vincing the people of salutary falsehoods for some good end." He calls it an art to distinguish it from that of telling truth, which does not seem to want art; but then he would have this understood only as to the invention, because there is indeed more art necessary to convince the people of a salutary truth than a salutary falsehood. Then he proceeds to prove that there are salutary falsehoods, of which he gives a great many instances, both before and after the Revolution; and demonstrates plainly, that we could not have carried on the war so long without several of those salutary falsehoods. He gives rules to calculate the value of a political lie, in pounds, shillings, and pence. By good, he does not mean that which is absolutely so, but what appears so to the artist, which is a sufficient ground for him to proceed upon; and he distinguishes the good, as it commonly is, into bonum utile, dulce et honestum. He shows you that there are political lies of a mixed nature, which include all the three in different respects; that the utile reigns generally about the exchange, the dulce and honestum at the Westminster end of the town. One man spreads a lie to sell or buy stock to greater advantage; a second, because it is honourable to serve his party; and a third, because it is sweet to gratify his revenge. Having explained the several terms of his definition, he proceeds, In his third chapter, to treat of the lawfulness of political lying; which he deduces from its true and genuine principles, by inquiring into the several rights that mankind have to truth. He shows that people have a right to private truth from their neighbours, and economical truth from their own family; that they should not be abused by their wives, children, and servants; but that they have no right at all to political truth; that the people may as well all pretend to be lords of manors, and possess great estates, as to have truth told them in matters of government. The author, with great judgment, states the several shares of mankind in this matter of truth, according to their several capacities, dignities, and professions; and shows you that children have hardly any share at all; in consequence of which, they have very seldom any truth told them. It must be owned that the author, in this chapter, has some seeming difficulties to answer, and texts of scripture to explain. The fourth chapter is wholly employed in this question, "Whether the right of coinage of political lies be wholly in the government?" The author, who is a true friend to English liberty, determines in the negative, and answers all the arguments of the opposite party with great acuteness: that, as the gevernment of England has a mixture of democratical in it, so the right of inventing and spreading political lies is partly in the people; and their obstinate adherence to this just privilege has been most conspicuous, and shined with great lustre of late years: that it happens very often that there are no other means left to the good people of England to pull down a ministry and government they are weary of but by exercising this their undoubted right that abundance of political lying is a sure sign of true English liberty: that as ministers do sometimes use tools to support their power, it is but reasonable that the people should employ the same weapon to defend themselves, and pull them down. In his fifth chapter, he divides political lies into several species and classes, and gives precepts about the inventing, spreading, and propagating the several sorts of them: he begins with the rumores and libelli famosi, such as concern the reputation of men in power; where he finds fault with the common mistake, that takes notice only of one sort, viz., the detractory or defamatory; whereas in truth there are three sorts, the detractory, the additory, and the translatory. The additory gives to a great man a larger share of reputation than belongs to him, to enable him to serve some good end or purpose. The detractory, or defamatory, is a lie which takes from a great man the reputation that justly belongs to him, for fear he should use it to the detriment of the public. The translatory is a lie, that transfers the merit of a man's good action to another, who is in himself more deserving; or transfers the demerit of a bad action from the true author to a person who is in himself less deserving. He gives several instances of very great strokes in all the three kinds, especially in the last, when it was necessary, for the good of the public, to bestow the valour and conduct of one man upon another, and that of many to one man: nay even, upon a good occasion, a man may be robbed of his victory by a person that did not command in the action. The restoring and destroying the public may be ascribed to persons who had no hand in either. The author exhorts all gentlemen practitioners to exercise themselves in the translatory, because the existence of the things themselves being visible, and not demanding any proof, there wants nothing to be put upon the public, but a false author, or a false cause; which is no great presumption upon the credulity of mankind, to whom the secret springs of things are for the most part unknown. The author proceeds to give some precepts as to the additory; that when one ascribes anything to a person which does not belong to him, the lie ought to be calculated not quite contradictory to his known qualities; for example, one would not make the French king present at a Protestant