easy; or, to speak of her in the words of the apocryphal writer", "Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away; yet she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her. She preventeth them that desire her, in making herself first known unto them. He that seeketh her early, shall have no great travel: for he shall find her sitting at his doors. To think therefore upon her is the perfection of wisdom, and whoso watcheth for her shall quickly be without care. For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, showeth herself favourably unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every thought." • Wisdom of Solomon, chap. vi. ver. 12—16. VI. SINCERITY. Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyriosque bilingues. Virg. Æn. i. 665. He fears the ambiguous race, and Tyrians double-tongu’d. "THERE is nothing," says Plato, "so delightful as the hearing or the speaking of truth." For this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive. Among all the accounts which are given of Cato, I do not remember one that more redounds to his honour than the following passage related by Plutarch. As an advocate was pleading the cause of his client before one of the prætors, he could only produce a single witness in a point where the law required the testimony of two persons; upon which the advocate insisted on the integrity of that person whom he had produced; but the prætor told him, that where the law required two witnesses, he would not accept of one, though it ΠΙ were Cato himself. Such a speech from a person who sat at the head of a court of justice, while Cato was still living, shows us, more than a thousand examples, the high reputation this great man had gained among his contemporaries upon the account of his sincerity. When such an inflexible integrity is a little softened and qualified by the rules of conversation and good-breeding, there is not a more shining virtue in the whole catalogue of social duties. A man however ought to take great care not to polish himself out of his veracity, nor to refine his behaviour to the prejudice of his virtue. This subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant sermon of the great British preacher *, I shall beg leave to transcribe out of it two or three sentences, as a proper introduction to a very curious letter, which I shall make the chief entertainment of this speculation. "The old English plainness and sincerity, that generous integrity of nature, and honesty of disposition, which always argues true greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted courage and resolution, is in a great measure lost among us. "The dialect of conversation is now-a-days so swelled with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a man that lived an age or two * Archbishop Tillotson, vol. ii. sermon i. folio edition. ago should return into the world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him to understand his own language, and to know the true intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion; and would hardly at first believe at what a low rate the highest strains and expressions of kindness imaginable do commonly pass in current payment; and when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself with a good countenance, and a good conscience, to converse with men upon equal terms and in their own way." I have by me a letter which I look upon as a great curiosity, and which may serve as an exemplification to the foregoing passage, cited out of this most excellent prelate. It is said to have been written in king Charles the Second's reign by the ambassador of Bantam *, a little after his arrival in England. MASTER, "The people where I am have tongues further from their hearts than from London to Bantam; and thou knowest the inhabitants of one of these places do not know what is done in the other. They call thee and thy subjects barbarians, because we speak what we mean; and account themselves a civilized people, because they speak one thing and mean another: truth they call barbarity, and falsehood politeness. Upon my first landing, one, who was sent from the king of this * In 1682. place to meet me, told me that he was extremely sorry for the storm I had met with just before my arrival. I was troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himself upon my account; but in less than a quarter of an hour he smiled, and was as merry as if nothing had happened. Another who came with him told me by my interpreter, he should be glad to do me any service that lay in his power. Upon which I desired him to carry one of my portmanteaus for me: but, instead of serving me according to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged, the first week, at the house of one who desired me to think myself at home, and to consider his house as my own. Accordingly, I the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the household goods, of which I intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work, but he sent word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I had not been long in this nation before I was told by one, for whom I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they here call the lord-treasurer, that I had eternally obliged him. I was so surprised at his gratitude, that I could not forbear saying, What service is there which one man can do for another, that can oblige him to all eternity!' However, I quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his countrymen. |