When clear, and guiltlefs of oppreffion's rage, There role in Britain an Auguftan age, And clutter'd wits by emulation bright, Diffus'd o'er Anna's reign their mental light; That conftellation feem'd, tho' ftrong its fiame, To want the fplendour of hiftoric fame: Yet Burnet's page may lafting glory hope, Howe'er infulted by the spleen of Pope. Though his rough language hate and warmth denote, With ardent honesty of foul he wrote; Tho' critic cenfures on his work may shower, Like faith, his Freedom has a faving power. Nor halt thou want, Rapin! thy well earn'd praife; The fage Polybius thou of modern days! Thy word, thy pen, have both thy name endear'd; This join'd our arms, and that our story clear'd: Thy foreign hand discharg'd th' hiftorian's truit, Unfway'd by party, and to freedon juft. To letter'd fame we own thy fair pretence, From patient labour, and from candid fenfe. Yet public favour, ever hard to fix, With fpirit eager, yet with judgment cool, Graceful in style, in argument acute; Maiter of every trick in keen difpute! With thefe ftrong powers to form a winning tale, And hide deceit in moderation's veil, High on the pinnacle of fashion plac'd, Hume fhone the idol of hiftoric taste. Already, pierc'd by Freedom's fearching From the pretended fage to ftrip the mafk, When his falfe tongue, averfe to freedom's caufe, Profanes the spirit of her ancient laws. As Alia's foothing opiate drugs, by ftealth, Shake every flacken'd nerve, and fap the health; Thy writings thus, with noxious charms refin'd, Seeming to footh its ills, unnerve the mind: While the keen cunning of thy hand pretends To ftrike alone at party's abject ends, Our hearts more free from faction's weeds we feel, With purer fpirit, free from party ftrife, To foothe his evening hour of honour'd life, See candid Lyttelton at length unfold He winds the lengthen'd tale thro' many a page; But there the beams of patriot virtue fhine; There truth and freedom fanctify the line, And laurels, due to civil wifdom, fhield But they have loft the flower of patriot This noble Neftor of th' Historic fleld.' zeal. EXTRACT from a celebrated AUTHOR, illuftrative of the prefent STATE of FRANCE. To the EDITOR of the UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. SIR, HAPPENING, the other day, to people always fuffer under fo many Butler's Remains, I lords and mafters; and though a was so much struck with the relation foundation for liberty be laid, the between the following paffage, and the events of a neighbouring country, that I determined to tranfcribe it, in order to its being more generally known through the channel of your Mazine. Governments, like natural bodies, have their times of growing, perfection, and declining; and according to their conftitutions fome hold out longer, and fome decay fooner than others; but all in their beginnings and infancies are fubject to fo many infirmities and imperfections, that what Solomon faid of a monarchy, Wo to that kingdom whofe prince is a child,' may be more justly faid of a new republic; and we may with as much reafon fay, Wo be to that people that live under a young government;' for as both mult of neceffity be under tutors, protectors, and keepers of liberties, until they can give the world an account, that they are equal to the government of themfelves (which a prince docs in fewer years than a republic can in ACES) the fruition of it is for after ages, like the planting of trees, whofe fhade and fruit is only to be enjoyed by pofterity. For what protection can a nation have from a government that muft itself be protected? That must maintain guards and armies at their own charge to keep themselves in obedience, that is flavery, until in process of time, by flow degrees, that which was rugged at first becomes gentle and eafy. For as that which was tyranny at firft, does in time become liberty; fo there is no liberty, but in the beginning was tyranny. All unripe fruit is harih, and they that live in newbuilt houfes, arc apt to catch diseases and infirmities. Nor is it poffible to fettle any government by a model, that fall hold, as men contrive fhips and buildings; for governments are made, like natural productions, by degrees, according as their materials brought in by time, and those parts of it that are incongruous in their nature, are caft off. are C. SELECT The character of king Richard here appears in a very amiable point of view; folicitous, without favour or affection, to adminifter impartial juftice, and defirous, on this account, to be perfectly fatisfied that the accufation refulted from principle, and not from malice, or any other unworthy motive. In all criminal caufes, this attention to the motive is flrictly requifite, in order that the credit of the teftimony given may be duly eftimated. The concluding line exhibits an excellent feature of our Engfish law, which judges not from fecret evidence, but confronts to each other both the accufer and the accufed.' Confcious Honour. Norfolk. Myfelf I throw, dread fore. reign, at thy foot: My life thou shalt command, but not my fhame; The one, my duty owes; but my fair name (Defpight of death, that lives upon my grave) To dark difhonour's ufa thou shalt not have. I am difgraced, impeach'd, and baffled here; Pierced to the foul with flander's venom'd fpear; The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood Which breath'd this poifon. King Richard. Rage must be withstood: Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame. Norfolk. Yea, but not change their fpots. Take but my fhame, And I refign my gage. My dear dear lord, The pureft treafure mortal times afford one; Take honour from me, and my life is done : Then, dear my liege, mine honour kt metry ; In that I live, and for that will I die, The duke of Norfolk had been accufed by the duke of Hereford of flanderous expreffions against the king; in anfwer to which this fpeech feums to evince an exalted fenfe of innocence and