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of catching the infection. Here Hypocrisy, if allowed, would act something like the part of Charity, and hide "a multitude of sins."While we possess an inclination to transgress, she takes away more than half the inducement by hiding the examples of others. Like a faithful inspector of the police, who confines rogues and prostitutes from the common eye, she carefully conceals from the world, the filth which she cannot remove-that worst of nuisances, a corrupt heart; and by closing the mouth, the outlet to contagion, from a depraved mind, and burying in oblivion the deeds that flow from it, she cuts off the principal source of communicative vice.

Is it for this that hypocrisy is decried as oldfashionable and useless in this liberal age? If so, it is not because it is criminal, but for that it prevents us from being unblushingly so. Whilst the substance of religion and morality sleeps with our forefathers, as some writers assert-not we, though we may not be able to recall it to life, we ought to reverence the shade of our departed friend, and hang up its picture for the con

templation of ourselves, our friends, and our posterity.

Now after all this display of our tender

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ness towards hypocrisy; it is to be hoped and expected that we shall hear no more attempts from slippery characters, to brand us as a morose moralist or misanthrope. But there is another genus of hypocrisy, to which no quarter ought to be given; and it is that which is assumed for the purpose of injuring another, or picking the pocket of the public. Hypocrites of this description deserve the utmost scorn and contempt, and should have it showered down upon them, because they not only distress the present generation, but entail ruin upon the rising ones. It is a duty which every man owes to his community, to himself and to his offspring, to unmask them, to ferret them out of their lurking-holes, - to expose their secret practices

Reader. Pardon me for the interruption: but are not these hypocrites too cunning to admit any into their confidence, who are not of

the same principles, or, rather, as unprincipled as themselves?

Author. They certainly take such precaution: but when the heart and tongue are at variance, it is easy to see through the disguise at every step, and where duplicity lurks, proofs of it can never be wanting, if they are industriously sought for.

Reader. It must, however, be difficult to obtain proofs of the treachery of those who make hypocrisy a trade, and, like the Indians, cover over their footsteps with leaves to avoid all pursuit.This is particularly the case with the great, and the statesman, or pretended statesman, of whom we have been discoursing. They are inaccessible to all who are not fashionable enough to sympathize with human frailties; they detest a scribbler, and particularly that most stinging genus of the whole tribe, denominated a moralist or satirist. To be known as such, is sufficient to be proscribed by all polished society, and to be branded as a babbler of secrets, and a traitor to all social inter

course.

Author. For that very reason, a satirist, who voluntarily exposes himself to such a proscription for the public good, ought to be the more esteemed. We ourselves should be the first to stigmatize the man who breaks a confidence reposed in him, or violates the laws of hospitality by detailing the conversation which has passed at the table of his entertainer; and we shall have to notice some instances of this treachery in very great men hereafter: but we are free from it, as we never had any confidence re

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posed in us; and as for great men we are not known to one, nor do we know the upper servant of one.

Reader. How then do you pretend to know the truth of all that you have been telling us?

Author. How, indeed!-Why-through the vanity or weakness of others. There are a certain description of persons, who would not give a farthing to be entrusted with a secret, -- the greatest of all secrets, a state-secret;-unless they might have the credit of being known to be entrusted with it; and, to make sure of that credit, they blab out the secret, preferring to be thought somebody, even at the expense of be

ing known to commit a breach of trust. There are others who are natural sieves, and cannot retain; and others, again, who have stronger passions than a sense of honour, which they will even sacrifice to them. On account of their importance, or supposed importance, (for, every thing is not of real importance that crawls in a statesman's head,) state secrets travel faster than any others; and this was so notorious a case in Freeland, that the enemy were generally acquainted with them, before the tenantry.- - - But we met with a fragment the other day on an oldbook-stall, which will explain the case in all its soundings, bearings, and distances, and save us the trouble of composing a chapter expressly for the subject.

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