pends, are of a very nice and delicate nature, and may easily be altered by habit and education: but the fentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, are founded on the ftrongest and most vigorous paffions of human nature; and though they may be fomewhat warpt, cannot be entirely perverted. But though the influence of custom and fashion, upon moral fentiments, is not altogether fo great, it is however perfectly fimilar to what it is every where else. When custom and fashion coincide with the natural principles of right and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our fentiments, and increase our abhorrence for every thing which approaches to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really good company, not in what is commonly called fuch, who have been accustomed to fee nothing in the perfons whom they esteemed and lived with, but justice, modefty, humanity, and good order; are more fhocked with whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which thofe virtues prescribe. Thofe, on the contrary, who have had the misfortune to be brought up amidft violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and injuftice; lofe, though not all fenfe of the impropriety of fuch conduct, yet all fenfe of its dreadful enormity, or of the vengeance and punishment due to it. They have been famili arized with it from their infancy, cuftom has rendered it habitual to them, and they are very apt to regard it as, what is called the way of the world, fomething which either may, or must be practifed, to hinder us from being the dupes of our own integrity. Fashion Το Fashion too will fometimes give reputation to a certain degree of disorder, and on the contrary difcountenance qualities which deserve efteem. In the reign of Charles II. a degree of licentioufnefs was deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected, according to the notions of those times, with generofity, fincerity, magnanimity, loyalty, and proved that the perfon who acted in this manner, was a gentleman, and not a puritan; severity of manners, and regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashionable, and were connected, in the imagination of that age, with cant, cunning, hypocrify, and low manners. fuperficial minds, the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect them, not only with the fplendour of fortune, but with many fuperiour virtues, which they afcribe to their fuperiors; with the spirit of freedom and independency, with franknefs, generofity, humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the inferior ranks of people, on the contrary, their parfimonious frugality, their painful industry, and rigid adherence to rules, feem to them mean and disagreeable. They connect them, both with the meanness of the ftation to which thofe qualities commonly belong, and with many great vices, which, they suppose, ufually accompany them; fuch as an abject, cowardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering difpofition. The objects with which men in the different profeffions and states of life are converfant, being very different, and habituating them to very different paffions, naturally form in them very different characters and manners. We expect in each rank and pro feffion, a degree of thofe manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle conformation, which in every part and feature agrees most exactly with the general standard which nature feems to have established for things of that kind; fo in each rank, or, if I may fay fo, in each fpecies of men, we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too much, nor too little of the character which ufually accompanies their particular, condition and fituation. A man, we fay, fhould look like his trade and profeffion; yet the pedantry of every profeffion is disagreeable. The different periods of life have, for the fame reafon, different manners affigned to them. We expect in old age, that gravity and fedatenefs which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out fenfibility feem to render both natural and respectable; and we lay our account to find in youth that fenfibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which experience teaches us to expect from the lively impreffions that all interefting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractifed fenfes of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, may eafily have too much of thefe peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of youth, and the immoveable insensibility of old age, are equally difagreeable. The young, according to the common faying, are moft agreeable when in their behaviour there is fomething of the manners of the old, and the old, when they retain fomething of the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldnefs, and dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The levity, the careleffnefs, and the vanity, which which are indulged in youth, render old age contemptible. The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to appropriate to each rank and profeffion, have fometimes perhaps a propriety independent of custom; and are what we should approve of for their own fakes, if we took into confideration all the different circumftances which naturally affect thofe in each different ftate of life. The propriety of a person's behaviour, depends not upon its suitableness to any one circumftance of his fituation, but to all the circumstances, which, when we bring his cafe home to ourselves we feel, fhould naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be fo much occupied by any one of them, as entirely to neglect the reft, we disapprove of his conduct, as fomething which we cannot entirely go along with, because not properly adjusted to all the circumftances of his fituation yet, perhaps, the emotion he expreffes for the object which principally interests him, does not exceed what we should entirely fympathize with, and approve of, in one whofe attention was not required by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon the loss of an only son, exprefs without blame, a degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in a general at the head of an army, when glory, and the public safety demanded so great a part of his attention. As different objects ought, upon common occafions, to occupy the attention of men of different profeffions, fo different paffions ought, naturally to become habitual to them; and when we' bring home to ourselves their fituation in this parti cular refpect, we must be fenfible, that every occurrence should naturally affect them more or less, according T 2 cording as the emotion which it excites, coincides or disagrees with the fixt habit and temper of their minds. We cannot expect the fame fenfibility to the gay pleasures and amusements of life in a clergyman which we lay our account with in an officer. The man whofe peculiar occupation it is to keep the world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits them, who is to announce what may be the fatal confequences of every deviation from the rules of duty, and who is himself to fet the example of the moft exact conformity, feems to be the meffenger of tidings, which cannot, in propriety, be delivered either with levity or indifference. His mind is fuppofed to be continually occupied with what is too grand and folemn, to leave any room for the impreffions of those frivolous objects, which fill up the attention of the diffipated and the gay. We readily feel therefore, that, independent of custom, there is a propri ety in the manners which cuftom has allotted to this. profeffion; and that nothing can be more fuitable to the character of a clergyman, than that grave, that auftere and abstracted feverity, which we are habituated to expect in his behaviour. These reflections are fo very obvious, that there is scarce any man fo inconfiderate, as not, at fome time, to have made them, and to have accounted to himself in this manner for his approbation of the ufual character of this order. The foundation of the customary character of fome other profeffions is not fo obvious, and our approbation of it is founded entirely in habit, without being either confirmed, or enlivened by any reflections of this kind. We are led by custom, for example, to annex the character of gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, |