Page images
PDF
EPUB

wise when it impels us to take the meafures of violence in opposition to the general sense of our own. For may not public happiness be estimated by the same standard as that of private? and as every man's own opinion must determine his particular fatisfaction; shall not the general opinion be confidered as decisive in the question concerning general interest? Far am I, however, from infinuating, that the true welfare of mankind in their collective capacities depends singly upon a prevailing fancy, any more than it does in their separate: undoubtedly in both instances they may equally embrace a false interest. But whenever this is the case, I should hardly imagine that the love of our country, on the one hand, or of our neighbour, on the other, would justify any methods of bringing them to a wiser choice, than those of calm and rational perfuafion.

I CANNOT at present recollect which of the antient authors it is, that mentions the Cappadocians to have been so enamored of subjection to a despotic power, as to refuse the enjoyment of their liberties, tho' generously tendered to them by the Romans. Scarcely Scarcely, I suppose, can there be an instance produced of a more remarkable depravity of national taste, and of a more false calculation of public welfare: yet even in this instance it should seem the highest injustice to have attempted by force, and at the expence, perhaps, of half the lives in the state, the introduction of a more improved system of government.

In this notion I am not fingular, but have the authority of Plato himself on my fide; who held it as a maxim of undoubted truth in politics, that the prevailing sentiments of a state, how much soever miftaken, ought by no means to be opposed by the measures of violence: a maxim, which if certain pretended or misguided patriots had happily embraced, much effusion of civil blood had been lately spared to our nation. I am, &c.

LETTER LETTER XXΧΙ.

TO PALAMEDES.

THE dawn is overcast, the morning lours, And heavily with clouds brings on the day. How then can I better disappoint the gloomy effects of a louring sky, than by calling my thoughts off from the dull scene before me, and placing them upon my friend? Much, certainly, are we indebted to that happy faculty, by which, with a fort of magic power, we can bring before one's mind whatever has been the subject of its most agreeable contemplation. In vain, therefore, would that lovely dame, who has so often been the topic of our converfations, pretend to enjoy you to herself: in spite of your favourite philosophy, or even of a more powerful divinity; in spight of Fortune herself, I can place you in my view, tho' half a century of miles lies between us. But am I for ever to be indebted to imagination only for your company? and will you not fometimes let me owe that fatisfaction to yourself? Surely you might spare me a few few weeks before the summer ends, without any inconvenience to that noble plan upon which I know you are so intent. As for my own studies, they go on but slowly: I am, like a traveller without a guide in an unknown country; obliged to inquire the way at every turning, and confequently cannot advance with all the expedition I could wish. I am, Ste.

F

LETTER XXXII.

To the same.

I mif

ORGIVE me, Palamedes, if trust an art, which the greatest of philosophers has called the art of deceiving, and by which the first of orators could per suad the people that he had conquered at the athletic games, thơ' they saw him fall at his adversary's feet. The voice of Elo quence should ever, indeed, be heard with caution: and she, whose boast it has former ly been, to make little things appear confiderable, may diminish objects, perhaps,

[blocks in formation]

as well as enlarge them, and lessen everr the charms of repose. But I have too long experienced the joys of retirement, to quit her arms for a more lively mistress; and I can look upon ambitiom, tho' adorned in all the ornaments of your oratory, with the cool indifference of the most confirmed Stoic. To confefs the whole truth, I am too proud to endure a repulse, and too humble to hope for success: qualities little favorable, I imagine, to the pretenfions of him who would claim the glittering prizes, which animate those that run the race of ambition. Let those honors then, you mention be inscribed on the tombs of others; be it rather told on mine, that I lived and died

Unplac'd, unpenfion'd, no man's beir or flave.

And is not this a privilege as valuable as any of those which you have painted to my view, in all the warmest colors of your enlivening eloquence? Bruyere, at least, has just now assured me, that "to pay one's "court to no man, nor expect any to "pay court to you, is the most agreeable " of all fituations; it is the true golden

[ocr errors]

age,

« PreviousContinue »