[366]: There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason, mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding.... The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity.... Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from the world are great cherishers of it, where they find it.
[367]: Voir, par exemple, son chapitre sur la République de Saint-Marin.
[368]: Épitre à Halifax.
O liberty, thou Goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight,
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train....
'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.
Sur la république de Saint-Marin:
Nothing can be a greater instance of the natural love that mankind has for liberty and of their aversion to an arbitrary government, than such a savage mountain covered with people, and the Campania of Rome, which lies in the same country, almost destitute of inhabitants.
(Remarks on Italy, Ed. Hurd, tome I, 406.)
[369]: Par exemple, Halifax.
[370]: Défense du christianisme.
[371]: The great and only end of these speculations is to banish vice and ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain.