r by base, gross misrepresentations
of her most faithful servants? These are the arts of a faction, and
whoever has practised them, they and their followers must take up with
the name.

It is usually reckoned a Whig principle to appeal to the people; but that
is only when they have been so wise as to poison their understandings
beforehand: Will they now stand to this appeal, and be determined by
their _vox populi_, to which side their title of faction belongs? And
that the people are now left to the natural freedom of their
understanding and choice, I believe our adversaries will hardly deny.
They will now refuse this appeal, and it is reasonable they should; and I
will further add, that if our people resembled the old Grecians, there
might be danger in such a trial. A pragmatical orator told a great man at
Athens, that whenever the people were in their rage, they would certainly
tear him to pieces; "Yes," says the other, "and they will do the same to
you, whenever they are in their wits." But God be thanked, our populace
is more merciful in their nature, and at present under better direction;
and the orators among us have attempted to confound both prerogative and
law, in their sovereign's presence, and before the highest court of
judicature, without any hazard to their persons.

[Footnote 1: No. 31 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Horace, "Satires," II. vi. 77-8.
"To club his part in pithy tales."--P. FRANCIS.
[T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: The "Symposium," 189-192. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: See "The Spectator," No. 81 (June 2nd, 1711): "Their patches
were placed in those different situations, as party signals to
distinguish friends from foes." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: Matthew Prior. [T.S.]]

NUMB. 33.[1]

FROM THURSDAY MARCH 8, TO THURSDAY MARCH 15, 1710-11.[2]

_Non ea est medicina, cum sanae parti corporis scalpellum adhibetur,
atque integrae; carnificina est ista, et crudelitas. Hi medentur
Reipublicae qui exsecant pestem aliquam, tanquam strumam Civitatis_.[3]

I am diverted from the general subject of my discourses, to reflect upon
an event of a very extraordinary and surprising nature: A great minister,
in high confidence with the Queen, under whose management the weight of
affairs at present is in a great measure supposed to lie; sitting in
council, in a royal palace, with a dozen of the chief officers of the
state, is stabbed at the very board,[4] in the execution of his office,
by the hand of a F