the usual ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to an university, resolving to make use of his own judgment in the choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart of an academic, and soon after his arrival opened his purse with so little reserve, and entertained all who came about him with such profusion of plenty that the Professors were presently lured by the smell of his table from their books, and flocked round him with all the importunity of aukward complaisance. This eagerness completely answered the merchant's purpose; he glutted them with delicacies, he cheered them with wine, he softened them with caresses, and by degrees, prevailed upon one after another to open his bosom, and make a full discovery of his schemes of competition, his alarm of jealousy and his rancour of resentment. Thus after having long endeavoured to learn each man's character, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintances, he at last resolved to find some other method of educating his son, and went away fully convinced that a scholastic life has no other tendency than to vitiate the morals, and contract the understanding. Nor could he afterwards bear with patience the praises of the ancient authors, being persuaded that scholars of all ages must have been the same; and that Xenophon and Cicero were nothing more than Professors of some former University, and were therefore mean and selfish, ignorant and servile, like those whom he had lately visited and forsaken.

Envy, curiosity, and the sense of the imperfection of our present state, incline us always to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of others above their real value. Every

man must have remarked, what powers and prerogatives the vulgar imagine to be conferred by learning. A man of science is expected to excel the unenlightened and unlettered even on occasions where literature is of no use; and among weak minds, loses part of his reverence by discovering no superiority in those parts of life, in which all are unavoidably equal: as when a monarch makes a progress to the remoter provinces, the rustics are said sometimes to wonder that they find him of the same size with themselves.

Attempts to satisfy the demands of prejudice and folly, are hopeless and vain, and therefore, many of the imputations which learning suffers from disappointed ignorance, are without reproach. Nor can it be denied, that there are some failures to which men of study are peculiarly exposed. Every condition has its disadvantages. The circle of knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent intellect, and while some sciences are pursued with ardour, others, perhaps of equal use are necessarily neglected: as a small garrison must leave one part of an extensive fortress naked when an alarm calls them to another.

The learned, however, might generally sup port their dignity with more success, if they suffered not themselves to be misled by the desire of superfluous attainments, of accomplishments which few can understand, or value, and of skill which they may sink into the grave without any conspicuous opportunities of exerting. Raphael in return to Adam's inquiries into the courses of the stars, and the revolutions of heaven, counsels him to withdraw his mind from idle speculations, and instead of watching motions which he has no

power to regulate, to employ his faculties upon nearer and more interesting objects, the survey of his own life, the subjection of his passions, the knowledge of those duties which must daily be performed, and the detection of those dangers which must daily be incurred.

This angelic council every man of letters should always have before him. He that devotes himself to the privacies of study, naturally sinks from neglect to oblivion of social duties, to which he must be sometimes awakened and restored to the general condition of mankind.

I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or to confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of minds sent out upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected, and though many may labour only to be disappointed, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain ; since their example contributed to inspirit emulation, and, perhaps, their miscarriages taught others the way to success.

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent, ought not to mislead us from that knowledge, which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites, and of conciliating, or deserving the favour of mankind.

No man, surely, can think the conduct of his own life, unworthy his attention, yet, among the sons of learning, many may be found, who seem to have thought of every thing rather than of themselves, and have never condescended to observe what passes daily before their eyes. Men

who while they are toiling through the intricacy of complicated systems, are insuperably embarrassed with the least perplexity in common affairs; and while they are comparing the actions, and ascertaining the characters of ancient heroes, let their days glide away without examination, and suffer vicious habits to encroach upon their minds without resistance or detection.

One of the most frequent reproaches of the scholastic race is the want of fortitude, of fortitude not martial but philosophic. That men bred in shades and silence, taught to immure themselves at sun-set, and accustomed to no other weapon than syllogisms, should be easily terrified by personal danger, and disconcerted by tumult and alarm, is by no means wonderful. But why should not he, whose life is spent in contemplation, and whose business is only to discover truth, be able to rectify the fallacies of imagination, and contend successfully against prejudice and passion? Why should he give up his understanding to false appearances, and suffer himself, like the meanest of the vulgar, to be dazzled with the glitter of prosperity, to be enslaved by fear of evils, to which only folly or vanity can expose him, or elated by hope of advantages which can add nothing to a wise man, and to which, as they are equally conferred upon the good and bad, no real dignity is annexed.

Such, however, is the state of the world, that the most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are to be collected from these seminaries, which are appropriated to the study of wisdom and the contemplation of virtue, in which it was intended, that appetite should learn to be content with lit

tle, and hope to aspire to honours which no human power can give or take away.

The student when he comes forth into the world, instead of congratulating himself upon his exemption from the errors and failures to which he sees those liable, whose opinions have not been formed by precept and meditation, is commonly in haste to shake from him all that distinguishes him from the rest of mankind, to mingle with the multitude, and shew his sprightliness and ductility by an expeditious compliance with fashions, pleasures, or vices. The first smile of a man whose rank or fortune gives him power to reward his dependents, commonly enchants him beyond resistance: the glare of equipage, the sweets of luxury, the liberality of general promises, and softness of habitual affability, strike his senses, and fill his imagination, and he soon ceases to have any other wish than to be well received, or any measure of right and wrong than the opinion of his patron.

A man flattered and obeyed, soon learns to exact grosser adulation, and enjoin lower submission. Neither our virtues nor vices are all our own if there were no cowardice, there would be little insolence: a man cannot grow proud to any great degree, but by the concurrence of blandishment, or the sufferance of tameness. The wretch that would shrink and crouch before him that should dart his eye upon him with the spirit of natural equality, quickly becomes capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft address of awe and servility. To the folly of those, who are willing to purchase favour and preferment by cringes and compliance, is to be imputed that