firmness and fidelity of our allies, and to these measures we owe our present tranquillity. I shall say nothing of that glorious part, which we have been lately acting; nor of the firmness and fidelity of our allies. I neither know what they engaged to do, nor what they have actually done for us. But to boast of the present tranquillity, when we are at best only in a state of political purgatory, between peace and war; when our ships are every week taken, as in time of war; when we are at all the expenses, and under almost all the inconveniences of a war; to talk and boast of tranquillity, I say, at such a time, must either be an egregious banter on the ministry, or an insult on the nation; and let the pamphleteer take his choice.

I have but one thing more to mention, before I conclude; which is, that the author of this wretched pamphlet hath the insolence to make the regal character subservient to his designs. Whatever measures, or whatever conduct he finds it necessary to approve, are the king's measures, and the king's conduct. This is a mean artifice, which hath been constantly practised of late by these men, when other arguments are wanting. But I hope it will not put a stop to your inquiries; for every Englishman hath a right, by our laws, to judge and debate these affairs; and I am sure his majesty will abhor the thoughts of abridging this liberty, though weak and wicked men endeavor to screen themselves under the protection of his sacred name.

I am, sir, &c.

ON GOOD AND BAD MINISTERS.
GOOD

WHILST a wicked and corrupt minister is weighing out panegyrics and dedications against just satires and invectives; or, perhaps, is numbering his creatures, and teaching them their implicit monosyllables; whilst he is drawing out his screen, and providing for a safe and decent elopement; or, it may be, comforts himself with the hopes that the public joy, at his removal, will drown all future inquiries; or that he shall keep sweet a good while longer, till the worm seizes his carcass, and posterity preys upon his memory; it may not be improper to turn your thoughts upon the reverse of his character, and to inquire by what marks a good minister may be found out and distinguished; or, since he is only a creature, by what arts, and in what method, he may be formed and brought into being. A people who are running the hazard of a death-bed repentance, want nothing so much as a good minister; and a bad one dreads nothing more than an honest successor, who comes after him without treading in his steps; takes his place without giving into his secrets; and will not be won by a share of his rapine to partake, at the same time, of his crimes and corruptions.

We know the mighty hand that is to form this creature, and that the breath of our nostrils is to give him being; but it is no presumption, no infringement of the right of election, to trace out a general character of many just and worthy candidates. It is no nomination, no designation to a particular office, to describe a good officer at large with all his qualifications and endowments. Neither the honest laborer, who discovers the mine, or digs out the ore; nor the skilful artificer, who purifies, refines, and weighs it, can in any sense be said to encroach upon the authority of those above him, who are appointed to make the last essay; to shape and mould it; and all these are friends to Cæsar, who finishes the work, and gives it his own image and superscription.

Let us then imagine a number of men, scattered up and down a great, wise, and discerning nation; in their descent noble and

generous; full of the virtues of their ancestors; in their temper affable and sweet-natured; educated in the knowledge and study of our constitution, its laws, settlements, dependences, and interests; always faithful to the crown, when consistent with their duty to their country; fonder of the substance, than the outside of religion; easy in their fortunes; lovers of mankind; more careful to preserve, than to aggrandise a family; making virtue the foundation of their friendship, and merit the title to their favor; preservers of the freedom of others, as well as of their own; delighting rather to be thought good than great; pleased with any opportunity of making their fellow creatures happy; just in all their dealings; moderate in their pleasures; true to the several trusts, which have been reposed in them; watchful over the accounts of others, and ready to submit their own to a full and impartial inspection; not servile when out of power, nor imperious when in it; studying more the propriety of oratory, than its ornaments and garniture; and speaking rather to the good sense of others, than to their passions or interests; not solicitous for a place, because they want it, but because the place wants them; so keen in their resentments for the public, that they have no room for those which are personal; well acquainted with the most noted characters and transactions of late years; indifferent in their choice of public or private life, but careful to adorn both; and looking on the revenue of an office to be so far public money, as it is intended for the support and dignity of that office, to which it is appropriated.-Men of this character, stars of this lustre, are still stuck in good plenty up and down our hemisphere. The changes of the weather may sometimes hide, but cannot extinguish them. Their short-lived obscurity is indeed their advantage; for by this we know what it is to want them, and. their influence. Their brightness is tried, and distinguished from meteors and false fires. The regularity of their courses is more observed; and their glory, when it breaks out again, becomes doubly recommended.

