than was the Sicilian Tyrant The happy Philosopher was too wisefor the unclement Tyrant but our happy Courts are too wise for Philosophers Come in what Shape they will or with what Suit they please unless they will or can speak to the Fist are sure to be rejected But what a hopeful Condition is the Nation in when it comes to this Where Money without Merit will open the Doors Fools and Knaves will be sure to enter sooner than honest Men. You have no Reason to complain you are an Example and Instance where neither Merit nor Money made open the Door For your entry into a Place that would have much better fitted an honest Man And to embellish your Character of Gratitude you have so well recompensed your Benefactor for the Thing that he has been constrained to forbid you any more coming to his House being you detracted from and defamed that Learned Prelate where-ever you came preferring your own Pen to his You are pleased very ignorantly to bring in and misapply a Story from the Chatlet of Paris in the Reign of Francis the First of which I take no further Notice than to recommend you as many have done already to your Studies and no more to expose your self seeing you are not now in Want and Necessity Now you arrive at your last and Romantick Page in this Period it is that you restore England to her Glory and Splendor You give us the Comfort after so many Examples of Corruption and Vice That the Body of the Nation is as yet incorrupted That our Judges Ministers of State and almost all Men in Places of Trust do what they can to bring Honour and Justice into request by their Example And what more can we wish for What more can be said of the best Ages Rome or Greece in their meridian Glory ever beheld This is not to be worse than was Rome in the Days of Antoninus Is not this to give the Lye to all the rest of your Pamphlet A Shrewsbery a Pembroke a Sommers or a Holt are not to be found in every Age. You might have added Nor in any Kingdom save England You bestow your Incense very sparingly one would think you had been Footman under Leonidas before Alexander's Conquest in the East Learn to be more sumptuous when you entertain Men of the first Quality and of so rare Merit It is true you distinguish them from the rest of the Nation you grant them an honourable Apartment by themselves you separate them from the Croud you grant them a favourable stroke of your Pen But what is that to their Character Your bare Expression of every Age is a hackney Honour it will serve every where it will accommodate Vice as well as Vertue If you will have so many Mecena's you ought to provide them a suitable Entertainment Where is now your Infinite Sublime and Immortal Cannot you bestow some part of the Honour upon English Men of the first Quality and Merit you have done upon Roman Citizens and Soldiers Shall the French King's Subjects in spight of all the horid Invasions made by that Monarch upon their Liberties and of the innumerable Hardships and Miseries his Ambition has brought upon them continue yet to serve him and their Country with an inviolable Fidelity I admired all along to find so little concerning the French King and his Qualities he has been upon several Occasions your very helpful Friend and furnished you Matter for many admirable Sallies of Wit and Eloquence And to say the truth you have treated him very Cavalierly he has neither been beholding to his being of the same Elood with our Kings nor to the Rank he holds in the World They have been weak and feeble Defences and Lines against your Attaques But I am afraid you have out-run your Inclinations and by your Pen in this your Period granted him to be full Master of the illustrious Crimes the noble Romans possessed and by which instead of stooping as you say to so low a Quarry as Gold they became Lords of the World Truly Sir Emulation being set aside for the which there is no great Ground in the Age we live among Princes you have often allowed that Monarch Ambition and Thirst after Dominion in a supreme Manner and made these his Qualities the original Source of the many Streams of human Blood which have run for so many Years almost over all the Fields of Europe But you seem to begin to attone a little for your illustrious Criminal in allowing him the Vertue and Conduct to keep the Love and Good-will of an oppressed and ruined People still chained to his Service with an inviolable Fidelity Is not this to exalt the French King with a Witness You propose us the French Subjects as an Example of Imitation notwithstanding all the cruel Oppressions put upon their Liberties by their King and desire us therein to imitate our Enemies in what is Noble and Just meaning the French Submission and Love to an oppressing King To let pass your severe Reflexion upon all French Protestants I hope his Majesty has no Reason nor never shall have any to doubt of the Affections of his good People we hold our Lives Liberties and our All of his Majesty It was his great and gallant Undertaking his Conduct and indefatigable Pains his rare and distinguished Wisdom have brought us to what we so happily enjoy under his