MR. WALLER.
Necessity is the best master. Besides, can you blame me for taking more than common pains to outdo these miscreants in their own way; I might say, to excel in an art which surpasses, or at least comprises in it the essence of all true wisdom? The precept of your admired Antoninus, as you reminded me to-day, is SIMPLIFY YOURSELF[27]. That, I think, was the quaint expression. It had shewn his reach and mastery in the trade he professed, much more, if instead of it, he had preached up, ACCOMMODATE YOURSELF; the grand secret, as long experience has taught me, bene beateque vivendi.
All matters thus prepared, there was now no hazard in playing my last game. I requested and obtained leave to make my defence before the parliament. I had acquired a knack in speaking; and had drawn on myself more credit, than fine words deserve, by a scenical and specious eloquence. If ever I acquitted myself to my wish, it was on this occasion. I soothed, I flattered, I alarmed: every topic of art which my youth had learned, every subject of address which experience had suggested, every trick and artifice of popular adulation, was exhausted. All men were prepared by the practices of my saintly emissaries to hear me with favour; and, which is the first and last advantage of a speaker, to believe me seriously and conscientiously affected.
In the end I triumphed; and for a moderate fine obtained leave to shelter myself from the following storm, which almost desolated this unhappy country, by retiring into an exile, at that time more desirable than any employment of those I left behind me.