sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory; as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others those attempts which he neglects himself. Rambler, vol. 1. Excess of Virtue. It may be laid down as an axiom, that it is more easy to take away superfluities, than to supply defects; and therefore he that is culpable, because he has passed the middle point of virtue, is always accounted a fairer object of hope than he who fails by falling short; as rashness is more pardonable than cowardice, profusion than avarice. War. Ibid. As war is the extremity of evil, it is surely the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of an animal nature which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collected life, for which fire and the sword are the necessary remedies; but in what can skill or caution be better shown, than in preventing such dreadful operations, while there is room for gentler methods. Falkland Islands. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceives scarcely any alteration but an increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit; if he that bled in the battle grew rich by victory; he might show his gains without envy. But, at the conclusion of a long war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of pay-masters and agents, contractors and commissioners, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations? Ibid. That conduct which betrays designs of future hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indi rect injuries, without the or the security of peace. Wit. bravery of war, Falkland Islands. Wit, like every other power, has its boundaries. Its success depends on the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt. Rambler, vo.. 4. Wit being an unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; an effusion of wit, therefore, pre-supposes an accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose new assemblages. Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas; as many changes can never be rung upon a few bells. Wealth. Ibid. Some light might be given to those who shall endeavour to calculate the increase of English wealth, by observing that Lati mer, in the time of Edward VI., mentions it, as a proof of his father's prosperity, that, though but a y an, he gave his daughters five pounds each for her portion. At the latter end of Elizabeth, seven hundred pounds were such a temptation to courtship, as made all other motives suspected. Congreve makes twelve thousand pounds more than a counterbalance to the affectation of Belinda.-No poet would now fly his favourite character at less than fifty thousand. Notes upon Shakspeare vol 1 THE END. |