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CCXXXI.

LOVERS OF SMALL THINGS.

THERE are men whose virtues resemble the objects, painted by Giulio Clovio ;-so small, that their existence and beauty can only be recognised through the medium of a microscope. Some small things, however, are inexpressibly interesting. We may admire great things; but we love little ones. A small horse, a diminutive spaniel, a humming bird, and, in many men's estimation, a little woman, are great objects of taste.

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CCXXXII.

WHO DESPISE DETAIL.

WHEN the Duke de Choiseul desired France to possess a powerful marine, Louis XV. would not listen. My dear Choiseul,' said his Majesty, you are as great a fool as your predecessors. They told me, we must have a marine; but I foresee, and that very < plainly, that France will never be able to keep any ' other marine than that which is painted for her by < Vernet.'

In complicated affairs, details are of very great importance; and yet some persons, and eminent ones too, -think them of little or none. Turgot was of this order. He accepted the ministry of Finance on the condition, that the system of raising annual loans should be discontinued; and that the expenses should be re

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duced, by retrenchment, to the amount of the revenue. He failed; and that mainly from the neglect of detail, and the idea he entertained, that when a plan is sufficiently extensive to be of general utility, it is stooping too low to conciliate public opinion towards it.

A general may as well suppose that swords, cannon, ball, and powder, are sufficient for the exigencies of a long campaign. In this, Marshal Turenne far exceeded the Prince de Condé*. The latter was indeed totally unacquainted with the means of provisioning an army; but the former never undertook a single movement in opposition to the commissariat.

Lord Granville seems to have made a curious mistake in his estimate of what is to be expected of a great minister. Projects, plans, and prejudices, so entirely governed his imagination, that the consulting the interests and desires of a people, the conduct of business in parliament, and of such absurdity the speaker Onslow accused him, and the method of raising money, even for the execution of his own designs, were subjects far beneath his consideration. He acted like a man, who, being compelled to be at St. Petersburg on a particular day, leaves the whole order and economy of his journey to persons, who have not only never travelled the road, but who have to borrow the money with which to travel.

Audoin; Hist. de l'Administration de la Guerre, &c., p. 116.

CCXXXIII.

WHO DEVIATE WIDELY AFTER THE FIRST DEVIATION.

As the juices of some funguses change from yellow to dark, green or blue, on being exposed to the air, so do the dispositions of men, but too often, change on being exposed to the vicissitudes of the world. Hence many persons, honourable at the outset, become exceedingly depraved after their first deviation from virtue; reminding us therein of the great African eagle, which, when first caught, refuses all food; but, when once it begins to eat, preserves no measure in voraciousness.

CCXXXIV.

WHOSE DEFECTS ARE USEFUL.

Full oft 'tis seen

Our mean secures us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.'-Lear, act iv. sc. 1.

HENCE the lasting influence of a despotism; and hence the apparent solecism of the assertion, that the very defects of a constitution may contribute to its preservation. If it is beyond all price to know the measure of our deficiencies, it is still more desirable to know in what manner to correct them. I have declared more than once,' says Bayle, in allusion to the Guises of France, that all things have their uses in a govern'ment. Hence the ingratitude of men of high dis'tinction, their little fidelity, their indolence, and a

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'hundred other defects, are, sometimes, of greater 'advantage to the public than their opposite virtues.'

There can be no doubt, but that there are men whose very defects are useful. For instance, the want of military acquirements in a prince, too powerful in another way for a rival to insult: for then he desires not to signalize himself in war. Yet this is not a neverfailing result; and we might instance sovereigns, who have been as much devoted to war, as if they had possessed the genius of Frederic, or Gustavus, or Charles the Twelfth.

Happy are those, who are

'Graced by defect, and strengthen'd by decay.'

CCXXXV.

WHO ARE EVERY THING BY TURNS AND NOTHING LONG.

To this subject there is a passage applicable in Metastasio's Dream of Scipio :

Unstable as the wind am I,

With looks that change, and feet that fly;

With anger now I burn; and now

The smiles of pleasure smooth my brow.

Sometimes I take delight awhile

To raise from earth the ruin'd pile;

And soon an equal zeal employ

My recent labour to destroy.'

Rousseau *

compares a man, animated by the

charms of universal knowledge, and flying from one science to another, to a child gathering shells on the

* Emilius, ii. p. 105.

sea-shore. Baron de Grimm*, however, insists, that even the whims of a statesman of an enterprizing genius have a character of grandeur, which often secrete germs of the most useful and important revolutions.

Some vacillate so skilfully, that they resemble evergreens, which change their leaves every year; but, not doing so all at the same time, they are said never to change. Others we may compare to the crested grebe, and some even to the nylgau. The grebe, according to its passion of anger or of pleasure, raises, or lets fall, the feathers of its crest; the nylgau, though exceedingly vicious in a wild state, is equally affectionate in a

tame one.

When men change from bad to good, all is well; and they may be said to resemble the lizards of Carolina, which change, according to the temperature, from a dull brown to a most brilliant green; but we must ever despise such persons as Charles, the second Duke of Buckingham, if it be true, as Hume says it is, that 'the least interest could make him abandon his honour; the least pleasure could seduce him from his interest; and the most frivolous caprice was sufficient to counterbalance his pleasure.' The Duke of Wharton, also, was of a kindred genius.

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Some species of the orchard oriole † of North America change their colour progressively, and some periodically; insomuch, that Wilson, the ornithologist, assures us that, unless a naturalist resides many years in the country they inhabit, and has examined them in Oriolus mutatus.

*Mem., i. 281.

Vol. i. 64.

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