ceived into fudden favour and authority; the occafion of their difference has been reprefented to him, and the matter referred to his decifion. I have known a poet, who never was out of England, introduce a fact, by way of fimile, which could probably no where happen nearer than in the plains of Libya; and begin with, So have I seen [i]. Such a fiction, I suppose, may be justified by poetical licence; yet Virgil is much more modest. This paragraph of Mr. Steele's, which he fets down as an observation of his own, is a miferable mangled tranflation of fix verses out of that famous poet, who speaks after this manner; As when a fedition arifes in a great multitude, &c. then if they fee a wife grave man, &c. Virgil, who lived but a little after the ruin of the Roman republick, where feditions often happened, and the force of oratory was great among the people, made ufe of a fimile, which Mr. Steele turns into a fact after such a manner, as if he had seen it an hundred times; and builds upon it a system of the origin of governWhen the vulgar here in England assemble in a riotous manner (which is not very frequent of late years) the prince takes a much more effectual way than that of fending orators to appease them but Mr. Steele imagines fuch a crowd of people as this, where there is no government at all; their unruliness quelled, and their paffions cooled by a particular man, whofe great qualities they ment. [i] See the Tepi Báðus. had had known before. Such an affembly must have rifen fuddenly from the earth, and the man of authority dropt from the clouds; for, without fome previous form of government, no fuch crowd did ever yet affemble, or could poffibly be acquainted with the merits and dignity of any particular man among them. But to purfue his fcheme; this man of authority, who cools the crowd by degrees, and to whom they all appeal, muft, of neceffity, prove either an open or clandeftine tyrant. A clandeftine tyrant I take to be a king of Brentford, who keeps his army in difguife; and whenever he happens either to die naturally, be knocked on the head, or depofed, the people calmly take further meafures, and improve upon what was begun under his unlimited power. All this our author tells us, with extreme propriety, is what seems reasonable to common fenfe; that is, in other words, it seems reasonable to reafon. This is what he calls giving an idea of the original of power, and the nature of civil infti tutions. To which I anfwer, with great phlegm, that I defy any man alive to fhew me, in double the number of lines, although writ by the fame author, fuch a complicated ignorance in hiftory, human nature, or politicks, as well as in the ordis nary properties of thought or of style. But, it feems, thefe profound fpeculations were only premised to introduce fome quotations in favour of refiftance. What hath refiftance to do with the fucceffion of the houfe of Hanover, that the whig writers fhould perpetually affect to tag them together together? I can conceive nothing else, but that their hatred to the QUEEN and miniftry puts them upon thoughts of introducing the fucceffor by another Revolution. Are cafes of extreme neceffity to be produced as common maxims, by which we are always to proceed? Should not these gentlemen fometimes inculcate the general rule of obedience, and not always the exception of refistance; fince the former hath been the perpetual dictate of all laws both divine and civil, and the latter is ftill in dispute ? I shall meddle with none of the paffages he cites to prove the lawfulness of refifting princes, except that from the prefent lord chancellor's [k] fpeech in defence of Dr. Sacheverel: that there are extraordinary cafes, cafes of neceffity, which are implied, although not expreffed, in the general rule [of obedience]. These words, very clear in themfelves, Mr. Steele explains into nonsense; which, in any other author, I should suspect to have been intended as a reflection upon as great a person as ever filled or adorned that high ftation: but I am fo well acquainted with his pen, that I much more wonder how it can trace out a true quotation than a falfe comment. To see him treat my lord Har◄ court with so much civility, looks indeed a little fufpicious, and as if he had malice in his heart. [k] Sir Simon Harcourt, who, at the time of Sacheverel's trial, had refigned his place of attorney general, which he afterwards accepted again; upon the change of the miniftry, he was made lord keeper, and in 1711 created a baron. He He calls his lordship a very great man, and a great living authority; places himself in company with general Stanhope and Mr. Hoadley; and, in fhort, takes the most effectual method in his power of ruining his lordship in the opinion of every man, who is wife or good. I can only tell my lord Harcourt for his comfort, that these praises are encumbered with the doctrine of refiftance, and the true revolution-principles; and provided he will not allow Mr. Steele for his commentator, he may hope to recover the honour of being libelled again, as well as his fovereign and fellow-fervants. We now come to The Crifis; where we meet with two pages by way of introduction to thofe extracts from acts of parliament, that confitute the body of his pamphlet. This introduction begins with a definition of liberty, and then proceeds in a panegyrick upon that great bleffing. His panegyrick is made up of half a dozen fhreds, like a fchool-boy's theme, beaten general topicks, where any other man alive might wander fecurely; but this politician, by venturing to vary the good old phrafes, and give them a new turn, commits an hundred folecifms and abfurdities. The weighty truths, which he endeavours to prefs upon his reader, are fuch as thefe. That liberty is a very good thing; that without liberty we cannot be free; that health is good, and ftrength is good, but liberty is better than either; that no man can be happy without the liberty of doing whatever bis own mind tells him is beft; that men of quality love liberty, and common people people love liberty; even women and children love liberty; and you cannot please them better than by letting them do what they please. Had Mr. Steele contented himself to deliver thefe and the like maxims in fuch intelligible terms, I could have found where we agreed and where we differed. But us let hear fome of these axioms, as he hath involved them. We cannot poffefs our fouls with pleafure and fatisfaction, except we preferve in ourfelves that inestimable bleffing, which we call liberty. By liberty, I defire to be understood to mean the happinefs of men's living, &c.The true life of man confifts in conducting it according to his own just sentiments and innocent inclinations-man's being is degraded below that of a free agent, when his affections and paffions are no longer governed by the dictates of his own mind.- -Without liberty, our health (among other things) may be at the will of a tyrant employed to our own ruin, and that of our fellowcreatures. If there be any of these maxims which is not grofly defective in truth, in fenfe, or in grammar, I will allow them to pass for uncontroulable. By the first, omitting the pedantry of the whole expreffion, there are not above one or two nations in the world, where any one man can poffefs his foul with pleasure and fatisfaction. In the fecond, he defires to be understood to mean; that is, he defires to be meant to mean, or to be understood to understand. In the third, the life of man confifts in conducting his life. In the fourth he affirms, that men's beings are degraded, when their paffions |