therefore, it be worthy of derision, you should compassionate me,
for it might have fallen to any of your shares. I know in how
low a light the station to which fate hath assigned me is
considered here, and that, when ambition doth not support it, it
becomes generally so intolerable, that there is scarce any other
condition for which it is not gladly exchanged: for what
portion, in the world to which we are going, is so miserable as
that of care? Should I therefore consider myself as become by
this lot essentially your superior, and of a higher order of
being than the rest of my fellow-creatures; should I foolishly
imagine myself without wisdom superior to the wise, without
knowledge to the learned, without courage to the brave, and
without goodness and virtue to the good and virtuous; surely so
preposterous, so absurd a pride, would justly render me the
object of ridicule. But far be it from me to entertain it. And
yet, gentlemen, I prize the lot I have drawn, nor would I
exchange it with any of yours, seeing it is in my eye so much
greater than the rest. Ambition, which I own myself possessed
of, teaches me this; ambition, which makes me covet praise,
assures me that I shall enjoy a much larger proportion of it than
can fall within your power either to deserve or obtain. I am
then superior to you all, when I am able to do more good, and
when I execute that power. What the father is to the son, the
guardian to the orphan, or the patron to his client, that am I to
you. You are my children, to whom I will be a father, a
guardian, and a patron. Not one evening in my long reign (for so
it is to be) will I repose myself to rest without the glorious,
the heart-warming consideration, that thousands that night owe
their sweetest rest to me. What a delicious fortune is it to him
whose strongest appetite is doing good, to have every day the