he would inform the publick in one fa&; whether epifcopal affemblies are freely allowed in Scotland? It is notorious, that abundance of their clergy fled from thence fome years ago into England and Ireland, as from a persecution; but it was alledged by their enemies, that they refused to take the oaths to the government, which however none of them fcrupled when they came among us. It is fomewhat extraordinary to see our whigs and fanaticks keep fuch a stir about the facred act of toleration, while their brethren will not allow a connivance in fo near a neighbourhood; especially if what the gentleman infists on in his letter be true, that nine parts in ten of the nobility and gentry, and two in three of the commons are epifcopal; of which one argument he offereth is the prefent choice of their representatives in both houses, though opposed to the utmost by the preachings, threatenings, and anathemas of the kirk. Such usage to a majority may, as he thinks, be of dangerous confequence; and I entirely agree with him. If these be the principles of the high-kirk, God preferve, at leaft the fouthern parts from their tyranny.

NUM

NUMBER XXXI.

Thursday, March 8, 1710.

Garrit aniles

Ex re fabellas.

Had laft week fent me by an unknown hand a paffage out of Plato, with fome hints how to apply it. That author puts a fable into the mouth of Aristophanes, with an account of the original of love : that mankind was at firft created with four arms and legs, and all other parts double to what they are now; till Jupiter, as a punishment for his fins, cleft him in two with a thunderbolt; fince which time we are always looking out for our other half; and this is the cause of love. But Jupiter threatened, that if they did not mend their manners, he would give them t'other flit, and leave them to hop about in the shape of figures in basso relievo. The effect of this laft threatening, my correfpondent imagines, is now come to pafs; and that as the firft Splitting was the original of love, by inclining us to fearch for our other half;

fo the fecond was the caufe of hatred by prompting us to fly from our other fide, and dividing the fame body into two, gave each flice the name of a party.

I approve the fable and application, with this refinement upon it: for parties do not only split a nation, but every individual among them, leaving each but half their ftrength, and wit, and honefty, and good nature; but one eye and ear for their fight and hearing, and equally lopping the reft of the fenfes. Where parties are pretty equal in a state, no man can perceive one bad quality in his own, or good one in his adverfaries. Befides, party being a dry, difagreeable fubject, it renders converfation infipid, or four, and confines invention. I fpeak not here of the leaders, but the infignificant crowd of followers in a party, who have been the inftruments of mixing it in every condition and circumftance of life. As the zealots among the Jews bound the law about their foreheads, and wrifts, and hems of their garments, fo the women among us have got the diftinguishing marks of party in their muffs, their fans, and their furbelows. The whig ladies put on their patches

patches in a different manner from the tories. They have made fchifms in the playhouse, and each have their particular fides at the opera: and when a man changeth his party, he muft infallibly count upon the lofs of his miftrefs. I afked a gentleman the other day, how he liked fuch a lady? But he would not give me his opinion, till I had anfwered him whether the were a whig or a tory. Mr.

fince he is known to vifit the prefent miniftry, and lay fome time under a fufpicion of writing the Examiner, is no longer a man of wit; his very poems have contracted a ftupidity, many years after they were printed.

Having lately ventured upon a metaphorical genealogy of merit, I thought it would be proper to add another of party, or rather of faction, (to avoid mistake) not telling the reader whether it be my own, or a quotation, till I know how it is approved. But whether I read, or dreamed it, the fable is as follows:

"LIBERTY, the daughter of Oppreffion, after having brought forth feve"ral fair children, as Riches, Arts, Learn

ing, Trade, and many others, was at last "delivered of her youngest daughter, call"ed FACTION, whom Juno, doing the of"fice of the midwife, diftorted in its birth

out of envy to the mother, from whence "it derived its peevishness and fickly con"ftitution. However, as it is often the

nature of parents to grow moft fond of "their youngest and disagreeablest chil"dren, so it happened with Liberty, who "doated on this daughter to fuch a degree, that by her good will fhe would never fuffer the girl to be out of her fight. "As mifs Faction grew up, fhe became fo termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter gave her warning to be gone; "and her mother, rather than forfake her, "took the whole family down to earth. "She landed firft in Greece; was expelled "by degrees through all the cities by her daughter's ill conduct: fled afterwards "to Italy, and being banished thence, took "fhelter among the Goths, with whom she paffed into moft parts of Europe; but, being driven out every where, fhe began " to lose esteem, and her daughter's faults

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