_Quas res luxuries in flagitus,... avaritia in rapinis, superbia in
contumeliis efficere potuisset; eas omnes sese hoc uno praetore per
triennium pertulisse aiebant_.[2]
When I first undertook this paper, I was resolved to concern myself only
with things, and not with persons. Whether I have kept or broken this
resolution, I cannot recollect; and I will not be at the pains to
examine, but leave the matter to those little antagonists, who may want a
topic for criticism. Thus much I have discovered, that it is in writing
as in building; where, after all our schemes and calculations, we are
mightily deceived in our accounts, and often forced to make use of any
materials we can find, that the work may be kept a going. Besides, to
speak my opinion, the things I have occasion to mention, are so closely
linked to persons, that nothing but Time (the father of Oblivion) can
separate them. Let me put a parallel case: Suppose I should complain,
that last week my coach was within an inch of overturning, in a smooth,
even way, and drawn by very gentle horses; to be sure, all my friends
would immediately lay the fault upon John,[3] because they knew, he then
presided in my coach-box. Again, suppose I should discover some
uneasiness to find myself, I knew not how, over head-and-ears in debt,
though I was sure my tenants paid their rents very well, and that I never
spent half my income; they would certainly advise me to turn off Mr.
Oldfox[4] my receiver, and take another. If, as a justice of peace, I
should tell a friend that my warrants and mittimuses were never drawn up
as I would have them; that I had the misfortune to send an honest man to
gaol, and dismiss a knave; he would bid me no longer trust Charles and
Harry,[5] my two clerks, whom he knew to be ignorant, wilful, assuming
and ill-inclined fellows. If I should add, that my tenants made me very
uneasy with their squabbles and broils among themselves; he would
counsel me to cashier Will Bigamy,[6] the seneschal of my manor. And
lastly, if my neighbour and I happened to have a misunderstanding about
the delivery of a message, what could I do less than strip and discard
the blundering or malicious rascal that carried it?[7]
It is the same thing in the conduct of public affairs, where they have
been managed with rashness or wilfulness, corruption, ignorance or
injustice; barely to relate the facts, at least, while they are fresh in
memory, will as much reflect upon the persons concerned, as if we had
told their names at length.
I have therefore since thought of another expedient, frequently practised
with great safety and success by satirical writers: which is, that of
looking into history for some character bearing a resemblance to the
person we would describe; and with the absolute power of altering, adding
or suppressing what circumstances we please, I conceived we must have
very bad luck, or very little skill to fail. However, some days ago in a
coffee-house, looking into one of the politic weekly papers; I found the
writer had fallen into this scheme, and I happened to light on that part,
where he was describing a person, who from small beginnings grew (as I
remember) to be constable of France, and had a very haughty, imperious
wife.[8] I took the author as a friend to our faction, (for so with great
propriety of speech they call the Queen and ministry, almost the whole
clergy, and nine parts in ten of the kingdom)[9] and I said to a
gentleman near me, that although I knew well enough what persons the
author meant, yet there were several particulars in the husband's
character, which I could not reconcile, for that of the lady was just and
adequate enough; but it seems I mistook the whole matter, and applied all
I had read to a couple of persons, who were not at that time in the
writer's thoughts.
Now to avoid such a misfortune as this, I have been for some time
consulting Livy and Tacitus, to find out a character of a _Princeps
Senatus,_ a _Praetor Urbanus,_ a _Quaestor Aerarius_, a _Caesari ab
Epistolis_, and a _Proconsul_;[10] but among the worst of them, I cannot
discover one from whom to draw a parallel, without doing injury to a
Roman memory: so that I am compelled to have recourse to Tully. But this
author relating facts only as an orator, I thought it would be best to
observe his method, and make an extract from six harangues of his against
Verres, only still preserving the form of an oration. I remember a
younger brother of mine, who deceased about two months ago, presented
the world with a speech of Alcibiades against an Athenian brewer:[11]
Now, I am told for certain, that in those days there was no ale in
Athens; and therefore that speech, or at least a great part of it, must
needs be spurious. The difference between me and my brother is this; he
makes Alcibiades say a great deal more than he really did, and I make
Cicero say a great deal less.[12] This Verres had been the Roman governor
of Sicily for three years; and on return from his government, the
Sicilians entreated Cicero to impeach him in the Senate, which he
accordingly did in several orations, from whence I have faithfully
translated and abstracted that which follows.
