Where, From
Uncommon Circumstances, This Tuition Has Never Been Applied, We Shall
Find At Forty, The Same Petulance And Conceit
Which characterised the
clever, it may be, but certainly foolish youth of eighteen; and some
persons there are, who, not
Quite ignorant of the process, are so much
enraged at it, that they continue through life to display the same
offensive appearances, out of mere spite, and because they have not
the honesty to acknowledge that they ever stood in need of
instruction. G.F. appears to have been in the first-mentioned
predicament; and probably his early death occurred in the midst of a
salutary though severe correction. - E.
[7] "This group of islands, which we had now cursorily examined in the
space of forty-six days, seems to be well worth the attention of
future navigators, especially if they should ever be sent out upon the
liberal plan of making discoveries in all the various branches of
science. I will not pretend to say that they would find great riches
of silver and pearls, which Quiros was forced to speak of, in order to
engage an interested, avaricious court, to support his great and
spirited undertakings. These incitements are not necessary now-a-days,
when several monarchs in Europe have convinced the world that they can
institute voyages of discovery, with no other view than the increase
of human knowledge, and the improvement of man-kind. The sums which
some of their predecessors have lavished on parasites, have been found
sufficient to make an immense progress, nay to produce a new and
important revolution in the state of the sciences, which have ever
required a trifling expence to triumph over the numberless obstacles
that ignorance, envy, or superstition opposed against them." - G.F.
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