From “Duty.”

FIRST, there are men who can be bought. There are rogues innumerable, who are ready to sell their bodies and souls for money and for drink. Who has not heard of the elections which have been made void through bribery and corruption? This is not the way to enjoy liberty or to keep it. The men who sell themselves are slaves; their buyers are dishonest and unprincipled. Freedom has its humbugs. “I’m standing on the soil of liberty,” said an orator. “You ain’t,” replied a bootmaker in the audience. “You’re standing in a pair of boots you never paid me for.”

  The tendency of men is ever to go with the majority—to go with the huzzas. “Majority,” said Schiller, “what does that mean? Sense has ever centred in the few. Votes should be weighed, not counted. That state must sooner or later go to ruin where numbers sway and ignorance decides.”

  When the secession from the Scotch Church took place, Norman Macleod said it was a great trial to the flesh to keep by the unpopular side, and to act out what conscience dictated as the line of duty. Scorn and hissing greeted him at every turn. “I saw a tomb to-day,” he says, in one of his letters, “in the chapel of Holyrood, with this inscription, ‘Here lies an honest man!’ I only wish to live in such a way as to entitle me to the same éloge.”

  The ignorant and careless are at the mercy of the unprincipled; and the ignorant are as yet greatly in the majority. When a French quack was taken before the Correctional Tribunal at Paris for obstructing the Pont Neuf, the magistrate said to him, “Sirrah! how is it you draw such crowds about you, and extract so much money from them in selling your ‘infallible’ rubbish?” “My lord,” replied the quack, “how many people do you think cross the Pont Neuf in the hour?” “I don’t know,” said the judge. “Then I can tell you—about ten thousand; and how many of these do you think are wise?” “Oh, perhaps a hundred!” “It is too many,” said the quack; “but I leave the hundred persons to you, and take the nine thousand and nine hundred for my customers!”

  Men are bribed in all directions. They have no spirit of probity, self-respect, or manly dignity. If they had, they would spurn bribes in every form. Government servants are bribed to pass goods, fit or unfit for use. Hence soldiers’ half-tanned shoes give way on a march; their shoddy coats become ragged; their tinned provisions are found rotten. Captain Nares had a sad account to give of the feeding of his sailors while in the Arctic regions. All this is accomplished by bribery and corruption in the lower quarters of the civil service.

  Much is done in the way of illicit commissions. A check finds its way to a certain official, and he passes the account. Thus many a man becomes rich upon a moderate salary. After a great act of corruption had been practiced by the servant of a public company, a notice was placed over the office door to this effect: “The servants of the company are not allowed to take bribes.” The cook gets a commission from the tradesman; the butler has a secret understanding with the wine merchant.

  “These illicit commissions,” says the Times, “do much to poison business relations. But if the vice were ever to mount from the servants’ hall or the market and invade any public office, there would be an end to efficiency or confidence in public men. It is all-important that the public service should be pure, and that no suspicion should rest on the name of any official in a post of confidence. It would be an evil day if it were generally suspected that civil servants took backsheesh or pots de vin.”

  An inventor suggested a method for registering the number of persons entering an omnibus, but the secretary was unable to entertain it. “It is of no use to us,” he said; “the machine which we want is one that will make our men honest, and that, I am afraid, we are not likely to meet with.” We want honest men! is the cry everywhere. The police courts too often reveal the stealing and swindling of men in whom confidence has been placed; and the result is that they are dragged down from confidence to ruin. It is trustworthy character that is most wanted. Character is reliableness; convincing other men by your acts that you can be trusted.