"MY LORDS,[13]
"A pernicious opinion hath for some time prevailed, not only at Rome, but
among our neighbouring nations, that a man who has money enough, though
he be ever so guilty, cannot be condemned in this place. But however
industriously this opinion be spread, to cast an odium on the Senate, we
have brought before your lordships Caius Verres, a person, for his life
and actions, already condemned by all men; but as he hopes, and gives
out, by the influence of his wealth, to be here absolved. In condemning
this man, you have an opportunity of belying that general scandal, of
redeeming the credit lost by former judgments, and recovering the love of
the Roman people, as well as of our neighbours. I have brought a man here
before you, my lords, who is a robber of the public treasure, an
overturner of law and justice, and the disgrace, as well as destruction,
of the Sicilian province: of whom, if you shall determine with equity and
due severity, your authority will remain entire, and upon such an
establishment as it ought to be: but if his great riches will be able to
force their way through that religious reverence and truth, which become
so awful an assembly, I shall, however, obtain thus much, that the defect
will be laid where it ought, and that it shall not be objected that the
criminal was not produced, or that there wanted an orator to accuse him.
This man, my lords, has publicly said, that those ought to be afraid of
accusations who have only robbed enough for their own support and
maintenance; but that _he_ has plundered sufficient to bribe numbers, and
that nothing is so high or so holy which money cannot corrupt. Take that
support from him, and he can have no other left. For what eloquence will
be able to defend a man, whose life has been tainted with so many
scandalous vices, and who has been so long condemned by the universal
opinion of the world? To pass over the foul stains and ignominy of his
youth, his corrupt management in all employments he has borne, his
treachery and irreligion, his injustice and oppression, he has left of
late such monuments of his villainies in Sicily, made such havoc and
confusion there, during his government, that the province cannot by any
means be restored to its former state, and hardly recover itself at all
under many years, and by a long succession of good governors. While this
man governed in that island, the Sicilians had neither the benefit of our
laws, nor their own, nor even of common right. In Sicily, no man now
possesses more than what the governor's lust and avarice have overlooked,
or what he was forced to neglect out of mere weariness and satiety of
oppression. Every thing where he presided, was determined by his
arbitrary will, and the best subjects he treated as enemies. To recount
his abominable debaucheries, would offend any modest ear, since so many
could not preserve their daughters and wives from his lust. I believe
there is no man who ever heard his name, that cannot relate his
enormities. We bring before you in judgment, my lords, a public robber,
an adulterer, a DEFILER OF ALTARS,[14] an enemy of religion, and of all
that is sacred; he sold all employments in Sicily of judicature,
magistracy, and trust, places in the council, and the priesthood itself,
to the highest bidder; and has plundered that island of forty millions of
sesterces. And here I cannot but observe to your lordships, in what
manner Verres passed the day: the morning was spent in taking bribes, and
selling employments, the rest of it in drunkenness and lust. His
discourse at table was scandalously unbecoming the dignity of his
station; noise, brutality, and obsceneness. One particular I cannot omit,
that in the high character of governor of Sicily, upon a solemn day, a
day set apart for public prayer for the safety of the commonwealth; he
stole at evening, in a chair, to a married woman of infamous
character,[15] against all decency and prudence, as well as against all
laws both human and divine. Didst thou think, O Verres, the government of
Sicily was given thee with so large a commission, only by the power of
that to break all the bars of law, modesty, and duty, to suppose all
men's fortunes thine, and leave no house free from thy rapine, or lust?
&c."
This extract, to deal ingenuously, has cost me more pains than I think it
is worth, having only served to convince me, that modern corruptions are
not to be paralleled by ancient examples, without having recourse to
poetry or fable. For instance, I never read in story of a law enacted to
take away the force of all laws whatsoever;[16] by which a man may safely
commit upon the last of June, what he would infallibly be hanged for if
he committed on the first of July; by which the greatest criminals may
escape, provided they continue long enough in power to antiquate their
crimes, and by stifling them a while, can deceive the legislature into an
amnesty, of which the enactors do not at that time foresee the
consequence. A cautious merchant will be apt to suspect, when he finds a
man who has the repute of a cunning dealer, and with whom he has old
accounts, urging for a general release. When I reflect on this
proceeding, I am not surprised, that those who contrived a parliamentary
sponge for their crimes, are now afraid of a new revolution sponge for
their money: and if it were possible to contrive a sponge that could only
affect those who had need of the other, perhaps it would not be ill
employed.
