of
people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or
fall in proportion to their numbers: when the numbers are very great, all
sense and reason seem to subside, and one sudden frenzy to seize on all,
even the coolest of them.

Another very just observation of the Cardinal's is, That, the things
which happen in our own times, and which we see ourselves, do not
surprise us near so much as the things which we read of in times past,
though not in the least more extraordinary; and adds, that he is
persuaded that when Caligula made his horse a Consul, the people of Rome,
at that time, were not greatly surprised at it, having necessarily been
in some degree prepared for it, by an insensible gradation of
extravagances from the same quarter. This is so true that we read every
day, with astonishment, things which we see every day without surprise.
We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and
are not the least surprised to hear of a sea-captain, who has blown up
his ship, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands
of the enemies of his country. I cannot help reading of Porsenna and
Regulus, with surprise and reverence, and yet I remember that I saw,
without either, the execution of Shepherd,--[James Shepherd, a
coach-painter's apprentice, was executed at Tyburn for high treason,
March 17, 1718, in the reign of George I.]--a boy of eighteen years old,
who intended to shoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned, if
he would have expressed the least sorrow for his intended crime; but, on
the contrary, he declared that if he was pardoned he would attempt it
again; that he thought it a duty which he owed to his country, and that
he died with pleasure for having endeavored to perform it. Reason equals
Shepherd to Regulus; but prejudice, and the recency of the fact, make
Shepherd a common malefactor and Regulus a hero.

Examine carefully, and reconsider all your notions of things; analyze
them, and discover their component parts, and see if habit and prejudice
are not the principal ones; weigh the matter upon which you are to form
your opinion, in the equal and impartial scales of reason. It is not to
be conceived how many people, capable of reasoning, if they would, live
and die in a thousand errors, from laziness; they will rather adopt the
prejudices of others, than give themselves the trouble of forming
opinions of their own. They say things, at first,