k ^ ft s ' % ^> ^ ,.\^ =H V * Y * ° v <£ ^ ^ ^ ^ >o< - '; ^M ^ «y f %*■ %, " c ' .*IW. ^ G ' , rO- '"--; ; ^ "^ 0°'-. "^ G°\ .f 1 9* tr 0°'. % * : ;\^ : V^ <>, "' * _*> ^ °^> - <& v* V ■ - -■" ,V LACON; MANY THINGS IN FEW WORDS: TO THOSE WHO THINE. BY THE REV. C: C. COLTQN, A. M. "The proper study of mankind is man." COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. REVISED EDITION. WITH AN INDEX. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY E. KEARNY, 56 GOLD-STREET. * *• pH ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST AMERICAN STEREOTYPE EDITION. The Publisher of this stereotype edition of Lacon has long found it a subject of complaint with his acquaintances that they could not procure a good copy of this work for their libraries. The editions which have been published, in thia country, are not only printed on bad paper, but also abound with typographical and grammatical errors. Great care has been taken to have this edition correct in both those particu- lars, and it is confidently expected that it will prove so to be. He has also, — for the satisfaction of that large class of readers who have not studied the language, — had the numerous Latin quotations in the work translated, and put in the form of notes, at the bottom of each page. Reentered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by CJ. Wells, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of New York. °ffT J£%£ in , JiMuSf OF C0MGRE1S / ¥3 & AT PREFACE There are three difficulties in authorship ; to write any thing worth the publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it. Lit- erature has now become a game ; in which the Book- sellers are the kings; the Critics, the knaves; the Public, the pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or thing played upon. I For the last thirty years, the public mind has had such interesting and rapid incidents to witness, and to reflect upon, and must now anticipate some that will be still more momentous, that any thing like dul- ness or prosing in authorship, will either nauseate, or be refused ; the realities of life have pampered the public palate with a diet so stimulating, that vapidity has now become as insipid as water to a dram-drink- er, or sober sense to a fanatic. i The attempts however of dulness, are constantly repeated, and as constantly fail. For the misfortune is that the head of dulness, unlike the tail of the tor- pedo, loses nothing of her benumbing and lethargi- zing influence, by reiterated discharges ; horses may ride over her and mules and asses may trample upon her, but with an exhaustless and a patient perversity, she continues her narcotic operation even to the end. In fact, the press was never so powerful in quantity, and so weak in quality ', as at the present day ; if ap- plied to it, the simile of Virgil must be reversed, 1 Nbn trunco sed frondibus efficit umbram?* .It is in literature as in finance — much paper and,m*^b #.#*. poverty may coexist. It may happen that I myself am now committing , • The leaves, not the trunk) cast the shadow.— Vim. ir PREFACE. the very crime that I think I am censuring. But while justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write, because I have nothing to do, justice to my- self induces me to add, that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say. Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain that diffidence is the better part of knowledge. Where I am ignorant, and know that I am so, I am silent. That Grecian gave a better reason for his taciturnity, than most authors for their loquacity, who observed, 1 What was to the purpose I could not say ; and what was not to the purpose I would not say? And yet Shakspeare has hinted, that even silence is not al- ways c commendable ;' since it may be foolish, if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish. The Grecian's maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in litera- ture ; it would reduce many a giant to a pigmy ; many a speech to a sentence ; and many a folio to a primer. As the fault of our orators is, that they get up to make a speech, rather than to speak ; so the great error of our authors is, that they sit down to make a book rath- er than to write. To combine profundity with per- spicuity, wit with judgment, solidity with vivacity, truth with novelty, and all of them with liberality — who is sufficient for these things? a very serious question ; but it is one which authors had much bet- ter propose to themselves before publication, than have proposed to them by their editors after it. I have thrown together in this work, that which is the result of some reading and reflection ; if it be but little, I have taken care that the volume which contains it, shall not be large. I plead the privilege which a preface allows to an author for saying thus much of myself 5 since if a writer be inclined to egotism, a preface is the most proper place for him to be deliv- ered of it; for prefaces are not always read, and ded- ications seldom ; books, says my lord Bacon, should have no patrons but truth and reason. Even the at- tractive prose of Dryden, could not dignify dedica- tions ; and perhaps they ought ffever to be resorted to, PREFACE. t being as derogatory to the writer, as dull to the read- er, and when not prejudicial, at least superfluous. If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book, and if it be a good book, it wants it not. Swift dedicated a volume to Prince Posterity, and there was a manliness in the act. Posterity will prove a patron of the soundest judgment, as unwilling to give, as unlikely to receive, adulation. But Posterity . is not a very accessible personage ; he knows the high lvalue of that which he gives, he therefore is extremely particular as to what he receives. Very few of the presents that are directed to him, reach their destin- ation. Some are too light, others too heavy, since, it J is as difficult to throw a straw any distance, as a ton. 1 1 have addressed this volume to those who think, and •some may accuse me of an ostentatious independence, in presuming to inscribe a book to so small a minority. t But a volume addressed to those who think, is in fact addressed to all the world ; for although the propor- tion of those who do think be extremely small, yet every individual flatters himself that he is one of the number. In the present rage for all that is marvellous and interesting, when writers of undoubted talent con- sider only what will sell, and readers only what will please, it is perhaps a bold experiment to send a vol- ume into the world, whose very faults, (manifold as I fear they are,) will cost more pains to detect, than sciolists would feel inclined to bestow, even if they were sure of discovering nothing but beauties. Some also of my conclusions will no doubt be condemned by those who will not take the trouble of looking into the postulata ; for the soundest argument will pro- duce no more conviction in an empty head, than the most superficial declamation ; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum. The following pages, such as they are, have cost me some thought to write, and they may possibly cost others some to read them. Like Demosthenes, who talked Greek to the waves, I have continued my task, with the hope of instructing others with the certainty t* vi PREFACE. of improving myself. \ Labor ipse voluptasJ* It is much safer to think what we say, than to say what we think ; I have attempted both. This is a work of no party, and my sole wish is, that truth may prevail in the church, and integrity in the state, and that in both, the old adage may be verified, that ' the men of prin- ciple may be the principal men? Knowledge is in- deed as necessary as light, and in this coming age most fairly promises to be as common as water, and as free as air. But as it has heen wisely ordained that light should have no colour, water no taste, and air no odour, so knowledge also should be equally pure, and without admixture. If it comes to us through the medium of prejudice, it will be discoloured ; through the channels of custom, it will be adulterated ; through the gothic walls of the college, or of the cloister, it will smell of the lamp. He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be ; and he that studies men, will know how things are ; and it would have been impossible to have written these pages, without mixing somewhat more freely with the world, than inclination might prompt, or judgment approve. For observation, made in the cloister, or m the desert, will generally be as obscure as the one, and as barren as the other : but he that would paint with his pencil, must study originals, and not be over fearful of a little dust. In fact, every au- thor is a far better judge of the pains that his efforts have cost him, than any reader can possibly be ; but to what purpose he has taken those pains, this is a question on which his readers will not allow the au- thor a voice, nor even an opinion : from the tribunal of the public there is no appeal, and it is fit that it should be so, otherwise we should not only have riv- ers of ink expended in bad writing, but oceans more in defending it ; for he that writes in a bad style is sure to retort in a worse. I have availed myself of examples both ancient and * ttahour is itself a pleasure. — I* UB * PREFACE. rii modern, wnerever they appeared likely to illustrate, or strengthen my positions : but I am net so sanguine as to expect that all will draw the - I usions from the same premises. I hive not forgotten the obser- vation, of him who said, that ; in the same meadow, the ox seeks the herbage ; f i d ^. the hare ; c stork, the lizard.' Times also of profound peace and tranquillity are most propitious :: era^ literary pur- suit. •' Satur est. cum elicit Hpratius euge.** We know that Malherbe. on hearing a piosework if great merir -: Iryly asked if it would redu : of bread ! neither was his appreciation of poetry much higher, when he observed, that a good poet was of no more service to the church or the state, than a good player at ninepins ! I ■ anecdotes that are interspersed in these pages. have seldom been cited for their own sake, but chiefly for their application, nor can I see why the Mc should be denied those examples so useful to the His- torian. The lover of _ lions, if he finds nothing here to his taste : but like him who wrote a book ; cle omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis.'T I may perhaps be accused of looking into even* thing, but of seeing into nothing. There are two things, cheap and common enough when separated, but as costly in value, as irresistible in power, when combined — truth and novelty. Their union is like that of steam and of fire, which nothing can overcome. Truth and novelty, when united, must overcome the whole superincumbent pressure of error and of prejudice, whateverbe its weight : and the effects will be proportionate to the resistance. But the moral earthquake, unlike the natural, while it convulses the nations, reforms them too. On subjects indeed, on which mankind have been thimhng for so many thou- sands of years, it will often happen, tnat whatever is absolutely new. may have the misfortune to be abso- * When Horace shouts, bravo 1 be surt he has dintd. — Pur. t About all things, and some more. — Pub. vixl PREFACE. lutely false. It is a melancholy consideration for au- thors, that there is very little i Terra Incognita? in literature, and there now remain to us moderns, only two roads to success ; discovery and conquest. If in- deed we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery ; and if we can repeat what is old, more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own by right of conquest. The pointed propriety of Pope, was to all his readers originality, and even the lawful possessors could not always recognise their own property in his hands. Few have borrowed more freely than Gray and Milton, but with a princely pro- digality, they have repaid the obscure thoughts of others, with far brighter of their own; like the ocean which drinks up the muddy water of the rivers, from the flood, but replenishes them with the clearest from the shower. These reflections, however they may tend to show the difficulties all must encounter who aim at originality, will, nevertheless in nowise tend to diminish the number of those who will attempt to surmount them, since 'fools rush in, where angels fear to tread? In good truth, we should have a glo- rious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works, would only consent to put their works in- to the fire. But this is an age of economy, as well as of illumination, and a considerate author will not rashly condemn his volumes to that devouring ele- ment, 'flammis emendatioribusj* who reflects that the pastry-cook and the confectioner are sure to put good things into his pages, if he fail to do it himself. With respect to tbe style I have adopted in the fol- lowing sheets, I have attempted to make it vary with the subject ; avoiding all pomp of words, where there was no corresponding elevation of ideas ; for such tur- bidity, although it may be as aspiring as that of a bal- loon, is also as useless. I have neither spare time for superfluous writing, nor spare money for superfluous * The amending flames. — Pub. PREFACE. it printing, and shall be satisfied, if I have not missed of brightness, in pursuit of brevity. It has cost me more time and pains to abridge these pages than to write them. Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing, which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so : and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness, in order to increase its force. How far the following efforts will stand the test of this criterion, it is not for me to determine ; to know is one thing, to do is another ; and it may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is com- posed of, than to compose it. Most of the maxims and positions advanced in the present volume, are founded on two simple truisms, that men are the same ; and that the passions are the powerful and disturbing forces, the greater or the less prevalence of which, gives individuality to character. But we must not only express clearly, but think deep- ly, nor can we concede to Buffon that style alone is that quality that will immortalize an author. The es- says of Montaigne, and the analogy of Butler, would live forever, in spite of their style. Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too ; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true gen- ius will shine even through the coarsest style. But above all I do most earnestly hope, that none will accuse me of usurping on this occasion, the chair of the Moralist, or presuming to deliver any thing here advanced, as oracular, magisterial, dictatorial, or c ex cathedra? I have no opinions that I would not most willingly exchange for truth ; I may be sometimes wrong, I may be sometimes right ; at all events discus- sion may be provoked, and as this cannot be done with- out thought, even that is a good. I despise dogma- tism in others, too much to indulge it myself: I have not been led to these opinions by the authority of great names : for I have always considered rather what is said than who says it; and the consequence of the x PREFACE. argument, rather than the consequence of him who delivers it. It is sufficiently humiliating to our na ture, to reflect that our knowledge is but as the rivu let, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the high- est interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation, we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately con- nected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt. In an age remarkable for good reasoning and bad conduct, for sound rules and corrupt manners, when virtue fills our heads, but vice our hearts ; when those who would fain persuade us that they are quite sure of heaven, appear to be in no greater hurry to go there than other folks, but put on the livery of the best mas- ter only to serve the worst ; — in an age when modesty herself is more ashamed of detection than of delin- quency ; when independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend ; and free- thinking not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking ; — in an age when patriots will hold any thing except their tongues; keep any thing except their word ; and lose nothing patiently except their character ; — to improve such an age must be difficult, to instruct it dangerous ; and he stands no chance of amending it, who cannot at the same time amuse it. That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and writ- ten more than he has published, if he does not com- mand success, has at least deserved it. In the article of rejection and abridgment, we must be severe for ourselves, if we wish for mercy from others ; since for one great genius who has written a little book, we have a thousand little geniuses, who have written great books. A volume, therefore, that contains more words than ideas, like a tree that has more foliage than fruit, may suit those to resort to, who want not to feast, but to dream and to slumber ; but the misfortune is, that in this particular instance, nothing can equal the in gratitude of the public, who were never yet known to have the slightest compassion for those authors who PREFACE. Si have deprived themselves of sleep, in order to procure it for their readers. With books, as with companions, it is of more con- sequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose ; for good books are as scarce as good compan- ions, and in both instances, all that we can learn from bad ones is> that so much time has been worse than thrown away. That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time. That short period of a short existence, which is rationally employed, is that which alone de- serves the name of life ; and that portion of our life is most rationally employed, which is occupied in en- larging our stock of truth, and of wisdom. I do not pretend to have attained this, I have only attempted it. One thing I may affirm, that I have first considered whether it be worth while to say any thing at all, be- fore I have taken any trouble to say it well ; knowing that words are but air, and that both are capable of much condensation. Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent. I have said that the maxims in the following pages are written upon this principle — that men are the same ; upon this alone it is that the sacred maxim which forms the golden hinge of our religion, rests and revolves, c Do unto thy neighbour as thou wouldst that he should do unto thee? The proverbs of Solo- mon suit all places and all times, because Solomon knew mankind, and mankind are ever the same. No revolution has taken place in the body, or in the mind. Four thousand years ago, men shivered with frost, and panted with heat, were cold in their gratitude, and ardent in their revenge. Should my readers think some of my conclusions too severe, they will in justice recollect, that my object is truth, that my subject is man, and that a handsome picture cannot represent deformity. The political principles contained in the following pages, are such, that whoever avows them will be con- xii PREFACE. sidered a Tory by the Whigs, and a Whig by the Tories; for truth, no less than virtue, not unfre- quently forms the middle point between two extremes. Where one party demands too much, and the other is inclined to concede too little, an arbitrator will please neither, by recommending such measures as would eventually serve both. I have, however, nei- ther the hope nor the fear, that my opinions on poli- tics, or any other subject, will attract much attention. The approbation of a few discerning friends, is all the reward I wish for my labours ; and the four lines which form the commencement of my Poem of c Hy~ pocrisyj shall make the conclusion of this Preface, since the sentiments they contain, are as applicable to prose as to verse. Two things there are, confound the Poet's lays, The scholar's censure — and the blockhead's praise; That glowing page with double lustre shines, When Pope approves, and Dennis damns the tenets 1 London, January 1st, 1820. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND VOLUME, I know not that I should have attempted a second volume of Lacon, if the first had not met with some encouragement. Its reception has proved that my book has been purchased at least by the many ; and I have testimonies far more gratifying, that it has not been disapproved of by the few. He that aspires to pro- duce a work that shall instruct and amuse the un- learned, without displeasing or disgusting the scholar, proposes to himself an object more attainable perhaps on any other theme, than on that which I have adopt- ed ; for on this subject all men are critics, although very few are connoisseurs ; the man of the world is indignant at being supposed to stand in need of in- formation, and the philosopher feels that he is above it ; the old will not quit the school of their own ex- perience, and hope is the only moralist that has any weight with the young. There are many things on which even a coxcomb will receive instruction with gratitude, as for instance, a knowledge of the lan- guages, or of the mathematics, because his pride is not wounded by an admission of his ignorance as to those sciences to which he has never been introduced. But if you propose to teach him any thing new con- cerning himself, the world, and those who live in it, the case is widely altered. He finds that he has been conversant all his life with these things, sus- pects that here he knows at least as much as his master, becomes quite impatient of information, and often finishes by attempting to instruct his instructer. * The second volume is added, making the entire work, and • the only complete edition ever published in this country. xiv *> fc ; INTRODUCTION. It is tru& that he has made Tery laudable use of his eyes, since his opera-glass has given him an insight into others, and his looking-glass has helped him to some knowledge of himself. His ears indeed have had a very easy time of it, but their inactivity has been dearly purchased, at the expense of his tongue , he feels however, from his experience, that he has had opportunities at least of observing, and he fancies | from his vanity, that he has improved them. Can one (says he) be ignorant of those things that are so constantly and so closely around us, and about us . he that runs, he thinks, may read that lucid volume whose pages are days, whose characters are men. But too close a contiguity is as inimical to distinct vision, as too great a distance ; and hence it happens that a man often knows the least of that which is most near to him — even his own heart ; but if we are ignorant of ourselves, a knowledge of others is built upon the sand. On this subject, however, nothing is more easy than to talk plausibly, and few things more difficult than to write profoundly ; thoroughly to succeed, requires far more experience than I possess, or ever shall. I am, however, fully satisfied of the Utility of a work similar to that in which I am en- gaged, and hope what little encouragement I have met with may stimulate those to attempt something better, who are deeply conversant, not only with the living, but with the dead— not only with books, but with men— not only with the hearts of others, but with their own. The moral world will by no means repay our researches with such rich discoveries as the na- tural 5 yet where we cannot invent, we may at least improve 5 we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite. A Hume may soar in- deed somewhat higher than a Davy, but he will meet with more disappointments ; with wings that could reach the clouds, but not with strength of pinion that could pierce them. Hume was at times as incompre- INTRODUCTION. xv nensible to himself, as invisible to other3 ; lost in re- gions where he could not penetrate, nor we pursue y for it is as rare for experiment to give us nothing but' conjecture, as for speculation to give us nothing but truth. In this walk of science, however, if we know but little, upon that little we are becoming gradually, more agreed ; perhaps we have discovered that the prize is not worth the contention. Hence there is a kind of alphabet of first principles, now established in' the moral world, which is not very likely to be over- turned by any new discoveries. But principles, how- ever correct, may sometimes be wrongly, and how- ever true, may sometimes be falsely applied; and none are so likely to be so, as those that from having been found capable of effecting so much, are expected to form all. An Indian has very few tools, and it is astonishing how much he accomplishes with them; but he sometimes fails ; for although his instruments are of general, they are not of universal application. There are two principles, however, of established acceptance in morals ; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value. Now there are some cases where thes^ maxims are not tenable, because they are not true ; for some of the noblest energies of gratitude, of affection, of courage, and of benevo- lence, are not resolvable into the first. If it be said, indeed, that these estimable qualities may after all be traced to self-interest, because all the duties that flow from them are a source of the highest gratification to those that perform them, this I presume savours rath- er too much of an identical proposition, and is only a roundabout mode of informing us that virtuous men will act virtuously. Take care of number one, says the worldling, and the Christian says so too ; for he has taken the best care of number one, who takes care that number one shall go to heaven ; that bless- ed place is full of *hose same selfish beings who, by having constantly done good to others, have as con- stantly gratified ' themselves. I humbly conceive, ivi INTRODUCTION. therefore, that it is much nearer the truth, to say that all men have an interest in being good, than that all men are good from interest. As to the standard of Utility, this is a mode of examining human actions, that looks too much to the event, for there are occa- sions where a man may effect the greatest general good, by the smallest individual sacrifice 5 and there are others where he may make the greatest individual sacrifice, and yet produce but little general good. If indeed the moral philosopher is determined to do all his work with the smallest possible quantity of tools, and would, wish to cope with the natural philosopher, Who has explained such wonders, from the two sim pie causes of impulse and of gravity, in this case he must look out for maxims as universal as those occa- sions to which he would apply them. Perhaps he might begin by affirming with me that— men are the same, and this will naturally lead him to another conclusion, that if men are the same, they can have but one common principle of action. The attain- ment of apparent good ; those two simple truisms contain the whole of my philosophy, aiad as they have not been worn out in the performance of one under- taking, I trust they will not fail me L- Gie execution of another, LA CON; OS MANY THINGS IN FEW WORDS. It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors, as his knowledge. Mai-information is more hopeless than non-information ; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write ; but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth ; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The conse- quence is, that error, when she retraces her foot- steps, has farther to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance. With respect to the authority of great names it should be remembered, that he alone deserves to have any weight or influence with posterity, who has shown himself superior to the particular and predominant error of his own times ; — who, like the peak of Teneriffe, has hailed the intellectual sun, before its beams have reached the horizon of common minds ; who, standing like Socrates, on the apex of wisdom, has removed from his eyes all film of earthly dross, and has foreseen a purer law, a nobler system, a brighter order of things ; 2* 18 LACON, in short a promised land ! which, like Moses on the top of Pisgah, he is permitted to survey and anticipate for others, without being himself allowed either to enter, or to enjoy. To cite the examples of history, in order to ani- mate us to virtue, or to arm us with fortitude, is to call up the illustrious dead, to inspire and to im- prove the living. But the usage of those civilians, who cite vicious authorities, for worse purposes, and enforce the most absurd practice, by the oldest precedent, is to bequeath to us as an heirloom, the errors of our forefathers ; to confer a kind of im- mortality on folly, making the dead more powerful than time, and more sagacious than experience, by subjecting those that are upon the earth, to the perpetual mal-govemment of those that are be- neath it, A writer more splendid than solid, seems to ..hink that vice may lose half its guilt, by losing all its grossness. An idea suggested, perhaps, by the parting anathema, fulminated by Gibbon, against the fellows of Magdalen: 'Men,' he said, 'in whom were united all the malevolence of monks, without their erudition ; and all the sensuality of libertines, without their refinement.' But it would be as well perhaps for the interests of humanity, if vice of every kind were more odious, and less attractive ; if she were always exhibited to us, like the drunken Helot to the youths of Sparta, in her true and disgusting shape. It is fitting, that what is foul within, should be foul also without. To give the semblance of purity to the substance of corruption, is to proffer the poison of Circe in a L A C 3 . 19 crystal goblet, and to steal the bridal vestments of the virgin, to add more allurements to the seduc- tive smiles of the harlot. If those alone who ' soiccd to the wind, did reap the whirlwind,- it would be well. But the rnischiel is, that the blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculation of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, th«* cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and authority, and is generated in high places, it may be com- pared to that torrent, which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain,, without deserving it ; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable ; so that they can com- mand the flattery of knaves while living, they care not for the execrations of honest men, when dead. Milton neither aspired to present fame, nor even expected it ; but (to use his own words,) his high ambition was, 'to leave something to after ages, so written, that they should not willingly let it die.' And Cato finally observed, he would much rather that posterity should inquire, v;hy no statues were erected to him, than why they v:ere. As in agriculture, he that can produce the great- est crop is not the best farmer, but he that can effect it with the least expense ; so in society, he is not the best member, who can bring about the 20 LACON. most good, but he that can accomplish it with the least admixture of concomitant ill. — For let no man presume to think that he can devise any plan of extensive good, unalloyed and unadulterated with evil. This is the prerogative of the Godhead alone. The inequalities of life are real things, they can fr liber be explained away, nor done away; * Ex- pallets furca, tamen usque recurrent?* A leveller, therefore, has long been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again to-mor- row. The things that constitute these real ine- qualities are four, strength, talent, riches, and rank. The two former, would constitute inequalities in the rudest state of nature ; the two latter, more properly belong to a state of society more or less civilized and refined. — Perhaps the whole four are all ultimately resolvable in power. But in the just appreciation of this power men are too apt to be deceived. Nothing, for instance, is more common than to see rank or riches preferred to talent, and yet nothing is more absurd. That talent is of a much higher order of power than riches, might be proved in various ways ; being so much more in- deprivable and indestructible, so much more above all accident of change, and all confusion of chance. But the peculiar superiority of talent over riches, may be best discovered from hence — That the influence of talent will always be the greatest in that government which is the most pure ; while the influence of riches will always be the greatest in * You may dig them out, but they will come again. — Pub. L A C ON. 21 that government which is most corrupt. So that from the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the common- wealth ; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration. That talent confers an inequality of a higher order than rank, would appear from various views of the subject, and most particularly from this — many a man may justly thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever yet been able to return the compliment, by thanking his rank for his talent. When Leonardo da Vinci died, his sovereign exclaimed, ' I can make a thousand lords, but not one Leonardo.' Cicero observed to a degenerate patrician, i I am the first of my family, but you are the last of yours? And since his time, those who value themselves merely on their ancestry, have been compared to potatoes, all that is good of them is under the ground ; perhaps it is but fair that nobility should have de- scended to them, since they never could have raised themselves to it. An upright minister asks, what re commends a man ; a corrupt minister, who. The first consideration with a knave, is how to help himself, and the second, how to do it, with an appearance of helping you. Dionysius* the tyrant, * There were two tyrants of this name, the last of whom ruled with -such tyranny, that his people grew weary of his government. He, hearing that an old woman prayed for his life, asked her why she did so 1 She answered, ' I have seen the death of several tyrants, and the successor was always worse than the former, then earnest thou, worse than all the rest ; and if thou vert gone, I fear what would become of u-~, if we should have a worse still.' 22 LA CON. stripped the statue of Jupiter Olympus of a robe of massy gold, and substituted a cloak of wool, say- ing, gold is too cold in winter, and too heavy in summer — It behooves us to take care of Jupiter, If hypocrites go to hell, by the road to heaven, we may carry on the metaphor, and add, that as all the virtues demand their respective tolls, the hypocrite has a by-way to avoid them, and to get into the main road again. And all would be well, if he could escape the last turnpike in the journey of life, where all must pay, where there is no by- path, and where the toll is death. In great matters of public moment, where both parties are at a stand, and both are punctilious, slight condescensions cost little, but are worth much. He that yields them is wise, inasmuch as he purchases guineas with farthings. A few drops of oil will set the political machine at work, when a tun of vinegar would only corrode the wheels, and canker the movements. Were we as eloquent as angels, we should please some men, some women, and some children, much more by listening, than by talking. When Mahomet forbids his followers the use of wine, when the grand Sultan discourages learning, and when the Pope denies the Scriptures to the laity, what are we to infer from hence 1 not the danger of the things forbidden, but the fears of those that forbid. Mahomet knew that his wao a faith strictly military, and to be propagated I if *& LA CON. 23 sword ; he also knew that nothing is so destruc- tive of discipline as wine ; Mahomet therefore in- terdicted wine. The grand Sultan knows that despotism is founded on the blindness and weak- ness of the governed ; but that learning is light and power ; and that the powerful and enlightened make very troublesome slaves ; therefore the Sul- tan discourages learning. Leo the Xth knew that the pontifical hierarchy did support, and was recip- rocally supported by a superstition that was false : but he also knew that the Scriptures are true, and that truth and falsehood assimilate not ; therefore, Leo withheld the Scriptures from the laity. A wise minister would rather preserve peace, than gain a victory ; because he knows, that even the most successful war, leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it fomrl them. There are real evils that cannot be brought into a list of indemnities, and the demoralizing in- fluence of war is not amongst the least of them. The triumphs of truth are the most glorious, chiefly because they are the most bloodless of all victories, deriving their highest lustre from the number of the saved, not of the slain. The great examples of Bacon, cf Milton, of Newton, of Locke, and of others, happen to be directly against the popular inference, that a certain wildness of eccentricity and thoughtlessness of conduct are the necessary accompaniments of ta- lent, and the sure indications of genius. Because some have united these extravagances, with great demonstrations of talent, as a Rousseau, a Chat- tertori, a Savage, a Burns, or a Byron ; others, 24 LA CON. finding it less difficult to be eccentric, than le be brilliant, have therefore adopted the one, in hopes that the world would give them credit for the other. But the greatest genius is never so great, as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason ; it is from such a combination, like that of Buce- phalus, reined in by Alexander, that the most powerful efforts have been produced. And be it remembered, that minds of the very highest order, who have given an unrestrained course to their caprice or to tWir passions, would have been so much hu : !■•■ subduing them; and so far from presuming thai the world would give them credit for talent, on the score of their aberrations and their extravagances, all that they dared hope or expect has been, that the world would pardon and overlook those extravagances, on account of the various and mani- fold proofs they were constantly exhibiting of supe- rior acquirement and inspiration. We might also add, that the good effects of talent are universal, the evil of its blemishes confined. The light and heat of the sun benefit all, and are by all, enjoyed ; the spots on its surface are discoverable only to the few. But the lower order of aspirers to fame and talent, have pursued a very different course ; in- stead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhi- bited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent. The enthusiast has been compared to a man walking in a fog ; every thing immediately around him, or in contact with him, appears sufficiently clear and luminous ; but beyond the little circle, of which he himself is the centre, all is mist, error, LAC ON. 25 and confusion. But he himself is nevertheless as much in the fog as his neighbours, all of whom have also cantoned out their little Goshens of perspica- city. Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbours, however we may be in- clined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves. Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the church of Rome and the church of England : the one professes to be infallible— the other to be never in the wrong. Such high pretensions are extremely awkward wherever the points of difference happen to be more numerous than those of agreement. A safer mode of proceeding would be to propose with diffidence, to conjecture with freedom, to examine with can- dour, and to dissent with civility ; ' in rebus neces- sariis sit unitas ; in non necessariis liberalitas , in omnibus, charitas'* This ought to teach all the en- thusiasts moderation, many of whom begin to make converts from motives of chanty, but continue to do so from motives of pride : like some rivers which are sweet at their source, but bitter at their mouth. The fact is, that charity is contented with exhorta- tion and example, but pride is not to be so easily satisfied. An enthusiast, therefore, ought above all things to guard against this error, arising from a morbid association of ideas, directed to view and examine ail things through one medium alone. The best intentioned may be exposed to this infirm- ity, and there is one infallible symptom of the dis- order, which is this : whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in *Let there be harmony in things essential ; liberality in things not essential ; charity in all. — Pub. 3 26 LACON. it than of charity, that we are seeking victory rather than truth, and are beginning to feel more for our- selves, than for our master. To lose our charity, in defence of our religion, is to sacrifice the citadel, to maintain the outworks ; a very imprudent mode of defence. There is an old poet who has said,. ' Nullum Numen abest si sit Prudentia, tecum ; r * but your thorough-paced enthusiast would make a tri- lling alteration in the letter, but a most important one in the spirit of the line, which he would read thus — 4 Nullum Numen habes si sit Prudentia, tecum.'''] In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest ; not that the highest are always the best, but, because if disgusted there, we can at any time descend ; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible. In the grand the- atre of human life, a box ticket takes us through tho house. He that has never suffered extreme adversity, knows not the full extent of his own depravation ; and he that has never enjoyed the summit of pros- perity is equally ignorant how far the iniquity of others can go. For our adversity will excite temp- tations in ourselves, our prosperity in others. Sir Robert Walpole observed, it was fortunate that few men could be prime ministers, because it was for- tunate that few men could know the abandoned profligacy of the human mind. Therefore a beau- tiful woman, if poor, 3hould use a double circum- spection ; for her beauty will tempt others, her po- verty herself, *No Deity is absent, if prudence is with thee. -Pub. t Thou art deserted of Heaven > if prudence is with thee. -Fob. L A C O N . 27 Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer ; it dignifies meanness : it mag- nifies littleness ; to what is contemptible, it gives authority ; to what is low, exhaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossess- ed of it when acquired, since it enables the hold- er to shift his own errors on dependants, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to 3 to rise, by the treachery of others ; and that to say * I am' is language that has been appropri- exclusively to God ! Virtue without talent, is a coat of mail, without a sv:ord ; it may indeed defend the wearer, but will not enable him to protect his friend. He that aspires to be the head of a party, will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes. He must often act from false reasons which are weak, because he dares not the true reasons which are strong, It will be his lot to* be forced on some occasions to give his consideration to the wealthy, or the titled, al- though they may be in the wrong and withhold it the energetic, but necessitous, although they may be in the right. There are moments when he must appear to sympathize, not only with the fears 3 brave, but also with the follies of the He must see some appearances that do not exist, and be blind to some that do. To be above others, he must condescend at times, to be beneath him self, as the loftiest trees have the lowest roots, but without the keenest circumspection, his very rise, will be his ruin. For a masked battery is 28 LACON. more destructive than one that is visible, and he -will have more to dread from the secret envy of his adherents, than the open hate of his adversaries This envy will be ever near him, but he must not appear to suspect it ; it will narrowly watch him, but he must not appear to perceive it : even when he is anticipating all its effects, he must give no note of preparation ; and, in defending himself against it, he must conceal both his sword and his shield. Let him pursue success as his truest friend, and apply to confidence as his ablest coun- sellor. Subtract from a great man, all that he owes to opportunity, and all that he owes to chance ; all that he has gained by the wisdom of his friends, and by the folly of his enemies ; and our Brobdignag will often become a Lilliputian. I think it is Yoitaire who observes, that it was very fortunate for Cromwell, that he appeared upon the stage at the precise moment when the people were tired of kings ; and as unfortunate for his son Richard, that he had to make good his pretensions, at a moment when the people were equally tired of 'protectors. All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman, who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spencer ; al- though Oliver Goldsmith, is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid. The reward in this arena is not to the swift, nor the prize to the strong. Editors have gained more pounds, by publishing Milton's works, than he ever gained pence by writing them ; and Garrick has reaped a richer harvest in a single night, by acting in one play LAC ON. 29 of Shakspeare's, than that poet himself obtained by the genius which inspired the whole of the Avarice begets more vices than Priam did chil- dren, and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead ; and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven, than the martyr undergoes to gain it. Avarice is a passion full of paradox, a madness full of method ; for, although the miser is the most mercenary of all beings, yet he serves the worst master more faithfully than some Christians do the best, and will take nothing for it. He falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities, nor its pleasures, for his trouble. He begins to accumulate treasure as a mean to happiness, and by a common but morbid association, he continues to accumulate it as an end. He lives poor, to die rich ; and is the mere jailer of his house, and the turnkey of his wealth. Em- poverished by his gold, he slaves harder to impri- son it in his chest, than his brother slave to libe- rate it from the mine. The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchre of all his other passions, as they successively decay. But unlike other tombs it is enlarged by repletion and strength- ened by age. The latter paradox, so peculiar to this passion, must be ascribed to that love of power inseparable from the human mind. There are three kinds of power — wealth, strength, and talent ; but as old age always weakens, often destroys the two latter, the aged are induced to cling with the greater avidity to the former. And the attach- ment of the aged to wealth, must be a growing and progressive attachment, since, such are not slow in 3* 30 LA CON. discovering, that those same ruthless years, which detract so s*ensibly from the strength of their bodies, and of their minds, serve only to augment and to consolidate the strength of their purse. Men will wrangle for religion ; write for it ; fight for it ; die for it ; any thing but — live for it. Honour is unstable, and seldom the same ; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food. She builds a lofty structure on the sandy founda- tion of the esteem of those, who are of all beings the most subject to change. But virtue is uniform and fixed, because she looks for approbation only from Him, who is the same yesterday — to-day — and for ever. Honour is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument. She is contracted in her views, inasmuch as her hopes are rooted in earth, bounded by time, and termi- nated by death. But virtue is enlarged and infinite in her hopes, inasmuch as they extend beyond pre- sent things, even to eternal ; this is their proper sphere, and they will cease only in the reality of deathless enjoyment. In the storms, and in the tempests of life, honour is not to be depended on, because she herself partakes of the tumult ; she also is buffeted by the wave, and borne along by the whirlwind. But virtue is above the storm, and has an anchor sure and steadfast, because it is cast into heaven. The noble Brutus worshipped hon- our, and in his zeal mistook her for virtue. In the day of trial he found her a shadow and a name. But no man can purchase his virtue too dear ; for it is the only thing whose value must LACON. 21 ever increase with tlie price it lias cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it. The Pagans (says Bayle) from the obscurity wherein they lived, as to another life, reasoned very inconsequentially on the reality of virtue. It belongs to Christians alone to argue upon it aright; and if those good things to come, which the Scripture promises the faithful, were not joined to the desire of virtue, then an iri- nocency of life, might be placed in the number of those things on which Solomon pronounced his definitive decree, c Vanity of vanities, all is vanity p Modern reformers are not fully aware of the dif- ficulty they will find to make converts, when that period which we so fondly anticipate shall arrive • an era of universal illumination. They will then experience a similar rebuff, with those who now attempt to make proselytes among the Jews. These cunning descendants of Laban shrewdly reply ; Pray -would it not be better for your Chris tians, first of all to decide amongst yourselves what Christianity is, and when that important point is fully settled, then we think it will be time enough for you to begin your attempts of converting others ? And the reasoning and enlightened inquirer will also naturally enough demand of the reformist, what is reformation ? This he will find to be almost as various as the advocates for it. The thorough-paced and Unitarian reformer, who thinks one year a sufficient period for a parliament, in order to bring in another unity still more absurd and dangerous, the majesty of the people, one and indivisible, must be at irreconcilable issue with the Trinitarian reformer, who advocates triennial 32 LA CON. parliaments, and who has n& respect for that old and orthodox association of king, and commons. In politics, as in happens, that we have less cli e who believe the half of our creed, than for thosi deny the whole of it ; since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin. There are two parties, therefore, that will %rm a rent in the Babel building of Reform, which, unlike that of the Temple, will not be confined to the vail, but will ill all probability reach the foun- dation. Times of general calamity and confusion, have ever been productive of the greatest minds.— The purest ore, is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt, is elicited from the darkest storm. Hypocrites act by virtue, like Numa by his shield. —They frame many counterfeits of her, with which they make an ostentatious parade, in all public assemblies, and processions ; but the origi- nal of what they counterfeit, and which may indeed be said to have fallen from heaven, they produce so seldom, that it is cankered by the rust of sloth, and useless from non-application. The wealthy and the noble, when they expend large sums in decorating their houses with the rare and costly efforts of genius, with busts from the chisel of a Canova, and with cartoons from the pencil of a Raphael, are to be commended, if they do not stand still here, but go on to bestow some pains and cost, that the master himself be not LACON, 33 inferior to the mansion, and that the owner be not the only thing that is little, amidst every thing else that is great. The house may draw visiters, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them. We cross the Alps, and after a short interval, we are glad to return : — we go to see Italy, not the Italians. Public events of moment, when deeply and fully considered, are the fertile womb of political max- ims, which ought to contain the very soul of the moral history ; and then they are imperishable and indestructible, worthy of being resorted to as a tower of strength in the storm, and spreading their efful- gence over the tide of time, as a beacon in the night. Secrecy of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like the column that guided Israel in the deserts, becomes the guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies. ' Felix, quern faciunt aliena pericula cauturn :'* whis is well translated by some one who observes that it is far better to borrow experience than to buy it. He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happi- ness, and he that is warned by all the folly of others, has perhaps attained the soundest wisdom. But such is the purblind egotism, and the suicidal selfishness of mankind, that things so desirable are seldom pursued, things so accessible, seldom at- tained. That is indeed a twofold knowledge, which profits alike, by the folly of the foolish, and the * Happy, whom ether's dangers render prudent. — Pub. 34 L A C N . wisdom of the wise ; it is both a shield i sword ; it borrows its security from the darkness, and its confidence from the light. ' Defendit numerusj* is the maxim of the fool- ish ; ' Deperdit nuiinerus*;\ of the wise. ' The fact is, that an honest man will continue to be so, though surrounded on all sides by rogues. The whole world is turned upside down once in twenty- four hours ; yet no one thinks of standing upon his head, rather than on his heels. He that can be honest, only because every one else is honest, or good, only because all around him are good, might have continued an angel, if he had been born one, but being a man, he will only add to that number. numberless, who go to hell for the bad things they have done, and for the good things which they in- tended to do. The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be re- venged, and this I owe to my enemy ; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. The drafts which true genius draws upon poste- rity, although they may not always be honoured so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with com- pound interest, in the end. Milton's expressions, on his right to this remuneration, constitute some of the finest efforts of his mind. He never alludes to these high pretensions, but he appears to be ani- mated by an eloquence, which is at once both the * There is safety in numbers. — Pue. t There is ruin in numbers. — Pue. lac or; . 35 plea and the proof of their justice ; an eloquence, so^ much above all present and all psrishable things, that, like the beam of the sun, it warms, while it enlightens, and as it descends from heaven to earth, raises our thoughts from earth to heaven. When the great Kepler had at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed, 'Whether m; coveries will be read by posterity, or by my temporaries, is a matter that concerns them, more than me. I may well be contented to wait one cen- tury for a reader, when God himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an ol i . like myself/ Ambition is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon ; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us ; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us ; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining ail we want, we have only reached a pin- nacle, where wo have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear. W r e should justly ridicule a general, who just be- fore an action should suddenly disarm his men, and putting into the hands of all of them a bible, should order them to march against the enemy. Here, we plainly see the folly of calling in the Bible to support the sword : but is it not as great a folly to call in the sword to support the Bible ? Our Sa- viour divided force from reason, and let no -man 36 LACO N . presume to join what God hath put asunder. When we combat error with any other weapon than argument, we err more than those whom we attack. We follow the world in approving others, but we go before it in approving ourselves. None are so fond of secrets, as those who do not mean to keep them ; such persons covet secrets, as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation. That knowledge, which a man may acquire only by travelling is too dearly bought. The traveller indeed may be said to fetch the knowledge, as the merchant the wares, to be enjoyed and applied by those who stay at home. A man may sit by his own fireside, be conversant with many domestic arts and general sciences, and yet have very cor- rect ideas of the manners and customs of other nations. While on the contrary, he that has spent his whole life in travelling, who, like Scriblerus, has made his legs his compasses, rather than Ids judg- ment, may live and die a thorough novice in all the most important concerns of life ; like Anson, he may have been round the world, and over the world, without having been in the world ; and die an ignoramus, even after having performed the seven journeys between the holy hills ; swept the Kaaba with a silver besom ; drank of the holy waters of the Zemzem ; and traced the source of the Nile, and the end of the Niger. It is an observation of the late Lord Bishop of LACON. 37 LandafT, that there are but two kinds of men who succeed as public characters, men of no principle, but of great talent, and men of no talent, but oi one principle, that of obedience to their superiors. In fact, there will never be a deficiency of this second class ; persons, who, like Doddington, have no higher ambition than that of sailing in the wake of a man of first rate abilities. * I told the duke of Newcastle,' says he, (in the account he gives of himself, in his Diary) ' that it must end one way or the other, and must not remain as it was ; for I was determined to make some sort of figure in life. I earnestly wished it might be under his pro- tection, but if that could not be, I must make some figure ; what it would be I could not determine yet. I must look around me a little, and consult my friends, but some figure I was resolved to make.' Indeed, it is lamentable to think, what a gulf of impracticability must ever separate men of prin- ciple, whom offices want, from men of no principle, who want offices. It is easy to see that a Hamp- den, or a Marvel, could not be connected for one hour, with a Walpole,* or a Mazarin. Those who would conscientiously employ power for the good of others, deserve it, but do not desire it ; and those who would employ it for the good of them- selves, desire it, but do not deserve it. It is more easy to forgive the weak, who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. * It is but justice to say of this great minister, who went such lengths in corrupting others, that there were some in- stances, in which he himself was incorruptible. He re- fused the sum of sixty thousand pounds which was offered him to save the life of the earl of Derwentwater. 4 38 LACON. That conduct will be continued by our fears, which commenced in our resentment. He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel him- self quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth. The greater the power of him that is injured, the more inexpiable and persevering must be the efforts of those who have begun to injure him. There* fore a monarch who submits to a single insult, is half dethroned. When the conspirators were de- liberating on the murder of Paul Petrowitz, emperor of Russia, a voice was heard in the antechamber, saying, * You have broken the egg, you had better make the omelet^ That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome. In the heat and phrensy of the French revolution, the contentions for place and power never sustained the smallest diminution ; appointments and offices were never pursued with more eagerness and intrigue, than w r hen the heads of those who gained them, had they been held on merely by pieces of sticking plaster, could not have sat more loosely on their shoulders. Demagogues sprung up like mushrooms, and the crop seemed to be fecundated by blood ; although it repeatedly happened that the guillotine had finished the fa- vourite, before the plaster had finished the model, and that the original was dead, before the bust was dry. A man may arrive at such power, and be so suc- cessful in tho application of it, as to be enabled to crush and to overwhelm all his enemies. But a safety, built upon successful vengeance, and estab- lished not upon our love, but upon our fear, often LACON. 39 contains within itself the seeds of its own destruc- tion. It is at best a joyless and a precarious safety, as shortlived as that of some conquerors, who have died from a pestilence excited by the dead bodies of the vanquished. Many men fail in life, from the want, as they are too ready to suppose, of those great occasions wherein they might have shown their trustworthi- ness, and their integrity. But all such persons should remember, that in order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water, before we trust it with wine. The more minute, trivial, and we may say vernacular opportunities of being just and upright, are constantly occurring to every one : and it is an unimpeachable character in these lesser things, that almost . invariably prepares and produces those very opportunities of greater ad- vancement, and of higher confidence, which turn out so rich a harvest, but which those alone are permitted to reap, who have previously soivn. Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is — to watch the success of our enemy ; its wages — to be sure of it. Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules ; while common sense is contented to be right, with- out them. The former would rather stumble in following the dead, than walk upright by the profane assistance of the living. She worships the moul- dering mummies of antiquity, and her will is, that they should not be buried, but embalmed. She would have Truth herself bow to the authority of 40 LACON. great names ; while common sense would have great names bow to ? the authority of truth. Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance, than pedantry by her learning ; since she mistakes the nonage of things for their virility ; and her creed is, that darkness is increased by the accession of light ; that the world grows younger by age; and that knowledge and experience are diminished, by a constant and uninterrupted accumulation There is but one pursuit in life, which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that per- severes, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory ; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her ; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them. Those that seek her early, will find her before it is late ; her reward also is with her, and she will come quickly. For the breast of a good man, is a little heaven commencing on earth ; where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivalled influence, every safety from danger, resource from sterility, and subjugated passion, ' like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word.' Even human knowledge is permitted to approx- imate in some degree, and on certain occasions, to that of the Deity, its pure and primary source ; and this assimilation is never more conspicuous, than when it converts evil into the means of producing its opposite good. What for instance appears at first sight to be so insurmountable a barrier to the intercourse of nations as the ocean ; but science has converted it into the best and most expeditious LACON. 41 mean, by which they may supply their mutual wants, and carry on their most intimate communi- cations. What so violent as steam ? and so de- structive as fire ? What so uncertain as the wind 1 and so uncontrollable as the wave 1 Yet art has rendered these unmanageable things instrumental and subsidiary to the necessities, the comforts, and even the elegancies of life. What so hard, so cold, and so insensible as marble ? Yet the sculp- tor can warm it into life, and bid it breathe an eternity of love. What so variable as colour ? so swift as light ? or so empty as shade ? Yet the pencil of a Raphael can give these fleeting things both a body and a soul ; can confer upon them an imperishable vigour, a beauty that increases with age, and which must continue to captivate genera- tions. In short, wisdom can draw expedient from obstacle, invention from difficulty, remedy from poison. In her hands, all things become beautiful by adaptment ; subservient by their use ; and salu- tary by their application. As there are none so weak, that we may venture to injure them with impunity, so there are none so low, that they may not at some time be able to repay an obligation. Therefore, what benevolence would dictate, prudence would confirm. For he that is cautious of insulting the weakest, and not above obliging the lowest, will have attained such habits of forbearance and of conspiracy, as will secure him the good-will of all that are beneath him, and teach him how to avoid the enmity of all that are above him. For he that would not bruise even a worm, will be still more cautious how he treads upon a serpent. 4* 42 LACON. The only things in which we can be said to have any property, are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison, they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken from us by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave ; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world, Our actions must clothe us with an immortality, loathsome or glorious ; these are the only title-deeds of which we cannot be disinherited ; they will have their full weight in the balance of eternity, when every thing else is as nothing ; and their value will be confirmed and established by those two sure and sateless destroyers of all other things, — Time — and Death. He that abuses his own profession, will not pa- tiently bear with any one else that does so. And this is one of our most subtile operations of self- love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves ; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case. Tnere are minds so habituated to intrigue and mystery in themselves, and so prone to expect it from others, that they will never except of a plain reason for a plain fact, if it be possible to devise causes for it that are obscure, far fetched, and usually not worth the carriage. Like the miser of Berkshire, who would ruin a good horse to escape a turnpike, so these gentlemen r : :de their high-bred LACOK. 43 theories to death, in order to come at truth, through by-paths, lanes, and alleys ; while she herself is jogging quietly along upon the high and beaten road of common sense. The consequence is, that those who take this mode of arriving at truth, are sometimes before her, and sometimes behind her, but very seldom with her. Thus the great states- man who relates the conspiracy against Doria, pauses to deliberate upon, and minutely to scruti- nize into divers and sundry errors committed, and opportunities neglected, whereby he would as ish (o account for the total failure of that spirited outer- prise. Rut the plain fact was. that the sch^m^ had been so well planned and digested, that it w ■ > victorious in every point of its operation, both on the sea and on the shore, in the harbour o( Genoa, no less than in the city, until that most unlucky accident befell the Count de Fiesque, who was the very life and soul of the conspiracy. In stepping horn one galley to another, the plank on which he stood, upset, and he fell into the sea. His armour happened to be very heavy — the night to be very dark — the water to be very deep — and the bottom to be very muddy. And it is another plain fact, that water in all such cases, happens to make no distinction whatever, between a conqueror and a cat. In the tortuous and crooked policy of public affairs, as well as in the less extensive, but perhaps more intricate labyrinth of private concerns, there are two evils, which must continue to be as reme- diless as they are unfortunate ; they have no cure, and their only palliatives are diffidence and time. They are these — the most candid and enlightened must give their assent to a probable falsehood, 44 L A C O N . rather than to an improbable truth ; and their es- teem to those who have a reputation^ in preference to those who only deserve it. He that acts towards men, as if God saw him, and prays to God, as if men heard him, although he may not obtain all that he asks, or succeed in all that he undertakes, will most probably deserve to do so. For with respect to his actions to men, however much he may fail with regard to others, yet if 'pure and good, with regard to himself and his highest interests, they cannot fail; and with re- spect to his prayers to God, although they cannot make the Deity more willing to give, yet they will, and must, make the supplicant more worthy to receive. We did not make the world, but w T e may mend it, and must live in it. We shall find that it abounds with fools, who are too dull to be employed, and knaves who are too sharp. The compound cha- racter is most common, and is that with which we shall have the most to do. As he that knows how to put proper words in proper places, evinces the truest knowledge of books, so he that knows how to put fit persons in fit stations, evinces the truest knowledge of men. It was observed of Elizabeth, that she was weak herself, but chose wise counsel- lors ; to which it was replied, that to choose wise counsellors, was, in a prince, the highest wisdom. If all seconds, were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way. LACON. 45 If we cannot exhibit a better life than an atheist, we must be very bad calculators, and if we cannot exhibit a better doctrine, we must be still worse reasoners. Shall we then burn a man because he chooses to say in his heart, there is no God 1 To say it in his head, is incompatible with a sound state of the cerebellum. But if ail who wished there were no God, believed it too, we should hare many atheists. He that has lived without a God, would be very happy to die without one ; and he that by his conduct has taken the word not out of the commandments, would most willingly insert it into the creed. — Thou shall kill, and thou shah coimnit adultery, would be very conveniently sup- ported by, ' I do not believe in God.' But are we to burn a man for so absurd a doctrine ? Yes, says the zealot, for fear of his making proselytes. That he will attempt to make proselytes I admit, even to a system so fatherless, so forlorn, and so gloomy ; and he will attempt it, on the same principle which causes little children to cry at night for a bedfel- low, he is afraid of being left alone in the dark ! But to grant that he will, be successful in his attempts to convert others, would be to grant that he has some reason on his side ; and w^e have yet to learn that reason can be consumed by fire, or overwhelmed by force. We will burn him then for the sake of example. But his example, like his doctrine, is so absurd, that let him alone, and none will follow it. But by burning him, you your- selves have set a most horrid example, w r hich the innumerable champions of bigotry and of fanati- cism have followed, and will follow, whenever and wherever they have power to do so. By burning an atheist, you hare lent importance to that which 46 LAC ON. was absurd, interest to that which was forbidding, light to that which was the essence of darkness. For atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction. There are some who affect a want of affectation, and flatter themselves that they are above flattery ; they are proud of being thought extremely humble, and would go round the world to punish those who thought them capable of revenge ; they are so satisfied with the suavity of their own temper, that they would quarrel with their dearest benefactor, only for doubting it. — And yet so very blind are all their acquaintance to their numerous qualifications and merits, that the possessors of them invariably discover, when it is too late, they have lived in the world without a single friend r and are about to leave it without a single mourner. They that are in power, should be extremely cautious to commit the execution of their plans, not only to those who are able, but to those who are vjilling ; as servants and instruments it is their duty to do their best, but their employers are never so sure of them, as when their duty is also their pleasure. To commit the execution of a purpose to one who disapproves of the plan of it, is to em- ploy but one third of the man ; his heart and his head are against you,, you have commanded only his hands. It is far more safe to lower any pretensions that a woman may aspire to, on the score of her virtue LAC ON. 47 than those dearer ones which she may foster, on the side of her vanity. Tell her that she is not in the exact road to gain the approbation of the angels, and she may not only hear you with pa- tience, but may even follow your advice ; but should you venture to hint to her, that she is equally unsuccessful in all her methods to gain the appro- bation of men, she will pursue not the advice, but the adviser, certainly with scorn, probably with vengeance. There is a certain constitution of mind, which of all others, is the most likely to make our for- tune, if combined with talent, or to mar them, without it ; — for the errors of such minds are few, but fatal. I allude to those characters, who have a kind of mathematical decision about them, which dictates that a straight line is the shortest distance between any two points, and that small bodies icith velocity, have a greater momentum than large mass- es without it. Thus they would rather use a cannon- ball, than a batteringram. — With such minds, to resolve and to act, is instantaneous ; they seem to precede the march of time ; to foresee events, in the chrysalis of their causes ; and to seize that moment for execution, which others use in delibe- ration. Cromwell* had much of this decision in the camp, but in the church, hypocrisy asserted her dominion, and sometimes neutralized his moral * Cromwell is thus described by his confidential physi- cian, George Bate : { A perfect master of all the arts of simulation, and of dissimulation; who, turning up the whites of his eyes, and seeking the Lord with pious ges- tures, will weep and pray, and cant most devoutly, till an opportunity offers of dealing his dupe a knock-down blow under the short ribs.' 48 LAC O N . courage, never his physical ; for he always fought with more sincerity than he prayed. Cardinal de Retz carried this energy and promptitude into every department of his career ; the church, the camp, the council, and the court ; but, like Charles the Xllth, he had always more sail than ballast, and after the most hairbreadth escapes, was ship- wrecked at last. Napoleon had more of this promptitude of decision, than any other character, ancient or modern. Even his ablest generals were often overwhelmed with astonishment at the result of his simultaneities. Kleber designated him, as a chief who had two faults, that of advancing, without i considering how he should retreat ; — and of seizing, without considering how he should retain. Jt was absolutely necessary for such a man to ' wear his heart in his head/ for he invariably sacrificed blood to time, and means to the end. If the wrong path happened to be the shortest, that made it the right ; and he anticipated an acquittal by securing a con- quest. He invaded France with sixty men, and for a time succeeded ; but this desperate measure would not have been necessary, if the same promp- titude of action which caused this latter attempt to succeed, had not most miserably failed on a former one. He had said, ' Let war feed war :' it did so, and Russia spread her table-cloth of snow, to receive the fragments of the feast. But all this energy, and all this talent, were clouded by a total want of principle : he knew that he had none him- self, and here he was right; but he concluded that all others had none, and here he was often wrong. On a more confined stage, and in a smaller sphere, few have combined more talent with more decision, *han Lord Thurlow. Nature seems to have given LACON, 49 him a head of crystal, and nerves of brass. I shall quote his reply to a deputation from the dissenters, as highly characteristic of the man. — They had waited on him by appointment, to request that he would give them his vote for the repeal of the test act. They were shown into the library, where a plentiful collation had been prepared. They thought themselves sure of success, but they reckoned without their host, who at length made his appear- ance. He listened to a long harangue with much patience : — when it was finished, he rose up, and addressed them : ' Gentlemen, you have called on me to request my vote for the repeal of the test act. — Gentlemen, I shall not vote for the repeal of the test act. I care not whether your religion has the ascendency, or mine, or any, or none ; but this I know, that when you were uppermost, you kept us down, and now that we are uppermost, with God's help we will keep you down.' In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here ; to give the subject all the dignity it so fully de- serves, without attaching any importance to our- selves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, or too humbly of himself. This is that secret art which captivates and im- proves an audience, and which all who see, will fancy they could imitate, while most who try will fail. * Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret, 4 Ausus idem.'* The most disinterested of all gifts, are those which kings bestow on undeserving favourites ; — * He that undertakes this business will toil in vain,—FW' 5 50 Lx\CON ( first, because they are purely at the expense of the donor's character ; and secondly, because they are sure to be repaid with ingratitude. In fact, honours and titles so conferred, or rather so misplaced, dis- honour the giver, without exalting the receiver ; they are a splendid sign, to a wretched inn ; an illuminated frontispiece, to a contemptible missal ; a lofty arch overshadowing a gutter. Court minions lifted up from obscurity by their vices, and splen- did, only because they reflect the xays of royal munificence, may be compared to those fogs, which the sun raises up from the swamp, merely to ob- scure the beams, which were the cause of their elevation. Some men who know that they are great, are so very haughty withal and insufferable, that their acquaintance discover their greatness, only by tlio tax of humility, which they are obliged to pay, as the price of their friendship. Such characters are as tiresome and disgusting in the journey of life, as rugged roads are to the weary traveller, which lie discovers to be turnpikes, only by the toll A certain degree of labour and exertion seems to have been allotted us by Providence, as the con- dition of humanity. ' In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread ;' this is a curse which has proved a blessing in disguise. And those favoured few, who, by their rank, or their riches, are exempted from all exertion, have no reason to be thankful for the privilege. It was the observation of this neces- sity, that led the ancients to say, that the gods sold us every thing, but gave us nothing. Water, how- ever, which is one of the great necessaries of life, L A C O N . 