most auspicious Reign But Sir your Morals and Politiques seems to have changed their Course and Channel Do you remember what you have writ for these Six Years by gone Do you know upon what Foot the Nation stands It is not long since this your French Example you propose would have been looked on as an Intention in you to endeavour the Subversion of the Government And you are pleased to call it Just and Noble in any oppressed People whose All is seized who have nothing in Property nay nor in Reversion inviolably to love and adhere to such a Master as they have Truly had the two Gentlemen who gave occasion to your scandalous Pamphlet used such Language in Print established Law could have gone far enough in punishing the Crime and then it had been time for you to have levelled what Spite Ignorance or Malice could suggest against them Though I dare say for what is past they Undervalue Pity and Contemn you I dare say Passive Obedience was never preached with more Art in the last Reign than you do it in this your last Period Besides you ruin and undermine the Foundation of the present Establishment And while our King does what 's possible to raise us to at least an equal Level with them in point of War Let us not fall short of them in those Vertues that make a Peace when it comes to be Lasting and Happy This is as an unhappy a Sentence as you could have stumbled upon to make the Vertues necessary for the Nation in time of Peace an inviolable Fidelity whatever Fate the poor Subject may meet withal and this you desire we may transcribe from the French Copy This was not your Advice upon England in the late Revolution Was there no other well-governed Nation in Europe you could have proposed for our Imitation besides those we fight against to bestow upon some Thousands of miserable Ones we daily hear of or see among us the dear Liberty and Country they are expelled and torn from What do you mean by our King 's doing what is possible to raise us to at least c. We never expected Impossibilities from the King we believe his Majesty a great Captain and at the Head of a numerous Army that he will do what 's fit to be done in the War Whereas you seem to make a previous and anteceding Excuse as if you foresaw Matters would fall short of our Expectation To an equal Level The Expression is neither Sense nor English Besides it will not suit our Affairs to go no farther For what you understand by That is to be in a Condition only never to end the War or to be always in fear it may break out with more Violence We must be in a superior Sphere to our Enemies and we have reason to believe it may fall out so We have his Majesties Royal Word besides repeated Assurances from beyond Seas that the Progress of the French Arms is stopt that an End is put to that furious Career and we are perswaded of it by the Channel the War now runs in by their having changed its Method the King being Aggressor And his having broke the French Barrier where strongest with all the Circumstances of Fame and Glory to himself and of Shame and Dishonour to his Enemies But I am glad to hear the happy Word Peace begins to be heard and appear within our Horizon after so long and cruel a War I dare say though it be in the Nature and for the Interest of some Persons to love that War may be continued and your own in particular there are many more who wish it at an end provided that may be so accomplished as to liberat us from further Apprehensions of what is or may be destructive or fatal to the true Interest Religion Liberty and Honour of England Having finished to answer your Libel permit me so far to be Nationally affected as to say Wherever the Three Estates or any of them pursues violently a New Emergent as a Politique Sore without Law Arbitrary Power lies in that Case as heavy upon the Subject as if the King invaded their Right There is a Remedy for the Evil It is consentaneous and agreeable to the best defined human Wisdom That Temper intervene until positive Law distinguish what ought to be done from what ought to be avoided And this I take to be a Maxim inseparable from every well-established Government I have done and do assure you That you take many more Liberties than Honour or good Sense can allow any Man But am Yours FINIS
and Satisfaction to see him bring low the only Monarch in Condition to hurt him and us and by his own Example and Chastisement of bad Men put a Stop to Corruptions crept in among us In the following Period you seem to write Vainly for you are not to be understood What do you mean by our being Masters of a Sea to which we never pretended If to be Masters in the Mediterranean be to to have a large Share of the Land on both its Banks to have good Harbours Authority or Command of the Flag there is nothing less We have not one Creek or Bay from Hercules Pillars to St. Jean d'Acre which is the whole streach We have neither Solum Caelum nor Portus in all that vast Gulf. And if you understand by being Masters that we have got the most powerful Fleet in the Mediterranean there you are Right but your Position is False For Oliver Cromwel was in that Sense Master