much by being as great a rogue as he could be, would have
required more confidence than, I believe, he had in me, and more

of his conversation than he chose to allow me; I therefore
resigned the office and the farther execution of my plan to my

brother, who had long been myassistant. And now, lest the case
between me and the reader should be the same in both instances as

it was between me and the great man, I will not add another word
on the subject.

But, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own
rule laid down in my preface, I assure him I thought my family

was very slenderly provided for; and that my health began to
decline so fast that I had very little more of life left to

accomplish what I had thought of too late. I rejoiced therefore
greatly in seeing an opportunity, as I apprehended, of gaining

such merit in the eve of the public, that, if my life were the
sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular act in

putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which I
myself began to despair of doing. And though I disclaim all

pretense to that Spartan or Roman patriotism which loved the
public so well that it was always ready to become a voluntary

sacrifice to the public good, I do solemnly declare I have that
love for my family.

After this confession" target="_blank" title="n.招供；认错；交待">confessiontherefore, that the public was not the
principal deity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and

when it is farther considered what a poor sacrifice this was,
being indeed no other than the giving up what I saw little

likelihood of being able to hold much longer, and which, upon the
terms I held it, nothing but the weakness of human nature could

represent to me as worth holding at all; the world may, I
believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which I have

any title. My aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last
gift they care to bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an

end, but rather as a means of purchasing some moderate provision
for my family, which, though it should exceed my merit, must fall

infinitely short of my service, if I succeeded in my attempt. To
say the truth, the public never act more wisely than when they

act most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here
the good they receive is often more to be considered than the

motive from which they receive it. Example alone is the end of
all public punishments and rewards. Laws never inflict disgrace

in resentment, nor confer honor from gratitude. "For it is very
hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late

excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a
horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored

and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be
hanged that horses may not be stolen." In like manner it might

have been said to the late duke of Marlborough, when the
parliament was so deservedly liberal to him, after the battle of

Blenheim, "You receive not these honors and bounties on account
of a victory past, but that other victories may be obtained."

I was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication of
disorders; and, were I desirous of playing the advocate, I have

an occasion fair enough; but I disdain such an attempt. I relate
facts plainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from

them what conclusions they please, taking with them the following
facts for their instruction: the one is, that the proclamation

offering one hundred pounds for the apprehending felons for
certain felonies committed in certain places, which I prevented

from being revived, had formerly cost the government several
thousand pounds within a single year. Secondly, that all such

proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actually increased
it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagated the

worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth and
ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been

sometimes drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be
thought on without the highest horror, had destroyed them without

it. Thirdly, that my plan had not put the government to more
than three hundred pound expense, and had produced none of the

ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had actually
suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainlypointed out the

means of suppressing it for ever. This I would myself have
undertaken, had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the

above-mentioned sum.
After having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last

Christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own
interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians,

who might have gasped through two or three mild winters more, I
returned to town in February, in a condition less despaired of by

myself than by any of my friends. I now became the patient of
Dr. Ward, who wished I had taken his advice earlier. By his

advice I was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my
belly. The sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my

enervate, emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two
days I was thought to be falling into the agonies of death. I

was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost Mr.
Pelham. From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my

feet out of the grave; till in two months' time I had again
acquired some little degree of strength, but was again full of

water. During this whole time I took Mr. Ward's medicines, which
had seldom any perceptible operation. Those in particular of the

diaphoretic kind, the working of which is thought to require a
great strength of constitution to support, had so little effect

on me, that Mr. Ward declared it was as vain to attempt sweating
me as a deal board. In this situation I was tapped a second

time. I had one quart of water less taken from me now than
before; but I bore all the consequences of the operation much

better. This I attributed greatly to a dose of laudanum
prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me the most delicious

flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap.
The month of May, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable to

expect would introduce the spring, and drive of that winter which
yet maintained its footing on the stage. I resolvedtherefore to

visit a little house of mine in the country, which stands at
Ealing, in the county of Middlesex, in the best air, I believe,

in the whole kingdom, and far superior to that of Kensington
Gravel-pits; for the gravel is here much wider and deeper, the

place higher and more open towards the south, whilst it is
guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, and from the

smells and smoke of London by its distance; which last is not the
fate of Kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east.

Obligations to Mr. Ward I shall always confess; for I am
convinced that he omitted no care in endeavoring to serve me,

without any expectation or desire of fee or reward.
The powers of Mr. Ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of

mine to give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy
stands, I believe, first in the list of those over which he is

always certain of triumphing, yet, possibly, there might be
something particular in my case capable of eluding that radical

force which had healed so many thousands. The same distemper, in
different constitutions, may possibly be attended with such

different symptoms, that to find an infallible nostrum for the
curing any one distemper in every patient may be almost as

difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all.
But even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of

men did latelyapprehend he had discovered. It is true, indeed,
he was no physician; that is, he had not by the forms of his

education acquired a right of applying his skill in the art of
physic to his own private advantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be

truly asserted that no other modern hath contributed so much to
make his physical skill useful to the public; at least, that none

hath undergone the pains of communicating this discovery in
writing to the world. The reader, I think, will scarce need to

be informed that the writer I mean is the late bishop of Cloyne,