Brown, John (1715-1766)

An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times

London

L. Davis and Reymer

1757

"Now this great Ambition, which in other Times or Nations hath wrought such wonderful Effects, is no longer to be found among us. It is the Pride of Equipage, the Pride of Title, the Pride of Fortune, or the Pride of Dress, that have assumed the Empire over our Souls, and levelled Ambition with the Dirt."

This being the State of religious Principle, let us next examine how it fares with the Principle of Honour. By this is meant, "The Desire of Fame, or the Applause of Men, directed to the End of public Happiness." Now this great Ambition, which in other Times or Nations hath wrought such wonderful Effects, is no longer to be found among us. It is the Pride of Equipage, the Pride of Title, the Pride of Fortune, or the Pride of Dress, that have assumed the Empire over our Souls, and levelled Ambition with the Dirt. The honest Pride of Virtue is no more; or, where it happens to exist, is overwhelmed by inferior Vanities. A Man who should go out of the common Road of Life, in Pursuit of Glory, and serve the Public at the Expence of his Ease, his Fortune, or his Pleasure, would be stared or laughed at in every fashionable Circle, as a silly Fellow, who meddled with Things that did not belong to him: As an Ideot, who preferred Shadows to Realities, and needless Toil to pleasurable Enjoyment. The laurel Wreath, once aspired after as the highest Object of Ambition, would now be rated at the Market-price of its Materials, and derided as a three-penny Crown. And if its modern Substitutes, the Ribbon or the Coronet, be eagerly sought for, it is not that they are regarded as the Distinctions of public Virtue, but as the Ensigns of Vanity and Place. (I, pp. 58-60)

Government::Empire

Reading

13 entries in ESTC (1757, 1758).

John Brown of Newcastle, An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, 2 vols. (London: L. Davis and Reymer, 1757). <Link to ECCO><Link to Google Books>

04/03/2012