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and ends with the highest grace on each side. | far from greatness of spirit to persist in the wrong To make the acknowledgment of a fault in the in anything; nor is it a diminution of greatness highest manner graceful, it is lucky when the cir- of spirit to have been in the wrong Perfection is cumstances of the offender place him above any not the attribute of man, therefore he is not deill consequences from the resentment of the per- graded by the acknowledgment of an imperson offended. A dauphin of France upon a re-fection; but it is the work of little minds to imiview of the army, and a command of the king to tate the fortitude of great spirits on worthy occaalter the posture of it by a march of one of the sions, by obstinacy in the wrong. This obstinacy wings, gave an improper order to an officer at the prevails so far upon them, that they make it exhead of a brigade, who told his highness, he pre- tend to the defense of faults in their very servants. sumed he had not received the last orders, which It would swell this paper to too great a length were to move a contrary way. The prince, in- should I insert all the quarrels and debates which stead of taking the admonition, which was deli- are now on foot in this town; where one party, vered in a manner that accounted for his error and in some cases both, is sensible of being ou with safety to his understanding, shook a cane at the faulty side, and have not spirit enough to acthe officer, and, with the return of opprobrious knowledge it. Among the ladies the case is very language, persisted in his own orders. The common; for there are very few of them who whole matter came necessarily before the king, know that it is to maintain a true and high spirit, who commanded his son, on foot, to lay his right to throw away from it all which itself disaphand on the gentleman's stirrup as he sat on proves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as that horseback in sight of the whole army, and ask his which disables the heart from acquiring a liberalpardon. When the prince touched his stirrup, ity of affections and sentiments. The candid and was going to speak, the officer with an incre- mind, by acknowledging and discarding its faults, dible agility, threw himself on the earth, and has reason and truth for the foundation of all its kissed his feet. passions and desires, and consequently is happy The body is very little concerned in the pleasure and simple: the disingenuous spirit, by indulor sufferings of souls truly great; and the repara-gence of one unacknowledged error, is entantion, when an honor was designed this soldier, gled with an after-life of guilt, sorrow, appeared as much too great to be borne by his plexity.-T. gratitude, as the injury was intolerable to his

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No. 383.] TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1712. Criminibus debent hortos.-Juv. Sat. i, 75.

When we turn our thoughts from these extraordinary occurrences into common life, we see an ingenuous kind of behavior not only make up for faults committed, but in a manner expiate them in A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain'd. the very commission. Thus many things wherein a man has pressed too far, he implicitly excuses, As I was sitting in my chamber, and thinking by owning, "This is a trespass: you'll pardon on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two my confidence: I am sensible I have no preten- or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, sions to this favor;" and the like. But com- and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice mend me to those gay fellows about town who inquiring whether the philosopher was at home are directly impudent, and make up for it no The child who went to the door answered very otherwise than by calling themselves such, and innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immeexulting in it. But this sort of carriage which diately recollected that it was my good friend Sir prompts a man against rules to urge what he Roger's voice: and that I had promised to go has a mind to, is pardonable only when you sue with him on the water to Spring-garden,* in case for another. When you are confident in prefer- it proved a good evening. The knight put me ence of yourself to others of equal merit, every in mind of my promise from the bottom of the man that loves virtue and modesty ought, in de-staircase, but told me, that if I was speculating, fense of those qualities, to oppose you. But, without considering the morality of the thing, let us at this time behold only the natural consequence of candor when we speak of ourselves.

The Spectator writes often in an elegant, often in an argumentative, and often in a sublime style, with equal success; but how would it hurt the reputed author of that paper to own, that of the most beautiful pieces under his title, he is barely the publisher? There is nothing but what a man really performs can be an honor to him; what he takes more than he ought in the eye of the world, he loses in the conviction of his own heart; and a man must lose his consciousness, that is, his very self, before he can rejoice in any falsehood without inward mortification.

Who has not seen a very criminal at the bar, when his counsel and friends have done all that they could for him in vain, prevail on the whole assembly to pity him, and his judge to recommend his case to the mercy of the throne, without offering anything new in his defense, but that he, whom before we wished convicted, became so out of his own mouth, and took upon himself all the shame and sorrow we were just before preparing for him? The great opposition to this kind of candor arises from the unjust idea people ordinarily have of what we call a high spirit. It is

he would stay below until I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend; and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him: being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy on the head, and bidding him to be a good child and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple-stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking toward it, "You must know," says Sir Roger, "I never make use of anybody to row me, that has not lost either a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'

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My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for

* Now known by the name of Vauxhall.

