63.A more suitable place to look for corruption in,if we may take his own word for it,there cannot be.`Every man's reason,'he assures us [1Comm.p.41.]`is corrupt';and not only that,but `his understanding full of ignorance and error'.With regard to others,it were as well not to be too positive:hut with regard to a man's self,what he tells us from experience,it would be ill manners to dispute with him.
64.1Comm.p.48.
65.See HAWKESWORTH'S Voyages.
The condition of these imaginary sovereigns puts one in mind of the story of,I forget what King's Fool.The Fool had stuck himself up one day,with great gravity,in the King's throne with a stick,by way of a sceptre,in one hand,and a ball in the other:being asked what he was doing,he answered,`reigning'.Much the same sort of reign,I take it,would be that of the members of our Author's Democracy.
66.V.supra,ch.I.par.VI.
67.What is curious is,that the same persons who tell you (having read as much)that Democracy is a form of Government under which the supreme power is vested in all the members of a state,will also tell you (having also read as much)that the Athenian Commonwealth was a Democracy.Now the truth is,that in the Athenian Commonwealth,upon the most moderate computation,it is not one tenth part of the inhabitants of the Athenian state that ever at a time partook of the supreme power:
women,children,and slaves,being taken into the account.[See,among Mr HUME'S Essays,that on the populousness of ancient nations.]Civil Lawyers,indeed,will tell you,with a grave face,that a slave is nobody;as Common Lawyers will,that a bastard is the son of nobody.But,to an unprejudiced eye,the condition of a state is the condition of all the individuals,without distinction,that compose it.
68.By fiscal power I mean that which in this country is exercised by what is called the Board of Treasury.
69.By dispensatorial power I mean as well that which is exercised by the Board of Treasury,as those others which are executed in the several offices styled with us the War Office,Admiralty Board,Navy Board,Board of Ordnance,and Board of Works:excepting from the business of all these offices,the power of appointing persons to fill other subordinate offices:a power which seems to be of a distinct nature from that of making disposition of any article of public property.
Power,political power,is either over persons or over things.The powers,then,that have been mentioned above,in as far as they concern things,are powers over such things as are the property of the public:powers which differ in this from those which constitute private ownership,in that the former are,in the main,not beneficial (that is,to the possessors themselves)and indiscnminate but fiduciary,and limited in their exercise to such acts as are conducive to the special purposes of public benefit and security.
70.`The Lords spiritual and temporal'(p.50)`which',says our Author,`is an aristocratical assembly of persons selected for their piety,their birth,their wisdom,their valour,or their property'
I have distributed,I think,these endowments,as our Author could not but intend they should be distributed.Birth,to such of the members of that assembly as have their seat in it by descent:and,as to those who may chance from time to time to sit there by creation ,wisdom,valour,and property in common among the temporal peers;and piety,singly but entirely,among my Lords the Bishops.As to the other three endowments,if there were any of them to which these right reverend persons could lay any decent claim,it would be wisdom:but since worldly wisdom is what it would be an ill compliment to attribute to them,and the wisdom which is from above is fairly included under piety,I conclude that,when secured in the exclusive possession of this grand virtue,they have all that was intended them.There is a remarkable period in our history,at which,measuring by our Author's scale,these three virtues seem to have been at the boiling point.It was in Queen Anne's reign,not long after the time of the hard frost.I mean in the year 1711.In that auspicious year,these three virtues issued forth,it seems,with such exuberance,as to furnish merit enough to stock no fewer than a dozen respectable persons,who,upon the strength of it,were all made Barons in a day?Unhappily indeed,so little read was a right reverend and contemporary historian,[See Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times.Vol.2.]in our Author's method of `discerning of spirits,'as to fancy,it was neither more nor less than the necessity of making a majority that introduced so large a body of new members thus suddenly into the house.But I leave it to those who are read in the history of that time,to judge of the ground there can be for so romantic an imagination.
As to piety,the peculiar endowment of the mitre,the stock there is of that virtue,should,to judge by the like standard,be,at all times,pretty much upon a level:at all times,without question,at a maximum.This is what we can make the less doubt of,since,with regard to ecclesiastical matters,in general,our Author,as in another place he assures us,has had the happiness to find,that `every thing is as it should be.'[Vol.4.Chap.iv.p.49.]
71.p.50
72.V.supra,par.9.
73.Every body has heard the story of him who,from a fisherman,was made Archbishop,and then Pope.While Archbishop,it was his custom every day,after dinner,to have a fishing net spread upon his table,by way of a memento,as he used to say,of the meanness of his original.
This farcical ostentation of humility was what,in those days,contributed not a little to the increase of his reputation.Soon after his exaltation to St Peter's chair,one of his intimates was taking notice to him,one day,when dinner was over,of the table's not being decked as usual.`Peace',answered the Holy Father,`when the fish is caught,there is no occasion for the net.'
