titude and simple gratitude, untinctured with love, is all the return an ingenuous mind can bestow for former benefits.

But gratitude and love are almost opposite affections; love is often an involuntary passion, placed upon our companions without our consent, and frequently conferred without our previous esteem. We love some men, we know not why; our tenderness is naturally excited in all their concerns; we excuse their faults with the same indulgence, and approve their virtues with the same applause with which we consider our own. While we entertain the passion it pleases us, we cherish it with delight, and give it up with reluctance; and love for love is all the reward we expect or desire.

Gratitude, on the contrary, is never conferred, but where there have been previous endeavours to excite it; we consider it as a debt, and our spirits wear a load till we have discharged the obligation. Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind; proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.

Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating affection of the mind: we never reflect on the man we love, without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone, rises to our idea as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom. Love and gratitude are seldom therefore found in the same breast without impairing each other; we may tender the one or the other singly to those we converse with, but cannot command both together. By attempting to increase, we diminish them; the mind becomes bankrupt under too large obligations; all additional benefits lessen every hope of future return, and bar up every avenue that leads to tenderness.

In all our connexions with society, therefore, it is not only generous, but prudent, to appear insensible of the value of those favours we bestow, and endeavour to make the obligation seem as slight as possible. Love must be taken by

stratagem, and not by open force: we should seem ignorant that we oblige, and leave the mind at full liberty to give or refuse its affections; for constraint may indeed leave the receiver still grateful, but it will certainly produce disgust.

If to procure gratitude be our only aim, there is no great art in making the acquisition; a benefit conferred demands a just acknowledgment, and we have a right to insist upon our due.

But it were much more prudent to forego our right on such an occasion, and exchange it, if we can, for love. We receive but little advantage from repeated protestations of gratitude, but they cost him very much from whom we exact them in return; exacting a grateful acknowledgment is demanding a debt by which the creditor is not advantaged, and the debtor pays with reluctance.

As Mencius the philosopher was travelling in pursuit of wisdom, night overtook him at the foot of a gloomy mountain, remote from the habitations of men. Here, as he was straying, while rain and thunder conspired to make solitude still more hideous, he perceived a hermit's cell, and approaching, asked for shelter: "Enter," cries the hermit, in a severe tone, men deserve not to be obliged, but it would be imitating their ingratitude to treat them as they deserve. Come in examples of vice may sometimes strengthen us in the ways of virtue."

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After a frugal meal, which consisted of roots and tea, Mencius could not repress his curiosity to know why the hermit had retired from mankind, the actions of whom taught the truest lessons of wisdom. "Mention not the name of man," cries the hermit, with indignation; "here let me live retired from a base ungrateful world, here among the beasts of the forest I shall find no flatterers; the lion is a generous enemy, and the dog a faithful friend; but man, base man, can poison the bowl, and smile while he presents it!""You have been used ill by mankind," interrupted the philosopher shrewdly. "Yes," returned the hermit, "on mankind I have exhausted my whole fortune, and this

staff, and that cup, and these roots, are all that I have in return."" Did you bestow your fortune, or did you only lend it ?" returned Mencius. " I bestowed it undoubtedly," replied the other, "for where were the merit of being a money-lender?""Did they ever own that they had received it ?" still adds the philosopher. "A thousand times," cries the hermit; "they every day loaded me with professions of gratitude, for obligations received, and solicitations for future favours.""If then," says Mencius smiling, "you did not lend your fortune in order to have it returned, it is unjust to accuse them of ingratitude; they owned themselves obliged, you expected no more, and they certainly earned each favour by frequently acknowledging the obligation." The hermit was struck with the reply, and surveying his guest with emotion," I have heard of the great Mencius, and you certainly are the man: I am now fourscore years old, but still a child in wisdom; take me back to the school of man, and educate me as one of the most ignorant and the youngest of your disciples !"

Indeed, my son, it is better to have friends in our passage through life than grateful dependants; and as love is a more willing, so it is a more lasting tribute than extorted obligation. As we are uneasy when greatly obliged, gratitude once refused can never after be recovered: the mind that is base enough to disallow the just return, instead of feeling any uneasiness upon recollection, triumphs in its new acquired freedom, and in some measure is pleased with conscious baseness.

Very different is the situation of disagreeing friends, their separation produces mutual uneasiness: like that divided being in fabulous creation, their sympathetic souls once more desire their former union; the joys of both are imperfect; their gayest moments tinctured with uneasiness; each seeks for the smallest concessions to clear the way to a wished-for explanation; the most trifling acknowledgment, the slightest accident serves to effect a mutual reconciliation.

But instead of pursuing the thought, permit me to soften the severity of advice, by an European story, which will fully illustrate my meaning.

A fiddler and his wife, who had rubbed through life, as most couples usually do, sometimes good friends, at others not quite so well, one day happened to have a dispute, which was conducted with becoming spirit on both sides. The wife was sure she was right, and the husband was resolved to have his own way. What was to be done in such a case? the quarrel grew worse by explanations, and at last the fury of both rose to such a pitch, that they made a vow never to sleep together in the same bed for the future. This was the most rash vow that could be imagined, for they still were friends at bottom, and besides they had but one bed in the house; however, resolved they were to go through with it, and at night the fiddlecase was laid in bed between them, in order to make a separation. In this manner they continued for three weeks; every night the fiddlecase being placed as a barrier to divide them.

By this time, however, each heartily repented of their vow, their resentment was at an end, and their love began to return; they wished the fiddlecase away, but both had too much spirit to begin. One night, however, as they were both lying awake with the detested fiddlecase between them, the husband happened to sneeze; to which the wife, as is usual in such cases, bid God bless him; "Ay but," returns the husband, "woman, do you say that from your heart ?" "Indeed I do, my poor Nicholas," cries his wife, " I say it with all my heart." "If so then," says the husband, "we had as good remove the fiddlecase."

VOL. III.

2 G

LETTER LXVI.

From the Same.

BOOKS, my son, while they teach us to respect the interests of others, often make us unmindful of our own; while they instruct the youthful reader to grasp at social happiness, he grows miserable in detail, and attentive to universal harmony, often forgets that he himself has a part to sustain in the concert. I dislike therefore the philosopher, who describes the inconveniences of life in such pleasing colours, that the pupil grows enamoured of distress, longs to try the charms of poverty, meets it without dread, nor fears its inconveniences till he severely feels them.

A youth, who has thus spent his life among books, new to the world, and unacquainted with man but by philosophic information, may be considered as a being, whose mind is filled with the vulgar errors of the wise; utterly unqualified for a journey through life, yet confident of his own skill in the direction, he sets out with confidence, blunders on with vanity, and finds himself at last undone.

He first has learned from books, and then lays it down as a maxim, that all mankind are virtucus, or vicious in excess; and he has been long taught to detest vice, and love virtue : warm, therefore, in attachments, and steadfast in enmity, he treats every creature as a friend or foe; expects from those he loves unerring integrity, and consigns his enemies to the reproach of wanting every virtue. On this principle he proceeds; and here begin his disappointments: upon a closer inspection of human nature, he perceives, that he should have moderated his friendship, and softened his severity; for he often finds the excellences of one part of mankind clouded with vice, and the faults of the other brightened with virtue; he finds no character so sanctified that has not