Vauxhall Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg: and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London-bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple-bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger: "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but church-work is slow, church-work is slow."

I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity; though at the same time, it renders him so popular among all his country neighbors, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but, to the knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in the boat, and whether he was not ashamed to go a-wenching at his years? with a great deal of the like Thames-ribaldry, Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length, assuming a face of magistracy, told us, that if he were a Middlesex justice, he would make such vagrants know that her majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land.

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We were now arrived at Spring-garden, which is excellently pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. You must understand," says the knight, there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator, the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on the widow by the music of the nightingale!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her? But the knight being so startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her she was a wanton baggage;" and bid her go about her business.

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. When we had done

Jn the original publication in folio, it is printed Fox-hall.

eating ourselves, the knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waternian that had but one leg. I perceived the fel low stared upon him at the oddness of the mes sage, and was going to be sauey; upon which I ratified the knight's commands with a peremptory look..

As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself obliged, as a member of the quorum, to animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a better customer to her garden if there were more nightingales, and fewer strumpets.-I.

No. 384.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1712. "Hague, May 24, N. S. The same republican hands, who lave so often since the Chevalier de St. George's recovery killed him in our publie prints, have now reduced the young Dauphin of France to that desperate condition of weakness, and death itself. that it is hard to conjecture what method they will take to bring him to life again. Meantime we are assured by a very good hand from Paris, that on the 20th instant this young prince was as well as ever he was known to be since the day of his birth. As for the other, they are now sending his ghost, we suppose (for they never had the modesty to contradict the assertions of his death), to Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four gentlemen, and a few domestics of little consideration. The Baron de Bothmar having delivered in his credentials to qualify him as an ambassador to this state (an office to which his greatest enemies will acknowledge him to be equal), is gone to Utrecht, whence he will proceed to Hanover, but not stay long at that court, for fear the peace should be made during his lamentable absence."-POST-BOY, May 20.

I SHOULD be thought not able to read, should I overlook some excellent pieces lately come out. My lord bishop of St. Asapht has just now published some sermons, the preface to which seems to me to determine a great point. He has, like a good man, and a good Christian, in opposition to all the flattery and base submission of false friends to princes, asserted, that Christianity left us where it found us as to our civil rights. The present entertainment shall consist only of a sentence out of the Post-Boy, and the said preface of the lord of St. Asaph. I should think it a little odd if the author of the Post-Boy should with impunity call men republicans for a gladness on the report of the death of the pretender; and treat Baron Bothmar, the minister of Hanover, in such a manner as you see in my motto. I must own, I think every man in England concerned to support the succession of that family.

"The publishing a few sermons, while I live, the latest of which was preached about eight years since, and the first above seventeen, will make it very natural for people to inquire into the occasion of doing so; and to such I do very willingly assign these following reasons:

First, from the observations I have been able to make for these many years last past upon our public affairs, and from the natural tendency of several principles and practices, that have of late been studiously revived, and from what has followed thereupon, I could not help both fearing and presaging, that these nations should some time or other, if ever we should have an euterprising prince upon the throne, of more ambition than virtue, justice, and true honor, fall into the way of all other nations, and lose their liberty.

Nor could I help foreseeing to whose charge a great deal of this dreadful mischief, whenever it should happen, would be laid; whether justly or unjustly, was not my business to determine: but

* Ambassador from Hanover, and afterward agent here for the Hanoverian family. Dr. William Fleetwood.

I resolved, for my own particular part, to deliver myself, as well as I could, from the reproaches and the curses of posterity, by publicly declaring to all the world, that although, in the constant course of my ministry, I have never failed, on proper occasions, to recommend, urge, and insist upon the loving, honoring, and reverencing the prince's person, and holding it, according to the laws, inviolable and sacred; and paying all obedience and submission to the laws, though never so hard and inconvenient to private people: yet did I never think myself at liberty, or authorized to tell the people that either Christ, St. Peter, or St. Paul, or any other holy writer, had, by any doctrine delivered by them, subverted the laws and constitutions of the country in which they lived, or put them in a worse condition, with respect to their civil liberties, than they would have been had they not been Christians. I ever thought it a most impious blasphemy against that holy religion, to father anything upon it that might encourage tyranny, oppression, or injustice, in a prince, or that easily tended to make a free and happy people slaves and miserable. No. People may make themselves as wretched as they will, but let not God be called into that wicked party. When force and violence, and hard necessity, have brought the yoke of servitude upon a people's neck, religion will supply them with a patient and submissive spirit under it till they can innocently shake it off: but certainly religion never puts it on. This always was, and this at present is, my judgment of these matters and I would be transmitted to posterity (for the little share of time such names as mine can live), under the character of one who loved his country, and would be thought a good Englishman, as well as a good clergyman.

