This was indeed a triumph, the very memory of which warms you to this moment. So bright a flame was not easily extinguished.
It continued for some time in all its vigour. High as my notions were of public liberty, they did not transport me, with that zeal which prevailed on so many others, to act against the just prerogative of the crown, and the ancient constitution. I owe it to the conversation and influence of the excellent society, before-mentioned, that neither the spirit, the sense, nor, what is more, the relationship and intimate acquaintance of Mr. HAMPDEN[22], could ever bias me to his deeper designs, or any irreverence to the unhappy king’s person. Many things concurred to preserve me in this due mean. The violent tendencies of many councils on the parliament’s side; many gracious and important compliances on the king’s; the great examples of some who had most authority with good men; and, lastly, my own temper, which, in its highest fervours, always inclined to moderation; these and other circumstances kept me from the excesses, on either hand, which so few were able to avoid in that scene of public confusion.
This moderation carries with it all the marks of a real and confirmed virtue.
I rather expected you would have considered it as another _sacrifice to Insincerity_. Such, I remember, was the language of many at that time. The enthusiasts on both sides agreed to stigmatize this temper with the name of _Neutrality_. Yet this treatment did not prevent me, when the war broke out, from taking a course, which I easily foresaw, would tend to increase such suspicions; for now, to open a fresh scene to you, I had assumed, if not new principles, yet new notions of the manner in which good policy required me to exert my old ones. The general virtue, or what had the appearance of it at least, had hitherto made plain-dealing an easy and convenient conduct. But things were now changed. The minds of all men were on fire: deep designs were laid, and no practice stuck at that might be proper to advance the execution of them. In this situation of affairs, what could simple honesty do, but defeat the purpose and endanger the safety of its master? I now, first, began to reflect that this was a virtue for other times: at least, that not to qualify it, in some sort, was, at such a juncture, not honesty, but imprudence: and when I had once fallen into this train of thinking, it is wonderful how many things occurred to me to justify and recommend it. The humour of acting always on one principle was, I said to myself, like that of sailing with one wind: whereas the expert mariner wins his way by plying in all directions, as occasions serve, and making the best of all weathers. Then I considered with myself the bad policy, in such a conjuncture, of CATO and BRUTUS, and easily approved in my own mind the more pliant and conciliating method of CICERO. Those stoics, thought I, ruined themselves and their cause by a too obstinate adherence to their system. The liberal and more enlarged conduct of the academic, who took advantage of all winds that blew in that time of civil dissension, had a chance at least for doing his country better service. Observation, as well as books, furnish me with these reflections. I perceived with what difficulty the Lord FALKLAND’S rigid principles had suffered him to accept an office of the greatest consequence to the public safety[23]: and I understood to what an extreme his scruples had carried him in the discharge of it[24]. This, concluded I, can never be the office of virtue in such a world, and in such a period. And then that of the poet, so skilled in the knowledge of life, occurred to me,