51 may, in genera], be gratuitously procured ; but it has been well observed, that if bread, the other great necessary of human life, could be procured on terms equally cheap and easy, there would be much more reason to fear, that men would become brutes, for the want of something to do, rather than philosophers, from the possession of leisure. And the facts seem to bear out the theory. In all coun- tries, where nature does the most, man does the least ; and where she does but little, there we shall find the utmost acme of human exertion. — Thus, Spain produces the worst farmers, and Scotland the best gardeners ; the former are the spoilt chil- dren of indulgence, the latter, the hardy offspring of endeavour. The copper, coal, and iron, of England, inasmuch as they cost much labour to dig, and ensure a still further accumulation of it when dug, have turned out to be richer mines to us, than those of Potosi and Peru. The posses- sors of the latter have been empoverished by their treasures, while we have been constantly enriched by our exertions. Our merchants, without being aware of it, have been the sole possessors of the philosopher's stone, for they have anticipated most of the wealth of Mexico before it arrived in Eu- rope, by transmuting their iron and their coppe* into gold. The road to glory would cease to he arduous, if it were trite and trodden ; and great minds must always be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them. Alexander dragged the Pythian priestess to the temple on a forbidden day. — She exclaimed, { My son, thou art invincible? which was oracle enough for him.— On a second occasion, m LACO N, he cut the Gordian knot which others had in vain attempted to untie. — Those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of Actason, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. They must be able to simu- late and dissimulate, to leap and to creep ; to con- quer the earth like Caesar, to fall down and kiss it like Brutus ; to throw their sword like Brennus into the trembling scale ; or like Nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them. — That policy that can strike only while the iron is hot, will be overcome by that perseverance, which, like Crom- well's can make the iron hot by striking ; and he that can only rule the storm, must yield to him who can both raise and rule it. Some frauds succeed from the apparent candour, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingen- uousness that is thrown around them. The slight- est mystery would , excite suspicion, and ruin all. — Such stratagems *may be compared to the stars, they are discoverable by darkness and hidden only by light, Some one in casting up his accounts, put down a very large sum per annum for his idleness. — But there is another account more awful than that of ouii*> expenses, in which many will find that their idleness has mainly contributed to tbe balance against them. From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil : as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb, which says, that, The devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the L A C O N. 53 devil. Prince Eugene informed a confidential friend, that in the course of his life, he had been exposed to many Potiphars, to all of whom he had proved a Joseph, merely because he had so many other things to attend to There is no quality of the mind, or of the body, that so instantaneously and irresistibly captivates, as wit. An elegant writer has observed that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. He that deserts the lat- ter, and gives himself up entirely to the guidance of the former, will certainly fall into many pitfalls and quagmires, like him, who walks by flashes of lightning, rather than by the steady beams of the sun. The conquest, therefore, of wit over the mind, is not like that of the Romans over the body ; a conquest regulated by policy, and perpetuated by prudence ; a conquest that conciliated all that it subdued, and improved all that it conciliated. The triumphs of wit should rather be compared to the inroads of the Parthians, splendid^ but transient ; a victory succeeded by surprise, and indebted more to the sharpness of the arrow, than the strength of the arm, and to the rapidity of an evolution, rather than the solidity of a phalanx. Wit, however, is one of the few things which has been rewarded more often than it has been defined. A certain bishop said to his chaplain : What is wit ? Thle chaplain replied, The rectory of B . . . . is vacant, give it to me, and that will be wit. Prove it, said his Lordship, and you shall have it : It would be a good thing well applied, rejoined the chaplain. The din- ner daily prepared for the Royal chaplains at St lames', was reprieved for a time from suspension, 5* 54 •■ LACON. by an effort of wit. King Charles had appointed a day for dining with his chaplains ; and it was understood that this step was adopted as the least unpalatable mode of putting an end to the dinner. It was Dr. South's turn to say the grace : and whenever the king honoured his chaplains with his presence, the prescribed formula ran thus : * God save the king, and bless the dinner.' Our witty divine took the liberty of transposing the words, by saying, ' God bless the king, and save the dinner.' ' And it shall be saved,' said the monarch. It is not so difficult to fill a comedy with good repartee, as might be at first imagined, if we con- sider how completely both parties are in the power of the author. The blaze of wit in the School for Scandal, astonishes us less, when we remember that the writer had it in his power to frame both the question, and the answer ; the reply, and the rejoinder ; the time and the place. He must be a poor proficient, who cannot keep up the game, when the ball, the wall, and the racket, are at his sole command. The clashing interests of society, and the double, yet equal and contrary demands arising out of them, where duty and justice are constantly opposed to gratitude and inclination, these things must make the profession of a statesman, an office neither easy nor enviable. It often happens that such men have only a choice of evils, and that, in adopting either, the discontent will be certain, the benefit precarious. It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choos- ing between a good and an eviL ; and still more sel- dom, that they can boast of that fortunate situation* LACON. 55 where, like the great Duke of Marlborough, they are permitted to choose between two things that are good. His Grace was hesitating whether he should take a prescription recommended by the Dutchess : ' I will be hanged/ said he, ' if it does not cure you.' Dr. Garth who was present, in- stantly exclaimed, ' Take it then, your Grace, by all manner of means, it is sure io do good one way or the other V Hurry and Cunning are the two apprentices of Despatch and Skill ; but neither of thein ever learn their master's trade. Success seems to be that which forms the dis- tinction between confidence and conceit. Nelson, when young, w^as piqued at not being noticed m a certain paragraph of the newspapers, which detailed an action wherein he had assisted : * But never mind,' said he, ' I will one day have a gazette of my own.' The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date. None are so seldom found alone, and are so soon tired of their own company, as those coxcombs who are on the best terms with themselves. Some historians, like Tacitus, Burnet, and the Abbe Raynal, are never satisfied, without adding to their detail of events, the secret springs and causes that have produced them, But, both heroes and 56 LAC ON. statesmen, amid the din of arms, and the hurry of business, are too often necessitated to invert the natural order of things ; to fight before they delib- erate, and decide before they consult. A states- man may regulate himself by events, but it is sel- dom that he can cause events to regulate them- selves by him. It often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together, a main plot and an under plot ; and he that understands only one of them, will, in ail prob- ability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favourite may rule the mistress. Doctor Busby was asked how he contrived to keep all his preferments, and the head mastership of Westminster School, through the suc- cessive, but turbulent reigns of Charles the First, Oliver Cromwell, Charles the Second, and James; he replied, ' The fathers govern the nation ; the mothers govern the fathers : the boys govern the mothers ; and I govern the boys J Fortune has been considered the guardian divin- ity of fools ; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness ; but it should rather be ad- duced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who certainly cannot help. themselves. Literary prizes, and academical honours, arc lau- dable objects of any young man's ambition ; they are the proofs of present merit, and the pledges of future utility. But, when hopes excited within the cloister, are not realized beyond it ; when academ- ical rewards, produce not. public advantage, the general voice will not squander away upon the bios* som, that praise and gratitude, which it reserves LACON 57 only for the fruit. Let those, therefore, who have been successful in their academic career, be careful to maintain their speed, ' servetur ad imum]* other- wise these petty kings within the walls of their colleges, will find themselves dethroned monarchs when they mix with the world ; a world through which, like Theodore,! they will be doomed to wan- der out of humour with themselves, and useless to society ; exasperated at all who do not recognise their former royalty, and commiserate their present degradation. The Senior Wrangler, of a certain year, piping hot from the Senate House at Cam- bridge, went to the play at Drury-Lane. It so hap- pened, that a certain great personage entered at the same moment, on the other side of the house, but unobserved by the mathematician. The whole house testified their respect, by a general rising and clapping of hands. Our astonished academic instantly exclaimed, to the no small amusement of his London friends, * Well, well, this is more than I expected ; how is it possible that these good people should so soon have discovered that I am the Senior Wrangler? Men spend their lives in anticipations, in deter- mining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as w x e would lay in a stock of wine ; but if we defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. * Save it Hill the task— "Pub* t Iting of Corsica. 58 LAC ON. Let our happiness, therefore, be a modest mansion, which we can inhabit while we have our health and vigour to enjoy it ; not a fabric, so vast and expen- sive that it has cost us the best part of our lives to build it, and which we can expect to occupy only when we have less occasion for a habitation than a tomb. It has been well observed, that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy. Let us do nothing to forfeit his esteem, and treat him with respect, not with ser- vility. But let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old, otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire ; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power .to enjoy. There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practise, either the one or the other.* They die with less sin to answer for than some others, because they have been too busy in disputing about the origin of it, to commit it ; and with little or no religion of their own, from their constant though unavailing assiduities to settle that of other men Charles the Fifth, after his abdication, amused him- self in his retirement at St. Juste, by attempting to make a number of watches go exactly together. Being constantly foiled in this attempt, he exclaimed, ' What a fool have I been, to neglect my own con- * The great Howard, on the contrary, was so fully en- gaged in works of active benevolence, that, unlike Baxter, whose knees were callous by prayer, he left himself but little time to pray. Thousands were praying for hm L A C O N. 59 corns, and to waste ray whole life in a vain attempt to make all men think alike on matters of religion, when I cannot even make a few watches keep time together ! ' His vellem potius nugis tola ista dedisset i Tempora scevitoz. 9 Adroit observers will find, that some who affect to dislike flattery, may yet be flattered indirectly, by a well seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals. Diogenes professed to be no flatterer ; but his cynic raillery was, in other words, flattery ; it fed the ruling passion of the Athenian mob, who were more pleased to hear their superiors abused, than themselves commended. A cool blooded and crafty politician, when he would be thoroughly revenged on his enemy, makes the injuries which have been inflicted, not on himself, but on others, the pretext of his attack. He thus engages the world as a partisan in his quarrel, and dignifies his private hate, by giving it the air of disinterested resentment. When Augustus wished to put in force the Lex Ice see majestatis, for sup- pressing libels and lampoons, he took care to do it, says Aurelius, not in his own name, but in the name of the majesty of the Roman people. ■ Nam suo nomine compescere erat invidiosum, sub alieno facile, et utile. Ergo specie legis tractabat quasi majestas populi Romani infamaretur.^ * O that he hadgivenlo these trifles all those days of cruelty. ^For it was invidious to check them in his own name, but easy and expedient to do it under another; therefore, he con- trived, the law in such form, as if the majesty of the Roman people was insulted. — 3?ub. 60 LACON. Pettifoggers in law., and empirics in medicine whether their patients lose or save their property, or their lives, take care to be, in either case, equally remunerated ; they profit by both horns of the dilemma, and press defeat, no less than success, into their service. They hold from time immemo- rial, the fee-simple of a vast estate, subject to no alienation, diminution, revolution, nor tax ; the folly and ignorance of mankind. Over this extensive domain, they have long had, by undisputed usance, the sole management and control, inasmuch as the real owners most strenuously and sturdily disclaim all right, title, and proprietorship therein. &vha; Sciolists have discovered a short path to celebrity. Having heard that it is a vastly silly thing to believe every thing, they take it for granted, that it must be a vastly wise thing to believe nothing, They therefore set up for freethinkers ; but theil: only stock in trade is, that they are free from thinking. It is not safe to contemn them, nor very easy to convince them ; since no persons make so large a demand against the reason of others, as those who have none of their own ; as a highway- man will take greater liberties with our purse, than our banker. The pope conducts himself towards our Heavenly master, as a knavish steward does to an earthly one. He says to the tenants, you may continue to neglect my master's interests as much as you please, but keep on good terms with me, and I will take care that you shall be on good terms with, my master.* * In the book of Religious Rates, registered in the court ■^f France, in the year 1G99, are the following items : Abso- LACON. CI When the great Frederick, the enlightened phi- losopher of Sans Souci, heard of the petitions and remonstrances sent to the throne from our towns and counties, he was heard to exclaim, ' Ah, why am not I their king ? with a hundred thousand of my troops round the throne, and a score or two of executioners in my train, I should soon make those proud islanders as dutiful as they are brave, and myself the first monarch in the universe? But it would have been only by and with a parliament that he could have raised any supplies ; and Charles the First, might have taught him the danger of attempting to reign without one. Either his hun- dred thousand men would have mutinied for want of pay, or, if he had attempted to support them by unconstitutional measures, his executioners might eventually be called upon to perform a tragedy, in which this adventurous monarch himself might have been under the awkward necessity of per- forming the principal part. There are a vast number of easy, pliable, good- natured human expletives in the world, who are just what that world chooses to make them ; they glitter without pride, and are affable without humility ; they sin without enjoyment, and pray without devo- tion ; they are charitable, not to benefit the poor, but to court the rich ; profligate without passion, they are debauchees, to please others and to punish themselves. — Thus, a youth without fire, is fol- lowed by an old age without experience, and they lution for apostacy, 80 livres ; for bigamy, 10,050 ; ditto for homicide, 95; dispensation for a great irregularity, 50 livres j dispensation from vows of chastity, 15. 6 T* 62 LAC ON. continue to float down tlie tide of time, as circumstan- ces or chance may dictate, divided between God and the world, and serving both, but rewarded by neither. In the obscurity of retirement, amid the squalid poverty and revolting privations of a cottage, it has often been my lot to witness scenes of magnanimity and self-denial, as much beyond the belief, as the practice of the great; a heroism borrowing no support, either from the gaze of the many or the admiration of the few, yet flourishing amidst ruins, and on the confines of the grave ; a spectacle as stupendous in the moral world, as the Falls of Ni- agara, in the natural ; and, like that mighty cata- ract, doomed to display its grandeur, only where there are no eyes to appreciate its magnificence. Lady Mary Wortly Montague observed, that in the whole course of her long and extensive travels, she had found but two sorts of people, men and women. This simple remark was founded on no small knowledge of human nature ; but, we might add, that even this distinction, narrow as it is, is now gradually disappearing ; for some of our beaux, are imitating the women, in every thing that is little, and some of our women are imitating the men, in every thing that is great. Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Stael, have proved that there is no sex in style ; and Madame La Roche Jacqueline, and the Dutchess d'An- gouleme, have proved that there is no sex in courage. Barbarous or refined, in rags or in ruffles, at St. Giles's or St. James's, covered with the skins of quadrupeds, or the costly entrails of an insect, we are in essentials the same. We pursue the same L A C N . 83 good, and fly the same evils ; we loathe and love, and hope and fear, from causes that differ little in themselves, but only in their circumstances and modifications. Hence, it happens, that the irony of Lucian, the discriminations of Theophrastus, the strength of Juvenal, and the wit of Horace, are felt and relished alike by those who have inhaled the clear air of the Partheon, the skies of Italy, or the fogs of London ; and have been alike admired on the banks of the Melissus, the Tiber, or the Thames. A Scotch highlander was taken prisoner by a tribe of Indians, his life was about to be sacri- ficed, when the chief adopted him as his son. They carried him into the interior ; he learned their lan- guage, assumed their habits, and became skilful in the use of their arms. After a season, the same tribe began their route to join the French army, at that time opposed to the English. It was neces- sary to pass near to the English lines during the night. Very early in the morning, and it was spring, the old chief roused the young highlander from his repose : he took him to an eminence and pointed out to him the tents of his countrymen. The old man appeared to be dreadfully agitated, and there was a keen restlessness in his eye. After a pause : * I lost,' said he, ' my only son, in the battle with your nation ; are you the only son of your father ? and do you think that your father is yet alive V The young man replied, ' I am the only son of my father, and hope that my father is yet alive V They stood close to a beautiful mag- nolia, in full blossom. The prospect was grand and enchanting, and all its charms were crowned by the sun, which had fully emerged from the ho- rizon. The old chief, looking steadfastly at his LACO N, 64 companion, exclaimed, ' Let thy heart rejoice at the beauty of the scene ! to me it is a desert ; but you are free ; return to your countrymen, revisit your father, that he may again rejoice when ho sees the sun rise in the morning, and the trees blossom in the spring !' False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities. Some arguments may be compared to wheels, where half a turn will put every thing upside down that is attached to their peripheries ; but if we complete the circle, all things will be just where w r e found them. Hence, it is common to say, that arguments that prove too much, prove nothing. I once heard a gentleman affirm, that all mankind were governed by a strong and overruling influence, which deter- mined all their actions, and over which they had no control ; and the inference deducible from such a position was, that there was no distinction be- tween virtue or vice. Now, let us give this mode of reasoning full play. A murderer is brought be- fore a judge, and sets up this strong and overruling propensity as a justification of his crime. Now, the judge, even if he admitted the plea, must, on the criminal's own showing, condemn him to death. He would thus address the prisoner : You had a strong propensity to commit a murder, and this, you say, must do away the guilt of your crime ; but I have a strong propensity to hang you for it, and this, I say, must also do away the guilt of your punishment. Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in them- LA CON. 65 selves than in others. Doctor Johnson was pro- nounced to be an improducible man, by a cour- tier ; and Dr. Watson was termed an impracticable man, by a king. A ship may be well equipped, both as to sails and as to guns, but if she be des- titute of ballast, and of rudder, she can neither right with effect, nor fly with adroitness ; and she must strike, to a vessel less strong, but more manage- able : and so it is with men ; they may have the gifts both of talent and of wit, but unless they have also prudence and judgment to dictate the when, the where, and the how, those gifts are to be exerted, the possessors of them will be doomed to conquer only where nothing is to be gained, but to be defeated where every thing is to be lost ; they will be outdone by many men of less brilliant, but. more convertible qualifications, and whose strength in one point, is not counterbalanced by any disproportion in another. Disappointed men, who think they have talents, and who hint that their talents have not been properly rewarded, usually finish their career by writing their own his- tory ; but in detailing their misfortunes, they only let us into the secret of their mistakes ; and, in accusing their patrons of blindness, make it appear that they ought rather to have accused them of sagacity ; since it would seem that they saw too much, rather than too little ; namely, that second- rate performances were too often made the founda- tion of first-rate pretensions. Disappointed men, in attempting to make us weep at the injustice of one patron, or the ingratitude of another, only make us smile at their own denial of self-importance which they have, and at their assumption of a phi- losophic indifference which they have not, 6* €6 LACON. Love may exist without jealousy, although this is rare; but jealousy may exist without love, and this is common : for jealousy can feed on that which is bitter, no less than on that which is sweet, and is sustained by pride, as often as by affection. There are three modes of bearing the ills of life ; by indifference, which is the most common ; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious ; and by religion, which is the most effectual. It has been acutely said, that 'philosophy readily triumphs over past or future evils, but that present evils triumph over philosophy. 9 Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth : she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs ; she can teach us to hear of the calamities of others with magnanimity ; but it is religion only that can teach us to bear our own with resignation. There are some frauds so well conducted, that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them. A wise man, therefore, may be duped as well as a fool ; but the fool publishes the triumph of his deceiver ; the wise man is silent, and denies that triumph to an enemy which he would hardly concede to a friend ; a triumph that proclaims his own defeat. The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed. But the gilded and the hollow pretext, is pompously placed in the front of show. L A C O N. 67 An act, by which we make one friend, and one enemy, is a losing game ; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude. Our minds are as different as our faces ; we are all travelling to one destination — happiness ; but none are going by the same road. A king of England has an interest in preserving the freedom of the press, because it is his interest to know the true state of the nation, which the courtiers would fain conceal, but of which a free press alone can inform him. Bigotry murders religion, to frighten fools with her ghost. The wisest man may be wiser to-day, than he was yesterday, and to-morrow, than he is to-day. Total freedom from change, would imply total free- dom from error ; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone. The world, however, is very censorious, and will hardly give a man credit for sim- plicity and singleness of heart, who is not only in the habit of changing his opinions, but also of bettering his fortunes by every change. Butler, in his best manner, has ridiculed this tergiversation, by asking : ' What makes all doctrines plain and clear 1 About two hundred pounds a-year. And what was proved quite plain before, Proved false again 1 — Two hundred more.' When, indeed, we dismiss our old opinions and embrace new ones, at the expense of worldly profit and advantage, there mav be some who wll doubt 68 LACON. of our discernment, but there will be none who will impeach our sincerity. He that adopts new opinions at the expense of every worldly comfort, gives proof of an integrity, differing only in de- gree, from that of him, who clings to old ones at the hazard of every danger. This latter effort of integrity has been described by Butler, in a manner which proves that sublimity and wit are not inva- riably disconnected : — ' For loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game ; True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shined upon.' Therefore, when men of admitted talent, and of high consideration, come over to truth, it is always better, both for their own and future times, that they should come over unto her, for herself alone ; that they should embrace her as a naked and un- portioned virgin, an ' Indotata Virgo?* most adorned, when deprived of all extrinsic adornment, and most beautiful, when she has nothing but herself to be- stow. But, in the civil, no less than in the eccle- siastical horizon, there will ever be some wandering stars, whose phases we may predict, and whose aspects we may calculate, because we know the two forces that regulate their motions ; they are, the love of profit, and the love of praise ; but, as these two pow r ers happen to be equal and contrary, the career of all bodies, under their joint influence, must be that of a diagonal between the two. A certain non-conformist having accepted of a rich benefice, wished to justify himself to his friend ; he invited him to dinner on a certain day, and ad- * A dower less maiden. — Pub. L A CON, 69 ded, that, he would then show him eight satisfactory reasons for his tergiversation. His friend came, and on his refusing to sit down until he had pro duced his eight reasons, our host pointed to the dinner table, which was garnished by a wife and seven children. Another, on a similar occasion, attempted to exculpate himself by saying, i We must live.'' Dr. Johnson would have replied, * i" see no absolute necessity for that. 1 But if we admit this necessity, it might be answered by another, — that we must also die. We hate some persons because we do not know them ; and we will not know them, because we hate them. The friendships that succeed to such aversions are usually firm, for those qualities must be sterling, that could not only gain our hearts. but conquer our prejudices. But the misfortune is, that we carry these prejudices into things far more serious than our friendships. Thus, there are truths, which some men despise, because they hav^ not examined, and which they will not examine, because they despise. There is one single instance on record, where this kind of prejudice was over- come by a miracle ; — but the age of miracles is past, while that of prejudice remains. The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves .are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to authors, that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon. It is extremely easy to be as ego- tistical as Montaigne, and as conceited as Rous- seau ; but it is extremely difficult to be as enter- taining as the one, or as eloquent as the other, 70 LACON. Men whose reputation stands deservedly nigh as writers, have often miserably failed as speakers : their pens seem to have been enriched at the ex- pense of their tongues. Addison and Gibbon at- tempted oratory in the senate, only to fail. ' The gGod speakers,' says Gibbon, 'filled, me loith despair. the bad ones with apprehension? And in more mo- dern times, the powerful depicter of Harold, and the elegant biographer of. Leo, have both failed in oratory ; the capital of the former is so great in many things, that he can afford to fail in one. But to return, many reasons might be offered to recon- cile that contradiction which my subject seems to involve. In the first place, those talents that con- stitute a line writer, are more distinct from those that constitute an orator, than might be at first, supposed ; 1 admit that they may be sometimes accidentally, but never necessarily combined. — That the qualifications for writing and those for eloquence, are in many points distinct, would ap- pear from the converse of the proposition, for there have been many fine speakers, who have proved themselves bad writers. There is good ground for believing that Mr. Pitt would not have shone as an author ; and the attempt of Mr. Fox in that arena, has added nothing to his celebrity. Abstraction of thought, seclusion from popular tumult, occa- sional retirement to the study, a diffidence in our own opinions, a deference to those of other men, a sensibility that feels every thing, a humility that arrogates nothing, are necessary qualifications for a writer ; but their very opposites would perhaps be preferred by an orator. He that has spent much of his time in a study, will seldom be collected enough to think in a crowd, or confident enough to LA CON. 7] talk in one. We may also add, that mistakes of the pen in the study, may be committed without publicity, and rectified without humiliation. But mistakes of the tongue, committed in the senate, never escape with impunity. ' Fugit irrcvocabile verbum.'* Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator. As writers, the most timid may boggle twenty times in a day with their- pen, and it is their own fault if it be known even to their valet ; but, as orators, if they chance to boggle once with their tongue, the detection is as public as the delinquency ; the punishment is irremis- sible, and immediately follows the offence. It is the knowledge and the fear of this, that destroys their eloquence as orators, who have sensibility and taste for writing, but neither collectedness nor confidence for speaking ; for fear not only magni- fies difficulties, but diminishes our power to over- come them, and thus doubly debilitates her victims. But another cause of their deficiency as orators, who have shone as writers, is this, ' mole ruunt sua ;' they know they have a character to support by their tongue, which they have previously gained by their pen. They rise, determined to attempt more than other men, and for that very reason they effect less, and doubly disappoint their hearers. They miss of that which is clear, obvious, and ap- propriate, in a laboured search after that which is far-fetched, recondite, and refined; like him that * The word uttered is irrevocable. — Pub. 72 LAC ON. would lain give us better bread than can be made of wheat. Affectation is the cause of this error, disgust its consequence, and disgrace its punish ment. Sensibility would be a good portress, if she had but one hand ; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain. It would be most lamentable if the good things of this world were rendered either more valuable, or more lasting ; for, despicable as they already are, too many are found eager to purchase them, even i.: L rice of their souls!* Kope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker ; but his drafts are seldom honoured, since there is often a heavy balance against him, because he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die. We might perhaps with truth affirm, that all nations £a, at all times, enjoy exactly as much liberty as they deserve, and no more. But it is * That the wicked prosper in the world, that they come into no misfortune i ike other folks, neither are they plagued like other men, is a doctrine that divines should not broach too frequently in the present day. For there are some so completely absorbed in present things, that they would sub- scribe to that blind and blasphemous wish of the marshal and duke of Biron, who, on hearing an ecclesiastic observe, that those whom God had forsaken and deserted as incor- r igible,were permitted their full swing of worldly pleasures, the gratification of all their passions, and a long life of sensuality, affluence, and indulgence, immediately replied, That he should be most happy to be so forsaken.' LACON. n evident this observation applies only to those nations that are strong enough to maintain their independence ; because a country may be over- whelmed by a powerful neighbour, as Greece by Turkey, Italy by France ; or a state may be made the victim of a combination of other states, as Poland, or Saxony, or Genoa ; and it is not meant to affirm that all of these enjoy as much liberty as they deserve : for nations, as well as individuals, are not exempted from some evils, for the causes of which they cannot justly accuse themselves. But if we return to our first position, we might perhaps with truth affirm, that France, in the commence- ment of her revolution, was too mad, that during the reign of terror she was too cowardly, and under the despotism of Napoleon, too ambitious, to be worthy of so great a blessing as liberty. Sho is now gradually becoming more rational, and, in the same proportion, more free. Of some of the other nations of Europe, we might observe, that Portugal and Spain are too ignorant and bigoted for freedom, ■' populus vult decipi;'* that Russia is too barbarous ; and Turkey, in all points, too de- based, and too brutalized, to deserve to be free ; for as the physically blind can have no light, so the intellectually blind can have no liberty ; Germany, inasmuch as she seems to merit freedom the most, will probably first attain it ; but not by assassina- tion; for power uses the dungeon, when despair uses the dagger. In England, we enjoy quite as much liberty as we are worthy or capable of, if we consider the strong and deep ramifications of that corruption that pervades us. It is a corruption not * The people are loilling to be deceived. — Tub. 74 LACOK. restricted to the representative, but commencing with the constituent ; and if the people are sold by- others, it is because they have first sold themselves. If mercy is doubly blessed, corruption is doubly cursed ; cursed be it then, both ' in him that gives^ and in him that takes J for no man falls without a stumbling-block, nor yields without a tempter. In confirmation of what has been advanced above, we might also add, that all national benefits, of which liberty is the greatest, form as complete and visible a part of God's moral administration already begun, as those blessings that are particular and individu- al; we might even say, that the former, are more promptly and punctually bestowed than the latter ; because nations, in their national capacity, can exist only on earth; and, therefore, it is on earth alone, that as nations, they can be punished or rewarded ; but individuals will exist in another state, and in that they will meet a full and final retribution. It is a moral obligation, therefore, on nations, to defend their freedom, and by defending, to deserve it. Noble minds, when struggling for their liberties, often save themselves by their firmness, and always inspire others by their example. Therefore, the reign of terror to which France submitted, has been more justly termed ' the reign of cowardice^ One knows not which most to execrate ; the nation that could submit to suffer such atrocities, or that low and bloodthirsty demagogue that, could inflict them. France, in succumbing to such a wretch as Robes- pierre, exhibited not her patience, but her pusil- lanimity. I have read of a king of Spain, who having inadvertently expressed some compassion for one of the victims at an auto defe, was con- demned to lose one quart of his blood, which the LACON. 75 inquisitor-general insisted should be publicly burnt by the hands of the common hangman, in the great square of Madrid. Here again, we know not which most to despise, the monarch that could sub- mit to such a sentence, or the proud priest that could pronounce it ; and the most galling of all fet- ters, those riveted by superstition, well befitted that people, that could tamely behold such an insult offered to their king. This then seems to be the upshot of what has been advanced, that liberty is the highest blessing that a nation can enjoy ; that it must be first deserved before it can be enjoyed, and that it is the truest interest of the prince, no less than of the people, to employ all just and honest means, that it may be both deserved and enjoyed. But as civil liberty is the greatest blessing, so civil discord is the greatest curse, that can befall a nation ; and a people should be as cautious of straining their privilege, as a prince his prerogative ; for the true friend of both, knows that either, if they submit to encroachments to-day, are only pre- paring for themselves greater evils for to-morrow — humiliation or resistance. But as corruption can- not thrive where none will submit to be corrupted, so also oppression cannot prosper, where none will submit to be enslaved. Rome had ceased to be tenanted by Romans, or Nero would not have dared to amuse himself with his fiddle, nor Caligula with his horse. There are many books, written by many men, from which two truths only are discoverable by the readers ; namely, that the writers thereof wanted two things — principle and preferment. 70 L A C N, Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but unlike the magnet, it has no at- tractive pole, but at all points repels. Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say ; but, from their conduct one would sup- pose that they were born with two tongues, and one eye ; for those talk the most, who have ob- served the least, and obtrude their remarks upon every thing, who have seen into nothing. Reform is a good, replete with paradox ; it is a cathartic which our political quacks, like our med ical, recommend to others, but will not take them- selves ; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can ; it is thought pregnant with danger, for all time that is present, but would have been extremely profitable for that which is past, and will be highly salutary for that which is to come ; therefore it has been thought expedient for all administrations which have been, or that will be, but by any particular one which is, it is con- sidered, like Scotch grapes, to be very seldom ripe, and by the time it is so, to be quite out of season. As in literature we shall find some things that are true, and some that are new, but very few things that are both true and new ; so also in life, we shall find some men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both grea* and good ; * Hoc opus, hie labor est. 1 * * This is the labour, this the toil. — Pcb. LA CON. 77 It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors ; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are pre- judiced in favour of that which is old. Home Tooke* obtained a double triumph over the Hermes of Mr. Harris, for he not only extirpated old errors, but planted new truths in their place. He came to the ' Terra Incognita? as the settler to an unculti- vated tract. He found the soil as dark with error, and as stubborn with prejudice, as that of the forest with trees and with roots : he had to clear, before he could cultivate, and to smooth before he could sow. Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this with- out contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts. Most theorists may be compared to the grandfather of the great Frede- * This gentleman's political principles were too violent and too gloomy ; but all parties will give their suffrages to the brilliancy of his talents, and his grammatical labours cannot be appreciated too highly. An English Dictionary ' from such hands would have "been indeed a treasure. I have elsewhere observed, that we put up with Johnson's Dictionary for want of a better, as a mal-government is better than a state of total confusion. Dr. Johnson reversed the sneer passed upon lexicographers, for he is more often wrong in his comprehension of one word than of two put together. But when we consider that the l Diversions of Purley' proceeded from the same pen that beat Junius at his own weapons, we then know not which most to admire, the author's knowledge of single words, or of words put together. The critics could not quite forget his politics in their appreciation of his powers, and there were some who would have broken his head, if they could have done it without exposing his brains. 78 LA CON. rick, who was wont to amuse himself, during his fits of the gout, by painting likenesses of his gren- adiers , if the picture did not happen to resemble the grenadier, he settled the matter by painting the grenadier to the picture. To change the illus- tration, we might say, that theories may be admired for the ingenuity that has been displayed in build- ing them ; but they are better for a lodging than a habitation, because the scaffolding is often stronger than the house, and the prospects continually liable to be built out by some opposite speculator • nei- ther are these structures very safe in stormy weather, and are in need of constant repair, which can never be accomplished without much trouble, and always at a great expense of truth. Of modern theorists, Gall and Spurzheim are too ridiculous even to be laughed at ; we admire Locke and Hartley, for the profundity and ingenuity of their illustrations ; and Lavater for his plausibility ; but none of them for their solidity. Locke, however, was an exception to this paradox so generally to be observed in theorists, who, like Lord Monboddo, are the most credulous of men with respect to what confirms theory, but perfect infidels as to any facts that oppose it. Mr. Locke, I believe, had no opinions which he would not most readily exchange for truth. A traveller showed Lavater two por- traits ; the one of a highwayman who had been broken upon a wheel, the other was the portrait of Kant the philosopher ; he was desired to distin- guish between them. Lavater took up the portrait of the highwayman , after attentively considering it for some time, ' Here,' says he, ' we have the true philosopher, here is penetration in the eye, and reflection in the forehead ; here is cause, and there LACON. 79 is cflect , here is combination, there is distinction ; synthetic lips ! and an analytic nose !' Then turning to the portrait of the philosopher, he exclaims, ' The calm thinking villain is so well, expressed, and so strongly marked in this countenance, that it needs no comment.' This anecdote Kant used to tell with great glee. Dr. Darwin informs us, that the reason why the bosom of a beautiful woman is an object of such peculiar delight, arises from hence ; that all our first pleasurable sensations of warmth, sustenance, and repose, are derived from this inte- resting source. This theory had a fair run, until some one happened to reply, that all who were brought up by hand, had derived their first pleasu- rable sensations from a very different source, and yet that not one of all these had ever been known to evince any very rapturous or amatory emotions at the sight of a wooden spoon ! ! It is better to be laughed at, than ruined ; bettei to have a wife, who, like Martial's Mamurra, cheapens every thing, and buys nothing, than to be empoverished by one whose vanity will purchase every thing, but whose pride will cheapen nothing. He that can charm a whole company by singing, and at the age of thirty, has no cause to regret so dangerous a gift, is a very extraordinary, and I may add, a very fortunate man. Those characters, who, like Yentidius, spring from the very dregs of society, and going through every gradation of life, continue like him, to rise with every change, and who never quit a single step in the ladder, except it be to gain a higher one, SO LACON, these men are superior to fortune, and know how to enjoy her caresses without being the slaves of her caprice. But those with whom she can com- plete the circle, whom she can elevate from the lowest stations into the highest, detrude them again, and lastly leave them where she found them, these are the roturiers, that only serve to make her sport ; they are her mines, and her pantomimes, her harlequins, and her buffoons. In answering an opponent, arrange your ideas, but not your words : consider in what points things that resemble, differ ; and in w T hat those things that differ, resemble ; reply with wit to gravity, and with gravity to wit ; make a full concession to your adversary, and give him every credit for those arguments you know r you can answer, and slur over those you feel you cannot ; but above all, if lie have the privilege of making his reply, take especial care that the strongest thing you have to urge is the last. He must immediately get up and say something, and if he be not previously pre- pared with an answer to your last argument, he will infallibly be boggled, for very few possess that remarkable talent of Charles Fox, who could talk on one thing, and at the same time think of another. A great mind may change its objects, but it can not relinquish them ; it must have something to pursue : Variety is its relaxation, and amusement its repose. Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship ; and when they hear us LAO ON. SI praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can. That historian who would describe a favourite character, as faultless, raises another at the expense of himself. Zeuxis made five virgins contribute their charms to his single picture of Helen ; and it is as vain for the moralist to look for perfection in the mind, as for the painter to expect to find it in the body. In fact, the sad realities of life give us no great cause to be proud either of our minds, or of our bodies ; but we can conceive in both, the pos- sibility of much greater excellence than exists. The statue of the Belvidere Apollo, is quite as likely to be married, as he that will have no wife until he can discover a woman that equals the Venus of Cleomenes. Always suspect a man who affects great softness of manner, an unruffled evenness of temper, and an enunciation studied, slow^, and deliberate. These things are all unnatural, and bespeak a degree of mental discipline into which he that has no pur- poses of craft or design to answer, cannot submit to drill himself. The most successful knaves are usually of this description, as smooth as razors dipped in oil, and as sharp. — They affect the inno- cence of the dove, which they have not, in order to hide the cunning of the serpent, which they have. Laboured letters, written like those of Pope, yet apparently in all the ease of private confidence, but which the writer meant one day to publish, may he compared to that dishabille in which a beauty 82 LA CON. would wish you to believe you have surprised her, after spending three hours at her toilet- That country where the clergy have the most influence, and use it with the most moderation, is E norland. The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest ; he cannot use his own tools, without cut- ting his own fingers He that will have no books but those that are scarce, evinces about as correct a taste in litera- ture, as he would do in friendship, who would have no friends, but those whom all the rest of the world have sent to Coventry. To excel others is a proof of talent ; but to know when to conceal that superiority, is a greater proof of prudence. The celebrated orator Domi tius Afer, when attacked in a set speech by Caligula, made no reply, affecting to be entirely overcome by the resistless eloquence of the tyrant. Had he replied, he would certainly have conquer- ed, and as certainly have died ; but he wisely pre- ferred a defeat that saved his life, to a victory that would have cost it. It proceeds rather from revenge than malice, when we hear a man affirm that all the world are knaves. For before a man draws this conclusion of the world, the world has usually anticipated him, and concluded all this of him who makes the observation. Such men may be compared to Brothers the prophet, who, on being asked how ho L A C O S . S3 came to be clapped up into Bedlam, replied, I and the world happened to have a slight difference of opinion ; the world said I was mad, and I said the world was mad ; I was outvoted, and here I am Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into greater crimes to avoid less. Henry the eighth committed murder to avoid the imputation of adul- tery ; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife, by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband ! Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates, either of others or of them- selves ; their knowledge of themselves, is obscured by the flattery of others ; their knowledge of others, is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display. Sir Robert Vv r alpole has affirmed^that the greatest dif- ficulty he experienced in finding out others, was the necessity which his high situation imposed upon him, of concealing himself. Great men, however, are in one respect to be blamed, and in another, to be pitied. They are to be blamed for bestowing their rewards on the servile, while they give the independent only their praise. They are to be pitied, inasmuch as they can only view things through the moral obfuscation of flattery, which, like the telescope, can diminish at one end and magnify at the other. And hence it happens, that this vice, though it may be rewarded for a time, usually meets with its punishment in the end. For 84 LACON. the sycophant begins by treating his patron as something more than a man, and the patron very naturally finishes, by treating the sycophant as something less. I think it is Warburton, who draws a very just distinction between a man of true greatness, and a mediocrist. ' If,' says he, ' you want to recom- mend yourself to the former, take care that he quits your society with a good opinion of you ; if your object is to please the latter, take care that he leaves you with a good opinion of himself ? The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country, as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals. Dodding- ton who may be termed one of her darling sons, confesses in his Diary, that the source of all oppo- sition is resentment, or interest, a resolution to pull down those who have offended us, without consid- ering consequences ; a steady and unvarying at- tention to propose every thing that is specious, but impracticable ; to deprecate every thing that is blameless ; to exaggerate every thing that is biameable, until the people desire, and the crown consents, to dismiss those that are in office, and to admit those that are out. There are some patriots of the present day, who would find it as difficult to imitate Sheridan in his principles, as they would in his wit ; and his noble conduct during the mutiny at the Nore, will cover a multitude of sins. There are moments, when all minor considerations ought LACON. 85 to yield to the public safety, < Cavendum est ne quid damni capiat Respublica'* And the opposition of this, or any country, might take a useful hint from what was observed in the Roman senate. While a question was under debate, every one was at freedom to advance his objections, but the question being once determined on, it became the acknow- ledged duty of every member to support the majo- rity ; Quod pluribus placuisset cunctis tuendum?\ Pleasure is to women, what the sun is to the flower : if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves ; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates, and destroys. But the duties of domestic life, exercised as they must be in re- tirement, and calling forth all the sensibilities of the female, are perhaps as necessary to the full development of her charms, as the shade and the shower are to the rose, confirming its beauty, and increasing its fragrance. If dissimulation is ever to be pardoned, it is that which men have recourse to, in order to obtain situations which may enlarge their sphere of gene- ral usefulness, and afford the power of benefiting their country, to those who must have been other- wise contented only with the will. — Liberty was more effectually befriended by the dissimulation of one Brutus, than by the dagger of the other. But such precedents are to be adopted but rarely, and more rarely to be advised. For a Cromwell is a much more common character than a Brutus ; and * Take care that the Republic receive no detriment^-'PvB, t The will of the majority should be respected by all.—FxrB* 8 m LACON. many men who have gained power by an hypocrisy as gross as that of Pope Sixtux, have not used it half so well. This pope, when cardinal, counter- feited sickness, and all the infirmities of age, so well, as to dupe the whole conclave. His name was Montalto ; and on a division for the vacant apostolic chair, he was elected as a stop-gap by both parties, under the idea that he could not pos - sibly live out the year. The moment he was chosen, he threw away his crutches, and began to sing Te Deum with a much stronger voice than his electors had bargained for ; and instead of walking with a tottering step, and a gait almost bending to the earth, he began to walk, not only firm, but per fectly upright. On some one remarking to him on this sudden change, he observed, while I was look- ing for the keys of St. Peter, it was necessary to stoop, but having found them, the case is altered. It is but justice to add, that he made a most excel- lent use of his authority and power ; and although some may have obtained the papal chair by less objectionable means, none have filled it with more credit to themselves, and satisfaction to others. It has been said, that to excel them in wit, is a thing the men find it the most difficult to pardon in women. This feeling, if it produce only emula- tion, is right, if envy, it is wrong. For a high de- gree of intellectual refinement in the female, is the surest pledge society can have for the improve ment of the male. But wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it ; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty. Even Madame de Stael admits that she LAC ON.. 87 discovered, as she grew old, the men could not find out that wit in her at fifty, which she possessed at twenty-five ; and yet the external attractions of this lady, were by no means equal to those of her mind. That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a pro- per distance, will generally succeed. But it some- times happens, that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves, that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve, with a ridiculous con- descension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves. To a bystander, few things are more amusing, than the cross play, underplot, and final eclaircissements, which this mistake invariably occasions. England, with a criminal code the most bloody, and a civil code the most expensive in Europe, can, notwithstanding, boast of more happiness and freedom than any other country under heaven. The reason is, that despotism, and all its minor ramifications of discretionary power, lodged in the hands of individuals, is utterly unknown. The laws are supreme. The Christian does not pray to be delivered from glory, but from vain-glory. He also is ambitious of glory, and a candidate for honour ; but glory, in whose estimation? honour, in whose judgment? Not of those, whose censures can take nothing from his innocence ; whose approbation can take 88 LAC ON. nothing from his guilt ; whose opinions are as fickle as their actions, and their lives as transitory as their praise ; who cannot search his heart, seeing that they are ignorant of their own. The Christian then seeks his glory in the estimation, and his honour in the judgment of Him alone, who, ' From the bright Empyrean where he sits, High throned above all height, casts down his eye, His own works, and man's works, at once to view. 1 The great Remora to any improvement in our civil code, is the reduction that such reform must produce in the revenue. The law's delay, bills of revival, rejoinder, and renewal, empty the stamp office of stamps, the pockets of plaintiff and de- fendant of their money, but unfortunately they fill the exchequer. Some one has said, that injustice, if it be speedy, would, in certain cases, be more desirable than justice, if it be slow ; and although we hear much of the glorious uncertainty of the law, yet all who have tried it will find, to their cost, that it can boast of two certainties, expense and delay. When I see what strong temptations there are that government should sympathize with the judge, the judge with the counsellor, and the coun- sellor with the attorney, in throwing every possible embarrassment in the way of legal despatch and decision, and when I weigh the humble, but com- parative insignificant interests of the mere plaintiff or defendant, against this combined array of talent, of influence, and power, I am no longer astonished at the prolongation of suits, and I wonder only at their termination.* * Mr. Jeremy Bentham considers litigation a great evil, and deems it the height of cruelty, to load a lawsuit, which L A C O N . 89 It has been asked, which are the greatest minds, and to which do we owe the greatest reverence : 3se 3 who, by the powerful deductions of rea- son, and the well known suggestions of analogy, have made profound discoveries in the science, as it were ' a priori P or to those, who, by the patient road of experiment, and the subsequent improve- ment of instruments, have brought these discoveries to perfection, as it were ' a posteriori f who have rendered that certain, which before was only con- jectural, practical, which was problematical, safe, which was dangerous, and subservient, which was unmanageable ? It would seem that the first class, demand our admiration, and the second, our grati- tude. Seneca predicted another hemisphere, but Columbus presented us with it. He that standing on the shore, foretells with truth, many of the un- discovered treasures of the ocean of science, even is one evil, with taxation, which is another. It would be quite as fair, he thinks, to tax a man for being ill, by enact- ing that no physician should write a prescription without a stamp. Mr. Pitt, on the contrary, considered a lawsuit a luxury, and held that, like other luxuries, it ought to be taxed. ' Westminster Hall.' said he, ' is as open to any man, as the London Tavern ;' to which Mr. Sheridan re- plied, ' he that entered either without money, would meet with a very scurvy reception.' Some will say that the heavy expenses of law prevent the frequency of lawsuits, but the practice does not confirm the theory. Others will say that they originate from men of obstinate and quarrelsome dis- positions, and that such ought to suffer for their folly. There would be something in this, provided, it w T ere not necessary for a wise man to take a shield, when a fool Lias taken a sword. Lawsuits, indeed, do generally originate with the -obstinate and the ignorant, but they do not end with them; and that lawyer was right, who left all his money to the bupport of an asylum for fools and lunatics, saying from such he received it, and to such he would bequeath it, 8* 90 LA CON. before the vessel that is to navigate it, can be fully- equipped for the voyage, gives us a convincing proof of exalted wisdom and of profound penetra- tion. But he that builds the vessel of experi- ment, and actually navigates the wide ocean of science, who, neither intimidated by the risk of failure, nor the expense of the outfit, realizes all that the other had only imagined, and returning laden with the stores of knowledge, communicates liberally, that which he has won so laudably, surely, the attainments of such a man are as fully entitled to our gratitude, as the anticipations of the other to our admiration. Sir Isaac Newton predicted, that both water and the diamond would be found to have an inflammable base, if ever they could be analyzed, a thing at that time uneiTected. He was led to this conclusion, by observing that all bodies possessed of high refractive powers, had an inflam mable base, and water and the diamond have those powers in a high degree. Subsequent experimen- talists have succeeded in analyzing both these sub- stances ; pure carbon is the base of the diamond, and hydrogen, the most inflammable of all airs, is the base of water. When Copernicus promulgated his planetary system, it was objected to it, that Mars and Venus ought to appear to us to be much greater at some periods than at others, because they would be nearer to the earth by so many diameters ; but no such, difference was apparent. The objection was solid, and Copernicus modestly replied, ' that it might be owing to the greatness of their distance.' Tele- scopes were discovered, and then it was found that he was right, and knowledge changed that into a confirmation, which ignorance had advanced as an L A CON. 04 objection. Kant also, in modern times, predicted by analogy those planets beyond Saturn, which Herschell and others have now discovered by ob- servation. Kant had observed, that nature has no chasm in the links of her operations ; that she acts not per saltum* but pedetentim et gradatim^ and that the planetary world could not be made to approximate to, and as it were, shake hands with the cometary, unless there were some planets supe- rior to Saturn, having their orbits still more eccen- tric, and rilling that abyss of unoccupied space, which would otherwise exist between the most eccentric of the planets, and the least eccentric of the comets. This was affirmed by Kant, before HerschelFs forty feet reflector was brought to prove by observation, what he had anticipated by anal- ogy. But it is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance, rather than of contemplation, and of acci- dent rather than of design. Hypocrisy is a cruel stepmother, an ' injusta novercd'X to the honest, whom she cheats of their birthright, in order to confer it on knaves, to whom she is indeed a mother. ' Verily they have their reward? Let them enjoy it, but not accuse the upright, of an ignorance of the world, which might be more fairly retorted on the accuser. He that knows a little of the world, will admire it * At a leap. — Pub. t Step by step, and by degrees. — Pub. % A partial stepmother.- Pub. 92 L AGON. enough to .fall down and worship it ; but he tha knows it most, will most despise it. ' Tinnit, inam est?* Repartee is perfect, when it effects its purpose with a double edge. Repartee is the highest or- der of wit, as it bespeaks the coolest, yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused. Voltaire, on hearing the name of Haller mentioned to him by an English traveller at Ferney, burst forth into a violent panegyric upon him ; his visiter told him that such praise was most disinterested, for that Haller by no means spoke so highly of him. ' Well, well, nHmportc? replied Voltaire, ' perhaps we are both mistaken.' Pain may be said to follow pleasure as it's sha- dow ; but the misfortune is, that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emp- tiness to its cause. By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individu- als, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about, as reasonable, as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart, to browse upon the herbage. A man who knows the world, will not only make the most of every thing he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his * It rings, for it is empty. — Pub. LACON, ^ erudition. In Scotland, the 'jus ct norma loquend?* has made it the fashion to pronounce the law term utr tor, cur tor. Lord Mansfield gravely corrected i certain Scotch barrister when in court, repre- hending what appeared to English usage a false quantity, by repeating, ' cur tor, sir, if you please.' The barrister immediately replied, 'I am happy to be corrected by so great an or tor as your lordship !' Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power, that avarice makes concerning wealth : she begins by accumulating power, as a means to hap- piness, and she finishes by continuing to accumu- late it as an end. Ambition is in fact, the avarice of power, and happiness herself is soon sacrificed to that very lust of dominion, which was first encou- raged only as the best mode of obtaining it. Hyder, like Richard the Third, was observed by one of his most familiar companions, Gholaum Ali, to start frequently in his sleep; he once took the liberty to ask this despot ' of what he had been dreaming V 1 My friend,' replied Hyder, ' the state of a beggar is more delightful than my envied monarchy; awake, they see no conspirators ; asleep, they dream of no assassins.' But ambition will indulge no other passions as her favourites, still less will she bear with them as rivals ; but as her vassals, she can employ them, or dismiss them at her will ; she is cold, because with her all is calculation; she is sys- tematic, because she makes every thing centre in herself; and she regards policy too much, to have the slightest respect to persons. Cruelty or com- passion, hatred or love, revenge or forbearance, are., * The rule and law of elocution. — Pub 94 L A C N . to her votaries, instruments rather than influences, and msans rather than motives. These passions form indeed the disturbing forces of weaker minds, not unfrequently opposing their march and impe- ding their progress ; but ambition overrules these passions, and drawing them into the resistless sphere of her own attraction, she converts them into satellites, subservient to her career and aug- mentative of her splendour.* Yet ambition has not so wide a horizon as some have supposed : It is a horizon that embraces probabilities always, but impossibilities never. Cromwell followed little events before he ven- tured to govern great ones ; and Napoleon never sighed for the sceptre, until he had gained the trun- cheon; nor dreamt of the imperial diadem, until he had first conquered a crown. None of those who gaze at the height of a successful usurper, are more astonished at his sudden elevation, than he himself who has attained it ; but even he was led to it by degrees, since no man aspires to that which is entirely beyond his reach. Caligula was the only tyrant who was ever suspected of longing for the moon ; a proof of his madness, not of his ambi- tion : and if little children are observed to cry for the moon, it is because they fancy they can touch it ; it is beyond their desire, the moment they have discovered that it is beyond their reach. God will excuse our prayers for ourselves, when- ever we are prevented from them by being occu- pied by such good works as will entitle us to the prayers of others. * Sylla was an exception to this rule ; ambition in him was subordinate to revenge. LACO N . 95 Pride often miscalculates, and more often mis- conceives. The proud man places himself at a distance from other men ; seen through that dis- tance, others perhaps appear little to him ; but he forgets that this very distance, causes him to appear equally little to others. The truly great, consider first, how they nay gain the approbation of God ; and secondly, that of their own conscience ; having done this, they would then willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellow-men. But the truly little, reverse the thing ; the primary object with them is to secure the applause of their fellow-men, and having ef- fected this, the approbation of God and their own conscience may follow on as they can. There are some benefits which may be so con- ferred as to become the very refinement of revenge ; and there are some evils, which we had rather bear in sullen silence than be relieved from at the expense of our pride. In the reign of Abdallah the Third, there was a great drought at Bagdad ; the Mohammedan doctors issued a decree that the prayers of the faithful should be offered up for rain ; the drought continued ; the Jews were then per- mitted to add their prayers to those of the true believers ; the supplications of both were ineffec- tual ; as famine stared them in the face, those dogs, the Christians, were at length enjoined also to pray ; it so happened that torrents of rain immediately followed. The whole conclave, with the Mufti at their head, were now as indignant at the cessation of the drought, as they were before alarmed at its continuance. Some explanation was necessary to 96 L A G M the people, and a holy convocation was held ; the members of it came to this unanimous determina- tion : That the God of their Prophet was highly gratified by the prayers of the faithful ; that they were as incense and as sweet smelling savour unto him, and that he refused their requests that he might prolong the pleasure of listening to their sup- plications ; but that the prayers of those Christian infidels were an abomination to the Deity, and that he granted their petitions, the sooner to get rid of their loathsome importunities ! Commenting lore makes a mighty parade, and builds a lofty pile of erudition, raised up like the pyramids, only to embalm some mouldering mum- my of antiquity, utterly unworthy of so laborious and costly a mode of preservation. With very few exceptions, commentators would have been much better employed in cultivating some sense for them- selves, than in attempting to explain the nonsense of others. How can they hope to make us under- stand a Plato, or an Aristotle, in cases wherein it is quite evident that neither of these philosophers understood themselves ? The head of a certain college at Oxford was asked by a stranger, what was the motto of the arms of that university ? He told him that it was l Dominus illuminatio mca?* But he also candidly informed the stranger, that in his private opinion, a motto more appropriate might be found in these words. — ' Aristoteles mew tcne- broe.'f * The Lord my light. — Pub. t Aristotle my darkness. — Pub. LACON. 97 There are two things that speak as with a voice from heaven, that He who fills the eternal throne, must be on the side of virtue, and what he be- friends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is, that the bad are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of every thing that this world can bestow ; and that the good are never completely miserable, although deprived of every thing that this world can take away. For there is one reflection which will obtrude itself, which the best would not, and which the worst cannot dis- miss ; that the time is fast approaching to both of them, when, if they have gained the favour of God, it matters little what else they have lost, but if they have lost his favour, it matters little what else they have gained. The second argument in sup- port of the ultimate superiority of virtue is this : We are so framed and constituted, that the most vicious cannot but pay a secret, though unwilling homage to virtue, inasmuch, as the worst men cannot bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend, nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitterest enemy. From this inward esteem for virtue, which the noblest cherish, and which the basest cannot expel, it fol- lows that virtue is the only bond of union, on which we can thoroughly depend. — Even differences of opinion on minor points, cannot shake those com- binations which have virtue for their foundation, and truth for their end. Such friendships, like those of Luther and Melancthon, should they cease to be friendships of agreement, will continue to be friendships of alliance ; approaching each other by angular lines, when they no longer proceed to- 9 98 L A C O N . getlier by parallel, and meeting at last in one com- mon centre, the good of the cause in which they are embarked. Murmur at nothing ; if our ills are reparable, it is ungrateful ; if remediless it is vain. A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than Stoicism ; he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it had fii ,t pleased God, and that which pleases him must be the best. He is assured that no new thing can befall him, and that he is in the hands of a father who will prove him with no affliction that resignation cannot conquer, or that death cannot cure. It is a mistake, that a lust for power is the mark of a great mind ; for even the weakest have been captivated by it ; and for minds of the highest order, it has no charms. They seek a nobler empire within their own breast ; and He that best knew what was in man, w r ould have no earthly crown, but one that was platted with thorns ! Cincinnatus and Washington were greater in their retirement, than Cesar and Napoleon at the summit of their ambition ; since it requires less magna- nimity to win the conquest, than to refuse the spoil. Lord Bacon has compared those who move in the higher spheres to those heavenly bodies in the firmament, which have much admiration, but little rest. And it is not necessary to invest a wise man with power, to convince him that it is a garment bedizened with gold, which dazzles the beholder by its splendour, but oppresses the wearer by its weight. Besides, those who aspire to govern LAC ON. 99 others, rather than themselves, must descend to meanness which the truly noble cannot brook, nor will such stoop to kiss the earth, although it were like Brutus, for dominion !* Erasmus candidly informs us, that he had not courage enough for a martyr; and expresses his fears, that he should imitate Peter in case of per- secution : ' Non erat animus ob veritatem, capite, periclitari ; non omnes ad martyrium satis habent roboris ; vereor autem si quis incident tumultus, Pe- trum sim imitaturus. 7 f But if Erasmus had not the courage to face danger, he had the firmness to renounce honours and emoluments. He offered up a daily sacrifice, denial, rather than a single sacri- fice, death. He was a powerful agent in the cause of truth, for his writings acted upon the public * Gtuo minus gloriam petebat, eo magis adsequebatur.* When they invited Nunia, (says Dion,) to the sovereign- ty, he for some time refused it, and persisted long in his resolution not to accept the invitation. But, at the pressing instance of his brothers, and at last of his father, who would not suffer him to reject the offer of so great an hon- our, he consented to be a king. As soon as the Romans were informed of all this by the ambassadors, they con- ceived a great affection for him, before they saw him, es- teeming it as a sufficient argument of his wisdom, that while others valued royalty beyond measure, looking upon it as the source of happiness, he alone despised it as a thing of small value, and unworthy his attention, and when he approached the city, met him upon the road, and with great applause, salutations, and other honours, conducted him into Rome. — Dio. H., B. II. t I had not courage to hazard my life for the truth ; all have not strength enough for martyrdom ; I fear if any tumult had arisen, I should have imitated Peter. — Pub. TUe lass he sought for glory, the more surely he obtained it.— Pug 100 L A C O N mind as alteratives upon the body, and gradually prepared men to undergo the effects of the more violent cathartics of Luther ; hence it was not un- common to say, that Luther hatched the egg, but that Erasmus had laid it. Had Erasmus been brought to the stake, and recanted in that situation, I question whether he would have found a better salvo for his conscience, than that of Mustapha, a Greek Christian of Constantinople. This man was much respected by the Turks ; but a curiosity he could not resist, induced him to run the hazard of being present at some of the esoteric ceremonies of the Moslem faith, to see which, is to incur the penalty of death, unless the infidel should atone for the offence by embracing the faith of Mahomet. Mustapha chose the latter alternative, and thus saved his life. As he was known to be a man of strict integrity, he did not escape the remonstran- ces of some of his former friends, to whom he made this excuse for his apostacy : ' I thought it better to trust a merciful God with my soul, than those wretches with my body. 9 He that openly tells his friends, all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies, much that they do not think of him. The greatest friend of Truth is Time, her great- est enemy is Prejudice, and her constant compan- ion is Humility. Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable. LACON. 101 How small a portion of our life it is, that we really enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come ; in old age, we are look- ing backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time. In all governments, there must of necessity be both the law and the sword ; laws without arms would give us not liberty, but licentiousness ; and arms without laws, would produce not subjection but slavery. The law, therefore, should be unto the sword, what the handle is to the hatchet ; it should direct the stroke, and temper the force. { And pride, vouchsafed to all, a common friend.' The poet who wrote this line, evinced a pro- found knowledge of human nature. It has been well remarked, that it is on this principle that the pangs felt by the jealous are the most intolerable, because they are wounds inflicted on them through their very shield, through that pride which is our most common support even in our bitterest misfor- tunes. This pride, which is as necessary an evil in morals, as friction in mechanics, induces men to reiterate their complaints of their own deficien- cies, in every conceivable gift, except in that article alone where such complaints would neither be irrational nor groundless, namely, a deficiency in understanding. Here it is, that self-conceit would 0* 102 L A C O N . conceal the disorder, and submit to the consequen- ces, rather than permit the cure ; and Solomon is the only example on record, of one who made wis- dom the first and the last object of his desires, and left the rest to heaven. Philosophers have widely differed as to the seat of the soul, and St. Paul has told us, that out of the heart proceed murmurings ; but there can be no doubt that the seat of perfect contentment is in the head ; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains. Socrates was so well aware of this, that he would not start as a teacher of truth, but as an inquirer after it. As a teacher, he would have had many disputers, but no disciples : he therefore adopted the humbler mode of investigation, and instilled his knowledge into others, under the mask of seeking information from them. If you have performed an act of great and dis- interested virtue, conceal it ; if you publish it, you will neither be believed here, nor rewarded here- after. Physical courage which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way, and moral cou- rage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp, the latter for the council ; but to constitute a great man, both are necessary. Napoleon accused Murat of a want of the one and he himself has not been wholly unsuspected of a want of the other. LAC ON. 103 There are two things that bestow consequence ; great possessions or great debts.