ing, the desire of glory, that passion, to the infinity of whose view the narrow circle which contains all the objects of our affection, is scarcely a point; which connects us with every human being that exists; and not with these only, but also with every human being that is to exist in the long succession of ages. "Nature," says Longinus, "has not intended man for a low or ignoble being; but has brought us into life in the midst of this wide universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates for the prize of glory which she holds forth to our emulation."

Say, why was man so eminently raised
Amid the vast creation,-why ordain'd

Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame;-
But that the Omnipotent might send him forth,
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice,-to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds,-

To chase each partial purpose from his breast;
And through the mists of passion and of sense,
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice
Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent
Of nature, calls him to his high reward,-
The applauding smile of Heaven."*

It is in this boundless theatre, with mankind for our witnesses, and God for our Judge and Rewarder, that we have to struggle with our fortune in that great combat, which is either glory or disgrace, and according to the result of which, life is, or is not, a blessing. We know, indeed the awful presence of our Judge, and this very thought is to us, at times, like the inspiration of some better power with which he deigns to invigorate our weakness. But he is himself unseen by us; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that, while He is unseen, and his judgment, on which we depend, still doubtful, we should sometimes cast an anxious look to the eyes of those witnesses who surround us, that we may see, in the approbation or disapprobation which they express, not the certainty, indeed, but at least some probable omens of that high approval, without which there can be no victory, though all around approve, and with which no failure, though all around condemn. The love of glory, it has been said, is "the last infirmity of noble minds," novissima exuitur. It is not itself virtue, indeed, but

"What other passion, virtue's friend,
So like to virtue's self appears?"

Contempta fama, contemnantur virtutes."-To despise fame," says Tacitus, "is to despise the virtues which lead to it ;" and there can be no question, that he, who is altogether heedless whether every human being regard him as a glory to mankind, or as an object of infamy in himself and of disgrace to that nature which he partakes, must be almost a god, and raised above the very virtues, as well as the vices of humanity, or he must be the most ignoble of the works of God. To have even our earthly being extended in everlasting remembrance,―to be known wherever the name of virtue can reach,-and to be known as the benefactors of every age, by the light which we have dif* Pleasures of Imagination, B: I. v. 151—166. 26

VOL. II.

fused, or the actions which we have performed or prompted,-who is there that does not feel some desire of this additional immortality?-If to obtain the mere remembrance of his name, the ferocious oppressor of millions can dare to load himself with every crime, and submit to be held in universal execration, that the world may still know, by the very hatred and curses, which he continues to call forth, that there was on the earth, at a period of many ages back, some malignant being, who could exist only within a circle of misery, and who passed from kingdom to kingdom, carrying with him that desolation, the principle of which seemed inherent in him, and essential to his very existence, if even this dreadful remembrance be so valuable in the eyes of man, how much more delightful must be the certainty, that the name which we leave is never to be forgotten, indeed; but is never to be forgotten, only because it is to be an object of eternal love and veneration; and that when we shall be incapable ourselves of benefiting the world, there will still be actions performed for its benefit, which would not have been conceived and performed, if we had not existed!

The desire of glory, then, far from being unworthy of a good man, is as truly worthy of him, as any of those other secondary desires which minister to that primary desire, which is the only one that cannot be too vivid,-the desire of rendering ourselves acceptable by our virtues to Him who made us. This best wish, though it is to be the primary wish of every good heart, surely does not require that we should be indifferent to the regard of those whom it is to be our duty to benefit. If it be not wrong to wish for the affection of those around us,-the loss of which would deprive us, I will not say merely of some of our highest delights, but of some of the most persuasive excitements to moral excellence,-it cannot be wrong to extend this wish of affection beyond the circle that immediately encloses us, and to derive from the greater number of those to whose approbation we look, a still stronger excitement to that excellence, on which we found our hope of their approval. God and our conscience, these are, indeed, the awarders of our true praise; and, without the praise of these, the praise of the world is scarcely worthy of being estimated as any thing. But, insignificant as it is, when the voice of our conscience does not accord with it, it is still something when it echoes to us that voice, and when, as distinct from our own self-approval, it seems to us the presage of still higher approbation. It is enough to us, indeed, if God love us-But that great Being knew well, how feeble is our nature, and what aid, as well as happiness, it would derive from other affections. He has not formed us, therefore, to love Himself only, but to love our parents, our children, our relatives of every order, the wide circle of our friends, our country, mankind. For the same reason, He has given us a love of glory,—not as superseding our love of His favourable judgment of our actions, but as supporting us, while we scarcely dare to look with confidence to that perfect judgment,—and, representing it to us in some measure, as the affection of the virtuous on earth, represents to us that supreme affection which is in heaven. Those who would banish the love of glory from our breast, because God is all, must remember then, that the very same principle would make the love of a father, a wife, a child, a friend, as indifferent to us, as if they were not in existence, or were incapable of loving or being loved. Our domestic and social affections may be perverted, as our love of glory may be perverted. Both may lead to vice, but as general principles of our constitution, both are auxiliary to virtue.

