tributions, and promoting pillage, in order to enrich himself, as many generals have formerly done before his time. He has been reflected upon by the very zealous and violent adherents of the Stuart family, for not being sufficiently attached to that party, which was his own family. But by a cool examination of his actions, which are stub. born things, and the best index of the mind of a sensible man, it will appear, that his behaviour in this particular was, as in moft parts of his life, feufible and juft. When he accepted of employments, received honours, dignities, and became a naturalized Frenchman, he thought it his duty, as an honeft man, to become a Frenchman, and a real fubject to the monarch who gave him bread; and to be, or not to be, in the intereft of the Stuart family, according to the will and commands of the fovereign whom he ferved, and in the intereft of France according to time and circumftances; for there is no ferving two masters well. But when ordered by his king to be in that family's intereft, he acted with the greateft fince rity, and took the moft effectual and fenfible methods to ferve that unhappy houfe, as the following anecdote, if true, and it has great appearance and probability on its fide, proves. The duke of Marlborough, after the figning of the treaty of Utrecht, was cenfured by the British parliament for fome of the army contracts in relation to bread and forage; upon which he retired into France and it was then credibly afferted, the duke of Marlborough was brought over to the intereft of the Stuart family; for * it is now paft a doubt that queen Anne had a very ferious intention of having her brother upon the throne of England after her death; and feveral circumftances, as well as the time of that duke's landing in England, make many people believe he was gained over to the Stuart party. If the duke of Berwick was, directly or indirectly, the means of gaining his uncle over to that interest, he more ef fectually ferved it than that rash mock army of unhappy gentlemen, who were taken prifoners at Preston in 1715, had it in their power to do. In a word, the duke of Berwick was, without being a bigot, a moral and religious man, and fhewed, by his life and actions, that morality and religion are very compatible and confiftent with the life of a ftatefman and a great general; and if they were oftener united in thofe two profeffions, it would be much happier for the rest of mankind. He was killed by a cannon-ball, in doing his duty at the fiege of Philipfburgh, in 1738. So died the marshal of Berwick, ripe in years, full of dignities, honours, and glory. Sic tranfit gloria mundi. N. B. Lewis XIV. before his *The very day or day after the death of queen Anne. prince, prince, I believe Europe will come to its fuccour; but fhould we be abandoned, and left to ourselves, if vanquished, I then fall,, and fhall perish with my country. Charader of the Duke of Ormond. TH From the fame. HIS duke was bleffed with a moft noble fortune, and it fell into very good hands; for no perfon was of a more generous hofpitable difpofition: he was the molt popular man of his time, head of the ancient, opulent, and numerous family of the Butlers, both an English and an Irish duke, commander in chief of the English army in Flanders, when the great duke of Marlborough, by the intrigues of the party that then prevailed in England, was recalled home. He was Chancellor of the Univerfity of Oxford, and I believe of Dublin, knight of the garter, and had all the honours conferred on him that his country could bestow; and his princely generous difpofition became them well, and in fome meafure fupported his understanding, which when analyzed from real facts, was but weak, and not truly fincere and honeft, but, like great part of mankind, not very moral. He received honours, great places of truft and profit, from King William, queen Anne, and of courfe was obliged to take the teft oath of allegiance and abjuration to thofe refpective princes: yet at the fame time he encouraged Jacobitifm, and, among his friends, profeffed himself the greatest friend and adherent to the houfe of Stuart. This is repugnant to fincerity; ho nefty, and, I may venture to fay religion, which ever ought to be: affociated together; because it is profeffing one thing, and being, or pretending to be, of another opi nion. It is weak, because it is deftructive of the fchemes and mea. fures intended to be accomplished and brought about it may be faid to divide oneself against one. felf, and of courfe one's own ftrength and force is weakened, by endeavouring to demolish with one hand what one builds with the other. When he was lord lieutenant of Ireland, he made, or occafioned to be made, many of the penal laws that are most hurtful to the Irish Roman Catholics. This was not honeft, or grateful, becaufe it was hurting