worthy of men's suffrage
and approbation. But I will meditate it; I will sketch a grand outline;
I will essay my powers in secret, and ascertain what I may be able
to effect." The youth, whose morning of life is not utterly abortive,
palpitates with the desire to promote the happiness of others, and with
the desire of glory.

We have an apt specimen of this in the first period of the reign of
Nero. The historians, Tacitus in particular, have treated this with too
much incredulity. It was the passion of that eminent man to indulge in
subtleties, and to find hidden meanings in cases where in reality every
thing is plain. We must not regard the panegyric of Seneca, and
the devotion of Lucan to the imperial stripling, as unworthy of
our attention. He was declared emperor before he had completed
the eighteenth year of his age. No occasion for the exhibition of
liberality, clemency, courtesy or kindness escaped him. He called every
one by his name, and saluted all orders of men. When the senate shewed
a disposition to confer on him peculiar honours, he interposed, he said,
"Let them be bestowed when I have deserved them(83)." Seneca affirms,
that in the first part of his reign, and to the time in which the
philosopher dedicated to him his treatise of Clemency, he had "shed no
drop of blood(84)." He adds, "If the Gods were this day to call thee
to a hearing, thou couldst account to them for every man that had been
intrusted to thy rule. Not an individual has been lost from the number,
either by secret practices, or by open violence. This could scarcely
have been, if thy good dispositions had not been natural, but assumed.
No one can long personate a character. A pretended goodness will
speedily give place to the real temper; while a sincere mind, and
acts prompted by the heart, will not fail to go on from one stage of
excellence to another(85)."

(83) Suetonius, Nero, cap. 10.

(84) De Clementia, Lib. I, cap. II.

(85) De Clementia, cap. I.

The philosopher expresses himself in raptures on that celebrated phrase
of Nero, WOULD I HAD NEVER LEARNED TO WRITE! "An exclamation," he says,
"not studied, not uttered for the purpose of courting popularity, but
bursting insuppressibly from thy lips, and indicating the vehemence of
the struggle between the kindness of thy disposition and the duties of
thy office(86)."

(86) Ibid., Lib. II, cap. I.

How many generous purposes, what bright and heart-thrilling