them oftener thrown aside than taken up. As thofe conversations and books should be both well chofen, to give some advice on that head may poffibly furnish you with a future paper, and any thing you shall offer on my behalf will be of great fervice to, Good Mr. RAMBLER, Your faithful Friend and Servant, SUNDAY. NUMB. 31. TUESDAY, July 3, 1750, Non ego mendofos aufim defendere mores, Corrupted manners I fhall ne'er defend, TH OVID. ELPHINSTON. HOUGH the fallibility of man's reason, and the narrowness of his knowledge, are very liberally confeffed, yet the conduct of those who fo willingly admit the weakness of human nature, seems to difcern that this acknowledgment is not altogether fincere; at leaft, that moft make it with a tacit referve in favour of themselves, and that with whatever ease they give up the claim of their neighbours, they are defirous of being thought exempt from faults in their own conduct, and from error in their opinions. The certain and obftinate oppofition, which we may obferve made to confutation however clear, and to reproof however tender, is an undoubted argument, 04 gument, that fome dormant privilege is thought to be attacked; for as no man can lofe what he neither poffeffes, nor imagines himself to poffefs, or be defrauded of that to which he has no right, it is reasonable to fuppofe that those who break out into fury at the foftest contradiction, or the flightest cenfure, fince they apparently conclude themselves, injured, muft fancy fome ancient immunity violated, or fome natural prerogative invaded. To be mistaken, if they thought themselves liable to mistake, could not be confidered either as fhameful or wonderful, and they would not receive with so much emotion intelligence which only informed them of what they knew before, nor ftruggle with fuch earneftness against an attack that deprived them of nothing to which they held themselves entitled. It is related of one of the philofophers, that when an account was brought him of his fon's death, he received it only with this reflection, I knew that my fon was mortal. He that is convinced of an error, if he had the fame knowledge of his own weakness, would, instead of straining for artifices, and brooding malignity, only regard fuch overfights as the appendages of humanity, and pacify himself with confidering that he had always known man to be a fallible being. If it be true that most of our paffions are excited by the novelty of objects, there is little reafon for doubting, that to be confidered as fubject to fallacies of ratiocination, or imperfection of knowledge, is to a great part of mankind entirely new ; for it is impoffible to fall into any company where there is not fome regular and established fubordi nation, nation, without finding rage and vehemence produced only by difference of fentiments about things in which neither of the difputants have any other intereft than what proceeds from their mutual unwillingness to give way to any opinion that may bring upon them the difgrace of being wrong. I have heard of one that, having advanced fome erroneous doctrines in philofophy, refused to fee the experiments by which they were confuted: and the observation of every day will give new proofs with how much induftry fubterfuges and evafions are fought to decline the preffure of refiftlefs arguments, how often the ftate of the question is altered, how often the antagonist is wilfully mifrepresented, and in how much perplexity the clearest pofitions are involved by those whom they happen to oppose. Of all mortals none feem to have been more infected with this fpecies of vanity, than the race of writers, whose reputation arifing folely from their understanding, gives them a very delicate fenfibility of any violence attempted on their literary honour. It is not unpleafing to remark with what folicitude men of acknowledged abilities will endeavour to palliate abfurdities and reconcile contradictions, only to obviate criticisms to which all human performances must ever be exposed, and from which they can never fuffer, but when they teach the world by a vain and ridiculous impatience to think them of importance. DRYDEN, whose warmth of fancy, and haste of compofition, very frequently hurried him into inaccuracies, curacies, heard himself sometimes expofed to ridicule for having faid in one of his tragedies, I follow fate, which does too fast pursue. That no man could at once follow and be followed was, it may be thought, too plain to be long difputed; and the truth is, that DRYDEN was apparently betrayed into the blunder by the double meaning of the word FATE, to which in the former part of the verfe he had annexed the idea of FORTUNE, and in the latter that of DEATH; fo that the fenfe only was, though pursued by DEATH, I will not refign myself to defpair, but will follow FORTUNE, and do and fuffer what is appointed. This, however, was not completely expreffed, and DRYDEN being determined not to give way to his criticks, never confeffed that he had been furprised by an ambiguity; but finding luckily in Virgil an account of a man moving in a circle, with this expreffion, Et fe fequiturque fugitque, "Here," fays he, is the paffage in imitation of which I wrote "the line that my criticks were pleased to con"demn as nonfenfe; not but I may fometimes "write nonfenfe, though they have not the fortune " to find it." Every one fees the folly of fuch mean doublings to escape the pursuit of criticism; nor is there a fingle reader of this poet, who would not have paid him greater veneration, had he fhewn consciousness enough of his own fuperiority to fet fuch cavils at. defiance, and owned that he fometimes flipped into errors errors by the tumult of his imagination, and the multitude of his ideas. It is happy when this temper discovers itself only in little things, which may be right or wrong without any influence on the virtue or happiness of mankind. We may, with very little inquietude, fee a man perfift in a project, which he has found to be impracticable, live in an inconvenient house because it was contrived by himself, or wear a coat of a particular cut, in hopes by perseverance to bring it into fashion. These are indeed follies, but they are only follies, and, however wild or ridiculous, can very little affect others. But fuch pride, once indulged, too frequently operates upon more important objects, and inclines men not only to vindicate their errors, but their vices; to perfift in practices which their own hearts condemn, only left they fhould feem to feel reproaches, or be made wifer by the advice of others; or to fearch for fophifms tending to the confufion of all principles, and the evacuation of all duties, that they may not appear to act what they are not able to defend. Let every man, who finds vanity fo far predomi nant, as to betray him to the danger of this laft degree of corruption, pause a moment to confider what will be the confequences of the plea which he is about to offer for a practice to which he knows himfelf not led at first by reason, but impelled by the violence of defire, furprised by the fuddennefs of paffion, or feduced by the foft approaches of temptation, and by imperceptible gradations of guilt, Let him confider what he is going to commit by forcing |