All men pursue Good, and would be happy, if they knew how: not happy for minutes, and miferable for hours; but happy, if poffible, through every part of their existence. Either, therefore, there is a good of this fteady, durable kind, or there is none. If none, then all good muft be tranfient and uncertain; and if fo, an object of the lowest value, which can little deserve either our attention or inquiry. But if there be a better good, fuch a good as we are feeking; like every other thing, it must be derived from fome caufe; and that cause must be either external, internal, or mixed; in as much as, except thefe three, there is no other poffible. Now a fteady, durable good cannot be derived from an external caufe; by reason, all derived from externals muft fluctuate as they fluctuate. By the fame rule, not from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external will proportionably deftroy its effence. What then remains but the cause internal; the very cause which we have fuppofed, when we place the Sovereign Good in Mind-in Rectitude of Conduct? Ibid. As § 119. The Choice of Hercules. When Hercules was in that part of his youth, in which it was natural for him to confider what courfe of life he ought to purfue, he one day retired into a defert, where the filence and folitude of the place very much favoured his meditations. he was mufing on his prefent condition, and very much perplexed in himself on the ftate of life he should chufe, he faw two women, of a larger ftature than ordinary, approaching towards him. One of them had a very noble air, and graceful deportment; her beauty was natural and eafy, her perfon clean and unfpotted, her eyes caft towards the ground with an agreeable referve, her motion and behaviour full of modefty, and her raiment as white as fnow. The other had a great deal of health and floridness in her countenance, which he had helped with an artificial white and red; and the endeavoured to appear more graceful than ordinary in her mien, by a mixture of affectation in all her geftures. She had a wonderful confidence and affurance in her looks, and all the variety of colours in her dress, that she thought were the most proper to fhew her complexion to advantage. She cat her eyes upon herfelf, then turned them on thofe that were prefent, to fee how they liked her, and often looked on the figure she made in her own fhadow. Upon her nearer ap proach to Hercules, fhe ftepped before the other lady, who came forward with a regular, compofed carriage, and running up to him, accofted him after the following manner: 66 My dear Hercules," fays fhe, "I find you are very much divided in your thoughts upon the way of life that you ought to chufe: be my friend, and follow me; I will lead you into the poffeffion of pleasure, and out of the reach of pain, and remove you from all the noife and difquietude of business. The affairs of either war or peace fhall have no power to difturb you. Your whole employment fhall be to make your life eafy, and to entertain every fense with its proper gratifications. Sumptuous tables, beds of rofes, clouds of perfumes, concerts of mufic, crowds of beauties, are all in readinefs to receive you. Come along with me into this region of delights, this world of pleasure, and bid farewel for ever to care, to pain, to bufiness." Hercules hearing the lady talk after this manner, defired to know her name: to which she anfwered, "My friends, and those who are well acquainted with me, call me Happiness; but my enemies, and those who would injure my reputation, have given me the name of Pleasure." By this time the other lady was come up, who addreffed herself to the young hero in a very different manner: Her cules," fays he, "I offer myself to you, because I know you are defcended from the Gods, and give proofs of that descent, by your love to virtue, and application to the ftudies proper for your age. This makes me hope you will gain, both for yourself and me, an immortal reputation. But before I invite you into my fociety and friendship, I will be open and fincere with you; and muf lay this down as an established truth, that there is nothing truly valuable, which can be purchased withour without pains and labour. The Gods have fet a price upon every real and noble pleasure. If you would gain the favour of the Deity, you must be at the pains of worfhipping him; if the friendship of good men, you must ftudy to oblige them; if you would be honoured by your country, you must take care to ferve it: in fhort, if you would be eminent in war or peace, you must become matter of all the qualifications that can make you fo. Thefe are the only terms and conditions upon which I can propofe happiness." The Goddess of Pleafure here broke in upon her discourse: "You fee," faid fe, "Hercules, by her own confeffion, the way to her pleasures is long and difficult; whereas that which I propofe is fhort and eafy." "Alas!" faid the other lady, whofe vifage glowed with paffion, made up of fcorn and pity, "what are the pleafures you propofe? To eat before you are hungry, drink before you are athirit, fleep before you are tired; to gratify appetites before they are raifed, and raite fuch appetites as nature never planted. You never heard the mott delicious mufic, which is the praife of one's-felf; nor faw