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perience of this sad solemnity. However, delicate and worthy minds will readily point out to themselves something unutterably soft and moving upon the separation of two hearts, whose only division was their lodgment in two breasts.

I am extremely indebted to your lady for her kind sympathy with me in my sorrows; and the only return that I can make, either to herself or her consort, is my hearty prayer that the dissolution of their happy union may be at a very distant period.

I am, with the highest esteem, dear Sir,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

H. COTTON.

FROM R. CRUTTENDEN, ESQ.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

Bunhill Fields, May 8, 1749.

I HAD the pleasure of receiving your very obliging letter; and find by it that you are resolved, whether we will or not, to make a couple of very vain, and, consequently, very silly creatures of my wife and myself: and, to confess the truth, at least with regard to one, the ease with which you are likely to succeed in this design will very much lessen your reputation in effecting it. To persuade a person to what he has no mind to believe will, indeed, require some skill and address; but to cultivate such a passion in a heart so susceptible of it as mine may be done by a much weaker hand than Dr. Doddridge's, and, therefore, is not worth the pains you have been at about it. To assist nature in the production of a weed, which a wise man, if he knew how, would rather wish rooted out of his ground, seems to me a very unlikely way to raise the character of a gardener, however the noxious thing may thrive under his cultiva

tion. You will not therefore take it amiss, that I assure you I can be proud enough without your assistance.

However, since you are resolved that I shall have qualities which I have never been able to discover, let it be so; and for the future I will endeavour to believe that I do not yet know my own abilities so well as you do! This resolution has led me, this morning, to consider what advantages a man might derive from a good opinion of himself, for till I am convinced that it is likely to be of some service, I shall hardly venture the ill consequences which frequently attend such a temper of mind. Now here I have not been a little assisted by a maxim often practised by physicians, that "one poison may be applied with success to drive out another :" as this is an agreed case in the disorders of the body, so I please myself that I have found out a way to render it equally useful in the distempers of the mind, of which pride is certainly a very dangerous one. I am convinced it will be a vain attempt to destroy this passion, especially in a heart where it has taken such deep root as in mine: the next thing then is, since it will thrive, to inquire what use we can make of it for the destruction of some other disorder. It may perhaps require a more skilful hand than mine to regulate the dose; but I cannot help thinking that a proper proportion of this passion may, with good success, be applied to eradicate another yet more destructive to the peace of the human mind, and more fatal to the good of society. The distemper I aim at is generally known by the name of envy; a vile, tormenting passion, which, as it is founded in an idea of another's supposed superiority to me, must necessarily decrease as the principle which first gave it being, and the food which afterwards nourishes it, is removed. To justify this method of practice, I am obliged to have recourse to another physical maxim, which will equally hold true in the diseases of the mind. "Take away the cause, and the effect will cease

of itself." If this be true, I think the consequence I would draw from it cannot be denied, that the higher any man rises in the opinion of his own abilities, the less danger he is in of being uneasy at those of others.

It is not that my neighbour is handsome, or wise, or eloquent, which gives that pain which I feel from this passion; he may be so, and much good may it do him, without hurting me, so long as his beauty and wisdom and eloquence preserve a proper subordination to mine: let me only maintain the superiority, and he shall shine, and welcome, in these or any other gifts of nature and endowments of mind. Now as, perhaps, it may be difficult for me to attain this superiority in reality, all that remains to be done is to fill up the deficiency by throwing into the contrary scale a sufficient quantity of pride, a commodity always at hand to supply any defect, thus the cure will be effected,

“And Envy gnaw her forky tongue, and die.”

Now, dear Sir, does not that man richly deserve to be sick, who has so easy, so cheap, and, at the same time, so pleasant a remedy always at hand, and yet will not take it?

For my own part I am already grown so fond of my nostrum that, if the public papers were not already preengaged by my brother quacks, I should be in danger of appearing in print for the good of my countrymen, or, at least, with views quite as disinterested as theirs; but this avenue to fame and public service is unhappily stopped up; give me leave to go on in the praises of my medicine.

I

say then in the next place that as it is cheap, and pleasant in the taking, so it is likewise quite safe and innocent in its operation; at least all the damage that can arise from it can only affect myself. What injury can Mr. Pope's memory receive by my imagining myself a much better poet? or will Sir Isaac Newton's reputation in any way suffer if I should tell the world that he did not understand ma

thematics quite so well as I do? or to ask a more interesting question, can the character of our late dear and honoured friend Dr. Watts be in any real danger, because Mr. Bradbury rails at him in the pulpit, and is preparing to attack him from the press? It is true, the world possibly may not entirely enter into his sentiments or mine; but that only shows the harmlessness of the remedy, which gives me peace in my own mind, and at the same time hurts nobody. This brings to my remembrance the story of a philosopher at Athens (the ignorance or envy of his contemporaries has handed him down under the opprobrious character of a madman), who used to suppose himself a man of great wealth, by taking an account of all the ships which arrived in port, with their respective cargoes, and supposing them all to be his own. Now, Sir, let me ask those detractors from this great man's reputation, whether, in the first place, he was not quite as happy as if they had really been so? and, secondly, whether any person was the worse for his happiness, which cost nobody a groat?

If then any real detriment attends the encouraging a vain opinion of a man's self, it can possibly affect none but himself. And if even that objection (the only one that can be urged against my present scheme) be fairly weighed in the balance, even that will be found wanting. It has been asserted, indeed, that self conceit, arising from some imaginary qualities, which we really have not, will be an effectual way to prevent our ever attaining them: for why should a man give himself needless trouble in the pursuit of a thing he takes it for granted he has already? To clear up this difficulty, let it be considered in the first place, that without this good opinion I am contending for, and which a man must previously form of himself, there will be no encouragement to industry: for why should a man be at the pains of seeking a thing, which he is already convinced he has no talents to obtain? What man, who feels

himself invincibly a blockhead, would undergo the fatigue necessary to make him a scholar!

But let the inconvenience objected to be allowed, the persons who can possibly suffer by this mistaken apprehension of themselves are so few, that it can never balance the advantages which result from the remedy I am recommending, and that for this obvious reason. Such as have generally the greatest share of self-conceit are really incapable of obtaining any other excellence than what they thus form out of their own imagination; and, consequently, the supposition I am contending for, that they are very wise, and learned already, only saves them the needless trouble of spending their time to no purpose, and concluding the vain laborious attempt with the words of a very great man upon his death bed. Heu! vitam perdidi, operose nihil agendo. It was a just observation of Socrates, that as his mother, though a skilful midwife, could not deliver a woman who was not with child, so neither could he, by all his instructions, teach that man wisdom who wanted the first stamina on which any improvement could be grafted. If this be the case, and, I believe, I may appeal to experience for the truth of it, the persons in danger of suffering by their pride can be but very few; as this passion will seldom thrive any where but in an empty head incapable of any real excellence, or better quality. Mr. Pope, I think, in his Essay on Criticism, calls pride “the never-failing vice of fools." It seems, indeed, designed as an equivalent for their being so.

These reflections naturally lead me to consider another advantage arising from this temper of mind, and that of the highest consequence to human happiness. It reconciles a man to himself in every circumstance of life. It may not, indeed, be in my power to be rich or wise, or witty or learned, just as I have a mind to it, but by the help of this innocent imposition, I can not only make myself master of

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