Seriously, Sir, it is a bad cause you have engaged in; and, in mere kindness to you, I would wish you to relinquish it with all speed. The claim itself of Appeals, as I have had the honour to shew you, is of long and ancient date; indeed as ancient as the Constitution of the English government itself. Of what consequence you may chance to be in your political capacity, it is impossible for me to say; if you are of any, and should proceed in these Inquiries, I should go near to apprehend that the House of Commons itself might take umbrage at them; for the rise of that great part of our Constitution is not usually, I think, carried higher than the point from which the right of Appeal hath here been deduced. Or, do you think you may safely make free with the Constitution of an University, though it were dangerous meddling with that of the State itself? This may be true, indeed; but where is your generosity in the mean time? Why should the thoughts of impunity encourage you to such an attack on the rights and privileges of a body of men, who, though unable to punish such offences against themselves as they deserve, have yet been generally secured from all outrage, by the very regard and reverence which the public hath ever paid to them? In a word (for I would not hold you longer from your necessary avocations), it may be worth your inquiry, when you shall think fit to sally forth on another adventure, what the Learned of Great Britain have done, that they should have their liberties written and inveighed against in so outrageous a manner; and, amidst the securest enjoyment of every civil right, under the justest and most equal Government in the world, what peculiar circumstances of offence have so inflamed the guilt of the scholars of this land, that they, of all his Majesty’s good subjects, should deserve to be the only slaves.
FINIS.
ON THE
DELICACY
OF
FRIENDSHIP
FIRST PRINTED IN 1755.
ON THE
DELICACY
OF
FRIENDSHIP.
A SEVENTH DISSERTATION.
ADDRESSED
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE SIXTH.
Si bene te novi, metues, liberrime Lolli,
Scurrantis speciem præbere, professus Amicum.
Hor.
Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus: at tu,
Si fœtura gregem suppleverit, AUREUS esto.
Virg.
AN ADDRESS TO THE REV. DR. JORTIN.
Rev. Sir,
As great an admirer as I must profess myself of your writings, I little expected that any of them would give me the pleasure that I have just now received from the last of your Six Dissertations on different Subjects.
The other FIVE have doubtless their distinct merits. But in this, methinks, I see an assemblage, a very constellation, as it were, of all your virtues, all that can recommend the scholar or endear the friend. This last, give me leave to say, is so unusual a part of a learned mind’s character, and appears with so peculiar a lustre in this discourse, that the public will not be displeased to have it set before them in full view, and recommended to general imitation, with a frankness, which though it may somewhat disgust your own delicacy, seems but very necessary on such an occasion and in such times.