cardinal Pole was to support that fee, they had reafon enough to hope for his countenance and protection in England, upon which, as a good morfel, they presently fixed their eyes. To this end they procured a petition to be prefented to the cardinal, wherein they fuggefted to him, that the queen was restoring the goods of the church in her hands; that it was but to little purpose thus to raise up the old foundations, fince the Benedictine order was become rather a clog than a help to the church: therefore, they defired that thofe houses might be affigned to them for maintaining schools and feminaries, which they would quickly set up; and they did not doubt, by their dealing with the confciences of those who were dying, they fhould recover the greatest part of the goods of the church. But the cardinal en

rely rejected this propofal, which was certainly not penned with that artful addrefs for which the Jefuits order is generally distinguished; fince Pole was known to be particularly devoted to the Benedictines, and the patron and protector of that order at Rome. Thus we are indebted to cardinal Pole, that we were preferved from the Jefuits in the reign of Mary I. and that mischievous brood never have had an opportunity of procuring an eftablishment in England fince.

Cardinal Pole was the author of feveral books which were printed; chiefly on religious and controversial points. He had been several years collecting various read ings, emendations, and castrations, of Cicero's works, with intention to publish a

complete copy of them. His death prevented him, and the papers are now loft.

We cannot better conclude this life than in the words of bishop Burnet, who fcruples not to ascribe to the cardinal, "Such qualities, and fuch a temper, that if he could have brought the other bishops to follow his measures, or the Pope and queen to approve of them, he might probably have done much to have reduced this nation to popery again. But God, continues that historian, designed better things for it; fo he gave up the queen to the bloody counfels of Gardiner, and the rest of the clergy. She imputed his opinion in that particular rather to the fweetr.efs of his temper, than to his wifdom and experience; and he feeing he could do nothing of what he projected in England, fell into a languishing, first, of his mind, that brought after it a decay of his health, of which he died. What mistakes foever his education, and heats with king Henry, and the disasters of his family might have involved him in, it cannot be denied that he was a man of as great probity and virtue as most of the age, if not all of that church in which he lived." Thus far the bishop; and there remains only to add, that, had not his superstitious devotion to the fee of Rome carried him, contrary to his nature, to commit fome very wrong fteps, and injuries against the Protestants, he would have been a finished character; though, as hath been before remarked, those may with greater juftice be placed to the account of the bishops of Rome.

THE great earl of Clarendon fome

where obferves, that after the Restoration, he was often obliged in parliament to divide for questions that he had oppofed in council. With all deference to the memory of that great man, this acknowledgment is not that of a patriot, but that of a man, who was determined at all events to remain a minister. The parliament is his majesty's fupreme council, and it was a forry compliment to the conftitution of his country, to say that he dared to speak his mind in the little council, but not in the great one; that he dared to give his maf

ter good advice from a chair, but that he was obliged to prevaricate from the woolpack. Were all minifters to follow his lordship's example in this respect, in what a miferable condition must this country be. Truth would not dare to approach the throne, nor could the lift up her led in parliament. Either a veil would be thrown over public measures to conteal, or a varnith laid upon them to mifroprefert them.

Free agency, I apprehend, is at once the teft and the exertion of liberty. In Create Britain it may not always be in ti.. power Uuu 2

of a fubject to be a free agent, as a minifter, but he certainly may, as a man, affert that prerogative of reafon. He may meet with oppofition to what he thinks right measures, and if he is fond of retaining his power, he may not be suffered to follow his judgment. But the conftitution of England confiders fuch a conduct as containing in it fomewhat of criminality. During three or four reigns preceding the above period, the people had smarted fo much under it, that for fome time after every privy-counsellor in England was obliged to fign the opinion he gave, at the council-board. This, however, was confidered as too much fettering the freedom of debate, and too much expofing the members of the privy-council, especially fuch of them as were ministers, to aftercharges; and therefore the practice was fufpended, and I think with great rea

fon.

Notwithstanding this, the conftitution of Great-Britain confiders every man who fills a poft, as poffeffing the power annexed to that poft, and as being anfwerable for the confequences, even though his measures may have had the approbation of parliament. The treaty of Utrecht had that approbation, but it did not prevent the earl of Oxford from being tried for his life, and lord Bolingbroke from being attainted, for the concern they had in it. Sir Robert Walpole, while he was looked upon to be first minifter, honestly declared, that he confidered himfelf as being aníwerable even with his head, for all the measures of government, and that he would not shelter himself under any fubterfuge, of not having been confulted, or of having matters carried against his opinion.

