fordid ways of borrowing, coufenage, and robbery: Mancipiis locuples eget æris Cappadocum rex [d]. This is the cafe of almost all great men, ag well as of the poor king of Cappadocia : they abound with flaves, but are indigent of money, The ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their revenue, had wherewithal to live (one would have thought) pretty well at eafe, and to have been exempt from the preffures of extreme poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwife; and they fell perpetually into fuch miferable penury, that they were forced to devour or fqueeze most of their friends and fervants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ranfack and pillage all their provinces. This fafhion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and fubordinate forts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their eftates, two other thirds they muft expend in vanity; fo that they remain debtors for all the neceffary provifions of life, and have no way to fatisfy thofe debts, but out of the fuccours and fupplies of rapine: as riches increase (fays Solomon) fo do the mouths that devour them [e]. The mafter mouth has no more than The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus before. [d] Hor. 1 Ep. vi. 39. [e] Eccl. v. xi. in the fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an afs at the end perpetually eating it. Out of these inconveniences arifes naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be fatisfied or contented with itfelf: ftill, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy; if it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its defires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Pic of Tenarif, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no poffibility of ascending upwards into the feat of tranquillity above the moon. The firft ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are faid to have made an heroical attempt of scaling heaven in despight of the gods; and they caft Offa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Offa: two or three mountains more, they thought, would have done their bufinefs; but the thunder fpoilt all the work, when they were come up to the third story: And what a noble plot was croft! And what a brave design was loft! A famous perfon of their off-spring, the late giant of our nation, when from the condition of a very inconfiderable captain, he had made himself lieutenant general of an army of little Titans, which was his firft mountain, and afterwards general, which was his fecond, and after that, abfolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent, because he could not attain to the honeft name of a king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked ufurpation. If he could have compaffed that, he would perhaps have wanted fomething else that is necesfary to felicity, and pined away for want of the title of an emperor or a god. The reafon of this is, that greatness has no reality in nature, but a creature of the fancy, a notion that confifts only in relation and comparison: it is indeed an idol; but St. Paul teaches us, that an idol is nothing in the world. There is in truth no rifing or meridian of the fun, but only in refpect to feveral places: there is no right or left, no upper-hand in nature, every thing is little, and every thing is great, according as it is diverfly compared. There may be perhaps fome villages in Scotland or Ireland where I might be a great man; and in that case I should be like Cæfar (you would wonder how Cæfar and I fhould be like one another in any thing); and choose rather to be the first man of the vilJage, than fecond at Rome. Our country is called Great Britapy, in regard only of a leffer of the fame name; it would be but a ridiculous epithet for it, when we confider it together with the kingdom of China. That, too [e], is but a pitiful [e] That, too, &c.] This noble idea is purfued to a a pitiful rood of ground in comparison of the whole earth befides: and this whole globe of earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to thofe numberlefs words that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the fky which we behold. The other many inconveniences of grandeur I have spoken of difperfedly in feveral chapters; and fhall end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied, but rudely imitated. HORACE, Lib. III. Ode' I. "Odi profanum vulgus," &c. I. HENCE, ye profane; I hate ye all ; Both the great vulgar [f], and the small. To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness. hold, Not yet difcolour'd with the love of gold, (That jaundice of the foul, Which makes it look fo gilded and fo foul). greater extent, and its moral ufe pointed out, with extraordinary force and beauty both of imagination and expreffion, by M. Pafcal, Penfées, c. xxii; and by Mr. Addifon, in the Spectator, N° 420, and N° 565. [f]—great vulgar] Successful poets have a great authority over the language of their country. This happy expreffion of the great vulgar-is become a part of the English phraseology. Το To you, ye very few, thefe truths I tell; The Mufe infpires my fong; hark, and obferve it well. 1 2. We look on men, and wonder at fuch odds 'Twixt things, that were the fame by birth Are but of equal proof against the thunder-ftroke. Have their short flourishing hour; And love to fee themfelves, and finile, Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers, together ftand; 3. And all ye men, whom greatnefs does fo please, If ye your eyes could upwards move, [g] Beauty, and frength, and wit, and wealth, and power] Very like, in the expreffion, as well as fentiment, to that fine ftanza in Mr. Gray's elegy "The boaft of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave." No |