rld, are great cherishers of it where they find it;
but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of
itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution, which
education may improve, but not produce.

Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince whom he describes as a
pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy and good
nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him;
and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in
all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his death-bed, he describes
him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to Him who made it,
his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by
that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason, he gives his
sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it
in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to
mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer who had
not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind.

In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Caesar and Cato are placed
in such beautiful but opposite lights, Caesar's character is chiefly made
up of good nature, as it showed itself in all its forms towards his
friends or his enemies, his servants or dependents, the guilty or the
distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather awful than amiable.
Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of God, and mercy to that of
man. A Being who has nothing to pardon in Himself, may reward every man
according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with
grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For
this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is
none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid,
severe temper in a worthless man.

This part of good nature however, which consists in the pardoning and
overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves
justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life;
for, in the public administrations of justice, mercy to one may be
cruelty to others.

It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not always men
of the most wit. This observation, in my opinion, has no foundation in
nature. The greatest wits I have conv