# Memoirs of the Twentieth Century/London, Chelsea, Feb. 2, 1997

​My Lord,
London-Chelsea, Feb. 2. 1997.
I AM ashamed to acknowledge so late, that through a load of affairs of importunate People, that engross my time and thoughts, I have so long referred you to Mr. Secretary, and am but now returning my thanks for two of your Excellency's Letters from Rome, one of November the seventh, and another of January the seventeenth; for both which I am indebted to your care and goodness, beyond all possibility of repaying you.
The account you gave of your respectful and honourable reception there, is very agreeable to us in London; and as his Imperial Majesty's health is spoke of by the last Letters (as well as the disagreement of the Elector of Cologne with the Court where you are) in stronger terms than ever, I doubt not we shall manage our Negotiations so happily, as to secure the Peace of Europe, and defeat the astonishing ambition of the Empire of the Vatican.
​It is certain, we shall stand in need of our utmost efforts to accomplish this, because the rest of the Protestant Powers are far from being well united, through the artifices of this See ever watchful to divide us, and even buy off the venal Faith of some of them from our Communion to hers. Moreover though the Protestant Interest is greatly increased in Europe, and in spite of all her snares, stronger this last Century than ever; yet they are so distrusted by their jealous Neighbours, that all offers to humble the Papal Power, are but considered as attempts, to throw their Kingdoms into confusion and rebellion.
Besides, the Popish Princes have by their furious Quarrels and Wars among themselves (which this See has ever fomented) given the Pope great opportunities to raise his temporal Power, and spiritual Authority on their Weakness. Hence he has acquir'd such large accession of Subjects, Wealth, and Territory in Italy, that they are cow'd and over-awed by his prodigious Strength, and the interest he keeps up even in their own Kingdoms and Councils; and seem only desirous of good conditions, to be​come as it were provincial Tetrarchs to this Lord of the Earth, and Vice-gerent of Heaven.
However, as this violent Jealousy of the Emperor, and the Scheme of introducing the Inquisition into France, are likely to unite us more than ever, in opposing his designs; and as our prodigious Naval Force has kept all the Islands in the hands of their old Sovereigns, and both prevented the Venetians being entirely swallowed up, and holds the Pope, by the means of his Sea-Coasts, Ports, and Trade, in great awe; I do not despair, but we may be able to humble his aspiring hopes.
The confirming Civita Vecchia a free Port, restoring all our Privileges, and declaring by his Bull that none of his Majesty's Subjects shall be liable to his Inquisitors, are great points gained, and also shew the fear he has of us, which I hope your Excellency will improve to weightier purposes.
Your accounts of the monstrous growth of this vast Empire, which has risen these two last Centuries, like a huge Mountain, from the unnatural fires and eruptions in the bowels of the Earth, have occasioned many reflections in my mind, on the blindness and folly of our Ancestors, who with ​proper care, might have prevented the confusion and oppression this age labours under. If instead of dreading the Bruta Fulmina of Rome, they had opposed their cannon to her thunder, and instead of attacking her with a silly paper-war of Books and Writings, they had by resistance and arms contracted her power; if instead of increasing her Riches and Wealth, and loading her with the very Lands, and the Tribute, and Spoil of their Nations, they had kept her within her own bounds, humble, pious, and just; the Princes of the World, and Italy, had not worn her Chains, and groaned under her bondage now. We had not seen in these our days, her Armies and Forces under the command of Cardinals, and her Generals, that are Priests and Jesuits in secret at least, and ex voto, as they call it, haranguing her armed Troops, and turning the old word Concio (which signified the speech of a Commander to his Legions, to the Senate, or People, upon affairs of State or War) to its original signification again, and shewing themselves the true Sons of the old Soldier their Founder.
