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to caft an eye upon it. Befides, my lord, when you faid he fold another man's works, you ought in juftice to have added that he bought them, which very much alters the cafe. What he gave him was five hundred pounds: his receipt can be produced to your lordhip. I dare not affirm he was as well paid as fome writers (much his inferiors) have been fince; but your lord. fhip will reflect that I am no man of quality, either to buy or fell fcribling fo high and that I have neither place, penfion, nor power to reward for fecret fervices. It cannot be, that one of your rank can have the leaft envy to fuch an author as I am; but, were that poffible, it were much better gratified by employing not your own, but fome of thofe low and ignoble pens to do you this mean office. I dare engage you'll have them for less than I gave Mr. Broom, if your friends have not raifed the mar ket. Let them drive the bargain for you, my lord; and you may depend on feeing, every day in the week, as many (and now and then as pretty) verfes, as thefe of your lordship.

And would it not be full as well, that my poor perfon fhould be abufed by them, as by one of your rank and quality? Cannot Curl do the fame ? nay, has he not done it before your lordship, in the fame kind of language, and almoft the fame words? I cannot but think, the worthy and difcreet clergyman himself will agree, it is improper, nay unchriftian, to expofe the perfonal defects of our brother; that both fuch perfect forms as yours, and fuch unfortunate ones as mine, proceed from the hand of the fame Maker, who fafhioneth his veffels as he pleafeth; and that it is not from their fhape we can tell whether they were made for honour or dishonour. In a word, he would teach you charity to your greatest enemies; of which number, my lord, I cannot be reckoned, fince, though a poet, I was never your flatterer.

Next, my lord, as to the obfcurity of my birth (a reflection copied alfo from Mr. Curl and his brethren) I am forry to be obliged to fuch a prefumption as to name my family in the fame leaf with your lordship's: but my father

had the honour, in one inftance, to refemble you, for he was a younger bro ther. He did not indeed think it a happiness to bury his elder brother, though he had one, who wanted fome of thofe good qualities which yours poffeft. How fincerely glad could I be, to pay to that young nobleman's memory the debt I owed to his friendfhip, whofe early death deprived your family of as much wit and honour as he left behind him in any branch of it! But as to my father, I could affure you, my lord, that he was no mechanic (neither a hatter, nor, which might please your lordship yet better, a cobler) but in truth, of a very tolerable family: and my mother of an ancient one, as well born and educated as that lady, whom your lordship made choice of to be the mother of your own children; whofe merit, beauty, and vivacity (if tranfmitted to your pofterity) will be a better present than even the noble blocd they derive only from you: a mother, on whom I was never obliged fo far to reflect, as to fay, fhe fpoiled me; and a father, who never found himself ob. liged to fay of me, that he difapproved my conduct. In a word, my lord, I think it enough, that my parents, fuch as they were, never coft me a blush; and that their fon, fuch as he is, never coft them a tear.

I have purpofely omitted to confider your lordship's criticifms on my poetry. As they are exactly the fame with thofe of the forementioned authors, I apprehend they would justly charge me with partiality, if I gave to you what belongs to them; or paid more diftinction to the fame things when they are in your mouth, than when they were in theirs. It will be fhewing both them and you (my lord) a more particular refpect, to obferve how much they are honoured by your imitation of them, which indeed is carried through your whole epiftle. I have read fomewhere at fchool (though I make it no vanity to have forgot where) that Tully naturalized a few phrafes at the inftance of fome of his friends. Your lordship has done more in honour of thefe gentlemen; you have authorized not only their affertions, but their ftyle. For

example,

example, A flow that wants fkill to reftrain its ardour,—a dictionary that gives us nothing at its own expence. As luxuriant branches bear but little fruit, fo wit unprun'd is but raw fruit -While you rehearfe ignorance, you still know enough to do it in verfe-Wits are but glittering ignorance.-The account of how we pafs our time-and, The weight on Sir R. W's brain. You can ever receive from no head more than fuch a head (as no head) has to give: your lordship would have faid never receive instead of ever, and any head inftead of no head. But all this is perfectly new, and has greatly enriched our language. Pope.

$46. The Death of Mr. GAY.

It is not a time to complain that you have not answered me two letters (in the laft of which I was impatient under fome fears) it is not now indeed a time to think of myself, when one of the nearest and longeft ties I have ever had is broken all on a fudden, by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever hurried him out of this life in three days. He died laft night at nine o'clock, not deprived of his fenfes entirely at laft, and poffeffing them perfectly till within five hours. He asked of you a few hours before, when in acute torment by the inflam mation in his bowels and breaft. His effects are in the Duke of Queensbury's cuftody. His fifters, we fuppofe, will be his heirs, who are two widows; as yet it is not known whether or no he left a will.-Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this ftage? In every friend we lofe, a part of ourfelves, and the beft part. God keep those we have left! Few are worth praying for, and one's felf the least of all.

I fhall never fee you now, I believe; one of your principal calls to England is at an end. Indeed he was the most amiable by far, his qualities were the gentleft; but I love you as well, and as firmly. Would to God the man we have loft had not been fo amiable, nor fo good! but that's a wish for our own fakes, not for his. Sure, if innocence

and integrity can deferve happiness, it must be his. Adieu! I can add nothing to what you will feel, and diminith nothing from it. Ibid.

