Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his _ease
sacred_, may perhaps be disputable. To please king and country without
sacrificing friendship to any change of times was a very uncommon
instance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept separate from
so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish our poets would
attend a little more accurately to the use of the word _sacred_, which
surely should never be applied in a serious composition, but where some
reference may be made to a higher Being, or where some duty is exacted or
implied. A man may keep his friendship sacred, because promises of
friendship are very awful ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a
burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease _sacred_.