Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.
Honor.—The source of the following passage in Garth's Dispensary, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.
In the debate among the Doctors, when war is proposed, one of the Council speaks as follows.
| Thus he: "'Tis true, when privilege and right Are once invaded, Honor bids us fight: But ere we yet engage in Honor's cause, First know what honor is, and whence its laws. Scorned by the base, 'tis courted by the brave; The hero's tyrant, yet the coward's slave: Born in the noisy camp, it feeds on air, And both exists by hope and by despair; Angry whene'er a moment's ease we gain, And reconciled at our returns of pain. It lives when in death's arms the hero lies; But when his safety he consults, it dies. Bigotted to this idol, we disclaim Rest, health and ease, for nothing but a name." |
Implicit Faith.—I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his Bibliothèque Choisie, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.
"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent; quoiqu'il y ait des gens qui en abusent. Mais l'Ignorance ne produit que de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui vivent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celni auquel sont les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."
"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part of those who receive it, even though there be some who make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, to that of the English or Hollanders; under the pretext that there are, among the two latter nations, some free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who resemble them doubt of nothing."
The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.
Friendships.—There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.
Benefits.—There are many which must ever be their own reward, great or small. Others are positively dangerous. That subtle courtier, Philip de Comines, declares, that it is exceedingly imprudent to do your prince services for which a fit recompense is not easily found:1 and Tacitus avers that obligations too deep are sure to turn to hatred.2 Seneca pursues the matter yet further, and insists that he, whom your excessive services have thus driven to ingratitude, presently begins to desire to escape the shame of such favors, by putting out of the world their author.3 Cicero, too, is clearly of opinion, that enmity is the sure consequence of kindness carried to the extreme.4