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the excellencies and follies of life upon the same innate principle, to wit, the desire of being remarkable: For this, as it has been differently cultivated by education, study and converse, will bring forth suitable effects as it falls in with an ingenuous disposition, or a corrupt mind; it does accordingly express itself in acts of magnanimity or selfish cunning, as it meets with a good or a weak understanding. as it has been employed in embellishing the mind, or adorning the outside, it renders the man eminently praise-worthy or ridiculous. Ambition therefore is not to be confined only to one passion or pursuit; for as the same humours, in constitutions otherwise different, affect the body after different manners, so the same aspiring principle within us sometimes breaks forth upon one object, sometimes upon another. The man who goes into the world only with the narrow views of self-interest, who catches at the applause of an idle multitude, as he can find no solid contentment at the end of his journey, so he deserves to meet with disappointments in his way; but he who is actuated by a noble principle, whose mind is so far enlarged as to take in the prospect of his country's good, who is enamoured with that priase which is one of the fair attendants of virtue, and values not those acclamations which are not seconded by the impartial testimony of his own mind; who repines
