fact. With fuch precautions, even Burnet's history may be of fome ufe. In a word, your Lordship will want no help of mine to discover, by what progreffion the whole conftitution of our country, and even the character of our nation, has been altered: nor how much a worse use in a national fenfe, though a better in the fenfe of party.politics, the men called Whigs have made of long wars and new systems of revenue fince the Revolution, than the men called Tories made, before it, of long peace and stale prerogative. When you look back three or four generations ago, you will fee that the English were a plain, perhaps a rough, but a good-natured hofpitable people, jealous of their liberties, and able as well as ready to defend them, with their tongues, their pens, and their fwords. The Restoration began to turn hofpitality into luxury, pleasure into debauch, and country-peers and country-commoners into courtiers and men of mode. But whilst our luxury was young, it was little more than elegance the debauch of that age was enlivened with wit, and varnished over with gallantry. The courtiers and men of mode knew what the conftitution was, refpected it, and often afferted it. Arts and fciences flourished; and, if we grew more trivial, we were not become either grofsly ignorant, or openly profligate. Since the Revolution, our kings have been reduced indeed to a feeming annual dependence on parliament; but the business of parliament, which was esteemed in general a duty before, has

been

been exercised in general as a trade fince. The trade of parliament, and the trade of funds, have grown univerfal. Men, who stood forward in the world, have attended to little elfe. The frequency of parliaments, that increased their importance, and should have increased the respect of them, has taken off from their dignity and the spirit that prevailed, whilft the fervice in them was duty, has been debased since it became a trade. Few know, and scarce any refpect, the British conftitution: that of the church has been long fince derided; that of the State as long neglected; and both have been left at the mercy of the men in power, whoever thofe men were. Thus the Church, at leaft the hierarchy, however facred in its origin or wife in its inftitution, is become an useless burden on the State: and the State is become, under ancient and known forms, a new and undefinable monster; compofed of a king without monarchical splendour, a fenate of nobles without aristocratical independency, and a fenate of commons without democratical freedom. In the mean time, my Lord, the very idea of wit, and all that can be called taste, has been loft among the great; arts and fciences are scarce alive; luxury has been increased, but not refined corruption has been established, and is avowed. When governments are worn out, thus it is: the decay appears in every, inftance. Public and private virtue, public and private spirit, science and wit, decline all together.

That you, my Lord, may have a long

;

and

glo

glorious share in restoring all these, and in drawing our government back to the true principles of it, I wish most heartily. Whatever errors I may have committed in public life, I have always loved my country: whatever faults may be objected to me in private life, I have always loved my friend: whatever ufage I have received from my country, it fhall never make me break with her whatever ufage I have received from my friends, I never fhall break with one of them, while I think him a friend to my country. These are the fentiments of my heart. I know they are those of your Lordfhip's and a communion of fuch fentiments is a tye that will engage me to be, as long as I live,

My Lord,

Your moft faithful fervant.

LETTER I.

SHALL take the liberty of writing to you a little oftener than the three or four times a-year, which you tell me are all you can allow yourself to write to thofe you like beft; and yet Í declare to you with great truth, that you never knew me fo bufy in your life, as I am at prefent. You must not imagine from hence, that I am writing memoirs of myself. The fubject is too flight to defcend to posterity, in any other manner, than by that occafional mention which may be made of any little actor in the history of our age. Sylla, Cafar, and others of that rank, were, whilst they lived, at the head of mankind: their story was in fome fort the story of the world, and as fuch might very properly be tranfmitted under their names to future generations. But for those who have acted much inferior parts, if they publish the piece, and call it after their own names, they

are