202 ADAM SMITH. 



(Vol. I. p. 20.) " Smaller offences are always better 

 neglected ; nor is there any thing more despicable than 

 that froward and captious humour which takes fire 

 upon every slight occasion of quarrel." (I. 86.) 



Look through the heavy and wearisome pages of the 

 great English moralist's most admired ethical writings, 

 his ' Rambler,' his ' Idler,' his ' Rasselas,' where will you 

 find anything like this picture of the progress of an 

 upstart, which, however, is in a much more balanced 

 and sententious style than Dr. Smith generally adopts. 

 " In a little time he generally leaves all his own friends 

 behind him, some of the meanest of them excepted, 

 who may perhaps condescend to become his depen- 

 dants ; nor does he always acquire any new ones. The 

 pride of his new connections is as much affected at 

 finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had 

 been by his becoming their superior : and it requires 

 ths most obstinate and persevering modesty to atone for 

 this mortification to either. He generally grows weary 

 too soon, and is provoked by the sullen and suspicious 

 pride of the one, and by the saucy contempt of the 

 other, to treat the first with neglect and the second 

 with petulance, till at last he grows habitually insolent, 

 and forfeits the esteem of all." Then he concludes 

 beautifully and truly : " He is happiest who advances 

 more gradually to greatness; whom the public destines 

 to every step of his preferment long before he arrives 

 at it ; in whom, upon that account, when it comes, it 

 can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to 

 whom it cannot reasonably create either any jealousy in 

 those he overtakes, or any envy in those he leaves 

 behind." (Vol. I. p. 97.) 



Here, too, is a noble passage of indignant eloquence, 

 which I hope will not be deemed to carry with it any 

 offence to the remote descendants of those assailed; 

 but if it should, they can only be offended from a con- 

 sciousness of the stain enduring, and that stain can be 

 easily wiped out, so that the memory of the past shall 



