name of public virtue, won young Whigs to share his philosophical aspiration towards patriotic purity, and was indeed, as far as he knew, honestly swimming with the stream, while hoping to profit in good time by the reaction in which he took a foremost place. There was power in his pen, and when Pulteney began, under the name of Caleb D'Anvers, of Gray's Inn, Esquire, his series of periodical papers called The Craftsman, chiefly levelled against Walpole, Bolingbroke became the writer of its most vigorous essays. The first number of The Craftsman was published on the 5th of December, 1726, and it appeared every Monday and Friday until the 17th of April, 1736. From among its essays I take one that looks at the political side of the " Beggar's Opera," which was first produced on the 29th of January, 1728, and of which Gay himself said, when publishing its sequel, "Polly," that he meant to express through it his sense of the corruption of society. A year or two earlier the same note had been struck more forcibly, with a wit that had so much in it of kindly playfulness as to make it to this day dear to a child, by Swift in his "Gulliver's Travels." For the state of innocence Swift did not go back even to the state of nature, man in a state of nature was a Yahoo; for innocence and honest life one must go farther back yet. They might be found among brute beasts, but not in man.

1 See in this Library "English Plays," pages 416, 417.

2 Cuzzoni or Faustina. From 1714 to 1724, when the Earl of Peterborough married her and took her from the stage, the prima donna in Handel's operas was Anastasia Robinson. Handel had begun his career in London with "Rinaldo" in 1711, in the days of Steele and Addison's Spectator. In 1723, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, made her first appearance in London, in Handel's opera "Ottone." Her success was so great on the first night that she was engaged for the season at a salary of two thousand guineas, and on her second appearance the price of each ticket was raised to four guineas. The lady's voice was exquisite, but she was ill-looking, freakish, and impertinent. Handel wrote some of his best airs to display her voice, but suffered so much worry from the airs she gave herself that it was a satisfaction to him when a Venetian singer of high repute abroad, Faustina Bardoni, made her first appearance in his "Alexander " in May, 1726. Faustina had beauty, prudence, and good temper in her favour. As a singer she excelled in brilliant articulate execution; while Cuzzoni's voice had a tone so soft and sympathetic that she could in a touching passage move her audience to tears. But her character was not soft. She looked on the new-comer as a rival, and hated her. Each singer had a party following, the Countess of Pembroke leading the one, and the Countess of Burlington the other. The house of the premier was divided against itself, for as Sir Robert Walpole favoured Faustina, his lady patronised Cuzzoni. On the 20th of June, 1727, the two prime donne were to be upon the stage together. When they appeared, the partisans of each gave loose to their spirit of faction, and there was a riot in the house. Not long afterwards Cuzzoni assaulted her rival, and the ladies tried their nails upon each other's faces. The after lives of the ladies were

such an height, that, like most other animosities, they have almost brought that mighty state itself into contempt. We have seen it dwindle by degrees for a year or two past, till it is, at length, in a manner deserted even by its greatest quondam admirers, subscribers, and directors. O! tempora! O! mores! that ever the theatre in the Haymarket should be obliged to yield to that in Lincoln's Inn Fields! that the coarse ribaldry and vulgar catches of a Newgate hero should prevail over the melodious enchantments of Senesino! whilst the once celebrated Cuzzoni and Faustina lay aside their former emulation, and, with united resentment, behold the palm of precedence given to pretty Miss Polly Peachumwith a P!3

I hope the beaumonde will give me leave to observe, which nothing but the present melancholy occasion could extort from me, that this is an undeniable mark of a vitiated taste and a degenerate licentious age, which delights in seeing things of the greatest importance turned to ridicule. Who can help being surprised to find two of his Majesty's theatres prostituted in this manner, and made the popular engines for conveying not only scandal and scurrility, but even sedition and treason through the kingdom? Have we not lately seen the awful solemnity of a coronation openly burlesqued at both theatres? Have not the nobles, the prelates, the judges and magistrates of the land been personated by Miller, Johnson, and Harper at one house, and by Harlequin and his associates at the other? Have not some persons in a certain honourable assembly been traduced for almost thirty nights together in the character of a wrong-headed country knight, of mean intellects and a broken fortune? And lastly, is not the opera state itself become the subject of mirth and derision to crowded and clapping audiences?

