154 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



the firfl: among our fchool-companions. As this 

 unprofitable emulation prefents not, to far the 

 greatefb part of the citizens, any career to be per- 

 formed on the theatre of the World, each of them 

 alTumes a preference from his province, his birth, 

 his rank, his figure, his drefs, nay, the tutelary 

 faint of his parifh. Hence proceed our focial ani- 

 mofities ; and all the infulting nicknames given by 

 the Norman to the Gafcogn, by the Parifian to the 

 Champenois, by the man of family to the man of 

 no family, by the Lawyer to the Ecclefiaftic, by 

 the Janfenift to the Molinift, and fo on. The man 

 aflerts his pre-eminence, efpecially, by oppofing 

 his own good qualities to the faults of his neigh- 

 bour. This is the reafon that flander is fo eafy, 

 fo agreeable, and that it is, in general, the mafter- 

 fpring of our converfations. 



A man of high quality one day faid to me, that 

 there did not exift a man, however wretched, 

 whom he did not find fuperior to himfelf, in re- 

 fpedt of fome advantage whereby he furpaffes per- 

 fons of our conditon, whether it be as to youth, 

 health, talents, figure, or, in ihorr, fome one good 

 quality or another, whatever our fuperiority in 

 other refpeds may be. This is literally true ; but 

 this manner of viewing the members of a Society 

 belongs to the province of virtue, and that is not 

 ours. The contrary maxim being equally true, 



our 