long ago when he sent a Fleet against the African Corsairs and to his Honour made them redeliver not only all English but Christian Slaves and then England without the help of any Confederate was so But you bring us in having a Pretention there of late have a care Sir what you say His Catholique Majesty and all States who conterminate that Share will take it ill if we should fix a Pretention to our Force and perhaps deny us Ports and send us back to the Ocean where you say likewise we are Masters in vain I take this your Position to be in some Sense true though I could be satisfied you would likewise define what you understand by the Ocean Whether it be all Seas that are not Imbayed Or whether it be only where we have a Right to the Flag Before the War most Men allowed Holland it self though inferior to England in marine Power equal at least to France and no body but together think they are Invincible and the greatest Sea Force the World ever saw and all happily under the command of so great a King But by the way If Force make us Masters in the Ocean we are undoubtedly so but if together with our Force we have a Pretention to a Superiority in our own Seas and thereby a right to the Flag then indeed it is in vain that we are Masters while we are used like Fellow-Servants by the Danes and Suedes both which Nations in the space of eight Months have braved our Flag not only in remoter Places but in the View of our Royal Forts and Castles even in the Downs An Accident that has not happen'd within this Century nor in the Seven last Reigns But it is not to be thought that a King of so great Wisdom and Courage as is King William can easiy part with a Right of which this Nation is particularly fond and whereof it has been immemorially possessed I believe Sir the English Courage was never called in question in the time of profoundest Peace and there are many Instances of it by Sea and Land even then I allow us to be happy in being under the Conduct and Example of so great a King and Captain and I hope as it is not in vain that we are restored to our Laws and Liberties so I trust we shall never feel the Miseries of other Nations though we are not exempted from some of our own and those even great ones I shall not pursue your repeated Vanities any further for if Vertue Probity and Love to our Country be wanting and if the Foundation of our Happiness by Corruption and other inglorious Practices be sapped we are in a fair way to be miserable But I hope you will be kind to our falling Condition and give us one Word of Comfort e're you end His Majesty will certainly reap Triumphal Honour for his warlike Actions and Toil and I am sorry that I must give way to your Prophetick Reproch in the Mouths of after Ages That these Nations might have been happy but would not The World was once blest with an Epaminondas Truly Sir I am assured it is not long since your self was blest with the Knowledge of that brave Greek he might have passed with you for a King of Tartary since the Revolution All the flourish of Epaminondas you bring in may serve as well for your next Pamphlet as for this And why not his Cotemporary Pelopidas who had some nay a great Share in that critical Glory of Thebes And though you are pleased to say That the glorious Actions of Epaminondas served only to render the Fall of Thebes more conspicuous and less pitied I am of Opinion that the Thebeans lost their Liberty with the greatest Honour For their City did not out-live the Vertue of their Citizens as did Sparta Athens Corinth Argos Massine and even that Triumphant Rome herself fell a Prey to the base hands of barbarous Nations after she had long out-lived the great Vertue and heroick Valour of so many Councellors and Captains while small Thebes fell by a no less Person than the great Alexander and in so Tragical a Manner as every one may say That there was more Revenge than Honour in the Action and more of Barbarian than Grecian For the Thebeans having after the Death of the common Enemy to Greece and its Liberty struck off the Macedonian Yoke the Athenians upon the march of Alexander's Army returned to their Slavery But the magnanimous Thebeans stood it out and though their Force was inferior to their Courage they did what was humanly possible for them in so great a Strait In fine their Force was beaten the Citizens put to the Sword or sold as Slaves And while the Aged and some Women whom the Enemies Swords had spared begged the unclement Conqueror by the Memory of the good Education bestowed by their City upon his Father Philip where he had been once Hostage in his Youth and by the Memory of Hercules to whom this City had given Life and of whom the great Alexander himself descended to spare at least their innocent Walls the Intercession was in vain slaughter raged every where and Thebes was rased After you have gon over three Parts of the World to adorn your Pamphlet and over all manner of History within your Knowledge you cannot rest satisfied without a Voyage to the new World where if you can find neither State Kingdom nor Philosopher you will have it from a Vice-roy of Mexico You might have saved Charges and have staid at hom It is an ordinary Saying That the greatest Criminals are safe at the Old Baily and every where else in England provided they have Money to buy themselves off Next you bring in Cato and Solomon The first was too good for the Age he lived in and the other foresaw the Danger that attends a rigid Vertue in degenerated Times Your Sense is not easily understood foresee relates to the Future and your that attends to the Present But I will not hit your Grammatical Sores I
