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tion greatly contributed to that tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. He had not, however, resolution sufficient to meet the gradual approaches of death, and wanted that constancy which Sir William Temple ascribes to him: for in his last moments, when he found that his condition was desperate, he took such large draughts of wine, that he was absolutely intoxicated and deprived of his senses; so that he died more like a bacchanal than a philosopher. Orrery's Life of Swift.

§ 47. Example, its Prevalence. Is it not Pliny, my lord, who says, that the gentlest, he should have added the most effectual way of commanding, is by example? Mitius jubetur exemplo. The harshest orders are softened by example, and tyranny itself becomes persuasive. What pity it is that so few princes have learned this way of commanding! But again; the force of example is not confined to those alone that pass immediately under our sight: the examples that memory suggests have the same effect in their degree, and an habit of recalling them will soon produce the habit of imitating them. In the same epistle from whence I cited a passage just now, Seneca says, that Cleanthes had never become so perfect a copy of Zeno, if he had not passed his life with him; that Plato, Aristotle, and the other philosophers of that school, profited more by the example than by the discourses of Socrates. (But here, by the way, Seneca mistook; Socrates died two years according to some, and four years according to others, before the birth of Aristotle; and his mistake might come from the inaccuracy of those who collected for him; as Erasmus observes, after Quintilian, in his judgment on Seneca.) But be this, which was scarce worth a parenthesis, as it will, he adds, that Metrodorus, Hermachus, and Polyxenus, men of great note, were formed by living under the same roof with Epicurus, not by frequenting his school. These are instances of the force of immediate example. But your lordship knows, citizens of Rome placed the images of their ancestors in the vestibules of their houses; so that whenever they went in or out, these venerable bustoes 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 success answered the design. The

virtue of one generation was transfused, by the magic of example, into several: and a spirit of heroism was maintained through many ages of that commonwealth.

Dangerous, when copied without Judgment.

Peter of Medicis had involved himself 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 circumstances of great danger, he took the resolution of going to Ferdinand, and of treating in person with that prince. The resolution appears in history imprudent and almost desperate:

were we informed of the secret reasons on which this great man acted, it would appear very possibly a wise and safe measure, It succeeded, and Laurence brought back with him public peace and private security. When the French troops entered the dominions of Florence, Peter was struck with a

panic terror, went to Charles the Eighth, put the port of Leghorn, the fortresses of Pisa, 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 magistrates and people; and in the treaty which they made after. wards with the king of France, it was stipulated that he should not remain within an hundred miles of the state, nor his brothers within the same distance of the city of Florence. On this occasion Guicciardini observes how dangerous it is to govern ourselves by particular examples; since to have the same success, we must have the same prudence, and the same fortune; and since the example must not only answer the case before us in general, but in every minute circumstance. Bolingbroke,

48. Exile only an imaginary Evil. To live deprived of one's country is in tolerable. Is it so? How comes it then to pass that such numbers of men live out

of their countries by choice? Observe how

the

the streets of London and of Paris are crowded. Call over those millions by name, and ask 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 some are sent by duty; many resort 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 East or West; visit the barbarous nations of Africa, or the inhospitable regions of the North, you will find no climate so bad, no country so savage, as not to have some people who come from abroad, and inhabit those by choice.

Among numberless extravagances which pass through the minds of men, we may justly reckon for one that notion of a secret affection, independent of our reason, and superior to our reason, which we are supposed to have for our country; as if there were some physical virtue in every spot of ground, which necessarily produced this effect in every one born upon it.

Amor patriæ ratione valentior omni. This notion may have contributed to the security and grandeur of states. It has therefore been not unartfully cultivated, and the prejudice of education has been with care put on its side. Men have come in this case, as in many others, from believing that it ought to be so, to persuade others, and even to believe themselves that it is so.

Cannot hurt a reflecting Man.

Whatever is best is safest; 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 noblest part. These are inseperably ours, and as long as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. Let us march therefore intrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall meet with men and women, creatures of the same figure, endowed with the same

faculties, and born under the same laws of nature.

Weshall see the same virtues and vices, flowing from the same principles, but varied in a thousand different and contrary modes, according to that infinite variety of laws, and customs which is established for the same universal end, the preservation of society. We shall feel the same revolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon will guide the course of our year. The same azure vault bespangled with stars, will be every where spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, in different orbs round the same central sun; from whence we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe; innumerable suns, whose beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them: and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my soul is thus raised 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 passion which either reason or religion condemns. I confess, indeed, there are some who have represented it as inconsistent with both; and I remember, in particular, the excelle author of The Religion of Nature delineated, has treated it as highly irrational and absurd. As the passage falls in so 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 same time, as a very great authority on yourside. "In reality," says that writer, "the man is not known ever the mor "to posterity, because his name is trat "mitted to them: He doth not live because "his name does. When it is said, Jul "Cæsar subdued Gaul, conquered Pon