It is true, what our Ancestors did, proceeded from a laudable Piety; and the ​Wealth and Possessions they poured into her lap, were paid by a sincere respect to their religion. But what has been the goodly consequence? only this, Religio peperit divitias, & filia devoravit matrem. The Christian Bishop has been entirely absorbed in the Temporal Prince; as the Cæsars of old sunk the Pontifex Maximus in the Imperator. In the mean while through a thirst to secure the Power of the latter, the holy Fathers have stuck at no Crimes or Wickedness, even of the blackest dye: And to hinder the Gates of Hell from ever prevailing against the Church, too many of her Popes, I fear, have gone thither, as eternal Hostages for her faithful alliance with it.
Your Excellency, who is so well read in her Historians before the ancient Reformation of Religion, is perfectly acquainted with many of the detestable Lives of these creatures, who stile themselves the Successors of St. Peter. A name they have no other title to, than that as He contradicted and shamefully opposed the truth, of what our blessed Saviour asserted twice, and afterwards denied him thrice; so they have ever since been acting the same part, and while they are openly renouncing him, have been violently mak​ing use of the Sword, and shedding blood, under pretence of defending his cause.
I shall not rake in the filth of History, to mention to your Excellency the foulness of the Crimes, so many of them were confessedly guilty of. Your Excellency and the learned World, are but too well acquainted with them: and would to God, for the honour of Christianity, they were as fully amended as known! Indeed, since the family of the Jesuits have set up for the royal Line of this Empire, the crime of Whoredom has been less frequent among them; but they have so far excelled their Predecessors in all others, that it were to be wished we had such Popes again as Paul the third, Pius the second, and Gregory the eighteenth, who, with the best titles of all others to be called Fathers of the Church, were, with all their Bastards, much better Popes than these last ages have seen.
And yet these are the great pretenders to Infallibility, and to being directed immediately by the Holy Ghost; though surely common reason would allow a Man to believe as easily what a known Historian tells us (absurd and blasphemous as it is) in Peter the Hermit's Crusade to the Holy Land, that a Goose ​he kept was believed by the Crowd to be the Holy Ghost; or what the Turks say of the same nature of Mahomet's Pigeon; as that he speaks by the mouth of such vile and evil Popes, as these which the Jesuits have given us.
Certainly if your Excellency considers their lives and history, you will be of an opinion I have often maintained, that nothing has more fatally contributed to that dreadful Deism which has infected our Gentlemen, and so long sapt the foundations of our Faith, than the actions, or in other words, the Crimes of those holy patrons of it. For where Men of sense and figure evidently see, such flagitious wickedness daily practised by them, under such sanctified professions, they enter into a distrust of their Religion, as some do of Physick, when they behold so many die by it: and as these last think the shortest way to health, is by plain constant temperance, so the others think the best and surest way to please God, is by a plain, honest, moral conduct, without regarding particular Systems of Revelation and Rules of Faith.
It were easy to prove the weakness of this way of reasoning, and to shew by experi​ence (to carry on the allusion) that both of them, when Age and Sickness overtake them, call for the Priest and the Physician but this I need not meddle with at present, having only hinted at the cause, not the remedy, of that vile and infectious evil, The very Jesuits themselves are so sensible of this truth, that they trouble not their heads to persuade these Rulers and Pharisees to believe our blessed Religion, provided they are silent and quiet. They only aim to gain the Crowd and Rabble of Mankind, and have calculated all their conduct, as Terence says he managed as to his Plays, Id sibi negotii credidit solum dari, populo ut placerent quas fecissent fabulas.
And indeed, what other management could be expected from the inferior Clergy, or opinions in the sensible Laity among them; when the Popes have on all occasions shewn, that they judged themselves under no obligations to keep the sacred Commandments of Christianity inviolably, whensoever they found the good, that is, the temporal interest of the Church, advantaged by breaking through them. It is true, some of the best of them, as Gregory the twentieth, and Pius the tenth, as Popes, were blameless ​and worthy Men, and careful enough not to break through those sacred fences of our holy Faith; but even they, as Sovereigns, were seldom observed to regard them, where reason of State made it adviseable to distinguish between their private and publick Characters.
