by a natural and neceffary progreffion, into more real, though less apparent, danger, than they were in before the revolution. The exceffive ill husbandry practifed from the very beginning of King William's reign, and which laid the foundations of all we feel and all we fear, was not the effect of ignorance, mistake, or what we call chance, but of design and scheme in those who had the sway at that time. I am not fo uncharitable, however, as to believe that they intended to bring upon their country all the mifchiefs that we who came after them experience and apprehend. No; they faw the measures they took, fingly and unrelatively, or relatively alone to fome immediate object. The notion of attaching men to the new government, by tempting them to embark their fortunes on the fame bottom, was a reason of state to fome: the notion of creating a new, that is, a moneyed intereft, in oppofition to the landed intereft or as a balance to it, and of acquiring a fuperior influence in the city of London at least by the establishment of great corporations, was a reason of party to others and I make no doubt that the opportunity of amaffing immense estates by the management of funds, by trafficking in paper, and by all the arts of jobbing, was a reafon of private interest to those who fupported and improved this scheme of iniquity, if not to those who devised it. They looked no farther. Nay, we who came after them, and have long tafted the bitter fruits of the corruption they planted, were

far

far from taking fuch an alarm at our distress and our danger as they deferved; till the most remote and fatal effect of causes, laid by the laft generation, was very near becoming an object of experience in this. Your Lordship, I am fure, fees at once how much a due reflection on the paffages of former times, as they ftand recorded in the hiftory of our own and of other countries, would have deterred a free people from trusting the fole management of fo great a revenue, and the fole nomination of thofe legions of officers employed in it, to their chief magiftrate. There remained indeed no pretence for doing fo, when once a falary was settled on the prince, and the public revenue was no longer in any sense his revenue, nor the pu blic expence his expence. Give me leave to add, that it would have been, and would be ftill, more decent with regard to the prince, and lefs repugnant if not more conformable to the principles and practice too of our government, to take this power and influence from the prince, or to fhare it with him; than to exclude men from the privilege of representing their fellow-fubjects who would chufe them in parliament, purely because they are employed and trufted by the prince.

Your Lordship fees, not only how much a due reflection upon the experience of other ages and countries would have pointed out national corruption, as the natural and neceffary confequence of invefting the Crown with the management of fo great a revenue; but also the lofs of

liberty,

liberty, as the natural and neceffary confequence of national corruption.

These two examples explain fufficiently what they are intended to explain. It only remains therefore upon this head, to obferve the difference between the two manners in which history fupplies the defects of our own experience. It fhews us causes as in fact they were laid, with their immediate effects: and it enables us to guess at future events. It can do no more, in the nature of things. My lord Bacon, in his fecond book of the advancement of learning, having in his mind, I fuppofe, what Philo and Jofephus afferted of Mofes, affirms divine history to have this prerogative, that the narration may be before the fact as well as after. But fince the ages of prophecy, as well as miracles, are paft, we must content ourselves to guess at what will be, by what has been: we have no other means in our power, and history furnishes us with these. How we are to improve and apply thefe means, as well as how we are to acquire them, fhall be deduced more particularly in another letter.

1. An objection against the utility of history removed. 2. The falfe and true aims of those who study it. 3. Of the history of the

firft ages; with reflections on the state of ancient history, profane and facred.

W

ERE thefe letters to fall into the hands of fome ingenious perfons who adorn the age we live in, your Lordship's correfpondent would be joked upon for his project of improving men in virtue and wisdom by the study of history. The general characters of men, it would be faid, are determined by their natural conftitutions, as their particular actions are by immediate objects. Many very conver fant in history would be cited, who have proved ill men or bad politicians; and a long roll would be produced of others, who have arrived at a great pitch of private and public virtue, with-out any affiftance of this kind. Something has been faid already to anticipate this objection; but, fince I have heard feveral perfons affirm fuch propofitions with great confidence, a loud laugh, or a filent fneer at the pedants who prefumed to think otherwife; I will spend a few paragraphs, with your Lordship's leave, to fhew that fuch affirmations (for to affirin, amongst thefe fine men, is to reafon) either prove too much, or prove nothing.

If our general characters were determined abfolutely, as they are certainly influenced, by our conftitutions, and if our particular actions were fo by immediate objects; all inftruction by precept as well as example, and all endeavours to form the moral character by education, would be unneceffary. Even the little care that

is

is taken, and furely it is impoffible to take less, in the training up our youth, would be too much. But the truth is widely different from this reprefentation of it; for, what is vice, and what is virtue? I fpeak of them in a large and philofophical fenfe. The former is, I think, no more than the excefs, abuse, and mifapplication of appetites, defires, and paffions, natural and innocent, nay, useful and neceffary. The latter confifts in the moderation and government, in the use and application of these appetites, defires, and paffions, according to the rules of reafon, and therefore often in oppofition to their own blind impulfe.

What now is education; that part, that prin-. cipal and moft neglected part of it, I mean, which tends to form the moral character? It is, I think, an institution defigned to lead men, from their tender years, by precept and example, by argument and authority, to the practice, and to the habit of practising these rules. The ftronger our appetites, defires, and paffions, are, the harder indeed is the task of education: but when the efforts of education are proportioned to this ftrength, although our keenest appetites and defires, and our ruling paffions, cannot be reduced to a quiet and uniform fubmiffion, yet, are not their exceffes affwaged? are not their abuses and misapplications, in fome degree, diverted or checked? Though the pilot cannot lay the ftorm, cannot he carry the fhip, by his art, better through it, and often prevent the wreck that would always happen without him? If Alext

D

ander,