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him against a window, which caused him to void above a quart of blood the same night.

His resolution or rather obstinacy continued to the last he would not permit his wounds to be dressed nor accepted of any nourishment but what was forced upon him; he made no profession of religion, had no show of remorse or contrition, nor desired the assistance of a priest. He was privately interred by order from the court-a mercy no nation but ours would have conferred upon a spy, a traitor, and an assassin.

Is it not obvious to all England what had been our
distress in the confusion wherein so long a run of
mismanagement has plunged us, if heaven had per-
mitted the knife of a barbarous foreigner to have
robbed us of a minister whose conduct, wise, stead-
fast, vigorous, extricates our affairs and embroils
the enemy? Does not the flourishing church of
England owe him all things for her deliverance from
presbytery and atheism; a miracle no less seasonable
than when she was assaulted by all the force of
Rome? Were he not a sincere worshipper at our
increasing altars, would he not reduce rather than
multiply Is not even our gracious sovereign in-
debted to him for scattering those persons from about
her whose excessive tyranny strove to ruin all those
who aimed to come at the queen but by them?
Does he not sacrifice his quiet to the good of his
country without enriching his own family with her
treasure or decking himself with her honours, though
the has none but what with pride and joy she is
ready to bestow upon him? Was not his blood
(even now devoted to the restless genius of France),
spilt in dread of his pursuits and endeavours to re-
duce that monarch to humanity and reason? Is not
his modesty so excessive that he conceals from those
persons who have treated him as a traitor the extent
of his power, lest he should seem to insult their
disgrace Free from that false delicacy which so
often makes people uneasy at what either the mis-
taken or our enemies say of us; his actions have
their foundation on solid judgment, propped by a
most extensive genius, unlimited foresight, and im-
moveable prudence. France records her Richelieu,
Mazarin, and Louvois: we talk with veneration of
the Cecils; but posterity shall boast of Harley as a
prodigy in whom the spring is pure as the stream;
not troubled by ingratitude or avarice, nor its beauty
deformed by the feature of any vice. The coming
age will envy ours a minister of such accumulated
worth; they will see and know how happy we were.
Why then should we ourselves be wilfully blind or
wilfully ignorant of it? Is it not his distress to be
born among a people so divided? Could he in any
other country have failed of universal love and vene-
ration? How long shall our divisions make us the
sport and proverb of the neighbouring nations?
Monsieur Quillet, by the purity of his Latin, has
diffused our character throughout the world; and
when the curious would be informed of the genius
of the British people, the learned refer to him: it
is thought the most beautiful part of his Callipædia,
and however the spirit of the author may have suf-
fered by the change, I will present it to the reader
in the English translator's words:

"If then from Calais you design to land
On England's vile, unhospitable strand,
There you shall find a race of monstrous men,
Where mangled princes strew the cyclops' den.
A false, ungrateful, and rebellious brood,
New from a slaughter'd monarch's sacred blood.
They break all laws, all fancies they pursue,
And follow all religions but the true.

• Alluding to the bill for building fifty new churches.

All there are priests, each differently prays,
And worships heaven ten thousand different ways.
If by the mob the canting fool's admired,
The brother's gifted, and the saint inspired.
Hence the fanatics rave, and wildly storm,
Convert by pistol, and by pike reform.
Nor are th enthusiasts so abhorrent grown
To holy ceremonious rites alone :
An Englishman on all extremes will run,
And by eonsent be wilfully undone.
If an opinion thwart what ancients wrote,
He catches it, and bosoms up the thought.
Alcides would his club as soon resign,
As he a darling heresy decline.

"Yet we must do the sons of England right:
Some stars shine through the horror of the night.
For navigation, and for skill renown'd,

In sailing the terraqueous globe around.

To them no shore's untried, no sea's unknown,

Where waves have murmur'd and where winds have blown.
Typhis and Jason, who in Argo came,

Lay no pretensions to so just a fame,

As Ca'endish, Willoughby, and Drake's immortal name." Is it not time to redeem our character, that the world in applauding our courage may no longer object our divisions? Though we disagree in religion, yet for common good, we should methinks be glad to unite in politics. Our ceremonies may differ, but our essentials are the same; and to people of reason, one would imagine there needed not much persuasion to join in those advantageous particulars, reputation and interest.

