YOUTH OF ENGLAND. TIS IS a remark of Hobbes, that the youth of England are corrupted in their principles of government, by reading the authors of Greece and Rome, who writ under commonwealths. But it might have been more fairly offered for the honour of liberty, that while the reft of the known world was overrun with the arbitrary government of fingle perfons, arts and sciences took their rife, and flourished only in in thofe few small territories where the people were free. And though learning may continue after liberty is loft, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of fome emperors, yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation. Becaufe flavery is of all things the greatest clog and obstacle to fpeculation. And, indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural ftep from anarchy or the favage life; the adjusting power and freedom being an effect and confequence of maturer thinking: and this is no where else fo duly regulated as in a limited monarchy: because I believe it may pafs pass for a maxim in state, that the Administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the Legislature in too many. Now in this material point, the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others at this time on the earth, to which the prefent establishment of the church doth so happily agree, that whoever is an enemy to either, muft of neceffity be fo to both. MODESTY. MODESTY. MODESTY, if it were to be recommended for nothing elfe, this were enough, that the pretending to little, leaves a man at ease, whereas boafting requires a perpetual labour to appear what he is not if we have fenfe, modefty best proves it to others; if we have none, it beft hides our want of it. For as blufhing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool feem a man of fenfe. |