the most beautiful object, which is the work of one's own hands. Your votaries pafs away their youth in a dream of miftaken pleafures; while they are hoarding up anguish, torment, and remorfe, for old age. "As for me, I am the friend of Gods, and of good men; an agreeable companion to the artizan; an houthold guardian to the fathers of families; a patron and protector of fervants; an affociate in all true and generous friendships. The banquets of my votaries are never coitly, but always delicious; for none eat or drink at thera, who are not invited by hunger and thirft. Their flumbers are found, and their wakings chearful. My young men have the pleasure of hearing themfelves praised by thofe who are in years; and thofe who are in years, of being honoured by thofe who are young. In a word, my followers are favoured by the Gods, beloved by their acquaintance, eflcemed by their country, and, after the close of their labours, honoured by polterity." We know, by the life of this memorable hero, to which of thefe two ladies he gave up his heart; and, I believe, every one who reads this, will do him the juffice to approve his choice. Tatler. As you are now no longer under the eye of either a parent, or a governor, but wholly at liberty to act according to your own inclinations; your friends cannot be without their fears, on your account; they cannot but have fome uneafy apprehenfions, left the very bad men, with whom you may converfe, fhould be able to efface thofe principles, which fo much care was taken at firfi to imprint, and has been fince to preferve, in you. The intimacy, in which I have, for many years, lived with your family, fuffers me not to be otherwife than a fharer of their concern, on this occafion; and you will permit me, as fuch, to lay before you thofe confiderations, which, while they fhew you your danger, and excite your caution, may not be without their ufe in promoting your fafety. That it fhould be the endeavour of our. parents, to give us juft apprehenfions of things, as foon as we are capable of receiving them; and, in our earlier years, to frock our minds with ufeful truths-to accuftom us to the ufe of our reafon, the refraint of our appetites, and the government of our paffions, is a point, on which, I believe, all are agreed, whofe opinions about it you would think of any confequence. From a neglect in thefe particulars, you fee fo many of one fex, as much Girls at Sixty, as they were at Sixteen-their follies only varied-their purfuits, though differently, yet equally, trifling; and you thence, likewife, find near as many of the other fex, Boys in their advanced yearsas fond of feathers and toys in their riper age, as they were in their childhood-living as little to any of the purposes of Reafon, when it has gained its full ftrength, as they did when it was weakeft. And, indeed, from the fame fource all thofe vices proceed, which moft difturb and diftrefs the world. When no pains are taken to correct our bad inclinations, before they become confirmed and fixed in us; they acquire, at length, that power over us, from which we have the worft to fear-we give way to then in the intances where we fee plaineft, how grievoully we muft fuffer by our com 7. pliance I don't fay, that a right education will be as beneficial, as a wrong one is hurtful: the very beft may be difappointed of its proper effects. Though the tree you fet be put into an excellent foil, and trained and pruned by the skilfulleft hand; you are not, however, fure of its thriving: vermin may deftroy all your hopes from it. When the utmost care has been taken to fend a young man into the world well principled, and fully apprised of the reasonableness of a religious and virtuous life; he is, yet, far from being temptation proof -he even then may fall, may fall into the worst both of principles and practices; and he is very likely to do fo, in the place where you are, if he will affociate with those who speak as freely as they act; and who seem to think, that their understanding would be lefs advantageoufly fhewn, were they not to use it in defence of their vices. That we may be known by our company, is a truth become proverbial. The ends we have to ferve may, indeed, occafion us to be often with the perfons, whom we by no means refemble; or, the place, in which we are fettled, keeping us at a great diftance from others, if we will converfe at all, it must be with fome, whofe manners we leaft approve. But when we have our choice-when no valuable intereft is promoted by affociating with the corrupt-when, if we like the company of the wife and confiderate, we may have it; that we then court the one, and fhun the other, feems as full a proof, as we can well give, that, if we avoid vice, it is not from the fenfe we have of the amiableneis of virtue. Had I a large collection of books, and never looked into any that treated on grave and useful fubjects, that would contribute to make me wifer or better; but took thofe frequently, and thofe only, into my hands, that would raife my laughter, or that would merely amufe me, or that. would give me loofe and impure ideas, or that inculcated atheistical or sceptical notions, or that were filled with fcurrility and invective, and therefore could only ferve to gratify my fpleen and ill-nature; they, who