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sentences together to wreath myself into Monsieur le duc de C * * *'s good graces.

Well, said I, I wish it well over!

-Coward again; as if man to man was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the field, why not face to face in the cabinet, too? And trust me, Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to himself, and betrays his own succour ten times where nature does it once.

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ALL men having the same origin are of equal antiquity: nature has made no difference in their formation. Strip the nobles naked, and you are as well as they; dress them in your rags, and you in their robes, and you will doubtless be the nobles. Poverty and riches only discriminate betwixt you.

MACHIAVEL.

History of Florence, b. 3.

DURING the war, there was a contagious distemper at Breslaw, and a hundred and twenty persons were buried every day. A countess at this period said, "Thank God, the nobility are spared, none "but the vulgar die." This is a picture of the thoughts of persons in power, who imagine themselves made up of atoms more precious than those which compose the bodies of the common people whom they oppress. Such has been the case in all ages.

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ages. The progress of great monarchies is uniform. Scarcely any who have not suffered are acquainted with, or detest, oppression. The favourites of fortune, whom prosperity has benumbed, think that the miseries of the people are exaggerated, and that injustice is only mistake.

KING OF PRUSSIA.

Correspondence with Voltaire, let. 309.

THERE is no more inward value in the greatest emperor, than in the meanest of his subjects. His body is composed of the same substance, the same parts, and with the same or greater infirmities: His education is generally worse, by flattery, idleness, and luxury, and those evil dispositions that early power is apt to give. It is therefore against common sense, that his private personal interest, or pleasure, should be put in the balance with the safety of millions, every one of which his equal by nature.

SWIFT.

Sermon on the Martyrdom of Charles I.

MEN are not naturally opulent, courtiers, nobles, or kings. We come into the world naked and poor: we are all subject to the miseries of life.

THE rich have not better appetites than the poor, nor quicker digestion: the master has not longer arms or stronger than the servant; a great man is no taller than the meanest artizan.

ROUSEAD.

Emile, liv. 3.

ALL

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ALL Civil distinctions disappear before a thinking being. He sees the same passions, the same ideas pervade the mind of the peer and the peasant, a gloss only is discernible in the language and appearance of the one, which the other does not possess. If any difference distinguish them, it is to the disadvantage of him who wears a mask.The people show themselves as they are, and they are not amiable; the great know the necessity of disguising themselves; were they to exhibit themselves as they are, they would excite horror.

Ib. liv. 4.

Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord. SHAKESPEAR.

In the center of those islands, situated in the midst of the South Sea, lies one distant from the rest, and large beyond proportion. A descendant of one of the great men of this island, becoming a gentleman to so improved a degree as to despise the good qualities which had originally ennobled his family, thought of nothing but how to support and distinguish his dignity by the pride of an ignorant mind, and a disposition abandoned to pleasure. He had a house on the sea side, where he spent great part of his time in hunting and fishing; but he found himself at a loss in the pursuit of these important diversions, by means of a long slip of marsh land, overgrown with high reeds, that lay between his house and the sea.Resolving at length, that it became not a man of his quality to submit to restraints in his pleasure

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for the ease and convenience of an obstinate mechanic; and having often endeavoured in vain to buy out the owner, who was an honest poor basketmaker, and whose livelihood depended on working up the flags of those reeds in a manner peculiar to himself, the gentleman took advantage of a very high wind, and commanded his servant to burn down the barrier.

The basket-maker, who saw himself undone, complained of the oppression in terms more suited to his sense of the injury, than the respect due to the rank of the offender: and the reward this imprudence procured him was the additional injustice of blows and reproaches, and all kinds of insult and indignity.

There was but one way to a remedy, and he took it. For going to the capital with the marks of his hard usage upon him, he threw himself at the feet of the King, and procured a citation for his oppressor's appearance; who, confessing the charge, proceeded to justify his behaviour by the poor man's unmindfulness of the submission due from the vulgar to gentlemen of rank and distinc

tion.

"But pray," replied the king, "what distinc" tion of rank had the grandfather of your father, "when, being a cleaver of wood in the palace " of my ancestors, he was raised from among " those vulgar you speak of, with such contempt, " in reward of an instance he gave of his courage "and loyalty in defence of his master? yet his " distinction was nobler than yours: it was the

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"distinction of soul, not of birth; the supe "riority of worth not of fortune. I am sorry I " have a gentleman in my kingdom who is base " enough to be ignorant, that ease and distinction " of fortune were bestowed on him but to this " end, that, being at rest from all cares of pro"viaing for himself, he might apply his heart, "head, and hands, for the public advantage of "others."

Here the king, discontinuing his speech, fixed an eye of indignation on a sullen resentment of mein which he observed in the haughty offender; who muttered out his dislike of the encouragement this way of thinking must give to the commonalty, who, he said, were to be considered as persons of no consequence in comparison of men who were born to be honoured." Where reflection " is wanting," replied the king with a smile of disdain, men must find their defects in the " pain of their sufferings." "Yanhumo," added he, turning to a captain of his gallies, "strip the " injured and the injurer, and conveying them to " one of the most barbarous and remote of the " islands, set them ashore in the night, and leave them both to their fortune."

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The place in which they were landed was a marsh, under cover of whose flags the gentleman was in hopes to conceal himself, and give the slip to his companion, whom he thought it a disgrace to be found with. But the lights in the galley having given an alarm to the savages, a considerable body of them came down, and discovered in the morning

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