eniti possit, in conspectu hominum ponatur. ΠΙπά 
etiam reformidant, ne hee de rebus Politicis judi- 
candi consuetudo, ab umbratilibus istis praecepto- 
ribus, ineptisque laboris ac fori discipulis, ad viros 
fortes et litterarum studiosos aliquando traducatur. 


* Vid. Orat.in L, Pison. ¢ Divin. C. Cecil. p. 211. 


PROEMIUM. 87 


At vero exstant quedam de me magis grata, magis 
honesta, magisque, ut spero, probabilia testimonia 
aliorum, qui et ingenio ipsi subacto sunt, et magna 
rerum et verborum doctrina disciplinaque instruct. 
Hi, ut intelligo, fatentur cause mee et officio, aliqua 
ex parte me satisfecisse. Ne illud quidem, pro suo, 
sive animi candore, sive judicii acumine, addere 
gravantur, me, in iis, que vel mihi ad imitandum 
proposuissem, vel ad rem, quam tractarem, quadam 
mediocri arte et diligentia accommodassem, ws ἀπό- 
γραῷον ἐξ ἀοχετύπου δευτερεύειν." 

Per rumores, satis illos quidem constantes, sed 
sine auctore, comperi non defuisse, qui me, quid de 
Bello Americano sentirem, apertius et planius ex- 
plicavisse cuperent. Quibus ego respondere possem 
his Sallustii verbis: “ De Carthagine silere melius 
puto, quam parum dicere.” 

In iis autem, que scripsi de Oratione in Asie 
quendam Prefectum nuper habita, sciant, velim, 
Lectores me nullam de moribus ejus rebusve gestis 
sententiam, quz mea ipsius esset, proferre voluisse. 
Sheridani profecto eloquentiam plena manu laudavi, 
Sed me, et nequities quorundam hominum, et vafri 
juris inscitia satis monent, ne, vel de lite, quae sub 
judicibus gravissimis integerrimisque sit, temere ali- 
quid effutiam, vel committam, ut laqueis legum ipsa 
veritas capiatur. 

De bonis sane oratoribus, qui mortui essent, nul- 


* Vid. Suid. in voce Απογραφὴ, et Diog. Laert. lib. vi. 
Segm. 24. 
+ Sallust. Bell. Jug. par. 22. 


88 PROEMIUM. 


lam unquam vidi populo esse cum doctis dissentio- 
nem, qu permaneret diu. Nimirum in iis, qui jam 
nature concesserunt, parum ponderis habent odium, 
benevolentia, spes, timor, et alia omnia que homi- 
num voluntates et judicia transversa agunt. Quam- 
obrem, de Burkii, et Northii, et Foxii, cum oratoriis, 
tum politicis virtutibus, recte ego, an prave judi- 
caverim, erunt aliquando, ut cum Pindaro loquar, 
᾿Αμέραι ἐπίλοιποι μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.Ἑ 

In iis, que de consiliis τοῦ δεῖνα et orationibus, 
modo disserendi causa, modo mez de eo sententiz 
ferende, disputavi, suum cuique judicium liberum 
esto—mihi etiam ipsi meum. Sunt ea quidem a 
me constanter, et fortiter scripta, imo etiam fortasse 
acrius et vehementius, quam vel ipsius, vel Orato- 
rum, qui ei favent, elumbium et prope elinguium, 
auriculz patienter acceperint. At de eo tamen mihi 
vel maxime gratulandum esse arbitror, quod omnia, 
que dixerim, honesta sint, et bono ac libero cive 
haud indigna. Enimvero conscius mihi sum, me, 
cum, in tali ac tanto viro qui dnotandum esset, dili- 
genter, et prope fastidiose inquirerem, ἀψευδεῖ πρὸς 
ἄκμονι χαλκεῦσαι γλώσσαν.“ Persuasissimum igi- 
tur habeo, mez nec prudentiz, nec dignitatis esse, 
ne uno quidem verbo ad ulla unquam respondere 
convicia, que intellexerim in me falso et petulanter 
a quibusdam maledicis homuncionibus jactari. 


Dabam 17 Calend. Januarii 1788. 


* Pindar. Olymp. 1. ¢ Pindar. Pythi. 1. 


— 


eS ..«.- -. .... 


a 


PRAFATIO. 


Tres, qui hoc volumine continentur, libri a Bel- 


lendeno conscripti, vel inter rarissimos jam olim nu- 
merati sunt. Quod autem effecimus, ut excitati e 
tenebris Bibliothecarum publici juris nec-opinato 
ferent, magisque quam antea parabiles, fore com- 
pertum habemus ob nostram hancce σπουδὴν, ut 
gratiam cum eruditis omnibus haud mediocrem 
ineamus. 

De scriptore ipso, deque ordine, quo hec opus- 
cula ediderit, paucula rejecimus ad calcem hujusce 
Prefationis ; que tamen veremur ut 115 satisfaciant, 
qui intelligentiam ponant in legendi quodam fastidio. 
Sibi interea, velimus, sic persuaderi sinant, sylvam 
satis amplam errorum, qui in editionem priorem ir- 
repsissent, e nostra et textu et margine sublatam 
esse: loca fere omnia, ad que colligenda animum 
intendisset Bellendenus, diligenter a nobis inspecta : 
in eo denique nostram operam sedulo navatam, ut 
editio hec prodiret, tum accurata maxime, tum 
etiam ad nitoris laudem, quoad ejus fieri posset, in- 
structa et composita. 

Aliud esse opus a Bellendeno inchoatum affec- 
tumque, cui titulus sit “ De tribus luminibus Roma- 
norum,” quotus est quisque vir mediocriter doctus, 
qui fando non acceperit? illud etiam qui viderit, 


90 PR-EFATIO 


atque adeo visum, sua ut abderet in κειμήλια, avi- 
dissime arripuerit, potest certe reperiri unus et al- 
ter ex iis, quibus libri sint in deliciis rari, suoque in 
genere exquisiti. Operis ejus quidem illa in parte, 
qu ad manus nostras pervenit, de Cicerone agitur 
solo; idque, non modo incorrupta Latini sermonis 
integritate, verum etiam singulis pene verbis, puris 
putis, ut aiunt, Ciceronianis. Talis autem vir tan- 
tusque cum agmen duceret, magna esse debebat 
hominum expectatio de reliquis duobus, quos Ci- 
ceroni, quasi ejus imitatores quosdam studiorum et 
socios fame, Bellendenus adjungere instituisset. 
Verum enimvero illi quinam fuerint, diu  mul- 
tumque a nobis quesitum est, sed frustra tamen. 
Tandem aliquando in viros quosdam incidimus rei 
litterariz peritissimos, qui certiores nos facerent 
voluisse nostrum, de Seneca et Plinio majore justum 
librum conficere. Colligimus autem ex operis ip- 
sius ratione, fuisse eum e Scriptoribus, quos sibi 
sive ad laudandum sive ad imitandum proposuisset, 
copiam verborum suos in usus comparaturum. 
Egregium hoc consilium, quo minus ex sententia 
ejus cederet, in causa fuit mors Scriptoris ; ipsa illa 
quidem haud immatura, doctis eadem bonisque om- 
nibus nunguam non deflenda. Ut studiorum, ad 
que diu ille feliciterque incubuisset, fructos uberri- 
mos nosmetipsi perciperemus, id sane fortuna nobis 
invidit. Est autem cum Bellendeno actum pre- 
clare, siquidem morte a Deo Opt. Max. donatus 
non bello viderit ardentem Britanniam, non fla- 
grantes invidiaregni Proceres, non Ecclesiam fundi- 
tus eversam, non civium optimorum internecionem, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 91 


non sceleratissimum Regis parricidium, non denique 
zegram et prope depositam eam civitatem, in qua, 
Henricum ille suum olim voluisset regiis omnibus 
virtutibus instruere atque ornare. 

Insedit profecto et pene inveteravit in animis eru- 
ditorum hec opinio, Middletonum, cum de Cicero- 
nis vita opus scriberet, Bellendeni hisce e fontibus 
irrigasse hortulos suos. Ferunt etiam illum de in- 
dustria, quo furtum suum melius celaret, nomen 
Bellendeni silentio jam tum preztermisisse, cum 
varios, qui sibi aliquid adjumenti suppeditassent, 
Scriptores, suo quemque ordine, recensere profitere- 
tur. His ego rumusculis, cum in Middletono lau- 
dando solerem multus esse, inter audiendum subi- 
rascebar. Ita enim semper animum induxi, ut de 
tanto viro caute et modeste pronuntiandum esse sta- 
tuerim. Praterea, haud nescius eram, quam acris 
esse soleat doctorum invidia, quam sint avide et ca- 
paces auricule indoctorum, quam firma ad memo- 
riam rerum levissimarum, et in calumniis propa- 
gandis veteratoria sint vapparum et nebulonum in- 
genia. Famam quippe videram incendere etiam 
convicia non credentium, quoties certamen factum 
esset inquinandi laudes eorum, qui artes infra se 
positas existimarentur pregravare. Causas igitur 
hujusce, que de Middletono incidisset, suspicionis 
seepenumero sum et acerrime perscrutatus; sem- 
perque sensi aquam herere etiam illis, inter quos 
odium nominis Middletoniani glisceret vehementis- 
sime. Ita profecto Caium suspicatum esse suspica- 
batur Titius. Ita se multis ante annis, aut legisse 
nescio quo libro, aut voces, ut fit, eruditorum sub- 


92 PRAEFATIO 


auscultando excepisse Sempronius credebat. Bel- 
lendeni vero librum qui vidissent, perpaucos reperi : 
qui eum contulisset cum Middletoni opere, (War- 
tonum si excipias) plane neminem. Hac autem a 
me diligentissime facta collatione, res illico omnis 
ad liquidum perducta est. 

Littere fuerunt Middletono, non vulgares he et 
quotidian, sed uberrime et maxime exquisite. 
Fuit judicium subtile limatumque. Teretes et reli- 
giose fuerunt aures. Stylus est ejus ita purus ac 
suavis, ita sine salebris ullis profluens quiddam et 
canorum habet, numeros ut videatur complecti, 
quales in alio quopiam, preter Addisonum, frustra 
quesiveris. Animum fuisse ejusdem parum candi- 
dum ac sincerum, id vero, fateor invitus, dolens, 
coactus. 

Equidem de fide hominis in rebus sacris fastidio- 
sius et acerbius loqui nolim. Permoleste autem 
fero, potuisse eum, qui ingenii tam acris elegan- 
tisque esset, laudibus Bellendenum meritis ac de- 
bitis privare. Fidentissime enim confirmaverim, 
Middletonum non modo ex Bellendeni opere supel- 
lectilem sibi sublegisse satis lautam atque amplam, 
sed libri ipsius prope formam, qua res ferret, adum- 
brasse. Cum in media Cantabrigie luce viveret, 
suique operis instrumenta undique colligeret, ad 
manum habebat Bibliothecas Cantabrigienses, libris 
eas quidem plurimis et exquisitissimis refertas. Qui 
autem “ Academic Bibliothece ordinande me- 
thodum quandam proposuisset,’* ei, pene dixerim, 


* Opera Middleton, tom. iv. 


Oe ee 


+ S 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 93 


in propatulo erant scripta fere omnia Bellendeni. 
Quin Bellendeni ad hoc ipsum opus, etsi obscura 
sint omnia et occulta, respexisse illum tamen in 
Prefatione sua haud negaverim: in iis presertim 
que dixerit de “temporum eorum Historia, quam 
contexere esset cuivis integrum, qui Ciceronis 
Epistolas diligenter evolvisset :” de tedio, quod in 
Cicerone bis terque legendo, ipse, si Diis placet, so- 
lus devorasset: de cura, quam in condendo et com. 
ponendo, qua posset mox depromere, animo ad 
commentandum et corrigendum prorsus obstinato, 
impendisset: de verbis ipsissimis Ciceronis, que 
auctoritatem secum afferrent maximam, apteque po- 
sita in Orationis serie plurimum haberent venustatis. 
Nimirum, quod Middletonus paulo ambitiosius 
predicat, sese et velle facere et debere, illud ipsum 
est summa fide summaque arte a Bellendeno factum, 
jam inde ab ultimo principio operis, usque ad pagi- 
nam extremam. 

Estat Stephani Forcatuli “De raptu animorum” 
Dialogus festivissimus, in quo “aliene inventionis 
predones reprehendit.” Scripsit etiam Thomasius 
de Plagiis Litterariis librum, cui, ut Morhofio * vi- 
sum est, multa adjungi possunt. Horum utrumque 
librorum, prelo si quis denuo subjecerit, Middletono 
inuri eadem infamia debebit, que Salmasio, que 
Lipsio, quae Wouwerio, aliisque Plagiariis ingenio 
et doctrina eximiis, haud immerito inusta est. At 
manes ejus, qui famze Ciceronianz custodem se ad- 
jutoremque egregium prestiterit, liceat mihi, verbis 


* Morhof. Polyhistor. lib. i. cap. 5. 


94 PRAEFATIO 


ex ipso Cicerone* depromtis, extremum alloqui. 
“Satis hec multa” de Middletono: “ac sine odio 
omnia, nihil sine dolore.” 

Quod ad tres hosce libellos attinet, multis pro- 
fecto nominibus dignos illos judicavimus, qui in 
conspectum hominum proferrentur; neque enim 
dubitandum est, quin ii se possint cordatiori cuique 
satis probare, non modo rerum ipsarum, que trac- 
tantur, gravitate; sed argumentorum lucido ordine, 
et luminibus sententiarum, et sermonis varietate 
atque elegantia plane admirabili. 

In primo, res multas et varias ab ultima antiqui- 
tate repetivit Bellendenus, situque eas informi ob- 
rutas atque oppressas, in lucem protulit. Mate- 
riem illam de Persarum et Aigyptiorum disciplinis, 
rudem latissimeque sparsam collegit undique, et 
quodammodo coagmentavit in unum, et acumine 
styli diligenter limavit. Civitatum ortus et incre- 
menta, que fuerit cuique peculiaris forma, quantum 
aliz ab aliis discreparint, luculentissime descripsit. 
Quas in historia mendax Grecia excogitaverat fa- 
bellas, diluit refellitque. Philosophiz, cum diliran- 
tis redarguit commenta, tum sanioris illius que 
Pietati famulabatur, placita enodavit. Que qui- 
dem omnia eo pertinebant, ut religionis revelate 
veritatem solidis gravibusque argumentis Bellende- 
nus confirmaret. Qui autem res hasce e ruderibus 
vetustatis eruit, is neutiquam antiquarii partes agit 
frigide et jeune: neque divertitur ad spinosas illas 
et exiles questiunculas, quibus in explicandis, est 


* Philipp. ii. p. 521, edit. Grut. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 95 


ubi Theologi male feriati* torquent se miserrime, 
atque operam frustra conterunt. Stylus est Bel- 
lendeni, per librum huncce, dilucidus in primis, ne- 
que exquisitus nimis. Sententiz hic illic occur- 
runt recondite, quibus adhibita, tanquam obrussa,}- 
est ratio. Operis porro totius ita sunt apte inter 
se colligateeque partes, nihil ut sit asperum, vel 
hiulcum, vel dissolutum ; nihil in alienum irruerit 
locum ; nihil non positum sit in suo. 

Ostendit in secundo, aliis qui preesse velit, illum 
ipsum quam potentem esse deceat sui; quam me- 
morem servantemque rerum omnium que a legibus 
imperentur; quam audientem dictis sapientissimi 
cujusque ; corruptelarum ab illecebris quam alie- 
num; a blanditiis adulatorum quam abhorrentem ; 
quam dignitate sua, tum in retinenda constantem, 
tum in augenda cautum et moderatum; quanta de- 
nique innocentia et in rebus omnibus temperantia, 
ut ab alienis videatur manus, oculos mentemque 
ipsam abstinere. 

Senatoris quod sit officium, quibus potissimum 
fundamentis innitatur illa θρυλλουμένη populi salus, 
quam sacrosancta habenda sint omnia, que fiant ex 
institutis et more majorum, in tertio docet Bellen- 
denus: et quidem ita docet, difficile ut sit dictu, 
utrum res verbis magis, an verba sententiis illus- 
trentur. 

De tribis illis Luminibus Anglorum, quibus 
hecce editio dicatur, religioni nobis non habendum 
est, perhonorifice et sentire, et fari. Horum in 


* Aul. Gell. lib. x. cap, 22. + Cic. Brutus, p. 150. 


96 PR.EFATIO 


uno Virorum, insigne utriusque fortune exemplum* 
vidimus. Cujus enim dicentis ex ore Senatus quon- 
dam pendebat, illius jam oratio, etsi nivibus hyber- 
nis simillima est, sibi tamen audientiam vix ullam 
facit. Indignitas rei hujusce et atrocitas, quanta 
sit, cum considero, szpe illud animo recursat, quod 
de Druso est a Paterculo- scriptum pulcherrime. 
“Tn iis ipsis que pro Senatu moliebatur, Senatum 
habuit adversarium. Denique ea fortuna Drusi 
fuit, ut malefacta” adversariorum, “ quam ejus opti- 
me ab ipso cogitata, Senatus probaret magis; et 
honorem, qui ab eo deferebatur, sperneret; inju- 
rias, que ab aliis intendebantur, equo animo reci- 
peret; et hujus summe gloriz invideret, illorum 
modicam ferret.” 

Architectum quendam verborum esse scio, qui a 
vulgo numeretur inter optimos oratores, propter 
expeditam ac profluentem quodammodo celerita- 
tem, et{ Commissiones meras. Fremant ejus fau- 
tores licet, dicam de Burkii eloquentia, quod sentio. 
Hujus suavitate maxime hilarate essent doctrina- 
rum omnium ille inventrices Athen: hujus maxi- 
me admirate ubertatem et copiam: hujus in labris 
Suadam{ sessitantem maxime venerate. 

Fuerunt inter Romanos, qui|| siccitatem, et in- 
opiam, dummodo esset polita, dum urbana, dum 
elegans, in Attico genere ponerent, orationemque 
amplam, copiosam, excelsam, magnificam plane 


* Liv. lib. xxviii. cap. 42. edit. Var. + Lib. ii. cap. 13. 
f Suet. 1. iv. c. 53. § Cic. Brut. p. 140. 
| Brut, p. 152. et de opt. gen. Or, p. 183. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 97 


contemnerent. Qui autem se credebant eruditas 
habere aures, intelligensque judicium, illi ipsi et 
gradus, et dissimilitudines, et varietatem Atticorum 
ignorabant. Marcum tamen Ciceronem* incessere 
audebant, ut tumidum, Asianumque, et redundan- 
tem. Nostra etiam in etate non desunt, qui ean- 
dem de Burkio nobis insusurraverint insulsam, et 
frigidam cantilenam. Sed melius de hoc nomine 
sentiant, qui Atticos se volunt esse, cum clariorem 
vim eloquentie ferre non possint. Burkium si 
quis imitetur, eum credant et Attice dicturum, et 
optime. In litteris ipsi se sciant plurimum profe- 
cisse, quibus Burkius valde placuerit. 

Illud etiam addo, vehementerque ad rem perti- 
nere arbitror, Burkium, quicquid ageret, et quo- 
cunque se animo et cogitatione flecteret, maxima- 
rum semper videri rerum scientiam consecutum 
esse, deque artibus fere omnibus, que cum humani- 
tate conjuncte sint, optime et pulcherrime scrip- 
sisse. Sunt tamen, qui eloquentiz rationes ab ele- 
gantia doctrine segregandas+ putent, et in quodam 
ingenii atque exercitationis genere ponendas. Gra- 
tulemur illis quidem, sine litteris et sine disciplina 
disertis. Verum enim in Burkio, cum admirabilis 
quedam ad dicendum natura elucet, tum ratio inest 
bonis artibus instituta, multisque curis ac vigiliis 
elaborata. Grace nimirum lingue Latineque ser- 
monibus animum is suum penitus imbutum esse 
idcirco voluit, quod ii ornamenta propria et quasi 


* Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 12. + De Orat. lib. i, p. 88. 
VOL. III. H 


98 PR-EFATIO 


legitima Oratoris potissimum suppeditant, et consu- 
etudinem similiter Anglice dicendi sensim afferunt. 

Lectitavisse Platonem,* atque etiam audivisse di- 
citur Demosthenes, quod quidem gravissimus Auc- 
tor Marcus Cicero contendit ex genere et granditate 
verborum apparere. Burkius autem, quam sit 
plane perfecteque eruditus, quot Poetas noverit, 
quot Oratorum scripta sit illa divina memoria com- 
plexus, liquido patet ejus ex orationibus, in quibus 
unctius quoddam,- et litteratius dicendi genus esse 
doctissimus quisque senserit. Ingenium profecto 
illius admodum adolescentis, sicut Phidiz ΚΣ signum, 
simul aspectum et probatum est. Quoniam vero 
multos intelligebat de facultate et gloria tantum de- 
traxisse, quantum imminuissent industria, summum 
illud suum studium nunquam remisit, et summo la- 
bore superavit sui satietatem. 

In dicendo quid rectum sit, paucorum est via et 
arte intelligere. Qualis autem ipse Orator sit, ex 
eo, quod effecit, facile quivis judicare poterit. 
Quare ad ea respiciamus, de quibus, antequam in 
hanc Senatus noctem incidimus, eadem semper fuit 
populi acerrimorumque estimatorum sententia. 
Nemo igitur, inter viros, vel eruditos, vel disertos, 
inveniri potest, qui diligentius quam Burkius, litte- 
rarum scientiz se dederit—nemo qui philosophiam 
illam matrem omnium bene factorum, beneque dic- 
torum, coluerit exquisitius, nemo qui exercitationem 
mentis a studiis, que reconditis in artibus versan- 
tur, facilius transtulerit ad causas populares—nemo 


* Brutus, p. 143. + Ib, p. 140, t Ib. p. 149. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 99 


qui rerum, et veterum et recentiorum memoriam 
vel arctius vel copiosius tenuerit—nemo qui delec- 
tandi gratia jucundius sit a proposito parumper 
egressus, et a severitate ad risum lenius deduxerit 
animos audientium—nemo qui ad fletum eosdem, 51 
res postularet, atque ad misericordiam vehementius 
deflexerit—nemo denique qui aut omni lepore et 
urbanitate conditior fuerit, aut magnificentia et 
splendore elatior. Heec cui contingant, eum iterum 
ac szpius dixerim Attice loqui, stylumque afferre, 
qui, cum suavitate sensus multitudinis perfundat, 
tum verborum cocinnitate et pondere sententiarum 
mentes doctorum attenteque audientium perfringat. 
Peringeniosis neque satis doctis hominibus ple- 
rumque contingit, ut melius putent se dicere posse 
quam scribere, eaque de causa satis magnam se cre- 
dant adeptos esse gloriam, etiamsi, quid in eloquentia 
profecerint, in arbitrium docti atque intelligentis ex- 
istimatoris nunquam venerit. Magno etiam plausu 
seepe excipiuntur orationes, que pervulgate mox, 
et in manibus jactate et excusse frigent, atque, ut 
ita dicam, flaccescunt. Chatamus erat ille quidem 
fortis vir, animosusque et metuendus Orator, et ve- 
rissimis politic’ hominis laudibus exornatus: sed 
dicendi lenociniis opinionem faciebat majorem, 
quam quanta in eo erat facultas.* Eadem sane illi, 
que Cromwellio, ἀγχίνοια erat, ut pene ipsa oculo- 
rum contentione et conjectu perspiceret, quid il, 
quibus persuadere aliquid vellet, aut cogitarent, aut 
sentirent, aut opinarentur, aut expectarent, aut exti- 


* Brutus, p. 149. 
a 2 


100 PREFATIO 


mescerent. Cum hac autem facultate sagaciter per- 
vestigandi consilia hominum intimosque sensus, alia 
quedam conjuncta sunt, que Cromwellio, quem ac- 
cepimus, cum in senatu diceret, tardum in cogitando 
et instruendo dissipatum fuisse, minus contigerunt. 
Etenim in Chatamo inerat jam tum, cum ad dicen- 
dum ἀνόρουσε, praeproperum et fervidum ingenium, 
verborumque cursus quidam concitatior, et interdum 
sonitus, quo complete adversariorum aures obsur- 
duerunt. Ipso in homine quoque naturalem quan- 
dam auctoritatem fuisse memini, que et Orationi 
audientiam faceret, et Oratori fidem maximam con- 
ciliaret, et ab auditorum animis victis atque expug- 
natis, quas vellet sententias, extorqueret. tsi ad 
docendum videtur, atque ad delectandum minus pa- 
ratus fuisse, erat tamen lateribus pugnans, conci- 
tans ~~ animos, sese jactans atque ostentans, vehe- 
mens, stomachosus, victoria denique ipsa ferocior 
impotentiorque. Spe erat in laudando gravis, 
sepius in vituperando acer et acerbus, in altercando 
idem cum aculeo aliquo et maledicto nonnunquam 
facetus. At remove ista augustiora, que in nomine 
pene ipso Chatami continentur—tolle illud quod 
Demostheni videbatur in Oratore esse primum, se- 
cundum,t tertium, et quidem in Chatamo ad 
laudem, atque admirationem consequendam emine- 
bat singulare, et prope incredibile—tolle dignitatem 
formee—tolle vocis splendorem et magnitudinem— 
tolle corporis istos motus plenissimos semper artis, 
et interdum molestos, et ad Scenam potius quam 


* Tliad, i, 248. + Brutus, p. 148. ¢ Orat, p. 158. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 101 


ad Senatum institutos—ne, in orationibus illis ipsis, 
quibus nihil unquam perfectius exstitisse, auditores 
aiebant, vix quidquam invenies, vel quod aurium 
sensum feriat suaviterve afficiat, vel quod ad intel- 
ligentium judicium argute et distincte expositum 
sit, vel denique quod lente et fastidiose zequus lector 
probaverit, aut poscere semel inspectum velit. 
Chatami fateor tantam animi* magnitudimem 
fuisse, ut sibi omnia, que clarissimorum civium es- 
sent, vindicaret, et summa dignitate obtineret. Ad 
hance egregiam et preclaram virtutis indolem, ac- 
cessit quadam ad amplitudinem et gloriam et ad res 
magnas bene gerendas, divinitus adjuncta fortuna. 
De munere porro quod sibi mandatum esset, ita 
magno “et elato animo, Scipionis ¢ instar, in Se- 
natu disseruit, ut ardorem eum, qui resederat, exci- 
taret rursus novaretque: et impleret homines cer- 
tioris spel, quam quantam fides promissi humani, 
aut ratio ex fiducia rerum subjicere” vel “ solet,” vel 
in alio quopiam debuisset. At vero gravissime ii 
falluntur, a quibus Chatamus existimatur, non modo 
cum primis eloquens, sed tanquam germanus quidam 
Demosthenes. Erat ille Graecus ab omni laude fe- 
licior; nam eo, cum nunquam gravior quisquam 
exstitit, tum neque callidior neque temperantior.{ 
Qui autem in hoc solo se exercet, ut preeceps ar- 
densque et grandiloquus sit ; qui nihil solet leniter, 
nihil explicate, nihil definite dicere, is stomacho 
plus dare quam consilio videtur, et prope abesse a 


* Brutus, p. 151. + Orat. pro Leg. Man. p. 313. 
t Liv. lib, xxvi, c. 19. § Orat. p. 156. 


102 PRAEFATIO 


quadam orationis insania. Chatamus quicquid ha- 
buit, quantum fuit, illud fere totum habuit vel ana- 
tura, vel ab usu. Quamobrem, etsi volubilis atque 
incitatus in dicendo fuit, idem illi accidit, quod et 
Galbz * acciderat, ut, cujus in verbis mens arden- 
tior spirasset, ejus in scriptis omnis illa vis, et quasi 
flamma Oratoris extingueretur. 

Jam vero in Burkio, ut ad illud, quod in dicendo 
summum esset, excurrere atque evolare videretur,} 
domesticus etiam labor ad Senatorium accessit. 
Quibus regionibus vite spatium est circumscriptum, 
lisdem eloquentize suze commemorationem Burkius 
terminari noluit. Posterorum qui et sine odio, et 
sine gratia judicabunt, gravissimam illam de ingenio 
suo sententiam Burkius nequaquam aut extimuit, 
aut certe defugit. 

Permultos esse scio, qui, cum stylum esse videant 
optimum dicendi effectorem et magistrum, maxima 
concinnitate, maximaque arte inter scribendum trac- 
tent omnia, iidemque ex umbraculis doctorum ho- 
minum in solem traducti, non modo preclare ab 
ipsis cogitata eloqui nequeant, sed inopes et prope 
hebetes videantur. Burkius autem, etsi persuasum 
habuit nihil magis ad loquendum proficere quam 
scriptionem, armis tamen est pariter ac palestra in- 
stitutus.{ Quem vero non ingenii solum vis, sed 
etiam naturalis quidam impetus in dicendo inflam- 
mavit, eundem, cum otiosus stylum prehenderet, 
motus ille animi ardorque nunquam defecit. Que 
cum ita sint, quod de historia, quam ipse summo 


* Brut. p. 141. ¢ Id. p. 151. 1 Id. p. 138. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 103 


labore confecisset, Thucydides* preedicavit, illud 
ipsum de orationibus suis merito Burkius predica- 
verit—xrfje. ἐς ἀεὶ μάλλον ἤ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆ- 
μα ἀκούειν σύγκεισθαι. 

Hominum hic mos est, ut nolint eundem pluri- 
mis rebus excellere. Opera autem que Burkius 
edidit, varia et in suo queque genere egregia, quis 
non legit summo cum fructu summaque voluptate ? 
Verum de Oratore, qualis et quantus sit, jam non 
querimus, sed de Critico, ac Philosopho. 

Critice artis scientiam, ab aliis illam quidem ex- 
ceptam, sed auctam per sese, plurimis et illustriori- 
bus litteris Burkius explicavit ; atque hac quidem 
in parte stylus est illius limatus facetusque, neque 
tamen nimia religione attenuatus. Jam quis ignorat 
Philosophorum sermonem plerumque contractiorem 
esse atque horridiorem, quam trite hominum aures 
patiantur? At grave illud virus sordesque, ut ita di- 
cam, orationis, Burkius sua elegantia et munditia 
omnino pepulit, et rebus, que spinosiora omnia et 
exiliora quondam pepererant, iis nunc demum ac- 
commodavit fusius quoddam, et uberius, et splendi- 
dius explicandi genus. Qui autem tot przeclara ipse 
scripsit, alios etiam, quemadmodum bene et ornate 
scribere possent, cum praeceptis,tum exemplo docuit. 
Etenim sive orationes verbis sonantibus et exquisi- 
tis sententiis plenissimas concinnat, sive judicium 
illud suum acre et subtile ad artes componendas 
transfert, scripta sunt ejus omnino omnia hujus- 


* Thucyd, p. 18, edit. Duker. 


104 PR-EFATIO 


modi, ut legentium ingenia non solum acuere pos- 
sint, verum etiam alere, atque informare. 

In quo autem homine, cum illa, qua jucunda et 
grata, tum etiam illa, que mirabilia sunt in virtute, 
elucent, ejus de moribus hoc solum dicere necesse 
habeo, semper innocentiam Burkii et integritatem 
singularem fuisse, vitaque rationem justissime ab 
aliis reposcere eum, qui reddere non reformidet sue. 

Intelligo quam in lubrico et difficili loco verser : 
neque enim defuturos esse arbitror, qui clamitent 
nos nostris verbis nimis hac magna facere, quibus 
videamur etiam nimio quodam Burkii studio atque 
amore abripi, qui denique non erubescant conqueri, 
nos ea, que in Burkio prorsus non sint, impensius 
et verbosius collaudare. Atqui possunt de eo dici 
longe plura, et longe majora. Hec etiam ipsa que 
a me vere dicta sunt, vellem quispiam alius vel ube- 
rius dixisset, vel pro rei magnitudine ornatius. Illud 
tamen considerate et constanter dico de iis, qui si- 
mul distincte et ornate dicendo, periteque scribendo 
scienterque, magni sunt aut fuerunt, neminem esse, 
qui vel ob ingenium, vel ob doctrinam, vel ob bene- 
volentiam, vel ob pietatem, vel ob ullas viri sapientis 
et boni virtutes, Burkio anteponi debeat. 

De uno eorum hominum, quorum est multis mag- 
nisque rebus spectata virtus, esto hoc non magis 
benevolentiz mez, quam judicii testimonium sim- 
plex ac sincerum. 

Meliore in omnia mente et ingenio, quam for- 
tuna, alter est usus ; neque in omni ejus vita aliquid 
est ad laudem illustrius, quam quod gravissima ca- 


π᾿ ὦ “» χα, νυ μεσ μων. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 105 


lamitate non fractus est, summamque in rebus aspe- 
ris retinuit dignitatem. 

Atqui verissimum est illud quod a Cicerone dici- 
tur,* minimis sepe momentis, maximas inclina- 
tiones temporum fieri, cum in omni casu reipublice, 
tum in bello, et maxime civili, quod opinione ple- 
rumque et fama gubernatur. 

Habet Northius a natura plurimum acuminis, 
quod etiam arte limavit. Habet cum gravitate mis- 
tos sales, tum facetos, qui in narrando aliquid ve- 
nuste versantur, tum dicaces, quorum, in jaciendo 
mittendoque ridiculo, vis omnis perspecta est. Me- 
moriam etiam habet, que commemoratione anti- 
quitatis et exemplorum prolatione valet maxime. 
Per id scitum est quoque in orationibus ejus, quod 
ineptias hominum et stultitias patientia perquam 
amabili devorandas esse statuit, ita tamen ut tristi- 
tiam quorundam, et acerbitatem mirifica urbanitate 
seepe perstringat. 

Verbis utitur non illis quidem ornatis, sed tamen 
non abjectis. Rem quamque videt acute, diligen- 
terque et enodate explicat. Inter ceteras ejus lau- 
des hee certe non minima est, eum non solim, 
quod} opus sit, dicere, sed etiam quod non opus 
sit, non dicere: omnibus in rebus* sentire quid 
sit satis: ὃ malle desinere ne tedium creet, quam 
nimium loquendo deficere. Civilis autem scien- 
{185 ratio sic Northio suppetit, ut ei vix ullam de- 
esse virtutem viri politici existimem. His ad di- 


* Phil. 5. pag. 154. + Cic. Orator. pag. 169. 
1 De Orator. |. ii. pag. 119. § Quintil, Jib. xii. cap. 11. 


106 PREFATIO 


cendum instrumentis, que vel ab ingenio vel ab 
industria profecta sunt, summus accedit et prope 
singularis amor in patriam, cujus morem discipli- 
namque optime intelligit, et constantissime, quoties 
veniunt in disceptationem, defendit. 

Animus hominis et mores quales sint, si queris,* 
civis fuit jam tum, cum haberet fame suze parem, 
summa in dignitate modestissimus. Amicitiarum 
est apprime tenax: in offensis idem exorabilis: 
in reconcilianda gratia fidelissimus: potentia sua 
ad impotentiam usus nunquam: omnium denique 
vitiorum pene expers, nisi numeretur inter maxima, 
bellum Americanum spe lentius gessisse. Atqui 
bellum illud aliorum consiliis antea commotum et 
affectum, egre ipsum et gravate suscepisse ferunt, 
cum ad arma uncta cruoribus nondum expiatis, ad 
arma eum cessantem, et Rex, et Senatus, et Populus 
certatim concitarent. 

Cause eorum, qui in honorum contentione ver- 
santur, sepe possunt videri prope pares. Szpe inter 
clarorum ac potentium virorum odia et discordias, 
aliquid est in utraque parte, quod boni cives proba- 
verint. Sed cum rerum ipsarum incerti sint exi- 
tus, earumque fontes in profundo abditi, nihil me 
videre fateor, quod illas leniores private vite et sua- 
viores virtutes jure impediat—nihil, quod in officiis 
grati animi fungendis, anceps vel lubricum sit—nihil, 
quod debeat beneficiorum in quempiam collatorum, 
presertim nulla unquam injuria interposita, memo- 
riam penitus delere. Ecquidnam igitur, magis ut 


* Vel. Pater. lib. ii. cap. 29. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 107 


vellem, accidere potuit, quam quod ea, que de 
Northii proditoribus* dixi, minus sunt probata? 
Equidem non magnopere studeo, quo hominibus 
placere possim, quorum precordia, bene novi, inter 
legendum tacita culpa sudaverint. At mea in se 
moderatio et modestia, que et quanta sit, nunc de- 
mum a me ipso intelligant licebit. 

Qui inter academiz spatia et sylvas, quid verum 
et decens sit, querere se profitentur, pacis, otii, 
tranquillitatis studiosi volunt videri ; neque hanc 
ego laudem detrahere ausim multis et bonis, quos 
doctrine magis quam divitiarum cupidos esse, et in 
spernendis honoribus quam captandis fortiores cog- 
noverim. Sed in subita illa, que in Northium eru- 
perat, calamitate, serpsit mali contagio, et pene dix- 
erim, invasit in hasce amcenas Musarum sedes, in 
hoc bonarum artium domicilium et quasi sacrarium, 
in hunc ipsum bonorum morum prope portum et 
perfugium. 

Alii clam quidem mussitantes, vulgo tamen aie- 
bant, indignum esse facinus, quod Northius diceret, 
se, quo temporibus reipublice et communi civium 
saluti inserviret, odium, quod inter se et Foxium ex- 
stitisset, ex animo velle deponere—alii contra gratiam 
ejus et dignitatem cecas insidias tendebant—alii in 
ejusdem famam immanibus atque importunis con- 
viciis invehebantur. At cujus viri? nempe ejus, 
quem satis comiter et benigne salutaverant, τὸν οὐ 
πρὸ πολλοῦ σωτῆρα καὶ εὐεργέτην αὐτῶν γεγενημένον.’ 
Quamobrem, teterrima horum facinora cum recor- 


* Vid. Dedicat. ad Dom. North. ¢ Lucian, in Timone. 


108 PRAEFATIO 


dabar, sepe meum animum gravis atque acerbus 
angebat dolor; spe illa incendebat liberrima indig- 
natio, qua conficere potui, et fortasse debui, ut non 
solum in rem ipsam magna offensio, verum etiam 
odium in quosdam homines concitaretur, sane jus- 
tum et debitum, omnium bonorum. 

Vereor ne, hec qui non viderint, omnia me nimis 
augere arbitrentur: que tamen ita esse, ut a me 
dicta sunt, liquido ipse non tam auritus quam ocu- 
latus testis confirmare ausim. Verum enimvero 
cum hisce desertoribus domini et regis sui, quam 
quidem potero leniter et remisse, agam. Quam 
magna cum libertate notabo rem, ea, quorsum perti- 
neat, in medio relinquam. Neminem in tanta tam- 
que foeda perfugarum colluvie, neminem, inquam, 
plane et diserte nominabo—quare nemo mecum, 
vel apertas inimicitias, vel obscuras simultates susci- 
pere poterit, “nisi qui ante de se voluerit confiteri.” 

Quod ad Northium attinet, documentum is qui- 
dem grave et luctuosum dedit, quantulum optimis 
viris beneficiorum memoria prosit: quantum nocere 
iisdem possit levis et falsa opinio sceleris excogitati. 
Mentis vero in sanctis recessibus, habet quo se ex 
maximis molestiarum molibus recreet ac reficiat. 
Quoties enim secum reputat, sua ipsius que sit in- 
nocentia, quoties contumelias, quibus laceratus est, 
insignes et acerbas memoria repetit, quoties ad infi- 
dum respicit ingratumque optimatium gregem, quos 
opibus quondam honoribusque ipse auxit atque am- 
plificavit, toties ejus ex pectore Lycurgez ill erum- 
pent voces, ποῖός τις ὑμῖν δοκῶ εἶναι πολίτης, ὃς τοσοῦ- 


ee οὔνσνα 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 109 


Tov χρόνον, τὰ δημόσια πράττων παρ᾽ ὑμῖν, διδοὺς μᾶλ- 
λον ἀδίκως, ἢ λαμβάνων εἴλημμαι." 

Animum habet tertius, cum magnum et excelsum, 
tum etiam simplicem et apertum, eminetque unus 
inter omnes in omni fere genere dicendi. 

Sed quoniam oppressi sumus opinionibus non 
solum vulgi, verum etiam hominum leviter erudito- 
rum; nostrum de stylo ejus judicium, quod tandem 
sit, paulo fusius jam, et accuratius explicabimus. 

Multos vidi oratores, quos in verbis egre per- 
pendendis coagmentandisque, sollicitudo infelix ma- 
ceraret. Foxii autem animus varias in res conti- 
nuas ita intenditur, ut eas tanquam provisas aptissi- 
mez voces haud invite sequantur. Omnia is quidem 
novit verba esse alicubi optima. Itaque, que cul- 
tiore ¢ in parte viderentur sordida et humilia, ea 
nonnunquam in orationibus ejus suam quandam 
vim habent, et locum suum. At sunt in promtu, si 
res poscit, aut magis ornata, aut plus efficientia, aut 
melius et plenius sonantia. Exprimit quamque dif- 
ficiliorem cogitationem quedam ἄλογος τριβὴ, ὃ in- 
terque exprimendum expolit atque amplificat. Vi- 
vunt omnia moventurque. || Spiritu ipso ejus qui 
dicit, excitantur auditores, nec imagine solum et 
ambitu rerum, sed rebus ipsis novis et veluti nas- 
centibus incenduntur. Plurimum igitur sanguinis 
nervorumque ejus in sermone esse, nemo est qui in- 
ficias eat. Aiunt autem nonnulli paulo morosiores 


* Vid. Pref. Taylori ad Lycurg. et loc. laudat. 
t Quint. 1. xii. c. 10. ¢ Quint. 1. x.c. 1. 
Sib. (chi. || Cap. 1. 


110 PRZEFATIO 


abesse * illi, et quidem deesse plane atque omnino, 
stylum nitidum et letum, qui omnes undique flos- 
culos carpat et delibet. Sed meminerint ii, velim, 
judicio illum potius refugisse hasce dicendi delicias 
et ineptias, quam formidine ulla desperasse. Ete- 
nim, que attentum quemque, dum audiuntur, et 
docilem reddunt valide aptissimeque sententiz, 
illis sane ipsis, cum leguntur, suavitas- inest, non 
dulcis et decocta, sed, que a Cicerone merito lau- 
datur, solida et austera. 

Habet Foxius hoc etiam vere admirabile: quod 
salubritatem dictionis Anglican et quasi sanita- 
tem nunquam perdit, ut eos qui in calamistris adhi- 
bendis peregrinam quandam insolentiam consectan- 
tur, simplicitate prorsus inaffectata, et tanquam 
orationis sapore vernaculo obruat. Novit enim, 
qui non dicat quod intelligamus, eundem minus 
posse, quod admiremur, dicere. Novit etiam, que 
maximam utilitatem in se contineant, eadem in ora- 
tione habere plurimum vel dignitatis, vel seepe etiam 
venustatis. 

Jam vero eloquentie fulmina{ intelligit vibrari 
non posse, nisi numeris quibusdam contorqueantur. 
Hac de causa verborum perpetuitate, et conversione 
nonnunquam utitur, ut severos per illa ungues june- 
tura effundat. Sepe orationem carpit membris mi- 
nutioribus, que tamen ipsa rhythmo quodam suo 
vinciuntur. Facile tamen in hac parte deprehendes 
negligentiam quandam haud ingratam, que homi- 


* αἷς, Brut. p. 152. t+ De.Or. 1. iii. p, 129. 
¢ Or, p. 169. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 111 


nem magis de judicii certamine, quam de 1110 aucu- 
pio delectationis laborantem indicet—zoarvs μὲν ὁ 
τόνος, αὐτάρκης δ᾽ ἡ yapis.* Scilicet numeros illos 
minutos nunquam ita sequitur, ut sententias concidat 
delumbetque. Nunquam verba inferciens inania et 
canora, quasi rimas orationis explere studet. Otio- 
sis ornamentis nunquam onerat delassatque aures, 
quarum est superbissimum judicium. Inde fit, ut 
neque diffluens sit aliquid et solutum, neque infrac- 
tum, aut amputatum, aut hians. In conficiendo au- 
tem verborum orbe non aperte omnia, nec eodem 
modo semper, sed varie} dissimulanterque conclu- 
duntur. 

Cum rerum ipsarum usus Foxius percalleat, regi- 
ones{ videtur nosse omnes, intra quas venari quod 
queratur, et pervestigare oporteat.. Qua de re agi- 
tur autem illud, quod Juris-consultorum formulis et 
argutiis Dialecticorum includitur, tum quo valeat, 
tum ubi situm sit, prudentissime videt ; semperque 
de eo ample disserit copioseque, aut distincte atque 
articulatim disputat. Que divulsa et dissipata sunt, 
ea omnia conglutinat, et ratione quadam constringit. 
Si quid involutum paulo-ve insolentius est, notitiam 
ejus aperit, non exiliter et jejune, aut ampullarum 
ope et sesquipedalium verborum, sed dilucide, expe- 
dite, et commune ad judicium popularemque intelli- 
gentiam accommodatissime. 

Si in exordiis auditores primo movet leviter, re- 
liqua illis jam inclinatis graviter incumbit acris et 


* Dion, Hal Judic. Demosth. p. 171. edit. Sylburg. 
+ Bropy 151, +t De Or. 1. ii. p..141. 


112 PR4EFATIO 


contorta Oratio. Ipse porro prolusiones non ad 
speciem illz quidem composite, ut Samnitum,* qui 
hastis ante pugnam vibratis nihil in pugnando ute- 
bantur ; sed ejusmodi sunt, ut ei magno usui esse 
possint, cum ad victoriam acerrime nitatur. Res 
eum si qua premit vehementer, ita cedit, ut non 
modo non abjecto,-- sed ne rejecto quidem scuto, 
fugiat ; suoque in presidio consistens, loci eligendi 
causa ἐ ντροπαλισάσθαι ¢ videatur. Ad refellendos 
autem adversarios tela confert omnia. Digitos 
modo comprimit, et aculeis Dialectices, que tan- 
quam contracta et adstricta eloquentia putanda est, 
pungit homines in disputando perpugnaces: modo 
dilatat manus, et Orationis illius, que amplior mag- 
nificentiorque et splendidior est, omnes habenas ef- 
fundit. Ingenii autem magnitudo ejus omnis fere 
elucet, cum ante occupat } quod opponi posse videat ; 
cum sermones hominum moresque describit ; cum 
exemplis utitur ; cum denuntiat, quid adversarii ca- 
veant ; cum fraudes civium ad perniciem, et inte- 
gritatem ad salutem vocat; cum liberius quid au- 
det ; cum supplicat, optat, execratur. 

Conciliantur vel maxime auditorum animi digni- 
tate hominis, rebus gestis, vite denique existimatione; 
que quidem omnia, licet in adversario Foxii non me- 
liora sint, facilius tamen ornatiusque, finguntur ut 
probus, ut bene moratus, ut bonus vir esse videatur. 
Sed quoquo modo se illud habet, Foxius est orator 
vere civilis, vereque sapiens. Non otiosis se dispu- 


* De Or: ΙΒ ἢ». 110..} | +.P. 119. + Hom, Il.i. 1. 546. 
§ Orat. p. 163. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. ts 


tationibus, sed Reipublice administrationi potissi- 
mum dedidit. Cum prius, quod honestum sit, in 
animo suo efficere constituit, omnibus, ad efficien- 
dum quod proposuerit, nature dotibus, omnibus in- 
strumentis artis, ex obnixe et decenter utitur. Hac 
de causa, quos audienti mihi motus adhibere voluit, 
ii semper in animo Oratoris impressi et inusti esse 
videbantur. 

Dicendi, sicut reliquarum artium, fundamentum 
est sapientia.* Qui autem et a doctrina fuerit libe- 
raliter instructus, et multo jam imbutus usu, ejus 
solet animus illuc rapi, ubi non aliqua seclusa Elo- 
quentie aquula-} tenetur, sed unde universum flu- 
men erumpit. Ad res igitur humiles et tenuiores, 
que vel explanate vel subtiliter tractande. sunt, 
Foxii ingenium nonnunquam summittitur. Decett 
hoc nescio quomodo illum, Arripit, quotiescunque 
vult, medium illud dicendi genus. Gravitatis ad 
locos subito convertitur, ascenditque ad fortiora, et 
pervenit in summum. 

Przceps et rapida ejus Oratio fit interdum, cum, 
idcirco obscura, quia peracuta est, tum, celeritate 
ipsa paululum cecata.§ Sed neque verbis aptio- 
rem cito aliam dixeris, neque sententiis crebriorem. 
Profecto maxima in rerum verborumque varietate, 
unus insidet tota in oratione quasi color quidam, et 
succus suus. Habet ea tamen veluti umbram || ali- 
quam et recessum, quo magis ea que illustriora 
sunt, eminere solent atque exstare. Summa est 


* Or. p. 159. #2 De ΟΣ itp} 111. t Br. p71, 
§ Br. p. 151. || De Or. 1. iii. p. 128. 


VOL, III. I 


114 PREFATIO 


etiam in Foxio, perinde ac Demosthene, laus illa 
quod inter diversas et in omnem partem diffusas 
disputationes, versat* saepe multis modis eandem et 
unam rem: quod heret in ea commoraturque : 
quod inculcat eam mentibus hominum atque infigit 
altissime. 

Monendi sunt 11 quorum de hac re sermo impe- 
ritus nimis increbruit, illud ipsum, quod in Foxio 
reprehendunt, esse artis vel intimz et ingenii haud 
mediocris. Szpe sunt illius sententie, si per se 
spectantur, graves, et exquisite, et ex abdito erute, 
ut videantur e Philosophorum spatiis potius, quam 
e Rhetorum officinis, profluxisse. Szepe in propria 
ac definita disputatione hominum ac temporum ver- 
santur. Sepe ad communem questionem universi 
generis traducuntur. Quo autem capiant te magis 
magisque, modo eas collocat in hoc lumine, modo 
in illo. Nimirum ad sensus voluntatesque diversas 
diversorum hominum inflectendas, orationis vim 
consulto accommodat. Quamobrem variis illam no- 
visque insignibus distinguit ; variis ex inexpectatis 
confirmat argumentis; varios trahit et repentinos 
in usus, ut animos etiam non faventium, aut com- 
motos, in quam velit partem, alliciat, aut concitatos 
secum rapiat. 

Quoniam vere, de Foxio, ceterisque, qui vel 
eum antecesserint etate, vel ei suppares sint, compa- 
ratio quedam et contentio incidere potest, meam 
de ea re opinionem hisce summi Critici verbis to- 
tam complectar. 


* Or. p. 162. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 115 


Τοιαύτην δὴ καταλαβὼν τὴν πολιτικὴν λέξιν, οὕτω 
κεκινημιένην ποικίλως, καὶ τηλικούτοις ἐπεισελθὼν ἀνδρά- 
σιν, ἑνὸς οὐθενὸς ἠξίωσε γενέσθαι ϑηλωτὴς, οὔτε χαρακ- 
τῆρος, οὔτε ἀνδρὸς" ἡμιέργους τινὰς ἅπαντας οἰόμενος 
εἶναι καὶ ἀτελεῖς" ἐξ ἁπάντων δ᾽ αὐτών ὅσα κρατίστα 
καὶ χρησιμώτατα ἦν, ἐκλεγόμιενος, συνύφαινε, καὶ μίαν 
ἐκ πολλών διάλεκτον ἀπετέλει, μεγαλοπρεπῆ, λιτήν" 
περιττὴν, ἀπέριττον" ἐξηλλαγμένην, συνήθη πανηγυρι- 
κὴν, ἀληθινήν. αὐστερὰν, ἵλαράν" σύντονον, ἀνειμένην" 
ἡδεῖαν, πικράν" ἠθικὴν, παθητικήν" οὐδὲν διαλάττουσαν 
τοῦ μεμυθευμένου παρὰ τοῖς ἀρχαίοις ποιηταῖς Πρω- 
τέως. * 

Dixi eam esse Foxio ingenii facultatem, que 
semper causis, in quas inciderit, parem se ostendat. 
Quoties autem ille sunt digne in quibus latius se 
fundat, luminosas ad partes et quasi actuosas acce- 
dens, quicquid in dicendo potest, totum expromit. 
Quod quidem cum facit, veluti amnis monte decur- 
rens saxa devolvit,f et pontem indignatur, et ripas 
se coércentes undique diruit, copia atque impetu 
verborum. Hance utique dicendi vim et celerita- 
tem in Pericle olim mirabatur Eupolis: ad hanc 
obstupescunt auditores, qui Foxio acerbissime con- 
viciantur.t 

Profecto indignissimam viri hujusce ad fortu- 
nam cum respicio, et preteritorum recordatio est 
acerba, et quidem acerbior expectatio reliquorum. 
Maxime is tamen laudandus est, qui in hoc com- 
muni civium integerrimorum et prope fatali malo 


* Dion. Hal. Judic. de Demosth. p. 267. 
ft Quint. lib. xii, c. 10. { Ibid. 


12 


116 PRAFATIO 


consoletur se, cum conscientia mentis optime, tum, 
sanioris illius, quod de se posteritas latura sit, ju- 
dicii expectatione. 

Nunc de iis dicendum* est, que mihi conspira- 
tione quadam vulgi reclamari, intelligo. Qui enim 
reliquis in hominibus mites sunt, et cupiditates, 
quas Natura juvenibus profudit, faciles et tolerabi- 
les habere solent; in hac fuerunt causa pertristes 
quidam patrui, censores, magistri. 

Hi sunt eorum assidui et quotidiani sermones. 
“Si qui voluptatibus ducuntur, et se vitiorum ille- 
cebris dediderunt,} missos faciant honores: ne at- 
tingant rempublicam.” 

Quid igitur agam? quippe magna responsi invi- 
dia subeunda est, neque mitigari possunt legentium 
aures. Veniam igitur petere non ausim{—per- 
fugiis non utar juventutis aut temporum. Fatebor 
sane Foxium, cum in lubricas adolescentize vias in- 
grederetur, stuperetque jam in solitis et insanis ful- 
goribus, tanto mentis robore non fuisse, ut ei aqua- 
lium studia, ludique, et convivia displicuerint. Eru- 
pisse in eo fatebor, illum impetum animi ardorem- 
que, qui, sive ad literas humaniores, sive ad pruden- 
tiam civilem, sive ad luxuriam amoresque inclinaret, 
id unum ageret,{ id toto pectore arriperet, id uni- 
versum hauriret. Fatebor a vera illa et directa 
ratione non gradu eum aliquo, sed precipiti cursu 
descivisse : ut patrimonium effuderit, ut fenore tru- 
cidatus sit, et naturale quoddam stirpis bonum de- 


* Quint. ]. xii. c. 1. + Orat. pro Sext. p. 439. 
+ Or. pro Cel. par..5. § Dial. de Or. par. 28. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 117 


generaverit vitio etatis. At he delicize que vocan- 
tur, etsi ad illas heserit, nunquam eum occupatum 
impeditumque tenuerunt diu. At facultate jam 
florens, et studiis eloquentiz per intervalla flagrans, 
cum blandimentis hisce conjunxit plurimum digni- 
tatis. At scelere semper caruit. At in* Luxum 
se precipitavit eum, qui a Tacito dicitur eruditus, 
itemque a Cicerone habetur homine ingenuo et 
libero-+ dignior. At revocavit se identidem ad cu- 
ram reipublice. Att Petronii instar, vigentem se 
ostendit, et negotiis parem; effecitque, perinde ac} 
Mutianus, ut, in quo nimiz essent, cum vacaret, 
voluptates, in eo, quoties expediret, magnz eluce- 
rent virtutes. At vixit, hodieque idem vivit, ami- 
cis carus. At dulcissimus illis semper occurrit, ed 
quod zequalitas et pares honorum gradus, et studio- 
rum quasi finitima vicinitas, tantum absunt ab in- 
vidiz obtrectatione, ut non modo non exulcerare 
eorum gratiam, sed conciliare videantur. At dig- 
nus est quem numeres inter multos et quidem bo- 
nos, qui, cum adolescentiam fere totam voluptati- 
bus dedidissent, emerserint aliquando, probique ho- 
mines et illustres exstiterint. 

Dum in procuratione publicorum negotiorum 
versabatur, consilia sua omnia ita diligenter et ani- 
mose instituit, ita fuit ad excogitandum quid e 
Republica esset, solers acerque, ita in muneribus, 
quze susceperat, explendis alacer et promtus, ut ne 


* Tacit. Annal, xvi. cap. 18. ¢ Orat. in L. Pis. par. 11. 
1 Tacit. Annal. xvi. cap. 18. § Hist. 1. cap. 10. 


118 PRZEFATIO 


emulis quidem aut adversariis pernegantibus, osten- 
derit sese 


> 


Μύθων τε ῥητῆρ᾽ ἔμεναι, πρηκτῆρα τε ἔργων. * 


Redite mecum, lectores in memoriam rerum, 
quas nuper vidimus, miserrimarum. 

Cum jam prope esset, ut optabilem ex iniquis- 
sima fortunam haberemus, eruperunt subito, qui 
occasione-~ quam virtute honores petere malebant. 
Fieri autem non potuit inter motus istos animorum, 
quin obmutescerent cives boni, et quasi repentina 
popularique tempestate perculsi ac prostrati tan- 
tum non obtorpescerent. Quicquid enim est dic- 
tum in eam sententiam, que tunc temporis populo 
deliranti perplacuit, ab eo licebat nemini, ne digi- 
tum quidem transversum, discedere. At vero, cum 
a strepitu illo tumultuque aures nostre paululum 
conquieverint, quid tandem cause est, cur, de Re- 
publica quid sentiamus, taciturnitate celemus diu- 
turniore? Pudet, mehercule, pigetque nos referre, 
qualis fuerit “ civium ardor prava jubentium,” qui tres 
illos viros de gradu et statu suo deturbarit indignis 
modis, effeceritque, ut salutis suz civitas perderet 
tot presidia, atque ornamenta dignitatis. Animus 
etiam nunc horret meminisse, ut Respublica, sive 
ad capessendum, sive ad arripiendum, tota sit per- 
missa Oratoribus, non de ccelo illis quidem repente 
delapsis, sed “stultis, novis, adolescentulis ;” t et 
in arcem optim cause catervatim invadentibus. 


* Hom. Iliad, ix. 443. + Liv. lib. vi. cap, 41. 
t Nevius in Cic. de Senectute, p. 533. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 119 


Enimvero, quod in cives integerrimos prudentissi- 
mosque Senatores tam effrenate seviit ignobile et 
malignum vulgus, illud, et posteris, necesse est, et 
inimicis debeat ludibrium. 

Qui ad rerum gubernacula, quo jure, quave inju- 
ria, nune assident, gloriolam 11, per nos licet, aucu- 
pentur caducam et inanem. Ingenio isto suo, qua- 
lecunque sit, gaudeant perfruanturque; 5101 plau- 
dant mirifice; et κάλλος illud suum κακῶν ἢ ὕπουλον 
dictis phaleratis ostentent. Atqui omnibus qui 
libero et ingenuo fastidio judicant, videntur ad ho- 
nores adipiscendos nudi venisse atque inermes, 
nulla cognitione rerum, nulla scientia ornati.- 

In rebus fere omnibus que optimo cuique pudo- 
rem incutiunt, habet profecto eorum causa quos- 
dam colores, quibus possint imperitioribus fucum 
facere. Haudtemere est igitur, quod sese tempesti- 
vis conviviis caute subducunt, et νηφαλίοις θεοῖς 
quam Baccho malunt litare, siquidem memorize 
proditum est, et Demosthenem πρὸς ὕδωρ γράψαι, 
et Cesarem ad Rempublicam evertendam accessisse 
sobrium.§ Quod leges figunt refiguntque, populo 
plaudente, idcirco videntur properare ad exemplar 
illius Oratoris, qui cum interrogatus esset πώς 6 
βυϑαντίων ἔχοι νόμος, nulla usus circuitione verbo- 
rum, respondit, ws ἐγὼ θέλω. Si flosculis senten- 
tiarum, verborumque lenociniis, et vitiosa sui jacta- 
tione vulgus captant, eodem plane, quo M. Cicero, 


* Sophoc, (Εα, Tyr. 1409. + De Orat, 1. iii. p. 130. 
t Lucian. Dem. Enc. par. 15. edit. Reitz. 

§ Sueton. lib. 1. par. 53. ἃ Quintil. lib, viii. cap. 2. 

|| Sext. Empir, advers, Math. p. 71. 


120 PR/EFATIO 


animi morbo laborant, Si, contortulas per questi- 
unculas et sophismata aculeata, quantum profece- 
rint in Dialectica, ostendunt, credibile est illos pro- 
diisse e familia Socraticorum, quibus id palmarium 


fuerit 


τὸν ἥττονα 
Νικᾶν λόγον λέγοντα τἀδικώτατα. * 

Si recentibus preeceptorum studiis flagrantes, si- 
mulant se mores induisse paulo asperiores, quam in 
Juvenibus ipsa Natura patiatur, ecquis perneget eos 
meminisse Platonici illius praecepti τὰ σοφρόνων aip- 
χόντων ἤθη δριμύτητος, καὶ τινὸς ἰταμότητος ὀξείας καὶ 
πρακτικῆς ἐνδεῖσθαι "“ Ipsi cum novi sint homines, 
si novis rebus student, ac recentia queque, insignia 
ore adhuc alio indicta effutiunt, illud ipsum “ Atti- 
cos { inquilinos” apprime decet; Atticique illius 
νεωτερίσμου proprium redolet saporem. Sibi si vi- 
dentur posse omnia, remque populi tractant tumul- 
tuose, et magno cum conatu magnas nugas agunt, 
vulgi in opinionibus probe sciunt perfugium esse, 
quo se recipiant. Néw μὲν γὰρ ἴσως ἐπέοικε καθ᾽ 
Ὅμηρον πάντα" καὶ ἔχονται καὶ ἀγαπῶσι, τὰ μὲν μικρὰ 
καὶ πολλὰ πράξαντα, δημοτικὸν καὶ φιλόπονον, τὰ δὲ 
λαμπρὰ καὶ σεμνὰ γενναῖον καὶ μεγαλόφρονα καλοῦντες" 
ἔστι δ᾽ ὅπου καὶ τὸ φιλόνεικον καὶ παράβολον, ὥραν ἔχει 
τινὰ καὶ χάριν ἐπιπρέπουσαν τοῖς ὃ τηλικούτοις. Quid 
quod negotia que susceperint ad defendendum mi- 
nus apta, “rebus extrinsecus adductis,” cujusmodi 


* Aristoph. Nub. 914. t Stobceus, p. 319. 
t Aristot. Rhet. lib. ii. cap. 17. h 
§ Plutarch, tom, ii, p, 793. edit. Xyl. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 121 


sunt Bellum Americanum et Coilitio que dicitur, 
“ circumliniunt 2?” “ac si defecerint alia, conviciis 
implent vacua causarum, si contingit, veris; si mi- 
nus, fictis: modo sit materia ingenii, interque au- 
diendum excitent clamores ?’* Hanc ipsam male- 
dicendi sartaginem, hunc nigre succum loliginis et 
zruginem meram, hanc-+ caninam, uti Appius ait, 
Eloquentiam, sunt qui verbis decoris obvolvant, et 
in partes suas collo obtorto trahant Pindari hec 
verba, 


Χρὴ πᾶν ép- 
δοντ᾽ ἀμαυρῶσαι τὸν ἐχθρόν. ἢ 

Ad plebeculam quod attinet, liceat οἱ, cum levis 
sit atque infida, homunciones sui simillimos in sinu 
fovere. Est utique τοῖς πολλοῖς persuasissimum, 
multis jactatam gravissimisque tempestatibus navem 
reipublice, tandem aliquando in tuto esse colloca- 
tam. Res credunt suas nunc demum omnes leni 
fluere et secundo cursu. Vota etiam, que, haud 
8010, an a numinibus exaudita sint malignis, ea jac- 
titant esse ad felices exitus omnino omnia perducta. 

Hujusmodi sane rumusculi nostras szepe ad aures 
pervenerunt. Ἡμεῖς δὲ τοι οὐ ταχυπειβεῖς. Quin usu 
venit nobis, qui rerum ipsarum momenta pondera- 
mus, in alia omnia ire. At enim uno ore omnes 
omnia bona de Palinuro nostro certatim dicunt! 
Id se ut habet, equidem haud crediderim, aut 
rerum prudentiam,{ aut eloquentiam, que solida et 
robusta sit, ante pilos venire. Nec vero Reipub- 


* Quintilian, lib. xii, c. 2. t Ibid. cap. 3. 
{ Pind. Isth. 4. § Persil. Sat, 4. 


. 122 PRAFATIO 


lice is mihi gerende patiens peritusque esse vide- 
tur, qui mellitis verborum globulis, tinnituque pe- 
riodorum, et manus intra pallium non contente * 
ipsa majestate, multitudini fecerit silentium. Sed ni- 
mirum majus est quiddam quam vulgo opinantur, 
reipublicze procurande ratio. Non istam inanem 
sine usu loquacitatem, non cantilenam ex scholis, 
non orationis cincinnos et fucos illa quidem pro- 
fecto desiderat. Non assiduitatis est mere, et ope- 
rarum harum quotidianarum. Contra ea plurimis 
ex artibus et studiis, quae veluti comites ministrique 
oratoris sunt, multis consiliis multaque exercitatione 
colligi debebit. 

Magnum, si quod aliud, ejus qui republice preest, 
nomen videtur, magna species, magna dignitas, ut 
angustize pectoris juvenilis, rerumque insolentia ci- 
vilium non sustinere possint tantam personam, tam 
gravem, tam severam.{ Liceat plane Pindaro, qui 
in Ψέυδεσι ποικίλοις versatus sit, de Damophilo com- 
posite ornateque dicere, 


K ~ a, 2 \ a . 
ζεῖνος γαρ᾽ ἐν παισὶ νέος 
Ἔν δὲ βουλαῖς πρέσβυς, ἐγκύρ- 


σας ἑκατονταετεῖ βιοτᾶ. t 


Fuit autem, ut opinio mea fert, etiam a Tiberio,§ 
illud quidem certe cautum preclare, “ut ne quis 
adolescentium animos przmaturis honoribus ad su- 
perbiam attolleret.” Etenim vix aut ne vix quidem 
reperiendus est, qui ineunte ztate docuerit, “ ab ex- 


* Quintil. lib. xii, cap. 10. + Orat. in Pis. par. 5. ed. Delph. 
+ Pyth. iv. 501. § Tacit. Annal. iv, par. 17. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 123 


cellenti eximiaque * virtute progressum etatis ex- 
pectari non opportere.” Profecto et potest et solet 
cursus militaris virtutis esse celerrimus. Inde factum 
est, ut res maximas gereret Macedo ille Alexander, 
utque populi Romani imperium augerent superior 
Africanus Ὑ et Titus Flamininus, admodum adoles- 
centes consules creati. At diversa est ratio eorum, 
qui pacatis in Temporibus ad Republicam equo 
citius accesserunt. Vim illi omnem ingenii ple- 
rumque consumserunt in popularit levitate. Po- 
tentiam inutilem, dominandique lubricam et pre- 
cipitem cupiditatem vere solideque gloriz ante- 
posuerunt. Ac mihi quidem videntur frustra ar- 
gutari, qui rationibus hisce famam Luculli oppo- 
nunt. Viro illi egregio contigisse fateor incredibi- 
lem quandam ingenii magnitudinem, que indocilem 
usus disciplinam non desideraret, et omnium opini- 
onem que de ejus virtute fuisset, bellica laude vin- 
ceret. At vero idem ille adolescentiam ᾧ in forensi 
opere et Questure diuturnum tempus in Asiz pace 
consumserat. Ad Consulatum non accessit, ante- 
quam et Questor et Atdilis et Praetor factus fuerat. 
Habuisse fertur divinam quandam rerum memo- 
riam, in qua insculptum hereret, quodcunque vel 
audiisset vel vidisset. Omni litterarum generi et 
Philosophie deditus erat. Secum assidue habebat 
Antiochum, qui ingenio scientiaque putabatur Phi- 
losophos fere omnes prestare. Atque harum rerum 
omnium ad laudem maximé antecellentium, vix 
unam esse puto, que in τὸν δεῖνα conveniat. 


* Cic. Philipp. v. p. 515. + Ibid. 
+ Phil. 'v. p. 510: § Ciceron. Academ, lib. iv. sub, init. 


124 PRAEFATIO 


Atticum* ferunt suscepti negotii nunquam perte- 
sum esse: quod quidem ὁ δεῖνα minime admirabile 
statuit esse in eo, qui Reipublice procurationein ju- 
dicio fugisset. Aliam ipse viam ad laudem primus 
invenit. Aliam, suo Marte, invexit regende civitatis 
rationem. Quippe profundo ipse se de industria 
mersat, ut pulchrior evenisse videatur. Opes ducit 
animumque ex hoc ipso, quod magnis atque imma- 
nibus ausis iterum sepiusque excidit. Quinetiam 
vincendi cum nec spes sibi ulla nec facultas sit, cer- 
tamen, dedita opera, sibi cum hominibus disertissi- 
mis instituit, ut fallendo effugiendoque de iis trium- 
phos agat. Qui autem lucro sibi apponendum putat, 
quod conatus sui vel irriti cesserint sua sponte, vel 
ab adversariis infracti sint et contusi, ti ἄν ἐποίει, 
ἢ τίνας ἀν εἴπε λόγους, εἰ συνέβη κατορθῶσαι αὑτῷ 
ἃ πολιτεύεσθαι ἐβούλετο. 

Qui splendida ejus de se promissa exaudiunt, 
eundemque vident negotiis tot tantisque implicitum 
et constrictum, jure optimo possunt exclamare. 
Μητίοχος μὲν στρατηγεῖ, Μητιόχος δὲ τὰς ὁδοὺς, My- 
τιόχος δὲ ἄρτους ἐποπτᾶ, Μητιόχος δὲ τὰ ἄλφιτα, Μη- 
τιόχος δὲ πάντα ποιεῖται. Sin autem aliorum expec- 
tationem fefellerint consilia, qu sane ab ipso sus- 
cepta esse videantur, non tam perficiendi spe quam 
experiendi voluntate: si gravior aliqua facta fuerit 
ex Improviso, temporum perturbatio: si bellum ali- 


* Corn. Nep. vit. Att. cap. 15. 

+ Dinarch. Orat. contra Demoth. 

t Plutarch. tom. iv. p. 811. edit. Xyl. et Grotii excerpt. 
Trag. et Com, Gr, p. 917. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 125 


quando exarserit, tum demum ille pertristes vulgi 
ore increbrescent voces, Μητιόχος δὲ οἰμωξεται. * 
Qui sibi videntur multum in posterum prospi- 

cere, et ex usu rerum maximarum, potius quam ex 
conjectura, argumenta sua instituunt, consilia τοῦ 
δεῖνα, quantum ad speciem, et colorem civitatis ad- 
junxissent, tantum a succo ejus et sanguine detrax- 
isse arbitrantur. Atqui compertum ille habet se 
in campum descendisse, in quo vel ingenium, vel 
fiducia sui excurreret et cognosceretur. Alii inte- 
rea, possint, necne, vel principium eorum, que ipse 
proposuerit, invenire, vel exitum evolvere, de ea 
quidem re non magnopere laborat. Rerum quippe 
ipsarum, cum magnitudinem, tum multo magis ip- 
sam novitatem, eo valere intelligit, ut animos ho- 
minum vehementer percellant, et ad causas, que in 
paucorum voluntatibus abdite et retruse sint, mag- 
na cum inanitate et errore explorandas incitent. ἡ 

᾽Επὶ τὸ καινουργεῖν φέρει 

Τὸν νοῦν ἐκεῖνος, τοῦτο γιγνώσκων ὅτι 

Ἔν καινὸν ἐγχείρημα; κἂν τολμηρὸν ἦ 

Πολλῶν παλαιῶν ἐστὶ χρησιμώτερον. 


Nobis sane videntur homines Politici eque ac 
Philosophi, non singulis ex vocibus judicandi, sed 
ex rerum perpetuitate} et constantia. Itaque que 
vel gesta a τῷ δεῖνα, vel tentata maxime laudantur, 
ea breviter summatimque perstringamus. 

Hibernicis in rebus quas trahere ad arbitrium 
malebat, quam lenibus ducere imperiis aut lenibus 


* Tbid. + Antiphanes in Alcestide. 
~ Cic, Tuse. Quest. lib. v. cap. 10. 


126 PRAEFATIO 


consiliis sequi, persepe ab illo offensum et tituba- 
tum est. 

Senatus non corrigendi modo, sed nova tanquam 
incude diffingendi causa, omnes effudit vires animi 
et ingenii sui: omnes in hac re una nervos inten- 
dit. Sed vicit, nescio quomodo, pars major eam, 
que ἃ τῷ δεῖνα: melior vocabatur. Quo quidem 
facto, refrixit in mente τοῦ δεῖνα omnis 1116 ardor, 
diligentia omnis relanguit, et spes omnis sanandze 
civitatis extenuari jam visa est ac penitus infringi. 
Hinc illud est, quod ii qui specie libertatis insani- 
unt, de verbis sibi datis conqueruntur, atque adeo 
patronum, in quem causa omnis inclinata recumbe- 
bat, illum ipsum clamitant, 


ἕτερον φρεσὶ κεύθειν, ἄλλο δὲ Bacew.* 


Quod ad σεισαχθείαν ἦ΄ attinet, quam Solonis nos- 
tri sub auspiciis futuram esse aiuntin publicis Vec- 
tigalibus, δεδία μὴ ἄνθρακας τὸν θήσαυρον εὕρωμεν 
ἀνεγρόμενοι. ¢ 

Exteras autem inter gentes que videntur modo 
czcas struere insidias, modo consilia intendere ca- 
lida et audacia, si quid mali nobis nec-opinantibus 
eruperit, multa, que ex intervallo non apparent, res 
ipsa aperiet, εὑρήσει τε τὰ σάθρα τοῦ δεῖνα αὐτὸς ὁ 
πόλεμος. ὃ 

Nam quod foedus est nuper cum Gallis initum, 
hujus vulgo creditur, illiusque, quod est olim Ultra- 
jecti factum, non unam esse faciem, nec diversam 


* Hom. Iliad.x. + Diog. Lert. Vit. Solonis, lib. i. p. 27. 
t Lucian in Timon. ὃ Demosth., Philipp. i. par. 15. 


AD BELLENDINI LIBROS. 127 


tamen. Dixerit quispiam, litora Gallorum nostris 
littoribus, et vero fata fatis cum consuetudine tum 
legibus quibusdam prope ipsius nature, esse con- 
traria? Facile ὁ δεῖνα ejus argumenta hoc consilio 
pervertet. 

Κορινθίοις ἄχθεσθε" κἀκεῖνοι γέ σοι 


No Or eX ἈΝ ‘ Ἁ - Ν - * 
uy εἰσι χρῆστοι, και συ νυν Χχρήῆστος yevou. 


“ Annon Gallica vina Britannorum mercibus re- 
parata, pateris de spumantibus hauriemus 2” 


Οἷον πρὸς ἀλλήλας λαλοῦσιν ai πόλεις 
Διαλλαγεῖσαι, καὶ γελῶσιν ἅσμεναι; 
Καὶ ταῦτα δαιμονίως ὑπωπιασμέναι 


᾿Απαξάπασαι, καὶ κυάθοις προσκείμεναι.ἢ 


Contendunt scilicet οἱ Γαλλίϑοντες, acriter conten- 
dit ὁ δεῖνα, omnes denique ejus fautores ὁμοθυμαδὸν 
καὶ ὁμοφώνως contendunt, fore, hoc foedere perfecto, 
ut Galli positis armis mitescant, neque ex occulto 
vel insidiis aliquid agant.t Dulce fateor est no- 
men pacis—Rem vero ipsam, cum jucunda et salu- 
taris sit, quovis fere pretio emerim. At verba hu- 
jusmodi, utrum a dolo hostium, an virtute profecta 
sint, haud quisquam addubitaverit. At Gallos§ 
quos ἀπειλοῦντας crediderim esse μάλιστα ἀξιοπίσ- 
τους, eosdem illos tum maxime, cum dona ultro 
ferant, timendos esse statuerim. At pacis nomine 
bellum involutum reformido. 

Enimvero pater rod δεῖνα, si in vivis esset, ea 
omnia, que de hac cum Gallis familiaritate conflanda 


* Aristoph. Eccles. 199. 1 Ibid. Pax. 538, 
t Cic, Philip. 13. ὃ Dem, Olynth. 3. 


128 PREFATIO 


dicta sunt a filio, perflagitiosa ad loquendum esse 
clamitaret, et ad audiendum perturpia. Fulguraret 
more suo et tonaret contra eos, qui propter incer- 
tos exitus belli Martemque communem nimio sunt 
in metu. Diceret in senatu, esse omnino* fortium 
virorum, quales nos esse deberemus, virtute pre- 
stare tantum, ut possent fortune culpam non exti- 
mescere. 

Λέγεταί τι καινόν ; γενοίτο γὰρ ἄν τι καινότερον, ἢ 
Μακεδὼν μὲν ἀνὴρ τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων διοικών, καὶ ὑπερ- 
ἐκπεπληγμένοι ὡς ἄμαχόν τινα οἱ ᾿Αθηναῖοι τὸν Φίλιπ-- 
πον, ὑμᾶς δὲ αὐτοὺς πρὸς τὴν ῥᾳθυμίαν καὶ ἀθυμιάν 
πείθων ἐθελοντὴς, καὶ Pavagwy, καὶ φιλιππίξϑων ὁ Δη- 
μοσθένης ὁ τοῦ Ὁμωνύμου αὐτῷ τοῦ μακαρίτου" τιθασ- 
σεύει νὴ δία ὁ νεανίσκος χειροήθεις ὑμᾶς ποιῶν. ᾿Εστὶ 
δ᾽ οὐδέποτ᾽ οἶμαι μέγα τι καὶ νεανικὸν ᾧρόνημα λα- 
βεῖν, μικρὰ καὶ φαῦλα πράττοντας. + 

Hostium promissa, quo cadant, quam fragiles 
sint humane res caduceque, quam inanes et falla- 
ces nostre de pace, que diuturna esset futura, co- 
gitationes, ipsa belli suspicio satis comprobavit. 
Videmur sane breve in tempus cura et metu esse 
relevati. Nec.vero dissimulandum esse arbitror, 
quam diligenter ὁ δεῖνα ad salutem patrie aliquan- 
do incubuerit ; idque ut occurreret atque obstaret 
consiliis Gallorum, quos paucis ante mensibus Po- 
puli Anglicani socios et amicos esse dictatasset. 
Bellum cum ostendisset pacem habuit. Sed rem 
tantam, tamque preclaram subito inchoatam relin- 


* Philip. xiii. | + Demosth. Phil. ii, Olynth, 1. 
t Demosth, Olynth. 2. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 129 


quere, fortis animi et constantis non erat. Quid 
enim? norunt omnes, quam sit lubrica Gallorum 
fides, quam importuna eorundem ambitio, et perni- 
ciosa. Norunt etiam, quante sint tenebre et cali- 
go tempoimm nostrorum, quant rebus Europearum 
gentium procelle jamdudum impendeant, quanta 
jam in Borealibus regionibus concitata sit atque in- 
tonuerit tempestas. Profecto hoc, quicquid est 
mali, longius opinione disseminatum est, penitus- 
que infixum in ipsis radicibus cupiditatum, et libi- 
dinum regiarum. Sed prolatando et differendo 
regum πολεμητειόντων consilia, vel infringi, vel 
impediri nullo modo possunt. Quacunque ratione 
precidende sunt belli cause, celeriterque et vigi- 
lanter, et fortiter, ipsum bellum profligandum est. 
Πότε οὖν ἃ χρὴ πράξομεν ; ἐπειδάν τι γένηται ; νῦν δὲ 
τί χρὴ τὰ γιγνόμενα ἡγεῖσθαι" οὐ γὰρ οἵοι τε εἰσὶν οἱ 
ἐχθροὶ, ἔχοντες ἃ κατεστραμμένοι εἰσὶν, μένειν ἐπὶ 
τούτων ἀλλ᾽ αἰεί τι προσπεριβάλλονται. Ἐ opw δὲ 
αὐτοὺς καὶ νυνί οὐχ ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ παθεῖν πόλεμον αἴρε- 
σθαι μέλλοντας, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὲρ τοῦ κομίϑεσθαι τὴν πρότερον 
οὖσαν ἑαυτοῖς δύναμιν. ἡ Ἡμεῖς δ᾽ ἐπειδὰν πυθώμεθά 
τι γιγνόμενον, τηνικαῦτα θορυβούμεθα, καὶ παρασκευαξό- 
μεθα" εἴτ᾽ οἶμαι συμβαίνει, τοὺς μὲν ἐφ᾽ ἃ ἂν ἔλθωσι, 
ταῦτ᾽ ἔχειν κατὰ πολλὴν ἡσυχίαν’ ἡμῖν δ᾽ ὑστερίξειν, καὶ 
ὅσα ἂν δαπανήσωμεν ἅπαντα μάτην ἀναλωκέναι. f ὃ δὲ 
μοι πλείστην ἀθυμίαν ἁπάντων παρέσχηκεν, οὐκ ἀποκρύ- 
Womas ὅτι πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων ὄντων χρημάτων, καὶ 
τοῦ ναυτικοῦ καὶ πόρων ἑπάντων, τούτων μὲν οὐδεὶς μέμ.- 


* Philipp. 1. + Orat. pro Megalopol. 
t De rebus in Cher. 


VOL. ΠΙ. K 


130 PRAEFATIO 


νηται, τοῖν δυοῖν δὲ ὀβολοῖν * τοῖν ἐκ τόκου, καὶ τῶν κα- 
λανδών,Ὑ καὶ τῆς νουμηνίας ἅπαντες. 

De stylo hujusce juvenis mea que sit sententia, 
idcirco difficile est proloqui, quod plerique sunt 
rei ipsius iniqui estimatores, et hominis, de quo 
agitur, fautores ineptissimi. Si quid enim exquisi- 
tius acciderit auribus imperitorum, qualecunque sit 
id quod ipsi posse desperent, maximam habet ad- 
mirationem. Qui autem plebe infima paulo plus 
sapiunt magis populare et plausibile existimant di- 
cendi illud genus, quod puerilibus sententiolis las- 
civit, ¢ quod immodico tumore turgescit, quod ina- 
nibus locis bacchatur, et precipitia habet pro sub- 
limibus. Quam igitur eloquentiz speciem Hu- 
mius ὃ ait se cogitatione et mente complexum fu- 
isse, re ipsa non vidisse, eam credunt in τῷ δεῖνα 
eluxisse aliquando—Oratorem, quem animo ille 
tenebat, manu se ipsi somniant || prehendere, Ju- 
venem utique acerrimo preditum ingenio, optimis 
disciplinis penitus imbutum, rerum civilium Haup 
IGNARUM, qui in senatu auspicato assurgens aures 
nostras semper impleat, qui omnes affectus moveat 
vehementer, nitidusque et sublimis et locuples cir- 
cumfiuentibus undique eloquentiz copiis imperet. 

Hancce autem dicendi, que sentiam, occasionem 
nactus, paulo jam liberius enunciabo, quod semper 
tacul, et sane causis gravissimis adductus, adhuc 


* Orat. de Repub. ordinand. 


+ Plutarch. de Vitand. Ere Alien. Anglic?, Settling-day be- 
tween the Bulls and Bears. 


+ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 10, § Essay 13th, on Eloquence. 
|| Cicer. de perfect. Orat. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 131 


tacendum putavi. Maxime in hoc juvene splendes- 
cit pictum quoddam orationis et floridum genus, 
quod quidem cum e Sophistarum fontibus in sena- 
tum defluxisse totum videatur, spretum est plerum- 
que a subtilibus, idemque a gravibus repulsum. 
Habet autem ὁ δεινα (id quod unice laudandum sta- 
tuo) facultatem illam dicendi ex tempore, quod 
premium est,* uti veteres dictitabant, vel amplissi- 
mum longi laboris. Queecunque ei demum acciderit 
necessitas, primo motu corporis, prima jactatione Ἢ 
manus, prima pedis supplosione, copiz { verborum 
veluti milites Pompeiani duci suo sacramento ad- 
dicti, promunt se, atque in medium evocate prosi- 
liunt. Per id mirum quoque semper mihi visum 
est, solere illum, in perpetuitate sermonis et celeritate 
maxima; solere, inter ambitus sententiarum longis- 
sime circumductos; solere inter vel abruptas vel flexu- 
osas interclusiones παρατηρεῖν τὴν τών ὀνομάτων ἐκλογὴν 
καὶ τῆς συνθεσέως τὴν ἀκρίβειαν,δ ut in verbum, quod 
a Grammaticorum regulis aberret, ne unum quidem 
incidat—huic vero facilitati illud etiam accedit, 
quod tenorem quendam in disputando servat, et or- 
dinem eum qui cogitationibus necessitate quodam- 
modo expressis aptissimus est, recte, maximam par- 
tem, disponit. Nunquam intersistit ejus oratio 
claudicatve. Nunquam aut hesitare videtur, aut, 
rebus duabus animo obversantibus, utra sit earum 
vel aptior ad usum, vel ad ornatum magis decora, 
punctum temporis, deliberare. Sunt autem, qui 


* Quintil. lib. x. cap. vii. + Ibid. 
¢ Strad. prol. Academ. i. et Launcelot, act. iii.sc. ii. Mercat. 
Ven. § Dion. Halicar. ἀρχαίων κρίσις, de Simon. 


K2 


132 PR/EFATIO 


rerum illas imagines, que tanto cum impetu ferun- 
tur, nimis * recentes esse existiment, ita tamen, ut 
easdem, si incudi redderentur, ornatiores magisque 
factas fore evasuras non credant. 

Sonitus ille παρασήμων καὶ Αττικων ῥημάτων, 
etsi nervorum ei minus inest, plurimum tamen ve- 
nustatis nonnunquam habet. Est etiam, ubi sen- 
tentia rerum vocabulis ornatissimis subjecta aut per- 
tenuis est aut plane nulla. Ipsa porro verba sepe 
insolens quiddam et odiosum sonant. Sepe ora-_ 
tionis seriem, que in aures influebat percommode, 
illam ipsam oculis fidelibus subjectam si dissolvas, 
exile fit nescio quid, et fractum, et languidulum. 

Oratorem non solum ¢ gravem sed interdum tru- 
cem τὸν δεῖνα esse scimus omnes, ut sepe necesse sit 
ejus inhumanitatem acriter propulsare et retundere. 
Ad ridiculum is tamen nonnunquam divertitur, sive 
ut animos auditorum a satietate renovet reficiatque, 
sive etiam ut ingenio suo parum miti morem gerat. 
His autem in dicteriis, que orationi suze aspergit, 
nec salsum, nec urbanum, nec facetum unquam con- 
sequil potest, palamque ostendit 5101, «que ac 
§ Demostheni, non tam displicuisse jocos, quam non 
contigisse. 

Ferunt Cassium Severum, omissa modestia et pu- 
dore, non tam pugnasse in dicendo quam rixatum 
esse. Jam vero quod Severus neque || infirmitate 
ingenii, neque inscitia litterarum fecit, idem est 


* Quintil. lib. x. cap. 7. 

+ Epigr. Cereal. Brunck Analect, tom, ii. p. 345. 

1 Liv. lib. xxxiv. cap. 5. ὁ Quintil. lib. vi, cap. 3. 
|| Dialogus de Orat. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 133 


etiam ἃ τῴ δεῖνα factitatum judicio et consilio. Cujus 
autem vix adumbrationem facetiarum et gravitatis 
in dicendo hahet, eyusdem acerbitatem dentemque 
maledicum, vel imitando vel suopte ingenio effingit 
atque.exprimit. Quare hunc custodem et conser- 
vatorem civium suorum cum videbam pene latran- 
tem in Senatu, et adversarios morsu acerrimo lace- 
rantem, seepe mihi veniebat in mentem Syracusani 
illius clamatoris. 


“Eockev; ἡνέκ᾽ ἂν λέγῃ, 
Τοῖς κυνιδίοισι τοῖσιν ἐπὶ τῶν τειχέων" 
᾿Αναβὰς γὰρ ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμ᾽ ὑλακτεῖ. 

Quod autem in τῷ δεῖνα ~maxime desidero, longe 
diversum est ab his, de quibus hactenus dixi, longe- 
que majus. Etenim scientiam illam civilem, que 
summa in oratore debet esse, in eo non vidi: non 
cognitionem earum rationum, que de naturis hu- 
mani generis et moribus, a philosophis explicantur : 
non denique vim illam, que in animorum motibus 
inflammandis potissimum dominatur, atque in men- 
tibus eorum, qui audiunt, quasi aculeos quosdam 
relinquit. Fuerit igitur sermo ejus a circulatoria 
volubilitate paulo remotior. Fuerit idem artificio 
quodam et perpolitione distinctus. Numeris sub- 
inde ornatus fuerit, qui sua sponte defluxisse, non 
arcessiti et coacti esse videantur. Eloquentiam ta- 
men si eam solam statuis esse veram, que animos 
hominum modo infringat, modo irrepat in sensus ; 
quze novas opiniones inserat, “ deque pulmone,” ut 
cum Persio ἡ" loquar, “ veteres avias revellat,” faten- 


* Eupolis ἐν Πυλαῖς. 1 Sat. 3. 


134 PREFATIO 


dum est profecto τὸν δεῖνα, ne in rutis* quidem et 
cesis, solium paternum recepisse. 

Nimirum ὁ δεῖνα est vehemens feroxque natura ; 
neque enim fas esse putat verbum ex ore exire cu- 
jusquam, quod non jucundum et honorificum ad 
aures suas accidat. Id vero ipsum maxime me im- 
pellit, ut audaciam ejus paulisper comprimam, et 
loquacitatem istam, qua possim, hisce interrogatiun- 
culis irretitam retardem. 

Num ad ambitiosa, quibus orationes ejus enites- 
cunt, ornamenta, adjungit etiam illa, que ex erudi- 
tione liberali ducta, et ferri solent et laudari ea in 
etatula, cui plurimum favetur? Num historias 
movet eas, que in fastis temporum recentiorum po- 
site sunt? Num ex veteri memoria, et monumen- 
tis,} et litteris, haurit exempla, que quidem solent 
et auctoritatis plurimum habere ad probandum, et 
jucunditatis ad audiendum? Num verba illa arden- 
tia et sententias vibrantes, que doctiori cuique inter 
legendum arrident, rei, qua de agitur, accommodat, 
suzque intexit orationi? Auditores ejus fautores- 
que num gratulari sibi possunt de eo, quod est a 
Timotheo dictum de omnibus, qui apud Platonem 
ceenulas jucunde produxissent, ὡς καὶ τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ 
κολῶς γίνονται ἢ Num qua ejus feruntur in ore 
vulgi, aut sapientiz plenissima aut facetiarum 
ἀπομνημονεύματα, id quod idem ille Plato dicebat iis 
contingere qui per specimina ingenii et doctrine 
sepius populo data potuissent ὀνόματος ruyeiv?h 


* Οἷς. de Orat. lib. ii. p. 115. + In Ver. lib. iii. p. 266, 
$ Athen. lib. x. lin. 419. et #lian. V. H. lib, ii. cap. 10. 
ὁ Diog. Laert. in Vit, Platonis Segm, 38, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 135 


Ecquid reconditi profert in medium? ecquid ex- 
pectatione dignum eorum, quibus libere et docte 
licet judicare ? ecquid aut inauditum hominibus usu 
et exercitatione instructis, aut etiam mediocribus 
oratoribus omnino novum? NIL HORUM. Que 
cum ita sint, non illum negaverim ista omnia com- 
munia et contrita dicendi praecepta edidicisse. 1]- 
lud etiam tribuerim, boni Oratoris esse multa auri- 
bus accipere; multa itidem,* furtim et cursim at- 
tingere legendo. Si quid autem aptius et exquisi- 
tius in orationibus ejus, (quamvis rara avis est) 51. 
quid tamen unquam exiit, id omne mihi videtur 
6 δεῖνα non ut suum possidere, sed libasse ut alie- 
num. 

Haud sane diu est, cum se in cancellos et conci- 
unculas tanquam in pistrinum quoddam detrudi et 
compingi indignatus est. Quze autem aliis tradi 
solent certa quadam via et ratione, ea omnia credi- 
bile est eum hausisse ab ipsa natura, aut raptim le- 
viterque primoribus labris attigisse. Inde fit, ut 
verborum gurgite* in vasto, communes loci, qui 
Latine scripti sint, rari nantes appareant, hic videli- 
cet a Lucano petitus, ille a Livio: puerulis uterque 
et litteratoribus notissimus. Inde fit, ut argumenta 
ejus perseepe declamatorem de ludo sapiant : convi- 
cia eyusdem, rabulam de foro. 

Minime ei cedat in laudem, quod ancipites di- 
cendi incertosque casus non extimescit, aut incredi- 
bilem rerum ipsarum, que tractande sunt, magnitu- 


* (Οἷς. de Orat. lib, i. p. 99. + Ibid. 
+ Warburton, pref.ad Shaksp. 


136 PREFATIO 


dinem et difficultatem contemnit. Marcus enim 
Crassus se fatetur id sepissime expertum esse, ut 
exalbesceret in principiis orationis et tota mente 
atque omnibus artubus contremisceret.* Fatetur 
etiam M. Cicero} se, cum illius diei 5101 venisset 
in mentem, quo die sibi dicendum esset, non modo 
commoveri animo esse solitum, sed etiam perhorres- 
cere toto corpore. At nemo est, qui τὸν δεῖνα unquam 
viderit, aut metu aliquo paulisper fractum, aut inge- 
nuo et infanti, qualis juvenem deceret, pudore debi- 
litatum. Esse quosdam scio quibus admirabile hoc 
ipsum videatur. M. autem Crasso judice,t ne illi 
quidem qui facillime et ornatissime dicunt, impu- 
dentiz nomen debent effugere, nisi timide ad di- 
cendum accedant, et in ordienda oratione aliquan- 
tulum conturbentur. 

Ferri solent in juvenibus etiam uberiora paulo et 
pene periclitantia. At nihil est in natura rerum, 
quod se universum semel profundat, aut quod to- 
tum repente evolet. Oratoris itaque si preepropere ὃ 
distringatur frons immatura, et acerbum quidque ab 
eo temere proferatur, omnia que bene nata fuerint 
aut parata in vita meliore, penitus dedecorantur. 
Quid enim? annon fundamenta jaciuntur arro- 
gantiz ὃ} annon vires prevenit fiducia? annon tu- 
midus fit quidam orator, suique jactans, et 4] facun- 
dus malo publico ? 

Jam si causis, que inter se confligunt, omissis, 


* Cic. de Orat. lib. i. p. 94, ¢ Divinat. in Cecil. par, 10. 
: Οἷς. de Orat. lib. i. p. 94. § Quint. 1. xii. c. 6. 
|| Ibid. 4 Vel. Paterc. lib. ii, cap. 48. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 137 


ipsam τοῦ δεῖνα et Foxii eloquentiam contendere 
quispiam me velit, ad verba Dionysii confugiendum 
est, quibus dilucide possim et accurate exponere, 
ὃ πρὸς ἀμφοτέρας πάσχω τὰς λέξεις" οἴομαι δὲ κοινόν τι 
πάθος ἁπάντων ἐρεῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἐμὸν ἴδιον μόνον" ὅταν μέν 
τινα τῶν τοῦ δεῖνα ἀναγινώσκω λόγων πολὺ τὸ εὐσταθὲς 
ἔχω τῆς γνώμης, ὥσπερ οἱ τῶν σπονδείων αὐλημάτων, 
ἡ τῶν δωρίων τε καὶ οομονίων μερῶν ἀκροώμενοι" ὅταν δὲ 
τινὰ τοῦ Φωξίου λάβω λόγων, ἐνθουσιώ τε, καὶ, δεῦρο 
κἀκεῖσε ἄγομαι, πάθος ἕτερον ἐξ ἑτέρου μεταλαμβάνων, 
ἀπιστῶν, ἀγωνιών, δεδιως, καταφρονών, μισών, ἐλεῶν, 
εὐνοῶν, ὀργιϑόμινος, φθονῶν, ἅπαντα τὰ πάθη μεταλαμ.- 
βάνων ὅσα κρατεῖν ἀνθρωπίνης γνώμης πέφυκε." 

Contigerit, necne, Humio, ea prudentia, que a 
divinatione prope abesse dicitur, non est nostrum 
dijudicare. At unc scio non esse virum, quem 
Curiz consulenti presidium et decus futurum Phi- 
losophus ille promiserit. Alia ex parte, qui in re- 
bus hisce sapit, et Jove, quod aiunt, equo judicat, 
mecum, ni fallor, lubentissime faciet, cum Cicero- 
nem affirmo, ea, qua nuper facta sunt, cecinisse ut 
vatem: “Cum in dicendo sape par, nonnunquam 
etiam superior, visus esset is, qui, omisso studio sa- 
pientiz, nihil 5101 prater eloquentiam, comparasset, 
fiebat, ut et multitudinis, et suo judicio dignus, qui 
rempublicam gereret, videretur.”-f 

Profecto juvenem huncce, modo in venditandis 
ineptiis adrapKy καὶ αὐτοδίδακτον, modo in arduis 
rebus ἄπορον καὶ ἀμήχανον si aspiceres, nihil fatereris 


* Dion. Hal. Judic, de Dem. p. 176. 
+ Cic. Rhet. lib. i. p. 67. 


138 PREFATIO 


unquam exstitisse “sic dispar sibi.” Aliis in rebus 
iracundus acerque, conviciorum aculeis nihil non 
flagitat, aut pene vi et armis arrogat. In aliis fit 
simillimus Lancastrio, qualis describitur ab * equite 
illo, quem facetiis abundantem et cute bene curata 
nitidum, assecle rod δεῖνα oculis fugiunt, auribus 
respuunt, animis aspernantur, 

Ψυχρὸν κέαρ τοῦ παιδίου θερμοῖς exe’ 

Ὑδαρὲς τέ πως καὶ λεπτὸν αἷμ᾽ ἀεὶ τρέφον 

Νήφειν τ᾽ ἀπιστεῖν τ᾽ ἄρθρα τοῦ βίου λέγει, 

᾿Αγέλαστον, ἄφιλον, κἀπροσήγορον τέρας. 

Certis quibusdam destinatisque sententiis ita est 
hodie consecratus, eaque, ut opinor, necessitate con- 
strictus, et dogmaticorum more, etiam qu minus 
probari possint, ea cogatur, sive dignitatis, sive con- 
stantiz causa} defendere. Crastino die fit trans- 
fuga Academicorum ad partes, nihilque ducit tam 
temerarium tamque indignum sapientis gravitate, 
quam illud, quod non satis explorate cognitum sit, 
sine ulla dubitatione tueri.{ Tum vero, furtivis co- 
loribus ferox et preclarus, tanquam Cornicula, su- 
perbit; et, a quibus est mutuatus, quicquid in con- 
siliis suis sanum et sincerum est, eorum pergit aures 
obtundere conviciis e trivio petitis. 

§ A Minucio is quidem didicit, eum primum esse 
virum, qui ipse consulat, quid in rem sit: secundum 
autem eum, qui bene monenti obediat. Cavet 
itaque ne extremi esse ingenii ideo videatur, quod 


* Henric. 4ti, Pars 2da, act iv. sc. 7. 
+ Cic. Tuse. Quest. lib. ii. t Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. 
ὁ Liv, lib. xxii. ο. 29. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 139 


et sua ipse negotia expedire et explicare nequeat, et 
simul aliorum consiltis regi nolit. 

Sumasne ab alienis, tibi quod usui sit, pudenter, 
an importune rapias, “immane quantum distat.” 
Sit tamen illud dure necessitatis, quod, domi cum 
sit res angusta et exilis, 


Convectare juvat pradas, et vivere rapto.* 


Atqui opprobriis eos lacessere, per quos plurimum 
ipse profeceris, animi videtur esse invidi et pusilli, 
qui nec cedere velit, nec, certamine equis conditioni- 
bus comparato, possit victoriam adversariis extor- 
quere. Nempe qui doceri ab hostibus haud nefas 
esse statuit, ipse oportet “ Hostis Teucros ~~ laude” 
aliquantulum prosequatur. 

Minime est interea dissimulandum posse ex ad- 
versariis τοῦ δεῖνα quosdam reperiri, quos veluti, 
παθὼν νήπιος t tangere omnino nolit. Hoc nimirum 
illud est, quod ne sui quidem Senatus plausu solet 
gaudere, quoties famam captat dicacis in illo viro, 
qui cum Oratorem maximum, tum acerrimum Ja- 
culatorem sese prebuit: qui, et causee cujusque qui 
sit color, et 4 sagittaze quibus ex armamentariis ve- 
niant, probe novit: qui denique nec Hyperidi aut 
Lysiz acumine et subtilitate || cedit, nec facetiis et 
salibus Atticis Aristophani aut Menandro. 

Ne “ bellum incidat disparibus, ipse tanquam 
pigrior ὁ δεῖνα nonnunquam discedit, vehemen- 
terque optat occasionem se nancisci posse “mu- 


* Virg. Zn, 1. + fin. 1. 
¢ Hesiod. Op. et Dies 218. § Juvenal, Sat, vii. 
|| Cic. Orator, p. 161. 


140 PR2EFATIO 


nerum ultro mittendorum.”* Hoc vero fieri cum 
nequeat, omnes istos aculeos et tortuosum genus 
disputandi totum, homo bellissimus relinquit. Ad- 
versarium ita laudat, ut se fateatur eundem perti- 
mescere. Ita contra illum dicit, quamvis ipse sit 
ingeniosus, ut gravissimum etiam de suo ingenio 
judicium fieri arbitretur. Cum Sheridano qui con- 
greditur, is utique, mirum foret, ni tela imbellia ab- 
jiceret, ni viribus parceret consulto, modestiaque et 
temperando lingue,} adolescens, ne a viris facetis 
vinceretur, ipse se et dicacitatem suam vinceret. 
Alii item aut conticescant oportet, aut demissius se 
gerant veteratores in disputando vafri et malitiosi. 
Etenim ad magnam rerum cognitionem multa in 
Sheridano accedunt, que in Oratore apprime neces- 
saria sunt. Norunt experti quantus sit ejus in jo- 
cando lepos, quanta libero homine digna eruditio, 
quanta celeritas brevitasque respondendi et laces- 
sendi, cum argutiis exquisitissimis atque urbanitate 
mirifice conjuncta.{ 

Oratorem aiunt vel mediocrem, modo sit aliquid 
in eo, tenere hominum{ aures. Sed, tanta cum 
turba sit faventium τῷ δεῖνα, fateor me vix in ullum 
de iis incidisse, qui minima ex parte, cum Sheridano 
comparari possit. Uni, forsan, et alteri eorum, non 
ingenium. omnino, sed oratorium ingenium deest, 
Mediocriter sunt alii a doctrina instructi, et multo 
angustius a natura, vix ut in dicentium numero ha- 
bendi sint, nedum disertorum. Ceteri autem ig- 


* Horat. Sat. 7. lib. i. + Vide Liv. 28. et Orat. τοῦ δεῖνα. 
t Cicer. de Orat. lib. 1. p. 89. § Brut. p. 147. 


AD BELLENDINI LIBROS. 141 


noti homines et repentini, oratores celeriter facti 
sunt, oppidano quodam et incondito genere dicendi. 
Missos igitur faciamus fortemque Gyam fortemque 
Cloanthum, ne suspicantes quidem quid sit ornate 
loqui, et ad laborem cogitandi plane inhabiles. In 
eadem vero trutina, qua Sheridanum, juvenes posu- 
erim duos, quorum hunc, jure appellaveris πρωταγω- 
νιστὴν, illum, secundarum partium actorem. 

Promta est et parata τοῦ δεῖνα in agendo celeritas, 
nihil ut sit in illo genere magis plausibile. Eum 
vero acumine et nonnunquam diligentia, sale semper 
et lepore superat Sheridanus. 

Tw δεῖνα accedit, longo proximus intervallo, sed 
proximus tamen, Grenvillius, is, qui et impar con- 
gressus cum hoste, et victus, pretium aliquod certa- 
minis ex eo ipso tulisse dicitur, quod cum Sheridano 
certavisset. Docti hujusce, quod satis sit, adoles- 
centuli, prudens queedam et considerata tarditas est, 
atque industria valde probabilis. At Sheridanus 
illum vincit expediendis conficiendisque rebus, 
fitque, quod admodum difficile est, idem et peror- 
natus et perbrevis. 

Possunt profecto Oratores esse summi, qui max- 
ime sunt inter se dissimiles. Quid igitur vetat quo 
minus Sheridanum conferamus cum aliis quibus- 
dam hominibus disertis, qui, vel ardore ei propiores 
sint, vel amicitia et voluntate conjunctiores ? 

Tribus illis viris, quorum a me sepe facta est 
mentio, ita evenit, ut, cum suo quisque in genere 
plenus Orator, et prope jam perfectus evaserit, non 
tamen quisquam ex lis felix sit ab ulla laude, qua 
omnibus sit communis. At Sheridanum pene dix- 


142 PREFATIO 


erim, et consecutum esse, quod eorum singulis con- 
tigit, et, quod defuit, spe eundem explere. Ete- 
nim, quicquid aureo flumine eloquentie fundit 
Burkius: quicquid est in Northio urbanitatis et 
sine molestia diligentis elegantiz: quicquid Fox- 
ius habet, vel subtilitatis, vel lacertorum, vel 
gravis et incitate et flexanime orationis, id omne 
Sheridanus ita complectitur, ut, qui secunda in 
arte primus sit, idem ille, de prima contendens 
suo quasi jure 5101 secundas vindicet. Illud adeo 
prope adest ut eloquentia sua Sheridanus pres- 
titerit, quod Athenienses videntur ab iis, qui tragee- 
dias facerent multum et frustra exegisse, γεγονότων 
γὰρ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον μέρος ἀγαθῶν ποιητῶν, ἑκάστου τοῦ 
ἰδίου ἀγαθοῦ ἀξιοῦσι τὸν ἕνα ὑπερβάλλειν." 

Causa illa publica contra prafectum quendam 
nuperrime dicta, quantum commendationis ad gra- 
tiam et ad famam habuit? Quanta vocis et animi 
contentione Sheridanus ad se auditores convertit 
omnes omnium et ordinum, et etatum, et partium ὃ 
Quam mirum in modum, et voluptate mentes eorum 
devinxit, et illuc quo res poscebat, etiam invitas im- 
pulit ° 

Hanc utique ad causam veniebat paratissimus— 
expectabatur—audiebatur—A principio statim vide- 
batur, dignus expectatione. Rem illam omnem, 
que tractanda erat, tam variam, tamque multiplicem, 
et abstrusam complectebatur memoriter, et acute 
dividebat. Argumenta collocabat suo quzeque loco, 
ubi plurimum efficere et valere possent. Longa in 


* Arist. Poetic. cap, 17. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 143 


oratione magnopere cavebat, ne ita aliquando aliquid 
emitteret imprudenter, vel consulto et aperte pres- 
taret, ut sibi ipsi non conveniret. Sermonem, pro 
re nata, variabat aptissime. Hac in parte, abun- 
danter et illuminate dicebat: arctius, in illa, et an- 
gustius loquebatur, veritatemque disputando lima- 
bat. Auditores suos pro arbitrio vel docebat—vel 
delectabat—vel movebat. Nihil tamen unquam 
propositi habere videbatur, nisi rem ut definiret : ut 
robustam hominis improbitatem signis omni luce 
clarioribus coargueret: ut id, quod intenderet, ex- 
quisitis rationibus confirmaret. Pertimescebat tum 
primum Scotus iste clamator audacissimus, et 
quamvis loquacissimus sit, penitus obmutescebat. 
Suze autem vocis bonam partem ad Sheridani rati- 
ones 6 δεῖνα adjungebat, vel quod Oratorem extra 
omnem ingenii aleam positum esse persentisceret, 
vel quod crederet sic exstingui posse veterum suo- 
rum famam maledictorum. 

Illo sane tempore multe erant in Sheridano, non 
scurriles, sed oratoriz facetie. Spe erat liquida 
et fusa, nec tamen redundans et circumfluens oratio. 
Vehemens eadem erat identidem, et interdum irata, 
et plena justi doloris. Ea denique vis erat, is splen- 
dor, ea copia et varietas, quam magnitudo illius 
cause et dignitas postulabant. 

Oratio illa, sciunt omnes, quo plausu sit in Senatu 
excepta: quas Sheridani ex adversariis expresserit 
atque extorserit laudes: quantus inde ejus vel ad 
popularitatem innoxiam honestamque, vel etiam ad 
gloriam solidam et sempiternam cumulus accesserit. 
Obstupescent certe posteri decies illam lectam rele- 


144 PREFATIO 


gentes, eruntque lis sepe in pectore et in ore 
Adschinea illa verba paululum mutata, “ Quid si ip- 
sum audiissemus ἃ 

Fuerit Bellum Americanum et susceptum malis 
avibus et gestum. Fuerit illud in manibus τοῦ δεῖνα 
tanquam Κερκυραία τις Ὑ μάστιξ, cujus vis omnis 
dirigenda sit in unius hominis caput et famam. Ci- 
vium, quanquam periculo armorum liberantur, fue- 
rint tamen animi in ejusdem hominis perniciem ar- 
mati. At spectatum ea, que in Senatu fiunt, ad- 
missus, nemo fibram tam corneam habet, ut risum 
tenere possit. Res quadam agenda est de *¢ tribus 
Capellis. Comitum fit concursus, strepitusque, et 
clamor adolescentulorum.§ Tumultuantur, cachin- 
nantur, de loco depugnant. Hzc dum fiunt homo 
quidam purpuratus Curiam ingreditur. Surgit con- 
tinuo 6 δεῖνα, triumque Capellarum paululum imme- 
mor, multa de vi et cede, multa de Syllis et Mariis, 
multa de Cannis et perjuriis Punici furoris lingua 
personat audacissima et manu tota. Deos homi- 
nesque testatur bellum Americanum in causa fuisse, 
cur Titius istas tres Capellas a Caio furatus sit. 
Belli Americani contendit Northium exstitisse 
unum atque solum auctorem. Northium appellitat 
fatale quoddam portentum prodigiumque Reipublice. 
Northium clamitat, illaqueatum esse omnium legum 
periculis, irretitum || odio bonorum omnium, impli- 
catum expectatione summi supplicii. Hec ille et 


* Quintil. lib. ii. cap. 3. + Vid. Pref. Taylori ad Lycurg, 
+ Martial. lib. vi. ep. 19. § Terent. Prol. ad Hec. 
|| Cic. de Harusp. Resp. p. 411. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 145 


alia ejusdem farinze dum funditat verbis tristissimis 
et voce maxima, obduruisse videtur, et usu ipso per- 
calluisse incredibilis quedam Senatus patientia. Si- 
lent interea aut clanculum subrident Northii deser- 
tores et proditores salutis, illi ipsi, qui foedissime 
Bellum Americanum quondam cauponati sunt, qui 
faces ad bellum Americanum sua sponte pretule- 
runt foedas et luctuosas, qui toti et mente et animo 
institerunt ad bellum Americanum. 


Nam que sibi quisque timebat 
Unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere.* 


Non eos fugit, in more positum esse τώ δεῖνα, 
ut miseram et tenuem predam sectari nolit—aprum 
quippe exoptat, aut leonem de monte descendere— 
quin immo multas credit sibi imagines, non solum 
ad intuendum, verum etiam imitandum, clarissimo- 
rum virorum expressas, a scriptoribus et Grecis et 
Latinis esse relictas. 


»», 


᾿Αλλ᾽ Ἡρακλέους ὀργὴν τιν᾽ ἔχων; τοῖσι μεγίστοις ἐπιχειρεῖ. 


Ad laudes hasce populares aliqui ferunt illas mi- 
nus notas minusque pervulgatas, que cum litteru- 
larum Grecarum scientia conjuncte sint, τὸν δεῖνα 
adjecisse. Quod si verum est, unum hoc reperio 
inter me ipsum atque illum amicitiz vinculum 
posse intercedere, quod iisdem quondam studiis de- 
diti simus. Qui autem in gradu tam excelso collo- 
catur, poterit is sibi eodem jure, quo Sylla, felix vi- 
deri. Moneo tamen illum atque etiam hortor, ne 
Grace si quando scribat, gyro nimis arcto Syllam 


* Virg. Zea, 2, + Aristoph. Pax 751. 
VOL. III. L 


146 PREFATIO 


imitetur, seque ᾿Επαφρόδιτον Ὁ appellet. Porro, qui 
Lycurgeam severitatem in Orationibus pre se tule- 
rit, neque tamen integritatem in moribus Lycurgeam 
expresserit, ei auctor fuerim, ut usu atque etate se 
demitigari patiatur. Discat velim a Cicerone, Ora- 
torem oportere insanabiles vitare contumelias: tan- 
tummodo adversarios figere, nec eos tamen semper, 
nec omnes, nec omni modo : aliorum denique dig- 
nitati parcere, in quo ipse servaverit suam.{ Discat 
etiam a Quintiliano, “que fortia inter dicendum 
visa fuerint, stulta, cum leserint, vocari.”. Memi- 
nerit quoque et turpem et inhumanam esse ejus vo- 
luptatem, qui, risus ut eliceat, “petulans esse susti- 
neat, compositusque ad stomachum audientium, 
bono a viro in rabulam et latratorem convertatur.” 
Illud autem vel in primis animo infixum habeat, 
“mores dicentis ex oratione quodammodo agnosci, 
neque maledicum distare a malefico, nisi occa- 
sione.” 

Fore probe scio, ut ea mihi objiciantur, que de || 
Fimbria scripta sunt: “habitum fuisse cum orato- 
rem asperum ac maledicum, et genere toto paulo 
fervidiorem: diligentia tamen et virtute animi et 
vite bonum exstitisse auctorem in senatu’—Equi- 
dem illud non possum quin fatear, vehementerque 
doleam, quod fide mé δεῖνα auditoribus semper faciat, 
quod ei Populus fayeat validissime, et eloquentiam, 


* Plutarch. Vit. Syll. p. 473. ¢ Cicer. Orator. p. 169. 
1 De Orat. lib. 11. p. 115. 

§ Vide Quintil. lib. xii. c. 9. & lib. vi. cap. 2. 

|| Brut. p. 143, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 147 


quam semper in * numerato is habeat, ita admiretur, 
ut, quid in eo reprehendi debeat, nunquam requirat. 
Quare ita factum esse existimem, 51 quis curiosius 
elicere velit, cause sunt in promtu, nec tacendz ille 
quidem, nec sine cura mihi dicende. 

Solet profecto vulgus uni alicui totum se dedere 
atque addicere. Hunc, tanquam amores et delicias 
suas, complexu et sinu recipit—hujus integritatem 
et innocentiam summam esse,} jurati testificantur 
omnes ad unum, licet, opinionis ejus rationem qui 
reddat, nemo unus reperiatur. 

Minime vero fugit τὸν δεῖνα vulgi aures esse 
quandam Ὁ tibiam, in quam oporteat oratorem in- 
flare. Hac de causa, per artes non ante vulgatas, 
et populo ὃ canit et sibi—quod autem acroama || 
Themistocles dicebat lubentissime se audire, illud 
ipsum credit 6 δεῖνα sua voce optime decantatum, 
ipse cum se admiretur, suaque de virtute palam et 
gloriosius predicet. Hinc, sive de lana rixatur ca- 
prina, sive de stillicidiis declamitans παρατραγωδεῖ, 
et colo mare confundit, prima ut sibi fides habea- 
tur, deposcit. Hinc omni, que habetur contra vo- 
luntatem ejus, oratione graviter offenditur, tanquam, 
ubi laudis intempestive blandimenta desint, ibi 
semper adsit acerbitas contumeliarum. Hinc, quam 
magnis unquam et divinis bonis viri preclarissimi 
consecuti sunt licentiam, eandem ipse se arbitratur 
consecutum esse, ut contra morem et consuetudinem 
ceivilem asper sit in dicendo. 


* Quint, lib. vi. cap. 3. et Senec. lib. ii. controv. 