This minifterial amenibility (the reader will pardon the expreffion) is coeval with the English government, and is a principle more deeply rooted, perhaps, than any other in our conftitution. That the king can do no wrong is a conftitutional maxim. But Britons would be the greatest flaves under the fun, fhould minifters not be accountable for their mafters measures. A fecretary of State, if his poft is confidered in ftrictnefs and with propriety, is the only minister a king of England has. The other great departments of public bufinefs are filled with officers of fate, and have a relation to the king in his civil and legal capacity, that

is, as being connected with his people and parliament. All fuch officers have the laws and ftated boundaries of duty for their direction; and if they have upright intentions, it is fcarcely poffible for them to err in point of judgment.

The province of a fecretary of ftate, on the other hand, lies in matters of prerogative, which, were it bounded by law, would ceafe to be prerogative. Hence it follows, that they have no direction but their own fenfe of things to fteer by. The king's perfonal conduct therefore is prefumed to be influenced by them; and tho' bis majefly cannot do wrong, yet if wrong is done, a fecretary of state is responsible for the fame, if he shall retain that department of public bufinefs through which the wrong is supposed to proceed.

I am at the fame time fenfible that this country has known many minifters, who, tho' not secretaries of ftate, have been rendered accountable for offences against the public. But the reader is to observe, that I speak according to the ftrictness of the conftitution. Neither would I be underftood, as meaning that a secretary of ftate by his poft is a first, far lefs, a fole, minifter. The great operations and conclufions of government being founded upon laws, treaties, records, and precedents, are equally objects of deliberation, with every privy-counsellor, as well as with a fecretary of state. But when thofe great lights fail a minister, be he secretary or not, he must have recourse to his own judgment, and by that ftand or fall. Other minifters, however, have great advantages in this respect over secretaries. The precision of the latter's duty in the executive part of it is known; and if they put the seals to what is improper, thould they iffue difpatches for what is ruinous or dishonourable, they may not be taxed for advifing fuck measures, but they undoubtedly are cenfured for their execution.

Such are my reasons for thinking that the right honourable gentleman, who has lately refigned the feals of his office, has acted the only part that a wife and honeft minifter can follow. The public voice has pointed him out as the chief director of all measures during the present war, and even that opinion would have rendered him accountable for the confequences, even tho' he had not had the feals, but he was doubly fo while he poffeffed them.

The

The right honourable gentleman, therefore, in refigning them, did no more than recur to that principle of free-agency which every Briton will wish to enjoy. Had he kept them he might have been reduced to the difagreeable alternative of being obliged either to put them to the exe

cution of meafures for which he was refponfible, tho' he did not concur in them, nay tho' he oppofed them; or he must by his backwardness have put a clog upon public bufinefs, which might have been detrimental to the nation.

IF

we confider the writings of the ancients, fo far as they relate to their manners, we shall not find them lefs worthy of our attention, than those which treat of their wit and knowledge. The two celebrated banquets of Plato and Xenophon are elegant models of the innocent pleasures of their festal board, and plainly -point out what kind of entertainment was there conftantly to be found. It was by converfations like thefe, equally learned and moral, that the pleasures of the table were rendered useful, and that great licentiousness and forgetfulness of decorum, which too often grew upon a long fitting, were happily corrected. A review of these, and of our modern conversations, fpeaks much in behalf of the manners of antiquity, and argues but little in our favour. Inftead of this fenfible elegance, so pleasing to every truly generous mind, we enjoy nothing but inebriating drenches of wine, followed by that deftructive corroder of human happiness, play, that harpy which corrupts the whole mafs, if it touch but a particle of the blood. It feems beyond a doubt, that by the help of fuch conversation, as is in reality the life and foul of a rational creature, the pleasures of the Greek board far furpaffed ours, which is but too often, and almost always grofs and inelegant. In Athens eight or ten people of fashion were affembled round the table of a common friend for fome hours; their bu finefs was not drinking, but amufement: and of what nature was their amusement ? It confifted not of the briskly circulated glafs, the high seasoned toaft, or obscene fentiment; but of difcourfes the freeft, the most unconstrained, focial, and polished; the most learned, and the most solid. They were fuch as became philofophers and men; fuch as, to their fhame be it spoken, are little cultivated among the profeffors of the purest, the infpired doctrine, Chriftianity,

If a licentious fentiment dropped from any mouth, any thing that infringed upon the decent liberty of the table, the offence was not paffed without a tacit and proper reprimand, by turning the converfation upon fome point of morality, which hinted at, or displayed it in proper colours. This pofition is proved by the behaviour of Socrates, who at the banquet of Xenophon, perceiving his friends inclined to make rather too free with the bottle, delivered himself elegantly upon the excellency of drinking with moderation.