Whenever your Excellency, or any impartial judge, looks into the history even of their reigns; you will find their Religion, as Temporal Princes, to be a System in which they and their Predecessors have ever moved, like flaming Comets, each in its different Orbit, not to be reduced to any known certain rules by the best Astronomers.
Like them you will find them menacing in their progress, ruin and destruction to the wretched Sons of Men, and even seeming to be no otherwise influenced by God's Power, Laws, or Will, in the circle of their Lives, than Comets in their revolutions are by the Sun; which sometimes they approach so near as to be heated, and violently set on fire by its flames, but which generally they keep themselves at such a distance from, as to be not only cold and unaffected by its beams, but even unenlightened by its rays and splendor.
​But this I write to your Excellency, not as the Statesman, and my Royal Master's Servant, but as your old Intimate and Friend. You may blame yourself for my dwelling so tediously on the subject, by the long detail you have given me of their Power and Arts to sustain it, which my heart has been too much affected by, not to let it overflow a little in my pen. Your catalogue of the Relicks, and their intended sale of them, has equally surprized and scandalized his Majesty; and he is pleased to direct you to purchase some few of the most remarkable, that will come cheapest, but not to exceed ten thousand pounds in the whole. He inclines you should employ some skilful and able hand in bidding for them; and take care to have all their pretended vouchers and certificates exactly preserved, and sent over with them, with the utmost care; that we may have here the strongest evidences, of the superstition and vile conduct of this See at the same time, and try if the drousy eyes of some of our zealous Catholicks, can bear so glaring a light, without opening them effectually.
I admire their usual caution and subtlety has not restrained them, from so manifest a ​breach of all the Laws of decency, which they do not break for unimportant reasons; but I suppose, as your Excellency observes, the greatness of the gain this sale will produce, to supply the vast expence of the Cardinal-Nephew, has drawn them to these measures. For a small profit they would hardly have taken such a step; being like the Negroes in the Guinea Coast of Africk, who hold themselves obliged by their Religion, as Bosman tells us, not to eat a lean Fox, but that it is lawful to eat a fat one. I am confident however, it will strangely offend the Italian Gravity, and make them think on occasion of this Cardinal's conduct, of a certain proverb of their Country, relating to their good Lords the Popes, that when God denies them Sons, the Devil sends them Nephews.
Your account of their allowing no books in History or Divinity to be licensed, but such as are wrote by the publick Professors, is what I was no stranger to, nor the grounds of their policy in it; for 'tis plain, by this method, that the two great keys of Knowledge, as to the Will of God, and the Actions of Men, will be hung at their girdle. This they do under pretence of the love of ​truth, and to prevent falshood; though in fact, 'tis but to impose it on the World their own way. I must own (entre nous) I am not fully satisfied, if it were to be wish'd as to History (for as to Divinity I am certain it is) that the truth of every thing was known; for possibly, if the secret springs of the actions of some of our neighbour Kings of late years, the cabals of Ministers and Courtiers, and the trivial piques, humours, and passions, in those Princes, that occasion Wars, and the destruction of millions of their fellow-creatures, were nakedly and sincerely laid open to our eyes; I fear there could not be a readier way to turn the hearts and heads of Men, to hate or despise those that rule them.
But these are secrets only for your Lordship's ear: which as I believe I have pretty well tired on this subject, I shall return to one that will furnish us with more agreeable scenes of things, I mean our happy Country. As it is a great while since your Excellency heard from me on that subject, I think I may venture to tell you, as news, that about ten weeks since our Parliament was dissolved, and last week a new one called. Before their dissolution, after dispatch​ing the publick Business with all possible regard, both to his Majesty's affairs, and the interest of their Country, they past several Laws, which I cannot but congratulate you upon, as publick benefits.
