and George Washington are jufly reckoned famous. Their fame will defcend to pofterity. But I doubt whether they would be inclined to exchange characters. In literary fame, the gradations are illuftrative of this po nt. Many volumes have been written to celebrate the merits of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Shakfpeare, yet these merits are not equal. Homer and Virgil have been known over all the globe, and are read with enthu afm by men of all nations. The fame of Milton and Shakspeare is only beard of by foreigners; they can judge of their merits only by the medium of tranflation. Though able to read them in the original, we all know what difference that makes in a living language. Bolingbroke was a famous man. His actions are in history; his works have been much read: they are little read now. We do not speak of him, as of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, &c. and the time will come when their fame shall diminish as well as his, or be recognized only by scholars, and librarians. It is, therefore, the degree of fame which has led thofe in to the mistake, who think fame unattainable, because unattainable in the highest degree. And a fimilar prejudice has led many to think that fane and wickedness are infeparable. But although this will generally be the cafe when men feek fame for it felf only, and are regardless of the means, it will not be the cafe where great actions are performed with a fincere defire to benefit mankind, and a virtuous life is led because fuch a life is pleafing in the eyes of God and man. Such men will acquire fame without feeking it, and it will be bestowed upon them when they are beyond the reach of flattery. That fame is a paffion implanted in us by the hand of nature, appears in nothing more remarkable than in this, that it adheres to us at the hour of death. The philofophy of this, I own is not quite fo obvious. We cannot easily determine why men fhould be defirous of praises which they cannot hear, and of an approbation with which they cannot be flattered. But the fact is certain, and the pleasure of it, the operation of the love of fame in this cafe, confits in anticipating the good name which can no longer benent us, the tender refpect which cannot footh us, and the applauding record of pofterity to which we thall be for ever infenfible. Mifers, a fpecies of men, more defpifed in their lives than any others, have thought they have wifely facrificed the regard of a small circle of friends and relations, to the many thousands who should be born to mention them with refpect, and hand down their names to the latest polterity, as the beit benefactors to the human race. How many of our nobleft charitable inftitutions have been owing to this love of fame? And how strong muft the love of fame be in that man who is content to be execrated when curfes may be heard, that he may purchase approbation when it is not in his power to enjoy it! The defire of fame, inftead of being forbidden by our religion, is placed upon the moft folid foundation. We are not there taught to purfue it as that which is in itself valuable, without any confideration of the steps by which we reach the fummit. It is therefore to be cherished in young minds, and always joined with the fear of shame. To minds thus cultivated, every thing mean, cruel, difhonourable, and vicious, will appear hoftile to true fame, and the most af piring genius, guided by these fentiments, will attain an elevation which his contemporaries will regard with veneration, and which the wary and unbiaffed eye of pofterity fhall in vain fcrutinize to find a blemish. A, L. ON ATTENTION TO LITTLE THINGS. [In a Letter to a Young Gentleman. ] Dear Jack, OU accufe me, and juftly, of Y having joined in the laugh againft you when we met at Mr.'s table: I plead guilty. Who could refrain, especially when the ladies took the lead? But it is not equally jult in you to blame me as having committed a breach of friendship, or of goodnature. We often laugh, we fcarce know why. The diforder is infectious, and of all the actions we perform, that is the one which leaft difcovers the criminal intent. But you will give me leave to fay, that your extreme aukwardness, from the moment of your arrival to your departure, difappointed the hopes I had entertained of a fmart young fellow, piping hot from the univerfity. I know that our univerfities now are not the places of hermitical aufterity, and while I heard with pleasure that you were an accomplished fcholar, I took for granted that your education in polite manners had not been neglected. Hinc origo mali. I was vexed to fee you fo aukward in every motion; and your attempt to carve would have completed my mortification, had I not difcharged my fpleen in a laugh, which, you know, I had not the merit of beginning. Your proficiency in the fciences has been great; you have exceeded all expectation which your years could jullify; and you bear your blushing honours thick upon you.'