rectitude. It does not appear, however, that the conduct of the duke of Norfolk was at all corref pondent to the nobleness of the fe fentiments. The duke of Hereford,' fays Hume, was certainly very little delicate in the point of honour, when he revealed a private converfation to the ruin of the perfon who had entrusted him; and we may thence be more inclined inclined to believe the duke of Nor- removal of the family. Mr. Malone folk's denial, than the other's afleve-, fays, the lordship of Plashy was a ration. But Norfolk had in thefe town of the duchefs of Gloucefter's in tranfactions betrayed an equal neglect Eflex.' But this is not quite accurate: of honour, which brings him entirely Plathey, now called Plejbey, is a vilon a level with his antagonift. Though lage, feven miles from Chelmsford. he had publicly joined with the duke It was the feat of the lord high conof Gloucester and his party in all the table of England, from the earliest former acts of violence against the times of that office to the year 1400; king; and his name ftands among the and from his refidence here, in 1397, appellants who accufed the duke of Thomas, duke of Gloucefter, was inIreland and the other minifters; yet fidiously enticed by his nephew, king was he not ashamed publicly to im- Richard II, to accompany him on peach his former affociates for the horfeback to London, was waylaid very crimes which he had concurred on Epping Foreft, hurried to a veffel with them in committing; and his that was ready in the Thames, conname increases the lift of thofe apel- veyed to Calais, and there privately lants who brought them to a trial. murdered. On the fite of his caftle Such were the principles and prac- (to which the duchefs was then going tices of thofe ancient knights and to retire) is now a brick farm-houfe, barons during the prevalence of the called the Lodge, and near it the rearistocratical government, and the mains of fome ancient fortifications. reign of chivalry.' Vol. IV. ch. i. The beautiful panegyric on reputation in this speech will remind the reader of the celebrated paffage in Othello, where the villanous Iago expatiates on the importance of a good Allegiance indiffoluble. King Richard. Swear by the duty that you owe to Heaven (Our part therein we banifh with yourfelves) To keep the oath that we adminifter. The king having fentenced both Hereford and Norfolk to exile, exacts the oath here alluded to from each of them; namely, not to be reconciled abroad, fo far as to confederate against the flate of England. Upon the fecond line above Dr. Warburton has the following note: It is a queftion much debated among the writers on the Law of Nations, whether a banifhed man be ftill tied in allegiance to the state which fent him into exile. Tully and Clarendon declare for the affirmative; Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, feems to be of the latter opinion.'On this note Mrs. Griffith thus expreffes herfelf: I agree entirely with Cicero and Clarendon. The undergoing any penalty of law cannot diffolve either the moral or the political duty we owe our country. Socrates, by refufing to efcape out of prison, fhewed, that he thought his obedience and and fubmiffion to the ftate continued to be obligatory, even though the decree was unjust, and the fentence death. And under the oftracism, which imposed banishment upon men for their very eminence and virtue, we do not hear of the illuftrious exiles either speaking, or acting, as if they deemed their allegiance to be cancelled. Nay, Ariftides carried the fubmiflion of a good fubject fo far, as to think himself obliged in duty to write his own name on a fhell, at the request of an illiterate citizen of Athens, who voted against him on that very law. And Themidocles, though banished through the fpirit of faction, not that of the laws, and kindly entertained and preferred in the armies of Peria, chofe to fwallow poifon rather than march againt his country. It is not the community that banishes a man, but the laws which govern it. It is the law, not I, condemns your brother. MEASURE for MEASURE. These furely are no objects of refentment; and to rife in arms against a nation, becaufe one of its ftatutes had fallen heavy upon us, would be just as rational as to fet a foreft on fire, because we had received the baftinado by a cudgel that was taken out of it.'-We agree with Mrs. Griffith, in preferring the opinion of Tully and Clarendon on this question; but we cannot think her illuftration of it very happy. The cafe of Themiftocles (that of bearing arms against his country) feems to be the only one in point; and we cannot imagine any moral or political obligation that could prevent Socrates from efcaping from the unjuft fentence of death; or that could compel Ariftides to condemn himfelf to the equally unjuft fentence of exile, at the requifition of an illiterate and deluded citizen. On the contrary, the great law of felf-prefervation may, perhaps, authorize even a guilty man to elcape, if poffible, from the fatal effects of a fentence that has been juftly paffed upon him. Confolation in Exile. Gaunt. All places that the eye of les ven vifits, Are, to a wife man, ports and happi havens. The duke of Lancaster, by way comforting his fon under the fent nee of banishment, thus paraphraíes tat old English fentence, Every place is an honest man's home.' Similar to this is a paffage in fir R. Fanthawe's Pattor Fido: All places are our country, where we'r well; Which to the wife, is wherefoe'er they dwell. A& V. Sc. 1. Bolingbroke had before exprefe himself to the king, to much the fax: effect: Your will be done: This must my com fort be, That fun, that warms you here, fi fhine on me; And thofe his golden beams, to her you lent, Shall point on me, and gild my bank Bolingbroke. O, who can hold a fire By thinking on the frofty Caucafus ? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite, By bare imagination of a feaft? |