6 On Personal Identity. JAN 



who would have no objection to be the modern Charlemagne, with all he 

 inflicted and suffered, even after the necromantic field of Waterloo, and 

 the bloody wreath on the vacant brow of his conqueror, and that fell 

 jailer set over him by a craven foe, that " glared round his soul, and 

 mocked his closing eyelids !" 



It has been remarked, that coulrl we at pleasure change our situation 

 in life, more persons would be found anxious to descend than to ascend 

 in the scale of society. One reason may be, that we have it more in our 

 power to do so ; and this encourages the thought, and makes it familiar 

 to us. A second is, that we naturally wish to throw off the cares of 

 state, of fortune or business, that oppress us, and to seek repose before 

 we find it in the grave. A third reason is, that, as we descend to com- 

 mon life, the pleasures are simple, natural, such as all can enter into, and 

 therefore excite a general interest, and combine all suffrages. Of the dif- 

 ferent occupations of life, none is beheld with a more pleasing emotion, or 

 less aversion to a change for our own, than that of a shepherd tending 

 his flock : the pastoral ages have been the envy and the theme of all suc- 

 ceeding ones ; and a beggar with his crutch is more closely allied than 

 the monarch and his crown to the associations of mirth and heart's-ease. 

 On the other hand, it must be admitted that our pride is too apt to prefer 

 grandeur to happiness ; and that our passions make us envy great vices 

 oftener than great virtues. 



The world shew their sense in nothing more than in a distrust and 

 aversion to those changes of situation which only tend to make the suc- 

 cessful candidates ridiculous, and which do not carry along with them a 

 mind adequate to the circumstances. The common people, in this respect, 

 are more shrewd and judicious than their superiors, from feeling their 

 own awkwardness and incapacity, and often decline, with an instinctive 

 modesty, the troublesome honours intended for them. They do not over- 

 look their original defects so readily as others overlook their acquired 

 advantages. It is not wonderful, therefore, that opera-singers and 

 dancers refuse, or only condescend as it were, to accept lords, though the 

 latter are so often fascinated by them. The fair performer knows (better 

 than her unsuspecting admirer) how little connexion there is between the 

 dazzling figure she makes on the stage and that which she may make in 

 private life, and is in no hurry to convert " the drawing-room into a 

 Green-room." The nobleman (supposing him not to be very wise) is 

 astonished at the miraculous powers of art in 



" The fair, the chaste, the inexpressive she ;" 



and thinks such a paragon must easily conform to the routine of manners 

 and society which every trifling woman of quality of his acquaintance, 

 from sixteen to sixty, goes through without effort. This is a hasty or 

 a wilful conclusion. Things of habit only come by habit, and inspira- 

 tion here avails nothing. A man of fortune who marries an actress for 

 her fine performance of tragedy, has been well compared to the person 

 who bought Punch. The lady is not unfrequently aware of the incon- 

 sequentiality, and unwilling to be put on the shelf, and hid in the nursery 

 of some musty country-mansion. Servant girls, of any sense and spirit, 

 treat their masters (who make serious love to them) with suitable con- 

 tempt. What is it but a proposal to drag an unmeaning trollop at his 

 heels through life, to her own annoyance and the ridicule of all his 

 friends ? No woman, I suspect, ever forgave a man who raised her 



