to a man, wanting what really should make him so, is by so much the uglier; cunning is only the want of understanding; which, because it cannot compass its ends by direct ways, would do it by trick and circumvention. No cover was ever made either so

big or so fine as to hide itself.

to conceal their being so."

None were ever so cunning as

There are few particulars in which mankind more often misjudge than in this. They are apt to think that the artful and unprincipled, because they display considerable cunning, are of course men of superior parts; whereas, generally speaking, their minds are narrow. You will seldom find one of them possessed of true clearness and largeness of understanding.

So again, many a doting father is secretly gratified with the slyness and the fox-like tricks of his boy; when, in reality, he has all reason to apprehend that the boy is getting to be a confirmed villain in grain, and will have a genius for nothing else.

The fox is the most noted of any of the inferior animals for craft and roguery; yet the fox is one of the most miserable of all the brute creation. He has not a friend upon earth. The honester dog hunts and attacks him with peculiar malice. Every four-footed animal seems to bear him a grudge; the weaker shun him, and the stronger pursue him. The very birds, knowing hist knavish craft, hover in the air over him, and seem to express their apprehensions and their hatred. They alight upon the trees and hedges, as he is slyly creeping along the ground beneath, and with loud cries and chatterings, give warning of his approach, as who should say, "yonder goes a cunning, beguiling, greedy rogue-take special care of yourselves." And thus, also, it fares with those of Adam's children who have much cunning, but no principle of honesty.

DR. FRANKLIN, founding his theory upon the principle that the human body is specifically lighter than water, tells us, in substance, that one fallen into that element might escape drowning, for some considerable time at least, were he to abstain from struggling and plunging, and to let his body down with the feet foremost, remaining thus in a perpendicular position, except throwing his head as far back as possible; because in that position, the face would be quite above the surface of the water.

This prescription, or direction from the venerable Doctor, who knew, as well as any man, how to keep his own head above water, is, of itself, or in its plain literal import, well worth the being held in remembrance. But craving indulgence for the license, I mean, withal, to make an analogical use of it.

Young men, as soon as they are entitled to the rights of per

sonal independence, launch out in what is figuratively called the ocean of life. Indeed we are, all of us, on that ocean; some in deeper, and others in shoaler water; some going forward smoothly with the tide, and others having the tide against them; sometimes we have fair wind and weather, and at other times we are under a dark sky, and assailed with tempestuous winds, that raise aloft the foaming billows.

What then is the safest way, at all times, and for persons of all ranks and conditions? It is told in only three words;Mind the perpendicular. Many a young man, and many a man not young, have I seen ingulfed and lost, not by reason of his wanting skill and alertness, but because he failed to keep himself in a perpendicular attitude; whereas, on the other hand, never did I see a single one totally submerged, who had always been duly careful in that particular.

If, even, there were nothing to hope or fear beyond the grave, honesty would be the best policy; inasmuch as it carries one through this world with most safety, in the long run, as well as with honor. "He that walketh uprightly, walketh surely." He travels in a plain and safe path; a fair character is his passport, and the laws of society are his protection. As long as a man holds fast his integrity, he cannot be quite undone; for though, by adverse gusts he be sadly plunged, his face will still be above water. Though he should suffer the loss of all things else, yet the consciousness of strict integrity will buoy him up, and the knowledge that others have of his integrity, will give him a chance to repair his broken fortunes, or, at the least, will secure him that good name, which is "better than precious ointment."

On the contrary, "he that perverteth his way shall be known."

Though deceit and knavishness may sometimes procure momentary advantages, they are but momentary, and are much more than countervailed by the lasting ill consequences, which they never fail to bring after them. For not only does dishonesty draw after it many inward disquietudes, but it lays one under very heavy disadvantages, with respect to his intercourse with the world. Notwithstanding all his arts of cunning, it will be known; and when a man's character is of that sort, as to fill with suspicions every one that knows him, even his honest acts will be thought to spring from base motives, or to have some dark design. It will be suspected that the plague of leprosy still remains, either "in the warp or in the woof.”

It greatly behooves young men to form fixed resolutions, at the outset of life, never to swerve from the perpendicular, in a single instance,-no, not even in the most trivial one; for one trespass against the laws of honesty leads to another, as it were by a sort of natural and necessary connection. So that, though there be many who, in their intercourse with the world, have never been guilty of one dishonest act, yet there are few who have been guilty of one, and but one. Because the first, by compromising the moral principle, weakens the power of resisting the next temptation; because one knavish deed often requires another, and sometimes several others, to cover it; and lastly, because rooted knavishness of heart is harder of cure than any other moral malady, inasmuch as the corruption of the principle of integrity is the corruption of the very source of all moral virtue.

He that has seen a rogue in grain, a thoroughly practised rogue, turn to a downright honest man, has at least seen one marvellous thing.

NUMBER XI.

AN EXEMPLIFICATION OF TRUE CHRISTIAN HONESTY.

THE following line of Pope,

"An honest man's the noblest work of God"

has been pronounced unworthy of that celebrated poet, forasmuch as honesty is but a vulgar virtue, as common to the meanest, as to the greatest abilities. Honesty, though commendable, is so far from being one of the noblest of human qualities, that the honest man may, nevertheless, be but a plain simple man, of contracted intellect, of very little education, and of a low condition. This the noblest work of God! Fy upon such nonsense!

Now, to adjust this matter between the poet and the critic, it will be necessary to take a cursory view of the different standards of honesty, according to one or other of which reputedly honest men square their conduct, and of the different principles, by which they are governed.

Men, sometimes, act honestly from policy, rather than from