I approve the fable and application, with this refinement upon it for parties do not only split a nation, but every individual among them, leaving each but half their ftrength, and wit, and honefty, and good nature; but one eye and ear for their fight and hearing, and equally lopping the rest of the fenfes. Where parties are pretty equal in a state, no man can perceive one bad quality in his own, or good one in his adverfaries. Besides, party being a dry disagreeable fubject, it renders converfation infipid or four, and confines invention. I fpeak not here of the leaders, but the infignificant crowd of followers in a party, who have been the inftruments of mixing it in every condition andcircumftance of life. As the zealots among the Jews, bound the law about their foreheads, and wrifts, and hems of their garments, fo the women among us, have got the distinguishing marks of party in their muffs, their fans, and their furbelows. The whig ladies put on their patches in a different manner from the tories. They have made fchifmns in the play-houfe, and each have their particular fides at the opera: and when á man changes his party, he muft infallibly count upon the lofs of his mistress. I asked a gentleman the other day, how he liked fuch a lady? But he would not give me his opinion, till I had anfwered him whether she were a whig or a tory. Mr. fince he is known to vifit the prefent miniftry, and lay fome time under a fufpicion of writing the Examiner, is no longer a man of wit; his very poems have contracted a ftupidity, many years after they were printed.

Having lately ventured upon a metaphorical genealogy of Merit, I thought it would be proper to add another of Party, or rather of Faction (to avoid mistake) not telling the reader whether it be my own or a quotation, till I know how it is approved. But whether I read, or dreamed it, the fable is as follows:

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"LIBERTY, the daughter of Oppreffion, af"ter having brought forth feveral fair children, as Riches, Arts, Learning, Trade, and many others, was at last delivered of her youngest daughter, "called FACTION; whom Juno, doing the office "of the midwife, diftorted in its birth out of envy "to the mother, whence it derived its peevithness "and fickly conftitution. However, as it is often "the nature of parents to grow moft fond of their youngest and difagreeableft children, fo it happened with Liberty; who doated on this daugh"ter to fuch a degree, that by her good will the "would never fuffer the girl to be out of her

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fight. As mifs Faction grew up, the became "fo termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter "gave her warning to be gone; and her mother, "rather than forfake her, took the whole family "down to earth. She landed firft in Greece; was

expelled by degrees through all the cities by her

daughter's ill conduct: fled afterwards to Italy,

Difagreeableft-has a bad found; it should be most disagreeable: Po- | Iysyllables, in general, should have their degrees of comparifen formed by, more and mofl.

"and

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"and being banished thence, took shelter among "the Goths, with whom the paffed into moft parts "of Europe; but, being driven out every where, "fhe began to lofe efteem, and her daughter's faults were imputed to herfelf: fo that at this time "fhe has hardly a place in the world to retire to. "One would wonder what ftrange qualities this daughter muft poffefs, fufficient to blast the in"fluence of fo divine a mother, and the reft of her "children. She always affected to keep mean and "fcandalous company; valuing nobody but just as "they agreed with her in every capricious opinion "the thought fit to take up; and rigorously exact"ing compliance, though the changed her fenti"ments ever so often. Her great employment was,

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to breed difcord among friends and relations, and "make up monftrous alliances between those whose "difpofitions leaft refembled each other. Whoever "offered to contradict her, though in the most infignificant trifle, she would be fure to distinguish by fome ignominious appellation, and allow "them to have neither honour, wit, beauty, learn

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ing, honefty, or common fenfe. She intruded "into all companies at the, moft unfeasonable "times; mixed at balls, affemblies, and other parties of pleafure, haunted every coffee-house and bookfeller's fhop, and by her perpetual talking filled all places with difturbance and confu"fion: fhe buzzed about the merchant in the exchange, the divine in his pulpit, and the fhopkeeper behind his counter. Above all, the fre

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"fhape of an obfcene, ominous bird, ready to 66 prompt her friends as they spoke."

If I understand this fable of FACTION right, it ought to be applied to those who fet themselves up against the true intereft and constitution of their country; which I wish the undertakers for the late ministry would please to take notice of, or tell us by what figure of speech they pretend to call fo great and unforced a majority, with the queen at their head, by the name of the faction; which is not unlike the phrafe of the nonjurors, who, dignifying one or two deprived bishops, and half a fcore clergymen of the fame ftamp, with the title of the church of England, exclude all the rest as schifmaticks; or like the prefbyterians laying the fame accufation, with equal juftice, against the establifhed religion.

And here it may be worth enquiring, what are the true characteristicks of a faction; or how it is to be distinguished from that great body of the people who are friends to the conftitution? The heads of a faction are ufually a fet of upstarts, or men ruined in their fortunes, whom fome great change in a government did at first out of their obfcurity produce upon the ftage. They aflociate themselves with those who diflike the old eftablishment, religious and civil. They are full of new fchemes in politicks and divinity; they have an incurable hatred against the old nobility, and strengthen their party by dependants raised from the lowest of the people. They have feveral ways of working themVOL. III. felves

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felves into power; but they are fure to be called, when a corrupt administration wants to be supported, against those who are endeavouring at a reformation; and they firmly obferve that celebrated maxim, of preserving power by the fame arts by which it is attained. They act with the fpirit of those who believe their time is but fhort; and their first care is, to heap up immenfe riches at the public expence; in which they have two ends befide that common one of infatiable avarice, which are, to make themselves neceffary, and to keep the commonwealth in dependence. Thus they hope to compass their design, which is, instead of fitting their principles to the conftitution, to alter and adjust the constitution to their own pernicious principles.

It is eafy determining by this teft, to which fide the name of faction moft properly belongs. But however, I will give them any fyftem of law or regal government, from William the Conqueror to this prefent time, to try whether they can tally it with their late models; excepting only that of Cromwell, whom perhaps they will reckon for a monarch:

If the prefent miniftry, and fo great a majority in the parliament and kingdom, be only a faction, it muft appear by fome actions which anfwer the idea we ufually conceive from that word. Have they abused the prerogative of the prince, or invaded the rights and liberties of the subject? have they offered at any dangerous innovations in church or state? have they broached any doctrine of heresy,

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