plain Mr. in his? and have the heels of him in preferment, according to the start he has in precedence?
Give me leave to say, that the notion of the insignificancy of place has been of infinite prejudice to many worthy men, and of as great advantage to others, who have juster thoughts of it. While dignity sinks with its own weight, the scum of mankind will naturally rise above it.
I have a pious concern upon me for all the important mistakes of mankind, and this among the rest; as to which, I have observed strong prejudice runs counter to the nature of things, and the principles of truth and reason. Sure I am, nature directs every person and thing to maintain its situation, or rather not so much to keep its own place, as to aspire and displace others. And the reason is plain, because that is a tendency to the uppermost point, and an approach to perfection; and therefore, contrary to common opinions, I have ever thought there is piety in pride and ambition, and that it is virtue to be emulous and aspiring. And when I hear, as in my time I have many, conceited declamations against pride; I suspect it is with the design of a monopoly, and to engross it; as I have known an ingenious schoolboy spit in his mess of porridge, not to abuse the good creature, but to secure it all to himself[1]. What is that dominion so early given to mankind, but superiority of power and place? and then to act up to it, is not womanish, but manly. And if that was a precept, I will take upon me to say,
- ↑ The same thought (not an overdelicate, one, it must be owned) occurs in the close of our author's Epistle to Mr. Gay.