"Liquor," faid this great light of antiquity, "has the fame effect upon us, as rain has upon plants, beneath which, when. exceffive, they fink oppreffed, nor can they rife to the foftering breeze: but if lightly sprinkled, they acquire new ftrength; they thrive apace, the flower blooms upon the strong stalk, and at length matures into fruit: thus it is with us. If we drink exceffively, we not only find our bodies heavy and languid; but we can fcarcely breathe, much lefs exprefs ourfelves intelligibly: whereas, let us drink our wine, to use a saying of Gorgias, as plants imbibe the dews; let us take it often, but always in small quantities; instead of oppreffing with violence, it will warm with perfuafion, and give spirit to keep alive the utile et dulce of converfa

tion."

In this fenfe did Horace mean to speak of Cato, in saying that he ftrengthened his virtue with a measure of wine. Narratur et prifcilatonis fæpultero caluiffe virtus.

It will, undoubtedly, be objected by those who have attentively perufed the banquet of Plato, that the converfation is often very licentious; that from love, which is the fubject, are deduced many maxims, far from being confiftent with the gravity of the wife men who afsisted at this celebrated repaft. The answeris obvious to a few moments reflection; here we

$nd

find the immortal Socrates, as the wifeft of the affembly, when the converfation falls to his turn, nobly reproving and correcting the licentioufness of his companions; and infenfibly altering their love for creatures into that of the Sovereign Creator. Company fuch as this, after long fitting, rofe from table greater friends, if poffible, than when they met, not only more instructed, but more virtuous. It may indeed be faid, that in these banquets Plato and Xenophon

have only prefented us with the fruits of their refined imagination: but is it not doing more juftice to thefe celebrated ornaments of human nature, and not at all less probable to fuppofe, they ferved up to us the banquet of their own times as it was, and of which the witneffes were many; and more fo, as we find them generally attentive to a real exhibition of the manners of the age on which they reflected fuch luftre?

TAKE one ounce of marjoram feeds,

drop on it thirty drops of petroleum, thirty drops of antimony, and ten drops of balfam of fulphur; mix the whole thoroughly, fo that every fingle feed be impregnated with the moisture, then let the feed dry in a very hot fun-fhine; and when thoroughly dried, take about the quantity of a common charge of powder for a futil, pour it into the barrel intended to be prepared, having first stopped the touch-hole with an iron pin or wire; this being done, stop the mouth of the barrel with a wooden stopple of some length, and carefully fee that it be fo close as to exclude all air. Now the hinder part of the barrel, (where, instead of powder, lay the feeds thus deficcated) is put into a coal fire to the length of full eight inches and flowly heated; the fire must be blowed till the end of the barrel, to the prescribed length, be red hot, slowly turning

it round all the while, that the feeds may move about in the like manner; let the barrel continue red hot for about a quarter of an hour, then giving over blowing or encreafing the fire, leave it to cool flowly, as the fire dies away. Let the infide of the barrel be thoroughly cleansed and fmoothed with a linen rag, at the fame time not neglecting the outside; and this is the whole procefs of preparing a barrel for an increafe of its range.

This preparation, it must be observed, retains its efficacy a long time, provided the piece be not fired too often at one time, or in too quick fucceffion, which heating it too much, diminishes its action. Another neceffary document is, that, to shoot at a short distance with a piece which has recently undergone this operation, it must be pointed, or aim taken, much lower than at a greater distance.

HAving feen lately in the papers, an ac

count of the honour and antiquity of the name and family of Douglas, and of fome great men defcendants thereof, it brought to my remembrance one hero of the name, who, though not mentioned in that account, deferves as much to be recorded, as any branch of that or any other family; the perfon I mean, is captain Douglas, who commanded the Royal Oak man of war, in Charles the Second's reign.

Charles being at war with the States of Holland, the Dutch had advanced with fix men of war and five firefhips as high as Upnore-Caftle, but being pretty roughly handled by major Scott, who commanded therein, and Sir Edward Spragge, from the oppofite fhore, they foon returned back. In their return, however, they burnt the Royal Oak, a very fine ship, and captain Douglas in her. This gallant officer had received orders to defend his ships