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BUT infincerity is very troublesome to manage; a hypocrite hath so many things to attend to, as make his life a very perplexed and intricate thing. A liar hath need of a good memory, left he contradict at one time what he faid at another; but truth is always confiftent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and fits upon our lips; whereas a lie is troublesome, and needs a great many more to make it good.

ADD to all this, that fincerity is the most compendiou wisdom, and an excellent inftrument for the fpeedy dispatch of bufinefs. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, faves the labour of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words. It is like travelling in a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man fooner to his journey's end, than by-ways, in which men often lofe themfelves. In a word, whatfoever convenience may be thought to be falfhood and diffimulation, it is foon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under an everlasting jealoufy and fufpicion, fo that he is not believed when he speaks truth, nor trufted when perhaps he means honeftly. When a man hath once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, nothing will then ferve his turn, neither truth nor falfhood.

INDEED, if a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (as far as respects the affairs of this world) if he spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw. But if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of reputation whilst he is in it, let him make use of truth and fincerity in all his words and actions, for nothing but this will hold out to the

end.

end. All other arts may fail, but truth and integrity will carry a man through, and bear him out to the laft.

CHAP.

IV.

ON HONOUR.

TILLOTSON.

VERY principle that is a motive to good actions ought to he encouraged, fince men are of fo different a make, that the fame principle does not work equally upon all minds. What some men are prompted to by confcience, duty, or religion, which are only different names for the fame thing, others are prompted to by honour.

THE fenfe of honour is of fo fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, orin fuch as have been cultivated by great examples or a refined education. This effay therefore is chiefly defined for those who by means of any of these advantages are, or ought to be actuated by this glorious principle.

BUT as nothing is more pernicious than a principle of action, when it is misunderstood, I fhall confider honour with refpect to three forts of men. First of all, with regard to those who have a right notion of it. Secondly, with regard to those who have a mistaken notion of it. And thirdly, with regard to thofe who treat it as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule.

IN the first place true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the fame effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the fame point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man

fears,

fears, the man of honour fcorns to do an ill action. The latter confiders vice as fomething that is beneath him, 'the other as fomething that is offenfive to the Divine Being. The one as what is unbecoming, the other as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, that were there no God to fee or punish vice, he would not commit it, be cause it is of fo mean, so base, and so vile a nature.

I SHALL Conclude this head with the defcription of honour in the parting of young Juba.'

Honour's a facred tie, the law of kings,

The noble mind's diftinguishing perfection,

That aids and ftrengthens virtue when it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not.

It ought not to be sported with.

CATO.

In the fecond place, we are to confider those who have mistaken notions of honour. And these are fuch as establish any thing to themselves for a point of honour which is contrary either to the laws of God or of their country; whe think it more honourable to revenge than to forgive an injury; who make no fcruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accufes them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue. True fortitude is indeed fo becoming in human. nature, that he who wants it fcarce deferves the name of a man; but we find feveral who fo much abuse this notion, that they place the whole idea of honour in a kind of brutal courage; by which means we have had many among us who

have called themselves men of honour, that would have been a difgrace to a gibbet. In a word, the man who facrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode or fashion, who looks upon any thing as honourable that is displeasing to his Maker, or destructive to fociety, who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of fome virtues and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honour.

TIMOGENES was a lively inftance of one actuated by false honour. Timogenes would smile at a man's Jeft who ridiculed his Maker, and at the fame time run a man through the body that spoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have fcorned to have betrayed a fecret, that was intrufted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the difcovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having spoke ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himself had feduced in her youth, and betrayed into want and ignominy. To close his character, Timogenes, after having ruined several poor tradesmen's families who had trufted him, fold his estate to satisfy his creditors; but, like a man of honour, difpofed of all the money he could make of it, in the paying of his play-debts, or, to fpeak in his own language, his debts of honour.

In the third place, we are to confider those perfons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. Men who are profeffedly of no honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned nature than even those who are actuated by false notions of it, as there is more hope of a heretic than of an atheift. Thefe fons of infamy confider honour with old Syphax, in the play before mentioned, as a fine imaginary notion that leads aftray young unexperienced men, and draws them into real mischiefs, while they are engaged

in the pursuits of a fhadow. These are generally persons who, in Shakspeare's phrafe," are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men ;" whofe imaginations are grown callous, and have loft all thofe delicate fentiments which are natural to minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered mifcreants ridicule every thing as romantic that comes in competition with present their intereft, and treat those perfon as vifionaries, who dare ftand up in a corrupt age, for what has not its immediate reward joined to it. The talents, interest, or experience of such men, make them very often useful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to confider, that every one stands as a blot in the annals of his country, who arrive at the temple of honour by any other way than through that of virtue.

GUARDIAN

CHAP. V.

ON GOOD HUMOUR.

OOD humour may be defined a habit of being pleased;

Go

a conftant and perennial foftnefs of manner, eafinefs of approach, and fuavity of difpofition; like that which every man perceives in himself, when the firft tranfports of new felicity have fubfided, and his thoughts are only kept in motion by a flow fucceffion of foft impulfes. Good humour is a ftate between gaiety and unconcern; the act or emanation of a mind at leasure to regard the gratification of another.

It is imagined by many, that whenever they afpire to pleafe, they are required to be merry, and to fhew the gladnefs of their fouls by flights and pleasantry, and bursts of

laughter,

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