contested principles of fcience, yet fuffers perfecution from innumerable critics, whofe acrimony is excited merely by the pain of feeing others pleased, of hearing applaufes which another enjoys. The frequency of envy makes it fo familiar, that it efcapes our notice; nor do we often reflect upon its turpitude or malignity, till we happen to feel its influence. When he that has given no provocation to malice, but by attempting to excel in fome ufeful art, finds himself purfued by multitudes whom he never faw with implaca. bility of perfonal refentment; when he perceives clamour and malice let loofe upon him as a public enemy, and incited by every stratagem of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of his family, or the follies of his youth, exposed to the world; and every failure of conduct, or defect of nature, aggravated and ridiculed; he then learns to abhor thofe artifices at which he only laughed before, and difcovers how much the happiness of life would be advanced by the eradication of envy from the human heart. Envy is, indeed, a ftubborn weed of the mind, and feldom yields to the culture of philofophy. There are, however, confiderations, which, if carefully implanted, and diligently propagated, might in time overpower and reprefs it, fince no one can nurfe it for the fake of pleafure, as its effects are only fhame, anguish, and perturbation. It is, above all other vices, inconfiftent with the character of a focial being, because it facrifices truth and kindness to very weak temptations. He that plunders a wealthy neighbour, gains as much as he takes away, and improves his own condition, in the fame proportion as he impairs another's; but he that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be content with a fmall dividend of additional fame, so small as can afford very little confolation to balance the guilt by which it is obtained. I have hitherto avoided mentioning that dangerous and empirical morality, which cures one vice by means of another. But envy is fo bafe and deteftable, fo vile in its original, and fo pernicious in its effects, that the predominance of almoft any other quality is to be defired. It is one of thofe lawless enemies of fociety, against which poifoned arrows may honeftly be ufed. Let it therefore be conftantly remembered, that whoever envies another, confefies his fuperiority, and let thofe be re formed by their pride, who have loft their virtue. It is no flight aggravation of the injuries which envy incites, that they are committed against thofe who have given no intentional provocation; and that the fufferer is marked out for ruin, not becaufe he has failed in any duty, but be caufe he has dared to do more than was required. Almost every other crime is practifed by the help of fome quality which might have produced efteem or love, if it had been well employed; but envy is a more unmixed and genuine evil; it purfues a hateful end by defpicable means, and defires not fo much its own happiness as another's mifery. To avoid depravity like this, it is not neceffary that any one fhould aspire to heroism or fanctity; but only, that he fhould refolve not to quit the rank which nature affigns, and wish to maintain the dignity of a human being. § 46. Rambler. EPICURUS, a Review of his I believe you will find, my dear Hamilton, that Ariftotle is ftill to be preferred to Epicurus. The former made fome ufeful experiments and difcoveries, and was engaged in a real purfuit of knowledge, although his manner is much perplexed. The latter was full of vanity and ambition. He was an impofor, and only aimed at deceiving. He seemed not to believe the principles which he has afferted. He committed the government of all things to chance. His natural philofophy is abfurd. His moral philofophy wants its proper bafis, the fear of God. Monfieur Bayle, one of his warmeft advocates, is of this laft opinion, where he fays, On ne fauroit pas dire affez de bien de l'honnêteté de fes mœurs, ni affez de mal de fes opinions fur la religion. His general maxim, That happiness con fifted in pleasure, was too much unguarded, and muft lay a foundation of a moft deftructive practice: although, from his temper and conftitution, he made his life fufficiently pleasurable to himself, and agreeable to the rules of true philofophy. His fortune exempted him from care and folicitude; his valetudinarian habit of body from intemperance. He paffed the greatest part of his time in his garden, where he enjoyed all the elegant amufements of life. There he ftudied. There he taught his philofophy. This particular happy fitua tion greatly contributed to that tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. He had not, however, refolution fufficient to meet the gradual approaches of death, and wanted that conftancy which Sir William Temple afcribes to him: for in his last moments, when he found that his condition was defperate, he took fuch large draughts of wine, that he was abfolutely intoxicated and deprived of his fenfes; so that he died more like a bacchanal, than a philofopher. Orrery's Life of Swift. 