sound of so many voices was the chief token of their unmeet agreement. But as furious rage hath, besides its wickedness, that folly, that the more it seeks to hurt, the less it considers how to be able to hurt; they never weighed how to arm themselves, but took up every thing for a weapon that fury offered to their hands. Thus armed, thus governed, forcing the unwilling and heartening the willing, adding violence to violence, and increasing rage with running, they came headlong toward the palace! No man resolved in his own heart what was the uttermost he would do when he came thither; but as mischief is of such nature that it cannot stand, but by strengthening one evil with another, and so multiply in itself till it come to the highest, and then fall with its own weight; so to their minds, once passed the bounds of obedience, more and more wickedness opened itself; so that they who first pretended to preserve their king, then to reform him, now thought that there was no safety for them but in murdering him.

Remark.

This sketch might be read as an epitome of the French rebellion, till it martyrized the king; and an observation made by Stanislaus Leczinsky, an ancestor of the virtuous Louis, and which he transcribed with his own hand, might be regarded as a prophecy of his fate.

"That a wise king, who knows his duty, loves and practises it; who by his goodness and humanity calls forth that homage which his dignity alone could not exact; that a king, the friend of men, and the man of his subjects, should not taste, or be capable of tasting, pure and solid happiness, may appear surprising, and yet it is true. He sees none around him but false and interested persons, whom his virtues displease, even at the very moment when they affect most to applaud them. He meets only with hearts servile in their wants, insolent and haughty when in fa vour, ungrateful when they have no longer any thing to expect; men, in short, who al

ways fluctuating between passion and interest, and always clashing, never unite but for the purpose of perverting his sentiments, weakening his power, and who, under the appearance of submission, gain his confidence, which they betray. Notwithstanding his talents, his good intention, and even his probity, the wicked suppose him to be vicious, the good faulty, the culpable harsh, and the innocent too indulgent."

Louis, so far from acting by this experience of his illustrious forefather, made an opposite sentiment the guide of his life—" A king,” he used to say, "who reigns by justice, has the whole earth for his temple, and all good men for his ministers!" He lived up to this principle; and yet so stupid were his people, so ungrateful and so mad, that they led him from the throne which he blessed, to perish on a scaffold! Well might he say, in the last letter he addressed to Mons. de Malesherbes, "The ingrates who have dethroned me will not stop in the midst of their career: they would have too much cause to blush, if they were continually to support the sight of their

victim. I shall undergo the fate of Charles I. and my blood must flow, to punish me for never having shed any!"

POLICY AND GOVERNMENT.

1.

BLESSED are those well-choosing people, who (finding that the shining glory so much affected by nations, doth indeed help little to the happiness of life), by their justice and providence give neither cause nor hope to their neighbours to annoy them! So as they, not stirred with false praise to trouble other's quiet, think it a small reward for the wasting of their own lives in ravening, that their posterity should long after say-They had done

SO.

2.

The well bringing up of people, doth serve as a most sure bond of continuance in welldoing.

Remark.

True piety, a generous independence of mind, and a taste for simple pleasures, are the dispositions which form a virtuous and happy people. The patriotic poet of Scotland knew well what were the best foundations for public worth. After describing a rustic family exhorting each other to lead honest and useful lives, and to worship God in sanctity and truth, he declares that

"From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad!"

And how nobly does he proceed! It is the spirit of Tyrtæus, animating to courage and virtue