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you have heard from his witnesses (for what but words have you heard?), which even had they stood uncontroverted by the proofs with which we have swallowed them up, or unexplained by circumstances which destroy their malignity, could not at the very worst amount in law to more than a breach of the act against tumultuous petitioning, if such an act still exists.

T. ERSKINE

264. LIBERAL REWARD FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. I have never on any pretence of economy or on other pretence so much as in a single instance stood between any man and his reward of service or his encouragement in useful talent in pursuit from the highest of those sciences to the lowest. On the contrary, I have on a hundred occasions exerted myself with singular zeal to forward a man's even tolerable pretensions, and have more than once met with good-natured reprehensions from my friends for carrying the matter to something bordering on abuse. For I looked on the consideration of public service or public ornament to be an act of very justice, and I ever held a scanty and penurious justice to partake of the nature of a wrong. I held it to be in its consequences the worst economy in the world; in saving money I soon can count up the good I do, but when by a cold penury I stint the energies of a nation and stunt the growth of its active organs, the ill I may do is beyond calculation. Whether it be too much or too little, whatever I have done has been general and systematic.

265. A LITTLE before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle rising, I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which I cast a melancholy look over the barren wilderness, but without discovering the most distant trace of a human dwelling. The same uniform prospect of shrubs and sand everywhere presented itself, and the horizon was as level and uninterrupted as that of the sea. Descending the tree I found my horse devouring the stubble and brushwood with great avidity, and as I was too faint to attempt walking and my horse too much fatigued to carry me, I thought it but an act of humanity and perhaps the last I should ever be able to perform, to take off his bridle and leave him to shift for himself, in doing which I was suddenly seized with sickness and giddiness, and falling on the sand felt as if the hour of

death was fast approaching. Here then, thought I, after a short but ineffectual struggle terminate all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation. Here must the short span of my life come to an end. I cast a last look on the surrounding scene, and whilst I reflected on the awful change that was about to take place, this world with its enjoyments seemed to vanish from my recollection.

266. IMPUTATION OF MOTIVES. When persons are accused of actions of great enormity, one is apt to look round about one to see what the motives were that could induce the parties so to act. The prisoner at the stands before you ;

a member of one of the most con le families in this

country. At the time when this conduct is imputed to him he was a member of the Legislature, he stood in a situation which he was not likely to better by throwing the country into convulsions. A person that stood in the situation that he stood in, could not make his prospects better than in seeing the affairs of the country conducted under legal government. And if he thought any inroads had been made upon those laws which the wisdom of our ancestors had enacted, it was his business to bring about the repeal of those laws, to redress those grievances, by proper legal means and not by causing a revolt in the country. This being the case, and as his conduct may be imputed to good or bad motives, it seems reasonable and humanity will induce you to impute it to proper rather than to improper motives, the prisoner being, as I have said, a man standing in a situation where he had every thing to expect so long as law prevailed, but nothing to expect when anarchy was substituted in the place of law.

267. WHEN he found that he continued thus to live several hours longer than he expected, he sent again for his wife and children to his bed-side, to take his leave once more of them, and of the rest of the family that were up; and they say, he was even fuller now in his exhortations to them than before, and they were mighty well suited, and particularly applied to the circumstances and conditions of the several persons to whom they were given. He recommended his wife and children to the Divine providence and protection in so moving and affectionate a manner, as is difficult to express: and he thanked all his servants for the pains they had taken with

him in his sickness: and as for the rest, his exhortations ran chiefly upon general heads, such as the great importance of religion, the vanity of the world, the deceitful nature of riches and honours, and what miserable comforters they would prove at last; and, finally, the absolute necessity of a holy life, in order to a happy death. These are the subjects which he endeavoured to impress upon the minds of those he left behind him.

