LETTER LXI.

Cardinal de Retz...Popular Meetings...Traits of Heroism...

DEAR BOY,

Secrets.

London, September the 13th

I HAVE more than once recommended to you

the

Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, and to attend particularly to the political reflections interfperfed in that excellent work. I will now preach a little upon two or? three of thofe texts.

In the disturbances at Paris, monfieur de Beaufort, who was a very popular, though a very weak man, was the cardinal's tool with the populace. Proud of his popularity, he was always for affembling the people of Paris together, thinking that he made a great figure at the head of them. The cardinal, who was factious enough, was wife enough, at the fame time, to avoid: gathering the people together, except when there was occafion, and when he had fomething particular for them to do. However, he could not always check monfieur de Beaufort; who having affembled them once very unneceffarily, and without any determined object, they ran riot, would not be kept within bounds by their leaders, and did their caufe a great deal of harm ; upon which the cardinal obferves, moft judicioufly, Que monfieur de Beaufort ne fçavoit pas, que qui affemble le peuple l'émeut. + It is certain, that great numbers of people met together, animate each other, and will do fomething either good or bad, but oftener bad: and the refpective individuals, who were feparately very quiet, when met together in numbers, grow tumultuous as a body, and ripe for any mischief that may be pointed out to them by the leaders; and, if their leaders have no business for them, they will find fome for themselves. The demagogues, or leaders of popular factions, fhould therefore be very careful not to afremble the people unneceffarily, and without a fettled i

Mr. de Beaufort did not know, that whoever affembles the people excites them to infurrection.

and well confidered object. Befides that, by making thofe popular affemblies too frequent, they make them likewife tco familiar, and confequently lefs refpected by their enemies. Obferve any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuofity rife or fall in proportion to their numbers: when the numbers are very great, all fenfe and reafon seem to fubfide, and one fudden phrenzy feizes on all, even the cooleft of them.

Another very juft obfervation of the cardinal's, is, That the things which happen in our own times, and which we fee ourselves, do not furprise us near fo much as the things which we read of in times paft, though not in the leaft more extraordinary; and adds, that he is perfuaded, that when Caligula made his horse a conful, the people of Rome, at that time, were not greatly furprised at it, having neceffarily been in some degree prepared for it, by an infenfible gradation of extravagances from the fame quarter. This is so true, that we read every day, with aftonishment, things which we fee every day without furprise. We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and are not in the leaft furprised to hear of a fea-captain, who has blown up his fhip, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands of the enemies of his country. I cannot help reading of Porfenna and Regulus with furprife and reverence; and yet I remember that I faw, without either, the execution of Shepherd, a boy of eighteen years old, who intended to fhoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned, if he would have expreffed the leaft forrow for his intended crime; but, on the contrary, he declared, That, if he was pardoned, he would attempt it again; that he thought it a duty which he owed his country; and that he died with pleasure for having endeavoured to perform it. Reafon equals Shepherd to Regulus: but prejudice, and, the recency

*

*James Shepherd, a coach-painter's apprentice, was executed at Tyburn for high-treafon, March the 17th, 1518, in the reign of George

the Firk.

of the fact, makes Shepherd a common malefactor, and Regulus a hero.

Examine carefully, and reconfider all your notions of things; analyfe them, and difcover their component parts, and fee if habit and prejudice are not the principal ones; weigh the matter, upon which you are to form your opinion, in the equal and impartíal fcales of reafon. It is not to be conceived how many people, capable of reasoning if they would, live and die in a thoufand errors, from laziness; they will rather adopt the prejudices of others, than give themselves the trou ble of forming opinions of their own. They fay things, at firft, because other people have faid them; and then they perfitt in them, because they have faid them themfelves.

he

The laft obfervation that I shall now mention of the cardinal's, is, That a fecret is more easily kept by a good many people, than one commonly imagines. By this means a fecret of importance, among people interefted in the keeping of it. And it is certain that people of bufinefs know the importance of fecrecy, and will obferve it, where they are concerned in the event. And the cardinal does not fuppofe that any body is filly enough to tell a fecret, merely from the defire of telling it, to any one that is not fome way or other interested in the keeping of it, and concerned in the event.

