NOTE O. [xxvii] 



vered that the hope to amend law is not the disposition most 

 favourable for preferment. I am not unacquainted with the 

 best road to Attorney-Generalships and Chancellorships : but 

 in that path which my sense of duty dictates to be right, I shall 

 proceed; and from this no misunderstanding, no misrepresen 

 tation shall deter me.&quot; 



So too, Middleston beautifully says, I was never trained to 

 pace in the trammels of the church, nor tempted by the sweets 

 of its preferment, to sacrifice the philosophic freedom of a stu 

 dious, to the servile restraints of an ambitious life: and from 

 this very circumstance, as often as I reflect upon it, I feel that 

 comfort in my own breast, which no external honours can 

 bestow. I persuade myself that the life and faculties of man, 

 at the best but short and limited, cannot be employed more ra 

 tionally or laudably than in the search of knowledge: and espe- 

 pecially of that sort which relates to our duty, and conduces to 

 our happiness. In these inquiries, therefore, wherever I per 

 ceive any glimmering of truth before me, I readily pursue and 

 endeavour to trace it to its source ; without any reserve or cau 

 tion of pushing the discovery too far, or opening too great a 

 glare of it to the public. 1 look upon the discovery of any thing 

 that is true, as a valuable acquisition to society: which cannot 

 possibly hurt, or obstruct the good effect of any other truth 

 whatsoever : for they nil part.ike of one common essence, and 

 necessarily coincide with each other : and like the drops of rain, 

 which fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with 

 the stream, and strengthen the general current. 



&amp;lt; The same sentiment is expressed by William Wordsworth, 

 in his impressive enquiry on the Convention of Cintra ; he says, 

 &quot; I mean that fixed and habitual principle, which implies the 

 absence of all selfish anticipations, whether of hope or fear, 

 and the inward disavowal of any tribunal higher and more 

 dreaded than the mind s own judgment upon its own act. He 

 in whom talents, genius and principle are united, will have a 

 firm mind, in whatever embarrassment he may be placed; will 

 look steadily at the most undefined shapes of difficulty and 

 danger, of possible mistake or mischance; nor will they appear 



