No 243 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8.

Formam quidem ipfam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem honefti vides: quæ fi oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret fapientiæ.

TULL. Offic.

You fee, my fon Marcus, the very shape and countenance, as it were, of virtue; which if it could be made the object of fight, would (as Plato fays) excite in us a wonderful love of wisdom.

I

Do not remember to have read any discourse written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without confidering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I defign therefore this fpeculation as an effay upon that fubject, in which I fhall confider virtue no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after having premised, that I understand by the word virtue fuch a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of Religion, and by men of the world under the name of Honour.

Hypocrify itself does great honour, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at fo much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the moft proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

We learn from Hieracles, it was a common faying among the heathens, that the wife man hates nobody, but only loves the virtuous.

Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to fhew how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man, fays he, who lives in the remoteft parts of

the

the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit; nay one who died feveral ages ago, raises a fecret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his ftory: Nay what is ftill more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by juftice and humanity, as in the inftance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occafion in oppofition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and lovelinefs of virtue.

Stoicifm, which was the pedantry of virtue, afcribes all good qualifications of what kind foever, to the virtuous man. Accordingly Cato, in the character Tully has left of him, carried matters fo far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handfome. This indeed looks more like a philofophical rant than the real opinion of a wife man; yet this was what Cato very ferioufly maintained. In fhort, the Stoicks thought they could not fufficiently reprefent the excellence of virtue, if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all poffible perfections; and therefore did not only fuppofe, that it was tranfcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body amiable, and banished every kind of deformity from the perfon in whom it refided.

It is a common obfervation, that the most abandoned to all sense of goodness, are apt to wifh those who are related to them of a different character ; and it is very obfervable, that none are more struck with the charms of virtue in the Fair Sex, than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a defire of ruining it.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful fex all over charms.

As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are fome particular kinds of it which

are

are more fo than others, and thefe are fuch as difpofe us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abftinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but thofe which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, and munificence, and, in fhort, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other. For which reafon even an extravagant man, who has nothing elfe to recommend him but a falfe generofity, is often more beloved and efteemed than a perfon of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular.

The two great ornaments of virtue, which fhew her in the moft advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and good-nature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not eafy within himself. They are both very requifite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many ferious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from fouring into feverity and cenforioufnefs.

If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can fuffer their averfion for a party to blot out all the merit of the perfon who is engaged in it. A man must be exceffively ftupid as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own fide, and that there are not men as honeft as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppofe one another in fome particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to thofe qualities which are of fo amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in difputc. Men of virtue, though of different interefts, ought to confider themfelves as more nearly united with one another, than with the vicious part of mankind, who embark with them in the fame civil concerns. We fhould bear

the

the fame love towards a man of honour who is a living antagonist, which Tully tells us in the forementioned paffage every one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. In fhort, we fhould efteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend.

I fpeak this with an eye to those cruel treatments which men of all fides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many persons of undoubted probity and exemplary virtue on either fide, are blackened and defamed? How many men of honour exposed to publick ob. loquy and reproach? Thofe therefore who are either the inftruments or abettors in fuch infernal dealings, ought to be looked upon as perfons who make ufe of religion to promote their caufe, not of their caufe to promote religion.

No 244. MONDAY, DECEMBER 10.

Judex et callidus audis.

C

HOR. Sat. vii. lib. ii. ver. 101.

A judge of painting you, and man of skill.

CREECH.

• Mr. SPECTATOR, Covent-Garden, Decem. 7. I CANNOT, without a double injuftice, forbear

expreffing to you the fatisfaction which a whole clan of virtuofos have received from thofe hints · which you have lately given the town on the cartons of the inimitable Raphael. It fhould be methinks the business of a SPECTATOR to improve the pleasures of fight, and there cannot be a more immediate way to it than recommending the study and obfervation of excellent drawings and picf tures. When I firft went to thofe of Raphael which you have celebrated, I must confefs I was VOL. III,

E c

but

but barely pleased; the next time I liked them better, but at laft, as I grew better acquainted. with them, I fell deeply in love with them, like wife fpeeches they funk deep into my heart; for you know, Mr. SPECTATOR, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the prefent, but if he has not difcretion, his merit foon vanishes away, while a wife man that has not a great stock of wit, fhall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lafting fatisfaction: Juft fo it is in a picture that is fmartly touched, but not well studied; one may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the mean time may be in danger of being called a fool. On the other hand, a pic⚫ture that is thoroughly understood in the whole, and well performed in the particulars, that is begun on the foundation of geometry, carried on by the rules of perfpective, architecture, and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, a juft and natural colouring, and fuch paffions and expreffions of the mind as are almoft peculiar to Raphael; this is what you may juftly ftile a wife picture, and which feldom fails to strike us dumb, ⚫ until we can affemble all our faculties to make but a tolerable judgment upon it. Other pictures are made for the eyes only, as rattles are made for childrens ears; and certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without representing fome 'well-chofen part of nature or other, does but * fhew what fine colours are to be fold at the colour-fhop, and mocks the works of the Creator. If the beft imitator of nature is not to be efteemed the best painter, but he that makes the greateft thow and glare of colours; it will neceffarily follow, that he who can array himself in the moft gaudy draperies is beft dreft, and he that can fpeak loudeft the beft orator. Every man • when he looks on a picture fhould examine it according to that fhare of reafon he is mafter of,

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