Parties break their force against one another, do the work of our foes, are weakened by perpetual animosities, hate their adversary at home much more strenuously than a foreign enemy, incapacitate themselves from doing all the injury they should to France, all the good they ought to England. Our piques and distastes for trifles have run us up to frenzy; the world beholds the hatred and aversion among us as lunacy in our blood, incurable but by letting forth; they foresee and long for a civil war, to reduce us to misery and reason; they flatter themselves that our dissensions tend that way, and prophesy they can have no end but with our ruin.

The very

It is ourselves only can disappoint the hopes of our enemies, and extricate ourselves. Mahometans claim our pity for being misled by the grand impostor; and shall a fellow-christian be hated? Have we no arguments but bitterness and reproach? must we continue as violent against our neighbour at home, as brave in the field abroad? If we were not all Britons, or had different interests, something might be said for that eager desire of ruin so conspicuous in the contending parties.

How ridiculous it appears to a reasonable man, who reflects how greatly our happy constitution is envied by our enemies and how little valued or enjoyed by ourselves! We boast of liberty, and yet do all we can to enslave others to our opinions; meanwhile the common interest of the island is lost or forgotten in the desire of gratifying our particular revenge and aversions.

We have now a queen and ministry of consummate piety, prudence, and abilities, who know the true interest of England and will pursue it. The church is delivered from oppression and fears; religion secured according to every Englishman's heart's desire. What should we next consider but the interest of the body politic? Which way can that be so effectually carried on as by calming our heats and animosities, by taking off the veil of prejudice and party which so long has blinded us; to have every individual consider what would be for the good of the whole and sincerely to give into it? Were these measures faithfully pursued, France could never be formidable to England; nor the protestant religion here be under any apprehension from the restless and encroaching spirit of the Roman.

A LEARNED COMMENT

UPON DR. HARE'S EXCELLENT SERMON,
PREACHED (SEPT. 9, 1711) BEFORE THE DUKE
OF MARLBOROUGH, ON THE SURRENDER
OF BOUCHAIN;

BY AN ENEMY TO PEACE.

Et multis utile bellum.

"I HAVE got a set of Examiners; and five pamphlets, which I have either written or contributed to, except the best, which is the Vindication of the Duke of Marlborough,' and is entirely of the author of the Atalantis."-Journal to Stella, Oct. 22, 1711. "Comment on Hare's sermon by the same woman; only hints sent to the printer from Presto, to give her."-Ibid. Nov. 3.

rally lead to, and by the continuance of the divine favour must end in, if we be content to wait his leisure, and are not by our impatience and misgiving fears wanting to ourselves." At this rate when must we expect a peace! May we not justly inquire whether it be God's or the duke of Marlborough's leisure he would have us wait? He is there in an army well paid, sees nothing but plenty, nay profuseness in the great officers and riches in the general. Profuseness, when they every day in their turus receive the honour of his grace's company to dinner with them. At that sumptuous table which his grace once a week provides for himself and them, the good doctor never considers what we suffer at home, or how long we shall be able to find them money to support their magnificence. I should think the queen and ministry next under God the best judges what peace we ought to make. If by our impatience he meant the army, it was needless and absurd; if he meant our impatience here at home, being so far removed from the scene and in quite another view, he can be no judge of that.

P. 64.-" One would think a people who by such a train of wonderful successes were now brought to the very banks of Jordan, could not be so fearful as to stop there, or doubt with themselves whether or no they should try to pass the river, (quere, Senset or Scheldt?) and get possession of the land which God had promised them; that they could with their own eyes take a view of it (applied to Picardy), and behold it was exceeding good," &c. Our case and the Israelites' is very different. What they conquered they got for themselves; we take a view of the land as they did, and "behold it to be exceeding good," but good for others. If Joshua had spent many years in conquering the Amorites (with the loss of infinite blood and treasure), and then delivered the land over to the Gibeonites, the Israelites

