University of Virginia Library

Verse 1, &c. The various and ridiculous pretensions of mankind to Honour and Fame enumerated.

Ver. 21. Tho' they are thus inconstant and contradictory, yet true Honour is a thing fixed and determinate.

Verse 29. If we would form an impartial judgment of what is truly honourable, we must abstract all considerations which regard ourselves.

Verse 32. Not only so, but we must remove ourselves to a proper distance from the object we examine, lest some part should predominate in our eye, and occasion a false judgment of the whole.

Verse 48. Therefore the surest method is, to prove by past examples what commands our love and esteem.

Verse 50, &c. Expence and grandeur cannot give true Honour: Their most splendid monuments vanish; and even should they last for ever, could not bestow real glory, if only the records of Pride, Tyranny, and Vice.

Verse 72, &c. Much less if purchas'd by Oppression and Guilt.

Verse 86, &c. True Honour is not to be reaped from unjust Conquest: It is not Victory, but a just Cause that can engage our esteem.

Verse 116. Neither is true glory to be obtain'd by wit or Science: They are chimerical: Sometimes attended with folly, and weakness; often stain'd with vice, and so render their possessors mischievous and infamous.

Verse 138. The foundation of true Honour is Virtue only.

Verse 153. It is Virtue only that gives the poet lasting glory: this proved by instances.

Verse 164. The philosopher can only hope for true glory from the same source; because Truth is his object, and nothing can be Truth that tends to destroy Virtue and Happiness.

The Work here characterized is entitled, “The Independent Whig, or a Defence of our ecclesiastical Establishment:” yet it may be truly affirmed, that there is not one institution of the Church of England, but what is there misrepresented, and ridiculed with the lowest and most despicable scurrility.

Alluding to the confusion of Ideas, which that dull writer labours under.

Verse 174. Hence appears the madness, infamy, and falsehood of those destructive schemes set on foot by the sect called Freethinkers.

His character is thus drawn by an excellent writer—“Who by the peculiar felicity of a good choice, having learned his Morality of our Tindal, and his Philosophy of your [the Jews] Spinoza, calls himself, by the courtesy of England, a Moral Philosopher.” Warb. Div. Leg. of Moses dem Vol. II. Ded. p. 20.

A noted advocate for that species of Atheism commonly called Pantheism.

It is confessed he was a man of Genius and Learning: Yet thro' a ridiculous affectation of being regarded as the founder of new Systems, he has advanced many things even below confutation.

The Author of that monstrous heap of contradiction and absurdity, “The Fable of the Bees, or private Vices publick Benefits.” The reader who is acquainted with the writings of those Gentlemen, will probably observe a kind of climax in this place; ascending from those who have attempted to destroy the several fences of virtue, to the wild boars of the wood that root it up.

Verse 180. Falsehood short-lived: Truth eternal.

Socrates.

Verse 184, &c. Examples of the two most illustrious philosophers that ever adorned the world; the one excellent in moral, the other in natural knowledge.

Verse 198, &c. Kings, statesmen, and patriots, must build their fame on Virtue.

Verse 204. Flattery cannot raise folly or vice into true glory.

The catalogue of these heroes, through the several ages of Christianity, is too large to be inserted in a work of this nature: Those of our own Country were Ridley, Latimer, and the good (tho' less fortunate) Cranmer.

Verse 222. Thus it appears that every one has the power of obtaining true honour, by promoting the happiness of mankind in his proper station.

Verse 226. And thus the love of fame, tho' often perverted to bad ends, is naturally conducive to virtue and happiness.

Verse 230, &c. True honour characteriz'd and exemplify'd.