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labourers out of their houses. These companyons wold take whete, ootes, bufes, muttons, porkes, and the pore men durste speake no worde. J. FROISSART

10. OBJECTIONS TO A PUBLIC INQUIRY ANSWERED. The honourable gentlemen are so ingenuous as to confess that our affairs, both abroad and at home, are at present in the utmost distress; but, say they, you ought to free yourselves from this distress, before you inquire how, or by what means, you were brought into it. Sir, according to this way of arguing, a minister that has plundered and betrayed his country, and fears being called to an account in Parliament, has nothing to do but to involve his country in a dangerous war, or some other great distress, in order to prevent an inquiry into his conduct; because he may be dead before that war is at an end, or that distress got over. Thus, like the most villainous of all thieves, after he has plundered the house, he has nothing to do but to set it in a flame, that he may escape in the confusion. It is really astonishing to hear such an argument seriously urged in this House; but, say these gentlemen, if you found yourself upon a precipice, would you stand to inquire how you were led there, before you considered how to get off? No, Sir; but if a guide had led me there, I should very probably be provoked to throw him over, before I thought of anything else; at least I am sure I should not trust to the same guide for bringing me off; and this, Sir, is the strongest argument that can be used for an inquiry.

While we fret and

II. OF SUBMISSION TO GOD'S WILL. repine at God's will, do we not say in effect, that it is better for us to have our own? that is, in other words, that we are wiser than God, and could contrive and project things much more to our own advantage, if we had the disposal of them? Do we not as good as complain, that we are not took in as sharers with God in the government of the world? that our advice is not taken, and our consent had, in all the great changes which He is pleased to bring over us? These indeed are things that no man utters in words; but whosoever refuses to submit himself to the hand of God, speaks them aloud by his behaviour; which by all the intelligent part of

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the world is looked upon as a surer indication of man's mind, than any verbal declaration of it whatsoever. God, perhaps, is pleased to visit us with some heavy affliction; and shall we now, out of a due reverence of His all-governing wisdom, patiently endure it? or out of a blind presumption of our own endeavour by some sinister way or other to rid ourselves from it? Passengers in a ship always submit to their pilot's discretion, but especially in a storm; and shall we, whose passage lies through a greater and more dangerous deep, pay a less deference to that great pilot, who not only understands, but also commands the seas?

12.

COMMOTION IN LONDON CAUSED BY THE ENCAMPMENT OF THE CORNISH REBELS ON BLACKHEATH, A.D. 1496. But the city of London, especially at the first, upon the near encamping of the rebels, was in great tumult: as it useth to be with wealthy and populous cities, especially those which for greatness and fortune are queens of their regions, who seldom see out of their windows, or from their towers, an army of enemies. But that which troubled them most, was the conceit, that they dealt with a rout of people, with whom there was no composition or condition, or orderly treating, if need were; but likely to be bent altogether upon rapine and spoil. And although they had heard that the rebels had behaved themselves quietly and modestly by the way as they went; yet they doubted much that would not last, but rather make them more hungry and more in appetite to fall upon spoil in the end. Wherefore there was great running to and fro of people, some to the gates, some to the walls, some to the water-side: giving themselves alarms and panic-fears continually. Nevertheless both the lord mayor, and the sheriffs, did their part stoutly and well, in arming and ordering the people. And the king likewise did adjoin some captains of experience in the wars, to advise and assist the citizens. But soon after, when they understood that the king had so ordered the matter, that the rebels must win three battles, before they could approach the city, and that he had put his own person between the rebels and them, and that the great care was, rather how to impound the rebels that none of them might escape, than that any doubt was made to vanquish them; they grew to be quiet and out of fear. LORD BACON

The great end of

13. OF THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not for a moment this grand object of his being. Ignorant as he is of every art of life, he keeps still in view the end of all those arts, and eagerly seeks for felicity amidst that darkness with which he is environed. But as much as the wildest savage is inferior to the polished citizen, who under the protection of laws enjoys every convenience which industry has invented; so much is this citizen himself inferior to the man of virtue, and the true philosopher, who governs his appetites, subdues his passions, and has learned from reason to set a just value on every pursuit and enjoyment. For is there an art and apprenticeship necessary for every other attainment? and is there no art of life, no rule, no precepts to direct us in this principal concern? Can no particular pleasure be attained without skill; and can the whole be regulated, without reflection or intelligence, by the blind guidance of appetite and instinct?

