he pretends to hold him again to syllogism, he has a catch in reserve, which neither logic nor metaphysics can resist.
I laugh to think how your unshaken Cato
Will look aghast, when unforeseen destruction
Pours in upon him thus.
The malignity of soldiers and sailors against each other has been often experienced at the cost of their country; and, perhaps, no orders of men have an enmity of more acrimony, or longer continuance. When, upon our late successes at sea, some new regulations were concerted for establishing the rank of the naval commanders, a captain of foot very acutely remarked, that nothing was more absurd than to give any honorary rewards to seamen; "for honour," says he, "ought only to be worn by bravery, and all the world knows that in a sea-fight there is no danger, and therefore no evidence of courage."
But although this general desire of aggrandizing themselves, by raising their profession, betrays men to a thousand ridiculous and mischievous acts of supplantation and detraction, yet as almost all passions have their good as well as bad effects, it likewise excites ingenuity, and sometimes raises an honest and useful emulation of diligence. It may be
