This, my lords, is the present use of our troops in Flanders; the French are kept in continual terrour, and are obliged to detach to that frontier those troops which, had they not been thus diverted, would have been employed in the empire; and, surely, an army is not unactive which withholds a double number from prosecuting their design.

Those, therefore, who advised his majesty to assert to the senate what they knew from no better authority, those whose daring insolence could make their sovereign instrumental in alarming the people with false terrours, and oppressing them with unnecessary burdens, well deserve to feel a senatorial censure.

It is now three months since I have been suffered to pay and receive visits, to dance at publick assemblies, to have a place kept for me in the boxes, and to play at lady Racket's rout; and you may easily imagine what I think of those who have so long cheated me with false expectations, disturbed me with fictitious terrours, and concealed from me all that I have found to make the happiness of woman.

But be they far from me with their fond terrour: I am resolv'd my Cloe yet is true.

Our firmness is by the continual contemplation of misery, hourly impaired; every submission to our fear enlarges its dominion; we not only waste that time in which the evil we dread might have been suffered and surmounted, but even where procrastination produces no absolute increase of our difficulties, make them less superable to ourselves by habitual terrours.

She daily exercises her benevolence by pitying every misfortune that happens to every family within her circle of notice; she is in hourly terrours lest one should catch cold in the rain, and another be frighted by the high wind.

They may themselves offend the law by some other parts of their conduct, and may be unwilling to provoke an inspection into their own actions, by betraying officiously the faults of their neighbours; or they may be influenced by immediate terrours, and expect to be hunted to death by the rage of the populace.

The more refined and penetrating part of mankind, who take wide surveys of the wilds of life, who see the innumerable terrours and distresses that are perpetually preying on the heart of man, and discern with unhappy perspicuity, calamities yet latent in their causes, are glad to close their eyes upon the gloomy prospect, and lose in a short insensibility the remembrance of others' miseries and their own.

Yet, since fortitude is one of those virtues which the condition of our nature makes hourly necessary, I think you cannot better direct your admonitions than against superfluous and panick terrours.

One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary terrours, and exemption from false alarms.

Thus, it appears, my lords, that it is possible to be a friend, at the same time, to the people and the administration, and that no man can more deserve their confidence and applause, than he that dissipates their unreasonable terrours, and contributes to reconcile them to a good government.

Wherever different events may arise, which is the state of all human transactions, we naturally promote our hopes, and repress our fears; and in time so far deceive ourselves, as to quiet all our suspicions, lay all our terrours asleep, and believe what at first we only wished.

But the same indulgence cannot be allowed to him who aggravates dangers incurred, or sorrow endured, by himself, because he darkens the prospect of futurity, and multiplies the pains of our condition by useless terrour.

That such treaties have, indeed, been made, Hanover is a sufficient witness; but however frequently they may occur, they may surely be discovered with very little disadvantage to the nation; they will prove only the weakness of those that made them, who were at one time intimidated by chimerical terrours, and at another, lulled into confidence by airy security.