dius and Curio do really propose the good of their country as their chief end; therefore Bibulus fhall be wholly guided and governed by them in the means and meafures towards it. Is it enough for Bibulus, and the reft of the herd, to fay without further examining, I am of the fide with Clodius, or I vote with Curio? Are thefe proper methods to form and make up what they think fit to call the united wisdom of the nation? Is it not poffible, that upon fome occafion Clodius may be bold and infolent, borne away by his paffion, malicious, and revengeful? That Curio may be corrupt, and expofe to fale his tongue, or his pen? I conceive it far below the dignity both of human nature, and human reason, to be engaged in any party, the most plaufible foever, upon fuch fervile conditions.

This influence of one upon many, which feems to be as great in a people reprefented, as it was of old in the commons collective, together with the confequences it hath had upon the legiflature, hath given me frequent occafion to reflect upon what Diodorus tells us of one Charondas, a lawgiver to the Sybarites, an ancient people of Italy, who was fo averfe from all innovation, especially when it was to proceed from particular perfons, (and, I suppose, that he might put it out of the power of men, fond of their own notions, to difturb the conftitution at their pleafures, by advancing private fchemes), that he provided a ftatute, that whoever propofed any alteration to be made, fhould step out and do it with a rope about his neck: if the matter propofed were generally approved, then it fhould pafs into a law; if it went in the negative, the proposer to be immediately hanged. Great minifters may talk of what projects they pleafe; but I am deceived, if a more effectual one could ever be found for taking off (as the prefent phrafe is) thofe hot, unquiet fpirits, who difturb affemblies, and obftruct public affairs, by gratifying their

pride, their malice, their ambition, or their avarice.

Those who in a late reign began the diftin&tion between the perfonal and politic capacity, feem. to have had reason, if they judged of princes by themfelves; for I think, there is hardly to be found through all nature a greater difference between two things, than there is between a reprefenting commoner in the function of his public calling, and the fame perfon when he acts in the common offices of life. Here he allows himself to be upon a level with the reft of mortals: here he follows his own reason, and his own way; and rather affects a fingularity in his actions and thoughts, than fervilely to copy either from the wifeft of his neighbours. In fhort, here his folly and his wifdom, his reafon and his paffions, are all of his own growth, not the echo or infusion of other men. But when he is got near the walls of his affembly, he affumes and affects an entire fet of very different airs; he conceives himself a being of a fuperior nature to thofe without, and acting in a sphere, where the vulgar methods for the conduct of human life can be of no ufe. He is lifted in a party, where he neither knows the temper, nor defigns, nor perhaps the perfon of his leader; but whofe opinions he follows and maintains with a zeal and faith as violent, as a young fcholar does thofe of a philofopher, whofe fect he is taught to profefs. He hath neither opinions, nor thoughts, nor actions, nor talk, that he can call his own, but all conveyed to him by his leader, as wind is through an organ. The nourishment he receives, hath been not only chewed, but digefted, before it comes into his mouth. Thus inftructed, he follows the party right or wrong through all its fentiments, and acquires a courage and stiffness of opinion not at all congenial with him.

This encourages me to hope, that, during the

prefent

prefent lucid interval, the members retired to their homes may fufpend a while their acquired complexions, and taught by the calmnefs of the scene and the feafon, reaffume the native fedatenefs of their temper. If this fhould be fo, it would be wife in them, as individual and private mortals, to look back a little upon the forms they have raised as well as thofe they have efcaped: to reflect, that they have been authors of a new and wonderful thing in England, which is, for a houfe of Commons to lofe the univerfal favour of the numbers they reprefent; to obferve, how thofe whom they thought: fit to perfecute for righteousness fake, have been openly careffed by the people; and to remember how themfelves fat in fear of their perfons from popular rage. Now, if they would know the fecret of all this unprecedented proceeding in their mafters, they muft not impute it to their freedom in debate, or declaring their opinions, but to that unparliamentary abuse of jetting individuals upon. their boulders, who were hated by God and man. For, it seems, the mafs of the people, in fuch conjunctures as this, have opened their eyes, and will not endure to be governed by Clodius and Curio at the head of their Myrmidons, though these be ever fo numerous, and compofed of their own reprefentatives.

This averfion of the people against the late proceedings of the Commons is an accident, that, if it laft a while, might be improved to good uses for fetting the balance of power a little more upon an equality, than their late measures feem to promise or admit. This accident may be imputed to two caufes the firft is an univerfal fear and apprehenfion of the greatnefs and power of France, whereof the people in general feem to be very much and juftly poffeffed, and therefore cannot but refent to fee it, in fo critical a juncture, wholly laid afide by their ministers, the Commons. The other caufe

is a great love and sense of gratitude in the people towards their present king, grounded upon a long opinion and experience of his merit, as well as conGeffions to all their reasonable defires; so that it is for fome time they have begun to fay, and to fetch inftances, where he hath in many things been hardly used. How long thefe humours may laft (for paffions are momentary, and efpecially thofe of a multitude), or what confequences they may pro duce, a little time will discover. But whenever it comes to pafs, that a popular affembly, free from. fuch obftructions, and already poffeffed of more power, than an equal balance will allow, fhall continue to think they have not enough, but by cramping the hand that holds the balance, and by im peachments or diffenfions with the nobles, endeavour ftill for more; I cannot poffibly fee, in the com mon course of things, how the fame caufes can pro duce different effects, and confequences among us,, from what they did in Greece and Rome.

The

The PUBLIC SPIRIT of the WHIGS, fet forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the CRISIS *.

With fome obfervations on the feasonablenefs, candor, erudition, and style of that treatise.

[Upon the first publication of this pamphlet, all the Scots Lords then in London went in a body, and complained to Queen ANNE of the affront put on them and their nation by the author of this treatife. Whereupon a proclamation was published by her Majefty, offering a reward of 300l. to discover him. The reafon for offering fo fmall a fum was, that the Queen and ministry had no defire to have the author taken into cuftody.]

I

Cannot, without fome envy, and a just resentment against the oppofite conduct of others, reflect upon that generosity and tenderness, wherewith the heads and principal members of a ftrug

gling

It was written in the year 1712, by the confent, if not the encouragement, of the minifters of that æra, in answer to the Crifis, by Sir Richard Steele. Orrèry.

The noble commentator who appears in another inftance to have given an account of the works of his author, from a perufal of no more than a title (a) in the Dublin editions, has been betrayed into miftakes, which, if he had read the piece, he would have escaped. This tract, in the title which his Lordship confulted, is said to have been written in the year 1712: but in that part of it which most de ferves the notice of a critic, because it occafioned a complaint in the house of Lords, mention is made of a motion to diffolve the union, which did not happen till 1713. The complaint, which is faid in the note to happen upon the firft publication, was made the ad of March 1713-14, and the pamphlet, according to the custom of printers, was dated 1714.

(a) See the note on Voyage to Brobdingnag, chap. 6. vo'. 4.

ΙΔ