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Earth has no Security whether his Heir fhall be a wife Man or a Fool, a good Man or a Rake, a Patriot or a Penfioner, a Hero or a Sot. Many a flourishing Tree in the Herald's Office has produced fome fuch forry Sticks of Wood as could be reduced to no Form or Ufe, or admit of any Polish. It fhould feem therefore to be giving too much Credit to the Virtue of the present Poffeffor to entail fuch Degrees of Wealth and Honour upon his Pofterity, as to enable them, if they prove vicious, to do as much Mischief to the World in time to come, as he had done Good in time paft. This is an Entail of fuch a Nature, that no Demerit, except High-Treafon against the Sovereign, can ever cut it off from the most unworthy Defcendants. Why should it not alfo extend with as much Juftice to their Eftates and Fortunes, fo as to fecure them from ever being wasted, or diminished by Profufion and Extravagance, in bar to all the legal Demands of the honeft and induftrious Creditors? It must be owned that this is fometimes the Cafe, as it was thought a proper Precaution to fecure a competent Provision of Fortune to attend the Honours of the Family, but with how much Justice to the Public, upon a thorough and circumstantial Survey of the Cafe, let any Man judge. I wish it could be faid with any Appearance of Truth, that this is an invidious and impoffible Supposition, and that the Stream of Honour never could be debafed by paffing through polluted Channels; that the legitimate Descendants of noble Ancestors never could tralineate from their Kind (as Mr. Dryden expreffes it): But that fuch Inftances really have happened where neither the natural nor intellectual Abilities of the Father, nor the

Virtue of the Mother, have ever been called in queftion, will, I think, require no Proof. And whenever this happens to be the Cafe, it would be a wife and useful Inftitution to erect another Court of Honour another Bench of Judges, who, like the Cenfors in ancient Cd Rome, and the most celebrated Eaftern Nations, fhould have Power to ftrip the worthless Bearer of fuch honourable Diftinctions as are a Reproach to his Demerit, and fufpend or divert the Entail till a proper Perfon of the fame Blood could be found, who, in the Judgment of the Court, might be thought worthy to wear them.

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LETTER II.

Believe it would be hard to produce any one Order of Knighthood in Christian Countries, who are not bound by the Statutes of their respective Foundations, principally, and among other Articles, to defend God's Holy Religion, the Immunities of the Church, and the Liberties of their Country, as well as the Honour of their Sovereign; to protect Widows and Orphans, to affift the Diftreffed, and to rescue the Helpless from Violence and Wrong, and to exert all other Acts of heroic and military Virtue; and that a Default in either of these, to which they folemnly bound themselves by their Installation Oath, should subject them to the infamous Penalties injoined by the Rules of their Order, fuch as particularly with us, to have their Arms reverfed, their Swords broke, and their Spurs back'd off by the Mafter-Cook of the King's Kitchen:

Which I believe no Man elected into those illuftrious Bodies would, at the Time of Election, think to be an unreasonable Punishment, however he may alter his Opinion afterwards, for fundry and fpecial Reasons him thereunto moving. Now, I say, if a Train of virtuous and meritorious Actions, which alone could intitle a Man to thofe Honours, could not be able to protect him from the Infamy due to his Afterdemerit, it seems to be a peculiar Kind of Indulgence to the worthless Defcendants of honourable Ancestors, who fubfift purely upon the original Stock of Family Merit, (which they have been so far from improving that they have done nothing to fupport it) should yet upon that fingle Confideration, be fcreened from the Infamy due to their own perfonal Demerit.

That perfonal Merit is the fole Foundation of Honour is always confeffed by thofe that beftow them, and whatever fecret Services, or peculiar Kinds of Merit, were the real Ground of their Promotion, yet Forms and Appearances must still be kept up, all the public and private Virtues that can dignify and enoble human Nature are recited in the Body of the Patent, as the only meritorious Demand upon the Royal Fountain of Honour. This, at once, purges, as the Grave buries, all the natural and moral Defects of the Bearer; and the Encomiums in the Patent and the Epitaph are generally in Truth and Subftance much the fame. If it fhould ever happen under a weak or wicked Prince, or a corrupt Minifter, (for fuch there have been, and may be again in the World,) that the only fuccefsful Recommendation to both fhould be a fervile fhameless Compliance with the Vices and Follies of a Court, or being thoroughly

dipped in all the dirty Schemes of Avarice and Ambition; if a Perfon who had no other Kind or Degree of Merit but an abfolute Submiffion to their Commands, or a dexterous Execution of their most infamous Designs, fhould be rewarded with a Patent, what a glorious Catalogue of fublime Virtues, confummate Abilities, and heroic Actions would be crowded together to fill it up, and stuff out the folemn Farce of titular Greatness, to illuftrate the Reason of the Grant, the Merit of the Receiver, and Justice and Favour of the Giver? Such the Satyrift tells us was once the State of Merit and Reward in antient Rome.

Ille crucem fceleris pretium tulit, hic Diadema.

The fame Villany that raised one Rogue to a Gibbet, raised another to a It must indeed be allowed that this was in a Heathen Country, and can never be fufpected to happen in a Chriftian Nation; but if it fhould be poffible for Christians to turn Heathens, as Heathens have turned Chriftians, the fame Thing might perhaps happen again; and, in fuch a Cafe, all the Titles, Coronets, and Ribbands in the Universe could no more cure the moral Defects of fuch a Character than they could a wry Neck, a hump Back, a leprous Skin, or a rotten Conftitution, though perhaps it might answer all the popular Notions and Purposes of Honour, more than the Integrity of a Saint, or the Knowledge of an Angel. The Bulk of Mankind, qui ftupet in titulis & imaginibus, are caught by Noise and Shew. The pompous Sound of Titles and Glitter of Ornaments ftrike their Senfes, attract their Atten

tion

tion, raife their Admiration, and extort from them all that Reverence and Regard, that are due only to eminent and diftinguifhed Merit; while real Virtue and true Honour pafs filently through the World, tinheeded and unrewarded, but by the happy difcerning Few, who are fenfible of its Merit, or injoy the bleffed Communications of its Influence.

When the glorious Spirits, whom Providence has appointed to be our Guardians and Protectors in this prefent State of Imperfection and Probation, furvey the difordered State of human Nature, agitated by blind Paffions, prejudiced by false Opinions, into erroneous Conclufions and wild Purfuits, they view us with the fame Light, and with the fame Emotions of Compaffion and Charity, as Monroe did his Lunatic Patients in Bedlam, who miscal and mifapply almost every Inftance in which their Duty and Happiness is concerned. To those blessed Intelligences the filent Life of a generous, compaffionate, beneficent Man is more truly honourable, than the Pageantry of Princes, the Pomp of Conquerors, and all the glorious Impertinence of State. To them an obfcure good Man, doing fecret Acts of Charity, relieving the Diftreffed, comforting the Miserable, and approving himself by Habits of Piety and Devotion to the great Author of his Being, appears more truly glorious than the Conqueror at the Head of an hundred thousand Men. To them the Man of Rofs appears in a fairer Light in the Book of Remembrance, and will make a much more illuftrious Figure at the laft great Day than Alexander or Gæfar, or William the Conqueror, though a Chriftian. For my own Part, when I confider the Bulk of Military Heroes, the Conquerors of Nations who stand

fore

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