PART II.

Opinionum enim Commenta delet dies; Naturae judicia confirmat.

Cicero de Nat. Deor. Lib. 2.

PREFACE.

Considering the manifold clamours, that have been raised from several quarters, against the Fable of the Bees, even after I had published the vindication of it, many of my readers will wonder to see me come out with a second part, before I have taken any further notice of what has been said against the first. Whatever is published, I take it for granted, is submitted to the judgment of all the world that see it; but it is very unreasonable, that authors should not be upon the same footing with their critics. The treatment I have received, and the liberties some gentlemen have taken with me, being well known, the public must be convinced before now, that, in point of civility, I owe my adversaries nothing: and if those, who have taken upon them to school and reprimand me, had an undoubted right to censure what they thought fit, without asking my leave, and to say of me what they pleased, I ought to have an equal privilege to examine their censures, and, without consulting them, to judge in my turn, whether they are worth answering or not. The public must be the umpire between us. From the Appendix that has been added to the first part, ever since the third edition, it is manifest, that I have been far from endeavouring to stifle, either the arguments or the invectives that were made against me; and, not to have left the reader uninformed of any thing extant of either sort, I once thought to have taken this opportunity of presenting him with a list of the adversaries that have appeared in print against me: but as they are in nothing so considerable as they are in their numbers, I was afraid it would have looked like ostentation, unless I would have answered them all, which I shall never attempt. The reason, therefore, of my obstinate silence has been all along, that hitherto I have not been accused of any thing that is criminal or immoral, for which every middling capacity could not have framed a very good answer, from some part or other, either of the vindication or the book itself.

However, I have wrote, and had by me near two years, a defence of the Fable of the Bees, in which I have stated and endeavoured to solve all the objections that might reasonably be made against it, as to the doctrine contained in it, and the detriment it might be of to others: for this is the only thing about which I ever had any concern. Being conscious, that I have wrote with no ill design, I should be sorry to lie under the imputation of it: but as to the goodness or badness of the performance itself, the thought was never worth my care; and therefore those critics, that found fault with my bad reasoning, and said of the book, that it is ill wrote, that there is nothing new in it, that it is incoherent stuff, that the language is barbarous, the humour low, and the style mean and pitiful; those critics, I say, are all very welcome to say what they please: In the main, I believe they are in the right; but if they are not, I shall never give myself the trouble to contradict them; for I never think an author more foolishly employed, than when he is vindicating his own abilities. As I wrote it for my diversion, so I had my ends; if those who read it have not had theirs, I am sorry for it, though I think myself not at all answerable for the disappointment. It was not wrote by subscription, nor have I ever warranted, any where, what use or goodness it would be of: on the contrary, in the very preface, I have called it an inconsiderable trifle; and since that, I have publicly owned that it was a rhapsody. If people will buy books without looking into them, or knowing what they are, I cannot see whom they have to blame but themselves, when they do not answer expectations. Besides, it is no new thing for people to dislike books after they have bought them: this will happen sometimes, even when men of considerable figure had given them the strongest assurances, before hand, that they would be pleased with them.

A considerable part of the defence I mentioned, has been seen by several of my friends, who have been in expectation of it for some time. I have stayed neither for types nor paper, and yet I have several reasons, why I do not yet publish it; which, having touched nobody's money, nor made any promise concerning it, I beg leave to keep to myself. Most of my adversaries, whenever it comes out, will think it soon enough; and nobody suffers by the delay but myself.

Since I was first attacked, it has long been a matter of wonder and perplexity to me to find out, why and how men should conceive, that I had wrote with an intent to debauch the nation, and promote all manner of vice: and it was a great while before I could derive the charge from any thing, but wilful mistake and premeditated malice. But since I have seen, that men could be serious in apprehending the increase of rogues and robberies, from the frequent representations of the Beggar's Opera, I am persuaded, that there really are such wrongheads in the world, as will fancy vices to be encouraged, when they see them exposed. To the same perverseness of judgment it must have been owing, that some of my adversaries were highly incensed with me, for having owned, in the Vindication, that hitherto I had not been able to conquer my vanity, as well as I could have wished. From their censure it is manifest, that they must have imagined, that to complain of a frailty, was the same as to brag of it. But if these angry gentlemen had been less blinded with passion, or seen with better eyes, they would easily have perceived, unless they were too well pleased with their pride, that to have made the same confession themselves, they wanted nothing but sincerity. Whoever boasts of his vanity, and at the same time shows his arrogance, is unpardonable. But when we hear a man complain of an infirmity, and his want of power entirely to cure it, whilst he suffers no symptoms of it to appear, that we could justly upbraid him with, we are so far from being offended, that we are pleased with the ingenuity, and applaud his candour; and when such an author takes no greater liberties with his readers, than what is usual in the same manner of writing, and owns that to be the result of vanity, which others tell a thousand lies about, his confession is a compliment, and the frankness of it ought not to be looked upon otherwise, than as a civility to the public, a condescension he was not obliged to make. It is not in feeling the passions, or in being affected with the frailties of nature, that vice consists; but in indulging and obeying the call of them, contrary to the dictates of reason. Whoever pays great deference to his readers, respectfully submitting himself to their judgment, and tells them at the same time, that he is entirely destitute of pride; whoever, I say, does this, spoils his compliment whilst he is making of it: for it is no better than bragging, that it costs him nothing. Persons of taste, and the least delicacy, can be but little affected with a man's modesty, of whom they are sure, that he is wholly void of pride within: the absence of the one makes the virtue of the other cease; at least the merit of it is not greater than that of chastity in an eunuch, or humility in a beggar. What glory would it be to the memory of Cato, that he refused to touch the water that was brought him, if it was not supposed that he was very thirsty when he did it?

The reader will find, that in this second part I have endeavoured to illustrate and explain several things, that were obscure and only hinted at in the first.

Whilst I was forming this design, I found, on the one hand, that, as to myself, the easiest way of executing it, would be by dialogue; but I knew, on the other, that to discuss opinions, and manage controversies, it is counted the most unfair manner of writing. When partial men have a mind to demolish an adversary, and triumph over him with little expence, it has long been a frequent practice to attack him with dialogues, in which the champion, who is to lose the battle, appears at the very beginning of the engagement, to be the victim that is to be sacrificed, and seldom makes a better figure than cocks on Shrove-Tuesday, that receive blows, but return none, and are visibly set up on purpose to be knocked down. That this is to be said against dialogues, is certainly true; but it is as true, that there is no other manner of writing, by which greater reputation has been obtained. Those, who have most excelled all others in it, were the two most famous authors of all antiquity, Plato and Cicero: the one wrote almost all his philosophical works in dialogues, and the other has left us nothing else. It is evident, then, that the fault of those, who have not succeeded in dialogues; was in the management, and not in the manner of writing; and that nothing but the ill use that has been made of it, could ever have brought it into disrepute. The reason why Plato preferred dialogues to any other manner of writing, he said, was, that things thereby might look, as if they were acted, rather than told: the same was afterwards given by Cicero in the same words, rendered into his own language. The greatest objection that in reality lies against it, is the difficulty there is in writing them well. The chief of Plato's interlocutors was always his master Socrates, who every where maintains his character with great dignity; but it would have been impossible to have made such an extraordinary person speak like himself on so many emergencies, if Plato had not been as great a man as Socrates.

Cicero, who studied nothing more than to imitate Plato, introduced in his dialogues some of the greatest men in Rome, his contemporaries, that were known to be of different opinions, and made them maintain and defend every one his own sentiments, as strenuously, and in as lively a manner, as they could possibly have done themselves; and in reading his dialogues a man may easily imagine himself to be in company with several learned men of different tastes and studies. But to do this, a man must have Cicero's capacity. Lucian likewise, and several others among the ancients, chose for their speakers, persons of known characters. That this interests and engages the reader more than strange names, is undeniable; but then, when the personages fall short of those characters, it plainly shows, that the author undertook what he was not able to execute. To avoid this inconveniency, most dialogue-writers among the moderns, have made use of fictitious names, which they either invented themselves or borrowed of others. These are, generally speaking, judicious compounds, taken from the Greek, that serve for short characters of the imaginary persons they are given to, denoting either the party they side with, or what it is they love or hate. But of all these happy compounds, there is not one that has appeared equally charming to so many authors of different views and talents, as Philalethes; a plain demonstration of the great regard mankind generally have to truth. There has not been a paper-war of note, these two hundred years, in which both parties, at one time or other, have not made use of this victorious champion; who, which side soever he has fought on, has hitherto, like Dryden's Almanzor, been conqueror, and constantly carried all before him. But, as by this means the event of the battle must always be known, as soon as the combatants are named, and before a blow is struck; and as all men are not equally peaceable in their dispositions, many readers have complained, that they had not sport enough for their money, and that knowing so much before hand, spoiled all their diversion. This humour having prevailed for some time, authors are grown less solicitous about the names of the personages they introduce. This careless way, seeming to me at least as reasonable as any other, I have followed; and had no other meaning by the names I have given my interlocutors, than to distinguish them, without the least regard to the derivation of words, or any thing relating to the etymology of them: all the care I have taken about them, that I know of, is, that the pronunciation of them should not be harsh, nor the sounds offensive.

But though the names I have chosen are feigned, and the circumstances of the persons fictitious, the characters themselves are real, and as faithfully copied from nature as I have been able to take them. I have known critics find fault with play-wrights for annexing short characters to the names they gave the persons of the drama; alleging, that it is forestalling their pleasure, and that whatever the actors are represented to be, they want no monitor, and are wise enough to find it out themselves. But I could never approve of this censure: there is a satisfaction, I think, in knowing one's company; and when I am to converse with people for a considerable time, I desire to be well acquainted with them, and the sooner the better. It is for this reason, I thought it proper to give the reader some account of the persons that are to entertain him. As they are supposed to be people of quality, I beg leave, before I come to particulars, to premise some things concerning the beau monde in general; which, though most people perhaps know them every body does not always attend to. Among the fashionable part of mankind throughout Christendom, there are, in all countries, persons, who, though they feel a just abhorrence to atheism and professed infidelity, yet have very little religion, and are scarce half-believers, when their lives come to be looked into, and their sentiments examined. What is chiefly aimed at in a refined education, is to procure as much ease and pleasure upon earth, as that can afford: therefore men are first instructed in all the various arts of rendering their behaviour agreeable to others, with the least disturbance to themselves. Secondly, they are imbued with the knowledge of all the elegant comforts of life, as well as the lessons of human prudence, to avoid pain and trouble, in order to enjoy as much of the world, and with as little opposition, as it is possible. Whilst thus men study their own private interest, in assisting each other to promote and increase the pleasures of life in general, they find by experience, that to compass those ends, every thing ought to be banished from conversation, that can have the least tendency of making others uneasy; and to reproach men with their faults or imperfections, neglects or omissions, or to put them in mind of their duty, are offices that none are allowed to take upon them, but parents or professed masters and tutors; nor even they before company: but to reprove and pretend to teach others, we have no authority over, is ill manners, even in a clergyman out of the pulpit; nor is he there to talk magisterially, or ever to mention things, that are melancholy or dismal, if he should pass for a polite preacher: but whatever we may vouchsafe to hear at church, neither the certainty of a future state, nor the necessity of repentance, nor any thing else relating to the essentials of Christianity, are ever to be talked of when we are out of it, among the beau monde, upon any account whatever. The subject is not diverting: besides, every body is supposed to know those things, and to take care accordingly; nay, it is unmannerly to think otherwise. The decency in fashion being the chief, if not the only, rule, all modish people walk by, not a few of them go to church, and receive the sacrament, from the same principle that obliges them to pay visits to one another, and now and then to make an entertainment. But as the greatest care of the beau monde is to be agreeable, and appear well-bred, so most of them take particular care, and many against their consciences, not to seem burdened with more religion than it is fashionable to have, for fear of being thought to be either hypocrites or bigots.

Virtue, however, is a very fashionable word, and some of the most luxurious are extremely fond of the amiable sound; though they mean nothing by it, but a great veneration for whatever is courtly or sublime, and an equal aversion to every thing that is vulgar or unbecoming. They seem to imagine, that it chiefly consists in a strict compliance to the rules of politeness, and all the laws of honour, that have any regard to the respect that is due to themselves. It is the existence of this virtue, that is often maintained with so much pomp of words, and for the eternity of which so many champions are ready to take up arms: whilst the votaries of it deny themselves no pleasure, they can enjoy, either fashionably or in secret, and, instead of sacrificing the heart to the love of real virtue, can only condescend to abandon the outward deformity of vice, for the satisfaction they receive from appearing to be well-bred. It is counted ridiculous for men to commit violence upon themselves, or to maintain, that virtue requires self-denial: all court philosophers are agreed, that nothing can be lovely or desirable, that is mortifying or uneasy. A civil behaviour among the fair in public, and a deportment inoffensive both in words and actions, is all the chastity the polite world requires in men. What liberties soever a man gives himself in private, his reputation shall never suffer, whilst he conceals his amours from all those that are not unmannerly inquisitive, and takes care that nothing criminal can ever be proved upon him. Si non caste, saltem caute, is a precept that sufficiently shows what every body expects; and though incontinence is owned to be a sin, yet never to have been guilty of it is a character which most single men under thirty would not be fond of, even amongst modest women.

As the world everywhere, in compliment itself, desires to be counted really virtuous, so bare-faced vices, and all trespasses committed in sight of it, are heinous and unpardonable. To see a man drunk in the open street, or any serious assembly at noon-day, is shocking; because it is a violation of the laws of decency, and plainly shows a want of respect, and neglect of duty, which every body is supposed to owe to the public. Men of mean circumstances likewise may be blamed for spending more time or money in drinking, than they can afford; but when these and all worldly considerations are out of the question, drunkenness itself, as it is a sin, an offence to Heaven, is seldom censured; and no man of fortune scruples to own, that he was at such a time in such a company, where they drank very hard. Where nothing is committed, that is either beastly, or otherwise extravagant, societies, that meet on purpose to drink and be merry, reckon their manner of passing away the time as innocent as any other, though most days in the year they spend five or six hours of the four and twenty in that diversion. No man had ever the reputation of being a good companion, that would never drink to excess; and if a man's constitution be so strong, or himself so cautious, that the dose he takes overnight, never disorders him the next day, the worst that shall be said of him, is, that he loves his bottle with moderation: though every night constantly he makes drinking his pastime, and hardly ever goes to bed entirely sober.

Avarice, it is true, is generally detested; but as men may be as guilty of it by scraping money together, as they can be by hoarding it up, so all the base, the sordid, and unreasonable means of acquiring wealth, ought to be equally condemned and exploded, with the vile, the pitiful, and penurious way of saving it: but the world is more indulgent; no man is taxed with avarice, that will conform with the beau monde, and live every way in splendour, though he should always be raising the rents of his estate, and hardly suffer his tenants to live under him; though he should enrich himself by usury, and all the barbarous advantages that extortion can make of the necessities of others: and though, moreover, he should be a bad paymaster himself, and an unmerciful creditor to the unfortunate; it is all one, no man is counted covetous, who entertains well, and will allow his family what is fashionable for a person in his condition. How often do we see men of very large estates unreasonably solicitous after greater riches! What greediness do some men discover in extending the perquisites of their offices! What dishonourable condescensions are made for places of profit! What slavish attendance is given, and what low submissions and unmanly cringes are made to favourites for pensions, by men that could subsist without them! Yet these things are no reproach to men, and they are never upbraided with them but by their enemies, or those that envy them, and perhaps the discontented and the poor. On the contrary, most of the well-bred people, that live in affluence themselves, will commend them for their diligence and activity; and say of them, that they take care of the main chance; that they are industrious men for their families, and that they know how, and are fit, to live in the world.

