SECTION XV.

The Manners of Tory Courtiers, and of those who ape them, as People of Fash ion, inconsistent with Manliness, Truth, and Honesty; and their prevalence injurious to a free constitution, and the Happiness of Human Nature.

AMONG a thousand anecdotes of the

frivolity of the governing part of a despotic country, I select the following,. merely as a slight specimen of the trifling disposition of those who, as they pretend, claim their elevated situations for the GOOD OF MANKIND.

Excogitatum eft aper his, ut hominus quidam ignoti, VILITATE IPSA parum cavendi, ad colligendos rumores per Antiochiæ laterd cunda deftinarenture, leraturi que audirent. Hi peragranter et disfimulanter honoratorum circulis affiftendo, pervadendoque divitum do mus egentium habitu, quicquid nofcere poterant vel audire, latenter intromiffe per POSTICAS in regiam, nuntiabant: id obfervantes confpiratione concordi, ut fingerent quædam, et cognita duplicarent in pejus: LAUDES VERO SUPPRIMERENT CESARIS, quos INVI TIS QUAMPLURIMIS, formido malorum impendentium exprimebat."

Another expedient was, to place at every corner of the city certain obfcure perfons, not likely to excite fufpicion or caution, be caufe of their apparent infignificancy, who were to repeat whatever, *they heard. These perfons, by flanding near gentlemen, or getting entrance into the houses of the rich, in the difguife of poverty, reported whatever they faw or heard, at court, being privately admitted into the • palace by the BACK STAIRS having concerted it between themselves to add a great deal, from their own invention, to whatever they really faw or heard, and to make the matter ten times worse. They agreed alfo to fupprefs the mention of thofe LOYAL SONGS OR TOASTS, OF Speeches, in favor of the emperor, which the dread of impending evil Squeezed out of many against their will and better judgment.

The decline of the Roman empire was distinguished by spies and informers: it is to be hoped that the ufe of fpies and informers does not portend the decline of the British empire.

In the summer of the year 1775, the queen of France, being dressed in a lightbrown silk, the king good-naturedly ob 'served, it was couleur de puce, the color of ' fleas; and instantly every lady in the land 'was uneasy till she had dressed herself in a silk gown of a flea color. The rage was caught by the men; and the dyers work'ed night and day, without being able to supply the demand for flea-color. They 'nicely distinguished between an old and a 'young flea, and subdivided even the shades of its body. The belly, the back, the thigh, the head, were all marked by varying tints. This prevailing color promised to be the fashion of the winter. The silk-mercers found it would hurt their trade. They 'therefore presented her majesty with pat'terns of new sattins; who having chosen one, MONSIEUR exclaimed, it was the color of her majesty's HAIR!

Immediately the fleas ceased to be favorites at court, and all were eager to be dressed in the color of her majesty's hair. Servants were sent off at the moment from Fontainbleu to Paris, to purchase velvets, 'ratteens, and cloths of this color. The current price of an ell in the morning had 'been forty livres, and it rose in the evening to eighty and ninety. The demand was so great, and the anxiety so eager, that some of her majesty's hair was actu

ally obtained by bribery, and sent to the 'Gobelins, to Lyons, and other manufacto'ries, that the exact shade might be caught and religiously preserved.'

Such was the little, mean, adulatory spirit of the court of France, and of the people who at that time imitated the court with more than apish mimicry. To shew how little there is of truth and honesty in such servility, be it remembered, that the nation so eager to catch the very color of the queen's hair, soon afterwards cut off the head on which it grew. Nothing silly, nothing overstrained, can be lasting, because it wants a solid foundation. Let kings be careful how they confide in court compliments and the addresses of corruption. Mastiffs guard their master and his house better than spaniels.

While such a spirit prevails among the great, it is impossible that the happiness of man can be duly regarded by those who claim a right to govern him. Where frivolity and meanness are general, it is impossible that the people can be wise or happy. Gaiety founded on levity or affectation, is not happiness. It laughs and talks, while the heart is either unmoved or dejected. Happiness is serious. The noise of folly is intended to dissipate thought; but no man would wish his thoughts to be dissipated, who finds any thing within him to think of with compla cency..

Princes have always something important to think of, which, it might be supposed, would preclude the necessity of trifling amusements to kill time. Yet courts have always been remarkable for frivolity. This frivolity is not only contemptible in itself, unworthy of rational beings, especially when executing a most momentous trust, but productive of meanness, weakness, and corrup tion. Long experience has associated with the idea of a courtier in despotic courts, duplicity, insincerity, violation of promises, adulation, all the base and mean qualities, rendered still baser and meaner, by assu ming, on public occasions, the varnish of hypocrisy.

Erasmus gives directions to a young man, in the manner of Swift, how to conduct himself at court. I believe they never have been presented to the English reader, and therefore I shall take the liberty of translating them, not only for the sake of affording amusement, but that it may be duly considered, whether or not persons who form their manners and principles after such models, are likely to be the friends of man, the assertors of the guardians of liberty: whether the slaves of fashion, who seem to separate themselves from others, as if they were a chosen tribe among the sons of men; as if they were made of such clay as forms the porcelain, while others are merely earth

en ware; whether, I say, the slaves of fashion, which always apes a court in all its extravagancies, are likely to consult the happiness of the majority of mankind, the middle, lowest, and most useful classes, whom they despise, as an inferior species of beings; as the whites in the West Indies formerly looked down upon the negroes with disdain,

"As you are now going to live at court,” says Erasmus, "I advise you, in the first place, never to repose the smallest degree of confidence in any man there who professes himself your friend, though he may smile upon you, and embrace you, and promise you; aye, and confirm his promise with an oath. Believe no man there a sincere friend to you; and do you take care to be a sincere friend to no man....Nevertheless, you must pretend to love all you see, and shew the utmost suavity of manners and attentions to every individual. These attentions cost you not a farthing; therefore you may be as lavish of them as you please. Pay your salutations with the softest smiles on your countenance, shake hands with the appearance of most ardent cordiality, bow and give way to all, stand cap in hand, address every body by their titles of honor, praise without bounds, and promise most liberally.

"I would have you every morning, before you go to the levee, practise in making up your face for the day at your looking-glass