distinguished abilities; and to expect to be called forth to public
notice and favor: without considering that their talents are commonly
very unfit for active life; that their eccentricity and turn for
speculation disqualifies them for the business of the world, which is
best carried on by men of moderate genius; and that society is not
obliged to reward any one who is not useful to it. The poets have been a
very unreasonable race, and have often complained loudly of the neglect
of genius and the ingratitude of the age. The tender and pensive Cowley,
and the elegant Shenstone, had their minds tinctured by this discontent;
and even the sublime melancholy of Young was too much owing to the
stings of disappointed ambition.

The moderation we have been endeavoring to inculcate will likewise
prevent much mortification and disgust in our commerce with mankind. As
we ought not to wish in ourselves, so neither should we expect in our
friends, contrary qualifications. Young and sanguine, when we enter the
world, and feel our affections drawn forth by any particular excellence
in a character, we immediately give it credit for all others; and are
beyond measure disgusted when we come to discover, as we soon must
discover, the defects in the other side of the balance. But nature is
much more frugal than to heap together all manner of shining qualities
in one glaring mass. Like a judicious painter, she endeavors to preserve
a certain unity of style and coloring in her pieces. Models of absolute
perfection are only to be met with in romance; where exquisite beauty,
and brilliant wit, and profound judgment, and immaculate virtue, are all
blended together to adorn some favorite character. As an anatomist knows
that the racer cannot have the strength and muscles of the
draught-horse; and that winged men, griffins, and mermaids must be mere
creatures of the imagination: so the philosopher is sensible that there
are combinations of moral qualities which never can take place but in