Something like this may be observed from two late instances of decency and good nature, in that illustrious assembly I am speaking of.  The first was, when after that inhuman attempt upon Mr. Harley, they were pleased to vote an Address to the Queen,[7] wherein they express their utmost detestation of the fact, their high esteem and great concern for that able minister, and justly impute his misfortunes to that zeal for her Majesty’s service, which had “drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of Popery and faction.”  I dare affirm, that so distinguishing a mark of honour and good will from such a Parliament, was more acceptable to a person of Mr. H[arle]y’s generous nature, than the most bountiful grant that was ever yet made to a subject; as her Majesty’s answer, filled with gracious expressions in his favour, adds more to his real glory, than any titles she could bestow.  The prince and representatives of the whole kingdom, join in their concern for so important a life.  These are the true rewards of virtue, and this is the commerce between noble spirits, in a coin which the giver knows where to bestow, and the receiver how to value, though neither avarice nor ambition would be able to comprehend its worth.

The other instance I intended to produce of decency and good nature, in the present House of Commons, relates to their most worthy Speaker;[8] who having unfortunately lost his eldest son,[9] the assembly, moved with a generous pity for so sensible an affliction, adjourned themselves for a week, that so good a servant of the public, might have some interval to wipe away a father’s tears:  And indeed that gentleman has too just an occasion for his grief, by the death of a son, who had already acquired so great a reputation for every amiable quality, and who might have lived to be so great an honour and an ornament to his ancient family.

Before I conclude, I must desire one favour of the reader, that when he thinks it worth his while to peruse any paper writ against the “Examiner,” he will not form his judgment by any mangled quotation out of it which he finds in such papers, but be so just to read the paragraph referred to; which I am confident will be found a sufficient answer to all that ever those papers can object.  At least I have seen above fifty of them, and never yet observed one single quotation transcribed with common candour.

[Footnote:  1 No. 34 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote:  2 Virgil, “Aeneid,” i. 461-2. 
“Even here
Has merit its reward.  Woe wakens tears,
And mortal sufferings touch the heart of man.”—­R.  KENNEDY.
[T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  See No. 33, ante, p. 211. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4:  Silas Titus (1622-1704) was the author of “Killing no Murder,” published in 1657.  He sat in Parliament successively for Ludgershall, Lostwithiel, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Ludlow, In 1688 he was made a privy councillor.  In his notes on Burnet Swift says:  “Titus was the greatest rogue in England” (Burnet’s “Own Times,” i. 11). [T.S.]]