947. Example, its Prevalence. Is it not Pliny, my lord, who fays, that the gentleft, he fhould have added the moft effectual, way of commanding, is by example? Mitius jubetur exemplo. The hartheft 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 example is not confined to thofe alone that pafs 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 discourses of Socrates. (But here by the way Seneca miftook; Socrates died two years according to fome, and four years according to others, before the birth of Ariftotle: and his mistake might come from the inaccuracy of those who collected for him; as Erafmus obferves, after Quintilian, in his judgment on Seneca.) But be this, which was fcarce worth a parenthefis, as it will, he adds, that Metrodorus, Hermachus, and Polyxenus, 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, citizens of Rome placed the images of their anceftors in the vestibules of their houfes; fo that whenever they went in or out, these venerable buitoes met their eyes, and recalled the glorious actions of the dead, to are the living, to excite them to imitate and even 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 fpirit of heroism was maintained through many ages of that commonwealth. Dangerous, when copied without Judgment. Peter of Medicis had involved himfelf in great difficulties, when those wars and calamities began which Lewis Sforza first drew on and entailed on Italy, by flattering the ambition of Charles the Eighth, in order to gratify his own, and calling the French into that country. Peter owed his diftrefs to his folly in departing from the general tenor of conduct his father Laurence had held, and hoped to relieve himfelf by imitating his father's example in one particular inftance. At a time when the wars with the Pope and king of Naples had reduced Laurence to circumftances of great danger, he took the refolution of going to Ferdinand, and of treating in perfon with that prince. The refolution appears in hiftory imprudent and almost desperate: were we informed of the secret reafons on which this great man acted, it would appear very poffibly a wife and safe measure, It fucceeded, and Laurence brought back with him public peace and private fecurity. When the French troops entered the dominions of Florence, Peter was ftruck with a panic terror, went to Charles the Eighth, put the port of Leghorn, the fortreffes of Pifa, and all the keys of the country into this prince's hands; whereby he disarmed the Florentine commonwealth, and ruined himself. He was deprived of his authority, and driven out of the city, by the just indignation of the magiftrates and people; and in the treaty which they made afterwards with the king of France, it was ftipulated that he should not remain within an hundred miles of the ftate, nor his brothers within the fame diftance of the city of Florence. On this occafion Guicciardin obferves, how dangerous it is to govern ourselves by particular examples; fince to have the fame fuccefs, we must have the fame prudence, and the fame fortune; and fince the example must not only answer the cafe before us in general, but in every minute circumstance. Bolingbroke. $48. Exile only an imaginary Evil. To live deprived of one's country is intolerable. Is it fo? How comes it then to pafs that fuch numbers of men live out of their countries by choice? Obferve how 314 the the streets of London and of Paris are crowded. Call over thofe millions by name, and afk them one by one, of what country they are: how many will you find, who from different parts of the earth come to inhabit thefe great cities, which afford the largest opportunities and the largest encouragement to virtue and vice? Some are drawn by ambition, and fome are fent by duty; many refort thither to improve their minds, and many to improve their fortunes; others bring their beauty, and others their eloquence to market. Remove from hence, and go to the utmost extremities of the Eaft or Weft: vifit the barbarous nations of Africa, or the inhospitable regions of the North; you will find no climate fo bad, no country fo favage, as not to have fome people who come from abroad, and inhabit thole by choice. Among numberlefs extravagances which pafs through the minds of men, we may justly reckon for one that notion of a fecret affection, independent of our reason, and fuperior to our reafon, which we are fuppofed to have for our country; as if there were fome phyfical virtue in every spot of ground, which neceffarily produced this effect in every one born upon it. Amor patriæ ratione valentior omni. This notion may have contributed to the fecurity and grandeur of flates. It has therefore been not unartfully cultivated, and the prejudice of education has been with care put on its fide. Men have come in this cafe, as in many others, from believing that it ought to be fo, to perfuade others, and even to believe themfelves that it is fo. Cannot hurt a reflecting Man. Whatever is beft is fafeft; lies out of the reach of human power; can neither be given nor taken away. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such is the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world, whereof it makes the nobleft part. These are infeparably ours, and as long as we remain in one, we fhall enjoy the other. Let us march therefore intrepidly wherever we are led by the courfe of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast foever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves abfolutely ftrangers. We fhail meet with men and women, creatures of the lame figure, endowed with the fame faculties, and born under the same laws of nature, We shall fee the fame virtues and vices, flowing from the fame principles, but varied in a thousand different and contrary modes, according to that infinite variety of laws and cuftoms which is established for the fame univerfal end, the prefervation of fociety. We fhall feel the fame revolution of feafons, and the fame fun and moon will guide the courfe of our year. The fame azure vault, befpangled with ftars, will be every where spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire thofe planets which roll, like ours, in different orbits round the fame central fun; from whence we may not discover an object still more ftupendous, that army of fixed ftars hung up in the immenfe space of the univerfe; innumerable funs, whole beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them: and whilst I am ravished by fuch contemplations as thefe, whilft my foul is thus raifed up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread upon. Bolingbroke. $49. The Love of Fame, I can by no means agree with you in thinking that the love of fame is a paffion, which either reafon or religion condemns. I confefs, indeed, there are fome who have reprefented it as inconfiftent with both; and I remember, in particular, the excellent author of The Religion of Nature delineated, has treated it as highly irrational and abfurd. As the paffage falls in fo thoroughly with your own turn of thought, you will have no objection, I imagine, to my quoting it at large and I give it you, at the fame time, as a very great authority on your fide. "In reality," fays that writer, the man is not known ever the more "to pofterity, because his name is tranf"mitted to them: He doth not live because "his name does. When it is faid, Julius "Cæfar fubdued Gaul, conquered Pompey, "&c. it is the fame thing as to fay, the "conqueror of Pompey was Julius Cæfar, "i. e. Cæfar and the conqueror of Pompey "is the fame thing; Cæfar is as much "known by one defignation as by the "other. The amount then is only this; "that the conqueror of Pompey conquer"ed Pompey; or rather, fince Pompey is "as little known now as Cæfar, fomebody "conquered fomebody. Such a poor bufi"nefs is this boafted immortality! and « fuch birth, is herself reprefented as rejoicing that all generations should call her bleed. To be convinced of the great advantage of cherishing this high regard to pofterity, this noble defire of an after-life in the breath of others, one need only look back upon the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans. What other principle was it, which produced that exalted ftrain of virtue in thofe days, that may well ferve as a model to thefe? Was it not the confentiens laus bonorum, the incorrupta vox bene judicantum (as Tully calls it) the concurrent approbation of the good, the uncorrupted applaufe of the wife, that animated their molt generous pursuits? fuch is the thing called glory among us! "To difcerning men this fame is mere air, "and what they defpife, if not thun." Bat furely "twere to confider too curiously," as Horatio fays to Hamlet, "to confider thus." For though fame with pofterity fhould be, in the frict analysis of it, no other than what it is here defcribed, a mere uninterefting propofition, amounting to nothing more than that fomebody acted meritoriously; yet it would not neceffarily follow, that true philofophy would banish the defire of it from the human breaft. For this paffion may be (as moft certainly it is) wifely implanted in our fpecies, notwithstanding the correfponding object fhould in reality be very different To confefs the truth, I have been ever from what it appears in imagination. Do inclined to think it a very dangerous atnot many of our most refined and even tempt, to endeavour to leffen the motives contemplative pleasures owe their existence of right conduct, or to raife any fufpicion to our mistakes? It is but extending (I concerning their folidity. The tempers will not fay, improving) fome of our fenfes and difpofitions of mankind are fo extremeto a higher degree of acuteness than we ly different, that it feems neceflary they now poffefs them, to make the fairest views fhould be called into action by a variety of of nature, or the nobleft productions of incitements. Thus, while fome are wilart, appear horrid and deformed. To feeling to wed virtue for her perfonal charms, things as they truly and in themselves are, would not always, perhaps, be of advan tage to us in the intellectual world, any more than in the natural. But, after all, who fhall certainly affure us, that the pleafure of virtuous fame dies with its poffeffor, and reaches not to a farther fcene of exiftence? There is nothing, it should seem, either abfurd or unphilofophical in fuppofing it poffible at least, that the praises of the good and the judicious, that fweeteft mufic to an honeft ear in this world, may be echoed back to the manfions of the next: that the poet's defcription of fame may be literally true, and though the walks upon earth, fhe may yet lift her head into heaven. But can it be reasonable to extinguish a paffion which nature has univerfally lighted up in the human breaft, and which we conantly find to burn with most strength and brightnefs in the nobleft and best formed bofoms? Accordingly revelation is fo far from endeavouring (as you fuppofe) to eradicate the feed which nature hath thus deeply planted, that the rather feems, on the contrary, to cherish and forward its growth. To be exalted with honour, and to be had in everlasting remembrance, are in the number of thofe encouragements which the Jewish difpenfation offered to the virtuous; as the perfon from whom the facred author of the Chriftian fyftem received his others are engaged to take her for the fake of her expected dowry: and fince her followers and admirers have fo little hopes from her in prefent, it were pity, methinks, to reafon them out of any imagined advantage in reversion. Fitzofborne's Letters. 