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suspected but was conceived to flow out of an innate sincerity and freeness of behaviour and the nobility of his birth: and in all other things he passed not for a crafty and deceitful person but for an openhearted and plain-dealing man. And whereas he could counterfeit and dissemble sufficiently well, and was wholly compounded of frauds and deceits, so that there was nothing sincere in him but all artificial; yet he covered and disguised himself so, that no such vices appeared to the eyes of the world; but he was generally reputed to proceed plainly and uprightly with all men.

LORD BACON

419. EMULATION OUGHT NOT TO BE CONFINED TO A NARROW SPHERE. The necessities of mankind require various employments: and whoever excels in his province is worthy of praise. All men are not educated after the same manner, nor have all the same talents; those who are deficient deserve our compassion and have a title to our assistance. All cannot be bred in the same place; but in all societies there arise, at different times, some distinguished characters, who may create envy in little souls, but who are admired and cherished by generous spirits. It is certainly no small happiness to be educated in societies of great and eminent men: their instructions and examples are of extraordinary advantage; it is highly proper to instil such a reverence of the governing persons, and concern for the honour of the place as may spur the growing members to worthy pursuits and honest emulation. But to swell young minds with vain thoughts of the dignity of their own brotherhood, by debasing and vilifying all others, does them a real injury: by this means I have found, that their efforts have become languid and their prattle irksome: as thinking it sufficient praise, that they are children of so illustrious and ample a family. I should think it a surer, as well as a more generous method, to set before the eyes of youth, such persons as have made a noble progress in less distinguished fraternities; which may seem tacitly to reproach the sloth of those, who loll so heavily in the seats of mighty improvement: active spirits hereby would enlarge their notions; whereas, by a servile imitation of one or perhaps two admired men in their own body, they can only gain a secondary and derivative kind of fame. By such early corrections of vanity, while boys are

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growing into men, they will gradually learn not to censure superficially; but to imbibe those principles of general kindness and humanity, which alone can make them easy to themselves and beloved by others.

420. THE SEDATIVES OF ANGER. Reflections proper for the purpose of mollifying our minds so as to be less irritated by impressions of injury, and to be sooner pacified, and which may be called the sedatives of anger, are the following: the possibility of mistaking the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when they were construed into indications of malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same inducement has, at one time or other, operated upon ourselves; that he is suffering perhaps under a contrition, which he is ashamed or wants opportunity to confess, and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or insult over a spirit already humbled in secret ; that the returns of kindness are sweet, and there is neither honour, nor virtue, nor use in resisting them. We may remember that others have their passions, their prejudices, their favourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their interests, their sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehension as well as we: we may recollect what hath sometimes passed in our own minds, when we have gotten on the wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be passing in our adversary's mind now; when we became sensible of our misbehaviour, what palliations we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive: how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the superiority, of a generous reception, and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in ourselves which we before blamed.

421. CANNING ON THE SPANISH CAUSE, A.D. 1809. To such opinions Mr Canning alluded, saying, it was said that whenever Buonaparte declared he would accomplish any measure, his declaration was to be received as the fiat of a superior being, whom it was folly to resist. He never pledged himself to anything but what he could accomplish! His resolves were insurmountable! His career not to be stopped! Such, said the orator, is not my opinion, nor the opinion of the British people. Even were the ship in which

we are embarked sinking, it would be our duty still to struggle against the element. But never can I acknowledge. that this is our present state. We are riding proudly and nobly buoyant upon the waves! To the argument, that we ought, as Buonaparte had done, to have held out a prospect of political reform to the Spaniards, he replied we had no right to assume any dictatorial power over a country which we went to assist. We were not to hold cheap the institutions of other countries because they had not ripened into that maturity of freedom which we ourselves enjoyed; nor were we to convert an auxiliary army into a dominating garrison; nor, while openly professing to aid the Spaniards, covertly endeavour to force upon them those blessings of which they themselves must be the best judges. If the Spaniards succeeded, they certainly would be happier and freer than they had hitherto been; but that happiness and freedom must be of their own choice, not of our dictation.

