ページの画像
PDF
ePub

power growing wild from the rank productive force of the "human mind, is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to "the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies “in the material. It would be like the attempt to destroy

66

66

66

66

66

(if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive "force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. These energies always ex"isted in nature, and they were always discernible. They "seemed some of them unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport for children, until contemplative ability, combining with practic skill, tamed their wild nature, subdued them to use, and rendered them at once the "most powerful and the most tractable agents, in subser"vience to the great views and designs of men. Did fifty "thousand persons, whose mental and whose bodily labour you might direct, and so many hundred thousand a year of revenue, which was neither lazy nor superstitious, appear too big for your abilities to wield? Had you no way of using the men, but by converting monks into pensioners? "Had you no way of turning the revenue to account, but "through the improvident resource of a spendthrift sale? If you were thus destitute of mental funds, the proceeding "is in its natural course. Your politicians do not under"stand their trade, and therefore they sell their tools.

66

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

There is scarcely a sentence, which does not directly or indirectly allude to some art or science, or to some of the common trades and business of life. Mechanics, agriculture, che

• Gas sylvestre.

f Burke, Vol. III, page 210.

mistry, natural history, and the occupations of the broker and the stock-jobber, afforded Burke the allusions to sales and funds, power, purchase, plants growing wild from a rank productive force, expansion of air in nitre, the power of steam, electricity, magnetism-all these allusions suit our English taste; but they would not be approved of by French critics. The French would be revolted by what excites our admiration. Perhaps this difference in the English and French taste for eloquence may have arisen from the difference between the nature of our governments, which subsisted so long as to establish habits, that have survived even the shock of a revolution. Without digressing however to this speculation, it is sufficient here to have pointed out, that such a national dissimilarity of taste actually exists; and that young English orators should therefore, while they study French eloquence, avoid imitation of their style, and refrain from the degrading practice of introducing gallicisms into our language—a language, which, with few exceptions, needs no foreign auxiliaries to support its native strength.

Having acquired at the university a general knowledge of modern and ancient literature, the young statesman, after he has left college, will have leisure to devote his mind to the subjects peculiarly requisite in public life. He should now read those state papers, from which historians have written; he should make himself master of original documents; he should know the outline and particulars of our principal

For this purpose Mr. Gosling's Collection of Treaties may be consulted with advantage. It is to be wished, that some one accustomed to the forms of

treaties; and he should look not only to the articles, but also to the means by which the negociations have been carried on: he should observe the consequences, which have resulted from every ostensible and every secret measure. In these transactions, from the state papers, and from the memoirs of all our statesmen and courtiers, from Burleigh and Cecil to Walpole and Dodington, he will find that there are innumerable small causes and petty motives, which contribute to produce great events, and to decide the councils and actions of the most politic or the most despotic princes. He will also observe, that there are continual underhand manoeuvres prac tised by agents and ministers; an eternal system of deceit and duplicity is carried on, which seems to be necessary, because it is constantly practised. "Such a thing," says Lord Burleigh," is not fit for the queen's ear";" "such a thing," says Sir Robert Walpole, "must be represented differently to "the king;" and then there are private notes with every public letter to or from embassadors; and there is, in short, an inscrutable complication of falsehood in the secret histories

office would make a collection of the forms most necessary in the different ministerial departments. From such a publication young statesmen might learn enough to make them independent of clerks. It is often from the want of knowledge of trifling formulas, that men of superior abilities are dependent upon inferiors, to whom they leave the substance of business to be reduced to proper forms. Hence innumerable delays of office, and abuses in the conduct of public affairs.

[ocr errors]

In Hardwicke's State Papers, Vol. I, there is, in a letter from a Mr. Jones to Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, this passage; "I have declared unto Mr. Secretary what your lordship thinketh of the general council; who wished I had not told the queen's majesty a matter of such weight, being too much, he "said, for a woman's ear."

of many political transactions. The student should read of these things, not with a design to imitate, but with a resolution to avoid such paltry practices. He may see, that truly great statesmen, whether acting as ambassadors abroad, or ministers at home, have disdained all mean artifices, and by candour and the simplicity of truth have succeeded, where the utmost refinement and ingenuity of the most consummate politicians would have failed.

Let any young man of sense read the memoirs of Sully', and consider, whether the most courtierlike system of flattery and double dealing could have served his purpose so well, as the plain honesty which this great statesman uniformly practised, and which earned or rather won for him the esteem, affection, and unbounded confidence, of his noble minded master.

The disinterested firmness of a modern diplomatist deserves to be pointed out with the warmest expressions of admiration: Lord Macartney, when in India, that land of magnificent corruption, refused, it is said, a bribe of eighty thousand pounds, beside a little betel (a small present between friends) of a diamond star. His integrity, when governor at the Cape, was equally praiseworthy.

These are facts, which should be told to youth with all the enthusiasm which they excite. Strong instances of the ad

iSee in particular an account of his conduct about a bribe of a service of plate offered him by the people of Rouen.

vantages of truth should also be produced. Let him who has any ambition to serve his country as an ambassador, or negociator, read the account of General Nugent's conference with Frederick the Great, and thence estimate the value of a character for truth in a diplomatist.

In 1768, the suspicions of Frederick had induced him to make sudden preparations for war with Austria, believing that she secretly intended to break the subsisting peace. The day before this design was acted upon, General Nugent*, ambassador from Vienna, demanded an audience: and laying before Frederick, with all the enthusiasm of sincerity, the causes of the mistake into which his majesty had fallen, he thus addressed him" Sir, receive the oath which I make: Nugent

66

swears to lay his head at your majesty's feet, if any thing "he has now asserted prove contrary to the exact truth." "Can I trust you, General?"—"Yes, Sire; I, who know how to "estimate and admire your majesty's truly great qualities, dare that you have a defect, which is a dreadful misfortune "to mankind. Your temper is mistrustful!"—"I will give you a certain proof to the contrary," said the king with a smile— "for I put perfect confidence in every word you have said."

"to say,

66

* This General Nugent was not a Scotchman, as Thiebauld calls him, but an Irishman, and uncle to the young Ensign Everard, who distinguished himself so much at Monte Video. This young man has shown more anxiety to repress the encomiums of his friends and of the publick, than others show to puff themselves in the newspapers. "How," said he, "can I at my return convince my brother officers, that I have not claimed distinctions, which they deserve "better than I do?"

« 前へ次へ »