+ Hudibras, lib. i, line 7. 1 Brut. p. 147, 

§ Ibid. p. 146. || Orat. pro Arch. p. 190. 
L2 


148 PR2EFATIO 


Per id ridiculum est quod dicturus sum, et por= 
tenti simile. Tantum ipse Clodius praedicat in τῷ 
δεῖνα castitatis splendorem esse, ut oculos etiam suos 
eo hebetari et prestringi sentiat. Aristippeum 
igitur illud de voluptate, que sensibus nostris blan- 
diatur, contemnere se ait, et experiendo abjecisse. 
Nihil fatetur esse virtute formosius, nihil pulchrius, 
nihil amabilius. Unum a se aliquem inventum esse 
confirmat, qui aspernetur oculis pulchritudinem re- 
rum, qui suavitatem omnem auribus excludat, om- 
nemque vite suz cursum, in labore corporis atque 
animi contentione conficiat, 


hic pudicus, hic probus 
Perambulabit astra sidus Georgium.* 


Sunt ea a Clodio perbelle simulata. Ab aliis in- 
terea creditur 6 δεῖνα “magis-~ extra vitia esse, 
quam cum virtutibus.” Mihi vero ipsi semper vi- 
sum est hae in parte moderationem t Fimbriz et 
prudentiam sequi. Quamobrem nihil me de mori- 
bus τοῦ δεῖνα illo austero more et modo judicaturum 
dixi, ne aut famam lederem probati hominis, si con- 
tra judicassem, aut statuisse viderer virum bonum 
esse illum, in quo multa officia multasque laudes, 
que hanc ad rem pertinerent, nonnunquam deside- 
rassem. Atque idem ego haud negaverim in Foxio 
esse nonnulla, que lenissimus quisque et facillimus 
reprehendere possit et subaccusare. At videtur 
eum tamen ipsa natura finxisse, ad justitiam, ad in- 


* Hor. Epod. 17. + Tacit. Hist. i. cap. 49. 
+ Cic. de Offic. lib. iii, p. 526. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 149 


dustriam, ad omnes denique amicitiz virtutes, reique 
publice rationes, magnum hominem et excelsum. 

Etsi de ea virtutis indole, que in τῷ δεῖνα inesse 
dicitur, nihil a me, concertandi causa, proferri debet, 
ilud tamen mihi licere et integrum esse statuo, 
ut quasi subductis rationibus summam mearum de 
hac re cogitationum exponam. Huc vero apprime 
faciunt hec e Livio desumta verba, et interdum a 
me, sicubi res postularet mutata. Mihi igitur vide- 
tur ὁ δεῖνα, “ non veris solum virtutibus aliquantulum 
ornatus, sed arte quoque quadam ab juventa in os- 
tentationem earum compositus. Quare eorum, que 
de pudicitia ejus et temperantia,” et in aspernandis 
voluptatibus prope quadam immanitate, “vulgo fere- 
bantur, nunquam ab ipso elusa fides est, quin potius 
aucta consilio quodam, nec abnuendi talia, nec pa- 
lam affirmandi, Alia in hoc genere vera, alia assi- 
mulata, admirationis humane in hoc juvene exces- 
serant modum, quibus freta nuper civitas, etati 
haudquaquam mature, tantam molem rerum per- 
misit.”* 

A populo, cum se τώ δεῖνα totum permitteret, leto 
omnia magis quam prospero successu gesta sunt. 
Sed non sine usu fuerit introspicere illa primo as- 
pectu levia, e quibus maximi spe rerum motus + 
oriuntur. Sue igitur oportet felicitati cives nostri 
illud acceptum referant, minime posse ea, que 1081 
nuper fecerint, ratione et modo tractari, ut que 
neque consilium in se ullum neque modum habue- 
rint. Res quidem sua, cum nullam pre se ferret 


* Liv, lib. xxvi. cap. 19. + Tacitus Annal. iv. par. 32. 


150 PR-EFATIO 


effigiem veritatis solidam expressamque, exigebant, 
(que fuit eorum sive calliditas malitiosa sive insul- 
sitas singularis,) exigebant, inquam, rem adversa- 
riorum ad ridiculum, si Diis placet, tanquam ad 
Lydium lapidem. Minime eos crediderimus sapi- 
entiz illius, quam Shaftsburius excolebat, esse con- 
sultos. Fuit autem 115 monstratum intus, et ab ipsa 
Natura prepotenti imperatum, ut in quo maxime 
ipsi valuissent, eo ipso homines se meliores pruden- 
tioresque terrerent et vulnerarent. Solet itaque 
nobis sepe in mentem venire temporis illius, quo 
omnes illi, qui rerum momenta non potuissent per- 
pendere, oculos tamen potuissent incertos, atque 
adeo animos incertiores “ pictura pascere * inani.” 
Etenim cum Pericles staret a partibus adversis, fuit 
illis integrum, aut Pausona nescio quem ad suas vo- 
care,aut Bupalum, aut virum quendam “ optimarum-+ 
sane artium sed pessimarum partium,” cujus nomen 
Anglicanum, cum ἀπόῤῥητον esset, Στέφανον “ Grail 
vertere vocantes.” | 
Sufficiebant profecto operi cui pares se credide- 
rant. Pictas per tabellas, jocis eas quidem καθημα- 
ξευμένοις refertas, illud effecerunt, quod de Cleandro 
memoratum est. Is enim Prefectum {+ quendam ob 
Egypti -administrationem ἐλοιδόρησε κωμωδώς, καὶ 
παρέλυσε ἀυτὸν τῆς ἀρχῆς οὐδὲν ἀδικήσαντα. Alia 
autem ex parte non defuerunt, qui Cameenis § mi- 
nacibus armati in studiosam illam juvenum cohortem 


* Virg. En. 1. + Οἷς. Perorat. pro Cel. 
{ ΖΕ]. Frag. ex emend. Masson. p. 1020, edit. Gron. 
§ Rolliad. scriptores. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 151 


insurgerent, liberosque Iambos vi et asperitate 
prorsus Hipponactea, indignabundi distringerent. 
Fore tamen optandum est, ut ad ultionem potius 
quam defensionem composita fiat tabula, qualem fe- 
runt, (quoniam Grecas * fabellas enarrare licet,) 
tum denique ab Apelle esse pictam, cum immerito 
ipse, Antiphilo ᾧ accusante, graviterque rege Ptolo- 
mo irascente, pene obrutus esset infamia. Sin hoc 
minus fiat, aliud instituendum est opus, plus in se 
artis habens, neque tamen materiam ipsam superans. 
His enim in rebus fieri nequit, quin “infamia sit mi- 
nor vero.”"t Ecquis autem ignorat virum 4 illum 
egregium, qui ὁμοτεχνίτων suorum familiam ducit, 
minime solere in sententiam tov δεῖνα pedibus ire ? 
Quin idem jure optimo dicimus de aliis fere omni- 
bus, qui sunt in hac nostra etate, aut usu rerum, 
aut ingenil acumine, aut ornamentis artium ingenu- 
arum pre ceteris habiti dictique eximii. His pro- 
fecto viris causa victa quantum placuerit, dici vix 
potest. Nec vero superior illa esse desiit, licet in- 
feriorem qui defensitent, plures sint numero, et tan- 
quam “ juncto umbone Phalanges” ad depugnandum 
prodeant parati. 

Que cum ita sint, quicquid est in repulsa dede- 
coris facile ferunt ii, in quos convenit illud quod est 
a Zenone dictum πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος τών Θεοφράστου 
μαθήτων, ὃ ἐκείνου χόρος (ἔφη) μεῖϑων, οὑμὸς δὲ συμφω- 


* Liv. lib. xxviii. cap. 44. 

+ Lucian, de Calumn. non tem. credend. par. 3, 4, ἃ 5. unde 
profluxerunt pulcherrima illa in Pref. Warburt. in tom. iii. de 
Div. Legat. Mos. p. 26. 

: Ov. Met. lib. i. § I. R. Equit. 


152 PREFATIO 


voreos.* At studia sunt horum idcirco suis cariora 
et magis honorifica, quia nec spei nec timori tribu- 
untur.+ 

Nihil est sane, cur miremur grassandi in famam 
fortunasque civium optimorum populo non defuisse 
voluntatem. Impune in easdem grassandi contigisse 
multitudini occasionem, id vero ei non invidemus. 
Legimus enim in Euripide, 


Τῷ πλεόνι γ᾽ αἰεὶ πολέμιον καθιστάναι 


Τοῦ Aaccov —————¢ 


De Argivis etiam nos docuit Isocrates, ὅτι τοὺς 
ἐνδόξους Kal πλουσιωτάτους τῶν πολιτών αὐτοὶ ἀπολ- 
λύουσι, καὶ ταῦτα δρῶντες, οὕτῳ χαίρουσιν, ὡς οὐδένες 
ἄλλοι τοὺς πολεμίους ἀποκτείναντες. ὃ 

Qui autem hec tam aperte diximus, populi ut de 
jure disputemus tantum abest, ut ei fateamur libe- 
rum esse suffragiis suis, quid cuique velit, vel dare 
vel detrahere. Atqui eundem plane et obnixe 
contendimus dignos sepe negligere—szpe ea que 
pulcherrime facta sint, fastidire ||—sepe eblandita || 
ejus esse suffragia non enucleata, ut studium in iis 
ferendis, aut ira appareat, potius quam judicium. 
Levis profecto si res agatur, sapiens quisque, etiam 
quz minus laudaverit, tolerari tamen statuerit opor- 
tere. In tempestatibus autem et fluctibus istis quos 
nuper vidimus, impetu plena omnia et temeritate 
fuerunt. Sin judicium id quivis maluerit vocare, 


* Plutarch, tom. ii. p. 545. + Corn. Nep. Att, vit. cap. 6. 
+ Phen, 552. 

§ Orat. Philipp. p. 165. edit. Basil. 1571. 

|| Orat. pro Plane. p. 84. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 153 


ejusmodi sane est ut ferri debeat nulla alia de causa, 
nisi quod penitus rescindi nequeat. Invyitus hec 
tanquam vulnera attingo. Que autem preterita 
sunt, ni reprehendantur, corrigi et sanari nequeunt. 
Ea porro omnia, que semel * acciderunt, iterum ac 
tertio accidere possunt, et quod hodie nobis minus 
in integro est-~ exemplis tueri, id ipsum inter ex- 
empla erit, si forte zemulos { invenerit nequitia plus 
equo felix. 

Quoties versantur rerum maximarum momenta, 
prudentissimus quisque existimabit se non tam an- 
numerare debere, quam appendere suffragia. In 
rumoribus spernendis mentem solidam secum afferet. 
Elaborabit pro virili, ut optimi cujusque studiosus 
videatur, potius quam popularis. Faciles commo- 
dasque aures prebebit non nisi iis, qui mores ho- 
minum intimosque sensus per integumenta verbo- 
rum et involucra, cognitos habent et probe explora- 
tos. Novit is quidem multa, que inter ancipitia 
probata fuerint, veris mox pretiis § estimari. Ho- 
mines novit spe temerarios atque imperitos, falsis 
rumoribus terreri, et de summis rebus consilium ca- 
pere, et impelli ad facinus. Novit in mutatione 
Reipublice, fieri posse, ut adversariorum res verbo- 
slor et magis popularis sit, sua cum sit verior, 
Novit denique honestas rerum causas || ducere ad 
exitus perniciosos, si forte populi aliena aut offensa 
sit voluntas. Hec ille omnia animo agitans, respi- 


* Liv. lib. xxviii. cap. 41. + Tacit. Annal. xi. cap. 24. 
t Tacit. Hist. iv. cap. 42. § Annal, xi, par. 26. 
|| Tacit, Hist. par. 83. 


154 PR-EFATIO 


ciensque ad istos tumultus populares, dubitabit pro- 
fecto, utrum pejor res * ipsa sit, an pejori facta sit 
exemplo. Dolebit interea nature humane infirmi- 
tate tardiora esse remedia quam mala; neque exem- 
pla solere, unde cceperint, ibi consistere. 

Hee qui fecerit, in memoriam 5101 illud revoca- 
bit, quod esta Polybio scriptum: ὁ δῆμος πάν καὶ 
τὸ πλεῖστον αὐτός" οὗ γενομένου, τῶν μὲν dvOMLATwWY τὸ 
κάλλιστον ἡ πολίτεια μεταλήψεται, τὴν ἐλευθερίαν καὶ 
δημοκρατίαν" τῶν δὲ πραγμάτων τὸ χείριστον, τὴν ὄὀχλο- 
κρατίαν.ἡ Que autem gravissimus 1116 scriptor fieri 
intellexit cum “ mutationis in deterius principium 
existeret ab honoribus per ambitionem petitis aut 
negatis,” ea nos vidimus facta esse in maximo et 
pulcherrimo incepto. 

Probe scimus esse permulta, quae dum fiunt, non 
laudentur, sed cum facta sint, plurimum fructus ha- 
beant. Horum in numero ponenda est lex illa, que 
de Rebus Asiaticis a viro quodam preclaro rogata 
fuit, et a proceribus regni foedissime antiquata. 
Equidem haud ignarus sum quam flexibiles sint ho- 
minum mentes incerteque: quantum valeant omnes 
rumorum et concionum venti, quos colligere cives 
populares consuescunt. Hac de causa, cum facienda 
sit alicujus rei mutatio, temporum puto rationem 
habendam esse, populoque esse et scene aliqua ex 
parte serviendum. 

Qui autem illud reprehendunt et accusant, cur in 
re tam inusitata Foxius quidquam novi fecerit, his 


* Liv. lib. xxxiv. cap. 2. 
+ Polyb. Megal. lib. vi. p. 694, edit. Cas. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 155 


ego respondendum esse statuo Canuleii verbis. 
Nullane res nova institui debet, et que nondum 
facta sunt, (multa enim nondum facta sunt in hac 
nova Asiaticorum civitate) ea, ne si utilia quidem 
sint, fieri oportet ?”* 

At enim quo tandem jure lex ea innisaest? Ni- 
mirum eo quod Jupiter ipse sanxit, ut omnia que 
salutaria reipublicze essent, justa et legitima habe- 
rentur.~ Neque enim nunc primum patriz salu- 
tem aut Brutus aut Cassius legem sanctissimam et 
morem optimum‘ judicavit. Est autem hominis 
pudentis cupidique officio satisfaciendi, ut consilium 
sequatur periculosum, magis, dum se optimo cuique 
probarit, quam tutum, quod habere possit minus 
commodi et plus opinionis. Natura quidem ita 
comparatum est, ut qui apud Multitudinem sua 
causa loquuntur, gratiosi sint ; cum adversis auribus 
accipiatur, quicquid a sapientibus viris dictum fue- 
rit. Itaque in illa conversione rerum non recusan- 
dum fuit, quin magna datetur occasio improbioris 
fame. Qui autem contra periculosas hominum 
Asiaticorum opes et potentiam tunc temporis provi- 
debant, eosdem certo scio civium communi et com- 
modo consuluisse et gloria. Et vero licet illis di- 
cere cum Claudio,§ nullum factum dictumve suum 
contra utilitatem publicam, etsi quedam contra vo- 
luntatem, referri posse.” 

Qui verbi invidia contumeliaque maledicti Foxium 
obruere volunt, 11 clamitant majestatis fuisse populi 


* Lib. lib. iv. cap. 4. + Cic. Philippic. xi. p. 529. 
+ Ibid. § Liv, lib, vi. cap. 40. 


156 PRAEFATIO 


Anglicani prohibere injuriam, neque pati cujusquam 
regnum * per scelus crescere. At regem-f ne post- 
hac Foxium dixerint, nisi forte regium iis videtur in 
Senatu sentire libere: non modo homini nemini, 
sed ne partibus quidem ullis, fracto animo et de- 
misso servire: populi utilitati magis consulere, 
quam ad arbitrium ejusdem totum se fingere et ac- 
commodare: potentioribus prave consiliantibus non 
cedere: projectee eorum et effraenatze audaciz fortiter 
obsistere. 

Sed si qui sunt, quibus injurie, illi Senatui illate, 
parvi zstimande videantur, monendi sunt 11, quod 
parya ista¥ non contemnendo, majores nostri hance 
rem maximam fecerint. 

Non est hujusce loci opiniones eorum excutere, 
qui pertimescere se dicerent, ne forte prarogativa 
regia labefactaretur. Seepe eos putabam, qui tantas 
de hac re tragcedias excitarent, non tam imprudentia 
falli, quam invidia aliqua et obtrectatione impediri, 
Quinetiam argumenta eorum pleraque videbantur 
nobis lepore potius elevanda, quam frangenda acri 
contentione, eo quod istiusmodi opiniones jam pri- 
dem in hac republica, non solum tenebris vetustatis, 
verum etiam luce libertatis oppresse sunt. Sed sa- 
tis est superque horum cavillatorum sive ratiunculis 
sive maledictis a Burkio responsum ᾧ ea in senten- 
tia, quam verbis conceptis et amplissimis dixit de 
oratione a Rege habita, et cui nihil a yiris rei poli- 
ticee prudentissimis, neque addi neque demi potest. 


* Sal. Bel. Jug. cap. 15. + Cic. Orat. pro Syll. p. 382. 
t Lib. lib. vi, cap, 41. § Die Lune, Jun, 14, 1784. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 157 


Illam sane Burkii sententiam qui attente dili- 
genterque legerint, ferent id vel acerbissime, quod 
gravi et intolerabili arrogantia nuper in Senatu nes- 
cio quis Wilberforcius balbutivit ; quod est voce τοῦ 
δεῖνα importuna et scelerata iteratum; quod homu- 
lorum ei temere assentientium agrestibus et inhu- 
manis auribus exceptum est valde libenter. Ibitum 
impudentissima eorum hzc fuerunt verba—deflores- 
cere jam Burkium, et pene ineptire, siquidem, credo, 
non maneant pristina illa eadem concinnitas, et 
lactea eadem ubertas, cum eadem non deceant. 
Atqui oratio ejus, annon * canescere potius videtur, 
suamque quandam habere maturitatem et quasi se- 
nectutem? Ego vero contendere ausim, ita se rem 
habere ; quod quidem cum dico, meminerint isti 
clamatores, velim, γῆρας ἡ ἐμὲ διηγεῖσθαι, γῆρας δ᾽ 
ὅμως Ὁμήρου. 

Hunccine credibile aut memorabile est, ut ¢ δεῖνα 
uno unquam verbo violaverit? ut hominem omnibus 
litterarum ornamentis redundantem, is cui, ut levis- 
sima dicam, multa desint, spreverit atque irriserit. 
Profecto hoc, quicquid est, vel petulantiz, vel auda- 
ci, animi esse videtur pusilli, et ad rixandum pro- 
clivis, et ipsa malevolentia jejuni et manis. 

Quin vos, quotquot estis, qui vacuas τῷ δεῖνα, sed 
obtusas Burkio aures prebetis, a me nunc demum 
accipite illud amplum et honorificum ipsius Jonsoni 
testimonium. Ita enim, crebro nobis, sepe aliis au- 
dientibus, ita, inquimus, gravissimus ille atque acer- 
rimus censor dicebat “in neminem se unquam inci- 


= Eri ps 157. + Longin. Sect. ix. 


158 PREFATIO 


disse, qui, vel tantam varietatem rerum et copiam, 
quantam Burkius, memoria consecutus esset, vel 
oratione tam illuminate, tamque abundanter com- 
plexus.” Preeterea, subridens, ut mos hominis erat» 
Procupeio:* προσώπασι, neque ullam in tali amico le- 
vitatem, sed ingenium ad omnia versatile signifi- 
cans, illud addere solebat, “ne- τὰς ὑδριαϑούσας 
quidem posse cum Edmundo in triviis aut compitis 
cedere sermones, quin obstupescerent atque clama- 
rent, οὗτος ἐκεῖνος." Hunccine igitur ut maledictis 
ultro et impune lacessierint juvenum greges, aut in- 
sulse putideque balbutientium, aut latrantium con- 
tumeliose et inhumaniter? Non sinam, non patiar, 
non feram. 

Posse nos in vexatissima questione aliqua culpa 
erroris teneri lubentissime confitemur. Causam 
vero illam, que ad rationes Asiz administrande 
pertinebat, per omnes juris anfractus, omnesque 
eruende veritatis latebras, pro ingenii nostri modulo 
exploravimus. Neque est quicquam in illa a nobis 
repertum, quod sit minus recte contrave Rempubli- 
cam aut factum aut inchoatum. Felicius necne res 
Asiz a τῴ δεῖνα tractentur, ipse viderit. Sua, ipse 
viderit, consilia fuerint, necne, eyusmodi, primo ut. 
aspectu speciosiora visa sint, cum aliorum essent 
usu meliora. Que autem a nobis probata est lex, 
fuit eadem neque intellecta minima ex parte, neque 
oculis strictim aspecta a plerisque eorum, qui acer- 


* Jliad, vii. line 212, 
+ Elian. Var, Hist. lib. ix. cap. 17. et Cic. Tusc. Quest. p. 
402, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 159 


rime de ea sunt conquesti, ejusque in auctores in- 
vecti sunt non arrogantia, nam id vulgare vitium 
est, sed immanitate quadam nova et prorsus inau- 
dita. 

Non me preterit quanta sit in Coalitionem, quod 
aiunt, invidia conflata. “Sed aliud est maledicere, 
aliud accusare.” Hoc vero ipsum munus convici- 
andi, etsi non admiratus sum, sane quam moleste * 
tuli potissimum esse a τῷ δεῖνα susceptum. Neque 
enim decebat, neque etas illa postulabat. Fatendum 
est autem Juvenis disertissimi eum fuisse pudorem, 
qui in tali illum oratione versari facillime pateretur 
Profecto has maledicendi partes nemo ex illis ro- 
bustioribus, aut libentius arripere potuit, aut libe- 
rius, fortiusque, et magis more suo, sustinere. 

Nobis sane persuasissimum est, viris illis quos 
tanquam patrue lingue verberibus, et pene Censorii 
styli mucrone petiverit, nihil fuisse prius antiqui- 
usve, quam ut Respublica ne quid detrimenti cape- 
ret. Quin causa eorum materiem satis amplam 
habet, non modo ad defendendum, verum etiam ad 
laundandum. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἡμεῖς οὐ τοῦτο σκοποῦμεν, τινὶ δεῖ 
συγγνώμην ἔχειν ἤ μὴ ἔχειν, ἀλλὰ περὶ τοῦ ὀρθῶς καὶ 
μὴ ὀρθώς.Ὑ' 

Nam quod objectum est de Coalitione vocibusque 
improborum hominum celebratum,¢ id nunquam 
Foxius et Northius tam acerbe ferent, ut eos poeni- 
teat inimicitias posse deponere. Non putarunt fa- 
mam inconstantiz § 5101 pertimescendam, si quibus- 


* Orat. pro Cel. par. 2. + Aristot. de Rep. lib. ii. cap. 9- 
1 Orat. pro Cel. par. 2. ὁ Epist. ad Len, 9. 


160 PREFATIO 


dam in sententiis paululum se immutassent. Cum 
perfuncta * esset Respublica misero fatalique bello, 
non solum quid sibi expediret, sed quid deceret se 
atque optimum esset, rationis ad normam exegerunt. 
Belli illius vulnera existimarunt, tum demum sanari 
posse, si inter diversas civium voluntates distrae- 
tasque sententias, fieret consensus bonorum omnium 
conspirans et pene conflatus. Jecerunt, quod in se 
fuit, fundamenta pacis domestice Atheniensium- 
que ἢ vetus renovarunt exemplum, atque discordia- 
rum memoriam omnem oblivione sempiterna de- 
lendam esse censuerunt. Lapsi sunt, non pravitate 
aliqua, sed opinione officii et specie quadam reipub- 
lice. Feeerunt, quod ab milio ¢ Lepido et Fulvio 
Flacco, magna cum laude olim factum fuerat. Hoc 
unui iis deesse maceror et doleo, quod exempla 
Themistoclis ὃ et Aristidis sibi ad imitandum non 
proposuerint, ut respublica eos inter se, bello jam 
flagrante, conciliare posset et conjungere maturius. 

Cum || a clarissimis viris justissimas inimicitias 
sepe cum bene meritis civibus depositas esse vidis- 
sem, non sum arbitratus quenquam amicum reipub- 
licze, postea quam Foxii amor in Patriam perspectus 
esset, novas illi inimicitias, nulla accepta imjuria, de- 
nuntiaturum. Sed aliter res cecidit, atque opinabar. 
Etenim τῷ δεῖνα videtur neque ipsi periculosum, nec 
sordidum ad famam, committere ut accusator nomi- 
netur. Sue insuper dignitatis esse existimat, sum- 


* Orat. pro Marcell. par. 4. + Philip. i. p. 494. 
¢ Val. Max. lib. iv. δ Polyzn. lib. i. Στρατ. 
|| Orat, pro Flacco, p. 371. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 161] 


mum ad imperium, in quo versatur, nature etiam 
acerbitatem adjungere. Alii autem cum et tempo- 
rum rationem habuerint, et quidem indolis sue ad 
benevolentiam paulo proclivioris, “Scelus tu illud 
vocas, Tubero?”* Profecto hoc cum facis, petulan- 
tissime te affirmo injustissimeque iis maledicere, 
qui causam habent, vel, uti ego dixerim, meliorem 
quam tu, vel uti tu, tue dignitatis istos adjutores 
fautoresque circumspiciens, ipse, necesse est, fatearis, 
parem. Debet, mehercule, causa illa nomine hoc 
tetro atque horribili, te quidem certe auctore, penitus 
vacare. Num quid subtimes, crimen hoc deponen- 
darum inimicitiarum, ne ad te pertinere videatur? 
Isto libera te metu. Nemo credet unquam tantam 
in te esse aut humanitatem aut animi magnitudi- 
nem. Non est tuum ira atque odio cohibendo de 
Republica bene-~ mereri. Auctoritati vero tue 
non est idcirco parendum, quia adversariis tuis op- 
posuisti sanctissimum illud nomen Regis. Te enim 
sociosque tuos, qui intus et in cute norunt, verbo- 
rum pondus tuorum facile sustinebunt. Ad istos 
cum respiciunt, liquido patebit inter tam diversas 
mentes, inter studia tam contraria, tamque pugnan- 
tes inter se cupiditates, nullam posse concordiam 
esse, que sincera ac diuturna sit. Latebras, que 
tuo in animo sunt, si excutiunt et explorant, “ im- 
pune quelibet facere, id demum judicabunt, Regem 
6586. ἢ 


* Pro Ligario, par. iv. + Philippic ii. par. 6. 
¢ Sail. Bell. Jugurth. par. 86. 
VOL, III. M 


162 PREFATIO 


Qui ex errore multitudinis imperite, et insipien- 
tium sermone omnino pendet, hic in viris magnis 
non habendus est. Nihil* enim ipsi potest esse 
certi,—nihil, quod exploratum habeat permansurum 
5101 unum annum. Aliter sentiunt illi quitanquam 
Ψψάφωνος + ὄρνιθες, stabile quiddam, et fixum, et pro- 
prium esse fortunam τοῦ δεῖνα arbitrantur. Sed me- 
cum 11 recognoscant, velim, quo in statu res nostre 
site esse videantur, et que sint civium diversorum 
diverse in eum voluntates. 

Si aut obsurdescunt cives saniores, aut paulo fas- 
tidiosius subringuntur ad nomen tributi, adest nescio 
quis e publicolis istis et τοῦ δεῖνα assentatoribus, 
qui populum miris lenociniis permulceat et titillet. 
Argumenta ejus, quibus Φενα κίϑει ἡλᾶς, huc fere re- 
deunt. 


Μὴ περιλαλῶμεν, μηδὲ πυνθανώμεθα 

Τί ποτ᾽ ἄρα δρᾶν μέλλουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἁπλῷ τρόπῳ 
Ἑῶμεν ἄρχειν»; σκεψάμενοι ταυτὶ μόνα, 

‘Os τοὺς στρατιώτας, βασίλεως ὄντες φίλοι; 


Σώξειν ἐπιθυμοῦσιν. 


Τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐάσω" ταῦτα Kav πείθησθέ μοι, 
Εὐδαιμονοῦντες, τὸν βιόν διάξετε. ἢ 


Scilicet, qui ad calculos omnia exigue et exiliter 
revocant, sua in divendita et addicta sententia non 
erubescunt perseverare. Alii tanquam sacramento 
obligati aut superstitione quadam constricti, de con- 
-silio, quod susceperint, discedere nefas esse ducunt. 


* Cic. de Off. lib. i. p. 501. 
+ Mich. Apostol. Prov. edit. Heins. p. 266. 
t Aristoph. Eccles, lin. 230 and 239. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 163 


Quibus olim est persuasum, ubi * pars civium esset, 
ibi imperii esse partem, illi ipsi in-~ contumeliam 
ignominiamque certant suam, cum { crescere sibi 
alunt ex eo ipso fiduciam, quod possit in Juvenis 
unius virtute tantum esse momenti. Impetus au- 
tem multorum resederunt, non negligentia, sed quo- 
dam consilio, si quidem fatentur se, quos fugiant, 
habere ; quos sequantur, non habere. 

Πόλιν γὰρ ὁρῶσι προστἄταισι χρωμένην 

᾿Αεὶ πονηροῖς" κἄν τις ἡμέραν μίαν 

Χρηστὸς γένηται, δέκα πονηρὸς γίγνεται. 

᾿Ἐπέτρεψας ἑτέρῳ; πλείον᾽ ἔτι Spacer κακά. ὁ 


Transferunt alii ad τὸν δεῖνα, quod Tacitus de 
Galba || scripsit; “fuisse illum omnium consensu 
capacem imperil, nisi imperasset.” Aliorum in 
mentibus, cum illa dicendi vitiosa jactatio suos inter 
plausores detonuit, tandem aliquando videtur resur- 
gere vere spreteque virtutis fortior fama.4] Ete- 
nim que et facta sunt a τῷ δεῖνα et dicta in eadem 
trutina illi perpendunt, cognitumque jam artificem, 
aliquandoque evolutum illis integumentis dissimula- 
tionis sue, nudatumque perspiciunt. 

Mirantur profecto et stomachantur proceres sibi 
necesse esse tam anguste sedere inter homines, qui, 
nulla vel famz vel majorum commendatione, ad ho- 
nores obrepserint. Per silentium vero aut-4 occul- 
tum murmur optimus quisque Senator excipit quos- 


* Liv. lib. viii. cap. 4. + Lib. iv. cap. 4. 
t Liv. xxviii. cap. 43. § Aristoph. Eccles. line 176. 
|| Hist. lib. i. par. 49. ¥ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 9. 


4 Tacit. Annal. ii. cap. xxxviii. 
M 2 


164 PR-EFATIO 


dam suum in ordinem popularibus suffragiis ΠΌΡΟΥ 
allectos, idque non injuria. Sunt enim, magnam 
partem, aut predones Asiz opibus superbientes, 
aut viri loco infimo nati et in omni civili ratione 
hospites ac tirones, quibus sane edicto opus est 
hujuscemodi, “Bonum* Factum! Senatori novo 
obviam euntes curiam monstranto.” Dolent interea 
qui res ponderant certo judicio, 11demque indignan- 
tur, adolescentibus loquacioribus esse serviendum, 
et omnes, qui videantur scire aliquid, tanquam do- 
minos timeri. Veniunt quippe illis in mentem ea 
que Ephesii, cum civitate expulissent Hermodo- 
rum, locuti sunt, “nemo de nobis unus excellat: 
sin quis exstiterit, alio in loco, et apud alios vivat.”-+ 

Ad summum, fateri non reformidant, civitatis 
sue saluti ipsum Allantopolam tum denique pros- 
pexisse, cum vetaret ne in foro, aut in republica 
gerenda ἀγένειοι versarentur. 


Ta μειράκια ταυτὶ λέγω 
“A στωμυλεῖται τοιαδὶ καθήμενα" 
Σοθὸς γ᾽ ὁ δεῖνα, δεξιῶς τ᾽ οὐκ ἀπεθάνε" 
Ἐυνερκτικὸς γάρ ἐστι, καὶ περαντικὸς, 
Kai γνωμοτυπικὸς, καὶ σαφὴς, καὶ KpovortKos.t 


Civium de maxima parte notissimum est, eos 
rumoribus atque auditionibus permotos, de summis 
seepe rebus consilia inire, quorum eos e vestigio 
peenitere necesse sit: quum incertis rumoribus ser- 
viant, et plerique ad voluntatem eorum ficta respon- 


* Sueton. vit. J. Cas. par, 80. 
+ Cic. Tuse. lib. v. p. 240. + Aristoph. Equ. 1372. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 165 


deant. Inde fit, ut nihil sit illorum studiis incertius 
aut obscurius, totamque eorundem opinionem parva 
nonnunquam commutet aura rumoris.* Etenim 
non modo ipsi quid facturi sint, minus diligenter 
cauteque perpendunt, sed ne tum quidem, cum fuerit 
factum, quare ita factum sit intelligere possunt. 
Itaque omnes illi, qui contagione nuper insanie- 
bant, ne hodie quidem scire videntur, quo amentiz 
ipsi progressi sint. Qui autem pluris hominum 
famam quam Rempublicam faciunt, levi quovis mo- 
mento huc et illuc impelluntur. Sed ea est horum 
hominum ratio, ut, quo lenius-+ primo agant, seg- 
niusque odisse incipiant, eo, cum cceperint, perse- 
verantius seviant. His de causis perbreve quid- 
dam et ventosum videtur extraordinarium illud Im- 
perium, quod est rw δεῖνα haud ita pridem com- 
missum. Quare caveat necesse est, ne, quantulum 
sit id, quod humeri ejus ferre non recusent, seepius 
eequo ostendat, cum res gravissimas minus cogitate 
agerediatur. Caveat ne adolescens improvida ztate 
ita se erratis fraudibusque irretiat, ut salvus esse 
non possit, si sanus esse cceperit. Caveat ne 
quando ἀποβάλων τὴν ἡγεμονίαν cum Demetrio coga- 
tur Aischyleum illud usurpare. 


Σύ τοι μ᾽ ἔφυσας, σὺ δέ pe καταφθίειν δοκεῖς. ὃ 
At illud nobis ὁ δεῖνα objiciet, || honorem esse 
* Pro Muren. par. 9. + Liv. lib. xli. cap. 10. 
$ Cicer. Tuscul, Quest. lib. v. p. 398. 


§ Vid, Plutarch. de Monarch. et AEschyli fragm. ex emend. 
Heathii. || Brut. p. 152. 


166 PREFATIO 


premium virtutis, judicio studioque civium ad ali- 
quem delatum, quod si quis sententiis eorum ac, 
suffragiis adeptus fuerit, eum sibi et honestum et 
honoratum merito videri. Hzec autem ne vera esse 
credam, .prohibent ea, que a Quinto Cicerone dicta 
sunt, cum* propter tot tantos tamque precipites 
casus clarissimorum hominum, Marcum fratrem ab 
omni contentione ac dimicatione revocaret. Pro- 
hibent pessimorum virorum dignitates, qui occa- 
sione aliqua, etiam volentibus suis civibus, nacti 
sunt imperium. Prohibent, pleni ea de re argu- 
mentis libri, plenze sapientium voces, plena exem- 
plorum vetustas. 

De bello Americano, acerbissime multi conque- 
runtur. At vitia ejus modique unde fluxerint, illud 
vero eos habet parum sollicitos. Nimium de re 
gravissima dicunt, nec tamen totum. In unum e 
multis belli ejus auctoribus, quicquid in buccam 
venerit, temere iracundeque effutiunt. Quod qui- 
dem sibi si liceat impune facere, satis ipsi 5101 vi- 
dentur, quid clamitando possent, ostendisse, et civi- 
um satisfecisse officio bonorum. Aliis plurimum 
terroris injecit regia illa potestas, que in preemiis et 
honoribus pessimo cuique deferendis, nimia esse 
dicitur et tantum non prodiga. Sed causas rerum 
earum, que nuper acciderint, ipse cum requiro 
que verisimillimz sint, alio ex fonte mihi videtur, 
quicquid est malorum, in patriam esse derivatum. 
Est enim hominum quoddam genus, qui primos se 


* De Orator. lib. ili. p. 124, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 167 


rerum omnium videri nolunt et tamen sunt. * Quod 
si dominandi libido tam effrenata τὸν δεῖνα tenet : 
si “ Iulus ille noster” querit impensius, “ Unde suo 
partus Marte triumphus eat,”-+ hostes ei, quos re- 
publica incolumi superet, cohors Aulica cumulatis- 
sime prebebit—quare premia si cupit ἀνδραγαθίας 
kal πάτραγαθίας t reportare, oro illum obtestorque, 
ut omnes irze aculeos in istos insidiatores dirigat— 
hastas, velim, oratoriis viribus lacertisque non 
amentatas torqueat in θηρία, quee, si parti ejus cre- 
dendum est, delitescunt, et quidem jamdiu delites- 
cunt, καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου 
γέμοντα ὀφθάλμων, ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν. ᾽ ὃ 

Mancam ac debilem esse rempublicam, non 18 
sum qui pernegem. At contenderim tamen non 
ita multos esse, qui medicas ei manus adhibere de- 
beant. Quare consiliorum, quibus ea jamdudum 
geritur, paulo altius repetenda est ratio; exponen- 
dumque quid potissimum agant aut agere velint 1], 
quibus, vel intercesserit olim cum τῷ δεῖνα amicitia, 
vel etiam nunc intercedat. 

De his autem mihi cogitanti primum ante oculos 
obversatur vir ille nobilis, cujus sub auspiciis omnia 
que commota fuerant, pace atque otio resederunt, 
cujusque mira est, qua stat a promissis, constantia 
et fides. ᾿Επεκλήθη γὰρ Δώσων, ὡς ἐπαγγελτικὸς μιὲν, 
οὐ τελεσιοῦργος δὲ τών ὑποσ χεσέων.] Sunt qui cre- 
dant hunc virum fere primam fuisse mali originem, 


* Terent. Eunuch. act ii. sc. 2. t Ov. Epist. Did. 
1 Plutarch. de Vitios. Pud. p. 534. & Apophtheg. p. 188. 
§ Revelat. cap. iv. et Orat. Comitis de C m. 

|| Plutarch, in Vit. Coriol. p. 218, ἃ Paul. Emilii 258. 


168 PRFATIO 


geminasque inter partes, (id quod de Rufino * dici- 
tur,) discordiam, hoc auctore exstitisse. Calculum 
illis, qui ita judicant ut meum adjiciam, hee potis- 
simum me impellunt. 

Qui consilium in ipso negotio capere coguntur, 
modice solent titubanterque agere. Dosoni autem 
ita sunt meditata et provisa fere omnia, ita est ipse 
totus fallaciis conflatus, ita ad insidiandum nocen- 
dumque συγκεκροτημένος, 7 ut, res si qua preter 
spem et opinionem acciderit, ea, quid postulet, in- 
telligere et e vestigio aggredi possit. Idoneum, quo 
hoc faciat, auctorem habet: legerat quippe in Li- 
vio,t boni ducis esse, non deesse fortune prebenti 
se, et oblato casu flectere ad consilium. 

Honoribus sibi inhianti, et primarium semper pe- 
tenti locum, impedimento novit esse mitem illam 
Lelii § sapientiam, que ad salutem patrie peroffi- 
ciose et peramanter incumbens, benevolentiam et 
charitatem omnium sibi adjunxisset. Itaque adeo, 
cum vir ille amabilis morte esse exstinctus, fore 
Doson credebat, ipse ut in campo puro ac patenti 
versari posset. Pectus continuo illud suum fecun- 
dum concussit totum. Statuit aut dolos preclaro 
cum successu versare, aut in certam incurrere per- 
niciem. Expulsis igitur omnibus, qui aut consilia 
ejus rimari possent, aut ambitioni vellent acriter re- 
sistere, socium sibi in republica procuranda τὸν δεῖνα 
adjunxit. 


* Claudian. in, Eutrop. lib. ii. 
+ Demosth, Olynth. I. et Theocr. Idyll. 15. 
{ Lib. xxviii. cap. 44. § M. de R——m. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 169 


Imperii autem inter consortes rarissima est fides, 
siquidem, quae amicitias hujusmodi conglutinat uti- 
litas,* eadem, temporibus paululum mutatis, aut dis- 
suit illas aut plane disrumpit. Doson non modo 
spe sed ipsa potentiz et honorum possessione detur- 
batus est. Paucis post mensibus, monitore illo at- 
que adjutore, summam dignitatem ὁ δεῖνα occupavit. 
Per quem autem virum, ipse, cum in Senatu propter 
pubertatem ~~ minime posset, gratia olim creveret, 
ejus ad potentiam minuendam opibus nervisque om- 
nibus ὁ δεῖνα usus est. Scilicet in secundis Doson 
voluit ita consistere ut primo ¢ esset proprior quam 
tertio. Sed repulit illum atque illiberaliter asper- 
natus est Juvenis, qui “ ferre quenquam potest nec 
priorem nec parem.Ӥ Quid ergo? fortune ait 
Doson minime se invidere et virtuti C. Sylle, qui 
jactaverit inter amicos sibi in fatis fuisse γέροντι 
παίδων ἀγώνας ἀγωνίϑφεσθαι. Veterem illum nunc 
demum pre se fert morem officii, non infuscatum 
maleyolentia, non assuetum mendaciis, non erudi- 
tum artificio simulationis vel suburbano vel etiam 5] 
urbano. Otia dicit sese inglorium amare, “Sylvas- 
que,** et vitam que fallere sit nescia.”-~~ In urbe 
mussitat, potius quam ruri posse jam ab aliis secre- 
tum illud iter reperirit{ Qui autem boni δὰ viri 
(ita enim est ille a quodam honorifice dictus in Se- 


* Οἷς, de Amic, p. 544. + Ces. de Bell, G. 1.4. par. 20. 
¢ Quintil. x. cap. 1. § Lucan, lib. i. 

|| Plutarch. Vit. Pompeii, p. 625. 

4 Orat. pro Planc. p. 119. ** Vid. Orat. M. de L. 

tt Virg. Georg. i. tt Horat. Epist. 18, lib, i. 

§§ Hor. Ep. 16. lib. 1. 


170 PREFATIO 


natu) officiis fungitur, is ne malus sit civis, prohi- 
bent multa, quo minus vereamur. 

Minas possumus contemnere vocemque fulmineam 
Thrasonici istius oratoris τοῦ τὰς ὀφρῦς κυανέας ἐπηρ- 
κότος, cujus vultum, uti Noviorum + istius mino- 
ris, ferre posse se negat quadruplatorum genus 
omne et subscriptorum. Quid enim? truculentus αὶ 
semper incedit, teterque, et terribilis aspectu. De 
supercilio autem isto quid dicendum est ? annon rei- 
publicze illud quasi pignus quoddam videtur? an- 
non senatus illo, tanquam Atlante coelum, innititur? 

Quod si verum est omnes regende civitatis ra- 
tiones, omnia ipsius τοῦ δεῖνα preclara studia, omnem 
omnium virorum Politicorum laudem atque indus- 
triam latere in tutela ac presidio hujusce unius ho- 
minis, vero verius est quod ab Epicharmo dicitur, 


ἐκ παντὸς ξυλοῦ 
Κίων γένηται. 


Profecto non desunt qui Novium existiment in | 
“summa feritate esse versutissimum, promtumque 
ingenio ultra Barbarum.”|| Quod si demseris illi aut 
σφοδρότητα quanta in Bruto fuit, aut πικρότητα vere 
Menippeam, aut προσώπου σκυθρότητα propriam et 
suam, facile ejus vel prudentiz vel fidei juris nodos 
legumque enigmata ad solvendum permiseris. 

Est queedam, inter laudes Phocionis, et Novii for- 
tunam, similitudo, quatenus uterque, cum esset 


* Lucian, tom. i. p. 367. 1 Horat. Sat. ix. lib. 1. 
¢ Orat. pro Sext. ὃ Epicharmus ἐν Τρῶσι. 
il Vell. Paterc. lib. ii. cap. 181. 


AD BELLENDINI LIBROS. 171 


τραχὺς καὶ σκυθρωπὸς, ἐκτήσατο τὴν τοῦ χρηστοῦ προσ- 
ηγορίαν. “At Phocion * inimicum ex civibus ne- 
minem afflixit, ac ne pro inimico quidem habuit, sed 
quantum res postulabat: tantum ut adversus obsis- 
tentes suis pro bono publico actionibus luctaretur, 
horridus erat, pertinax, et implacabilis. Omnibus in 
ceteris placidum se communemque et humanum 
prebebat, lapsisque ferebat opem, atque periclitan- 
tibus advocatus aderat adversariis.”. Hisce a mori- 
bus Phocionis quantum Novii vita abhorreat, nihil 
attinet disputare. Sed quod contumeliose et male- 
dice aiunt futurum, ut Asiz cujusdam Prefecti do- 
los, nequi castigare, ultra quam summum jus postu- 
let, neque audire studeat, id sane, quamvis incredi- 
bile esse statuerem, Phocionis tamen auctoritate 
atque exemplo tueri possem, ἐγκαλούντων γὰρ τών 
φίλων ὅτι πονηρῶ τινι κοινομένῳ συνεῖπεν, τοὺς χρηστοὺς 
ἔφη μὴ δεῖσθαι βοηθείας. 

+Fervido quodam et petulanti genere dicendi uti- 
tur, eodemque, nec valde nitenti, nec plane horrido. 
Solutos irridentium cachinnos ita commovet, ut le- 
pores ejus, scurriles et prorsus veteratorios diceres. 
Omnia loquitur verborum sane bonorum cursu quo- 
dam incitato, itemque voce, qua ne subsellia quidem 
ipsa desiderant pleniorem et grandiorem. In adver- 
sarlis autem lacerandis ita causidicorum § figuras ja- 
culatur, ita callida et malitiosa juris interpretatione 
utitur, ita furere et bacchari solet, ut sepe mirere 


tam alias res agere optimates, ut sit pene insano 
inter disertos locus. 


* Plut. in Vit. Phocion. p. 746. + Ibid. 
+ Brut. p. 142. § Sueton. lib, viii. cap. 13. 


172 PRAEFATIO 


Fuit * ei, perinde atque aliis, fortuna pro virtuti- 
bus. Didicit autem a Muciano, satis clarum esse 
apud timentem, quisquis -~ timeatur. Corpore t 
ipse ingens, animi immodicus, verbis magnificus, et 
specie inanium magis quam sapientia validus, studia 
ad se optimatium illexit,{ eamque adeptus est auc- 
toritatem, que homini novo pro facundia esse pos- 
set. Scilicet, que bonis Titio,|| Seioque turpissima 
forent, Novium nostrum maxime decent, siquidem e 
subselliis elapsus de Tribunali nunc pronuntiet, et 
ex precone actionum factus sit institor eloquentiz 
senatorie. Quam igitur in civitate gratiam dicendi 
facultate Q. Varius 6] consecutus est, vastus homo 
atque foedus, eandem Novius intelligit, illa ipsa fa- 
cultate, quamcunque habet, se esse in Senatu conse- 


cutum— 
« Ellum, confidens, catus: 
Cum faciem videas, videtur esse quantivis preti: 
Tristis severitas inest in voltu, atque in verbis ** fides.” 


Arrogantia in dicendo et acerbitas, habent ill 
quidem nonnunquam gravitatem. Qui autem te- 
tricum quiddam et vultuosum nunquam non con- 
sectatur: qui rem quamque justissimam vel acutulis 
impedit conclusionibus, vel attenuat affligitque im- 
probulis fallaciis: qui adversarios semper conatur 
conviciando atque obstrependo verberare et fran- 
gere, is sane et in litigiosorum grege et sophistarum, 
annumerari debet. Verba hac, quid velint, itemque 


* Tacit. Hist. ii. cap. 82. + Hist. ii. cap. 76. 
1 Annal. 12. cap. 8. § Tacit. Hist. cap. 53. 
|| Juvenal. Sat. 4. 4 Cic. de Orat. lib. i, p. 94. 


** Ter, And, act v. sc. 2. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 173 


alterum ab altero, quantum intersit, melius ipse ab 
Aristotele, quam a nobis audierit——womep yag ἡ ἐν 
ἀγώνι ἀδικία εἰδός τι ἔχει, καὶ ἔστιν ἀδικομαχία τις" 


οὕτως 7 ἐναντιολογία, ἀδικομαχία ἔστιν ἐριστική 
Oi μὲν οὖν τῆς νίκης αὐτῆς χάριν τοιοῦτοι, ἐριστικοὶ 
ἄνθρωποι καὶ φιλέριδες δοκοῦσιν εἶναι" οἱ δὲ do Ens χάριν 
τῆς εἰς χρηματισμὸν, σοφισταί. 

At meam de se opinionem si legat Novius, etiam 
atque etiam illum hortor 


Μή μοι yopyeiny κεφαλὴν δεινοῖο πελώρου 


intorqueat.~ Quod in alios spe usurpat, triste 
atque asperum dicendi genus, illud ipsum, credo, 
maxime exhorrescet in se intentatum. 


“ς Sed si quid “dictum in se inclementius 
Existimarit esse, sic existimet: sciat 
Responsum, non dictum esse, quia ¢ lesit prior.” 


In iis, que sequuntur, telis ego Novium secun- 
dis ὃ petam; imo vero ad hilaritatem illam et sua- 
vitatem, qua prope jam delectantur homines, me 
convertam. 

Brevi fore spero, ut vigiliis senioque confectus, 
curas super urbe civiles libentissime deponat, satis- 
que habeat sibi licere, 


"Ev εἰρήνῃ ye διάγειν τὸν βίον 
"Exov@’ ἐταῖραν. ἢ] 


Senilem vero amorem si quis putat subturpe quid- 


* Aristot. Soph. Elench. lib. i. cap. 11. 
t Lib. ix. ep. 6. Att. { Ter. prol. Eunuc. 
§ Ovid. Met. lib. iii. 1, 307. || Aristoph. Pax 438. 


174 PR-EFATIO 


dam esse, et tanto vite splendori labeculam asper- 
gere, “est ille quidem valde * severus.” Latine non 
accusatorie dico, potuisse Novium satis spectatum 
probatumque civem videri, si in omni ejus vita nihil 
esset magis inhonestum, quam quod cum ancillula 
“ senex miles” divortium non fecisset.-- 

Qui autem prima jam inde ab adolescentia, et 
forensibus concertationibus et quidem bellis ¢ noc- 
turnis, non sine gloria militavit, eundem credibile 
est, accedente jam senecta, meliorem posse lenio- 
remque fieri. Satietate abjecisse videbitur, quic- 
quid in se corrigendum, aut § leviter inflectendum 
sit. Quod dixerit, interdum, si ita rectius sit, mu- 
tabit. De sententia decedet aliquando. Exorari se 
et placari nonnunquam patietur. Alienum a digni- 
tate sua non putabit, cum offensiones, ut semper fe- 
cit, equabilitate decernendi vitare, tum etiam bene- 
volentiam velle adjungere lenitate audiendi.||_ Qui- 
bus horribilia ista nune minitatur, levius cum iisdem 
et urbanius aget verbis hisce Aristophaneis, 

Ouxér’ ἄν μ᾽ εὕροις δικαστὴν δριμὺν, οὐδὲ δύσκολον, 
Οὐδὲ τοὺς τρόπους γε δήπου σκληρὸν, ὥσπερ καὶ πρωτοῦ" 
"ANN ἁπαλόν γ᾽ ἄν μ᾽ ἴδοις, 

Καὶ πολὺ νεώτερον, ἀ- 


παλλάγεντα πραγμάτων δ] 


Parum nos movet 7 πολυπραγμοσύνη nobilis cujus- 
dam viri, cujus ego nomen sciens pretereo, ne opus 
tendam ultra legem, qua, ne quis Magnatibus flagi- 


* Orat. pro Czl. + Philip. ii. par. 10. 
t En. xi. 736. § Orat. pro Muren. par. 12. 


|| Pro Muren, p. 366. 4 Aristoph. Pax 348. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 175 


tium faceret contumeliamve, prudentissime cautum 
est. Signis erit perfacile hominem describere, qui 
odio possit vincere regem,* sermonisque adeo amari 
sit, ut nec civium nec Ducum ullorum unquam 
fame pepercerit. Themistoclem is cum oderit, 
Aristidem tamen non amat. Quamquam justum 
ipse se neque esse neque videri plus nimio cupit, ita 
tamen est propositi tenax, atque αὐθάδης, ut ne Py- 
thium quidem oraculum de ligneis muris possit eum 
a machinis et deliramentis suis unquam deflectere 
aut divellere—At vero arrogantie ille per omnem 
vite cursum tantam speciem prebuit, tantamque 
in publicis muneribus pertinacie habet opinionem, 
ut ineptiz ejus atque imperia, ne iis quidem, qui 
ipso amico usi sint, diu perferanda videantur. 

Quid tandem est, cur se tantopere jactaret, su- 
amque illam intempestivam molestamque diligen- 
tiam ostentaret enumerando τὰς ἐπάλξεις ἃς κονιᾶσ- 
θαι ἔφη δεῖν, καὶ τοὺς στρατιώτων καταλόγους οὖς 
ἐπεσκεύαξε, καὶ τοὺς περὶ χρημάτων λογίσμιους καὶ 
λήρους. 

In rumoribus quidem sane illis, qui famam τοῦ 
δεῖνα perstringunt, habet populus Anglicanus aures 
hebetiores. Sed oculi sunt ejus acres et acuti in 
consiliis dispiciendis, que Miso-Themistocli unice 
sunt cordi. Id adeo malum, quod ex magnis et pa- 
rum fructuosis expensis nascitur, apud Anglos non 
minus quam Athenienses in proverbium abiit—rb 
Ἱππάρχου τείχιον. 


* Horat. lib. i. Sat. vii. + Demosth, Olynth. ii. 
t Mich. Apostol. Parcem. p. 240. 


176 PRAFATIO 


Ne Clodii quidem ipsius mendacia, que regibus 
quondam esse formidini solebant, risum jam aut ad- 
murmurationem auditoribus eliciunt, quippe que 
iterum et sepius conflata sunt usque ad tunicati po- 
pelli fastidium. 

Quatuor hosce viros, h. e. Dosona, Novium, 
Miso, Themistoclem, et Clodium, dixi quare non ita 
vehementer reformidandos esse statuerim. Verum 
enimvero qui cuniculis et ambagibus et susurris 
moliuntur omnia; qui in ipsis penetralibus imperii 
nidulos sibi ponunt, tanquam speculatores miseria- 
rum omnium et discordiarum: qui consilia sua huc 
atque illuc torquent et flectunt ad tempus: qui rem- 
publicam aut infirmam labefactant, aut validam vi- 
gentemque arrodunt: qui juvenes in pulverem et 
Solem, umbratili ex vita proripientes sese tollunt 
in altum, ut lapsu eosdem graviori precipites 
agant: Eorum profecto ab insidiis nihil non exti- 
mesco. 

Non sum nescius a quibusdam solere dici hosce 
βασίλεων οφθάλμους καὶ ὦτα, Kal χεῖρας, καὶ πόδας * 
partes τοῦ δεῖνα deseruisse. Vellem profecto ita se 
res haberet: at non deseruerunt—at Juvenes illos, 
qui amicitiz aut dignitatis causa τῷ δεῖνα favebant, 
sibi, quasi cupiditatum suarum ministros, vel potes- 
tatis sue satellites adjunxerunt—at modo in specu- 
lis atque imsidiis, ut olim relicti, modo im aciem 
educti, in capite atque in cervicibus nostris restite- 
runt. At quos integros cives, et viros fortes et cum 


* Vid. Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. viii. et Aristot. de Repub. lib. iii. 
cap. 16. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 177 


reipublice salute, natura et fortuna * conjunctos 
esse intelligunt, eosdem volunt de custodia civitatis 
cum regiis inimicitiis, tum popularibus suffragiis 
dejici et deturbari. 

Eccum tibi Thrasybulum-} istum ἀνδρὰ τρισκαιδε- 
karnyuv,t cujus vultum habitumque si spectas, erit 
tibi ad jocandum satis bella materies. Dicendi au- 
tem genus quale sit, si queris, nihil ei inest lima- 
tum politumque, nihil sine asperitate et offensione, 
nihil non incisum angulis aut anfractibus contor- 
tum. His accedit lingua volubilis, ferreum os, at- 
que importunum ; vox denique, que vereor ut pe- 
rinde intelligi legendo possit, atque ego ipse eam 
exaudiverim. Sonat illa quidem, ipsa natura, sub- 
raucum quiddam et subagreste. Faucibus modo 
strangulatur tumentibus, modo rasis asperatur.§ In 
summa laterum nunquam defatigatorum contentione 
non solum concitata fit, feriensque aera et aures du- 
riter dilacerans, sed fracta identidem, et elisa, et in 
κλώσμον subito erumpens. Vitium esse quoddam 
dicit Tullius, quod nonnulli de industria consecten- 
tur, rustica ut vox sit, atque antiquitatem sonet.|| 
At eam, que extra modum absona atque absurda 
esset, neminem vidi, Thrasybulo excepto, qui non 
aut effugere cuperet, aut exquisitis remediis dissi- 
mulare conaretur et tanquam liquido 5 plasmate 
emollire. 

Thrasybulum qui viderit ad partes modo has, 


* Orat. pro Muren. p. 362. + Ep. 3. lib, vili. ad Att. 
t Theocr. Id. 15. § Quintil. lib. xi. cap. 3. 
|| De Oratore, lib. iii, p. 125. q Pers. Sat. 1. 


VOL. ITI. N 


178 PRAEFATIO 


modo illas, sese convertentem, οὐκ ἂν γνοίης ποτέροισι 
perey.* Nempe verissimum ei et apprime utile 
Memmianum illud videtur prestare in republica be- 
neficii-~ quam maleficii esse immemorem.” At 
quod tandem maleficium potest unquam fieri in 
illum, cujus voluntatem solet potentior quisque aut 
impellere quo velit, aut, unde velit, deducere ? 
Thrasybulo igitur salva res est, eo quod non eru- 
buit.+ 

Nonnullos ait Tullius “se vidisse, qui, oratores 
evadere cum non possent, juris ad studium devenis- 
sent.Ӥ Thrasybulus autem noster hancce urbanam 
ad vitam et actuosam accessit, longe aliter subducta 
ratione. Nec vero mirandum est, novum sibi eum 
invenisse aucupium, cum egregius magister artis in- 
geniique largitor sit venter. Domi illi quamdiu ha- 
bitabat, ima ad subsellia detrusus est, habitusque 
etiam a vulgo, non solum horridus incultusque 
Orator, sed infans et pene insipiens. Profecto in 
dicendo quid posset, ne || judices quidem satis atten- 
debant, siquidem pulchre nossent illum in clamando 
esse robustum et bene exercitatum. Hoc igitur 
unum deficit prosperam ejus ad fortunam, quod, 
duze cum res, quo magis in foro diceret, confiden- 
tia 4 et vox non deessent, male tamen ei res cesse- 
runt. At vero, quem populares sui existimabant 
Leguleium, Blateronemque, et syllabarum Aucupem, 


* Tl. v. 1.85. + Sall. Bell. Jug. par. 36. 

1 Terent. Adelph. act iv. sc. 5. § Orat. pro Lege Manil. 
|| Divinat. in Cecil. par. 12. 

4 Nonius. in fragm., Ciceron. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 179 


et formularum Cautorem merum; ei in fatis fuit, ut 
cum dissertissimis hominibus et ad dicendum para- 
tissimis, pugnaret olim decertaretque. 

Solum utique cum vertisset, (id quod szpe 
factum est ab iis, qui aliquam vel poenam vel cala- 
mitatem subterfugere volunt,) aliam ingressus est 
viam. Legerat, credo, moris fuisse Germanis, ju- 
menta * que viderentur apud se prava atque defor- 
mia, heec, quotidiana exercitatione, summi ut essent 
laboris, efficere. Curavit itaque ὑποϑυγιώδης ἄνθρω- 
πος ut in se conspicerentur, cum fortitudo ea, 
quee esset considerata periculorum susceptio, tum 
ea patientia, que rerum difficilium voluntaria et di- 
uturna perpessione constaret.{ Merita fore sua 
credebat magis expressa atque illustriora, si palam 
profiteretur neminem in se uspiam reperturum esse, 
aut segnitiem arduis in negotiis, aut in 115 que sub- 
turpicula et subodiosa essent, fastidium nimis deli- 
catum. Omnibus igitur omnia annuens, potenti- 
orum ad gratiam sensim arrepsit. Militiam || mox 
Senatoriam, sollicitudinis illam et stomachi plenissi- 
mam, secutus est. Semper habuit ws ἐν ὑγρῷ yawr- 
τὰν. Commoda enumeravit pacis, opum, poten- 
tiz, pecuniz, vectigalium, militum, quorum quidem 
omnium utilitates suo ipsius fructu metitus est. 
Multorum, salva dignitate sua qualicunque, arro- 


* Cesar de Bell. Gall. lib. iii. 
t Mich. Apost. Cent. p. 249. 
t Cicer. de Inventione, lib. ii. p. 88. 
ὁ Catull. Epith. Jul. et Manl. || Orat. pro Muren. par, 5. 
4 Theophras. p. 25. edit. Cas. 
N2 


180 PREFATIO 


gantiam pertulit, difficultatem exsorbuit ; imo dixit 
omnia fecitque ad arbitrium aliorum. Invicto hoe 
labore et pene improbo cum potissimum inniteretur, 
paulo latius dimanabat ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου Ἐ κλέος 
σοβαφώτατον. Suadere-- Principibus quid oporteat, 
multi laboris rem esse, expertus confirmat. Omnia 
vero { eorum laudare honesta atque inhonesta, id 
demum sibi moris esse, id e re sua, id pene ex of- 
ficio confitetur. Verbis itaque suis nomen aliquod 
speciosum non pretexit. Palam et aperte cum 
Marco Terentio loquitur,) “non est nostrum esti- 
mare quem supra ceteros et quibus de causis extol- 
las. Tibi summum rerum judicium Di dedere: 
nobis obsequii gloria relicta est.” 

Dulci jam ebrius fortuna inter principes artium 
primarum, nomen profitetur suum. Liceat modo 
sibi repulsam effugere et raudusculum || contrectare, 
velle se ait quidvis et facere et pati. Quin eo us- 
que levitatis progressus est, ut magni nominis in 
umbra delitescere se existimet, quoties Ciceronis 
verba, ab animo ea quidem Ciceronis haud parce 
detorta, propositis suis preetendat, tutasque ad aures 
obganniat, Sese non semper idem dicere, sed idem 
semper spectare.{] 

Hisce suis virtutibus quasi fastigium quoddam 
imponens, preceptum illud, quod e celo** de- 
scenderat, probe se tenere et religiose servare jactat, 


* /Elian. Fragm. t+ Tacit. Hist. i. cap. 15. 
+ Annal. ii. cap. 38. § Annal. 1. vi. cap. 8. 
|| Epist. ad Att. 8. lib. vi. ἢ Tull. Epist. Fam. 1. i. 9. 


** Juven. Sat. 11. lin. 27. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 181 


auctius illud quidem et longe emendatius, quam e 
Pythio oraculo quondam profluxisset, 


Τέγνωσκε σαυτὸν, καὶ μεθάρμοσαι τρόπους * 
véous* Νέος γὰρ καὶ τύραννος. 

Hee qui facit, is, mihi crede, intelligit se, suis 
quod probabile gratumque sit, esse facturum ; ne- 
que enim, cum opiniones maxime inter se discor- 
dantes complectitur, non constat 5101. Prius nempe 
ei cariusque nihil est, quam ut Persona, quam susti- 
neat, ab incepto ad imum eadem procedat: ita ta- 
men, ut rebus ipsis mutatis, sua semper penitusque 
mutentur consilia, atque ὁμαλώς illud ἀνώμαλον lepi- 
dissime servetur.} 

Fortuna quid possit, quoties in hominibus omnia 
audacissime incipientibus velit jocari, Thrasybulus 
iste exploratum habet—illud quoque in animo ha- 
bet infixum, suam cuique mores { fortunam fingere, 
et multos posse, suo magis quam suorum civium 
tempore, perpetua quadam felicitate uti. Quare 
non ᾧ disputandi solum causa sed ita vivendi, voces 
illas Pompeianas crebro usurpat, ὅτι τὸν ἥλιον ἀνα- 
τέλλοντα πλείονες ἢ δυόμενον mpookuyoucs.|| Multa in- 
super novit sihi peculiaria contigisse, que ad poten- 
tiam et χρυσοῦν θέρος 4] munirent viam. Etenim 
famam, ante collectam** quo servet Thrasybulo 


* ZEschyl. Prom, Vinct. line 309. 

+ Aristot. Poet. cap. 15. 1 Ὁ. Nepos in Vit. Att. 
§ Orat. pro Muren. par. 13. 

|| Plutarch in Vit. Pompeii, p. 325. 

4 Plutare. Prec. ger. Reip. p. 798. 

** Divinat.in Cecil, par. 18. 


182 '  PRAEFATIO 


nostro minime opus est, ut causa, in qua versetur, 
vel ad commemorandum sit honesta, vel squa ad. 
probandum. Kam cum ingreditur, nihil habet quod 
in offensione deperdat. Ea si cadit flagitiosissime, 
nihil unquam de veteribus suis ornamentis requirit. 
Reliqui autem temporis spem confirmat tum max- 
ime, cum, sceleratis ne periculum facessat, praeme- 
tuens, ex eo quod in dicendo possit, aliquantulum 
remittat, aliorumque ex invidia quicquid deonerave- 
rit, id omne in se ipsum trajici patiatur. 

Hoc ab uno discas licet, quales sint plerique om- 
nes, quos principum amicos appellitant. Atque 
hinc omnis pendet ὁ δεῖνα. His stipatus, contra 
quam factum oportuit, rerum ad fastigia aspiravit 
accessitque. Hos e latebris eorum prorepentes in 
publicum comites secum eduxit: imo fortune se 
cundee jam intolerantior quasi fame sue quosdam 
fautores ac participes consiliorum, Hos 


Proh Curia, inversique mores,* 


in conspectu Senatus Anglicani fidenter collocavit. 


Ergo referens hec nuncius ibit 
Pelide genitori: hee illi tristia facta 
Degeneremque Neoptolemum narrabit.t 
Quamquam ego Civilibus fluctibus nunquam me 
commisi, optimarum tamen Partium semper volui 
esse et existimari ; semperque mei judicii ita fui, ut, 
quod mihi ipsi videretur verum et zequum, facerem 
et sentirem, potius quam quod alii forent laudaturi. 
Erunt profecto qui causam mirentur eam a nobis po- 


* Horat. lib. ii, Od 5 ¢ Virg. En. ii. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 183 


tissimum probatam esse, que sit a Rege et a Senatu 
ipsoque Populo penitus deserta. Alii vero diffici- 
lem guandam temperantiam postulant in eo, quod 
coerceri reprimique non debet, ut propemodum jus- 
tioribus utamur lis, qui nos sentire quid velimus * 
prorsus vetent, quam lis, qui contumeliosum quid- 
dam esse statuant dicere quid sentiamus. Sed 
causa quidem certe manet eadem, neque ullo modo 
mutabitur. Temporis autem iniquitas atque invidia 
ita recessit ut quod in tempore mali fuit, minus jam 
obesse possit : quod in causa boni, id demum aliqua 
ex parte sit profuturum. ᾿ 

Illud interea non prtermittendum est, quod per 
hosce tres annos proximos, fautores τοῦ δεῖνα quo- 
cunque in loco, quoscunque inter homines, convicia 
vel gravissima effutierunt. Scribendi labor, est ille 
quidem imperitis, et turbe pullatz quondam relictus. 
Sed cum in acie quidam -- homo nuper steterit, qui 
litteras haud omnino nesciat, cumque sit, prope sub 
conatu adversarii, manus erigenda, αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾶν. 
Dixit scriptor ille “Galbam, Othonem, Vitellium, 
sibi nec beneficio nec injuria esse cognitos."t Di- 
cere debuerat, se eum esse, qui “ dignitatem{ suam, 
a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domi- 
tiano longius provectam non abnuisset.” 

Est quidem causa illa, si per se spectatur, perfacilis 
et explicata. Artibus autem hominum improborum 
effectum est, ut ei defensionis ratio lubrica et peri- 


* Tacit. Hist. lib. vii. 
+ De Pol, Stat, M. Brit. A. Ὁ. 1787. 1 Tacit. Hist. i.1. 
§ Ibid. 


184 PRAEFATIO 


culosa sit proposita. Judicium de me quodcanque 
demum fuerit, modo stet illud penes sapientes ac 
bonos, ei certe ferendo parem me fore intelligo. At 
cavendum est, qua possum, ab iis, qui in verba τοῦ 
δεῖνα, queecunque ἀν daiy, superstitione plusquam 
Pythagorea obligati jurant: qui ad novam hancce 
civilem Disciplinam tanquam ad saxum * adheeres- 
cunt: qui denique aliorum sententias aut pejorem 
in partem interpretantur, aut intelligendo faciunt, 
ut nihil intelligant-~—Meminerint 11, velim, si 11- 
brum hunc nostrum legerint, et refellere se oportere 
sine iracundia, et refelli sine contumacia. Studiis 
porro nostris desinant maledicere, ne ὀνομακληδὴν in 
Rolliade olim cantati, malefacta ipsi noscant sua. 
Horum igitur in suspiciones ne forte incurramus, 
qualis de summa Republica sit nostra opinio, paulo 
enucleatius exponendum est. 

Patriz vulnera vel acerbissima et posse credide- 
rim et solere ab iis infligi, qui in libertate vindi- 
canda acerrimos sese profitentur: qui de civitate, 
que omnibus numeris absoluta et perfecta sit, de- 
cantatas illas fabellas garriunt: qui denique Ro- 
muli ex face ipsi videntur tum denique prodi- 
isse, cum Platonis de πολιτεία magnifice animoseque 
ineptiunt. Illud etiam arcte et mordicus tenemus, 
vim pene omnem et robur imperii esse situm in Se- 
natu: cujus qui aut dignitatem clanculum minuta- 
timque leserit, aut nervos subdole et malitiose elise- 
rit, in eodem is habeatur numero oporteat quo pa- 
trie hostes judicati. Regio quidem nomini ut in- 
fensi simus, mirum quantum abest. Regia ut po- 


* Acad. Qu. lib. ill. p. 291, ἡ Terrent, Prolog. ad And. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 185 


testas, qualis a legibus descripta sit, sarta tecta con- 
servetur, id vero confitemur esse e re civitatis bene 
constitute et bene morate. Regi porro ipsi, si 
quod unquam signum sustulisset ad bene sperandum 
de republica, et gratiam et laudem deberi vel maxi- 
mam semper existimavimus. Quicquid autem pri- 
vata in vita juste pieque Rex fecerat, gloriandum 
semper putavimus vehementerque predicandum, 
propterea quod principes ita sunt nati, ut eorum 
mores vel boni, vel mali, publice ad civitatem perti- 
neant. Atvero qui et cum Cassio τὸν ἄρχοντα," et 
cum Bruto ἀρχὴν omnem omnino oderunt ex animo, 
eos paulo stomachosius animadvertimus in aula nu- 
perrime volitare. Quid enim? quem feedissimis 
ipsi conyiciis haud ita pridem laceraverant, ab eo 
τᾶς τυραννικὰς φιλοφροσύνας ἦ Kal χάριτας petierunt 
precario, cupide, instanter. 

Fuerunt profecto viri, ut in temporibus illis sapi- 
entes habiti, qui dicerent nihil esse tam insigne ad 
infamiam, tamque ad memorize diuturnitatem sta- 
bile, quam id, in quo eos offendisses, qui et plum- 
beas ¢ gerunt iras et longas manus{ habent. Quin 
ab Heroicis usque temporibus eadem ducta est opi- 
nio ; siquidem in Homero legimus, 


, 5 x , > \ 4 
Κρείσσων γὰρ βασιλεὺς, ὅτε χώσεται ἀνδρὶ χέρηι" 
Ἐϊπερ γὰρ τε χόλον γε καὶ αὐτῆμαρ καταπέψη, 
᾿Αλλὰ γε καὶ μετόπισθεν ἔχει κότον, ὑφρὰ τελέσσῃ 


Ἔν στήθεσσεν ἱοῖσι.]} 


* Plutarch. Vit. Bruti, p. 987. + Ibid. 
t Plaut. Penul. act iii. sc. 6. 
§ Ovid. et Cowlei “ Complaint” sub. fin. || Πιαά. 


_—e 
"» 


186 PRFATIO 


Verum enimvero in hoc nostro seculo plura sepe 
peccantur ab lis qui populum regemque demereri 
volunt, quam ab iis qui et hunc dente Theonino 
vulnerarunt, et illum fallaciis verborumque presti- 
giis delinierunt et transversum egerunt. Nobis pro- 
prium hoc et peculiare est, ut principes odiosum 
illum τὸ μνησικακεῖν defugiant, seque praebeant nunc 
his, nunc illis, placabiles et perbenignos et quodam- 
modo ᾿Αλλοπροσάλλους. Et quidni ita faciant? 
Qui enim heri et nudiustertius contumaciam ab- 
ruptam pre se ferebant, eosdem illos posse constat, 
si res tulerit, bonam ad frugem redire: posse quic- 
quid in se superbie aut feritatis fuerit, penitus de- 
ponere: posse animos suos flectere et demittere ad 
obsequium deforme.} 

Ii nos quidem non sumus, qui statuamus ex of- 
ficio boni civis esse πρὸς κέντρα λακτίξειν. Contra 
ea ut quisque de Republica optime senserit, ita 
maxime eum crediderimus reformidare dicendi diffi- 
cultatem—at videtur tamen ab eo quod vel decorum 
vel honestum sit minime abhorrere, si caute nosmet 
ipsi timideque digitos ad fontem intendamus. 

Ea nimirum conditio est rerum humanarum, ut, 
qui Flavia e gente nec primus nec secundus sit, 
summo in imperio possit versari. Potest etiam vis 
in civium jura sensim et pedetentim ab iis inferri, 
qui velint ipsum florem dignitatis refringere, qui 
oderint ¢ ingenium, qui virtuti invideant, eamque 
opprimendam putent atque etiam puniendam. Po- 


* Tliad. v. 831. + Tacit. Ann. lib, iv. par. 20. 
t Orat. pro L. C. Balbo. p. 458. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 187 


pulus autem qui statuerit tum denique Hc salva 
esse, cum ex unius pendeant arbitrio et nutu, idem 
ille, fieri non potest, quin brevis atque insolentis 
leetitize poenas det graves ac diuturnas.* 

Hec nos rpoferrigovres} scripsimus, idque nec ro- 
gatu cujusquam, nec quo potentiorum nobis gratiam 
posse conciliari existimemus. ‘i quis autem vitio 
nobis id vertat, multis nos laudibus extulisse tres 
illos viros, quibus Bellendeni opuscula dedicavimus, 
plurimum illa, que de se ipsi possunt jure et merito 
predicare, nostram ad defensionem profecerint. 
"Apke? γάρ (οἶμαι) τὸ τοὺ Πινδάρου, πρὸς τὸν λέοντα 
πανταχοῦ, καὶ πρὸς παντὰς ἐπαινεῖν αὐτοὺς, εἰπόντος, 
Χυμεῖς σοι χάριν ἀποδίδομεν, ποιοῦμεν γὰρ σε ἀλη- 
θεύειν. 

Quod de viro§ quodam optimo et nobilissimo, 
cum dicere multa haberem, nihil tamen composite 
atque honorate dixi, hac quidem in re memor fui 
Antalcide, qui, “Sophistze cuidam laudationem 
Herculis recitare volenti, responderit,” Tis yap αὐτὸν 
ψέγει 5|| 

Periniquos autem hominum malevolorum ser- 
munculos, scurrilemque semidoctorum dicacitatem, 
et alia omnia que pati in veritatis cultores cadit, 
despicimus et pro nihilo putamus. Ita enim nos 
Dii ament, ut nulla in quempiam malignitate aut 
livore inflammati sumus. Causam odimus non ho- 


* Orat. Ces. in Bell. Cat. Sal. 

+ Epist. ad Att. 11. lib. viii. 

1 Plutarch. de Vitios. Pud.tom. ii. p. 536. 

§ D. de P——d. || Plur, Lacon. Apothegm. p. 217. 


188 PREFATIO 


mines, quod quidem fidentissime dicimus de eo ju- 
vene, in quo lubentissime confitemur virtutis et in- 
genii igniculos quosdam illuxisse, cum curriculum 
gloriz primum ingrederetur. Est autem inter car- 
ceres et metas intervallum satis longum καὶ πόλλα 
μέταξυ πέλει. Quin via ipsa tam lubrica est, et 
confragosa, et virgultis hic illic interclusa, ut in ea 
vel progredi quisquam vel consistere sine casu ali- 
quo et prolapsione vix possit. Quid est quod dissi- 
mulem ea, que sentiam? Profecto college illum 
videntur detraxisse de ccelo atque effecisse, non ut 
suorum esset omnino similis, sed ut plus equo dis- 
sunilis esset sui. Ego illum pro ejus muneris, quod 
gerit, majestate et verecundia,* ne verbo quidem in- 
clementiore a me appellatum vellem. Sed ea, que 
dixi, coegerunt me dicere pervicacia ejus et arrogan- 
tia, coegerunt isti, quos in optimum quemque im- 
mittit, aculei asperrimarum contumeliarum, coege- 
runt denique male parta, male gesta, male retenta 
imperia. 
Φιλεῖ δὲ, πολλὴν γλῶσσαν ἐκχέας μάτην 
"Ακων ἀκούειν ἅπερ ἑκὼν εἶπεν κακῶς. 

Iniqui tamen ingratique animi esset, si ea, que 
ὁ δεῖνα nuperrime fecerat, vel dissimularem silentio, 
vel parce et maligne laudarem. Quod enim jura 
Ecclesie viriliter defendit, et eloquentiam suam 
quasi pedissequam et ancillulam adjunxit Northii 
prudentiz civili, id bono cive dignissimum videtur. 
In iis autem, que ad Asie Prefectum spectant, 


* Liv. ix. cap. 34. 
+ Fragm. 14. Soph. Edit. Brunck. Quod. aliter legitur in 
Plutare. de cap. ex inimic. util. p. 89, 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 189 


tandem aliquando resipuit, veritatique per tot diffi- 
cultates eluctanti jam, et in lucem sese proferenti 
manus dedit. 

Vere de hoc juvene dici potest, et ausum esse il- 
lum, que nemo * auderet prudens, et perfecisse quae 
a nullo nisi felicissimo perfici possent. Quod si 
animum suum disciplinis honestissimis diutius or- 
nare studuisset, et civilem dignitatis concupisset 
modum, quicquid tumultuando, jactitando, et mul- 
titudine inescanda adipisci-f gestiit,id ei, firmata 
jam ztate, obtulissent omnes boni. Ipsum ¢ fieri 
et gerere, est illud quidem in aliqua laude ponendum, 
sed non tam sua sponte, quam quod paucis ea etate 
contigit. A me tamen minime ὁ δεῖνα illud audiet, 
quod est a Timone, cum Alcibiaden a populo hono- 
ratum vidisset, nimis contumeliose et acerbe dictum, 
Εὖγε ποιεῖς ἀυξόμιενος ὦ rai? μέγα yap αὔξη κακὸν 
ἅπασι τούτοις. δ Vellem profecto juvenis noster ex- 
istimasset illam honorum viam rectissimam esse, 
quam ei optimi cives tritam reliquissent. Vellem 
“magna cum gratia et gloria ad summam amplitu- 
dinem pervenisset ascendens gradibus magistratuum, 
ut pater ejus fecerat, et reliqui clariores || viri.” 
Illud vero, ut se habet, quem estus quidam glo- 
riz absorbuerit, ei hac verba Plutarchi ad lectitan- 
dumproponam: “ὥσπερ εἰς φρέαρ, οἶμαι, τὴν πολιτείαν 
τοὺς μὲν ἐμπίπτοντας αὐτομάτως καὶ παραλόγως τα- 
ράττεσθαι καὶ μετανοεῖν, τοὺς δὲ καταβαίνοντας ἐκ πα- 


* Vel. Paterc. ii. cap. 15. + Vel. Paterc. lib. ii. cap. 7. 
t Sall. Bell. Jug. par. 88. § Plutarch. Vit, Alcib. p. 199. 
|| Brut. p. 152.. 


190 PREFATIO 


ρασκευῆς Kal λογίσμου Kal’ ἡσυχίαν, χρῆσθαι τε τοῖς 
πράγμασι μετρίως, καὶ πρὸς μηδὲν δυσκολαίνειν, ἅτε δὴ 
τὸ καλὸν αὐτὸ καὶ μηδὲν ἀλλὸ τῶν πραξέων ἔχοντας 
τέλος." 

Quoniam vero emersisse jam 6 vadis, et scopulos 
pretervecti videmur, perfacilis nobis ostenditur re- 
liquus cursus, in iis, que ad Bellendenum spectant, 
enarrandis. Gente erat Scotus. Litteris iis orna- 
tus fuit, eoque preditus ingenio, ut de illo dici pos- 
sit, quod in ore hominum eruditorum percrebruit de 
Buchanano οὐ Σκότος ἦν, ἀλλὰ dows Σκοτίης. Fuit 
a prosapia, quantum conjectura assequor, vetere 
atque illustri oriundus. De vite autem ratione 
quam sibi instituerit, parum est certi quod cum lec- 
toribus communicemus. Scoticorum scriptorum in 
catalogo, quem-f Dempsterus confecit, dicitur Guli- 
elmus Bellendenus fuisse humanitatis Professor Pa- 
risiis An. Dom. 1602. Gratia plurimum valebat 
apud Jacobum, uti a Scotis dicitur, Sextum, fuitque 
ei Magister supplicum libellorum. Titulus autem 
ille quo minus scrupulum alicui injiciat, paucula 
que ad eum explicandum faciant, lectori tanquam 
per lancem saturam apponenda censemus. “ Libel- 
lensis, Magistratus apud Siculos, qui aliis Magister 
Libellorum, qui scilicet libellos supplices subditorum 
excipiebat, examinabat, et de iis ad Principem refe- 
rebat, in Constitut. Sicul. lib. 1. tit. 38. ὁ. 2. Du 
Cange, Glossar. tom. 2,“ Supplicare, libellum vel 
preces principi offerre. 1.1. Cod. ut lit. pend.” Vi- 


* Plutarch, precept. ger. Reip. tom. ii. p. 799, 
+ Vit. Scot. scrip. vol. i, p. 481, ἃ Mackens. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 191 


cat. Vocab. Jur. utr. tom. 4. “ Magistri libellorum, 
in inscriptione 1. un. D. de off. pref. pret. 1. un. C. 
Theod. de curs. publ. erant, qui supplices libellos a 
privatis oblatos tractabant. Vocantur etiam Car- 
thophylaces et libellani.” Vicat. tom. 3. 


Sed jam supplicibus dominum lassare libellis 
Desine.* 


Aliis gloriole insignibus a Jacobo ornatus sit, 
necne, plane nescio. Regem vero illum et a doc- 
trina fuisse haud mediocriter instructum, et docto- 
rum hominum maxime studiosum, nemo est qui ig- 
noret. Effectum est igitur ejus munificentia, ut 
otio perquam honesto Bellendenus Parisiis fruere- 
tur. Cum in hac urbe commoraretur, aciem ingenii 
nolebat hebescere ; sed, ut quam plurimis prodesset, 
omni ope atque opera enitebatur. Horum itaque 
trium librorum, secundum et tertium bis, primum 
semel ipse prelo subjecit. Ciceronis Princeps, publi- 
‘cam lucem vidit. Ann. Dom. 1608, sub hoc titulo “ Ci- 
ceronis princeps rationes et consilia bene gerendi fir- 
mandique imperil: ex lis repetita, quae ex Ciceroni- 
anis defluxere fontibus, in libros xvi. de statu rerum 
Romanarum, qui nondum lucem acceperunt—Pari- 
siis, apud Carolum Chappelain, via amygdalina, sub 
signo beate Marie, cio 1oci1rx—’—Huic prime 
Ciceronis Principis editioni prefixus est “ Tractatus 
de Processu et Scriptoribus rei Politice.”—Sed in 
tribus de Statu libris editis 1616, eundem tenet lo- 
cum, quem nos Bellendeni vestigtis fideliter insis- 
tentes, ei attribuimus. 


* Martial. Epigr, lib. viii, 52, 


192 PREFATIO 


Editio prima Ciceronis consulis hunc pre se fert 
titulum: “Ciceronis Consul, Senator, Senatusque 
Romanus. [Illustratus publici observatione juris, 
gravissimi usus disciplina, administrandi temperata 
ratione: notatis inclinationibus temporum in Rep. 
et actis rerum in Senatu: que a Ciceroniana non- 
dum edita profluxere memoria annorum DCcx. con- 
gesta in libros xvi. De statu rerum Romanorum: 
unde jam manavit Ciceronis Princeps, dignus habi- 
tus summorum lectione Principum. Ad inclytum 
Serenissimumque Principem Henricum Principem 
Scotia, et Walliz. Per G. Bellendenum Magistrum 
Supplicum libellorum Augusti Regis Magne Bri- 
tannie, &c. Parisiis. Apud Joannem Corbon e 
regione Ecclesiz S. Hilarii, sub signo Cordis boni, 
M.bDc.xul. Cum Privilegio Regis.” 


Extrait du privilege du Roy. 


Trés-expresses inhibitions ἃ deffences sont faites ἃ tous, 
d'imprimer ou exposer en vente le livre intitulé Ciceronis Con- 
sul, Senator, Senatusque Romanus, per Gulielmum Bellende- 
num, Magistrum Supplicum libellorum Augusti Regis Magnz 
Britanniz, durant le temps & espace de six ans, ἃ commencer du 
jour qu'il sera achevé d’imprimer: si ce n’estoit de l’expresse 
permission & consentement dudit Bellenden. A peine de con- 
fiscation des livres, dommages & interests, & d’amende arbi- 
traire ; comme plus amplement est declaré & contenu ausdites 
lettres du privilege du 5. Juillet, l’an de grace mil six cens 
douze. 

Par le Roy en son Conseil. 
Signé Der VABRES. 


Je soubs signé ay permis & permets a Jean Corbon Mar- 
chand Libraire juré en ceste ville de Paris, de faire imprimer & 
exposer en vente le livre intitulé Ciceronis Consul, Senator, Se- 
natusque Romanus, par moy faict, & de jouyr & user pleinement 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 193 


du benefice du privilege a moy sur ce octroyé par le Royle 5. 
du present mois. Faict soubs mon signe le 14 Luillet 1612. 


“ Hifi duo libri in nomine apparuerunt Serenissimi 
Principis Henrici.” Editio secunda vulgata est 
Ann. Dom. 1616. eique additus est liber de Statu 
prisci orbis, qui quidem anno proximo superiore 
typis mandatus fuerat, Caroloque Principi, fratris 
Henrici superstiti, dicatus. 

Quamquam ab ineptiis eorum, qui fluctus in sim- 
pulo excitant, semper animus meus abhorruit, expe- 
dienda est tamen questio subdifficilis de tempore, 
quo Liber de Stat. pr. Or. primum 6 scriniis Bellen- 
deni sit emissus. In titulo trium de Statu librorum, 
quos constat a Bellendeno fuisse editos Ann. Dom. 
1616. dicitur liber ille “nunc primum editus.” Ex- 
emplar autem operis hujusce, quod in Museo Bri- 
tannico asservatur, suo in titulo habet Ann. 1615. 
Anni porro ejusdem nota legitur in fine Dedica- 
tionis, que, in tribus de Statu libris anno proxime 
sequenti editis, tractatum de Processu rei Politice 
subsequitur. Littera etiam numeralis extrema 1. in 
fine tutuli trium librorum videtur a typographo ad- 
dita esse, postquam litteree numerales M. Dc. xv. fu- 
issent excuse. Ita certe se rem habere confirmo in 
omnibus, que viderim, exemplaribus. Bellendenum 
itaque consilia sua sic instituisse crediderim. Li- 
ber de Statu Prisci Orbis ad umbilicum perductus 
est 1615, et pauca exemplaria sparsim a scriptore, 
vel amicis suis vel forte viris quibusdam primariis 
dono data sunt. Complura autem exemplaria, que 
fuerant eodem tempore excusa, consulto premebantur 
a Bellendeno pauculos in menses; idque, ea mente, 

VOL. ΠΙ. ο 


194 PREFATIO 


ut ils adderentur duo libri de Principe et Consule, 
atque adeo justum opus de Statu uno volumine con- 
ficeretur. 

In libro de Statu Prisci Orbis, tum eo, cujus ex- 
emplar in Museo Brit. reperitur, tum eo, qui in li-- 
bris de Statu primum tenet locum, idem est pagina- 
rum numerus, et eadem prope operis forma, nisi 
quod tractatus de processu Rei Politicae, quem hic 
prefixum habet, illi omnino deest. 

His de causis librum de Statu Pr. Or. bis editum 
esse dixerim, siquidem ea, quam primam vocaverim 
editionem, alium pre se fert titulum, et aliud, uti 
alunt, privilegium Regium proprium ac suum, quod 
est Bellendeno, ni fallor, concessum, postquam ei 
jus datum erat librorum de Statu trium edendorum. 

In libro de Statu Prisci Orbis, qui prodiit ann. 
Dom. 1615, titulus hic legitur : 

“Gulielmi Bellendeni Magistri Supplicum Libel- 
lorum Augusti Regis Magne Britannie, &c. de 
Statu Prisci Orbis in Religione, Re Politica, & Litte- 
ris, liber unus. Ad Serenissimum Principem Carolum 
Principem Scotie et Walliz. Parisiis, apud Her- 
veum de Mesnil, via S. Joannis Lateranensis, sub 
signo Bellerophontis Coronati. M. pc. Xv. cum pri- 
vilegio Regis.” 


Par lettres du grand seau du 1 Juin 1615, defenses sont 
faictes ἃ tous d'imprimer ou vendre, soit pour le tout ou partie, 
les livres intitulez G. Bellendeni, &c. de statu libri tres; l'un 
desquels est celuy De statu Prisci Orbis, &c. durant le temps 
de six ans: si ce n'est du consentement dudict Bellenden ; 
a peine de confiscation des livres dommages & interests & 
d’ amande arbitraire: comme il est plus amplement declaré par 
lesdites lettres signées Le Liepure, et en queue d’Amboise. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 195 


Librorum a nobis editorum titulus ita se habet, 
“ Gulielmi BELLENDENI Magistri Supplicum Libel- 
lorum Augusti Regis Magne Britannie, &c. de 
Statu libri tres. 1. De Statu Prisci Orbis in Reli- 
gione, Re Politica, et Litteris. 2. Ciceronis Prin- 
ceps, sive de Statu Principis et Imperii. 3. Cicero- 
nis Consul, Senator, Senatusque Romanus, sive de 
Statu Reip. et Urbis imperantis Orbi. Primus, 
nunc primum editus: ceteri, cum tractu de Pro- 
cessu et Scriptoribus Rei Politica, ab auctore aucti 
et illustrati. Parisiis, apud Herveum du Mesnil, 
via S. Joannis Lateranensis, sub signo Bellerophontis 
Coronati. M. Dc. xvi. cum privilegio Regis. 


Extrait du Privilege du Roy. 


Tres expresses inhibitions & deffenses sont faictes, ἃ tous, 
d’imprimer ou exposer en vente, soit pour le tout ou partie les 
livres intitulez Gulielmi Bellendeni magistri supplicum libello- 
rum Augusti Regis Magne Britannie, De Statu libri tres: le 
premier, De Statu Prisci Orbis: le second, Ciceronis Princeps, 
sive de Statu Principis: le troisiesme, Ciceronis Consul, Sena- 
tor, Senatusque Romanus, sive de Statu Reip. & Urbis impe- 
rantis Orbi, durant le temps & espace de six ans, 4 commencer 
du jour que lesdicts livres seront achevez d’imprimer: si ce 
n’estoit de l’expresse permission ἃ consentement dudict Bellen- 
den, 4 peine de confiscation des livres, dommages & interests, 
ἃ d’amende arbitraire: comme plus amplement est declare & 
contenu aux lettres du privilege du premier Juin, ]’an de grace 
mil six cens douze. 

Par le Roy en son Conseil. 
Signé Le Lerpure. 
Et signé en que D’AmBolseE. 


02 


196 PRAEFATIO 


Testimonium quoddam hisce de libris e Bauero 
excerpsimus. “ Bellendeni (Guil.) Ciceronis Con- 
sul, Senator, Senatusque Romanus———de Statu li- 
bri 3.; videlicet, 1. de Statu Prisci Orbis in Religione, 
Re Politica, et Litteris. 2. Ciceronis Princeps, s. de 
Statu Principis et Imperii. 3. Ciceronis Consul, 
Senator, &c. libri rari. © Widekind, p. 363.” Tom. 
5. Baueri Biblioth. lib. rar. univ. sive Tom. 1. Sup- 
plem. Fuit ea Bibliotheca Norinberge edita in 
quat. vol. a Johanne Jacobo Bauero ann. Dom. 
1770. De hisce autem libris Bellendeni protulit in 
ea Bauerus οὐδὲ γρύ. Secutum est Supplementum 
ann. Dom. 1774, duobus voluminibus, quorum e 
primo verba superiora hausimus. 

Saxius in preclaro illo suo Onomastico sic scri- 
bit. “Ann. Dom. 1612. Gulielmus Bellendenus, 
gente Scotus, Philologus, et Archeologus, hoc anno 
ipsi debebatur Ciceronis Consul, Senator, Senatus- 
que Romanus, Parisiis, 8. et de tribus luminibus 
Romanorum liber Parisiis, 1633. fol. Vid. F. G. 
Freytag. Analecta Litteraria, p. 81.—David Cle- 
ment Bibliotheque curieuse, tom. 3. pp. 71, 72. 
(50)—52)” tom. 4. p. 224. 

Manca atque imperfecta sunt et Baueri et Saxii 
testimonia, quatenus de ordine quo libros suos Bel- 
lendenus edidisset, uterque eorum parum explorati 
habuit. Sciant autem lectores nullam esse eorum 
factam mentionem, neque a Morhofio in Polyhistor: 
—neque a Fabricio in Biblioth. Latin. med. et in- 
fin. etat.—neque in Ameenitatibus Litterariis Fran- 
cofurti et Lipsiz editis 1728, quarum in tom. 2do. 
5to. et 8vo. fuse elegantissimeque agitur de libris 


_.:. ee ..... 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 197 


raris:—neque in Observationibus Litterariis Hale 
Magdebergice editis 1705, quarum in decimo vo- 
lumine dissertatio de raris libris occurrit admodum 
docta et dilucida. Fabricius autem in Bibliotheca 
Antiquaria, p. 490, lectorem relegat ad editionem 
primam Ciceronis Consulis. 

In bibliothecis tam privatis quam publicis, raris- 
sima horum sunt librorum exemplaria. Cantabrigize 
que inveniri solent, haec sunt—In Bibliothec. Aulz 
Clar. editio princeps Ciceronis Consulis—In Bibl. 
Col. Emmanuel. qua quidem, nulla uspiam est, 
quod sciam, libris optimis et rarissimis magis abun- 
dans, de Statu tres libri—In Bibliotheca Acade- 
mica, principis editionis Ciceronis Consulis duo 
exemplaria, et de Statu trium librorum exemplar 
unum. 

In Catalogo Bodleiano Oxonii edito 1738, pror- 
sus de iisdem siletur. Editio autem prima Cicero- 
nis Principis in Bibliotheca illa asservatur. In 
Collegio Animarum Omnium unum est exemplar 
trium librorum de Statu. 

In Museo Britannico asservatur Bellendeni liber 
de Statu prisci Orbis, quem quidem crediderim 
penes Carolum primum olim fuisse. 

In domestica Regis Britannici Bibliotheca, quam 
sane et copia librorum et splendore vere Regiam 
dixeris, neque cum Ptolemzorum et Osymandye 
thesauris litterariis conferre dubitaveris, reperitur 
unum exemplar Ciceronis Consulis. 

In Bibliotheca Regia Parisiensi, No. 1346, de 
juris-prudentia, unum est exemplar librorum trium 
de Statu. 


198 PREFATIO 


In Bibliothec. viri Reverendi et doctissimi C.M. 
Cracherodii Mus. Brit. Curatoris asservantur lib. de 
Stat. Pr. Or. et edit. princeps Cic. Cons. 

Singulis trium de Statu librorum, (quod jure mi- 
reris) Biblioth. Argatheliens. et Hunterian. omnino 
carent. 

In Catalogis Bibliopol. Londinens. qui ann. 
Dom. 1787. prodierunt, duo exemplaria hujusce 
libri de Statu invenimus, et inventa statim arripui- 
mus. 

Humfredus Sumnerus, D. D. Etonensis, homo 
liberaliter eruditus, idemque ita bonus, ut non alius 
quisquam sit melior, dixit mihi se edit. Princ. Cic. 
Cons. reperisse inter libros quos sibi legasset pater 
suus Johannes Sumnerus, 8. T. P. Greecis Latinisque 
litteris vir absolute doctus. 

Rarissimum illum de Cicerone Principe librum 
G. Shuckburgius haud ita grandi pecunia nuper 
emit de Egertono Bibliopola Londinensi. Audive- 
ram forte fortuna de versione hujus libelli Angli- 
cana, quz asservaretur in Bibliotheca doctissimi 
Theologi E. Apthorpii, D.D. Amicus autem qui- 
dam meus, qui libri illius inspiciendi copiam a Re- 
verendo viro impetraverat, in Epistolis ad me datis, 
ita eum descripsit. “ Forma, quam duodecimo vo- 
cant, est impressus, paginisque constat 88. Caret 
etiam tractatu de progressu Rei Politicee qui fuerat 
Ciceroni Principi ab ipso scriptore preefixus.” Ver- 
sionis hujusce titulum (in quo nomen, Bellendeni, 
consulto, an casu pretermissum sit, nescio) itemque 
dedicationem lectoribus meis apponendam puto, 
simul ut rem paucis cognitam in medium proferam: 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 199 


simul ut ostendam, quo in pretio fuerit inter majores 
nostros hoc ipsum Bellendeni opus 
CICERO’S PRINCE. 
THE REASONS AND COUNSELS 
FOR SETTLEMENT AND GOOD GOVERNMENT 
OF A KINGDOM, 
COLLECTED OUT OF 
CICERO’S WORKS. 
By T. R. Esq. 


Lonpon: 
Printed for S. Mearne, Bookbinder to the Kings Most Excel- 
lent Majesty, and are to be sold at his house in Little Bri- 
tain, 1668. 


To His 
Grace the Duke of 
MonmoutTH 
AND 
Baccieucu, &c. 

This piece was once a jewel (wrapt up in Latine) 
in the cabinet of the renowned Prince Henry, and 
composed by an excellent artist out of the rich 
mines of that famous statesman and orator M. Tul- 
lius Cicero. It hath in it maximes, which void of 
stains, and flaws of Machiavillian interest, are raised 
only upon principles of honor and vertue, which 
hest become a Prince. In the discourse, they are 
directed to a Soveraign, but may be of no less use 
to any great person, whose birth or quality may 
render him capable of derivative authority, in the 
management of affairs of state, and what is honora- 
ble and becoming a Prince, must needs be so in his 
Ministers, who should be his imitators. Your 


200 PRAEFATIO 


graces qualifications and years may reasonably ex- 
pect ere long to be called to imployment, in which 
your care and good conduct of your self may satisfie 
the expectation of the world, and divert the cen- 
sures of a malicious age, which your grace prevents 
by considering your station, and that though your 
years are but few, yet great men as they are planted 
near the Prince, ought to be (like trees on rich 
ground) sooner ripe for affairs than other of meaner 
condition, which cannot be without an early appli- 
cation of themselves to some serious thoughts of 
business, either in the practice and observation of 
present transactions, or by reading what hath been 
done in the world before them; but of this your 
grace is already sensible; so that I have selected 
this for its brevity only, to lye by you as a memo- 
rial to prompt you to put these maximes, in time, 
into such practice as may gain you that honour and 
esteem in the world, to which with a laudable ambi- 
tion you ought to aspire, and render yourself ser- 
viceable to your King and Country, which is in 
this the sole design and most earnest desire of 
Your Grace’s 
in all duties of a faithful 
and humble servant, 


A 


Obiter monendus est lector “ regnandi preecepta 
ab Augusto parente filio suo tradita,” ad que respex- 
erit Bellendenus in Prefatione Ciceronis Principis, 
Londini esse edita sub hoc Titulo: “ Βασιλικόν 
Δώρον, or his Magesties instructions to his dearest 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 201 


Sonne, Henrie the Prince. At London, imprinted 
by Richard Field, for John Norton, according to 
the copie printed at Edenburg, 1603.” Fuerit 
quoque oper pretium lectores Bellendeni docere 
de re alia, que mihi inter legendum verisimilis vi- 
deatur: numeros nempe marginales ab eo adhibitos 
convenire “ Ciceronis editioni Aldinz, cui Editiones 
Pauli Manutii Aldi F. et Uvendelin. Argentoraten- 
sis, (si Nizolio* credendum est) ad amussim res- 
pondeant: Robertique aut Caroli Stephani exem- 
plaria ita respondeant, ut bine Aldi aut Pauli pa- 
gine pro una deputari possint.” Notissimum est 
autem in editione Aldi actiones in C. Verrem sep- 
tem haberi, quarum prima sit ea, que nunc vocatur 
“ Divinatio in Q. Cecilium.” 

Libris de Statu prefigenda esse statuimus Car- 
mina bina, quorum exemplar forma quartana im- 
pressum in Museo Britannico asservatur. 

Haud moleste feret lector candidus, si de majore 
opere Bellendeni, quod de tribus luminibus Roma- 
norum inchoaverat, paucula in transcursu adjiciam. 

Cum in eo esset Bellendenus, ut hosce tres libros, 
qui anobis editi sunt, conficeret, Ciceronem lectita- 
bat studiose. Cujus autem scripta manu diurna 
nocturnaque versaverat: cujus verba, tanquam un- 
gues digitosque suos pernoscebat, cujus doctrinam 
multiplicem et reconditam, animo suo omnem om- 
nino complectebatur, hujus vehementiore, ut fit, 
amore flagravit, afficique se sensit majore ejusdem 
admiratione. Sue igitur fama, cum intelligeret, 


* Vid. Pref. Nizol. 


202 PRAFATIO 


quantam segetem et materiam comparasset, ad aliud 
quoddam opus, quod difficilius et splendidius esset, 
accinxisse se videtur. Que de Cicerone olim scrip- 
serat, ea Omnia novo ordine disposuit. Plura, que 
in manu habebat, novo operi, quod de Tribus Lu- 
minibus conficiebat, solertissimeintexuit. Supremam 
vero manum quo minus libro imponeret, in 115 que ad 
Senecam et Plinium spectarent, colligendis atque or- 
dinandis, mors ipsius (ut a me antea dictum est) im- 
pedivit. In illa tamen, que vulgata est, parte, nihil 
reperiri potest, quod non summa sit elaboratum in- 
dustria, et summo ingenio perfectum. Etenim que 
aut eleganter a Cicerone dicta, aut subtiliter excogi- 
tata, sparsim in ejus operibus legi solent, ea nobis 
uno aspectu legenda Bellendenus proposuit, et in 
clariore quadam luce collocavit. unc itaque li- 
brum qui lectitaverit, magnam tenebit omnis fere 
antiquitatis et exemplorum vim: magnam juris Ro- 
mani civilisque Scientize cognitionem 5101 compa- 
rabit: magnam veluti de Thesauro quodam _poterit 
depromere verborum exquisitissimorum copiam. 
Ciceronis opera, qualia ab Oliveto edita essent, 
Oxonienses haud ita pridem typis pulcherrimis man- 
dare dignati sunt, et novis quibusdam lectionibus 
MSS. augere et illustrare. Fecerint autem Canta- 
brigienses, quod eruditis omnibus gratissimum 
fuerit, si Bellendeni opus, egregie illud quidem 
comparatum ad Ciceronis famam conservandam at- 
que etiam exornandam, prelo Academico subjecerint. 
Scripsit vir * quidam ingeniosissimus et πολυμα- 


* Wart. super Pop. Script. tom. ii. p. 324. 


AD BELLENDENI1 LIBROS. 203 


θέστατος “ multa libri ejus exemplaria, cum in An- 
gliam vehenda essent, naufragio perisse.” Quo 
quidem fato usa sunt biblia* Suesica Marci Ann. 
Dom. 1637, in 8vo. excusa; et Biblia + regia vel Po- 
lyglotta typis Plantinianis octo voluminibus edita 
Ann. Dom. 1516. Exstitisse etiam olim creduntur 
orationes quedam Jacobi Critoni,+ Scoti doctissimi, 
que “non reperiuntur nisi frustatim impresse.” 
Sunt autem 11166, Gabriele Naudzo judice, mellito 
eloquentiz fiumine largissime tincte.” Qui igitur 
in unum fasciculum eas collegerit, et recudendas cu- 
raverit, optime de viris doctis merebitur. 

Fuit profecto quoddam tempus, cum in linguis 
Grecis Latinisque ediscendis Scoti plurimum oper 
collocabant. Putabantur iidem perbene Latine loqui, 
et quidem ὃ litteratius, quam plerique Anglorum 
qui illo ipso tempore in eadem Palestra versabantur. 
Horum vero in studia virorum transversa incurrebat 
fortuna Reipublice. Quicquid autem cum Musis 
aliquod commercium habebat, id omne penitus con- 
ticuit in temporibus parum tranquillis, interque stre- 
pitum, qui subinde auditus est,armorum. Huc ac- 
cedit quod multi, qui in litteris existimabantur plu- 
rimum posse, vel a studiis partium abhorrentes, vel 
amplioris cujusdam doctrine cupidi, vel aliis ad- 
ducti causis minime inhonestis peregre ibant, neque 
in patriam revertebantur. Quid est igitur, quod 
miremur scripta permulta Scotorum intercidisse, ut 
eorum nunc appareat nec vola nec vestigium ? 


* Ameenitat. Litterar. tom. ii. p. 397. ¢ Ibid. p. 398. 
1 Ibid. p. 404. 


§ V. Morhof de pura dict. Latin. edit. Mosheim, p. 42. 


204 PREFATIO 


Optimorum illam librorum jacturam ut feramus 
aliquanto levius, animus noster se conyertit ad le- 
tiorem rerum faciem, que Scotiam cuivis aspicienti 
ultro se offert. Wacillarat usque ad hanc etatem et 
quidem jacuerat inter Scotos Philosophia, non modo 
illa, que de vita et moribus agit, sed praepotens ea 
et gloriosa, que in rerum Metaphysicarum con- 
templatione posita, non rivulos scientiz consectatur, 
sed penitissimos ipsos fontes audet aperire. Est 
autem ea nuper excitata a doctissimis quibusdam 
viris felicissimeque exculta, tantumque habet lumen 
litterarum elegantiorum, ut de questionibus perob- 
scuris et perdifficilibus copiose jam ornateque scri- 
bere multi soleant. Quin Philosophorum, qui 
maximo acumine et subtilitate preediti suas quisque 
familias olim duxerunt, eorum luminibus videtur 
obstruxisse posteriorum quasi exaggerata altius 
oratio.* | 

Difficile est sane enumerare, quot inter Scotos 
Philosophi paucis ante annis exstiterint, quanta 
iidem scientia fuerint, quantaque in suis studiis va- 
rietate et copia. Neque enim una in re separatim 
elaborarunt, sed omnia, queecunque poterant, vel per- 
vestigatione mentis humane, vel disserendi ratione 
comprehenderunt. Horum itaque sub auspiciis doc- 
trinarum illud divortium,} quod est Socrate quon- 
dam auctore factum, in desuetudinem paulatim abi- 
bit, renovabiturque illa, que veteribus perplacuit, 
dicendi et intelligendi societas. Profecto he sunt, 
artium optimarum nunc discordantium inter se et 


* Brutus, p. 140. ¢ Lib. iii, p. 126. 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 205 


divulsarum, nunc amice conjurantium, quasi conver- 
siones. Hoc illud est, quod a Cicerone * dicitur, 
“ ubi perspecta vis sit rationis ejus qua cause rerum 
atque exitus cognoscantur, mirum quendam omnium 
tanquam consensum doctrinarum concentumque re- 
periri.” Huc etiam tendunt animorum illi motus 
et concertationes jucundissime ingeniorum, quibus 
Scotia jam omnis in Philosophia excolenda fervet, 
ut ita dicam, ac tumultuatur. Philosophis autem 
ipsis consultum erit pulcherrime, cum ex argutiarum 
angulis et verborum angustiis, in quas diu sunt im- 
meritoque conclusi, poterunt se penitus expedire: 
poterunt e gyro exiguo in quendam ingentem de- 
scendere immensumque campum: poterunt vires 
suas explicare et excutere totas. Enimvero quic- 
quid ab illis scriptum fuerit, nulla unquam ztas de- 
lebit. Quam Bellendenus et Critonus experti sunt 
fortunam, illa neutiquam vel in Smithii scriptis, vel 
Humii, vel Reidii, vel Beatteii, tristi clade itera- 
bitur. 

Laborum qui me diu constrictum tenuerunt, 
eorum intercapedinem omnem impendere scleo in 
libris Greecis Latinisque evolvendis. Quare veniam 
mihi candidus lector facile dabit, si aut verba aut 
sententias, que mihi inter legendum arriserint, in 
usus hujusce prefationis identidem transtulerim. 
Qui enim Bellendeni hoc opus e tenebris eripiendum 
esse statuissem, mihi ipsi statuebam id licere facere, 
quod ab eo viderem multo sepiis esse multoque 
solertius factitatum. 


* De Orat. lib. ili, p. 124. 


206 PREFATIO 


Loca insigniora, quee occurrerint in scriptoribus, 
quorum spe verbis disertis, spe totis sententiis, 
ex professo usus sim, in margine esse notanda ex- 
istimavi: idque ea mente feci, non ut illa, que lec- 
titassem, pueriliter et inepte ostentarem, sed, ut 
Bellendeni fidem diligentiamque sequerer, et con- 
5111, quo multa laudavissem, vis omnis ac ratio pe- 
nitus perspicerentur. At si qui sunt, quibus propo- 
situm illud meum minus probare possim, eorum 
captiunculis et sannis occurrere a vitio propius foret, 
quam a laude. 

Imitatio veterum, qualis tandem esse debeat, non 
est nostrum dijudicare. Suus est cuique in hac re 
gustus, suum etiam judicium. Verbis fere omnibus, 
modo perspicua et apta sint, in Latine scribendo lo- 
cum esse crediderim. Neque enim sole phrases, 
aut * sola vocabula, sed totius orationis habitus co- 
lorque potissimum spectandi sunt. Habeat igitur, 
per me licet, ipsa morositas aliquid tum excusa- 
tionis, tum etiam laudis, in μελετήμασι concinnan- 
dis. Hujusmodi autem in opusculis, arbitror parum 
referre, utrum scriptores, e quibus verba petita sint, 
aurea, an argentea in etate Lingue Latinz florue- 
rint. Quicquid rei cuique, que tractanda sit, max- 
ime conveniens fuerit, id demum mihi videtur opti- 
mum. Aliorum vero, sive obscuram in verbis con- 
quirendis diligentiam et περιεργίαν, sive aurium 
sensum fastidiosum et prope κακόϑηλον, is sane ego 
sum, qui neque acriter improbandum, neque arcte 
et ambitiose sequendum esse statuam. “Aurea ex 


* Vide Scheller. Append. 


~ 


AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 207 


etate, inquit* Cellarius, cum pauci scriptores ad 
nostra tempora pervenerint, nimis pauper Latinitas 
esset, si nihil approbandum sit, quod e Cicerone aut 
gequali non habeamus. Altera quoque etas, que 
argentea dicitur, subvenire nobis debet, que non so- 
lum compensat, si qui libri superioris vi interie- 
runt; sed subinde etiam, ut fieri solet successu tem- 
porum nova verba, non minus eleganter tamen, et 
suffragio populi Romani formata superaddit.” 

Quod textum, et marginem, et alia istiusmodi 
verba sine ulla prefatione, et quasi παραμυθίᾳ, usur- 
pavi, id ne bilem moveat inter eos, qui limatulum 
pre ceteris et politulum habere judicium 5101 vide- 
antur. Sed quorsum hee tam seria tantula in causa? 
Quia profecto nodum hisce in scirpis querunt ho- 
mines nasutuli ac maligni, ea cum ignorent, que 
subtiliter de his cavillationibus et erudite ab Hen- 
rico Stephano disputata sunt. Rem vir ille doctus 
et ingeniosus huc deduxit: “ nimium + sane fuerint 
delicatze aures, que talia vocabula ferre non pote- 
runt, quum presertim alia desint.” 

Non defuturos esse scio, qui egre ferant, me con- 
junctionibus quibusdam et adverbiis apicest subinde 
affixisse. At non meum est tenuiter et κατὰ μίτον 
respondere ad istos loquaces subarrogantesque rixa- 


* Cellarii cure posteriores, p. 93, edit. 948. 

t+ Pseudo Cicer. p. 96. 

t These ‘apicés’ have been altogether omitted, partly from 
their real inutility, but chiefly because, from the want of con- 
sistency and uniformity in the former edition, they were mani- 
festly not such as the author designed, or could have approved. 
—Epir. 


208 PR-EFATIO 


tores, qui in hisce questiunculis tricari solent, et 
Laureolam, ut dicitur, in Mustaceo querunt. Scrip- 
tores profecto Romani, quid in hoc genere, vel fe- 
cerint, vel non fecerint, subturpe esset nescire. 
Quare omnia, que ἃ Dausquio, a Schurzfleischio, a 
Norisio, a Lipsio, a Schellero, a Noltenio aliisque 
bene multis Orthographiz,* ut ita dicam, auctoribus 
disputata sunt, qua potui, diligentia maxima, legi 
religique ; sed morem in hac levi re, nescio quo- 
modo, fecit ipse recentiorum usus, qui sane, cum, 
ex quo fonte profluxerit, haud ignarus sum, tum, 
quod veterum scriptorum exemplo careat, non ita 
valde laboro. 

Latinis Greca verba si miscui, sciat lector me id 
fecisse, non quo sermonem fore concinniorem intel- 
ligerem, nedum quod difficile et mirum illud puta- 
rem, quod contingere cuipiam posset, qui litteras 
hasce modo a limine salutasset. Rem quam in 
animo habebam, spe acu tangere ea, que legeram, 
videbantur. Sape sperabam posse me, que a Graecis 
elegantissime scripta essent, non, tanquam purpureos 
pannos, orationi mez assuere, sed, veluti tesserulas 
in emblemate vermiculato “7 sententiis Latinis inse- 
rere, qu eas distinguerent et illuminarent. An 
vero dubitamus, quin lectoribus Grece scientibus, 
Greca verba qualia in scriptoribus suis reperiantur, 
Latine iisdem conversis gratiora sint futura? 

Num quis miratur, quid cause fuerit, quare ju- 
veni cuidam preclaro Greecum nomen imposuerim? 


* V. Longus. F. Caper. Qu. T. Scaurus, &c. vid. Putsch. 


Gram. A. A. 
+ Cicer, de Orat. lib. iii. p. 133. 


—— 


AD BELLENDINI LIBROS. 209 


Equidem in hac re secutus sum exemplum Nicolai 
Heinsii, qui in Epistolis ad Gronovium scriptis Ge- 
vartium, quem contumeliz causa nominatum aperte 
nollet, τόν δεῖνα vocitabat. 

Jam vero illud absit, ut quivis suspicetur, me in 
iis, que vel de meo depromserim, vel a Bellendeno 
scripta ediderim, velle ad populum provocare. Nul- 
lus sane dubito placiturum esse vacuis et eruditis 
auribus Bellendeni opus: quod tamen, committere 
nolim, ut manibus unquam sordescat eorum, qui in 
rebus quotidianis et vernaculis garrulam sue in- 
fantie disciplinam produnt, “ Volsceque et Osce fa- 
bulantur, cum Latine nesciant.” 

Animo equidem toto ad illud connisus sum, ut 
Bellendeni fama radices ageret altissime. Quamo- 
brem, ea si disseminetur, quam latissime possit, in- 
ter homines harum deliciarum studiosos, non solum 
officio meo ipse cumulatissime satisfecisse, verum 
etiam voti mei esse mihi videbor omnino compos. 

Molem hujusce Voluminis auget Prefatio ita ta- 
men, ut emtoribus in re pecuniaria non sit oneri. 
Ne cogitaveram quidem de ea scribenda, antequam 
inter me et Typographum convenerat de omnibus 
operis imprimendi instrumentis, de Figuris Aineis, 
atque adeo de pretio quod imponi libro deberet. 
Sub finem Octobris, quicquid de Bellendeno com- 
pertum habueram chartis meis illevi. Aure vero 
jam tum fervebam vaporata ¢ a libris hisce legendis, 
siquidem multa in illis uberrime et gravissime de 


* Vid. Burman. Syllog. vol. iii. pp. 138 ἃ 183, 
+ Titinius in Quinto, + Pers. Sat. 1. 
VOL. III. P 


210 PREFATIO AD BELLENDENI LIBROS. 


rebus Politicis disputentur. Plurima autem, ut in- 
inter seribendum fit, ad Rempublicam nostram per- 
tinentia in mentem venerunt, que temperare mihi 
non potui, quin stylo signarem. Ita accidit, ut, qui 
institui coepisset urceus, tandem aliquando amphora 
exierit. Recte, an secus, fecerim, cum alee plenum 
periculose argumentum consulto tractarem, mea pa- 
rum refert, dum Bellendenus, veluti quodam postli- 
minti jure, in civitatem restituatur. 

