If the great ones of the clergy, as well as the laity of any country whatever, had no value for earthly pleasures, and did not endeavour to gratify their appetites, why are envy and revenge so raging among them, and all the other passions improved and refined upon in courts of princes more than any where else, and why are their repasts, their recreations, and whole manner of living always such as are approved of, coveted, and imitated by the most sensual people of that same country? If despising all visible decorations they were only in love with the embellishments of the mind, why should they borrow so many of the implements, and make use of the most darling toys of the luxurious? Why should a lord treasurer, or a bishop, or even the grand signior, or the pope of Rome, to be good and virtuous, and endeavour the conquest of his passions, have occasion for greater revenues, richer furniture, or a more numerous attention, as to personal service, than a private man? What virtue is it the exercise of which requires so much pomp and superfluity, as are to be seen by all men in power? A man has as much opportunity to practise temperance, that has but one dish at a meal, as he that is constantly served with three courses, and a dozen dishes in each: One may exercise as much patience, and be as full of self-denial on a few flocks, without curtains or tester, as in a velvet bed that is sixteen foot high. The virtuous possessions of the mind are neither charge nor burden: A man may bear misfortunes with fortitude in a garret, forgive injuries a-foot, and be chaste, though he has not a shirt to his back: and therefore I shall never believe, but that an indifferent sculler, if he was intrusted with it, might carry all the learning and religion that one man can contain, as well as a barge with six oars, especially if it was but to cross from Lambeth to Westminster; or that humility is so ponderous a virtue, that it requires six horses to draw it.
To say that men not being so easily governed by their equals as by their superiors, it is necessary, that to keep the multitude in awe, those who rule over us should excel others in outward appearance, and consequently, that all in high stations should have badges of honour, and ensigns of power to be distinguished from the vulgar, is a frivolous objection. This, in the first place, can only be of use to poor princes, and weak and precarious governments, that being actually unable to maintain the public peace, are obliged with a pageant show to make up what they want in real power: so the governor of Batavia, in the East Indies, is forced to keep up a grandeur, and live in a magnificence above his quality, to strike a terror in the natives of Java, who, if they had skill and conduct, are strong enough to destroy ten times the number of their masters; but great princes and states that keep large fleets at sea, and numerous armies in the field, have no occasion for such stratagems; for what makes them formidable abroad, will never fail to be their security at home. Secondly, what must protect the lives and wealth of people from the attempts of wicked men in all societies, is the severity of the laws, and diligent administration of impartial justice. Theft, house-breaking, and murder, are not to be prevented by the scarlet gowns of the aldermen, the gold chains of the sheriffs, the fine trappings of their horses, or any gaudy show whatever: Those pageant ornaments are beneficial another way; they are eloquent lectures to apprentices, and the use of them is to animate, not to deter: but men of abandoned principles must be awed by rugged officers, strong prisons, watchful jailors, the hangman, and the gallows. If London was to be one week destitute of constables and watchmen to guard the houses a-nights, half the bankers would be ruined in that time, and if my lord mayor had nothing to defend himself but his great two handed sword, the huge cap of maintenance, and his gilded mace, he would soon be stripped, in the very streets to the city, of all his finery in his stately coach.
But let us grant that the eyes of the mobility are to be dazzled with a gaudy outside; if virtue was the chief delight of great men, why should their extravagance be extended to things not understood by the mob, and wholly removed from public view, I mean their private diversions, the pomp and luxury of the dining-room and the bed-chamber, and the curiosities of the closet? few of the vulgar know that there is wine of a guinea the bottle, that birds, no bigger than larks, are often sold for half-a-guinea a-piece, or that a single picture may be worth several thousand pounds: besides, is it to be imagined, that unless it was to please their own appetites, men should put themselves to such vast expences for a political show, and be so solicitous to gain the esteem of those whom they so much despise in every thing else? if we allow that the splendor and all the elegancy of a court insipid, and only tiresome to the prince himself, and are altogether made use of to preserve royal majesty from contempt, can we say the same of half a dozen illegitimate children, most of them the offspring of adultery, by the same majesty, got, educated, and made princes at the expence of the nation! therefore, it is evident, that this awing of the multitude, by a distinguished manner of living, is only a cloak and pretence, under which, great men would shelter their vanity, and indulge every appetite about them without reproach.
A burgomaster of Amsterdam, in his plain black suit, followed perhaps by one footman, is fully as much respected, and better obeyed, than a lord mayor of London, with all his splendid equipage, and great train of attendance. Where there is a real power, it is ridiculous to think that any temperance or austerity of life should ever render the person, in whom that power is lodged, contemptible in his office, from an emperor to the beadle of a parish. Cato, in his government of Spain, in which he acquitted himself with so much glory, had only three servants to attend him; do we hear that any of his orders were ever slighted for this, notwithstanding that he loved his bottle? and when that great man marched on foot through the scorching sands of Libya, and parched up with thirst, refused to touch the water that was brought him, before all his soldiers had drank, do we ever read that this heroic forbearance weakened his authority, or lessened him in the esteem of his army? but what need we go so far off? there has not, for these many ages, been a prince less inclined to pomp and luxury than the1 present king of Sweden, who, enamoured with the title of hero, has not only sacrificed the lives of his subjects, and welfare of his dominions, but (what is more uncommon in sovereigns) his own ease, and all the comforts of life, to an implacable spirit of revenge; yet he is obeyed to the ruin of his people, in obstinately maintaining a war that has almost utterly destroyed his kingdom.
Thus I have proved, that the real pleasures of all men in nature are worldly and sensual, if we judge from their practice; I say all men in nature, because devout Christians, who alone are to be excepted here, being regenerated, and preternaturally assisted by the Divine grace, cannot be said to be in nature. How strange it is, that they should all so unanimously deny it! ask not only the divines and moralists of every nation, but likewise all that are rich and powerful, about real pleasure, and they will tell you, with the Stoics, that there can be no true felicity in things mundane and corruptible: but then look upon their lives, and you will find they take delight in no other.
What must we do in this dilemma? shall we be so uncharitable, as judging from mens actions, to say, that all the world prevaricates, and that this is not their opinion, let them talk what they will? or shall we be so silly, as relying on what they say, to think them sincere in their sentiments, and so not believe our own eyes? or shall we rather endeavour to believe ourselves and them too, and say with Montaigne, that they imagine, and are fully persuaded, that they believe what they do not believe? these are his words: “some impose on the world, and would be thought to believe what they really do not: but much the greater number impose upon themselves, not considering, nor thoroughly apprehending what it is to believe.” But this is making all mankind either fools or impostors, which, to avoid, there is nothing left us, but to say what Mr. Bayle has endeavoured to prove at large in his Reflections on Comets: “that man is so unaccountable a creature as to act most commonly against his principle;” and this is so far from being injurious, that it is a compliment to human nature, for we must see either this or worse.
This contradiction in the frame of man is the reason that the theory of virtue is so well understood, and the practice of it so rarely to be met with. If you ask me where to look for those beautiful shining qualities of prime ministers, and the great favourites of princes that are so finely painted in dedications, addresses, epitaphs, funeral sermons, and inscriptions, I answer, there, and no where else. Where would you look for the excellency of a statue, but in that part which you see of it? It is the polished outside only that has the skill and labour of the sculptor to boast of; what is out of sight is untouched. Would you break the head, or cut open the breast to