LORD CHESTERFIELD'S MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. FOG'S JOURNA Î*. SATURDAY, Jan. 17, 1736. N° 376% AM not of the opinion of those who think that our ancestors were in every respect wiser than we, and who reject every new invention as chimerical, and brand it with the name of project. On the contrary, I am perfuaded, that most things are ftill capable of improvement; for which reason I always give a fair and impartial hearing to all new propofals, and have often, in the courfe of my life, found great advantage by fo doing. I very early took Mr. Ward's Drop, notwithstanding the great difcouragement it met with, in its infancy, from an honorable author, eminent for his political fagacity, who afferted it to be liquid Popery and *This was one of the weekly publications against fir R. Walpole's administration. It was first intitled Mift's Journal. I fuspect, that lord Chesterfield had, feveral times before, lent his hand to the writers of this witty paper; but I have no authority to affert it. This, and the two following effays, were generally allowed to be his. VOL. II. Jacobitifm. B Jacobitifm. I reaped great benefit from it, and recommended it to fo many of my friends, that I question whether the author of that great specific is more obliged to any one man in the kingdom than myfelf, excepting one. I have likewise, as well as my brother Caleb *, great hopes of public advantage, arifing from the fkill and discoveries of that ingenious operator, Dr. Taylor; notwithstanding the late objections of Mrs. Ofborne †, and her moft fubtle diftinctions between the eye politic, and the eye natural. Some inventions have been improved ages after their firft discovery, and extended to uses fo obvious, and so nearly resembling those for which they were at first intended, that it is furprizing how they could have fo long escaped the fagacity of mankind. For inftance, printing, though used but within thefe few centuries, has in reality been invented thousands of years; and it is aftonishing, that it never occurred to those, who first stampt images and infcriptions upon metals, to ftamp likewife their thoughts upon wax, barks of trees, or whatever else they wrote upon. This example should hinder one from thinking any, thing brought to its ne plus ultra of perfection, when fo plain an improvement lay for many ages undifcovered. The Craftsman, in which lord Bolingbroke was principally engaged, went under the name of Caleb D'Anvers efq. The fignature to one of the ministerial papers being F. Osborne efq; (who was the eldest and graveft of their writers), his antagonists made an old woman of the author, and nick-named him Mother Ofborne, under which title he figures in the fecond book of the Dunciad. The The scheme I am now going to offer to the public. is of this nature, fo very plain, obvious, and of fuch evident emolument, that I am convinced my readers will both be furprized and concerned, that it did not occur to every body, and that it was not put in prastice many years ago. I took the firit hint of it from an account a friend' of mine gave me of what he himself had feen practifed with fuccefs at a foreign court; but I have extendedit confiderably, and I flatter myfelf; that it will, upon the ftricteft examination, appear to be the most practicable and ufeful, and, at this time, neceffary project that has, it may be, ever been fubmitted to the public. My friend, having refided fome time at a very confiderable court in Germany, had there contracted an intimacy with a German prince, whole dominions and revenues were as fmall as his birth was great and ilhiftrious; there are fome few fuch in the auguft Germanic body. This prince made him promise, that whenever he should return to England, he would take him in his way, and make him a vifit in his principality. Accordingly, fome time afterwards, about two years ago, he waited upon his ferene highnefs; who, being apprized a little beforehand of his arrival, refolved to receive him with all poffible marks of honor and diftinction. My friend was not a little furprized, to find himfelf conducted to the palace through a lane of foldiers refting their firelocks, and the drums beating a march. His highness, who obferved his furprize, and who, by the way, was a wag, after the first compliments ufual upon fuch occafions, fpoke very gravely to him thus: "I do not wonder, that you, who are well in"formed of the narrownefs both of my territories "and my fortune, fhould be astonished at the num "ber of my ftanding forces; but I must acquaint 66 you, that the prefent critical fituation of my af"fairs would not allow me to remain defenceless,. "while all my neighbours were arining around me.. "There is not a prince near me, that has not made: an augmentation in his forces, fome of four, fome "of eight, and fome even of twelve men; fo that you must be fenfible that it would have been con"fiftent neither with my honor nor fafety, not to "have increased mine. I have therefore augmented my army up to forty effective men, from bur eight and twenty that they were before; but, in "order not to overburden my fubjects with taxes, 64 . nor opprefs them by the quartering and infolence "of my troops, as well as to remove the leaft fufpicion of my defigning any thing against their li"berties to tell you the plain truth, my men are "of wax, and exercife by clock-work. You eafily 66 perceive," added he fmiling, "that, if I were in any real danger, my forty men of wax are just as good a fecurity to me, as if they were of the very "best flesh and blood in Chriftendom: as for dig nity and show, they anfwer thofe purposes full as "well; and in the mean time they coft me fo little, "that our dinner will be much the better for it." My friend respectfully fignified to him his fincere approbation of his wife and prudent measures, and affured |