conventicle; nor, like queen Elizabeth, restore the overplus of taxes to his subjects. One would not bring in the Emperor giving two months' pay in advance to his troops; nor the Dutch paying more than their quota. One would not make the same person zealous for a standing army, and public liberty; nor an atheist support the church; nor a lewd fellow a reformer of manners; not a hot-headed, crackbrained coxcomb forward for a scheme of moderation. But, if it is absolutely necessary that a person is to have some good adventitious quality given him, the author's precept is, that it should not be done at first in extremo gradu. For example, they should not make a covetous man give away all at once 50007. in a charitable, generous way; 201. or 301. may suffice at first. They should not introduce a person of remarkable ingratitude to his benefactors, rewarding a poor man for some good office that was done him thirty years ago; but they may allow him to acknowledge a service to a person who is capable still to do him another. A man, whose personal courage is suspected, is not at first to drive whole squadrons before him; but he may be allowed the merit of some squabble, or throwing a bottle at his adversary's head. It will not be allowed to make a great man that is a known despiser of religion spend whole days in his closet at his devotion; but you may with safety make him sit out public prayers with decency. A great a Major-general Webb obtained a glorious victory over the French, near Wynedale, in the year 1708. He was sent with 6000 of the confederate troops to guard a great convoy to the allied army, besieging Lisle: Count de la Motte came out from Ghent, with nearly 24,000 men, to intercept them; but majorgeneral Webb disposed his men with such admirable skill that, notwithstanding the vast superiority of numbers, by the pure force of order and disposition, the French were driven back in two or three successive attempts; and after having lost 6000 or 7000 men, could be brought to charge no more. This may justly be reckoned among the greatest actions of that war: but the duke of Marlborough's secretary, in his letter written to England, gave all the honour of it to general Cadogan, the duke's favourite, who did not come up till after the engagement. This was so resented by general Webb, that he left the army in disgust; and coming into England to do himself justice, received the nnanimous thanks of the house of commons for his eminent services by that great action; which was also acknowledged, in a distinguishing manner by the king of Prussia, who bestowed on him the Order of Generosity. man, who has never been known willingly to pay a just debt, ought not all of a sudden to be introduced making restitution of thousands he has cheated; let it suffice at first to pay 207. to a friend who has lost his note. He lays down the same rules in the detractory or defamatory kind; that they should not be quite opposite to the qualities the persons are supposed to have. Thus it will not be found according to the sound rules of pseudology to report of a pious and religious prince that he neglects his devotion, and would introduce heresy; but you may report of a merciful prince, that he has pardoned a criminal who did not deserve it. You will be unsuccessful if you give out of a great man, who is remarkable for his frugality for the public, that he squanders away the nation's money; but you may safely relate that he hoards it: you must not affirm he took a bribe, but you may freely censure him for being tardy in his payments; because, though neither may be true, yet the last is credible, the first not. Of an open-hearted, generous minister, you are not to say that he was in an intrigue to betray his country; but you may affirm, with some probability, that he was in an intrigue with a lady. He warns all practitioners to take good heed to these precepts; for want of which many of their lies of late have proved abortive or shortlived. In the sixth chapter, he treats of the miraculous; by which he understands anything that exceeds the common degrees of probability. In respect to the people, it is divided into two sorts, the rò posgov or the To upasides, terrifying lies, and animating or encouraging lies; both being extremely useful on their proper occasions. Concerning the rò popov he gives several rules; one of which is, that terrible objects should not be too frequently shown to the people lest they grow familiar. He says, it is absolutely necessary that the people of England should be frighted with the French king and the pretender once a-year; but that the bears should be chained up again till that time twelvemonth. The want of observing this so necessary a precept, in bringing out the raw head and bloody bones upon every trifling occasion, has produced great indifference in the vulgar of late years. animating or encouraging lies, he gives the following rules that they shall not far exceed the common degrees of probability; that there should be variety of them; and the same lie not obstinately insisted upon : that the promissory or prognosticating lies should not be upon short days, for fear the authors should have the shame and confusion to see themselves speedily contradicted. He examines, by these rules, that wellmeant, but unfortunate lie of the conquest of France which continued near twenty years together; but at last, by being too obstinately insisted upon, it was worn threadbare, and became unsuccessful. As to the As to the rò rsgards, or the prodigious, he