and honourable Body by your well-fashion'd Pen if you like the Subject better than that of Railing You ask leave to do the Romans Greeks and Carthaginians Justice assuring the World they embezled no publick Money but kept it equally Sacred with what they consecrated to the Service of their Gods For the Carthaginians I cannot see any great Reason you have to undertake their Defence being their History and Learning is lost save what we have in so far as they had to do with the Greeks and Romans in War or Treaty But I am led to believe That they were not a better sort of People than the States of Rome or Greece but that almost every Age among these two Nations had its Corruptions and Embezlements of publick and sacred Money I am perswaded To omit many among the Greeks Do you remember what council Alciabiades gave to his Uncle Pericles when he found him much taken up what way to render an Account to Athens for her publick Money Did he not desire him rather to find out a way to make no accompt with them of that City at all Do not you find that Pericles not only used the publick Money of Athens as he thought fit but laid likewise hand upon the sacred Money reposited in that City by for its better Security against barbarous hands But his good Fortune his Character and the pliable Age he lived in secured him Do you remember why Aristides and Themistocles were banished Scipio African the Elder was not free from the same Imputation But his Brother the Asiatique Scipio was highly Guilty For the Romans robbing the Temple of the Gods there is nothing more infamous than Sylla's robbing the Confederate Temple at Delphi Crassus robbed that of Hierapolis and Pompey that of Jerusalem You say and so do I That upon Exigencies it 's no Sacrilege to borrow from the Churches even their most sacred Vtensils but you thank Heaven that we are under no such Hardship in this War Fro my part I am glad that our Churches are reduced to the modest and primitive Form of Worship and that our Altars have no superfluous Ornaments to spare but you ought to be perswaded of the Zeal of the Church for the publick Good when having no store of treasured Money nor Ornaments she runs willingly into the Measures of giving chearfully every Year a Fifth part of her whole which as it is but Duty is still more in proportion than the Gallican Clergy grant even his Year to the French King though they should continue so to the end of the War But that Mankind may be beholden to your illustrious Wit and rare Genie you are willing to descend from your Greek and Roman Flights and give us a Period or two purely your own You are plagued you say by your Neighbors in the Country with a thousand Questions about Mr. G. Sometimes they ask what great Things the Gentleman hath done for his Country to deserve so profitable a Place They expect you should acquaint sthem with the Opposition he made to the violent Courses of the last Reigns or of some Loss he sustained by them They enquire about his Behavior in the last Revolution and what wonderful Atchievoments he has done to support the present Government All which Questions you being a Stranger to the Gentleman desire me to answer supposing as you say I may know him Though Sir I may be as much a Stranger to him as your self yet you having reduced a thousand Questions to two or three I have taken Pains in the Thing and learned from impartial Mouths That Mr. G. is a Gentleman of very good Parts and of a plentiful Estate which you know sounds very well here in England That he had Merit enough to bring him to so profitable a Place if his good Fortune had been equal to have maintained him in it That he made the same Oppositions to the violent Courses in the last Reigns many other honest Gentlemen had done who durst only regret what was not in their Power to help As for his Behavior in the late Revolution he fillowed the Measures taken by all the sound and good part of the Nation he took the Oaths chearfully to his Majesty and was never accused for doing an unbecoming Thing to his Master And Sir had you known any worse Thing of him I am bold to think you would not have given me the trouble of your Questions You are pleased to continue and bring in a witty Jest of your own Where Mr G. and Sir J. T. being the Subject matter of your Discourse as seldom they fail to be a Neighbor of your own but no great Politician you say if Honesty be the best Policy your Neighbor may be such a Politician as your self to extenuate Mr. G. Fault was of Opinion That the necessity of his Circumstances in having a numerous Family or Daughters to Portion