or perhaps to persuade him that he is not angry, but is a model of patience under intolerable wrongs. And the like takes place, if it be selfish cupidity, unjust partiality, party-spirit, or any other passion that may be operating. For, universally, men are but too apt to take more pains in justifying their propensities, than it would cost to control them.

But besides the danger of self-deceit, when under the immediate influence of a passion, many a man deceives himself as to what really are his own natural tendencies. For instance, one who is somewhat inclined to the love of money may fancy himself remarkably liberal; because every act of liberality will have cost him such an effort, that he will think much of it, as a most heroic sacrifice. A man, again, who has much self-esteem, may fancy himself peculiarly modest and humble, because he will view, as it were, through a magnifying-glass any act of condescension, and will seem to himself to be lowering his own just pretensions, when he is taking upon himself less than he thinks he has a fair claim to, though, in reality, more than is right. And so in other cases.

Now, as the advice of a good physician may be of use in helping us to understand our own bodily constitution, so a judicious friend, a wise and candid counsellor, may perform a like service in the important point of self-knowledge, and help to guard us against this kind of self-deceit. According to the Hindu law, the penalty denounced against a breach of conjugal fidelity is remitted only in case of the inducement to its commission having been the present of an elephant,—this being considered a douceur too magnificent for any one to be expected to refuse. Now, in Europe, though an actual elephant is not the very thing that offers the strongest temptation, there is in most people's conscience something analogous to it; and different things are elephants' to different people. Happy is that man who has a faithful friend to remind him to be on the lookout for, and to help him to discover, his 'elephant.'

Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for

our case,'

It will always be improper for our case unless we make the right use of such observation,-which is, so to estimate the

temptations of others that we may the better understand our

own.

'How is it, men, when they in judgment sit
On the same faults, now censure, now acquit ?
"Tis not that they are to the error blind,
But that a different object fills the mind.
Judging of others, we can see too well

Their grievous fall; but not, how grieved they fell:
Judging ourselves, we to our minds recall,

Not how we fell, but how we grieved to fall.'1

But though ten thousand of the greatest faults in others are, to us, of less consequence than one small fault in ourselves, yet self-approval is so much more agreeable to us than self-examination which, as Bacon says, 'is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive,'-that we are more ready to examine our neighbours than ourselves, and to rest satisfied with finding, or fancying, that we are better than they; forgetting that, even if it really is so, better does not always imply good; and that our course of duty is not like a race which is won by him who runs, however slowly, if the rest are still slower. It is this forgetfulness that causes bad examples to do much the greatest amount of evil among those who do not follow them. For, among the four kinds of bad examples that do us harmnamely, those we imitate-those we proudly exult over-those which drive us into an opposite extreme-and those which lower our standard,-this last is the most hurtful. For one who is corrupted by becoming as bad as a bad example, there are ten that are debased by being content with being better.

But though this observing of faults in another is thus 'sometimes improper for our case '—and though, at any time, to dwell on the faults of another is wrong, yet in the case of a friend, though not of a stranger, we are perhaps ready to fall into the opposite error, of overlooking them altogether, or of defending them. Now, it is absolutely necessary to perceive and acknowledge them: for, if we think ourselves bound to vindicate them in our friend, we shall not be very likely to condemn them in ourselves. Self-love will, most likely, demand fair play, and urge that what is right in our friend is not wrong in us; and we shall have been perverting our own principles of morality; thus turning the friendship that might yield such 'fair fruit' into a baneful poison-tree.

1 Crabbe, Tales of the Hall.

'The two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment) follow the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels . . . .

The manifold use of friendship.'

One of these manifold uses of friendship is, the advantage, not noticed by Bacon, to be derived from a very, very discreet and pure-minded friend; that you may trust him to conceal from you some things which you had better not know. There are cases in which there is an advantage in knowing; and an advantage in not knowing; and the two cannot of course be combined, except by the thing being known to your other self -your 'alter ipse,'—and kept back from you.

For instance, a man may have done something amiss; your friend may say to him, 'I have not told my friend of this, and will not, provided you take care to discontinue the practice-to rectify what is done wrong,-to keep clear of any repetition, &c., as the case may be.' And he will be more encouraged to do so if he knows that your estimation of him is not as yet impaired. And yet such a person has need to be carefully looked after; which of course your friend will take care to do.

And there are other cases also in which such a concealment will be advantageous. But of course one who can be so trusted must be, as has been said, one of consummate wisdom and integrity.

It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted, form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.

ESSAY XXVIII. OF EXPENSE.

ICHES are for spending, and spending for honour and good

actions therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion: for voluntary undoing1 may be as well for a man's country as for the kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax3 rich, but to the third part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken : but wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all had need both chuse well those whom he employeth, and change them often; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behoveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other: as, if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable, and the like; for he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay. In clearing of a man's estate, he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden as in letting it run on too long, for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageable as interest. Besides, he that clears at once will relapse, for, finding himself out of straits, he

1 Undoing.

Ruin. He that ventures to be a surety for another, ventures undoing for his sake.'-South.

'I doubt there's deep resentment in his mind.'-Otway.

5 In respect. In case.

Disadvantageable. Disadvantageous. The said court had given a very disadvantageable relation of three great farms.'—Addison.

will revert to his customs; but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate. Certainly, who' hath a state to repair may not despise small things: and, commonly, it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin charges which, once begun, will continue; but in matters that return not, he may be more magnificent.

ANNOTATIONS.

'Riches are for spending, and spending for honour.'

For those who are above the poorest classes, the heaviest,-or some of the heaviest-expenses are, as Bacon expresses it, for honour'-i. e. for the display of wealth. We do not, indeed, commonly speak of 'display of wealth' except when the wealth and the display of it are something unusually great. We speak rather of 'living in a decent, or in a handsome style.' But this does certainly imply the purchase of many articles which we provide ourselves with because they are costly;-which are provided in order to be observed, and observed as costly; or, which comes to the same thing, because the absence of them would be observed as denoting shabbiness. For instance, a silver watch, or a gilt one, is as useful as a gold one; and beech or cherrytree makes as useful furniture as mahogany or rose-wood. And as for the mere gratification to the eye, of the superior beauty of these latter, this is, to persons of moderate means, no sufficient set-off against the difference of cost. Moreover, a bunch of wild flowers, or a necklace of crab's-eye-seeds, &c., are as pretty to look at, and as becoming, as jewels or coral; and if these latter were to become equally cheap, some other kind of decoration would be sought for, and prized on account of its known costliness.

For, though people censure any one for making a display beyond his station, if he falls below it in what are considered the

1 Who. He who. See page 91.