rae, and have three meals a-day! So your father was a gentleman; and "you are a gentlewoman, I fuppofe: "fuch gentlewomen !"" Madam, I did not mean to claim any exemp<tions; I only answered your enquiry.” -"Such gentlewomen! People fhould "fet their children to good trades, and keep them off the parish. Pray go "to the other end of the town; there " are gentlewomen, if they would pay "their debts: I am fure we have lo "enough by gentlewomen!" Upon this, her broad face grew broader with triumph; and I was afraid the would have taken me for the pleafure of continuing her infult; but happily the next word was-" Pray, "Mrs. Gentlewoman, troop down "ftairs." You may believe I obeyed

{ me.

I then heard of a place at an elderly lady's. She was at cards; but in two hours, I was told, the would fpeak to She asked me if I could keep an · account; and ordered me to write. I wrote two lines out of fome book that lay by her. She wondered what people meant, to breed up poor girls to write at that rate. "I fuppofe, Mrs. Flirt, "if I was to fee your work, it would "be fine ftuff! You may walk. I will "not have love-letters written from my ❝ house to every young fellow in the "Street."

Two days after, I went on the fame

purfuit to Lady Lofty, drefled, as I was directed, in what little ornaments I had, because the had lately got a place at court. Upon the first fight of me, the turns to the woman that thewed me in-"Is this the lady that wants

a place? Pray what place would you "have, Mifs? a maid of honour's place? "Servants, now-a-days !"-" Madam, "I heard you wanted-" "Wanted "what? Somebody finer than myself! "A pretty fervant, indeed! I should be "afraid to speak to her.I fuppofe, "Mrs. Minx, thofe fine hands cannot "bear wetting? A fervant, indeed! Pray "move off; I am refolved to be the "head perfon in this house. You are "ready dreffed; the taverns will be "open."

I went to enquire for the next place in a clean linen-gown; and heard the 'fervant tell his lady there was a young woman, but he faw fhe would not de I was brought up, however. "Are you "the trollop that has the impudence to "come for my place? What, you have "hired that nafty gown, and are come "to fteal a better."-" Madam, I have "another, but being obliged to walk-" "Then thefe are your manners, with

"

your blushes, and your courtefies, to ❝come to me in your worst gown!""Madam, give me leave to wait upon

you in my other."-" Wait on me, you faucy flut! Then you are sure of "coming? I could not let fuch a drab "come near me-Here, you girl, that "came up with her, have you touched "her? If you have, wash your hands "before you dress me.-Such trollops! "Get you down! What, whimper"ing? Pray walk !”

I went away with tears; for my coufin had loft all patience. However, she told me, that having a refpect for my relations, fhe was willing to keep me out of the street, and would let me have another week.

The first day of this week I faw two places. At one I was afked where I had lived; and, upon my answer, was told by the lady, that people fhould qualify themfelves in ordinary places, for the thould never have done if the was to follow her girls about. At the ♦ other house I was a fmirking huffy, and that fweet face I might make money of; for her part, it was a rule with her never to take any creature that thought herself handsome. • The

I

T is related by Quintus Curtius, that the Perfians always conceived an invincible contempt of a man who had violated the laws of fecrecy for they thought that, however he might be deficient in the qualities requaite to actual excellence, the negative virtues at leait were in his power; and though he, perhaps, could not fpeak-well if he was to try, it was ftill eafy for him not to Speak.

In forming this opinion of the cafinefs of fecrecy, they feem to have confilered it as oppofed, not to treachery, but loquacity; and to have conceived the man whom they thus cenfured, not frighted by menaces to reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure of talking, or fome other motive equally trifling, to lay open his heart without reflection, and to let whatever he knew flip from him, only for want of power to retain it. Whether, by their fettled and avowed fcorn of thoughtlefs talkers, the Perfians were able to diffufe to any great extent, the virtue of taciturnity, we are hindered by the diftance of those times from being able to difcover, there being very few memoirs remaining of the court of Ferfepolis, nor any diftinct accounts handed down to us of their office-clerks, their ladies of the bed-chamber, their attorpies, their chamber-maids, or their footmen.

