, productive of anarchy and
mischief, which must always happen when the government of a nation depends upon
the caprice of the ignorant hare-brained vulgar: that it was in the power of the
most profligate member of the common-wealth, provided he was endowed with
eloquence, to ruin the most deserving, by a desperate exertion of his talents
upon the populace, who had been often persuaded to act in the most ungrateful
and imprudent manner, against the greatest patriots that their country had
produced: and finally, he averred, that the liberal arts and sciences had never
flourished so much in a republick, as under the encouragement and protection of
absolute power; witness the Augustan age, and the reign of Lewis the fourteenth:
nor was it to be supposed that genius and merit could ever be so amply
recompensed by the individuals, or distracted councils of a common-wealth, as by
the generosity and magnificence of one, who had the whole treasures at his own
command.
    Peregrine, who was pleased to find the contest grow warm, observed that
there seemed to be a good deal of truth in what Mr. Jolter advanced; and the
painter, whose opinion began to waver, looked with a face of expectation at his
friend, who modelling his features into an expression of exulting disdain, asked
of his antagonist, if he did not think that very power of rewarding merit,
enabled an absolute prince to indulge himself in the most arbitrary licence over
the lives and fortunes of his people? Before the governor had time to answer
this question, Pallet broke forth into an exclamation of »By the Lord! that is
certainly fact, egad! that was a home thrust, doctor.« When Mr. Jolter
chastising this shallow intruder with a contempt'ous look, affirmed that though
supreme power furnished a good prince with the means of exerting his virtues, it
would not support a tyrant in the exercise of cruelty and oppression; because in
all nations, the genius of the people must be consulted by their governors, and
the burthen proportioned to the shoulders on which it is laid. »Else, what
follows?« said the physician. »The consequence is plain, (replied the governor)
insurrection, revolt, and his own destruction: for it is not to be supposed that
the subjects of any nation would be so abject and pusilanimous, as to neglect
the means which heaven hath put in their power for their own preservation.«
»Gadzooks! you're in the right, sir, (cried Pallet) that I grant you must be
confessed: doctor, I'm afraid we
