Four Early Pamphlets Part 2

I have endeavoured in vain to investigate who was their author, and to whom they were addressed. It should seem, from the internal evidence of the composition, that they were written by a person, who was originally of a low rank or a menial station, but who was distinguished by his lord for those abilities and talents, he imagined he discovered in him. I have learned, by a kind of vague tradition, upon which I can place little dependence, that the n.o.ble pupil was the owner of a magnificent _chateau_ not a hundred miles from your lords.h.i.+p's admired seat in the county of Buckingham. It is said that this n.o.bleman, amidst a thousand curiosities with which his gardens abounded, had the unaccountable whim of placing a kind of artificial hermit in one of its wildest and most solitary recesses. This hermit it seems was celebrated through the whole neighbourhood, for his ingenuity in the carving of tobacco-stoppers, and a variety of other accomplishments. Some of the peasants even mistook him for a conjuror. If I might be allowed in the conjectural licence of an editor, I should be inclined to ascribe the following composition to this celebrated and ingenious solitaire.

Since however this valuable tract remains without an owner, I thought it could not be so properly addressed to any man as your lords.h.i.+p. I would not however be misunderstood. I do not imagine that the claim this performance has upon the public attention, consists in the value and excellence of it's precepts. On the contrary, I consider it as the darkest and most tremendous scheme for the establishment of despotism that ever was contrived. If the public enter into my sentiments upon the subject, they will consider it as effectually superseding Machiavel's celebrated treatise of The Prince, and exhibiting a more deep-laid and desperate system of tyranny. For my part, I esteem these great and destructive vices of so odious a nature, that they need only be exposed to the general view in order to the being scouted by all. And if, which indeed I cannot possibly believe, there has been any n.o.ble lord in this kingdom mean enough to have studied under such a preceptor, I would willingly shame him out of his principles, and hold up to him a gla.s.s, which shall convince him how worthy he is of universal contempt and abhorrence.

The true reason, my lord, for which I have presumed to prefix your name to these sheets is, that the contrast between the precepts they contain, and the ingenuous and manly character that is universally attributed to your lords.h.i.+p, may place them more strongly in the light they deserve.

And yet I doubt not there will be some readers perverse enough to imagine that you are the true object of the composition. They will find out some of those ingenious coincidences, by which The Rape of the Lock, was converted into a political poem, and the _Telemaque_ of the amiable Fenelon into a satire against the government under which he lived. I might easily appeal, against these treacherous commentators, to the knowledge of all men reflecting every corner of your lords.h.i.+p's gardens at Stowe. I might boldly defy any man to say, that they now contain, or ever did contain, one of these artificial hermits. But I will take up your lords.h.i.+p's defence upon a broader footing. I will demonstrate how contrary the character of your ancestors and your own have always been to the spirit and temper here inculcated. If this runs me a little into the beaten style of dedication, even the modesty of your lords.h.i.+p will excuse me, when I have so valuable a reason for adopting it.

I shall confine myself, my lord, in the few thoughts I mean to suggest upon this head, to your two more immediate ancestors, men distinguished above the common rate, by their virtues or their abilities. Richard earl Temple, your lords.h.i.+p's immediate predecessor, as the representative of your ill.u.s.trious house, will be long remembered by posterity under the very respectable t.i.tle of the friend of the earl of Chatham. But though his friend, my lord, we well know that he did not implicitly follow the sentiments of a man, who was a.s.suredly the first star in the political hemisphere, and whose talents would have excused, if any thing could have excused, an unsuspecting credulity. The character of lord Chatham was never, but in one instance, tarnished. He did not sufficiently dread the omnipotence of the favourite. He fondly imagined that before a character so brilliant, and success so imposing as his had been, no little system of favouritism could keep its ground. Twice, my lord, he was upon the brink of the precipice, and once he fell. When he trembled on the verge, who was it that held him back? It was Richard earl Temple.

Twice he came, like his guardian angel, and s.n.a.t.c.hed him from his fate.

