Try what we can, do what we will,
Yet nature will be nature still.
The predominance of nature will generally shew itself through all the disguises which artful men endeavour to throw over it. Cowardice particularly gives us but the more suspicion of its existence, when it would conceal itself under an affected fierceness, as they who would smother an ill smell by a cloud of perfume, are imagined to be but the more offensive. When we have done all, nature will remain what she was, and shew herself whenever she is called upon: therefore, whatever we do in contradiction to her laws, is so forced and affected, that it must needs expose and make us truly ridiculous.
THE FIR AND THE BRAMBLE.
A tall Fir, that stood towering up in the forest, was so proud of his dignity and high station, that he looked with disdain upon the little shrubs that grew beneath him. A lowly Bramble had often been made to feel the insults and gloomy frowns of his lofty neighbour, who, on the slightest rufflings of the winds, shook his extended arms over the humble shrub, and upbraided him with his contemptible situation. As for me, said the Fir, I am the first in the forest for beauty and rank: my top shoots up into the clouds, and my branches display a perpetual verdure, whilst you lie grovelling upon the ground, and could not live were I to leave off sprinkling you with the drops from my extremities. At this the Bramble set up his prickles, and replied, that this haughtiness arose from pride and ignorance; for He that made thee a lofty tree, could, with equal ease, have made thee an humble Bramble; and high as thou art, a puff of His breath, in the message of a north wind, can rob thee of thy verdure, or lay thee low; and further, I pray thee tell me, when the woodman comes with his axe to fell timber, whether thou wouldst not rather be a Bramble than a Fir?
APPLICATION.
Pride, which was implanted in the human breast for wise purposes, should carefully be directed aright. It was intended only to exalt the minds of all ranks and conditions of men, to that pitch, which will make them spurn at, and despise the doing of a mean or dishonourable action; and it is only misapplied, when it puffs up those whom fortune has placed in high stations, or overloaded with riches, and tempts them to look down with derision on those below them. The higher a man is exalted in life, but especially if he have risen by dishonourable means, the more unlikely it is that he will escape a storm, or the mischiefs to which he may be exposed in his public capacity, in any convulsion that may befal his country. When public justice overtakes him, and he finds the day of reckoning near at hand, the honest monitor within will put him in mind of his true situation, and he will then be enabled to make a just comparison between his own lofty station, and that of the poor, but honest, man.