But these kind constructions are not more hurtful to the practice of Christianity, than the high opinion which, in an artful education, men are taught to have of their species, is to the belief of its doctrine, if a right use be not made of it. That the great pre-eminence we have over all other creatures we are acquainted with, consists in our rational faculty, is very true; but it is as true, that the more we are taught to admire ourselves, the more our pride increases, and the greater stress we lay on the sufficiency of our reason: For as experience teaches us, that the greater and the more transcendent the esteem is, which men have for their own worth, the less capable they generally are to bear injuries without resentment; so we see, in like manner, that the more exalted the notions are which men entertain of their better part, their reasoning faculty, the more remote and averse they will be from giving their assent to any thing that seems to insult over or contradict it: And asking a man to admit of any thing he cannot comprehend, the proud reasoner calls an affront to human understanding. But as ease and pleasure are the grand aim of the beau monde, and civility is inseparable from their behaviour, whether they are believers or not, so well-bred people never quarrel with the religion they are brought up in: They will readily comply with every ceremony in divine worship they have been used to, and never dispute with you either about the Old or the New Testament, if, in your turn, you will forbear laying great stress upon faith and mysteries, and allow them to give an allegorical, or any other figurative sense to the History of the Creation, and whatever else they cannot comprehend or account for by the light of nature.

I am far from believing, that, among the fashionable people, there are not, in all Christian countries, many persons of stricter virtue, and greater sincerity in religion, than I have here described; but that a considerable part of mankind have a great resemblance to the picture I have been drawing, I appeal to every knowing and candid reader. Horatio, Cleomenes, and Fulvia, are the names I have given to my interlocutors: The first represents one of the modish people I have been speaking of, but rather of the better sort of them as to morality, though he seems to have a greater distrust of the sincerity of clergymen, than he has of that of any other profession, and to be of the opinion, which is expressed in that trite and specious, as well as false and injurious saying, priests of all religions are the same. As to his studies, he is supposed to be tolerably well versed in the classics, and to have read more than is usual for people of quality, that are born to great estates. He is a man of strict honour, and of justice as well as humanity; rather profuse than covetous, and altogether disinterested in his principles. He has been abroad, seen the world, and is supposed to be possessed of the greatest part of the accomplishments that usually gain a man the reputation of being very much of a gentleman.

Cleomenes had been just such another, but was much reformed. As he had formerly, for his amusement only, been dipping into anatomy, and several parts of natural philosophy; so, since he was come home from his travels, he had studied human nature, and the knowledge of himself, with great application. It is supposed, that, whilst he was thus employing most of his leisure hours, he met with the Fable of the Bees; and, making a great use of what he read, compared what he felt himself within, as well as what he had seen in the world, with the sentiments set forth in that book, and found the insincerity of men fully as universal, as it was there represented. He had no opinion of the pleas and excuses that are commonly made to cover the real desires of the heart; and he ever suspected the sincerity of men, whom he saw to be fond of the world, and with eagerness grasping at wealth and power, when they pretended that the great end of their labours was to have opportunities of doing good to others upon earth, and becoming themselves more thankful to Heaven; especially, if they conformed with the beau monde, and seemed to take delight in a fashionable way of living: He had the same suspicion of all men of sense, who, having read and considered the gospel, would maintain the possibility that persons might pursue worldly glory with all their strength, and, at the same time, be good Christians. Cleomenes himself believed the Bible to be the word of God, without reserve, and was entirely convinced of the mysterious, as well as historical truths that are contained in it. But as he was fully persuaded, not only of the veracity of the Christian religion, but likewise of the severity of its precepts, so he attacked his passions with vigour, but never scrupled to own his want of power to subdue them, or the violent opposition he felt from within; often complaining, that the obstacles he met with from flesh and blood, were insurmountable. As he understood perfectly well the difficulty of the task required in the gospel, so he ever opposed those easy casuists, that endeavoured to lessen and extenuate it for their own ends; and he loudly maintained, that men's gratitude to Heaven was an unacceptable offering, whilst they continued to live in ease and luxury, and were visibly solicitous after their share of the pomp and vanity of this world. In the very politeness of conversation, the complacency with which fashionable people are continually soothing each other's frailties, and in almost every part of a gentleman's behaviour, he thought there was a disagreement between the outward appearances, and what is felt within, that was clashing with uprightness and sincerity. Cleomenes was of opinion, that of all religious virtues, nothing was more scarce, or more difficult to acquire, than Christian humility; and that to destroy the possibility of ever attaining to it, nothing was so effectual as what is called a gentleman's education; and that the more dexterous, by this means, men grew in concealing the outward signs, and every symptom of pride, the more entirely they became enslaved by it within. He carefully examined into the felicity that accrues from the applause of others, and the invisible wages which men of sense and judicious fancy received for their labours; and what it was at the bottom that rendered those airy rewards so ravishing to mortals. He had often observed, and watched narrowly the countenances and behaviour of men, when any thing of theirs was admired or commended, such as the choice of their furniture, the politeness of their entertainments, the elegancy of their equipages, their dress, their diversions, or the fine taste displayed in their buildings.

Cleomenes seemed charitable, and was a man of strict morals, yet he would often complain that he was not possessed of one Christian virtue, and found fault with his own actions, that had all the appearances of goodness; because he was conscious, he said, that they were performed from a wrong principle. The effects of his education, and his aversion to infamy, had always been strong enough to keep him from turpitude; but this he ascribed to his vanity, which he complained was in such full possession of his heart, that he knew no gratification of any appetite from which he was able to exclude it. Having always been a man of unblameable behaviour, the sincerity of his belief had made no visible alteration in his conduct to outward appearances; but in private he never ceased from examining himself. As no man was less prone to enthusiasm than himself, so his life was very uniform; and as he never pretended to high flights of devotion, so he never was guilty of enormous offences. He had a strong aversion to rigorists of all sorts; and when he saw men quarrelling about forms and creeds, and the interpretation of obscure places, and requiring of others the strictest compliance to their own opinions in disputable matters, it raised his indignation to see the generality of them want charity, and many of them scandalously remiss in the plainest and most necessary duties. He took uncommon pains to search into human nature, and left no stone unturned, to detect the pride and hypocrisy of it, and, among his intimate friends, to expose the stratagems of the one, and the exorbitant power of the other. He was sure, that the satisfaction which arose from worldly enjoyments, was something distinct from gratitude, and foreign to religion; and he felt plainly, that as it proceeded from within, so it centered in himself: The very relish of life, he said, was accompanied with an elevation of mind, that seemed to be inseparable from his being. Whatever principle was the cause of this, he was convinced within himself, that the sacrifice of the heart, which the gospel requires, consisted in the utter extirpation of that principle; confessing, at the same time, that this satisfaction he found in himself, this elevation of mind, caused his chief pleasure; and that, in all the comforts of life, it made the greatest part of the enjoyment.

Cleomenes, with grief, often owned his fears, that his attachment to the world would never cease whilst he lived; the reasons he gave, were the great regard he continued to have for the opinion of worldly men; the stubbornness of his indocile heart, that could not be brought to change the objects of its pride; and refused to be ashamed of what, from his infancy, it had been taught to glory in; and, lastly, the impossibility, he found in himself, of being ever reconciled to contempt, and enduring, with patience, to be laughed at and despised for any cause, or on any consideration whatever. These were the obstacles, he said, that hindered him from breaking off all commerce with the beau monde, and entirely changing his manner of living; without which, he thought it mockery to talk of renouncing the world, and bidding adieu to all the pomp and vanity of it.

The part of Fulvia, which is the third person, is so inconsiderable, she just appearing only in the first dialogue, that it would be impertinent to trouble the reader with a character of her. I had a mind to say some things on painting and operas, which I thought might, by introducing her, be brought in more naturally, and with less trouble, than they could have been without her. The ladies, I hope, will find no reason, from the little she does say, to suspect that she wants either virtue or understanding.

As to the fable, or what is supposed to have occasioned the first dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes, it is this. Horatio, who had found great delight in my Lord Shaftsbury's polite manner of writing, his fine raillery, and blending virtue with good manners, was a great stickler for the social system; and wondered how Cleomenes could be an advocate for such a book as the Fable of the Bees, of which he had heard a very vile character from several quarters. Cleomenes, who loved and had a great friendship for Horatio, wanted to undeceive him; but the other, who hated satire, was prepossessed, and having been told likewise, that martial courage, and honour itself, were ridiculed in that book, he was very much exasperated against the author and his whole scheme: he had two or three times heard Cleomenes discourse on this subject with others; but would never enter into the argument himself; and finding his friend often pressing to come to it, he began to look cooly upon him, and at last to avoid all opportunities of being alone with him: till Cleomenes drew him in, by the stratagem which the reader will see he made use of, as Horatio was one day taking his leave after a short complimentary visit.

I should not wonder to see men of candour, as well as good sense, find fault with the manner, in which I have chose to publish these thoughts of mine to the world: There certainly is something in it, which I confess I do not know how to justify to my own satisfaction. That such a man as Cleomenes, having met with a book agreeable to his own sentiments, should desire to be acquainted with the author of it, has nothing in it that is improbable or unseemly; but then it will be objected, that, whoever the interlocutors are, it was I myself who wrote the dialogues; and that it is contrary to all decency, that a man should proclaim concerning his own work, all that a friend of his, perhaps, might be allowed to say: this is true; and the best answer which I think can be made to it, is, that such an impartial man, and such a lover of truth, as Cleomenes is represented to be, would be as cautious in speaking of his friend's merit, as he would be of his own. It might be urged likewise, that when a man professes himself to be an author's friend, and exactly to entertain the same sentiments with another, it must naturally put every reader upon his guard, and render him as suspicious and distrustful of such a man, as he would be of the author himself. But how good soever the excuses are, that might be made for this manner of writing, I would never have ventured upon it, if I had not liked it in the famous Gassendus, who, by the help of several dialogues and a friend, who is the chief personage in them, has not only explained and illustrated his system, but likewise refuted his adversaries: him I have followed, and I hope the reader will find, that whatever opportunity I have had by this means, of speaking well of myself indirectly, I had no design to make that, or any other ill use of it.

As it is supposed, that Cleomenes is my friend, and speaks my sentiments, so it is but justice, that every thing which he advances should be looked upon and considered as my own; but no man in his senses would think, that I ought to be equally responsible for every thing that Horatio says, who is his antagonist. If ever he offers any thing that favours of libertinism, or is otherwise exceptionable, which Cleomenes does not reprove him for in the best and most serious manner, or to which he gives not the most satisfactory and convincing answer that can be made, I am to blame, otherwise not. Yet from the fate the first part has met with, I expect to see in a little time several things transcribed and cited from this, in that manner, by themselves, without the replies that are made to them, and so shown to the world, as my words and my opinion. The opportunity of doing this will be greater in this part than it was in the former, and should I always have fair play, and never be attacked, but by such adversaries, as would make their quotations from me without artifice, and use me with common honesty, it would go a great way to the refuting of me; and I should myself begin to suspect the truth of several things I have advanced, and which hitherto I cannot help believing.

A stroke made in this manner,----which the reader will sometimes meet with in the following dialogues, is a sign, either of interruption, when the person speaking is not suffered to go on with what he was going to say, or else of a pause, during which something is supposed to be said or done, not relating to the discourse.

As in this part I have not altered the subject, on which a former, known by the name of the Fable of the Bees, was wrote; and the same unbiassed method of searching after truth, and inquiring into the nature of man and society, made use of in that, is continued in this, I thought it unnecessary to look out for another title; and being myself a great lover of simplicity, and my invention none of the most fruitful, the reader, I hope, will pardon the bald, inelegant aspect, and unusual emptiness of the title page.

Here I would have made an end of my Preface, which I know very well is too long already: but the world having been very grossly imposed upon by a false report, that some months ago was very solemnly made, and as industriously spread in most of the newspapers, for a considerable time, I think it would be an unpardonable neglect in me, of the public, should I suffer them; to remain in the error they were led into, when I am actually addressing them; and there is no other person, from whom they can so justly expect to be undeceived. In the London Evening Post of Saturday March 9, 1727-8, the following paragraph was printed in small Italic, at the end of the home news.

On Friday evening the first instant, a gentleman, well-dressed, appeared at the bonfire before St. James's Gate, who declared himself the author of a book, intituled, the Fable of the Bees; and that he was sorry for writing the same: and recollecting his former promise, pronounced these words: I commit my book to the flames; and threw it in accordingly.

The Monday following, the same piece of news was repeated in the Daily Journal, and after that for a considerable time, as I have said, in most of the papers: but since the Saturday mentioned, which was the only time it was printed by itself, it appeared always with a small addition to it, and annexed (with a N. B. before it) to the following advertisement.

ARETE-LOGIA:

Or an Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue, wherein the false notions of Machiavel, Hobbs, Spinosa, and Mr. Bayle, as they are collected and digested by the Author of the Fable of the Bees, are examined and confuted; and the eternal and unalterable nature and obligation of moral virtue is stated and vindicated; to which is prefixed, a Prefatory Introduction, in a Letter to that Author, By Alexander Innes, D. D. Preacher Assistant at St. Margaret's, Westminster.

The small addition which I said was made to that notable piece of news, after it came to be annexed to this advertisement, consisted of these five words (upon reading the above book), which were put in after, "sorry for writing the same." This story having been often repeated in the papers, and never publicly contradicted, many people, it seems, were credulous enough to believe, notwithstanding the improbability of it. But the least attentive would have suspected the whole, as soon as they had seen the addition that was made to it, the second time it was published; for supposing it to be intelligible, as it follows the advertisement, it cannot be pretended, that the repenting gentleman pronounced those very words. He must have named the book; and if he had said, that his sorrow was occasioned by reading the ARETE-LOGIA, or the new book of the reverend Dr. Innes, how came such a remarkable part of his confession to be omitted in the first publication, where the well-dressed gentleman's words and actions seemed to be set down with so much care and exactness? Besides, every body knows the great industry, and general intelligence of our news-writers: if such a farce had really been acted, and a man had been hired to pronounce the words mentioned, and throw a book into the fire, which I have often wondered was not done, is it credible at all, that a thing so remarkable, done so openly, and before so many witnesses, the first day of March, should not be taken notice of in any of the papers before the ninth, and never be repeated afterwards, or ever mentioned but as an appendix of the advertisement to recommend Dr. Innes's book?

However, this story has been much talked of, and occasioned a great deal of mirth among my acquaintance, several of whom have earnestly pressed me more than once to advertise the falsity of it, which I would never comply with for fear of being laughed at, as some years ago poor Dr. Patridge was, for seriously maintaining that he was not dead. But all this while we were in the dark, and nobody could tell how this report came into the world, or what it could be that had given a handle to it, when one evening a friend of mine, who had borrowed Dr. Innes's book, which till then I had never seen, showed me in it the following lines.

But a propos Sir, if I rightly remember, the ingenuous Mr. Law, in his Remarks upon your Fable of the Bees, puts you in mind of a promise you had made, by which you obliged yourself to burn that book at any time or place your adversary should appoint, if any thing should be found in it tending to immorality or the corruption of manners. I have a great respect for that gentleman, though I am not personally acquainted with him, but I cannot but condemn his excessive credulity and good nature, in believing that a man of your principles could be a slave to his word; for my own part, I think, I know you too well to be so easily imposed upon; or if, after all, you should. really persist in your resolution, and commit it to the flames, I appoint the first of March, before St. James's Gate, for that purpose, it being the birthday of the best and most glorious queen upon earth; and the burning of your book the smallest atonement you can make, for endeavouring to corrupt and debauch his majesty's subjects in their principles. Now, Sir, if you agree to this, I hope you are not so destitute of friends, but that you may find some charitable neighbour or other, who will lend you a helping hand, and throw in the author at the same time by way of appendix; the doing of which will, in my opinion, complete the solemnity of the day. I am not your patient, but, your most humble servant.

