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Title: Remarks on the Importance of the Study of Political Pamphlets,
Weekly Papers, Periodical Papers, Daily Papers, Political Music,
&c
Author: Anonymous
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF
THE STUDY OF POLITICAL PAMPHLETS, WEEKLY PAPERS, PERIODICAL PAPERS,
DAILY PAPERS, POLITICAL MUSIC, &C ***
REMARKS
ON THE
IMPORTANCE of the STUDY
OF
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS, WEEKLY
PAPERS, PERIODICAL PAPERS,
DAILY PAPERS, POLITICAL
MUSIC, &C.
Libertas, et speciosa nomina prætexuntur; nec quisquam,
alienum servitium, et dominationem sibi
concupivit, ut non eadem ista vocabula usurparet.
LONDON:
Printed for W. NICOLL, in St. Paul’s Church-yard,
M DCC LXV.
REMARKS
On the Importance of the Study of
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS, &c.
There cannot be a surer proof of ignorance and folly than impertinence,
whether it betrays itself in the pertness of a coxcomb, or in the
solemnity of a fop; provokes with the petulance of wit; stupifies with
the dullness of narration; insults with the arrogance of superior
birth, fortune, or learning; fatigues with frothy declamation, or stuns
with the clamour of dispute; in private and in public, over a dish of
tea, or over a bottle; from the pulpit, or the bar, or in the senate,
it is always offensive and ridiculous.
The humble and obscure writer of a Pamphlet cannot, however, if he
happens to mistake his talents, be justly blamed for impertinence. He
may be pitied for his misfortune; but for his faults as an author, he
is answerable to no man: for there is scarce any man, who has dealt in
this sort of reading, that has not had fair warning; it being more than
an hundred to one, that he has bought an impertinent Pamphlet, some
time, or other, in the course of his studies. He cannot well fail of
knowing that such things are sometimes published; neither the writer
nor the bookseller compels him to buy; and if he suffers himself to be
imposed on by a title-page, he can have no good reason to complain of
either. Besides, no Pamphlet can fairly be said to be wholly useless:
it may be always made to serve, at least, some purpose; whereas I
believe there is hardly any body but may remember to have been present,
perhaps once in their lives, at a conversation, or a pleading, or a
speech, or a sermon, that could serve no manner of purpose but to tire
the audience, and make the speaker ridiculous: and this must be allowed
to be a very unpardonable sort of impertinence; for a man may throw
aside a Pamphlet, if he pleases, at the first page, or the first line;
but he cannot decently get out of a company, or out of the senate, or
out of a church, whenever he may have a mind.
I do not mean this, as an apology for authors in general: the
accidental writer of a Pamphlet, or a Paper, hardly deserves so
respectable an appellation. On the contrary, every man who wantonly
and vainly usurps that sacred profession, without being possessed of
a moderate share at least, either of genius, or wit, or learning, or
knowledge, besides the indispensable qualifications and ingredients of
common honesty, sincerity, and benevolence, is guilty, in my opinion,
of the highest degree of impertinence.
But in this land of liberty, of general wealth, curiosity, and
idleness, where there is scarce a human creature so poor that it cannot
afford to buy or hire a Paper or a Pamphlet, or so busy that it cannot
find leisure to read it; where every man, woman, and child, is, by
instinct, birth, and inheritance, a politician; where the ordinary
subjects of common conversation turn not, as in most countries, upon
the impertinent trivial occurrences of the week or the day, nor on the
small concerns, offices, and duties of private and social life; but
on the greater and the more important objects of war, negociations,
peace, laws, and the public and general weal; where men are more
solicitous about the integrity and abilities of a lord commissioner
of the treasury, or of a secretary of state, than the fidelity of
their own wives, the chastity of their daughters, their sons, or their
own honour and virtue; and where, like the virtuous citizens of Rome
and Sparta, they unreluctantly offer up all the slenderer ties of
blood, the endearments of love, the connexions of friendship, and the
obligations of private gratitude, daily sacrifices and victims to the
commonwealth; in such a country, the dullest Pamphlet may have a fair
chance of gaining some readers, provided it be a political Pamphlet;
whilst a treatise on religion or philosophy, unless the writer of it
should happen to be thoroughly master of his subject, and know how to
treat it with uncommon genius and learning, would meet with the fate
it deserved, and be received with universal neglect.
These are dry insipid studies, fit only for the drudgery of a school
or a college. They are commonly laid aside with the accidence or the
grammar, are of little use to a man in his commerce with the world,
and contribute rather to obstruct the advancement of his interests
and his fortunes, than to promote them. There are, besides, few men
so unreasonably inquisitive about these matters, as not to be fully
satisfied with the stock they have already laid in, or who would not
even sooner consent perhaps, to forget half they had ever learned,
than to take the useless or the dangerous pains of acquiring more. The
works of a Tillotson, or of a Shaftesbury, of a Seneca, or a Marcus
Antoninus, may possibly be found amongst the lumber of a bookseller’s
warehouse; may serve, like the works of the Fathers, to fill up the
vacant shelves of a large library; or may, now and then, assist a
clergyman who happens to be ill, or engaged on a Saturday; but they
are of little other use at present. Formerly, indeed, they seem to
have been read and approved by here and there a man; and some small
encouragement was not wanting to writers, even of this stamp; but this
was in quiet and peaceful times, times of good government and perfect
security, when men were not universally called upon by the superior
duties they owe to their country, when the constitution was in its
full vigour, and wanted not the zealous and united efforts of whole
legions of political labourers, to vindicate and assert its invaluable
privileges.
