in our conversation, with great dexterity, all the insinuations proper to confirm me in this opinion. I knew at this time his master was not gone; so that he gave me two very risible scenes, which are frequently to be met with when some people meddle in business; I mean that of seeing a man labor with a great deal of awkward artifice to make a secret of a nothing, and that of seeing yourself taken for a bubble when you know as much of the matter, as he who thinks that he imposes on you.

I cannot recollect precisely the terms of the two papers. I remember that the kingly laconic style of one of them, and the expression of having no further occasion for my service, made me smile. The other was an order to give up the papers in my office; all which might have been contained in a letter-case of a moderate size. I gave the Duke the seals, and some papers which I could readily come at. Some others, and indeed all such as I had not destroyed, I sent afterwards to the Chevalier : and I took care to convey to him, by a safe hand, several of his letters, which it would have been very improper the Duke should have seen. I am surprised that he did not reflect on the consequence of my obeying his order literally. It depended on me to have shown his general what an opinion the Chevalier had of his capacity. I scorned the trick; and would not appear piqued, when I was far from being angry. As I gave up, without scruple, all the papers which remained in my hands, because I was determined never to make use of them; so I confess to you, that I took a sort of pride in never asking for those of mine which were in the Pretender's hands: I contented myself with making the Duke understand how little need there was to get rid of a man in this manner, who had made the bargain which I had done at my engagement; and with taking this first opportunity to declare, that I would never more have to do with the Pretender, or his cause.

That I might avoid being questioned and quoted in the most curious and the most babbling town in the world, I related what had passed to three or four of my friends, and hardly stirred abroad, during a fortnight, out of a little lodging which very few people knew of. At the end of this term the Marshal of Berwick came to see me, and asked me what I meant, to confine myself to my chamber, when my name was trumpeted about in all the companies of Paris, and the most infamous stories were spread concerning me.

This was the first notice I had, and it was soon

followed by others. I appeared immediately in the world, and found there was hardly a scurrilous tongue which had not been let loose on my subject; and that those persons, whom the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of Mar must influence, or might influence, were the loudest in defaming me.

Particular instances wherein I had failed were cited; and, as it was the fashion for every Jacobite to affect being in the secret, you might have found a multitude of vouchers to facts, which, if they had been true, could in the nature of them be known to very few persons.

This method, of beating down the reputation of a man by noise and impudence, imposed on the world at first, convinced people who were not acquainted with me, and staggered even my friends. But it ceased in a few days to have any effect against me. The malice was too gross to pass upon reflection. These stories died away almost as fast as they were published, for this very reason, because they were particular.

(From Letter to Sir W. Windham.)

A RELIGION OF HYPOCRISY

EVERY one has an undoubted right to think freely: nay, it is the duty of every one to do so, as far as he has the necessary means and opportunities. This duty too is in no case so incumbent on him as in those that regard what I call the first philosophy. They who have neither means nor opportunities of this sort, must submit their opinions to authority; and to what authority can they resign themselves so properly, and so safely, as to that of the laws, and constitution of their country? In general, nothing can be more absurd than to take opinions of the greatest moment, and such as concern us the most intimately, on trust. But there is no help against it in many particular cases. Things the most absurd in speculation become necessary in practice. Such is the human constitution, and reason excuses them on the account of this necessity. Reason does even a little more; and it is all she can do. She gives the best direction possible to the absurdity. Thus she directs those, who must believe because they cannot know, to believe in the laws of their country, and conform their opinions and practice to those of their ancestors, to those of

Coruncanius, of Scipio, of Scaevola, not to those of Zeno, of Cleanthes, of Chrysippus.

But now the same reason that gives this discretion to such men as these, will give a very contrary direction to those who have the means and opportunities the others want. Far from advising them to submit to this mental bondage, she will advise them to employ their whole industry, to exert the utmost freedom of thought, and to rest on no authority but her's, that is, their own. She will speak to them in the language of the Soufys, a sect of philosophers in Persia, that travellers have mentioned. "Doubt," say these wise and honest freethinkers, "is the key of knowledge. He who never doubts, never examines. He who never examines, discovers nothing. He who discovers nothing, is blind, and will remain so. If you find no reason to doubt concerning the opinions of your fathers, keep to them, they will be sufficient for you. If you find any reason to doubt concerning them, seek the truth quietly, but take care not to disturb the minds of other men."