Thus ends what, in the ARETE-LOGIA Doctor Innes is pleased to call a Prefatory Introduction, in a Letter to the Author of the Fable of the Bees. It is signed A. I. and dated Tot-hill-fields, Westminster, Jan. 20. 1727-8.

Now all our wonder ceased. The judicious reader will easily allow me, that, having read thus much, I had an ample dispensation from going on any further; therefore I can say nothing of the book: and as to the reverend author of it, who seems to think himself so well acquainted with my principles, I have not the honour to know either him or his morals, otherwise than from what I have quoted here. Ex pede Herculem.

London, October 20. 1728.

THE FIRST DIALOGUE. BETWEEN HORATIO, CLEOMENES, and FULVIA.

CLEOMENES.

Always in haste, Horatio?

Hor. I must beg of you to excuse me, I am obliged to go.

Cleo. Whether you have other engagements than you used to have, or whether your temper is changed, I cannot tell, but something has made an alteration in you, of which I cannot comprehend the cause. There is no man in the world whose friendship I value more than I do yours, or whose company I like better, yet I can never have it. I profess I have thought sometimes that you have avoided me on purpose.

Hor. I am sorry, Cleomenes, I should have been wanting in civility to you; I come every week constantly to pay my respects to you, and if ever I fail, I always send to inquire after your health.

Cleo. No man outdoes Horatio in civility; but I thought something more was due to our affections and long acquaintance, besides compliments and ceremony: Of late I have never been to wait upon you, but you are gone abroad, or I find you engaged; and when I have the honour to see you here, your stay is only momentary. Pray pardon my rudeness for once: What is it that hinders you now from keeping me company for an hour or two? My cousin talks of going out, and I shall be all alone.

Hor. I know better than to rob you of such an opportunity for speculation?

Cleo. Speculation! on what, pray?

Hor. That vileness of our species in the refined way of thinking you have of late been so fond of, I call it the scheme of deformity, the partisans of which study chiefly to make every thing in our nature appear as ugly and contemptible as it is possible, and take uncommon pains to persuade men that they are devils.

Cleo. If that be all, I shall soon convince you.

Hor. No conviction to me, I beseech you: I am determined, and fully persuaded, that there is good in the world as well as evil; and that the words, honesty, benevolence, and humanity, and even charity, are not empty sounds only, but that there are such things in spite of the Fable of the Bees; and I am resolved to believe, that, notwithstanding the degeneracy of mankind, and the wickedness of the age, there are men now living, who are actually possessed of those virtues.

Cleo. But you do not know what I am going to say: I am----

Hor. That may be, but I will not hear one word; all you can say is lost upon me, and if you will not give me leave to speak out, I am gone this moment. That cursed book has bewitched you, and made you deny the existence of those very virtues that had gained you the esteem of your friends. You know this is not my usual language; I hate to say harsh things: But what regard can, or ought one to have for an author that treats every body de haut en bas, makes a jest of virtue and honour, calls Alexander the Great a madman, and spares kings and princes no more than any one, would the most abject of the people? The business of his philosophy is just the reverse to that of the herald's office; for, as there they are always contriving and finding out high and illustrious pedigrees for low and obscure people, so your author is ever searching after, and inventing mean contemptible origins for worthy and honourable actions. I am your very humble servant.

Cleo. Stay. I am of your opinion; what I offered to convince you of, was, how entirely I am recovered of the folly which you have so justly exposed: I have left that error.

Hor. Are you in earnest?

Cleo. No man more: There is no greater stickler for the social virtues than myself; and I much question, whether there is any of Lord Shaftsbury's admirers that will go my lengths!

Hor. I shall be glad to see you go my lengths first, and as many more as you please. You cannot conceive, Cleomenes, how it has grieved me, when I have seen how many enemies you made yourself by that extravagant way of arguing. If you are but serious, whence comes this change?

Cleo. In the first place, I grew weary of having every body against me: and, in the second, there is more room for invention in the other system. Poets and orators in the social system have fine opportunities of exerting themselves.

Hor. I very much suspect the recovery you boast of: Are you convinced, that the other system was false, which you might have easily learned from seeing every body against you?

Cleo. False to be sure; but what you allege is no proof of it: for if the greatest part of mankind were not against that scheme of deformity, as you justly call it, insincerity could not be so general, as the scheme itself supposes it to be: But since my eyes have been opened, I have found out that truth and probability are the silliest things in the world; they are of no manner of use, especially among the people de bon gout.

Hor. I thought what a convert you was: but what new madness has seized you now?

Cleo. No madness at all: I say, and will maintain it to the world, that truth, in the sublime, is very impertinent; and that in the arts and sciences, fit for men of taste to look into, a master cannot commit a more unpardonable fault, than sticking to, or being influenced by truth, where it interferes with what is agreeable.

Hor. Homely truths indeed----

Cleo. Look upon that Dutch piece of the nativity: what charming colouring there is! What a fine pencil, and how just are the outlines for a piece so curiously finished! But what a fool the fellow was to draw hay, and straw, and water, and a rack as well as a manger: it is a wonder he did not put the bambino into the manger.

Ful. The bambino? That is the child, I suppose: why it should be in the manger; should it not? Does not the history tell us, that the child was laid in the manger? I have no skill in painting; but I can see whether things are drawn to the life or not: sure nothing can be more like the head of an ox than that there. A picture then pleases me best when the art in such a manner deceives my eye, that, without making any allowance, I can imagine I see the things in reality which the painter has endeavoured to represent. I have always thought it an admirable piece; sure nothing in the world can be more like nature.

Cleo. Like nature! So much the worse: Indeed, cousin, it is easily seen, that you have no skill in painting. It is not nature, but agreeable nature, la belle nature, that is to be represented: all things that are abject, low, pitiful, and mean, are carefully to be avoided, and kept out of sight; because, to men of the true taste, they are as offensive as things that are shocking, and really nasty.

Ful. At that rate, the Virgin Mary's condition, and our Saviour's birth, are never to be painted.

Cleo. That is your mistake; the subject itself is noble: Let us go but in the next room, and I will show you the difference.----Look upon that picture, which is the same history. There is fine architecture, there is a colonnade; can any thing be thought of more magnificent? How skilfully is that ass removed, and how little you see of the ox: pray, mind the obscurity they are both placed in. It hangs in a strong light, or else one might look ten times upon the picture without observing them: Behold these pillars of the Corinthian order, how lofty they are, and what an effect they have, what a noble space, what an area here is! How nobly every thing concurs to express the majestic grandeur of the subject, and strikes the soul with awe and admiration at the same time!

Ful. Pray cousin, has good sense ever any share in the judgment which your men of true taste form about pictures?

Hor. Madam!

Ful. I beg pardon, Sir, if I have offended: but to me it seems strange to hear such commendations given to a painter, for turning the stable of a country inn into a palace of extraordinary magnificence: This is a great deal worse than Swift's Metamorphosis of Philemon and Baucis; for there some show of resemblance is kept in the changes.

Hor. In a country stable, Madam, there is nothing but filth and nastiness, or vile abject things not fit to be seen, at least not capable of entertaining persons of quality.

Ful. The Dutch picture in the next room has nothing that is offensive: but an Augean stable, even before Hercules had cleaned it, would be less shocking to me than those fluted pillars; for nobody can please my eye that affronts my understanding: When I desire a man to paint a considerable history, which every body knows to have been transacted at a country inn, does he not strangely impose upon me, because he understands architecture, to draw me a room that might have served for a great hall, or banqueting-house, to any Roman emperor? Besides, that the poor and abject state in which our Saviour chose to appear at his coming into the world, is the most material circumstance of the history: it contains an excellent moral against vain pomp, and is the strongest persuasive to humility, which, in the Italian, are more than lost.

Hor. Indeed, Madam, experience is against you; and it is certain, that, even among the vulgar, the representations of mean and abject things, and such as they are familiar with, have not that effect, and either breed contempt, or are insignificant: whereas vast piles, stately buildings, roofs of uncommon height, surprising ornaments, and all the architecture of the grand taste, are the fittest to raise devotion, and inspire men with veneration, and a religious awe for the places that have these excellencies to boast of. Is there ever a meeting-house or barn to be compared to a fine cathedral, for this purpose?

Ful. I believe there is a mechanical way of raising devotion in silly superstitious creatures; but an attentive contemplation on the works of God, I am sure----

Cleo. Pray, cousin, say no more in defence of your low taste: The painter has nothing to do with the truth of the history; his business is to express the dignity of the subject, and, in compliment to his judges, never to forget the excellency of our species: All his art and good sense must be employed in raising that to the highest pitch; Great masters do not paint for the common people, but for persons of refined understanding: What you complain oL is the effect of the good manners and complaisance of the painter. When he had drawn the Infant and the Madona, he thought the least glimpse of the ox and the ass would be sufficient to acquaint you with the history: They who want more fescuing, and a broader explanation, he does not desire his picture should ever be shown to; for the rest, he entertains you with nothing but what is noble and worthy your attention: You see he is an architect, and completely skilled in perspective, and he shows you how finely he can round a pillar, and that both the depth, and the height of a space, may be drawn on a flat, with all the other wonders he performs by his skill in that inconceivable mystery of light and shadows.

Ful. Why then is it pretended that painting is an imitation of nature?

Cleo. At first setting out a scholar is to copy things exactly as he sees them; but from a great matter, when he is left to his own invention, it is expected he should take the perfections of nature, and not paint it as it is, but as we would wish it to be. Zeuxis, to draw a goddess, took five beautiful women, from which he culled what was most graceful in each.

Ful. Still every grace he painted was taken from nature.

Cleo. That's true; but he left nature her rubbish, and imitated nothing but what was excellent, which made the assemblage superior to any thing in nature. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural; Dionysus was also blamed for drawing men like us. Nearer our times, Michael Angelo was esteemed too natural, and Lysippus of old upbraided the common sort of sculptors for making men such as they were found in nature.

Ful. Are these things real?

Cleo. You may read it yourself in Graham's Preface to The Art of Painting: the book is above in the library.

Hor. These things may seem strange to you, Madam, but they are of immense use to the public: the higher we can carry the excellency of our species, the more those beautiful images will fill noble minds with worthy and suitable ideas of their own dignity, that will seldom fail of spurring them on to virtue and heroic actions. There is a grandeur to be expressed in things that far surpasses the beauties of simple nature. You take delight in operas, Madam, I do not question; you must have minded the noble manner and stateliness beyond nature, which every thing there is executed with. What gentle touches, what slight and yet majestic motions are made use of to express the most boisterous passions! As the subject is always lofty, so no posture is to be chosen but what is serious and significant, as well as comely and agreeable; should the actions there be represented as they are in common life, they would ruin the sublime, and at once rob you of all your pleasure.

Ful. I never expected any thing natural at an opera; but as persons of distinction resort thither, and every body comes dressed, it is a sort of employment, and I seldom miss a night, because it is the fashion to go: besides, the royal family, and the monarch himself, generally honouring them with their presence, it is almost become a duty to attend them, as much as it is to go to court. What diverts me there is the company, the lights, the music, the scenes, and other decorations: but as I understand but very few words of Italian, so what is most admired in the recitativo is lost upon me, which makes the acting part to me rather ridiculous than----

Hor. Ridiculous, Madam! For Heaven's sake----

Ful. I beg pardon, Sir, for the expression, I never laughed at an opera in my life; but I confess, as to the entertainment itself, that a good play is infinitely more diverting to me; and I prefer any thing that informs my understanding beyond all the recreations which either my eyes or my ears can be regaled with.

Hor. I am sorry to hear a lady of your good sense make such a choice. Have you no taste for music, Madam?

Ful. I named that as part of my diversion.

Cleo. My cousin plays very well upon the harpsichord herself.

Ful. I love to hear good music; but it does not throw me into those raptures, I hear others speak of.

Hor. Nothing certainly can elevate the mind beyond a fine concert: it seems to disengage the soul from the body, and lift it up to heaven. It is in this situation, that we are most capable of receiving extraordinary impressions: when the instruments cease, our temper is subdued, and beautiful action joins with the skilful voice, in setting before us in a transcendent light, the heroic labours we are come to admire, and which the word Opera imports. The powerful harmony between the engaging sounds and speaking gestures invades the heart, and forcibly inspires us with those noble sentiments, which to entertain, the most expressive words can only attempt to persuade us. Few comedies are tolerable, and in the best of them, if the levity of the expressions does not corrupt, the meanness of the subject must debase the manners; at least to persons of quality. In tragedies the style is more sublime; and the subjects generally great; but all violent passions, and even the representations of them, ruffle and discompose the mind: besides, when men endeavour to express things strongly, and they are acted to the life, it often happens that the images do mischief, because they are too moving, and that the action is faulty for being too natural; and experience teaches us, that in unguarded minds, by those pathetic performances, flames are often raised that are prejudicial to virtue. The playhouses themselves are far from being inviting, much less the companies, at least the greatest part of them that frequent them, some of which are almost of the lowest rank of all. The disgust that persons of the least elegance receive from these people are many; besides, the ill scents, and unseemly sights one meets with, of careless rakes and impudent wenches, that, having paid their money, reckon themselves to be all upon the level with every body there; the oaths, scurrilities, and vile jests one is often obliged to hear, without resenting them; and the odd mixture of high and low that are all partaking of the same diversion, without regard to dress or quality, are all very offensive; and it cannot but be very disagreeable to polite people to be in the same crowd with a variety of persons, some of them below mediocrity, that pay no deference to one another. At the opera, every thing charms and concurs to make happiness complete. The sweetness of voice, in the first place, and the solemn composure of the action, serve to mitigate and allay every passion; it is the gentleness of them, and the calm serenity of the mind, that make us amiable, and bring us the nearest to the perfection of angels; whereas, the violence of the passions, in which the corruption of the heart chiefly consists, dethrones our reason, and renders us more like unto savages. It is incredible, how prone we are to imitation, and how strangely, unknown to ourselves, we are shaped and fashioned after the models and examples that are often set before us. No anger nor jealousy are ever to be seen at an opera, that distort the features; no flames that are noxious, nor is any love represented in them, that is not pure and next to seraphic; and it is impossible for the remembrance to carry any thing away from them, that can sully the imagination. Secondly, the company is of another sort: the place itself is a security to peace, as well as every one's honour; and it is impossible to name another, where blooming innocence and irresistible beauty stand in so little need of guardians. Here we are sure never to meet with petulancy or ill manners, and to be free from immodest ribaldry, libertine wit, and detestable satire. If you will mind, on the one hand, the richness and splendour of dress, and the quality of the persons that appear in them; the variety of colours, and the lustre of the fair in a spacious theatre, well illuminated and adorned; and on the other, the grave deportment of the assembly, and the consciousness that appears in every countenance, of the respect they owe to each other, you will be forced to confess, that upon earth there cannot be a pastime more agreeable: believe me, Madam, there is no place, where both sexes have such opportunities of imbibing exalted sentiments, and raising themselves above the vulgar, as they have at the opera; and there is no other sort of diversion or assembly, from the frequenting of which, young persons of quality can have equal hopes of forming their manners, and contracting a strong and lasting habit of virtue.

Ful. You have said more in commendation of operas, Horatio, than I ever heard or thought of before; and I think every body who loves that diversion is highly obliged to you. The grand gout, I believe, is a great help in panegyric, especially, where it is an incivility strictly to examine and over-curiously to look into matters.

