assistance, as if they were glad to get rid of them. Indifferent to the game, they seem to say,

'Your rivals having made a push,
And kick'd you out without remorse,
Whether it signifies a rush,

Is the next part of this discourse.

"You think yourselves abused and put on!
'Tis natural to make a fuss;
To see it and not care a button,
Is just as natural to us.

'Like people, viewing at a distance

Two persons thrown out of a casement,

All we can do for your assistance

Is to afford you our amazement.'

This may be all very fine in matters of little moment; but in affairs in which the peace and happiness of thousands are involved, indifference ought to be punished as well as excess.

There are some societies which may be distinguished by the appellation of citizen spectators; and of these may be classed the inhabitants of Geneva. 'It is very ' remarkable,' says D'Alembert, that a city, which 'contains scarce 24,000 inhabitants, and whose scat'tered territory consists not of thirty villages, should 'be a sovereign state, and one of the most flourish'ing cities of Europe, enriched by her liberty and 'her commerce. She frequently beholds every thing ' around her in flames, without having any share in the 'calamity. The events which disturb the rest of Europe 'afford her only an amusing spectacle, which she observes without taking any share in the calamity. She

pronounces with impartiality upon the justice of the contests between other nations; and judges all the sovereigns of Europe without flattering, injuring, or 'fearing them.' As far as external relations are concerned, perhaps, this is the happiest state in which a republic, a sovereignty, or an empire can be placed.

XIV.

WHO ARE BEST DESCRIBED BY NEGATIVES.

NEGATIVE qualities seldom command admiration in men; and yet some descriptions, in which negatives are employed, delight as much in those qualities as in positive ones. We may evidence a passage in Fletcher's 'Shepherdess *.'

Some persons can only be described by negatives. The father of George III., for instance. Many had asserted of him that he was a man of excellent talents, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the British. constitution. 'No assertions,' says a writer of anecdotes, relative to Lord Chatham, can be more distant 'from the truth. The best of his qualifications might ' be negatively described. His heart was not bad; nor was he an enemy to the kingdom: he amassed no. private treasures; nor adopted any sinister advice ' with a view to obtain them. He was not insane; nor 'was he under the private tuition of the princess.'

-"Here shalt thou rest.

Upon this holy bank, no deadly snake
Upon this turf, &c.'

In Collins, also:

'Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there.'

Some men's creeds, also, are known by negatives better than by affirmatives; and this may even be said of Wickcliffe. He rejected the worship of images, relics, and the Virgin: he rejected auricular confession; he rejected the right of the pope to excommunicate; he rejected transubstantiation; he disbelieved in purgatory; he disallowed celibacy; and he rejected the adoration of the host and the sacrifice of the mass.

XV.

WHO GO ABROAD AND SEE NOTHING.

THE Italians are so little given to travel, that a German critic, who had visited the glaciers of Bosson, the lake of Geneva, and the cascade of Arpinas, says, that the names of those places are more astonishing in the poems of an Italian than they would be in that of a North American.

It is well known that many men are as proud of ignorance as others are of knowledge; and more so. Peter the Great had to contend with great difficulties in the ignorance of his nobility:-he, therefore, directed them to travel. But one of them shut himself up in a house at Venice, that he might have the satisfaction of saying, on his return to Moscow, that he had neither seen, heard, nor learnt, a single thing during his travels. He was not actuated even by the desire which is so common to the young; and which is so well alluded to in Cymbeline:'

-'What should we speak of,

When we are old as you? when we shall hear

The rain and wind beat dark December? How,
In this our pinching care, shall we discourse

The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.'

Men of this sort remind me of Sir John Germain, who is said to have left a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, because he regarded him as the author of St. Matthew's Gospel.

In science it is not only proper to observe, but to note, in reference to theory. Science then makes advances to philosophy. Where no theory is to be confirmed or dislocated, observations are notations for the future use of others.

XVI.

WHO ARE ON A LEVEL WITH THEIR ART AND AGE.

RAPHAEL was on a level only with the apex of his art. Leonardo da Vinci was beyond this; for he anticipated many discoveries in natural philosophy.

Tacitus says of Poppaus Sabinus, that he rose from a middle rank to imperial friendships, and was selected to govern the most important provinces, because he was equal to the task, and not beyond it*.'

Wellington succeeds ill as a minister, because he is behind his age. Washington succeeded, because he was above neither his age nor his associates. Bolivar failed because he was superior to both.

Wellington depreciates what he knows not; Bolivar overvalued that which he knew; Washington cast an

* Quod par negotiis, neque supra erat.-Annal. vi.

D

equal eye on that which was above, and that which was below. Bolivar scorned the greatness which courted him; Washington regarded height and equality with magnanimous indifference; Wellington wishes for power as a statesman; but can only compass the glory of being the first captain' of his age. and since he fought against rapacity, vulgarity, and despotism, that is glory enough.

XVII.

WHO MARCH BEFORE THE PUBLIC MIND.

ARE men to halt in their opinions till the boys come up? Some men affect, as it were, to resemble the lion; an animal that can see better by night than by day: others to assimilate with the rein-deer, which has an opening in the skin that covers its eyes, through which it can see when prevented opening them by the dazzling of the snow. If a sage descended from heaven,' says Helvetius,' and 'in his conduct consulted only the 'light of reason, he would, universally, pass for a fool. 'He would be, as Socrates says, like a physician, whom 'the pastry-cooks accused before a tribunal, composed of 'children, for having prohibited the eating of pies and 'tarts, and would certainly be condemned.' This passage will not appear absurd, when we reflect that a famine was once believed in Russia to be caused by women; and that many were murdered on the presumption that they infused sterility into the earth, and prevented the labours of the bees.

It is great and glorious to march before the public mind either in science, in politics, or in legislation: but