us; neither nature nor reason can digest them.  Self-flattery, and the desire to deceive ourselves, to gratify present appetite, with all their power, which is great, cannot get the better of such broad conviction, as some things carry along with them.  Will you call these vain and empty suspicions?  Have you been at all times so void of fears and jealousies, as to justify your being so unreasonably valiant in having none upon this occasion?  Such an extraordinary courage at this unseasonable time, to say no more, is too dangerous a virtue to be commended.

If then, for these and a thousand other reasons, there is cause to suspect, sure your new friends are not to dictate to you, or advise you.  For instance:  the Addresses that fly abroad every week, and murder us with another to the same; the first draughts are made by those who are not very proper to be secretaries to the Protestant Religion:  and it is your part only to write them out fairer again.

Strange! that you, who have been formerly so much against set forms, should now be content the priests should indite for you.  The nature of thanks is an unavoidable consequence of being pleased or obliged; they grow in the heart, and from thence show themselves either in looks, speech, writing, or action.  No man was ever thankful because he was bid to be so, but because he had, or thought he had some reason for it.  If then there is cause in this case to pay such extravagant acknowledgments, they will flow naturally, without taking such pains to procure them; and it is unkindly done to tire all the Post-horses with carrying circular letters, to solicit that which would be done without any trouble or constraint.  If it is really in itself such a favour, what needeth so much pressing men to be thankful, and with such eager circumstances, that where persuasions cannot delude, threatenings are employed to fright them into a compliance?  Thanks must be voluntary, not only unconstrained but unsolicited, else they are either trifles or snares, that either signify nothing or a great deal more than is intended by those that give them.  If an inference should be made, that whosoever thanketh the King for his Declaration, is by that engaged to justify it in point of law; it is a greater stride than I presume all those care to make who are persuaded to address.  It shall be supposed that all the thankers will be repealers of the Test, whenever a Parliament shall meet; such an expectation is better prevented before than disappointed afterwards; and the surest way to avoid the lying under such a scandal is not to do anything that may give a colour to the mistake.  These bespoken thanks are little less improper than love-letters that were solicited by the lady to whom they are to be directed:  so that, besides the little ground there is to give them, the manner of getting them doth extremely lessen their value.  It might be wished that you would have suppressed your impatience, and have been content, for the sake