Money, will have all the Power, nay, may have it according to Law.

If a People, or Parliament, fhould have a Defign of incroaching upon the Prince's Prerogative, he has his Defence in his own Hands; he has the Royal Affent, without which nothing can pafs against his Interest: But if the Prince has Defigns against the Liberties of the People, and he could fpare enough to gain over the Peoples Reprefentative by Bribes and Penfions, there's an end of the Affair. I know that if it ever should. come to this, you will be told by the Court Sycophants, that you are the happiest People in the World to live under a Government which is the Support of Liberty, and where every Thing is done according to Law. But thofe that are not to be impofed upon by Noile and Impudence, will plainly perceive the Alteration in their Conftitution; and if ever we fhould live to see a Minifter incur the univerfal Hatred of the whole Nation and the Crown fhould be able to protect him, or he fhould be able to protect himfelf against the whole Nation, we might then boaft of our Liberties if we pleas'd, but no body else would believe we had any fuch Thing left.

If the Civil Lift was fo large that the Crown fhould be able to fave three or four hundred thousand Pounds per Annum, nay, but one hundred thoufand Pounds out of it, what is it they might not do? Money has a magnetick Power; Money, and Intereft, is of fo prodigious multiplying a Nature, that it has been proved, by a plain Calculation, that a hundred Pounds laid out at Intereft, at Ten per Cent. fhall, in the fpace of feventy Years, amount to above a hundred thousand Pounds. If therefore the Prince could be able to lay out one hundred thousand Pound at Four per Cent or even Three per Cent. and add every Year a hundred thousand Pounds to his Capital, muft not all the Wealth in the Nation in a few Years center in the Crown?. This is a dreadful Confideration, but as dreadful as it is, People

are

are fo infatuated, they have not that juft Apprehenfion of it they ought to have.

In a Country where Taxes are high, and Living dear, the landed Gentry will certainly run out.

People that have been used to a certain Expence, don't know how to retrench; and if you fhould tell them of their Luxury, and reproach them for not leffening their Expences, it will be a very provoking Doctrine, that they must live poorer than they used to do, that the Court may be richer. I fay again, where there is a faving Court, and a neceffitous Gentry, the Prince may get Footing into all the Eftates in the Kingdom; they may have their Trustees, their Scriveners and Agents to take Mortgages for them in feigned Names; fo that what with this, and with a Number of Places, fcarce any Man will know how to live, that has not fomething given by the Court.

But fuppofe this annual Saving fhould never be laid out at Intereft, but lock'd up in a Chest; fuch a Sum of ready Money stopped from circulating, and put into a dead Hand, must have a fenfible bad Effect upon all Trade, and contribute to a general Poverty..

We may fuppofe another Cafe, which is, that as a faving and avaricious Prince would certainly lofe the Affections of the People, for that Reafon he might not think his Treafure fafe in the Kingdom; he might therefore fend it abroad to foreign Banks, or lend it out upon foreign Securities.- -Such a continual drawing off muft drein us by degrees, and leave us nothing but Paper to circulate in Trade.

I know what I fhall be told, that his present Majefty's known Contempt of Money, is Security enough against all thefe Fears; I fhall agree with all that can be faid of the Generofity of both their Majefties. I take it for granted, that whatever can be fpared out of the prefent large Civil Lift, will be given towards paying off fome of our Debts, and redeeming fome of our Taxes; but as we don't know what the Virtue or Vices

of

of the Succeffor may be, we ought to have fo much Regard for Pofterity, as not to give more than whatis abfolutely neceffary for fupporting the Dignity of the Crown. Qua vida

I am fenfible that I have not enumerated half the bad Effects of an overgrown Civil Lift. Let it fuffice, that it muft throw all the Wealth, and all the Power into the Royal Scale.Let it be only confidered what a fhocking Sight it would be to behold the Defcendants of the reduced Nobility and Gentry, cringing at the Levee of fome infolent Upitart, begging for the Payment of a small Penfion; while the vile Inftrument of arbitrary Power might draw out the alphabetical Lift of all his Mercenaries, with their feveral Wages in Columns, in the fame Page where he kept another Lift of Spies and Informers. If ever this fhould come to pafs, I don't know whether we fhould be better Chriftians, or better Proteftants than we were heretofore, but certainly we should be more like the old Apoftles; for we fhould be able to fay truly with them-Silver and Gold have we none, &c.

To the Author of COMMON SENSE.

for his Verfe renown'd
That fung the Deeds of Heroes, those who fell,
Or those who conquer d in their Country's Causes
Thinraptur'd Soul infpiring with the Thirst
Of Glory won by Virtue.

SIR

I

Leonidas, L. 4. p. 129.

AM an old Man, retir'd from the World, partly out of Principle, but more, I fear, from Laziness, having Senfe enough to fee that Things go ill, Honeftly enough to wifh they went better, but not Spirits enough to attempt myself to mend them, nor any great Hopes from the Activity of Those who are engaged on one Side or the other. This Temper of Mind has thrown me deeply into Reading, that I may forget the prefent Scene as much as poffible; and, as of all Kinds of Reading the most proper for this Purpofe is Poetry, I make that my chief Study, efpecially Homer, which lies in my Hall by the Side of the Family-Bible; and next to that, is moft reverenc'd by myself, my Wife, and all my Children, whom I breed up in the Love and Honour of it, as extreamly conducing to make them good and worthy Men. But that you mayn't mistake me, I must tell you that this Homer is neither Barnes's nor Clark's, but Mr. Pope's; for as he makes

him fpeak English full as well as he does his own Tongue, and fometimes better, I am partial enough to my own Country rather to chufe to read him in a Tranf lation, which, of all I ever faw in any Language, has moft the Spirit and Grace of an Original. After Homer, Virgil and Milton are my Favourites, and Talo too, though he pleases me the lefs, by having borrowed fo much from the two former, that half his Work is little elfe than theirs repeated; but the Wifh of my Heart thefe many Years has been, that it would please the Mufes, for my Delight and Entertainment, to raife up a Genius who would fcorn to borrow any Thing; but in the Spirit of the Ancients, without taking their Thoughts, produce another Original Epick Poem.

I fay, Sir, this has been my Wish; but it was a Wifh not attended with the leaft Degree of Hope: On the contrary, from a Contempt of my Cotemporaries, natural enough to People at my Years, I fhould have been peevish with any body that had told me fuch a Thing could poffibly come to pafs. In this Difpofition of Mind I was last Week furpris'd with a new Poem, call'd Leonidas.

I took it up with the ftrongest Prepoffeffions that could be form'd by any Man against it. In the first Place I had never heard the Author's Name: Next, they told me he liv'd in the City, and was a Merchant : Then, he was a young Man of Five and twenty: And lafly, it confifted of Nine Books, which, at firit Sight, was enough to ftartle any very lazy Fellow, as I have before confefs'd my felf to be. And to tell you the Truth, I was the lefs difpos'd to like it, from not having feen it before it was in Print; for as I take myfelf to be a Critick of Diftinction, I was a good deal piqued that the Author did not fend me his Manu1.fcript to perufe, as other Authors have done of no fmall Fame,

H

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