LETTER XLVIII.

To the Reverend Father FABIO MARETTI at Rome.

Dear Sir,

S it not true, that mankind in their accounts

of nature's productions, have made their circle fhorter than they ought, and not enough attended to the whole progrefs which the takes?

PERHAPS, if we could penetrate into the parts which compofe this univerfe, we should discover all to be the ancient philofophy of the To ev, and in fact, no more than one eternal system of truth and perfection.

το

We are accustomed to fee, that every fpring pushes forth the leaves and bloffoms, the juicy fummer fwells, and the purple autumn ripens, the clustering grape, and then conclude the procefs finished.

2

THIS is the annual courfe of nature in producing that fruit, fhort, and of fix months operations only; yet, this is not the whole process of that fingle production: years varying in themfelves, may generate the most perfect fruit but once in a hundred; and this enlarges the circle of nature in that refpect, and indicates that to know all the effects of funs, rains, and other causes, of the greatest excellency in the fruits of the earth, we should attend a longer circulation, than the fhort-lived revolution of fix months.

PERHAPS the whole combining causes of this effect are not happily united but once in an age, and the perfect wine of Burgundy is as rare as a comet; tho' wine be the production of every year, as stars are every evening's profpect.

THE same seems to be true in regard to mankind; tho' every year produces numbers of men, much resembling one another in form and understanding; yet, the happy union which creates genius comes extremely rare, and is in like manner a phænomenon of more than centuries, to : VOL II. N produce

produce a comet upon earth; which, contrary to those in the heavens, is lefs gazed at and admired during its reign amongst the leffer mortals, than when it has paffed away, and is no longer visible but in its effects and remains.

THOSE whofe penetration fanfies that all mankind have been alike at all times, are extremely fuperficial; were the old Britons-like the prefent? And did the old Romans refemble thofe of Nero and Caligula's reign? Who was there in these latter times at Rome, who would have imitated the felf-devoted Decii? Will an Englishman at prefent refign his head to be fevered from his body, because he cannot renounce the oath which he has taken, as did the virtue of Sir Thomas More? will he fmile at the executioner, and with a ferenity of foul meet the block, as easily as a table fpread with dainties? No fires will ever more be lighted, to burn a wilLing martyr in this land, and perhaps in no other in Europe; the spirit is fled.

I genius, as in refolution; in fuperior fenfe, as well as fuperior firmness of mind; in the foul,

as in fruits and flowers; there are points of time

in a national hiftory, which are more excellent than others.

PERHAPS fome refined and fubtler capacity may fee the caufes of the exaltation of these faculties in men; but whoever looks on them at the hour of their being in highest perfection, has his eye turned on a wrong point of time.

WHATEVER must be the combining powers, which produce these phænomena, it is at their birth, and not at their full growth of manhood, that they must be discovered.

THAT there are happy periods, which are creative of fuch fuperiority in nature, can scarce be denied, because, generally more than one man receives the tincture of these excellencies at the fame time, and a general exaltation of human faculties reigns at one æra in the fame kingdom, more than at all others.

To fay then, that men have at all times been alike, is to fay fomething which experience proves to be untrue; but to affert that the whole circles

N 2

circles of two kingdoms, from their dawning greatness to their final diffolutions, are much refembling one another, is what approaches very nearly to veracity; the whole progress of two nations ranged fide by fide, resemble one another in their parallel points, more than the fame kingdom at two different times; an old Briton and an old Roman, had more refemblance than Cincinnatus and Mark Anthony, or Sir Francis Drake and the late Admiral Mathews.

THE great care then, which should be the purfuit of every minister, is to find proper objects for the foul of man, and preferve that selfconsciousness of its own greatness, which is natural to men of the most exalted spirit.

No minifters have fo manifeftly mistaken the ways of governing men, as the late ministry of this kingdom; one total ignorance of human nature, or design of fubduing all hearts to the influence of money, has been the favourite scheme; and because men have been purchased to do wrong, they have vainly imagined, that

they