"This character I thought would be transmitted by the following sermons, which were made for, and preached in, a private audience, when I could think of nothing else but doing my duty on the occasions that were then offered by God's providence, without any manner of design of making them public: and for that reason I give them now as they were then delivered; by which I hope to satisfy those people who have objected a change of principles to me, as if I were not now the same man I formerly was. I never had but one opinion of these matters; and that, I think, is so reasonable and well-grounded, that I believe I can never have any ather.

"Another reason of my publishing these sermons at this time is, that I have a mind to do myself some honor by doing what honor I could to the memory of two most excellent princes, and who have very highly deserved at the hands of all the people of these dominions, who have any true value for the Protestant religion, and the constitution of the English government, of which they were the great deliverers and defenders. I have lived to see their illustrious names very rudely handled, and the great benefits they did this nation treated slightly and contemptuously. I have lived to see our deliverance from arbitrary power and popery traduced and vilified by some who formerly thought it was their greatest merit, and made it part of their boast and glory, to have had a little hand and share in bringing it about; and others who, without it, must have lived in exile, poverty, and misery, meanly disclaiming it, and using il. the glorious instruments thereof. Who could expect such a requital of such merit? I have, I own it, an ambition of exempting myself from the number of unthankful people: and as I loved and honored those great princes living, and lamented over them when deal, so I would gladly raise them up a monument of praise as lasting as

anything of mine can be: and I choose to do it at this time, when it is so unfashionable a thing to speak honorably of them.

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The sermon that was preached upon the Duke of Gloucester's death was printed quickly after, and is now, because the subject was so suitable, joined to the others. The loss of that most promising and hopeful prince was at that time, I saw, unspeakably great; and many accidents since have convinced us that it could not have been overvalued. That precious life, had it pleased God to have prolonged it the usual space, had saved us many fears and jealousies, and dark distrusts, and prevented many alarms that have long kept us, and will keep us still, waking and uneasy. Nothing remained to comfort and support us under this heavy stroke, but the necessity it brought the king and nation under of settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and giving it a hereditary right by act of parliament, as long as it continues Protestant. So much good did God, in his merciful providence, produce from a mis fortune, which we could never otherwise have sufficiently deplored!

"The fourth sermon was preached upon the queen's accession to the throne, and the first year in which that day was solemnly observed (for by some accident or other it had been overlooked the year before); and every one will see, without the date of it, that it was preached very early in this reign, since I was able only to promise and presage its future glories and successes, from the good appearances of things, and the happy turn our affairs began to take; and could not then count up the victories and triumphs that, for seven years after, made it, in the prophet's language, a name and a praise among all the people of the earth. Never did seven such years together pass over the head of any English monarch, nor cover it with so much honor. The crown and scepter seemed to be the queen's least ornaments; those, other princes wore in common with her, and her great personal virtues were the same before and since; but such was the fame of her administration of affairs at home, such was the reputation of her wis dom and felicity in choosing ministers, and such was then esteemed their faithfulness and zeal, their diligence and great abilities, in executing her commands; to such a height of military glory did her great general and her armies carry the British name abroad; such was the harmony and concord betwixt her and her allies; and such was the blessing of God upon all her counsels and undertakings, that I am as sure as history can make me, no prince of ours ever was so prosperous and successful, so beloved, esteemed, and honored by their subjects and their friends, nor near so formidable to their enemies. We were, as all the world imagined then, just entering on the ways that promised to such a peace as would have answered all the prayers of our religious queen, the care and vigilance of a most able ministry, the payment of a willing and most obedient people, as well as all the glorious toils and hazards of the soldiery; when God, for our sins, permitted the spirit of discord to go forth, and by troubling sore the camp, the city, and the country, (and oh that it had altogether spared the places sacred to his worship!) to spoil, for a time, this beautiful and pleasing prospect, and give us, in its stead, I know not what-Our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure. It will become me better to pray to God to restore us to the power of obtaining such a peace as will be to his glory, the safety, honor, and welfare of the queen and her dominions, and the general sa tisfaction of all her high and mighty allies -T "May 2, 1712."

No. 385.] THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1712.

