as suddenly recurring to the distractions of the busy world.

Yet in business or in study his mind was equally alert, and few men were better qualified to shine in the councils of his country, or to uphold the interests of a sinking state. Sydney's talents, as a negociator, were displayed in his transactions at the Sound; and the wisdom of his measures were afterwards more clearly unfolded, in the steady adherence of Sweden to the English alliance; when the Danes, whom he was accused of compelling to a disadvantageous treaty, forsook that alliance, from their more intimate connection with the Dutch. It was, however, in maintaining the beneficial schemes of an enlightened policy, that he was chiefly fitted to excel. He had no sympathy with the intriguers of an abandoned court; and if, after the restoration, his talents were required for the service of his country, it was to oppose, and not to forward, their designs.

Aware of the evils inseparable from despotism, and the mischievous tendency of delusion on the minds of princes, Sydney was attached to a popular scheme of policy, which he deemed most conducive to the public good. But, free from all animosity and faction, in his resistance to the arbitrary proceedings of the Stuarts, he preserved the consistency of his principles, by refusing to acquiesce in the usurpation of Cromwell, or to countenance the triumph of the military over the civil power. The religious enthusiam which so generally prevailed, had little influence on his mind; and his efforts were solely directed to secure the

liberties of his country, by the establishment of a free constitution, founded on the only legitimate basis of government, the GENERAL WILL. He vindicated the lawfulness of resistance to oppressive rulers, as necessary to maintain the people's rights; and he challenged a degree of freedom, as essential to their happiness, which the advocates of regal authority are seldom disposed to allow. He esteemed himself free, because dependant on the will of no man, and struggled to assert the proud inheritance of an Englishman, against all unwarranted controul. The love of liberty, and of his country, was deeply rooted in his mind; and he was incapable of doing any thing repugnant to his principles, even for the preservation of his life. As those principles were formed on the purest models of antiquity, they were free from that fanaticism and coarseness, which strongly characterized his age. He had a soul above disguise. His elevated sentiments and undoubted courage raised him above the little arts of the demagogue. He was a genuine republican, superior to all selfish considerations, and worthy to be handed down for the admiration of posterity, among the most distinguished patriots of Greece and Rome.

Although, during the triumph of his party, Sydney declined to sit in judgment on a fallen Sovereign, he scorned to take advantage of such delicacy, in the reaction which afterwards ensued. He chose the hour of danger to avow his approbation of a sentence, in which he had not participated,rather than belie his principles, and disown his friends. Disdaining

Disdaining the honours and emoluments, which might have rewarded his apostacy, he preferred a state of poverty and exile, to the countenance of a profligate and licentious court. For a time, he retired from all interference in public affairs: till goaded by persecution, and roused by indignation at his country's spoilers, he strove to reanimate the drooping spirits of his party, to redress their wrongs. If he sought the assistance of Louis, he sought also the alliance of De Witt; and it should never be forgotten, that the great object of his solicitude, was to restore his native Jand to freedom, when honour and virtue were alike banished from the precincts of the palace and the throne. If pure and honourable motives are, in any case, admitted to justify doubtful or incautious conduct, let the same be equally allowed in others: and let not Sydney be too hastily condemned for attempting, like Thrasybulus and Conon, in a desperate crisis, to assert the liberties of his country, by the aid of foreign powers. Or if he be condemned by the austerity of public virtue, let the odium indiscriminately fall on those, who have pursued such measures on any similar pretence; since the morality of an action can in no wise be affected by its failure or

success.

If, in his subsequent retirement in the south of France, Sydney was indebted to that country for support, as well as for protection, a fact by no means clearly ascertained, he did not purchase it by any base compliance with the interest or caprices of the court; accepting merely that assistance, which few

governments withhold from illustrious strangers in distress. His supposed connection with Barillon, at a later period, involves nothing inconsistent with the public weal. In a free country, no pensioner can be more dangerous than a pensioned king: and the arbitrary projects of an unworthy sovereign, meanly dependent upon foreign counsels, was, perhaps, most effectually counteracted, by his maintaining some intercourse with the person, who so long conducted the intrigue. The delicacy, and difficulty, of such transactions, certainly cannot be denied: but the importance and necessity of the end in view, with the purity and patriotism of the motive, will, in most cases, justify what is not actually and fundamentally wrong. very similar circumstances, Demosthenes received money from Persia, to maintain, against Macedon, the liberties of Greece.

