Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede,
is a distich, in which another poet of beautiful talents has attempted to
depreciate a name, to which, probably, few of his readers are found to
aspire.
If men must go wrong, there is a choice of their errors, as well as of
their virtues. Ambition, the love of personal eminence, and the desire of
fame, although they sometimes lead to the commission of crimes, yet always
engage men in pursuits that require to be supported by some of the greatest
qualities of the human soul; and if eminence is the principal object of
pursuit, there is at least a probability, that those qualities may be
studied on which a real elevation of mind is raised. But when public alarms
have ceased, and contempt of glory is recommended as an article of wisdom,
the sordid habits, and mercenary dispositions, to which, under a general
indifference to national objects, the members of a polished or commercial
state are exposed, must prove at once the most effectual suppression of
every liberal sentiment, and the most fatal reverse of all those principles
from which communities derive their strength and their hopes of
preservation.
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