* Julius Cesar consented to be millions of sesterces worse than nothing, in order to be every thing ; he borrowed large sums of his officers, to quell seditions in his troops, who had mutinied for want of pay, and thus forced his partisans to anticipate their own success only through that of their commander. Those who are prejudiced, or enthusiastic, live and move, and think and act. in an atmosphere of their own conformation. The delusion so produced is sometimes deplorable, sometimes ridiculous, al- ways remediless. No events are too great, or too little, to be construed by such persons into peculiar or providential corroboratives or consequences of their own morbid hallucinations. An old maiden lady, who was a most determined espouser of the cause of the Pretender, happened to be possessed of a beautiful canary bird, whose vocal powers were the annoyance of one half of the neighbour hood, and the admiration of the other. Lord Pe- terborough was very solicitous to procure this bird, as a present to a favourite female, who had set her heart on being mistress of this little musical won- der. Neither his lordship's entreaties nor his bribes could prevail ; but so able a negotiator was not easily foiled. He took an opportunity of changing the bird, and of substituting another in its cage during some lucky moment, when its vigi- * The above remark is applicable to states, no less than to individuals. A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm ; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for iier preservation. — Sapienta, verbum sat, 101 LA CON. lant protectress was off her guard • The change- ling was precisely like the original, except in that particular respect which alone constituted its value ; it was ci perfect mute, and had more taste for seeds than for songs. Immediately after this manoeuvre, that battle which utterly ruined the hopes of the Pretender, took place. A decent interval had elapsed, when his lordship summoned resolution to call again on the old lady ; in order to smother all suspicion of the trick he had played upon her, he was about to afTcct. great anxiety for the pos- session of the bird ; she saved him all trouble on that score, by anticipating as she thought his errand, exclaiming, ■ Oho, my lord, then you are come again, I presume, to coax me out of my dear little idol ; but it is all in vain ; he is now dearer to me than ever; I would not part with him for his cage full of gold. Would you believe it, my lord ! From the moment that his gracious sovereign was defeated, the sweet little fellow has not uttered a single note ! ! /' — Mr. Lackington, the great book- seller, when young, was locked up in order to pre- vent his attendance at a methodist meeting in Taunton. He informs us, that in a fit of supersti- tion, he opened the Bible for directions what to do. The very first words he hit upon were these : ' He has given his angels charge over thee, lest at any ti?ne thou dash thy foot against a stone? ' This,' says he, * was quite enough for me ; so without a moment's hesitation, I ran up two pair of stairs to my own room, and out of the window I leaped, to the great terror of m) poor mistress.' It appears that he en- countered more angles in his fall than angels, as he was most intolerably bruised, and being quite unable to rise, was carried back, and put to bed LACON. 105 for a fortnight. l I was ignorant enough,' says he, 1 to think that the Lord had not used me very well on this occasion ;' and it is most likely that he did not put so high a trust in such presages for the future. That writer who aspires to immortality, should imitate the sculptor, if he would make the labours of the pen as durable as those of the chisel. Like the sculptor, he should arrive at ultimate perfection, not by what he adds, but by what he takes away ; otherwise all his energies may be hidden in the su- perabundant mass of his matter, as the finished form of an Apollo, in the unworked solidity of the block. A friend called on Michael Angelo, who was finishing a statue ; some time afterwards he called again : the sculptor was still at his work ; his friend looking at the figure, exclaimed, ' Have you been idle since I saw you last V ' By no means,' replied the sculptor ; ' I have retouched this part and polished that ; I have softened this feature and brought out this muscle ; I have given more expression to this lip, and more energy to this limb.' ' Well, well,' said his friend, ' all these are trifles.' ' It may be so,' replied Angelo ; ' but recollect that trifles make perfection, and that per- fection is no trifle ' If it be true, that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists, and I am inclined to think it is so, it ought to follow that men of weak imagina- tions are the reverse : in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it un fortunately happens that no dogmatist is more ob- stinate, or less open to conviction, than a fool , und the only difference between the tvo would 106 L A C O If . seem to be this, the former is determined to force his knowledge upon others ; the latter is equally determined that others shall not force their know- ledge upon him. The good make a better bargain, and the bad a worse, than is usually supposed ; for the rewards of the one, and the punishments of the other, not unfrequently begin on this side of the grave ; vice has more martyrs than virtue ; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved. But admitting that the vicious may happen to es- cape the tortures of the body, which are so com- monly the wages of excess and of sin ; yet in that calm and constant sunshine of the soul which illu- minates the breast of the good man, vice can have no competition with virtue. ' Our thoughts,' says an eloquent divine, 'like the waters of the sea, when exhaled towards heaven, will lose all their bitterness and saltness, and sweeten into an amia- ble humanity, until they descend in gentle showers of love and kindness upon our fellow-men.' There are too many who reverse both the prin- ciples and the practice of the apostle ! they become all things to all men, not to serve others, but them- selves ; and they try all things, only to hold fast that which is bad. There are only two things m which the false professors of all religions have agreed ; to perse- cute all other sects, and to plunder their own. There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe jeem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation, and to have LAUON. 107 studied so thoroughly as to have it quite at their fingers ends. ' There went out a decree in the days of Claudius Cesar > that all the world should be taxed? It often happens in public assemblies, that two measures are proposed, opposite in their tendency, but equal in the influence by which they are sup- ported, and also in the balance of good an J evil which may be fairly stated of either. In such a dilemma, it is not unusual, for the sake of unanim- ity, to adopt some half measure, which, as it has been emasculated of its energy to please the mode- rate, will often possess the good of neither mea- sure, but the evil of both. Of this kind was the suspensive veto voted to the monarch by the national assembly of France. It made the king an object of positive jealousy, while it gave him only nega- tive power, and rendered him unpopular, without the means of doing harm, and responsible without the privilege of doing good. And as half measures are so pregnant with danger, so the half talent by which they are often dictated, may be equally pre- judicial. There are circumstances of peculiar dif- ficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First, and Louis the Sixteenth, been more wise, or more weak, more firm, or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads. Imperial Rome governed the bodies of men, but did not extend her empire further. Papal Rome improved upon imperial ; she made the tiara stron- ger than the diadem ; pontiffs more powerful than praetors ; aad the crosier more victorious than the 108 LACOS. sword. She devised a system so complete in aD its parts, for the subjugation both of body and of mind, that, like Archimedes, she asked but one thing, and that Luther denied her ; a fulcrum of ignorance on which to rest that lever by which sho could have balanced the world. In former times patriots prided themselves on two things ; their own poverty, and the riches of the state. But poor as these men were, there were kings not rich enough to purchase them, nor pow- erful enough to intimidate them. In modern times it would be easier to find a patriot rich enough to buy a king, than a king not rich enough to buy a patriot. Valerius Maximus informs us, that iElius Pectus tore to pieces with his own teeth, a wood pecker, because the augur, being consulted, had replied that if the bird lived, the house of iElius would flourish, but that if it died, the prosperity of the state would prevail. Modern patriots have dis- covered, that a roasted woodcock is better than a raw woodpecker. As the man of pleasure by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the skeptic, in a vain attempt to be wise, beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises and would fain instruct. For the more precious the gift, the more pernicious the abuse of it, as the most powerful medicines are the most dangerous, if misapplied, and no error is so remediless as that which arises, not from the exclusion of wisdom, but from its per- LACON, 109 version. The skeptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him, will only sink him deeper in the abyss. It has been said, that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth ; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over. To steer a course that shall secure both worlds, is still, I fear, a de- sideratum in ethics, a thing unattained as yet, either by the divine or the philosopher, for the track is discoverable only by the shipwrecks that have been made in the attempt. John Wesley quaintly observed, that the road to heaven was a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here, and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happi- ness too much for man. # The only kind office performed for us by our friends, of which we never complain, is our funeral ; and the only thing which we are sure to want, happens to be the only thing which we never pur- chase — our coffin. With respect to the goods of this world, it might be said, that parsons are preaching for them * Yet honest John rode in his own coach before ha died, 10 110 L A CO N. — lawyers are pleading for them — physicians are prescribing for them — authors are writing for them — soldiers are fighting for them — but, that true philosophers alone are enjoying them. There is more jealousy between rival wits, than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But, in both cases, there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy. Elizabeth might have been merciful, had Mary neither been beautiful, nor a queen ; and it is only when we ourselves have been admired by some, that we begin tho- roughly to envy those who are admired by all. But the basis of this passion, must be the possi- bility of competition; for the rich are more en- vied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing ; and no monarch ever heard with indifference, that other monarchs were ex- tending their dominions, except Theodore of Cor- sica — who had none ! Those missionaries who embark for India, like some other reformers, begin at the wrong end. They ought first to convert to practical Christianity, those of their own countrymen who have crossed the Pacific, on a very different mission, to acquire money by every kind of rapine abroad, in order to squander it in every kind of revelry at home. Example is more powerful than precept, and the poor Hindoo is not slow in discovering how very unlike, the Christians he sees, are to that Chris- tianity of which he hears : — LAC ON, 111 • Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam quae stmt oculis subjecta fidelibus?* The misfortune therefore is, that he understands the conduct of his master, much better than the creed of his missionary, and has a clearer know- ledge of the depravity of the disciple^ than of the preachings of the preceptor. These observations are strengthened by a remark of Dr. Buchanan, founded on his own experience. c Conversion,' says he, ' goes on more prosperously in Tanjore and other provinces, where there are no Europeans, than in Tranquebar, where they are numerous : for we find,' he adds, ' that European example in the large towns, is the bane of Christian instruction.' When you have nothing to say, say nothing ; a weak defence strengthens your opponent, and si- lence is less injurious than a bad reply. We know the effects of many things, but the causes of few ; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjec- ture. But those physical difficulties which you cannot account for, be very slow to arraign, for he that would be wiser than nature, would be wiser than God. When punishments fall upon a villain from some unknown quarter, he begins to consider within him- self what hand may have inflicted them. He has injured many, this he knows, and judging from his own heart, he concludes that he is the most likely * Truths which we hear will less affect us, than those which we see.— Pub. IS LACON, to have revenged himself, who has had the most power to do so. This conclusion, however, is often a most erroneous one, although it has proved the frequent source of fatal mischiefs, which have only fallen the heavier, from having had nothing to support them. Forgiveness, that no- blest of all self-denial, is a virtue, which he alone that can practise in himself, can willingly believe in another. Some men possess means that are great, but fritter them away, in the execution of conceptions that are little ; and there are others who can form great conceptions, but who attempt to carry them into execution with little means. These two descriptions of men might succeed if united, but as they are usually kept asunder by jealousy, both fail. It is a rare thing to find a combi- nation of great means, and of great conceptions in one mind. The Duke of Bridgewater was a splendid example of this union, and all his de- signs were so profoundly planned, that it is de- lightful to observe how eifectually his vast means supported his measures, at one time, and how gratefully his measures repaidhis means, at another. On the blameless and the bloodless basis of public utility, he founded his own individual aggrandize- ment ; and his triumphal arches are those by which he subdued the earth, only to increase the comforts of those who possess it. I have heard my father say, that the duke was not considered a clever lad at Eton, which only strengthens an observation that I have often made, that vivacity, in youth, is often mistaken for genius, and solidity for d illness LAC ON. 113 The farther we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complica- ted, and multiform operations of the Godhead. To Him, indeed, all time is but a moment, and all space but a point, and he fills both, but is bounded by neither. As merciful in his restrictions as in his bounties, he sees at one glance the whole rela- tions of things, and has prescribed unto himself one eternal and immutable principle of action, that of producing the highest ultimate happiness, by the best possible means. But he is as great in minuteness, as in magnitude, since, even the legs of a fly have been fitted up and furnished with all the powers and all the properties of an air-pump, and this has been done by the self-same hand that created the suns of other systems, and placed them at so immense a distance from the earth, that light itself seems to lag on so immeasurable a journey, occupying many millions of years in arriving from those bodies unto us. In proof of the observation with which I set out, modern discoveries in chym- istry have so simplified the laws by which the Deity acts in his great laboratory of nature, that Sir Humphrey Davy has felt himself authorized to affirm, that a very few elementary bodies indeed, and which may themselves be only different forms of some one and the same primary material, con- stitute the sum total of our tangible universe of things. And as the grand harmony of the celes- tial bodies may be explained by the simple princi- ples of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps 10* 114 LAC ON. resolvable into one single principle — the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man, in all climates and countries, is es- sentially the same. Hence, the old position of the Pyrrhonists, that the more we study, the less we know, is true, but not in the sense in which it has been usually received. It may be true that we know less, but that less is of the highest value ; first, from its being a condensation of all that is certain ; secondly, from its being a rejection of all that is doubtful ; and such a treasure, like the pages of the Sybil, increases in value, even by its dimi- nution. Knowledge is twofold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false. It requires more magnanimity to give up what is wrong, than to maintain that which is right : for our pride is wounded by the one effort, and flattered by the other. The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth ; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing, but that it is the external sign of an internal deficiency. To revert to our former affirm- ation of the simplicity of those rules that regulate the universe, we might farther add, that any machine would be considered to be most ingenious, if it con- tained within itself principles for correcting its own imperfections. Now, a few simple but resistless laws, have effected all this so fully for the world we live in, that it contains within itself the seeds of its own eternity. An Alexander could not add one atom to it, or a Napoleon take one away. A period, indeed, has been assigned unto it by reve- LAC ON. 115 lation, otherwise it would be far less difficult to conceive of its eternal continuance, than of its final cessation. As the dimensions of the tree are not always regulated by the size of the seed, so the conse- quences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus, the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much ; but the French revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.* And in ancient times, so grovelling a passion as the lust of a Tarquin, could give freedom to Rome; that freedom, to whose shrine a Cesar was afterwards sacrificed in vain, as a victim, and a Cato as a martyr ; that free- dom, which fell, unestablished either by the immo- lation of the one, or the magnanimity of the other. Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thou- sand. * I am not so hardy as to affirm, that the French revolu- tion produced little, in the absolute sense of the word. I mean that it produced little if compared with the expecta- tions of mankind, and the probabilities that its first de- velopment afforded of its final establishment. The Papal power, the dynasty of the Bourbons, the freedom of the press, and purity ©{'representation, are resolving themselves very much into the c statu quo ante helium.''* It is far from improbable, that the results of a ' reformation 9 now going on in Spain, with an aspect far less assuming than the late revolution in France, will be more beneficial both to the present and future times than that gigantic event, which destroyed so much, b\vt which repaired so little, and which beganin civil anarchy, but ended in military despotism. • The stats before the wir, 116 LA CON. We ask advice, but we mean approbation. Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others ; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength. Napoleon could calculate the former, well, but to his miscal- culations of the latter, he may ascribe his present degradation. 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 una- nimity. The story of the three German robbers is applicable to our present purpose, from the preg- nant brevity of its moral. Having acquired by various atrocities, what amounted to a very valu- able 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 despatched to a neigh - bouring town, to purchase provisions for their last carousal. The other two secretly agreed to mur- LAC ON. 117 der him on his return, that they might come in for one half of the plunder, instead of a third. They did so. But the murdered man was a closer calcu- later even than his assassins, for he had previously poisoned a part of the provisions, that he might appropriate unto himself the whole of the spoil. This precious triumvirate were found dead to- gether — a signal instance that nothing is so blind and suicidal, as the selfishness of vice. When the million applaud you, seriously ask yourself what harm you have done ; when they censure you, what good ! Agar said, i Give me neither poverty nor riches ;' and this will ever be the prayer of the wise. Our incomes should be like our shoes, if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip. Wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more True contentment depends not upon what we have .; a tub was large enough for Dioge- nes, but a world was too little for Alexander. We should act with as much energy as those who expect every thing from themselves ; — and we should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect every thing from God. The ignorant have often given credit to the wise, for powers that are permitted to none, merely because the wise have made a proper use of those powers that are permitted to all. The little Ara- bian tale of the Dervise, shall be the comment of 118 L A ON. this proposition. A Dervise was journeying alone in the desert, when two merchants suddenly met him. * You have lost a camel,' said he to the mer- chants. 4 Indeed we have,' they replied. 'Was he not blind in his right eye, and lame in his left leg V said the Dervise. ' He w r as,' replied the merchants. ' Had he not lost a front tooth?' said the Dervise. 1 He had/ rejoined the merchants. ' And was he not loaded with honey on one side, and wheat on the other V ' Most certainly he was/ they replied, ' and as you have seen him so lately, and marked him so particularly, you can, in all probability conduct us unto him.' * My friends,' said the Dervise, ' I have never seen your camel, nor ever heard of him but from you/ ' A pretty story, truly,' said the mer- chants, \ but where are the jewels which formed a part of his cargo V i I have neither seen your camel, nor your jewels,' repeated the Dervise. On this they seized his person, and forthwith hurried him before the Cadi, where on the strictest search, nothing could be found upon him, nor could any evidence whatever be adduced to convict him, either of false- hood or of theft. They were then about to proceed against him as a sorcerer, when the Dervise, with great calmness, thus addressed the court : — ' I have been much amused with your surprise, and own that there has been some ground for your suspi- cions ; but I have lived long and alone ; and I can find ample scope for observation even in a desert. I knew that I had crossed the track of a camel that had strayed from its owner, because I saw no mark of any human footstep on the same route ; I knew that the animal was blind in one eye, because it had cropped the herbage only on one side of its path ; and I perceived that it was lame in one leg» L A C U X. from the faint impression which that particular foot had produced upon the sand ; I concluded that the animal had lost one tooth, because, wherever it had grazed, a small tuft of herbage was left uninjured, in the centre of its bite. As to that whicli formed the burden of the beast, the busy ants informed me that it was corn on the one side, and the clus- tering flies, that it was honey on the other.' Some philosophers would give a sex to revenge, and appropriate it almost exclusively to the female mind. But, like most other vices, it is of both genders ; yet, because wounded vanity, or slighted love, are the two most powerful excitements to revenge, it is thought, perhaps, to rage with more violence in the female heart. As the causes of this passion are not confined to the women, so neither are its effects. History can produce many Syllas, to one Fulvia or Christina. The fact, perhaps, is, that the human heart, in both sexes, will more readily pardon injuries than insults, particularly if they appear to arise, not from any wish in the offender to degrade us. but to aggrandize himself. Margaret Lambrun assumed a man's habit, and came to England from the other side of the Tweed, determined to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. She was urged to this from the double malice of revenge, excited by the loss of her mistress, Queen Mary, and that of her own husband who died from grief, at the death of his queen. In attempting to get close to Elizabeth, she dropped one of her pistols ; and on being seized and brought before the queen, she boldly avowed her motives, and added, that she found herself necessitated, by 120 L A C O N . experience to prove the truth of that maxim, that neither force nor reason can hinder a woman from revenge, when she is impelled by love. The queen set an example, that few kings would have followed, for she magnanimously forgave the crim- inal ; and thus took the noblest mode of convincing her that there were some injuries that even a wo- man could forgive. All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them ; even Homer's origi- nality has been questioned, and Yirgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics ; if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings. Shakspeare stands alone. His want ot erudition was a most happy and productive igno- rance ; it forced him back upon his own resources which were exhaustless. If his literary qualifica- tions made it impossible for him to borrow from the ancients, he was more than repaid by the pow- ers of his invention, which made borrowing unne- cessary. In all the ebbings and the flowings of his genius, in his storms, no less than in his calms, he is as completely separated from all other poets, as the Caspian from all other seas. He abounds with so many axioms applicable to all the circum- stances, situations, and varieties of life, that they are no longer the property of the poet, but of the world ; all apply, but none dare appropriate them ; and, like anchors, they are secure from thieves, by reason of their weight. LA CON. 121 That nations sympathize with their monarch's glory, that they are improved by his virtues, and that the tone of morals rises high, when he that leads the band is perfect, are truths admitted with exultation, and felt with honest pride. That a nation is equally degraded by a monarch's profli- gacy, that it is made, in some sort, contemptible by his meanness, and immoral by his depravation, are positions less flattering, but equally important and true. * Plus exemplo quam peccato nocent, quippe quod multi imitatores principum existunt?* The example, therefore, of a sovereign, derives its pow- erful influence from that pride inherent in the con- stitution of our nature, which dictates to all, not to copy their inferiors, but which at the same time, causes imitation to descend. A prince, therefore, can no more be obscured by vices, without demo- ralizing his people, than the sun can be eclipsed without darkening the land. In proof of these pro- positions, we might affirm, that there have been some instances w 7 here a sovereign has reformed a court,t but not a single instance where a court has reformed a sovereign. When Louis the Four- teenth, in his old age, quitted his battles for beads, and his mistress for missals, his courtiers aped * They do more harm by their example than by their crimes, for many are the imitators of princes. — Pub. t Englishmen need not go far, either in time, or in dis- tance, for a splendid proof of the truth of this proposition. The reign of George the Third is an arena that will both demand and deserve the utmost talents of its historian, however high they may be. It is the most eventful reign in the memory of man. A gentlemanly prince in public, and a princely gentleman in private, he set an example of lib- erality in sentiment, of integrity in principle, and of purity in life, which may have been imitated oy some of his sub- jects, but which have been surpassed bv none. 11 m L A c o ft their sovereign as strenuously in his devotions, as they had before in his debaucheries, and took the sacrament twice in the day ! The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profes- sion, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit heaven. Two things are necessary to a modern martyr, — some to pity, and some to persecute, some to regret, and some to roast him. If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise. The light of intellect has put out the fire of persecution, as other fires are observed to smoul- der before the light of the sun. The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool ; but it has been said, that herein lies the dif- ference — the follies of the fool are known to the world, but are hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world. A harmless hilarity, and a buoyant cheer- fulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius ; and we are never more deceived, than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for sci- ence, and pomposity for erudition. The true poet is always great, if compared with others ; not always if compared with himself. If men praise your efforts, suspect their judg- ment ; if they censure them, your own. LAUO N. 123 Philosophy manages a most important firm, not only with a capital of her own, but also with a still larger one that she has borrowed ; but she repays with a most liberal interest, and in a mode that ulti- mately enriches, not only others, but herself. The philosopher, is neither a chymist, a smith, a mer- chant, or a manufacturer ; but he both teaches and is taught by all of them ; and his prayer is, that the intellectual light may be as general as the so- lar, and uncontrolled. As he is as much delighted to imbibe knowledge as to impart it, he watches the rudest operations of that experience, which may be both old and uninformed, right, though un- able to say why, or wrong, without knowing the wherefore. The philosopher, therefore, strength- ens that which was mere practice, by disclosing the principle; he establishes customs that were right, by superadding the foundation of reason, and overthrown those that were erroneous, by taking that foundation away. Persecutors on the score of religion, have, in general, been the foulest of hypocrites, and their burning zeal has too often been lighted up at the altar of worldly ambition. Suppose we admit that persecution may, in some solitary cases, have aris- en from motives that are pure ; the glory of God, and the salvation of men. Here again, the purity of the motive is most wofully eclipsed by the gross absurdity of the means. The persecutor must begin by breaking many fundamental laws of his master, in order to commence his operations in his favour; thus asserting, by deeds, if not by words, that the intrinsic excellence of the code of our Saviour, is insufficient for its own preservation 124 LACO N . Thus it is, that even the sincerest persecutor defends the cause of his master. He shows his love of man, by breaking his cardinal laws; he then seeks to glorify a God of mercy, by worship- ping him as a Moloch who delights in human sacrifices ; and lastly, he shows his love of his neighbour, by roasting his body for the good of his soul. Can a darkness which is intellectual, be done away by a fire which is material 1 or is it absolutely necessary to make a fagot of a man's body in order to enlighten his mind. There is a paradox in pride — : it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becom- ing so. Those who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in, have at least one thing to plead in defence of their idolatry — the power of their idol. It is true, that like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, or understand ; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those who had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities ; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, with- out a single hypocrite. If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions, until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short, for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an am- bition. LACON. 125 It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat ; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples, the propriety of dressing somewhat be- yond their means, but of living within them ; for every one sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. The truly great are by universal suffrage exempted from these trammels, and may live or dress as they please. Sleep, the type of death, is also like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell, and is excluded from heaven. Emulation has been termed a spur to virtue, and assumes to be a spur of gold. But it is a spur composed of baser materials, and if tried in the furnace, will be found to want that fixedness, which is the characteristic of gold. He that pursues virtue, only to surpass others, is not far from wish- ing others less forward than himself; and he that rejoices too much at his own perfection, will be too little grieved at the defects of other men. We might also insist upon this, that true virtue, though the most humble of all things, is the most progres- sive ; it must persevere to the end. As Alexander scorned the Olympic games, because there were no kings to contend with, so he that starts only to outstrip others, will suspend his exertions when that end is attained ; and self-love will in many cases, incline him to stoop for the prize, even be- fore he has obtained the victory. The views of the Christian are more extensive, and more endur- ing; his ambition is, not to conquer others, but 11* 126 L A C N . himself, and he unbuckles his armour, only for his shroud. In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to be found ; like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like coin, its circulation is not re- stricted to any particular class. We are ignorant in youth, from idleness, and we continue so in man- hood, from pride ; for pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her. Therefore condescend to men of low estate, and be for wisdom that which Alcibiades was for power. He that rings only one bell, will hear only one sound ; and he that lives only with one class, will see but one scene of the great drama of life. Mr. Locke was asked how he had contrived to accumulate a mine of knowledge so rich, yet so extensive and so deep. He replied, that he attributed what little he knew, to not having been ashamed to ask for information; and to the rule he had laid down, of conversing with ail de- scription of men, on those topics chiefly that formed their own peculiar professions or pursuits, I myself have heard a common blacksmith elo- quent, when welding of iron has been the theme ; what we know thoroughly, we can usually express clearly, since ideas will supply words, but words will not always supply ideas. Therefore when I meet with any that write obscurely, or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things ; first, that such persons do not understand themselves ; and secondly, that they arc not worthy of being understood by others LACON. 127 He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them with familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature, as his companions are by rank. Royal favorites are often obliged to carry their complaisance further than they meant. They live for their master's pleasure, and they die for his convenience. The hate, which we all bear with the most. Chris tian patience, is the hate of those who envy us Imitation is the sincerest of flattery. There are two modes of establishing our repu- tation ; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will be invariably accompa- nied by the latter. His calumniation, is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer upon us, hut it is also the only service he willperform for nothing. As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles, and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we expe- rience. Sensible women have often been the dupes of designing men, in the following way : they have taken an opportunity of praising them to their own confidante, but with a solemn injunction to secrecy. 123 JL A C O IV . The confidante, however, as they know, will infal- lably inform her principal, the first moment she sees her; and this is a mode of flattery which always succeeds. Even those females w 7 ho nauseate flat- tery in any other shape, will not reject it in this ; just as we can hear the light of the sun without pain when reflected by the moon. If you arc under obligation to many, it is pru- dent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all, otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold. There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelent- ing, as that which proceeds from a bigoted and pre- sumptuous supposition of doing service to God. Under the influence of such hallucination, all com- mon modes of reasoning are perverted, and all general principles destroyed. — The victim of tka fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance of obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value, in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling, both of justice and of humanity. Had the son of Philip the Second of Spain been condemned by the inquisition, his own father, in default of any other executioner, would have car- ried the fagots, and have set fire to the pile. And in the atrocious murder of Archbishop Sharp, it is well known that Balfour and his party did not meet together at Gilston Muir for the purpose of assas- sinating the archbishop, but to slay one Carmi- chael, a magistrate. These misguided men were LAC ON. 129 actuated (to use their own words) ' by a strong out- letting of the spirit? shortly to be manifested by the outletting of innocent blood ; and one Smith, a weaver at the Strutherdike, an inspired man, had also encouraged them ' all to go forward, seeing that God's glory was the only motive that was moving them to offer themselves to act for Ids broken down work.'' These men not happening to find Carmi- chael, were on the point of dispersing, when a lad running up, suddenly informed them that the coach of Archbishop Sharp was then coming on, upon the road between Ceres and Blebo Hole. Thus, vCarrnichael escaped, but an archbishop was a sacrifice, caught in the thicket, more costly than the ram. ' "Truly? said they, ' this is of God, and it scemcth that God hath delivered him into our hands ; let us not draw back, but pursue him, for all looked upon it, considering the former circumstances, as a clear call from God to fall upon him.. 1 We may anticipate what tender mercies the Archbishop might count upon, from a gang of such enthusi- asts ; and the circumstances of a prelate murdered at the feet of his daughter, with the curious con- versation that accompanies this act, only proves that fanaticism is of the same malignant type and character, whether she be engendered in the clan, or the conclave, the kirk, or the cathedral. It has been said, that whatever is made with the intention of answering two purposes, will answer neither of them well. This is for the most part true, with respect to the inventions and productions pf man ; but the very reverse of this would seem lo obtain, in all the operations of the Godhead. In *he great laboratory of nature, many effects of the J30 L A G O ft most important and extensive utility are often made to proceed from some one primary cause ; neither do these effects, in any one instance, either clash or jar, or interfere with each other, hut each one is as perfect in its kind, as if the common source of its activity were adjusted and appropriated to the accomplishing of that single effect alone. An illus- tration or two will suffice, where the number of examples is so great, that the difficulty lies more in the selection than in the discovery. The atmo- sphere is formed for the respiration of numberless animals, which most important office it perfectly performs, being the very food of life. But. there are two other processes almost as important, which could not go on without, an atmosphere, seeing that it is essential to both of them — the dissemination of light by its powers of refraction and reflectory and of heat by its decomposition. The ocean is a fluid world, admirably calculated for the propaga- tion and continuation of those myriads of aquatic animals with which it abounds ; and thus, it enables the Creator to extend, both in depth and surface, the sphere of sensation, of life, and of enjoyment, from the poles even unto the line. But the ocean has other most important offices to fulfil ; it is per- haps more necessary to the earth, than the earth itself is to the ocean ; for while it appears to be the great receptacle of salt water, it becomes, through the joint medium of the sun and of the atmosphere, the principal reservoir and distributor of fresh. The sim himself was created as the grand emporium of light and heat to the system. He not. only warms and enlightens, but he also regulates and* controls, both the times, and the spaces, of the whole planetary world ; the lord of motion, no less LA COJC. 131 than of light, he imposes a law on those erratic bodies, as invincible as it is invisible, which nev- ertheless allows the fullest scope to all their wan- derings, and subjects them to no restraint but that which is absolutely necessary for their preserva- tion. • When we consider that Julius Cesar, Pompey, Brutus, Cato, Atticus, Livy, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Hortensius, Augustus, and Marcus Varro, were contemporaries, that they were, at the same time, enclosed within the walls of the same city, which might well be termed ' Roma virum genitrix ;'* and when we further reflect, that this bright constella- tion was attended also by another subordinate to it, made up of stars, indeed of lesser magnitude, but which would have shone with no small lustre in any other horizon, we no longer wonder that a cap- ital that could breed and educate such men, should aspire to the proud title of mistress of the world, and vaunt herself secure from all mortal wounds, save only those that might be inflicted in an evil hour by parricidal hands. The close observer of human nature, who takes nothing on trust, who, undazzled by the lustre, calmly inquires into the use, will not be contented with a bare examination of the causes that conspired to produce so marvel- lous a union of talent, but will further ask, how it happened, that men, whose examples have been so fertile of instruction to future ages, were so bar- ren of improvement and utility to their own. For it must be admitted that Rome was ' divided against herself,' split into faction, and torn to pieces by a * Rome, the mother of men. — Pub . 132 L A C N . most bloody civil war, at the very moment she was in proud possession of all this profusion of talent, by which she was consumed, rather than comforted, and scorched, rather than enlightened". Perhaps the conclusion that is forced upon us by a review of this particular period of Roman history, is neither consolatory nor honourable to our nature ; it would seem, I fear, to be this, namely, that a state of civil freedom is absolutely necessary for the training up, educating, and finishing, of great and noble minds ; but that society has no guaran- tee, that minds so formed and finished, shall not asjpirt: to govern rather than to obey ; no security \hv* ihey shall not afreet a greatness, greater than the lawsr, r " I in affecting it, that they shall not ulti- mately destroy that, very freedom, to which alone they were indebted for their superiority. Such men too often begin by subjecting all things to their country, and finish by subjecting their coun- try unto themselves. If we examine the individual characters of those great names I have cited above we may perhaps affirm, that Horace, Virgil, Hor- tensius, Yarro, and Livy, were more occupied in writing what deserved to be read, than in doing any thing that deserved to be written. Atticus was a practical disciple of Epicurus, and too much con- cerned about the safety and health of his own person, to endanger it by attacking that of another; as to Cicero, though he was formed both for action and deliberation, yet none of the blood that was spilt in his day, can fairly be charged to him ; in fact, he had so much of the pliability of his friend Atticus about him, that he might have flourished even in the court of Augustus, a rival of .vlsecenas, had he himself been less eloquent, Octa L A C O N . 133 vius more grateful, or Antony less vindictive. Four men remain, formed indeed, in ' all the prodigality of nature,' but composed of elements so opposite to each other, that their conjunction, like the clash of adverse comets, could not but convulse the world ; Cesar, Pompey, Brutus, and Cato. — Cesar could not brook a superior, nor Pompey an equal ; and. Brutus, although he did not aspire himself to rule, was determined that no one else should &o so. Cato, who might have done more to save his country, had he attempted less, disgusted his friends and exasperated his foes by a vain effort to realize the splendid fictions of Plato's republic, in the dregs of Romulus.: — Proud, without ambition, he was less beloved as the stern defender of liberty, than Cesar as the destroyer of it, who was ambi- tious without pride ;. a mistaken martyr in a noble cause, Cato was condemned to live in an era when the timas would not bear his integrity — nor his integrity the times. Th*»?e is this difference between those two tem- poral blessings, health and money : money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed, health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied ; and the supe- riority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all their money for health. All governments ought to aspire to produce the highest happiness by the least objectionable means To produce good without some admixture of ill, is the prerogative of the Deity alone. In a state of nature, each individual would strive to preserve the 12 m LACON. whole of his liberty * but then he would be also liable to the encroachments of others, who would feel equally determined to preserve the whole of theirs. In a state of civilization each individ- ual voluntarily sacrifices a part of his liberty, to increase the general stock. But he sacrifices his liberty only to the laws ; and it ought to be the care of good governments, that this sacrifice of the individual is repaid him with security, and with interest; otherwise, the splendid declarations of Rousseau might be verified, and a state of nature preferred to a state of civilization. The liberty we obtain by being members of civilized society, would be licentiousness, if it allowed us to harm others, and slavery, if it prevented us from bene- fitting ourselves. True liberty, therefore, allows each individual to do all the good he can to himself without injuring his neighbour. Of two evils, it is perhaps less injurious to society, that a good doctrine should be accompa- nied by a bad life, than that a good life should lend its support to a bad doctrine. For the sect, if once established, will survive the founder. When doc- trines, radically bad in themselves, are transmitted to posterity, recommended by the good life of their author, this is to arm a harlot with beauty, and to heighten the attractions of a vain and unsound philosophy. I question if Epicurus and Hume have done mankind greater injury by the looseness of their doctrines, than by the purity of their lives. Of such men we may more justly exclaim, than of Cesar, < confound their virtues ! they have undone the world.' LACUN, 135 Many have been thought capable of governing, until they have been called to govern ; and others have been deemed incapable, who, when called into power, have most agreeably disappointed public opinion, by far surpassing all previous anticipation. The fact is, that the great and little vulgar too often judge of the blade by the scabbard ; and shining outward qualities, although they may excite first rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second rate abilities. Where- as, to possess a head equal to the greatest events, and a heart superior to the strongest temptations, are qualities which may be possessed so secretly, that a man's next door neighbour shall not discover them, until some unforeseen and fortunate occasion has called them forth. The ignorance of the Chinese may be attributed to their language. A literary Chinese must spend half his life in acquiring a thorough knowledge of it. The use of metaphor, which may be said to be the algebra of language, is, I apprehend, unknown amongst them. And as language, after all, is made up only of the signs and counters of knowledge, he that is obliged to lose so much time in acquiring the sign, will have but little of the thing. So complete is the ignorance of this con- ceited nation, on many points, that very curious brass models of all the mechanical powers, which the French government had sent over as a present, they considered to be meant as toys for the amusement of the grandchildren of the emperor. And I have heard the late Sir George Staunton declare, that the costly mathematical instruments 136 L A C O N, made by Ramsden and Dolland, and taken to Pekin by Lord Macartney, were as utterly useless to the Chinese, as a steam-engine to an Esquimaux, or a loom to a Hottentot. The father of Montaigne, not inaptly to my present subject, has observed, that the tedious time we moderns employ in acquir- ing the language of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which cost them nothing, is the principal reason why we cannot arrive at that grandeur of soul and perfection of knowledge that was in them. But the learned languages, after all, are indispensable to form the gentleman and the scholar, and are well worth all the labour that they havo cost us, pro- vided they are valued not for themselves alone, which would make a pedant, but as a foundation for further acquirements. The foundation, there- fore, should be in a great measure hidden, and its solidity presumed and inferred from the strength, elegance, and convenience of the superstructure. In one of the notes to a former publication, I have quoted an old writer, who observes, \ that we fatten a sheep with grass, not in order to obtain a crop of hay from his back, but in the hope that he will feed us with mutton, and clothe us with wool.' We may apply this to the sciences, we teach a young man algebra, the mathematics, and logic, not that he should take his equations and paral- lelograms into Westminster Hall, nor bring his ten predicaments to the House of Commons, but that he should bring a mind to both these places, so well stored with the sound principles of truth and of reason, as not to be deceived by the chicanery of the bar, nor the sophistry of the senate. The ac- quirements of science may be termed the armour LACOiv. 137 of the mind ; but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend. That is not the most perfect beauty, which, in public would attract the greatest observation ; nor even that which the statuary would admit to be a faultless piece of clay, kneaded up with blood. But that is true beauty, which has not only a sub- stance, but a spirit, — a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate, — a beauty lighted up in conversation, where the mind shines, as it were, through its casket, where, in the language of the poet, * the eloquent Hood spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, that we might almost say her body thought? An order and a mode of beauty, which, the more we know, the more we accuse ourselves for not having before discovered those thousand graces which bespeak that their owner has a soul. This is that beauty which never cloys, possessing charms, as resistless as the fascinating Egyptian, for which Antony wisely paid the bauble of the world — a beauty like the rising of his own Italian suns, always enchanting, never the same. He that can please nobody, is not so much to be pitied, as he that nobody can please. Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which, the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual. But there is a difference between a debt of revenge, and every other debt. By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind ; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, 12* 138 LA CON. we are superior. Yet it must be confessed, that it is much less difficult to forgive our enemies, than our friends ; and if we ask how it came to pass that Coriolanus found it so hard a task to pardon Rome, the answer is, that he was himself a Roman. If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find that it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas 5 than one hole in our coat The cynic who twitted Aristippus, by observing, that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked, that the philo- sopher who could enjoy the company of a king, might also despise a dinner of herbs, * Non prandcret olus si sciret re gibus nti?* Nothing is more common than to hear people abus- ing courtiers, and affecting to despise courts ; yet most of these would be proud of the acquaintance of the one, and would be glad to live in the other. The history of the Conclave will show us how ready all men are to renounce philosophy for the most distant probability of a crown. Whereas, Casimir of Poland, and Christina of Sweden, are likely to remain the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, of those who have renounced a crown for the sake of philosophy. * He would not di?ie on kerbs, if he could iwnage kings. —Pub. LAO ON. 139 Wars are to the body politic, what drams arc to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies, only to hasten the dissolution. It has been shrewdly said, that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure, which we do not deserve; and still more rare, to despise praise, which we do. Bnt the integrity that lives only on opinion, would starve without it ; and that theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an ap- plauding world for its audience, could not be de- pended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retire- ment of a desert This is the tax a man must pay to his virtues — they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him, which would have passed without observation in another. Those hypochondriacs, who, like Herodius, give up their whole time and thoughts, to the care of their health, sacrifice unto life, every noble purpose of living ; striving to support a frail and feverish being here, they neglect an hereafter ; they con- tinue to patch up and repair their mouldering tenement of clay, regardless of the immortal ten- ant that must survive it ; agitated by greater fears than the apostle, and supported by none of his hopes, they ' die daily.' 140 LACO N. Intimacy has been the source of the deadliest enmity, no less than of the firmest friendship ; like some mighty rivers, which rise on the same moun- tain, but pursue a quite contrary course. The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves ; and we injure our own cause, in the opinion of the world, when we too passionately and eagerly de- fend it ; like the father of Virginia, who murdered his daughter to prevent her violation. Neither will all men be disposed to view our quarrels in the same light that we do ; and a man's blindness to his own defects will ever increase, in proportion as he is angry with others, or pleased with himself. Falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because, it is a good imitation of truth, as a per- spective is of the reality, only in one. But truth, like that reality, of which the perspective is the representation, w T ill bear to be scrutinized in all points of view, and though examined under every situation, is one and the same. There are some characters whose bias it is im- possible to calculate, and on whose probable con- duct we cannot hazard the slightest prognostica- tion ; they often evince energy in the merest tri- fles, and appear listless and indifferent, on occa- sions of the greatest interest and importance ; one would suppose they had been dipped in the foun- tain of Hammon, whose waters, according to Dio- dorus, are cold by day, and hot only by night } LA CON. Ml There are some who refuse a favour so gra- ciously, as to please us even by the refusal; and there are others who confer an obligation so clum- sily, that they please us less by the measure, than they disgust us by the manner of a kindness, as puzzling to our feelings, as the politeness of one, who, if we had dropped our handkerchief, should present it unto us with a pair of tongs ! It has been said, that the retreat shows the general, as the reply the orator ; and it is partly true ; although a general would rather build his fame on his advances, than on his retreats, and on what he has attained, rather than on what he has abandoned. Moreau, we know, was famous for his retreats, insomuch, that his companions in arms compared him to a drum, which nobody hears of, except it be beaten. But, it is nevertheless true, that the merits of a general are not to be appre- ciated by the battle alone, but by those dispositions that preceded it, and by those measures that fol- lowed it. Hannibal knew better how to conquer, than how to profit by the conquest ; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions, than in main- taining them. As to reverses, no general can presume to say that he may not be defeated ; but he can, and ought to say, that he will not be sur- prised. There are dispositions so skilful, that the battle may be considered to be won before it is fought, and the campaign to be decided, even be fore it is contested. There are generals who have accomplished more by the march, than by the musket ; and Europe saw in the lines of Torres Vedras, a simple telescope in the hands of a Wel- lington, become an instalment, more fatal arid 142 LAC ON. destructive than all the cannon in llie camp of his antagonist. Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. Honours bestowed on the illustrious dead, have in them no admixture of envy ; for the living pity the dead ; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not ; — ' TJrit enim fulgore suo qui prc&gravat artes Infra se positas, cxtinctus, amabitur idem! Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but at the same time, know how to prize them the most. No company, is far preferable to bad> because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health. It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a leeshore and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea, and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck. And thus, the legislator who meets some evils, half subdues them. In the grievous dearth that visited the land of Egypt, Joseph fore- stalled the evil, and adopted measures that pro- claimed to the nation, 4 You shall not feast, in ordei that you may not fast ; and although you must sub- * He whose proud genius soars above the arts, Burns white he shines, but dead, is loved again. — Pu»> LACON. 113 mit to a scarcity, you shall not endure a famine.' And those very persons who have been decried by shortsighted reasoners in this country, as regraters and monopolizers, are, in times of real deficiency, the actual Josephs of the land. Like the pr&sto- latores in the camp of the Romans, they spy out the nakedness of the land before the main body are advised of it, and by raising the price of the commodity, take the only means to ensure an econ- omy in the use of it. Louis the Fourteenth having become a king by the death of his minister, Mazarin, set up the trade of a conqueror on his own account. The devil treated him as he does young gamesters, and bid very high for him at first, by granting him unexam- pled success ; he finished by punishing him with reverses equally unexampled. Thus, that sun which he had taken for his device, although it rose in cloudless majesty, was doomed to set in obscu- rity, tarnished by the smoke of his defeats, and tinged with the blood of his subjects. It is an old saying, that ' Truth lies in a well,' but the misfortune is, that some men will use no chain to draw her up, but that which is so long that it is the labour of their life to finish it ; or if they live to complete it, it may be that the first links are eaten up by rust, before the last are ready. Others, on the contrary, are so indolent, that they would attempt to draw up truth without any chain, or by means of one that is too short. Both of these will miss their object. A wise man will provide a chain for this necessary purpose, that has not a link 144 LA C :JJT . too much, nor a link too little, and on the first be will write 'ars longaf* and on the last. ' vita brc&is.'j Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of wisdom ; therefore, when we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we' have jvakied a something that will stay by us. and which will serve us again. But, if Co avoid the trouble of the search, we avail ourselves of the superior informa- tion of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us ; we have not bought, but borrowed it. Oreat men. like comets, are eccentric in their courses, rv formed to do extensive good, by modes u:; intelligible to vulgar minds Hence, like those erratic orbs in the firmament, it is their fate to be miscomprehended by fools, and misrepresented by knaves; to be abused for all the good they actually do, and to be accused of ills with which they have nothing to do, neither in design or execution. Some men who have evinced a certain degree of wit and talent in private companies, fail miserably when they attempt to appear as public characters on the grand theatre of human life. Great men in a little circle, but little men in a great one, they show their learning to the ignorant, but their igno- rance to the learned ; the powers of their mind seem to be parched up and withered by the public gaze, as Welch cascades before a summer sun, which, by the by, we are told, are vastly fine in the winter, when nobody goes to see them. * Art is long- Pub. + Life is short.—VvB. L A C O X . 145 Great men often obtain their ends, by means beyond the grasp of vulgar intellect, and even by methods diametrically opposite to those which the multitude would pursue. But, to effect this, be- speaks as profound a knowledge of mind, as that philosopher evinced of matter, who first produced ice by the agency of heat. Those that are the loudest in their threats, are the weakest in the execution of them. In spring- ing a mine, that which has done the most extensive mischief makes the smallest report; and again, if we consider the effect of lightning, it is probable that he that is killed by it, hears no noise ; but the thunderclap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety. We most readily forgive that attack, which affords us an opportunity of reaping a splendid tri- umph. A wise man will not sally forth from his doors to cudgel a fool, who is in the act of break- ing his windows, by pelting them with guineas. That an author's work is the mirror of his mind, is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book, it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would pur- chase it for use, and the bad for ostentation. It is not known where he that invented the plough was born, or where he died ; yet he has effected more for the happiness of the world, than the whole race of heroes and conquerors, who have drenched it with tears, and manured it with blood, and whose birth, parentage, and education 146 LACON. have been handed down to us with a precision pre cisely proportionate to the mischief they have done. As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds. I should consider the middle and lov/er classes, in this country, is a great measure exempt from this latter malady of the mind; first, because there is no vernacular name that fully describes it, in our language ; and secondly, because we shall find it difficult to explain this disease to such persons ; they will admit how- ever, that they have sometimes thought a rainy Sunday, particularly tedious and long. In the con- stitution of our nature, it so happens, that pleasure cloys and hebetates the powers of enjoyment very soon, but that pain does not, by any means, in an equal proportion, dull the powers of suffering. A fit of the toothache, or the tic doloreux, shall conti- nue their attacks with slight intermission for months, and the last pang shall be as acute as the first. Again, we are so framed and fashioned, that our sensations may continue alive for years, to tor- ment, after they have been dead for years, to tran- sport ; and it would be well, if old age, which has « been said to forbid the pleasures of youth, on penalty of death, interdicted us also from those pains which are unhappily as much or more the lot of the old than of the young. The cold and shri- velled hand of time is doubly industrious ; he not only plucks up flowers, but he plants thorns in theii room ; and punishes the bad, with the recollections of the past, the sufferings of the present, and the anticipation of the future, until death becomes their L A COX. 147 only remedy, because life hath become their sole disease. If these observations be just, their appli- cation to ennui, our present subject, is obvious. For he that does labour under acute pain, will be too much occupied for ennui ; and he that does not, has no right to indulge it, because he is not in the fruition of vivid pleasure. It is not in the nature of things that vivid pleasure should conti- nue long ; their very continuance must make them cease to be vivid. Therefore, we might as well suffer ennui, because we are not angels but men. There are indeed, some spirits so ardent, that change of employment to them is rest, and their only fatigue a cessation from activity. But, even these, if they make pleasure a business, will be equally subject to ennui, with more phlegmatic minds ; for mere pleasure, although it may refresh the weary, wearies the refreshed. Gaming has been resorted to by the affluent, as a refuge from ennui ; it is a mental dram, and may succeed for a moment, but, like all other stimuli, it produces indi- rect debility ; and those who have recourse to it, will find that the sources of their ennui are far more inexhaustible than those of their purse. Ennui, perhaps, has made more gamblers than ava- rice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair. Its only cure* is the * It would seem that employment is more efficacious in the cure of ennui than society. A young Huron, in a village near Quebec, emphatically exclaimed to an English travel- ler, ' On s'ennuie dans le village, et on ne s'ennuie jamais dans le bois.' We all remember the instance of that man of rank and title, who destroyed himself in full possession of every thing that could make life desirable, leaving it on record, that he committed the act, only because he was tired of putting on his clothes in the morning, and taking them off 148 L A C O N pursuit of some desirable object; if fcliat_ object be worthy of our pursuit and our desires, tile prog- nostics of a cure are still more favourable ; — if the object be a distant one, yet affording constant opportunities of pursuit and advancement, the cure is certain, until the object be attained; — but if that object cannot be attained, nor even expected, until after' death, although the means of its attainment must last as long as our life, and occur as constantly as the moments that compose it, we may then exclaim ' I have found? with more cause than the philosopher, and seek from the dying Christian an infallible nostrum for all the evils of ennui. Heaven may have happiness as utterly unknown to us, as the gift of perfect vision would be to a man born blind. If we consider the inlets of plea- sure from five senses only, we may be sure that the same being who created us, could have given us five hundred if he had pleased. Mutual love, pure and exalted, founded on charms both mental and corporeal, as it constitutes the highest happiness on earth, may,, for any thing we know to the contrary, also form the lowest happiness of Heaven. And it would appear consonant with the administration of Providence in other matters, that there should be such a link between earth and heaven ; for, in all cases, a chasm seems to be purposely avoided, again at night ; and in times still near to us, John Mad- docks, and Henry Gtuin, Esq of Dublin notoriety, the for- mer in the clear unincumbered possession of six thousand pounds per annum, and both of them in full possession of health and competence, destroyed themselves for no other reason but because they were tired of the unvaried repe titions and insipid amusements of life, LAC ON. 149 'prudente Deo.™ Thus, the material world has its links, by which it is made to shake hands, as it were, with the vegetable — the vegetable with the animal — the animal with the intellectual — and the intellectual with what we may be allowed to hope of the angelic. Nothing is more common than to hear directly opposite accounts of the same countries. The difference lies not in the reported, but the reporter. Some men are so imperious and overbearing in their demeanour, that they would represent even the islanders of Peiew, as insolent and extortionate ; others are of a disposition so conciliatory and unassuming, that they would have little that was harsh or barbarous to record, even of the Mussul- mans of Constantinople. It would be very unfortunate if there were no other road to Heaven but through Hell. Yet this dangerous and impracticable road has been attempt- ed by all those princes, potentates and statesmen, who have done evil, that good might come. Courage is incompatible with the fear of death; but every villain fears death; therefore no villain can be brave. He may indeed possess the cou- rage of a rat, and fight with desperation when driven into a corner. If by craft and crime a successful adventurer should be enabled to usurp a kingdom, and to command its legions, there may be moments, when, like Richard on the field of Bosworth, or Napoleon on the plains of Marengo, all must be * Through the wisdom of God. Fob. 150 LACOX. staked; an awful crisis, when, ii Lis throne be overturned, his scaffold must rise upon its ruins. Then, indeed, though the cloud of battle should lower on his hopes, while its iron hail is rattling around him, the greatest coward will hardly j%, to ensure that death which he can only escape by facing. Yet the glare of a courage thus elicited by danger, where fear conquers fear, is not to be compared to that calm sunshine which constantly cheers and illuminates the breast of him who builds his confidence on virtuous principles ; it is rather the transient and evanescent lightning of the storm, which derives half its lustre from the dark- ness that surrounds it. The absent man would wish to be thought a man of talent, by affecting to forget what all others remember; and the antiquarian is in pursuit of the same thing, by remembering what all others have thought proper to forget. I cannot but think it would much improve society, first, if all absent men would take into their heads to turn antiquarians ; and next, if all antiquarians would be absent men. To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it ; for, when we fail, our pride supports us, when we succeed, it betrays us. Strong and sharp as our wit may be, it is not so strong as the memory of fools, nor so keen as their resentment ; he that has not strength of mind to forgive, is by no means weak enough to forget ; and it is much more easy to do a cruel thing, than to say a severe one. LAC ON, 151 In literature, it is very difficult to establish a name. Let an author's first work have what merit it may, he will lose, if he prints it himself ; and being a novus homo in literature, his only chance is to give his first edition to his bookseller. It is true that the bookseller will offer terms extremely liberal to those who have established a reputation, and will lose by many, who, like Scott, have written spirit- edly for fame, but tamely for money. But, even in this case, the booksellers have no right to complain ; for these calculating Maecenases ought to remem- ber, that if they pay too dearly for the lees, they had the first squeezing of the grapes for nothing.* In addressing the multitude, we must remember to follow the advice that Cromwell gave his soldiers, 1 fire low? This is the great art of the Methodists, i fas est et ah hoste doeeri.'f If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts, as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high ; but we must remember that men are not angels. Would we warm them by our eloquence, unlike Mahomet's mountain, it must come down to them, since they cannot raise themselves to it. It must come home \o their wants and their wishes, to their hopes and their fears, to their families and their firesides. The moon gives a far greater light than all the fixed stars put together, although she is much * Those who continue to write after their wit is exhaust- ed, may be compared to those old maids, who give ns one cup of good tea, but all the rest of milk and water. t // is wise to learn of our enemies. — Pub. 152 L A C O K . smaller tlian any of them ; the reason is, that the stars are superior and remote, but the moon is infe- rior and contiguous. The plainest man who pays attention to women, will sometimes succeed as well as the handsomest man who does not. Wilkes observed to Lord Townsend, ' You, my lord, are the handsomest man in the kingdom, and I the plainest. But I would give your lordship half an hour's start, and yet come up with you in the affections of any wo- man we both wished to win ; because all those attentions which you would omit on the score of fine exterior, 1 should be obliged to pay, owing to the deficiencies of mine.' Agriculture is the most certain source of strength, wealth and independence. Commerce flourishes fry circumstances precarious, contingent, transitory, almost as liable to change, as the Winds and waves that waft it to our shores. She may well be termed the younger sister, for, in all emergencies, she looks to agriculture, both for defence and for supply. The earth, indeed, is doubly grateful, in- asmuch as she not only repays forty fold to the cultivator, but reciprocally improves its improver, rewarding him with strength, health, and vigour. Agriculture, therefore, is the true qfficina militum ;* and in her brave and hardy peasantry, she offers a legitimate and trusty sword, to those rulers that duly appreciate her value, and court her alliance. It is, however, more easy to convert husbandmen into excellent soldiers, than to imitate Romulus, who could at will reconvert them again. — He first * Storehouse of soldiers. Pi:b. LAC ON. L53 moulded those materials that conquered tlie world. a peasantry victorious in war, laborious in peace, despisers of sloth, prepared to reap the bloodless harvest of the sickle, after having secured that of the sword. ' The only employments,' says Dion, 1 that Romulus left to freemen, were agriculture and warfare ; for he observed that men so employed are more temperate, less entangled in the pursuits of forbidden love, and subject to that kind of avarice only, which leads them not to injure one another, but to enrich themselves at the expense of the enemy. But finding that each of these occupa- tions, separate from the other, is imperfect, and produces murmurs ; instead of appointing one part of the men to till the earth, and the other to lay waste the enemy's country, according to the insti- tution of the Lacedemonians, he ordered the same persons to exercise the employments, both of hus- bandmen and of soldiers ; and accustomed them in time of peace, to live in the country and culti- vate the land, except when it was necessary for lliem to come to market, upon which occasions they were to meet in the city in order to traffic ; and to that end he appointed a market to be held every ninth day. In time of war, he taught them the duty of soldiers, and not to yield to any other, in the fatigues or advantages that attend it.' Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure .has not destroyed so many fortunes, as the calcu- lating but insatiable lust of accumulation. Some reputed saints that have been canonized, ought to have been cannonaded ; and some reputed 151 LAC ON. sinners that have been cannonaded, ought to have been canonized. To be satisfied with the acquittal of the world, though accompanied with the secret condemnation of conscience, is the mark of a little mind ; but it requires a soul of no common stamp, to be satis- fied with his own acquittal, and to despise the con- demnation of the world. An Irishman rights before he reasons, a Scotch- man reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers. A modern general has said, that the best troops would be as follows : an Irishman half drunk, a Scotch- man half starved, and an Englishman with his belly full. If some persons v/ere to bestow one half of their fortune in learning how to spend the other half, it would be money extremely well laid out. He that spends two fortunes, and, permitting himself to be twice ruined, dies at last a beggar, deserves no commiseration. He has gained neither experience from trial, nor repentance from reprieve. He has been all his life abusing fortune without enjoying her, and purchasing wisdom without possessing her. Relations take the greatest liberties, and give the least assistance. If a stranger cannot help us with his purse, he will not insult us with his com- ments ; but with relations, it mostly happens that they are the veriest misers with regard to then LA CON. 155 property, but perfect prodigals in the article of advice. After hypocrites, the greatest dupes the devil has, are those who exhaust an anxious existence in the disappointments and vexations of business, and live miserably and meanly, only to die mag- nificently and rich. For, like the hypocrites, the only disinterested action these men can accuse themselves of, is, that of serving the devil without receiving his wages ; for the assumed formality of the one, is not a more effectual bar to enjoyment than the real avarice of the other. He that stands every day of his life behind a counter, until he drops from it into the grave, may negotiate many very profitable bargains ; but he has made a single bad one, so bad. indeed, that it counterbalances all the rest ; for the empty foolery of dying rich, he has paid down his health, his happiness, and his integrity ; since a very old author observes, that 6 as mortar sticketh between the stones, so sticketh fraud between buying and selling.'' Such a world- ling may be compared to a merchant, who should put a rich cargo into a vessel, embark with it him- self, and encounter all the perils and privations of the sea, although he was thoroughly convinced beforehand, that he was only providing for a ship- wreck, at the end of a troublesome and tedious voyage Women do not transgress the bounds of deco- um so often as men, but when they do, they go greater lengths. For with reason somewhat weaker, hey have to contend with passions somewhat 156 L A C O N . stronger ; besides, a female by one transgression forfeits her place in society for ever ; if once she falls, it is the fall of Lucifer. It is hard, indeed, that the law of opinion should be most severe on that sex which is least able to bear it ; but so it is, and if the sentence be harsh, the sufferer should be reminded that it was passed by her peers. There- fore, if once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her case is desperate ; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex. We may also add, that as modesty is the richest ornament of a woman, the want of it is her greatest deformity, for the bet- ter the thing, the worse will ever be its perversion, and if an angel falls, the transition must be to a demon. Of the professions, it may be said, that soldiers are becoming too popular, parsons too lazy, physi- cians too mercenary, and lawyers too powerful. Most men abuse courtiers, and affect to despise courts ; yet most men are proud of the acquaint- ance of the one, and would be glad to live in the other. Evils are more to be dreaded from the sudden- ness of their attack, than from their magnitude, or their duration. In the storms of life, thtfse that are foreseen are half overcome, but the tiffoon is a just cause of alarm to the helmsman, pouncing on the vessel, as an eagle on her prey. LACON. 157 Homer, not contented with making his hero invulnerable every where but in the heel, and sa swift of foot, that if he did run nobody could catch him, completes the whole by making a god his blacksmith, and covering him, like a rhinoceros, with a coat of mail from a superhuman manufac- tory. With all those advantages, since his object was to surprise his readers, he should have made his bully a coward, rather than a hero. Of method, this may be said, if we make it our slave, it is well ; but it is bad if we are slaves to method. A gentleman o&ce told me, that he made it a regular rule to read fifty pages every day of some author or other, and on no account to fall short of that number, or to exceed it. I silently set him down for a man who might have taste to read something worth writing, but who never could have genius himself to write any thing worth reading. Deliberate with caution, but act with decision ; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firm- ness. There are many good-natured fellows, who have paid the forfeit of their lives to their love of ban- tering and raillery. No doubt they have had much diversion, but they have purchased it too dear. Although their wit and their brilliancy may have been often extolled, yet it has at last been extinguished for ever ; and by a foe, perhaps, who has neither the one nor the other^ but who found it easier to point a sword than a repartee. 1 have heard of a man in the province of Bengal, who had 14 158 LAC ON. been a long time very successful in hunting the tiger. His skill gained him great eclat, and ensured him much diversion ; at length he narrowly escaped with his life ; he then relinquished the sport, with this observation : ' Tiger hunting is very fine amusement, so long as we hunt the tiger ; but it is rather awkward when the tiger takes it into his head to hunt us.' Again, this skill in small wit, like skill in small arms, is very apt to beget a con- fidence which may prove fatal in the end. We may either mistake the proper moment, for even cow- ards have their fighting days, or we may mistake the proper man. A certain Savoyard got his live- lihood by exhibiting a monkey and a bear ; he gained so much applause from his tricks with the monkey, that he was encouraged to practise some of them on the bear ; he was dreadfully lacerated, and on being rescued with great difficulty from the gripe of Bruin, he exclaimed : ' What a fool was I not to distinguish between a monkey and a bear ! A bear, my friends, is a very grave kind of person- age, and as you plainly see, does not understand a joke !' It is always safe to learn, even from our ene- mies — seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends. If men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add, that the Christian pil- grimage far surpasses all others, in the following important particulars : in the goodness of the road, — in the beauty of the prospects — in the excel- lence of the company — and in the vast superiority LAC ON. 15$ 6f the accommodation provided for the Christian traveller, when he has finished his course. All who have been great and good without Christianity, would have been much greater and better with it. If there be amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrepealed heaven ; and by works,, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land. Though the Godhead were to reward and to exalt, without limit, and without end, yet the object of its highest favours could never offend the brightness of his eternal majesty, by too near an approximation to it *, for the difference between the Creator and- the created must ever be infinite, and the barrier that divides them insurmountable. Of all the marvellous works of the Deity, per- haps there is nothing that angels behold with such supreme astonishment as a proud man. Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally, that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watch- men, it readily descends into the heart. A cox- comb begins by determining that his own profession is the first ; and he finishes,, by deciding thaf he is the first of his profession. A poor nation that relaxes not from her attitude of defence, is less likely to be attacked, though 160 LACOK, surrounded by powerful neighbours, than anothei nation which possesses wealth, commerce, popula tion, and all the sinews of war, in far greater abun dance, but unprepared. For the more sleek the prey, the greater is the temptation ; and no wolf will leave a sheep, to dine upon a porcupine. Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention. ; there are many books that owe their success to two things, the good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them. Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always ; for cowardice sometimes prevents it ; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live. We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For, when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation, but when we receive it, we are lowered. That, therefore, which has been observed of treason, may be said also of talent, we love instruction, but hate the instructer, and use the light, but abuse the lantern. Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles Us even in our pains. There are four classes of men in the world: first, those whom every one would wish to talk to and whom every one does talk of; — these are LACON. 261 that small minority, that constitute the great Secondly, those whom no one wishes to talk to, and whom no one does talk of; — these are the vast majority, that constitute the little. The third class is made up of those whom every body talks of, but nobody talks to ; — these constitute the knaves. And the fourth is composed of those whom every body talks to, but whom nobody talks of; and these constitute the fools. He that, like the wife of Cesar, is above suspi- cion, is alone the fittest person to undertake the noble and adventurous task of diverting the shafts of calumny from him who has been wounded with- out cause, has fallen without pity, and cannot stand without help. It is the possessor of unblem- ished character alone, who, on such an occasion, may dare to stand, like Moses, in the gap, and stop the plague of detraction, until Truth and Time, those slow but steady friends, shall come up, to vindicate the protected, and dignify the protector. A good character, therefore, is carefully to be main- tained for the sake of others, if possible, more than ourselves ; it is a coat of triple steel, giving secu- rity to the wearer, protection to the oppressed, and inspiring the oppressor with awe. Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. Our blood is nearer and dearer to us than our money, and our life than our estate. Women. are more taken with courage than with generosity, for it has all the merits of its sister yirtue, with tho 14* 162 LACON. addition of the most disinterested devotedness, and powerful protection. Generosity enters so much into the constitution of courage, that, with the exception of the great Duke of Marlborough,* we shall hardly find an instance of undaunted personal bravery, coexisting in the same breast, with great avarice. The self-denial of Christianity, the magnanimity of chivalry, all that is splendid in history, or captivating in romance, seems to have been made up of courage, or generosity, or of both. In fact, true courage, well directed, can neither be overpaid nor overpraised. A hero is not composed of common materials ; his ex- pense is hazard, his coin is blood, and out of the very impossibilities of the coward he cuts a peril- ous harvest with the sword. We cannot aspire to so high a character on cheaper terms, otherwise FalstafT's soldiers might be allowed their claim, since they were afraid of nothing, but danger. It is unfortunate, however, that presence of mind is always most necessary, when absence of body would be most desirable ; and there is this paradox in fear, he is most likely to inspire it in others, who has none himself. Natural good is so intimately connected with moral good, and natural evil with moral evil, that I am as certain as if I heard a voice from heaven proclaim it, that God is on the side of virtue. * At a certain diplomatic dinner, where there were many foreigners of distinction, the duke gave for a toast, ' My queen.' One of the party, who sat next to Prince Eugene, inquired of him, in a whisper, { what queen his grace had given.' ' I know of no queen that is his particular favour- ite,' replied the prince, ' except it be regma pecunia? LACON. 163 He has learned much, and has not lived in vain, who has practically discovered the most strict and necessary connexion that does, and will ever exist, between vice and misery, virtue and happiness. The greatest miracle that the Almighty could per- form, would be, to make a bad man happy, even in heaven ; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice, that is, all excess, brings on its own punishment, even here. By certain fixed, settled, and estab- lished laws of Him who is the God of Nature, excess of every kind destroys that constitution, which temperance would preserve. The debau- chee offers up his body a ' living sacrifice* to sin. To know exactly how much mischief may be ventured upon with impunity, is knowledge suffi- cient for a little great man. Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that; are not so, are assorted and arranged. Some have wondered, that disputes about opin- ions should so often end in personalities ; but the fact is, that such disputes begin with personalities, for our opinions are a part of ourselves. Many who find the day too long, think life too short ; but short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions, and their estates. m LAGON. As lie gives proof of a sound and vigorous body, that accidentally transgressing the line of demar- cation, is confined to the pest-house, and at the end of his quarantine, comes out without being infected by the plague, so he that can live in courts, those hospitals of intellectual disease, without being con- taminated by folly or corruption, gives equal proof of a sound and vigorous mind. But, as no one thinks so meanly of a conjurer as his own zany, so none so thoroughly despise a court, as those who are thoroughly acquainted with it, particularly if to that acquaintance they also add due know- ledge of themselves ; for many have retired in disgust from a court which they felt they despised, to a solitude which they merely fancied they could enjoy, only, like Charles the Fifth, to repent of their repentance. Such persons, sick of others, yet not satisfied with themselves, have closed each eventless day, with an anxious wish to be liberated from so irksome a liberty, and to retire from so melancholy a retirement ; for it requires less strength of mind to be dissatisiied with a court, than to be contented with a cloister, since, to be disgusted with a court, it is only necessary to be acquainted with courtiers ; but to enjoy a cloister, we must have a thorough knowledge of ourselves. Oceans of ink, reams of paper, and disputes infi- nite, might have been spared, if wranglers had avoided lighting the torch of strife at the wrong end ; since a tenth part of the pains expended in attempt- ing to prove the why, the where, and the when, certain events have happened, would have been more than sufficient to prove that they never hap* pened at all. L A C O N . The most admired statues of the Pagan deities, were produced in an age of general infidelity; and the Romans, when sincere believers in their mytho- logy, had not a single god tolerably executed ; yet Seneca observes that these primitive ' fictile s dei? these gods of clay, were much more propitious than those of marble, and were worshipped with an adoration more ardent and sincere. Something similar to what happened to the religion of impe- rial, has since happened to that of pontifical Rome. Formerly, that altar was contented with utensils of wood, and of lead, but its rites were administered by an Austin and a Chrysostom — priests of gold ! Tilings are now reversed ; the altar of St. Peter, says Jorjin, has golden utensils, but leaden priests ! It rarely happens, that the finest writers are the most capable of teaching others their art. If Shakspeare himself had been condemned to write a system of metaphysics explanatory of his magic influence over all the passions of the mind, it would have been a dull and unsatisfactory work ; a heavy task, both to the reader and to the writer. All preceptors, therefore, should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, ' equal to their busi- ness, but not above it f a patient industry, with competent erudition ; a mind depending more on its correctness, than its originality, and on its memory, rather than on its invention. If we wish to cut glass, we must have recourse to a diamond ; but if it be our task to sever iron or lead, we must make use of a much coarser instrument. To sen- tence a man of true genius to the drudgery of a school, is to put a racehorse in a mill. 166 LACON. Histrionic talent is not so rare a gift as some* imagine : it is both overrated and overpaid. That the requisites for a firstrate actor demand a com- bination not easily to be found, is an erroneous assumption, ascribable, perhaps, to the following causes : the market for this kind of talent must always be understocked, because very few of those who are really qualified to gain theatrical fame, will condescend to start for it. To succeed, the candidate must be a gentleman by nature, and a scholar by education ; there are many who can justly boast of this union, but out of that many, how few are there that would seek or desire the- atrical celebrity. The metropolitan theatre, there- fore, can only be recruited from the best samples which the provincial theatres will afford, and this is a market, abundant as to quantity, but extremely deficient as to quality. Johnson told Garrick that he and his profession were mutually indebted to each other : ' Your profession,' said the doctor, 4 has made you rich, and you have made your pro- fession respectable.' Such men as Smith, Garrick, Kemble, and Young, might do honour to any pro- fession, and would, perhaps, have succeeded in any ; but their attempting success in this depart- ment is much more extraordinary than their attaining it ; in general, those who possess the necessary qualifications for an actor, also feel that they de- serve to be something better, and this feeling dic- tates a more respectable arena. Neither is the title to talent bestowed by the suffrages of a metro- politan audience always unequivocal. — Such an audience is indeed a tribunal from which an actor has no appeal ; but there are many causes which conspire to warp and to bias its judgment ; and it L A C O N . 167 often happens, that it is more difficult to please a country audience, than a London one. In a coim- * try theatre, there is nothing to brihe our decisions ; the principal actor is badly supported, and must depend solely on himself. In a London theatre, the blaze of light and beauty, the splendour of the scenery, the skill of the orchestra, are all adsciti- tious attractions, acting as avant couriers for the performer, and predisposing us to be pleased. Add to this that the extended magnificence of a metro- politan stage defends the actor from that micro- scopic scrutiny, to which he must submit in the country. We should also remember, that at times it requires more courage to praise, than to censure, and the metropolitan actor will always have this advantage over the provincial, if we are pleased, our taste is flattered in the one instance, but sus- pected in the other. Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the bright- ness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion, confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death. We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character, than to raise one. There are no two things so much talked of, and so seldom seen, as virtue and the funds. The depravity of human nature is a favourite topic with the priests, but they will not brook that the laity should descant upon it: in this respect they may be compared to those husbands who 168 L A C O :V . freely abuse their own wives, but. are ready to cut the throats of any other man who does so. If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade. It is easier to pretend to be what you are not, than to hide what you really are ; he that can ac- complish both, has little to learn in hypocrisy. Tn any public scheme or project, it is advisable that the p s, ;oser or projector should not at first present himself to the public as the sole mover in the affair. His neighbours will not like his ego- tism, if he be at all ambitious, nor will they willingly co-operate in any thing that may place an equal a single step above their own heads. Dr. Franklin was the projector of many useful institutions in the infant state of America. He attained his object, and avoided envy, for he himself informs us, that his secret was, to propose the measure at first, not as originating in himself alone, but as the joint recommendation of a few friends. The doc- tor was no stranger to the workings of the human heart ; for if his measures had failed, their failure would not be attributed to him alone, and if they succeeded, some one else would claim the merit of being the first planner of them. But whenever this happens, the original projector will be sure to gain from the envy of mankind, that justice, which he must not expect from their gratitude ; for all the rest of the members will not patiently see an- LACO N . im other run away with the merit of that plan, which originated in the first projector alone, who will, therefore, be sure to reap his full due of praise in the end, and with that interest which mankind will always cheerfully pay, not so much for the justice of rewarding the diffident, as for the pleasure of lowering the vain. Some well meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through, before they can arrive at regen- eration : to satisfy such minds, it may be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it produce amendment, and that the greatest is insuf- ficient, if it do not. Therefore, by their own fruits let them prove themselves ; for some soils will take the good seed, without being watered by tears, or harrowed up by affliction. Shakspeare, Butler, and Bacon, have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them, to be sublime, witty, or profound. If you have cause to suspect the integrity of one with whom you must have dealings, take care that you have no communication with him, if he has his friend and you have not ; you are playing a dangerous game, in which the odds are two to one against you. Wh^n the Methodists first decide on the doctrine they approve, and then choose such pastors as they know will preach no other, they act as wisely as a patient, who should send for a physician, and 15 170 LACO IS . then prescribe to him what medicines he ought to advise. A necessitous man, who gives costly dinners, pays large sums to be laughed at. Examinations are formidable, even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask, more than the wisest man Gan answer. It is better to have recourse to a quack, if he can cure our disorder, although he cannot explain it, than to a physician, if he can explain our disease, but cannot cure it. In a certain consultation of physicians, they all differed about the nature of an intermittent, and ail of them were ready to define the disorder. The patient was a king. At length an empiric, who had been called in, thus in- terposed : ' Gentlemen, you all seem to differ about the nature of an intermittent, permit me to explain it : an intermittent, gentlemen, is a disorder which I can cure, and which you cannot.' It is a serious doubt, whether a wise man ought to accept of a thousand years of life, even provided that those three important advantages of health, youth, and riches, could be securely guarantied unto him. But this is an offer that can never be refused, for it will never bo made. Taking things as they really are, it must be confessed that life, after forty, is an anti-climax, gradual indeed, and progressive with some, but steep and rapid with others. It would be well if old age diminished our perceptibilities to pain, in the same proportion that it does our sensibilities to pleasure ; and if life L A c o :\\ 171 has been termed a feast, those favoured few are the most fortunate guests. who are not compelled to sit at the table, when they can no longer partake of the banquet. The misfortune is that body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together. It is bad when the mind survives the body ; and worse still when the body survives the mind ; but, when both these survive our spirits, our hopes, and our health, this is worst of all. As some consolation for the fears of the brave, and the follies of the wise, let us reflect on the magnanimity that has been displayed by the weak, and the disinterestedness that has been evinced by the mistaken ; by those who have indeed grossly erred, but have nobly acted. This reflection will increase our veneration for virtue, when even its shadow has produced substantial good, and uncon- querable heroism ; since a phantom, when mis- taken for her, has been pursued with an ardour that gathered force from opposition, constancy from per- secution, and victorv from death. There is this difference bet ween happiness and wisdom ; he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so ; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool. Aristotle has said, that man is by nature a social animal, and he might have added, a selfish one too. Heroism, self-denial and magnanimity, in all instan- ces, where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacri- fice one kind of self-icve to another. 1 think it is Adam Smith wbo has observed, ffet 'J' a man in 172 LAC OX. Europe were to go to bed with the conviction tha 1 at the hour of twelve on the following morning, the whole empire of China would be swallowed up by an earthquake, it would not disturb his night's rest, so much as the certainty, that, at the same hour, he himself would be obliged to undergo the ampu- tation of his little finger. It seems to be a law of our nature, intended perhaps for our preservation-, that little evils, coining home to ourselves, should affect us more than great evils, at a distance, hap- pening to others ; but they must be evils that we cannot prevent, and over which we have no control ; for perhaps, there is no man who would not lose a little finger to save China. It has been also remarked, that if a state criminal were to be exe- cuted opposite the doors of the theatre, at the mo- ment of the performance of the deepest tragedy, the emptiness of the house, and the sudden aban- donment of the seats, would immediately testify, how much more we are interested by witnessing real misery than artificial. The result of such an experiment would probably be this, that the galle- ries would be wholly deserted, and the boxes in part, but that the far greater part of the portion of the audience in the pit would keep their stations ; for the extremes of luxury,* on the one hand, and * It was from the pavilion of pleasure and enjoyment that the Fourteenth Louis sent out his orders for the devas- tation of the whole Palatinate; and it was from the bowl and the banquet, that Nero issued forth to fiddle to the flames of Rome; and, on the contrary, it was from the loathsome bed of a most foul and ineurable disease tha Herod decreed the assassination of the Jewish nobility; and Tippoo Saib ordered the murder of a corps of Chris- tian slaves, the most cruel act of his cruel life, at a moment when he justly anticipated his own death, and the coafia? gration of his capital. LAGO X . 1T3 of misery on the ether, have a decided tendency to harden the human mind : the middle class, inas- much as it is equally removed from both these extremes, seems to be that particular meridian, under which all the kindlier affections, and the finer sensibilities of our nature most readily flourish and abound. Even if the theatre were wholly emptied on such an occasion as that which I have noticed above, it would not appear that we should be war- ranted in affirming, that we are creatures so consti- tuted as to derive happiness, not only from our own pleasures, but from another's pains. For sympa- thy, in some temperaments, will produce the same conduct with insensibility in others, and the effects will be similar, although the causes that pro- duce them will be opposite. The famous ; ama- teur Anglais? who crossed the channel to witness an execution at Paris, was never suspected of a want of feeling ; but the servant girl, recorded by Swift, who walked seven miles in a torrent of rain, to see a criminal hanged, and returned crying and sobbing because the man was reprieved, may with- out any breach of Christian charity, be accused of a total want of compassion and benevolence. Analogy, although it is not infallible, is yet that telescope of the mind by which it is marvellously assisted in the discovery of both physical and moral truth. Analogy has much in store for men; but babes require milk, and there may be intellec- tual food which the present state of society is not fit to partake of ; to lay such before it, would be as absurd as to give a quadrant to an Indian, or a loom to a Hottentot. There is a time for all things, and it was necessary that a certain state of )5* !74 LACOJS. civilization and refinement should precede, and as it were, prepare the human mind for the reception even of the noblest gift it has ever received, the law of God revealed by Christianity. Socrates was termed a Christian, born some centuries before his time. A state of society like the present, obscured by selfishness, and disturbed by warfare, presents a medium almost impervious to the ray . of moral truth ; the muddy sediment must subside, and the tempest must cease, before the sun can illuminate the lake. I foresee the period, when some new and parent idea in morals, the matrix of a better order of things, shall reconcile us more completely to God, to nature, and to ourselves. In physics, there are many discoveries already made, too powerful to be safe, too unmanageable to be subservient. Like the behemoth, described by Job, who could neither be tamed to render sport for the maidens, nor to bend his neck to the plough, so these discoveries in physics have not yet been subdued by any hand bold enough to apply them, either to the elegancies, or to the necessities of life. Let any man reflect on the revolution pro- duced in society by two simple and common things, glass and gunpowder. What then ? Shall some discoveries in physics be so important as to pro- duce a complete revolution in society, and others so powerful that the very inventors of them have not as yet dared to apply them, and shall not dis- coveries in morals be allowed a still more para- mount and universal influence ; an influence the greater, in proportion as matter is inferior to mind ? For we must remember that analogy was that powerful engine, which in the mind of a Newton discovered to us the laws of all other worlds ; and lacojs. m in that of a Columbus put us in full possession of our own. Society, like a shaded silk, must be viewed in all situations, or its colours will deceive us. — Gold- smith observed, that one man who travels through Europe on foot, and who, like Scriblerus, makes his legs his compasses, and another who is whisked through in a chaise and four, will form very differ- ent conclusions, at the end of their journey. The philosopher, therefore, will draw his estimate of human nature, by varying as much as possible his own situation, to multiply the points of view under which he observes her. Uncireumscribed by lines of latitude or of longitude, he will examine her buttoned up and laced in the forms and ceremonies of civilization, and at her ease, unrestrained, in the light and feathered costume of the savage. He will also associate with the highest without servility, and with the lowest without vulgarity. In short, in the grand theatre of human life, he will visit the pit and the gallery, as well as the boxes, but he will not inform the boxes that he comes amongst them from the pit, nor the pit that he visits them from the gallery. A second profession seldom succeeds, not be- cause a man may not make himself fully equal to its duties, but because the world will not readily believe he is so. The world argue thus ; he that has failed in his first profession, to which he dedi- cated the morning of his life, and the spring-time of his exertions, is not the most likely person to master a second. To this it may be replied, that a man's first profession is often chosen for him by 170 L A C O N . others ; his second, ho usually decides upon for himself; therefore, his failure in his first profes- sion may for what they know, be mainly owing to the secret but sincere attentions he Was constantly paying to his second ; and in this case he may bo compared to those who having suffered others to prescribe to them a wife, have taken the liberty to consult themselves in the choice of a mistress. It has been well observed, that the tongue dis- covers the state of the mind, no less than that of the body; but, in either case before the philo- sopher or the physician can judge, the patient must open his mouth. Some men envelop them- selves in such an impenetrable cloak of silence, that the tongue will afford us no symptoms of the temperament of the mind. Such taciturnity, indeed, is wise if they are fools, but foolish if the)? arc wise ; and the only method to form a judgment of these mutes, is narrowly to observe when, where, and how, they smile. It shows much more stupidity to be grave at a good thing, than to be merry at a bad one ; and of all ignorance, that which is silent, is the least productive, for praters may suggest an idea if they cannot start one. The labouring classes of the community, in the metropolis, are vastly inferior, in point of intellect, to the same order of society in the country. The mind of the city artificer is mechanized by his constant attention to one single object; an atten- tion into which he is of necessity drilled and dis- ciplined by the minute subdivision of labour, which improves, I admit, the art, but debilitates the artist, and converts the man into a mere breathing pan L A C X . 177 of that machinery by which he works. The rustic, on the contrary, who is obliged to turn his hand to everything., and must often make his tool before he can use it, is pregnant with invention, and fertile in resource. It is true, that by a combination of their different employments, the city artificers produce specimens in their respective vocations, far superior to the best efforts of the rustics. But if, from the effects of systematic co?nbination, the cits infer an individual superiority, they are wofully deceived. The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living, they never flatter us to our faces, slander us behind our backs, intrude upon our privacy, or quit their shelves until we take them down. Besides, it is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb. Living authors therefore are often bad companions ; if they have not gained a character, they seek to do so, by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting ; and if they have established a character, they are silent, for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen ; many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith. w r ho have never written half so well. If you would be known and not know, vegetate in a village ; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city. That modes of government have much more to do with the formation of national character, than soils, suns and climates, is sufficiently evident J7S LAC ON. from the present, stale of Greece and Rome corn pared with the ancient. Give these nations hack their former governments, and all their national energies would return, and enable them to accom- modate themselves to any conceivable change of climate ; but no conceivable change of climate would enable them to recover their former energies. In fact, so powerful are all the causes that are connected with changes in their governments, that they have sometimes made whole nations alter as suddenly and as capriciously as individuals. The Romans laid down their liberties at the feet of Nero, who would not even lend them to Cesar ; and we have lately seen the whole French nation rush, as one man, from the very extremes of loyalty, to behead the mildest monarch that ever ruled them ; and conclude a sanguinary career of plun- der, by pardoning and renewing a tyrant, to whom their blood was but water, and their groans but wind ; thus they sacrificed one, a martyr to his clemency, and they rewarded another, who lives to boast of his murders. He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents. He will be in argument what the ancient Romans were in the field ; to them the clay of battle was a day of comparative recreation, because they were ever accustomed to exercise with arms much heavier than they fought ; and their reviews differed from a real battle in twe respects, they encountered more fatigue, but ihf victory was bloodless. L A C O N . 179 A peace, for the making of which the negociator has been the most liberally rewarded, is usually a bad peace. He is rewarded on the score of having overreached his enemy, and for having made a peace, the advantages of which are clearly on his own side. Such a peace will not be kept : and that is the best peace which is most likely to be the firmest. Now, a peace where the advan- tages are balanced, and which consults the good of both parties, is the firmest, because both par- lies are interested in its preservation ; for parch- ment bonds, and seals of state, will not restrain a discontented nation, that has arms in her hands, and knows how to use them. Xo men despise physic so much as physicians, because no men so thoroughly understand how little it can perform. They have been tinkering the human constitution four thousand years, in order to cure about as many disorders. The result is, that mercury and brimstone are the only two specifics they have discovered. All the fatal mala- dies continue to be what they were in the days of Paracelsus, Hippocrates, and Galen, * opprobria medico-rum?* It is true that each disorder has a thousand prescriptions, but not a single remedy. They pour a variety of salts and acids into a mar- ble mortar, and expect similar results when these agredients are poured into the human stomach: >ut what can be so groundless as reasonings built m such analogies ?f The marble mortar admits * The disgrace of physicians. — Pub. + It is tnore sale to imitate the conduct of the late Dr. ^bevden. He paid the strictest attention to symptoms, Hid temperaments, and having ascertained these, to the ISO LAC Off. the agency of atmospherical air, which cannot be said of the human stomach ; and, again, the stom- ach possesses life* and the gastric juice, which cannot be said of the marble mortar. There are two metals, one of which is compo- nent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp — . gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both, may indeed attain the highest station, but he must know something more, to keep it. It has been doubted whether Cromwell, with all his pre- tended sanctity, and all his real courage, could have maintained his power one year longer, even if he had not died on the anniversary of that very day, which he had always considered as the most fortunate of his life. For Cromwell had also his high destinies, and his lucky days. Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root. best of his judgment, he prescribed such remedies as he had always observed to be beneficial to others under similar circumstances ; ond what was of still greater consequence, he carefully avoided what long experience had taught him would do harm. Here he stopped, for he was not so pre- sumptuous as to frame theories to explain the why, and the wherefore, this did harm, or that did good; he was too much occupied in things of greater importance, well know- ing that the wisest of us know nothing of life, but by its effects, and that the consequences of every prescription, are far more clear and apparent, than the causes that pro- duce them. * The gastric juice will not act upon a living stomach, although it will rapidly de-compose a dead one. LA CON. 131 Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those, who when alive, would part with nothing. In Catholic coun- tries there is no mortmain act; and those w 7 ho, when dying, empoverish their relations by leaving tneir fortunes to he expended in masses for them- selves, have been shrewdly said to leave their own souls their heirs. The science of the mathematics performs more than it promises, but the science of metaphysics pi onuses more than it performs. The study of the mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness, but ends in magnificence ; but the study of meta- physics begins with a torrent of tropes, and a copi- ous current of words ; yet loses itself at last in obscurity and conjecture, like the Niger in his bar- ren deserts of sand. To be continually subject to the breath of slan- der, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the bright- ness of the finest gold ; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded. The mob is a monster with the hands of Bria- reus, but the head of Polyphemus — strong to exe- cute, but blind to perceive. When we apply to the conduct of the ancient Romans, the pure and unbending principles of Chri stianity, we try those noble delinquents unjustly, inasmuch as we condemn them by the severe sen- tence of an ' ex post facto 1 law. 16 182 LACON. Strong as our passions are> they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed. Great men, like great cities, have many crooked arts and dark alleys in their hearts, whereby ho that knows them may save himself much time and trouble. There are some men who are fortune's favour- ites, and who, like cats, light forever upon their legs ; didappers, whom if you had stripped naked and thrown over Westminster bridge, you might meet on the very next day, with bag-wigs on their heads, swords by their sides, laced coats upon their backs, and money in their pockets. We may doubt of the existence of matter, if we please, and, like Berkely, deny it, without subject- ing ourselves to the shame of a very conclusive confutation ; but there is this remarkable difference between matter and mind ; he that doubts the ex- istence of mind, by doubting, proves it. The policy of drawing a public revenue from the private vices of drinking and of gaming, is as pur- blind as it is pernicious ; for temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest ; and a gamester contributes much less to the revenue than the industrious, because he is much sooner ruined. When Mandeville maintained that private vices were public benefits, he did not calculate the widely destructive influence of bad example. To affirm that a vicious man is only his own enemy, is aboul L.AUO N 183 as wise as to affirm that a virtuous man is only his own friend. Russia, like the elephant, is rather unwieldy in attacking others, but most formidable in defending herself. She proposes this dilemma to all inva- ders — a dilemma that Napoleon discovered too late. The horns of it are short and simple, but strong. Come unto me with few, and I voill overwhelm you ; come to me with many, and you shall overwhelm your- selves. The art of destruction seems to have proceeded geometrically, while the art of preservation cannot be said to have advanced even in a plain arithmet- ical progression ; for there are but two specifics known that will infallibly cure their two respective diseases. The modes of destroying life have increased so rapidly, that conquerors have not to consider how to murder men, but out of the num- berless methods invented, are only puzzled which to choose. If any nation should hereafter dis- cover a new mode of more inevitable destruction to its enemies, than is yet known, (and some late ex- periments in chymistry make this supposition far from improbable), it would, in that case, become absolutely necessary for all neighbouring nations to attempt a similar discovery ; or that nation, which continued in sole possession of so tremendous a secret, would, like the serpent of Aaron, swallow up all the neighbouring nations, and ultimately sub- jugate the world. Let such a secret be at once known by any particular nation, and by the activity of all neighbouring states, in every possible effort of vigilant and sleepless espionage, and by the 184 LAC ON. immense rewards proposed for information, man kind would soon perceive which of the two arts government considered of the greatest consequence — the art of preservation or that of destruction. If indeed, any new and salutary mode of preserv- ing life were discovered, such a discovery would not awaken the jealousy, nor become in any degree, such a stimulus to the inventive faculties of other nations, as the art of destruction ; princes and potentates would look on with indifference; the progress of such discoveries has always been slow, and their salutary consequences remote and preca- rious. Inoculation was practised in Turkey long before it was known in Europe ; and vaccination has at this moment many prejudices to contend with. The Chinese, who aspire to be thought an enlightened nation, to this day are ignorant of the circulation of the blood ; and even in England, the man who made that noble discovery, lost all his practice in consequence of his ingenuity ; Hume informs us, that no physician in the United King- doms who had attained the age of forty, ever sub- mitted to Harvey's theory, but went on preferring numpsimus to surnpsimus to the day of his death. So true is that line of the satirist, * A fool at forty is a fool indeed? and we may also add, on this occasion, another line from another satirist: — ■ { Durum est, 1 Qua juvenes didiccre, senes pcrdenda fateri?* There are two things, which united, constitute the value of any acquisition, its difficulty and its * It is hard for men to think that vorlhlrss, which as boys they have tolled to learn. — Pub. LAC ON. 185 utility The bulk of mankind, with Bayes in the Rehearsal-, like what will astonish, rather than what will improve. Dazzled by the difficulty, they examine not the utility ; and he that benefits them by some mode which they can comprehend, is not so sure of their applause, as the political juggler who merely surprises them, they know not God is on the side of virtue ; for whoever dreads punishment, suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it. The most disagreeable two-legged animal I know, is a little great man, and the next, a little great man's factotum and friend. There are some men, whose enemies are to be pitied much, and their friends more. Civil and religious freedom go hand in hand, and in no country can much of the one long exist, with- out producing a corresponding portion of the other. No despotism, therefore, is so complete, as that which imposes ecclesiastical as well as political restrictions ; and those tyrants in Christendom, who discourage popery, have learned but half their lesson. Provided tyrants will assist her in fettering the mind, she will most readily assist them in en- slaving the body. There are some persons whose erudition so much outweighs their observation, and who have read so much, and reflected so little, that they will not hazard the most familiar truism, or common-place 16* 186 LACQ N . allegation, without bolstering up their rickety judg- ments* in the swaddling bands of antiquity, their doating nurse and preceptress. — Thus, they will not be satisfied to say that content is a blessing, that time is a treasure, or that self-knowledge is to be desired, without quoting Aristotle, Thales, or Cle- obulus ; and yet these very men, if they met ano- ther walking in noonday by the smoky light of a lantern, would be the first to stop and ridicule such conduct, but the last to recognise in his folly, their own. Mystery magnifies danger, as the fog the sun. The hand thatunnerved Belshazzer derived its most horrifying influence from the want of a body ; and death itself is not formidable in what we know of it, but in what we do not. Levity is often less foolish, and gravity less wise, than each of them appear. Revenge is a fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another ; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is re- morse — a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable. Afflictions sent by Providence, melt the con- stancy of the noble minded, but confirm the obdu- racy of the vile. The same furnace that hardens clay, liquefies gold ; and in the strong manifestations of divine power, Pharaoh found his punishment, but David his pardon. LACON. 187 When young, Ave trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Man- hood is the isthmus between the two extremes : the ripe, the fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute. The French nation despises all other nations, except the English ; we have the honour of her hate, only because she cannot despise us. The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame. Neutrality is no favourite with Providence, for Ave are so formed that it is scarcely possible for us to stand neuter in our hearts, although we may deem it prudent to appear so in our actions. Religion, like its votaries, Avhile it exists on earth, must have a body as Avell as a soul. A religion purely spiritual, might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals ; and the body too of- ten lords it over the mind. Secrecy has been Avell termed the soul of all great designs ; perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions, than by discovering those of our enemy. But great men succeed in both. Always look at those whom you are talking to % never at those vou are talking of. 188 LACON. There are some truths, the force and validity of which we readily admit, in all cases except oui own ; and there are other truths so self-evident that we dare not deny them, but so dreadful that we dare not believe them. Many speak the truth, when they say that they despis-e riches and preferment, but they mean the riches and preferment possessed by other men. If the weakness of the head, were an admissible excuse for the malevolence of the heart, the one half of mankind would be occupied in aggression, and the other half in forgiveness ; but the inte- rests of society peremptorily demand that things should not be so ; for a fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorri- gible. There are prating coxcombs in the world, who would rather talk than listen, although Shakspeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme ! The greatest professor and proficient in any science, loves it not so sincerely as to be fully pleased with any finer effort in it than he can him self produce. The feeling excited on such an occasion, is a mixed sensation of envy, delight, and despair ; but the bitters here are as two, the sweets but as one. Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality. LA CON. 189 Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse, or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, and the other buried. Husbands cannot be pri?icipals m their own cuckoldom, but they are parties to it much more often than they themselves imagine. Professors in every branch of the sciences pre- fer their own theories to truth : the reason is, that their theories are private property, but truth is com- mon stock. It is dangerous to be much praised in private circles, before our reputation is fully established in the world. Many designing men, by asking small favours, and evincing great gratitude, have eventually obtain- ed the most important ones. There is something in the human mind (perhaps the force of habit,) which strongly inclines us to continue to oblige those whom we have begun to oblige, and to injure those whom we have begun to injure ; ' eo injurio- sior quia nocuerat?* Law and equity are two things which God hath joined, but which man hath put asunder. It is safer to be attacked by some men, than to be protected by them. • The greater enemy because he had already injured.— Pua 199 L A (J O Sf . Persecuting bigots maybe compared to those burning lenses which Leuhenhoeck and others composed from ice ; by their chilling apathy, they freeze the suppliant ; by their fiery zeal, they burn the sufferer. As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstand- ing their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance. There is a holy love, and a holy rage ; and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when out passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues, and the best of us are better when roused Passion is to virtue, what wine was to iEschylus and to Ennius, under its inspiration their powers were at their height. Fear debilitates and lowers, but hope animates and revives ; therefore rulers and magistrates should attempt to operate on the minds of their respective subjects, if possible, by reward rather than punish- ment. And this principle will be strengthened by another consideration ; he that is punished of rewarded, while he falls or rises in the estimation of others, cannon fail to do so likewise in his own. Men pursue riches under the idea that their pos- session will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by become sm LAOON, 191 lag themselves its slave ; and independence with- out wealth, is at least as common as wealth without independence. If St. Paul were again to appear on earth, since all the multifarious denominations of Christians w T ould claim him, which would he choose 1 The apostle James shall answer : J Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this : to visit the fatherless and ividows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world? Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely, and conciliate those you cannot conquer. There are politic friendships which knaves find it necessary to keep up with those whom they mean the more effectually to ruin ; for most men may be led to their destruction, few can be driven. Had Talleyrand's enmity to Napoleon manifested itself in opposition, it would have been fatal, not to his master, but to himself; he maintained, therefore, a friendship that not only aggrandized himself, but opened a door for the communication of that advice that enabled him eventually to ruin his master. The martyrs to vice, far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number. So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved. Demagogues, however fond they may affect to be of independence and liberty in their public speeches, aie invariably tories in their private actions, and despots in their own families. The 102 LACON. most violent of them have usually been formed by the refusal of some unreasonable request ; and their patriotism appears in a very questionable shape, when we see that they rejoice in just as much pub- lic calamity as introduces them into power, and supplants their rivals.* Restorations disappoint the loyal. If princes at such times, have much to give, they have also much to gain ; and policy dictates the necessity of be- stowing rather to conciliate enemies, than to reward friend s.f * The real difference, therefore, between a tory and a v I;ig would seem to be this: the one has power, the other wants it. f ■• svn up into a tree, which, like the fabulous Upas, over- shadows and poisons the land; unwholesome expe* cessible, that there seems to be no assignable limit to the improvement of our machinery; but, to permit our ma- chinery to be exported, is about as wise as to hammer swords upon our own anvils, to be employed against our- selves ; ' in nostros fabricata, est machina miiros.'* It is im- possible to deprive Englishmen of their spirit of enterprise and invention, or of the power of their ingenuity, and their habits of industry ; but our machinery is the imbodied result of all these things put together, and in this point, the ex- portation of it, is to deprive us of much of the benefit of those high qualifications stated above; thus it is that the powers of our heads may ultimately paralyze the labours of our hands. The gigantic and formidable dilemma of the present day is this: three orders of men are vitally neces- sary to the existence of the state, for our national indepen- dence is triune, resting upon the welfare of the agricultu- rist, the manufacturer, and the merchant. The misfortune is, that the agriculturist wants one state of things, oppo- site to, and destructive of the interests of the other two ; for the agriculturist must have high prices, or he can no longer meet the heavy demands upon the land ; but the mer- chant and the manufacturer are equally anxious for low prices at home, to enable them to compete with the foreigner abroad. Now, inasmuch as it is chiefly from our superiority in machinery, that we are stili able to command a prefer- ence of our articles in foreign markets, notwithstanding the state of high prices at home, it follows that the means by which that superiority is preserved, should be most jealously guarded, and like a productive patent, kept as far as pos- sible, exclusively to ourselves. So unbounded is the power of machinery, that I have been informed, raw cotton is brought by a long and expensive voyage to England, wrought into yarn, and carried out to India, to supply the poor Hindoo with the staple commodity for his muslins of the finest fabric: and this yarn, after having performed two voyages, we can supply him w r ith cheaper than he himself can spin it. although he is contented with a diet of rice an J water, ana a remuneration of about one penny per day Aoid I have heard a lace manufacturer in the west of Eng • The engines framed to batter our own wall*.— Pu». L A C O N . 24j dients wer e the ftnd, dilemmas and depravities have been the blossom, and danger and despair are the bitter fruit : i r ad ice in tartar a tendit?* It is best, if possible, to deceive no one ; for he that like Mahomet or Cromwell, begins by deceiv- ing others, will end like these, by deceiving him- self; should it be absolutely necessary to deceive our enemies, there may be times when this cannot be effectually accomplished without deceiving at the same time our friends ; for that which is known to our friends, will not long be concealed from our enemies. Lord Peterborough persuaded Sir Ro- bert Walpole that Swift had seen the folly of his old political principle s r and had come over to those of the administration ; that he found himself buried alive in Ireland, and wished to pass the remainder of his days with English preferment and on Eng- lish ground. After frequent importunities from his lordship, Sir Robert consented to see Swift. He came over from Ireland, and was- brought by Lord Peterborough to dine with Sir Robert at Chelsea. His manner was veiy captivating, full of respect to Sir Robert, and completely imposing on Lord Peterbo- rough ;. but we shall see in the sequel, that Swift had ruined himself by not attending to the maxim, that it is necessary at times to deceive our friends as well as our enemies. Sometime after dinner, Sir Robert retired to his closet, and sent for Lord Peterborough, who entered full of joy at Swift's demeanour ; but all this was soon done away ; land affirm, that one pound of raw cotton has been spun by machinery into yam so fine, that it would reach from Lon- don to Edinburgh. * Its roots reach down to hell. — Pub. .21* £46 J, A C If. *Ybn see, my lord.' said Sir Robert, 'how bi I stand in Swift's favour.' ; Yes,' replied Lord Peterborough, 'and I am confident he means ail Le says.' Sir Robert proceeded : ' In my situation, assailed as I am by false friends and real enemies, I hold it my duty, and for the king's benefit, to watch correspondence ; this letter I caused to be stopped at the post-office — read it.' It was a letter from Swift to Dr. Arbuthnot, saying that Sir Ro- bert had consented to see him at last ; that he knew no flattery was too gross for Sir Robert, and that he should receive plenty, and added, that he hoped very soon to have the old fox in his clutches. Lord Peterborough was in astonishment : Sir Ro- bert never saw Swift again. He speedily returned to Ireland, became a complete misanthrope,* and died without a friend. In the superstitious ritual of the church of Rome, the Pope has not the poor merit of invent- ing that mummery by which he reigns. The Ro- man church professes to have a Christian object of adoration, but she worships him with Pagan * He did not open his lips, except en one occasion, for seven years. It would seem that he had a melancholy foreboding of his fate, for on seeing an old oak. the heaii of which was withered, he feelingly exclaimed. ' I shall be like that tree — I shall die at the top. ; The following lines in Hypocrisy, allude to this circumstance : — 1 Then ask not length of days, that gifiless gift. More pleased like Wolfe to die, than live like SwiA; He. with prophetic plaint, his doom divin'd, The body made the living tomb of mind ; Rudder and compass srone, of thought and speech, He lav a misrhtv wreck, on wisdom's K°ach ! : L A C O X . £47 forms.* She retains the ancient custom of build- ing temples with a position to the east. And what are her statues, her incense, her pictures, her im- age worship, her holy water, her processions, her prodigies, and her legerdemain, but religious cus- toms, which have survived the policy of imperial Rome, but which caused that metropolis, when she became pontifical, to receive popery as an ally, not to submit to it as a sovereign. Matrimony is an engagement which must last the life of one of the parties, and there is no retracting, ' vestigia nulla retrorsum;'j therefore, to avoid all the horror of a repentance that comes too late, men should thoroughly know the real causes that induce them to take so important a step, before they venture upon it. Do they stand in need of a wife, an heiress, or a nurse ? Is it their passions, their wants, or their infirmities, that solicit them to * I shall quote the following remarks from the learned author of the Dissertation on the Olympic Games. ( Thus were the two most powerful and martial states of Greece subjected in their turn, to the authority of a petty and an- warlike people; this possibly we should have some diffi- culty to believe, were there not many modern examples of mightier, if not wiser nations, than either of the two above mentioned, having been awed into a submission to a power still more insignificant than that of Elis, by the same edge- less arms, the same brntum fulmen* Whether the thun- ders of the Vatican were forged in imitation of those of the Olympian Jupiter, I will not determine, though I must take notice that many of the customs and ordinances of the Roman church allude most evidently to many practised in the Olympic stadium, as, extreme unction, the palm, the crown' of martyrs, and others, as may be seen at large in Fabers Agonisticon.' t No step backward. — Pub. * Pointless tluir.de rboits — -Pub. MS LACOtf, wed ? Are they candidates for that happy state, 'propter opus, opes, sed opemV* according to tho epigram. These are questions much more proper to be proposed before men go t6< the altar, than after it ; they are points which, well ascertained, would prevent many disappointments, often deplorable* often ridiculous, always remediless. We should not then see young spendthrifts allying them- selves to females who are not so, only because they have nothing to expend ; nor old debauchees taking a blooming beauty to their bosom, when an additional flannel waistcoat would have been a bedfellow much more salutary and appropriate. Yillany that is vigilant, will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber on her post ; and hence it is, that a bad cause has often triumphed over a good one ; for the partisans of the former, knowing that their cause will do nothing for them, have done every thing for their cause ; whereas the friends of the latter are too apt to expect every thing from their cause, and to do nothing for themselves. War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never. To be defended, is almost as great an evil as to be attacked; atid the peasant has often found the shield of a protector, no less op- pressive than the sword of an invader. Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts ; being appeals from right to might, and from argument to artillery ; the fomenters of them have considered the raw material, man, to have been formed for no worthier purposes than to fill up gazettes at homa * For work, or wealth) or aid.— Pun, LACQN, ^49 with their names, and ditches abroad with tneir bodies. Let us hope that true philosophy, the joint offspring of a religion that is pure, and of a reason that is enlightened, will gradually prepare a better order of things, when mankind will no longer be insulted, by seeing bad pens mended by good g words, and weak heads exalted by strong hands. Powerful friends, and first-rate connexions, often assist a man'-s rise, and contribute to his promo- tion; but there are many instances wherein all these things have acted as impediments against him, * ipsa, sibi obstat magnUudo?* for our very greatness may prevent its own aggrandizement, and be kept down by its own weight, ' mole ruit suo.'f It is well known that the conclave of car- dinals w r ere extremely jealous of permitting a Jesuit to fill the apostolic chair, because that body was already too powerful and overbearing ; dignus scd jesuita% esi^ w 7 as a common maxim of the Vati- can ; the fact is, that men like to retain s( me little powder and influence over those whom they aggran- dize and advance ; and hence it happens that great talents, supported by great connexions, are not unfrequently passed over, for those that are less powerful but more -practicable; and less exalted, but more manageable and subservient. * Its own greatness is an obstacle. — Pen. t Us own weight pulls it down. — Pub. % The talent for intrigue which distinguished that so- ciety, became at length so brilliant, as to consume itself. Of this most extraordinary offspring of Loyola, many will be inclined to repeat, i urit enim fulgore suo ;'* but few will be ready to add, ' extinctus amabitur idem.'l % He is worthy, but a Jesuit,~-~PvB. " It burns with its own brightness.— Pub. t When dead he will be regarded. — Peal ,250 LAC^H, On reflecting upon all the frauds and deceptions that have succeeded in duping mankind, it is really astonishing, upon how very small a foundation, an immense superstructure may be raised. The solu- tion of this may perhaps be found in that axiom of the atomists : That there must ever be a much greater distance between nothing, and that which is least, than between that which is least, and the greatest. Matches-; wherein one party is all passion, and the other all indifference, will assimilate about as well as ice and fire. It is possible that the fire will dissolve the ice, but it is must probable that it will be extinguished in the attempt. It is only when the rich are sick, that they fully feel the impotence of wealth. The keenest abuse of our enemies, will not hurt us so much in the estimation of the discerning, as the injudicious praise of our friends. This world cannot explain its own difficulties, without the assistance of another. In the constitution* both of our mind and of our body, every thing must go on right, and harmo- nize weir together to make us happy ; but should one thing go wrong, that is quite enough to make- us miserable ; and although the joys of this world are vain and short, yet its sorrows are real and lasting ; for I will show you a tun of perfect pain, with greater ease than one ounce of perfect pleas- ure ; and he knows little of himself, or of the world, who does not think it sufficient happiness to be free from sorrow ; therefore, give a wise mao health, and he will give himself every other thing LA COX. Vl\ I say, give him health, for it often happens that the most ignorant empiric can do us the greatest harm, although the most skilful physician knows not how to do us the slightest good. The advocate for torture would wish to see the strongest hand joined to the basest heart, and the weakest head. Engendered in intellectual, and carried on in artificial darkness, torture is a trial, not of guilt, but of nerve, not of innocence, but of endurance ; it perverts the whole order of things, for it compels the weak to arBrm that which is false, and determines the strong to deny that which is true.; it converts the criminal into the evidence, the judge into the executioner, and makes a direr punishment than would follow guilt, precede it. When under the cloak of religion, and the garb of an ecclesiastic, torture is made an instrument of accomplishing the foulest schemes of worldly ambition, it then becomes an atrocity that can be described or imagined, only where it has been seen and felt. It is consolatory to the best sympathies ■of our nature, that the hydra head of this monster has been broken, and a triumph over her, as bright as it is bloodless, obtained in that very coun- try, whose aggravated wrongs had well nigh made vengeance a virtue, and clemency a crime. A semi-civilized state of society, equally re- moved from the extremes of barbarity and of refine- ment, seems to be that particular meridian, under which all the reciprocities and gratitudes of hospi- tality do most readily flourish and abound. It so happens, that the ea& ;, the luxury, and the abun- dance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the 252 L A & O N* privations and sterilities of the lowest . In a com munity, just emerging from the natural state to the artificial, and from the rude to the civilized, the wants and the struggles of the individual will compel the most liberal propensities of our nature to begin at home, and too often end where they began ; the history of our own country will justify these conclusions, for as civilization proceeded, and prop- erty became legalized and extended, the civil and ecclesiastical impropriators of the soil, set an ex- ample of hospitality, coarse indeed, and indiscrim- inating, but of unrivalled magnificence, from the extent of its scale, if not from the elegance of its arrangements. The possessor had no other mode of spending his vast revenues. The dissipations, the amusements, and the facilities of intercourse, to be met with in large towns and cities, were unknown. He that wanted society, and who that can have it, wants it not? cheerfully opened his cellars, his stables, and his halls ; the retinue be- came as necessary to the lord, as the lord to the retinue ; and the parade and splendour of the chase, were equalled only by the prodigality and the pro- fusion of the banquet. As the arts and sciences advanced, and commerce and manufactures im- proved, a new state of things arose. The refine- ments of luxury enabled the individual to expend the whole of his income, however vast, upon him- self; and hospitality immediately yielded to parsi- mony, and magnificence to meanness. The Croe- sus of civilization can now wear a whole forest in his pocket, in the shape of a watch, and can carry the produce of a whole estate upon his little finger, in the shape of a ring ; he can gormandize a whole ox at a meal, metamorphosed into a turtle, and v ash L A (_■' < ) > r . 252 it iinvn with a whole butt of October, co/nlensed into a flagon of tokay ; and he can conclude these feats, by selling the whole interests of a kingdom for a bribe, and by putting the costly price of his delinquency in a snuff-box. Modern criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose ; it is therefore read by the discerning, not to discover the merits of an author, but the mo lives of his critic. Living kings receive more flattery than they deserve, but less praise. They are flattered by sycophants, who, as they have their own interest at heart, much more than that of their master, are far more anxious to say what will be profitable to themselves, than salutary to him. But the high- minded and independent, although they will be the first to perceive, and the fittest to appreciate the sterling qualities of a sovereign, will be the last to applaud them, while he fills a throne. The rea- sons are obvious ; their praises would neither be advantageous to the monarch, nor creditable to themselves. Not advantageous to the monarch, be- cause however pure may be the principles of their admiration, the world will give them no such credit, but will mix up the praises of the most disinter- ested with the flatteries of the most designing, wherever a living king is the theme ; neither will such praises be creditable to those who bestow them, for they will be sure to incur the obloquy of flattery, without the wages of adulation, and will share in the punishment, without participating in the spoil or concurring in the criminality. None therefore but those who have established the high- 22 254 LAC ON. est character for magnanimity and independence, . may safely venture to praise living merit, when in the person of a king,* it gives far more lustre to a crown than it receives. If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism ; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition. But in this respect, every author is a Spartan, being more ashamed of the discovery, than of the depredation. Yet the offence itself may not be so heinous as the manneT of committing it ; for some, as Voltaire,! not only steal, but, like the harpies, befoul and bespatter those whom they have plundered. Others, again, give us the mere carcass of another man's thoughts, but deprived of all their life and spirit, and this is to add murder to robbery. I have somewhere seen it observed, that we should make the same use of a book, as a bee does of a flower ; she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it ; and those sweets she herself improves and concocts into honey. Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive. * What has been said of happiness, with, regard to men, may be said of praise with respect to monarchs, with a slight alteration : — 1 Dicique Celebris, Ante obitum, nemo, supremaque funera debet/* t He robbed Shakspeare, and then abused him, compar- ing him, among other things, to a dunghill. It was in al- lusion to these plagiarisms, that Mrs. Montague retorted upon Voltaire, that if Shakspeare was a dunghill, he had enriched a very ungrateful soil. • Let none be called famous before his death,— Pui. LA CON. 255 Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash ; for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat pur- blind as to things that are to come; of the two, fashion imposes the heaviest burden ; for she cheats her votaries of their time, their fortune, and their comforts, and she repays them only with the cele- brity of being ridiculed and despised ; a very par- adoxical mode of remuneration, yet always most thankfully received ! Fashion is the veriest god- dess of semblance and of shade; to be happy, is of far less consequence to her worshippers, than to appear so ; even pleasure itself they sacrifice to parade, and enjoyment to ostentation. She requires the most passive and implicit obedience, at the same time that she imposes a most grievous load of ceremonies, and the slightest murmurings would only cause the recusant to be laughed at by all other classes, and excommunicated by his own. Fashion builds her temple in the capital of some mighty empire, and having selected four or five hundred of the silliest people it contains, she dubs them with the magnificent and imposing title of the world ! But the marvel and the misfortune is, that this arrogant title is as universally accredited by the many who abjure, as by the few who adore her ; and this creed of fashion, requires not only the weakest folly, but the strongest faith, since it would maintain that the minority are the whole, and the majority are nothing! Her smile has given wit to dulness, and grace to deformity, and has brought every thing into vogue, by turns, 256 LACO N . but virtue. Yet she is most capricious in her favours, often running from those that pursue her, and coming round to those that stand still. It were mad to follow her, and rash to oppose her, but neither rash nor mad to despise her. Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work. A modern metaphysician had been declaiming before a large party, on the excel- lence of his favourite pursuit ; an old gentleman who had been listening to him with the most vora- cious attention, at length ventured humbly to inquire of him, whether it was his opinion that the metaphysics would ever be reduced to the same certainty and demonstration as the mathematics ? 'Oh! most assuredly,' replied our oracle, 'there cannot be the slightest doubt of that !' The author of this notable discovery must have known more of metaphysics than any other man, or less of mathematics ; and I leave my readers to decide, whether his confidence was built on a profound knowledge of the one, or a profound ignorance of the other. That which we acquire with the most difficulty, we retain the longest, as those who have earned a fortune, are usually more careful of it, than those who have inherited one. It is recorded of Pro- fessor Porson,* that he talked his Greek fluently, when he could no longer articulate in English. * The professor was remarkable for a strong memory, which was not so puzzling as the great perfection of ius other faculties; for, to the utter confusion of all cTaniolo- gists, on examination after death, it turned out that this LAO ON. 257 Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle, and discards her nurse. The straits of Thermopyla? were defended by only three hundred men, but they were all Spar- tans ; and, in advocating our own cause, we ought to trust rather to the force, than to the number of] our arguments, and to care not how few they be, should that few be incontrovertible; when we hear one argument refuted, we are apt to suspect that the others are weak ; and a cause that is well sup- ported, may be compared to an arch that is well built — nothing can be taken away without endan- gering the whole. Literature has her quacks no less than medi cine, and they are divided into two classes ; those who have erudition without genius, and those who have volubility without depth : we shall get second- hand sense from the one, and original nonsense from the other. It is common to say, that a liar will not be believed, although he speak the truth ; the con- verse of this proposition is equally true, but more unfortunate ; that a man who has gained a reputa- tion for veracity will not be discredited, although he should utter that which is false ; but he that would make use of a reputation for veracity, to great scholar was gifted with the thickest scull that ever was dissected. How his vast erudition could £et into such a receptacle, was the only difficulty to be explained ; but, when once in, it seems there were very -solid and substan- tial reasons to prevent its getting out again. tsr LA CON. establish a lie, would set fire to the temple of truth, with a fagot stolen from her altar. Some read to think, these are rare ; some to write, these are common ; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority. The first page of an author not unfrequently suffices all the pur- poses of this latter class, of whom it has been said, they treat books as some do lords ; they inform themselves of their titles, and then boast of an in- timate acquaintance. The two most precious things on this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is (o be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name, than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live, as not to be afraid to die. He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do, exercises the truest humility ; and few things are so disgusting as the arrogant affability of the great, which only serves to show others the sense they entertain of their inferiority, since they consider it necessary to stoop so low to meet it. A certain prelate, now no more, happened to meet at a large party, his old collegiate acquaint- ance, the celebrated Dr. G., of coursing and clas- sical notoriety. Having oppressed the doctor with a plentiful dose of condescension, his lordship, with a familiarity evidently ailbctcd, inquired of L A C O N . 