The Works of George, Lord Lyttelton, ... now first collected together: with some other pieces never before printed. Published by G. E. Ayscough. (Additions to Lord Lyttelton's works, being two essays from Common Sense, and other poems.)

Preface

T O T H E FOURTH EDITION. JU C I A N among the ancients, and among the _j moderns Fenelon, archbissiop of Cambray, and onsieur Fontenelle, have written Dialogues of the Dead with a general applause. The plan they have traced out is so extensive, that the matter which lies within the compass of it can scarce be exhausted. It sets before us the history of all times and all nations, presents to the choice of a writer all characters of remarkable persons, which may best be opposed to, or compared with, each other ; and is, perhaps, one of the most agreeable methods, that can be employed of conveying to the mind any critical, moral, or political observations ; because the Dramatic spirit, which may be thrown into them, gives them more life, than they could have in dissertations, however well written.

And sometimes a new dress may ren der an old truth more pleasing to those whom the mere love of novelty betrays into error, as it very frequently does not only the wits, but the sages of these days. Indeed one of the best services, that could now be done to mankind by any good writer, would be the bringing them back to common fense, from which the desire of ssiining by extraordinary no tions has seduced great numbers, to the no small de triment of morality, and of all real knowledge. It may be proper to observe, that in all works of this nature, the dead are often supposed, by a necessary

PREFACE.

TO THE sary fiction, to be thoroughly informed of many par ticulars, which happened in times posterior to their own ; and in all parts of the world, as well as in the countries to which they belonged. Thus, in Fene lon's dialogue between Gelon and Dion, the former finds fault with the conduct of the latter ; and in an other between Solon and the emperor Justinian, the Athenian censures the government of the Roman Legiflator, and talks of the History °f Procopius, as if he had read it. I have also taken the liberty that others have used, to date the several dialogues, as best suited with the purposes to which they were written, supposing some of them to have past imme diately after the decease of one or more of the speak ers, and others at a very great distance of time from that in whiph they lived.

But I have not in this edition made any alteration in the dates of the former, Elysium, Minos, Mercury, Charon, and Styx, ber ing necessary allegories in this way of writing, are oc casionally used here, as they have been by Fontenelle and the archbissiop of Cambray : which (if it offend-? ed any critical or pious ears) I would justify by the declaration gravely annexed to the works of all Itali an writers, wherein they use such expressions : " Se " havessi nominato Fato, For tuna, Destino, Elysio, Stige, " &c. sono schorzi di penna poetica, non sentiment! di " ammo Catolico*." Three of these dialogues were written by a different hand ; as I am afraid would have appeared but too plainly to the reader, without my having told it: If the friend who favoured me with them ssiould ever write any more, I ssiall think that the public owes me a great obligation, for having excited a genius so capable of uniting delight with instruction, and giving to virtue and knowledge those graces, which the wit of * If I have named Fate, Fortune, Destiny, Elysium, Styx, &c. they are only the sports of a poetical pen, not the sentiments of a Catholic mind.

FOURTH EDITION 363 of the age has too often, and too successfully, em ployed all its skill to bestow on vice and folly. Besides many corrections which the reader will find in this edition, four new dialogues, are added, in or der to complete one chief design of*the work, I mean the illustrating of certain principles and certain characters of importance, by bringing in persons who have acted upon different systems, to defend their own conduct, or to explain their own notions, by free discourse with each other, and in a manner conformable to the turn of their minds, as they have been represented to us by the best authors. The feeing this done in the compass of a small vo lume, may possibly induce our young gentry (for whose service it is more particularly intended) to me ditate on the subjects treated of in this work: and, if they make a proper use of the lights given to them? the public, I hope, will derive some benefit from the book, when the writer is no more.

DIA- [ 364 3 DIALOGUES O F T H E D E A D. DIALOGUE I. Lord Falkland. — Mr. Hampden. L. Folk. ARE not you surprized to see me in £\ Elysium, Mr. Hampden ? Mr. Hampd. I was going to put the fame question to your lordssiip; for doubtless, you thought me a rebel. L. Falkl. And certainly you thought me an apos tate from the commonwealth, and a supporter of tyranny. Mr. Hampd. I own I did, and I don't wonder at the severity of your thoughts about me. The heat of the times deprived us both of our natural candour. Yet I will confess to you here, that, before I died, I began to fee in our party enough to justify your apprehensions, that the civil war, which we had entered into from generous motives, from a laudable desire to preserve our free constitution, would end very un happily, and perhaps, in the issue, destroy that con stitution, even by the arms of those who pretended to be most zealous for it.