The first of them was an Act for translating all our Writs from the old unintelligible English of the eighteenth Century, into our present modern Tongue; and also for the regulating and ascertaining the Fees of all Offices and Officers, Counsellors of Law, and Attorneys; and obliging these two last named, to swear, when they take the usual Oaths on being admitted to practice, never to be concerned in any base, wicked, or evidently unjust Cause. The second was a Bill for establishing a publick Bank for lending small sums of money to the Poor, at the lowest interest, to carry on their trades with; such as the Monte della Pieta at Rome: but by this Act no sum larger than ten pounds, or less than twenty shillings, can be borrowed, and it must be lent upon sufficient Pawns, or City-security.
The third was an Act for erecting the Bishopricks of London and Bristol into Archbishopricks, and enlarging their Revenues to five thousand pounds per annum; and ​appropriating a fund to raise all the Parishes in England under thirty pounds, to fifty pounds the year. A fourth was the so much talk'd of Law, for new modelling, and farther confirming and enlarging the two Corporations of the Royal Fishery and Plantation Company, and their Rights, Privileges, and Premiums, as established in the Reigns of Frederick the first, and George the third.
Another, was an Act to prevent any Judge, Bishop, or Archbishop, to be preferred, or translated, from any See or Place to which they were first promoted: and also one for the settling four thousand pounds per annum, for the founding a School and College, with proper Officers, for the advantage of Experimental Philosophy, according to the excellent scheme proposed by Mr. Abraham Cowley, the famous ancient Poet.
The last I shall mention (though several others were past) is an Act for explaining and amending an Act in the tenth of Frederick the second, and the eighth of William the fourth, for taking away all privilege of Parliament, in case of Arrests for Debt, or Law-suits, when the house is not fitting. And indeed, the amendments made in this Law ​are so favourable to the rights of the Subject, that it will endear the memory of the Contriver of it to Posterity; and will keep up that veneration for Parliaments with the People, which the burthen and abuse of Privileges, had too far undermined and supplanted.
I have not time to enlarge on the vast advantages, these several Laws will probably derive to Posterity; though indeed I could dwell on them with great delight, if I had more leisure, and were not writing to one of your Lordship's great discernment, and intimate acquaintance, with both the excellencies and defects of our Constitution in Church and State.
At your Excellency's request, I send you an exact List of all our temporal Peers, summoned to meet at this Parliament, to be held at Westminster on Tuesday the 25th of March 1997, which the old Act against creating more than one Peer in a Session, has contracted to a small number.
His Royal Highness GEORGE Prince of Wales. His Royal Highness Frederick Duke of York. John Scrope, Lord High-Chancellor of Great-Britain. John Earl of N—m, Lord High-Treasurer of Great-Britain. ​William Herbert Duke of Pembroke, Lord President of the Council. William Fitzroy Duke of Grafton, Lord Privy-Seal. Charles Seymour Duke of Somerset, Lord Steward of his Majesty's Houshold. George Sackville Duke of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain of the King's Houshold. Henry Lenox, Duke of Richmond. Charles Somerset, Duke of Beaufort. Richard Beauclair, Duke of St. Albans. John Pawlet, Duke of Bolton. George Wriothesly Russel, Duke of Bedford. John Churchhill, Duke of Marlborough. John Manners, Duke of Rutland. George Montague, Duke of Montague. Charles Graham, Duke of Montrose. William Ker, Duke of Roxburgh. George Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton. Frederick Pierrepoint, Duke of Kingston. William Holles Pelham, Duke of Newcastle. George Bentinck, Duke of Portland. John James Brydges, Duke of Chandos. George Campbell, Duke of Greenwich and Argyle. Charles Egerton, Duke of Bridgewater. George Compton, Duke of Northampton. Frederick Stanhope, Duke of Chesterfield. Robert Boyle, Duke of Burlington. John Slingsby, Duke of Warwick. John Davers, ​Duke of Andover. William Bridgman, Duke of Guilford. Joseph Williams, Duke of Hargrave. Robert Halsey, Duke of Preston. John Bacon, Duke of Dunsmore.
MARQUISSES.