Lord Chatham indeed was formed to champ the bit, and spurn indignant at every restraint. He knew the superiority of his abilities, he recollected that he had twice submitted to the honest counsels of his friend, and he disdained to listen any longer to a coolness, that a.s.similated but ill to the adventurousness of his spirit; and to a hesitation, that wore in his apprehension the guise of timidity. What then did Richard earl Temple do? There he fixed his standard, and there he pitched his tent. Not a step farther would he follow a leader, whom to follow had been the boast of his life. He erected a fortress that might one day prove the safeguard of his misguided and unsuspecting friend.

And yet, my lord, the character of Richard earl Temple, was not that of causeless suspicion. He proved himself, in a thousand instances, honest, trusting, and sincere. He was not, like some men, that you and I know, dark, dispa.s.sionate, and impenetrable. On the contrary, no man mistook him, no man ever charged him with a double conduct or a wrinkled heart.

His countenance was open, and his spirit was clear. He was a man of pa.s.sions, my lord. He acted in every momentous concern, more from the dictates of his heart, than his head. But this is the key to his conduct; He kept a watchful eye upon that bane of every patriot minister, _secret influence_. If there were one feature in his political history more conspicuous than the rest, if I were called to point out the line of discrimination between his character and that of his contemporaries upon the public stage, it would be the _hatred of secret influence_.

Such, my lord, was one of your immediate ancestors, whose name, to this day, every honest Briton repeats with veneration. I will turn to another person, still more nearly related to you, and who will make an equal figure in the history of the age in which he lived, Mr. George Grenville. His character has been represented to us by a writer of no mean discernment, as that of "shrewd and inflexible." He was a man of indefatigable industry and application. He possessed a sound understanding, and he trusted it. This is a respectable description.

Integrity and independency, however mistaken, are ent.i.tled to praise.

What was it, my lord, that he considered as the ruin of his reputation?

What was it, that defeated all the views of an honest ambition, and deprived his country of the services, which his abilities, under proper direction, were qualified to render it? My lord, it was _secret influence_. It was in vain for ministers to be able to construct their plans with the highest wisdom, and the most unwearied diligence; it was in vain that they came forward like men, and risqued their places, their characters, their all, upon measures, however arduous, that they thought necessary for the salvation of their country. They were defeated, by what, my lord? By abilities greater than their own? By a penetration that discovered blots in their wisest measures? By an opposition bold and adventurous as themselves? No: but, by the _lords of the bedchamber_; by a "band of Janissaries who surrounded the person of the prince, and were ready to strangle the minister upon the nod of a moment."

With these ill.u.s.trious examples ever rus.h.i.+ng upon your memory, no man can doubt that your lords.h.i.+p has inherited that detestation of _influence_ by which your ancestors were so honourably distinguished. My lord, having considered the high expectations, which the virtues of your immediate progenitors had taught us to form upon the heir of them both, we will recollect for a moment the promises that your first outset in life had made to your country.

One of your lords.h.i.+p's first actions upon record, consists in the high professions you made at the county meeting of Buckingham, in that ever-venerable aera of oeconomy and reform, the spring of 1780. My lord, there are certain offices of sinecure, not dependent upon the caprice of a minister, which this country has reserved to reward those ill.u.s.trious statesmen, who have spent their lives, and worn out their const.i.tutions in her service. No man will wonder, when he recollects from whom your lords.h.i.+p has the honour to be descended, that one of these offices is in your possession. This, my lord, was the subject of your generous and disinterested professions. You told your countrymen, that with this office you were ready to part. If a reformation so extensive were thought necessary, you were determined, not merely to be no obstacle to the design, but to be a volunteer in the service. You came forward in the eye of the world, with your patent in your hand. You were ready to sacrifice that parchment, the precious instrument of personal wealth and private benevolence, at the shrine of patriotism.

Here then, my lord, you stood pledged to your country. What were we not to expect from the first patriot of modern story? Your lords.h.i.+p will readily imagine that our expectations were boundless and indefinite.

"Glorious and immortal man!" we cried, "go on in this untrodden path. We will no longer look with drooping and cheerless anxiety upon the misfortunes of Britain, we have a resource for them all. The patriot of Stowe is capable of every thing. He does not resemble the vulgar herd of mortals, he does not form his conduct upon precedent, nor defend it by example. Virtue of the first impression was never yet separated from genius. We will trust then in the expedients of his inexhaustible mind.