has little to advise, but that their comets, whales, and dragons should be sizeable; their storms, tempests, and earthquakes, without the reach of a day's journey of a man and horse. The seventh chapter is wholly taken up in an inquiry, which of the two parties are the greatest artists in political lying? He owns, that sometimes the one party, and sometimes the other, is better believed; but that they have both very good geniuses among them. He attributes the ill success of either party to their glutting the market, and retailing too much of a bad commodity at once: when there is too great a quantity of worms it is hard to catch gudgeons. He proposes a scheme for the recovery of the credit of any party, which indeed seems to be somewhat chimerical, and does not savour of that sound judgment the author has shown in a During the reigns of king William and queen Anne. the rest of the work. It amounts to this, that the party should agree to vent nothing but truth for three months together, which will give them credit for six months lying afterwards. He owns, that he believes it almost impossible to find fit persons to execute this scheme. Towards the end of the chapter he inveighs severely against the folly of parties, in retaining scoundrels and men of low genius to retail their lies; such as most of the present news-writers are; who, except a strong bent and inclination towards the profession, seem to be wholly ignorant in the rules of pseudology, and not at all qualified for so weighty a trust. In his next chapter he treats of some extraordinary geniuses, who have appeared of late years, especially in their disposition towards the miraculous. He advises those hopeful young men to turn their invention to the service of their country; it being inglorious, at this time, to employ their talent in prodigious fox-chases, horse-courses, feats of activity in driving of coaches, jumping, running, swallowing of peaches, pulling out whole sets of teeth to clean, &c., when their country stands in so much need of their assistance. The eighth chapter is a project for uniting the several smaller corporations of liars into one society. It is too tedious to give a full account of the whole scheme: what is most remarkable is, that this society ought to consist of the heads of each party; that no lie is to pass current without their approbation, they being the best judges of the present exigencies, and what sorts of lies are demanded; that in such a corporation there ought to be men of all professions, that rò girev, and the rò sóyov, that is, decency and probability, may be observed as much as possible; that, besides the persons above mentioned, this society ought to consist of the hopeful geniuses about the town (of which there are great plenty to be picked up in the several coffeehouses), travellers, virtuosoes, fox-hunters, jockeys, attorneys, old seamen and soldiers out of the hospitals of Greenwich and Chelsea; to this society, so constituted, ought to be committed the sole management of lying; that in their outer room there ought always to attend some persons endowed with a great stock of credulity, a generation that thrives mightily in this soil and climate: he thinks a sufficient number of them may be picked up anywhere about the Exchange: these are to circulate what the others coin; for no man spreads a lie with so good a grace as he that believes it: that the rule of the society be to invent a lie, and sometimes two, for every day; in the choice of which great regard ought to be had to the weather and the season of the year: your polipd. or terrifying lies, do mighty well in November and December, but not so well in May and June, unless the easterly winds reign: that it ought to be penal for anybody to talk of anything but the lie of the day that the society is to maintain a sufficient number of spies at court, and other places, to furnish hints and topics for invention, and a general correspondence of all the market-towns for circulating their lies: that if any one of the society were observed to blush, or look out of countenance, or want a necessary circumstance in telling the lie, he ought to be expelled, and declared incapable: besides the roaring lies, there ought to be a private committee for whisperers, constituted of the ablest men of the society. Here the author makes a digression in praise of the Whig party, for the right understanding and use of proof-lies. A proof-lie is like a proof-charge for a piece of ordnance, to try a standard credulity. Of such a nature he takes transubstantiation to be in the Church of Rome, a proof-article, which if any one swallows, they are sure he will digest everything else; therefore the Whig party do wisely, to try the credulity of the people sometimes by swingers, that they may be able to judge to what height they may charge them : afterwards. Towards the end of this chapter, he warns the heads of parties against believing their own lies, which has proved of pernicious consequences of late; both a wise party, and a wise nation, having regulated their affairs upon lies of their own invention. The causes of this he supposed to be, too great a zeal and intenseness in the practice of this art, and a vehement heat in mutual conversation, whereby they persuade one another, that what they wish, and report to be true, is really so that all parties have been subject to this misfortune. The Jacobites have been constantly infested with it; but the Whigs of late seemed even to exceed them in this ill habit