In those days, if they were threatened with no invasion from abroad,
nor with popery nor arbitrary power at home; if magna charta, the
declaration of rights, habeas corpus, and other fundamental laws of
the realm, remained unrepealed in full force and exertion, they never
gave themselves any farther concern about the public, but minded what
they called their own affairs such as their respective trades, arts,
callings, professions, thereby to be enabled to feed, clothe, and
lodge themselves and their families, and provide for their children.
If they could contrive to live in peace and plenty at home, and pass
among their customers, their neighbours, and their friends, for honest,
industrious, good-humoured folks, they thought themselves at liberty
to employ their leisure-hours in what studies they pleased, and looked
no further. They had no notion of political refinements, of those
delicate and nicer sensations we feel for the public. It never entered
into their heads to be perpetually making earnest and anxious enquiries
about the state of the nation; if the body politic was, upon the whole,
sound and in good health, they were no more alarmed at every little
complaint, than at a slight cold, or an accidental head-ach. They had
not indeed the same opportunities of hearing complaints: the book of
knowledge fair, was but half open to them; the sources of information
and instruction were then neither so frequent nor so abundant; every
remote corner of the kingdom was not, as it happily is now, plentifully
supplied with political, pure, refreshing streams, flowing without
intermission, during the whole year, to the great delight and emolument
of the whole kingdom. Neither were they rich enough to join in large
voluntary contribution for the feeding, clothing, and support of such
a numerous body of sturdy penmen as are now in constant pay. Those
trusty guardians of our liberties, oraculous as the priestess of
Apollo; jealous as Argus of the fair privileges committed to their
care; watchful of our golden treasures as the green dragons of the
Hesperides; faithful and fierce as the bellua centiceps of Pluto;
alarming as the sacred birds that saved the Capitol; zealously attached
to our service; equally vigilant in times of security as in danger, in
peace as in the midst of war; ready at a moment’s warning, on every
alarm, to attack or defend; intrepidly sacrificing to the public every
consideration that the timidity of other men calls dear to mankind;
like well-disciplined troops, scorning to loiter away their time in
rusty idleness, daily exercising their arms, performing all their
marches and counter-marches, evolutions, and firings, with the same
skill and alertness as if the enemy were upon them.
These advantages were unknown to our ancestors, and were reserved,
among many other peculiar blessings, for their posterity. Not that
genius, wit, and learning, appear to have been scarce commodities
in those days; but they laid on their owner’s hands, for want of
purchasers. When the Daily Advertiser, the St. James’s Evening-Post,
and the Gentleman’s Magazine, were as much as they could afford to buy,
many thousand hands were lying idle for want of employers, and many a
strenuous and faithful subject, amply qualified, both from his talents
and his virtues, for the service of his country, was shut out from the
higher employments which nature had formed him for; confined, for mere
want of bread, to the narrow sphere of a shop-board or a counter, or
condemned perhaps for life to the sordid drudgery of some laborious
handicraft trade.
The times are now changed; merit is no longer in danger of pining in
obscurity; the high road to wealth and fame is open to all their
votaries; whether a political writer be inspired by the genuine spirit
of patriotism, inflamed with a fervent zeal for the honour of his
king and his country; whether he aspires to high dignities, places,
pensions, or reversions; or whether he be a simple candidate for food
and raiment, it is his own misfortune or fault, not the public’s, if
he fails: for it is notorious to every man of common observation, that
the arts and sciences, the children of genius and learning, thrive and
increase in proportion to the increase of our manufactures, trade, and
commerce; which enable a rich, indulgent, and munificent public to
cherish, support, and honour them. The immense wealth acquired by these
means within these few years, and scattered with generous profusion
over the whole kingdom, is not more remarkable, nor more amazing, than
the rapid progress which the arts of painting, sculpture, building,
gardening, music, engraving, &c. have made in the same period. Our
artists begin already to rival and surpass the most celebrated artists
of Europe, and bid fair to confer on their country as much honour and
renown, as those in the ages of Leo X. and Lewis XIV. did on France and
Italy.
Hitherto, however, they have not reached that lofty summit; being
rather subordinate arts, the arts of elegance and ornament, than
of real and intrinsic use: they are neither held in such general
estimation, nor so liberally rewarded; and are therefore not cultivated
with the same zeal and assiduity, as others of more immediate benefit
and importance to society.
_Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, &c.
Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento.
