Wesley Corpus

It is as natural for us to talk politics as to breathe; we can instruct both the King and his Council. We can in a trice reform the State, point out every blunder of this or that Minister, and tell every step they ought to take to be arbiters of all Europe.” I grant, every cobbler, tinker, porter, and hackney-coachman can do this; but I am not so deep learned: While they are sure of everything, I am in a manner sure of nothing; except of that very little which I see with my own eyes, or hear with my own ears. However, since you desire me to tell you what I think, I will do it with all openness. Only please to remember, I do not take upon me to dictate eithcr to you or to any one. I only use the privilege of an English man, to speak my naked thoughts; setting down just what appears to me to be the truth, till I have better information. At present, indeed, I have not much information, having read little upon this head but the public papers; and you know these arc mostly on one side; in them little is to be seen on the other side; and that little is seldom wrote by masterly writers. How few of them have such a pen as Junius ! But supposing we have cver so much information, how little can one rely on it! on the information given by either party For is not onc as warm as the other? And who does mot know how impossible it is for a man to sce things right when he is angry? Does not passion blind the eyes of the understanding, as smoke does the bodily eyes? And how little of the truth can we learn from those who sec nothing but through a cloud 7 This advantage then I have over both parties,--the being angry at neither. So that if I have a little understanding from nature or experience, it is (in this instance at least) unclouded by passion. I wish the same happiness which I wish to myself, to those on one side and on the other. I would not hurt either in the lcast degree; I would not willingly give them any pain. I have likewise another advantage, that of having no bias one way or the other.