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You may perhaps think this account of those who are diftinguished for their good humour, not very confiftent with the praises which I have beftowed upon it. But furely nothing can more evidently fhew the value of this quality, than that it recommends those who are deftitute of all other excellencies, and procures regard to the trifling, friendship to the worthlefs, and affection to the dull.

Good humour is indeed generally degraded by the characters in which it is found; for being confidered as a cheap and vulgar quality, we find it often neglected by thofe that having excellencies of higher reputation and brighter fplendor, perhaps imagine that they have fome right to gratify themselves at the expence of others, and are to demand compliance, rather than to practise it. It is by fome unfortunate mistake that almost all thofe who have any claim to esteem or love, prefs their pretenfions with too little confideration of others. This mistake, my own intereft as well as my zeal for general happiness, makes me defirous to rectify; for I have a friend, who because he knows his own fidelity and usefulness, is never willing to fink into a companion. I have a wife whose beauty first subdued me, and whose wit confirmed her conqueft; but whofe beauty now ferves no other purpose than to entitle her to tyranny, and whose wit is only used to justify perverseness.

SURELY nothing can be more unreasonable than to lofe the will to please, when we are conscious of the power, or fhew more cruelty than to choose any kind of influence before that of kindness. He that regards the welfare of others, fhould make his virtue approachable, that it may be loved and copied; and he that confiders the wants which every man feels, or will feel of external affiftance, must rather wish to be furrounded by thofe that love him, than by those that admire

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admire his excellencies, or folicit his favours; for admiration ceases with novelty, and intereft gains its end and retires. A man whose great qualities want the ornament of fuperficial attractions, is like a paked mountain with mines of gold, which will be frequented only till the treasure is exhaufted. RAMBLER.

CHAP. VI.

ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD.

NOTHING

OTHING has fo much expofed men of learning to contempt and ridicule, as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themfelves. Those who have been taught to confider the inftitutions of the schools, as giving the last perfection to human abilities, are furprifed to fee men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be inftructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, or the neceffary forms of daily tranfaction; and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education, which they find to produce no ability above the reft of mankind.

Books, fays Bacon, can never teach the use of books. The ftudent muft learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his fpeculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life.

Ir is too common for those who have been bred to fchoJaftic profeffions, and paffed much of their time in academies, where nothing but learning confers honours, to difregard every other qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them for inftruction. They therefore tep out from their cells into the open world, with all the

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confidence of authority and dignity of importance; they look round about them at once with ignorance and fcorn on a race of beings to whom they are equally unknown and equally contemptible, but whofe manners they muft imitate, and with whofe opinions they muft comply, if they defire. to pass their time happily among them.

To leffen that difdain with which fcholars are inclined to look on the common bufinefs of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any fyftem of philofophy, it may be neceffary to confider, that though admiration is excited by abftrufe refearches and remote difcoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by fofter accomplishments, and qualities more eafily communicable to those about us. He that can only converfe upon questions, about which only a fmall part of mankind has knowledge fufficient to make them curious, muft lofe his days in unfocial filence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful in great occasions, may die without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thoufand vexations which fret away happiness, and which nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients.

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No degree of knowledge, attainable by man, is able to fet him above the want of hourly affiftance, or to extinguish the defire of fond endearments, and tender officioufnefs; and therefore, no one should think it unneceffary to learn thofe arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preferved by a conftant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures: but fuch benefits only can be beftowed, as others are capable of receiving, and fuch pleasures only imparted, as others are qualified to enjoy.

By this defcent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be loft; for the condefcenfions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to ufe the fimile of Longinus, like the fun in his evening declination: he remits his fplendor but retains his magnitude; and pleafes more, tho' he dazzles lefs. RAMBLER.

CHAP. VII.

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF UNITING GENTLENESS OF MANNERS WITH FIRMNESS OF MIND.

I Mentioned to you, fome time ago, a sentence, which I

would moft earnestly with you always to retain in your thoughts, and obferve in your conduct; it is fuavitèr in modo, fortitèr in re. I do not know any one rule fo unexceptionably useful and neceffary in every part of life.

THE fuaviter in modo alone would degenerate and fink into a mean, timid complaifance, and paffivenefs, if not fupported and dignified by the fortitèr in re; which would also run into impetuoufity and brutality, if not tempered and foftened by the fuavitèr in modo: however, they are feldom united. The warm choleric man, with strong animal spirits, defpifes the fuavitèr in modo, and thinks to carry all before him by the fortièr in re. He may poffibly, by great accident, now and then fucceed, when he has only weak and timid people to deal with; but his general fate will be, to fhock, offend, be hated, and fail. On the other hand, the cunning crafty man thinks to gain all his ends by the juavitèr in modo only: he becomes all things to all men; he feems to have no opinion of his own, and fervilely adopts the prefent opinion of the prefent perfon; he infinuates him

felf

felf only into the esteem of fools, but is foon detected, and furely defpifed by every body elfe. The wife man (who differs as much from the cunning, as from the choleric man) alone joins the fuavitèr in modo with the fortitèr in re.

If you are in authority, and have a right to command, your commands delivered fuavitèr in modo, will be willingly, cheerfully, and confequently well obeyed; whereas if given only fortitèr, that is brutally, they will rather, as Tacitus. fays, be interpreted than executed. For my own part, if I bade my footman bring me a glass of wine, in a rough infulting manner, I should expect, that in obeying me, he would contrive to fpill fome of it upon me; and I am fure I fhould deferve it. A cool fteady refolution fhould fhew, that where you have a right to command, you will be obeyed; but, at the fame time, a gentleness in the manner of enforceing that obedience, fhould make it a cheerful one, and foften, as much as poffible, the mortifying confcioufnefs of inferiority. If you are to afk a favour, or even to folicit your due, you must do it fuavitèr in modo, or you will give those, who have a mind to refuse you, either a pretence to do it, by refenting the manner; but, on the other hand, you must, by a fteady perfeverance and decent tenaciousness, fhew the fortitèr in re. In short, this precept is the only way I know in the world, of being loved without being defpifed, and feared without being hated. It conftitutes the dignity of character, which every wife man muft endeavour to establish.

IF therefore you find that you have a haftiness in your temper, which unguardedly breaks out into indifcreet fallies, or rough expreffions, to either your fuperiors, your equals, or your inferiors, watch it narrowly, check it carefully, and call the fuavitèr in modo to your affistance; at the first im

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