Hæ tibi erunt artes,----_
was an ingenious compliment paid by Virgil to his countrymen; a grave,
serious, sober, virtuous people, like ourselves, devoted to the great
interests of their country, absorbed in public affairs, and preferring
the study of government, or the art of politics, to all other arts
whatever: to this art they were indebted for their prudence,
generosity, fortitude, and magnanimity; for their excellent laws and
institutions; for their admirable skill in negociations; for the
treaties they made, the victories they gained, and for their conquests,
in almost every corner of the known world; for all which they are so
deservedly celebrated and renowned. Part of the Roman, and even part of
the Grecian art of politics, happily escaped the injuries of time and
accident, and continued, for many hundred years, the constant theme,
admiration, and example of all writers on politics; but as we lament
the irreparable loss of the greater part of the productions of those
wise and venerable ancients in philosophy, history, poetry, &c. so we
must despair of recovering the most valuable part of their writings
on the art of politics. The Anticatones of Cæsar; the Acta Diurna,
which Cicero expressly mentions to have read daily, with great delight
and instruction, as containing, Senatus consulta, edicta, fabulæ,
rumores, &c. and ten thousand writings of the same kind, are all lost
in one common ruin; and of all these daily Papers and Pamphlets, not
one, that I know of, is remaining, to discover to us the stupendous
genius and art with which they must have been composed, to produce the
astonishing effects they manifestly appear to have done, especially
in the latter times of these republics; such as, by a sort of magic,
to fascinate the understandings and passions of the people, to wield
at their pleasure that unwieldy body the multitude; to compel them,
as it were, to choose or to dismiss what ministers the authors of
them thought proper; to enact or to repeal what laws they pleased; to
provoke them to war, or cajole them into peace; in short, to persuade
them that Scipio was a knave and a traitor, Aristides a common cheat,
Cato a coward, and Socrates a sodomite and an impostor; whereas all the
historians, biographers, philosophers, and poets of those countries,
agree in representing them as the justest, the greatest, and the wisest
men of the times in which they lived, or indeed in the times that
succeeded. It is manifest, likewise, that the very people themselves
had, for many years together, possessed the same opinion of them; that
they were universally beloved, honoured, and revered, until they were
dismissed or had resigned, and that after their executions or deaths,
they were as universally and sincerely lamented.
If the great affairs of the world were uniform and consistent, the
opinions of the people would, no doubt, have been suffered to remain
so too; but they being, from their very nature, subject to perpetual
change and fluctuation, the political writers of those days saw that
it was their business and duty to adjust themselves to accidents
and events, and to the times which they strived to reform; to have
recourse, like Proteus, to every art, and to assume every imaginable
shape. Now it is well known, that it was no uncommon thing among
their countrymen, chearfully to sacrifice their own fortunes, or the
fortunes of other men, their own or other people’s mothers, wives,
children, friends, or acquaintances, nay, themselves, as often as
the more important affairs of the state required it: thus, when it
became indispensably necessary for the preservation of liberty and the
constitution, or for the immediate salvation of their country, they
very gravely persuaded and prevailed on the people to impeach Scipio
and Aristides, to banish Cicero, to poison Socrates, dissolve the union
they had so eagerly courted with Sparta or Arpinum, to curse the very
memories of all those able and upright counsellors who had advised
it, to revile and insult every Lacedemonian or Samnite that had been
invited to their hospitality, and at length to drive them out of their
houses, and out of their cities.
There are people who pretend, that the Clouds, a dramatic performance
of Aristophanes, is a specimen of the art of writing of which I have
been speaking. In my own opinion, however, whether considered as a mere
comedy, or as a political composition, it is such a pert insipid piece
of buffoonery, written so much in the true spirit of our Grub-street,
that it could have no manner of chance to produce the effect it is
supposed to have designed, and does not at all account for the
problem, being, in every respect, much inferior to our own writings
of that kind, the Nonjuror, and Beggar’s Opera. We know, in short, as
little of their art of political writing as of their music; the rise,
progress, and perfection of both seem to have been owing to the same
causes.
In arbitrary and despotic governments, fear, as Montesquieu justly
remarks, is the principal engine of government; there the sophi, or the
grand seignior, or the dey, is the sole legislator; the only person
who has studied the art of politics, being the only person who is
called upon by his country to practise it. This sort of writing being
principally applied to the great purposes of provoking or of appeasing
the people; of awaking them, or laying them asleep; of blinding them,
or restoring them to sight at pleasure, is wholly useless in a country
where it is the sovereign’s business to command; the subjects duty to
act, to suffer, and to obey.
But in the free governments of Greece and Rome, all ranks, degrees,
and orders of men, patricians and plebeians, from the highest birth,
alliance, and properties, down even to tinkers and coblers, were all
either immediately or remotely perpetually employed, and at work upon
the constitution; busily and anxiously examining into every part of
it; repairing any breaches that might have been made in it by time or
neglect; framing new laws, or repealing old ones; appointing ministers,
statesmen, generals, admirals, &c. for all the various departments of
peace and war; choosing faithful, eloquent, zealous tribunes, the great
defenders of the liberties of the plebeians; voting for peace or for
war, &c. By this means the arts of politics and music (of which latter
I shall speak hereafter) became the immediate business, employment,
and duty of every individual; as they both had been found, from long
experience, indispensably necessary for the repose, security, and
duration of the state. The constitution and the inhabitants of Great
Britain in these present times, very much resemble those of which I
have been speaking. The same instruments of government, therefore,
are as necessary here as they were there; now as they were then: no
encouragement, of course, has been wanting to these arts; and I cannot,
upon this occasion, forbear to congratulate with my countrymen upon the
happy progress that has been made in them, even within these very few
years; more especially as our professors had no examples of such sort
of writing before them for their imitation. It would be no difficult
matter to produce an hundred proofs, both of their skill and their
success. There are, for instance, few people, at this time of day, so
infatuated as to doubt that it is to them we are indebted that this our
native land, with all her revenues, dignities, honours, employments,
posts, pensions, reversions, &c. was not seized, three or four years
ago, by the violent hands of Scotchmen, who, according to the prophecy
of a late holy prophet, had formed, like the Goths and Vandals, and
other fierce and enterprizing people of the North, the bold design of a
general emigration, had already (as it was currently reported) begun
their flight, and were descried at a great distance (as appeared from
many affidavits made at that time by men of known veracity) like a huge
cloud extending from East to West, from North to South, hovering over
the fair harvests of our lands and our labours, and ready to settle and
devour them! As the task assigned to our guardian polemists, upon this
occasion, was difficult and arduous, so the services they performed
were signal and eminent. The Genius of England had been, at no time,
more confident of repose, nor had ever fallen into a profounder sleep:
it required the loud roarings and shrieks of a multitude to awaken
him; and when at length he awoke, it called for the united efforts
of argument, wit, eloquence, eager affirmation, positive assertion,
repeated oaths, and imprecations, to make him listen for a moment to a
report, which he treated most imprudently and unwarily with contempt
and laughter. The greater part of his most faithful counsellors were
unhappily under the same fatal delusion, and heard it with the same
scorn and neglect.
