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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) LETTER XV. - The Works of Vicesimus Knox, vol. 5
LETTER XV. - Vicesimus Knox, The Works of Vicesimus Knox, vol. 5 [1824]Edition used:The Works of Vicesimus Knox, D.D. with a Biographical Preface. In Seven Volumes (London: J. Mawman, 1824). Vol. 5.
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- To the Right Honourable Charles James Fox.
- Preface.
- Personal Nobility Or , Letters to a Young Noble Man
- Letter I.
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- Letter XV.
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- Letter XIX.
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- Letter XXXVII.
- Letter XXXVIII.
- Letter XXXIX.
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- Letter Liv.
- Letter Lv.
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- Letter Lvii.
- The Spirit of Despotism.
- Preface.
- Section I.: Introductory.
- Section II. Oriental Manners, and the Ideas Imbibed In Youth, Both In the West and East Indies, Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section III. Certain Circumstances In Education Which Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section IV. Corruption of Manners Has a Natural Tendency to Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section V. An Abhorrence of Despotism and an Ardent Love of Liberty Perfectly Consistent With Order and Tranquillity; and the Natural Consequence of Well-informed Understandings and Benevolent Dispositions.
- Section VI. On the Venality of the Press Under the Influence of the Despotic Spirit, and Its Effects In Diffusing That Spirit.
- Section VII. The Fashionable Invectives Against Philosophy and Reason, a Proof of the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section VIII. Of Loyalty, and Certain Mistaken Ideas of It.
- Section IX. On Taking Advantage of Popular Commotions, Accidental Excesses, and Foreign Revolutions, to Extend Prerogative and Power, and Encroach On the Liberties of the People.
- Section X. When Human Life Is Held Cheap, It Is a Symptom of a Prevailing Spirit of Despotism.
- Section XI. Indifference of the Middle and Lower Classes of the People to Public Affairs, Highly Favourable to the Encroachments of the Tory Principle, and Therefore to the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section XII. The Despotic Spirit Is Inclined to Discourage Commerce, As Unfavourable to Its Purposes.
- Section XIII. The Spirit of Despotism Displaying Itself In Private Life, and Proceeding Thence to Avail Itself of the Church and the Military.
- Section XIV. The Despotic Spirit Inclined to Avail Itself of Spies, Informers, False Witnesses, Pretended Conspiracies, and Self-interested Associations Affecting Patriotism.
- Section XV. The Manners of Tory Courtiers, and of Those Who Ape Them, As People of Fashion, Inconsistent With Manliness, Truth, and Honesty; and Their Prevalence Injurious to a Free Constitution, and the Happiness of Human Nature.
- Section XVI. The Spirit of Truth, Liberty, and Virtue, Public As Well As Private, Chiefly to Be Found In the Middle Ranks of the People.
- Section XVII. On Debauching the Minds of the Rising Generation and a Whole People, By Giving Them Military Notions In a Frée and Commercial Country.
- Section XVII. Levity, Effeminacy, Ignorance, and Want of Principle In Private Life, Inimical to All Public Virtue, and Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
- Section XIX. Certain Passages In Dr. Brown’s “estimate” Which Deserve the Serious Consideration of All Who Would Oppose the Subversion of a Free Constitution By Corruption of Manners and Principles, and By Undue Influence.
- Section XX. On Several Subjects Suggested By Lord Melcombe’s Diary; Particularly the Practice of Bartering the Cure of Souls For the Corruption of Parliament.
- Section XXI. On Choosing Rich Men, Without Parts, Spirit, Or Liberality, As Representatives In the National Council.
- Section XXII. Of the Despotic Influence of Great Merchants Over Their Subalterns, of Customers Over Their Tradesmen, and Rich Trading Companies Over Their Various Dependents, In Compelling Them to Vote For Court Candidates For Seats In Parliment, Merely T
- Section XXIII. Of the Pageantry of Life; That It Originates In the Spirit of Despotism; and Contributes to It, Without Advancing Private Any More Than Public Felicity.
- Section XXIV. Insolence of the Higher Orders to the Middle Ranks and the Poor; With Their Affected Condescension, In Certain Circumstances, to the Lowest of the People.
- Section XXV. Of a Natural Aristocracy.
- Section XXVI. The Excessive Love of Distinction and Power Which Prevails Wherever the Spirit of Despotism Exists, Deadens Some of the Finest Feelings of the Heart, and Counteracts the Laws of Nature.
- Section XXVII. On the Opinion That the People Are Annihilated Or Absorbed In Parliament; That the Voice of the People Is No Where to Be Heard But In Parliament; and On Similar Doctrines, Tending to Depreciate the People.
- Section XXVIII. The Fashionable Contempt Thrown On Mr. Locke, and His Writings In Favour of Liberty; and On Other Authors and Books Espousing the Same Cause.