66

Though I am a constant spectator of the Beggar's Opera," which affords me a nightly entertainment, and have always had a great respect for Mr. R-ch, yet I am surprised at the late unprecedented insolence and audaciousness of that gentleman, and have often wondered that such entertainments are suffered to be exhibited night after night to the whole town with impunity. How could it enter into his head to turn the fine songs of the opera into such high ridicule? He knows very well who goes to and takes delight in those diversions. It was impossible to think that all the disappointments in the world could have transported him to this degree; but as the best actions are liable to malicious and invidious turns, this innocent amusement of the k-g must not escape the ridicule of righteous Mr. R--ch. Did he mean to insinuate by this that nothing but sing-song, empty sound and gesticulation, please and recommend at an opera? Or did he hope that other harsh inferences would be made by the disaffected, which I detest, and he dares not name?

It will, I know, be said by these libertine stage-players that the satire is general, and that it discovers a consciousness of guilt for any particular man to apply it to himself.

of their own making. Cuzzoni married a harpsichord maker, whom she was afterwards said to have poisoned, and she died miserably in a hospital in 1770; and Faustina married a harpsichord player, to whom she was first drawn by his music, and lived a long and happy life with her husband, dying in the same year with him when one was 83, the other 84 years old.

3 Peachum with a P, for the more aristocratic Beauchamp with a B. The original Polly was Lavinia Fenton, who achieved a conquest of the Duke of Bolton, and became his second Duchess, twenty-three years after he had eloped with her.

+ The Coronation procession of George II. in 1727 was produced at Drury Lane as an incident to Banks's play of "Anna Bullen," and added as a show when other plays were acted. Rich, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, then set up "Harlequin Anna Bullen."

But they seem to forget that there are such things as innuendos, a never-failing method of explaining libels, and that when all the town sees through their design, it is unreasonable to suppose those persons only incapable of understanding it to whom it belongs to punish such enormities. Nay, the very title of this piece and the principal character, which is that of an highwayman, sufficiently discover the mischievous design of it, since by this character everybody will understand one who makes it his business arbitrarily to levy and collect money on the people for his own use, of which he always dreads to give any account. Is not this squinting with a vengeance, and wounding persons in authority through the sides of a common malefactor?

But I shall go still deeper into this affair, and undertake to prove, beyond all dispute, that the "Beggar's Opera" is the most venomous allegorical libel against the Government that hath appeared for many years past.

There are some persons who esteem Lockit, the keeper or prime minister of Newgate, to be the hero of the piece; to justify which opinion, they take notice that he is set forth on the stage in the person of Mr. Hall as a very corpulent bulky man, and that he hath a brother named Peachum,2 who, as represented by Mr. Hippesly, appears to be a little, awkward, slovenly fellow. They observe farther, that these two brothers have a numerous gang of thieves and pickpockets under their direction, with whom they divide the plunder, and whom they either screen or tuck up, as their own interest and the present occasion requires. But I am obliged to reject this interpretation as erroneous, however plausible it may be, and to embrace another, which is more generally received, viz., that Captain Macheath, who hath also a goodly presence, and hath a tolerable bronze upon his face, is designed for the principal character, and drawn to asperse somebody in authority. He is represented at the head of a gang of robbers, who promise to stand by him against all the enquiries and coercive force of the law. He is often called a great man, particularly in the two following passages, viz., "It grieves one's heart to take off a great man. "What a moving thing it is to see a great man in distress;" which, by-the-bye, seems to be an innuendo that some great man will speedily fall into distress.

Soon after his first appearance on the stage he is taken up and confined for a certain slippery prank on the road, but hath the good fortune to escape that time by the help of a trusty friend. He is afterwards retaken in much better plight and apparel than before, and ordered for execution, which is prevented for no other reason that I can see, than that the poet is afraid of offending the critics, by making an opera end with a tragical catastrophe, for he plainly tells us that this observance of dramatic rules in one point hath made him violate poetical justice in another, and spoil a very good moral, viz., that the lower people have their vices in a degree as well as the rich, and are punished for them— innuendo, that rich people never are.