Strange as this dangerous confidence and supineness will appear
to posterity, yet it was not altogether unaccountable; for as the
inhabitants of the South and of the North of Great Britain had been
accustomed to live together, for a great number of years before, in
such perfect harmony and mutual affection, that it was no easy matter
to distinguish the one from the other, either by their stature,
complexion, language, dress, modes, education, manners, arts, sciences,
religion, principles of morals, or of government; as the injuries and
devastations of their former wars with each other, which, as well as
I can remember, they equally and reciprocally suffered and offered,
were mutually forgotten and forgiven, and had left little traces, but
in history and on record; as they had shewn the same zeal for civil
and religious liberty; had rushed foremost, and begun the first attack
upon the common enemies to both; had enabled us, by engaging first as
principals, and afterwards as confederates, to oppose their furious and
dangerous invasions, to repel them as often as they were attempted,
and finally to rout and discomfit them for ever; as they had lent us
their assistance likewise, with the same alacrity, in raising that
curious and wonderful fabric which we built on the ruins of the ancient
structure; venerable and awful as the Capitol, and composed of more
durable materials, which, in the course of many centuries, had by turns
been often secretly undermined, treacherously betrayed, and openly and
violently battered, and by turns, as often as we had opportunity or
abilities, recovered and repaired. As it was reared with their hands,
and cemented with their blood, as well as with our own, they were
invited, by the advice of our counsellors, most renowned for their
gravity, penetration, wisdom, and virtue, to all the advantages of its
protection; but they had a Capitol of their own, which, although it
was neither so splendid, nor so magnificent, nor so vast, yet they had
that superstitious love and veneration for it which is common to all
nations, and which nature, education, and habit, has deeply implanted
in the hearts of all honest men and good citizens, and were unwilling
to quit it. We knew by experience that they were powerful allies; we
thought them faithful friends, and we had found on record, mortifying
as it was to remember it, that as often as they had been provoked or
insulted, they had been formidable and dangerous enemies. We plainly
saw that it was our interest they should be united to us for ever;
and all our political arts and resources were employed to convince
them it was theirs too. At last, after large promises and assurances
of honours, riches, and everlasting love; they were prevailed on,
although reluctantly, to consent. The advantages we derived from this
union, by the abilities and virtues of their statesmen, the valour,
skill, thirst of glory, and spirit of enterprize of their sailors and
soldiers; the genius, wit, taste, eloquence, and learning of their
divines, philosophers, historians, poets, lawyers, physicians, &c., the
inventions of their artists; the industry of their merchants, &c. had
been, until lately, manifest to all men, and were freely acknowledged
by all men, who possessed or pretended to candor and impartiality.
Men, indeed, conversant with history, knew well enough that the
Goths, Vandals, Huns, Saracens, Turks, and Moors, had been invited to
an alliance, in times of emergency and extreme danger; some of them
by the Romans, others by the Spaniards, Italians, &c. that they, at
first, fought for them, and defended them against their enemies; but
turned, at last, their arms against the very people who had called them
in, invaded their properties, usurped their governments, and finally
destroyed their constitution. But they reflected at the same time that
these people were not formed to live long together on any good terms of
mutual friendship, and confidence, being neither born under the same
climate, nor of the same colour, nor educated in the same principles of
manners, morals, nor government, nor speaking the same language, nor
worshipping the same god. There could not, therefore, be any stable
principle of union in so heterogeneous a mixture: the interest of the
one was to disband them like mercenaries, when the service was over;
the policy of the other, to use the opportunity their arms had given
them to remain where they were, and seize all they could get.
