Tell me what sort of lion you would be. F. LEWIS.

NOTHING has been longer observed, than that
a change of fortune causes a change of manners;
and that it is difficult to conjecture from the
conduct of him whom we see in a low condition,
how he would act, if wealth and power were put
into his hands. But it is generally agreed, that few
men are made better by affluence or exaltation;
and that the powers of the mind, when they are
unbound and expanded by the sunshine of felicity,
more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom
into goodness.

Many observations have concurred to establish
this opinion, and it is not likely soon to become
obsolete, for want of new occasions to revive it. The
greater part of mankind are corrupt in every condition,
and differ in high and in low stations, only
as they have more or fewer opportunities of gratifying
their desires, or as they are more or less
restrained by human censures. Many vitiate their
principles in the acquisition of riches; and who can
wonder that what is gained by fraud and extortion
is enjoyed with tyranny and excess?

Yet I am willing to believe that the depravation
of the mind by external advantages, though certainly
not uncommon, yet approaches not so nearly
to universality, as some have asserted in the