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in his virtues? But how many have followed his ex-“ ample in the costliness of his Buildings? And in our own days we could cite many families, which have either been entirely ruined, or remarkably hurt by a madness for building magnificent houses in town or country, which are the tombs of the most substantial riches of a family, and soon pass into the hands of strangers, who reap the advantage of the first owner's folly. And this should lead such persons as are entrusted with the education of youth, to caution them early against so common and so dangerous a taste.

[h] The ancient Romans were very remote from this. Plutarch mentions one Ælius Tubero in the life of Paulus Æmilius, [i] whom he calls an excellent man, and one that supported poverty in a more noble and generous manner than any other Roman. There were sixteen near relations, all of the Elian family and name, who had only one little house in town, and another in the country, where they all lived together with their wives, and a great many little children.

Among the ancient Romans, it was not the house which honoured the master, but the master the house. [k] A cottage with them became as august as a temple, when justice, generosity, probity, sincerity, and honour were lodged in it; and how can a house be called small, which contains so many and so great virtues?

The taste for modesty in Buildings, and a disregard for all expensiveness in this particular, passed from the republic to the empire, and from private men to the emperors in person.

Trajan placed a glory in building little, that he might be the better able to support the ancient edifices. Idem tam parcus in ædificando, quàm diligens in

[b] Cic. lib. 1. de Offic. n. 139. [1] Arne dessas x unyaλowgenioπαλα Ῥωμαίων πενία χρησάμενος.

[k] Istud humile tugurium... jam omnibus templis formosius erit, cùm illic justitia confpecta fuerit,

cùm continentia, cùm prudentia, pietas, omnium officiorum rectè dispensandorum ratio. Nullus angustus est locus, qui hanc tam magnarum virtutum turbam capit. Senec. de Consol. ad Helv. cap. 9.

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tuendo. He set no value upon whatever administered to ostentation and vanity. [1] He understood, says Pliny, wherein the true glory of a prince consisted. He knew, that statues, triumphal arches, and Buildings, were liable to perish by fire and age, or the fancy of a successor; but that he who despises ambition, who go-f verns his passions, and sets bounds to absolute power, is extolled by all the world during his life, and even after his death, when no body is constrained to praise him.

The event shewed that he was in the right. Alexander Severus repaired several works of Trajan's, and caused the emperor's name to be fixed upon them all, without allowing his own to be placed in his stead. All the great emperors acted with the same moderation, and we see to this day that more medals have been struck to the glory of such princes, as repaired public Buildings and the monuments of their prede-、 cessors, than in honour of those who raised new ones.

We have already observed, in another [m] place, that Augustus was always content with the same apartment and furniture during a reign of near fifty years.

[n] Vespasian and Titus looked upon it as an honour and a pleasure to preserve the little countryhouse, that was left them by their ancestors, without making any alteration in it.

Those masters of the world did not think themselves too straitly lodged in a house, which had been built only for a private person. The ruins of Adrian's country-seat are still remaining, which does not seem to have been larger than one of our common houses, and is by no means equal to that of several private persons now living.

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For men now, who have no other merit than their riches, (and often of how mean an original!) build magnificent palaces both in town and country; and, to the misfortune of all around them, sooner or later their neighbour's house, vineyard, and inheritance, are swallowed up in their vast Buildings, and serve only to enlarge their gardens and parks.

[a] What is told of cardinal d'Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, and minister of state under Lewis XII. is a very extraordinary example. A gentleman of Normandy had an estate in land not far from the beautiful seat of Gaillon, which at that time belonged to the archbishopric of Rouen. He had no money to give with his daughter in marriage, and to procure a portion, offered to sell his land to the cardinal at a cheap rate. Another would perhaps have taken advantage of the occasion; but the cardinal, knowing the gentleman's motive, left him his land, and freely gave him as much money as he stood in need of.

We have had a prince [p] in our days, whose loss will be eternally lamented in France, as in many other respects, so particularly for his extreme aversion to all pomp and useless expence. It was proposed to him. to put up finer and more fashionable chimney-pieces in one of his apartments; but as there was no necessity for the alteration, he chose rather to preserve the old ones. He was advised to buy a bureau, worth fifteen hundred livres, but thinking it too dear, he had an old one brought out of the wardrobe, and contented himself with that. And thus he behaved in every particular, and out of no other motive than that he might have wherewith to be the more liberal. How great a blessing to a kingdom, and how kind a present from heaven, is a prince of this character? in point of solid Glory and real Greatness, how far preferable is a tender love for the people, which extends to such selfdenial for their benefit, to all the magnificence of the most sumptuous Buildings?

