an accidental disease, but a defect in their original frame and
constitution.

Mr. Brooke, a name I mention with all the detestation suitable to my
character, could not forbear discovering this depravity of his mind in
his very prologue, which is filled with sentiments so wild, and so much
unheard of among those who frequent levees and courts, that I much
doubt, whether the zealous licenser proceeded any further in his
examination of his performance.

He might easily perceive that a man,

Who bade his moral beam through every age,

was too much a bigot to exploded notions, to compose a play which he
could license without manifest hazard of his office, a hazard which no
man would incur untainted with the love of posterity.

We cannot, therefore, wonder that an author, wholly possessed by this
passion, should vent his resentment for the licenser's just refusal, in
virulent advertisements, insolent complaints, and scurrilous assertions
of his rights and privileges, and proceed, in defiance of authority, to
solicit a subscription.

This temper, which I have been describing, is almost always complicated
with ideas of the high prerogatives of human nature, of a sacred
unalienable birthright, which no man has conferred upon us, and which
neither kings can take, nor senates give away; which we may justly
assert whenever and by whomsoever it is attacked; and which, if ever it
should happen to be lost, we may take the first opportunity to recover.

The natural consequence of these chimeras is contempt of authority, and
an irreverence for any superiority but what is founded upon merit; and
their notions of merit are very peculiar, for it is among them no great
proof of merit to be wealthy and powerful, to wear a garter or a star,
to command a regiment or a senate, to have the ear of the minister or of
the king, or to possess any of those virtues and excellencies, which,
among us, entitle a man to little less than worship and prostration.

We may, therefore, easily conceive that Mr. Brooke thought himself
entitled to be importunate for a license, because, in his own opinion,
he deserved one, and to complain thus loudly at the repulse he met with.

His complaints will have, I hope, but little weight with the publick;
since the opinions of the sect in which he is enlisted are exposed, and
shown to be evidently and demonstrably opposite to that system of
subordination and dependence, to which we are indebted for the prese