the treets of London and of Paris are crowded. Call over thofe 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 thefe 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 eloquence 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 thofe by choice.

Among numberlefs extravagances which pafs through the minds of men, we may justly reckon for one that notion of a fecret affection, independent of our reafon, and fuperior to our reason, which we are fuppofed to have for our country; as if there were fome phyfical virtue in every spot 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 ftates. 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 noblest part. Thefe are infeparably 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 courfe of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourfelves 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 customs 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 stars, will be every where fpread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire thofe planets which roll, like ours, in different orbits round the fame central fun; from whence we may not discover an object ftill more ftupendous, that army of fixed ftars hung up in the immenfe space of the univerfe; innumerable funs, whofe beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them: and whilst I am ravifhed by fuch contemplations as thefe, whilft my foul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread upon. Bolingbroke.

I can by no means agree with you in thinking, that the love of fame is a paffion, I confefs, indeed, there are fome who have which either reafon or religion condemns. reprefented it as inconfiftent with both; and I remember, in particular, the excellent author of The Religion of Nature deliand abfurd. As the paffage falls in fo neated, has treated it as highly irrational 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 fame time, as a very great authority on your fide. "In reality," fays that writer, "the man is not known ever the more "to pofterity, because his name is tranf"mitted to them: He doth not live because "his name does. When it is faid, Julius "Cæfar fubdued Gaul, conquered Pompey, "&c. it is the fame thing as to fay, the "conqueror of Pompey was Julius Cæfar, "i. e. Cæfar and the conqueror of Pompey "is the fame thing; Cafar is as much "known by one defignation as by the "other. The amount then is only this: "that the conqueror of Pompey conquer"cd Pompey; or rather, fince Pompey is

as little known now as Cæfar, fome body conquered fomebody. Such a poor bufi"nefs is this boafted immortality! and

"fuch

"fuch is the thing called glory among us! "To difcerning men this fame is mere air, "and what they defpife, if not fhun." But furely "'twere to confider too curiously,' as Horatio fays to Hamlet, to confider thus." For though fame with pofterity fhould be, in the ftrict analyfis of it, no other than what it is here defcribed, a mere uninterefting propofition, amounting to nothing more than that fomebody acted meritoriously; yet it would not neceffarily follow, that true philofophy would banifh the defire of it from the human breaft. For this paffion may be (as moft certainly it is) wifely implanted in our fpecies, notwithstanding the correfponding object should in reality be very different from what it appears in imagination. Do not many of our moft refined and even contemplative pleafures owe their existence to our mistakes? It is but extending (I will not fay, improving) fome of our fenfes to a higher degree of acutenefs than we now poffefs them, to make the faireft views of nature, or the noble it productions of art, appear horrid and deformed. To fee 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 fhall certainly affure us, that the pleafure of virtuous fame dies with its poffeffor, and reaches not to a farther fcene of exiftence? There is nothing, it should feem, either abfurd or unphilofophical in fuppofing it poffible at leaft, that the prailes of the good and the judicious, that fweeteft mufic to an honeft ear in this world, may be echoed back to the manfons of the next that the poet's defcription of fame may be literally true, and though the walks upon earth, the may yet lift her head into

heaven.

But can it be reafonable to extinguish a paffion which nature has univerfally lighted up in the human breaft, and which we contantly find to burn with moft ftrength and brightnefs in the nobleft and beft formed bofoms? Accordingly revelation is fo far from endeavouring (as you fuppofe) to eradicate the feed which nature hath thus deeply planted, that the rather feems, on the contrary, to cherish and forward its growth. To be exalted with boncur, and to be had in everlasting remembrance, are in the number of thofe encouragements which the Jewish difpenfation offered to the virtuous; as the perfon from whom the facred author of the Christian fystem received his

birth, is herfelf reprefented as rejoicing that all generations should call her bleed.`

To be convinced of the great advantage of cherishing this high regard to posterity, this noble defire of an after-life in the breath of others, one need only look back upon the hiftory of the ancient Greeks and Romans. What other principle was it, which produced that exalted frain of virtue in those days, that may well ferve as a model to thefe? Was it not the confentiens laus bonorum, the incorrupta vox bene judicantum (as Tully calls it) the concurrent approbation of the good, the uncorrupted applaufe of the wife, that animated their moft generous purfuits?

