Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

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.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Although imitation is one of the great instruments 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 sig nalizing 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.

[blocks in formation]

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 consequences.

BURKE:

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.

[blocks in formation]

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.

COLTON: Lacon.

[blocks in formation]

It ought not to be the leading object of any one to become an eminent metaphysician, mathematician, or poet, but to render himself happy as an individual, and an agreeable, a respectwith all it has done, and an unextinguished de-able, and a useful member of society. sire of doing more.

An ardent thirst of honour; a soul unsatisfied

DRYDEN.

'Tis almost impossible for poets to succeed without ambition: imagination must be raised by a desire of fame to a desire of pleasing.

DRYDEN.

If we look abroad upon the great multitude of mankind, and endeavour to trace out the principles of action in every individual, it will, I think, seem highly probable that ambition runs through the whole species, and that every man, in proportion to the vigour of his complexion, is more or less actuated by it.

HUGHES: Spectator, No. 224.

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises even to the person himself under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.

HUME.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment: the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual. LANDOR.

Unruly ambition is deaf, not only to the advice of friends, but to the counsels and monitions of reason itself. L'ESTRANGE.

DUGALD STEWART.

[blocks in formation]

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 deter-
mined 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 chil-
dren on a long-absent father. They clung about
him as captives about their redeemer. All Eng-
land, all America, joined in his applause. Nor
did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly
rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow
citizens. 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 pro-
fusion 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 van-
ished.
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:

sition very particularly in a letter on your table.
He states that all the people in his government
are lawyers, or smatterers in law, and that in
Boston they have been enabled, by successful
chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of
your capital penal constitutions.
BURKE:

Speech on Conciliation with America,
March 22, 1775-

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 an-
other, 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 sa-
cred temple consecrated to our common faith,
wherever the chosen race and sons of England
worship freedom, they will turn their faces to-
wards you. The more they multiply, the more
friends you will have; the more ardently they
love liberty, the more perfect will be their obe-
dience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It
is a weed that grows
in every soil.

BURKE:

Speech on Conciliation with America, March

22, 1775.

gether the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your gov

ernment.

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 Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774. clearances, are what form the great securities of Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance your commerce. Do not dream that your letters in our colonies which contributes no mean part of office, and your instructions, and your sustowards the growth and effect of this untract-pending clauses are the things that hold toable 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

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

power, that is so useful towards the conservation of a vast, disconnected, infinitely diversified empire, with that liberty and safety of the provinces which they must enjoy (in opinion and practice at least) or they will not be provinces at all. I know, and have long felt, the difficulty of reconciling the unwieldy haughtiness of a great ruling nation, habituated to command, pampered by enormous wealth, and confident from a long course of prosperity and victory, to the high spirit of free dependencies, animated with the first glow and activity of juvenile heat, and assuming to themselves, as their birthright, some part of that very pride which oppresses them. They who perceive no difficulty in reconciling these tempers (which, however, to make peace, must some way or other be reconciled) are much above my capacity, or much below the magnitude of the business. Of one thing I am perfectly clear: that it is not by deciding the suit, but by compromising the difference, that peace can be restored or kept. They who would

put an end to such quarrels by declaring roundly in favour of the whole demands of either party have mistaken, in my humble opinion, the office of a mediator. BURKE:

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777.

I am beyond measure surprised that you seem to feel no sort of terror at the awfulness of the situation in which you are placed by Providence, or into which you thought proper to intrude yourselves. A whole people culprit! Nations under accusation! A tribunal erected for commonwealths! This is no vulgar idea, and no trivial undertaking; it makes me shudder. I confess that, in comparison of the magnitude of the situation, I feel myself shrunk to nothing. Next to that tremendous day in which it is revealed that the saints of God shall judge the world, I know nothing that fills my mind with greater apprehension; and yet I see the matter trifled with, as if it were the beaten routine, an ordinary quarter-session, or a paltry course of common gaol-delivery. BURKE:

