With respect to the reputation that is connected with usefulness, a distinction is to be made between that which is to be desired for the man who is only to communicate his ideas to others, and the man whose purpose it is to act in their behalf.

In both cases a more extensive degree of reputation is necessary, to co-operate with my usefulness, than to secure my contentment. The last of these purposes may be effected by the approbation of the discerning few; the former demands an approbation of a more extensive sort.

To give effect to exertions in speaking or writing, it is exceedingly to be desired that the speaker or writer should be regarded, in the first place, as a man of ability. In the next, it is for the most part necessary that he should not be supposed to speak or write with any malevolent or sinister design; for the majority of readers tacitly exhibit in this case a diffidence in their own understandings, and prefer stopping their ears against the persuasions of such a man, to the task of fairly investigating the proofs he exhibits.

These are the principal points. A reasoner of acknowledged ability, and who is accounted passably honest, may gain perhaps the indulgence to be heard. Some discredit he must inevitably labour under with those he would convince; for it is impossible for any man not to think the worse of another for differing with him in opinion. He

may be contented to be accounted wrong-headed and paradoxical. He will of course be regarded more or less as a visionary, absurdly deserting the plain road of his interest for the sake of gratifying his vanity. He will be considered as dangerous; for every serious thinker conceives that opinion upon any important subject, which for the present he apprehends to be false, to be also attended with pernicious consequences.

The reputation that is necessary to secure an adequate advantage to the man who is to act in the behalf of others, is of greater extent, than is required for the man who only desires to be heard by them. It is not enough that he should be regarded as able, and free from all sinister design. He must be esteemed prudent, judicious, uniform in his activity, sound in his calculations, and constant in his vigilance. He must be supposed to have that acuteness which may prevent him from being deceived by others, and that sobriety which may defend him from being duped by himself. It is also to be desired that he should be supposed faithful to his trust, and actuated by an earnest desire for the prosperity of the interests committed to him. Perhaps no man ought to seek or accept a delegation, who is unpopular with, or distrusted by, those whom it concerns.

Such is the value of, and such the benefits arising from, reputation. No reasonable man will feel

himself indifferent to the character he bears. To be in want of the sanction derived from the good opinion of others, is an evil greatly to be deprecated.

Yet on the other hand it is an error, to be acutely anxious about reputation, or, more accurately speaking, to suffer our conduct to be influenced in essential particulars by a consideration of the opinion of others.

The world is in this respect like certain individuals of the female sex, whom, if a man would gain to favour his addresses, he must not seem too anxious to please. No sooner do they find him completely in their power, than they delight to treat him with harshness and tyranny. The world appears to be imbued with a secret persuasion, that its opinion is too little discerning to be worth the courting, and that an habitual regard to this opinion is a motive that degrades the man that submits to it.

An erect and dignified virtue leads us to consider chiefly the intrinsic and direct nature of our actions, and to pay a very subordinate attention to the accidents that may attend upon them. An elevated temper will induce us to act from our own reflections, and not from the judgment of others. He that suffers himself to be governed by public opinion, substitutes the unsteadiness of a weathercock, instead of the firmness of wisdom and justice.

If a degree of reputation is sometimes secured by this servility, it cannot however be a solid and lasting one. It may answer the purpose of him who desires to impose upon others a temporary delusion, but a man of generous ambition will spurn it from him with contempt. Nothing is more mortifying than that species of reputation, which the least discernment would show us was immediately to be succeeded by infamy or oblivion.

He that would gain in any valuable sense the suffrage of the world, must show himself in a certain degree superior to this suffrage.

But, though reputation will never constitute, with a man of wisdom and virtue, the first and leading motive of his actions, it will certainly enter into his consideration. Virtue is a calculation of consequences, is a means to an end, is a balance carefully adjusted between opposing evils and benefits. Perhaps there is no action, in a state of civilisation and refinement, that is not influenced by innumerable motives; and there is no reason to believe that virtue will tend to diminish the subtlety and delicacy of intellectual sensation. Reputation is valuable; and whatever is of value ought to enter into our estimates. A just and reasonable man will be anxious so to conduct himself as that he may not be misunderstood. He will be patient in explaining, where his motives have been

misapprehended and misconstrued. It is a spirit of false bravado that will not descend to vindicate itself from misrepresentation. It is the refuge of indolence; is is an unmanly pride that prefers a mistaken superiority to the promotion of truth and usefulness. (Real integrity ought not indeed to be sore and exasperated at every petty attack. Some things will explain themselves; and in that case defence appears idle and injudicious. A defence of this sort is an exhibition of mental disease, not an act of virtue. But, wherever expla nation will set right a single individual, and cannot be attended with mischief, there explanation appears to be true dignity and true wisdom.

ESSAY VIII.

OF POSTHUMOUS FAME.

THE distribution of individual reputation is determined by principles in a striking degree capricious and absurd. Those who undertake to be the benefactors of mankind from views of this sort, are too often made in the close of their career to devour all the bitterness of disappointment, and are ready to exclaim, as Brutus is falsely represented to have done, "Oh, virtue! I followed thee as a