sovereigns of Spain, and they had accepted it, and still more when
the ships were engaged, and the crews mustered, he must go forward, or
submit to indelible disgrace.

It is not so in writing a poem. The author of the latter may stop
whenever he pleases. Of consequence, during every day of its execution,
he requires a fresh stimulus. He must look back on the past, and forward
on what is to come, and feel that he has considerable reason to
be satisfied. The great naval discoverer may have his intervals of
misgiving and discouragement, and may, as Pope expresses it, "wish
that any one would hang him." He goes forward; for he has no longer the
liberty to choose. But the author of a mighty poem is not in the same
manner entangled, and therefore to a great degree returns to his work
each day, "screwing his courage to the sticking-place." He must feel the
same fortitude and elasticity, and be as entirely the same man of heroic
energy, as when he first arrived at the resolution to engage. How much
then of self-complacency and self-confidence do his undertaking and
performance imply!

I have taken two of the most memorable examples in the catalogue of
human achievements: the discovery of a New World, and the production of
the Iliad. But all those voluntary actions, or rather series and chains
of actions, which comprise energy in the first determination, and honour
in the execution, each in its degree rests upon self-complacency as the
pillar upon which its weight is sustained, and without which it must
sink into nothing.

Self-complacency then being the indispensible condition of all that is
honourable in human achievements, hence we may derive a multitude
of duties, and those of the most delicate nature, incumbent on the
preceptor, as well as a peculiar discipline to be observed by the
candidate, both while he is "under a schoolmaster," and afterwards when
he is emancipated, and his plan of conduct is to be regulated by his own
discretion.

The first duty of the preceptor is encouragement.

Not that his face is to be for ever dressed in smiles, and that his
tone is to be at all times that of invitation and courtship. The great
theatre of the world is of a mingled constitution, made up of advantages
and sufferings; and it is perhaps best that so should be the different
scenes of the drama as they pass. The young adventurer is not to expect
to have every difficulty smoothed for him by the hand of another. This
were to tea