dertaking offices which I cannot gracefully perform; if I fuffer a more lively tatler to recount the cafualties of a game, or a nimbler fop to pick up a fan, I am cenfured between pity and contempt, as a wretch doomed to grovel in obfcurity for want of affurance.

I have found many young perfons haraffed in the fame manner, by thofe to whom age has given nothing but the affurance which they recommend; and therefore cannot but think it useful to inform them, that cowardice and delicacy are not to be confounded; and that he whofe ftupidity has armed him against the shafts of ridicule, will always act and speak with greater audacity, than they whofe fenfibility repreffes their ardor, and who dare never let their confidence outgrow their abilities.

NUMB. 148. SATURDAY, August 17, 1751.

Me pater fævis oneret catenis
Quod viro clemens mifero peperci,
Me vel extremis Numidarum in oris
Claffe releget.

Me let my father load with chains,
Or banish to Numidia's fartheft plains!
My crime, that I a loyal wife,

In kind compaffion fpar'd my husband's life.

HOR.

FRANCIS.

POLITICIANS remark, that no oppreffion

is fo heavy or lafting as that which is inflicted by the perverfion and exorbitance of legal authority. The robber may be feized, and the invader repelled, whenever they are found; they who pretend no right but that of force, may by force be punished or fuppreffed. But when plunder bears the name of impoft, and murder is perpetrated by a judicial fentence, fortitude is intimidated, and wisdom confounded; resistance shrinks from an alliance with rebellion, and the villain remains fecure in the robes of the magistrate.

Equally dangerous and equally deteftable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable fanction of parental authority; the power which we are taught to honour from the first moments of reafon; which is guarded from infult and violation by all that can impress awe upon the mind of man; and which therefore may wanton in cruelty without controul, and trample the bounds of

right with innumerable tranfgreffions, before duty and piety will dare to feek redress, or think themfelves at liberty to recur to any other means of deli verance than fupplications by which infolence is elated, and tears by which cruelty is gratified.

It was for a long time imagined by the Romans, that no fon could be the murderer of his father; and they had therefore no punishment appropriated to parricide. They feem likewife to have believed with equal confidence, that no father could be cruel to his child; and therefore they allowed every man the fupreme judicature in his own houfe, and put the lives of his offspring into his hands. But experience informed them by degrees, that they determined too haftily in favour of human nature; they found that inftinct and habit were not able to contend with avarice or malice; that the nearest relation might be violated; and that power, to whomfoever intrusted, might be ill employed. They were therefore obliged to fupply and to change their inftitutions; to deter the parricide by a new law, and to transfer capital punishments from the parent to the magiftrate.

There are indeed many houfes which it is impoffible to enter familiarly, without difcovering that parents are by no means exempt from the intoxications of dominion; and that he who is in no danger of hearing remonftrances but from his own confcience, will feldom be long without the art of controlling his convictions, and modifying juftice by his own will.

If in any fituation the heart were inacceffible to malignity, it might be fuppofed to be fufficiently fecured by parental relation. To have voluntarily become to any being the occafion of its existence, produces

produces an obligation to make that existence happy. To fee helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in teftimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealoufy, or any guilt to alienate affection, muft furely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercuffion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of the dignity of benefaction. I believe no generous or benevolent man can fee the vileft animal courting his regard, and fhrinking at his anger, playing his gambols of delight before him, calling on him in diftrefs, and flying to him in danger, without more kindness than he can perfuade himself to feel for the wild and unfocial inhabitants of the air and water. We naturally endear to ourfelves those to whom we impart any kind of pleasure, because we imagine their affection and esteem secured to us by the benefits which they receive.

There is indeed another method by which the pride of fuperiority may be likewife gratified. He that has extinguished all the fenfations of humanity, and has no longer any fatisfaction in the reflection that he is loved as the diftributor of happinefs, may please himself with exciting terror as the inflictor of pain: he may delight his folitude with contemplating the extent of his power and the force of his commands, in imagining the defires that flutter on the tongue which is forbidden to utter them, or the difcontent which preys on the heart in which fear confines it: he may amufe himself with new contrivances of detection, multiplications of prohibition, and varieties of punishment; and fwell with exulta

tion when he confiders how little of the homage that he receives he owes to choice.

That princes of this character have been known, the hiftory of all abfolute kingdoms will inform us ; and fince, as Ariftotle obferves, čixovoμıxń μovagxía, the government of a family is naturally monarchical, it is like other monarchies too often arbitrarily adminiftered. The regal and parental tyrant differ only in the extent of their dominions, and the number of their flaves. The fame paffions cause the same miferies; except that feldom any prince, however defpotick, has fo far fhaken off all awe of the publick eye, as to venture upon those freaks of injuftice, which are sometimes indulged under the fecrecy of a private dwelling. Capricious injunctions, partial decifions, unequal allotments, diftributions of reward not by merit but by fancy, and punishments regulated not by the degree of the offence, but by the humour of the judge, are too frequent where no power is known but that of a father.

That he delights in the mifery of others no man will confefs, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel? The king may be inftigated by one man to the deftruction of another; he may fometimes think himself endangered by the virtues of a subject; he may dread the fuccefsful general or the popular orator; his avarice may point out golden confifcations; and his guilt may whisper that he can only be fecure by cutting off all power of revenge.

But what can a parent hope from the oppreffion of thofe who were born to his protection, of those who can disturb him with no competition, who can enrich him with no fpoils? Why cowards are cruel

may