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Updated: May 14, 2025
"The Attempt, indeed, is such, that the Want of Success can scarce be called a Disappointment, tho' I shall have lost much Time, and misemployed much Pains; and what is above all, shall miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great and lasting Benefit on my Country." In words still more resigned and dignified, he concludes the book:
The regrets of a prince, for having lost a day, were noble and generous: but had he intended to have spent it in acts of generosity to his greedy courtiers, it was better lost than misemployed after that manner.
But the time, sir, which was unwillingly spent in the camp, was not, however, lost or misemployed, for the troops were, by the order of the general, every day exercised, and instructed in the art of war, so that what was lost in time, was more than recompensed by the advantage of better discipline.
In consequence of his harmless deportment, and a seasonable display of his chirurgical skill, they granted him his life, though they, for a time, restrained him of his liberty, and compelled him to endure their society. The time was not misemployed which he spent immured in caverns and carousing with robbers.
And I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have; and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge; or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradictory; and yet asserted somewhere or other with such assurance and confidence, that he that shall take a view of the opinions of mankind, observe their opposition, and at the same time consider the fondness and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and eagerness wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect, that either there is no such thing as truth at all, or that mankind hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it.
Is Sunday come and gone already? Heaven be praised! Only it is a marvel the afternoon is sae dark for the time of the year Sabbath has slipped ower quietly, but we have reason to bless oursells it has not been altogether misemployed.
One could scarcely desire a better example of the all-embracing range of the studies which an American University provides for and encourages. I have heard it said, with a sneer, that "You can take an honours degree in Marie Corelli." If you can graduate with honours in Holberg, your time, in so far, has certainly not been misemployed.
These diversions have their serious side, for he is really experimenting on the possibility of reclaiming waste land; perhaps too sanguine, you think, and not counting the cost. To which he replies that, as long as there are hands unemployed and misemployed, a government such as he would see need never be at a loss for labourers.
He introduced his plan by the following gracious expressions: "And to show you that, while you are doing your parts, my thoughts have not been misemployed, but that it is my constant care to do every thing that may preserve your religion, and secure if for the future in all events; I have commanded my lord chancellor to mention several particulars, which, I hope, will be an evidence that, in all things which concern the public rights, I shall not follow your zeal, but lead it."
This was surely an absurd squeamishness in one of the same profession, as Warburton was, who had begun his career by translations in prose and verse from Latin writers, had then mingled in the literary cabals of the day, and afterwards did not think his time misemployed in editing and commenting on Shakspeare and Pope.
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