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Their language, as I found, upon the first giving of the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. I was here convinced of an error into which I had before fallen; for I fancied, that for the freezing of the sound, it was necessary for it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath; but I found my mistake, when I heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet over our heads. I asked the occasion of it; upon which one of the company told me, that it would play there above a week longer if the thaw continued; for, says he, finding ourselves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the company, who had this musical instrument about him, to play to us from morning to night; all which time we employed in dancing, in order to dissipate our chagrin, et tuer le temps.

4. National Thanksgiving.

YESTERDAY was set apart as a day of public thanksgiving for the late extraordinary successes, which have secured to us everything that can be esteemed, and delivered us from everything that can be apprehended by a Protestant and free people. I cannot but observe, upon this occasion, the natural tendency in such a national devotion, to inspire men with sentiments of religious gratitude, and to swell their hearts with inward transports of joy and exultation.

When instances of Divine favour are great in themselves, when they are fresh upon the memory, when they are peculiar to a certain country, and commemorated by them in large and solemn assemblies; a man must be of a very cold or degenerate temper, whose heart doth not burn within him in the midst of that praise and adoration, which arises at the same hour in all the different parts of the nation, and from the many thousands of the people.

It is impossible to read of extraordinary and national acts

of worship without being warmed with the description, and feeling some degree of that divine enthusiasm, which spreads itself among a joyful and religious multitude. A part of that exuberant devotion, with which the whole assembly raised and animated one another, catches a reader at the greatest distance of time, and makes him a kind of sharer in it . . . . .

Henry the Fifth (who at the beginning of his reign made a public prayer in the presence of his Lords and Commons, that he might be cut off by an immediate death, if Providence foresaw he would not prove a just and good governor, and promote the welfare of his people) manifestly derived his courage from his piety, and was scrupulously careful not to ascribe the success of it to himself. When he came within sight of that prodigious army, which offered him battle at Agincourt, he ordered all his cavalry to dismount, and with the rest of his forces to implore upon their knees a blessing on their undertaking. In a noble speech, which he made to his followers immediately before the first onset, he took notice of a very remarkable circumstance, namely, that this very day of battle was the day appointed in his own kingdom to offer up public devotions for the prosperity of his arms, and therefore bid them not doubt of victory, since at the same time that they were fighting in the field, all the people of England were lifting up their hands to heaven for their success. Upon the close of that memorable day, in which the king had performed wonders with his own hand, he ordered the hundred and fifteenth psalm to be repeated in the midst of his victorious army, and at the words, 'Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the praise,' he himself, with his whole host, fell to the earth upon their faces, ascribing to Omnipotence the whole glory of so great

an action.

XXVIII.

HENRY ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE.

1678-1751.

HENRY ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE, is best known as a Tory politician, of great fame for oratory, and as the friend of Pope, who dedicated to him the 'Essay on Man,' and to whom he in turn addressed his Philosophical Essays. He represented an ancient family, of which Oliver St. John, the great Republican lawyer, was a cadet, and was born and died in the family house at Battersea. His primary interest was not in literature, but in politics. He entered Parliament in 1700, and attached himself to the Tories from the first. From 1710 to the death of Anne he was Secretary of State, and in alliance with Harley, Earl of Oxford, whom he hated, governed England. He was the real author of the desertion by England of her allies in the war of Succession, which led to the peace of Utrecht. On the establishment of George I, having notoriously intrigued with the Pretender, he withdrew to Paris. In his absence, he was at Walpole's instance attainted for high treason, and his name erased from the Peerage. Finding that he could make nothing of the Pretender, he spent many years in retirement in France, during which he wrote his 'Reflections on Exile,' and the 'Letter to Sir W. Windham.' He came back to England in 1725, upon a pardon from the King, but never got his attainder reversed, and in consequence could not sit in the House of Lords. He continued in England, writing vehement papers against Walpole, and also 'Remarks on the History of England,' till 1735, when he again withdrew to France. There he wrote his letters on 'the Spirit of Patriotism,' 'the Idea of a Patriot King' (meant to tell

on Frederic, Prince of Wales), and 'the Study and Use of History.' On the death of his father in 1744, he returned to England, and lived at Battersea till his death. His philosophical works, consisting of Essays and Minutes of Essays, were not published till after his death.

His style is a model for popular writing on topics of the day. It never rises to great heights, but is always clear, vigorous, and sustained. On philosophical subjects, however, a flowing style could not conceal the poverty of his thoughts. His equipment consisted of a theory of knowledge taken simply from Locke, and a doctrine of the comparative insignificance of man's place in nature suggested by the Newtonian Physics. With this he waged war against 'Metaphysical jargon' (which included all Theology), and in particular against theories which 'made God man's image, man the final cause.' In effect, he denied the moral government of the world. His great adversaries were Cudworth, Archbishop King, Clarke, and Wollaston. An argument of the last of these for a future life, drawn from the unequal allotment of happiness and misery in this, is referred to in the last of the following extracts.

1. Harley, Earl of Oxford.

WHETHER this man ever had any determined view besides that of raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the world. My opinion is, that he never had any other. The conduct of a minister, who proposes to himself a great and noble object, and who pursues it steadily, may seem for a while a riddle to the world; especially in a government. like ours, where numbers of men different in their characters and different in their interests are at all times to be managed: where public affairs are exposed to more accidents and greater hazards than in other countries; and where, by consequence, he who is at the head of business will find himself

often distracted by measures which have no relation to his purpose, and obliged to bend himself to things which are in some degree contrary to his main design. The ocean which environs us is an emblem of our government: and the pilot and the minister are in similar circumstances. It seldom happens, that either of them can steer a direct course, and they both arrive at their port by means which frequently seem to carry them from it. But as the work advances, the conduct of him who leads it on with real abilities clears up, the appearing inconsistencies are reconciled, and when it is once consummated, the whole shows itself so uniform, so plain, and so natural, that every dabbler in politics will be apt to think he could have done the same. But on the other hand, a man who proposes no such object, who substitutes artifice in the place of ability, who, instead of leading parties and governing accidents, is eternally agitated backwards and forwards by both, who begins every day something new, and carries nothing on to perfection, may impose a while on the world but a little sooner or a little later the mystery will be revealed, and nothing will be found to be couched under it but a thread of pitiful expedients, the ultimate end of which never extended farther than living from day to day. Which of these pictures resembles Oxford most, you will determine. I am sorry to be obliged to name him so often; but how is it possible to do otherwise, while I am speaking of times wherein the whole turn of affairs depended on his motions and character?

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He is naturally inclined to believe the worst, which I take to be a certain mark of a mean spirit and a wicked soul: at least I am sure that the contrary quality, when it is not due to weakness of understanding, is the fruit of a generous temper, and an honest heart. Prone to judge ill of all mankind, he will rarely be seduced by his credulity; but I never knew a

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