the return made in private, the affair begins and ends with the highest grace on each side. To make the acknowledgment of a fault in the highest manner graceful, it is lucky when the circumstances of the offender place him above any ill consequences from the resentment of the person offended. A dauphin of France, upon a review of the army, and a command of the king to alter the posture of it by a march of one of the wings, gave an improper order to an officer at the head of a brigade, who told his highness, he presumed he had not received the last orders, which were to move a contrary way. The prince, instead of taking the admonition, which was delivered in a manner that accounted for his error with safety to his understanding, shaked a cane at the officer, and, with the return of opprobrious language, persisted in his own orders. The whole matter came necessarily before the king, who commanded his son, on foot, to lay his right hand on the gentleman's stirrup as he sat on horseback in sight of the whole army, and ask his pardon. When the prince touched his stirrup, and was going to speak, the officer, with an incredible agility, threw himself on the earth, and kissed his feet.

The body is very little concerned in the pleasure or sufferings of souls truly great; and the reparation, when an honour was designed this soldier, appeared as much too great to be borne by his gratitude, as the injury was intolerable to his resentment.

When we turn our thoughts from these extraordinary occurrences into common life, we see an ingenuous kind of behaviour not only make up for faults committed, but in a manner expiate them in the very commission. Thus many things wherein a man has pressed too far, he implicitly excuses, by owning, This is a trespass: you'll pardon my confidence: I am sensible I have no pretensions to

this favour;' and the like. But commend me to those gay fellows about town who are directly impudent, and make up for it no otherwise than by calling themselves such, and exulting in it. But this sort of carriage, which prompts à man against rules to urge what he has a mind to, is pardonable only when you sue for another. When you are confident in preference of yourself to others of equal merit, every man that loves virtue and modesty ought, in defence of those qualities, to oppose you. But, without considering the morality of the thing, let us at this time behold only the natural consequence of candour when we speak of ourselves.

The Spectator writes often in an elegant, often in an argumentative, and often in a sublime style, with equal success: but how would it hurt the reputed author of that paper to own, that of the most beautiful pieces under his title, he is barely the publisher? There is nothing but what a man really performs can be an honour to him; what he takes more than he ought in the eye of the world, he loses in the conviction of his own heart; and a man must lose his consciousness, that is, his very self, before he can rejoice in any falsehood without inward mortification.

Who has not seen a very criminal at the bar, when his counsel and friends have done all that they could for him in vain, prevail on the whole assembly to pity him, and his judge to recommend his case to the mercy of the throne, without offering any thing new in his defence, but that he, whom before we wished convicted, became so out of his own mouth, and took upon himself all the shame and sorrow we were just before preparing for him? The great opposition to this kind of candour arises from the unjust idea people ordinarily have of what we call a high spirit. It is far from greatness of spirit to persist in the wrong in any thing; nor is it a diminution of great

ness of spirit to have been in the wrong. Perfection is not the attribute of man, therefore he is not degraded by the acknowledgment of an imperfection; but it is the work of little minds to imitate the fortitude of great spirits on worthy occasions, by obstinacy in the wrong. This obstinacy prevails so far upon them, that they make it extend to the defence of faults in their very servants. It would swell this paper to too great a length should I insert all the quarrels and debates which are now on foot in this town; where one party, and in some cases both, is sensible of being on the faulty side, and have not spirit enough to acknowledge it. Among the ladies the case is very common; for there are very few of them who know that it is to maintain a true and high spirit, to throw away from it all which itself disapproves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as that which disables the heart from acquiring a liberality of affections and sentiments. The candid mind, by acknowledging and discarding its faults, has reason and truth for the foundation of all its passions and desires, and consequently is happy and simple: the disingenuous spirit, by indulgence of one unacknowledged error, is entangled with an after-life of guilt, sorrow, and perplexity,

T.

N° 383. TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1712.

Criminibus debent hortos.

Juv. Sat. i. 75.

A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain'd.

As I was sitting in my chamber, and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected that it was my good friend sir Roger's voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring-garden, in case it proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me, that if I was speculating, he would stay below until I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend; and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy on the head, and bidding him to be a good child and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple-stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking

*Now known by the name of Vauxhall.

towards it.' You must know,' says sir Roger, ‘I never make use of any body to row me, that has not lost either a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Vauxhall.* Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg; and, hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet: that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple-bar. A most heathenish sight!' says sir Roger: there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but churchwork is slow, church-work is slow.'

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* In the original publication in folio, it is printed Fox hall.