1 ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis difcernunt: plures. aliorum eventis docentur. Such is the imperfection of human understanding, fuch the frail temper of our minds, that abftract or general propofitions, though ever fo true, appear obfcure or doubtful to ús very often, till they are explained by examples ; : and that the wifeft leffons in favour of virtue go but a little way to convince the judgement, and determine the will, unless they are enforced by the fame means; and we are obliged to apply to ourfelves what we fee happen to other men. Inftructions by. precept have the further difadvantage of coming on the authority of others, and frequently require a long deduction of reasoning. Homines amplius oculis, quam auribus, credunt: Longum iter eft per præcepta, breve et efficax per exempla. The reafon of: this judgement, which I quote from one of Seneca's epiftles in confirmation of my own opinion, refts, I think, on this; that when examples are pointed out to us, there is a kind of appeal, with which we are flattered, made to our fenfes, as well as our understandings. The inftruction comes then upon our own authority: We frame the precept after our own experience, and yield to fact when we refift fpeculation. But this is not the only advantage of inftruction by example; for example appeals not to. our understanding alone, but to our paffions likewife. Example affuages thefe, or animates them ; fets paffion on the fide of judgement, and makes the whole man of a piece; which is more than the ftrongest reafoning and the cleareft demonftration can do: And thus forming habits by repetition, example fecures the obfervance of those precepts which example example infinuated. Is it not Pliny, my Lord, who fays, that the gentleft, he should have added the moft effectual, way of commanding, is by example? Mitius jubetur exemplo. The harshest orders are foftened by example, and tyranny itself becomes perfuafive. What pity it is that fo few princes have learned this way of commanding? But again: The force of examples is not confined to thofe alone, that pass immediately under our fight: The examples, that memory fuggefts, have the fame effect in their degree, and an habit of recalling them will foon produce the habit of imitating them. In the fame epiftle, from whence I cited a paffage juft now, Seneca fays that Cleanthes had never become fo perfect a copy of Zeno, if he had not paffed his life with him; that Plato, Ariftotle, and the other philofophers of that school, profited more by the example, than by the difcourfe of Socrates. [But here, by the way, Seneca miftook; for Socrates died two years according to fome, and four years according to others, before the birth of Ariftotle: And his miftake might come from the inaccuracy of those who collected for him; as Erafmus obferves, after Quintilian, in his judgement on Seneca.] But be this, which was scarce worth a parenthefis, as it will; he adds, that Metrodorus, Hermachus, and Polyænus, men of great note, were formed by living under the fame roof with Epicurus, not by frequenting his school. These are inftances of the force of immediate example. But your Lordship knows that the citizens of Rome placed the images of their ancestors in the vestibules of their houfes; fo that, whenever they went in or out, thefe venerable buftoes met their eyes, and recalled the glorious actions of the dead, to fire the living, to excite them to imitate, and even to emulate their great forefathers. The fuccefs answered the defign. The virtue of one generation was transfufed, by the magic of example, into several: And a spirit of heroism was maintained through many ages of that commonwealth. Now thefe are fo many inftances of the force of remote example; and from all thefe inftances we may con. clude, that examples of both kinds are neceffary. The school of example, my Lord, is the world: And the masters of this school are history and experience. I am far from contending that the former is preferable to the latter. I think upon the whole otherwife: But this I fay, that the former is abfolutely neceffary to prepare us for the latter, and to accompany us whilst we are under the difcipline of the latter, that is, through the whole courfe of our lives. No doubt fome few men may be quoted, to whom nature gave what art and industry can give to no man. But fuch examples will prove nothing against me, because I admit that the study of history, without experience, is infufficient; but affert, that experience itself is fo without genius. Genius is preferable to the other two; but I would wish to find the three together: For how great foever a genius may be, and how much foever he may acquire new light and heat, as, he proceeds in his rapid course, certain it is that he will never fhine with the full luftre, nor shed the full influence, he is capable of, unlefs to his own experience he adds the experience of other men and other ages. Genius, without the improvement, at leaft, of experience, is is what cométs once were thought to be, a blazing meteor, irregular in his courfe, and dangerous in his approach; of no ufe to any fyftem, and able to destroy any. Mere fons of earth, if they have experience without any knowledge of the hiftory of the world, are but half-scholars in the fcience of mankind. And if they are converfant in history without experience, they are worfe than ignorant; they are pedants, always incapable, fometimes meddling and prefuming. The man, who has all three, is an honour to his country, and a public bleffing: And fuch, I truft, your Lordship' will be in this century, as your great-grandfather was in the laft. I have infifted a little the longer on this head, and have made these diftinctions the rather, because tho' I attribute a great deal more, than many will be ready to allow, to the study of history; yet I would not willingly even feem to fall into the ridicule of afcribing to it fuch extravagant effects, as feveral have done, from Tully down to Cafaubon, La Mothe le Vayer, and other modern pedants. When Tully informs us, in the fecond book of his Tufculan difputations, that the first Scipio Africanus had always in his hands the works of Xenophon, he advances nothing but what is probable and reasonable. To fay nothing of the retreat of the ten thoufand, nor of other parts of Xenophon's writings; the images of virtue, represented in that admirable picture the Cyropædia, were proper to entertain a foul that was fraught with virtue, and Cyrus was worthy to be imitated by Scipio. So Selim emulated Cæfar, * Earl of Clarendon. VOL. I. B whofe whofe Commentaries were tranflated for his use against the customs of the Turks: So Cæfar emulated Alexander; and Alexander, Achilles. There is nothing ridiculous here, except the ufe that is made of this passage by those who quote it. But what the fame Tully fays, in the fourth book of his academical difputations, concerning Lucullus, feems to me very extraordinary. In Afiam fa&ius imperator venit; cum effet Roma profecus rei militaris rudis; [one would be ready to ascribe so sudden a change, and fo vaft an improvement, to nothing lefs than knowledge infufed by infpiration, if we were not affured in the fame place that they were effected by very natural means, by fuch as it is in every man's power to employ] partim percontando a peritis, fartim in rebus geftis legendis. Lucullus, according to this account, verified the reproach on the Roman nobility, which Salluft puts into the mouth of Marius. But as I difcover the paffion of Marius, and his prejudices to the patricians, in one cafe; fo I difcover, methinks, the cunning of Tully, and his partiality to himself, in the other. Lucullus, after he had been chofen conful, obtained by intrigue the government of Cilicia, and fo put himself into a fituation of commanding the Roman army against Mithridates: Tully had the fame government afterwards, and though he had no Mithridates, nor any other enemy of confequence, oppofed to him; tho' all his military feats confifted in furprizing and pillaging a parcel of highlanders and wild Cilicians; yet he affumed the airs of a conquerour, and defcribed his actions in fo pompous a ftyle, that the account becomes burlesque. He laughs, indeed, in one of his letters |