pamphlet; since the sort of work they require, is what will all come within the talents of any one who has enjoyed the happiness of a very bad education, has kept the vilest company, is endowed with a servile spirit, is master of an empty purse, and a heart full of malice.

But, to speak the truth in soberness; it should seem a little hard, since the old whiggish principle has been recalled, of standing up for the liberty of the press, to a degree that no man, for several years past, durst venture out a thought which did not square, to a point, with the maxims and practices that then prevailed: I say, it is a little hard, that the vilest mercenaries should be countenanced, preferred, rewarded, for discharging their brutalities against men of honour, only upon a bare conjecture.

If it should happen that these profligates have attacked an innocent person, I ask, What satisfaction can their hirers give in return? Not all the wealth raked together by the most corrupt, rapacious ministers, in the longest course of unlimited power, would be sufficient to atone for the hundredth part of such an injury.

In the common way of thinking, it is a situation sufficient in all conscience to satisfy a reasonable ambition, for a private person to command the laws, the forces, the revenues of a great kingdom; to reward and advance his followers and flatterers as he pleases; and to keep his enemies (real or imaginary) in the dust. In such an exaltation, why should he be at the trouble to make use of fools to sound his praises, (because I always thought the lion was hard set, when he chose the ass for his trumpeter,) or knaves to revenge his quarrel, at the expence of innocent men's reputations?

With all those advantages, I cannot see why persons in the height of power should be under the least concern on account of their reputation, for which they have no manner of use; or to ruin that of others, which may perhaps be the only possession their enemies have left them. Supposing times of corruption, which I am very far from doing; if a writer displays them in their proper colours, does he do any thing worse than sending customers to the shop? "Here only, at "the sign of the Brazen Head, are to be sold places and pensions: beware of counterfeits, "and take care of mistaking the door."

For my own part, I think it very unnecessary to give the character of a great minister in the fullness of his power, because it is a thing that naturally does itself, and is obvious to the eyes of all mankind; for his personal qualities are all derived into the most minute parts of his administration. If this be just, prudent, regular, impartial, intent upon the public good, prepared for present exigencies, and provident of the future ; such is the director himself, in his private capacity: if it be rapacious, insolent, partial, palliating long and deep diseases of the public with empirical remedies, false, disguised, impudent, malicious, revengeful; you shall infallibly find the private life of the conductor to answer in every point: nay, what is more, every twinge of the gout or gravel will be felt in their consequences by the community; as the thief-catcher, upon viewing a house broke open, could immediately distinguish, from the manner of the workmanship, by what hand it was done.

It is hard to form a maxim against which an exception is not ready to start up; so, in the sent case, where the minister grows enormously

pre

rich, the public is proportionably poor; as, in a private family, the steward always thrives the fattest, when his lord is running out.

AN

ACCOUNT

OF THE

COURT AND EMPIRE OF JAPAN.

WRITTEN IN 1728.

[Upon the death of King George I, it was generally supposed that his favourite minister, Sir Robert Walpole, would have fallen into utter disgrace. George II., while heir-apparent, had shewed some countenance to the Tories, and to other opponents of Walpole. Queen Caroline was believed to be the minister's personal enemy; and all things appeared to predict his downfall, and the elevation of Sir Spenser Compton to the office of premier. The Tory writers, who, during the apparency of George II., had been well received at Leicester-House, anticipated a triumph over the favourite of the deceased monarch, and, in many a jeu d'esprit, expressed their confidence of the course which the successor was to pursue.

But, by one of those cabinet intrigues, of which the real cause has never been ascertained, because, perhaps, it was too trifling to bear the public eye, Walpole maintained, under George II., even more than the power he had enjoyed from the favour of his predecessor. To these events the following piece has emblematical reference. It was probably left imperfect, when the crisis to which the Tories so anxiously looked forward terminated so undesirably, in the confirmation of Walpole's power.]

REGOGE* was the thirty-fourth emperor of Japan, and began his reign in the year 341 of the Christian era, succeeding to Nena, † a princess who governed with great felicity.

There had been a revolution in that empire about twenty-six years before, which made some breaches in the hereditary line; and Regoge, successor to Nena, although of the royal family, was a distant relation.

There were two violent parties in the empire, which began in the time of the revolution above mentioned, and at the death of the empress Nena were in the highest degree of animosity, each charging the other with a design of introducing new gods, and changing the civil constitution. The names of these two parties were Husiges and Yortes. The latter were those whom Nena, the late empress, most favoured toward the end of her reign, and by whose advice she governed.

The Husige faction, enraged at their loss of power, made private applications to Regoge, during the life of the empress; which prevailed so far, that, upon her death, the new emperor wholly disgraced the Yortes, and employed only the Husiges in all his affairs. The Japanese author highly blames his imperial majesty's proceeding in this affair; because it was allowed on all hands, that he had then a happy opportunity of reconciling parties for ever, by a moderating scheme. But he, on the contrary, began his reign by openly disgracing the principal and most popular Yortes, some of which had been chiefly instrumental in raising him to the throne. By this mistaken step, he occasioned a rebellion, which, al

*King George. † Queen Anne.

Whigs and Tories.