Are such men to be credited? Would any man now take the account of the times, and of those who lived in them, from Le Strange, Dyer, or Abel Roper? Yet these men were once in great vogue, were much read, much credited by their different parties, and in a good degree guided their passions.

Surely no man who is angry at another is fit to draw his character; yet anger is generally the great call, often the great qualification, for such an undertaking; an undertaking which requires great discernment, as well as a temper altogether cool and unprejudiced. Every angry man expects that you should be as angry as he, and would interest all men in his private griefs, which he therefore covers and recommends under public pretences and zeal if you do not adopt his interests and passions, you are no longer a friend to your country, and must excuse him for representing you as an enemy to it.

:

Every one ought to take part with the unhappy and afflicted. Is a worthy man disappointed, or a sufferer upon any account? It should be matter of concern to every man ; but, if the public do not suffer too, we cannot sympathize with him upon the public account, though whilst he is under the agitation of his passions, which are always apt to darken and mislead the mind, he may imagine his cause and that of the public to be the same. Does a bad, a worthless, or an insignificant man, missing his unreasonable aims, complain that merit is neglected, and inveigh against such as have favours to bestow, for bestowing them better than upon him? I do not conceive that the public, or any man in it, need be concerned otherwise than to condemn his assurance, for interesting the public, or any who regard it, in his private importance, Yet by such men the public is sometimes appealed to, its aid invoked, and the first and best men belonging to it aspersed and insulted.

Whoever is heartily disposed to speak ill of another, will easily find something to say; or if he cannot find it, he may invent it-both facts and qualities are readily coined by a willing fancy, or blackened and aggravated by a malevolent heart. Proceedings the most advantageous to the people, may, by a malicious representation of them, or even by an unpleasing name given them, be rendered odious to the people.. Measures the most mischievous to the people, may, by plausible and false colouring, be made dear and interesting to the people. The reformation, with all its tendency to rescue the people from darkness and thraldom, was far from being a popular undertaking. The infernal tribunal of the inquisition, with all its horrors, barbarity and flames, is adored as well as feared by the populace.

A dealer in satirical characters is the most unfit person in the world to draw that of others; for he is at once witness, judge and executioner, and utterly unqualified for the business which he professes. He shews the world that he is provoked, and thus furnishes the world with a good reason for not being provoked too, though it be his great aim to provoke the world to be as angry as he, and consequently as unfair. He his privately, perhaps mistakenly, piqued, and, scattering the envenomed arrows of his wrath at random, makes public victims of innocent and worthy men.

Who had a better or more adorable character than Socrates? Yet the comic poet Aristophanes presented such a frightful picture of him

to the Athenians, and forged such false, but such a popular charge, of libertinism of opinion, against that divine person, only for entertain ing notions of the Supreme Being derogatory to popular superstition, and to the plurality of gods at Athens, that they condemned him to die. The pious advocate for one God was put to death as an atheist. In the eyes of fools the highest wisdom is tolly. The most sublime truths pass with a bigot for impiety; and blind guides have always most followers.

By this fate of Socrates, and the personal malice of Aristophanes, which then had its effect, the character of Socrates is not hurt, but that of his spiteful enemy greatly impaired. What aggravated his malice, is, that many of his plays were full of jests and buffoonries upon the gods, and intended to expose them to public derision. What shameless assurance in such a man, a professed droll upon divine subjects, and even upon the divinities themselves, to accuse any man, especially so great and so good a man, for speculations about religion!

Mr. Dryden gave a very pertinent answer to a Romish priest after the revolution, who wanted him to employ his wit against the Protestants."Father, said the shrewd old poet, my zeal for you has already made me burn my fingers: I have long experienced, that one who believes the infallibility of a man, worships a wafer as bis God, and trusts that you can create a deity out of dough, makes a ridiculous figure in attempting to ridicule any religious opinion, or any notion about religion, however ridiculous it be."

What characters are to be handled with tenderness and decency, if great characters be not, especially by private and obscure men? Virulence and calumny are no marks of guilt, except in him who utters them and the heaviest charge in every libel falls upon the libeller. All the blots he makes in a fair character, are so many real ones upon his own; nor will any reasonable man expect truth and candour out of a mouth that foams with rage, and flows with spite. I will is a furious prompter; it delights in mangling characters, in pulling down the highest, in blackening the fairest, in distorting the uprightest, and in misrepresenting all.

