indeed was driven to its last hold, of giving the chief merit of them to another great Author, who they allowed had never so audaciously provoked them this was indeed turning your own cannon upon you, and making use of your private virtue to depreciate your character; for, had not the diffusive benevolence of your heart thought even fame too great a good to be possessed alone, you would never (as you confessed in the Preface to those works) have taken your nearest friend into a share of it. A man of modern prudence would have considered a fame so peculiar, as a mistress whom his services only had deserved; and would have maturely deliberated, before he trusted her constancy in private, with the dearest friend upon earth. Your enemies, therefore, thus knowing that your own consent had partly justified their insinuations, saved a great deal of their malice from being ridiculous, and fairly left you to apply to such your singular conduct, what Mark Antony says of Octavius in the Play Fool that I was! upon my Eagle's wings I bore this Wren*, till I was tired with soaring, And now, he mounts above me→ DRYDEN. * The following satirical lines, occasioned by this passage, were printed in "Mist's Journal," Oct. 31, 1719. "Thus Colley Cibber greets his partner Steele, Nothing Nothing is more common among the prudent men of this world, than their admiration that you will not (with all your talents) be guided to the proper steps of making your fortune: as if that were the non ultra of happiness. Can they suppose that flattery, deceit, and treachery, or the perpetual surrender of our reason, will, and freedom, to the convenience and passions of others, with a train of the like abject servilities, if your spirit could stoop to them, are not as soon attained to as their contrary virtues; and that consequently it is much easier to make a fortune, than to deserve one? Such men can never know how much the conscious transport of having done their duty is preferable to all the mean, unwieldy pomp of arrogant and unmerited prosperity. But let them hug themselves, and count their happiness by their sums of gold. Yours is, to know the service you have done your Country has contributed to their being secure in the possession of it, and that such (however unfashionable actions) are (like their gold) intrinsically valuable only for their weight, which can neither rise nor fall from the stamp of favour or discouragement. And that these men may not suppose you did not, as well as the wisest of them, foresee this barren consequence of your endeavours, I shall beg leave to quote a prophetic instance to the contrary, which you published in No. II. of a Paper, called "The Reader," in the year 1714. "There was a certain husbandman, in a certain kingdom, who lived in a certain place, under a certain hill, near a certain bridge. This poor man was a little of a scholar, and given to country learning, such such as astrological predictions of the weather, and. the like. One night, in one of his musings about his house, he saw a party of soldiers, belonging to a prince in enmity with his own, coming towards the bridge: he immediately ran, and drew up that part which is called the draw-bridge; and calling all his family, and getting his cattle together, he put his plough, behind that his stools, and his chairs behind them, and by this means stopped the march till it was day-light, when all the neighbouring lords and gentlemen saw the enemy as well as he. They crowded on with great gallantry to oppose the foe; and, in their zeal and hurry throwing our husbandman over-bridge, and his goods after him, effectually kept out the invaders. This acci-dent (says my Author) was the safety of that kingdom; yet no one ought to be discomfited from the public service, for what had happened to this rustick; for though he was neglected at the present, and every man said he was an honest fellow, that he was no one's enemy but his own in exposing his all, and that nobody said he was every one's friend but his own, the man had ever after the liberty, that he, and no other but he and his family, should beg on that bridge in all times following." Had you not published this prediction so many years ago, the art or malice of men might have insinuated, that the hope of some farther reward, than that of the action itself, had been the motive to your zeal for the then endangered Protestant SUCCESSION. But, alas! I fear I am running into the same public-spirited rashness; it being impossible to speak truth of you, without giving shame to others, who who may not perhaps have your talent of easily forgiving whatever is honest in its intention. I shall therefore beg leave to subscribe myself, Sir, Your most devoted humble servant, COLLEY CIBBER. 431. TO THE EARL OF OXFORD * CONCERNING THE BILL OF PEERAGE. "Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in illâ MY LORD, Juv. [1719.] I AM very glad of an occasion wherein I have the good fortune to think the same way with your * Robert Harley, esq. eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, born Dec. 5, 1661. At the Revolution, Sir Edward and his son Robert raised a troop of horse at their own expence. On the accession of King William, Mr. Harley was elected member for Tregony; and afterward for Radnor, which he represented till called to the Upper House. Feb. 11, 1701-2, he was chosen Speaker; as he was again, 31 Dec. following; and a third time, in the first parliament of Queen Anne. April 17, 1704, he was sworn of the Privy Council; and, May 18 following, appointed Secretary of State, being still Speaker of the House of Commons. His office of Secretary he resigned, Feb. 12, 1707-8. He was made a Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Aug. 10, 1710, and three days after sworn again of the Privy Council; where, March 8, 1711, his life was attacked by Guiscard: the address of both houses of parliament will best shew the sense of the nation at that alarming attempt. Her Majesty, in reward for his many services, wasgraciously pleased to advance him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Lordship, because I have very long suffered a great deal of pain in reflecting upon a certain virulence Baron Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer, May 11, 1711 on the 29th, he was appointed Lord Treasurer; August 15, chosen Governor of the South Sea Company, of which he had been the founder; and Oct. 26, 1712, was honoured with the Garter. July 27, 1714, he resigned the Treasurer's staff. June 10, 1715, his Lordship was impeached by the House of -Commons; and though it is not strictly true that he was dismissed without a trial, it actually was so in effect, the Commons having declined appearing to make good their charge. His Lordship's situation was somewhat singular. The articles of impeachment against him were carried up July 9, 1715, when he was committed to the Tower. On August 2, additional articles were sent up; on the 3d of September his Lordship's answer was delivered; and on the 19th the House of Commons joined issue by replication. After several adjournments, the Parliament re-assembled Jan. 9, 1715; and continued sitting until June 26, 1716, when an end was put to the session by a prorogation. Feb. 20, 1717, a new session was opened. May 22, the Earl, being still in confinement, petitioned the House of Peers to take the circumstances of his case into consideration, being assured it was not their Lordships' intention that his "confinement should be indefinite." The petition having been referred to a Committee, who made their report May 25, it was agreed by the House, that the " impeachment was not determined "by the prorogation." The day for trial was accordingly fixed, first for June 13, and, at the desire of the Commons, deferred till the 24th, on which day it actually commenced. The charge was opened by Mr. Hampden, and Sir Joseph Jekyll began to proceed to make good the first article of the impeachment; but the Upper House having resolved, "that the Commons should "not be admitted to proceed, in order to make good their arti"cles for high crimes and misdemeanors, till judgment were first given on the articles for high treason," the Managers for the Commons proceeded no farther that day. Several conferences having been held on the subject, without effect, the Upper House proceeded on the trial July 1;. and, after proclamation for all persons concerned to take notice that the Earl of Oxford stood on |