your guilt have reached further than
mine, and been more lasting. But, Heaven be praised, your credit is at
present much declining in Europe. I have been told by some shades who
are lately arrived here, that the ablest statesman of his time, a king,
with whose fame the world is filled, has answered your book, and confuted
all the principles of it, with a noble scorn and abhorrence. I am also
assured, that in England there is a great and good king, whose whole life
has been a continued opposition to your evil system; who has hated all
cruelty, all fraud, all falseness; whose word has been sacred, whose
honour inviolate; who has made the laws of his kingdom the rules of his
government, and good faith and a regard for the liberty of mankind the
principles of his conduct with respect to foreign powers; who reigns more
absolutely now in the hearts of his people, and does greater things by
the confidence they place in him, and by the efforts they make from the
generous zeal of affection, than any monarch ever did, or ever will do,
by all the arts of iniquity which you recommended.

DIALOGUE XIII.

VIRGIL--HORACE--MERCURY--SCALIGER THE ELDER.

_Virgil_.--My dear Horace, your company is my greatest delight, even in
the Elysian Fields. No wonder it was so when we lived together in Rome.
Never had man so genteel, so agreeable, so easy a wit, or a temper so
pliant to the inclinations of others in the intercourse of society. And
then such integrity, such fidelity, such generosity in your nature! A
soul so free from all envy, so benevolent, so sincere, so placable in its
anger, so warm and constant in its affections! You were as necessary to
Maecenas as he to Augustus. Your conversation sweetened to him all the
cares of his ministry; your gaiety cheered his drooping spirits; and your
counsels assisted him when he wanted advice. For you were capable, my
dear Horace, of counselling statesmen. Your sagacity, your discretion,
your secrecy, your clear judgment in all affairs, recommended you to the
confidence, not of Maecenas alone, but of Augustus himself; which you
nobly made use of to serve your old friends of the republican party, and
to confirm both the minister and the prince in their love of mild and
moderate measures, yet with a severe restraint of licentiousness, the
most dangerous enemy to the whole commonwealth under any form of
government.

_Horace_.--To be so praised by Virgil would have put me in Elysium