REFLECTIONS,

&c. &c.

I.

IT is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has farther to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance.

II.

WITH respect to the authority of great names, it should be remembered, that he alone deserves to have any weight or influence with posterity, who has shown himself superior to the particular and predominant error of his own times; who, like the peak of Teneriffe, has hailed the intellectual sun, before its beams have reached the horizon of common minds; who, standing like Socrates, on the apex of wisdom, has removed from his eyes all film of earthly dross, and has foreseen a purer law, a nobler system, a brighter order of things; in short, a promised land! which, like Moses on the top of Pisgah, he is permitted to survey, and anticipate for others, without being himself allowed either to enter, or to enjoy.

III.

To cite the examples of history, in order to animate us to virtue, or to arm us with fortitude, this it is to call up the illustrious dead, to inspire and to improve the living. But the usage of those Civilians, who cite vicious authorities for worse purposes, and enforce the absurdest practice, by the oldest precedent, this it is to bequeath to us as an heir-loom, the errors of our forefathers, to confer a kind of immortality on folly, making the dead more powerful than time, and more sagacious than experience, by subjecting those that are upon the earth, to the perpetual mal-government of those that are beneath it.

IV.

A WRITER more splendid than solid, seems to think that vice may lose half its guilt, by losing all its grossness. An idea suggested, perhaps, by the parting anathema, fulminated by Gibbon against the fellows of Magdalen; men, he said, "in whom were united all the malevolence of monks, without their erudition; and all the sensuality of libertines, without their refinement." But it would be as well perhaps for the interests of humanity, if vice of every kind were more odious, and less attractive; if she were always exhibited to us, like the drunken Helot to the youths of Sparta, in her true and disgusting shape. It is fitting, that what is foul within, should be foul also without. To give the semblance of purity to the substance of corruption, is to proffer the poison of Circe in a chrystal goblet, and to steal the bridal vestments of the virgin, to add more allurement to the seductive smiles of the harlot.

V.

IF those alone who "sowed the wind, did reap the whirlwind," it would be well. But the mischief is, that the blind

ness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the mis-calculations of diplomacy, seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

VI.

GREAT minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable; so that they can command the flattery of knaves while living, they care not for the execrations of honest men, when dead. Milton neither aspired to present fame, nor even expected it; but, (to use his own words) his high ambition was, "to leave something so written to after ages, that they should not willingly let it die." And Cato finely observed, he would much rather that posterity should inquire why no statues were erected to him, than why they

were !

VII.

AS in agriculture, he that can produce the greatest crop is not the best farmer, but he that can effect it with the least expense, so in society, he is not the most valuable member, who can bring about the most good, but he that can accomplish it, with the least admixture of concomitant ill. For let no man presume to think that he can devise any plan of extensive good, unalloyed and unadulterated with evil. This is the prerogative of the godhead alone!

C

VIII.

THE inequalities of life are real things, they can neither be explained away, nor done away; "Expellas furcâ tamen usque recurrent." A leveller therefore has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again to-morrow. The things that constitute these real inequa lities, are four, strength, talent, riches, and rank. The two former would constitute inequalities in the rudest state of nature; the two latter more properly belong to a state of society more or less civilized and refined. Perhaps the whole four are all ultimately resolvible into power. But in the just appreciation of this power, men are too apt to be deceived. Nothing, for instance, is more common than to see rank or riches preferred to talent, and yet nothing is more absurd. That talent is of a much higher order of power, than riches, might be proved in various ways; being so much more indeprivable, and indestructible, so much more above all accident of change, and all confusion of chance. But the peculiar superiority of talent over riches, may be best discovered from hence-That the influence of talent will always be the greatest in that government which is the most pure; while the influence of riches will always be the greatest in that government which is most corrupt. So that from the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration. That talent confers an inequality of a much higher order than rank, would appear from various views of the subject, and most particularly from this-many a man may justly thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever yet been able to return the compliment, by thanking his rank, for his talent. When Leonardo da Vinci died, his sovereign exclaimed, "I can make a thousand lords, but not one Leonardo." Cicero observed to a de