This wild passion, or principle, is a kind of fanaticism by which they distinguish those of their own party, and which they look upon as a certain indication of a great mind. We have no name for it at court; but, among themselves, they term it by a kind of cant phrase, “a regard for posterity.”

This passion seems to predominate in all their conduct, to regulate every action of their lives, and sentiment of their minds:  I have heard L——­ and P——­ [2], when they have made a vigorous opposition, or blasted the blossom of some ministerial scheme, cry out, in the height of their exultations, “This will deserve the thanks of posterity!” And when their adversaries, as it much more frequently falls out, have outnumbered and overthrown them, they will say, with an air of revenge and a kind of gloomy triumph, “Posterity will curse you for this.”

It is common among men, under the influence of any kind of phrensy, to believe that all the world has the same odd notions that disorder their own imaginations.  Did these unhappy men, these deluded patriots, know how little we are concerned about posterity, they would never attempt to fright us with their curses, or tempt us to a neglect of our own interest by a prospect of their gratitude.

But so strong is their infatuation, that they seem to have forgotten even the primary law of self-preservation; for they sacrifice, without scruple, every flattering hope, every darling enjoyment, and every satisfaction of life, to this ruling passion, and appear, in every step, to consult not so much their own advantage, as that of posterity.

Strange delusion! that can confine all their thoughts to a race of men whom they neither know, nor can know; from whom nothing is to be feared, nor any thing expected; who cannot even bribe a special jury, nor have so much as a single riband to bestow.

This fondness for posterity is a kind of madness which at Rome was once almost epidemical, and infected even the women and the children.  It reigned there till the entire destruction of Carthage; after which it began to be less general, and in a few years afterwards a remedy was discovered, by which it was almost entirely extinguished.

In England it never prevailed in any such degree:  some few of the ancient barons seem, indeed, to have been disordered by it; but the contagion has been, for the, most part, timely checked, and our ladies have been generally free.

But there has been, in every age, a set of men, much admired and reverenced, who have affected to be always talking of posterity, and have laid out their lives upon the composition of poems, for the sake of being applauded by this imaginary generation.

The present poets I reckon amongst the most inexorable enemies of our most excellent ministry, and much doubt whether any method will effect the cure of a distemper, which, in this class of men, may be termed, not an accidental disease, but a defect in their original frame and constitution.