Vale L. B. et hosce nostros in Bellendeno edendo 
labores, qui te delectare quidem, aut etiam tibi pro- 
desse possint, equi boni consulas. 


Dabam Londini Calend. Mai, 
A. Ὁ. 1787. 


MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS 


ON 


POLITICS, JURISPRUDENCE, MORALS, ° 


AND RELIGION; 


INTERSPERSED WITH CHARACTERS. 


The following “ Remarks,” thus abruptly introduced, and 
stripped of the circumstances which led to them, are taken 
from a pamphlet published by Dr. Parr, in a private contro- 
versy, soon after the occurrence of the Birmingham riots. The 
occasion which gave rise to the controversy was entirely of a 
local and personal nature, and long since forgotten; but the 
¢*Remarks” which, in his usual excursive manner, were inci- 
dentally thrown in, seemed to the Editors worthy of preservation, 


en 


MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS 
ON 


POLITICS, JURISPRUDENCE, MORALS, &c. 


In the purity * of my conversation, in the regu- 
larity of my morals, in the diligent and conscien- 
tious discharge of my professional duties, and in a 
steady attachment to the Established Religion of 
my Country, I will not yield the palm of superiority 
to any Clergyman now living, however exalted may 
be his rank, however distinguished may be his ta- 
lents, and however applauded may be his orthodoxy. 
Whether or no the course of my reading, and the 
habits of my thinking, may have led me to more 
correct notions, and to a more ardent love of civil 
and religious freedom, than some men are sup- 


* For all the egotisms which follow, I can offer the candid 
reader no other plea than that of self-defence; and upon the 
validity of that plea he may determine as he goes on, In the 
mean time, I shall say, with old Plutarch, ἀμέμπτως ἐστὶν, ἂν 
ἀπολογούμενος τούτο ποιῇς πρὸς Διαβόλην ἢ Karnyopiay.—See 
vol, ii. page 540, edit. Xyland. 

+ ‘The liberty,” say { with Mr. Burke, the only liberty, “I 
mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only 
exists with order and virtue, but cannot at all exist without 
them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its 
substance and vital principle.”—Burke’s Appeal, page 35. 

“Τὸ be possessed,” as Mr. Burke elsewhere says, ‘it must 
be limited; but it is a good to be improved, not an evil to be 
lessened, It is not only a private blessing of the first order, 


214 ON POLITICS, 


posed to entertain, is a question which I will not 
discuss in the extent to which I might carry such a 
discussion without insincerity and without impro- 
priety. But my principles, I am sure, will never 
endanger the Church; my studies, I hope, are such 
as do not disgrace it; and my actions, I can say 
with confidence, have uniformly tended to preserve 
it from open, and from what I conceived to be un- 
just, attacks. 

When my beloved and respected friend Dr. John 
Jebb, was conducting a petition “for a relief from 
subscription,” I was no stranger to the splendid ta- 
lents and exemplary virtues which distinguished 
many of his associates. I was no enemy to that ac- 
tive and impartial spirit of enquiry, which had led 
other men into opinions far bolder than my own. 
But I refused to act with Dr. Jebb, because his plan 
grasped at too much in too short a time, and because 
I had been informed of a more temperate scheme, 
which was to have been laid before Archbishop Corn- 
wallis by two ecclesiastical dignitaries, who have 
since been deservedly raised to the episcopal bench. 

Upon all reformations, whether civil or ecclesi- 
astical, I look not only to the wishes and to the ar- 
guments of individuals, but to the collective wisdom 
of the legislature. 

In the earlier part of my life I thought the Test 


but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has 
just so much life and vigour as there is liberty init.” These 
two passages occur in pages 57 and 58 of Mr. Burke’s 
‘« Thoughts on the Cause of the present Discontents ;” and 
they are very judiciously quoted in page 92 of Sir Brooke 
Boothby’s very candid and sensible Letter to Mr. Burke. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 215 


Act oppressive; but in the year 1782 I very care- 
fully and very seriously re-examined the subject, 
and changed my opinion. In 1790 I strenuously 
opposed the attempt to procure a repeal; andy 

I cannot help indulging the comfortable hope, that 
in the progress of intellectual and moral improve- 
ment religious animosities will at last subside, and 
that the restraints for which I have contended, and 
do now contend, will no longer be thought neces- 
sary for the public safety, by the heads of that 
Church, which I have never deserted, and by the 
members of that Legislature, which I have never dis- 
obeyed. 

In the mean time, I think it my duty to distin- 
guish between the private and the public charac- 
ters, between the literary merits and the political 
singularities, between the substantial virtues and the 
occasional indecorums of those persons who may 
not agree with me in my religious creed; and, per- 
haps, if the same distinctions were now and then 
made by greater and wiser men than myself, the 
general tranquillity of the kingdom would not be 
less permanently secured, and the noblest interests 
of virtue would be promoted more effectually. From 
the indignation, therefore, which I felt at the beha- 
viour of one person in respect to Dr. Priestley’s let- 
ters, let no man infer (for without uncharitableness, 
and without injustice no man living can infer,) that 
I am an advocate for latitudinarianism in the Church, 
or a confederate with republicans * in the state. 


* My political creed lies in a short compass, and I will tell 
it to the reader in better words than my own ; 
Τοῖς μὲν ἐλευθερία γιγνέσθω pera βασιλικῆς ἀρχῆς, τοῖς δὲ 


216 ON POLITICS, 


There are in this kingdom men of no mean con- 
sideration for ability and rank, men whom I tho- 
roughly know, and sincerely regard, and by whom 
I am myself neither unknown, nor, I would hope, 
unregarded. These men, I believe, are not accus- 
tomed to charge me with any overweening fondness 
for sects, or any blind confidence in the leaders of 
sects. They are aware, that with great. constitu- 
tional warmth of temper I unite those habits of 
discrimination which gradually teach men to be im- 
partial in opinion, to be temperate in action, and to 
accommodate the results of abstract speculations to 
the real state of man. Sometimes they may give 
me the praise of a little sagacity for discerning a 
greater or a less portion of bigotry, im every quarter 
where I see any excess of zeal upon points of doubt- 
ful evidence, and, perhaps, of utility, more doubtful. 
But they have much oftener seen me assailed 
with gocd humoured raillery, for some wayward 
propensities towards the sternness of Toryism, when 
I resisted the vicious refinements of theory, and 
condemned all immoderate ardour for sudden and 
sweeping innovations, of which I neither perceive 
the immediate necessity, nor can calculate the dis- 
tant consequences. They know that I ascribe the 


ἀρχὴ ὑπεύθυνος βασιλικὴ, δεσποβόντων νόμων τῶν τε ἄλλων πο- 
λιτῶν καὶ τῶν βασιλέων αὐτῶν, ἄν τι παράνομον πράττῳσιν.---- 
Platon. Epist. vill. p. 355. vol. iii. edit. Serran. 

Such, if I have read to any purpose, is the spirit of the 
English constitution, and such too the very letter of the Eng- 
lish law. “* Rex,” says Bracton, “sub Deo et lege. Rex ha- 
bet superiorem Deum, item legem, per quam factus est rex,” 
&c.—Lib, il. cap. 16. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 217 


most intelligible part of man’s equality, and the 
best security for man’s rights, to the wise regulations 
of society;* that I applaud one antient philosopher + 
for the preference he gives to the geometrical pro- 
portion adopted by Lycurgus over the artithmetical 
which Solon,t perhaps by compulsion, employed ; 
and that I concur with another great writer,§ in 
commending those political institutions, where both 
of these proportions are occasionally introduced, and 
judiciously attempered.—They know that reverenc- 
ing even the wilder eccentricities || of a passion for 


* I do not intend to say, that all the rights of men derive 
their origin from society, but that, in a well-regulated society, 
their natural rights are recognized, preserved, defined, and in- 
vigorated. In such a society, therefore, I would readily allow, 
with M. Mirabeau, that ‘obligatory law is only, and can only 
be, the faithful expression of natural right clothed with the 
sanction of the public consent.”—Mirab. on Lettres de Cachet, 
vol. i. p. 190. 

t Ὁ yap Λυκοῦργος τὴν ἀριθμητικὴν ἀναλογίαν, ὡς δημοκρατι- 
κὴν καὶ ὀχλικὴν οὖσαν, ἐξέβαλεν ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος" ἐπεισή- 
γαγε δὲ τὴν γεωμετρικὴν, ὀλιγαρχίᾳ σώφρονι καὶ βασιλείᾳ νο- 
μίμῃ πρέπουσαν᾽ ἣ μὲν γὰρ ἀριθμῷ τὸ ἴσον, ἡ δὲ λόγῳ τὸ κατ᾽ 
ἀξίαν ἀπονέμει.--- Ῥ]αῦ, Sympos. lib, viii. quest. 2. p. 719. vol. ii. 
edit. Xyland, 

t Ὁ μὲν οὖν Σόλων ἀποφηνάμενος περὶ πολιτείας, ὡς ἰσότης 
στάσιν ov ποιεῖ, λίαν ἔδοξεν ὀχλικῶς ἀριθμητικὴν καὶ δημοκρατι- 
κὴν ἐπεισάγειν ἀναλογίαν ἀντὶ τῆς καλῆς γεωμητρικῆς.---Ο]αῦ, de 
Frat. Amor. p. 484. 

§ Διὸ δεῖ, τὰ μὲν ἀριθμητικῆ ἰσότητι χρῆσθαι, ra δὲ τῇ Kar? 
ἄξιαν .----Ατἰδῦ, de Repub. lib. v. cap. 4. p. 387. vol. ii. 

The reader will not confound my meaning with Mr. Burke's 
strictures (p. 269 of the Reflections) upon the geometrical 
distribution and arithmetical arrangement of France. 

|| “« Grand swelling sentiments of liberty, I am sure, I do not 


218 ON POLITICS, 


liberty, I never would break down the fences of sub- 
ordination, and that, detesting priestcraft and king- 
craft, under all disguises whatsoever, and for all 
purposes whatsoever, I would sooner perish than 
lend my assistance to the abolition of priests and 
kings.— Qualify, say I, and improve ; and, if there 
be real occasion, restrain ; but, destroy not. Anti- 
cipate change by well-timed and well-proportioned 
regulation ; but provoke it not by superfluous and 
precarious experiment.* Drive not away with a 
frown even the visionary reformer, give the tribute 
of a hearing to the speculative recluse, but act not, 
till your plan of action has received its last and best 
stamp of merit from the approbation of men whom 
practice in public affairs has not made callous to the 
public weal. Do not give either good men the in- 
clination to subvert tumultuously, or bad men the 
power to undermine insidiously, what may be safely 


despise. They warm the heart, enlarge and liberalize our 
minds, they animate our courage in a time of conflict,”— 
Burke's Reflections, p. 360. See also p. 17 of his Appeal. 

* «(70 is good also,” says Bacon, “not to try experiments in 
states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility be evi- 
dent; and well to beware that it be the reformation that 
draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pre- 
tendeth the reformation.” 

They who complain of wise saws, and of what Cicero calls 
ignave rationes, in Bacon’s Essay upon Innovation, would do 
well to look for a clearer and steadier light in Sir Matthew 
Hale’s Considerations, ‘“‘ touching the Amendments or Altera- 
tion of Laws.” Upon all great subjects of policy and law, this 
great man, as was justly said of him in the House of Lords by 
another great man now living, “is no barren authority.” 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 219 


and advantageously preserved.* Do not let loose 
the multitude to put forth their own enormous and 
irresistible strength, in vindication both of their own 
ideal and actual rights, Let governors be parties, 
and indeed leaders, in the improvement of govern- 
ment—let parliamentary wisdom and parliamentary 
authority be employed in parliamentary reform, not 
merely for the honour of parliament, but in con- 
formity to the sober judgment, and the solid in- 
terests of the people, for whom, and by whom, parlia- 
ment subsists. Sooner or later this must be done, 
and this being done well, few things will remain un- 
done, which ought to be done at all} 


* (1 would not exclude alteration neither; but even when 
I changed, it should be to preserve,” &c. p. 363 of Reflections. 
And again: “ A disposition to preserve, and an ability to im- 
prove, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. 
Every thing else is vulgar in the conception, and perilous in 
the execution.”—Page 233, 

+ “ Were both the progressive reward of well-directed in- 
dustry, and that which is obtamed at the termination of its en- 
deavours, much inferior to their usual amount, one powerful 
reason would still remain to impel mankind to the pursuit of 
every attainable object, and to make them aspire after every 
apparent improvement of their actual condition, whatever it 
may be; 

‘Omnia fatis 
In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapsa referri, 
Ni vis humana’ 


The silent course of time is continually taking away from that 
which we possess, and from the high perfection of whatever 
we have cultivated and refined, Nothing ever stands still. If 
progress is not made, we must decline from the good state 


220 ON POLITICS, 


Nam sic habetote, magistratibus, iisque qui presunt, 
contineri rempublicam, et ex corum compositione 
quod cujusque reipublicee genus sit, intelligi. Que 
res, quum sapienter moderateque constituta sit a 
majoribus nostris, etsi magna quedam et preclara, 
at non multa tamen, habeo que putem novanda in 
legibus,—Vid. Cic. Fragm. p. 590, vol. 11. edit. 
Gruter. 

But why should I shroud my meaning in dark 
and dastardly generalities? Some well-considered 
plan for a reform in Parliament, with a just atten- 
tion to every species of property, personal and real, 
and with little or no change in the circumstance of 
duration—the removal of every ensnaring ambi- 
guity, and every oppressive partiality, on the subject 
of libels—the revisal of the poor laws, the tithe 
laws, and the excise laws—the mitigation of the pe- 
nal code—the regulation, but not the suppression, 
of the ecclesiastical courts—the regulation, or the 
suppression, of every corrupt and imperious corpo- 
ration—the establishment of a more vigorous police 
—and, above all, a more serious attention of the le- 
gislature to the cause of education, both for the pre- 
vention of crimes, and the improvement of virtue— 


already attained, and as it is scarcely ever in our power to re- 
place the waste of time and of chance, in those very respects 
in which they have impaired our condition, we ought to endea- 
vour to compensate those inevitable losses by acquisition of 
other advantages, and augmentations of good; especially of 
those which the same course of things brings forward to our 
view, and seems to present to us, as the object of reasonable 
desire.”—Dunbar’s Essay on the Criterion of civilized Manners. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 221 


these are the objects which I have most at heart. 
Ashamed I am not of avowing them, because they 
loosen ‘no one ancient bulwark, because they leave 
the crown, the peerage, and the church, nothing: to 
fear, and because they give to the nation at large 
much indeed to hope. In the progress of political 
knowledge, the Tories, as well as the Whigs, of this 
Country, may claim their share of improvement, 
and the result is, that each party has gradually re- 
treated from those violent extremes, to which their 
respective principles may be supposed to tend, di- 
rectly or indirectly. Indeed, I have myself the 
pleasure of knowing some enlightened Tories who 
concur with me in thinking, that by the temporary 
union, or even by the generous emulation, of states- 
men, in giving effect to the measures just now men- 
tioned, our constitution would be preserved and in- 
vigorated. But they, who comprehend all the rea- 
sons which occur to men of reflection for going thus 
far, are not entirely ignorant of first principles, and, 
by not venturing to go farther, they shew, that their 
prudence is not oppressed by theory, nor their loy- 
alty warped by patriotism. 

In respect to France, I distinguish with the acute, 
the humane, and the elegant Mr. Dupont, between 
the necessity of the French Revolution, and the pro- 
ceedings of the National Assembly. Upon many of 
those proceedings I am at a loss to decide, because 
I hear such violent and contradictory reports about 
the characters of the agents, and the motives of 
their actions. In reality, the opportunities for in- 
formation in this country are too scanty, and its 


222 ON POLITICS, 


channels are too impure, for the wisest men to de- 
termine on the justice of many detached measures : 
and in France the time has been far too short to as- 
certain their utility. But upon the more prominent 
features of the new government, an Englishman may 
now be permitted to speak with less hazard of error, 
and less offence to decorum. 


Zeivds εἰμι, σκότεινον ἀπέχων 
Woyor. Pinp, Nem. 7. 


For my part, then, I see much to lament, and 
much to condemn, in the ungracious act of wrench- 
ing from the crown the splendid prerogative of 
making war and peace, in the hopeless wreck of no- 
bility,* in the withered humours of the dignified 


* Recollecting the heroes and patriots, whose names adorned 
the history of France, I was shocked to find their descendants 
involved in the same sentence with those upstarts, by whom 
peerage itself was disgraced in proportion as peers were multi- 
plied. I must, however, confess that a calm and well-informed 
observer convinced me, after much discussion, that upon the 
close of the late government, and even after introduction of 
the present, no distinction could be immediately made with 
safety. Yet I most anxiously hope that, upon the first return 
of tranquillity, and even among the first conditions of recon- 
ciliation, it may be proposed, that the old peers be restored to 
a part of their antient dignity, that, like the old Cortes of Cas- 
tile, they may appear personally, or, like the Scotch peers, 
they may sit by representation, in the National Assembly, and, 
above all, that they may collectively constitute a supreme 
court of judicature similar to that of the Lords in this country, 
History, I am sure, does not record, nor can imagination easily 
conceive, a tribunal with rules of decision so equitable and 
comprehensive, with sources of information so pure andso ample, 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 223 


ecclesiastics, in the tumultuous election of prelates 
by their clergy, in the shattered fortunes of the 
exiles, and in that decree, which ravished from pri- 
mogeniture all its salutary, as well as all its noxious 
privileges, instantaneously and indiscriminately. At 
the same time, more and greater subjects, not of 
blame, but of commendation, rise to my view, in 
some of the attempts that have been made to sim- 
plify that intricate, uncouth, and ponderous system 
of jurisprudence which clogged the decisions of pro- 
perty, in the abolitions of Lettres de Cachet, in the 
institution of Trial by Jury, in the mitigation of pu- 
nishments, in the temporary power of controlment 
wisely reserved to loyalty, in the inviolability, no 
less wisely ascribed to the person of the king, in the 
plenary toleration granted to religious sects, in the 
respect paid to the doctrines and the ceremonies of 
the national church, in the provisions established for 
the more laborious orders of the clergy, in the prin- 
ciples, though, perhaps, not the immediate tenden- 
cies, of the measures which have been adopted for 


or with such a spirit of impartiality, and such a dignity of cha- 
racter, as have long distinguished our House of Peers. This 
momentous circumstance deserves to be well considered by 
those who, without offering any substitute for peers in their 
judicial capacity, contend for the extinction of the order. But, 
when the honour of nobles is treated as a visionary principle in 
political theories, a plain and direct appeal to the events of 
every session will crush the charge, and convince us that, in 
decisions upon the property of all citizens of all classes what- 
soever, the honour of the highest class is a real and most 
efficient principle. 


224 _ ON POLITICS, 


lightening the pressure of the public debt, and, 
above all, in the spirit, though not the entire detail, 
of those regulations,* which give real energy to the 


* My opinion is, that the French people never were com- 
pletely free. They obtained, it is true, an occasional and tem- 
porary mitigation of slavery, through the contentions for power 
which at various times arose between the monarchs of France 
on the one hand, and the old noblesse and the clergy on the 
other. Such too in other feudal states have been the dawnings 
of liberty, where, as in France, its pure and auspicious light 
was soon involved in the gloom of despotism, They who at- 
tend to the history of France, must know that the Commons in 
that country never possessed that effective share in legislation, 
which the Commons in England have gradually acquired. The 
reader will see more on this subject in Bolingbroke’s 15th 
Letter upon Parties. But while I agree with Bolingbroke 
that the Commons of France, assembled under the name of 
Les Etats, never had any great weight in legislation, I main- 
tain that the very act of assembling them supplied a principle 
upon which they, in happier times, have founded a right to 
extend their powers. It is to be lamented, indeed, that after 
the administration of Richlieu and Mazarine no traces of free- 
dom can be discovered in the government of France, nor does 
any attempt to discover them seem to have been made by Mr. 
Burke himself. Let those who think a peerage adverse to free- 
dom remember that Richlieu and Mazarine completed the task 
of humbling the nobility, which had been begun, and with 
some interruption pursued, by former despots. 1 wish to see 
in our own country the peerage preserved, but not to see peers 
wantonly or insidiously multiplied. I wish to see them in- 
vested, not with teazing and invidious privileges, but with sub- 
stantial and splendid rights. Indeed, by the spirit of the Eng- 
lish constitution, they are the supporters, not the creatures, of 
the crown, They are legislators for the people, but not their 
oppressors. They have a common interest with the people, 
and an uncommon obligation to preserve it. While their du- 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 225 


suffrages of the people in the uncorrupt choice of 
their own representatives for the permanent preserva- 


ties in public life thus assist in upholding the state, their man- 
ners in private life must be allowed to adorn society. Habitu- 
ally conscious of a dignity which invites respect without im- 
posing submission, they seldom wound the feelings of delicate 
and independent minds by the gross insolence of wealth, or by 
the overbearing arrogance of station. They are placed above 
those petty competitions for importance, and those petty in- 
citements to tyranny, which we sometimes lament in the infe- 
rior ranks of our gentry. They are not more rapacious than 
other members of the community as landlords, nor more con- 
tentious as neighbours, nor more immoral, I would hope, as 
men, They are at once too great to be generally envied, and 
not great enough to be generally feared. Such, in favour of 
the English peerage, are the sentiments of a man whose imagi- 
nation, I trust, is not easily dazzled by the glare of opulence, 
and whose spirit, I am certain, never shrunk from the frowns 
of power. From the natural progression of those causes which 
diffuse industry and wealth through society, inequalities will 
arise, and, having arisen, they will lead to distinctions of some 
kind or other. But to me it seems that, in the circumstances 
by which the peers of England are separated from other citi- 
zens, and in those by which they are connected with them, 
feudal institutions have been so tempered and modified by the 
progress of civilization, and the diffusion of general liberty, as 
to justify every impartial well-wisher of his country, in resist- 
ing all attempts to facilitate the subversion of peerage. Lord 
Bacon has wisely ascribed the imperfections of the Turkish 
government to the want of a nobility; and the history of our 
own kingdom in the last century exhibits a striking proof that 
the despotism of republicans, like the despotism of monarchs, 
is more wild and more mischievous, when uncontrolled by that 
power to which our forefathers were eventually indebted for 
much of their freedom, and which, if properly regulated, is 
more likely to preserve than to endanger our own. By the 
law of the state, nobles are protected as our equals, and, by 


VOL. III. a 


226 ON POLITICS, 


tion of their own rights. I have no doubts as to 
the wisdom, or as to the justice, or as to the expe- 
diency, of these alterations. There are, indeed, 
some subordinate and doubtful points of reforma- 
tion, about which, ingenuity has lavished conjecture, 


the law of opinion, they would cease to be our superiors, if 
they should ever presume to violate the established rules of 
civilized life. 

The manners of Europe, which form so large a part of our 
social duty and social happiness, originated chiefly among the 
nobility of Europe. And even in the more improved and more 
equalized state of society, numerous gradations of rank are 
necessary to preserve those sentiments which soften the rug- 
gedness of human character, and teach every man at once to 
respect the dignity of others, and to support his own. As the 
force of this sentiment is evidently weakened in the lower 
classes of the community, so, perhaps, in the opposite extre- 
mity, it is in some degree invigorated by the distance between 
our gentry and the noblesse, and the yet wider distance be- 
tween the noblesse and the crown. Refinement generally de- 
scends from the higher to the lower ranks, and its progress 
seems to be facilitated by the authority of illustrious example, 
and by the necessity which custom imposes upon us to recog- 
nize that pre-eminence, which is fixed by a known rule, and 
ditinguished by an appropriate name. But the habit, however 
it may be formed, embraces all the objects to which opinion 
has attached respect. 

I doubt whether those who would destroy peerage be dis- 
posed to endure monarchy in any form; and I am sure that 
they who would extend English liberty upon the principles of 
the English constitution, will be careful not to drive a power- 
ful order of men, upon principles of self-preservation, into such 
a confederacy with the crown as may prove injurious to that 
liberty. Upon the moral inftuence of nobility, I refer the phi- 
losophical reader to Dr. Dunbar’s most elegant and masterly 
Essay on the hereditary genius of Nations. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 227 


controversy has bandied arguments, and zeal has 
fulminated invectives, with little propriety and with 
little effect. But, when causes of greater pith and 
moment are in agitation, and when their effects are 
on the point of bursting upon our sight from every 
quarter, I would chain up all the little busy and 
fretful passions, that hurry partizans into enquiries 
which have no clue, and into altercations which have 
scarcely any aim. To the mighty decision of expe- 
rience I leave the ultimate event; not, indeed, 
without a fearful sense of the uncertainty which 
impends over all the judgments and all the affairs of 
men; nor yet, without a high and animating affi- 
ance, that partial evils will at last work together for 
the general good, that the noblest powers of the 
human mind will be called into action, and that the 
public stock of human happiness will be secured and 
enlarged.* 


* My general opinions and general wishes upon the subject 
of the French Revolution, cannot be more luminously ex- 
pressed than in the words of a writer whose taste, whose erudi- 
tion, whose philosophical habits of thinking, and whose manly 
zeal in the cause of rational freedom, have excited the admira- 
tion of all Europe: 

*« Feliciores aliis illi populi, qui imperio ad quamcunque tan- 
dem formulam constituto, sed circumscripto illo, utuntur, ut 
regnantium libido coercita sit bonis legibus et institutis, utque 
meliora de republica, civium salute, populi juribus, per pri- 
mores saltem, sparsa sint ac vulgata judicia. Atque in hac 
felicitate nos quidem ita acquiescimus, ut bonis votis prose- 
quamur alios populos, quos eo adhuc loco constitutos esse vo- 
luit Providentia, ut libertatem, hoc est, ut justis finibus circum- 
scriptum ac legibus zquis firmatum imperium curis ac consiliis, 
virtute et constantia sua, consequantur.”—Heyne’s Prolusio 
Academica, spoken at Gottingen, 16th Sept. 1789. 

a2 


228 ON POLITICS, 


But whatever may be the opinions I hold, as to 
the justice of the late revolution in France, I have 
ever distinguished most carefully, and ever most 
earnestly intreated other men to distinguish between 
the miseries formerly endured in that country, and 
the blessings now diffused through our own. In 
France, the government was morbid in its aspect, 
morbid in its extremities, and morbid in its vitals ; 
and as to a constitution, the very remains of it have 
so long been mouldering in the grave, that even the 
monumental records of what it was, are almost ef- 
faced from the page of history ; and the philanthro- 
pist vainly searches for the fatal spot, on which he 
may shed a tear of pity over the sacred shade of mur- 
dered freedom—I call not the shrunken and shape- 
less skeleton of authority preserved in the French 
parliaments, exceptions to this general observation. 
But in England, we have less to fear from the ma- 
lignity of any distemper which may arise in the go- 
vernment, than from the unskilfulness or the rapa- 
city of the physicians; and of our constitution it 
cannot be unsafe to say, that radically it is sound 
and vigorous, and that hitherto it has exhibited no 
very alarming symptoms of rapid decay. 

The excellence of all governments, said a great 
philosophical statesmen (Mr. Fox), is relative. But 
to comprehend relations where they are numerous, 
to separate them where they are complex, and to 
adjust them where they are discordant, is the pro- 
vince only of a few enlightened men; and well does 
it become those who may at any time undertake the 
stupendous work of reformation, to explore all the 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 229 


difficulties, and all the dangers which hang over it, 
to purify their own minds from the polluting dregs 
of vulgar prejudice, and the intoxicating vapours of 
“science, falsely so called,” to judge of every ques- 
tion without partiality, and to proceed in every mea- 
sure without precipitation. I do not, indeed, be- 
lieve those who are now in power, with all their 
glittering talents, and all their gallant professions, to 
be such men. But such men may, at this moment, 
be found in this country with little difficulty, and 
with little hazard of confutation, I could point them 
out by name. 

O yet a nobler task awaits your hand, 

(For what can war but endless war still breed ?) 

Till truth and right from violence be freed, 


And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand 
Of public fraud. 


Upon the first perusal of Mr. Burke’s book, I 
felt, like many other men, its magic force; and, 
like many other men, I was at last delivered from 
the illusions which had “ cheated my reason,” and 
borne me on from admiration to assent. But, 
though the dazzling spell be now dissolved, I still 
remember with pleasure the gay and celestial 
visions, when my “mind in sweet madness was 
robbed of itself.” I still look back with a mixture 
of pity and holy awe to the wizard himself, who, 
having lately broken his wand in a start of phrensy, 
has shortened the term of his sorceries; and of 
drugs so potent to “bathe the spirits in delight,” 
I must still acknowledge, that many were culled 
from the choicest and “most virtuous plants” of 
Paradise itself. 


230 ON POLITICS, 


That the maladies of France had reached almost 
the last stages of malignity, and threatened a speedy 
dissolution of all government, it were folly to con- 
trovert. The very act of calling the third estate, is 
a proof that the paltry tricks of political cunning, 
and the ordinary resources of political wisdom, 
were quite exhausted. The members of that As- 
sembly exceeded, I grant, the limits of their original 
commission. But, after every hardy assertion, 
and every wily misrepresentation to the contrary, it 
still remains to be proved, that, by confining them- 
selves within the limits of that commission, they 
would have discharged all of the momentous duties 
for which they were appointed, or that, being dis- 
solved and sent back to their constituents in conse- 
quence of their avowed inefficiency, they would 
again have been summoned when invested with new 
powers, and probably for new purposes. If then 
the plea of necessity be admitted, as it often is, for 
occasional relaxation, or occasional rigour, in the 
course of administering governments, I see not 
why the same plea should, in all cases, be con- 
temptuously scouted in the most arduous work of 
reforming them. Every great cause involves in it- 
self some properties, which cannot be yoked by the 
common forms of interpretation. Every great situ- 
ation is attended by circumstances too inflexible to 
be controlled by the authority of precedent. Were 
the representatives of the English nation commis- 
sioned to introduce septennial parliaments? ΝΟ: 
but novelty has thriven to the full growth of cus- 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 231 


tom, and usurpation has dropped its terrors under 
the sanction of public acquiescence. 

With Mr. Burke I most heartily concur, in ad- 
miring the prudence and the calmness of those 
illustrious statesmen who in this country conducted 
the Revolution: and, in opposition to all the 
fashionable complaints which have lately been 
urged against them, I am _ persuaded, like Mr. 
Burke, that, by attempting to do more, they would 
have shaken the stability, and sullied the lustre of 
that which they have already done well for them- 
selves and for posterity. But the circumstances of 
England and France, at the eras of their respective 
revolutions, were so different, that what in the one 
would have been rash, may in the other be neces- 
sary. In England the throne was vacant: in 
France it was full. In England the primary spring 
of all public measures was to supply the vacancy : 
in France the heavy pressure of the regal power 
clogged the first efforts of reformation, and the ma- 
chinery of the prevailing system was so complex, 
that neither patriotism nor policy could any longer 
regulate its motions. In England a Bill of Rights 
was prepared, which provided chiefly against such 
disorders as had sprung up in a few preceding 
reigns: in France the evil had grown from age to 
age in bulk and in strength; it had spread through 
a wider range; it had borne more baneful fruit ; 
the root of it struck down to Tartarus, and its top 
towered almost into the skies. In England the 
claims of the crown were resented as usurpations, 
or dreaded as novelties: im France they were sys- 


232 ON POLITICS, 


tematized into principle, and sanctified by custom. 
In England the mischiefs which more immediately 
called for a remedy endangered a good govern- 
ment. In France they almost constituted a govern- 
ment completely bad. In England despotism was 
an excrescence, which deformed only the surface of 
the state. In France it was a canker, which preyed 
upon the vitals. Upon the question whether James 
should be recalled or William raised to the Throne, 
the opinions and attachments of men were in Eng- 
land divided in proportions nearly equal. Upon 
the question whether some form or other of a new 
government should be planned in France, some 
experiment be made, which the existing laws did not 
entirely warrant, some improvements attempted, 
which must wear the appearance of innovation, 
there was almost one heart and voice. 

All I mean to suggest by these remarks is, that 
Mr. Burke has been less successful than he usually 
is in his choice of an instance to illustrate his objec- 
tions to the new government of France. For, in 
his general opinion upon the political and moral 
importance of caution and moderation, he com- 
mands my firm and most sincere assent. 

While Mr. Burke contends in favour of a limited 
monarchy, they who dissent from him more widely 
than I do, exult in the prospect of a mitigated and 
polished democracy, veiled under the more decent 
aspect of a mixed government. But with a lean- 
ing, I fairly confess, in my wishes toward a more 
solid substance, and a more magnificent form of 
monarchy, than have lately appeared in France, I 


δῶν. “" 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 233 


cannot subscribe to the black catalogue of crimes 
which Mr. Burke has charged upon all the motives, 
and upon all the measures, of the National Assem- 
bly, often without discrimination, and sometimes, I 
think, without proof. The native candour of his 
own mind would not permit him to include every 
member of the Assembly in his calendar of villainy ; 
and his exalted wisdom surely will now induce him 
to confess, that in the virtues of a few there is 
sometimes a latent and resistless energy to curb 
the violence of the many. I have already enume- 
rated some regulations, which, as a philanthropist, 
Mr. Burke may survey without a pang, and which, 
as a loyalist, he may without a blush commend. 
But, since the publication of his two great works, 
all Europe has been a witness of an awful scene, in 
which the reformers of France have shaken off 
every odious imputation which may have clung to 
their characters as being unprincipled traitors, or 
unfeeling murderers. When good men shuddered 
at the possible consequences of the capture of the 
French sovereign ; when, by turns, amazement 
overwhelmed and pity melted the mind of every 
distant spectator ; when the haughty and inexorable 
advocates for regicidal tenets shrunk on the nearer 
approach of that spectre of vengeance which their 
imaginations had arrayed in the robe of justice; 
then it was that the genius of France arose, and 
led in its train all the virtues which adorn the citi- 
zen and the man; compassion, gallantry, genero- 
sity, loyalty, a sense of private honour, and a sense 
of public duty. Then started up that determined 


234 ON POLITICS, 


phalanx of moderate men, whose vigour and whose 
wisdom arrested the impending storm; whose in- 
terposition, I trust, would again uphold the state if 
it should again reel with any new convulsions ; and 
whose influence at this moment silently controuls 
the jargon of visionary demagogues, and the machi- 
nations of factious clubs. These were men such as 
the unsettled and perilous state of France required ; 
men whose virtues were set in motion, and in ap- 
pearance brought into being, by the shocks of em- 
pires; and who, in the midst of havock and dis- 
order, by their authority struck down bad citizens 
with awe, and by their counsels hushed the warring 
elements of passion and interest into peace. 

They know the times and the seasons. They 
have obtained a mastery over those petty and fro- 
ward humours which fester in debate and rankle m 
the closet. They soil not the purity and splendour 
of genius by exposing it too often to the garish eye 
of day. Disdaining to chace the caprices of public 
opinion, and to catch the momentary gale of public 
favour, they seize the public strength by force, 
and wield the public confidence by one mighty 
effort for one mighty purpose. They reverence 
their country in their laws, and their king they 
reverence for the sake of both. Their moderation, 
assisted by wisdom and magnanimity, teaches them 
what to suffer, what to prevent, when to forbear, 
and when to interpose. Their importance, instead 
of being squandered upon the fleeting occurrences 
of the passing day, is hoarded up for great occa- 
sions, where it may be felt as well as seen. Their 


, a ὔδν.. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 235 


courage is not dissipated in wanton attack, but col- 
lected for firm resistance. Their ambition is not 
tarnished by any baser alloy of vanity. Their con- 
scious rectitude looks for its reward, not in the 
plaudits of a tumultuous senate, or of a giddy popu- 
lace, but in the calm and approving judgment 
of distant nations, and of a grateful posterity. 

Happy were it for France if, between these mo- 
derate men, who do honour to the new govern- 
ment, and the more enlightened friends of the old, 
some communication could be opened, and some 
alliance effected. By mutual concession they might 
reconcile the jarring claims of the contending parties. 
By mutual forbearance they might heal the wounds 
of their bleeding country. By uniting the influence 
of all good men, collected from all parties, they 
might crush the pretensions and blast the designs 
of those adventurers who would deluge France with 
slaughter, whether they be patriots plotting for 
anarchy, or loyalists struggling for despotism. But 
such an auspicious change is hardly to be expected, 
while a Calonne broods over his intrigues, while a 
Bouillé hurls his menaces, and while the surmises 
and the reproaches of angry disputants keep asun- 
der those worthy persons by whose union alone 
change can be accomplished. 

It is not my design, be it observed, to engage as 
a professed champion in the controversy upon the 
affairs of France; and, indeed, I was led in this 
pamphlet to the first mention of them by personal 
rather than political considerations. Had I meant 
to appear as the antagonist or the advocate of Mr. 


236 ON POLITICS, 


Burke, (and in any elaborate composition I must 
have occasionally been both,) I should have felt it 
a duty to him and to the public to explore those 
mines of political and historical knowledge from 
which he and his opponents have drawn their ma- 
terials. Some of the books containing that know- 
ledge have fallen, perhaps, within the circle of my 
reading ; and some portion of the information they 
contain is not wholly beyond the grasp of my 
humble abilities. But I have touched, and I meant 
only to touch, upon these topics incidentally. How- 
ever, having ventured to express some difference in 
opinion from a man esteemed so virtuous and so 
wise, 1 thought myself bound, in one instance, to 
assign my reasons; and with the same sentiments 
of habitual reverence for the same eminent writer, 
I shall take the liberty of glancing at two other 
subjects, on which I have not the happiness entirely 
to agree with him. The points to which I allude 
are, the indignant distinction which Mr. Burke has 
set up between theory and practice, and the ardent 
wish which he expresses for a combination of Euro- 
pean potentates against the National Assembly of 
France. What I have to say upon the first will, I 
fear, be thought dry and uninteresting by many 
readers; while, in my opinion, every mistake of 
such a man as Mr. Burke deserves serious exami- 
nation, and derives an uncommon, degree of im- 
portance from the uncommon and indeed the 
matchless talents of the writer himself. 

Indolence often reposes, and declamation tri- 
umphs, in vagrant propositions, which are repeated 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 237 


so frequently, and advanced so confidently, that to 
dispute them carries the appearance of presumptu- 
ous paradox. Thus we are told of many political 
maxims, that they are at once true in theory and 
false in practice. But this union of truth and false- 
hood in the same doctrine, applied to the same 
subject, is impossible; and the allegation of false- 
hood, when the doctrine refers to different subjects, 
is wholly impertinent and absurd. It shews only, 
that the doctrine does not include what it was 
never meant to include, without proving that what it 
does include, deserves the imputation of being false. 
All truth consists in the relation of our ideas to 
each other, or in the conformity of those ideas to 
external objects; and wheresoever that relation or 
that conformity exists, the ideas belonging to either 
are unalterably just; and the proposition express- 
ing those ideas must for ever be true. If, there- 
fore, a proposition be true in theory, it must, if 
made up of the same ideas, be equally true in prac- 
tice, real or supposed, where the practice is corre- 
spondent to the theory; and where it is not corre- 
spondent, no honest man would profess to argue 
without discrimination from the one to the other. 
Between propositions belonging to theory, and 
those that belong to practice, there indeed is often 
a close resemblance, but not a specific identity ; 
and from that resemblance, probably, arises the 
opinion that what is true in one may be false in 
the other. But in this case the proposition belong- 
ing to practice, and the proposition belonging to 
theory, are distinct and independent. Each may 


238 ON POLITICS, 


be true when applied to its proper subject, and each 
may be false when applied to any other subject. 
The imperfection, however, lies not in the proposi- 
tion itself, but in the application; and the false- 
hood, to speak correctly, is to be found, not in the 
principle of the theory, but in the assumption that 
some given case rests upon the same principles. 
Mr. Paley has very ably shewn the dependence of 
our moral opinions and moral conduct upon gene- 
ral rules; and Mr. Hume justly observes, that the 
chief difficulty lies in the art of applying those 
rules to the discovery of what is true, and to the 
observance of what is right, in particular instances. 

Now theory is a general collection of inferences 
drawn from facts and compressed into principles. 
When, therefore, practice and theory are said to 
clash, we are not always to maintain that the theory 
is generally false, but that it does not include or 
provide for some particular case, to which it has 
been erroneously and injudiciously applied. The 
theory may be correct and comprehensive, though 
inapplicable to subjects which prejudice or passion 
has associated with it. Unusual is it for men to 
say that what is true in practice is false in theory ; 
and yet this position, though less familiar to our 
ears, is not more inadmissible to our understand- 
ings than the converse, that what is true in theory 
is false in practice. All practice may not be re- 
duced to theory; but all theory professing to be 
founded upon practice, and claiming the right to 
regulate it, is true or probable so far only as it is 
supported by experience. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 239 


Again, Mr. Burke says, (p. 91, 92,) that some mo- 
dern theories upon the rights of men, “ though me- 
taphysically true, are morally and politically false.” 
But aware as I am, in common witha great poetical 
dialectician, (Dryden,) and, indeed, with every novice 
in the art of logic, that “fallacies often live in uni- 
versals,” I cannot accede to Mr. Burke’s observation. 
True or false are the expressions of the metaphysi- 
cal properties belonging to any proposition upon 
the rights of men. Proper or improper, and just 
or unjust, are the expressions of the moral proper- 
ties. Useful or pernicious are the expressions of 
the political properties. In conformity to these 
distinctions, I should say that many parts of Mr. 
Paine’s theory about the rights of men are false, 
when traced up into metaphysical abstraction; are 
unjust, when referred to moral obligations ; are per- 
nicious, when measured by political expediency ; or, 
in other words, the theory itself is false, because it 
does not correspond to practice, which it professes 
to regulate. But, while I reprobate some of Mr. 
Paine’s opinions about the rights of man, I, hke 
Mr. Burke, (p. 86,) do not in theory deny the ex- 
istence of man’s rights; and in practice my heart 
is as far as Mr. Burke’s, or Mr. Paine’s, from wish- 
ing any one of his real rights to be withholden. 

Much, however, as in various instances I may 
condemn the Janguage of Mr. Paine upon the rights 
of men, I cannot dissemble my concern at the 
“dreadful notes of preparation,” which have been 
lately sounded by kings about the rights of kings. 

The book of an individual has little or no weight, 


240 ON POLITICS, 


except what it derives from argument; and argu- 
ment, if fallacious, may be refuted, or, if mis- 
chievous, may be counteracted by better arguments 
in a better cause. But when kings proceed to ha- 
rangue in public and official documents upon the 
rights of kings, they speak in a tone of authority 
which is not to be slighted. The line of distince- 
tion is said to be already drawn by two foreign 
courts between kings and subjects, nay, between 
kings and men; between those who have no right 
to govern but as they protect, and those who are 
under no obligation to obey but as they are pro- 
tected; between those who neither govern nor pro- 
tect the French, and those who in France are 
governed and protected by laws of their own, and a 
king of their own. 
«(ἘῸΓ now sits expectation in the air, 
And hides a sword from hilt unto the point 
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets, 


Promis'd to Louis and their followers.” 
Suaksp. Henry V. 


But in opposition to all the pleas of interference 
from the other powers of Europe, let Frenchmen, 
says common justice, decide the affairs of France. 
“ Bella viri pacemque gerant queis bella gerenda.” 

For many of the French noblesse, “ who wor- 
shipped,” as Mr. Burke most beautifully says, 
“their country in the person of their king,” and 
whose blood,” as Shakspeare says, not less beauti- 
fully, “is fetched from fathers of war proof,” I have 
a sincere veneration. Nor would I hastily and in- 
discriminately condemn the principle by which some 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 24] 


of them are actuated in attempting a counter-revo- 
lution. The end may be honourable, though the 
means are execrable, and would lead, in the present 
case, not so much to the re-establishment of the 
monarchy in France, as to the extirpation of free- 
dom throughout Europe. In respect then to the 
menaces of foreign powers, I must say with Mr. 
Burke, (p. 59,) that “the arguments of tyranny are 
as contemptible as its force is dreadful.” 

After all the intrigues of politics, all the devasta- 
tions of war, and all the barbarous excesses of des- 
potism which disgrace the annals of mankind, the 
black and lowering storm which threatens soon to 
overspread the face of all Europe, and to overwhelm 
in one common ruin every loose remnant and every 
faint vestige of liberty, constitutes a spectacle equally 
new and tremendous. 

Even the tenets of Mr. Paine himself are yet less 
novel in theory, and yet less pernicious in practice, 
than the counsels of those sanguinary fanatics, who 
would unblushingiy and unfeelingly rouse the un- 
sparing sword of foreign potentates, and point it 
without provocation, without precedent, without 
any other plea than will, without any other end 
than tyranny, against the bosoms of Frenchmen 
contending with Frenchmen alone, upon French 
ground alone, about French rights, French laws, 
and French government alone. 

When it is urged that princes, from their rela- 
tion to princes, have a common cause, and a cause, 
too, it is meant, virtually paramount to the rights of 
subjects and of men, the obvious answer is, that 

VOL. III. R 


242 ON POLITICS, 


they who are not princes have also a common 
cause, and the obvious consequence of that answer 
is, that if they are true to themselves, to their 
neighbours, and to their posterity, confederacy is to 
rise up against confederacy, and deluge the world 
with blood. Tots γὰρ ras πολιτείας καταλυόντας, 
καὶ μεθίσταντας εἰς τυράννιδα, κοινοὺς ἐχθροὺς παραινώ 
νομίϑειν πάντων τῶν ἐλευθερίας ἐπιθυμούντων.---1)6- 
mosth. de Libertate Rhod. 

If indeed the threatened crusade of ruffian des- 
pots should be attempted, it will, in my opinion, be 
an outrageous infringement upon the laws of na- 
tions; it will be a savage conspiracy against the 
written and the unwritten rights of mankind; and, 
therefore, in the sincerity of my soul, I pray the 
righteous Governor of the Universe, the Creator of 
men, and the King of Kings, I pray Him to abate 
the pride, to assuage the malice, and to confound 
all the devices, of all the parties, directly or indi- 
rectly leagued in this complicated scene of guilt 
and horror—This insult upon the dignity of human 
nature itself—This treason against the majesty of 
God's own image, rational and immortal man. 

As to myself, and to others who, like myself, ex- 
press the terror and just abhorrence which they 
feel at this most unparalleled measure, when we are 
scornfully asked why we express those feelings, we 
shall find our answer in Mr. Burke’s philanthropy 
opposed to Mr. Burke’s politics (p. 9, of his Ap- 
peal): “Is it inhuman to prevent, if possible, the 
spilling of Frenchmen’s blood, or imprudent to 
guard against the effusion of our own,” and in ἃ cause, 


I willadd, which, while Englishmen are Englishmen, 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 243 


never can be our own? For is it possible that by 
the intrigues of courts, by the sophistry of minis- 
ters, or by the futile and hollow pleas of a guaran- 
tee *in one place, and of alliance in another, the free- 
born descendants of free-born fathers can be per- 
suaded to endure one tax, to unsheath one sword, to 
fall in with one measure, in opposition to the pre- 
cious and sacred interests of general liberty ? 

Μὴ δῆτα, μὴ δῆτ', ὦ θεῶν ἀγνὸν σέβας, 

Ἴδοιμι ταύτην ἡμέραν. (Εν. Tyr. v. 830. 

Unless our constitution be, as dying Brutus said 

of virtue, “an empty name,” by the very spirit of 
that constitution, and by the force of a compact, 
more solemn and more binding than the ties of 
any treaty woven in any cabinet, Britons eminently 
are, what the Athenians professed to be, the κοινοὶ 
προστάται τῆς πάντων ἐλευθερίας, the guarantees of 
freedom itself, and the allies of all free men, 
throughout all the world: 


«« And, when they frown, it is against th’ oppressor, 
And not against the French.” Suk. Rich, 11. 


The people of England, I am sure, then, are too 
gallant to engage in a war against such a nation, in 
such circumstances. The parliament of England is 
too enlightened to approve of a war. The king of 
England is far too wise, too humane, too magnani- 
mous, to propose a war. 

But, warmly as I would oppose the project of Mr. 


* I believe that England is fortunately not fettered as 
guarantee for Brabant. Thanks to the pride or the suspicion of 
the Emperor Leopold, rather than to the foresight or the mo- 
deration of Chancellor Pitt, 


ge 2 


244 ON POLITICS, 


Burke for the French monarchy to be restored by 
the exertion of kings, who, unless they have dege- 
nerated into tyrants, can have no real interest in its 
restoration, I sometimes pause in uncertainty, and 
sometimes shudder with fear, when the proceedings 
in France are holden up as a perfect model for imi- 
tation * in England. 

Different -~ are the two nations in their manners 


* Ῥάδιον μὲν γὰρ πόλιν σεῖ- 
-σαί καὶ τοῖς ἀφαυροτέροις' ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ χώ- 
-pas αὖθις ἕσσαι δυσπαλές 
Δὴ γίνεται ἐξαπίνας, 
Εἰ μὴ Θεὸς ἁγεμόνεσσι κυβερ- 
-νατὴρ γένηται. Prnpar, Pyth. 4, 

+ The same differences which make it unsafe for the English 
to imitate the French, may surely justify the French in not 
modelling their new constitution by that of England. The 
general principles of liberty admit various modifications; and 
they who look for the causes of our own freedom, not in books 
of speculation, but in our history, and in our laws, will ascribe 
no small share of it to accident as well as design; to events 
which human wisdom slowly improved, but rarely foresaw; to 
force as well as compact; to concessions sometimes obtained 
by the interposition of parliament, and sometimes extorted 
directly from reluctant tyrants by the just and loud demands 
of their indignant subjects. If we could investigate the origin 
of those imperfect and precarious rights which the inhabitants 
of many other European countries have from time to time been 
able to wring from their feudal despots, we should find them 
indebted, even for the loose and unshaken fragments of their 
liberties, to the weakness rather than the justice, to the fears 
rather than to the virtues, and even to the craftiness rather 
than to the wisdom, of the ruling powers. Machiavel’s system 
of artifice, and Hobbes’s system of power, contain the princi- 
ples which have really actuated the councils of too many 
princes. But happy is our own country in our own times, 
when the moderation of him who governs, the noble and gene- 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 245 


and their prejudices, different in the privileges of 
their peerage, and in the rights of their common- 
alty ; different in the power claimed, and the powers 
exercised by their kings; different in the forms of 
their government, and the principles of their con- 
stitution ; different in their modes of religion, and 
even in their propensity to irreligion, I hope, very 
different. Keen, therefore, would be my vigilance, 
and stubborn my reluctance, in applying to the 
affairs of England those theories which are said to 
have been purely and completely realized in the 
new government of France. But, attached as I am, 
firmly and unfeignedly to the fundamental maxims 
of the English constitution, I must confess, that not 
one of the late publications has given me the satis- 


rous nature of him who is to succeed, and the strengh of those 
who obey, leave us not much to apprehend from either of those 
systems, if our vigilance be proportionate to our duty. Ob- 
scure and scattered as may be the causes of our liberty, we see 
distinctly, and feel experimentally, their aggregate and bene- 
ficial effects. Let us then (as Mr. Hume says, Essay 4,) * che- 
rish and improve as much as possible our antient constitution, 
without encouraging a passion for dangerous novelties.” On 
the other hand, let us consider that “‘he whose office is to 
govern a supine or an abject people, cannot for a moment 
cease to extend his power. Every execution of the law, every 
movement of the state, every civil and military operation in 
which his power is concerned, must serve to confirm his autho- 
rity, and present him to the view of the public as the sole ob- 
ject of consideration, fear, and respect. Those very establish- 
ments which were devised in one age to limit or to direct the 
exercise of the executive power, will serve in another to re- 
move obstructions and to smooth its way. They will point out 
the channels in which it may run, without giving offence, or 
without exciting alarms."—Ferguson on the History of Civil 
Society, chap. vi. sect. 5. 


246 ON POLITICS, 


faction, which at this crisis I anxiously wish to re- 
ceive. Some writers, I observe, have turned our 
attention only to the darker side of government, 
scaring us with evils, which, I trust, have no exist- 
ence, foreboding evils, which, I hope, never will 
exist, and exaggerating evils, which every impartial 
man will acknowledge and lament. Others have 
affected to wrap up in artificial mystery * all the 


* « A high Tory,” says Johnson, “ makes government unin- 
telligible :” but I will quote the whole passage, because I as- 
sent to almost every part of it, and because there is no part 
which does not contain judicious remarks and useful information, 

«« A wise Tory and a wise Whig, I believe, will agree; their 
principles are the same, though their modes of thinking are 
different. A high Tory makes government unintelligible ; it is 
lost in the clouds. A violent Whig makes it impracticable ; he 
is for allowing so much liberty to every man, that there is not 
power enough to govern any man. The prejudice of the Tory 
is for establishment. The prejudice of the Whig is for inno- 
vation. A Tory does not wish to give more real power to 
government, but that government should have more reverence. 
Then they differ as to the church. The Tory is not for giving 
more legal power to the clergy, but wishes they should have a 
considerable influence founded on the opinion of mankind: the 
Whig is for limiting and watching them with a narrow jealousy.” 
—Page 400, Boswell. 

I insert this passage in consequence of Mr. Burke’s remark, 
(page 113 of his Appeal,) that the British constitution is of 
too high an order of excellence to be adapted to common 
minds, This surely resembles what Johnson said of the Tory. 
But between men of shallow and superficial understandings, 
and men to whom Mr. Burke would allow wisdom and reflec- 
tion, there is a numerous class of citizens, whose doubts de- 
serve consideration. - Possessing a common share of judgment, 
improved by the common advantages of education, they are 
not incapable of understanding “ many of the views which our 
constitution takes in, and many of the combinations which it 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 247 


powerful ties by which the government of the coun- 
try is connected with its prosperity ; and preferring 
the haughtiness of dogmatism to the drudgery of 
proof, they would drive away the eyes of the pro- 
fane from contemplating those causes, which all 
have a right to examine, because all are daily and 
hourly interested in their effects. But this kind of 
language carries with it neither the plausibility of 
theory nor the solidity of fact. It may confound, 
but it will never convince. It may lull men for a 
time into supineness and insensibility, but will nei- 
ther gratify their curiosity, nor allay their terrors, in 
the hour of danger. Unquestionably, the spirit of 
enquiry is gone forth; and my hope is, that it may 
take a right direction, and lead us, as well to value 
and to perpetuate the blessings which we now en- 
joy, as to obtain, through the concurrence of good 
government with good citizens, other and greater 
blessings, if, indeed, other and greater blessings are 
placed within our reach. 

From the incidental mention of these subjects 
which have been discussed by Mr. Burke and Mr. 
Paine, and upon which I would be understood to 
state my opinions, without assigning the reasons for 
which I hold them, I will take occasion to inform 
the reader of the effect, which I have felt from a 
third celebrated writer, to whom the attention of the 
public has been very much directed. 


makes.” They would recognize it, “with the less enquiring in 
their feelings and their experience ;” and, assisted by such 
profound thinkers as Mr. Burke, they would also “ know it in 
its reason and in its spirit.” 


248 ON POLITICS, 


In the rapid and eccentric notions of Mr. Burke’s 
mind through the vast and trackless spaces of poli- 
tics, it often loses the power of attraction upon my 
own; and as to Mr. Paine,* upon my first approach 


* The part of Mr. Paine’s book which interested and con- 
vinced me the most is, the very able narrative which he gives 
of the progress and circumstances of the revolution at Paris : 
but I cannot suffer “one truth,” as Dryden says, “to support 
a thousand lying rhymes,” upon abstract politics. I recognize 
in Mr. Paine a mind not disciplined by early education, not 
softened and refined by a various and extensive intercourse 
with the world, not enlarged by the knowledge which books 
supply ; but endowed by nature with very great vigour, and 
strengthened by long and intense habits of reflection. Acute 
he appears to me, but not comprehensive ; and bold, but not 
profound. Of man, in his general nature he seems only to 
have grasped a part, and of man as distinguished by local and 
temporary circumstances, his views are indistinct and confined, 
His notions of government are therefore too partial for theory, 
and too novel for practice, and, under a fair semblance of sim- 
plicity, conceals a mass of most dangerous errors, 


“« For dignity composed, and high exploit 
He seems. His pen can make the worse appear 
The better reasons. But his thoughts are low.” 


In plain truth, I understand more by the English word 
“ crown,” than “a bauble kept in the Tower to be shown for 
twelvepence ;” nor do I consider aristocracy ‘‘as having but 
one child; as begetting the rest to be devoured, and then 
throwing them to the canibal for prey.” The parent, whom 
Mr. Paine describes as so unnatural, is at least an affectionate 
nurse during the infancy of her offspring; she feeds it care- 
fully, and clothes it warmly, before she turns it loose into the 
wide world. But, to drop figurative language, the younger 
children of our nobility receive the same liberal education with 
the elder; and to me it seems that, instead of subdividing in 
all cases a large fortune among those whom Mr. Paine’s law 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 249 


towards him, I was instantly repelled to an unmea- 
surable distance, and for a time was content to view 


would make equal, but whom nature has not made equal in 
corporeal and intellectual strength, and whom the equal ex- 
pectation of independence would, according to their different 
capacities, make yet more unequal, it were better policy for 
them to be trusted with the creation of their own fortune by 
their own merits in the army, in the navy, in the church, and 
at the bar. Perhaps in a commercial country it were well if 
the old feudal prejudices of the noblesse against commerce 
were extirpated, as partnership would supply the want of a 
large capital, and the families of nobility would gradually be 
blended in opinion and interest with the industrious classes of 
the community. But without the aid of formal discussion, one 
plain tale shall put down Mr. Paine’s strutting metaphor, Mr. 
Fox and Mr, Pitt are the younger sons of noblemen. As to 
the priesthood, I have seen it ridiculed with wit much keener 
than Mr. Paine’s in the works of Trenchard and Gordon, and 
with eloquence more magnificent than Mr. Paine’s, in the 
prose writings of Milton, I mean not, however, to palliate the 
prejudices of the clergy; and my opportunities for observing 
their causes and their effects have not been fewer, I suppose, 
than Mr, Paine’s, But I also know their personal virtues; I 
know their usefulness in society ; I know that, in this country, 
they upon the whole are a most enlightened and valuable order 
of citizens; and in saying so I am not much influenced by 
selfish motives, as Mr. Paine would probably allow, if he were 
acquainted with the obscurity of my ecclesiastical station, and 
the scantiness of my ecclesiastical income. I am not well 
enough informed about the internal state of America to deter- 
mine how far Mr, Paine’s opinions may be useful there, in a 
nascent government. But when I consider the progress of 
arts, sciences, literature, and politics, law, and religion, in the 
settled governments of Europe, I suspect that, by the plan of 
Mr. Paine, instead of advancing to a more improved state of 
society, we should find ourselves retrograde towards that situa- 
tion which is commonly called a state of nature, or, at least, 


250 ON POLITICS, 


him, as philosophers look through a telescope at 
some dim and sullen planet, whose orbit is at the 
remotest extremity from the center. But in the 
middle and more temperate path which Mr. Mack- 
intosh has generally pursued, I could often accom- 
pany him with pleasure; for, like the earth in the 
solar system, he seems neither to approach too near 
to the dazzling fountain of light, nor to recede from 
it too far. My friend, for I have the honour to hail 
him by that splendid name, will excuse me for ex- 
pressing in general terms what I think of his work.* 

In Mackintosh, then, I see the sternness of ἃ re- 
publican without his acrimony, and the ardour of a 
reformer without his impetuosity. His taste in 
morals, like that of Mr. Burke, is equally pure and 
delicate with his taste in literature. His mind is so 


that we should sacrifice many of the brilliant and indisputable 
advantages which make us boast of living in a civilized and en- 
lightened age. Quotation is my trade, and therefore I will 
not suppress some lines which I once applied to the American 
reformers of English politics: 


Protect us, mighty Providence ; 

What would these madmen have ? 
First they would bribe us without pence, 
Deceive us without common sense, 

And without power enslave. 


The lines were written in 1680, and are worth remembering 
in 1792. 

* The age of the writer, the merit of his first publication, 
and the reception it has met with from the world, induce me to 
apply to my friend what Cicero said of Hortensius: “ Quinti 
Hortensii admodum adolescentis ingenium, ut Phidiz signum, 
simul adspectum et probatum est.”—Cic. de Orat. lib. ii. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 251 


comprehensive, that generalities cease to be barren, 
and so vigorous, that detail itself becomes interest- 
ing. He introduces every question with perspicuity, 
states it with precision, and pursues it with easy 
and unaffected method. Sometimes, perhaps, he 
may amuse his readers by excursions into paradox ; 
but he never bewilders them by flights into romance. 
His philosophy is far more just, and far more 
amiable than the philosophy of Paine, and his elo- 
quence is only not equal to the eloquence of Mr. 
Burke. He is argumentative without sophistry, 
fervid without fury, profound without obscurity, and 
sublime without extravagance. 

My friend, I am sure, does not suspect me of 
wishing for the return of “that priestly craft, and 
priestly domination which would certainly re-plunge 
Europe into ignorance and superstition.” But he 
will excuse me for pronouncing a most decided and 
a most unqualified negative to the assumption of 
the National Assembly, that “the existence of 
ranks* is repugnant to the social union.” On the 


* Mr. Mackintosh does not forget, that in the Roman re- 
public there were distinctions of rank not merely among the 
patricians, knights, and plebeians, but among the nobiles and 
novi. ‘Hereditary characteristics attracted the attention of 
mankind in some degree under all the antient governments.”— 
Dunbar, on the hereditary Genius of Nations. See Dr. Tay- 
lor’s Element’s of Civil Law, p. 179. 

Among the Lacedemonians there were personal distinctions 
of rank, though not hereditary, and the Greek word exactly 
corresponds to our English word peers. See Xenophon, Hel- 
lenic. lib. iii. cap. 3. p. 35. edit. Xunius, where the note is 
worth consulting. See also Palmerii Exercitationes, p. 69. 


252 ON POLITICS, 


contrary, I am persuaded that hereditary as well as 
personal distinctions may, under a wise legislature, 
become the instruments of public good, and that 
without bringing back the rude state of society, 
which gave rise to the nobility * of Europe, a prin- 
ciple of virtuous action already excited (for I con- 
tend that it is excited) by the feudal institutions, may 
be adapted to the exigencies of a more enlightened 
and more civilized age. 

Again, I totally differ from my friend upon the 
origin and the tenure of ecclesiastical property, and 
in his description of ecclesiastics as mere pensioners 
of the state—He knows me too well, I am sure, to 
impute this dissent to the weakness and the selfish- 
ness of professional prejudice. But these, anda few 
other defects, if defects they be, are lost in the blaze 


Mr. Hume, in his Essays, has often observed the similarity 
between the French and the Athenians ; but he did not expect 
that in so few years after his death, so striking and new an in- 
stance of resemblance would arise, as we have lately seen in 
the language of the public assemblies—Frenchmen, is now the 
simple and dignified mode of address in the national assembly, 
like men of Athens, in the Greek orators. 

But the mode in which they often address the king of the 
French, reminds me of the words which the grand justiciary, 
or head of the Ricos Hombres, was content to use once to the 
king of Arragon: “‘ We, who are your equals, constitute you 
our Lord and King, on condition that you maintain our privi- 
leges and liberties; if otherwise, not.”—See Millot’s Elements 
of General History, vol. i. p. 195; and Sidney’s Discourses, 
chap. ii. sect. 5. 

* «Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference 
(not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unna- 
tural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.”—P. 76, Burke’s Reflections. 


JURISPRUDENCE; &c. 253 


of general excellence ; and they who reflect upon 
the just and luminous comparison which Mr. Mack- 
intosh has drawn between the peers of France and 
those of England, may, upon farther consideration, 
be led to other solid and useful distinctions, upon 
other momentous and awful topics. 

My meaning will be understood, when I say, that 
I prefer two independent houses for legislative deli- 
beration to one, and that in a king with the sub- 
stance of the executive power, will be found a better 
guardian of the public weal than in the mockery of 
a pageant king with little more than the shadow. 

My opinion upon the sacred duties and the vene- 
rable privileges of an English King nearly coincide 
with those of Mr. Rous, and I am happy in this op- 
portunity of acknowledging the pleasure I received 
from his late excellent letter to Mr. Burke. I am, 
however, compelled to dissent from this very judi- 
cious and patriotic writer, upon the extent to which 
he would stretch his principle of excluding the 
members of the legislative body from all share 
whatsoever in the duties and the emoluments of the 
executive government. I grant, indeed, that the 
more useful duties in the lower departments are well 
enough discharged by men, “formed by the routine 
of office.* See p. 104 of Mr. Rous’s Letter.” But 


* That men who are formed, according to Mr. Rous’s ex- 
pression, merely by ‘‘ the routine of office,” can bear up against 
the pressure of public duties and public difficulties, 1 deny as a 
fact. And upon this subject I think the following remarks of 
Mr. Ferguson deserving of serious consideration: “ When we 
suppose government to have bestowed a degree of tranquillity, 


254 ON POLITICS, 


I cannot admit, that the higher departments stand 
in no need of “ minds splendidly endowed,” or that, 
when such minds engage in public affairs, “ their 
paths are ever marked with ruin.” Great revolu- 
tions have usually been atchieved by men of great 
abilities ; but their success in turbulent periods is to 
be imputed to previous circumstances, and those cir- 
cumstances gradually arise from the want of wisdom 
in persons who have directed the affairs of govern- 
ment in seasons of apparent tranquillity. 

“To settle the imaginary balance of power, to 
impose a form of government upon one reluctant 
people, to adjust the limits of dominion to another,” 
are surely not the sole employments for which an 
English administration is destined. That the at- 
tention of our present governors has been too much 
directed to those narrow and mischievous objects ; 
that their measures, whether successful or de- 
feated,* have been at once expensive without ad- 


which we sometimes hope to reap from it, as the best of its 
fruits, and public affairs to proceed in the several departments 
of legislation and execution, with the least possible interrup- 
tion to commerce and lucrative arts; when a state, like that of 
China, throws affairs into separate offices, where conduct con- 
sists in detail, and in the observance of forms, it supersedes all 
the exertions of a great and liberal mind, and is more akin to 
despotism than we imagine,’’—Ferguson’s Civil Society, part vi. 
sect. 5. 

* In the ridiculous and fruitless contest of this country 
about the cession of Okzakow, we have seen an instance where, 
as Bolingbroke says, (Letter 13th, upon Parties,) ‘the majo- 
rity without doors compelled the majority within doors to 
truckle to the minority.” Much do I rejoice at the event, 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 255 


vantage, and ostentatious without glory; that they 
have multiplied our taxes without extending our 
commerce, and have displayed our strength without 
increasing our security, I readily allow. But, whilst 
government embraces the affairs, not of Great Bri- 
tain only, but of Ireland, and of those remote colo- 
nies which it seems equally difficult to keep and 
dangerous to abandon, whilst there is a real as well 
as an imaginary balance of power, which every state 
must be concerned in preserving against the en- 
croachments of every other state; whilst our do- 
mestic councils must, for the sake of our domes- 
tic safety, be sometimes engaged in watching the 


but more at the cause. What then, it may be asked, was 
the obstacle which prevailed against the votes of parliament, 
the plans of the cabinet, the dark negociations of foreign 
courts, the senseless and delusive cry of confidence, and the 
imposing plea of engagements, which, in Bolingbroke’s words, 
“imply both action and expence?”—(Patriot King.) My 
answer is, the just and extended views which the English peo- 
ple are beginning to entertain upon the folly, the injustice, and 
the inexpediency of war, and which, by a sort of rebound 
from the declaration of the national assembly of France, 
struck upon the public mind with a wider and deeper impres- 
sion, A spectacle has been thus spread before the contempla- 
tive philanthropist, such as the history of past times seldom 
presents to our view, and such as futures historians will, I 
hope, describe with enthusiasm, and hold up to the wonder and 
the imitation of all succeeding ages. Events yet greater will, 
perhaps, ere long burst from the womb of greater causes, and 
happy is that man who, mingling the love of freedom with the 
love of peace and order and social union, surveys with philo- 
sophical calmness or religious awe the gracious designs of Pro- 
vidence, magnificently unfolding themselves in the intellectual, 
the civil, and the moral improvement of mankind. 


256 ON POLITICS, 


crooked machinations, and in curbing the restless 
ambition, of foreign powers ; whilst France is strug- 
gling for freedom, and other nations, after the ex- 
ample of France, seem disposed to shake off the 
yoke of despotism; whilst our public debt is so 
heavy, and our public interests are so complex and 
so extensive, the talents which, under such circum- 
stances, aim only at “ giving protection to a people,” 
ought to be of no common order. Such, indeed, is 
the unquiet, and, I believe, unprecedented state of 
Europe, so dark are the views, so mighty are the 
preparations, so discordant will be the ultimate in- 
terests of the European powers, that it is impossi- 
ble to name a period in which there was greater 
occasion for the greatest talents in all the branches 
of our own government, whether legislative or exe- 
cutive. 

No general proposition can be more evident, 
than that, without talents of considerable magni- 
tude in the persons to whom the task of governing 
is committed, government itself cannot be either 
respectable or safe. It cannot, for a long time, 
direct the public opinion. It cannot employ the 
public strength to purposes of public utility. I 
will add, too, that in a free government like our 
own, talents, if confined, as we have lately seen 
them, to one minister, are big with danger, though, 
if diffused through the various members of ad- 
ministration, they would give greater energy and 
greater dignity to every measure. Surely it is not 
the excess of abilities in one quarter, but the want 
of abilities in many quarters, to which every impar-. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 257 


tial observer will ascribe our late disasters in war, 
and our present distresses after a long, though most 
precarious and unsettled, peace. To do evil is more 
within the reach of every man, in public as well as 
in private life, than to do good. And if persons of 
“secondary talents” alone be entrusted, as Mr. Rous 
wishes them to be, with the executive government, 
low ambition and low cunning, “ wielding the ar- 
mies and navies of the state,” would too often baffle 
the efforts of that legislative band in whom wisdom 
is combined with magnanimity. 

In the present condition of the world, good men 
may indeed wish, but wise men will rarely hope, for 
such a kind and such a degree of public spirit as 
shall in men of distinguished abilities be wholly 
separated from views of personal interest. If, in- 
deed, the separation were effected, competition for 
popularity might split the senate into parties more 
powerful, and in the end more factious, than those 
which are formed by competition for office; and 
the favour of the people would eventually become 
a more dangerous source of influence than the 
favour of the sovereign himself. In their appeals to 
the public judgment, men in all popular states have 
been “embarrassed with preconceived plans of per- 
sonal ambition,” in the mildest “ acceptation of the 
term,” and the greatest talents have been “em- 
ployed” sometimes “in teaching the way of truth,” 
but much oftener “in perplexing, in confounding, 
and in spreading a delusive cloud before the eyes of 
nations.” This, indeed, would not have happened, 
if “their hearts had been purely devoted to the 

VOL, III. 8 


258 ON POLITICS, 


public interest,” but experience forbids us to look 
for perfection in any number of public men. 

Let me not, however, be suspected of insinuat- 
ing that men of transcendental ability press to the 
brink of corruption with a more rapid career than 
those who excite less envy, because they command 
less admiration. On the contrary, the more natu- 
ral tendency of great intellectual endowments is, to 
rescue the heart from the dominion of coarse and 
selfish passions, and to fix it upon treasures less 
ignoble and less perishable than paltry pelf, which 
may be amassed without excellence and possessed 
without dignity. Even in the ordinary effects of 
those endowments we see a delicacy and elevation 
of sentiment, a habit of self-respect, a capacity for 
self denial, by which men are happily preserved at 
least from very servile compliances and very atro- 
cious crimes. To such men, the consciousness of 
high merit filling the wide expanse of high station, 
the homage of the opulent, the powerful, and the 
noble, the music of popular applause, the anticipa- 
tion of glory in ages yet unborn, nay, the imme- 
diate bustle of action itself, supply gratifications 
far too exquisite to be felt by the sordid slaves of 
avarice, the grovelling drudges of office, and the 
venal tools of power. While, therefore, public em- 
ployments, in which the love of lucre is purified by 
the love of honour, are conferred upon public men, 
it can be no disgrace to individuals that genius 
should not renounce the distinctions to which pa- 
tient industry, superficial attainments, and even the 
mere mechanism of intellect, are permitted to 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 259 


aspire; neither can it promote the general good, 
that they who are capable of atchieving the least 
should be exclusively invested with the privilege of 
receiving the most. 

For my part, when I consider the general consti- 
tution and operations of the human mind, I am 
content to derive from the mingled frailties and ex- 
cellencies of men, those effects which hitherto have 
not been produced by the influence of firm and 
steady virtue alone; and I sometimes rejoice to see 
the impetuosity of rampant ambition restrained by 
a concomitant passion, which looks, indeed, more 
immediately for gratification in less brilliant objects, 
but which clears off much of its own impurity by 
habitual association with passions of a higher order. 
When I farther consider the peculiar and distin- 
guishing circumstances of our own country, I 
am not sorry to find, that through exertion in par- 
liament is laid open an avenue to that public con- 
fidence, which usually concurs with causes less 
honourable in exalting men to employments in the 
state. But if the profits and the honours of politi- 
cal departments were quite inaccessible to men who 
would erect their fortune on the basis of their fame, 
those talents which now range through the wide 
field of politics would droop and languish in the 
humbler cells of office, or, being devoted to the 
views of the sovereign alone, they would be exerted 
in their utmost force, with little control from the 
opinions, and little regard to the interests, of the 
people. 

No institutions of man, however solid in their 

s 2 


260 ON POLITICS, 


fundamental principles, and however beneficial in 
their general tendencies, can be fenced against the 
incursions of contingent evil. The advantages even 
of the best regulated monarchy are exposed to 
some interruption from the inflexible but most 
salutary rule of hereditary succession. Yet the 
personal defects of successors may be compensated 
by the choice of ministers, who have skill “to un- 
fold the drift of haughty and hollow states,”* “to 
settle” the conditions of “peace,” “and to move 
the main nerves of war, in all its equipage.” On the 
other hand, if men of ordinary talents and ordinary 
powers huddle around the throne, they whom Bo- 
lingbroke calls the “lumber of every administration, 
and the furniture of every court,” will snatch some 
favourable opportunity of seizing upon the highest 
offices. But the crown itself, exchanging efficient 
ministers for agreeable favourites, will be unable to 
protect the rights of others or to preserve its own. 
It will be equally unprepared against the treacherous 
calm and the scowling tempest. It will substitute 
suspicion for vigilance, obstinacy for steadiness, 
and laxity for moderation. It will neither accom- 
modate itself to the gradual changes, nor support 
itself under the sudden revolutions, of public opi- 
nion. Its spirit will at one time be abject, and at 
another supercilious. Its councils will be intricate 
or wavering, and its measures either languid from 
debility or violent from unskilfulness. In the mean 
time, the errors of the sovereign himself will not 


* See Milton’s Sonnet upon Mr. Henry Lawes. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 261 


be corrected, his passions will not be controlled, his 
caprices will be cherished instead of being over- 
awed, his weaknesses will render him a dupe to the 
craftiness of his servants, and even his wisdom, or 
his virtues, will point him out as an object of their 
jealousy. 

While, however, I contend for that “rare com- 
merce,* which gives and takes a lustre from the 
throne,” I allow, with Mr. Rous, that “legislation 
is a very proper scene for great talents, and that the 
science of giving protection to mankind is worthy 
to fill the most extended life.” 

But my wish is, that the public duties may be 
discharged by the same men in their legislative and 
executive capacities, because my opinion is, that, by 
the concurrence of their general interests, those du- 
ties will, upon the whole, be discharged more ef- 
fectually. Doubtless, the senate, like the vaulted 
firmament of heaven, should be studded with stars 
that twinkle, and stars that blaze, of every size, and 
in every direction. But, if in our political system, 
the crown may, with any semblance of propriety, be 
compared to Jupiter, the first of planets in magni- 
tude ; let it not be made the least in glory, nor de- 
prived of the radiance it may borrow from its satel- 
lites. 

Happy should I he, if the catalogue of useless and 
expensive places in this kingdom were much 
abridged; if the number of placemen eligible to par- 
lament were fixed by parliamentary authority itself; 


* Young's Satire 7th. 


262 ON POLITICS, 


if the offices they should be capable of holding were 
specified by some known and standing rule, and if 
those offices were confined, strictly confined, to the 
most active, the most useful, the most arduous, and 
therefore, with justice the most profitable parts of 
the executive government. But as for the total se- 
paration for which Mr. Rous contends, and for which 
I remember myself to have been an advocate some 
years ago, I despair of some of the good conse- 
quences which he has described with generous en- 
thusiasm, and I foresee some bad consequences 
which have escaped even his keen penetration. 
While the crown has many emoluments to bestow 
there will be many candidates, and among those can- 
didates secret rivalry would be more dangerous, be- 
cause more base, than a rivalry which is more open, 
and, therefore, restrained by some sense of shame. 
Speciously as placemen may betray, they receive 
their reward notoriously ; and, therefore, the public 
eye is turned towards them with jealousy, nor will 
public indignation be wanting to hunt them down 
with infamy, when their apostacy from principle 
becomes flagitious. Though our senators were 
themselves thrust out of office, influence might yet 
exist, while they have uncles and nephews, while 
they have sons legitimate, and sons illegitimate, 
while they have flatterers and dependants. And 
who knows, but that, like a river forced out of its 
usual channel, and spreading itself through many 
smaller and more hidden streams, political corrup- 
tion might gradually find its way to rapacious cour- 
tezans, to imperious matrons, and 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 263 


That store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
Rain influence, and judge the prize 
Of wit and arms 


At all events, the corruption which now circulates 
among the members of parliament would be diffused 
more widely among their constituents, and this 
surely would be to change a great evil fora greater. 
The senator is now a mixed character. He acts 
under a sense of different obligations, or, at least, 
from the impulse of different interests, all of which 
in their turn prevail. His attachment to the crown 
is In some measure controlled by responsibility to 
his constituents ; and there are situations in which 
he is compelled to do homage to public opinion, in 
order to secure the power of gratifying his private 
avarice. But the constituent is not subject even to 
this imperfect control. Slight is the degree, and 
few are the occasions, upon which he feels responsi- 
bility to the country at large ; and, if bound by per- 
sonal interest to support the favourite measures of 
the crown, he will be disposed to elect such repre- 
sentatives as will secure to him the wages of his 
own corruption. 

If the House of Lords be not included in the re- 
gulation proposed by Mr. Rous, it would seize, per- 
haps, a monopoly of public profits, it would be more 
and more disposed to support the claims of the 
crown against the rights of the people, and would 
grow at once in strength and in corruption. On 
the contrary, if it be included in that regulation, the 
effects, in a mixed government like our own, would 


be very formidable. The peers, being a fixed body, 


264 ON POLITICS, 


would silently collect such a firm and compact mass 
of independence, as at some moment might weigh 
down the balance either against the crown or 
against the people. The House of Commons is, 
indeed, a fluctuating body; but, if its councils were 
in no degree influenced by the offices in the disposal 
of the crown, it would, in my opinion, sometimes 
rise too high, and sometimes sink too low, in the 
scale of national importance. 

Great virtues are usually the offspring of great 
occasions. Upon the first establishment of a go- 
vernment, the sense of public duty may be a suffi- 
cient motive of action, and animate the honest am- 
bition of those who mean well to their country. 
But, in the ordinary course of human affairs, mo- 
tives of less purity, and less vigour, will have their 
share in guiding the deliberations of every legisla- 
tive body; and, therefore, I call that form of go- 
vernment the best, which meets men as they really 
are, and which, controling by various means all 
their various principles, converts them ultimately 
into instruments of the public good. 

Much has been said upon the excellence of our 
constitution, in the independence which it establishes 
among the component parts of our government ; 
nor can it be denied, that in some degree they are, 
and in a great degree they ought to be, independent. 
But, in practice there is a real and an intimate con- 
nection between them, which produces its good as 
well as its bad effects: and a theory balancing those 
effects is, I believe, at present a desideratum in the 
politics of this country. Instead, therefore, of con- 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 265 


sidering them merely, or even chiefly, as mutual 
checks, I have of late been accustomed to view 
them as wheels facilitating the motion of each other 
in a vast and complicated machine; and into this 
train of thinking I was led by some profound and 
original observations, which Mr. Fox has occasion- 
ally dropped in parliament, and which shallow men 
have been disposed to impute to the perverseness of 
opposition, or the wantonness of paradox. But, if 
Mr. Burke, in his projected treatise on the govern- 
ment of England, should erect a firm and a stately 
pyramid for the preservation of his own fame; from 
the summit of that goodly fabric we may hope to 
survey, under one distinct and capacious prospect, 
those splendid scenes, which hitherto have been 
seen only in broken and disorderly parts, and by a 
dim and transient glimpse. In the mean time I am 
compelled to allow with Mr. Hume (Essay 5.) that 
the interest of the legislative body (which by the 
way Lin some respects distinguish from the interest 
of the people) is restrained by the interest of indi- 
viduals, and that the House of Commons stretches 
not its power, because such an usurpation would be 
contrary to the interest of the majority of its mem- 
bers. “The crown,” says he, “has so many offices 
at its disposal, that, when assisted by the honest and 
disinterested part of the House, it will always com- 
mand the resolution of the whole, so far, at least, as 
to preserve the ancient constitution from danger. 
We may, therefore, give to this influence what name 
we please. We may call it,” and sometimes we may 
justly call it, “ by the invidious appellation of corrup- 


266 ON POLITICS, 


tion and dependence: but some degree, and some 
kind of it, are inseparable from the very nature of 
our constitution, and necessary to the preservation 
of our mixed government.” The difficulty, no 
doubt, lies in adjusting that degree; and here I 
confess that “extraordinary efforts will be required 
to support our free government under those disad- 
vantages,” which Mr. Hume, (Essay 6.) seems to 
apprehend “from the immense property of which 
the crown disposes, from the increasing luxury of 
the nation, from our proneness to corruption, from 
the great power and prerogative of the crown, and 
from the command of such numerous military 
forces.” To grapple with these difficulties success- 
fully requires an equal portion of honesty and of 
talent, in the executive and the legislative parts of 
our government, an equal spirit of moderation to 
concede and of firmness to retain, an equal capa- 
city for discerning what may be conceded without 
dishonour, and what may be retained without dan- 
ger. But they who would remove every existing 
and every approaching evil by those simple and 
more popular forms of government which have 
lately been proposed, would do well to consider, 
that by grasping at too much they run the hazard 
of losing what may be attained without any violent 
convulsion* of the state. “Such is the nature of 


* My dread is not from systems themselves, but from the 
want of wisdom and the want of moderation in those who 
would hastily and indiscriminately drag them into practice. In 
the dreadful moments of public convulsions, experiments even 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 267 


novelty, says the philosopher abovementioned (Es- 
say 6.) “ that when any thing pleases, it becomes 
doubly agreeable, if new; and, if it displeases, it 
is doubly displeasing upon that account.” Now, 
the tide of public opinion has of late years been 
turning fast towards monarchy,* and they who 
would force it back with excessive and sudden rapi- 
dity to the side of democracy, will, I fear, aggra- 
vate and perpetuate the mischiefs which they pro- 
fess to avert. 


of the most hazardous kind are sometimes unavoidable. But 
at present, such is the peaceable situation of our country, such 
are the comprehensive principles of our own constitution, and 
such the salutary prejudices, as well as the sterling good sense 
of our own countrymen, that we may justly look for those 
solid and permanent advantages which arise from the full 
maturity of moral causes, in the pursuit of which the zeal of 
reformation ought to be corrected by the calmness of philoso- 
phy. 

* In stating this very interesting and very indisputable fact, 
I mean not to censure government, but to warn the governed. 

«« Subjects, as well as their princes, frequently imagine that 
freedom is a clog to the proceedings of government. They 
imagine, that despotical power is best fitted to procure dis- 
patch, and secrecy in the execution of public councils to main- 
tain what they are pleased to call political order, and to give 
a speedy redress of complaints. They even sometimes acknow- 
ledge, that if a succession of good princes could be found, de- 
spotical government is best calculated for the happiness of man- 
kind. While they reason thus, they cannot blame a sovereign 
who, in the confidence that he is to employ his power for good 
purposes, endeavours to extend its limits, and in his own ap- 
prehension strives only to shake off the restraints which stand 
in the way of reason, and which prevent the effect of his friendly 
intentions.” —Ferguson’s Civil Society, Part 6th. 


268 ON POLITICS, 


The metaphysical opinions which in this country 
floated upon the public mind during the war with 
America, eventually took a stronger hold upon the 
fears than upon the judgment of well-meaning and 
well-informed men, and disposed them to throw 
themselves back upon the protection of the esta- 
blished government with all its acknowledged faults, 
instead of chasing remote or ideal advantages, at 
the hazard of tumult, and with the certainty of in- 
novation. They have reconciled us to the transfer 
of royal favour and public confidence, from the 
steady friends of the people to the haughty, and at 
the same time the insidious ministers of the Crown. 
They have effected the portentous exchange of jea- 
lousy in the cause of freedom for an indolent, and 
even a servile indifference to the silent, though pro- 
gressive, increase of that power, from which Mr. 
Hume predicts the euthanasia of the British consti- 
tution —a power, of which “the discontinuous 
wounds,” like those of some “ethereal substance,” 
are quickly closed and quickly healed, and which, 
surviving alike the gradual decay, and the sudden 
extinction of opinions, of customs, of religions, and 
of laws, seems by the irrevocable decree of nature 
herself to be destined for immortality. 

In respect to the project of Mr. Rous, I would 
be understood to disapprove, not of the principle 
itself, but of the extent in which he would apply it ; 
and the present condition of France confirms me in 
that disapprobation. By an undistinguishing and 
intemperate eagerness for the attainment of that 
perfection, which metaphysical writers have holden 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 269 


up to the admiration of a lively and gallant people, 
the government of France has been stripped of 
many solid supports, and decorated with some orna- 
ments, which to me appear cumbersome and fantas- 
tic. When the intestine and external dangers 
which threaten France shall be happily removed, I 
flatter myself, that the government will gradually 
retire from those extremities to which it has been 
pushed by the ardour of experiment, by the violence 
of the prevailing party, by the necessity of spreading 
before the people the allurements of novelty, and by 
the yet stronger necessity of leaving no power in 
the hands of those who were bigotted in their at- 
tachment to the old and established principles of 
monarchy. But the jealousy now subsisting be- 
tween the members of the National Assembly and 
the ministers of the Crown, the embarrassments 
which those ministers must ever meet in conduct- 
ing the business of an extensive empire, under the 
restraints of an immediate and most irksome respon- 
sibility; the tried, and, it should seem, the acknow- 
ledged impropriety of public discussion upon many 
subjects of political detail; the necessity of refer- 
ring those subjects to committees, which, after the 
fervour of novelty has cooled, will always be ex- 
posed to secret management and indirect corrup- 
tion; the difficulty of obtaining official information, 
and the yet greater difficulty of enforcing speedy, 
vigorous, and faithful execution—all these circum- 
stances conspire in convincing me, that the attempt 
has been made in France without success, and that 
the theory of a total separation between the legisla- 


270 ON POLITICS, 


tive and the executive bodies is false; because it is 
either incapable of being reduced to real practice, 
or, if practised, is injurious to good government. 
As to researches into the truth of that theory, 
merely ex hypothesi, I should read with pleasure 
the arguments by which ingenious men might sup- 
port it, if they would fairly warn their readers that 
they are writing like Plato in his Republic, or like 
More in his Utopia. In the investigation of physi- 
cal causes we depend much upon accident ; the pro- 
cess of experiments themselves is slow, and the 
general conclusions to which they lead long remain 
doubtful. But the force of moral causes lies more 
nearly within our reach, and there can be little hope 
of moral improvement unless that force in all its 
various directions, and all its intricate combina- 
tions, be calculated again and again, and presented 
to the views of those who can bring it into action. 
Unhappily the greater part of such men as govern 
the affairs of the world are seldom trained to habits 
of investigation; and for this reason it is, that I 
maintain the necessity of high intellectual attain- 
ments in those who are to execute, as well as in 
those who are to control the councils of nations. 
For, amidst the fluctuating tempers and the varying 
interests of large communities, greater or less op- 
portunities for practical application will arise, when 
the most accomplished statesman will find himself 
enlightened by consulting the storehouse of abstract 
speculation. Conducted as theory sometimes is, by 
men of ability and virtue, by a Locke, a Sydney, 
and even a Harrington, it is of general use, because 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 271 


it incidently throws some portion of light upon the 
real conduct of men, and the real interests of states. 
Thus I grant that Mr. Rous has unfolded a most 
salutary principle, and sure I am that he will not be 
offended with me for endeavouring to give it a more 
sure and permanent effect, by salutary restrictions. 
Now, whether my opinion about the governments 
of France and England be well or ill-founded, I 
certainly had no concern with those meetings for 
commemoration, which have been the objects of so 
much acrimonious invective, and the source, in my 
neighbourhood, of so many shocking depredations. 
I did not believe them to be illegal, but I thought 
them indiscreet; and, therefore, without the smallest 
hesitation, and in the strongest terms, I more than 
declined two indirect sorts of invitation which had 
been sent to me from two different quarters. It is 
not for me either to justify or to condemn other 
men who acted from other motives. But, for my 
part, I was unwilling by any public overt-act to en- 
courage rash and inconsiderate persons in confound- 
ing the events in France with the condition of Eng- 
land. I disdained to debase my character as a citi- 
zen and as a clergyman by the slightest appearance 
of indecorum. I shrunk from the thought of irri- 
tating * those passions, which it is my duty alike to 


* Upon the same principles of moderation I have acted with 
some effect since the riots. A very zealous and well-meaning 
churchman lately put into my hands a political dialogue, which 
had been published at Birmingham, and was to be followed by 
other dialogues of the same kind, After reading it, I told 


272 ON POLITICs, 


assuage by precept and by example, While, how- 
ever, I accede to the observation of Mr. Hume, that 
in the conflict of public opinions the most mode- 
rate * are generally the most wise, I know, by my 
own melancholy experience, that they are not always 
the most safe. 

When “pity,” as Antony says, “is choked with 
custom of foul deeds,” in vain would an honest man 
plead, “ I am not Cinna the conspirator.” “ It is 


this gentleman that I highly disapproved of its contents, and 
that, at this crisis especially, I was very much afraid of its con- 
sequences. At the same time I took an opportunity of com- 
municating, by letter, the same opinion to a gentleman of great 
political moderation, who is acquainted with some persons in 
the opposite party, and I desired him to employ his advice, and 
the whole authority of his character, in checking, if he could, 
a publication of which I knew it was impossible for him to ap- 
prove. He complied with my request, and I hear that no 
more dialogues have since appeared. I probably should not 
have seen the book if my friend, the loyalist, had not shewn it 
to me. I have not heard the name of the author, and, indeed, 
I have no desire to know it. Be his abilities what they may, I 
must condemn him for employing them in such a manner at 
such a time. 

* I know persons who, having neither taste to feel, nor judg- 
ment to distinguish, the beauties of Mr. Burke’s book, affect to 
be called his disciples, and have also verified one of Mr. Burke's 
very important observations. ‘If any [person] should happen 
to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with 
proper qualification, * * * suspicion will be raised of his fide- 
lity to his cause, moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue 
of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors.” Such 
is the language of certain wretches in this country about those 
who differ from them. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 273 


no matter,” would the bigot and the rioter exclaim, 
“ His name is Cinna, tear him, tear him; come, 
brands, ho! fire-brands.” 

Though I do not think myself bound to tilt with 
every doughty champion who may summon me into 
the lists of controversy for the choice of my private 
friends; yet I am not without some local and 
weighty reasons for blunting by anticipation the 
edge of those mischievous weapons which malevo- 
lence is ever ready to forge, and prejudice to wield. 

Be it known then to all whom it may concern, 
that my personal acquaintance with Dr. Priestley 
did not commence till the spring of 1790. Some 
years before I had spoken to Dr. Priestley, I had 
occasion, in one of my publications,* to censure 
him; and when he had replied with equal firmness 
and equal politeness, I was so graceless as neither 
to despise nor to hate him. 

In October 1789, when I preached for the cha- 
rity-schools at Birmingham, I earnestly recom- 
mended to the audience two admirable sermons 
which Dr. Priestley had written upon a topic very 
similar to my own. In the course of my observa- 
tions I in one place glanced at the “ marked pecu- 
liarities of Dr. Priestley upon controversial topics,” 
and in another I stated confidently what I shall 
now state again, that the views of the writer “are 
co-extensive with the magnitude and dignity of his 


* In a note upon my last sermon preached for the charity- 
schools at Norwich. 


VOL, III. T 


274 ON POLITICS, 


subject, and, therefore, they are not fettered by any 
limitation from particular modes of theological doc- 
trine, or particular forms of ecclesiastical discipline.” 
Thus much I said to inform the congregation that 
the perusal of Dr. Priestley’s sermons would not be 
attended with any danger to their faith; and I did 
not say more, because neither the time nor the place 
required theological disputation. 

Early in 1790 I resisted Dr. Priestley and his 
friends in their endeavours to procure the repeal of 
the Test Act; and on this occasion I had the plea- 
sure of acting with two or three worthy laymen of 
Birmingham, and with one clergyman for whom I 
have a great esteem. 

About a month or two after, Dr. Priestley and I 
met; and here begins a black catalogue of crimes, 
which have been long enveloped in darkness, but 
which I am now audacious enough to plant before 
legions of senseless and merciless calumniators in 
open day. 

I knew that Dr. John Leland of Ireland lived 
upon terms of intimacy with many English prelates 
—that Archbishop Secker preserved his acquaint- 
ance with Dr. Samuel Chandler—that Dr. Johnson 
admitted the visits of Dr. Fordyce, and did not de- 
cline the company of Dr. Mayo. When I myself 
too lived at Norwich, Mr. Bourne, a dissenting 
teacher, not less eminent for the boldness of his opi- 
nions than for the depth of his researches, was very 
well receiyed by the worthiest and most respectable 
clergymen of that city. I was therefore, and now 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 275 


am, at a loss to see why a clergyman of the Church 
of England should shun the presence of a dissent- 
ing minister, merely because they do not agree 
upon doctrinal points which have long divided the 
Christian world ; and indeed I have always found, 
that when men of sense and virtue mingle in free 
conversation, the harsh and confused suspicions 
which they may have entertained of each other gra- 
dually give way to more just and more candid senti- 
ments. 

In reality, the example of many great and good 
men averts every imputation of impropriety from 
such intercourse, and the information which I have 
myself occasionally gained by conversing with 
learned teachers of many different sects, will always 
make me remember with satisfaction, and acknow- 
ledge with thankfulness, the favour which they 
have done to me by their unreserved and judicious 
communications. 

Not having heard Dr. Priestley in the pulpit, * 
and knowing that in the city of Dublin Churchmen, 
Dissenters, and Catholics lay aside all distinctions to 
attend sermons for charity-schools, I, in the sum- 
mer of 1790, was once present, when Dr. Priestley 
delivered a sermon of this kind at Warwick. Not 


* This, I believe, is no uncommon practice with the clergy. 
When Dr. Foster preached in the Old Jewry, it was no dis- 
grace for ecclesiastics to go and hear him, however they might 
differ from him upon abstruse points of speculation. Men of 
talents are not entirely free from the passion of curiosity. 


ΠΡῸΣ 


276 : ON POLITICS, 


having seen the ceremony of ordination among the 
dissenters, I was a spectator of one, where Dr. 
Priestley assisted, Once I have been guilty of 
drinking tea, and once of dining with him at War- 
wick. Once I permitted him, forsooth, to dine 
with me at Hatton. Once I was so hardy as to ac- 
company my friend Mr. Porson for the purpose of 
meeting the very learned Mr. Berington* at Dr. 
Priestley’s house ; and when four such men as Dr. 
Priestley, Mr. Berington, Mr. Porson, and myself, 
ate together,} drank together, and chatted together 


* This excellent writer and most respectable man had been 
engaged in a controversy of some importance with Dr, Priest- 
ley, before they were acquainted, In truth, men of improved 
understandings and rooted virtue do not suffer difference of 
opinion to give them unfavourable impressions of each other. 
Let us hear what Johnson himself said, when, unruffled by con- 
tradiction, and looking to truth, not to victory, he thus con- 
versed with his inquisitive and candid Tory friend. He repeated 
his observation, that “‘ the. differences among Christians are 
really of no consequence : for instance (said he), if a Protestant 
objects to a Papist, ‘ You worship images,’ ” the Papist can an- 
swer, “I do not insist on your doing it; you may be a very 
good Papist without it; I do it only asahelp to my devotion,” 
I said the great article of Christianity is the revelation of im- 
mortality. Johnson admitted it was.—Vol. ii. p. 166, Boswell. 

Upon the importance of the doctrine which Johnson admit- 
ted, there is a passage in Archdeacon Paley’s Principles of 
Moral and Political Philosophy, which for comprehension of 
remark, solidity of thought, and solemn grandeur of diction, 
I consider as one of the noblest instances of composition in the 
English language. The reader will find it in page 109, vol. ii. 
6th edition in octavo. 

+ [hope to give no very unfavourable opinion of our con- 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 277 


at such a place as Fair Hill, and in such a month as 
November, real incendiaries may, for aught I know, 
be taught to suppose that some attempts were made 
towards a second gunpowder plot. Unfortunately, 
however, for our design, neither Mr. Porson, I be- 
lieve, nor myself, have seen our other two associates 
from that time * to the present. 

Besides paying and receiving all these visits, I 
have condescended to accept from Dr. Priestley 
some of his controversial publications ; I have dared 
to write to him three or four letters, and vouchsafed 
to receive from him four or five ; nay, I have car- 
ried my complaisance so far as to examine with 
great accuracy, and with little or no change of my 
original and orthodox opinion, the dispute in which 


versation when I add, that a fifth person in company was one of 
the peaceable and loyal people called quakers; I forget his 
name, but he seemed to be a person of sound judgment and 
extensive information; and I believe that he is no less an enemy 
than myself to the modern doctrine of deposing monarchs, and 
the modern practice of burning conventicles. 

* This statement was exact when I wrote it; but at the be- 
ginning of February I had the pleasure of dining with Mr, 
Dilly in the Poultry, and of meeting at his house Dr. Priestley, 
Mr. Isaac Reed, Mr. Cumberland, Mr. Belsham, Mr. Hoole, 
Mr. Braithwaite, Dr. Thompson of Kensington, Mr. Sharpe, 
and two or three learned members of the University of Cam- 
bridge. Hard is my fate, to be thus under the necessity of 
quelling slander by the detail of what passes in private life. 
Bigots will be surprised to hear, that the very day after I had 
seen Dr. Priestley I spent a most agreeable afternoon with the 
ingenious and worthy Mr. Jones, author of a celebrated work 
in defence of the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity. 


278 ON POLITICs, 


this Heresiarch was engaged with an illustrious 
prelate. Upon one topic,* where my fixed belief is 
diametrically opposite to that of Dr. Priestley, I 
confessed myself dissatisfied with some arguments 
used by his antagonist. Upon other topics I con- 
demned the austerity of that antagonist’s spirit, 
though I have always given him just and ample 
credit for mathematical knowledge, for classical eru- 
dition, for acuteness of reasoning, and for splen- 
dour of diction. 

Lately I had the honour of being consulted by 
Dr. Priestley upon a subject of some importance, 
and I gave, at his request, my unreserved advice, 
for which, if I were at liberty to proclaim it, I 
should have the approbation of all serious church- 
men, all impartial sectaries, and all sober-minded 
citizens. 

Such, and such only, has been my connection 
with Dr. Priestley. And was it for this that, in a 
season of deep distress and dreadful danger, my 
principles were on a sudden gnawed at by vermin 
whispers, and worried by brutal reproaches? that 
my house was marked out for conflagration ? that 
my family were for three days and three nights agi- 
tated with consternation and dismay? that my books, 
which I have long been collecting with indefatigable 
industry — upon which I have expended more than 
half the produce of more than twenty years unwea- 


* I mean the spiritual evidence for the miraculous con- 
ception. 


= 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 279 


ried labour—and which I considered as the pride of 
my youth, the employment of my riper age, and, 
perhaps, the best solace of declining life—was it for 
this, I say, that my very books were exposed to 
most unexpected, most unmerited destruction? In 
what age, or in what country, do I live? Whither, 
as an unoffending citizen, shall I flee for the pro- 
tection of the laws; and where, as a diligent and 
a faithful teacher of Christianity, where shall I look 
for its salutary influence, even among those who 
make their boast of being its most zealous defen- 
ders? O superbiam inauditam! Alios in facinore 
gloriari, aliis ne dolere quidem impunité licere.* 
But the ways of Providence are unsearchable; and 
among all the anomalies which baffle conjecture, 
and afflict sensibility, in the moral world, the follies, 
the ficklenesses, and the passions of man, are the 
most inexplicable and the most deplorable. He is 
a tyrant in defence of liberty—he is a plunderer for 
the support of law. He is an oppressor for the ho- 
nour of government. He is a savage in the very 
bosom of society. He becomes the unrelenting 
persecutor of his species for the imaginary glory of 
his God. 

My heart throbs so feelingly, and my conscience 
is so entirely unclouded by guilt or fear, that I can- 
not yet retire from those subjects, from which some 
men will boldly draw those invidious inferences, 
which others with a sort of instinctive subtilty have 


* Vid. Epist, Famil, Cic. lib, ii, epist. xxv. 


280 ON POLITICS, 


been content to lodge in the dark ambuscade of 
insinuation. 

In the name of common sense, then, and of com- 
mon humanity, let me ask, can the unlettered, and 
therefore the prejudiced classes of mankind, be pri- 
vileged to prescribe the bounds of social intercourse 
to enlightened men, who, from the very circum- 
stance of being enlightened, are most qualified to 
assist others in emerging from the gloom of igno- 
rance, and in shaking off the fetters of every unso- 
cial and unchristian antipathy? Did not Dr. John- 
son himself endure, and, as I am told, almost solicit 
an interview with Dr. Priestley, whose tenets he 
openly reprobated, and whose sect he derided, too 
coarsely, as I think, and too indiscriminately? In- 
stead of shunning contagion from the presence 
of a polemic, who had “ blown with a louder 
blast than his fellows the horn of battle,” did not 
Professor White * converse with him easily and 


* The learned Professor (to his honour be it spoken) was, on 
this occasion, and, I believe, habitually is, actuated by the 
same good spirit by which the orthodox bishops were distin- 
guished after their return from banishment, into which they 
had been driven by Valens. Their conduct was so exemplary 
in all respects towards the Arian bishops, that I cannot refuse 
my readers the satisfaction of perusing the following passage : 

Προεδρίας οὐδὲν ἐφόντισαν" GAG τὴν ὁμόνοιαν τῶν λαῶν προ- 
τιμήσαντες, μὴ καταλιπεῖν σφᾶς ἐδεήθησαν τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Αρείου 
αἱρέσεως, μήδε διχονοίᾳ κατατέμνειν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ἣν παρὰ Θεοῦ 
καὶ ἀποστόλων μίαν παραδοθεῖσαν, φιλονεικίαι καὶ φιλοπροεδρίαι 
εἰς πολλὰς Karepépccay.—Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. 7. cap. 2. 

But the behaviour of Eulalius, bishop of Amasia, towards an 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 281 


amicably when they met at the great Armoury of 
Heresy in St. Paul’s Church-yard? Did not the 
Dean of Christ Church, with his usual sagacity and 
good humour, call Dr. Priestley “ a Trinitarian in 
politics, and an Unitarian in religion,” when they 
saw each other at Oxford? Did not Mr. Burke 
himself visit Dr. Priestley at Birmingham? Yes. 
These great and worthy men did not think it incon- 
sistent with the purity of their faith, or the dignity 
of their stations, to interchange the courtesies of 
gentlemen and of scholars with Dr. Priestley. But 
no busy tongue has dared to blacken them for these 
actions in the opinion of mankind. No accusing 
angel has been permitted to record them as subjects 
of condemnation in the awful registry of Heaven. 

Living, as I have done, for the space of more than 
five years within the distance of sixteen miles from 
Dr. Priestley, I have seen him far less often than one 
man of letters would wish to see another under the 
same circumstances. 

I never had the slightest communication with 
Dr. Priestley upon matters of government, either 


Arian bishop, who lived in the same city, was so amiable, and 
so uncommon, that I will venture to lengthen this note by a se- 
cond quotation from the same chapter of Sozomen : 

Προνοούμενος 6 Ἑῤλάλιος τῆς παντῶν ἑνώσεως, ἀντεβόλησεν 
αὐτὸν πρωτεύειν, καὶ κοινῇ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἰθύνειν, ἄθλον ἐπὶ τῇ 
ὁμονοίᾳ τὴν προεδρίαν ἔχονται. 

The Arian bishop churlishly refused this honcurable offer, 
and Eulalius by his moderation won over the Arians of his dio- 
cese to the orthodox faith. 


282 ON POLITICS, 


speculative or practical, and in all probability I 
never shall. Yet I have visited him, as I hope 
to visit him again, because he is an unaffected, un- 
assuming, and very instructive companion. I will 
not, in consequence of our different opinions, ei- 
ther impute to him the evil which he does not, 
or depreciate in him the good which he is allowed 
to do. I will not debase my understanding, nor 
prostitute my honour, by encouraging the cla- 
mours* which have been raised against him in vul- 
gar minds, by certain persons who would have 
done well to read before they wrote —to under- 


* Upon this grave subject let me quote the words of alearned 
Bishop: ‘‘ Evil speaking and slander, lying and falsehood, can 
never enter into the character of that man who professes to be a 
follower of the blessed Jesus. And I may add, that, however 
common it be in the world, yet we ought always to avoid, as a 
most mischievous vice, all fierceness and uncharitableness in the 
carrying on of our civil and religious disputes. Too much of 
this is to be seen almost every where; for the furious and the 
passionate of all parties have so far conquered all humanity 
within them, that they can wound, and, as it were, stab to the 
heart, the character of any man whom they dislike, not only 
without remorse, but even with pleasure.”"—Bishop Pearce. 

This prelate probably would not have agreed with Dr. John- 
son, when he said, that where a man voluntarily engages in an 
important controversy, he is to do all he can to lessen his anta- 
gonist, because authority from personal respect has much weight 
with most people, and often more than reasoning.—Vol. ii. 
page 24. Boswell. 

What Johnson said to Mr. Murray (see page 49) is less un- 
reasonable. And, indeed, when infidels or heretics play the 
part of scoffers and sophists, they who defend the truth must 
feel indignation, and have a right to express it. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 283 


stand, before they dogmatized — to examine, before 
they condemned. Readily do I give him up, as 
the bold defender of heresy and schism, to the well- 
founded objections of his antagonists: but I cannot 
think his religion insincere, while he worships one 
Deity in the name of one Saviour; nor do I sup- 
pose that his acts of justice, temperance, and cha- 
rity, have the “nature of sin,” because they some- 
times flow more immediately from reason, as ab- 
surdly contradistinguished in scholastic language 
from faith. I will not compare his opinions with 
the opinions of Mr. Gibbon, because Mr. Gibbon 
casts aside the evidence of all miracles whatsoever, 
and because he derides revelation, as well as rejects 
it—I will not degrade his morals to a level with 
the morals of Mr. Hume, who in his more popular 
writings has taught the inconsiderate, the ignorant, 
and the innocent, to think with diminished horror, 
not of adultery only, but of other impurities too 
flagitious to be named. When I find a writer bear- 
ing among philosophical men in his own country 
the name of a philosopher, and honoured by the 
testimony of many foreign universities, I must look 
up to him as something higher than a “ mere lucky 
experimentalist”—I must respect him as something 
better than a mere decorous “ atheist,’* when I 
know that his virtues in private life are acknow- 


* With odious atheist names they load their foes, 
And never fail in charities, like those. 
In climes where true religion is profess'd, 
That imputation were no laughing jest. DryDen. 


284 ON POLITICS, 


ledged by his neighbours, admired by his congrega- 
tion, and recorded almost by the unanimous suf- 
frage of his most powerful and most distinguished 
antagonists. Upon every subject of literature which 
comes within my reach, I will talk and I will write 
to him without reserve, and in proportion as his 
opinions may appear to me to approach truth, or 
to recede from it, I shall assent without reluctance, 
or dissent without dissimulation. The same would 
be my conduct towards the orthodox Bishop 
Horne,* and towards the renowned champion of 


* Soon after my papers were sent to the press, this prelate 
paid the great debt of nature; and of such a prelate as Dr. 
George Horne, who would not be eager to record, that the life 
which had been spent in virtue and in holiness, was closed in 
calm and pious resignation? Little as I am disposed to em- 
brace either some philosophical opinions which he was known 
to entertain, or some proofs of scriptural doctrine which he 
was accustomed to enforce, I cannot forbear to praise Dr. 
Horne at that moment, when to flatter him were vain. To me 
his character was known only by his writings and by report. 
But they who were acquainted with him personally, concur 
with me in giving him credit for uniting a playful fancy with a 
serious heart. He is, indeed, distinguished as an antagonist of 
the Unitarians, and as an advocate for the Hutchinsonians. But 
his temper was never contaminated by the virulence of bigotry, 
and his taste diffused a colouring of elegance over the wild, but 
not unlovely, visions of enthusiasm. His peculiarities did not 
obscure his excellencies. He loved Hebrew, and he understood 
Greek. He defended Hutchinson; but in spirit and in truth 
‘‘he had learned Christ.” His known sincerity gave a fuller 
and a wider effect to his celebrated piety: Dr. Horne pro- 
fessed only what he believed; he practised what he taught. 
Having really been ‘‘a saint in crape,” he did not affect the 
appearance of being “twice a saint in lawn.” May the Church 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 285 


orthodoxy, Bishop Horsley, if I could rank these 
respectable prelates among my correspondents. 
The same has been my conduct to that most ami- 
able man, and most accomplished scholar, Dr. Ben- 
net, the Bishop of Cork, to the profound and saga- 
cious Dr. Nathaniel Forster,* to the learned Mr. 
Burgess, to the celebrated Dr. White, whom I have 
yet the pleasure to call my friend, and to Dr. Mar- 
tin Routh, president of Magdalen college, Oxford 
—let me pause at the mention of this venerable 
name. Why should I deny myself the satisfaction 
I must feel in saying of him here, what of such a 
man I should say every where, with equal justice 
and with equal triumph? The friendship of this 
excellent person, believe me, readers, will ever be 
ranked by me among the sweetest consolations and 
the proudest ornaments of my life—he, in the lan- 
guage of Milton, “is the virtuous son of a virtu- 
ous father,” whose literary attainments are respected 
by every scholar to whom he is known, whose ey- 
emplary virtues shed a lustre on that church in 
which they have not been rewarded, and whose 
grey hairs will never descend to the grave, but 
amidst the blessings of the devout and the tears of 
the poor. He fills a station for which other men 
are sometimes indebted to the cabals of parties or 
to the caprices of fortune, but in which he was 


of England ever be adorned by such prelates, such scholars, 
and such men, as a Watson, a Bagot, and a Horne! 

* Late of Colchester. 

+ See the Sonnet to Mr. Lawrence. 


286 ON POLITICS, 


himself most honourably placed from the experi- 
ence his electors had long had of his integrity, and 
the confidence they reposed in his discernment, in 
his activity, and in his impartiality. The attach- 
ment he professes to academical institutions -pro- 
ceeds not less from a sincere conviction of their 
utility, than from a deep reverence for the wisdom 
of antiquity in the regulations it has made for pre- 
serving the morals of youth, and for promoting the 
cultivation of learning. His government over the 
affairs of a great and respectable college is active 
without officiousness, and firm without severity. 
His independence of spirit is the effect, not of fero- 
cious pride, but of a cool and steady principle, 
which claims only the respect it is ever ready to 
pay, and which equally disdains to trample upon 
subordination, and to crouch before the insolence 
of power. His correct judgment, his profound 
erudition,* and his various knowledge, are such as 


* The fame of Dr. Routh as a scholar does not rest upon 
the partial suffrages of private friends, upon the dogmatical 
decisions of literary cabals, or upon those pompous decisions 
which are introduced into academical societies with little diffi- 
culty, supported by little proof, and then being echoed and re- 
echoed without intermission and without enquiry, roll down 
from one short-lived generation to another as incontrovertible 
truths. My friend has made a public appeal to the learned 
world in his edition of the Georgias and Euthydemus of Plato, 
which was published in 1784. The notes are more full than 
those of Etwal upon some other dialogues of Plato, and more 
learned than those of the celebrated Forster. With an excep- 
tion to the praise of conjectural emendation, Dr. Routh’s 
work deserves to be classed with Musgrave’s Euripides and 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 287 


seldom fall to the lot of man. His liberality* is 
scarcely surpassed even by his orthodoxy, and his 
orthodoxy is not the tumid and fungous excres- 
cence of prejudice, but the sound and mellowed 
fruit of honest and indefatigable enquiry. In a 
word, his mind, his whole mind, is decked at once 


Toup’s Longinus. I have sometimes wished that the editor 
had added, like Forster, an Index Atticus; and I am happy 
to inform scholars, that in an old copy of Olympiodorus he 
has inserted various additions and corrections from that MS. 
copy which lately disappeared from the rooms of a very 
learned and very excellent man, to whom it had been lent by 
Dr. Routh. 

* I can apply to my friend what Johnson says of Zachary 
Mudge: “ By a solicitous examination of objections, and judi- 
cious comparison of opposite arguments, he attained, what 
enquiry never gives but to industry and perspicuity, a firm 
and unshaken settlement of conviction. But his firmness was 
without asperity ; for, knowing with how much difficulty truth 
was sometimes found, he did not wonder that many missed it.” 
—Boswel]’s Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 375. The truth of the 
concluding sentence will be felt by every man of deep re- 
flection; and well does it become those who are not in the 
habit of reflecting deeply, to weigh its moral and religious im- 
portance in mitigating their prejudices, and in restraining their 
imvectives, upon certain difficult and momentous subjects. 
Glad should I be if this opinion of Johnson’s were, in Johnson’s 
words, written like the motto of Capaneus, “ in golden letters,” 
and hung up, not only in every dissenting academy, but in 
every hall of every college in those two noble seminaries, 
which, as Milton says of Athens, I revere as “the eyes” of 
this kingdom. See upon this subject some excellent remarks 
in pages 3 and 4 ot Newte’s Tour through England and Scot- 
land—a work which I think replete with profound research and 
useful observations, which do equal honour to the author as a 
philosopher and a patriot. 


288 ON POLITICS, 


with the purest crystals of simplicity, and the 
brightest jewels of benevolence and piety. 
« His life is gentle, and the elements 


So mix'd in him, that Nature may stand up 
And say to all the world, this is a man.” 


The reader, if he be a man of letters, and a man 
of virtue, would perhaps wish me to pursue this 
digression yet farther; and, at all events, he will 
excuse me for detaining him from a dry detail of 
petty facts, to contemplate for a while so noble a 
character as that of Dr. Martin Routh. 

Dr. Priestley, I was well aware, differed from 
many clergymen in the establishment, and from 
myself too, upon many topics of controversial divi- 
nity, and of abstract politics. He had lately, I was 
told, incurred the displeasure even of candid church- 
men, by his Familiar Letters to the Inhabitants of 
Birmingham, and by his answer to Mr. Burke’s 
well known and much admired pamphlet. He was 
connected by habits of intimacy, and perhaps by 
similarity of opinion, with several gentlemen who 
assembled at the Revolution dinner. He had suf- 
fered equally with some other dissenters,* by the de- 
predations committed upon his property; and more 
than the rest, by the destruction of his philosophi- 


* Little as I am inclined to commend the prejudices and pe- 
culiarities of the dissenters, I will always do open and ample 
justice to their moral characters. Let me observe, then, that 
of the persons who suffered in the late riots, two or three are 
men of exemplary lives, and the rest are quite irreproachable. 
This circumstance deserves serious consideration from all good 
men, of all religions, and all political parties. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 289 


cal apparatus, by the dispersion of his various pa- 
pers, by the attacks let loose upon his character, 
and by the outrages meditated against his person. 
In addition to these severities, he, by the loss of 
those papers, was at such a crisis exposed to invi- 
sible and irresistible evils, from invisible and innu- 
merable quarters. He might suffer from private 
malignity what public justice could not inflict. The 
ruffian, the gossip, and the informer, had invaded 
that asylum which the laws had made sacred from 
the intrusions even of the magistrate. Knowing, 
therefore, as I do, the confidential intercourse that 
subsists between men of letters, I foresaw that he 
might be loaded with responsibility for unpopular 
or novel tenets, which his friends had communi- 
cated to him, and to which he might not himself, 
in every instance, or to every degree of extent, 
accede. 