might tempt him to take 200 Gnineas And after a mighty Debate among your Country Statesmen it was resolved by the Board That nothing but the Circumstance mentioned by your Neighbor could extenuate the Bribery But you hap'ning to come in at the end of this wise Debate found that skipping from one Thing to another the Company came at last to run down their Comrade for imagining 200 Guineas a compotent Portion for a Daughter of Mr. G. But to bring off your Friend though at the Expence of a piece of History you were forced to tell them That even in the height of the Roman Empire such a Sum would have been esteemed a considerable Portion for the greatest and noblest Senators of Rome to give with a Daughter And that the Daughter of the Immortal Scipio Affricanus a Man not much inferior to Mr. G. was said to have had a great Portion given her by the Senate for her Father had nothing to give her though Master of the Spoils of Carthage when it amounted but to 2000 Pieces of Brass-money which comes far short of 200 Guineas of ours I have almost transcribed your Jest being very well satisfied that it is purely your own And I dare say you may freely enjoy it without any one's disputing you the Honour to have been its Author For after a dull and insipid Narration of you know not what nor to what purpose you are obliged to run back again to your Roman History to support you such Methods and Pieces of ill told History may go down with your good-natured Friends in the Country but they will not so in the City For to say the Truth you do not understand what you pretend to Pray Sir who taught you that the Roman Empire was at the height in Scipio's Days Did not he conclude a Piece though upon hard Terms for the Charthaginians Was not all France Spain Germany Britain Suisse Illyricum Dalmatia Panonia all higher Asia and Egypt then unsubdued Which Provinces make almost Three parts of Four of all the Roman Empire You do not seem to understand the Roman
THE ANSWER TO THE LETTER Written to a Member of Parliament Upon the Occasion of some VOTES OF THE HOUSE of COMMONS against their late Speaker and Others LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV THE ANSWER c. SIR WHen you did me the Honour to write me a Letter upon the occasion of some Votes passed in our House against the late Speaker and others I had then leave given me to retire into the Country for my Health It was the Reason I could return you Thanks no sooner for the Favour you put upon me to read your Thoughts upon the Affair handled by the Commons against such Members as had taken Money for expediting of Business I do Sir naturally run into all the Measures of good and unbiassed Men for the Honour Safety and Interest of my Country which never more wanted good Example and Support than at this Day I must likewise tell you That I ever loved Freedom and Ingenuity and will not stick to give your Letter such a suitable Return as may be consistent with your own and its Character I confess when I read your two first Periods I had some Difficulties to guess who might be the Author but after I had proceeded mid-way in your historical and political Reflexions it was no great trouble to find you out So equal a Pace you tread in your admired way of writing that it made me call to mind a frugal Gentleman once my Neighbour in the Country who had the Art to fit a Servant of his own to so many Uses that upon occasion you found the same Man a Gardener Cook Coach-man and Barber by turns I must say That in your learned Works now abroad in the World you use the same Repetitions in your Observators Vindications Inquiries Answers to Declarations Great Bastards Protectors to little ones and in your Letters to your Friends For had not the Letter you did me the Honour to write me exceeded the Bonds of your Ordinary Observators I had taken it for granted you had began a fresh to your Politicks I find you sustain sudden and ill disgested Thoughts with so many Greek Latin and French Transcripts abundance whereof according to your Custom are but upon Hear-say and stoln from some Gentlemens Conversation where you are said to intrude with a great deal of Impudence and ill Breeding You begin then Sir your first Flight with the amends the Parliament has made in the research of the Blood-suckers of the Nation for the Loss of an incomparable Queen but that I may endeavor the better Answer you will give me leave to inform you a little in our Constitution to which by Birth and Knowledge you may be a Stranger The House of Commons in England contains the Representatives of the People originally called to that Honour by the King's Rescript they meet where it pleaseth his Majesty to appoint them and are generally called either to give Money for the pressing Affairs of the Kingdom in War and Peace or to give their Consent to the Establishment of wholesom Laws or to humbly represent the Necessities of the People and their Grievances that thereby redress may be had orderly and according to Law You know the House of Commons is no Judicatory nor cannot do so much as can any ordinary Justice of Peace Administer an Oath The