Cleo. What say you now, Fulvia, of nature and good sense, are they not quite beat out of doors?

Ful. I have heard nothing yet, to make me out of conceit with good sense; though what you insinuated of nature, as if it was not to be imitated in painting, is an opinion, I must confess, which hitherto I more admire at, than I can approve of it.

Hor. I would never recommend any thing, Madam, that is repugnant to good sense; but Cleomenes must have some design in over-acting the part he pretends to have chosen. What he said about painting is very true, whether he spoke it in jest or in earnest; but he talks so diametrically opposite to the opinion which he is known every where to defend of late, that I do not know what to make of him.

Ful. I am convinced of the narrowness of my own understanding, and am going to visit some persons, with whom I shall be more upon the level.

Hor. You will give me leave to wait upon you to your coach, Madam.----Pray, Cleomenes, what is it you have got in your head?

Cleo. Nothing at all: I told you before, that I was so entirely recovered from my folly, that few people went my lengths. What jealousy you entertain of me I do not know; but I find myself much improved in the social system. Formerly I thought, that chief ministers, and all those at the helm of affairs, acted from principles of avarice and ambition; that in all the pains they took, and even in the slaveries they underwent for the public good, they had their private ends, and that they were supported in the fatigue by secret enjoyments they were unwilling to own. It is not a month ago, that I imagined that the inward care and real solicitude of all great men centered within themselves; and that to enrich themselves, acquire titles of honour, and raise their families on the one hand, and to have opportunities on the other of displaying a judicious fancy to all the elegant comforts of life, and establishing, without the least trouble of self-denial, the reputation of being wise, humane, and munificent, were the things, which, besides the satisfaction there is in superiority and the pleasure of governing, all candidates to high offices and great posts proposed to themselves, from the places they sued for: I was so narrow minded, that I could not conceive how a man would ever voluntarily submit to be a slave but to serve himself. But I have abandoned that ill-natured way of judging: I plainly perceive the public good, in all the designs of politicians, the social virtues shine in every action, and I find that the national interest is the compass that all statesmen steer by.

Hor. That is more than I can prove; but certainly there have been such men, there have been patriots, that without selfish views have taken incredible pains for their country's welfare: nay, there are men now that would do the same, if they were employed; and we have had princes that have neglected their ease and pleasure, and sacrificed their quiet, to promote the prosperity and increase the wealth and honour of the kingdom, and had nothing so much at heart as the happiness of their subjects.

Cleo. No disaffection, I beg of you. The difference between past and present times, and persons in and out of places, is perhaps clearer to you than it is to me; but it is many years ago, you know, that it has been agreed between us never to enter into party disputes: what I desire your attention to, is my reformation, which you seem to doubt of, and the great change that is wrought in me. The religion of most kings and other high potentates, I formerly had but a slender opinion of, but now I measure their piety by what they say of it themselves to their subjects.

Hor. That is very kindly done.

Cleo. By thinking meanly of things, I once had strange blundering notions concerning foreign wars: I thought that many of them arose from trifling causes, magnified by politicians for their own ends; that the most ruinous misunderstandings between states and kingdoms might spring from the hidden malice, folly, or caprice of one man; that many of them had been owing to the private quarrels, piques, resentments, and the haughtiness of the chief ministers of the respective nations, that were the sufferers; and that what is called personal hatred between princes seldom was more at first, than either an open or secret animosity which the two great favourites of those courts had against one another: but now I have learned to derive those things from higher causes. I am reconciled likewise to the luxury of the voluptuous, which I used to be offended at, because now I am convinced that the money of most rich men, is laid out with the social design of promoting arts and sciences, and that in the most expensive undertakings their principal aim is the employment of the poor.

Hor. These are lengths indeed.

Cleo. I have a strong aversion to satire, and detest it every whit as much as you do: the most instructive writings to understand the world, and penetrate into the heart of man, I take to be addresses, epithets, dedications, and above all, the preambles to patents, of which I am making a large collection.

Hor. A very useful undertaking!

Cleo. But to remove all your doubts of my conversion, I will show you some easy rules I have laid down for young beginners.

Hor. What to do?

Cleo. To judge of mens actions by the lovely system of Lord Shaftsbury, in a manner diametrically opposite to that of the Fable of the Bees.

Hor. I do not understand you.

Cleo. You will presently. I have called them rules, but they are rather examples from which the rules are to be gathered: as for instance, if we see an industrious poor woman, who has pinched her belly, and gone in rags for a considerable time to save forty shillings, part with her money to put out her son at six years of age to a chimney-sweeper; to judge of her charitably, according to the system of the social virtues, we must imagine, that though she never paid for the sweeping of a chimney in her life, she knows by experience, that for want of this necessary cleanliness the broth has been often spoiled, and many a chimney has been set on fire, and therefore to do good in her generation, as far as she is able, she gives up her all, both offspring and estate, to assist in preventing the several mischiefs that are often occasioned by great quantities of soot disregarded; and, free from selfishness, sacrifices her only son to the most wretched employment for the public welfare.

Hor. You do not vie I see with Lord Shaftsbury, for loftiness of subjects.

Cleo. When in a starry night with amazement we behold the glory of the firmament, nothing is more obvious than that the whole, the beautiful all, must be the workmanship of one great Architect of power and wisdom stupendous; and it is as evident, that every thing in the universe is a constituent part of one entire fabric.

Hor. Would you make a jest of this too.

Cleo. Far from it: they are awful truths, of which I am as much convinced as I am of my own existence; but I was going to name the consequences, which Lord Shaftsbury draws from them, in order to demonstrate to you, that I am a convert, and a very punctual observer of his Lordship's instructions, and that, in my judgment on the poor woman's conduct, there is nothing that is not entirely agreeable to the generous way of thinking set forth and recommended in the Characteristics.

Hor. Is it possible a man should read such a book, and make no better use of it! I desire you would name the consequences you speak of.

Cleo. As that infinity of luminous bodies, however different in magnitude, velocity, and the figures they describe in their courses, concur all of them to make up the universe, so this little spot we inhabit is likewise a compound of air, water, fire, minerals, vegetables, and living creatures, which, though vastly differing from one another in their nature, do altogether make up the body of this terraqueous globe.

Hor. This is very right, and in the same manner as our whole species is composed of many nations of different religions, forms of government, interests and manners that divide and share the earth between them; so the civil society in every nation consists in great multitudes of both sexes, that widely differing from each other in age, constitution, strength, temper, wisdom and possessions, all help to make up one body politic.

Cleo. The same exactly which I would have said: now, pray Sir, is not the great end of men's forming themselves into such societies, mutual happiness; I mean, do not all individual persons, from being thus combined, propose to themselves a more comfortable condition of life, than human creatures, if they were to live like other wild animals, without tie or dependance, could enjoy in a free and savage state?

Hor. This certainly is not only the end, but the end which is every where attained to by government and society, in some degree or other.

Cleo. Hence it must follow, that it is always wrong for men to pursue gain or pleasure, by means that are visibly detrimental to the civil society, and that creatures who can do this must be narrow-souled, short-sighted, selfish people; whereas, wise men never look upon themselves as individual persons, without considering the whole, of which they are but trifling parts in respect to bulk, and are incapable of receiving any satisfaction from things that interfere with the public welfare. This being undeniably true, ought not all private advantage to give way to this general interest; and ought it not to be every one's endeavour, to increase this common stock of happiness; and, in order to it, do what he can to render himself a serviceable and useful member of that whole body which he belongs to?

Hor. What of all this?

Cleo. Has not my poor woman, in what I have related of her, acted in conformity to this social system?

Hor. Can any one in his senses imagine, that an indigent thoughtless wretch, without sense or education, should ever act from such generous principles?

Cleo. Poor I told you the woman was, and I will not insist upon her education; but as for her being thoughtless and void of sense, you will give me leave to say, that it is an aspersion for which you have no manner of foundation; and from the account I have given of her, nothing can be gathered but that she was a considerate, virtuous, wise woman, in poverty.

Hor. I suppose you would persuade me that you are in earnest.

Cleo. I am much more so than you imagine; and say once, more, that, in the example I have given, I have trod exactly in my Lord Shaftsbury's steps, and closely followed the social system. If I have committed any error, show it me.

Hor. Did that author ever meddle with any thing so low and pitiful.

Cleo. There can be nothing mean in noble actions, whoever the persons are that perform them. But if the vulgar are to be all excluded from the social virtues, what rule or instruction shall the labouring poor, which are by far the greatest part of the nation, have left them to walk by, when the Characteristics have made a jest of all revealed religion, especially the Christian? but if you despise the poor and illiterate, I can, in the same method, judge of men in higher stations. Let the enemies to the social system behold the venerable counsellor, now grown eminent for his wealth, that at his great age continues sweltering at the bar to plead the doubtful cause, and, regardless of his dinner, shorten his own life in endeavouring to secure the possessions of others. How conspicuous is the benevolence of the physician to his kind, who, from morning till night, visiting the sick, keeps several sets of horses to be more serviceable to many, and still grudges himself the time for the necessary functions of life! In the same manner the indefatigable clergyman, who, with his ministry, supplies a very large parish already, solicits with zeal to be as useful and beneficent to another, though fifty of his order, yet unemployed, offer their service for the same purpose.

Hor. I perceive your drift: from the strained panegyrics you labour at, you would form arguments ad absurdum: the banter is ingenious enough, and, at proper times, might serve to raise a laugh; but then you must own likewise, that those studied encomiums will not bear to be seriously examined into. When we consider that the great business as well as perpetual solicitude of the poor, are to supply their immediate wants, and keep themselves from starving, and that their children are a burden to them, which they groan under, and desire to be delivered from by all possible means, that are not clashing with the low involuntary affection which nature forces them to have for their offspring: when, I say, we consider this, the virtues of your industrious make no great figure. The public spirit likewise, and the generous principles, your sagacity has found out in the three faculties, to which men are brought up for a livelihood, seem to be very far fetched. Fame, wealth, and greatness, every age can witness: but whatever labour or fatigue they submit to, the motives of their actions are as conspicuous as their calling themselves.

Cleo. Are they not beneficial to mankind, and of use to the public?

Hor. I do not deny that; we often receive inestimable benefits from them, and the good ones in either profession are not only useful, but very necessary to the society: but though there are several that sacrifice their whole lives, and all the comforts of them, to their business, there is not one of them that would take a quarter of the pains he now is at, if, without taking any, he could acquire the same money, reputation, and other advantages that may accrue to him from the esteem or gratitude of those whom he has been serviceable to; and I do not believe, there is an eminent man among them that would not own this if the question was put to him. Therefore, when ambition and the love of money are avowed principles men act from, it is very silly to ascribe virtues to them, which they themselves pretend to lay no manner of claim to. But your encomium upon the parson is the merriest jest of all: I have heard many excuses made, and some of them very frivolous, for the covetousness of priests; but what you have picked out in their praise is more extraordinary than any thing I ever met with; and the most partial advocate and admirer of the clergy never yet discovered before yourself a great virtue in their hunting after pluralities, when they were well provided for themselves, and many others for want of employ were ready to starve.

Cleo. But if there be any reality in the social system, it would be better for the public, if men, in, all professions, were to act from those generous principles; and you will allow, that the society would be the gainers, if the generality in the three faculties would mind others more, and themselves less than they do now.

Hor. I do not know that; and considering what slavery some lawyers, as well as physicians, undergo, I much question whether it would be possible for them to exert themselves in the same manner though they would, if the constant baits and refreshments of large fees did not help to support human nature, by continually stimulating this darling passion.

Cleo. Indeed, Horatio, this is a stronger argument against the social system, and more injurious to it than any thing that has been said by the author whom you have exclaimed against with so much bitterness.

Hor. I deny that: I do not conclude from the selfishness in some, that there is no virtue in others.

Cleo. Nor he neither, and you very much wrong him if you assert that he ever did.

Hor. I refuse to commend what is not praise-worthy; but as bad as mankind are, virtue has an existence as well as vice, though it is more scarce.

Cleo. What you said last, nobody ever contradicted; but I do not know what you would be at: does not the Lord Shaftsbury endeavour to do good, and promote the social virtues, and am I not doing the very same? suppose me to be in the wrong in the favourable constructions I have made of things, still it is to be wished for at least, that men had a greater regard to the public welfare, less fondness for their private interest, and more charity for their neighbours, than the generality of them have.

Hor. To be wished for, perhaps, it may be, but what probability is there that this ever will come to pass?

Cleo. And unless that can come to pass, it is the idlest thing in the world to discourse upon, and demonstrate the excellency of virtue; what signifies it to set forth the beauty of it, unless it was possible that men should fall in love with it?

Hor. If virtue was never recommended, men might grow worse than they are.

Cleo. Then, by the same reason, if it was recommended more, men might grow better than they are. But I see perfectly well the reason of these shifts and evasions you make use of against your opinion: You find yourself under a necessity of allowing my panegyrics, as you call them, to be just; or finding the same fault with most of my Lord Shaftsbury's; and you would do neither if you could help it: From mens preferring company to solitude, his Lordship pretends to prove the love and natural affection we have for our own species: If this was examined into with the same strictness as you have done every thing I have said in behalf of the three faculties, I believe that the solidity of the consequences would be pretty equal in both. But I stick to my text, and stand up for the social virtues: The noble author of that system had a most charitable opinion of his species, and extolled the dignity of it in an extraordinary manner, and why my imitation of him should be called a banter, I see no reason. He certainly wrote with a good design, and endeavoured to inspire his readers with refined notions, and a public spirit abstract from religion: The world enjoys the fruits of his labours; but the advantage that is justly expected from his writings, can never be so universally felt, before that public spirit, which he recommended, comes down to the meanest tradesmen, whom you would endeavour to exclude from the generous sentiments and noble pleasures that are already so visible in many. I am now thinking on two sorts of people that stand very much in need of, and yet hardly ever meet with one another: This misfortune must have caused such a chasm in the band of society, that no depth of thought, or happiness of contrivance, could have filled up the vacuity, if a most tender regard for the commonwealth, and the height of benevolence did not influence and oblige others, mere strangers to those people, and commonly men of small education, to afflict them with their good offices, and stop up the gap. Many ingenious workmen, in obscure dwellings, would be starved in spite of industry, only for want of knowing where to sell the product of their labour, if there were not others to dispose of it for them: And again, the rich and extravagant are daily furnished with an infinite variety of superfluous knicknacks and elaborate trifles, every one of them invented to gratify either a needless curiosity, or else wantonness and folly; and which they could never have thought of, much less wanted, had they never seen or known where to buy them. What a blessing, then, to the public, is the social toyman, who lays out a considerable estate to gratify the desires of these two different classes of people? He procures food and raiment for the deserving poor, and searches with great diligence after the most skilful artificers, that no man shall be able to produce better workmanship than himself: with studied civilities, and a serene countenance, he entertains the greatest strangers; and, often speaking to them first, kindly offers to guess at their wants: He confines not his attendance to a few stated hours, but waits their leisure all day long in an open shop, where he bears the summer's heat, and winter's cold, with equal cheerfulness. What a beautiful prospect is here of natural affection to our kind! For, if he acts from that principle, who only furnishes us with necessaries of life, certainly he shows a more superlative love and indulgence to his species, who will not suffer the most whimsical of it to be an hour destitute of what he shall fancy, even things the most unnecessary.

Hor. You have made the most of it indeed, but are you not tired yet with these fooleries yourself?

Cleo. What fault do you find with these kind constructions; do they detract from the dignity of our species?

Hor. I admire your invention, and thus much I will own, that, by overacting the part in that extravagant manner, you have set the social system in a more disadvantageous light than ever I had considered it before: But the best things, you know, may be ridiculed.

