What is properly an addrefs from the city of London, and what not; occafioned by the late congratulations of the lord mayor and aldermen on his majesty's return, His excellency the earl of Sandwich's me- morial to their high mightineffes 33 A remarkable bite on the publick by the bottle conjurer in the Hay-Market, with the confequence of it, and humorous advertisements relating to it 34, 35 POETRY: Song in Lethe, fet to mufick 36 Prologue and epilogue, fpoken by his royal highnefs the prince of Wales's children, on their performing the tragedy of Cato Cats to Portius, fpoken at the fame time 38 The disappointed lady, by a lady of quality Alderman Heathcote refigns his gown Rebels tranfported, and discharged Trial of the fmugglers at Chichester, and an Their execution 43 The Recovery, fet to mufick, which we promis'd in our laft, fhall be in our next; as alfo, The Judgment of Hercules, Isis, the Answer to the Caveat to the Fair Sex, &c. We are forry the Effay on Education is not fuitable to our Defign. About the Middle of January was Publifhed, N APPENDIX to the LONDON MAGAZINE for 1748: THE LONDON MAGAZINE. JANUARY, enclos'd letter fell into my hands : It is fufficient to affure you, that I am under no particular obligation to conceal it; nor do I break any private truft in conveying it to the publick. If you think proper to infert it in your Magazine, it will, no doubt, be a high entertainment to your readers, as it will give them a fpecimen of a work, that has been fo long and fo ardently expected; and it may probably induce the author to oblige the publick with the whole. I am, &c. A B 1749. rightly judge not to be of the least importance, tho' it may feem at first to concern appearances rather than realities, and to be nothing more than a circumflance contained in, or implied by, the great parts of the character and conduct of fuch a king. It is of his perfonal behaviour, of his manner of living with other men, and, in a word, of his private life, that you defire me to fpeak. Let me begin then by faying, bien feance of the French, and decorum That all the decency and grace (the of the Latins) which becomes this high character, can never be reflected on this or on any character, that is not founded in virtue. But for want of this, a character that is fo, will lofe at all times part of the luftre belong Of the PRIVATE LIFE of a PRINCE. C ing to it, and may be fometimes not To my LORD Y ted to take notice of January, 1749 a little misunderstood and undervalued. Beauty is not feparable from OU observe, health, nor this luftre, faid the ftothat among the icks, from virtue: But as a man feveral heads, may be healthful without being handunder which I fome, fo he may be virtuous without have confider'd D being amiable. character the and conduct of a PATRIOT KING, Iomitone, which you There are certain finishing ftrokes, a laft hand, as we commonly fay, to be given to all the works of art. When that is not given, we may fee the excellency of a general defign, A 2 and and the beauty of fome particular parts: A judge of the art may fee further, he may allow for what is wanting, and difcern the full merit of a compleat work in one that is imperfect. But vulgar eyes will not be fo ftruck; the work will appear A to them defective, and (as it is) unfinished: So that without knowing precisely what they diflike, they may admire, but they will not be pleased. Thus in moral characters, tho' every part be virtuous and great, tho the few and fmall defects in it be B concealed under the blaze of those fhining qualities that compenfate for them; yet is not this enough even in private life: It is lefs fo in publick life, and fill lefs fo in that of a prince. There is a certain fpecies liberalis, C more easily underflood than explained, and felt than defined, that must be acquired and rendered habitual to him. A certain propriety of words and actions, that refult from their conformity to nature and character, muit always accompany him, and D create an air and manner, that run uniformly thro' the whole tenour of conduct and behaviour. This air and manner must be fo far from any kind or degree of affectation, that they cannot be attained except by him who is void of all affectation. We may ilJuftrate this to ourselves, and malze it more fenfible, by reflecting on the conduct of good dramatick or epick writers. They draw the characters which they bring on the fcene from nature, they fuflain them thro' the whole piece, and make their actors neither fay nor do any thing that is not exacly proper to the character each of them reprefents. Oderint dum metuant, came properly out of the mouth of a tyrant; but Euripids would never have given that execrable fentence to Minos or acus. A man of fenfe and virtue both, will not fall into any great impropriety of character, or indecency of condust. But he may flide or be furprized into fmall ones, from a thoufund E F G reafons, and in a thousand manners, which I fhall not flay to enumerate. Against these therefore, men who are incapable of falling into the others, must be ftill on their guard, and no men fo much as princes. When their minds are filled and their hearts warmed with true notions of government, when they know their duty, and love their people, they will not fail, in the great parts they are to act, in the council, in the field, and in all the arduous affairs that belong to their kingly office; at least they will not begin to fail by failing in them. But as they are men, fufceptible of the fame impreffions, liable to the fame errors, and expofed to the fame paffions, fo they are likewife expofed to more and ftronger temptations, than others. Befides, the elevation in which they are placed, as it gives them great advantages, gives them great difadvantages too, that often countervail the former. Thus, for inftance, a little merit in a prince is feen and felt by numbers; it is multiplied, as it were, and in proportion to this effect his reputation is raised by it. But then a little failing is feen and felt by numbers too; it is multiplied in the fame manner, and his reputation finks in the fame proportion. I spoke above of defects that may be concealed under the blaze of great and fhining qualities. This may be the cafe, as it has been that of fome princes. There goes a tradition, that Henry the fourth of France afked a Spanish ambaffador, what miftreffes the king of Spain had? The ambassador replied (like a formal pedant) that his master was a prince who feared God, and had no miftreffes but the queen. Henry the fourth felt the reflection, and asked him in return with fome contempt, "Whether his "mafter had not virtucs enough to "cover one vice?" The faults or defects that may be thus covered or compenfated, are (I think) thofe of the man, rather than thofo A those of the king; fuch as arife from the vices