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Rh them, and they must reward him accordingly. Taxation and the civil list are the salaries paid by the people and earned by the prince. The people give their blood and their money, in return for which they are governed. To wish to govern themselves,—what an absurd idea! They require a guide; being ignorant, they are blind. Has not the blind man his dog? Only the people have a lion, the king, who consents to play the dog. How kind of him! Why are the people ignorant? Because it is good for them to be ignorant. Ignorance is the guardian of Virtue. Where there are no possibilities of improvement there is no ambition. The ignorant man is in useful darkness, which, suppressing sight, suppresses covetousness: hence innocence. He who reads, thinks, he who thinks, reasons. But not to reason is duty and happiness as well. These truths are incontestable; society is based on them.

These sound social doctrines had been re-established in England. At the same time a correct taste in literature was reviving. Shakspeare was despised, Dryden admired. "Dryden is the greatest poet of England, and of the century," said Atterbury, the translator of "Achitophel." This was about the time when M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, wrote to Saumaise, who had done the author of "Paradise Lost" the honour to refute and abuse him: "How can you trouble yourself about so mean a thing as that Milton?" Everything was falling into its proper place: Dryden above, Shakspeare below; Charles II. on the throne, Cromwell on the gibbet. England was raising herself out of the shame and the excesses of the past. It is a great happiness for nations to be led back by monarchy to good order in the State and good taste in letters.

It is hard to believe that such benefits should not be appreciated. To turn the cold shoulder to Charles II.,