What you mention concerning the love of praise is indeed very true; it reigns more or less in every heart; though we are generally hypocrites, in that respect, and pretend to disregard praise, and our nice, modest ears are offended, forsooth, with what one of the ancients calls _the sweetest kind of music_. This hypocrisy is only a sacrifice to the pride of others, or to their envy; both which, I think, ought rather to be mortified. The same sacrifice we make, when we forbear to _praise ourselves_, which naturally we are all inclined to; and I suppose it was formerly the fashion, or Virgil, that courtly writer, would not have put a speech into the mouth of his hero, which now-a-days we should esteem so great an indecency; "Sum pius AEneas ... ... fama super aether a notus." One of the Romans, I forget who, justified speaking in his own praise by saying, _Every freeman had a right to speak what he thought of himself as well as of others_. That this is a natural inclination appears in that all children show it, and say freely, _I am a good boy; Am I not a good girl?_ and the like, till they have been frequently chid, and told their trumpeter is dead; and that it is unbecoming to sound their own praise, &c. But _naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_. Being forbid to praise themselves, they learn instead of it to censure others; which is only a roundabout way of praising themselves; for condemning the conduct of another, in any particular, amounts to as much as saying, _I am so honest, or wise, or good, or prudent, that I could not do or approve of such an action_. This fondness for ourselves, rather than malevolence to others, I take to be the general source of censure and back biting; and I wish men had not been taught to dam up natural currents, to the overflowing and damage of their neighbour's grounds. * * * * *