knew this to be my practice, muft, certainly, form a very unfavourable opinion of my capacity, or of my morals. If nature had given me a good understanding, and much of my time paffed in reading : were I to read nothing but what was trifling, it would fpoil that understanding, it would make me a Trifler: and though formed with commendable difpofitions, or with none very blameable; yet if my favourite authors were-fuch as encouraged me to make the most of the prefent hour; not look beyond it, to tafte every pleafuret offered itself, to forego no advantage, that I could obtain-fuch as gave vice nothing to fear, nor virtue any thing to hope, in a future ftate; you would not, I am fure, pronounce otherwife of those writers, than that they would hurt iny natural difpofition, and carry me lengths of guilt, which I fhould not have gone, without this encouragement to it. Nor can it be allowed, that reading wrong things would thus affect me, but it must be admitted, that bearing them would not do it lefs. Both fall under the head of Conversation; we fitly apply that term alike to both; and we may be faid, with equal propriety, to converse with books, and to converfe with men. The impreffion, indeed, made on us by what we hear, is, ufually, much stronger than that received by us from what we read. That which paffes in our ufual inter courfe is liftened to, without fatiguing us: each, then, taking his turn in fpeaking, our attention is kept awake: we mind. throughout what is faid, while we are at liberty to exprefs our own fentiments of it, to confirm it, or to improve upon it, or to object to it, or to hear any part of it repeated, or to afk what questions we please concerning it. Difcourfe is an application to our eyes, as well as ears; and the one organ is here fo far affiftant to the other, that it greatly increafes the force of what is tranfmitted to our minds by it. The air and action of the fpeaker gives no finall importance to his words: the very tone of his voice adds weight to his reafoning; and occafions that to be attended to throughout, which, hal it come to us from the pen or the press, we should have been asleep, before we had read half of it. That bad companions will make us as bad as themfelves, I don't affirm. Whe we are not kept from their vices by our principles, we may be fo by our conftitu H tion; tion; we may be less profligate than they are, by being more cowardly: hut what I advance as certain is, That we cannot be fafe among. them that they will, in fome degree, and may in a very great one, hurt our morals. You may not, perhaps, be unwilling to have a diftinct view of the reafons, upon which I affert this. I will enter upon them in my next. I was going to write adieu, when it came into my thoughts, that though you may not be a ftranger to the much cenfured doctrine of our countryman Pelagius -a stranger to his having denied original fin; you may, perhaps, have never heard how he accounted for the depravity, fo manifeft in the whole of our race-He afcribed it to imitation. Had he faid, that imitation makes fome of us very bad, and most of us worse than we otherwife fhould have been; I think he would not have paffed for an heretic. Dean Belton. $121. J. ETTER SIR, II. I promifed you, that you fhould have the reafons, why I think that there is great danger of your being hurt by vitious acquaintance. The first thing I have here to propofe to your confideration is, what I just mentioned at the clofe of my lat-our aptnefs to imitate. you a For many years of our life we are forming ourselves upon what we obferve in thofe about us. We do not only learn their phrafe, but their manners. You perceive among whom we were educated, not more plainly by our idiom, than by our behaviour. The cottage offers brood, with all the rufticity and favagenefs of its grown inhabitants. The civility and courtesy, which, in a well-ordered family, are conftantly feen by its younger members, fail not to influence their deportment; and will, whatever their natural brutality may be, difpofe them to check its appearance, and exprefs an averfenefs from what is rude and difgufting. Let the defcendant of the meaneit be placed, from his infancy, where he perceives every one mindful of decorum; the marks of his extraction are foon obliterated; at leaft, his carriage does not difcover it: and were the heir of his Grace to be continually in the kitchen or ftables, you would foon only know the young Lord by his cloaths and title: in other refpects, you would judge him the fon of the groom or the fcullion. Nor is the difpofition to imitate confined to our childhood; when this is past, and the man is to fhew himself, he takes his colours, if I may fo fpeak, from those he is near-he copies their appearance-he feldom is, what the ufe of his reafon, or what his own inclinations, would make him. Are the opinions of the generality, in most points, any other, than what they hear advanced by this or that person high in their esteem, and whofe judgment they will not allow themselves to question? You well know, that one could not lately go into company, but the first thing faid was -You have, undoubtedly, read -What an excellent performance it is! The fine imagination of its noble author discovers itself in every line. As foon as this noble author ferioufly