3 and panted with heat, were cold in their gratitude, and ardent in their revenge.-Should my readers think some of my conclusions too severe, they will in justice recollect, that my object is truth, that my subject is man, and that a handsome picture cannot represent deformity. The political principles contained in the following pages, are such, that whoever avows them, will be considered a Tory by the Whigs and a Whig by the Tories; for truth, no less than virtue, not unfrequently forms the middle point between two extremes. Where one party demands too much, and the other is inclined to concede too little, an arbitrator will please neither, by recommending such measures, as would eventually serve both. I have however, neither the hope nor the fear, that my opinions on politics, or any other subject, will attract much attention. The approbation of a few discerning friends, is all the reward I wish for my labours; and the four lines which form the commencement of my Poem of "Hypocrisy," shall make the conclusion of this Preface, since the sentiments they contain, are as applicable to prose, as to verse. "Two things there are, confound the Poet's lays, REFLECTIONS, &c. &c. I. IT is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors, as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has farther to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance. II. WITH respect to the authority of great names, it should be remembered, that he alone deserves to have any weight or influence with posterity, who has shown himself superior to the particular and predominant error of his own times; who, like the peak of Teneriffe, has hailed the intellectual sun, before its beams have reached the horizon of common minds; who, standing like Socrates, on the apex of wisdom, has removed from his eyes all film of earthly dross, and has foreseen a purer law, a nobler system, a brighter order of ings; in short, a promised land! which, like Moses on top of Pisgah, he is permitted to survey, and anticie for others, without being himself allowed either to enter, o enjoy. MANY THINGS III. TO cite the examples of history, in order to animate us to virtue, or to arm us with fortitude, this it is to call the illustrious dead, to inspire and to improve the living. up But the usage of those Civilians, who cite vicious authorities. for worse purposes, and enforce the absurdest practice, by the oldest precedent, this it is to bequeath to us as an heir-loom, the errors of our forefathers, to confer a kind of immortality on folly, making the dead more powerful than time, and more sagacious than experience, by subjecting those that are upon the earth, to the perpetual mal-government of those that are beneath it. IV. A WRITER more splendid than solid, seems to think that vice may lose half its guilt, by losing all its grossness. An idea suggested, perhaps, by the parting anathema, fulminated by Gibbon against the fellows of Magdalen; men, he said, "in whom were united all the malevolence of monks, without their erudition; and all the sensuality of libertines, without their refinement." But it would be as well perhaps for the interests of humanity, if vice of every kind were more odious, and less attractive; if she were always exhibited to us, like the drunken Helot to the youths of Sparta, in her true and disgusting shape. It is fitting, that what is foul within, should be foul also without. To give the semblance of purity to the substance of corruption, is to proffer the poison of Circe in a chrystal goblet, and to steal the bridal vestments of the virgin, to add more allurement to the seductive smiles of the harlot. V. IF those alone who "sowed the wind, did reap the whirlwind," it would be well. But the mischief is, that the blind ness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the mis-calculations of diplomacy, seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. VI. GREAT minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable; so that they can command the flattery of knaves while living, they care not for the execrations of honest men, when dead. Milton neither aspired to present fame, nor even expected it; but, (to use his own words) his high ambition was, "to leave something so written to after ages, that they should not willingly let it die." And Cato finely observed, he would much rather that posterity should inquire why no statues were erected to him, than why they were ! crop VII. AS in agriculture, he that can produce the greatest is not the best farmer, but he that can effect it with the least expense, so in society, he is not the most valuable member, who can bring about the most good, but he that can accomplish it, with the least admixture of concomitant ill. For let no man presume to think that he can devise any plan of extensive good, unalloyed and unadulterated with evil. This is the prerogative of the godhead alone! C |