It is not to love glory much, that is unworthy of us, as beings that can look to a higher judgment than that of man, and that are formed for a still higher reward than man can bestow,-but to love glory for unworthy objects, or to love it even for worthy objects, more than we prize that approbation which is far nobler.

It is, in the first place, truly contemptible, when we seek to be distinguished for qualities, to excel in which, though it may be what the world calls glory, is MORAL infamy,—that infamy, which the heart in secret feels, even while it strives to comfort itself with a praise which it knows to be void of consolation. The world, that must have distinctions of some sort to which to look with astonishment, gives a distinction even to vice that transcends all other vice, and every age has follies which are fashionable. But who is there, who, in all those situations in which the heart most needs to be comforted, in adversity, in sickness, in the feebleness of old age, has ever derived comfort from the thought of having been the first in every folly, or every crime, it may have been the fashion of the idle and profligate to achieve, and of their idle and profligate imitators to regard with an admiration, still more foolish or criminal than the very crime or folly which was its object?

When glory is thus sought, even by an humble individual, in unworthy objects, it is sufficiently contemptible, but how much worse than contemptible is it, how afflicting to the whole race of mankind, when the individual, who thus seeks glory, is one who is incapable of feeling the excellence of true glory, and has the melancholy power of seeking, in the misery of others, a hateful celebrity, still more miserable than the misery amid which it is sought!

"If, Sire," says an orator, who was worthy, by his virtue and eloquence, of being the teacher of kings, in one of his noble addresses to the young King of France,-"if this poison infect the heart of the prince-if, forgetting that he is the protector of public tranquillity, he prefer his own false glory to the love and the happiness of his people-if he had rather conquer provinces than reign over hearts, and think it more illustrious to be the destroyer of every neighbouring nation, than the father of that which is confided to his care-if the lamentations of his subjects be the only song of triumph that accompanies his victories,-what a scourge has God in his wrath, given to man, in giving him such a master! His glory, Sire, will be ever sullied with blood. Some madmen will sing, perhaps, his victories, but the provinces, the cities, the villages, will weep them. Superb monuments will be erected to immortalize his conquests; but the ashes, still smoking, of cities that once were flourishing-the wide desolation of plains stripped of their fertility and beauty-the ruins of the walls under which peaceable citizens lie buried-so many public marks of calamities that are to subsist after him, will be sad monuments which are to immortalize his vanity and folly. He will have passed, like a torrent, to ravage the earth,—— not like a majestic river, to bear to it joy and abundance. His name will have its place among conquerors in the annals of posterity, but it will not be to be found in the list of good kings; and as often as the history of his reign shall be recalled, it will be only as a memorial of the evils which he has inflicted on mankind."

"The Grecian chief, the enthusiast of his pride,
With rage and terror stalking by his side,

Raves round the globe ;-he soars into a god!
Stand fast, Olympus! and sustain his nod!
The pest Divine in horrid grandeur reigns,
And thrives on mankind's miseries and pains.
What slaughter'd hosts, what cities in a blaze,
What wasted countries, and what crimson seas!
With orphan's tears his impious bowl o'erflows;
And cries of kingdoms lull him to repose."*

