virtuous man that the approbation of the world is beneath the dignity of virtue. When he has performed an action which he remembers with felf-approbation, he easily be lieves that the world will do juftice to his motives; he pleafes himself with the confcioufnefs of having deferved the praife of his fellow-creatures, and finds at last that his actions have been afcribed to the impulfe of pride, intereft, or malignity. He has perhaps learned from converfation, or from books, that the world is cenforious and deceitful; but felf-love inclines him to believe that to him felf they are honest and fincere.

Among the female fex there are too many who imagine that their levity may be excufed by the world, if they do not in reality violate the laws of chastity. There is no female character so common as that of the coquette; a woman who spends her hours in creating lovers for amufement, or who merely, through the dictates of caprice, ogles every man who appears in her company; while the wears the robe of licentiousness the preferves the tranquillity of her mind by the consciousness of innocence, or rejects the resemblance of virtue because it is fometimes ufed for the concealment of vice.

It ought to be remembered, that the world can judge only from appearances. The weakness of human nature may sometimes lead us into vices from the ignominy of which a life of virtue will not be fufficient to preferve us. If the remembrance of a long continued courfe of vir tue, therefore, be inftantly obliterated by an action of

momentary weakness, how difficult must it be for him who difregards the appearance of virtue to fecure his reputation from attack? If a continual regard to the opinion of the world be fometimes infufficient to preferve us from Bifgrace, how much greater must be the fall of him who by the tenor of his life has excited the voice of flander and of ridicule ?

To the fair fex, in particular, a regard to outward appearances is not only neceffary to preferve the favour of the world, but is likewife a real fafeguard to virtue. She who has once begun to hear without embarrassment the jefts and the impertinence of the licentious and the idle, will not long be able to ftruggle with temptation; the bounds of decency, when once paffed in idea, will not be fufficient to fecure us from rushing into the arms of vice. -She who has once forgot the revence which is due to the world, will forget in time the reverence due to herself and to virtue. While we are confcious of the approbation of the world, we are fecured from vice by the desire of preferving it; but when the ftimulus which once excited us to virtue is withdrawn, we fink into indifference, or fubmit to the first impulfes of paffion. When, by our difregard of outward appearances, we have loft the praise or the favour of mankind, we are no longer willing to toil in the path of rectitude without reward, we refign our felves to the power of despair; and as we have been punifbed with the guilty, we are eafily hurried to the commiffion of their crimes; we cannot relieve our minds by the confideration of the injustice of the world, for he who

fubmits

fubmits to the imputation of wickedness, through his indolence or pride, has little reafon to complain if his virtue be fufpected.

But even independent of the praise or cenfure of the world, merely as it may affect ourselves, it ought to be remembered that unless we preferve the moft fcrupulous decency in our outward demeanour, our attempt at virtue is imperfect, and all our labour and anxiety useless. He SqHe alone fulfils his duty who fupports, by the dignity of his outward behaviour, the truth of his opinion. Virtue, like the diamond, is unadmired by the world, and infignificant in value, till polished from its drofs, when it is not only gazed at for its beauty, but communicates a portion of its luftre to furrounding objects. It is in the power of every man to influence, in fome meafure, the opinion of others by his address and conversation; and he, therefore, who in appearance fanctions vices which he perceives in reality with horror, or laughs at virtues which he practises in fecret, is not only culpable by neglecting to employ perfuafion in the cause of truth, but must likewise forfeit his claim to reward, by encouraging the errors of the vicious; he feels the mortification of virtue without its pleasures, and is only distinguished from the guilty by the fuperior folly of his labours.

No 36.

NOTWITH

OTWITHSTANDING the many praifes of folitude which have been fo copionfly given to the world by a celebrated writer, I am afraid that his writings display more of the warmth of an enthusiast than of the rational coolness of a philofopher. He does not feem to have obferved the minute realities of life with fufficient attention, but to have represented human nature as his Tancy had formed it; always virtuous when fecured from temptation, and fufficiently impreffed with the beauty of the univerfe to look through nature up to nature's God.

4

There is in the human mind a principle which conti 'nually influences us to be difcontent with our present situation, and to look upon that of others with envy and defire. Perhaps there is no vice to which folitude gives fo much frength as to this. Undisturbed by intrusion, and without a variety of objects to divert our attention, we fall in the moments of ennui into a melancholy gloom, which leaves behind it even after time and reflection have enabled us to despise the object of regret, a moroseness of temper, never fatisfied by prefent enjoyment, but always recurring to the paft or looking forward to the

Of fimilar origin is that prejudice which leads us to regard the opinions which we have imbibed in our early years as the standards of truth. The man of folitude, unufed to that contrariety of fentiment which is difplayed in the mixed focieties of the world, efpoufes a clafs of ideas which become too familiar to his mind to be easily obliterated, and every opposition to which he treats with contempt or ridicule. Unaccustomed to contradiction, he learns to confider all his opinions as juft, and is equally furprised and mortified, when he finds, on a further intimacy with mankind, that he is defpifed or laughed at.

Honorius was defcended from one of the most repecta'ble families in the kingdom, and after receiving a liberal education, was introduced at the age of twenty-five to all the diffipation and the pleasures of the metropolis. Dif. tinguished by his learning, the elegance of his form, and -the ease of his addrefs, he was alike the favourite of the fair, the wealthy, the learned, and the gay. The old refpected him as the apparent heir to the honours of his father, and the young as one whose rank and manners entitled him to an influence in the empire of fathion. The student admired him for his knowledge, and the beau for the elegance of his drefs. His decifion upon the merits of a particle, or the value of a necklace, was equally decifive. In the focieties of literature he was the philofopher and the scholar, and in the circles of po litenefs the man of fathion and the gentleman.