L. Falkl. And I will as frankly own to you, * that I saw * See the Letters, in the Sidney Collection, from the earl of Sunderland to his lady. I; 365 I saw, in the court and camp of the king, so much to alarm me for the liberty of my country, if our arms were successful, that I dreaded a victory little less than I did a defeat, and had nothing in my mouth but the word peace, which I constantly repeated with passionate fondness, in every council at which I was called to assist. Mr. Hampd. I wissied for peace too, as ardently as your lordssiip. But I saw no hopes of it. The in sincerity of the king and the influence of the queen made it impossible to trust to his promises or declara tions. Nay, what reliance could we reasonably have upon laws designed to limit and restrain the power of the crown, after he had violated the bill of rights, obtained with such difficulty, and containing so clear an assertion of the privileges, which had been in dispute?

If his conscience would allow him to break an act of parliament made to determine the bounds of the royal pre rogative, because he thought that the royal prerogative could have no bounds, what legal ties could bind a con science so prejudiced ? or what effectual security could his people obtain against the obstinate malignity of such an opinion, but entirely taking from him the power of the sword, and enabling themselves to defend the laws he had past ? L. Falkl. There is evidently too much truth in what you have said. But, by taking from the king the power of the sword, you in reality took all power. It was converting the government into a democracy-, and if he had submitted to it, he would only have preserved the name of a king. The sceptre would have been held by those who had the sword; or we must have lived in a state of perpetual anarchy, with out any force, or balance in the government : a state which could not have lasted long, but would have ended in a republic or in absolute dominion.

Mr. Hampd. Your reasoning seems unanswerable. But what could we do? Let Dr. Laud and those other court-divines, who directed the king's conscience, and S of t-he D E A D. and fixed in it such principles, as made him unfit to govern a limited monarchy, though with many good qualities, and some great ones; let them, I. fay, an swer for all the mischiefs they brought upon him and the nation. L. Falkl. They were indeed much to blame : but those principles had gained ground before their times, and seemed the principles of our church, in oppositi on to the Jesuits, who had certainly gone too far in the other extream. Mr. Hampd. It is a disgrace to our church to have taken up such opinions ; and I will venture to pn> phefy, that our clergy, in future times, must re nounce them, or they will be turned against them by those who mean their destruction.

Suppose a Po pissi king on the throne. Will the clergy adhere to passive obedience and non-resistance ? If they do, they deliver up their religion to Rome; if they do not, their practice will confute their own doctrines. L. Falkl. Nature, Sir, wilt in the end be sure to set right whatever opinion contradicts her great laws, let who will be the teacher. But, indeed, the more I reflect on those miserable times in which we both lived, the more I esteem it a favour of Providence to us that we were cut off so soon. The most grievous misfortune that can befall a virtuous man, is to be insuch a state, that he can hardly so act as to approve his own conduct. We could not easily make a step, either for ward or backward, without great hazard of guilt, or at least of dissionour. We were unhappily entangled in connections with men who did not mean so well as ourselves, or did notjudge so rightly.

If we endea voured to stop them, they thought us false to the cause : if we went on with them, we ran directly up* on rocks, which we saw, but could not avoid. Nor could we take ssielter in a philosophical retreat from business. Inadtion would have been in us cowardice and desertion. To compleat the public calamities, a religious fury, on both sides, mingled itself with the rage DIALOGUE I. 367 rage of our civil dissentions, more frantic than that, more implacable, more averse to all healing measures. The most intemperate counsels were thought the most pious; and a regard to the laws, if they opposed the suggestions of these fiery zealots, was accounted irreligion. This added new difficulties to what was before but too difficult in itself, the settling of a nation which no longer could put any confidence in its sovereign, nor lay more restraints on the royal authority without destroying the balance of the whole constitution.

In these circumstances, the balls, that pierced our hearts, were directed thither by the hands of our guardian angels, to deliver us from horrors we could not support, and perhaps from a guilt our souls abhorred. Mr. Hampd. Indeed things were brought to so de plorable a state, that, if either of us had seen his par ty triumphant, he must have lamented that triumph as the ruin of his country. Were I to return into life, the experience I have had would make me very cautious, how I kindled the sparks of civil war in Eng land : for I have seen, that, when once that devouring fire is lighted, it is not in the power of the head of a party to fay to the conflagration, Thus far shalt thou go, and here stall thy violence stop. L. Falkl. The conversation we have had, as well as the reflexions of my own mind on past events, would, if 1 were condemned to my body again, teach me great moderation in my judgments of persons, who might happen to differ from me in difficult scenes of public action: they would entirely cure me of the spirit of party, and make me think, that, as in the church, so also in the state, no evil is more to be feared than a rancorous and enthusiastical zeal.