and weakness. To this chapter the author subjoins a calendar of lies, proper for the several months of the year. The ninth chapter treats of the celerity and duration of lies. As to the celerity of their motion, the author says it is almost incredible: he gives several instances of lies that have gone faster than a man can ride post: your terrifying lies travel at a prodigious rate, above ten miles an hour: your whispers move in a narrow vortex, but very swiftly. The author says, it is impossible to explain several phænomena in relation to the celerity of lies, without the supposition of synchronism and combination. As to the duration of lies, he says there are of all sorts, from hours and days to ages; that there are some which, like insects, die and revive again in a different form; that good artists, like people who build upon a short lease, will calculate the duration of a lie surely to answer their purpose; to last just as long, and no longer, than the turn is served. The tenth chapter treats of the characteristics of lies; how to know when, where, and by whom invented. Your Dutch, English and French ware are amply distinguished from one another; an Exchange lie from one coined at the other end of the town: great judgment is to be shown as to the place where the species is intended to circulate: very low and base coin will serve for Wapping: there are several coffeehouses that have their particular stamps, which a judicious practitioner may easily know. All your great men have their proper phantateustics. The author says he has attained, by study and application, to so great skill in this matter that, bring him any lie, he can tell whose image it bears so truly, as the great man himself shall not have the face to deny it. The promissory lies of great men are known by shouldering, hugging, squeezing, smiling, bowing; and their lies in matter of fact, by immoderate swearing. He spends the whole eleventh chapter on one simple question, whether a lie is best contradicted by truth, or by another lie? The author says that, considering the large extent of the cylindrical surface of the soul, and the great propensity to believe lies in the generality of mankind of late years, he thinks the properest contradiction to a lie is another lie. For example, if it should be reported that the pretender was in London, one would not contradict it by saying, he never was in England; but you must prove by eye-witnesses that he came no further than Greenwich, and ther. went back again. Thus if it be spread about that a great person were dying of some disease, you must not say the truth, that they are in health, and never had such a disease, but that they are slowly recovering of it. So there was not long ago a gentleman, who affirmed, that the treaty with France, for bringing popery and slavery into England, was signed the 15th of September; to which another answered very judiciously, not, by opposing truth to his lie, that there was no such treaty; but that, to his certain kuowledge, there were many things in that treaty not yet adjusted. [The account of the second volume of this excellent treatise is reserved for another time.] THE ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS TO THE QUEEN. APRIL 9, 1713. DRAWN UP BY DR. SWIFT, AT THE COMMAND OF THE "LORD TREASURER showed me some of the queen's speech which I corrected in several places; and penned the vote of address of thanks for the speech."-Journal de Stella, March 8, 1712-13. "Lord Treasurer engaged me to dine with him to-day; and I had ready what he wanted."-Ibid. March 15. "I dined again with lord treasurer; but, the parliament being prorogued, I must keep what I have till next week; for I believe he will not see it till the evening before the session."-Ibid. March 17. "I dined again with the lord treasurer; and though the business I had with him is something against Thursday, when the parliament is to meet, and this is Tuesday, he put it off till to-morrow."-Ibid. April 7, 1713. We WE, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled, do, with the greatest joy and satisfaction, return our humble thanks to your majesty, for your most gracious speech from the throne; and for communicating to this house that peace is agreed on, so honourable to your majesty, and safe and advantageous to your kingdoms; by which we hope, with the blessing of God, that your people will in a few years recover themselves, after so long and expensive a war. likewise beg leave to congratulate with your majesty upon the success of your endeavours for a general peace; whereby the tranquillity and welfare of Europe will be owing (next to the Divine Providence) to your majesty's wisdom and goodness. We never had the least doubt that your majesty, who is the greatest ornament and protector of the Protestant religion, would do everything for securing the Protestant succession; towards which nothing can be more necessary than the perfect harmony there is between your majesty and the house of Hanover. And we do humbly assure your majesty, that, as you are pleased to express your dependence, (next under God,) upon the duty and affection of your people; we think ourselves bound, by the greatest ties of religion, loyalty, and gratitude, to make all returns that can be due from the most obedient subjects to the most indulgent sovereign. A MODEST INQUIRY INTO THE REASONS OF THE JOY EXPRESSED BY A CERTAIN SET OF PEOPLE, UPON THE SPREADING OF A REPORT OF HER MAJESTY'S DEATH. THE following account of the queen's