his mind, the better to restrain him from playing the knave. And if a saint had no other virtue than what was raised in him by the same objects of reward and punishment, in a more distant state, I know not whose love or esteem he might gain besides, but for my own part I should never think him worthy of mine.

"Nec furtum feci nec fugi," si mihi dicat

Servus : "habes pretium, loris non ureris," aio.

"Non hominem occidi."

"Sum bonus et frugi."

"Non pasces in cruce corvos." Renuit negitatque Sabellus.1

PART IV

SECTION I

By this time, my friend, you may possibly, I hope, be satisfied that as I am in earnest in defending raillery, so I can be sober too in the use of it. "Tis in reality a serious study to learn to temper and regulate that humour which nature has given us as a more lenitive remedy against vice, and a kind of specific against superstition and melancholy delusion. There is a great difference between seeking how to raise a laugh from everything, and seeking in everything what justly may be laughed at. For nothing is ridiculous except what is deformed; nor is anything proof against raillery except what is handsome and just. And therefore 'tis the hardest thing in the world to deny fair honesty the use of this weapon, which can never bear an edge against herself, and bears against everything contrary.

If the very Italian buffoons were to give us the rule in these cases, we should learn by them that in their lowest and most

1 ["If my slave tells me, 'I have not stolen, nor run away,' I answer, 'You have your reward, you are not flogged.' 'I have not killed a man !' 'The crows do not devour you on the cross.' 'I am good and honest!' My Sabine bailiff shakes his head and denies it."-Horace, Epist. 1. xvi. 46-49.]

scurrilous way of wit, there was nothing so successfully to be played upon as the passions of cowardice and avarice. One may defy the world to turn real bravery or generosity into ridicule. A glutton or mere sensualist is as ridiculous as the other two characters. Nor can an unaffected temperance be made the subject of contempt to any besides the grossest and most contemptible of mankind. Now these three ingredients make up a virtuous character, as the contrary three a vicious one. therefore can we possibly make a jest of honesty? To laugh both ways is nonsensical. And if the ridicule lie against sottishness, avarice, and cowardice, you see the consequence. A man must be soundly ridiculous who, with all the wit imaginable, would go about to ridicule wisdom, or laugh at honesty, or good manners.

How

A man of thorough good breeding,' whatever else he be, is incapable of doing a rude or brutal action. He never deliberates in this case, or considers of the matter by prudential rules of selfinterest and advantage. He acts from his nature, in a manner necessarily, and without reflection; and if he did not, it were impossible for him to answer his character, or be found that truly well-bred man on every occasion. "Tis the same with the honest man. He cannot deliberate in the case of a plain villainy. A "plum" is no temptation to him. He likes and loves himself too well to change hearts with one of those corrupt miscreants, who amongst them gave that name to a round sum of money gained by rapine and plunder of the commonwealth. He who would enjoy a freedom of mind, and be truly possessor of himself, must be above the thought of stooping to what is villainous or base. He, on the other side, who has a heart to stoop, must necessarily quit the thought of manliness, resolution, friendship, merit, and a character with himself and others. But to affect these enjoyments and advantages, together with the privileges of a licentious principle; to pretend to enjoy society and a free mind in company with a knavish heart, is as ridiculous 1 Miscellaneous Reflections, Misc. iii. ch. i.

as the way of children, who eat their cake and afterwards cry for it. When men begin to deliberate about dishonesty, and finding it go less against their stomach, ask slily, "Why they should stick at a good piece of knavery for a good sum?" they should be told, as children, that they cannot eat their cake and have it.

When men indeed are become accomplished knaves they are past crying for their cake. They know themselves, and are known by mankind. "Tis not these who are so much envied or admired. The moderate kind are the more taking with us. Yet had we sense we should consider 'tis in reality the thorough profligate knave, the very complete unnatural villain alone, who can any way bid for happiness with the honest man. True interest is wholly on one side or the other. All between is inconsistency,1 irresolution, remorse, vexation, and an ague fit: from hot to cold; from one passion to another quite contrary; a perpetual discord of life; and an alternate disquiet and selfdislike. The only rest or repose must be through one determined, considerate resolution, which when once taken must be courageously kept; and the passions and affections brought under obedience to it; the temper steeled and hardened to the mind; the disposition to the judgment. Both must agree, else all must be disturbance and confusion. So that to think with one's self in good earnest, "why may not one do this little villainy, or commit this one treachery, and but for once," is the most ridiculous imagination in the world, and contrary to common sense. For a common honest man, whilst left to himself, and undisturbed by philosophy and subtle reasonings about 1 Our author's French translator cites, on this occasion, very aptly those verses of Horace, Sat. 11. vii. 18-20 :—

Quanto constantior idem

In vitiis, tanto levius miser ac prior ille

Qui jam contento, jam laxo fune laborat.

["At any rate he was so much the more consistent in vice, and so far less miserable than that other, who pulls now on a loose and now on a tight cord."]

his interest, gives no other answer to the thought of villainy than that he cannot possibly find in his heart to set about it, or conquer the natural aversion he has to it. And this is natural and just.

The truth is, as notions stand now in the world with respect to morals, honesty is like to gain little by philosophy, or deep speculations of any kind. In the main, 'tis best to stick to common sense and go no farther. Men's first thoughts in this matter are generally better than their second: their natural notions better than those refined by study or consultation with casuists. According to common speech, as well as common sense, honesty is the best policy; but according to refined sense, the only well-advised persons, as to this world, are errant knaves; and they alone are thought to serve themselves who serve their passions, and indulge their loosest appetites and desires. Such, it seems, are the wise, and such the wisdom of this world!

An ordinary man talking of a vile action, in a way of common sense, says naturally and heartily, "he would not be guilty of such a thing for the whole world." But speculative men find great modifications in the case; many ways of evasion; many remedies; many alleviations. A good gift rightly applied; a right method of suing out a pardon; good alms-houses, and charitable foundations erected for right worshippers, and a good zeal shown for the right belief, may sufficiently atone for one wrong practice, especially when it is such as raises a man to a considerable power (as they say) of doing good, and serving the true cause.

Many a good estate, many a high station has been gained upon such a bottom as this. Some crowns too may have been purchased on these terms; and some great emperors (if I mistake not) there have been of old, who were much assisted by these or the like principles; and in return were not ungrateful to the cause and party which had assisted them. The forgers of such morals have been amply endowed, and the world has paid roundly for its philosophy, since the original plain principles of

humanity, and the simple honest precepts of peace and mutual love, have, by a sort of spiritual chemists, been so sublimated as to become the highest corrosives, and passing through their limbecks, have yielded the strongest spirit of mutual hatred and malignant persecution.

SECTION II

BUT our humours, my friend, incline us not to melancholy reflections. Let the solemn reprovers of vice proceed in the manner most suitable to their genius and character. I am ready to congratulate with them on the success of their labours, in that authoritative way which is allowed them. I know not, in the meanwhile, why others may not be allowed to ridicule folly, and recommend wisdom and virtue (if possibly they can) in a way of pleasantry and mirth. I know not why poets, or such as write chiefly for the entertainment of themselves and others, may not be allowed this privilege. And if it be the complaint of our standing reformers that they are not heard so well by the gentlemen of fashion; if they exclaim against those airy wits who fly to ridicule as a protection, and make successful sallies from that quarter; why should it be denied one, who is only a volunteer in this cause, to engage the adversary on his own terms, and expose himself willingly to such attacks, on the single condition of being allowed fair play in the same kind?

By gentlemen of fashion, I understand those to whom a natural good genius, or the force of good education, has given a sense of what is naturally graceful and becoming. Some by mere nature, others by art and practice, are masters of an ear in music, an eye in painting, a fancy in the ordinary things of ornament and grace, a judgment in proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste in most of those subjects which make the amusement and delight of the ingenious people of the world. Let such gentlemen as these be as extravagant as they please,