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"such is the thing called glory among us! "To discerning men this fame is mere air; "and what they despise, if not shun." But surely "twere to consider too curiously," as Horatio says to Hamlet, "to consider thus." For though fame with posterity should be, in the strict analysis of it, no other than what it is here described, a mere uninteresting proposition amounting to nothing more than that somebody acted meritoriously; yet it would not necessarily follow, that true philosophy would banish the desire of it from the human breast. For this passion may be (as most certainly it is) wisely implanted in our species, notwithstanding the corresponding object should in reality be very different from what it appears in imagination. Do not many of our most refined and even contemplative pleasures owe their existence to our mistakes? It is but extending (I will not say, improving) some of our senses to a higher degree of acuteness than we now possess them, to make the fairest views of nature, or the noblest productions of art, appear horrid and deformed. To see things as they truly and in themselves are, would not always, perhaps, be of advantage to us in the intellectual world, any more than in the natural. But, after all, who shall certainly assure us, that the pleasure of virtuous famedies with its possessor, and reaches not to a farther scene of existence? There is nothing, it should seem, either absurd or unphilosophical in suppos ing it possible at least, that the praises of the good and the judicious, that sweetest music to an honest ear in this world, may be echoed back to the mansions of the next: that the poet's description of fame may be literally true, and though she walks upon earth, she may yet lift her head into heaven.

But can it be reasonable to extinguish a passion which nature has universally lighted up in the human breast, and which we constantly find to burn with most strength and brightness in the noblest and best formed bosoms? Accordingly revelation is so far, from endeavouring (as you suppose) to eradicate the seed which nature hath thus deeply planted, that she rather seems, 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 those encouragements which the Jewish dispensation offered to the virtuous; as the person from whom the sacred auther of the Christian system received his

birth, is herself represented as rejoicing that all generations should call her blessed.

To be convinced of the great advantage of cherishing this high regard to posterity, this noble desire of an after-life in the breath of others, one need only look back upon the history of the ancient Grecks and Romans. What other principle was it, which produced that exalted strain of virtue in those days, that may well serve as a model to these? Was it not the consentiens laus bonorum, the incorrupta vox bene ju» dicantum (as Tully calls it), the concur rent approbation of the good, the uncor rupted applause of the wise, that animated their most generous pursuits?

To confess the truth, I have been ever inclined to think it a very dangerous at tempt, to endeavour to lessen the motives of right conduct, or to raise any suspicion concerning their solidity. The temper and dispositions of mankind are so extremely different, that it seems necessary they should be called into action by a variety of incitements. Thus, while some are willing to wed virtue for her personal charms, others are engaged to take her for the sake of her expected dowry; and since her followers and admirers have so little hopes from her in present, it were pity, me thinks, to reason them out of any imagin ed advantage in reversion.

Fitzosborne's Letters.

§ 50. Enthusiasm. Though I rejoice in the hope of secing enthusiasm expelled from her religious dominions, let me intreat you to leave her in the undisturbed enjoyment of her civil possessions. To own the truth, I look upon enthusiasm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very necessary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature seems to have marked with more or less strength in the tempers of most men. No matter what the object is, whether business, pleasures, or the fine arts; whoever pursues them to any purpose must do so con amore: and inamoratos, you know, of every kind, are all enthusiasts. There is indeed a certain heightening faculty which universally prevails through our species; and we are all of us, perhaps in our seve ral favourable pursuits, pretty much in the circumstances 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,

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finitumque,which he professes to aspire after in oratory, but a piece of true rhetorical Quixotism? Yet never, I will venture to affirm, would he have glowed with so much eloquence, had he been warmed with less enthusiasm. I am persuaded, indeed, that nothing great or glorious was ever performed, where this quality had not a principal concern; and as our passions add vigour to our actions, enthusiasm gives spirit to our passions. 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 present age never sits down to study, till he has raised his imagination by the power of music. For this purpose he has a band of instruments placed near his library, which play till he finds himself elevated to a proper height; upon which he gives a signal, and they instantly cease.

But those high conceits which are suggested by enthusiasm, contribute not only to the pleasure and perfection of the fine arts, but to most other effects of our action and industry. To strike this spirit therefore out of the human constitution, to reduce things to their precise philosophical standard, would be to check some of the main wheels of society, and to fix half the world in an useless apathy. For if enthusiasm did not add an imaginary value to most of the objects of our pursuit; if fancy did not give them their brightest colours, they would generally, perhaps, wear an appearance too contemptible to excite desire;

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In a word this enthusiasm for which I am pleading, is a beneficent enchantress, who never exerts her magic but to our advantage, and only deals about her friendly spells in order to raise imaginary beauties, or to improve real ones. The worst that ean be said of her is, that she is a kind deceiver, and an obliging flatterer.

Fitzosborne's Letters.

$51. Free-thinking, the various Abuses committed by the Vulgar in this Point. The publication of lord Bolingbroke's posthumous works has given new life and spirit to free-thinking. We seem at present to be endeavouring to unlearn our catechism, with all that we have been taught

about religion, in order to model our faith to the fashion of his lordship's system. 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 transportation. I was in hopes the extraordinary price of these volumes would have confined their infiuence to persons of quality. As they are placed above extreme indigence and abs lute want of bread, their loose notions would have carried them no further than cheating at cards, or perhaps plundering their coun try; but if these opinions spread among the vulgar, we shall be knocked down at noon-day in our streets, and nothing will go forward but robberies and murders.