$47. Envy.

Envy is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times, and in every place; the only paffion which can never lie quiet for want of irritation; its effects, therefore, are every where difcoverable, and its attempts always to be dreaded.

It is impoffible to mention a name, which any advantageous diftinction has made eminent, but fome latent animofity will burst out. The wealthy trader, however he may abstract himself from public affairs, will never want thofe who hint with Shylock, that ships are but boards, and that no man can properly be termed rich whofe fortune is at the mercy of the winds. The beauty adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence and modefty, provokes, whenever the appears, a thoufand murmurs of detraction, and whis pers of fufpicion. The genius, even when he endeavours only to entertain with pleafing images of nature, or inftruct by uncontested principles of fcience, yet fuffers perfecution from innumerable critics, whofe acrimony is excited merely by the pain of feeing others pleafed, 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 himfelf purfued by multitudes whom he never faw with implacability of perfonal refentment; when he perceives clamour and malice iet loofe upon him as a public enemy, and incited by every fratagem of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of his family, or the follies of his youth, expofed 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

Y y

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 care. fully implanted and diligently propagated, might in time overpower and reprefs it, fince no one can nurse it for the fake of pleasure, 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 kind. nefs 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 blafts a flourishing reputation, must be content with a fmall dividend of additional fame, fo fmall as can af. ford 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 deteft. "able, fo vile in its original, and fo per. nicious in its effects, that the predominance of almost any other quality is to be defired. It is one of thofe lawless enemies of fociety, against which poifoned arrows, may honeftly be used. Let it therefore be conftantly remembered, that whoever envies another, confeffes his fuperiority, and let thofe be reformed 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 because he has failed in any duty, but because 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 nd defires not fo much its own

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I believe you will find, my dear Hamilton, that Ariftotle is it 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 va nity and ambition. He was an impoftor, and only aimed at deceiving. He feemed 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 confifted in pleasure, was too much unguarded, and mult lay a foundation of a most deftructive practice: although, from his temper and conftitution, he made his life fufficiently pleafurable 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 fituation greatly con tributed 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 al was abfolutely intoxi

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cated and deprived of his fenfes; fo
that he died more like a bacchanal,
than a philofopher.
Orrery's Life of Swift.'

$49. Example, its Prevalence,

Is it not Pliny, my lord, who fays, that the gentleft, he should have added the most effectual, way of commanding is by example? Mitius jubetur exemplo, The harfheft 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 ex, ample 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 epistle 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 fchool, profited more by the example than by the difcourfes 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 Polyxe nus, men of great note, were formed by living under the fame roof with Epicurus, not by frequenting his fchool, Thefe are inftances of the force of immediate example. But your lordship knows, citizens of Rome placed the images of their ancestors in the vefti bules of their houfes; fo that when, ever they went in or out, these venerable buftoes met their eyes, and recalled the glorious actions of the dead, to fire 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 exam.
ple, into feveral and a fpirit of hero-
ifm was maintained through many ages
of that commonwealth.

Dangerous, auben copied without
Judgment,

Peter of Medicis had involved him. felf 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 distress to his folly in departing from the general tenor of conduct his father Laurence had held, and hoped to relieve himself by imitating his father's example in one particular instance. 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 hif tory imprudent and almost defperate; were we informed of the fecret reafons on which this great man afted, it would appear very poffibly a wife and fafe meafure. It fucceeded, and Lau, rence 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 difarmed the Florentine commonwealth, and ruined himself, He was deprived of his authority, and driven out of the city, by the jutt indignation of the magiftrates and people; and in the treaty which they made afterwards with the king of France, it was fipulated that he thould not remain within an hundred miles of the ftate, nor his brothers within the fame distance 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 Yy4

the

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To live deprived of one's country is intolerable. Is it fo? How comes it then to pass that fuch numbers of men live out of their countries by choice? Obferve how the streets of London and of Paris are crowded. Call over those 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 these 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 cloquence to market. Remove from hence, and go to the utmost extremities of the Eaft or Weft: vifit the barbarous nations of Africa, or the inhofpitable 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 those by choice.

Among numberless extravagances which pals through the minds of men, we may juftly 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 fpot 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 themselves that it is fo.

Cannot burt 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. Thefe 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 course of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coaft foever we are thrown by them, we fhall not find ourselves abfolutely ftrangers. We fhall meet with men and women, creatures of the fame figure, endowed with the fame faculties, and born under the fame laws of nature.

We fhall fee the fame virtues and

vices, flowing from the fame principles, but varied in a thoufand different and contrary modes, according to that infinite variety of laws and cuftoms which is eftablished 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 fpread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire thofe pla nets which roll, like ours, in different orbits round the fame central fun; from whence we may not difcover an object ftill more ftupendous, that army of fixed ftars hung up in the immenfe fpace of the univerfe; innumerable funs, whofe beams enlighten and che rifh the unknown worlds which roll around them and whilst I am ravished by fuch contemplations as thefe, whilft my foul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread Ibid.

upon.

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