268. BEAUTY AND UTILITY GO HAND IN HAND. This I am sure, in learninge all other matters, nothing is brought to the most profitable use, which is not handled after the most comelye fashion. As maisters of fence have no stroke fitte eyther to hitte an other, or els to defende himselfe, which is not joyned with a wonderfull comlinesse. Every handye crafteman that workes beste for his owne profite, workes most semely to other men's sighte. Agayne, in buildinge a house, in makinge a shippe, every parte, the more hansomlye they be joyned for profite and laste1, the more comelye they be fashioned to every man's sight and eye. Nature itselfe taughte men to joyne alwayes well-favourednesse with profitablenesse. As in men, that joynte or piece which is by any chaunce deprived of his comlinesse, the same is also debarred of his use and profitablenesse. Moreover, what time of the year bringith most profite with it for man's use, the same also covereth and decketh both the earth and trees with most comlinesse for man's pleasure. And that time which taketh away the pleasure of the grounde, caryeth with him also the profite of the grounde, as every man by experience knoweth in harde and roughe winters. Some thinges there be which hath no other ende but only comlinesse, as payntinge and dauncing. And vertue itselfe is nothinge else but comlinesse, as all Philosophers do agree in opinion.

R. ASCHAM

269. CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the vigour of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was bold and enterprising, yet guided

1

1 profite and laste] i. e. convenience and duration.

by prudence; his ambition, which was exorbitant and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy. Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes, and partly from the ascendant of his vehement character, partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened against compassion, and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity. D. HUME

270. DEFEAT OF FABIUS. He found the way quite clear; for the Romans who had guarded it, seeing the hills above them illuminated on a sudden with a multitude of moving lights, and nothing doubting that Hannibal's army was attempting to break out over the hills in despair of forcing the road, quitted their position in haste and ran towards the heights to interrupt or embarrass his retreat. Meanwhile Fabius with his main army, confounded at the strangeness of the sight and dreading lest Hannibal was tempting him to his ruin as he had tempted Flaminius, kept close within his camp till the morning. Day dawned only to show him his own troops, who had been set to occupy the defile, engaged on the hills above with Hannibal's light infantry. But presently the Spanish foot were seen scaling the heights to reinforce the enemy; and the Romans were driven down to the plain with great loss and confusion.

T. ARNOLD

271. STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE SPANIARDS AND ANTWERPERS. Accompanied by two hundred Spanish pikemen, he flew to the place of attack and appeared upon the scene just in time to save his troops from total destruction. He placed himself at the head of his troops, and with his sword in one hand and a shield in the other, led them against the foe. The news of his arrival, which soon spread from one end of the dyke to the other, re-animated the drooping spirits of his troops, and the contest, which the nature of the field of battle rendered more murderous, was resumed with new energy. Upon the narrow top of the dyke, which in many places did not exceed nine paces in breadth, five thousand combatants

were engaged; within this narrow space, the power of both parties was concentrated; upon its possession depended the whole fate of the blockade. With the Antwerpers, the last bulwark of their city was at stake-with the Spaniards, the whole issue of their enterprise; and both parties fought with that courage, which nothing but desperation can inspire.

272. OF CUSTOM. Therefore since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavour to obtain good customs. Certainly custom is most perfect, when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom. So we see in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds, the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than afterwards. For it is true, that late learners cannot so well take the ply, except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but have kept themselves open and prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare. But if the force of custom, simple and separate, be great: the force of custom, copulate and conjoined and collegiate, is far greater. For there example teacheth, company comforteth1, emulation quickeneth, glory raiseth; so as in such place the force of custom is in its exaltation. Certainly the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature resteth upon societies well ordained and disciplined.

LORD BACON

273. PROTECTION OF GREECE. We have been hovering on the shores of Greece until the season is gone by for aiding her; and another Power will soon have acquired the glory and the benefit of becoming her first Protectress. If a new world were to burst forth suddenly in the midst of the heavens, and we were instructed by angelic voices, or whatever kind of revelation the Creator might appoint, that its inhabitants were brave, generous, happy and warm with all our sympathies, would not pious men fall prostrate before Him for such a manifestation of His power and goodness? What then! shall these very people be the first to stifle the expression of our praise and wonder, at a marvel far more astonishing, at a manifestation of power and goodness far

1 comforteth] i. e. strengtheneth.

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