i

the justice of the kingdom bent and gave way; the foreign ministers remained inactive and unprovided; the system of Europe was dissolved; the chain of our alliances was broken; all the wheels of government at home and abroad were * stopped-because the king's turnspit was a member of parliament.

200

1

BURKE.

Speech on Economical Reform, p. 33.

MEN of condition naturally love to be about a court, and women of condition love it much more. But there is in all regular attendance so much of constraint, that if it were a mere charge without any compensation, you would soon have the court deserted by all the nobility of the kingdom. The most serious mischiefs would follow from such a desertion. Kings are naturally lovers of low company. They are so elevated above all the rest of mankind, that they must look upon all their subjects as on a level. They are rather apt to hate than to love their nobility, on account of the occasional resistance to their will, which will be made by their virtue, their petulance, or their pride. It must indeed be admitted, that many of the nobility are as perfectly willing to act the part of flatterers, tale-bearers, parasites, pimps, and buffoons, as any of the lowest and vilest of mankind. But they are not properly qualified for this object of their ambition. The Dewant of a regular education, and early habits, and some lurking remains of their dignity, will never permit them to become a match for an Italian

P2

1

Italian eunuch, a mountebank, a fidler, a player, or any regular practitioner of that tribe.

Ib. p. 55.

ALL the prostitutes who set themselves to sale, all the locusts who devour the land, with crowds of spies, parasites and sycophants, and whole swarms of little, noisome, nameless insects, will hum and buzz in every corner of the court. A sort of men too low to be much regarded, and too high to be quite neglected, the lumber of every administration, the furniture of every court. These gilt carved things are seldom answerable for more than the men on a chess board, who are moved about at will, and on whom the conduct of the game is not to be charged. Some of these every prince must have about him. The pageantry of a court requires that he should.

BOLINGBROKE.
Idea of a Patriot King.

I HAVE known courts these thirty-six years, and know they differ; but in some things they are extremely constant. First in the trite old maxim of a minister's never forgiving those he hath injured. Secondly, in the insincerity of those who would be thought the best friends. Thirdly, in the love of fawning, cringing, and tale-bearing. Fourthly, in sacrificing those, whom we really wish well, to a point of interest or intrigue. Fifthly, in keeping every thing worth taking, for those who can do service or dissservice.

SWIFT.

Works, vol. ix. p. 349. Letter to Gay.

HERE

HERE FLATT'RY, eldest born of GUILE,

Weaves with rare skill the silken smile,
The courtly cringe, the supple bow,
The private squeeze, the levee vow,
With which, no strange or recent case,
Fools in deceive fools out of place.

CHURCHIL.

The Duellist, vol. ii. p. 75.

THIS court is equal to any other in artifice and cunning, and his majesty as great an adept in the arts of dissimulation; and though it is generally so coarse, so ill covered, as to deceive hardly any body, yet all are forced to pretend to be deceived.

one

JARDINE.

Letters from Barbary, &c. vol. i. p. 42.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we read of

* whom the grandees of the court procured to be made secretary of state only to break his back in the business of the Queen of Scots, whose death they were then projecting. Like true cour- tiers, they first engage him in that fatal scene, and then desert him in it, using him only as a tool to do a present state job, and then to be reproached and ruined for what he had done. And a little observation of the world may show us, there is not only a course of beheading or hanging, but preferring men out of the way.

*Davison. See the transaction at length in Hume's

History of England, vol. v. p. 310.

HAD it not been for the presence of the queen mother, Fouquet would have been arrested at his own house on the very evening of that magnificent entertainment, which he gave to Louis XIV. at his splendid chateau of Vaux. Just before his disgrace the king treated him with all the marks of a decided partiality. Princes, I know not for what reason, generally affect to overwhelm with tokens of their regard those of their subjects whom they have resolved to ruin.

;

VOLTAIRE. Louis XIV. vol. ii.

WHY I can smile, and murder while I smile; And cry content, to that which grieves my heart; And wet my cheeks with artificial tears; And frame my face to all occasions; I can add colours ev'n to the camelion; Change shapes with Proteus, for advantages.

SHAKESPEAR.M

Third part K. Henry VI. Act ii.

How wretched

Is that poor man, that hangs on princes favours! There is betwixt that smile he would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have; And when he falls he falls like Lucifer,

SHAKESPEARM

Henry VIII. act iii.

Never to hope again.

God help the man, condemn'd by cruel fate/nJ To court the seeming, or the real great. Theod

Much sorrow shall he feel, and suffer more
Than any slave that labours at the oar.
By slavish methods must he learn to please,
By smooth tongu'd flatt'ry, that curst court disease,
Supple to every wayward mood strike sail,
And shift with shifting humour's peevish gale.
To nature dead, he must adopt vile art,
And wear a smile with anguish in his heart.
A sense of honour would destroy his schemes,
And conscience ne'er must speak unless in dreams.
When he hath tamely borne for many years
Cold looks, forbidding frowns, contemptuous

sneers,

When he at last expects, good easy man,
To reap the profits of his labour'd plan,
Some cringing LACQUEY, or rapacious WHORE,
To favours of the great the surest door,
Some CATAMITE, or PIMP, in credit grown,
Who tempts another's wife, or sells his own,
Steps cross his hopes, the promis'd boon denies,
And for some MINION'S MINION claims the prize.

3

CHURCHIL. Night, vol. i. p. 84.

THIS is not Lisbon, nor the circle this

Where like a statue thou hast stood besieg'd
By sycophants, and fools, the growth of courts; A

Where thy gull'd eyes in all the gaudy round

A

Met nothing but a lie in every face;

And the gross flattery of a gaping crowd,

Envious who first should catch and first applaud

The stuff or royal nonsense: when I spoke,