rigorously exacting compliance, though she changed her sentiments ever so often. Her great employment was, to breed discord among friends and relations, and make up monstrous alliances between those whose dispositions least resembled each other. Whoever offered to contradict her, though in the most insignificant trifle, she would be sure to distinguish by some ignominious appellation, and allow them to have neither honour, wit, beauty, learning, honesty, or common sense. She intruded into all companies at the most unseasonable times; mixed at balls, assemblies, and other parties of pleasure, haunted every coffee-house and bookseller's shop, and by her perpetual talking filled all places with disturbance and confusion; she buzzed about the merchant in the Exchange, the divine in his pulpit, and the shopkeeper behind his counter. Above all, she frequented public assemblies, where she sat in the shape of an obscene, ominous bird, ready to prompt her friends, as they spoke."

If I understand this fable of Faction right, it ought to be applied to those who set themselves up against the true interest and constitution of their country; which I wish the undertakers for the late ministry would please to take notice of, or tell us by what figure of speech they pretend to call so great and unforced a majority, with the queen at their head, by the name of the Faction ; which is not unlike the phrase of the Nonjurors, who, dignifying one or two deprived bishops, and half a score clergymen of the same stamp, with the title of the Church of England, exclude all the rest as schismatics; or like the Presbyterians, laying the same accusation, with equal justice, against the established religion.

And here it may be worth inquiring what are the true characteristics of a faction; or how it is to be distin

guished from that great body of the people who are friends to the constitution? The heads of a faction are usually a set of upstarts, or men ruined in their fortunes, whom some great change in a government did at first, out of their obscurity, produce upon the stage. They associate themselves with those who dislike the old establishment, religious and civil. They are full of new schemes in politics and divinity; they have an incurable hatred against the old nobility, and strengthen their party by dependants raised from the lowest of the people. They have several ways of working themselves into power; but they are sure to be called, when a corrupt administration wants to be supported, against those who are endeavouring at a reformation; and they firmly observe that celebrated maxim of preserving power by the same arts by which it is attained. They act with the spirit of those who believe their time is but short; and their first care is to heap up immense riches at the public expence ; in which they have two ends beside that common one of insatiable avarice, which are, to make themselves necessary, and to keep the commonwealth in dependence. Thus they hope to compass their design, which is, instead of fitting their principles to the constitution, to alter and adjust the constitution to their own pernicious principles.

It is easy determining by this test to which side the name of faction most properly belongs. But, however, I will give them any system of law or regal government, from William the Conqueror to this present time, to try whether they can tally it with their late models; excepting only that of Cromwell, whom, perhaps, they will reckon for a monarch.

If the present ministry, and so great a majority in the

parliament and kingdom, be only a faction, it must appear by some actions which answer the idea we usually conceive from that word. Have they abused the prerogatives of the prince, or invaded the rights and liberties of the subject? Have they offered at any dangerous innovations in church or state? Have they broached any doctrines of heresy, rebellion, or tyranny? Have any of them treated their sovereign with insolence, engrossed and sold all her favours, or deceived her by base, gross misrepresentations of her most faithful servants? These are the arts of a faction, and whoever has practis ed them, they and their followers must take up with the

name.

It is usually reckoned a Whig principle to appeal to the people; but that is only when they have been so wise as to poison their understandings beforehand. Will they now stand to this appeal, and be determined by their vox populi, to which side their title of faction belongs? And that the people are now left to the natural freedom of their understanding and choice, I believe their adversaries will hardly deny. They will now refuse this appeal, and it is reasonable they should; and I will farther add, that if our people resembled the old Grecians, there might be danger in such a trial. A pragmatical orator told a great man at Athens, that whenever the people were in their rage, they would certainly tear him to pieces: Yes, says the other, and they will dó the same to you, whenever they are in their wits. But, God be thanked, our populace is more merciful in their nature, and at present under better direction; and the orators among us have attempted to confound both prerogative and law in their sovereign's presence, and be

fore the highest court of judicature, without any hazard to their persons.

No. XXXII.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1710-11.

Non est ea medicina, cum sana parti corporis scalpellum adhibetur, atque integra; carnificina est ista, et crudelitas. Hi medentur reipublicæ, qui exsecant pestem aliquam, tanquam strumam civitatis.

To apply the knife to a sound and healthy part of the body, is butchery and cruelty; not real surgery. Those are the true physicians and surgeons of a state, who cut off the pests of society, like wens from the human body.

I AM diverted from the general subject of my discourses, to reflect upon an event of a very extraordinary and surprising nature. A great minister, in high confidence with the queen, under whose management the weight of affairs at present is in a great measure suppos. ed to lie; sitting in council, in a royal palace, with a dozen of the chief officers of the state, is stabbed at the very board in the execution of his office, by the hand of a French Papist, * then under examination for high trea

* For an account of this attempted assassination, see the Jour. nal, and “ A true Narrative of what passed at the Examination of the Marquis de Guiscard," &c. It is enough here to remind the reader, that he was a refugee Frenchman, who had been received into the British service; but having wasted his resources, resolved

son; the assassin redoubles his blow to make sure work; and concluding the chancellor * was dispatched, goes on with the same rage to murder a principal secretary of state; † and that whole noble assembly are forced to rise and draw their swords in their own defence, as if a wild beast had been let loose among them.

This fact has some circumstances of aggravation not to be paralleled by any of the like kind we meet with in history. Cæsar's murder being performed in the senate, comes nearest to the case; but that was an affair concerted by great numbers of the chief senators, who were likewise the actors in it; and not the work of a vile single ruffian. Harry the Third of France was stabbed by an enthusiastic friar, whom he suffered to approach his person, while those who attended him stood at some distance. His successor met the same fate in a coach, where neither he nor his nobles, in such a confinement, were able to defend themselves. In our own country we have, I think, but one instance of this sort, which has made any noise; I mean that of Felton about fourscore years ago; but he took the opportunity to stab the Duke of Buckingham, in passing through a dark lobby from one room to another. The blow was neither seen nor heard, and the murderer might have escaped, if his own concern and horror, as it is usual in such cases, had not betrayed him. Besides, that act of Felton will admit of

to make peace with his own country, by betraying the secrets of England. His letters being intercepted, he was brought before the council for examination, when, in a fit of frenzy and despair, he stabbed Mr Harley.

* Mr Harley, then chancellor of the exchequer, afterward Earl of Oxford.

+ Mr Henry St John, afterward Lord Bolingbroke.