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It is at least proper, that, at this pressing exigence, those that oppose the bills by which supplies are to be raised, should, by offering other expedients, show that their opposition proceeds not from any private malevolence to the ministry, or any prepossession against the publick measures, but from a steady adherence to just principles, and an impartial regard for the publick good; for it may be suspected, that he who only busies himself in pulling down, without any attempts to repair the breaches that he has made, with more fit or durable materials, has no real design of strengthening the fortification.
The people, my lords, however they are misrepresented by those who, from a long practice of treating them with disregard, have learned to think and speak of them with contempt, are far from being easily deceived, and yet farther from being easily deceived into an opinion of their own unhappiness: we have some instances of general satisfaction, and an unshaken affection to the government, in times when the publick good has not been very diligently consulted, but scarcely any of perpetual murmurs and universal discontent, where there have been plain evidences of oppression, negligence, or treachery.
Since, therefore, my lords, all opposition to this predominant inclination has appeared without effect, since the government evidently wants power to conquer the united and incessant struggles for the liberty of drunkenness, what remains but that this vice should produce some advantage to the publick, in return for the innumerable evils which arise from it, and that the government should snatch the first opportunity of taxing that vice which cannot be reformed?
The tropes of poetry will make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical will become the current sense: pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance, and the pen must at length comply with the tongue; illiterate writers will at one time or other, by publick infatuation, rise into renown, who, not knowing the original import of words, will use them with colloquial licentiousness, confound distinction, and forget propriety.
The violent and supernatural agitations of all the elements, which, for a series of years, have prevailed in those European settlements, where the unfortunate Africans are retained in a state of slavery, and which have brought unspeakable calamities on the inhabitants, and publick losses on the states to which they severally belong, are so many awful visitations of God for this inhuman violation of his laws.
If it be necessary, my lords, to impose upon the publick, let us at least endeavour to do it less grossly; let us not attempt to persuade them that those forces have gained victories who have never seen an enemy, or that we are benefited by the transportation of our money into another country.
He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'This man now has been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it; meaning as a companion . He said to me, 'I never heard any thing from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, Sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation, that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a publick assembly is a knack.
There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university, therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain Greek authors in his own college.
At his settlement in the university, he determined to exert his privileges as master of arts, and to read publick lectures to the students; a design from which his father could not dissuade him, though he did not approve it; so certainly do honours or preferments, too soon conferred, infatuate the greatest capacities.
The Business of this Society is to censure the Actions of Men, not of Parties, and in particular, those Actions which are made publick so by their Authors, as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general Approbation.
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