DEGRADATION, DEPRIVATION OF DIGNITY, A DISMAL fet of fynonymes to thofe in upper life among us, where for the most part proud honour stands in place of meek religion -proud honour, that fhrinks from the idea of DIVESTITURE, while it delights in the trappings of a court, and fears the DEPRIVATION OF DIGNITY more than the lofs of virtue or hope of a world to come. For although rising glories occafion ftrongeft envy, as rifing fires kindle the greatest smoke; yet can a man once established in a high poft with difficulty endure to come down the fteps he went up, the which is implied in that cruel word DEGRADATION; and he was more than man who fet us in his life and death the awful pattern of Chriftian humility. For fhame is perhaps the strongest of all paffions, and harder to vanquish than anger, love, or fear: They, as a great divine fomewhere obferves, fly to mankind for redress of grievances; while fenfe of DEGRADATION, fhame, flies from them, and makes an eye as fharp as a fword. Shame's bad eftate is feen in this, that its hope and felicity lies fo very low as to make night and oblivion, which are the terror of others, his wifh, his joy-fallere et effugere eft triumphus. Human nature has however in these last days been fhewn a bright example of a fuffering monarch, whofe defcent from from the throne was more glorious than almoft any king's acceffion; affording proof that DPRIVATION OF DIGNITY but affects the eye, while increafe of juft eftimation fwells every heart, and makes us, while we lament the DIVESTITURE of one who bore and loft his faculties fo meekly, confefs at leaft that Chriftian lowlinefs, and virtuous defire of imitating his heavenly Mafter, could fupport a prince's foul even under the most humiliating DEGRADATION. If this is thought contradictory to what I have afferted under the article BLAMELESS, Want of reflection alone infpires the criticism. I praife not Louis Seize as a fovereign, for deferting his poft and yielding his power to a tumultuous rabble, whom he was born to govern, not comply with ;-leaft of all when fuch compliance could but produce their ruin. I praife him as a man, and admire his behaviour in prifon at the Temple, not Versailles. The refignation or rather dereliction which carried him from thence to Paris was falfe not true patriotifm. "A king infpired with real love of his country is, as Lord Bolingbroke expreffes it, ineftimable: because he, and he alone can fave a ftate whofe ruin is far advanced; but 'tis by his dignity and courage he muft fave it, not his DEGRADATION. The utmost that a private man can do, who remains untainted by general contagion, is to keep the fpirit of virtue alive in his own and perhaps a few other breafts; to protest against what he cannot hinder, and claim claim what he cannot recover; and if the king makes himself a private man, he can do no more: whereas from the keyftone of the building we expect that which alone can restore it to firmnefs and folidity." Such was St. John's idea of a patriot king-how unlike to the mad doctrines held in France! TO DEROGATE, TO LESSEN THE VALUE OF, TO DISPARAGE. THESE verbs are nearly fynonymous, only the first requires an ablative cafe after it, the laft an accufative; the middle one is a circumlocutory phrase. An example might easily be made to run thus, connecting in fome meafure this article with the preceding. When Bolingbroke gave the world his idea of a patriot king, the author was well known to be a man much difaffected to the then prefent government, loofe in his principles, and a profeffed contemner of the Chriftian fyftem; yet could he find no purer model of true patriotifm in monarchic life than our glorious queen Elizabeth, whom he holds. forth as a pattern of princely excellence. Since it has been the mode however to DISPARAGE royalty, all the petty pens have been blunted with endeavours TO LESSEN THE VALUE OF her kingly virtues, and DEROGATE from her underftanding by charging her with weakness in imagining herself handsome, merely because fhe wifhed wished if poffible to add the influence of a woman to the authority of a fovereign: while the noble writer juft mentioned, whom all mankind confider as a confummate politician, faw clearly, and fays in her praise boldly, "that she had private friendships and acknowledged favourites, but that she never fuffered her friends to forget fhe was their queen, and when her favourites did, the made them feel that he was fo; for (adds he) decorum is as neceffary to preferve the esteem, as condefcenfion is to win the affections of mankind. Condefcenfion however in its very name and effence implies fuperiority. Let not princes flatter themselves therefore; they will be watched in private as much as in public life; and those who cannot pierce further, will judge of them by the appearances they shall exhibit in both. As kings then, let them never forget that they are men; as men, let them never forget that they are kings." DESPONDENCY, HOPELESSNESS, DESPAIR, FORM a fort of heart-rending climax rather than a parallel-a climax too which time unhappily scarce ever fails of bringing to perfection. The laft of the three words implies a fettled melancholy I think, and is commonly fucceeded by fuicide-Very abfurdly-fure; as our country, where 'tis afferted the fin of felfmurder moft obtains, is the country whence HOPELESS HOPELESSNESS is more completely banished, than from any region under heaven. So many viciffitudes of fortune, fo many changes, fo many chances to repair a broken property occur in England, that a man is blameable here even for DESPONDENCY--unpardonable if he gives way to DESPAIR: while fentimental distress is perhaps harder to endure here than in feveral places, and female refentment may be reasonably high in proportion as 'tis fatal. A woman deferted by her lover is not in fear of being forfaken by the herd, in cities where lefs observation watches the conduct of focial life; but while her name is bandied about by every mouth, her figure caricatured in every printfhop of London, Poor Olympia (fay we) has appeared to be in a state of grievous dejection, ending in fad DESPONDENCY indeed, fince her lover's open and ungenerous desertion: his recent marriage with a lady inferior in every thing but fortune, might have been expected to cure her long permitted paffion, by fhewing her at length the HOPELESSNESS of being his. But a friend called at my houfe to-day, and told the fervants, that the news coming abruptly when her nerves were already in a fhattered flate, and her weak health finking apace under the firft blow-this aggravation of an unprovoked injury threw her by its narration into a fit of DESPAIR, from which the worft confequences may be expected. DISCOURSE, |