Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king:

Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black:

But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

NEW TESTAMENT.

St. Matthew, chap. v.

WORDS are very rascals since bonds disgraced

them.

SHAKESPEAR.

Twelfth Night, act ii.

It is great sin to swear unto a sin,
But greater sin to keep a sinful oath;
Who can be bound by any solemn vow,
To do a murderous deed, to rob a man,
To force a spotless virgin's chastity,

To reave the orphan of his patrimony,
To wring the widow from her custom'd right,
And have no other reason for his wrong,
But that he was bound by a solemn oath?

IDEM.

Second Part, Henry VI. act v.

No not an oath: If not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse-
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,

As

As I am sure they do, bear fire enough,

To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour

The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur, but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? What other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? And what other oath,
Than honesty to honesty engag'd,

That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize,

Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits,

To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

If he do break the smallest particle

Of any promise that hath past from him.

IDEM.

Julius Caesar, act. ii.

If we want oaths to join us,

Swift let us part, from pole to pole asunder,
A cause like ours is its own sacrament;
Truth, justice, reason, love, and liberty,

The eternal links that clasp the world are in it,

And he who breaks their sanction, breaks all law,

And infinite connection.

BROOKE.

Gustavus Vasa, acţ

ROYALTY.

I AM not one of those oriental slaves who deem it unlawful presumption to look their kings in the face; neither am I swayed by my Lord Bacon's authority to think this custom good and reasonable in its meaning, though it savours of barbarism in its institution. Ritu quidem barbarus, sed significatione bonus. Much otherwise. It seems to me that no secrets are so important to be known, no hearts deserve to be pried into with more curiosity and atttention than those of princes.

BOLINGBROKE.

Idea of a Patriot King, Introduct.

I FIND myself so occupied by those grand affairs which the philosophers call absurdities, that I have not yet leisure to think when I please, which is the only real good of life. I imagine that the deity created asses, doric pillars, and kings, to bear the burthens of this world; in which so many other beings are created to enjoy the good he has bestowed. Here am I arguing with twenty Machiavels, all more or less dangerous. One talks to me of limits, another of claims, a third of indemnification, a fourth of auxiliaries, marriage contracts,

contracts, debts to be paid, intrigues to begin,

&c. &c.

KING OF PRUSSIA.

Correspondence with Voltaire, let. clxx.

If servitude be a state of wretchedness, there can be no happiness in royalty: for royalty is nothing more than servitude in disguise.

He that desires royalty does not know the duties which royalty requires; and by him that does not know them they can never be fulfilled. Such a man desires regal authority only to gratify himself; but regal authority should be intrusted with him. only who would not accept it but for the love of

others.

FENELON. Telemaque, liv. vi.

A PRINCE is an individual whose conduct the whole world is perpetually employed to watch, and disposed to condemn. He is judged with the utmost rigour by those who can only guess at his situation; who have not the least sense of the difficulties that attend it; and who expect that, to answer their ideas of perfection, he should be no longer a man. A king, however, can be no more: his goodness and his wisdom are bounded by his nature; he has humours, passions, and habits, which it is impossible he should always surmount; he is continually beset by self-interest and cunning; he never finds the assistance that he seeks; he is perpetually led into mistakes, sometimes by his own passions, and sometimes by those of his ministers, and can scarce repair one fault before he

falls

falls into another, and the longest and best reign is too short, and too defective to correct at the end, what has undesignedly been done amiss in the beginning. Such evils are inseparable from royalty, and human weakness must sink under such a load. Kings should be pitied and excused.Should not they be pitied who are called to the government of an innumerable multitude, whose wants are infinite, and who cannot but keep every faculty of those who would govern them well upon the stretch? or to speak freely, are not men to be pitied, for their necessary subjection to a mortal like themselves? A god only can fulfil the duties of dominion. The prince, however, is not less to be pitied than the people.

Ib. lib. xii.

Of all men that king is the most unhappy who believes he shall become happy by rendering others. miserable. His wretchedness is doubled by his ignorance, for as he does not know whence it proceeds, he can apply no remedy: he is indeed afraid to know, and he suffers a crowd of sycophants to surround him, that keep truth at a distance. He is a slave to his own passions, and an utter stranger to his duty. He has never tasted the pleasure of doing good, nor been warmed to sensibility by the charms of virtue. He is wretched, but the wretchedness that he suffers he deserves, and his misery, however great, is perpetually increasing.

SOLON AND PISISTRATUS.

Ib. liv. u.

Solon. What pleasure could you enjoy in such a power? What can be the charms of tyranny?

Pisis