justice. "Does he think, (says Brutus) that his consulship deserves more applause than my putting Cæsar to death, because I am not perpetually talking of the ides of March, as he is of the nones of December?" I need not acquaint my learned reader, that in the ides of March, Brutus destroyed. Cæsar, and that Cicero quashed the conspiracy of Cataline in the calends of December. How shocking soever this great man's talking of himself might have been to his contemporaries, I must confess I am never better pleased than when he is on this subject. Such openings of the heart give a man a thorough insight into his personal character," and illustrate several passages in the history of his life besides, that there is some little pleasure in discovering the infirmity of a great man, and seeing how the opinion he has of himself agrees with what the world entertains of him.

The gentlemen of Port-Royal, who were more eminent for their learning and their humility than any other in France, banished the way of speaking in the first person out of all their works, as arising from vain-glory and self-conceit. To shew their particular aversion to it, they branded this form of writing with the name of an egotism: a figure not to be found among the ancient rhetoricians.

The most violent egotism which I have met with in the course of my reading, is that of Cardinal Woolsey, Ego et Rex meus: 'I and my King;' as perhaps the most eminent egotist that ever appeared in the world, was Montaigne, the author of the celebrated essays. This lively old Gascon has woven all his bodily infirmities into his works, and after having spoken of the faults or virtues of any other man, immediately publishes to the world how it stands with himself in that particular. Had he kept his own

Such openings of the heart give a man a thorough insight into his personal character-without doubt: and he might have said-raise one's ideas of it, when the writer or speaker has such a heart to lay open, as Cicero had.-H.

counsel, he might have passed for a much better man, though, perhaps, he would not have been so diverting an author. The title of an essay promises, perhaps, a discourse upon Virgil or Ju lius Cæsar; but when you look into it, you are sure to meet with more upon Monsieur Montagne than either of them. The younger Scaliger, who seems to have been no great friend to this author, after having,acquainted the world that his father sold herrings, adds these words; La grande fudaise de Montagne, qui a escrit qu'il aimoit mieux le vin blanc que diable a-t-on à faire de sçavoir ce qu'il aime? For my part, (says Montagne) I am a great lover of your white wines.' 'What the devil signifies it to the public, (says Scaliger) whether he is a lover of white wines or of red wines?'

I cannot here forbear mentioning a tribe of egotists for whom I have always had a mortal aversion, I mean the authors of memoirs, who are never mentioned in any works but their own, and who raise all their productions out of this single figure of speech.

Most of our modern prefaces savour very strongly of the egotism. Every insignificant author fancies it of importance to the world to know that he writ his book in the country, that he did it to pass away some of his idle hours, that it was published at the importunity of friends, or that his natural temper, studies, or conversations, directed him to the choice of his subject.

-Id populus curat scilicet.

People care for that indeed.

Such informations cannot but be highly improving to the reader. In works of humour, especially when a man writes under a fictitious personage, the talking of one's self may give some di version to the public; but I would advise every other writer never to speak of himself, unless there be something very considerable in his character: though I am sensible this rule will be

of little use in the world, because there is no man who fancies his thoughts worth publishing, that does not look upon himself as a considerable person.

I shall close this paper with a remark upon such as are egotists in conversation: these are generally the vain or shallow part of mankind, people being naturally full of themselves when they have nothing else in them. There is one kind of egotists which is very common in the world, though I do not remember that any writer has taken notice of them; I mean those empty conceited fellows, who repeat as sayings of their own, or some of their particular friends, several jests which were made before they were born, and which every one who has conversed in the world has heard a hundred times over. A forward young fellow of my acquaintance was very guilty of this absurdity: he would be always laying a new scene for some old piece of wit, and telling us, 'That as he and Jack such-a-one were together, one or t'other of them had such a conceit on such an occasion;' upon which he would laugh very heartily, and wonder the company did not join with him. When his mirth was over, I have often reprehended him out of Terence, Tuumne, obsecro te, hoc dictum, erat? vetus credidi.' But finding him still incorrigible, and having a kindness for the young coxcomb, who was otherwise a good-natured fellow, I recommended to his perusal the Oxford and Cambridge jests, with several little pieces of pleasantry of the same nature. Upon the reading of them, he was under no small confusion to find that all his jokes had passed through several editions, and that what he thought was a new conceit, and had appropriated to his own use," had appeared in print before he or

What he thought was a new conceit, and had appropriated to his own use. The reader may, perhaps, think (for the writer himself in a careless humour, appears to have done so) that the copulative and, connects the verbs, thought, and appropriated, whereas it connects the verbs, was and appropriated, and even then, the last of these verbs, has no substantive belonging to it. For the passage, if regularly pointed and filled up, stands thus

his ingenious friends were ever heard of.

This had so good an effect upon him, that he is content at present to pass for a man of plain sense in his ordinary conversation, and is never facetious but when he knows his company.

I was yesterday about sun-set walking in the open fields, 'till the night insensibly fell upon me." I at first amused myself with all the richness and variety of colours, which appeared in the western parts of heaven: in proportion as they faded away and went out, several stars and planets appeared one after another, 'till the whole firmament was in a glow. The blueness of the Æther was exceedingly heightened and enlivened by the season of the year, and by the rays of all those luminaries that passed through it. The galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. To compleat the scene, the full moon rose at length in that clouded majesty, which Milton takes notice of, and opened to the eye

what (as) he thought was a new conceit, and (he) had appropriated to his own use. Still, to make what the nominative case in the former part of this pas sage, and the accusative in the latter, even though it had been repeated in its place, as it is not, is very irregular and even barbarous. The whole may be reformed by changing, was, into, to be-" what he thought to be a new conceit, and had appropriated to his own use"-Quod novum putabat esse dictum, & sibi vindicaverat.-H.

The fine imagery of this introduction is presented to us in all the force and beauty of expression.-H.

a new picture of nature, which was more finely shaded, and disposed among softer lights, than that which the sun had before discovered to us.

6

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought rose in me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell into it, in that reflection, When I consider the heavens the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou regardest him?' In the same manner, when I considered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more philosophically, of suns, which were then shining upon me, with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds, which were moving round their respective suns; when I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns and worlds rising still above this which we discovered, and these still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so great a distance that they may appear to the inhabitants of the former, as the stars do to us; in short, whilst I pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little insignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immensity. of God's works.

Were the sun, which enlightens this part of the creation, with all the host of planetary worlds that move about him, utterly extinguished and annihilated, they would not be missed more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The space they possess is so exceedingly little, in comparison of the whole, that it would scarce make a blank in the creation. The chasm would be imperceptible to an eye, that could take in the whole compass of nature, and pass from one end of the creation to the other, as it is possible there may be such a sense in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at present more exalted than ourselves.

VOL. V.-26*

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