This essay was first printed in Nos. v. and vii. of “The Intelligencer” (Dublin, 1728).  In that periodical it bore the title:  “A Description of what the World calls Discretion;” and had the following lines from Ben Jonson as a text: 

  “Described it’s thus:  Defined would you it have? 
  Then the World’s honest Man’s an errant knave.”

The text here printed is based on the original issue, and collated with the “Miscellanies,” vol. iii. of 1732, and the “Miscellanies,” vol. ii., 1747.

[T.S.]

  AN ESSAY ON THE FATES OF
  CLERGYMEN.

There is no talent so useful towards rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of people, and is in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.  Courts are seldom unprovided of persons under this character, on whom, if they happen to be of great quality, most employments, even the greatest, naturally fall, when competitors will not agree; and in such promotions, nobody rejoices or grieves.  The truth of this I could prove by several instances within my own memory; for I say nothing of present times.

And, indeed, as regularity and forms are of great use in carrying on the business of the world, so it is very convenient, that persons endued with this kind of discretion, should have that share which is proper to their talents, in the conduct of affairs, but by no means meddle in matters which require genius, learning, strong comprehension, quickness of conception, magnanimity, generosity, sagacity, or any other superior gift of human minds.  Because this sort of discretion is usually attended with a strong desire of money, and few scruples about the way of obtaining it; with servile flattery and submission; with a want of all public spirit or principle; with a perpetual wrong judgment, when the owners come into power and high place, how to dispose of favour and preferment; having no measures for merit and virtue in others, but those very steps by which themselves ascended; nor the least intention of doing good or hurt to the public, farther than either one or t’other is likely to be subservient to their own security or interest.  Thus, being void of all friendship and enmity, they never complain or find fault with the times, and indeed never have reason to do so.

Men of eminent parts and abilities, as well as virtues, do sometimes rise in the court, sometimes in the law, and sometimes even in the Church.  Such were the Lord Bacon, the Earl of Strafford, Archbishop Laud, in the reign of King Charles I., and others in our own times, whom I shall not name; but these, and many more, under different princes, and in different kingdoms, were disgraced or banished, or suffered death, merely in envy to their virtues and superior genius, which emboldened them in great exigencies and distresses of state, (wanting a reasonable infusion of this aldermanly discretion,) to attempt the service of their prince and country, out of the common forms.