The Pleasures of Life

mbition is often the first; though, when proper

ments of the flesh, with the perils of death and exile, are to be despised; never had I exposed my person in so many encounters, and to these daily conflicts with the worst of men, for your deliverance. But

t tells

il: the one

le defeat is better than a mean victory, and no one is really the worse for being beaten, unless

, says

failure over

succe

rp and attentively he shall see fortune; for

nd then make the most of our opportunities. Of these the use of time is one of the most impor

iers before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of

re ourselves in

thinks i

ame, must do, nor eve

ill suffer comparatively little from wounds and b

bject in view, to run as little risk a

must be no looking back, you must spare y

fears his f

eserts a

not put it

r lose it

ng which has the best chance of not bein

h in a net, another when he has taken wild boars, another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians;" [4] but this, if fro

a type of Ambition in its usual f

ghted with it, he used to say to his companions, "My father will go on conquering, till there be nothing extraordinary left for you and me to do." [5] He is said eve

form of which Alexander may be taken as the type-the idea of self-exaltation, not only

their time who have nobler things to observe." Indeed he elsewhere extends this,

culture; not for what he can accomplish, b

sarily to be famous. There is infamy as well as fame; and unhappily almost as many

forgotten, than recoll

lina or Heliogabalus, K

anitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with on

, not Xerxes. Alexander's Empire fell to pieces at his death. Napoleon was a great genius, though no Hero. But what came of all his victories? They passed away like th

embered for some act of justice or self-devotion: the self-sacrifice

le the places are forgotten. When we speak of Palestrina or Perugino, of Nelson or

called the sou

biographies of Shakespeare or of Pl

lives. The newspapers chronicle every word and movement.

unt. The case of Statesmen, he says, is different. It is right to commemorate the

uddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ. The rulers and kings who reigned over our ancestors have for the most part long since sunk into oblivion-they ar

we speak of the Elizabethan period we think of Shakespeare and Bacon, Raleigh and Spenser. The ministers and secretaries of stat

or their deeds, but to the Poet and the Historian they owe their fame, and to the

rtes ante

omnes ill

ignotiq

ent quia v

rished because they were celebrated by no divine Bard. Montrose hap

thee glorio

us by my

stacles which might well have seemed insurmountable; nay, even obscurity itself may be a source of honor. The very dou

ophon, Salamis, Rho

om weaver, Fraünhofer of a glazier, Laplace of a farmer, Linnaeus of a poor curate, Faraday of a blacksmith, Lamarck of a banker's cl

nknown even by name. Who discovered the art of procuring fire? Prometheus is mere

gards recent progress the steps are often so gradual, and so numerous, that

uly said, to have discov

ere there

human thought; Newton with gravitation, Adam Smith with Political Economy, Young with the undulatory theory of light, Herschel with the discovery of Uranus and the study of the star depths, Lord Worcester, Trevethick, an

life they may have occupied, comparatively, an insignificant space in the eyes of their countrym

Tenn

Beow

Mont

ng here to one of

Plut

Emer

r J. B