field's knowledge of any other species of men than what are to be seen in courts and drawing-rooms; nor would he have had so much leisure even to know those, had not the Duchess of Marlborough left him a legacy of twenty thousand pounds. As to the innateness of his good breeding, it may, perhaps, be suspected; since, though he could treat servants with politeness, he could, occasionally, be insolent, when he could be so with impunity. His wit, too, was often directed at good men.

Walpole and Johnson are very severe upon this personage. The latter pronounced him a lord among wits, and insists that his letters teach the morals of a strumpet and the manners of a dancing-master. The former (Walpole) declares of his administration in Ireland, that it was so popular, that nothing was so much cried up as his integrity. Whereas, 'he would have laughed ' at any one,' says he,' who really had any confidence in his morality.' Thomson, however, adorns him with every virtue, and celebrates him as having been 'The guardian, ornament, and joy

Of polished life.'-Winter, 656.

And yet, what was the extent of his policy and comprehension ?—To guard himself, and to keep himself perpetually on the watch to profit by the passions and errors of others. He courted the mistress of his master, was ambitious of distinction, and yet acquired no advance in the peerage, nor any great accession to his private fortune. Were we permitted to compare him to a fruit, the fruit, selected, might be a China orange..

CVIII.

WHO ADMIRE NO ONE WHOM THEY CHANCE TO SEE OR TO KNOW.

A MYRIAD of persons,—especially the more conceited of the young,-desirous of appearing wiser than their associates, affect to admire nothing, and to esteem few worthy of knowledge. No one is admired whom they chance to see; none respected whom they chance to know. With these, always, 'presentia minuit famam.’ Can this folly be distinguished by any other designation than as an ignorant and feeble species of impertinence?

CIX.

THE MANNER IN WHICH SOME JUDGMENTS ARE FORMED.

Pearls are no pearls when coxcombs find them.'

Winstanley.

TERTULLIAN and Justin Martyr entered into controversy with the Jews; and yet were ignorant not only of the language of the Jews, but of their learning and history. They, nevertheless, assumed to come to right conclusions.

*

In regard to painters,-who but must admire the masterly delineations of Salvator Rosa? Yet Fuseli handles them with a daring and almost insolent hand. Who can imagine the creations of Tasso without a feeling of delight, or listen to the intonations of Handel and Mozart without transports of admiration? Yet the

Lect. ii. 77. 4to.

finest genius that ever graced the earth esteemed poetry a mass of ingenious nonsense; and music worthy of observation only, but as it respects the elasticity of the fingers. If most men do wrong, not for the sake of wrong, but from mistaking wrong for right; men often judge in the same manner. They regard those who have no ear for music as 6 fit for stratagems and treasons ;' as Lord Arundel thought, that no one, ignorant of the art of design, could ever be honest.

In Addison's time it was a common practice with commentators to bring together a few loose quotations from Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Horace, and other writers; and upon their authority erect hypotheses, in no way consistent either with reason or common sense. To ridicule this practice, Pope and Arbuthnot wrote something to prove that all learning was derived from the monkeys of Ethiopia. Is it, or is it not, the common. custom of civilized life to do the same in respect to judgments? A few insulated facts, a few insulated opinions, these are the materials on which most men build. the structure of their opinions. They even remind us of the Bishop of Arras, who pretended to the rank of a statesman; and yet confessed, that he had never read a newspaper for many years. And here we may, also, remember with advantage, that Pontano confessed †, that, after much trouble, he discovered that those who attempt to wash the face of an ass, lose not only their soap but their labour and time.

We may discover how far prejudice may warp, and

even paralyze the mightiest minds, from the circumstance of Dante's having consigned all those men, women, and even infants, to a department of the lower regions, for no crime or vice, but for not having undergone the ceremony of baptism! These are represented as making the air tremble with sounds of grief, and as living, without hope, in a perpetual fever of desire to mount the steps of Paradise. Is not this libelling the spirit, rather than analyzing the precepts, of the Christian law?

6 Judge we by NATURE? Habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place.
By ACTIONS? Those uncertainty divides.
By PASSIONS? These Dissimulation hides.
OPINIONS? They still take a wider range;
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.'

Pope, Ep. i. 166.

Mr. Fox always argued for the existence of an appellative jurisdiction on what he called a philosophical principle-the first principle of human wisdom,—“ a

of

consciousness of infirmity.' And this may remind one of what Mrs. Montague said in a letter to the Duchess of Portland in respect to Dr. Young: viz., that he saw how one vice connects another, till, made up ten thousand bad qualities, man grew to be a social creature, tolerable to live with by the eternal art of educing good from ill.'

CX.

WHO ADMIRE WHAT THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

CHAPMAN'S Homer, Hesiod, and Musæus, enjoyed no inconsiderable reputation for many years; but then it was only with those who were unacquainted with Greek. The boys that grind my colours,' said Apelles to one of the priests of Diana, look upon you with respect, while you are silent, because of the gold and purple of your garments; but when you speak of what you do not understand, they laugh at you. The more abstruse and difficult things seem, the more they raise a blockhead's admiration.'

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This is certain: a wise man admires nothing he does not understand; except, indeed, the mysterious works and operations of Nature. Those, who endeavour to excite the admiration of blockheads, bear some resemblance to what Abelard says of Anselm *.

Many men, on the contrary, are there, who despise great things, merely because they have not the capacity, or the opportunity, of understanding them. It even extends to persons who have enjoyed no small share of celebrity; some of whom are curiously ignorant of what all the world would give them credit for knowing.

*Every one who consults him,' says he, 'goes away more * perplexed than he came. He has a great flow of words, forming ' a contemptible sense; his tree, consisting wholly of leaves, looks 'beautiful at a distance; but those who approach find it unfruit' ful; and whenever he attempts to light a fire to illumine his house, he fills it with smoke.'

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