If an impartial hand were to draw that of the chancellor Clarendon, he would appear to have been an able minister, the cool conductor of the restoration; successfully employed afterwards in the service of the crown; a true friend to the constitution, a patron of the church, with Christian temper towards Dissenters; zealous for the true interest of the king, and kind to his adherents; equally vigilant for that of the laws, in opposition to sycophants and unworthy favourites, who in flattery to the person of the king, were undermining his authority, by setting it above the laws, which were its safest and only support.

This was his true character. A far different, and a shocking one was given him by the hot party men, his enemies. Upon that great public change, as all the cavaliers expected favour and places, there

Mr. Dryden having turned Papist, or pretended to do so, in king Jame's time, to demonstrate his sincerity, and himself a good courtier, wrote the Hind and Panther, in defence of Popery; a poem which had some good lines in it, but much weak reasoning; which was soon after ridiculed in a conversation between the City Mouse and Country

Alouse.

were twenty candidates for one preferment; and as some employments still remained, for reasons of state, in the hands of the late possessors, every disappointed cavalier became a furious malecontent, and a mortal foe to the chancellor. A cry was soon raised against him, as neglecting the king's friends, hugging his enemies, and tampering with the Presbyterians. That cry increased and spread, and those imputations were fast followed by more and blacker. He was corrupt in office, an enemy to the king, whom he had faithfully served, and just restored, and a traitor to the state, which he had so lately saved. All who railed at him because they were out of place, persisted to rail 'till they got in, and looking upon him as their enemy, stuck at no means to destroy him. Were such men capable of any fair conviction, of doing justice to his great merit, or even of seeing any in him?

Was the treasurer Godolphin ever fairly represented by the tories, after be employed the whigs? Was his successor ever truly painted by the whigs, when he appeared at the head of the tories, or by the tories when they fancied him still leavened with whigism? Were they not both the buts of infinite scurrility? Folly was found in their wisest counsels, malignity and mischief in their fairest intentions; the meanest libellers, who knew the least of them, had the most to say against them; and there was no end of libels in all shapes, in pamphlets and songs, characters and queries. Such is the condition of human life, such is the lot of human society, that for a pique or a joke, or a little gain, public tranquillity is risked, and the greatest persons worried and belyed.

The late Duke of Marlborough will ever be a name of immortal renown to the English nation; the wisest counsellor, the greatest general of his time, equal to those of any time; superior in the cabinet and the field, not only to public enemies, but even to fortune and faction; but exposed to popular hate and scorn, by the pestilent breath of libellers and the gall of party; all his merit and fame, all bis victories and laurels unable to support him against invectives and whispers; he triumphing abroad over a power dreadful for half a century to all Europe, and impotent calumny triumphing over him at home; his many victories and conquests, many of them unbloody, all of them complete and glorious, decried as idle and even destructive, all by the same men, who had before celebrated him as victorious without loss of men; Sine clade victor.

These instances sufficiently shew, that the highest services may be decried, the best men traduced, and the greatest merit rendered unpopular, by prejudice and clamour, by very low means, and by very mean instruments.

In all great changes, during all public ferments, and public difficulties, war subsisting, new taxes imposed, or old ones increased, trade decreasing, great events expected, great attention raised, many hoping, many fearing, more disappointed than gratified, all prone to censuring, if public measures fall wrong, as the best may, they will be believed to have been concerted wrong, at least so represented, and thus the wisest be made unpopular. Nor is innocence and ability any defence against popular clamour, though raised by art and malice, and spread by credulity and folly. Even the best counsels are most hateful to such as hate the authors of them.

The sum of a malicious character may be true, the facts true, yet the character falsely drawn, by aggravations thrown in and multiplied; by facts omitted, or half stated, or untruly stated; and the whole character in itself blameless and amiable, shall appear hideous by these aggravations and omissions.

Ridicule, when 'tis outrageous, is itself ridiculous; that is, when it adds facts and colours, omits the best features, and invents bad ones. Sometimes malice alone draws and falsifies the whole character, yet confidently represents it for true.

Under this liberty taken with characters, the most unexceptionable can never be safe. They who take it are to be considered as the Carnifices gloriæ, as the levellers and assassines of great merit and fame. It can belong only to the lowest and the worst characters to blacken the highest and the best.