I HAVE been so well entertained by reading Dr. Hare's sermon, preached before the duke of Marlborough and the army, in way of thanksgiving for passing the lines and taking Bouchain, that I cannot forbear giving part of my thoughts thereupon to the public. If a colonel had been to preach at the head of his regiment, I believe he would have made just such a sermon; which before I begin with, I must beg leave to consider the preface, and that stale topic in the publisher of "printing a discourse without the author's leave, by a copy got from a friend; being himself so modest that he would by no means hear of printing what was drawn up in so much haste." If the thing be not worth publishing, either the author is a fool or his friend a knave. Besides, the apology seems very needless for one that has so often been complimented upon his productions; of which we have seen several without either art or care, though published with this famous doctor's consent. A good argument indeed is not the worse for being without art or care; but an ill one is nothing without both. If plainness and might have had good reason to murmur; and that honesty made amends for every hasty foolish composition, we should never have an end, and every dunce that blotted paper would have the same plea. But the good doctor's zeal for the continuation of the war must atone for the rest of his defects. His politics and his divinity seem to be much of a size; there is no more of the last in his sermon than what is to be found in the text; he is so great an enemy to a partition that he scorns to divide even that.

He begins p. 62," I cannot but think that one of the properest acknowledgments to God, for the manifest tokens we receive of his good providence, is to consider their natural tendency, and what is the true use which he has put into our power to make of them." May we not very well query whether this be sense or truth? The properest acknowledgments to God for the manifest tokens, &c., is to offer him thanks and praise and obey his laws. P. 63.-"Persevere bravely in the just and necessary war we are engaged in, till we can obtain such a peace as the many successes he has given us natuDr. Francis Hare, bred at Eaton, was a fellow of King's college, Cambridge, where he had the tuition of the marquis of Blandford, only son to the duke of Marlborough; who ap pointed him chaplain general to her majesty's forces in the Low Countries. He afterward obtained first the deanery of Worcester, and then that of St. Paul's; in 1727 was advanced to the see of St. Asaph, and in 1731 translated to Chichester; which he held till his death, in 1740. "He has written three small pamphlets upon the management of the war, and the treaty of peace," says Swift, Examiner. No. 29. He was author of The Barrier Treaty Vindicated," and of four treatises against "The Conduct of the Allies." He was also a writer in the Bangorian controversy; and drew upon himself the severest of bishop Hoadly's treatises, under the title of "The dean of Worcester still the same." His works were collected, in four volumes, 8vo., 1746.-N. Adapted to the bishop's works, 4 vols. 8vo.

has been our case.

Ibid." It seems incredible that men should for culties, and successfully go through innumerable many years together struggle with the greatest diffidangers in pursuit of a noble end, an end worthy of all the pains and trouble they are at, and yet lose their courage as they gain ground," &c. Though this be a falsity, yet to lose courage as we gain ground may very probably happen, if we squander our courage by the yard and gain ground by the inch.

Ibid." Of all the virtues human nature would

aspire to, constancy seems to be that it is least made for. A steady pursuit of the same end for any long time together hath something in it that looks like immortality," (hath not this flight something in it that looks like nonsense?) "and seems to be above pursuit look like immortality? If it looks like imthe reach of mortal man." (How does a steady

If

mortality, it certainly seems to be above the reach of mortal man.) The "earth we live on, the air we breathe, the nourishment we take, everything about us is by nature' subject to continual change; our bodies themselves are in a perpetual flux, and not a moment together the same as they were. What place then can there be for a constant steady principle of action amidst so much inconstancy?" these reasons were true, it would be impossible not to be inconstant. With this old beaten trash of a flux he might go on a hundred pages on the same subject without producing anything new: it is a wonder we had not the grave observation, "That nothing is constant but inconstancy." What does all this end in? His first heat and edge shows us indeed a flux of what we did not expect.

P. 66.-" And though the end we aim at be the

same it was, and certainly nearer." This puts me in mind of a divine, who preaching on the day of judgment said, "There was one thing he would be bold to affirm, that the day of judgment was nearer now than ever it was since the beginning of the world." So the war is certainly nearer an end today than it was yesterday, though it does not end these twenty years.