Cleo. Whether I know that or not, Lord Shaftsbury has flatly denied it; and takes joke and banter to be the best and surest touchstone to prove the worth of things: It is his opinion, that no ridicule can be fastened upon what is really great and good. His Lordship has made use of that test to try the Scriptures and the Christian religion by, and exposed them because it seems they could not stand it.

Hor. He has exposed superstition, and the miserable notions the vulgar were taught to have of God; but no man ever had more sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, and the universe, than himself.

Cleo. You are convinced, that what I charge him with is true.

Hor. I do not pretend to defend every syllable that noble Lord has wrote. His style is engaging, his language is polite, his reasoning strong; many of his thoughts are beautifully expressed, and his images, for the greatest part, inimitably fine. I may be pleased with an author, without obliging myself to answer every cavil that shall be made against him. As to what you call your imitation of him, I have no taste in burlesque: but the laugh you would raise might be turned upon you with less trouble than you seem to have taken. Pray, when you consider the hard and dirty labours that are performed to supply the mob with the vast quantities of strong beer they swill, do not you discover social virtue in a drayman?

Cleo. Yes, and in a dray-horse too; at least as well as I can in some great men, who yet would be very angry should we refuse to believe, that the most selfish actions of theirs, if the society received but the least benefit from them, were chiefly owing to principles of virtue, and a generous regard to the public. Do you believe that, in the choice of a Pope, the greatest dependence of the Cardinals, and what they principally rely upon, is the influence of the Holy Ghost?

Hor. No more than I do transubstantiation.

Cleo. But if you had been brought up a Roman Catholic, you would believe both.

Hor. I do not know that.

Cleo. You would, if you was sincere in your religion, as thousands of them are, that are no more destitute of reason and good sense than you or I.

Hor. I have nothing to say as to that: there are many things incomprehensible, that yet are certainly true: These are properly the objects of faith; and, therefore, when matters are above my capacity, and really surpass my understanding, I am silent, and submit with great humility: but I will swallow nothing which I plainly apprehend to be contrary to my reason, and is directly clashing with my senses.

Cleo. If you believe a Providence, what demonstration can you have, that God does not direct men in an affair of higher importance to all Christendom, than any other you can name?

Hor. This is an ensnaring, and a very unfair question. Providence superintends and governs every thing without exception. To defend my negative, and give a reason for my unbelief, it is sufficient, if I prove, that all the instruments, and the means they make use of in those elections, are visibly human and mundane, and many of them unwarrantable and wicked.

Cleo. Not all the means; because every day they have prayers, and solemnly invoke the Divine assistance.

Hor. But what stress they lay upon it may be easily gathered from the rest of their behaviour. The court of Rome is, without dispute, the greatest academy of refined politics, and the best school to learn the art of caballing: there ordinary cunning, and known stratagems, are counted rusticity, and designs are pursued through all the mazes of human subtlety. Genius there must give way to finesse, as strength does to art in wrestling; and a certain skill some men have in concealing their capacities from others, is of far greater use with them, than real knowledge, or the soundest understanding. In the sacred college, where every thing is auro venale, truth and justice bear the lowest price: Cardinal Palavicini, and other Jesuits, that have been the stanch advocates of the Papal authority, have owned with ostentation the Politia religiosa della chiesa, and not hid from us the virtues and accomplishments, that were only valuable among the Purpurati, in whose judgment over-reaching, at any rate, is the highest honour, and to be outwitted, though by the basest artifice, the greatest shame. In conclaves, more especially, nothing is carried on without tricks and intrigue; and in them the heart of man is so deep, and so dark an abyss, that the finest air of dissimulation is sometimes found to have been insincere, and men often deceive one another, by counterfeiting hypocrisy. And is it credible, that holiness, religion, or the least concern for spirituals, should have any share in the plots, machinations, brigues, and contrivances of a society, of which each member, besides the gratification of his own passions, has nothing at heart but the interest of his party, right or wrong, and to distress every faction that opposes it?

Cleo. These sentiments confirm to me what I have often heard, that renegadoes are the most cruel enemies.

Hor. Was ever I a Roman Catholic?

Cleo. I mean from the social system, of which you have been the most strenuous assertor; and now no man can judge of actions more severely, and indeed less charitably, than yourself, especially of the poor cardinals. I little thought, if once I quitted the scheme of deformity, to have found an adversary in you; but we have both changed sides it seems.

Hor. Much alike, I believe.

Cleo. Nay, what could any body think to hear me making the kindest interpretations of things that can be imagined, and yourself doing quite the reverse?

Hor. What ignorant people, that knew neither of us, might have done, I do not know: but it has been very manifest from our discourse, that you have maintained your cause, by endeavouring to show the absurdity of the contrary side, and that I have defended mine by letting you see, that we were not such fools as you would represent us to be. I had taken a resolution never to engage with you on this topic, but you see I have broke it: I hate to be thought uncivil; it was mere complaisance drew me in; though I am not sorry that we talked of it so much as we did, because I found your opinion less dangerous than 1 imagined: you have owned the existence of virtue, and that there are men who act from it as a principle, both which I thought you denied: but I would not have you flatter yourself that you deceived me, by hanging out false colours.

Cleo. I did not lay on the disguise so thick, as not to have you see through it, nor would I ever have discoursed upon this subject with any body, who could have been so easily imposed upon. I know you to be a man of very good sense and sound judgment; and it is for that very reason I so heartily wish you would suffer me to explain myself, and demonstrate to you, how small the difference is between us, which you imagine to be so considerable: There is not a man in the world, in whose opinion I would less pass for an ill man than in yours; but I am so scrupulously fearful of offending you, that I never dared to touch upon some points, unless you had given me leave. Yield something to our friendship, and condescend for once to read the Fable of the Bees for my sake: It is a handsome volume: you love books: I have one extremely well bound; do; let me, suffer me to make you a present of it.

Hor. I am no bigot, Cleomenes; but I am a man of honour, and, you know, of strict honour: I cannot endure to hear that ridiculed, and the least attempt of it chafes my blood: Honour is the strongest and noblest tie of society by far, and therefore, believe me, can never be innocently sported with. It is a thing so solid and awful, as well as serious, that it can at no time become the object of mirth or diversion; and it is impossible for any pleasantry to be so ingenious, or any jest so witty, that I could bear with it on that head. Perhaps I am singular in this, and, if you will, in the wrong; be that as it will, all I can say is, Je ne'entens pas Raillerie la dessus; and therefore, no Fable of the Bees for me, if we are to remain friends: I have heard enough of that.

Cleo. Pray, Horatio, can there be honour without justice?

Hor. No: Who affirms there can?

Cleo. Have you not owned, that you have thought worse of me, than now you find me to deserve? No men, nor their works, ought to be condemned upon hearsays and bare surmises, much less upon the accusations of their enemies, without being examined into.

Hor. There you are in the right: I heartily beg your pardon, and to atone for the wrong I have done you, say what you please, I will hear it with patience, be it never so shocking; but I beg of you be serious.

Cleo. I have nothing to say to you that is distasteful, much less shocking: all I desire is, to convince you, that I am neither so ill-natured nor uncharitable, in my opinion of mankind, as you take me to be: and that the notions I entertain of the worth of things, will not differ much from yours, when both come to be looked into. Do but consider what we have been doing: I have endeavoured to set every thing in the handsomest light I could think of; you say, to ridicule the social system; I own it; now reflect on your own conduct, which has been to show the folly of my strained panegyrics, and replace things in that natural view, which all just, knowing men would certainly behold them in. This is very well done: but it is contrary to the scheme you pretended to maintain; and if you judge of all actions in the same manner, there is an end of the social system; or, at least, it will be evident, that it is a theory never to be put into practice. You argue for the generality of men, that they are possessed of these virtues, but when we come to particulars, you can find none. I have tried you every where: you are as little satisfied with persons of the highest rank, as you are with them of the lowest, and you count it ridiculous to think better of the middling people. Is this otherwise than standing up for the goodness of a design, at the same time you confess, that it never was, or ever can be executed? What sort of people are they, and where must we look for them, whom you will own to act from those principles of virtue?

Hor. Are there not in all countries men of birth and ample fortune, that would not accept of places, though they were offered, that are generous and beneficent, and mind nothing but what is great and noble?

Cleo. Yes: But examine their conduct, look into their lives, and scan their actions with as little indulgence as you did those of the cardinals, or the lawyers and physicians, and then see what figure their virtues will make beyond those of the poor industrious woman. There is, generally speaking, less truth in panegyrics, than there is in satires. When all our senses are soothed, when we have no distemper of body or mind to disturb us, and meet with nothing that is disagreeable, we are pleased with our being: it is in this situation that we are most apt to mistake outward appearances for realities, and judge of things more favourably than they deserve. Remember, Horatio, how feelingly you spoke half an hour ago in commendation of operas: Your soul seemed to be lifted up whilst you was thinking on the many charms you find in them. I have nothing to say against the elegancy of the diversion, or the politeness of those that frequent them: but I am afraid you lost yourself in the contemplation of the lovely idea, when you asserted that they were the most proper means to contract a strong and lasting habit of virtue; do you think, that among the same number of people, there is more real virtue at an opera, than there is at a bear-garden?

Hor. What a comparison!

Cleo. I am very serious.

Hor. The noise of dogs, and bulls, and bears, make a fine harmony!

Cleo. It is impossible you should mistake me, and you know very well, that it is not the different pleasures of those two places I would compare together. The things you mentioned are the least to be complained of: the continual sounds of oaths and imprecations, the frequent repetitions of the word lie, and other more filthy expressions, the loudness and dissonance of many strained and untuneful voices, are a perfect torment to a delicate ear. The frowsiness of the place, and the ill scents of different kinds, are a perpetual nuisance; but in all mob meetings----

Hor. L'odorat souffre beaucoup.

Cleo. The entertainment in general is abominable, and all the senses suffer. I allow all this. The greasy heads, some of them bloody, the jarring looks, and threatening, wild, and horrid aspects, that one meets with in those ever-restless assemblies, must be very shocking to the sight, and so indeed is every thing else that can be seen among a rude and ragged multitude, that are covered with dirt, and have in none of their pastimes one action that is inoffensive: but, after all, vice and what is criminal, are not to be confounded with roughness and want of manners, no more than politeness and an artful behaviour ought to be with virtue or religion. To tell a premeditated falsehood in order to do mischief, is a greater sin, than to give a man the lie, who speaks an untruth; and it is possible, that a person may suffer greater damage, and more injury to his ruin, from slander in the low whisper of a secret enemy, than he could have received from all the dreadful swearing and cursing, the most noisy antagonist could pelt him with. Incontinence, and adultery itself, persons of quality are not more free from all over Christendom, than the meaner people: but if there are some vices, which the vulgar are more guilty of than the better sort, there are others the reverse. Envy, detraction, and the spirit of revenge, are more raging and mischievous in courts than they are in cottages. Excess of vanity and hurtful ambition are unknown among the poor; they are seldom tainted with avarice, with irreligion never; and they have much less opportunity of robbing the public than their betters. There are few persons of distinction, whom you are not acquainted with: I desire, you would seriously reflect on the lives of as many as you can think of, and next opera night on the virtues of the assembly.

Hor. You make me laugh. There is a good deal in what you say; and I am persuaded, all is not gold that glisters. Would you add any more?

Cleo. Since you have given me leave to talk, and you are such a patient hearer, I would not slip the opportunity of laying before you some things of high concern, that perhaps you never considered in the light, which you shall own yourself they ought to be seen in.

Hor. I am sorry to leave you; but I have really business that must be done to-night: it is about my law-suit, and I have stayed beyond my time already: but if you will come and eat a bit of mutton with me to-morrow, I will see nobody but yourself, and we will converse as long as you please.

Cleo. With all my heart. I will not fail to wait on you.

THE SECOND DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORATIO AND CLEOMENES

HORATIO.

The discourse we had yesterday, has made a great impression upon me; you said several things that were very entertaining, and some which I shall not easily forget: I do not remember I ever looked into myself so much as I have done since last night after I left you.

Cleo. To do that faithfully, is a more difficult and a severer talk than is commonly imagined. When, yesterday, I asked you where and among what sort of people we were to look for those whom you would allow to act from principles of virtue, you named a class, among whom I have found very agreeable characters of men, that yet all have their failings. If these could be left out, and the best were picked and culled from the different good qualities that are to be seen in several, the compound would make a very handsome picture.

Hor. To finish it well every way would be a great masterpiece.

Cleo. That I shall not attempt: but I do not think it would be very difficult to make a little sketch of it, that yet should exceed nature, and be a better pattern for imitation than any can be shown alive. I have a mind to try; the very thought enlivens me. How charming is the portrait of a complete gentleman, and how ravishing is the figure which a person of great birth and fortune, to whom nature has been no niggard, makes, when he understands the world, and is thoroughly well-bred!

Hor. I think them so, I can assure you, whether you are in jest or in earnest.

Cleo. How entirely well hid are his greatest imperfections! though money is his idol, and he is covetous in his heart, yet his inward avarice is forced to give way to his outward liberality, and an open generosity shines through all his actions.

Hor. There lies your fault: it is this I cannot endure in you.

Cleo. What is the matter?

Hor. I know what you are about, you are going to give me the caricatura of a gentleman, under pretence of drawing his portrait.

Cleo. You wrong me, I have no such thought.

Hor. But why is it impossible for human nature ever to be good? instead of leaving out, you put in failings without the least grounds or colour. When things have a handsome appearance every way, what reason have you to suspect them still to be bad? How came you to know, and which way have you discovered imperfections that are entirely well hid; and why should you suppose a person to be covetous in his heart, and that money is his idol, when you own yourself that he never shews it, and that an open generosity shines through all his actions? This is monstrous.

Cleo. I have made no such supposition of any man, and I protest to you, that, in what I said, I had no other meaning than to observe, that whatever frailties and natural infirmities persons might be conscious of within, good sense and good manners were capable, and, without any other assistance, sufficient to keep them out of sight: but your questions are very reasonable, and since you have started this, I will be very open to you, and acquaint you before hand with my design of the description I am going to make; and the use I intend it for; which in short is, to demonstrate to you, that a most beautiful superstructure may be raised upon a rotten and despicable foundation. You will understand me better presently.

Hor. But how do you know a foundation to be rotten that supports the building, and is wholly concealed from you?

Cleo. Have patience, and I promise you, that I shall take nothing for granted, which you shall not allow of yourself.

Hor. Stick close to that, and I desire no more: now say what you will.

Cleo. The true object of pride or vain glory is the opinion of others; and the most superlative wish, which a man possessed, and entirely filled with it can make, is, that he may be well thought of, applauded, and admired by the whole world, not only in the present but all future ages. This passion is generally exploded; but it is incredible, how many strange and widely different miracles are, and may be performed by the force of it; as persons differ in circumstances and inclinations. In the first place, there is no danger so great, but by the help of his pride a man may slight and confront it; nor any manner of death so terrible, but with the same assistance he may court, and if he has a firm constitution, undergo it with alacrity. In the second, there are no good offices or duties, either to others or ourselves, that Cicero has spoke of, nor any instance of benevolence, humanity, or other social virtue, that Lord Shaftsbury has hinted at, but a man of good sense and knowledge may learn to practise them from no better principle than vain glory, if it be strong enough to subdue and keep under all other passions that may thwart and interfere with his design.

Hor. Shall I allow all this?

Cleo. Yes.

Hor. When?

Cleo. Before we part.

Hor. Very well.

