merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot condemn a man for his ignorance but behold him with as much pity as I do for Lazarus. It is no greater charity to cloath his body, than cover the nakedness of his foul. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men wear our liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and like the naturall charity of the fun illuminates another without obfcuring itself. To be a ferub and niggard in this part of goodness, is the fordideft piece of covetoufnefs, and more contemptible than pecuniary avarice. To this ( as calling myself a scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition: I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no monopoly, but a community in learning; I ftudy not for my own is a man of they world, Brownfake a solitary reveur. They are as different as love with I fake only, but for theirs that study Wordsworth BW. Scott - Bacon seems to write thing to the purpofe; for then reafon, like a bad hound fpends, upon a falfe fcent, and forfakes the queftion first started. And this is one reason why controversies are never determined, for tho' they be amply proposed, they are scarce at all handled, they are so fwelled with unneceffary digreffions; and the parenthefis on the party, is often as large as the main difcourfe upon the fubject. The foundations of religion are already established, and the principles of falvation fubfcribed unto by all; there remains not many controverfies worth a paffion, and yet never any difputed with out, not only in divinity, but in infeiour arts: What * a BaтpaxoμvoΒατραχομυοMaxía, and hot skirmish is betwixt S. and T. in Lucian? how doth grammarians hack and flash for the genitive cafe in Jupiter? How do they break their own pates to fave 2 Whether Jovis or Jupiteris. a that Shenstone 141 that of Priscian? Si foret in terris, rideret Democritus. Yea, even among wifer militants, how many wounds have been given, and beliefs flain for the poor victory of an opinion or beggarly conqueft of a distinction? Scholars are men of peace, they bear no armes, but their tongues are fharper than Actius's razor, their pens carry farther, and give a louder report than thunder; I had rather ftand in the fhock of a bafilifco than in the fury of a merciless pen. It is not meer zeal to learning, or devotion to the mufes, that wifer princes patronize the arts, and carry an indulgent afpe&t unto fcholars, but a defire to have their names eternized by the memory of their writings, and a fear of the revengeful pen of fucceeding ages: for these are the men, that when they have played their parts, and have had their exits, muft ftẹp out and give the moral of their fcenes, and deliver unto pofterity an inventory of their virtues and vices. And furely there goes a great deal of confcience to the compiling of an history, there is no reproach to the scandal of a ftory; it is fuch an my be authentick kind of falfehood that do evi with authority belies our good names to all nations and pofterity.a SECT. IV. There is another offence unto charity, which no author hath ever written of, and few taken notice of, and that's the reproach, not of whole profeffions, myfteries and conditions, but of whole nations, wherein by opprobrious epithets we mifcall each other, and by an uncharitable logick from a difpofition in a few conclude a habit in all. Le mutin Anglois, et le bravache Efcoffois; St. :mmal as a le in history |