. Well, very well, indeed. We are all delighted to fee and know this; but recolleft you are coming into a world, for which you have not provided a fufficient ftock of marketable articles. Your learning is great to you, and it will be ferviceable on great occafions; but great occations do not occur every day. On the other hand, you will every day be called upon for a difplay of a fet of fecond rate, third or fourth ate (if you will) qualities, with which you feem to have formed no acquain→ tance. Thefe are the little things, ics petites attentions, the fmall change of behaviour, which conftitute eafy and agreeable manners, which are every where current, and every where expected. There are no privileges, political or civil, which can be pleaded in excufe for the want of thefe. A great man, indeed, may do without them, but then he must be a ve-ry great man, and the company he keeps must confift only of those who think him a very great man, and who, provided he beltows his favours upon him, do not care if he were a very great fcoundrel. But, now, you are not a great man, and although you are a very clever fellow, and have more in your individual head than all the numerous company put. together, whom we met the other day, yet they would defpife you, and fir Ifaac Newton himfelf, if he were fo deficient, as you appeared to be, in little things. You may obferve (for you will foon experience it) that the greatest qualifications, and highest mental endowments, are not those which procure refpect in company. Poffeffed of thefe, there may be, perhaps, a general rife when we enter the room, and the buzz may be, "This is the learned Dr. Theorem, of Corpus Chrifti College, Oxford;' but there our confequence ends: Dr. Theorem is too abfent to play at cards; he cannot hand a cup of tea without spilling it, and it is impoffible to trust him even to divide a pudding. The first philofopher of his age may fit like a flatue for a whole evening, while Jacky Maggot of the guards, who does not know whether Europe be an island or a continent, keeps the company in a roar of laughter, and in unceafing admiration of his prodigious cleverness, and polite attention to the ladies, and the gentlemen who are ladies in every thing but fex.-I do not fay that you will always meet with fuch company, or fuch ladies; but the cafe is common enough for me to give you the hint. You will fay, perhaps, that the contempt of fuch people is beneath the notice of a wife man or a philofopher. Why, truly, Jack, fo it would be, if wife men and philofophers were as plentiful as blackberries.' But we must not fet up for reformers upon too broad a fcale; and, between ourselves, as the original intention, and propereft ufe of company, is to relax the mind from the labour of study or bufinefs, I cannot help thinking, that it is every man's duty to make himself agreeable, to get up a part in the little drama, and make the whole go off smooth and easy. I know that you could, the other day, have defcanted at great length upon the theory of perception, on the doctrines of the peripatetics, and the errors of the Cartefians; that you could have illuftrated the topics of duration and identity, defined with accuracy the first principles of contingent and of neceffary truths, and that you could have refcued the genuine doctrines of mind from the sophistries of David Hume: all this I give you full credit for, but I do affure you it would have done you infinitely more honour if you had hit the joint of that fowl Mrs. This is all fhocking, you will fay, very fhocking-And what then? You cannot help it. To ufe the expreffion of your favourite Dr. Johnfon, It would be impoffible if it were endeavoured, and it would be foolish, if it were poffible.' A-propos, of doctors. A few days ago Dr. of Christ Church, happened to call at Mr. -'s, where was a large party. He flaid fupper, but departed almoft as foon as the cloth was removed. One or two of the party joined me in high encomiums upon his fplendid talents, and profound learning.' I don't know," cried Mrs. (who is no fool neither) whether he be fo very learned, but I am fure he knows nothing of mixing a falad!'-Here is degradation for you. Make the most of your time, however, where you are. Learn little things; learn to carve, as well as difpute: and do not fancy every room you enter to be the theatre at Oxford. I am, dear Jack, yours fincerely, MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS ON BOOKS. Of making many books there is no end.' WHEN we confider the vaft quantity of publications which are every day coming from the prefs, and when, upon a just appreciation of their intrinsic value, we difcover very few original fentiments in them, we cannot bu: admire that happy faculty in man, whereby he can vary and new-drefs old arguments and precepts, fo as to give them the chaims of novelty, and often the force of conviction. It has been obferved, of late years, that the publications of SOLOMON. the English prefs have multiplied tenfold, and that even their fuccefs as to circulation has very nearly kept pace with their number. It is a fair inference that the number of readers is increafed; for although there may be fome perfons who purchafe books merely as ornaments to a room, fuch a cafe cannot often happen, and I think that confidering the improved state of converfation, the other inference is the more juft one. How far the interells of true litera ture are concerned in the increase of publications is another queftion. With out entering particularly on the folution of it, I thould imagine that literature is spread over the kingdom in fmall portions fitted to the wants and to the leisure of its inhabitants, but that the number of real scholars, and of affiduous ftudents is very far from being greatly increased. We are greatly behind the writers of the last century in the magnitude of our productions. An author now is very well content to produce an oftavo volume within a time, half of which would have been fufficient for a fcholar of the last century to produce a folio. Indeed the fcholars of the latt and preceding centuries, produced more works than many who think themfelves ftudents now, could undergo the fatigue of reading; and it is in vain to fay, that in such voluminous compofitions