those who were his best friends. It was weak, and not politic, being directly oppofite to that maxim, if you have a mind effectually to ferve yourself, fling power into the hands of your friends: and he, by his behaviour, weakened and difenabled those people from affifting him fo much as they might have done, and by whom he expected to be fupported. He did not fuffer fo much by his attainder as many others that acted with more determined fincerity and refolution; because his brother, the earl of Arran, a very good. fort of man, enjoyed and poffeffed great part of his very opulent fortune, which enabled him to per form what was dictated by brotherly affection and honesty, in paying him annually a fufficient fum to live in a moft princely manner at Avignon, where he died; from whence he was brought, and buried in Weftminster-Abbey. Upon Upon the whole, it is thought by many, that if George I. who was in himself a humane and com. paffionate prince, had not been for more. POPE. much fet againft him, he would Peace is my delight, not FLEURY'S have accepted of his fervices, when he made a tender and offer of them, upon his landing at Greenwich. With all his foibles and weak neffes, he might have become a very good fubject, and a ufeful member to fociety, particularly to Ireland, his native country, when he had feen his errors; for to do the Irish juftice, with whom the writer is well acquainted, ingratitude doth not feem to be among their national vices. That he would have feen his errors, and have corrected them, there is the greatest probability and reafon to think, because it is credibly afferted, and I believe known, that he abfolutely refufed, directly or indirectly, to be concerned in any of the confufions and troubles that happened in his country in the year 1745. Why not change his opinions, or correct his errors? It is never too late to mend, or own you have been in the wrong, which is next to being in the right. Some of his friends aver, that he never externally profeffed a thing, but what he internally believed at the time, and was fin. cere: this is very difficult to credit, as it rarely happens in fuch frequent changes; efpecially as he feldom veered but when his intereft or power was thereby enlarged: but if it be true, it only fhews a weakness, and a mutability of dif. pofition liable to the influence of others. CA Ardinal Fleury was a very good and intelligent minif ter, and, upon the whole, purfued the real intereft of France. He was honeft, fincere, religious, and moral; qualifications and virtues which, when united (and it is to be wifhed they were oftener found in minifters) will ever, without even extraordinary and over-fhining abilities and talents, make ftatefmen ferve their country the better; because they then act upon principle, and think they are accountable for their actions to more than man, and have more than that vague and vain love of fame and popularity, or fear of punishment in this world, to incite and fpur them to the performance and execution of good in themfelves, and the prevention of evil in others; all which minifters have much in their power to do, when power falls into the hands of men of abilities, application, and good morals; which muft ever take their fpring from real religion, and a belief and hope of a future reward, and the fear of the like punishment. Such was Cardinal Fleury in the beginning of his appearance in public, then preceptot to Lewis XV. and during that time he inftilled into his prince thofe real principles of religion which very apparently, upon many occafions, animate that monarch. He was a good minister to France, because 2 because he confined himself to her natural strength, the encouragement of her manufactures, and the improvement of the intrinfic and natural advantages with which Providence has blessed that kingdom above all the rest of Europe; not vainly attempting to make it go out from itfelf, in forcing it to be, what nature and its fituation never defigned it, the first maritime power; because then it would naturally weaken its military ftrength, which is very neceffary to fupport itself against the powerful kingdoms that furround it, and are, not without reafon, jealous of its too much increafing power: befides, a well regulated and difciplined military force is very neceffary to keep fo lively a people in due order and fubordination. He kept France in peace very near his whole adminiftration, which was above twenty-feven years, except a fmall interval of a by his very able head and humane difpofition, he hindered from fpreading, and finished without making it general, and of courfe prevented a devaftation and flaughter of mankind. It is true, upon the death of the emperor, the queen of Hungary's father, he was, fomehow or other, brought into a war in his very old age, with the reft of the Germanic princes, about