Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Leuhenhoeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy, they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal, they burn the sufferer. As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance. There is a holy love, and a holy rage; and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues, and the best of us are better when roused Passion is to virtue, what wine was to Æschylus and to Ennius, under its inspiration their powers were at their height. Fear debilitates and lowers, but hope animates and revives; therefore rulers and magistrates should attempt to operate on the minds of their respective subjects, if possible, by reward rather than punishment. And this principle will be strengthened by another consideration; he that is punished or rewarded, while he falls or rises in the estimation of others, cannon fail to do so likewise in his own Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by becom ing themselves its slave; and independence without wealth, is at least as common as wealth without independence. If St. Paul were again to appear on earth, since all the multifarious denominations of Christians would claim him, which would he choose? The apostle James shall answer: 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.' Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely, and conciliate those you cannot conquer. There are politic friendships which knaves find it necessary to keep up with those whom they mean the more effectually to ruin; for most men may be led to their destruction, few can be driven. Had Talleyrand's enmity to Napoleon manifested itself in opposition, it would have been fatal, not to his master, but to himself; he maintained, therefore, a friendship that not only aggrandized himself, but opened a door for the communication of that advice that enabled him eventually to ruin his master. The martyrs to vice, far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number. So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer inore to be damned than to be saved. Demagogues, however fond they may affect to be of independence and liberty in their public speeches, are invariably tories in their private actions, and despots in their own families. The most violent of them have usually been formed by the refusal of some unreasonable request; and their patriotism appears in a very questionable shape, when we see that they rejoice in just as much public calamity as introduces them into power, and supplants their rivals.* Restorations disappoint the loyal. If princes at such times, have much to give, they have also much to gain; and policy dictates the necessity of bestowing rather to conciliate enemies, than to reward friends.t * The real difference, therefore, between a tory and a whig would seem to be this: the one has power, the other wants it. Samuel Johnson was not a little disconcerted by an unexpected retort made upon him before a large party at Oxford, by Dr. Crowe. The principles of our lexicographer ran with too much violence in one way, not to foam a little when they met with a current running equally strong in another. The dispute happened to turn upon the origin of whiggism, for Johnson had triumphantly challenged Dr Crowe to tell him who was the first whig; the latter finding himself a little puzzled, Dr. Johnson tauntingly rejoined, 'I see, sir, that you are even ignorant of the head of your own party, but I will tell you, sir: the devil was the first whig; he was the first reformer; he wanted to set up a reform even in heaven.' Dr. Crowe calmly replied, "I am much obliged to you for your information, and I certainly did not foresee that you would go so far back for your authority; yet I rather fear that your argument makes against yourself; for if the devil was a whig, you have admitted that while he was a whig, he was in heaven, but you have forgotten that the moment he got into hell, he set up for a tory.' + The amnesty act of Charles the Second was termed an act of oblivion to his friends, but of grateful remembrance to his foes. And on another occasion, the loyalty of the brave Crillon was not strengthened by any reward, only because it was considered too firm to be shaken by any neglect. In our attempt to deceive the world, those are the most likely to detect us, who are sailing on the same tack. None know how to draw long bills on futurity, that never will be honoured, better than Mahomet. He possessed himself of a large stock of real and present pleasure and power here, by promising a visionary quantum of those good things to his followers hereafter; and like the maker of an almanack, made his fortune in this world, by telling absurd lies about another. There are three things, that, well understood, and conscientiously practised, would save the three professions a vast deal of trouble; but we must not expect that every member of the professions would thank us for such a discovery, for some of them have too much time upon their hands; and a philosopher would be more inclined to smile than to wonder, should he now and then hear a physician crying down regimen; a lawyer equity; or a priest, morality. We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore, never go abroad in search of your wants, if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy. No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is labouring eternally, but to no purpose, and in constant motion without getting on a jot; like a turnstile, he is in every body's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into every thing but sees into nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers, 1 If none were to reprove the vicious, excepting those who sincerely hate vice, there would be much less censoriousness in the world. Our Master could love the criminal while he hated the crime, but we his disciples, too often love the crime but hate the criminal. A perfect knowledge of the depravity of the human heart, with perfect pity for the infirmities of it, never co-existed but in one breast, and never will. Rats and conquerors must expect no mercy in misfortune. Hesitation is a sign of weakness, for inasmuch as the comparative good and evil of the differen modes of action, about which we hesitate, are seldom equally balanced, a strong mind should perceive the slightest inclination of of the beam, with the glance of an eagle, particularly as there are cases where the preponderance will be very minute, even although there should be life in one scale, and death in the other. It is recorded of the late Earl of Berkely, that he was suddenly awakened at night in his carriage by a highwayman, who forcing a pistol through the window and presenting it close to his breast, demanded his money, exclaiming at the same time, that he had heard his lordship had |