[644] It has been remarked that the English and Irish people form their judgment of strangers very differently:—an Englishman suspects a stranger to be a rogue, till he finds that he is an honest man; the Irishman conceives every person to be an honest man till he finds him out to be a rogue; and this accounts for the very striking difference in their conduct and hospitality to strangers.
[645] Sir John Davis, attorney-general of Ireland, who, in the reign of James the First, was employed by the king to establish the English laws throughout Ireland, and who made himself perfectly acquainted with the character of the inhabitants, admits that “there were no people under heaven, who loved equal and impartial justice better than the Irish.”
CVI.—ADVICE TO A YOUNG CRITIC.
POPE.
1. ’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;
In all you speak, let truth and candor shine;
That not alone what to your sense is due
All may allow, but seek your friendship too.
Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.[646]