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In vain do we march with unprecedented strides to empire so colossal, outvying the antique, beyond Alexander's, beyond the proudest sway of Rome. In vain have we annex'd Texas, California, Alaska, and reach north for Canada and south for Cuba. It is as if we were somehow being endow'd with a vast and more and more thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little or no soul.
When I read Shakespeare and came upon the passage in which Prospero tells Caliban that he had no thoughts until his master taught him words, I remember starting with amazement at the poet's intuition, for such a Caliban had I been: I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other, when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble, like A thing most brutish; I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them know.
The misty veil thrown over him, the spirit of poesy came to his visions, and stood beside him, and look'd down pleasantly with her large eyes, which were bright and liquid like the reflection of stars in a lake. Together, the two in one, they are endow'd with immortal strength, and approach loftily to Him from whom both spring.
Men of singular Wit, like Women of great Beauty, should never be unguarded; for if not endow'd with a decent Reservedness, a modest Air, and a discreet Behaviour, they sink in their Value, and by appearing in all Places, and becoming common and familiar, lose, in a great measure, their Honour, and the Opinion of their Merit.
As to its efficient Cause; Wit owes its Production to an extraordinary and peculiar Temperament in the Constitution of the Possessors of it, in which is found a Concurrence of regular and exalted Ferments, and an Affluence of Animal Spirits refin'd and rectify'd to a great degree of Purity; whence being endow'd with Vivacity, Brightness and Celerity, as well in their Reflexions as direct Motions, they become proper Instruments for the sprightly Operations of the Mind; by which means the Imagination can with great Facility range, the wide Field of Nature, contemplate an infinite Variety of Objects, and by observing the Similitude and Disagreement of their several Qualities, single out and abstract, and then suit and unite those Ideas, which will best serve its purpose.
And in regard, Pyrophilus, that in the former Experiments, both the Infusion of Galls, and the Decoction of Roses, and the Solution of Copperis employ'd about them, are endow'd each of them with its own Colour, there may be a more noble Experiment of the sudden production of Blackness made by the way mention'd in the Second Section of the Second Part of our Essays, for though upon the Confusion of the two Liquors there mention'd, there do immediately emerge a very Black mixture, yet both the Infusion of Orpiment and the Solution of Minium were before their being joyn'd together, Limpid and Colourless.
These almshouses were then erected and endow'd by Richard Winwood, son and heir of Right Hon'ble Sir Ralph Winwood, Bart., Principal Secretary of State to King James y'e First."
Scrupulosity was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson. 'Swift, he says, 'washed himself with oriental scrupulosity. Ib. viii. 222. 'When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known. The Tempest, act i. sc. 2.
Endow'd with all that Nature can bestow, The child of fancy oft in silence bends O'er the mixt treasures of his pregnant breast With conscious pride. From thence he oft resolves To frame he knows not what excelling things; And win he knows not what sublime reward Of praise and wonder!
Since the Power of Wit is so prevalent, and has obtained such Esteem and Popularity, that a Man endow'd with this agreeable Quality, is by many look'd on as a Heavenly Being, if compar'd with others, who have nothing but Learning and a clear arguing Head; it will be worth the while to search into its Nature, and examine its Usefulness, and take a View of those fatal Effects which it produces, when it happens to be misapply'd.
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