ESSAYS. 



873 



Thus saying, he limped off, leaving me in 

 admiration at his intrepidity and content; 

 nor could I avoid acknowledging, that an 



habitual acquaintance with misery serves 

 better than philosophy to teach us to de- 

 spise it. 



e9 



ESSAY VII. 



AN alehouse-keeper, near Islington, who 

 had long lived at the sign of the French 

 king, upon the commencement of the last war, 

 pulled down his old sign, and put up that of 

 the queen of Hungary. Under the influence 

 of her red face, and golden sceptre, he con- 

 tinued to sell ale, till she was no longer the 

 favourite of his customers ; he changed her, 

 therefore, some time ago, for the king of 

 Prussia, who may probably be changed, in 

 turn, for the next great man that shall be set 

 up for vulgar admiration. 



In this manner the great are dealt out one 

 after the other, to the gazing crowd. When 

 we have sufficiently wondered at one of them, 

 he is taken in, and another exhibited in his 

 room, who seldom holds his station long; for 

 the mob are ever pleased with variety. 



I must own I have such an indifferent 

 opinion of the vulgar, that I am ever led to 

 suspect that merit which raises their shout ; 

 at least I am certain to find those great and 

 sometimes good men, who find satisfaction in 

 such acclamations, made worse by it ; and 

 history has too frequently taught me, that the 

 head which has grown one day giddy with 

 the roar of the million, has the very next been 

 fixed upon a pole. 



As Alexander VI. was entering a little 

 town in the neighbourhood of Rome, which 

 had been just evacuated by the enemy, he 

 perceived the townsmen busy in the market- 

 place in pulling dowi from a gibbet a figure 

 which had been designed to represent him- 

 self. Tnere were some also knocking down 

 a neighbouring statue of one of the Orsini 

 family, with whom he was at war, in order to 

 put Alexanders effigy in its place. It is pos- 

 sible a man who knew less of the world, 

 would have condemned the adulation of those 

 bare-facpd flatterers; but Alexander seemed 

 pleased at their zeal ; and turning to Borgia, 



his son, said with a smile, 'Vides, mi fili 

 quam leve discrimen patibulum inter et sta- 

 tuam.' ' You see, my son, the small difference 

 between a gibbet and a statue.' If the great 

 could be taught any lesson, this might serve 

 to teach them upon how weak a foundation 

 their glory stands; for, as popular applause 

 is excited by what seems like merit, it as 

 quickly condemns what has only the appear- 

 ance of guilt. 



Popular glory is a perfect coquet; her 

 lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge 

 every caprice; and, perhaps, at last be jilted 

 for their pains. True glory, on the other 

 hand, resembles a woman of sense: her ad- 

 mirers must play no tricks ; they feel no great 

 anxiety, for they are sure, in the end, of being 

 rewarded in proportion to their merit. When 

 Swift used to appear in public, he generally 

 had the mob shouting in his train. 'Pox 

 take these fools,' he would say, 'how much 

 joy might all this bawling give my lord-mayor. 



We have seen those virtues, which have, 

 while living, retired from the public eye, 

 generally transmitted to posterity, as the 

 truest objects of admiration and praise. Per- 

 haps the character of the late duke of Marl- 

 borough may one day be set up, even above 

 that of his more talked-of predecessor; since an 

 assemblage of all the mild and amiable vir- 

 tues, are far superior to those vulgarly called 

 the great ones. I must be pardoned for this 

 short tribute to the memory of a man, who, 

 while living, would as much detest to receive 

 any thing that wore the appearance of flatte- 

 ry, as I should to offer it. 



I know not how to turn so trite a subject 

 out of the beaten road of common-place, ex- 

 cept by illustrating it. rather by the assistance 

 of my memory than judgment ; and instead of 

 making reflections, by telling a stor\. 



A Chinese, who had long studied, the workj 



