adjust the constitution to their own pernicious principles. It is easy determining by this test, to which side the name of faction most properly belongs. But however, I will give them any system of law or regal government, from William the Conqueror to this present time, to try whether they can tally it with their late models; excepting only that of Cromwell, whom perhaps they will reckon for a monarch. If the present ministry, and so great a majority in the parliament and kingdom, be only a faction, it must appear by some actions which answer the idea we usually conceive from that word. Have they abused the prerogatives of the prince, or invaded the rights and liberties of the subject? have they offered at any dangerous innovations in church or state? have they broached any doctrines of heresy, rebellion, or tyranny? have any of them treated their sovereign with insolence, engrossed and sold all her favours, or deceived her by base, gross misrepresentations of her most faithful servants? These are the arts of a faction, and whoever has practised them, they and their followers must take up with the name. It is usually reckoned a Whig principle to appeal to the people; but that is only when they have been so wise as to poison their understandings before-hand. Will they now stand to this appeal, and be determined by their vox populi, to which side their title of faction belongs? And that the people are now left to the natural freedom of their understanding and choice, I believe their adversaries will hardly deny. They will now refuse this appeal, and it is reasonable they should; and I will farther add, that if our people resembled the old Grecians, there might be danger in such a trial. A pragmatical orator told a great man at Athens, that whenever the people were in their rage, they would certainly tear him to pieces; Yes, says the other, and they will do the same to you, whenever they are in their wits. But God be thanked, our populace is more merciful in their nature, and at present under better direction; and the orators among us have attempted to confound both prerogative and law in their sovereign's presence, and before the highest court of judicature, without any hazard to their per sons. No. XXXII. THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1710-11. Non est ea medicina, cum sane parti corporis scalpellum adhibetur, atque integra; carnificina est ista, et crudelitas. Hi medentur reipublicæ, qui exsecant pestem aliquam, tanquam strumam civitatis. To apply the knife to a sound and healthy part of the body, is butchery and cruelty; not real surgery. Those are the true physicians and surgeons of a state, who cut off the pests of society, like wens from the human body, I AM diverted from the general subject of my discourses, to reflect upon an event of a very extraordinary and surprising nature. A great minister, in high confidence with the queen, under * whose management the weight of affairs at present is in a great measure supposed to lie; sitting in council, in a royal palace, with a dozen of the chief officers of the state, is stabbed at the very board in the execution of his office, by the hand of a French papist, then under examination for high treason; the assassin redoubles his blow to make sure work; and concluding the chancellor t was dispatched, goes on with the same rage to murder a principal secretary of state; ‡ and that whole noble assembly are forced to rise and draw their swords in their own defence, as if a wild beast had been let loose among them. This fact has some circumstances of aggravation not to be paralleled by any of the like kind we meet with in history. Cæsar's murder being performed in the senate, comes nearest to the case; but that was an affair concerted by great numbers of the chief senators, who were likewise the actors in it; and not the work of a vile single ruffian. Harry the Third of France was stabbed by an enthusiastic friar, whom he suffered to approach his person, while those who attended him stood at some distance. His successor met * For an account of this attempted assassination, see the Journal, and "A true Narrative of what passed at the Examination of the Marquis de Guiscard," &c. It is enough here to remind the reader, that he was a refugee Frenchman, who had been received into the British service; but having wasted his resources, resolved to make peace with his own country, by betraying the secrets of England. His letters being intercepted, he was brought before the council for examination, when, in a fit of frenzy and despair, he stabbed Mr Harley. + Mr Harley, then chancellor of the exchequer, afterward Earl of Oxford. Mr Henry St John, afterward Lord Bolingbroke., the same fate in a coach, where neither he nor his nobles, in such a confinement, were able to defend themselves. In our own country we have, I think, but one instance of this sort, which has made any noise; I mean that of Felton about fourscore years ago; but he took the opportunity to stab the duke of Buckingham, in passing through a dark lobby from one room to another. The blow was neither seen nor heard, and the murderer might have escaped, if his own concern and horror, as it is usual in such cases, had not betrayed him. Besides, that act of Felton will admit of some extenuation, from the motives he is said to have had; but this attempt of Guiscard seems to have outdone them all in every heightening circumstance, except the difference of persons between a king and a great minister: for I give no allowance at all to the difference of success, (which, however, is yet uncertain and depending,) nor think it the least alleviation to the crime, whatever it may be to the punishment. I am sensible it is ill arguing from particulars to generals, and that we ought not to charge upon a nation the crimes of a few desperate villains it is so unfortunate to produce; yet at the same time it must be avowed, that the French have, for these last centuries, been somewhat too liberal of their daggers upon the persons of their greatest men; such as the Admiral de Coligny, the Dukes of Guise father and son, and the two kings I last mentioned. I have sometimes wondered how a people, whose genius seems wholly turned to singing and dancing, and prating, to vanity and impertinence; who lay so much weight upon modes and gestures; whose essentialities are generally so very superficial; who are usually so serious upon trifles, and so trifling upon what is serious, have been capable of committing such solid villa nies, more suitable to the gravity of a Spaniard, or the silence and thoughtfulness of an Italian: unless it be, that in a nation naturally so full of themselves, and of so restless imaginations, when any of them happen to be of a morose and gloomy constitution, that huddle of confused thoughts, for want of evaporating, usually terminates in rage or despair. D'Avila observes, that Jacques Clement* was a sort of buffoon, whom the rest of the friars used to make sport with; but at last giving his folly a serious turn, it ended in enthusiasm, and qualified him for that desperate act of murdering his king. But, in the Marquis de Guiscard, there seems to have been a complication of ingredients for such an attempt. He had committed several enormities in France, was extremely prodigal and vicious, of a dark melancholy complexion and cloudy countenance, such as in vulgar physiognomy is called an ill look. For the rest, his talents were very mean, having a sort of inferior cunning, but very small abilities; so that a great man of the late ministry, by whom he was invited over, and with much discretion raised at first step, from a profligate popish priest, to a lieutenant-general, and colonel of a regiment of horse, was at last forced to drop him for shame. Had such an accident happened under that ministry, and to so considerable a member of it, they would have immediately charged it upon the whole body of those they are pleased to call the faction. This would have been styled a high *The monk who assassinated Henry III. of France. |