I know that the Birmingham riots were distin- 
guished from the London riots by many singular 
and many hideous circumstances; by a seeming 
regularity of contrivance—by a “strange chaos of 
levity and ferocity” in the execution—by reports 
of debility,* reluctance, and outrageous partiality in 


* Whether these reports be well or ill founded it is not for 
me to determine. But sure I am that no blame can be laid on 
the venerable judges who presided at Worcester and at War- 
wick. And I am happy to say, that the gentlemen of the 
grand jury in this country deserve the thanks of the commu- 
nity for their upright and impartial conduct. Remembering 
the escape of other, but, perhaps, not better men, I rejoice 
most sincerely at the pardon of the two criminals condemned 

VOL. ΠῚ. U 


290 ON POLITICS, 


the administration of public justice—by the tempo- 
rary extinction of common prudence, common jus- 
tice, and common humanity in private companies— 


at Warwick, though I confess that the enquiry made into the 
case of one of them after his condemnation was a very unusual 
and a very ungracious measure. As to the unhappy wretches 
who suffered, I lament that their execution at a place so distant 
from the scene of their crimes tended to weaken the salutary 
and awful effects of public justice; and 1 am sorry to add, that 
their general depravity of conduct being assigned as a reason 
for their exclusion from the royal mercy, has drawn off the 
attention of the common people from their guilt in the riots to 
their other and lighter offences. The king doubtless has upon 
this occasion done his duty, as he had wisely done it before in 
Londen, where several persons, not as partizans but as magis- 
trates, not as joining in the vulgar cry but as neglecting to 
quell it, not as abetting the riots but as afraid of the rioters, 
were notoriously deserters of the public cause. But the War- 
wickshire business, after all, is dark, very dark, and calls for a 
strict investigation in Parliament. I should do great injustice 
to Lord Aylesford, and four or five country gentlemen who in- 
terposed during our riots, if I did not add, that they are en- 
titled to the thanks of their neighbours and the praise of their 
country, for their courage and for their humanity. I cannot, 
however, dissemble the concern I felt at some injudicious ex- 
pressions, which, from the dreadful confusion of the moment, 
were admitted into one of the addresses signed by their very 
respectable names. But this oversight will be forgotten or 
forgiven, when the purity of their motives, and the activity of 
their exertions, shall be remembered to their honour. What I 
have said of Lord Aylesford, and the country gentlemen who 
acted with him, is said sincerely and justly. But addresses to 
mobs are subject to the same inconveniences with remon- 
strances to king and petitions to parliament. In all of them 
may be found signatures of the Megarensian sort, which, 
therefore, among men of sense, are οὐδ᾽ ἐν λόγω, οὐδ᾽ ἐν 
ἀριθμῷ. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 291 


by the most shameless language of triumph in 
some diurnal and monthly publications,* which 
have a wide, and in this case, I fear, a baleful effect 
upon national opinion—and by vestiges of such re- 
morseless and ill-disguised approbation in certain 
well-educated men,} here and elsewhere, as in times 
past would have steeled the heart for participation 
in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in the fires of 
Smithfield, and in those human sacrifices which the 
Christian world has often seen exhibited as acts of 
faith by the holy order of St. Dominic. Pudet πες 
opprobria, &c. All these symptoms of decay in 


* In the ministerial papers there were inflammatory predic- 
tions of tumults long before the riots, and after them was as- 
sumed a yet more audacious language of approbation. It is 
easy to account for such writers, however reproachful it may 
be to a Christian country, that they found employers and 
readers. But that a magazine, of which I know the conductor 
to be a man of sense and honour, should admit any justification 
of the offenders, or any triumph over the sufferers, is indeed 
surprising. ‘Let Paine, let Priestley, let all the Unitarians, 
and all the Revolutionists, be condemned for their opinions, 
but for Heaven’s sake, Mr. Urban, let no man ever be war- 
ranted in bringing either of these two charges against the Gen- 
tleman’s Magazine, that it puts a firebrand into the hands of a 
mob, and calls upon them to execute justice, or that it encou- 
rages the doing of a great and positive evil to prevent an un- 
certain one.”—Gentleman’s Magazine, Nov. 1791, p. 1007. 

+ Far be it from me even to insinuate that this was gene- 
rally the case. All the better, and much the greater part of 
that class of men to whom [I allude, would, I am sure, “ have 
disavowed with horror those wretches, who claimed a fellowship 
with them upon no other titles than those of having pillaged 
persons with whom they maintained controversies.”—P. 222, 
of Burke’s Reflections. 


u 2 


292 ON POLITICS, 


the spirit of social union, and of Christian charity, 
I knew, I lamented, and upon proper occasions I 
have most pointedly condemned, sometimes by re- 
monstrance in conversation, and sometimes by in- 
struction from the pulpit.*—But in respect to Dr. 
Priestley, whatever may be his demerits, and what- 
ever may have been his sufferings, I really thought 
that after his flight he had nothing farther to ap- 
prehend from those enemies who were actuated by 
the feelings of gentlemen, or by the principles of 
Christians. As the fury of the storm had subsided 
a little, and as the mischief had exceeded the pro- 
bable expectations, and even the professed wishes, 
of those who called themselves the advocates for 
church and king, I flattered myself that public zeal 
would be tempered by some portion of private vir- 
tue, and that compassion itself, if not respect, would 
by degrees pave the way to justice. Whether I 
considered Dr. Priestley as a celebrated man, or as 
an injured man, or as a suspected man, I distin- 
guished between the deliberate measures of an in- 


* I have great satisfaction in saying, that the sentiments of 
my parishioners, though very friendly, as I trust they always 
will be, to the interests and the honour of our ecclesiastical 
and civil establishments, were, in one or two instances only, 
marked by that sanguinary spirit of violence which had per- 
vaded other parts of the country. Iam bound also to add, 
that the strenuous and kind assistance which many of them 
gave my family in the hour of danger, will ever endear them 
to their minister, and entitles them to commendation from all 
well wishers to the church and state, in whom zeal is united 
with knowledge, and knowledge has been productive of charity 
and vital religion. 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 293 


dividual, and the impetuous passions of the multi- 
tude;* and, with this distinction before me, I 
should have pronounced that every letter of Dr. 
Priestley’s found in every place would have been 
received for him without hesitation, preserved for 
him without inspection, or transmitted to him with- 
out delay, by every honest man of every political 
and every religious party. Nay, in the confined 
circle of my own acquaintance at Birmingham, I 
could have pointed out several warm but worthy 
churchmen, who would have spurned the idea of 
reading letters which they had no right to open, of 
suspecting letters which they had no right to read, 
and of forwarding letters which, without opening 
and reading them, they probably could have little 
right or little temptation to suspect ; for Dr. Priest- 
ley’s correspondence, it is well known, extends to 
the orthodox and to the heterodox, to loyalists and 
to republicans, to scholars of every class, and to 
citizens of almost every country. 


* To reflecting minds, the riots at Birmingham will not be 
altogether without use. They prove the existence and the 
violence of that odious spirit which many good men were dis- 
posed to think extinct, and which it is the duty of all good 
governors to watch, to discourage, and to control. I will 
hazard the imputation of quaintness, in applying to these dis- 
turbances what Ovid himself has quaintly said of the conflagra- 
tion occasioned by Phaeton: 
ἐς Incendia lucem 
Prebebant, aliquisque malo fuit usus in illo.” 


294 ON POLITICS, 


The following passage occurs in the Preface: 


The attention of the public is a most gracious 
boon, which they who solicit it should also be 
ready to deserve, by the judicious choice and the 
skilful management of their subject, by liveliness of 
imagery or solidity of reasoning, by descriptions 
that may captivate, or by disquisitions that may im- 
prove. But nothing can be more irksome to an 
ingenuous mind, than to call the notice of a reader 
to a topic merely personal, and by which, there- 
fore, few will be amused, and none, probably, can 
be instructed. With a narrative, indeed, of such 
causes as produce, and of such circumstances as in- 
flame, the quarrels of private men, it is not easy to 
interweave any truths of high and extensive useful- 
ness; and as to the advantage to be derived from 
those moral reflections which may be excited by 
the conduct of the parties, it is too often impeded 
by personal dislike and personal predilection, by 
doubts upon facts, which they who entertain them 
think it not worth while to settle, and by opinions 
of character which it is scarcely possible to alter. 

The historian commands attention, and rewards 
it, by selecting the more brilliant circumstances of 
great events, by unfolding the characteristic qualities 
of eminent personages, and by tracing well-known 
effects through all the obliquities and all the re- 
cesses of their secret causes. From the ordinary 
occurrences of life, as they influence the conduct of 
extraordinary men, the biographer collects such 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 295 


scattered rays as may be concentrated into one 
bright assemblage of truth upon the character 
which he has undertaken to delineate. Even the 
novelist throws his enchantments around the fancy 
by fictitious representations, which he can at will 
embellish into beauty or exalt into dignity; and 
the polemic exercises his dominion over the reason- 
ing faculties, by poignancy of remark and by 
subtilty of confutation. But none of these advan- 
tages fall to the lot of him who engages in such a 
narrative as I am compelled to pursue. He ascends 
no eminence, he reposes under no shade, but is 
continually toiling onward without the cheering 
consciousness of progression, sometimes oppressed 
with languor, amidst the dulness and the sameness 
of the scenes which surround him, and sometimes 
roused into exertion by the noxious weeds that 
may offend his senses, or by the rude briars that 
would intercept his way. 

Upon such occasions as this, the stoutest advo- 
cate in the best cause seldom has it in his power 
to produce in the minds of others those emotions, 
which he may himself most keenly and most sin- 
cerely feel. Though proofs be accumulated, though 
arguments be framed, though eloquence be dis- 
played to break the uniformity of narrative, and 
though wit be called in to temper the severity of 
reason, the exertion of all these various powers will 
be silently counteracted and finally defeated, by the 
want of bulkiness, or the want of splendour, in the 
subject itself. Conscious of little real sympathy, 
and expecting no useful instruction, men begin to 


296 ON POLITICS, 


read with vague inquisitiveness, they continue to 
read with growing indifference, and at last, with 
secret satisfaction, they cease to read. The candid 
are not pleased, the prejudiced are not convinced, 
the indolent are wearied, and the impertinent or 
the malevolent alone are gratified. Even the mem- 
bers of those petty cabals, which are sometimes 
formed in consequence of petty disputes among 
their acquaintance, cannot long retain their import- 
ance or their ardour. When they tell the tale 
which has often been told before, and tell it with 
fresh vehemence, unaccompanied by fresh evidencé, 
they soon find themselves unable to allure a hearer, 
or to provoke an opponent. Parties of this kind 
start up like a bubble, suddenly and noisily, and 
like a bubble too, they dissolve and pass away, 
without notice and without effect. 


By that countless and harmless swarm of scrib- 
blers who amuse themselves, and readers equally 
idle with themselves, by paragraphs upon my opi- 
nions in politics, my peculiarities in dress, or my 
love of antient literature, I have too much firmness, 
and indeed too much understanding, to be offended 
for one moment. My character, I am told, pre- 
sents a wide front of attack to these puny assailants, 
and so long as they abstained from the poisoned 
weapons of malevolence, I often smiled, as no doubt 
I often shall smile again at the light and feeble 
shafts of ridicule. But when a person shews a 
fixed determination to inflict, if he can, some deep 


JURISPRUDENCE, &c. 297 


and deadly wound upon my moral feelings, I will 
not refrain from doing that justice which I alike 
owe to him and to myself. The regard which I 
have generally, and justly paid to literary reputa- 
tion, must, in this one instance give way to the 
sense I entertain of personal honour. “ Omnino 
probabiliora sunt que lacessiti dicimus quam que 
priores.”—Vide Cicero de Orat. lib. 11. 


’ 


Yat, | of mitoses © 


iii ἀηπνὰ, Bercy σὺ -rpesen, Fethard) 
sift ἘΠ δ τέ κε οὐἱ τ Sukh gts nite 
Pathe keen ΜΡ σαν ts higee ae 
ἀλίγηριτ σποξὰ if Gp Dae “νη {ἀξ Ἶ 
mir Of ter cay aired dee ait nd hand 
digit oncatel ‘dogg Ta gris 
Fe Ὁ εἰ ware ad ἐὺ prtalong με} Beds sisi 

a ae rt pe "ἦν cen} Jue ihe 


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WFATCT CY 
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A 


LETTER 


FROM IRENOPOLIS 
TO THE 
INHABITANTS OF ELEUTHEROPOLIS; 


OR, 


A SERIOUS ADDRESS 
TO 


THE DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 


ἐν Σὰ νέῳ ἀν si 


a‘ 
) wis 


ΝΜ ΔΙΆ Ἠῶ BAST Vas 


ΤᾺΣ 


“1 ᾿ 
~ _ - = 
Lat ΕἸ 
We ττρορ Kadai 
ἮΙ } » 
»: { 
᾿ 
εὐ ὁ 
- - ye 
+ pS yeP χε ern t ΗΘΔ ITAL 


v 
συ ἃ 4 iy dita cree 
᾿Ξ ᾿ . 
Το Ἰὼ ? Lo 134 wad iy 
ΔΗ bn ; > rae Dee i 


! ι. ἘΝ Δι ξε] ‘ Lowa ἃ ATS ‘nr ae 
- aii il io aint 


: ἘΝῚ Ἵ j a) 
ΕΠ ΕΝ] ; ‘ ; { i Siti ΔΌΜΟΝ 


1 
reed?) . ' πο Ὁ" 
mere πὶ τ Ἷ , vod i 
ΠΝ bri ΠΟ OF ; ὶ } ἘΠ] Εν, gti ἢ 


ΠΥ μέ. das δ᾽ abled gins oi. 2.5 
vilhiepes fai di bide sae bite ide eg 

sai ml dew fab sheen d Ve ἐπ τότ slits Al Day / 
joiaabhigiigaentie waa ofthe στήν te onan 
his 06. IRL a nortNGiing, obo 
γυρηθμα bie liloines: Say yar αἰάτῖν ofa 


ν᾿ 

Ν 
ΓΔ 
Ἵ 


LETTER 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 


Multa in homine, Demea, 
Signa insunt, ex quibu’ conjectura facile fit, 
Duo cum idem faciunt, szpe ut possis dicere, 
Hoc licet impune facere huic, illi non licet : 
Non quo dissimilis res sit, sed quo is qui facit. 


Terence, ADELPHI—Act rv. Scene 4. 


GENTLEMEN, 


PerMiIT me to address you in a spirit of candour 
and respect, and under the sacred and endearing 
names of fellow-citizens and fellow-christians. With 
intentions not less pure, and, probably, after re- 
searches not less diligent than your own, I cannot 
profess to think with you upon many speculative 
subjects, both of politics and of religion. But free- 
dom of enquiry is equally open to you, and to my- 
self: it is equally laudable in us, when conducted 
with impartiality and decorum ; and it must equally 
tend to the enlargement of knowledge, and the im- 
provement of virtue, while our sincerity does not 
betray us into precipitation, and while our zéal 
does not stifle within us the amiable and salutary 


302 LETTER TO THE 


sentiments of mutual forbearance. Upon the points 
in which we dissent from each other, arguments 
will always secure the attention of the wise and 
good; whereas invective must disgrace the cause 
which we may respectively wish to support. But 
the principles upon which we are agreed are, sure- 
ly, of a more exalted rank, and of more exten- 
sive importance, than those about which we differ ; 
and while that importance is felt, as well as acknow- 
ledged, we shall welcome every argument, and re- 
sist every invective, from whatever quarter they may 
proceed. 

We are convinced, I trust, as to the truth and 
authority of the Scriptures. But in the interpreta- 
tion of them we must be sensible that the imperious 
and delusive infallibility which we refuse to others 
cannot be claimed by ourselves. We are satisfied, 
I presume, about the wisdom and utility of those 
fundamental principles that distinguish the mixed 
government under which an indulgent Providence 
has permitted our forefathers and ourselves to live. 
Yet, if one class of men are disposed to uphold the 
power of the crown, and another to enlarge the 
freedom of the people, we have no right to con- 
clude that the former wish to be fettered with the 
chains of slavery, or that the latter are preparing to 
let loose the ravages of anarchy. The advocate for 
monarchy is not necessarily the foe of liberty, nor 
is the love of liberty incompatible with reverence 
for monarchy. Experience, indeed, soon puts to 
flight those chimerical accusations which issue from 
the narrow spirit of system, or the frantic vehe- 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 303 


mence of party. In the hour of trial men cast away 
subordinate distinctions, as incumbrances to their 
understandings, and cleave to some vigorous and 
solid principle, which arrests their common notice, 
because it embraces their common interests. They 
cease to wrangle when they are called upon to act ; 
and they look back with a mixture of amazement 
and contempt, even upon themselves, for all the 
cavils in which their vanity once exulted, and for 
all the reproaches by which their malignity was 
once gratified. 

Through circumstances which are the result of 
accident more than design, through the prejudices 
of our education, through the habits of our think- 
ing, through the conversation of our acquaintance, 
and sometimes it may be, through the authority of 
our teachers, difference of opinion will arise. But 
that difference, when carefully examined, often re- 
solves itself only into a question of more or less, of 
fit or unfit, as to the time,—of proper or improper, 
as to the mode,—of probable or improbable, as to 
the consequence. It really turns, not upon the 
actual existence, or upon the general validity of 
principles themselves, but upon the degree in which 
they are applicable to some specific and contro- 
verted case. As, however, the solution of these 
difficulties must ever be dependent, not only upon 
the fluctuating nature of all worldly. affairs, but 
upon the many or the few opportunities we have 
for observing their varying aspects, and upon the 
greater or less ability we employ to comprehend 
their relations and their effects, there must often 


304 LETTER TO THE 


be room for suspense of judgment, and there will 
always be a call for the exercise of charity. On the 
other hand, impatience of contradiction is both 
weak and wicked. Instead of facilitating decision, 
it perpetuates contention. It darkens the evidences, 
and obstructs the efficacy of truth itself. It ori- 
ginates in a radical defect of judgment, and too 
often terminates in a most incorrigible intolerance 
of temper. 

I doubt not, Gentlemen, but that you will allow 
the justness of these observations. I doubt not, 
but that you are impressed with a deep sense of 
their utility. But in the application of them to 
practice, we all see, and we all lament, very fre- 
quent instances of inconsistency or reluctance even 
among those persons who, in matters of theory, 
may justly pretend to the fullest information and 
the clearest conviction. 

The situation, Gentlemen, in which you are 
placed, attracts the notice of all parties, and of all 
sects in your own country; and the conduct which 
you may pursue in that situation must exalt your 
characters to honour, or depress them with infamy, 
not only in your own age, but to posterity. By 
moderation in your opinions, and by prudence in 
your measures, you may disarm the prejudices of 
your enemies, secure the protection of your gover- 
nors, and conciliate the favour of the virtuous and 
the enlightened. On the contrary, if you swell 
trifles into bulkiness by a superfluous and turbulent 
zeal—if you inflame the animosities which you 
ought to mitigate—if you persevere in a frivolous 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 305 


or a pernicious contest, in which retreat would be 
less inglorious than victory, and victory is less pro- 
bable than overthrow, the considerate part of your 
fellow-citizens will be at a loss to determine whe- 
ther you are most to be condemned for the infatua- 
tion of your understandings, or for the perverse- 
ness of your dispositions. 

You stand, Gentlemen, upon a high and an open 
theatre, where every action will be vigilantly no- 
ticed, and every motive severely scrutinized. You 
have more to hope from the stern and solicitous 
justice, than from the candour or partiality of those 
by whom you are observed. You have a very illus- 
trious, and, perhaps, a very difficult part to perform: 
You are summoned to a triumph, not merely over 
the prepossessions of your calumniators, but over 
the excesses of your own passions. You are to 
vindicate and preserve your future reputation, by 
disproving the heavy charges which have been al- 
leged against your past behaviour. You are to meet 
acquittal or condemnation from a most awful tri- 
bunal, the sentence of which has been hitherto sus- 
pended by uncertainty about what you have done, 
and compassion for what you have suffered. You 
are to convince a generous, but a discerning public, 
that peace is equally dear to you with liberty, that 
you have wisdom to concede, where concession is a 
duty, as well as firmness not to relax, where relaxa- 
tion were a crime, that the doctrinal peculiarities of 
Unitarianism are perfectly compatible with the prac- 
tical rules of Christianity, and that while you ap- 
plaud the auspicious changes in the French govern- 

VOL, III. x 


306 LETTER TO THE 


ment, you meditate no direct or indirect injury to 
your own. 
- These plain but interesting considerations, Gen- 
tlemen, are presented to your view by a man who 
has risked, and would again risk, the imputation of 
singularity, of indecorum, and even apostacy, by 
doing to you what is just, and by speaking of you 
what is true. Though he does not profess himself 
an advocate of many of your tenets, he can, with 
sincerity, declare himself not an enemy to your 
persons. He knows only few among you, but he 
thinks well of many. He respects you for temper- 
ance and decency in private life; for diligence in 
your employments, and punctuality in your engage- 
ments—for economy without parsimony, and. libe- 
rality without profusion—for the readiness you 
shew to relieve distress and to encourage merit, 
with little or no distinction of party—for the know- 
ledge which many of you have acquired by the 
dedication of your leisure hours to intellectual im- 
provement, and for the regularity with which most 
of you are said to attend religious worship. As to 
some late deplorable events, he believes that you 
have been misrepresented—he knows that you have 
been wronged—he deprecates the continuance of 
that misrepresentation, and he now calls upon your 
judgments, upon your feelings, and upon your con- 
sciences, to avert the repetition of those wrongs. 
Such, Gentlemen, is the general purpose for which 
I take the liberty of addressing you; and in the 
sequel of this pamphlet you will find me state, 
without disguise, and without acrimony, my serious 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 307 


opinion upon the particular event which has induced 
me thus to stand forward with the zeal, but not the 
arrogance of a counsellor, and with the fidelity, 
but not the blindness of a friend. 

A report has for some time been circulated in 
this county, that you intend to commemorate the 
French Revolution upon the approaching 14th of 
July. Unwilling I was to believe that report, be- 
cause I was unable to account for that intention. 
It seemed to me incredible that men, harassed as 
you have been by oppression, and loaded with oblo- 
quy, should deliberately rush into danger and dis- 
grace; into danger which you cannot push aside, 
and disgrace which, after such an action hazarded 
at such a crisis, you would in vain endeavour to 
wipe away. For a time, therefore, I disbelieved, 
and I resisted the report. I supposed it to origi- 
nate merely in conjectures of what you would do, 
arising from misapprehension of what you had al- 
ready done. I ascribed the propagation of it to the 
busy and mischievous activity of partizans, who are 
desirous of alarming the ignorant, and of exasperat- 
ing the prejudiced. I cast it into the common 
stock of those idle and slanderous rumours which 
rise up, we know not where, and disappear, we 
know not when. I gave you credit for common 
sense enough to perceive that such a measure, at 
such a time, was unsafe, and for common modera- 
tion enough to feel that it was unbecoming. In 
other men I should have called that measure crimi- 
nal. In you, Gentlemen, I thought it impossible. 
But if my surprize was great, when I first received 

x 2 


308 LETTER TO THE 


the intelligence, how violent must have been the 
shock, how deep the concern I felt upon discover- 
ing, as I lately have done, that it was too well 
founded? The primitive Christians, in consequence 
of their invincible fortitude, were by some of their 
antagonists contemptuously named Bizothanati, 
and by others they were barbarously ridiculed, as 
homines desperate et deplorate factionis. But they 
were actuated by an indisputably good spirit in a 
cause eminently good; in a cause which immedi- 
ately concerned their duty and their salvation; in a 
cause, for the defence of which they were compel- 
led to undergo persecution, though it does not ap- 
pear that they were authorized to court it. But 
you, Gentlemen, appear to me to be shewing ex- 
cessive hardiness upon a subject in which you are 
remotely and indirectly interested. You seem to 
provoke opposition, without an adequate object. 
I consider you as plunging into calamity where you 
have not the plea of discharging a duty. I think 
that for the guilt and the misery into which your 
enemies may be hurried, the chief responsibility 
must now recoil upon yourselves. 

Permit me, then, to expostulate with you upon the 
only arguments which you, probably, can produce 
for asserting again your right to assemble, and at 
the same time to lay before you the reasons upon 
which I, without hesitation, and without apology, 
pronounce it your duty to refrain from the most 
perilous exercise of that most doubtful right. 

_ It may be said, that you are not forbidden to 
meet by the laws of the land, and, therefore, that 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 309 


your meeting is irreproachable. I admit the fact, 
but deny the consequence. A good man, doubt- 
less, will not do any thing which the laws interdict. 
But will he therefore do every thing which the laws 
have not interdicted? Will he not consider that 
there is a spirit, as well as a letter, even in human 
laws? Will he, without discrimination and without 
restriction, infer the tacit approbation of persons 
who frame, or persons who administer laws, from 
the mere absence of direct and specific prohibition? 
Will he forget that an external action may some- 
times be accompanied by motives and effects which, 
if the law-giver had foreseen them, would have met 
with the most pointed reprobation? Instead of re- 
joicing that penalties are not instituted of such a 
kind as to become equally snares to the harmless, 
and checks upon the froward, will he convert the 
caution or the lenity of the law-giver into an occa- 
sion of disturbing that order, the preservation of 
which is the supreme and avowed object of law 
itself? Will he lose sight of the judicious and tem- 
perate distinction which the Apostle has established 
between “things lawful and things not expedient ?” 
Will he not remember, that as a social and a moral 
being he is under the control of obligations more 
powerful and more sacred than the best institutions 
of the best government? If, indeed, we examine 
the aggregate of those duties in which our virtue 
consists, and of those causes by which our well- 
being is promoted, small is the share which must 
be assigned to the efficacy of public regulations en- 
forced by the sanctions of public authority. The 


310 LETTER TO THE 


soft manners of civilized life, the useful offices of 
good neighbourhood, the sweet charities of domes- 
tic relation, are all independent of human laws. 
Such are the opinions which we hold, and have a 
right to propagate, upon abstract questions of poli- 
tics. Such are the tenets we may adopt, and are 
warranted to defend, upon the foundations of virtue 
and the evidences of religion. Such are our attach- 
ments or antipathies to public men; such, our 
approbation or disapprobation of public measures. 
Such are our sentiments upon the nice gradations 
of decorum and propriety; such are our principles 
in estimating the mass of merit or demerit which 
determines the character of individuals. Upon all 
these subjects human laws hold out to us little 
light, they impose upon us few restraints, and yet, 
upon right apprehensions of these subjects, and 
upon the conformity of our actions to those appre- 
hensions, depend our comfort, our reputation, our 
most precious interests in this world, and our dear- 
est hopes in that which is to come. 

There is not any one action, and scarcely is there 
any one thought affecting, or tending to affect, the 
happiness of mankind, upon which any one human 
being is entirely and strictly a law unto himself. 
There is a law of opinion which no good man will 
presume to treat with irreverence, because every 
good man is anxious to avoid the contempt, and to 
deserve the regard of his fellow-creatures. ‘There 
is a law of discretion mingled with justice, which 
every good citizen is careful to observe, lest he 
should interrupt the tranquillity, or encroach upon 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 311 


the equitable rights of his fellow-citizens. There 
is a law of religion which forbids us to insult the 
errors, or even to wound the prejudices, of our 
fellow Christians. 

You, Gentlemen, understand not less clearly than 
myself the existence of such laws; you will acknow- 
ledge their importance not less sincerely; and you 
will admit that the perverse or wanton violation of 
them cannot be extenuated before man—cannot be 
justified before God, by the plea—yes, I must call 
it, the futile and fallacious plea, that we are acting 
under circumstances where human wisdom is too 
dim, and human authority too feeble to control 
our actions. 

Here, then, a question arises whether the meet- 
ing which you intend to hold does, or does not, 
fall under the obligation of those laws which I have 
enumerated, and the neglect or observance of which 
you must yourselves confess to have a permanent 
and a visible influence in preserving or contami- 
nating our innocence, in promoting or impeding 
our happiness, in entitling us to praise, or in cover- 
ing us with dishonour. Now, in my opinion, Gen- 
tlemen, such a meeting is at variance with your 
duty as prudent men, with your duty as peaceable 
citizens, and with your duty as sincere Christians. 

Many are the situations in which prudence itself 
is not only expedient but obligatory; and in the 
present state of things it is not the part of a pru- 
dent man for you to do again what you have al- 
ready done, with so much loss of your property, 
and so much danger to your persons. It is not the 


aig LETTER TO THE 


part of a peaceable citizen to provoke again those 
ferocious tempers, and those outrageous crimes, of 
which you have yourselves so lately and so largely 
experienced the dismal consequences. It is not the 
part of a sincere Christian to offend, without some 
weighty reason, even his weaker brethren. Much 
less is it his part to cast upon the rash and wild 
decision of passion those speculative questions 
which ought to be decided only by cool and impar- 
tial reason. Least of all is it his part, by an unne- 
cessary and unprofitable experiment, practically to 
involve thousands in danger, and ten thousands in 
guilt. 

Well do you know that, whether justly or unjust- 
ly, such an assembly will immediately bring into 
review your political and your religious notions, to 
the utmost possible extent, and under the utmost 
possible disadvantages. But in vain will you make 
professions of a general attachment to the laws and 
constitution of your country, when, for so trifling 
an end, you venture upon such proceedings as will 
induce other men to transgress those laws, and to 
maintain that none of you are well affected to that 
constitution. In vain will you insist upon your sin- 
cerity in the belief of the Gospel, when you throw 
snares and temptations in the way of other men, 
many of whom believe it with the same firmness, 
and contemplate it with the same reverence. 

Be assured, Gentlemen, that I have felt disgust 
rather than conviction—disgust, I say, from the 
reproaches, rather than conviction from the argu- 
ments of certain persons, who would oppress you 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. “15 


with the entire, or even the chief responsibility for 
the events of the last disastrous year. Unlikely it 
was that you should foresee all those events in all 
their causes, and all their aggravations. It was un- 
likely that you should suspect certain machinations, 
which are said to have been formed against you in 
distant quarters. It was unlikely that you should 
calculate by your foresight, or even by your fears, 
what you have witnessed by your senses; I mean 
the most unexampled degradation of the national 
character, the Christian character, and the human 
character. But the plea of ignorance can be urged 
no longer. Experience has shewn you what men 
are under the tyranny of prejudice ; experience has 
shewn you what they can be in defiance of law; 
and if that experience is lost upon your discretion 
or your humanity, every countenance will blush 
for your folly, every voice will be raised against 
your rashness, but for your sufferings—believe me, 
Gentlemen, for your sufferings, no heart, however 
tender, will hereafter mourn. 

You will say, perhaps, that the opposition to you 
arises from narrow prepossessions, from base in- 
trigues, from calumnious reports. Be it so. But 
if these evils do really hover around you, it becomes 
alike your interest and your duty to deliberate 
calmly upon the most proper and the most effectual 
methods of counteracting them. If you are sur- 
rounded by numerous enemies, remember, I be- 
seech you, that resistance is fruitless, and that reta- 
liation is vindictive. If you are watched by secret 
ruffians, consider that their machinations will be 


314 LETTER TO THE 


defeated while you abstain from those measures 
which, upon a late occasion, made them successful. 
If you are annoyed by venomous slanderers, reflect 
that by doing again what you have done before 
you will furnish new materials for new accusations; 
and that by doing it under new circumstances you 
will throw around those accusations a more spe- 
cious appearance, and give them a wider and more 
fatal effect. 

I mean not, Gentlemen, to affirm or to deny 
that the evils of which you complain are so great 
as you represent them. But if I am to suppose 
them to exist upon the evidence of your own state- 
ment, I infer, from that very statement, the very 
strongest objections to your own intended conduct. 

In the town where you reside there are many 
persons whose talents and whose virtues deserve 
your esteem, however widely they may dissent from 
you upon numberless questions, about which free 
enquirers into truth, and the inhabitants of a free 
country, ever have differed, and ever will differ. 
These men will not listen with a willing ear, when 
your reputations are rudely attacked. Their bosoms 
are not callous while they reflect upon those melan- 
choly scenes, when your families were forced from 
their homes, when your property was plundered, 
when your houses were consumed in a conflagration 
which deepened the horrors of the night, and drove 
back even the splendor of the sun in open day. 
But, if you meet again, the candid doubts of these 
men, as to the intention of your former meeting, will 
be supplanted by indignant suspicions, and their pity 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 315 


for your former sufferings will be exchanged for 
disgust and abhorrence. 

I meddle not with the controversy going on be- 
tween Dr. Priestley and the clergy of your town, so 
far as it relates to those circumstances which pre- 
ceded, or those which followed the riots. But 
those clergymen have professed openly and unani- 
mously to lament the misfortunes which befel you. 
They have condemned the tumultuous and savage 
proceedings of a misguided rabble. They have as- 
serted with firmness their own opinions, and with 
sincerity, I would hope, they have disclaimed all 
right of control over yours. To some of them 
you are indebted for well-intended exertions in the 
hour of distress, and against none have you brought 
any accusations for encouraging the popular fury 
at that juncture, when the act of encouraging it 
would have been most disgraceful indeed to them, 
but most injurious to yourselves. Individually, as 
you well know, one of them is much respected for 
the depth of his learning, another for the elegance 
of his manners, a third for the cheerfulness of his 
temper, and a fourth for the liberality of his spirit. 
In a collective point of view, they are men who 
draw down no disgrace upon their sacred profes- 
sion, either by the neglect of their clerical offices, 
or by flagrant indecorum, or by habitual vice. Give 
them the credit then, I beseech you, of having 
some regard for the honour of the church to which 
they belong, for the tranquillity of the town in 
which they live, for the safety even of the congre- 
gations which they are xo¢ employed to instruct, 


316 LETTER TO THE 


and, above all, let me add, for the morals and the 
souls of multitudes who are committed to their 
charge. 

By sermons or controversial writings they have 
bereaved you, it will be said, eventually of those 
precepts which you have been accustomed to hear, 
and of that example which you have been accus- 
tomed to admire in a most venerable preacher, for 
whom it is no longer safe to preside over a flock, 
endeared to him by ancient habits of familiarity, 
and connected with him by many personal, many 
political, and many religious ties. Into the truth 
of this allegation, it were invidious and impertinent 
for me to enquire. But the Scriptures, you will 
consider, still lie open to you. The house in which 
you did homage to your Creator will soon be re- 
built. The same freedom which you formerly en- 
joyed in opinion and in worship, is at this hour 
secured to you by the laws; and though you cannot 
again obtain the honour and advantage you derived 
from such an instructor as Dr. Priestley, your sect 
is hardly so barren of excellence as not to supply 
you with a successor, whose talents, indeed, may be 
less flattering to your honest pride, but whose 
labours will not be less meritorious in discharging 
the duties of his clerical station, nor less instru- 
mental in making all of you “ wise unto salvation.” 

I should not think well of your sensibility, if 
you were indifferent to the loss of so excellent a 
preacher as Dr. Priestley. But I shall think very 
ill of your moderation, if you make that loss a 
pretext for perpetuating disputes, which, if my 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 317 


arguments or my prayers could prevail, would 
speedily have an end. 

Upon the theological disputes in which the Doc- 
tor has been engaged with some clergymen of your 
town, I forbear to give any opinion. Yet, while I 
disclaim all aliusion to local events, I will make 
you a concession which you have my leave to apply 
to persons of higher ranks as ecclesiastics, and of 
greater celebrity as scholars, than your town can 
supply; I confess with sorrow that in too many 
instances such modes of defence have been used 
against this formidable Heresiarch, as would hardly 
be justifiable in the support of Revelation itself, 
against the arrogance of a Bolingbroke, the buf- 
foonery of a Mandeville, and the levity of a Vol- 
taire. But the cause of orthodoxy requires not 
such aids. The Church of England approves them 
not—the spirit of Christianity warrants them not. 
Let Dr. Priestley, indeed, be confuted where he is 
mistaken. Let him be exposed where he is super- 
ficial. Let him be repressed where he is dog- 
matical. Let him be rebuked where he is censo- 
rious. But let not his attainments be depreciated, 
because they are numerous almost without a paral- 
lel. Let not his talents be ridiculed, because they 
are superlatively great. Let not his morals be vil- 
lified, because they are correct without austerity, 
and exemplary without ostentation—because they 
present even to common observers the innocence of 
a Hermit, and the simplicity of a Patriarch, and 
because a philosophic eye will at once discover in 
them the deep-fixed root of virtuous principle, and 
the solid trunk of virtuous habit. 


318 LETTER TO THE 


If I mistake not the character of that excellent 
man, whom I respect in common with yourselves, 
he would not wish to see you again plunged into 
mischiefs which cannot again reach himself. Spare 
then his blushes and his tears. Give him the satis- 
faction of knowing that you have proved to the 
world the wholesome efficacy of his instructions, 
by your generosity in forgiving those who have 
already been your enemies, and by your wisdom in 
not offending those who wish to continue your 
friends. 

About the effects of your intended meeting there 
can be little doubt; nay, I should rather affirm that 
there can be no doubt, but that the effects will be 
far more tremendous than the effects of your former 
meeting, and I ground these positions, not only 
upon the general characters of men, but upon some 
particular events which among yourselves have been 
subjects of complaint. 

The age in which we live is distinguished not 
only for an active and useful spirit of enquiry, but 
by a fastidious and fantastic turn of mind which 
soothes us into self-approbation while we deplore 
surrounding evils, and contemplate distant good. 
I say not that these illusions may not sometimes 
prepare us for virtuous action, when opportunities 
for acting exist. But I fear that, in too many 
cases, the imagination is mdulged, while the heart 
is not improved. Upon topics relating to public as 
well as private life, in studying speculative politics, 
as well as in reading sentimental novels, we are 
often the dupes of secret vanity, and applaud our- 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 319 


selves for ideal or inactive philanthropy. When no 
interest is to be renounced, no passion to be curbed, 
no froward humour to be thwarted, we embrace 
truth wheresoever we find it, and in theory become 
the warm and strenuous advocates of virtue. But 
in practice, our exertions fall very short of the rules 
we have prescribed to ourselves and to our fellow- 
creatures, and though we are really invested with 
the power of doing good, we either neglect to do it 
at all, or we are content to do it with that reluc- 
tance and languor which we have been accustomed 
to condemn in other men. Prepossessions blind 
us—antipathies harden us—passion hurries us into 
faults, and self-delusion soon provides us with an 
excuse. Now, Gentlemen, as many of your teachers 
are eminent for having contributed to the general 
stock of knowledge, and as you are yourselves dis- 
tinguished by an eagerness to defend and to propa- 
gate it, beware lest the want of consistency should 
lead men to charge upon you the want of sincerity. 

You and I must often have looked with sorrow 
upon the situation of the poor, pinched as they are 
by want, exposed to delusion, mortified by neglect, 
irritated by oppression, bewildered in the mazes of 
error, and involved in the darkness of ignorance. 
And is it a proof, then, of your compassion for their 
miseries, or of your solicitude for their improve- 
ment, that, knowing the lower classes of your towns- 
men to be still under the dominion of the same 
unhappy prejudices, you will again provoke them 
to the same horrible excesses? I lament, Gentle- 
men, the unhappy end of those wretches who suf- 


320 LETTER TO THE 


fered for the riots; and can it be your wish, that 
the dreadful severity of the laws should be inflicted 
again? The public seems not perfectly satisfied 
with the acquittal of some persons, who, by means 
known or unknown, honourable or dishonourable, 
were rescued from punishment. But is it a mark 
of your reverence for the laws, that you would again 
cause them to be evaded, and insulted by evasion? 
Will Juries, think ye, be more impartial between 
the prosecutor and the prisoner? Will Judges be 
more favourable to the one? Will the Sovereign be 
more rigorous towards the other? No. No. They 
will see obstinacy hereafter, where they before 
might only see indiscretion. They will consider 
you as meeting in defiance of common opinion—as 
risking a great and a certain evil for a very uncer- 
tain, and a very trifling good—as exposing your 
houses, your persons, and your families, without 
the impulse of provocation, and without the pros- 
pect of advantage—as calling for justice upon those 
whom you have yourselves precipitated into crimes — 
as staking the pleasures of one afternoon’s enter- 
tainment, or the exercise of one petty right, against 
what? against laws which you know will be trans- 
gressed—against lives which you know will be 
forfeited—against the credit of yourselves, and of 
others who may hold the same political opinions 
with yourselves—against the counsel of the wise, 
the arguments of the moderate, and the entreaties 
of the humane—against the safety of your houses 
and your children—against the judgment and the 
quiet of your neighbours—against the property and 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 321 


the persons of all the various inhabitants of a great 
and a prosperous town. 

Under such circumstances, Gentlemen—circum- 
stances which you cannot but yourselves foresee— 
circumstances of which you probably have been 
informed by other men—circumstances of which 
you are now most solemnly forewarned by me. 
What, let me ask you, can be your claims upon the 
justice or upon the compassion of your country- 
men? In point of law you may be entitled to pro- 
tection and redress. But in point of common sense 
you ought to see that such protection will be reluc- 
tant, and that such redress will be scanty. After a 
second meeting you will experience many galling 
mortifications from which you hitherto have been 
free. Your cause will no longer be the cause of 
men “who seek peace and ensue it.” Your suffer- 
ings will not be the sufferings of persecuted inno- 
cence. Your dishonour will be extensive, it will be 
lasting, it will be just. 

I beseech you, Gentlemen, when you read the 
foregoing sentences, not to misconceive the temper 
in which they are written, not to confound the 
earnestness of remonstrance with the fierceness of 
accusation, not to turn away from me as a declama- 
tory prattler, nor to frown upon me as a virulent 
calumniator, but to listen to me, I had almost said, 
as a prophet, and I do say as a friend. 

Your own good sense will, I am persuaded, tell 
you, that upon the circumstances of the agent must 
often depend the quality of the action. And give 
me leave to observe, that the circumstances in which 

VOL, ΠΙ. 4 


322 LETTER TO THE 


you are placed are such as merit the most serious 
consideration from you as individuals, as partizans, 
as subjects who owe obedience to your government, 
and as citizens who wish for an enlargement of 
your liberties. Look around, I conjure you, at the 
storm which is gathering in every part of Europe— 
at the dangers which impend over the new consti- 
tution of France, and at the alarm which has 
spread, and daily is spreading more and more, 
throughout the British empire. The tenets of Mr. 
Paine, most of which I despise as vulgar, and de- 
test as seditious, are gaining ground among the 
ignorant and discontented. The fears of moderate, 
and sensible men too, are awakened by those opi- 
nions. The indignation of good men is stirred up 
against them—the wisdom of parliament has una- 
nimously pronounced a sentence of reprobation 
upon their principles. The vigilance of govern- 
ment is pointed, and its strength too, I hope, is 
armed against their possible effects. Surely, then, 
I need not expatiate upon the probability that your 
meeting will, by many well-meaning and well-in- 
formed men, be associated with the very tenets 
which Mr. Paine is endeavouring to propagate ; 
and if this be the case, the public voice may pro- 
nounce a late parliamentary decision very just, 
though, in the estimation of many intelligent indi- 
viduals, it is now considered as harsh. If you per- 
sist in your resolution to assemble, what you may 
reasonably hope will be refused to you, in conse- 
quence of the apprehensions which will be enter- 
tamed of what you most unreasonably meditate. 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 323 


Perilous it will be thought to grant, and fruitless 
even to discuss that which you openly claim, while 
you raise up against yourselves a swarm of suspi- 
cions about that which you secretly intend. If, 
therefore, you really wish to be relieved from the 
pressure of those rigorous acts which hang over the 
heads of Unitarians, do not frighten benevolent and 
loyal men from becoming your advocates. Do not 
suffer your religious tenets to be confounded with 
the seeming tendency of your political opinions 
united with your political actions. Do not furnish 
a triumph to those who have hitherto insulted you 
perhaps without a cause, and censured you without 
a proof. The justice of your claims, depend upon 
it, will at this moment be measured by the violence 
or the calmness of your proceedings. And from 
your meeting, after what you have experienced, it 
will be inferred, that, instead of meaning solely to 
celebrate the French Revolution, you are not un- 
willing to encourage such notions, and to excite 
such disorders, as eventually may accelerate a Revo- 
lution among ourselves. Far, very far, be it from 
me to charge you with such an intention; and far, 
also, be it from me to slight the terrors, or to con- 
demn the indignation of other men, whom your fu- 
ture conduct after the events of last year, and during 
the appearances of the present, may induce to load 
you with such an imputation. If, therefore, you are 
friends to order, as I believe you are, endeavour to 
preserve it. If you are enemies to excessive inno- 
vations, abstain from the very appearance of pro- 
moting them. If you wish for the favour of go- 
Υ2 


324 LETTER TO THE 


vernment, and the approbation of your fellow-citi- 
zens, let not a dinner, or the right of eating a din- 
ner upon a certain day, or in a certain place, be 
thought too considerable a sacrifice for the attain- 
ment of these substantial and permanent advan- 
tages. Gentlemen, for peculiar and obvious rea- 
sons, you cannot avail yourselves of a plea which 
some men have urged in your favour. I will lay it 
before you, and then I will tell you why you cannot 
avail yourselves of it. If other men dine, as they 
probably will in other places, to commemorate the 
French Revolution, why may not you do the same 
thing with the same impunity ? Consider, I entreat 
you, the motto which is prefixed to this pamphlet— 
in appearance non dissimilis res est; I grant it to 
be so. But then the circumstances of him qui facit, 
must be taken into the account. There is not, if I 
may believe your own representations, so strong a 
spirit of intolerance in many other places as for 
some time past has reigned at Birmingham. There 
have not been riots in other places, as there have 
been at Birmingham. There have not been civil 
prosecutions, and criminal prosecutions in other 
places, as there have been in this county against the 
inhabitants of Birmingham. The same suspicions 
are not entertained of other men in other places, as 
are entertained of you at Birmingham. The same 
restraints do not exist upon the disposition of other 
men to hold a second meeting in other places which 
now do exist at Birmingham. My wishes are, that 
no such meetings may be holden in any place, be- 
cause they are useless to the reformers of France, 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 325 


and offensive to many worthy men at home. But 
with whatever propriety, and whatever effect they 
may be holden in other places, the action is not the 
same in your town, because, as I have told you, the 
situation of the agents is not the same. 

When the folly or the wisdom of man has arbi- 
trarily connected certain signs with certain overt- 
acts, they who know, as you do, the connection 
between the sign and the thing signified, will in 
vain attempt to sever them by the subtilties of dis- 
crimination, or the confidence of denial. I see no 
necessary union between the tenets of Unitarianism 
and very enlarged notions of political liberty. But 
the fact is, that both are to be found in the same 
men, and when the passions of ignorant persons 
are once inflamed, their imagination will pass by a 
rapid transition from one to the other, and the 
odium which is cast upon your religion, will re- 
bound upon your politics. In a general way of 
statement, I should not at first have a doubt why 
they who assembled together quietly and parted 
soon last year, should not do the same in the pre- 
sent year: and I am persuaded that it is your incli- 
nation to do the same. But the prejudices and the 
apprehensions of your neighbours will not permit 
you to do so, and because you are all perfectly sen- 
sible of the terrible effects which must arise from 
such prejudices and apprehensions, my cool and 
settled judgment is, that you are responsible for 
such effects. You, perhaps, will plead, that you 
did no harm and meant no harm—but there will be 
numbers ready to reply, that trifling actions have, 


326 LETTER TO THE 


and are intended to have, momentous effects ; that 
he who defaced the Emperor's statue was justly 
punished, because he meant an indirect indignity 
to the Emperor himself, that so much ardour, and 
so much perseverance would not be shewn in com- 
memorating the French Revolution, if they were 
not mingled with secret wishes for similar events in 
a nearer quarter. Gentlemen, I would not insinuate 
that you have such wishes—I believe that all, or the 
greater part of you never harboured them for one 
moment. But they who live in your neighbour- 
hood, and who will sit in judgment upon your mea- 
sures, may not deliver a sentence quite so favour- 
able as my own; and where you have so little 
chance of justice, why will you expose yourselves 
to flagrant and inevitable injustice ? 

What, I beseech you, can be the end you pro- 
pose to yourselves in this entertainment? To in- 
dulge in revelry and intemperance cannot be the 
end, for your characters are marked by the opposite 
virtues of sobriety and regularity. It cannot be to 
proclaim your sentiments about the Revolution in 
France, for they are already known, and already 
reprobated, too, by those to whom they are imper- 
fectly known. It cannot be to multiply converts, 
for conversion is rarely effected by the unpopular 
meetings of unpopular men. It cannot be to assert 
your freedom of thinking upon a subject, where, 
for better purposes than meeting at a dinner, you 
are already free. Study, if you please, the French 
Revolution in your closets, discuss the principles 
and the detail of it in your conversation, explain 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 327 


them when misconceived, defend them when misre- 
presented. Celebrate, if you please, the glorious 
destruction of the Bastile in your own private 
houses—pour forth your praises upon the framers 
and the supporters of the French government—lift 
up your prayers to Heaven for the final success of 
the French arms. All this, Gentlemen, will be al- 
lowed to you, not only by the laws of the land, but 
by the laws of opinion. No peaceable man will, 
for this, condemn you. In this many enlightened 
men will sympathize with you. But if you have 
so little regard for the loyal sentiments, or even the 
rooted prejudices of your neighbours, so little feel- 
ing about your own personal security, so little re- 
spect for the general approbation of your country- 
men, so little caution in the critical state of your 
country itself, as in defiance of reproach, and in de- 
fiance of persecution, to assemble again; where is 
the man of virtue who can approve of your cause, 
or where the man of wisdom who can be satisfied 
with your excuse? 

It may be suggested, that for not assembling, as 
you meant to do, you will be charged with dastradly 
submission. But by whom, Gentlemen, will this 
charge be alledged? Sure I am that it never will 
proceed from men of sound wisdom, and of pure 
honour, to whose sentence it becomes you to make 
your first and your last appeal. From whom then 
will it proceed? From silly men, whom you ought 
to despise; from impetuous men, whom you ought 
only to pity and to restrain; or from factious men, 
whom you ought not to imitate. But what, after 


328 LETTER TO THE 


all, do we discover in this term submission, which 
seems to delude and to scare so large a part of man- 
kind? One being, indeed, there is, whom a poet of 
your own country has thus described in language 
most luminous and most sublime :— 


“Ts there no place for pardon left ? 
None left but by submission, and that word 
Disdain forbids me, and the dread of shame 
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced, 
With other promises and other vaunts 
Than to submit.” 


True it is of too many reasonable creatures, and 
too many nominal Christians, that even they are 
sometimes driven onward to perdition and to in- 
famy, by this infernal spirit of false pride, false cou- 
rage, and imaginary fidelity to a bad or a doubtful 
cause. But God forbid that I should impute to 
you such a spirit, or discover in you even the 
slightest vestiges of such a spirit. I cannot suspect 
you of such fatuity, as to be pledged for holding a 
second assembly—I will not accuse you of such 
phrenzy as to redeem your pledge, by the loss of 
your reputation, or by the hazard of your existence. 
To whom, also, Gentlemen, is this tribute to be 
now paid by yourselves? Grant that it were, to a 
violent rabble whom you can neither appease nor 
resist—submission would be an act of consummate 
prudence. Suppose that it were to the excessive, 
but I will not add the dishonest prejudices of ene- 
mies and tories—submission would then approach 
to the dignity of virtue——But if it were, as in reality 
it is, to he paid to the wishes of your friends, to the 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 329 


safety of your relations, to the good order of your 
town, and to the general tranquillity of your coun- 
try; then, doubtless, submission rises into a real 
virtue, into a virtue of the first magnitude, into a 
virtue of the brightest splendour. Its nature can- 
not be misunderstood, its motive cannot be traduced, 
it will be imputed to magnanimity, it will be 
crowned with praise. Farther let me ask, what is 
the sacrifice that you are making by such submis- 
sion? Is it any political opinion? No. Is it any 
religious tenet? No. Is it any secular interest? No. 
It is a dinner, Gentlemen, it is only a dinner, and 
when I reflect upon the trifle it is in itself, or upon 
the applause you will gain by renouncing it, or upon 
the danger you will incur by contending for it, I 
will not offer such an indignity to your good sense, 
as to press this part of the subject with one word 
more of illustration or remonstrance. 

Gentlemen, in the intention of your friends, and 
in the conduct of your enemies, you will find prece- 
dents, such as will justify the relinquishment of your 
purpose, or I should rather say, examples, such as 
will exclude your perseverance in it from justifica- 
tion. 

If I am to believe Mr. Dadley, several respectable 
Dissenters last year were disposed to give up their 
meeting, lest the town should be disturbed. If I 
am to believe your Clergy, the proposal for as- 
sembling at a public dinner in opposition to yours, 
was abandoned at the same critical time for the 
same weighty reason. But if some of your friends, 
and some of your foes shewed so much attention to 


330 LETTER TO THE 


the quiet of your town when the temper of the com- 
mon people was known imperfectly, and by mere 
conjecture, it is incumbent upon you to shew more 
attention to the preservation of that quiet, when the 
violence of that temper is known to you completely, 
and by melancholy experience. If the Church and 
King party then understood their real dignity, and 
preserved it by receding from an ideal, or an imper- 
fect right, let it not be said of the Dissenters, that 
with such an instructive example before them, they 
now insult the very persons by whom they were not 
themselves insulted—that they are more desirous to 
incur the censure than to merit the approbation 
even of their opponents—that they mistake contu- 
macy for firmness, and rashness for heroism. If 
Churchmen shrunk from the guilt of hurting a 
party, let Dissenters shudder at the greater guilt of 
embroiling a nation ! 

There is, I confess, one plausible argument which 
hitherto has been untouched. I will state it for you 
strongly, and fairly I will answer it. They, whom 
you suppose, whether justly or unjustly, to be your 
enemies, have instituted a society under the appella- 
lation of the Church and King Club, and the ten- 
dency, you say, of that society is to encrease and to 
perpetuate the odium which has been excited against 
you. Gentlemen, I see little in the tendency of 
that society which as a friend to the quiet of my 
neighbourhood, or to the civil and ecclesiastical 
constitution of this land, I can reasonably commend. 
But I also see nothing in the proceedings, or the 
professions of that society, which can possibly jus- 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 331 


tify you for meeting upon the fourteenth of July. 
Let me again remind you of my motto.—They as- 
semble, and you assemble. But the persons as- 
sembling are different, and though it may be said 
with truth, that while their purpose is to support 
government, yours is not to weaken it; still, Gen- 
tlemen, there are many circumstances which will 
lead to very different constructions, of assemblies 
which in appearance, and in appearance only, are 
the same. You meet to celebrate the French revo- 
lution, which they certainly do not. They meet, 
perhaps, to discourage an English revolution, which 
as certainly you do not. Their cause is popular in 
the town, and yours is not. A precedent, then, their 
assembly cannot be called for yours, and I am 
equally at a loss to discover how it should be a jus- 
tification. 

Were I to grant you that they meet very often, 
aud were I ex hypothesi, to grant yet farther, that 
the spirit with which they meet is not very friendly 
to you, I am still unable in their conduct to find 2n 
apology for yours. The majority of the town, in all 
probability, views their meeting with a favourable 
eye.—But the minority have nothing to fear from 
it, while their own behaviour is circumspect and 
temperate. Many persons may be unwilling to be- 
lieve that a system of unrelenting opposition is in- 
tended to be carried on against the Dissenters. Nay 
I am myself disposed to hope, that not one member 
of that club can seriously wish to see your persons 
again in danger, or your houses in flames. But 
whatever may be their intention, and whatever their 


332 ‘LETTER TO THE 


wishes, still it is in your power to counteract them 
by refraining from that perilous measure which it is 
the purpose of this address toreprobate and to prevent. 
By forbearing to meet only for one day, upon your 
own parts, you may defeat the collective stratagems 
and the collected malignity of many meetings upon 
theirs. This observation I ground even upon your 
own statement, for be it remembered that it is you, 
not myself, who accuse them of such stratagems 
and such malignity. If they are innocent, I con- 
gratulate them. But if they are guilty, I shall not 
acquit you, because the proof of that guilt must be 
accompanied by circumstances which may equally 
tend to disgrace both you andthem. They, gentle- 
men, even if they have not a better cause, may 
bring forward a stronger plea. They may con- 
tend, that the spirit which they have long observed 
and long resisted in you is not yet subdued, that it 
rises superior to difficulty and danger, that it 
challenges instead of shunning persecution, that it 
has incited opposition by past appearances, and that 
by realities avowed at the present hour such op- 
position is amply and notoriously justified. Whe- 
ther or no, I should myself admit, either the since- 
rity or the validity of this reasoning, is of no conse- 
quence—it is sufficient for my purpose that they 
are likely to employ it, and that you may not be 
able entirely to refute it. 

Reflect, then, I entreat you, upon the aggravated 
mischiefs which must flow from the measure 
you are said to intend, and consider that you 
become yourselves strictly and immediately answer- 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 333 


able for the whole extent of those mischiefs, if you 
distinctly foresee them, and foreseeing them are un- 
alterably determined to provoke them. There are 
situations in which events become so probable as to 
carry with them all the evidences, and to draw after 
them all the moral obligations of practical certainty. 
There are causes, which, however trifling or harmless 
in the common course of the world, may from tem- 
porary or local circumstances be pregnant with the 
most baneful effects. But when those effects 
may be justly apprehended, they cannot be inno- 
cently hazarded. The club of which you complain, 
may have been at the expence of much trouble in 
collecting the gunpowder, and of much contrivance 
in laying the train. But it is you, gentlemen, who 
apply the fire to it; and upon whom the explosion 
may fall—Oh! consider this !—upon whom ‘the ex- 
plosion may fall, can be known only to that Being 
who seeth “events afar off.” 

If senseless prepossessions or merciless animo- 
sities still prevail among you, can it be supposed 
that a meeting on the fourteenth July will either 
correct the one or assuage the other? No. But 
by forbearing to assemble, you will at least hold out 
to the public a bright and unequivocal proof that 
prejudices and animosities ought from henceforth 
to subside. 

It is chiefiy from your own representation of 
your own cause, that I infer the certainty and 
the greatness of your own danger. If too many 
offenders were acquitted upon trial, or too few were 
punished after condemnation, the terrors of the law 


334 LETTER TO THE 


are diminished among the lower classes of the com- 
munity. If the damages allowed you upon your 
late prosecutions, were too little, you must in future 
look even for less. They who attacked you before, 
will certainly not be intimidated from attacking 
you now. They who hated you upon the bare sus- 
picion of a turbulent temper or of an unbecoming 
behaviour, will not cease to hate you after proceed- 
ings which, in their judgments, will constitute a de- 
cisive proof both of the one and of the other. 

Since the late riots there has been little ap- 
pearance of actual reconciliation, or indeed of 
the slightest dispositions in any of the contend- 
ing parties to be reconciled. After the lapse of 
many months, we have heard only of crimination 
and recrimination, of what you intended to do, 
and what your enemies have done, of justice, which, 
as you say, has been imperfectly dispensed to 
you, and which, as others say, has been dispensed 
even beyond your deserts. These different state- 
ments affect differently the public mind. But how- 
ever divided that public may be upon past events, it 
will have one judgment, one feeling, and one voice, 
if, in contempt of the very plainest and very worst 
consequences, you do again, what I believe you 
have done before, without any sense of guilt, with- 
out any intention of committing injury, and with- 
out any certain prospect of being injured. A 
second meeting will avert from you the good 
opinion and the good wishes of those who disdained 
to join in the clamours that were raised against 
your first, and this consideration alone you ought 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 335 


not to neglect. Even if a riot should not happen 
to sweep away your property, still your reputation 
will be stigmatized on account of such steps as tend 
to provoke a riot. 

There are many persons who believe the causes 
of the late riots to be very deep: many who have 
wondered at your veheinence in complaint, when 
compared with your supineness in action: many 
who have been taught to suppose you in possession 
of stubborn proofs against persous generally un- 
known or generally unsuspected ; many who feel a 
strong mixture of amazement and scorn, that those 
boasted proofs have not been brought into open 
day for the satisfaction of the doubtful, the con- 
futation of the malevolent, and the conviction of 
the guilty. The suppression of these proofs, if 
such they be, impartial men are at a loss to recon- 
cile to the known motives and the known tenour of 
human conduct. They cannot reconcile it to your 
declarations of having obtained evidence, and to 
your menaces of inflicting punishment. They can- 
not reconcile it to the reliance you are reported to 
have upon the protection and the advice of adminis- 
tration, or to the confidence you profess to feel in 
the justice of your cause. But if you persist m 
sheltering those whom you have already accused, 
and then proceed to irritate those whom you may 
accuse hereafter, most difficult will it be for you to 
explain these seeming inconsistencies upon any re- 
ceived principles of upright intention. The unpre- 
judiced observer will be confounded and offended at 
so much obscurity, combined with so much precipi- 


336 LETTER TO THE 


tation. The airy witling will exclaim, that how- 
ever you may reject mysteries in matters of faith, 
you retain them in matters of practice. Gentle- 
men, you will excuse me for expostulating with so 
much freedom. Often have I condemned the vio- 
lence of your persecutors, and the asperity of your 
accusers—I have lamented, almost as often, a want 
of openness or a want of firmness* in some re- 
spectable persons among yourselves. But if you 
venture to rush upon new dangers, instead of over- 
whelming with disgrace the real and secret authors 
of your past sufferings, I must think your temerity 
greater than your fortitude—I must in respect to the 
strength of your charges, substitute distrust for 
belief—in regard to the motives of your conduct, I 
must exchange apology for condemnation. 

The foregoing considerations I chiefly address to 
your prudence. But there yet remain other and 
weightier matters, which I must hold up, at once, 


* Some observations in this paragraph are in part obviated 
by the judicious, though ineffectual, attempt which Mr. Whit- 
bread has lately made to bring the subject of the riots 
before the legislature. But the very application of the Dis- 
senters for redress of past injuries, constitutes, surely, an addi- 
tional and most powerful reason for their circumspection. It 
will appear to many persons a trick upon the justice, and an af- 
front to the authority of parliament, for men to ask for protec- 
tion at the very moment in which they are hurrying to the pre- 
cipice of destruction unnecessarily, voluntarily, and therefore 
criminally. Though parliament may have been wrong in re- 
fusing an enquiry, the Dissenters at Birmingham cannot be 
right in adopting such measures as must prevent that enquiry 
from being resumed with propriety, and pursued with success. 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 337 


to your prudence, and to your conscience. Let me 
then entreat, that you would seriously throw back 
your attention upon what is past, and that with equal 
seriousness you would consider what is abouttocome. 

In the past you have seen your furniture plunder- 
ed—your papers rifled—your houses destroyed, by 
an unthinking and unfeeling multitude. But the 
evils to come, I say it again, the evils to come will 
be more numerous in their immediate, and more 
baneful in their ultimate consequences. The unruly 
passions of the contending parties have been in- 
flamed by many distant, and by some recent events. 
The blood of those who have perished, in what the 
vulgar think a righteous cause, will, from the vulgar, 
call aloud for expiation. The mischiefs which burst 
out suddenly, and raged wildly, in a former year, 
will in the present year be arrayed with circum- 
stances of hideous preparation. Among your ene- 
mies, fresh and greater provocations will be followed 
up by fresh and greater outrages —violence will 
be repelled by violence—life will be staked against 
life—the fire which falls upon your own houses, 
will spread to the houses of your offending and 
unoffending townsmen. The havoc which breaks 
out in one town, will, in one or two days, pour 
its fury through the whole neighbourhood—what 
shoots up a tumult in one county, may in one 
month, or even in one week, grow into.a rebel- 
lion through a whole kingdom. 

Be not in haste, Gentlemen, to impute these re- 
presentations to the colouring of a heated ima- 
gination, rather than to the dictates of sober reason. 

VOL. III. Zz 


338 LETTER TO THE 


More worthy would it be of your understandings 
to reflect upon the probability, and magnitude of the 
disasters which I have described; and more would 
it redound to the praise of your moderation to 
avoid all share in the guilt of such measures as un- 
questionably are likely to produce such disasters. 

It is the common refuge of detected folly or dis- 
appointed obstinacy to say that men first predict 
evils because they wish them to come topass, and then 
cause them to come to pass by the alarm which ac- 
companies prediction. But for my part, Gentle- 
men, I disdain to meet such trite and contemptible 
sophistry with the solemnity of denial or the formali- 
ties of refutation. It is condescension enough, and 
more than enough, to notice an objection, which the 
weakest man among you is incapable of believing, 
and which the hardiest man among you would be 
unwilling to utter concerning myself. Whether I 
were to publish or to suppress these well-meant 
suggestions, the loyalists at Birmingham will be dis- 
pleased at your meeting, the rabble will be incensed 
at your meeting, and the soldiers might catch the 
general contagion. By suppressing my pamphlet I 
might leave you to indulge the delusive hope of 
escaping opposition or of quelling it. But by pub- 
lishing that pamphlet I may awaken in you the 
wise and virtuous resolution of not deserving to he 
opposed. Amidst the reports, then, which I hear 
of your design, and the prospect which I have of 
your danger, I cannot hesitate for one moment be- 
tween the two alternatives. Expostulation, at the 
worst, were only a weakness, but silence must beacrime. 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 339 


You will believe me not very indifferent about 
the subject upon which I address you, when I say 
that the intention of writing this pamphlet was 
formed on Sunday night last, in consequence of some 
intelligence which then reached me, and that the 
act of writing it was begun and finished in the 
course of the next day. But after bestowing upon 
the contents two revisals, I found very little which 
it was then of importance for me to add to the pre- 
ceding parts of this address, and nothing which it 
was necessary for me to omit, or even to soften. I, 
therefore, without farther delay sent the manuscript 
to press ; for as the matter was so intelligible and 
so interesting, I would not affront your understand- 
ings by lavishing decorations upon the style. Sus- 
pect me not of any intention to alter or to stifle 
your opinions about the French Revolution. Many 
parts of that Revolution I myself approve, after calm 
and serious examination. But no one part of it 
would I eagerly adopt as a model for imitation in 
this country. To me it seems safe and wise to wait 
for those gradual changes which the spirit of free- 
dom, enlightened as it must be by French experi- 
ments, whether they be immediately successful or 
fruitless, and invigorated as it will be by French 
arms, whether they be victorious or defeated, will 
most assuredly produce in the temper of every go- 
vernment and in the judgment of every people. 

Within a few days after this book had been com- 
mitted to the press some events burst forth which 
ought, I am sure, to drive you from your present 
purpose, and to increase your future circumspection.. 

z 2 


340 LETTER TO THE 


The precaution of reading the riot act, which most 
unpardonably was not taken to protect your houses 
of worship and your dwelling houses, has been 
taken very seasonably for the protection of brothel 
houses. The military force, which in consequence 
of proper information given in proper time to pro- 
per persons, ought to have been on the spot to 
prevent the riots in July 1791, fortunately was at 
hand to suppress the riots of May 1792. But whe- 
ther the magistrates would be equally active, or the 
soldiers equally zealous in defending you from con- 
sequences which you certainly must have foreseen, 
and easily might have avoided, are points upon 
which your doubts, probably, are gloomier than my 
own. And can you, then, conceive a situation more 
humiliating, than that, in the hour of distress, con- 
scientious Unitarians should be thought less worthy 
of succour than the shameless prostitute, the despe- 
rate bully, and the execrable procuress ? 

Narrow must have been the foresight, and rooted 
must have been the prejudices, of those persons who 
could either think with indifference, or talk with ex- 
ultation of the disturbances by which, in the course 
of last year, the national police and the national cha- 
racter were alike disgraced. For reasons which at 
once excite the compassion of the benevolent, and 
call for the vigilance of the powerful, the lower 
classes of every community, are in every age too 
prone to violence. Permitted I must be to add, 
with my usual openness, though without any inten- 
tional rudeness to you or to your opponents, that in 
Birmingham there are many physical and moral, 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 341 


many latent and prominent, many inveterate and 
recent causes by which the passions of your inferi- 
ors are become more ferocious than in other towns 
of equal or superior magnitude. To men of serious 
and impartial observation it is unnecessary for me 
to point out those causes, and to the superficial or 
the captious they would be pointed out in vain—in- 
tense labour succeeded by frequent and systematic 
intervals of idleness and intemperance—political 
animosities in those who have not even a glim- 
mering of political knowledge—religious antipathies 
among those who attend not religious worship—in- 
flammatory pamphlets and corrupt examples—the 
expectation of that impunity which has already 
been obtained for rioters—the idea of merit to go- 
vernment strangely associated with the commission 
of crimes against law. These, Gentlemen, are cir- 
cumstances which peculiarly distinguish the condi- 
tion of your common people—which loudly demand 
such exertions as, I trust, will hereafter be made by 
their spiritual instructors—and which more espe- 
cially require such caution, delicacy, and modera- 
tion, as, I hope, will not be neglected by yourselves. 
In alluding to these circumstances I mean not to 
insult the poor—many a tear have I shed for their 
sorrows, and many plea have I framed for their faults 
—rather would I preserve their innocence than de- 
stroy their lives—I would rather see them enlight- 
enedand softened by the law of Godthan scourgedand 
crushed by the laws of man—my compassion is due 
to the poor, but my indignation is reserved for those 
wretches by whom the poor are deluded or inflamed. 


342 LETTER TO THE 


It is a trite maxim that the mass of the people, 
however weakly they may reason, are capable of 
feeling justly. But the misfortune is, that when 
they have proceeded to act they seldom continue to 
feel, or that their feelings are at once excessive in 
degree and criminal in kind. Hence, in the sup- 
port of a favourite cause no enquiry is made about 
the point where right terminates and wrong begins. 
Humanity is then extinguished by zeal, and zeal is 
alike increased by triumph and by defeat. After 
habitual reverence for the rights of individuals and 
the laws of a country is overcome by temporary cir- 
cumstances, and the spirit of misrule has once burst 
its bonds, every slight rumour, every sudden miscon- 
ception, every allurement from immediate advan- 
tage, every provocation from seeming hostility, will 
be sufficient to change its direction, without dimi- 
nishing its vigour. The passions of the multitude 
are fickle as well as impetuous; or if exempt, in 
some particular cases, from fickleness, they become 
more untameable from stubbornness. 

That fury which a great provocation has lately 
turned against the corrupters of good morals, may 
by a less provocation be pointed with yet greater 
violence against the followers of an unpopular reli- 
gion, and before its strength is spent in the extir- 
pation of Dissenters, it may suddenly be hurried by 
the lust of rapine, or even by the mere wantonness 
of success into outrage against Churchmen. All 
parties, therefore, and all sects, are equally inter- 
ested in discouraging this propensity to riot, by 
persuasion, in repressing it by resistance, and in 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 343 


averting it by an inoffensive, temperate, and amica- 
ble behaviour. Uncandid it were, indeed, to sup- 
pose that Churchmen will not be roused by a sense 
of danger to a sense of duty. It were equally un- 
charitable to believe, that finding the same turbulent 
disposition still raging among the same misguided 
populace, Dissenters will shew themselves insensible 
to every danger, and regardless of every duty. The 
cry of Church and King has, you know, been lately 
heard in broken and indistinct murmurs, and if you 
meet again to commemorate the French Revolution, 
that cry will again thunder in your ears, when the 
storm of public indignation is collected to one point, 
and when they upon whom it falls with the surest 
aim, and with the greatest force, will be left to perish 
without refuge and without hope. 

It is for you, Gentlemen, and not for myself, to 
reap either honour or advantage from the relin- 
quishment of your intended measures, and the re- 
nunciation of your supposed right. As I give not 
my name to the public, you will have the satisfac- 
tion of yielding only to the force of my reasoning ; 
and even if I were to reveal that name, I believe 
that some worthy persons among you would not be 
ashamed of shewing some little deference to the 
mere personal authority of the writer himself. 

That writer is a lover of peace; and of liberty, 
too, he is a most ardent lover, because liberty * is 


* Et nomen pacis dulce est, et ipsa res salutaris; sed inter 
pacem et servitutem plurimum interest; pax est tranquilla 
libertas.—Cicero, Philippic II. 


344 LETTER TO THE 


the best means by which real peace can be obtained 
and secured. He therefore looks down with scorn 
upon every species of bigotry, and from every de- 
gree of persecution he shrinks with horror—he be- 
hieves that, wheresoever imperious and turbulent 
teachers have usurped an excessive ascendancy over 
the minds of an ignorant and headstrong multitude, 
religion will always be disgraced, morals always 
vitiated, and society always endangered. But the 
real interests, the real honour, the real and most 
important cause of the Established Church he ever 
has supported, and will support, as he also ever 
has contended, and will contend, in favour of a 
liberal, efficient, and progressive toleration. He 
confounds not the want of confidence in the mea- 
sures of an administration with the want of respect 
for the principles of a government. He distin- 
guishes between dutiful obedience and abject servi- 
lity to that regal power which, in this country, he 
holds to be not only conducive but essential to the 
public welfare. He is not much in the habit of re- 
signing his judgment to the forebodings of the 
timid, the insinuations of the crafty, or the clamours 
of the malevolent—yet he looks, perhaps, with no 
narrow line of foresight towards events which may 
be approaching, and upon the present situation of 
the British empire he cannot reflect without a 
pause—without a pang—without jealousy of every 
opinion that may shake the fair fabric of our con- 
stitution—without abhorrence of every measure that 
may deluge this land of freedom in blood. 

In regard to yourselves, Gentlemen, he means to 


DISSENTERS OF BIRMINGHAM. 345 


warn rather than censure—the effect of that warn- 
ing he consigns to your own wisdom, and to the 
unsearchable will of that Providence in submission 
to which he has ever found the most solid comfort. 
But in giving you that warning he has an entire 
confidence in the purity of his motives: in enforc- 
ing it he boldly appeals to the justness of his argu- 
ments: and upon concluding it, he is at this mo- 
ment conscious of having discharged a most impor- 
tant duty to you and your neighbours, to the Church 
and the State, to his country and his Gop. 
May 17, 1792. 


N.B. For Bizothanati, which is used by Tertullian and Bio- 
thanati, which is the more common word, the reader is referred 
to Suicer’s Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, page 690. 


«μος eid Yo vavecteny wilt 0 

ἡ. ὙΠ Se a of i see καὶ 
aothd sabe a pagal paiva ψή 
ong ot οἱ rsdn cg δὲ ws 

Ἢ δ πος ion 0b 


ah τὰ ‘Seth 5 ΕΟ 


+ 


ay ie Pe} ᾿ ,% vant Tek das b= 


aye" 


“tanh Ἢ aa Bul pgs ὦ ἐν iy 
δ τω: ve οἰ 0b: omy vor ei 


oe sug ΨΥ add αὐταα δὴν 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


Tue publication by Dr. Parr, styled by him “ Tracts by 
Warburton and a Warburtonian not admitted into the col- 
lections of their respective works,” consists of 281 pages: 
of these only 54 are occupied with Dr. Parr’s contributions, 
consisting of the Preface of the Editor to Warburton’s two 
Tracts, the Dedication of two Tracts of a Warburtonian, and 
the Preface of the Editor to two Tracts of a Warburtonian. 
Some account of this republication has been given in the Bio- 
graphical Memoir prefixed to this Edition. The Dedication 
and the Prefaces are now only inserted; neither Dr. Parr’s 
fame, nor his pen, being concerned with the rest. 


PREFACE OF THE EDITOR 
TO 


WARBURTON’S TWO TRACTS. 


For reasons which it is by no means difficult to 
conjecture, though it might be invidious to state 
them, the Bp. of Worcester has not deigned to give 
a place to the two following Tracts in his late mag- 
nificent Edition of Warburton’s Works. By re- 
publishing them, however, without the permission 
of the R. R. Editor, I mean not to arraign his taste 
or his prudence. I am disposed even to bestow 
some commendation upon the delicacy of his friend- 
ship, in endeavouring to suppress two juvenile per- 
formances, which the Author, from unnecessary 
caution or ill-directed pride, would probably have 
wished to be forgotten. But among readers of 
candour and discernment, the character of Bp. War- 
burton cannot suffer any diminution of its lustre 
from this republication. They who are curious in 
collecting books, must certainly be anxious to pos- 
sess all the writings of that eminent prelate. They 
who mark with philosophic precision the progress 
of the human understanding, will look up to War- 
burton with greater reverence and greater astonish- 
ment, when they compare the better productions of 


350 PREFACE TO 


his pen with the worse. The faults of the one are 
excused by the imperfections of his earlier educa- 
tion: but the excellencies of the other must be as- 
cribed only to the unwearied activity, the unshackled 
boldness, the uncommon and almost unparalleled 
vigour of his native genius. The writer of the 
Divine Legation might, indeed with propriety, have 
bidden defiance to those puny and churlish critics 
who would measure his powers and his attainments 
by the incorrectness of his translations* and the un- 


* It may be worth while to remind the reader, that one of Dr, 
Johnson's first literary efforts was an English Translation of a 
French Translation of a Book written originally in the Portu- 
guese language. I never saw the work, but refer the reader 
to the character which is given of it by Sir John Hawkins, who 
found in it no traces of that robust and vigorous mind which 
distinguishes the later and better publications of the author of 
the Rambler. Some Editor less timid or less delicate than the 
R. R. Editor of Warburton’s Works, has lately republished the 
Marmor Norfolciense of Johnson, though it had lost probably 
much of its original value in the mind of the author, though it 
is pronounced a dull work by his biographer, and though it was 
once thought even by the most impartial readers, seditious in 
its tendency. I know not whether Johnson left any directions 
with his executors about the M. N. nor whether Bp. Warbur- 
ton laid any injunctions upon his R. R. Friend concerning the 
two books now republished. If the Bishop did impose any 
prohibition, the R, R. “ Editor” has acted an honourable part 
in holding them back. But no obligation of this sort lies upon 
those to whom the Bishop's command were not communicated. 
I should add, that the M. N. had been “ republished before” 
in 1775, during the life of Johnson, by some person who ap- 
proved as little of his jacobite politics, as I do of the senti- 
ments contained in the ‘ anonymous Letters’’ which were writ- 
ten by some Warburtonian to “ Jortin” and to “ Leland.” 


WARBURTON’S TWO TRACTS. 351 


couthness of his verses. He that explored the 
“ wide* and trackless wastes of ancient times” 
with so much sagacity and so much success, ought 
to have laughed at every imputation of the weak- 
ness to which he was exposed from his credulity and 
singularity in the explanation of prodigies. Hec 
et infinita alia ridebamus, et tamen Warburtonum 
inter precipua Literarum et Patriz ornamenta po- 
nimus. Nam quod interdum ridenda dixit, non 
Warburtoni vitium, sed hominis est. Et nemo fuit 
quantumvis studiis magnus, cui non aliquando ri- 
denda exciderint.—Vide Gronovium de Hadriano 
Junio in Centes. Usur. p. 35. 


* See p. 32 of the Preface to vol. iii. of the Divine Legation. 


DEDICATION 


OF THE 
TWO TRACTS OF A WARBURTONIAN, 


ADDRESSED BY THE EDITOR TO A LEARNED CRITIC, 


MY LORD, 


In the fate of the two Tracts, which I have now 
the honour of dedicating to your Lordship, there 
are some circumstances peculiarly interesting to the 
curiosity of scholars, and to your own distinguished 
humanity. Like children* whom their parents were 
afraid or ashamed to acknowledge, they have long 
been condemned to wander about the world, unshel- 
tered by the authority of a great name, and depend- 
ing only upon the force of their own inherent 
merits either to attract the inquisitive, or to propi- 
tiate the censorious. Their titles, indeed, some- 
times crept into the corner of a catalogue, and 
sometimes were caught skulking upon the shelf of 
a collector. Through want, however, of that eager 


ἈΝ - 

* Ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ ὅμοιον καὶ τὸ συγγενὲς ἡδὺ ἑαυτῷ ἅπαν, μάλιστα 
δ᾽ ἀυτὸς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἕκαστος, τοῦτο πέπονθεν, ἀνάγκη πάντας 
, ” aE \ X , ΄ i. ΓΝ eee 
φιλαύτους eivar ἐπεὶ δὲ φίλαυτοι πάντες, καὶ τὰ αὑτῶν ἀνάγκη 
ἡδέα εἴναι πᾶσιν, οἷον ἔργα; λόγους, διὸ φιλακόλακες ὡς ἐπιτοπολὺ 
καὶ φίλοτιμοι καὶ φιλότεκνοι. αὐτῶν γὰρ ἔργα τὰ réxva.—Vide 

Aristotelis Rhetoricam. lib. i. cap. 2. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 353 


and open support which authors generally give to 
their own works, the pamphlets themselves are now 
become extremely scarce, and that scarcity* has 
been shrewdly, or, if you please, my Lord, per- 
versely imputed, not so much to the avidity of the 
purchasers as to the management of the writer. 
But whatever may have been the cause the fact is 
notorious, and therefore, in bringing them back ‘to 
a tribunal from which they are supposed to shrink, 
I shall endeavour to rescue them from that oblivion 
which sometimes overtakes the best publications, 
even at the hazard of exposing them to that infamy 
which is never inflicted but on the worst. 

The predilection which your Lordship is known 
to entertain for allegory induces me to resume the 
simile upon which I had glanced in-the preceding 
paragraph. It were unnecessary, I am sure, to re- 
mind you, either that, from peculiarities in the fea- 
tures and dispositions of children, we often recog- 
nize their parent: or that, by the similitude to him- 
self, whether it be of excellence or deformity, 


* In the year 1765, when the Letter to Dr. Tho. Leland was 
become very scarce in England, it was republished in Ireland, 
and placed between Leland’s Dissertation upon Eloquence and 
the Defence. The book is called, «« Leland upon Eloquence,” 
so that the Letter is not noticed in the title page. I should 
suppose that Leland republished the whole Dispute, to give the 
reasoning of his antagonist all the advantage of a more exten- 
sive circulation, and to prevent the renown of his wit from 
fading too soon, I had the honour of receiving four copies from 
Dr. Leland in the year 1777 ; but the book, I believe, has not 
often found its way to England, as I never saw any copies of it 
except my own. 


VOL. III. 4h 


354 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


which the one discovers in the other, he is sometimes 
inclined to cherish them with greater affection. If, 
then, your Lordship should should deign to employ 
your critical abilities upon the sophistry and the 
virulence, as well as upon the ingenuity and ele- 
gance, of these singular but anonymous composi- 
tions, you may have it in your power to add to the 
obligations which your stupendous discoveries have 
already conferred upon the learned world, by favour- 
ing it with some satisfactory conjecture about the 
person by whom they were written. The success 
which you can always command in the develope- 
ment of complex beauties, and the detection of 
latent faults—the occasional and even involuntary 
exercise of congenial qualities, or congenial talents 
—the subversion of some established opinion, or the 
degradation of some elevated character—any, or all 
of these causes, my Lord, may entice the writer 
from the obscurity in which he has so long and so 
securely lurked—may act irresistibly upon his secret 
partialities and his secret aversions—may draw from 
him an ingenuous and direct confession, or, what is 
equally decisive, a faint and awkward denial. From 
your sagacity, therefore, as well as from your com- 
passion, I now ask for that protection, which is said 
to have been hitherto refused by your prudence and 
your delicacy, to the deserted offspring of con- 
troversial zeal. 

Of the reputation, my Lord, which you have so 
long, and they * say, so deservedly enjoyed, a large 


* Ihave borrowed this qualifying phrase from the Letter- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 355 


part is to be ascribed to your insatiable love of no- 
velty : and yet a larger, it may be, to your match- 
less dexterity in the defence of theories,* at once, 
fantastic and methodical—fantastic, I mean, without 
the brilliancy of invention, and methodical, without 
the solidity of logic. I am not, however, apprehen- 
sive of any contradiction, even from your Lordship, 
when I venture to pronounce these tracts to 
have been produced by the same understanding, to 
be marked by the same spirit, and to have been di- 
rected to the same end. That understanding, 
doubtless, was acute; that spirit professes at least, 
to be candid; and that end probably, according to 
your Lordship’s estimation, was in the highest 
degree honourable. It was to deliver two illus- 
trious, but whimsical hypotheses, from the imperti- 
nent and tyrannical intrusions of common sense. 
It was to unmask the hypocrisy, and to subdue the 
insolence, of two impotent sciolists, one of whom 
had presumed to commend your patron without 
adulation, and the other to confute him without as- 
perity. It was to convince an undiscerning and in- 


writer to Dr. Leland, and I do not suspect him of knowing that 
Dr. Bentley, in his Controversy upon Phalaris (vide pag. 66, 
edit. Lennep,) has shewn the strong affirmative power of the 
word λέγεται. 

* « If we ask the reason, it would seem to be owing to that 
ambitious spirit of subtlety and refinement which, as Quintilian 
observes, puts men upon teaching not what they believe to be 
true, but what from the falsehood, or apparent strangeness of 
the matter, they expect the praise of ingenuity from being able 
to defend.” —See Hurd’s Note on the 410th line of Horace’s 
Art of Poetry. 

2.2 


356 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS: 


credulouous public, that Warburton was an infallible 
reasoner, Leland a superficial trifler, and Jortin, a 
most dastardly, a most insidious, and a most malig- 
nant calumniator. 

Readers of illiterate and grovelling minds will, I 
am aware, startle at these strange and harsh posi- 
tions. In an agony of amazement and indignation 
they will exclaim, like your Lordship and D’Or- 
ville,* en cor Zenodoti, en jecur Eratetis. But, by 
men of more enlarged and more exalted views—by 
men of a truly classical taste, who spurn aside 
the coarse beverage to be found in Greek Scholiasts, 
in order to revel on the luxurious dainties prepared 
by French Commentators —by men of truly philo- 
sophical penetration, who are ambitious to un- 
derstand their Virgil from Warburton, and Horace 
from your Lordship —by all such enterprising 
critics, and all such fastidious hypercritics, the 
tribute of admiration will be cheerfully paid, both 
to the magnificence of the design and the felicity of 
the execution. 

Now, my Lord, it is not quite forgotten by men. 
of letters, nor, probably, by your Lordship, that, in 
the earlier stages of your literary and ecclesiastical 
career, you did not disdain to wield your pen, 
whether offensively or defensively, in favour of 
Bishop Warburton. While bigots were pouring 
forth their complaints, and witlings were levelling 
their pleasantry, against this formidable innovator : 


* Vide D'Orville Animadversiones in Charit. p. 399, and 
Hurd’s Note on line 97th of the Epistle to Augustus. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 357 


while answerers trembled, and readers stared: 
while dunces were lost in the mazes of his ar- 
guments, and scholars were confounded at the 
hardiness of his assertions: you, my Lord, stood 
forth with an avowed determination to share alike 
his danger and his disgrace. You affected to despise, 
even while you were endeavouring to repress, 
the clamours of the unenlightened herd, who saw, 
or pretended to see, absurdity in his criticisms, he- 
terodoxy in his tenets, and brutality in his invec- 
tives. You made great paradoxes less incredible, by 
exciting our wonder at the greater, which were 
‘started by yourself. You taught us to set a just 
value upon the eccentricities of impetuous and un- 
tutored genius, by giving us an opportunity to 
compare them with the trickeries of cold and syste- 
matic refinement. You tempted us almost to 
forget and to forgive, whatever was offensive in 
noisy and boisterous reproaches, by turning aside 
our attention to the more grating sounds of quaint 
and sarcastic sneers. 

Recollecting, therefore, the repeated displays of 
your ardour and your prowess, I cannot, my Lord, feel 
the smallest reluctance in calling upon you for new 
and more undisguised exertions in an old and a fa- 
vourite cause. I think it even impossible for you 
to tarnish the well earned reputation, either of your 
abilities as a writer, or your virtues as a friend, by a 
deliberate and invincible indifference to the future 
celebrity of two works, which, like these, are in- 
timately connected with the preservation of Dr, 
‘Warburton’s true character,and, perhaps, of yourown. 


358 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


If suspending, for the present, our examination 
of the spirit which pervades your writings, we pro- 
ceed to consider their pretensions as compositions, 
wide is the difference that appears between them, 
both in their excellencies * and in their faults. 

He blundered against grammar, and you refined 
against idiom. He, from defect of taste, contami- 
nated English by Gallicism, and you, from excess 
of affectation, sometimes disgraced what would have 
risen to ornamental and dignified writing, by a pro- 
fuse mixture of vulgar or antiquated phraseology. 
He soared into sublimity without effort, and you by 
effort, sunk into a kind of familiarity, which with- 
out leading to perspicuity, borders upon meanness. 
He was great by the energies of nature, and 
you were little by the misapplication of art. He, 
to shew his strength, piled up huge and rugged 
masses of learning, and you to shew your skill, 
split and shivered them into what your brother 
critic calls ψήγματα καὶ ἀραιώματα. ἢ He some- 
times reached the force of Longinus, ¢ but without 
his elegance, and you exhibited the intricacies of 
Aristotle, but without his exactness. 


* The words which Longinus uses:in describing the character 
of Timzus, may, with a very little change, be applied to Warbur- 
‘ton, ᾿Ανὴρ τὰ μὲν πολλὰ ἱκανὸς, Kat πρὸς λόγων ἐνίοτε μέγεθος οὐκ 
ἄφορος᾽ πολυΐστωρ,ἐπινοητικὺς,πλὴν ἀλλοτρίων μὲν ἐλεγκτικώτατος 
ἁμαρτημάτων, ἀνεπαισθητος δὲ ἰδίων" ὑπὸ δὲ ἔρωτος “τοῦ ξένας 
νοήσεις ἀεὶ κινεῖν πολλάκις ἐκπίπτων εἰς τὸ παιδαειωδέστατον. 
Longin. Sect. 4. 

+t Vide Longin. Sect. 10. 

{ When a celebrated Commentary upon Horace was first 
published, Malone, Reed, Farmer, Tyrwhitt, Steevens, the two 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 309 


The language of Warburton is, I believe, gene- 
rally allowed to be abrupt, inartificial, and undisci- 
plined; irregular as the mind of the writer, and 
tinged with many diversified hues, from the rapid 
and uncertain course of his extensive and miscella- 
neous reading. As to your Lordship, whatever 
likeness some prying and morose observers may 


Wartons, Burke, and, in his critical capacity, Dr. Johnson, had 
not come forward as the guides of the public taste. This is 
some sort of plea for setting Warburton at the head of English 
Critics. I cannot so readily account for the superiority as- 
signed him over Longinus and Aristotle, unless the Commenta- 
tor had read their works, as Warburton was now and then sus- 
pected of reading them, in a French translation. Our critic 
knew, “ that it was not every wood, that will make a mercury,” 
and yet he compliments Warburton, “as if nobody would dis- 
pute the fitness of that, which was growing so near the altar.” 
See note on line 15 of the epistle to Augustus. 

The Commentator, it seems, was offended with Lipsius for 
‘‘ exalting an Archbishop of Mecklin, with Pagan complaisance, 
into the order of Deities.” I wish to know, whether, if he had 
written the dedication to Horace in Latin, he would have found 
it consistent with his own Christian complaisance, to have called 
Warburton a Deus in criticism, just as Scevola calls Crassus in 
dicendo Deum, and as Catullus calls Antonius in dispositione 
argumentorum Deum (vid. Lib. 1 and 2 de Orat.), and as Cicero, 
in addressing the Senate after his return from exile, says of 
Lentulus, that he was the parens et Deus nostre vite, fortune, 
memorize, nominis, &c. I am far from wishing to apologize for 
the shocking adulation of Lipsius, or to recommend the above- 
mentioned use of Deus to a modern writer of Latin. But, 
I suspect that no man, who understands the Latin language, 
will find more of the spirit of flattery in the word Deus restrain- 
ed and limited by its subject, than in the pompous pageantry 
of praise spread by the Commentator over the Rev. Mr. War- 
burton, when the latter was advancing fast towards a Bishoprick. 


360 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


have traced between you and Virtumnus in the ver- 
satility of your principles, the comparison must not 
be extended to the features of your style, concern- 
ing which, if we should grant the mille ornatus 
to belong to it, we cannot add, without the grossest 
hypocrisy, or the most vitiated taste, mille decenter 
habet. Let me, however, commend both you and 
the Bishop of Gloucester, where commendation is 
due: and let me bestow it, not with the thrifty and 
penurious measure of a critic by profession, nor 
yet, with the coldness and languour of an envious 
antagonist, but, with the ardent gratitude of a man, 
whom, after many a painful feeling of weariness and 
disgust, you have refreshed unexpectedly, and whom, 
as if by some secret touch of magic, you have 
charmed and overpowered with the most ex- 
quisite sense of delight. Yes, my Lord, in a few 
lucky and lucid intervals between the paroxysms of 
your polemical frenzy, all the laughable and all the 
loathsome singularities which floated upon the sur- 
face of your diction, have in a moment vanished, 
while in their stead, beauties equally striking from 
their suddenness, their originality, and their splen- 
dour, have burst in a “ flood of glory” upon the as- 
tonished and enraptured reader. Often has my 
mind hung with fondness and with admiration 
over the crowded, yet clear and luminous galaxies 
of imagery diffused through the works of Bishop 
Taylor, the mild and unsullied lustre of Addison, 
the variegated and expanded eloquence of Burke, 
the exuberance and dignified ease of Middleton, the 
gorgeous declamation of Bolingbroke, and the ma- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 361 


jestic energy of Johnson. But if I were to do jus- 
tice, my Lord, to the more excellent parts of your 
own writings and of Warburton’s I should say that 
the English language, even in its widest extent, 
cannot furnish passages more strongly marked, 
either by grandeur in the thought, by felicity * in 
the expression, by pauses varied and harmonious, or 
by full and sonorous periods. 

I must beg your Lordship’s pardon for a little 
seeming irregularity in the order of my remarks. 
To separate the character of your speculative 
writings, whether in criticism or theology, from the 
merits of those which are more purely and profes- 
sedly controversial, is no easy task. Warburton, in 
his rapid marches and counter-marches from pro- 
fane learning to sacred, and from sacred to profane, 
always found or created opportunities, for skirmish- 
ing with some rival novelty, or combating with 
gladiatorial fierceness some inveterate, and therefore 
obnoxious opinion.f In many, also, of the publica- 


* See the character of Bayle, sect. 4th, Ὁ. 1st of the D.L. 
description of the inspectors general over clerical faith, p. 26, 
vol. 3d. The different characters of eloquence pp. 53 and 54 in 
the doctrine of Grace, and, above all, the representation of the 
Christian Church in the introduction to Julian, edit. 1751. 

Instead of referring particularly to beautiful passages in 
Warburton’s Friend, I shall only say, that some may be gleaned, 
here and there, even in his critical writings, that many are 
to be found in those which treat of politics, and more, when he 
ascends to subjects of morality and religion. 

+ The Bishop would have said prejudice. The authorities of 
Fletcher and Bacon protect the word inveterate from the charge 
of Latinism. 


362 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


tions ascribed to your Lordship, as well as in those 
of your patron, it may be observed, that you seldom 
dispute without an itch for criticism, and seldom 
criticise without a rage for dispute. Pardon me, 
however, if, summoning the whole force of my mind, 
I thus balance you and the Bp. of G. as your ad- 
mirers, if they had dipped into Persius, would ex- 
claim, In rasis antithetis. 

To grapple with the unweildy was among the 
frolics of Warburton, whilst your Lordship toiled in 
chasing the subtle. He often darkened the subject, 
and you perplexed it. He, by the boldness and 
magnitude of his conceptions, overwhelmed our 
minds with astonishment, and you, by the singula- 
rity and nicety of your quibbles, benumbed them 
with surprize. In him we find our intellectual 
powers expanded and invigorated by the full and 
vivid representation which he sometimes holds up, 
both of common and uncommon objects, while you, 
my Lord, contrive to cramp and to cripple them by 
all the tedious formalities of minute and scrupulous 
analysis. He scorned every appearance of soothing 
the reader into attention, and you failed in almost 
every attempt to decoy him into conviction. He 
instructed, even where he did not persuade, and 
you, by your petulant and contemptuous gibes, dis- 
gusted every man of sense, whom you might other- 
wise have amused by your curious and shewy con- 


ceits. 
Conversant as I may be in the most celebrated 


writings of the Warburtonian Sect, I confess my- 
self unable to expatiate after your Lordship’s man- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 363 


ner upon their romantic freaks of affectation or 
spleen in the choice of their subjects—upon the 
stately array or the grotesque machinery of their 
arguments—upon the wanton coruscations of their 
metaphors, and the “ baseless fabrics of their vi- 
sions” in the allegories and double senses—upon 
the rambling digressions into which we are 
diverted, and the intricate labyrinths in which we 
are bewildered by their notes—upon the luxuriant 
and vicious, as well as upon the more chaste and 
more happy embellishments of their style. I leave, 
therefore, this land of phantoms and wonders to be 
explored by some dainty commentator who, like 
Launcelot,* “ hath planted in his memory an army 
of good words,” and who, like your Lordship, 
“ would for a tricksy phrase defy the matter.” Let 
me, however, drop a few remarks upon those un- 
sparing and undistinguishing sallies of ridicule 
which have been employed sometimes to adorn and 
sometimes to enforce both the “ light and the 
solid whimsies,” both the critical chimeras, and 
the theological dogmas of the Warburtonian 
School. 

Wit was in Warburton the spontaneous growth of 
nature, while in your Lordship it seemed to be the 
forced and unmellowed fruit of study. He, in these 
lighter exertions still preserved his vigour, as you, 
in your greater, seldom laid aside your flippancy. 
He, perhaps with better success than Demosthenes, 


* See Merchant of Venice. + See Prior’s Alma, Book ii. 


364 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


‘seized the famam Dicacis, and you, with success not 
‘quite equal, aimed at the praise of urbanity.* He 
flamed upon his readers with the brilliancy of a me- 
teor, and you scattered around them the scintilla- 
tions Ὑ of a firebrand. 

But in the treatment of your respective, or, I 
should rather say, your common’ antagonists, the 
similarity of your prejudices was a little obscured by 
the inequality of your talents. 

Some of the disputants whom Warburton would 
have scared with ferocious defiance, you, my Lord, 
condescended only to insult with cool derision. 
Others, whom he would have crushed by dogmati- 
cal contradiction, you were content to tease by cap- 
tious misrepresentation. He, from his towering 
and distant heights rushed down upon his prey, 
and disdaining the ostentatious prodigalities of cru- 
elty, destroyed it at a blow. But you, my Lord, 
contracting, as it were, and distorting the nobler 
shape which Nature had really bestowed upon you, 
took, what to some may appear a perverse and ab- 
ject pleasure, in crawling upon the earth. Yet, in 


* Vide Quintil. lib. vi. cap. 3. 

+ Having risqued two metaphors in this paragraph, I was 
prevented by my fear of his Lordship’s critical artillery from 
borrowing a third to insert in the text. But I am ready to give 
up either or both of them to my readers, if, adopting the much 
stronger phraseology of a much greater writer than I am, they 
will say, that “in his Lordship we are provoked at the venom 
of the shaft, but in Warburton are terrified at the strength of 
the bow.”—See Johnson’s Character of Junius in his Political 
Tracts. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 365 


this very choice of situation, artifice was blended 
with whim: for you entered upon it asa sort of 
vantage-ground well adapted to your purpose, that 
you might spring upon an enemy more suddenly, 
and pierce him more surely: that you might 
protract or shorten his torments at your own 
capricious will: that you might sharpen them to try 
the sensibility of the sufferer, or allay them when 
your justice, shall I say, or your anger was sa- 
tiated. 

And here, my Lord, instead of pushing any far- 
ther the contrast between you in points where you 
appear unlike or unequal, I shall for a moment look 
back to some particulars in which the resemblance 
between you was most conspicuous. Those parti- 
culars are to be found in your eager propensity to 
start aside from the regular and common orbit of 
opinion upon every plain, every abstruse, every 
trifling, and every important subject—in your arbi- 
trary and abrupt deviations from the established and 
common ferms of language—in your unbounded 
admiration of each other, and in your unrelenting 
scorn of every contemporary writer, by whom you 
seemed to be less admired than you were by your- 
selves. Surely my opinion does not clash with any 
critical canons promulgated by your Lordship, when 
I call such resemblance a clear and unequivocal 
proof of imitation. 

The claims of Warburton to originality, in some 
of his remarks upon the philosophers of antiquity, 
some of his emendations upon our great tragedian, 
and some of his boasted discoveries in the science of 


366 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


theology,* have, as your Lordship knows, not been 
indiscriminately and implicitly admitted. I appeal 
to your candour, my Lord, and if that should fail 
me to your recollection, for the accuracy of my 
assertion when I add, that several of those claims 
have not only been disputed by the malignant 
officiousness of envy, but invalidated and sometimes 
overthrown by the rigours of impartial criticism. 
For my part, however, I am disposed to pardon 


* The Letter-writer to Leland says, that “‘ the unpopular 
cry against Warburton is in this country silenced, that men of 
sense and judgment now consider his paradoxes as very harm- 
less, nay, as very sober and certain truths, and even vie with 
each other in building upon them the most just and rational vin- 
dication of our religion.” This he represents “ as the present 
state of things with us, and especially, they say, in the two 
Universities of this kingdom.” Now I resided in one of the 
Universities soon after the time at which this Letter was pub- 
lished: I have since visited many learned and inquisitive friends 
in the Sister University : I have had the honour of conversing 
pretty much at large with men of Letters in the world: I have 
often been present when the paradoxes of Warburton were 
discussed in conversation, and yet I never heard the slightest 
whisper about that complete revolution in public opinion, 
which our Letter-writer so peremptorily asserts and so tri- 
umphantly describes. After all, men of candour will only 
smile at these honesta misericordia mendacia, when employed 
to prop up a tottering cause ; and perhaps men of refinement 
may consider them as “a true rhetorical payment,” very fit to 
be accepted by a Dublin professor of oratory. Our Letter- 
writer ‘‘ was called upon for his reckoning, and he discharged 
it,” not with argument or fact, but with rhetorical hyperbole, 
What was the consequence? ‘ He who had not spared the 
Bishop, demolished” the Letter-writer—See D. L. vol. v, 
p. 420. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 367 


and even to applaud the ruffian plunders of an ad- 
venturer,* who from the stores of his own capacious 
and active mind was able to enrich and dignify his 
spoils—to mould them into various and striking 
forms—to deck them with new and becoming orna- 
ments, and apply them to purposes at once the 
most unexpected and the most splendid. But, upon 
the petty larcenies of his “ servile imitators,” 
upon the plagiarisms Κ of those who pilfered be- 


* I have adopted this expression from Bishop Hallifax, who, 
in the same passage, styles Warburton “ the most illustrious 
author of the age.” What Bishop Hallifax really is in the re- 
public of learning, it can be no disgrace for any other scholar 
to be, and therefore I shall without hesitation apply “ to the 
most illustrious author of the age,” the name of an “ Adven- 
turer.’ Bishop Warburton, in the Dedication of the third vol. 
of the Divine Legation, represents himself as “ seized with that 
epidemic malady of the idle visionary men,” “ the projecting to 
instruct and inform the public.”—See preface to the last edition 
of three sermons published at Cambridge, by Dr. Hallifax, and 
the Dedication of vol. 3 of the Divine Legation. 

+ See Remarks on Hume’s Essay, p. 13. 

+ My meaning will be explained by the following quotation, 
which I give at length, as the book from which it is taken has 
become scarce : 

‘ While the Bishop is puffing and celebrating himself with 
grace or modesty for this wonderful atchievement on Virgil ; 
which he has accomplished with the aid of Meursius, he vouch- 
safes to drop some little dew of praise on a certain Zany of his ; 
and draws that little from Mr. Addison, on whose ruin this 
puny (I mean able) critic’s glory is to be reared; as the said 
Zany had reared the great Mountebank’s on having totally 
eclipsed Aristotle and Longinus. “ It was not thus (says Quin- 
tus Flestrin ; that is, not as Mr. Addison has done;) that an 
able critic lately explained Virgil’s noble allegory in the begin- 


368 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


cause they could not invent, and disguised because 
they could not improve; upon poverty screened by 
ostentation and arrogance leagued with fraud, every 
intelligent reader must look down with emotions of 
just and poignant contempt. 

There is one advantageous point of view, my 
Lord, in which some distinguishing characteristics 
of Warburton press themselves upon my notice, 
and in respect to which I must leave some able 
writer to draw the parallel between you and your 
supposed archetype, so far as such a parallel may be 
consistent with decorum and with truth. 

The Bishop of Gloucester, amidst all his fooleries 
in criticism and all his outrages in controversy, cer- 
tainly united a most vigorous and comprehensive 
intellect with an open and a generous heart. Asa 
a friend, he was, what your Lordship experienced, 
zealous and constant: and as an enemy, he pro- 


ning of the Third Georgic,” ἅς, ‘It was not, indeed; for Mr, 
Addison looked into himself and his own ideas only; the able 
critic (forgetting Persius’s rule, ne te quesiveris extra) looked 
into F. Catrou, in whom he found all that his master so ap- 
plauds and exalts, only not quite so fine-drawn and wire-drawn, 
Pox take those rascals who lived before us, said a pleasant fel- 
low: they have stolen and run away with all the good things I 
should have said. ’Tis all the Meursius’s and Catrou’s are 
good for. When the late D. of R. kept wild beasts, it was a 
common diversion to make two of the bears drunk, (not. meta- 
phorically with flattery, but literally with strong ale,) and 
then daub them over with honey. It was excellent sport 
to see how lovingly (like a couple of critics) they would 
lick and claw one another.’—See Confusion worse confounded, 
page 74. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 369 


perly describes himself to have been choleric,* but 
not implacable. He, my Lord, threw a cloud over 
no man’s brighter prospects of prosperity or honour 
by dark and portentous whispers in the ears of the 
powerful. He, in private company, blasted no 
man’s good name by shedding over it the cold and 
deadly mildews of insinuation. He was too mag- 
nanimous to undermine when his duty or his ho- 
nour prompted him to overthrow. He was too 
sincere to disguise the natural haughtiness and irri- 
tability of his temper under a specious veil of hu- 
mility and meekness. He never thought it expe- 
dient to save appearances by shaking off the 
“ shackles of consistency”-~~—to soften the hideous 
aspect of certain uncourtly opinions ¢ by a calm and 
progressive apostacy—to expiate the artless and 
animated effusions of his youth, by the example 
of a temporizing and obsequious old age. He be- 
gan not his course, as others have done, with 
speculative republicanism, nor did he end it, as the 
same persons are now doing, with practical toryism. 
He was a churchman without bigotry—he was a 


* See the conclusion of Dr. Warburton’s Letter to Dr. Lowth, 
dated Winchester, Sept. 17, 1756. 

+ See page 100 of the Remarks on Hume. 

Φ Lam told by one, whom I esteem the best Greek scholar in 
this kingdom, and to whom the hat of Bentley would have 
“ veiled,” that many notable discoveries might be made by 
comparing the varie lectiones, the clippings and the filings, the 
softenings and the varnishings of sundry constitutional doc- 
trines as they crept by little and little into the different suc- 
cessive editions of certain political dialogues. 

VOL. III. 28 


370 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


politician without eh aN La was a loyalist with- 
out servility. 

Such, my Lord, on the nae side of his cha- 
racter, was the champion under whose banners you 
enlisted ; and if, in the eager pursuit of glory, you, 
sometimes, appeared to swerve a little from the pre- 
cepts of a benevolent religion; if you trampled, in- 
advertently no doubt, upon the established decorums 
of civilized life; nay, if you rushed somewhat be- 
yond the licensed violences of critical and theological 
war, yet, my Lord, it is in the power of observers, 
dispassionate and impartial as I am, to urge in your 
behalf some pleas, the truth of which will not has- 
tily be disputed. 

The distinguishing virtues even of the best men, 
may, for a time, be eclipsed by particular situation. 
While, therefore, we allow your Lordship all the 
praise which is due to habitual discretion and con- 
stitutional gentleness, we are by no means surprised, 
that, in the service of such a leader, you were now 
and then hurried into rashness, sharpened into acri- 
mony, or betrayed into illiberality. We rather la- 
ment, that the better propensities of your mind were 
suspended, and indeed overborne, by the fascination 
of Warburton’s example, the sternness of his com- 
mands, and, with all due reverence let me add, the 
tremendous severity of his threats. We mourn over 
the common infirmities of human nature itself, when 
we recollect that, with a temper which effectually 
preserved you from the tumultuous fervours of en- 
thusiasm, and with talents which might have pro- 
cured you success in the regular and ordinary course 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 371 


of controversial hostilities, you were disposed, or, I 
would rather say, destined to become the herald of 
the sturdiest knight errant that ever sallied out in 
quest of literary crusades. ΤῸ become the apologist, 
nay, the avenger of a staunch polemic, who attacked 
with blind and headstrong fury the most unexplored 
fastnesses of impiety and the most venerable citadels 
of truth—to become the drudge of an imperious 
task maker, who finding himself accompanied by a 
train of feeble and officious dwarfs, summoned them 
by his fierce mandates to plunge with him into 
every difficulty—to triumph with him in every vic- 
tory, to make a display of their fidelity or their zeal 
in every wild and desperate atchievement, which he 
was himself emboldened to undertake, by the con- 
sciousness of his own gigantic strength. “The 
staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and one 
bearing a shield” always “went before him.” From 
this paragraph, my Lord, you may perceive that, 
however fearful I may be of offending you by coarse 
and extravagant flattery, yet I can, upon a proper 
occasion, step forth to shelter you from excessive 
and undistinguishing reproach ; that I can palliate 
the failings which it were shameless to deny, and 
that I can at least explain those peculiarities, which, 
in terms of direct and unqualified approbation, it 
might stagger even your Lordship’s resolution to 
defend. 

The success, indeed, with which I have just now 
assumed the language of an advocate, induces me to 
venture upon the more arduous, but more pleasing 
task of an encomiast. With your Lordship’s per- 

282 


372 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


mission then, I will contrast the sullen obstinacy; 
or, if you please, the delicate reserve of our letter- 
writer with the frankness and magnanimity of the 
Bishop of Litchfield. 

This prelate, it seems, had formerly published 
some anonymous Remarks upon Mr. David Hume's 
Natural History of Religion. Our letter-writer, 
also, professes to “ have his reasons for addressing 
Dr. Leland in a public manner,” without informing 
him explicitly,* who he was. Thus far then each 
of these combatants acted with prudence, in begin- 
ning their “deeds without a name.” But in the 
sequel of their history we shall have reason to con- 
sider the one as a hero, and the other as a coward. 

Hume, in some materials that he had prepared 
for the History of his own Life, ventured to speak 
peevishly and slightingly of the above-mentioned 
Remarks, as breathing, forsooth! the spirit of the 
Warburtonian school, and as written by Dr. Hurd. 


* Whatever the practice of the Warburtonians may be, 
Warburton gave this account of himself: “1 am a plain man; 
and on my first appearance in this way I told my name, and 
who I belonged to.’—Preface to the Defence of the Divine 
Legation. 

+ Among the numerous peculiarities of the Warburtonian 
school, none are more striking or more offensive than the ex- 
travagant applause which the disciples bestow upon their great 
master. I have now and then met with sober-minded and im- 
partial critics, by whom the Bishop of L. himself is thought 
not quite exempt from the sin of flattery, especially in his 
Dedication to the second Volume of Horace, where he repre- 
sents criticism as advanced, under the auspices of Warburton, 
to that “full share of glory,” which it had not reached by the 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 373 


What was the consequence? why, the Dr. (now 
Bishop of L. and C.) graciously permitted his 
bookseller to republish those Remarks, boldly ac- 


labours of a Longinus and an Aristotle. Now to soften a little 
the impression which such violent language may make upon 
the mind of the reader, I would refer him to the Introduction 
to the Remarks on David Hume, where, (as in page 9 and 10,) 
the writer arrogates to himself the merit of ‘‘ judging more 
freely and more severely of Warburton than perhaps his ene- 
mies themselves,” declares himself the ‘last man in the world 
who, out of a fondness for Warburton’s notions would neglect 
or betray any useful truth ;” and, in short, represents himself 
as “one who weighs his arguments without considering his 
authority, or even the disgrace he might be thought to incur 
from the confutation of them.” After perusing the ninth, 
tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth pages, the reader, if he 
has taste enough to be a commentator, will be charmed at the 
address of this complimentary Introduction, and, if he happens 
to be a scholar, he may be tempted to apply to a certain mo- 
dern character, what “ experience, reaching to something like 
prophetic strain,” suggested to the mind of two antient writers: 

“"O δὲ πάντων ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ πανουργότατον, αἰσθανόμενος τὴν 
παῤῥησίαν καὶ λεγομένην καὶ δοκοῦσαν ἰδίαν εἴναι φωνὴν ὥς περὶ 
τινος ϑώου τῆς φιλίας, τὸ δὲ ἀπαῤῥησίαστον, ἀφιλὸν καὶ ἀγενὲς, 
οὐδὲ ταυτὴν ἀμίμητον ἀπολέλοιπεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ οἱ δεινοὶ τὼν 
ὀψοποιῶν τοῖς πικροῖς χυμοῖς καὶ αὐστηροῖς ἡδύσμασι χρῶνται; 
τῶν γλυκέων ἀφαιροῦντες τὸ πλήσιμον, οὕτως, οἱ κόλακες, οὐκ 
ἀληθινὴν οὐδ᾽ ὠφέλιμον, ἀλλ᾽ οἵον ἐπιλλώπτουσαν ἐξ ὀφρύος καὶ 
γαργαλίϑουσαν ἀτεχνῶς παῤῥησίαν rpocdépoverv.—Plutarch, de 
Adul. et Amic, Discrim. p. 51. edit. Xyland. 

“* Aperte adulantem nemo non videt, nisi qui admodum est 
excors. Callidus ille et occultus ne se insinuet, studiose caven- 
dum est: nec enim facillime agnoscitur, quippe qui etiam ad- 
versando szpe assentetur; et litigare se simulans blandiatur 
atque ad extremum det manus, vincique se patiatur, ut is qui 
illusus sit, plus vidisse videatur.’—Cicero, de Amicitia, par. 26. 


374 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


knowledged the justness of Hume’s conjectures as 
to the writer, and wisely reserved the privilege of 
“explaining himself,* if he should think it worth 
his while, more particularly on the subject.” 

In a note-f replete with vivacity and erudition, 
Jortin chastised the impertinence of the anonymous 
Letter-writer on the delicacy of friendship. Leland, 
also, in a tone of manly indignation, laid bare the 
cavils, and baffled the invectives of the same pert and 
spiteful pamphleteer, after he had pretended to “re- 
duce the rhetorick of his antagonist to reason, and 
to pick up the loose ends of his arguments as he 
found them any where come up in the chapters of 
his book.” But the efforts of these injured men, to 
do themselves justice were not followed by the same 
effects which Mr. Hume’s Complaint had produced 
on the nobler mind of his answerer. The zeal of 
Dr. Hurd had not cooled by time ; his fidelity was 
not diminished by change of station; his courage 
was yet unshaken and worthy of his cause. For, 
upon the first tidings of the obnoxious sentence in 
Mr. Hume's Life, he despised it as a calumny; he 
braved it as a challenge ; and then he, without hesi- 
tation dropped his mask ; he threw aside the ἄσημα 
éxaet which he had before carried into the field, and 


* See Mr. Cadell’s Preface. 

+ This note is printed among the Testimonia Auctorum, and 
exemplifies the justness of Quintilian’s observation: ‘‘ Acutior 
est ille atque velocior in urbanitate brevitas, cujus quidem du- 
plex est forma dicendi ac respondendi. Sed ratio communis 
in parte; nihil enim in lacessendo dici potest, quod non etiam 
in repercutiendo.”—Vide Quintil. de Risu, lib. vi. cap. 3. 

{ Vide Eurip, Pheeniss, vers. 1129. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 37 


buckling on his trustiest armour, he renewed the 
battle. 
Ζεὺς πατὴρ ἐπ᾽ ἀσπίδος 
Σταδαῖος ἧσται διὰ χερὸς βέλος φλέγων. * 

Our Letter-writer,--on the contrary,seems to have 
been intimidated at the first approach of the foes, 
whom he had wantonly provoked. He retreated 
from the contest with a caution not less inglorious 
than the precipitation with which he had engaged in 
it—he did not condescend to republish his railings 
—he did not attempt to vindicate his misrepre- 
sentations—he did not dare to discover his name. 
When Leland opposed him with arguments, and 
Jortin harassed him with wit, he had neither the 
spirit to reply, nor the honesty to retract. 

Now, my Lord, it seems to me a task of no great 
difficulty to explain this difference of conduct, in 
the Prelate and the Letter-writer. David Hume we 
are told, and upon the authority of one, whose pro- 
ductions are notoriously exempt from the same 
charges, David Hume, was a “ captious, versatile, 


* Vide Aschyl. Sep. Con. Theb. vers. 518. 