Some few politicians, nevertheless, there were among us (the very
politicians I have so justly extolled) of deeper penetration and
more enlarged views, who scrupled not to give shrewd hints, that the
alliance between England and Scotland teemed with the same mischief;
but these insinuations were supposed to be the effects of private
interest, or of a malignant disposition; or, at the best, the mere
pleasantries of idle wags. Nor indeed (if what has been said of the
North Britons be admitted) ought it to pass for matter of wonder
that what we emphatically call the Union, should appear to vulgar
eyes totally different from the alliance between the people of whom
I have been speaking. It was, therefore, the prevailing and common
opinion, that an Englishman might, with equal reason, be jealous of a
man born in another country or city, or of his next door neighbour,
or of his brother, as of a Scotchman. Now no man can be found so
foolish as to own such a jealousy, how much soever he may feel it; all
men being agreed to allow, that there cannot be a surer mark of a
shallow understanding, and a wicked temper; yet it sometimes happens
in private families, that the elder son, either from the vanity or
overweening fondness which people feel for their first productions,
or from novelty, or the ambition of transmitting to posterity their
names, titles, and possessions, is dandled and cockered in his infancy,
pampered in his childhood, flattered in his follies, and indulged in
his vices; during his youth exempted from the drudgery of reading
and study, from the labours and anxieties of trade, and from the
fatigues and dangers of war; secured from want by the liberality of
his parents, and from all solicitude about the future, but for the
speedy removal of one only obstacle to the accomplishment of all his
wishes; carefully trained, indeed, to those noble principles which
create authority and distinction in the great scenes of pleasure and
idleness; but instructed in no other. The fate of his younger brother
is frequently very different: if he be fed, cloathed, and taught, it
is all he has a right to expect; he must be flogged to his books; his
passions, follies, and vices, must be perpetually controuled, that
they may not obstruct his fortune in the world; and he must be, after
all this, compelled to some profession, art, or business, to keep
him from starving, when his parents cannot or will not contribute
any longer to his support. Now if he should chance, in the course of
such an education, to learn the habits of temperance, frugality, and
industry, and qualify himself, after the hard labour of many years,
for the employment or profession of a divine, a statesman, a lawyer,
a physician, an artist, a merchant, &c. one would naturally suppose
that his elder brother would rejoice in his success; and being himself
totally ignorant and incapable of all these matters, would court his
assistance, as often as his business, his pleasures, his affairs,
his health, his own preservation, or the safety and interest of his
country required. Something of this sort does now-and-then happen, I
believe, among the numerous families in Great Britain; and although
there are not wanting even multitudes of elder brothers, of the highest
distinction and eminence in every acquisition, accomplishment, talent,
and virtue, yet they have not been found so abundant as to answer all
the exigencies either of private or public life; recourse, therefore,
must be had to somebody: by this means the younger brothers came to
be employed occasionally; sometimes the elder and the younger were
employed indiscriminately; but the preference was commonly shewn to the
elder, according to that prevailing alacrity with which most men fly to
the aid of the rich and the powerful.
This, as far as I have been able to discover, was supposed to be pretty
much the case with the South and the North Britons, until of late.
When his present majesty (the first of our kings born in this country
since the Union) succeeded to the throne, he was most graciously
pleased to assure his subjects, that, among many other peculiar
felicities of his reign, he gloried in the name of Briton. The name
of Briton was impartial, general, and comprehensive in its meaning,
and most equitable in its intention. The prudent and wise application
of it, on that great occasion, was acknowledged by all men (and all
good men united in their hopes) that the time was now come when all
distinctions, excepting the eternal distinctions of vice and virtue,
would be buried in oblivion; when every honest man, and every good
citizen, should be intitled to his majesty’s protection; and if his
talents happened to be useful to the state, to his royal favour and
bounty. No prince had ever ascended the throne of these kingdoms so
universally beloved and revered. His dominions every where resounded
with mutual congratulations, with the praises of so excellent a
monarch; and the breasts of all his subjects were filled with the most
exulting hopes of a long and glorious reign. These halcyon days were
soon succeeded by a furious tempest, that had well nigh overwhelmed
us (in the very bosom of repose and tranquillity)! A most execrable
and horrid plot was said to be discovered (which had been long formed)
concealed with the same secrecy, and designed to have been executed
with more universal and fatal effect, than the famous gunpowder plot.
Much pains has been taken to get at the bottom of this plot; but no
exact information, at least that I know of, has yet been obtained of
it, or of the conspirators. Some pronounced it a democratical plot,
others affirmed it to be an aristocratical plot; some pretended
it was a tory plot, others protested it was a whiggish plot; many
offered large betts that they would prove it to be a jacobite plot,
some archly squinted at it as a popish plot; but the true and zealous
friends of their country swore by G--d it was a Scottish plot: there
were, indeed, a few, who insinuated that it was no plot at all; but as
these latter were known to be inveterate enemies to all such names and
denominations, they were of course supposed to bear no good-will to
their countrymen; there not being more than one in a thousand of them
who does not call himself by one or other of these names: so that their
opinion was almost universally treated with the contempt and scorn it
deserved. The opinion that it was a Scottish plot I think, prevailed
very generally in that part of Great Britain called England, and in
Berwick upon Tweed. Then it began gradually to be doubted, then to be
wholly disbelieved, for even a considerable time: happily it is now at
this very day revived; and, by the fervent zeal and marvellous skill of
those faithful guardians of our liberties, whom I have formerly spoken
of, the eyes of all men are at length opened, and nobody is found so
mad as to doubt it. For notwithstanding all I have said, and said most
innocently, of our brethren of Scotland (an appellation we fondly gave
them in times of our great distress) for the truth of which I beg
