If those whom I had thus offended could have contented themselves with
repaying one insult for another, and kept up the war only by a
reciprocation of sarcasms, they might have perhaps vexed, but would
never have much hurt me; for no man heartily hates him at whom he can
laugh. But these wounds which they give me as they fly, are without
cure; this alarm which they spread by their solicitude to escape me,
excludes me from all friendship and from all pleasure. I am condemned to
pass a long interval of my life in solitude, as a man suspected of
infection is refused admission into cities; and must linger in
obscurity, till my conduct shall convince the world, that I may be
approached without hazard.
I am, &c.
DICACULUS.
No. 175. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1751.
_Rari quippe boni: numerus vix est totidem quot
Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili_. Juv. Sat. xiii. 26.
Good men are scarce; the just are thinly sown:
They thrive but ill, nor can they last when grown;
And should we count them, and our store compile,
Yet Thebes more gates could show, more mouths the Nile. CREECH.
None of the axioms of wisdom which recommend the ancient sages to
veneration, seem to have required less extent of knowledge or
perspicacity of penetration, than the remarks of Bias, that [Greek: oi
pleones kakoi], "the majority are wicked.
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