+ Lhave assumed that the Letter to Dr. Leland, and the 
Dissertation on the Delicacy of Friendship, were the coinage 
of the same mint, for they bear the same impression of petu- 
lance and cavil. As the Dissertation is addressed to Dr. Jor- 
tin in an epistolary form, I call the author of it the “ Letter- 
writer.” But the reader is desired not to be precipitate in 
confounding this anonymous Letter-writer with the Remarker 
on Mr. Hume, whose name is known. I have myself so dis- 
tinguished them as to give no encouragement to the invidious 
surmise, that the Letters and the Remarks were not written 
by different persons. 


376 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


and evasive writer.* He was a puny dialectician froni 
the North, who came to the attack with a beggarly 
troop of routed sophisms. He was the philosophic 
head of a philosophic gang, who dealt in mere ped- 
lars - wares of matter and motion.” He, it should 
seem, was not worthy of “ elaborate animadversions 
adapted to the instruction or entertainment of 
learned readers,” though his answerer, doubtless, 
was capable of writing such animadversions, when- 
soever the dignity of the subjéct, or the talents of 
his adversary, should require it. But an hour, even 
a “vacant hour” when employed by Dr. Richard 
Hurd “was fully sufficient to expose to the laughter 
of every man that could read, the futility, licence, 
and vanity of Mr. David Hume.” All this had been 
said once, and therefore might be said again with 
equal effect. It was said justly the first time, for 
David Hume was an infidel; and it was said most 
properly a second time, for Dr. Hurd was now a Bi- 


* The reader will find these choice expressions in the seventh, 
the eleventh, and the fourteenth and twenty-first pages of the 
Remarks on Hume’s Essay. Indeed, “the whole thing is full 
of curiosities.”"— Page 15. 

+ ‘‘ Ask the critic in what cases tropical and figurative ex- 
pressions are faults in composition. He answers, when they 
are gross and indelicate, puerile or frigid; or when they are 
disproportioned and utterly unsuitable to the subject. He tells 
you, for instance, that if Demosthenes really used such. meta- 
phors as those which his adversary objects to him, ‘the state 
is packed up and matted,” they “thread us like needles,” &c, 
he justly incurs the censure of adopting gross and illiberal 
similitudes, on an occasion which required decency and gra- 
vity.”"—Cap. v. p. 31. edit. quart. Leland on the Principles of 
Human Eloquence. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 377 


shop. But our Letter-writer “had to do”* (as War- 
burton says) with antagonists of a different class. 
The biographer of Philip of Macedon, and the au- 
thor of Remarks upon Ecclesiastical History, had a 
right to expect from their clerical opponent’a milder 
and more respectful treatment -} than that which the 
Bishop of L. had given to a sceptic, who scoffed 
at all the principles of religion and who had endea- 
voured to loosen the strongest obligations of mo- 
rality. Even the atrocious guilt of dissenting from 
Bishop Warburton had not entirely effaced the re- 
membrance of their attainments as scholars, or of 
their virtues as Christians. By the general suffrage 
of the public, and, I suspect, my Lord, in the secret 
estimation of the Letter-writer, these two excellent 
men were not to be annoyed again and again by the 
poisonous arrows of slander, and bereaved of the 
sacred rights of reputation with perpetual impunity 
to an unseen, unblushing, unfeeling accuser. 

To the Remarker, ¢ who eloquently talks of bor- 
rowing his sword from Warburton, because War- 
burton had “borrowed it from the sanctuary,’§ I 


* See Preface to the Divine Legation, published 1740. 

+ If the Letter-writer be as well versed in Quintilian as the 
Commentators upon Horace is supposed to be, he might re- 
member, though late, this instructive passage: ‘Quidam sunt 
ita recepte auctoritatis et note verecundiz, ut nocitura sit in 
eos dicendi petulantia.”-—Quintilian, lib. vi. cap. 3. 

¢ Iam not quite satisfied with this word, though Johnson, 
in his Dictionary, affixes to it the authority of Watts. I use it 
from necessity, or, at least, for the sake of avoiding the tire- 
some periphrasis of saying, “‘ the writer of the Remarks,” 

§ Page 7, of the Remarks on Hume. 


378 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


would not uncharitably impute any lurking bias to- 
wards the base and perilous maxim, that “ means 
are sanctified by ends.” But, if the venial preju- 
dices of the public present him with advantages of 
another kind, why should he not avail himself of 
them? The glare of an author's situation is apt to 
dazzle common readers, and to hide from their view 
the deformities of his writings. When the “ dis- 
cordant din and clamour of ignorance and prepos- 
session have been raised against a writer, they pre- 
pare the way for the divine and consentient har- 
mony of praise,’* in favour of every assailant who 
supplies the want of strength by agility or venom. 
Amidst these, or similar circumstances, a skilful 
disputant will find it easy to exercise his craftiness, 
and even to glut his ill-nature, without appearing, 
in the eyes of superficial observers, to sacrifice his 
impartiality or his candour. And if the cause 
which he defends should happen to be just as well 
as popular, he need not be very scrupulous about 
the manner of defending it. Thus, my Lord, the 
foulest scurrilities,~ when hurled by the hand of a 


* See Hurd’s note on line 63, of the Epistle to Augustus. 

+ Let me assure the reader, that I have examined Mr. 
Hume’s Essays with too much attention, either to be seduced 
by their fallacious reasonings, or to be indifferent about their 
destructive consequences to the sacred interests of morality 
and religion. But, while I enter this sincere and solemn pro- 
test against the philosophical tenets of a most able, but most 
dangerous writer, I cannot indiscriminately approve of the 
temper in which our Remarker had been pleased to “ maintain 
the most awful truths, and exemplify the impression made upon 
the writer’s own heart.”—Vide page 12 of the Remarks. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 379 


Bishop against a reputed Atheist, would be received 
by the loudest bursts of applause. But, surely, the 
loudest storms of public odium would beat around 
the head of the satyrical sophist, if he should, a se- 
cond time venture to let loose his petulance and his 
virulence against two characters less injurious than 
the Atheist to the interests of society, and less of- 
fensive to the feelings of the wise and good. In 
vain would the offender exclaim, that he was “ only 
in sport”—that he had “put forth only half his 
might ”—that he meant only to pelt his adversaries 
with trim urbanity, with oblique insinuation, and 


I do not justify, in all instances, the real or affected modera- 
tion of those who would “ combat flagitious tenets with sere- 
nity.” But I have my doubts how far, upon such momentous 
and awful topics, the multz et cum gravitate facetie can be 
employed with propriety, and those doubts are certainly not 
at all removed by the experiment of the Right Reverend Re- 
marker upon Mr. Hume’s Essay. The religionist, as well as 
the orator, ne dicet quidem false, quoties poterit, et dictum 
potius aliquando perdet, quam minuet auctoritatem. Vitabit 
ne petulans, ne superbum, ne loco, ne tempori alienum videa-y 
tur.”—Vide Quintilian, lib. vi. cap. 3. But, to pass over from 
the Remarker to our Letter-writer, the latter, I believe, will 
not give me a place in his catalogue of “soft divines and 
courtly controversialists.” Instead, however, of retorting the 
compliment, I shall ‘take leave” to quote in my behalf the 
answer of a Spartan, which Plutarch has recorded, and which 
the Right Reverend Remarker, if he had stumbled upon it, 
might have deigned, perhaps, to place in the front of his stric- 
tures upon Hume's Essay: ἐπαινομένου χαρίλλον τοῦ βασιλέως, 
πῶς οὗτος, ἔφη, χρηστὸς bs οὐδὲ τοῖς πονηροῖς πικρὸς éori.”—Plu- 
tarch de Adulat. et Amic. Discrim. p. 55. Ina moral treatise, 
De Virtutibus et Vitiis, asscribed, I believe erroneously, to 
Aristotle, μισοπονηρία is considered as a part of justice. 


380 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


all the lighter missive weapons of the controversial 
armoury. 

While, therefore, we commend the modesty of 
Bishop Hurd, when, by the mouth of his bookseller, 
he “ declares * himself sorry, that he could not take 
upon himself the whole infamy of the charge 
brought against him by Mr. Hume,” we are at no 
loss to account for the caution of the Letter-writer, 
when he forbears to plead guilty by his own mouth 
to the weightier charges, which had been alledged 
against him by a Leland and a Jortin. And, in 
truth, my Lord, the charge of having calumniated 
such men in such a manner, is so very formidable, 
that, even among the bigotted admirers of Warbur- 
ton, not more than one can be found with sufficient 
effrontery to defy the whole infamy, or sufficient in- 
genuousness to confess, that he deserved only a 
part. 

Your Lordship will anticipate me in observing 
such particulars as belong in common to the Essay 
and the Letters of which I have been speaking. 
They had equally the merit of being written in pro- 
fessed defence of Warburton’s “ Notions,” or in pro- 
fessed imitation of his style-~ They had equally 


* See Mr. Cadell’s Address to the Reader. 

+ I take this upon the authority of the Remarker, who says 
it of himself. As to the style of the Letter-writer, where it is 
formed upon no models, either good or bad, the particularities 
of it may, in many instances, be thus accounted for: «« When 
a writer determines at any rate to be original, nothing can be 
expected but an awkward straining in everything. Improper 
method, forced conceits and affected expressien are the certain 


WARBURTONIAN. TRACTS. 381 


the honour of being censured by the persons against 
whom they were severally pointed. They had 
equally the misfortune to be at first condemned and 
afterwards forgotten by the public. The chief, 
though not the only point, in which they differ is, 
that the Essay has, and the Letters have not, been 
avowed and republished by their respective authors. 
This defect, however, on the part of the Letters, I 
shall myself, in some degree, supply, by undertaking 
voluntarily the office of republication; and I, at the 
same time, shall leave the author to complete, as far 
as he can, the similitude between the Bishop of 
Litchfield and himself, by making, “ when he shall 
think fit,’ an avowal of his name. Should such an 
event, indeed, ever happen, the example of the Bi- 
shop in declaring his name may be productive of 
more advantages than were originally intended, or, 
as I suspect, even desired by the Right Reverend 
Prelate himself. The immediate, and, doubtless, the 
most important consequence of that declaration, was 
to procure the full measure of fame to a learned 
theologue, who had “ earthed Mr Hume in the ob- 
scure “regions of philosophy where he lay rolled up 
in the scoria of dogmatist and sceptic, run down to- 
gether.”"* Its secondary, but not inconsiderable 


issue of such obstinacy. The business is to be unlike; and 

this he may very possibly be, but at the expence of graceful 

ease and true beauty. For he puts himself at best into a con- 

vulsed, unnatural state; and it is well if he be not forced be- 

side his purpose, to leave common sense, as well as his model, 

behind him.”—See the Discourse on Poetical Imitation, sec. 2. 
* See Remarks on Hume’s Essay, p. 99, 


382 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


praise, will be, to bring down upon our sophistical 
Letter-writer all that open and all that heavy dis- 
grace, which he has long deserved to suffer for his 
most unprovoked and unfounded invectives against 
two illustrious ornaments of learning and religion. 
To a compensation of some kind or other they are 
certainly entitled; and your Lordship, I trust, will 
concur with me in thinking, that the republication 
of the books written against them will more ef- 
fectually answer this honourable and necessary pur- 
pose than a direct argumentative defence, which, as 
the subjects are not exhausted in Jortin’s Note or 
Leland’s Pamphlet, I once intended to prepare for 
the press. It will shew by the brightest proofs, that 
Leland and Jortin scarcely need any elaborate justi- 
fication ; and that their antagonist, however plausible 
in his objections, or smart in his raillery, cannot, 
without the greatest difficulty, be justified by him- 
self or his admirers. 

I will not apologize to your Lordship for this 
seeming digression. It may recall to your memory 
the rapidity with which some readers will carry on 
their conclusions from specific to personal identity; 
and it may also exercise your sagacity, in tracing 
all the finer ties by which the contrast between 
the Bishop of L. and the Letter-writer is con- 
nected with the general and more obvious purpose 
of this Dedication. 

Pardon me, however, my Lord, if, as I advance 
towards the close, “I get on that seducing subject, 
the importance which every writer is of to himself, 
and which makes me imagine that perhaps you 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 383 


may be tempted to push your enquiries concerning 
me somewhat farther.” * 

Your critical writings, my Lord, have by few 
scholars been more frequently read, or more care- 
fully studied, than by myself. I have “paced it”-- 
like Homer’s mules,t with many a weary step, 
through the heights and the depths; the obliqui- 
ties and the asperities; the archaisms and the mo- 
dernisms; the strained analogies and the crooked 
anomalies; the rhetorical flourishes and the logical 
quaintnesses ; the colloquial familiarities, and the 
oracular solemnities, of your most elaborate and 
peerless style. To snatch so many varied graces 
was not beyond the reach of your Lordship’s art. 
But I had learned from the highest authority, that 
“the more generally the best models are under- 
stood, the greater danger there is of running into 
that worst of literary faults, affectation.” || This, 
my Lord, is one of the reasons which deterred me 
from every presumptuous attempt to imitate your 
diction: another was, the conscious disparity of my 
intellectual powers: and a third, not less efficacious 
than the rest, I shall, with the most painful reluct- 
ance, now reveal. Let my sincerity atone for my 


* Page 8, of the Remarks on Hume. 

+ See Letter to Leland. 

1 Πολλὰ δ᾽ ἄναντα, κάταντα, πάραντά τε δόχμια τ᾽ ἦλθον.---- 
lliad 23, 

§ These are the general characters of his Lordship’s style. 
But of the particular exceptions I have before spoken, in terms 
not merely of praise but of admiration. 

|| See Hurd's note on line 404 of Horace’s Art of Poetry. 


384 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


insensibility, when I confess to you that, often as I 
have read, and much as I may admire your learned 
researches, I seldom felt myself glow with that en- 
thusiastic fondness for my original, which is indis- 
pensably necessary to successful imitation. Des- 
pairing therefore, of my ability to accommodate the 
manner of this address to your Lordship’s refined 
taste, I console myself with reflecting, that, in the 
matter of it there is little which can give offence to 
your tenderest sensibilities. Yet, without aiming at 
“those master strokes which make the sovereign 
charm of your Lordship’s writings,’* I have, in one 
or two instances, endeavoured, at least, to avail my- 
self of a practice, in the illustration of which you 
have been the ablest, if not the first, critic in 
“ setting the judgment of the public right.” 

Thus, my Lord, in the essential qualities, whe- 
ther of close relation to the subjects of the pam- 
phlets now republished, or of indirect and skilful 
panegyric (whensoever I meant to be a panegyrist) 
upon the eminent personages to whom they are in- 
scribed, this Dedication, I hope, will not be defi- 
cient. One of those qualities is, indeed, so obvious 
as to require no elucidation from a commentary: 
and the other, if it be less prominent and _ less 
glaring, may yet be traced in the conformity of this 
address to the example of Horace, where he com- 
pliments the emperor, not, with vague and unap- 
propriate praise, but with such as springs up unex- 


* See the Conclusion of the Discourse on Poetical Imitation. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 385 


pectedly, and yet naturally, from the topics which 
he was treating. 

I know not, my Lord, to what extent you agree 
with the author of the seventh Dissertation, where 
he enumerates the most effectual methods of “ doing 
honour to a writer.”* But for your satisfaction, as 
well as for my own vindication, I will state the in- 
stances in which I have, and those in which I have 
not, complied with the rules which this supercilious 
dictator prescribes. “I have glanced at you.” “I have 
spared your arguments.” “I have called you learned.” 
Perhaps, my Lord, I have by accident “ quoted 
you.” Thus far, as you will easily believe, it has 
been my fate, or my endeavour, to do you honour. 
But, lest I should give offence by doing you too 
much, I have not “adopted your subject.” I have 
not “written against you,” I have not “lent you 
any of my own arguments.” I have not “ called 
your conjectures ingenious or learned.” I have not 
“called you my friend.” Shall I then congratulate 
my good fortune, or commend my judgment, in 
thus erring on the safer side? And may I hope to 
escape the severities of your Lordship’s displeasure, 


* See the Dissertation on the Delicacy of Friendship, to- 
wards the conclusion, 

The Leiter-writer and I differ a little in our numerical as 
well as moral calculations. He has set down eight articles, 
where, according to my way of counting, are nine. Thus, in 
the last, he lumps together the acts of “ calling a man learned,” 
and calling him your friend, under one article. I think it more 
accurate to represent them as two, and certainly it is more to 
my purpose to consider them apart. 

VOL, II. 2c 


386 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


when I have committed less than half of the of- 
fences imputed to Dr. Jortin? The last of those 
offences will, indeed, under no change of circum- 
stances, and through no length of time, be laid to 
my charge. I am too humble, my Lord, to accept 
what I do not merit, and too proud to claim for 
myself what I have never envied, when possessed 
by other men. Your Lordship, therefore, will, I 
am confident, give me credit, when I assure you 
that I never have been, and never shall be, an aspir- 
ant to that particular sort of distinction which is 
conferred by your friendship. Exempted as I thus 
am by my own habits and principles, by my esote- 
ric and exoteric tenets, from one of these crimes, it 
rests with your Lordship to guard me in future 
from four others which I have hitherto escaped. 
Let me, however, confess to your Lordship, that my 
innocence is not entirely safe, and that, in conse- 
quence of such provocations as a man of your dis- 
position may throw in my way, I may slide imper- 
ceptibly, or resolutely plunge, into a post of greater 
danger than that upon which I have now entered. 
In some moments, which I do not reckon amongst 
the weakest of my life, I have felt a pretty strong 
inclination to “adopt your subjects,” to “ write 
against you,” to “lend you some of my own argu- 
ments,” and “to call” a very few of “your conjec- 
tures ingenious, nay elegant.” Should this inclina- 
tion hereafter return, and should your Lordship 
compel me to indulge it, by sneering at what you 
will call the miserable trash,* and carping at what 


* This emphatical but indelicate name is, I am told, given 


———— — 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 387 


I shall myself call the wholesome truths contained 


by our Aristarchus to some of Dr. Priestley’s writings, which, 
together with the writings, probably, of some other Doctors, 
he turns over to Dr. B y, who, it should seem, is a spend- 
thrift of time, and a reader of all such trash. Now, I by no 
means assent to the opinions which Dr. Priestley has endea- 
voured to establish, in his History of the Corruptions of Chris- 
tianity. I reverence the talents, and applaud the exertions, of 
his great antagonists, Mr. Badcock, Bishop Horsley, and Mr. 
Howes. But, if it be really a waste of time for any dignified 
Theologue to peruse that History, what shall be said for the 
waste of strength in three such learned men as have been em- 
ployed in confuting it? My readers will pardon a few grave 
and trite, but pertinent and salutary reflections, which the sub- 
ject of this notice has extorted from me. Men of high station 
in the church, and of high reputation for knowledge, should 
be cautious in what terms, and before what hearers, they pass 
sentence upon books which they professedly do not deign to 
read. A specious criticism, begotten, it may be, by rashness 
upon prejudice, and fostered by vanity or ill-nature, as soon as 
it was produced—a random conjecture, suddenly struck out in 
the conflicts of literary conversation—a sprightly effusion of 
wit, forgotten perhaps by the speaker the moment after it was 
uttered—a sly and impertinent sneer, intended to convey more 
than was expressed, and more than could be proved, may have 
very injurious effects upon the reputation of a writer. I sus- 
pect, too, that these effects are sometimes designedly produced 
by critics, who, finding the easy reception given to their own 
opinions, prefer the pride of decision to the toil of enquiry. 
The remarks of such men are eagerly caught up by hearers 
who are incapable of forming for themselves a right judgment, 
or desirous of supporting an unfavourable judgment by the 
sanction of a great name. They are triumphantly repeated in 
promiscuous, and sometimes. I fear, even in literary assemblies, 
and, like other calumnies, during a long and irregular course 
they swell in bulk, without losing any portion of their original 
malignity. 


ΟΣ 


388 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


in this address, I shall again “glance at you,’ I 
shall again “quote you.” I shall again “ call you 
learned,” and, to make amends for the repetition of 
these heinous faults, I am resolved not again to 
“spare your arguments.” In this last and worst 
stage of degeneracy, which it is possible for me to 
reach, I shall have the satisfaction of knowing, that 
in my conduct towards your Lordship I must, in 
two instances, stand acquitted of that guilt which 
Dr. Jortin is said to have incurred by his treatment 
of Bishop Warburton. As a disputant, I shall not 
insult you with a disavowal of hostilities. As a 
critic, I shall not alarm you with a menace of 
friendship. 

Whatever “nonsensical scepticism,” some men 
may affect, as to the writer of these Letters, it is 
not the jargon of “ nonsensical dogmatism,’* to af- 
firm, that, if he be really a different person from the 
Remarker on Mr. Hume, he could not address them 
to any other prelate with so much propriety as to 
yourself. Similarity of studies, interests, and tem- 
per, must be ranked among the most powerful in- 
gredients of friendship ; and friendship, my Lord, as 
you experimentally know, performs its best and 
proudest services in the form of dedication. Yet 
there are occasions, like the present, on which truth 
may be spoken by a dedicator, though he do not as- 
pire to the more honourable appellation of a friend. 
I have already hinted to you, my Lord, that, neither 
in my estimation of books, nor in my attachments 


* See the Remarks on Hume's Essay, p. 99. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 389 


and aversions to men, I am happy enough to boast 
of such qualifications as might expose me to your 
Lordship’s regard in the latter character. But in 
discharging the duties of the former, my failure, if 
I should fail, is quite involuntary, and proceeds from 
the want of power rather than the want of inclina- 
tion, to perpetuate the remembrance of your exer- 
tions in defence of Bishop’ Warburton. 

Knowing, my Lord, the rooted antipathy which 
you bear to long epistolary introductions in classical 
writers, to long vernacular Sermons from Dr. Parr, 
and to long Latin Annotations from Philip D’Or- 
ville, I will take care, in the language of the War- 
burtonian school, not to stray beyond the limits of 
a just and legitimate dedication. The time of a 
Christian Bishop is, I am aware, not less precious 
than that of a heathen Emperor, and therefore I 
shall be cautious, like the Roman poet, not to 
waste it upon a longior Sermo,* than the subject 
indispensably requires. 


* The Commentator explains longo Sermone, ‘a long Intro- 
duction,” and in the close of his note he interweaves into the 
word Sermone the additional meaning of ‘familiar conversa- 
tion,” But to me, I confess, the word, as used here, suggests 
neither the one nor the other sense: and, even with the aid of 
the learned commentator, I am unable to see how, in one and 
the same place, it holds two meanings so very remote from 
each other. As to longo, the proper measure of it seems to me, 
not, as is commonly supposed, the length of any other Epistle 
compared with the length of this, nor yet, as the commentator 
supposes, the length of the Proem compared with the length of 
the Epistle, but, the length of the Epistle itself compared with 
the extent and magnitude of the subject. Sermo is used here 


390 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


Suffer me, however, before I enter upon my con- 
clusion, to recommend to your perusal a Greek 
quotation, which, I am persuaded, will not be less 
acceptable to you than it would have been to Dr. 
Jortin, because it has been “little blown upon.” 
My reasons for introducing it are plain, but weighty. 
If, with a becoming mixture of courage and ten- 
derness, your Lordship should vouchsafe to grant 
the patronage which I now ask in behalf of these 
friendless, these nameless, I will not say these 
graceless, babes, you may, without any imputation 
of arrogance, apply the first sentence to yourself. 
On the contrary, if, from motives which some men 
may impute to timidity, and others may charge 
with ingratitude, you should refuse that patronage, 
then, my Lord, every reader who remembers your 
connections with Bishop Warburton, your enco- 
miums upon him, and your obligations to him, will 
find himself compelled to make a very invidious 
application of the second. Καθάπερ τοὺς ἐξ αὐτῶν 
γενηθέντας, οἱ γενήσαντες, THY ὑποβαλλομένων μᾶλλον 
φιλοῦσιν, οὕτω καὶ οἱ εὕροντες τι τών μετεχόντων" ὥσπερ 
γὰρ ὑπὲρ τέκνων τούτων τῶν λόγων ὑπεραποτεθνήκασιν. 
Οἱ μὲν γὰρ Πάριοι λεγόμενοι σοφισταὶ, διὰ τὸ μὴ τεκεῖν 
αὐτοὶ, οὐ στέργουσιν, ἀλλὰ χρήματα λάβοντες, ἀποκη- 
ρύττουσι. 

“But to declare my intentions at parting.” Ἐ 


in the same sense which it bears in line 5, Carmen 8, lib. 3, of 
the Odes, where the close of Bentley’s Note may illustrate this 
disputed passage in the Epistle to Augustus. 

* See Note on line 417 of the Art of Poetry. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 391 


When the author of the seventh Dissertation, and 
the Letter to Dr. Leland, shall come forward into 
the view of the public, be assured, my Lord, that 
the writer of this Dedication will no longer stand 
upon the smallest reserve with your Lordship and 
your admirers. 

He is not an “answerer by profession,’* and, ex- 
cept in the vindication of the truly good, or truly 
great, he never was an assailant by choice. He 
knows, my Lord, and, knowing, he despises, the sor- 
did tribe of parasites who would bask in the sun- 
shine of your favour. He equally knows, and 
equally despises, all the shallow pretenders to criti- 
cism who implicitly repose on the authority of 
your decisions. Against these jackalls of literature, 
whose impertinence is of a piece with their impo- 
tence, he will not condescend to wage a puny and 
inglorious war : 

‘*¢ Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.” 
But to your Lordship, when you are pleased to 
summon him, “ he will think it worth his while to 
explain himself more particularly,” on the rectitude 
of his intentions, and the “justness of his asser- 
tions.” Prepared as he is to defend them against 
so unprejudiced and so powerful an antagonist, he 
anxiously wishes for an early opportunity of throw- 
ing off a disguise, from which even now, while he 
stoops to the necessity of wearing it, he scorns to 
seek protection. But the immediate addition of 


* See p. 4 of the Second Part of the Defence of the Divine 
Legation. 


392 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


his name, however it might flatter his own vanity, 
would neither conciliate your Lordship’s favour, 
nor gratify, to any useful purpose, the reader’s curi- 
osity. Suffice it then to say, that he, as a scho- 
Jar, has always surveyed your Lordship’s character, 
without the partiality of the Remarker, and with- 
out the malignity of the Letter-writer—that, as a 
philosopher, he has often found “occasion to cen- 
sure, where others admire”*—that, as a man, he 
long has thought, and ever will think of you, with a 
respect which falls somewhat short of idolatry, and 
with love, the “more perfect because it casteth out 
all fear.” 
I am, my Lord, 
your obedient servant, 


Tue Epiror. 
Oct. 25th, 1788. 


* See Remarks on Hume's Essay, p. 10. 


THE 


EDITOR’S PREFACE 


TO THE 


TWO TRACTS OF A WARBURTONIAN. 


Tue two following Tracts are supposed to be the 
productions of a great author: they are professedly 
drawn up in the defence of a greater; and they 
have, from their own intrinsic qualities, many strong 
claims to the notice of scholars. The letter to Dr. 
Leland is distinguished by a sort of sparkling viva- 
city and specious acuteness, which may, for a time, 
reconcile the reader to the want of solidity: and 
who will refuse the praise, at least of ingenuity, to 
the dissertation upon the delicacy of friendship ? 
Perhaps it is difficult to name a book where the de- 
fects of the cause are so abundantly supplied by the 
skill of the advocate, or where the barrenness of the 
subject is more successfully fertilized by the fancy 
of the writer. But these literary excellencies, how- 
ever extraordinary, and however indisputable, are 
not sufficient to atone for the moral imperfections 
which accompany them. 

If the reader should hastily take offence at the 
sudden re-appearance of two tracts, upon which the 
author himself ought to look back with some emo- 
tions of shame, let him seriously weigh the reasons 


394 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


for which they are, a second time, committed to the 
press. 

By the writer of these pamphlets the characters 
of two very learned and worthy men were attacked 
with most unprovoked and unprecedented viru- 
lence.* The attempt to stifle them is, however, a 
very obscure and equivocal mark of repentance in 
the offender. Public and deliberate was the in- 
sult, which he offered to the feelings of those whom 
he assailed, and therefore no compensation ought to 
be accepted which falls short of a direct and expli- 
cit retractation. 

The letter to Dr. Jortin might, indeed, by an ex- 
cess of candour, have been considered as the result 
of youthful ardour, when the judgment of the 


* The spirit of these two letters reminds me of a passage in 
Warburton’s Dedication to the Freethinkers, where he speaks 
of “ their buffooneries, which, like chewed bullets, are against 
the law of arms;” ‘ and of their scurrilities,” which he calls 
“‘ the stinkpots of their offensive war.” 

+ For every animadversion which I have made upon the Let- 
ter-writer, I have taken care to bring my vouchers with me in 
the letters themselves, which are set before the reader with 
their original stock of merit and demerit. To them I appeal 
for the justness of my indignation and the propriety of my cen- 
sures. I have not forgotten the sage remark, which Warburton 
quotes from a great ancient, ἄλλως τὶς περὶ ἀληθείας λέγει, ἣ 
ἀλήθεια ἑαυτὴν ἑρμηνεύει. See the Dedication, vol. i. of the 
Divine Legation, p. 24. With this caution before me, I have 
not intentionally misrepresented the Letter-writer’s motives, 
opinions, or words; and, at all events, I have left truth to speak 
for itself. 

+ I distrust the solidity of this excuse, even while I am 
writing it; for, if the author of the Dissertation upon the Deli- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 395 


writer was not matured; when his opinions of 

books and men were not settled; when his imagi- 

nation was strongly impressed by the imposing 

splendour of Warburton’s talents, and his vanity 

gratified by the flattering hope of Warburton’s pro- 

tection. . 
Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici. 

But the interval between the two pamphlets—an 
interval of nearly ten years — left, one would have 
imagined, room enough for the author to correct his 
partialities, to soften his aversions, and to reflect 
again and again upon all that might be blameable 
in his motives, and all that had been injurious in 
the consequences of his first intemperate and inde- 
corous publication. 

Had his “noble passion for mischief been con- 
tent with”* the seventh Dissertation addressed to Dr. 
Jortin, I should have given him all due praise for 
the glitter of his wit and the gaudiness of his elo- 
quence; and, at the same time, I should have 
laughed “at the pretensions of the book to reason- 
ing and fact-~ as a mere flam, and not containing 
one word of truth from the beginning to the end.” 
But when the same offensive spirit of contempt is, 
for the same unwarrantable purpose of degradation, 


cacy of Friendship had reached his fortieth year, my plea is 
much weakened, and the word ‘ youthful” can scarcely be jus- 
tified, unless by a reference to the Roman lawyers, who some- 
times extended the application of juventa to the forty-fifth, 
and even fiftieth year. See Taylor's Civil Law, under the arti- 
cle “age,” p. 254. 

* See Remarks on Hume’s Essay, p. 72. { Ibid. p. 64. 


396 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


transferred from the writings of Dr. Jortin to those 
of Dr. Leland, I “see what the man would be at 
through all his disguises.”* I see a very decisive 
proof, that the temper of the writer was not melio- 
rated by time, by experience, by self-examination, 
or self-respect. I feel, at the same time, the most 
just and cogent reasons for laying him open to that 
ignominy, from which cowardice, indeed, may have 
tempted him to fly, but which he has not hitherto 
endeavoured to avert by apology or reformation. 
The indelicacies of enmity are not always justified 
by the zeal of friendship. The “immunities”-+ (as 
Johnson calls them) of “ invisibility ” cannot, in all 
cases, be employed to stifle the curiosity of the 
learned, or to avert the decision of the impartial. 
They may, indeed, screen the name of an author 
from the detection which he dreads ; but they must 
not be permitted to shelter his publications from 
the reproach which they deserve. 

Jortin and Leland now repose in the sanctuary of 
the grave, and are placed beyond the reach of human 
praise and human censure.t Beit so. But there 


* See Remarks on Hume’s Essay, p. 61. 

+ See Johnson’s Political Tracts, p. 121. 

t This is not mere conjecture. I have heard the Seventh 
Dissertation commended by persons who differed, as many other 
excellent men do, from the opinions which Dr, Jortin was sus- 
pected of holding upon some controverted points of religion, 
The learning and the judgment of those persons were not a 
match for their prejudices. They neither had, nor profess to 
have, any partiality for Warburton. But their dislike of Jortin 
was so strong, that they were pleased with any attack which, 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 397 


was a time, when enemies, such as the unfettered 
opinions of one, and the shining talents of both, 
were sure to provoke, found a momentary gratifica- 
tion even from such charges as the Letter-writer ven- 
tured to allege. There was a time when those 
charges might have clogged their professional inte- 
rests, and certainly did disturb the tranquillity of 
their minds. Yet, while they were living, no balm 
was poured into their wounded spirits by the hand 
that pierced them; and, if their characters after 
death remain unimpaired by the rude shocks of con- 
troversy, and the secret mines of slander, their tri- 
umph is to be ascribed partly to their own strength, 
and partly to the conscious weakness of their anta- 
gonist, rather than to his love of justice, or his love 
of peace. That antagonist, too, is, perhaps, still 
alive, and still finds his admirers among those who, 
themselves panting after greatness, are careful to 
utter only smooth things concerning the faults of 


according to their estimation, tended in any degree to expose 
his possible failings, and to lessen his growing reputation. The 
number of such admirers is, however, not very considerable, 
and.I am sure that the persons to whom I allude would have 
been unwilling to write against Dr. Jortin with the bitterness of 
which they seemed to approve in his supposed antagonist, who 
was then beginning to climb fast to fame, riches, and honour— 
to fame, let me acknowledge, which, by several of his writings, 
he has acquired deservedly—to riches, which he is said to dis- 
pense with elegant munificence—and to honours, which he, in 
some respects, is qualified to support with great dignity. My 
present concern with him takes its rise from faults, to which his 
reputation and his rank must unavoidably give more pee 
more extensive, and more dangerous effect. 


398 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


the great. But his silence has not yet been repre- 
sented even by his friends as the effect of contrition. 
His pen has not been employed in any subsequent 
publication to commend two writers, against whom 
he had formerly brandished such censures, as, ac- 
cording to his own estimation and his own wishes, 
were “aculeate and proper.”** His example, and 
this is the worst of all—his example, I say, is at 
hand to encourage any future adventurer, who may 
first be disposed to attack the best books and the 
best men; and afterwards, when the real merits of 
the dispute, or the real character of his opponents, 
are known, may contrive to let his mischievous ca- 
vils quietly sink into oblivion, to skulk, as softly as 
he can, from detection and disgrace, nay, to set up 
serious pretensions to candour as a writer, to de- 
cency as an ecclesiastic, and meekness as a Chris- 


tian.f 


* See Bacon’s Essay fifty-seventh. 

+ I shall not be surprised at any offence which the seeming 
severity of this passage may give to the very same persons who 
would pardon, and even commend, the Letter-writer to Dr. 
Jortin, for his endeavours to be far more severe. To such ob- 
jections it were vain to oppose argument or fact. But, for the 
satisfaction of more intelligent and impartial readers, I shall 
produce part of a passage from Erasmus, in which he defends 
the avowed severity of Laurentius Valla against the treacherous 
candour and galling obloquy of Poggius. Videbat L. V. tam 
inveteratum morbum non posse sanari, nisi tristibus pharmacis, 
usturis ac sectionibus, idque magno cum dolore plurimorum, 
Neque vir acutus nesciebat, adeo delicatas esse mortalium au- 
res, ut vix etiam inter bonos viros invenias, qui verum libenter 
audiat, foretque, ut non ii tantum exclamarent, quorum ulcera 
tetigisset, verum etiam illi, qui ex alieno malo sibi metum fin- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 399 


As some of the parties are dead, and as the con- 
troversies in which they were engaged have ceased 
to agitate the passions of men, this re-publication 
has not the smallest tendency to “ sow strife” * 
among scholars. But it may prevent, and certainly 
it is intended to prevent them, from scattering the 
seeds of discord with wanton cruelty. It may de- 
ter, and certainly it is intended to deter them, from 
indulging any mean expectation, that a calumniator 
can derive security from the very failure of his 
calumnies, or, that what he has repeatedly and deli- 
berately done in secret will not, sooner or later, be 
punished openly. It may lessen, and certainly it is 
intended to “lessen,-~ the number of those,” who 
speak too well of a man, by whom Warburton was 
most extravagantly flattered, Leland most petulantly 
insulted, and Jortin most inhumanly vilified. And 
here I cannot hesitate to break in upon my English 
text with a quotation, which may properly be trans- 
ferred from the general duties of society to the obli- 
gations which lie upon men of letters to support 
each other under unmerited attacks, and to preserve 
their common rights against the most provoking 


gerent. Tum post interposita pauca: Poggius, ut homo can- 
didus scilicet, sine invidia passim habetur in manibus, lectitatur, 
Laurentius laborat invidia mordacitatis.—Erasmus in Epist. ad 
Christoph. Fischerum preefixa Valle libris de collatione N. T. 
I met the foregoing passage in page 74 of Peter Wesseling’s 
Dissertatio Herodotea, and have omitted what was foreign to 
my purpose. 

* See Lowth’s Letter, quoted among the Testimonia Auc- 
torum. , 

+ See the abovementioned letter. 


400 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


mockeries of contempt, the most paltry tricks of 
encroachment, and the most outrageous violences of 
invasion. 

Εἴπερ τὸν ἀδικοῦντ᾽ ἀσμένως ἠμύνετο 

Ἕκαστος ἡμῶν; καὶ συνηγωνίξετο, 

Ἴσως νομίξων ἴδιον εἶναι τὸ γεγονὸς 

"Adixnpa, καὶ συνέπραττον ἀλλήλοις πικρῶς" 

Οὐκ ἂν ἐπὶ πλεῖον τὸ κακὸν ἡμῖν ἠύξετ' 

Τὸ τῶν πονηρῶν, ἀλλὰ παρατηρούμενοι, 

Καὶ τυγχάνοντες ἧς ἔδει τιμωρίας, 

Ἤτοι σπάνιοι σφόδρ᾽ αν ἦσαν, ἢ πεπαυμένοι. 

Menand. in Fratribus ex emendat. Bentl. 
Animated by the strong indignation which throbs 

within my bosom at the foul arts of detraction so 
often practised by men of letters, I disdain either to 
crouch under the mandates, or to shrink from the 
frowns, of the Letter-writer on the Delicacy of 
Friendship. Yet, I should be sorry to find my opi- 
nions of Warburton misconceived by those who are 
incapable of misrepresenting them deliberately ; and 
I am aware too, that they lie open to some miscon- 
ception, from the comparative view which I have 
taken of that very able prelate and his celebrated 
adherent* in the foregoing Dedication. For these 


* Though my doubts were not always vanquished by the 
Bishop’s arguments, though I sometimes smiled at his whimsi- 
cal theories, and sometimes ventured to scowl at his violent in- 
vectives, yet I have often applied to the Divine Legation the 
candid and judicious language which Aristotle uses in the very 
book where he confutes some of the opinions imputed to Socra- 
tes by Plato: τὸ μὲν οὖν περιττὸν ἔχουσι πώντες οἱ τοῦ Σωκράτους 
λόγοι, καὶ τὸ κομψὸν, καὶ τὸ καινότομον; καὶ τὸ Ξητητικὸν᾽ καλῶς 
δὲ πάντα ἵσως yadXewov.—Repub. lib, ii. cap. 6. 

+ Upon the dignity of dedication-writing, I do not expect to 


‘WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 401 


-reasons I shall endeavour to explain myself in such 
a manner as to remove every scruple, and obviate 
every objection. 


hear any saucy reflections from the Warburtonians, because 
Warburton himself is known to have written dedications often, 
and to have written them well. If they think preface-writing a 
degrading employment in him who has not written the book 
which accompnnies it, let me refer them to Johnson’s preface 
to the Preceptor—to the prefaces written by Casaubon, Bur- 
man, Ernestus, Rhunkenius, and other scholars; and, if the 
practice of the oi πάνυ will not rescue preface-writing from the 
contempt of the Warburtonians, I must take the farther liberty 
to remind them of Bp. Warburton’s preface to the first edition 
of Richardson's Clarissa—of Do’s preface to Shakspeare’s Plays 
—of Do’s Preface to Mrs. Cockburn’s Confutation of Ruther- 
forth’s Essay on Virtue—of Do’s preface to the Candid Exami- 
nation of Bp. Sherlock’s Sermons—of Do's preface to Town’s 

Critical Enquiry into the Opinions of the Antient Philosophers 
concerning the Nature of the Soul and a Future State, and 
their Method of the double Doctrine. I have myself read an 
ingenious preface to some select Poems of Cowley: I have 
heard of a pedantic thing called a preface to one Bellenden; 
and, indeed, it is no less usual for prefaces, or ‘‘ discourses to 
that effect,” to be prepared by editors than by authors, whether 
the authors themselves be living or dead—whether they be 
modern or antient—whether their works be of a sombrous or 
airy cast—whether (if we may argue from the example of War- 
burton) they be ranked in the class of sentimental novels, of 
dramatic writings, of ethical disquisitions, of theological con- 
troversies, or metaphysical investigations. Thus much I have 
said concerning the art itself. The merits of those who culti- 
vate it are, it is true, very different. But even as a voluntary 
and disinterested act of drudgery performed by me, it may find 
a pittance of praise, not more scanty than that which has been 
earned by certain acts of vassalage, upon which some followers 
of Warburton have rested the tenure of their controversial 
fame. 


VOL. Il. 2D 


402 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


What I have written about Warburton was sug- 
gested to me by a frequent, but unprejudiced peru- 
sal, and by a fond, though not undistinguishing ap- 
probation, of his works. I read them in the earliest 
and the happiest stages of my literary pursuits. 
They captivated my imagination—they exercised 
my reason—they directed my attention towards the 
most important topics, and they sent out my curio- 
sity in quest of the most useful knowledge. The 
impressions made upon my mind by such a writer 
were strong and deep. After committing my 
thoughts lately to paper, I looked back to the de- 
scription which Dr. Johnson had given of Dr. War- 
burton, in his elaborate preface to Shakspeare, and 
in his masterly Life of Pope. ‘With satisfaction, 
and, indeed, with triumph, I found many of my opi- 
nions anticipated, and many confirmed. Johnson 
saw, as well as I do, his acute penetration, his vari- 
ous erudition, the inexhaustible fertility of his fancy, 
and the invincible fortitude of his spirit. He also 
saw, what I have myself without reserve and with- 
out apology condemned, the coarseness of his in- 
vectives, the wildness of his theories, and the defects 
of his style. 

The indignation of all scholars has, I know, been 
long and justly armed against that contemptuous 
and domineering spirit which breaks out in War- 
burton’s controversial writings, and which his ad- 
mirers, instead of deploring, have been eager to 
defend and to imitate. Be it however remembered, 
that in pleading the cause of kindred genius, he 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 403 


sometimes pours out his commendations with a 
frankness, ardour, and authority, which even his 
bitterest enemies cannot but acknowledge and ad- 
mire. Of this kind are, his generous apology for 
the paradoxes of Bayle, his eloquent encomiums on 
the sagacity and learning of Cudworth, and his no- 
ble tribute of affection to the memory of a most 
dear and illustrious friend, Francis Hare, Bishop of 
Chichester. He that can read such passages with- 
out rapture, should suspect the sincerity of his own 
benevolence—he that speaks of them without ap- 
probation, must renounce his pretensions to impar- 
tiality of taste, to exactness of discrimination or 
delicacy of feeling. 

If learned men wish to judge of Warburton, 
either with the accuracy which is due to the “ am- 
plitude of his mind” and the dignity of his cha- 
racter, or with the candour which cannot surely be 
refused to so many failings when accompanied by so 
many perfections, they would do well to examine 
the portrait which Warburton has virtually drawn 
of himself in his own writings, where it is well 
known that his head was never employed either to 
control or to disguise the violent emotions of his 
heart. In the opinion of such enquirers Warbur- 
ton will either stand or fall upon the most fair and 
honourable conditions. He will not be exalted, 
perhaps, by the exuberant and courtly compliments 
of the author of the Estimate, nor by the more 
stately and solemn decisions of the commentator 
upon Horace : but he certainly will not be degraded 

2pn2 


404 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


by the keen raillery of Mr. Edwards, nor the rough 
reproaches of a far more powerful and far more re- 
spectable writer, whom I wish to remember under 
every other name than as the popular, for I cannot 
add, the victorious, adversary of Bp. Warburton. 
Few men have made a more conspicuous figure 
than Warburton, upon the great theatre of learn- 
ing. Few have been engaged in more bustling and 
splendid scenes. Few have sustained more difficult 
or more interesting characters. It is therefore to be 
lamented, that the public have not yet been favoured 
with a regular and impartial account * of his pro- 
gress in knowledge; of his advancement in the 
church; of the embarrassments with which he 


* «T believe (to adopt the words of Milton in his Treatise 
on Education) that the life of Warburton is not a bow, in which 
every man can shoot who counts himself a biographer, but will 
require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulys- 
ses: yet I am withal persuaded that,” in certain hands, “ it 
may prove much more easy in the assay than is now seen at 
distance, and much more illustrious.” 

No man living is, in my opinion, more able than Dr. Balguy 
to unfold with precision the character of Bp. Warburton, or to 
state with impartiality the merits of those controversies in 
which he was engaged. But bodily infirmities have already 
deprived the English Church of this great and good man’s 
protection as a prelate, who would have been vigilant without 
officiousness, firm without obstinacy, and pious without super- 
stition. The same unhappy and unalterable cause will, I fear, 
deprive posterity also of that instruction which, as a biographer 
of Warburton, he was qualified to convey, by solid learning, 
by an erect and manly spirit, by habits of the most exact and 
enlarged thinking, and by a style which is equally pure, ele- 
gant, and nervous. The history of those who defended, and 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 405 


struggled, and over which he triumphed: of the 
connections which he formed: of the provocations 
by which he was harassed; and especially of the 
opinions which in the cooler and more serious 
reflections of his old age, he really entertained of all 
his own hardier exertions made in the vigour of his 
youth. But, whatever materials for the history of 
his life may be in the hands of his executors, 
and whatever may be the abilities of those who 
shall have the courage to use them, his character 
will never be drawn with more justness of de- 
sign, or more strength of colouring, than have 
already been employed by the great biographer of 
the English poets. 

The dawn of Warburton’s fame was overspread 
with many clouds, which the native force of his 
mind quickly dispelled. Soon after his emersion 
from them, he was honoured by the friendship of 
Pope, and the enmity of Bolingbroke. In the ful- 
ness of his meridian glory, he was caressed by Lord 
Hardwick and Lord Mansfield; and his setting 
lustre was viewed with nobler feelings than those of 
mere forgiveness, by the amiable and venerable 
Dr. Lowth. Hallifax revered him, Balguy loved 
him, and, in two immortal works, Johnson has 
stood forth in the foremost rank of his admirers. 


those who opposed Warburton, would in the hands of so con- 
summate an artist, have been a most instructive and interesting 
work, not unworthy of being called in Cicero’s language a 
πεπλογραφια Varronis. Vid. Ep. ad Att, lib. xvi. ep. 11. 


406 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must 
be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. 
Of literary merit, Johnson as we all know, was a 
sagacious , but a most severe judge. Such was 
his discernment, that he pierced into the most 
secret springs of human actions, and such was his 
integrity, that he always weighed the moral charac- 
ters of his fellow creatures in the “ balance of the 
sanctuary.” He was too courageous to propitiate a 
rival, and too proud to truckle to a superior. War- 
burton he knew, as I know him, and as every man 
of sense and virtue would wish to be known—I 
mean both from his own writings, and from the 
writings of those who dissented from his principles, 
or who envied his reputation. But as to favours, 
he had never received or asked any from the Bishop 
of Gloucester; and if my memory fails me not, he 
had seen him only once, when they met almost 
without design, conversed without much effort, and 
parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or 
affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetic 
genius, Johnson has done that spontaneously and 
ably, which by some writers had been before at- 
tempted injudiciously, and which by others, from 
whom more successful attempts might have been 
expected, has not hitherto been done at all. He 
spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those 
whom Warburton despised. He suppressed not the 
imperfections of this extraordinary man, while he 
endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and 
transcendental excellencies. He defended him when 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 407 


living amidst the clamours of his enemies, and 
praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his 
friends. * 


* The only exception (if it be one) to the silence of 
Warburton’s friends, is the inscription upon his monument, 
erected in Gloucester cathedral. That inscription does not 
aim at the simplicity of an ancient, or the splendour of a 
modern epitaph. It is neither energetic from conciseness, nor 
dignified from amplification. It is tamely correct, coldly com- 
plimentary, and at the same time, totally destitute of those 
marked and appropriate commendations, for which the peculiar 
opinions and most wonderful talents of Dr. W. might have sup- 
plied very copious materials to his once zealous panegyrists. 

In that excellent repository of various and useful knowledge 
the Gentleman’s Magazine, there is a just and elegant critique 
on the writings of Warburton in page 340 of the volume 
for the year 1779. Some curious and interesting memoirs of 
his life are to be found in page 357, and 474, in the volume for 
1780. 

The reader will thank me for producing the following 
passage, which does honour to the judgment and sensibility of 
the writer. 

«His publications were numerous, and, from the applause they 
obtained, they seem to promise a celebrity of greater length of 
time than they have experienced. But his renown vanished, as 
soon as his infirmities secluded him from the world, and it 
would be difficult to point out a single compliment paid to him, 
or his writings, since the time that he ceased to write. He even 
wanted a friend to pay a decent tribute to his memory in the 
fugitive publications of the day, the literary portrait excepted, 
which was in our Magazine for 1779.” But the Editor candidly 
subjoins in a note the following acknowledgment : 

«¢ Amongst other channels of information it would be illiberal 
not to mention that we are very materially indebted to the 
Anecdotes of Bishop. Warburton, which have appeared in 
the Westminster Magazine.” 


408 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


I have stated these facts, not from any abject 
view of palliating the censures which I may have 


In the Westminster Magazine for October, November, De- 
cember, 1779, and in the Appendix for the same year, I have 
myself lately met with some biographical and literary anecdotes 
of Dr. Warburton, which for accuracy of detail, and justness of 
observation, deserve the attention and the thanks of every 
scholar. I need not make any apology for the following quota- 
tions : 

“Α relaxation of mind so far pervades the whole body of the 
people, that the great writers of this nation, who used to be 
studied with the utmost diligence, are now totally disregarded.” 

* * * ¥ * 

“In this general neglect, it will not be surprizing to find, 
that a writer of great renown in this day should live to see him- 
self only on the level with common men, and his writings 
mouldering in the warehouses of his bookseller. Through the 
object of fulsome adulation while his faculties were unimpaired, 
he lived several years longer than his fame ; and when he died, 
though many of his flatterers remained, and some who 
were under great obligations to him, yet not one of them 
had gratitude enough to pay the slightest tribute to his memory. 
To the disgrace of his literary connection, he sunk silently into 
the grave, unnoticed and unlamented.”—See W. M. for 1779, 
page 500. 

“In his works he exhibited great strokes of an original and 
powerful genius, much reading with a nervous but not a polished 
style. At his outset in life he was suspected of being inclined 
to infidelity, and it was not until many years had elapsed, that 
the orthodoxy of his opinions was generally assented to. His 
publications, from the present accounts, will appear to have 
been very numerous, and from the flatteries of his friends they 
seemed to promise a celebrity of greater length of time than 
they have experienced. If it was not for his connection 
with Mr. Pope, he would be im danger of being lost as a 
writer in a few years His renown vanished as soon as his in- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 409 


passed upon Warburton’s failings, nor yet from any 
vain confidence in my abilities to exalt his charac- 
ter, but in obedience to the warm and _ honest 
dictates of my own mind—of a mind, which he has 
often enlightened, often enchanted, and, in some 
degree, I would hope, improved. 


His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani 
Munere. 


firmities secluded him from the world ; and with his abilities the 
sycophants who surrounded him also took their flight. It would 
be difficult to point out a single compliment paid to him, or his 
writings, since the time that he ceased to write: a plain proof 
that he held those who professed themselves to be his friends, 
not by the ties of affection or esteem, but by fear.”—See W. M. 
for 1779, 663. 

Why Dr. Warburton was ever suspected even of secret infi- 
delity Iknow not. But I am persuaded that his writings were 
sincerely intended to establish the truth of Christianity, and 
that many of them are worthy of the great and good cause 
in which they were honourably employed. What he was 
inclined to think upon subjects of religion, before perhaps he 
had either leisure or ability to examine them, depends only 
upon obscure surmise or vague report. But we have the stub- 
born evidence of facts to ascertain what he really did think, 
after he had searched and believed. As to the charge of 
heterodoxy, I shall leave his R. R. biographer to admit or 
to confute it, as he may find himself able. But the accusation 
of Deism, which has more than once been brought against 
his writings, is too wicked to escape without some mark of re- 
probation, and too weak to deserve a serious and formal reply. 
It was malignantly broached at first by an English dunce, 
whose blunders and calumnies are now happily forgotten. It 
afterwards was petulantly repeated by a French buffoon, whose 
morality is not commensurate with his wit, and many of whose 
assertions inhistory and biography every man of sense reads with 
distrust, and sometimes with contempt. 


410 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


From what Johnson and I have said in favour of 
Warburton, there is an easy and natural transition 
to what his professed biographers may intend to 
say. A costly and splendid edition of Warburton’s 
works was published in the spring of 1788, and 
prefixed to it as an advertisement, which cannot, I 
think, be quite satisfactory to his admirers, and 
which must be alarming to such of his opponents as 
may now be living. It runs thus :—“ The reader 
will expect some account of the life, writings, 
and character of the author to be prefixed to this 
complete edition of his works: he is_ therefore 
informed, that a discourse to that effect hath been 
prepared and will be published, but not now, for 
reasons that will be seen hereafter.” We are then 
told, that “purchasers, upon producing tickets which 
are to be delivered to them by the bookseller, will 
be furnished with the life.” To this consolatory 
promise is subjoined a very accurate but jejune 
account of the works inserted in the present edition, 
and “for the rest the reader is referred to the 
author’s life at large.” 

Now I confess there is something very mysteri- 
ous to my mind, both in the small number* of 
copies lately published, and in the temporary delay 


* Tam told that only 250 copies were printed: I ought, however, 
to add that, for the sake of those who had purchased the former 
editions of Warburton’s Works, a separate volume has been pub- 
lished containing the additional matter. But if a new and ex- 
pensive edition of the whole was at all necessary, I think it dif- 
ficult to account for the choice of so small a number as that 


above-mentioned. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 417} 


of the Life—a number which seems to insinuate, 
either that Warburton’s writings were too excellent 
for the gross taste of the public, or that the public 
had shewn some inauspicious symptoms of indiffer- 
ence about Warburton’s writings—a delay which 
not only thwarts the acknowledged expectation of 
the reader, but which the editor, it should seem, 
assumes a right of extending to as long a time, as 
he shall think proper. From the cautious and enig- 
matical manner, too, in which the advertisement is 
drawn up, it may be rather difficult to determine 
positively by whom that “ discourse hath been pre- 
pared.” The editor certainly has seen it: he pro- 
bably is in possession of it. He has reasons for 
holding it back now—and he promises to publish, 
or to let it be published hereafter. But whether 
it be written, as Aristotle would say, by a Socrates 
or a Callias,* is left in some uncertainty. A sore 
and captious objector might here say, that if it be 
tainted with the genuine spirit of the Warburtonian 
School, the publication of it may very properly be 
deferred ad Grecas Calendas. He might insinuate, 
that the editor knows best how far the reputation 
of the biographer himself may be staked in the ac- 
count which he has given of Warburton, and that 
possibly he, for many reasons, thinks it safer to dis- 


* The learned reader need not be informed of the manner in 
which Aristotle sometimes uses the names of Socrates, Callias, 
Coriscus and Cleon. Vide Arist. Rhet. lib. ii. cap. 4, Eudem. 
lib. ii. cap. 2, Metaphysic. lib. i. cap. 1 and 7, lib. v. cap. 6, 
lib vii. cap. 8, 11, 15, lib, xiv. cap. 3, Sophist. Elench, cap. 5, 
14, 17, 22, 32. 


412 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


appoint, for a time, the curiosity of his readers, than 
to appeal precipitately to their justice, or to en- 
counter their indignation. He might add, that a 
discourse which professes to convey a fair, exact, 
and enlarged view of the life, writings, and charac- 
ter of Warburton, is a most arduous and a most 
perilous undertaking: that it requires not merely 
the ordinary decorations of learning, or the ordinary 
arts of reasoning, but a judgment most impartial, 
and a spirit most collected and most intrepid; and 
that in feeble or treacherous hands, it will conciliate 
few friends, and provoke many enemies. 


incedit per ignes 
Suppositos cineri doloso, 


In me, however, who have not been initiated 
either into the greater or the lesser mysteries of 
the Warburtonians, it might be thought presumptu- 
ous to draw aside one corner of the veil from those 
subjects which our great Hierophant has, for the 
present, so industriously and skilfully muffled up 
in secrecy. I will not, therefore profess, like some 
critics, to reveal * what I never knew, nor will I 


* The Bishop's representation of the greater and lesser mys- 
teries was examined with great accuracy and opposed with 
great candour by the learned Dr. John Leland, in the eighth 
and ninth chapters, part the first, of his work upon the advan- 
tage and necessity of the Christian Revelation. I have read 
with much pleasure, and very little conviction, “ a Dissertation 
on the Mysteries, wherein the opinions of Bishop Warburton 
and Dr. Leland are particularly considered.” It was published 
without a name in 1766; it was intended as an answer to Le- 
land, the first edition of whose work came out in 1764; and it 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 413 


filch,* or even borrow, any sordid ingots of erudition 
from other writers, to spread them in a thin and 
glittering surface over my own ignorance. I will 
forbear, with a kind of religious horror, from at- 
tempting to conjecture what the reasons of the edi- 
tor are. But for the honour of a man whose deli- 
cacies both in friendship and enmity are equally well 
known, I will take the liberty of informing the 
readers of Warburton, what those reasons are not 
—they are not reasons of fear in the R. R. Edi- 
tor, either from the cavils of the illiterate and pre- 
judiced, whom a writer of his great abilities, great 
reputation, and great rank, may with impunity 
despise, or from the objections of the wise and 
good, whom (as the race of them, I hope, will not 
speedily be extinct), the discourse, which is not 
unlikely to displease them now, cannot be very 


has been ascribed, not improbably, to the candid examiner of 
Sherlock’s Discourses. Συγέσει μὲν yap καὶ ἀγχινοίᾳ, καὶ δρι- 
μύτητι, πάμπολυ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἀπὸ Βαρβουρτώνου διέφερε.---- 
Vide Lucian, op. tom. ii, p. 210, edit. Reitz. 

* The greater part of Warburton’s quotations about the 
mysteries may be found in Meursius’s Eleusis. I forget whe- 
ther the Bishop makes a direct acknowledgment of his obliga- 
tions to this diligent, learned, and judicious collector. I say 
learned and judicious, as well as diligent, in opposition to that 
spirit of the Warburtonians which induces one of them to call 
the Author of the Credibility of the Gospel History, << the la- 
borious Dr. Lardner ;” and another, to nick-name Mr. Hume’s 
History of England the “most readable history we have.” 
The disciples of this school generally dispense their praise with 
a discretion which prevents its being exhausted by their occa- 
sional prodigality. To the profane, σπείρουσι χειρὶ, but to the 
initiated, ὅλῳ τῷ θυλάκῳ. 


414 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


likely to satisfy hereafter—they are not reasons of 
uncommon candour or common justice to the sur- 
viving opponents of Bishop Warburton: for as the 
discourse, let it contain what it will, must be pro- 
duced at last, they would rather, doubtless, meet an 
attack which they may hope to repel while they are 
living, than be exposed after their death to repre- 
sentations of facts and opinions which, if they were 
quite fair and quite inoffensive, would probably not 
for a moment be suppressed—they are not reasons 
of tenderness to the biographer himself: for the 
editor, * undoubtedly, will never publish, or be con- 
cerned in publishing, what, after long delay and 
much correction, he does not approve; and as to 
the biographer, he, I should hope, has not ven- 
tured, like the author of the seventh Dissertation, 
to “ prepare a Discourse” which he is unwilling to 
avow or unable to defend. Παθών δέ re νήπιος ἔγνω. 

When the work of a great writer is long kept 
back from the eye of the public, we are to conclude, 
not that his whole time is laid out upon it, but that 
he at intervals retrenches or adds to the matter, and 
corrects or polishes the style, as different opportu- 


* I suspect that the editor is not a different person from the 
biographer ; but I will not hazard any assertion upon the sub- 
ject, lest I should be caught in the toils which some men may 
spread for a conclusion not directly warranted by their own 
premises. I have sometimes thought that in weightier matters 
the Warburtonians are too much addicted to a practice which 
their master condemns in Bayle and in Plutarch. They “ leave 
their propositions in that convenient state uf ambiguity which 
is necessary to give a paradox the air and reputation of an 
oracle.”°"—See book iii. sect. 6, of the D. L. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 415 


nities may arise, different circumstances may re- 
quire, or different states of his own mind may dic- 
tate amendment or alteration. We may therefore 
expect to see the Life of Warburton wrought up to 
the highest degree of perfection. which the united 
force of taste, diligence, and discretion in the bio- 
grapher can attain. 

Warburton paid the last awful debt of nature in 
June 1779. If then we suppose some rude out- 
lines of his character to have been sketched out 
soon after the event, when the thoughts of his friends 
must have been naturally turned towards his attain- 
ments, his virtues, and his death, the time expended 
upon this piece of biographical painting already in- 
cludes the nine years employed upon a less impor- 
tant work to which Horace pertinently alludes, and 
which Catullus expressly names.* 

Should the artist detain a little longer his favour- 
ite picture,} that it may receive fresh touches 
and retouches, as either his judgment, or his hopes 
or his fears may suggest; that in one place the 
light may be heightened, and the shade darkened 
in another; that some characters may be brought 
more conspicuously into the foreground, and others 


* Vid. Horat. de Ar. Poet. 1. 388, et Catull. de Smyrna Cinne 
Poetz, lin. 1 et 2. 
_ + 1 would recommend it to the biographer to consider what 
Eunapius says of the life of Alypius writen by Iamblichus, 
Ἔοικεν 6 θαυμάσιος Τάμβλιχος ταυτὸν πεπονθέναι τοῖς γραφικοῖς, 
ot τοὺς ἐν ὥρᾳ γράφοντες, ὅταν χαρίσασθαι τι παρ᾽ ἑαυτῶν εἰς τὴν 
γραφὴν βουληθῶσι, τὸ πᾶν εἶδος τῆς ὁμοιώσεως διαφθείρουσιν, 
ὥστε ἅματε τοῦ παραδέιγματος ἡμαρτηκέναι καὶ τοῦ κάλλου-. --- 


Eunap. in Vit. Iamblich. p. 51. edit. Antverp. 


416 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


thrown back so as to be less distinctly seen, the life 
of Warburton will furnish the English language 
with a proverbial expression not less emphatical 
than the Latin poem of Cinna, and the Greek pane- 
gyric of Isocrates. 

It may be worth while to observe, that this last 
edition of Warburton’s works is called complete, 
though neither the enquiry into prodigies, nor the 
translations are contained in it. No reason is as- 
signed by the R. R. Editor for omitting them—no 
notice is taken that they ever were published by 
Warburton—no intimation is given that his Editor 
intendsto publish them hereafter. Butthis unexpected, 
and I hope not unwelcome republication, will perhaps 
induce him * to “ prepare a discourse to that effect.” 


* Lowth, in his letter to Warburton, enumerates the different 
‘kinds of correction, which he inflicted or caused to be inflicted 
upon his answerers. Now the worst that can be done in this 
way by the ““ beadle” of a beadle is below contempt. But as 
the present editor, and in truth restorer of the bishop’s two neg- 
lected tracts cannot aspire like Bishop Lowth, to the solemni- 
ties of a regular execution upon a scaffold, he will be doomed, 
probably, to be thrust down into some dungeon of a note, and to 
be stretched upon the rack of cavil and misrepresentation by his 
ingenious tormentor. Be itso. He knows (as Cicero says of 
Hortensius in Divinat. cont. Cecil.) all the modes of attack 
which are most successfully practised by his antagonists; and 
he hopes to meet the blow, not wholly unprepared both to en- 
counter argument and to repel accusation. But if the aid of 
sneers be once called in, either to reinforce a clumsy and languid 
witticism, or to cover the retreat of a crippled and feeble argu- 
ment, he will consider the use of such auxiliaries as a declara- 
tion that no quarter is to be given, and as a signal for carrying 
on what Thucydides calls πόλεμον ἄκρητον καὶ ἄσπονδον. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 417 


From the ingenuous editor and the wary biogra- 
pher, I gladly return to Warburton himself and his 
critics. 

As to the particular points which are discussed in 
the letters addressed to Dr. Jortin and Dr. Leland, I 
shall take this opportunity of delivering my opinion 
about them plainly and concisely. Upon the sub- 
ject of eloquence I aecede to Leland’s very judicious 
objections against the chimerical position of War- 
burton, and I also must add, in Leland’s emphatical 
words, that “the bishop has conveyed his argument 
in all the most striking forms of eloquence, and 
with the spirit and energy of an ancient orator.”* 

In regard to the sixth book of the neid I have 
always admired the ingenuity of Warburton’s hypo- 
thesis. I have in the course of my own reading, 
frequently examined his quotations. I have never 
assented to his conclusions. I applaud Dr. Jortin 
for speaking of Warburton’s interpretations in terms 
of measured praise ; and I consider it as completely 
refuted in a most clear, elegant, and decisive work 
of criticism, which could not indeed derive authority 
from the greatest name, but to which the greatest 
name might with propriety have been affixed. ἢ 

From Warburton, whom I have here commended 
without adulation, as I had before censured him 


* Leland on Eloquence, cap. 4. 

+ This book is ascribed, and I think with great probability, 
to the learned and ingenious author, to whom the public is in- 
debted for the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire. Be the writer who he will, the reader will say with me, 
that the work is πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβάς. 

VOL. III. 25 


418 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


without acrimony, I now proceed to speak more at 
large of Leland and Jortin. » For them'too I havea 
blessing, which if it be less efficacious than that of 
the patriarch, is however, not less sincere... Virtually 
and by implication, they were defended in the pre- 
ceding dedication. But they have a title to: more 
direct and explicit praise, and I have chosen ‘this 
part of the preface as a proper place for bestow- 
ing it. 

Of Leland my opinion is not like the Letter- 
writer's, founded upon hear-say evidence, * nor is it 
determined solely by the great authority of Dr. 
Johnson, who always mentioned Dr. Leland with 
cordial regard and with marked respect. It might 
perhaps be invidious for me to hazard a favourable 
decision upon his history of Ireland, because the 
merits of that work have been disputed by critics, 
some of whom are I think warped in their judg- 
ments by literary, others by national, and more, I 
have reason to believe, by personal prejudices. But 
I may with confidence appeal to writings which 
have long contributed to public amusement, and 
have often been honoured. by public approbation 
—to the life of Philip, and to the translation of 
Demosthenes, which the Letter-writer professes to 
have not read—to the judicious. dissertation upon 
eloquence, which the Letter-writer did vouchsafe to 
read before he answered it—to the spirited defence 
of that dissertation, which the Letter-writer probably 
has read, but never attempted to answer. The life 


* See the letter to Leland in the conclusion. — 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 419 


of Philip contains many curious researches into the 
principles of government established among the 
leading states of Greece ; many sagacious remarks 
on their intestine discords ; many exact descriptions 
of their most celebrated characters, together with an 
extensive and correct view of those subtle intrigues, 
and those ambitious projects, by which Philip* at a 
favourable crisis gradually obtained an unexampled 
and fatal mastery over the Grecian republics. In 
the translation of Demothenes Leland unites the 
man of taste with the man of learning, and shews 
himself to have possessed not only a competent 
knowledge of the Greek language, but that clear- 
ness in his own conceptions, and that animation 
in his feelings, which enabled him to catch the 
real meaning, and to preserve the genuine spirit 
of the most perfect orator that Athens ever pro- 
duced. Through the dissertation upon eloquence 
and the defence of it, we see great accuracy of 
erudition, great perspicuity and strength of style, 
and above all a stoutness of judgment, which in 
traversing the open and spacious walks of literature, 
disdained to be led captive, either by the sorceries 
of a self-deluded visionary, or the decrees of a self- 
created despot. 

As to Jortin, whether I look back to his verse, to 
his prose, to his critical, or to his theological works, 


* Upon this subject Valckenaer has written a very learned 
and judicious Diatribe, which was delivered at Franequer, 1760, 
and published (with the speeches of Hemsterhuis) at Leyden 
in 1784. 


Je 2 


420 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


there are few authors to whom I am so much 
indebted for rational entertainment, or for solid in- 
struction. Learned he was without pedantry. He 
was ingenious without the affectation of singularity. 
He was a lover of truth without hovering over 
the gloomy abyss of scepticism, and a friend to free 
enquiry without roving into the dreary and pathless 
wilds of latitudinarianism. He had a heart which 
never disgraced the powers of his understanding. 
With a lively imagination, an elegant taste, and a 
judgment most masculine and most correct, he 
united the artless and amiable negligence of a 
school-boy. Wit* without ill nature, and sense 
without effort, he could at will scatter upon every 
subject ; and in every book the writer presents us 
with a near and distinct view of the real man. 

ut omnis 


Votiva pateat tanquam descripta tabella 
Vita senis. Hor. Sat. 1. lib. ii. 


* Let me not be charged with pedantry, if, for the want of 
English words equally correspondent with my ideas, I say, that 
in the lighter parts of Jortin’s writings may be found that 
εὐτραπελία which is defined by Aristotle πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις 
and that, in the more serious is preserved that σεμνότης, which, 
the same Philosopher most accurately and beautifully explains, 
μαλακὴ καὶ ευσχήμων βαρύτης. Rhetoric. lib. 2, cap. 12.and 17. 

Knowing that Greek is thought by some nicer readers to de- 
form an English page, and being perhaps in the habit of remem- 
bering rather more passages than I dare produce, I have often 
driven down my quotations into a note forrefuge. This apology 
I make once for all, and 1 trust that it will satisfy all readers 
except those who may wish to see quotations purified from the 
dregs of antiquity through the strainers of an English translation 

Persium non legere curo ; Decium Lzlium volo. 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 421 


His style, though inartificial, is sometimes elevat- 
ed: though familiar, it is never mean; and though 
employed upon various topics of theology, ethics, 
and criticism, it is not arrayed in any delusive re- 
semblance, either of solemnity from fanatical cant, 
of profoundness from scholastic jargon, of precision 
from the crabbed formalities of cloudy philologists, 
or of refinement from the technical babble of frivo- 
lous connoisseurs. 

At the shadowy and fleeting reputation which is 
sometimes gained by the petty frolics of literary 
vanity, or the mischievous struggles of controversial 
rage, Jortin never grasped. Truth, which some 
men are ambitious of seizing by surprize in the 
trackless and dark recess, he was content to over- 
take in the broad and beaten path: and in the pur- 
suit of it, if he does not excite our astonishment by 
the rapidity of his strides, he at least secures 
our confidence by the firmness of his step. To the 
examination of positions advanced by other men 
he always brought a mind, which neither preposses- 
sion had seduced, nor malevolence polluted. He 
imposed not his own conjectures as infallible and 
irresistible truths, nor endeavoured to give an air of 
importance to trifles by dogmatica. vehemence. He 
could support his more serious opinions without 
the versatility of a sophist, the fierceness of a dispu- 
tant, or the impertinence of a buffoon — more than 
this — he could relinquish or correct them with the 
calm and steady dignity of a writer, who, while he 
yielded something to the arguments of his antago- 
nists, was conscious of retaining enough to com- 


422 WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 


mand their respect. He had too much discernment 
to confound difference of opinion with malignity or 
dulness, and too much candour to insult where 
he could not persuade. Though his sensibilities 
were neither coarse nor sluggish, he was yet exempt 
from those fickle humours, those rankling jealousies, 
and that restless waywardness which men of the 
brightest talents are too prone to indulge. He car- 
ried with him into every station in which he was 
placed, and every subject which he explored, a solid 
greatness of soul which could spare an inferior, 
though in the offensive form of an adversary, and 
endure an equal with or without the sacred name of 
friend. The importance of commendation, as well 
to him who bestows as to him who claims it, he es- 
timated not only with justice but with delicacy, and 
therefore he neither wantonly lavished it, nor with- 
held it austerely. But invective he neither pro- 
voked nor feared; and as to the severities of con- 
tempt he reserved them for occasions where alone 
they could be employed with propriety, and where 
by himself they always were employed with effect— 
for the chastisement of arrogant dunces, of censo- 
rious sciolists, of intolerant bigots in every sect, and 
unprincipled impostors in every profession. Dis- 
tinguished in various forms of literary composition, 
engaged in various duties of his ecclesiastical profes- 
sion, and blessed with a long and honourable life, 
he nobly exemplified that rare and illustrious virtue 
of charity, which Leland in his reply to the Let- 
ter-writer thus eloquently describes: “ Charity ne- 
ver misrepresents ; never ascribes obnoxious prin- 


WARBURTONIAN TRACTS. 493 


ciples or mistaken opinions to an opponent, which 
he himself disavows ; is not so earnest in refuting 
as to fancy positions never asserted, and to extend 
its censure to opinions which will perhaps be de- 
livered: Charity is utterly averse to sneering, the 
most despicable species of ridicule, that most des- 
picable subterfuge of an important objector: Cha- 
rity never supposes that all sense and knowledge 
are confined to a particular circle, to a district, or to 
a country: Charity never condemns and embraces 
principles in the same breath; never professes to 
confute what it acknowledges to be just, never pre- 
sumes to bear down an adversary with confident as- 
sertions: Charity does not call dissent insolence, or 
the want of implicit submission a want of common 
respect.” * 

This, I cannot help exclaiming in the words of 
the R. R. Remarker: “ this is the solution of a phi- 
losopher indeed ; clear, simple, manly, rational, and 
striking conviction in every word, unlike the re- 
fined and fantastic nonsense of a writer of para- 
doxes.” Ὑ 

The esteem, the affection, the reverence which I 
feel for so profound a scholar, and so honest a man 
as Dr. Jortin, make me wholly indifferent to the 
praise and censure of those who vilify without read- 
ing his writings, or read them without finding some 
incentive to study, some proficiency in knowledge, 
or some improvement in virtue. 


* Page 51 of the quarto edition of Dr, Leland’s answer. 
printed at London, 1765. 
+ See remarks on Hume, p. 93. 


Sr 


ba oe a hus Ἢ ν᾽" sav caine 1OLNZOG 
ee x webinar, Πὰν ΠΟΤ ἐμοϊμίψοις oo 
" itt + σγηστυσσὺ, Go ΕΣ αδαῦσ, iy SIA 
τὰ fy Pua. ton, aly: brs to, οἰ δι" 
oti 2 10h ido Σαρα na ua to, eget 
ia aabolwoak hre-seaoe Min, ἀρεῖ moenges 
| or τὸ ἀρ μεν no? ΟΠ 900 gulpoteaety ΑἹ ca hs ia β 
ἀξηθναίτο, fuse, ΠΥ sy ‘VME widOvayy ee Ko a 
fy εὐράζοίωπι ἡ ν Ss be pa ἀπῇ ar sat, aia digs 
gyn “i POs soap af δὲ eagbalworpten di ἀϑάνα: ͵ 


was ᾿ 


ἢ τ va. meetin Glew yiakrivha.aa neat who 
Ἃ a6 bores ant tuoeach [uss pon eaGb timer 
: ὩΜΗΝ 7), Ade 0 poked ge. αν 
ee ee Ren eee ne ech 
4a) ‘ari: oat: χὰ aaunieion (lank sotanar: 
πα Ὁ Ἴσιποὶ pulve nls ε ejils Pedals co: 
ἽΝ εἰ μ᾿ , : Ὑ 
fant εἰ leon ter Ἢ LE εΑἰαμεῖρ ς 25 uf ; boshar κι ἦν 
ots agit Spiers be) WRT is perrehn ae 
AE, Wp Aelia Go. sesiesauch p emda 


ἢ i A 
τῇ doniw ϑαθγονον 4) .cotnsile οἷ Geek tea 
fet ἢ ἐρασου Gs b MERI salou: γᾺ ἢ PREY ὃς ΠΝ ot 


yes ot paxeiilai ylodw οαυιοιμανε μίνηοῖ, ΔΕ. εὟ 


oo ae 


i. ποι vali ode δον lovetiemss bas pei 
Be ρα Bari ni quadvine axa? hess. τ. machin, elilamy 
awon. [ ah Siig ny παρα en on ae ἐς : 


. sal Σ ᾿ 7 PET Hs ‘ 


she τ ἢ 


LETTER 


TO THE 


RIGHT REV. DR. MILNER; 


OCCASIONED BY SOME PASSAGES CONTAINED IN HIS BOOK, 


INTITULED, 


«“THE END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.” 


The reasons for publishing this posthumous work of Dr. Parr 
have been stated by the Rev. John Lynes, in his Preface. 

It was originally intended for the Gentleman’s Magazine ; 
but the work grew too bulky for insertion in that useful reposi- 
tory, and on that account was laid aside, at the time, by the 
author, who has left behind him a large collection of observa- 
tions on points of controversy between Catholics and Pro- 
testants, 


LETTER TO THE REV. DR. MILNER. 


REVEREND AND LEARNED SIR, 


I nave lately read, with the greatest attention, a 
very interesting and elaborate work, which bears 
your celebrated name, and to which you have pre- 
fixed this title: “The End of Religious Controversy, 
in a friendly Correspondence between a religious 
Society of Protestants and a Roman Catholic Divine, 
addressed to the Right Reverend Dr. Burgess, Lord 
Bishop of St. David’s, in answer to his Lordship’s 
Protestant Catechism.” 

The contents of that book have not lessened the 
high opinion which I had long entertained of your 
acuteness as a polemic, your various researches as a 
theologian, and your talent for clear and animated 
composition. Iacknowledge, too, that in my judg- 
ment you have been successful in your endeavours 
to vindicate the members of the Church of Rome 
from the imputations of impiety, idolatry, and blas- 
phemy, in their worship of glorified saints, and in 
their adoration of the sacramental elements, which 
they believe to have heen mystically transubstan- 
tiated into the body and blood of Christ. 


428 LETTER TO 


The adamantine and imperishable work οὗ 
Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, and the contro- 
versial writings of Jeremy Taylor, fraught, as they 
are, with guileless ardour, with peerless eloquence, 
and with the richest stores of knowledge, historical, 
classical, scholastic, and theological, may be consi- 
dered as irrefragable proofs of their pure, affec- 
tionate, and dutiful attachment to the reformed 
Church of England. Why then should I dissemble 
that, in the words of these excellent men, as quoted 
by yourself (in p. 237 and p. 265, part iii. 5th edit.), 
are contained the opinions which I hold upon a part 
of the controversy, which has long subsisted be- 
tween Romanists and Protestants, about the conse- 
crated elements in the Communion? “The object 
of their (the Catholics’) adoration in the Sacrament 
is the true and eternal God, hypostatically united 
with his holy humanity, which humanity they be- 
lieve actually present under the veil of the Sacra- 
ment ; and if they thought him not present, they 
are so far from worshipping the bread, that they 
profess it idolatry to do so.”—Dr. Jeremy Taylor, 
Bishop of Down, Liberty of Prophesying; sect. 20. 

“1 wish men would give themselves more to me- 
ditate with silence on what we have in the Sacra- 
ment, and less to dispute on the manner how. Sith 
we all agree that Christ, by the Sacrament, doth 
really and truly perform in us his promise, why do 
we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce conten- 
tions, whether by consubstantiation or else by 
transubstantiation ?” Eccles. Polit. B. v. 67. (see 
note, page 274, Sth edit.) Content I am to speak 


DR. MILNER. 429 


of your tenets upon the Sacrament as erroneous 
and unscriptural only ; and in truth, Sir, I have often 
had most sincerely and seriously to disapprove of 
the acrimonious language which has been unne- 
cessarily and unbecomingly employed by some of 
your opponents ; and, I add, not less unnecessarily 
and unbecomingly by yourselves. 

I leave it, Reverend Sir, with many learned, saga- 
cious, and truly pious members of the Church of 
England, to discuss the merits of your cause, the 
accuracy of your statements, and the validity of 
your arguments, upon the following particulars : 

“That Bishop Porteus is to be classed with other 
bigoted controvertists, who have holden up to the 
public a caricature of the Church of Rome:” (part 
ii. p. 373.) “that, when he represents purgatory, 
in the present Popish sense, as not heard of for four 
hundred years after Christ; nor universally received 
for a thousand years ; nor almost in any other church 
than that of Rome to this day :’—“ here are no less 
than three egregious falsities.” (Part i. p. 311.) 
And “ you have often wondered at the confidence 
with which his Lordship asserts and denies facts of 
antient church history, in opposition to the known 
truth.” (Part ii. p. 350.) That Bishop Hoadley 
not only had undermined the church he professed 
to support in her doctrines and discipline, as you 
haye demonstrated in your Letters to a Prebendary, 
but that he had founded a school of complete So- 
cinianism, and that Bishop Shipley is to be reckoned 
in the the first rank of his scholars. (Part ii. p. 
127.) And here, Sir, you will permit me to ob- 


430 LETTER TO 


serve, that, if your accusation against Hoadley be 
well founded, Dr. Balguy, whom you describe (part 
i. p. 67,) as “the most clear-headed writer, and re- 
nowned defender of the Establishment whom you 
had the happiness of being acquainted with,” and 
as having Bishop Hoadley for his friend and mas- 
ter, (part i. p. 96,) could hardly have escaped the 
taint of “the damnable and cursed heresy of So- 
cinianism,” as it is termed in Bishop Sparrow’s Col- 
lection of Canons twice quoted by yourself with 
approbation. (Part i. p. 92, and part i. p. 126.) And 
here, Sir, may I be permitted to ask, whether the 
venerable Bishop Lowth, who in early life was 
closely connected with Bishop Hoadley, must, in 
consequence of that connection, be considered, for 
a time at least, favourable to Socinianism αὶ 

That “ Chillingworth, who had been first a Pro- 
testant, next became a Catholic, and then returned 
in part to his former creed, gave, last of all, into 
Socinianism, which his writings greatly promoted.” 
(Part i. p. 55.) That, “when you were defending 
the Articles and Liturgy of the Established Church, 
as well as your own, upon this point,” (i. e. as ap- 
pears from the context, the mysteries of the Trinity 
and Incarnation,) “you found the religious infec- 
tion infinitely more extensive than you appre- 
hended; the celebrated professors of divinity in the 
University delivering Dr. Balguy’s doctrine to the 
young clergy in their public lectures, and the most 
enlightened Bishops publishing it in their pastoral 
and other works.” That “Dr. Horsley, the great 
ornament of the episcopal bench, who protected 


DR. MILNER. 451 


you both in and out of parliament, does not fall un- 
der this censure of holding that Christ has left us 
no exterior means of grace; and that, of course, 
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, (which are declared 
necessary for salvation in the Catechism,) produce 
no spiritual effect at all; and, in short, that all 
mysteries, and among the rest those of the Trinity 
and Incarnation, (for denying which the Prelates of 
the Church of England have sent so many pro- 
fessed Protestants to the stake, in the reigns of 
Edward, Elizabeth, and James I.) are mere non- 
sense.” (Part ii. p. 126.) That “most modern Pro- 
testants of eminence deny Christ to be God.” (Part 
ii. p. 75.) And as you have not limited this posi- 
tion by any designation of place, I must suppose 
you to include under it modern eminent members 
of the Church of England, modern eminent English 
Dissenters, and modern Protestants of eminence in 
foreign countries. That “many personages in a 
more elevated rank of life, whose education and 
studies enable them to form a more just idea of the 
religious and moral principles of their ancestors, 
benefactors, and founders, in short, of their acknow- 
ledged fathers and saints, combine to load these 
fathers and saints with calumnies and misrepre- 
sentations, which they must know to be utterly 
false.” (Part ii. p. 241.) That “ Mede, and a hun- 
dred other Protestant controvertists, speak in blas- 
phemous terms of your Communion of Saints.” 
(Part ii. p. 247.) I dispute not your accuracy in 
excepting Bishop Horsley; but I am really unable 
to point out any prelate or dignitary in the Church 


432 LETTER TO 


of England, now living, who deserves to fall under 
the general censure of considering all mysteries as 
mere nonsense. 

That “Bishop Jewel, by his vain boasting, or 
rather deliberate impugning of the known truth, 
scandalized sober and learned Protestants; that he 
was guilty of hypocrisy; and that in quoting the 
fathers he shamefully falsified them.” (Part ii. p. 
198.) That “Cranmer, from his youthful life in 
college, till his death at the stake, exhibited such a 
continued scene of libertinism, perjury, hypocrisy, 
barbarity, (in burning his fellow-protestants,) profli- 
gacy, ingratitude, and rebellion, as is perhaps not 
to be matched in history.” (Part 11. p. 163.) That 
James I. was right, when he pronounced “the 
order for morning prayer to be an ill-said mass.” 
(Part i. p. 159.) That “the communion of Pro- 
testants, according to their belief and practice in 
this country, cannot be more than a feeble excite- 
ment to their devotion, and an inefficient help to 
their sanctification.” (Part i. p. 155.) That Pro- 
testants, who are still immersed in the clouds of 
types and figures, not pretending to any thing more 
in their sacrament than what the Jews possessed in 
their ordinances, are comparatively indifferent as to 
the preparation for receiving it, and, indeed, as to 
the reception of it at all; while the Catholic sup- 
poses the Paschal lamb, the loaves of proposition, 
and the manna of which Christ speaks, John vi. 
52, 58, 59. to be so many promises on the part of 
God, that he would bestow upon the people the 
thing signified by them, even that incarnate Deity 


DR. MILNER. 433 


who is at once our victim and our food, and who 
gives spiritual life to the worthy communicants, 
not in a limited measure, but indefinitely according 
to each one’s preparation.” (Part 11. p. 275.) That 
“it is an absurdity to talk of the Church, or So- 
ciety of Protestants, because,” say you, “the term 
Protestant expresses nothing positive, much less 
any union or association among them; it barely 
signifies one who protests or declares against some 
other person or persons, thing or things; and in 
the present instance it signifies those who protest 
against the Catholic church.” (Part 11. p. 124.) 
Where, perhaps you will be asked by some of 
my brethren, lies the absurdity of talking of a 
church or society of Protestants? Where, permit 
me to ask you, is the contradiction either in the 
ideas or the terms? If one term Protestant dis- 
tinctly and unequivocally expresses one idea, the pro- 
testation of those who protest against the Catholic 
church, how does it follow that another term, be it 
church or society, does not as unequivocally and 
as distinctly express another idea, namely, the 
union or association of those who thus protest 
among themselves ? When you, Sir, have the good- 
ness to assist my dullness, I shall be ready to for- 
give your positiveness, and to applaud your sagacity. 
That “our Divine Master, Christ, in establishing 
a religion here on earth, to which all the nations of 
it were invited (Matt. xviii. 19), left some rule or 
method by which those persons, who sincerely seek 
for it, may certainly find it :” and that “this rule or 
method must be secure and never failing, so as not to 
VOL, ΠῚ. 28 


434 .LETTER TO 


be ever liable to lead a rational, sincere inquirer into 
error, impiety, or immorality.of any kind.” (Part i. 
p-41.) That “during the first five ages of the 
Christian Church, no less than in the subsequent 
ages, the unwritten word or tradition was held in 
equal estimation by her as the written word itself.” 
(Part 1. p. 83.) That “the whole right to the 
Scriptures belongs to the Church; that she has 
preserved them, that she vouches for them, and she 
alone, by confronting them, and by the help of tra- 
dition, authoritatively explains them; and_ that 
hence it is impossible for the real Scripture ever to 
be against her and her doctrines.” (Part i. p. 106.) 
That “ Protestants, in building Scripture, as they do, 
upon tradition, as a mere human testimony, not as 
a rule of faith, can only form an act of human faith, 
that is to say, an opinion of its being inspired; 
whereas Catholics, believing in the tradition of the 
Church, as a divine rule, are enabled to believe, and 
do believe, in the Scriptures as the firm faith, as the 
certain word of God.” (Part i. p. 101.) That 
“while the most eminent Protestant divines, such as 
Luther, Melancthon, Hooker, Chillingworth, with 
Bishops Laud, Taylor, Sheldon, Blandford, and the 
modern prelates, Marsh and Porteus himself, all ac- 
knowledge salvation may be found in the commu- 
nion of the original Catholic Church, yet no divine 
of this Church, consistently with the characteristical 
unity, and the constant doctrines of the holy fa- 
thers, and of the Scripture itself (as you profess to 
have elsewhere demonstrated), can allow that salva- 
tion is to be found out of that communion, except 


DR. MILNER. 435 


in the case of invincible ignorance.” (Part iii. p. 374.) 
That “Catholic divines and the holy fathers make 
an express exception in favour of what is termed in- 
vincible ignorance ; which occurs,” as you must in- 
tend, Sir, then and then only, “ when persons out of 
the true Church” (by which you mean the Church 
of Rome) “are sincerely and firmly resolved, in spite 
of all worldly allurements on one hand, and opposi- 
tion to the contrary on the other, to enter into it, if 
they could find it out, and when they use their best 
endeavours for this purpose :” (Part ii. p. 138.) and 
consequently, say I, that every Protestant who is 
not firmly resolved, in spite of all allurements on 
one hand, and opposition to the contrary on the 
other, to enter into the true Church, and who does 
not use his best endeavours for that purpose, is 
guilty of a “deliberate and formal opposition to the 
Most High ; that he virtually says, I will not believe 
what thou hast revealed, and thus such wilful infi- 
delity and heresy involve greater guilt than moral 
frailty.” (Part ii. p. 138.) Now the- term moral 
frailty, Sir, which is here selected, you must. upon 
every principle of consistency, extend to the grossest 
as well as the slightest violations of morality; and, 
in point of fact, Sir, nearly all Protestants must be 
chargeable with such wilful heresy; because, in 
point of fact, they have not used, nor been conscious 
of any obligation to use, their best endeavours to 
find out, among contending theologians, what 18 
that Church which alone deserves to be called the 
true one. That “no other Church but the Catholic” 
(by which you mean the Roman Catholic) “can 
282 


436 LETTER TO 


claim to be a religious guide, because, evidently, she 
alone is the true Church of Christ.” (Part ii. p. 119.) 
That “the particular motives of credibility, which 
point out the true Church of Christ, demonstrate 
this with no less certitude and evidence than the 
general motives of credibility demonstrate the truth 
of the Christian religion.” (Part ii. p. 120.) That, 
“ were it possible for you to err in following the Ca- 
tholic method, with such a mass of evidence in its 
favour, you think you could answer at the judgment 
seat of eternal truth, with a pious writer of the 
middle ages,” (Hugh of St. Victor) “ Lord, if I have 
been deceived, thou art the author of my error.” 
(Part i. p. 104.) That, “ when a Protestant pro- 
fesses to believe in a Catholic Church, in solemn 
worship, or in private devotion, there never was a 
more glaring inconsistency or self-condemnation 
among rational beings.” (Part 11. p. 190.) That 
“the Church of Rome has an exclusive claim to 
unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity.” (Part 
i. p. 235.) That “this apostolicity is sufficiently 
illustrated in that apostolical tree, which you call a 
mystical tree, the properties of which are explained 
in Letters 28 and 29;” that “the Catholic Church 
is the divinely commissioned guardian and inter- 
preter of the word of God in both its parts.” (Part 
ii. p. 371.) That “she alone teaches and enforces 
the whole doctrine of the Gospel.” (Part. 11. p. 
372.) That “this Church is the only one which is 
adapted to the circumstances of mankind in gene- 
ral; the only one which leads to the peace and unity 
of the Christian Church ; and the only one which 


DR. MILNER. 437 


affords tranquillity and security to individual Chris- 
tians during life, and at the trying hour of their dis- 
solution.” (Part iii. p. 371.) That “Catholics, if 
properly interrogated upon the fundamental articles 
of Christianity, the Unity and Trinity of God, the 
incarnation and death of Christ, his divinity and 
atonement for sin by his passion and death, the ne- 
cessity of baptism, the nature of the blessed Sacra- 
ment, will confess their belief in one comprehensive 
article, namely this,—I believe whatever the holy 
Catholic Church believes and teaches.” (Part ii. pp. 
131 and 132.) That, “ when any fresh controversy 
arises in the Church, the fundamental maxims of 
the Bishops and Popes, to whom it belongs to de- 
cide upon it, is, not to consult their own private 
opinion or interpretation of Scripture, but to in- 
quire what is and ever has been the doctrine of the 
Church concerning it. Hence their cry is, and ever 
has been, on such occasions, as well in her councils, 
as out of them; so we have received, so the uni- 
versal Church believes ; let there be no new doc- 
trine, none but what has been delivered down to us 
by tradition ;” and that “ the tradition of which we 
now treat is not a local but a universal tradition, as 
widely spread as the Catholic Church itself is, and 
everywhere found the same.” (Part i. p. 98.) - That 
“ while religious persecution, which you say is every- 
where odious, is not likely much longer to find 
refuge in the most generous of nations; and while 
‘Protestants, whose grand rule and fundamental char- 
ter is, that the Scriptures were given by God for 
every man to interpret them as he judges best, have 


438 LETTER TO 


no ground for persecuting Christians of any descrip- 
tion whatsoever ; still it must be remembered that, 
when Catholic states and princes persecuted Pro- 
testants, it was done in favour of an ancient religion, 
which had been established in their country, per- 
haps a thousand or fifteen hundred years, and had 
long preserved the peace, order, and morality of 
their respective subjects; that any attempt, as they 
at the same time clearly saw, to alter that religion, 
would unavoidably produce incalculable disorders 
and sanguinary contests among them; and that, if 
they enforced submission to their Church by perse- 
cution, they were fully persuaded that there is a di- 
vine authority in this Church to decide in all con- 
troversies of religion; and that those Christians 
who refuse to hear her voice, when she pronounces 
upon them, are obstinate heretics.” (Part ii. pp. 368 
and 369.) That “God himself attests the truth of 
this Church by the miracles with which from time 
to time he illustrates her exclusively.” (Part ii. pp. 
167 and 170.) That “ the miracles ascribed by you 
to the Apostolical St. Polycarp, and to his disciple 
St. Ireneus; that the miracles attested by the 
learned Origen: that the numerous and astonishing 
miracles wrought by St. Gregory of Neoczsarea ; 
that the miracles recorded in the third century by St. 
Cyprian, some of which prove the blessed eucharist 
to be a sacrifice, and the lawfulness of receiving it 
under one kind; that the numberless miracles re- 
corded by St. Basil, Athanasius, Jerome, Chrysos- 
tom, Ambrose, Augustin, and the other illustrious 
fathers and Church historians who adorned the 


DR. MILNER. 439 


fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries of Christianity > 
that a great number of miracles wrought in Africa 
during the episcopacy of Protasius by the relics of 
St. Stephen; and among the seventy wrought in his 
own diocese of Hippo, and some of them in his own 
presence, in the course of two years, three were the 
restoration of dead bodies to life ; that the miracles 
wrought by St. Austin, of Canterbury, at the end of 
the sixth century, and faithfully recorded on his 
tomb ;” that such miracles “frequently took place 
in the Catholic Church, but never among the he- 
retics.” (Part ii. p. 170.) “That all the miracles 
which the illustrious Abbot of St. Bernard, in the 
twelfth century, mentions of other saints, quite dis- 
appear when compared with those wrought by him- 
self, which, for their splendour and publicity, never 
were exceeded; that the miracles of St. Francis Xa- 
vier, the apostle of India and contemporary of Lu- 
ther, which may in number, splendour, and publicity, 
vie with St. Bernard’s, and consisted in foretelling 
future events, speaking unknown languages, calming 
tempests at sea, curing various maladies, and raising 
the dead to life ; that the following century was il 
lustrated by the shining virtues and attested mi- 
racles, even to the resurrection of the dead, of St. 
Francis of Sales, as it was also of those of St. Fran- 
cis Regis; that, in addition to the above-mentioned 
miracles performed by the persons to whom you as- 
cribe them, and for the purposes which you assign 
to them, your Church possesses the miraculous 
power at the present day ; not, indeed, because the: 
members of that Church are able to effect cures, or 


440 LETTER TO 


other supernatural events at their own pleasure, for 
even the apostles could not do this ; but because the 
Catholic Church, being always the beloved spouse 
of Christ, (Rev. xxi. 9.) and continuing at all times 
to bring forth children of heroical sanctity, God fails 
not in this any more than in past ages, to illustrate 
her and them by unquestionable miracles ;” (p.177;) 
and, finally, that in our own age supernatural cures 
were experienced, first, by Joseph Lamb, of Eccles, 
near Manchester, who, on the 12th of August, 1814, 
fell from a hayrick four yards and a half high, by 
which accident the spine of his back was supposed to 
be broken; but, upon the 2nd of October, having 
gained with difficulty the permission of his father, 
who was a Protestant, to be carried, with his wife, 
and two friends, in a cart to Garswood, near Wigan, 
got himself conveyed to the altar rails of a chapel, 
where the hand of F. Arrowsmith, one of the Ca- 
tholic Priests who suffered death at Lancaster for 
the exercise of his religion in the reign of Charles I. 
is preserved, and has often caused wonderful cures ; 
and having been signed in that chapel on his back 
with the sign of the cross by that hand, and feeling 
a particular sensation and total change in himself as 
he expressed, exclaimed to his wife, ‘ Mary, I can 
walk; (p. 178.) secondly, by Winefred White, a 
young woman of Wolverhampton, in 1805, who, 
having been long afflicted with a curvature of the 
spine, followed by hemiplegia, performed the acts of 
devotion which she felt herself called to undertake, 
and having bathed in the fountain on the 28th of 
June, 1805, found herself, in one instant of time, 


DR. MILNER. 44] 


freed from all her pains and disabilities, so as to be 
able to walk, run, and jump, like any other young 
person, and to carry a greater weight with the left 
arm than she could with the right; thirdly, by Mary 
Wood, now living at Taunton Lodge, who, in 1809, 
having severely wounded her left hand through a 
pane of glass, determined, with the approbation of 
her superior, to have recourse to God through the 
intercession of St. Winefred by a Novena, or certain 
prayers continued during nine days; who accord- 
ingly put a piece of moss from the saint’s well on 
her arm on the 6th of August, and continued recol- 
lecting and praying, when, to her great surprise, the 
next morning, she found she could dress herself, put 
her arms behind her and to her head, having regained 
the use and full strength of it; and who, in short, 
was perfectly cured.” (Pp. 178, 179.) 

Upon the foregoing reproaches, religious tenets, 
and statement of miracles, intended to illustrate 
what you pronounce to be exclusively the true 
church, I shall not enter into any dispute with you. 
I have, however, collected them carefully, because 
you place upon them great reliance, because they 
are likely to attract the notice, not only of your 
Roman Catholic brethren, but of learned and virtu- 
ous Protestants, and because I wish your, Sir, the 
full benefit of them, by inducing many readers of 
the Gentleman’s Magazine to have recourse to 
your book, and dispassionately to weigh the full 
force of your own proofs for your opinions, asser- 
tions, and accusations. 

The strongest language which I choose to em- 


442 LETTER TO 


ploy against you is, that, in my serious opinion, 
Reverend Sir, you have sometimes fallen into error 
when you contend for doctrines; and that you 
have often been guilty of uncharitableness when 
you speak of persons, whether they be living or 
dead, illustrious or obscure. 

Now the chief, though not, indeed, the sole pur- 
pose for which I take the liberty of addressing you, 
is to lay before you another series of passages 
which struck me very forcibly when I was reading 
your book, and to subjoin such remarks and such 
questions as they may suggest to my mind. It is 
plain, Sir, that you wish to prove not only the effi- 
cacy, but the truth of your religion, by the lan- 
guage and the conduct of those who profess it at 
the hour of death. 

Catholics, you say, by adhering to the rule which 
is formed by tradition united with Scripture, and to 
the living speaking authority of the church in ex- 
pounding that rule, live and die in peace and secu- 
rity, as far as regards the truth of their religion. 
(Part i. p. 104.) Be it so. My concern is with 
the note you have affixed to the following serious 
words: “There are few of our Catholic priests,” 
you say, “who have not been frequently called in 
to receive dying Protestants into the Catholic 
church, while not a single instance of a Catholic 
wishing to die in any other communion than his 
own can be produced. O Death, thou great en- 
lightener! Ο truth-telling death, how powerful art 
thou in confuting the blasphemies, and dissipating 
the prejudices, of the enemies of God’s church!” 


DR. MILNER. 443 


(Part i. p. 77.) My questions upon these words 
are,—Can you prove that the Catholic priests, who 
have been called in to receive dying Protestants 
into the Catholic church, are not few? Can you 
prove that these many priests have been called in 
by many Protestants? Can you furnish the public 
with a satisfactory reason that so many priests, 
with so many instances of conversion, should from 
time to time have been silent upon the subject of 
so much triumph to Roman Catholics, and so 
much mortification to Protestants? Can you show 
us that the priests professing thus to be called in 
were men of sound discretion and unimpeachable 
veracity? Was it the prudence of which you speak 
that restrained your priests from telling their fol- 
lowers, or their opponents, whether their interposi- 
tion was solicited or spontaneous; whether it took 
place with or without the consent and knowledge 
of relations ; whether the example of the dying was 
followed by their survivors; whether the persons 
whom they attended were men of weak or strong 
intellects; and whether, in the general tenour of 
their conduct, they were virtuous or vicious; so 
virtuous, Sir, as in their last moments to renounce 
the church in which they had been educated, and, 
with hazard to their reputation, to become mem- 
bers of what they at last believed to be the true 
church ; or so vicious as to stand in urgent need of 
those peculiar aids which the Church of Rome 
abundantly supplies, in the confession and absolu- 
tion prescribed by its discipline ? 

Your note on the passage which I just now cited 


444 LETTER TO 


from your book concludes thus: “Some Bishops 
of the Established Church, for instance, Godman 
and Cheyney of Gloucester, and Gordon of Glas- 
gow, probably, also, Hallifax of St. Asaph, died Ca- 
tholics. A long list of titled or other distinguished 
personages, who have either returned to the Catho- 
lic faith, or for the first time embraced it on their 
death-beds, in modern times, might be named here, 
if it were prudent to do so.” (Part i. p. 77.) 

I enquire not, Sir, after the illustrious personages 
whom your prudence forbids you to name; but my 
own prudence does not forbid, and my own sense 
of justice does irresistibly lead me, to express very 
strong doubts upon the accuracy of your statement 
as it regards Bishop Hallifax. It was my good for- 
tune, Sir, to know him personally ; gladly do I bear 
witness to his unassuming disposition, and to his 
courteous manners. When he sat in the profes- 
sorial chair at Cambridge, the members of that 
learned University were much delighted with the 
fluency and clearness of his Latinity, and with his 
readiness and skill in conducting the disputes of the 
law schools. It was my own lot to keep under him 
two acts for my Doctor’s degree ; and surely, from 
the preparatory labour which I employed in correct- 
ing the language of two Latin Theses, and in accu- 
mulating materials for a close logical dispute, likely 
to pass before a numerous, intelligent, and attentive 
audience, the obvious inference is, that I did not 
set a small value on the abilities and acquirements 
of the professor. Ihave seen some of his annual 
speeches at our Cambridge commencement, and, 


DR. MILNER. 445 


so far as my judgment goes, they are highly cre- 
ditable to his erudition and his taste. He acquired 
much reputation in the University by three ser- 
mons which he first preached there, and after- 
wards published, during a long and important con- 
troversy, which had arisen about subscription to 
the Thirty-nine Articles. He gave no inconsidera- 
able proof of his diligent researches and clear dis- 
cernment, by an analysis of the Roman law, as 
compared with the English. He owed much of his 
fame, and, perhaps, preferment, to the lectures 
which he delivered at Lincoln’s Inn; and whether 
he and other eminent Protestants be or be not 
right in considering the Pope as Antichrist, and 
applying to the Church of Rome many well-known 
passages in the Apocalypse, no impartial judge 
will refuse to Bishop Hallifax the tribute of praise 
for the skilfulness which he shows, in the choice 
and arrangement of his matter, and in the perspi- 
cuity and elegance of his style. He was patronized 
by a temperate and judicious metropolitan, Dr. 
Cornwallis; he stood high in the estimation of the 
celebrated Bishop Warburton ; he lived upon terms 
of the most intimate and confidential friendship 
with the very ingenious Bishop Hurd; he was re- 
spected as a man of learning by his most learned 
contemporaries in the University ; he frequently had 
access to the sagacious and contemplative recluse, 
Bishop Law; he, first as a companion, and after- 
wards as a son-in-law, was intimately connected with 
the quaint, pompous, but acute and truly critical 
scholar, Provost Cooke ; he was encountered, and 


446 LETTER TO 


perhaps refuted, but not derided as a puny and 
clumsy antagonist, by the keen-sighted, strong- 
armed, high-spirited polemic, Blackall of Emanuel ; 
he was opposed, but not despised, by the dauntless, 
stately, and fulminating dictator, Bishop Watson ; 
he was a most amiable man in domestic life, and 
his general conduct as a Christian was blameless, 
and even exemplary. Let it not be forgotten, too, 
that, while honoured with the acquaintance of 
living worthies and living scholars, he felt a manly 
and generous regard for the memory of the dead. 
You must yourself, Sir, have heard that he re-pub- 
lished a Charge written by Bishop Butler of Dur- 
ham, one of the most profound philosophers and 
most enlightened theologians that ever adorned the 
Church of England. That Charge, Sir, by some 
unaccountable misconception in the hearers or read- 
ers, had for some time been considered as favour- 
able to the Church of Rome: but the illusion va- 
nished when Bishop Hallifax re-published it, and 
united with it, what I think, a very judicious pre- 
face. Will you pardon me, Sir, for adding that, 
long before the re-publication, I had myself adopted 
and avowed the principles upon which Dr. Butler 
reasoned, and that I felt very great satisfaction from 
the aid of his arguments, and under the protection 
of his authority ? 

To such persons, then, as are acquainted with the 
events of Bishop Hallifax’s life, or the character of 
his writings, must it not be highly improbable that 
a prelate, who, upon one occasion, had vindicated 
the fame of Bishop Butler from the imputation of 


DR. MILNER. 447 


Popery, and who, upon another, defended the cause 
of the Church of England in opposition to the 
Church of Rome, should in his last moments have 
renounced the tenets which he had so long professed 
and so ably maintained ? 

Between you and myself, Sir, there can be no 
difference of opinion upon the importance of the 
fact, which you have deliberately proclaimed to the 
world. The establishment and the confutation of 
that fact are alike connected with the honour of 
Bishop Hallifax, with the feelings of honest Protest- 
ants and honest Roman Catholics, and with the 
general cause both of the Church of England and 
the Church of Rome. As, therefore, your prudence 
has permitted you to tell the public that Bishop 
Hallifax probably died a Catholic, I trust, Sir, that 
your love of truth, and your sense both of decorum 
and justice, will induce you to declare explicitly and 
fully what, in your own mind, were the grounds of 
- such probability. 

Upon looking at p. 243 and p. 244, Part 111. of 
your book, I find that you did not think it incon- 
sistent with your prudence, not merely to resume 
the subject, but to expatiate upon it, and to omit 
the qualifying term, ‘ probably.” After quoting in 
your text the violent language of “ the celebrated 
‘City preacher, C. De Coetlogon, who, among simi- 
lar graces of oratory, had pronounced Popery as 
calculated only for the meridian of hell,” you indig- 
nantly ask your correspondent, “ Is. such the real 
character of the great body of Christians through- 
out the world? Were such the clergy, from whom 


448 LETTER TO 


these modern preachers and writers derive their 
liturgy, their ritual, their honours, and benefices, 
and from whom they boast of deriving their orders 
and mission also? But, after all, do these preachers 
and writers themselves seriously believe such to be 
the true character of their Catholic countrymen and 
the primitive religion? No, Sir, they do not seri- 
ously believe it.” 

Far be it from me, Sir, to say, with Mr. De Coet- 
logon, that Popery is only fit for the meridian of 
hell, and a most horrid compound of idolatry, su- 
perstition, and blasphemy ; be it also as far from me 
to say, with Dr. Milner, that Bishop Porteus, 
Bishop Hallifax, Bishop Barrington, Bishop Wat- 
son, Bishop Benson, and Bishop Sparke, do not 
seriously believe the opinions which they have re- 
spectively published upon the errors, and what 
appeared to them the corruptions, of the Church of 
Rome. Unfeignedly and avowedly am I a well- 
wisher to the petitions which English and Irish 
Roman Catholics have presented to Parliament, in 
order to obtain relief from certain galling restraints 
and insulting exclusions. But it would very ill be- 
come me to rail at the motives, and to scoff at the 
judgment, of other men, whose views of a complex 
and weighty question are different from my own. 
They, I am convinced, seriously believe what, after 
much reflection, I do not believe, that the success 
of those petitions would be dangerous to the doc- 
trines, discipline, and usefulness of the Established 
Church, to the fundamental principles of the Con- 
stitution, and to the permanent tranquillity of the 
State. 


DR. MILNER. 449 


Many of the miracles, Sir, which you have re- 
corded in your Second Part, seem to be grossly 
improbable. But when you proclaim your own 
belief in them, God forbid that I should presume 
to arraign the sincerity of that belief, or to deny 
the rectitude of your intention, when you earnestly 
recommend them to the belief of your fellow-Ro- 
manists. 

Deep, Sir, is the concern with which I read your 
note upon the passage just now quoted from p. 244 
of Part iii. “The present writer,” say you, “has 
been informed, on good authority, that one of the 
Bishops, whose calumnies are here quoted, when 
he found himself on his death-bed, refused the 
proffered ministry of the Primate, and expressed a 
great wish to die a Catholic. When urged to satisfy 
his conscience, he exclaimed, ‘what then will be- 
come of my lady and my children?’ ἢ 

Dr. Milner, on the behalf of that lady, whose 
sensibility has not been blunted by old age, and 
who, by her accomplishments and her virtues, is 
justly endeared to her friends and her children—on 
behalf of those friends, who most assuredly will 
sympathize with me in their solicitude to rescue 
the character of the Bishop from the apostacy 
which you have imputed to him—on the behalf of 
those children, who are now respectable members 
of society, and whose feelings must be most pain- 
fully wounded by the representations which you 
have given of their affectionate father in the trying 
moments of his death —on behalf of that Church, 
with the members of which I have lived in commu- 

VOL, ΠῚ. 26 


450 LETTER TO 


nion from my boyhood to grey hairs, and hope, by 
the providence of God, to pour forth my latest 
breath —on behalf of your own Church, which 
abounds, I am sure, with enlightened and upright 
men, who would disdain to support the honour of 
it by misrepresentation—on the behalf of every 
honest and every pious Christian, whether he be a 
Protestant or a Romanist—I beseech you to tell the 
world, unreservedly and distinctly, what is that 
“authority” which you have deliberately and pub- 
licly pronounced “good.” Your learning, your elo- 
quence, your well-earned reputation for orthodoxy 
and zeal—the dignity of your office, and the cele- 
brity of your name, must give more than usual 
weight to any opinion which you may adopt, and 
any assertion which you may advance. Again, 
therefore, do I require you to tell us what is your 
authority for saying that the Bishop, whose calum- 
nies you have quoted, when he found himself upon 
his deathbed, must have been struck with shame 
and compunction, for having mis-employed his ta- 
lents in giving publicity to those calumnies. 

Suffer me now, Sir, to bring forward a third pas- 
sage, in which you drop all mention of probability 
and good authority, and speak with equal confi- 
dence of Luther, Melancthon, Beza, and Bishop 
Hallifax. You assume that confidence for the pur- 
pose of showing that “certain refractory children 
in modern ages have ventured to call their true mo- 
ther a prostitute, and the common father of Chris- 
tians, the author of their own conversion from 
paganism, the man of sin, and the very Antichrist, 


DR. MILNER. 451 


But they do not really believe what they declare, 
their object being only to inflame the ignorant mul- 
titude.” After this double charge of profligate hy- 
pocrisy and turbulent malignity, you close a very 
elaborate letter upon the very momentous question, 
whether the Pope be Antichrist, in these most 
remarkable words: “I have sufficient reason to 
affirm this, when I hear a Luther threatening to 
unsay all that he had said against the Pope; a Me- 
lancthon lamenting that Protestants had renounced 
him; a Beza negotiating to return to him, and a 
late Warburtonian lecturer lamenting, on his death- 
bed, that he could not do the same.’—Part ii. p. 326. 

Here, Sir, we find your story, not in the notes, 
but in the text; and a third introduction of it is a 
decisive proof of the importance which you affix 
to it. Well, then; you, in the same sentence, speak 
with the same positiveness of three foreign reform- 
ers, who died long ago; and of an English prelate, 
whose death comparatively may be called recent. 
Is it possible, Sir, that for the same charge you 
can in every instance have the same evidence ? 
For your charges against Luther, Melancthon, and 
Beza, there may be some grounds, either in the his- 
tories which you have read of their lives, or in pas- 
sages which you can select from their writings. 
But in what genuine work, which bears the name 
of Hallifax, or in what respectable publication, which 
professes to give a fair and well-founded account of 
his faith and practice, do you trace even the slight- 
est vestiges of the thoughts and the words which 
you have ascribed to him ? 

262 


452 LETTER TO 


Reflect, [beseech you, upon the excruciating and 
perilous situation in which Dr. Hallifax must have 
been placed, if your narrative, Sir, be well founded, 
at that moment when hypocrisy, as Dr. Young says, 
“drops the mask, and real and apparent are the 
same.” He, from want of conviction, could not find 
consolation in the Church of England, and from 
want of fortitude he did not seek it in the Church 
of Rome. In a man so accustomed, as Bishop 
Hallifax was, to the study of theology, such a change 
of sentiment as you have ascribed to him could not 
be instantaneous. It was not effected by the inter- 
position of any wily casuist, or any proselyte-hunt- 
ing zealot, who might take advantage of those cir- 
cumstances which sometimes are found in the 
death-chamber of the most virtuous and the most 
devout ; and by such circumstances, Sir, I mean 
fluttering spirits, an impaired understanding, a dis- 
turbed imagination, momentary fears succeeded by 
momentary hopes, one dim and incoherent concep- 
tion rapidly succeeded by another, and sentences 
formed imperfectly, or uttered indistinctly. No, 
Sir, the Bishop of St. Asaph, according to your 
account, was visited by a Protestant Metropolitan. 

Previously, therefore, to his dissolution, while 
afflicted by sickness and oppressed by age, he must 
have suffered many a pang from conscious insince- 
rity ; and upon the near approach of that dissolu- 
tion, he was doomed to breathe his last in a dis- 
graceful and dreadful conflict between timidity and 
piety—between, calls upon his prudence, from the 
praise of men, and upon his conscience, from the 


DR. MILNER. 453 


approbation of God—between the impulses of pa- 
ternal and conjugal affection upon one hand, and of 
self-preservation upon the other—between the oppo- 
site and irreconcileable interests of time to his fa- 
mily, and eternity to his own soul. 

To the primate, who proffered his ministry, and 
to the bishop, who, according to your representa- 
tion, could not avail himself of it, no appeal can 
be made, for they are numbered among the dead. 
But the facts, said to be known by your unnamed . 
informer, could not be wholly unknown to those 
who were under the same roof with the expiring 
prelate. Such, I mean, Sir, as personal friends, as 
near relatives, as chaplains, as domestics, and, per- 
haps, medical attendants. These men, surely, can 
bear a direct and decisive testimony to a plain fact. 
They must have been deeply impressed by such a 
conversion as you describe. They must have the 
evidence of their senses whether or no such con- 
version ever occurred; and, upon the supposition 
that it did not occur, if such a host of witnesses be 
set in array, in opposition to your anonymous in- 
former, depend upon it, that the attention of all 
good men will be strongly attracted by this extra- 
ordinary case, that their best sympathies will be 
roused, and that their decision between the veracity 
of the accuser and the merits of the accused will be 
ultimately and completely just. Thus far I have 
expostulated with you, Sir, upon your charges 
against a prelate, who, having sunk into the grave, 
cannot defend himself, and who has been summoned 


454 LETTER TO 


by his Maker to that tribunal where his guilt or 
his innocence cannot be unknown. 

When such a tale, Sir, as yours is told to the 
Protestant and Catholic Church,—when it is 
pointed against such a man as Bishop Hallifax,— 
when it has been three times produced by such a 
writer as Dr. Milner,—when it is inserted in a 
work upon which you seem to have employed the 
whole strength of your vigorous and well-cultivated 
mind,—when, if suffered to pass without refutation, 
it may expose the memory of a learned English 
Prelate to infamy among Romanists for cowardice, 
among Protestants for apostacy, and among both 
for duplicity,—when that infamy, by the wide cir- 
culation of a book recommended by your name, 
may extend to foreign countries, and continue 
through distant generations,—when your statement 
may lead to consequences so afflictive to a widow 
and other surviving relatives, and so alarming to 
every conscientious and enlightened member of the 
Church of England; awful indeed, Sir, must be 
your responsibility unto God and unto man for the 
truth of your deliberate and reiterated assertions. 

