Chamberlain, or his deputy, under any such tormenting obligation. Yet lest Mr. Brooke should imagine that a license was refused him without just reasons, I shall condescend to treat him with more regard than he can reasonably expect, and point out such sentiments as not only justly exposed him to that refusal, but would have provoked any ministry less merciful than the present to have inflicted some heavier penalties upon him. His prologue is filled with such insinuations as no friend of our excellent government can read without indignation and abhorrence, and cannot but be owned to be a proper introduction to such scenes, as seem designed to kindle in the audience a flame of opposition, patriotism, public spirit, and independency; that spirit which we have so long endeavoured to suppress, and which cannot be revived without the entire subversion of all our schemes. The seditious poet, not content with making an open attack upon us, by declaring in plain terms, that he looks upon freedom as the only source of public happiness and national security, has endeavoured with subtlety, equal to his malice, to make us suspicious of our firmest friends, to infect our consultations with distrust, and to ruin us by disuniting us. This indeed will not be easily effected; an union founded upon interest and cemented by dependence is naturally lasting; but confederacies which owe their rise to virtue or mere conformity of sentiments, are quickly dissolved, since no individual has any thing either to hope or fear for himself, and public spirit is generally too weak to combat with private passions. The poet has, however, attempted to weaken our combination by an artful and sly assertion, which, if suffered to remain unconfuted, may operate by degrees upon our minds in the days of leisure and retirement which are now approaching, and perhaps fill us with such surmises as may at least very much embarrass our affairs. The law by which the Swedes justified their opposition to the encroachments of the King of Denmark, he not only calls Great Nature's law, the law within the breast, but proceeds to tell us that it is Stamp'd by Heaven upon th' unletter'd mind. By which he evidently intends to insinuate a maxim which is, I hope, as false as it is pernicious, that men are naturally fond of liberty till those unborn ideas and desires are effaced by literature. The author, if he be not a man mewed up in his solitary study, and entirely unacquainted with the conduct of the present ministry, must know that we have hitherto acted upon different principles. We have always regarded letters as great obstructions to our scheme of subordination, and have therefore, when we have heard of any man remarkably unlettered, carefully noted him down as the most proper person for any employments of trust or honour, and considered him as a man in whom we could safely repose our most important secrets. From among the uneducated and unlettered we have chosen not only our embassadors and other negotiators, but even our journalists and pamphleteers; nor have we had any reason to change our measures, or to repent of the confidence which we have placed in ignorance. Are we now therefore to be told, that this law is Stamp'd upon th' unletter'd mind? Are we to suspect our placemen, our pensioners, our generals, our lawyers, our best friends in both Houses, all our adherents among the atheists and infidels, and our very gazetteers, clerks and court-pages, as friends to independency? Doubtless this is the tendency of his assertion, but we have known them too long to be thus imposed upon, the unlettered have been our warmest and most constant defenders, nor have we omitted any thing to deserve their favour, but have always endeavoured to raise their reputation, extend their influence, and encrease their number. In his first act he abounds with sentiments very inconsistent with the ends for which the power of licensing was granted; to enumerate them all would be to transcribe a great part of his play, a task which I shall very willingly leave to others, who, though true friends to the government, are not inflamed with zeal so fiery and impatient as mine, and therefore do not feel the same emotions of rage and resentment at the sight of those infamous passages, in which venality and dependance are represented as mean in themselves, and productive of remorse and infelicity. One line which ought, in my opinion, to be erased from every copy by a special act of parliament, is mentioned by Anderson, as pronounced by the hero in his sleep, O Sweden, O my country, yet I'll save thee. This line I have reason to believe thrown out as a kind of a watch-word for the opposing faction, who, when they meet in their seditious assemblies, have been observed to lay their hands upon their breasts, and cry out with great vehemence of accent, O B *, O my country, yet I'll save thee. In the second scene he endeavours to fix epithets of contempt upon those passions and desires which have been always found most useful to the ministry, and most opposite to the spirit of independency. Base fear, the laziness of lust, gross appetites, Secure and scepter'd in the soul's servility Thus is that decent submission to our superiors, and that proper awe of authority which we are taught in courts, termed base fear and the servility of the soul. Thus are those gaieties and enjoyments, those elegant amusements, and lulling pleasures which the followers of a court are blessed with, as the just re * Britain. E. wards of their attendance and submission, degraded to lust, grossness, and debauchery. The author ought to be told, that courts are not to be mentioned with so little ceremony, and that though gallantries and amours are admitted there, it is almost treason to suppose them infected with debauchery or lust. It is observable, that when this hateful writer has conceived any thought of an uncommon malignity, a thought which tends in a more particular manner to excite the love of liberty, animate the heat of patriotism, or degrade the majesty of kings, he takes care to put it in the mouth of his hero, that it may be more forcibly impressed upon his reader. Thus Gustavus, speaking of his tatters, cries out, Yes, my Arvida, Beyond the sweeping of the proudest train Here this abandoned son of liberty makes a full discovery of his execrable principles, the tatters of Gustavus, the usual dress of the assertors of these doctrines, are of more divinity, because they are sacred to freedom, than the sumptuous and magnificent robes of regality itself. Such sentiments are truly detestable, nor could any thing be an aggravation of the author's guilt, except his ludicrous manner of mentioning a monarch. The heel of a monarch, or even the print of his heel, is a thing too venerable and sacred to be treated with such levity, and placed in contrast with rags and poverty. He, that will speak contemptuously of the |