CCCCXXIX. To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.
CCCCXXX. Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.
CCCCXXXI. Truth is not one, but many; and an observation may be true in itself that contradicts another equally true, according to the point of view from which we contemplate the subject.
CCCCXXXII. Much intellect is not an advantage in courtship. General topics interfere with particular attentions. A man, to be successful in love, should think only of himself and his mistress. Rochefoucault observes that lovers are never tired of each other’s company, because they are always talking of themselves.
CCCCXXXIII. The best kind of oratory or argument is not that which is most likely to succeed with any particular person. In the latter case, we must avail ourselves of our knowledge of individual circumstances and character: in the former, we must be guided by general rules and calculations.
CCCCXXXIV. The picture of the Misers, by Quintin Matsys, seems to proceed upon a wrong idea. It represents two persons of this description engaged and delighted with the mutual contemplation of their wealth. But avarice is not a social passion; and the true miser should retire into his cell to gloat over his treasures alone, without sympathy or observation.
The End.
NOTES
MEMOIRS OF THOMAS HOLCROFT
The chief source of information respecting the life of Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809) is the Life here printed. A brief résumé of dates may not, however, be useless. He was born in London, December 10, 1745 (o.s.). After wandering with his father, who was in turn shoemaker, horse-dealer and pedlar, he was apprenticed at the age of thirteen as a stableboy at Newmarket. He returned to London when he was sixteen, and his next years were spent as shoemaker, school-master and strolling player. He turned dramatist, and his first piece, The Crisis, or Love and Famine, was acted on May 1, 1778, for a single performance. He turned author, and in 1780 his first novel, Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian, was published. These were followed by other novels and many plays, the best known of which is The Road to Ruin (Covent Garden, February 18, 1792). In 1783 he went abroad in the interests of journalism, and busied himself with sundry translations (e.g. Le Mariage de Figaro, by Beaumarchais, which was successful at Covent Garden, December 14, 1784, as The Follies of a Day). He did not escape the political troubles of his time, and, on October 7, 1794, he was sent to Newgate to await his trial for high-treason: he was discharged, however, without being tried, on December 1. The remaining years of his life were spent in unfortunate business speculations (chiefly picture-buying) and literary adventures in England and abroad: they were years of constant struggle against poverty and adverse fate. He died on March 23, 1809, and lies buried in Marylebone Parish Cemetery. He married four times.