low-beings, and in total separation from them; we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private in

terests.

Some philosophers have been foolish enough to imagine, that improvements might be made in the system of the universe, by a different arrangement of the orbs of heaven; and politicians equally ignorant and equally presumptuous, may easily be led to suppose, that the happiness of our world would be promoted by a different tendency of the human mind. It appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity to unanimity; and instead of the present petty competitions of individuals or single families, multitudes would be supplanting multitudes, and thousands plotting against thousands.

There is no class of the human species, of which the union seems to have been more expected, than of the learned: the rest of the world have almost always agreed to shut scholars up together in colleges and cloisters; surely not without hope, that they would look for that happiness in concord, which they were debarred from finding in variety; and that such conjunctions of intellect would recompense the munificence of founders and patrons, by performances above the reach of any single mind.

But Discord, who found means to roll her apple into the banqueting chamber of the goddesses, has had the address to scatter her laurels in the seminaries of learning. The friendship of students and of beauties is for the most part equally sincere, and

equally durable; as both depend for happiness on the regard of others, on that of which the value arises merely from comparison, they are both exposed to perpetual jealousies, and both incessantly employed in schemes to intercept the praises of each other.

I am, however, far from intending to inculcate, that this confinement of the studious to studious companions, has been wholly without advantage to the public: neighbourhood, where it does not conciliate friendship, incites competition; and he that would contentedly rest in a lower degree of excellence, where he had no rival to dread, will be urged by his impatience of inferiority to incessant endeavours after great attainments.

These stimulations of honest rivalry are, perhaps, the chief effects of academies and societies; for whatever be the bulk of their joint labours, every single piece is always the production of an individual that owes nothing to his colleagues but the contagion of diligence, a resolution to write, because the rest are writing, and the scorn of obscurity while the rest are illustrious.

T.

N° 46. SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1753.

Μισω μνημονα Συμπότην.

PROV. GR.

Far from my table be the tell-tale guest.

It has been remarked, that men are generally kind in proportion as they are happy; and it is said even of the devil, that he is good-humoured when he

is pleased. Every act, therefore, by which another is injured, from whatever motive, contracts more guilt and expresses greater malignity, if it is committed in those seasons which are set apart to pleasantry and good-humour, and brightened with enjoyments peculiar to rational and social beings.

Detraction is among those vices, which the most languid virtue has sufficient force to prevent; because, by detraction, that is not gained which is taken away: ' he who filches from me my good name,' says Shakspeare, ' enriches not himself, but makes me poor indeed:' as nothing, therefore, degrades human nature more than detraction, nothing more disgraces conversation. The detractor, as he is the lowest moral character, reflects greater dishonour upon his company than the hangman; and he whose disposition is a scandal to his species, shall be more diligently avoided, than he who is scandalous only by his office.

But for this practice, however vile, some have dared to apologize, by contending, that the report, by which they injured an absent character, was true: this, however, amounts to no more, than that they have not complicated malice with falsehood, and that there is some difference between detraction and slander. To relate all the ill that is true of the best man in the world, would probably render him the object of suspicion and distrust; and if this practice was universal, mutual confidence and esteem, the comforts of society, and the endearments of friendship, would be at an end.

There is something unspeakably more hateful in those species of villany by which the law is evaded, than in those by which it is violated and defied. Courage has sometimes preserved rapacity from abhorrence, as beauty has been thought to apologize for prostitution; but the injustice of cowardice is uni

versally abhorred, and like the lewdness of deformity has no advocate. Thus hateful are the wretches who detract with caution; and while they perpetrate the wrong, are solicitous to avoid the reproach: they do not that Chloe forfeited her honour to Lysander; say but they say that such a report has been spread, they know not how true. Those who propagate these reports, frequently invent them; and it is no breach of charity to suppose this to be always the case; because no man who spreads detraction, would have scrupled to produce it; and he who should diffuse poison in a brook, would scarce be acquitted of a malicious design, though he should allege, that he received it of another who is doing the same elsewhere.

Whatever is incompatible with the highest dignity of our nature, should indeed be excluded from our conversation: as companions, not only that which we owe to ourselves, but to others, is required of us; and they who can indulge any vice in the presence of each other, are become obdurate in guilt, ' and insensible to infamy.

Reverence thy self, is one of the sublime precepts of that amiable philosopher, whose humanity alone was an incontestable proof of the dignity of his mind. Pythagoras, in his idea of virtue, comprehended intellectual purity; and he supposed, that by him who reverenced himself, those thoughts would be suppressed by which a being capable of virtue is degraded: this divine precept evidently presupposes a reverence of others, by which men are restrained from more gross immoralities; and with which he hoped a reverence of self would also co-operate as an auxiliary motive.

The great Duke of Marlborough, who was perhaps the most accomplished gentleman of his age, would never suffer any approaches to obscenity in

his presence; and it was said by the late Lord Cobham, that he did not reprove it as an immorality in the speaker, but resented it as an indignity to himself; and it is evident, that to speak evil of the absent, to utter lewdness, blasphemy, or treason, must degrade not only him who speaks, but those who hear; for surely that dignity of character, which a man ought always to sustain, is in danger, when he is made the confidant of treachery, detraction, impiety, or lust for he, who in conversation displays his own vices, imputes them; as he who boasts to another of a robbery, presupposes that he is a thief.

It should be a general rule, never to utter any thing in conversation which would justly dishonour us, if it should be reported to the world: if this rule could be always kept, we should be secure in our own innocence against the craft of knaves and parasites, the stratagems of cunning, and the vigiÎance of envy.

But after all the bounty of nature and all the labour of virtue, many imperfections will be still discerned in human beings, even by those who do not see with all the perspicacity of human wisdom: and he is guilty of the most aggravated detraction, who reports the weakness of a good mind discovered in an unguarded hour; something which is rather the effect of negligence, than design; rather a folly than a fault; a sally of vanity, rather than an eruption of malevolence. It has, therefore, been a maxim, inviolably sacred among good men, never to disclose the secrets of private conversation; a maxim, which though it seems to arise from the breach of some other does yet imply that general rectitude, which is produced by a consciousness of virtuous dignity, and a regard to that reverence which is due to ourselves and others: for to conceal any immoral pur