pensioner, as a synonime of a Commoner, we deem it a most honourable one.

Having thus disclosed the intrinsic value of honorary titles, when applied to literature, and endeavoured to exculpate ourselves from an imputation of either vanity or deceit, we shall take another turn through the public garden, strewing flowers where we can, and grubbing up weeds where we find them.

CHAPTER II.

ON

-

SEEING MANKIND AS THEY ARE, AND NOT AS THEY APPEAR TO BE. THE ADVANTAGES, AND DISADVANTAGES OF HYPOCRISY TO MANKIND.

THE AUTHOR DEFENDS HIMSELF FROM AN INVIDIOUS CHARGE OF MISANTHROPY, AND ENTERS UPON A DELICATE ENQUIRY INTO HIS OWN VERACITY.

Ir is ridiculous to apply the term of seeing life to the mere looking at mankind on the outside, as there is an inward man, as well as an outward one, in the same person: the former is the work of nature; and the latter of art, of the tailor, hair-dresser, shoe-maker, mantua-maker, and milliner. To know mankind, we should not be satisfied with looking at Kings in their royal robes; nobles in their insignia; judges in their coifs; bishops in their lawn; and lawyers, and physicians in their wigs: neither do the female trappings, however modest in appearance, al

ways cover chastity; no-we should strip them, that is, their hearts, naked, and view them as a Jew dealer scrutinizes old clothes which he is about to buy. Men, particularly those who have any designs upon the public,—and there are few, very few without them, disguise their faces, to cover their failings, as old women paint theirs to conceal the furrows of ruthless time, and, when they have once commenced the practice, tlrey cannot leave it off, as their natural deformity would be increased by the very means they take to conceal it. They go on laying one coat of enamel upon another, until those coverings, like the slippery and treacherous glaciers of Savoy and Switzerland, cover a series of cranks, gullies, running streams, and yawning chasms, very often to the destruction of the unwary, and even of the wary traveller.

We are aware that we subject ourselves to be charged with being a rigid moralist, or even a misanthrope, who would paint decorum as hypocrisy, and hypocrisy as vice; but, in return, we shall be satisfied with knowing that none will entertain such an idea, who are not themselves either fools, knaves, or demireps, and

whose diseased state of mind is too weak to bear a health-restoring probe,—too perished to bear handling. But we write not for such incurables.

The box-lobby or street lounger, and modern philosopher male as well as female-in order to avoid the imputation of hypocritical professions, disclaim their belief in the oracles of truth and morality, and rather than be thought to impose upon mankind by the cloak of virtue, they will send their vices naked into the world. This affected frankness is worse than hypocrisy. It has, however, become so prevalent among the present liberal, enlightened generation, that the open avowal of disgrace is reckoned, by all of the sect, a sufficient salvo for crimes; and a man's confession that he is a good-for-nothing fellow, is sufficient to make him pass for an honest one.

This new undisguised liberality is much worse than-old fashioned hypocrisy, which it has almost driven out of the field; and we shall here give a proof that we retain some of the feelings of humanity, by shewing some little degree of compassion towards an exile, which popular

VOL. III.

clamour has turned out of office, and almost expelled the community, to make way for a worse substitute. It should be premised that we are now going to speak only of that kind of hypocrisy, which has no other object than to make the wearer of it appear better than he really is.

What harm is there in this ?-Very little;on the contrary, much good may result from it. We have seen in a former part of this work, that the extremes of opposite virtues and vices are nearly joined; and as every man is tinctured with that virtue which comes nearest to his vice, there can be no harm in his concealing the latter under the mask of his virtue.-Socrates was once told by his friends, that a physiognomist whom they ridiculed as an ignorant pretender, had asserted that he was naturally possessed of certain vices, which were the very reverse of those virtues for which he was famed. "Whatever you may think of this man's opinion," replied Socrates, "I can assure you that there are all those vices in my composition, but that I have subdued them by perseverance."This was a noble effort of humanity, and So