John Stanley, Marquiss of Derby; Henry Clinton, Marquiss of Lincoln; John Hales, Marquiss of Brompton; George Edward Turner, Marquiss of Allerton; George Walpole, Marquiss of Walpole; John Parker, Marquiss of Macclesfield; Edward Vaughan Marquiss of Richley; John Coke, Marquiss of Hilton.
EARLS.
Henry Howard, Earl of Suffolk; James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury; Charles Sidney, Earl of Leicester; Basil Fielding, Earl of Denbigh; John Fane, Earl of Westmorland; Charles Finch, Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham; Philip Stanhope, Earl Stanhope; Charles Tufton, Earl of Thanet; George Spencer, Earl of Sunderland; Frederick Mountague, Earl of Sandwich; Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle; Henry Lee, Earl of Litchfield; James Berkeley, Earl of ​Berkeley; John Bertie, Earl of Abingdon; James Noel, Earl of Gainsborough; Richard D'Arcy, Earl of Holderness; Frederick Lumley, Earl of Scarborough; Robert Booth, Earl of Warrington; Francis Newport, Earl of Bradford; William Zulestein de Nassau, Earl of Rochfort; George Van Keppell, Earl of Albemarle; Thomas Coventry, Earl of Coventry; George D'Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham; Sidney Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin; Hugh Cholmondeley, Earl of Cholmondeley; James Sutherland, Earl of Sutherland; Robert Leslie, Earl of Rothes; Robert Hamilton, Earl of Hadingtown; James Campbell, Earl of Loudon; Thomas Ogilvy, Earl of Finlater; George Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk; James Hamilton, Earl of Orkney; William Dalrymple, Earl of Stair; William Campbell Earl of Ila; Robert Hume, Earl of Marchmont; Charles Paget, Earl of Uxbridge; Frederick Bennet, Earl of Tankerville; John Mountague, Earl of Hallifax; Thomas Cooper, Earl Cooper; Robert Sherrard, Earl of Harborough; George Farmer, Earl of Pomfret; George Byng, Earl of Torrington; Charles Townshend, Earl Townshend; Henry Ray​mond, Earl of Raymond; Frederick Offley, Earl of Stafford, Edward Scrope, Earl of Avington; Harvey Westley, Earl of Newington; Joseph Milton, Earl Milton; John Temple, Earl of Beverley; Jacob Tilson, Earl of Westbury; Roger Richmond, Earl of Malmsbury.
VISCOUNTS.
William Fiennes, Viscount Say and Sele; Thomas Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale; George Obrian, Viscount Tadcaster; Frederick Temple, Viscount Cobham; William Boscawen, Viscount Falmouth; Robert Grosvenour, Viscount Grosvenour; James Wentworth, Viscount Wentworth; William Jones, Viscount Wandsworth; Robert Smith, Viscount Langston; Edward Wynn, Viscount Marston; Robert Dean, Viscount Hedesworth; Richard Wardell, Viscount Wardell; John Morecraft, Viscount Alston; Thomas Clerk, Viscount Dorington; Frederick Holmes, Viscount Rainsford.
BARONS.
