_Abolition of Government Patronage._--The following passage, from Dr.
Middleton's _Dedication of the Life of Cicero_ to Lord Keeper Hervey, is
{467} interesting as showing the enlightened sentiments of an eminent
scholar a hundred years ago when addressing a minister of the crown:
"Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations, and owes
the difference of its improvements to a difference only of culture, and
of the rewards proposed to its industry; where these are the most amply
provided, there we shall always find the most numerous and shining
examples of human perfection. In old Rome, the public honours were laid
open to the virtue of every citizen; which, by raising them in their
turns to the commands of that mighty empire, produced a race of nobles
superior even to kings. This was a prospect that filled the soul of the
ambitious and roused every facility of mind and body to exert its
utmost force; whereas, in modern states, men's views being usually
confined to narrow bounds, beyond which they cannot pass, and a partial
culture of their talents being sufficient to procure everything that
their ambition can aspire to, a great genius has seldom either room or
invitation to stretch itself to its full size."