ingtons or Alfreds shall we find! The children of those days, when the world was young, rude as the times they lived in, and rash at once from ignorance and from inexperience, amused themselves with the toys and the trumpets, the gewgaws and the glitter of war. But we who live in the maturity of things, who to the knowledge of the present add a retrospection of the past, we who alone can fairly be termed the ancients, or be said to live in the olden time; we, I trust, are no longer to be deluded or befooled by this brilliant but baneful meteor, composed of visionary good, but of substantial evil. We live in the manhood and in the fulness of time, and the triumphs of truth and of reason, triumphs bright as bloodless; these are the proper business and the boast of those who, having put away childish things, are becoming men. There are some that with oracular gravity will inform us, that as wars have ever been, they must on that account continue to be; but they might as well assert that the imbecility and ignorance that marked the conduct of our forefathers, those ancient moderns, who lived in the infancy of the world, and in the childhood of time, must and do exist at present, because they existed then. With a solitary exception, all warfare is built upon hypocrisy, acting upon ignorance; ignorance it was that lent success to Mahomet's miracles, and to Cromwell's cant. lack of knowledge a people is destroyed; and knowledge alone it is that is worthy of holding the freest minds in the firmest thraldom. Unlike those of the warrior, the triumphs of knowledge derive all their lustre, not from the evil they have produced, but from the good, her successes and her conquest are the common property of the world, and suc For cceding ages will be the watchful guardians of the rich legacies she bequeaths. The trophies and the titles of the conqueror are on the quick march to oblivion, and amid that desolation where they were planted, will decay. For what are the triumphs of war,* planned by ambition, executed by violence, and consummated by devastation? the means are the sacrifice of the many; the end, the bloated aggrandizement of the few. Knowledge has put a stop to chivalry, as she one day will to war, and Cervantes has laughed out of the field those selfconstituted legislators that carried the sword, but not the scales of justice, and who were mounted and mailed. I am no advocate for a return of this state of things; but when that heroic and chivalric spirit was abroad, when men volunteered on dangers for the good of others, without emolument, and laid down the sword when that for which they resorted to it was overcome, then indeed a measure 'Speaking of the conqueror, the inspired writer observes' that before him the land is as the garden of Eden, behind him as the desolate wilderness;' and that poet who drank deepest of the sacred stream, has the following lines:— "They err who count it glorious to subdue Violent or shameful death their due reward.' Millon of respect and admiration awaited them, and a feeling, honourable to both parties, was entertained. But is it not both absurd and ridiculous to transfer this respect and esteem to those who make a trade of warfare, and who barter for blood? who are as indifferent as the sword they draw, to the purposes for which it is drawn, who put on the badge of a master, wear his livery, and receive his pay. Where all is mercenary, nothing can be magnanimous; and it is impossible to have the slightest respect for an animated mass of machinery, that moves alike at the voice of a drum, or a despot; a trumpet, or a tyrant; a fife, or a fool. THE END. .NDEX. 66 to projectors, Atheism, its absurdities, Academical honours useful, when, Adversity and Prosperity, both temptations, Agreement dangerous, when, Agriculture the safest source of wealth, Alexander makes a distinction not without a difference, Ambition, its evils, 66 bears no rival passion, Analogy powerful, when, Anger and Confidence, like wine, Anticipations foolish, when, Anthithesis, its relations to wit, Animals, two very important ones, Antiquity, the Alma Mater of pedants, Apprentice boy, Apostacy, good excuse for it, Arbitration, Augustus, his craft, Authority of great names, Avarice, why it increases with age, Antithesis, defence of it, Applause, contemporaneous, Acquirements, recondite, Ancient philosophers, Arcesilaus, a remark of his, Acquaintance, two sorts, 346 Authorship, 251 Advice, 355 Antiquity and ancestry, 373 Absurdities, 378 Apostles, three great ones, 415 Authors, 448 Age and love, 467 Ancestry, its pride, 175 |