CHARACTERS,

AND

REFLECTIONS,

CRITICAL, SATYRICAL, and MORAL.

THE SECOND EDITION,

WITH

ALTERATIONS ADDITIONS and

EXPLANATORY NOTES.

Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can.

Et moi auffi je fuis Peintre!

POPE.

MONTESQUIEU.

LONDON:

Printed for J. and R. TONSON in the Strand.

MDCCLVII.

PREFACE

To the FIRST EDITION.

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VERY one, I believe, has his moments of reflection; I have had mine. My mind has frequently been filled with images, and bufied in arranging and comparing them; in forming principles, and drawing conclufions: These ideas I found it difficult wholly to retain, and wholly to difmifs; they were continually recurring, tho' not without fome confufion, because they were continually increafing; fo that I was at length urged, by a kind of neceffity, to throw them out upon paper, merely that I might relieve my memory, and indulge my imagination in new pursuits without distraction. When they were once written, I felt A 2

the

the fame defire to discharge them from my cabinet, as I had felt to discharge them from my mind; and as I had before thrown out my thoughts upon paper, I have now thrown my papers into the world.

Ir is, however, of little confequence to the reader, what may have been my motive for offering him this little book; he will undoubtedly confider only how far it pleases him; I hasten then to fay what appears to me not improper for him to know, before he commences my judge.

IN the first place I muft obferve, that there are about a dozen fentences among the maxims, that are extremely like fome that occur in LA ROCHEFOUCAULT, or La BRUIERE; it is therefore neceffary to prevent a charge of plagiarism by declaring that I first read those celebrated authors, after the maxims in queftion were written, and in confequence of having written them, and fome hundred more which I have not brought into this collection. As the fimilitude of thofe paffages is a very confiderable proof that the fentiment they contain is true, I

was

was for that reafon determined to admit them; and upon this occafion I would remark, that if I had justly suffered as a plagiary, truth would even then have fuffered with me; for the moment we read what we think unfairly borrowed, we are so offended at the difingenuity which would appropriate the merit of another, that we pay no regard to the fentiment itself, nor give ourselves leifure to confider a moment whether it is true or falfe, trivial or important; fo ftrong is the natural love of juftice among men!

IT is farther neceffary to apprize my reader, that he will here and there detect me in the use of words and expreffions that are wholly French; but before he cenfures me as guilty either of negligence or affectation, let him try to find an English word or expreffion that includes precifely the fame idea: if he cannot, he must neceffarily acquit me; and if he can, I fhall envy him. the discovery and wish it had been mine.

IT is certainly true, however little to be accounted for, that the inhabitants of every country have a peculiar characteristic, by which

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