illness, and its effect upon the state of parties, is from Swift's own pen:" In the midst of these dispositions at court, the queen fell dangerously sick at Windsor, about 1713, It was confidently reported in town that she was dead, and the heads of the expecting party were said to have various meetings thereupon, and a great hurrying of chairs and coaches to and from the earl of Wharton's house. Whether this were true or not, yet this much is certain, that the expressions of joy appeared very frequent and loud among many of that party; which proceeding, men of form did not allow to be altogether decent."" The queen had carly notice of this behaviour among the discontented leaders during her illness. It was, indeed, an affair of such a nature as required no aggravation, which, however, would not have been wanting; the women of both parties,a who then attended her majesty, being well disposed to represent it in the strongest light. The result was, that the queen immediately laid aside all her schemes and visions of reconciling the two opposite interests, and entered upon a firm resolution of adhering to the old English principles, from an opinion that the adverse party waited impatiently for her death, upon views little consisting (as the language and opinion went then) with the safety of the Constitution, either in church or state."-An Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry. THAT this inquiry is made by a private person, and not by her majesty's attorney-general; and that such notorious offenders have met only with an expostulation, instead of an indictment, will at once be an everlasting proof of the lenity of the government and of the unprovoked and groundless barbarity of such a proceeding. Amid the pious intercessions of her majesty's dutiful subjects at the throne of grace for her health and recovery, that others of them should receive the news of her death with joy, and spread it with industry, will hardly appear probable to any except to those who have been witnesses of such vile practices, not only in her majesty's capital city, but in several other places in the kingdom; not only near Charingcross, but at some market-crosses that their passion on such an occasion should prove too unruly even for the caution demanded in the belief of news still uncertain, for the severity of the laws, and for the common decency that is due to the fall even of the greatest enemy: that not only those who were sharers of the common blessings of her mild government, but such as had been warmed by its kinder influences; not only those who owed their honours, their riches, and other superfluities, but even the necessaries of life, to her bounty; such as ate her bread, wore her raiment, and were protected under the shelter of her roof, should not be able for a moment to stifle their eager and impatient ingratitude: that this behaviour should not only appear in those vile and detestable places which are dedicated to faction and disorder; but that it should infect her majesty's palaces and chapels (where the accustomed devotion for her health and prosperity was derided): these, I say, are facts that might demand a full proof, could I not appeal to their own consciences, and the uncontestable evidence of credible persons. I will for once suppose some foreigner, unacquainted with our temper and affairs, to be disturbed in his walks by some of the revels at Charing-cross upon this occasion, or by chance to stumble into a neighbouring coffeehouse: would not his curiosity prompt him to address himself to the company after the following manner? "Gentlemen, Though I am no Englishman, I rejoice as much at the fall of a tyrant as any of you. Surely this queen Anne exceeded both Nero and Caligula in acts of cruelty. May I beg you to relate to me some particulars? As for you, gentlemen, who express such unusual joy, no doubt but there are at this time multitudes of your relations and friends in prison who were to be executed the next day if this lucky accident had not prevented it." Give me leave to imagine some poor disconsolate honest gentlemen, at the same time, accidentally among them, thus answering this foreigner: "Alas! sir, this good queen, whom they now report to be dead, during a reign of twelve years, never shed one drop of blood for any misdemeanours against herself." For. Well, sir, allowing what you have said to be true, may not the late administration have been rendered merciful by the indulgence of those entrusted with the execution of the laws; and yet, the queen, of whom we are speaking, have been in her own nature a wicked and cruel person? Gent. Alas! sir, quite the contrary; this excellent queen was the greatest pattern of all princely and Christian virtues that ever adorned a throne; just, patient, firm, devout, charitable, affable, compassionate, the sincerest friend, the kindest mistress, the best wife! For. Perhaps she was of a different religion; inclined to popery, which has been for many years held in the utmost detestation in this country. Gent. Sir, this pious princess, as she was early educated in the religion of her country, so, amid a court corrupted both in principles and manners, she gave constant proofs of her unshaken perseverance in it; and, by her unblemished life, proved as great an ornament to the church of which she was a member as she was a steady professor of its doctrine and constant frequenter of its devotions. To the protestant religion she sacrificed her most tender interests. Where is that boasted patriot, who acted a more generous part for the good of his country in the most perilous times? And, since Providence set the crown upon her head, in what single instance has she departed from those maxims? For. I confess, then, I am at a loss to find out the cause of so great an exultation for the death of so excellent a princess: but it has sometimes happened, by the connivance of good monarchs, that their people have been oppressed; and that perhaps might be your case in the late reign. 