est sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester: a noble family; for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.” In books of chivalry, where the point of honour is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfrey, as an emblem of her inno cence and, to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man, till some misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her relief. The knight falls in love; and did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her disdain. However, he must waste many years in the desert, before her virgin-heart can think of a sur render. The knight goes off, attacks every thing he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head, and after seven years rambling returns to his mistress, whose chastity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valour. In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humour, it is a transporting favour for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high; as it is usual for a lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in single combat with a mad bull. The great violation of the point of honour from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass unresented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is an affront that nothing but blood can expiate. The reason perhaps may be, because no other vice implies a want of courage so much as the making of a lie; and, therefore, telling a man he lies, is touching him in the most sensible part of honour, and indirectly calling him a coward. I cannot omit under this head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians, that from the age of five years to twenty, they instruct their sons only in VOL. IV.-12* three things, to manage the horse, to make use of the bow, and to speak truth. The placing the point of honour in this false kind of courage, has given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common sense, to set up for men of honour. An English peer, who has not been long dead,' used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman that visited him early one morning at Paris, and, after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which in short amounted to this, that he believed he could tell his lordship the person's name who justled him as he came out from the opera; but, before he would proceed, he begged his lordship that he would not deny him the honour of making him his second. The English lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him that he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends. Upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill, if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage. The beating down this false notion of honour, in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king's reign. It is pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstances of shame and infamy; that those who are slaves to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and dishonour. Death is not sufficient to deter men, who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imag inary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice. Said to have been William Cavendish, first Duke of Devonshire, who died Aug. 18, 1709.-C. When honour is a support to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged; but when the dictates of honour are contrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is good and laudable; and should, therefore, be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human society. L. No. 101. TUESDAY, JUNE 26. Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux, Speratum meritis: HOR. 2. Ep. 1. 5. IMITATED. Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, 1 POPE. CENSURE, says a late ingenious author, is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.' It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and, indeed, of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecu 1 Bishop Hoadley, in one of his political pamphlets, calls censure, the perquisite of great offices; but the quotation is quoted from Swift. V. his works, vol iii. p. 277-ed. in 8vo, 1766, 24 vols.-C. tion. There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph. If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunities of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it. It is, therefore, the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists, who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey; and celebrate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which whilst he lived his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing. According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made its appearance in 1680, imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Englishman considers the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent historian may then probably arise, that will not write recentibus odiis (as Tacitus expresses it) with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary author, but make an impartial distribution of fame among the great men of the present age. I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian describing the reign of ANNE the first, and introducing it with a preface to his reader; that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such an one (says the historian) though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity; nor was such an one (though of an opposite party and interest) inferior to him in any of these respects. The several antagonists who now endeavour to depreciate one another, and are celebrated or traduced by different parties, will then have the same body of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opinion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age. Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning, who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honourable mention which will then be made of me and have drawn up a paragraph |