Dialogues of the Dead | Page 3

can hardly so act as to approve his
own conduct. In such a state we both were. We could not easily make a
step, either forward or backward, without great hazard of guilt, or at
least of dishonour. We were unhappily entangled in connections with
men who did not mean so well as ourselves, or did not judge so rightly.
If we endeavoured to stop them, they thought us false to the cause; if
we went on with them, we ran directly upon rocks, which we saw, but
could not avoid. Nor could we take shelter in a philosophical retreat
from business. Inaction would in us have been cowardice and desertion.
To complete the public calamities, a religious fury, on both sides,
mingled itself with the rage of our civil dissensions, more frantic than
that, more implacable, more averse to all healing measures. The most
intemperate counsels were thought the most pious, and a regard to the
laws, if they opposed the suggestions of these fiery zealots, was
accounted irreligion. This added new difficulties to what was before but
too difficult in itself, the settling of a nation which no longer could put
any confidence in its sovereign, nor lay more restraints on the royal
authority without destroying the balance of the whole constitution. In
those circumstances, the balls that pierced our hearts were directed
thither by the hands of our guardian angels, to deliver us from horrors
we could not support, and perhaps from a guilt our souls abhorred.
Mr. Hampden.--Indeed, things were brought to so deplorable a state,
that if either of us had seen his party triumphant, he must have
lamented that triumph as the ruin of his country. Were I to return into
life, the experience I have had would make me very cautious how I
kindled the sparks of civil war in England; for I have seen that, when
once that devouring fire is lighted, it is not in the power of the head of a
party to say to the conflagration, "Thus far shalt thou go, and here shall
thy violence stop."

Lord Falkland.--The conversation we have had, as well as the
reflections of my own mind on past events, would, if I were condemned
to my body again, teach me great moderation in my judgments of
persons who might happen to differ from me in difficult scenes of
public action; they would entirely cure me of the spirit of party, and
make me think that as in the Church, so also in the State, no evil is
more to be feared than a rancorous and enthusiastical zeal.

DIALOGUE II.
LOUIS LE GRAND--PETER THE GREAT.
Louis.--Who, sir, could have thought, when you were learning the trade
of a shipwright in the dockyards of England and Holland, that you
would ever acquire, as I had done, the surname of "Great."
Peter.--Which of us best deserved that title posterity will decide. But
my greatness appeared sufficiently in that very act which seemed to
you a debasement.
Louis.--The dignity of a king does not stoop to such mean employments.
For my own part, I was careful never to appear to the eyes of my
subjects or foreigners but in all the splendour and majesty of royal
power.
Peter.--Had I remained on the throne of Russia, as my ancestors did,
environed with all the pomp of barbarous greatness, I should have been
idolised by my people--as much, at least, as you ever were by the
French. My despotism was more absolute, their servitude was more
humble. But then I could not have reformed their evil customs; have
taught them arts, civility, navigation, and war; have exalted them from
brutes in human shapes into men. In this was seen the extraordinary
force of my genius beyond any comparison with all other kings, that I
thought it no degradation or diminution of my greatness to descend
from my throne, and go and work in the dockyards of a foreign republic;
to serve as a private sailor in my own fleets, and as a common soldier

in my own army, till I had raised myself by my merit in all the several
steps and degrees of promotion up to the highest command, and had
thus induced my nobility to submit to a regular subordination in the sea
and land service by a lesson hard to their pride, and which they would
not have learnt from any other master or by any other method of
instruction.
Louis.--I am forced to acknowledge that it was a great act. When I
thought it a mean one, my judgment was perverted by the prejudices
arising from my own education and the ridicule thrown upon it by some
of my courtiers, whose minds were too narrow to be able to
comprehend the greatness of yours in that