We will look up to him as our a.s.sured deliverer.--We are well acquainted with the wealth of the proprietor of Stowe. Thanks, eternal thanks to heaven, who has bestowed it with so liberal a hand! We consider it as a deposit for the public good. We count his acres, and we calculate his income, for we know that it is, in the best sense of the word, our own."

My lord, these are the prejudices, which Englishmen have formed in your favour. They cannot refuse to trust a man, descended from so ill.u.s.trious progenitors. They cannot suspect any thing dark and dishonourable in the generous donor of 2700_l_. a year. Let then the commentators against whom I am providing, abjure the name of Briton, or let them pay the veneration that is due to a character, in every view of the subject, so exalted as that of your lords.h.i.+p.

I have the honour to be,

MY LORD,

with the most unfeigned respect,

your lords.h.i.+p's

most obedient,

most devoted servant.

INSTRUCTIONS

TO A

STATESMAN.

MY LORD,

I have long considered as the greatest happiness of my life, the having so promising a pupil as your lords.h.i.+p. Though your abilities are certainly of the very first impression, they are not however of that vague and indefinite species, which we often meet with in persons, who, if providence had so pleased, would have figured with equal adroitness in the character of a shoe-black or a link-boy, as they now flatter themselves they can do in that of a minister of state. You, my lord, were born with that accomplishment of secrecy and retentiveness, which the archbishop of Cambray represents Telemachus as having possessed in so high a degree in consequence of the mode of his education. You were always distinguished by that art, never to be sufficiently valued, of talking much and saying nothing. I cannot recollect, and yet my memory is as great, as my opportunity for observation has been considerable, that your lords.h.i.+p, when a boy, ever betrayed a single fact that chanced to fall within your notice, unless indeed it had some tendency to procure a school-fellow a whipping. I have often remarked your lords.h.i.+p with admiration, talking big and bl.u.s.tering loud, so as to frighten urchins who were about half your lords.h.i.+p's size, when you had no precise meaning in any thing you said. And I shall never forget, the longest day I have to live, when I hugged you in my arms in a kind of prophetic transport, in consequence of your whispering me, in the midst of a room-full of company, in so sly a manner that n.o.body could observe you, that you had just seen John the coachman bestow upon Betty the cook-maid, a most devout and cordial embrace. From your rawest infancy you were as much distinguished, as Milton represents the G.o.ddess Hebe to have been, by "nods and becks and wreathed smiles;" with this difference, that in her they were marks of gaiety, and in you of demureness; that in her they were unrestrained and general, and in you intended only for a single _confidant_. My lord, reflecting upon all these circ.u.mstances, it is not to be wondered at that I treated your lords.h.i.+p even in clouts with the reverence due to an infant Jove, and always considered myself as superintending the inst.i.tution of the first statesman that ever existed.

But, my lord, it has ever been my opinion, that let nature do as much as she will, it is in the power of education to do still more. The many statesmanlike qualities that you brought into the world with you, sufficiently prove, that no man was ever more deeply indebted to the bounty of nature than your lords.h.i.+p. And yet of all those qualities she has bestowed upon you, there is not one that I hold in half so much esteem, as that docility, which has ever induced you to receive my instructions with implicit veneration. It is true, my coat is fustian, and my whole accoutrement plebeian. My shoes are clouted, and it is long since the wig that defends this penetrating brain, could boast a crooked hair. But you, my lord, have been able to discover the fruit through the thick and uncomely coat by which it was concealed; you have cracked the nut and have a right to the kernel.

My lord, I thought it necessary to premise these observations, before I entered upon those important matters of disquisition, which will form the object of my present epistle. It is unnecessary for me to inform a person of so much discernment as your lords.h.i.+p, that education is, by its very nature, a thing of temporary duration. Your lords.h.i.+p's education has been long, and there have been cogent reasons why it should be so. G.o.d grant, that when left to walk the world alone, you be not betrayed into any of those unlucky blunders, from the very verge of which my provident hand has often redeemed your lords.h.i.+p! Do not mistake me, my lord, when I talk of the greatness of your talents. It is now too late to flatter: This is no time for disguise. Pardon me therefore, my dear and ever-honoured pupil, if I may seem to offend against those minuter laws of etiquette, which were made only for common cases. At so important a crisis it is necessary to be plain.