14. TIONS.

D. HUME

HONOUR-THE REFLECTION OF A MAN'S OWN ACPrinces indeed may confer titles and names of honour. But they are a man's own actions which must make him truly honourable; honour being but the reflection of a man's own actions, shining bright in the face of all about him, and from thence rebounding upon himself. And yet in spite of nature and reason and the judgment of all mankind, this high and generous thing must be that, in whose pretended quarrel almost all the duels of the world are fought. Oh! my honour is concerned, says one. In what? I pray. Why, he gave me the lie. That is, he gave you perhaps what was your own before. But as truth cannot be made falsehood by the worst of tongues, so neither can a liar be made a true man by forcing a coward to eat his words, or a murderer become an honest man by a lucky (or rather unlucky) thrust of a lawless sword.

15. BUT unless these things, which I have above proposed, one way or other, be once settled, in my fear, which God

avert, we instantly ruin; or at best become the Servants of one or other single Person, the secret Author and Fomenter of these Disturbances. You have the sum of my present Thoughts, as much as I understand of these Affairs, freely imparted, at your request and the Perswasion you wrought in me, that I might chance hereby to be some way serviceable to the Commonwealth, in a time when all ought to be endeavouring to do what good they can, whether much or but little. With this you may do what you please, put out, put in, communicate or suppress you offend not me, who only have obeyed your Opinion, that in doing what I have don, I might happen to offer something which might be of som use in this great time of need. However I have not bin wanting to the opportunity which you presented before me, of showing the readiness which I have in the midst of my Unfitness to whatever may be required of me, as a publick duty.

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16. SION. This tale might pass on Josephus; for in him I believe I read it but surely the love of our country is a lesson of reason, not an institution of nature. Education and habit, obligation and interest, attach us to it, not instinct. It is, however, so necessary to be cultivated, and the prosperity of all societies, as well as the grandeur of some, depends upon it so much, that orators by their eloquence, and poets by their enthusiasm, have endeavoured to work up this precept of morality into a principle of passion. But the examples which we find in history, improved by the lively descriptions, and the just applauses or censures of historians, will have a much better and more permanent effect than declamation, or song, or the dry ethics of mere philosophy. In fine, to converse with historians is to keep good company: many of them were excellent men, and those who were not such have taken care however to appear such in their writings. It must therefore be of great use to prepare ourselves by this conversation for that of the world; and to receive our first impressions and to acquire our first habits in a scene where images of virtue and vice are continually represented to us in the colours that properly belong to them, before we enter on another scene where virtue and vice are too often confounded, and what belongs to one is ascribed to the other.

LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY-NOT A PRINCIPLE OF PAS

LORD BOLINGBROKE

17. JUDGMENT OF A MAN WHY SUSPENDED TILL AFTER HIS DEATH. Death closes a man's reputation, and determines it as good or bad. This, among other motives, may be one reason why we are naturally averse to launching out into a man's praise till his head is laid in the dust. While he is capable of changing we may be forced to retract our opinions. He may forfeit the esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different light from what he does at present. In short, as the life of any man cannot be called happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced virtuous or vicious before the conclusion of it. It was upon this consideration that Epaminondas, being asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates, or he himself, deserved most to be esteemed; 'You must first see us die,' said he, 'before that question can be answered.'

18.

REGULATION OF THE PASSIONS. If it be true, that the Passions are the Principles of Human Actions, it will become our best wisdom so to manage them, as to retain their vigour, whilst we keep them under strict command. They must be governed rather like free subjects than slaves; lest in the endeavours to render them obedient, they should become abject, and unfit for the important purposes, to which they were designed: it was a great error in those Philosophers, who insisted upon an absolute indifference and vacancy from all Passion; since nothing can be more contrary to reason, than to divest one's self of Humanity, in order to acquire Tranquillity of Mind; and to eradicate the Principles of Action, because they may produce ill effects.

19.

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PRESS. I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And, yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good

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