The
sportsman and the man of dress have their heads filled with a fox or a
horse-race, a feather or a ball; and live in ignorance of every thing
beside, with as much content as he that heaps up gold, or solicits
preferment, digs the field, or beats the anvil; and some yet lower in
the ranks of intellect, dream out their days without pleasure or
business, without joy or sorrow, nor ever rouse from their lethargy to
hear or think.
Even of those who have dedicated themselves to knowledge, the far
greater part have confined their curiosity to a few objects, and have
very little inclination to promote any fame, but that which their own
studies entitle them to partake. The naturalist has no desire to know
the opinions or conjectures of the philologer: the botanist looks upon
the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard: the lawyer scarcely
hears the name of a physician without contempt; and he that is growing
great and happy by electrifying a bottle, wonders how the world can be
engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace.
If, therefore, he that imagines the world filled with his actions and
praises, shall subduct from the number of his encomiasts, all those who
are placed below the flight of fame, and who hear in the valleys of life
no voice but that of necessity; all those who imagine themselves too
important to regard him, and consider the mention of his name as an
usurpation of their time; all who are too much or too little pleased
with themselves, to attend to any thing external; all who are attracted
by pleasure, or chained down by pain, to unvaried ideas; all who are
withheld from attending his triumph by different pursuits; and all who
slumber in universal negligence; he will find his renown straitened by
nearer bounds than the rocks of Caucasus, and perceive that no man can
be venerable or formidable, but to a small part of his fellow-creatures.
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