No. 129. TUESDAY, JUNE 11. 1751.
_--Nunc, O nunc, Daedale, dixit,
Materiam, qua sis ingeniosus, habes.
Possidet en terras, et possidet aequara, Minos:
Nec tellus nostrae, nec patet undo fugae.
Restat iter coelo: tentabimus ire.
Da veniam caepto, Jupiter alte, meo. OVID. Ar. Am. Lib. ii. 33_.
Now, Daedalus, behold, by fate assign'd,
A task proportion'd to thy mighty mind!
Unconquer'd bars on earth and sea withstand;
Thine, Minos, is the main, and thine the land.
The skies are open--let us try the skies:
Forgive, great Jove, the daring enterprize.
Moralists, like other writers, instead of casting their eyes abroad in
the living world, and endeavouring to form maxims of practice and new
hints of theory, content their curiosity with that secondary knowledge
which books afford, and think themselves entitled to reverence by a new
arrangement of an ancient system, or new illustration of established
principles[e]. The sage precepts of the first instructors of the world
are transmitted from age to age with little variation, and echoed from
one author to another, not perhaps without some loss of their original
force at every repercussion.
I know not whether any other reason than this idleness of imitation can
be assigned for that uniform and constant partiality, by which some
vices have hitherto escaped censure, and some virtues wanted
recommendation; nor can I discover why else we have been warned only
against part of our enemies, while the rest have been suffered to steal
upon us without notice; why the heart has on one side been doubly
fortified, and laid open on the other to the incursions of errour, and
the ravages of vice.
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