1 not content to wound a free constitution of government, should resolve to make it expire under his administration; the condition of such a one, however he may flatter himself, or be flattered by others, must be ten times more wretched and forlorn than the worst of those to which his cruelty hath reduced multitudes -For what?-If he succeeds in his sacrilegious designs, (they are of as deep a dye, at least,) he may hope for impunity, perhaps, to his gray hairs, and be suffered to languish through the infirmities of old age, with an inward remorse more pungent than any of them; but he is sure to entail servitude on his whole race, and indelible infamy on his memory. If he fails, he misses of that impunity, to which he sacrificed his country; he draws triple vengeance on his own head; and exposes his innocent family to a thousand misfortunes, of which it will not be the least, whether he succeeds or fails, that they descended from him.But whatever ministers may govern, whatever factions may arise, let the friends of liberty lay aside the groundless distinctions, which are employed to amuse and betray them; let them continue to coalite, let them hold fast their integrity, and support with spirit and perseverance the cause of their country, and they will confirm the good, reclaim the bad, vanquish the incorrigible, and make the British constitution triumph, even over corruption. I have now gone through the task I imposed on myself, and shall only add these few words. There was an engagement taken, in the beginning of of these discourses, not to flatter. I have kept this engagement, and have spoken with great freedom; but I hope with the justice, and moderation, and decency, that I intended, of persons and of things. This freedom entitles me to expect, that no parallels, no inuendoes should be supposed to carry my sense farther than I have expressed it. The reasonable part of mankind will not disappoint so reasonable an expectation. But there are a set of creatures, who have no mercy on paper, to use an expression of Juvenal *, and who are ready to answer, even when they are. absolute strangers to the subject. Unable to follow a thread of fact and argument, they play with words, and turn and wrest particular passages. They have done mine that honour, as I am told, and have once or twice seen. They may do the same again, whenever they please, secure from any reply, unless they have sense enough, or their patron for them, to take for a reply the story I am going to tell you, and which you may find related a little differently in one of the Spectators. The story is this. A certain pragmatical fellow, in a certain village, took it into his head to write the names of the 'squire, of all his family, of the principal parishofficers, and of some of the notable members of the vestry, in the margin of the Whole Duty of Man, over-against every sin which he found mentioned in that most excellent treatise. The clamour was stulta est clementia perituræ parcere chartą. * 312 A DISSERTATION UPON PARTIES. roar. great, and all the neighbourhood was in an upAt last, the minister was called in upon this great emergency; a pious and prudent divine, and the same, for ought I know, who was a member of the Spectator's club. He heard them with patience; with so much, that he brought them to talk one after the other. When he had heard them, he pronounced that they were all in the wrong; that the book was written against sins of all kinds, whoever should be guilty of them; but that the innocent would give occasion to unjust suspicions by all this clamour, and that the guilty would convict themselves. They took his advice. The Whole Duty of Man hath been read ever since, with much edification, by all the parishioners. The innocent hath been most certainly confirmed in virtue, and we hope the guilty have been reformed from vice. I am, SIR, &c. |