The Lounger - 1788 Author:Henry Mackenzie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: muft Mr. Hume's ftation be in the fcak of ex- rellence ? That queftion, I am perfuaded, his gentle modefty hardly permitted him to con- fider. It is well known t... more »hat Mr. Hume, a fevr years before his death, received a penfion of 2001; a-year. It might have been amufing at the time, to confulcr the oppofite ideas entertained by the givers and the receiver of that penfion. In the pride of prefent power, and amidft the felf-importancc foftered by perpetual adulation, the minifter and his minions might 'view with a certain degree of contempt a man on whom they were beftowing fo paltry a re- fcompence : On the other hand, the author, while receiving this mark of favour, and-ex- p'reffing his gratitu-de'for it,' might not be able to check the rifing thought, that his name would live for ever, Tanked with thofe whofc envied lot it had been, to inform, to enlighten, to delight mankind ; while his patrons, diftin- £uifhed only by rank or ftation, were buried in oblivion with the common herd of kings, mi- hifters, and ftatefmen, whofe names pofterityj reads with the moft perfect indifference, of whom little more is commonly known, than that they lived and died at fuch and fuch a period. Of this idea Mr. Hume himfelf gives a. fine illuftration. Talking of the little regard- paid to Milton when alive, " IFbltlocke" fays he, '' men' mentions u Milton, as he calls him, a blind " man, who was employed in tranflating a ' treaty with Sweden into Latin. Thefe forms of expreffion are amufing to us, who conftder " how obfcure Whitlocke bimfelf, though Lord ' Keeper and Ambaffador, and indeed a maa ' of great abilities and merit, has become Jo ' comparifon of Milton." When Lord Keeper Whitlocke exprefled him- felf in theft'terms, he muft have felt a coru feious fuperiority over one Milton, em...« less