Ibid." Such fickle, inconstant, irresolute creatures are we in the midst of our bravest resolutions. When we set out, we seem to look at what we are aiming at through that end of the perspective that magnifies the object, and it brings it nearer to us; but when we are got some way, before we are aware we turn the glass, and looking through the little end, what we are pursuing seems to be at a vast distance and dwindled almost into nothing." This is strange reasoning. Where does his instrumentmaker live? We may have the same constancy, the same desire to pursue a thing and yet not the same abilities. For example, in hunting, many accidents happen; you grow weary, your horse falls lame, or in leaping a hedge throws you: you have the same reason to pursue the game but not the same ability.

P. 67. Their zeal, perhaps, flames at first; but it is the flame of straw, it has not strength to last. When the multitude once begin to be weary and indifferent, how easily are they then seduced into false measures! how readily do they give into suspicions against those who would encourage them to persevere, while they are fond of others who, to serve themselves, fall in with their complaints, but at the bottom mean nothing but their own interest!" How base and false soever this reproach be, I have set it almost at length that I may not be charged with unfair quotation. By the company the doctor keeps and the patrons he has chosen, I should think him an undoubted judge when people mean their own interest, but that I know conversing only on one side generally gives our thoughts the same turn; just as the jaundice makes those that have it think all things yellow. This writer is prejudiced, and looks upon the rest of the world to be as self-interested as those persons from whom he has taken his observation.

But if he means the present ministry, it is certain they could find their own interest in continuing the war as well as other people; their capacities are not less, nor their fortunes so great, neither need they be at a loss how to follow in a path so well beaten. Were they thus inclined, the way is open before them; the means that enriched their predecessors gave them pretence to continue their power, and made them almost necessary evils to the state, are now no longer a secret. Did their successors study their own interest with the same zeal as they do that of the public, we should not have the doctor in these agonies for fear of a peace; things would be then as he would have them; it would be no longer a flame of straw, but a solid fire likely to last as long as his poor countrymen had any materials to feed it. But I wonder he would talk of those who mean their own interest; in such an audience, especially before those "who fall in with their complaints," unless he had given it quite another turn and bestowed some of his eloquence in showing what he really thinks, that nothing in nature is so eligible as self-interest, though purchased at the price of a lasting war, the blood and treasure of his fellow-subjects, and the weal of his native country.

P. 68.-"This is a misfortune which free assemblies and popular or mixed governments are almost unavoidably exposed to; and it is for this reason, so

few nations have ever steadily pursued for any long time, the measures at first resolved on, were they never so right and just; and it is for the same reason that a single power seldom fails at long run to be too hard for a confederacy." A very good argument for this war; a good overture and warning to make a general for life. It is an excellent panegyric upon arbitrary power; at this rate, the French king is sure to get the better at last. This preacher must certainly be an admirable judge of popular assemblies by living in an army. Such poor writers get a rote and common place of talking by reading pamphlets, and from thence presume to make general observations upon government and set up for statesmen. If the duke of Marlborough be Moses, what promised land is he bringing us to, unless this sermon be preached only to the Dutch! He may have promised them land and they him something else, and both been as good as their words. In his allegory of the people brought out of Egypt does the doctor mean our army? The parallel must then be drawn to make the war last forty years, or else it can be no parallel: we may easily see how near the comparison grows. Moses was accused by certain Israelites; "Is it a small thing," say they, "that thou hast brought us out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?” Hath the duke of Marlborough been suspected of any such design? Moses was wroth, and said unto the Lord, "Respect not thou their offering: I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them." (Num. xvi. 15.) And to the same purpose Samuel, "Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes with? and I will restore it you!" (1 Sam. xii. 3.) Does the British Moses speak thus to the people? is there any sort of agreement between them? Nor are we sure of God's commands to go up against the Amorites, p. 69, as the Israelites were; and we have fifty times more reason to murmur. They were carried from the wilderness "into a land flowing with milk and honey;" we from such a land into the wilder ness, that is, poverty and misery, and are like to be kept in the wilderness till this generation and the next too are consumed by mortgages, anticipations, &c.