66 Gent. So much otherwise, that no annals can produce a reign freer from oppression. Our gracious queen never accepted the persons of the wicked, nor overthrew the righteous in judgment. Whose ox or whose ass did she take? She was always ready to relieve, but never to oppress, the poor, the fatherless, and the afflicted. Her heart was not lifted up above her brethren; nor did she turn aside from the commandment, to the right or to the left." Her compassionate mind pitied even those countries which suffered by the power of her victorious arms. Where are the least effects of the pride and cruelty of queen Anne to be discovered? So impossible is it to brand her government with any instance of severity, that perhaps it may be more justly censured for excess of clemency; a clemency the continuance whereof had once brought her into the utmost distress, till that tender regard which she had always shown for the liberties of her subjects taught them in return to struggle as hard for the liberty of their sovereign; even for that common right of all mankind, the choosing her own servants. For. Give me leave to make another supposition. Princes sometimes turn liberality into profusion, squander their treasure, and impoverish their people. May nothing of this kind be laid to the charge of the deceased queen? Gent. You cannot but have heard, that, when she came to the crown, she found a dangerous war prepared for her, in which it pleased God to bless her with an unexpected success. When the purposes seemed to be answered for which it was undertaken, she thought fit to stop the vital streams of the blood and treasure of her people, and to put a period to a war that now served only to gratify the covetousness or ambition of those she was confederated with, as well as the vast designs of a faction at home; and, with peace, to endeavour to settle such a commerce as might in some measure reimburse her subjects of the vast treasure they had expended. Alas! here is her crime; touching those points she is now called in question " by those gentlemen. As for her own expenses, I wish they had reached as far as the necessaries and conveniences of life, which, some can testify, she has often denied herself, that she might have to give to those who were in want. If ever her liberality exceeded its just bounds, it was to a set of men who would now use the riches they enjoy by her bounty to insult her. Devotion and business were all the pleasures of her life: when she had any relaxation from the latter, it was only by some painful attack of the gout. The cares of government, no doubt, had prejudiced her constitution: but monsters sure are they that can rejoice for the loss of a life worn out in their own service. I hope you will have the goodness to believe there are but few of us who deserve this infamous character. The bulk of her subjects, and many good Christians besides, in other parts of the world, are, no doubt, daily offering up their ardent prayers and vows for the preservation of so precious a life. For. From what you have said, I readily condemn the unseasonable joy of those gentlemen; but mankind are governed by their interest. You Englishmen seldom disguise your passions. A monarch may have a thousand good qualities; but particular men, who do not feel the benign influence of them, may be tempted, perhaps, to wish for a change. Gent. Give me leave to whisper you: That man of quality, whom you see in such an exstacy, enjoys, by her majesty's bounty, one of the most advantageous places of the kingdom.—That other gentleman's coach, that stands there at the door, was bought with her majesty's money.-The laced coat, the hat and feather, that officer wears, were purchased with her pay; and you see her arms on his gorget.-This noble person's relations have been brought from the lowest degree of gentlemen, and surfeited with riches and honours by her majesty so that she may truly complain, " She has nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against her." : For. Truly, sir, I am amazed at what you say; and yet there appears so much candour and confidence in your assertions, that I can hardly suspect the truth of them. I have travelled through many a desolate country, and heard the groans of many an afflicted people, who would have thought themselves blessed if the united virtues of this lady had been parcelled out among all their governors. Those virtues of princes that most dazzle the eyes of mankind are often dearly paid for by their people, who are forced to purchase them a place in the annals of fame at the dear price of their blood and treasure: and I believe they would seldom find fault with them for being peaceably inclined. I am a stranger; and in such a disorderly night as this, may meet with some affront; so must bid you farewell, hoping you will find this melancholy news contradicted. I may appeal to any impartial reader, whether there is anything forced or unnatural in this dialogue; and then desire him to pass his judgment upon the proceedings of those