We have not been our own makers:  it is no fault in you that nature has placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault in him; and would you punish him on account, and only on account, of his pre-eminence!  If you have read this book you will startle with horror at the thought:  you will, as to public matters, act with zeal and with good humour, though the place you occupy be far removed from the first; you will support with the best of your abilities others, who, from whatever circumstance, may happen to take the lead; you will not suffer even the consciousness and the certainty of your own superior talents to urge you to do any thing which might by possibility be injurious to your country’s cause; you will be forbearing under the aggressions of ignorance, conceit, arrogance, and even the blackest of ingratitude superadded, if by resenting these you endanger the general good; and, above all things, you will have the justice to bear in mind, that that country which gave you birth, is, to the last hour of your capability, entitled to your exertions in her behalf, and that you ought not, by acts of commission or of omission, to visit upon her the wrongs which may have been inflicted on you by the envy and malice of individuals.  Love of one’s native soil is a feeling which nature has implanted in the human breast, and that has always been peculiarly strong in the breasts of Englishmen.  God has given us a country of which to be proud, and that freedom, greatness and renown, which were handed down to us by our wise and brave forefathers, bid us perish to the last man, rather than suffer the land of their graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and dishonour.

355.  In the words with which I concluded my English Grammar, which I addressed to my son James, I conclude my advice to you.  ’With English and French on your tongue and in your pen, you have a resource, not only greatly valuable in itself, but a resource that you can be deprived of by none of those changes and chances which deprive men of pecuniary possessions, and which, in some cases, make the purse-proud man of yesterday a crawling sycophant to-day.  Health, without which life is not worth having, you will hardly fail to secure by early rising, exercise, sobriety, and abstemiousness as to food.  Happiness, or misery, is in the mind.  It is the mind that lives; and the length of life ought to be measured by the number and importance of our ideas, and not by the number of our days.  Never, therefore, esteem men merely on account of their riches or their station.  Respect goodness, find it where you may.  Honour talent wherever you behold it unassociated with vice; but, honour it most when accompanied with exertion, and especially when exerted in the cause of truth and justice; and, above all things, hold it in honour, when it steps forward to protect defenceless innocence against the attacks of powerful guilt.’  These words, addressed to my own son, I now, in taking my leave, address to you.  Be just, be industrious, be sober, and be happy; and the hope that these effects will, in some degree, have been caused by this little work, will add to the happiness of