That his talents and habits of application entitle him to no common respect, must be universally acknowledged; but talents in _themselves merely_ are, in the eyes of the judicious, no recommendation.

If a sword be sharp, it is of the more importance to ask--What use it is likely to be put to?
In government, if we can keep clear of mischief, good will come of itself.

Fitness is the thing to be sought; and unfitness is much less frequently caused by general incapacity than by absence of that kind of capacity which the charge demands.

Talent is apt to generate presumption and self-confidence; and no qualities are so necessary, in a Legislator, as the opposites of these--which, if they do not imply the existence of sagacity, are the best substitutes for it--whether they produce, in the general disposition of the mind, an humble reliance on the wisdom of our Forefathers, and a sedate yielding to the pressure of existing things; or carry the thoughts still higher, to religious trust in a superintending Providence, by whose permission laws are ordered and customs established, for other purposes than to be perpetually found fault with.
These suggestions are recommended to the consideration of our new Aspirant, and of all those public men whose judgments are perverted, and tempers soured, by long struggling in the ranks of opposition, and incessant bustling among the professors of Reform.

I shall not recall to notice further particulars, because time, by softening asperities or removing them out of sight, is a friend to benevolence.