pillory. His behaviour in the one fituation may gain him univerfal esteem and admiration. No behaviour in the other can render him agreeable. The fympathy of the spectators fupports him in the one cafe, and faves him from that fhame, that consciousness that his mifery is felt by himself only, which is of all fentiments the most insupportable. There is no sympathy in the other; or, if there is any, it is not with his pain, which is a trifle, but with his consciousness of the want of fympathy with which this pain is attended. It is with his fhame, not with his forrow. Those who pity him, blush and hang down their heads for him. He droops in the fame manner, and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the punishment, though not by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with resolution, as he is naturally regarded with the erect aspect of esteem and approbation, fo he wears himself the fame undaunted countenance; and, if the crime, does not deprive him of the respect of others, the punishment never will. He has no fufpicion that his fituation is the object of contempt or derifion to any body, and he can, with propriety, affume the air, not only of perfect ferenity, but of triumph and exultation.

"Great dangers," fays the Cardinal de Retz, ❝ have their charms, because there is fome glory "to be got, even when we miscarry. But moderate 86 dangers have nothing but what is horrible, "because the lofs of reputation always attends "the want of fuccefs. His maxim has the

fame foundation with what we have been just now obferving with regard to punishments.

Human virtue is fuperior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death; nor does it even require its utmost efforts to despise them. But to have its misery exposed to infult and derifion, to be led in triumph, to be set up for the hand of fcorn to point at, is a fituation in which its conftancy is much more apt to fail. Compared with the contempt of mankind, all other external evils are eafily fupported.

CHA P. I I I.

Of the corruption of our moral fentiments, which is occafioned by this difpofition to admire the rich and the great, and to defpife or neglect perfons of poor and mean condition.

THIS difpofition to admire, and almost to

worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect perfons of poor and mean condition, though neceffary both to establish and to maintain the diftinction of ranks and the order of fociety, is, at the fame time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral fentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the refpect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often moft unjuftly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralifts in all ages.

1

We defire both to be refpectable and, to be respected. We dread both to be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon coming into the world, we foon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the fole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently fee the respectful attentions of the world more ftrongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wife and the virtuous. We fee frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. To deferve, to acquire, and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are prefented to us, equally leading to the attainment of this fo much defired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue; the other, by the acquifition of wealth and greatnefs. Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition and oftentatious avidity; the other, of humble modefty and equitable justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour ; the one more gaudy and glittering in its coloring; the other more correct and more exquifitely beautiful in its outline: the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful obferver. They are the wife and the virtuous chiefly, a felect, though, I am afraid,

but

but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great inob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, moft frequently the difinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.

The respect which we feel for wisdom and virtue is, no doubt, different from that which we conceive for wealth and greatnefs; and it requires no very nice discernment to diftinguish the difference. But, notwithstanding this difference, thofe fentiments bear a very confiderable resemblance to one another. In fome particular features they are, no doubt, different, but, in the general air of the countenance, they feem to be fo very nearly the fame, that inattentive observers are very apt to mistake one for the other.

In equal degrees of merit there is scarce any man who does not refpect more the rich and the great, than the poor and the humble. With moft men the prefumption and vanity of the former are much more admired, than the real and folid merit, of the latter. It is fcarce agreeable to good morals, or even to good language, perhaps, to fay, that mere wealth and greatness, abftracted from merit and virtue, deserve our refpect. We must acknowledge, however, that they almost conftantly obtain it; and that they may, therefore, be confidered as, in fome respects, the natural objects of it. Those exalted stations may, no doubt, be completely degraded by vice and folly. But the vice and folly must be very great, before they can VOL. I.

H

operate this complete degradation. The profligacy of a man of fashion is looked upon with much less contempt and averfion, than that of a man of meaner condition. In the latter, a single tranfgreffion of the rules of temperance and propriety, is commonly more refented, than the conftant and avowed contempt of them ever is in the former.

In the middling and inferior stations of life, the road to virtue and that to fortune, to fuch fortune, at least, as men in such stations can reasonably expect to acquire, are, happily, in moft cafes, very nearly the same. In all the middling and inferior profeffions, real and folid professional abilities, joined to prudent, juft, firm, and temperate conduct, can very feldom fail of fuccefs. Abilities will even fometimes prevail where the conduct is by no means correct. Either habitual imprudence, however, or injuftice, or weakness, or profligacy, will always cloud, and fometimes deprefs altogether, the most splendid profeffional abilities. Men in the inferior and middling ftations of life, befides, can never be great enough to be above the law, which muft generally overawe them into fome fort of refpect for, at least, the more important rules of justice. The fuccefs of fuch people, too, almost always depends upon the favor and good opinion of their neighbours and equals; and without a tolerably regular conduct these can very seldom be obtained The good old proverb, therefore, That honesty is the best policy, holds, in fuch fituations, almoft always perfectly true. In fuch fituations, therefore, we may generally expect a confiderable