But herein, I confess, the author seems to be somewhat inconsistent, by ranking his hero Macheath, whom he had

1 Lockit's song, "When you Censure the Age," was encored vociferously on the first night as a hit at the premier, Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole, who was present, followed its repetition with a loud "encore" of his own, and had a round of applause for his good humour. The Craftsman here amuses its readers by identifying Walpole with Macheath.

a Lord Townshend, Walpole's brother-in-law, was joined with him in the administration until 1730, when they quarrelled, Townshend resigned, and Walpole became sole master. The dates, of course, contradict those who have found a reference to the quarrel between Walpole and Townshend in Gay's quarrel scene between Lockit and Peachum.

before called a great man, amongst the lower people. But this, perhaps, might be done for a blind; and then, no doubt, the reprieve was brought in to inculcate the same moral in a stronger manner, viz., by an example of a great man and a notorious offender, who escapes with impunity.

His satirical strokes upon ministers, courtiers, and great men in general abound in every part of this most insolent performance. In one place, where Polly Peachum acknow. ledges her match with Captain Macheath, her father breaks out in a passion with these words: What, marry an highwayman! why he'll make as bad a husband as a lordinnuendo, that all lords make bad husbands. Soon after,

when Miss Polly questions her spouse's constancy, he tells her that you might sooner tear a pension out of the hands of a courtier than tear him from her-innuendo, that all courtiers have pensions. In the very first song the employment of a statesman is, by innuendo, made as bad or worse than that of Jonathan Wild, represented under the character of Peachum, which he introduces by a general libel on men of all professions, even the most sacred, in order to make that of a statesman more black and vile ::

Through all the employments of life,

Each neighbour abuses his brother,
Whore and rogue they call husband and wife;

All professions be-rogue one another.

The priest calls the lawyer a cheat,

The lawyer be-knaves the divine;
And the statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his trade as honest as mine.

The second act begins with a scene of highwaymen drinking together, who solemnly promise never to betray one another for interest or any other motive, upon which one of them gets up and says, Shew me a gang of courtiers who can say as much-innuendo, that courtiers have less honesty than highwaymen. In another place it is said that our gang can't trust one another any more than other people -innuendo

In a scene between Peachum and his brother Lockit, Peachum takes upon him to say that he does not like these long arrears of the Government-innuendo, that the Government is in arrear. Again, says he, Can it be expected that we should hang our acquaintance for nothing, when our betters will hardly save theirs without being paid for itinnuendo, that some persons have been well paid for saving or screening their former acquaintance. He says farther, that unless the people in employment pay better (innuendo, that they pay very badly), he shall let other rogues live besides theirs-innuendo, that there are other rogues.

He goes on with observing that, in one respect, their employment may be reckoned dishonest, because, like great statesmen, they encourage those who betray their friends, which contains, by innuendo, a confirmation of that ridiculous as well as scandalous vulgar error, that great statesmen frequently betray their friends.

Upon this Lockit advises him to be more guarded, and sings the following air :

Ourselves, like the great, to secure a retreat,
When matters require it must give up our gang;
And good reason why,
For, instead of the fry,

Even Peachum and I

Like poor pretty rascals might hang, hang, Like poor pretty rascals might hang.

Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others, as well as in me, I wonder we han't better company

Upon Tyburn Tree!

But gold from law can take out the sting,

And if rich men like us were to swing,

"Twould thin the land such numbers to string
Upon Tyburn Tree!

For my part, if any of the persons who are thus malevolently treated in this piece will think fit to employ me, I will undertake to do them justice, notwithstanding the aspersions which have been cast upon me as an enemy to great men; and I think that I have still law enough left to ground a valid information upon it.