50. Entbufiafm. Though I rejoice in the hope of feeing enthufiaim expelled from her religious do minions, let me intreat you to leave her in the undisturbed enjoyment of her civil poffeffions. To own the truth, I look upon enthufiafm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very neceffary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature feems to have marked with more or less ftrength in the tempers of moft men. No matter what the object is, whether bufinefs, pleasures, or the fine arts; whoever pursues them to any purpose muft do fo con amore: and inamoratos, you know, of every kind, are all enthufiafts. There is indeed a certain heightening faculty which univerfally prevails through our species; and we are all of us, perhaps in our feveral favourite purfuits, pretty much in the circumftances of the renowned knight of La Mancha, when he attacked the barber's brazen bason, for Mambrino's golden helmet. What is Tully's aliquid immensum infinitumque, finitumque, which he profeffes to afpire after in oratory, but a piece of true rhetorical Quixotifm? Yet never, I will venture to affirm, would he have glowed with fo much eloquence, had he been warmed with lefs enthufiafm. I am perfuaded indeed, that nothing great or glorious was ever performed, where this quality had not a principal concern; and as our paffions add vigour to our actions, enthusiasm gives fpirit to our paffions. I might add too, that it even opens and enlarges our capacities. Accordingly I have been informed, that one of the great lights of the prefent age never fits down to study, till he has raifed his imagination by the power of mufic. For this purpose he has a band of inftruments placed near his library, which play till he finds himself elevated to a proper height; upon which he gives a fignal, and they inftantly ceafe. But thofe high conceits which are fuggefted by enthufiafm, contribute not only to the pleasure and perfection of the fine arts, but to most other effects of our action and induftry. To strike this fpirit therefore out of the human conftitution, to reduce things to their precife philofophical ftandard, would be to check fome of the main wheels of fociety, and to fix half the world in an useless apathy. For if enthufiafm did not add an imaginary value to moft of the objects of our purfuit; if fancy did not give them their brighteft colours, they would generally perhaps, wear an appearance too contemptible to excite defire: Weary'd we should lie down in death, This cheat of life would take no more, PRIOR. about religion, in order to model our faith to the fashion of his lordship's fyftem. We have now nothing to do, but to throw away our bibles, turn the churches into theatres, and rejoice that an act of parliament now in force gives us an opportunity of getting rid of the clergy by tranfportation. I was in hopes the extraordinary price of these volumes would have confined their influence to perfons of quality. As they are placed above extreme indigence and abfolute want of bread, their loofe notions would have carried them no further than cheating at cards, or perhaps plundering their country: but if thefe opinions fpread among the vulgar, we shall be knocked down at noon-day in our streets, and nothing will go forward but robberies and murders. The inftances I have lately seen of freethinking in the lower part of the world, make me fear, they are going to be as fashionable and as wicked as their betters. I went the other night to the Robin Hood, where it is ufual for the advocates againft religion to affemble, and openly avow their infidelity. One of the questions for the night was, "Whether lord Bolingbroke had not done greater fervice to mankind by his writings, than the apostles or evangelifts?" As this fociety is chiefly com pofed of lawyers clerks, petty tradefmen, and the loweft mechanics, I was at firft furprized at fuch amazing erudition among them. Toland, Tindal, Collins, Chubb, and Mandeville, they feemed to have got by heart. A fhoe-maker harangued his five minutes upon the excellence of the tenets maintained by lord Bolingbroke: but I foon found that his reading had not been extended beyond the idea of a Patriot King, which he had miftaken for a glorious fyftem of free-thinking. I could not help fmiling at another of the company, who took pains to fhew his disbelief of the gofpel, by unfainting the apoftles, and calling them by no other title than plain Paul or plain Peter. The proceedings of this fociety have indeed almost induced me to with that (like the Roman Catholics) they were not permitted to read the bible, rather than they should read it only to abuse it. tradefmen fettling the most important arI have frequently heard many wife ticles of our faith over a pint of beer. A baker took occafion from Canning's affair to maintain, in oppofition to the fcriptures, that man might live by bread alone, at leaft that woman might; " for elfe," faid he, "how could the girl have been fup "ported |
