perfect their fruit; and others the cherry, which takes between two and three months. WHATELY: Annot. on Bacon's Essay, Of Youth and Age. As for the decay of mental faculties which often takes place in old age, every one is aware of it; but many overlook one kind of it which is far from uncommon; namely, when a man of superior intelligence, without falling into any thing like dotage, sinks into an ordinary man. Whenever there is a mixture of genius with imbecility, every one perceives that a decay has taken place. But when a person of great intellectual eminence becomes (as is sometimes the case) an ordinary average man, just such as many have been all their life, no one is likely to suspect that the faculties have been impaired by age, except those who have seen much of him in his brighter days. Even so, no one on looking at an ordinary dwelling-house in good repair would suspect that it had been once a splendid palace; but when we view a stately old castle or cathedral partly in ruins, we see at once that it cannot be what it originally was. The decay which is most usually noticed in old people, both by others and by themselves, is a decay in memory. But this is perhaps partly from its being a defect easily to be detected and distinctly proved. When a decay of judgment takes place which is perhaps oftener the case than is commonly supposed-the party himself is not likely to be conscious of it; and his friends are more likely to overlook it, and, even when they do perceive it, to be backward in giving him warning, for fear of being met with such a rebuff as Gil Blas received in return for his candour from the Archbishop, his patron. WHATELY: want of the consolations of religion: but when fortune frowns, or friends forsake us; when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight than an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach, or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeavours and elude his grasp! WILBERFORCE: Practical View. The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit In these performances there is, by Addison. perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the seek-Pilgrim's Progress. But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza, the Vision of Theodore, the genealogy of Wit, or the contest between Rest and Labour, is exactly similar to the pleasure we derive from one of Cowley's odes or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the unde: Annot. on Bacon's Essay, Of Youth and Age. Of persons who have led a temperate life, those will have the best chance of longevity who have done hardly anything else but live;-what may be called the neuter verbs-not active or passive, but only being: who have had little to do, little to suffer, but have led a life of quiet retirement, without exertion of body or mindavoiding all troublesome enterprise, and ing only a comfortable obscurity. Such men, if of a pretty strong constitution, and if they escape any remarkable calamities, are likely to live long. But much affliction, or much exertion, and, still more, both combined, will be sure to tell upon the constitution-if not at once, yet at least as years advance. One who is of the char-standing, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though acter of an active or passive verb, or, still more, both combined, though he may be said to have assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived long in everything but years, will rarely lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he reach the age of the neuters. lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first WHATELY : Annot, on Bacon's Essay, Of Regimen of Health. When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigour; when all goes on prosperously, and success seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the It is proper that alms should come out of a little purse, as well as out of a great sack; but surely where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy: it is a tribute imposed by Heaven upon us, and he is not a good subject who refuses to pay it. FELLTHAM. Are we not to pity and supply the poor, though they have no relation to us? No relation? That cannot be. The gospel styles them all our brethren: nay, they have a nearer relation to us-our fellow-members; and both these from their relation to our Saviour himself, who calls them his brethren. SPRAT. It is indeed the greatest insolence imaginable, in a creature who would feel the extremes of thirst and hunger if he did not prevent his appetites before they call upon him, to be so forgetful of the common necessities of human nature as never to cast an eye upon the poor and needy. The fellow who escaped from a ship which struck upon a rock in the west, and joined with the country people to destroy his brother sailors and make her a wreck, was thought a most execrable creature; but does not every man who enjoys the possession of what he naturally wants, and is unmindful of the unsupplied distress of other men, betray the same temper of mind? SIR R. STEELE: Spectator, No. 294. The poor beggar hath a just demand of an alms from the rich man, who is guilty of fraud, injustice, and oppression if he does not afford relief according to his abilities. SWIFT. ALPHABET. 'Tis a mathematical demonstration, that these twenty-four letters admit of so many changes in their order, and make such a long roll of difalike, that they could not all be exhausted ferently-ranged alphabets, not two of which are though a million millions of writers should each write above a thousand alphabets a day for the space of a million millions of years. BENTLEY. On the greatest and most useful of all human inventions, the invention of alphabetical writing, Plato did not look with much complacency. He seems to have thought that the use of letters had operated on the human mind as the use of the go-cart in learning to walk, or of corks in learning to swim, is said to operate on the human body. It was a support which, in his opinion, soon became indispensable to those who used it, which made vigorous exertion first unnecesintellect would, he conceived, have been more sary, and then impossible. The powers of the fully developed without this delusive aid. Men derstanding and the memory, and, by deep and would have been compelled to exercise the unassiduous meditation, to make truth thoroughly their own. Now, on the contrary, much knowledge is traced on paper, but little is engraved in the soul. A man is certain that he can find information at a moment's notice when he wants it. He therefore suffers it to fade from his mind. Such a man cannot in strictness be said to know anything. He has the show without the reality of wisdom. These opinions Plato has put into the mouth of an ancient king of Egypt. [Plato's Phædrus.] But it is evident from the context that they were his own; and so they were understood to be by Quinctilian. [Quinctilian, xi.] Indeed, they are in perfect accordance with the whole Platonic system. LORD MACAULAY: Lord Bacon, July, 1837. AMBITION. The soul, considered abstractedly from its passions, is of a remiss and sedentary nature, slow in its resolves, and languishing in its executions. The use therefore of the passions is the understanding, to enforce the will, and to to stir it up and to put it upon action, to awaken make the whole man more vigorous and attentive in the prosecution of his designs. As this is the end of the passions in general, so it is particularly of ambition, which pushes the soul to such actions as are apt to procure honour and But if we carry our reputation to the actor. reflections higher, we may discover farther ends of Providence in implanting this passion in mankind. It was necessary for the world that arts should be invented and