Pleased I was, Reverend Sir, with your caution, 
humility, and candour, when you say, “ Far be it 
from me and every other Catholic to deal damna- 
tion on any person in particular !”—Part 11. p. 139. 
And surely, Sir, with these praiseworthy qualities, 
as exercised toward your fellow-creatures in the 
momentous concerns of a world to come, you will 
not disdain to blend a wary and delicate regard for 


DR. MILNER. 455 


the character and honourable interests of individu- 
als in the present world, where you participate with 
them in the fallibility and infirmities of our com- 
mon nature. 

Equally pleased, Sir, I was with a note to your 
Address to the very learned and truly exemplary 
Bishop of St. David’s, where you say of yourself, 
“The writer is far from claiming inerrancy ; but he 
should despise himself if he knowingly published 
any falsehood, or hesitated to retract any one that 
he was proved to have fallen into.”—Page 3 of 
Address. 

Pardon me, Sir, for telling you, unreservedly, 
that upon the present occasion your character here, 
and in some measure your salvation hereafter, are 
interested in your speedy, honest, and earnest en- 
deavours to redeem the pledge which in the fore- 
going words you have given to every Christian 
reader of every denomination.—Page 3 of Address. 

It is your bounden duty, Sir, to examine strictly, 
and to communicate fully, the grounds of that pro- 
bability which led you to believe, and, believing, to 
publish, that Bishop Hallifax died a Catholic. 

It is your bounden duty to unfold all the circum- 
stances of name and credibility in that informer 
whose authority you declare to be so good as to 
warrant you in telling a Protestant public, that a 
Protestant Bishop, and a distinguished advocate of 
Protestantism, “ when he found himself upon his 
death-bed, refused the proffered ministry of the Pri- 
mate, expressing a great wish to die a Catholic; 
and that, being urged to satisfy his conscience, he 


456 LETTER TO: 


exclaimed, What then will become of my lady and 
my children?” 

It is your bounden duty, without the smallest 
reservation, and in the most unequivocal terms, to 
explain the nature and extent of those reasons 
which you thought sufficient to justify you in 
affirming, that a late Warburtonian Lecturer, upon 
his death-bed, lamented that he could not, like a 
Luther, threaten to unsay all that he had said 
against the Pope; like a Melancthon, lament that 
Protestants had renounced him ; or, like a Beza, was 
unable to negotiate, not indeed for returning to the 
Pope, as Beza may have wished to return, but for 
announcing to him the conversion of an English 
Bishop to the Church of Rome. 

I trust, Sir, that some notice will be taken of 
the censure which you have passed upon a distin- 
guished scholar and a dignified ecclesiastic, whom 
you cali “a modern Luther.”—Note, part iil. p. 244. 
Yes, Sir, the very express image, it should seem, of 
that Luther, whom you have repeatedly and indig- 
nantly described as an apostate, a hypocrite, a vacil- 
lating and most incorrigible heretic, a clamorous 
bruiter, an impious ranter, a turbulent citizen, and 
an infuriate fanatic. This, Sir, is the obvious result 
of the language which you hold about Martin Lu- 
ther. And in part ii. p. 162, you explicitly tell us, 
that he was “the sport of his unbridled passion, 
pride, resentment, and lust ;—that he was turbulent, 
abusive, and sacrilegious in the highest degree ; — 
that he was the trumpeter of sedition, and even 
rebellion and desolation ;—and, finally, that by his 


DR. MILNER. 457 


own account he was the scholar of Satan, in the 
most important article of his pretended reforma- 
tion.” Here I stand in need of some Aristarchus 
to assist me in determining whether I am to class 
the foregoing description of Luther under the scho- 
lastic or the epistolary style, according to the dis- 
tinction which you have laid down in page 344. 
When you would apply the whole or part of that 
phraseology to our modern Luther, let me ask your- 
self, Sir, whether you intend for doctrines only, not 
for persons the rule, which you prescribed to your- 
self and to Mr. Brown in your correspondence, 
where you say, “ Let us, in the serious discussions 
of religion, confine ourselves to language of a de- 
fined meaning, leaving vague and tinsel terms to 
poets and novelists.”—Part u. p. 136. 

If the rule in such discussions be not applicable 
to persons, furnish me, I beseech you, with an intel- 
ligible reason for the separation. If it be applica- 
ble to them, consider, I again beseech you, the tre- 
mendous consequences, when your language about 
our modern Luther is to be understood with a de- 
fined meaning, as the grave charge of a grave theo- 
logian, not the vain and tinsel prattle of a visionary 
poet or a frivolous novelist. 

I make no apology to you, Sir, for producing the 
very offensive passage, in which you have described 
Dr. Rennell, “ one of the candidates for the episco- 
pal bench, from whom it would be in vain to ex- 
pect more moderation than you have observed in 
Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London; Dr. Hallifax, Bi- 
shop of St. Asaph; Dr. Barrington, Bishop of Dur- 


458 LETTER TO 


ham ; Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff; Dr. Benson, 
Bishop of Gloucester ; Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Glou- 
cester; and Dr. Sparke, Bishop of Ely; and who, 
while he was content with an inferior dignity, acted 
and preached as the friend of Catholics; since he 
has arrived at the verge of the highest dignity, pro- 
claims Popery to be ‘idolatry and Antichristianism ; 
maintaining, as does also the Bishop of Durham, 
that it is the parent of Atheism and of that anti- 
christian persecution (in France) of which,” you add 
from yourself, “it was exclusively the victim.” 
—Part 111. p. 242 and 243. 

“The writer may add, that another of the calum- 
niators here mentioned,” (id est, the Bishops just 
now named, Mr. De Coetlogon and Archdeacon 
Hook), “ being desirous of stifling the suspicion of 
his having written an anonymous No-Popery publi- 
cation, when first he took part in that cause, ad- 
dressed himself to the writer in these terms :— 
‘ How can you suspect me of writing against your 
religion, when you so well know my attachment to 
it?’ In fact, this modern Luther, among other 
similar concessions, has said this to the writer, ‘ I 
sucked in a love for the Catholic religion with my 
mother’s milk.’ ”—See note, part iii. p. 244. 

Dr. Milner, I have not presumed to hold you up 
to the scorn and abhorrence of Protestants, nor to 
let loose upon you the hideous appellations of 
bigoted controvertist, falsifier, calumniator, incen- 
diary, persecutor, a modern Bonner, and an English 
Malagrida. I have treated you, Sir, with the cour- 
tesy which is due toa Roman Catholic dignitary, 


DR. MILNER. 459 


who professes to teach the religion of a meek, 
lowly, and benevolent Redeemer ; to have received 
“jin a special manner ” (Part ii. p. 216), his legiti- 
mate ordination and divine mission in a direct suc- 
cession from the apostolic age; and to plead the 
cause of that only true Church which exclusively 
lays claim to unity, to sanctity, to Catholicity, to 
apostolicity, and to the visible protection of the Om- 
nipotent in a series of miraculous interpositions, 
vouchsased for the illustration of that Church 
through the long space of eighteen centuries. But 
if the English ecclesiastic, whose private conversa- 
tion you have confessedly divulged, should in reality 
not be the contemptible and execrable miscreant 
which a modern Luther, according to your delinea- 
tion of his prototype, must be; then, Sir, I leave it 
with yourself to find a proper name for that writer, 
who, in the eighteenth century, and in a civilized 
country, should present to his readers, Catholic or 
Protestant, such a portraiture as you have exhibited 
of such an ecclesiastic as Dr. Rennell. 

After diligent and impartial inquiry, I acknow- 
ledge myself not to be fully convinced that the 
sacred writers had in view the Bishop of Rome, 
when they mention the man of sin and son of per- 
dition, that should be revealed, and the Antichrist 
that should come; nor do I venture to pronounce 
from the pulpit that the writer of the Apocalypse 
intended to prefigure the Church of Rome, when 
he speaks of the woman who was arrayed in purple 
and scarlet colour, who was drunken with the blood 
of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, 


460 LETTER TO 


with whom all the kings of the earth had committed 
fornication, and upon whose forehead was a name 
written, “ Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother 
of Harlots, and Abomination of the Earth.” 

Of these passages, Sir, I confess that, in the 
words of St. Austin, quoted by you (Part i. p. 73), 
“ they are among the things in Scripture of which I 
am ignorant ;” or, to adopt the phraseology of St. 
Peter, I class them with the “ things which are hard 
to be understood.” But I do not presume to affirm, 
or even insinuate, that men, whom it were impudent 
calumny to call “ unstable and unlearned,” have 
“wrested these passages to their own destruction,” 
when, having searched the Scriptures seriously, and 
with all the aids which history or criticism supply, 
they were led, by the dictates of their own con- 
science, to interpret certain well-known texts to the 
prejudice of the Church of Rome. 

The mention of the Apocalypse leads me to re- 
mind you of what the writer has said, to readers of 
all churches and all ages, about that evil spirit who 
was the accuser of his brethren, and accused them 
before our God day and night. You and I, Sir, 
cannot forget that he came down upon the inha- 
bitants of the earth in great wrath, for he knew 
that his time was short. If, therefore, in the 
Church of England or the Church of Rome there 
be any unhappy persons who resemble that accuser 
in his malignity, it must be the wish of every good 
man that they may resemble him also in his fall. 

The man whom in one place you have arraigned 
at the bar of the public as a modern Luther, and 


DR. MILNER. 461 


whom in another you have virtually accused of in- 
consistency, insincerity, and corrupt ambition, is 
now living; and long may he live to be a fellow- 
labourer with the Maltbys, the Butlers, the Blom- 
fields, and other eminent contemporaries in the 
cause of literature, to exhort and convince the gain- 
sayers by sound doctrine, and to adorn the revealed 
will of God our Saviour in all things! 

Whether or no he may be pleased to lift up his 
giant arm in crushing the assailant of his long-esta- 
blished and well-earned reputation, I take not upon 
myself to determine. But the prudence at which 
you once hinted ought to have suggested to you, 
that our modern Luther has a son not quite unwor- 
thy of such an illustrious father, not quite unable 
to wield the choicest weapons of lawful warfare, 
when confronted by so sturdy and well-disciplined a 
champion as yourself. My authority, Dr. Milner, 
is good, not only from common fame, but from the 
general consent of scholars, and my own personal 
observations, when I say with equal confidence to 
Protestants and Romanists, that by profound erudi- 
tion, by various and extensive knowledge, by a well- 
formed taste, by keen discernment, by glowing and 
majectic eloquence, by morals correct without aus- 
terity, and by piety fervent without superstition, the 
son of the Dean of Winchester stands among the 
brightest luminaries of our national literature and 
national church.* 


* Deeply does the Editor lament, in common with every 
lover of virtue and learning, that this ornament of the Church 


462 LETTER TO 


Perhaps, in the progress of his son’s improve- 
ment, the time will come when the Dean would par- 
don his contemporaries for saying of himself, as 
compared with that son,— 


« 


nati spectans bene facta fatetur 
Esse suis majora, et vinci gaudet ab illo.” 


In respect to myself, Sir, it is impossible for me to 
foresee what sentiments I may entertain, when 
“ the transitory scene of this world is closing to my 
sight.”—Part 11. p. 236. But, at the present mo- 
ment, I shall not deprecate from you, Sir, or any 
human being whatsoever, the imputation of wilful 
ignorance, when I declare to you what is the state 
of my own mind after a course of reading not very 
confined, and of reflection not very negligent, for 
more than fifty years. I leave you, Sir, to glory in 
the name of Catholic without impeaching your sin- 
cerity. But Iam myself “not a Lutheran, not a 
Calvinist, not a Whitfieldite, nor a Wesleyan, nor 
of the Kirk of Scotland, nor of the Consistory of 
Geneva.”—Part 11. p. 194. I am a member of that 
English Church, which, according to your own ac- 
knowledgement, “has better pretensions to unity, 
and the other marks of the true church than any 
other Protestant society has.”-—Part 11. p. 125. 

The subject upon which I am writing to you is 
of no ordinary magnitude, and therefore you will 


no longer exists. Yet it is gratifying to him to reflect, that it 
must be some consolation to the parents of such a son to read 
this sincere and disinterested commendation of him from the 
pen of such a man as Dr. Parr ! 


DR. MILNER. 463 


excuse me if, at the close of this letter, I accommo- 
date to that subject the solemn language with which 
your own elaborate work concludes. “ On this oc- 
casion reflect seriously, and conscientiously, dis- 
missing all worldly respects of whatever kind from 
your mind; for what will the prejudiced opinion of 
arash and incredulous informer avail you at that 
tribunal where we are all soon to appear ?” 


I have the honour to be, Sir, with great respect, 
Your well-wisher, 


and obedient humble servant, 


SAMUEL PARR. 
June, 1819. 


ag eae | piqued; to ΚΩ͂Ν 
Age θυλιάηα, οι μα acl Sepals Om 
finds pt liky) oui) ui -enohulionta el ὩΣ ν᾽ 


Pee’ ih” δἰ gaetap a nav taaan ἀν Bu es - 


“ἀν 


᾿ς ΔΝ 


ΤΗΣ ging aie ’ il δὲ αὐλὰς 


aes eek ἡ Je) vey | a wt. τ΄ Fi atid 
is AES CMe ight ra ἽΚΆ 


ἘΝ τ lel Rede, 


MM 
᾿ Ἃ f 7 Pe ods avi 
eek Rae 
es ὡν" : 
ἱ ἈΝ ? 
ΦΥ͂ π᾿ cyt, 
Ἷ - he 3 _* 
τὰ Ψ πως 
Pa τοῦ 26.» ee 
A 
ὦ 
s 
7) 
F of 
NE PRD > HOD) re 
A ἐκ hi a ty arene 
ἐν ἀφον εν WB has ty mi, a 


Me es κοι 


EXTRACTS 
ἜΝ FROM A 
PAMPHLET PUBLISHED IN 1795, 


INTITULED, 


“ REMARKS ON THE STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES COMBE,” 
- 7 Pi | 


A STATEMENT RELATIVE TO THE VARIORUM HORACE, 


EDITED BY H. HOMER AND DR. COMBE. 


VOL. I. Qu 


These Extracts are all that could fairly be detached from the 
immediate subject of the pamphlet. They are referrible chiefly 
to purposes of self-defence,—to Dr. Parr’s share in the Vario- 
rum Horace,—to the origin and history of the Preface to Bel- 
lendenus,—to the character and labours of Henry Homer, his 
coadjutor in the publication of Bellenden’s tracts,—to the Doc- 
tor’s Critiques in the Reviews of the day,— and, finally, to 
several persons of literary and political distinction, whose 
names were incidentally mentioned. Over the whole pamphlet 
are liberally scattered observations of great pith and moment, 
but most of them are too closely involved with the controversial 
part to be separated ; and that controversial part, by Dr. Parr’s 
desire, is not republished. 


EXTRACTS 


FROM A 


PAMPHLET PUBLISHED IN 1795, BY DR. PARR. 


I. PERSONAL. 


In the course of an active, and, I hope, not an 
useless life, 1 have owed, and I continue to owe, so 
much of my happiness to the esteem and the grati- 
tude of those whom I have endeavoured to serve, 
that Iam not apt to be ruffled very violently, or 
galled very severely, by a few straggling instances 
of ungracious and unmerited treatment. My own 
spirit is, indeed, too intrepid to recede from my 
own claims, because they are depreciated by the 
selfish or slighted by the vain. But my observa- 
tions upon mankind have been spread through so 
wide an extent, and exercised upon objects so vari- 
ous, that I have little difficulty in distinguishing 
between the marks of weakness and guilt in other 
men—between the effects of temporary situation 
and habitual principle—between action, which is 
inconstant, and character, which is more stable. 
Among those who know me best, I am not exceed- 
ingly notorious for professing the regard which I 
feel not, or dissembling the dislike which I do feel. 

282 


468 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


My bosom may glow with resentment, but seldom 
or never rankles with malignity. Upon facts which 
have passed long ago, and of which no traces have 
been renewed by impressions from intervening 
events, or by the anxieties of immediate interest, 
recollection in me, as in other men, may stand in 
need of succour from judgment. It will owe some- 
thing to accident, and something to effort. It will 
be invigorated by the sudden discovery of facts, 
and corrected by the careful comparison of circum- 
stances. It will often give occasion for surprize to 
the mind, on a retrospect of its own operations, 
both where it fails and where it succeeds. Seldom 
is it more treacherous than when lulled asleep by 
the silence of a foe—more helpless than when con- 
fused by his obscurity—or more exact than when 
roused by his contradiction. There are complex 
cases, in which the understanding gradually ex- 
changes the weaker probability for the stronger; 
and there are lucky situations, too, in which it 
pushes at once from the dim and tremulous twi- 
light of uncertainty, to the full and steady bright- 
ness of conviction. 

Observations such as the foregoing naturally oc- 
curred to me, as I reflected on the different state of 
my own mind at different times, while the transac- 
tions between the late Mr. Henry Homer and my- 
self were passing in review before it. I erred, and 
emerged from error—I advanced from forgetfulness 
to remembrance, with more or less rapidity—I have 
been sometimes guided by the clear, and sometimes 
stimulated even by the imperfect, recollection of 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 469 


the Pamphlet-writer—I have found occasional as- 
sistance from written documents—and at length I 
am inclined to hope, that where certainty cannot 
be overtaken in some deep and dark retreat, I may 
yet be able to explore with advantage the more ac- 
cessible regions of probability. 


It is not very pleasant for me to expatiate upon 
any faults which have been imputed to me in gene- 
ral terms by an incensed assailant, and of which I 
do not think myself guilty in the general tenor of 
my life. Yet I must take the liberty of saying, 
that Iam more addicted to anger than to contempt. 
True it is, that my conceptions of men and things 
are vivid, and that my language about them is sel- 
dom feeble. But, if my censures are severe, I hope 
that my commendations are more frequent, and 
not less forcible. I am sure, too, that I have much 
oftener had reason to repent of my precipitation in 
praise, than of my injustice in reproach. Against 
the babble of conceited sciolists, against the claims 
of saucy pretenders, against the decisions of pom- 
pous, officious, and censorious dogmatists, I do in- 
dulge contempt. But if an opponent will vouchsafe 
to learn from me the art of discrimination, he will, 
in speaking of my habits, distinguish between the 
language of contempt, and the language of dissent, 
of disapprobation, of rooted aversion, of strong in- 
dignation. 


_ Smarting under the lash I sometimes brandish 
against dulness combined with conceit, and ig- 


470 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


norance hardened with effrontery, blockheads have 
imputed to me literary pride—insolent and low- 
minded sciolists have murmured against me for 
having a churlish temper, when they had themselves 
insidiously or wantonly, but not with impunity, 
provoked me—the bigot has spied in me the taint 
of heresy—the highflyer has clamoured against me, 
most unjustly, indeed, but loudly, for a leaning to- 
wards republicanism. Alii errorem appellant, alii 
cupiditatem, qui durius spem, odium, pertinaciam, 
qui gravissime temeritatem, scelus, preter te, Tu- 
bero, adhuc nemo. 


While the second volume of Janus was with me, 
Mr. Homer expressed some earnestness for me to 
return it. I had never read Janus till it was sent 
me to be marked for the variorum edition; and I 
did not choose to be precipitate in selecting matter 
from a book just as new to me, as were some other 
commentators upon Horace to the variorum editor. 
Now every man feels his own concerns most closely ; 


and why should not I be permitted to feel mine? It is 
very well known, both to my pupils and my visitors, 
that few men are less idle than myself ; and by many of 
my friends it will not be denied, that a pretty consi- 
derable share of my time has been allotted to their 
writings. From my daily avocations as an instruc- 
tor, from my numerous and I hope useful exertions 
as a parish-priest, from the variety and extent of 
my correspondence, from the different affairs about 
which I am either consulted or employed by dif- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 471 


ferent persons in different parts of the kingdom, I 
am often bereaved of the leisure which would other- 
wise be dedicated to the prosecution of my studies, 
the relief of my spirits, and even the preservation of 
my health. I have occasion to say this now, not 
for the purpose of praising, but of vindicating my- 
self. I have had occasion to say the same thing 
before, not only to Mr, Homer, that I might blunt 
accusation, but to one or two other persons, that I 
might strike it aside; and they who would not, 
upon such terms imposed by such necessity, accept 
my well-meant aid, would have done well to with- 
draw their requests, not because my industry was 
slackened, nor because my zeal had cooled, but be- 
cause their exigencies and my own were, at some 
unlucky point of time, incompatible. 

It would be irksome to me to rush into a war of 
assertions, even though I should come to the con- 
flict with a panoply of proof. I know that in sea- 
sons of irritation even well-meaning men are led to 
assert more than they can prove, not because they 
wish to deceive, but because they are themselves 
deceived—not because they judge uncharitably, but 
because they comprehend partially—not so much 
because they mistake their own convenience, as be- 
cause they are too inattentive to the convenience of 
other men. 


None of the writings which I have hitherto ven- 
tured to lay before the public, give the smallest en- 
couragement, directly or indirectly, to theoretical 
refinements or seditious practices. In my general 


472 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


habits of thinking, I dread all extremes under all 
pretences, and in the general tenor of my conversa- 
tion I am not very forward in recommending sud- 
den and strong experiments. Upon all my political 
publications I can look back without shame and 
without compunction. There is one of them,* too, 
upon which I reflect with peculiar pleasure, because 
I endeavoured in it to preserve the peace of my 
neighbourhood, and because my endeavours were 
not in vain. But if at any future period I should 
employ my pen upon any political topic, it would be 
not for inflammatory, but for conciliatory purposes 
—not to facilitate but to prevent the introduction of 
Gallic extravagancies—not to promote even a tem- 
perate democracy, but to support our limited and 
constitutional monarchy. Perhaps I have no great 
confidence in the wisdom of some persons who im- 
pose, or in the sincerity of others who are eager to 
subscribe, political formulas. Placed in an humble 
situation, and engaged in useful studies, I am con- 
tent to shew my “faith by my works.” Upon the 
limits that ought to be fixed to the prerogatives of 
the crown, and the rights of the people, I neither 
frolic, as many other men do, in newspapers, nor 
flourish in magazines, nor bluster in pamphlets, nor 
declaim in sermons. I correspond with no factious 
incendiaries, I frequent no patriotic meetings; and 
of the only political society to which I belong, the 
Duke of Portland, a peer, surely, of indisputable at- 
tachment to the cause of royalty, is, I believe, at 


* Irenopolis, &c. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 473 


this hour an illustrious member. Roused, but not 
unnerved, by the sound of the distant tempest, I 
have taken that perilous though honourable station, 
where the understanding can look around, through 
a wide survey, on the heavings of the troubled 
ocean, where the passions, assailed by the force of 
opposite billows, and reeling for a time under the 
shock, may recover their just equilibrium, and 
where hope, rather than principle, may finally suf- 
fer shipwreck amidst the fury of the contending 
elements. 

To a man of letters, and a teacher of religion, I 
am well aware that decorum often becomes an es- 
sential part of duty. Knowing, therefore, the force 
of example, I obey, and encourage others to obey 
the laws, not for wrath, but for conscience sake. I 
render “tribute where tribute is due, and honour 
where honour ;” and however I may have asserted 
my right to approve or disapprove of the measures 
adopted by a particular administration, I never gave 
any intelligent and virtuous man the smallest rea- 
son to doubt the steadiness of my attachment to 
the sound and acknowledged principles of our 
mixed government. 


But while I look with dismay and with horror on 
the poisonous maxims which have been broached 
in a neighbouring country, I feel no obligation to 
speak smooth things upon all that is passing at 
home. I do not confound the French people with 
the French government. I distinguish between the 
instruments and the principles of the war. I hold 


474 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


that the complicated, momentous, and comprehen- 
hensive questions arising from it, are not to be 
scanned by the hireling retailers of temporary 
events, or the shallow dupes of imposture, for the 
moment popular and triumphant. Whatever opi- 
nions I may have formed on the ultimate conse- 
quences of the disasters by which Europe is now 
afflicted, and the struggles by which it is agitated, 
I will not disguise my apprehensions of immediate 
evils nearly equal, both from the success and the 
defeat of the confederate powers, for reasons too 
solemn to be embroidered over a personal alterca- 
tion with the Pamphlet-writer, and too pure to 
shrink from the touch of Mr. Burke himself, even 
if he should wield the spear of Ithuriel. I approved 
not of the war at its commencement! I rejoice 
not at its continuance! I cease not to pray most 
sincerely and most fervently for its speedy and entire 
termination. I call that man a clumsy reasoner, 
who, because any foreign potentates have joined 
our armies in the name of allies, or stipendiaries, 
would infer that they have ceased to be despots 
over their own subjects. I pronounce him an atro- 
cious slanderer, who would torture my undisguised 
scruples as to the irresistible necessity of an Anti- 
gallican war, into a proof of the slightest propen- 
sity towards Gallican theories, Gallican extravagan- 
cies, or Gallican-enormities. I think him substan- 
tially, and, at the present crisis, eminently a good 
citizen, who mourns, as I do, at the dubious expe- 
riments* actually made by some modern loyalists ; 


* « Fingunt creduntque,” are the words of one who looked 
‘ 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT 475 


and who shudders, as I do, at the baneful innova- 


tions theoretically proposed by one very numerous 
and impetuous class of modern reformers. 


Of my philological studies I shall attempt no de- 


with a piercing eye into the heart of man. And perhaps his re- 
mark may be extended to certain political reasons which have 
been lately adduced in defence of certain perilous measures. 
But the principle upon which these measures are founded, is not 
altogether of modern date; and for the sake, not of the un- 
blushing mercenary or the unfeeling ruffian, who profess to act 
upon it, but of one honourable senator, whom their professions 
have deluded, I will throw in his way a sentence more plausible 
and more energetic, than all he has heard in the unmasculine 
rhetoric of beardless declaimers, or, in what Milton calls the 
“barking monitories and mementos of any new associates.”— 
Παρακάλειν τοὺς κινδύνους τοῖς κινδύνοις βοηθήσοντας. In the 
application of this maxim to the affairs of our own empire, I, 
perhaps, am in the number of those who would deny the as- 
sumption ; or, granting the assumption to be true, I should resist 
the consequence. But there are men of understandings so be- 
sotted, and sensibility so benumbed, that every fallacy, tinged 
with superstition, and bulky from exaggeration, acts upon them 
with greater effect than the most simple and adamantine truth. 
Happy would be that age in which no man could with justice 
say of his contemporaries, what Milton said very unjustly of a 
misguided and unfortunate prince: ‘“ By so strange a method 
among the mad multitude is a sudden reputation won of wisdom 
by wilfulness and subtle shifts, of goodness by multiplying evil, 
of piety by endeavouring to root out true religion.” Milton’s 
Eikonoklastes, But how are we to look for stedfast pillars of 
the state,” instead of such ““ shaken and uncertain reeds” as too 
many persons have lately shewn themselves, ‘‘ while men betake 
themselves to state affairs with souls so unprincipled in virtu, 
and true generous breeding, that flattery and tyrannous apho - 
risms appear to them the highest points of wisdom, instilling 
their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery, if, as I rather 


476 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


fence, and of my politics I shall scarcely give any 
other explanation than that they are chiefly drawn 
from Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Livy, Sallust, Cicero, 
and Tacitus, among the antients; and among the 
moderns, from Grotius, Puffendorf, Barlemaqui, Bu- 
chanan, Thuanus, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Locke, 
Sidney, Harrington, Tyrrill, Selden, Blackstone, 
and Sir Matthew Hale. He that reads such au- 
thors may be excused for his attachment to politics. 
Little of my time is bestowed on the political 
pamphlets of the day. But I should think my 
judgment disgraced if I did not read the po- 
litical works of six or seven writers, who in our 
own times do honour to our own country by 
the depth of their enquiries, the precision of 
their reasonings, and the splendour of their style. 
My reading, I believe, is not wholly contemptible, 
either as to variety or extent, and my leisure is far 
too scanty for me to waste it upon topics in which 
I feel no interest, or upon books from which I can 
derive no instruction. The vigour of my animal 
spirits, and the love I have for social intercourse, 
rarely permit me, when I am in company, to sit in 
sullen silence, or to keep a gloomy and watchful re- 


think, it be not feigned? And what do they tell us vainly of 
new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must 
be heard but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of 
all others? This is not the liberty which we could hope, that 
no grievance ever should arise in the state; that let no man in 
this world expect. But when complaints are freely heard, 
deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost 
bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men can look for.” — 
See Letter to Hartlib, and Oratio Areopagitica. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 477 


serve, or to affect that pompous solemnity which 
some men assume, who wish the copiousness and 
solidity of their ideas to be estimated in a direct 
proportion to the paucity and the feebleness of their 
words. I do not, however, converse upon every 
subject to which I have attended, before every man 
with whom I meet; and therefore it may not fall in 
the way of every man to determine what subjects I 
think most worthy, or what I think utterly unworthy 
of my regard. 


II. LITERARY. 


VARIORUM HORACE. 


I marked the Venusine Lectiones of Klotzius, 
Cuningham’s Animadversions, Mr. Markland’s Expli- 
cationes at the end of the Supplices Mulieres, Mr. 
Wakefield’s Observations, published in 1776, and 
the Animadversions of Waddelus ; and the foregoing 
works appear more or less in both volumes. I 
marked all Bentley’s notes which are produced in 
the first volume, and all the notes from Janus. To 
Mr. Homer I pointed out at my own house two 
notes from Bishop Hare’s Scripture Vindicated, and 
one from his Epistola Critica, all of which are inserted 
in the first volume of the Variorum Edition, andI in- 


- 
478 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


formed him of another conjecture in the same 
Epistle, which is now inserted in the second volume. 
I lent also to Mr. Homer the second volume of 
Hare’s works, and Pulman’s Annotations, which 
he soon returned to me. I desired him to write 
out Taylor's observation upon semper udum, in Ode 
xxix. book ili. and I told him of a conjectural 
reading upon Caupo, Sat. i. lib. i. and a judicious 
interpretation of the word Eros in the work De 
Arte Poética, both of which he might find in Tay- 


lor’s Elements of Civil Law. I desired Mr. Homer 
to make a reference from Juvat, Od. i. book 
i.; to Bentley's note on Videar, or Videor, Sat. 
ii. book ii.; and I am sorry that, after such a 
reference, the note itself is not brought forward 
in the second volume. I shewed Mr. Homer a 
note upon the same word Juvat from L. Bos. I 
gave him a reference to the Adventurer upon Alite, 
in Ode vi. lib. 1. a reference to Gray’s Works upon 
Mobilibus Rivis, Ode vii. lib. i. which by a little 
mistake is subjoined to the word Anio; a note from 
Schrader on the word Undique in the same Ode, 
and from Schrader I gave nothing more for the 
first volume, because his noble emendation of Pon- 
tus, which he substitutes for Penus, is noticed by 
Janus, as may be seen p. 162, vol. i. of the Vario- 
rum Edition. ButI reserved another emendation 
from Schrader for the second volume, and have 
since produced it in The British Critic. Mr. Ho- 
mer had a reference from me to Toup’s note on 
Longinus, and his Cure Posteriores ad Theocritum 
upon the word Jecur. I desired him to insert a 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 479 


note from Barnes's Homer upon Ode ii. line 1, 
b. i. I told him also of Bentley’s conjectures upon 
ver. 12], of Sat. 11. lib. 1. and though I could have 
referred him to the learned Dr. Foster’s work upon 
Accents, and to the Preface and third book of 
Cephalas’s Anthologia, published at Oxford, yet I 
had my reasons for desiring him to speak only of 
Warton’s Essay upon Pope; and as the Variorum 
Edition exhibits the very reference which I recom- 
mended to Mr. Homer only, I am inclined to think 
that he had recorded it either on the margin of his 
Horace or some loose paper; for, of my detached 
communications to Mr. Homer, this seems the only 
one in the second volume of the Variorum Edition. 
Again, I communicated to Mr. Homer, or to Dr. 
Combe, or both, the reading of Donatus, “Exin 
Tarquinium,” for Tarquinit Corpus, in a line of 
Ennius. I marked for Dr. Combe Bentley’s notes 
on the Epodes and the Carmen Seculare, and I re- 
vised the proof sheets. I cleared up two references 
to Greek passages about which the Doctor was per- 
plexed, ‘and I gave him some advice about using 
Lambin’s notes, and especially those which tended 
to the illustration of Grecisms. 


BELLENDENUS, 


I will tell the reader all I remember about the 
plan and the progress of the new edition of 
Bellenden. Harry Homer had often heard me 
speak of the high esteem in which I held Bel- 


480 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


lenden’s work De tribus Luminibus Romanorum, 
and of the great pains which I had taken to 
examine how far the charge of plagiarism from 
that work urged against Dr. Middleton was well 
founded. My conversation might or might not 
have excited his curiosity about the name of Bellen- 
den. But I know that he was a diligent searcher 
after curious books; and soon after he had met 
with Bellenden’s three tracts, he wrote me a 
good humoured and triumphant letter about his 
discovery. Whether or no he in that letter gave 
any intimation of his design to publish those tracts 
I cannot at this distance of time determine. About 
the month of October 1786, he came to me at Hat- 
ton, bringing with him the book in his pocket, and 
then he did talk about publishing it. I examined 
the tracts which I had never seen hefore—I con- 
curred with him about the propriety of publication ; 
and the result of our different conversations was, 
that I should assist sometimes in revising the sheets, 
write a dedication and a preface, and partake of the 
expence. It was considered by Mr. Homer and 
myself a common and equal concern. Accordingly, 
some vowels in Mr. Homer's christian and surname, 
as well as my own, were subjoined to the dedi- 
cations. I shewed Mr. Homer, while he was with 
me, the reference to Cicero’s writings in the work 
De tribus Luminibus Romanorum ; and knowing 
his felicity in chasing what he used to call “ catch- 
words,” I desired him to trace out the passages 


* AE, A. O. id. est, Sam. Hen. Parr. Homer. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 481 


which Bellenden in the tracts had quoted from 
Cicero. This I considered as the most laborious 
and useful part of the task allotted to him. He 
performed it with great diligence and great success. 
He applied to me on all points of difficulty, either 
when he could not find passages, which happened 
seldom, or when the texts of Bellenden’s tracts and 
Mr. Homer’s edition of Cicero were at variance, 
which was much oftener the case. If, in revising the 
sheets of Bellenden, my judgment, or my ear, led me 
to suspect the accuracy of his words, I often com- 
pared them with the text of Cicero in my own 
editions, and sometimes I desired Mr Homer to 
have recourse to other editions which I possessed 
not. We entered upon the work, by common con- 
sent, from the beginning—we pursued it with joint 
exertion till the conclusion—and when Mr. Homer, 
after his return to London, informed me of his un- 
willingness to trust the book which he had brought 
from Cambridge to a printer, I agreed to his pro- 
posal for taking a share in the expence of having it 
transcribed. Of the preface itself I will now givea 
very full explanation ; and frequently have I been 
heard by my friends to declare the satisfaction I 
felt, that the size to which it at first extended, and 
the alterations which it afterwards underwent, were 
so well known to my pupils or visitors, and es- 
pecially to the Honourable Mr. Augustus Legge, of 
Christ Church, Oxford; and to the very learned 
Mr. Maltby, of Pembroke College, Cambridge. 
Pleased as I was with the whole design, I wrote 
the dedications and the preface too before the end 
VOL. III. 21 


489 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


of November. The preface at first filled about 
a sheet of paper, and contained such information as 
I had been able to obtain from my books. I desired 
Mr. Homer to apply to his friends, and I also made 
similar applications to my own, for the purpose of 
having such libraries as might contain the tracts 
consulted, and by degrees I obtained additional in- 
formation, which I occasionally inserted, as soon as 
it reached me. Mr. Homer is entitled to great 
commendation for the diligence of his researches, 
and to him alone is due the praise of procuring 
some materials from the British Museum. The 
preface to Bellenden was written in Mr, Homer’s 
life time—it was published under his immediate in- 
spection—it assumed the form in which it now ap- 
pears with his knowledge and his consent. Such 
too was Mr. Homer’s delicacy in sharing the praise 
which he supposed himself not to have earned, that 
I had some little difficulty in prevailing upon him 
to let me subjoin the vowels of his name with those 
of my own in the dedications. But I insisted upon 
paying this tribute to my auxiliary; and when 
little controversies had sprung up, and various con- 
jectures had been started about the meaning of 
these vowels, I took an early opportunity of ex- 
plaining the fact in a magazine of the very highest 
celebrity, and of the most extensive circulation. 
Such were the circumstances in Bellenden’s history. 


About the end of November, or early in the 
month of December, my daughter, who was very ill, 
went with her mother to London, and remained for 


< 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 483 


a considerable time under the kind and judicious 
care of Dr. Combe. I suffered great inquietude of 
mind from the danger in which I supposed her to 
be. I songht relief and I found it, in preparations 
for an enlargement of the preface. The political 
matter was then, for the first time introduced, and of 
course the preface grew larger and larger as new efforts 
produced new additions. It was in December first 
transcribed by Mr. Maltby, now Chaplain to the 
Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards in the month of 
January it was again transcribed by him. In the 
same month I had an opportunity of shewing it 
to Mr. Sheridan. It happened to me, as it does 
to other men of letters engaged in a favourite 
work—revisal, conversation, and reading supplied 
fresh ideas, and the size of the preface was in 
the second transcript much increased before I sent it 
up to the press about the end of January. While it 
was printing I revised every sheet twice. I made 
several corrections in the style, a few alterations 
in the arrangement, and some addition to the mat- 
ter. It was published, if I mistake not, about the 
end of May, or pretty early m the month of June. 


In respect to the publication of Bellenden’s 
tracts, the case was this—we entered upon it, ac- 
cording to what I have before stated, as a joint 
concern. I agreed to pay two guineas for the 
transcript before the work went to press, and I 
advanced £50 while it was going on. I submitted 
to Mr. Homer the whole business of settling for 
printing, for paper, for engravings, and for the 

212 


484 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


premiums to be allowed booksellers. From the 
beginning of the work, to the present moment, I 
never read one syllable about costs or profit. When 
the work had been for some time published, it was 
proposed that I should have no trouble, or further 
suspense about the issue; that I should consider 
£50 refunded me, and 50 advanced to me, as the 
whole of my due, and that all actual or contingent 
profits arising from the edition should be made over 
to Mr. Homer himself. These sums, together with 
the numerous copies I had been permitted to give 
away, seemed to me a sufficient compensation. 


“The original intention of the edition,” it is 
said, “was lost in the reception it met with as 
a political pamphlet.” My memory, which upon 
literary matters is tolerably faithful, has enabled me 
to explain in what manner the original intention 
was changed, or, I should rather say, the original 
plan was enlarged, with Mr. Homer's entire appro- 
bation; and my observation concurs with my 
memory in preventing me from believing, that this 
change, or enlargement, was injurious to the sale of 
Bellenden’s tracts. Hitherto I had been accustomed 
to think that the preface excited some degree of 
public attention to the work itself, and had gratified 
a little the curiosity of scholars, not only in England 
and Scotland, but also in Germany, where I know 
that Mr. Heyne paid a most honourable tribute of 
commendation to me for not preferring what Milton 
calls the “ gay rankness* of modern fustianists, to 


* Highly as I may be gratified with the approbation of Mr. 


a 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 485 


the native latinism of Cicero.” Into the delusion, 


Heyne, I by no means aspire even to the qualified praise 
bestowed on those writers who are known by the name of 
Ciceronians. Instead of imitating, as some scholars have pro- 
fessed to do, the manner of Terence or Tacitus among the 
ancients, or of Lipsius and Strada among the moderns, I have 
endeavoured, so far as my slender abilities would permit me, to 
make the style of Cicero a general model for my own; and at 
the same time I have avowedly followed the example of many 
learned men in the occasional use of words which are not found 
in the writers of the Augustan age.—Even in the corrected 
preface to Bellenden, I have discovered some faults; and I 
have no hesitation in saying, that I think my own talent 
for Latin composition very inferior to that of Sir W. Jones, 
Bishop Lowth, Dr. Philip Barton, Dr. Lawrence, and Sir 
George Baker. 

The mention of the two last scholars in the foregoing para- 
graph incidentally suggests to me a general observation, which, 
though it be unconnected with the subject of the present note, 
I will not deny myself the satisfaction of throwing on my paper, 
While I allow that peculiar and important advantages arise from 
the appropriate studies of the three liberal professions, I must 
confess that, in erudition, in science, and in habits of deep and 
comprehensive thinking, the pre-eminence in some degree must 
be assigned to physicians. The propensity which some of them 
have shewn to scepticism upon religious topics is indeed to be 
seriously lamented ; and it may be satisfactorily explained, I 
think, upon metaphysical principles, which evince the strength 
rather than the weakness of the human mind, when contempla- 
. ting under certain circumstances the multiplicity and energy of 
physical causes. But I often console myself with reflecting onthe 
sounder opinions of Sir Thomas Browne, Sydenham, Boerhaave, 
and Hartley, in the days that are past ; and of our own times pos- 
terity will remember that they were adorned by the virtues, as 
well as the talents, of a Gregory, a Heberden, a Falconer, anda 
Percival. It were easy for me to enlarge this catalogue by 
other instances which the circle of my own friendships would 


supply. 


486 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


if it be one, I was in part led, not merely by general 
report, but by a very witty story which dropped from 
the mouth of a very witty man, Mr. George Stevens, 
and which Mr. Homer mentioned to me with bursts 
of laughter. I have heard indeed, of one noble peer, 
who, upon looking into the preface, refused to buy 
the book. But I have also heard of another, and 
perhaps a more learned peer, who read both with 
equal attention, and spoke of both in terms of 
commendation nearly equal. How far my political 
opinions may have ultimately obstructed the sale of 
Bellenden’s tracts, it is neither for Dr. Combe nor 
for myself to decide, But if I have not been misin- 
formed, Dr. Combe is mistaken when he says, that 
“before Mr. Homer's death not many of the original 
had been sold.” The number might indeed at that 
time fall short of my friend’s expectations. But 1 
hope to stand acquitted of all unkindness to his 
memory, when I think it possible for the sale to 
have been in some measure retarded by the dearness 
of the book, and the magnificence of the bindings. 


RECAPITULATION. 


At first I took the trouble of examining Bellen- 
den’s Tracts very carefully, before I advised my 
friend to hazard the publication. 

I gave him proper advice to increase the value of 
his own edition by references to the works of σε 
cero, and in all cases of difficulty I assisted to make 
the text correct. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 487 


I undertook the very irksome task of revising 
some of the proof sheets. 

I pulled down my musty books, in order to glean 
from them such information as they might supply 
about the life of Bellenden himself, and the pro- 
gress of his different works. 

With all my fondness for the squalid and sapless 
subtleties of metaphysics, I left them, for once, to 
try my skill on daintier subjects. Though I could 
not entirely keep my hands from plucking the thorn 
with the rose, and weaving them together for some 
mischievous purpose, yet their chief employment 
was to cull the gaudiest flowers of rhetoric, and 
twine them into wreaths of panegyric, which, how- 
ever, as — informs me, soon faded from their 
own native brightness into a sickly hue, and, 
shrinking under the blights of public contempt, are 
now fallen into hopeless decay. 

In addition to this prodigality of intellectual la- 
bour, I employed my influence, and even lent my 
money without any prospect of profit. 

I trespassed on the politeness of Lord D——, 
who borrowed for me an original pictnre of Lord 
North, from which an engraving might be taken. 

I gave two guineas for the transcript of a book, 
which a new edition was soon to bring within my 
reach for less than half the sum. 

T even advanced fifty pounds to defray the expense 
of printing, paper, and engravings. 


488 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


REVIEWS. 


The reader will, I trust, excuse me,if, for reasons of 
delicacy, I now take an opportunityto state the whole 
extent of the share I have ever had in Reviews. To 
the British Critic I have sent one article, besides 
those which were written for the Horace. For the 
Critical Review I have furnished a few materials 
for two articles only. For the Monthly I have as- 
sisted in writing two or three, and the number of 
those which are entirely my own does not exceed 
six or seven. In almost all these critiques, my at- 
tention was to commend rather than to blame, and 
the only one in which I ever blamed with severity 
related to a classical work, the editor of which de- 
served reproof for the following reasons: He 
clothed bad critisms in bad latinity. He had not 
availed himself of that information which preceding 
editions would have supplied to any intelligent 
editor. From the stores of other critics he collected 
very little, and from his own he produced yet less 
that was valuable. But he had indulged himself in 
rude and petulant objections against Dr. Bentley ; 
and for this chiefiy I censured him. Here ends the 
catalogue of my crimes hitherto committed in Re- 
views ; and as I now have somewhat more leisure 
than I formerly enjoyed, it is possible that I may 
now and then add to their number. My contribu- 
tions to works of this kind are occasional, and 
therefore I have no right to the benefit of that se- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 489 


crecy, which it may be wise and honourable for the 
regular conductors of Reviews to preserve. Of the 
share which I have already taken and may hereafter 
take in these periodical publications, I never can be 
ashamed. I might plead the example of many 
scholars both at home and abroad, far superior to 
myself in vigour of intellect and extent of erudition ; 
but I wish rather to insist upon the utility of the 
works themselves, and upon the opportunities which 
they furnish to men of learning, for rendering some 
occasional service to the general cause of literature. 
There is no one Review in this Country but what is 
conducted with a considerable degree of ability ; 
and though I decline the task of deciding upon their 
comparative excellence, I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that all of them deserve encouragement from 
learned men. They much oftener assist than retard. 
the circulation of books—they much oftener extend 
than check the reputation of good books—they 
rarely prostitute commendation upon such as are 
notoriously bad. For my part, I am disposed to 
view with a favourable eye the different opinions 
and propensities which may be traced ἴῃ the 
minds of the different writers. By such colli- 
sions of sentiment, truth is brought into fuller 
view, and a reader finds himself impelled by the 
very strongest curiosity to examine the reasons 
upon which men of talents nearly equal have 
founded decisions totally opposite. By posterity, 
too, Reviews will be considered as useful repositories 
of the most splendid passages in the most celebrated 
works. They will shew the progress of a country 


490 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


or an age in taste and arts, in refinement of man- 
ners, and in the cultivation of science. They mark 
the gradations of language itself, and the progressive 
or retrograde motions of the public mind upon the 
most interesting subjects in ethics, in politics, and 
religion. Criticism, indeed, is shackled by no party, 
and devoted to no sect. Let me, however, hope to 
be excused, if I feel some little predilection for-a 
work which I suppose to be patronized by many 
distinguished members of the Established Church, 
and which I know to be in part conducted by a 
learned man, who was once my own scholar. With 
sincerity do I say, at the same time, that I harbour 
no prejudice against the characters, and that I en- 
tertain a very high respect for the talents of the 
gentlemen who are employed in the Critical, the 
Monthly, the Analytical, and the English Reviews. 
Among the writers in the three last there are per- 
sons whom no enlightened and ingenuous clergy- 
man would blush to call his friend ; and, in truth, I 
think it a circumstance equally advantageous and 
creditable to myself, that I live upon terms of great 
intimacy with some of them, and even of confidential 
intercourse with others. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 49] 


II. POLITICAL. 


“The first mention,” says a learned Prelate, “ that 
I remember to have found any where of compact, as 
the first principle of government, is in the Crito of 
Plato; where Socrates alleges a tacit agreement 
between the citizens and the laws as the ground of 
an obligation, to which he thought himself subject, 
of implicit obedience even to an unjust sentence. 
It is remarkable that this fictitious compact, which 
in modern times hath been made the basis of the 
unqualified doctrine of resistance, should have been 
set up by Plato, in the person of Socrates, as the 
foundation of the opposite doctrine of the passive 
obedience of the individual. "——Bp. Horsley’s Ser- 
mon, 30th January. 

My readers, if they attend not merely to the lan- 
guage, but to the fact and the observation contained 
in the foregoing passage, may perhaps find a strik- 
ing resemblance between the Bishop’s note on his 
own Sermon, published in 1793, and Mr. Hume’s 
note on his own Essay, republished 1767. The 
words of Mr. Hume run thus: “The only passage 
I meet with in antiquity, where the obligation of 
obedience to government is ascribed to a promise, 
is in Plato in Critone; where Socrates refuses to 
escape from prison, because he had tacitly promised 
to obey the laws. Thus he builds a Tory conse- 
quence of passive obedience on a Whig foundation 


492 EXTRACTS FROM. ANSWER 


of the original contract.’-—Hume’s Essays, vol. i. 
p- oll. 

“Tt may he difficult,” says Bishop Hurd, in his 
sixth canon upon the Marks of Imitation in Senti- 
ment, “sometimes to determine whether a single 
sentiment or image be derived or not. But when 
we see a cluster of them in two writers applied to 
the same subject, one can hardly doubt that one 
of them has copied from the other.” “ Some- 
times,” says the same illustrious critic, in his third 
canon on the Marks of derived Expression, “the 
original expression is not taken, but paraphrased ; 
and the writer disguises himself in a kind of cir- 
cumlocution. Yet this artifice does not conceal 
him, especially if some fragments, as it were, of the 
inventor's phrase are found dispersedly in the imi- 
tation.” 

The two foregoing quotations from Bishop Hurd 
seem to account very sufficiently for the resem- 
blance between Bishop Horsley and Mr. Hume in 
their opinions upon the original compact. Now, 
though I should allow to Mr. Hume that Plato is 
the oldest writer in antiquity, “ where the obligation 
of obedience to government is ascribed to a pro- 
mise,” I must yet observe, that another antient 
writer speaks of a compact between the governors 
and the governed, as existing in times long antece- 
dent to Plato: “Kar ἀρκὰς μὲν γὰρ ἄπασα Πόλις 
Ἑλλὰς ἐβασιλεύετο, πλὴν οὐκ ὥσπερ τὰ βάρβαρα ἔθνη 
δεσποτικῶς, ἀλλὰ κατὰ νόμους τε καὶ ἐθίσμους πατρίους" 
καὶ κράτιστος ἦν βασιλεὺς ὁ δικαιότατός τε καὶ νομιμώ- 
τατος, καὶ μηδὲν ἐκδιαιτώμενος τῶν πατρίων᾽ δηλοῖ δὲ 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 493 


καὶ Ὅμηρος, δικασπόλους τε καλῶν τοὺς Βασιλεὶς, καὶ 
Θεμιστοπόλους" καὶ μέχοι MOAAGY διέμειναν ἐπὶ ρητοῖς 
τίσιν αἱ Βασιλείαι διοικούμεναι, καθάπερ ἡ Λακεδαιμιο- 
νίων' ἀρξαμένων δὲ τίνων ἐν ταῖς ἐξουσίαις πλημμε- 
λεῖν, καὶ νόμοις μεν ὀλίγα χρωμένων, ταῖς δ᾽ αὐτῶν 
γνώμαις τὰ πολλὰ διοικούντων, δυσχέραντες ὅλον τὸ 
πρᾶγμα οἱ πολλοὶ, κατέλευσαν μὲν τὰς βασιλείας καὶ τὸ 
πολίτευμα, νόμους δὲ καταστησάμενοι, καὶ ἀρχὰς ἀπο- 
δείξαντες, ταύταις ἔχρωντο τῶν πόλεων ᾧυλάκαις.᾽.--- 
Vide Dion. Halicarn. Antig. Roman. lib. v. p. 337, 
edit. Sylburg. 

The words “ρητοῖς τίσιν" are properly translated 
“certis conditionibus.” 

To those who are struck with what Hume 
shrewdly calls “a Tory consequence of passive obe- 
dience built on the Whig foundation of the origi- 
nal contract,” it may be amusing to read, from an- 
other Greek writer, a passage in which the Whig 
consequence of limited monarchy rests on the Tory 
principle of divinity in the monarchical office : 
“ Βασιλεία μὲν γὰρ θεομιίματον πρᾶγμια, καὶ δυσφύλακ- 
τον ὑπὸ ἀνθρωπίνας ψυχᾶς" ταχέως γὰρ ὑπὸ τρυφᾶς, 
καὶ ὕβριος ἀλλάσεται" διόπεο οὐ δεῖ κατὰ πᾶν αὐτᾷ 
χρέεσθαι, μέχρι δὲ τῶ δυνατῶ καὶ ποτὶ τὰν πολίτειαν 
Xencipw.”—Vide Hippodamus, in lib. de Republica, 
quoted in the 41st Sermo of Stobzeus. 

If, according to the rules of sound criticism, we 
are permitted to include under the word antiquity 
the records of sacred as well as profane history, it 
seems to me that the former is not wholly destitute 
of instances where the promise to obey, on the part 
of the people, was connected with a promise to 


494 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


govern well on the part of the king. Let me hope, 
therefore, to give no offence to the admirers either 
of the anti-republican Prelate or the anti-christian 
Essayist, if I state two cases, which occurred some 
centuries before the age of Socrates, and to which I 
shall respectively subjoin the observations of several 
distinguished commentators. “So all the elders of 
Israel came to the king to Hebron, and king David 
made a league with them in Hebron before the 
Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.”— 
2 Sam. chap. v. ver. 3. 

“ Omnis conventio Hebreis Barith vocatur, qua- 
lis hee fuit, qua David illis indulgentiam anteacto- 
rum promisit, ipsi vero regi obedientiam.”—Grotius. 

“Tt is not said what the contents of this league 
or contract was. The Jews think it was princi- 
pally that there should be an act of oblivion of all 
the injuries which the people of Israel had done to 
Judah, or they to them, in the reign of Ishbosheth. 
But this is too narrow a sense: it is more probable 
that he assured them that he would govern them 
justly and kindly, according to the law of God; and 
they promised to obey him sincerely and faithfully, 
according to the same law.”—Bishop Patrick. 

“Foedus feriit: hoc est, promisit se ils certis 
legibus imperaturum, nam nullum est pactum aut 
feedus sine legibus. Neque enim rex Hebraorum 
omnibus legibus erat solutus, ut ostendit Guil. 
Scickardus, in Jure Regio Hebraeorum, cap. 11. the- 
orem 7.”—Le Clerc. 

* And Jehoiada made a covenant between the 
Lord and the king and the people, that they should 


‘TO: COMBE’S STATEMENT. 495 


be the Lord’s people. Between the King also and 
the people.”—2 Kings, chap. xi. ver. 17. 

The comments which follow relate to the latter 
part of the verse: “ Populus promisit regis salutem 
sibi cure fore. Ita hic Josephus, Nam ut rex po- 
pulo quicquam promitterit, moris apud Hebreos 
non fuit.”—Grotius. 

“Quo rex promisit se recturum populum cum 
omni equitate, et populus juravit se facturum im- 
perata.”—Vatablus. 

“Quo regi se fore dicto audientem, quemadmo- 
dum fuerat majoribus ejus, promisit.”—Le Clerc. 

“ That they should be his obedient subjects, and 
he should govern them by the law.”— Patrick. 

On the whole verse Lord Clarendon writes thus: 
“This could be no other than [a covenant] of pro- 
tection and justice on his part, and of obedience on 
their's; however, it makes it evident that kings 
may covenant with their people, contrary to Mr. 
Hobbes’s doctrine.” 

I leave the reader to determine between the dif- 
ferent opinions of the commentators on the nature 
of the compact made in both the cases just now 
cited: and, in respect to the latter, I wish him to 
observe, that Le Clerc passes over the promise 
made on the king’s part to the people; while Bishop 
Patrick contends for it, and Lord Clarendon even 
argues upon it. 

As appeals to the writers of antiquity are sup- 
posed to be of use even in the discussion of modern 
politics, Iwill venture to lengthen this note by a 
digression from the subject on which I began it. 


496 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


Blackstone and many other writers quote a well- 
known passage in Tacitus, as applicable to the mixed 
government of this country. I would remark, however, 
that a passage equally pertinent occurs at the begin- 
ning of the sixth book of Polybius. After mention- 
ing the three forms of government, monarchy, aristo- 
cracy, and democracy, and expressing his doubts 
whether preceding writers had considered them as 
the only or the best forms, he adds, “δῆλον. αἷς 
ἀρίστην μὲν ἡγητέον πολίτειαν τὴν ἐκ πάντων τῶν 
προειρημένων ἰδιωμάτων συνέστωσαν. He adduces 
the Lacedemonian government as a practical proof 
of his position; and, if he had known the princi- 
ples of the English constitution, he would have ad- 
mitted them as fuller illustrations of his opinion. 
In the same chapter may be found many judicious 
distinctions between absolute and limited monarchy, 
to the latter of which Polybius appropriates the 
name of kingship. And as his words will, I think, be 
very acceptable to those who prefer, as I do, kingly 
government to republicanism, I will produce them: 

“ Καί ros οὐδ᾽ ὡς μόνας ταύτας προσδεκτέον" καὶ γὰρ 
μοναρχικὰς καὶ τυραννικὰς ἤδη" τίνας τεθεάμεθα πολί- 
τειας, αἱ πλεῖστον διαφέρουσαι βασιλείας παραπλήσιον 
ἔχειν τι ταύτῃ δοκοῦσιν" ἡ καὶ συμψεύδονται καὶ σύγ- 
χρωνται πάντες οἱ μόναρχοι, καθ᾽ ὅσον οἵοι τ᾽ εἰσι τῷ τῆς 
βασιλείας ὀνόματι." 

Pee te ee Ἢ 

“Οὔτε πάσαν δήπου μοναρχίαν εὐθέως βασιλεῖαν 
ῥητέον: ἀλλὰ μόνην τὴν ἐξ ἑκόντων συγχωρουμένην, 
καὶ τῇ γνωμὴ τὸ πλείον ἡ φόβῳ καὶ βίᾳ κυβερνωμεένην.᾽ 

* * * * kK * * 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 497 


“Πρώτη μεν ἀκατασκευῶς καὶ φυσικῶς συνίσταται 
Μοναρχία: τἄυτη δ᾽ ἕπεται καὶ ἐκ τάυτης γένναται 
μετὰ κατασκευὴς καὶ Διορθβωσέως Βασιλεία.᾽" 

I would apply to the government of England, by 
King, Lords, and Commons, a fine observation 
which Cicero made, when he probably had in view 
the aristocratic form tempered with a mixture of 
the democratic: 

“ Ut in fidibus, ac tibiis, atque cantu ipso, ac vo- 
cibus concentus est quidam tenendus ex distinctis 
tonis, quem immutatum, ac discrepantem aures eru- 
dite ferre non possunt, isque concentus ex dissi- 
millarum vocum moderatione concors tamen effici- 
tur et congruens: sic ex summis et infimis, et me- 
diis interjectis ordinibus, ut tonis, moderata ratione 
civitas consensu dissimillimorum concinit, et que 
harmonia a musicis dicitur in cantu, ea est in civi- 
tate concordia, arctissimum atque optimum omni in 
republica vinculum incolumitatis: que sine Justitia 
nullo pacto esse potest.”—Cicero, Fragment de Re- 
publica, 584, vol. 11. edit. Gruter. 

With the imagery which Cicero here borrows 
from music, and employs upon politics, the reader 
may compare some passages in lib. iv. cap. 3. and 


lib. 11. cap. 4. of Aristotle de Republica. 


IV. CHARACTERS. 


HOMER. 


Mr. Homer received the greater part of his edu- 
cation at Rugby school, under the care of Mr. Bur- 
VOL, III. 2k 


498 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


rows. He went thither, as I learn from a letter 
written to me by his father, at the age of seven. 
“He continued there seven years, and became the 
head boy of about sixty.” He “ afterwards went to 
Birmingham school, where he remained three years 
more, under the Rev. Mr. Brailsford.” 

The celebrity of Rugby school was, in the time of 
Mr. Burrows, not so great, nor the plan of educa- 
tion pursued in it so elegant and comprehensive, as 
we have seen them under the auspices of the present 
very learned master, to whose memory, at some fu- 
ture period, (and for the sake of our youth may it be 
a distant one!) the inhabitants of this and many 
neighbouring counties would do well to erect a 
public monument, recording his eminent merits, and 
their own well-founded gratitude.* Yet Mr. Bur- 
rows possessed, as I am told, a very sound under- 
standing, and a very respectable share of erudition ; 
and the progress which Mr. Homer made under him 
was such as did no discredit to the abilities of the 
teacher or the diligence of the scholar. Of Mr. 
Brailsford’s talents as an instructor I cannot speak 
with precision, though I am warranted in saying 
that the present master, Mr. Price, who perhaps suc- 
ceeded him at Birmingham, is a man of a very re- 
fined taste, and of learning more than common. 
But as Mr. Homer had been the “first of sixty 
boys,” before he went to Birmingham school, and as 
he staid there three years, we may presume that he 
was for that time employed in reading some of the 
best classical authors. In November 1768, Mr. 


* Dr. James ; and this has been done. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 499 


Homer was admitted of Emanuel College, Cam- 
bridge, under Dr. Farmer, and in that College I saw 
him at a very early period of his academical life. 
The pleasantry and good sense diffused through his 
conversation, the fairness of his character, and per- 
haps the singularity of his name, attracted my atten- 
tion, and produced an acquaintance which soon grew 
into friendship. I will hazard the imputation of ar- 
rogance, for saying that new incitements were given 
to his industry, and new prospects opened to his cu- 
riosity, by my well-meant advice. Mr. Homer pro- 
ceeded regularly to his Bachelor's degree in 1773, 
to his Master’s in 1776, and to his Bachelor’s in Di- 
vinity in 1783. He was elected Fellow of Emanuel 
College in 1778. He had lived in Warwickshire 
about three years before he became Fellow, and re- 
turned to the University soon after his election. He 
then resided much at Cambridge, where his mind 
was neither dissipated by pleasure nor relaxed by 
idleness. He frequently visited the public library, 
and was well acquainted with the history or contents 
of many curious books which are noticed only by 
scholars. Of the Greek language he was by no 
means ignorant, though he did not profess to be cri- 
tically skilled in it. He had read many of the Latin 
classical authors. He was not accustomed to make 
false quantities. About orthography he was very 
exact. He was not a stranger to many niceties in 
the structure of the Latin tongue. He had turned 
his attention to several philological books of great 
utility and high reputation. He was well versed in 
the notes subjoined to some of the best editions of 
2x2 


500 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


various authors; and of his general erudition the 
reader will form no unfavourable opinion, after 
looking at a catalogue of the works in which he was 
engaged. About Horace he had a fair stock of 
common knowledge long before he thought of be- 
coming an editor; and as I was well acquainted 
with his activity, his good sense, and his learning, I 
looked upon him as a very fit person for undertak- 
ing the task of publishing the Variorum Edition. 
With Mr. Homer I conversed much, and corres- 
ponded often about the work, which has lately ap- 
peared. He was perspicuous and exact in stating 
his own questions; and in apprehending my an- 
swers he was both ready and correct. He neither 
dissembled difficulties from vanity, nor slurred them 
over from laziness. He knew how to adapt docility 
and firmness to different occasions. His friends he 
never teased by impotent cavils and futile inquiries. 
He never attempted to shew off his own powers in 
that frivolous jargon, or that oracular solemnity 
which I have now and then observed in persons 
who prated yesterday as they prate to-day, and will 
prate again to-morrow, about subjects which they 
do not understand. Such is my opinion of Mr. 
Henry Homer. “He, to my knowledge, had fed on 
the dainties that are bred in a book. He had eaten 
paper, as it were, and drunk ink. His intellect was 
replenished.” 


Mr. Homer, in consequence of some religious 
scruples (as it afterwards appeared), refused to take 
priest’s orders, when, by the statutes of the founder, 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 501 


he was required to take them, in order to preserve 
the rank he had attained in College. From a senior 
fellow he became a junior, and after various nego- 
tiations, his fellowship was declared vacant on the 
20th of June, 1788. The first intelligence I had of 
this affair was sent me by a common friend; and 
sure I am, that no man living could have been more 
surprised and afflicted than I was upon receiving it. 
I wrote to Mr. Homer several letters of sympathy 
and counsel. I asked about the unknown cause, I 
deprecated the probable consequences, but to no 
purpose ; for his answers were short and sharp, and 
evidently were intended to check inquiry, and to 
avert expostulation, When I afterwards saw him 
in London, I twice resumed the subject, and spoke 
with that mixture of delicacy and earnestness which 
was adapted to the difficulties of his situation, and 
the exquisiteness of his feelings. Twice he repelled 
and silenced me, by declaring that his conduct was 
the result of long and serious deliberation, that his 
mind was made up to all possible inconveniences- 
and that the interposition of his friends could an- 
swer no other purpose than that of irritation. 
Knowing that enlightened and amiable men are 
sometimes hurried even into rigorous proceedings 
by their political zeal, I for a long—yes—for a very 
long time, had painful doubts, whether Mr. Homer 
had been perfectly well used. But after strict and 
repeated inquiry, and especially after the sight of a 
letter which was written to Mr. Homer, Feb. 28, 
1787, andthe contents of which had neither directly 
or indirectly been communicated by him to me, and 


502 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


the original of which was sent me by Mr. Homer, 
senior, on the 29th of May, 1791, I was convinced, 
thoroughly convinced, that my friend had met with 
fair, and, from some quarters, most indulgent treat- 
ment; and that, in a case so very notorious, the 
statutes left no power of mitigation whatsoever in 
the hands either of the fellows or the master. My 
prejudices, as a friend, and the scruples of Mr. Ho- 
mer, sen. as a father, sunk at once under the weight 
of the clear and authoritative evidence which that 
letter conveyed. Mr. Homer, I saw, persisted in 
obeying the dictates of his conscience, and the mem- 
bers of the College were compelled to act under the 
direction of their statutes, and by the force of their 
oaths. 

Farmer.—Of any undue partiality towards the 
Master of the College, I shall not be suspected by 
those persons who know how little his sentiments 
accord with my own, upon some ecclesiastical, and 
many political matters. From rooted principle and 
antient habit he is a Tory; I am a Whig; and we 
have both of us too much confidence in each other, 
and too much respect for ourselves, to dissemble 
what we think upon any grounds, or to any extent. 
Let me then do him the justice which, amidst all 
our differences in opinion, I am convinced that he 
will ever be ready to do me. His knowledge is 
various, extensive, and recondite. With much seem- 
ing negligence, and perhaps, in later years, some 
real relaxation, he understands more, and remem- 
bers more, about common and uncommon subjects 
of literature, than many of those who would be 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 503 


thought to read all the day, and meditate half the 
night. In quickness of apprehension, and acute- 
ness of discrimination, I have not often seen his 
equal. Through many a convivial hour have I been 
charmed by his vivacity, and upon his genius I 
have reflected in many a serious moment with 
pleasure, with admiration, but not without regret, 
that he has never concentrated and exerted all the 
great powers of his mind in some great work, upon 
some great subject. Of his liberality in patronizing 
learned men, and of his zeal in promoting learned 
publications, I could point out numerous instances. 
Without the smallest propensities to avarice, he pos- 
sesses a large income; and without the mean sub- 
missions of dependence he has risen to high station. 
His ambition, if he has any, is without insolence; 
his munificence is without ostentation; his wit is 
without acrimony; and his learning is without pe- 
dantry. 

Bennet.—Among the fellows of Emanuel Col- 
lege who endeavoured to shake Mr. Homer’s reso- 
lution, and to preserve for him his academical rank, 
there was one man, whom I cannot remember with- 
out feeling that all my inclination to commend, and 
all my talents for commendation, are dispropor- 
tionate to his merit. From habits not only of close 
intimacy, but of early and uninterrupted friendship, 
Ican say there is scarcely one Greek or Roman 
author of eminence, in verse-or prose, whose writ- 
ings are not familiar to him. He is equally suc- 
cessful in combating the difficulties of the most ob- 
scure, and catching at a glance the beauties of the 


504 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


most elegant. Though I could mention two or 
three persons who have made a greater proficiency 
than my friend in philological learning, yet, after 
surveying all the intellectual endowments of all my 
literary acquaintance, I cannot name the man whose 
taste seems to me more correct and more pure, or 
whose judgment upon any composition in Greek, 
Latin, or English, would carry with it higher au- 
thority to my mind. 

To those discourses which, when delivered before 
an academical audience, captivated the young, and 
interested the old, which were argumentative with- 
out formality and brilliant without gaudiness, and 
in which the happiest selection of topics was united 
with the most luminous arrangement of matter, it 
cannot be unsafe for me to pay the tribute of my 
praise, because every hearer was an admirer, and 
every admirer will be a witness. Asa tutor, he was 
unwearied in the instruction, liberal in the govern- 
ment, and anxious for the welfare of all who were 
entrusted to his care. The brilliancy of his conver- 
sation, and the suavity of his manners, were the 
more endearing, because they were united with qua- 
lities of a higher order, because in morals he was 
correct without moroseness, and because in religion 
he was serious without bigotry. From the retire- 
ment of a college, he stepped at once into the circle 
of acourt. But he has not been dazzled by its 
glare, nor tainted by its corruption. As a prelate, 
he does honour to the gratitude of a patron who was 
once his pupil, and to the dignity of a station where, 
in his wise and honest judgment upon things, great 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT, 505 


duties are connected with great emoluments. If, 
from general description, I were permitted to de- 
scend to particular detail, I should say, that in one 
instance he exhibited a noble proof of generosity, by 
refusing to accept the legal and customary profits of 
his office from a peasantry bending down under the 
weight of indigence and exaction. I should say, 
that, upon another occasion, he did not suffer him- 
self to be irritated by perverse and audacious oppo- 
sition; but, blending mercy with justice, spared a 
misguided father for the sake of a distressed de- 
pendent family, and provided, at the same time, for 
the instruction of a large and populous parish with- 
out pushing to extreines his episcopal rights when 
invaded, and his episcopal power when defied. While 
the English Universities produce such scholars, they 
will indeed deserve to be considered as the nurseries 
of learning and virtue. While the Church of Ire- 
land is adorned by such prelates, it cannot have 
much to fear from that spirit of restless discontent, 
and excessive refinement, which has lately gone 
abroad. It will be instrumental to the best purposes 
by the best means. It will gain fresh security and 
fresh lustre from the support of wise and good men, 
It will promote the noblest interests of society, and 
uphold, in this day of peril, the sacred cause of true 
religion. 

Sweet is the refreshment afforded to my soul by 
the remembrance of such a scholar, such a man, and 
such a friend, as Dr. William Bennet, Bishop of 
Cork; and happy am I, that, before my return to 
the Variorum Editor, my best feelings will have the 


506 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


most exquisite gratification from another fact, which 
I am now preparing to lay before the reader. 
Though I collected from the general conversation 
of Mr. Homer that he was not adverse to a partial 
and temperate reform in the Church of England, 
yet in no one moment of the most private and con- 
fidential intercourse did he open to me his doubts 
upon any particular subject of doctrine. When I 
was talking to him about the events which had re- 
cently passed in college, he for the first time told 
me, that many years before he had stood aloof from 
some preferment, which, in all probability, was 
within his reach, and that he had taken an unalter- 
able resolution of not accepting any living, either 
from private patrons or from an academical society. 
The reasons upon which this resolution was founded 
he did not reveal to me, nor did I think myself au- 
thorized to investigate them. But I ever have 
honoured, and ever shall honour, so much modera- 
tion, mixed with so much firmness. He never in- 
dulged himself in pouring forth vague and trite de- 
clamations against the real or supposed errors of 
churchmen. He never let loose contemptuous and 
bitter reproaches against those who might differ 
from him upon speculative and controversial topics 
of theology. He remained a quiet, and, I doubt 
not, a sincere conformist within the pale of the 
Establishment, after renouncing all share of its pro- 
fits, and all chance of its honours. On this rare 
and happy union of integrity and delicacy, pane- 
gyric were useless. They who read of his conduct 
will approve of it, and, among those who approve, 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 507 


some wise and virtuous men may be found, whom 
his example may encourage to imitate. In praising 
Mr. Homer, I mean not, however, to censure some 
enlightened and worthy contemporaries, who, from 
motives equally pure, may have not pursued the 
same measures. The propriety of continuing in 
the church, as he continued, will depend upon per- 
sonal circumstances, which will be different with 
different men, and upon general principles, about 
which the best scholars and the best Christians of 
this age are not wholly agreed. 


Mr. Homer, I remember, soon after the appear- 
ance of Mr. Burke’s first book about the French 
Revolution, spoke of it to me in strong language of 
disapprobation. Later events may have increased 
that disapprobation; and though I am confident 
that they would not have diverted me from my ori- 
ginal purpose, I will not answer for the degree of 
effect they might have produced on the mind of Mr. 
Homer. I have little difficulty in deciding what 
would have been his opinion upon the causes 
which have lately divided the political parties in 
this kingdom, and yet I think so highly of his good 
sense and his candour, as to believe that he would 
have distinguished between the literary and political 
characters of the two eminent persons to whom I 
wished, and persist in wishing, the work to have 
been dedicated. 


From the quickness of Mr. Homer’s temper, and 
perhaps of my own, we now and then wrangled in 


508 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


our conversation and in our letters. But the effects 
of these little altercations were temporary ; and at a 
time when, like the present, I am called upon to 
defend my conduct in private life before a public 
tribunal, I feel the very highest and purest satisfac- 
tion in being able to affirm, that, from the com- 
mencement of my acquaintance with Mr. Homer, to 
the very latest hour of his life, we never had one 
serious dispute—one difference which sent us with 
throbbing bosoms to a restless pillow for one night, 
or darkened our countenances with one frown upon 
the succeeding day. Many and great were his ex- 
ertions in compliance with my requests, and for the 
management of my concerns. Many, too, are the 
thanks I returned to him, and many the services I 
endeavoured to render him. But if his affairs were 
perplexed, I knew it not; if his mind was hurt in 
an unusual degree by any instance of my miscon- 
duct, I knew it not. If his disease was aggravated 
by my behaviour to him, I knew it not. No such 
complaints were made by him to me; and, when 
they were made by others after his death, I was 
shocked at the imputation of crimes which I never 
meant to commit. | 

Mr. Homer, in his last illness, had been for three 
or four weeks with his father in Warwickshire be- 
fore I knew that he was ill. I heard, indeed, in a 
promiscuous conversation, that ason of Mr. Homer 
was ill at his house, and I supposed it to be another 
son. But on the very day after the evening I had 
found that son to be my friend, I sent a special 
messenger with a letter full of anxious and affec- 
tionate inquiry, and I received an answer which I 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 509 


clasped to my bosom, and which I at this moment 
keep deposited among the most precious records of 
friendship. In a day or two I hastened in person 
to the father’s house. With anguish of soul, I 
found Harry pale, emaciated, and sunk beyond the 
power of recovery. I talked to him with all the 
tenderness which the sight of such a friend, in such 
a situation, could have excited in the most virtuous 
breast. I came away with a drooping head, and 
with spirits quite darkened by the gloom of despair. 
Again I hastened to see him, while the lamp of life 
should not be wholly gone out; and again I did see 
him on the evening before his eyes were closed in 
death. With tears, not easily stifled, and with an 
aching heart, I accompanied his sad remains to the 
grave; and in many a pensive mood have I since 
reflected upon the melancholy scene. Many a look 
of fondness have I cast upon his countenance, which 
meets me in an excellent engraving as I enter my 
study each revolving day. Many an earnest wish 
have I formed, that my own last end may be like 
his, a season of calm resignation, of humble hope, 
and of devotion, at once rational, fervent, and sin- 
cere. 

Within a few days after the funeral, there passed 
an honourable and unfeigned reconciliation between 
his very amiable and accomplished brother and my- 
self. In the letters which I had occasion to write 
to several persons who knew me, I spoke of his vir- 
tues, of his services, and of the heavy loss which 
was sustained by those who were near and dear 
to him. 

In the course of my correspondence with Mr. 


510 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


Homer’s father, I received one letter which  sur- 
prised, and, indeed, provoked me; for I found my- 
self accused of having created unnecessary delays 
in a work to which I really had been giving assist- 
ance without any expectation of profit or reward 
—accused of injuring my friend’s health, when in 
truth I had not known it to be in danger—accused 
of adding to the load of distresses, which were 
equally uuknown to me, with the embarrassments 
from which they proceeded. Conscious as I was of 
loving Harry, of haying been served by him, of 
wishing and endeavouring to serve him, I undoubt- 
edly, at such a crisis, took offence at such a letter. 
I wrote in my own justification to Dr. Combe. I 
wrote also to Mr. Homer's father very fully and very 
firmly in my own defence. 

With Dr. Combe the altercation soon ceased, and 
I revised all the proof-sheets which he sent me. 

Upon examining, as I did lately, the subsequent 
letters which I received from Mr. Homer's father, I 
find that, in his estimation at least, I was contriving 
all possible means for the success of the Variorum 
Edition Let me not be charged with any intention 
of throwing, at this distance of time, the smallest 
blame upon Mr. Homer’s father. Great allowances 
were due to his situation and his feelings, and great 
praise do I owe him for the spirit in which he re- 
ceived my angry answer to his angry letter. From 
motives of delicacy to him, I will not produce the 
accusations which I endeavoured to repel. But 
from his subsequent letters I might bring forward 
several expressions, which do honour to his judg- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 511 


ment and candour, and which carry with them deci- 
sive proofs of his confidence in my readiness to go 
on with the work which his son had not lived to 
complete. 


Mr. Homer was engaged with me in the republi- 
cation of Bellenden’s Tracts in the year 1787. I 
give a list of his other works from a paper oblig- 
ingly communicated to me by his late father. 
“ About the year 1787 he published three books of 
Livy, viz. first, twenty-fifth, and thirty-first, ex edi- 
tione Drackenborchil, cum notis ejusdem selectis. 
His accedunt Dissertationes paucule Creverii atque 
aliorum, cum Chronologia Car. Sigonii. Soon after 
followed the two small tracts of Tacitus’s Germania 
et Agricola, ex edit. Gab. Brotier ad alteram Joh. 
Aug. Ernesti collata 1788. 

“ Tractatus varii Latini a Crevier, Brotier, Auger, 

&e. 1788. 

“ Ovid's Epistles, ex editione Burman. 1789. 

« Sallust. ex editione Cortii, 1789. 

“ Pliny, ex editione Cortii et Longoli, 1790. 

“ Cesar, ex edit. Oudendorp. 1790. 

“ Persius, ex edit. Heninii. 

“ Tacitus, ex edit. Brotier, complete all but the 

Index. 

“ Livy, ex edit. Drackenb. in the press. 

“ Quintilian, ex edit. Burman. ditto. 

He also intended to publish Quintus Curtius, but 
no steps were taken towards it. Dr. Combe says, 
the types and paper speak for themselves.” 

I have given the foregoing catalogue in the 


512 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


words of Mr. Homer, senior, as I find them in a 
letter dated May 24th, 1791. I did not know till 
after my friend’s death, that his actual or intended 
publications were so numerous. In a letter of Mr. 
Homer, senior, dated the 16th of June 1791, it is 
said, “that little less than a thousand pounds would 
be necessary to complete the index to Tacitus, the 
Horace, the Livy, and the Quintilian.” How far 
my friend had proceeded in any one of these unfi- 
nished works but the Horace, I knew not. I oree 
saw a part of the index intended for Tacitus lying — 
on a table in his father’s house. 

In 1788 Mr. Homer published, C. Cornel. Tacit. 
de Moribus Germanorum et de Vita Agricole, ex 
editione Gabrielis Brotier, ad alteram Joh. Aug. 
Ernesti, collata; and in 1789 he published, C. C. 
Taciti Dialogus de Oratoribus, ex editione Gabrielis 
Brotier, ad alteram Joh. Aug. Ernest. collatus. 
Accesserunt Supplementum Dialogi G. Brotier, et 
brevis Summa Preceptorum de Arte dicendi ex tri- 
bus Ciceronis libris de Oratore collecta a Jasone de 
Nores. I mention this to shew the respect which 
he had for J. de Nores: he found this tract bound 
up with J. de Nores on the Art of Poetry, pub- 
lished at Venice 1553. Subjoined to it is Tripolini 
Gabrielli de Spherica Notione ex Macrobio et Plinio 
brevis et distincta tractatio. This, too, was repub- 
lished, with the preceding works just now men- 
tioned, by Mr. Homer, in 1789, though he has not, 
in the title page, noticed it. 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 513 


With three exceptions only, H. H. had a larger 
share of my confidence than any other human be- 
ing; and in him I know it to have been deservedly 
and wisely placed. My intercourse with Dr. C. 
was less unreserved, and less important. But I 
always valued his friendship, because I was always 
convinced of his sincerity. 

Nearly eight months after this pamphlet had been 
sent to the printer, I received the melancholy news 
that one of the three persons to whom I have above 
alluded is no more. It was Sir William Jones. For 
the sake of learning and virtue, I will apply to him, 
with a few alterations, what Plato said of Socrates : 
Ἡ δὲ ἡ τελευτὴ τοῦ ἑταίρου ἥμιν ἐγένετο, ἄνδρος, ὡς 
ἥμεις Painey av, πάντων ὧν ἐπειράθημεν, πολυμαθεστά- 


a \ a 
του, καὶ μάλιστα καλοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ. 


Spirit of Henry Homer, rest in peace! Among 
the unforeseen and unmerited evils from which the 
hand of death has delivered thee, let it not be consi- 
dered as the least, that thou wast not doomed to 
behold the disastrous day, when principles main- 
tained by thee in common with one of thy oldest 
and dearest friends were stretched upon the rack, by 
a self-appointed inquisitor, and commanded to make 
confession of unaccomplished, unattempted, un- 
thought of crimes, as the only condition of being 
absolved from the heavier charges of rebellion— 
anarchy—murder—atheism. 


bo 
isa! 


VOL. III. 


514 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 
COMBE. 


Dr. Combe has long had, and still retains, a large 
share of my esteem for his intellectual endowments, 
and moral excellencies. To his veracity I studiously 
have paid, and shall continue to pay, great and un- 
feigned respect. We do, indeed, differ from each 
other, sometimes upon matters of recollection and 
opinion, and sometimes in opportunities for infor- 
mation. But to whatever extent this difference 
may reach, I desire that it may be imputed to pre- 
cipitation upon his part—not cunning—to involun- 
tary misrepresentation, not deliberate falsehood—to 
soreness in the editor, not malevolence in the man. 
I am disposed even to praise him for the quickness 
of feeling, and stoutness of spirit, which may have 
induced him to stand forth in the defence of his 
reputation, where he thought himself aggrieved. 1 
forgive him, after a few struggles, for the severity 
with which he has buffeted my own. To find by 
experience that friendships are mortal, is the hard 
but inevitable lot of fallible and imperfect men. 
But it always has been, and always will be, one of 
the first wishes of my heart, and one of my first 
prayers to Heaven, that no enmity of mine may 
ever be immortal. 


BURKE, WINDHAM, FOX, PITT. 


Large as may be the space which political sub- 
jects occupy in my mind, strong as are my attach- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 515 


ments and aversions to political men, and warm as 
are my approbation and disapprobation of political 
measures, I am not inattentive to other, and, per- 
haps, higher considerations. It is not my fortune to 
coincide in opinion with Mr. Burke and Mr. Wind- 
ham upon some of the steps that have lately been 
taken, and some of the doctrines that have lately 
been disseminated in this country. But have I for- 
gotten the indisputable and distinguished merits of 
these great men upon former occasions? or, am I 
authorised to refuse them the praise of upright in- 
tention in their present conduct? Far from it. I 
yet remember, that Mr. Windham is an acute dis- 
putant, an accomplished scholar, a polished gentle- 
man, and a senator of whom I have hoped, that he 
would be, like Abdiel, “ among the faithless faithful 
found.” In Mr. Burke, I have not lost sight of his 
splendid eloquence, of his numerous and celebrated 
writings, of knowledge so various and so compre- 
hensive, that imagination cannot assign its limits; 
and of genius more vigorous, more versatile, and 
more elevated, than at this day can be found among 
the enlightened inhabitants of the British empire, 
and, I had almost said, in the whole circle of the 
human race. 

What I thought of Mr. Fox has been elsewhere 
stated, and I continue to think the same with in- 
creased conviction. Great as may be my admira- 
tion of that man, when surveyed on the theatre of 
his talents, it falls very short of the affection and the 
reverence which I feel when I contemplate the no- 


bler parts of his character in the sanctuary of his 
21,2 


516 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


virtues. Of him I have said in a Dedication what 
to the latest hour of my life I shall repeat and 
avow, and what I am prepared to defend amidst the 
dissolution of public parties, the fluctuations of pub- 
lic opinion, and the shocks of public events. But 
if a friend, even of Mr. Pitt, were to ask me for a 
dedication, I should disdain, from political motives, 
to refuse compliance. Without offering the smal- 
lest violence to my own settled principles, I should 
endeavour to gratify the warm, and, it may be, the 
honourable prejudices of Mr. Pitt’s adherent. In 
the wide range of that minister’s attainments, ta- 
lents, and even measures, I should not very long be 
at a loss for topics of commendation, at once appro- 
priate and just. I should select those topics with 
impartiality, I should seize them with eagerness, I 
should exhibit them with all the advantages of am- 
plification and arrangement, with all the embellish- 
ments of diction, and all the ardour of panegyric, 
which my understanding and my erudition, such as 
they are, would enable me to employ. 


MANSFIELD. 


As Dr. Combe, in a letter to me, had endea- 
voured to justify the motto, [to the Variorum 
Horace |] by saying that the words “ virtutis vere 
custos”” stand before the line to which I objected, he 
might think it unnecessary, or find it rather difficult, 
to attempt any farther vindication of his judgment, 
either in bringing together two passages which are so 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 517 


remote from each other in Horace, or in applying to 
Lord Mansfield the second passage, which, for reasons 
stated in the review, I should have been unwilling to 
apply to any person whom I respected. I observe, 
however, with great satisfaction, thatthe Doctor allows 
me to have communicated my objection to the motto 
long before the publication of the Horace, and upon 
this circumstance I rest my defence against the 
charge of “sly and insidious detraction.” 

Whether my real opinion of Lord Mansfield be 
equally favourable with that of Dr. Combe is not a 
subject for immediate discussion. But whence, I 
would ask, can any reader of the British Critic col- 
lect that it is unfavourable. Not surely from the 
review, for I there admit the greater part even of 
Dr. "s panegyric to be well founded. I speak 
of Lord Mansfield’s venerable name. I disclaim for 
myself the invidious application of the remaining 
words in Horace to Lord Mansfield. I say only, 
and I say truly, that prejudiced or mischievous per- 
sons are to be found, who will make that applica- 
tion. This surely is harmless and decorous, for, 
great as my veneration is for the intellectual powers 
and professional merit of Lord Mansfield, I know, 
and am now forced to confess, that other parts of 
his character are not equally brilliant. Must then 
my hatred be inferred from the circumstance of my 
having communicated my objections to Dr. in 
the course of our correspondence? Surely this is a 
perverse inference. Surely I was doing for Lord 
Mansfield what a friend would wish me to do. 
Surely, if I felt any emotions of dislike towards the 


518 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


noble Lord, I suppressed them at the moment, from 
the regard I bore to the credit of Dr. ’s taste 
and the warmth of his attachment. Surely I was in 
effect excluding myself and all other men from ex- 
ercising “a talent for sly and insidious detraction,” 
when I desired Dr. not to make use of a 
motto which, in the mind of every scholar, must be 
associated with the remembrance of the occasion 
upon which Horace had written the words in ques- 
tion, and which might furnish opportunities for ca- 
lumny to those, who may have heard of Lord Mans- 
field what I myself have heard, and may believe to 
his disadvantage more than I believe. 


PORSON. 


Mr. Porson, the re-publisher of Heyne’s Virgil, is 
a giant in literature, a prodigy in intellect, a critic, 
whose mighty achievements leave imitation panting 
at a distance behind them, and whose stupendous 
powers strike down all the restless and aspiring sug- 
gestions of rivalry into silent admiration and passive 
awe. He that excels in great things, so as not to 
be himself excelled, shall readily have pardon from 
me, if he errs in little matters better adapted to little 
minds. But I should expect to see the indignant 
shades of Bentley, Hemsterhuis, and Valckenaer rise 
from their grave, and rescue their illustrious suc- 
cessor from the grasp of his persecutors, if any at- 
tempt were made to immolate him on the altars of 
dulness and avarice, for his sins of omission, or his 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 519 


sins of commission, as a corrector of the press. 
Enough, and more than enough, have I have heard 
of his little oversights, in the hum of those busy 
inspectors who peep and pry after one class of de- 
fects only, in the prattle of finical collectors, and 
the cavils of unlearned and half-learned gossips. 
But I know that spots of this kind are lost in the 
splendour of this great man’s excellencies. I know 
that his character towers far above the reach of such 
puny objectors. I think that his claims to public 
veneration are too vast to be measured by their 
short and crooked rules, too massy to be lifted by 
their feeble efforts, and even too sacred to be touched 
by their unhallowed hands. 


HALLIFAX. 


The piety of Dr. Hallifax I have never depreciated. 
The learning of Dr. Hallifax I have more than once 
commended, and in truth I have had more opportu- 
nities for judging of both, than may have fallen to 
the lot of the Variorum Editor. But if Dr. Hallifax 
had really joined the learning of even Archbishops 
Potter and Usher to the piety of Bishops Beveridge 
and Berkeley, still I should think myself warranted 
in saying all I have said of a prelate who had spoken 
in such degrading terms of such a valuable writer as 
Dr. Lardner. To my weak understanding and gro- 
veling spirit, it does not seem the best method for 
supporting the general interests of literature and re- 
ligion, that one scholar should speak thus of another, 


520 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


not upon a doubtful and unimportant subject of 
taste or criticism, but upon the merit of a work in- 
tended, like that of Lardner, to uphold the common 
cause of Christianity against a vigilant and active 
confederacy of common foes. Where Dr. Combe spoke 
of “ Jani industria,” his meaning was not so clear as 
it might have been easily made. But when Dr. 
Hallifax called Dr. Lardner “ laborious,” every man 
of discernment knew his meaning, * and few men 


* By a trifling mistake I said industrious.— Long before the 
Variorum Edition I knew the appropriate sense of the Latin 
word industria, as distinguished from diligentia. But from the 
want of epithets or words nearly synonymous, in the Preface to 
the Variorum Edition, and from other circumstances which I 
will not enumerate, I had my doubts concerning the precise ex- 
tent of Dr. C.’s commendation; and as the edition of Janus 
marked by myself had been of great use to the first volume of 
the Variorum Edition I wished to see terms of approbation 
more full, and upon this occasion more unequivocal.—When 
Varro commended the industry of /lius, he also professed 
‘¢ Ailii ingenium non reprehendere”—see A. Gell. lib. i. cap. 
18. When Muretus applied “ pleraque omnia integra’ to the 
industry of Canter, whom he supposed to be preparing an 
edition of Athenzus, he took care to prevent any misconception 
of his own meaning, by calling Canter, ‘‘ hominum eruditissi- 
mum qui studium in Athenzo emendando posuisset, cumque a 
se Latine incredibili felicitate redditum brevi editurus esset.’’ 
Vid. Mureti Var. Lect. cap. 2. lib. xviii— But Dr. C, is less 
copious in the description, and less warm in the commendation 
of the industrious Janus; and as to the complimentary epithet 
«ς celeberrimus,” no stress can be laid upon a term, which critics 
use of each other as a title of course, and which they rarely 
omit, even where they are confuting and deriding their brethren 
of the craft.—IfI were not scared at the charge of introducing 
republican simplicity into the regions of philology, I should al- 
most venture to adopt and recommend the following sentiment 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 521 


of delicacy and impartiality will be found to de- 
fend it. 


Now if Dr. Combe should not have chanced to 
turn his attention to the theological writings of both 
these Doctors, he can hardly be considered as a com- 
petent judge in a case where he has appeared as a 
vehement accuser. In reality, it is not so much for 
an editor of Horace, as for theological readers who 
know the “signs of the times and the seasons,” to 
decide upon the dangerous tendency of such fasti- 
dious expressions issuing from authors placed in such 
high stations. When Dr. Combe calls Dr. Hallifax a 
learned and a pious bishop, I assent to the justness 
of the epithets, and yet I am disposed to consider 


of Heyne.—Nominibus Virorum doctorum, quos commemoravi, 
imprimis vita defunctorum, nolui ubique adjicere honoris causa, 
Vir. Cl. aut quo nunc se mutuo honore compellant, Vir. Ill. 
Totum hunc morem facetum, seu verius ineptum, quo cedimus, 
et totidem plagis consumimus hostem, utinam sublatum. esse 
vellet ztas nostra. Non ex loco et ordine et diginitate, yerum 
ex ingenio, doctrina et meritis viri litterati censendi sunt. Vid. 
Pag. xix. Preefat, ad Nov. edition. Heynii Virgil. The autho- 
rity of Heyne may not be sufficient to produce any alteration in 
the practice of those critics, whom the late Dr. George, of Eton, 
ludicrously calls the “‘ Panuity.” Yet I shall endeavour to give 
farther protection to my own opinion by the words of Morcel- 
lus: ‘ Nec bene litterati viri, quod nunc vulgo fit, viri clarissimi 
vocantur, quum ea formula veteres dignitatem virorum, non 
doctrinam designarent : itaque senatores potissimum sic audie- 
runt ; eaque de caussa quum eo titulo Prefecti Pretorio care- 
rent, quod ex equestri ordine creabantur,” ‘ Severus Alexander 
Senatoriam,” inquit Lampridius, “his addidit dignitatem, ut 
viri clarissimi et essent et dicerentur.”—V,. Morcellum de Stilo 
Inscript. Latin. p, 444. 


522 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


the doctor as speaking not from any direct know- 
ledge of the bishop’s publications, but upon the 
authority of general report, and in conformity to 
that language of courtesy which I hope to see pre- 
vailing in this country more and more. Among the 
good effects arising from the disasters and the 
crimes of a neighbouring kingdom, this I believe is 
not the least, that clergymen and. bishops are now 
mentioned with less scorn and levity than they used 
to be, by those persons who have at last discovered 
the connection that subsists between the influence 
of religious teachers, and the belief of religion itself, 
between religion and the practice of morality, 
between morality and the dearest interests of so- 
ciety. Upon topics of polite literature, and in cases 
of personal provocation, allowances may be made 
for the harsh language of clergymen—but when 
they are writing on the momentous concerns of re- 
ligion, they cannot more effectually secure the respect 
of laymen than by speaking of each other's well- 
meant labours without disrespect. On this subject 
I have delivered my opinions in two former publica- 
tions, and I see no reason for changing them. 


While Dr. Hallifax was living, I re-published the 
Warburtonian tracts. In the dedication I said 
(p. 155) : “ What Bishop Hallifax really is in the 
republic of learning it can be no disgrace for any 
other scholar to be.” In the preface, p. 189, I had 
occasion to make the same allusion which J made in 
the review, to the same epithet “laborious : and 
in both places I was led to make it by an asso- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 523 


ciation which is natural enough among men of 
letters, and by motives which I shall never be afraid 
to avow. 


DR. MARTYN AND DR. SHAW. 


In regard to Botany itself, I cannot hold in con- 
tempt that science which I know to be cultivated by 
a man endowed with such elegance of taste and 
soundness of understanding, and furnished with such 
stores of antient and modern learning, as Mr. Pro- 
fessor Martyn. I have myself lately been instru- 
mental in procuring from the Cambridge press the 
publication of a work which chiefly turns upon bo- 
tanical subjects, and was drawn up by my friend Dr. 
Falconer, a man whose knowledge is various and 
profound, whose discriminations upon all topics of 
literature are distinct and clear, and whose powers 
of generalization are ready, vigorous, and compre- 
hensive. More than once it has fallen in my way to 
see some botanical pieces written by Dr. Shaw, of the 
British Museum; and happy am I in this opportu- 
nity of declaring the delight I felt from the pure and 
flowing latinity, the apposite and lucid expressions, 
the delicate sentiments, and the harmonious periods 
which adorn its charming compositions. 


WILD. 


If in writing or not writing upon politics I am to be 
governed by the advice of other men, “ Quid sequar 


524 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


aut quem?” One calls upon me to publish; but Mr. 
Wild, a man far superior in splendour of language, 
in depth of research, and elevation of mind, has 
given me counsel similar to that which Phalaris, in 
his Epistles, gave to Stesichorus—peaoey δέ σοι 
μούσων εὐκλέεις 7ovo1.—Vide Phalar. Epist. 147, and 
the end of Epist. 145. For the attainments, the 
talents, and the virtues of Mr. Wild, no man living 
entertains a more sincere respect than I do. Often 
have I been delighted, and sometimes instructed, 
by his late very eloquent work ; and sure I am that 
he will not long be displeased with me for enter- 
taining opinions different from his own upon topics 
which he has himself discussed very fully and very 
ably, and upon which I touched, and professed to 
touch, incidentally and concisely. 


V. CRITICISMS. 


Collectus.—The authority of Tretter, and Dan. 
Aveman, and Isaac Verbergius, will not remove my 
doubt of the propriety of this word. 

Huic conjecture aliquanto faret. False Latin. 

Proloquium.—I have elsewhere expressed my 
dissent from the learned Bishop of Worcester, who 
explains the word sermo in the Epistle to Augus- 
tus, by proem or introduction. Dr. C. I observe, 
translates introduction by proloquium. Now this 
translation will not be thought accurate either by 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 525 


those who have read the words proloquium disjunc- 
tum, in book v. cap. 12, of Aulus Gellius, or by those 
who are acquainted with the full and correct expla- 
nation of the word proloquium in book xvi. cap. 8, 
of the same author, where Varro’s definition is re- 
corded and illustrated. Gesner, indeed, in his The- 
saurus, produces a solitary example of proloquium 
for exordium, in the third Declamation ascribed to 
Quintilian. But the Declamation itself is the miser- 
able reply of some monkish scribbler to the pre- 
ceding speech pro milite Mariano; and even here 
the word proloquia does not mean exordia. The 
passage runs thus: “ Patiatur et tua divina virtus, 
et Romane ceterum militiz pia discretio, patiatur 
(inquam) necessaria communis cause proloquia.” 
Soon after we read, “ fictum, precor, omnes, quod 
tribuno mendacissimo prolocutor objectat.”.  Bur- 
man, in his note on the last passage, says, “ Forte, 
fictum precor hominis crimen ignosce. Prolocuto- 
rem vero advocatum monachus vocat, qui loquitur 
pro milite, ubi vernacule lingue ingenium ag- 
noscere licet.’”—-Vide Cangii Glossar. in Prelocutor 
et Prolocutor, et in Proloquia paulo ante. 

In looking into Du Cange, I find that prelocu- 
tor is explained by advocatus, patronus, causidicus, 
and that sometimes he is called prolocutor. Nol- 
tenius writes thus on preloquium: “ Preloquium 
in ecclesia hodie increbruit, quo quidem designant 
exordium illud prius, quod textui sacro ccetui pre- 
legendo ratione quadam congruenti premittitur; at 
veteres id vocabuli omnino ignorant.” 

“Qui emendant per proloquium, nempe isti er- 


526 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER 


rant: id enim veteribus significat axioma luce sua 
radians; quod animum legentis illico ferit: senten- 
tia in qua nihil desideratur, interprete.”’—Varro 
apud Gellium, lib. xvi. cap. 8. 

It appears then that proloquium is seldom or 
never used for a proem, even in the lower ages of 
Latinity. I am really at a loss to account for Dr. 
C.’s use of this word. I have looked into the Eng- 
lish Dictionary prefixed to Patrick’s edition of 
Ainsworth, and there I do not find proloquium un- 
der the word proem. A better word, procemium, 
is, indeed, to be found, and for this rhetorical word 
the Doctor might have met with authority in Cas- 
siodorus, page 367 of the Antiqui Rhetores Latini, 
edit. Capperon, or in Quintilian, cap. 1, lib. iv. edit. 
Burman. But surely when a writer, being at liberty 
to use principium, or exordium, or procemium, yet 
uses proloquium, “he shows,” as Lord Bacon says 
of the schoolmen, “ ἃ strange disregard to the pure- 
ness, pleasantness, and lawfulness of the phrase.” 


WAKEFIELD AND BISHOP HURD. 


Anxious as I was to shelter from reproach the 
name of a man, whose virtue I so much love, and 
whose talents and learning I so highly admire, I 
took care to soften the harsh appearance of some of 
his words, by quoting in the British Critic for 
March other expressions from his Notes on Virgil, 
where he speaks with great and just respect of Bi- 
shop Hurd. But I will now pursue the same de- 


TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. Beg 


sign, by quoting from Mr. Wakefield’s Observations 
more terms of praise which he uses of the same 
illustrious prelate: “ Bishop Hurd, if I may pre- 
sume to question the sagacity of so great a name, 
and the very ingenious critic he cites, seem to have 
mistaken the true meaning of pulchra in line 99 of 
Horace de Arte Poetica;” and again, upon lines 
212 and 214, “ All the commentators have grossly 
erred in their explication of these two lines, and it 
is with peculiar concern that I cannot except even 
him, to whom this most exquisite composition is so 
much indebted for the elucidation of that unity of 
design, that harmony of connection, and that full 
colouring, which the obliquity of former critics had 
broken and almost dissipated.” The same very 
learned author (with the utmost deference I speak it) 
judiciously reads, “ aut tibi constet.” 

I am very glad to find that my learned friend 
Wakefield agrees with me in approving Bishop 
Hurd’s conjecture of aut for et, in line 127 of Horace 
de Arte Poetica. The conjecture itself is ingenious, 
and the reasoning employed to support it is, in my 
opinion, decisive. The learned reader will, I trust, 
be yet more disposed to adopt the above-mentioned 
alteration, after considering the very judicious note 
of Maitland on line 1375 of the Iphigenia in Au- 
lide. Ifthe second volume of the Variorum Edi- 
tion had been printed under my inspection, I should 
not have omitted this noble conjecture of Bishop 
Hurd. On looking lately into the copy of Wake- 
field’s book, lent by me to Mr. Homer, I find several 
observations npon the art of poetry marked by me, 


528 EXTRACTS FROM ANSWER TO COMBE’S STATEMENT. 


which do not appear in the second volume of the 
Variorum Edition. 


PULMAN. 


The book which I lent Mr. Homer before the Ho- 
race was sent to press, contained Pulmanni Anno- 
tationes in Ὁ. Horat. Flacc.; Aldi Manuti Scholia, 
et de Metris Horatianis ; M. Antonii Mureti Scho- 
lia; Joannis Hartungi Annotationes, published at 
Antwerp in 12mo, 1577 ; together with Jani Douse 
in novam Q. Horatii Editionem Commentariolus, 
published at Antwerp 1580. It is a valuable collec- 
tion for any scholar to possess, and contains much 
information which ought to have appeared in the 
Variorum Edition. Mr. Homer, on returning it, 
told me that he had procured some of the editions 
in which are found the contents of my book; I see 
their names in Dr. Combe’s Catalogue. 


NOTES 


ON 


RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


WHIGS AND TORIES. 


VOL. III. 2m 


GATOY 


“OITAYudeeta 2 (TAR ἢ 


NOTES 


ON 


RAPIN’S DISSERTATION. 


Pace 4.*—Causes of the Stability of the British 


Government. 


For the causes that enabled England to preserve 
the form of government, which other nations have 
lost, see chap. I. of De Lolme — “ While the king- 
dom of France, in consequence of the slow and 
gradual formation of the feudal government, found 
itself, in the issue, composed of a number of parts 
simply placed by each other, and without any re- 
ciprocal adherence; the kingdom of England, on the 
contrary, in consequence of the sudden and violent 
introduction of the same system, became a com- 
pound of parts united by the strongest ties ; and the 
regal authority, by the pressure of its immense 
weight, consolidated the whole into one compact 
indissoluble body.” Chap. I. page 15. 

Another cause is assigned by the same writer, 
“When the tyrannical laws of the Conqueror be- 
came still more tyranically executed, the Lord, the 
vassal, the inferior vassal, all united. They even 
implored the assistance of the peasants and cottagers ; 


ΠᾺ The pages refer to an edition of Rapin’s Dissertation, 
which will be published with Dr. Parr’s Notes. 
2m 2 


δ32 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


and that haughty aversion with which on the con- 
tinent the nobility repaid the industrious hands 
which fed them, was, in England, compelled to yield 
to the pressing necessity of setting bounds to the 
royal authority.” Page 23. 

In chapter the second he states and explains a 
third advantage of England, viz. because it formed 
one undivided state—* England was not, like France, 
an aggregation of a number of different sovereign- 
ties ; it formed but one state, and acknowledged 
but one master, one general title. The same laws, 
the same kind of dependence, consequently the same 
notions, the same interests, prevailed throughout 
the whole. The extremities of the kingdom could, 
at all times, unite to give a check to the exertions 
of an unjust power—from the river Tweed to Ports- 
mouth, from Yarmouth to the Land’s End, was all 
in motion ; the agitation increased from the distance 
like the rolling waves of an extensive sea; and the 
monarch, left to himself, and destitute of resources, 
saw himself attacked on all sides by an universal 
combination of his subjects.” Page 26. 

Bolingbroke, in his dissertation upon parties, 
observes that, “ the defects which he had censured 
in the Roman constitution of government, were 
avoided in some of those that were established on 
the breaking of that empire, by the northern nations 
and the Goths. In letters 14 and 15 he makes 
some judicious remarks on the origin and decline 
both of the Spanish and French governments. The 
Parliaments in France, he affirms, never gave the 
people any share in the government of that king- 
dom.” When prerogative failed, they added, he 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 533 


says, “ a deputation of the commons to the assembly 
of the estates ; that, seeming to create a new con- 
troul on the Crown, they might in reality give 
greater scope and freer exercise to arbitrary will.” 
Letter 15. 

Among other causes of the stability of the English 
government, are to be ranked, the unity of the ex- 
ecutive power, the division of the legislative power, 
and the business of proposing laws, which is lodged 
in the hands of the people. These subjects are fully 
and ably discussed in the four first chapters of De 
Lolme on the English Constitution, Book 11. 


Pace 6.—Peculiarity of the British Government. 


How far the British government differs from 
republican governments, is shewn by De Lolme, 
chap. x. book m1. In chapter xvi. is explained 
the total difference between the English monarchy 
as a monarchy, and every other monarchy with 
which we are acquainted; and in chapter xvi. 
he shows, by the most decisive and important 
proofs, how far the examples of nations that have 
lost their liberty are applicable to England—* All 
the political passions of mankind, says he, if we 
attend to it, are satisfied and provided for in the Eng- 
lish government; and whether we look at the 
monarchical, or the aristocratical, or the democrati- 
cal part of it, we find all those powers already 
settled in it in a regular manner, which have an 
unavoidable tendency to arise, at one time or other, 
in all human societies.” Page 427. 


534 ON RAPINS DISSERTATION 


The reader will not be displeased to see the sa- 
gacious observations of Blackstone on this mo- 
mentous subject—“ These three species of govern- 
ment have, all of them, their several perfections 
and imperfections ; democracies are usually the best 
calculated to direct the end of a law; aristocracies 
to invent the means by which that end shall be ob- 
tained ; and monarchies to carry those means into 
execution. And the ancients, as was observed, had 
in general no idea of any other permanent form of 
government but these three: for though Cicero de- 
clares himself of opinion, “ esse optime constitutam 
rempublicam, que ex tribus generibus illis, regali, 
optimo, et populari, sit modice confusa:” Yet Ta- 
citus treats this notion of a mixed government, 
formed out of them all, and partaking of the ad- 
vantages of each, as a visionary whim, and one that, 
if effected, could never be lasting or secure. 
Cunctas nationes et urbes populus, aut primores, 
aut singuli regunt ; delecta ex his et constituta rei- 
publicee forma laudari facilius quam evenire, vel, si 
evenit, haud diuturna esse potest.—Ann. 1. 4. But, 
happily for us of this island, the British Consti- 
tution has long remained, and I trust will long 
continue, a standing exception to the truth of this 
observation. For, as with us the executive power 
of the laws is lodged in a single person, they have 
all the advantages of strength and dispatch, that are 
to be found in the most absolute monarchy: and, 
“as the legislature of the kingdom 15 entrusted to 
three distinct powers, entirely independent of each 
other; first, the King; secondly, the Lords  spi- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 535 


ritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical 
assembly of persons selected for their piety, their 
truth, their wisdom, their value, or their property ; 
and thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen 
by the people from among themselves, which makes 
it a kind of democracy; as this aggregate body, 
actuated by different springs, and attentive to 
different interests, composes the British Parliament, 
and has the supreme disposal of every thing, there 
can no inconvenience be attempted by either of the 
three branches, but will be withstood by the other 
two; each branch being armed with a negative 
power, sufficient to repel any innovation which it 
shall think inexpedient or dangerous. Here then 
is lodged the sovereignty of the British Constitution ; 
and lodged as beneficially as is possible for society.” 
Page 50, vol. 1. Blackstone. 

An Englishman may therefore say with Polybius, 
δῆλον ὡς ἀρίστην μὲν ἡγητέον πολιτείαν THY ἐκ πάντων 
τῶν προειρημένων ἰδιωμάτων συνεστῶσαν. What the 
same writer says of the Spartan government, may 
be said more truly and more illustriously of the 
British, τούτου γὰρ τοῦ μέρους οὐ λόγω μόνον, ἀλλ᾽ Epyw 
πεῖραν εἰλήφαμεν. Page 628, vol. 1. Meg. Historia- 
rum, lib. 6. 


Pace 7.—Adjustment of its Powers. 


“ Sometimes indeed the distribution is equal, 
either when the constituent parts depend mutually 
on each other, as in the English government ; or 
when the authority of each part is independent, 


536 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


though imperfect, as in Poland. This last form is 
a bad one, because there is no union in such a go- 
vernment, and the several parts of the state want a 
due connection.”—Rousseau on the Social Compact, 
page 128. 

Upon the influence of the Crown and the co- 
operation of the three forms in our government, 
which, in themselves, are yet distinct, some ex- 
cellent observations are made in a late dialogue on 
the actual state of Parliament—“ As the King is 
responsible to Parliament for the exercise of his 
prerogative through his ministers, as the right of 
treaties are subject to the division of Parliament, as 
Parliament furnish all pecuniary supplies, the pre- 
rogative is actually subservient to and dependent 
upon Parliament. If the Crown is dependent upon 
Parliament, the House of Lords is well known to 
be in a great degree dependent on the Crown, and 
both of them ultimately on the House of Commons. 
Such is the real state of those distinct and inde- 
pendent rights which theorists imagine operate in 
separate scales, as checks to one another; and yet, 
as circumstanced as they are, all these institutions 
have still their utility, and are beneficial to each 
other from their connection, though not by their 
mutual opposition, as it is falsely imagined.” Page 7. 
—Page 17, he maintains that “ it is upon the har- 
mony, not the dissension, of these principles ; upon 
the close and intimate connection, not upon the op- 
position of them, that depend the beauty and effi- 
cacy of the English Constitution.” Doubtless, in 
the general course of government, these several 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 537 


powers can and do unite for the general purpose 
for which they are respectively designed. Their 
privileges and rights, however distinct, are yet di- 
rected towards one common object; but when either 
affects to predominate excessively, to deviate from 
the plain and essential principles of the constitution, 
or to throw, by violence, even the forms of our go- 
vernment out of their course, it is the duty and the 
interest of the two other powers to check these en- 
croachments by the firmest opposition and the 
most unequivocal dissension. The passage which I 
am now going to quote is so consistent with com- 
mon experience, and yet so contrary to the common 
language of men upon these subjects, that I think 
it of importance to lay the whole before the reader 
—lI assert freely, that, if the “ three principles of go- 
vernment are better than one; if they cannot exist, 
independently, in King, Lords, Commons; if, in the 
course of our history, through all our revolutions, 
the powers of government have always united in the 
one branch that was predominant, to which the 
other two have been made subservient; it is far 
better for every good purpose, that such powers 
should devolve upon the House of Commons, than 
upon the King or upon the Peers ; provided always, 
that the influence and spirit of the three principles 
accompany that power in the assembly that acquires 
it. I assert, therefore, that, if the House of Com- 
mons, which has assumed to itself the power, and in 
my opinion happily for this country, should ever be 
divested of any one of those three influences, to 
guide, temper, and regulate the exertions of that 


538 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


power, that instant there is indeed a change and re- 
volution, not in the form, but in the essence, of the 
government, which requires the three influences in 
the efficient part of the legislature to be, what it 
professes, a mixed government. 

“The whole nicety consists in the adjusting and 
apportioning the guantum of each influence, so as 
to keep the balance even, without weighing down 
the others. As long as the patronage of the Crown 
affects the House of Commons only, so far as to in- 
duce a general support of public measures, and a 
bias towards the system that is pursued, not a blind 
confidence in, or prostituted devotion to, the mi- 
nister; as long as the patrician influence extends no 
farther than to give to landed property and ancient 
establishments their just weight, without trampling 
upon the rights and interests of the people at large; 
and whilst the democratical principle in that as- 
sembly is restrained within such bounds as shall 
give equal liberty to every subject, impartial justice, 
and security to their persons and property, without 
the inconsistencies and extravagances of a popular 
government, I shall say all is well, and better than 
any alteration can hope to make it. I do not say 
this balance is actually adjusted with all the pre- 
cision possible—wise and moderate checks may be 
thought of, from time to time, without dangerous 
experiments of innovation, to counteract the in- 
creasing influence of the Crown ; and to such I 
shall be always ready to lend every assistance ; as long 
as that weight appears to me, as it does at present, 
to predominate in the scale.”—Dial, on the. Act. 
State of Parliam. page 46. 


ee = 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 539 


These observations, however unpopular, are upon 
the whole just; if they jar with some well con- 
structed and well received theories, they yet have 
the merit of resting on the solid evidence of fact. 
I do not agree with every position in this book: I 
doubt whether the regal influence predominate in 
the scale, and I particularly disapprove of the vio- 
lent and declamatory invective which breaks out in 
page 53. But I confidently bear my testimony 
against the decision of a most learned and amiable 
man, whom I have the honour to call my friend, 
when he pronounces the dialogue “ the most laugh- 
able and whimsical thing of the kind he ever met 
with.”—See page 22 of a letter to the author of a 
pamphlet, entitled Free Parliaments. 


Pace 9.—The Dependency and Independency of 


Parliament. 


The dependency and independency of Parlia- 
ment are thus elegantly stated by Bolingbroke— 
“The constitutional independency of each part of 
the legislature arises from hence, that distinct rights, 
powers, and privileges are assigned to it by the con- 
stitution; but then this independency of one part 
can be so little said to arise from the dependency 
of another, that it consists properly and truly in the 
free, unbiassed, uninfluenced, and independent ex- 
ercise of these rights, powers, and privileges, by 
each part, in as ample an extent as the constitution 
allows; or in other words, as far as that point 
where the constitution stops this free exercise, and 


540 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


submits the proceedings of one part, not to the pri- 
vate influence, but to the public controul of the 
other parts. Before this point, the independency 
of each part is meant by the constitution to be ab- 
solute. From this point the constitutional depend- 
ency of each part on the others commences.” Page 
197, letter 12.—Such is the fair prospect which 
theory presents to us; but in practice, we are 
told by a respectable authority, “ the share of 
power alloted by our constitution to the House of 
Commons is so great, that it absolutely commands 
all the other parts of the government.” The same 
writer, who informs us of our danger, has pointed 
out what he represents, and what in some degree I 
am inclined to believe, the remedy—* The interest 
of the body is restrained by the interest of indi- 
viduals, and the House of Commons stretches not 
its power, because such an usurpation would be 
contrary to the interest of the majority of its mem- 
bers. The Crown has so many offices at its disposal, 
that, when assisted by the honest and disinterested 
part of the House, it will always command the re- 
solutions of the whole; so far at least, as to pre- 
serve the ancient constitution from danger. We 
may, therefore, give to this influence what name 
we please; we may call it by the invidious appella- 
tions of corruption and dependence ; but some de- 
gree and some kind of it are inseparable, from the 
very nature of the constitution, and necessary to 
the preservation of our mixed government. Instead 
then of asserting absolutely, that the dependence of 
Parliament, in every degree, is an infringement of 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 541 


British liberty, the country-party had better have 
made some concessions to their adversaries, and 
have only examined what was the proper degree of 
this dependence, beyond which it became dangerous 
to liberty.”. See Hume’s Essay on the Independ. of 
Parl.—Though I mean not to be an advocate for 
corruption, I readily assent to the foregoing ob- 
servations, and I am confident from long and se- 
rious observation, that the influence of the Crown, 
“ arising from the offices and honours which are at 
its disposal,” may be justified to the satisfaction of 
every impartial friend to the liberties of his country. 
“Such moderation (as Hume says) is not to be 
expected from party men of any kind.” But itis a 
most dangerous position to say indiscriminately 
“ that the Crown can never have too little influence 
over Members of Parliament,” for that influence 
may be employed, and has been employed, so as to 
direct the passions and selfishness of men to the 
public good. “ Polybius (as Hume remarks) justly 
esteems the pecuniary influence of the Senate and 
Censors in giving offices to be one of the regular 
and constitutional weights which preserved the ba- 
lance of the Roman government.” It will be asked, 
where dependence is to cease, and independence to 
begin ? To this I answer, that when the cases practi- 
cally exist, it will be no difficult task for wise and 
active Senators to foresee any dangers that are 
likely to arise, or to remedy those which have grown 
up imperceptibly. The constitution in its princi- 
ples and in its forms has provided effectual remedies, 
and it must be left to the judgment of wise and 


542 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


good men to apply them. But in respect to this 
and many other subjects of government, it is diffi- 
cult and even dangerous to decide in speculation the 
proper medium between extremes, “ both because 
it is not easy to find words (as Hume observes) pro- 
per to fix this medium, and because the good and 
ill, in such cases, run so gradually into each other, 
as even to render our sentiments doubtful and un- 
certain.” The strength of contending parties, the 
reigning manners of the times, the pressing exi- 
gencies of war, and a variety of other circumstances, 
which are best understood when they actually exist, 
may render it proper for the influence of the Crown 
to be sometimes contracted and sometimes enlarged. 
It is always however to be remembered, that the 
very necessity which compels the Crown to have 
recourse to influence, implies a real and rooted 
strength in those over whom it is employed. The 
extent of influence is then a decisive proof of the 
weakness of prerogative. Doubtless in the hands 
of a profligate minister it may be abused to un- 
dermine the liberties of our country—under the di- 
rection of an able and an upright one, it may be 
employed to check licentiousness, and to make the 
ambition of individuals an useful instrument in pro- 
moting the welfare of the community. 