-Thesea pectora juncta fide.-OVID, 1 Trist. iii. 66.
Breasts that with sympathizing ardor glow'd,
And holy friendship, such as Theseus vow'd.

I INTEND the paper for this day as a loose essay upon friendship, in which I shall throw my observations together without any set form, that I may avoid repeating what has been often said on this subject.

Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another. Though the pleasures and advantages of friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral writers, and are considered by all as great ingredients of human happiness, we very rarely meet with the practice of this virtue in the world.

Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue of those virtues and good qualities he expects to find in the person of a friend, but very few of us are careful to cultivate them in ourselves.

Love and esteem are the first principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.

As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a man whom we cannot esteem; so, on the other, though we are truly sensible of a man's abilities, we can never raise ourselves to the warmths of friendship, without an affectionate good-will toward his person.

Friendship immediately banishes envy under all its disguises. A man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his friend's being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to this virtue.

ruined. Lastly, even in that bloody war between Antony and Augustus, Atticus still kept his place in both their friendships: insomuch that the first, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he was absent from Rome in any part of the empire, wrote punctually to him what he was doing, what he read, and whither he intended to go; and the latter gave him constantly an exact account of all his affairs. A likeness of inclinations in every particular is so far from being requisite to form a benevolence in two minds toward each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest friendships to have been contracted between persons of different humors; the mind being often pleased with those perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among its own accomplishments. Beside that a man in some measure supplies his own defects, and fancies himself at second-hand possessed of those good qualities and endowments which are in the possession of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other self.

The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches therefore of a friend should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.

The violent desire of pleasing in the person 1eproved, may otherwise change into a despair of doing it, while he finds himself censured for faults he is not conscious of. A mind that is softened and humanized by friendship cannot bear frequent reproaches; either it must quite sink under the oppression, or abate considerably of the value and esteem it had for him who bestows them.

The proper business of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a soul thus supported outdoes itself; whereas, if it be unexpectedly deprived of these succors, it droops and languishes.

There is something in friendship so very great and noble, that in those fictitious stories which are invented to the honor of any particular person, the authors have thought it as necessary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and Eneas his Achates. In the first of these instances we may observe, for the reputation of the subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruined by the hero's love, but was pre-since the former arises from a voluntary choice, served by his friendship. the latter from a necessity to which we could not give our own consent.

The character of Achates suggests to us an observation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who frequently choose their companLous rather for the qualities of the heart than those of the head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inoffensive, complying temper, to those endowments which make a much greater figure among mankind. I do not remember that Achates, who is represented as the first favorite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow, through the whole Eneid.

A friendship which makes the least noise is very often most useful; for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.

Atticus, one of the best men of ancient Rome, was a very remarkable instance of what I am here speaking. This extraordinary person, amid the civil wars of his country, when he saw the designs of all parties equally tended to the subversion of liberty, by constantly preserving the esteem and affection of both the competitors, found means to serve his friends on either side: and, while he sent money to young Marius, whose father was declared an enemy to the commonwealth, he was himself one of Sylla's chief favorites, and always near that general.

During the war between Caesar and Pompey, he still maintained the same conduct. After the death of Cæsar, he sent money to Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand good offices to Antomy's wife and friends when that party seemed

We are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our duties to a friend than to a relation.

As it has been said on one side, that a man ought not to break with a faulty friend, that he may not expose the weakness of his choice; it will doubtless hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, that he may never be upbraided for having lost so valuable a treasure which was once in his possession.—X.

No. 386.] FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1712. Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere.-TULL,

THE piece of Latin on the head of this paper is part of a character extremely vicious, but I have set down no more than may fall in with the rules of justice and honor. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who, he said, "lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleasantly; " he added, “ with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lasciviously." The two last instances of his complaisance I forbear to consider, having it in my thoughts at present only to speak of obsequious behavior as it sits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of design and intrigue. To vary with every humor in this manner cannot be agreeable, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming prostitution

imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain no | act of nature, must be everywhere prevalent, beother end but an unjust praise from the undis- cause everything it meets is a fit occasion to exert cerning, is of all endeavors the most despicable. it: for he who follows nature can never be impro A man must be sincerely pleased to become plea- | per or unseasonable. sure, or not to interrupt that of others; for this reason it is a most calamitous circumstance, that many people who want to be alone, or should be so, will come into conversation. It is certain that all men, who are the least given to reflection, are seized with an inclination that way: when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company; but indeed they had better go home and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon othe.s to recover their good humor. In all this, the case of communicating to a friend a sad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, stands excepted; but what is here meant is, that a man should always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or not pretend to be of the party. It is certainly a very happy temper to be able to live with all kinds of dispositions, because it argues a mind that lies open to receive what is pleasing to others, and not obstinately bent on any particularity of his own.

