Edinburgh.
Passage in Sedley (Vol. iii., p. 476.).—
"Let fools the name of loyalty divide
Wise men and gods are on the strongest side."
I much fear your correspondent HENRY H. BREEN suggests an alteration in Sir Charles Sedley's couplet more favourable to the witty baronet's principles than facts will admit. It is too probable that he conceived the sentiment just as it stands; for we must remember that he belonged to that school of loose wits of the Restoration, who, "Regis ad exemplar," made a mock of all which tended to place "virtue" above "interest," or to make men "too fond of the right to pursue the expedient."
Charles II. and his long train of licentious courtiers now stand at the bar of history, and the verdict on him must be, that if he had a principle in latter life it was this,—that he would never endanger himself for any abstract rule of right; or as Sir W. Scott, in Peveril, accurately says: "he had sworn never to kiss the block on which his father suffered," when yielding to the current would save him from it; hence, there is too good reason to think that, in his estimation, and in the judgment of the school he formed, "loyalty" was "folly," and to take the strongest side "wisdom."
The reference in Sedley's couplet to the line—
"Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni"—
is too obvious to need notice; and it is but too certain that in the estimation of a courtier of Charles II., Cato dying for his country would be but "a fool for his pains." It is painful to be obliged to remind MR. BREEN that, in order to understand Sedley's meaning, we are not to look for what would be "most consistent with truth," but for what was most probably accordant with the lax morality of the author.
A. B. R.