restrictions in the eyes of the people; however, he can be as despotick, when he thinks it necessary, as William the Conqueror; provided he save appearances, by letting old forms subsist in the administration, he can turn them to what use he thinks proper, and has no need of very great dexterity in the management. The people flatter themselves with a notion of being free, because they have an air of being represented, and yet it is that very representation makes them slaves. They have no real liberty left, but that of the press; which would soon grow contemptible in their own eyes, if the minister (against whom it is generally directed) had sense enough to despise it. The barons have no shadow of their old authority, only in the vain formality of entering their protests, by half dozens, against the votes of a vast and a sure majority, that speaks the sense of the minister, while it pretends to speak that of the nation... All this is a riddle,-yet every cobler in England can unfold it, to no manner of purpose for himself, or his country. The charm is irresistible; all the subjects are caught in the snare that Clarendon had laid for the sovereign.

In the mean time, the prince, vested by this magick in as much real state and power as the most arbitrary monarch in Europe, has other advantages which none of them can share with him. The interposition of his parliament skreens him from all censure, as well as danger or want. Though he be an errant knave in his dealings with his people, or a notorious trickster, and breaker of publick faith, in regard of his foreign alliances, he is ever absolved by the unthinking world, and the blame thrown entirely on his parliament; which he is still supposed, upon VOL. XIX.

I

the

the credit of a received tradition, not to be able to govern or lead into all his honest purposes, though it be, in reality, the best trained, and most easily managed, of any beast of burden in the universe. So that as things now stand, Clarendon's antimonarchical scheme is like to continue for ever the surest support of tyranny. The whigs must be the majority in parliament. They alone can be bribed to sell and subdue the people; and a king of Great Britain must be a downright fool, or a madman, not to be on a surer foot of reputation, as well as power, than any other sovereign upon earth. He may be at the head of different alliances at the same time, as well as of different churches; and has a more undisputed right to personal infallibility than the pope. The other monarchies of Europe, originally limited, have become absolute by the policy of keeping their ancient demesnes, and adding those of the rebellious barons to them from time to time: that of England, by having no demesnes at all.

In this happy circumstance, a king of England, while he is in perfect security at home, can keep his foreign enemies in awe, by the terrour of his fleets at sea, and confederacies on the continent ; or by sowing corruption in councils and cabinets abroad, which are now as accessible to it, as his parliament. . If intrigue should fail, the whigs, by whom he reigns, will always find him money enough to do the business. In the mean time, he can stand in no manner of apprehension with respect to any part of his subjects, except a distant one, in regard of those established by Clarendon, to wit, the Irish whigs. These have had earnest longings after independency both upon the church and state of England, ever since

their establishment in Ireland. The division of the vulgar of that country from them, in point of religion, and the long peace of the neighbouring powers with England, have rendered all their views impracticable hitherto. England is mad enough to encourage persecution in that country; and if they can, by executing the penal laws in all their rigour, force the people at length to be of a piece with them, they may not be long to seek for a proper occasion to withdraw themselves from the dominion of England, as the Portuguese did, some time ago, from that of Spain, though upon the same continent. In that case, as they were founded upon presbytery and fanaticism, the ecclesiastical livings will be no small accession of power and encouragement for them to return to the religion of their fathers. Their honour will be concerned in having a church of their own; and there is nothing so easy, as to make five hundred as good as any of those now in being, within the comprehensive system of Clarendon.

Who can think it strange, after all, that Clarendon should reckon the Irish a blind and stupid people, since they could not discover the broad way to their temporal and eternal happiness, as well as he and all his pupils of the present latitude? But, in the name of wonder, since they could have made the way to Heaven, notwithstanding the needless burden of their articles of faith, why should they be destroyed in this world merely upon account of them? After having suffered so much for their rebellion against Cromwell, why should they be made martyrs to their loyalty, when their king was actually on the throne a man must be stupid indeed, not to see through all this mechanism of sacrificing people

to God and to the devil at once. But, thanks to their stars! their friend Clarendon is still alive his spirit of persecution will open their eyes at last, and bring them to their senses. "Whenever they can get clear of the devil, in his way, by having little or no religion at all, they will soon become as wise as their neighbours; and by agreeing among themselves, get clear of England and her church too into the bargain.

Dear Mentor, excuse me for having finished, as folks do generally in their drink, with a dispute about religion; I love religion, with all my soul, where it is sincere; but abhor, above all things, the pretence or abuse of it, to advance any purpose but those that regard the other world. As I have a soul (I hope) to be saved, I have studied all the present religions with care; and if my creed did not determine me to be a catholick, I freely own I should be troubled with none of them, because of all the vile and cruel rogueries I have seen them misapplied to. Most of them, for want of authority, are lost in freethinking; others, by arrogating too much authority, vanish into superstition. These two kinds, abandoned to such extremities, have infinitely more business upon earth, than ever they are like to have in Heaven. The catholick may be free from either, if he pleases: if he fall into either, he must be knave or fool. The same may be said of a national church, guarded by the civil, and fenced by her own ecclesiastical authority. She may be very catholick, without being enslaved to the decretals and extravagancies of popery; or overlaid by the heavier weight of presbytery; or made the jest and handmaid of freethinking! It is a general remark, that two of a trade

cannot agree. The most sanguine jesuits, though they are forced to keep some measures, are horribly cried out at by those that pretend to the strictest kind of reformation: yet these, whenever they get the temporal power into their hands, outdo them infinitely in all their arts of double dealing and tyranny. But all our jars are a noise about nothing-Clarendon, a man of much more religion and sense than either the apostles, fathers, or councils, has discovered, of late, that heresy is only a dream; since, according to him, catholick and christian are one and the same thing in fact. So let us burn our books and our schools, for there is an end of controversy. However, let us keep rancour and persecution on foot, with all the zeal of our fathers. There has been, and there is still, something to be got by it.

I own I am a little mad; so Mentor must take nothing ill that I say to him. My patience is exhausted, and I have done all I could to tire his. He must blame his own good nature, that has given me room to vent my spleen. As I have no friend here of genius or freedom of thought enough to comprehend these notions, they had rotted in my breast, and thrown me, perhaps, into some dangerous indisposition, if I had not come out with them. I am now setting out upon an expedition against the Moors, since the modern christians are too hard for me; and whatever may be my fate, it is an exceeding comfort to me to have thus discharged my conscience in regard of these, before I enter the lists against their brethren the mahometans.

! As for the blank verses which I recommended so earnestly to the care of Mentor, I now abandon them to his discretion. If he thinks them worth his cor