leave to appeal to the honour and consciences of all my countrymen,
who have ever happened to see them, converse with them, employ them,
serve with them, in the navy or the army; hear them in the pulpit, at
the bar, or in either houses of parliament; observe their buildings,
engravings, and other arts; or read their productions; yet no true
lovers of liberty can be too circumspect nor too vigilantly on their
guard against the danger even of possibilities; it being an established
maxim among all politicians of free countries, that Credulity is the
mother of Danger, as she is the daughter of Stupidity and Ignorance,
and has been the total ruin of many nations: for proof of which they
produce examples from the histories of all countries; such as the
secret machinations of many the most illustrious patricians and
wealthiest plebeians against the constitution of Rome, in the times of
Marius, Sylla, Catiline, Pompey, and Cæsar, which, by the credulity
of the people, lurked for a long while undiscovered and unsuspected,
until it burst forth on a sudden in open and violent attacks, and ended
in the total ruin of it; yet all these were Romans. The same wicked
designs were said to have been formed, not long since, by the Jesuits
in France and Portugal, and to have been almost ripe for execution;
but were happily discovered before it was too late, and prevented;
yet these Jesuits were all Frenchmen or Portuguese. Neither are there
wanting examples of this sort, even in the history of our own country,
in the reigns of Charles I., Charles II. and James II. The greater
part of the nobility, gentry, divines, and lawyers, were detected in a
conspiracy against the lives and properties of their fellow-subjects,
and the religion and liberty of this kingdom was dragged to the very
brink of destruction; yet these conspirators appear, to the best of
my remembrance of the histories of those times, to have been all,
with the exception of a few Scotchmen, Englishmen. These undeniable
facts are sufficient to warn us against the fatal consequences of
credulity, and the danger of trusting to the outward appearances I
have been describing, however fair. Let us not, therefore, shut our
ears to the cries of the streets, nor turn away our eyes from the
lamentations of the news-papers. Let us not be cozened by the arts of
crafty and designing men, who maliciously and falsely represent them as
the counterfeit tears, the groans and wailings of hired mourners; the
snarling, roaring, and howling, of ravenous faction; or the hooting,
cackling, and braying, of a wayward and deluded mob: they are the
generous and noble calls of liberty; the genuine voice of the venerable
and sacred multitude, neither provoked by private resentment, nor
bribed by promises, nor awed by fear, nor urged by hunger, nor sold for
gain.
I have read almost every Pamphlet and Paper that has been published
within these five years on political subjects, with equal delight and
astonishment at the deep and comprehensive judgment, wit, spirit,
and humour, with which many of them are manifestly written; and I
congratulate with my countrymen, on the rapid progress we are making
in this art. Their erudition I have not mentioned, it having been
discovered to be of no use at all in the knowledge or exercise of this
art. It is an observation of the great lord Bacon, that a man will
never get to the end of his journey, if he happens to mistake the way,
and go the wrong road; which he has clearly proved in his immortal
treatises, Novum Organum, and De Augmentis Scientiarum. Now, men had
been taught to believe, until very lately, before the discovery of
a direct road, and a short cut, that the composition of a professed
politician required as many and as great a variety of ingredients,
as Cicero’s orator, or the knight-errant of Don Quixote: accordingly
the great baron Montesquieu confesseth, That after the hardy study
and drudgery of twenty-five years, by day and by night, consumed in
the production of two small volumes; he believed them, on mature
revisal, unworthy of the public; in a fit of despair dashed them
against the wall; and had not the wall, as he affirms, returned them,
they would never have been heard of. Since this discovery was made,
which I shall explain hereafter, it has been found out, to the saving
of much labour, that the study of ancient and modern history, laws,
treaties, political systems, &c. is mere loss of time, and downright
pedantry. There are very few of our modern politicians to be seen now
adays, bestrewed with learned dust, like Pope’s politician; or smelling
of the lamp, like Demosthenes; or lean, like Cassius, with constant
meditation; or pale and blind with poring over Tacitus, Aristotle,
Plato, Montesquieu, Harrington, Sidney, or Locke. They have heard that
these books contain nothing more than a parcel of crude maxims, or
the idle dreams of unpractised pedants and schoolmen; declamations on
liberty, which any man in this country may learn at his leisure, in
the first company he chances to meet, over a dish of coffee, or over a
bottle; general arguments in behalf of the rights of mankind, which,
according to Cicero, every man is taught by instinct; Est igitur hæc
judices non scripta, sed nata lex, quam non didicimus, accipimus,
legimus; verùm ex naturâ ipsâ, arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus; and
the visions of vain projectors, stuffed with ridiculous notions, and
impracticable doctrines; such as that it may not be altogether safe
nor proper for the whole body of a great nation, any more than for any
private person, to eat or drink, or sleep, or dress, or sing, or dance,
or game too much: that it is possible, even for a maritime power, to
carry on too much trade: that drunkenness, adultery, bribing, and
perjury, at elections, are not very commendable practices: that even
annual parliaments, nevertheless, may be more eligible than septennial
ones, especially as many of its members may happen to learn as much
of the business of the senate at the end of six months as at the
conclusion of seven years: that a standing army, in time of peace, may
be dangerous to liberty, unless it should be voted by the legislative
power, although the officers who composed it were forty times more
valiant than the rest of their fellow-subjects, and just as honest
and virtuous as ninety-nine in a hundred of them; tamen miserrimum
est posse si velit: that a militia cannot well be too numerous, even
though the consumption of silk, or velvet, or lace, or ribbands, or
trinkets, should be thereby considerably diminished, and even though it
should be necessary to discipline it on the seventh day of every week:
that it may be possible in the nature of things for large fleets to
transport armies an hundred miles, and land them safely within sixty
miles of a great, unwarlike, and defenceless capital: that the king,
even of a free people, may be legally and constitutionally possessed
of certain instruments, engines, and powers, of unfailing efficacy, in
times of general depravity; by means of which, if he chance, instead of