R. SOUTHEY

422. SIR JOHN MOORE. A soldier from his earliest youth, Moore thirsted for the honours of his profession, and feeling that he was worthy to lead a British army, hailed the fortune that placed him at the head of the troops destined for Spain. As the stream of time passed, the inspiring hopes of triumph disappeared, but the austerer glory of suffering remained, and with a firm heart he accepted that gift of a severe fate. Confiding in the strength of his genius, he disregarded the clamours of presumptuous ignorance, and opposing sound military views to the foolish projects so insolently thrust upon him by the ambassador, he conducted his long and arduous retreat with sagacity, intelligence and fortitude; no insult disturbed, no falsehood deceived him, no remonstrance shook his determination; fortune frowned, without subduing his constancy; death struck, but the spirit of the man remained unbroken, when his shattered body scarcely afforded it a habitation. Having done all that was just towards others, he remembered what was due to himself; neither the shock of the mortal blow, nor the lingering hours of acute pain which preceded his dissolution, could quell the pride of his gallant heart, or lower the dignified feeling with which, conscious of merit, he at the last moment asserted his right to the gratitude of the country he had served so truly. If glory be a distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller!

W. F. P. NAPIER

423. LORD RAGLAN-HIS CONDUCT IN THE CRIMEAN CAMPAIGN. A wise man places his happiness as little as possible at the mercy of other people's breath. His own conscience, and the opinion of his friends, which become with the highminded a sort of second conscience, are the sole tribunals for whose temporary verdict he in general cares. But without a just sensitiveness to the opinion of his employers, no one who holds a responsible situation can continue to serve in comfort. The peculiar circumstances of his case rendered the support of the government of unusual moment to the English commander; and he had, if ever man had, a right to look for their uncompromising countenance. It was entirely in obedience to their pressing instructions that he had embarked in the adventure. It was under difficulties most trying to mind and body that he had gallantly persevered in it. He found himself now, with a divided command which had thwarted his schemes and cut short his triumphs, encamped upon a bleak and barren ridge, with soldiers sickly, dying, and dead, while those who continued to stand at their posts were overtasked, ill-sheltered, ill-clothed and illfed. An enemy superior in number, who had lately engaged with him in a terrific struggle which made fainter hearts tremble for the ulterior consequences, encompassed him round, perpetually harassed his troops, and threatened to fall at every moment upon the remnant of his army, which grew daily less. Many a time in that anxious interval officers hastened down to head-quarters full of consternation at some rumour that the Russians were about to attack our lines, and returned reassured from the sole influence of his calm demeanour and cheerful words. In the worst troubles he continued to speak a soldier's language, and wear a soldier's countenance, and threw upon those who conversed with him the spell of his own undaunted nature.

ENTERPRISING SPIRIT OF THE CARTHAGINIAN GO

424. VERNMENT.

A great commercial state, where wealth was largely gained and highly valued, was always in danger, according to the opinion of the ancient philosophers, of losing its spirit of enterprise. But in this Carthage resembled the government of British India; necessity at first made her merchants soldiers; and when she became powerful, then the mere impulse of a great dominion kept up her energy; she had much to maintain, and what she already possessed gave

her the power, and with it the temptation, of acquiring more. Besides, it is a very important point in the state of society in the ancient world, that the business of a soldier was no isolated profession, but mixed up essentially with the ordinary life of every citizen. Hence those who guided the counsels of a state were ready also to conduct its armies; and military glory was a natural object of ambition to many enterprising minds which, in modern Europe, could only hope for distinction in the cabinet or in parliament. The great families of Carthage, holding amongst them a monopoly of all the highest offices, might safely calculate on obtaining for all their members some opportunity of distinguishing themselves; if the father fell in the service of his country, his son not unfrequently became his successor, and the glory of finishing what he had begun was not left to a stranger.

T. ARNOLD

425. DISTINCT SPECIES OF ORATORY. I cannot leave this subject without combating in few words an opinion of Cicero that "there are no distinct species of oratory, as there are of poetry: that, although a tragic, an epic, and a lyric poet may be all equally perfect in their several ways, yet that no man can justly be called a speaker, unless he unite in the highest degree the powers of instructing, delighting, and moving every audience on every subject." A character so various and a genius so comprehensive must necessarily be the object, if ever it should exist, of general admiration; but why it is not sufficient to call such a man the greatest, without insisting that he is the only, orator, or why an advocate who never applied his talents to the senatorial species of eloquence, may not attain perfection in the forensic, and so conversely, I am at a loss to comprehend. Menander, you say, would not have desired to be like Homer; certainly not in his comedies; but every speaker wishes to resemble Demosthenes; as certainly not, when he is addressing the jury on the obstruction of ancient lights or the diversion of a watercourse. The kinds of speaking are different; and though one of them be more exalted than another, yet orators, as well as poets, may in those different kinds severally reach the summit; and this analogy may be extended to all the fine arts: Myro was not a less perfect sculptor in marble, because he was unable probably to finish gems with the delicacy of Trypho; nor, to speak of modern artists, will

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