Imagine now a man, of this order and character, advanced to the ministry. Suppose him not well acquainted with the course and dependence of many of the offices and branches of trust under his direction; and for that very reason not over-forward to prescribe for abuses, or admit of corruptions upon the plea of custom; yet whilst it is natural for him to find out, or to place in these offices such men as most nearly resemble himself; he could never want good intelligence both at home and abroad; clear and faithful accounts. The eyes, hands, and feet, which he borrowed from others, would be so much like his own, that he could not fail to see clearly, act fairly, and walk uprightly. Such a

VOL. I.-42

minister would with pleasure meet a senate, chosen as himself was, by the same marks and qualifications. He would encourage such a choice as his best security; and when the boni et legales viri de vicineto are returned to parliament, as well as upon juries, the electors do alike consult their own honor and interest. A triennial, or septennial bribe, as ill-spent as it is illgotten, makes no amends for the loss of credit and reputation, which are the support of commerce; and it is as easy to prove, that the corruption of some boroughs is the cause of their poverty; as to prove that their poverty is the cause of their corruption. But to resume my former subject.-The marks I have pointed out, and the rules I have laid down, are of such use to the public in the choice of a good minister, that where only one of them (the character of common honesty) hath been attended to, and the rest have been barely guessed at, or left to wild chance; such a choice has very often been more beneficial to a country than a choice made upon the very brink, or even from the bottom of that horrible and dreadful gulf, commonly called profound policy.-I shall illustrate this truth by one remarkable instance, which I hope is too remote and far-fetched, to be hauled and wrenched into modern application. The Grand Seignior is said to walk abroad very often incognito, and to have his outlets and conveniences, both in the camp and seraglio, where he can oversee the assemblies of his domestics and officers, and be his own spy upon their actions and conversation. Listening one day to the grand minister of his kitchen, in a full assembly of his own culinary subalterns, closely debating the present juncture and posture of affairs, (when discontents ran high, and the general voice laid the whole blame upon the prime vizier,) he heard the grand master, then in the chair, sometimes threatening justice, and denouncing vengeance; brandishing his long knife at the close of every period, sometimes shaking his stew-pan with -Oh! he could toss up such a dish of politics!-And every menace, every period concluded with a wish-that he was prime vizier but for one month only.-The Grand Seignior took him at his word; and, in a few days advanced him to that high post next himself. Where all are slaves, this advancement was by no means surprising. It was a mere despotic humor and frolic; and perhaps done with a design to punish his vassal's presumption, by setting his own knife to his throat, upon the first false step, or mismanagement in his conduct. But the man was honest, and the master agreeably disappointed. No minister ever filled that station, for many years, with greater honor and reputation; or was better beloved both by prince and people. He fed the empire as he had done the emperor, with good, wholesome diet, well cooked and garnished. He strewed plenty every where,

and seemed by his conduct to understand perfectly well that fine maxim of Cæsar, which deserves a whole physical, moral, and political essay, fully to explain it-"Let me have men about me that are fat."

If chance and incident, or caprice and humor, can go thus far in the choice of a good minister, who at first setting out only stumbled upon good sense, and common honesty; what will not good sense and common honesty do, when joined with those other noble qualifications of which I have given a detail, and when marked out and distinguished by a regular and judicious choice? They have made the reigns of minors, and of monarchs, never out of their minority, glorious and flourishing. They have transformed queens into amazons, and confined the faults of a soft and vicious prince to a few apartments; made them darlings of their people, and their people happy under their government. But where a prince, truly wise and great, and good in himself, is surrounded by a multitude of such counsellors, to how amazing a height, and to how many generations may he extend his grandeur and the public felicity?-Such ministers, under a monarch, the father of his country, will consequently consider all his subjects as princes of the blood, (so a merry writer of the last age called them,) or, in the inspired, royal style, as flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone; not in a natural sense; for adoption is better than nature. Such ministers will put out the revenues of their master to interest in the pockets of his subjects; then, with a-non rapui sed recepi, recall them upon a real necessity. Such ministers will raise a standing force, so very numerous, that it shall take in all the landed gentry and trading commons of a nation; and perhaps 5d. a day is not so good encouragement, as when men fight for their all; for they fight for their all when they fight for a prince with whom they have but one common safety and interest. Such ministers will not suffer the law to be made the back-sword of justice, which cuts only on one side. They will not score up a war to the reckoning, when the good company have not had it in; nor palm a truce upon us, with all its accidents, for the real body of a solid and lasting peace, by a new political trans-or-consubstantiation. In short, they will not, like some old Roman minions and favorites, make a statue of their master, and then fly to it for refuge.