Sir John Sinclair reports of the Prince of Orange * (1786), that being taught early to be suspicious of mankind, he had confidence in no one. He therefore trusted no one; believing that fools and knaves peopled the world. The former, he declared, could not advise, and the latter would not; unless to suit their own ambition and convenience. Than which a more unfortunate prejudice can never disease or encumber the shallow mind of a sovereign. Superior spirits disdain such thoughts!

LXXV.

WHO RESEMBLE THE MINSTRELS OF ILLYRIA.

THESE minstrels sing, and sometimes even sing well: but their invariable custom is to stop in the most interesting part of their ballad, pull off their hats, and beg a collection, before they proceed farther. If no collection is offered, off they go. They will not trust for payment till they have finished their song. So they lose as much by the affront they offer to their audience, as they could have gained by trusting to their sense of honour and gratitude.

Bad servants frequently act by poor masters in a similar manner. They stop till the moment in which their services are most wanted, and then refuse to serve unless their demands are unconditionally complied with. I have seen various instances of this.

*Corresp., i., 39.

LXXVI.

WHO FIGHT THE CAUSE OF THEIR ENEMIES.

MAN, in some respects, resembles the marmot; an animal which, though subject to torpor from the cold, is said to delight in frost and snow. Men, in fact, argue and act, but too often, for their enemies; and, I think, the Earl of Winchilsea did so last night †, when he declared that he would never enter the walls of parliament again. He would depart with the constitu'tion.' The offence of parliament was the passing a bill to annul all disqualifications on account of Catholicism; a species of nova magna charta.

A multitude of men, I say, with great labour both of body and mind, fight the causes of their adversaries, when they fondly suppose they are fighting their own. 'The Duke of Newcastle was long used to shuffle and cut the cards at court,' says Bishop Newton: he, ' nevertheless, frequently cut the honours into the hands ' of his adversaries.' In this, however, he was not singular; for both Whigs and Tories have frequently played, unwittingly, in the same manner: and never did the former do more so than when,-to employ an expressive phrase of a contemporary, they built up a brick wall expressly for that purpose.'

In perilous times, to effect great objects, it is necessary to merge all minor distinctions and considerations, and agree to reciprocal concessions. The British Revolution was the fruit of a coalition; a coalition was formed by Lord Chatham in 1757; and another by Mr. Canning in 1827; but the coalition of Lord North *Buffon, v., 253. † April 6, 1829.

and Mr. Fox, and the apostacy of Mr. Pulteney, never could be justified. These, therefore, fought the battles of their enemies.

The coalition of Lord North with Mr. Fox, after the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, Bishop Watson stigmatized as having stamped upon the hearts of millions an impression which can never be effaced; that patriotism is a scandalous game, played by public men for private ends, and frequently little better than a selfish struggle for power*. I am sick of party,' said the prelate in a letter to the Duke of Rutland †. 'You are a young man, and zeal may become you; but I ' have lost my political zeal for ever; the coalition has 'destroyed it.'

Fox, indeed, but too often fought the cause of his rivals. He lost his reputation, and neutralized his power; and all he was ever after able to effect was merely to speak with great wisdom, and to share, as its reward, the fate of Cassandra in the prophecies he uttered. His conduct, in fact, had the effect of palsying, for many years of extraordinary difficulty and danger, all enthusiasm in regard to public virtue. Nobody believed that such a virtue existed; and we are but now recovering-reluctantly, and with the pace of a snail -from that unfortunate misconception.

LXXVII.

WHO DO NOT KNOW THE RESOURCES OF THEIR ADVER

SARIES.

THE Second William Pitt knew the resources of his own country too well; but few statesmen ever knew less Nov. 14, 1783.

*Life, p. 105; 4to.

the resources of his enemy. He resembled a general who fights many battles, and for many years, without knowing the strength or weakness of his adversary's army. In other respects Pitt resembled the ichneumon ;- -an animal ever in search of crocodiles' eggs, which it never eats, and yet is always attempting to break. He treated his adversaries, in fact, as if they resembled the islanders of the South Sea; who, when first discovered, knew how neither to coagulate milk nor to boil water. To know the strength of our adversary is next to knowing our own.

Sir Philip Francis said of this minister, that he was a plant, with the deciduous pomp of a rich foliage, I decorated with blossoms and flowers, which drop off ' of themselves.' He was so; yet he was a plant single and eminent. If, as some one said of George, Earl of Harcourt, he had not one fashionable folly, he had not (if we except too great an addiction to wine) one fashionable vice; and,—like the third Earl of Pembroke,—no one was ever more fitted to purify the atmosphere of a court. But he was unfortunate, as I have before said, in emerging into public life before he had acquired a sufficient knowledge of mankind; and, in consequence, suffering himself to fall into, or rather to be caught, in the mere drag-net of a party. Hence the lessons he had received from his father, faded from his recollection; his judgment became lost in the splendour and vortex of an active and exalted station; and thus perished the best part of the finest political genius this country, perhaps, ever produced.

LXXVIII.

WHO HAVE WRONG OPINIONS OF THEIR OWN SKILL.

MANY very clever men make great mistakes as to what they excel in. How many, for instance, do we all know, who fancy they play admirably on musical instruments! Musicians laugh at them.

M. Tronchin*, the celebrated physician of Geneva, practising in Paris, of whom Diderot said, that he was among physicians what Socrates was among philosophers, even he made two pretensions, which none of his friends or acquaintances could in any way allow. One of these was depth of sight in politics; the other playing admirably at whist. His knowledge of politics need only be alluded to, and as to whist, he was perpetually making mistakes, yet never lost the high opinion he entertained of his skill. These characteristics belong to thousands; and I only record them, as I do many others, that I may not leave my work knowingly incomplete.

LXXIX.

MEN, WHOSE DEATHS HAVE BEEN SUBJECTS OF GREAT JOY TO THEIR ENEMIES.

THE death of Hampden excited a great sensation of joy among the enemies of the commonwealth; and so great a terror among his friends, that Lord Clarendon

* Vide Grimm's Mem., i., 61.