off. But I shall do my endeavour in my future lectures to explain to the world how it has happened that nonsense has been so prevalent at sundry times in these kingdoms; but I cannot go into that matter till I have made the force of nonsense in general a little better understood, and showed from Machiavel how by two kinds of perplexity, which he calls in the Italian. "Nonsense to the understanding, and nonsense to the conscience," he could, for the use of the ambitious, make the terms honour, justice, and truth, mere words, and of no other signification, but what shall serve the self-interest of him who shall utter them for his own private emolument.

No. 4. WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1714.

-Nefas animam præferre pudori. Juv. Sat. viii. 83.
"-rather choose'

To guard your honour, and your life to lose." DRYDEN.

AFTER I had in my last lecture considered high nonsense and low nonsense, I proceeded in my discussion to a second division of it, from a manuscript of the great Machiavel, to wit, into nonsense to the understanding, and nonsense to the conscience. That famous politician avers, that to carry considerable points, especially in assemblies, (next to the hardness of caring for nothing else but carrying it,) the main matter is to find out persons whom he calls in the Italian Almoxarifasge, which, as far as we can reach it in the English, signifies "Wrong fellows;" men who have the same right from fortune to be orators and give their suffrage, but differ in the gifts of nature. These wrong fellows have in them something like sense, which is not sense, but enough to confound all the sense in the world. They are, from being incapable of conceiving right at first, also incapable of being set right after they have vented their perplexities. He recounts to you a famous instance of this among the Guelfs and Ghibelins, the parties of Italy. There was, said he, among them a person of the first quality, whom no one in the world ever did or could possibly like, that was in nature both in mind and body a puzzle, from head to foot hideously

awkward, from his first conception to the utmost extent of his judgment ridiculously absurd. This animal, the leader of the Ghibelins, used to put others upon saying what he thought fit, to interrupt business, or break into what he was ashamed, or believed improper to begin himself. This person was master of that nonsense which was called above" Nonsense to the understanding." What, he said, everybody could observe, had nothing in it, and at the very best, which happened but seldom, was but like the truth; but how to break in upon him perplexed all the great orators of the Guelfs. Thus he stood impregnable, and the leader, instead of having compunction for such a piece of humanity, to the disgrace of our nature, standing in an illustrious assembly, casting forth blunders and inconsistencies, used to sit sneering to observe how impregnable his fool was, and exulting in himself that it was not in the compass of all the sciences either wholly to aver he had uttered nothing to the purpose, or to bring him to it. Many others the chieftain of the Ghibelins had to support each other against the first assaults of sense and reason; and brought nonsense so far into fashion, that they who knew better would speak it by way of triumph over those who went upon the rules of logic. Wrong fellows were his orators; but this could not do only without persons who were as much masters of that kind of nonsense which my author calls "nonsense to the conscience.”

Nonsense to the conscience, is when the party has arrived to such a disregard to reason and truth, as not to follow it, or acknowledge it when it presents itself to him. This is the hardest task in the world, and had very justly the greatest wages from the chieftain; for indeed, if we were to speak seriously, this is the lowest condition of life that can possibly be imagined; for it is literally giving up life as it is human, which descends to that of a beast when it is not conducted by reason, and still is worse when it is pushed against reason. Now all those parties of the species which we call majorities, when they do things upon the mere force of being such, are actuated by the force of nonsense of conscience; by which Machiavel meant that the doing anything with nonsense, that is, without sense of the honour and justice of it, was what he called pushing things by the nonsense of conscience. But that arch politician proceeds, in the manuscript I am speaking of, to observe that nonsense was not to be used but as an expe

dient; for it would fail in the repetition of it, and the understanding would so goad the conscience, that no potentate has revenue enough to pay reasonable men for a long series of nonsensical service. They will, quoth he, occasionally, and now and then, give into an enormity, and pass by what they do not approve, and laugh at themselves for so doing: but there is something latent in the dignity of their nature, which will recoil, and raise in them an indignation against herding for ever with the half-witted and the absurd and being conscious that their concurrence is an aggravated transgression, in that it is the support of those who in themselves are incapable either of the guilt or shame of what they are managed to promote.