This is, I think, sufficient to demonstrate the malignant tendency of this piece, and my own good intentions. What reasons induce the G- -t to be thus passive under such repeated insults I do not take upon me to determine. But though I am far from wishing, as I know it will be objected, to see the liberty of the stage entirely abolished, yet I think such licentious invectives on the most polite and fashionable vices require some immediate restraint; for if they should continue to be allowed, the theatre will become the censor of the age, and no man, even of the first quality or distinction, will be at liberty to follow his pleasures, inclinations, or interest, which is certainly the birthright of every free Briton, without danger of becoming the May-game of the whole town. I submit this to your sage judgment,

And am, Sir,

Your constant reader and humble servant, PHIL-HARMONICUS.

Henry Fielding afterwards played with Sir Robert Walpole in his dramatic satire, "The Historical Register for 1736," and by so doing provoked the Licensing Act of 1737, which inflicted the Lord Chamberlain on English dramatic literature. Lord Chesterfield's best speech in the House of Lords was made for the rescue of wit from the imposition of this weakest and clumsiest of tyrannies. He suggested with a quiet irony that it was an attack not only upon liberty, but also upon property. "Wit, my lords, is a sort of property. It is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed, but a precarious dependence. Thank God! we, my lords, have a dependence of another kind; we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the inconveniences of the bill now before us; but it is our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be."

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694, and after a fashionable education at home and abroad, and some experience in the House of Commons, he succeeded to the earldom in 1726. He was sworn a Privy Councillor, and held various public offices after the accession of George II. As an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole he also was a writer in The Craftsman. He had good wit with its health spoilt by bad cultivation, according to the

Since you choose the name of Polyglot, I hope you will take care to deserve it; which you can only do by care and application. I confess the names of Frisky, and Colas, are not quite so honourable; but then, remember too, that there cannot be a stronger ridicule, than to call a man by an honourable name, when he is known not to deserve it. For example; it would be a manifest irony to call a very ugly fellow an Adonis, (who, you know, was so handsome, that Venus herself fell in love with him), or to call a cowardly fellow an Alexander, or an ignorant fellow Polyglot; for everybody would discover the sneer: and Mr. Pope observes very truly, that

"Praise undeserv'd is satire in disguise."

Next to the doing of things that deserve to be written, there is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure, than to write things that deserve to be read. The younger Pliny, (for there were two Plinys, the uncle and the nephew), expresses it thus: Equidem beatos puto, quibus Deorum munere datum est, aut facere scribenda, aut legenda scribere; beatissimos vero quibus utrumque.1

Pray mind your Greek particularly; for to know Greek very well is to be really learned: there is no great credit in knowing Latin, for everybody knows it; and it is only a shame not to know it. Besides that, you will understand Latin a great deal the better for understanding Greek very well; a great number of Latin words, especially the technical words, being derived from the Greek. Technical words, mean such particular words as relate to any art or science; from the Greek word τεχνη, which signifies art, and τεχνικος, which signifies artificial. Thus, a dictionary, that explains the terms of art, is called a lexicon technicum, or a technical dictionary. Adieu.

I write to you now, in the supposition that you continue to deserve my attention, as much as you did when I left London; and that Mr. Maittaire would commend you as much now, as he did the last time he was with me; for otherwise, you know very well that I should not concern myself about you. Take care, therefore, that when I come to town, I may not find myself mistaken in the good opinion I entertained of you in my absence.

I hope you have got the linnets and bulfinches you so much wanted; and I recommend the bulfinches to your imitation. Bulfinches, you must know, have no natural note of their own, and never sing, unless taught; but will learn tunes better than any other birds. This they do by attention and memory; and you may observe, that, while they are taught, they listen with great care, and never jump about and kick their heels. Now I really think it would be a great shame for you to be outdone by your own bulfinch.

I take it for granted, that, by your late care and attention, you are now perfect in Latin verses; and that you may at

1 I think those happy to whom it is given by the gods, either to do what is worth writing, or to write what is worth reading; but they are happiest to whom it is given to do both.

present be called what Horace desired to be called, Romanæ fidicen Lyra. Your Greek too, I dare say, keeps pace with your Latin; and you have all your paradigms ad unguem.

You cannot imagine what alterations and improvements I expect to find every day, now that you are more than Octennis.2 And, at this age, non progredi would be regredi,3 which would be very shameful.