P. 71. Where the doctor says, "The country itself was much too narrow for them," he must certainly mean the Dutch, who never think their frontiers can be too much extended.

The doctor tells us, p. 72, "The justice and necessity of our cause is little short of the force of a command." Did God command to fight because the chaplain-general will have no peace? He asks, "What is bidding us go on if our successes are not?" At this rate, whenever any new success is gained or a town taken, no peace must be made. The whole exhortation against peace which follows, is very proper for the chaplain of an army; it looks like another Essay of the Management of the War. "These successes have generally been so much wanted and so little expected." If we have been ten years at this vast expense, getting successes that we could not expect, we were mad to begin this war, which hath ruined us with all this success. But why this acclamation? Is taking one small town such great success as points out to us the finger of God? Who is his God? I believe the general has no little share in his thoughts, as well as the present ministry, though upon a quite different consideration. "The clouds have never this war thickened

UPON DR. HARE'S SERMON.

more or looked blacker than this year: things | looked so black on every side as not to leave us the faintest glimpse of light. We apprehended nothing less than the dissolution of the alliance." Whatever the doctor may be for a preacher, he has proved but an indifferent prophet. The general and army may be obliged to him for the dissipation of these clouds, though the ministry are not. Were they the cause that such clouds gathered, "as made him fear an universal storm which could no way be fenced against?" To hear him run on in praise of the wonders of this campaign, one would scarce believe he was speaking to those very persons who had formerly gained such memorable victories, and taken towns of so much greater importance than Bouchain. Had the French no lines before? I thought Mons, Lisle, &c. had been once esteemed considerable places. But this is his youngest child: he does like most mothers when they are past the hopes of more; they doat upon the youngest, though not so healthy nor praiseworthy as the rest of the brethren. Is it our fault, that "three of the princes in alliance with us resolved to recall their troops?" p. 76. We brought our quotas, if our allies did not. By whose indulgence was it that some of them have not been pressed more closely upon that head, or rather have been left to do as they please? It is no matter how hard a bargain people pretend to make if they are not tied to the performance.

P. 75." If the enemy are stronger than they were," how are we so near our great hopes, the promised land? The affectation of eloquence, which carries the doctor away by a tide of words, makes him contradict himself and betray his own argument. Yet by all those expressions, p. 75, we can only find that whatever succcess we have must be miraculous; he says "we must trust to miracles for our success," which, as I take it, is to tempt God: though, p. 77, he thinks "the most fearful cannot doubt of God's continuance." We have had miraculous success these nine years by his own account; and this year, he owns, we should have been all undone without a new miracle; black clouds, &c., hanging over our heads." And why may not our sins provoke God to forsake us and bring the black clouds again? greater sins than our inconstancy; avarice, ambition, disloyalty, corruption, pride, drunkenness, gaming, profaneness, blasphemy, ignorance, and all other immoralities and irreligion! These are certainly much greater sins; and whether found in a court or in a camp, much likelier to provoke God's anger than inconstancy.

66

Ibid.-"If we have not patience to wait till he has finished by gradual steps this great work, in such a manner as he in his infinite wisdom shall think fit." I desire the doctor would explain himself upon the business of gradual steps, whether three-and-twenty years longer will do, or what time he thinks the general and himself may live: I suppose he does not desire his gradual steps should exceed their date, as fond as he seems of miracles. I believe he is willing enough they should be confined to his grace's life and his own.

Our

What does he mean, p. 78, by the natural and moral consequences that must lead us? If those moral consequences are consequences upon morals, they are very small. "Whatever reason there can be for putting an end to the war but a good one, was a stronger reason against beginning it." Right! so far we allow. "And yet those very reasons, that make us in so much haste to end it, show the necessity there was for entering into it." I am in mighty hope to get out of a squabble, and therefore I had reason to get into it; generally the con

519

trary is true. "What condition should we have now been in had we tamely let that prodigious power settle and confirm itself without dispute?" It could never settle and confirm itself but by a war.