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My author further adds, that the use of nonsense of conscience will fail also in process of time, not only from the defection of the numbers of those who act under it, but also from the little effect it would soon have upon the world, besides those numbers; for which reason he advises, that now and then they should be put upon something that is good to satisfy the multitude. For, says that sagacious man, the people are always honest; you lead them into wrong things but as long as you keep up the appearance of right; for which reason he advises never to forbear the use at least of Verisimilitudes; and indeed, he says, it was by neglecting that, all the sensible men, both Guelfs and Ghibelins, came together out of mere shame; and receive of one another without making explanations or expostulations upon what had happened when they differed, when they could end in nothing but, how sillily you acted! how contemptibly you suffered!

The most excellent authors of this our age, as to proficiency in nonsense, are those who talk of faction, and pretend to tell others that they are spreaders of false fears and jealousies. The Examiner of the 26th says, "We have a faction in our bowels, who, when it comes to their turn to submit, make no difference between liberty and power, that all their business may be only to squabble about the profits." Now he says this either as an incendiary or an informer; if the latter, let him name who are in this faction; if he will not do that, we are to set down the word faction among the rest of his jargon of high nonsense, and dismiss him with an inclination only, not power, to do more mischief.

But as I conceive, he had a younger brother born to him the same day of my first appearance, and is named the Monitor. He begins with the old trade of the pickpockets, who commit a robbery and join in the cry after the offender. The purpose of his paper, if it is not to pass into the realms of nonsense also, is to lay a foundation for making exceptions against a certain prince's behaviour who is expected in England. He lays before us, "That the Duke of Guise was a hot and ambitious novice, who took ill courses and undid himself. Had the king, says he, with a timely severity, taken care to have caused those libels, however trifling and however insignificant, to be suppressed, or by solid reason and good evidence to have been detected and exposed, the fatal effects which they produced had been in a great measure avoided." Then for application he says of libelling, "Seeing then the same evil, and that with too much success, is already begun among us, and the same neglect of it appears in our government as did in France, thinking them not capable of doing so much mischief as they really did; why may we not apprehend consequences, though not so extraordinarily fatal, yet sufficiently dangerous, and such as call for a timely redress ?" I find there is no help for it, this writer must be passed upon the foot of the nonsensical also. Does he tell a government they are guilty of neglect, and call any other men libellers? He must name his offenders, and bring them before justice, or he is one himself. It is strange want of skill (in the Examiner, and such imitators of him as this same Monitor begins to show himself) in the choice of tools, to make use of creatures that say things in which it would be a fault to tolerate them, if they were not employed by themselves.

But I shall take upon me to keep a strict eye upon their behaviour, and scribble as fast as they: for when they give up all rules of honour and conscience to hurt and betray the liberties of mankind, I shall sacrifice smaller considerations, and venture now and then to write nonsense for the good of my country.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE faction is humbly desired to read carefully the following Satyr against sedition in the Examiner, and amend their lives if they understand it.

"What a noble opportunity would the same Cervantes have, to improve his art, and carry this way of writing much further; were he now alive, and as conversant in our affairs, as in the humours of his own country! The same martial madness is broke out among us; a distemper more raging and violent, and productive of more ridiculous, and far more dangerous effects. Instead of touching here and there a weak head, or reaching only to a few frolicsome individuals, it has infected whole bodies and societies of warlike enthusiasts the party is almost as strong as the delusion with which they are animated; and our romantic madmen march up and down in the troops and squadrons: the regularity and resemblance of their frenzy creates order and discipline. We have our books and legends of chivalry, containing the feats and adventures of Errant Saints, of Holy Almanzors and Drawcansirs, bound by strict vow, and assisted by sages and magicians: who destroyed nations, made whole kingdoms do homage and pay tribute to their mightiness; tamed the beast, and kept the great whore under; trod upon the necks of kings, and kicked crowns and sceptres before them; relieved the distressed by changing their condition; freed mankind for their own use; and turned the world, as artificers whirl about the globe, to prove the regularity of its motion. Some of these knights were by birth gentle and of low degree; so called from the Pestle, the Golden Fleece, the Truncheon, or the Brazen Helmet: others had been pages, dwarfs, and squires, and many of them were forced to go a great way in search of their parentage: and yet the honours they ac