blooming cheek, the sparkling eye, the enkindling smile, the beaming benevolence that once scattered pleasure wherever he went, and drew upon him the blessings of the old and the young. The aged no longer followed him with their prayers, nor did the children run out to seize his hand and receive his cheering salutation On the contrary, he moved like a pestilence, and desolation was around his path.-Virtue retired from the blasting spectacle, and poverty shrunk back with intuitive terror. If an eye was turned upon him, it was to curse and not to bless. The widow and the orphan, when they saw the merciless wolf upon his walk, remembered the sepulchre in which the ashes of a broken-hearted husband and father mouldered. "O my son, avoid this fatal error. Believe me that excessive wealth is neither glory nor happiness. The cold and sordid wretch who thinks only of himself; who draws his head within his shell and never puts it out, but for the purposes of lucre or ostentation-who looks upon his fellow creatures not only without sympathy, but with arrogance and insolence, as if they were made to be his vassals and he was made to be their lord-as if they were formed for no other purpose than to pamper his avarice or to contribute to his aggrandizement-such a man may be rich, but trust me, that he can never be happy nor vir tuous nor great. There is in fortune a golden mean which is the appropiate region of virtue and intelligence. "Be content with that; and if the horn of plenty overflow, let its droppings fall upon your fellow men; let them fall, like the droppings of honey in the wilderness, to cheer the faint & way-worn pilgrim.-I wish you indeed to be distinguished; but not for your wealth; nor is wealth at all essential to distinction. Look at the illustrious patriots, philosophers and philanthropists who in various ages have blessed the world; was it their wealth that made them great? Where was the wealth of Aristides, of Socrates, of Plato, of Epaminondas, of Fabricius, of Cincinnatus, and a countless host upon the rolls of fame, with whom you will by and bye become better acquainted? Their wealth was in the mind and in the heart. Those are the treasures by which they have been immortalized, and such alone are the treasures that are worth a serious struggle." But the lecture of this beloved parent has made me forget the reader. To what an unexpected and tedious length have I drawn out this paper? Let no man say I will set down and write a little book," says Sterne. Let M no man promise himself that he will set down and write a short essay, says Robert Cecil; unless, indeed, he has some control over his mind and pen, which I confess that I have not. I sat down, for instance, to treat of the folly of solicitude for wealth and political honors; and instead of animadverting, as I had intended, on both subjects, I have barely touched on one of them. Yet be not formal nor hasty with me, gentle reader: I am an old-fashioned old fellow, whose earnest desire is to amuse and serve you; but, as we say in the country, you must frequently take the will for the deed. If you choose to be my reader, you must be content, as I am, to follow the wanderings of my mind, in its own way and to drop, resume and continue a broken subject, just as occasion and fancy prompt, 4 Number XIV. Suave, mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis, Lucret. Lib. II. Init. 'Tis pleasant when the seas are rough, to stand Not that it gives us joy his pains to see, But to behold those ills from which ourselves are free. To one, who, like myself, neither hopes nor wishes for political preferment, it is curious to stand and observe the passing scene. With an intimate knowledge of the men & their views, such an one has, in reality, all the imaginary advantage of a spectator of a play; he knows more of the whole plot than any one of the persons of the drama; and understands and enjoys, as far as pity and shame for his species will let him, all those tricks, maneuvres, feints, ambuscades, surprizes, mines and countermines which they are continually inventing and playing off on one another. It is amusing to observe, at what a distance one of these hunters of office will wind his prey; and how the first 'tainted breeze that hits his sense, will give the alarm to all his faculties, and set his brain on work: How he will discern, at one glance, that such an appointment will cre ate such a vacancy; which filled by a particular character, will create such another; and this again supplied by such an individual, will produce another, and so on; until by a series of successive promotions or changes, the distant post is vacated on which his heart is set.-And then, with what indefatigable industry will he labor at his purpose! According to the morality of such a gentleman, it is by no means an important enquiry, whether the characters whose promotion is to make way for him, be the most worthy of that promotion; whether they be the best that could be selected, for the service of the country-it is sufficient for him to know, that they are the best that could be selected for his good: as to the good of the people, that is a minor consideration, and, comparatively of little account. As it would not do for him, however, to avow the real motives of his conduct, the characters who stand in his way are immediately tricked off in all the feathers and jewelry of panegyric, and scarcely recognize their own image, again, as reflected by their unknown and unlockedfor encomiast. In the mean time, with what patient and persevering assiduity will the office-hunter study the hutnors and whims of those on whom the gift of the office depends, and with what adroit and dexterous versatility will he adapt himself to them. Has he heretofore committed himself by advancing a correct, but an obnoxious opinion? He will support it no longer, however loudly the occasion may call for it; and, thus, artful as he may be when he speaks, his very silence too, becomes art and eloquence. Or is he drawn out by a compulsion which he does not think it prudent to resist? He prunes and pares down his former opinion, until he finds that it fits the ular standard: Or if the emergency be pressing, and his character a bold one, he openly renounces and repudiates it altogether, and under the assumed sanction of the people's will, embraces its converse and advocates it with all his energies. pop With what vigilance have 1 seen one of these gentry watching the whims and humors the favorite themesthe course of sentiment-the keys of local interest-the chords of popular feeling which vibrate through the elective body; and with what untiring pertinacity, strive to be striking them! Some of them indeed, from the weakness and shallowness of their contrivances, soon betray their designs, and become as they deserve to be, objects of general contempt and disgust. But I have seen others, who have displayed a sagacity and an address in this infamous business-an insight into human nature, and a hanagement of interests-which would have done them honor in a better cause. I have seen them like Philidores, decide at once, the distant catastrophe of the game, by the first move on the political board. With one of these adepts there is nothing, however apparently careless, that is done in vain. There is no bow, no sinile, no familiar en-. quiry that is thrown away. According to the cant phrase, every thing tells. And as it was said of Alexander Pope, that he hardly drank his tea without a stratagem soit may be truly said of one of those intriguers for office, that every glass of Wine he drinks, is a snare for the gentleman of whom he begs the honor to join him. There is no opinion that such an one advances, or represses, no man that he censures or praises, no dissenting shake of the head, no expression of countenance, no step that he takes either in conversation or conduct, but what "touches some wheel, or verges to some goal," connected with the great affair of self. What an immense chain of causes and con sequences, link after link, will he forge and put together. in order to grapple the remote prize and bring it within his reach! How will he complicate and involve his ma chinery with spring after spring, and plot behind plot, until there are few who can pierce through the whole scheme and detect the dark and distant purpose: Sooner or later, however, it will be detected; and once detected-the man is gone forever. It is incredible too, what strange and even ludicrous metamorphoses this mania for office is sometimes seen to work How the most inveterate animosities and friendships change their character in a moment, as if by magic: How suddenly the closest intimacy and most servile obsequiousness will freeze into estrangement, distance and repulsion: How rancorous prejudice and malignant hostility will dissolve and melt away into sweet and respectful attention How iron-backed haughtiness will learn to bend, and arrogance to creep, and truckle and fawn and flatter: How envy, for a season, will uncurl and hide her snakes; malice borrow for a moment, the smile of benignity; and even the cold, the proud, the dark, the surly and solitary monk relent into sociability, and turn. his cell into a banqueting room! All these things I used often to see when I was in the habit of attending public bodies; and often have I smiled with equal pity at the momentary triumph of the successful and the well-merited anguish of the disappointed intriguer. I used to hope at first, that this propensity to intrigue for office was a remnant merely of the regal darkness, which once covered our land and which would gradually retreat and disappear as the day spring of liberty advanced. Bnt as soon as I observed the decline of public virtue and intellectual power, which peace brought with it, I saw at once, that the hope which I had cherished on this head was fond and illusive: for it required no prophet to predict, that as offices could no longer be sought by rival merit, they would be sought by rival intrigue. Accordingly I learn from my correspondents that all I feared has come to pass. That posts not merely of labor and profit, but those of honor, too, and those which demand not only the utmost purity but even sanctity of principle are sought, and, I blush to add, sometimes gained by the meanest compliances and the most disgraceful sacrifice of principle: that a man who shall have been observed for years, working his way through the dirt of intrigue, shall be seen, at last, with all his dirt upon him, crawling up, amidst the curses of the country, into a seat which the constitution had destined for virtuous eminence, but which he is destined only to pollute and degrade. The man who can poorly and meanly stoop to woo the coy caprices of any body by affecting, on any occasion, opinions which he does not believe, and sentiments which he does not feel, gives but a poor pledge of that firm and hoble independence which alone can fit him for any post of honor. It is wonderful that a truth so simple and obvious as this, does not strike every elective body, remain continually before their mind and keep them on the alert as to the conduct of candidates for their favor: That they cannot read the base and selfish design, in the first change of behavior, and see how little the unusual respect and the new-born smile and bow have to do with the heart of him who offers them. On the other hand, how callous must be that man, how obstinate and admantine his effrontery, who can calmly take a seat gained by such means, amid the indignant frowns and whispers which surround him and which he sees to be levelled at him from every direction. This subject, however, affords one negative test of character which every man may easily apply to himself; and by which, if it fit him, he may form a pretty sure estimate of his future figure on the rolls of fame.For he who feels that he is capable of seeking advancement by the use of such means as I have been describing, may take it for granted that he is compounded of poor and perishable materials. In those whom nature casts for immortality, there is a greatness of soul which scorns such arts, and a conscibusness of power which feels no occasion to resort to them. It is only the little, the impotent and the base that stoop to them; and their conscious littleness, impotence |