the divifion of the territories of that illuftrious and magnanimous princefs; foon after which he died, at the age of eightyfour. In all human probability, had he lived, and retained his parts and understanding, which is not very common at fo very great an age, he would have finished it much fooner. France in that war was very fuccefsful in Flanders, though not in Germany, or by fea; and, in the writer's opinion, it was no ways advantageous to France upon the whole; for the recived more real benefit by that moft fenfible treaty whereby the acquired Lorrain, made by this great and honeft minifter, than by all its conquefts of that rich and fertile country of Auftrian Flanders. In a word, moft governments have more territory and country than they improve and make good ufe of. Some account of Mrs. Thomas, the celebrated Corinna; from the 12th volume, or Supplement to the General Biographical Dictionary lately published. THOMAS (Mrs.) known to the world by the poetical name of Corinna, was the child of an ancient and infirm parent, who gave her life when he was dying himself, and to whofe unhappy conftitution fhe was fole heirefs. From her very birth, which happened in 1675, he was afflicted with fevers and defluxions, and, being overnurfed, her conftitution was fo delicate and tender, that, had the not been of a gay difpofition, and poffeffed of a vigorous mind, the must have been more unhappy than she actually was. Her father dying when she was fcarce two years old, and her mother not knowing his real circumftances, as he was fuppofed, from the fplendour of his manner of life, to be very rich, fome inconveni. ences were incurred, in bestowing upon upon him a pompous funeral, which in thofe times was fafhionable. The mother of our poetefs, in the bloom of eighteen, was condemned to the arms of this man, upwards of fixty, upon the fuppofition of his being wealthy, but in which he was foon miferably deceived. She difpofed of two houfes her husband kept, one in town, the other in the county of Effex, and retired into a private, but decent, country lodging. The houfe where fhe boarded was an eminent clothworker's in the county of Surry, but the people of the house proved very difagreeable. The lady had no converfation to divert her; the landlord was an illiterate man, and the rest of the family brutish, and unmannerly. At laft Mrs. Thomas attracted the notice of Dr. Glyffon, who obferving her at church very fplendidly dreffed, folicited her acquaintance. He was a valuable piece of antiquity, being then, 1683, 100 years of age. His per. fon was tall, his bones very large, his hair like fnow, a venerable afpect, and a complexion which might fhame the bloom of fifteen. He enjoyed a found judgment, and a memory fo tenacious, and clear, that his company was very engaging. His vifits greatly alleviated the folitude of this lady. The laft vifit he made to Mrs. Thomas, he drew on, with much attention, à pair of rich Spanish leather gloves, emboft on the backs and tops with gold embroidery, and fringed round with gold. The lady could not help expreffing her curiofity, to know the hiftory of thofe gloves, which he feemed to touch with fo much refpect. He anfwered, "I do refpect them, for the last time I had the honour of approaching my ་ miftrefs, queen Elizabeth, the pulled them from her own royal hands, faying, here Glyffon, wear them for my fake. I have done fo with veneration, and never drew them on, but when I had a mind to honour those whom I vifit, as I now do you; and fince you love the memory of my royal miftress, take them, and preferve them carefully when I am gone." The doctor then went home, and died in a few days, The This gentleman's death left her again without a companion, and an uneafinefs hung upon her, vifible. to the people of the houfe; who gueffing the caufe to proceed from folitude, recommended to her acquaintance another phyfician, of a different caft from the former. He was denominated by them a conjurer, and was faid to be capable of raifing the devil. This circumftance diverted Mrs. Thomas, who imagined that the man whom they called a conjurer, must have more fenfe than they understood. doctor was invited to vifit her, and appeared in a greafy black grogram, which he called his fcholar's coat; a long beard; and other marks of a philofophical negligence brought all his little mathematical trinkets, and played over his tricks for the diverfion of the lady, whom, by a private whifper, he let into the fecrets as he performed them, that the might fee there was nothing of magic in the cafe. The two moft remarkable articles of his performance were, first lighting a candle at a glafs of cold water, performed by touching the brim before with phofphorus, a chymical fire which is preferved in water and burns there; and next reading the fmalleft print by a candle of fix in E 3 He the |