In thefe latter ages, though the old animofity against a prattler is till retained, it appears wholly to have left it's effects upon the conduct of mankind; for fecrets are to feldom kept, that it

Нов

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'ZOSIMA."

may with fome reafon be doubted, whether the ancients were not mistaken in their first poftulare; whether the quality of retention be fo generally bestowed; and whether a fecret has not fome tubtle volatility by which it efcapes imperceptibly at the imallett vent, or fome power of fermentation by which it expands itfelt fo as to burit the heart that will not give it way.

Thofe that ftudy either the body or the mind of man, very often find the molt fpecious and pleating theory falling under the weight of contrary experience; and, initead of gratifying their vanity by inferring effects from cautes, they are always reduced, at lalt, to conjecture cautes from effects. That it is caly to be fecret, the ipeculatiit can demonitiate in his retreat; and therefore thinks hims felt justified in placing confidence; the man of the world knows that, whether difficult or not, it is uncommon; and therefore finds himself rather inclined to fearch after the reafon of this univerfal failure in one of the most important duties of fociety.

The vanity of being known to he trufted with a fecret is generally one of the chief motives to difclote it; for however abfurd it may be thought to boaft an honour by an act which thews that it was conferred without merit, yet most men feem rather inclined to confefs the want of virtue than of importance; and more willingly fhew their influence, though at the expence of their probity, than glide through life with no other pleature than the private confcioufnets of ridelity; which, while it is preferved,

muft

must be without praise, except from the fingle perfon who tries and knows it.

There are many ways of telling a fecret by which a man exempts himself from the reproaches of his confcience, and gratifies his pride, without fuffering humfelf to believe that he impairs his virtue. He tells the private affairs of his patrons, or his friend, only to thofe from whom he would not conceal his own, he tells them to those who have no temptation to betray the truft, or with a denunciation of a certain forfeiture of his friendship, if he discovers that they become publick.

Secrets are very frequently told in the firft ardour of kindness, or of love, for the fake of proving, by fo important a facrifice, fincerity or tenderness; but with this motive, though it be ftrong in itself, vanity concurs, fince every man defires to be most efteemed by thofe whom he loves, or with whom he converfes, with whom he paffes his hours of pleafure, and to whom he retires from bufinefs and from care.

When the difcovery of fecrets is under confideration, there is always a diftinction carefully to be made between our own and thofe of another: those of which we are fully mafters, as they affect only our own intereft; and thofe which are repofitel with us in truft, and involve the happiness or convenience of fuch as we have no right to expose to hazard. To tell our own fecrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate thofe with which we are intrufted is always treachery, and treachery, for the most part, combined with folly.

There have, indeed, been fome enthufiaftick and irrational zealots for friendship, who have maintained, and perhaps believed, that one friend has a right to all that is in poffeffion of another; and that, therefore, it is a violation of kindness to exempt any fecret from this boundless confidence. Accordingly, a late female minifter of ftate has been fhameless enough to inform the world, that she used, when the wanted to extract any thing from her fovereign, to remind her of Montaigne's reafoning; who has determined, that to tell a fecret to a friend is no breach of fidelity, becaufe the number of perfons trufted is . not multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the fame.

That fuch a fallacy could be impofed

upon any human understanding, or that an author could have advanced a pofi tion fo remote from truth and reafon, any other ways than as a declaimer, to fhew to what extent he could stretch his imagination, and with what strength he could prefs his principle, would fcarcely have been credible, had not this lady kindly fhewn us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amufed. But, fince it appears that even this fophiftry has been able, with the help of a strong defire to repofe in quiet upon the underftanding of another, to mislead honeft intentions, and an understanding not contemptible, it may not be fuperfluous to remark, that those things which are common among friends are only fuch as either poffeffes in his own right, and can alienate or deftroy without injury to any other perfon. Without this limitation,, confidence niuft run on without end; the fecond perfon may tell the fecret to the third, upon the fame principle as he received it from the first; and the third may hand it forward to a fourth, till, at last, it is told in the round of friendship

to them from whom it was the first intention to conceal it.