Cleo. Men of tolerable parts in plentiful circumstances, that were artfully educated, and are not singular in their temper, can hardly fail of a genteel behaviour: the more pride they have, and the greater value they set on the esteem of others, the more they will make it their study to render themselves acceptable to all they converse with; and they will take uncommon pains to conceal and stifle in their bosoms, every thing which their good sense tells them ought not to be seen or understood.

Hor. I must interrupt you, and cannot suffer you to go on thus. What is all this but the old story over again, that every thing is pride, and all we see hypocrisy, without proof or argument? Nothing in the world is more false than what you have advanced now; for, according to that, the most noble, the most gallant, and the best bred man would be the proudest; which is so clashing with daily experience, that the very reverse is true. Pride and insolence are no where more common than among upstarts; men of no family, that raise estates out of nothing, and the most ordinary people, that having had no education, are puffed up with their fortune whenever they are lifted up above mediocrity, and from mean stations advanced to posts of honour: whereas, no men upon earth, generally speaking, are more courteous, humane, or polite, than persons of high birth, that enjoy the large possessions and known seats of their ancestors; men illustrious by descent, that have been used to grandeur and titles of honour from their infancy, and received an education suitable to their quality. I do not believe there ever was a nation, that were not savages, in which the youth of both sexes were not expressly taught never to be proud or haughty: did you ever know a school, a tutor, or a parent, that did not continually inculcate to those under their care to be civil and obliging; nay, does not the word mannerly itself import as much?

Cleo. I beg of you, let us be calm, and speak with exactness. The doctrine of good manners furnishes us with a thousand lessons, against the various appearances and outward symptoms of pride, but it has not one precept against the passion itself.

Hor. How is that?

Cleo. No, not one against the passion itself; the conquest of it is never attempted, nor talked of in a gentleman's education, where men are to be continually inspired and kept warm with the sense of their honour, and the inward value they must put upon themselves on all emergencies.

Hor. This is worth consideration, and requires time to be examined into; but where is your fine gentleman, the picture you promised?

Cleo. I am ready, and shall begin with his dwelling: Though he has several noble seats in different countries, yet I shall only take notice of his chief mansion-house that bears the name, and does the honours of the family: this is amply magnificent, and yet, commodious to admiration. His gardens are very extensive, and contain an infinite variety of pleasing objects: they are divided into many branches for divers purposes, and every where filled with improvements of art upon nature; yet a beautiful order and happy contrivance are conspicuous through every part; and though nothing is omitted to render them stately and delightful; the whole is laid out to the best advantage. Within doors, every thing bespeaks the grandeur and judgment of the master; and as no cost is spared any where to procure beauty or conveniency, so you see none impertinently lavished. All his plate and furniture are completely fine, and you see nothing but what is fashionable. He has no pictures but of the most eminent hands: the rarities he shows are really such; he hoards up no trifles, nor offers any thing to your sight that is shocking: but the several collections he has of this sort, are agreeable as well as extraordinary, and rather valuable than large: but curiosities and wealth are not confined to his cabinet; the marble and sculpture that are displayed up and down are a treasure themselves; and there is abundance of admirable gilding and excellent carving to be seen in many places. What has been laid out on the great hall, and one gallery, would be a considerable estate; and there is a salloon and a stair-case not inferior to either; these are all very spacious and lofty; the architecture of them is of the best taste, and the decorations surprising. Throughout the whole there appears a delicate mixture and astonishing variety of lively embellishments, the splendour of which, joined to a perfect cleanliness, no where neglected, are highly entertaining to the most careless and least observing eye; whilst the exactness of the workmanship bestowed on every part of the meanest utensil, gives a more solid satisfaction, and is ravishing to the curious. But the greatest excellency in this model of perfection is this; that as in the most ordinary rooms there is nothing wanting for their purpose, and the least passage is handsomely finished; so in those of the greatest eclat there is nothing overcharged, nor any part of them encumbered with ornaments.

Hor. This is a studied piece; but I do not like it the worse for it, pray go on.

Cleo. I have thought of it before, I own. His equipage is rich and well chosen, and there is nothing to be seen about him that art or expence, within the compass of reason, could make better. At his own table his looks are ever jovial; and his heart seems to be as open as his countenance. His chief business there is to take care of others, without being troublesome; and all his happiness seems to consist in being able to please his friends: in his greatest mirth, he is wanting in respect to no man; and never makes use of abbreviations in names, or unhandsome familiarities with the meanest of his guests. To every one that speaks to him, he gives an obliging attention, and seems never to disregard any thing but what is said in commendation of his fare: he never interrupts any discourse but what is made in his praise, and seldom assents to any encomiums, though the most equitable that are made on any thing that is his. When he is abroad he never spies faults; and whatever is amiss, he either says nothing, or, in answer to the complaints and uneasiness of others, gives every thing the best-natured turn it can bear; but he seldom leaves a house before he finds out something to extol in it, without wronging his judgment. His conversation is always facetious and good-humoured, but as solid as it is diverting. He never utters a syllable that has the least tincture of obscenity or profaneness; nor ever made a jest that was offensive.

Hor. Very fine!

Cleo. He seems to be entirely free from bigotry and superstition, avoids all disputes about religion; but goes constantly to church, and is seldom absent from his family devotions.

Hor. A very godly gentleman!

Cleo. I expected we should differ there.

Hor. I do not find fault. Proceed, pray.

Cleo. As he is a man of erudition himself, so he is a promoter of arts and sciences; he is a friend to merit, a rewarder of industry, and a professed enemy to nothing but immorality and oppression. Though no man's table is better furnished, nor cellars better stored; he is temperate in his eating, and never commits excess in drinking: though he has an exquisite palate, he always prefers wholesome meats to those that are delicious only, and never indulges his appetite in any thing that might probably be prejudicial to his health.

Hor. Admirably good!

Cleo. As he is in all other things, so he is elegant in his clothes, and has often new ones: neatness he prefers to finery in his own dress; but his retinue is rich. He seldom wears gold or silver himself, but on very solemn occasions, in compliment to others; and to demonstrate that these pompous habits are made for no other purpose, he is never seen twice in the same; but having appeared in them one day, he gives them away the next. Though of every thing he has the best of the sort, and might be called curious in apparel; yet he leaves the care of it to others; and no man has his clothes put on better that seem so little to regard them.

Hor. Perfectly right; to be well dressed is a necessary article, and yet to be solicitous about it is below a person of quality.

Cleo. Therefore he has a domestic of good taste, a judicious man, who saves him that trouble; and the management likewise of his lace and linen, is the province of a skilful woman. His language is courtly, but natural and intelligible; it is neither low nor bombastic, and ever free from pedantic and vulgar expressions. All his motions are genteel without affectation; his mien is rather sedate than airy, and his manner noble: for though he is ever civil and condescending, and no man less arrogant, yet in all his carriage there is something gracefully majestic; and as there is nothing mean in his humility, so his loftiness has nothing disobliging.

Hor. Prodigiously good!

Cleo. He is charitable to the poor; his house is never shut to strangers; and all his neighbours he counts to be his friends. He is a father to his tenants; and looks upon their welfare as inseparable from his interest. No man is less uneasy at little offences, or more ready to forgive all trespasses without design. The injuries that are suffered from other landlords, he turns into benefits; and whatever damages, great or small, are sustained on his account, either from his diversions or otherwise, he doubly makes good. He takes care to be early informed of such losses, and commonly repairs them before they are complained of.

Hor. Oh rare humanity; hearken ye foxhunters!

Cleo. He never chides any of his people; yet no man is better served; and though nothing is wanting in his housekeeping, and his family is very numerous, yet the regularity of it is no less remarkable than the plenty they live in. His orders he will have strictly obeyed; but his commands are always reasonable, and he never speaks to the meanest footman without regard to humanity. Extraordinary diligence in servants, and all laudable actions he takes notice of himself, and often commends them to their faces; but leaves it to his steward to reprove or dismiss those he dislikes.

Hor. Well judged.

Cleo. Whoever lives with him is taken care of in sickness as well as in health. The wages he gives are above double those of other masters; and he often makes presents to those that are more than ordinary observing and industrious to please: but he suffers nobody to take a penny of his friends or others, that come to his house, on any account whatever. Many faults are connived at, or pardoned for the first time, but a breach of this order is ever attended with the loss of their places as soon as it is found out; and there is a premium for the discovery.

Hor. This is the only exceptionable thing, in my opinion, that I have heard yet.

Cleo. I wonder at that: why so, pray?

Hor. In the first place, it is very difficult to enforce obedience to such a command; secondly, if it could be executed, it would be of little use; unless it could be made general, which is impossible: and therefore I look upon the attempt of introducing this maxim to be singular and fantastical. It would please misers and others, that would never follow the example at home; but it would take away from generous men a handsome opportunity of showing their liberal and beneficent disposition: besides, it would manifestly make ones house too open to all sorts of people.

Cleo. Ways might be found to prevent that; but then it would be a blessing, and do great kindness to men of parts and education, that have little to spare, to many of whom this money to servants is a very grievous burden.

Hor. What you mention is the only thing that can be said for it, and I own, of great weight: but I beg your pardon for interrupting you.

Cleo. In all his dealings he is punctual and just. As he has an immense estate, so he has good managers to take care of it: but though all his accounts are very neatly kept, yet he makes it part of his business to look them over himself. He suffers no tradesman's bill to lie by unexamined; and though he meddles not with his ready cash himself, yet he is a quick and cheerful, as well as an exact paymaster; and the only singularity he is guilty of, is, that he never will owe any thing on a new-year's day.

Hor. I like that very well.

Cleo. He is affable with discretion, of easy access, and never ruffled with passion. To sum up all, no man seems to be less elevated with his condition than himself; and in the full enjoyment of so many personal accomplishments, as well as other possessions, his modesty is equal to the rest of his happiness; and in the midst of the pomp and distinction he lives in, he never appears to be entertained with his greatness, but rather unacquainted with the things he excels in.

Hor. It is an admirable character, and pleases me exceedingly; but I will freely own to you, that I should have been more highly delighted with the description, if I had not known your design, and the use you intend to make of it; which, I think, is barbarous: to raise so fine, so elegant, and so complete an edifice, in order to throw it down, is taking great pains to show one's skill in doing mischief. I have observed the several places where you left room for evasions, and lapping the foundation you have built upon. His heart seems to be as open; and he never appears to be entertained with his greatness, I am persuaded, that wherever you have put in this seeming and appearing, you have done it designedly, and with an intent to make use of them as so many back doors to creep out at. I could never have taken notice of these things, if you had not acquainted me with your intention before hand.

Cleo. I have made use of the caution you speak of: but with no other view than to avoid just censure and prevent your accusing me of incorrectness, or judging with too much precipitation; if it should be proved afterwards, that this gentleman had acted from an ill principle, which is the thing I own I purposed to convince you of; but seeing, that it would be unpleasant to you, I will be satisfied with having given you some small entertainment of the description, and for the rest, I give you leave to think me in the wrong.

Hor. Why so? I thought the character was made and contrived on purpose for my instruction.

Cleo. I do not pretend to instruct you: I would have offered something, and appealed to your judgment; but I have been mistaken, and plainly see my error. Both last night and now, when we began our discourse, I took you to be in another disposition of thinking than I perceive you are. You spoke of an impression that had been made upon you, and of looking into yourself, and gave some other hints, which too rashly I misconstrued in my favour; but I have found since, that you are as warm as ever against the sentiments I profess myself to be of; and therefore I will desist. I expect no pleasure from any triumph, and I know nothing that would vex me more, than the thoughts of disobliging you. Pray let us do in this as we do in another matter of importance, never touch upon it: friends in prudence should avoid all subjects in which they are known essentially to differ. Believe me, Horatio, if it was in my power to divert or give you any pleasure, I would grudge no pains to compass that end: but to make you uneasy, is a thing that I shall never be knowingly guilty of, and I beg a thousand pardons for having said so much both yesterday and to-day. Have you heard any thing from Gibraltar?

Hor. I am ashamed of my weakness and your civility: you have not been mistaken in the hints you speak of; what you have said has certainly made a great impression upon me, and I have endeavoured to examine myself: but, as you say, it is a severe task to do it faithfully. I desired you to dine with me on purpose, that we might talk of these things. It is I that have offended, and it is I that ought to ask pardon for the ill manners I have been guilty of; but you know the principles I have always adhered to; it is impossible to recede from them at once. I see great difficulties, and now and then a glimpse of truth, that makes me start: I sometimes feel great struggles within; but I have been so used to derive all actions that are really good from laudable motives, that as soon as I return to my accustomed way of thinking, it carries all before it. Pray bear with my infirmities. I am in love with your fine gentleman, and I confess, I cannot see how a person so universally good, so far remote from all selfishness, can act in such an extraordinary manner every way, but from principles of virtue and religion. Where is there such a landlord in the world? If I am in an error, I shall be glad to be undeceived. Pray inform me, and say what you will, I promise you to keep my temper, and I beg of you speak your mind with freedom.

Cleo. You have bid me before say what I would, and when I did, you seemed displeased; but since you command me I will try once more.----Whether there is or ever was such a man as I have described, in the world, is not very material: but I will easily allow, that most people would think it less difficult to conceive one, than to imagine that such a clear and beautiful stream could flow from so mean and muddy a spring, as an excessive thirst after praise, and an immoderate desire of general applause from the most knowing judges; yet it is certain, that great parts and extraordinary riches may compass all this in a man, who is not deformed, and has had a refined education; and that there are many persons naturally no better than a thousand others, who by the helps mentioned, might attain to those good qualities and accomplishments, if they had but resolution and perseverance enough, to render every appetite and every faculty subservient to that one predominant passion, which, if continually gratified, will always enable them to govern, and, if required, to subdue all the rest without exception, even in the most difficult cases.

Hor. To enter into an argument concerning the possibility of what you say, might occasion a long dispute; but the probability, I think, is very clear against you, and if there was such a man, it would be much more credible, that he acted from the excellency of his nature, in which so many virtues and rare endowments were assembled, than that all his good qualities sprung from vicious motives. If pride could be the cause of all this, the effect of it would sometimes appear in others. According to your system, there is no scarcity of it, and there are men of great parts and prodigious estates all over Europe: why are there not several such patterns to be seen up and down, as you have drawn as one; and why is it so very seldom, that many virtues and good qualities are seen to meet in one individual?

Cleo. Why so few persons, though there are so many men of immense fortune, ever arrive at any thing like this high pitch of accomplishments; there are several reasons that are very obvious. In the first place, men differ in temperament: some are naturally of an active, stirring; others of an indolent, quiet disposition; some of a bold, others of a meek spirit. In the second, it is to be considered, that this temperament in men come to maturity is more or less conspicuous, according as it has been either checked or encouraged by education. Thirdly, that on these two depend the different perception men have of happiness, according to which the love of glory determines them different ways. Some think it the greatest felicity to govern and rule over others: some take the praise of bravery and undauntedness in dangers to be the most valuable: others, erudition, and to be a celebrated author: so that, though they all love glory, they set out differently to acquire it. But a man who hates a bustle, and is naturally of a quiet easy temper, and which has been encouraged in him by education, it is very likely might think nothing more desirable than the character of a fine gentleman; and if he did, I dare say that he would endeavour to behave himself pretty near the pattern I have given you; I say pretty near, because I may have been mistaken in some things, and as I have not touched upon every thing, some will say, that I have left out several necessary ones: but in the main I believe, that in the country and age we live in, the qualifications I have named would get a man the reputation I have supposed him to desire.