of the man. Alexander had violent paffions, and those for wine and women were predominant after his ambition. They were spots in his character before they prevailed by the force of habit; as foon as they began to do fo, the king and the hero appeared lefs, the rake and bully more: Perfepolis was burnt at the inftigation of Thais, and Clytus was killed in a drunken brawl. He repented indeed of thefe two horrible actions, and was again the king and hero upon many occafions. But he had not been enough on his guard, when the ftrongeft incitements to vanity and to fenfual pleafures offered themselves at every moment to him: And when he food in all his eafy hours furrounded by women and eunuchs, by the pandars, parafites, and buffoons of a voluptuous court, they who could not approach the king approach'd the man, and by feducing the man, they betrayed the king. His faults became habits: The Macedonians, who did not or would not fee the one, faw the other; and he fell a facrifice to their refentments, to their fears, and to thofe factions that will arife under an odious government, as well as under one that grows into contempt. C D E F G Other characters might be brought to contrafte with this: The firft Scipio Africanus, for example, or the eldeft Cato; (and there will be no objection to a comparison of fuch citizens of Rome as thefe were, with kings of the firft magnitude.) Now the reputation of the firft Scipio was not fo clear and uncontroverted in private as in publick life; nor was he allowed by all, to be a man of such fevere virtue, as he affected, and as that age required. Nævius was thought to mean him in fome verfes Gellius has preferved, and Valerius Antias made no fcruple to affert, that far from returning the fair Spaniard to her family, he debauch'd and kept her. Notwithstanding this, what authority did he not maintain? In what efteem and veneration did he not live and die? With what panegyricks has not the whole torrent of writers rolled down his reputation even to these days? This could not have happened, if the vice imputed to him had fhewn it felf in any fcandalous appearances, to eclipfe the luftre of the general, the conful, or the citizen. The fame reflexion might be extended to Cato, who loved wine as well as the other loved women. Men did not judge in thofe days, as Seneca was ready to do in his, That drunkennefs could be no crime if Cato drank; but Cato's paffion, as well as that of Scipio, was fubdued and kept under by his publick character. His virtue warmed instead of cooling. by this indulgence to his genius or natural temper; and one may gather from what Tully puts into his mouth in the treatife concerning Old Age, that even his love of wine was rendered fubfervient, instead of doing hurt, to the measures he pursued in his publick character. Give me leave to infift a little on the two firft Cæfars, and on Mark Anthony. (I quote none of them as good men, but I may quote them all as great men, and therefore properly in this place; fince a Patriot 6 A Of the Private Life triot King muft avoid the defects that diminish a great character, as well as thofe that corrupt a good one.) Old Curio called Julius Cæfar the husband of every wife, and the wife of every hufband, referring to his known adulteries, and to the compliances that he was fufpected of in his youth for Nicomedes. Even his own foldiers, in the licence of a triumph, fung lampoons on him for his profufion as well as lewdness. The youth of Auguftus was defamed as much as that of Julius Cæfar, and B both as much as that of Anthony. When Rome was ranfacked by the pandars of Auguftus, and matrons and virgins ftripped and fearched like flaves in a market, to choose the fitteft to fatisfy his luft, did Anthony do more? When Julius fet no bounds C to his debauches in Egypt, except thofe fatiety impofed, poftquam cpuEs Bacchoque modum laffata voluptas impofuit; when he trifled away his time with Cleopatra in the very crifis of the civil war, and till his troops refused to follow him any further in his effeminate progrefs up the Nile; of a PRINCE. Jan. faid to defame them, might pass, and did pafs, for the calumny of party. But Anthony threw off all decorum from the firft, and continued to do fo to the last. Not only vice but inceafed to be a general, a conful, a decency became habitual to him. He triumvir, a citizen of Rome: He became an Egyptian king, funk into luxurious effeminacy, and proved he was unfit to govern men, by fuffering himself to be governed by a woman. ruin'd him. If a political modefty at His vices hurt him, but his habits leaft had made him difguife the first, they would have hurt him lefs, and he might have escaped the laft: But he was fo little fenfible of this, that in a fragment of one of his letters to ferved, he endeavours to juftify himAuguftus, which Suetonius has prefelf by pleading this very habit. "What matter is it who we lie with? (fays he) This letter find you may perhaps with Tertulla, or Teren"tilla, or others that he names. not done fo these two years ?" "lie with Cleopatra, and have I D" Did Anthony do more? No; all three had vices, which would have been fo little born in any former age of Rome, that no man could have raised himself under the weight of them to popularity and to power. E But we must not wonder that the people who bore the tyrants, bore the libertines; nor that indul gence was fhewn to the vices of the great, in a city where univerfal corruption and profligacy of manners were established: And yet even in F this city, and among these degenerate Romans, certain it is, that different appearances, with the fame vices, helped to maintain the Cæfars, and ruined Anthony. I might produce many anecdotes to fhew how the two former faved appearances, G whilft their vices were the most flagrant, and made fo much amends for the appearances they had not faved, by thofe of a contrary kind; that a great part at leaf of all which was Thefe great examples which I have figures bigger than the life. Few produced may appear in fome fort virtues and few vices grow up, in thefe parts of the world, and in these have mentioned, and none have fcenes latter ages, to the fize of those I wherein to exert themfelves. But the truths I am defirous to inculcate will be as juftly delivered in this manner, and perhaps more ftrongly felt. Failings or vices that flow that run the fame courfe thro' the from the fame fource of human nature, conduct of princes, and have the fame effects on their characters, and confequently on their government and their fortune, have all the proportion neceffary to my application of them. who abandons that common decorum It matters little, whether a prince which refults from nature, and which reafon prescribes, abandons the particular decorums of this country or that, of this age or that, which refult from mode, |