The accomplished Adrianus Turnebus, a name zealously celebrated by Scaliger, Thuanus, and all the able pens of his time, deserves more applause from his own short and true testimony concerning himself, than from all his learned writings, numerous and excellent as they are. "It has, says he, been always a caution with me, tenderly and sacredly observed, never to shew any inclination to advance my own fame, by blasting that of any man."*

NUMBER 105.

The Absurdity of Jacobitism, the Impiety of Popery, and the Enthusiasm of Party.

We have seen the happy issue of an unhallowed rebellion, which was the genuine offspring of Jacobitism, Jacobitism not owned, but carefully recommended under the venerable and popular name of patriotism. A shameless disguise! Jacobitism abolishes patriotism. The latter is supported by truth and reason and liberty, and it supports them. Jacobitism is founded in nonsense: it sets up a name against the constitution, against the eternal lights of nature, the welfare of society, and all the rights of men. It is defended just as Popery is defended, by frauds and impossibilities. There is not more nonsense in the infallibility of a friar, than in the indefeasibility of a Pretender; and the Papal apostolic succession is not a greater absurdity, than the Pretender's hereditary succession: A position which infers the denial of a Providence; and is a charge upon the Deity of leaving human affairs to roll at random; or, which is as bad, to be conducted by children and madmen, by bigots, who are the most dangerous idiots; or by fools

Hoc semper religiose cauteque servavi, ne mihi per cujuscunque injuriam, viderer unquam Famam quærere voluisse. Adrian Turneb. Adversar.

prompted by impostors. That a Pope can never err, is a proposition as rational, as that a tyrant cannot forfeit.

The voice of Jacobitism is therefore the same with the voice of Popery, to give up our senses: And it is as consistent to believe that Almighty God may be made out of dough, as that a good ruler, a character that implies wisdom and largeness of heart, could be found in the narrow and undiscerning genius of king James, a blind bigot to pious cheats, and crazy for tyrannical rule. And what better can be expect ed from those who inherit his principles and his blood?

Jacobites do with patriotism, as papists do with religion: They profanely prostitute the name to abolish the thing. What resemblance is there between the meek Jesus of Galilea, and the imperious impostor at Rome, who claims the triple crown of heaven and earth and hell, as heir to one who had not a place where to lay his head? Do the Cardinals, those pompous and princely prelates, resemble the poor wandering apostles? Or does a mass-book bear likeness to any of the gospels? What single life did Christ or his apostles take away, even of their enemies and persecutors? His pretended vicar has murdered millions, chiefly the true worshippers of the Lamb.

How dare a Jacobite defile the sacred name of patriotism, when he would leave the gospel to the cruel mercy of a tool to the Pope, and all the laws of liberty to a professed enemy to law? It was objection sufficient against the late intruder, that he claimed upon the right of an outlaw. This was his chief claim amongst the Highlanders; and as any fraud can cheat savages, the fraud of hereditary right (as great a one as any in Popery) inspired and armed them. Yet the cry of patriotism, which was echoed as loud, was a flat contradiction to it: But the spirit of faction, blinded by rage, perceived not the contradiction. If he meant to rule by law, and there founded his right, he quitted his title from blood. If he adhered to his descent from king James, why alledge a right from law, which king James scorned and overturned? Besides, we are already governed by law; every act of government was warranted by express law; and no law violated or stretched in any One instance.

The truth is (if men mad with party could see truth) certain chiefs who thirsted for a share of power, and could have none, 'till they had destroyed those who held it, were determined to overturn all power, in order to grasp all. Their bereditary bondmen, proud of that infamous tie, zealous in proportion to their brutality, brutal in proportion to their blindness, followed their chiefs, led by the force of vassalage and hopes of plunder. Any bread was better than none; and the English climate was better than their own. Their chieftians further animated them with the cant of loyalty: Their preachers (the nonjurors and other Popish priests) fired them with a call from God; and the most potent cheat was fetched from religion.

The religion of thieves and savages, embraced upon wicked principles, and managed by impious guides, increases their ardour for robbery and other acts of barbarity. Their enemies, that is, whomsoever they mean to rob, are all Egyptians; and their leaders assure them of the high and godly merit of spoiling the Egyptians. The example of the Jews is a warrant to the Highlanders, to serve the good subjects of king George as the Jews did the naughty subjects of king Pharaoh.

M m