[Footnote 1: No. 17 in the reprint. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 2: Cicero, "In Q. Caec." i. 3: "They said that whatever luxury
could accomplish in the way of vice,... avarice in the way of plunder, or
arrogance in the way of insult, had all been borne by them for the last
three years, while this one man was praetor."--C.D. YONGE. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 3: John Churchill, Duke of Maryborough, who had been
Captain-General since 1702. He was dismissed from all his offices,
December 31st, 1711. The Duke of Ormonde was appointed Commander-in-Chief
on January 4th. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 4: Godolphin, Lord-Treasurer, nicknamed Volpone. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 5: Charles, Earl of Sunderland, and Henry Boyle (1670-1725),
were Secretaries of State. Boyle was created Lord Carleton in 1714.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 6: William; Earl Cowper (1665-1723), was Lord Chancellor under
Godolphin's administration (1707-1710), and also in 1714-1718. The
"Biographia Britannica" (second edition, vol. iv., p. 389 _n_.) refers to
a story that Cowper went through an informal marriage in the early
part of his life with a Mrs. Elizabeth Culling, of Hungerfordbury Park.
Cowper's first wife was Judith, daughter of Sir Robert Booth, of London;
and after her death he married Mary Clavering. See also "Examiner,"
No. 23, _post_. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 7: Horatio Walpole, secretary to the English Embassy at the
treaty of Gertruydenberg. See Swift's accusation against him in "The
Conduct of the Allies" (vol. v of present edition). [T.S.]]
[Footnote 8: "The Medley" (Nos. 6 and 7, November 6th and 13th, 1710)
contains a "Story of the Marquiss D'Ancre and his Wife Galigai," from
the French of M. Le Vassor. The Marquis is there described as "the
greatest cheat in the whole world"; and "Galigai had the insolence
to say a thousand offensive things." The article was intended as a
reflection on Harley and Mrs. Masham; but Swift takes it as for the
Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Certainly the character of Galigai
may with greater justice be applied to the Duchess. (See "Histoire
du regne de Louis XIII. par M. Michel Le Vassor.") Concino Concini,
Maréchal D'Ancre, was born at Florence, and died in 1617.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 9: "The Medley" was constantly deriding this alleged
proportion. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 10: "The Observator" for December 6th remarks: "If the
'Examiner' don't find better parallels for his _Princeps Senates, Praetor
Urbanus, Quaestor Aerarius_, and _Caesari ab Epistolis_, than he has done
for his Proconsul, Roger, the gentlemen he aims at may sleep without
disturbance." [T.S.]]
[Footnote 11: "The Whig Examiner" (No. 3, September 28th, 1710) prints a
speech alleged to have been made by Alcibiades in a contest with an
Athenian brewer named Taureas. The allusion was to the Westminster
election, when General Stanhope was opposed by a brewer named Thomas
Cross. "The Whig Examiner" was written by Addison. Five numbers only were
issued (September 14th to October 12th, 1710). "The light and comic style
of Addison's parody," notes Scott, may be compared "with the fierce,
stern, and vindictive tone of Swift's philippic against the Earl of
Wharton, under the name of Verres." [T.S.]]
[Footnote 12: "The Medley" (No. 11, December 11th, 1710) remarks of this
adaptation from Cicero, that the writer "has added more rude reflections
of his own than are to be found in that author, whose only fault is his
falling too much into such reflections." [T.S.]]
[Footnote 13: See also Swift's "Short Character," etc. (vol. v., pp. 1-28
of present edition), and note _in loco_. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 14: Hawkesworth notes: "The story of the Lord Wharton is true;
who, with some other wretches, went into a pulpit, and defiled it in
the most filthy manner." See also "Examiner," No. 23, _post_. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 15: Probably Mrs. Coningsby. See Swift's "Short Character"
(vol. v., p. 27). [T.S.]]
[Footnote 16: The "Act for the Queen's most gracious, general, and free
pardon" was passed in 1708 (7 Ann., c. 22). The Earl of Wharton himself
profited by this Act. A Mr. George Hutchinson gave Wharton £1,000
to procure his appointment to the office of Register of the Seizures.
This was proved before the House of Commons in May, 1713, and the
House resolved that it was "a scandalous corruption," and that as it
took place "before the Act of Her Majesty's most gracious, general,
and free pardon; this House will proceed no further in that matter."
("Journals of House of Commons," vol. xvii., p. 356.) [T.S.]]