in the ways of men, cannot be made of such pure and refined materials; peculiar must be the compofition of that little creature called a Great Man. He must be formed of all kinds of contradictions: he must be indefatigable in business, to fit him for the labours of his ftation, and at the fame time fond of pleasures, to enable him to attach many to his interefts, by a participation of their vices: He must be mafter of much artifice and knavery, his fituation requiring him to employ, and be employed by, fo many knaves; yet he must have fome honesty, or thofe very knaves will be unwilling to truft him: He must be poffeffed of great magnanimity perpetually to confront furrounding enemies, and impending dangers; yet of great meanness, to flatter those enemies, and fuffer tamely continual injuries, and abuses: He muft be wife enough to conduct the great affairs of Mankind with fagacity and fuccefs, and to acquire riches and honoufs for his reward; and at the fame time foolish enough to think it worth a wife man's while to meddle with fuch affairs at all, and to accept of fuch imaginary rewards for real fufferings. Since then in all human Governments fuch muft the Governors, and fuch the Governed eternally be, it is certain they must be ever big with numberless imperfections, and productive of abundant Evils: and it is no lefs plain, that if infinite Goodnefs could not exclude Natural and Moral Moral Evils, infinite Power can never prevent Political. I HOPE, Sir, the picture I have bere drawn of human nature, and human Government, will not appear to you too much of the Caricature kind : your experience in both must inform you that it is like, tho' your good-nature may incline you to be forry that it is fo. I truft likewise to your good fenfe to distinguish, that what has here been faid of their imperfections, and abuses, is by no means intended as a defence of them, but meant only to fhew their neceffity: to this every wife man ought quietly to submit, endeavouring at the same time to redress them to the utmost of his which power; can be effected by one method only; that is, by a reformation of Manners: for as all Political Evils derive their Original from Moral, these can never be removed, until those are first amended. He, therefore, who strictly adheres to Virtue and Sobriety in his conduct, and inforces them by his example, does more real service to a State, than he who difplaces a bad Minifter, or dethrones a Tyrant; this gives but a temporary relief, but that exterminates the Caufe of the difeafe. No immoral Man then can poffibly be a true patriot; and all those who profefs outrageous zeal for the liberty and profperity of their Country, and at the fame time infringe her laws, affront her religion, and and debauch her people, are but defpicable Quacks, by fraud or ignorance increasing the disorders they pretend to remedy: as fuch, I know, they have always appeared to your fuperior judgment, and fuch they are ever esteemed by, SIR, &c. LET |