sisters, or neighbours. Patriotism, in his view, constitutes but a segment of morality:—the circle he embraces being the whole of human shape, savage, barbarous, semi-barbarous, civilized, and enlightened. The diameter of his circle has no limit but that of the globe.

But who has this unlimited sphere of action? He may ardently desire; but desire evaporates into mere philanthropical phantoms, unless it can be called into action. Patriotism, then, is necessary to afford to philanthropy the opportunities of exercise she desires.

And here Experience steps in with her melancholy lesson. The great majority of those, who call themselves Citizens of the World,' says she, are men, who care for themselves a vast deal; for mankind little; ' for their country nothing at all.'

CCXIX.

WHO ARE GOVERNED BY GENERAL MAXIMS.

GENERAL maxims are wise when actors pay a proper regard to individual exceptions; otherwise they are per

nicious.

Mr. Burke gives an example of the danger of being governed by general maxims in the person of Lord Chatham. For a wise man he seemed to me to be governed too much by general maxims. One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy species, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself,

' and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to ' his country.'

Maxims are fitted only for times. Change the spirit of an age; and you must adopt a new general maxim. The difficulty then consists chiefly in the application. A maxim, suited to the age of Stephen, would ill apply to the present; and those which apply to the present will ensure very different results, should they be applied to an age two hundred years to come. We must not confound general maxims with immutable ones.

CCXX.

LOVERS OF ADVENTURE.

CANOVA'S Dædalus and Icarus, wherein the father is fastening wings on the shoulders of his son, is the personification of an adventurous spirit.

Some men despise obtaining even common ends by common means. Others like a leaf or a feather in a whirlwind, or a hare, whose head lies

-Couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet,

In act to spring away,'

unite a love of fame to a love of adventure;

'Traverse huge forests, and unharbour'd heaths,
Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds,

unsatiated, unwearied.

My inclinations,' wrote Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke*, are to sit still.' These, on the contrary, are

6

*Camb., Feb. 16, 1691-2.

ever on the wing; and astonishing is the zeal which some of them have displayed, especially in Africa and the northern circle; encountering every hazard, whether of famine or of disease, slavery, robbery, cruelty, and death.

A love of adventure is characteristic of most promising boys. Virgil is, therefore, strictly in nature, where he describes the young Ascanius wishing, as he rides along, that a foaming boar or lion would descend from the mountains.

'Optat apruma, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem *.

A love of adventure distinguishes most savages; also persons, born in a state of civilization, similar to that in which live the inhabitants of certain Norwegian districts, described by Von Buch. 'The sea offers them dangers,' says he †, and frequently great profits; and they everywhere deem it noble and more becoming a man to extort from the waves, amidst storms and tempests, by their courage and skill, what can only be derived from the land through patience, 'diligence, and constancy.'

The conversation of agreeable adventurers is delightful! The beautiful Carthaginian hangs on the lips of the Dardan; Calypso is breathless while listening to the adventures of Ulysses; and Desdemona devours the discourse of Othello. Adventurers, however, too frequently resemble the cherry-tree of Van Diemen's Land; the stone of which grows not in the inside, as in all others, but on the outside of the fruit.

*En. iv, 159.

Trav. Norway and Lapland, p. 162. 4to.

CCXXI.

WHO HAVE MANY METHODS OF ENSURING SIMILAR
PURPOSES.

THE little auk is so constructed, that it is capable of contracting and of dilating itself according to its own pleasure. This enables it to dive beneath the water, as well as to swim upon its surface. Some men have only one method to accomplish every thing. If thwarted in that, they are paralyzed. Others argue and act after a different manner. This, I infer,' says Shakspeare, in his play of Henry V.,—

'That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in a town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

As many lines close in the dial's centre ;

So many thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose.'

CCXXII.

WHO KNOW HOW TO ESCAPE.

WATER-FOWLS fly into the air at the sight of a man; and dive into the water at the sight of a hawk. Men have no such convenient methods. Foote, however, seems to have had a faculty, not a little enviable: for he had one species of wit, according to Johnson; and that in a very eminent degree-that of escape. 'You ' drive him,' said the moralist, into a corner with both hands; but he's gone, sir, when you think you have ́ got him, like an animal that jumps over your head.'

It is excellent to know when to yield, and when to rise. But those, who do so, often do it after the fashion of the ladies in France, during the preaching of Conecte against the high cones, which were so prevalent in the fourteenth century. Wherever he preached, the cones disappeared. But the moment he departed out of the towns, the women, 'who had drawn in their horns, ' like snails in a fright,' says Mons. Paradin, ‘shot 'them out again as soon as the danger was over.'

CCXXIII.

WHO LOVE TO GO AGAINST THE STREAM.

ON the sea shore and my eyes directed to a man, rowing against the tide. A passage in Virgil might have risen to my mind, but it did not. It is that in the Georgics, where he says, that all things hasten to decay, as a boatman rowing against the stream; if he relaxes his oars, the tide hurries him immediately down the river.

'Sic omnia fatis

In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapsa referri;

Non aliter, quàm qui adverso vix flumine lembum
Remigiis subigit, si brachia forte remisit,

Atque illum in præceps prono rapit alveus amni.'

It is one of the worst results of going against the stream, that we must always be at our oars.

He, who makes it a practice to sail with the stream, may sail more safely than others; but he sails not so honourably; nor does he always get into a safe port: for he must go wherever the stream may chance to