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This matter may be better understood by some exam5 ples. Thus, if one comes into the presence of another, as a beggar, servant, laborer, mechanic, trader, merchant, farmer, lawyer, physician, clergyman, or public officer; or if it be a female, or child of either sex; there may be very various modes of receiving these different persons. Yet, certainly, by every one of the laws, which we are endeavoring to illustrate, these several persons are entitled to civility. Even the beggar, perhaps one should rather say the beggar in particular, if not deformed by voluntary transgression, should be re6 ceived with civility. That is, gentleness, kindness, decorum are to be observed relatively to each one. Why because no man can afford to be deemed insensible to the calls of reasonable humanity; nor a stranger to the decencies of life; nor ignorant of what is due from him, nor to him, in any of his proper relations. Politeness may be quite another thing, in some of the supposed cases. One interchanges politeness with those who happen to know what politeness is; civility, with every body. A king would be polite to the 7 ladies of his court, to his prime minister, to the members of his council, to foreign ministers, &c., and civil to his coachman, and to the humblest of his subjects.

We may find many illustrations, and fill ever so many pages with them. Let us take one which will concern the greatest number. In this country a stage-coach, and a steamboat, bring many persons into a small space, who may be utterly ignorant of each other's existence, until they meet. They have a common object, that is, to be transported in the same vehicle, from the point 8 of departure, to that of destination. Circumstances

compel them to be very close to each other, and each one has the power of being very disagreeable to each one of the others, in a variety of well known modes. Let us suppose that each one consults merely his own interest, including in that, his own self-respect, the reasonable good will, which each man desires from all others, and the ever present principle of doing as he would be done by. He shows that he is sensible of the presence of his fellow-men; that he thinks them 9 of sufficient consequence to wish to have their good

opinion; that he is attentive to their comfort, or convenience; that he is disposed to learn something from them, or communicate something; or to join with them in disposing of the time in which one has nothing to do, but to be carried. Take the other side of the picture; he puts himself in the best place; takes out his cigar, lights it from a pocket apparatus, and goes to smoking; he sees no one, speaks to no one, and endeavors to hear no one; if spoken to, he answers in a 10 coarse monosyllable, and in a tone which prevents all further attempt at intercourse with him. If he make his presence known at all, beyond his sullen sitting there, it is by some selfish exclamation; or contemptuous ejaculation, on what is passing within his notice. Which of these two persons is civil; which of them is making the most of human life; which of them is attracting good will; which of them ought to like himself the best; which of them will have the most to look back upon, with pleasure? Which of them is a rational, sensible, well disposed human being, and which of them is a selfish brute?

LESSON CXIX.

Scene from Hamlet.-SHAKSPEARE.

Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

1 Hamlet. COME, some music.

Guildenstern. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, Sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distempered.
Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer,

2 to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce.

Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. Your are welcome.

Guil. Nay good my lord, this courtesy is not of the 3 right sort. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon, and my return, shall be the end of my business.

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Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother, you

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Rosencrantz. Then thus she says; Your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows--the proverb is something musty.

[Enter the Players with recorders.]

60, the recorders :-let me see one.-To withdraw with you:-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

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Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

Ros. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages, with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Ros. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you 8 would seem to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. Do you think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play up

on me.

LESSON CXX.

Eloquence of Whitfield.-GILLIES.

1 AN intimate friend of the infidel Hume, asked him what he thought of Mr. Whitfield's preaching; for he had listened to the latter part of one of his sermons at Edinburgh. "He is, sir," said Mr. Hume, "the most ingenious preacher I ever heard. It is worth while to go twenty miles to hear him." He then repeated the following passage which he heard, toward the close of that discourse: "After a solemn pause, Mr. Whitfield thus addressed his numerous audience; "The attendant angel is just about to leave the thres 2 hold, and ascend to heaven. And shall he ascend and

not bear with him the news of one sinner, among all this multitude, reclaimed from the error of his ways?' To give the greater effect to this exclamation, he stamped with his foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and with gushing tears, cried aloud, Stop, Gabriel!-Stop, Gabriel !-Stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God.' He then, in the most simple, but energetic language, described a Savior's dying 3 love to sinful man; so that almost the whole assembly melted into tears. This address was accompanied with such animated, yet natural action, that it surpassed any thing I ever saw or heard in any other preacher."

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Happy had it been for poor Hume, had he received. what he then heard, "as the word of God, and not as the word of man!"

Dr. Franklin, in his memoirs, bears witness to the extraordinary effect which was produced by Mr. Whitfield's preaching in America; and relates an anecdote 4 equally characteristic of the preacher and of himself. "I happened," says the doctor, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so 5 admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club; who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home; toward the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbor who stood near him to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, other time, friend Hodgkinson, I would lend to thee

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