But if the fear of hell should dissipate all other fears in the Pretender’s mind, and carry him, which is frequently the effect of that passion, to the most desperate undertakings; if among his successors a man bold enough to make the attempt should arise, the condition of the British nation would be still more deplorable.  The attempt succeeding, we should fall into tyranny; for a change of religion could never be brought about by consent; and the same force that would be sufficient to enslave our consciences, would be sufficient for all the other purposes of arbitrary power.  The attempt failing, we should fall into anarchy; for there is no medium when disputes between a prince and his people are arrived at a certain point; he must either be submitted to or deposed.

I have now laid before you even more than I intended to have said when I took my pen, and I am persuaded that if these papers ever come to your hands, they will enable you to cast up the account between party and me.  Till the time of the Queen’s death it stands, I believe, even between us.  The Tories distinguished me by their approbation and by the credit which I had amongst them, and I endeavoured to distinguish myself in their service, under the immediate weight of great discouragement and with the not very distant prospect of great danger.  Since that time the account is not so even, and I dare appeal to any impartial person whether my side in it be that of the debtor.  As to the opinion of mankind in general, and the judgment which posterity will pass on these matters, I am under no great concern.  “Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit.”

A LETTER TO ALEXANDER POPE

Dear Sir,—­Since you have begun, at my request, the work which I have wished long that you would undertake, it is but reasonable that I submit to the task you impose upon me.  The mere compliance with anything you desire, is a pleasure to me.  On the present occasion, however, this compliance is a little interested; and that I may not assume more merit with you than I really have, I will own that in performing this act of friendship—­for such you are willing to esteem it—­the purity of my motive is corrupted by some regard to my private utility.  In short, I suspect you to be guilty of a very friendly fraud, and to mean my service whilst you seem to mean your own.

In leading me to discourse, as you have done often, and in pressing me to write, as you do now, on certain subjects, you may propose to draw me back to those trains of thought which are, above all others, worthy to employ the human mind:  and I thank you for it.  They have been often interrupted by the business and dissipations of the world, but they were never so more grievously to me, nor less usefully to the public, than since royal seduction prevailed on me to abandon the quiet and leisure of the retreat I had chosen abroad, and to neglect the example of Rutilius, for I might have imitated him in this at least, who fled further from his country when he was invited home.