George West, Lord De la War; Charles Fortescue, Lord Clinton; John Ward, Lord ​Dudley and Ward; William Maynard, Lord Maynard; George Byron, Lord Byron; Robert Berkeley, Lord Berkeley of Stratton; George Carteret, Lord Carteret; Charles Waldgrave, Lord Waldgrave; William Ashburnham, Lord Ashburnham; Richard Herbert, Lord Herbert of Cherbury; Robert Gower, Lord Gower; Edward Boyle, Lord Boyle; Henry Windsor, Lord Mountjoy; Charles Granville, Lord Landsdown; Henry Bathurst, Lord Bathurst; George Onslow, Lord Onslow; John King, Lord King; George Edgecombe, Lord Edgecombe; Charles Morgan, Lord Tredegar; Henry Hobart, Lord Hobart; William Doddington, Lord Gonvill; George Pulteney, Lord Heddon; William Bowes, Lord Stretham; Edward Child, Lord Wansted; Richard Dutton, Lord Sherborne; Thomas Bateman, Lord Bateman, Edward Monson, Lord Monson; Robert Coke, Lord Beverley; John Methuen, Lord Methuen; Thomas How, Lord How; Arthur Worsley, Lord Worsley; Henry Fortescue, Lord Borlace; Robert Davers, Lord Clifton; George Windham, Lord Windham; John Mowbray, Lord Danvers; Thomas Edwards, Lord Harston; Peter Strickland, Lord Ridgeway; Frederick ​Bamfield, Lord Brereton; Joseph Lane, Lord Walton, John Pierce, Lord Rolston; Henry Hatson, Lord Elsington; George Gore, Lord Walford; Edward Beaumont, Lord Stoughton; Robert Bagot, Lord Cranston; Frederick Long, Lord Upton; John Pritchard, Lord Castleton; George Pitt, Lord Woodcote; John Stapleton, Lord Bromfield.
I have been comparing this List, with the ancient ones that remain on record with us, and I am struck with the deepest melancholly, when I see so many great and noble Families, that once made such a figure in our Country, washed away by the devouring Flood of Time; without leaving any more remembrance of their vast Fortunes, stately Houses, and magnificent Equipages, than there is of the very Beggars, that in their days were refused the scraps and crumbs of their Tables. When they flourished, and distinguished themselves by their Wealth and splendid Living, and immense Estates, surrounded with Power and Interest, Relations and Children, one would have thought they must have lasted in their glory for ever; and yet, alas! in a few years of a Century or two, how are they and their Generation ​swept away, like the Leaves of the Forest by the Winter's Storms.
It is true, indeed, some few among them have left Monuments of their merit and virtue, by good or great Actions, that make their names dear to us, and will carry down their Memories with honour and esteem, to future ages. A few others, by the blessing of Providence on them, and their real services to their Country, have left Posterity behind them, that to this day reflect back part of the glory they receives from their Ancestors: but alas, your Excellency will perceive how few they are, to those whose Families and Fortunes have been hurried down the high and steep abyss of time. Apparent rari nantes in Gurgite Vasto! I am persuaded, that of near twelve hundred Families that have been ennobled since the Reign of Henry the first, to these days, there will hardly be found above eighty who were Peers before the great Revolution, in the end of the seventeenth Century. I cannot but put your Excellency in mind here, of our favourite Pliny's reflection on the like occasion, when he was surveying a vast Assembly of the highest Court of Judicature at Rome, in his old age, and com​paring them with the same Assembly, when he had first appeared in it a young Man; and considered within himself the terrible ravage, which so great a tract of time had made, among them and their Fortunes. Tantas conversiones aut fragilitas mortalitatis, aut fortunæ mobilitas facit. Si computes annos, exiguum tempus, si vices rerum ævum putes: and then follows that noble moral reflection, Quod potest esse documento nihil desperare, nullius rei fidere, cum videamus tot varietates, tam volubili orbe circumagi.
There is something of Madness sure, in the passion that Men are generally possessed with, of spending their days in care and anxiety, to build up mighty Fortunes, and raise a Family by their toils and labours; (and too, too often, by the most flagitious actions, and the vilest, and the most dishonest conduct) in hopes that they and their Descendants shall last for ever, and at worst, enjoy their Possessions for many Ages. But they calculate that matter so ill, that generally all they are able to do, is to feed the extravagance and pride of two or three Descendants for a while, till Luxury and Debauchery have brought all the dwindled, sickly Race to the grave; as Gaming, Build​ing, and Equipage, had put an end to their Wealth and Fortunes.