- Section XXIX. Of the Despotism of Influence; While the Forms of a Free Constitution Are Preserved.
- Section XXX. The Spirit of Despotism Delights In War Or Systematic Murder.
- Section XXXI. On the Idea That We Have Arrived At Perfection In Politics, Though All Other Sciences Are In a Progressive State.
- Section XXXII. On Political Ethics; Their Chief Object Is to Throw Power Into the Hands of the Worst Part of Mankind, and to Render Government an Institution Calculated to Enrich and Aggrandize a Few, At the Expense of the Liberty, Property, and Lives of
- Section XXXIII. On Trafficking With the Cure of Souls, (cura Animarum,) For the Purposes of Political, I. E. Moral, Corruption.
- Section XXXIV. Of Mr. Hume’s Idea, That Absolute Monarchy Is the Easiest Death, the True Euthanasia of the British Constitution.
- Section XXXV. The Permission of Lawyers By Profession, Aspiring to Honours In the Gift of the Crown, to Have the Greatest Influence In the Legislature, a Circumstance Unfavourable to Liberty.
- Section XXXVI. Poverty, When Not Extreme, Favourable to All Virtue, Public and Private, and Consequently to the Happiness of Human Nature; and Enormous Riches, Without Virtue, the General Bane.
- Section XXXVII. On the Natural Tendency of Making Judges and Crown Lawyers, Peers; of Translating Bishops and Annexing Preferments to Bishoprics, In, What Is Called Commendam.
- Section XXXVIII. That All Opposition to the Spirit of Despotism Should Be Conducted With the Most Scrupulous Regard to the Existing Laws, and to the Preservation of Public Peace and Good Order.
- Section XXXIX. The Christian Religion Favourable to Civil Liberty, and Likewise to Equality Rightly Understood.
- Section Xl. the Pride Which Produces the Spirit of Despotism Conspicuous Even On the Tombstone. It Might Be Treated With Total Neglect, If It Did Not Tend to the Oppression of the Poor, and to Bloodshed and Plunder.
- Section Xli.: Conclusion.
- Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War. a Fragment; Translated From the Latin of Erasmus.
- Preface. By the Translator.
- Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War.
LETTER XV.
My Lord,
Unwilling as I am to require more of you than your time will admit, I do not mention Demetrius Phalereus, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two other justly celebrated rhetoricians, as absolutely necessary to be read by you: but I recommend them as a very desirable part of your rhetorical studies, when opportunity shall enable you, and your inclination lead you, to study them with the attention they deserve.
The book of Dionysius the Halicarnassian, on the structure of words, is a most curious, ingenious, and instructive performance. Well understood and digested, it will enable your lordship to judge of style on solid principles, not merely by instinctive or improved taste, but with a critical knowledge of the cause of that excellence which you feel and admire. But as such treatises are rather apt to disgust young students, I willingly consent to your postponing them, till your own curiosity shall prompt you to examine their recondite doctrines. When you shall have read them, you will be a master, and no longer a scholar.
I am still of opinion, and I will repeat, that you will improve more by familiarizing your ear and understanding to the pure and finished orations of Cicero and Demosthenes, than by the best didactic teachers, ancient and modern. I have already recommended these authors with earnestness, and they may continue to be the study of your life, as well as of your earlier age.
But I should be guilty of a great omission, if I did not also recommend the study of those speeches, which the ancient historians have abundantly inserted in the course of their fine recitals.
There is an old collection of speeches, in folio, both from the Greek and Roman historians, which I wish you to procure. Read the most celebrated of them; never omitting the argument prefixed, without which you will often be involved in darkness, and lay aside the book in that disgust which arises from obscurity. The Latin part of this useful publication has been printed for the use of schools, in a small pocket volume, and, as a student of oratory, you cannot do better than make it a companion. If you were to learn a few of the short speeches by memory, and repeat them with emphasis as an exercise, you would inevitably catch a portion of the Athenian and the Roman fire. You will observe in them a wonderful variety of style, corresponding with the characters of the various speakers and writers; and you will discover beauties not at all inferior to those of Cicero and Demosthenes.
You will immediately see that most of the speeches are the compositions of the historians, and not of the personages to whom they are attributed. You will therefore justly expect to find in them all the excellencies of the finest writers, of Livy, of Sallust, of Tacitus. In the speeches you will see their general excellencies in singular perfection; for the historians certainly exerted the whole force of their genius in exhibiting the eloquence of their principal characters. The speeches are, in fact, in the best style of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus.
I think this exercise will be entertaining, and that you will pursue it from choice, after you have once begun it. Let me add, that if you were first to commit the Latin or Greek to memory, and then recite, in your study, the subject-matter in English, in the very best words which you can command, you would derive a great degree of improvement from the habitual practice.
I am, &c.
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