To confefs the truth, I have been ever inclined to think it a very dangerous attempt, to endeavour to leffen the motives of right conduct, or to raise any fufpicion. concerning their folidity. The tempers and difpofitions of mankind are fo extremely different, that it feems neceffary they fhould be called into action by a variety of incitements. Thus, while fome are willing to wed virtue for her perfonal charms, others are engaged to take her for the fake of her expected dowry: and fince her followers and admirers have fo little hopes from her in prefent, it were pity, methinks, to reafon them out of any imagined advantage in reverfion.

Fitzofborne's Letters. $50. Enthufiafm.

Though I rejoice in the hope of feeing enthufiafmi expelled from her religious dominions, let me intreat you to leave her in the undisturbed enjoyment of her civil poffellions. To own the truth, I look upon enthufiafm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very neceffary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature feems to have marked with more or less ftrength in the tempers of most men. No matter what the object is, whether business, pleasures, or the fine arts; whoever purfues them to any purpose must do so con amore: and inamoratos, you know, of every kind, are all enthufiafts. There is indeed a certain heightening faculty which univerfally prevails through our fpecies; and we are all of us, perhaps, in our feveral favourite purfuits, pretty much in the circumftances of the renowned knight of La Mancha, when he attacked the barber's brazen bafon, for Mambrino's golden helmet.

What is Tully's aliquid immenfum in3 C3 fuitumque,

finitumque, which he profeffes to afpire after in oratory, but a piece of true rhetorical Quixotifm? Yet never, I will venture to afirm, would he have glowed with fo much eloquence, had he been warmed with lefs enthufiafni. I am perfuaded indeed, that nothing great or glorious was ever performed, where this quality had not a principal concern; and as our paffions add vi. gour to our actions, enthufiafm gives fpirit to our paffions. I might add too, that it even opens and enlarges our capacities. Accordingly have been informed, that one of the great lights of the prefent age never fits down to study, till he has railed his imagination by the power of mufic. For this purpofe he has a band of inftruments placed near his library, which play till he finds himfelf elevated to a proper height; upon which he gives a fignal, and they inftantly ceafe.

But thofe high conceits which are fuggefted by enthusiasm, contribute not only to the pleasure and perfection of the fine arts, but to most other effects of our action and induftry. To ftrike this fpirit therefore out of the human conftitution, to reduce things to their precife philofophical ftandard, would be to check fome of the main wheels of fociety, and to fix half the world in an ufelefs apathy. For if enthufiafin did not add an imaginary value to most of the objects of our purfuit; if fancy did not give them their brightest colours, they would generally, perhaps, wear an appearance too contemptible to excite defire:

Weary'd we should lie down in death,
This cheat of life would take no more,
If you thought fime an empty breath,
IPhillis but a perjur'd whore.

PRIOR.

about religion, in order to model our faith to the fashion of his lordship's fyitem. 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 tranfportation. I was in hopes the extraordinary price of thefe volumes would have confined their infiuence to perfons of quality. As they are placed above extreme indigence and abfolute want of bread, their loofe notions would have carried them no farther than cheating at cards, or perhaps plundering their country: but if thefe opinions fpread among the vulgar, we fhall be knocked down at noon-day in our streets, and nothing will go forward but robberies and murders.

The inftances I have lately feen of free. thinking in the lower part of the world, make me fear, they are going to be as fashionable and as wicked as their betters. I went the other night to the Robin Hood, where it is ufual for the advocates againft religion to affemble, and openly avow their infidelity. One of the questions for the night was, "Whether lord Bolingbroke had not done greater service to mankind by his writings, than the apostles or evangelifts?" As this fociety is chiefly compofed of lawyers clerks, petty tradesmen, and the loweft mechanics, I was at first furprized at fuch amazing erudition among them. Toland, Tindal, Collins, Chubb, and Mandeville, they feemed to have got by heart. A fhoe-maker harangued his five minutes upon the excellence of the tenets maintained by lord Bolingbroke: but I foon found that his reading had not been extended beyond the Idea of a Patriot King, which he had mistaken for a glorious fyftem of free-thinking. I could not help fmiling at another of the company, who took pains to fhew his disbelief of the gof pel, by unfainting the apoftles, and calling them by no other title than plain Paul or plain Peter. The proceedings of this fo ciety have indeed almoft 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.

