a fentence shall I ever utter, not a line fhall I ever write to difturb their quiefcent tranquillity, and all I ask of them is, that if I do not perplex them by putting it into their heads to exercife this troublefome quality, they would generously permit me to make what use I please of my own, which certainly in that cafe (if it is a bad thing to do) can hurt nobody but myself. Having allowed then, that if to be a freethinker is not to think always as I am bid by those who perhaps know no more than myself, I must submit to that appellation. The third count is, I believe, that I am an illuminé. I have read one nonfenfical book on that fubject, and tried to read another, but it was fo childish and foolish, and I fo little comprehended what the author means to eftablish, that I could not get through it. If you, Madam, or if you, Sir, who doubtlefs are better informed, will have the goodness to acquaint me what an illuminé means, I will tell you whether I belong to the fect or no; but at present

I know not how I can be a member of a party whofe maxims I am fo far from understanding, that I doubt the very existence of the fociety itself. It feems to me to be a chimera raised to terrify the credulous with apprehenfions of plots and machinations imagined by they know not whom, they know not where; and whatever is involved in mystery and obfcurity always impreffes a fort of dread which no specified and diftinct object of alarm could effect. The next charge against me (but really they are fo grave and numerous that I ought to have taken notes); the next charges against me are, that I am a democrate and a jacobin. An explanation of each moft alarming term is almost as neceffary to me as an explanation of the former. I remember, when I was a boy, hearing in every society a vast deal about whigs and tories, though the names were then becoming more obfolete than they had been fome years before I read even more than I heard about them, and Fielding and Smollet introduced the mention of

parties

parties fo diftinguished into novels, while every pamphlet of fifty years ago, which I read in a collection of my father's, vented the virulence of one of thefe parties against the other. After an interregnum, during which nobody feemed to care about either, have fucceeded the names of ariftocrate and democrate, which I wish people, who use them as terms of reproach on either fide, would first understand. We: more immediately borrowed the name: from France; but like many other imported words, we apply them in fenfes wholly foreign to their real meaning.. It believe, however, you, Madam, under-ftand a democrate and a jacobin to mean nearly the fame thing."

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"To be fure I do," anfwered' Mrs.. Crewkherne, indignantly-" And I wish,, with all my heart, they were all deftroyed."

"Doubtless you do," refumed Ar-mitage," the charity which you fo loudly profess would induce you to or-der them all to fire and faggot; but even the power of executing fo benevolent.

a pur

You

a purpose would not gratify your humane intention towards me; fince in your fenfe of the words I am neither. apprehend that thefe democrats have a prodigious and unquenchable hatred against all established governments, and have an horror of kings and of nobility. Now I have nothing of all. this. I respect the established government of my country, and never difturb it. If I could not live contented under it, I would go to another. I venerate, I honour, I would die, were it neceffary, for a good king-for a king fhewing himself worthy of the facred charge, by devoting himfelf to the real happiness and profperity of the people; and fo far from having any deteftation of nobility, I think the common objections made against their order, puerile and inconfequent. I do not believe the order inimical to the community, and I hold all the wild. fchemes of univerfal equality as utterly impracticable, and altogether abfurd; fo impracticable, that if it could be established

to

to-morrow, inequalities more unjust and more shocking would exift in fix weeks; if, therefore, you annex this fyftem to the word democrats, I am none.

"Laftly, as to my being a jacobin, which, I take it for granted, includes every thing. that you can imagine horrible, and to be a fort of a conftellation of terrible charges; I have only to fay, that if you mean, among other heavy mifdemeanors. included under it, that I either approve, or ever did approve of the violence, cruelty, and perfidy, with which the French have polluted the caufe of freedom, you are greatly mistaken; far from thinking that fuch measures are likely to establish liberty, and the general rights of mankind, I hold them to be. exactly the means that will delay the period when rational freedom, and all that its enjoyment can give to humanity, fhall: be established in the world. I deny many of their maxims, and I abhor almost the whole of their conduct. I never do believe that axiom of politicians, which fays, that evil may be done to produce good. In the

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