House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal make up the other two Estates and are a Court of Judicatory when assembled together by the King's Order they can determine finally in Legal Differences between Man and Man And if Bribery should unhappily get footing in that House the usual Punishment thereof ought naturally to follow But at the same time what is unhandsomly taken without the knowledge of a Peer by any of his Family be it Wife Son Daughter or Servant it cannot be charged upon himself as a Fault if he have no accession to the Thing I should be heartily glad and I think it would contribute both for the Honour and God of the Nation That there might be an established and explained Law against all taking of Money in both Houses to compass which I think it would be fit to go to the most necessary ways to reform a House of Commons There be two radical Evils that ought to be remedied the one is The manner of Elections where besides all the usual Disorders and Debauche to excess there Reigns a popular Partiality for the Richest or Profusest to run away with the Election upon any occasion and Vertue which is generally modest to be neglected But the greater is Many Men of uneasy Circumstances do get into being Parliament-men and keep there as in a Sanctuary to secure their Estates and Persons from just Debts From which last Source intolerable in a well-governed Nation there is given a natural and necessary handle to take and retain what in Conscience ought to be paid innumerable Families suffering by an abused Constitution so much famed as being the Nations great Barricade against the Enemies of Liberty and Property the darling of Mankind and without which they must be uneasie and unhappy What our House has done in confining or expelling two of its Members to vindicate the Honour of its illustrious Body does not want Censure and Obloquy from the most sensible part of the Nation and Strangers who know not to this day upon what Law the displeasure was founded You seem satisfied to rally the Misfortune of two Gentlemen and while you endavor to descend your Malice to Posterity they have still a sufficient stock of Vertue to defend them It 's true you say it will look but with an ill Grace beyond Sea to hear of one of the English Parliaments sent to the Tower for Bribery so great a Name for the most incorrupted Body of Men in all Christendom has the House of Commons of England ver born Believe me Sir as you do not seem Learned at home so give me leave to conclude you Ignorant of the abroad World Strangers understand so little of our Constitution that hardly any Foreigner has writ tolerable of the Forms or Power of our House and to believe us an incorrupted Body what greater Arguments can be taken against that than from your own Mouth Who often have been heard to aver That in former Reigns many Members of the House of Commons were Pensioners to King Charles the Second and the French King and that certain Sums of Money so appointed had been put at the Roots of Trees in St. James's Park and other hidden Corners where afterwards the Parliament-men went or sent to fetch them But the Misfortune was there was no search made into the Matter then Sir I cannot enough admire why you are so hard upon Mr. G. It may be he has not paid you the Deference and Respect you expected of him or has he incurred your Displeasure as did unhappily once the Master of a Tavern for neglecting to give you the first and lowest Bow or according to the manner of some other
Gentlemen who have taken upon the right Altitude of your Parts has slighted your Company and Person There may be some Reason why you hate Sir J.T. he it was who gave you a soft Reprimand for an Indiscretion or Misdemeanor committed by you against the Commons of England in your authentique Politicks called the new Observator where you seemed quite of another Mind than you are at present Here it is you cannot endure one Farthing of Money designed for the Publick be put to any other Use there you can dispense with a Million at a time rather to be thrown in the Sea than that the House should prosecute or find out who did purloin it In this ext Period you enter fairly upon your large and well-accommodating Field of Greek and Roman Histories and Examples Here it is you bring in the unparalleled Antoninus and his happy Reign with a Prayer of your own there may be no Ground for comparing the present England to the then depraved Rome For my own part I go so far along with you That I think we exceed Rome in all that 's Corrupt Dissolute and Confused without even holding that small remainder of Vertue that stuck still to some of the Romans in the worst of Times The World is convinced how great a Master the King is of all heroick Vertue and methinks you might have allowed him rather a Resemblance to Julius Cesar than to Marcus Antoninus For they both descended from noble Ancestors they had both grea Enemies in their Youth and first Age. Cesar had Sylla and his Faction King William had de Witt and his They both came into Britain with a foreign Force Cesar came to remove Barbarity and to