N° 139. THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1711. Vera gloria radices agit, atque etiam propagatur ; ficta omnia celeriter, tanquam flosculi, decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum. TULL. True glory takes root, and even spreads: all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. Of all the affections which attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent. According as this is cultivated in princes, it produces the greatest good or the greatest evil. Where sovereigns have it by impressions received from education only, it creates an ambitious rather than a noble mind: where it is the natural bent of the prince's inclination, it prompts him to the pursuit of things truly glorious. The two greatest men now in Europe (according to the common acceptation of the word great) are Lewis king of France, and Peter emperor of Russia. As it is certain that all fame does not arise from the practice of virtue, it is, methinks, no unpleasing amusement to examine the glory of these potentates, and distinguish that which is empty, perishing, and frivolous, from what is solid, lasting, and important. Lewis of France had his infancy attended by crafty and worldly men, who made extent of territory the most glorious instance of power, and mistook the spreading of fame for the acquisition of honour. The young monarch's heart was by such conversation easily deluded into a fondness for vain-glory, and upon these unjust principles to form or fall in with suitable projects of invasion, rapine, murder, and all the guilts that attend war when it is unjust. At the same time this tyranny was laid, sciences and arts were encouraged in the most generous manner, as if men of higher faculties were to be bribed to permit the massacre of the rest of the world. Every super structure which the court of France built upon their first designs, which were in themselves vicious, was suitable to its false foundation. The ostentation of riches, the vanity of equipage, shame of poverty, and ignorance of modesty, were the common arts of life: the generous love of one woman was changed into gallantry for all the sex, and friendships among men turned into commerces of interest, or mere professions. While these were the rules of life, perjuries in the prince, and a general corruption of manners in the subject, were the snares in which France has intangled all her neighbours.' With such false colours have the eyes of Lewis been inchanted, from the debauchery of his early youth, to the superstition of his present old age. Hence it is, that he has the patience to have statues erected to his prowess, his valour, his fortitude; and in the softnesses and luxury of a court to be applauded for magnanimity and enterprise in military atchievements. Peter Alexovitz of Russia, when he came to years of manhood, though he found himself emperor of a vast and numerous people, master of an endless territory, absolute commander of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, in the midst of this unbounded power and greatness, turned his thoughts upon himself and people with sorrow. Sordid ignorance, and a brute manner of life, this generous prince beheld and conemned, from the light of his own genius. His judg ment suggested this to him, and his courage prompted him to amend it. In order to this he did not send to the nation from whence the rest of the world has borrowed its politeness, but himself left his diadem to learn the true way to glory and honour, and application to useful arts, wherein to employ the laborious, the simple, the honest part of his people. Mechanic employments and operations were very justly the first objects of his favour and observation. With this glorious intention he travelled into foreign nations in an obscure manner, above receiving little honours where he sojourned, but prying into what was of more consequence, their arts of peace and of war. By this means has this great prince laid the foundation of a great and lasting fame, by personal labour, personal knowledge, personal valour. It would be injury to any of antiquity to name them with him. Who, but himself, ever left a throne to learn to sit in it with more grace? Who ever thought himself mean in absolute power, till he had learned to use it? If we consider this wonderful person, it is perplexity to know where to begin his encomium. Others may in a metaphorical or philosophic sense be said to command themselves, but this emperor is also literally under his own command. How generous and how good was his entering his own name as a private man in the army he raised, that none in it might expect to outrun the steps with which he himself advanced! By such measures this godlike prince learned to conquer, learned to use his conquests. How terrible has he appeared in battle, how gentle in victory! Shall then the base arts of the Frenchman be held polite, and the honest labours of the Russian barbarous? No: barbarity is the ignorance of true honour, or placing any thing instead of it. The unjust prince is ignoble and barbarous, the good prince only renowned and glorious. Though men may impose upon themselves what they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth will ever keep its station; and as glory is nothing else but the shadow of virtue, it will certainly disappear at the departure of virtue. But how carefully ought the true notions of it to be preserved, and how industrious should we be to encourage any impulses towards it! The Westminster school-boy that said the other day he could not sleep or play for the colours in the hall', ought to be free from receiving a blow for ever. But let us consider what is truly glorious according to the author I have to-day quoted in the front of my paper. The perfection of glory, says Tully, consists in these three particulars: That the people love us; that they have confidence in us; that, being affected with a certain admiration towards us, they think we deserve honour.'. This was spoken of greatness in the commonwealth. But if one were to form a notion of consummate glory under our constitution, one must add to the above-mentioned felicities a certain necessary inexistence, and disrelish of all the rest, without the prince's favour. He should, methinks, have riches, power, honour, command, glory; but riches, power, honour, command, and glory should have no charms, but as accompanied with the affection of his prince. He should, methinks, be popular because a favourite, and a favourite because popular. Were it not to make the character too imaginary, I would give him sove The colours taken by Marlborough, at the battle of Hochstet, or Blenheim, August 2, 1704, were hung up in Westminster-hall. reignty over some foreign territory, and make him esteem that an empty addition without the kind regards of his own prince. One may merely have an idea of a man thus composed and circumstantiated, and if he were so made for power without an incapacity' of giving jealousy, he would be also glorious without possibility of receiving disgrace. This humility and this importance must make his glory im mortal. These thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the usual length of this paper; but if I could suppose such rhapsodies could outlive the common fate of ordinary things, I would say these sketches and faint images of glory were drawn in August, 1711, when John duke of Marlborough made that memorable march wherein he took the French lines without bloodshed. STEELE. T. No 140. FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1711. -Animum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illue. This way and that he turns his anxious mind. DRYDEN. WHEN I acquaint my reader, that I have many other letters not yet acknowledged, I believe he will own, what I have a mind he should believe, that I have no small charge upon me, but am a person of some consequence in this world. I shall therefore ? Probably we should read," a capacity." |