Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

hence if a man does not use those advantages to the good of the public, or the benefit of his neighbour, it is certain he doth not deserve them, and, confequently, that God never intended them for a bleffing to him; and, on the other fide, whoever does employ his talents as he ought, will find, by his own experience, that they were chiefly lent him for the fervice of others, for to the fervice of others he will certainly employ them.

WISDOM

44

WISDOM.

WISDOM, attended by virtue and a ge

nerous nature, is not unapt to be im

pofed on. Thus Milton describes Uriel, "the fharpeft fighted spirit in Heaven, and regent of the fun," deceived by the diffimulation and flattery of the devil; for which the poet gives a philofophical reason, but needlefs here to quote. Is any thing more common, or more ufeful, than to caution wife men in high ftations against putting too much truft in undertaking fervants, cringing flatterers, or defigning friends? Since the Afiatic cuftom of governing by prime minifters hath prevailed in fo many courts of Europe, how careful fhould every prince be in the choice of the perfon on whom fo great a trust is devolved, whereon depend the safety and welfare of himfelf and all his subjects! Queen Elizabeth, whofe adminiftration is frequently quoted as the best pattern for English princes to follow, could not refift the artifices of the earl of Leicester,

Leicester, who, although univerfally allowed to be the most ambitious, infolent, and corrupt perfon of his age, was yet her greatest and almost her only favourite (his religion, indeed, being partly puritan and partly infidel, might have better tallied with present times); yet this wife queen would never fuffer the openeft enemies of that overgrown lord to be facrificed to his vengeance; nor durft he charge them with a defign of introducing popery or the Spanish pretender.

How many great families do we all know, whose masters have paffed for perfons of good abilities, during the whole courfe of their lives, and yet the greatest part of whofe eftates have funk in the hands of their stewards and receivers; their revenues paid them in fcanty portions, at large discount, and treble intereft, though they did not know it; while the tenants were daily racked, and at the fame time accused to their landlords of infolvency. Of this fpecies are fuch managers, who, like honeft Peter Waters, pretend to clear an estate, keep the owner pennylefs, and, after seven years, leave him five times more in debt, while they fink half a plum into their own pockets.

FRAUDS

FRAUDS AND CORRUPTIONS.

THE

HE frauds and corruptions in moft arts and fciences, as law, phyfic, (I fhall proceed. no further) are ufually much more plaufibly defended than in that of politicks; whether it be, that, by a kind of fatality, the vindication of a corrupt minister is always left to the management of the meanest and most prostitute writers; or whether it be that the effects of a wicked or unfkilful adminiftration are more public, vifible, pernicious, and univerfal: whereas the mistakes in other sciences are often matters that affect only fpeculation; or, at worst, the bad confequences fall upon few and private perfons. A nation is quickly fenfible of the miferies it feels; and little comforted by knowing what account it turns to by the wealth, the power, the honours conferred on those who fit at the helm, or the falaries paid to their pen-men; while the body of the people is funk into poverty and despair. A Frenchman in his wooden fhoes may, from the vanity of his nation, and the conftitution of that government

[ocr errors]

government, conceive some imaginary pleasure in boasting the grandeur of his monarch, in the midst of his own flavery: but a free-born Englishman, with all his loyalty, can find little fatisfaction at a minifter overgrown in wealth and power, from the loweft degree of want and contempt; when that power or wealth are drawn from the bowels and blood of the nation, for which every fellow-fubject is a fufferer, except the great man himself, his family and his penfioners. I mean fuch a minifter (if there ever hath been fuch a one) whofe whole management hath been a continued link of ignorance, blunders, and mistakes, in every article befides that of enriching and aggrandizing himself.

For these reasons, the faults of men who are most trusted in public bufinefs, are, of all others, the most difficult to be defended. A man may be perfuaded into a wrong opinion, wherein he hath small concern; but no oratory can have the power over a fober man against the conviction of his own fenfes and therefore, as I take it, the money thrown away on fuch advocates might be more prudently fpared, and kept in fuch a mi

nister's

« ПредишнаНапред »