concile contradictions, only to obviate criticisms to which all human performances muft ever be expofed, and from which they can never suffer, 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, heard himself sometimes expofed to ridicule for having faid in one of his tragedies, I follow fate, which does too faft purfue. That no man could at once follow and be followed was, it may be thought, too plain to be long dif puted; 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 verse he had annexed the idea of FOR TUNE, 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 surprised 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 condemn as "nonfenfe; not but I may fometimes write non"fenfe, 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 confciousness enough of his own fuperiority to fet fuch cavils at defiance, and owned that he fometimes flipped into errors by the tumult of his imagination, and the multitude of his ideas. It is happy when this temper difcovers 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 perfeverance to bring it into fafhion. Thefe 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, paufe 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 himself not led at firft by reason, but impelled by the violence of defire, furprifed by the fuddennefs of paffion, or feduced by the foft approaches of tempta temptation, and by imperceptible gradations of guilt. Let him confider what he is going to commit by forcing his understanding to patronise those appetites, which it is its chief bufinefs to hinder and reform. The cause of virtue requires fo little art to defend it, and good and evil, when they have been once fhewn, are fo eafily diftinguished, that fuch apologifts feldom gain profelytes to their party, nor have their fallacies power to deceive any but those whofe defires have clouded their difcernment. All that the best faculties thus employed can perform is, to perfuade the hearers that the man is hopeless whom they only thought vicious, that corruption has paffed from his manners to his principles, that all endeavours for his recovery are without profpect of fuccefs, and that nothing remains but to avoid him as infectious, or hunt him down as deftructive. But if it be fuppofed that he may impofe on his audience by partial representations of confequences, intricate deductions of remote causes, or perplexed combinations of ideas, which having various relations appear different as viewed on different fides; that he may fometimes puzzle the weak and well-meaning, and now and then feduce, by the admiration of his abilities, a young mind ftill fluctuating in unfettled notions, and neither fortified by inftruction nor enlightened by experience; yet what must be the event of fuch a triumph? A man cannot spend all this life in frolick: age, or difeafe, or folitude will bring fome hours. of ferious confideration, and it will then afford no comfort to think, that he has extended the dominion of vice, that he has loaded himfelf with the the crimes of others, and can never know the extent of his own wickednefs, or make reparation for the mifchief that he has caufed. There is not perhaps in all the ftores of ideal anguish, a thought more painful, than the consciousness of having propagated corruption by vitiating principles, of having not only drawn others from the paths of virtue, but blocked up the way by which they fhould return, of having blinded them to every beauty but the paint of pleasure, and deafened them to every call but the alluring voice of the fyrens of deftruction. There is yet another danger in this practice: men who cannot deceive others, are very often fuccessful in deceiving themfelves; they weave their fophiftry till their own reafon is entangled, and repeat their pofitions till they are credited by themfelves; by often contending they grow fincere in the caufe, and by long withing for demonftrative arguments, they at last bring themselves to fancy that they have found them. They are then at the uttermoft verge of wickednefs, and may die with out having that light rekindled in their minds, which their own pride and contumacy have extinguifhed. The men who can be charged with feweft failings, either with refpect to abilities or virtue, are generally moft ready to allow them; for not to dwell on things of folemn and awful confideration, the humility of confeffors, the tears of faints, and the dying terrors of perfons eminent for piety and innocence, it is well known that Cæfar wrote an account of the errors committed by him in his wars of Gaul, and that Hippocrates, whofe name is perhaps in rational eftimation greater than Cæfar's, warned warned pofterity against a mistake into which he had fallen. So much, fays Celfus, does the open and artlefs confeffion of an error become a man conscious that he has enough remaining to fupport his cha racter. As all error is meannefs, it is incumbent on every man who confults his own dignity, to retract it as foon as he discovers it, without fearing any cenfure fo much as that of his own mind. As juftice requires that all injuries fhould be repaired, it is the duty of him who has feduced others by bad practices, or falfe notions, to endeavour that fuch as have adopted his errors should know his retraction, and that thofe who have learned vice by his example, fhould by his example be taught amendment. NUMB. 32. SATURDAY, July 7, 1750. Οσσά τε δαιμονίησι τύχαις βροτοὶ ἀλγἐ ἔχεσιν, Of all the woes that load the mortal state, O PYTHAG. ELPHINSTON, So large a part of human life paffes in a state contrary to our natural defires, that one of the principal topicks of moral inftruction is the art of bearing calamities. And fuch is the certainty of. evil, that it is the duty of every man to furnish his mind with those principles that may enable him to act under it with decency and propriety. |