  Abroad it is the same. Russia, Egypt, and Spain are the worst. In Russia the corruption of public servants, even of the highest grade, is most gross. You must buy your way by gold. Bribery in every conceivable form is practiced—from arrangements between furnishers and the officials who should control them, to the direct handling over of the goods—is undeniably prevalent. The excuse is that the public servants are so badly paid. The Moscow and Petersburg Railway was constructed at great expense. Vast sums were paid to engineers and workmen, and stolen by overseers and directors. Prince Mentchikoff accompanied his Imperial Master in a jaunt through the capital, undertaken for the benefit of the Persian embassador, who was making a visit to the country. The Persian surveyed golden domes, granite pillars, glittering miles of shops, with true Oriental indifference. The Emperor at last bent toward his favorite and whispered with an air of vexation, “Can’t we find anything that will astonish this fellow?” “Yes, your Majesty,” replied the Prince; “show him the accounts of the Moscow and Petersburg Railway!” At Alexandria, in Egypt, the “leakage,” as it is called, is enormous, unless bought off by gold. In Spain, every ship has to work its way into port after bribing the customs officers. The excuse is the same as in Russia; the civil servants of Spain cannot live except by taking bribes.

  Even in republics men are apt and willing to be bribed. Money gets over many difficulties; it solves many problems. In America, the cream of republics, bribery is conducted in a wholesale way. The simple salary of an official is not sufficient. Even the highest in office is bribed by presents of carriages and horses, and even by hard cash. The most far-seeing and honest of American statesmen see that jobbery and corruption are fast undermining the efficiency of the administration, and debasing the standard of public virtue.

  It has been the same all over the world. It does not matter what the form of government is called—whether a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a republic. It is not the form of government, but the men who administer it. Selfishly used, political power is a curse; intelligently and impartially used, it may be one of the greatest blessings to a community. If selfishness begins with the governing classes, woe to the country that is governed. The evil spreads downward, and includes all classes, even the poorest. The race of life becomes one for mere pelf and self. Principle is abandoned. Honesty is a forgotten virtue. Faith dies out, and society becomes a scramble for place and money.

  Yet there are men who have refused to be bought, in all times and ages. Even the poorest, inspired by duty, have refused to sell themselves for money. Among the North American Indians a wish for wealth is considered unworthy of a brave man—so that the chief is often the poorest of his tribe. The best benefactors of the race have been poor men, among the Israelites, among the Greeks, and among the Romans. Elisha was at the plow when called to be a prophet, and Cincinnatus was in his fields when called to lead the armies of Rome. Socrates and Epaminondas were among the poorest men in Greece. Such, too, were the Galilean fishermen, the inspired founders of our faith.

  Aristides was called The Just from his unbending integrity. His sense of justice was spotless, and his self-denial unimpeachable. He fought at Marathon, at Salamis, and commanded at the battle of Platea. Though he had borne the highest offices in the state, he died poor. Nothing could buy him; nothing could induce him to swerve from his duty. It is said that the Athenians became more virtuous from contemplating his bright example. In the representation of one of the tragedies of Æschylus, a sentence was uttered in favor of moral goodness, on which the eyes of the audience turned involuntarily from the actor to Aristides.

  Phocion, the Athenian general, a man of great bravery and foresight, was surnamed The Good. Alexander the Great, when overrunning Greece, endeavored to win him from his loyalty. He offered him riches, and the choice of four cities in Asia. The answer of Phocion bespoke the spotless character of the man. “If Alexander really esteems me,” he said, “let him leave me my honesty.”

  Yet Demosthenes, the eloquent, could be bought. When Harpalus, one of Alexander’s chiefs, came to Athens, the orators had an eye upon his gold. Demosthenes was one of them. What is eloquence without honesty? On his visit to Harpalus, the chief perceived that Demosthenes was much pleased with one of the king’s beautifully engraved cups. He desired him to take it in his hand that he might feel its weight. “How much might it bring?” asked Demosthenes. “It will bring you twenty talents,” replied Harpalus. That night the cup was sent to Demosthenes, with twenty talents in it. The present was not refused. The circumstance led to the disgrace of the orator, and he soon after poisoned himself.

  Cicero, on the other hand, refused all presents from friends, as well as from the enemies of his country. Some time after his assassination Cæsar found one of his grandsons with a book of Cicero’s in his hands. The boy endeavored to hide it, but Cæsar took it from him. After having run over it, he returned it to the boy, saying, “My dear child, this was an eloquent man, and a lover of his country.”

