Page images
PDF
EPUB

suffers in secret, the murderer of his own virtue (the parent of happiness,) is, like the agonized Orestes, a prey to the furies. Man may escape the world's censure, but he can never elude his own. He may vaunt otherwise; but, as Johnson said of Pope on a different occasion" When he says so, he knows that he lies."

4.

A dull head thinks no better way to shew himself wise, than by suspecting every thing in his way.

Remark.

Any base heart can devise means of vileness; and affix the ugly shapings of its own fancy, to the actions of those around him: but it requires loftiness of mind, and the heavenborn spirit of virtue, to imagine greatness, where it is not; and to deck the sordid objects of nature, in the beautiful robes of loveliness and light.

5.

Suspicion breeds the mind of cruelty; and the effects of cruelty stir a new cause of sus picion.

6.

Suspicion is the very means to lose that, we' most suspect to lose.

7.

He that is witness of his own unworthiness, is the apter to think himself contemned.

INTERFERENCE.

He that is too busy in the foundations of a house, may pull the building about his ears.

PERSUASION.

1.

He that persists to persuade us to what we mislike, is no otherwise than as a tedious prattler, who cumbers the hearing of a delightful music.

2.

We are best persuaded, when nobody is by, who has heard us say, that we would not be persuaded.

3.

In the particularities of every body's mind and fortune, there are particular advantages, by which they are to be held.

4.

Credit is the nearest step to persuasion.

5.

Words are vain, when resolution takes the place of persuasion.

Remark.

That the speaker's reputation for truth and good-will towards the object of his persuasion,

are his most powerful auxiliaries in argument, no one will deny: and yet, the most active persuaders are generally people who take no care to avoid error; or to enter heartily into the welfare of the person whom they advise. These self-called counsellors, commonly approach their client in so pompous an array of judgment, that he shrinks as much from the important sweep of their train, as from the severity of their sentence. Various are the methods by which these volunteer teachers breathe forth their homilies, and launch their fulminations against transgressors. Some, in the shape of anxious friends, delight in exercising their rhetoric on subjects which are likely to prove exhaustless; and therefore, undertake to persuade you to relinquish the very things which they know you most value.

There is a second race, who display their superiority, by reproving and admonishing others before company; and the larger the circle is, the better; their triumph is more complete, and their fame is in the way of spreading farther. But the most annoying of all public

he

may

reformers, is the personal satirist. Though be considered by some few, as a useful member of society; yet he is only ranked with the hangman, whom we tolerate, because he executes the judgment we abhor to do ourselves; and avoid, with a natural detestation of his office: The pen of the one, and the cord. of the other, are inseparable in our minds. A satirist, to have any excuse for the inexorable zeal with which he uncovers the deformities of his fellow-creatures, ought to be exemplary in his own conduct; otherwise his hostility to the vicious is a vice in him; a desire to torture, not a love of amending: his lancet is poisoned, not embalmed; and he proves by his acrimony, that such men are often too busy with other people's faults, to find out and correct their own. But, if the censor were as virtuous as Cato himself, still experience shews that personal satire is in most cases both dangerous and useless; for he who is exposed to public infamy, suffers the punishment of his crime; and being branded with guilt, is, by such unmercifulness, deprived of all pro

« PreviousContinue »