Yet such will be the effect of his
reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault,
that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his
failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his
vices.
It is particularly the duty of those who consign illustrious names to
posterity, to take care lest their readers be misled by ambiguous
examples. That writer may be justly condemned as an enemy to goodness,
who suffers fondness or interest to confound right with wrong, or to
shelter the faults which even the wisest and the best have committed
from that ignominy which guilt ought always to suffer, and with which it
should be more deeply stigmatized when dignified by its neighbourhood to
uncommon worth, since we shall be in danger of beholding it without
abhorrence, unless its turpitude be laid open, and the eye secured from
the deception of surrounding splendour.
No. 165. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1751.
[Greek: Aen neos, alla penaes nun gaeron, plousios eimi
O monos ek panton oiktros en amphoterois,
Os tote men chraesthai dunamaen, hopot oud' en eichon.
Nun d' opote chraesthai mae dunamai, tot echo.] ANTIPHILUS.
Young was I once and poor, now rich and old;
A harder case than mine was never told;
Blest with the power to use them--I had none;
Loaded with _riches_ now, the power is gone.
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