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النشر الإلكتروني

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD CUT TS,

Colonel of His MAJESTY'S Coldftream Regiment of Guards, &c.

MY LORD,

T

HE addrefs of the following papers is fo very much due to your Lordship, that they are but a mere report of what has paft upon my guard to my Commander, for they were writ upon duty, when the mind was perfectly difengaged, and at leifure in the filent watch of the night, to run over the busy dream of the day; and the vigilence which obliges us to fuppofe an enemy always near us, has awakened a fenfe that there is a restless and subtle one which conftantly attends our fteps, and meditates our ruin.

Thoughts of this nature, a man may with freedom acknowledge to your Lordship, who have ever been fo far from running into the fashionable vice of exploding religion, that your early valour first appeared against the profeffed enemies of christianity; and Buda had tranfinitted you to late pofterity, but that you yourself have obliterated your part in that glorious fcene by the fresher memory of you, at Limerick. and Namure.

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With one honest purpose of life, and conftant fervice of one intereft, and one caufe, in what country: have you not fought? in what field have you not bled? but I know I here offend you, nor will you allow warmth in commendation to be like a friend; but if, my Lord, to speak you generous, honeft, end brave be not fo, I do affure you it is the only thing I will ever do in common with your enemies.

I faid your enemies, but if there are any who have ignorance or malice enough to be fuch, their little hates must be loft in the diftinction the better world allow you, and that county (whose discerning is refined by a learned and elegant univerfity) has done you fo great an honour, in making you unanimously their representative in parliament, that they who would oppofe your reputation, do but confefs they are unacquainted with what paffes in the world, and. Arangers to the refidence of knowledge and virtue.

It was there you received those rudiments of ho-.. nour, which have rendered your life confpicuous enough to make you appear a worthy defcendant of an, ancient and distinguished family, which has ferved the crown in the most eminent ftations, and been equally favourites of their country; it was there you received those impreffions which infpire that true ufe of your. being, which, fo juftly divides your time, between labour and diverfion, that the one does but recreate for the other, and which give a generous contempt of both, when they come in competition with the fervice of that country which you love, and that God. whom you worship.

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Go on, my Lord, thus to contemn, and thus to.. enjoy life; and if some great English day does not call for that facrifice, which you are always ready to offer,

may

7

1

DEDICATION..

may you in a mature age go to fleep with your ancestors, in expectation not of an imaginary fame, but a real immortality.

As for the present I now make you, if you will accept it with your ufual goodness and affection to me, I fhall entertain no further hopes; for as your favour is my fortune, so your approbation is my fame.

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HE world is divided between two forts of peo

Tple, the men of wit and the men of bufinefs,

and thefe two have it wholly in their power; but however mighty the latter may esteem themselves, they have much the lefs fhare in the government of mankind, and till they can keep the others out of company as well as employment, they will have an almost irrefiftable dominion over us: for their imagination is fo very quick and lively, that in all they enjoy or poffefs, they have a relifh highly fuperior to that of flower men; which fine fenfe of things they can communicate to others in fo prevailing a manner, that they give and take away what impreffions they please; for while the man of wit fpeaks, he beftows upon his hearers, by an apt representation of his thoughts, all the happiness and pleasure of being fuch as he is, and quickens our heavier life into joys we fhould never of ourselves have tasted, so that we are for our own fakes his flaves and followers: but indeed they generally use this charming force with the utmost tyranny, and as it is too much in their power, mifplace our love, our hatred, our defires, and averfions, on improper objects; fo that when we are left to ourfelves, we find truth discoloured to us, and they of faculties above us have wrapt things, in their own nature of a dark and horrid aspect, in fo bright a difguife, that they have stamped a kind of praise and gallantry on fome vices, and half perfuaded us that a whore may be ftill a beauty, and an adulterer no villain.

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