The journal of a voyage to Lisbon / [Henry Fielding].

  • Henry Fielding
Date:
1755
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The journal of a voyage to Lisbon / [Henry Fielding]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a lefs honourable, but much fafer means of avoiding danger, than he who de¬ fends himfelf with it. And here we fhall offer another diftindtion, of the truth of which much reading and expe¬ rience have well convinced us, that as in the moft abfolute governments, there is a regular progreffion of flavery down¬ wards, from the top to the bottom, the mifchief of which is feldom felt with any great force and bitternefs, but by the next immediate degree; fo in the moft diflolute and anarchical ftates, there is as regular an afcent of what is called rank or condition, which is al¬ ways laying hold of the head of him who is advanced but one ftep higher on the ladder, who might, if he did not too much defpife fuch efforts, kick his purfuer headlong to the bottom. We will conclude this digreffion with one general and fhort obfervation, which will, perhaps, fet the whole matter in a clearer light than the longed: and moft laboured harangue. Whereas envy of all things moft expofes us to danger from