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It can hardly be expected, that fo fhort a time should have any very falutary effect, on complaints fo fixed as mine: my voice, however, has been much better to-day, than for three weeks past.

My mind is quite at reft. All my affairs, refpecting both this world and a better, are completely fettled. My falvation was provided for, in the covenant of grace, from all eternity, and fealed by the finished redemption of my adorable Saviour. My temporal business is all fettled to my fatisfaction, by the completion of my laft will and teftament, before I left London. So that I have, at prefent, nothing to do, but to fing in the ways of the Lord, that great are the glory and the goodnefs of the Lord.

I am uncertain, whether I fhall fee Broad-Hembury, late in this week, or early in the next. When you favour and oblige me with a line, be fo good as to direct to me, fimply, at Broad-Hembury, Honiton.

As an old friend, whom I have not feen for many years, has, juft now, called at Dr. Baker's, in order to fee me, I am obliged to be very concife. I fhall depend, if the Lord permit, on hearing from you, when I am in Devonshire. And it gives me great happiness, to be able to inform you, that I fully defign, with the leave of my heavenly Father, to be in town again, before the last Sunday in this month. God only can tell, how deeply my Chriftian friends, and the dear people at Orange-ftreet, in particular, dwell upon my heart. May they pray for me, as I alfo for them. Remember me, moft kindly and respectfully, to dear Mrs. Huffey, Mr. and Mrs. Ward, of Westminster, and all others who condefcend to enquire after the meaneft of my Lord's redeemed finners. I have not room to mention a quarter of the perfons, by name, whom I love in the Lord: but all our names are written on his breast.

Adieu, dear fir,

I am, deeply and ever your's,
Auguflus Toplady.

AN ANSWER

TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION.

"Whether popular Applause can yield folid Satisfaction to a truly great Mind ?”

REAL greatnefs of mind includes whatever is

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popu

noble, worthy, and exalted: of course, independency is effential to it. If the poftulatum be granted (and I fee not how it can be denied) the next inquiry will be, whether a perfon, whofe fatisfaction, in whole or in part, is fufpended on the applaufe of others, can be called an independent man? If he may, it would follow, that greedinefs of larity does not infer dependence; if he cannot, it will follow, that a perfon, who drudges for popular applaufe, is not poffeffed of a truly great mind. Add to this, that all motives to public usefulness, which arife from principles merely felfish, are very far from being indicatory of magnanimity. This exalted quality, foaring fuperior to all the little arts of felfrecommendation and perfonal aggrandizement, fhuts felf out of the queftion: and regards only the welfare of others, not their praise. Thus, for inftance, a truly patriotic statesman, or a truly confcientious minifter of Chrift, aims, not at the evanid applaufe, but at the folid benefit, of thofe for whom he labours nay; one, actuated by thefe elevated views, would, to ferve mankind fubftantially, even run the rifque of doing good to them against their wills, though he was fure of fuffering in their eftimation for doing it. Such difinterefted benevolence, and fuch heroic beneficence, are as fhining and conclufive marks, as can be given, for a mind truly great.

Befides,

Befides, it puts a truly magnanimous man on too low and defpicable a footing, to fuppofe him capable of finking into the meaneft of all pursuits, by commencing an angler for fame, and building any part of his mental happiness on the unftable bafis of popular breath. A really great perfon, does not live, as the cameleon has been vulgarly fuppofed to do, on air: but on that which will yield fure and folid fupport, when every exterior happiness fails. The fenfe of divine favour; univerfal and difinterefted love to mankind; uncorrupt intention; and integrity of action; in a word, the men's confcia recti; are what conftitute the felicity of one who deferves the name of man. Add to this, that real magnanimity is abfolutely inconfiftent with pride. Of all vices, pride is the meareft, and the most truly contemptible. But pride is the very bafis of that wretched ambition which terminates in the affectation of applaufe; confequently, a mind truly great, cannot degenerate into this inverted ambition; unless meannefs and magnanimity are terms fynonymous. That just praife, which ufually attends characters and actions truly great and good, is a deferved confequence of thofe actions, but ought not to be the motive to performing them. Depraved as mankind are, I yet hope and believe that we have many useful perfons, both in the learned, civil, and religious world, who difdain fo bafe a principle of action: and that the love of fame is a paffion not quite fo univerfal as a late ingenious fatirift imagined. The love of truth, the love of beneficence, and the love of juftice; or, in other words, the love of God, and the love of man; are the predominant and exciting principles, in every breast, which genuine greatnels warms. would mention one argument more.