Adieu! Do not write to me; for I shall be in no settled place to receive letters, while I am in the country.

LORD CHESTERFIELD. (From the Edition of his "Letters "
published by Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope.)

those things were done; and as geographical, it describes the situation of countries and cities. For example; would you know who Aristides the Just was, you will find there that he was of Athens; that his distinguished honesty and integrity acquired him the name of Just; the most glorious appellation a man can have. You will likewise find, that he commanded the Athenian army, at the battle of Platea, where Mardonius, the Persian General, was defeated, and his army of three hundred thousand men utterly destroyed; and that, for all these virtues, he was banished Athens by the Ostracism. You will then (it may be) be curious to know what the Ostracism is. If you look for it, you will find that the Athenians, being very jealous of their liberties, which they thought were the most in danger from those whose virtue and merit made them the most popular (that is, recommended them most to the favour of the people), contrived this Ostracism; by which, if six hundred people gave in the name of any one man, written upon a shell, that person was immediately banished for ten years.

As to chronology, would you know when Charlemain was

made Emperor of the West; look for the article of Charlemagne; and you will find, that, being already master of all Germany, France, and great part of Spain and Italy, he was declared Emperor, in the year 800.

As to the geographical part, if you would know the situation of any town, or country, that you read of; as for instance, Persepolis; you will find where it was situated, by whom founded, and that it was burnt by Alexander the Great, at the instigation of his mistress, Thais, in a drunken riot. In short, you will find a thousand entertaining stories to divert you, when you have leisure from your studies, or your play; for one must always be doing something, and never lavish away so valuable a thing as time; which if once lost, can never be regained. Adieu.

The next letter was written seven years later:

DEAR BOY, London, March the 6th, O.S. 1747. Whatever you do, will always affect me, very sensibly, one way or another; and I am now most agreeably affected by two letters, which I have lately seen from Lausanne, upon your subject; the one was from Madame St. Germain, the other from Monsieur Pampigny: they both give so good an account of you, that I thought myself obliged, in justice both to them and to you, to let you know it. Those who deserve a good character ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write, that you are not only décrotté, but tolerably well bred and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness, (of which, by the bye, you had your share) is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it; for, as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good-breeding, a genteel behaviour and address, are of infinitely more advantage, than they are generally thought to be, especially here in England. Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value; but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre : and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy good-breeding of the French frequently cover? Many of them want common sense, many more common learning; but, in general, they make up so much, by their manner, for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered. I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning, and good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. This perfection you may, if you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You know what virtue is you may have it if you will; it is in every man's power; and miserable is the man who has it not. Good sense, God has given you. Learning, you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need have. With this, you are thrown out early into the world, where it will be your own fault if you do not acquire all the other accomplishments necessary to complete and adorn your character. You will do well to make your compliments to Madame St. Germain and Monsieur Pampigny; and tell them, how sensible you are of their partiality to you, in the advantageous testimonies which, you are informed, they have given of you here.

Adieu! Continue to deserve such testimonies; and then you will not only deserve, but enjoy, my truest affection.

David Hume was thirty one years old when he published at Edinburgh, in 1742, his "Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary." He had been born

at Edinburgh in 1711, and bred to the law, for which he had no liking. In 1734 he became clerk in a commercial house at Bristol, but two years later he gave up all visible means of earning, followed the bent of his mind and went to France that he might live frugally, while giving himself to contemplation He was in France three and pursuit of literature. years, and in January, 1739, published two volumes of "A Treatise of Human Nature," dealing with the Understanding and the Passions. He then went to his mother and brother-his father had been long dead-and in the home of the family, called Ninewells, just over the Scottish Border, wrote the Essays published in 1741 and 1742, of which this is one.

OF THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

There are certain sects which secretly form themselves in the learned world as well as in the political, and though sometimes they come not to an open rupture, yet they give a different turn to the ways of thinking of those who have taken party on either side. The most remarkable of this kind are the sects, that are founded on the different sentiments with regard to the dignity of human nature, which is a point that seems to have divided philosophers and poets as well as divines, from the beginning of the world to this day. Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demi-god, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent. Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise. If an author possesses the talent of rhetoric and declamation, he commonly takes party with the former; if his turn lies towards irony and ridicule, he naturally throws himself into the other extreme.