difowned it, all the admiration of it was at an end. Its merit, with those who had most commended it, appeared to be wholly the name of its fuppofed writer. Thus we find it throughout. It is not what is written, or faid, or acted, that we examine; and approve or condemn, as it is, in itself, good or bad: Our concern is, who writes, who fays, or does it; and we, accordingly, regard, or difregard it. Look round the kingdom. There is, perhaps, fcarce a village in it, where the ferioufnefs or diffolutenefs of the Squire, if not quite a driveller, is not more or lefs feen in the manners of the rest of its inhabitants. And he, who is thus a pattern, takes his pattern-fafhions himfelf by fome or other of a better eftate, or higher rank, with whofe character he is pleafed, or to whom he feeks to recommend himself. In what a fhort fpace is a whole nation. metamorphofed! Fancy yourself in the middle of the laft century. What grave faces do you every where behold! The moft diffolutely inclined fuffers not a libertine expreflion to escape him. He who leaft regards the practice of virtue, affumes its appearance. None claim, from their ftations, a privilege for their vices. The greateft ftrangers to the influence of religion obferve its form. The foldier not only forbears an oath, but reproves it; he may poffibly make free with your goods, as having more grace than you, and, therefore, a better title to them; but you have nothing to fear from his lewdness, or drunken nefs. The Royal Brothers at length land· The The monarchy is restored. How foonthen is a grave afpect denominated a puritanical; decorum, precifenefs; ferioufnefs, fanaticifm! He, who cannot extinguish in himself all fenfe of religion, is induftrious to conceal his having any appears worse than he is would be thought to fa vour the crime, that he dares not commit. The lewdeft converfation is the politeft. No representation pleases, in which decency is confulted. Every favourite drama has its hero a libertine-introduces the imagiftrate, only to expofe him as a knave, or a cuckold; and the priest, only to defcribe him a profligate or hypocrite. How much greater the power of fashion is, than that of any laws, by whatfoever penalties enforced, the experience of all ages and nations concurs in teaching us. We readily imitate, where we cannot be constrained to obey; and become by example, what our rule feeks in vain to make us. So far we may be all truly styled players, as we all perfonate-borrow our characters-reprefent fome other-act a partexhibit those who have been most under our notice, or whom we feek to pleafe, or with whom we are pleased. As the Chameleor, who is known So the young Squire, when firft he comes To be a ftatefman, or a wit; PRIOR. Dean Bolton. § 122. LETTER III. SIR, My laft endeavoured to fhew you, how apt we are to imitate. Let me now defire you to confider the difpofition you will be under to recommend yourself to thofe, whofe company you defire, or would not decline. Converfation, like marriage, must have confent of parties. There is no being intimate with him, who will not be fo with you; and, in order to contract or fupport an intimacy, you must give the pleasure, which you would receive. This is a truth, that every man's experience must force him to acknowledge: we are sure to seek in vain a familiarity with any, who have no interest to serve by us, if we difregard their humour. In courts, indeed, where the art of pleafing is more ftudied than it is elfewhere, you fee people more dexterou ly accommodating themselves to the turn of thofe, for whofe favour they wish; but, wherever you go, you almost constantly perceive the fame end purfued by the fame means, though there may not be the fame adroitnefs in applying them. proof have you in your own neighbourhood, how effectual these means are! What a Did you ever hear Gharles-tell'a good ftory-make a fhrewd obfervation-dop an expreffion, which bordered either on wit or humour? Yet he is welcome to all tables-he is much with thofe, who have wit, who have humour, who are, really, men of abilities. Whence is this, but from the approbation he fhews of whatever paffes? A ftory he cannot tell, but he has a laugh in readiness for every one he hears: by his admiration of wit, he fupplies the want of it; and they, who have capacity, find no objection to the meannefs of his, whilst he appears always to think as they do. Few have their looks and tempers fo much at command as this man; and few, therefore, are so happy in recommending themselves; but as in his way of doing it, there is, obviously, the greatest likelihood of fuccefs, we may be fure that it will be the way generally taken. Some, I grant, you meet with, who by their endeavours, on all occafions, to fhew a fuperior difcernment, may feem to think, that to gain the favour of any one, he must be brought to their fentiments, rather than they adopt his; but I fear thefe perfons will be found only giving too clear a proof,' either how abfurdly felf-conceit sometimes operates, or how much knowledge there may be, where there is very little common fenie. Did I, in defcribing the creature called MAN, represent him as having, in proportion to his bulk, more brains than any other animal we know of; I should not think this description falfe, though it could |