DI A- D I AL OG U ES of the DEAD. 368 DIALOGUE. II. Louis le Grand. — Peter the Great. Louis. "\X/HO, Sir, could have thought, when \\ you were learning the trade of a ssiip wright in the dock-yards of England and Holland, that you would ever acquire, as I had done, the sur name of Great ? Peter. Which of us best deserved that title, posterity will decide. But my greatness appeared suffi ciently in that very act which seemed to you a de basement. Louis. The dignity of a king does not stoop to iuch mean employments. For my own part, I was careful never to appear to the eyes of my subjects or foreigners, but in all the splendor and majesty of roy al power. Peter. Had I remained on the throne of Russia, as my ancestors did, environed with all the pomp of barbarous greatness, I ssiould have been idolized by my people, as much, at least, as you ever were by the French.

My despotism was more absolute, their servitude was more humble. But then I could not have reformed their evil customs ; have taught them arts, civility, navigation, and war; have exalted them from brutes in human ssiapes into men. In this was seen the extraordinary force of genius be yond any comparison with all other kings, that I thought it no degradation, or diminution of my great ness, to descend from my throne, and go and work in the dock-yards of a foreign republic ; to serve as a private sailor in my own fleets, and as a common soldier in my own army; till I had raised myself by my merit in all the several steps and degrees of pro motion, up to the highest command, and had thus induced my nobility to submit to a regular subordina tion in the sea and land-service, by a lesson hard to their DIALOGUE II. 369 their pride, and Which they would not have learnt from any other master, or by any other method of instruction.

Louts. I am forced to acknowledge, that it was a great act. When I thought ita mean one, my judg ment was perverted by the prejudices arising from my own education, and the ridicule thrown upon it by some of my courtiers, whose minds were too narrow to be able to comprehend the greatness of your's in that situation: Peter. It was an act of more heroism than any ever done by Alexander or Cæsar. Nor would I consent to exchange my glory with their's. They both did great things; but they were at the head of great nations, far superior in valour and military ssiill to those with whom they contended. I was the king of an ignorant, undisciplined, barbarous people. My enemies were at first so superior to my subjects, that ten thousand of them could beat a hundred thousand Russians. They had formidable navies : I had not a ssiip.

The king of Sweden was a prince of the most intrepid courage, assisted by generals of consummate knowledge in war, and served by soldiers so dif eiplinedj that they were become the admiration and terror of Europe. Yet I vanquissied these soldiers ; I drove that prince to take refuge in Turkey ; I won battles at sea, as well as land ; I new-created my peo ple; I gave them arts, science, policy ; I enabled them to keep all the powers of the North in awe and de pendence, to give kings to Poland, to check and in timidate the Ottoman emperors, to mix with great weight in the affairs of all Europe. What, other man has ever done such wonders as these ? Read all the records of antient and modern times, and find, if you can, Onefit to be put in comprrison with me! Louis. Your glory would indeed have been supreme and unequalled, if, in civilizing your subjects, you had reformed the brutality of your own manners, and the barbarous vices of your nature.

But, alas ! the B b' legislator DIALOGUE Sof the DEAD. legislator and reformer of the Muscovites was drunk en and cruel. ■■ , Peter. My drunkenness I confess : nor will I plead, to excuse it, the example of Alexander. It inflamed the tempers of both, which were by nature too fiery, into furious passions of anger, and produced actions, of which our reason, when sober, was assiamed. But the cruelty you upbraid me with may in some degree be excused, as necessary to the work I had to per form. Fear of punissiment was in the hearts of my barbaroussubjects the only principle of obedience. To make them respect the royal authority,, I was obliged to arm it with all the terrors of rage. You dad a more pliant people to govern, a people whose minds could be ruled like a fine managed horse, with an easy and gentle rein.

The fear of ssiame did more with them tha>n the fear of the knout could do with the Russians. The humanity of your character and the ferocity of mine were equally suitable to the nations over which we reigned. But what excuse can you find for the cruel violence you employed against your Protestant subjects ? They desired nothing but to live under the protection of laws you yourself had con firmed; and they repaid that protection by the most hearty zeal for your service. Yet these did you force, by the most inhuman severities, either to quit the religion in which they were bred, and which their consciences still retained, or to leave their native land, and endure all the woes of a perpetual exile. If the rules of policy could not hinder you from thus depo pulating your kingdom, and transferring to foreign countries its manufactures and commerce, I am sur prised that your heart itself did not stop you.