Such is the melancholy influence of this passion, when it is content with that dreadful celebrity which crimes can give. The desire of glory, however, is not criminal only when it is fixed on unworthy objects; it may err, too, even when fixed on objects that are worthy in themselves, if the praise itself be preferred to the virtues which deserve it. There are situations in life in which it is necessary to submit even to the dispraise of men for imputed vices, from which we know that we are free, rather than by the sacrifice of our duty, to appear more virtuous by being less worthy of that glorious name. "Non vis esse justus sine gloria! At, mehercule sæpe justus esse debebis, cum infamia." Such a trial of virtue is, indeed, one of the hardest trials which virtue has to bear; but it is still a trial which virtue can bear. To have the certainty, that by violating a single trust which we have yet the fortitude not to violate, by revealing, in a few words, a secret confided to us, we should immediately appear noble in the eyes of those who look on us now with contempt, is to be in a situation of which the generous, who alone are capable of a moral triumph so exalted alone are worthy; a situation that is painful, indeed, in many respects, but the pain of which is richly remunerated by the feelings that accompany it, and by the feelings that are to be its eternal reward.

LECTURE LXXI.

III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.-8. DESIRE OF GLORY..

GENTLEMEN, after considering the desire, which it is impossible for any one not to share in some degree, of the affection of those for whom he himself feels regard, and with whom he has to mingle in the familiar intercourse of social life, I proceeded, in the close of my last Lecture, to consider the kindred desire of glory,-the desire of those feelings of wonder and veneration that are to arise in bosoms, of which not the veneration merely, but the very existence, is to be unknown to us.

We have seen how strong this desire of glory is as a passion, whatever may be the nature of the delight which the glory itself yields when attained. Let us now then consider this delight, which is evidently not a simple pleasure, as a subject of analysis, like that which we have employed in considering the happiness that attends some of our other complex emotions.

In the first place, there is involved in the complex pleasure, that pleasure of simple esteem which is an object of our desire, even though one individu

al only were to feel it for us,-a modification of that general desire of affection, which is most obvious and most vivid in the domestic relations of life, but which, in its wide circle, embraces all mankind.

In the next place, there is a pleasure in the approbation of others, as it confirms our own doubtful sentiments. Conscience, indeed, is the great estimater of our actions; but we feel, that even conscience may sometimes flatter us, and we seek an additional security on which to lean, while we look back on our own merits or demerits. The desire of glory, therefore, it has been truly said,

"Is virtue's second guard,

Reason her first; but reason wants an aid;
Our private reason is a flatterer;

Thirst of applause calls public judgment in,
To poise our own."

The praise which we receive unjustly, cannot, indeed, unless where the heart is corrupted, make vice appear to us virtue; but when it is not thus unjustly given, it makes us surer that we see virtue where it is; and that we have seen it where it was,—that we have done well, when we trusted in our own heart that we had done well.

This then is a second, and very important element of the pleasure of glory.

A third element of the complex delight, is that which, by the greater number of the lovers of glory, is felt as the most important element of the whole, the pleasure of mere distinction of a superiority attained over others, in that of which all are ambitious, or are supposed to be ambitious. Life is a competition, or a number of competitions. We are continually measuring ourselves with others in various excellencies,-in excellencies so various, that there is scarcely any thing in which one human being can differ from another, that may not be a subject of internal measurement, and therefore of some degree of joy or sorrow, as the measurement is or is not in our favour. It is in the eyes of others, however, that the competitors for honour wish to distinguish themselves; and the internal measurement, therefore, when it is unfavourable, is painful chiefly, because it is considered by them as representing or corresponding with that which others, too, will form. The voice of glory, then, the most delightful of all voices to their ear, is, at every stage of their progress, a proof that the distinction which they sought has been, to a certain extent, obtained;-that they are recognised as superiors, that they have risen above the crowd, and that they have now among their enviers those to whom the multitude beneath are looking with envy, only because they dare not, in their very wishes, look so high as that prouder eminence which they have reached.

There is yet, I cannot but think, in the complex delight of glory, a fourth pleasure, and one which, though it may be less obvious, and founded only on illusion, is not less real in itself. The pleasure to which I allude, consists in the feeling of a sort of extension which glory gives to our being. He who thinks of us, is connected with us. We seem to exist in his heart. We are no longer one, we are more than one, or at least have a wider unity, commensurate with the wideness of the applause which we receive, or flatter ourselves that we are receiving. If we could imagine, at any moment, that there was not a being, in the whole multitude of mankind, whose thought