Amidst the many who clamour against its excess, 
and exaggerate its dangers, there are few men so 
generous as to renounce its advantages, and yet 
fewer so infatuated as to wish its total extinction. 

Conscious as I am of being actuated by a sincere 
love of constitutional and rational freedom, and a 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 543 


fixed) detestation against unconstitutional and cor- 
rupt influence, I deliver the foregoing sentiments 
without apology for their boldness, and without fear 
of their consequences. My opinions about the con- 
stitution, and my attachment to it, are founded not 
on visionary refinements, but on solid facts—not 
on the precarious assumptions and specious plans 
of rash or treacherous reformers, but on the clear 
and broad evidence of history—on the real cha- 
racters and conduct of men, and on the real ten- 
dencies and natures of things themselves. It would 
therefore be weakness not to foresee, and cowardice 
not to despise, the rude invectives of those men, qui 
tanquam artifices improbi opus querunt, et semper 
egri aliquid esse in republica volunt, ut sit ad cujus 
curationem a populo adhibeantur. Livy, Lib. v. 
—That an independence amounting to separation, 
that a perpetual and restless jealousy, an undistin- 
guishing and implacable spirit of opposition, must 
be mjurious, between powers which are instituted 
for one common object, is an assertion which re- 
quires no proof.—Dr. Jebb, a most jealous and 
strenuous asserter of freedom, has the sagacity to 
discern, and the candour to acknowledge, that the 
freedom and independence of the King and Parlia- 
ment are to be understood with restrictions. I 
transcribe with great pleasure, from the writings of 
that gentleman, these profound and temperate re- 
flections.—“ The proper rights and functions of each 
of these powers, and the passions incident to human 
nature, when placed zn certain circumstances, tend, 
however, to unite them, on every occasion where 


544 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the public good requires their consent; and the 
same passions also tend to controul, or moderate, 
their mutual actions, and effectually to prevent their 
union, when such union would obstruct the general 
welfare of the state. I readily acknowledge, that, 
in this sense, no branch of the legislature can be 
considered as free and independent— they are all 
subjected, equally with individuals, to those moral 
causes, which, in the most exalted state of political 
liberty, with resistless energy, though frequently 
silent and unobserved, controul, direct, and modify 
the actions of mankind.” See Jebb’s address to the 
Freeholders of Middlesex, page 9. 

After all, if the reader be yet alarmed at the 
power of the Crown to bestow places, let him know 
that the case is not yet desperate; for, “ whatever 
ministers may govern, whatever factions may arise, 
let the friends of liberty lay aside the groundless 
distinctions, which are employed to amuse and be- 
tray them ; let them continue to coalite ; let them 
hold fast their integrity, and support with spirit and 
perseverance the cause of their country, and they 
will confirm the good, reclaim the bad, vanquish 
the incorrigible, and make the British constitution 
triumph even over corruption.” This animated 
language was spoken by the haughty and ex- 
asperated railer against influence. It contains a 
safe and efficacious preservative against the encroach- 
ments of the Crown and the usurpations of the 
Parliament—may it be deeply impressed on the 
heart of every worthy citizen, who wishes to sup- 
port the measures of government without venality, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 545 


as well as to oppose them without faction.—See 
Bolingbroke’s Dissertation upon Parties, vol. 111., 
page 294. 


Pace 12.—Liberty of Northern Nations. 


The sagacious Montesquieu has assigned many 
both physical and political causes why liberty is na- 
tural to the northern nations. In Dr. Stewart’s ad- 
mirable dissertation on the antiquity of the English 
constitution, the reader will find a learned and phi- 
losophical explanation of the similarity which per- 
vades the institutions and principles of government 
among the ancient Germans and those of the Eng- 
lish.—See particularly part v. on the great Coun- 
cil or Parliament in Germany and England. 


Pace 12.—Wittena-Gemote. 


“ Among the most remarkable of the Saxon laws 
we may reckon first, the constitution of Parlia- 
ments, or rather, general assemblies of the princi- 
pal and wisest men in the nation, the Wittena-Ge- 
mote, or commune consilium of the ancient Ger- 
mans, which was not yet reduced to the forms and 
distinctions of our modern Parliament, without 
whose concurrence no new law could be made nor 
old one altered.” Blackstone, vol. τν. page 413. 

“Jn no portion of the Anglo-Saxon period does 
the power of the sovereign appear to have been ex- 
orbitant or formidable. The enaction of laws, and 
the supreme sway in all matters, whether civil or 

VOL, 111. 2N 


546 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


ecclesiastical, were vested in the Wittena-Gemote, 
or great national assembly; this council consisted 
of King, Lords, and Commons, and exhibited a 
species of government, of which political liberty 
was the necessary consequence, as its component 
parts were mutually a check to one another. The 
free condition of the northern nations, and the pe- 
culiarity of their situation when they had made con- 
quests, gave rise to this valuable scheme of adminis- 
tration, and taught the politicians of Europe what 
was unknown to antiquity, a distinction between 
despotism and monarchy.” See Stewart’s Disserta- 
tion prefixed to Sullivan’s Lectures. 

De Lolme indeed is willing to allow, with Selden, that 
at the era of the conquest we are to look for the real 
foundation of the English constitution—“ that the 
Saxon government was not subverted by William, 
and that conquest in the feudal sense only meant 
acquisition, are opinions, which, says he, have been 
particularly insisted upon in times of popular op- 
position ; and indeed there was a far greater pro- 
bability of success, in raising among the people the 
notions familiar to them of legal claims and long 
established customs, than in arguing with them 
from the no less rational, but less determinate and 
somewhat dangerous doctrines concerning the ori- 
ginal rights of mankind, and the lawfulness of at all 
times opposing force to an oppressive government.” 
—Page 8. 

As the antiquity of every national claim renders 
it not only more pleasing to our imaginations, but 
more satisfactory to our reason, I shall endeavour 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 547 


to efface the impressions which these remarks will 
probably make on the mind of the reader. In the 
first place De Lolme himself acknowledges “ that as 
when the laws in question were again established, 
the public power in England continued in the same 
channel where the conquest has placed it, they were 
more properly new modifications of the Anglo-Nor- 
man constitution, than they were the abolition of 
it; or, since they were again adopted from the 
Saxon legislation, they were rather imitations of 
that legislation than the restoration of the Saxon 
government. Page 9.—To the concession of De 
Lolme upon this subject I subjoin the more deci- 
sive opinion of Bishop Hurd—“ You do not, says 
Sir John Maynard, I am sure, expect from me, 
that I should go back to the elder and more re- 
mote parts of our history ; that I should take upon 
me to investigate the scheme of government which 
hath prevailed in this kingdom from the time that 
the Roman power departed from us; or that I 
should lay myself out in delineating, as many have 
done, the plan of the Saxon constitution ; though 
such an attempt might not be unpleasing, nor al- 
together without its use, as the principles of the 
Saxon policy, and in some respect the forms of it, 
have been constantly kept up in every succeeding 
period of the English monarchy. I content myself 
with observing, that the spirit of liberty was pre- 
dominant in those times.—Dialogues, page 116. 
After some acute reflections on the word Jaga, 
which meant both laws and countries, he says, 
“ You see then how fully the spirit of liberty pos- 
2ν 2 


548 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


sessed the very language of our Saxon forefathers— 
and it might well do so; for it was the essence of 
the German constitutions; a just notion of which 
(so uniform was the genius of the brave people 
that planned them) may be gathered, you know, 
from what the Roman historians, and above all 
from what Tacitus hath recorded of them.”’—Page 
118. 

“ The defenders of the regal power are conscious 
of the testimony which the Saxon times are ready 
to bearagainst them. They are wise enough to lay 
the foundation of their system in the conquest. 
We are told of his parcelling out the whole land, 
upon his own terms, to his followers ; and we are 
insulted with his famous institution of feudal te- 
nures. But what if the former of these assertions 
be foreign to the purpose at least, if not false ; and 
the latter subversive of the very system it is brought 
to establish? I think I have reason for putting both 
these questions :—for, what if he parcelled out most, 
or all, of the lands of England to his followers? 
The fact has been much disputed—but be it, as they 
pretend, that the property of all the soil in the 
kingdom had changed hands, what is that to us 
who claim under our Norman, as well as Saxon 
ancestors? For the question, you see, is about the 
form of government settled in this nation at the 
time of the conquest; and they argue with us, 
from a supposed act of tyranny in the Conqueror, 
in order to come at that settlement. The Saxons, 
methinks, might be injured, oppressed, enslaved, 
and yet the constitution, transmitted to us 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 549 


through his own Normans, be perfectly free.’—Page 
123. 

“ But their allegation is still more unfortunate. 
He instituted, they say, “ the feudal law.” True, 
“ but the feudal law, and absolute dominion, are two 
things; and, what is more, perfectly incompatible. 

“1 take upon me to say, that I shall make out this 
point in the clearest manner—in the mean time it 
may help us to understand the nature of the feudal 
establishment, to consider the practice of succeed- 
ing times. What that was, our adversaries them- 
selves, if you please, shall inform us—Mr. Somers 
has told their story very fairly; which yet amounts 
only to this; that, throughout the Norman and 
Plantagenet lines, there was one perpetual contest 
between the Prince and his feudatories for law and 
liberty ; an evident proof of the light in which our 
forefathers regarded the Norman constitution. In 
the competition of the two roses, and perhaps be- 
fore, they lost sight indeed of this prize—but no 
sooner was the public tranquillity restored, and the 
contending claims united in Henry VII. than the 
old spirit revived—a legal constitution became the 
constant object of the people; and though not al- 
ways avowed, was, in effect, as constantly sub- 
mitted to by the sovereign. 

“Tt may be true, perhaps, that the ability of one 
Prince, the imperious carriage of another, and the 
generous intrigues of a third; but above all the 
condition of the times, and a sense of former mi- 
series, kept down the spirit of liberty for some 


550 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


reigns, or diminished at least the force and vigour 
of its operations. But a passive subjection was 
never acknowledged, certainly never demanded as 
matter of right, till Elizabeth, now and then, and 
King James, by talking continually in this strain, 
awakened the national jealousy; which proved so 
uneasy to himself, and in the end so fatal to his 
family. 

“1 cannot allow myself to mention these things 
more in detail to you, who have so perfect a know- 
ledge of them. One thing only I insist upon, that, 
without connecting the system of liberty with that 
of prerogative in our notion of the English govern- 
ment, the tenor of our history is perfectly unintelli- 
gible, and that no consistent account can be given 
of it, but on the supposition of a legal limited con- 
stitution.”—Page 126. 

Bolingbroke traces up our constitution to high 
antiquity. 

“The principles of the Saxon commonwealth 
were therefore very democratical, and _ these 
principles prevailed through all subsequent changes. 

“The Danes conquered the crown, but they 
wore it little; and the liberties of the Saxon free- 
men they never conquered, nor wrought any al- 
teration in the constitution of the government.” 
—Rem. on Hist. of Engl., page 45. 

“We may confess that William the Norman 
imposed many new laws and customs ; that he 
made very great alterations in the whole model of 
government ; and that he, as well as his two sons, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. δὸ]Ι 


ruled, upon many occasions, like absolute, not li- 
mited monarchs. 

“ Yet neither he nor they could destroy the old 
constitution; because neither he nor they could 
extinguish the old spirit of liberty. 

“ On the contrary, the Normans and other stran- 
gers, who settled here, were soon seized with it 
themselves instead of inspiring a spirit of slavery 
into the Saxons. 

“ They were originally of Celtic or Gothic ex- 
traction (call it what you please), as well as the 
people they subdued. They came out of the same 
Northern hive, and therefore they naturally re- 
sumed the spirit of their ancestors, when they came 
into a country where it prevailed.”—Ibid. page 46. 

“ These are the sources from which all the dis- 
tinctions of rank and degree that exist at this day 
among us, have flowed. These are the general 
principles of all our liberties. That this Saxon 
constitution hath varied in many particulars, and 
at several periods of time, I am far from denying. 
That it did so, for instance, on the entry of the 
Normans, though certainly not near so much as 
many have been willing to believe, and to make 
others believe, is allowed. Nay, let it be allowed 
for argument’s sake, and not otherwise, that during 
the first confusion and the subsequent disorders, 
which necessarily accompany and follow so great 
and so violent a revolution, the scheme of the 
Saxon constitution was broken, and the liberties of 
the people invaded, as well as the crown usurped. 
Let us even agree that laws were made without 


552 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the consent of the people; that officers and magis- 
trates, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, were em- 
powered without their election ; in one word, that 
the Norman Kings and Lords had mounted each 
other too high to be Lords over freemen, and that 
the government was entirely monarchical and aristo- 
cratical, without any exercise of democratical 
power. Let all this be granted, and the utmost 
that can be made of it will amount to this — that 
confusion and violence at the entry, and for some 
time after, under the government of a foreign race, 
introduced many illegal practices, and some foreign 
principles of policy, contrary to the spirit, and 
letter too, of the ancient constitution; and that 
these Kings and the Lords abused their power over 
the freemen, by extortion and oppression, as Lords 
over tenants. But it will remain true, that neither 
Kings nor Lords, nor both together, could prevail 
over them, or gain their consent to give their 
right, or the law, up to the King’s beck. But still 
the law remained arbiter both of King and people, 
and the Parliament supreme expounder and judge 
of it and them. Though the branches were lopped, 
and the tree lost its beauty for a time, yet the root 
remained untouched, was set in a good soil, and 
had taken strong hold in it ; so that care, and cul- 
ture, and time, were indeed required, and our an- 
cestors were forced to water it, if I may use such 
an expression, with their blood ; but with this care, 
and culture, and time, and blood, it shot up again 
with greater strength than ever, that we might sit 
quiet and happy under the shade of it; for if the 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 553 


same form was not exactly restored in every part, 
yet a tree of the same kind, and as beautiful, and 
as luxuriant, as the former, grew up from the same 
roots. 

“To bring our discourse to that point which is 
here immediately concerned, Parliaments were 
never interrupted, nor the right of any estate taken 
away, however the exercise of it might still be dis- 
turbed. Nay, they soon took the forms they still 
preserve, were constituted almost as they now are, 
and were entirely built on the same general princi- 
ples, as well as directed to the same purposes.” 
—Dissertat. on Parties, page 242. 


Pace 26.— Power of Norman Kings. 


The despotic power of William is commonly 
ascribed to the introduction of feudal tenures—but 
the fact itself requires some explanation, and that 
explanation has been given by Hurd. He under- 
stands not, “as if the whole system of military 
services had been created by the Conqueror, for 
they were essential to all the Gothic or German 
constitutions. We may suppose, then, that they 
were only nxew modelled by this great Prince. And 
who can doubt that the form, which was now given 
to them, would be copied from that which the 
Norman had seen established in his own country ὃ 
It would be copied then from the proper feudal 
form; the essence of which consisted in the perpe- 
tuity of the feud; whereas these military tenures 
had been elsewhere temporary only, or revocable 


554 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


at the will of the Lord.” Page 129.—But whether 
we suppose William to have introduced, or only 
to have altered and enlarged the feudal system, it 
is curious to observe, that the conquest, which for 
a time crushed the loose and unsettled liberties of 
our country, tended ultimately to enlarge and 
strengthen them; for, as De Lolme observes, “ by 
conferring an immense as well as unusual power on 
the head of the feudal system, it compelled the no- 
bility to contract a lasting and sincere union with 
the people.”—Page 25. 


“The Norman Kings of imperious tempers, as- 
sumed great power—the Barons did the same. 
The people groaned under the oppression of both. 
—This union was unnatural and could not last.— 
The Barons, enjoying a sort of feudatory sove- 
reignty, were often partners, and sometimes rivals 
of the Kings—they had opposite interests and they 
soon clashed. Thus was the opportunity created of 
re-establishing a more equal free government than 
that which had prevailed after the Norman in- 
vasion.”—Bolingbroke’s Rem. on Hist. of Eng. 
page 48. 


The first Kings of the Norman race were favoured 
by another circumstance, which preserved them 
from the encroachments of their Barons—“ they 
were Generals of a conquering army, which was 
obliged to continue in a military posture, and to 
maintain great subordination under their leader, in 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 555 


order to secure themselves from the revolt of the 
numerous natives, whom they had bereaved of all 
their properties and privileges. But though this 
circumstance supported the authority of William 
and his immediate successors, and rendered them 
extremely absolute, it was lost as soon as the Nor- 
man Barons began to incorporate with the nation, 
to acquire a security in their possessions, and to fix 
their influence over their vassals, tenants, and 
slaves; and the immense fortunes which the Con- 
queror had bestowed on his Chief Captains, served 
them to support their independency, and make 
them formidable to the Sovereign.’—Hume, vol. 1. 
page 113. 


Pace 18.—The Conquest. 


Rapin is perhaps mistaken; conquest does not 
imply absolute and unlimited dominion; and Wil- 
liam professedly derived his claim from testamentary 
succession. Hurd, page 121.— His victory, says 
Stuart, was over the person of Harold, and not 
over the rights of the nation. 


Pace 19.—Henry I. 


“This Prince having ascended the throne to the 
exclusion of his elder brother, was sensible that he 
had no other means to maintain his power than by 
gaining the affection of his subjects; but at the 
same time, he perceived that it must be the affec- 
tion of the whole nation; he therefore not only 


556 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


mitigated the vigour of the feudal laws in favour of 
the Lords, but also annexed as a condition to the 
charter he had granted, that the Lords should allow 
the same freedom to their respective vassals.” —De 
Lolme, page 24. 

How far he executed or omitted to execute his 
promise, may be seen’in Blackstone, vol. tv. page 
42]. 


Pace 20.—Magna Charta. 


For the description of the Magna Charta, see 
Blackstone, page 424, vol. 1v.; De Lolme, page 
27. See a full history of it printed for Bell, 1769. 

“ In the Magna Charta the rights and privileges 
of the individual, as well in his person as his pro- 
perty, became settled actions. The foundation was 
laid on which those equitable laws were to rise 
which offer the same assistance to the poor and the 
weak, as to the rich and powerful.”— De Lolme, 
page 29. 

“ And lastly, (which alone would have merited 
the title it bears, of the Great Charter,) it protected 
every individual of the nation in the free enjoy- 
ment of his life, and his property, unless declared 
to be forfeited by the judgment of his Peers, or the 
law of his land.”—Blackstone, vol. 1v. page 424. 

“De Lolme comparing the Great Charter in 
which the Barons stipulated in favour of the bond- 
men with the treaty concluded between Lewis XI. 
and several of the Princes and Peers of France, 
says, “in this treaty, which was made in order to 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 557 


terminate a war which was called a war for the 
public good (pro bono publico,) no provision was 
made but concerning the particular power of a few 
Lords; not a word was inserted in favour of the 


people.”—Page 30. 


Pace 22.—Earl of Leicester. 


“ Leicester summoned a new Parliament in Lon- 
don, where, he knew, his power was uncontrolable; 
and he fixed this assembly on a more democratical 
basis than any which had ever been summoned since 
the foundation of the monarchy. Besides the Ba- 
rons of his own party, and several ecclesiastics who 
were not immediate tenants of the Crown, he or- 
dered returns to be made of two Knights from every 
shire, and what is more remarkable, of deputies 
from the boroughs; an order of men which in for- 
mer ages had always been regarded as too mean to 
enjoy a place in the national councils. This period 
is generally esteemed the epoch of the House of 
Commons, and it is certainly the first time that 
historians speak of any representatives to Parlia- 
ment sent by the boroughs.”—Hume’s Hist. Eng. 
vol. 11. page 211. 

Lest the foregoing passage, by lessening the an- 
tiquity, should be thought also to lessen the dignity 
of the House of Commons, I subjoin the following 
sentences from the same writer: “Though that 
House derived its existence from so precarious and 
even so invidious an origin as Leicester’s usurpation, 
it soon proved, when summoned by the legal 


558 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Princes, one of the most useful, and in process of 
time, one of the most powerful members of the 
national constitution, and gradually rescued the 
kingdom from aristocratical as well as from regal 
tyranny. But Leicester's policy, if we must ascribe 
to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some 
years an institution for which the general state of 
things had already prepared the nation ; and it is 
otherwise inconceivable that a plant, set by so in- 
auspicious a hand, could have attained to so vigorous 
a growth, and have flourished in the midst of such 
tempests and convulsions.” 

Bishop Hurd, in his Dialogues, confirms and elu- 
cidates these remarks of Hume, on the growing 
preparation of causes for the establishment of the 
power of the Commons.—* Supposing the House 
of Commons to be of late origin, what follows ? 
That the House is an usurpation on the prerogative ? 
Nothing less—it was gradually brought forth by 
time, and grew up under the favour and good li- 
king of our Princes. The constitution itself sup- 
posed the men of the greatest consequence in the 
commonwealth to have a seat in the national coun- 
cils. Trade and agriculture had advanced vast num- 
bers into consequence, that before were of small 
consequence in this kingdom. The public con- 
sideration was increased by their wealth, and the 
public necessities relieved by it. Were these to re- 
main for ever excluded from the King’s councils ? 
or was not that council, which had liberty for its 
object, to widen and expand itself in order to re- 
ceive them? It did, in fact, receive them with 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 559 


open arms, and in so doing conducted itself on the 
very principles of the old feudal policy.”—Hurd’s 
Dialogues, page 165. 


Pace 23.— Antiquity of the Commons. 


Hume, in a masterly and elaborate dissertation 
on the feudal and Anglo-Norman government, con- 
tends that the Commons were no part of the Great 
Council— It is agreed that the Commons were no 
part of the Great Council till some ages after the 
conquest ; and that the military tenants alone of the 
Crown composed that supreme and legislative as- 
sembly.”—Vol. 11. page 116. 

“ If in the long period of 200 years, which elapsed 
between the conquest and the latter end of Henry 
III. and which abounded in factions, revolutions, 
and convulsions of all kinds, the House of Com- 
mons never performed one single legislative act so 
considerable as to be once mentioned by any of the 
numerous historians of that age, they must have 
been totally insignificant. And in that age, what 
reason can be assigned for their ever being assem- 
bled? Can it be supposed that men of so little 
weight or importance possessed a negative voice 
against the King and the Barons? Every page of 
the subsequent histories discovers their existence, 
though these histories are not writ with greater ac- 
curacy than the preceding ones, and indeed scarcely 
equal them in that particular.” — Vol. 11. page 119. 

To the argument drawn from the summons in 
Henry III.’s time, Lord Kaimes, in his Essay on 


560 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the Constitution of Parliament, has given an 
answer, which to me is nearly satisfactory—* Whe- 
ther the royal burrows were originally constituent 
members of Parliament is a point much debated. 
It is observed, that in England there is no evidence 
upon record of burgesses being called to Parlia- 
ment before 49 Henry III. at which time writs were 
directed to the Sheriffs of the several counties to 
return knights of the shire and burgesses ; whence 
itis conjectured, that the calling of the burgesses 
to Parliament was a politic of Simon De Montfort, 
who had at that time the power of the kingdom in 
his hands, and who called the Parliament 49 
Henry III. in order to purge himself from sus- 
picions spread abroad of his intending to usurp the 
Crown. 

“ Notwithstanding these specious facts and ob- 
servations, I «m of opinion, that the royal burrows 
made originally one of the estates of Parliament. 

“ Though there is no mention of calling burgesses 
to the English Parliament before the 49 Henry III. 
it appears to me a very lame inference, that the 
practice began at this time, when we find the records 
of preceding transactions so imperfect. At the 
same time, were these records entire, and were 
there no instance before that period of a writ di- 
rected to the Sheriff for calling bnrgesses to Parlia- 
ment, it would not follow that the royal burrows 
were no sooner assumed as a branch of the legisla- 
ture—this must be explained. It is mentioned 
above to have been the practice in King John’s 
days to call only the greater Barons hy name, and 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 561 


to leave the lesser Barons and freeholders to be 
summoned by the Sheriff edictally, or in general 
terms. Probably the representatives from burrows 
were ranked with the lesser Barons, and not ho- 
noured with a personal citation. When the atten- 
dance of the smaller Barons came to be dispensed 
with, upon their sending representatives, this change 
in the constitution introduced an alteration in the 
stile of the writs directed to the Sheriffs. Instead 
of the old form, enjoining the Sheriffs to notify 
publickly the holding of the Parliament, that all 
who were bound might attend, he was commanded 
specially to return two Knights of the Shire: this 
made it necessary to be equally special with regard 
to the representatives of the burrows; and there- 
fore, in the writ, he was directed to return two 
Knights and -two burgesses. This circumstance 
therefore, proves nothing further than that, in 
Henry III.’s time, the stile of the writ was changed 
and made special, instead of being conceived, as 
formerly, in general terms. But farther: the cir- 
cumstances of the case are a strong evidence to me, 
that this was not the first time the attendance of 
the burrows in Parliament was required.—Histo- 
rians mention, that this Parliament was called by 
Montford, in order to purge himself of a suspicion, 
which was gaining ground, of his aiming at the 
Crown. It is not said he had any particular con- 
nexion with the burrows, to make their presence of 
use to him; and unless it were in some such view, 
I cannot imagine that Montford would, in such 
ticklish circumstances, think of making any altera- 
VOL, III. 20 


562 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


tion in the constitution. At the same time the 
plain and simple stile of the writ proves it to have 
been a common and known writ of the law of Eng- 
land. Had any thing extraordinary been enjoined, 
in must have been. introduced with a preamble to 
support the command; especially as this was not 
a matter of course, but a summons, which the bur- 
rows were not bound to obey.”—On the Constit. of 
Parliament, p. 38. 

Sullivan, in page 212 of his Lectures, asserts 
“that the feudal principles were principles of liberty, 
but not of liberty to the whole nation, or even to 
the conquerors; I mean as to the point I am now 
upon, of having a share in the legislation—that 
was reserved to the military tenants, and to such 
of them only as held immediately of the King.” 

Yet these very institutions contained within them- 
selves the seeds-of a larger and more liberal plan 
of freedom than is at first perceived by a super- 
ficial observer.—In page 17 we have seen, that, by 
strengthening the hands of the King, the feudal 
system made a closer union between the people and 
the Barons, necessary to check the enormous growth 
of regal power. In its consequences, therefore, 
the very system which seemed to throw a danger- 
ous weight into the hands of the Nobles, paved the 
way for such a gradual acquisition of power to the 
people, as enabled them to resist, not less the en- 
croachments of the Barons, from whom their power 
was primarily derived, than to the King, against 
whom it was primarily exerted. It is indeed curi- 
ous to observe, how much events baffle all the con- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 563 


trivances of human policy. The evil actually re- 
moved by them is both in degree and kind very 
different from that which they were originally de- 
signed to remove.—The good which we expect from 
them often extends beyond our immediate expecta- 
tions, and, if foreseen, would be rejected as incon- 
sistent with our present interests. Thus our igno- 
rance, as well as our wisdom, contributes to the 
general welfare of the community ; and, by the ad- 
mirable constitution of the moral world, while we 
directly and deliberately pursue our own happiness, 
we become involuntarily and eventually the instru- 
ments of greater happiness to other men. 

Those seeming contradictions, which I have just 
now mentioned in the feudal system, are happily 
reconciled by Bishop Hurd.—“ Freedom” says Mr. 
Somers, “is a form of much latitude—The Nor- 
man constitution may be free in one sense, as it 
excludes the sole arbitrary dominion of one man ; 
and yet servile enough in another, as it leaves the 
government in few hands.” To this Sir John 
Maynard replies,—“It is true, the proper feudal 
form, especially as established in this kingdom, was 
in a high degree oligarchical—it would not other- 
wise, perhaps, have suited to the condition of those 
military ages—yet the principles it went upon were 
those of public liberty, and generous enough to 
give room for the extension of the system itself, 
when a change of circumstances should require it.” 
—Hurd’s Dialogues, p. 146. 

To the reader, whose mind is awed and oppressed 
by the authority of Mr. Hume, it may afford some 
202 


564 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


consolation to be told, that his opinions concerning 
the late origin of Parliament have been opposed 
with great depth of learning, and great acuteness of 
argumentation, by Dr. Stuart.—It is very remarkable 
also, that from the known condition of society during 
the earlier ages of our history, Hume (vol. 11. p. 124,) 
infers, that the Commons were not, and Stuart 
(p. 288) that they were admitted as members of 
the legislative body. 

In page 121 of his Remarks on the Public Law 
and Constitution of Scotland, Stuart maintains, 
that the burgesses were the true and ancient Com- 
mons of the kingdom. 

“It has been usual, indeed, to represent the 
boroughs as in a state of uniform and entire wretch- 
edness and misery, from the earliest times till the 
establishment of communities and corporations in 
the 12th and 13th centuries. But though no con- 
clusion in the history of the European kingdoms 
has been insisted upon with great vehemence, 
there is none which is more untenable.” I most 
earnestly recommend the whole of this chapter, 
and the admirable notes by which it is illustrated, 
to the perusal of the reader. 

In Dial. Hurd, vol. 11. p. 157, some distinctions 
are laid down between Knights of the Shire and 
Burgesses—“ The Knights were appointed to repre- 
sent not all the freeholders of counties, but the 
lesser tenants of the Crown only; the Burgesses 
represented towns which had formerly been in the 
jurisdiction of the King and his Lords,” 

“ But when the military spirit declined, and com- 
mercial prevailed, it was no longer reasonable, or 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 565 


the interest of the Crown, that these bodies of men 
should not be admitted into the public councils.”— 
Ibidem, p. 159. 

But Dr. Stuart supposes “the constitutional 
rights of the Commons to have existed at a much 
earlier period,” and to “ have received a temporary 
interruption amidst the lawless confusion intro- 
duced between regal and aristocratical dominion.”— 
Discourse on the Laws and Gov. of Eng. p. 15. 

In page 19 of this Discourse, Stuart speaks of 
a work in which he “hopes to have an opportu- 
nity of treating the antiquity of the Commons at 
greater length.” In page 281 of his Dissertation 
on the antiquity of the English Constitution, he 
intimates “a design of exhibiting a connected view 
of several direct arguments, which prove a repre- 
sentation of the Commons before the 49th of 
Henry III.” 

It were to be wished, that this able judge and 
strenuous defender of our free Constitution, would 
gratify the expectation which he has long excited— 
for the execution of such a task he is eminently 
qualified, because he possesses at once, the diligence 
of an antiquarian, the precision of a lawyer, and the 
more enlarged views of an historian. 

Much information has been collected on the an- 
tiquity of the Commons, as forming a part of the 
legislature, in Tyrrel’s Bibl. Polit—The learned 
writer of Observations on the more Ancient Sta- 
tutes, seems, however, to be feebly impressed by 
the evidences which Tyrrel has produced, and pro- 
fesses to consider the whole subject as little more 


566 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


than “a point of speculation adapted to the discus- 
sion of an antiquary.” Even in this point of view, no 
man is more able than Mr. Barrington to select and 
arrange such evidence as may lead to the determina- 
tion of the question, which, if curious only in its ma- 
terials, is in its principles not unimportant. The rights 
we now enjoy may, doubtless, be supported by ar- 
guments more obvious and more convincing than 
long possession—yet, from the very frame of the 
human mind, ¢his circumstance renders every poli- 
tical advantage more pleasing and indeed more se- 
cure; forthe continuance of any right is a presump- 
tive proof of its fitness, and therefore increases the 
guilt and the danger of every attempt to take it 
away.— Antiquity,” says Hume, Essay iv. “ always 
begets the opinion of right; and whatever disad- 
vantageous sentiments we may entertain of man- 
kind, they are always found to be prodigal, both 
of blood and treasure, in the maintenance of public 
justice. This passion we may denominate enthu- 
siasm, or we may give it what appellation we please; 
but a politician, who should overlook its influence 
on human affairs, would prove himself but of a 
very limited understanding.”—Essays, vol. 1. p. 32. 
For the mere amusement of the reader, I set 
before him Mr. Barrington’s ingenious interpreta- 
tion of the word parliament—*It is a compound 
of the two Celtic words parley and ment or mend ; 
Bullet renders parley by the French infinitive parler ; 
and we use the word in English as a substantive, 
viz. parley ; ment or mend is translated quantiti, 
abondance ; the word parliament therefore resolved 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 567 


into its constituent syllables, may not improperly 
be said to signify what the Indians of North Ame- 
rica call a great talk.”—P. 68. 


Henry II. 


It is remarked by Dr. Robertson, “that Con- 
querors, though usually the bane of human kind, 
proved often, in the feudal times, the most indulgent 
of Sovereigns ; they stood most in need of sup- 
plies from the people, and not being able to com- 
pel them by force to submit to the necessary impo- 
sitions, they were obliged to make them some com- 
pensations by equitable laws and popular conces- 
sions.—The remark is in some measure, though 
imperfectly, justified by Henry II.—He took no 
steps of moment without consulting his Parliament, 
and obtaining their approbation, which he after- 
wards pleaded as a reason for their supporting his 
measures.” —Runnington upon Hale, p. 180. 


PacE 28.—Policy of the Tudors. 


“From the first to the last of the Tudor line, 
imperious and despotic as they were of their own 
nature, no extraordinary stretch of power was ven- 
tured upon by any of them but under the counte- 
nance and protection of an Act of Parliament.— 
Hence it was that the Star Chamber, though the 
jurisdiction of this court had the authority of the 
common law, was confirmed by statute ; that the 
proceeding of Empson and Dudley had the sanction 


568 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


of Parliament ; that Henry VIII’s supremacy, and 
all acts of power dependent upon it, had the same 
foundation ; in a word, that every thing which wore 
the face of an absolute authority in the King, was 
not in virtue of any supposed inherent prerogative 
in the Crown, but the special grant of the subject. 
No doubt this compliance, and particularly, if we 
consider the lengths to which it was carried, may 
be brought to prove the obsequious and even abject 
disposition of the times, though we allow a good 
deal, as I think we should, to prudence and good 
policy; but then the Parliament by taking care to 
make every addition to the Crown their own pro- 
per act, left their Kings no pretence to consider 
themselves as absolute and independent.”—Hurd’s 
Dial. vol. 11. p. 268. 

“The kings of England continued, even in the 
time of the Tudors, te have but one assembly, be- 
fore which he could lay his wants and apply for re- 
lief. How great soever the increase of his power 
was, a single Parliament alone could furnish him 
with the means of exercising it; and whether it was 
that the members of this Parliament entertained a 
deep sense of their advantages, or whether private 
interest exerted itself in aid of patriotism, they at 
all times vindicated the right of granting, or rather 
refusing, subsidies; and amidst the general wreck 
of every thing they ought to have held dear, they at: 
least clung obstinately to the plank which was des- 
tined to prove the instrument of their preservation.” 
—De Lolme, p. 45. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 569 
Pace 29.—Henry Seventh. 


Bolingbroke, speaking of Henry VII. says— 
“ We must not conclude that this King made force 
the sole, though he made it the principal expedient 
of his government; he was wise enough to consider 
that his court was not the nation, and that, however 
he might command with a nod in the one, he must 
captivate, at least in some degree, the good-will of 
mankind, to make himself secure of being long 
obeyed in the other; nay more, that he must make 
his people some amends for the oppressions which 
his avarice particularly exposed them to suffer. For 
these reasons, as he strained his prerogative, on 
some occasions very high, so he let ἐέ down again 
upon others, and affected to show to his Parliaments 
much condescension, notwithstanding his pride, as 
well as much communication of council, notwith- 
standing his reserve.”"—Rem. on Hist. of Eng. p. 94. 


Pace 29.—Henry Eighth. 


Upon the exorbitant power of the Crown, and the 
servile obsequiousness of Parliament, see Boling- 
broke, pp. 108, 109, of the Remarks on the Hist. of 
Eng.—“ The absolute power which Henry VIII. 
exercised over the purses, lives, liberties, and con- 
sciences of his people, was due to the entire influ- 
ence which he had gained over the Parliament ; and 
this dependency of the two Houses on the King 
did, in effect, establish tyranny by law.’—Boling- 
broke, p. 110. 


570 ON RAPINS DISSERTATION 


The various and uncommon causes of Henry’s 
power are most profoundly traced, and most cor- 
rectly described by Hurd. They are to be found in 
the recent depression of the Barons under his father, 
in the cessation of the civil wars, in the undefined 
authority and timid spirit of the Commons, in the 
translation of the Pope’s supremacy to the King, in 
the high spiritual pretensions, and the great tempo- 
ral wealth which that event brought along with it— 
“The Throne did not only stand by itself, as hav- 
ing no longer a dependence on the papal chair—it 
rose still higher, and was, in effect, erected upon it 
—for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not annihi- 
lated but transferred, and all the powers of the Ro- 
man Pontiff now centered in the King’s person. 
Henceforth then we are to regard him in a more 
awful point of view; as armed with both swords at 
once ;” and as Nat. Bacon expresses it in his way, 
as a strange kind of monster, “a King with a Pope 
in his belly."—Hurd’s Dialogues, vol. 11. p. 259. 

“Tn the mean time the nation rejoiced with great 
reason at its deliverance from a foreign tyranny ; 
and the lavish distribution of that wealth which 
flowed into the King’s coffers from the suppressed 
monasteries, procured a ready submission from the 
great and powerful to the King’s domestic tyranny. 

“In a word, every thing contributed to the ad- 
vancement of the regal power, and, in that, to the 
completion of the great designs of Providence. The 
amazing revolution, which had just happened, was 
at all events to be supported; and thus, partly by 
fear, and partly by interest, the Parliament went 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 571 


along with the King in all his projects; and, beyond 
the example of former times, was constantly obse- 
quious to him, even in the most capricious and in- 
consistent measures of his government.” Ibid. p. 
261.—*“ Yet, in these very reigns, the foundations of 
our liberty were laid broader and stronger than 


ever.”—Bolingbroke, Rem. on Hist. of Engl. p. 90. 


Pace 31.—Bolingbroke’s contrast between Eliza- 
beth and James. 


The contrast between Elizabeth and James is so 
beautifully drawn by Lord Bolingbroke, that I can- 
not deny myself the pleasure of transcribing it— 
“ Elizabeth had been jealous of her prerogative, but 
moderate in the exercise of it. Wiser James ima- 
gined, that the higher he carried it, and the more 
rigorously he exerted it, the more strongly he should 
be seated on his throne. He mistook the weight 
for the strength of a sceptre; and did not consider 
that it was never so likely to slip, or be wrenched 
out of a Prince’s hands, as when it is heaviest. He 
never reflected that prerogative is of the nature of 
a spring, which by much straining will certainly re- 
lax, and often break; that in one case it becomes of 
little, in the other of no use at all.”—Lett. xix. on 
the Hist. Eng. 


Pace 31.—Elizabeth. 


Bolingbroke, in order to degrade the government 
of James I. and to calumniate the administration of 


572 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Walpole with greater success, has decorated the 
character of Elizabeth with a most splendid pane- 
gyric. His remarks upon her reign have a strange 
mixture of truth and falsehood, and they are evi- 
dently designed to palliate her faults, and exagge- 
rate her excellencies. But in all historical inquiries 
we cannot flatter the prejudices of a reader without 
insulting his understanding; we do both when we 
substitute theory for fact, and represent things as 
we wish them to have been, not, as they really were. 
“ Elizabeth, (says Nat. Bacon) “ never altered, con- 
tinued, repealed, nor explained any law, otherwise 
than by act of parliament, whereof there are multi- 
tudes of examples during her reign.” But as Hume 
properly observes, “the legislative power of the 
Parliament was a mere fallacy while the Sovereign 
was universally allowed to possess a dispensing 
power, by which all the laws could be invalidated 
and rendered of no effect.”—Vol. v. p. 463, 

Dr. Stuart speaks in these favourable terms— 
“ Her jealousy of prerogative was corrected by her 
attachment to the felicity of her people; and the 
popularity with which she reigned is the fullest proof 
that she preserved inviolated all the barriers of 
liberty. The reformation which the folly of her 
predecessor had interrupted was completed by her 
prudence.” To this encomium he subjoins the fol- 
lowing candid and judicious restrictions: “ I do not 
mean to say that Elizabeth, and the Princes who 
preceded her, never acted against the spirit of our 
government—her reign, and those of many of her 
predecessors, were doubtless stained with many bold 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 573 


exertions of authority; but bold exertions of autho- 
rity must not be interpreted to infer despotism in 
our government—we must separate the personal 
qualities of princes and the principles of the consti- 
tution. The government of England and the admi- 
nistrations of its chief magistrates are very different 
things.”—Dissertation prefixed to Sullivan’s Lec- 
tures, p. 27. 

Hume is supposed to have dwelt more fully upon 
the oppressions of Elizabeth’s reign, that he might 
apologize more successfully for the lofty pretensions 
of her successor. I will not enter into an invidious 
and perhaps fruitless discussion of the motives, which 
influenced him in counteracting the prejudices and 
detecting the misrepresentations of preceding writers. 
But in the masterly character which he has drawn 
of this Queen, he has done ample justice “to her 
singular talents for government, to the force of her 
mind, which controled her more active and stronger 
qualities, to her heroism, which was exempt from 
temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship 
from partiality, her active temper from turbulency 
and a vain ambition.” There is no period which 
more deserves to be understood than the reign of 
Elizabeth, and I think Hume has enabled every im- 
partial reader to understand it well. In an appen- 
dix, which is written at once with the utmost his- 
torical fidelity, and the utmost philosophical pene- 
tration, he has shown, “that the most absolute 
authority of the Sovereign (to make use of the Lord 
Keeper’s expression) was established on above twen- 
ty branches of prerogative which are now abolished, 


574 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


and which were, every one of them, totally incom- 

patible with the liberty of the subject. But what 
insured more effectually the slavery of the people 
than even these branches of prerogative, was the 
established principles of the times, which attributed 
to the Prince such an unlimited and undefeasable 
power as was supposed to be the origin of all law, 
and could be bounded and circumscribed by none.” 
—Hume, vol. v. p. 469, 

To many of his readers this language of Mr. 
Hume will be very offensive; yet I cannot persuade 
myself to suspect any insidious or malignant designs 
against the cause of liberty in a writer, who closes 
his inquiry into the reign of Elizabeth with these 
just and interesting reflections :—“ The utmost that 
can be said in favour of the government of that age 
(and perhaps it may be said with truth) is, that the 
power of the Prince, though really unlimited, was 
exercised after the European manner, and entered 
not into every part of the administration; that the 
instances of a high exerted prerogative were not so 
frequent as to render property sensibly insecure, or 
reduce the people to a total servitude; that the free- 
dom from faction, the quickness of execution, and 
the promptitude of those measures which could be 
taken for offence or defence, made some compensa- 
tion for the want of a legal and determined liberty; 
that as the Prince commanded no mercenary army, 
there was a tacit check on him, which maintained 
the government in that medium to which the people 
had been accustomed; and that this situation of 
England, though seemingly it approached nearer, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 575 


was in reality more remote from a despotic and east- 
ern monarchy, than the present government of 
that kingdom, where the people, though guarded 
by multiplied laws, are totally naked, defenceless, 
and disarmed; and besides are not secured by any 
middle power interposed between them and the mo- 
narch.” 

The Dialogues of Hurd on the reign of Eliza- 
beth are written with great delicacy of sentiment, 
and the most finished elegance of style ; they abound 
with curious remarks on the personal qualities of 
the Princess, and the peculiar manners of her time; 
but they throw a very feeble light on the political 
history of her government; they are not marked by 
the strong features of sagacity and impartiality 
which distinguish the investigation of Hume. It 
is observable that Arbuthnot, the zealous and steady 
advocate of Elizabeth, makes this concession, “ if 
her government was at any time. oppressive, the 
English constitution, as it then stood, as well as her 
own nature, had a good deal that bias.” Vol. 1. p. 
82.—I cannot suppose my reader unacquainted with 
the character of Elizabeth drawn by the great Bacon. 
This extraordinary composition ought not to be 
read without the strictest and most vigilant atten- 
tion to the temper and situation of the writer. 


Pace 33.—James the First. 


“ Among the many advantages which king James 
had, on his accession to the throne of England, we 
might very justly reckon the recent example of his 


576 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


predecessor. Her penetration discovered the con- 
sequences of that great change in the balance of 
property, of which we have spoken in letters x1. and 
x11. and she accommodated at once the whole sys- 
tem of her government to it, as we have there ob- 
served. Whatever doubts she might have enter- 
tained concerning the success of her own measures 
before she had experienced the happy effects of 
them, king James could reasonably entertain none. 
Experience, as well as reason, pointed out to him 
the sole principle on which he could establish his 
government with advantage, or even with safety ; 
and queen Elizabeth’s reign had every year afforded 
him fresh proofs that this principle of government, 
which is easy in the pursuit, is effectual in the end 
to all purposes which a good man and a just prince 
can desire to obtain. But king James paid as little 
regard to her example as to her memory.”—Lett. 
xvi. Hist. Eng. 

How far the conduct of preceding monarchs jus- 
tified the high notions which James entertained and 
avowed of the imperial dignity is a question of great 
importance, and has been ably discussed by Bishop 
Hurd. He closes his Inquiry with these words :— 
“ Thus we see that, through the entire reign of the 
House of Tudor, that is, the most despotic and arbi- 
trary of our princes, the forms of liberty were still 
kept up, and the constitution maintained even 
amidst the advantages of all sorts which offered for 
the destruction of both. The Parliament indeed 
was obsequious, was servile, was directed, if you 
will; but every proceeding was authorized and con- 


a 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 577 


firmed by Parliament. The King, in the mean time, 
found himself at his ease; perhaps he believed him- 
self absolute, and considered his application to Par- 
liament as an act of mere grace and popular con- 
descension. At least, after so long experience of 
their submission, the elder James certainly thought 
himself at liberty to entertain this belief of them ; 
but he was the first of our princes that durst avow 
it plainly and openly. He was stimulated, no doubt, 
to this usurpation of power in England by the me- 
mory of his former subjection, or servitude rather 
to the church of Scotland.” Vol.fu. p. 269.—I 
quote this passage only to show that the concur- 
rence of Parliament in the tyrannical measures of 
his predecessor is insufficient to support the wild 
and dangerous opinions which James entertained of 
the regal power, and the violent measures which he 
took to establish it. Iam far from every wish to 
insinuate the pernicious and monstrous doctrine, 
that when a servile Parliament concurs with a des- 
potic King, the constitution itself is not endanger- 
ed. To prevent such a conclusion I will deliver my 
own sentiments upon this head in the manly and 
unanswerable language of Bolingbroke, where he 
speaks of the attempt made by James on the privi- 
lege of the House of Commons in the case of elec- 
tions :—“ Whether the will of the Prince becomes 
a law, by force of prerogative and independently of 
Parliament; or whether it is so made upon every 
occasion by the concurrence of Parliament; arbi- 
trary power is alike established—the only difference 
lies here; every degree of this power, which 1s ob- 
VOL. III. 2P 


578 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


tained without Parliament, is obtained against the 
forms as well as against the spirit of the constitu- 
tion, and must therefore be obtained with difficulty 
and possessed with danger. Whereas in the other 
method of obtaining and exercising this power by 
and with Parliament, if it can be obtained at all, the 
progress is easy and short, and the possession of it 
is so far from being dangerous, that liberty is dis- 
armed as well as oppressed by this method; that 
part of the constitution which was instituted to op- 
pose the encroachments of the Crown, the mal-ad- 
ministration of men in power, and every other griev- 
ance being influenced to abet these encroachments, 
to support this mal-administration, and even to con- 
cur in imposing the grievances. National concur- 
rence can be acquired only by a good Prince, and 
for good purposes; because public good alone can 
be a national motive. But king James was not 
ignorant that private good may be rendered a supe- 
rior motive to particular men, and that it is mo- 
rally possible to make even Parliaments subservient 
to the worst purposes of a court.’”—Remarks on Hist. 
Eng. Lett. xx. p. 22. 


Pace 34.—Duke of Buckingham. 


In this strong colouring Hume draws the charac- 
ter of the detested favourite :—“ Some accomplish- 
ments of a courtier he possessed; of every talent of 
a minister he was utterly devoid; headlong in his 
passions, and incapable equally of prudence and of 
dissimulation; sincere from violence rather than 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 579 


candour; expensive from profusion rather than ge- 
nerosity ; a warm friend, a furious enemy ; but with- 
out any choice or discernment in either; but with 
these qualities he had early and quickly mounted to 
the highest rank, and partook at once of the inso- 
lence which attends a fortune newly acquired, and 
the impetuosity which belongs to persons born in 
high stations, and unacquainted with opposition.”— 
Hume, vol. vr. p. 128. 


“ He had in his own days, and he hath in ours, 
the demerit of beginning a struggle between prero- 
gative and privilege, and of establishing a sort of 
warfare between the Prince and the people.” Rem. 
on Hist. Eng. vol. 11. p. 220, lett. xx. This idea 
seems to have been strongly impressed on the mind 
of Bolingbroke; he expresses it with great warmth 
in his Dissertation upon Parties—“ If the principles 
of king James and king Charles’s reigns had been 
disgraced by better, they would not have risen 
again; but they were kept down for a time by 
worse, and therefore they rose again at the restora- 
tion, and revived with the monarchy. Thus that 
epidemical taint with which James infected the 
minds of men, continued upon us; and it is scarce 
hyperbolical to say, that this prince has been the 
original cause of a series of misfortunes to this 
nation, as deplorable as a lasting infection in our 
air, of our water, or our earth, would have been.”— 
Bolingbroke’s Dissert. upon Parties, vol. 111, p. 51. 

The evils which alarmed the fears of Rapin, and 

2re2 


580 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


provoked the indignation of Bolingbroke, are in our 
days considerably diminished. The haughty and 
arrogant pretensions of the Crown are no longer 
heard ; its powers were limited by law at the revo- 
lution, and all the habits of government have gra- 
dually conformed to the principles which were then 
established. In the time of Rapin the effects of the 
revolution were less distinctly understood, and less 
extensively felt than in the present age; but the 
most suspicious and irritable enemies to regal au- 
thority have now little to fear from that quarter, 
and accordingly their complaints are levelled not 
so much against the direct as the indirect power 
of the Crown—not so much against the violence 
of prerogative, as against the encroachments of 
influence. Bolingbroke himself, when he is describ- 
ing the administration of Walpole, often loses sight 
of the old contest between the prerogative of the 
Crown and the freedom of the people. The thun- 
ders of his eloquence are pointed not against open 
tyranny, but secret corruption. In the pursuit of 
energy this beautiful writer is often regardless of 
precision. 


Pace 35.—Charles the First. 


The notes on Charles’s reign will be chiefly drawn 
from Mr. Hume, because the testimony of a writer 
who was a professed apologist for the Stuart race, 
will add weight to the sentiments of Rapin, whose 
political tenets leaned towards the popular side. 

Before I begin those notes, I wish to impress on 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 581 


the mind of the reader a very sensible observation 
of Bishop Hurd—* It may be of little moment to 
us at this day to inquire how far the Princes of the 
house of Stuart were blameable for their endeavours 
to usurp on the constitution. But it must ever be 
of the highest moment to maintain, that we had a 
constitution to assert against them. Party writers 
perpetually confound these two things.”—Dialog. 
vol. 11. p. 223. 


“ Charles I. had imbibed the same lofty concep- 
tions of kingly power, and his character was marked 
by the same incapacity for real business.”—Stuart’s 
Discourse on Laws, p. 28.—“ The imprudence of 
Buckingham had not softened his obstinacy.”— 
P. 29. 

I look back with mingled feelings of indignation 
and of sorrow on the strides which Charles unfortu- 
nately took towards arbitrary power. But reflect- 
ing on the fascinating power of early education, 
comparing the virtues of this unhappy Monarch with 
his faults, and remembering the peculiar difficulties 
which attended his reign, I recommend to the seri- 
ous consideration of every wise and good man these 
just and generous observations of Lord Boling- 
broke :—* We have said, ina former discourse, that 
king Charles came a party-man to the Throne, and 
that he continued an invasion to the people’s rights, 
whilst he imagined himself only concerned in the 
defence of his own. In advancing this proposition, 


582 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


we were far from meaning a compliment at the ex- 
pence of truth—we avow it as an opinion we have 
formed on reading the relations published on all 
sides, and to which it seems to us, that all the authen- 
tic anecdotes of those times may be reconciled. 
This Prince had sucked in with his milk those ab- 
surd principles of government, which his father was 
so industrious, and, unhappily for king and people, 
so successful in propagating. He found them es- 
poused as true principles, both of religion and po- 
licy, by a whole party in the nation, whom he es- 
teemed friends to the constitution in church and 
state; he found them opposed by a party, whom he 
looked on indiscriminately as enemies to the church 
and to monarchy. Can we wonder that he grew 
zealous in a cause which he understood to concern 
himself so nearly, and in which he saw so many 
men who had not the same interest, and might there- 
fore be supposed to act on a principle of conscience 
equally zealous? Let any one who has been deeply 
and long engaged in the contests of party ask him- 
self, on cool reflection, whether prejudices concern- 
ing men and things have not grown up and strength- 
ened with him, and obtained an uncontrolable influ- 
ence over his conduct—we dare appeal to the inward 
sentiments of every such person. With this habi- 
tual bias upon him king Charles came to the 
Throne, and, to complete the misfortune, he had 
given all his confidence to a madman.”’—See Boling- 
broke’s Remarks on Hist. Eng. lett. xx. p. 270. 
“These ills were ascribed not to the refractory 


7. tinea «ae 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 583 


disposition of the two former Parliaments, to which 
they were partly owing, but solely to Charles’s ob- 
stinacy in adhering to the counsels of Buckingham; 
a man no wise entitled by his birth, age, services, or 
merit, to that confidence reposed in him. To be 
sacrificed to the interest, policy, and ambition of the 
great, is so much the common lot of the people, 
that they may appear unreasonable who would pre- 
tend to complain of it. But to be the victim of the 
frivolous gallantry of a favourite, and of his boyish 
caprices, seemed the subject of peculiar indigna- 
tion.”—Hume’s Hist. Eng. vol. vi. p. 238. 

The behaviour-of the Stuarts may be yet farther 
explained (for I wish not to justify it) by the judi- 
cious remark of Mr. Hume—“ We must conceive 
that monarchy, on the accession of the house of 
Stuart, was possessed of very extensive authority ; 
an authority in the judgment of all not exactly 
limited ; in the judgment of some not limitable. But 
at the same time this authority was founded merely 
on the opinion of people influenced by ancient pre- 
cedent and example. It was not supported either 
by money or force of arms; and, for this reason, we 
need not wonder that the Princes of that line were 
so extremely jealous of their prerogative; being 
sensible that when those claims were ravished from 
them, they possessed no influence by which they 
could maintain their dignity, or support the laws,” 
—Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. vi. p. 162. 


584 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Pace 37.—Locke’s sentiments on the necessity of 
Srequent Parliaments. 


These are the wise and constitutional sentiments 
of Mr. Locke on the necessity and importance of 
frequent Parliaments :—“ The power of assembling 
and dismissing the legislative, placed in the execu- 
tive, gives not the executive a superiority over it, 
but is a fiduciary trust placed in him for the safety 
of the people, in a case where the uncertainty and 
variableness of human affairs could not beara steady, 
fixed rule. For it not being possible that the first 
framers of the government should, by any foresight, 
be so much masters of future events as to be able 
to prefix so just periods of return and duration to 
the assemblies of the legislature, in all times to 
come, that might exactly answer all the exigencies 
of the commonwealth ; the best remedy that could 
be found for this defect was to trust this to the pru- 
dence of one who was always to be present, and 
whose business it was to watch over the public 
good. Constant, frequent meetings of the legisla- 
tive, and long continuations of their assemblies, 
without necessary occasion, could not but be bur- 
thensome to the people, and must necessarily, in 
time, produce more dangerous inconveniences, and 
yet the quick turn of affairs might be sometimes 
such as to need their present help; any delay of 
their convening might endanger the public; and 
sometimes too their business might be so great that 
the limited time of their sitting might be too short 


EE  “«ῃ«0{{ ΚΌΝΩΝ 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 585 


for their work, and rob the public of that benefit 
which could be had only from their mature delibe- 
ration. What, then, could be done in this case to 
prevent the community from being exposed, some 
time or other, to imminent hazard, on one side or 
other by fixed intervals and periods, set to the meet- 
ing and acting of the legislative, but to entrust it to 
the prudence of some, who being present and ac- 
quainted with the state of public affairs, might make 
use of this prerogative for the public good? And 
where else could this be so well placed as in his 
hands, who was entrusted with the execution of the 
laws for the same end? Thus, supposing the regu- 
lation of times for the assembling and sitting of the 
legislative, not settled by the original constitution, 
it naturally fell into the hands of the executive ; not 
as an arbitrary power, depending on his good plea- 
sure, but with this trust, always to have it exercised 
only for the public weal, as the occurrences of time, 
and change of affairs might require.”—Locke, on 
Civil Government, vol. 11. p. 218. 

The most zealous partisans of Charles must allow, 
therefore, that the constitution was brought into 
imminent danger, “ when (in the language of Bo- 
lingbroke) Parliaments were laid aside,’ when the 
very mention of them was forbid, “and he conti- 
nued to govern without any for twelve years.” 


Pace 38.—Defence of Locke. 


It is, 1 know not how, the fashion of the day to 
treat Mr. Locke as a republican writer, and in con- 


586 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


sequence of this absurd prejudice, his character has 
been unjustly exalted and depressed, and his works 
either totally neglected, or unprofitably read. So 
rooted is my own dislike to the cause of republican- 
ism in this kingdom, and so great are my fears from 
the intolerant and ferocious spirit of many among 
its advocates, that I should be sorry to see either 
their reasonings supported, or their designs forward- 
ed by the authority of so illustrious a name. Such, 
too, is my veneration for the sagacity and the up- 
rightness of Locke, that I should blush to find him 
degraded into the abject character of a mere parti- 
san, contracting those views which ought to embrace 
the collective interests of the species into the narrow 
compass of a faction, and contending exclusively for 
one mode of government, which is equally liable 
with all other forms, to fatal abuse, which is utterly 
incompatible with the civil and the military genius 
of many civilized nations, and which is evidently 
adverse to the manners and to the laws of this 
country. I cannot, therefore, persuade myself to 
look at this excellent person in a point of view 
where he has been unfortunately misplaced by the 
intemperate zeal of party, by the crude and hasty 
misconceptions of his friends, and by the insidious 
or malignant misrepresentations of his enemies. 
His celebrated Essay upon Government I have re- 
peatedly perused with the calmest, the most impar- 
tial, and severe attention. While I feel myself com- 
pelled to dissent from some parts, and while I lament 
that others, to which I assent most sincerely, are 
liable to be perverted by ignorant and factious men, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 587 


I think the whole work, fairly considered, inimita- 
ble and unanswerable. To his observations on the 
rights of mankind, and the origin of society, I have 
hitherto met with no full and direct reply. The 
Dean of Gloucester, to whose vigorous mind and 
correct information I am indebted for much instruc- 
tion upon more confined subjects of policy, has, in 
a very unprovoked and unjustifiable attack upon 
Mr. Locke, indulged himself in captious and verbal 
cavils. Hume, in his Essay upon the Origin of Go- 
vernment, seems to mistake the question, so far, at 
least, as Mr. Locke is concerned; for he confounds 
the narrow views of the vulgar, and their mecha- 
nical submission to the laws of a state in which they 
are accidentally born, with the researches of philoso- 
phers into those remoter principles from which the 
first governments took their rise, and by which alone 
the utility of all governments, in their higher stage 
of improvement is to be ascertained, or their com- 
pulsory power justified. 

Now the professed and supreme object of the 
essay in question is to trace out those principles, 
It contains not, so far as I can discover, any lurking 
bias in favour of democracy. By good men it may 
be applied to good ends in the mixed constitution in 
which we have the happiness to live. In a word, it 
is equally removed from the extremes of despotism 
and anarchy; equally exempt from the puerile so- 
phistry of Filmer, and the romantic speculations of 
Harrington. In support of this assertion, I call 
upon those who traduce, and those who commend 
Locke for his supposed attachment to republican- 


588 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


ism, to read the following passage :—“ That learned 
king (James) who well understood the notions of 
things, makes the difference between a king and a 
tyrant to consist in this: that one makes the laws 
the bounds of his power, the good of the public; the 
other makes all give way to his own will and ap- 
petite.” 

“Jt is a mistake to think this fault is proper only 
to monarchies; other forms of government are 
liable to it, as well as that ; for wherever the power 
that is put in any hands, for the government of the 
people, and the preservation of their properties, is 
applied to other ends, and made use of to im- 
poverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary 
and irregular commands of those that have it ; there 
it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that 
use it are one, or many. Thus we read of the 
thirty tyrants at Athens, as well as one at Syracuse, 
and the intolerable dominion of the Decemvirs at 
Rome was nothing better.”— Locke, upon Civil 
Government, vol. 11. page 232. 

As I shall hereafter have occasion to quote the 
sentiments of Mr. Locke upon other subjects, I 
thought it incumbent on me to remove every pre- 
judice which might hang on the mind of the reader 
—to vindicate the injured character of a man emi- 
nent for his wisdom and his virtue, is always a plea- 
sant task—my pleasure is increased by the ho- 
nourable testimony borne by the learned Blackstone 
to the merit of a work which men of coarse un- 
derstandings have grossly misconceived, and men 
of fiery tempers have unhappily misrepresented.— 


νὼ να νων 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 589 


In vol. 1. page 252, Blackstone quotes with appro- 
bation Mr. Locke’s Definition of Prerogative. In 
page 434 of the 4th volume, he tells us, “ that the 
rude sentiments of our forefathers in defending the 
particular liberty, the natural equality and personal 
independence of individuals have been softened and 
recommended by the eloquence, the moderation, 
and the arguments of a Sidney, a Locke, and a 
Milton.”—Milton indeed was a professed advocate 
for the republican system. The sentiments of Sid- 
ney strongly favour it. Locke, who was a better 
philosopher than Sidney, and a better citizen than 
Milton, has preserved a strict neutrality between 
the contending claims of monarchy, aristocracy, and 
democracy. 


Pace 40.—Jntroduction of Liturgy in Scotland. 


“The King’s great aim was to complete the work 
so happily begun by his father; to establish dis- 
cipline upon a regular system of canons, to introduce 
liturgy into public worship, and to render the eccle- 
siastical government of all his kingdoms regular and 
uniform. Some views of policy might move him to 
this undertaking: but his chief motives were de- 
rived from mistaken principles of zeal and con- 
science.’ —Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. νι. page 326. 

From the serenity of the times, from the appro- 
bation given to Laud’s sermon, and from the weak- 
ness of the party who were averse to the measure, 
(as Clarendon tells us) “ many wise men thought 
the liturgy, if proposed, would have been submitted 
to without opposition, had not they who most de- 


590 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


sired, and were most concerned to promote it, used 
all their credit to divest their present attempting 
it.”—Clarendon’s Hist., vol. 1. page 83. 

But the most powerful obstructions were those 
which Hume points out.—“The Scotch, when a 
whole body of ecclesiastical laws was established 
without any previous consent of church or state, 
dreaded, lest by a parity of reason, like arbitrary 
authority, from like pretences and principles, would 
be assumed in civil matters. The liturgy had been 
sent to them with a few alterations, lest a servile 
imitation should shock the pride of Charles’s an- 
cient people; but the English, though separated 
from Rome, were thought still to retain a great 
tincture of the primitive pollution.”-—Hume, vol. 
vI. page 328. 


Pace 41.—Re-assembling of Parliament in 1640. 


“ An English Parliament, therefore, formerly so 
unkind and untractable, must now, after above 
eleven years intermission, after the King had tried 
many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied 
disgusts given to the puritanical party, be sum- 
moned to assemble, amidst the most pressing ne- 
cessities of the Crown.”— Hume, vol. vi. 347. 
Intempestivis remediis delicta accendebat.—Tacit. 
vol. m1. page 90, Annal. lib. xm. 

“If some passion had appeared in their debates. 
it might have been well excused in a House of 
Commons assembled at such a time ; and yet scarce 
an angry word was thrown out. The few that 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 591 


escaped from some, were either silently disliked, or 
openly disapproved. The King, even in this crisis 
of affairs, preserved the same carriage he had for- 
merly used towards them, and showed too plainly 
that he regarded them only as tax-layers. Ina word, 
about a month after their meeting, he dissolved 
them, and as soon as he had dissolved them he re- 
pented; but he repented too late of his rashness. 
Well might he repent, for the vessel was now full, 
and this last drop made the waters of bitterness 
overflow.”—Bolingbroke, vol. 11. page 274. 

The motives for which Charles summoned his 
Parliaments, and the manner in which they acted, 
remind me of Tacitus’s observation—ut evenit in 
consiliis infelicibus, optima videbantur, quorum 
tempus effugerat. Histor. lib. 1.— Hume, after 
stating the motives and the arguments of both par- 
ties with great clearness and energy, concludes in 
these words :—“ Where great evil lies on all sides, 
it is very difficult to follow the best counsel ; nor is 
it any wonder that the King, whose capacity was 
not equal to situations of such extreme delicacy, 
should hastily have formed and executed the re- 
solution of dissolving this Parliament: a measure, 
however, of which he soon repented, and which the 
subsequent events, more than any convincing rea- 
son, inclined every one to condemn. The last 
Parliament which had ended with such rigour and 
violence, had yet, at first, covered their intentions 
with greater appearances of moderation than this 
Parliament had hitherto assumed.”—Hume, vol. v1. 
page 300. 


592 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Hume, in a note informs us, that “the King 
meant to try whether this House would be more 
compliant than their predecessors, that he would 
not trust them with a long session, till he had seen 
some better proofs of their compliance: A senti- 
ment,” he adds, “natural enough in his situation.” 
Hume, vol. vi. page 354.—But this apology is very 
inadequate and frivolous. It is natural, I allow, 
for men to act weakly—it is natural for them to 
shrink from the consequences of their own weak- 
ness ; but in questions of such magnitude as include 
the interests of a King and his people, we are apt 
to inquire not what it is natural, but what it is 
fitting for men to do. By obstinately forbearing 
to calla Parliament, Charles had brought himself 
into a dangerous situation, and he increased the 
danger by abruptly dissolving that which he had 
called. Far be it from me to insult the memory of 
this unfortunate Prince—I see with pleasure every 
candid extenuation of his real failings, and every 
well-founded plea for his seeming misconduct: 
But I cannot permit my understanding to be in- 
sulted, and the rights of my country trifled with, 
by such futile reasoning as Hume has condescended 
to employ. 


Pace 42.—Assembly of Peers at York. 


“ Before the Peers met he knew they would be 
for calling a Parliament, and so, for his own honour, 
proposed it first—Rapin.—Hume gives the same 
account.—As he foresaw that the great council of 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 593 


the Peers would advise him to call a Parliament, 
he told them, in his first speech, he had already 
taken this resolution."—Hume, vol. v1. page 363. 


Pace 43.—Long Parliament. 


This praise (that such representatives were chosen 
as were eminent for their ability, courage, and firm 
attachment to the privileges of the subject) cannot 
be given to all the members or to all the measures 
of the long Parliament—“ law and religion had ina 
great measure gone over to the side of faction, and 
when the nation, therefore, was so generally discon- 
tented, and little suspicion was entertained of any 
design to subvert the church and monarchy, no 
wonder that almost all elections ran in favour of 
those who, by their high pretensions to piety and 
patriotism, had encouraged the national prejudices.” 
—Hume, vol. v1. page 366. 

In drawing up the character of this Parliament, 
our historian has shewn his usual penetration, and 
a very unusual degree of candour.—< If we take a 
survey of the transactions of this memorable Parlia- 
ment, during the first period of its operations, we 
shall find, that, excepting Strafford’s attainder, 
which was a complication of cruel iniquity, their 
merits, in other respects, so much outweigh their 
mistakes, as to entitle them to praise from all lovers 
of liberty. Not only were former abuses remedied 
and grievances redressed: great provision, for the 
future, was made by law, against the return of like 
complaints. And if the means, by which they ob- 

VOL. III. 2a 


594 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


tained such advantages, savour often of artifice, 
sometimes of violence, it is to be considered, that 
revolutions of government cannot be effected by the 
mere force of argument and reasoning: and that 
factions being once excited, men can neither so 
firmly regulate the tempers of others, nor their own, 
as to ensure themselves against all exorbitancies.” 
—Hume, vol. vi. page 424. 


“This was the time, when genius and capacity of 
all kinds, freed from the restraint of authority, and 
nourished by unbounded hopes and projects, began 
to exert themselves, and to be distinguished by the 
public."—Hume, vol. vi. page 377.—He proceeds 
to discriminate with the nicest precision, and to de- 
scribe with the most glowing eloquence, the cha- 
racters of the malecontents.—* Charles, (says De 
Lolme) had to cope with a whole nation put in 
motion and directed by an assembly of statesmen.” 
—De Lolme, page 49. 


“When he had consented to reduce the exorbi- 
tancy of the regal power, his conduct created a 
suspicion of his sincerity.’—Stuart’s Disc. on the 
Laws and Gov. of Eng. page 29. 

“Tt must be acknowledged that these concessions 
were not made with so good a grace as to conciliate 
the confidence of the people. Unfortunately, either 
by his own mismanagement, or by the arts of his 
enemies, the King had lost the reputation of sin- 
cerity; which is the greatest misfortune that can 
befal a Prince.”—Blackstone’s Com. book Iv. page 
437. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 595 


Charles experienced the ill fate which Tacitus 
with his usual conciseness and energy thus describes: 
—Inviso semel principe, seu bené seu male facta 
premunt.”—Tac. Histor. lib. 1. vol. 1v. page 15. Ed. 
Brot. 


“The King’s discourse and conduct betrayed his se- 
cret designs ; distrust took possession of the nation ; 
certain ambitious persons availed themselves of it to 
promote their own views, and the storm which 
seemed to have blown over, burst forth anew.” De 
Lolme, on the Constit. of Eng. page 52.—Even 
Hume allows that all Charles’s concessions were 
poisoned by the suspicion of his want of cordiality. 
—Hume, vol. vi. page 421. 


Pace 45.—Earl of Strafford. 


The rude clamours of the people, and the insolent 
demands of the Parliament, unfortunately acquired 
new force over the mind of Charles, from the mean 
obsequiousness of his servants, and the pressing sup- 
plications of his beloved Queen. Let it not be for- 
gotten, that “the memory of this guilt recurred 
upon Charles even at his own fatal end— and that 
he always expressed for it the greatest sorrow and 
remorse.” 


“ The sentence by which Strafford fell was a great 
enormity”—but not, surely, “ greater than the worst 
of those which his implacable enemies prosecuted 


with so much cruel industry.” —Hume, vol. vr. p. 420. 
2a2 


596 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Hume, the professed apologist for Strafford, con- 
tends that the “ King’s violent expedients for raising 
money was the result of measures previous to Straf- 
ford’s favour ; that they were conducted without his 
counsel ; that in the King’s presence he had often 
and publicly inculcated this salutary maxim, that if 
any inevitable necessity ever obliged the Sovereign 
to violate the laws, this licence ought to be practised 
with extreme reserve, and, as soon as possible, a just 
atonement be made to the constitution for any injury 
which it might sustain from such dangerous prece- 
dents.”"—Hume, vol. vi. p. 421. 


Pace 45.— Archbishop Laud. 


“ The execution of this prelate can be ascribed 
to nothing but vengeance and bigotry; the degree 
of his merit may be disputed. If he did recommend 
slavish doctrines, if he promoted what in these later 
ages would be justly called persecution, if he encou- 
raged what in some instances has been unjustly called 
superstition, these blemishes are more to be regarded 
as a general imputation on the whole age, than any 
particular failing of Laud’s; and it is sufficient for 
his vindication to observe, that his errors were the 
most excusable of all those which prevailed during 
that zealous period.”—Hume, vol. vu. p. 42.—To 
imitate his faults were indeed a reproach to the 
present age, when the doctrines of toleration are 
fully known, and when the provocations to intoler- 
ance have totally ceased. But it were not a less 
reproach for us to forget the virtues of this great 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 597 


prelate; his eminent proficiency in learning, his 
disinterested zeal in promoting it, his unshaken at- 
tachment to a master whom he loved, and his sin- 
cere, though mistaken ardour in defending the reli- 
gion which he believed and revered— 


« Around his tomb let art and genius weep, 
But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear, and sleep.” 
JOHNSON. 


Pace 46.—Long Parliament. 


“ Happy had been the people if their leaders, 
after having executed so noble a work, (settling 
the government upon its ancient foundations) had 
contented themselves with the glory of being the 
benefactors of their country.”—De Lolme, p. 52. 


“The attempt of totally annihilating monarchical 
power, was a very blameable extreme ; especially as 
it was attended with the danger, to say the least, of 
a civil war, which, besides the numberless ills at- 
tending it, exposed liberty to much greater perils 
than it could have incurred under the now limited 
authority of the King. But as these points could 
not be supposed so clear during the time as they are, 
or may be, at present; there are great reasons of 
alleviation for men who were heated by the contro- 
versy, or engaged in the action. And it is remark- 
able, that even at present (such is the force of party 
prejudices) there are few people who have coolness 
enough to see these matters in a proper light.”— 
Hume, vol. vi. p. 587. 


598 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


“The encroachments of the Commons, though 
in the beginning less positive and determinate, are 
no less discernible by good judges, and were equally 
capable of destroying the just balance of the consti- 
tution.”-—Hume, vol. vi. p. 581. 


“ The majority of the Peers adhered to the King, 
and plainly foresaw the depression of nobility as a 
necessary consequence of popular usurpations on 
the crown. The wonder was not that the majority 
of the nobles should seek shelter under the throne, 
but that any of them should venture to desert it.”— 
Hume, vol. vi. p. 461. — “ The English nobility 
buried themselves with Charles the First, under the 
ruins of the throne.” —See Montesq. book viz. 
cap. Ix. 


“Jn their attack upon the hierarchy, they still 
more openly transgressed all bounds of moderation ; 
as supposing, no doubt, that the sacredness of the 
cause would sufficiently atone for employing means 
the most irregular and unprecedented. This prin- 
ciple, which prevails so much among zealots, never 
displayed itself so openly, as during the transactions 
of this whole period.,—Hume, vol. vi. p. 463. 


“Fora remedy to all these evils, he (the King) is de- 
sired to entrust every office and command to persons 
in whom his Parliament should have cause to confide. 
By this phrase, which is so often repeated in all the 
memorials and addresses of that time, the commons 
meant themselves and their adherents.”-—Hume, vol. 
vi. p. 384. 


oe 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 599 


Pace 47.—Cavaliers and Roundheads. 


Hume gives this account of them: — “ Several 
reduced officers and young gentlemen of the inns of 
court, during this time of disorder and danger, 
offered their service to the King. Between them 
and the populace there passed frequent skirmishes, 
which ended not without bloodshed. By way of 
reproach these gentlemen gave the rabble the appel- 
lation of Roundheads, on account of the short cropt 
hair which they wore; these called the others Cava- 
liers: and thus the nation, which was before suffi- 
ciently provided with religious as well as civil causes 
of quarrel, was also supplied with party-names, under 
which the factious might rendezvous and signalize 
their mutual hatred.”—-Hume, vol. vi. p. 466. 


Pace 48.—VW higs. 


“ Rapin, by mistake, says, they were so called 
from certain robbers in Scotland, but Burnett tells 
us the name is derived from the word whiggam, 
used by the western Scots in driving their horses, 
from whence these drivers were called whigganers, 
and by contraction whigs.’—Tindal. 


Pace 48.—Whig and Tory. 


Hume says, “ This year (1679) is remarkable for 
being the epoch of the well known epithets of Whig 
and Tory, by which, and sometimes without any ma- 


600 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


terial difference, this island has been so long divided. 
The court party reproached their antagonists with 
their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers inScotland, 
who were known by the name of Whigs ; the coun- 
try party found a resemblance between the courtiers 
and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the 
appellation of Tory was affixed—and after this man- 
ner, these foolish terms of reproach came into public 
and general use; and even at present, seem not 
nearer their end than when they were first invented.” 
—Hume, vol. vur. p. 125. 


Pace 50.—Political and Religious Puritans. 


Hume makes this distinction: “ Though the 
political and religious Puritans mutually lent as- 
sistance to each other, there were many who 
joined the former, and yet declined all connection 
with the latter.”—Hume, vol. vi. p. 365. 


Pace 51.—Death of Charles I. 


“ The loans and benevolences extorted from the 
subject, the arbitrary imprisonments for refusal, the 
exertion of martial law in time of peace, and other 
domestic grievances, clouded the morning of that 
misguided Prince’s reign; which, though the noon 
of it began a little to brighten, at last went down in 
blood.”—Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol. 1v. p. 436, 
book tv. chap. 33. 

The death of Charles has been described by royal 
and republican writers with all the studied pomp of 


a 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 601 


declamation, and all the virulence of party. The 
one speak of it with the most vehement execration, 
and the other with the most savage triumph. The 
one have left no artifice unemployed to excite our 
compassion towards an injured Prince — the other 
have been equally active and equally successful in 
rousing the indignation of their readers against an 
unprincipled tyrant. If we attend to the circum- 
stances of this event, not as they are recorded by 
any single historian, but as the calm and impartial 
spirit of history requires, we shall find in those cir- 
cumstances something, perhaps, to be justified, 
much to be condemned, and far more to be la- 
mented. “ Adeo maxima queque ambigua sunt, 
dum alii quoquo modo audita pro compertis habent, 
alii vera in contrarium vertunt: et gliscit utrumque 
posteritate.” Tacit. Annal. lib. mr. vol. τ. p. 179.— 
About the justice of Charles’s death, the sentiments 
of Englishmen will probably for ever be divided, nor 
is it easy to find any common principle for recon- 
ciling disputants, who, when they speak upon this 
subject, are actuated by the fiercest passions, and 
the most stubborn prejudices. But surely no friend 
to humanity, no admirer of the English constitution, 
no advocate for the candour which always ought to 
direct historical researches, will hesitate about the 
propriety of Bolingbroke’s observations on the dis- 
astrous reigns of Charles and his Father.—“ We do 
not approve those cruel insinuations against them 
which are to be found in several invectives, not his- 
tories, dictated by a spirit of faction, not by the 
spirit of liberty. Zhe spirit of liberty reflects on 


602 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the errors of Princes with sorrow, not with triumph, 
and is unwilling to aggravate what it wishes had 
never happened.”—Bolingbroke’s Rem. on Hist. vol. 
1. p. 183. 

Upon the disorders which succeeded the unhappy 
death of Charles, who can reflect without pity for 
the blindness of a deluded people, and detestation 
against the violence of their ambitious leaders ? 

Ergo, regibus occisis, subversa jacebat 
Pristina Majestas soliorum, et sceptra superba, 
Et capitis summi preclarum insigne cruentum 
Sub pedibus vulgi magnum lugebat honorem. 
Nam cupid? conculcatur nimis anté metutum. 


Res itaque ad summam fcecem turbasque redibat. 
Lucret. lib. quint. 1155. 


Pace 52.—Elasticity of British Government. 


“ Indeed we may observe the remarkable manner 
in which the government has been maintained, in 
the midst of such general commotions as seemed 
unavoidably to prepare its destruction. It rose 
again, we see, after the wars between Henry the 
Third and his Barons; after the usurpation of Henry 
the Fourth; and after the long and bloody conten- 
tions between the Houses of York and Lancaster. 
Nay, though totally destroyed in appearance after 
the fall of Charles the First, and though the greatest 
efforts had been made to establish another form of 
government in its stead, yet, no sooner was Charles 
the Second called over, than the constitution was 
re-established upon all its antient foundations.”—De 
Lolme, on the Constit. of Eng. p. 434. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 603 
Pace 53.— Cromwell. 


“ He introduced into England a military despo- 
tism under the appellation of a commonwealth.” 
Stuart on the Govern. of Eng. p. 30.—I mean not 
to enter into any curious and fruitless disquisitions 
on the best hypothetical form of government; at 
the same time I am far from acquiescing in a well 
known, but very precarious maxim, that whatever 
form is best administered is therefore best. I consi- 
der with Tiberius, Principes mortales, rempublicam 
eternam esse. Annal. lib. 111. Tacit. vol. 1. p. 168. 
—*“ And I should be sorry, as Hume says, to think 
that human affairs admit of no greater stability than 
what they receive from the casual humours and cha- 
racters of particular men.” Essay m1. p. 15.—But 
as to the absurd and perilous experiment of esta- 
blishing republicanism in this kingdom, the gloomy 
and eventful protectorate of Cromwell supplies us 
with the most decisive proofs against the animated 
eloquence of Milton, the wild reveries of Harring- 
ton, and the profound speculations of Sidney. In 
the spirit of our laws, in the genius of our govern- 
ment, in the manners and the temper of our people, 
and in the spirit of the constitution itself, as it af- 
fects and is affected by each of them, there is a stub- 
born invincible renitency to the sullen and irregu- 
lar forms of ἃ democracy.—* It was a curious spec- 
tacle,” says Montesquieu, as quoted by De Lolme, 
p- 53, “to behold the vain efforts of the English to 
establish among themselves a democracy.” 


604 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


“He was one of those men, quos vituperare ne 
inimici quidem possunt, nisi ut simul laudent; for 
he could never have done half that mischief without 
great parts of courage, industry, and judgment. 
What was said of Cinna, may very justly be said of 
him, ausum eum, que nemo auderet bonus, perfe- 
cisse que a nullo nisi fortissimo possent.” Claren- 
don, vol. νι. p. 648.—“ As he proceeded with this 
kind of indignation and haughtiness with those who 
were refractory and durst contend with his great- 
ness, so towards all who complied with his good 
pleasure, and courted his protection, he used great 
civility, generosity, and bounty.”—Id. 650. 

But this conduct is to be ascribed to the dexte- 
rity of his management, rather than to any noble- 
ness in his nature; for, without such policy, the 
most powerful despot could not be long endured. 
His brutal treatment of the Judges who opposed the 
authority of Magna Charta to the violence of his 
proceedings, and his avowed contempt of law, where 
it controled those actions, “ which he knew were 
for the safety of the commonwealth,” must induce 
the reader to exclaim with Memmius—que libet 
impune facere, id est regem esse.—Sallust, edit. 
Wasse, p. 318. 

The anxious wishes of Cromwell to obtain the 
name of king, the various artifices which were em- 
ployed to procure it, and the surly and inexorable 
opposition of those resolute republicans who pre- 
vented him from assuming it openly, are well known. 
Hurd, in his Letter on the Marks of Imitation, pro- 
duces a very striking coincidence of sentiment be- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 605 


tween the conduct of Messala Valerius, when he 
moved in the Senate, renovandum per annos sacras 
mentum in nomen Tiberii, and that of Jephson, 
when he proposed in the House that Cromwell 
should be made king.—Hurd’s Horace, vol. 11. p. 35. 

The gross stupidity of the people, who could be 
duped by such petty stratagems, and crouch under 
such outrageous measures, reminds me of a passage 
in Plutarch, where he has been describing a similar 
scene, in which Cesar repeatedly thrust aside the 
crown which Anthony repeatedly struggled to fix 
on his head. ᾿Αντωνίῳ μὲν ὀλίγοι τών φίλων βιαξομένῳ, 
Καίσαρι δὲ ἀρνουμένω πᾶς ὁ δῆμος ἐπεκράτει μετὰ 
βοῆς" ὃ καὶ θαυμαστὸν ἦν, ὅτι τοῖς ἔργοις τὰ τῶν βασι- 
λευόντων ὑπομένοντες, τοὔνομα τοῦ βασιλέως, ὡς κατά- 
λυσιν τῆς ἐλευθερίας, ἔφευγον. 


His conduct supplies a fresh instance of the just- 
ness of Piso’s observation—* Nemo unquam impe- 
perium, flagitio quesitum, bonis artibus exercuit.” 


—Tacit. vol. iv. p. 36. 


“« Ceterum libertas et speciosa nomina pretexun- 
tur; nec quisquam alienum servitium, et domina- 
tionem sibi concupivit, ut non eadem ista vocabula 


usurparet.”—Vid. Tac. Histor. lib. 1v. vol. rv. p. 362. 


Pace 54.— General Monk. 


“The minds of the people united in an anxious 
wish for the re-establishment of the ancient consti- 
tution ; and General Monk acquired the honour of 


606 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the peerage, and the fame of uncommon political 
sagacity for forwarding an event which it was im- 
possible to prevent.”—Stuart on Govern. of Eng. 
p- 30. 


Pace 55.— Charles the Second. 


The indolence of Charles, and his unhappy choice 
of counsellors, reminds us of the strong colouring 
with which Tacitus has drawn the character of Vi- 
tellius—“ Peritissimis centurionum dissentientibus, 
et, si consulerentur, vera dicturis, arcuere eos intimi 
amicorum Vitellii, ita formatis principis auribus, ut 
aspera, que utilia, nec quidquam, nisi jucundum et 
lesurum acciperet.’—Tacit. Histor. lib. m1. vol. rv. 
p. 246. 


PacE 55.— Conduct of Cromwell. 


Hume explains the conduct of Cromwell by say- 
ing, that the various factions could not have been 
restrained without a mixture of military and arbi- 
trary authority. But surely if this judicious obser- 
vation be admitted as an apology for the violent 
behaviour of Cromwell, it makes us look with great- 
er horror upon those distractions of the kingdom 
which rendered such a behaviour necessary. 


Pace 56.—Bolingbroke’s state of parties in the 
reign of Charles II. 


I entirely agree with Bolingbroke in his clear and 


eT 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 607 


correct state of parties during the reign of Charles. 
“Whig and Tory were now formed into parties ; 
but I think they were not now, nor at any other 
time, what they believed one another, nor what they 
have been represented by their enemies, nay, by 
their friends. The Whigs were not Roundheads, 
though the measures they pursued being stronger 
than the temper of the nation would then bear, gave 
occasion to the suspicions I have mentioned. The 
Tories were not Cavaliers, though they took the 
alarm so sudden and so warm for the church and 
the King; and though they carried the principles 
in favour of the King, at least while the heat of 
their contests with the opposite party lasted, higher 
than they had ever been carried before. The Whigs 
were not dissenters, nor republicans, though they 
favoured the former, and though some inconsider- 
able remains of the latter might find shelter in their 
party. The Tories had no disposition to become 
slaves or Papists, though they abetted the exercise 
of an exorbitant power by the crown, and though 
they supported the pretensions of a Popish succes- 
sor to it."—Boling. Dissert. on Part. vol. 111. p. 93. 


Pace 56.—Charles the Second. 


Rapin, it may be suspected, speaks rather too 
favourably of Charles; he “probably forgave the 
people of England for the misfortunes he himself 
had suffered, nor for those of his house.”—Stuart on 
the Govern. of Eng. p. 31.—De Lolme is of the 
same opinion—“ He could not, however, bring him- 


608 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


self to forgive them the inexpiable crime of which 
he looked upon them to have been guilty.”—De 
Lolme on the Constitut. of Eng. p. 54. 


“ King Charles, to use an expression of the Lord 
Halifax of that age, would trot, but his brother 
would gallop.”—Bolingbroke’s Dissert. on Part. vol. 
ul. p. 67. 


“ An apprehension of falling back under the in- 
fluence of presbyterian and republican principles 
began to show itself in the House of Lords and in 
the nation.’—Dissert. on Parties, vol. 111. p. 86. 


“If we may believe one (Burnett) who certainly 
was not partial against these sects, both presbyte- 
rians and independents had carried the principles of 
rigour, in the point of conscience, much higher, and 
acted more implacably upon it than ever the Church 
of England hath done, in its angriest fits. The 
securing themselves, therefore, against those who 
had ruined them and the constitution once already, 
was a plausible reason for the church party to give.” 
—Boling. Dissert. on Part. vol. 111. p. 55. 


“The act against conventicles bears the appear- 
ance of mitigating the former persecuting laws ; but 
if we may judge bythe spirit which had broken out 
almost every session during this Parliament, it was 
not intended as any favour to the non-conformists. 
Experience probably had taught that laws over rigid 
and severe could not be executed.”-—Hume, Hist. 
of Eng. vol. vu. p. 456. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 609 


Pace 58.—Exclusion Bill. 


“This important bill, which implied banishment 
as well as exclusion, passed the lower House by a 
majority of seventy-nine.’—Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. 
vu. p. 104. 

But the Whigs were also to be blamed, (as well 
as Tories,) for the leaders of that party were ob- 
served “to let all lie in confusion, rather than 
hearken to any thing besides the exclusion.”—Bol. 
Dis. upon Part. vol. 111. p. 115 


“The Tories, who looked on the dangers they 
apprehended from the Whigs to be greater and near- 
er than those which they had apprehended, as well as 
the Whigs, before this new division of parties from 
a Popish succession, were now confirmed in their 
prejudices. Under this persuasion they ran head- 
long in all the measures which were taken for en 
larging the King’s authority, and securing the crown 
to the Duke of York. The principles of divine 
hereditary right, of passive obedience, and non-re- 
sistance, were revived and propagated with greater 
zeal than ever. Not only the wild whimsies of en- 
thusiasts, of schoolmen and philosophers, but the 
plainest dictates of reason were solemnly condemned 
in favour of them by learned and reverend bodies of 
men; who little thought that in five years time, 
that is, in 1688, they should act conformably to 
some of the very propositions which at this time 
they declared false, seditious, and impious.”—Boling. 
Dissert. upon Parties. 

VOL. 111. 28 


610 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 
Pace 60.—Amendment of laws under Charles IT. 


Blackstone informs us, that the most promising 
and sensible schemes for the amendment of the laws 
which were proposed during the protectorate, were 
adopted after the restoration—* in his reign (wick- 
ed, sanguinary, and turbulent, as it was) the con- 
currence of happy circumstances was such, that 
from thence we may date not only the re-establish- 
ment of our church and monarchy, but also the 
complete restitution of English liberty, for the first 
time, since the total abolition at the conquest. For 
therein not only these slavish tenures, the badge 
of foreign dominion, with all their oppressive ap- 
pendages, were removed from incumbering the es- 
tates of the subject; but also an additional security 
of his person from imprisonment, was attained by 
that great bulwark of our constitution, the habeas 
corpus act.”—Blackstone, vol. 1v. book tv. p. 438. 

“The military services due to the crown, the re- 
mains of the ancient feudal tenures, had been al- 
ready abolished; the laws against heretics were now 
repealed; the statute for holding Parliaments once, 
at least, in three years, was enacted; the habeas corpus 
act, that barrier of the subject, was established; and 
such wasthe patriotism of the Parliaments,that it was 
under a King’ the most destitute of principle, that 
liberty received its most efficacious supports.’—De 
Lolme on the Constit. of Eng. p. 55. 


James IT. 


“The sincerity of this Prince (a virtue on which 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 611 


he highly valued himself) has been much questioned 
in those reiterated promises, which he made of 
preserving the liberties and religion of the nation. 
It must be confessed that this reign was almost 
one continued invasion of both.”—Hume, Hist. 
Eng. vol. vii. p. 304. 


The arguments for and against dispensing 
power are admirably stated by Hume, vol. vu. 
p. 243 to 247. In delivering his own opinions, 
he says, that “the present difficulty or seeming 
absurdity had proceeded from late innovations in- 
troduced into the government ”—he treats it as a 
vain hope to expect “that the dispensing power 
could, in any degree, be rendered compatible with 
those accurate and regular limitations, which had 
of late been established, and which the people was 
determined to maintain.”—P. 247. 


In this unhappy Prince we see the rashness, but 
not the profligacy of Domitian.—* Non jam per 
intervalla sed continuo et velut uno ictu rempub- 
licam exhausit.”——Tac. vol. vi. p. 92. 


“The dissenters were cajoled by the court ; 
and they who had been ready to take up arms 
against King Charles, because he was unwilling 
to exclude his brother, and who had taken up arms 
against this Prince, since he was on the Throne, 
became abettors of his usurpations, It were easy 
to prove this, even by Bishop Burnet’s account, 
as much as that is softened; and if the excuses 

Zr2 


612 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


which have been made for their silence against 
Popery, in this critical moment, or for their approv- 
ing the exercise of a dispensing power, are to be 
received, one may undertake to excuse, on the 
same principle of reasoning, all those instances of 
misconduct in the church party which I have pre- 
sumed to censure so freely.”—Boling. Dissert. upon 
Parties, vol. 111. p. 120. 


Pacer 63.—Opposition to James II. 


“Many of the most distinguished Tories, some 
of those who carried highest the doctrines of pas- 
sive obedience and non-resistance, were engaged 
in it, and the whole nation was ripe for it. The 
Whigs were zealous in the same cause, but their 
zeal was not such as I think it had been some years 
before, a zeal without knowledge ; I mean, that it 
was better tempered and more prudently conducted. 
Though the King was not the better for his expe- 
rience, parties both saw their errors. The Tories 
stopped short in the pursuit of a bad principle. 
The Whigs reformed the abuse of a good one. 
Both had sacrificed their country to their party. 
Both sacrificed on this occasion their party to 
their country.”—Boling. Dissert. on Parties, vol. m1. 
p- 120. 

“The Whigs, suitably to their ancient principles 
of liberty, which had led them to attempt the ex- 
clusion bill, easily agreed to oppose a King, whose 
conduct had justified whatever his worst enemies 
had prognosticated concerning his succession. The 


i 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 613 


Tories and the church party, finding their past ser- 
vices forgotten, their rights invaded, their religion 
threatened, agreed to drop for the present all over- 
strained doctrines of submission, and attend to 
the great and powerful dictates of nature. The 
non-conformists dreading the caresses of known 
and inveterate enemies, deemed the offers of tolera- 
tion more secure from a Prince educated in those 
principles, and accustomed to that practice—and 
thus all faction was for a time laid asleep in Eng- 
land ; and rival parties, forgetting their animosities, 
had secretly concurred in a design of resisting their 
unhappy and misguided Sovereign.” —Hume, Hist. 
Eng. vol. vir. p. 282. 


Pace 64.—Revolution. 


“The Lords considered the word deserted more 
proper ; and on the subsequent conference between 
the two Houses, the Whigs, now the ruling party, 
having united with the Tories, in order to bring 
about the Revolution, had so much deference for 
their new allies, as not to insist that the Crown 
should be declared forfeited, on account of the 
King’s mal-administration.”-—Hume, Hist. Eng. 
vol. vit. p. 312.—These disputes were perhaps 
trifling, and the effects of insidious politeness and 
temporary policy. But the contents relative to the 
vacancy of the Throne were of more importance: 
the artificial maxims of law here gave way to the 
powerful dictates of nature—the rigid perseverance 
of the Commons prevailed over the ill-timed deli- 


614 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


cacy of the Lords, and the Throne was declared 
vacant. Blackstone states this fact with great pre- 
cision. “In particular it is worthy observation, 
that the convention, in this their judgement, avoided 
with great wisdom the wild extremes into which 
the visionary theories of some zealous republi- 
cans would have led them. They held that this 
misconduct of King James amounted to an endea- 
vour to subvert the constitution; and not to an 
actual subversion, or total dissolution of the govern- 
ment, according to the principles of Mr Locke, 
which would have reduced the society almost to a 
state of nature—would have levelled all distinctions 
of honour, rank, offices, and property—would have 
annihilated the sovereign power, and in conse- 
quence have repealed all positive laws—and would 
have left the people at liberty to have erected a new 
system of state upon a new foundation of polity. 
They therefore very prudently voted it to amount 
to no more than an abdiction of the government, 
and a consequent vacancy of the Throne ; whereby 
the government was allowed to subsist, though the 
executive magistrate was gone, and the kingly 
office to remain, though James was no longer 
King; and thus the constitution was kept intire : 
which upon every sound principle of government 
must otherwise have fallen to pieces, had so prin- 
cipal and constituent a part as the royal authority 
been abolished, or even suspended.”—Blackstone, 
vol. 1. chap. m1. p. 212. 

“In the House of Lords it was agreed to omit 
the article about the vacancy of the Crown, but 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 615 


the perseverance of the lower House obliged the 
Lords to comply.’—Hume, vol. vu. p. 314. 

On the position of Locke, which Blackstone 
mentions, I wish to make a few remarks. There 
is a very common, but delusive maxim, that what 
is true and just in theory, may be the very reverse 
in practice. In the first place, theory is, or ought 
to be, itself, posterior to practice, and dependent 
upon it, arranging past facts according to their 
causes, circumstances, and effects, marking their 
differences and agreements, and thence deducing 
principles for the judgement we are to form of the 
future ; so that all theory, not professedly hypotheti- 
cal is false and unjust, so far as it does not corre- 
spond with practice. We may farther observe, 
that the position itself involves a gross contradic- 
tion ; for, if the circumstances be the same, the re- 
lations between our ideas, from which we collect 
the fitness and unfitness of things, and the truth 
or falsehood of propositions, must be the same also, 
and so far the maxim is absurd as well as untrue ; 
but if the circumstance be not the same, that is, if 
the objects of theory and practice be different, the 
maxim is quite impertinent and useless; for in this 
case, there is no bond of relation between them, and 
consequently no room for us to argue from the one 
to the other. I am inclined, however, to suspect, 
that for this and almost every other position com- 
monly received and commonly misunderstood, there 
is some foundation. It is the business of theory 
to lay down general rules; but in the application 
of those rules to subjects which have general fea- 


616 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


tures of resemblance, they are experimentally found 
inadequate, from circumstances which are attached 
to each individual case, and which are not ac« 
counted for by the general rules. Hence our com- 
mon sense is often shocked, when we would reduce 
to practice many specious systems, by which our 
fancy has been amused, and our reason, for a time, 
convinced. Now according to the distinction 
which I have been endeavouring to establish, I 
admit with Mr. Locke in some supposed state of 
things, “that when he who has the supreme ex- 
ecutive power neglects and abandons that charge, 
so that the laws already made can no longer be 
put in execution, this is demonstratively to reduce 
all to anarchy, and so effectually to dissolve the 
government.”—I allow farther, as the obvious and 
necessary consequences of such a dissolution, that 
“the people are at liberty to provide for themselves, 
by erecting a new legislative different from the 
other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, 
as they shall find it most for their safety and good.” 
—Locke on Civil Govern. p. 237.—But I deny, 
that such a state of things actually existed at the 
Revolution. Our countrymen were led to no such 
conclusions, as Mr. Locke has drawn from his pre- 
mises, by their understanding or their feelings— 
they exposed neither themselves nor their poste- 
rity to the disorders which might have attended 
the success, as well as the defeat of an experiment 
to establish a new Government—they were content 
to preserve, as far as possible, the forms, to secure 
the principles, and to enlarge the advantages, of the 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 617 


old—they acted wisely for themselves, happily for 
all succeeding generations, and agreeably to those 
propensities, which a great and sagacious observer 
of human nature has remarked: “even as the 
many, through the difference of opinions that must 
need abound among them, are not apt to introduce a 
government, as not understanding the good of it, 
so the many, having by trial or experience once at- 
tained to this understanding of it, agree not to quit 
such a government.”—See Machiavel, lib. 1. chap. 1. 
of the Decads, quoted by Harrington, in his Art 
of Law-giving, p. 390.—Thus our countrymen, in- 
stead of yielding themselves up to the enterprizing 
and ambitious leaders, who (as Blackstone, vol ἵν. 
Ρ. 438, says) in turbulent times affect to “call 
themselves the people,’ confided in the wisdom 
and steadiness of the legislature—instead of expos- 
ing themselves to new dangers, they were anxious 
only to escape from such as were already impend- 
ing—they did not contend that the abuse of power 
in one part of government had loosened the whole 
fabric, and therefore called aloud for a change of 
the whole—on the contrary, they adopted the senti- 
ments and assisted the efforts of Parliament, in 
securing the continuity of the executive power, and 
in strengthening the authority of the person to 
whom it was entrusted—they found that by well 
regulated measures “the laws already made” could 
be put in effectual execution, and consequently 
asserted “the native and original right which every 
society has of preserving itself,” in obeying the an- 
cient laws, in restoring the ancient government, in 


618 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


correcting whatever was amiss in it, in ascertaining 
whatever was doubtful, and in confirming whatever 
was right. While, therefore, the patriot exults in 
the blessings which flow from this event, the phi- 
losopher will contemplate with admiration the 
sound judgement, the inflexible firmness, and the 
unexampled moderation which produced and con- 
ducted it. 

“That which contributes, above all, to distin- 
guish this event as singular in the annals of man- 
kind, is the moderation, I may even say, the legality 
which accompanied it. As if to dethrone a King 
who sought to set himself above the laws had been 
a natural consequence of, and provided for by the 
principles of government, every thing remained in 
its place; the Throne was declared vacant, and a 
new line of succession was established.”-—De Lolme 
on the Constit. of Eng. p. 58. 

“If we examine the history of other nations, 
we shall find that Revolutions have constantly been 
attended with open invasions of the royal authority, 
or sometimes with complete and settled divisions 
of it..—De Lolme on the Constit. of England, 
Ρ. 8399.—“ In England the Revolution of the year 
1689 was terminated in a manner totally different. 
Indeed, those prerogatives destructive of public 
liberty, which the late King had assumed, were 
retrenched from the Crown ; and thus far the two 
Houses agreed: but as to proceeding to transfer 
to other hands any part of the authority of the 
Crown, no proposal was even made about it. Those 
prerogatives which were taken from the Crown, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES 619 


were annihilated, and made to cease to exist in 
the state ; and all the executive authority that was 
thought necessary to be continued in the govern- 
ment was, as before, left undivided in the Crown.” 
—De Lolme on the Constit. of Eng. p. 402. 

It is unnecessary for me to enter into a detail of 
the solid, and, I hope, permanent advantages which 
have resulted from the revolution; I shall content 
myself with these short quotations from Mr. De 
Lolme and Hume :—-“ The great charter had marked 
out the limits within which the royal authority 
ought to be confined; a few outworks were raised 
in the reign of Edward the First ; but it was at the 
revolution that the circumvallation was compleated.” 
—De Lolme on the Constit. of Eng. page 59.— 
“The whole scaffolding of false and superstitious 
notions, by which the royal authority had till then 
been supported, fell to the ground ; and in the room 
of it were substituted the more solid and durable 
foundations of the love of order, and a sense of the 
necessity of civil government among mankind.”— 
Page 60 of the same. 

“Tt may justly be affirmed, without any danger 
of exaggeration, that we, in this island, have ever 
since enjoyed, if not the best system of government, 
at least the most entire system of liberty, that ever 
was known among mankind.—Hume; Hist. Eng. 
vol. vin. page 318. 

I would farther remark, that the same just no- 
tions of government, which then prevailed, have 
since been diffused more widely among us, that the 
doctrines of true liberty are now supported by the 


620 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


testimony of experience, and that the spirit of li- 
centiousness has not been rouzed by those pro- 
vocations, which in the long struggles between free- 
dom and prerogative were so frequent and so fatal 
—it therefore becomes us to forward the great work 
which our forefathers began, with the same dis- 
cernment and activity in the pursuit of real im- 
provement, the same manly contempt of speculative 
refinements, and the same zealous opposition to 
unnecessary, precipitate, and extravagant innovation. 

Before I leave this subject, it is proper for me 
to mention a striking peculiarity in the history of 
our country—in “the public dissensions of other 
free states the interests of a few were provided for, 
but the grievances of the many seldom attended to.” 
—“In England those dissensions have been termi- 
nated by extensive and accurate provisions for the 
general liberty.°— What De Lolme, page 325, 
affirms, and by a long train of facts has proved, 
concerning all our revolutions, Hume confesses to 
be true of one. “It happens unluckily for those 
who maintain an original contract between the ma- 
gistrate and the people, that great revolutions of 
government, and new settlements of civil consti- 
tutions, are commonly conducted with such violence, 
tumult, and disorder, that the public voice can 
scarcely ever be heard; and the opinions of the 
citizens are at that time less attended to than even 
in the common course of administration. The pre- 
sent transactions of England, it must be confessed, 
are a singular exception to this observation.”— 


Hume, vol. vi. page 314. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 621 


How far the general position tends to invalidate 
the original contract between the magistrate and 
the people, is a point of curiosity rather than of 
use. But the particular exception well deserves our 
notice. The wants of the people were redressed— 
their claims were admitted—their majesty, in the 
language of modern patriotism, was respected, for 
just and honourable reasons. At this awful crisis, 
their resentments were not wound up to an un- 
natural pitch—their complaints were extorted by 
real misery—and therefore they were both worthy 
of protection, and capable of receiving it, without 
any shock to the government, or any insult to the 
laws. Galled under the pressure of wrongs they 
had already experienced, and terrified with the 
prospect of greater mischiefs which they had yet to 
dread from the churlish bigotry and headstrong in- 
fatuation of their King, they boldly stood forth to 
shelter those rights, for which their fathers had so 
lately bled, from presumptuous violation. But the 
frightful convulsions to which they had been eye- 
witnesses in the reign of Charles, and the outra- 
geous disorders which followed the usurpation of 
Cromwell, were still fresh in their memories, and 
deterred them from rushing again into the same 
licentiousness of anarchy, and the same frenzy of 
fanaticism. The higher orders of men were, also, 
at this juncture too much alarmed by real and im- ° 
minent evils, to distress themselves, or to delude 
their inferiors, by inflammatory representations of 
those that were ideal or remote. From these events 
a very important lesson may be derived by persons, 


622 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


who, from the eminence of their station, and the 
extent of their influence, are enabled to command 
the minds of the multitude—they will find that re- 
sistance is most successful when it is well-founded 
—that the passions of the people, in the prosecu- 
tion even of the best purposes, should not be ex- 
cited by artificial expedients, and that their con- 
currence is most effectual as well as most warrant- 
able, when it springs from sincere conviction that 
something ought to be done for their relief, and is 
tempered by that good sense which is content with 
doing enough. 

Every statesman who feels his own importance, 
and wishes to employ it for the welfare of the com- 
munity, should remember the words of Scipio— 
“Multitudo omnis, sicut natura maris, per se im- 
mobilis est: venti et aure cient. Ita aut tran- 
quillum aut procelle in populo sunt. Causa atque 
origo omnis furoris penes auctores_ est.” — Lib. 
XXVIII. page 658, edit. Var. 

This beautiful idea seems to be borrowed from 
the speech of Artabanus in Herodotus, ἀνθρώπων 
κακῶν ὁμιλίαι σφάλλουσι" κατάπερ THY πάντων χρησι- 
μωτάτην ἀνθρώποισι θάλασσαν, πνέυματα Φασὶ ἀνέμων 
ἐμπίπτοντα, οὐ περιορὴν duces TH ἑωυτῆς χρῆσθαι.---- 


Herod. lib. vit. page 517. edit. Wess. 


«“ When the revolution was secure, and these fears 
were calmed, these prejudices resumed, in some de- 
gree, their former power, and the more for being 
revived and encouraged by men of reputation and 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 623 


authority, who argued for some, and might as rea- 
sonably have argued for all the errors, in contra- 
diction to which most of them had acted, nay, and 
were ready to act. With such views and by such 
means were many brought, at this time, to entangle 
themselves in a maze of inextricable absurdities. 
Had they owned candidly and fairly, that their prin- 
ciples, as well as those of the Whigs, were carried 
too high in their former disputes of parties, and 
that these principles could not be true, since they 
found themselves actually in a situation wherein it 
was not possible to act agreeable to them without 
manifest absurdity, the distinction, as well as the 
difference of Whig and Tory had been at an end. 
But contrary measures produced a contrary effect— 
they kept up the appearances, and they could keep 
up no more, of a Whig and Tory party, and with 
these appearances a great part of the old animosity. 
The two names were sounded about the nation ; and 
men who saw the same ensigns flying, were not 
wise enough to perceive, or not honest enough to 
own, that the same cause was no longer concerned; 
but listed themselves on either side, as their pre- 
judices at first, and their inclinations or other 
motives, which arose in the progress of their con- 
tests, directed them afterwards ; Whigs very often 
under the Tory standard; Tories very often under 
the Whig standard.” — Bolingbroke’s Dissert. on 
Parties, vol. 11. page 130. 


624 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Pace 69.—Power of the Crown. 


When the aggregate expences of government are 
presented to us in one view, our imagination is 


assailed, and overwhelmed with their magnitude. 
After the burdensome taxes, and the calamitous 
events of the late war, the apprehensions of men 
upon this subject are too distressing to be sported 
with, and too just to be explained away. But to 
point out the particular manner, or the precise de- 
gree, in which those expences may be alleviated; 
to separate, in detail, the occasional from the per- 
manent, and the useful from the superfluous ; to stop 
the foul sources of corruption, without impeding 
the regular course of business, is an arduous task, 
which falls not within the reach of vulgar observa- 
tion, or of abstract theory. 

That task, however, will in all probability, be 
satisfactorily performed by the Commissioners of 
Accounts. The appointment of those Commission- 
ers, was, indeed, a most honest and most judicious 
measure. It points, not, to vague surmises, but to 
real facts. It will scatter groundless complaints, 
and lead to the redress of those which are well 
founded. It is supported by the avowed appro- 
bation of all parties, but can promote the selfish 
designs of none. It tends to produce an extensive 
and effectual reform on principles of economy, and 
at the same time declines all disputable and invidi- 
ous determinations on the very delicate, though 
interesting, question of influence. 

Since the revolution, the places of government 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 625 


have been considerably multiplied, and the strength 
of the Crown has been consequently augmented. 
The real exigencies of the state are, doubtless, more 
numerous; the candidates for its favours have been 
increased by the gradual reconciliation of those 
partizans who favoured the pretensions of the Stuart 
family ; and, surely, it is neither absurd to suppose, 
nor indecent to assert, that the Crown has sought, 
in its influence, for some relief from the weakness 
which it felt under the diminution of its pre- 
rogative. 

Mr. Hume tells us, “ that the power of the Crown, 
by means of its large revenue, is rather upon the 
increase ;” though, at the same time, he owns, “ that 
its progress seems very slow, and almost insensible. 
The tide (says he) has run long, and with some ra- 
pidity, to the side of popular government, and is 
just beginning to turn towards monarchy.’—Hume’s 
Essays, vol. 1. page 47.—But he would probably 
have retracted, or limited this opinion, if he had 
compared the influence of the Crown in the present 
reign with the open and shameless venality which 
prevailed during the administration of Walpole, or 
if he could have attended to many recent occur- 
rences, in which the rights of the people have tri- 
umphed over supposed encroachments, and the 
efforts of the Commons have counteracted the pro- 
jects of the Court. The Tories, no doubt, have 
their share, be it of merit, or demerit, in supporting 
the claims of the Crown. Yet, I know not, that 
their predecessors and rivals were more delicate in 
the mode of employing influence, more cautious 

VOL. III. 2s 


626 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


about extending it, or more upright in the choice 
of the measures it was employed to promote. The 
misconduct of James, probably, led the way to the 
more alarming errors of Charles. In the same 
manner the secret practices of the Whigs supplied 
the Tories with precedents, though not with justi- 
fications, for some illegal and dangerous expedients 
to which they had recourse. But the prerogative 
of the Crown was inactive upon these subjects—its 
influence was insufficient to stifle the complaints of 
the public, and we have been fortunate enough to 
find a remedy for many of the evils that were 
thought by some men to menace us, not in the 
headstrong violence of the people, but in the tem- 
perate resistance of the Commons, and in the firm 
and constitutional protection of the laws. 

When a celebrated vote respecting influence 
lately passed the House of Commons, I confess 
fairly, that I approved of its principle; for the 
weight of that influence appeared to me (as it does 
to the author of the Dialogue on the actual State of 
Parliaments) “to predominate in the scale.” Page 
49.—The reader may recollect, that in page 20 of 
this work, I have produced some reasons, in order 
to show the unavoidable existence and occasional 
utility of some influence in the Crown. I am 
guilty of no inconsistency in saying, that I had been 
accustomed to think the present degree of that in- 
fluence oppressive to the revenues and dangerous 
to the freedom of the state. Into this persuasion I 
was led, not by the clamours of the day, but by the 
general aspect of political causes through the pre- 


a seed 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 627 


ceding reigns, by the candid concessions of Black- 
stone himself, (vol. 1. page 336, and vol. 1v. page 
441,) and by the respectable example of many dis- 
passionate and judicious men, who then supported 
some measures of administration, which, with a 
sincere respect for many of the persons concerned 
in them, I could not approve. 
«« Nec quemquam incuso. Potuit que plurima virtus 
Esse, fuit—toto certatum est corpore regni.” Virg. 

But on a comprehensive and more serious view 
of the question, upon summoning together some 
arguments, which I had totally overlooked, and 
more deeply examining others, which I had seen 
through a dim and distorted medium, I begin to 
think that the influence of the King is less formi- 
dable in reality than in appearance —that it pro- 
duces many advantages and prevents many evils 
which escape superficial observers—that while it 
threatens freedom in one quarter, it gives an unseen 
but solid protection to it in another. The regal 
power, whether it arise from influence or preroga- 
tive, is scarce strong enough to support itself 
against the latent but growing strength—the un- 
defined and perhaps undefinable privileges of the 
House of Commons. While, therefore, we rejoice 
in seeing the balance prevail in favour of the people, 
we act a wicked part in affecting to place the su- 
periority where it is not : we act, also, an unwise 
part in augmenting the weight of it where, from a 
variety of causes known and unknown, temporary 
or permanent, it for some time has been, and is yet 
likely to be. I do not take upon myself to say 

2s 2 


628 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


peremptorily that the hands of royal authority 
ought to be strengthened, nor would I rush into the 
perilous and invidious office of pointing out the 
methods by which an increase of strength may be 
conveyed to them, most consistently with the public 
good. Between powers, in the abuse of which the 
one may gradually undermine our rights, and the 
other crush them at a blow—between haughty and 
stubborn prerogative on the one hand, and an in- 
sinuating and encroaching influence on the other, 
the choice surely is big with difficulty and with 
danger. Perhaps they who are least able to exa- 
mine the question, will be most forward to decide 
it. But I would be understood to speak without 
any harsh sentiments of those who differ from me, 
and with a sincere deference to the judgments of 
men, whose experience in the public business of the 
state gives them a deeper insight into the secret 
motives of mankind, and the relative energy of those 
causes which affect the happiness of the com- 
munity, when I say that I find no immediate rea- 
son for lessening the influence of the Crown—that 
I see many reasons against contracting its power 
in one respect without enlarging it in another— 
that I perceive yet more reasons for abstaining from 
all experimental alterations whatsoever in the criti- 
cal condition of our present affairs. On the whole, 
I wish, in the words of Hume, “ to cherish and im- 
prove our ancient constitution, without encouraging 
a passion for such heretics” as have lately been re- 
commended. 

Let not these sentiments be imputed to that un- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 629 


feeling sluggishness which shrinks from the toil of 
every attempt to improve—to that blindness of judg- 
ment which confounds actual improvement with 
wanton charge—or to that false moderation which 
affects so to confound it. I allow with Lord Bacon, 
that “Time is the greatest innovator ;” that “ if 
time of course alter these things for the worse, 
wisdom and good counsel should alter them to the 
better,’ and that “a froward retention of custom is 
as turbulent a thing as sedition.” But I also know 
from the respectable authority of the same writer, 
that “what is settled by custom, though it be not 
good, is therefore fit”—that “ new things which help 
by their utility yet trouble by their inconformity’— 
and that “it highly becomes us to beware, lest, 
where the reformation should draw on the change, 
it be the desire of change that pretendeth the re- 
formation.”—I think not, nor am I acquainted with 
any judicious and impartial man, who professes to 
think, that our political concerns, either in system 
or detail, are precisely as they ought to be. I 
should rejoice in a fair opportunity of introducing 
some well directed and well proportioned alteration 
in the influence of the Crown, in the authority of 
the Parliament, and in the representation of the 
people. But I require the most unequivocal proofs, 
that a task so arduous in itself, and so interesting in 
its consequences, be undertaken by men of sagacity, 
who “ understand the great secret of nature in the 
state as well as in health, that it is better to change 
many things than one,” and not only to unite utility 
with conformity, but-to educe the one from the 


630 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


other—by men of moderation who “would follow 
the example of time itself, which innovateth greatly 
but quietly’—by men of stern and inflexible virtue, 
who preferring solid praise to transient popularity, 
“take care that the good be not taken away with 
the bad, which is commonly done when the people 
is the reformer.”—See Bacon’s Essays, No. 17. 24. 

