1792. . on ambition. 245 
acts of cruelty to force them to submifsion. If we 
look into the records of times that are past, every page 
presents us with a more fatal effect of ambition than 
the former, nations groaning under the prefsure of a 
powerful and a haughty prince, whose insatiable ambi- 
tion craves daily for the blood of thousands of his inno- 
cent subjects; men raising themselves from the most 
servile ranks in society, wading through whole seas 
of blood, and that of their dearest relations; nor 
stopping till they have even stabbed the sacred person 
of a king, and laid him low, at the foot of that throne 
from whence he has often distributed justice, with 
the exactest scrupulosity, among a happy, a nume- 
rous, and a wealthy people. The human mind turns 
with detestation from scenes like these, as below the 
dignity of our species ; and only loves to ruminate 
on the history of that man, who, in all his actions, 
sprinkled cool patience. Yet if we take a view of 
the benefit which society has reaped from ambition, 
we will perhaps be more anxious to cherifh it with- 
in certain bounds. Of the many discoveries it has.oc- 
casioned in the sciences ; of the many geniuses which. 
have burst forth and overtopped mankind, like the 
cedar in the forest, which, but for ambition, would 
have been confined to the humble sphere in which 
they were born, and their productions, with them- 
selves, been buried in obscurity ! Or view-it in the 
field strengthening the nervous-arm-of war; or thun-. 
dering from the rostrum, and weilding, at pleasure, a 
mad and unenlightened populace. But if man would 
turn his attention inwards, and take a view of the 
gperations of his own mind; there he would find ine. 
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