improved, books written and transmitted to posterity, nations conquered and civilized. Now, since the proper and genuine motives to these, and the like great actions, would only influence virtuous minds, there would be but small improvements in the world were there not some common principle of action working equally with all men: and such a principle is ambition, or a desire of fame, by which great endowments are not suffered to lie idle and useless to the public, and many vicious men are over-reached, as it were, and engaged, contrary to their natural inclinations, in a glorious and laudable course of action. For we may farther observe that men of the greatest abilities are most fired with ambition; and that, on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the least actuated by it: whether it be that a man's sense of his own incapacities makes him despair of coming at fame, or that he has not enough range of thought to look out for any good which does not more immediately relate to his interest or convenience; or that Providence, in the very frame of his soul, would not subject him to such a passion as would be useless to the world and a torment to himself. Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit. ADDISON: Spectator, No. 255. There are few men who are not ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing considerable with those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn, and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet. ADDISON. How often is the ambitious man mortified with the very praises he receives, if they do not rise so high as he thinks they ought! ADDISON. It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the most shining parts are most actuated by ambition. ADDISON. Of ambitions, it is less harmful the ambition to prevail in great things, than that other to appear in everything; for that breeds confusion, and mars business; but yet it is less danger to have an ambitious man stirring in business than great in dependences. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public: but he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age. LORD BACON : Essay XXXVII.: Of Ambition. Ambitious men, if they be checked in their desires, become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye. LORD BACON. Although imitation is one of the great instru ments used by Providence in bringing our nature towards its perfection, yet if men gave themselves up to imitation entirely, and each followed the other, and so on in an eternal circle, it is easy to see that there never could be any improvement amongst them. Men must remain as brutes do, the same at the end that they are at this day, and that they were in the beginning of the world. To prevent this, God has implanted in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction arising from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. It is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves, and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. It has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is that, where we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. BURKE: On the Sublime and Beautiful, 1756. The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. It is something that rays out of darkness, and inspires nothing but gloom and melancholy. Men in this deplorable state of mind find a comfort in spread Ambition raises a tumult in the soul, and ing the contagion of their spleen. They find an puts it into a violent hurry of thought. ADDISON. advantage too; for it is a general, popular error, to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. If such persons can answer the ends of relief and profit to themselves, they are apt to be careless enough about either the means or the conseBURKE: quences. On the Present State of the Nation, 1769. Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune. BURKE: Letters on a Regicide Peace: Letter III., 1797. Indeed no man knows, when he cuts off the incitements to a virtuous ambition and the just rewards of public service, what infinite mischiet he may do his country through all generations. BURKE. Ambition, that high and glorious passion, which makes such havoc among the sons of men, arises from a proud desire of honour and distinction, and, when the splendid trappings in which it is usually caparisoned are removed, will be found to consist of the mean materials of envy, pride, and covetousness. It is described by different authors as a gallant madness, a pleasant poison, a hidden plague, a secret poison, a caustic of the soul, the moth of holiness, the mother of hypocrisy, and, by crucifying and disquieting all it takes hold of, the cause of melancholy and madness. ROBERT BURTON. Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness. But, alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us: in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle where we have nothing to hope, but everything to fear. Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a public place. MONTAIGNE. Covetous ambition thinking all too little which presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of all which it hath not. SIR WALTER Raleigh. Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than he who aims but at a bush. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When at length you had determined in their favour, and your doors thrown open showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long-absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellowcitizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, "his face was if it had been the face of an angel." I do not know how others feel, but if I had stood in that situation I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together forever. But, alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished. EDMUND BURKE: Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774. On this business of America, I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, in Parliament. The noble lord will, as usual, probably, attribute the part taken by me and my friends in this business to a desire of getting his places. Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. If I deprived him of it, I should take away most of his wit, and all his argument. But I had rather bear the brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much heavier, than stand answerable to God for embracing a system that tends to the destruction of some of the very best and fairest of His works. But I know the map of England as well as the noble lord, or as any other person; and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment. BURKE: Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774. Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean their education. In no country, perhaps, in the world is law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful, and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's "Commentaries" in America as in England. General Gage marks out this dispo sition very particularly in a letter on your table. Speech on Conciliation with America, For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,-they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your govern ment may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation,-the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. BURKE: Speech on Conciliation with America, March 22, 1775. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your gov ernment. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English Constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? BURKE: Speech on Conciliation with America, March 22, 1775. I am, and ever have been, deeply sensible of the difficulty of reconciling the strong presiding |