• miftreffes whom they cannot purchase on other

terms.

What will be a great embellishment to your • discourse, will be, that you may find inftances of • the haughty, the proud, the frolick, the stubborn, • who are each of them in fecret downright flaves to their wives or miftreffes. I muft beg of you in the laft place to dwell upon this, that the wife and valiant in all ages have been Hen-peckt: And that the sturdy tempers who are not flaves to affection, owe that exemption to their being inthrailed by ambition, avarice, or fome meaner paffion. I have ten thousand thousand things more to fay, but my wife fees me writing, and will, according to cuftom, be confulted, if I do " not feal this immediately.

T

Yours,

NATHANIEL HENROOST.'

No 177. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22.

-Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus
Arcana, qualem cereris vult effe facerdos,

Ulla aliena fibi credat mala?.

Juv. Sat. xv. ver. 140. Who can all fenfe of others ills efcape,

Is but a brute, at best, in human fhape. TATE. IN one of my laft weeks papers I treated of good

nature, as it is the effect of constitution; I fhall now fpeak of it as it is a moral virtue. The first may make a man easy in himself and agreeable to others, but implies no merit in him that is poffeffed of it. A man is no more to be praised upon this account, than because he has a regular pulfe or a good digeftion. This good-nature however in the conftitution, which Mr. Dryden fomewhere calls a Milkiness of blood, is an admirable ground-work for VOL. III.

D

the

the other. In order therefore to try our goodnature, whether it arifes from the body or the mind, whether it be founded in the animal or rational part of our nature; in a word, whether it be fuch as is intitled to any other reward, befides that fecret fatisfaction and contentment of mind which is effential to it, and the kind reception it procures us in the world, we must examine it by the following rules.

First, whether it acts with steadiness and uniformity, in sickness and in health, in profperity and in adverfity; if otherwife, it is to be looked upon as nothing elfe but an irradiation of the mind from fome new fupply of fpirits, or a more kindly circulation of the blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning folicitor, who would never afk a favour of a great man before dinner; but took care to prefer his petition at a time when the party petitioned had his mind free from care, and his appetites in good humour. Such a tranfient temporary good-nature as this, is not that Philanthropy, that love of mankind, which deferves the title of a moral virtue.

The next way of a man's bringing his good-nature to the teft, is, to confider whether it operates according to the rules of reason and duty: For if, notwithstanding its general benevolence to mankind, it makes no distinction between its objects, if it exerts itself promifcuously towards the deferving and undeferving, if it relieves alike the idle and the indigent, if it gives itself up to the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident than choice, it may pafs for an amiable inftinct, but must not affume the name of a moral virtue.

The third trial of a good-nature will be, the examining ourselves, whether or no we are able to exert it to our own difadvantage, and employ it on proper objects, notwithstanding any little pain, want, or inconvenience which may arife to ourselves

from

from it: In a word, whether we are willing to risk any part of our fortune, our reputation, or health, or cafe, for the benefit of mankind. Among all thefe expreffions of good-nature, I fhall fingle out that which goes under the general name of charity, as it confifts in relieving the indigent; that being a trial of this kind which offers itself to us almost at all times and in every place.

I fhould propose it as a rule to every one who is provided with any competency of fortune more than fufficient for the neceffaries of life, to lay afide a certain proportion of his income for the ufe of the poor. This I would look upon as an offering to him who has a right to the whole, for the ufe of those whom, in the paffage hereafter mentioned, he has defcribed as his own reprefentatives upon earth. At the fame time we fhould manage.our charity with fuch prudence and caution, that we may not hurt our own friends or relations, whilft we are doing good to thofe who are ftrangers to

us.

This may poffibly be explained better by an example than by a rule.

Eugenius is a man of an univerfal good-nature, and generous beyond the extent of his fortune; but withal fo prudent, in the oeconomy of his affairs, that what goes out in charity is made up by good management. Eugenius has what the world calls two hundred pounds a-year; but never values himfelf above nine fcore, as not thinking he has a right to the tenth part, which he always appropriates to charitable ufes.. To this fum he frequently makes other voluntary additions, infomuch that in a good year, , for fuch he accounts thofe in which he has been able to make greater bounties than ordinary, he has given about twice that fum to the fickly and indigent. Eugenius prefcribes to himself many particular days of fafting and abstinence, in order to increafe his private bank of charity, and fets afide what would D. 2..

be

be the current expences of thofe times for the use of the poor. He often goes afoot where his bufinefs calls him, and at the end of his walk has given a fhilling, which in his ordinary methods of expence would have gone for coach-hire, to the firft neceffitous perfon that has fallen in his way. I have known him, when he has been going to a play or an opera, divert the money which was defigned for that purpose, upon an object of charity whom he has met with in the street; and afterwards pafs his evening in a coffeehoufe, or at a friend's fire-fide, with much greater fatisfaction to himself than he could have received from the moft exquifite entertainments of the theatre. By thefe means he is generous without impoverishing himself, and enjoys his eftate by making it the property of others.

There are few men fo cramped in their private affairs, who may not be charitable after this manner, without any difadvantage to themfelves, or prejudice to their families. It is but fometimes facrificing a diverfion or convenience to the poor, and turning the usual courfe of our expences into a better channel. This is, I think, not only the moft prudent and convenient, but the moft meritorious piece of charity, which we can put in practice. By this method we in fome meafare fhare the neceffities of the poor at the fame time that we relieve them, and make ourfelves not only their patrons, but their fellow-fufferers.

Sir Thomas Brown, in the laft part of his Religio Medici, in which he defcribes his charity in feveral heroic inftances, and with a noble heat of fentiments, mentions that verfe in the Proverbs of Sololomon, He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord: There is more rhetorick in that one fentence, fays he, than in a library of fermons; and indeed. • if those sentences were understood by the reader, with the fame emphafis as they are delivered by

'the

the author, we needed not thofe volumes of instructions, but might be honeft by an epitome.

This paffage in fcripture is indeed wonderfully perfuafive; but I think the fame thought is carried much farther in the New Teftament, where our Saviour tells us in a moft pathetick manner, that he fhall hereafter regard the clothing of the naked,, the feeding of the hungry, and the vifiting of the imprisoned, as offices done to himfelf, and reward them accordingly. Pursuant to thofe paffages in Holy Scripture, I have fomewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleafed me. I cannot recollect the words, but the fenfe of it is to this purpose: What I spent I loft;" what I poffeffed. is left to others; what I gave away remains with me. ́.

Since I am thus infenfibly engaged in facred writ, I cannot forbear making an extract of feveral paffages which I have always read with great delight in the book of Job. It is the account which that holy man gives of his behaviour in the days of his profperity, and, if confidered only as a human compofition, is a finer picture of a charitable and good-natured man than is to be met with in any other author..

Oh that I were as in months paft, as in the days: when God preferved me: When his candle fhined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me; when my children were about me: When I washed my steps: with butter, and the rock poured out rivers of oil.

When the ear heard me then it blessed me; and when the eye faw me, it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The bleffing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused? the widow's heart to fing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; I was a father to the poor, and the caufe which I knew not I searched D. 3..

out.