REFLECTIONS, &c. &c. I. WE are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions, when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions, when performed by ourselves.* I have * As this volume opens with a double antithesis, I hope I may be permitted to offer a few remarks on this subject, in a note. In the first volume I observed, that with respect to the style I proposed to adopt in these pages, I should attempt to make it vary with the subject. I now find that I have succeeded, so far at least in this attempt, that some have doubted whether all the articles came from the same pen. I can however assure my readers, that whatever faults LACON may possess belong to me alone, and having said thus much, I believe I shall not have made a very good bargain, by claiming also whatever trifling merits may be found in the book. To those therefore that are disgusted with the abundance of the one, or dissatisfied from the scarcity of the other, I can only reply in the words of the Poet, "Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum.” As to the frequent recurrence of antithesis, I admit that wherever this figure presents itself to my imagination, I never reject it, if the deductions proposed to be drawn from it, appear to me to be just. I have consulted authors ancient and modern on this subject, and they seem to be all agreed that the sententious, short and apothegmatic style, so highly requisite in a book of maxims or aphorisms, is a style, to the force and spirit of which, antithesis is not only particularly advantageous, but even absolutely necessary. A maxim, if it be worth any thing, is worth remembering, and nothing is so likely to rivet it on the memory, as antithesis; deprived of this powerful auxiliary, all works of the nature of that in which I am engaged, must droop and be dull. If indeed I have blundered on some antitheses that lead to false conclusions, I admit that no mercy ought to be shown to these, and I consign them, without benefit of clergy to the severest sentence of criticism. VOL. II. B 4 observed elsewhere, that no swindler has assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own; selflove can gild the most nauseous pill, and can make the No candid reader I presume will accuse an author of adopting the antithetical style from laziness, and to those who would ask whether it be an easy style of writing, I would say with the celebrated Painter, "try.” That I can abandon antithesis, on subjects where it is not required, will, I think be allowed, by those who have read the notes to Hypocrisy, and my remarks on Don Juan. But to extirpate antithesis from literature altogether, would be to destroy at one stroke about eight-tenths of all the wit, ancient and modern, now existing in the world; and I fancy we shall never have the same excuse for such a measure, that the Dutch had for destroying their spices-the fear of a glut. Dunces, indeed, give antithesis no quarter, and to say the truth, it gives them none; if indeed it be a fault, it is one of the very few which such persons may exclaim against with some justice, because they were never yet found capable of committing it. Let any man try to recall to his memory all the pointed, epigrammatic, brief or severe things which he may have read or heard either at the Senate, the Bar, or the Stage, and he will see that I have not overrated the share which antithesis will be found to have had in their production. It is a figure capable not only of the greatest wit, but sometimes of the greatest beauty, and sometimes of the greatest sublimity. Milton, in his moral description of hell, says that it was a place which God "created evil, for evil only good; where all life dies, death lives." That it is capable of the greatest beauty, will be seen by the following translation from an Arabic poet, on the birth of a child: "When born, in tears we saw thee drown'd, "With smiles their joy confest. "So live, that at thy parting hour, "And thou in smiles be drest." If these lines will not put my readers in good humour with antithesis, I must either give them up as incorrigible, or prescribe to them a regular course of reading discipline, administered by such writers as Herder or Gisborne, restricting them also most straightly from all such authors as Butler and Swift, where they will be often shocked with such lines as the following: "'Tis said that Cæsar's horse would stoop "So Hudibras's, 'tis well known, "Would often do to set him down." grossest venality, when tinseled over with the semblance of gratitude, sit easy on the weakest stomach. There is an anecdote of Sir Robert Walpole, so much to my present purpose, that I cannot refrain from relating it, as I conceive that it will be considered apposite by all my readers, and may perhaps be new to some. Sir Robert wished to carry a favourite measure in the House of Commons. None understood better than this minister, two grand secrets of state,the great power of principal, and the great weakness of principle. A day or two previous to the agitation of the measure alluded to, he chanced upon a county member, who sometimes looked to the weight and value of an argument, rather than to its justice, or its truth. Sir Robert took him aside, and rather unceremoniously put a bank note of a thousand pounds into his hand, saying I must have your vote and influence on such a day. Our Aristides from the country thus replied: Sir Robert, you have shown yourself my friend on many occasions, and on points where both my honour and my interest were nearly and dearly concerned; I am also informed that it was owing to your good offices, that my wife lately met with so distinguished and flattering a reception at court; I should think myself therefore, continued he, putting however the note very carefully into his own pocket, I should think myself, Sir Robert, a perfect monster of ingratitude, if on this occasion I refused you my vote and influence. They parted: Sir Robert not a little surprized at having discovered a new page in the volume of man, and the other scarcely more pleased with the valuable reasoning of Sir Robert, than with his own specious rhetoric, which had so suddenly metamorphosed an act of the foulest corruption, into one of the sincerest gratitude. II. AS that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman, who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues, can best assume the appearance of them all. III. TRUE friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. IV. WE are all greater dupes to our own weakness than to the skill of others; and the successes gained over us by the designing, are usually nothing more than the prey taken from those very snares we have laid ourselves. One man falls by his ambition, another by his perfidy, a third by his avarice, and a fourth by his lust; what are these? but so many nets, watched indeed by the fowler, but woven by the victim. V. THE plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her, has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another. VI. CORRUPTION is like a ball of snow, when once set a rolling it must increase. It gives momentum to the activity of the knave, but it chills the honest man, and makes him almost weary of his calling: and all that corruption attracts, it also retains, for it is easier not to fall, than only to fall once, and not to yield a single inch than having yielded to regain it. VII. WORKS of true merit are seldom very popular in their own day; for knowledge is on the march, and men of genius are the Præstolatores or Videttes that are far in advance of their comrades. They are not with them, but before them; not in the camp, but beyond it. The works of Sciolists and Dullards are still more unpopular, but from a different cause; and theirs is an unpopularity that will remain, because they are not before the main body but behind it; and as it proceeds, every moment increases the distance of those sluggards that are sleeping in the rear, but diminishes the distance of those heroes that have taken post in the van. Who then stands the best chance of that paltry prize, contemporaneous approbation? He whose mediocrity of progress distances not his comrades, and whose equality of merit affords a level on which friendship may be built; Who is not so dull but that he has something to teach, and not so wise as to have nothing to learn; Who is not so far before his companions as to be unperceived, nor so far behind them as to be unregarded. VIII. A TOWN, before it can be plundered and deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor, must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one. We should have as many Petrarchs as Antonies, were not Lauras much more scarce than Cleopatras. IX. THOSE orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud when they are the least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of Nature; she often gives us the lightning |