I would not be thought to undervalue merit and virtue, wherever they are to be found; but will allow them capable of the highest dignities in a state, when they are in a very great degree of eminence. A pearl holds its value, though it be found in a dunghill; but however, that is not the most probable place to search for it. Nay, I will go farther, and admit, that a man of quality without merit, is just so much the worse for his quality; which at once sets his vices in a more publick view, and reproaches him for them. But, on the other side, I doubt those who are always undervaluing the advantages of birth, and celebrating personal merit, have principally an eye to their own, which they are fully satisfied with, and which nobody will dispute with them about; whereas they cannot, without impudence and folly, pretend to be nobly born; because this is a secret too easily discovered: for no men's parentage is so nicely inquired into as that of assuming upstarts, especially when they affect to make it better than it is, (as they often do) or behave themselves with insolence.
But whatever may be the opinion of others upon this subject, whose philosophical scorn for blood and families reaches even to those that are royal, or perhaps took its rise from a whiggish contempt of the latter; I am pleased to find two such instances of extraordinary merit, as I have mentioned, joined with ancient and honourable birth; which, whether it be of real or imaginary value, has been held in veneration by all wise polite states, both ancient and modern. And as much a foppery as men pretend to think it, nothing is more observable in those who
