26 Clinton's introductory discourse. 



The colonial governors were, generally speaking, little entitled to 

 respect. They were delegated to this country, not as men qualified to 

 govern, but as men whose wants drove them into exile ; not as men 

 entitled by merit to their high eminence, but as men who owed it to the 

 solicitations of powerful friends, and to the influence of court intrigue. 

 Thus circumstanced and thus characterized, is it wonderful to find them 

 sometimes patrolling the city disguised in female dress ; at other times 

 assailing the representatives of the people with the most virulent abuse, 

 and defrauding the province by the most despicable acts of peculation, 

 and at all times despising knowledge and overlooking the public prospe- 

 rity? Justice, however, requires that we should except from this cen- 

 sure Hunter and Burnet. Hunter was a man of wit, a correspondent 

 of Swift, and a friend of Addison.* Burnet, the son of the celebrated 

 Bishop of Salisbury, was devoted to literature; they were the best gover- 

 nors that ever presided over the colony. 



The love of fame is the most active principle of our nature. To be 

 honoured when living — to be venerated when dead — is the parent source 

 of those writings which have illuminated — of those actions which have 

 benefited and dazzled mankind. All that poetry has created, that phi- 

 losophy has discovered, that heroism has performed, may be principally 

 ascribed to this exalted passion. True it is, 



" When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, 

 Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last ; 

 And glory, like the phoenix 'midst her fires, 

 Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires." 



Lord Byron. 



* See Note B. 



