APPLICATION.
There is something in modesty which ought ever strongly to prepossess us in favour of those persons in whose nature it is interwoven; and men of discerning and generous minds have a pleasure in discovering it, and in bringing into notice the worthy man, who is diffident of his merit, and cannot prevail upon himself to challenge the praise or tribute he deserves. It is, however, to be lamented, that such patrons are not very numerous, and that the assuming arrogance and teasing importunities of the greedy forward man should so commonly succeed in attaining his ends, while modesty in silence starves unnoticed, and is for ever poor. Were men in exalted stations of life to pay more attention to the importance of this, and endeavour to discover modest worth, to draw merit from the shade, and virtue from obscurity, and distribute their patronage and their favours to such only, their own affairs, as well as those of the public, would be better managed, and the difference between the conduct of upstart pride and sensible plain honesty would soon shew itself in its true unvarnished colours.
