years of manhood, though he found himself emperor of a vast and numerous people, master of an endless territory, absolute commander of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, in the midst of this unbounded power and greatness turned his thoughts upon himself and people with sorrow. Sordid ignorance and a brute manner of life this generous prince beheld, and contemned from the light of his own genius. His judgment suggested this to him, and his courage prompted him to amend it. In order to this he did not send to the nation from whence the rest of the world has borrowed its politeness, but himself left his diadem to learn the true way to glory and honour, and application to useful arts, wherein to employ the laborious, the simple, the honest part of his people. Mechanic employments and operations but in one particular he claimed to be his superior; he had subjected his clergy to his will, whereas Lewis had allowed the clergy to rule him. In an interesting paper in the Review (Aug. 23, 1711), Defoe spoke of Steele's essay, and dwelt upon the darker side of Peter's character. I applaud the opinion of the author of the Spectator, in the affair of the Czar of Muscovy, as to leaving his empire to store his mind with useful knowledge, &c. . . . But I cannot equally applaud the Czar as a true hero, unless I could find him sensible of the native right of his subjects to that liberty which God at first, without doubt, vested all his reasonable creatures with, and which they only lose the sense of, just as they gradually degenerate from the rectitude of their creation. Had the Czar of Moscow a spirit of true greatness, to reject and contemn the brutish and truly contemptible part of a monarch, viz. tyrannising over his people; had he given them liberty and laws, then had he been a hero indeed. Nor do I see how a tyrant can be a hero; nothing but generous principles constitute a hero.' Defoe then gives a vivid sketch of the reign of terror and tyranny in Russia; those who argue for arbitrary government have no taste of liberty. The value of liberty is in the use of it; he that knows not how to use it, has no taste for it, no relish of it, and 'tis of no value to him; he cannot live upon it.' 6 were very justly the first objects of his favour and observation. With this glorious intention he travelled into foreign nations in an obscure manner, above receiving little honours where he sojourned, but prying into what was of more consequence, their arts of peace and of war. By this means has this great prince laid the foundation of a great and lasting fame, by personal labour, personal knowledge, personal valour. It would be injury to any of antiquity to name them with him. Who, but himself, ever left a throne to learn to sit in it with more grace? Who ever thought himself mean in absolute power, until he had learned to use it? If we consider this wonderful person, it is perplexity to know where to begin his encomium. Others may in a metaphorical or philosophic sense be said to command themselves, but this emperor is also literally under his own command. How generous and how good was his entering his own name as a private man in the army he raised, that none in it might expect to outrun the steps with which he himself advanced? By such measures this godlike prince learned to conquer, learned to use his conquests. How terrible has he appeared in battle, how gentle in victory? Shall then the base arts of the Frenchman be held polite, and the honest labours of the Russian barbarous? No: barbarity is the ignorance of true honour, or placing anything instead of it. The unjust prince is ignoble and barbarous, the good prince only renowned and glorious. Though men may impose upon themselves what they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth will ever keep its station: and as glory is nothing else but the shadow of virtue, it will certainly disappear at the departure of virtue. But how carefully ought the true notions of it to be preserved, and how industrious should we be to encourage any impulses towards it? The Westminster schoolboy that said the other day he could not sleep or play for the colours in the Hall,' ought to be free from receiving a blow for ever. of But let us consider what is truly glorious, according to the author I have to-day quoted in the front my paper. The perfection of glory, says Tully,2 consists in these three particulars: 'That the people love us; that they have confidence in us; that being affected with a certain admiration towards us, they think we deserve honour.' This was spoken of greatness in a commonwealth: but if one were to form a notion of consummate glory under our constitution, one must add to the above-mentioned felicities a certain necessary inexistence and disrelish of all the rest without the prince's favour. He should, methinks, have riches, power, honour, command, glory; but riches, power, honour, command, and glory should have no charms, but as accompanied with the affection of his prince. He should, methinks, be popular because a favourite, and a favourite because popular. Were it not to make the character too imaginary, I would give him sovereignty over some foreign territory, and make him esteem that an empty addition without the kind regards of his own prince. One may merely have an idea of a man thus composed and circumstantiated, and if he were so made for power without an incapacity of giving jealousy, he would be also glorious without possibility of receiving disgrace. This humility and this importance must make his glory immortal. 1 Colours taken at Blenheim, and hung in Westminster Hall. 2 Cicero, First Philippic. These thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the usual length of this paper, but if I could suppose such rhapsodies could outlive the common fate of ordinary things, I would say these sketches and faint images of glory were drawn in August 1711, when John Duke of Marlborough made that memorable march wherein he took the French lines without bloodshed.1 No. 140. Friday, August 10, 1711 T. [steele. -Animum curis nunc huc nunc dividit illuc. WHE ́HEN I acquaint my reader that I have many lieve he will own, what I have a mind he should believe, that I have no small charge upon me, but am a person of some consequence in this world. I shall therefore employ the present hour only in reading petitions, in the order as fol lows: 1 The writer (Philo Strategos') of a pamphlet called Churchill's Annals,' 1714, which was dedicated to The Englishman,' i.e. Steele, says, 'In 1711 his Grace returned to Flanders, where he forced the French lines upon the Senset and the Scheld, which Mareschal Villars boasted were his ne plus ultra, with such conduct, speed, and secrecy as made a great noise in all the courts of Europe but ours, and is very completely celebrated by one of the duke's grateful countrymen, a person whose judgment is of more weight than all the united opinions of his Grace's enemies, I mean the ingenious author of the Spectator.' Marlborough's successful manœuvres enabled him to capture Bouchain, but he was not able to press forward into France, as he had intended. 'Mr. SPECTATOR, 'I HAVE lost so much time already that I desire, upon the receipt hereof, you would sit down immediately and give me your answer. I would know of you whether a pretender of mine really loves me. As well as I can I will describe his manners. When he sees me he is always talking of constancy, but vouchsafes to visit me but once a fortnight, and then is always in haste to be gone. When I am sick, I hear he says he is mightily concerned, but neither comes nor sends, because, as he tells his acquaintance with a sigh, he does not care to let me know all the power I have over him, and how impossible it is for him to live without me. When he leaves the town he writes once in six weeks; desires to hear from me; complains of the torment of absence; speaks of flames, tortures, languishings, and ecstasies. He has the cant of an impatient lover, but keeps the pace of a lukewarm one. You know I must not go faster than he does, and to move at this rate is as tedious as counting a great clock. But you are to know he is rich, and my mother says, 'As he is slow he is sure; he will love me long if he love me little.' But I appeal to you whether he loves at all Your neglected humble Servant, 'All these fellows who have money are extremely saucy and cold. Pray, sir, tell them of it.' |