June 25, 1738

My lord,

Now and then, at the distance, perhaps, of an age or two, there appear men, for the honour of their country, whose claims are so strong, to the admiration of posterity, that no writer, known to have been born their cotemporary, can escape some distrust of his own taste or spirit, if he has not applauded theirs publicly.

Except under impressions like these, what have poets to do with the powerful? Whatever zeal I may have for their worship, it is what very few great men have found troublesome; and it affords peace to my conscience, that I shall so seldom, among the catalogues of my sins, be found chargeable with that of modern dedication. What a shameful idolatry is that, which hath bepagan'd the apostate sons of the Muses! degenerate worshippers, not in the groves, I confess, but, in far less invitingHIGH PLACES! Bowers of the knee before BAALS, of the same lumpish quality with the calf, in the wilderness, and composed of the same damning metal!

Yet, how justly soever I have been scandalized at these abominations of us poetical heathens, I have felt a check in my spirit, for neglecting the primitive worship. — While we detest superstition, we should avoid irreligion, nor fall off from the GOD, who condescended to appear to ourFore-fathers . Wherever real greatness shines out with most force, it should attract with most manifest influence: and so, indeed, thank Heaven! it will: for if, now and then, it seems otherwise, for a season, it is the effect of a temporary screen; an unwholesome intervention of fog, which steams, perhaps, from some fen of corruption. — It may endanger the plague, it is true, while it obstructs, stinks and putrifies: but, dispersing, at last, it brings benefit, quickening our relish for returns of lost sunshine, and giving back our health, with fine weather.

But, when I would convey to another age my sentiments on the character, I find most amiable in this, to what a flame am I adding a sparkle! The spirit of a Bolingbroke must assert its own lustre; it disdains, or disgraces, an auxiliary; a poor dull gloworm make-weight may be willing enough to burn out in its service, but it can have no chance of becoming discernable!

Nor was it easy, under influence of a taste like the present, for a dedicator, whose weight is not found in his name, to select any subject, capable of elevation, to merit your patronage, and the ear of posterity, that could be intitled to probability of becoming current enough, not to defame your acceptance.

Yet, there occurred one, at last, that without wanting dignity to attract your regard, carried prospect, at the same time, of a public success, from the claim it lays to of political mischiefs. With respect, indeed, to the vindication, it professes, of Cœsar, it is surprising, there could be a people upon earth, among whom it became necessary to defend such a character. I have only this reflection, by way of atonement, that, were we to suppose such a spirit, as Cœsar's, ever at all looking down upon a people, so blind, or so partial, it must be with an eye of forgiveness and reverence; if for no other recollection, in their favour, yet, as they have, now and then, had theirST JOHNS among them.

But, I am afraid, my lord, you have other pretensions, besides your supremacy of genius, to the right of protecting a Cœsar. The world will consider it as an obligation, no less due from your justice, than adapted to your skill and authority. They remember you lending the antagonist of Cœsar an assistance, that calls aloud for reparation. And, if the CATO of our climate deserved and grew great, by your support, from but an equal attachment to liberty— fairer much stands the claim of his conqueror, in whom the same root of virtue threw out branches, of such accomplished urbanity.

Though I know, that, next to the dull, the digressive are your lordship's aversion; yet, so powerful are our natural propensities, to be dwelling upon objects, which please us, that I find it a difficulty to draw off my eye from a strongly delicate little incident, in the steerage of turbulent purpose. What I consider in it, with most pleasure and wonder, is, the impulse men are propelled with, by nature, to demonstrate their distinctions of genius! no occasion so great, or so public, into which a nibbling state reptile will not creep, to contract its dimensions. None so trivial, minute, and particular, but can be extended, by the guardians of government, 'till they become wide enough to take in great uses.

For it was not only a seasonable, it was an important vivacity of forecast, whereby that theatrical plot of party was so gaily, and so soon disappointed! and their poetical patriot pressed into the service of an administration, against whose views, and whose interest, all the spleen of malevolent wit had been sharpening the edge of his satire.

Such is the difference, between statesman and statesman! one is involved by events, and succumbs to, and subsists by expedients; the other makes, or adapts his occasions, and foresees and constrains their successes. — There are, who can apprehend no importance at all, in the political use of a Theatre. There have been, who could attract its felt force to their ends, and divert all its gall on their enemies. Every porter in politics, can padlock the door against satire, and teach power to keep all wit at a distance. How much rarer is that manly adroitness, which can discern, intercept, and convert it, by a direction, the reverse of its tendency!

But, returning from a temptation, whereby, even the lowest of your Lordship's great qualities have a power to draw men aside into undesigned and unseasonable rapture, I proceed to a second reflection, that limited me, in the choice of a patron, with respect to this particular tragedy.

