will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our
birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence.
Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than to suppress,
the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh,
the philosopher may preach; but Reason herself will respect the
prejudices and habits, which have been consecrated by the experience
of mankind.

Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior
order in the state, education and example should always, and will
often, produce among them a dignity of sentiment and propriety of
conduct, which is guarded from dishonour by their own and the public
esteem. If we read of some illustrious line so ancient that it has
no beginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize
in its various fortunes; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm,
or even the harmless vanity, of those who are allied to the honours
of its name. For my own part, could I draw my pedigree from a
general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, I should study their
lives with the diligence of filial love. In the investigation of
past events, our curiosity is stimulated by the immediate or
indirect reference to ourselves; but in the estimate of honour we
should learn to value the gifts of Nature above those of Fortune; to
esteem in our ancestors the qualities that best promote the
interests of society; and to pronounce the descendant of a king less
truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius, whose writings
will instruct or delight the latest posterity. The family of
Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world.
After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and
princes of Europe are lost in the darkness of the middle ages; but,
in the vast equality of the empire of China, the posterity of