It makes one shudder to think, that such orders ssiould be sent siom the most polissied court in Europe, as *the most savage Tartars could hardly have executed without remorse and compassion. Louis. It was not my heart, but my religion, that dictated these severities. My confessor told me, they alone would atone for all my sins. Peter. DIALOGUE III. 371 Peter. Had I believed in my patriarch, as you be lieved in your priest, I ssiould not have been the great monarch that I was. — But I mean not to de tract from the merit of a prince whose memory is dear to his subjects. They are proud of having obey ed you, which is certainly the highest praise to a king. My people also date their glory from the aara of my reign. But there is this capital distinction "between us. The pomp and pageantry of state were necessary to your greatness : I was great in myself, great in the energy and powers of my mind, great in the su periority and sovereignty of my soul over all other men.

DIALOGUE III. Plato. — Fenelon. Plato. TTfELCOME to Elysium, O thou, the VV ra°ft Pure» the most gentle, the most refined disciple of philosophy that the world, in mo dern times, has produced ! Sage Fenelon, welcome ! — I need not name myself to you. Our souls by sympathy must know one another. Fen. I know you to be Plato the most amiable of all the disciples of Socrates, and the philosopher of all antiquity whom I most desired to resemble. Plato. Homer and Orpheus are impatient to see you in that region of these happy fields, which their ssiades inhabit. They both acknowledge you to be a great poet, though you have written no verses. And they are now busy in composing for you unfading wreaths of all the finest and sweetest Elysian flowers. But I will lead you from them to the sacred grove of philosophy, on the highest hill of Elysium, where the air is most pure and most serene.

I will conduct you to the foun.ain of wisdom, in which you will see, as in your own writings, the fair image B b 2 of 3?2 D I A L 0 G U E S of the D E A D. of Virtue perpetually reflected. It will raise in you more love than was felt by Narcissus, when he con templated the beauty of his own face in the unruffled spring. But you ssiall not pine, as he did, for a ssiadow. The goddess herself will affectionately meet your em braces and mingle with your soul. Fen. Mnd you retain the allegorical and poetical style, of which you were so fond in many of your writings. Mine also ran sometimes into poetry, par ticularly in my Telemachus, which I meant to make a kind of epic composition. But I dare not rank my self among the great poets, nor pretend to any equality in oratory with you, the most eloquent of philosophers, on whose lips the Attic bees distilled all their honey.

Plato. The French language is not so harmonious as the Greek : yet you have given a sweetness to it, which equally charms the ear and heart. When one reads your compositions, one thinks that one hears Apollo's lyre, strung by the hands of the Graces, and tuned by the muses. The idea of a perfect king, which you have exhibited in your Telemachus, far excels, in my own judgment, my imaginary republic. Your Dialogues breathe the pure spirit of virtue, of unaffected good sense, of just criticism, of fine taste. They are in general as superior to your countryman Fontenelle's, as reason is to false wit, or truth to affectation. The greatest fault of them, I think, is that some are too ssiort. Fen. It has been objected to them, and I am sensi ble of it myself, that most of them are too full of common-place morals.

But I wrote them for the in struction of a young prince : and one cannot too forci bly imprint on the minds of those who are botn to empire the most simple truths: because, as they grow up the flattery of a court will try to disguise and con ceal from them those truths, and to eradicate from their hearts the love of their duty, if it has not taken there a very deep root. Plato. DIALOGUE III. 373 Plato. It is indeed the peculiar misfortune of princes, that they are often instructed with great care in the refinements of policy, and not taught the first principles of moral obligations, or taught so superficially, that the virtuous man is soon lost in tlie corrupt politician. But the lessons of virtue you gave your royal pupil are so graced by the charms of your eloquence, that the oldest and wisest men may attend to them with pleasure.

All your writings are embellissied with a sublime and agreeable imagination, which gives elegance to simplicity, and dignity to the most vulgar and obvious truths. I have heard, indeed, that your countrymen are sese sensible of the beauty of your genius and styse than any of their neighbours. What hath so much depraved their taste ? Fen. That which depraved the taste of the Romans after the age of Augustus ; an immoderate love of wit, of paradox, of refinement. The works of their writers, like the faces of their women, must be painted and adorned with artificial embellissiments to attract their regards. And thus the natural beauty of both is lost. But it is no wonder if few of them esteem my Telemachus ; as the maxims I have principally inculcated there are thought by many inconsistent with the grandeur of their monarchy, and with the splendor of a refined and opulent nation.

