Or, if this tranfient gleam of day Be all of life we share, Let pity plead within thy breaft, So may thy hofpitable board With health and peace be crown'd, And every charm of heartfelt ease Beneath thy roof be found. So when unfeen destruction lurks, MRS. BARBAULD. SU FOPPERY. UETONIUS relates, that a young officer, to whom Vefpafian had given a commiffion, perfumed himself when he went to court, to thank the emperor for the honour conferred upon him. I should have been lefs offended if you had fmelled of garlick, faid Vefpafian; who was fo dif *Sueton. Lib. 8. gufted gusted with his foppery, that he immediately dismissed him from his employment. SLAN DE R. E UPHRONIUS heard, with indignation, the character of a much-refpected friend traduced. But he calmed the painful emotions of his mind, by the recollection of Mr. Pope's obfervation, that Envy does Merit as its fhade purfue, And like the fhadow, proves the fubftance true. To flatter ourselves with universal applaufe, is an inconfiftency in our expectations, dictated by folly, and fostered by felf-love. Numbers of mankind are influenced by a levelling principle, which cannot brook fuperior excellence; and they wage fecret war with whatever rises above their own mediocrity, as a kind of moral or intellectual ufurpation. When Ariftides, fo remarkable for his inviolable attachment * attachment to justice, was tried by Ostracifm, at Athens, and condemned to banishment, a peasant who could not write, and who was unacquainted with his person, applied to him to put the name of Ariftides upon his fhell. "Has he done you any wrong," said Ariftides, "that you are for punishing him in this manner?" "No," replied the country man, "I don't even know him; but I am tired and angry with hearing every one call him the Just." Ariftides, without farther expoftulation, calmly took the fhell, wrote upon it his own condemnation, and returned it to the peasant. † But, independent of the pride and envy of mankind, there are few public virtues which, from their own nature, can be exercised without giving umbrage. The * A form of trial, in which the people of Athens voted a perfon's banishment, by writing his name on a fhell, which was caft into an urn. + Plut. in Arift. p. 322, 323. upright upright magiftrate, who hears with im-. partiality, and decides with wisdom and equity, creates an enemy in the oppressor, when he redreffes the wrongs of the oppressed. The benevolent citizen, who pursues with zeal and steadiness the good of the community, must facrifice to the important objects which he has in view, the interfering interests of many individuals, who will indulge aloud their complaints, and pour upon him a torrent of abuse. And the liberal man, whofe hand is ever ftretched forth to relieve fickness, poverty, and distress; and who diffuses happiness around him, by his generosity, hospitality, and charity, is calumniated by the worthless, who partake not of his bounty; and cenfured even by his beneficiaries, because his kindness falls fhort of their unreasonable expectations. Louis the Fourteenth used to fay, that whenever he bestowed a vacant employment, he made a hundred perfons discontented, and one ungrateful. The love of liberty, civil and religious, is odious to the tyrant, the bigot, and the passive slave. Reproof, however delicate, feasonable, and affec affectionate, too often creates averfion to the friend who administers it. Counsel, if it contradict our darling paffion, though wife and prudent, will produce ill will. Courage excites fear and hatred in the coward. Industry bears away the palm of fuccefs from the flothful. And learning, judgment, and skill afford advantages which irritate, because they humiliate the stupid and the ignorant. The immortal Harvey, in one of his letters to a friend, complains that he had hurt his intereft as a phyfician, by the discovery of the circulation of the blood; a discovery which does honour to phyfic, to philofophy, and to human nature, because it was the result, not of accident, but of folid reasoning and patient inquiry. It is evident therefore that, in the prefent constitution of things, envy and detraction are the price which must be paid for pre-eminence in virtue. The Scriptures denounce woe upon those of whom all men fpeak well. Such characters cannot be |