P. 79. "Did we not go into the war in hopes of success? The greatest argument for going on with the war is that we may have more success.' According to the doctrine laid down by our author, we must never be inclined to peace till we lose a battle: every victory ought to be a motive to continue the Upon this principle I suppose a peace was refused after the battle of Ramillies.

war.

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P. 80. "If we consider that our strength is from God," &c. Though all men ought to trust in God; yet our Saviour tells us, we ought to regard human means and in the point before us, we are told, "that a king going forth to war against another king, sitteth down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand; or else while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an embassage, and desireth conditions of peace." [Luke xiv. 31, 32]. Our Saviour was a preacher of peace; "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you," &c. [John xiv. 27]. But the doctor chooseth rather to drive on furiously with Jehu. He answers to the question, "Is it peace?" as that king did to the horsemen, "What hast thou to do with peace? Get thee behind me." He saith, "Our ingratitude and impenitence may defeat the surest prospects we have." May we not ask him, whose ingratitude? As to impenitence, I think this paragraph is the only one wherein he vouchsafes and that but very slightly in his whole sermon, to remind the people of repentance and amendment; but leaves a subject " so little suited to a day of joy,” p. 81, to encourage them to "go on to obtain the end toward which they have made so many happy steps." We differ about that end; some desire peace, others war, that so they may get money and power. It is the interest of some to be in action, others to be at rest: some people clap their finger upon one point, and say that alone can be a good peace; we say there be many sorts of good peace, of all which we esteem the queen and ministry to be the best judges. The doctor tells us, "Our sins may force us to put an ill end to the war." He should explain what he calls an ill end; I am apt to think, he will think nothing good that puts an end to it, since he saith, "Vengeance may affect not only us but generations yet unborn." That they have taken care of already. We have pretty well mortgaged posterity, by the expenses of this devouring war: and must we never see an end to it, till there is not an enemy left to contend with for so our author would intimate. In what a condition must we expect to be long before that? It is very happy for the nation that we do not lie at the mercy of this gentleman; that his voice is not necessary toward the great end we pant after, the unloading of our burden and the mitigation of our taxes. A just and necessary war is an ostentatious theme, and may bear being declaimed on. have war; what have we to do with peace? We have beaten our enemy; let us beat him again. God has given us success; he encourages us to go on. Have we not won battles and towns, passed the lines, and taken the great Bouchain; what avails our miseries at home; a little paltry wealth, the decay of trade increase of taxes, dearness of necessaries, expense

Let us

of blood, and lives of our countrymen? Are there not foreigners to supply their places? have not the loss of so many brave soldiers been offered to the legislature as a reason for calling in such numbers of poor Palatines, as it were to fill up the chasm of war and atone for desolation among our subjects? If we continue thus prodigal of our blood and treasure, in a few years we shall have as little of the one as the other left; and our women, if they intend to multiply, must be reduced, like the Amazons, to go out of the land or take them husbands at home of those wretched strangers whom our piety and charity relieved. Of the natives there will be scarce a remnant preserved; and thus the British name may be endangered once more to be lost in the German.

Were it not for fear of offending the worthy doctor I should be tempted to compare his sermon with one that some time since made so much noise in the world that of Sacheverell]; but I am withheld by the consideration of its being so universally condemned, nay prosecuted, on one side. Perhaps the chaplain-general will not like the parallel; there may be found the same heat, the same innuendoes, upon different subjects, though the occasion be not so pressing. What necessity was there of preaching up war to an army who daily enrich themselves by the continuation of it? Does he not think loyalty and obedience would have been a properer subject? To have exhorted them to a perseverance in their duty to the queen, to prepare and soften their minds, that they may receive with resignation if not applause whatever her majesty shall think fit to transact. The doctor without suspicion of flattery, might very well have extolled their great actions, and congratulated with them upon the peace we are likely to enjoy ; by which they will be at leisure to reap the harvest of their blood and toil, take their rest at home, and be relieved from the burden and danger of a cruel war. And as our gratitude will be ever due to them for delivering us from our distant enemy the French, so shall we have reason to bless whoever are the authors of peace to these distressed nations, by which we may be freed from those nearer and much more formidable enemies, discontent and poverty at home.