230 the doctor, how long it might be since they had last the pleasure of seeing one another ? ' The last time I had the honour of seeing your lord- ship,' said the doctor, ' happened to be when you were walking to serve your curacy at Trumping- ton, and I was riding to serve rny church at Ches- terford ; and as the rain happened to be particularly heavy, your lordship most graciously condescended to mount my servant's horse. The animal not having been used to carry double, was unruly, and when your lordship dismounted, it was at the expense of no small number of stitches in your small-clothes. I felt not a little embarrassed for your lordship, as you had not then an apron to cover them ; but I remember that you soon set me at ease, by informing me, that a sermon, enclosing some black thread and a needle, were three articles which you never travelled without ; on hearing which, I ventured to congratulate your lordship on the happy expedient you had hit upon for giving a connected thread to your discourse, and some polish no less than point to your arguments.' — His lordship was never afterwards known to ask an old friend how long it was since he had last the pleasure of seeing him. Most females will forgive a liberty, rather than a slight, and if any woman were to hang a man for stealing her picture, although it were set in gold, it would be a new case in law ; but if he carried oft' the setting, and left the portrait, I would not answer for his safety, even if Alley were his pleader, and a Middlesex jury his peers. The felon would be doomed to feci experimentally, the force of two 2G0 LAUUK. lines of the poet, which, on this occasion, I shall unite : — { Fcemina quid possil, 4 Sprct&que injuria forma?** Habit will reconcile us to every thing but change, and even to change, if it recur not too quickly. Milton, therefore, makes his hell an ice house, as well as an oven, and freezes his devils at one period, but bakes them at another. The late Sir George Staunton informed me, that he had visited a man in India, who had committed a murder, and in order not only to save his life, but what was of much more consequence, his caste, he submitted to the penalty imposed ; this was, that he should sleep for seven years on a bedstead, without any mattress, the whole surface of which was studded with points of iron resembling nails, but not sc sharp as to penetrate the flesh. Sir George saw him in the fifth year of his probation, and his skin Avas then like the hide of a rhinoceros, but more callous ; at that time, however, he could sleep comfortably on his * bed of thorns,' and remarked that at the expiration of the term of his sentence, he should most probably continue that system from choice, which he had been obliged to adopt from necessity. Those Avho have a thorough knowledge of the human heart, will often produce all the best effects of the virtues, by a subtle appeal to the vanities of those Avith whom they have to do ; — and can cause the very weakness of our minds, indirectly, to * What things a woman, when despised?, can (iO.~~¥vb. LAC OX. 261 contribute to the furtherance of measures, from whose strength the powers of our minds would perhaps reccil, as unequal and inefficient. A preacher in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars, not undeservedly popular, had just finished an exhor- tation strongly recommending the liberal support of a certain very meritorious institution. The con- gregation was numerous, and the chapel crowded to excess. The discourse being finished, the plate was about to be handed round to the respective pews, when the preacher made this short address to the congregation : ' From the great sympathy I have witnessed in your countenances, and the strict attention you have honoured me with, there is only one thing I am afraid of; that some of you may feel inclined to give too much ; now it is my duty to inform you, that justice, though not so pleasant, yet should always be a, prior virtue to generosity; therefore, as you will all immediately be waited upon in your respective pews, I wish to have it thoroughly understood, that no person will think of putting any thing into the plate, who cannot pay his debts.'' 1 need not add, that this advice produced a most overflowing collection. Little errors ought to be pardoned, if committed by those who are great, in things that are greatest. Paley once made a false quantity in the church of St. Mary's ; and Bishop Watson most feelingly laments the valuable time he w r as obliged to squan- der away, in attending to such minutics. ?> T othing, however, is more disgusting than the triumphant growings of learned dunces, if by any chance they can fasten a slip or peccadillo of this kind, upon an illustrious name. But these spots in the sun, they 262 LA CON. should remember, will be exp6&'tf o^ily by those who have made use of the smoky glass of envy or of prejudice ; it is to be expected that these trifles should have great importance attached to them by such men, for they constitute the little intellectual all of weak minds, and if they had not them, they would have nothing. But he, that like Paley, has actually measured living men, may be allowed the privilege of an occasional false quanti ty in dead languages ; and even a false concord in words, may be pardoned in him] who has produced a true concord between such momentous things a3 the purest faith and the profoundest reason. Nobility is a river that sets with a constant and undeviating current, directly into the great Pacific ocean of time ; but, unlike all other rivers, it is more grand at its source, than at its termination. The greatest difficulty in pulpit eloquence, is to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves ; some preachers reverse the thing ; — they give so much importance to themselves, that they have- none left for the subject. Ingratitude in a superior, is very often nothing more than the refusal of some unreasonable re- quest ; and if the patron does too little, it is not unfrequently because the dependant expects too much. A certain pope, who had been raised from an obscure situation, to the apostolic chair, was immediately waited upon by a deputation sent from a. small district, in which he had formerly officiated as cure. It seems that he had promised the inhabitants that lie would do something for them, if it should ever be in his power; and some of them now appeared before him, to remind him of his promise, and also to request that he would fulfil it by granting them two harvests in every year ! He acceded to this modest request on condition that they should go home immediately, and so adjust the almanack of their own particular district, as to make every year of their register consist of twenty-four calender months. Those traitors, who know that they have sinned beyond forgiveness, have not the courage to be true to these, whom they presume are perfectly acquainted with the full extent of their treachery. It is conjectured that Cromwell would have pro- posed terms of reconciliation to Charles the Second, could he but have harboured the hope that he would forgive his father's blood ; and it was the height of wisdom in Cssar, to refuse to be as w^ise as he might have been, if he had not immediately burnt the cabinet of Pompey which he took at Pharsalia 4 Noscitur a SociisJ* is a proverb that does not invariable apply ; for men of the highest talent have not always culled their familiar society from minds of a similar caliber with their own. There are moments of relaxation, when they prefer friendship to philosophy, and comfort to counsel. Fatigued by confuting the coxcombs, or exhausted by coping with the giants of literature, there are moments, when the brightest minds prefer the soothings of sympathy to all the brilliancy of wit, * He is known \y his company Pub. 2m LACO If . as he that is hi need of repose, selects a bed of feathers, rather than of Hints. Polities and personalities will give a temporary interest to authors, but they must possess something more if thev would wish to render that interest permanent. I question whether Junius himself, had not been long since forgotten, if we could but have ascertained whom to forget ; but our reminiscences were kept from slumbering, chiefly because it was undetermined where they should rest. The letters of Junius* are a splendid monu * Tri rry humble opinion the talents of Junius have been ovej i at* r. Horn** Tooke gained a decisive victory over li iro ; - lorne was a host, and I have heard one who knew iii j hserve, that he was a man who felt nothing, r-:. = : reared nothing ; the person alluded to above, also in- formed me that Home Tooke on one occasion wrote a challenge to Wilkes, who was then sheriff for the county of Middlesex. Wilkes had signalized himself in a most deter- mined affair with Martin, on account of No. forty- five in the True Briton, and he wrote Home Tooke the following laconic reply to the challenge. * Sir, I do not think it my business to cut the throat of every desperado that may be tired of his life ; but as I am at present high sheriff for the city of London, it may happen that 1 may shortly have an opportunity of attending you in my official capacity, in which case I will answer for it,that you shall have no ground to complain of my endeavours to serve you. ; Probably it was about this time that Home Tooke on being asked by a foreigner of distinction, how much treason an Englishman might venture to write without being hanged, replied, that he could not inform him just yet, but that he was try- ing. To return to Junius, I have always suspected that those letters were written by some one who had either af- terwards apostatized from the principles which they con- tain, or who had been induced from mercenary and per- sonal motives, to advocate them with so much asperitjr, and that they were not avowed by the writer, merely because such an avowal would have detracted more from his repu- L a C .1. 265 ment, an unappropriated cenotaph, which, like the pyramids of Egypt, derives much of its importance from the mystery in which the hand that reared it ls involved. Xo men deserve the title of infidels, so little as those to whom it has been usually applied ; let any of those who renounce Christianity, write fairly down in a book, all the absurdities that they believe instead of it, and they will find that it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it. The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement, composed of baser materials. It is deeply to be lamented, that, truth herself will attract little atten- tion, and lesb esteem, until it be amalgamated with some particular party, persuasion, or sect; unmixed and adulterated, it too often proves as unlit for currency, as pure gold for circulation. Sir Walter Raleigh has observed, that he that follows truth too closely, must take care that she does not strike out his teeth ; he that follows truth too closely, has little to fear from truth, but he has much to fear from the pretended friends of it. He, there- fore, that is dead to all the smiles and to all the frowns of the living, alone is equal to the hazardous task of writing a history of his own times, worthy of being transmitted to times that are to come. tation as a man than it would have added to his fame as an author. This supposition has been considerably strengthen- ed bv a late very conclusive and well-reasoned volume, en- titled Junius Identified, published by Messrs. Taylor and Uessev. 23 tm LACON., Genius, when employed in works whose ten- dency it is to demoralize and to degrade us, should be contemplated with abhorrence rather than with admiration ; such a monument of its power, may indeed be stamped with immortality, but like the Colisaeum at Rome, we deplore its magnificence, because we detest the purposes for which it was designed. Anguish of mind has driven thousands to sui cide ; anguish of body, none. This proves, that the health of the mind is of far greater conse- quence than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive. Intrigues of state, like games of whist, require a partner, and in both, success is the joint effect of chance and of skill ; but the former differ from the latter in one particular — -the knaves rule the kings. Count Stackelberg was sent on a particular em- bassy by Catherine of Russia, into Poland ; on the same occasion, Thurgut was despatched by the emperor of Germany. Both these ambassa- dors were strangers to each other. When the morning appointed for an audience arrived, Thurgut was ushered into a magnificent saloon, where, seeing a dignified looking man seated and attended by a number of Polish noblemen, who were stand- ing most respectfully before him, the German ambassador (Thurgut) concluded it was the king, and addressed him as such, with the accustomed formalities. This dignified looking creature turned out to be Stackelberg, who received the unex- pected homage with pride and silence. Soon after LACON. 267 the king entered the presence chamber, and Thur- gut, perceiving his mistake, retired, much morti- fied and ashamed. In the evening, it so happened that both these ambassadors were playing cards at the same table with his majesty. The German envoy threw down a card, saying, ' The king of clubs !' ' A mistake !' said the monarch; ' it is the knave !' ' Pardon me, sire,' exclaimed Thurgut^ casting a significant glance at Stackelberg ; ' this is the second time to-day I have mistaken a knave for a king ! f Stackelberg, though very prompt at repartee, bit his lips, and was silent. As it is far mare difficult to be just, than to be generous, so also those will often find it a much harder task to punish than to pardon, who have both in their power. There is no one quality of the mind, that requires more resolution, and receives a less reward, than that prospective but ultimately merciful severity, which strikes the individual for the good of the community. The popular voice — the tears of relatives — the influence of rank — the eloquence of talent— ^may all conspire to recom- mend an act of clemency, in itself most grateful to the sympathies of one whose high situation has privileged him to exert it. What shall we put into the opposite scale ? The public good. But it may happen that the public themselves have signified their willingness to waive this high consideration. Here, then, the supreme head of the state is forced upon a trial almost too great for humanity ; he is called upon to sink the feelings of the man in the firmness of the magistrate, to sacrifice the finest sensibilities of the heart to the sternest dictates of ike headland to exhibit an integrity more pure than ms L A C Ji . the ice of Zeinbla, but as repulsive and as cwld. Those who can envy a sovereign so painful a pre- rogative, know little of others, and less of them- selves. Had Doctor Dodd* been pardoned, who * Many thinking persons lament that forgery should be punished "with death. If we consider forgery as confined to the notes of the bank of England, it has been universally eb- jected to them that they have hitherto been executed in so slovenly a manner, a>s to have become temptations to the crime. "This circumstance has been attended with another evil not quite so obvious ; it has given ground for a false -and cruel mode of reasoning ; it has been argued, that an of- fence holding out such facilities, can only be prevented by making the severest possible example of the offender ; but surely it would be more humane, and much more in the true spirit of legislation, to prevent the crime rather by re- moving .those facilities which act as -temptations to it, than bypassing a law for the punishment of it so severe that the very prosecutors shrink from the task of going the full ex- tent of its enactments, by perpetually permitting the delin- quents to plead guilty to the minor offence. In the particu- lar case of Dr. Dodd, these observations will not fully ap- ply; and the observation of Thurlow to his sovereign was in this correct, that all partial exceptions should be scrupu- lously avoided. I have however heard the late honourable Daines Barrington give another reason for Dodd's execu- tion. This gentleman also informed me that lie was pre- sent at the attempt to recover Dodd, which would have succeeded if a room had been iixed upon nearer the place of execution, as the vital spark was not entirely extinguished when the measures tor resuscitation commenced; but they ultimately failed, owing to the immense crowd which pre- vented the arrival of the hearse in proper time. A very feasible scheme had also been devised for the doctor's es- cape from Newgate. The outline of it, as I have had it from the gentleman mentioned above, was th is : There was a cer- tain woman in the lower walk of life, who happened to be in features remarkably like the doctor. Money Was not wanting, and she was engaged to wait on Dodd in New- gate, Mr. Kirby, at that time the governor :>f the prison, was inclined to show the doctor every civility compatible with his melancholy situation; amongst oilier indulgcn* LA CON. 269 shall say bow many men of similar talents that cruel pardon might not have fatally ensnared. Elo- quent as he was, and exemplary as perhaps he would have been, an enlarged view of his case authorizes this irrefragable inference ; that the most undeviating rectitude, and the longest life of such a man, could not have conferred so great and so perma- ces, books, paper, pens, and a reading desk had been per- mitted to be brought to him; and it was not unusual for the doctor to be found by his friends, sitting at his reading desk, and dressed in the habiliments of his profession. The woman above alluded to was, in the character of a do- mestic, in the constant habit of coming in and out of the prison, to bring paper, linen, or other necessaries. The party who had planned the scheme of his escape, soon af ter the introduction of this female had been established, met together in a room near the prison, and requested the woman to permit herself to be dressed in the doctor's wig, gown, and canonicals; she consented; and in this dis- guise the resemblance was so striking, ' that it astonished all who were in the secret, and would have deceived any who were not. She was then sounded as to her willing- ness to assist in the doctor's escape, if she were well re- warded ; after some consideration she consented to play her part in the scheme, which was simply this, that on a day agreed upon, the doctor's irons having been previous- ly filed, she should exchange dresses, put on the doctor's gown and wig, and occupy his seat at the reading desk, while the doctor, suddenly metamorphosed into his own female domestic, was to have put a bonnet on his head, take a bundle under his arm, and walked coolly and qui- etly out of the prison. It is thought that this plan would have been crowned with success, if the Doctor himself* could have been persuaded to accede to it ; but he had all along buoyed himself up with the hope of a reprieve, and like that ancient general who disdained to owe a victory to a stratagem, so neither would the doctor be indebted for his life to a trick. The event proved that it was un- t >rtunatc that he should have had so many scruples on This occasion, and so few on another. 270 LACO^. nmii a benefit on society, as that single sacrifice, hts death. On this memorable occasion, Europe saw the greatest monarch she contained, acknowledg- ing a sovereign, within his own dominions., greater than himself; a sovereign that triumphed not only over his power, but over his pity — -the supremacy of the laws. The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure; they praise only that which they can surpass,* but that which surpasses them — they censure. * Sir Joshua Reynolds had as few faults Its most men, but jealousy is the besetting sin of his profession, and Sir Joshua did not altogether escape the contagion. From some private pique or other, he was too apt to take every opportunity oi depreciating the merits of ^ Wilson, perhaps the first landscape painter of bis day. On a certain occa- sion, when some members of the profession were diseus- singthe respective merits of their brother artists. Sir Joshua, in the presence of Wilson, more pointedly than politely remarked, that Gainsborough was indisputably and beyond all comparison, the first landscape painter of the day ; now it will be recollected that Gainsborough was very far from a contemptible painter of portraits as well ; and Wilson im- mediately followed up the remark of Sir Joshua by saying, that whether Gainsborough was the first landscape painter or not of the day, yet there was one thing- in which all pre- sent, not excepting Sir Joshua himself, would agree, that Gainsborough, was the first portrait painter or the dav* without any probability of a rival. Here we see two men respectively eminent in the departments of their ait giving an undeserved superiority to a third in both ; but a supe- riority only given to gratify the pique of each, at the ex- pense of the feelings of the other. The late Mr. West was perfectly free from this nigra succus loliginisA This free- dom from all envy was not lost upon ilie discriminating head, and benevolent heart of our late sovereign. Sir Will- iam Beachy having just returned from Windsor, where * The blood of the black cuttle fish, (i. e, enry.>— Fira LA CON. 271 Men arc more readily contented with no intel- lectual light than a little ; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves. ' So for slialt thou go, but no farther? is as inapplicable to wisdom as to the wave. The fruit of the tree of knowledge may stand in the garden, undesi re d, only so long as it be untouched ; but the moment it is tasted, all prohibition will be vain. The present is an age of inquiry., and truth is the real object of many, the avowed object of all. But as truth can neither be divided against herself, nor rendered destructive of herself, as she courts investigation, and solicits inquiry, it follows that her worshippers must grow with the growth, strengthen with the strength, and improve with the advancement of knowledge. ' Quieta ne ?novetc J '* is a sound maxim Ibr a rolien cause. But there is a nobler maxim from a higher source, which enjoins us to try all things, but to hold fast that ichich is good. The day is past, when custom could procure acquies- cence ; antiquity, reverence ; or power, obedience to error; and although error, and that of the most he had enjoyed an interview with his late majesty, called on West in London. He was out, but drank tea with Mrs. West, and took an opportunity of informing her how very high Mr. West stood in the good opinion of his sovereign, who had particularly dwelt on Mr. West's entire freedom from jealousy or envy, and who had remarked to Sir William, that in the numerous interviews he had permit- ted to Mr. West, he had never heard him utter a single word detractory or deprcciative of the talents or merits of any one human being whatsoever. Mrs. West, on hear- ing this, replied with somewhat of plain sectarian blunt- ness : — * Go thou and do likewise.' * Disturb not what is qwiet. — Pub. 272 LACON. bold and dangerous kind, lias her worshippers, in the very midst of us, yet it is simply and solely because they mistake error for truth. Show them their error, and the same power that would in vain compel them now to abjure it, would then as vainly be exerted in compelling them to adore it. But as nothing is more turbulent and unmanageable than a half enlightened population, it is the duty no less than the interest, of those who have begun to teach the people to reason, to see that they use that reason aright; for understanding, like happi- ness, is far more generally diffused, than the se- questered scholar would either concede or imagine. I have often observed this in the uneducated, that when another can give them true premises, they w T ill draw tolerably fair conclusions for themselves. But as nothing is more mischievous than a man that is half intoxicated, so nothing is more danger- ous than a mind that is half informed. It is this semi-scientific description of intellect that has organized those bold attacks, made, and still making, upon Christianity. The extent and sale of infidel publications are beyond all example and belief. This intellectual poison* is circulating through the low- * Mr. Bellamy, in a very conclusive performance, the Anti-deist does not attempt to parry the weapon, so much as to disarm the hand that wields it : for he does not ex- plain away the objections that have been advanced by the deist, but he labours rather to extirpate them, and to show that they have no other root but misconception or mistake. Mr. Bellamy's endeavours have had for their object the manifestation of the unimpeachable character and attri- butes of the great Jehovah, and the inviolable purity of the Hebrew text. Every Christian will wish success to such labours, and every Hebrew scholar will examine if they deserve it. I do not pretend or presume to be a competent judge of this most important question ; it is well worthy LAGUN. 273 rcsl ramifications of society; fur it is presumed that if the root can be rendered rotten, the tower- ing tree must fall. The manufacture is well suited the attention of the profoundest Hebrew scholars in the kingdom. The Rabbi Meklolah, whose proficiency in the Hebrew language will give his opinions some weight, ad- mitted, in my presence, one very material point, that Mr. Bellamy had not prevented the signification of the sacred Ketib, or Hebrew text as far as he was able to decide. Should this author's emendations turn out to be correct, they should -be adopted, as no time and no authority can consecrate error. Mr Bellamy has met with patronage in the very highest quarter; a patronage liberal in every sense of the word; and as honourable to the patron as to the author. His alterations, I admit, are extremely nu- merous, important and consequential : but they are sup- ported by a mass of erudition, authority, and argument that does indeed demand our most serious attention ; and many, in common with myself, will lament that they have drank at the stream more freely than at the fountain. Mr. Bellamy contends, that he has not altered the signification of a single word in the original Hebrew text \ and he de- fends this position by various citations from numerous other passages, wherein he maintains that the same word carries the meaning he has given it in bis new version, but a meaning very often totally different from that of the version now in use. And it "is worthy of remark, that the new signification he would establish, while it rectifies that which was absurd, and reconciles that which was con- tradictory, is borne out by a similar meaning of the same word in various other passages which he adduces, that arc neither absurd nor contradictory. But if we would retain the word that he would alter, and apply it to the passages that he has cited, in the some sense that it carries in the disputed pas- sage in the old version, what will then be the consequence 1 All the passages which before were plain and rational, be- come unintelligible; and the passage under consideration, which was before absurd or contradictory, will remain so. The points which Mr. Bellamy chiefiy labours to estab- lish ore the following: That the original Hebrew text is, at this moment, as pure as at the time of David : that sChrist and his apostles invariably quote frOfii the original 274 LA CON. for the market, and the wares to the wants. T heser publications are put forth with a degree of flippam vivacity that prevents them from being dull, at the same time that they profess 10 be didactic, while their grand and all-pervading error, lies too deep to^ be detected by superficial observers ; for they draw somewhat plausible conclusions^froin premises that are false, and they have to do with a class of read- ers that concede to them the ' petitio principiij* without even knowing that it has been asked. It Hebrew: that the original Septuagint, finished under the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about three hun- dred and fifty years before Christ, was burnt in the Alex- andrian library: that the spurious Septuagint is a bad translation ; and, therefore, that all translations from it must partake of its imperfections: that the first Chris- tian churches, about one hundred and fifty years after the dispersion of the Jews,, had recourse to the : Greek transla- tion made by Aquila. In confirmation of these positions, Mr. Bellamy quotes Michaelis, Buxtorf, Lowth, Kenni- cott, Archbishops Newcombe, Seeker, and Usher, all pro- found Hebrew scholars, the latter of whom affirms, in one of his letters, ' that this spurious Septuagint of Aquila continually takes from, adds to, and changes the Hebrew text at pleasure ; that the original Septuagint was lost long ago ;, and that what has ever since gone under that name, is a spurious copy, abounding with omissions, addi- tions,, and alterations of the Hebrew text/ Mr. Bellamy's very arduous undertaking, has excited the greatest sensa- tion, both at home and abroad, and he must expect that a question involving such high and awful interests, will be most strictly scrutinized. Inasmuch as all his emenda- tions have for their object the depriving of the champion of infidelity of all just ground of cavil and objection, every Christian will sincerely wish him success, until it be clear- ly proved by competent Hebrew scholars, that he has touched the ark of God with unhallowed hands, either oy misrepresenting the signification, or by violating the purl* ty of the Hebrew text, { Sub ju dice lis csl.'i * Begging the question —Pub. ITbe case is before the jtirigs. — Ewi LA CON. 275 wotild seem that even the writers themselves, are not always aware of the baseless and hollow ground upon which the foundation of their reasoning rests. If indeed their conduct did always arise from igno- rance, rather than from insincerity, we, as Chris- tians, must feel more inclined to persuade than to provoke them, and to hold the torch of truth to their minds rather than the torch of persecution to their bodies. In the nineteenth century, we would not recommend the vindictive and dogmatic spirit of a Calvin, nor the overbearing and violent temper of a Luther, but that charity ' which is not easily pro- voked? shining forth in the mild and accessible demeanour of an Erasmus, that would conceive, in order to conciliate, rather than convict, in order to condemn. It is for those who thrive by the darkness, to hurl their anathemas against the diffu- sion of light ; but wisdom, like a pure and bright conductor, can render harmless the ' brutum fid- men' of the Vatican. We hail the march of intel- lect, because we know, that a reason that is culti- vated, is the best support of a worship that is pure. The temple of truth, like the indestructible pillar of Smeaton, is founded on a rock; it triumphs over the tempest, and enlightens those very billows that impetuously but impotently rush on to over- whelm it. Those illustrious men, who like torches, have consumed themselves in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. The tongues of afte vt ames have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have dis- graced them with their pity. They pity them for- 278 L A C O N . sooth, because they missed of present praise, and 1 temporal emolument; things great indeed to the lit- tle, but little to the great. Shall we pity a hero, because, on the day of victory, he had sacrificed a meal 1 And those mighty minds, whom these pig- mies presume to commiserate, but whom they cannot comprehend, were contending for a fur nobler prize than any which those who pity them, could either give or withhold. Wisdom was their object, and that object they attained ; she was their 1 exceeding great reward? Let us therefore honour such men, if we can, and emulate them, if we dare ; but let us bestow our pity, not on them, but on ourselves, who have neither the merit to deserve renown, nor the magnanimity to despise it. To pervert the talents we have improved under the tuition of a party, to the destruction of that very party by whom they were improved, is an offence that generous and noble minds find it almost as difficult to pardon in others, as to commit in themselves. It is true that w r e are enjoined to forgive our enemies, but I remember no text that enforces a similar conduct with regard to our friends. David, we may remember, exclaimed, that if it had been his enemy who had injured him, he could have borne it, but it was his own familiar friend. ' We took, 9 says he, ' sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends 9 There- fore, to employ the powers of our mind to injure those to whom we are mainly indebted for the per- fection of those powers, is an act of ingratitude as monstrous as if Patroclus had attacked Achilles, in the very armour in which he had invested him for the destruction of Hector : — L'A*5'p#. mi 6 Non has qucTstion munus in usus.'* It is Well known that Mr. Burkef on his first debut £h life, improved himself not a little, under the ban- ners and the patronage of the opposition ; for which purpose he was a constant frequenter of the various debates and disputations held at the house of one Jeacocke, a baker, but who, notwithstanding his situation in life was gifted with such a vein of eloquence, that he was unanimously constituted perpetual president of the famous disputing society held at Robin Hood, near Temple-bar. On a certain memorable occasion, in the house of com- mons, Air. Burke exclaiming, ' I quit the camp, 9 suddenly left the opposition benches, and going over to the treasury side of the house, thundered a violent philipic against his former friends and associates. Mr. Sheridan concluded a spirited reply to that unlooked-for attack, nearly in the fol- lowing words :— s "That gentleman, to use his own expression, has quirted the camp ; but he will recol- lect that he has quitted as a deserter, and I sincerely hope he will never return as a spy. I for one,' he continued, ' cannot sympathize in the astonishment with which so flagrant an act of apostacy has electrified the house; for neither I nor that gentleman has forgotten from whom he has borrowed those weapons which he now uses against us. So far, therefore, from being astonished at that gentleman's present tergiversa- tion, 1 consider it to be not only characteristic, but consistent ; for it is but natural, that he who on * Hot for this 'purpose was the gift bestowed. — Pub. t Burke was one of the most yplendid specimens of Irish talent ; but his imagination too often ran away with his judgment, and his interest with both. 24 278 L A C O N . his first starting in life, could commit so gross a blunder as to go to the baker's for his eloquence, should conclude such a career, by coming to the house of commons for his bread.* As there are some sermons, that would have been sermons upon every thing, if the preachers had only touched upon religion in their variety, so there are some men, who would know a little of every thing, if they did but know a little of their own profession. And yet these men often succeed in life ; for as they are voluble and fluent, upon subjects that every body understands, the world gives them credit for knowledge in their own pro- fession, although it happens to be the only thing on which they are totally ignorant. Yet, if we choose to be sophistical, we might affirm that it requires more talent to succeed in a profession that we do not understand, than in one that we do ; the plain truth is, that it^does not require more talent, but more impudence ; and we have but little reason to pride ourselves upon a success that is indebted much more to the weakness of others, than to any strength of our own. Evidence* has often been termed the eye of the * I have said that evidence seldom deceives, or is de- ceived. In fact its very etymology would seem to indicate a something clearly perceived and ascertained, through the medium of the senses. And herein evidence, I must re- peat, differs most materially from testimony, which, as its derivation also clearly shows us, can be nothing more than the deposition of a witness, which deposition may be true or false, according to the will of him who testifies. No man can will that his own mind should receive one impres- sion, while his senses give him another, but any man may will that his tongue should communicate a different im- pression to the senses of others, from that which he has r$- LAC ON. £79 law, and lass been too generally considered to be that which regulates the decision of all courts of ceivecl from his own. And hence it happens that a saga- cious and penetrating judge has got a very high kind of moral conviction, mure satisfactory, perhaps, and conclusive than the unsupported though positive oath of any one in- dividual whosoever ; I mean a connected chain of circum- stances, all pointing one way and leading the mind to one object ; a chain by wfiich truth has often been pumped up from her well, notwithstanding all the efforts of testimo- ny, to keep her at the bottom of it. Thus, in the case of Don- nellan, who was executed for poisoning Sir Theodosiirs Boughton with distilled laurel water, some circumstances were elicited that would have weighed more strongly in the judgment of reflecting minds, than any positive "but single affidavit which might have been brought to contra- dict them. A still, that had been recently used, was disco- vered on the premises. Donnellan was so bad a chymist, that on being asked for what purpose he had procured this machine, he replied, thai ' he had used it to make Vime-wa- ter to kill the fleas !' not knowing that lime-water could only be made by saturating water with lime, and that a still, never was, and never can be applied to such a purpose. In his library, there happened to be a single4iumber of the Phi- losophical Transactions, and of this single number the leaves had been cut only in one place, and this place hap- pened to contain an account of the mode of making laurel- water by distillation. The greatest discretion and shrewd- ness is necessary wherever circumstances point one way, and testimony another, since probable falsehood will always be more readily accredited than improbable truth : and it un- fortunately happens that there are occasions, where the strongest "circumstances have misled, as in that famous ease of the murdered iarnrer, recorded by Judge Hale. — 1 have heard the late Dairies Harrington mention a very ex- traordinary circumstance, of a similar kind that took place, if I remember right, at Oxford, but it was prior even to his time, and I have forgotten the names of the parties. As the story may be new to some of my readers, I shall relate it as nearly as my memory serves. A country gentle- man was travelling from Berkshire, on horseback, to Lon- don; he had a friend with him and a servant, and they supped at the inn, and ordered beds for the night. At sup- per, his friend happened to observe to the gentleman] that 2S0 LACOK. justice, that arc conducted with impartiality. Tlw term evidence, so applied, is a misnomer, since, from the very nature of things, evidence rarely, if it would be advisable to start early on the next morning, as it would be dangerous to go over Hounslow heath af- ter sunset he had so much property about him. This con- versation was overheard by the landlord, who assisted the gentleman's servant in waiting at the table. About the middle of the night the gentleman's companion thought he heard a noise in his friend's apartment, but it passed over, and he thought no more of it. Some little time afterwards, he was again disturbed by a similar noise, when he de- termined on entering the apartment. He did so, and the first object he saw, was the landlord with a lantern in his hand, and with a countenance of the greatest consternation, standing over the still bleeding and murdered body of his friend. On a still further search, it appeared that the gentleman had been robbed of all his properly, and a knife was discovered on the bed which was proved to be the property of the landlord. He was tried, condemned, and executed, and what was very remarkable, he admitted that he most justly deserved to suffer, although he per- sisted to the last moment in his entire innocence of the crime for which he was condemned. This mysterious affair was not explained until some years afterwards, when the gentleman's servant, on his deathbed, confess- ed that he was the man who had robbed and murdered his master. It would seem that hoik the landlord and the servant had nearly at the same time made up their minds to commit this dreadful deed, but without commu- nicating their intentions to each oilier, and that the one had anticipated the other by a few mjnutes. The conster- nation visible in the countenance of the landlord, his con- fused and embarrassed account of his intrusion into the chamber, and the cause that brought him there at such an hour, were all natural consequences of that alarm pro- duced by finding a fellow-creature, whom he had sallied forth at the dead of the night todestroy, weltering in blood, and already murdered to his hands; and the knife had involuntarily dropped from his arm, uplifted to strike, but unstrung; as it were, and paralyzed by the terror cxc.i- led fey so unexpected and horrifying a discovery. LAUUN. mi ever, either can or does appear in a court of jus- tice. We do not mean to quibble about, words, nor to split distinctions where there are no differ- ences. The eye of the law, however, happens unfortunately to be composed of something very different from evidence ; for evidence seldom de- ceives, or is itself deceived. The law is com- pelled to make use of an eye that is far more im- perfect, an eye that sometimes sees too little, and sometimes too much ; this eye is testimony. If a man comes in a court of justice, covered with wounds and bruises, I admit that the whole court has evidence before it, that the man has been beaten and mangled. Evidence is the impression made upon a man's own mind, through his own senses ; but testimony is the impression that he may clioose that his tongue should make upon the senses of others ; and here we have a very serious distinction not without a difference. Thus, for instance, if I see A murdered by B, I am satis- fied of that fact, and this is evidence ; but I may think tit to swear that he was murdered by C, and then the court are bound to be satisfied of that fact \ and this is testimony. There is a spot in Birmingham, where the steam power is concentrated on a very large scale, in order to be let out in small parts and parcels to those wdio may stand in need of it ; and something similar to this may be observed of the power of mind in London. It is concentrated and brought together here into one focus, so as to be at the ser- vice of all who may wish to avail themselves of it. Doctor Johnson was not far from the truth, when he observed, that he could sit in the smoky corner 21* 2S2 LACO N . of Bolt court, and draw a circle round Lima , of one mile in diameter, that should comprise and embrace more energy, ability, and intellect, than could be found in the whole island besides. The circumstance of talent of every kind being so accessible, in consequence of its being so contigu- ous, this it is that designates London as the real university of England. If we wish, indeed, to col- late manuscripts, we may repair to Oxford or to Cambridge, but we must come to London * if we would collate men. Men of enterprising and energetic minds, when buried alive in the gloomy walls of a prison, may be considered as called upon to endure a trial that will put all their strength of mind and fortitude to the test, far more than all the hazards, the dilem- mas, and the broils of the camp, the cabinet, or the cabal. I have often considered that the cardinal de Retz was never so great as on one occasion, which occurred at the castle of Yincennes. He was shut up in that fortress by his implacable ene- my Mazarin;f and on looking out of his grated * These observations do not at all inter lore with some for- mer remarks on the state of the hibuuring classes of the community in the metropolis ; but the scientific assortment, is of the highest order, and he that is great in London, will not be little any where. tThis same minister had shut up some other person in the bastile for a few years,, owing" to a trifling mistake in Ms name. He was at last turned out with as little ceremony as he was clapped in. The mistake was explained to him, on his dismissal ; but he received a gentle hint to beware of a very dangerous spirit of curiosity which he had evinced during his confinement. Not being over anxious again to trespass on the hospitalities of the bastile, he ventured to ask what involuntary proof he could have given of this very LA CON. 283 window, to fan the burning fever of hope delayed, he saw some labourers busy in preparing a small plot of ground opposite to his apartment. When the person commissioned to attend him, brought in his breakfast, he ventured to inquire of hirn what those labourers were about whom he saw from his window; he replied, ■ They are preparing the ground for the reception of the seed of some asparagus, a vegetable of which we have heard that your excel- lency is particularly fond.' The cardinal received this appalling intelligence with a smile. Some have wondered how it happens that those who have shone so conspicuously at the bar, should have been eclipsed in the senate, and that the giants of Westminster Hall should have been mere pigmies* at St. Stephen's. That a successful foren- sic pleader should be a poor diplomatic orator, is no more to be wondered at, than that a good microscope should make a bad telescope. The mind of the pleader is occupied in scrutinizing minutiae, that of the statesman in grasping magiri- dangerous spirit of curiosity, in order that he might care- fully avoid such an offence in future ; he was then gravely told that he had on one occasion made use of these words to an attendant: ' I always thought myself the most insig- nificant fellow upon the face of the earth, and should be most particularly obliged to you if you could inform me by what possible means I ever became of sufficient conse- quence to be shut up in this place.' * Such men as Dunning, Sir Samuel Romilly, and Lord Erskine. form splendid exceptions to this general rule, and only serve to show the wonderful elasticity of the powers of the human mind. Wedderburn was not always so success- ful in the House as in the Hall; and ' Ilia sejaclcl in auto JKolusJi was a quotation not unhappily applied. t iEolus may swagger in his hall.— Vvn. 9M LAC ON. tudes — the one deals in particulars, and the other in generals. The well-defined rights of individuals arc the province of the pleader, but the enlarged and undetermined claims of communities are the arena of the statesman. Forensic eloquence may be said to lose in comprehension, what it gains in acuteness, as an eye so formed as to perceive the motion of the hour-hand, would be unable to dis- cover the time of the day. We might also add, that a mind long hackneyed in anatomizing the nice distinctions of words, must be tne less able to grapple with the more extended oeanng of things ; and he that regulates mobt of his conclu- sions by precedent that is past, will be somewhat embarrassed, when he has to do with power thefis present. It has been urged that it is dangerous to enlighten the lower orders, because it is impossible to enlighten them sufficiently ; and that it is far more easy to give them knowledge enough to make them discon- tented, than wisdom enough to make them resigned ; since asmatterer in philosophy can see the evils of life, but it requires an adept in it to support them. To all such specious reasonings, two incontrover- tible axioms might be opposed, that truth and wis- dom are the firmest friends of virtue, ignorance and falsehood of vice. It will, therefore, be as hazardous as unad vis able, for any rulers of a nation to undertake to enlighten it, unless they themselves are prepared to bring their own exam- ple up to the standard of their own instructions, and to take especial care that their practice shall precede their precepts ; for a people that is enlight- ened, may follow, but they can no longer be led LACON, 885 'True grentoess is that alone u iiich in allowed to be so, by the most great. ; and the difficulty of attaining perfection is best understood, only by those who stand nearest themselves unto it. As he •that is placed at a great dktance from aa object, is a bad judge of the relative space that separates other objects, comparatively contiguous, so also those that are a great way eff from excellence, are equally liable to be misled, as to the respective advances those who have nearly reached it have made. The combination of research, of deduc- tion, and of design, developing it&elf at last in the discovery of the safety-lamp for tins miner, and muzzling, as it were, in a metallic net, as tine as gossamer, the most powerful and destructive of the elements, was an effort .of the mind that can be fully appreciated ionly by those who are thoroughly aware of the vast difficulty of the end, and of the beautiful simplicity of the means. Sir Humphrey Davy will receive the eternal gratitude of the ■most ignorant, but the civic crown he has so nobly .earned, will be placed upon his head by the admira- tion and the suffrages of the most wise. The truly igreat, indeed, are few in number, and slow to admit -superiority ; but, when once admitted, they do more homage to the greatness that overtops them, even than minds that are inferior and subordinate. In a former publication, I have related that I once went to see an exhibition of a giant : he was particularly tall and well -proportioned. I was much interested by a group of children who were brought into the loom, and I promised myself much amusement from the effect that the entrance of a giant would produce upon them. But I was disappointed, for tins Biobdigoag seemed to excite , a much less seu- 286 L A U O-I*. nation thaa I had anticipated, in this young coterie of Lilliputians. 1 took a subsequent opportunity to express my astonishment on this subject to the giant himself, who informed me that he had inva- riably made the same remark, and that children, and persons of diminutive stature never expressed half the surprise or gratification on seeing tahn, that was evinced by those that are tall. The reason of this puzzled me a little^ until at last I began t& reflect that children \nd persons of small stature are in the constant habit of looking up at others, and therefore it costs them no trouble to look a little higher at a giant ; but those who are compar- atively tali, inasmuch as they ase in the constant habit of looking down upon all others, are beyond measure astonished, when they meet one whose very superior stature obliges them to look up ; and so it is with minds, for the truly great meet their equals rarely, their inferiors constantly, but when they meet with a superior, the novelty of such an intellectual phenomenon, serves only to increase its brilliancy, and to give a more ardent adoratioa to that homage which it commands. Nothing is so difficult as the apparent ease of a clear and flowing style; those graces, which from their presumed facility, encourage all to attempt aa imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable. The inhabitants of country towns will re- spectively inform you that their own is the most scandalizing little spot in the universe ; the plain fact is, that all country towns are liable to this imputation, but that each individual has seen the most of this spirit, in 'that, particular one in whkb L A C O X. 287 he himself na$ most resided ; just so it is with historians; they all descant upon the superlative depravity of their own particular age ; but the plain fact is, that every age has had its depravity ; historians have only heard and read of the de- pravity of other ages, but they have seen and felt that of their own : — ' Segnius irritant amnios demissa per aares, Quam quce sunt oculis subject a jidelibus? There is an idiosyncrasy* in mind, no less than in foody, for some individuals have a peculiar constitu- tion both of head and heart, that sets all analogy, and all calculation at defiance. There is an occult disturbing force within them, that designates them as unclassed anomalies and hybrids : they form the ' corps particulier' of exceptions to all general rules, being at times full as unlike to themselves as to others. No maxim, therefore, aphorism, or apothegm, can be so propounded as to suit all descriptions and classes of men ; and the moralist can advance such propositions only as will be found to be generally true, for none are so uni- versally ; those, therefore, that are inclined to cavil, might object to the clearest truisms, for \ all men must die,' or * oilmen must be born' are affirmations not wholly without their exceptions. Rochefou- cault has written one maxim, which, in my humble opinion, is worth all the rest that he has given us ; he says that ' hypocrisy is the homage which vice * 1 request all candir 1 readers to accept of the above re- flections as a general apology for any apparent deviations from correct remark in this work, until they have fully con- sidered whether my general rule be not right, although, in some cases, the exceptions to it may be numerous. £S3 L A tj o ff: pays tt> mr&m j but even tins lino, mrmrn hi &Bf universally true; cm the contrary, its very reverse sometimes has happened •> for there are instances where, to please a profligate superior, men have' affected some vices to which they were not in- clined, and thus have made their hypocrisy & homage paid by virtue to vice. There is no chasm in the ope rati cms of nature ; the mineral world joins the vegetable, the vegeta- ble the animal, and the animal the intellectual, by mutual but almost imperceptible gradations. The adaptations that each system makes to its neigh- bour are reciprocal, the highest parts of the lower ascending a little out of their order, to fill the receding parts of that which is higher, until the whole universe, like the maps that are made of it for the amusement of children, becomes one well arranged and connected whole, dovetailed as it were, and compacted together, by the advancement of some parts, and the retrocession of others. But although each system appears to be assimilated, yet is each essentially distinct ; producing as their whole, the grand harmony of things-. Man is that compound being, created to fill the wide hiatus that must otherwise have remained unoccupied, between the natural world and the spiritual ; and he sympathizes with the one in his death, and will be associated with the other by his resurrection. Without another state, it would be utterly impos- sible for him to explain the difficulties of this : possessing earth, but destined for heaven, he forms the link between two orders of being, and partakes much of the grossness of the one, and somewhat LA CON, m of die refinement of the other. Reason," like the magnetic influence imparted to iron, gives to matter, properties and powers which it possessed not before, but without extending its bulk, augmenting i-:s weight, or altering its organization ; like that to which I have compared it, it is visible only by its effects, and perceptible only by its operations. Reason, superadded to man, gives him peculiar and characteristic views, responsibilities, and des- tinations, exalting him above all existences that are visible, but which perish, and associating him with those that are invisible, but which remain. Reason is that Homeric and golden chain, descending from the throne of God even unto man, uniting *INo sound philosopher will confound instinct with rea- son, because an orang outang has used a walking stick, or a trained elephant a lever. Reason imparts powers that are progressive, and that, in many cases, without any assignable limit ; instinct only measures out faculties tha't arrive at a certain point, and then invariably stand still. Five thousand years nave added no improvement to the hive of the bee. nor to the house of the beaver ; but look at the habitations and achievements of man; observe reflection, experience, judgment, at one time enabling the head to save the hand : at another, dictating a wise and prospective economy, exemplified in the most lavish expenditure of means, but to be paid with the most usurious interest, by the final accomplishment of ends. "We might, also, add another distinction peculiar, I conceive, to reason: the de- liberate choice of a small present evil to obtain a greater dis- tant good: he. that on all necessary occasions can act upon this single principle, is as superior to other men, as other men to the brutes. And as the exercise of this principle is the perfection of reason, it happens also, as might have been anticipated, to form the chief task assigned us by re- ligion, and this task is in a great measure accomplished from the moment our lives exhibit a practical assent to one eternal and immutable truth : The necessary and final con~ merlon between happiness and virtu?, avA mkcry and vie*, 25 290 L A (J O N ; heaven with earth, and earth with heaven.—* For all is connected and without a chasm ; from an angel to an atom, all is proportion, harmony, and strength. But here we stop : — There is an awful gulf, that must be for ever impassable, infi- nite and insurmountable : the distance between the creetted and the Creator ; and this order of things is as fit as it is necessary ; it enables the Supreme* to exalt without limit, to reward without exhaustion, without a possibility of endangering the safety of his throne by rivalry, or tarnishing ks lustre by approximation. Time is the most unde finable yet paradoxical of things ; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it, and like the flash of the light- ning, at once exists and expires. Time is the mea- surer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and .the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undis- closed. Like space^ it is incomprehensible, be- cause it has no limits, and it would be still more so, if it had.f It is more obscure in its source than t * The ancient sculptors and painters always designated their Jupiter with an aspect of placid and tranquil majesty, but with an attitude slightly bending and inclining forwards, as in the act of looking down upon the whole created uni- verse of thirgs. This circumstance, perhaps, suggested to Milton those noble lines : — 1 Now had the Almighty Father, from above, From the bright Empyrean where he sits High thron'd above all height, cast down his eye, His own works, and man's works at once to view. 1 t If we stand in the middle of a dark vista, with a lumi nous object at one end of it, and none at the other, the former will appear to be short, and the latter, long. And so per- LACON, SQi the Nile, and in its termination than the Niger ; and advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. It gives wings of lightning to pleasure,- but feet of lead to pain, and lends expec- tation a curb, but enjoyment a spur. It robs beauty of her charms, to bestow them on her picture, and builds a monument to merit, but denies it a house ; it is the transient and deceitful flatterer of false- hood, but the tried and final friend of truth. Time is the most subtile, yet the most insatiable of depre- dators, and by appearing to take nothing, is permit- ted to take all, nor can it be satisfied, until it has haps it is with time : if we look back upon time that is past, we naturally fix our attention upon some event, with the circumstances of which we are acquainted, because they have happened, and this is that luminous object which ap- parently shortens one end of the vista ; but if we look for- ward into time that is to come, we have no luminous object on which to fix our attention, but alt is uncertainty, con- jecture and darkness. As to time without an end, and space without a limit, these are two things that finite beings can- not clearly comprehend. But if we examine more minutely into the operations of our own minds, we shall find that there are two things much more incomprehensible, and these are time that has an end, and space that has a limit. For whatever limits these two things, must be itself unlim- ited, and I am at a loss to conceive where it can exist, but in space and time. But this involves a contradiction, for that which limits, cannot be contained in that which is lim- ited. We know that in the awful name of Jehovah, the Hebrews combined the past, the present, and the future, and St. John is obliged to make use of a periphrasis, by the expressions of Who is, and was, and is to come ; ana Sir Isaac Newton considers infinity of space on the one hand, and eternity of duration on the other, to be the grand sen- sorium of the Deity : it is, indeed, a sphere that alone is worthy of Him who directs all the movements of nature, and who is determined by his own unalterable perfections, eventually to produce the highest happiness, by the best ' jtummam fciicctatcm,, optimis modis. 292 L A C O N . stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies,yet overcomes all things by flight, and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death. — Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern cor- rector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other ; but, like Cassandra, it wains us with a voice, that even the sagest discredit too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it ; he that has made it his friend, will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends. We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when per- formed by ourselves.* I have observed elsewhere, * In the first volume, I observed, that with respect to the style I proposed to adopt in these pages, I should attempt to make Ji vary with the subject. I now find that I have succeeded so far at least in this attempt, that some have doubted whether all the articles came from the same pen. I can, however, assure my readers, that whatever faults Xjacon may possess belong to me alone, and having said thus much, I believe I shall not have made a very good bargain, by claiming also whatever trifling merits may be found in the book. ^To those, therefore, that are disgusted with the abundance of the one, or dissatisfied from the sagacity of the other, I can only reply ir the words of Euryalus : — ' Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum.' \ As to the frequent recurrence of antithesis, I admit that wherever this figure presents itself to my imagination, 1 11 who made it am present, towards me direct the sward.— Pea. LACON. 293 that no swindler has assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own ; self-love can gild the most nauseous pill, and can never reject it, if the deductions proposed to be drawn from it appear to me to be just. I have consulted authors ancient and modern on this subject, and they seem to be all agreed that the sententious, short, and apothegmatic style, so highly requisite in a book of maxims or aphorisms, is a style, to the force and spirit of which, antithesis is not only particu- larly advantageous, but even absolutely necessary. A maxim, if it be worth any thing, is worth remembering, and nothing is so likely to rivet it on the memory, as antithesis: deprived of this powerful auxiliary, all works of the na- ture of thai in which I am engaged, must droop and be dull. If, indeed, I have blundered on some antitheses that lead t<< false conclusions, I admit that no mercy ought to be shown to these, and I consign them, without benefit of clergy, to the severest sentence of criticism. No candid reader, 1 presume, will accuse an author of adopting the antitheti- cal style from laziness, and those who would ask whether it be an easy style of writing, I would say with the celebra- ted painter," ' Try.' That I can abandon antithesis, on sub- jects where it is not required, will, I think, be allowed, by those who have read the notes to Hypocrisy,- and my re- marks on Don Juan. But to extirpate antithesis from lit- erature altogether, would be to destroy at one stroke about eight tenths of all the wit, ancient and modern, now exist- ing in the world ; and I fancy we shall never have the same excuse for such a measure, that the Dutch had for destroy- ing their spices — the fear of a glut. Donees, indeed, give antithesis no quarter, and, to say the truth, it gives them none ; if, indeed, it be a fault, it is "one of the very few which such persons may exclaim against with some justice, be- cause they were never yet found capable of committing it. Let any man try to recall to his memory all the pointed, epigrammatic, brief, or severe things which he may have read or heard, either at the senate, the bar, or the stage, and he will see that I have not overrated the share which antithesis will be found to have had in their production. It is a figure capable not only of the greatest wit, but some- times of the greatest beauty or sublimity. Milton, in his moral description of hell, savs that it was a place which -3§4 LAC ON. make the grossest veanaluy,when tinselled over whh the semblance of gratitude, sit easy on the weakest stomach. There is an anecdote of Sir Robert Walpole so much to my present purpose, that I cannot refrain from relating it, as I conceive that it will be considered apposite by all my readers, ai>d may perhaps be new to some. Sir Robert wished ' to carry a favourite measure in the house of com- mons. None understood better than this minister, two grand secrets of state — the great power of principal, and the great weakness of principle. A day or two previous to the agitation of the measure alluded to, he chanced upon a country member, who sometimes looked to the weight and value of an argument, rather than to its justice or its truth. Sir Robert took him aside, and rather unceremo- God c created evil, for evil only good j where all life dies, death lives.' That it is capable of the greatest beauty, will be seen by the following translation from an Arabic poet, on the birth of a child : — 1 When born, in tears we saw thee drown'd, While thine assembled friends around \ With smiles their joy con£2st. So live, that at thy parting hour, They may the flood oi'sorr&w pour, And thou in smiles be drest. 5 If these lines will not put my readers in good humonr with antithesis, I must either give them up as incorrigible, or prescribe to them a regular course of reading discipline, administered by such writers as Herder or Gisborne, re- stricting them, also, most straitly, from all such authors as Butler and Swift, where they will be often shocked with such lines as the following : — 1 Tis said that Caesar's horse would stoop, To take his noble rider up ; i So Huqlibras's, 'tis well known, Would often do to set him down. 1 LACQN. 2vl rnously put a thousand pound bank note into liia hand, saying, 1 1 must have your vote and influence on such a day.' Our Aristides from the- country thus replied : ' Sir Robert, you have shown yourself my friend on many occasions^ and on points where both my honour and my interest were nearly and dearly concerned ; I am also informed that it was owing to your good offices, that my wife lately met with so distinguished and flattering a reception at court. I should think myself, therefore,' continued he, putting, however, the note very carefully into his own pocket ; ' 1 should think myself, Sir Robert, a perfect monster of ingratitudej it\ on this occasion, I refused you my vote and influence.' They parted ; Sir Robert not a little surprised at having discov- ered a new page in the volume of man, and the other scarcely more pleased with the valuable rea- soning of Sir Robert, than with his own specious rhetoric, which had so suddenly metamorphosed an act of the foulest corruption, into one of the sin- cerest gratitude. As that gallant can best affect a pretended pas- sion for one woman, who has no true love for an- other, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues, can best assume the appearance of them all # True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. We are all greater dupes to our own weakness than to the skill of others ; and the successes gained over us by the designing, are usually nothing more than the prey taken from those very snares 2W JfeACOI». we have laid ourselves. One man falls by his am* bition, another by his perfidy, a third by his ava* rice, and a fourth by his lust. What are these but so many nets, watched indeed by the fowler, but woven by the victim ? Corruption is like a ball of snow, when once set a rolling, it must increase. It gives- momentum to the activity of the knave, but it chills the honest man, and makes him almost weary of his calling ' and all that corruption attracts, it also retains ; for it is easier not to fall, than only to fall once, and not to yield a single inch, than having yielded, ta regain it. Works of true merit are seMom very popular in their own day ; for knowledge is on the march, and men of genius are the prastolatores or videtteSf that are far in advance of their comrades. They are not with them, but before them ; not in the camp, but beyond it. The works of Sciolists and Dullards are still more unpopular, but from a differ- ent cause ; and theirs is an unpopularity that will* remain, because they are not before the main body, but behind it ; and as it proceeds, every moment increases the distance of those sluggards that are sleeping in the rear, but diminishes the distance of those heroes that have taken post in the van. Who then stands the best chance of that paltry prize, contemporaneous approbation ? He whose medi ocrity of progress distances not his comrades, and whose equality of merit affords a level on which friendship may be built ; who is not so dull but that he has something to teach, and not so wise as to have nothing to learn ; who is not so far before his L A C If. 297 companions as to be nnperccived, nor so far behind .them as to be unregarded. A*fcown, before it can be plundered and deserted, must first be taken ; and in this particular, Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A wo- man that wishes to retain her suitor, must keep him in the trenches ; for this is a siege which the be- i sieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a .slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one. We should have as many Petrarchs as Antonys, were not Lauras much more scarce than Cleopatras. Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud when they are the least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of Na- ture ; she often gives us the lightning even without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning. Let us so employ our youth, that the very old age which will deprive us of attention from the eyes of the women, shall enable us to replace what we have lost with something better from the ears of the men. The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this : the friends of a great man were made by -his fortunes, his enemies by himself, and revenge is & much more punctual paymaster than gratitude. £38. LA€Oif. Those, whom a great man has marred; rejoice at his ruin, and those whom he has made, look on with indifference ; because, with common minds, the destruction of the creditor is considered as equivalent to the payment of the debt. Our aclii evements and our productions are our intellectual progeny, and he who is engaged in pro- viding that th&se immortal children of his mind shall Inherit fame, is far more nobly occupied than he who is industrious in order that the perishable children of his body should inherit wealth. This reflection will help us to a solution of that question which has been so often and so triumphantly pro- posed: * What has posterity ever done for us?' Tliis sophism may be replied to thus : Who is it that proposes the question ? one of the present generation of that particular moment when it is proposed: but to such it is evident that posterity can exist only in. idea. And if it be asked, what the idea of posterity has done for us 1 we may safely reply that it has done, and is doing two most important things ; it increases the energy of virtue and diminishes the excesses of vice ; it makes the best of us more good, and the worst of us less bad". No improvement that takes place in either of the sexes, can possibly be confined to itself; each is a universal mirror to each; and the respective refinement of the one, will always be in reciprocal proportion to the polish of the other. Those who at the commencement of their career meet with Less contemporaneous applause than they LAC ON. 299 deserve, are not unfrequently recompensed by gaining more than they deserve at the end of it ; and although at the earlier part of their progress, such persons had grounds to fear that they were born to be starved, yet have they often lived long enough to die of a surfeit. This applies not to posterity, which decides without any regard to this inequality. Contemporaries are anxious to redeem a defect of penetration, by a subsequent excess of praise ; but from the very nature of things, it is im- possible for posterity to commit either the one fault or the other. Doctor Johnson is a remarkable instance of the truth of what has been advanced ; he was considered less than he really was, in his morn of life, and greater than he really was, in its meridian. Posterity has calmly placed him where he ought to be — between the two extremes. He was fortunate in having not only the most interesting, but also the most disinterested of biographers, for he is constantly raising his hero at the expense of himself. He now and then proposes some very silly ques- tions to his oracle. He once asked him, 4 Pray, doctor, do you think you could make any part of the Rambler better than it is V ' Yes, sir,' said the doctor ; ' I could make the best parts, better.' But posterity, were she to cite the doctor before her, might perhaps propose a more perplexing question, ■ — ' Pray, Doctor, do you think you could make the worst parts, worse V The testimony of those who doubt the least, is not unusually that very testimony that, ought most to be doubted. 300 L A C O N , It is curious that intellectual darkness create* some authors whom physical darkness would de- stroy ; such would be totally silent if they were absolutely blind, and their ability to write would instantly cease with their ability to read. They could neither draw, like Shakspeare, on imagina- tion ; like Bacon, on reflection ; like Ben Jon- son, on memory ; nor like Milton, on all. These traffickers in literature, are like bankers in one re- spect, and like bakers in another. Like bankers, because they carry on business with a small capi- tal of their own, and a very large one of other men's, and a run would be equally fatal to both. They are like bakers, because while the one manu- factures his bread, and the other his book, neither of them has had any hand in the production of that which forms the staple of his respective com- modity. With the offspring of genius, the law of parturi- tion is reversed ; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth. As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints. When dunces call us fools, without proving us to be so, our best retort is to prove them to be fools, without condescending to call them so. Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it Lago n. soi He that pleases himself, without injuring his neighbour, is quite as likely to please half the world, as he who vainly strives to please the whole of it ; he also stands a far better chance of a ma- {'ority in his favour, since upon all equal divisions, te will be fairlv entitled to his own casting vote. I have often heard it canvassed, how far it would be beneficial that written speeches should be per- mitted to be read in our Houses of Parliament. Madame De Stael, who, in the infancy of the French revolution, saw the consequences of writ- ten speeches developed before her eyes, has, with her usual discernment, set the question at rest, by deciding in favour of the system which excludes them. In the British Senate, she observes, it is a rule not to read a written speech, it must be spoken, so that the number of persons capable of addres- sing the House with effect, is of necessity very small. ' But,' she adds, ' as soon as permission is given to read either what we have written for our- selves, or what others have written for us, men of eminence are no longer the permanent leaders of an assembly, and thus we lose the great advan- tages of a free government, that of giving talent its place, and consequently, of prompting all men to the improvement of their faculties.' Women will pardon any offence rather than a neglect of their charms, and rejected love re-enters the female bosom with a hatred more implacable than that of Coriolanus when he returned to Rome , In good truth, we should have many Potiphars, were it not that Josephs are scarce. All Addison's 26 302 LACON, address and integrity were found necessary to extricate him from a dilemma of this kind. The Marquis Des Vardes fared not so well. Madame the Dutchess of Orleans fell in love with him, although she knew he was the gallant of Madame Soissons, her most intimate friend. She even made a confidant of Madame Soissons,, who not only agreed to give him up, but carried her extrav- agance so far as to send for the marquis, and release him, in the presence of Madame, from all his obligations, and to make him formally over to her. The Marquis Des Vardes deeming this to be only an artifice of gallantry to try how faithful he was in his amours, thought it most prudent to declare himself incapable of change, in terms full of respect for Madame, but of passion for the dutchess. His ruin was determined upon from that moment, nor could his fidelity to the one, save him from the effects of that hatred his indifference had excited in the breast of the other. As a poli- ciser, the marquis reasoned badly ; for had he been right in his conclusion, it would have been no difficult matter for him, on the ladies discovering their plot, to have persuaded his first favourite that his heart was not in the thing, and that he had fallen into the snare only from a deference to her commands ; and if he were wrong in his conclu- sion, which was the case, women do not like a man the worse for having many favourites, if he deserts them all for her ; she fancies that she herself has the power of fixing the wanderer ; that other women conquer like the Parthians, but that she herself, like the Romans, cannot only make conquests, but retain them * * It follows upon the same principle, that the converse LAC ON/ SOS In? civil jurisprudence* it too often happens that there is so much law, there is no room for justice, and that the claimant expires of wrong, in the midst of right, as mariners die of thirst, in the midst of water. Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain. Hence it happens, that both in public and in private life, we so constantly see men playing that very game at which they know that others of what has been offered above will also be true, and that women will pardon almost any extravagances in ineny if they appear to have been the uncontrollable effects of an inordinate love and admiration. It is well known from the confession of Catherine herself, that Alexis Orloff, though at that time a common soldier in the guards, had the hardi- esse to make the first advances to the Autocratrix of all the Russias. * Grievances of this kind are not likely to be speedily redressed, on many accounts, some of which £ have else- where enumerated. This is an esprit dtt corps amongst lawyers, which is carried to a greater height than in any other profession ; its force here is more prominent, because it is more effectual. Lawyers are the only civil delinquents whose judges must of necessity be chosen from themselves. Therefore, the ^Quis custodict ipsos custodes?'