To go and tell your friends a fecret with which they have nothing to do, is discovering to them fuch an unretentive weakness, as must convince them that you will tell it to twenty others, and confequently that they may reveal it without the rifque of being difcovered. But a fecret properly communicated, only to thofe who are to be concerned in the thing in queftion, will probably be kept by them, though they fhould be a good many. Little fecrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.-Adieu !

LETTER LXII..

Modern Latin...War...Quibbles of Lawyers...General Princi ples of Justice...Cafuiftry..Common Sense the best Senfe... Letter Writing

DEAR BOY,

London, September the 27th.

I HAVE received your Latin lecture upon war,

which, though it is not exactly the fame Latin that Cæfar, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid fpoke, is, however, as good Latin as the erudite Germans fpeak. or write. I have always obferved, that the most learned people, that is those who have read the most Latin, write the worft; and this diftinguishes the Latin of a gentleman. fcholar from that of a pedant. A gentle man has, probably, read no other Latin than that of the Auguftan age; and therefore can write no other: whereas the pedant has read much more bad Latin than good; and confequently writes fo too. He looks upon the best claffical books as books for fchool-boys, and confequently below him; but pores over frag ments of obfcure authors, treasures up the obfolete words which he meets with there, and uses them, upon all occafions, to fhow his reading, at the expenfe of his. judgment. Plautus is his favourite author, not for the fake of the wit and the vis comica of his comedies, but upon account of the many obfolete words, and the cant of low characters, which are to be met with no where elfe. He will rather ufe all than illi, optumè than optimè and any bad word, rather than any good one, provided he can but prove, that, strictly speaking, it is Latin; that is, that it was written by a Roman. By this rule, I might now write to you in the language of Chaucer or Spencer, and affert that I wrote English, because it was English in their days; but I fhould be a moft affected puppy if I did fo, and you would not underftand three words of my letter. All these, and fuchlike affected peculiarities, are the characteristics of learned coxcombs and pedants, and are carefully avoided by all men of sense.

I dipped, accidentally, the other day, into Petifcus's

preface to his Lexicon ; where I found a word that puzzled me, & which I did not remember ever to have met with before. It is the adverb præfifcinè; which means, in a good hour: an expreffion, which, by the fuperftition of it, appears to be low and vulgar. I looked for it; and at laft I found, that it is once or twice made ufe of in Plautus; upon the ftrength of which, this learned pedant thrufts it into his preface. Whenever you write Latin, remember that every word or phrafe which you make ufe of, but cannot find in Cæfar, Cicero, Lívy, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid, is bad, illiberal Latin, though it may have been written by a Roman.

I must now fay fomething as to the matter of the lecture; in which, I confefs, there is one doctrine laid down that furprises me : it is this; Quum vero hoftis fit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans quocunque bellantibus negotium eft, parum fane interfuerit quo modo eum obruere et interficere fatagamus fi ferociam exuere cunetetur. Ergo veneno quoque uti fas eft, &c.* whereas I cannot conceive that the ufe of poifon can, upon any account, come within the lawful means of felf-defence. Force may, without doubt, be juft ly repelled by force, but not by treachery and fraud; for I do not call the ftratagems of war, fuch as ambufcades, masked batteries, falfe attack, &c. frauds or treachery; they are mutually to be expected and guarded againft; but poifoned arrows, poifoned waters, or poifon administered to your enemy (which can only be done by treachery) I have always heard, read and thought, to be unlawful and infamous means of defence, be your danger ever fo great: but, fi ferociam exuere cunctetur ; must I rather die than poison this enemy? Yes, certainly: much rather die than do a bafe or criminal action nor can I be fure, before-hand, that this enemy may not, in the laft moment, ferociam exwere. But the public lawyers, now, feem to me, rather to warp the law, in order to authorise, than to check,

:

When an enemy is conftantly contriving for us every wicked mode of destruction, we feem authorised to take every method to remove or destroy him, if his ferocity remains yet unfubdued. in that cafe, it may be lawful even to employ poifon.

If his ferocity remains unfubdued. Lay afide his ferocity.