being the friend and father of his people, to be wicked, an usurper,
and a tyrant, he may gain over, to any purpose he pleases, the souls
and bodies of three-fourths of them: that a free people, not clearly
discerning the reciprocal duties of protection and obedience, and prone
to confound the frenzy of sedition with the modesty of true liberty,
may, peradventure, tumultuously and violently obstruct the execution
of the known laws of the land, madly insult, in the public streets,
a prince devoted to their happiness, threaten to blow out the brains
of his friends and servants, and attempt to overawe the senate, in
the very midst of their public deliberations: that some care should
be taken to prevent such enormities from creeping into a free state:
in short, as there never had been any man, according to the unanimous
opinion of all divines and philosophers, who had ever written on
virtue, so perfectly good, but he might still be made somewhat better;
so all these politicians agreed, that no constitution was ever so
nicely and exactly framed, but it might possibly admit some addition
or amendment; turpiterque desperatur quicquid fieri potest. Such
(with many other wild projects and strange fancies of the like sort)
were the whimsical contents of these famous writings, that had once
made so much noise in the world. They are now universally neglected
and exploded; they may cry aloud, but no man regardeth them. As lord
Bacon was the first who shewed the right way to the study of natural
philosophy, so Machiavel, a man of the most abundant invention, the
most magnanimous resolution, and the most consummate abilities, was
the first of all the moderns who discovered and pointed out the direct
and short road to the art of political writing: and as the Whole Duty
of Man was calculated for the service and benefit of private families,
so Il Principe, that transcendant composition, that master-piece
of the human genius, was designed, by its immortal author, for the
instruction of royal families only, as the title of it implies, and
consecrated to the use of kings and princes. It had no sooner made
its appearance among them, than it was beheld with admiration, read
with avidity, applied with success, and became the standing rule of
politics among all the potentates of Europe, even among the kings
of Great Britain, until the Revolution; at which time, by means of
certain innovations, and the introduction of some new-fangled opinions,
it lost all credit with them, and has never recovered it to this day;
nevertheless, as every man in this kingdom is intitled to some share in
the government of it, it becomes his duty likewise to inform himself in
what manner it may be best governed; and in researches of this kind,
these golden rules, which the king had overlooked, or neglected, or
despised, his subjects happily discovered, adopted, and practised.
That this discovery has been made, is plain to every body who has read
the Prince of Machiavel, and the writings of our modern politicians.
Many a man too may remember how much he was surprized at the novelty
of a book, which, with the most mortifying scorn, contradicted every
opinion and principle that he had imbibed from his mother, or had been
taught by his father, or his schoolmaster; the avowed design of it
being to prove, that dissimulation, hypocrisy, fraud, lying, cruelty,
treachery, assassination, and massacres, were not only commodious and
expedient, on certain occasions, but that they were moral, political,
and positive duties: that all men who did not believe in these unerring
rules, were either fools, or madmen; and that all nations who had
not, or did not, put them in constant practice, had been, or must
be, infallibly undone. He did not, indeed, expressly include slander
and defamation by name; conceiving, probably, that they were fully
comprehended under the articles of lying and assassination, and that it
was a mere matter of indifference, to ninety-nine men in an hundred,
whether you plundered them of the characters of honest men, and good
citizens, or knocked out their brains. Happily for this deluded nation,
we have now among us many disciples of this renowned politician, of
considerable eminence and proficiency: to their united and zealous
efforts for the common weal, we are indebted (perhaps before it is
too late) for many useful and salutary discoveries; such as that
********, under all the fair appearances of candor and humanity;
the sacred semblance of unblemished truth, justice, and mercy; the
specious disguise of the most unambitious and unaffected love of all
his fellow-creatures, concealed the dark and dangerous designs of a
Tiberius: that *****, who had been called from retirement and the study
of philosophy to the instruction of his ****, and who had cajoled
all that knew him into an obstinate belief that he was a nobleman of
distinguished honour and virtue, an accomplished scholar, a munificent
patron of learning and the arts, an upright counsellor, an eloquent
senator, and an able statesman, was at the bottom a knave, a dunce,
a traitor, a bashaw, a Gaveston, a Wolsey, a Buckingham, a Sejanus:
that *****, who had passed almost universally for a patrician of a
most amiable, unreserved, and generous nature, beloved by his friends
and his equals, for his noble and ingenuous manners; as courteous and
affable to his inferiors, as if his high birth and fortune had not
given him a right of prescription to insult them; of great humanity,
kindness, and beneficence; a citizen warmly attached to the interests
of his country; a statesman who had executed, during half a century,
the highest employments of government with zeal and integrity; had sat
in the councils, and joined in the suffrages of our patriot ministers,
in the most illustrious period of our annals, and had spent his whole
life in the uniform support of liberty; that this very patrician could
hardly prove a single claim either to the virtues of social life, the
merit of public services, the authority of experience, or even to
the common privileges of age, and deserved to be treated as a very
drunkard, a glutton, and an old woman: that ****, the arch-magician,
who, by virtue of irresistible spells and incantations, and by the
powers of certain wonderful and stupendous operations, unknown to all
but himself, and the great magicians of ancient times, had palmed
himself upon the universal people, not only of Great Britain, but of
almost the whole globe, as the deliverer of his country, the colossus
of the age; as a philosopher, statesman, and patriot of the first
magnitude; possessing the genius, experience, eloquence, and consummate
abilities of Pericles, and the virtues of Epaminondas; the decus
imperii, the spes suprema senatus; was, after all, an impudent babbler,
a profligate villain, a shameless turncoat, a pensioned hireling,
a fawning minion, a common bully, a pernicious and treacherous
counsellor, a prodigal squanderer of the blood and treasures of his
fellow-subjects; in short, a madman, and the perdition of his country.