I doubt, whether a regard to the truth of its moral, could strike any other great ornament of the present age, to such advantage of the future, as you, my lord, can bestow on posterity. For, to what infinite lengths of advancement might not the interests of learning and genius be extended, by a spirit, which, among the obliquities and confinements of politics, could, and did, at the same time, outshine all mankind, in humanity, wit, taste, and politeness! had it only pleased heaven, for the general delight of our species, to disengage such a spirit into latitude, by surrounding it with leisure from greatness.

And, yet, that the most dazzling and successful pursuits of ambition never served to any happier end, than to lay waste, and make wretched all the wit, and the learning, and wisdom — all the courage, and patience, and honesty, — all the grandeur, and godlike benevolence of the noblest master-spirits of the world — is a reflection, no example below Cœsar's, could have a right to impress on a Bolingbroke; because, if in the object proposed as a proof, there had appeared a too visible inferiority, the disappointment would have seemed to arise, not so much from inherent deception, the result of the passion itself, as from that personal inequality to the pursuit, which might then have been charged on the pursuer.

Long — very long — and unenvied may the titular lumber of greatness, common people of ill-named distinction, crowed the shining approaches to misery! — Let the naturally noble and splendid, lend their light, and their warmth to the publick.

I can think of no accident in government, whence more benefit is derived on mankind, than from the disgusts or resented ingratitude, which set free such fine minds, as your lordship's, from the embarrassment of court-mazes and politics. So fall back, from a heat too remiss to detain weighty fluids, those salubrious and cherishing rains, to which earth owes her health, and fertility!

Would to god, all the qualities of a great and celebrated Roman, who, in this place, rises into my memory, were as equal to the comparison, I would honour his name by, as were his eloquence, love of learning, and delight in the good of his country! — I could than have remarked, without pain, under sense of the wrong, I am doing an Englishman, that, had not Cicero been malignantly dreaded at Rome, he had never spread himself abroad upon the universe, into those best lights of himself, that illustrate the fame of his character. — And, if I were not now speaking to the only good man in the world, who could possibly be displeased with the compliment, I would name a superior to irresolute Cicero! — self-exiled to the reproach of his country! who will teach better times than he lives in, by the force of a pen never equall'd, truths, which his tongue(all resistless, and lov'd, as it is) could neither have propagated, with such lasting effect, nor promulged to such boundless extension.

As for my own sense of things, who delight to turn soon from the melancholy side of a prospect, I consider the absence of such ill-understood great patriots, rather as a glory, than disgrace, to their country. For, having long seen too plainly, that we are permitted to make no more than a jest of old martial pretensions to conquest, in a neighbouring kingdom, I am, therefore, struck with a secret delight, while such a sovereign English spirit, as your lordship's, residing in the midst of that powerful people, keeps up one claim, at least, to superiority, which they cannot fail, in your right, to acknowledge, though they would laugh, with more reason than we do, at such a claim from our own side of the water.

It is so natural a transition, from the country, that is honoured with your residence, to its men of genius, who have been proud of your notice, that I take this to be the properest place, wherein to acknowledge my motives for disapproving the Cæsar of m. de Voltaire, notwithstanding the reluctance of a well-known partiality, for his writings. Yet, I disapprove with that doubt, which is due from one writer, who judges another, 'til your lordship (I dare say, on both sides, the most unexceptionable mediator in Europe) shall have been so good to decide it conclusively.

If, after allowing all the force, and the spirit of this celebrated French genius, I, nevertheless, lay claim to the liberty of reason, and dislike, and dispute, without licence, 'tis because no apology, methinks, should be necessary for freedoms, which have truth for their motive; nor can distaste, and much less animosity, be derived without narrowness, from any difference in opinion or judgment. The relation between men (as mere men) seems a nobler inducement to associate their regards and affections, than the accidents of custom and country. But larger still, and more general by far, are the tyes, that bind, writer to writer. The common wealth of letters expands its naturalization by no narrower a bound than the world; and whoever is born but to think, is a citizen of that spreading republic.

Yet, when the honour of families is at stake, it becomes the duty of brothers to support against brothers, the common cause of paternal attachment. — The writer, then, in dispute, will be too just to conceive himself injured, if I desert him, in behalf of my country. Indeed, I cannot, so much as by silence, admit the bad reason, which, in his preface to The Death of Cœsar, he has given his own countrymen, for writing that piece, which was (he says) that they might have a perfect idea of the taste of the English tragedy.