Your lords.h.i.+p is very cunning, but I never imagined that you were remarkably wise. The talents you received at your birth, if we were to speak with mathematical strictness, should rather be denominated knacks, than abilities. They consist rather in a lucky dexterity of face, and a happy conformation of limb, than in any very elevated capacities of the intellect. Upon that score, my lord,--you know I am fond of comparisons, and I think I have hit upon one in this case, that must be acknowledged remarkably apposite. I have sometimes seen a ditch, the water of which, though really shallow, has appeared to careless observers to be very deep, for no other reason but because it was muddy. Believe me, my lord, experienced and penetrating observers are not so to be taken in.

But, as I was saying, education is a temporary thing, and your lords.h.i.+p's, however lasting and laborious, is at length brought to a period. My lord, if it so pleases the sovereign disposer of all things, I would be very well satisfied to remain in this sublunary state for some years longer, if it were only that I might live to rejoice in the exemplification of my precepts in the conduct of my pupil. But, if this boon be granted to my merits and my prayers, at any rate I shall from this moment retire from the world. From henceforth my _secret influence_ is brought to its close. I will no longer be the unseen original of the grand movements of the figures that fill the political stage. I will stand aloof from the giddy herd. I will not stray from my little vortex.

I will look down upon the transactions of courts and ministers, like an etherial being from a superior element. There I shall hope to see your lords.h.i.+p outstrip your contemporaries, and tower above the pigmies of the day. To repeat an idea before delivered, might be unbecoming in a fine writer, but it is characteristic and beautiful under the personage of a preceptor. The fitnesses which nature bestowed upon your frame would not have done alone. But joined with the lessons I have taught you, they cannot fail, unless I grossly flatter myself, to make the part which your lords.h.i.+p shall act sufficiently conspicuous.

Receive then, my lord, with that docility and veneration, which have at all times made the remembrance of you pleasant and reviving to my heart, the last communications of the instructor of your choice. Yes, my lord, from henceforth you shall see me, you shall hear from me no more. From this consideration I infer one reason why you should deeply reflect upon the precepts I have now to offer. Remembering that these little sheets are all the legacy my affection can bestow upon you, I shall concenter in them the very quintessence and epitome of all my wisdom. I shall provide in them a particular antidote to those defects to which nature has made you most propense.

But I have yet another reason to inforce your attention to what I am about to write. I was, as I have said, the instructor of your choice.

When I had yet remained neglected in the world, when my honours were withered by the hand of poverty, when my blossoms appeared in the eyes of those who saw me of the most brown and wintery complexion, and, if your lords.h.i.+p will allow me to finish the metaphor, when I stank in their noses, it was then that your lords.h.i.+p remarked and distinguished me. Your bounty it was that first revived my native pride. It is true that it ran in a little dribbling rivulet, but still it was much to me.

Even before you were able to afford me any real a.s.sistance, you were always ready to offer me a corner of your gingerbread, or a marble from your h.o.a.rd. Your lords.h.i.+p had at all times a taste for sumptuousness and magnificence, but you knew how to limit your natural propensity in consideration of the calls of affinity, and to give your farthings to your friends.

Do not then, my dear lord, belie the first and earliest sentiments of your heart. As you have ever heard me, let your attention be tripled now. Read my letter once and again. Preserve it as a sacred deposit. Lay it under your pillow. Meditate upon it fasting. Commit it to memory, and repeat the scattered parcels of it, as Caesar is said to have done the Greek alphabet, to cool your rising choler. Be this the amulet to preserve you from danger! Be this the chart by which to steer the little skiff of your political system safe into the port of historic immortality!

My lord, you and I have read Machiavel together. It is true I am but a bungler in Italian, and your lords.h.i.+p was generally obliged to interpret for me. Your translation I dare say was always scientifical, but I was seldom so happy as to see either grammar or sense in it. So far however as I can guess at the drift of this celebrated author, he seems to have written as the professor of only one science. He has treated of the art of government, and has enquired what was wise, and what was political.

He has left the moralists to take care of themselves.