They seem generally to be falling into opinions, that the chief end of society is to procure the pleasures of luxury ; that a nice and elegant taste of voluptuous enjoyments is the perfection of merit ; and that a king, who is gallant, magnificent, liberal, who builds a fine palace, who furnissies it well with good statues and pictures, who encourages the fine arts, and makes them subservient to every modissi vice, who has a restless ambition, a perfidious policy, and a spirit of conquest, is better for them than a Numa, or a Marcus Aurelius. Whereas to check the excesses of luxury, those excesses I mean which enfeeble the spirit of a nation ; to ease the people, as much as is possible, D I A L O G U E S of the D E A D. possible, of the burthen of taxes-, to give them the blessings of peace and tranquillity, when they can be obtained without injury or dissionour; to make them frugal, and hardy, and masculine in the temper of their bodies and minds, that they may be the fitter for war whenever it does come upon them ; but a bove all to watch diligently over their morals, and discourage whatever may defile or corrupt them, is the great business of government, and ought to be in all circumstances the principal object of a wise legislature.

Unquestionably that is the happiest country which has most virtue in it : and to the eye of so ber reason the poorest Swiss canton is a much nobler state than the kingdom of France, if it has more liberty, better morals, a more settled tranquillity, more moderation in prosperity, and more firmness in danger. Plato. Your notions are just; and if your country rejects them, ssie will not long hold the rank of the first nation in Europe. Her declension is begun, her ruin approaches. For, omitting all other arguments, can a state be well served, when the raising of an opulent fortune in its service, and making a splendid use of that fortune, is a distinction more envied than any which arises from integrity in office, or public spirit in government? can that spirit, which is the parent of national greatness, continue vigorous and diffusive, where the desire of wealth, for the sake of a luxury which wealth alone can support, and an am bition aspiring, not to glory, but to profit, are the predominant passions?

If it exists in a king, or a mi nister of state, how will either of them find, among a people so disposed, the necessary instruments to ex ecute his great designs ; or rather, what obstruction will he not find from the continual opposition of pri vate interest to public? But if, on the contrary, a court inclines to tyranny, what a facility will be given by these dispositions to that evil purpose! how will men, with minds relaxed by the enervating ease and softness DIALOGUE III. 375 softness of luxury, have vigour to oppose it ! will not most of them lean to servitude, as their natural state, as that in which the extravagant and insatiable cravings of their artificial wants may best be gratified at the charge of a bountiful master, or by the spoils of an enslaved and ruined people? when all sense of public virtue is thus destroyed, will not fraud, corruption, and avarice, or the opposite workings of court-factions to bring disgrace on each other, ruin armies and fleets without the help of an enemy, and give up the independence of the nation to foreigners, after having betrayed its liberties to a king ?

All these mischiefs you saw attendant on that luxury, which some modern philosophers account (as I am imformed) the highest good to a state. Time will (hew that their doctrines are pernicious to society, pernicions to government; and that your's, tempered and moderated, so as to render them more practicable in the present circumstances of your country, are wise, salutary, and deserving of the general thanks of mankind. But, lest you ssiould think, from the praise I have given you, that flattery can find a place in Elysium, allow me to lament, with the tender sorrow ot a friend, that a man so superior to all other follies could give into the reveries of a madame Guyon, a distracted enthusiast, How strange was it to see the two great lights of France, you and the bissiop of Meaux, engaged in a controversy, whether a madwoman was a heretic or a faint !

Fen. I confess my own weaknels, and the ridiculousness of the dispute. But did not your warm imagination carry you also into some reveries about divine love, in which you talked unintelligibly, even to yourself ? Plato. I felt something more than I was able to express. Fen. I had my feelings too, as fine and as lively as your's. But we ssiould both have done better to have avoided DI ALO G UE S of the DE AD. avoided those subjects, in which sentiment took the place of reason. DIALOGUE IV. Mr. Addison. — Dr. Swift. Swift. O U RELY, Addison, Fortune wasexceed- 1^ ingly inclined to play the fool (a humour her ladyssiip, as well as most other ladies of very great quality, is frequently in) when ssie made you a minister of state, and me a divine ! Addis. I must confess we were both of us out of our elements.

But you don't mean to insinuate, that all would have been right, if our destinies had been reversed ? Swift. Yes, I do. — You would have made an ex cellent bissiop; and I ssiould have governed Great Britain, as I did Ireland, with an absolute sway, while I talked of nothing but liberty, property, and so forth. Addis. You governed the mob of Ireland; but I never understood that you governed the kingdom. A nation and a mob are very different things. Swift. Ay ; so you fellows that have no genius for politics may suppose. But there are times when, by seasonably putting himself at the head of the mob, an able man may get to the head of the nation. Nay, there are times, when the nation itself is a mob, and ought to be treated as such by a skilful observer. Addis. I don't deny the truth of your proposition.