I know not, Sir, whether among this fraternity
of sorrow you will think any much to be pitied; nor
indeed do many of them appear to solicit compassion,
for they generally applaud their own conduct,
and despise those whom want of taste or spirit suffers
to grow rich. It were happy if the prisons of the
kingdom were filled only with characters like these,
men whom prosperity could not make useful, and
whom ruin cannot make wise: but there are among us
many who raise different sensations, many that owe
their present misery to the seductions of treachery,
the strokes of casualty, or the tenderness of pity;
many whose sufferings disgrace society, and whose
virtues would adorn it: of these, when familiarity
shall have enabled me to recount their stories without
horrour, you may expect another narrative from
Sir, Your most humble servant,
MISARGYRUS.
No. 58. SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1753
Damnant guod non intelligunt. CIC.
They condemn what they do not understand.
EURIPIDES, having presented Socrates with
the writings of Heraclitus[h], a philosopher famed
for involution and obscurity, inquired afterwards his
opinion of their merit.
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