and benevolence which every fpecies of creatures has a right to from us.

1

It is to be regretted that this generous maxim is not more attended to, in the affair of education, and preffed home upon tender minds in its full extent and latitude. I am far, indeed, from thinking that the early delight which children discover in tormenting flies, &c. is a mark of any innate cruelty of temper; because this turn may be accounted

for upon other principles, and it is entertaining unworthy notions of the Deity to fuppose he forms mankind with a propenfity to the most deteftable of all difpofitions. But moft certainly, by being unrestrained in fports of this kind, they may acquire by habit, what they never would have learned from nature, and grow up into a confirmed inattention to every kind of fuffering but their own. Accordingly the fupreme court of judicature at Athens thought an inftance of this fort not below its cognizance, and punished a boy for putting out the eyes of a poor bird, that had unhappily fallen into his hands.

IT might be of fervice therefore, it fhould feem, in order to awaken as early

as

as poffible in children an extenfive sense of humanity, to give them a view of feveral forts of infects as they may be magnified by the affistance of glaffes, and to fhew them that the fame evident marks of wifdom and goodness prevail in the formation of the minutest infect, as in that of the moft enormous Leviathan: that they are equally furnished with whatever is neceffary not only to the preservation but the happiness of their beings in that class of existence to which providence has affigned them: in a word, that the whole conftruction of their respective organs diftinctly proclaims them the objects of the divine benevolence, and therefore that they justly ought to be so of ours. I am, &c.

LETTER XVII.

To the fame.

Feb. 1, 1738.

u see how much I truft to your good-nature and your judgment whilst I am the only perfon, perhaps, among your friends, who have ventured to omit a

congra

congratulation in form. I am not, however, intentionally guilty; for I really defigned you a vifit before now; but hearing that your acquaintance flowed in upon you from all quarters, I thought it would be more agreable to you as well as to myfelf, if I waited till the inundation was abated. But if I have not joined in the general voice of congratulation; I have not, however, omitted the fincerest tho filent wishes, which friendship can fuggest upon the occafion. Had I not long fince forfaken the regions of poetry, I would tell you, in the language of that country, how often I have faid, may

But plain profe will do as well for plain truth and there is no occafion for

any art

to perfuade you, that you have upon every occurrence of your life, my best good wishes. I hope fhortly to have an opportunity of making myself better known to Afpafia. When I am fo, I fhall rejoice with her, on the choice fhe has made of a man, from whom

whom I will undertake to promise her all
the happiness, which the ftate fhe has en-
tered into can afford. Thus much I do
not scruple to say of her husband to you
the reft I had rather fay to her. If upon
any occafion
you fhould mention me, let
it be in the character which I moft value
myself upon, that of your much obliged
and very affectionate friend.

I

LETTER XVIII.

To HORTENSIUS.

July 5, 1739.

CAN by no means fubfcribe to the fentiments of your laft letter, nor agree with you in thinking, that the love of Fame is a paffion, which either reafon or religion condemn. I confefs, indeed, there are fome who have reprefented it as inconfiftent with both; and I remember in particular, the excellent author of The religion of nature delineated, has treated it as highly irrational and absurd. As the paffage falls in fo thoroughly with your own turn of thought,

thought, you will have no objection, I imagine, to my quoting it at large; and I give it at the fame time, as a very great you, authority on your fide. "In reality (fays "that writer) the man is not known ever

the more to pofterity, because his name "is tranfmitted to them: He doth not live becaufe his name does. When it "is faid, Julius Cæfar fubdued Gaul, conquered Pompey, &c. it is the fame thing as to fay, the conqueror of Pompey was Julius Cæfar, i. e. Cæfar and the conqueror of Pompey is the fame thing; Cæfar is as much known by one defignation as by the other. The amount "then is only this: that the conqueror

of Pompey conquered Pompey; or ra"ther, fince Pompey is as little known now as Cæfar, fomebody conquered fomebody. Such a poor bufinefs is this boasted immortality! and fuch is the thing called "Glory among us! To difcerning men this fame is mere air, and what they r defpife, if not fhun."

BUT furely, 'twere to confider too curioufly (as Horatio fays to Hamlet) to confider thus. For tho fame with pofterity should

be,