Every heart ought to rejoice when true merit is distinguished with publick notice.
Before we permit our severity to break loose upon any fault or error, we ought surely to consider how much we have countenanced or promoted it. It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. The wit, the hero, the philosopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of adding a new topic to the conversation of the day. They impress none with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of endearments. Such is the power of reputation justly acquired that its blaze drives away the eye from nice examination.