establish the Roman Law and Civility his Majesty came to vindicate and assert the Laws established they both succeeded in their Undertakings they both entered the Island with a great Fleet they both met with Misfortunes in their Fleets they both returned to the Continent having composed their Insulary Affairs they both returned to make War against France Cesar conquered and reduced it into the Form of a Province in the space of Ten years his Majesty is now pretty well advanced in the Seventh years War And I hope by it hath continued Ten years or it may be shorter time France shall be brought to be as easie to England as Cesar made it to Rome Both Generals were almost Forty years old when they began the career of their Fortunes both Generals were born in a popular State that had their Denomination from the Number Seven Rome was built upon Seven Hills and the united States are made up of Seven Provinces Cesar was Consul and Captain-General of the Roman Armies King William is Stadtholder and Captain-General of the States their Fleet and Forces Here Sir is much more Ground for a Parallel than that of your cold-headed Philosopher Antoninus There are some Vices the illustrious Crimes of the antient Romans such as Emulation Ambition and Thirst after Dominion Sir As I cannot allow Emulation in Vertue a a Crime so I find you ignorant of the Roman Antiquity when you bing in Ambition and Thirst afer Dominion to have raised their first Empire It was Valour Parsimony and great Honesty and Simplicity in their Manners and Actions and an absolute Necessity of defending themselves being Strangers and Rome from falling under the Power of her Neighbors You give an Instance of Ignorance when you call Rome a beggarly Village that City though it begun small was never a Village You ought to know the Occasion why Romulus killed his Brother Remus In the next Place you ascend for some Pages your Chariot of Triumph with the antient Romans as Cincinnatus Attilus Regulus and Paulus Aemilius Here it is you have an infinite sublime and immortal Scope for your Pen on these Pinacles it is you hang out your Ornaments that serve you alike for all Holydays out of these your Magazines do you take upon all Occasions Greek and Roman Weapons to ruin Yours and the Enemies of the State as you call them for the which great and generous Undertaking you deserve at least a Statue for your self Thus Sir after a long and tedious Journey through Corruptions and ancient Examples you arrive in your noted and well-frequented Port of England's All being at Stake Liberty Religion Laws and Property and not only so but the Fate of Christendom And in one Word here your Eloquence is employed in running through the whole popular Strain in how far every one is engaged for the gneeral Weal of the Nation that Corruption may be discouraged and the publick Money employed according to the Intention of the Givers in all which England is beholden to you Yet I must tell you by the way there was upon a time a very bad Man gave good Council in a popular State and when it came to be debated whether it should be followed or not it was allowed by all to be good Council but that it would be ill receive by the People because of the lame and narrow Reputation of the Person who gave it he being a very ill Man You seem to exert your Malice and mercenary Pen at a time in that the whole Subject of your Pamphlet is only levelled at two or three Persons whose Vertue Capacity and Service to their Country upon many Occasions cannot be overthrown or defaced by your Calumnies I thought the severe Checks you have so often and so justly met withal might have prevailed with you to keep to your promise to drop your Pen for good and all being you were made sufficiently to understand your Incapacity and Inability to manage it But there may be some Reasons have induced you to keep it still employ'd as the renewing your prostrate and prostitute Flatteries to your Friends and Benefactors or perhaps after almost Three years silence you will let the World know your late Improvement in ancient History to which you were a Stranger But being we are about the matter of Corruptions there is Sir among many one kind of Corruption lies particularly heavy upon your Vertue and that is the horrible Flatteries that are squander'd over all your Scriblings I am confident that Antiquity never saw so many intolerable Persons set off with Praises due to Vertue as have been since the last reflourishing of Letters in Europe Vertue and Vice Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice are so ill distinguished by mercenary Pens That many good Men do almost wish the World had remained as to some part in Gothish Ignorance to this day It is a great Truth That England has much and it may be more than is necessary at Stake The august House of Commons had framed near the close of the last Sessions such Resolutions as were truly fitted to the Interest and Honour of their Country and I wish their next Meeting may perfect what was then happily begun and then sufficient and well-grounded Matter will be given you to eternize that incorrupted