Hor. Without doubt, I make no manner of scruple about what you said last; and I told you before that it was an admirable character, and pleased me exceedingly. That I took notice of your making your gentleman so very godly as you did, was because it is not common; but I intended it not as a reflection. One thing, indeed, there was in which I differed from you; but that was merely speculative; and, since I have reflected on what you have answered me, I do not know but I may be in the wrong, as I should certainly believe myself to be, if there really was such a man, and he was of the contrary opinion: to such a fine genius I would pay an uncommon deference, and with great readiness submit my understanding to his superior capacity. But the reasons you give why those effects which you ascribe to pride, are not more common, the cause being so universal, I think are insufficient. That men are prompted to follow different ends, as their inclinations differ, I can easily allow; but there are great numbers of rich men that are likewise of a quiet and indolent disposition, and moreover very desirous of being thought fine gentlemen. How comes it, that among so many persons of high birth, princely estates, and the most refined education, as there are in Christendom, that study, travel, and take great pains to be well accomplished, there is not one, to whom all the good qualities, and every thing you named, could be applied without flattery?

Cleo. It is very possible that thousands may aim at this, and not one of them succeed to that degree: in some, perhaps the predominant passion is not strong enough entirely to subdue the rest: love or covetousness may divert others: drinking, gaming, may draw away many, and break in upon their resolution; they may not have strength to persevere in a design, and steadily to pursue the same ends; or they may want a true taste or knowledge of what is esteemed by men of judgment; or, lastly, they may not be so thoroughly well-bred, as is required to conceal themselves on all emergencies: for the practical part of dissimulation is infinitely more difficult than the theory: and any one of these obstacles is sufficient to spoil all, and hinder the finishing of such a piece.

Hor. I shall not dispute that with you: but all this while you have proved nothing; nor given the least reason why you should imagine, that a man of a character, to all outward appearance so bright and beautiful, acted from vicious motives. You would not condemn him without so much as naming the cause why you suspect him.

Cleo. By no means; nor have I advanced any thing that is ill natured or uncharitable: for I have not said, that if I found a gentleman in possession of all the things I mentioned, I would give his rare endowments this turn, and think all his perfections derived from no better stock, than an extraordinary love of glory. What I argue for, and insist upon, is, the possibility that all these things might be performed by a man from no other views, and with no other helps, than those I have named: nay, I believe moreover, that a gentleman so accomplished, all his knowledge and great parts notwithstanding, may himself be ignorant, or at least not well assured of the motive he acts from.

Hor. This is more unintelligible than any thing you have said yet; why will you heap difficulties upon one another, without solving any? I desire you would clear up this last paradox, before you do any thing else.

Cleo. In order to obey you, I must put you in mind of what happens in early education, by the first rudiments of which, infants are taught in the choice of actions to prefer the precepts of others to the dictates of their own inclinations; which, in short, is no more than doing as they are bid. To gain this point, punishments and rewards are not neglected, and many different methods are made use of; but it is certain, that nothing proves more often effectual for this purpose, or has a greater influence upon children, than the handle that is made of shame; which, though a natural passion, they would not be sensible of so soon, if we did not artfully rouse and stir it up in them, before they can speak or go: by which means, their judgment being then weak, we may teach them to be ashamed of what we please, as soon as we can perceive them to be any ways affected with the passion itself: but as the fear of shame is very insignificant, where there is but little pride, so it is impossible to augment the first, without increasing the latter in the same proportion.

Hor. I should have thought that this increase of pride would render children more stubborn and less docile.

Cleo. You judge right; it would so, and must have been a great hinderance to good manners, till experience taught men, that though pride was not to be destroyed by force, it might be governed by stratagem, and that the best way to manage it, is by playing the passion against itself. Hence it is, that in an artful education, we are allowed to place as much pride as we please in our dexterity of concealing it. I do not suppose, that this covering ourselves, notwithstanding the pride we take in it, is performed without a difficulty that is plainly felt, and perhaps very unpleasant at first; but this wears off as we grow up; and when a man has behaved himself with so much prudence as I have described, lived up to the strictest rules of good-breeding for many years, and has gained the esteem of all that know him, when this noble and polite manner is become habitual to him, it is possible he may in time forget the principle he set out with, and become ignorant, or at least insensible of the hidden spring that gives life and motion to all his actions.

Hor. I am convinced of the great use that may be made of pride, if you will call it so; but I am not satisfied yet, how a man of so much sense, knowledge, and penetration, one that understands himself so entirely well, should be ignorant of his own heart, and the motives he acts from. What is it that induces you to believe this, besides the possibility of his forgetfulness?

Cleo. I have two reasons for it, which I desire may be seriously considered. The first is, that in what relates to ourselves, especially our own worth and excellency, pride blinds the understanding in men of sense and great parts as well as in others, and the greater value we may reasonably set upon ourselves, the fitter we are to swallow the grossest flatteries, in spite of all our knowledge and abilities in other matters: witness Alexander the Great, whose vast genius could not hinder him from doubting seriously, whether he was a god or not. My second reason will prove to us, that if the person in question was capable of examining himself, it is yet highly improbable, that he would ever set about it: for, it must be granted, that, in order to search into ourselves, it is required we should be willing as well as able; and we have all the reason in the world to think, that there is nothing which a very proud man of such high qualifications would avoid more carefully than such an inquiry: because, for all other acts of self-denial, he is repaid in his darling passion; but this alone is really mortifying, and the only sacrifice of his quiet for which he can have no equivalent. If the hearts of the best and sincerest men are corrupt and deceitful, what condition must theirs be in, whose whole life is one continued scene of hypocrisy! therefore inquiring within, and boldly searching into ones own bosom, must be the most shocking employment, that a man can give his mind to, whose greatest pleasure consists in secretly admiring himself. It would be ill manners, after this, to appeal to yourself; but the severity of the task----

Hor. Say no more, I yield this point, though I own I cannot conceive what advantage you can expect from it: for, instead of removing, it will rather help to increase the grand difficulty, which is to prove, that this complete person you have described, acts from a vicious motive: and if that be not your design, I cannot see what you drive at.

Cleo. I told you it was.

Hor. You must have a prodigious sagacity in detecting abstruse matters before other men.

Cleo. You wonder, I know, which way I arrogate to myself such a superlative degree of penetration, as to know an artful cunning man better than he does himself, and how I dare pretend to enter and look into a heart, which I have owned to be completely well concealed from all the world; which in strictness is an impossibility, and consequently not to be bragged of but by a coxcomb.

Hor. You may treat yourself as you please, I have said no such thing; but I own that I long to see it proved, that you have this capacity. I remember the character very well: Notwithstanding the precautions you have taken, it is very full: I told you before, that where things have a handsome appearance every way, there can be no just cause to suspect them. I will stick close to that; your gentleman is all of a piece: You shall alter nothing, either by retracting any of the good qualities you have given him, or making additions that are either clashing with, or unsuitable to what you have allowed already.

Cleo. I shall attempt neither: And without that decisive trials may be made, by which it will plainly appear whether a person acts from inward goodness, and a principle of religion, or only from a motive of vain glory; and, in the latter case, there is an infallible way of dragging the lurking fiend from his darkest recesses into a glaring light, where all the world shall know him.

Hor. I do not think myself a match for you in argument; but I have a great mind to be your gentleman's advocate against all your infallibility: I never liked a cause better in my life. Come, I undertake to defend him in all the suppositions you can make that are reasonable and consistent with what you have said before.

Cleo. Very well: let us suppose what may happen to the most inoffensive, the most prudent, and best-bred man; that our fine gentleman differs in opinion before company, with another, who is his equal in birth and quality, but not so much master over his outward behaviour, and less guarded in his conduct; let this adversary, mal a propos, grow warm, and seem to be wanting in the respect that is due to the other, and reflect on his honour in ambiguous terms. What is your client to do?

Hor. Immediately to ask for an explanation.

Cleo. Which, if the hot man disregards with scorn, or flatly refuses to give, satisfaction must be demanded, and tilt they must.

Hor. You are too hasty: it happened before company; in such cases, friends, or any gentlemen present, should interpose and take care, that if threatening words ensue, they are, by the civil authority, both put under arrest; and before they came to uncourteous language, they ought to have been parted by friendly force, if it were possible. After that, overtures may be made of reconciliation with the nicest regard to the point of honour.

Cleo. I do not ask for directions to prevent a quarrel; what you say may be done, or it may not be done: The good offices of friends may succeed, and they may not succeed. I am to make what suppositions I think fit within the verge of possibility, so they are reasonable and consistent with the character I have drawn: can we not suppose these two persons in such a situation that you yourself would advise your friend to send his adversary a challenge?

Hor. Without doubt such a thing may happen.

Cleo. That is enough. After that a duel must ensue, in which, without determining any thing, the fine gentleman, we will say, behaves himself with the utmost gallantry.

Hor. To have suspected or supposed otherwise would have been unreasonable.

Cleo. You see, therefore, how fair I am. But what is it, pray, that so suddenly disposes a courteous sweet-tempered man, for so small an evil, to seek a remedy of that extreme violence? But above all, what is it that buoys up and supports him against the fear of death? for there lies the greatest difficulty.

Hor. His natural courage and intrepidity, built on the innocence of his life, and the rectitude of his manners.

Cleo. But what makes so just and prudent a man, that has the good of society so much at heart, act knowingly against the laws of his country?

Hor. The strict obedience he pays to the laws of honour, which are superior to all others.

Cleo. If men of honour would act confidently, they ought all to be Roman Catholics.

Hor. Why, pray?

Cleo. Because they prefer oral tradition to all written laws: for nobody can tell when, in what king's or emperor's reign, in what country, or by what authority these laws of honour were first enacted: it is very strange they should be of such force.

Hor. They are wrote and engraved in every ones breast that is a man of honour: there is no denying of it; you are conscious of it yourself; every body feels it within.

Cleo. Let them be wrote or engraved wherever you please, they are directly opposite to and clashing with the laws of God; and if the gentleman I described was as sincere in his religion as he appeared to be, he must have been of an opinion contrary to yours; for Christians of all persuasions are unanimous in allowing the divine laws to be far above all other; and that all other considerations ought to give way to them. How, and under what pretence can a Christian, who is a man of sense, submit or agree to laws that prescribe revenge, and countenance murder; both which are so expressly forbid by the precepts of his religion?

Hor. I am no casuist: but you know, that what I say is true; and that, among persons of honour, a man would be laughed at, that should make such a scruple. Not but that I think killing a man to be a great sin, where it can be helped; and that all prudent men ought to avoid the occasion, as much as it is in their power. He is highly blameable who is the first aggressor, and gives the affront; and whoever enters upon it out of levity, or seeks a quarrel out of wantonness, ought to be hanged. Nobody would choose it, who is not a fool; and yet, when it is forced upon one, all the wisdom in the world cannot teach him how to avoid it. It has been my case you know: I shall never forget the reluctancy I had against it; but necessity has no law.

Cleo. I saw you that very morning, and you seemed to be sedate and void of passion: you could have no concern.

Hor. It is silly to show any at such times; but I know best what I felt; the struggle I had within was unspeakable: it is a terrible thing. I would then have given a considerable part of my estate, that the thing which forced me into it had not happened; and yet, upon less provocation, I would act the same part again to-morrow.

Cleo. Do you remember what your concern was chiefly about?

Hor. How can you ask? It is an affair of the highest importance that can occur in life; I was no boy; it was after we came from Italy; I was in my nine and twentieth year, had very good acquaintance, and was not ill received: a man of that age, in health and vigour, who has seven thousand a-year, and the prospect of being a peer of England, has no reason to quarrel with the world, or wish himself out of it. It is a very great hazard a man runs in a duel; besides the remorse and uneasiness one must feel as long as he lives, if he has the misfortune of killing his adversary. It is impossible to reflect on all these things, and at the same time resolve to run those hazards (though there are other considerations of still greater moment), without being under a prodigious concern.

Cleo. You say nothing about the sin.

Hor. The thoughts of that, without doubt, are a great addition; but the other things are so weighty of themselves, that a man's condition at such a time, is very perplexed without further reflection.

Cleo. You have now a very fine opportunity, Horatio, of looking into your heart, and with a little of my assistance, examining yourself. If you can condescend to this, I promise you that you shall make great discoveries, and be convinced of truths you are now unwilling to believe. A lover of justice and probity, as you are, ought not to be fond of a road of thinking, where he is always forced to skulk, and never dares to meet with light or reason. Will you suffer me to ask you some questions, and will you answer them directly and in good humour?

Hor. I will, without reserve.

Cleo. Do you remember the storm upon the coast of Genoa?

Hor. Going to Naples? Very well; it makes me cold to think of it.

Cleo. Was you afraid?

Hor. Never more in my life: I hate that fickle element; I cannot endure the sea.

Cleo. What was you afraid of?

Hor. That is a pretty question: do you think a young fellow of six-and-twenty, as I was then, and in my circumstances, had a great mind to be drowned? The captain himself said we were in danger.

Cleo. But neither he nor any body else discovered half so much fear and anxiety as you did.

Hor. There was nobody there, yourself excepted, that had half a quarter so much to lose as I had: besides, they are used to the sea; storms are familiar to them. I had never been at sea before, but that fine afternoon we crossed from Dover to Calais.

Cleo. Want of knowledge or experience may make men apprehend danger where there is none; but real dangers, when they are known to be such, try the natural courage of all men; whether they have been used to them or not: sailors are as unwilling to lose their lives as other people.

Hor. I am not ashamed to own, that I am a great coward at sea: give me terra firma, and then--

Cleo. Six or seven months after you fought that duel, I remember you had the small-pox; you was then very much afraid of dying.

Hor. Not without a cause.

Cleo. I heard your physicians say, that the violent apprehension you was under, hindered your sleep, increased your fever, and was as mischievous to you as the distemper itself.

Hor. That was a terrible time; I am glad it is over: I had a sister died of it. Before I had it, I was in perpetual dread of it, and many times to hear it named only has made me uneasy.

Cleo. Natural courage is a general armour against the fear of death, whatever shape that appears in, Si fractus illabatur erbis. It supports a man in tempestuous seas, and in a burning fever, whilst he is in his senses, as well as in a siege before a town, or in a duel with seconds.

Hor. What! you are going to show me, that I have no courage.

Cleo. Far from it; it would be ridiculous to doubt a man's bravery, that has shown it in such an extraordinary manner as you have done more than once: what I question, is the epithet you joined to it at first, the word natural; for there is a great difference between that and artificial courage.

Hor. That is a chicane I will not enter into: but I am not of your opinion, as to what you said before. A gentleman is not required to show his bravery, but where his honour is concerned; and if he dares to fight for his king, his friend, his mistress, and every thing where his reputation is engaged, you shall think of him what you please for the rest. Besides, that in sickness and other dangers, as well as afflictions, where the hand of God is plainly to be seen, courage and intrepidity are impious as well as impertinent. Undauntedness in chastisements is a kind of rebellion: it is waging war with Heaven, which none but atheists and freethinkers would be guilty of; it is only they that can glory in impenitence, and talk of dying hard. All others that have any sense of religion, desire to repent before they go out of the world: the best of us do not always live, as we could wish to die.

Cleo. I am very glad to hear you are so religious: but do not you perceive yet, how inconsistent you are with yourself: how can a man sincerely wish to repent, that wilfully plunges himself into a mortal sin, and an action where he runs a greater and more immediate hazard of his life, than he could have done in almost any other, without force or necessity?

Hor. I have over and over owned to you that duelling is a sin; and, unless a man is forced to it by necessity, I believe, a mortal one: but this was not my case, and therefore I hope God will forgive me: let them look to it that make a sport of it. But when a man comes to an action with the utmost reluctancy, and what he does is not possibly to be avoided, I think he then may justly be said to be forced to it, and to act from necessity. You may blame the rigorous laws of honour, and the tyranny of custom, but a man that will live in the world must, and is bound to obey them. Would not you do it yourself?

