are willing to try all methods of reconciling guilt and quiet, and when their understandings are stubborn and uncomplying, raise their paffions against them, and hope to overpower their own knowledge. It is generally not so much the defire of men, funk into depravity, to deceive the world as themfelves, for when no particular circumstances make them dependant on others, infamy disturbs them little, but as it revives their remorfe, and is echoed to them from their own hearts. The fentence most dreaded is that of reason and confcience, which they would engage on their fide at any price but the labours of duty, and the forrows of repentance. For this purpose every feducement and fallacy is fought, the hopes still rest upon fome new experiment till life is at an end; and the laft hour steals on unperceived, while the faculties are engaged in refifting reason, and repreffing the sense of the divine difapprobation. NUMB. 77. TUESDAY, December 11, 1750. Os dignum æterno nitidum quod fulgeat auro, PRUDENT. F. LEWIS. AMONG thofe, whofe hopes of diftinction, or riches, arife from an opinion of their intel lectual attainments, it has been, from age to age, an established custom to complain of the ingratitude of mankind to their inftructors, and the difcouragement which men of genius and study fuffer from avarice and ignorance, from the prevalence of false taste, and the encroachment of barbarity. Men are most powerfully affected by thofe evils which themselves feel, or which appear before their own eyes; and as there has never been a time of fuch general felicity, but that many have failed to obtain the rewards to which they had, in their own judgment, a juft claim, fome offended writer has always declaimed, in the rage of disappointment, against his age or nation; nor is there one who has not fallen upon times more unfavourable to learning than any former century, or who does not wifh, that he had been referved in the infenfibility of non-existence to fome happier hour, when literary merit shall no longer be despised, and the gifts and careffes of mankind mankind fhall recompenfe the toils of study, and add luftre to the charms of wit. Many of these clamours are undoubtedly to be confidered only as the burfts of pride never to be fatisfied, as the prattle of affectation, mimicking, diftreffes unfelt, or as the common-places of vanity folicitous for fplendour of fentences, and acuteness of remark. Yet it cannot be denied that frequent discontent muft proceed from frequent hardships, and though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deferve the cenfure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or haraffed with perfecution. It is not neceffary, however, to join immediately in the outcry, or to condemn mankind as pleased with ignorance, or always envious of fuperior abili ties. The miseries of the learned have been related by themselves, and fince they have not been found exempt from that partiality with which men look upon their own actions and sufferings, we may conclude that they have not forgotten to deck their cause with the brightest ornaments, and strongest colours. The logician collected all his fubtilties when they were to be employed in his own defence; and the master of rhetorick exerted against his adversary all the arts by which hatred is embittered, and indignation inflamed. To believe no man in his own caufe, is the ftanding and perpetual rule of diftributive juftice. Since therefore, in the controverfy between the learned and their enemies, we have only the pleas of one party, of the party more able to delude our understandings, and engage our paffions, we muft determine our opinion by facts uncontested, and evidences on each fide allowed to be genuine. By this procedure, I know not whether the ftudents will find their caufe promoted, or the compaffion which they expect much increased. Let their conduct be impartially furveyed; let them be allowed no longer to direct attention at their pleasure, by expatiating on their own deferts; let neither the dignity of knowledge overawe the judgment, nor the graces of elegance feduce it. It will then, perhaps, be found, that they were not able to produce claims to kinder treatment, but provoked the calamities which they fuffered, and seldom wanted friends, but when they wanted virtue. That few men, celebrated for theoretick wisdom, live with conformity to their precepts, must be readily confeffed; and we cannot wonder that the indignation of mankind rifes with great vehemence against thofe, who neglect the duties which they appear to know with fo ftrong conviction the neceffity of performing. Yet fince no man has power of acting equal to that of thinking, I know not whether the fpeculatift may not fometimes incur cenfures too fevere, and by thofe, who form ideas of his life from their knowledge of his books, be confidered as worfe than others, only becaufe he was expected to be better. He, by whose writings the heart is rectified, the appetites counteracted, and the paffions repreffed, may be confidered as not unprofitable to the great republick of humanity, even though his behaviour fhould fhould not always exemplify his rules. His inftructions may diffuse their influence to regions, in which it will not be inquired, whether the author be albus an ater, good or bad; to times, when all his faults and all his follies fhall be loft in forgetfulness, among things of no concern or importance to the world; and he may kindle in thousands and ten thousands that flame which burnt but dimly in himself, through the fumes of paffion, or the damps of cowardice. The vicious moralift may be confidered as a taper, by which we are lighted through the labyrinth of complicated paffions; he extends his radiance further than his heat, and guides all that are within view, but burns only those who make too near approaches. Yet fince good or harm must be received for the most part from thofe to whom we are familiarly known, he whofe vices overpower his virtues, in the compass to which his vices can extend, has no reason to complain that he meets not with affection or veneration, when thofe with whom he paffes his life are more corrupted by his practice than enlightened by his ideas. Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases; and his favourers are diftant, but his enemies at hand. Yet many have dared to boast of neglected merit, and to challenge their age for cruelty and folly, of whom it cannot be alledged that they have endeavoured to increase the wifdom or virtue of their readers. They have been at once profligate in their lives, and licentious in their compofitions; have not only forfaken the paths of virtue, but attempted to lure others after them. They have fmoothed the road of perdition, covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, D 4 |