Because not all the immortal writers had passed an unblemished life, shall we say that virtue is not the essential mover in a man of letters? Yes: Bacon, in some instances of his life, had been a mean wretch; but, because Bacon was bribed in an evil hour, can we sustain that he had been a bad man all his life? Though Bacon had not been always wise, his retirement, repentence, accusation of himself, and studies, evidently prove he was not a stranger to virtue. Still, had Bacon praised virtue at the very moment he was unworthy of the Divinity to whom he burned incense before, or after; such a speech, or writing, could impart neither colors, nor animation to his abortive thoughts. “Virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant, when they are incensed.” And Bacon himself says: “For, he may rely upon it, that he can no more transmit conviction, and sensation, which he himself has not, at the time, sincerely felt, than he can convey a clear title to property in which he himself has no right.” And why does the unbeliever respect the piety of a Fenelon, and a Fenelon, the morals of an unbeliever? To those, who would be bribed in order to imitate a Bacon, I have only to say, that baboons will never reach immortality, when, instead of imitating Bacon’s fine qualities, they willingly embrace, rather, that wrong side of the writer, which suit best their own rapacious propensities. Every gentleman, who experienced the scourge of tyranny, will maintain, that it is better to be poor in a free country, than to have a princely state without a country. I say a gentleman: and those, who enjoy in their selfish wealth, without feeling any sympathy towards numerous human beings, struggling in want, are no gentlemen. Freedom is a Divinity, who does not leave in want her dutiful worshippers: and the Fathers’ ashes of this Union are still warm with the truth of this sacred sentiment. It is with sorrow of mind I hear unitedstatians asserting with sophisms, and without shame, that, as the best liberty is wealth, they do not adhere, but to those members of congress, whose speeches benefit right, or wrong, their only direct interest. Hence the contestations of party men, whose advocates are shamefully called orators, because they feel with them the babbling of their private interest.--Liberty for me, and slavery for my neighbor!