* is a more perplexing question with regard to them r than any other body of men. The fact is, that the whole civil code is now become a most unwieldy machine, without the least chance of being improved, for to those who manage its movements, its value rises in precise proportion to its com- plication, and to them it is most profitable when it performs the least. This machine devours an immensity of paper in the shape of bank notes, and returns to its customers other paper in the shape of legal instruments and docu- ments, from which on examination nothing can be learnt, except that the parties have been regularly ruined accord- ing to law. • Who shall guard the guards themselves 1 30i L A C O X . have been ruined ; but they flatter themselves that they shall play it with more skill. The powerful are more deaf to the voice of experience, than their inferiors, from the very circumstances in which they are placed. Power multiplies flatterers, and flatterers multiply our delusions, by hiding us from ourselves. It is on this principle only, that we can account for such a reign as that of the Second Charles, treading so quickly upon that of the First. The former was restored to a throne that might be said to have been built out of the very materials that composed the scaffold of his father ! He con- verted it into an altar of bacchanalians, where he himself officiated as highpriest of the orgies, while every principle of purity and of honour were the costly victims, that bedewed with libations and bedizened with flowers, were led in disgusting splendour to the sacrifice. He that would thoroughly accomplish himself for the government of human affairs, should have a wisdom that can look forward into things that are present, and a learning that can look back into things that are past.* But the poring pedant, who will slake his thirst only from antiquity, will find that it abounds with wells so deep, that some of them were not worth the digging, and now so dark * Some contend that the moderns have less strength than the ancients, but it would be nearer the truth, to insist that the moderns have less weakness ; the muscularity of their minds on some points is not enfeebled by any rickety con- formation on others, and this enables us to ascend the lad- der of science, high enough to be on a level with the wis- dom of our forefathers at some times, and above their errors at aU times. LACON. 305 fTiat they are not worth the descending , yet so dry withal, that he will come up more thirsty than he went down, with eyes blinded by the dust of time, and with lips unquenched by the living waters of truth. Wisdom, however, and learning, should go hand in hand, they are so beautifully qualified for mutual assistance. But it is better to have wis- dom without learning, than learning without wis- dom ; just as it is better to be rich without being the possessor of a mine, than to be the possessor of a mine without being rich. When we have lost a favourite horse or a dog, we usually endeavour to console ourselves, by the recollection of some bad qualities they happened to possess ; and we are very apt to tranquillize our minds by similar reminiscences, on the death of those friends who have left us nothing. When certain persons abuse us, let us ask Ottrselves what description of characters it is that they admire ; we shall often find this a very con- solatory question. Why is it that we so constantly hear men complaining of their memory,* but not of their judgment? is it that they are less ashamed of a short memory, because they have heard that this * Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies, duintilian has said . 1 Quantum memories tantum ingenii;'! but if this maxim were either true, or believed to be so, all men would be as satisfied with their memory, as they at present are with their judgment. * As much of memory, so much of mind, 26* „. , 306 LACON. is a failing of great wits ; or is it because nothing is more common than a fool with a strong memory, nor more rare than a man of sense with a weak judgment ? As the mean have a calculating avarice, thai sometimes inclines them to give, so the magnani mous have a condescending generosity, that some times inclines them to receive. Philosophy is to poetry, what old age is to youth ; and the stern truths of philosophy are as fatal to the fictions of the one, as the chilling testi- monies of experience are to the hopes of the other. No reformation is so hazardous as that of retrenchment ; it forces the corrupt to give a prac- tical assent to a system which they outwardly extol, but inwardly execrate. Even the bright talent, and still brighter integrity, of M. Neckar,* were not equal to the host of enemies which his inflexible adherence to economy has created around him. ' I was placed/ says he, ' in a situation, where 1 was under the constant necessity of disobliging all those whom I knew, in order to secure the interests of those whom I knew not.' ' Even the ladies at court would demand pensions,' says Madame De Stael, 1 with as much confidence as a marshal of France * So firm was the confidence reposed in this great man by the whole nation of France, that on his reassumption of office, the French funds ~ose thirty per cent, in one day. Had M. Neckar had plenitude of power, or M. Mirabeau purity of principle, could the former have done what he wouid, or the latter what he could, in either case the French revolution had been prevented. LAC OX. 307 would complain of -being, superseded. 'What.' they would say, i is three thousand livres to the king V ' Three thousand livres,' replied M. Neckar, * are the taxation of a village.' Self-love, in a well regulated breast, is as the steward of the household^ superintending the ex- penditure, and seeing that benevolence herself should be prudential, in order to be permanent, by providing that the reservoir which feeds, should also be fed. Some authors write nonsense in a clear style, and others sense in an obscure one ; some can reason without being able to persuade, others can persuade without being able to reason ; some dive so deep that they descend into darkness, and others soar so high that they give us no light ; and some, in a vain attempt to be cutting and dry, give us only that which is cut and dried. We should labour, therefore, to treat with ease of things that are difficult ; with familiarity of things that are novel ; and with perspicuity, of things that are profound. What we conceive to be failings in others, are not unfrequently owing to some deficiencies in ourselves ; thus, plain men think handsome women want passion, and plain women think young men want politeness ; dull writers think all readers devoid of taste, and dull readers think witty writers devoid of brilliancy old men can see nothing to admire in the present days ; and yet former days were not better, but it is they themselves that have become worse. 901; """ LACOH, A thorough-paced antiquary not only remember^ -what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think it proper to remember. 1 Speaking,' says Lord Bacon, * makes a ready man, reading a full man, and writing a correct man.' The first position, perhaps, is true ; for those are often the most ready to speak, who have the least to say. Reading will not always make a full man, for the memories of some men are like the buckets of the daughters of Danae, and retain nothing ; others have recollections like the bolters of a mill, that retain the chaff and let the flour escape ; these men will have fulness, but it will be with the draw- back of dulness. Neither will writing always accomplish what his lordship has declared, other* wise some of our most voluminous writers would put in their claim for correctness, to whom theh readers would more justly award correction. But if we may be allowed to compare intellectual wealth to current, w r e may say, that from a man's speaking, we may guess how much ready money he has ; from his reading, what legacies have been left him ; and from his writing, how much he can sit down and draw for, on his banker. Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitu- tion, or of a bad memory ; of a constitution so treacherously good, that it never bends until it breaks ; or of a memory that recollects the pleas ures of getting drunk, but forgets .He oains of get ting sthe part of those who sutler by it, increases also the temptation to commit it, on the part of those who profit by it ; since there are so many who would rather be written down knaves, than fools. The plain fact is, that to be honest with. success, requires far more talent than to be a rogue, and to be honest without success, requires far more magnanimity ; for trick is not dexterity, cunning is not skill, and mystery is not profoundness. The honest man proposes to arrive at a certain point, by -one straight and narrow road, that is beset on all sides with obstacles and with impediments. He would rather stand still than proceed by trespassing on the pro- perty of his neighbour, and would rather overcome a difficulty, than avoid it by breaking down a fence. The knave, it is true, proposes to himself the same object, but arrives at it by a very different route. Provided only that he gets on, he is not particular whether he effects it where there is a road, or where there is none ; he trespasses without scru- ple, either on the forbidden ground of private property, or on those by-paths where there is no legal thoroughfare ; what he cannot jcac.li ovef L A C O N . 317 he will overreach, and those obstacles he cannot surmount by climbing, he will undermine by creep- ing, quite regardless of the filth that may stick to him in the scramble. The consequence is, that he frequently overtakes the honest man, and passes by him with a sneer. What then shall we say, that the rogue has more talent than the upright ? let us rather say that he has less. Wisdom is nothing more than judgment exercised on the true value of things that are desirable ; but of things in themselves desirable, those are the most so that remain the long- est. Let us therefore mark the end of these things, and we shall come to one conclusion, the flat of the tribunal both of God and of man — that honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom ; since however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off ; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that virtue has no other reward, because they have heard that she is her own. In all civilized communities, there must of neces- sity exist a small portion of society, who are in a great measure independent of public opinion. How then is this seeming advantage balanced in the great account ? These privileged individ- uals, surrounded by parasites, sycophants, and deceivers, too often become the willing victims of self-delusion, flattery, or design. Such persons commence by being their own masters, and finish by being their own slaves, the automata of passion, the Heliogaboli of excess, and the martyrs of dis- ease. Undelighted amidst all delight, and joyless amidst all enjoyment, yet sateless in the very lap of satiety, they eventually receive the full measure 27* 318 LAC ON. of the punishment of their folly, their profligacy, or their vice; nay, they often suffer ?no?e than other men, not because they are as amenable as thek inferiors, but because they go greater lengths. Experience speaks to such in vain, and they sink deeper in the abyss, in precise proportion to the height from which they have plunged. It has been said, that we are much deceived, when we fancy that l we can do without the world? and still more so when we presume that the world cannot do without us. Against the truth of the latter part of the proposition, I have nothing to depose ; but to return to the first feature of the pro- position, quoted above, I am inclined to think that we are independent, very much in proportion to the preference we give to intellectual and mental pleas- ures and enjoyments, over those that are sen- sual and corporeal. It is unfortunate, that although affluence cannot give this kind of independence, yet that poverty should have a tendency to with- hold it, not indeed altogether, but in part. For it is not a more unusual sight to see a poor man who thinks, acts, and speaks for himself, than to see a rich man, who perforins all these important func- tions at the will of another ; and the only polite phrase I know of, which often means more than it says, is that which has been adopted as the conclu- sion of our epistles ; where for the word servant, might not unfrequently be substituted that of slave. It is astonishing how parturescent is evil, and with what incestuous fertility the whole family of vice increase and multiply, by cohabiting amongst themselves. Thus, if kings are tyrannical and 17A COX. 310 •oppressive, it is too often because subjects are ser- vile and corrupt ; in proportion to the cowardice of the ruled, is the cruelty of the ruler, and if he governs by threats and by bribes, rather than by justice and by mercy, it is because fear has a stronger influence over the base than love, and gain, more weight with the mercenary, than grati- tude. Thus, the gladiatorial shows of ancient Rome, brought upon the instituters of them, their own punishment; for cruelty begat cruelty. The tyrant exercised those barbarities on the people, which the people exercised upon the prisoner and the slave ; the physical value of man fell with his moral, and a contempt for the lives of others was bred in all, by a familiarity with blood. As we cannot judge of the motion of the earth, by any thing within the earth, but by some radiant and celestial point that is beyond it, so the wicked, by comparing themselves with the wicked, per- ceive not how far they are advanced in their ini- quity ; to know precisely what lengths they have gone, they must fix their attention on some bright and exalted character that is not of them, but above them. ' When all move equally,' says Pas- chal, 'nothing seems to move, as in a vessel under sail ; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point, the horrible extrava- gance that transports the rest. There are two questions, one of which is the most important, and the other the most interesting that can possibly be proposed in language : Are we to live after death? and if we are — in what 3* LACGN. suite It These are questions confined to no climate, creed, or community ; the savage is as deeply in- terested in them as the sage, and they are of equai import under every meridian where there are* men. I shall oiler some considerations that have been decisive with mc, on a subject that migh\ well warrant a much larger demand than I shaK make on the patience of my readers. Those wIig agree with me in drawing their hopes of immortal ity from the purest and the highest source, will nol be offended at an attempt to show, that on this most momentous question, the voice of reason re-echoes back the truths of revelation, and that the calmest assent of philosophy coincides with the firmest con- viction of faith. Many causes are now conspiring to increase the trunk of infidelity, but materialism is the main root of them all. Are we to live after death 1 and if we are, in what state ? The second question evidently depends upon the first, for he that feels no conviction as to the certainty of a future life, will not be over-solicitous as to the condition of it ; for to common minds the greatest things are diminished by distance, and they become evanescent, if to that distance be added doubt. Should the doubt of futurity introduce the denial of it, what must then be the result ? All that endears us to our fellow men, and all that exalts us above them, will be swallowed up and lost, in the paltri- ness of the present, and the nothingness of now. The interests of society demand that a belief in a future state should be general ; the probability of such a state is confirmed by reason, and its cer- tainty is affirmed by revelation. I shall confine myself altogether to such proofs as philosophy and reason afford, and in so doing, I shall attack neither LACOX. 821 : motives .nor men. If an argument can be proved to be false in its premises, absurd in its conclu- sions, and calamitous in its consequences, it must fall ; we cannot desire it, because it has nothing to allure, and we cannot believe it, because it has nothing to convince. The analogical* method of proof lias very lately been resuscitated for the purpose of destroying the immortality of the soul. A bold and fresh attempt has been made to convert analogy into the Aor?>j a™ ,of materialism, by the help of which, as by a lever, the Archimedes of skepticism may be ena- * Analogy is a powerful weapon, and like all Instruments of that kind, is extremely dangerous in unskilful hands. The grounds of probability which this mode of reasoning affords, will be more or less firm in proportion to the length, the frequency, and the constancy, of the recurrence of the phenomena, on which the analogy itself is built. In some cases analogical proof may rise almost to mathematical certainty, as, when. from the undeviating experience of the past, we anticipate the future, and affirm that the sun will rise to-morrow. On other occasions, where the phenomena have occurred at long and broken intervals, and with nr regard to dates or periods, the analogical presumption o r their recurrence will mount no higher than the lowest stag**- of probability, and will in noway affect the common con cerns and business of life. It is' on this principle that tbr inhabitants of Lisbon sleep securely in their beds, withoir any v r ery disturbing perplexities on the probabilities of an earthquake. Where the phenomena occur with regularity, as in eclipses, mere distance of time does by no means in • validate Hie analogical proof, save and except that in con- sequence of the shortness of life, the verification of such phenomena, must be matter of testimony, rather than of experience. So powerful, however, is' analogy, that in most dispiu.es it has been courted as an ally by both parties ; it has even lent arguments, as Switzerland troops, to botri 'ides, and its artillery has at times by both been over- tharged 1 until it has reacted upon themselves. 328 LACQrw bled to overturn, not earth indeed, but heaven X Analogy has in fact supplied the first stone of tha foundation, and that alone;, but infidelity has reared the superstructure, with an industry as fer- tile of resource, and we might, add, of invention, as that of the children of Israel, who continued to deliver in the tale of bricks, : after the materials were denied. As niuek talent has- been, displayed; in the support of these opinions which I am con* tributing my efforts to controvert, and as some of the positions on which the inferences are built, will be conceded, I think it right to commence, by observ- ing, that falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and that no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer, as those that are sometimes right. The argument I contend against is this : ' The mind] (we are told) * is infantile with the body, manly in the adult, sick and debilitated by diseasa,, enfeebled in the decline of life, doting in decrepitude, and ajmiliilaied by death. Now it so happens, that out of all the positions which make the links of this formidable analogical chain, the first alone i3 universally true, and disturbed by no exceptions ; the intermediate lir*ks are sometimes right, and' sometimes, wrong, and the last is mere assertion, wholly unsupported by proof. The universal his- tory of man, our own experience, and the testimony of others, are full of instances that clearly prove that the assertions which intervene between tli3 first and the last, are as often false as they are true. And this is more than we want; for I must beg my readers' attention to- this particular circumstance,, namely > that one? exception., to each of the assertion* advanced above, must necessarily be as fatal to the annihilating clause which is inferred from them, as one million. For if there be any force in that mode of argument which has been termed the reductio ad absurdum, it is evident that a single exception to each, of the intermediate assertions, between the first position and the last, forces the materialist upon the monstrous necessity of admit- ting two discrete orders of men, and that there is one law^oi* existence for one description, and a second for another. If we pursue the analogy no farther than history, experience, and observation warrant, and this is the only logical mode of pur- suing it, we are then forced upon the absurdity mentioned above. The only analogical chain which the facts authorize us to form, is as follows : the mind is infantile with the body, it is sometime? manly in the adult, sometimes sick and debilitated by disease, sometimes enfeebled in the decline of life, sometimes doting in decrepitude, and sometimes annihilated by death ! ! ! If the mind be only sometimes annihilated with the body, it must sometimes survive it ; but an argument that would make one class of men mor- tal, and another immortal, by proving too much, proves nothing, and must fall by its own absurdity. ; Circa Deos negligentur quippe addictus mathe- matical* is an accusation that is not, I fear, con- fined in the present day to any particular pursuit ; for as there have been some mathematicians so devout as to fancy they have discovered the trinity in a triangle, so there are some anatomists who wil? not believe in the existence of a soul, because they * One devoted to mathematics, tuai i the gods slightly. Pub. 424 LACOrf, have never yet been able to transfix if upon tlW> point of their knife : vet methinks there is one circumstance that ought to lower the dogmatical confidence of the materialist; and this is 5 that mind happens to be the only thing on whose existence we can by intuition itseli rely. We may go on heap- ing proof upon proof, and experiment upon expert ment, to establish, as we suppose, the reality of matter, and after we have done all this, I know not of one satisfactory answer that we could give, to those who chose to affirm that with all our pains, we have only established the reality, not of matter, but of sensation. We may also doubt about the existence of matter, as learnedly and as long as we please, as some have done before us, and yet we shall not establish the existence of matter by any such dubitations ; but the moment we begin to doubt about the existence of mind, the very act of doubting proves it. Another great source of error, in this most im- portant of all questions, is the mistaking of a strong but inexplicable connexion, for an inseparable iden- tity. In the first place, I should humbly conceive that it is quite as unphilosophical to say that a lump of brain thinks, as that an eye sees ; the one, indeed, ministers to thought, as the other to vision ; for the eye, although it be necessary and subser- vient, to vision, can, strictly speaking, no more be said to see, than a microscope or a telescope ; it is indeed, a finer instrument than either, but still an instrument, and capable of being assisted by both. This observation would apply, mutatis mutandis, to all of the senses, but I have selected that of vision, as the most refined. We all know that the two eyes paint two minute and inverted images of h A C K . 336 an object, upon the retina ; having done this, they have done all that is expected of them. What power is it then that rectifies all the errors of this machinery, as to number, position and size, and presents us with one upright object, in its just dimensions and proportions ? All this is certainly not effected by the eyes, for a paralysis of the optic nerve instantly and totally destroys their powers, without in the slightest manner affecting their organization. The optic nerve, then,- it seems, and the eye, are both necessary to vision, but are they all that is necessary ? Certainly not ; because if we proceed a little farther, we shall find that certain effects, operating upon the brain, will com- pletely and instantly destroy the powers of vision, the optic nerve and the eye both remaining unal- tered and undisturbed. How then are these ef- fects produced ? are their causes always mechan- ical, as from pressure, or the violence of a blow ? No, they are often morbid, the result of increased action, brought on by inflammation, or of diseased structure, superinduced by abscess. Are there not causes neither morbid nor mechanical, that have been found capable of producing similar effects ? Yes — a few sounds acting on the tympanum of the ear, or a few black and small figures scribbled on a piece of white paper, have been known to knock a man down as effectually as a sledge hammer, and «:o deprive him not only of vision, but even of life. Here then we have instances of mind acting upon matter, and I by no means affirm that matter docs not -dUo act upon mind ; for to those who advocate the intimate connexion between body and mind, ihese reciprocities of action are easily reconcile- able ; but tins will be an insuperable difficulty to 28 $26 LACON. those who affirm the identity of mind and body which however is not for us, but for those who maintain this doctrine, to overcome. If mind be indeed so inseparably identified with matter, that the dissolution of the one must necessarily involve the destruction of the other, how comes it to pass that we so often see the body survive the mind in one man, and the mind survive the body in an- other ? Why do they not agree to die together ? How happened it that the body of Swift became for so many years the living tomb of his mind ; and, as in some cases of paralysis, how are we to account for the phenomena of the body, reduced to the most deplorable and helpless debility, without any corresponding weakness or hebetation of the mind 1 Again, if the mind be indeed not the tenant of the corporeal dwelling, but an absolute and component part of the dwelling itself, where does the mysterious but tangible palladium of this temple reside ? Where are we to go to find it, since, if material, why cannot it be felt, handled, and seen ? She resides, we are informed, in the inmostrecesses of her sensorium, the brain ; a mere assertion that can never be proved ; for if she doth indeed enlighten this little citadel, it is with a ray like that of those sepulchral lamps, which, the instant we discover, we destroy. If we return to the evidence of facts, the dissections carried on by Morgagni, Haller, Bonnet, and others, do most thoroughly and irrefutably establish one most important, and to me at least, consoling truth ; that there is no part of the brain, either cortical, or medullary, not even the pineal gland itself, that has not, in one instance or in another, been totally destroyed by disease, but without producing in the patient any corresponding LA CON. S27 alienation or hallucination of mind ; in some cases, without any suspicion of such disease during life, and without any discovery of it, until after death, by dissection. We shall be told, perhaps, that the thinking faculty may be something residing in the very centre of the pineal gland, but so minute as to survive the destruction even of that in which it ig enclosed. The pineal gland does indeed contain a few particles of a schistous or gritty substance, but which, alas, prove little for the argument of him who would designate thought to be nothing more than the result of a more curious and com- plicated organization ; since these particles, on examination, turn out to be nothing more nor less than phosphate of lime ! This intimate union between body and mind, is in fact analogous to all that we see, and feel, and comprehend. Thus we observe that the material stimuli of alcohol, or of opium, act upon the mind through the body, and that the moral stimuli of k)ve, or of anger, act upon the body through the mind ; these are reciprocities of action, that estab- lish the principle of connexion between the two, but are fatal t© that of an identity. Those who would persuade us that the thinking faculty is an identical part of the body, maturescent in it, and dying with it, impose, a very heavy task upon themselves ; and if we consider the insupe- rable difficulties of their creed on the one hand, and the air of conviction with which they defend it on the other, we are perhaps justified in affirming that these men are the very last persons in the universe, to whom the name of skeptic ought to be applied ; but a dogmatic doubter, although it may be a some- thing beyond our philosophy, is too often not 328 LAC ON: beyond our observation. We, I repeal, contend for a strong but inexplicable connexion between body and mind ; and upon this principle all the sympathies of mutual pleasure and of pain, and all the reciprocities of rest and of action, are both natural and intelligible. Those who advocate the identity of the body and the mind, will find that they have embraced a theory surrounded by facts that oppose it at every point, facts which their sys- tem will neither enable them to explain, nor their experience to deny. Does not every passion of the mind act directly, primarily, and as it were per se, upon the body ; with greater or with lesser influence in proportion to their force ? Does not the activity belong on this occasion to the mind, and the mere passiveness to the body ? Does not the quickened circulation follow the anger, the start the surprise, and the swoon the sorrow ? Do not these instances, and a thousand others, clearly con- vince us that priority of action here belongs to tho snind, and not to the body ? and those who deny this are reduced to the ridiculous absurdity of attempting to prove that a man is frightened because he runs away, not that he runs away because he is frightened, and that the motion pro- duces the terror, not the terror the motion ; a kind of logic this, that would become a FalstaiT much better than a philosopher. Again, is not mania * * I shall insert a note from Dr. John Armstrong on Fe- ver, p. 478, which those who only look at will think too long, but those who read will think too short. 1 It will have been perceived, that I consider insanity as the effect of some disorder in the circulation, whether pro- duced by agencies of a corporeal or mental nature. It might be shown by familiar facts, that the brain is the prin- cipal organ through which the operations of the mind are LACON, 339 produced by moral causes, quite as often as by phy- sical, and has not that mode of cure succeeded best, which was instituted with a reference to this performed- ; and it does not, as many have supposed, neces- sarily involve the doetrine of materialism to affirm, that certain disorders of that organ are capable of disturbing those operations. If the most skilful musician in the world were placed before an unstrung or broken instrument, he could not produce the harmony which he was accustomed to do when that instrument was perfect, nay, on the con- trary, the sounds would be discordant ; and yet it would be manifestly most illogical to conclude, from such an effect, that the powers of the musician were impaired, since they merely appeared to be so from the imperfection of the instru- ment. Now, what the instrument is to the musician, the brain may be to the mind, for aught we know to the con- trary ; and, to pursue the figure, as the musician has an existence distinct from that of the instrument, so the mind may have an existence distinct from that of the brain; for in truth we have no proof whatever of mind being a pro- perty dependant upon any arrangement of matter. We perceive, indeed, the properties of matter wonderfully modified in the various things of the universe, which strike our senses with the force of their sublimity or beauty ; but in all these we recognise certain radical and common pro- perties, that bear no conceivable relation to those mysteri- ous capacities of thought and of feeling, referable to that something which, to designate and distinguish from mat- ter, we term mind. In this way, I conceive the common sense of mankind has made the distinction which every where obtains between mind and matter, for it is natural to conclude, that the essence of mind may be distinct from the essence of matter, as the operations of the one are so distinct from the properties of the other. "When we say that mind is immaterial, we only mean that it has not the properties of matter ; for the consciousness which informs us of the operations, does not reveal the abstract nature of mind, neither do the properties reveal the essence of mat- ter. When any one, therefore, assferts the materiality of mind, he pre-supposes, that the phenomena of matter clear- ly show the jeal cause of mind, which, as they do not, he unphilosophically places his argument on an assumption \ 28* 330 LAC OK, cause ? On examination, after death, of those wh& have laboured under chronic mania, it most usually happens that no difference of structure is percepti- ble in the brain on dissection. If, however, in some few instances there has been a perceptible difference, will not a retrospection to the mental origin of the malady, justly warrant us in asserting that the derangement of structure was not the cause, but is the consequence of the disease ? That so many instances should occur where no such differ- ence of structure is perceptible, is analagous to what so often happens in other disorders, where a total functional derangement is unaccompanied by the slightest organic destruction. It is admitted that each and every component particle of the body is changed in the course of twenty years, and that corporeal identity is by these means so totally destroyed, that a man who lives to sixty shall have gradually received three distinct bodies, the last of which shall not contain one individual atom that composed the first. But those who would persuade us that mind is an abso- lute and component part of the body, so completely ingrafted as it were and incorporated with It, that the thinking faculty is only the result of a more curious and complicated organization, must admit, that the mind must sympathize not partially, but wholly with these changes of the body ; changes so powerful, that they must effect the total destruc- tion of moral identity, as they certainly do of that and his ground of reasoning is equally gratuitous — when he contends, that mind is an attribute of matter, because it is never known to operate but in conjunction with matter, for though this connexion is constantly displayed, yet w© have no direct proof of its being necessary. 1, AC OH. 331 \Vhioli is corporeal. The .materialist must admit this absurdity, as his only means of escaping a greater, namely, that a whole shall not be altered, notwithstanding a total change of all the parts that composed it. If indeed the materialist is inclined to admit that these changes do alter the body, but not the mind, then indeed he admits that which is true ; but truth itself may be bought too dear, in the opinion of some, if the confession of then- defeat be the price ; the admission alluded to above, is in fact all the confession for which we contend, namely, that body and mind, although they are united, are also distinct. In a former part of this argument, I have admitted that the proposition that the mind is infantile with the body, is a general rule disturbed by no exceptions. But this truism, I presume, will perform but little, either for the materialist, or against him, because the terms are convertible. The mind is infantile with the body, says the materialist ; but has not the immaterialist quite as much reason on his side, should he feel inclined to assert that the body is infantile with the mind ? Observe, we do not con- tend that the mind has no beginning, but that it shall have no end, and it appears that the body is appointed to be the first stage of its existence. Therefore I should rather affirm that the body is infantile with the mind, than that the mind is infan- tile with the body, and that a fuller and stronger demonstration of all the powers and faculties of the mind evinces itself in proportion as a more matured development of the organs of the body enables it passively to receive the impressions, and actively to execute the sovereign volitions of tho 332 LACO If, mind. In confirmation of this mode of considering the subject, we may observe that children often have a tolerable idea of the thing desired or feared, long before they are able to express the term by which it is described. The mind precedes the tongue ; and the effort and wish to speak evinces itself much earlier than the power to do so. The distinguishing and endearing characteristics of mother are sufficiently understood by the infant, long before it can call her by name ; and the infantile mind is not without a thousand modes of expressing its feelings, long before the lagging organs of the body are sufficiently developed to accomplish the articulation of them. If mind be material, it must be both extended and divisible, for these are properties inseparable from matter. The absurdity of such a supposition startled even the boldest of skeptics, because he- happened also to be the most acute ; I shall there- fore quote a passage from Mr. Hume, who will be allowed by materialists, at least, to be an orthodox authority. 'There is one argument, (says he,) commonly employed for the immateriality of the soul, which seems to be remarkable : whatever is extended, consists of parts, and whatever consists of parts, is divisible, if not in reality, at least in the imagination. It is impossible any thing divisible can be conjoined to a thought or a perception, which is a being altogether inseparable and indi- visible. For, supposing such a conjunction, would the indivisible thought exist on the left hand, or on the right of this extended divisible body ; on the surface, or in the middle, on the back or foreside of it 1 If it be conjoined with the extension, it must exist somewhere within its dimensions. If it LAC OX. 333 exist within its dimensions, it must either exist in one particular part, and then that particular part is indivisible, and the perception is conjoined only with it, not with the extension ; or if the thought exists in every part, it must also be extended, and separable, and divisible, as well as the body ; which is utterly absurd and contradictory. For can any one conceive a passion of a yard in length, a foot in breadth, and an inch in thickness ? Thought, therefore, and extension, are qualities wholly incom- patible, and can never incorporate together into one subject.' Mr. Hume seems to have been so fully convinced by the positions which this argu- ment contains, that he has laboured to push its conclusions even up to the establishment of that celebrated paradox so formally laid down, and so stoutly defended by him. ' This maxim (to use again his own words) is, that an object may exist, and yet he nowhere, and I assert (says he) that this is»not only possible, but that the greatest part of beings (by which he afterwards gives us to understand he means impressions and ideas) do and must exist after this manner. A moral reflec- tion (says he) cannot be placed either on the right or on the left hand of a passion, nor can a smell or a sound be either of a circular or square figure. These objects and perceptions, so far from requiring any particular places, are absolutely incompatible with it, and the imagination cannot attribute it to them.' These passages prove that materialists will some- times find Mr. Hume to be a very dangerous ally. Again, all mind is conscious of its own existence ; but if mind be material, matter must be conscious «f its own existence too ; for this consciousness 13 3& LAC01 inseparable from mind, and if mind be composed of matter, that which is inseparable from the one, cannot be denied to the other. These are some of the absurdities which the capacious credulity of infidelity, and the bold belief of unbelievers, will find it more easy to; swallow than to digest. It has been urged by some, that a total, though temporal suspension of the thinking faculty takes place during sleep, and that a faculty that may be suspended, may also be destroyed. It is evident that this again must be mere assertion that can never be proved - r on the contrary, dreams go to prove that there are seasons when the thinking faculty is not suspended by sleep ; but since it is manifest that sleep caraiot suspend it at all times, it may not suspend it at any time. We- have recollections of mental operations going on during sleep, which recollections are extremely vivid on some occasions, and on some occasions equally faint and confused. These recollections va^y from reality, almost down to nothingness, and these recollections we term a dream. These operations of the thinking faculty may, for aught we know to the contrary, have been going on< during sleep, unaccompanied by any after recollection of them when awake ; and the gradations of distinctness with which we recollect our clreams> are confirm- atory of such an hypothesis. I conceive analogy will also assist us here ; for I would ask one simple question with respect to our waking thoughts : have we not all forgot more of them than we remember ? and yet none of us, 1 presume, are prepared to deny the existence of these thoughts on such a ground. To those who prefer a shorter method of putting the argument, I would say that LACON. 333 our apprehension of the operation of thought is not necessary to the existence of it ; but that its existence is absolutely necessary to our apprehen- sion of it. If mind be, indeed, material, what has death to do with the annihilation of it ? for death has no no such power over matter. We are told that * the thinking faculty is nothing more than the result of a more curious and complicated organization? Yet what is this, but an attempt to illustrate that which is obscure, by an explanation which is more so ? Can we, for one moment, believe that a mere juxta- position of parts is able to convey the highest activity and energy to that whose very essence il is, to be, on all other occasions, of all created things, the most inactive and inert 1 If we request the materialist to explain this kind of hocus pocus y I suspect he can only do it by repeating hoc est corpus, the well-known etymology of the term. In a former part of this article I have quoted a passage from Mr. Hume. The passage occurs in a work which he afterwards apologized for, and requested that the public would not consider it as containing his more matured philosophical opinions. He imbodied, however, a great part of this work afterwards into his essays, against which he enters no such caveat ; and it is known that he himself considered these essays his master-piece, and in them the positions contained in the article I have quoted, are repeatedly referred to, and confirmed. In these essays, the following passage occurs : ' Is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the union of soul with body ; by which a sup posed spiritual substance acquires such an influ- ence over a material 4 one. that the most refined 336 LA COX. thought is able to actuate the grossest matter £ were we empowered by a secret wish, to remove mountains, or control the planets in their orbit, this extensive authority would not be more extra- ordinary, nor more beyond our apprehension.' How unfortunate was Mr. Hume that he did not live in this enlightened age; when he might have been informed that this most inexplicable phenomenon was, after all, the result of the most simple contri- vance, arising from nothing more nor less than a very slight alteration in the juxtaposition of a few particles of matter ! for the thinking faculty (we hear) is only the result of a more curious and coin- plicated organization ! Nature, then, it would seem, no less than art, has her cups, and her balls, and a small portion of matter thrown into the inside of ;* little globe of bone, acquires properties and powers diametrically opposite to all those, which on the outside of it, it has been ascertained invariably to possess. Neither does that gulf of insurmountable ignorance, under which we labour, as to the nature of this mysterious union of body and mind, invali- date in the slighest degree the proofs of its existence ; for no one, I presume, w T ill be hardy enough to deny the existence of life ; and yet the union of life with body is quite as inexplicable as the union of mind, superadded to both. Let us, then, be as candid in the one case, as in the other, and apply the same reasoning to mind, that we have all consented to, with regard to life. Let us affirm of both of them, that wo know nothing of cither, but by their effects, which effects, however, do most fully and firmly establish their existence. If that marvellous microcosm, man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were & A C Q Jf . 337 indeed a rich Argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present, only from the hope of the future ; who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage ? As to the common and the sensual herd, who would be glad, perhaps, under any terms, to sweat and groan beneath the load of life, they would find that the creed of the materialist, would only give a fuller swing to the suicidal energies of a self- ism as unprincipled as unrelenting ; a selfism that would not only make that giftless gift of life a boon the most difficult to preserve, but would at the same time render it wholly unworthy of the task and the trouble of its preservation. Knowledge herself, the fairest daughter of heaven, would be immediately transformed into a changeling of hell ; the brightest reason would be the blackest curse, and weakness more salutary than strength; for the villany of man would increase with the depravity of his will, and the depravity o( his will, with every aug- mentation of his power. The force of intellect im- parted to that which was corrupt, would be like the destructive energies communicated by an earth- quake, to that which is inert ; where even things in- animate, as rocks and mountains, seem endowed with a momentary impulse of motion and of life, only to overwhelm, to destroy, and to be destroyed. Justice is usually depicted as having no eyes, but holding a sword in one hand, and a pair of scales in the other. * Under a system that destroyed the * The awful importance of the above article must excuse he length of it ; and to show that I am not singular in my View of its scope and bearings, I shall finish bv a quotation 29 333 LA CON. awful obligations of an oath, what could justice weigh 1 she must renounce her scales, and apply both her hands to the sword ; and it would be a from a work just published, which has many readers, and will certainly nave more : ' There is another more impor- tant relation in which the mind is still to be viewed — that re- lation which connects it with the Almighty Being to whom it owes its existence. Is man, whose frail generations be- gin and pass away, but one of the links of an infinite chain of beings like himself, uncaused, and coeternal with that self-existmg world of which he is the feeble tenant 1 or is he the offspring of an all-creating Power, that adapted him to nature and nature to him, formed, together with the mag- nificent scene of things around him, to enjoy its blessings, and to adore, with the gratitude of happiness, the wisdom and goodness from which they flow % What attributes of a Being so transcendent, may human reason presume to explore ^ and what homage will be most suitable to his immensity and our nothingness 1 Is it only for an existence of a few moments in this passing scene, that he has formed us 1 or, is there something within us, over which death has no power, — something, that prolongs and identifies the consciousness of all that we have dune on earth, and that, after the mortality of the body, may yet be a subject of the moral government of God % When compared with these questions, even the sublimest physical inquiries are com- paratively insignificant. They seem to differ, as it has been said, in their relative importance and dignity, almost as philosophy itself differs from the mechanical arts that are subservient to it. * Quantum inter philosophiam interest —^ et c&teras artes; tantum inter esse ezistimo in ipsaphilosophia, inter illam partem quce ad hvminis et kan-c qucc, ad Dcos spec- tat. Altiorest haze et animosior t multum permisit sibi; own fuit oculis contenta. Majus esse quiddam susptcata est, ac pulchrius, quod extra coiispcctum, natura posuisset'* It is when ascending to these sublimer objects, that the mind seems to expand, as if already shaking ofl its earthly fetters, and returning to its source : and it is scarcely too much to * So much is in philosophy and other arts, as I think to be in that philosophy which on the one part regards men, and on the other the gods—this latter is more lofty and energetic — it intrusts much to itself —-not satisfied with the eyes— it suspects that to be greater and mora beautiful which nature might have placed out of sight. LACON. 339 bloody sword, strong, indeed, to exterminate, but feeble to correct. As to justice herself, she would not only be more blind than Polyphemus, but she would also want more hands than Briareus, to en- able her to combat the hydra-headed monster of There are some characters who appear to super- ficial observers to be full of contradiction, change, and inconsistency, and yet they that are in the secret of w r hat such persons are driving at, know that they are the very reverse of what they appear to be, and that they have one single object in view, to which they as pertinaciously adhere, through every circumstance of change, as the hound to the hare, through all her mazes and doublings. We know that a windmill is eternally at work taaccom^ plish one end, although it shifts with every varia- tion of the weathercock, and assumes ten different positions in a day. There is nothing that requires so strict an econ- omy as our benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturist his manure, which if he spread over too large a superficies, produces no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in weeds. The women are satisfied with less than the men ; and yet, notwithstanding this, they are less easily say, that the delight which it thus takes in things divine is an internal evidence of its own divinity. ' Cum ilia tetigit, alilur, wescit : ac velut vinculis liberatus, in originem re- dit. Et hoc habet argumentum divinitatis sute, quod Mam divina delectant.'* " When she moves forward cherished, she increases— and this i» *n argument of her divinity that divine things pleaao her. 340 LACON. satisfied. In the first place — preference and pre cadence are indispensable articles with them, if we would have our favours graciously received ; they look, moreover, to the mode, the manner, and the address, rather than to the value of the obliga^ tion, and estimate it more by the time, the cost, and the trouble we may have expended upon it, than by its intrinsic worth. Attention is ever current coin with the ladies, and they weigh the heart much more scrupulously than the hand. A wealthy suiter purchases a watch for his idol, studded with gems ; an artificer makes a far less costly one for his favourite, and I need not add which will be most propitiously received, since there will be one person at least in the world, who will be certain that during the whole process of the fabrication of the present, the donor was thinking of her for whom it was designed. Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may, perhaps, be termed a too high opinion of ourselves, founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-compla- cency, from qualifications that are imaginary. Vanity can also feed upon externals, but pride must have more or less of that which is intrinsic : the proud, therefore, do not set so high a value upon wealth as the vain, neither are they so much depressed by poverty. Vanity looks to the many, and to the moment ; pride to the future, and the few ; hence pride has more difficulties, and vanity more disappointments ; neither does she bear them IrAOON. 341 so well, for she at times distrusts herself, whereas pride despises others. For the vain man cannot always be certain of the validity of his pretensions, because they are often as empty as^ that very vanity that has created them ; therefore it is necessary for his happiness, that they should be confirmed by the opinion of his neighbours, and his own vote in favour of himself he thinks of little weight, until it be backed by the suffrages of others. The vain man idolizes his own person, and here he is wrong ; but he cannot bear his own company, and here he is right. The proud man wants no such confirma- tions ; his pretensions may be small, but they are something, and his error lies in overrating them. If others appreciate his merits less highly, he attri- butes it either to their envy, or to their ignorance, and enjoys in prospect the period when time shall have removed the film from their eyes. Therefore the proud man can afford to wait, because he has no doubt of the strength of his capital, and can also live, by anticipation, on that fame which he has per suaded himself that he deserves. He often draws indeed too largely upon posterity, but even here he is safe ; for should the bills be dishonoured, this cannot happen until that debt, which cancels all others, shall have been paid. Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge, as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another — that the strength ot the community is not un frequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it ; a position not quite so clear as the first, but, I con- ceive, equally tenable and true. We receive an 29* m LAC ON. injury, and we are so constituted that the iirst con* sideration with most of us is revenge. If we happen, to be kings, or prime ministers, we go straight forward to work, unless indeed it should happen, that those that have inflicted the injury are as powerful as those that have received it- It is fortunate, however, for the interests of soci- ety, that the great mass of mankind are neither kings, nor prime ministers, and that men are so impotent that they can seldom bring evil upon others, without more or less danger to themselves. Thus then it is that public strength, security, and confidence, grow out of private weakness, danger and fear. These considerations have given rise to this saying : ' It is letter to quarrel with a knave than with a fool ;' for with the latter all considers. tion of consequence to himself, is swallowed up and lost in the blind and brutal impulse that goads him on to bring evil upon another. We hate our enemy much, but we love ourselves more. We have been injured, but we will not avail ourselves of the legal means of redress, because of the cer- tain expense and trouble, and the uncertain sue cess ; neither will we resort to illegal modes of retaliation, because we will not run the risk of the mortification, the disgrace, and the danger of a dis- covery ; for it is as difficult for revenge to act without exciting suspicion, as for a rattlesnake to stir without making a noise. The result is, that we are quiet, and self-love is made to correct its own violence, as a steam-engine its own velocity, and the fear of danger effects for the one, what the safety-valve accomplishes for the other. And it is highly necessary that things should be so, for retaliation aggravates resentment, and resentment LACO^. 543 produces fresh retaliation ; therefore, were thero nothing to restrain these causes from acting reci- procally upon each other, the destruction of alJ society must be the consequence, and a conflagra- tion would be excited in *he moral world, like that which is observable in the natural, where the firo increases the wind, and the wind increases the fire In the whole course of our observation there is not so misrepresented and abused a personage as death. Some have styled him the king of terrors, when he might with less impropriety have been termed the terror of kings ; others have dreaded him as an evil without end, although it was in their own power to make him the end of all evil. He has been vilified as the cause of anguish, conster- nation, and despair ; but these, alas, are things that appertain not unto death, but unto life. How strange a paradox is this, we love the distemper and loathe the remedy, preferring the fiercest buf- ferings of the hurricane to the tranquillity of the harbour. The poet has lent his fictions, the painter his colours, the orator his tropes, to portray death as the grand destroyer, the enemy, the prince of phantoms and of shades. But can he be called a destroyer, who for a perishable state gives us that which is eternal ? Can he be styled the enemy, who is the best friend only of the best, who never deserts them at their utmost need, and whose friend- ship proves the most valuable to those who live the longest ? Can he be termed the prince of phan- toms and of shades, who destroys that which is transient and temporary, to establish that which alone is real and fixed ? And what arc the mourn- J\A escutcheons, the sable trophies, and the melan* ;m lacon. eholy insignia with which we surround him, the sepulchral gloom, the mouldering carcass, and the slimy worm ? These, indeed, are the idle fears and empty terrors, not of the dead, but of the living. The dark domain of death we dread indeed to enter, but we ought rather to dread the ruggedness of some of the roads that lead to it ; but if they are rugged, they are short, and it is- only those that are smooth, that are wearisome and long. Perhaps he summons us too soon from the feast of life, be it so ; if the exchange be not for the better, it is not his fault, but our own : or he summons us late - r the call is a reprieve, rather than a sentence ; for who would wish to sit at the board, when he can no 'longer partake of the banquet, or to live on to pain, when he has long been dead to pleasure 1 Tyrants can sentence their victims to death, but- how much more dreadful would be their power, could they sentence them to life? Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death ; what we call life is a journey to death, and what we call death, is a passport to life. True wisdom thanks death for what he takes, and still more for what he brings. Let us then like senti- nels, be ready, because we are uncertain, and calm because we are prepared. There is nothing formi- dable about death but the consequences of it, and these we ourselves can regulate and control. The shortest life is long enough if it lead to a better, and the longest life is too short if it do not. As in the game of billiards, the balls are con stantly producing effects from mere chance, which the most skilful player could neither execute nor foresee, but which, when they do happen, serve LA CON. 346 mainly to teach him how much he has still to learn ; so it is in the more profound and complicated game of politics and diplomacy. In both cases, we can only regulate our play by what we have seen, rather than by what we have hoped ; and by what tve have experienced, rather than by what we have expected. For one character that appears on the theatre of human affairs that can rule events, there are ten thousand that can follow* them, sometimes * It is astonishing how many men the French revolution obliged to be great, even in spite of themselves. Events hurried on the political machine with such tremendous rapidity, that the passengers were compelled to travel not only faster, but farther than they had bargained for; most of them would very gladly have given up their places, had it not been more dangerous to jump out, even than it was to remain. There are four men who might have written the most interesting volumes that ever were bequeathed to pos- terity, could we only ensure two things, that their own egotism would permit them to be candid, or that c the powers that be* would permit their details to be read. Of the men I allude to, two are no more, and two remain — Bonaparte, Talleyrand, Sieves, and Carnot. Such men as Talleyrand, Sie) r es, Mazarin, Richelieu, and De Retz, go to prove that what Lord Chatham termed the college of fishermen, had very different views of their vocation," from the college of cardinals, and infallibility itself must prove itself fallible, the instant it sets about to reconcile the career of these men, with the life and doctrine Gf Him who expressly said: — ' My king dom is not of this icorldJ l Be ye not called Rabbi. 1 I shall finish this note with a quotation from the text and note* of ■ Hypocrisy,' as the passage contains an anecdote of S&W* es, and an application of some lines of Juvenal to hiirj, i r h>'*h have been thought hupp}', but the reader must judge ; As Sieves shrewd, who in the direst times, When Paris reeked with cruelty and crimes. By turns ruled all ; — and as each colleague bled, Contrived — no trifling tabk — to wear a head; Though favourites daily fall, dragged forth to d*'e Unheard, or ore thcii plaster busts were dry.* 346 LACON. with more success than these master-minds, always- with more safety. He that undertakes to guide the vessel, may at last be swept away from the helm, by the hurricane ; while those who have battened themselves down, determined to follow the fate of their vessel, rather than to guide it, may arrive safe on the shore. Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control ;. but he that woos he? with opportunity, and importunity, will seldom court her in vain. It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as* misers often lose large sums of money in attempt- ing to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get mGire time to squan- Dr. Moore-,, father of the gallant general, was at Paris on the breaking out of the revolution. He wished to purchase a few of the busts of those demagogues who had, each in their turn, strutted their hour on that bloody stage. ' All, sir V exclaimed- the artist,, 'ours has been a losing trade 01 }ate : as the real heads have often taken leave of the shoul- ders of their owners before the artificial ones. w r hich Ave were modelling, could be exhibited for sale. It then became- as dangerous to have them, as before it was to be without them. But here, sir,' said he, handing him the bust of the Abbe Sieves, ' here is a head that has not yet quarrelled with its shoulders. This head in some degree makes up for what we have lost by its companions ; it is in great request still, and sells welV The Abbe has lately had much leisure time upon his hands : may we indulge the hope that he hns employed ii in preparing the history of his own times 1 If to this deli- cate task he would bring the honesty of Burnet, without his credulity,, he might bequeath to posterity the most h> teresting volume thai ever was written* — Krv.jia «$ . and they drink even to stupefaction, until they doubt whether they are men with Philip, or dream that they are gods with Alexander. On some she smiles as on Napoleon, with an aspect more bewitching than an Italian sun ; but it is only to make her frown the more terrible, and by one short caress to imbitter the pangs of separation. Yet is she, by universal homage and consent, a queen ; and the passions are the vassal lords that crowd her court, await her mandate, and move at her con- trol. But, like other mighty sovereigns, she is so surrounded by her envoys, her officers, and her ministers of state, that it is extremely difficult to be admitted to her presence-chamber, or to have any immediate communication with herself. Ambition, avarice, love, revenge, all these seek her, and her alone ; alas ! they are neither presented to her, nor will she come to them. She despatches, however, her envoys unto them— ^xean and poor representa- tives of their queen. To ambition she sends power ; to avarice, wealth ; to love, jealousy ; to revenge, re» morse ; alas ! what arc these but so many other name? LAC OX. 371 for vexation or disappointment. Neither is she to be won by flatteries or by bribes ; she is to be gained by waging war against her enemies,, much sooner than by paying any particular court to herself. Those that conquer her adversaries, will find that they need not go to her, for she will come unto them. None bid so high for her as kings ; few are more willing, none more able* to purchase her alliance at the fullest price. But she has no more respect for kings than for their subjects; she mocks them indeed with the empty show of a visit, by sending to their palaces all her equipage, her pomp, and her train, but she comes not herself. What detains her ? She is travelling incognita to keep a private assignation with contentmentj and to partake of a tete a tete and a dinner of herbs in a cottage. Hear, then, mighty queen ! what sovereigns seldom hear, the words of soberness and truth. I neither despise thee too little, nor desire thee too much ; for thou wieldest an earthly sceptre, and thy gifts cannot exceed thy dominion. Like other potentates, thou also art a creature of circumstance, and an ephe- meris of time. Like other potentates, thou also, when stript of thy auxiliaries, art no longer com- petent even to thine own subsistence ; nay, thou canst not even stand by thyself. Unsupported by content on the one hand, and by health on the other, thou fallest an unwieldy and bloated pageant to the ground. Death is like thunder* in two particulars ; we are alarmed at the sound of it, and it is formidable only * It is a doubt whether those that are killed by the light- ning, even hear the thunder which follows the stroke ; be that as it may the comparison in the text may be still farther 272 L A C O ft. from that which preceded it. The rich man, gasr> ing for breath, and reduced to be a mendicant even of the common air, tantalized with luxuries that must no more be taSted, and means that must no longer be enjoyed, feels at last the impotence of gold ; that death which he dreaded at a distance as an enemy, he now hails, when he is near, as a friend ; a friend that alone can bring the peace his treasures cannot purchase, and remove the pain his physi- cians cannot cure* We should take care that we do not carry our religious controversies so far as to give the infidel the same advantage over us in matters of faith, that the ancient Pyrrhonists obtained over other sects, in matters of philosophy. For all the sects of philosophers agreed in one thing only — that of abusing each other. He, therefore, that abused them all round, was sure of a majority ; and as no sect got any praises except from the disciples of their own particular school, such party panegyric went for nothing. Great minds that have not as yet established a name, must sometimes bend to lesser minds that have ; or if they cannot bend, must break. If any able man were to write an impartial account of those defunct literary characters of our own country, who have been overrated, and also o( those that have been underrated, and enter somewhat philo- sophically into the causes, he might produce a very illustrated by a fine thought of the philosopher Arcesilaus : * Death,' said he, ' of all human evils, is the only one whose presence is never troublesome to any one, and which makes us uneasy only by its absence.' 1* A C O H . £;^ mteresling volume. He would have all the clergy on his side ;* for his labours would at least be orthodox, in as- much as it might be said of him : * He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted the humble and meek.'' Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants™ both know too much of him. Envy also has her share in withholding present fame. If an author hath written better than his contemporaries, he will be termed a plagiarist ; if as well, a pretender ; if worse, a genius of some promise, of whom they do not quite despair. It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations aits proud of the one, and individuals of the other : but H they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought, to be their humiliation. If an individual is worthy of his ancestors, why extol those with whom he is on a level ? and if he is unworthy of them, to laud them, is to libel himself And nations also, when they boast of their an- tiquity,* only tell \*s> in other words, that they are *I do not mean to deny the probability that a sfa^e oi society, highly cultivated and refined, may have existed in various parts of the giobe, previous to any written or au- thentic documents that have been transmuted us. India is not without monuments of such a state of civiliza: ion, and some late discoveries go to establish the same supposition even in America. I admit that it is more fair to infer such a state of things from monuments that are extant, than to assert its non-existence from the want of documents which, after all, may have been left, but may also have been lost. Setting aside the traditions of the Athenians, concerning .heir Musaeus, of the Thebans of their Linus, of the Thra- eians as regards their Orpheus, or the Phoenicians of Cad- mus, yet still it must be admitted that Thales d'd actually 33 m LACOH. standing on the ruins of so many generations. But if their view of things is limited, and their prospect of the sciences narrow and confined, if other nations^ who stand upon no such eminence, see farther than they do, is not the very antiquity of which they boast, a proof that their forefathers were not giants in knowledge, or if they were, that their children have degenerated 1 The Babylo- nians laid claim to an antiquity of four hundred and seventy thousand years, founded on a series of astronomical observations. But with all their knowledge of the heavens, they knew no more of things appertaining to the earth, than their neigh bours, and they suffered their glory to be eclipsed by a little horde of Macedonians. The Chinese of the present day are not behindhand with the Babylonians in looking backwards, but with most discover a state of society in the East, which would have justified him on his return from travelling, in applying the same degrading title to the Greeks themselves, which they afterwards bestowed upon others. The magnificent ruins of ancient cities, of which no record remains, the pyramids, concerning which the remotest antiquity has nothing te depose, the advanced state of the science of geometry and astronomy amongst the Egyptians and the Babylonians, do warrant us of aftertimes, in the presumption that a high state of cultivation and knowledge did exist anterior to any written documents, or historical records; but after all, both individuals and nations, when they vaunt themselves on what they were, must do it at the hazard of provoking inqui- ry as to what they arc. But it ought to suppress the arro- gance of national talent to reflect, that destruction may have caused many things to be discoveries, which without it, to us at least, had been none; and a pride founded only on antiquity, may also be rebuked, in a nation that suffers more modern ones to outstrip it, on the principle that they have made so bad a use of so long an experience, and have profited so little, in having neither been taught by tha wisdom, nor warned by the folly of their forefathers. L A C O Vt. 375 other nations in looking forwards. They unite all the presumption, with all the prejudice of ignorance. As a nation, notwithstanding their longevity, they have not yet arrived at manhood, and when tney boast of their antiquity, they only boast of a more protracted period of childhood and imbecility. * Hope, thy weak being ended is, Alike, if thou obtain, or if thou miss. Thee, good or ill, doth equally confound, And both the horns of fate's dilemma wound, The joys which we should as pure virgins wed, Thou bring'st deflower'd to the nuptial bed.' These lines prove that the spirit of poetry cannot be tamed, even by a marriage with such a shrew as metaphysics ; and that the hand of Apollo can draw forth harmony even from the discordant croaking of the schools. I have elsewhere observed, that sleep, that type of death, is restricted to earth, that it avoids hell, and is excluded heaven. This idea might also be applied to hope, whose habitation is manifestly terrestrial, and whose very existence must, I conceive, be lost, in the overwhelming realities of futurity. Neither can futurity have any room for fear, the opposite of hope ; for fear antici- pates suffering, and hope enjoyment ; but where both are final, fixed, and full, what place remains, either for hope, or for fear ? Fear, therefore, and hope, are of the earth, earthy, the pale and trerr bling daughters of mortality ; for in heaven we can fear no change ; and in hell, no change is to be feared. No porter ever injured himself by an attempt to carry six hundred weight, who could not previously 376 LACON. carry five, with/rut injury; and what obtains with strength of body, obtains also with strength of mind; when we attempt to be wise, beyond what is given to man, our very strength becomes our weakness. No man of pigmy stature, or of puny mould, will ever meet the fate of Milo, who was wedged to death in an attempt to split an oak ; and no man ever finished by being an accomplished fool, so well as Des Cartes, because he began by being a philosopher ; for a racer, if he runs out of the course, will carry us much farther from it than a cart-horse. Ignorance is a much more quiet, manageable, and contented thing, than half know- ledge. A ploughman was asked, on his cross- examination, whether he could read Greek ; this appeared to be a problem he had never taken the trouble to solve : therefore, with an much naivete as truth, he replied, that he did not know — because he had never tried, He that sets out on the journey of life with a profound knowledge of books, but a shallow know- ledge of men, with much sense of others, but little of his own, will find himself as completely at a loss on occasions of common and of constant recur- rence, as a Dutchman without his pipe, a French- man without his mistress, an Italian without his fiddle, or an Englishman without his umbrella. If Diogenes used a lantern, in broad day, solely and simply for the purpose of discovering an honest man, this proceeding was not consistent with his usual sagacity. A lantern would have been a jaore appropriate appendage, if he had been iw LACON. 377 search of a rogue ; for such characters skulk about in holes and corners, and hate the light, because their deeds are evil. But I suspect this philoso- pher's real motive for using a lantern in mid-day, was tc provoke inquiry, that he might have the cynical satisfaction of telling all that asked him what he was searching for, that none of them at least were the men to his mind, and that his search had hitherto been fruitless. It is with honesty in one particular,^ with wealth, those that have the thing, care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses, the less he can afford to be sup- posed to want it. Duke Chartres used to boast hat no man could have less real value for character han himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum, by means of it. I once heard a gentleman make a very witty reply to one who asserted that he did not believe there was a truly honest man in the whole world : 1 Sir,' said he, * it is quite impossible that any one man should know all the world ; but it is very pos- sible that some one man — may know himself. No disorders have employed so many quacks as those that have no cure ; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty. Truth lies in a small compass ; and if a well has been assigned her for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness, as its depth. Hence it happens that those sciences that are capable of being demonstrated, or that are redu- cible to the severity of calculation, are never 373 LACO X. voluminous ; for clearness is intimately connected with conciseness, as the lightning which is the brightest thing, is almost the most brief ; but pre- cisely in proportion as certainty vanishes, verbosity abounds. To foretell an eclipse, a man must understand astronomy ; or to find out an unknown quantity, by a known one, he must have a know- ledge of calculation ; and yet the rudiments that enable us to effect these important things, are to be found in a very narrow compass. When I sur- vey the ponderous and voluminous folios of the schoolmen and the mataphysicians, I am inclined to ask a very simple question : What have either of these plodders done, that has net been better done by those that xoere neither ? Were a man to deny himself the pleasuie of walking, because he is restricted from the privi- lege of Hying, and refuse his dinner, because it was not ushered in on a service of plate, should we not be more inclined to ridicule, than to pity him 1 and yet we are all of us more or less guilty of similar absurdities, the moment we deny ourselves plea- sures that are present, and within our reach, either from a vain repining after those that must never return, or from as vain an aspiring after those that may never arrive. Nobility of birth does not always ensure a cor- responding nobility of mind ; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions ; but it sometimes acts as a clog, rather than a spur. For the favour and consideration of our fellow-men are perhaps the strongest incentive to intellectual exer- tion j but rank and title, unfortunately for the L A C O X . 37a assessors of them, ensure that favour and conside- ration, even without exertion, that others hardly can obtain by means of it. Therefore, men hi^h. in rank are sometimes low in acquirement, not so much from want of ability, as from want of appli- cation ; for it is the nature of man, not to expend labour on those tilings that he can have without it, nor to sink a well, if he happen to be born upon th j banks of a river. But we might as well expect the elastic muscularity of a gladiator, without training, as the vigorous intellect of a Newton, without toil. Unity of opinion, abstractedly considered, is neither desirable nor a good ; although considered not in itself, but with reference to something else, it may be both. For men may be all agreed in error, and in that case unanimity is an evil. Truth lies within the holy of holies, in the temple of knowledge, but doubt is the vestibule that leads unto it. Luther began by having hi3 doubts, as to the assumed infallibility of the Pope, and he finished by making himself the corner stone of the reformation. Copernicus, and Newton doubted the truth of the false systems of others, before they established a true one of their own ; Columbus differed in opin- ion with all the old world, before he discovered a "new one ; and Gaiileo : s terrestrial body was con- fined in a dungeon, for having asserted the motion of those bodies that were celestial. In fact, we owe almost all our knowledge, not to those who nave agreed, but to those who have differed ; and those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves j as he that leads a crowd WO LACUIV. must begin by separating himself some little dis- tance from it. If the great Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, had not differed from all the physicians of his own clay, all the physicians of the present day would not have agreed with him. These reflections ought to teach us that every kind of persecution for opinions is incompatible with sound philosophy. It is lamentable, indeed, to think how much misery has been incurred from the intemperate zeal and bigoted officiousness of those who would rather that mankind should not think at all, than not to think as they do. Charles the fifth, when he abdicated a throne, and retired to the monastery of St. Juste, amused himself with the mechanical arts, and particularly with that of a watchmaker ; he one day exclaimed : ' What an egregious fool must I have been to have squan- dered so much blood and treasure in an absurd attempt to make all men think alike, when I cannol even make a few watches keep time together. We should remember also, that assent, or dissent, is not an act of the will, but of the understanding ; no man can will to believe that two and two make five, nor can I force upon myself the conviction, that this ink is white, or this paper black. If we arrive at certain conclusions, and act conscientiously upon them, a judge that is both just and merciful, will require no more, provided we can answer satis- factorily to the following interrogations : Have we made use of all the means in our power to arrive at true conclusions? Did no interest warp us? no prejudice blind us ? no party mislead us ? no sloth retard us ? and no fear intimidate us ? No hierarchy, constituted authority, nor political estab lishment, either of ancient, or modern times, has L A C X . 