They more frequently lose ground, for want of contending for it in time, than otherwise; whilst prerogative, grasping what belongs to it with one hand, and ever catching at more with the other, goes on till it produces remonstrance, recrimination, and subversion. Hence the source of all the revolutions that are recorded in history! A people, driven inch by inch to desperation, has no other resource. It is not to be forgotten that had the English nation been less tenacious of its privileges, the House of Brunswick would not have wielded the British sceptre, and it concerns that House to be aware, that the surest method to retain it is to cherish that tenacity in the nation. When a government complies with a reform of abuses with a good grace, the people revere it, as if it had had no hand in these abuses; nay, almost as if it had bestowed new privileges upon them; but, when it is extorted, they treat their conquered oppressors as criminals. The heavy duties incumbent on royalty are obvious; a king must have assistance; and perhaps the most

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arduous task of the whole is to choose a proper minister; above all, he should take care not to keep one who may, by his arrogance, alienate the affections of his subjects from him. Abuses in government occasion indigence in the governed; and the indigence of the people, says Mr. De St. Pierre, in his Etudes de la Nature,' is a mighty river, which is every year collecting an increase of strength, which is sweeping away before it every opposing mound, and which will issue in a total subversion of order and government. Royalty should set an example of magnanimity and disinterestedness, which should never suffer itself to be polluted by a dealing in patronage, which degrades it to the rank of a Moorfields broker. From royalty, as the source of honors, that is titles, every distinction should flow as freely as light from the sun. It may be doubted whether a king can receive the slightest present from a subject, or suffer any of his family to receive it, without lowering his dignity. Under a master resolved to maintain it, few ministers

would dare to carry on a traffic in those offices which are to be filled solely for the benefit of the public, and the fees of which are solely paid by the public. They have a right to have them filled by men of ability and integrity, not speculators and brokers; they have a right to desire their removal, or even punishment, if they should prove incapable or knavish; but purchase renders them in a manner independent both of government and people. The former are necessitated to screen them, to keep their own nefarious traffic a secret from the latter. "Minùs est quàm servis dominus, qui servos timet”. says Publius Syrus.-That master is less than a servant who fears his servants. What can we think, then, of royalty committing itself before its servants? Besides the loss of respect, such degradation will give them encouragement to practise unbounded venality, and let loose every basest passion, to the corruption of the morals of the people, the evasion of all wholesome laws, the utter empoverishment of the middling and lower

classes, and consequently the degeneracy and downfal of the whole nation.-The end of such a career must soon have been-" Hic Tros fuit."-Here Troy once stood. Let us now hope that, as Astrea, the goddess of justice, has long since fled from earth to heaven, the demon of corruption has sculked to hell, whence it originally sprang.

THE DEVIL AND HIS IMP.

(Supposed to be taken from Canynge's Chest.)

THE Demon of Corruption fled

To Hell, on sooty wings;

"Hey!" cries the Devil, "Whose mare's dead?

"Why leave th' abode of kings?"

"I liv'd in glee," the demon cried,
And then began to wheeze-

"Until by Flintshire hands I died,

"Which choak'd me with Welch cheese."

COURT BUBBLES.

"WELL, of all plagues which make mankind their sport,
Guard me, ye heav'ns, from that worst plague, a court!
'Midst the mad mansions of Moorfields, I'd be
A straw crown'd monarch, in mock majesty;
Rather than sov'reign rule Britannia's fate,
Curs'd with the follies, and the farce of state.
Rather in Newgate walls, O let me dwell,
A doleful tenant of the darkling cell,
Than swell in palaces the mighty store
Of fortune's fools, and parasites of power;
Than crowns, ye gods! be any state my doom,
Or any dungeon-but a drawing-room!"

PAUL WHITEHEAD.

Ladies and gentlemen of the courtier tribe, ye are such wretched hacks, and such hacknied subjects, that it is scarcely possible to add a new epithet to that with which ye have been burthened for ages past. Ye are, indeed, too contemptible for notice, if ye were not the pests of courts, and the moths of society. Notwithstanding all the exploits of Alexander, who won several great victories, yet, in the latter part of his life, he became