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moralist in the heathen world, the great and immortal Socrates, fell a sacrifice to this pernicious talent: ridicule first misrepresented, and afterwards destroyed him; the deluded multitude condemned him, not for what he was, but for what he appeared to be, an enemy to the religion of his country.

The folly and depravity of mankind will always furnish out a sufficient fund for ridicule; and when we consider how vast and spacious a field the little scene of human life affords for malice and ill-nature, we shall not so much wonder to see the

lover of ridicule rejoicing in it. Here he has always an opportunity of gratifying his pride, and satiating his malevolence: from the frailties and absurdities of others, he forms a wreath to adorn his own brow; gathers together, with all his art, the failings and imperfections of others, and offers them up a sacrifice to self-love. The lowest and most abandoned of mankind can ridicule the most exalted beings; those who never could boast of their own perfection,

the marks of deformity and guilt on the features of innocence and beauty. Thus may our perfections conspire to render us both unhappy and contemptible!

The lover of ridicule will, no doubt, plead in the defence of it, that his design is to reclaim and reform mankind; that he is listed in the service of Virtue, and engaged in the cause of Truth ;-but I will venture to assure him, that the allies he boasts of disclaim his friendship and despise his assistance. Truth desires no such soldier to fight under his banner; Virtue wants no such advocate to plead for her. As it is generally exercised, it is too great a punishment for small faults; too light and inconsiderable for great ones: the little foibles and blemishes of a character deserve rather pity than contempt; the more atrocious crimes call for hatred and abhorrence. Thus, we see, that in one case the medicine operates too powerfully, and in the other is of no effect.

I might take this opportunity to add, that ridicule is not always contented with ravaging and destroying the works of man, but boldly and impiously attacks those of

Nor raise their thoughts beyond the earth they God; enters even into the sanctuary, and

tread;

Even these can censure, those can dare deride A Bacon's avarice, or a Tully's pride.

It were well indeed for mankind, if ridicule would confine itself to the frailties and imperfections of human nature, and not extend its baleful influence over the few good qualities and perfections of it: but there is not perhaps a virtue to be named, which may not, by the medium through which it is seen, be distorted into a vice. The glass of ridicule reflects things not only darkly, but falsely also: it always discolours the objects before it ventures to represent them to us. The purest metal, by the mixture of a base alloy, shall seem changed to the meanest. Ridicule, in the same manner, will clothe prudence in the garb of avarice, call courage rashness, and brand good-nature with the name of prodigality; will laugh at the compassionate man for his weakness, the serious man for his preciseness, and the pious man for his hypocrisy.

Modesty is one of virtue's best supports; and it is observable, that wherever this amiable quality is most eminently conspicuous, ridicule is always ready to attack and overthrow it. The man of wit and humour is never so happy as when he can • raise the blush of ingenuous merit, or stamp

prophanes the temple of the Most High. A late noble writer has made use of it to asperse the characters and destroy the validity of the writers of both the Old and New Testament; and to change the solemn truths of Christianity into matter of mirth and laughter. The books of Moses are called by him fables and tales, fit only for the amusement of children and St. Paul is treated by him as an enthusiast, an idiot, and an avowed enemy to that religion which he professed. One would not surely think that there was any thing in Christianity so ludicrous as to raise laughter, or to excite contempt; but on the contrary, that the nature of its precepts, and its own intrinsic excellence, would at least have secured it from such indignities.

Nothing gives us a higher opinion of those ancient heathens whom our modern bigots are so apt to despise, than that air of piety and devotion which runs through all their writings; and though the Pagan theology was fully of absurdities and inconsistencies, which the more refined spirits among their poets and philosophers must have doubtless despised, rejected, and contemned; such was their respect and veneration for the established religion of their country, such their regard to decency and

serious

teriousness, such their modesty and diffidence in affairs of so much weight and importance, that we very seldom meet with jest or ridicule on subjects which they held thus sacred and respectable.

The privilege of publicly laughing at religion, and the profession of it, of making the laws of God, and the great concerns of eternity, the objects of mirth and ridicule, was reserved for more enlightened ages; and denied the more pious heathens, to reflect disgrace and ignominy on the Christian æra.