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The instances I have lately seen of treethinking in the lower part of the work, make me fear they are going to be as fasionable and as wicked as their betters. I went the other night to the Robin Hood, where it is usual for the advocates agust religion to assemble, and openly avow theat infidelity. One of the questions for the night was "Whether lord Bolingbruk had not done greater service to mankind by his writings, than the apostles or eva gelists?" As this society is chiefly com posed of lawyers' clerks, petty tradesmer, and the lowest mechanics, I was at first surprized at such amazing erudition amorg them. Toland, Tindal, Collins, Chut, and Mandeville, they seemed to have got by heart. A shoe-maker harangued us five minutes upon the excellence of the tenets maintained by lord Bolingbroke: but I soon found that his reading had not been extended beyond the idea of a Pard King, which he had mistaken fora glories system of free-thinking. I could not be smiling at another of the company, who took pains to shew his disbelief of the g pel, by unsainting the apostles, and calling them by no other title than plain Pat plain Peter. The proceedings of this s ciety have indeed almost induced me to wish that (like the Roman Catholics) they were not permitted to read the bible, rather than they should read it only to abuse it

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tradesmen settling the most important I have frequently heard many w ticles of our faith over a pint of beer. A baker took occasion, from Canning's ada to maintain in opposition to the scriptures that man might live by bread alone, least that woman might; " for clse," said hc," how could the girl have been sup

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*ported for a whole month by a few hard "crusts?" In answer to this, a barbersurgeon set forth the improbability of that story; and thence inferred, that it was impossible for our Saviour to have fasted forty days in the wilderness. I lately heard a midshipman swear that the bible was all a lie: for he had sailed round the world with lord Anson, and if there had been any Red Sea, he must have met with it. I know a bricklayer, who, while he was working by line and rule, and carefully laying one brick upon another, would argue with a fellow-labourer that the world was made by chance; and a cook, who thought more of his trade than his bible, in a dispute concerning the miracles, made a pleasant mistake about the nature of the first, and gravely asked his antagonist what he thought of the supper at Cana.

This affectation of free-thinking among the lower class of people, is at present happily confined to the men. On Sundays, while the husbands are toping at the ale house, the good women, their wives, think it their duty to go to church, say their prayers, bring home the text, and hear the children their catechism. But our polite ladies are, I fear, in their lives and conversations, little better than free-thinkers. Going to church, since it is now no longer the fashion to carry on intrigues there, is almost wholly laid aside: And I verily believe, that nothing but another earthquake can fill the churches with people of quality. The fair sex in general are too thoughtless 0 concern themselves in deep inquiries nto matters of religion. It is sufficient, hat they are taught to believe themselves ingels. It would therefore be an ill comB-pliment, while we talk of the heaven they estow, to persuade them into the Mahonetan notion, that they have no souls: hough perhaps our fine gentlemen may magine, that by convincing a lady that he has no soul, she will be less scrupulous bout the disposal of her body.

The ridiculous notions maintained by ree-thinkers in their writings, scarce deerve a serious refutation; and perhaps the est method of answering them would be o select from their works all the absurd and impracticable notions which they so tiffly maintain in order to evade the belief f the christian religion. I shall here hrow together a few of their principal teets, under the contradictory title of

matter is God, and God is matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or no.

I believe also, that the world was not made; that the world made itself; that it had no beginning; that it will last for ever, world without end.

I believe that a man is a beast, that the soul is the body, and the body is the soul; and that after death there is neither body nor soul.

I believe that there is no religion; that natural religion is the only religion; and that all religion is unnatural.

I believe not in Moses; I believe in the first philosophy; I believe not the evange lists; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, Morgan, Mandeville, Woolston, Hobbes, Shaftesbury; I believe in lord Bolingbroke; I believe not St. Paul.

I believe not revelation; I believe in tradition; I believe in the talmud; I believe in the alcoran; I believe not the bible; I believe in Socrates; I believe in Confucius; I believe in Sanconiathon ; I believe in Mahomet; I believe not in Christ.

Lastly, I believe in all unbelief.
Connoisseur.

$52. Fortune not to be trusted.

The sudden invasion of an enemy over? throws such as are not on their guard; but they who foresee the war, and prepare themselves for it before it breaks out, stand without difficulty the first and the fiercest onset. I learned this important lesson long ago, and never trusted to fortune even while she seemed to be at peace with me. The riches, the honours, the reputation, and all the advantages which her treache rous indulgence poured upon me, I placed so that she might snatch them away without giving me any disturbance. I kept a great interval between me and them. She took them, but she could not tear them from me. No man suffers by bad fortune, but he who has been deceived by good. If we grow fond of her gifts, fancy that they belong to us, and are perpetually to remain with us; if we lean upon them and expect to be considered for them, we shall sink into all the bitterness of grief, as soon as these false and transitory benefits pass away, as soon as our vain and childish minds, unfraught with solid pleasures, be

come destitute even of those which are imaginary. But if we do not suffer our. selves to be transported with prosperity, I believe that there is no God, but that neither shall we be reduced by adversity.

The Unbeliever's Creed.

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