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TITLES.

THAT none may fancy I wish to make too much of titles, or am disposed to estimate them too highly, I shall beg, before I go farther, to explain myself more particularly upon this point. I know their proper worth and value. "It is not to shine in grace and esteem at court that can ennoble one; such glory is like glass," as an old author says, "bright but brittle." I know, that as the conundrum teacheth, (one of the most accidental combinations, by the bye, of wit and wisdom, mirth and morality, that ever was discovered) that even M AJEST Y, stripped of its externals, is but "a Jest;" much more of course all inferior titles; yet I am not for stripping them of their externals merely to render them a Jest, to those who are disposed to think meanly of them. As social and political distinctions, they have their use, and though in some instances, (foreign chiefly, not English,) they may appear to have been carried to excess, (as in the case of the Governor of Shiraz, who in addition to a pompous enumeration of qualities and lordships,

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calls himself, the flower of courtesy, the nutmeg of consolation; and the rose of delight ;) yet I have known titles heaped upon man merely as man, by grave philosophers, that exceed all that have been invented for worldly purposes; as in the following instance, we are reminded by that curious and most learned writer, old Robert Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy. Man, the most excellent and noble creature of the world, the principal and mighty work of God, wonder of nature, as Zoroaster calls him, audacis naturæ miraculum, the marvail of marvails, as Plato; the abridgment and epitome of the world, as Pliny; microcosmus a little world, a model of the world, sovereign lord of the earth, viceroy of the world, sole commander and governor of all the creatures in it; to whose empire they are subject in particular, and yield obedience, far surpassing all the rest, not in body only but in soul; imaginis imago, created in God's own image, &c. &c. &c." Such are supposed to be the proper titles of man, in his primitive and original condition, and it is very evident, that no earthly titles can exceed them. They are the titles of the very first man Adam, as he came out of the hands of God, "pure, divine, perfect, happy,

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created after God in true holiness and righteouscongruens, free from all manner of in

ness; Deo

firmities."

There was an old saying amongst the Lollards, (and which the Preacher Ball, in the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler took for his text in addressing the rabble at Blackheath,)

"When Adam delv'd and Eve span,

Who was then a gentleman ?"

Or, as some copies have it,

"Where was then the gentleman ?"

which has often since been cited with a design of casting a reflection on all titles of honour, as though they were merely the offspring of human pride, and that in our origin we were all equally ignoble; but, on the contrary I shall repeat, that in going back to Adam, we should find that there was originally a Nobility belonging to our race, of which all earthly distinctions reflect but a very faint and feeble image. And this may serve for an answer to another question of the same party, as recorded in history, "Why Adam had not obtained a patent of Nobility for all his descendants ?" The Adamic nobility was forfeited and lost; "Heu tristis et

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lacrymosa commutatio, O pitiful change," as the author I have before cited very reasonably exclaims. The titles applied to man in his degraded state by philosophers and divines, are to all intents and purposes, as base as the foregoing are honourable. "Fallen and miserable," miserabilis homuncio! a cast-away, a caitiff, a monster of stupendous metamorphosis; a fox, a dog, a hog, lasciviâ equum, impudentiâ canem, astu vulpėm, furore leonem, as Chrysostom has it, "subject to death, calamity, and pain."

Here then are titles and distinctions of all sorts, good and bad, primitive and derivative, ante-diluvian and post-diluvian, &c. &c. &c. Surely we may be allowed to take a medium, and by a few worldly honors endeavour at least to remind the poor caitiffs and cast-aways of the earth, that they would do well to aspire to the rank from whence they have fallen; for worldly honours, however now and then abused, are undoubtedly designed to represent some inherent virtue, merit, or talent; to put us in mind as it were, of the degradation incurred. The externals of majesty are necessary to the completion of the character of a King, but not of a man; and he who should be stripped of them by political

convulsions, as was the case with the late amiable monarch of France, might defy his bitterest enemies to make "a Jest" of him, if as a man he retained that greatness and dignity of character, of which those externals could be but faint representations. In no part of his unhappy life did Charles the First appear so great, as when he fell into the hands of his persecutors; when stripped of the externals of majesty, he appeared with kingly dignity before his coarse and vulgar judges; calmly sustained the rude and beastly insults of the rabble, and patiently submitted his neck to the executioner, at the window of his own palace.

Louis Seize derived lustre, it is true, from the externals of majesty, in the eyes of the vulgar, as long as they retained one spark of their ancient devotion to the "Grand Monarque," but in the eyes of the wise and feeling, much greater was the lustre he derived from his misfortunes; from the fortitude displayed on his trial, in his prison, and at the foot of the guillotine. His unfortunate Queen, daughter of the high-minded Maria Theresa, Empress and KING, rose, as she sunk, became great exactly in proportion as she seemed to be abandoned by fortune; diplayed

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