  Bias, when asked why he did not, like others of his countrymen, load himself with part of his property when all were obliged to fly, said, “Your wonder is without reason; I am carrying all my treasures with me.”

  When Diocletian had quitted the imperial purple for some time, Maximilian invited him to reassume the reins of government. Diocletian replied, “If I could show you the cabbages that I have planted with my own hands at Salona, and the fine melons that I have been ripening, and the delightful plantations I have made about my villa, I should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power.”

  What he had worked for was his own, the fruit of his own labor and pains. He had imbibed the spirit of industry, which gives perseverance to the worker, enterprise to the warrior, and firmness to the statesman. Labor shuts up the first avenues to dishonesty; it opens a broader field for the display of every talent; and inspires with a new vigor the performance of every social and religious duty. Hence the Romans desired to call Diocletian back to his political duties.

  Contentment is also better than luxury or power; indeed, it is natural wealth. Mary, sister of Elizabeth, often wished that she had been born a milkmaid instead of a queen. She would have been saved the torture of unrequited love, and the degradation of power through the hands of her ministers. Many martyrs would have been saved from burning.

  Brave and honest men do not work for gold. They work for love, for honor, for character. When Socrates suffered death rather than abandon his views of right morality; when Las Casas endeavored to mitigate the tortures of the poor Indians, they had no thought of money or country. They worked for the elevation of all that thought, and for the relief of all that suffered.

  When Michael Angelo was commanded by the Pope to undertake the direction of the works of St. Peter’s, he consented only upon condition that he should receive no salary, but that he should labor “for the love of God alone.” “Keep your money,” said Wiertz of Brussels to a gentleman who wished to buy one of his pictures; “gold gives the deathblow to art.” At the same time it must be confessed that Wiertz was a man of outré character.

  In political life, place and money are too much in request. The gift of office, when not fairly earned by public service, proves often the corruption of morals. It is the substitution of an inferior motive for a patriotic one; and wherever it prevails from considerations of personal favoritism, it degrades politics and debases character.

  Andrew Marvell was a patriot of the old Roman build. He lived in troublous times. He was born at Hull at the beginning of the reign of Charles I. When a young man, he spent four years at Trinity College, Cambridge. He afterward traveled through Europe. In Italy he met Milton, and continued his friend through life. On his return to England the civil war was raging. It does not appear that he took any part in the struggle, though he was always a defender and promoter of liberty. In 1660 he was elected member of Parliament for his native town, and during his membership he wrote to the mayor and his constituents by almost every post, telling them of the course of affairs in Parliament.

  Marvell did not sympathize with Milton’s antimonarchical tendencies. His biographer styles him “the friend of England, Liberty, and Magna Charta.” He had no objections to a properly restricted monarchy, and therefore favored the Restoration. The people longed for it, believing that the return of Charles II. would prove the restoration of peace and loyalty. They were much mistaken. Marvell was appointed to accompany Lord Carlisle on an embassy to Russia, showing that he was not reckoned an enemy to the court. During his absence much evil had been done. The restored king was constantly in want of money. He took every method, by selling places and instituting monopolies, to supply his perpetual need. In one of Marvell’s letters to his constituents he said, “The court is at the highest pitch of want and luxury, and the people are full of discontent.” In a trial of two Quakers, Pen and Mead, at the Old Bailey, the recorder, among the rest, commended the Spanish Inquisition, saying “it would never be well till we had something like it.”

  The king continued to raise money unscrupulously, by means of his courtiers and apostate patriots. He bought them up by bribes of thousands of pounds. But Marvell was not to be bought. His satires upon the court and its parasites were published. They were read by all classes, from the king to the tradesman. The king determined to win him over. He was threatened, he was flattered, he was thwarted, he was caressed, he was beset with spies, he was waylaid by ruffians, and courted by beauties. But no Delilah could discover the secret of his strength. His integrity was proof alike against danger and against corruption. Against threats and bribes, pride is the ally of principle. In a court which held no man to be honest, and no woman chaste, this soft sorcery was cultivated to perfection; but Marvell, revering and respecting himself, was proof against its charms.