who rejoiced at her death. But to return to my inquiry The circumstances of queen Elizabeth much resemble those of her present majesty, with this difference, that queen Elizabeth was forced upon many great and remarkable pieces of severity from which it has pleased God to free her present majesty-I hope as a particular blessing upon her reign, and indulgence to her merciful temper. Though there were many factions at that time, both of the papists and puritans, to neither of which she gave much quarter, so that her very life was often conspired against by many sets of villains among the papists; though she had no posterity to revenge her quarrels, but, on the contrary, her ministry had most reason to be afraid of the vengeance of the successor; yet she carried the respect and duty of her subjects with her even to the grave. By the wise and close management of her ministry, her being sick of the small-pox at Hampton Court was concealed from the people till she was almost well. Had they known it, it would have been the constant subject of their devotions, as every little disorder of hers was. Whether from the fear of punishment, a regard to decency, love to their country, or the sense of their duty and allegiance, which were not extinguished in those days; none of those multitudes, which had suffered great hardships, durst mutter, or ever dreamed of showing the least malice or insolence to her, even in her old age and the very last scene of her life; and yet she was a true friend to peace, it being her constant maxim, "That it was more glorious to prevent a war by wisdom, than to finish it by victories." | When she had a mind to break off in the middle of a successful war, in which she was engaged against a more formidable power, and a more hopeful candidate for universal monarchy than any that has since appeared; a war that was managed without the help of destructive funds, and large issues of English treasures to foreign states; a war that was carried on with the proper force of the nation, viz., their fleets, and rather served to bring in great quantities of bullion than to carry it out: I say, when she had a mind to make peace, I do not hear that every little retailer of politics presumed to tell her that it was not yet time to lay down her arms; that Spain was not yet sufficiently reduced; that the balance of Europe was not perfectly settled. Indeed, her cap. tain-general for that war seemed to reason at the council-board with too much warmth for the continuance of it; but I do not hear that her lord-treasurer was disgraced for advertising him at that time, "that the blood-thirsty man should not live half his days;" a prophecy but too truly verified. When she resolved to bring down the haughty spirit of that great man, I do not read that many people soothed him in his ambitious projects; except his flatterers, Blunt and Cuffe, to whom he spoke these remarkable words upon the scaffold: "Ask pardon of God and the queen, for you were the persons that chiefly provoked me to this disloyalty.' And happy had it been for him had he hearkened to the lord-keeper, who advised him to submit to the queen his sovereign, and to remember that passage of Seneca: "If the law punish one who is guilty, he must submit to justice; if one who is innocent, he must submit to fortune." I do not find one single address from either house of parliament, advising queen Elizabeth to vest her captain-general in the Low Countries with more power. On the contrary, it is recorded, to her lasting honour, that she wrote to him, " to allay his aspirings; that she admired how a man whom she had raised out of the dust should so contemptuously violate her commands;" desiring the States to divest him of that absolute authority to which she had set such bounds as he should not pass. When this prudent queen had demanded and obtained from the Dutch the town of Flushing, castle of Ramekins, and the isle of Brill, to be surrendered to her as cautionary for repayment of the sums she might expend in their service, I do not find any Englishman at that time pleading the cause of the distressed provinces, (which then, indeed, was allowed to be a proper style,) complaining of the narrowness of their frontier, and remonstrating against this as a hard bargain: nor do I remember that her successor was thanked by the nation for giving up those cautionary towns, which she thought as safe in her own hands as in those of the best of her allies. This excellent queen was sometimes, indeed, attacked with pamphlets: particularly by one, entitled, "The Gulf wherein England will be swallowed by the French Marriage:" for which Stubs and Page (the one the author, the other the disperser) lost each their right hand. And to show that men in those days had both a sense of their duty and their guilt, when Stubs had his right hand cut off, he immediately uncovered his head with the other, and cried, "God save the Queen!" I never read that, during the time of the execution, they were protected by a mob of chimney. sweepers hired by their partisans. a John Stubs of Lincoln's Inn, gent., a most rigid Puritan, author of " A Discovery of a Gaping Gulf for England, by another French Marriage, if the Lord forbid not the Banns, by letting her Majesty Queen Elizabeth see the Sin, &c. thereof;' printed 1579, 8vo. Sec Camden's "Anuals of Queen Elizabeth," under the year 1581. Wood says, that Thomas Cartwright, the Coryphæus of the Puritans of his time, was supposed to have been concerned in writing this pamphlet, |