Men of the foregoing description, are not the 
produce of every day. They are seldom found 
among the ambitious leaders of a party, who for 
selfish purposes call aloud for changes, which per- 
haps they are neither willing to attempt nor able to 
conduct ; and in vain shall we look for them among 
those restless and discontented spirits to whom the 
fine observation of Thucydides may be applied τὸ 
πάρον ἀεὶ βαρὺ τοῖς ὑπηκόοις. Page 53, edit. Duker. 
Whenever such men step forth, and bring with 
them clear pretensions to the confidence of the 
public, the good sense of that public will be at no 
loss to distinguish their qualifications, and the as- 
sistance of all worthy citizens will be vigorously 
and gratefully employed to give efficacy to their en- 
deavours. Ifthe moderate Whigs should have the 
merit of furnishing such reformers, we are en- 
couraged by the experience of past ages to believe, 
that the moderate Tories will not have the demerit 
of opposing them. In the mean time, I hope that 
the strength of both will be centred in a vigilant 
and resolute opposition to every audacious empiric— 
to every crafty impostor—to a herd of men, who 
stun our ears with complaints of evils, which, if 
imaginary, they wish to exist, and if real, they have 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 631 


been instrumental in creating, for the sake of gra- 
tifying their pride and of displaying their dexterity, 
in the application of precarious and desperate re- 
medies. 

From this tremendous charge I think it my duty 
to exempt the philosophical and benevolent, though 
visionary projects of a Jebb, the deeper and more 
instructive researches of a Price, and the hasty, but 
well-meant and ingenious effusions of a Priestley. 
Men of real parts and real integrity (as they are) il- 
lumine every subject on which they write, and en- 
large knowledge where they do not impress con- 
viction. Whatever they propose deserves to be 
maturely considered before it be rejected—they 
bring truth to a severer test than it has before un- 
dergone—they stir up an active spirit of emulation 
in political inquiry—and, at all events, they enable 
even a successful antagonist to understand his own 
opinions more clearly, to retain them more honour- 
ably, and to act from them with a steadier view to 
the public good. 

There are some persons who possess the talents, 
but not the virtues of the men, whose names I have 
just now mentioned. These restless and ambitious 
spirits employ their imagination in framing new 
theories of government, their sophistry in explaining 
away the advantages of the present, and their elo- 
quence in blinding the judgments and inflaming 
the passions of their fellow-citizens. The dazzling 
genius and incessant activity of such incendiaries 
are far more injurious to a state than the ignorance 
and even the errors of the lower orders of men 


632 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


when left to the unbiassed direction of their own 
common sense. 

Let me recommend to the serious perusal of such 
readers (for some of them can read) the following 
observations of Thucydides: πάντων δὲ δεινότατον, εἰ 

ue) bi Cig δὲ 4 Ihe 2 a δέ \ δὲ 
βέβαιον ἡμῖν μηδὲν καθεστήξει ὧν ἂν δόξη περὶ----μιηδὲ 
γνωσόμεθα ὅτι χείροσι νόμοις ἀκινήτοις χρωμένη πόλις 
κρείσσων ἐστὶν, ἢ καλῶς ἔχουσιν ἀκύροις" ἀμαθία τε μετὰ 
σωφροσύνης ὠφελιμώτερον, ἢ δεξιότης μετὰ ἀκολασίας 

a , a“ > , \ A , 
—oi τε φαυλότεροι τῶν ἀνθρώπων, πρὸς τοὺς ξυνετωτέ- 
ρους, ὡς ἐπιτοπλεῖστον ἄμεινον οἰκοῦσι τὰς πόλεις --οἰ 

‘ 7 - ὔ / / / “ 
μὲν γὰρ τῶν TE νόμων σοφώτεροιβούλονται Φαίνεσθαι, τῶν 
τε ἀεὶ λεγομένων ἐς τὸ κοινὸν περιγίγνεσθαι, ὡς ἐν ἄλλοις 
μείξοσιν ἐκ ἂν δηλώσαντες τὴν γνώμην καὶ ἐκ τοῦ τοιού- 
του τὰ πολλὰ σφάλλουσι τὰς πόλεις----οἰ δὲ ἀπιστοῦντες 
τῇ ἐξ αὐτῶν ξυνέσει, ἀμιαιθέστεροι μὲν τῶν νόμων ἀξιοῦσιν 
εἶναι, ἀδυνατώτεροι δὲ τοῦ καλώς εἰπόντος μέμψασθαι 
λόγον---κοιταὶ δὲ ὄντες ἀπὸ του ἴσου μαλλὸν, ἢ ἀγωνισταὶ, 
ὀοθοῦνται τὰ πλεία---οὠς οὖν ΧΡῊ KAI ὙΜΑ͂Σ ποιοῦν- 
τας, μὴ δεινότητι καὶ ξυνέσεως ἀγῶνι ἐπαιρομένους, 
παρὰ δόξαν τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει rapasvev.—Page 188. 


Pace 74.—William WH. 


During the reign of William the attempts of Par- 
liament to infringe on the constitution were foiled 
either by the good sense of the people at large, or 
by the jealousy of one branch of the legislature to- 
wards another. “ There are instances where the 
House, even when in opposition to the Crown, has 
not been followed by the people, as we may parti- 
cularly observe of the Tory House of Commons in 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 633 


the reign of King William.”—Hume’s Essays, vol. 
1. p. 34, Essay tv. 

“In the reign of King William the Third, a few 
years after the Revolution, attacks were made upon 
the Crown from another quarter. A strong party 
was formed in the House of Lords, and, as we may 
see in Bishop Burnet’s History of his own Times, 
they entertained very deep designs. One of their 
views, among others, was to abridge the prerogative 
of the Crown of calling Parliaments, and judging of 
the proper times of doing it. They accordingly 
framed and carried in their House a bill for ascer- 
taining the sitting of Parliament every year; but the 
bill, after it had passed in their House, was rejected 
in the House of Commons.’—De Lolme on Con- 
stitution of England, p. 397. 

“ There was another party directly opposite to this; 
a certain number of men, on whom the original 
taint, transmitted down from King James the First, 
remained still in the full strength of its malignity. 
These men adhered to those principles, in the na- 
tural sense and full extent of them, which the Tories 
had possessed.”—Bolingb. Dissert. upon Parties, 
vol. 11. p. 132. 


“The Tories had no longer any pretence of fear- 
ing the designs of the Whigs, since the Whigs had 
sufficiently purged themselves from all suspicion 
of republican views by their zeal to continue mo- 
narchical government, and of latitudination schemes 
in point of religion, by their ready concurrence in 
preserving our ecclesiastical establishment, and by 
their insisting on nothing farther, in favour of Dis- 


634 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


senters, than that indulgence which the church was 
most willing to grant. The Whigs had as little 
pretence of fearing the Tories, since the Tories 
had purged themselves, in the most signal manner, 
from all suspicion of favouring Popery, or arbitrary 
power, by the vigorous resistance they made to both. 
They had engaged, they had taken the lead in the 
revolution, and they were fully determined against 
the return of King James.”—Vid. Boling. Dissert. 
upon Parties, vol. 111. p. 128. 


If the future conduct of those persons (Republi- 
can Whigs) may be conjectured with any probabi- 
lity from that of their forefathers, we may, without 
any violation of candour, apply to them the words 
of Tacitus: “Ista secta Tuberones, et Favonios, 
veterl quoque reipublice ingrata nomina, genuit. 
Ut imperium evertant, libertatem preferunt; 51 
perverterint, libertatem ipsam aggredientur.”—Jac. 
Annal. lib. xvi. vol. ur. p. 311. 

“Jt should not be forgotten that systematic re- 
publicanism originated with the Independents, and 
that their political extravagancies were the growth 
of their religious absurdities; not content with 
confining to very narrow limits the power of the 
crown, and reducing the King to the rank of first 
magistrate, which was the project of the Presbyte- 
rians, this sect, more ardent in the pursuit of liberty, 
aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy, and 
even of the aristocracy, and projected an entire 
equality of rank and order, in a republic quite free 
and independent.”—Ibid. Hume, vol. viz. p. 20. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 635 


Pace 77.—Materials for History. 


In the preceding periods of the English history, 
we are assisted by the light of public and private re- 
cords, by the testimonies of writers who were eye- 
witnesses to what passed on the great theatre of 
politics, and of statesmen who acted upon it, by the 
zealous activity of partizans, and the minute dili- 
gence of antiquarians, by the splendid declamations 
of political enthusiasm, and the more elaborate and 
instructive researches of political scepticism. But 
of the revolution, which is confessedly a most im- 
portant epoch, we are content to boast, without 
the toil of nice and severe examination into the 
grounds of ourtriumphs. The effects of that event 
we indeed feel experimentally; but we seem not to 
be actuated by any wise and honourable curiosity, 
to trace out the progressive operations of those 
causes which then preserved our liberties, and have 
since continued to establish and enlarge them. The 
excellent productions of the present age forbid us 
to impute this silence to the want of ability for the 
discussion of the most abstruse and complicated sub- 
jects, in which history can be employed. But for 
the want of inclination to discuss them, it is more 
difficult to account, when we reflect on the fortu- 
nate circumstances which concur to facilitate the 
inquiries of a discerning and impartial historian. 
The prejudice of parties is considerably abated; the 
disputes about the right of succession are fortu- 
nately terminated; and the controverted questions, 
which statesmen employ as engines of their ambi- 


636 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


tion, are very much changed both in form and in 
principle. The materials for history will appear 
uncommonly abundant when we consider how 
much light may be drawn from the works of Swift, 
Bolingbroke, and their contemporaries, from the 
memoirs lately published by Macpherson, from the 
state-papers treasured up in the cabinets of great 
families, from the controversial writings of the day, 
and from the parliamentary speeches, many of which 
are yet faithfully preserved. 

Amidst these extraordinary advantages, an histo- 
rian “ might look for the principles of politics in 
their true source, in the nature and affections of 
men, and in the secret ties in which they are united 
together in a state of socicty..—-Vide De Lolme, p. 
438. He would never feel the mortifying and dis- 
graceful necessity of having recourse “ to such 
speculative doctrines as are incapable of practical 
use.” Instead of labouring under “ the perplexities 
by which the ablest men are embarrassed in the 
more abstract questions of politics,” he might treat 
them as a science sui generis, and draw forth all 
those primary and latent causes which are to be 
found, not in the theories that are woven by our 
fancies, nor in the prejudices that grow out of our 
passions, but in the deepest recesses of the under- 
standing and heart of man. It is therefore to be la- 
mented, that the history of Mr. Hume stops short at 
the very point where assistance was most wanted, and 
where he was peculiarly able to supply it. The reigns 
of William and of Anne are most eventful and most 
interesting ; who then does not wish that the pene- 


———— δέν 


EE ———— ——— 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 637 ° 


trating genius of Hume had been exercised in un- 
ravelling the dark intrigues of statesmen, in ba- 
lancing all their jarring interests, in describing the 
rise and progress of contending factions, in marking 
the slightest shades of their resemblance and dissi- 
tnilarity, in developing the motives of their sudden 
unions and sudden separations, and in distinguish- 
ing their real from their apparent views? What 
Hume has not undertaken might, however, be satis- 
factorily performed by two writers of very opposite 
tempers, and of powers nearly equal—by the soft 
and elegant pencil of Robertson, and by the bolder 
outlines and warmer colouring of Stuart. Robert- 
son probably is a disguised Tory, and Stuart is a 
constitutional Whig. The one is an advocate for 
prerogative, but without retaining the silly and ex- 
ploded doctrines of arbitrary and irresistible power : 
the other is an admirer of liberty, but with a fixed 
and manly aversion to all the outrages of boisterous 
and wanton licentiousness. If such men put forth the 
whole force of their minds upon the same subject, 
the reader would find that their prejudices, like op- 
posite forces in mathematics, would destroy each 
other, and that by the collision of their different 
opinions, the truth would, in most cases, be happily 
struck out. 

Mrs. Macaulay, I am told, has entered upon the 
arduous task which I wish to see undertaken by 
Robertson and Stuart. I have not read Mrs. Ma- 
caulay’s work; but I am informed, by a very com- 
petent judge, that it is written with the same ster- 
ling good sense and nervous diction, the same 


638 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


piercing discernment of character and passionate 
love of liberty, which distinguish her former volumes. 
In painting the scenes and marking the manners of 
private life, Smollett has shown great vigour of in- 
vention, a rich vein of pleasantry, an extensive ac- 
quaintance with the world, and a deep knowledge of 
the heart ; but he did not possess, in an eminent 
degree, the talents which peculiarly belong to the 
province of history, and his mind was violently 
warped by those political prejudices, from which 
even Hume was not exempted, by the calmness of 
his temper, the strength of his understanding, and 
such philosophical habits of thinking as fall not to 
the share either of Smollett or Macaulay. 


Pace 81.—Earl of Oxford. 


Even yet the uncertainty is not fully removed 
(i. e. whether he was disposed to secure the crown 
to the Pretender) ; but the good sense, the integrity, 
and the moderation of this injured Minister, brighten 
upon our view more and more. The state papers pub- 
lished by Macpherson, while they degrade some popu- 
lar characters among the Whigs, rescue the reputation 
of Oxford from many artful and cruel insinuations : 
the true designs of this excellent man will be fully 
known, and the method of conducting them, pro- 
bably, approved by calm and sensible judges, when 
the papers relative to the eventful times of his ad- 
ministration and disgrace are published. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 639 


Pace 81.—Peace of Utrecht. 


The merits of this peace are much disputed ; the 
reader will find a very plausible and elaborate de- 
fence of it—Bolingbroke’s Lett. on Hist., vol. 11. 
The arguments of Bolingbroke are attacked, in 
language indeed very feeble, but by arguments per- 
tinent and stubborn, in a series of letters written by 


Lord Walpole. 


Pace 83.—High-flyers. 


This ludicrous explanation of the word (Rapin’s) 
brings to our memory the ridicule of Aristophanes 
upon philosophical high-flyers. ᾿Δεροβατῶ, καὶ 
περιφρονώ τὸν ἥλιον. Nubes, 225. A _ political 
high-flyer may be defined in the words of the 
same writer, 


" » [4 , 
--ΞΌρνις ἀστάθμητος πετόμενος 


᾿Ατέκμαρτος. Aristoph. Ὄρνιθες, 169. 


Pace 84.— Passive Obedience. 


That silly doctrine is now exploded.—The legality 
of resistance is not only acknowledged in the specu- 
lations of politicians, the decisions of lawyers, and 
the debates of senators, but approved by the common 
apprehensions and common sensibilities even of the 
lowest orders of citizens. This truth, while it is too 
plain to admit any dispute, is, however, of too de- 
licate a nature for loose and frequent discussion. 
The most acute and sagacious reasoner cannot 


640 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


impress upon our minds new conviction—the paltry 
and officious declaimer may apply the conviction 
already impressed to fatal purposes. 

In the present reign I have been disgusted and 
provoked at some publications, which seemed to 
strike at the root of our liberty; but I know not 
that either in the clumsiest or in the most artful of 
these pestilential and profligate writings, the doc- 
trine of resistance has been openly attacked, or that 
of passive obedience tacitly recommended. We 
may have sometimes been told, for wicked purposes, 
that to a free state, like our own, regal power can 
never be dangerous. But it has not been even 
hinted to us, that, be the danger ever so great, and 
ever so glaring, we are bound by every moral and 
every political tie to crouch under its pressure. 
For these reasons I think it, in general, unsafe and 
improper either to assert, in a train of direct and 
formal reasoning, the right of resistance, or to en- 
gage in nice and precarious inquiries, when that 
right may be actually exercised. For what pur- 
poses are such inquiries intended? Is it to replace 
the ancient landmarks? But they are not yet 
either decayed by time, or removed by violence. 
Is it to correct the errors of the people? They 
seem not to have fallen into any upon this subject. 
Is it to perpetuate and to invigorate their con- 
viction? In the present age there is no danger 
that it should be effaced, either by the wiles of so- 
phistry, or the impetuosity of dogmatism. [5 it to 
rouse them from their supineness? Inactivity and 
indifference to the interests of their country, and 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 64] 


the views of their government, are not among the 
characteristic faults of this generation. My sincere 
wish is, indeed, that the people should be informed, 
not only of their rights, but of the foundations on 
which they stand—of the extentto which they reach— 
of the true purposes for which they are established— 
and of the safest and most effectual method by 
which they may be preserved. But the least re- 
flection on human nature is sufficient to convince 
us, that such information ought to be conveyed with 
the utmost caution, and that to convey it well sur- 
passes the abilities of shallow men, and comes not 
within the wishes of the turbulent and designing. 

As to the origin of the absurd doctrine to which 
Rapin alludes, we learn from Hume, vol. vi. page 
572, “that the patriarchal scheme was inculcated 
in the votes of the convocation preserved by Overall,” 
and “that Filmer was not the first inventor of those 
absurd notions.” But these principles, “ which in 
the time of James passed so smoothly that no 
historians take any notice of them, have nearly 
ceased to be the subject of controversy or discourse” 
for a different reason. Men of the meanest un- 
derstandings would blush to avow them, and the 
most abject spirit would reject them with scorn and 
indignation. 

In his Essay upon Government, Dr. Priestley has 
reasoned with his usual acuteness, and declaimed 
with his usual earnestness, upon the subject of non- 
resistance. But why, I would ask, has he collected 
and exerted the powers of his vigorous and com- 
prehensive mind, when the doctrine against which 

VOL. Ul. 2T 


642 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


he points them, is heard only in faint indistinct 
murmurs amidst the indignant scoffs and loud ex- 
ultations of a free people? 

“God be thanked,” says Dr. Priestley himself, 
“the government of this country is now fixed upon 
so good and firm a basis, and is so generally ac- 
quiesced in, that they are only the mere tools of a 
court party, or the narrow minded bigots among 
the clergy, who, to serve their own low purposes, 
do now and then promote the cry that the 
church or the state is in danger.”—Priestley, &c., 
page 35. 

It is my good fortune not to be alarmed at those 
fools and bigots, whom Dr. Priestley derides as if 
he despised them, and yet confutes as if he feared 
them. Inconsiderable is their number, their re- 
putation is obscure, and their sophistry is so obvious 
to the good sense, and so offensive to the feelings 
of Englishmen, that I should be very unwilling by 
injudicious opposition to bestow upon them a mo- 
mentary importance, and arrest them in the course 
by which they are silently descending to contempt 
and oblivion. 

I agree with Dr. Priestley in some of the funda- 
mental principles on which he rests the origin and 
the use of government. He has stated them with 
logical precision, and enforced them in the most 
animated style. I am, however, far from assenting 
to many incidental positions in his first section. 
Thus, in page 35, I admit that “an oppressive go- 
vernment, though it has been ever so long esta- 
blished, cannot be lawful ;” but I do not call every 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 643 


government “ unlawful and oppressive,” in which 
“ sufficient provision is not made for the happiness 
of the subjects of τι. If sufficient provision means 
the greatest possible in given circumstances, every 
human government is defective ; and if such defects 
“lie open to the generous attacks of the noble and 
daring patriot,” mankind, instead of enjoying the 
advantages of an imperfect constitution, must 
sacrifice their peace and shed their blood in the 
unprofitable and endless pursuit of one that is 
perfect. In the paragraph to which I allude, Dr. 
Priestley has confounded the negative with the 
positive faults of government—the want of provision 
for the utmost possible happiness of a people, with 
deliberate encroachments upon that happiness—im- 
perfections, which may exist in a good government, 
and he supplied by the aid of wise and peaceful 
counsels, with oppressions which can exist only in 
a bad government, and must be quelled by the 
most vigorous resistance. 

To this and to some other opinions in the same 
section I cannot give my assent, nor can I approve 
of the unprovoked and unbecoming asperity that 
breaks out in the defence of some other tenets 
which are most clear to my understanding, and 
most interesting to my heart. 

It is not uncommon for controversialists to dis- 
play their skill in grappling with imaginary diffi- 
culties, and to contend vehemently in support of 
those truths, which their real opponents embrace 
with equal sincerity, and defend with equal ability. 
Less fondness in expatiating upon the subject, less 

272 


644 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


energy in expressing the arguments that belong to 
it, less ardour in pushing its consequences to the 
extreme boundaries of speculation, less acrimony in 
multiplying the invidious conclusions that may be 
drawn from the opposite question, are considered as 
80 many symptoms of hostility. Where Dr. Priest- 
ley states the conditions upon which alone resistance 
may be justified, and then subjoins the caution 
with which it should be undertaken, his arguments 
will be echoed and re-echoed by many persons who 
are vulgarly represented as tools of the state and 
bigots of the church. I will quote Dr. Priestley’s 
words, because he would himself disdain the im- 
putation of contracting the limits of resistance in 
favour of tyranny, and because no impartial judge 
can accuse him of enlarging them so as to endanger 
the stability of just and lawful government.—“ In 
the largest states, if the abuses of government 
should at any time be great and manifest —if the 
servants of the people, forgetting their masters, and 
their master’s interest, should pursue a separate one 
of their own — if, instead of considering that they 
are made for the people, they should consider the 
people as made for them — if the oppressions and 
violations of right should be great, flagrant, and 
universally resented —if the tyrannical governors 
should have no friends but a few sycophants, who 
had long preyed upon the vitals of their fellow 
citizens, and who might be expected to desert a 
government whenever their interests should be de- 
tached from it — if, in consequence of these cir- 
cumstances, it should become manifest, that the 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 645 


risque which would be run in attempting a revolution 
would be trifling, and the evils which might be ap- 
prehended from it, were far less than those which 
were actually suffered, and which were daily in- 
creasing ; in the name of God, I ask, what prin- 
ciples are those, which ought to restrain an injured 
and insulted people from asserting their natural 
rights, and from changing or even punishing their 
governors, that is, their servants, who had abused 
their trust; or, from altering the whole form of 
their government, if it appeared to be of a structure 
so liable to abuse ?”—Priestley, page 24. 

The fiercest, and I add the most venal antagonist 
of Dr. Priestley, will cheerfully give his assent to 
these general principles, though as to the precise 
degree in which they are applicable to particular 
circumstances, he may not always meet with the 
concurrence of his dearest and most disinterested 
friends. All parties surely will agree with him in 
the following plain positions, and in the very awful 
restrictions by which he has endeavoured to prevent 
the weak from misunderstanding, and the seditious 
from misapplying them.—* Whatever be the form 
of any government, whoever be the supreme ma- 
gistrates, or whatever be their number, that is, to 
whomsoever the power of the society is delegated, 
their authority is, in its own nature, reversible.” 
Page 44.—“ This, however, can only be the case in 
extreme oppression ; when the blessings of society 
and civil government, great and important as they 
are, are bought too dear; when it is better not to 
be governed at all, than to be governed in such a 


646 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


manner ; or, at least, when the hazard of a change 
of government would be apparently the less evil of 
the two; and, therefore, these occasions rarely oc- 
cur in the course of human affairs. It may be 
asked, what should a people do in case of less gene- 
ral oppression, and only particular grievances ; when 
the deputies of the people make laws which evidently 
favour themselves, and beat hard upon the body of 
the people they represent, and such as they would 
certainly disapprove, could they be assembled for 
that purpose? I answer, that when this appears to 
be very clearly the case, as it ought by all means to 
do, (since, in many cases, if the government have 
not power to enforce a bad law, it will not have 
power to enforce a good one,) the first step which a 
wise and moderate people will take, is to make a 
remonstrance to the legislature.”—Priestley on Poli- 
tical Liberty, page 45. 

What writer has more pointedly condemned the 
phrenzy of groundless and precipitate sedition, or 
has more energetically described the hideous con- 
sequences which flow from it? 

“If a man have common sense he will see it to 
be madness to propose, or to lay any measures for 
a general insurrection against the government, ex- 
cept in case of very general and great oppression. 
Even patriots, in such circumstances, will consider, 
that present evils always appear greater in con- 
sequence of their being present ; but that the future 
evils of a revolt, and a temporary anarchy, may be 
much greater than are apprehended at a distance. 
They will also consider, that unless their measures 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 647 


be perfectly well laid, and their success decisive, 
ending in a change not of men, but of things ; not 
of governors, but of the rules and administration of 
government ; they will only rivet their chains the 
faster, and bring upon themselves and their country 
tenfold ruin.” 

The sentiments of Dr. Priestley upon every sub- 
ject are entitled to respectful attention, and I am 
happy to show, by the foregoing quotations, that 
upon this cardinal point of politics he maintains 
opinions in which the wisest and most temperate 
friends to the constitution will acquiesce. He 
with great candour makes allowances for those 
weak friends of society, who, when there were “ re- 
cent examples of good Kings deposed, and some 
of them massacred by wild enthusiasts, laid hold 
of the doctrine of passive obedience, because it sup- 
plied an argument for more effectually preserving 
the public peace.” Let him extend his candour to 
“this day, when the danger from which that doc- 
trine served to shelter us is over, and the heat of 
controversy is abated.”—‘“The preposterous and 
slavish opinion,” either lurks in remote obscurity, 
or is spread over the writings of a few wretched 
sciolists, whom no philosopher will deign to con- 
fute, and no patriot has reason to dread. The 
scattered and lingering remains of this doctrine 
would be totally forgotten, were they not kept in 
our view by the angry and boisterous attacks of 
the advocates for liberty. “Indeed writers in de- 
fence of such absurd and pernicious tenets do not 
deserve a serious answer; and to allege them in 


648 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


favour of a corrupt government, which nothing can 
excuse but their being brought in favour of a good 
one, is unpardonable.”—Pr. on Goy. p. 29.—Ts 
μὴ σιωπᾶν αἰσχρόν. 

Unwilling as I am to dwell on the present sub- 
ject, I have made very copious quotations from 
Priestley, in order to show that sensible men really 
differ from each other less than theyseem to do; 
and that the sturdiest advocate for freedom pre- 
sumes not to justify resistance, unless in cases 
where the most strenuous friends of monarchy 
would allow it to be justifiable. I must, however, 
acknowledge, that upon the fondness of writers to 
start suppositions of danger, and to exert the whole 
force of their eloquence upon the right of men 
to avert it, I do not look with a very friendly 
eye.—“ Extreme cases (says Mr. Hey) always 
bring with them all the remedy they are capable of 
—it is to no purpose to lay down rules about them 
before-hand ; for, when they happen, all rules 
and laws cease—violence alone has place— in vain 
would man in any particular circumstances, say at 
the time, this is an extreme case, and attempt 
to justify himself by argument, in acting as if it 
really was so. It is trifling to argue about such 
cases, not merely because those who are involved 
in them will always act from feelings, which pre- 
clude the effect of all arguments, but because the 
cases cannot be reduced to any distinct general 
ideas so as to become a proper subject for argu- 
mentation. Therefore, in all speculations, we 


‘ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 649 


may consider the legislature as unbounded in its 
powers.”—Hey’s Observations on Civil Liberty. 

To the justness and importance, to the political 
wisdom and constitutional spirit of the foregoing 
observations, I give my hearty assent. They will 
receive new clearness and new strength from this 
admirable passage in Mr. Hume—“The question, 
indeed, with regard to resistance, was a point, 
which entered into the controversies of the old 
parties, Cavalier and Roundhead; as it made an 
essential part of the present disputes between court 
and country. Few neuters were found in the 
nation ; but among such as would maintain a calm 
indifference, there prevailed sentiments wide of 
those which were adopted by either party. Such 
persons thought that all public declarations of the 
legislature, either for or against resistance, were 
equally impolitic, and could serve to no other pur- 
pose than to signalize in their turn the triumph 
of one faction over another—that the simplicity 
retained in the antient laws of England, as well as 
in the laws of every other country, ought still to 
be preserved, and was best calculated to prevent 
the extremes on either side —that the absolute 
exclusion of resistance, in all possible cases, was 
founded on false principles ; its express admission 
might be attended with dangerous consequences ; 
and there was no necessity for exposing the public 
to either inconvenience—that if a choice must 
necessarily be made in the case, the preference of 
utility to truth in public institutions was appa- 
rent; nor could the supposition of resistance, 


650. ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


before-hand and in general terms, be safely ad- 
mitted in any government—that even in mixed 
monarchies, where that supposition seemed most 
requisite, it was yet entirely superfluous; since no 
man, on the approach of extraordinary necessity, 
could be at a loss, though not directed by legal 
declarations, to find the proper remedy—that even 
those who might, at a distance and by scholas- 
tic reasoning, exclude all resistance, would yet 
hearken to the voice of nature, when evident ruin, 
both to themselves and the public, must attend 
a strict adherence to their pretended principles— 
that the question, as it ought to be entirely ex- 
cluded from all determinations of the legislature, 
was even among private reasoners, somewhat fri- 
volous, and little better than a dispute of words— 
that the one party could not pretend, that resist- 
ance ought ever to become a familiar practice ; 
the other would surely have recourse to it in great 
extremities; and thus the difference could only 
turn upon the degrees of danger and oppression, 
which would warrant this irregular remedy—a 
difference, which, in a general question, it was 
impossible by any language, precisely to fix or 
determine.”—Hume’s Hist. of Eng. vol. vin. p. 12. 


Pace 90.— Moderate Tories. 


Perhaps the sentiments of these men nearly cor- 
respond with the following language of De Lolme. 
— All these considerations (explained in chap. 
XIx.) strongly point out the very great caution 


a θων ὦ 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES, 651 


which is necessary to be used in the difficult busi- 
ness of laying new restraints on the governing 
authority. Let, therefore, the less informed part 
of the people, whose zeal requires to be kept 
up by visible objects, look, if they choose, upon the 
Crown as the only seat of the evils they are ex- 
posed to (mistaken notions on their part are less dan- 
gerous than political indifference, and they are 
more easily directed than roused); but at the same 
time, let the more enlightened part of the nation 
constantly remember, that the constitution only 
subsists by virtue of a proper equilibrium—by 
a line being drawn between power and liberty. 
Made wise by the examples of several other 
nations, by those which the history of this very 
country affords, let the people in the heat of their 
struggles in the defence of their liberty, always 
take heed to reach, never to overshoot the mark— 
only to repress, never to transfer and diffuse power.” 


—De Lolme on the Constit. of Eng. p. 449. 


Pace 91.—Party. 


In the present age we have certainly shaken off 
many contemptible prejudices, which shackled the 
understandings of our forefathers. Yet, how few 
of us have abandoned the iniquitious practice of 
imputing toa party the crimes of a leader, and to 
a leader the excentricities of a party? Such a 
reformation, I fear, is scarcely to be expected 
while the pride and malignity of the heart feel 
a secret gratification in reducing the general virtues 


652 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


of others to particular, and in amplifying their 
particular faults into general. In the circle of my 
own acquaintance, I have seen men whose minds, 
however enlightened by knowledge, and expanded 
by benevolence, become, on political subjects, weak 
almost to fatuity, and illiberal even to rancoutr- 
Against the principles of Whiggism, shielded as they 
are by their popularity, it is unsafe to make an 
open attack ; but I have met with some few parti- 
zans who seriously adopt the well known definition 
of Whig, which its author would now be ashamed 
seriously to defend, and who consider every man 
that bears the name, as a latitudinarian in religion, 
and a leveller in the state. The word Tory, on 
the other hand, is associated with every hideous 
idea of despotism and bigotry; his real and his 
imaginary failings are exposed without reserve, and 
reprobated without mercy; and the favourable 
reception which is indiscriminately given to the 
ravings of indiscriminate railers, while it weakens 
the probability of the accusation among considerate 
judges, increases the zeal of the inconsiderate ac- 
cusers. 

Some time ago I read an Essay on the Origin 
of Government, in which the author united much 
profound and original speculation with a perspi- 
cuous and nervous style. His zeal carried with it 
the marks of a mind that glowed with a generous 
love of freedom, and his theory, though refined 
beyond the reach of practice, was evidently the 
growth of a vigorous and well cultivated under- 
standing. When the sequel of that essay was 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 653 


published, I eagerly seized it in expectation of new 
pleasure and new instruction; but instead of deep 
researches into things, and acute observations upon 
men, I found only a crude and coarse mass of 
accusations, complaints, and projects, without regu- 
larity and without use. What reader, who has a 
common share of good sense or good nature, would 
not turn aside from a writer, who in the very thresh- 
hold exhibits such a specimen, as this which follows, 
of his talents for exaggeration ? 

“ If the question is asked, what are Tory princi- 
ples ? it might be answered, that they are the reverse 
of the Whig principles of government, and senti- 
ments of the constitution; and so opposite, that 
neither can a Whig, while he acts on his own prin- 
ciples, do any thing wrong, nor a Tory do any thing 
right. 

“The Tory is content that his happiness should 
depend upon the good conduct of the king, under 
whom he is content to be tenant at will for -his 
liberty. The Whig would, as far as is consistent 
with order, prevent the Crown from having the 
power to do harm, and considers liberty as his 
eternal right and freehold, held of the Almighty 
only. The good of the people is uppermost in the 
Whig’s thoughts ; the grandeur of the Prince in the 
Tory’s. . 

“The Whig, who is a member of the church of 
England, regards the dissenter as his younger bro- 
ther, but dislikes the religious, and detests the poli- 
tical principles of the church of Rome, for which the 
Tory entertains a respectful tenderness, but abomi- 


654 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


nates the dissenter like Sir Andrew Ague-cheek ; 
and if, like the foolish Knight of Illyria, he was not 
afraid, he would beat the Puritan like a dog; and if 
asked like him for his exquisite reason, must answer 
likewise, that he had no exquisite reason, but reason 
good enough. 

“ The Whig thinks the form of government in 
church and state, is a thing of absolute indifference 
in itself, excepting as it regards and promotes order, 
virtue, liberty, and religion, which constitute the 
true interest and duty of mankind. The Tory is 
sure that Kings are God’s vicegerents, and can 
almost prove that Archbishops are jure divino. A 
Whig will kindly tire you sometimes with praises of 
the constitution, a word never uttered by a Tory 
mouth, from which you will sooner hear a thousand 
harangues upon the prerogative, intermixed with 
astonishment that we can find any body so good 
naturedly indiscreet as to be minister, or to reign 
over us; and their last principle is to renounce all 
the above, when they become troublesome to the 
possessor or professor.”—See Sequel to an Essay 
on the Origin and Progress of Government, p. 4. 

* * * * * * * = * 

“ Such being the principles and marks of a Tory, 
to be collected as much from the actions as the 
words of the virtuous and well-meaning among them, 
of which there are abundance ; (and if these are not 
their principles, their actions can arise only from 
absolute ignorance and inattention, or profligate 
corruption ; for to no other principles can they be 
reconciled;) it is no wonder, that by acting consist- 


- — 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 655 


ently with them, they have assisted the wicked en- 
deavours of unprincipled men, to overthrow the 
constitution, both when in authority, and when out 
of administration. Let us take a look at them 
when in disgrace and when triumphant; the latter 
glimpse is indeed unpleasant, as their prosperity is 
England’s adversity.’—Ibid. p. 6. 

To what cause can such language be ascribed, 
but to the fascinating power of prejudice, and the 
loathsome malignity of party? When assertion is 
thus substituted for proof, and censure degenerates 
into scurrility, there is no room for argumentative 
confutation ; and who would descend to the wretched 
task of retorting what cannot be read without disgust 
and abhorrence? Let me address this able theorist, 
(for such he really and eminently is) in the words 
of a person whose works, I doubt not, are familiar 
to him.—“ Maledictum est, illud tuum, si vere ob- 
jicitur, vehementis accusatoris, sin falso, maledici 
convitiatoris : quare, cum isto sis ingenio, non debes, 
M. Cato, arripere maledictum e trivio, aut ex scur- 
rarum aliquo convicio.”"—Orat. pro Muren. 

The above mentioned sequel is dedicated to a 
Senator, whose intemperate severity in loading his 
antagonist with reproaches is often lamented by 
those, who look up with admiration to his attain- 
ments and his virtues. For the imperfection of the 
patron we may find some apology in the same 
speech which just now supplied me with an expos- 
tulation to his dedicator—“ Quod atrociter in senatu 
dixisti,autnon dixisses, aut seposuisses, aut mitiorem 
in partem interpretarere. Ac te ipsum, quantum, 


656 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


ego opinione auguror, nunc et animi quodam im- 
petu concitatum, et vi naturae atque ingenii elatum, 
et recentibus preceptorum studiis flagrantem, jam 
usus flectet, dies leniet, etas mitigabit.’—Orat. pro 
Muren. 

Mr. Hume, whose insight into the views of par- 
tizans will not be controverted by the writer whose 
opinions I am now censuring, gives us a very dif- 
ferent account. 

“The mere name of King commands little re- 
spect ; and to talk of a King as God’s vicegerent on 
earth, or to give him any of those magnificent titles, 
which formerly dazzled mankind, would be to ex- 
cite laughter in every one.”—Essays, vol. 1. p. 47. 


Pace 93.—Perfection of Government. 


The perfection of all government is relative; for, 
according to the well known distinction of Solon, 
the best laws are, not those which are captivating 
in theory, but those which are useful in practice— 
not such as a philosopher is capable of framing 
ideally, but such as a people are actually capable of 
receiving. That perfection is different in different 
circumstances. Through the fluctuating opinions, 
the boisterous passions, and jarring interests of men, 
it is, in every country, of slow and irregular growth. 
In our own, it proceeds from many unsuspected and 
even opposite causes—from unforeseen and inexpli- 
cable accidents, as well as from the most profound 
and active policy—from the disappointment of 
human projects, as well as from their success—from 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 657 


unjust opposition to power, as well as from the 
unjust usurpation of it—from Papists and Protes- 
tants—from sectaries and churchmen—from Par- 
liaments and Kings—who in their turns have all 
been enemies to liberty, and have all contributed 
directly or indirectly, intentionally or eventually, to 
its preservation, its enlargement, and its stability. 
We may, exhypothesi, allow with Hume, that the 
constitution of England acquired its greatest firm- 
ness and precision at the accession of William III.— 
that before this period the government of it was un- 
steady in its operations, and, in some solitary in- 
stances, seemed to be doubtful in its principles—that 
our rights were sometimes indistinctly understood, 
and sometimes feebly asserted—that the importance 
of the Commons was less early and less considerable 
than every generous friend to our liberties must 
wish, and some of its enthusiastic panegyrists have 
supposed—that the Nobles were obsequious to the 
King, and oppressive to the people—that the King 
undermined the just privileges of his Parliament, 
and trampled on the just claims of his subjects. 
But from particular and detached events, from 
sudden and transient irregularities, and from the 
imperfect state of society which occasioned them, no 
inference can be drawn against the general right of 
mankind to be free, or the general disposition of 
our countrymen to vindicate their freedom. On 
this momentous topic I am happy to shelter my own 
sentiments under the authority of those distinguished 
writers to whose works I have frequently had re- 
VOL. III. 20u 


658 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


course, for the illustration or the support of the 
Dissertation here republished. 

“ By the free constitution of the English mo- 
narchy, every advocate of liberty, that understands 
himself, I suppose means, that limited plan of policy, 
by which the supreme legislative power (including 
in this general term the power of levying money) is 
lodged, not in the Prince singly, but jointly in the 
Prince and people ; whether the popular part of the 
constitution be denominated the King’s or King- 
dom’s great council, as it was in the proper feudal 
times; or the Parliament, as it came to be called 
afterwards ; or, lastly, the two Houses of Parliament, 
as the style has now been for several ages. 

“ To tell us, that this constitution has been dif- 
ferent at different times, because the regal or popular 
influence has, at different times been more or less 
predominant, is only playing with a word, and con- 
founding constitution with administration. Ac- 
cording to this way of speaking, we have not only 
had three or four, but possibly three or four score, 
different constitutions. So long as that great dis- 
tribution of the supreme authority took place (and 
it has constantly and invariably taken place, whatever 
other changes there might be, from the Norman es- 
tablishment down to our times) the nation was 
always enabled, at least authorised, to regulate all 
subordinate, or, if you will, supereminent claims and 
pretensions. This it effectually did at the revolu- 
tion; and by so doing, has not created a new plan 
of policy, but perfected the old one. The great 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 659 


master wheel of the English constitution is still the 
same; only freed from those checks and restraints, 
by which, under the specious name of prerogatives, 
time and opportunity has taught our Kings to ob- 
struct and embarrass its free and regular move- 
ments.”—Hurd’s Dialogues. 

“ From the Saxon conquest, during a long suc- 
cession of ages, this fortunate Island has never de- 
generated from liberty. In the most inclement pe- 
riods of its history, it despaired not of independence. 
It has constantly fostered that indignant spirit which 
disdains all subjection to an arbitrary sway. The 
constitution, prospering under the shocks it received, 
fixed itself at the highest point of liberty that is 
compatible with government. May it continue its 
purity and vigour! and give felicity and greatness 
to the most distant times !”—Vid. Stuart's Discourse 
on the Laws and Govern. of England, p. 32. 

“ A spirit of liberty, transmitted down from our 
Saxon ancestors, and the unknown ages of our go- 
vernment, preserved itself through one almost con- 
tinual struggle against the usurpation of our Princes, 
and the vices of the people; and they whom neither 
the Plantagenets nor the Tudors could enslave were 
incapable of suffering their rights and privileges to 
be ravished from them by the Stuarts. They bore 
with the last King of this unhappy race till it was 
shameful, as it must have been fatal, to bear any 
longer ; and whilst they asserted their liberties, they 
refuted and anticipated, by their temper and their 
patience, all the objections which foreign and do- 
mestic abetters of tyranny are apt to make against 

2u2 


660 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the conduct of our nation towards their Kings. Let 
us justify the conduct by persisting in it, and con- 
tinue to ourselves the peculiar honour of maintain- 
ing the freedom of our Gothic institution of govern- 
ment, when so many other nations, who enjoyed 
the same, have lost theirs."—Lord Bolingbroke’s 
Dissertat. upon Parties, vol. 111. p. 145. 

From so complete and well concerted a scheme 
of servility it has been the work of generations for 
our ancestors to redeem themselves and their pos- 
terity into that state of liberty which we now enjoy; 
and which, therefore, is not to be looked upon as 
consisting of mere encroachments on the Crown, 
and infringements on the prerogative, as some 
slavish and narrow-minded writers in the last cen- 
tury endeavoured to maintain; but, as in general, a 
gradual restoration of that ancient constitution, 
whereof our Saxon forefathers had been unjustly de- 
prived, partly by the policy, and partly by the force 
of the Normans.’—Blackstone, vol. Iv. book tv. 
chap. 33, p. 420. 

“ The political liberty of the people was cherished 
by the benign influence of the Saxon constitution ; 
it was blasted by the malignant aspect of Norman 
tyranny. By an happy coincidence of events, the 
unalienable rights of man resulted from a system of 
oppression. We are indebted to the arbitrary con- 
vention of the feudal vassals for the blessings of a 
popular legislation.” Ibbetson’s Dissertation on the 
National Assemblies under the Saxon and Norman 
Government, p. 52.—I quote this passage from a 
very ingenious and elegant work which fell into my 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 661 


hands after the first part of Rapin was sent to the 
press. The origin, progress, and revolutions of 
Parliament, the increase, the decline and final re- 
storation of its powers, the extensive rights of soc- 
cage and the primary causes of representation, are 
explained by this writer with great clearness of ar- 
rangement and great energy of style. The reader 
will excuse me for quoting a few passages which 
tend to confirm my opinion concerning the antiquity 
of Parliaments. I should have been happy to have 
introduced them sooner in another place ; but they 
are not altogether unconnected with the subject of 
this note. “ We may venture to conclude, that the 
people elected their protectors, who assumed a just 
pre-eminence in the great assembly of the nation; 
and that their political rights were by no means 
compressed by the regal prerogative, or overwhelmed 
by the weight of aristocratical importance. The 
opinions of the philosophers of Greece were propa- 
gated by the swords of the Northern conquerors ; 
impatient of oppression, they felt the necessity of 
freedom ; undirected by systematical arrangements 
the exertions of virtue were instinctive. The con- 
genial spirit of liberty delighted in the German fo- 
rests, and consecrated the rocks of Scandinavia ; it 
expanded in the uncultivated waste, where nothing 
was constrained, where nature herself was independ- 
ent.” Ibid. p. 10.— And again, in p. 15: “ It 
must be candidly allowed, that the national assembly 
of our Saxon ancestors asserted the right of electing 
its supreme magistrate—that it possessed the legis- 
lative, the judicial, and the fiscal powers—and that 


662 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


the people had a considerable share in the direction 
of its councils and the confirmation of its decrees.” 
In page 29 he traces out the causes of popular re- 
presentation, and evidently confirms my opinion, 
that the Commons, before the time of Henry the 
Third, formed a part of the Parliament, and that to 
remedy the inconveniences of their attendance upon 
such service, or their neglect of it, the legislature 
adopted the expedient of representation. I am 
happy in adding the name of Mr. Ibbetson to the 
list of those who, uniting the professional know- 
ledge of lawyers with the more precarious researches 
of antiquarians, have opposed the opinion of Mr. 
Hume, who contends for the late existence of Par- 
liaments. But Mr. Hume himself, though he calls 
off our admiration from the antiquity of the consti- 
tution, hath, in this glowing and charming language 
encouraged us to set a high value upon that form 
of government under which we now live. “On the 
whole, the English have no reason, from the exam- 
ple of their ancestors, to be in love with the picture 
of absolute monarchy; or to prefer the unlimited 
authority of the Prince and his unbounded preroga- 
tives, to that noble liberty, that sweet equality, and 
that happy security, by which they are at present 
distinguished above all nations in the universe.”— 
Hume, vol. v. p. 471. 

The Whigs are not ashamed of cherishing such a 


constitution with ardent fondness, of guarding it 


with unremitted vigilance, or of defending it with 
unshaken intrepidity ; when it is really in danger, 
the moderate Tories will show themselves not almost, 


πο 


EEE τὰ ων 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 663 


but altogether, attached to the same cause, and 
animated with the same zeal. 


Pace 107.—Creation of the Twelve Peers. 


The hardiest apologist for prerogative would 
shrink from the idea of defending this outrageous 
and profligate measure. An artifice so insulting to 
the dignity, so offensive to the feelings, and so 
alarming to the apprehensions of free citizens will 
probably be never attempted again, or at least the 
attempt will be accompanied with less success, and 
followed up by the spirited and terrible indignation 
of an injured people. The power of the Crown to 
create Peers, is, like every other power, open to 
abuse. Yet, perhaps, if we look back through a 
long succession of our Princes, we shall find that 
no one of their privileges has been stretched more 
rarely beyond its due bounds, or attended with less 
pernicious effects. 

While the House of Commons continues, what 
it ought to be, an assembly of men respectable for 
their opulence, their personal weight, and their 
wisdom, they willnot become the instruments of 
their own degradation ; for such they would be, if 
they prevented the Crown from conferring those 
honours, to which they may themselves aspire from 
the most laudable motives, and which they often 
earn by the most important services. The pride of 
the Nobles who are jealous of the novi homines, 
may, indeed, upon this subject, be united with the 
pride of the people, who look with no less jealousy 


664 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


upon the recent advancement of their equals, and 
the antient privileges of their superiors. But in 
conspiring to wrench from the Crown this old and 
venerable part of the prerogative, both the Nobles 
and the people would act against their own true in- 
terests. The House of Lords would no longer be 
supplied by men who have distinguished themselves 
by eloquence in the senate, by sagacity in the 
cabinet, or by valour in the field. Those objects 
which now actuate the honest ambition of our re- 
presentatives would be removed, and the office of 
representation, instead of being eagerly courted as 
an honour, would be reluctantly submitted to as a 
task. While men are men, the consciousness of 
upright intention, and even the voice of an ap- 
plauding people, may not always be sufficient al- 
lurements to great and splendid exertions in the 
cause of our country. Rewards of a more per- 
manent nature will produce more important effects ; 
and, surely, when public distinctions acquired by 
public services are the foundations of a family, it 
is difficult to substitute a more proper or a more 
efficacious encouragement; for, by such an ex- 
pedient, the wishes of an individual are gratified, 
while the revenues of the state are not exhausted. 
We should not forget the deep and destructive 
policy of Sylla, when he barred against the Tribunes 
those avenues into the Senate which had been open 
to their predecessors. By this measure he seems 
to have restored the dignity, or rather to have es- 
tablished the tyranny of the Senate. At the same 
time he made the tribuneship an object of attention 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 665 


to the meanest and most worthless citizens. He 
debased its importance, sapped its authority, and 
gained an easy conquest over the rights which that 
office was intended to protect. 

Our own history presents us with an instance of 
the unworthy motives which dictated, and of the 
wise measures which frustrated, a most indecent at- 
tempt to lop off, or, at least, to cramp this branch 
of the prerogative-—“ A bill was presented, and 
carried, in the House of Lords, for limiting the 
Peers to a fixed number, beyond which it should 
not be increased; but after great pains taken to 
ensure the success of this bill, it was at last rejected 
by the House of Commons.”—De Lolme, page 
398. 


Pace 109.— Prerogative. 


It is not easy to convince men of the utility, or 
reconcile them to the continuance of a power which 
they do not themselves exercise immediately or 
remotely. Their inability, or unwillingness, to be 
thus persuaded, arises from the more exquisite sen- 
sibility of the mind under the pressure of occasional 
evil, than in the possession of general good; from 
the lurking ambition of drawing all authority within 
the circle of our own party; and from the over- 
whelming dread which seizes our imaginations on 
the contemplation of regal power, to which the re- 
sistance of an individual is so very inadequate— 
“Our manner,” says Hooker, “is always to cast a 
more suspicious eye towards that “over which we 
know we have least power.”—Page 37. 


666 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


From these causes, which it is unnecessary fur- 
ther to explain, and from others, which it might be 
invidious to particularize, have arisen the excessive 
prejudices which many persons in our own age en- 
tertain upon the subject of prerogative ; and by a 
weakness, which the noblest understandings cannot 
always subdue, the same persons are prone to cherish 
unkind and unworthy suspicions of every man who 
firmly adheres to opinions, the reasons of which are 
unperceived by themselves. Far am I from wishing 
to lull asleep the watchfulness of free citizens over 
their liberties, or to pilfer away the smallest particle 
of the power which they have to defend them. But 
considering the rights of the people, the privileges 
of the Parliament, and the prerogative of the King, 
as equally and severally the instruments of the 
public good, I should be sorry to see the due efficacy 
of the means diminished through a misguided zeal 
for the end. I shall, for this reason, produce the 
full and positive evidence of Mr. Locke, where he 
points out the usefulness, and contends for the ne- 
cessity of the prerogative. 

“ Where the legislative and executive power are 
in distinct hands (as they are, in all moderated mo- 
narchies and well-framed governments), there the 
good of the society requires that several things 
should be left to the discretion of him that has the 
executive power. For, the legislators not being 
able to foresee and provide by laws for all that may 
be useful to the community, the executor of the 
laws, having the power in his hands, has, by the 
common law of nature, a right to make use of it 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 667 


for the public good of the society, in many cases 
where the municipal laws has given no direction, 
till the legislative can conveniently be assembled to 
provide for it. Many things there are which the 
law can by no means provide for, and these must 
necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has 
the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by 
him, as the public good and advantage shall require ; 
nay itis fit that the laws themselves should in some 
cases give way to the executive power, or rather to 
this fundamental law of nature and governments, 
viz. that as much as may be all the members of the 
society are to be preserved. 

“This power to act according to discretion, for 
the public good, without the prescription of the 
law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is 
called prerogative. For since, in some governments, 
the law-making power is not always in being, and is 
usually too numerous, and so too slow for the dis- 
patch requisite to execution ; and because it is also 
impossible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for 
all accidents and necessities that may concern the 
public, or to make such laws as will do no harm, if 
they are executed with an inflexible rigour, on all 
occasions, and upon all persons that may come in 
their way ; therefore there is a latitude left to the 
executive power, to do many things of a choice 
which laws do not provide. 

“ This power, whilst employed for the benefit of 
the community, and suitably to the trust and ends 
of the government, is undoubted prerogative, and 
never is questioned ; for the people are very seldom, 


668 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


or never, scrupulous or nice in the point; they are 
far from examining prerogative, whilst it is, in any 
tolerable degree, employed for the use it was meant ; 
that is, for the good of the people, and not ma- 
nifestly against it. But if there comes to be a 
question between the executive power and the 
people, about a thing claimed as a prerogative, the 
tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the 
good or hurt of the people, will easily decide that 
question.” — Vid. Locke, on Civil Government, 
vol. 11. page 220. 

In determining the beneficial or injurious ten- 
dency of prerogative in particular instances—in 
balancing the advantages and the disadvantages of 
controling it—in adjusting the precise degree to 
which its general operations should be extended or 
confined, Whigs may differ from Tories, and even 
from each other. But as to its origin and its object, 
none but the most obstinate will disagree with Mr. 
Locke. In the present age, when prerogative is 
circumscribed within such just boundaries by law, 
and is reduced by other causes to yet greater de- 
bility than the law supposes, the sentiments of mo- 
derate men on both sides are useful to the com- 
munity. If the one party are disposed to encroach 
upon the rights of the Crown, the common interest 
of the state may require that the other should with 
equal firmness resist encroachment. By a spirit of 
mutual concession and mutual good-will they may 
either prevent the necessity of entering into these 
invidious discussions, or may enter upon them with 
an honest desire of discovering what is really ex- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 669 


pedient, and of doing what is really just. They 
may come equally prepared to support prerogative 
in its present form, or to avail themselves of every 
proper occasion, as well for relaxing it without in- 
sult to the Crown, as for enlarging it without dan- 
ger to the community. 


Pace 111.— Tories. 


When I was mentioning my design of re-publish- 
ing Rapin to a learned neighbour, who, to the 
logical acuteness of Hume has united the senti- 
mental delicacy of Rousseau, he told me, that To- 
ries always masked their design under the veil of 
whiggism. His observation reminded me of a 
passage in Hume, who seems to entertain very 
similar sentiments. “The Tories (says he) have 
been so long obliged to talk in the republican style, 
that they seem to have made converts of themselves 
by their hypocrisy, and to have embraced the senti- 
ments as well as the language of their adversaries.” 
Hume, vol. 1. Essay vit. — For this conduct, 
which patriots will stigmatize as the meanest dis- 
simulation, and the man of the world may palliate 
as necessary caution, it is not very difficult to ac- 
count. Mankind, it is well known, are infatuated 
by the sorcery of mere words; and where offensive 
qualities, in consequence of accidental and tempo- 
rary circumstances, have been blended together 
with the most salutary, the conceptions of the mul- 
titude are too gross, and their passion too precipi- 
tate for nice discrimination. Amidst a people 


670 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


jealous of every attempt either to steal away their 
liberties by silent encroachment, or to wrest them 
by rufhian force, all kinds and all degrees of attach- 
ment to prerogative appear in a questionable shape. 
Easy it is indeed for the evil or turbulent leaders of 
a party to load with invidious names the best 
founded opinions and the best directed measures ; 
but it is not easy to lead on vulgar minds by a long 
and intricate chain of argument to any fixed con- 
viction, that the power of one is not only com- 
patible with the actual freedom of many, but even 
necessary to its regularity and its permanence — 
that the authority now scattered through numbers 
in the other component parts of our legislature, 
may be suddenly collected into a mass sufficient to 
crush the very rights they were intended to shelter 
— or that prerogative bounded by law is an equal 
barrier against the insidious ambition of the nobles, 
and the desperate rashness of the multitude. The 
conviction produced by such reasoning is feeble, 
loose, and transient. Upon the first and slightest 
impression, it is accompanied by secret repinings at 
the hard necessity of human affairs, which has ren- 
dered submission to one man the price of our secu- 
rity—it gives way at the first alarm even of imagi- 
nary danger—it is instantaneously and utterly effaced 
by those flattering descriptions of popular govern- 
ments, which the ancient orators have exhibited in 
all the dazzling colours of eloquence, and which the 
history of almost every ancient state tends to con- 
fute by the stubborn testimony of fact. 

There is yet another reason which may induce 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 671 


the Tories to disclaim that appellation. Their an- 
cestors were, some of them secretly, and some 
openly, attached to the family of the Stuarts. 

“ Jacobitism,” indeed, as Stuart observes, “is re- 
tiring to seek obscurity and repose in its grave.” 
Page 39, on the Public Law and Constitution of 
Scotland. —It is now deprived even of the coarse 
and blunt instruments which politicians employ 
upon the credulity of the weak and the hopes of 
the sanguine. It presents not the faintest ray of 
hope to the few who yet linger in its defence, and 
it has ceased to supply even its enemies with stale 
pretences for accusation. But Jacobitism, thus for- 
lorn and hopeless, is yet supposed to have left some 
of its original taint upon the descendants of those, 
who drank in the infection from its primary source 
and in its unabated malignity. “The Crown,” it is 
said, “ will naturally bestow all its trust and power 
upon those whose principles, real or pretended, are 
most favourable to monarchical government.” 
Hume’s Essays, vol. 1. page 62.—The Tories, it is 
added, still retain their fondness for the pageantry 
of regal power, and for its gaudy appendage, the 
hierarchy. It is almost impossible that the attach- 
ment of a court party to monarchy should not de- 
generate into an attachment to the Monarch—when 
the hopes of the Stuart family are quite extin- 
guished, the personal adherents might be con- 
sistently, as it would be zealously, transferred to any 
other Prince whose principles were friendly to 
what they called the ancient constitution. 

These censures, if meant to be general are un- 


672 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


just, and where they are just, the objects of thent 
have ceased to be formidable, from the very incon- 
siderable number to which the high-flyers are now 
reduced. “A Tory loved monarchy (says Hume), 
and bore an affection to the family of the Stuarts ; 
but the latter affection was the predominant inclina- 
tion ; when that inclination can no longer be gra- 
tified, we ought to consider them as mere lovers of 
monarchy, though without abandoning liberty.” 

There is a general opinion, that whatever be the 
real abilities or seeming virtues of any adminis- 
tration, the public safety requires some party to 
stand in opposition to them. The ground of this 
opinion is the tendency which even the best and 
wisest men have to push their favourite sentiments 
to extremes, unless they be diligently watched and 
occasionally controlled. Upon the same principle 
every friend to the constitution of this country 
would wish for the existence of two parties, whether 
they be known by the names of Whig and Tory, 
or the country and the court party. In each there 
are ingredients, which, properly tempered, are sa- 
lutary to the state; and in each, also, there are 
some principles—which tend to the subversion of 
our present government, and to the introduction 
either of monarchy or republicanism. From the 
due adjustment and united efficacy of these oppo- 
site principles from their occasional resistance and 
occasional co-operation in different circumstances, 
a politician perceives in the moral world, as the 
philosopher discovers in the natural, 

Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors. 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 673 


I must, however, acknowledge, that in shunning 
a name, which, in the estimation of impartial men 
is by no means dishonourable to them, the Tories 
seem to act an ungenerous, and, upon the whole, 
an imprudent part. By avowing their sentiments, 
by separating what they retain from what they have 
abandoned, by declaring, what many of them are 
known to believe, that the dignity of the Crown 
and the freedom of the subject are inseparable, they 
would show us all that is to be feared, and all that 
is to be hoped from them. By disclaiming those 
sentiments, or affecting to muffle them up in secrecy, 
they betray a consciousness of intentions, which they 
dare not avow—they plunge themselves into greater 
odium than that which they wish to avoid—they 
encourage their adversaries to fasten upon them 
every charge, which the malevolence of party can 
ascribe, or its credulity believe—to make them sus- 
pected of the evils which they do not, and hated 
even for the good which they do—to swell their 
guilt into any magnitude, and distort it to any de- 
gree of deformity, which may serve the purposes of 
unprincipled and shameless rivals. 

If the remark of my friend be well founded, I 
think the republication of this pamphlet expedient, 
even for the very reasons which at first light render 
it unnecessary. ΤῸ know the real character of the 
partisans is always of use, and surely the represen- 
tation which Rapin has given of the Tories is not 
very disgraceful to them, nor very alarming to the 
public. In the general course of affairs they check 
the principles of whiggism from those extrava- 

VOL. II. 2x 


674 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


gancies into which political tenets, sometimes by the 
cunning, and sometimes even by the sincerity of 
those who hold them, precipitate the leaders of 
parties. Their opinions in material points do not 
stray very widely from those of the Whigs, and in 
some critical situations, where the liberty of our 
country was at stake, their conduct was precisely 
the same. 

In these enlightened times the cause of the Stuart 
family is quite sunk into oblivion, the doctrine of 
divine right is treated with derision, and the pleas 
for arbitrary power are repelled with abhorrence. 
We have little therefore to fear from a momentary 
association of the Tories with the high-flyers. But 
we have much to hope from a firm and lasting com- 
bination between the moderate men of both de- 
scriptions. In such a combination only can we 
find a secure and impregnable bulwark against the 
fatal and more imminent dangers by which we are 
now surrounded from the licentious manners of the 
age, from the relaxed state of the police, and from 
the aspiring views of those, who, if they mean not 
to drag in a democratical government, are yet 
striving to shake the pillars of regal power. 

It is remarkable, that in different circumstances 
the same language is spoken, and nearly the same 
conduct pursued by different parties. “The To- 
ries,” says Hume, “have frequently acted as re- 
publicans where either policy or revenge has en- 
gaged them to that conduct. The Whigs have also 
taken steps dangerous to liberty under colour of 
securing the settlement and succession to the 
Crown according to their views.” 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 675 


᾿ς During the reign of George I. and his immediate 
successor, the Tories levelled their complaints 
against the corruption of the Parliament and the in- 
fluence of the Crown. By the Whigs, who at first 
ventured to introduce that influence, and who after- 
wards extended it, the very same complaint has 
been urged with equal vehemence and equal plau- 
sibility in the present reign. What conclusion then 
will an unprejudiced observer draw from these ludi- 
crous inconsistencies? He will suppose either that 
the evil is exaggerated, or that neither party are 
disposed to remedy it. If their accusations be ill- 
founded, both are factious, and ought to be 
opposed ; if they be well-founded, both are, in some 
measure, insincere, and cannot be implicitly or ex- 
clusively trusted. For, when the avenues to power 
were open to them, neither party have shown any 
reluctance to execute what in others they had 
pointedly condemned, to receive, what they call, the 
wages of corruption, and to widen the sphere of 
influence. 

For my part, I am persuaded that they do not 
seriously believe, what they peremptorily assert. 
By family or personal connections—by prejudices, 
where principle has too little share, and resentment 
has too much — by the eagerness of men to partake 
those emoluments which are insufficient to gratify 
the wishes of all the candidates, they are thrown 
into a state of wild opposition. Every precipitate 
step to which they are incited by their passions 
makes a retreat, though approved by their better 
judgment, more difficult and more dishonourable, 

2x2 


676 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


“Certis quibusdam destinatisque sententiis quasi ad- 
dicti et consecrati sunt, eaque necessitate constricti, 
ut etiam que non probare soleant, ea cogantur 
constantice causa defendere.”—Tuse. τι. lib. τι. 

Mutually provoking and provoked, they are too 
often tempted to censure what they know to. be 
right, to oppose what they believe to be useful, and 
to justify in their public declarations, what in their 
moments of private reflection they cannot but con- 
demn. They are led by the mechanical power of 
example to support a system where the public hap- 
piness is often sacrificed to private cabals—the evil 
issuing from those cabals is seldom foreseen, and, if 
foreseen, seldom regarded; and even the good de- 
serves to be sometimes considered rather as the 
accidental result of their actions than as the imme- 
diate aim of the agents themselves. 


Pace 115.—American war. 


My mind is, I trust, superior to the petty vanity 
of wantoning in paradox, and especially upon sub- 
jects where the character of my superiors and the 
interest of my country are concerned. Yet I cannot 
help expressing my hopes, that the evils of which 
we loudly complain, and under some of which we 
really labour, admit of a remedy which it is not 
very difficult to apply. In the late struggles con- 
cerning America, 

Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra. 
All parties carried their animosities to unwarranta- 
ble lengths, and therefore all should now concur in 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 677 


alleviating the calamities to which those animosities 
have given rise. Experience has shown us, that 
whatever the weakness or the wickedness of some 
partizans may be, the general malignity of party is 
far less than it has been represented by the wicked, 
and believed by the weak. That malignity is gra- 
dually corrected by time—it is made harmless by 
the temperature of happy circumstances—it may be 
quite purged away by the steady use of vigorous 
remedies in those who are infected by it. When 
the power of the King is defined with such legal 
precision, and the business of government conducted 
with such systematic regularity, I see nothing in 
the principles of moderate Whigs and Tories which 
ought to prevent honest men from concurrence in 
the administration of Government. By such con- 
currence what is amiss in either party may be rec- 
tified—what is right may be called forth into action 
for the best purposes. 

Do I then suppose it possible for men to divest 
themselves of their ambition? No, surely; but I 
wish them to gratify it upon those honourable terms, 
which may put them above the necessity of cherish- 
ing mean prejudices, and of stooping to yet meaner 
misrepresentations. I wish to see a strong phalanx 
of avowed Whigs and Tories set in array against 
a dark and desperate race of men, who have lately 
risen up among us, whose real views are quite un- 
searchable, and whose conduct, so far as it can be 
known, possesses neither the firm texture of system, 
nor the delicate exterior of honour. 


678 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Something of this kind will, I hope, be ultimately 
effected by a late coalition. 

I am aware how wide a field that event has 
opened for the display of puny wit and noisy rhe- 
toric ; it has staggered the obstinate and disgusted 
the superficial; it has been the subject of much 
tragical complaint, and much bitter sarcasm among 
the Vatinii of modern times, who, endeavouring to 
cajole both parties, were by both rejected. With — 
these men it is fruitless to expostulate, and it were 
indecent to plead the authority of such examples for 
direct and personal railing. Rather let me join my 
wishes to those of many virtuous men, who were 
neither surprised nor offended by this political mi- 
racle, and who, in the indissoluble union of parties, 
whom passion, rather than principle, has kept 
asunder, expect a happy termination of those in- 
testine divisions by which the country has been so 
long and so fatally convulsed. Even the inferior 
ranks of society will at last recover from the de- 
lirum into which they have been thrown, by the 
calumnies of disappointed men; and the motives of 
the coalition will, I hope, be more clearly under- 
stood, and more generally approved, when the ef- 
fects of it in restoring the stability, the dignity, and 
the energy of government, shall be more widely felt. 


Pace 116.— Fox and North. 


Every artifice is now employed to fix the eyes of 
the public upon two famous leaders, and to keep 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 679 


the merits of their cause, and the virtues of their 
adherents out of sight. I know not whether the 
conduct of these statesmen admit of complete justi- 
fication: and amidst the complicated interests and 
tempestuous scenes of public life, who is there that 
never swerves from the plain and strait path? but 
the guilt of it has been industriously exaggerated, 
and accusations have been brought against it rather 
ungraciously, I think, and indelicately by some men, 
who are known to have been capable of acting with 
any party—who are suspected of being faithful to 
none—and have therefore forfeited the esteem and 
confidence of all. 

Upon a calm and serious attention to the merits 
of those leaders, I think the country may derive 
from them the most interesting services. They 
possess great knowledge, splendid talents, and that 
maturity of judgment which experience alone can 
bestow. ΤΤέχναι δὲ ἑτέρων ἕτεραι. The supposed 
inactivity of ———— will be supplied by the un- 
wearied vigour of ———-. The impetuosity of 
— will be corrected by the discretion of 
For the one we may apologise as Agamemnon did 
for his brother, 

Πολλάκι yap μεθέίει re, καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλει πονέεσθαι, 
"Ουτ᾽ ὄκνῳ εἴκων, οὔτ᾽ ἀφραδίῃσι νόοιο. Hom. Il. χ.]. 121. 

To the other we may apply the splendid imagery 
of Pindar. 


/ a > A 
-π- τόλμα yap ἐικὼς 
θυμὸν ἐριβρεμετᾶν θερῶν λεόντων 
2 , = ~ oe > oN / ξ 
ἐν πόνῳ" μῆτιν δ᾽ ἀλώπηξ, 
αἰετοῦ ἅτ᾽ ἀναπιτναμενὰ 


ῥόμβον toxet.—Pindar. Isthm, Ode IV. Antistroph. III. 


680 ON RAPIN'S DISSERTATION 


Pace 117.—Duke of Portland. 


As to the integrity of that excellent man who 
presides over the treasury bench, it is placed above 
the reach of suspicion itself ; and the honest inten- 
tions of his new associate are gradually bursting 
through the cloud of calamities that darkened his 
administration. In the adherents of both are to be 
found men of the noblest families, the most distin- 
guished abilities, and the most irreproachable cha- 
racters. 


Pace 117.---- ». Pitt. 


Happy shall I be to find this respectable associa- 
tion strengthened and adorned by the accession of a 
rising senator, whom his more rational admirers 
may wish to see connected with other colleagues, 
employed in a less doubtful cause, and supporting 
by his counsels that government which it were an 
inglorious triumph to disturb by his popularity. In 
the character of this extraordinary man, we see a 
rare and magnificent assemblage of excellencies, as 
well natural as acquired, of attainments not less 
solid than brilliant, extensive learning, refined taste, 
and discernment, both widely comprehensive and 
minutely accurate. By a kind of intuition he seems 
to grasp that knowledge of men and things, to which 
others are compelled to ascend by slow and patient 
toil. His genius, in the mean time, acquires fresh 
lustre, from integrity hitherto uncorrupted, and, I 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 681 


hope, incorruptible. The fierceness of ambition he 
tempers, or is capable of tempering, by the softest 
and most exquisite feelings of humanity. 

Ὦ παῖ γένοιο πατρὸς [ἠπιώτερος,] 

Τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ὁμοῖος.---ϑορῇ. Aj. 

To the generous ardour of youth he has added 
the extensive views of age, and he may, without 
flattery, be said to possess at once the captivating 
eloquence of Callidius, and the yet more fascinating 
policy of Scipio.—“ Est enim non veris tantum vir- 
tutibus mirabilis, sed arte quadam ab juventa ad os- 
tentationem earum compositus."—See Livy, book 
xxIv. vol. 11. p. 454, and Tully’s Brutus, p. 663, edit. 
Vergerg. 

To those who reflect on the fallaciousness of po- 
litical professions, the uncertainty of human resolu- 
tions, and the intoxicating effects of habitual power, 
even the unjust clamours that have been raised 
against the coalition may appear not without their 
use. Our governors may become more anxious to 
deserve some portion of that popularity which their 
rivals are said to have already gained, or, disdaining 
to share a prize for which the meanest contend, they 
may lift up their views to the acquisition of solid 
and lasting glory. The violence of opposition will 
cement their union, and its vigilance repress their 
rashness. Even the abilities of those with whom 
they are struggling will call forth more vigorous ex- 
ertions, not in the unprofitable and ostentatious 
conflicts of parliamentary chivalry, but in those salu- 
tary counsels which gradually efface the impressions 
of calumny, and stamp upon the reputation of those 


682 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


by whom they are planned, the brightest and most 
indelible marks of wisdom. While their motives 
are honest, and their measures judicious, they may 
look with indifference upon reproaches which they 
have not deserved, and which, from the weariness 
or the fickleness of those who now repeat them, 
will quickly drop into oblivion. Relinquendum est 
tempus conviciis quo senescant.—Tacit. 

From the agitations of our hopes and fears—from 
the perversion of judgment, which is always pro- 
duced by personal affection and personal antipathy— 
and, above all, from the secret bias which our pri- 
vate interests throw upon our decisions concerning 
the merit of public characters, it is scarce possible, 
I acknowledge, for the best and wisest among us 
either to examine this subject with sufficient pre- 
cision, or to speak of it with unaffected moderation. 
But posterity will be placed in better circumstances, 
and influenced by a better temper, in forming their 
judgment. They may see, that the good men of 
all parties are ashamed of a contest in which they 
have been the slaves of passion, or the dupes of 
cunning; they may think that, if contention had 
been perpetuated among us, ruin must have ensued— 
that reconciliation could not be accomplished 
without real inconsistence and seeming insincerity— 
and that all those concessions which the obstinate 
call cowardice, and the rash pronounce treachery, 
are in reality but the sacrifices of pride and resent- 
ment to the public good. They will perceive that 
the inward distractions and external disasters of 
this kingdom are to be chiefly imputed, not to the 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 683 


real principles of Whigs or Tories, but to those 
miscreants, who, having no principle, have practiced 
on the weakness, abused the confidence, and usurped 
the authority of both. 

“Stare omnes debemus, tanquam in orbe aliquo 
reipublice ; qui quoniam versetur, eam deligere 
partem, ad quam nos illius utilitas, salusque con- 
verterit. Neque enim inconstantis puto sententiam, 
tanquam aliquod navigium, atque cursum, ex rei- 
publice tempestate moderari. Ego vero hec didici, 
hee vidi, hee scripta legi; heec de sapientissimis & 
clarissimus viris, et in hac republica, & in aliis civi- 
tatibus, monumenta nobis litere prodiderunt; non 
semper easdem sententias ab iisdem, sed, quascum- 
que reipublice status, inclinatio temporum, ratio 
concordiz postularet, esse defendendas.’—Orat. pro 
Cn. Planc. page 425, edit. Grut. 


Pace 118.—Church Tories. 


“ As to ecclesiastical parties, we may observe, that 
in all ages of the world priests have been enemies 
to liberty, and it is certain, that this steady conduct 
of them must have been founded on fixed reasons of 
interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and 
expressing our thonghts, is always fatal to priestly 
power, and to those pious frauds on which it is 
commonly founded; and by an infallible connexion 
which prevails among every species of liberty, this 
privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never 
yet been enjoyed, but in a free government. Hence, 
it will happen, in such a government as that of 


684 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Britain, that the established clergy, while things are 
in their natural situation, will always be of the 
court party.” Hume’s Essays, page 63.—If the 
establishment did not support the state by which 
it is created and protected, it would act a very un- 
just and very absurd part. But why should the 
clergy be ashamed of adhering to the court, “ while 
things are in their natural situation,” while the 
laws are faithfully executed, and the government is 
wisely administered? In a contrary situation of 
affairs, they have shown themselves strenuous ad- 
vocates for our civil rights, and in the present age 
they have avowed the doctrines, and extended the 
influence of religious liberty. Priestly power is 
now diminished in its bulk, and disarmed of its 
terrors; what remains of it is not founded on pious 
fraud, and has nothing to fear from the most un- 
bounded liberty of thinking. Had Mr. Rapin been 
eye-witness to the controversies which have been 
agitated in this century, he would not have in- 
cluded all the members of the Church of England 
under the name of Tories. Hume, probably, be- 
stowed upon those controversies a transient glance, 
and was not very correct in calculating their bene- 
ficial effects, which, if they could not subdue his 
prejudices, must have confuted his accusations. 


Pace 119.—Church of England. 


It will be difficult to name a time, compared with 
the present, when the Church of England was 
adorned by prelates who were. possessed of learning 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 685 


at once so elegant and so profound, who united such 
liberality of spirit with such purity of morals, and 
were distinguished by so much faith without timid 
credulity, and so much piety without trifling super- 
stition. 

Among men whose profession calls upon them to 
think justly, and whose education enables them to 
think for themselves, some difference of opinion 
must naturally be expected on the more contro- 
verted subjects of politics and religion. That 
difference, however, would, in all probability, be 
neither greater, nor less, if there were no articles 
to be subscribed, and even no establishment to be 
supported. But the disputes of this enlightened 
age are surely exempt from the odium theologicum 
which disgraced the writings of our forefathers— 
they are conducted without bitterness of temper, 
and without brutality of language—they are seldom 
employed on those abstruse topics which inflame, 
indeed, the passions, and, perhaps, exercise the in- 
genuity of the choleric and conceited dogmatist, but 
which are little calculated either to convince the 
judgment, or to rectify the conduct of the sincere 
and rational believer. They are usually undertaken 
by men who bring to the task as well the honesty 
to embrace truth, wherever it is to be found, as the 
ability to examine it, when it is to be found with 
difficulty, and who are therefore prepared, like the 
best philosophers of antiquity, et refellere sine per- 
tinacia et refelli sine iracundia. — Imperfections, 
doubtless, and even inconsistencies, may be dis- 
covered by a searching eye in men of the most 


686 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


cultivated understandings, and the most benevolent 
hearts—but where ?—I boldly ask the keenest ob- 
server of human nature, and the fiercest enemy of 
ecclesiastical establishments—where is the prelate 
who has presumed to persecute a brother-clergy- 
man, or, who in the most unguarded moments of 
debate, has dropped the slightest hint in favour of 
persecution? In reality, the mild and heavenly 
temper which breathes through the works of Hoad- 
ley, has spread its auspicious influence over the 
minds of those who do, and of those who do not, 
adopt his speculative opinions. 

If this change (for I confess it to be such) is 
ascribed to the improved manners of the age, let not 
the clergy be excluded from all share in an im- 
provement to which their own literary labours have 
eminently contributed ; nor let their moderation be 
imputed merely to the sordid fear of acting ill, when 
it may proceed from the more generous ambition of 
acting well. In their academical education the 
minds of our clergy are not heated, like those of our 
forefathers, with the rage of party. Many of them 
withdraw occasionally from the solitude of a college, 
to enlarge their views and to refine their sentiments 
amidst the activity and elegance of common life, 
In their academical studies they have left the thorny 
and crooked mazes of scholastic learning, in order 
to pursue the sublime speculations of mathematics 
and natural philosophy, or to expatiate in the softer 
and more captivating scenes of polite literature. 
They are encouraged not to shrink from the most 
rigorous and profound researches into the reasons 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 687 


of their faith ; and instead of wasting their attention 
upon frivolous and barren subjects, those ἐρωτήσεις 
ἀπόρους κὰι λόγους ἀκανθώδεις, (as Lucian calls them,) 
where sophists wrangle and sciolists declaim, they 
are rather accustomed to look up to Christianity 

under the awful and majestic form of a religion, 
which is ultimately designed to comprehend within 
its promises and its laws the collective interests of 
mankind. I say not that they are totally superior 
to influence from the advantages and honours which 
the church holds out to them, and which are often 
incentives to industry, and the rewards to genius ; 
but I say confidently, that they earn those honours 
with less servility to their superiors, less stiffness in 
their opinions, and far less intolerance to their an- 
tagonists than may be laid to the charge of their 
predecessors. 

For my part, I wish not to varnish over those de- 
fects which in the estimation of its sincerest well- 
wishers and noblest ornaments, may yet adhere to 
our establishment. I disdain to flatter any man, 
however elevated be his station, and however bril- 
liant his talents. But the veneration which I feel, 
and shall ever be zealous to avow for the honour of 
our church, has induced me to throw out the pre- 
ceding observations; and for the truth of them I 
appeal to the theological writings of a Lowth and 
a Shipley, of Newcombe and Porteus, of Watson 
and Law. It were easy for me to lengthen the ca- 
talogue by the names of many among the inferior 
and higher orders of clergy, who, uniting zeal for 
their cause with candour to their opponents, have 


688 ON RAPINS DISSERTATION 


employed their abilities in explaining the principles 
of natural religion, and in vindicating the evidences 
of revealed. But these excellent men can receive 
no lustre from my feeble praise—already they have 
obtained the approbation of every reader, whom it 
is an honour to please ; and to the latest posterity 
their example, I trust, will be instructive, and their 
memory, for ever, dear. 

Into this train of reflection I am led by the pee- 
vish sarcasms of certain fashionable writers, who 
have set up, I know not what, exclusive claims to 
every social virtue, and to every literary accomplish- 
ment, to the urbanity of scholars, and the impar- 
tiality of philosophers. But these men give no very 
honourable proofs of their sincerity, when they 
measure their own importance by the degradation 
of an order of men, in consequence of whose exer- 
tions religion and learning have been rescued from 
false refinement, placed upon the broadest founda- 
tions, and applied to the most salutary purposes. 

The spirit of intolerance, whether it be leagued 
with the haughtiness of philosophy, or the zeal of 
religion, is equally disgraceful to us as men, and in- 
jurious to us as citizens. At the beginning of this 
century, our indignation was roused by the cry of 
heresy and schism. In the present age our ears are 
stunned with complaints of priestly cunning and of 
priestly power. He that formerly expressed a doubt 
upon the darkest, and perhaps the most unimportant 
parts of religion, was openly charged with being a 
Latitudinarian, and secretly suspected of being a 
Deist. He that admits the most plain and useful 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 689 


of its doctrines, is now insulted with insinuations of 
the weakest folly, or the most flagitious hypocrisy. 
For these outrages against decency and justice the 
religionist found a plea in his imaginary orthodoxy, 
and the philosopher does not find a check against 
them in his boasted liberality. Experience, indeed, 
has not yet told us to what extent the spirit of per- 
secution would be carried, if the means of persecut- 
ing were possessed by the enemies of genuine Chris- 
tianity. But the virulence of their reproaches is 
no favourable omen for the candour of their actions; 
and, surely, the causes, which have operated in the 
defence of perverted religion, are likely to act with 
the same intenseness, and the same virulence in the 
support of irreligion. Even greater violence may 
be requisite to enforce opinions from which the 
human mind naturally revolts with distrust and 
horror, than to establish sentiments of the Deity, 
which, however obscured by error, and debased by 
superstition, are, upon the whole, congenial to the 
nature of man. Indifference to abstract tenets by 
no means implies a calm and upright neutrality 
towards the persons who adopt or oppose them. 
The pride of opinion is not less active on subjects 
of philosophy than upon those of religion; and 
“the secret incredulity” to which Mr. Hume as- 
cribes the bigotry and the violence of professed be- 
lievers, may find its way to the bosoms and the con- 
duct of men, who erect their claims to superior 
wisdom upon the ruins of their faith. 


VOL. III. ἄν 


690 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Pace 126.—Liberty. 


Liberty is a splendid object. The love of liberty 
is a passion on the very eccentricities of which every 
virtuous man will look with pity and almost with 
veneration, while it is unmixed with the rancour of 
faction, or the selfishness of ambition. But there 
are weaknesses, and even corruptions of the human 
mind, which assume the specious appearance of that 
passion, and yet possess none of its nobler qualities. 
Hence many boast of their attachment to freedom, 
when they are really actuated by an untameable 
fierceness of temper, by a wanton propensity to 
change, by a lurking lust of power, and by that 
restless impatience of subordination, which is gene- 
rated by pride, and rankles into malignity. To such 
persons every true friend of his country will apply 
the well-known maxim of Cato, “ cum pares fient 
superiores esse coeperint.” He will view them with 
a watchful eye, while they are destined to walk in 
the humbler stations of society; and he will take a 
just alarm when he finds that they can terrify the 
higher as well as inflame the lower classes of men, 
and that they climb from popularity ill-gotten to 
power which is seldom employed well. The govern- 
ment for which they contend is not far removed 
from a total change of the constitution. For what- 
ever professions they may hold out, and whatever 
subterfuges they may employ, there is reason to fear 
that their ultimate view is to rule, rather than to 
obey. Under this description may be included the 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 691 


greater part of those persons who are called by 
Rapin “ Republican Whigs.” At the same time I 
most seriously deplore that harsh spirit of accusa- 
tion which brands every warm and resolute advocate 
for liberty with the odious name of republican. 
These accusers, while they speak a different lan- 
guage, are, I suspect, influenced by the same motives 
with those persons to whom alone they ought to 
impute any flagitious design of subverting the state. 
The haughty high-flyer would contract liberty— 
the turbulent republican affects to enlarge it—but 
the real wish of both is, that they may be themselves 
exempted from control, and invested with the 
power of controling others. 

Montesquieu, and many other able writers on 
Legislation, have combated the vulgar error, that a 
democracy is always the best, and a monarchy always 
the worst species of government. Sever, in his ad- 
mirable observations on the Roman Polity, produces 
from Don Cassius a very sensible remark on the 
different modes of government :—* However flatter- 
_ing a popular government may appear in the eyes 
of the visionary advocates of natural equality, it has 
been found, by repeated experience, to contain no 
properties really correspondent to its name. Mo- 
narchy, on the contrary, terrible as it may be to the 
ear, is not without its advantages to society.” P. 
198.— In this country, happily, we are not yet re- 
duced to the sad necessity of exposing ourselves to 
the evils either of a monarchical, or a democratical 
government, in their unmixed forms, 

It is a most fatal error to suppose that the 

εν 2 


692 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


greatest degree of liberty, as some men understand 
it, is upon the whole the best. On the contrary, 
we are authorised by the opinions of the ablest 
writers, and by the experience of the most celebrated 
states, to affirm, that liberty has often been destroyed 
in consequence of the measures that were employed 
to strengthen and to extend it. 

By the lex Hortentia the Plebiscita were invested 
with the full force of laws, an event, upon which 
Bever makes these pertinent reflections ; “ this in- 
judicious aggrandizement of the lowest order of the 
state, at the expence of all the rest, together with a 
too promiscuous communication of the highest ho- 
nours and offices which soon followed, however 
flattering it might have been to plebeian vanity, 
gave a most fatal wound to the true interests of the 
community in general. The influence of the Se- 
nate being thus abridged, and the deference to the 
provident counsels of the better sort greatly dimi- 
nished, the blind and giddy multitude broke loose 
into every extravagance of boundless liberty. In- 
toxicated with the excess of faction, they became > 
the easy tools of their designing and ambitious de- 
magogues, who having at first employed them to 
subdue their own rivals and antagonists, in the end 
made slaves of them all. The primitive constitu- 
tion, thus lost to its original virtue and purity, 
grown unwieldy, and fatigued with all those vicissi- 
tudes and distractions which are so naturally ap- 
pendant to this tumultuous and imperfect form of 
government, sunk, at last, with its own weight, into 
the arms of military and arbitrary power.’—Bever, 
Ὁ fo: 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 693 


“May this melancholy and effecting example 
humble the insolence of republican licentiousness ! 
May it point out to all factious opposers of lawful 
authority, the very thin partitions which divide the 
extremes of liberty from the extremes of tyranny ; 
and convince them, that without the restraint, no 
less than the protection of regular government, men 
would daily worry and devour each other, like the 
savage beasts of the desert! May it dispose them 
to look with reverence, duty, and gratitude, to that 
constitution of which they are members ; a consti- 
tution that is the pride of civil policy ; and under 
whose wise and benign auspices they must be their 
own greatest enemies if they do not enjoy every 
blessing that man can reasonably expect in the 
compound and imperfect state of human society.”— 
Ibid. p. 102. 

The consequences of an injudicious and extrava- 
gant zeal for freedom are most forcibly described by 
Plato in the eighth book de Republica: 

Ap’ οὖν καὶ ὃ δημοκοατία ὁρίϑεται ἀγαθὸν, ἡ τούτου 
ἀπληστία καὶ ταύτην καταλύει. Λέγεις δ᾽ αὐτὴν τί 
ὁρίϑεσθαι; τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, εἶπον" τοῦτο yap που ἐν δημιο- 
κρατουμένη πόλει ἀκούσαις ἂν ὡς ἔχει τε κάλλιστον, 
καὶ διὰ ταῦτα ἐν μόνη ταύτῃ ἄξιον οἰκεῖν ὅστις φύσει 
ἐλεύθερος-- Λέγεται γὰρ δή (ἔφη) καὶ πολὺ τοῦτο τὸ 
ῥῆμα. ἾΑν᾽ οὖν (ἦν δ᾽ ἐγὼ) ὅπερ ἦα νῦν δὴ ἐρῶν, ἡ τοῦ 
τοιούτου ἀπληστία, καὶ ἡ τῶν ἄλλων ἀμέλεια, καὶ 
ταύτην τὴν πολιτείαν μεθίστησί τε καὶ παρασκευάξει 
τυραννίδος δεηθῆναι; Πώς; ἔφη: ὅταν (οἶμαι) δημο- 
κρατουμένη πόλις, ἐλευθερίας διψύσασα, κακᾶν ὀινοχόων 
προστατούντων τύχη καὶ ποῤῥωτέρω τοῦ δέοντος ἀκράτου 


694 ON: RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


εἰυτῆς μεθυσθῆ, τοὺς ἄοχοντας δή, ἂν μὴ πάνυ πρᾶοι ὦσι; 
καὶ πολλὴν παρέχωσι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, κολάϑει, αἰτιω- 
μένη, ὡς μιαρούς τε καὶ ὀλιγαρχικούς.----Δρῶσι γὰρ 
(ἔφη) τοῦτο---- Τοὺς δέ γε (εἶπον) τῶν ἀρχόντων κατη- 
kdous προπηλακίϑει, ὡς ἐθελοδούλους τε καὶ οὐδὲν ὄντας, 
τοὺς δε ἄρχοντας μὲν ἀρχομένοις, ἀρχομένους δε ἄρχουσιν 
ὁμοίους ἰδίᾳ τε καὶ δημοσίᾳ ἐπαινεῖ τε καὶ τιμᾷ. ἄρ᾽ οὐκ 
ἀνάγκη ἐν τοιαύτη πόλει ἐπὶ πᾶν τὸ τῆς ἐλευθερίας 
iévas;—Plat. de Repub. lib. vii. vol. 11. p. 206, edit. 
Massey. 

I cannot offend the man of learning by bringing 
the whole of this passage to his remembrance ; and, 
for the sake of the unlearned reader, I wish it were 
in my power to convey to him the exquisite beauties 
of the original through the medium of a translation, 


Pace 129.— Establishments. 


The episcopalians have abandoned many of the 
illiberal prejudices, and much of that controversial 
acrimony, which prevailed in the beginning of this 
century. Upon principles of justice, therefore, as 
well as of policy, they should meet with candid and 
respectful treatment from those who neither hold 
their opinions nor approve of their discipline. 
There is no reason, indeed, for charging the more 
rational and learned of the non-conformists, either 
with insidious views of subverting the church, or 
with personal animosity towards the sincere and en- 
lightened members of it. 

The general question respecting establishments 
has been lately agitated with great warmth and great 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 695 


ability. ‘To engage in a formal and plenary defence 
of establishments falls not within the limited com- 
pass and more immediate design of these notes. 
After a serious and diligent attention to the subject, 
Iam led by reasons of public utility to declare 
myself a most decided advocate for a national 
church; and for reasons of the same kind I should 
wish to see it erected upon the broadest and most 
comprehensive plan. Thus I should despise the 
narrowness and detest the intolerance of a system, 
which admitting the Socinian should exclude the 
Athanasian. But I should venerate the wisdom 
and the generosity of an establishment, into which 
the Pelagian and the Predestinarian might be al- 
lowed to enter, without the necessity of declaring 
their sentiments, without the power of defending 
them in a controversial form from the pulpit, and 
without the slightest restraints from declaring and 
defending them through the medium of the press. 
By reducing the number, and changing the form 
of doctrinal points, by substituting intelligible terms 
for confused ideas, by excluding the obscure jargon 
which philosophy has introduced, and by employing 
the simpler language in which the scriptures are 
written, we might avoid the supposed incon- 
veniences of a subscription, either to articles as 
they are now framed, or to the Bible only.—* Non 
enim pietas subtiles arduarum et difficilium questi- 
onum disceptatores, et curiosos latentium et abdi- 
tarum rerum investigatores, sed simplices verissimi 
verb:, hoc est, mortui et resuscitati Christi Pro- 
fessores, et fidos voluntatis sue executores requirit.” 


696 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


—G. Cassander de officio pii et Public Tranquilli- 
tatis veré Amantis Viri, page 29. 

Between dogmatism, which decides too much, 
and latitudinarianism, which confounds all distinc- 
tions, there is a middle point where good men may 
safely rest, and which candid men may easily find. 
There is a spirit, which by moderation is able to 
multiply the friends of the church, and by firmness 
to counteract the designs of its enemies. There is 
a possibility, at least, for wise and good men to unite 
in constructing a system with precision sufficient 
to secure the great interests of religious truth—with 
discrimination sufficient to accomplish all the pur- 
poses of political utility—and with purity sufficient 
to give the Church of England a decisive superiority 
over every establishment and every sect which have 
hitherto appeared in the Christian world. Under 
such a system we might look for that peace which 
Bacon has so beautifully described. “ It establishes 
faith, it kindleth charity, the outward peace of the 
church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it 
turneth the labours of writing and reading contro- 
versies into treatises of mortification and devotion.” 
We should be rescued from the false unities which 
the same writer thus laments: “The one is when 
the peace is grounded upon an implicit ignorance, 
for all colours will agree in the dark; the other 
when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of 
contraries in fundamental points.” But these surely 
are few and simple; they require little explanation, 
and admit little controversy. 

When the artless perspicuity of scripture is over- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 697 


laid by the abstruse subtilties of metaphysics—when 
reason either refines away what is made clear, or 
dogmatizes on what is left doubtful by Omnisci- 
ence —when ceremonies, which ought to adorn 
religion, engender a motley brood of doctrines, 
which deform and disgrace it—it is tobe feared, that 
assent will often be professed without conviction, 
and conformity often practised without approbation. 
—“Truth and falsehood,” as Bacon says, “ would 
then become like the iron and clay in the toes of 
Nebuchadnezzar’s image—they might cleave; but 
would not incorporate.” 

At present I shall say nothing farther as to the 
general merits of a question on which I have be- 
stowed no inconsiderable share of attention, and 
have collected a larger stock of materials than my 
professional engagements will now permit me to 
arrange. I must, however, take the liberty of ex- 
amining some new arguments which have lately 
appeared against the utility of ecclesiastical esta- 
blishments, and which, from the high character and 
extensive circulation of the work which contains 
them, deserve to be seriously considered. 

The Appendix to the English Review is conducted 
by a writer whose acuteness of observation, and 
energy of diction, lift him far above the vulgar herd 
of political declaimers. I shall, therefore, place his 
arguments in his own words before the reader, that 
I may not be accused either of misrepresenting their 
tendency, or of disordering their arrangement.— 
“The Emperor, as a preparation for extending his 
temporal dominions, fills his coffers by encroaching 


698 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


on the church, The bold spirt of innovation in 
matters relating to religion, has continued to pro- 
duce new effects since the times of Martin Luther 
to the present. The conduct of the Emperor is an 
important effect of this spirit—other effects will 
follow in the course of time—all hierarchies, in the 
present daring age, have reason to tremble—unpro- 
tected by religious veneration and awe, the riches of 
the church prove a tempting bait to the unhallowed 
views of state policy—the example of America too, 
will operate towards the same end—for that conti- 
nent will prove the fallacy of the doctrine, that no 
state can subsist without an established religion — 
an unlimited toleration will make as many religions 
as there are families; and it is to be apprehended 
that a very great indifference to all religion will be 
the consequence — the world will laugh at the pre- 
tensions of the priests more than ever—the spirit of 
reform in England will at last reach the church— 
the Bishop of Landaff advises to take from the rich 
clergy and give to the poor—politicians will im- 
prove on his plan, perhaps, and discover from the 
records of civil and sacred history, that pomp and 
parade accord not with the humility of the gospel, 
and that the purity of Christianity is ever best 
maintained amidst poverty, and various other 
sufferings and hardships.” — English Review for 
July, 1783, page 78. 

How far it may be an instance of sound morality 
to seize on the revenues which belong to the church, 
and which are fastened to it by the strongest ties 
which can confer security on civil property — whe- 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 699 


ther it be consistent with political wisdom to 
pamper laymen in luxury, by the aid of treasures, 
which, if judiciously dispensed, are barely sufficient 
to furnish a decent support to the clergy — what 
probability there may be that men of talents will 
continue in an establishment which holds out no 
incentives to industry, and no distinctions to genius 
—these are points of which I at present waive the 
discussion. If in the spirit of reform, “ which is at 
last to reach the church,” nothing more be implied 
than is explicitly allowed — if only the advice of an 
illustrious prelate be followed “ in taking from the 
rich and giving to the poor’—if the improvement 
of politicians upon his plan produce nothing beyond 
the discovery, “that pomp and parade accord not 
with the humility of the gospel,” I am not in the 
number of those timorous and grovelling spirits who 
tremble at the prospect of impending reformation. 
If the “religious veneration and awe” to which the 
author alludes be the offspring of abject superstition— 
and if the church be found unworthy of protection 
on the more solid grounds of public utility, who 
would he senseless or shameless enough to stand 
forth the champion of so despicable an establish- 
ment? Again, if the “pretensions of priests, at 
which the world is to laugh more than ever,” be 
confined to the right of deceiving and of plundering, 
let the richest spoils of usurpation be plucked from 
them, and let their characters be hunted down by all 
the infamy which is due to detected imposture. 
Upon these tragical consequences I smile with calm 
content, because the premises from which they flow 
are in this country incapable of proof. 


700 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


“The purity of Christianity,” we are told, “is 
ever best maintained amidst poverty, and various 
other sufferings and hardships.” This position may 
be justly doubted, and the purpose for which it is 
here introduced may be as justly suspected. Sup- 
pose that any statesman is convinced of its truth, 
and that he goes forward to such measures as are 
tacitly recommended, or, at least, such as may be 
amply justified upon the principles which the Re- 
viewer would establish— suppose that in con- 
sequence of his ardent wishes to preserve the purity 
of the gospel even from the slightest taint, our poli- 
tician should deliver all good Christians from the 
embarrassments of their property, depress them be- 
low other citizens, to whom they are superior in 
virtue and in knowledge, and ravish from them all 
the comforts and the privileges of social life. Let 
us farther suppose, that he was impelled to make 
them miserable here, from the professed design of 
enabling them more effectually to work out their 
own salvation hereafter. Perhaps some humane 
and sensible observers might think that his appre- 
hensions of hierarchy, and his love of Christianity, 
had carried him beyond the bounds of strict pru- 
dence. His regard for toleration would be a little 
problematical to the unhappy sufferers, and his 
policy, though very profound in the eyes of men 
who are guided by the superior light of philosophy, 
would be very unintelligible to those who are con- 
tent to creep along under the weak and humble di- 
rection of common sense. His zeal in defending 
Christianity by these methods would soon be at an 


Ld 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 701 


end through the paucity of its objects; for I ima- 
gine that the candidates for such distinctions would 
not be numerous ; and though the heroic fortitude 
of a few might support them under the trying loss 
of every temporal advantage, the many would be 
satisfied with his less valuable favours, and would 
be more grateful to him for his protection because 
they had no religion, than for his wholesome se- 
verities because they embraced what they believed 
to be true. 

It is remarkable, that Mr. Jenyns, in his Defence 
of Revelation, and the Reviewer in his panegyric 
upon it, have fallen into the same train of ideas as 
to the advantages which Christianity derives from 
the poverty, the insignificance, and the distresses 
of its followers. To the paradoxes of the essayist, 
and the sarcasms of the reviewer, I shall oppose the 
plain good sense of Hoadley. 

“ But it is a sad thing to find men endeavouring 
to represent the Christian religion as teaching men 
to throw off all care about the happiness of human 
society, and to look upon themselves as unconcerned 
in the outward good estate of their families, their 
neighbours, and their posterity ; and all this, merely 
because it was thought necessary by the great author 
of it, to lay down some precepts in it against re- 
garding the temporal things of this life above God 
and our duty. This must make people apt to be- 
lieve it an enemy, and not a friend to human so- 
ciety."—Measures of Submission, &c. page 145. 

The conduct of the Emperor is represented as an 
important effect of the bold spirit of innovation, 


702 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


“ which has produced new effects from the time of 
Martin Luther to the present.” In curbing the im- 
petuous and inhuman spirit of persecution, and in 
sheltering every religious sect from insult as well as 
injury, the Emperor is to be commended as a man. 
He is not to be censured as a politician for applying 
to the real exigencies of the state that wealth, 
which swelled the pride, fostered the laziness, and 
extended the pernicious tyranny of ecclesiastics. 
Yet this sagacious politician seems to haye hitherto 
proceeded, not with the blind and daring fury of an 
innovator, but with the discriminating and tempe- 
rate genius of a true reformer. He is not so far 
fascinated by the hardy spirit of enterprise as to 
rush on the perilous experiment of subverting a re- 
ligion which the piety of his forefathers had esta- 
blished, and the majority of his subjects embraced. 
He has not yet soared up to those sublime and mag- 
nificent theories which represent true Christianity 
as quite incompatible with the duties and the inte- 
rests of civil society, and as adapted only to the sul- 
len gloom of the bigot, the rapturous extasies of 
the enthusiast, or the dull inactivity of the recluse. 
He has given to the Protestants the indulgence to 
which they have been long entitled. He has plucked 
from the Papists the opulence which they had long 
abused. He has shown his humanity in forbidding 
them to harass each other with virulent reproaches, 
and his good sense in excluding from the pulpit 
those controversial subjects which have no immedi- 
ate tendency to improve the bulk of mankind, and 
which are likely to be discussed with better temper, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 703 


and with better effect, in the productions of the press. 
Yet in this celebrated event there are some particu- 
lars which a sober constitutionalist will survey with 
a jealous eye, and which ought to repress the tri- 
umphs of those, who, overlooking or suppressing 
many important distinctions, would hold up the 
conduct of the Emperor as worthy of imitation by 
a British legislature. In absolute monarchies the 
subjects are both relieved and oppressed with less 
difficulty, and with fewer delays, than in a mixed 
government. Uncontrolled by a watchful Parlia- 
ment, supported by a numerous army, and opposed 
only by the murmurs of priests, the execrations of 
devotees, and the complaints of an astonished and 
defenceless multitude, the Emperor has, in the lan- 
guage of his encomiast, “ filled his coffers by en- 
croaching on the church.”—A King of England, in 
the same circumstances, might, without danger to 
his crown, and almost without resistance from his 
people, effect the same encroachments. Under pre- 
tence of restraining ecclesiastical pride, and “ pre- 
serving the gospel purity,” he might scatter with 
wild profusion, or dispense with insidious policy, 
the revenues of the English church, among the un- 
principled and unfeeling instruments of his rapacity 
his ambition, or his revenge. Is there, indeed, any 
change which he might not accomplish for the pur- 
poses of oppression, and, adding mockery to violence, 
dignify his plunders with the nickname of reform ? 
The power which had crushed the church, might, 
in its career, press forward to more inviting objects. 
By one edict it might wrest from us all our civil 


704 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


and political rights, and subvert by one blow the 
whole fabric of our ancient constitution. 

The weakness of man, combined with his pride, 
misguides him in the choice of what he praises, and 
what he imitates. Impatience under imaginary 
evils plunges him into those which are real—unskil- 
fulness in remedying the real frequently overwhelms 
him with other evils more heavy, more extensive, 
and more incurable. Alarmed, therefore, at the ea- 
gerness of my countrymen to pursue every phantom 
of novelty, sensible of the dazzling appearance 
which the supposed proceedings both of the Congress 
and the Emperor will bear to common observers, 
and foreseeing the use to which these precedents 
will be applied by those of them who do not per- 
ceive the fallaciousness of their own reasonings, I 
have examined in various points of view the peremp- 
tory assertions and specious arguments of this very 
masterly writer. 

“The example of America,” we are informed, 
will prove the fallacy of the doctrine that no state 
can subsist without an established religion.” Now, 
the fact itself is not to be hastily admitted, and 
though admitted, ought to be cautiously applied. 
If the Americans possess the uncommon sagacity 
which is ascribed to them by their admirers, and 
which has, in many instances, been successfully em- 
ployed by them, amidst the difficulties and the dan- 
gers of a lingering war, they will not lavish upon 
experiments in religion, that skill, which may be 
more profitably exercised upon other matters, where 
it is more immediately required. Looking back to 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 705 


the states of Europe, they will find something to 
follow as well as to avoid, in their own religious 
institutions.—* Before the United Provinces set the 
example, toleration was deemed incompatible with 
good government ; and it was thought impossible, 
that a number of religious sects could live together 
in harmony and peace, and have all of them an equal 
attachment to their common country, and to each 
other.” Hume's Essays, vol. 1. page 13. 

In the conduct of this republic, the Americans 
may find an unequivocal proof that toleration is 
not inconsistent with an establishment, and that 
both are consistent with the public welfare—in the 
modifications of both they may introduce many im- 
provements which European wisdom has not yet 
suggested, and which European refinements do not 
admit. 

The early and rooted prepossessions of the Ame- 
ricans are unfavourable to the gaudy trappings of 
an hierarchy. Their peculiar circumstances may 
allow, and their unprejudiced judgments approve of, 
a more enlarged and regular toleration, than the 
limited monarchies of Europe, however liberal be 
their spirit, and however comprehensive their views, 
have hitherto ventured to adopt. But they may 
still find one mode of religion in a practical as well 
as a speculative light, preferable to another—and 
accordingly, we are told, they have already given a 
preference to the presbyterian form of worship, pro- 
viding for the security of those who dissent from it, 

But I will not suffer my mind to rove in conjec- 
tures about what the Americans may do, nor shall 

VOL. 11]. 22 


706 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


I assert positively what they have done. I will for 
a moment admit the fact to be as the Reviewer has 
stated it. What consequences must we draw for 
the regulation of our own conduct? From a go- 
vernment which is just beginning to be formed, to 
those which have already been formed for many 
ages, and which are strengthened not only by the 
authority of law, but by the firmer support of long 
habit and public opinion, we ought to be extremely 
wary in our conclusions. May not that be safe and 
eligible in the one, which is dangerous or even im- 
practicable in the other? Has the event hitherto 
shown that which is attempted by the Americans is 
upon the whole more salutary, than what is prac- 
tised by ourselves? A century may roll on before 
the effects of such an attempt are fully produced— 
when produced, they may be indistinctly understood 
—when understood, they may require to be applied 
with many and important restrictions. 

It is possible, that the seductive charms of novelty 
may operate upon the mind even of an American 
legislator, and render him insensible or inattentive 
to the advantages which prescription, which custom 
and conformity to the national genius have conferred 
upon the religious institutions of Europe. The 
benefits arising from reformation are glaring and 
prominent; they burst out at one particular point 
of time; they relate to subjects which the activity 
of controversialists has accurately ascertained ; they 
are exhibited in the strongest language of exulta- 
tion and panegyric. But the advantages of an es- 
tablishment are more familiar, more diffusive, gained 


ee ὧν»... 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 707 


without effort, possessed without interruption, and, 
therefore, like other materials of our happiness, 
they rarely become the objects of direct and steady 
attention, even among those by whom they are 
really enjoyed. 

The Americans are spread over an immense tract 
of country—they are discriminated by many strik- 
ing differences in their domestic habits, and their 
religious tenets; from the variety of interests and 
of manners which must arise from the various cli- 
mates and soils, they will be able, and probably 
willing, to act independently of each other in the 
internal regulations of the several provinces—what 
is perfectly fit among a people thus circumstanced, 
may be big with the most fatal consequences in Eu- 
ropean countries, where the circumstances both of 
public and private life are so very dissimilar. But 
I will no longer persecute this position of the Re 
viewer with the rigours of confutation—let me 
rather commend him for his fair dealing, because 
he has himself furnished a more cogent reason than 
any which I have produced, for condemning all the 
experiments which he has applauded in the Ame- 
ricans, and for guarding against all the innovations 
which he has predicted concerning ourselves. “Un- 
limited toleration will make as many religions as 
there are families ; and it is to be apprehended, that 
a very great indifference to all religion will be the 
consequence.” ‘The Eng. Rev. for July, 1783, p. 78. 
—Upon this ingenuous and rational concession the 
professed advocates of an establishment will readily 
join issue with its most determined enemies. 

2z2 


708 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


Whether atheism or superstition be most destruc- 
tive to a state, is a question which has often exer- 
cised the most vigorous and enlightened minds ; 
but the wantonness of modern scepticism has not 
yet openly leagued itself with the hardiness of Epi- 
curean impiety, and boldly pronounced all religion 
whatsoever to be injurious to society. If, therefore, 
establishments controuled and softened by toleration 
prevent indifference to religion, they are useful—if 
toleration, disdaining even the remotest connections 
with establishments produce and diffuse that indif- 
ference, it is pernicious. 


The last sheet of Rapin on Whigs and Tories is 
not in the reprint of Dr. Parr; but the follow- 
ing unpublished observations follow up the sub- 
ject of establishments so properly and naturally, 
that they are now copied from the manuscript. 


Uniformity Tests and Sects. 


Uniformity of opinion is a project, which the 
constitution of the human mind, and the experience 
of all ages, have at length compelled us to abandon. 
Even the enthusiast despairs of obtaining, and the 
politician is ashamed of attempting it. What 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 709 


cannot be accomplished, need not be desired. There 
are many points which the most rigorous and watch- 
ful establishment cannot embrace. There are few 
probably on which any ought to divide; yet both 
furnish ample materials, not merely for the gratifi- 
cation of curiosity or the display of acuteness, but 
for the noblest exercise of our understandings, and 
the most solid improvement of our morals. The 
advantages of reformation are glaring and promi- 
nent; they are collected into one point of time, and 
are exhibited in the strongest language of exulta- 
tion and panegyric. The benefits of an establish- 
ment are more familiar, more diffusive, and there- 
fore, like other materials of our happiness, are 
seldom the objects of direct and steady atten- 
tion, among those by whom they are really en- 
joyed. 

Impatience of contradiction in these remote and 
sublime speculations, always suggests suspicion that 
men do not clearly comprehend, or entirely believe, 
what they zealously maintain. Uniformity, if it 
ever exist, will probably be the result of gross 
ignorance, or unfeeling indifference ; it gives stabi- 
lity to error, and shuts out the knowledge of many 
useful truths ; it is seldom successful in stifling the 
first rise of new opinions, and when they have 
gained any ground, inflames the heat of those who 
adopt them. 

The wise legislator cannot compel men to think, 
and willnot endeavour tocompel them toprofess what 
they do not believe. He respects the authority of 

2z3 


710 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


reason in religious matters, and therefore leaves others 
the same liberty of opinion with himself. He respects 
its authority no less in civil concerns, and therefore 
guards both his own opinions and those of his 
fellow-citizens from mutual violence. He does 
not discourage inquiry, but he prohibits invective 
and outrage. 

I have observed, with some concern, that the 
solid conveniences arising from tests are slightly 
noticed by those who in the darkest colours hold 
out the inconveniences attending them; and I fairly 
confess my inability to conceive an establishment 
without a test, or a national religion without an 
establishment. I make this declaration with the 
greatest sincerity, and am prepared to retract it 
with equal sincerity, when the contrary opinion, 
supported by clear facts, and not decorated only by 
plausible theory, shall meet me in the course of my 
inquiry. I have no object in view but the discovery 
of truth, and the promotion of public utility; nor 
do I put up any pretensions to merit in keeping 
my mind open to conviction upon those inter- 
esting subjects, where obstinacy surely is the most 
wretched weakness, and dissimulation the blackest 
crime. 

If it be intended to leave the numerous sects of 
believers in the quiet possession of their tenets, 
and to relieve them from the tyranny of religious 
tests, they now enjoy all the freedom which the 
abolition of the establishment could procure, and 
they probably derive some advantages from that 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 711 


diligence in their studies, and that circumspection 
in their morals, by which smaller bodies of men 
may honourably exalt their importance. 

I should always wish the Church to possess the 
confidence and respect of sectarians, and that the 
Dissenters may be exempted from the slightest 
degree of that odium which is equally painful to 
ingenuous and well-informed minds with the rigours 
of persecution. I am persuaded that the essential 
doctrine, the vital spirit, the peculiar and charac- 
teristic genius of Christianity, have no immediate 
connection with the arbitrary and accidental forms 
of human government. I am firmly convinced that 
every mode of faith is equally entitled to the pro- 
tection, but not to the favour of Government. When 
that protection is given, the rights of conscience 
must no longer be urged or pleaded in a spirit or 
as a cause of discontent. 

I am not to be told that in these remarks I have 
assumed the propriety of establishments, without 
adverting to proofs. These proofs are to be found, 
not in the express directions of Christianity, but in 
the general practice of society; in the right which 
every body of men have to choose their own modes 
of worship, and to provide for the members of it; 
and in the importance of holding together the ma- 
jority by a fixed principle of religion, or of opposi- 
tion to those who deny the right of any government 
to appoint to religious services, and to sustain them 
by certain rewards. 

The utility of the establishment is already decided 


712 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


by experience, and it is perhaps by the silent growth 
of toleration, and the actual enjoyment of its bless- 
ings, that we are enabled to carry forward our spe- 
culations to a more extensive and liberal system, 
which our posterity shall find practicable as well as 
rational. 

This indulgence it were frenzy to extend to any 
sect who boldly avowed its contempt of some social 
duties, or its opposition to the civil power. It 
were frenzy to endure fora moment a spirit too 
fierce to be soothed, and too perverse to be con- 
verted by expostulation ; such monstrous opinions 
are beneath the question. But it will be said that 
all speculation indirectly and remotely affects prac- 
tice: this is generally but not universally true, and 
in many cases where the object is too vast to be 
grasped by our intellectual faculties, or too trivial 
to endure their touch, the mischief arises not 
immediately from the opinion itself, but incident- 
ally from the temper with which it is promulgated— 
from the pride which is impatient of confutation— 
and from that controversial babble which affects 
to bestow importance on trifles; and in vain shall 
we look for a solution which the assertion itself 
neither furnishes nor assists us to obtain. From 
the imperfect condition of man, and the very com- 
plex circumstances in which he is sometimes placed, 
truth is not always productive of virtue, nor error 
of vice. But were it otherwise, who shall presume 
always to decide where the truth lies; and, con- 
necting the actions of men with their sentiments, 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 713 


determine their social rights by the standard of 
their speculative tenets? If the heart be vitiated 
by the understanding, by the understanding also it 
must be purified; and surely the proper remedy 
would be, not force, but instruction; not punishment, 
which appals, but arguments, which may convince ; 
not severities, which exact only a servile and pre- 
carious conformity, but conviction, which produces 
an inward, a sincere, and steady effort in the assent 
of the judgment and the concurrence of the will. 
It must be owned that the wild and rash deci- 
sions of fanaticism have a tendency to produce 
such actions as are inconsistent with the public 
peace and security. But when we look further 
we may observe that many of these things are seen 
only through the medium of theory. In many of 
their debated actions, men are much on a level with 
their fellows ; and if the warmest admirers of virtue 
are not always virtuous, so the admirers of tenets 
which seem akin to vice, are not always vicious. 
The truth is, that men are governed by the impulse 
of the past; and the force of that passion may 
depend upon present circumstances which are not 
provided for in their general system of opinion, or 
by their natural constitutions, which their tenets, 
and the habits generated by them, are unable to 
controul. As in their opinions they disdain the 
consequences which simply follow from their pre- 
mises, so in their conduct their consciences will 
come in and make them revolt from actions to 
which their principles, abstractedly considered, may 


714 ON RAPIN’S DISSERTATION 


seem to lead them. On such occasions they are 
terrified, and either discover new energies, or feel 
only a momentary shock; and their minds, by a 
kind of hidden force rush back to their favourite 
opinions, which they retain with equal zeal while 
heated to obduracy, and which they abandon with 
equal eagerness when surprised into truth by the 
sudden springs of their better sensibilities. 

The danger arising from the influence of opinions 
is therefore so remote, that a wise and steady ma- 
gistracy has little to apprehend from it, and is so 
secret in its operations that no rules can be laid 
down for calculating its effects. To counteract it 
lenient measures are more likely to be efficacious 
than those which are violent, for it is scarcely pos- 
sible to fix the proportion between the malignity of 
the disease and the sharpness of the remedy. Let 
me not be suspected of that frantic position, that 
all opinions are really beneficial as opinions; a 
position which is confuted by the experience of 
every moment, and which no one but the dupe of 
artificial subtleties has seriously broached as a truth 
in the intercourse of serious life. 

In what then consists the duty of the legislature? 
To encourage some, to depress others, to watch all, 
and to injure none; on all occasions to prefer lenity 
to rigour, and in the infliction of punishment to 
distinguish between profligacy and weakness. If 
mere propensity to action be a ground for evil, 
society itself must be instantly dissolved, or it could 
be supported only on the sanguinary principles of 


ON WHIGS AND TORIES. 715 


Draco—of Japan. Not to opinions which, though 
erroneous, may be harmless, but to those offences 
which are always hurtful, and which may be always 
ascertained with precision, does the business of the 
magistrate extend. Where there are men there wil] 
be passions, “ vitia erunt donec homines: sed neque 
hee continua meliorum interventu pensantur.” 


END OF VOLUME III. 


Printed by J. B. Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament-street. 


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