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LXXII.

JUDGING OF MEN.

PROFESSOR Stewart has said, that without the union of the two powers of reflection and observation, the study of man can never be prosecuted with success. Certainly not. Without these, men are seen only as shadows, sketched upon walls through the medium of a magic lantern; or as reflections on the ripplings of waters. And here it is necessary to remember, that, in magnifying or diminishing objects, we are compelled to the necessity of magnifying or diminishing the medium, also, through which they are seen. It is important, too, to remember, that virtues are more simple and clearer to be observed than crimes or vices; since virtues reflect with less complication, and bear tests with steadier endurance; as fixed stars of a blue character best bear the illumination of a telescope. We may also make another remark; viz., that those, who have been some time in solitude, frequently judge men better than those who are continually moving in the circle of life; as those, who have been some time in the dark, see better in the dark than those, who have but recently come out of the light.

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Some one has observed, that the book of nature is open to all; and that in her pages there are no new readings.' This is not true; since every reading depends upon the person that is reads. Every thing in nature is beautiful; but this beauty is observable only in proportion to the mind observing. Men in general hate and love; but there are some by whom no order of men

is hated or despised. They see pearls in every one; and why? because they have sufficient discrimination to select them from the ordure by which they are surrounded and defiled.

Most critics judge of others with no better data on which to found their decisions, than those on which Lavater judged Raffaelle's portraits. He pronounced them deficient in truth, in correctness of design, and in natural expression. Yet Lavater never saw even so much as one portrait of Raffaelle's painting in all his life. He formed his opinion merely from prints, sold at Berne, Zurich, Geneva, Paris, and Vienna. Now, how little these are to be trusted may be imagined, when I state, that I have myself seen more than twenty drawings of St. John and Jesus by Raffaelle, none of which resemble the others. They are all various. Living men are not to be judged by dead portraits. 'Compare my account of the Melianthus,' wrote Dillenius to Linnæus*, with describe as yours; which you if you had seen it, though indeed not fresh; and you ' will allow, that there is a great difference between the 'examination of a living and a dead subject. This 'makes me wonder at your having admitted into your genera so many Indian plants, which you have never seen, and which, perhaps, are never likely to be seen.' Though Dillenius was here too critical on Linnæus ; yet the passage may be applied to the manner in which many men judge others. It may, therefore, be reflected upon with advantage.

* May 16, 1737.

It is good,-nay it is indispensable to a correct judgment, to see with our own eyes. But our own eyes

are not sufficient. We must see through the medium of other eyes also And though there are many, who accustom themselves to rest satisfied with judgments pronounced by others, yet it is certain that even those, who look chiefly through other men's spectacles, may, by the application of a strong and steady mind, not only exhibit, as M. Von Buch says of Reimarus' small work on De Luc's Theory of the Earth, new and peculiar prospects;' but be able to trace truth through all the labyrinths of error, with much greater exactitude than those who confine themselves only to their own optics. For when we see only through our own media, we see things only to the best of one man's vision; whereas, if we take advantage of those of other men also,—more especially those of eminent men, we bring the experience of multitudes to our assistance. And here it may not be without point to remark, that if transparent bodies transmit light of one colour, and reflect light of another, as they sometimes do; we should remember, at the same time, that very important discovery, to which we owe the invention of the achromatic telescope; proving that some kinds of glass separate the rays of different colours from each other much more than others; while the whole deviation, produced by the pencil of light, is exactly the same.

Men's minds must of necessity be incomplete, since their organs are so. Their eyes are directed forwards. They cannot see on both sides at the same time, as cameleons and most quadrupeds do; nor can they look behind them, like spiders. They can have, therefore,

a minute knowledge but of few things; and but few can have ready methods of bringing the whole of what they may know into action on every occasion. The more constant and diligent our search, the greater, of course, is our accuracy in contemplating variety; and the mind being thence preserved from confusion in taking surveys of a multitude of individuals, it acquires, after a time, the faculty of generalizing results, in the midst of a labyrinth of forms and deep complexities of association.

LXXIII.

WHO ARE KNOWN BY THE TITLES OF THEIR WORKS.

THERE must, I should suppose, have been something exceedingly agreeable in the character of the old poet Gascoigne, or he could not have composed such a title as this: A hundreth sundrie flowres, bound up ❝ in one small poesie; gathered partely in the fyne out'landish gardins of Euripedes, Ovid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others, and partly by invention out of our owne 'fruitfull orchardes in Englande; yelding sundrie sweet sauors of tragical, comicall, and moral discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable to the well'smellying noses of learned readers*.'

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Taylor, the water-poet, was so much distinguished by his titles, that his merit is said chiefly to have consisted in them. I send you two. 'Three weekes, three 'daies, and three houres obseruation and travel from London to Hamborghe in Germanie.' 'An errante

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As to Molineux, it is sufficient to read the title to one of his books to know, not only what he was in himself, but what opinion he had of the Being who made him. Pensées sur le Nombre des Eleus; or, Moral Reflections upon the Number of the Elect; plainly 'proving from scripture evidence, that not one in one 'hundred thousand,-nay, probably not one in one 'million, from Adam to our times,-shall be saved *.' Many more might be mentioned; but the preceding instances are ample to the purpose.

LXXIV.

WHO PRAISE THE PLACES IN WHICH THEY ARE NOT.

'Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit ?'-Young.

Soon after Dr. Goodenough was raised to the bishopric of Durham, he wrote thus to Sir James Smith: 'I long to show you Rose Castle: whether it be a paradise or not, every one's mind must determine :— Satan could not find a paradise in the garden of • Eden.' Three months after-This place gains upon me exceedingly. I view it with delight.

'Mens expleri nequit, ardescitque tuendo.'

Some bishops have not lived at Rose Castle three months without a fever of desire for translations to Winchester, Durham, London, or Canterbury.

'Ev'n while perfection lies within our arms,
We stray in thought, and sigh for other charms.'

* 4to., 1680.

VOL. I.

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