example of the Noachida, the lettered Chinese, the Persees, and all wise men have had no influ. ence! monsters, to whom superstitions are necessary as carrion to crows! You have been al ready told it, and I have nothing else to tell you; whilst you have but two religions among you, they will be ever at daggers drawing; if you have thirty they will live quietly. Turn your eyes to the grand signior, he has among his subjects Guebers, Banians, Greeks, Latins, Christians, and Nestorians. Whoever goes about to raise any disturbance is surely impaled; and thus all live in peace and quietness.

TYRANNY.

BY a tyrant is meant a sovereign who makes his humour the law, who seizes on his subjects substance, and afterwards inlists them to go and give his neighbours the like treatment. These tyrants are not known in Europe.

Tyranny is distinguished into that of one per son and of many; a body invading the rights of other bodies, and corrupting the laws that it may exercise a despotism apparently legal, is the latter tyranny; but Europe likewise has none of these tyrants.

Under which tyranny would you chuse to live? Under none; but had I the option, the tyranny of one person appears to me less odious and dreadful than that of many. A despot has always some intervals of good humour; which is never known in an assembly of despots. If a tyrant has done me an injury, there is his mistress, his confessor, or his page, by means of whom I may appease him, and obtain redress; but

a set

a set of supercilious tyrants is inaccessible to all applications. If they are not unjust, still they are austere and harsh; and no favours are ever known to come from them.

Under one despot, I need only stand up against a wall when I see him coming by, or prostrate myself, or knock my forehead against the ground, according to the custom of the country; but under a body of perhaps a hundred despots, I may be obliged to repeat this ceremony a hundred times a day, which is not a little troublesome to those who are not very nimble. Another disagreeable circumstance is, if my farm happens to be in the neighbourhood of one of our great lords, it is unknown what damages I am obliged to put up with; and if I have a law-suit with a relation to a relation of one of their high-mightinesses, it will infallibly go against me. I am very much afraid that in this world things will come to such a pass, as to have no other option than being either hammer or anvil. Happy he! who gets clear of this alternative.

VIRTUE (1).

WHAT is virtue? Doing good to others.

How can I give the name of virtue to any one

but

(1) Our author may give some offence to minute critics in the following article, but upon consideration the reader will find the whole to be a logomachia. By virtue he means charity and beneficence. The cardinal and theological virtues he calls excellent qualities, but does not allow them to be virtues in regard to our neighbour. No body pretends they are; but they are virtues

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but to him who does me good? I am in want, you relieve me; I am in danger, you come to my assistance; I have been deceived, you tell me the truth. I am ill used, you comfort me; I am ignorant, you instruct me: I must say then you are virtuous. But what will become of the cardinal and theological virtues? Let some even remain in the schools.

What is your temperance to me? It is no more than observance of a rule of health; you will be the better for it; and much good may it do you. If you have faith and hope, better still; they will procure you eternal life. Your theological virtues are heavenly gifts, and those you call cardinal are excellent qualities for your guidance in life; but, relatively to your neighbour, they are no virtues. The prudent man does good to himself; the virtuous to men in general. Very well was it said by St. Paul, that charity is better than faith and hope.

But how! are no virtues to be admitted but those by which others are benefited? No indeed. We live in a society; consequently there is nothing truly good to us, but what is for the good of such society. If a hermit is sober and devout,

virtues in regard to ourselves, and to the Deity; or they are excellent qualities, for we shall not dispute about the word. We do not perceive, nevertheless, how M. Voltaire can be said to give indirect encouragement in this article to private vices, for he acknowledges that gluttony, drunkenness, &c. are blemishes or defects in a hermit, though not pernicious to society, because he does not live in a social state.

vout, and among other mortifications wears a sackcloth shirt; such a one I set down as a saint; but before I shall style him virtuous, let him do some act of virtue which will promote the well being of his fellow creatures. Whilst he lives by himself, to us he is neither good nor bad; he is nothing. If St. Bruno reconciled families, and relieved the indigent, he was virtuous; if he prayed and fasted in the desart, he was a saint. Among men virtue is a mutual exchange of kindnesses, and whoever declines such exchanges, ought not to be reckoned a member of society. Were that saint to live in the world, probably he would do good in it; but whilst he keeps out of it, the world will only do his saintship justice, in not allowing him to be virtuous. He may be good to himself, but not to us.

But, say you, if a hermit be given to drunkenness, sensuality, and private debauchery, he is a vicious man; consequently with the opposite qualities, he is virtuous. That is what I cannot come into: if he has those faults he is a very filthy man; but, with regard to society, as it is not hurt by his infamies, he is not vicious, wicked, or deserving of punishment. It is to be presumed, that were he to return into society, he would do much harm, and prove a very bad man. Of this there is a greater probability, than that the temperate and chaste hermit will be a good man; for in public life, faults increase, and good qualities diminish.

A much stronger objection is, that Nero, Pope Alexander VI. and other such monsters did some good things. I take upon me to answer, that when they did, they were virtuous.

Some

Some divines, so far from allowing that excellent Emperor Antoninus to have been a good man, represent him as a conceited Stoic, who, besides ruling over men, coveted their esteem; that in all the good he did to mankind, his own reputation was the end; that his justice, application, and benevolence, proceeded purely from vanity; and that his virtues were a downright imposition on the world. At this, I cannot forbear crying out, O! my God, be pleased in thy goodness, often to give us such hypocrites.

WAR.

FAMINE, the plague, and war, are the three

most famous ingredients in this lower world. Under famine may be classed all the noxious foods, which want obliges us to have recourse to; thus shortening our life, whilst we hope to support it.

In the plague are included all contagious distempers; and these are not less than two or three thousand. These two gifts we hold from providence; but war, in which all those gifts are concentered, we owe to the fancy of three or four hundred persons scattered over the surface of this globe, under the name of princes and ministers; and on this account it may be, that in several dedications, they are called the living images of the Deity.

The most hardened flatterer will allow, that war is ever attended with plague and famine, especially if he has seen the military hospitals in Germany, or passed through any villages where some notable feat of arms has been performed.

It