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sight of God? We must distinguish in this point. This pleasure is either an agreeable sensation we are affected with, when we meet with a witty thought which is well expressed, or it is a joy which we conceive from the dishonour of the person who is defamed. I will say nothing to the first of these cases; for perhaps some would think that my morality is not severe enough, if I should affirm that a man is not master of those agreeable sensations, any more than of those occasioned by sugar or honey, when they touch his tongue; but as to the second, every one will own that pleasure to be a heinous sin. The pleasure in the first case is of no continuance; it prevents our reason and reflection, and may be immediately followed by a secret grief, to see our neighbour's honour blasted. If it does not cease immediately, it is a sign that we are not displeased with the ill-nature of the satirist, but are glad to see him defame his enemy by all kinds of stories; and then we deserve the punishment to which the writer of the libel is subject. I shall here add the words of a modern author. St. Gregory, upon excommunicating those writers who had dishonoured Castorius, does not except those who read their works; because, says he, if calumnies have always been the delight of their hearers, and a gratification of those persons who have no other advantage over honest men, is not he who takes pleasure in reading them as guilty as he who composed them? It is an uncontested

maxim, that they who approve an action, would certainly do it if they could; that is, if some reason of self-love did not hinder them. There is no difference, says Cicero, between advising a crime, and approving it when committed. The Roman law confirmed this maxim, having subjected the approvers and authors of this evil to the same penalty. We may therefore conclude, that those who are pleased with reading defamatory libels, so far as to approve the authors and dispersers of them, are as guilty as if they had composed them; for, if they do not write such libels themselves, it is because they have not the talent of writing, or because they will run no hazard."

The author produces other authorities to confirm his judgment in this particular.

XVII.

SPIES.

Hi narrata ferunt aliò: mensuraque ficti

Crescit; et auditis aliquid novus adjicit auctor.

Ovid, Met. xii. 57.

Some tell what they have heard, or tales devise;
Each fiction still improv'd with added lies.

OVID describes the palace of Fame as situated in the very centre of the universe, and perforated with so many windows as gave her the sight of every thing that was done in the heavens, in the earth, and in the sea. The structure of it was contrived in so admirable a manner, that it echoed every word which was spoken in the whole come pass of nature; so that the palace, says the poet, was always filled with a confused hubbub of low, dying sounds, the voices being almost spent and worn out before they arrived at this general rendezvous of speeches and whispers.

I consider courts with the same regard to the governments which they superintend, as Ovid's palace of Fame with regard to the universe. The

eyes of a watchful minister run through the whole people. There is scarce a murmur or complaint that does not reach his ears. They have newsgatherers and intelligencers distributed into their several walks and quarters, who bring in their respective quotas, and make them acquainted with the discourse and conversation of the whole kingdom or commonwealth where they are employed. The wisest of kings, alluding to these invisible and unsuspected spies, who are planted by kings and rulers over their fellow-citizens, as well as to those voluntary informers that are buzzing about the ears of a great man, and making their court by such secret methods of intelligence, has given us a very prudent caution: "Curse not the prudent_caution*: king, no not in thy thought, and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”

As it is absolutely necessary for rulers to make use of other people's eyes, they should take particular care to do it in such a manner, that it may not bear too hard on the person whose life and conversation are inquired into. A man who is capable of so infamous a calling as that of a spy, is not very much to be relied upon. He can have no great ties of honour, or checks of conscience, to restrain him in those covert evidences, where the person accused has no opportunity of vindi

Eccl. x. 20.

cating himself. He will be more industrious to carry that which is grateful than that which is true. There will be no occasion for him if he does not hear and see things worth discovery; so that he naturally inflames every word and circumstance, aggravates what is faulty, perverts what is good, and misrepresents what is indifferent. Nor is it to be doubted but that such ignominious wretches let their private passions into these their clandestine informations, and often wreak their particular spite and malice against the person whom they are set to watch. It is a pleasant scene enough, which an Italian author describes between a spy and a cardinal who employed him. The cardinal is represented as minuting down every thing that is told him. The spy begins with a low voice, "Such an one, the advocate, whispered to one of his friends, within my hearing, that your eminence was a very great poltroon;" and, after having given his patron time enough to take it down, adds, that another called him a mercenary rascal in a public conversation. The cardinal replies, "Very well," and bids him go on. The spy proceeds and loads him with reports of the same nature, till the cardinal rises in great wrath, calls him an impudent scoundrel, and kicks him out of the room.

It is observed of great and heroic minds, that they have not only shown a particular disregard to those unmerited reproaches which have been cast upon them, but have been altogether free

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