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194

THE RAMBLER.

N° 88.

But though truth and virtue are thus frequently defeated by pride, obstinacy, or folly, we are not allowed to desert them; for whoever can furnish arms which they hitherto have not employed, may enable them to gain some hearts which would have resisted any other method of attack. Every man of genius has some arts of fixing attention peculiar to himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind; for the arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration. To the position of Tully, that if Virtue could be seen, she must be loved, may be added, that if Truth could be heard, she must be obeyed.

Numb. 88. Saturday, January 19, 1751.

Cum Tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti:
Audebit quæcunque minus splendoris habebunt,
Aut sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,
Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant,
Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ.

Hor.

 But he that hath a curious piece design'd,
 When he begins must take a censor's mind.
 Severe and honest; and what words appear
 Too light and trivial, or too weak to bear
 The weighty sense, nor worth the reader's care,
 Shake off; tho' stubborn, they are loth to move,
 And though we fancy, dearly tho' we love.

Creech.

"TH E R E is no reputation for genius," says Quintilian, "to be gained by writing on things, which, however necessary, have little splendour or shew. The height of a building

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