381 made so horrible a use of the mistake u uotion that unanimity is a good in itself] as the church of Rome. They have appropriated lire term Catholic to their own pale, and branded with the name of heretic, all that are without it ; and the latter title lias made even the merciful deem it a crime to pity them, and the just, injustice to do them right ; so closely allied in common minds are names to things. Unity* of opinion is indeed a * Their pretence of unity captivates multitudes. They upbraid the protectant with divisions, faction and schism ; which they wholly impute to their departure from the church of Rome, the pillar and ground of truth, and from their pope, the head and centre of unity. Bat suppose their union was greater than it is, it can be no certain argument of the truth of the church, and excellency of their profession. 1 If all men,' says Mr. Chillingworth, ' would submit them- selves to the chief mufti of the Turks, there would be no division ; yet unity is not to be purchased at so dear a rate.' He adds: "' It is better to go to heaven by diverse ways, or rather by diverse paths of the same way, than in one and the same path to go peaceably to hell. Should all the rest of the angels have joined with the arch-rebel in the grand apostacy, their unity would have been no commendation of their cause.' But after all, this is but a pretence. Their divisions have been as great and as scandalous, as of any other body of Christians in the world. Bellarmine confesses twenty-six several schisms in their church : Onuphrious reckons up thirty, one of which lasted, with great animosities, for fifty years. It was begun upon the election of Urban VI. ; at which the cardinals being offended, withdrew, and chose another pope. viz. Clement VII., who sat in France, as Uiban and his successors did at Rome. W« have a full account of these matters in Dr. Slillingfleet and fit. Geddes. ' The historians of this time,' says Dr. Still- ingileet, ' tell us there was never known so dismal an age for wars and bloodshed, for murders and parricides, ra- pines and sacrilege, for seditions and conspiracies, for hor- rible schisms and scandals to religion. The priest op- posing tifc bMiops, the people the" priests \ ami in sf*ne 382 L A C O HI i glorious and a desirable thing, and its circle cannot be too strong and extended, if the centre be truth ; but if the centre be error, the greater the circuni- places not only robbing the churches, burning the tithes, but trampling under foot the holy eucharist, that was con- secrated by such, whom Pope Hildebrand had excommu- nicated.' The bishop adds : 'And must we, after ail this, believe that the Roman See is the fountain of unity in the Catholic church I that all wars and rebellions arise by cast- ing oil subjection to the popes, when they themselves have been the great fomenters of rebellion, and the disturbers of the peace of Christendom.' It is an admirable fetch of their policy, and which very much contributes to secure and enlarge their interest, the suiting religion to the various humours and inclinations ot men. ' The great wisdom of the court of Rome,' says Dr. Stiliingflcet, ' appears in this, that as long as persons are true to them in the main points, they can let them alone in smaller differences among themselves ; and not provoke either of the dissenting parties lest they give them occasion to withdraw from their communion. They can allow dif- ferent rites and ceremonies in the several orders of religion among them, and grant exemptions and privileges in par- ticular cases ; if they can but hold them fast, and render them serviceable to their common interest, it is enough.' They make very different representations of religion, as the case may require ; and, indeed, have provided wonder- fully for the entertainment of all sorts of persons. What the Jewish rabbins say of their manna, that it had every kind of taste, either of oil, or honey, or bread, as would be most grateful to several palates: such a manna is popery, only it does not come from heaven. If you be for pomp and glory, their worship cannot miss of giving full satis- faction. Their altars are adorned with costly paintings ; hung with images of extraordinary saints; enriched with gold and pearl, and whatever can charm the spectator's eye : their priests officiate in costly habits ; their churches resound with the choicest music, vocal and instrumental; and their public processions carry an air of magnificence, every way proper to amuse the minds of superstitious pea? pie. If, on the other hand, you are for severity, they can accommodate you ; they know how exactly to fall in with that humour. You will hear amongst them many notable LACON. SS3 ferenee, the greater the evil, and the strength of the parts serves only to give it an energy to be execrated, and a durability to bo deplored. harangues in commendation of voluntary poverty, vows of abstinence, penance, and mortification, by going barefoot, fasting, wearing sackcloth, and exercising the sharpest discipline towards the body. Glorious is the character of their St. Francis, whom the}'' make the highest saint in heaven-, because he made himself the poorest and vilest wretch on earth. If you are for strict morals, they have casuists for your purpose, that will talk seraphically, and carry things to an excessive height. If you are for greater liberties in practice, they can turn you to such as will con- descend as much as you can desire, that will promise you salvation, though you have no other grace or qualification but that uf subjection and obedience to the church. And it is by this and the like stratagems, that such multitudes are drawn into their net. This is one of the sorceries of the whore, by which so many nations are deceived. It is a very great inducement to popery, and a special means of propagating it in the world, that they have con- trived so easy a way of salvation. You may go to heaven if you live and die in the church of Rome, without either repentance towards God, or faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ ; you need be at no pains to mortify your lusts and corruptions, to purify your heart, and govern your lives according to the laws of the gospel ; what they call attri- tion, (and what that is you have been told,) with the sacra- ment of penance, and the absolution of a priest is sufficient. And you know how well they provide for the safety of any sort of cattle by holy fraternities. No less a man than their Gregory IX. says, that St. Francis obtained this privilege of God, that whoever had his habit on, could not die ill. — And St. Francis says himself, that whoever loved his order in his heart j how great a sinner soever he was, he should obtain mercy of God. And in the like strain they talk (as you have heard) of other of their saints, and the societies called after their name. To enter among them, and wear their badge is a sufficient warrant for heaven, whether he be a saint, or the worst of sinners that has it. I must not omit the great delusion of all, and that is. their tales of visions, apparitions, and miracles. If they find the people boggle a little at any of their opinions,. and not so 3g4 LA COS. Criticism is like champaign, nothing mote exe- crable if bad. nothing more excellent if good ; if meager, muddy, vapid, and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind ; but if rich, generous, and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, expand the heart, and are worthy of being introduced at the symposium of the gods. In the whole range of literature, nothing is more entertaining, and I might, add, more instruct! ve, than sound and legitimate criti- cism, the disinterested convictions of a man of sensibility, who enters rather into the spirit, than readily swallow them down as they could wish, presently heaven engages in the cause ! Thus the immaculate con- ception was established by a revelation ; as was purgatory, tran substantiation, auricular confession, &c. And by this means also, the reputation of their several orders has been raised; the credit of their images kept up; and image- wor- ship introduced and supported. For the same purpose, they have recourse to miracles.— The legends of their saints abound with stories of prodi- gious things: some of which are ludicrous; as their St. Swithin's making whole a basket full of eggs, by the sign of the cross ; Patricius making the stolen sheep bleat in the thief ; s belly after he had eaten it ; their St. Bridget's bacon, which in great charity she gave to a hungry dog, and was, after the dog had eaten it, restored again in her kettle. Of the like nature is their story of St. Dunstan, who took the devil by the nose with his tongs, till he made him roar; Dominicus made him hold the candle till he burnt his fin- gers ; Lapus imprisoned the devil in a pot all night ; a con- secrated host being put into a hive of bees, to cure them of the murrain, was so devoutly entertained, that the bees built a chapel in the hive, with steeple and bells ; erected an altar, and laid the host upon it, and sung their canoni- cal hours like monks in a cloister.* — Vid. Bennet against Popery. * I suspect an error here— the bees built the chape!, but the drones performed mass. LAC OX. ; 3cfS the letter of his author, who can follow him to the height of his compass, and while he sympathizes with every brilliant power, and genuine passion of the poet, is not so far carried out of himself as to indulge his admiration at the expense of his judg- ment, but who can afford us the double pleasure of being iirst pleased with his author, and secondly with himself, for having given us such just and incontrovertible reasons for our approbation. When death deprived the house of commons of the talents of Charles Fox, I conceive he did not leave behind him a more elegant classic in all that enlightened body. I once heard him say, that he was so idle at Eton, that he verily believed he should have made but little comparative progress in the Greek language, had it not been for the intense pleasure he received on his first taking up Longinus. ' It was lucky for me,' he would say, * that I did not then know where to procure an English translation, and I never quitted him until I could read him with such facility as to derive more pleasure from his remarks upon Homer, than from the poet himself.' On mentioning this circumstance to an old Etonian, he confirmed it by the following anecdote : he said that on one occasion, by a wilful kind of mistake, Fox took his favourite Longinus, a book above his class, into the school-room, and it happened rather unluckily, that he was called upon to go through a portion of some other author appropriated to that day; he was not a little puzzled, and the master perceived his embarrassment — ' What book have you got there, sir V said he ; ' hand it to me.' On perceiving that it was a Greek copy of Longinus, 4 Sir,' said the master, ' I shall punish you severely for having neglected to bring the right book, unless 33 3S6 LAC ON. you can immediately construe and pars* nis page Hi the author you have thought proper ,o choose for yourself, 5 picking out at the same time one of the most difficult passages in the volume. The man was never less at loss in answering Pitt, than was the boy on this occasion, in accepting the challenge of the master, to the astonishment of whom, no less than of his school-fellows, he accom* plished off-hand the task imposed upon him, ren- dering the passage into English, not at all unworthy of the eloquence of the original, ' Who was himself the great sublime he drew.' But, to revert to the subject, criticism written in the style of Longinus, must ever be extremely rare, until great genius be extremely common. There is indeed another kind of criticism, which will never be rare, because it requires only labour and attention ; I mean that which is principally confined to dates, facts, chro- nologies, niceties of grammar, and quantities of prosody ; a criticism conversant with words, rather than things, and with the letter, rather than the spirit. A style of criticism, like that of him who, when all the world were enraptured by a Ceres of Raphael, discovered that the knot in the wheat- sheaf was not tied as a reaper would have tied it. To be a mere verbal critic, is what no man of genius would be, if he could ; but to be a critic of true taste and feeling, is what no man without genius could be, if he would. Could Johnson have had less prejudice, Addison more profundity, or Dryden more time, they would have been well qualified for the arduous office of a critic. Mate- rials for a good critic, might be found in the three, since each had many of the requisites, but neither of tWai all. As to the three great names of L A C O IS . 387 Bentley, Porson, and Parr, they came nearer to our purpose, but hare not fully accomplished all that we want Bentley united two things that were very incompatible, dogmatism and whim, and was at the same time both conjectural and dicta- torial ; he often substituted creation for correction, invented where he ought rather to have investi- gated, and gave us what he conceived his author should have said, rather than what he did say. Porson was too cold and costive in his approbation, and too microscopical in his views, for the perfect critic, being more occupied about the syllables, than the sense, with the counters of knowledge, rather than knowledge itself. His temper, too, was not sufficiently placid for his mission, whicli required more patience than that of Job, and more meekness than that of Moses. He was too apt not only to quit the game, but to do so in order to worry some mongrels of his own pack, who were at fault from having overrun the scent. He took his Greek, as some persons take their snuff, that is, he not only stuffed his head with it almost to suffocation, but his pockets as. well,* and not * Porson was once travelling in a stage-coach, when a young Oxonian, fresh from college, was amusing the ladies with a variety of talk, and, amongst other things, with a quotation, as he said, from Sophocles. A Greek quota- tion, and in a coach too ! roused our slumbering professor from a kind of dog-sleep, in a snug corner of the vehicle ; — shaking his ears and rubbing his eyes, ' I think, young gentleman,' said he, 'you favoured us just now with a quotation from Sophocles ; I do not happen to recollect it there.' ( Oh, sir,' replied our tyro, ■ the quotation is word for word as I have repeated it, and in Sophocles, too: but I suspect, sir, it is some time since you were at college, J The professor, applying his hand to his greatcoat, and taking out a small pockefedition of Sophocles, quietly asked 388 LA CON. without occasionally bespattering his neighbours with the superfluity. As to Doctor Parr, ibrtu- him if he would be kind enough to show him the passage in question, in that little book. After rummaging the pages for some time, he replied : ' Upon second thoughts, I now recollect that the passage is in Euripides.' * Then perhaps, sir,' said the professor, putting his hand into his pocket, and handing him a similar edition of Euripides, ' you will be so good as to find it for me. in that little book.' The young Oxonian returned again to his task, but with no better suc- cess, muttering, however, to himself, ' Curse me if ever 1 quote Greek again in a coach* The tittering of the Indies informed him that he was got into a hobble. At last, ' Bless me, sir,' ^aid he, ' how dull I am ; I -recollect now, yes, yes, I perfectly remember that the passage is in JEschylus.' v rhe inexorable professor returned again to his inexhaust- ible pocket, and was m the act of handing him an iEsehy- lus, when our astonished freshman vociferated : ' Stop the coach — halloa, coachman, let me out, I say, instantly — let me out ! there's a fellow here has got the whole Bodleian library in his pocket ; let me out, I say — let me out ; he must be Porson or the devil !' I wish to make some observations on anecdotes, and I think I may as well take this opportunity as another. Im- primis, I am not so particular about their originality, as their application. If an anecdote comes across my mind, which tends to the support of any argument or proposition I am advancing, I hesitate not to adduce it. There are no anecdotes in these pages that will be new to all my read- ers, and perhaps there are none but maybe new to some of them. — Those to whom any anecdote is old, will not be offended, if it be well applied ; and those to whom it may be new, will receive the double pleasure 6f novelty and of illustration. — In fact,there are only two modes by which an anecdote can be perfectly original ; the parties who relate it, must either have heard it from, or made it for the prin- cipals. Anecdotes, like the air, are private property only so long as they are kept in ; the instant the one is told, or the other liberated, they are common stock. But the pnn cipal reason that has induced me to intersperse these pages with anecdotes, is to tempt young minds to a higher and more intellectual kind of reading. If they read a book on such subjects as mine, they must think, at least, before they LAC Olf. 389 nately for the interests of literature, he is still alive, and may, if he please, remove the principal objec- differ with the author, and this is one of the most exalted, noble, yet rare employments of man. But a volume that compels a reader to think, will not be his favourite at first, although it is sure to become so in he end. It is on this account I have occasionally attempted to lead on young minds by anecdotes; they will, in all probability, be new to them, and I have endeavoured so to write them, that he that runs may read, and he that reads may understand. There are two classes of people that profit little by read- ing, those that are very wise, and those that are very fool- ish : 1 cannot presume to inform the one, and I cannot hope to improve the other. I have, therefore, attempted to make Lacon an intelligible book, capable of doing some good to that valuable class of the community who have other things to do, as well as to read, and who, when they snatch a few hours from their occupations, to devote to literary pursuits, must necessarily prefer that author who gives them the most knowledge, and takes from them the least time. An era is fast approaching, when no writer will be read by the great majority, save and except those who can effect that for bales of manuscript, that the hydrostatic screw per- forms for bales of cotton, by condensing that matter into a period that before occupied a page ; celebrity will be awarded to no pen that cannot imitate the pugilist, in three essentials— that of hitting hard, and sharp, and at short distances. Let a man of common sense, having read an author with some attention, lay down the book, and then ask himself this question : What has this writer told me that is really new — true, clear, and convincing, and which I did not *"know before 1 He will generally find that he may put all this down in a very small compass, and that the task may be performed, even by the most busy, without the help of an amanuensis. Literary characters, indeed, who are con- stantly on the hunt for interesting anecdotes, will no doubt recognise many of mine as old acquaintances ; but such characters are not numerous ; and I see no reason why thnt which amuses, and also instructs, should be monopo- lized by any class, and particularly by a small one; as Whiteneld, when he set divine psalms to airs that were profane, did so, because he could not see why the devil 43* '3$q LACON. tion that can justly be brought against his pen, by using it more often ; the quality is so good, we more deeply regret the smallness of the quantity, * ' verbum sapicnti sat, 9 should have ail the best tunes, so neither can I conceive why ail the best stories should be confined to the literati^ who, by the by, are not a whit better able to enjoy them than the unlearned' since their common sense is often deficient, precisely in proportion to their possession of that which is not so ; in which case we might apply the repartee of Des Cartes, to a certain marquis who had animadverted raiher liberally on the philosopher's indulging himself in the lux- uries of the table:—' What , sir , do you think Providence made good things only for j'ogIsT To finish this gossiping and rambling note, tedious to my readers, and particularly tiresome to him that writes it, be- cause it is on himself, I shall merely add one more obser- vation. In such a variety of remarks, and multiplicity of propositions, which a work of the nature of Lacon must necessarily involve, repetition will be a rock which it will be somewhat difficult wholly to avoid. On a comparison, however, of passages apparently similar, the candid reader will, I think, perceive a difference, < facie s non omnibus una, Nee diver sa tamen, quaieni deceiesse serorumS* If, like modern physicians, I sometimes vary my pre- scriptions, it is for the same reason that they do : — ' to give the disorder an opportunity of choosing for itself. i But to return to Person. In the notes of Hypocrisy, I have mentioned a curious fact, with respect to this learned professor. After death, his head was dissected, and to the confusion of all craniologists, but to the consolation of all blockheads, it was discovered that he had the thickest scull of any professor in Europe. Professor Gall, on being called upon to explain this phenomenon, and to reconcile so tena- cious a memory with so thick a receptacle for it, is said to have replied : * How the ideas got into such a scull, is their business, not mine ; I have nothing to do with that : but let them once get in — that is all I want ; once in, I del) them ever to get out again.' -Not the game f*c% tliey wear, hV>r trait* unlike, but such aa siatere #iwre.— IVb LACON. 391 Gibbon, sitting in an elegant apartment, quaffing noyeau, and talking infidelity, was cautioned as to the danger which such doctrines might bring upon society. ' Sir,' said the historian, ' the doctrines we are now discussing, are not unlike the liquor we are drinking; — safe, pleasant, and exhilarating to you and me, that know how to use, without abusing them ; but dangerous, deleterious, and intoxicating, if either were broached in the open streets, and exposed to the discretion of the mob I 1 With two such strong reasons against their con- tinuing upright members of society, I think we might agree with Gibbon, that it would be hazard- ous to answer either for their heads or their hearts. But our philosophical historian was no philosopher here ; the bars and the bolts that were efficient in confining his dram3, w r ere perfectly nugatory in restricting his doctrines ; they were too volatile for such an imprisonment. In fact, it will be possible to have one set of opinions for the high, and another for the low, only when they cease to see by the same sun, to respire by the same air, and to feel by the same sensorinm. For opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people, as the rain unto the sea. An author of talent and genius must not hope that the plodding manufacturers of dullness will admire him ; it is expecting too much ; they cannot admire him, without first despising themselves. When I look out of my window, and see what a motley mob it is, high and low, mounted and pedes- trian, that an author is ambitious to please, I am ashamed of myself, for feeling the slightest anxiety 339 LA CON. as to the verdict of such a tribunal. When I leave this class of judges, for that which aspires to be more intellectual, I then indeed feel somewhat more ground for anxiety, but less for hope : for in this court I find that my judges have their claims and pretensions no less than myself; pretensions that are neither so low as to be despised, nor so high as to be above all danger of suffering by competi- tion. So small indeed is the fountain of fame, and so numerous the applicants, that it is often ren- dered turbid by the struggles of those very claim- ants who have the least chance of partaking of the stream, but whose thirst is not at all diminished by any sense of their unworthiness. The power of love consists mainly in the privilege that potentate possesses of coining, circulating, and making current those falsehoods between man and woman, that would not pass for one moment, either between woman and woman, or man and man. Men, by associating in large masses, as in camps and in cities, improve their talents, but impair their virtues, and strengthen their minds, but weaken their morals ; thus a retrocession in the one, is too often the price they pay for a refinement in the other. We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree. The reason per- haps is this: when we find others that agree with us, we seldom trouble ourselves to confirm that agreement ; but when we chance on those that differ with us, we are zealous both to convince, and LAC ON. 303- to convert them. Our pride is hurt by the failure, and disappointed pride engenders hatred. This reflection is strengthened by two circumstances observable in man ; first, that the most zealous converters are always the most rancorous, when they fail of producing conviction ; but when they succeed, they love their new disciples far better than those whose establishment in the faith neither excited their zeal to the combat, nor rewarded their prowess with a victory. Priestley owed much of the virulence with which he was attacked, to the circumstance of his agreeing partly with every body, but entirely with nobody. In politics, as in philosophy ; in literature, as in religion ; below the surface in hydrostatics, or above it in pneumatics ; his track might still be traced by the host of assail- ants that pursued it ; and, like the flying-fish, he had no sooner escaped one enemy in the water, than he had to encounter another in the air. Who are the least proper to hold this, or to have that ; to preside here, or advise there ; to be absent from this place, or present at that ? Generally speaking, those are the least proper to obtain these ends, who most desire them. Who desires to hold preferment more than the professing pluralist, or to have place, more than the pretended patriot ; and who deserves them less 1 Who wishes to preside at the senate more than the sycophant, or to advise at the council more than the knave 1 Who wishes to be absent from the trial more than the criminal, or to be present at the plunder more than the thief ? For that wealth, power, or influence, which are desired only that, they may be properly applied and exerted, are not usually those which are most vehe- 204 LAC ON. mently desired ; since such an application of them cannot be a profitable task, but must be a trouble- some, and may be a thankless one. Therefore, when we see a man denying himself the common comforts of life, passing restless days and sleep- less nights, in order to compass something where the public good is the apparent motive, we may always venture to pause a little, just to consider whether private good may not be the real end. None know the full extent of present hate but those who have achieved that which will ensure the highest meed of future admiration. If a man be sincerely wedded to truth, he must make up his mind to find her a portionless virgin, and he must take her for herself alone. The con- tract, too, must be to love, cherish, and obey her, not only until death, but beyond it : for this is a union that must survive not only death, but time, the conqueror of death. The adorer of truth, there- fore, is above all present things — firm in the midst of temptation, and frank in the midst of treachery ; he will be attacked by those who have prejudices, simply because he is without them ; decried as a bad bargain by all who want to purchase, because he alone is not to be bought ; and abused by all par- ties, because he is the advocate of none ; like the dolphin, which is always painted more crooked than a ram's horn, although every naturalist knows that it is the straightest fish that swims. A prodigal starts with ten thousand pounds, and dies worth nothing ; a miser starts with nothing, and dies worth ten thousand pounds. It has been LACOjS. 39v5 asked, which has had the best of it I I should pre- sume the prodigal : he has spent a fortune, but the miser has only left one ; — he has lived rich, to die poor ; the miser has lived poor, to die rich ; and if the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it, still deeper in debt to himself. That time and labour are worse than useless that have been occupied in laying up treasures of falsa knowledge, which it will one day be necessary to unlearn, and in storing up mistaken ideas, which we must hereafter remember to forget. Timotheus, an ancient teacher of rhetoric, always demanded a double fee from those pupils who had been instructed by others ; for in this case, he had not only to plant in, but also to root out. Genius, in one respect, is like gold : numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither. The mystifications of metaphysics, and the quackeries of craniology, may be combined and conglomerated without end and without limit, in a vain attempt to enable common sense to grasp and to comprehend the causes of genius, or the modes of their operation. Neither are men of genius themselves one jot better able to give us a satisfactory solution of the springs and sources of their own powers, than other men. The plain, unvarnished fact, after all that may be said or sung about it, is this : that genius, in one grand particu- lar, is like life — we know nothing of either but by their effects. It is highly probable that genius* ♦There is so much of true genius and poetic feeling of the highest order, in the following stanzas, that 1 cannot withstand the temptation of enriching my barren pages with 3V6 LAC ON. may exist, under every sun and every sky, like moss, and with as many varieties ; but it may have been more fully developed in some situations than in others. The fogs of Iceland, however, have been warmed by poetry, and those of Holland by so beautiful a gem. This ode of Dr. Leyden's, in my hum- ble opinion, comes as near perfection as the sublunary inuse can arrive at, when assisted by a subject that is inter- esting and an execution that is masterly. It adds a deeper shade to that sympathy, which such lines must awaken, to reflect that the spirit which dictated them has fled ODE TO AN INDIAN GOLD COIN WRITTEN IN CHERICAL, MALABAR. Slave of the dark and dirty mine! What vanity has brought thee here? How can I love to see thee shine So bright, whom I have bought so dear! ■•• The tent-ropes flapping lone I hear, For twilight-converse, arm in arm; The jackal's shriek bursts on my ear, When mirth and music wont to charm. By Chcrical's dark wandering streams, Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild, Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams, Of Teviot loved while still a child — Of castled rocks, stupendous piled, By Esk or Eden's classic wave ; Where loves of } r outh and friendship smiled, Uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave! Fade, daydreams sweet, from memory fade !— The perish'd bliss of youth's first prime, That once so bright on fancy play'd, Revives no more in aftertime. Far from my sacred natal clime, I haste to an untimely grave ; The daring thoughts, that soar'd sublime, Are sunk in ocean's southern wave. LACON. 357 wit : — * Vcrvecum in patriae crassoqile sub aere nasct ingenium?* If, indeed, any inferior power can have the slighest influence on genius, which is itself the essence of power, if aught which is of earth can control that which is of heaven, this influence must be looked for, not in soils, nor suns, nor climates, but in social institutions, and in the modes and forms of governments. The Jews have been much the same in all periods, and are the same in all places, because their social institutions are the same. Look also at Greece and at Italy, two countries the most adducible, inasmuch as they have been the most Slave of the mine ! thy yellow light, Gleams baleful as the tomb-fire drear j A gentle vision comes by night My lonely, widow'd heart to cheer* Her eyes are dim with many a tear, That once were guiding-stars to mine Her fond heart throbs with many a fear** I cannot bear to see thee shine. For thee, for thee, vile yellow slave, I left a heart that loved me true; I cross'd the tedious ocean-Wave, To roam in climes unknown and new. The cold wind of the stranger blew Chill on my wither'd heart:— the grave, Dark and untimely, met my view — And all for thee, vile yellow slave ! Ha ! comest thou now so late to mock A wanderer's banish 'd heart forlorn ; Now that his frame the lightning shock Of sun-rays tipt with death, has borne 1 From love, from friendship, country torn, To memory's fond regrets the prey ! Vile slave, thy yellow dross I scorn ; — Go mix thee with thy kindred clay. • Genius may exist in a rustic land, under a dullatmo* pKirc.— Pub. 34 39S LACON. highly favoured with talent. The bee and tha nightingale, the olive and the grape, remainfbecauso. the climate is the same ; but where are the Gre- cians ? where are the Romans ? the governments and the institutions are changed, arid with them the men. Freedom" is not indeed the mother, but she is the nurse of genius, giving scope to its aspirings, confidence to its darings, and efficiency to its strength. As to those causes that may have been supposed to impart any particular bias or scope to genius, no sooner have we laid down some general rule on this head, than a thousand exceptions rush in to overturn it. If w T e affirm with Johnson, that genius is general power, accidentally determined to some particular direction, this may be true of the ten, but false of the ninety. Paley and Adam Smith have declared their total incapacity, with regard to all works of fiction, fancy, or imagina- tion ; and had Mr. Locke indulged in poetry, it is probable he would have failed more lamentably than Pope, when he dabbled in metaphysics. Such characters as Crichton and Mirandola, on the con- trary, would seem to support the theory of Dr. Johnson, and go to prove that extension is not always purchased at the price of profundity. Shakspeare possessed a universality of talent that would have enabled him to accomplish any thing. 1 To form one perfect whole, in him conspire The painter's pencil, and the minstrel's lyre, The wisdom of the sage, and prophet's hallowed tire. Neither can we lay down any certain rule for genius, as regards the period of its development. Some have gone into the vineyard at the third hour, and some at the ninth ; some, like the Nile have been mean and obscure in their source, bui L A U O X . RN like that mighty river, majestic in their progress, with a stream both grand and fertile, have enriched the nations, rolling on with accumulated macmifi- cence, to the ocean of eternity. Others again there are. who seem to have adopted the motto of Cssar for their career, and who have burst upon ns from the depth of obscurity, as the lightning from the bosom o: the cloud. Their energy- has been equalled only by the:: brilliancy, and like f heaven to which I have compared them, they have shivered all opposition with a strength that obstacle served only to awaken, and resistance to augment. 1 Blind, and lenied the grass corporeal light, Toe:: intellectual eye but shone more bright, S::e:u".^ in disease they found, and radiance in night.' See Hypocrisy — Character 9/ Milton. Doctor Johnson observed of the ancient Ro- mans, i that when poor, they robbed others, and when rich, themselves.' This remark ou^ht not to have been conrlned to that people only, for it is more or less applicable to all. Persecution, too, has been analogous in one respect to plunder, hav- ing been at all times both indicted and endured, as circumstances might serve. When the conquered happened to have become in their turn the conquer- ors, it is not the persecution that has been crushed, but the persecutors that have been changed * so ton^ has it taken mankind to learn this plain and precious truth, that it is easier to rind a thousand reasons why men should differ in opinion, than one why they should fight* about them. Persecution * I shall quote aerc^ for obvious reasons, the morning Frzyrr of the celebrated Dr. Fraaklin ;— 400 L A O O N. has been the vice of times that are past, may he the vice of times that are present, but cannot be the vice of times that are to come, although we have already witnessed some events in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-one, that would lead us to suspect that centuries take a much longer time to arrive at years of discretion, than men. In Booth's review of the ancient constitutions of Greece and of Rome, there is a passage that expresses what I have to say in the happiest man- ner :— 4 It thus appears that the constitutions of anti- quity were as inimical to religious freedom, as the worst of the governments of modern Europe ; and that conformity of opinion on the causes of the universe, has at no time been obtained, except by the assistance of penal statutes. An absolute free- dom in religious discussions has never yet existed, in any age or country. It is one of the dreams of the new philosophy. The superstition of the Lace- demonians prohibited all inquiry on the subject of religion, but was of little advantage to morality. The Spartan ladies celebrated their nightly orgies ; and the warriors, who every evening during their expeditions, sung hymns in concert, to the honour of the gods, were ready, without remorse, to join in the cryptia, or massacre of their slaves. The religion of Athens was interwoven with its consti- tution, and the lives of JEschylus, Anaxagoras, 'O powerful Goodness, bountiful Father, merciful Guide! increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest, strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates, accept my kind offices to thy other crea- tures as the only return in my power for thy continued favours to me.' LACOX. 401 Diagoras ; Protagoras, Prodicus, Socrates, and Alcibiades, demonstrated thatneither genius, learn- ing, courage, nor the softer virtues, uncombined with the superstition of the age, could screen theii possessors from the persecutions of an implacable priesthood. ' Among the Romans, too, it was toleration, not freedom ; and even toleration itself was refused to the citizens of Rome. It was in vain, however, that those mighty masters of the world thus en- deavoured to fetter the transmission of thought, and to fix the religion of the human race. Man, though individually confined to a narrow spot of this globe, and limited in his existence to a few courses of the sun, has nevertheless an imagination which no despotism can control, and which unceasingly seek* for the author of his destiny, through the immensity of "space and the ever-rolling current of ages.-— The petty legislators of the hour threaten with their thun- ders, as if they were the gods of this lower world, and issue their mandates that a boundary shall be drawn round the energies of mind. ! Hitherto shait thou come, and no farther !' Such is the fiat ; but it is as useless as that which would restrain the waves of the ocean. — Time, who successively con- signs to oblivion the everchanging governments and religions of men, now sits over the ruins of those proud and boasted republics. Time, the eldest of the gods of Greece and Rome, has seen Olympus despoiled of its deities, and their tem- ples crumbled into dust. But, amid those mighty revolutions, religion has survived the wreck. Man, never ceasing to look for happiness in the heavens, has raised other structures for his devotion, under the symbols of the crescent and the cross P 402 L A C O N. The distinguisliing peculiarity and most valuable characteristic of the diamond, is the power it pos sesses of refracting and reflecting the prismatic colours ; this property it is that gives fire, life, and brilliancy to the diamond. Other stones reflect the light as they receive it, bright in proportion to their own transparency, but always colourless ; and the ray comes out as it went in. What the dia- mond effects as to the natural light, genius performs as to that which is intellectual ; it can refract and reflect the surrounding rays elicited by the minds of others, and can divide and arrange them with such precision and elegance, that they are returned indeed, not as they were received, dull, spiritless, and monotonous, but full of fire, lustre, and life. We might also add, that the light of other minds is as necessary to the play and development of genius as the light of other bodies is to the play and radiation of the diamond. A diamond, incarcerated in its subterraneous prison, rough and unpolished, differs not from a common stone ; and a Newton 01 a Shakspeare, deprived of kindred minds, and born amongst savages — savages had died. In literature, our taste will be discovered by that which we give, and our judgment by that which wo withhold. He that shortens the road to knowledge, length- ens life ; and we are all of us more indebted than we believe we are, to that class of writers whom Johnson termed the 'pioneers of literature, doomed to clear away the dirt and the rubbish for those heroes who press on to honour and to victory, LACON. 403 without deigning to bestow a single smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress.' Self-love, in spite of all that has been said against it, performs divers necessary offices in the drama of life, and like friction in mechanics, is not without its compensations of good. Self-pride is the eldest daughter of self-love, and this it is that consoles us on many occasions, and exhilarates us on more ; it lends a spring to our joys and a pillow to our pains ; it heightens the zest of our percep- tions and softens the asperity of our repulse ; and it is not until this is mortally wounded within us, that the spirit to endure expires. This self-pride is the common friend of our humanity, and like the bell of our church, is resorted to on ail occa- sions; it ministers alike to our festivals or. our feasts ; our merriment or our mourning ; our weal or our wo. Laws that are too severe, are temptations to plunder on the part of the criminal, and to perjury on the part of the prosecutor ; since he would rather burden his conscience with a false oath than with a true one, which would arm cruelty to kill, in the garb of justice. Such laws, therefore, reverse the natural order of things, transferring the indignation of public feeling, which ought to follow the criminal, to the ferocity of that sentence by which he is to suffer, and taking from legislation its main support, the sympathy of public esteem and approbation ; for the victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr, rather than a crimi- nal, and that which we pity, we cannot at the same lime detest. But there is, if possible, a stronger it>4 ,L a c o rv . objection against such laws ; they open a door to all kinds of favouritism and partiality, for they afford the executive a power of pardoning a friend, under the pretext of mercy ; or of destroying a foe, with the forms of justice. A law of this nature may be compared to a mastiff, that is so ferocious that he is never suffered to be let loose,.and which is no terror to the depredator, because it is known that he is constantly chained. Hence it happens that we often witness the jury, and even the judge in a criminal process, resorting to falsehood and contradiction, from an amiable determination to adhere to that which is merciful, rather than that which is legal, and compelling themselves to con- sider even perjury and prevarication as matters of lesser weight and moment, when the life of a fel low-creature is put into the scale against them. The fault is in the system, not in the men ; and there is one motto, that ought to be put at the head of our penal code, ' summum jus surama inju* ria* A law overcharged with severity, like a blunderbuss overloaded with powder, will each of them grow rusty by disuse, and neither will be resorted to, from the shock and the recoil that must inevitably follow their explosion. Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight-forward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man, than with both. He can combat a r ool by management and address, and he can con- * T%e extreme of law is the extreme of injustice. — Pub. LAC ON. 405 quer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed. There- fore the knave has to combat here with something quite out of his calculation ; for His creed is, that the world is a market, where every thing is to be bought, and also to be sold ; and it is unfortunate that he has such good reasons for so bad a faith ; he himself is ready either to buy or to sell, but ho has now to do with something that is neither, and he is staggered and thrown off his guard, when opposed to that inflexible honesty, which he has read of perhaps in a book, but never expected to see realized in a man. It is a new case in his record, a serious item not cast up in his accounts, although it makes the balance tremendously heavy against him. Here he can propose nothing that will be acceded to, he can offer nothing that will be received. He is as much out of his reckoning, as a man who, being in want of jewels, should repair to the diamond-mart, with five pounds in his pocket ; he has nothing to give as an equivalent, he exposes his paltry wares of yellow dust, or dirty trick, and fancies that he can barter such trash for the precious pearls of principle and of honour, with those w T ho know the value of the one and the vileness of the other. Napoleon was a notorious dupe to his false conceptions on this subject ; inflexible integrity was an article that he neither found in himself, nor calculated upon in another. He had three modes of managing men : force, fraud, and corruption. A true disciple of Machiavclli, he could not read what was not in his book. But when he was opposed to a British force, he found out his mistake, and his two omnipotent metals proved false divinities here- He had to 406 LACOI?. contend witk. those whom he could neither bea with his iron, nor bribe with his gold; whom he could not attack without being overcome, nor run from without being overtaken. Religion* has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as &n hostage; often as a captive, and more often as a child ; but knowledge has become of age ; and religion must either re- nounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend, He that undertakes a long march should not have tight shoes, nor he that undertakes great measures, tight manacles. In order to save all, it is sometimes necessary to risk ail ; to risk less, would be to lose the whole, since half would be swallowed up by those who have deserted us and the other half by those who have defeated us. The Marquis of Wellesley doubled the resources *I do most particularly except from the observations above, that religion which has been justly termed the re- formed; for the reformation was a glorious and practical assent to my position, that ' knowledge has become of age. 1 While the 'Christian looks to this faith chiefly as a future good, even the skeptic should befriend it as a present good, and the sound philosopher as both. I shall finish this note by a splendid quotation from Sir William Drummond, who began by going to the skies for skepticism, and finished by making a pilgrimage to Rome, not to establish his faith but his infidelity. ' lie that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool, and he that dares not reason is a slave.'' This passage is taken from his preface ; an effort so superior to his book, that one wonders how the two could have come together. I have, however, heard such a union accounted for, by an observation that the match was per lfcctly legal, because tksymcrt not- of kin,. L A C O N . 407 of India, but there was a time when his Leaden- hall* directors fancied that they foresaw, in the expense of his equipment, bankruptcy and ruin. They sent him a long letter of remonstrance ; 4 Verbosa et grandis epistola venit a Capreis.'\ He ♦ These gentlemen, by way of postscript to the letter al- luded to above, settled eight thousand pounds per annum on the marquis for life. On another occasion, they gave" Lord Cornwallis one hundred thousand pounds, and free- dom of the city in the grocers' company, and on the same day they gave the freedom of the city to Sir William Mead- ows, and made him also a grocer, but forgot to give him a single sous to set up shop. It was thought that Sir Wil- liam was hardly dealt with, considering his services, which had been successful and splendid, and his epigram appear- ed on the occasion, addressed from Sir William to Lord Cornwallis : — * From Leaden-hail the news is come, That we must grocers be ; To you* my lad, they give a plum j But not a fig for me.' This brings to my mmd another epigram on a similar occasion, but which I shall relate, as I think it has some- thing more of point. Admiral Keppel underwent a trial of court-martial at Liverpool, on the score of having shown more prudence in a naval engagement than suited the views of the party that opposed him, and which has been still more eclipsed by the brilliancy of modern tactics. Burke assisted him on his trial, and he was honourably acquitted. After this acquittal, the freedom of the city of London was pre- sented to him in a box of heart of oak, and on the the same day Rodney received the same compliment* in a box of fold. Rodney was at that time known to be a little em- arrassedin his affairs, and the following epigram appeared on the occasion : — * Each favourite's defective part, Satiric cits you've told ; For cautious Keppel wanted heart t And gallant Rodney gold. 1 t A verbose and important letter came from Caprea,~Putk 408 LACOX, sent back this truly laconic reply : c Gentlemen^ 1 cannot govern kingdoms by the rule of three? The great, perhaps the principal cause of that delight we receive from a fine composition, whether it. be in prose* or in verse, I conceive to be this : the marvellous and magic powers it confers upon the reader ; enabling an inferior mind at one glance* and almost without an effort, to seize, to embrace, and to enjoy those remote combinations of wit, melting harmonies of sound, and vigorous conden- sations of sense, that cost a superior mind so much perseverance, labour and time. And I think I am supported in this proposition, by the fact, that our admiration of fine writing, will always be in propor- tion to its real difficulty, and its apparent ease. And on the contrary, it is equally corroborative of my statement, that any thing of confusion or obscurity, creative of a pause in the electric rapidity excited within us by genuine talent, weakens in some sort its influence, and impedes the full success of its power. In comparing ourselves with those, our good grandfathers and grandmothers, the ancients, we * I am persuaded that the rythm of prose is far more difficult, and in much fewer hands than the harmony of poetry. We have so many middling poets that we might exclaim with Juvenal : — • ( Miserum est cum tot ubique Vatibus occur r as ^ If most of them could be melted down into one sterling writer of solid prose, their publishers and their reader* would have less to complain of. t It is a woful fate to meet every where bo many miserable rhym* *ers.— Pub. >■ Z \ L A >£ ON. 409 may fairly ccngratuhte ^Uyselves on many super! • orities ; but in some things we are still in error, and have rather changed than conquered our delusions. For it is not a less destructive infatua- tion, to flee good as an evil, than to follow evil a$ a good ; to shun philosophy as folly, than to pursue folly as philosophy ; to be surfeited by the vora* cious credulities of blind confidence, than to be starved by the barren perplexities of doubt. It is a truism, that the same effects often proceed from causes that are opposite ; for we are as liable to be bewildered from having too many objects, as from having none ; whether we explore the naked de$ert of sand and of sterility, or the exuberant, wilderness of forest that none can clear arid thicket that none can penetrate. Johnson said that wit consists in finding out reserfcblances, and judgment, in discerning differ* ences; and as their provinces were so opposite, it was natural that they should seldom coexist in the same men. This position of Dr> Johnson, like many more that came from his ^pen,:sound# so much like truth, that it will often p&ss for it. But he seems to have overlooked the fact, that in-deciding on thing* that differ, we exercise the very same powers that are called out in determining on things that resem- ble. Thus, in comparing the merits of a picture, as regards its faithfulness to the original, he would give a very false? account of it who should declare it to be a perfect likeness, because the one feature was correct, while all the others were dissimilar. But this can never happen, because the same acumen that discovers to us the closeness of ooe *9 410 LACO*, feature to the original, shows us also the discord- ancy of all the others. But the direct proof that Johnson was wrong is this : there happens to have been quite as much wit exercised in finding out things that differ, as in hitting upon those that resemble. Sheridan once observed of a certain speech, that all its facts were invention, and all its wit, memory ; two more brilliant, yet brief dis- tinctions, perhaps were never made. Mr. Pitt com- pared the constant opposition of Sheridan to an eternal drag-chain, clogging all the wheels, retard- ing the career, and embarrassing the movements of government. Mr. Sheridan replied, that a real drag-chain differed from this imaginary drag-chain of the minister, in one important essential : it was applied only when the machine was going down the hill. In the first volume, I have recorded an anecdote of Doctor Crowe, where Johnson himself was vanquished by a piece of wit, the only merit of which lay in the felicitous detection of a very important difference. Those who have sat in Mr. Sheridan's company might record many similar examples ; it was never my good fortune but once to be a satellite where he was the luminary. He kept us in the sphere of his attraction until the morning : and when I reflect on his rubicund countenance, and his matchless powers of con- viviality, tie seemed to preside in the throne of wit, with more effulgence than Phaeton in the chariot of the sun ; but as an humble example of my present subject, I would add this distinction be- tween them : the first, by his failure, turned the day into night ; but the latter, by his success, by the beams of his eloquence, and the flashes of his wit, turned the night into day. LA CON. 411 Motion is the only property we can affirm with certainty to be inseparable at all times from all matter, arid consciousness* from all mind. With these two exceptions, the whole universe of things is parcelled out, and partitioned into regions of probability or improbability, acquiescence or hesita- tion, confidence or conjecture. That emperor who chiefly sways these petty states, who numbers the greatest census of subjects, and lords it oveT the richest extent of territory, is the capricious despot, — doubt. He is at once the richest and the poor- est of potentates, for he has locked up immense wealth in his treasury, but he cannot find the key. His huge and gloomy palace floats and fluctuates on the immeasurable ocean of uncertainty ; its moorings are more profound than our ignorance, but more strong than our wisdom ; the pile is stable from its very instability, and has rode out those storms that have so often overthrown the firmest pharos of science, and the loftiest lightbouse of philosophy. Nothing is more perplexing than the power, but nothing is more durable than the dynasty * Some may ask, is not consciousness suspended by sleep ? Certainly not ; otherwise none could dream but those who are awake. The memory is sometimes suspended in dreams, and the judgment always ; but there is no moment when consciousness ceases, although there may be many when it is not remembered. It may also be asked, as to matter, whether there be any motion going on in the com- ponent parts of the diamond % We may be assured there is; but a motion, compared to our finite faculties, almost infinitely slow, but to which it must gradually yield, and cease to be a diamond, as certainly, but not as quickly, as this table I am writing on will cease to be a table. It is curious, that of the two brightest things we know, the one should have the quickest motion and the other the slowest, lightning and the diamond. 419 L A C O P . of doubt; for he reigns in the heart* of all hi» people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die while any of his subjects live. In the complicated and marvellous machinery of circumstances, it is absolutely impossible to decide what would have happened, as to some events, if the slightest disturbance had taken place in the march of those that preceded them. We may observe a little dirty wheel of brass, spinning round upon its greasy axle, and the result is, that in an* other apartment, many yards' distance from it, a beautiful piece of silk issues from a loom, rivalling in its hues the teints of the rainbow ; there are myr- iads of events in our lives, the distance between which was much greater than that between this wheel and the riband, but where the connexion has been much more close. If a private country- gentleman in Cheshire, about the year seventeen hundred and thirty, had not been overturned in his carriage, it is extremely probable that America, instead of being a free republic at this moment, would have continued a dependant colony of Eng- land. This country-gentleman happened to be Augustine Washington, esquire, who was thus acci- dentally thrown into the company of a lady who afterwards became his wife, who emigrated with him to America, and in the year seventeen hundred and thirty-two, at Virginia, became the envied mother of George Washington the great. To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another ; if we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those who are winning * race, to LACON. 413 press forwards the faster, and to leave the beaten still farther behind. D"Il authors will measure our judgment not by our abilities, but by their own conceit. To admire their vapidity, is to have superior taste ; to despise it, is to have none. We may concede any man a right without doing any man a wrong, but we can favour no one without injuring some one. Where there are many claimants, and we select one for his superior merit, this is a preference, and to this preference he has a right : but if we make our election from any other motive, this is a partiality, and this par- tiality, although it may be a benefit to him, is wrong to another. We may be very active and very busy, but if strict justice be not the rudder of all our other virtues, the faster we sail, the farther we shall find ourselves from ' that haven where we would be' There is not a little generalship and stratagem required in the managing and marshalling of our pleasures, so that each shall not mutually encroach to the destruction of all. For pleasures are very voracious, too apt to worry one another, and each, like Aaron's serpent, is prone to swallow up the rest. Thus, drinking will soon destroy the power, gaming the means, and sensuality the taste, for other pleasures less seductive, but far more salu- brious and permanent, as they are pure. In proportion as nations get more corrupt, more disgrace will attach to poverty, and more respect to 55 # 4H tACQN, wealth. There are two questions that would com* pletely reverse this order of things : what keeps some peisons poor ? and, what has made soma others rich ? The true answer to these queries would often make the poor man more proud of his poverty than the rich man is of his wealth, and the rich man more justly ashamed of his wealth than the poor man unjustly now is of his poverty. It is lamentable that the intellectual light, which has so much more power than the solar, should have so much less rapidity ; the sons of science mount to their meridian splendour, unobserved by the millions beneath them, who look through the misty medium of prejudice, of ignorance, and of pride. Unlike the sun in the firmament, it is not until they are set themselves that they enlighten others. Patriotism, liberty, reform, and many other good things have got a bad name by keeping bad company ; for those who have ill intentions, cannot afford to work with tools that have ill sounds. When a knave sallies forth to deceive us, he dresses up his thoughts in his best words, as naturally as his body in his best clothes ; but they must expect a Flemish account, that give him credit either for the one or for tbe other. England can bear more mismanagement, luxury, and corruption, than any other nation under hea- ven ; and those who have built their predictions of her downfall from analogies taken from other nations, have all fortunately failed, because England has four points of strength and revivescence, no* lacok. m common to those examples from which those anal- ogies have been drawn. Two of these source* of strength are physical, her coal and her iron ; and two of them are moral, the freedom of the press and the trial by jury ; and they are mutually con- servative of each other, for should any attempt be made to destroy the two last, the two first are admi- rably adapted to defend them. Every fool knows how often he has been a rogue, but every rogue does not know how often he ha* been a fool. The more we know of history, the less shall we esteem the subjects of it ; and to despise our spe- cies, is the price we must too often pay for our knowledge of it. The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health, and power. It is curious that we pay statesmen for what they say, not for what they do ; and judge of them from what they do, not from what they say. Hence they have one code of maxims for profession and another for practice, and make up their con- sciences as the Neapolitans do their beds, with one set of furniture for show and another for use. Man is a compound being ; and what little know- ledge he can arrive at, to be practical, scarcely can be pure. Like the air he breathes, he may refine it, until the one is unfit to be respired and the other 410 L A C O W \*> bo applied. Mathematicians have sought know* ledge in figures, philosophers in systems, logicians in subtilties, and metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul, and he that studies only books, the soul without the body. He that to what he sees, adds observation, and to what he reads reflection, is in the right road to knowledge, provided that, in scru- tinizing the hearts of others, he neglects not his own; and, like the Swiss,* doubles his exertions abroad, that he may more speedily profit by them & home. No duels are palatable to both parties, ercept those that are engaged in from motives of revenge Such duels are rare in modern times, for law has been found as efficacious for this purpose as lead, though not so expeditious ; and the lingering tor- tures inflicted by parchment, as terrible as the more summary decisions of the pistol. In all affairs of honour, excepting those where the sole motive is revenge, it is curious that fear is the main ingre- dient. From fear we accept a challenge, and from fear we refuse it. From the false fear of opinion we enter the lists, or we decline to do so, from the real fear of danger, or the moral fear of guilt. Duelling is an evil that it will be extremely difficult to eradicate, because it would require a society composed of such materials as are not to be found * Thi^ pining to revisit their native land, peenliar to the Swiss, is termed Nostalgia, a word that signifies a strong desire to return. They have been known even to die when this cannot be attained ; and it is remarkable that the same Teroedy that cures a Swiss, kills a Sco>\ LACO W. 4IT without admixture ; a society where all who are riot Christians, must at least be gentlemen, or if neither — philosophers Some praters are so full of their own gabble, ana so fond of their own discord, that they would not suspend their eternal monotonies, to hear the wit of Sheridan, or the point of Swift ; one might as well attempt to stop the saw of a task-working stonecutter by the melodies of an iEolian harp. Others again there are, who hide that ignorance in silent gravity, that these expose by silly talk ; but they are so coldly correct, and so methodically dull, that any attempt to raise the slumbering sparks of genius, by means of such instruments, would be to stir up a languishing fire with a poker of ice. There is a third class, forming a great majority, being a heavy compound of the two former, and possessing many of the properties peculiar to each; thus, they have just ignorance enough to talk amongst fools, and just sense enough to be silent amongst wits. But they liave no vivacity in themselves, nor relish for it in another ; to attempt to keep up the ball of conversation with such partners, would be to play a game of fives against a bed of feathers. Man grows up to teach his children as a father, and he looks back to the time when he himself was taught as a child. Hence, he often becomes a pedagogue by circumstance, and a dogmatist by choice. He carries these principles beyond his own contracted sphere, into regions without his jurisdiction, and assumes the dignity of the pre- ceptor, in situations where the docility of the pupil would be more consonant to his powers, but lew 41S A lACOIH, congenial to his pride. Neitlier are words, ihose tools he works with, less imperfect than his skill in applying thern. Words, ' those fickle daughters of the earth? are the creation of a being that is finite, and when applied to explain that which is infinite, they fail ; for that which is made surpasses not the maker; nor can that which is immeasurable by our thoughts, be measured by our tongues. Man is placed in a system where he sees benevolence acting through the instrumentality of wisdom : these proofs multiply upon him, in proportion to his powers of intellectual perception, and in those departments of this system which he understands the best, these marks of wisdom and benevolence are most discernible. An astronomer would have a sublimcr view of the powers of the first cause in magnitude than an anatomist, but the anatomist would have a finer conception of this wisdom in minuteness than the astronomer. A peasant may have as sincere a veneration for this Being, and adore him with as pure a worship, as either the astronomer or the anatomist ; but his appreciations of him must be less exalted, because they are built upon a narrower base. If, then, in all the parts of this system which we can understand, these marks of goodness are so plain and legible, is it not rational to infer the same goodness in those parts of the system which we cannot comprehend ? The Designer of this system has not left himself without a witness, but has unfolded his high quali- ties so fully in mostinstances, that if there are some where he appears to us obscure or unintelligible, to believe in our own ignorance, rather than in the in- justice of such a. Being, is not only the safest creed, but the soundest philosophy. The end may be a LACO.1, 4t\j state of optimism, and this would be worthy of God ; but the means are a state of discipline, and this is fitting for man. . One endowed with a moderate share of mathe- maiical knowledge* might be capable of following Sir Isaac Newton through the rationale of many of his propositions, and would find him clear and irre- fragable in all of them. But presently he cornea to that philosopher's discovery of fluxions, the principles and deductions of which happen to be beyond his comprehension; would it not be the height of presumption for such a man to suspect Sir Isaac Newton of obscurity, rather than himself of incapacity ? But if this reasoning have any weight between one man and another, with how much greater power must it operate between man and his Maker ? Infidelity, alas ! is not always built upon doubt, for this is diffident : nor philoso- phy always upon wisdom, for this is meek , but pride is neither. The spoiled children of human science, like some other bantlings, are seen at times to spurn at the good that is offered, in. a vain but boisterous struggle for the evil that is withheld. No man can live or die so much for himself as he that lives and dies for others ; and the only great- ness of those little men who have conquered every thing but themselves, consists in the steadiness with which they have overcome the most splendid temptations to be good, in consequence of their low schemes and grovelling wishes to be powerful, like Napoleon, who — 1 Though times, occasions, chances, foes and friends, Urged him to purest fame, by noblest ends, **) LA-C-OJff. In this alone was great— to have withstood Such varied, vast temptations to be good.' Conflagration of Moscsx*. Were we to say that we admire the tricks and gambols of a monkey, but think nothing of Ilia power that created those limbs and muscles by which they are perfprmed, even a coxcomb would stare at such an asseveration ; and yet he is in the daily commission of a much grosser contradiction — still he neglects his Maker, but worships himself. Truth is the object of reason, and this is one ; beauty is the object of taste, and this is multiform. Oratory is the huffing and blustering spoiled child of a semi-barbarous age. The press is the foe of rhetoric, but the friend of reason ; and the art of declamation has been sinking in value, from the moment* that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and readers wise enough to read. * There are no potentates of modern times that would imitate Philip, ana offer a town containing ten thousand inhabitants for an orator. The ancients were a gossiping and a listening, rather than a writing or a reading set. This circumstance gave an orator great opportunities of display ; for the tongue effects that for thoughts that the press does for words ; but the tongue confers on them a much shorter existence, and produces them in a far less tangible shape ; two circumstances that are often not unfa- vourable to the speechifier. An ancient demagogue said, that so long as the people had ears, he would rather that they should be without understandings. All good things here below have their drawbacks, and all evil things their compensations. The drawback of the advantage of print- ing is, that it enables coxcombs to deluge us with dulness ; and the compensation for the want of this art was this, that if blockheads wrote nonsense, no one else would transcribe L A C O N . 4iH tight* whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer ; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but some- times confirm. Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power ; but if he compare himself with ail that he can conceive, he is at the nadir of weakness. We often pretend to fear w r hat we really despise, and more often to despise what we really fear. As in our amours those conquests that have cost the conqueror the most difficulty, have retain* ed him the longest in subjection — causing him, like Pyrrhus, by victory to be undone— so it is also in ii; neither could they take their trash to the market, when it cost so much time and labour to multiply the copies. Booksellers are like horse-dealers in one respect, and if they buy the devil, they must also sell the devil ; bat the misfor- tune is, that a bookseller seldom understands the merits of a book so thoroughly as the horse-dealer the merits of a horse, and reads with far less judgment than the other rides. But to return to the speechifiers. An orator who, like Demos- thenes, appeals to the head rather than the heart — who resorts to argument, not to sophistry — who has no sounding words, unsupported by strong conceptions — who would rather convince without persuading, than persuade without convincing— is an exception to all rules, and would succeed in all periods. When the Roman people had listened to the long, diffuse, and polished discourses of Cicero, they de- parted, saying to one another, ■ What a splendid speech our orator has made !' But when the Athenians heard Demos- thenes, he so filled them with the subject-matter of his ora- tion, that they quite forgot the orator, but left him at the /fnisli of his harangue, breathing revenge, and exclaiming, - Let us gro and fight against Philip !' 3S «K LAO-OIK. our appetites : those enjoyments wo have come over to with the most repugnance, we abandon with the most regret. Slander cannot make the subject of it either better or worse ; it may represent us in a false light, or place a likeness of us in a bad one, but we are the same : not so the slanderer ; for calumny always makes the calumniator worse, but the calumniated — never. Many schemes, ridiculed as Utopian, decried as visionary, and declaimed against as impracticable, will be realized the moment the march of sound knowledge has effected this for our species : that of making men wise enough to see their true inter* ests, and disinterested enough to pursue them. It is a common observation that any fool can get money ; but they are not wise that think so. The fact is* that men apparently dull do get money, and yet they have no reason to thank their dulness for their wealth. They appear to be stupid on every thing unconnected with their object, money, because they have concentrated all their powers to this particular purpose. But they are wise in their generation, as those who have any dealings with them will find out. Like moles, they are consid* ered blind by common observers, although, in the formation of their little yellow heaps, both are suf- ficiently sharpsighted, and have better eyes, for their own low and grovelling purposes, than those bystanders, who suspect that they have none. L A C O N . 423 In women we love that whicl is natural, we admire that which is acquired, and shun that which is artificial. But a system of education that com- bines the evil of all, and gives us the good of nei- ther ; that presents us with the ignorance of that which is natural, without its artlessness, and the cunning of that which is artificial, without its acquirements ; that gives us little to admire, less to love, and much to despise ; is more calculated to procure the female a partner for the minuet than for the marriage, and for the ball than for the bed. Time does as mi*ch for a firstrate poet, as for a firstrate painter, but in a very different manner. The poet whose efforts have established his repu- tation, and whose celebrity has gone down to after- ages, will receive a meed of renown even greater lhan he deserves, and that text of scripture will be verified as to his fame, which says : * To him that nath, shall be given/ Time, in fact, effects that for a fine poem that distance performs for a fine view. When we look at a magnificent city from some height that is above it, and beyond it, we are sufficiently removed to lose sight of its little alleys, blind lanes, and paltry habitations ; we can discover nothing but its lofty spires, monuments and towers, its palaces, and its sanctuaries. And so it is with a poem, when we look back upon it through a long interval of time ; we have been in the habit of hearing only the finest passages, because these only are repeated ; the flats and the failings, either we have not read or do not remember. The finest passages of Milton or of Shakspeare can be re- hearsed by many who have never waded through •all the pages of cither. Dacier observed that 424 LACO N . Homer was a thousand years more beautiful than Virgil, as if Calliope traced the etymology of her name to her wrinkles rather than her dimples. Voltaire carried this opinion so far, that he seems to infer that distance of time might make a poet still more interesting, by making him invisible ; for he asserts that the reputation of Dante will con tinually be growing greater and greater, because there is nobody now that reads him. This senti- ment must be a source of great consolation to many of our modern poets, who have already lived to see themselves arrive at this point of greatness, and may in some sort be saij. to have survived their own apotheosis. It is with diseases of the mind, as with those of the body : we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do. Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty ; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. That nation cannot be free, where reform is a com- mon hack, that, is dismissed with a kick the mo- ment it has brought the rider to his place. That nation cannot be free, where parties are but differ* ent roads, leading to one common destination, plun- der. That nation cannot be free, where the rulers will not feel for the people, until they are obliged to feel with the people, and then it is too late. That nation cannot be free, that is bought by its own consent, and sold against it ; where the rogue that is in rags is kept in countenance by the rogue that is in ruffles, and where, from nigh to low, from ♦he lord to the lackey, there is nothing radical hut LA CON. 425 corruption, and nothing contemptible but poverty ; when both patriot and placeman, perceiving that money can do every thing, are prepared to do every thing for money. That nation cannot be free, where religion is, with the higher orders, a matter of indifference ; with the middle, of acquiescence ; and with the lower, of fanaticism. That nation cannot be free, where the leprosy of selfishness sticks to it as close as the curse of Elisha to his servant Gehiza : where the rulers ask not what recommends a man, but who ; and where those who want a rogue, have no occasion to make, but to choose. I hope there is no nation like this under heaven ; but if there were, these are the things that, however great she might be, would keep such a nation from liberty, and liberty from her. These are the things that would force upon such a nation — first, a government of expedients , secondly, of difficulties ; and lastly, of danger. Such a nation could begin to feel, only by fearing all that she deserved, and finish by suffering all that she feared. A free press is the parent of much good in a state. But even a licentious press is a far less evil than a press that is enslaved, because both sides may be heard in the former case, but not in the latter. A licentious press may be an evil, an enslaved press must be so ; for an enslaved press may cause error to be more current than wisdom, and wrong more powerful than right ; a licentious press cannot effect these things, for if it give the poison, it gives also the antidote, which an enslaved press withholds. An enslaved press is doubly fata! : it not onlv takes away the true light, for in &U$ L A C O N . that ease we might stand still, but it sets up a false one, that decoys us to our destruction. All nations that have reached the highest point of civilization, may from that hour assume for their motto, * Videri quam esse:* And whenever, and wherever, we see ostentation substituted for happi- ness, profession for friendship, formality for religion, pedantry for learning, buffoonery for wit, artifice for nature, and hypocrisy for every thing ; these are the signs of the times which he that runs may read, and which will enable the philosopher to date the commencement of national decay, from the consummation of national refinement. We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititions or accidental advantages. For with books, as with men, it seldom happens that their performances are fully equal to their pre- tensions, nor their capital to their credit. There- fore, to repeat a sentence in my preface, we should consider rather what is said, than who says it, and the consequence of the argument, rather than the consequence of him that delivers it ; for wise things have sometimes escaped from heads that are fool- ish, and foolish things from heads that are wise. We should prefer preceptors who teach us to think, such as Bacon and Locke, rather than those that teach us to argue, as Aristotle and Cicero ; and we should give our days and our nights to those who, like Tacitus and Sully, describe men as they are, than to those who, like Harrington and Doling- broke, describe men as they ought to be, Of *T0SI,~-Pt:3. LACON. 