row; others promise to stoop on the morrow, that they may lead to-day.

6

Alas! how often shall the wheel turn round?

Yet there is great truth in what Sir John Sinclair says:-' I always found,' says he*, plans of association among those, who call themselves independent characters, of little real use. Each member of such an association is desirous not to follow, but to guide. All of them are attached to their own opinions respectively; and, astonished that any one should presume to differ from them, they gradually drop off, either bought by the minister, or dissatisfied, that the measures they espouse should not be adopted. Persons of this description are capable of acting only in < an isolated state; and if the House of Commons consisted solely, or even principally, of such men, the 'business of the nation could not go on at all.' This reconciles us, in some degree, to the disgrace of belonging to a party.

6

VI.

WHO NEVER WANT AN EXCUSE.

WH HEN Sertorius desired to rid himself of the disgrace of paying toll to the Spaniards, and was yet unable to dispute the point with them, he affected to have no leisure for argument. Time,' said he, is the thing I purchase; than which nothing in the world is more precious to a man engaged in great attempts.'

*Corresp. i. 133.

When courtiers have excited great odium, they have always one apology;-the general scape-goat of political depravity:

It is the fate of place; the rough brake,
That virtue must go through.'

Hen. VIII. act i. sc. 2.

The arguments of a bad man are, sometimes, even more insupportable than his actions. Political excuses, indeed, are often inexpressibly contemptible. When the Romans did an unworthy deed, their general plea was necessity*,—a word, however, meaning no more and no less than-policy! The excuses of usurpers, tyrants, oligarchs, and democrats, are much the same.

Philip, the husband of Mary, had his excuses too. At last he thought to gloss the atrocity of his executions, by desiring his chaplain to preach, and in his presence too, in favour of toleration!-Corruption will never want a pretence. The fair-faced affability and sophistry of a second-rate statesman, also, will always find supporters and admirers. Gold, gowns, aprons, ribands, stars, garters, and swords, being admirable

reasoners.

When Suathes, the last king of Pannonia, accepted a present of a horse, a gold saddle, and a bridle, the Huns, who envied him the fertility of his country, pretended, that, by such an acceptance, he had sold his country to them and to their leader, Aradus (A.d. 744). Suathes denying the inference, they made war upon

*Bella aut pro sociis, aut de imperio gerebantur; exitus ' erant bellorum aut miles, aut necessarii.'-De Offi. ii. c. 8.

him; and he was drowned, after a defeat, in the Danube.

We all remember the fable of the wolf and the lamb. The moral may be applied every day: and a remarkable instance occurred in the reign of Peter the Great: for a party of Russians, being in search of one physician, having met another: You are a doctor,' said they, and if you did not poison our master, you have, no doubt, poisoned others; you are, therefore, worthy ' of death.' Fortified by this argument, they dispatched him.

When Dumourier fled to the allies, he qualified his delinquency, by accusing the Marats, the Robespierres, and the rest of the Jacobins, of having been bribed by foreign gold to arrest almost the whole of the generals, and disorganize the armies. It is an old Greek proverb, that depravity only wants a pretence; and excuses, while men are ingenious, can, as we have said before, never be wanting. If our West India colonies were to decline, the enemies of the slave-abolition would instantly fasten upon that abolition as the cause. And what if they should? Highwaymen and house-breakers may, with as much propriety, complain, that the rope. prevents house-breakers and highwaymen from becoming the richest of the community. The advocates of this iniquity insisted, with vehemence, that, in Africa, the slave-trade was a consequence of the wars; whereas it was notorious that the trade was, in most instances, the cause of the wars. In fact, as it was truly observed in one of the debates on this question, there is hardly any thing, however unjust and cruel, that men, who are tho

roughly selfish, will not bring themselves to believe. right and defensible; and will not, in consequence, adduce specious and sophistical arguments to support. What some men dare to do, they always dare to justify.

Excuses are sometimes convenient even to men of science. Thus, in the Royal Society of London, when errors were detected in calculation or observation, it was argued, if those errors were small, that they were of no consequence; if large, that they could deceive no one on account of their magnitude*.

Poggio Bracciolini excuses + the licentiousness of his 'Liber Facetiarum,' a book of tales, published in his seventieth year ‡, in which he has introduced anecdotes of several remarkable persons, by stating the general laxity, which, in his age, pervaded the whole mass of society. In the same manner the thief justifies theft, on the ground that there are a multitude of thieves living in the city.

It is an observation as old as Livy, that women excuse any fault which they think proceeds from love. Chardin says of the women of Mingrelia, that they are lively, polite, and obliging; but so full of perfidy, in respect to lovers, that to obtain one, preserve one, or rid herself of one, they will be guilty of any perfidy. Men, who rely upon excuses, will act much the same in regard to rivals.

It is clear, that Edward had no real right in Scot

* See Babbage on the Decline of Science,' p. 144.

† De Varietate Fortunæ, p. 207.

Sismondi, ii. 32.

land. His claim to the crown rested on the circumstance of William, king of that country, having been taken prisoner at Alnwick by Henry II., when, to obtain his liberty, the captive monarch not only agreed to pay a large ransom, and surrender the places of the greatest strength in his dominions, but even stooped to the abject condition of doing homage to Henry for the kingdom itself. From this last disgrace, however, he was, subsequently, relieved by Richard I.; and the Scottish king, in consequence, ceased to be a vassal. One hundred years elapsed, and Edward, having obtained great interest in the kingdom, disregarded the release of Richard, laid claim to the monarchy, and, after a long series of troubles, his successors established the usurpation; and when William Wallace was put upon his trial at Westminster, and pleaded that it was unjust, and even absurd, to charge him with treason, who was only amenable to the laws of another country, he was, nevertheless, condemned, and his quarters sent to the chief cities of England.

An excuse is sometimes worth a thousand pounds. The French attribute their defeats at Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, to the too great ardour of their soldiers, and the false manœuvres of their generals. Courage or cowardice, according to their account, had little or nothing to do with the matter.

When men contemplate atrocities, any thing is sufficient for an excuse. The Spaniards made slaves of the natives of St. Martha*; and they grounded the justice

* Lopez de Gamar. Montesq. b. xv. c. 3.