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of the injury on the criminal circumstance of their eating crabs, snails, locusts, and grasshoppers!

VII.

WHO ARE WEAKLY MODERATE.

WHEN men get into office, they retire from general society, and confine themselves to a limited circle. They no longer hear the free observations of acquaintances; they no longer look at objects at first hand, but as through a secondary telescope; they no longer come in personal collision with mankind, but trust implicitly to their secretaries and clerks. Hence arise a multitude of mistakes; and this is frequently the true cause why men, who have been very good politicians out of office, have made so sorry a figure in it. Lord Chatham was an exception to all this.

In respect to moderation, Mr. Martyn told Dr. Birch, that Pope told him, that he never knew but two great men in all his life who had been moderate in their politics; and those were the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Halifax. To this may be appended an observation: what are called moderate men, or rather what may be called 'imbecile' moderate men, can neither raise a storm in favour of liberty, nor quell one in favour of despotism. They must be acted for. They produce no result for themselves. A wise moderation is, assuredly, a virtue of the first quality; but who ought to be lukewarm when the liberties of his country are in danger? To be moderate in such an emergency is to be no other than a slave or a coward.

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VIII.

WHO CAN DO LITTLE THINGS GREATLY.

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GRAY was an instance; and he gave as a reason why he did not complete his poem on Education,' that he could not. I have been used,' said he, to write chiefly lyric poetry, in which, the poems being short, I ' have accustomed myself to polish every part of them 'with care; and as this has become a habit, I can 'scarcely write in any other manner: the labour of this ' in a long poem would be hardly tolerable; and if ac'complished, it might possibly be deficient in effect, by 'wanting the chiaro-oscuro *.

Some men, however, unite a comprehensive capacity with a minute precision of inquiry, very remarkable. They take for granted, that you know nothing of the subject; they begin, therefore, at the beginning; are consecutive in all their relations; and finish with leaving nothing for you to say, and scarcely any thing to inquire. The late Dr. Wollaston is said to have been of this order.

Johnson was accustomed to assert, that a truly strong mind is that which can embrace equally great things and small. I would have a man great in great 'things, and elegant in little things.' At another time, when Mr. Boswell said, that he feared he had put in his Journal too many little incidents:- There is ' nothing,' answered Johnson, 'too little for so little a 6 creature as man. It is by studying little things that 'we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'

* Mathias, vol. ii. p. 598.

Thomson was not only great in little things, but great in the great; and for this he was justly valued by the first critic of his age. Thomson thinks,' said he, ' in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on nature and on life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet; the eye 'that distinguishes, in every thing presented to his view, whatever there is, in which imagination can be ' delighted to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons wonders that he never saw 'before what Thomson shows him; and that he never yet felt what Thomson impresses.'

Of some men, we may say,-little passions are the governors of their thoughts by day; little interests the toil of all their thoughts by night.

Can little minds estimate great ones?

Is any thing too small for the contemplation of a lofty intellect?

Can those, who spend their lives in contemplating parts, ever hope to comprehend a whole? 'Great

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weights,' nevertheless, often hang on little wires*.' Who, that lives in his own esteem, would form the wish to be a Horace Walpole? Certainly not, if the following criticism be true: Whatever was little 'seemed to him great; and whatever was great seemed 'to him little. Serious business was to him a trifle; ' and trifles were his serious business+.'

Turn we now to another part of the horizon :-there are men, who, great in themselves, if any thing little belong to them, that little is imposed by circum*Bacon, vol. i. p. 89. 4to. † Edinburgh Review.

stances; and lamentable is it to know how awfully pressed down by circumstances some great minds have been, and still are, without receiving the smallest portion of help. The greater the desert, the greater the neglect.

IX.

THE COUNT DE SOISSONS.

THIS nobleman lived in the time of Henry IV. of France; and he is described by the Duke de Sully as substituting gravity for grandeur; and as uniting a dry seriousness to all that is mean and detestable in dissimulation.

Characters of this kind are not unfrequent either in Germany or in Spain; and sometimes they are to be met with even in England; and of this kind was Lord whom Dr. Laurence accused, in a letter to Mr. Burke, of having been desirous not to be limited in debate; that by appearing in his place on the side of the people of Ireland, he might save his estate in the event of a revolution.

X.

WHO DO THE REVERSE TO WHAT THEY INTEND.

MANY men of genius have laboured to effect one thing; and, in attempting to do it, have done exactly the reverse. Of this Berkeley may be cited as an instance. His design was to settle sceptics, and to confound atheists. The result of his argument, however, is to make thousands doubt where only one doubted before.

VOL. II.

C

me.'

XI.

WHO SPEAK TRUTH FOR IGNOBLE ENDS.

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AUGEREAU is described as having been ' one of the greatest of ruffians, in a period fertile in villains.' He -professed himself a republican, and yet accepted the dukedom of Castiglione. On the reverse of Napoleon he was, though it might have been amply predicted, so hostile, that he even insulted his master. 'You have conducted yourself,' said Napoleon, when he saw him in the south, on his way to Elba, very badly towards Of what have you to complain?' answered Augereau, without even deigning to take off his hat. 'Has not your insatiable ambition brought us to the condition in which we are? Have you not sacrificed every thing to it—even the welfare of France? I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. I regard my country alone.' On this Napoleon suddenly turned away, took off his hat to the Marshal, and returned to his carriage.

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The conduct of Augereau is an example to prove, that noble truths may be spoken to unworthy ends. At the Tuileries' none more obsequious *.'

XII.

WHO PRESERVE FRIENDSHIP WITH BOTH PARTIES.

THE Marquis de Dangeau was the confidant both of Louis XIV. and his sister-in-law, the Princess Hen*Bourrienne.

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