Orators and men of wit have frequently amused themselves with
maintaining paradoxes. Thus, Erasmus has written a penegyric upon
_folly_: Montaigne has said fine things upon _ignorance_, which he
somewhere calls “the softest pillow a man can lay his head upon:” and
Cardan, in his Encomium Neronis, has, I suppose, defended every vice and
every folly. It is astonishing to me, that no one has yet done justice
to _impudence_; which has so many advantages, and for which so much may
be said. Did it never strike you, what simple, naked, uncompounded
_impudence_ will do? what strange and astonishing effects it will
produce? Aye, and without birth, without property, without principle,
without even artifice and address, without indeed any single quality,
but “the front of three-fold brass.”
Object not folly, vice, or villainy however black: these are puny
things: from a visage truly bronzed and seared, from features muscularly
fixed and hardened, issues forth a broad overpowering glare, by which
all these are as totally hid, as the spots of the sun by the lustre of
his beams. Were this not so, how is it, that impudence shall make
impressions to advantage; shall procure admission to the highest
personages, _and no questions asked_; shall suffice (in short) to make a
man’s fortune, where no modest merit could even render itself visible?
I ask no more to insure success, than that there be but enough of it:
without success a man is ruined and undone there being no mean. Should
one ravage half the globe, and destroy a million of his
fellow-creatures, yet, if at length he arrive at empire, as Cæsar did,
he shall be admired while living as an hero, and adored perhaps almost
as a god when dead: though, were the very same person, like Cataline, to
fail in the attempt, he would be hanged as a scoundrel robber, and his
name devoted to infamy or oblivion.
But to proceed. Pray, what do you think the elder Pliny suggests, when
he affirms it to be “the prerogative of the Art of Healing, that any
man, who professes himself a physician, is instantly received as such?”
He certainly suggests, that such sort of professors in his days, like
itinerant and advertising phisicians, had a more than ordinary portion
of that bold, self-important and confident look and manner, which, with
a very little heightening, may justly be called impudence. And what but
this could enable a little paltry physician, of no name or character, to
gain so mighty an ascendency over such a spirit, as that of Lewis XI. of
France? Read the account in Philip de Comines; and then blame me, if you
can, for thinking so highly of this accomplishment.--True it is, Lewis
was afraid of death even to horror, and so as not to bare the sound of
the word; and I grant, that on this same fear the empire of physic, is
in a great measure founded.
Pope Gregory VII. who governed the church from 1073 to 1085, is
celebrated for having carried ecclesiastical dominion to the height: for
he was the first who maintained and established, that popes, by
excommunication, may depose kings from their states, and loose subjects
from their allegiance. And how did he effect this? Not by genius or
eloquence; not by a knowledge of canon law, and the constitutions of the
holy see; no, nor by the arts of policy and grimaces of his religion
(with all which others had been endowed as well as he) but by a most
insolent, daring, usurping spirit. He seized the papal chair by force,
as it were threw the church into confusion to gratify his ambition; made
kings his slaves, and bishops his creatures; and established in his own
person a tyranny over things both spiritual and temporal.---But my
admiration of impudence transports me too far: I will say no more
upon it.
[[Source:
Possible sources include: _Sylva: or, The wood: being a collection
of anecdotes, dissertations, characters, apophthegms, original
letters, bons mots, and other little things_, 1786, “by a society
of the learned”.]]
* * * * *
+To the Editors of the Weekly Magazine.+
_Gentlemen_,
I have observed in your Magazine, a number of very striking and just
Etymologies---I am induced therefore, to present you with the following;
hoping, from its authenticity, it will be thought worthy of a place.
The term that was formerly used to express the union of two fond souls
was, “Marriage and given in Marriage;” but in course of time, the
encitements to this union were changed: instead of Love, Money was the
stimulus; of course, a new term must be invented to express it:---So
that instead of saying, on such a day a Marriage took place between such
a Lady and such a Gentleman---It was said, there’s a Matter-of-Money:
and hence, by a slight alteration, the modern phrase of MATRIMONY.