May your improvements and personal merit be so great, and so well imitated by your compeers, that the hand of reform, when it comes to the peerage, may stop the uplifted axe, and spare to cut down a branch which it finds not only ornamental, but beneficial to the land by its fruits and its shade !* I am, &c. LETTER LIV. MY LORD, WHATEVER revolutions on the face of this little globe may be effected by the wonderful dispensations of providence, you will never repent that you have devoted your youth to the improvement of your mind, and the formation of a character that will appear great, like the columns of some ancient city in ruins, amid the wreck of empire. The British constitution at present stands firm on the hearts of the people; but even if it should unfortunately be shaken, personal merit cannot lose its honours, and must be called forth by the exigencies of the times to honourable action and distinction. But even in the shade of retirement, if adversity should drive you to its shelter, the knowledge you will have accumulated, and the dignity of mind you will have acquired, must render your retreat illustrious. These will furnish you with a pleasure, of which no political revolution can deprive you, in solitude and in old age. Short is the time allotted us in this life; shorter * Omnes boni semper nobilitati favemus, et quia reipublicæ utile est nobiles esse homines dignos majoribus suis, et quia valere debet apud nos senes, clarorum hominum de republicâ meritorum memoria, etiam mortuorum. CIC. pro Sestio. still the period of our activity. May we be wiser than to add misery to the short duration of our existence, by cruel tumults, by discord, by hatred, and by shedding the blood of our poor fellow-creatures, for rights, some of which are imaginary, but which, if real and possessed, would add but little to the solid comforts of each individual! Join with me in the wish, my Lord, that we may duly preserve the national happiness we enjoy; that our reforms may be temperate, the result of the maturest deliberation; and that the pen and the tongue may supersede the necessity of the sword among creatures pretending to reason. Peace be within our walls, and plenteousness within our palaces, and our cottages also. May science, arts, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and religion, employ our minds during our short pilgrimage, and preserve us from attempts at unnecessary changes, which, whatever influence they may have on posterity, are sure to destroy the peace and comfort of the present generation! May the great never oppress the middle and lowest ranks, and may the middle and lowest ranks never oppose the great through envy! I adjure you, my Lord, by the honour of your ancestry, and your own, to stand forth yourself, with your compeers by your side, in defence of the constitution. But think not that to retain all its abuses and corruptions, is to defend it. Recal it to its first principles; and where it has grown sickly or infirm by age, let it be restored to rejuvenescence. Let it be put into Medea's caldron; but destroy it not; because the testimony of time and experience has pronounced that it is favourable to the happiness and improvement of human nature. Science, arts, commerce, liberty, have flourished under it in a degree envied by all Europe. Why may they not continue to flourish unhurt; especially when new health and vigour shall be infused into it by the political physicians in consultation? The horrid barbarism of civil war must banish every thing grateful and pleasant from the land. Rational creatures must improve society by reason. A sword is a disgrace to human nature. If we must decide our contests by brute-force, let us pull down our houses, disperse our cities, take up our abode in the woods, and feed upon acorns. In countries pretending to civilisation there should be no war, much less intestine war, which may be justly called political suicide. They are Goths and Vandals in mind, however splendid their appearance, who delight in war. You, my Lord, have softened your disposition by the study of the fine arts, and must view with disapprobation, as well as pity, thousands and tens of thousands of poor short-lived mortals drawn up on a plain, ready to cut each other's throats for hire, at the command of a mortal as wretched as themselves, but clothed in a little brief authority. Plough-shares and pruning-hooks, axes and hammers-these are the arms of a happy, enlightened, and Christian people. Use the influence which your birth and rank give you; exert the abilities with which God and your education have furnished you, in deriving on yourself the blessing pronounced on the peace-makers. I am, &c. LETTER LV. MY LORD, I HAVE said nothing of your proficiency in the modern languages. It appeared to me unnecessary, because modern education dwells sufficiently on modern lan guages; and I know you were initiated in French and Italian at an early period of your life; and that they had almost engrossed your attention. I wished to impress the necessity of an acquaintance with the ancient languages and ancient authors. This was one main scope of my advice. I am confident that a real dignity of character, and the most commanding eloquence, are to be derived from the study and imitation of the ancients. Lord Chatham formed himself on the ancients; and has the House of Peers, in modern times, exhibited one character so truly great as Lord Chatham? He stood there a colossal figure. Men of great natural sense, of great and acquired accomplishments, and of wonderful habits of business looked up to him in silent reverence, as they would survey a meteor. The truth is, he lived in his youth among the ancient Greeks and Romans. He caught their spirit, adopted their manners, and modernized their eloquence. An old Roman grafted on a modern Englishman, produced the golden fruit of true patriotism, real, personal greatness, and nobility unindebted to a genealogical table. On these ancients I wish you, my Lord, to form yourself as on a model. Let no one persuade you that the change of times and manners will not allow such characters. What was once truly great and beautiful, will always continue so, because truth is immutable. The very rarity of such characters in modern times will add weight to their value, and brilliancy to their lustre. The spirit of ridicule which has remarkably prevailed in latter ages, has indeed impeded the growth of truly great political characters; but against its baneful effects I have already given you a caution. You need not profess before the wag, Lord ****, that you are imitating an old Roman; you may keep the secret in your own bosom inviolate; but at the same time continue the imitation. In life, and in the arts, there is no method of study more successful than that of working after a model; and as the statuary copies the ancient model, so let the statesman and the orator. Ask yourself whether such a sentiment, or speech, or action, would have become some of the patriot and heroic characters delineated in the pages of a Livy. If it would be too mean for a Scipio, discard it at once as unfit for a British nobleman. The dignity and spirit which such an emulation will inspire, will render you superior, as a Man, (the noblest distinction,) not only to those over whom you are elevated by inheritance, but to those of your compeers who are unacquainted with all models of the human character but such as are exhibited in modern history, in the three or four last centuries, when both war and civil government have been conducted by little arts, more congenial to little minds than the generous spirit of ancient republicanism. I am, &c. LETTER LVI. MY LORD, THERE is a syren, whose enchanting voice may render all that I have said of no avail. Sloth is her name. Shut your ears against her song, and fly from her as from a pestilence. It is the great misfortune of rank and abundance, that it wants spurs to activity. It knows not those powerful incentives to exertion which arise from necessity struggling for abundance, or from obscurity emerging into light. |