It hath indeed been the fate of the best and purest religion in the world, to become the jest of fools; and not only, with its Divine Founder, to be scourged and persecuted, but with him to be mocked and spit at, trampled on and despised. But to consider the dreadful consequences of ridicule on this occasion, will better become the divine than essayist; to him therefore shall I refer it, and conclude this essay by observing, that after all the undeserved encomiums, so lavishly bestowed on this child of wit and malice, so universally approved and admired, I know of no service the pernicious talent of ridicule can be of, unless it be to raise the blush of modesty, and put virtue out of countenance; to enhance the miseries of the wretched, and poison the feast of happiness; to insult man, affront God; to make us, in short, hateful to our fellow-creatures, uneasy to ourselves, and highly displeasing to the Almighty. Smollett.

113. On Prodigality.

It is the fate of almost every passion, when it has passed the bounds which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose. Too much rage hinders the warrior from circumspection; and too much eagerness of profit hurts the credit of the trader. Too much ardour takes away from the lover that easiness of address with which ladies are delighted. Thus extravagance, though dictated by vanity, and incited by voluptuousness, seldom procures ultimately either applause or pleasure.

If praise be justly estimated by the character of those from whom it is received, Ettle satisfaction will be given to the spendthrift by the encomiums which he purchases. For who are they that animate him in his pursuits, but young men, thoughtless and abandoned like himself, unacquainted with all on which the wisdom of nations has impressed the stamp of excellence, and de

void alike of knowledge' and of virtue? By whom is his profusion praised, but by wretches who consider him as subservient to their purposes; Syrens that entice him to shipwreck; and Cyclops that are gaping to devour him?

Every man whose knowledge, or whose virtue, can give value to his opinion, looks with scorn or pity (neither of which can afford much gratification to pride) on him whom the panders of luxury have drawn into the circle of their influence, and whom he sees parcelled out among the different ministers of folly, and about to be torn to pieces by tailors and jockies, vintners and attornies; who at once rob and ridicule him, and who are secretly triumphing over his weakness, when they present new incitements to his appetite, and heighten his desires by counterfeited applause.

Such is the praise that is purchased by prodigality. Even when it is not yet discovered to be false, it is the praise only of those whom it is reproachful to please, and whose sincerity is corrupted by their interest; men who live by the riots which they encourage, and who know, that whenever their pupil grows wise, they shall lose their power. Yet with such flatteries, if they could last, might the cravings of va nity, which is seldom very delicate, be satisfied: but the time is always hastening forward, when this triumph, poor as it is, shall vanish, and when those who now surround him with obsequiousness and compliments, fawn among his equipage, and animate his riots, shall turn upon him with insolence, and reproach him with the vices promoted by themselves.

And as little pretensions has the man who squanders his estate by vain or vicious expenses, to greater degrees of pleasure than are obtained by others. To make any happiness sincere, it is necessary that we believe it to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing, must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set upon it, the more must the present possession be embittered. How can he, then, be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be expected, and who is conscious that a very short time will give him up to the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as he has given way to more excesses, wantoned in greater abundance, and indulged his appetite with more profuseness?

It appears evident, that frugality is ne

cessary

cessary even to complete the pleasure of expense; for it may be generally remarked of those who squander what they know their fortune not sufficient to allow, that in their most jovial expense there always breaks out some proof of discontent and impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild desperation and affected lavishness, as criminals brave the gallows when they cannot escape it; or pay their money with a peevish anxiety, and endeavour at once to spend idly, and to save meanly; having neither firmness to deny their passions, nor courage to gratify them, they murmur at their own enjoyments, and poison the bowl of pleasure by reflection on the cost.

Among these men there is often the vociferation of merriment, but very seldom the tranquillity of cheerfulness; they inflame their imaginations to a kind of momentary jollity, by the help of wine and riot; and consider it as the first business of the night to stupify recollection, and lay that reason asleep, which disturbs their gaiety, and calls upon them to retreat from ruin.

But this poor broken satisfaction is of short continuance, and must be expiated by a long series of misery and regret. In a short time the creditor grows impatient, the last acre is sold, the passions and appetites still continue their tyranny, with incessant calls for their usual gratifications; and the remainder of life passes away in vain repentance, or impotent desire. Rambler.