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The mind, whofe fatisfaction is at all founded on popular eclat, must be, in itself, extremely fickle; and a mere Proteus, ready, on every occasion, to vary its determinations, and to fhape its measures, according to the mutability of the multitude, in or

der

der to preserve the applause already gained. A perfon under the unhappy influence of fo bafe and paltry a paffion, muft alter with the times, and fwim with the ftream, right or wrong; and, like the cameleon just mentioned, affume any colour next him; for fear of lofing that eftimation, which his paft compliances had acquired him. Now, a truly great man can never be a voluntary flave: but the man whofe leading paffion is love of praife, makes himfelf a voluntary flave for life: therefore, it is impoffible for one, under fo defpicable a bias, to be a truly great man. To defcend from argument, to plain matter of fact. If any person doubts whether popular applaufe be that unfatisfactory thing which I have defcribed it, he need only go a few miles out of town, to a place called Hayes: and there he will fee, with his own eyes, that popular applaufe, however it may tickle a man's vanity for a while, will, if he has not fomething more folid for his mind to feed on, leave him, fooner or later, miferable, contemptible, and unfatisfied. I know but of one truly great man, who was a profeffed lover of popular applaufe; and that was the illuftrious Cicero: but it fhould be remembered, that that confummate ftatefman, patriot, and philofopher, flourished in the very dregs of the Roman commonwealth; when public virtue, and public liberty (which will always, at the long run, ftand or fall together) were expiring. At fuch a time, to love Cicero, and to love virtue, to love Cicero and to love liberty, were the fame thing. Of this, that moft accomplished man could not but be confcious and it may be, he was ambitious of popular eftimation, at the critical time, in hopes of being able, by the credit he fought and deferved, to give an happy turn to the public affairs, and make the fcale preponderate in favour of his finking country all which, he well knew, it would be impoffible for him to effect, by any counfels he could give, or any measures he could take, unless he could previously fecure the approbation of the people he with

ed

ed to fave: fo that Cicero's unbounded thirst of praife feems to have arifen purely and folely from the love he bore to the nobleft republic that ever fubfifted and he coveted popularity, not for his own fake, or for any folid fatisfaction it yielded to himself as an individual; but, as matters then ftood, he confidered the acquifition of univerfal esteem, as the medium to his country's welfare, and the only poffible expedient which could retrieve it from the ruin which then threatened, and with which it was foon after actually overwhelmed, notwithstanding the manifold and almoft fupernatural efforts of that great man to avert the blow.-Or, even fuppofing that Cicero, with all his philofophy and virtue, had fome remains of vanity in him, which he fought to gratify, by ftanding a perpetual candidate for praife, (which, however, his character and conduct in all other refpects, forbid us to believe); yet, even on this hypothefis, it would not follow, that “popular applaufe can yield folid fatisfaction to a truly great mind." For the gratification of vanity is one thing; fatisfaction of mind is another. Vanity may be qualified, and yet the mind go unfatisfied: and vice verfa. Befides, were it otherwife, we are not to adopt the foibles even of a great man, for they are foils and blemishes, in what character foever they are found. Though, for reafons already hinted, I cannot perfuade myfelf, that Cicero's was mere love of praise it had the nobleft of motives, and was directed to the beft of ends. It was founded on love to his country, and a paffionate ardour for her prefervation. But, admitting the reverfe to be probable, it would not follow, that becaufe Cicero, the most shining perfon heathen antiquity has to boat of, deferved, and, from confcioufnefs of that defert (which we could not justly wonder at, in one who had not the advantage of gofpel revelation to humble him) coveted applaufe; that therefore others have a right to claim the fame privilege, fince, Cicero was fo tranfcendent and peculiar a character,

that

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