This is it which makes me pleased with the character of my good acquaintance Acasto. You meet him at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one sect of men; but Acasto has natural good sense, good nature, and discretion, so that every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acasto contributes nothing to the entertainment, he never was at a place where he was not welcome a second time. Without the subordinate good qualities of Acasto, a man of wit and learning would be painful to the generality of mankind, instead of being pleasing. Witty men are apt to imagine they are agreeable as such, and by that means grow the worst companions imaginable; they deride the absent or rally the present in a wrong manner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a man till he is uneasy in his seat, or ungracefully distinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him. ·

How unaccountable then must their behavior be, who, without any manner of consideration of what the company they have just now entered are upon, give themselves the air of a messenger, and make as distinct relations of the occurrences they last met with, as if they had been dispatched from those they talk to, to be punctually exact in a report of those circumstances! It is unpardonable to those who are met to enjoy one another that a fresh man shall pop in, and give us only the last part of his own life, and put a stop to ours during the history. If such a man comes from 'Change, whether you will or not, you must hear how the stocks go: and, though you are never so intently employed on a graver subject, a young fellow of the other end of the town will take his place and tell you, Mrs. Such-a-one is charmingly handsome, because he just now saw her. But I think I need not dwell on this subject, since I have acknowledged there can be no rules made for excelling this way; and precepts of this kind fare like rules for writing poetry, which, it is said, may have prevented ill poets, but never made good ones.-T.

No. 387.] SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1712.
Quid pure tranquillet- -HOR. 1 Ep. xviii, 102.
What calms the breast, and makes the mind serene?

IN my last Saturday's paper I spoke of cheer fulness as it is a moral habit of the mind, and accordingly mentioned such moral motives as are apt to cherish and keep alive this happy temper in the soul of man: I shall now consider cheerfulness in its natural state, and reflect on those motives to it, which are indifferent either as to virtue or vice.

Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the best promoter of health. Repinings, and secret murmurs of heart, give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibers of which the vital parts are composed, I was going to say, the true art of being agree- and wear out the machine insensibly: not to menable in company (but there can be no such thing tion those violent ferments which they stir up in as art in it) is to appear well pleased with those the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions you are engaged with, and rather to seem well en- which they raise in the animal spirits. I scarce tertained, than to bring entertainment to others. remember, in my own observation, to have met A man thus disposed is not indeed what we ordi- with many old men, or with such, who (to use our narily call a good companion, but essentially is English phrase) wear well, that had not at least a such, and in all the parts of his conversation has certain indolence in their humor, if not a more something friendly in his behavior, which concil- than ordinary gayety and cheerfulness of heart. iates men's minds more than the highest sallies of The truth of it is, health and cheerfulness mutuwit or starts of humor can possibly do. The fee-ally beget each other; with this difference, that we bleness of age in a man of this turn has something which should be treated with respect even in a man no otherwise venerable. The forwardness of youth, when it proceeds from alacrity and not insolence, has also its allowances. The companion who is formed for such by nature, gives to every character of life its due regards, and is ready to account for their imperfections, and receive their accomplishments as if they were his own. It must appear that you receive law from, and not give it, to your company, to make you agreeable.

I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of Antony, says, that, In eo facetiæ erant, quæ nulla arte tradi possunt: "He had a witty mirth, which could be acquired by no art." This quality must be of the kind of which I am now speaking; for all sorts of behavior which depend upon observation and knowledge of life are to be acquired; but that which no one can describe, and is apparently the

seldom meet with a great degree of health which is not attended with a certain cheerfulness, but very often see cheerfulness where there is no grea degree of health.

Cheerfulness bears the same friendly regard to the mind as to the body. It banishes all anxious care and discontent, soothes and composes the passions, and keeps the soul in a perpetual calm. But having already touched on this last consideration, I shall here take notice, that the world in which we are placed is filled with innumerable objects that are proper to raise and keep alive this happy temper of mind.

If we consider the world in its subserviency to man, one would think it was made for our use; but if we consider it in its natural beauty and harmony, one would be apt to conclude it was made for our pleasure. The sun, which is as the great soul of the universe, and produces all the necessaries of life, has a particular influence in

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