[o] Vie du Card. d'Amboise, par Baudier.

[A] The duke of Burgundy.

It was this that Lewis XIV. when ready to expire, that is, at a time when the judgment is most sound, recommended to the present king, who sits upon the throne. Amongst other instructions, which have been justly deemed worthy of eternal remembrance, I have been too fond of war [q] said he to him, do not follow me in that, nor in the very great expences I have run into. In the last discourse he had with his grandson at Seaux, when he was setting out for Spain, he gave him the same advice; and the king of Spain told the person from whom I had it, that his grandfather spoke these words to him with tears in his eyes.

III. FURNITURE. DRESS. EQUIPAGE.

Nothing of this kind makes a man greater or more deserving, because nothing of all this makes a part of himself, but is wholly external and foreign to him. And yet the generality of mankind place their greatness in these. They look upon themselves as mixed and incorporated with all around them, their Furniture, Dress, and Equipage. They swell and enlarge the idea they form of themselves as much as they can, from these outward circumstances: by these they think they are very great, and flatter themselves that they appear so in the eyes of others.

[r] But to pass a right judgment upon their greatness, we should examine them in themselves, and set aside for a few moments their train and retinue. We

[7] Dernieres paroles de Louis XIV. au roi Louis XV. de l'imprimerie du cabinet du roi.

dacia. Sen. Ep. 76.

Auro illos, argento, & ebore ornavi: intus boni nihil est. Isti, quos pro felicibus aspicitis, si, non qua occurunt, sed qua latent, videretis, miseri sunt, sordidi, turpes, ad similitudinem parietum suorum extrinsecus culti. Itaque, dum illis licet stare, & ad arbitrium suum ostendi, nitent & imponunt: cùm aliquid incidit quod disturbet ac detegat, tunc apparet quantum alte ac veræ fœditatis alienus splendor absconderit. Id. lib. de Provid. cap. ix.

[r] Nemo istorum, quos divitiæ honoresque in altiore fastigio ponunt magnus est. Quare ergo magnus videtur? Cum basi illum sua metiris. Hoc laboramus errore, sic nobis imponitur, quòd neminem æstimamus eo quod est, sed adjicimus illi & ea quibus adornatus est. Atqui cùm voles veram hominis æstimationem inire, & scire qualis sit, nudum inspice. Ponat patrimonium, ponat honores, & alia fortunæ menQ4

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should then find that they appear great and exalted, by being beheld at a distance, and raised in a manner upon their basis. Strip them of this advantage, and reduce them to their proper standard, to their just proportion, and the vain phantom vanishes. Their outside is rich and fine, like the walls of their apartments; within there is often nought but meanness, baseness, and verty, with an hideous void of every merit; and sometimes even this fine outward shew conceals the most enormous crimes and the most infamous vices.

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God, [s] says Seneca, could not have cast a greater reproach and disgrace upon these outward advantages, which are the object of our desires, than by conferring them, as he often does, upon sorry wretches, and denying them usually to men of the greatest probity. To what a condition would the latter be reduced, if men were to be judged by their outside? How often has the most solid merit been mistaken, and exposed even to contempt, because concealed under a mean habit, and an indifferent appearance?

[t] Philopemen, the greatest soldier of his age in Greece, who exalted so much the glory of the republic of the Achæans, by his extraordinary merit, and whom the Romans called by way of admiration the last of the Greeks; this Philopemen was usually clad in a very plain dress, and often went abroad without any servant or attendance. In this manner he came alone to the house of a friend who had invited him to dinner. The mistress of the family, who expected the general of the Achæans, took him for a servant, and begged he would give her his assistance in the kitchen, because her husband was absent. Philopemen without ceremony threw off his cloak, and fell to cleaving wood. The husband coming in at that instant, and surprised at the oddness of the sight. "[u] How now,

[] Nullo modo magis potest Deus concupita traducere, quàm si illa ad turpissimos defert, ad optimis abigit. Ibid. cap. 5.

[1] Plut. in Vit. Philop.

[1] Τί τέτο (ἔφη) Φιλοποίμην, Τι γὰρ ἄλλο, (ἔφη δωρίζωον ἐκείνος) ἤ κακᾶς ὄψεως δίδωμι.

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