Not to protest in repulse of this charge, would be, to acquiesce under imputations of brutality. For, what less share of insensibility to all that is manly, or tender, can consent to mistake, as an example of national virtue, an inhuman, and bloody enthusiast; factor, under suspicion or appearance of tyranny, persists in and executes the murder, even after discovering, that it is upon the person of his father!

I appeal, out of England, to the best judge of England, whether this would be suffered on our stage? whether a nation, so vain of its claims to humanity, as not to have laugh'd at some writers if its own, when they asserted, with a serious face, that good nature was so entirely an English peculiarity, that there wanted even a name for the virtue, in every language of Europe but ours! whether, my lord, a people, so rapaciously fond of a quality, that but endears and embellishes duty, could support without horror and hatred a scene, that makes war upon nature! violating the groundwork, the fundamental obligation of being, in behalf of a collateral virtue!

Presuming, on the right of an Englishman, that our judge has declared in our favour, I go on, to except against another too hasty conclusion, that seems to have misled m. de Voltaire, to reject women characters, in his Tragedy — I don't know, how he came off, from this charge, among those, who had most cause to be angry: but, if I am not mistaken in the spirit and fire he was born among, the ladies of France, found it hard, to forgive his unmindfulness, how often their sex had been foremost, in both the glory, and disgrace of his country.

I am afraid, indeed, it will be urged, in his favour that he had none of his country-women, in view; for methinks, the motive to this adventurous, and more than salic exclusion, squints a little toward England in the critical condemnation,he has bestowed upon the Martias,and Lucias,in our tragedies: I remember, where he has told all the world, that he hates such insipid danglers in passion: and many Englishmen, perhaps, would subscribe to his opinion, if it were to be understood but with this necessary restriction, that the levity of an amorous gallantry is inconsistently mixt with distresses, like the death of a Cato or Cæsar; but Rome could, surely! have furnished him with spirits, of a severer, and more aweful impression: she had her Cornelias and Portias at his service: souls! of a compass, and turn, that can justify the pretension of ladies, to far other shares, than are commonly allotted them, in the conduct of tragedy: to parts more proportioned to their worth, than their weakness! parts which, taking strength into tenderness, from the sex's capacity, not of pleasing alone — but correcting, impelling, restraining, confounding, endangering, might produce, guide, and animate the most passionate dramatic perplexities, from a clashing display, not of feminine follies but virtues, applied to their opposite interests. I am so fully persuaded of the ease, with which this might be done, that I don't know whether your lordship will not find the two characters, most immediately necessary to the catastrophe of the model before you, in the wives of the two principal persons.

However, provoked into this unwilling necessity, of asserting an Englishman's relish in tragedy, upon a plan, the reverse of what France has been taught to conceive it, I have retained that fine incident, of the amour between Cæsar and Servilia: fond indeed of every thing, which I would derive from m. de Voltaire, with equal room to preserve, and be pleased with: but, I am sorry I found it impossible, to pity either his Brutus, or his Cæsar. The one upon every new reading, always shocking me, still more than before, with a detestation of his inhuman ferocity: and the other in pursuit of an imperious, and arrogant superiority, seeming to forget his own true motives, and character, so far, as to give up the sense, and foundation of a conduct (the boast of antiquity! and brightest example of nature!) to the mistakes of his modern accusers, men of inflexible, unarguing prejudice: who, having accustomed themselves to think Cæsar a tyrant, sacrifice reason and facts, to opinion; and condemn the great martyr of popular liberty, as one, who was for trampling on the rights of his country. The injustice of this lazy concession in writers, and the original cause, the mistake appears owing to (from influence of the Senate's usurpation at Rome) shewn in as obvious a light as, at this distance of time, I was able to throw on the subject — I wish may have had strength to travel so far, as to the honour of your lordship's notice, in a late enquiry into the merit of assassination, with a view to the character of Cæsar, and his designs on the Roman republic.

Thus, my lord, like a penitent sinner, unwilling to depart with a load on his conscience, I, who, in one sense, am bidding farewell to the world, having taken my leave of its hopes and its flatteries, now, disburthen my heart of a duty, which has long lain upon it with pressure. After that, I make haste to my exit; for if I were still to write on, till I had confessed all the pleasures, I feel, when I think of your lordship, patience ought, in your defence, to change place with benevolence, and become the most active of your virtues.

But, it is so vain to talk much on trite subjects, that, instead of enumerating your so hardly to be counted great qualities, all the easier ambition I now have in view, is but to avoid the imputation, hereafter, of one, who lived at the same time, unknowing them. So that, (I am afraid it is too much for my own sake) I declare to posterity, that there was no man, with more respect and devotion, attached to lord Bolingbroke, than his

Most humble, And most obedient servant,

A. Hill