- tot bella per orbem:

Tam multa fcelerum facies: non ullus aratro Dignus honos: Squalent abductis arva colonis, Et curve rigidum falces conflantur in enfem. Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum : Vicina ruptis inter fe legibus urbes

Arma ferunt: fævit toto Mars impius orbe.

I SHALL only ftop a moment to obfery with what propriety Virgil, when he was writing on hufbandry, complains of the plough not receiving due honour, the fields lying wafte, their owners forced to bear arms, and the crooked scythes being forged into cruel fwords. But furely, if the people have no real intereft in the quarrels of their princes, as it is certain they very fel→ dom have, it would be highly reasonable that the princes only fhould fight. Would it not have been infinitely more just, that Alexander and Darius, Cæfar and Pompey, and many more fuch deftroying heroes who might be mentioned, fhould have decided their difputes by fingle combat, than that fo many thousands fhould have been facrificed to their ambition? It was certainly a noble action, and worthy of great commendation, in our king Henry the fifth, that foon after he arrived in France to affert and obtain his right to the crown of that kingdom,

he fent a letter to the Dauphin, in which he challenged him to a fingle combat, "that fo," as he expreffed it, "the lives "of many men might be fpared, and the " quarrel between them two be honourably fought and decided by themselves." An immenfe treasure, and the lives of perhaps a million of people, might have been faved, if Lewis the fourteenth of France, when he was young, and firft began to disturb Europe, had been thus engaged to fight fingly. Our William the third, if he had come a little fooner into the world, would not, I believe, have refused the combat: tho' I could rather have wished, that circumftances had concurred to have matched Lewis with Charles the twelfth of Sweden, and have brought them together upon the stage. The fubjects of fuch a pair of royal gladiators would certainly have had reason to wish they might both have fallen in the difpute. But the worst is, that tho' these pernicious princes, or fome of them, might have been by this means deftroyed, yet bad kings are like the heads of the Hydra: if one is cut off, another immediately fprouts up.

I WAS about to have proceeded in my fpeculations, and have inquired what may be the reason, that although wars are many B 4

times

7

times unjust, and always a terrible calamity, yet not only the bulk of mankind, but you, and I, and many more peaceable perfons, are nevertheless delighted with the accounts and defcriptions which hiftory and poetry give of wars and battles; and to have made fome further observations on war and cruelty; but for fear I fhould, by the length of this letter, rather tire than divert you, I fhall only add, that

I am, &c.

A SECOND

A

SECOND

LETTER

Το the Same.

DEAR SIR,

A

S you defire that I would proceed in the inquiry and obfervations mentioned in my former letter, and tell me it would be a pleasure to you to fee them, I comply with chearfulness: for I cannot gratify myfelf more highly than in giving pleasure to one I fo much esteem.

THAT the greatest poets, who are certainly fome of the most curious obfervers and best judges of human nature, and particularly

the

:

the epic poets, have been fenfible of the univerfal taste of mankind for descriptions of wars and battles, agreeably to what is mentioned in my laft, is evident; for these are the principal fubjects of the Iliad and Æneid: and, in Paradife Loft, the author has given us a battle of angels, which by great numbers of his readers, is not, I believe, the least admired part of that divine performance. Give me leave to mention a fourth poem of the fame kind, which has done honour to this age and nation, and will, I doubt not, be applauded by future generations, even as long as the English language is understood (which, perhaps, may be for ever:) great part of this poem is alfo on the fame fubjects, and the battles between Leonidas and the Perfians,-fome of the bravest and most glorious on the fide of the former, because in defence of liberty and his country, that ever were fought, have, I believe, been univerfally admired. Several of our best tragic poets have alfo not only described battles, but even introduced them one the stage. How prepofterous foever this lastmentioned practice may be, (and prepofterous indeed I think it,) nevertheless it ferves to fhew how pleafing thefe poets have thought fuch representations are to the people.

MY