 a total neglect of fame; so that one of the chief incitements to the
practice of virtue is effectually destroyed.
    Mr. Barton's last consideration, respecting the stamp-duty, is equally wise
and laudable with another maxim which has been long adopted by our financiers,
namely, to connive at drunkenness, riot, and dissipation, because they inhance
the receipt of the excise; not reflecting, that in providing this temporary
convenience, they are destroying the morals, health, and industry of the people
- Notwithstanding my contempt for those who flatter a minister, I think there is
something still more despicable in flattering a mob. When I see a man of birth,
education, and fortune, put himself on a level with the dregs of the people,
mingle with low mechanics, feed with them at the same board, and drink with them
in the same cup, flatter their prejudices, harangue in praise of their virtues,
expose themselves to the belchings of their beer, the fumes of their tobacco,
the grossness of their familiarity, and the impertinence of their conversation,
I cannot help despising him, as a man guilty of the vilest prostitution, in
order to effect a purpose equally selfish and illiberal.
    I should renounce politics the more willingly, if I could find other topics
of conversation discussed with more modesty and candour; but the dæmon of party
seems to have usurped every department of life. Even the world of literature and
taste is divided into the most virulent factions, which revile, decry, and
traduce the works of one another. Yesterday, I went to return an afternoon's
visit to a gentleman of my acquaintance, at whose house I found one of the
authors of the present age, who has written with some success - As I had read
one or two of his performances, which gave me pleasure, I was glad of this
opportunity to know his person; but his discourse and deportment destroyed all
the impressions which his writings had made in his favour. He took upon him to
decide dogmatically upon every subject, without deigning to shew the least cause
for his differing from the general opinions of mankind, as if it had been our
duty to acquiesce in the ipse dixit of this new Pythagoras. He rejudged the
characters of all the principal authors, who had died within a century of the
present time; and, in this revision, paid no sort of regard to the reputation
they had acquired - Milton was harsh and prosaic; Dryden, languid and verbose;
Butler and Swift, without humour; Congreve, without wit; and Pope destitute of
any sort of poetical merit