there Voluminous as the European auis a great deal very fuperfluous, a thors of the last two centuries have great deal of no value, and which it been, what are they in comparison would be a waste of time to read. with the ancients, but mere pigmies The fact proves, at least, that they in literature, mere pamphleteers ? were more afliduous ftudents, that We are told that Epicurus left behind they devoted a portion of time to their him three hundred volumes of his ftudies, which we should think equal own works, all original; for Aulus to the horrors of an imprisonment. Geilius, quoting Varro, fays, there They allowed little time for converfa- was not a citation among them. tion, while we are fatisfied to fudy Didymus, the grammarian, wrote no just as much as will enable us to fhine lefs than four thoufand! Origen wrote in converfation. fix thousand treatifes. Of fuch works what can we think? We may furely. very fairly judge from what is extant, and fay that if they did not bear the ftamp of antiquity, many of them would have no currency at all. nefs of expreffion be termed thinking authors, would not form a very copious library, though one were to take in all of that kind, which both ancient and modern times have produced. Neceffarily,' fays he, I imagine, must one exclude from a collection of this fort, all critics, commentators, modern Latin poets, tranflators, and, in fhort, all that numerous undertribe in the common-wealth of literature that owe their exilence merely to the thoughts of others.' Were we, indeed, to be as faftidious as this writer propofes, what would be the fate of the Vatican and the Bodleian libraries. I fear we fhould be thought as great favages as those who burnt the library of Alexandria, a los, by the by, of much lefs confequence than has generally been fuppofed, if we may reafon from what was left to what was lost. But the authors of the laft and preceding centuries, it must be confeffed, were rather compilers than original writers. Emerging from the long night of darkness which overfpread Europe, they had to ranfack the ftores of antiquity for materials, which however crudely digested, formed a foundation for the more fimplified learning of the prefent day. Their minds were too much shackled by prejudices of the philofophical and religious kind, to allow them to expand their own thoughts, inftead of thofe of others; and, however much they improved on their originals, they were ftill led by authority. An agreeable author of our days, fays that the number of those writers who can with any juft Plutarch wrote above one hundred and fifty treatifes, of which we have no remains. I cannot offer a more juft opinion of him than I find in a fcarce and curious tract of the late lord Hailes. Of Plutarch he fays, His reading was, at leaft, equal to his judgment. His works are treated with a fort of traditionary refpect, by perfons, who po bly know him merely as a biographical compiler, fo that one can hardly venture, even in this free age, to speak freely of him. But if a father of the church, or a modern an tiquary, had written profeffed differtations on the following fubjects, what fhould we have faid of his genius, or of the manner in which he chofe to employ himself, and edify the public?' His lordship then quotes the following ridiculous questions, which the reader will find gravely difcuffed in Plutarch's morals. Why do the Roman women falute their relations with a kifs? Why does a man, returning from the country, or from a journey, fend before to advertise his wife of his return? It has been fuggefted to me, that it is to tell her to get dinner ready; but Plutarch affigns four reafons for the custom, and that is none of them. Whether ought he, who gives an entertainment, to place his guests at table, or to fuffer them to place themfelves? Which was firft, a hen or an egg? Why are women very long in getting drunk? Why are men, when half-drunk, more reftlefs and diforderly, than when they become quite intoxicated? Why are there many guests invited to a wedding dinner? Why is no faith to be given to dreams in autumn? Is it confiftent with the good manners that ought to be obferved at a fympofium, for a man to fall asleep, before he gets drunk?' So much for this great philofopher. A man in our days, provided he were not debarred the ufe of pen and ink, might fill up many reams of paper with fuch difquifitions, but I question whether the moft liberal of our bookfellers would be induced to hazard the expence of publication. We owe much, undoubtedly, to the laborious. compilations of ancient writers, but unless we employ the niceft difcrimination in felecting the gold from the drofs, our time will be fpent to as little purpofe in reading as theirs was in writing. It is, at the fame time, no reproach, no difhonour to the voluminous writers of paft ages, that their works are now feldom feen, and feldomer read. They gave us all they had, the learning of their own times, but they could not give us what they never had, the fuperior light and knowledge of more modern times. The mind of man is in a state of progreffive improvement. The prefent age knows more than the laft. The next will know more than the prefent, and the immortality of the foul has been beautifully illuftrated by the author of Clio, who fays (I quote from memory) that as we die long before our faculties are exhaufted, long before we learn all that we are capable of learning, is it not highly probabie that there is a future flate of exiftence, where our progrefs in learning fhall never be interrupted, and where perfect knowledge thall be perfect happiness? BIELICUS. |