The confidence which Caius has of the faithfulnefs of Titius is nothing more than an opinion which himself cannot know to be true, and which Claudius, who firit tells his fecret to Caius, may know to be false; and therefore the trust is transferred by Caius, if he reveal what has been told him, to one from whom the perfon originally concerned would have withheld it; and whatever may be the event, Caius has hazarded the happinefs of his friend, without neceffity and without permiflion, and has put that truft in the hand of fortune which was given only to virtue.

All the arguments upon which a man who is telling the private affairs of another may ground his confidence of fecurity, he muft upon reflection know to be uncertain, because he finds them without effet upon himself. When he is imagining that Titius will be cautious, from a regard to his intereft, his reputation, or his duty, he ought to reflect that he is himself, at that inftant, acting in oppofition to all thefe reafons, and revealing what intereft, reputation, and duty, direct him to conceal.

Every one feels that, in his own cafe he fhould confider the man incapable of truft, who believed himself at liberty to

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I am not ignorant that many queftions may be started relating to the duty of fecrecy where the affairs are of publick concern, where fubfequent reafons may arife to alter the appearance and nature of the truft, that the manner in which the fecret was told may change the degree of obligation, and that the principles upon which a man is chofen for a confident may not always equally conftrain him; but thefe fcruples, if not too intricate, are of too extenfive confideration for my prefent purpofe, nor are they fuch as generally occur in common life: and though cafuiftical knowledge be useful in proper hands, yet it ought by no means to be carelessly expofed, fince most will ufe it rather to lull than awaken their own confciences; and the threads of reafoning, on which truth is fufpended, are

frequently drawn to fuch fubtilty, that common eyes cannot perceive, and common fenfibility cannot feel them.

The whole doctrine, as well as practice, of fecrecy is fo perplexing and dangerous, that, next to him who is compelled to truft, I think him unhappy who is chofen to be trufted; for he is often involved in fcruples without the liberty of calling in the help of any other understanding; he is frequently drawn into guilt under the appearance of friendship and honefty; and fometimes fubjected to fufpicion by the treachery of others who are engaged without his knowledge in the fame fchemes; for he that has one confident has generally more, and when he is at last betrayed, is in doubt on whom he shall fix the crime.

The rules, therefore, that I fhall propofe concerning fecrecy, and from which I think it not fafe to deviate, without long and exact deliberation, are-Never to folicit the knowledge of a fecret. Not willingly, nor without many limitations, to accept fuch confidence when it is offered. When a fecret is once admitted, to confider the trust as of a very high nature, important as fociety, and facred as truth, and therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or flight appearance of contrary fitness.

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MONG the many inconfiftencies which folly produces, or infirmity fuffers, in the human mind, there has often been obferved a manifeft and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings: and Milton, in a letter to a learned ftranger, by whom he had been visited, with great reafon congratulates himself upon the confcioufnets of being found equal to his own character, and having preferved, in a private and familiar interview, that reputation which his works had procured him.

Those whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer in whofe performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent rea

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fon to repent their curiofity; the bubble that sparkled before them has become common water at the touch; the phantom of perfection has vanished when they wished to prefs it to their bofum. They have loft the pleasure of imagin ing how far humanity may be exal ed; and, perhaps, felt themfelves lefs inclined to toil up the fteeps of virtue, when they obferve thofe who feem beit able to point the way loitering below, as either afraid of the labour, or doubtful of the reward.

It has been long the cuftom of the oriental monarchs to hide themiclves in gardens and palaces, to avoid the converfation of mankind, and to be known to their fubjects only by their edicts. Ꮭ

The