In the present essay, my lord, I shall follow the example of Machiavel.

I profess the same science, and I pretend only to have carried to much greater heights an art to which he has given a considerable degree of perfection. Your lords.h.i.+p has had a great number of masters. Your excellent father, who himself had some dabbling in politics, spared no expence upon your education, though I believe he had by no means so high an opinion of your genius and abilities as I entertained. Your lords.h.i.+p therefore is to be presumed competently versed in the rudiments of ethics. You have read Grotius, Puffendorf, and c.u.mberland. For my part I never opened a volume of any one of them. I am self-taught. My science originates entirely in my unbounded penetration, and a sort of divine and supernatural afflatus. With all this your lords.h.i.+p knows I am a modest man. I have never presumed to entrench upon the province of others. Let the professors of ethics talk their nonsense. I will not interrupt them. I will not endeavour to set your lords.h.i.+p against them.

It is necessary for me to take politics upon an unlimited scale, and to suppose that a statesman has no character to preserve but that of speciousness and plausibility. But it is your lords.h.i.+p's business to enquire whether this be really the case.

I need not tell you, that I shall not, like the political writers with which you are acquainted, talk in the air. My instructions will be of a practical nature, and my rules adapted to the present condition of the English government. That government is at present considerably, though imperfectly, a system of liberty. To such a system the most essential maxim is, that the governors shall be accountable and amenable to the governed. This principle has sometimes been denominated responsibility.

Responsibility in a republican government is carried as high as possible. In a limited monarchy it stops at the first ministers, the immediate servants of the crown. Now to this system nothing can be more fatal, than for the public measures not really to originate with administration, but with secret advisers who cannot be traced. This is to cut all the nerves of government, to loosen all the springs of liberty, to make the const.i.tution totter to its lowest foundations.

I say this, my lord, not to terrify your lords.h.i.+p. The students and the imitators of Machiavel must not be frightened with bugbears. Beside, were cowardice as congenial to the feelings of your lords.h.i.+p as I confess it has sometimes been to mine, cowardice itself is not so apt to be terrified with threats hung up _in terrorem_, and menaces of a vague and general nature. It trembles only at a danger definite and impending.

It is the dagger at the throat, it is the pistol at the breast, that shakes her nerves. Prudence is alarmed at a distance, and calls up all her exertion. But cowardice is short-sighted, and was never productive of any salutary effort. I say not this therefore to intimidate, but to excite you. I would teach you, that this is a most important step indeed, is the grand _desideratum_ in order to exalt the English monarchy to a par with the glorious one of France, or any other absolute monarchy in Christendom.

In order, my lord, to annihilate responsibility, nothing more is necessary than that every individual should be as free, and as much in the habit of advising the king upon the measures of government, as his ministers. Let every discarded, and let every would-be statesman, sow dissension in the royal councils, and pour the poison of his discontent into the royal ear. Let the cabinet ring with a thousand jarring sentiments; and let the subtlest courtier, let him that is the most perfect master of wheedling arts and pathetic tones, carry it from every rival. This, my lord, will probably create some confusion at first. The system of government will appear, not a regular and proportioned beauty, like the pheasant of India, but a gaudy and glaring system of unconnected parts, like Esop's daw with borrowed feathers. Anarchy and darkness will be the original appearance. But light shall spring out of the noon of night; harmony and order shall succeed the chaos. The present patchwork of three different forms of government shall be changed into one simple and G.o.dlike system of despotism. Thus, when London was burned, a more commodious and healthful city sprung as it were out of her ashes.

But neither Rome nor London was built in a day. The glorious work I am recommending to you must be a work of time. At first it will be necessary for the person who would subvert the silly system of English government, to enter upon his undertaking with infinite timidity and precaution. He must stalk along in silence like Tarquin to the rape of Lucretia. His horses, like those of Lear, must be shoed with felt. He must shroud himself in the thickest shade. Let him comfort himself with this reflexion:

"It is but for a time. It will soon be over. No work of mortal hands can long stand against concussions so violent. Ulysses, who entered Troy, shut up in the cincture of the wooden horse, shall soon burst the enclosure, shall terrify those from whose observation he lately shrunk, and carry devastation and ruin on whatever side he turns."