Wesley Corpus

Who are the witnesses of it? Indeed we have read as grave and formal accounts of the conferences at Carlton-House, as if the relater had stood all the time behind the curtain, and taken down the whole matter in short-hand. But what shadow of proof of all this? No more than of the conferences related in Tristram Shandy. “But she is a bad woman.” Who ever said or thought so, even while she was in the flower of her age? From the time she first set foot in England, was there a more faultless character in the nation? Nay, was not her whole behaviour as a wife, as a mother, as a mistress, and as a Princess, not only blameless but commendable in the highest degree, till that period of time arrived, when it was judged proper, in order to blacken her (supposed) favourite, to asperse her too? And then she was illud quod dicere nolo 't One would think that even the ignobile vulgus, “the beasts of the people,” the lowest, basest herd who wore the human form, would be ashamed of either advancing or crediting so senseless, shame less a tale. Indeed I can hardly think it is credited by one in an hundred even of those who foul their mouths with repeating it. Let it die and be forgotten | Let it not be remembered that ever any Englishman took so dirty a slander into his mouth. * This was wrote before the Princess Dowager went abroad. + What I am reluctant to express.-EDIT. “However, become what will of his mother, let him put away his bad Ministers.” Suppose they really are bad, do you know where he can find better? Whore can he find twenty men, we will not say of Christian but of Roman integrity? Point them out, -men of sound judgment, of clear appre hension, of universal benevolence, lovers of mankind, lovers of their country, lovers of their King; men attached to no. party, but simply pursuing the general good of the nation; not haughty or overbearing, not addicted to passion, not of a revengeful temper; superior to covetousness on the one hand, free from profuseness on the other. I say, show me the men, only this small number; or rather, show them to His Majesty.