634 Letters of Anna Seward. 
nent’s asserted legality of our king’s claim 
to the crown, indcpendent of the suf- 
frages of his people; but it left my ap- 
prehensions of Gallic danger in full torce. 
Not denying the truth of the circum- 
stances by which Burke seems to prove 
that danger, Sir Brooke appears to admit 
its existence. , 
As to the anti-sophist, Priestley, I dis- 
like his disingenuous manceuvrings about 
Christianity too much to respect his opi- 
nions on any subject, so did not read his 
reply to Burke. é 
ut Lread Payne’s last work, and saw 
him divest the oratoric renegade of all 
retensionsto candour and fair statement, 
ee proving that he had misrepresented 
some facts, and kept back others with all 
the finesse of a courtly politician. I 
read in Payne that declaration of the 
fights of man, upon which a perfect code 
of laws, and a perfect form of govern- 
ment might be established, if human 
nature was disinterested, wise, and vir- 
tuous. Not being any of these things, 
‘Hut the reverse of them all, Ido not be- 
lieve those who have obtained power in 
“France will respect its maxims enough to 
govern themselves by them; enough to 
prevent the people from repenting that 
they fled fronrthe throne to petty tyrants, 
Tiiis authors style is not elegant, or at 
all possesses equal force with his matter— 
yet, at intervals, he shows that he can 
“command a fine one, 
The Lessons to a Young Prince are 
&monegst the finest and most spirited 
‘ compositions of the age. Their style is 
perfect. It has all the beauty and ani- 
‘mation of Burke’s, with more perspicuity. 
’ heir “author is a miracle, a political 
writer without party-prejudice. My opi- 
“pions ‘almjost always met his as I read ; 
particularly: whén he traces to its source 
‘the’ king’s popularity, viz. the dread of 
seeing a needy, rapacious, and unprinci- 
‘pled faction govern the nation, with a 
yore oppressive hand than our present 
®rafers:: One of them has pulted off his 
"masque of patriotism to get into power 
bythe kihg’s favour; and the rest would 
* follow bis €xample,y could. they. first get 
power. 
T admire the French for taking the pii- 
* vilege of making war with other nations 
out of the hands of kings and ministers. 
-T wish it was so here—but surely they 
~have violated justice most tyrannically 
- by their invasion of property, and the 
confiscation of hereditary estates. As 
~to-the chureh-lands;-their being reduced 
veinto moderation, is well—I wish that 
also wasso here. Yet, upon the whole, 
I am inclined to fear, that more diffusive. 
misery and national inconsequenee will 
be the result of that extreme ta which 
they are pushing the levelling principle, 
than from the system, bad as it was, 
which they have destroyed. After all, 
I think modestly, and with no pretence 
to decision. Though the French revo 
lution is at present too big with danger 
to admit a desire, in‘any real well-wisher’ 
to this country, that she should consider 
it as her model;—yet I wish the French 
may prove a pattern, hereafter, of public 
virtue and public happiness, to the whole 
world. Politics never engrossed uch of 
my attention, convinced— 
** In every government, though terrors reign, 
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrainy 
How small, of all that human‘hearts endure, 
That part which laws, or kings, can cause or 
cure.”’* 
BOSWELL’S LIFE OF. JOHNSON. 
As yet, I have read only the first vo- 
lume of Boswell’s Life of Johnson. What 
I foresaw has happened. That ingenious 
pencil, which so well fulfilled the bio- 
graphic duty, and painted the despot. 
exactly as he was, when roaming the 
lonely Hebrides, has, ape impulse: of: 
terror, been exchanged for a more glow- 
ing one; and, in this work, almost every 
thing is kept back which could give um- 
brage to Johnson’s idolaters, by justly 
displaying the darker, as well as fairer, 
sides of the medal. All, however, but 
his idolaters, must detest the ungrateful 
duplicity proved upon him, when we 
find him speaking with slight, bordering 
upon contempt, of the then Mrs. Thrale, 
in the zenith of his intimacy with her. 
Mr. Boswell was not aware, that impar- 
tiality would compare what he said of 
her, with what he said to her. ‘To 
hear you,” says he, in his letters to . 
that lady, * is to hear wisdom; to 
see you is to see virtue.” What des- 
picable flattery was that, if he really be- 
lieved the stores of her mind were trivial, 
and. that she had no truth? while, if 
conscious that these imputations were une 
just, his heart was at once thankless and 
malevolently.. false. .Such, I confess, 
amidst all his. gloomy piety, I always 
thought it. That conviction has not re-. 
ceded beneath the contempt of your 
charming friend, and of Mrs. Montague, 
* Miss Seward, misled by the massacres and 
horrors of the revolution, afterwards became 
an alarmist, and circulated among her friends 
the vilest libels against the supporters of pubs 
lic Jiberty in England ! 
_ 
whick — 
