Flattery

Reversing all the rules of justice and humanity, matured in the vile arts of adulation, at the same time arrogant and overbearing, a courtier will turn his back on transcendent merit, in the garb of modesty and misfortunel while with fawning smiles, he ill cringe at the heel of the most despicable folly or hideous dspotism, if invested with the sacred robes of r–y–l impunity.

The trade of courtiers is flattery: it has passed uniform and systematic in its progress through a succession of ages; and, on princes the least deserving, it has generally been lavished in most copious streams. Mæcenas, the patron of Genius, degraded his high character as the parasite of Augustus; and the muse of Boileau was prostituted to sooth the pride, and gratify the vanity and ambition of Louis XIV who, in his day, was the scourge and tormentor of Europe.

Tyrants, whose crimes reflect obloquy on human nature, have been deified during life, and canonized after death; till flattery, having lost its object, Reason resumes her empire, and the once triumphant monsterburied in the dust, his infamy revives; Truth conquers in her turn, and honest History paints him in faithful colours. The sceptered murderer, whom the Christian Church hailed as the Faith’s Defender, and he also was nicknamed the Father of his People, who received the prostituted incense of praise, even from persons, who, in that age, were regarded as models of primitive simplicity and virtue; now stripped of his gorgeous and royal robes, long since reduced to the common level of mortality, is surveyed in his true native light, in comparisonwith whom Commodus, or Nero, were gods.