  It has been said that Lord Treasurer Danby, thinking to buy over his old schoolfellow, called upon Marvell in his garret. At parting, the lord treasurer slipped into his hand an order on the treasury for £1,000, and then went to his chariot. Marvell, looking at the paper, calls after the treasurer, “My lord, I request another moment.” They went up again to the garret, and Jack, the servant boy, was called. “Jack, child, what had I for dinner yesterday?” “Don’t you remember, sir? you had the little shoulder of mutton that you ordered me to bring from a woman in the market.” “Very right, child. What have I for dinner to-day?” “Don’t you know, sir, that you bid me lay by the blade bone to broil?” “’Tis so, very right, child, go away.” “My lord,” said Marvell, turning to the treasurer, “do you hear that? Andrew Marvell’s dinner is provided; there’s your piece of paper. I want it not. I knew the sort of kindness you intended. I live here to serve my constitutents: the ministry may seek men for their purpose; I am not one.”

  Marvell conducted himself nobly to the end. He remained unimpeachable in his character. He was the true representative of his constituents. Though not poor, his mode of living was simple and frugal. In July, 1678, he visited his constituents for the last time. Shortly after his return to London, without any previous illness or visible decay, he expired. Some say he died from poison. That may not be true. But certainly he died an honest man. He always preserved his purity. He ever defended the right. He was “beloved by good men; feared by bad; imitated by few; and scarce paralleled by any.” These are the words on his tombstone at Hull.

  Ben Jonson, like Marvell, was sturdy and plain spoken. When Charles I. sent that brave poet a tardy and slight gratuity during his poverty and sickness, Ben sent back the money, with the message, “I suppose he sends me this because I live in an alley; tell him his soul lives in an alley.”

  Goldsmith also was a man who would not be bought. He had known the depths of poverty. He had wandered over Europe, paying his way with his flute. He had slept in barns and under the open sky. He tried acting, ushering, doctoring. He starved amid them all. Then he tried authorship, and became a gentleman. But he never quite escaped from the clutches of poverty. He described himself as “in a garret writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score.” One day Johnson received a message from Goldsmith, stating that he was in great distress. The doctor went to see him, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent. The only thing he had to dispose of was a packet of manuscript. Johnson took it up, and found it to be the “Vicar of Wakefield.” Having ascertained its merit, Johnson took it to a bookseller and sold it for sixty pounds.

  Poor though he was then, and poor though he was at the end of his life,—for he died in debt,—Goldsmith could not be bought. He refused to do dirty political work. About £50,000 annually was then expended by Sir Robert Walpole in secret-service money. Daily scribblers were suborned to write up the acts of the administration, and to write down those of their opponents. In the time of Lord North “Junius” was in opposition. It was resolved to hire Goldsmith to baffle his terrible sarcasm. Dr. Scott, chaplain to Lord Sandwich, was deputed to negotiate with him. “I found him,” says Dr. Scott, “in a miserable suite of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority. I told how I was empowered to pay for his exertions; and, would you believe it?—he was so absurd as to say, ‘I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me’; and so I left him in his garret!”

  Thus did poor and noble Goldsmith spurn the wages of unrighteousness! He preferred using his pen to write the famous tale of “Goody Two Shoes” for the amusement of children rather than become the hack pamphleteer of political prostitutes.

  Pulteney, the leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, having in one of his speeches made a Latin quotation, was corrected by Sir Robert Walpole, who offered to wager a guinea on the inaccuracy of the lines. The bet was accepted, the classic was referred to, and Pulteney was found to be right. The minister threw a guinea across the table, and Pulteney, on taking it up, called the house to witness that this was the first guinea of the public money he had ever put into his pocket! The very coin thus lost and won is preserved in the British Museum, as the “Pulteney Guinea.”