The aim of Transcribe Georgian Papers is to produce useable text documents of the manuscript materials and not critical editions. Please be aware this document may contain errors in the transcription.
Found an error? Please report errors and issues in the transcription to transcribegpp@wm.edu.
causes of our giving ourselves up to that man, who bestows upon us the characters and qualities of others; which perhaps suit us as ill and were as little designed for our wearing, as their clothes. Instead of going out of our own complexional nature into that of others, it were a better and more laudable industry to improve our own, and instead of a miserable copy become a good original; for there is no temper, no disposition so rude and untractable, but may in its own peculiar cast and turn be brought to some agreeable use in conversation, or in the affairs of life. A person of a rougher deportment, and less tied up to the usual ceremonies of behavior, will, like Manly in the play, please by the grace which nature gives to every action wherein she is complied with; the brisk and lively will not want their admirers, and even a more reserved and melancholy temper may at some times be agreeable. When there is not vanity enough awake in a man to undo him, the Flatterer stirs up that dormant weakness, and inspires him with merit enough to be a Coxcomb. But if Flattery be the most sordid act that can be complied with, the art of Praising justly is as commendable: For it is laudable to praise well; as poets at one and the same time give Immortality and receive it themselves for a reward: Both are pleased, the one whilst he receive the recompence of merit, the other whilst he shews he knows how to discern it; but above
