me upon your clear schoolmaster larnin, and there I am even with you.

1st Com. I am satisfied with the gentleman. He has missed but one question, and that was such a metatisical one, that it would have puzzled a Jesuit himself to have answered it. Gentlemen, shall the master withdraw a few minutes, for our further consultation ?

[Exit Master 2d Com. I am much pleased with the stranger. He appears to be a man of wonderful parts; and I shall cheerfully agree to employ him.

3d Com. For my part, I don't think we shall find a cheaper master; and I move for engaging him at once. Par. Gentlemen, how long will you be blind to your own interest? I can say with you, that I am perfectly satisfied that the man is, in his profession, emphatically what he calls himself by name, an ignoramus; and tetally incapable of instructing our children. You know not who he is, or what he is; whether he be a thief, a liar, or a drunkard. The very terms, on which he offers himself, ought to operate as a sufficient objection against him. I am sensible that my vote will now be of no avail, since you are all agreed. I have been for years striving to procure a man of abilities and morals, suitable for the employment; and such a one I had obtained; but, alas! we were unworthy of him. We aspersed his character; invented a multitude of falsehoods; magnified every trifling error in his conduct; and even converted his virtues into vices. We refused to give him that pecuniary reward which his services demanded; and he knowing his own worth, and our unworthiness, has left us forever.

1st Com. Come, come, Parson, it is easy for salary men to talk of liberality, and to vote away money which they never earned; but it won't do. The new master I dare engage, will do as well or better than the old one. Landlord, call him in for his answer.

Par. I protest against your proceedings, and withdraw myself forever from the committee. But I must

tell

tell you, your children will reap the bitter consequences of such injudicions measures. It has always been surprising to me, that people in general are more willing to pay their money for any thing else, than for "the one thing needful," that is, for the education of their children. Their tailor must be a workman, their carpenter, a workman, their hairdresser, a workman, their hostler, a workman; but the instructor of their children must-work cheap! [Exit Parson.

Re-enter SCHOOL-MASTER. 1st Com. We have agreed to employ you, Sir; and have only to recommend to you, not to follow the steps of your predecessor. This is an "age of reason ;” and we do not imagine our children so stupid, as to need the rod to quicken their ideas, or so vicious, as to require a moral lesson from the ferule. Be gentle and accommodating, and you have nothing to fear.

Land. I'll answer for him. He's as generous and merry a lad as I've had in my house this many a day.

EXTRACT FROM MR. PITT'S SPEECH, IN ANSWER TO LORD MANSFIELD, ON THE AFFAIR OF MR. WILKES, 1770.

MY LORDS,

THE

HERE is one plain maxim, to which I have invariably adhered through life; that in every question in which my liberty or my property were concerned, I should consult and be determined by the dictates of common sense. I confess, my lords, that I am apt to distrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves, and to mislead others.

The condition of human nature would be lamentable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and

our

our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction, by which we shall never be misled.

I confess, my lords, I had no other guide in drawing up the amendment, which I submitted to your consid eration. And before I heard the opinion of the noble lord who spoke last, I did not conceive, that it was even within the limits of possibility for the greatest human genius, the most subtle understanding, or the acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my meaning; and to give it an interpretation so entirely foreign from what I intended to express, and from that sense, which the very terms of the amendment plainly and distinctly carry with them.

If there be the smallest foundation for the censure thrown upon me by that noble lord; if, either expressly or by the most distant implication, I have said or insinuated any part of what the noble lord had changed me with, discard my opinions forever; discard the motion with contempt.

My lords, I must beg the indulgence of the House, Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified, to follow that learned lord minutely through the whole of his argument. No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them, than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him in the other House, and always listened to him with attention. I have not now lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever. Upon the present question, I meet him without fear.

The evidence, which truth carries with it, is superior to all arguments; it neither wants the support, nor dreads the opposition of the greatest abilities. If there be a single word in the amendment to justify the interpretation, which the noble lord has been pleased to give it, I am ready to renounce the whole. Let it be read, my lords; let it speak for itself. In what instance does it interfere with the privileges of the

House

House of Commons? In what respect does it question their jurisdiction, or suppose an authority in this House to arraign the justice of their sentence?

I am sure that every lord who hears me, will bear me witness that I said not one word touching the merits of the Middlesex election. Far from conveying any opinion upon that matter in the amendment, I did not, even in discourse, deliver my own sentiments upon it. I did not say that the House of Commons had done either right or wrong; but when his Majesty was pleased to recommend it to us to cultivate unanimity amongst ourselves, I thought it the duty of this House, as the great hereditary council of the crown, to state to his Majesty the distracted condition of his dominions, together with the events which had destroyed unanimity among his subjects.

But, my lords, I stated those events merely as facts, without the smallest addition either of censure or of opinion. They are facts, my lords, which I am not only convinced are true, but which I know are indisputably true.

Do they not tell us, in so many words, that Mr. Wilkes, having been expelled, was thereby rendered incapable of serving in that Parliament? and is it not their resolution alone, which refuses to the subject his common right? The amendment says farther, that the electors of Middlesex are deprived of their free choice of a representative. Is this a fact, my lords? or have I given an unfair representation of it? Will any man presume to affirm that Colonel Luttrell is the free choice of the electors of Middlesex? We all know the contrary.

We all know that Mr. Wilkes (whom I mention without either praise or censure) was the favourite of the county, and chosen, by a very great and acknowledged majority, to represent them in Parliament. If the noble lord dislikes the manner in which these facts are stated, I shall think myself happy in being advised by him how to alter it. I am very little anxious about

terms,

terms, provided the substance be preserved; and these are facts, my lords, which I am sure will always retain their weight and importance, in whatever form of language they are described.

The constitution of this country has been openly invaded in fact; and I have heard, with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle. What is this mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown to the subject; which we must not approach without awe, nor speak of without reverence; which no man may question, and to which all men must submit? My lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long since been exploded: and, when our kings were obliged to confess that their title to the crown, and the rule of their government, had no other foundation than the known laws of the land, I never expected to hear a divine right, or a divine infallibility, attributed to any other branch of the legislature.

My lords, I beg to be understood. No man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would, to preserve to them their just and legal authority. Within the bounds prescribed by the constitution, that authority is necessary to the well-being of the people: beyond that line, every exertion of power is arbitrary, is illegal; it threatens tyranny to the people, and destruction to the State. Power without right is the most odious and detestable object that can be offered to the human imagination: it is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction.