I am very much pleafed witli a paffage in the infcription on a monument erected in Westminster-Abbey to the late Duke and Duchefs of Newcastle : Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest fifter to the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for all. the brothers were valiant, and all the fifters virCatuous, ndi bra, dob adi lo esminded as at

In books of chivalry, where the point of honour is ftrained to madness, the whole ftory runs on chastity and courage. The damfel is mounted on a white palfrey, as an emblem of her innocence; and, to avoid fcandal, moft have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man, till fome misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her relief. The knight falls in love, and did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her difdain. However he muft wait› fome years in the defert, before her virgin-heart can think of a furrender. The knight goes off, attacks every thing he meets that is bigger and strong-er than himself, fecks all opportunities of being knock'd on the head, and after feven years rambling. returns to his miftrefs, whofe chaftity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valour.

In Spain, where there are ftill great remains of this romantick humour, it is a tranfporting favour for a lady to caft an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three ftories high; as it is ufual for the lover to affert his paffion for his mistress, in fingle combat with a mad bull.

The great violation of the point of honour from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tellsanother he whores, drinks, blafphemes, and it may pafs unrefented; but to fay he lies, though but in jeft, is an affront that nothing but blood can ex piate. The reafon perhaps may be becaufe no other vice implies a want of courage fo much as the making of a lie.; and therefore telling a man he lies, is

touching

touching him in the moft fenfible part of honour, and indirectly calling him a coward. I cannot omit under this head what Herodotus tells us of the antient Perfians, That from the age of five years to twenty they inftruct their fons only in three things, to manage the horse, to make ufe of the bow, and to fpeak truth.

The placing the point of honour in this falfe kind of courage, has given occafion to the very refufe of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common fenfe, to fet up for men of honour. An Englifb peer, who has not been long dead, used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman that vifited him early one morning at Paris, and after great profeffions of refpect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which in fhort, amounted to this, that he believed he could tell his lordship the perfon's name who juftled him as he came out from the opera; but before he would proceed, he begged his lordfhip that he would not deny him the honour of making him his fecond. The Englif lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him, that he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends. Upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordfhip would not take it ill if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage.

The beating down this falfe notion of honour, in fo vain and lively a people as thofe of France, is defervedly looked upon as one of the moft glorious parts of their prefent king's reign. It is pity but the punishment of thefe mifchievous notions fhould have in it fome particular circumstances of fhame and infamy, that thofe who are flaves to them may fee, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and difhonour.

Death is not fufficient to deter men who make it their glory to defpife it; but if every one that fought

fought a duel were to ftand in the pillory, it would quickly leffen the number of thefe imaginary men of honour, and put an end to fo abfurd a practice.

When honour is a fupport to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged: But when the dictates of honour are contrary to thofe of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and falfe ideas of what is good and laudable; and fhould therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human fociety.

********************** MONDAY, JUNE 25.

No 100.

Nil ego contulerim jucundo fanus amico, notádi

L

SHOR. Sat. v. l. 1. v. 44.

The greatest blefling is a pleasant friend.

A MAN advanced in years that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and calls that only life which was paffed with fatisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleafant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humour, and idlenefs, will have robbed him of a great fhare of that space ordinarily call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if poffible, a difpofition to be pleafed, and place, himself in a conftant aptitude for the fatisfactions of his being. Inftead of this, you hardly fee a man who is not uneafy in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life. An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in those who pretend to be refined above others: They do not aim at true pleasures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon obferving the falfe pleafures of other men.

Such

Such people are valetudinarians in fociety, and they fhould no more come into company than a fick man fhould come into the air: If a man is too weak to bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he muft ftill keep his chamber. When any one in Sir ROGER's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for fome poffet-drink for him; for which reafon that fort of people who are ever bewailing their conftitution in other places, are the chearfulleft imaginable when he is present.

It is a wonderful thing that fo many, and they not reckoned abfurd, fhall entertain those with whom they converfe by giving them the history of their pains and aches; and imagine fuch narrations their quota of the converfation. This is of all other the meaneft help to difcourfe, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very infignificant, when he finds an account of his headach anfwered by another afking what news in the last mail? Mutual good-humour is a drefs we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we fhould make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice: But indeed there are crowds of people who put themfelves in no method of pleafing themselves or others: Such are those whom we ufually call indolent perfons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate ftate between pleafure and pain, and very much. unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurfe's arms. Such an averfion to labour creates a constant weariness, and one would think fhould make exiftence itfelf a burden. The indolent man defcends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative His life confifts only in the mere increafe and decay of a body, which, with relation to the reft of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind. barOf this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple,

couple, Harry Terfett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert crea tures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. Thefe two people of feeming merit fell into each other's arms; and paffion being fated, and no reafon or good-fenfe in either to fucceed it, their life is now at a ftand; their meals are infipid, and their time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their lofs of tafte reduced them below diverfion. When we talk of these as inftances of inexiftence, we do not mean, that in order to live it is neceffary we fhould always be in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of rofes, as the merry fellows among the ancients are defcribed; but it is intended by confidering thefe contraries to pleafure, indolence, and too much delicacy, to fhew that it is prudence to preferve a difpofition in ourfelves to receive a certain delight in all we hear and fee.

a

This portable quality of good-humour feafons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in fuch manner, that there are no moments loft; but they all pafs with fo much fatisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load) that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears: The fad, the merry, the fevere, the melancholy, fhew a new cheerfulness when he comes amongst them. At the fame time, no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever faid that deferves repetition; but the man has that innate goodnefs of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is fo to him. He does not feem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimsically faid of a gentleman, that if Varilas had