t which I believe I should never have discovered
had I not endeavored to take the place of the public towards him, and
judge of him as I have seen them judge of others: I mean an apparent
frigidity of manner which I feared the world would consider as the
evidence of a cold and sordid heart.

"The man who is in possession of such talents as Sidney's, is in
possession of a most dangerous gift; and it behoves him to walk before
the public with a circumspection proportionate to the superiority of
those talents. Exorbitant power, whether intellectual or political,
naturally begets distrust and jealousy in the good as well as envy in
the wicked; and it requires on the part of its possessor a constant
display, not only of the most scrupulous integrity and sacred purity on
every occasion, great or small; but a constant display also of the most
disinterested generosity and public spirit, to give such a character
even fair play before the world. People must be satisfied that such an
one will not abuse his power to their injury, and sacrifice their
interests to his own; but that the strong and native tendency of his
character is to disregard his own interests entirely when drawn into
collision with theirs, before they will forgive him his superiority, and
trust themselves in his hands. To such a character, any appearance or
suspicion of coldness, or indifference towards the public good, and much
more any appearance or suspicion of uncommon devotion to self, however
fallacious such appearance or suspicion may be, is political death,
without the hope of resurrection. Such a character must lose sight of
self altogether, compared with the public, or the public will be very
apt to lose sight of him, or seeing, not to trust him. As to Sidney,
knowing him as I do, I know that those appearances of which I have
spoken are entirely fallacious; that his laxity in conversation is only
sportiveness; that his attention to his own interests does not surpass
the bounds of ordinary prudence; that, on a proper occasion, no man is
more charitable, generous, or munificent; none more alive to the
misfortunes and even solicitudes of a virtuous sufferer; that his
apparent coldness is the effect only of mental abstraction and of
judicious caution and reflection; and, in part, of that strong and
exhausting flame with which his friendship burns for those whom he
grapples to his heart. But the world at large can never have that
knowledge of him that I have;