unless it be among boys at school. These sometimes draw certain old notions of virtue and justice from books, with which they appear to be captivated for a time: but as soon as they engage in the affairs of the world, they find it necessary to get initiated into that smooth system of specious vice, which goes by the name of prudence and knowledge of the world. They soon discover that there is but one thing needful. If they can acquire that, they will have every thing at command; but if that be unattained, they will have nothing. Where are now the gay dreams of youthful friendship? They have vanished as the morning dew before the rising sun. At school there is some appearance of equality. Boys there form connections that are known by the name of friendship, and fondly imagine that they will last for ever. But immediately upon entering into the world this equality disappears; and the friendship, if it should still seem to subsist, degenerates into overbearing despotism on the one side, and contemptible cringing sycophancy on the other.-The Savage. 561. Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties.-During a considerable part of the time in which Savage was employed upon his tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury, he was without lodging and often without meat; nor had he any other conveniences for study than the fields or the streets allowed him there he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he he had composed, upon paper which he had picked up by accident.--Dr Johnson. 562. Mortality. Where is the dust that has not been alive? O'er devastation we blind revels keep; Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel. -Young 563. Enlightened Christianity.-Christianity, in its regards, steps beyond the narrow bound of national advantage in quest of universal good. It does not encourage particular patriotism in opposition to general benignity; or prompt us to love our country at the expense of our integrity; or allow us to indulge our passions to the detriment of thousands. It looks upon all the human race as children of the same father, and wishes them equal blessings: in ordering us to do good, to love our brethren, to forgive injuries, and to study peace; it quite annihilates the disposition for martial glory, and utterly debases the pomp of war.-Bishop Watson. 564. Drunkenness.-Nothing is more erroneous than the common observation, that men who are ill-natured and quarrelsome when they are drunk, are very worthy persons when they are sober; for drink, in reality, doth not reverse nature, or create passions in men which did not exist in them before.-Fielding. 565. Human Nature.-A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other. Lady Gethin. 566. Popular Hatred.-Let no man slight the scorns and hate of the people. When it is unjust, it is a wolf; but when it is just, a dragon. Though the tyrant, seated high, does think he may contemn their malice; yet he ought to remember that they have many hands, while he hath one neck only. If he, being single, be dangerous to many, those many will to him alone be dangerous in their hate. The sands of Africa, though they be but barren dust and lightness, yet, angered by the winds, they bury both the horse and traveller alive. Against the hatred of a multitude there is no fence but what must come by miracle; nor wealth, nor wit, nor bands of armed men can keep them safe that have made themselves the hate of an enraged multitude. It is a thunder, lightning, storm, and hail together.-Feltham. 567. Melancholy Man.-He is one that keeps the worst company in the world, that is, his own; and though he be always falling out and quarrelling with himself, yet he has not power to endure any other conversation. His head is haunted, like a house, with evil spirits and apparitions, that terrify and fright him out of himself, till he stands empty and forsaken.--Butler. 568. The Poor, their Condition to be Commiserated.-Labour is all the poor man has to give in exchange for the necessaries and comforts of life, of which he obtains less as the value of his labour is depreciated; and when it is altogether superseded, he is driven to want, contracts idle habits, and then is expected to be able to resist the force of circumstances, although we daily witness the failure of more cultivated minds under similar temptations. If destitution, disease, crime, punishment, and sometimes death,-if wretchedness of every description appear to be the almost inevitable result of a state of things beyond their control, how much is their condition to be commiserated! and how forcibly does this reflection call to remembrance the words of the excellent Boerhaave, who never saw a criminal dragged to execution, without observing "Who knows whether the man is not less criminal than myself."-Reproof of Brutus. 569. The Mischiefs of Speculative Error.-The most cursory glance at the history of persecution is sufficient to discover, that intolerance never could have existed in such intensity had it not been for the almost universal prevalence of the notion, that guilt may be incurred by opinions. In various ages and countries, deviations from the received faith have been looked upon, by the community at large, with more abhorrence than the most criminal actions; and the consequence of this has been the perpetration of cruelties at which modern civilization shudders with horror. Let those who contend that speculative error can have but little influence on the happiness of private life, reflect a moment on the numbers of innocent and conscientious victims who have been destroyed by the Inquisition. It cannot surely be supposed, that these persecutions would ever have taken place, had the people at large been clearly convinced of the truth, that belief is an involuntary and therefore guiltless state of the mind; or, in other words, had they not laboured under the delusion, that opinions are the proper objects of punishment. Persecution would be necessarily exterminated in any nation which universally felt its injustice and absurdity. The moral sympathies of mankind, which had been perverted by false notions, would resume their natural direction, and would never suffer punishment to fall upon those who, in the apprehension of all, had been guilty of no crime. What else but the general prevalence of the error already mentioned, could have induced men, otherwise uninterested, to witness with tameness, nay even with satisfaction and delight, the most detestable barbarities inflicted by religious zeal? We are told, that in Spain and Portugal the spectators who crowded to the executions for heresy, frequently testified extravagant joy. Even ladies would laugh and exult over the victims who were slowly consuming at the stake. In reviewing such scenes we are pained to think how awfully mankind may be deluded, how their sagacity may be blinded, their sense of justice extinguished, their best feelings subverted, by fallacies of judgment; and we become ready to question, whether even vice itself ever produced half the evils of false notions and mistaken views. Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, &c. 570. War.—The same remark may be applied to a still more erroneous evil, or one at least that presents itself in greater and more distinct masses,—WAR. The existence of war at all is a tremendous proof that mankind are not civilized, Again then we must conclude that we over-estimate our progress; that we are really but a little way removed from barbarism, in comparison with the possible point at which the race may arrive. And this would be a most salutary conviction; for, while it would add to our alacrity by teaching us how much there was yet to discover, it would abate our presumption in the perfection of our present attainments. If I do not deceive myself, I foresee the time (far distant, alas!) when mankind shall awake to a full sense at once of their actual 66 imperfections, and of their capacity for illimitable improvement; when they shall cease to create their own misery, and to lavish their admiration on qualities that thrive on their ruin; I when almost all the great political wonders, the idols of history, stripped one after another of the vain splendour thrown around them, will appear nothing more than the frivolous and often fatal sports of the infancy of the human race." Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, &c. 571. We ever doat most on Things when they are wanting.—Before we possess them, we chase them with eagerness; when we have them, we slight them; when they are gone, we sink under the wring of sorrow for their loss. Infatuated estate of man! that the enjoyment of a pleasure must diminish it, that perpetual use must make it, like a pyramid, lessening itself by degrees till it grows at last to a punctum, to a nothing!-Feltham. 572. Law. He that with injury is grieved, Who, when a thief has robbed his house, Is but to squander more, in vain.—Butler. 573. Vice Suicidal.-In the present enlightened state of society, it is impossible for mankind to be thoroughly vicious; for wisdom and virtue are very often convertible terms, and they invariably assist and strengthen each other. A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction; and, without a flood, would be swept away from the earth, by the deluge of its own iniquity. The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys. The good may well be termed the salt of the earth : for where there is no integrity, there can be no confidence; and where there is no confidence, there can be no unanimity. The story of the three German robbers is applicable to our present purpose, from the pregnant brevity of its moral. Having acquired by various atrocities, what amounted to a very valuable booty, they agreed to divide the spoil, and to retire from so dangerous a vocation. When the day which they had appointed for this purpose arrived, one of them was dispatched to a neighbouring town, to purchase provisions for their last carousal. The other two secretly agreed to murder him on his return, that they might come in for one half of the plunder instead of a third. They did so. But the mur dered man was a closer calculator even than his assassins; for he had previously poisoned a part of the provisions, that he might appropriate to himself the whole of the spoil. This precious triumvirate were found dead together,—a signal instance that nothing is so blind and suicidal as the selfishness of vice.-Colton. 574. Public Walks.—In Austria and France (says Mr. Slaney) there is scarcely a single town without a commodious public walk, shaded by trees and furnished with benches. Throughout Switzerland the same remark applies and there the situation chosen is frequently very picturesque, and the promenade is kept with that neatness for which the Swiss are remarkable. The most beautiful are the Cascinne on the banks of the Arno, at Florence; the China walk at Naples, possessing one of the most magnificent views in the world; the promenade below the Strado del Po at Turin, (whence the Alps, clothed in snow, are seen rising in a vast semicircle to the north and west,) and the terrace commanding the lakes and the mountains of Savoy; and Chablais at Lausanne. But Zurich, Berne, Geneva, Basle, Milan, Parma, Modena, Lucca, Padua, and other Swiss aad Italian towns, have each their public walks and gardens. Many of their walks have been formed and dedicated to the public by the munificence of individuals, and it seems extraordinary that our wealthy and generous nation, where popularity is of value and leads to power, should be excelled in these respects even by those who care little for the people, and have no part or lot with them. 575. Doubts.-It is related that Mede had all his scholars come to him at his chambers in the evening; and the first question he put to each was, "Quid dubitas?" "What doubts have you met with in your studies to-day?" for he supposed, that to doubt nothing, and to understand nothing, was just the same thing. This was right, and the only method to make young men exercise their rational powers, and not to acquiesce in what they learn mechanically and by rote, with an indolence of spirit, which prepares them to receive and swallow implicitly whatever is offered them.-Reproof of Brutus. 576. The World may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.-Shenstone. 577. Contempt.-The basest and meanest of all human beings, are generally the most forward to despise others. So that the most contemptible are generally the most contemptuous.-Fielding. LONDON: Printed and Published by J. H. STARIE, 59, Museum Street, and to be had of all Booksellers. |