You may perhaps think this account of thofe who are diftinguished for their good humour, not very confiftent with the praises which I have bestowed upon it. But furely nothing can more evidently fhew the value of this quality, than that it recommends those who are deftitute of all other excellencies, and procures regard to the trifling, friendship to the worthlefs, and affection to the dull.

Goon humour is indeed generally degraded by the characters in which it is found; for being confidered as a cheap and vulgar quality, we find it often neglected by thofe that having excellencies of higher reputation and brighter fplendor, perhaps imagine that they have fome right to gratify themselves at the expence of others, and are to demand com→ pliance, rather than to practise it. It is by fome unfortunate miftake that almost all those who have any claim to esteem or love, prefs their pretenfions with too little confideration of others. This mistake my own intereft as well as my zeal for general happiness makes me defirous to rectify; for I have a friend, who because he knows his own fidelity and afefulness, is never willing to fink into a companion. I have a wife whose beauty first fubdued me, and whose wit confirmed her conqueft; but whofe beauty now ferves no other purpose than to entitle her to tyranny, and whofe wit is only afed to justify perverfeness.

SURELY nothing can be more unreafonable than to lofe the will to please, when we are confcious of the power, or thew more cruelty than to chufe any kind of influence before that of kindness. He that regards the welfare of others, fhould make his virtue approachable, that it may be loved and copied; and he that confiders the wants which every man feels, or will feel of external afsistance, must rather with to be furrounded by those that love him, than by those that

admire his excellencies, or folicit his favours; for admiration'ceases with novelty, and intereft gains its end and retires. A man whofe great qualities want the ornament of fuperficial attractions, is like a naked mountain with mines of gold, which will be frequented only till the treasure is exhaufted.

RAMBLER.

CHA P. VI.

ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD.

N

OTHING has fo much expofed men of learning to

contempt and ridicule, as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themfelves. Thofe who have been taught to confider the institutions of the schools, as giving the laft perfection to human abilities, are furprised to fee men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute circumftances of propriety, or the neceffary, forms of daily tranfaction; and quickly fhake off their reverence for modes of education, which they find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind.

Books, fays Bacon, can never teach the use of books. The student muft learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his fpeculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life..

IT is too common for those who have been bred to scho laftic profeffions, and paffed much of their time in academies, where nothing but learning confers honours, to difregard every other qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them for inftruction. They therefore step out from their cells into the open world, with all the confidence

of authority and dignity of importance; they look round about them at once with ignorance and scorn on a race of beings to whom they are equally unknown and equally contemptible, but whofe manners they muft imitate, and with whose opinions they must comply, if they defire to pass their time happily among them.

To leffen that difdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any fyftem of philofophy, it may be necessary to confider, that though admiration is excited by abftruse refearches and remote difcoveries, yet pleafure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more eafily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse upon questions, about which only a fmall part of mankind has knowledge fufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unfocial filence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful in great occafions, may die without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, and which nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity of conduct and readinefs of expedients.

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly affistance, or to extinguish the defire of fond endearments, and tender officioufnefs; and therefore, no one fhould think it unneceffary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a conftant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but fuch benefits only can be bestowed, as others are capable of receiving, and fuch pleasures only imparted, as others are qualified to enjoy.

Br

By this defcent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be loft; for the condefcenfions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the fimile of Longinus, like the fun in his evening declination, he remits his fplendor but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though he dazzles less. RAMBLER.

CHA P. VII.

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF UNITING GENTLE. NESS OF MANNERS WITH FIRMNESS OF MIND.

I

Mentioned to you, fome time ago, a sentence, which I

would moft earnestly wish you always to retain in your thoughts, and obferve in your conduct. It is fuavitèr in modo, fortitèr in re. I do not know any one rule fo unexceptionably useful and neceffary in every part of life.

THE fuaviter in modo alone would degenerate and fink into a mean, timid complaifance, and passiveness, if not supported and dignified by the fortitèr in re; which would alfo run into impetuofity and brutality, if not tempered and foftened by the fuavitèr in modo: however, they are feldom united. The warm, choleric man, with ftrong animal spirits, despises the fuavitèr in modo, and thinks to carry all before him by the fortitèr in re. He may poffibly, by great accident, now and then fucceed, when he has only weak and timid people to deal with; but his general fate will be, to fhock, offend, be hated, and fail. On the other hand, the cunning crafty man, thinks to gain all his ends by the fuavitèr in modo only: he becomes all things to ali men; he feems to have no opinion of his own, and fervilely adopts the prefent opinion of the present perfon; he infinuates him

felf

felf only into the esteem of fools, but is foon detected, and furely defpifed by every body elfe. The wife man (who differs as much from the cunning, as from the choleric man) alone joins the fuavitèr in modo with the fortitèr in re.

If you are in authority, and have a right to command, your commands delivered fuavitèr in modo will be willingly, chearfully, and confequently well obeyed; whereas if given only fortiter, that is brutally, they will rather, as Tacitus fays, be interpreted than executed. For my own part, if I bade my footman bring me a glass of wine, in a rough infulting manner, I should expect, that in obeying me, he would contrive to spill some of it upon me; and I am sure I should deserve it. A cool fteady resolution should show, that where you have a right to command, you will be obeyed; but, at the fame time, a gentleness in the manner of enforcing that obedience, fhould make it a chearful one, and foften, as much as poffible, the mortifying consciousness of inferiority. If you are to ask a favour, or even to folicit your due, you must do it fuavitèr in modo, or you will give thofe, who have a mind to refufe you either, a pretence to do it, by resenting the manner; but, on the other hand, you must by a steady perfeverance and decent tenaciousness, show the fortitèr in re. In fhort, This precept is the only way I know in the world, of being loved without being despised, and feared without being hated. It conftitutes the dignity of character, which every wife man must endeavour to establish.

Ir therefore you find that you have a hastiness in your temper, which unguardedly breaks out into indifcreet fallies, or rough expreffions, to either your fuperiors, your equals, or your inferiors, watch it narrowly, check it carefully, and call the suavitèr in mode to your affiftance: at the first im

pulse