026. 
eleStive. Where and when is a boundary 
line to. be drawn between an ufurpation 
that creates a new government, and the 
poffeflion which legitimates the ufurpa- 
tion? Titles of empire can neither be 
judged of by common rules, nor fubjeéted 
to them. As power confers, fo power 
mutt uphold, them. Bonaparie is bufily 
employed in fertifying his throne, like the 
Roman Emperors, by a Pretorian-band, 
and by operating, in various ways, on 
both the hopes and the fears of the nation. 
But, in preportion as a nation becomes 
fenfual, felith, and inactive; fears and 
corruption are ulually confidered as more 
powerful engines of government, than con- 
-ceffions of right, and a€ts gf benevolence 
‘and juftice. JERNENSIs. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, 
HOUGH much of argumentation 
is not to be expected from poets ; 
yet when they engage init atall, the fame 
accuracy of reafoning may juitly be re- 
quired from them as from profe-writers. 
‘The want of this lately ftruck me in the 
perufal of a poem of Mafon’s, which in 
fome refpe€ts is a fine compofition, This 
is his <* Elegy on the Death of a Lady”’ 
(the beautiful Countels of Coventry). It 
concludes with an apoftrophe, probably 
rhe main purpole of the piece, totceptics, 
chiefly alluding to the Great King of 
Proffia. The poet fays, to the votaries 
of pieafure and amufement : 
Yet will I praife you, triflers as ye are, 
More than thofe preachers of your fav’rite 
creed, 
Who proudly fweil the brazen throat of war, 
Who form the phalanx, bid the battle 
bleed ; 
Wor wifh for more: who conquer, but to die. 
Hear, Folly, hear, and triumph in the 
tale: 
Like you they reafon, not, like you, enjoy 
The breeze of blifs, that fills your filken 
fail, &c. 
He goes on to purfue this idea—that an 
Epicurean, and difbeliever of a future 
Mate, ought, in confiftency, to be an in- 
dolent voluptuary, fince he has no future 
rewaras of toil and hardfhip to look to. 
But how wonderfully defeétive is this rea- 
foning! In the firtt place, it overlooks 
fome of the ftrongeft propenfities of hu- 
man nature, fuch as the love of ation, 
of novelty, of diftin€tion, of dominion, 
and the ike, which in many individuals, 
perhaps at times in all, we find by expe- 
rience to be infinitely Aronger than the 
mere appetite’ for luxurious enjoyments, 
If 4 man looks ior al] hig happinefs in 
SiriGures on a Poem of Mafon. 
‘love of fame. 
* OSober i 
this world, it does not follow that he 
ought to prefer inactive to active gratifi- 
cations. Are not the works of philofo- 
phers and moralifts full of incitements ta 
the vigorous employment of our faculties 
in the purluit of knowledge and the ac- 
quifition of arts, in order to avoid that 
Janguor and fiate of degradation whichys 
the infallible confequence of Jazy indul- 
gence: and would not Mafon himfelf con- 
fefs, that his friend Gray, who ftudied 
only for his own pleafure, was more ra- 
tionally employed in diving into the depths 
of learning, than his fellow-collegians in 
lounging ma common hall? The King of 
Pruffia has confefled, that he was princi- 
pally moved to his military exploits by a 
Tt fuited Maton’s argu- 
ment to difparage this motive, though a 
poet ovght to be fomewhat tender on fuch 
a point. He fays, ede 
Is it for glory > that juft Fate denies, 
Long muft the warrior moulder in his 
fhroud, 
Ere from her trump the heav’n-breath’d ac- 
cents rife, 
That lift the hero from the fighting crowd. 
But this reprefentation is not true. Mili- 
tary fame is that which is the moft- fre- 
quently, and in the.fulleft degree, enjoyed 
during life; and Frederic certainly lived 
te receive a large portion of it. ‘Not more 
jut is his next conclufion :— 
Is it his grafp of empire to extend, 
To curb the fury of infulting foes? 
Ambition, ceafe; the idle conteft end : 
°Tis but 2 kingdom thou can’ft win or lofe. 
But the defire of aggrandifement in a 
prince is certainly very natural, and 
(apart from moral confiderations) of a 
nobler rank than the purfuit of fugitive 
and fenfual delights. Indeed, ‘to curb 
the fury of infulting foes,” is in every 
refpeét a laudable obje&t of ambition ; nor 
can the winning or jofing of a kingdom 
appear a trifling concern to one whofe 
great diftintion is the hereditary poffef- 
fion of akingdom. Fredetic, by his ex 
ertions, almoft doubled his dominions; he 
was likely, therefore, to feel that they had 
been well beftowed. : 
But the capital fault of the poet’s rea- 
foning is, that in his zeal to ftate the im- 
pertance of future exiftence, abliractedly 
eonfidercd, he has entirely overlooked the 
moral part of the doétrine. It might be 
inferred from his lines, that it would have 
been Je/s abfurd for the King of Preffia to 
have purfved his military plans, had-he 
been 9 believer in.a future ftate; fince the 
abfurdity is made to confit in the want 
of that belief. Whereas, the reality is, 
thas, 