427 the poets, it will bo most sale to read chiefly those of times that are past, who are still popular in times that are present ; and when w r e read a few of those that are ancient, this is the most pleasing and com- pendious mode of reading all that is good in those that are modern. The press enables poets to de- luge us with streams from Helicon, rapid, over- flowing, and inexhaustible ; but noisy, frothy, and muddy withal, and profuse, rather than profound. But we shall find more difference of opinion as to the comparative merits of the poets, than of all other writers. For in science, reason is the guide ; but in poetry, taste. Truth, I have before observed, is the object of the one, which is uniform and in- divisible ; beauty is the object of the other, which is varied and multiform. There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is, that they are in both instances, as fraudulent as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors. It is a piece of pedantry to introduce foreign words into our language, when we have terms of legitimate English origin that express all that these exotics convey, with the advantage of being intelligible to every one. For foreign sounds, like foreign servants, ought not to be introduced to the disadvantage of the natives, until these are found unworthy of trust. I was once asked at a party what was the difference between a conversation, and a c&nversgzionp i I replied> that if there \ver$ 438 LAC ON. any difference, I considered it must be this : in a conversation, if a blockhead talked nonsense, you were not obliged to listen to him ; but in a conver- sazione, you were. I have heard of an old gentle- man who was a better theologist than a chymist, gravely asking a friend if he would be so good as to explain to him the difference between the old word Calvinism and the new term galvinism. He might have replied that both of them had a great deal to do with jire, but that neither of them had been hitherto able to explain the nature of that ele- ment with which they were so intimately connected. A system of mal-government begins by refusing man his rights, and ends by depriving him of the power of appreciating the value of that which he has lost. It is possible that the Polish serf, the Russian boor, or the descendant of the kidnapped negro, may be contented with their condition ; but it is not possible that the mind of a Franklin, or a Howard, could be contented to see them so. The philosopher knows that the most degrading symp- tom of hopeless vassalage, is this very apathy that it ultimately superinduces on its victims, as the surgeon knows that the most alarming symptom of a deadly mortification having taken place, is the cessation of pain on the part of the patient. If sensuality be our only happiness, we ought to envy the brutes ; for instinct* is a surer, shorter, and safer guide to such happiness than reason. * There are some facts recorded of the elephant, that one scarcely knows how to reconcile to mere instinct, if the facto be authentic. I have heard the late Sir George Staunton 9*y t that when General Meddows reviewed four war-el©- LACON. 4 29 If we read the history of disorders, we are aston- ished that men live ; if of cures, we are still more astonished that they die. But death is the only sovereign whom no partiality can warp, and no price corrupt. He neither spares the hero, his purveyor by wholesale ; nor the physician,* his phants that had been sent from Ceylon to Madras, to assist in getting the British artillery through the gauls, a very extraordinary circumstance took place. The war -elephant, it is well known, is trained to perform the grand salam, which is done by falling on the first joint of the foreleg at a certain signal. The largest of the four elephants was par- ticularly noticed by the general as being terribly out of con- dition; the keeper was ordered up to explain the cause, and was in the act of doing this to the general, when the ele- phant advanced a few steps out of the line, and with one stroke of his proboscis laid his keeper dead at his feet. He then retired back again into his position and performed the grand salam. This circumstance excited some consider- able alarm, when the wife of the keeper ran up to his dead body, and in a broken sort of exclamation, cried out that she was always afraid something of this sort would happen, as he was constantly in the habit of robbing that elephant of his rations of rice, by taking them away from his crib after they had been served out to him under the inspection of his superior. This anecdote is rather a staggering one, but I have mentioned it to many persons who have been in India, and most of them were no strangers to the circum- stance. One gentleman informed me that it was authenti- cally recorded in the philosophical transactions of the day, but this I cannot vouch for, having never searched for it. * I remember when at Paris, being introduced to a phy- sician who had fitted up a' large apartment with portraits, sent him by those patients whom he had recovered. This circumstance put me in mind of a remark of Diogenes to one that admired the multitude of votive-offerings in Sam- othracia given to the temple of Neptune by those who had escaped from shipwreck : * There would have been many more,' said Diogenes, 'if those who have perished could have presented theirs.' There is a Spanish story that runs thus : — All the physicians of Madrid were suddenly alarmed by the 130 L A C O iV . caterer by retail ; nor the lawyer, his solicitor-gene- ral ; nor the undertaker, his master of the ward- robe ; nor the priest, his chamberlain and privy- counsellor • even his truest minion and prime syco- phant, the sexton, who has spent his whole life in hiding his bad deeds from the world, and conceal- ing his deformities, is at last consigned to the bed of clay, with his own shovel,, and this by tbe hands of some younger favourite, who succeeds alike to his salary and his sentence, his department and hid doom. The minor miseries superinduced by fashion, that queen of fools, can hardly be conceived by those who live in the present day, when common sense is invalidating every hour the authority of this silly despot, and confirming the rational dic- tates of comfort. The quantum of uneasiness forced upon us by these absurdities, was no small drawback from the sum total of that happiness allotted to the little life of man ; for small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight they make up in number, and ren- der it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon- ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of intrusion of the ghosts of their patients ; their doors were so besieged by the spectres of the dead, that there was no en- trance for the living. It was observed that a single phy-* sician of no repute, and living very obscurely, was incom- moded with only one of these unearthly visiters ; all Madrid flocked to him," and he got all the fees, until his brothe* practitioners promulgated the unfortunate discovery, thaf this single ghost was. when alive, the only patient lhat eve! eonsnUcd him* bullets. It is within the recollection of very many of my readers, that no gentleman or lady could either pay or receive a visit, or go out to a dinner, or appear at a public party, without submitting to have seven or eight pounds of fat and flour worked into their hair* by the hands of that very industrious and important personage, the frizeur^ on whose co-operation their whole powers of locomotion depended, and who had so much td do that ho could seldom be punctual. Nothing was more common than for ladies at a race-ball, an election- invitation, or a country assize meeting, to undergo the tremendous operations of the frizeur on the evening that preceded, and to sacrifice one night's rest to fashion, in order that they might sacrifice another night to Folly. Our fair countrywomen laugh at the Chinese ladies, who deprive themselves of the use of their feet, by tight shoes and bandages and whose characters would be ruined if they were even suspected of being able to walk. But they themselves, by the more destructive and dan* gerous fashion of tight-lacing, destroy functions of the body far more important, not only to them- selves but to their offspring ; and whole troops of dandies^ quite as taper-waisted, and almost as mas* culine as their mothers, are the natural result of such an absurdity. If to be admired is the motive for such a custom, it is a rriost paradoxical mode of pursuing this end ; for that which is destructive of health, must be still more destructive of beauty, that beauty, in a vain effort to preserve which, the victims of this fashion have devoted themselves to a joyless youth, and a premature decrepitude. An- other of the minor miseries formerly imposed upon society by the despotism of fashion, was the neces* 432 LACO^. sity of giving hrge sums, denominated vales, to a whole bevy of butlers, footmen, and lackeys. This was carried to such an excess, that no poof man could afford to dine with a rich one, unless he enclosed a guinea with his card of invitation : and yet this custom, more mean, if possible, than absurd, kept its ground until a few such men as Swift, Steele, and Arbuthnot, happened to itiake a discov- ery in terrestrial bodies, productive of more com- fort than any made before or since, in those that are celestial. After a due course of experiments, both synthetically and analytically pursued, they found out and promulgated to the world, that two or three friends, a joint of Welsh mutton, a bla- zing hearth, a bottle of old wine, and a hearty wel- come at home, were far better things than cold fricassees, colder formalities, sour liquors, and sourer looks abroad, saddled* moreover, with the penalty of running the gantlet of a whole gang of belaced and betasselled mendicants, who proceeded from the plunder of the pocket of the guest, to .their still more barefaced depredations on the cellar of their master. There is a little Italian story so much to my present purpose, that I shall conclude by relating it. A nobleman, resident at a castle, I think near Pisa, was about to celebrate his marriage- feast. All the elements were propitious except the ocean, which had been so boisterous as to deny the very necessary appendage of fish. Most pro videntially, however, on the very morning of the feast, a poor fisherman made his appearance with a turbot so large that it seemed to have been created for the occasion, * animal propter convivia natum?* Joy pervaded the castle, and the fisher- *An animal bom far ihtiber-nt-maJcing. — Pub. LACUN. 433 man was ushered with his prize into the saloon, where the nobleman, in the presence of his visi- ters, requested him to put what price he thought proper on the fish, and it should be instantly paid him. ; One hundred lashes, 5 said the fisherman, 4 on my bare back, is the price of my fish, and I will not bate one strand of whipcord on the bargain.' The nobleman and his guests were not a little astonished, but our chapman was resolute, and remonstrance was in vain. At length, the nobleman exclaimed : ' Well, well, the fellow is a humorist, and the fish we must have ; but lay on lightly, and let the price be paid in our presence.' After fifty lashes had been administered, ' Hold, hold !' ex- claimed the fisherman. ' I have a partner in this business, and it is fitting that he should receive his share.' ■ What ! are there two such madcaps in the world?' exclaimed the nobleman ; ' name him, and he shall be sent for instantly. 5 * You need not go very far for him, 1 said the fisherman ; you will rind him at your gate, in the shape of your own por- ter, who would not let me in until I promised that he should have the half of whatever 1 received for my turbot.' * Oh, oh,' said the nobleman, ' bring hiin lip instantly ; he shall receive his stipulated moiety with the strictest justice.' This ceremony being finished, he discharged the porter, and amply re- warded the fisherman. Happiness is that single and glorious thing which is the very light and sun of the whole ani- mated universe ; and where she is not, it were better that nothing should be. Without her,* wis- * Dr. Johnson was a^ked by a lady, what new work ha -was employed about. ' I am writing nothing just at present,' 37 4M LinuN. dom is but a shadow, and virtue a name ; she is their sovereign mistress ; for her alone they labour, and by her they will be paid j to enjoy her, and to communicate her, is the object of their efforts, and the consummation of their toil. It is with ridicule as with compassion, we do not like to be the solitary objects of either ; and whether we are laughed at or pitied, we have no objection to sharers, and fancy we can lessen the weight by dividing the load. A gentleman who was present at the battle of Leipsic, told me a humorous anecdote, which may serve to illustrate the above position. It will be remembered that our government had despatched a rocket-brigade to assist at that action, and that Captain Roger, a ery deserving young officer, lost his life in the commanding of it. After the signal defeat of the French at this memorable action, Leipsic became full of a mixed medley of soldiers, of all arms and of all nations ; of course, a great variety of coin was in circulation there ; a British private, who was attached to the rocket-brigade, and who had picked up a little broken French and German, went to the largest hotel in Leipsic, and displaying an English shilling to the landlord, inquired if this piece of coin was current there. ' Oh yes,' replied he, ' you may have whatever the house affords for that money : it passes current here at present.' Our fortunate Bardolph, finding himself in such corn- replied he. ( Well, but doctor,' said she, l if I could write like you, I should be always writing, merely for the pleasure of it.' ' Pray, madam,' retorted he, ' do you sincerely think that Leander swam across the Hellespont merely because he was fond of swimming V LACON, 435 pliant quarters, called about him most lustily, and the most sumptuous dinner the house could afford, washed down by sundry bottles of the most expen- sive wines, was despatched without ceremony. On going awav he tendered at the bar the identi- cal shilling which the landlord had inadvertently led him to expect was to perform such wonders. The stare, the shrug, and the exclamation elicited from 'mine host of the garter J by such a tender, may be more easily conceived than expressed. An expla- nation, very much to the dissatisfaction of the land- lord, took place, who quickly found not only that no- thing more was likely to be got, but also that the laugh would be tremendously heavy against him. This part of the profits he had a very Christian wish to divide with his neighbour. Taking, therefore, his guest to the street-door of his hotel, he requested him to look over the way. ' Do you see,' said he, 4 that large hotel opposite ? That fellow, the land- lord of it, is my sworn rival, and nothing can keep this story from his ears, in which case I shall never hear the last of it. Now, my good fellow, you are not only welcome to your entertainment, but I will instantly give you a five-frank piece into the bar- gain, if you will promise, on the word of a sol- dier, X% attempt the very same trick with him to- morrow that succeeded so w T ell with me to-day.' Our veteran took the money, and accepted the con- ditions ; but having buttoned up the silver very se- curely in his pocket, he took his leave of the land- lord with the following speech, and a bow that did no discredit to Leipsic. 4 Sir, I deem myself in honour bound to use my utmost endeavours to put your wishes in execution ; I shall certainly do all ] can, but must candidlv inform von that I fear I 430 L A CON'. shall not succeed, since I played the very same trick with that gentleman yesterday ; and it is to his particular advice alone that you are indebted for the honour of my company to-day.' If you see a man grossly ignorant and superficial on points which you do understand, be not over ready to give credit, on the score of character which he may have attained, for any great ability in points which you do not understand. Emulation looks out for merits that she may exalt herself by a victory , envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by a defeat. Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy, and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs ; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines. It is adverse to talent to be consorted and (rain- ed up with inferior minds, or inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd that are des- tined for the collar and the yoke. The good people of England do all that in them lies to make their king a puppet ; and then, with their usual consistency^ detest him if he is not w r hat they would make him, and despise him if he is. He that will not permit his wealth to do any good to others while he is alive, prevents it from doing any good to himself when he is dead ; and by an LACO N l 43? egotism that is suicidal, and has a double-edge, cuts himself off from the truest pleasure here, and the highest happiness hereafter. Some fancy that they make all matters right by cheating their rela- tions, and leaving all their ill-gotten wealth to some public institution. I have heard a story of his satanic majesty, that he was one day sitting on his throne of state, with some of his prime ministers attending him, when a certain imp, just arrived from his mission to this nether world, appeared before him. i Sirrah,' said he, ' you have been long absent from us : what news from above V ' have been attending, and please your majesty, the deathbed of a miser, and I have put it into his head to leave all his immense wealth to charitable insti- tutions.' ' Indeed,' said the sable monarch, ' and call you this attending to my interest 1 I am afraid we shall lose him.' ' Fear not,' said the imp, ' for he has made no restitutions, and has also many starving relatives ; but if we were so unlucky, we are sure, after all, to be gainers, for I also instilled it into his mind to appoint twelve trustees, and your majesty may safely reckon upon every soul of them to a man. 4 Omne. simile non est idem,'* is an axiom which men of powerful imaginations ought to keep con- stantly in view ; for in mental optics those do not always see the farthest who have mounted the highest, and imagination! has sometimes blinded * Every thing like is not the same. — Pub. t Wit also will sometimes bribe the judgment to a false decision, and make us inclined to say what is brilliant, rather than what is true ; and to aim at point rather than at propriety. Voltaire was once desired by a poet to criticise « tragedy he had written. He prefaced his request by say- 37* 438 LACON. the judgment, rather than sharpened its acumen. Minds of this kind have been beautifully compared to those angels described in the Revelation, who hid their eyes with their wings. Some conversions have failed, not for any want of faith in the convert, but for a deficiency of that article in the converter ; and when matters have been brought to the point, it has been discovered that the disciple was ready to perform his part of the ceremony, provided the master were equally so to perform his. I remember having somewhere read a story of a certain lady in Italy, who being of the Protestant faith, was about to be united in mar- riage to a papist. Great pains were taken to work her conversion ; at length, she consented to take the holy sacrament according to the ritual of the church of Rome, provided the m akin g-up and man- ufacturing of the wafer to be used on this ceremony were allowed her. This was granted : and when the priest had finished the consecration, she solemnly asked him if he firmly believed that the act of con- secration had transformed those elements into the real body of Christ? He replied there could not be the shadow of a doubt of it. ' Then,' said she, 1 1 am ready to swallow them if you will only set me the example, but must candidly inform you,' added she, l that before the miracle of transubstantiation ing that he Knew the value of this philosopher's time, and therefore he Requested him to express his candid opinion m the shortest manner. Unfortunately our tragedian had written the single word Fin at the bottom of his piece, and our merciless critic confined his whole criticism merely to scratching out the letter 71, thus Ft. Nevertheless "the tragedy did not deserve so severe a sentence; but the wit was too great a t smptation. L A C O ts . 439 had been performed on the consecrated host, tho principal ingredient in its composition was arsenic.' The monk did not deem it prudent to make a con- vert on such terms. Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, nei- ther are deceived ; since words that cost little, are exchanged for hopes that cost less. But we must be careful how Ave flatter fools too little, or wise men too much ; for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strong- est dose only to the tveakest patient. The truly great will bear even reproof, if truth support it, more patiently than flattery accompanied with false- hood; for, by venturing on the first, we pay a com- pliment to their heart, but by venturing on the second, we inflict an insult on their head. Two painters undertook a portrait of Hannibal ; one of them painted a full likeness of him, and gave him two eyes, whereas disease had deprived him of one ; the other painted him in profile, but with his blind side from the spectators. He severely reprimanded the first, but handsomely rewarded the second. Human life, according to Mandeville* and others vf his school, is a constant system of hypocrisy * If we were inclined to pun, after the manner of Swifr, jn the name of Mandeville, we might say that Mandeville wonder if the respective parties mutually mis under stood each other, since on these particular terms, each is his own lexicographer, and prefers his own etymologies to the industry of a Skinner, the real learning of a Junius, or the assumed authority of a Johnson ? Philosophy is a bully that talks very loud, when the danger is at a distance, but the moment she is hard pressed by the enemy, she is not to be found at her post, but leaves the brunt of the battle to bo borne by her humbler, but steadier comrade, Reli- gion, whom on all other occasions she affects to despise. There are many that despise half the world ; but if there be any that despise the whole of it. it is because the other half despises them. The man of pleasure should more properly be termed the man of pain ; like Diogenes, he pur- chases repentance at the highest price, and sells the richest reversion for the poorest reality Who for the most part are they, that would have all mankind look backwards instead of forwards, and regulate their conduct by things that have been done ? Those who are the most ignorant as to all things that are doing. Lord Bacon said, time is the greatest of innovators; he might also have said, the greatest of improvers ; and I like Madame de StaePs observation on this subject, quite as well as Lord Bacon's ; it is this : ' that past, which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on ?,r\ alteration of mS LACON. some past that went before it ;' and yet there are not a few grown children of the present day, that would blubber and pout at any attempt to deliver them from the petticoat government and apron- string security of their good great grandmother- — Antiquity. There is a hardihood of effrontery, which will, under many circumstances, supply the place of courage, as impudence has sometimes passed cur- rent for wit. Wilkes had much of the first, and Mirabeau of the second. He received challenge after challenge, but unlike Wilkes, he accepted none of them, and contented himself with merely noting down the names of the parties in his pocket- book. ' It is not fair/ he would say, 'that a man of talent, like myself, should be exposed to blockheads like these/ It would seem that he had argued himself into the same kind of self-importance with Rousseau, who came to this very disinterested conclusion, that it was incumbent upon him to take the utmost possible care of Jean Jacques for the good of society. We devote the activity of our youth to revelry, and the decrepitude of our age to repentance ; and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which, when living, we interdicted from the church. Charles Fox said that restorations were the most bloody of all revolutions ; and he might have added, that reformations are the best mode of preventing the necessity of either. LACON. 467 Some men will admit of only two sorts of excel- lence, that which they can equal, and what they term a still higher, that which they can surpass ; as to those efforts that beat them, they would deny the existence of such, rather than acknowledge their own defeat. They are dazzled by the rays of genius, and provoked at their inability to arrive at it ; therefore, like those idolators that live too far from the temple, they form and fashion out a little leaden image of their own, before which they fall down and worship. Age and love associate not ; if they are ever allied, the firmer the friendship, the more fatal is its termination ; and an old man, like a spider,* can never make love, without beating his own deathwatch. The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never : for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth, than from its abun- dance. Some writers, and even on subjects the most abstruse, write so as to be understood by others ; firstly, because they understand them- selves,and secondly, because they withhold nothing from the reader, but give him all that they them- selves possess. For I have before observed, that clear ideas are much more likely to produce clear expressions, than clear expressions are tQ call out * It may not be generally known that the male spider is supplied with a little bladder, somewhat similar to a drum, and that ticking noise which has been termed the death- watch, is nothing more than the sound he makes upon his little apparatus, m order to serenade and allure hismistrett. 4*8 L A C O N. clear ideas, but to minds of the highest order, these two things are reciprocally to each other, both cause and effect, producing an efficiency in mind, somewhat similar to momentum in machinery where the weight imparts continuation to the velo- city, and the velocity imparts power to the weight. In science, therefore, the whole truth must be told. The boldest political writer of the last century was once asked by a friend of his, a brother author in the bargain, how it happened that whatever came from his pen excited so great a sensation, and was instantly read by every one, ' whereas/ added his friend, ' when I write any thing no such effects are discernible.' 'Sir', said the former in reply, 4 if I were to take a shoe, and cut it longitudinally, into two equal parts, and then show one of the parts so cut, to a savage, and ask him what it was intended for, he would twist it and turn it about in all directions, and presently hand it back again to me, saying he was quite puzzled, and could not say for what it was meant ; but if I were to show the same savage the whole shoe, instead of the half one, he would instantly reply that it was meant for the foot. And this is the difference between you and me — you show people half the truth, and nobody knows what it is meant for ; but I show them the whole of the truth, and then every body knows that it is meant for the head? When articles rise, the consumer is the first that suffers, and w r hen they fall, he is the last that gains Bed* is a bundle of paradoxes : we go to it with * As a proof that indulgence in bed has a two-fold ten- dency to shorten life, I shall here observe thai Sir John l s o o 8 . 4m reluctance, yet we quit it with regret : and we make lip our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late. * Everte'rc Uoirrtis totas 'dpfanlvbus ipsix, DiifacrlttS Nothing is more frequent than the verification of this line ofihe satirist ; and our history is little more than an exemplification of the truth it contains. With toil and trouble, danger and difficulty, we pass our lives either in pursuing evil, under the semblance f the royal dame, he h^fl embraced a cloud, fraught with darkness LAC ON. 471 that eclipsed his glory, and thunders that destroyed his throne. The creature and the champion of a new order of things, when he deserted that cause, he was nothing ; suspected by his old associates, and despised by his new ones, he was wrong when he told an English nobleman at Elba, that he owed his downfall to one thing alone, ' that of having given kings credit for gratitude ;' a simpler cause might have been assigned, that of not having given Frenchmen credit for memory. That state of imperturbility affected by some of the ancients, and particularly by those of the school of Zeno, is more likely to make men stocks and stones, than saints or seraphs ; and to root hem more deeply in earth, rather than to exalt hem to heaven. For it is far more easy not to feel, •ban always to feel rightly, and not to act, than always to act well. He that is determined to ad- mire only that which is beautiful, imposes a much harder task upon himself, than he that being de- termined not to see that which is the contrary, effects it, by simply shutting his eyes. Are the interests of science best promoted by a monarch, who, like the fourteenth Louis, rewards the efforts of science without enjoying them, or by one who, like the second Charles, has taste to enjoy her efforts, but not liberality to reward them ? It is well when both the taste to appreciate, and the inclination to encourage, are united in a royal hend ; they form the brightest jewels in the dia* d« *i, each giving and receiving lustre from each. 472 L A Q O N . ' Vox Populi, Vox Dei.' The voice of the people is the voice of God. This axiom has mani- fold exceptions, and ' Populus vult decipi,^ is some- times much nearer the truth ; Horace was of the same opinion, when he extolled that inflexible integrity which w^as not to be influenced by the - < Civium ardor prava juhentium?\ The fury of the citizens insisting: on that which was wrr^g. But this voice of the people has not only been violent where it was wrong, but weak and inefficient where it w r as right ; for the million, though they are some- times as strong as Samson, are also as blind. It happens, that most of those great events, which have been pregnant with consequences of the highest import to aftertimes, have been carried not with the voice of the people, but against it ; they have been carried by active and enlightened minorities, having the means, in open contradiction to the will and the wishes of the majority. These political and moral whirlwinds, eventually produc- tive of good, have proceeded in direct opposition to the breath of public opinion, as thunderclouds against the wind. But to show the truth of the position stated above, that popular opinion has been but weak and inefficient, even when it was right, I might, without danger of being contradicted, affirm, that if heads could have been fairly counted. Socra- tes would not have been sacrificed in Athens, nor Charles in England, nor Lewis in France ; Rome would not have been deluged in blood by proscrip- tions at the instigation of a cruel triumvirate,, who met to sacrifice friendship at the shrine of revenge , * The people lovt to he deceived. — Pun. t The Jury of the. riot, ever demanding irhaf. t> v'ro?ig,—Tvu LACON. 473 neither would Paris have been disgraced by judi- cial murders, conducted by such a wretch as Robespierre, who had nothing brave about him but the boldness with which he believed in the want" of that quality in others. These things are, if possible, more degrading to the people that per- mit them, than to the parties that perform them, and that era which was termed the reign of terror, has been more fitly designated as ' the reign of cowardice? It has been asked whether we are in the dotage, or the infancy of science. A question that involves its own answer ; not in the infancy, because we have learnt much ; not in the dotage, because wa have much to learn. The fact is, we are in a highly progressive state of improvement; and it is astonishing, in how geometrical a ratio the march of knowledge proceeds. Each new discovery affords fresh light to guide us to the exploration of another, until all the dark corners of our ignorance are visited by the rays. Things apparently obscure, have ultimately illustrated even those that are obvi- ous ; thus the alchymist, in his very failures, has enlightened the chymist ; and the visionary astro- loger, though constantly false in his prophecies, as to those little events going on upon the earth, has enabled the astronomer truly to predict those great events that are taking place in the heavens. Thus it is that one experiment diffuses its sparks for the examination of a second, each assisting each, and all the whole. Discussion and invests gation are gradually accomplishing that for the intellectual light, which refraction and reflection have ever done for the solar ; and it is now neither 474 LiCON, hopeless nor extravagant to anticipate that glorious era, when truth herself shall have climbed the zenith of her meridian, and shall refresh the nations with her ' day-spring from on high J Nations will more readily part with the essen- tials, than with the forms of liberty ; and Napoleon might have died, an emperor in reality, if he had been contented to have lived a consul in name. Had Cromwell displayed his hankerings for royalty somewhat sooner than he did, it is not improbable that he would have survived his power. Mr. Pitt gained a supremacy in this country, which none of his predecessors dared to hope, and which none of his successors will, I trust, attempt to attain. For twenty years, he was ' de facto/ not 'de jure/ a king, But he was wise in his generation, and took care to confine the swelling stream of his ambition to channels that were constitutional; and with respect to the impurity, the filth, and the corruption of those channels, he trusted to the vast means he possessed of alarming the weak, blinding the acute, bribing the mercenary, and intimidating the bold : confiding his own individual security to that self- ishness inherent in our nature, which dictates to the most efficient mind, to have too much respect for itself to become a Catiline, and too little esteem for others to become a Cato. There was a short period in the Roman history when that nation enjoy- ed as much liberty as is compatible with the infirmi- ties of humanity. Their neighbours, the Athenians, had much of the form, but little of the substance of freedom ; disputers about this rich inheritance, rather than enjoyers of it, the Athenians treated liberty, as schismatics religion, where the true LACON. 475 benefits of both, have been respectively lost to each, by their rancorous contentions about them. It is a dangerous experiment to call in gratitude as an ally to love. Love is a debt, which inclina- tion always pays, obligation never ; and the mo- ment it becomes lukewarm and evanescent, remi- niscences on the score of gratitude serve only to smother the flame by increasing the fuel. Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength ; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crush- ed. The little animal that kills the Boa, is for- midable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist. It would be better for society if the memory of the giver were transferred to the receiver, and the oblivious forgetfulness of the obliged were con- signed to the breast of him that confers the obli- gation. The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the liauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable, only because they are old ; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream, would see nothing but the impurity of the source. But a government that is pure and paternal, confers the 476 LACON. highest value, even on the cheapest things, simply by the mode of bestowing them : while a govern- ment that is selfish and corrupt, renders the most precious things the most despicable, by a base and unworthy appropriation. The wearer of the mural wreath or civic crown, would feel degraded by an association with some that glitter in the golden garter or the diamond star. Cuperet lustrari, si qua darentur Sulphur a cum t&dis, et siforet humida laurusJ The covetous man reverses the principle on which iEsop chose his burthen, and oppresses him- self with a heavier load of provision the nearer he gets to the end of his journey. Magnanimity is incompatible with a very pro found respect for the opinions of others, on any occasion, and more particularly where they happen to stand between us and the truth. Had Jesus respected all the forms, usages, ceremonies, and tenets of his countrymen, there had been no redemption ; and had Luther been biassed by the opinions of his contemporaries, by the dogmas of synods, the creeds of councils, or the authority of titles, there had been no reformation. If you want enemies, excel others ; if you want friends, let others excel you. There is a dia- bolical trio, existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative, and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate. Pride, that makes us * He would desire a survey to be made, to see if torches and hrimstom could befovMd, and if the laurel wa* moist. — Pub. LACON. 477 fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess : Envy, that some should be admired, while we are overlooked ; and Hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum that we think due to ourselves. It is far more easy to pull down, than to build up, and to destroy than to preserve. Revolutions have on this account been falsely supposed to be fertile of great talent ; as the dregs rise to the top, during a fermentation, and the lightest things are carried highest by the whirlwind. And the prac- tice of this proposition bears out the theory ; for demagogues have succeeded tolerably well in mak- ing ruins; but the moment they begin to build anew from the materials that they have overthrown, they have often been uselessly employed with regard to others, and more often dangerously with regard to themselves. Fracta compage ruehani.'* Of present fame think little, and of future less. The praises that we receive after we are buried, like the posies that are strewn over our graves, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead ; the dead are gone, either to a place where they hear them not, or where, if they do, they will despise them. We strive as hard to hide our hearts from our- selves, as from others, and always with more suc- cess: for in deciding upon our own case, we are both judge, jury, and executioner ; and where * The bands hting broken the sfructurr. fell. — Pl"b. 478 I* A CON. sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second ; self-love is always ready to defeat the sen- tence by bribing the third ; a bribe that in this case is never refused, because she always comes up to the price. As large garrisons are most open to multifarious points of attack, and bloated bodies expose a large surface to the shafts of disease, so also unwieldy and overgrown establishments only afford an en- larged area for plunder and peculation. He whom many serve, will find that he must also serve many, or be himself disserved ; and the head of a large establishment is too often only the head of a gang of petty conspirators, who are eternally plotting against their chief. It has been considered a matter of the greater difficulty to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with the free agency of man. I shall venture a few remarks on this subject, which will be under- stood, I hope, by every one, and may be assented to perhaps by some. The difficulty of this ques- tion I humbly conceive to lie principally, if not wholly, in our misappropriation of the term fore- knowledge. The truth is, that foreknowledge belongs unto man, not unto God. Foreknowledge must of necessity, and from its very nature, belong solely to creatures of time, to finite and created intellects, but not to that intellect that is infinite, and creates. It is most probable that there are many orders and degrees of finite and created intellectual beings, and to all of them foreknow- ledge, in a higher or lower degree, may belong ; buf L A V u N , in we can trace it only in man ; in man it may be found under various modifications , but mostly in a very infantine and imperfect state, having much more to do with probabilities than with certainties, whether it enable the peasant to foretel a storm, or the philosopher an eclipse. Foreknowledge, there- fore, as it exists in man, can extend its views no farther into time, as compared with eternity, than the snail his horns into space, as compared with infinity. But to attribute the faculty of foreknow- ledge to God, this I conceive is to degrade rather than to exalt him : that which is past, and thai which is to come, are both to him one eternal now: he sees every thing, he foresees nothing, for futu- rity itself is present with him. Before or after; far or near, above or below, these are all intelligible terms, when applied to things created, and which exist in time and in space .; but the^e terms apply not to the omniscient, self^existent, eternal i and omnipresent Creator. To admit the omnipresence of God in space, but to deny his omniscience in time, is to half dethrone him. All ideas therefore of succession as to time, and of distance as to space, relate not unto God, but unto man. God is at once, 'first, last, midst, and without end ;' and time itself is but a drop in that ocean of eternity, which he alone both fills and comprehends. All things therefore are present to Him ; the motive no less than the moment, the action no less than the man. To a being that is omnipresent in time, all future actions may be looked upon as done : they are seen therefore because they are done, not done because they are seen ; and if this be true, it follows^ that foreknowledge, as applied to God, with its necessary deduction ; foreordination, as applied to LACON, man, with all its lame conclusions and libertifrg consequences, falls a baseless fabric to the ground. Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human know- edge, and the deeper we penetrate , the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of hose impor- tant things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built—time and space, life and death, matter arrd mind? Of matter and of mind, one philosopher has no less absurdly than irrefutably, proved the non-existence of the first, and thousands have attempted to prove the annihilation of the last. Common sense however punishes all depar- tures from her, by forcing those who rebel against her, into a desperate war with all facts and expe- rience, and into a civil war still more terrible, with each other and with themselves ; for We retain both our bodies and our souls, in spite of the skeptics, and find, 1 That parts destroyed diminish riot trie whole, Though Berkley take the body, Hume the soul.' But it is not to be wondered at, that those work men should blunder who know so little of their tools, and that untenable theories, should be the consequence of building by rules whose principles are erroneous, and with materials, whose proper- ties are not understand; for the tower of Babel is not the only monument of human pride, that has failed from human ignorance. Alas ! what is man ? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from en high, or whether he discard it, a frail and trem- bling creature ; standing on time, that Weak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, LAC ON. iSt &nd doubt, distrust, and conjecture still mors per- plexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going ; alas'! he has not the means : his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short. Nor is that little spot, his present state, due whit more intelligible, since it may prove -3 ffuicksand that may sink in a moment from his feet; it can afford him no certain reckoning, as to that immeasurable ocean that he may have traversed, or that still more formidable one that he must: an awful expedition, that is accelerated by every moment by which it is delayed. Neither is the outfit less gloomy or less forbidding than the voyage itself: the bark is a coffin. ; the destination,- darkness ; and the helmsman, death, Christianity has been emphatically termed the social religion* and society is the proper sphere of all its duties, as the ecliptic is of the sun. Society is a sphere that demands all our energies, and deserves all that it demands. He, therefore, that retires to cells and to caverns, to stripes and to famine, to court a more arduous conflict, and to win a richer crown, is doubly deceived; the conflict is less, the reward is nothing. He may indeed win a race-, if he can be admitted to have done so, who had no competitors, because he chose to run alone ; but he will be entitled *o no prize, because he ran Out of the course. * Who hath required this at your hands V This single question ought to have made the ascetic pause, before he weaved his horsehair, or platted his thong. — Alas ! how has the social and cheerful spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves at another ; by 482 LACON. the self-tormentors of the cell, or the all-tormentors of the conclave. In this enlightened age, we despise perhaps the absurdities of the one, and the atrocities of the other. The day is gone by when saints could post to paradise by the smack of their own whip, as if virtue, like beauty, were only skin- deep, and devotion, like a top, could not be kept up but by flogging ; as though the joys of heaven, like the comforts of an inn, required to be heightened by the privations of the journey, and the ruggedness of the road. But after we have laughed at these things, let us look a little seriously at ourselves. Are there no other words ending in ism, that are now creating as many self-tormentors as Catholicism has lost ? Are there no protestants who are their own popes ? and are there no dissenters from truth, as well as from error 1 Are there none whom Cal- vin has placed upon a spiritual pinnacle far more giddy and aspiring than the marble pillar of St. Simeon ? and are there none whom he torments with the scorpion-stings of a despair ten times more horrible than the whips of St. Dominic ; who have perhaps escaped the melancholy of madness, only by exchanging it for the presumption of pride ; denying that eternal mercy to others, of which they themselves also once despaired, as though that were a fountain that thirst could diminish, or num- ber exhaust? Warburton affirms that there never was a great conqueror, legislator, or founder of a religion, who had not a mixture of enthusiasm and policy in his composition : enthusiasm to influence the public mind, and policy to direct it. As I mean to con- **ie myself, in this article, to war and warriors, / LAC ON. 483 think it right to premise, that policy is a much more common ingredient, in such characters, than enthu- siasm. I admit, that in some particular idiosyn- crasies, as for instance in that of Cromwell, or of Mahomet, this heterogeneous mixture may have been combined ; but even then, these contradictory elements, like oil and vinegar, required a constant state of motion, and of action, to preserve their coalescence ; in a state of inaction, and of repose, it was no longer a union, but the policy invariably got the ascendency of the enthusiasm. William the Third, on the contrary, and Washington, united three great essentials, much more homogeneous than those insisted on by Warburton : courage, coolness, and conduct ; but enthusiasm is the last thing I should impute to either of these men. If we look into White's institutes of Tamerlane, or, more properly speaking, of Timour the lame, we shall find that there never was a character who had less to do with enthusiasm, than this Tartar hero, nor that despised it more. His whole progress was but one patient and persevering application of means to ends, causes to consequences, and effects to results. Without the slightest particle of any thing visionary or enthusiastic in himself, and with a certain quantum of contempt for these qualities in others, he commenced his career by being a lame driver of camels, and terminated it by reigning over twenty-six independent principalities. There- fore we must not take every thing for gospel that comes from the pen of such a writer as Warburton, who on one occasion shuddered at the skeptical doctrines of antiquity, as subversive of the estab tished gods of Athens I But to return to war, and warriors. There are some ideas afloat on this 4Si LAC ON. subject, that I cannot kelp conceiving tu be botk ruinous and wrong. I shall not despair of produ- cing my own convictions on this subject with that portion of my readers who think with mc, that every war of mere ambition, aggression, or aggran- dizement, is an evil both hateful and degrading ; who think it a nuisance that ought io be abated, and who abominate every thing appcjtainingHhereto, < >r connected there with . Considered in the abstract* and unconnected with all views of the causes for which it may be undertaken, surely war is an evil that none but a misanthrope could conscientiously rejoice in, or consistently promote. But all men think not thus ; there are minds, and powerful ones, too, endowed with a right feeling on every other subject, who seem to labour under some mental hallucination on this, in the first place,. I am so unfortunate as not to be able to discover those mar- vellous eiibrts of talent, gigantic combinations of power, and exuberant fertility of resource, which some would persuade us are essential to great commanders, and confined to them alone.* But * With the exception of Victor, Marmont, and Suchet, all the modern French generals have been men of no very splendid intellectual or adscititious endowments :the rudi- ments of all they know, they seemed to have gained in the ranks, and to have gleaned all their talents in the field wherein they were exerted. In one respect these men were superior to their masters; but it was on a point where courage was more prominent than talent ; they said to their soldiers: l Comc on;' their master sometimes contented him- self with saying: ' Go on .' Napoleon himself had great talent, and to deny him this \>ouldbe-a gross libel on mankind ; \x would be no less than an admission that all Europe had for fourteen years been outfought in the field, and outwitted 'm the cabinet, by a blockhead. But when we have allowed him talent, we have allowed him all that he •' l LACON. 485 setting aside the truism, that fortune, though blind, has often led the most sharpsighted hero to that victory which he would have lost without her, what qualities are there in a conqueror which have not been held in common by the captain of a smuggler's crew, or a chief of banditti ? The powers of these latter have been exhibited on a narrower stage, rewarded by a less illustrious exaltation, and recorded in a more inglorious calendar. With confess there is one thing that excites in me the greatest astonishment, which causes me to wonder with exceeding wonder, ^ityaXi^ Qavpari dayjAcrritypsvdsl and that is the cir- cumstance, that any lover of rational liberty, or constitu- tional freedom throughout the whole civilized world, should be found in the list of this man's admirers. To every thing connected with freedom he was the most systematic and deliberate foe that ever existed upon the face of the earth. Is T o human being was ever intrusted with such ample means and brilliant opportunities for establishing his own true glory and the solid happiness of others : and where can nistory point out one that so foully perverted them to his own disgrace, and the misery of his fellow-men ? He has been described by one who witnessed only the commencement of his career, as the 'child and champion of Jacobinism ;' but if he were the child of Jacobinism, he was the champion of despotism ; and those who wished to rivet the chains of slavery, chose a paradoxical mode of forwarding the work, by opposing the workman. This therefore is the man whom I cannot find it in my heart, either to pity or to praise. — Are we to praise him for that suicidal selfishness that dictated his treachery to Spain, and his march to Mos~ cow % Are we to pity him because, having ceased to be a field-officer, he could not begin to be a philosopher ; but having books to read, ample matter to reflect upon, men to talk to, women 'to trifle with, horses to ride, and equipages to command, he died at last of ennui upon a rock, from a cause not the most likely to excite the sympathy of the patriot nor the regret of "the philanthropist? it was this : that Europe would not supply him with any more throats to cut or provinces to plunder. 486 LACO N. some few exceptions, he is the ablest general that can practise the greatest deceit, and support it by the greatest violence ; who can best develop the designs of others, and best conceal his own ; who can best enact both parts of hypocrisy, by simula- ting to be what he is not and dissembling that which he is : persuading his adversary that he is most strong when he is most weak, and most weak when he is in fact most strong. He is not to be over scrupulous as to the justice of his cause, for might is his right and artillery his argument ; with the makeweight of courage thrown into the scale, there are few requisites for a Jonathan Wild or a Turpin, that are not equally necessary for a Tip- poo or a Tamerlane. The difference is less in the things than in the names. Thus, the callous effrontery of the one becomes the coolest presence of mind in the other ; fraud is dignified by the title of skill, and robbery with that of requisition. To plot the death of an individual, is a conspiracy, but to confederate to destroy a people, is a coalition ; and pillage and murder seem to lose their horrors, in precise proportion to the magnitude of their scale and the multitude of their victims. But a consum- mate captain must have courage, or at least be thought to have it. ; for courage, like charity, covers a multitude of sins : and he is by common consent allowed to sport with the lives of others, who is supposed to have no value for his own. But the time is fast approaching with the many, and now is with the few, when mere military talent, abstract- edly considered, and without any reference to the ends for which it be displayed, will hardly secure its possessor a glory more longlived than a gazette, or a metnoiiai more splendid than a signpost. The LACON. 4S7 fact is, that posterity has and will appreciate the merit of great commanders, not by the skill with which they have handled their tools, but by the uses to which they have applied them. Suppose we were to grant that the art of cutting throats- were a very difficult art, yet even then the merits of this art must be measured, not by its diffi- culty, but by its utility ; and the value of tlio remedy must be adjusted by the propriety o^ the application : but in resorting to . such a remedy as war, I suspect that it w T ill be found that all the difficulties of such phlebotomy belong to the patient, but the facilities to the surgeon. Mere martial glory, independent of all considerations as to the necessity and the justice of our arms, is now fast descending, with many other worn-out fooleries, to the tomb of all the Capulets, where, attended by bankrupt agents, disgorged contractors, and starving commissaries, let us pray that, with all due military honours, it may be speedily buried and embalmed ; let hireling poets indite its dirge, and meddling monks say masses for its soul. All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of the other states ; all wars of ambition, carried on for the pur- poses of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggres- sion, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions ; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base. First, there is the hypocrisy of encumbering our neighbour with an officiousness of help, that pre- tends his good, but means our own ; then there is the hypocrisy of ambition, where some restless and grasping potentate, knowing that he is about to 48$ L A C O JS ? , injure and insult, puts forth a Jesuitical preamble, purporting that he himself has been first insulted and injured ; but nations have the justest cause ta feel a fear that is real, when such begin to express a fear that is feigned. Then comes the hypocrisy" of those who would persuade us that to kill, burn, and destroy, for conscience's sake, is an acceptable service, and that religion is to be supported by trampling under foot those primary principles of love, charity, and forbearance, without which it were better to have none. Lastly, comes a minor and subordinate hypocrisy, common to the three kinds I have stated above ; I mean that of those who pretend most deeply to deplore the miseries of war, and who even weep over them, with the tears of the crocodile, but who will not put a stop to war, although they have the means, because they find their own private account in continuing it, from the emoluments it bestows and from the patronage it confers. Like Fabius, they also profit by delay, 1 cunctando restituere rem? but they do so with a very different motive, not to restore the shattered fortunes of their country, but their own. Neither must we forget, in this view of our subject, the raw and ignorant recruit, whom to delude and to kidnap, a whole system of fraud and hypocrisy is marshalled out and arrayed. The grim idol of war is tricked out and flounced in all the colours of the rainbow : the neighing steed awaits her nod, music attends her footsteps, and jollity caters at her board ; but no sooner is the sickle exchanged for the sword and the fell contract signed, than he finds that this Bellona, whom he had wooed as a goddess in court ship, turns out to be a demon in possession ; that LAC ON. 489 terror is hei constant purveyor, and that her alter- nate caterers are privation and waste ; that her sojourn is with the slain, and her abode with the pestilence ; that her fascinations are more fatal than those of the basilisk .; that her brightest smile is danger, and that her warmest embrace is death. We are told that civilization marches in the rear of conquest, and that barbarous nations have received this boon, at least, from the refined and polished blades of their victors. This argu- ment in favour of war may, I trust, be neutralized by the consideration that the strongest hands have not always been united to the brightest heads ; for the rudest nations have in their turn retaliated on the most refined ; and from a darkness more dense than that of Egypt, the thunderbolt of victory has been elicited, as the brightest lightning from the blackest cloud. Greece has twice surrendered her independence and liberties to masters, in every thing but force, far inferior to herself; the first treated her as a mistress, the second as a slave. imperial Rome* herself, in her high and palmy state, when in the proudest possession of all the arts of each Minerva, was doomed in her turn to be the prey of a sayage horde that despised both, and * 'No, freedom ! no, I will not tell How Rome, Ix.fore thy weeping face, With heaviest sound, a giant statue fell; Pushed, by a wild and artless race, From off its wide ambitious base : -When time his northern sons of spoil awoke, And every blended work of strength and grace, With many a rude repeated stroke, JLsid uvmy a savage yell, to thousand fragments broke. 1 CoHim's Ode to Freedom. 400 LAC ON. studied neither. But if the argument I am com bating ever had any force, it could only have been when knowledge was in its infancy and the world in its childhood. The general spread of civiliza- tion, by commerce, the sciences, and the arts — those legitimate daughters, not of war but of peace — not of the vulture, but of the halcyon — these are the blessings that will make the hardest advocate shrink from recommending warfare as a present instrument of civilization; particularly in an era that presents us with means far more grateful, ele- gant, and efficacious ; an era when we have the safety-lamp of science to resort to, a lamp that gives us all the light, but none of the conflagration. In fact, the demoralizing tendencies of war are so notorious, that to insist upon them would be to insult the understanding of my readers ; and to purchase refinement at the expense of virtue, would be to purchase tinsel at the price of gold. The most peace-loving minister that ever governed the affairs of a nation, decidedly declared, that even the most successful war often left a people more poor, always more profligate, than it found them Where a nation rises with one eoBsenfc to shake off the yoke of oppression, either from within or from without, all fair concessions having been proposed in vai?i, here indeed we have a motive that both dignifies the effort, and consecrates the success , here indeed the most peaceable sect of the most peaceable reli- gion might conscientiously combine. But, alas ! how few wars have been justified by such a princi- ple, and how few warriors by such a plea ; and when they have, how unfortunate have they usually been in the choice of their leaders ! in the motley mob Of conquerors and of captains, how few Wash LACON. 491 Ingtons or Alfreds shall we find ! The children of those days, when the world was young, rude as the times they lived in, and rash at once from igno- rance and from inexperience, amused themselves with the toys and the trumpets, the gewgaws and the glitter of war. But we who live in the maturity of things, who to the knowledge of the present add a retrospection of the past, we who alone can fairly be termed the ancients, or be said to live in the olden time ; we, I trust, are no longer to be deluded or befooled by this brilliant but baneful meteor, com- posed of visionary good, but of substantial evil. We live in the manhood and in the fulness of time, and the triumphs of truth and of reason, triumphs bright as bloodless ; these are the proper business and the boast of those who, having put away child- ish things, are becoming men. There are some that with oracular gravity will inform us, that as wars have ever been, they must on that account continue to be ; but they might as well assert that the imbecility and ignorance that marked the conduct of our forefathers, those ancient moderns, who lived in the infancy of the world, and in the childhood of time, must and do exist at present, because they existed then. With a solitary excep- tion, all vjarfare is built upon hypocrisy, acting upon ignorance; ignorance it was that lent success to Mahomet's miracles, and to Cromwell's cant. For lack of knowledge a people is destroyed ; and know- ledge alone it is that is worthy of holding the freest minds in the firmest thraldom. Unlike those of the warrior, the triumphs of knowledge derive all their lustre, not from the evil they have produced, but from the good ; her successes and her conquest are the common property of the world, and sue • j$2 LACU^ ceeding ages will be the watchful guardians of t\m rich legacies she bequeaths. The trophies and the titles of the conqueror are on the quick march to oblivion, and amid that desolation where they were planted, will decay. For what are the triumphs of War,* planned by ambition, executed by violence, and consummated by devastation ? the means are the sacrifice of the many ; the end, the bloated aggrandizement of the few. Knowledge has put a stop to chivalry, as she one day will to war, and Cervantes has laughed out of the held those self- constituted legislators that carried the sword, but not the scales of justice, and who were mounted and mailed. I am no advocate for a return of this state of things ; but when that heroic and chivalries spirit ivas abroad, when men volunteered on dan- gers for the good of others, without emolument, and laid down the sword when that for which they resorted to it was overcome, then indeed a measure * 'Speaking of the conqueror, the inspired writer observes* that 'before him the land is as the garden of Eden, behind him as the desolate wilderness;' and that poet who drank deepest of the sacred stream, has the following lines: — f They err who count it glorious to subdue By conquest far and wide, to overrun Large countries, and in field f reat battles win, Great cities by assault ; what do these worthies But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave Peaceable nations, neighbouring, or remote, Made captive, yet deserving fi eiulom more Than those their conquerors; who leave behind Nothing but ruin, whereso'eer tlu-y rove, And ail the flourishing works of peace destroy] Then swell in pride, and must be titled gods, Till conqueror Death discovei s them scarce men, Rolling in brutish vices and deformed, Violent or shameful death their due reward.' Millo/i LA CON. Ml ©f respect and admiration awaited them, end a feeling, honourable to both parties, was entertained. But is it not both absurd and ridiculous to transfer this respect and esteem to those who make a trade of warfare, and who barter for blood ? who are as indifferent as the sword they draw, to the purposes for which it is drawn, who put on the badge of a master, wear his livery, and receive his pay. Where all is mercenary, nothing can be magnani- mous ; and it is impossible to have the slightest respect for an animated mass of machinery, that moves alike at the voice of a drum, or a despot ; a trumpet, or a tyrant ; a fife, or a fool. THE END. IN !>EX. fcLtdmnk -.i] honours useful, when, Adversity and Prosperity, both ternpla" \dvice, - H to projectaps, fcgroement dangerous, when, Aericuilure the safest source of wealt ^rexauder makes a dislinctien not vvjt: Ambition, its evils, - 44 heirs iio rira! passion, - Analogy powerful, when, Aii-cer and Confluence, - ' like wine. Anticipations Foolish, whan, Antithesis, its relations to wit, Auiniai>. two very important ones, Antiquity, the Alma -Slater of pedants, A.neieitu compared with the moderns, Apprentice boy, Apostaey, goou excuse for it, atto.i, - ; Airieisjiii, lis ^surdities, AruustUh, his craft, Audiori'y pf ift*a£ names, Avaiio.-. why it increases with age A)iriM)e>i>, defcnete of it, A.^o'^u-': c«. pofausous, - Ac<.|-iiirc:nc : ' >. r\ con iite, rftocieut . is, a re mark ol his, Lion, • Aemiaimauce, two sorts", . ibip, A a vice. Antiqjtity and JLncestry, Absurdities, Apostles, three gEtfct ones, .iiiihro, - Ay j ai;d love, r 4t>re t? , its i-i [lie, \ a di^erenc Part its 1J2 sir s$ 99 173 ! c 230 235 £«» J "J9 2WS ?51 373 378 4115 496 INDEX. Battles not decisive, of what, Beauty perfect, when, - Benefits sometimes refined revenge, Bible and sword, - Bigotry, - - Bill drawn on futurity, Bodies more difficult to make up than minds, Books, Bravery of cowards, what. Britain, her resources a mystery to Napoieon, British Constitution, Benevolence, - Bodies Corporate, Books, kind most valuable, - Fas* - 141 J 37 95 35 19 193 - 197 - 149 234 240, 449 339 - 348 464 Celebrity, short road to it, - - - CO Characters, oddly contradictory, - - - 46 Church, schisms in it to be lamented, - • 221 Classification, - - - - — -160 Coat, shabby one, what few can afford to wear, - _ - J25 Code, civil, not likely to be mended, - - 68 Commentators, ----- 96 Common sense right without rules, - - 39 Contemporaneous applause, 19 Constitution cf mind, what fitest for a great man, - 47 Conceit differs from confidence, - - 55 Constellation of great men, - 131 .Conversation, a concert of mind, * 198 Conversion slow in India, - - - - 1 10 Country towns all alike, in what, ... 286 Cowardice most incorrigible, when., - " - 38 Coxcombs seldom alone, 55 Courtiers abused but courted, - - - 138 Cromwell, his narrow escape, - - - 199 Cunning differs from skill, - * - 55 Curse, a blessing in disguise, - 50 Coxcombs, grateful when, - Preface 13 Cuckoldom, - 309 Candour, - - - - - 311 Characters, ----- 339 Character of a people, • 350 Credulity, ----- 352 Courage, - - - - - - 350 Cause, a good one injured, - - - - Controversies, religious, - 372 Criticism, - ..„--• 384 Centuries, when of age, • - - 399 Codes, severe ones, - 403 Composition, • - 408 Coxcomb, ------ 420 Conversions, - - - - - 438 Calumny, - - ... 459 Consolation, selfish, - - - • - 462 Christianity, a social religion, ... 4^1 I \ D E X . 497 Pag* Da r ( o of J a. pa n , - £ t'S terrible, in what, ~ - - - 204 Debts give consequence, ...... jya Defeat polifie, when. £2 ^e^siidit nuaiems, an urvsafd rule, • . 3i Demagogues despotic, - - 191 .ion proceeds geometrically, preservation arithmetical'; , ls'» ]J t vhs iaugh, at whom, « - - - 'iil Dbfcnimt report* cdtravtdieTs, why, - - J V. J jrftfemina, an uwi: w#rd one, . - - . jsg pissi*nniatiou p»Hj«Jon>ib!fe, When, - _ - - t-j l&siuteresled gifts, what, - - - 49 $tispule>: begin at tms u rong" end, - - - 1*K»genos. why he u^d* a* laiK#£k, ... 37*; J^aVrdeYs, - - - - - - ?:r ad, --.--• 4#U| ft it, its cause. - - - - W i Hi* s, . 4V) j:eo ; a, a tvondoT, - 43*1 J^vril ai id trustees, - 938 }'e<'. ;>!ioiw a double, one, .... i;,;; D&faj-e, - • - - - -473 Ease in Myie not ■*?:.■■./, .... sjgfl KvCenUiriia -, ...... o:> Kffonss ■. Oj ■ . irded, when. - - - 203 • trd, - - - * : ^ - parts as wei! a-, bea.lt-, - - ibl KpV.ahetii. Queen, her lift ;, served, how, - - - p3$ Emulation, a sum not 01 *(jok£ - - - 1*25 Kmmi, its empire, .... \dj\ ]'::. uiasm, 2-1 6avy, ...... j»;r 3h-- iocs, the!} 1 (ensures does u> credit; - - 270 fJrror differs from upaorar.ee, - - - -17 frrot, one that, all cojnunt, all abuse, - - - 2&j rfons, little ones to be pardoned, rttien, - - - £31 listatc, a verv large one. and pays no lax, what, - ft) Events", how construed by enthusiasts, - - - 1V2 Evidence seldom, if ever appear* in a ecurt ^f jn^' ; cr. - 27S - - Eipcrfc ict ru d< ctcd, - '- - S 173 V2 * 498 INDEX. Evil, parturescent, Education of the lower orders, Epigram, Effects and causes, - England's four powers, - Education, female, - Early impression, Extemporaneous harangues, - Excellence, Enemies, how to get therm * 318 353 363 412 414 423 446 456 467 476 Falstaff, his soldiers feared but one thing, - Falsehood, like a perspective, Fame, an undertaker, Fanatics always inexorable, Fashion, - Female improvement, - Fear debilitates, - Fine houses, finest when, Flattery, adroit, when, - Fools formidable, why, Fortune not blind, why, - Forbidden things, Franklin, Doctor, Friends, more dilTicult to forgive than enemies, « Friendship, politic, when, Flatterv, - Flattery, cunning, = Fame, posthumous, • Fortune, a goddess, - Fame, a small fountain, Fools and rogues, «... Free press, - Fashion, its miseries, - French Revolution, - Flat catchers, - - - - Forms of liberty, --*-,# Foreknowledge, - Free agency, - S41 161 140 249 128 255 66 100 32 50 150 56 22 196 276 191 , 439 348 365 365 391 415 425 430 450 461 4-74 478 478 Gamesters, doubly ruined, how, - Glory, road to it, arduous, - God, on the side of virtue, God will excuse our prayers, when, Good unalloyed, a rare thing, Governments give national character, not climates, Great men, like comets, - Great men, where deceived. - Greatness, best appreciated by the greatest, Great men, seldom pitied, Gossipers, - Great minds, - . . * Gibbon, a mistake of his, Genius, --'--* 122 51 97 94 19 177 144 83 285 297 249 373 391 295 INDEX. 499 Grandfathers and Grandmothers, - Ghosts, - Gold-making, an art not desirable, Habit, Half measure, - Happiness, - Hatred differs from pity, in what, Head, the seat of contentment, Head of a parly, Heaven, the road to it too narrow for wheels, Hesitation, a weakness, - Honour differs from virtue, Hope, Horace, a sycophantic satirist, Human expietiveness, - Humility, - Hunter, John, - Hurry differs from dispatch, Hypocricy, Hypocrites, Hypocondriacs, die daily, Happiness, Hatred, a cause of it. Health, why not envied, Human ignorance, Idleness expensive, why, Ignorance, - Imitators of princes numerous, Ingratitude, Inequalities of life, real things, Intrigues of state, Injuries seldom pardoned, when, " with impunity. Ism, words ending in it, - Idleness, » Independence, - Immortality of the soul, Integrity, jealousy ,why so unsupportable, Jealousy, a hard task master, Jesuits, in their generation, • Jurisprudence, civil, Khan, of Tartary, - Kings, thGir highest wisdom, what, King of England interested in preserving the freedom Kings, theimoblest ambition, what, Kixgs, living ones, more flattered but less praisad than deserve, -■•»■-,» . 4U8 202 • 460 260 • 107 211 220 101 27 109 194 30 72, 375 201 61 258 218 55 91 32 • 139 369 . $93 458 . 480 59 17 > 121 262 20 260 37 41 213 312 .. 318 319 . 404 101 39 230 98P 44 of the press, 67 - 124 they • 253 500 INDEX. Knowledge, - " how attained, " tb 6 clearest the most simple, ICiiavery, a mistake about it, Labour, a good, Law and equity, Law and inns] Learned blunders, - L etters, laboured oni^, . Life, a theatre, " its ills, how to bear Idem, .Logic, .... Loudon audience, Love without jealousy, Love of power, Law and lawyers, Learning and wisdom, - Love, how to nafeke it, Love, a volcano, Love, its powers, Leyden, Doctor, an ode oi' his, Light, the best of reformers, - Ladies, Learned dunces, ... Lawyer, good excuse for a roguish one, Magnanimity, in a cottage, Man, a paradox, Many men neither bad, nor good, why, Man, both social and seiiish, Martyrdom, proves what, Matrimony Mattyrs, modem, scarce, Mathematics, ... Men. every where the same, - '* have two eyes, but one tongue, Means, great, seldom combined with great Memory, the friend of wit, Measures, if unpopular, how to carry' them Metals, omnipotent, where, Metaphysics, promise much, and perform lit' Mind, its existence proved by doubling it. Miracle, the greatest, Mis' ake, a royal one, .Money, well laid out. Motive*, differ often from pretexts, Mystery magnifies, - Memory, • ■-- - Marriage, a feast, Mistakes, common ones, Mystery, - Mythology, ancient. Mysteries, matters of faftk, 103, Pom 40 1J3 5* 50 189 101 ] &5 bl S(5 60 250 i«8 303 304 234 " ; - • §2 - -. *8 m 5*7 - * 1 * 70 neasures, - • 1L2 • * 292 tie, - • m - IS!2 - m 50 - - 154 - - •ISO * - an ■ 35a • - 350 . - 363 INDEX. 501 Middle classes, • Men, in masses, • • Men, who most proper, - Man, a dogmatizing animal, - Mal-gpvernment, - * Metaphysicians, - - • Morality, - Magnanimity, - Name in literature,, Nations, always as free as they deserve, Nature, works with few tools, Nature, no chasms in her operations, - Neutrality, no favourite with providence, Nothing should excite murmers, - Nonsense, puffed, - Necessary things, ... Nobility, Nations, free, only when they deserve it, • Opinions, when they may be changed without suspicion, Opponents best answered, how, - Opportunities often overlooked, Orators, pleaders seldom good ones. Opinions of the learned, Observations of Paschal, •Oratory, • Originality, • Passions, compared to pendulums, Patriots, modern, Pedantry, wrong by rules, Persecutors, often hypocrites. People, remarks on enlightening, Philip, King, .... Philosophy, a jack of all trades, Physiognomists, pickpockets the best, Physic, most despised by physicians, - Pitt, William, a neat manoeuvre of his, Plans, best executed, when, - Plagiarism, - Politic knave, • Poets, seldom original, Poor laws, - Posthumous charity, - Politics and personalities, Powerful friends may be too powerful to serve us, Prayer, a good one, • Profession, abused with safety, when, Pride, paradoxical, - Pride, miscalculates, ... Private vices public benefits^false, Prating coxcombs, • fag* 365 392 393 417 423 451 458 476 151 72 129 288 187 98 313 376 378, 475 424 67 80 39 283 311 319 420 460 233 108 39 123 230 236 123 207 179 202 61 254 21 120 243 181 264 249 117 42 124 95 152 54 m iu La* UiZ 3i£ %& 334 tyi 4wS 4&9 *33 434 447 477 Safety, if built on revenge, not safe, Skeptics, - Scotchmen, good gardeners, Secrecy, of design, - Secrets, who fondest of thoM, Srif-krve, aalratfted of Ik r ovfa nalfte. Sf |b9 h EC 6-1949 I N D E X . SOS Self-importance, a cure for it, ►sensibility, ... Singular, how to be so, .»-'•'. flight condescensions, Society, semi-civilized, rnoet hospitable, SRiftness of demeanour, suspicious, Sorrow for sin, effectual, when, - Statesmen, not to be envied, - Saints, .... Speeches, written, - Styjfs - Soil- know ledge, * Seduction • Statesmen, Systems, • Society, .... Slander, - Systems, of human conduct, - Society and Science, - T-;.ient, not always successful, Talent, histrionic, overpaid, ♦ • Talent, compared to treasures. Testimony, differs most materially from evidence) Theory, One but not firm, Threats, the loudest the most harmless, - Time, a paradox, ... Torture/perVerts the order of things, Travelling, Truth, powerful, even if defeated. Two kinds of men, succeed as public characters. Times present, abused, •'-'..- Truth, - Truth, portionless, ... Timotheus, when he demanded a double fee, Time assists poets, - Threats, fag* 236 78 215 22 851 81 169 54 300 304 307 £14 347 415 415 4.1 f 5 422 439 407 64 160 1GW 278 14?> 251 861 367 304 423 455 Unity of opinion, 379 Value, its criterion, "Vice, anicidiai, Vice has more martyrs than virtue, Villains, bad calculators, Virtue, without talent, - Vanity, differs from pride, Vanity, a consolatory thing, * 184 116 191 83 27 340 359 War, its evils, * a political drama, - M a losing game, What and who, their difference, • Wit captivates, why, 23 139 243 21 Q^ '-/% \\& /^V\> s JF ^^ % 0° f »' ', ^ G°- •Q-, '/, «S? ■** ^tf s $> ^ & F * ' s ■> 6- Q, *^.\ % .^ \> « T * » 'i Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. *> Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxicte ^ '/ , v s 1 Treatment Date: Dec. 2007 o5 Q. S^ ^ <*> ■; CV '/ . *.^ PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111