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that I decline making ufe of it. I wish the author had not thought that all methods are lawful in party. Above all, he ought to have taken care not to wound his enemies through the fides of his country. This he has done, by making that monftrous and overcharged picture of the diftreffes of our fituation. No wonder that he, who finds this country in the fame condition with that of France at the time of Henry the Fourth, could also find a resemblance between his political friend and the Duke of Sully. As to thofe perfonal refemblances, people will often judge of them from their affections: they may imagine in thefe clouds whatsoever figures they pleafe; but what is the conformation of that eye which can difcover a refemblance of this country and these times to those with which the author compares them? France, a country juft recovered out of twenty-five years of the most cruel and defolating civil war that perhaps was ever known. The kingdom, under the veil of momentary quiet, full of the moft atrocious political, operating upon the moft furious fanaticalfactions. Some pretenders even to the crown; and those who did not pretend to the whole, aimed at the partition of the monarchy. There were almost as many competitors as provinces; and all abetted by the greatest, the most ambitious, and moft enterprising power in Europe. No place fafe from treafon; no, not the bofoms on which

the

the most amiable prince that ever lived repofed his head; not his miftreffes; not even his queen. As to the finances, they had scarce an existence, but as a matter of plunder to the managers, and of grants to infatiable and ungrateful courtiers.

How can our author have the heart to defcribe this as any fort of parallel to our fituation? To be fure, an April fhower has fome refemblance to a water-fpout; for they are both wet: and there is fome likeness between a fummer evening's breeze and an hurricane; they are both wind: but who can compare our disturbances, our fituation, or our finances, to thofe of France in the time of Henry? Great Britain is indeed at this time wearied, but not broken, with the efforts of a victorious foreign war; not fufficiently relieved by an inadequate peace, but fomewhat benefited by that peace, and infinitely by the confequences of that war. The powers of Europe awed by our victories, and lying in ruins upon every fide of us. Burthened indeed we are with debt, but abounding with refources. We have a trade, not perhaps equal to our wishes, but more than ever we poffeffed. In effect, no pretender to the crown; nor nutriment for fuch defperate and destructive factions as have formerly fhaken this kingdom.

As to our finances, the author trifles with us. When Sully came to thofe of France, in what order was any part of the financial fyftem? or what

fyftem

fyftem was there at all? There is no man in office who muft not be fenfible that ours is, without the act of any parading minifter, the moft regular and orderly fyftem perhaps that was ever known; the beft fecured againft all frauds in the collection, and all mifapplication in the expenditure of publick money.

I admit that, in this flourishing state of things, there are appearances enough to excite uneafinefs and apprehenfion. I admit there is a cankerworm in the rofe;

medio de fonte leporum

Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipfis floribus angat,

This is nothing elfe than a fpirit of difconnexion, of distrust, and of treachery among publick men. It is no accidental evil; nor has its effect been trusted to the ufual frailty of nature; the diftemper has been inoculated. The author is fenfible of it, and we lament it together. This dif temper is alone fufficient to take away confiderably from the benefits of our conftitution and fituation, and perhaps to render their continuance precarious. If these evil difpofitions fhould spread much farther, they muft end in our deftruction; for nothing can fave a people deftitute of publick and private faith. However, the author, for the prefent ftate of things, has extended the charge by VOL. II. much

much too widely; as men are but too apt to take the measure of all mankind from their own particular acquaintance. Barren as this age may be in the growth of honour and virtue, the country does not want, at this moment, as strong, and those not a few examples, as were ever known, of an unfhaken adherence to principle, and attachment to connexion, against every allurement of intereft. Thofe examples are not furnithed by the great alone; nor by thofe, whofe activity in publick affairs may render it fufpected that they make fuch a character one of the rounds in their ladder of ambition; but by men more quiet, and more in the fhade, on whom an unmixed fenfe of honour alone could operate. Such examples indeed are not furnished in great abundance amongft those who are the fubjects of the author's panegyrick. He muft look for them in another camp. He who complains of the ill effects of a divided and heterogeneous administration, is not justifiable in labouring to render odious in the eyes of the publick thofe men, whofe principles, whofe maxims of policy, and whofe perfonal character, can alone administer a remedy to this capital evil of the age; neither is he confiftent with himself, in conftantly extolling thofe whom he knows to be the authors of the very mifchief of which he complains, and which the whole nation feels fo deeply.

The perfons who are the objects of his diflike

and

and complaint are many of them of the first families, and weightieft properties, in the kingdom; but infinitely more diftinguished for their untainted honour publick and private, and their zealous but fober attachment to the conftitution of their country, than they can be by any birth, or any station. If they are the friends of any one great man rather than another, it is not that they make his aggrandizement the end of their union; or because they know him to be the most active in caballing for his connexions the largest and speedieft emoluments. It is because they know him, by personal experience, to have wife and enlarged ideas of the publick good, and an invincible conftancy in adhering to it; because they are convinced, by the whole tenour of his actions, that he will never negotiate away their honour or his own: and that, in or out of power, change of fituation will make no alteration in his conduct. This will give to fuch a perfon, in fuch a body, an authority and respect that no minifter ever enjoyed among his venal dependants, in the highest plenitude of his power; fuch as fervility never can give, fuch as ambition never can receive or relish.

This body will often be reproached by their adverfaries, for want of ability in their political tranf actions; they will be ridiculed for miffing many favourable conjunctures, and not profiting of feveral brilliant opportunities of fortune; but they

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