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I was always satisfied of the stupidity and disingenuity of the author who called himself "The

Mrs. Manley, daughter of sir Roger Manley, a zealous Royalist, was early in life cheated into marriage with a near relation of the same name, who had at the same time a former wife living. Deserted by her husband, she was patronized by the duchess of Cleveland, a mistress of Charles II.; but the duchess being of a fickle temper, grew tired of Mrs. Manley in six months, and discharged her on pretence that she intrigued with her son. Retiring into solitude, she wrote her first tragedy, "The Royal Mischief." This play being acted in 1696 with great success, she received such unbounded incense from admirers that her apartment was crowded with men of wit and gaiety, which in the end proved fatal to her virtue. In the same year, sne also published "The Lost Lover, or Jealous Husband," a comedy. In her retired hours she wrote the "Atalantis:" for which, she having made free in it with several distinguished characters, her printer was apprehended by a warrant from the secretary's office. Mrs. Manley, unwilling an innocent person should suffer, presented herself before the court of king's bench as the author. Lord Sunderland, then

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Medley;" but never till now so thoroughly convinced of his assurance. He (or one who personates him) appears, in a little book called "Bouchain," as if he were in close conference and great intimacy with the Examiner; where according to the unfair manner of modern dialogue he reserves all the wit and reasoning for himself, and makes the poor Examiner one of the silliest, dullest rogues that ever pretended to speak or hear of politics; nay, he has even treated him worse than the real Medley did; who, though hired by the party to call him names by the week, had still so much modesty not to take away his understanding, though he did his integrity. But here he is made just as stupid as was necessary to introduce all the fine things that are thought fit to be said of this campaign; and is directed to ask those questions which none that reads and lives in any part of England can be supposed to be ignorant of, on purpose to heighten the glory of the general and abuse the capacities of the present ministry. This method of his seems to be copied from that great genius and champion of their cause, the Observator; and our Examiner acts the part of his countryman Roger, which how agreeable to the spirit and sense of the Examiner may be easily judged from his writings, which have met with a general approbation for their wit and learning.

But leaving the falseness and improbability of the diction, I shall only consider the malice and design of this boute-feu, that would set the people on flame, and advance the general to a height where none had ever been hoisted before, only for the bare consequences that attend his being at the head of an army so often victorious, so well paid and encouraged, with no enemies in view but those whom it was familiar to them to overcome, and who, though superior in number (as indeed they were), yet are wholly dispirited by continued losses, and at present restrained by the positive commands of their monarch; who has given it in charge to Monsieur Villars, not to venture the army but upon manifest advantages; so that nothing might be left to fortune, which had appeared so contrary to them of late, and seems to have so great a hand in the rise and fall of empires, and that period which is set to human glory.

This new Medley would bespeak our compassion for his hero, by telling of "the hard usage he has met with, and the sufficient reason he has had to be disgusted; his scandalous manner of treatment from the Examiner and his party; for," he says, "he is sensible the usage he gave him was not wholly from himself." And again, "That the duke of Marlborough is divested of all interest and authority both at home and in the army, whom so much pains have been taken to mortify, that he might secretary of state, being curious to know from whom she got information of several particulars which were supposed above her own intelligence; she replied, with great humility, "that she had no design in writing further than her own amusement and divesrion in the country, without intending particular'r flections and characters; and did assure them that nobody was concerned with her." When this was not believed, and the contrary urged against her by several circumstances, she said, "then it must be by inspiration; because, knowing her own innocence, she could account for it no other way." Whether those in power were ashamed to bring a woman to trial for a few amorous trifles, or whether (her characters being under feigned names) the laws did not actually reach her, she was discharged after several public examinations. On the change of the ministry she lived in reputation and gaiety, and amused herself in writing poems and letters, and conversing with the wits. A second edition of a volume of her letters was published in 1713. "Lucius," a well received tragedy, was written by her, and acted in 1717. It was dedicated to sir Richard Steele, who was then on such friendly terms with her that he wrote the prologue to her play, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. She died July

11, 1724.

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