In

Sydney has been hastily accused, by a historian* too lenient to the crimes of princes, of ingratitude to a sovereign who had pardoned him. But in his case no particucular pardon was necessary; the Act of Indemnity absolving him from all responsibility for his conduct in the civil wars. At first, his exile was quite voluntary, from his detestation of the vices of the court; and the assurance of safety which was afterwards denied him, was no farther requisite, than as a defence against unmerited persecution. When, therefore, he returned in compliance with the wishes of his dying father, a safe conduct was all that he required;-all that

• See Hume's History, VIII, 43, note.

there

Regarding religion solely as a divine philosophy, Sydney placed no reliance on the efficacy of external forms. He was a firm believer in the wisdom and benevolence of the Deity; in the truth and obligations of the christian scheme: but he was averse to public worship, and to every description of ecclesiastical influence in the state. He was devoid of all intolerance and bigotry, where religion alone was concerned, and his aversion to popery was chiefly grounded on its supposed connection with arbitrary power.

As a writer on government, Sydney was eminently qualified to excel, no less from his cultivated taste and genius, than from his intimate acquaintance with the theory and practice of political institutions, and his ardour in defending the common rights and freedom of mankind. A master at once of reason and of expression, he wrote from his judgment and his heart; and conveyed the result of his principles and knowledge, in a clear, flowing and nervous style. Conversant with the best writers of antiquity, and the purest models of more recent times, he had studied

But the approbation bestowed on Sydney, by the historian or the patriot, has been by no means confined to the speculations of his retirement: it has accompanied him amid the tumults and dissensions of his active life. Above all, the injustice of his sentence has been almost universally condemned; and "the production of papers, containing speculative opinions upon government and liberty, as a substitute for a second witness, deprecated, as a system of wickedness and nonsense, hardly to be paralleled in the history of juridical tyranny." He has been regarded as innocent even of political crimes; as a victim to the sanguinary vengeance of his profligate and perfidious king.

Such was Algernon Sydney: such, by the liberal and enlightened, has he ever been esteemed.His little errors are lost in the blaze of transcendant genius, of virtues such as fall not to the common lot of man. Let those, who calumniate his character and revile his principles, remember, that to the practical assertion of those very principles at the revolution, England has owed her best superiority over the nations of Europe. If he formed too favourable an opinion of the dignity of human nature, and recommended a freedom too pure and too lofty for the passions

and

and prejudices of the mass of mankind; it was the error of a mind sublime and generous: the greatest benefactors of their species have invariably cherished an equal enthusiasm. And whilst the censures of the venal and the base are heard but for a moment, the name of Sydney will live in the memory of the just, and his conduct will excite the emulation of the honourable; while his character and his principles will be applauded by every friend to the liberties of Britain.

And if, in the revolving annals of her history, that day shall ever arise, when the despotic prince, and the profligate minister, shall again prompt the patriot of noble birth to do or die for his country; then may the image of Algernon Sydney rise up to his admiring eye and against the darkness of fate, whether its smile or its frown awaits his "well considered enterprize," let him fortify his spirit by an example of magnanimity so choice and so complete.

EPITAPH

On the late

SIR WADSWORTH BUSK, BURIED IN THE Church of the Middle Temple,

LONDON.

Hoc Tumulo requiescunt Cineres WADSWORTH BUSK Equitis, Jurisconsulti, præclaræ hujus Societatis Consessoris et multis annis Regiarum Causarum Procuratoris in Mona Insula; Obiit Die XV. Decembris, Anno Salutis

MDCCCXI. ÆTAT. LXXXII.

By the faithful and assiduous

In private life his virtues were conspicuous-not ostentatious; his conduct exemplary-not austere ; his deportment dignified-not assuming; his benevolence warm and comprehensive, but not indiscriminate; his manners invariably gentle, unaffected, and sincere.

In conversation he was instructive, animating, and impressive; in composition nervous, perspicuous, and elegant; his acquirements were solid, classical, useful, and extensive, and his knowledge of the human mind penetrating and profound. Zealous for the promotion of civil and religious freedom, (the foundation of all human excellence,) he accounted it a singular blessing to have ranked among his steadiest friends some of the ablest advocates of Liberty and Christianity. A firm believer in the truths of revealed Religion, he unceasingly endeavoured to promote its genuine doctrines and practical influence by prayer, by precept, and by example; for his life was passed in the exercise of every social duty, of every moral obligation, of every christian charity! his. end was marked by calm content,

placid resignation, and pious hope, the fruit of intellectual exertion, the meed of tried integrity, the theme of disinterested praise, the promise of a blessed immortality! Brevis a natura nobis vita data

est at memoria bene redditæ vitæ sempiterna.

Filii quinque uxoris prioris et conjux carissima superstes, suis inadidum lachrimis, hoc marmor posuerunt.

MANNERS