Now I am got into this serious way of thinking, what if your Excellency allowed me to carry it on farther, and observe to you, that even the great Empires of the World, that set the ambitious Spirits of Mankind on fire, are, in proportion, of as short-liv'd a duration, as these little private Families. For after all the Blood and Bustle, which they cost their mighty Builders and Founders to rear them up, we shall find five hundred years may be reckoned the grand Climacterick of most of them, as much as sixty-three to Men. In the Government of the Kings of Judah, beginning with Saul, the first Kingdom continued to the Captivity of Babylon, which was five hundred years, and pretty nearly the same space of time may be assigned from the Captivity, beginning at Esdras, and reckoning down to Vespasian, who utterly extirpated the Jews and their Empire. The Assyrian Empire in Asia, was of just the same duration: and the Athenian Commonwealth, from Cecrops to Codrus, lasted four hundred ninety years, and then was changed to a Democracy. The Common​wealth of the Lacedemonians lasted about that time, under the Kings Heraclides, till Alexander the Great swallowed that up with many other States. The consular Government in Rome flourished about five hundred years, till Augustus's Monarchy; and the same period is observed from Augustus's reign, till the fall of Valentinian, the last Emperor of the West, and that then the Western Empire failed. The same number of years were remarked a little after, from the time that Constantine the great transported the Empire from Rome to Constantinople, until Charlemain, who restor'd the Empire to the West, having chased the Lombards out of Italy. I could easily produce many other instances of the like nature, to shew that five hundred years has been frequently the age assigned to Empires by Providence. It is true, many have hardly subsisted so long, and some of them have flourished somewhat longer; yet the first of these we must consider as being formed and produced with unhealthy Constitutions, and that had naturally in their first conception, such mala stamina vitæ, that they perished in their infancy, and were not able to live out half ​their days: and the others we must look on as we do on men of hardy, athletick Constitutions, which are thereby enabled to out-run the common periods of life, that generally are assigned to their neighbours. Of these short-liv'd ones we may reckon that of the Persians, from Cyrus to the last Darius, continued but about two hundred thirty years: and the Monarchy of the Greeks, founded on its ruin by Alexander, and derived from him to the Kings of Egypt and Syria, lasted but two hundred and fifty, and then sunk under the Romans. In France, from Syagre the last Roman Proconsul, who was deposed, to Clovis the first Christian King, until Pepin Father of Charlemain, and then after until Hugh Capet, was but two hundred thirty-seven years; and so of many more. And on the other hand, the Carthaginian Commonwealth, when destroyed by Scipio, had lasted seven hundred years and even the ruin of the Roman Liberties, if we reckon in the seven Kings (as we justly may) which was compleated under Julius Cæsar, continued full that time.
All I mean to deduce from this long detail of things, is a very plain and obvious ​inference, which I am sure your Excellency makes before I mention it; and that is, what little, mouldering, tottering Cottages, these boasted Empires seem, which yet are the utmost efforts of human pride and ambition, with seas of Blood, and ruins of Wealth. After all, the building up noble Families, or founding great Kingdoms, are in the eye of reason as trivial performances, as the baby-houses and puppets of Children, in comparison of those generous schemes and foundations, Wealth and Power might provide, to relieve the distressed and the miserable, the poor, the sick, and the unfortunate part of Mankind, and to instruct the ignorant, or reform the savage, the brutal, or the wicked among Men. In short (for we may trust such a dangerous truth to a private Letter) all the empty noise, and pomp, and shew of Life, which Men aim at with such infinite expence and folly, is not worth one action greatly generous, humane, or honest.
Well! by this time I suppose your Excellency is willing, to give me a full discharge for the two Letters I was indebted to you, when I begun this, which I believe you think is never to end: for fear therefore of ​enlarging too much, I will soon put all my excuses for it in a very short and a very sincere compliment; and that is, that as full as our Court is at present, I do not find there every day one like you, that I unbosom myself to, on such subjects with pleasure, being very much,
My Lord,
Your Excellency's, &c.
N———m.
I refer you for his Majesty's new Instructions to Mr. Secretary's enclosed Pacquet, which I see is above half of it in cypher; and which I heartily recommend to your care.
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