Let us proceed agreeably to these maxims. Let us seek truth, but seek it quietly as well as freely. Let us not imagine, like some who are called freethinkers, that every man, who can think and judge for himself, as he has a right to do, has therefore a right of speaking, any more than of acting according to the full freedom of his thoughts. The freedom belongs to him as a rational creature. He lies under the restraint as a member of society.

If the religion we profess contained nothing more than articles of faith, and points of doctrine clearly revealed to us in the Gospel, we might be obliged to renounce our natural freedom of thought in favour of this supernatural authority. But since it is notorious that a certain order of men, who call themselves the Church, have been employed to make and propagate a theological system of theirs, which they call Christianity, from the days of the Apostles, and even from these days inclusively; it is our duty to examine, and analyse the whole, that we may distinguish what is Divine from what is human; adhere to the first implicitly, and ascribe to the last no more authority than the word of man deserves.

Such an examination is the more necessary to be undertaken by every one who is concerned for the truth of his religion, and for the honour of Christianity, because the first preachers of it were

not, and they who preach it still are not agreed about many of the most important points of their system; because the controversies raised by these men have banished union, peace, and charity out of the Christian world; and because some parts of the system savour so much of superstition and enthusiasm, that all the prejudices of education, and the whole weight of civil and ecclesiastical power can hardly keep them in credit. These considerations deserve the more attention, because nothing can be more true, than what Plutarch said of old, and my Lord Bacon has said since; one, that superstition, and the other, that vain controversies are principal causes of atheism.

I neither expect nor desire to see any public revision made of the present system of Christianity. I should fear an attempt to alter the established religion as much as they who have the most bigot attachment to it, and for reasons as good as theirs, though not entirely the same. I speak only of the duty of every private man to examine for himself, which would have an immediate good effect relatively to himself, and might have in time a good effect relatively to the public, since it would dispose the minds of men to a greater indifference about theological disputes, which are the disgrace of Christianity, and have been the plagues of the world. (From Letter to Mr. Pope.)

ALEXANDER POPE

[Alexander Pope was born in 1688 and died in 1744. He published essays in the Guardian in 1713, a Discourse on Pastoral Poetry in 1717; a Preface to the edition of Shakespeare which appeared in 1725; besides various satirical papers which were collected in the Miscellanies of himself and Swift, published in 1728. The so-called spurious Correspondence was published in 1735; the author's version appeared in 1737; to which a sequel was added in 1741. In 1742 he printed the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, the greater part of which, however, was the work of Arbuthnot, though the Introduction was written by Pope.]

POPE's prose writings may be classified as essays, satirical miscellanies, and letters. In this arrangement his letters make much the largest part. He was the first Englishman who treated letter-writing as an art, and so far did he carry his practice, that those of his compositions, which might be expected to be most like conversation, are the very ones which show the clearest marks of study and reflection. The series of frauds which accompanied the publication of his correspondence in 1735 is now perfectly understood; but it is plain, both from the judgment of his friends and from his own confession, that, long before he thought of taking the public into his confidence, his letters were written for literary effect. "This letter," he writes to Swift, 28th November 1729, "like all mine, will be a rhapsody. It is many years ago since I wrote as a wit. How many occurrences or informations must one omit, if one determined to say nothing that one could not say prettily." "I find," says Swift, in answer to him, 26th February 1729-30, “you have been a writer of letters almost from your infancy; and by your own confession had schemes even then of epistolary fame.” In fact to call anything that he ever wrote "a rhapsody,” was a mere figure of speech. Whatever he pro

duced, whether prose or verse, from the time when he began to "lisp in numbers" to the very last day of his life, was weighed, meditated, and corrected before it was submitted to the public,