in his abfence. But to make ufe of the allufion of a celebrated* FRENCH author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the moft ordinary machine is fufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate and artificial alone can point out the minutes and feconds, and diftinguifh the fmalleft differences of time. One that has well digested his knowlege both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few felect companions. He feels too fenfibly, how much all the rest of mankind fall fhort of the notions which he has entertained. And, his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general and undistinguished. The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship: And the ardours of a youthful appetite become an elegant paffion.

*Monf. FONTENELLE, Pluralité des Mondes. Soir 6.

(9)

ESSAY II.

Of the LIBERTY of the PRESS.

NOTHING is more apt to furprize a foreigner,

than the extreme liberty, which we enjoy in this country, of communicating whatever we please to the public, and of openly cenfuring every measure, entered into by the king or his minifters. If the administration resolve upon war, it is affirmed, that either wilfully or ignorantly they mistake the intereft of the nation, and that peace, in the prefent fituation of affairs, is infinitely preferable. If the paffion of the minifters lie towards peace, our political writers breathe nothing but war and devastation, and represent the pacific conduct of the government as mean and pufillanimous. As this

liberty is not indulged in any other government, either republican or monarchical; in HOLLAND and VENICE, no more than in FRANCE or SPAIN; it may very naturally give occafion to these two questions, How it happens that GREAT BRITAIN enjoys fuch a peculiar privilege? and Whether the unlimited exercife of this liberty be advantageous or prejudicial to the public?

As to the first question, Why the laws indulge us in fuch an extraordinary liberty? I believe the reason may be derived from our mixed form of government, which is neither wholly monarchical, nor wholly republican. It will be found, if I mistake not, a true obfervation in politics, that the two extremes in government, liberty

and

and flavery, commonly approach nearest to each other; and that as you depart from the extremes, and mix a little of monarchy with liberty, the government becomes always the more free; and on the other hand, when you mix a little of liberty with monarchy, the yoke becomes always the more grievous and intolerable. I fhall endeavour to explain myfelf. In a government, fuch as that of FRANCE, which is entirely abfolute, and where laws, custom, and religion concur, all of them, to make the people fully fatisfied with their condition, the monarch cannot entertain the least jealousy against his subjects, and therefore is apt to indulge them in great liberties both of fpeech and action. In a government altogether republican, fuch as that of HOLLAND, where there is no magiftrate fo eminent as to give jealousy to the ftate, there is no danger in intrufting the magiftrates with very large difcretionary powers; and though many advantages refult from fuch powers, in the preserving peace and order, yet they lay a confiderable restraint on men's actions, and make every private fubject pay a great refpect to the government. Thus it feems evident, that the two extremes of abfolute monarchy and of a republic, approach very near to each other in some material circumftances. In the first, the magiftrate has no jealousy of the people: In the second, the people have no jealoufy of the magiftrate: Which want of jealoufy begets a mutual confidence and truft in both cafes, and produces a fpecies of liberty in monarchies, and of arbitrary power in republics.

To juftify the other part of the foregoing obfervation, that in every government the means are most wide of each other, and that the mixtures of monarchy and liberty render the yoke either more easy or more grievous ; I muft take notice of a remark of TACITUS with regard to the ROMANS under the emperors, that they nei

ther could bear total flavery nor total liberty, Nec totam fervitutem, nec totam libertatem pati poffunt. This remark a celebrated poet has tranflated and applied to the ENGLISH, in his lively defcription of queen ELIZABETH'S policy and government.

Et fit aimer fon joug a l'Anglois indompté,
Qui ne peut ni fervir, ni vivre en liberté.

HENRIADE, Liv. 1.

According to these remarks, we are to confider the ROMAN government under the emperors as a mixture of defpotism and liberty, where the defpotifm prevailed; and the ENGLISH government as a mixture of the fame kind, but where the liberty predominates. The confequences are exactly conformable to the foregoing obfervation; and fuch as may be expected from thofe mixed · forms of government, which beget a mutual watchfulnefs and jealoufy. The ROMAN emperors were, many of them, the moft frightful tyrants that ever difgraced human nature; and it is evident that their cruelty was chiefly excited by their jealousy, and by their obferving that all the great men of ROME bore with impatience the dominion of a family, which, but a little before, was no wife superior to their own. On the other hand, as the republican part of the government prevails in ENGLAND, though with a great mixture of monarchy, 'tis obliged, for its own prefervation, to maintain a watchful jealousy over the magiftrates, to remove all difcretionary powers, and to fecure every one's life and fortune by general and inflexible laws. No action must be deemed a crime but what the law has plainly determined to be fuch: No crime must be imputed to a man but from a legal proof before his judges; and even these judges must be his fellow-fubjects, who are obliged, by their own intereft, to have a watchful eye over the en

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