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degree of virtue; and, fortunately for the good morals of fociety, these are the fituations of by far the greater part of mankind.

In the fuperior stations of life the cafe is unhappily not always the fame. In the courts of princes, in the drawing-rooms of the great, where fuccefs and preferment depend, not upon the esteem of intelligent and well-informed equals, but upon the fanciful and foolish favor of ignorant, prefumptuous, and proud fuperiors; flattery and falfhood too often prevail over merit and abilities. In fuch focieties the abilities to please, are more regarded than the abilities to ferve. In quiet and peaceable times, when the storm is at a distance, the prince, or great man, wishes only to be amufed, and is even apt to fancy that he has fcarce any occafion for the service of any body, or that those who amuse him are fufficiently able to ferve him. The external graces, the frivolous accomplishments of that impertinent and foolish thing called a man of fashion, are commonly more admired than the folid and masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator. All the great and awful virtues, all the virtues which can fit, either for the council, the fenate, or the field, are, by the infolent and infignificant flatterers, who commonly figure the most in fuch corrupted focieties, held in the utmost contempt and derifion. When the duke of Sully was called upon by Lewis the Thirteenth, to give his advice in fome great emergency, he obferved the favorites and courtiers whispering to one another, and smiling at his

unfashionable appearance. "Whenever your majefty's father," said the old warrior and statesman, "did me the honor to confult me, he ordered "the buffoons of the court to retire into the "antichamber.

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It is from our disposition to admire, and confequently to imitate, the rich and the great, that they are enabled to fet, or to lead what is called the fashion. Their drefs is the fashionable drefs; the language of their conversation, the fashionable ftyle; their air and deportment, the fashionable behaviour. Even their vices and follies are fashionable; and the greater part of men are proud to imitate and resemble them in the very qualities which difhonor and degrade them. Vain men often give themselves airs of a fashionable profligacy, which, in their hearts, they do not approve of, and of which, perhaps, they are really not guilty. They defire to be praised for what they themselves do not think praiseworthy, and are afhamed of unfashionable virtues which they fometimes practise in fecret, and for which they have fecretly fome degree of real veneration. There are hypocrites of wealth and greatness, as well as of religion and virtue; and a vain man is as apt to pretend to be what he is not, in the one way, as a cunning man is in the other. He affumes the equipage and fplendid way of living of his fuperiors, without confidering that whatever may be praiseworthy in any of these, derives its whole merit and propriety from its fuitableness to that fituation and fortune which

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both require and can eafily fupport the expense. Many a poor man places his glory in being thought rich, without confidering that the duties (if one may call fuch follies by fo very venerable a name) which that reputation imposes upon him, muft foon reduce him to beggary, and render his fituation ftill more unlike that of those whom he admires and imitates, than it had been originally.

To attain to this envied fituation, the candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of virtue; for unhappily, the road which leads to the one; and that which leads to the other, lie fometimes in very oppofite directions. But the ambitious man flatters himself that, in the fplendid fituation to which he advances, he will have fo many means of commanding the respect and admiration of mankind, and will be enabled to act with fuch fuperior propriety and grace, that the luftre of his future conduct will entirely cover, or efface, the foulness of the fteps by which he arrived at that elevation. In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falfhood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and affaffination, by rebellion and civil war, to fupplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatnefs. They more frequently

mifcarry than fuccced; and commonly gain nothing but the difgraceful punishment which is due to their crimes. But, though they fhould be fo lucky as to attain that wifhed-for greatness, they are always moft miferably disappointed in the happiness which they expect to enjoy in it. It is not ease or pleasure, but always honor, of one kind or another, though frequently an honor very ill understood, that the ambitious man really purfues. But the honor of his exalted ftation appears, both in his own eyes and in those of other people, polluted and defiled by the bafeness of the means through which he rose to it. Though by the profufion of every liberal expense; though by exceffive indulgence in every profligate pleasure, the wretched, but ufual, refource of ruined characters; though by the hurry of public business, or by the prouder and more dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavour to efface, both from his own memory and from that of other people, the remembrance of what he has done; that remembrance never fails to pursue him. He invokes in vain the dark and difmal powers of forgetfulness and oblivion. He remembers himself what he has done, and that remembrance tells him that other people must likewise remember it. Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most oftentatious greatness; amidit the venal and vile adulation of the great and of the learned; amidft the more innocent, though more foolifli, acclamations of the common people; amidst all the pride of conquest and the triumph of fuccefsful war, he is ftill fecretly purfued

by the avenging furies of shame and remorse; and, while glory seems to furround him on all fides, he himself, in his own imagination, fees black and foul infamy faft pursuing him, and every moment ready to overtake him from behind. Even the great Cæfar, though he had the magnanimity to difmifs his guards, could not difmifs his fufpicions. The remembrance of Pharfalia ftill haunted and purfued him. When, at the request of the fenate, he had the generofity to pardon Marcellus, he told that affembly, that he was not unaware of the defigns which were carrying on against his life; but that, as he had lived long enough both for nature and for glory, he was contented to die, and therefore despised all confpiracies. He had, perhaps, lived long enough for nature. But the man who felt himself the object of fuch deadly refentment, from those whose favor he wished to gain, and whom he ftill wished to confider as his friends, had certainly lived too long for real glory; or for all the happiness which he could ever hope to enjoy in the love and esteem of his equals.

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