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Every principle that is a motive to good actions ought to be encouraged, since men are of so different a make, that the same principle does not work equally upon all minds. What some men are prompted to by conscience, duty, or religion, which are only different names for the same thing, others are prompted to by honour.

The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by great examples, or a refined education. This essay therefore is chiefly designed for those who by means of any of these advantages are, or ought to be, actuated by this glorious principle.

But as nothing is more pernicious than a principle of action, when it is misunderstood, I shall consider honour with respect to three sorts of men. First of all, with 7

regard to those who have a right notion of it. Secondly, with regard to those who have a mistaken notion of it. And thirdly, with regard to those who treat it as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule.

In the first place, true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is grace. ful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honour scorns, to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him; the other, as something that is offensive to the Divine Being: the one, as what is unbecoming; the other, as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, "that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature."

I shall conclude this head with the description of honour in the part of young Juba:

Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,
That aids and strengthens virtue when it meets
her,

And iuntates her actions where she is not;
It ought not to be sported with. Сато.

In the second place, we are to consider those who have mistaken notions of honour. And these are such as establish any thing to themselves for a point of honour, which is contrary either to the laws of God, or of their country; who think it more honourable to revenge, than to forgive an injury; who make no scruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accuses them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue. True fortitude is indeed so becoming in human nature, that he who wants it scarce deserves the name of a man; but we find several who so much abuse this notion, that they place the whole idea of honour in a kind of brutal courage: by which means we have had many among us, who have called themselves men of honour, that would have been a disgrace to a gibbet. In a word, the man who sacrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode or fashion; who looks upon any thing as honourable that is displeasing to his Maker, or destructive to so

ciety;

ciety; who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of some virtues, and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honour. Timogenes was a lively instance of one actuated by false honour. Timogenes would smile at a man's jest who ridiculed his Maker, and at the same time run a man through the body that spoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have scorned to have betrayed a secret that was entrusted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the discovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having spoken ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himself had seduced in her youth, and betrayed into want and ignominy. To close his character, Timogenes, after having ruined several poor tradesmen's families who had trusted him, sold his estate to satisfy his creditors; but, like a man of honour, disposed of all the money he could make of it, in paying off his play debts, or, to speak in his own language, his debts of honour.

In the third place, we are to consider those persons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. Men who are professedly of no honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned nature than even those who are actuated by false notions of it; as there is more hope of an heretic than of an atheist. These sons of infamy consider honour, with old Syphax in the play before-mentioned, as a fine imaginary notion that leads astray young unexperienced men, and draws them into real machiefs, while they are engaged in the pa set of a shadow. These are generally persons who, in Shakespeare's phrase, "are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men;" whose imaginations are grown callous, and have lost all those delicate sentiments which are natural to minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered miscreants ridicule every thing as romantic that comes in competition with their present interest; and treat those persons as visionanes, who dare to stand up, in a corrupt age, for what has not its immediate reward joined to it. The talents, interest, or experience of such men, make them very often useful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to consider that every one stands as a blot in the annals of his country, who arrives at the temple of honour by any other way than through Guardian.

that of virtue.

115. On Modesty.

I know no two words that have been more abused, by the different and wrong interpretations which are put upon them, than these two, Modesty and Assurance. Το say such a one is a modest man, sometimes indeed passes for a good character; but at present is very often used to signify a sheepish, awkward fellow, who has neither good-breeding, politeness, nor any knowledge of the world.

Again: A man of assurance, though at first it only denoted a person of a free and open carriage, is now very usually applied to a profligate wretch, who can break through all the rules of decency and morality without a blush.

I shall endeavour, therefore, in this essay, to restore these words to their true meaning, to prevent the idea of Modesty from being confounded with that of Sheepishness, and to hinder Impudence from passing for Assurance.

If I was put to define Modesty, I would call it, The reflection of an ingenuous mind, either when a man has committed an action for which he censures himself, or fancies that he is exposed to the censure of others.

For this reason a man, truly modest, is as much so when he is alone as in company; and as subject to a blush in his closet as when the eyes of multitudes are upon him.

I do not remember to have met with any instance of modesty with which I am so well pleased, as that celebrated one of the young Prince, whose father, being a tributary king to the Romans, had several complaints laid against him before the senate, as a tyrant and oppressor of his subjects. The Prince went to Rome to defend his father; but coming into the senate, and hea ing a multitude of crimes proved upon him, was so oppressed when it came to his turn to speak, that he was unable to utter a word. The story tells us, that the fathers were more moved at this instance of modesty and ingenuity, than they could have been by the most pathetic oration; and, in short, pardoned the guilty father for this early promise of virtue in his son.

I take Assurance to be, The faculty of possessing a man's self, or of saying and doing indifferent things without any uneasiness or emotion in the mind. That which generally gives a man assurance, is a moderate knowledge of the world; but above

all,

all, a mind fixed and determined in itself to do nothing against the rules of honour and decency. An open and assured behaviour is the natural consequence of such a resolution. A man thus armed, if his words or actions are at any time misinterpreted, retires within himself, and from a consciousness of his own integrity, assumes force enough to despise the little censures of ignorance or malice.

Every one ought to cherish and encourage in himself the modesty and assurance I have here mentioned.

A man without assurance is liable to be made uneasy by the folly or ill-nature of every one he converses with. A man without modesty is lost to all sense of honour and virtue.

It is more than probable, that the Prince above-mentioned, possessed both those qualifications in a very eminent degree. Without assurance, he would never have undertaken to speak before the most august assembly in the world; without modesty, he would have pleaded the cause he had taken upon him, though it had appeared ever so scandalous.

From what has been said, it is plain that modesty and assurance are both amiable, and may very well meet in the same person. When they are thus mixed and blended together, they compose what we endeavour to express, when we say, a modest assurance; by which we understand, the just mean between bashfulness and impudence.

I shall conclude with observing, that as the same man may be both modest and assured, so it is also possible for the same person to be both impudent and bashful.

We have frequent instances of this odd kind of mixture in people of depraved minds and mean education; who, though they are not able to meet a man's eyes, or pronounce a sentence without confusion, can voluntarily commit the greatest villanies or most indecent actions.

Such a person seems to have made a resolution to do ill, even in spite of himself, and in defiance of all those checks and restraints his temper and complexion seem to have laid in his way.

Upon the whole, I would endeavour to establish this maxim, That the practice of virtue is the most proper method to give a man a becoming assurance in his words and actions. Guilt always seeks to shelter itself in one of the extremes; and is sometimes attended with both. Spectator.

116. On disinterested Friendship.

I am informed that certain Greek writers (Philosophers, it seems, in the opinion of their countrymen) have advanced some very extraordinary positions relating to friendship; as, indeed, what subject is there, which these subtle geniuses have not tortured with their sophistry?

The authors to whom I refer, dissuade their disciples from entering into any strong attachments, as unavoidably creating supernumerary disquietudes to those who engage in them; and, as every man has more than sufficient to call forth his solicitude in the course of his own affairs, it is a weakness they contend, anxiously to involve himself in the concerns of others. They recommend it also, in all connexions of this kind, to hold the bands of union extremely loose; so as always to have it in one's power to straiten or relax them, as circumstances and situations shall render most expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that "to live exempt from care is an essential ingredient to constitute human happiness: but an ingredient, however, which he, who voluntarily distresses himself with cares in which he has no necessary and personal interest, must never hope to possess."

I have been told likewise, that there is another set of pretended philosophers, of the same country, whose tenets, concerning this subject, are of a still more illiberal and ungenerous cast.

The proposition they attempt to establish, is, that " friendship is an affair of self-interest entirely, and that the proper motive for engaging in it, is, not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that assistance and support which is to be derived from the connexion." Accordingly they assert, that those persons are most disposed to have recourse to auxiliary alliances of this kind, who are least qualified by nature, or fortune, to depend upon their own strength and powers: the weaker sex, for instance, being generally more inclined to engage in friendships, than the male part of our species; and those who are deprest by indigence, or labouring under misfortunes, than the wealthy and the prosperous.

Excellent and obliging sages, these, undoubtedly! To strike out the friendly affections from the moral world, would be like extinguishing the sun in the natural;

each

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