I am far from thinking that all those who have depreciated human nature have been enemies to virtue, and have exposed the frailties of their fellow creatures with any bad intention. On the contrary, I am sensible that a very delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with somewhat of the misanthrope, is apt to give a man a disgust of the world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much spleen and indignation. I must, however, be of opinion that the sentiments of those who are inclined to think favourably of mankind are much more advantageous to virtue than the contrary principles, which give us a mean opinion of our nature. When a man is possessed of a high notion of his rank and character in the creation, he will naturally endeavour to act up to it, and will scorn to do a base or vicious action which might sink him below that figure which he makes in his own imagination. Accordingly we find that all our polite and fashionable moralists insist upon this topic, and endeavour to represent vice as unworthy of man, as well as odious in itself.

Women are generally much more flattered in their youth than men, which may proceed from this reason, among others, that their chief point of honour is considered as much more difficult than ours, and requires to be supported by all that decent pride which can be instilled into them.

We find very few disputes which are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression; and I am persuaded that the present dispute concerning the dignity of human nature is not more exempt from it than any other. It may, therefore, be worth while to consider what is real and what is only verbal in this controversy.

That there is a natural difference between merit and

demerit, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, no reasonable man will deny: but yet it is evident that in affixing the term which denotes either our approbation or blame, we are commonly more influenced by comparison than by any fixed unalterable standard in the nature of things. In like manner,

quantity, and extension, and bulk are by every one acknowledged to be real things. But when we call any animal great or little, we always form a secret comparison between that animal and others of the same species; and it is that comparison which regulates our judgment concerning its greatness. A dog and a horse may be of the very same size, while the one is admired for the greatness of its bulk, and the other for its smallness. When I am present, therefore, at any dispute, I always consider with myself whether it be a question of comparison or not that is the subject of the controversy; and if it be, whether the disputants compare the same objects together, or talk of things that are widely different. As the latter is commonly the case, I have long since learned to neglect such disputes as manifest abuses of leisure, the most valuable present that could be made to mortals.

In forming our notions of human nature, we are very apt to make a comparison between men and animals, which are the only creatures endowed with thought that fall under our senses. Certainly this comparison is very favourable to mankind. On the one hand we see a creature whose thoughts are not limited by any narrow bounds, either of place or time, who carries his researches into the most distant regions of this globe, and beyond this globe to the planets and heavenly bodies; looks backward to consider the first origin, at least, the history of human race; casts his eyes forward to see the influence of his actions upon posterity, and the judgments which will be formed of his character a thousand years hence; a creature who traces causes and effects to a great length and intricacy, extracts general principles from particular appearances, improves upon his discoveries, corrects his mistakes, and makes his very errors profitable. On the other hand, we are presented with a creature the very reverse of this; limited in its observations and reasonings to a very few sensible objects which surround it; without curiosity, without foresight; blindly conducted by instinct, and attaining in a very short time its utmost perfection, beyond which it is never able to advance a single step. What a wide difference is there between these creatures! And how exalted a notion must we entertain of the former in comparison of the latter!

There are two means commonly employed to destroy this conclusion. First, by making an unfair representation of the case, and insisting only upon the weaknesses of human nature; and secondly, by forming a new and secret comparison between man and beings of the most perfect wisdom. Among the other excellencies of man this is remarkable, that he can form an idea of perfections much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue. He can easily exalt his notions, and conceive a degree of knowledge which, when compared to his own, will make the latter appear very contemptible, and will cause the difference between that and the sagacity of animals in a manner to disappear and vanish. Now this being a point in which all the world is agreed, that human understanding falls infinitely short of perfect wisdom, it is proper we should know when this comparison takes place, that we may not dispute where there is no real difference in our sentiments. Man falls much more short of perfect wisdom, and even of his own ideas of perfect wisdom, than animals do of man; but yet the latter difference is so considerable, that nothing but a comparison with the former can make it appear of little moment.