These and many other discoveries of the same kind, equally new and
important, are known and familiar to all men, who have studied the
works of our modern politicians, and sufficiently evince the progress
we have made in this art; yet it appears to be still far short of the
perfection to which it was carried by the ancients, as I have already
lamented; otherwise, with half the honest pains they have taken to
accomplish it, the **** would have been d----d long ago; his friends
and servants torn in pieces one after another, like the De Witts,
and other betrayers of their country, and their names, like theirs,
consigned to perpetual infamy. As our political writings unhappily have
not yet reached that last perfection, neither has our music. To such as
have never happened to read the works of Aristotle, Plato, Quinctilian,
and others of the ancients, what I have to say about the latter art,
may possibly appear somewhat extraordinary. It is, nevertheless, very
certain, they all considered music not only as an important, but as an
indispensable part of the qualifications of a politician; Non igitur,
frustra, Plato civili viro, quem politicon vocant, necessariam musicen
credidit, says Quinctilian. It was one of the fundamental laws of
the republic of Arcadia, that every man should learn music until he
was thirty years of age. Themistocles the Athenian was treated as a
vain boaster, for pretending that he could make a great kingdom of a
small one, without availing himself of its assistance. The rigid and
austere lawgiver of Sparta carefully mingled it with the composition
of his renowned government, used it on all occasions with incredible
efficacy, and by this means preserved it from corruption, for seven
hundred years. The wise Socrates studied it with uncommon assiduity
and success: and Pythagoras boldly declared, that the great system of
the universe was framed on its principles, and governed by its powers;
in short, that it was all in all. Music, in their acceptation of the
word, indeed, had somewhat of a more comprehensive meaning than it has
at present; including not only stringed instruments, wind instruments,
rope instruments, parchment instruments, bone and iron instruments, but
poetry likewise, and many other sorts of harmony. Of this marvellous
art we have hitherto but imperfect ideas. Shakespear just hints at it,
and freely gives it as his opinion, that the man who knows it not, must
be a traitor, a villain, and a murderer. Mr. Pope too conceived that
the music of Mr. Handel had a remarkable influence over the passions
and affections. Handel learned the little he knew of this art from the
Romans, who, according to Quinctilian, surpassed all the nations of the
world in their martial music, as much as they excelled them in their
military achievements; Quid, autem aliud in nostris legionibus, cornua,
ac tubæ faciunt? Quorum concentus, quanto est vehementior, tantum
Romana in bellis gloria cæteris præstat. And at this day the Roman or
Italian music, depraved, corrupted, and enervated as it is become in
the course of two thousand years, has no inconsiderable power over the
minds of our legislators, statesmen, and warriors. The force of it
has been felt in France, a country not much renowned for this art. M.
Voltaire insinuates, that a song in the time of Calvin, the burden of
which was, O Moines, O Moines, &c. contributed more than any thing to
the noble struggle a part of that country made, for forty years, in
defence of their religious liberty. So well aware was our Edward I. of
its universal power, that he could never assure himself of the perfect
and lasting conquest of Wales, until he had murdered all the Welsh
bards. If I mistake not, he attempted to do the same by the bards of
Scotland: the immortal Ossian escaped him; and his music, calculated
with the most consummate political art to inspire the breasts of
all his countrymen with every passion, affection, sentiment, and
principle of heroic virtue, that might make them happy at home, beloved
and respected by their friends, and terrible to their enemies, the
Norwegians, Irish, or English, was reserved until some great occasion
should call it forth; and accordingly did not make its appearance until
very lately. Something of the same kind was immediately attempted by
our English bards, with the wise and benevolent intention of inspiring
and instructing their countrymen; but not, I believe, with quite the
same success. Some compositions, however, we have that are not without
a considerable share of merit; among which there is, for instance,
a well-known jig, I cannot name, that is observed to produce a very
sensible effect upon our young men and women. Our sportsmen never
cease to shout at, “With hounds, and with horn.” All men kindle at,
“Britons strike home,” “Britannia rule the waves,” &c. Every man must
have remarked the unusual loyalty which never fails to appear in the
countenances of a whole audience at the excellent music of, “God save
great George our king. Happy,” &c. Lullybylero, according to bishop
Burnet, was sung by every man, woman, and child, throughout the whole
kingdom, until the very person of every Irishman was contemptible and
odious for near half a century. And I do not despair that some able
and skilful bard may hereafter arise, truly penetrated and inspired by
the patriot love we bear our country, and thoroughly inflamed with that
manly and generous indignation we feel at the very name of a Scot, who,
by means of a song or a ballad, may awaken the fury of an angry people,
dissolve the union, and cut the throat of every North Briton in the
kingdom.
THE END.
ERRATUM.
For capital, p. 21. l. 8. from the bottom, read Capitol.
Transcriber’s Notes
Minor errors in punctuation have been fixed.
The Erratum has been applied.
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