On the Measures against the American Colonies: Corresp., 1844, iv. 488. Everything has been done [in your History of America] which was so naturally to be expected from the author of the History of Scotland, and the age of Charles the Fifth. I believe few books have done more than this towards clearing up dark points, correcting errors, and removing prejudices. You have, too, the rare secret of rekindling an interest in subjects that had been so often treated, and in which everything that could feed a vital flame appeared to have been consumed. I am sure I read many parts of your history with that fresh concern and anxiety which attends those who are not previously informed of the event.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

in their forecastings, to their own great pecuniary disadvantage and the edification of a censorious world, so will it frequently occur that professed scientific men, too mindful of abstract theories to make practical innovations, find themselves suddenly confronted with some new application of those theories, or some complete reversal of them. These audacious exhibitions of scientific heterodoxy have of late years been more common in America. The active, volatile, knowing States' man is as little disposed to submit to antiquated authority in intellectual matters as in political affairs. Household Words.

AMUSEMENTS.

The next method, therefore, that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess, I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether innocent, and have nothing else to recommend conversant in such diversions as are merely them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is

short?

ADDISON: Spectator, No. 93.

disembitter the minds of men and make them Encourage such innocent amusements as may mutually rejoice in the same agreeable satisfac

tions.

ADDISON.

Whatever amuses serves to kill time, to lull the faculties, and to banish reflection. Whatever entertains usually awakens the understanding or gratifies the fancy. Whatever diverts is lively in its nature, and sometimes tumultuous in its effects. CRABB: Synonymes.

It is a private opinion of mine that the dull people in this country-no matter whether they belong to the Lords or the Commons-are the people who, privately as well as publicly, govern the nation. By dull people I mean people, of all degrees of rank and education, who never want to be amused. I don't know how long it is since these dreary members of the population first hit on the cunning idea-the only idea they ever had or will have-of calling themselves Respectable; but I do know that, ever since that time, this great nation has been afraid of them,-afraid in religious, in political, and in social matters. Household Words.

Mere innocent amusement is in itself a good, when it interferes with no greater, especially as it may occupy the place of some other that may not be innocent. The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should dis

[blocks in formation]

Analysis and synthesis, though commonly treated as two different methods, are, if properly understood, only the two necessary parts of the same method. Each is the relative and correlative of the other SIR W. HAMILTON.

The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. SIR I. NEWTON.

The word Analysis signifies the general and particular heads of a discourse, with their mutual connections, both co-ordinate and subordinate, drawn out into one or more tables. DR. I. WATTS.

ANCESTRY.

Title and ancestry render a good name more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. ADDISON.

It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle not in decay; how much more to behold an ancient family which have stood against the waves and weathers of time!

LORD BACON.

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession (as most concerned in it), are the natural securities for this transmission.

BURKE:

Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790. For though hereditary wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some prefer

to

ence (not exclusive appropriation) given birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic. BURKE : Reflections on the Revolution in France. Alterations of surnames have so intricated, or rather obscured, the truth of our pedigrees, that it will be no little hard labour to deduce them. CAMDEN.

A long series of ancestors shows the native lustre with advantage; but if he any way degenerate from his line, the least spot is visible on ermine. DRYDEN.

His ancestors have been more and more

solicitous to keep up the breed of their dogs and horses than that of their children.

GOLDSMITH.

If the virtues of strangers be so attractive to us, how infinitely more so should be those of our own kindred; and with what additional energy should the precepts of our parents influence us, when we trace the transmission of those precepts from father to son through successive generations, each bearing the testimony of a virtuous, useful, and honourable life to their truth and influence; and all uniting in a kind

and earnest exhortation to their descendants so to live on earth that (followers of Him through whose grace alone we have power to obey Him) we may at last be reunited with those who have gone before, and those who shall come after us: No wanderer lostA family in heaven.

LORD LINDSAY.

[blocks in formation]

The origin of all mankind was the same: it is only a clear and a good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself. It was the saying of a great man that, if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions: beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a trifle that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business. SENECA.

I am no herald to inquire into men's pedigree; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues.

SIR P. SIDNEY.

« ElőzőTovább »