FRAGMENT. 201 



to me intolerable, if I meet in it a fingle felf-im- 

 portant, envious, evil-fpeaking, malignant, per- 

 fidious perfon. I am well aware, that people of 

 very great worth aflbciate, every day, with perfons 

 of all thefe defcriptions, fupport them, nay, flatter 

 them, and turn them to their own account ; but I 

 am well aware, at the fame time, that thefe fame 

 people of worth bring into Society nothing but the 

 jargon of the World ; whereas I, for my part, al- 

 ways pour out my heart ; that they pay deceivers 

 in their own coin, and I with all I have, that is to 

 fay, with my fentiments. Though my enemies 

 may reprefent me as of a miftruftful charader, the 

 greateft part of the errors of my hfe, efpecially as 

 far as they are concerned, arofe from an excefs of 

 confidence; and, after all, I would much rather 

 have them complain, that I miftrufted them with- 

 out a caufe, than that they fliould have had, 

 themfelves, any reafon to be miftruftful of me. 



I endeavoured to make friends of the men of an 

 oppofite party, who had expreffed an ardent incli- 

 nation to attraâ; me thither, before I joined it, but 

 who, the moment 1 came over, no longer put any 

 value on my pretended merit. When they per- 

 ceived that I did not adopt all their prejudices; 

 that 1 aimed at nothing but the difcovery of truth; 

 that, difpofed to malign neither their enemies nor 

 my own, I was not a fit perfon to be employed in 



cabal 



