Stranger infatuation still! to
be prouder of an excellent thing done by another than by yourselves,
supposing any excellent thing to have actually been done; and, after
all, to be more elated on his cruelties than his kindnesses, by the
blood he hath spilt than by the benefits he had conferred; and to
acknowledge less obligation to a well-informed and well-intentioned
progenitor than to a lawless and ferocious barbarian. Would stocks
and stumps, if they could utter words, utter such gross stupidity?
Would the apple boast of his crab origin, or the peach of his prune?
Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors,
although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if,
indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did
expect to see the day, and although I shall not see it, it must come
at last, when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who
dares to claim nobility or precedency and cannot shew his family
name in the history of his country. Even he who can shew it, and
who cannot write his own under it in the same or as goodly
characters, must submit to the imputation of degeneracy, from which
the lowly and obscure are exempt.
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