tradefmen fettling the most important ar I have frequently heard many wife ticles of our faith over a pint of beer. A baker took occafion from Canning's affair to maintain, in oppofition to the scriptures, that man might live by bread alone, at leaft that woman might; "for elfe," faid he," how could the girl have been fup"ported

Our fouls will be proof against the dangers of both these states: and having explored our ftrength, we fhall be fure of it; for in the midst of felicity, we fhall have tried how we can bear misfortune.

Her Evils difarmed by Patience.

Banishment, with all its train of evils, is fo far from being the cause of contempt, that he who bears up with an undaunted fpirit against them, while fo many are dejected by them, erects on his very misfortune a trophy to his honour: for fuch is the frame and temper of our minds, that nothing ftrikes us with greater admiration than a man intrepid in the midst of miffortunes. Of all ignominies, an ignominious death must be allowed to be the greatest; and yet where is the blafphemer who will prefume to defame the death of Socrates! This faint entered the prifon with the fame countenance with which he reduced thirty tyrants, and he took off ignominy from the place; for how could it be deemed a prifon when Socrates was there? Ariftides was led to execution in the fame city; all thofe who met the fad proceflion, caft their eyes to the ground, and with throbbing hearts bewailed, not the innocent man, but Juftice herself, who was in him condemned. Yet there was a wretch found, for monfters are fometimes produced in contradiction to the ordinary rules of nature, who fpit in his face as he paffed along. Ariftides wiped his cheek, fmiled, turned to the magiftrate, and faid, "Admonish this man not to be fo naity for "the future."

ignominy then can take no hold on virtue; for virtue is in every condition the fame, and challenges the fame refpect. We applaud the world when the profpers; and when he falls into adverfity we applaud her. Like the temples of the gods, the is venerable even in her ruins. After this, muft it not appear a degree of madness to defer one moment acquiring the only arms capable of defending us againft attacks, which at every moment we are expofed to? Our being miferable, or not miferable, when we fall into misfortunes, depends on the manner in which we have enjoyed profperity. Bolingbroke.

$53. Delicacy conftitutional, and often dangerous.

Some people are fubject to a certain deficacy of paflion, which makes them extremely fcnfible to all the accidents of life,

and gives them a lively joy upon every profperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with croffes and adverfity. Favours and good offices eafily engage their friendship, while the fmalleft injury provokes their refentment. Any honour or mark of diftinction elevates them above measure; but they are as fenfibly touched with contempt. People of this character have, no doubt, much more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent forrows, than men of cool and fedate tempers: but I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather chufe to be of the latter character, were he entirely matter of his own difpofition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our own difpofal: and when a perfon who has this fenfibility of temper meets with any misfortune, his forrow or refentment takes entire poffeffion of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the greatest part of our happiness. Great pleafures are much lefs frequent than great pains; fo that a fenfible temper cannot meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter: not to mention, that men of fuch lively paffions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and difcretion, and to take falfe fteps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable.

Delicacy of Tafte defirable.

There is a delicacy of tafte obfervable in fome men, which very much refembles this delicacy of paffion, and produces the fame fenfibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that does to profperity and adverfity, obligations and injuries. When you prefent a poem or a picture to a man poffeffed of this talent, the delicacy of his feelings makes him to be touched very fenfibly with every part of it; nor are the masterly ftrokes perceived with more exquifite relish and fatisfaction, than the negligencies or abfurdities with difguft and uneafinefs. A polite and judicious converfation affords him the highest entertainment; rudeness or impertinence is as great a punishment to him. In fhort, delicacy of tafle has the fame effect as delicacy of paffion; it enlarges the fphere both of our happiness and mifery, and makes us fenfible to pains as well as pleafures which efcape the rest of mankind.

I believe, however, there is no one, who will not agree with me, that, notwithstand