Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

APHORISMS,

&c

MAN.

1.

REMEMBER always, that man is a creature whose reason is often darkened with error.

2.

God Almighty, to shew us that he made all of nothing hath left a certain inclination in his creatures, whereby they tend naturally to nothing; that is to say, to change and corruption; unless they be upheld by his power, who having all in himself, abideth alone the unchangeable and free from all passions.

VOL. I.

Remark.

Sir Philip Sidney's opinion of the nature of man, is founded on candour and humility. As man is a finite being, he is liable to error; therefore, it is the duty of all men, to bear with occasional instances of that frailty, which is common to them all. And as he is the creature of an infinite God, (infinite in wisdom and goodness, as in power,) he declares himself to be dependent on his providence, for an all-perfect line, by which he is to direct his steps. Religion is the guide of his life; and Charity his companion.

BIRTH.

1.

I AM no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees; it sufficeth me, if I know their virtues.

2.

What is birth to a man, if it shall be a stain to his dead ancestors, to have left such an offspring?

3.

Titles are but marks, on the highest worth.

4.

Where worthiness is, no outward lowness should hinder the highest rising thereof. In mean caves oft a treasure abides. Height of thoughts should well countervail lowness of quality.

Remark.

When high birth stands in the place of high desert, in the estimation of mankind, indolence induces most men to be so well satisfied

with hereditary elevation, that resting all their consequence upon this ground, they neglect the means by which they might themselves uphold their rank, and stamp a right to it, with the seal of self-reflected eminence. There are too many who, bankrupts in character, draw largely on the abundant fame of the dead, to preponderate living infamy; and when the violence or baseness of their actions make it policy to keep them as much as possible in the back-ground, they hold forth, as a charter for new civil honours, the name of some heroic ancestor, whose virtues won that title, which is now perverted into a passport, with which vice may invade the natural property of virtue.While these degenerate sons of nobility are degrading themselves beneath the lowest point of contempt, men of eminent worth rise from the humbler orders; and by the course of things, take that honourable station in society, which the profligate have deserted. A few years pass away, and they, in their turn, become the parents of a race, who, perhaps, in herit nothing of their father's fame, but its golden trumpet and the echo of its sound.

« AnteriorContinuar »