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him that pushes him on to excel in worthy deeds, or in actions truly good and virtuous, and pursues that defign with a steady unaffected ardour, without referve or falfehood, it is a true fign of a noble spirit: For that love of praise can never be criminal, that excites and enables a man to do a great deal more good than he could do without it. And perhaps there never was a fine genius, or a noble spirit, that rofe above the common level, and distinguished itself by high attainments in what is truly excellent, but was fecretly, and perhaps infenfibly prompted by the impulse of this paffion.

But, on the contrary, if a man's views centre only in the applause of others, whether it be deferved or not; if he pants after popularity and fame, not regarding how he comes by it; if his paffion for praise urge him to fretch himself beyond the line of his capacity, and to attempt things to which he is unequal; to condefcend to mean arts and low diffimulation for the fake of a name; and in a finifter, indirect way, fue hard for a little incense, not caring from whom he receives it; it then degenerates into what is properly called vanity. And if it excites a man to wicked attempts, and makes him willing to facrifice

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crifice the efteem of all wife and good men to the fhouts of the giddy multitude; if his ambition overleaps the bounds of decency and truth, and breaks through obligations of honour and virtue, it is then not only vanity, but vice; a vice the most deftructive to the peace and happiness of human fociety, and which of all others hath made the greatest havoc and devaftation among men.

What an inftance have we here of the wide difference between common opinion and truth? That a vice fo big with mifchief and mifery fhould be mistaken for a virtue! and that they who have been most infamous for it fhould be crowned with laurels, even by thofe who have been ruined by it; and have those laurels perpetuated by the common confent of men through after ages! Seneca's judgment of Alexander is certainly more agreeable to truth than the common opinion; who called him "a public cut-throat, rather than "a hero; and who, in feeking only to be "a terror to mankind, arose to no greater "an excellence, than what belonged to "the most hurtful and hateful animals on "earth *."

Certain

Quid enim fimile habebat vefanus adolefcens,

cui

Certain it is, that these false heroes are of all men moft ignorant of themselves, who feek their gain and glory from the deftruction of their own fpecies; and by this wicked ambition entail infamy and curfes upon their name and family, instead of that immortal glory they pursued, and imagined they had attained. According to the prophet's words, "Woe to him who co

veteth an evil covetoufnefs to his house, that "he may fet his neft on high; that he

"may

eni pro virtute erat felix temeritas?-Hic a pueritia latro, gentiumque vaftator, tam hoftium pernicies quam amicorum. Qui fummum bonum duceret ter rori effe cunctis mortalibus: oblitus non ferociffima tantum, fed ignaviffima quoque animalia, timeri ob virus malum. Sen. de Benef. cap. 13.

How different from this is the judgment of Plutarch in this matter? who, in his Qration concerning the Fortune and Virtue of Alexander, exalts him into a true bero, and juftifies all the wafte he made of mankind under (the fame colour with which the Spaniards excufed their inhuman barbarities towards the poor Indians, viz.) a pretence of civilizing them. And in attributing all his fuccefs to his virtue, he talks more like a foldier ferving under him in his wars, than an hiftorian who lived many years afterwards, whose business it was to tranfmit his character impartially to future ages. And in whatever other reIpects Mr. Dryden may give the preference to Plu tarch before Seneca (which he does with much zeal in his Preface to Plutarch's Lives), yet it must be allowed, that, in this inftance at least, the latter shows more of the philofopher. Sec Plut. Mor. Vol. I. ad fin.

"may be delivered from the power of " evil. Thou haft confulted fhame to "thine houfe, by cutting off many people; "and haft finned against thy foul," Hab. ii. 9, 10*.

Now no man can truly know himself till he be acquainted with this, which is so often the fecret and unperceived spring of his actions, and obferves how far it governs and influences him in his conversation and conduct.

And to correct the irregularity and extravagance of this paffion, let us but reflect how airy and unfubftantial a pleasure the highest gratifications of it afford; how many cruel mortifications it exposes us to, by awakening the envy of others; to what meanness it often makes us fubmit; how frequently it lofeth its end, by pursuing it with too much ardour; (for virtue and real excellence will rife to the view of the world, though it be not mounted on the wings

* yayya yra: that gaineth a wicked gain.
Oh fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rife,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raife.
Who wickedly is wife, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, or more a knave.

Pope's Effay on Man,

wings of ambition, which, by foaring too high, procures bút a more fatal fall); and how much more folid pleasure the approbation of confcience will yield, than the acclamations of ignorant and mistaken men, who, judging by externals only, cannot know our true character; and whose commendations a wife man would rather defpife than court. "Examine but the fize of people's fenfe, and the condition of "their understanding, and you will ne"ver be fond of popularity, nor afraid "of cenfure; nor folicitous what judg"ment they may form of you, who know "not how to judge rightly of them" felves *."

CHAP. XIII.

What Kind of Knowledge we are already furnished with, and what Degree of Efteem we fet upon it.

XII. "

A MAN can never rightly know

"himself, unless he examines "into his knowledge of other things."

We

Διελθε εσω εις τα ηγεμονικα αυτών, και οψει τινάς πρίζας φοβη οιες και περι αυτων ολας κρίλας. Marco Αιγα ton. Lib. ix. § 18.

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