Cleo. Do not ask me what I would do: the question is, what every body ought to do. Can a man believe the Bible, and at the same time apprehend a tyrant more crafty or malicious, more unrelenting or inhuman than the devil, or a mischief worse than hell, and pains either more exquisite or more durable than torments unspeakable and yet everlasting? You do not answer. What evil is it? Think of it, and tell me what dismal thing it is you apprehend, should you neglect these laws, and despise that tyrant: what calamity could befall you? Let me know the worst that can be feared.

Hor. Would you be posted for a coward?

Cleo. For what? For not daring to violate all human and divine laws?

Hor. Strictly speaking you are in the right, it is unanswerable; but who will consider things in that light?

Cleo. All good Christians.

Hor. Where are they then? For all mankind in general would despise and laugh at a man, who should move those scruples. I have heard and seen clergymen themselves in company show their contempt of poltrons, whatever they might talk or recommend in the pulpit. Entirely to quit the world, and at once to renounce the conversation of all persons that are valuable in it, is a terrible thing to resolve upon. Would you become a town and table-talk? Could you submit to be the jest and scorn of public-houses, stage-coaches, and market-places? Is not this the certain fate of a man, who should refuse to fight, or bear an affront without resentment? be just, Cleomenes; is it to be avoided? Must he not be made a common laughing-stock, be pointed at in the streets, and serve for diversion to the very children; to link-boys and hackney-coachmen? Is it a thought to be born with patience?

Cleo. How come you now to have such an anxious regard for what may be the opinion of the vulgar, whom at other times you so heartily despise?

Hor. All this is reasoning, and you know the thing will not bear it: how can you be so cruel?

Cleo. How can you be so backward in discovering and owning the passion, that is so conspicuously the occasion of all this, the palpable and only cause of the uneasiness we feel at the thoughts of being despised?

Hor. I am not sensible of any; and I declare to you, that I feel nothing that moves me to speak as I do, but the sense and principle of honour within me.

Cleo. Do you think that the lowest of the mob, and the scum of the people, are possessed of any part of this principle?

Hor. No, indeed.

Cleo. Or that among the highest quality, infants can be affected with it before they are two years old?

Hor. Ridiculous.

Cleo. If neither of these are affected with it, then honour should be either adventitious, and acquired by culture; or, if contained in the blood of those that are nobly born, imperceptible until the years of discretion; and neither of them can be said of the principle, the palpable cause I speak of. For we plainly see on the one hand, that scorn and ridicule are intolerable to the poorest wretches, and that there is no beggar so mean or miserable, that contempt will never offend him: on the other, that human creatures are so early influenced by the sense of shame; that children, by being laughed at and made a jest of, may be set a crying before they can well speak or go. Whatever, therefore, this mighty principle is, it is born with us, and belongs to our nature: are you unacquainted with the proper, genuine, homely name of it?

Hor. I know you call it pride. I will not dispute with you about principles and origins of things; but that high value which men of honour set upon themselves as such, and which is no more than what is due to the dignity of our nature, when well cultivated, is the foundation of their character, and a support to them in all difficulties, that is of great use to the society. The desire, likewise, of being thought well of, and the love of praise and even of glory are commendable qualities, that are beneficial to the public. The truth of this is manifest in the reverse; all shameless people that are below infamy, and matter not what is said or thought of them, these, we see nobody can trust; they stick at nothing, and if they can but avoid death, pain, and penal laws, are always ready to execute all manner of mischief, their selfishness or any brutal appetite shall prompt them to, without regard to the opinion of others: such are justly called men of no principles, because they have nothing of any strength within, that can either spur them on to brave and virtuous actions, or restrain them from villany and baseness.

Cleo. The first part of your assertion is very true, when that high value, that desire, and that love are kept within the bounds of reason: But, in the second, there is a mistake; those whom we call shameless, are not more destitute of pride, than their betters. Remember what I have said of education, and the power of it; you may add inclinations, knowledge, and circumstances; for, as men differ in all these, so they are differently influenced and wrought upon by all the passions. There is nothing that some men may not be taught to be ashamed of. The same passion that makes the well-bred man, and prudent officer, value and secretly admire themselves for the honour and fidelity they display, may make the rake and scoundrel brag of their vices, and boast of their impudence.

Hor. I cannot comprehend, how a man of honour, and one that has none, should both act from the same principle.

Cleo. This is not more strange, than that self-love may make a man destroy himself, yet nothing is more true; and it is as certain, that some men indulge their pride in being shameless. To understand human nature, requires study and application, as well as penetration and sagacity. All passions and instincts in general, were given to all animals for some wise end, tending to the preservation and happiness of themselves, or their species: It is our duty to hinder them from being detrimental or offensive to any part of the society; but why should we be ashamed of having them? The instinct of high value, which every individual has for himself, is a very useful passion: but a passion it is, and though I could demonstrate, that we should be miserable creatures without it, yet, when it is excessive, it often is the cause of endless mischiefs.

Hor. But in well-bred people it never is excessive.

Cleo. You mean the excess of it never appears outwardly: But we ought never to judge of its height or strength from what we can discover of the passion itself, but from the effects it produces: It often is most superlative, where it is most concealed; and nothing increases and influences it more, than what is called a refined education, and a continual commerce with the beau monde: The only thing that can subdue, or any ways curb it, is a strict adherence to the Christian religion.

Hor. Why do you so much insist upon it, that this principle, this value men set upon themselves, is a passion? And why will you choose to call it pride rather than honour?

Cleo. For very good reasons. Fixing this principle in human nature, in the first place, takes away all ambiguity: Who is a man of honour, and who is not, is often a disputable point; and, among those that are allowed to be such, the several degrees of strictness, in complying with the rules of it, make great difference in the principle itself. But a passion that is born with us is unalterable, and part of our frame, whether it exerts itself or not: The essence of it is the same, which way soever it is taught to turn. Honour is the undoubted offspring of pride, but the same cause produces not always the same effect. All the vulgar, children, savages, and many others that are not affected with any sense of honour, have all of them pride, as is evident from the symptoms. Secondly, it helps us to explain the phenomena that occur in quarrels and affronts, and the behaviour of men of honour on these occasions, which cannot be accounted for any other way. But what moves me to it most of all, is the prodigious force and exorbitant power of this principle of self esteem, where it has been long gratified and encouraged. You remember the concern you was under, when you had that duel upon your hands, and the great reluctancy you felt in doing what you did; you knew it to be a crime, and, at the same time, had a strong aversion to it; what secret power was it that subdued your will, and gained the victory over that great reluctancy you felt against it? You call it honour, and the too strict, though unavoidable adherence to the rules of it: But men never commit violence upon themselves, but in struggling with the passions that are innate and natural to them. Honour is acquired, and the rules of it are taught: Nothing adventitious, that some are possessed, and others destitute of, could raise such intestine wars and dire commotions within us; and therefore, whatever is the cause that can thus divide us against ourselves, and, as it were, rend human nature in twain, must be part of us; and, to speak without disguise, the struggle in your breast was between the fear of shame and the fear of death: had this latter not been so considerable, your struggle would have been less: Still the first conquered, because it was strongest; but if your fear of shame had been inferior to that of death, you would have reasoned otherwise, and found out some means or other to have avoided fighting.

Hor. This is a strange anatomy of human nature.

Cleo. Yet, for want of making use of it, the subject we are upon is not rightly understood by many; and men have discoursed very inconsistently on duelling. A divine who wrote a dialogue to explode that practice, said, that those who were guilty of it, had mistaken notions of, and went by false rules of honour; for which my friend justly ridiculed him, saying, You may as well deny, that it is the fashion what you see every body wear, as to say, that demanding and giving satisfaction, is against the laws of true honour. Had that man understood human nature, he could not have committed such a blunder: But when once he took it for granted, that honour is a just and good principle, without inquiring into the cause of it among the passions, it is impossible he should have accounted for duelling, in a Christian pretending to act from such a principle; and therefore, in another place, with the same justice, he said, that a man who had accepted a challenge was not qualified to make his will, because he was not compos mentis: He might, with greater show of reason, have said, that he was bewitched.

Hor. Why so?

Cleo. Because people out of their wits, as they think at random, so commonly they act and talk incoherently; but when a man of known sobriety, and who shows no manner of discomposure, discourses and behaves himself in every thing, as he is used to do; and, moreover, reasons on points of great nicety with the utmost accuracy, it is impossible we should take him to be either a fool or a madman; and when such a person, in an affair of the highest importance, acts so diametrically against his interest, that a child can see it, and with deliberation pursues his own destruction, those who believe that there are malignant spirits of that power, would rather imagine that he was led away by some enchantment, and over-ruled by the enemy of mankind, than they would fancy a palpable absurdity: But even the supposition of that is not sufficient to solve the difficulty, without the help of that strange anatomy. For what spell or witchcraft is there, by the delusion of which a man of understanding shall, keeping his senses, mistake an imaginary duty for an unavoidable necessity to break all real obligations? But let us wave all ties of religion, as well as human laws, and the person we speak of to be a professed Epicure, that has no thoughts of futurity; what violent power of darkness is it, that can force and compel a peaceable quiet man, neither inured to hardship, nor valiant by nature, to quit his beloved ease and security; and seemingly by choice go fight in cold blood for his life, with this comfortable reflection, that nothing forfeits it so certainly as the entire defeat of his enemy?

Hor. As to the law and the punishment, persons of quality have little to fear of that.

Cleo. You cannot say that in France, nor the Seven Provinces. But men of honour, that are of much lower ranks, decline duelling no more than those of the highest quality. How many examples have we, even here, of gallant men, that have suffered for it either by exile or the hangman! A man of honour must fear nothing: Do but consider every obstacle which this principle of self-esteem has conquered at one time or other; and then tell me whether it must not be something more than magic, by the fascination of which a man of taste and judgment, in health and vigour, as well as the flower of his age, can be tempted, and actually drawn from the embraces of a wife he loves, and the endearments of hopeful children, from polite conversation and the charms of friendship, from the fairest possessions and the happy enjoyment of all worldly pleasures, to an unwarrantable combat, of which the victor must be exposed either to an ignominious death, or perpetual banishment.

Hor. When things are set in this light, I confess it is very unaccountable: but will your system explain this; can you make it clear yourself?

Cleo. Immediately, as the sun: If you will but observe two things, that must necessarily follow, and are manifest from what I have demonstrated already. The first is, that the fear of shame, in general, is a matter of caprice, that varies with modes and customs, and may be fixed on different objects, according to the different lessons we have received, and the precepts we are imbued with; and that this is the reason, why this fear of shame, as it is either well or ill placed, sometimes produces very good effects, and at others is the cause of the most enormous crimes. Secondly, that, though shame is a real passion, the evil to be feared from it is altogether imaginary, and has no existence but in our own reflection on the opinion of others.

Hor. But there are real and substantial mischiefs which a man may draw upon himself, by misbehaving in point of honour; it may ruin his fortune, and all hopes of preferment: An officer may be broken for putting up an affront: Nobody will serve with a coward, and who will employ him?

Cleo. What you urge is altogether out of the question; at least it was in your own case; you had nothing to dread or apprehend but the bare opinion of men. Besides, when the fear of shame is superior to that of death, it is likewise superior to, and outweighs all other considerations; as has been sufficiently proved: But when the fear of shame is not violent enough to curb the fear of death, nothing else can; and whenever the fear of death is stronger than that of shame, there is no consideration that will make a man fight in cold blood, or comply with any of the laws of honour, where life is at stake. Therefore, whoever acts from the fear of shame as a motive, in sending and accepting of challenges, must be sensible, on the one hand, that the mischiefs he apprehends, should he disobey the tyrant, can only be the offspring of his own thoughts; and, on the other, that if he could be persuaded anywise to lessen the great esteem and high value he sets upon himself, his dread of shame would likewise palpably diminish. From all which, it is most evident, that the grand cause of this distraction, the powerful enchanter we are seeking after, is pride, excess of pride, that highest pitch of self-esteem, to which some men may be wound up by an artful education, and the perpetual flatteries bestowed upon our species, and the excellencies of our nature. This is the sorcerer, that is able to divert all other passions from their natural objects, and make a rational creature ashamed of what is most agreeable to his inclination, as well as his duty; both which the duellist owns, that he has knowingly acted against.

Hor. What a wonderful machine, what an heterogenous compound is man! You have almost conquered me.

Cleo. I aim at no victory, all I wish for is to do you service, in undeceiving you.

Hor. What is the reason that, in the same person, the fear of death should be so glaringly conspicuous in sickness, or a storm, and so entirely well hid in a duel, and all military engagements? Pray, solve that too.

Cleo. I will as well as I can: On all emergencies, where reputation is thought to be concerned, the fear of shame is effectually roused in men of honour, and immediately their pride rushes in to their assistance, and summons all their strength to fortify and support them in concealing the fear of death; by which extraordinary efforts, the latter, that is the fear of death, is altogether stifled, or, at least, kept out of sight, and remains undiscovered. But in all other perils, in which they do not think their honour engaged, their pride lies dormant. And thus the fear of death, being checked by nothing, appears without disguise. That this is the true reason, is manifest from the different behaviour that is observed in men of honour, according as they are either pretenders to Christianity; or tainted with irreligion; for there are of both sorts; and you shall see, most commonly at least, that your esprits forts, and those who would be thought to disbelieve a future state (I speak of men of honour), show the greatest calmness and intrepidity in the same dangers, where the pretended believers among them, appear to be the most ruffled and pusillanimous.

Hor. But why pretended believers? at that rate there are no Christians among the men of honour.

Cleo. I do not see how they can be real believers.

Hor. Why so?

Cleo. For the same reason that a Roman Catholic cannot be a good subject, always to be depended upon, in a Protestant, or indeed any other country, but the dominions of his Holiness. No sovereign can confide with safety in a man's allegiance, who owns and pays homage to another superior power upon earth. I am sure you understand me.

Hor. Too well.

Cleo. You may yoke a knight with a prebendary, and put them together into the same stall; but honour, and the Christian religion, make no couple, nec in una sede morantur, any more than majesty and love. Look back on your own conduct, and you shall find, that what you said of the hand of God was only a shift, an evasion you made to serve your then present purpose. On another occasion, you had said yesterday yourself, that Providence superintends and governs every thing without exception; you must, therefore, have known, that the hand of God is as much to be seen in one common accident in life, and in one misfortune, as it is in another, that is not more extraordinary. A severe fit of sickness may be less fatal, than a slight skirmish between two hostile parties; and, among men of honour, there is often as much danger in a quarrel about nothing, as there can be in the most violent storm. It is impossible, therefore, that a man of sense, who has a solid principle to go by, should, in one sort of danger, think it impiety not to show fear, and in another be ashamed to be thought to have any. Do but consider your own inconsistency with yourself. At one time, to justify your fear of death, when pride is absent, you become religious on a sudden, and your conscience then is so tenderly scrupulous, that, to be undaunted under chastisements from the Almighty, seems no less to you than waging war with Heaven; and, at another, when honour calls, you dare not knowingly and willingly break the most positive command of God, but likewise to own, that the greatest calamity which, in your opinion, can befal you, is, that the world should believe, or but suspect of you, that you had any scruple about it. I defy the wit of man to carry the affront to the Divine Majesty higher. Barely to deny his being, is not half so daring, as it is to do this after you have owned him to exist. No Atheism----

Hor. Hold, Cleomenes; I can no longer resist the force of truth, and I am resolved to be better acquainted with myself for the future. Let me become your pupil.

Cleo. Do not banter me, Horatio; I do not pretend to instruct a man of your knowledge; but if you will take my advice, search into yourself with care and boldness, and, at your leisure, peruse the